Best Mom Tip #102: Cover your bases

And by bases, I mean breasts.

Charlotte had ballet class this afternoon which means that I got to spend an hour in a linoleum hallway corralling my 2-year-old and eaves dropping on other people's overly personal gossip. Which is interesting, but not enough to make the kid-wrangling all that enjoyable.

The baby needs to eat about 15 minutes before the class ends so I usually start nursing about 20 minutes before the end of class so that I'm about ready to go when Charlotte gets done. Today Harry had other ideas so I was still nursing about 5 minutes after the class had ended.

Charlotte decided to try to carry Griffin down the hall, but of course she tripped over her own feet, dropped Griffin, and landed on top of him. I, and everyone else in the hall, heard Griffin's head smack against the concrete floor.

I jumped up and rushed over to help the kids up while trying to hold on to Harry and check Griffin's head for lumps at the same time. Multiple women rushed up to me to offer help--which was nice, but I couldn't figure out exactly what they could help with or why they all seemed so concerned.

Then I realized that Harry had let go when I jumped up and the blanket I was using for privacy had fallen off and my bare boob was out there for the world to see.

It is a really good thing that my brother and I both seem to have been born without a sense of modesty or the ability to get embarrassed.

Because at 34, I feel that I am going through a decidedly awkward phase.

Best Mom Tip #101: Be handy

I like to fix things. I like to figure out what is wrong and solve the puzzle. And I like to learn new handy-man kinds of tasks. This serves me quite well because things break a lot in my world.

Whether I'm just buying cheap crap or whether it's just tough for products to be around my family, I find myself with the vacuum cleaner turned upside down or trying to wrestle the power drill from my son on a regular basis.

Yesterday I had to refit the belt that makes the brush roller on my vacuum cleaner spin. The instructions said to loop the belt around the motor shaft and then "slip the belt over the portion of the roller with no brushes."
It should have said, "attempt to force a 1/2 in thick piece of rubber around a tiny metal thing while a two year old sits on your head."

I feel that would be a more accurate reflection of what vacuum repair looks like. I did get the upstairs vacuumed, which is quite a feat in my world. Good thing I like fixing stuff or we'd never get to use our tools and minor appliances.