Be Bo

This tiny hippopotamus has something small to say
And if you’re very quiet now
She’ll say it right away.
Be Bo.
copyright Sandra Boynton, Belly Button Book

Ah, Sandra Boynton, thank you for making a book for my Pebbles. Oh, you didn’t write it for her? Well, you could have. Because it is so very her.

This child is a belly button addict. Dude and Fancy were complete binky addicts, from birth. They loved the binky. Pebbles wanted nothing to do with it. Suck suck SPIT. Chew a little as she got older, but never did she pick up the habit. No, Mama was her pacifier. She never really settled on a comfort object either, still changes up who she wants in her bed. But the be bo? It’s always there for her. Apparently, she found her security object. Joke’s on me thinking it would be a binky or a kitty or a puppy like the Bigs. It’s be bo.



Any time she is nervous, her hand goes for the be bo. Anytime she gets a cup? Same thing. I have actually unzipped or unbuttoned her pjs (the like, 3 times I tried anything one piece in recent memory) so she could have access to the be bo, because none of us were sleeping! Seriously. When I put a onesie on in the winter for extra warmth? I have to leave it unsnapped, so she has a tail. But she can get her be bo. Dresses do not stop her, she just hikes it up & finds her precious comfort object.


At the pool recently she got tired and snuggly and suddenly was tugging madly at her bathing suit and I could tell she was getting upset.

"What are you doing, sweetie?" I asked.

"I trying to find my be bo, Mama. You get it?" she replied. Aww. I wish I could help. But I am not sure we're ready for bikinis quite yet, honey.

So, we have been telling ourselves she’ll grow out of it. She can’t possibly go to college still playing with her be bo when she’s sad or tired or anxious, right? But yesterday we were at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, and I seriously saw a teenage girl lift up her shirt, show off her round belly, and play with hers. Of course, it also had a belly button ring in it (something the Hubs will never sign off on before either of the girls are of the age of emancipation). But still. I had to laugh.

And get a *tad* nervous.

Shopping Talent Fairy

God, I love shopping. Seriously. There is nothing better to me (outside of my awesome little family) than spending a day browsing stores, finding adorable things for the kids and clothes for me & fun jewelry and cute shoes and … well, I could go on and on.


Pebbles believes in Fairies. Do you?

Everyone has a talent, right? At least in the world of Disney Fairies they do. My talent is shopping. For reals. I am a genuine Shopping Talent Fairy. {for the record, The Hubs believes this is a sub-talent, and that my broader category talent is simply a Spending Money Fairy} I know I have friends in my imaginary fairy land – the awesome Windizzle comes to mind – and we have a blast scouring the Fairyland Boutiques for fabulous finds. In real life, sadly, my budget does not support my talents. And my partner in crime moved away from me *mope* {texting is a good tool for virtual shopping together though!!} I forget this fact about my budget though.

Too often, in fact *blush*

Someone shows me an outfit they like? Ooooh! NEED! A cute dress they purchased! Love it! Want! A sale email pops up in my email and, completely ignoring the fact that we need NOTHING for the current season {having purchased far too much months before the weather even changed}, I click to open the site & shop. A free day to myself? Here I come Mecca {aka the mall}. I look. I find. I want. I NEED.

The Hubs keeps hoping I’ll win the lottery, or go back to work, or somehow have some sense knocked into me one of these days. Fall clothes are beginning to trickle into the stores, along with some good sales ... but Fancy will be wearing uniforms to school this year. Uniforms. Love the concept, hate what it means to my addiction. So my Gymbucks will be used on red, white & blue polos and khaki skorts.

Pebbles will surely benefit from this turn of events, not that her wardrobe is ever lacking. This season is also the last one that I don't have a fairly substantial stash of hand-me-downs saved up for her. The question is, will our bottom line benefit? Or will my talents simply be used on, say, clothes for me? Items for the house? If you don't exercise your talents, you know, they get rusty. Stay tuned …

Give me a K! Give me a Y! …

You all know that feeling, the helpless one? Where you know something is going on with your kid, but you can’t *really* help? I hate that feeling. A few months ago, I had it big time when Fancy fell down some stairs and ended up landing on her head on a concrete floor. The goose-egg that developed was one for the record books and she is *still* sporting some lovely raccoon eyes from the fall.




Dude has had lots of nosebleeds for basically as long as I can remember. For a while, they were primarily in his sleep and didn’t bother him much. Last summer they were getting more frequent and so back we went to the ENT to see what we could do. They gave a us a nice little protocol to follow to prevent them from happening so much. And what do you know? It worked! Guess that fancy med school education paid off.

Then one day a few months back, I get a call from Dude’s {most AWESOME} teacher. She says he has been bleeding for like 10 minutes or so already, and it’s a pretty big one. He doesn’t want to go to the nurse, so she (who is not good with bodily fluids, but does love my child) deals with it. But wants me to know. Eventually I decide I must go, so I grab a neighbor to stay with Pebbles (who is napping) and fly to school, which is thankfully 3 minutes away. It had stopped by the time I arrived, thankfully, but I was so bummed to know it had happened. That feeling of helplessness? Alive & well.

And we’ve had several since. Bad ones. I’ll spare you the gory details, but crime scenes probably look better at times. I pride myself on being calm, on controlling the scene, and stopping them quickly. Got some napkins, maybe some ice? I’m golden! {Fancy got one at Disney World last year. Right on Main Street USA, while we were getting our pictures taken. The photographer was so worried she called the Disney paramedics and they arrived {with a stretcher!!} to find a no longer bleeding child. I didn’t even get any ice that day, thankyouverymuch, but we did get a clean shirt of our choosing thanks to some wonderful Cast Members}

But these scare even me. And Dude can read me like a book, and then he starts getting nervous too, and it has all the makings of a good spin out of control. But, I’m the Mom, with a capital M, and I suck it up & put a smile on my face & tell him it will be ok. As I silently say a little prayer. I want to fix it. Now. Please.

Anyway, my awesome blog goddess pal Minky had a funny little K-Y story in her blog the other day, and I chuckled as I read it since moments before I had gotten off the phone with The Hubs after Dude’s latest ENT appointment {aren’t you proud of me? I didn’t even insist *I* be the one to take him. I let The Hubs go. And didn’t berate him after when he didn’t ask all the questions I would have!} … and our new protocol includes, you guessed it, K-Y jelly. Rubbed on the inside of his nose nightly.

Apparently, it’s good for sticking bows on babies’ heads, too. Who knew?