Geek in Heels - Page 95

Apr 29, 2011 • In Claire, Cute, Entertainment, Funny, Personal

The Hats Stole the Show

I wasn’t planning on waking up at the crack ass of dawn to watch the royal wedding, but apparently my cranky daughter had other plans by waking up with a screamfest at 4am and refusing to go back to sleep.

You guys, I think I may have a future princess-wannabe on my hands. Or at least one with 공주병 (gong-joo-byung, which literally translates to “princess disease”), because the little girl was simply ENTHRALLED by the wedding proceedings and would not take her eyes off the TV.

When J woke up at 7am, I held her up to him and said in a little girly voice, “Daddy when I grow up can I be a princess too? Can I marry a prince? Can I wear a dress like that and wear a tiara too?”

“Of course you can!” J replied as he scooped her up in his arms. “You’re already my little princess. I’ll go buy you a tiara right now if you want.”

Obviously someone is trying a little too hard to win his daughter’s affection. 🙄 (Methinks it’s because he knows that I’m her favorite.)

While the wedding itself was very beautiful and rightfully fit for the royal family, I couldn’t help but be a bit underwhelmed by the whole thing. Additionally, while I agree with the majority of the population that Kate Middleton looked beautiful on her wedding day, I personally liked Grace Kelly’s dress better.

Then there were the hats.

Ohhh my the hats!

Obviously the ones that stood out the most were those of Princess Eugenie and Princess Beatrice of York:

Heck, Princess Beatrice’s hat has already sparked an internet meme, with Facebook fan pages, Tumblr blogs, and various other internet shrines erected in its honor.

Go check out this Buzzfeed page for more amazing hats. The whole concept makes me want to move to England just so I can wear crazy hats on a regular basis.

And just so you don’t think this post was a total waste of internet space…

Announcing the winner of the Smashbox Perfectly Polished Lids makeup set giveaway —

The winner is:

Commenter Jen, who won by “Liking” the post on Facebook!
Please be on the lookout for an email from me so that I can send you the makeup set!

Thank you all for entering!

Stay tuned for more giveaways in the future! For example, if I ever do get 100,000 unique hits a month (it was soooo close last month with 95,000+), I have decided that I will give one lucky winner a $100 Amazon gift card. So keep reading, keep sharing, and please keep coming back!

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Apr 28, 2011 • In Baby, Books, Funny

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Go the F**k to Sleep

I first saw this book on Boing Boing two days ago, and while I found it to be hilarious, I hesitated in sharing it here. Because as funny as I — among others — may find this book, I’m sure that there are parents out there who would find it horrifyingly inappropriate.

My dark side won out once again. Go the F**k to Sleep is a supposed-bedtime story book that touts itself as “the most honest children’s book ever written.”

According to its Amazon product page:

Go the Fuck To Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing off to dreamland. Honest, profane, and affectionate, Adam Mansbach’s verses and Ricardo Cortés’ illustrations perfectly capture the familiar—and unspoken—tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night, and open up a conversation about parenting in the process. Beautiful, subversive, and pants-wettingly funny, Go the Fuck to Sleep is a perfect gift for parents new, old, or expectant. Here is a sample verse:

The cats nestle close to their kittens now.
The lambs have laid down with the sheep.
You’re cozy and warm in your bed, my dear
Please go the fuck to sleep.

I’m pretty sure that the book is not meant for kids, but more as a means for parents to (jokingly) share with each other a hardship of parenting.

Go the F**k to Sleep is not yet released, but from buzz around the blogosphere, I’m certain that it will be a hit when it hits the shelves.

P.S. — Did you enter to win the Smashbox Perfectly Polished Lids makeup set yet? If not, go do so NOW — the giveaway ends tomorrow at noon!

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Apr 28, 2011 • In Baby, Claire, Personal

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Claire’s First Teeth

Ever since Claire first started teething I have been examining her mouth and gums with care every morning.

Well, last night she woke up at 3am and refused to go back to sleep. J stayed up to take care of her until 7am when I took over so that he can get in a power nap before work. Then my breakdown happened. So my usual morning routine was a bit off…

Little did I know that after more than a month of hardcore teething, my daughter had FINALLY sprouted her first teeth overnight!

Yes, you read that right — TEETH. Her two bottom middle incisors, to be exact. And I am pretty certain that her top incisors are about to break through soon too as her gums look painfully swollen.

She remains cranky. Drinking from a bottle seems to bother her, so I’ve been feeding her tons of purees. She keeps running her tongue over her gums, as if wondering what the new additions to her mouth could be. She refuses to keep her mouth open for a picture, and because I have been shoving my finger in my mouth all morning to make sure that the teeth are definitely out and here to stay, she now refuses to open her mouth, period. (Poor thing, can you blame her?) So for the time being you guys will have to settle for a picture of her other end:

They say that the first tooth and the last (the molars) are the most painful. I am praying that the ones in-between will be less bothersome for my little girl, and that she will return to her usual sweet — yet still demanding 😉 — self soon.

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Apr 28, 2011 • In Baby, Claire, Motherhood, Personal

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Breakdown

I just had a mommy breakdown.

J was about to leave for work when I burst into tears. He decided to work from home this morning and ordered to go get some rest.

But how could I, when I am surrounded by a thick fog of guilt? How could I, when there are dishes to be done, tables to be cleared, and laundry to be put away?

Oh, yes, and we can’t forget the crying baby.

Let’s back up a little here…

Claire has also been extra fussy, extra needy, and extra cranky for the past month or so. She even cries when I hold her tight, which she hasn’t done since she had colic. We can only blame it on teething, because we haven’t changed her diet, routine, or anything else.

Her sleep has also returned to her pre-sleep-training days. She will fight bedtime tooth and nail. She used to love getting baths but now she will cry through bathtime as well because she knows that it is part of her bedtime routine. She will cry an hour or so nonstop as soon as we start to put her to bed.

She has also taken to waking up several times a night again and refusing to go back to sleep.

All the methods that we used for sleep training the first time seem to have little to no effect on my baby now. I have tried extending the length of time between naps, shortening them, cutting out a nap, and/or instituting an earlier bedtime. No help. Additionally, how can we bear to go through sleep training again when we know that she is in so much discomfort from teething?

Other moms tell me that their babies became extra fussy a week before cutting their first tooth. Some, just a day or two. Well, we’ve been going through this for over a month now and it’s driving me absolutely insane. Yes, we still have our moments when Claire is happy and giggly again. But these are far and few between and I can’t help but wonder if Claire will remain this way until she has cut all her first teeth (which means another year and a half of this torture).

Pondering her next mischief…

Last week, Girl on the Park was visiting New York and I attended a brunch in honor of her visit. The Zhukeepers arrived with their adorable son in tow, and throughout the duration of the meal I couldn’t help but be amazed at how— for lack of a better word — chill their son was. How he didn’t mind that strangers were holding him. How he fell asleep without a fuss in his stroller. How happy he seemed.

Now, I consider Laura a friend and I am genuinely happy for her and her husband that they have been blessed with such an amazing kid. At the same time, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy. I couldn’t help but wonder to myself, ‘Is this how babies should act?’

And when I came home to my own cranky mess of a baby I couldn’t help but wonder if I were doing something wrong for her to act this way.

The guilt continued to pile on for the rest of the week as I poured over various parenting boards and talked to friends and realized that Claire was still behind on most of her milestones. Was I doing something wrong in this regard too?

It’s because I stopped breastfeeding her. It’s because I don’t give her 100% of my attention ALL the time. It’s because we don’t feed her organic food. It’s because I was given morphine while I was pregnant with her. It’s because I had an epidural. It’s because…

STOP.

That’s what J said as he tried to console me this morning. “STOP thinking you’re a bad mom. STOP comparing. She is perfectly healthy and perfectly normal.”

Then he sent me off to bed. (I still ended up doing the dishes first.)

And here I am, blogging about what happened.

Maybe Claire is the normal one, and I am the overworried, oversensitive, neurotic mom.

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Apr 27, 2011 • In Art/Design, Books, Entertainment, Movies, Personal

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Harry Potter, Abridged [Comics]

After visiting Harry Potter: The Exhibition in person, AND knowing that the final movie is due to be released in theaters in just a couple of months, I have slowly started to re-read the entire series again (probably for about the sixth time).

I don’t know what it is about J.K. Rowling, but that woman can write. There is just so much to love about each book and I discover new things every time I re-read each title. I am usually not one to go with the crowds when it comes to current popular culture (I wholeheartedly agreed with Stephen King when he said, “Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people…. The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.”) but the HP series is one that I will gladly endorse and love over and over again.

For other HP fans who are eagerly awaiting the second part of Deathly Hallows, I invite you to take a look at these comics by illustrator Lucy Knisley. She has created poster-sized comics which chronicle abridged versions of each Harry Potter book. The Half-Blood Prince and The Deathly Hallows seem to be still in works, but the first five are cleverly rendered in a hilarious manner — or, as Nerd Approved puts it, they are “the fastest way to catch up on Harry Potter.”

The first three posters are available for purchase in Lucy Kinsley’s online store for $10 each. Click on each to view large, and enjoy!

The Sorcerer’s Stone:

The Chamber of Secrets:

The Prisoner of Azkaban:

The Goblet of Fire:

The Order of the Phoenix:

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Apr 26, 2011 • In Aerin, Baby, Claire, Personal, Pregnancy, Science

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The Gender Guessing Game

It is no secret that I would prefer BebeDeux to be a boy. If so we’d have one of each and we’d be done!

Be that as it may, I wouldn’t be upset if BebeDeux turns out to be a girl. After all, dontcha know that two girls are the best? 😉

We were excited to find out Claire’s gender when I was pregnant with her and it is no different with this baby. But I will most likely have to wait until my Level 2 Ultrasound to find out — a whole six more weeks! — and I will be the first to admit that I’m already growing impatient.

That’s why I decided to turn to early gender determination tests.

These aren’t old wives’ tales. These are actual studies done with statistical data whose majority results back up the theories.

First up is The Nub Theory which looks to “the angle of the dangle” at 12-14 weeks to guesstimate the sex of the baby. The Nub Theory only seems to correctly predict the gender a little better than 50% of the time, but that still counts as the majority in my book. 😛

You can go check out this gender prediction forum for more information about The Nub Theory. And here’s what Baby2see has to say about it:

Male gender

With the male fetus, the genital tubercle usually creates an angle of greater than 30° with the lower part of the spine.

Female gender

In the female fetuses, the genital tubercle protrudes in the same direction as the lower portion of the spine with an angle of less than 30° relative to the backbone.

Unfortunately, in our case, BebeDeux’s bottom region was not viewable in the 12-week ultrasound pictures we received. I checked to see if The Nub Theory was correct with Claire, but her bottom wasn’t viewable in her ultrasound pictures either. Boo. 😡

Thankfully, the next gender prediction test — The Ramzi Method — is a far more accurate in early gender determination. According to The Ramzi Method, fetuses that implant on the right side of the uterus tend to be boys, while those that implant on the left side tend to be girls.

How accurate is The Ramzi Method? Well, according to this study, it is 97% accurate.

Excitedly, I took a look at Claire’s early ultrasound pictures again. I was a bit disappointed to see that she was positioned on the right side, which disproved The Ramzi Method in our case.

…But hold on there. I then read that while transvaginal ultrasounds portray the correct positioning, abdominal ultrasounds — which were the ones I had been looking at with Claire — display the mirror image of what’s really going on inside.

Which meant that The Ramzi Method was correct for Claire!

I then took a look at BebeDeux’s ultrasounds…

And there was no doubt about it. BebeDeux is positioned on the right side of my uterus. Which means I am carrying a little boy.

Will The Ramzi Method once again prove accurate for this pregnancy? Only time will tell…

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Apr 26, 2011 • In Education, Funny, Parenting, Personal, Science

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A Chemistry Kit with No Chemicals

Last night, The Daily What featured a children’s chemistry set called Chemistry 60 which boasts “60 fun activities with no chemicals.” Sadly enough, I was not surprised.

You already know my thoughts on this matter.

It’s actually a pretty clever marketing technique when you think about it. Because most children’s chemistry kits available to consumers today are quite similar to Chemistry 60 in that they do not contain any inoffensive, potentially dangerous materials (aside from small parts which may be considered choking hazards). By outwardly admitting — and boasting — its lack of actual chemicals, the manufacturer has gained substantial publicity of viral proportions.

You can be sure that J and I will be purchasing for our kids chemistry sets that contain actual chemicals. 🙂

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Apr 25, 2011 • In Beauty, Blogging, Giveaways, Personal

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Smashbox Perfectly Polished Lids Giveaway!

Ever have one of those days when nothing seems to go your way?

Well, today was like that for me.

And because I always feel better when I can help brighten someone else’s day…

I’m giving away a Smashbox Perfectly Polished Lids makeup set!

(Disclaimer: I received this set for free by trading in 500 Sephora Beauty Insider points. According to Sephora, the retail value of this makeup set is $72, but I’ve only seen it go for $15-$20 on eBay. Nonetheless, it’s a great kit from a fabulous cosmetics company and if you win, you’ll get it for FREE!)

The set includes:

One FULL size Smashbox Cream Eye Liner in Midnight Brown
One FULL size Smashbox Eye Shadow Trio in Vanilla, Champagne, & Brazilian Bronze
One mini size (0.5 ml) Smashbox Photo Finish Lid Primer
One mini size (0.20 oz) Smashbox Lash DNA Mascara

As you can see in the picture, the box is a bit dented but all the products are BRAND NEW and have NEVER BEEN OPENED.

For more details on the products and additional photos, please check out Makeup Moment’s full review of the set. Alina, the blogger behind Makeup Moment, gives the set a glowing review. (And on a more personal note, I love Smashbox products and believe this set to include great neutral shades that is perfect for everyday wear.)

Per the usual fashion, you can enter the giveaway in three different ways:

Leave a comment to this post
Tweet (and leave a comment here saying you did so) the following: I just entered to win a Smashbox Perfectly Polished Lids makeup set via @geekinheels! http://bit.ly/esEkyb
“Like” this post using the Facebook “Like” button at the bottom (and leave a comment here saying you did so)

Each method will grant you one separate entry, so you can increase your chances of winning by using all three methods of entry.

Please leave a valid email address (which will not be published or shared) when filling out the comment form so that I can contact you if you win.

The giveaway will end this Friday, April 29th, 2011 at 12:00pm EST. The winner will be chosen by a random number generator and be notified via email. The giveaway is valid only for U.S. residents.

Thanks for reading, and good luck!

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Apr 25, 2011 • In Art/Design, Books, Cute, Education, Funny

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That’s How!

When I was a little kid I used to dream up crazy characters and scenarios being acted out inside the wonderments of the world. Tiny artists residing inside cameras. A chorus of fairies inside musical instructions. Actors behind the boob tube.

Isn’t a child’s imagination so much greater than real life?

I was reminded of my innocent years when I stumbled upon That’s How!, a children’s book by Christoph Niemann, an illustrator whose work has graced the covers of New Yorker, the Atlantic, and the New York Times Magazine. The book, which will be released May 10, 2011, explains how complicated objects of the world work in humorous and wonderfully imaginative ways.

Not only are the illustrations cute and clear-cut, I love the idea behind the book itself and how it advocates creative thinking. You can be sure that I will pick up a copy for Claire when it is released.

Via Laughing Squid.

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Apr 24, 2011 • In Aerin, Claire, Motherhood, Parenting, Personal

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Because She Loves Me Most

I once read that a baby will cry hardest to her mother (or the primary caretaker) because, just like adults, babies reserve their most passionate and deepest emotions for those they love most.

Our household is a perfect example of this.

When Claire is around me, she WILL make it known if she is displeased in the slightest bit. Whining, fussing, crying, tantrums, you name it. But when she is in the care of others she is more subdued and much less vocal.

She will also only take short naps when I am watching her — which I can only guess stems from her desire to spend as much waking time as possible with me. My SIL has the pleasure of getting 2-hour naps from Claire when she babysits. J? Upwards of three hours. I get one hour IF I am lucky.

This isn’t to say that Claire only reserves her worst behavior for me. Because additionally, she will also share only with me some of her best. The rare smile even as she is teething and I know that she is in a considerable amount of discomfort. Perking up when she hears my voice. Following me around the room with her gaze even as others are showering her with attention.

This is precisely the reason I look to the arrival of the new baby with trepidation. Not because I know it will be a lot of work (well, that too), but because I feel bad for Claire. I feel bad that I will not be able to devote all the love and attention she deserves at a time in her life — learning to walk and talk — when she will require so much of it. I feel bad that I may not be able to run to her immediate aid if she is upset or hurt. I even feel bad that I may not be able to throw her a nice 1st birthday party (me, the person who doesn’t even like parties much) because I will be grossly pregnant and uncomfortable.

I fear that she will resent me.

My only hope is that because she loves me so, she will forgive me for all this. That she will realize that just because mommy has another baby in her arms does not mean she loves her any less. That she will still cherish every moment we share together.

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