Ugh, yesterday was an everything fail.

When Little Evan and I got downstairs in the morning, I realized no one put the leftovers away from dinner the night before (which was the chili I thought was going to be terrible but was actually really good). So I disposed of it properly and responsibly in the appropriate container put the pot next to the dog’s water so he could finish it off and I wouldn’t have to scrape it all into the trash. Then I went about my important morning business of checking email/reading morning tweets/starting in on my reader. 20 minutes of total silence later I realized TOTAL SILENCE was probably a bad sign and went to look for Little Evan.

I found him standing next to the baby gate, using his foam hockey stick to reach over, scoop the chili out of the pot and then licking it off the stick.

TOTAL MOM FAIL.

The rest of the day went…pretty much the same. With more shouting. And less chili. And NO NAPS.

So I apologize for not posting any giveaway winners OR pictures of the 3rd floor renovation yesterday. I promise I will have at least a few pics up soon, even though they won’t be of a totally finished and decorated bedroom. And the new playroom/nursery? Well, I’ll be lucky if that’s done before Baby Girl is 2, let alone before she’s born. WHY did I think I could get all this done in 48 hours!?

Anyways, I have TWO winners to announce!

The winner of the Peggy Ann Design matching pom-pom pins is…

#15 Desiree! She is a fellow Patriots fan & a local, real-life, in person friend so I’m super happy for her! Desiree, I sent Hannah your email so hopefully she’ll be contacting you soon so you can tell her what colors you want.

And pssst – for those who didn’t win, Hannah is having a sale so be SURE to check out her store again!

The winner of the aPearantly Sew giveaway is…

#38 Nicci @ Changing the Universe!! Congrats! I emailed Alison your info so she should be contacting you soon. Good luck choosing something from her shop though, she added a WHOLE bunch of new items (including Christmasy things!) this week, so it’s even harder than it was when I first posted the giveaway!

Remember, the last three giveaways (Gussy, my Phoebe Mouse and Hugs & Kisses Designs) are still open so get in your entry soon!

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Emily who had the most adorable daughter ever in the whole wide world. Because her kid was too cute for normal baby clothes, Emily started sewing her custom dresses, bibs, and hair clippies. (Also: WANDS!) When the public saw these adorable handmade goods, they demanded Emily make them available to the rest of us…and thus, Uff Da Designs was born. Now Uff Da has grown to include vintage baby and toddler clothes – something Emily knows quite a bit about, having owned her own vintage shop for several years pre-baby.

I’ve been internet friends with Emily – first on her blog and then on The Twitter – for a long long time now. Her daughter, Poppy, is only a few weeks (days?) younger than Little Evan. I could write a whole novel about how Emily is the best person on the internet, but I’ll try to keep this to a reasonable length. She’s super cool, super nice and super super talented.

Check out this baby dress:

FOR BEBEH GIRL! Plus one of Uff Da's trademark poppy clips!

And I’m not even gonna lie – I totally bought one of those poppy clips for my own self, waaaaaay before I was pregnant with #2. Hey, mamas like to be pretty too!

Recently, Emily sent me one of her baby bandanna bibs for Little Evan:

Isn't that orange and blue plaid PERFECT for him?

It’s a bib! It’s a bandanna! It’s functional! It’s a fashion accessory! It’s great for drool! Or milk! Or water! Or just to make your already super cute baby even cuter!

And um………..just in case your baby is a dog:

Please forgive me Emily. I promise never to do it again. Although Brutus thinks he looks super stylish in the bandanna.

If your kid isn’t a ginger like mine, there are tons of non-orange options too. Emily has an amaaaazing eye for vintage-y type fabrics and colors.

I love them all.

And today, Emily is going to give one of my lucky readers a free bandanna bib in your choice of fabric!

All you have to do to enter is visit Uff Da Designs and leave a comment telling me what your favorite item is. So easy! Well, except for the choosing your favorite item part – they’re all amazing. (Did I mention Emily’s totally internet famous now, since Girl’s Gone Child bought one of her clippies? INTERNET. FAMOUS.)

You can also read Emily’s blog, follow her on Twitter or like Uff Da on Facebook, but it’s not required.

Giveaway will be open until November 2nd, winner will be chosen using Random.org and notified via email, so make sure you use a real email address when you comment. Emily said she’s willing to ship anywhere so feel free to enter, my dear Canadian friends!

Giveaway is now closed!

Disclaimer bit: Emily sent me a bib to photograph and review for this post, but I bought the dress & two clippies from her with my own moolah. No additional compensation was received. And she really is the best person on the internet. No one can buy a title like that.

Day 1 is open until November 1st! Enter to win from Allora Handmade here

Today I get to take the dog to the vet, something I’ve been seriously dreading because a) he is impossible to control in the presence of other dogs b) it always costs an arm and a leg and c) he has fleas. Now I HAVE to take him to the vet to get some of the real fancy flea medicine instead of the stuff they sell at the pet store and get a speech from the vet about how if I had been keeping up the regimen monthly the way you’re supposed to he wouldn’t have fleas at all. Thank you, yes, I know. I am sufficiently contrite over my lack of good pet care. Fleas are one of those things you forget the awfulness of when you haven’t had to deal with them in years and years. And then suddenly you notice the cat keeps scratching her neck and within hours you can feel them crawling ALL OVER YOUR BODY ALL THE TIME. BECAUSE THEY ARE.

And then you find a flea on the baby’s head and you are the worst mother in the whole world.

So I’m taking the uncontrollable dog to the vet to spend an arm and a leg and get the speech and buy buckets and buckets of Frontline or whatever it is that actually kills these damn creepy crawlies. The dog and the cat version. Then we’re all going to the aquarium for a few hours while we bug bomb the house, floor by floor. Because if we don’t do something soon the cat won’t be the only one scratching her skin off in an attempt to feel less itchy. EW.

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In less disgusting (but probably incredibly boring) news, we drove up to USA Baby yesterday to actually try out the Uppababy before buying it and…um…I don’t think I want it anymore. The rumble seat is not the magical solution to all our double-stroller issues. The whole reason I NEED a double is for Stroller Strides and/or sightseeing type trips to the zoo or aquarium or city and the rumble seat of the the Uppa only faces in. Not great for, you know, seeing stuff or keeping a toddler entertained during mommy’s workout. I think if I was buying a stroller for our first baby that had the ability to work for a 2nd (or 3rd) baby I would be totally sold but after actually putting my toddler in it and imagining how it would work with an infant I’m less in love. It’s more of a “single stroller that can accommodate more than one kid” stroller than a “works great for 2 under 2” stroller.

Plus, we got to try out the Baby Jogger City Select, one of the strollers from my original list but a brand no one I know seems to have any experience with. It’s…cool. Really cool. It works the way I had imagined the Uppa would – baby/toddler can sit in either seat, face all different directions, works with an infant up to a 45 lb kid – AND it can be a single stroller when you don’t need both seats. E loves it & is MUCH more excited about it than he was the Uppa. I was very impressed, despite not wanting to be impressed. I WANTED to love the Uppa and join the Kool Kids Who Have One Klub. I WANTED a pretty orange stroller. I WANTED to buy a stroller NOW, not spend another week thinking about it.

Also, even buying the Uppa from the (stupid) baby store on sale, it costs more than the Baby Jogger.

So the only thing keeping me from committing to the City Select RIGHT NOW is…it’s not orange. Tell me that’s the worst reason ever for making such a big decision.

Or how about this one: I don’t want to tell the baby store I’m not buying the Uppa they had brought over from the other store. Even though as of Sunday they STILL didn’t even have a rumble seat (hence driving somewhere else to try one). It’s that same feeling of dread I get when a salesperson in a clothing store helps me find stuff and then I have tell them I don’t want it after all. Shopping guilt. As if the inconvenience of helping me some how means I’m obligated to spend my money, even if they weren’t that helpful to being with.

Does that sound crazy or do you know what I’m talking about?

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I asked for advice this weekend on what sort of stuff you love/hate on blogs. If you have a second, can you offer me your suggestions?I’m getting all itchy to redesign stuff (or maybe it’s just the fleas) and don’t want to accidentally ruin a good thing.

And speaking of things you hate on blogs, they reset the Top Baby Blogs, which means I’m going to beg for votes for a few days. I’ve met a TON of other awesome bloggers through that list so staying in the top 20 40 50 100 gives me the chance to meet even more mamas. I appreciate it bunches and bunches!

TOTALLY INACCURATE

My neighborhood has a skunk problem.

Let me rephrase that.

My neighborhood, which is well within city limits, where I can look into at least four other houses’ windows from my own because they are so close, where emergency sirens and roaring trucks are far more common than bunnies and birdies, has been taken hostage by skunks.

The week we bought the house, back in the good old days BK (before kids) when I still took my poor long suffering dog Brutus for real walks several times a day instead of just shoving him out the door and glaring at him to hurry up and pee, we ran across a skunk wandering down the sidewalk at 7 am. I managed to drag Brutus, howling and whining, two blocks home before the poor, dazed skunk even realized what was going on. I breathlessly called animal control to report a TOTALLY CRAZY skunk sighting but apparently they don’t work at 7 am so I got the front desk of the police station. I described in great detail exactly where I saw the skunk, the intersection he was waddling towards and (sigh)what he looked like, as thoroughly and completely as I would have described a robbery suspect.

I bet those cops laughed about me for DAYS.

The skunks are everywhere. They’re digging in my trash cans making a mess. They’re standing in my driveway in the middle of the afternoon. They’re wandering around my yard in the evenings making Brutus go apeshit. They’re squashed flat in the middle of the road, making me gag and my eyes water.

I am sick and tired of these motherbleeping skunks in my motherbleeping town.

Tuesday afternoon the baby, the groceries and I were trapped in the car for 10 minutes while a clearly dazed and unwell skunk wandered through the garden, so when Brutus started pacing and whining around 8 o’clock I figured the beast was back and terrorizing our street. I slammed the door and yelled at the dog to sit down muttering about moving back to the country, where my landlord took care of lost skunks the old fashioned way – with a .22 and a shovel. (True story.)

When the dog woke me up with MORE whining at 4 am I spent 20 minutes debating whether it was worse to ignore him and clean up dog poop in the morning or let him out and deal with a dog-skunk death match and the smelly horrible after effects before dawn.

You can see how that might be a hard decision.

Eventually I felt enough dog-mommy guilt that I decided to let him out – after turning on every exterior light and peering out the back door suspiciously looking for skunky signs like…I don’t know. Wilted flowers. Droppings. A squirrel holding it’s nose. When poor Brutus was eventually released to the yard he barely made it off the porch before he started peeing. And peeing. And peeing. I started counting mississippis when he was STILL peeing after what felt like 10 minutes and I made it to 45 before he stopped to poop. And then he peed some more.

I am a terrible dog owner. I blame the skunks.

But what can we do? It’s not like I’m going to set traps – I couldn’t bring myself to use any kind that killed the skunk (especially since there are a dozen or so outdoor cats in my neighborhood) and an angry, trapped LIVE skunk sounds even worse than skunk eating my trash. Animal control doesn’t seem to care. They’ve been staging this attack since early spring and it just gets worse every year. Advice appreciated.

Brutus & Evan

Baby Evan really really really really loves our dog Brutus. Really. He likes dogs in general – “dog” was the second sign he ever learned (after “milk”) and “dohg!” is one of the only things he says clearly and consistently – but I suspect he loves HIS dog best. Actually, I don’t suspect. I know. I know he likes the dog more than he likes pretty much anything. Including me.

Does he say or sign “mama”? No. Never. But every morning when I get him out of the crib he says “dohg! dohg!” until we come downstairs and say good morning to Brutus.

Clearly the dog wins.

Loves.

Sadly, I don’t think the dog feels the same way.

I mean, obviously Brutus tolerates Baby Evan. He’s never snapped or barked or intentionally knocked him over. Letting someone use your tail as a rope so they can climb up onto YOUR chair and then jump up and down on your face is definitely a sign of like. But I’m pretty sure Brutus wishes we had never brought this creature home in the first place. I can’t bring myself to tell him about the second baby.

What did you just say about about a second baby?

I like to think if Baby Evan ever fell down a well, Brutus would come and tell us. Or that he would bravely defend us from burglars. Or come wake everyone up if there was a fire. Unfortunately, I doubt he could be bothered to get out of his chair. Because that is His Chair, just in case you were wondering.

Not that you’d want to sit in it anymore, what with the smell. And the hair. And the smell.

But Baby Evan doesn’t seem to mind.

The dog was created specially for children. He is the god of frolic. ~Henry Ward Beecher

I’m just kidding about the not-saving-us-from-disaster thing. Of course he would save the day. Otherwise there wouldn’t be anyone to feed him.