Today I’m stuck home with a busted car and a baby trying to bust some new teeth through her poor swollen gums and I feel like busting out the vodka to go in my third cup of coffee.

(The car people just called. They think the huge electrical freakout happening to my minivan has been caused by…coins. In my radio. One guess who’s responsible. I…have no words.)

The upside to being home is I don’t have to fight with the toddler. Because the fighting? Is driving me insane. And the not listening. And the running away. And the tantrums. I spend too many hours a day with all my muscles tensed in anticipation of the fight I know is coming any second. I am exhausted before he even DOES anything wrong. My current methods of dealing with the poor behavior are time outs he doesn’t care about, making idle threats, hissing through my teeth, counting to three and then counting to three again and then counting to three again, picking him up and dragging him out of Target, ignoring while I die of shame and bribery.

I’m not even going to pretend I know what I’m doing anymore.

Since I seem to have lost my copy of How Exactly To Parent Your Child So They Always Act Perfectly But Don’t End Up Needing Therapy (I’ve heard people from certain internet message boards get a copy right after they give birth)(Or maybe the childless people are hoarding all the copies – based on their internet comments they certainly THINK they know everything), I think it’s time to put my Amazon Prime membership to use and order up a big stack of parenting books. I am open to suggestions. All suggestions. YOUR suggestions.

So far I’ve got “Unconditional Parenting” – recommended by my friend Robyn – on the crunchy, hippie, new-agey end. And I don’t plan to send Evan out back to cut his own switch, so I won’t need Grandpa’s imaginary book “This Is Going To Hurt Me More Than It Hurts You”. But I figure the more books I read the more likely I am to find something that sounds like a) I (we) can do it and b) might work on MY kid. Or maybe my brain will explode. But at this point that feeling inevitable.

I sort of can’t believe that Christmas was only a week ago. I guess sitting around my house eating junk and avoiding all responsibility makes time pass faster than I thought. It also makes for a pretty boring week in iPhone photos.

Sunday:

Awesome baby gifts from Africa from Aunt Carolyn

Christmas Day nap happens before you even change out of your Christmas PJ's

The giant plate of cookies is approximately 2% of the total desserts at my friend Erin's open house

Monday:

I did NOT buy these at Nordstrom Rack...but I sort of regret it

Watching Toy Story again. Again. Again. Again. AGAIN.

Somone is a little skeptical of how curious George exactly is.

Tuesday:

What do you MEAN this is the only picture you took all day?

Wednesday:

I think he's judging my jumping jacks (which were admittedly pretty pathetic).

Sure, Mom, just GIVE me to random people at the store.

Sad post Christmas living room

Did you say we're getting CHEESE STICKS???

Thursday:

12 month well-baby is pissed about the shots

Friday:

Stole her brother's lunch and made a deli-meat MESS

Exhausted baby and her Christmas moose

Driving-thru for some pink eye medicine for one goopy-eyed toddler

Trying to trick me into letting her stay up with adorable PJ's and trains. It's working.

Saturday:

My new bathing suit is so awesome, I'm posting a picture of myself in it ON THE INTERNET.

Jeeze Lady, don't you know how unsafe this is???

EFFING DELICIOUS

The Lion King was kind of WAY scarier/sadder than I remembered, but Evan still liked it...sort of kind of.

 It’s the last iPhone week of 2011! These are pretty much the only posts I can be relied on to write so I hope you’re not sick of them yet. More adorable kids, stupid self portraits and shots of my daily life in 2012!

Did you take any camera phone photos this week? Link up with one or lots using the linky below and grab the code (so it shows on your blog too!) over at Amy’s . It’s really fun!

I signed up for the BlogHer Book Club a few months ago (see my fancy little badge in the sidebar? I’m OFFICIAL) and I’m really enjoying it. What’s not to like about being sent free books and then talking about them? Today my most recent review for A Discovery of Witches is up on BlogHer:

A Discovery of Witches is just like The Da Vinci Code… if you replace symbolism with science and religion with magic. Oh and the main characters are a witch and a vampire. So, not exactly like The Da Vinci Code, but that is definitely what it reminded me of after the action started. And they even go to France for a while!

Check out the BlogHer Book Club page for the rest!

The inspiration for Little Evan’s room makeover was this piece of art:

Evan the Nap Monster, by ModTots.

I ordered a monster – any monster, since they didn’t exist yet – as soon as I heard ModTots would be releasing them. So I actually bought half the stuff for the room before I knew what this piece would look like. But I knew it would be adorable so it wasn’t exactly a hardship.

I thought monsters would be a super easy theme for a kid’s room. I was wrong. Everything was Monsters, Inc the Pixar movie themed – and even that was hard to find. But I’m going to predict right now that monsters will be big by the end of 2011. Just watch.

Before pics. The nursery theme was “nautical” slash “tropical island” slash “Where the Wild Things Are”. And also very messy.

View from the door

Left hand wall

Right hand corner

Right hand wall

And after pics:

View from the door (I know it looks like a different wall color, but that's just because I rolled up the black-out shades...something I forgot to do for the before pics)

Left hand wall (extra lines added by one very excited 2 year old)

Right hand corner

Right hand wall

Adorable monster prints from Lulufroot on Etsy (I think I need the green monster one too!)

Bookcase

Best bed friends - he kisses them both good night

Snake from Taradara, Bear handknit by me.

Daydreaming in his big boy bed

The rest of the details:
Bed: Ikea
Monster sheets & duvet cover: Garnet Hill
Dresser: Ikea
Ceiling lamp: Ikea
Standing lamp: Target
Rug (moved from our family room): Target
Curtains: Ikea
Bookcase: Target
Rocker: Ikea
Book caddy: P’kolino from Amazon.com

Close up of the book caddy because it's so freaking cute. Oh and also, when I bought it it was like $10, not $30+. Don't buy one until they go back on sale.

I’m sort of ashamed that the curtains are 84 inch curtains that you’re supposed to hem (and by hem I mean use the iron-on adhesive tape they came with) and yet I did not hem them. The problem is the radiator is right below the window on the right hand wall, so I’d have to cut them REALLY short to be safe. But I don’t want to hem the other set that short and I still want them to match, so I just tied them up. And truthfully, I kind of like how they look.

Also, we have a bed rail for the side of the bed so Little Evan doesn’t roll out while he’s sleeping. Not that I think he would – he’s not a super rolly sleeper – but he likes pushing his feet against something while he’s trying to fall asleep and since we took the crib rails away I thought it would be a good substitute. I just took it down for the pictures.

Night night!

So far, we’re having about a 75% success rate with the big boy bed. Wednesday was the first day nap time didn’t happen AT ALL, but he’s been pushing them back later and later since we made the switch. He does get out and run around and pull things out of the drawers and read all his books and climb in the chair…but when he gets tired he puts himself back to bed. And it’s nice that he can get himself out of bed and play in his room in the mornings so I have time to brush my teeth and get dressed before he starts yelling for me. But sometimes he cries a little because he misses his crib. I think he’ll get over it pretty soon though.

Disclaimer: This post was not sponsored in any way. All items were paid for with my own cash money.