Whole lotta nothing…

Urgh, you know those times when there are so many things you should be doing that you get all overwhelmed and end up doing nothing? Well, this has been one of those weeks. I don’t know if it’s the fact that our precious Olympics are over (actually, we still have hours of coverage left on our Tivo, so, who am I kidding?) or the heat, or what, but, man, I am just spent.

Greta is finishing up her second, and final, week of swimming lessons, I’ve been trying to get as much work done as I can on the new freelance piece I’m writing, and we’re all trying to pack and prepare for our trip to NYC. It’s just a lot of stuff to do and a very small window in which to do it. All I know is that I need a break, big time.

Thankfully, we are leaving town for ten days on Saturday. Although some might see ten days of sweaty, New York City mugginess as anything but a vacation, lemme tell ya, I can’t wait! And since we are traveling on a budget (or, on more of a budget than usual) I’ve already mapped out all my favorite cheap places to eat. Actually, that’s what I’ve been doing for the last two hours. See what I mean? Instead of doing anything worthwhile, I’ve been Google mapping the Dunkin’ Donuts locations that are closest to our hotel.

Totally lame, I know, but, it soothes me somehow to think of drinking their iced coffee for breakfast every morning. Not only is it dirt cheap, but, it is one of life’s greatest joys. Seriously, it’s delicious. The hot variety, eh, not so much. But, iced with a little milk, that shit is golden, baby! Of course, maybe I’m just saying that because we don’t have DD out here yet.

In any case, I now know that the nearest Dunkin’ is a four minute walk (probably ten with Miss Greta) from our hotel room and that to get there, we have to take Fashion Avenue. Yep, the one they always show on Project Runway. Cheap, hearty iced coffee, and a casual stroll down Fashion Avenue with my favorite citified toddler every morning? I can’t wait!

And, who knows, maybe we’ll even stop at Mood for some cool fabric for Mommy…

Ch-ch-changes…

Spent the entire day cleaning out our closets and watching the Olympics. We are actually totally up to date on most events and we have been taping non-stop since the games began, so, that’s kinda scary. In fact, we’ve been so obsessed with the games that when she was acting up earlier today, I told Greta (jokingly) to go to her room and that I’d play with her in two weeks when they were over.

She didn’t get my joke and she didn’t leave the living room either. So, we got out the coloring books and colored while Mommy cleaned the hall closet and some Kazakh dude won the gold in the men’s road race. Don’t know if you caught it, but, man, that was some serious bike racing. Exciting stuff!

Of course, the biggest news around here today was that we finally removed the changing pad topper from Greta’s dresser. Yay! Honestly, we haven’t used it in weeks, and the covers are kinda nasty, so, it’s just been this weird old cracked-plastic eyesore for a while now. Yep, the plastic is all cracked too. You couldn’t pay someone to take this thing off our hands.

Anyway, I was totally fine with removing it (in theory) but, once Christine got out the screwdriver, I wigged out. I know it sounds crazy, but, something about taking it off and suddenly transforming the changing table into a big-girl dresser just about killed me. Seriously, I almost started crying. In fact, had Greta not been so excited about the look of her new “desk” (that’s what she calls it) I probably would have found some reason to keep it on there. Urgh, what a sap…

I mean, it looks great as a “desk” with a few of Greta’s favorite things on it — she has been talking about how she was gonna “decorate” it all week — but, I had some great memories with that thing. Changing diapers always sucked, but, I loved leaning close and cuddling up with her after she was all jammied up, watching her touch her toes for the first time, or hell, even just drying her off up there after a bath. I know it’s just a piece of furniture, or, you know, the top of a piece of furniture, but, I loved that little thing to death and now…it’s gone.

Well, actually, it’s in the kitchen. We didn’t finish cleaning all the closets yet, so, we’ll take it to the garage with the rest of the junk in the morning. But, you know what I mean, it’s good as gone. And quicker than you can make a David Bowie face and sing “Ch-ch-changes…”, Greta will be good as gone too. I know we still have a while to go on that front, but, the last three years have flown by, what’s to stop the next three, or ten, or twenty from doing the same thing?

Man, where does the time go? Goodbye changing table topper…you will be missed.

Olympic Mascot Games: London 2012

I know what you’re thinking…good lord, is he still talking about the freaking Olympics? They haven’t even started yet! Yes, I’m still talking about them, but, this time I’ll be super brief. I just wanted to tell you about some cool Olympic Mascot Games I found on the London 2012 website just now.

Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve been geeking out about the games all day today and while searching for some pictures of the Olympic games for Greta, I found these online games instead. She can’t play most of them alone yet, but, lemme tell ya, she absolutely LOVED the make your own mascot game. We already have a nice little collection of our saved Wenlock and Mandeville’s online and Greta loves looking at them. I still think the mascots themselves are kinda creepy, but, the games and other activities on their site are really fun and highly-addictive.

So, if you have kids at home — or even if you don’t! — I recommend checking out some of these super cool mascot games for yourself. At the very least they’re an awesome way to keep the little ones occupied while Mommy and Daddy watch the stirring Badminton finals next week.

P&G’s London Olympic Mom Clip

As any long-time reader knows, we are huge fans of the Oympics in these parts. I had a friend who once joked that the only sport Mrs. Yeti and I watch is “Olympics”, and he wasn’t far off. We might not watch football or baseball, but every couple of years we burn the hell out of our Tivo taping every event we can during the Olympics.

And with the Opening Ceremonies set to take place this Friday in London, well, we’ve been fools for anything Olympic-related for weeks now. So, when I caught an airing of the American-Mom only version of this new ad from Proctor & Gamble, I cried my ass off and thought it was brilliant.

But, then I found this International-Mom clip and, well, I haven’t stopped crying yet. It really is advertising gold. So beautiful! The only thing that would make it better was if they had one for Dad’s too. Enjoy and see you at the games!