NikkiZ’s, however, was going to have her name on it. Since I was using stencils, I did every other letter in her name first so that I could do the others when the first batch dried. LilZ came home from school and looked at the stool. He said, “So…um…where are you going to put the rest of the letters.”

My first thought was, Duh. WHERE THEY BELONG. I mean, I had left plenty of room between each letter, I just didn’t want to keep putting my hand in wet paint so I was letting the first ones dry. I gave him a look to try to figure out where he was heading. And then I saw it: SYMPATHY. One of my friend’s daughters was there too and she said what he was scared to, “Aren’t these letters in the wrong place?”

I spelled my daughters name wrong.

Now, since I had only painted every other letter, it was just the middle letter that was wrong. But I was SO mortified that I immediately grabbed a brush and paint and painted over it. I thought I was going to cry I felt so stupid.

I realized later I should have at least photographed the error for visual evidence of my placenta brain to show future generations. But all I wanted to do was cover it up before MrZ got home. BECAUSE I COULD NOT HANDLE THE SHAME.

The stool is done now, except for the sealing coat I’ll spray on today. I have read, and re-read, the letters in her name dozens of times to make sure I’ve spelled it right. I’ve had every family member come up and do the same: assuring me that I won’t wake up one day and see that the stool says: FRANK.

Which - for the record - is NOT her name. But I wouldn’t put it past my limited brain capacity to spell it that way.

You spelled my name wrong? NICE.

(What? I need to take a break from posting the butterfly costume pictures? Ya think?)

Here’s a Mother’s Day photo for you. First glance this may seem to be a shot of NikkiZ throwing the ball to me, but look again. She is SQUINTING because it was me throwing it at her. One second later it bashed her in the face.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you. May you never hit your children in the face with a ball, and may you never be hit in the face by your Mother who is throwing the ball at you

They periodically send me email coupons for various services they’re testing out or backdrops they’re introducing. I rarely even pay attention to them, because I really only use photo studios for group/family type shots. This week, however, the coupon featured some small girls in fairy costumes. It advertised that they were bringing in costumes and for about 30 dollars or so, you could bring your daughter in for photographing around fake flowers and a floral backdrop. I considered it for a moment because it gave you a LOT of photos for $30. But then it occurred to me: I can buy the costume myself and just take my daughter to the Botanical Gardens for photos.

And let me tell you - that is the BEST DAMN IDEA I’VE EVER HAD.

Friday night we went to Target and actually found a butterfly/fairy costume - which is even better in my opinion. NikkiZ loved wearing it and we spent three hours this morning going around the Botanical Gardens taking pictures. I took 320 pictures. I’ve gone through them a few times and can honestly tell you that they are freakin’ AWESOME. I assure you that by the time I’m done editing and uploading them to flickr, you will wish you had never seen a picture of my daughter in a Butterfly costume.

I didn’t really have time tonight to do much, so I just picked out a batch that I loved just so I’d have something to show you. I’ve lightened/boosted/or cropped these - but nothing else. The weather was great and my daughter behaved perfectly with the promise of time in the fountains when we finished.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. And I hope that you won’t get so sick of seeing me upload the rest of the batch in the next week that you break up with me. I will spare you the pain of showing EVERY photo here, so you’ll have to actually go to my flickr page for the others throughout the week. Remember…if you can make it 11 more days, I’ll probably start photographing my new kid for awhile, assuring you a break from my daughter, the Butterfly.

With NikkiZ, I splurged for a few nursing bras. I actually had money and thought I’d see what the fuss was about. Only to decide after a few weeks that they annoyed the hell out of me. I switched back to my old $10 system and called it the year. I nursed her successfully for 14 months never looking back.

It has come time for me to make that decision again - and I opted against the nursing bra. AGAIN. I simply went and bought the cheap (they’re $11 now, however) bras with the underwire and no padding. They are cotton and kinda ugly although I could have bought them in pretty colors if I wanted. I spent less than $40 on three while passing the $45 rack of nursing bras in the corner. I just couldn’t bring myself to spend that kind of money on a bra that I found useless and UGLY AS HELL.

Here is my question: Am I alone? Is there anyone else who has failed to find the usefulness of a nursing bra? Or maybe I’m just a rare lucky one? Because I do find myself very blessed that I don’t have to spend $45 dollars on a bra. That leaves me more money left to make up for all of the beer I haven’t been drinking the last 9 months.

Now, at some point along the way I realized my skills were limited. I would get ideas in my mind but they never turned out the way the looked in my head. In other words? The ideas were there, but not the talent. The creativity, but not the skill. Now, the drive still allowed me to make some cool things, and in school I had one or two things that actually did get put in student expos, but all-in-all? I was simply someone who liked to create but who wasn’t all that great at it.

BUT - the fact that I kept (and keep) going with it is something I owe to my Dad. And it’s something I swore I’d foster in my children as well.

I used to have a long empty wall in one of my apartments in college and I filled it floor to ceiling with LilZ’s artwork. Once we bought our house, my first mission was to actually frame some of it. And hang them in - what I call - the Art Hall. He currently has several pieces hanging there and they range from preschool to 5th Grade. 6th grade didn’t give us any art classes so nothing was created that year. This year, however, we had another art class and some of my favorite pieces have been done. Here are the two I matted yesterday.

I haven’t bought frames yet because I wait and do that when Hobby Lobby puts them on 50% off. But I’m looking forward to adding them to various empty walls around the house. I’m not going to put them in the Art Hall because I want to save room there for some of the other kid’s art someday. But, we have so much empty wall space, there will be plenty of choices. And I’ll hang them proudly knowing that my son is very talented. But that he also has his mother’s creative drive which means one thing: My walls will never be bare.

In other words? The results are in: I’m a complete moron.

I’ll never stop pointing out how pregnancy makes me so much more of an idiot that I am on a normal day. I mean - I have my share of brain farts whether I’m gestating or not - but when I’m pregnant? It seems very easy for my brain to simply shut down. Which is kinda scary when you have human lives depending on you.

(Note to Stace: I promise your kids were still safe! LilZ and MrZ were still home so no worries! They would have covered my ass if I had done something stupid like set fire to the house!)

We’re less than two weeks away from Baby Time. My brain will have no choice but to reactivate at that point. And if it doesn’t? My permanent tagline on this site will be, “Come for the donuts, stay to read about the stupid shit I did today.”

Can you do the math on that one? I mean, I’m not doctor but…

(Hee.)

But seriously! I told him my ears were hurting because I was there and he had the Rx pad in his pocket and I figured if he could, he would just prescribe me an antibiotic and I’d be on my way and NOT have to wait at the doc-in-the-box down the road for three hours to get the SAME prescription. If they’d even give me one without making me call my OB first.

Luckily - I was right. He had no problem giving me the antibiotic. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the right tools on hand at first to check my throat or my ears since he is an OB, who rarely has to look into throats OR ears. So, he first told me to, “Open up and say, ‘ahhhh’” as he used the LIGHT THEY SHINE BETWEEN YOUR LEGS to look into my throat.

Please tell me that’s as hysterical to everyone else as it is to me! Now - it wasn’t unsafe or anything, he was plenty far back and it didn’t even seem gross. I’m just saying, it was weird. He was taking the light he usually aims between a woman’s legs and SHINING IT IN MY FACE. It took every bit of will power I could must not to crack up laughing.

It is just me, isn’t it?

There are several “crafty” type things we’ve been wanting to finish the last few weeks. Unfortunately, with so little ass-sitting time, we’re not making much progress. Of course, there’s more than just the time limits holding me back.

My crafty skills are limited to painting things with stencils or using stamps on paper. I don’t have a lot of natural skills, in other words. Two of the projects I’m working on are the tops of the two stools in this picture. I started out trying a bit of free-hand and have since repainted the tops of the stools SEVERAL TIMES. Which is the main reason the projects are so delayed. I thought I’d try to actually be ARTSY. I’ve learned my lesson. Back to stencils for me.

NikkiZ loves arts and crafts of any sort. Glue and stamps are her favorite, of course, because they’re INSANELY MESSY. I can removed water-based acrylics with a baby wipe - ink from stamps? Not so much.

But it occurred to me last night. I kinda don’t care. The craft work we did yesterday made a substantial mess on clothes and on the table. Some of it was removed easily, but some was not. And might not be removed at all. And I kinda don’t care.

I don’t know if it’s because I spend so little money on clothes for her, or because we don’t have a lot of nice furniture (we have three dogs and two cats…”nice” furniture is wasted on us) or maybe it’s just because? I’m kinda lazy and would rather just put my daughter in stained clothes from craft night than stress out about how to avoid the stains in the first place. One of the many times I think that my inherent laziness regarding might actually work to my kids’ advantage.

I love it when that happens.