Tailgating Tips from Broke-O

Unless you live under a rock (and by that I mean giant boulder), you know that it is full-on football season! In this house, that means football is the soundtrack to my life on Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays. Four. Whole. Days. I like football! But, I also like… reality TV. So, this also means that I only have 3 precious days where I can control the television and catch up as quickly as possible on my really important shows like the Kardashians, Sister Wives, 19 Kids and Counting, etc. The husband does admittedly watch a few shows WITH me, which I appreciate. But this further complicates things, as we also only have those limited time slots to squeeze in Nashville, Chicago Fire, Parenthood, and Modern Family. As you can see, our TV schedule gets booked up pretty quickly! Luckily, Baby G likes all of these shows too so we “let” him stay up and watch them with us. He drives a tough bargain but you know, we want to be the cool parents.

So, when we’re not watching football with TV shows wedged in between (PS ask me if you need suggestions for your own TV viewing or summaries of this season’s events –maternity leave has really solidified my commitment to Scott Disick), we do actually leave the house and GO to the football games. As many of you know, we are loyal University of Washington alum and love supporting Husky Football! This year, the season has been extra eventful for us since we did a little thing called have a baby in the middle of it. That said, we did miss 2 games, but are proud to be back at it. Now, we have the best accessory of all – a teeny tiny Dawg Fan, Gavin! Obviously, we have had to adjust our tailgate tactics slightly to accommodate this little Husky. Here are my expert (that is a very loose term) tips for tailgating with a Mini:

      Hydrate: the diaper bag is also a PERFECT holder for a bottle of wine. Fits like a glove into those side pockets! Think of it like this – pack bottles for baby and a bottle for you. Everyone will be happy. (Be sure to buy a screw top bottle of wine - easier for travel!) Likewise, beer cans slide nicely into the ERGObaby front pack (check out this new cute gray one) when the babe is still small. The husband easily packed 2 in there + our son. We don’t consider any of this inappropriate. Space efficiency is dire when it comes to tailgating, so you do what you must.

Pack in advance: You will need to bring a minimum of a million more things with you for the babe, so I suggest packing your bag in advance to ensure you get all the necessities. Then, you can go back and eliminate some of the nonsense stuff you threw in there and lighten your load. Like don’t bring the whole lip gloss collection, but more like your top 2 favorites (this Chanel is my #1 right now). Oh did I say the baby needs a lot? You know what I mean.

Speaking of packing, bring someone to carry all that stuff: You must have a pack horse… aka husband… aka personal assistant? Whatever. Whoever. This cannot be done alone! Basically, one person takes the little Dawg and one person takes everything else. Teamwork at its prime.
     

Make a plan: What they say is true. You’re a little less spontaneous when you have a tiny human in tow. Personally, this is not a negative for me. I literally despise spontaneity. Ask the husband – he really appreciate this about me. Not. I can’t help it! I just really dislike spur of the moment plans and disorganization of any sort. So, I’m happy to make a plan and stick to it. And make sure everyone else does too. Let’s just say no one listened to me the first time around, and we learned the hard way this is necessary. Miles later and 2 sore backs and 4 sore feet, we realized we had overdone it just a tad.  I was even more disappointed when those guys who ride the bikes with the little carriages on the back told me it was going to cost $30 for a ride to our car! Even in my desperation, I couldn’t give a guy on a bike with a boombox thirty bucks. So, I suggest making a (flexible) timeline for your day with a general idea of where you want to be when. Share the plan with the packhorse and your day is smooth sailing.
      

       Last, remember layers: This is a tricky time of year with the weather, so dress in layers to be prepared. When in doubt, wear more. Some of my favorite cold weather tricks are tights under jeans or leggings, slipper socks inside my boots, handwarmers in my pockets and my shoes, don't be afraid of faux fur (for anyone! Check out gap.com for my vest and variations of Baby G's fuzzy bear suit) and obviously bring a blanket for your bleacher seats! For convenience purposes, you should definitely have a cross body bag too. This Rebecca Minkoff is perfect and just came out in great new colors. I love the soft grey - amazing neutral. (Can't get in time for football season - remember to ask Santa!) Remember – only 2 lip glosses in there, though. After all, you need room for the tickets! May the best team (and best dressed tailgater) win!

      

PS: A quick plug - I recently added a "subscribe" box to my blog and would love for you to do so. I value all of you fashionistas and want to make sure you are updated, pronto, with the happenings on here. Thanks for following my antics! I promise to keep 'em coming. 

Mommyhood... so far...

Fashionistas! I am thrilled to introduce you to my new mini (male) fashion plate… Gavin Patrick! The punctual little man arrived on his due date (9-11-13) – the very best day the husband and I have ever had - and has been entertaining us ever since. We love everything about him, and of course, I especially love dressing the little peanut. Styling the tiniest of outfits is a daily joy! Just as we do, babies can really dress for occasions. Also, as we do, they may wear multiple outfits in a day.

Actually, I don’t know why people say that babies don’t need that many clothes. I heard over and over “Oh, he’ll never wear that” and “They really don’t need that much when they are little.” This is a lie. Don’t listen! And I’m not just saying that because I love changing his clothes and making new looks; he’s like a real doll! (Selecting the outfits for his newborn photo shoot brought me back to my glory days of personal styling at Nordstrom - this was just for a very tiny customer! Note the teensy white collared shirt below... can't even stand it) I’m telling you the truth, because unless you want to do six loads of laundry per day, your baby needs a lot of clothes. I don’t have time to be the maid and the mommy, so I would rather the babe has a complete wardrobe than spend my very limited free time (drinking champagne) in the laundry room.

Though he is just a month old, we have had several important outings. Most, obviously, are retail destinations. They are warm, dry, flat, lovely places to walk that have great eye candy as well. We have frequented Nordstrom (multiple locations), Target and other favorites. I loved shopping before, but I have to admit, it is a whole new high to shop with a fabulous stroller and a darling baby inside. Plus, there is great storage for your purchases!

However, the stroller situation does add an extra challenge to the regular shopping trip, and even an experienced shopper like me has a steep learning curve with this apparatus. This is no new handbag that one can easily toss your wallet in and move on – it is a whole endeavor with pieces, parts, clicks and manual labor!

My first time out with the Bugaboo (details featured here – it really is a great stroller), I patted myself on the back after I unloaded it from the back of the Prius, assembled the 2 parts together, and loaded in the baby. We rolled into Nordstrom where we enjoyed a luxurious afternoon – I had been away for 2 weeks and it felt oh so good to be back. I should have known the whole thing was too good to be true. Back to the parking lot, and all hell broke loose. As the wind nearly blew me over, I could not get the top part off the stroller base. After a frantic call to the husband where he basically told me to push the button in (genius, I know), the stroller was back in 2 pieces. Success! Again, I spoke to soon. Now, I cannot get the base to fold down. I call the husband again, and this time he says “I don’t really know how to explain it.” NOT the right answer. So, I threw the whole thing standing straight up in the car and raced home, instructing him to meet me in the driveway for a serious tutorial.

Two weeks later, I am capable of locking and loading the stroller. This is still not a smooth process, but at least I can see out my rearview mirror because the thing folds down. Anyways, I asked the husband (see the rare sighting of him above in our first formal family photo - he looks so sweet but wait 'til you see what he does next) to please put the stroller in the car for me one morning. While I appreciated him completing this task, I did not appreciate when he came back inside and sheepishly said, “Um, I can fix it for you later, but I think that maybe when you went on your walk yesterday you might have rolled the stroller through some dog poop” (all while avoiding eye contact). “What!” I shrieked. “You think I’m suppose to go meet my girlfriends at Nordstrom for lunch with dog poop all over the wheel?” Not to worry – he assured me that it was dry. And he would hose it off. Later. As in like the next day. Unacceptable! I let him know I would take care of it myself. And I think I added in one of those sweet phrases like, “since I have to do everything around here.” You know, one of those signature ones that really reflects what a nice person I am. 

As I prepared for this disgusting duty, I remembered that I don’t know how to use the hose. I know this because this summer I drenched my pregnant self while attempting to water the husband’s pepper garden (which never actually yielded a pepper I got to taste, so clearly that was time well spent of mine). So, knowing that I don’t have the time or patience to learn to use the hose properly, I decided to use something I’m more familiar with – bottled water. I took a bottle of water out to the car, opened the trunk and gingerly set the aforementioned poop wheel out the edge of the back. Then, I proceeded to dump a whole bottle of water on it. Realizing I needed a little more “umph,” I grabbed a wad of paper towels and another bottle of water. It was nearly clean, except for some remnants in the grooves. Not wanting to leave the job incomplete, I resourcefully located a twig in the yard and finished the job. And, I still had half of the second water bottle. Not too shabby! Another opportunity for this new mommy to pat herself on the back.

These are the adventures in mommyhood so far… I really do like the stroller (how cute does it look here? this was from our dog-poop-free walk today in the fabulous fall weather), but I do recommend that people practice before going out in public. Luckily, Gavin just enjoys the ride (in his cute outfits), and doesn’t notice the obstacles his mother endures. But, as us fashionistas know, it pains to be beautiful. And in this case, this beast of a stroller can just be a pain. But, this sweet face in this sweet set of wheels is worth it! Happy strolling, fashionistas. 

Mini!

Shortly after my last post (I know I know – way too long ago – I AM much more consistent with much else in my life – swiffering, cleaning my jewelry, rearranging my shoes – all of life’s important things), I got the best surprise ever. I’m talking BEST surprise – like Oprah screaming “You get a car! And you get a car! And YOU get a CAR!” And, if you’ve never seen that episode of Oprah, well, I’m more than happy to let you borrow my Oprah DVDs to let you enjoy that magical moment for yourself.

Similar to that momentous Oprah show, this surprise ranks right up there with someone telling you, oh I don’t know, you’re getting a Chanel handbag for free. I’ve never heard of that happening – even on Oprah. Do you get the level of pure ecstatic unspeakable JOY I’m talking about now? Like so exciting you can’t even STAND it?! Good. Now I can tell you the secret that’s not so secret anymore. This fashionista is having a baby! That’s right! A WHOLE OTHER TINY PRESON TO STYLE AND DRESS. With a WHOLE ROOM TO DESIGN. (Amongst other things, of course.) To top it off, this mini adorable wildchild human growing right now is a little BOY! A MiniMarshall, as I have taken to calling him. Will he be a mini-husband?! Probably. The good news is, he’s going to start his life off a lot better dressed.

So that is the best surprise ever that changed my life right when we were ringing in my new favorite year known as 2013. Here are a few fun tidbits of life with MiniMarshall thus far:

•      As you may or may not know, the husband is an emotional (but darling) wreck who has cried maybe more than his hormone-raged wife these last 5 months. He normally pairs his tears with a drink of choice – his friend Jamieson has helped him out a few times, and not 1 but 2 martinis were needed when we learned Mini was a BOY!
• ·     Hormones are kind of the best thing ever, because they get you out of everything. Tired? Hormones. Hungry? Hormones. Just feel like yelling at the husband? Hormones for sure! Can’t seem to make it from the couch to the kitchen to get your 9^th glass of fizzy water (which will never ever come close to replacing wine) and so you shed a tear or 2 to get “someone” to do it for you? Shoot, the hormones strike again!
• ·    I knew Mini was a boy. I am putting it in writing so maybe some day when his mother is rich and famous he will stumble across this lame blog and… I will feel validated that I was right! I knew it was a boy, so therefore I deserve a crown for already having that “motherly instinct” everyone keeps talking about. Crown aside (make sure it has diamonds and looks like Princess Kate’s), I really didn’t have the instinct, but I had this thing called an ultrasound. I’m not saying I SAW the boy parts. Any goofball could do that - I was the loser who couldn’t even see his feet. (Seriously, the kid has huge feet and I just pretended to see them until we left and I could figure it out myself. They were kicked back and resting – so obvious! What fetus wouldn’t be chilling out like that?) When we had an ultrasound early on, I knew this was a boy. Why? Because he was fist pumping! He had moves JUST like the husband’s. I don’t lie about Mini. He was in the womb, dancing around like a NUTCASE. And that’s when I knew.
• ·    I confirmed Mini was a boy several few weeks later, at the next ultrasound – again, I didn’t see the magical boy area, but this time, he was standing on his head the whole time. This further confirmed the craziness that is my future son. He was just the size of a bell paper, but he already had a much larger attitude.  The poor ultrasound technician was just trying to do her job, confirming he had normal baby stuff, like arms and legs. Of course, my child (in this case, the husband’s Mini for sure), had to be on his head. The entire time. Laying on his left arm.  Hiding it from us. Much to the tech’s dismay, we could not get o-stubborn-one to move around. This led me to believe for about 30 minutes that Mini did not have a left arm! This also led me to believe he was a boy, because no girl would be so uncooperative on a deadline. Finally, the tech finds the arm, hand, thumb and everything and she is so relieved (as am I – duh!). She proceeds with the appointment, and right when we are wrapping up, he starts WAVING his left hand around. I felt like he was saying, “Hey, freaks! Here’s my arm! Don’t know what you were looking for, bozos.”
• ·  Sure enough, an hour later, we were served a dessert covered in blueberries and my suspicions were confirmed… BOY. We were going to have a dancing, fistpumping, upside down, naughty, wild little boy! So, I gobbled down the dessert and like any good fashionista (oh and um parent) I went on a 3 day bender shopping spree.

I will share the tricks and trades of producing a fabulous and functional baby wardrobe in another entry, but here are some of my favorite pieces to wet your appetite. There are sure to be more, because I literally buy something 1-7 times per week. I’m not even going to get into how close my new office is to the best ever babies section at Nordstrom. Between that and the refrigerator and bathroom being just steps away, work is totally this mama-to-be’s paradise.

To say the least, Broke-O for Coco is getting broke-o from a whole new sector of shopping. Have you seen the strollers out there these days?! And did you know Burberry has baby line? Just sayin.

Signing off,

Broke-O and… MiniMarshall