Sinterklaas

Given the fact that the girls are 50% Dutch (with a smattering of many other European ethnicities thanks to my genes) we were encouraged to practice the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas.  Marcus vaguely recalls Sinterklaas visiting when he was a child but I'm not entirely sure this is an actual Tepaske tradition because, also according to Marcus, he was a saint as a child.

Anyway, I started talking to the girls about who Sinterklaas was (though did not include information about Zwarte Piet which apparently wasn't such a bad idea since he is apparently a figure of consternation for everyone else except the Dutch people).  This proved to be a challenge mostly because Alexandra is in her question everything stage.  I was forced to hit such hard-hitting questions such as:

Alexandra: "Where does Sinterklaas live?"
Me: "He lives with Santa Claus in the North Pole."

Followed by my personal favorite:
Alexandra: "Is he Santa Claus's husband?"
Me: "No, he's his cousin."

Alexandra: "Does he have a car?"
Me: "No, he has a horse, which is way cooler."
Alexandra: "Yeah."

Alexandra: "Is he coming to our house?"
Me: "He's going to visit us tomorrow night and leave little gifts in your wooden shoes."

Josephine then interjected with: "I don't like him, Sinterklaas, no." (We're working on sentence structure)

Alexandra: "What color is his hair?" "White." "What color are his gloves?" "Purple." "What color is his cape?" "Red." "What color is his horse?" "White." (This is while we color a picture of Sinterklaas on his horse, Amerigo.  Also, to note, the only reason I even knew the answer to any of these questions is I had to Google it...hence the reason I know the horse's name)

The conversation dwindled from there as we finished working on our Sinterklaas coloring pages.

This morning the girls woke up though didn't immediately think of Sinterklaas.  We finally pointed out that he had visited us after they had breakfast and they opened the little gifts that were left in their wooden clogs.  In the end, I think Alexandra is less enamored with Sinterklaas though is thoroughly excited about Santa Claus's visit as she's just beginning to realize exactly what Christmas entails (read:  PRESENTS!), and Josephine is harboring major anxiety over the thought of a strange man lurking through the house despite the fact he's leaving PRESENTS!

Sinterklaas visits the Tepaske's

Josephine is Two!

Poor, Jo.  She turned two over ten days ago and I'm just now getting around to writing a little something about her crazy butt.  In my defense we've been on the go, traveling to Boston and back, and time has just simply gotten away from me.

So, where to start.  Josephine.  She is something.  She is strong-willed, loving, silly, weirdly aggressive, and growing up way too fast.  Her sentences consist of at least four words and she can clearly verbalize what she wants in either a normal tone of voice or by screaming as she is more likely to do.  She loves dogs but is scared to death when they get too close.  She is also still in the throes of "stranger danger" and has been for a very long time.  While she exudes confidence the minute she thinks we're abandoning her she becomes a mess.  We have noticed a small change in that it takes about five minutes for her to get over it rather than 50 so that's promising.

Josephine will only do what Josephine wants to do though, with a little bargaining, she generally comes around.  Time-outs are a daily threat for her and she's beginning to realize that there are times when mommy means business.  Naturally, I understand this is also a stage of toddlerhood but she has a little more emphasis behind her stubbornness than Alex ever did.

She loves her big sister.  Anything Alex does Jo does.  She wants to be next to her at all times and often, after she wakes from her nap, the first thing she wants to know is where her sissy is.  They do get along very well, though have their fair share of fights as any couple would.  This afternoon, for example, Jo was particularly upset about something only she knows and I asked Alex to fetch Jo from where I had left her on the side of the house.  Less than a minute later they come around the corner, hand in hand, Jo with slight tears in her eyes but overall happy again.  That is all I can ask for as they grow; I wish this helping and caring relationship continues through the rest of their lives.

Josephine is silly.  Much sillier than Alex.  I tend to think of Alex as my "old soul."  She's more serious than most three-year-olds and her silly behavior sometimes comes across as forced.  Jo, on the other hand, she commands an audience for her antics and makes sure all are paying attention.  She eats doughnuts with her feet (something I allowed because we were at the beginning of a ten hour car ride), does interpretive dancing to any song, likes to make silly faces, sings along to songs, and overall loves to be the center of attention.

She is also strangely aggressive and often gets a wild eyed look as she's strangling me or wiping my face or "braiding" my hair.  Seriously.  I think she's out to get me and the look that crosses her face, as it changes from a loving little girl to possessed toddler, tells me as much.

Josephine is also a lot more girly than Alex.  She likes baby dolls, dressing-up, stuffed animals, and clothes and shoes.  She actually likes for me to do her hair, often asking that I braid it which is impossible yet I pretend as if I've done so...not sure how long I'll be able to pull that off.  She also recognizes Gap packages and quickly starts undressing in order to try on the new clothes.

In all it would be a lonely life without Josephine.  It would also be a quieter life but that's not such a big deal.  She's the perfect match for her big sissy and the perfect ending to our family.

Our little goofball

 

Thank Heaven For Little Girls

I've come to realize that one of the hardest parts about raising two little girls is less the fact that they are little girls and more the fact they have a daddy who is clueless about little girls.  Certain aspects of girldom simply mystify the lone male in our midst and he remains steadfast in his belief that certain things are not necessary.  For example, Alex has hair down the length of her back.  It's also baby fine but she has a lot of it.  As a result, it gets tangled and needs to be brushed at least twice a day, once in the morning and once after bath time.  One of the beauties of living in the modern age is that their are now products made specifically for helping get tangles out of hair.  However, getting Marcus to both agree that brushing hair is important and that using detangler makes it easier is like trying to understand why he should brush and detangle his own hair.  He just doesn't get the point.

Equally exasperating is his question for clothing and shoes.  I think if he had his way the girls would run around in their diaper and underwear forever.  The other day I allowed Alex to pick out a pair of shoes for the fall/winter.  She was really into a pair of fuchsia cowgirl boots but I subtly directed her towards a pair of brown cowgirl boots with pink trim (something that might actually match her clothes).  I thought her choice was cute and proudly showed them to Marcus who then questioned why she needed shoes at all.  So, along with running around in her skivvies I guess she could just attach some palm fronds to her feet with twine and we'd be good to go.

The other day we were talking about getting Jo's big girl bed together.  My mom gave us an old metal bed frame that needs to be cleaned and painted and I was starting to feel pressure to get it done.  However, Marcus reminded me that we could just put Jo's mattress on the floor in the meantime since she is still adjusting to not being in a crib.  He then proceeded to state that he didn't understand why the girl's needed bed frames at all and they could just sleep on mattresses on the floor.  I'm beginning to suspect he's a caveman in disguise.  

We Need A New Car

For starters I had been planning on writing a post about a vehicle.  It's just that I had planned on writing an ode to my vehicle, not this particular vehicle.

Remember that time three years ago when we had a newborn baby girl and I was stressing to Marcus that we needed a bigger and more reliable family car?  In response, Marcus brings home a ten-year-old, 100,000+ miles, saturated with cigarette smoke Jeep Grand Cherokee that he hassled the guy down so low on the price he practically gave it to us?  Then, a few short months later the front axle broke and we had to fork over $1,500 to fix it?  Then, less than a year ago we forked over another $1,000 to fix the AC thus totaling more money to fix it then how much we actually paid?  Doesn't ring a bell?

Well, regardless of whether you remember or not we now find ourselves needing a new car.  I'd like to say if Marcus hadn't been such as he is (read: cheap) then we would still have a family vehicle and I wouldn't find myself stuck at home with two little kids and no way to leave.  Leave with them, that is.  I should probably specify that.  I'd also like to say that if he had looked at the amazing spreadsheet I had made three years ago in an attempt to appeal to his nerdy engineer side we would still have a family vehicle.  Alas, none of the above is true and now Marcus must face the facts and purchase a somewhat nice, reliable, slightly-more-expensive-than-a-couple-grand vehicle.

So, we've been looking at cars and debating which is the best option for us.  The best part, and I mean it, is that Marcus has decided we should get the Tesla Model X, an SUV that is currently in production and with a starting price of around $75,000.  Who is this guy?  Naturally, I don't take him very seriously in this and I expect that we'll be cruising around in a 1971 Ford Pinto because it was a "good deal."

Birdie Head

I've been meaning to write a post about this but hadn't been able to come up with something witty to go along with it.  In the end, the picture speaks for itself and nothing I say can diminish it's awesomeness though that doesn't mean I won't try.

So, without further ado I present to you, Alexandra's "Birdie Head," dated June 2nd, 2014, in Play-Doh.

Of course, a piece of art such as this requires a proper critique:

The artist was clearly in an unencumbered state of mind, not concerned about the limits of her creativity.  As this was some of her earlier work, Alexandra was clearly still finding her own style, however, the attention to detail is impressive.  In fact, the texture given to the sculpture is realistic, and evokes Michelangelo or Rodin.  The brightness of the red makes one think that she may have been particularly happy to be creating and in a positive frame of mind.  The thing I find the most interesting of the sculpture is it's naivety and juvenile name "Birdie Head," as if the artist knew not what she was doing.


Tepaske's Birdie Head

Leaf Eating T. Rex

We may have inadvertently perpetuated a lie.  In our desire for our children to eat there is a chance we insinuated that the Tyrannosaurus Rex was a leaf-eater, though it's not completely our fault.  Alex was the one who stated the T. Rex, her most favorite of all the dinosaurs, ate leaves and she was now going to "eat leaves like a T. Rex."  Leaves, in this case, are anything resembling such, e.g. baby spinach, arugula, lettuce, broccoli, asparagus, etc.  Now, during meal time she asks Marcus to hold the "leaf" above her head so she can eat it like a T. Rex.  Of course, she's most certainly confusing the T. Rex and the Brontosaurus (or whatever they're called now) but who am I to correct a three-year-old?  Of course, this will all come back to bite us in the a$$ when she realizes that T. Rex's most certainly did not eat leaves and this will probably be a topic with her future therapist.  In the meantime she'll have excellent fiber, iron, and overall roughage in her diet.

How To Take A Picture Tepaske Style

I don't know who the folks are that have children who willingly smile for the camera.  Mine are not such children.  They're the worst when it comes to taking pictures and it generally involves taking about 200 in order to get just one worthy of viewing and sharing.  As a testament to this I present to you the chain of events leading-up to a relatively nice picture in this household:

Step 1:  Add unwilling children.

Step 2:  Attempt to exert some control by demanding children sit down.

Step 3:  Wait while cameraman takes an unflattering picture of you as the children do everything in their power not to look at the camera.



Step 4:  Allow children to assess the situation going-on at the back of your head during a hot and humid day and...

Step 5 (continued from Step 4):  ...add a delightful hairpiece.

Step 6:  Once children have been seated with an object to encourage them to behave (in this case a lighter and silly string...work with what you've got), have one of the subjects point to the camera just in case the children missed the point of the entire exercise.

 Step 7:  Warning:  The alpha female's role may be usurped by a lesser female of the pack. Refrain from making eye contact or smiling in an effort to discourage this type of behavior.  This is not an example of such.



Step 8:  Ensure all three subjects are looking at the camera by having the cameraman repeatedly call names and make an a$$ of himself from behind the camera.

 

Step 9:  Finally admit defeat and accept a picture with a toddler holding a lighter, a little girl giving her best "smile" while fully engrossed in silly string, and a mom looking pretty darn good as the best you're going to get and move-on with life. 

Mommy Is Trying Not To Be Fat

I recently picked up my running routine.  I think I was discouraged after my performance at a recent road race.  The silly thing is, I did really well.  I beat Marcus by 5 minutes and even came in 22nd for my age group which is something I feel pretty proud about.  I was disappointed however, because I didn't beat Marcus's best time.  Oh, well.  I guess we'll go for that next year.  Anyway, long story short, I took a few weeks off and during that time ate approximately 6 bags of Cadbury mini-eggs all on my own (as I've already stated a few times, I know), had a birthday which required two chocolate cakes within a week, and various other foods that are definitely not to be consumed if one isn't doing something to offset the effects.

Therefore, Marcus and I decided that on April 1st we would start a healthy eating and workout routine again so that's where we stand.  As a result, the girls and I have been going out for a run every other day and it has reinforced my belief that running is akin to labor.  Yes, as in, childbirth.

The idea struck me during the previously mentioned road race.  Marcus had determined he was going to pace me and I was OK with that.  Until we hit about the 3rd mile and I realized I wanted to murder him.  He was running elbow to elbow with me, breathing heavily and, in general, invading my personal space.  It was all I could do not to stick my foot out and trip him just to get rid of him.  Everything he was doing, like living, was driving me crazy and I recalled the last time I felt that way was when I was in labor with both of the girls.  Luckily for both of us, Marcus called it quits shortly around the time I was plotting his demise and we're married to this day.

When I run with the girls it's the same problem.  I always wear my headphones but I keep them relatively low so I can hear the cars that might be coming up behind us.  As a result I also hear the incessant questioning from a high-pitched little voice just far enough way that I couldn't understand what she was saying even without wearing headphones.  I can tell she's asking the same question over and over and OVER again because it always has the same inflection to the tone.  After so many miles, it's like nails on a chalkboard and I cannot take it anymore.  I want it to go away but doing so would result in some pretty serious charges and that just isn't an option.

There is something to be said about having the same emotions mid-workout that one does while in labor and I wonder if any scientific research has been done to verify this theory?  Maybe if I do end up getting my Ph.D. I'll look into this conundrum... 

Mommy Isn't Fat

I had a "kids say the darndest things" moment today.  As Josephine, Alexandra, and I lounged around in bed early this morning Josephine touched my belly and said "baby."  Uh...a few thoughts entered my mind, jumbling around:  "God Almighty, I hope she's wrong...wait a minute, how does she know baby's come from mommy's tummies?...Damnit, I need to start running again...I knew I shouldn't have had those last 5 bags of Cadbury mini-eggs." 

Anyway, I don't know where she got the idea that a baby can be in a tummy.  Either she's clairvoyant (which I hope she isn't because of the social stigma) or she's pointing out that mommy is getting a little chubby.  Regardless, it couldn't have been a better boost to starting my running routine again.  Tomorrow.  If not tomorrow then definitely Friday.  Saturday at the latest.

Update, 4/6/2014:  Josephine touched Marcus's belly and said "baby" this evening.  She's not clairvoyant!

Happy Birthday To Me

Today is my 33^rd birthday and I have a few thoughts.  Things have changed.  For starters I now find myself trimming nose hairs and my light-but-totally-there mustache.  I also regularly pluck a hair or two from my neck which have grown unruly.  Today, I discovered broken blood vessels alongside my left nostril which no amount of concealer can cover.  It makes me wonder if I should cut-out alcohol altogether so as to avoid looking like a complete wino by my 40^th birthday.  Pffftttt!  After having the girls it would seem that my chest (as in ribcage, perv) has permanently expanded as have other parts that take up a wider area than before.  Although, I will say that I will not be ashamed to put on a bikini this summer provided I keep-up a workout routine and maybe stop eating multiple bags of Cadbury mini-eggs, chocolate birthday cake, and drinking glass bottles of Pepsi.  Guess which one of those was an impulse buy (and in case you’re thinking it was the six bags of Cadbury mini-eggs you would be sadly mistaken).  Anyway, things are not looking good and I can’t wait to see what will happen in the next 7 years…*long pause*

There are other aspects that aren’t so bad, relatively speaking anyway.  While most people get their Bachelor’s degree by the age of 22 I am getting mine this summer at the age of 33.  Maybe not what my parents had in mind but if you ask me I kick-ass more for doing it now than doing it earlier.  I’ve also discovered an ability to run helped along by the fact that I frequently find myself pushing 60 extra pounds of weight around.  I would say those are my two biggest accomplishments for the moment.

So, here I sit.  This year my birthday falls on a Friday and in years past that alone would have been cause for celebration.  As it is, the only thing I can possibly fathom for a fun-filled Friday birthday is to do some homework and maybe get a movie from Redbox.  So, yeah, things have changed.

Confession

Sometimes I do things that I know will upset Alexandra just so she can learn to get over it.

A Brief Glimpse Of Florida

We recently returned from a very nice family vacation in Florida.  We unintentionally took Alex to the Magic Kingdom for her 3rd birthday (unintentional because it was a last minute decision that just so happened to correspond with her birthday); ventured around some sort of aquatic preserve that thankfully we got in for free because I can't see how they can possibly justify the $12 price tag; and took the girls to the Jacksonville Zoo which was just amazing.

The house we stayed in was amazing as well and had a pool with hot tub facing the green of a golf course.  I was more than a little anxious the first day we were there when Marcus opened the sliding glass door and both girls began flitting about the outskirts of the pool.  Josephine is a proficient walker but she made me so nervous with her sometimes wobbly steps and propensity for falling.  "Marcus, isn't she making you nervous, she's making me super nervous!" I said to which he replied "If she falls in I'll go in after her."  At this point I decided it was best for my anxiety and blood pressure to go back into the house because standing around waiting for the inevitable was killing me.  And, yes, the inevitable did happen.  Not but a few minutes after walking into the house a soaking Josephine and half soaking Marcus were standing at the door asking for a towel.  At least, as Marcus's brother pointed out, Marcus did what he said he would and rescued her.  Yeah.

Another aspect of the house was the girls slept slightly farther away from us without the aid of a monitor.  We figured if anything happened we would certainly hear them crying and boy, did we.  On the second night, the entire house awoke to screams of panic:  "MOMMY!  DADDY!!  DADDY!!!!" accompanied by blood curdling screams.  Upon first waking I thought it was our nephew who is 9 months old.  Then, I thought it was Josephine at which point I was ready to completely ignore her.  Then, I thought, wow, Jo sure can enunciate "mommy" and "daddy" really well all of a sudden.  It was at that point I realized it was Alexandra.  (In my defense, it's so uncharacteristic of Alex to wake like this it truly took me by surprise...and especially in the middle of the night.)  Anyway, I imagine Marcus went through the same mental process because once he figured out it was Alex he bolted out of bed and went running.  Apparently she had either falling into/sleepwalked/we really don't know what the hell she did but she had made her way into Jo's pack-and-play which was right next to the king size bed Alex was occupying.  King size bed.  How the hell did she manage to get herself into a position that eventually found her in Jo's tiny a$$ pack-and-play?  It would be like me walking through a pair of open double doors but managing to still walk into the door jamb (or something like that).  Despite her distress, and I felt really bad when I did, but I laughed. 

Overall, the experience was great.  Alexandra, who has a propensity for going berserk (i.e. have complete, and total breakdowns at the drop of a hat) in new settings, was able to keep it in check until the last day or two of our stay.  Josephine seemed to enjoy herself and had only one or two meltdowns that I can recall.  Believe it or not, I'll call that a success! 

Curses (Rated R, Possibly NC-17 For Language)

Does anyone realize how God damn fucking hard it is not to fucking curse around kids?  Really fucking hard.  On the bright side I have been able to stop dropping the f-bomb like a mother fucking boss and now tend to say "frick" which makes me feel like the blonde chick from Scrubs.  Shit has successfully turned into "sugar" though the force with which I say it should constitute it as a curse word.  I was never really one to use the word bitch or ass so those have all but disappeared from my lexicon.  Unfortunately, however, I have picked up using some other, less desirable words like "dumb-dumb" which escapes my lips frequently.  It's not necessarily a bad word but it is mean.  I even used it with Josephine one day when she was about to launch herself off a two foot high ledge.  I did feel bad the second I said it.  Other highly frowned upon terms such as the highly despised God damn and Jesus Christ are new language developments for me and, unfortunately, frequently used in the presence of the girls though usually when they're doing something idiotic like an alligator death role as I'm smearing diaper rash cream on their ass butt.  But God damnit, does anyone know what it's like to have white diaper rash cream get everywhere because your kid is acting like a fucking dumb-dumb?  It's a fucking son-of-a-bitch to clean it up and the rest of the day is spent smelling like a medicine cabinet.  Oh, well.  Some people are absolute saints when it comes to this shit but not me.  It's too God damn hard.

Bathroom Humor

Marcus complained to me the other day about the girls barging into the bathroom while he was using the toilet and how uncomfortable it is for him when they stand on either side of the toilet and watch.  I agree, that would make for an uncomfortable moment especially because they have a habit of just standing there and staring, not blinking.  Plus, being Marcus is a dude, accurate aim is everything in this case.  However, I feel little to no sympathy.  Uncomfortable?  Trust me, you don't know uncomfortable until you've used a tampon with two extra pairs of eyes watching.  Then try and explain what a tampon is to a 3 year old by answering hard hitting questions such as "Are you going to put that in your butt?"  I don't want to hear it.

Mini Rant

I have a girlfriend who is going through the woes of early infancy.  Of course I mean she has a brand new baby, not that she herself is an infant....just to clarify.  Anyway, the baby sounds a lot like Alex in that they both share(d) a fondness for keeping their parents up for hours during the middle of the night for no apparent reason.  So, as many frustrated mother's are known to do, my girlfriend took to Facebook to vent her frustration thus the reason for my frustration.  Although I should specify it is not frustration with my girlfriend but with one asinine comment she received in reply.  The comment basically stated to love every minute of that hours long sleep deprivation in the middle of the night because one day you'll look back fondly and miss it.

Sorry, girlfriend, you won't.  What you will look back on in wonder is how you made it through without murdering anybody.  You'll look back in amazement at how you felt you could run away and never look back only to come out of it relatively unscathed.  You'll be absolutely perplexed how you didn't drink yourself into oblivion or self-medicate to get through it.  To the people who respond with such ridiculousness you must be (or had been) pretty well medicated to think that the first three months of nighttime torture, aka the newborn stage, are anything but.  To tell a new parent such is equally ridiculous and they probably know you're lying anyway so why not just give a friendly pat-on-the-back and move on.

Congratulations! Life Is Going To Suck!

A few friends of mine have recently either just given birth for the first time or announced their first pregnancy.  Every time I hear their happy news I am over the moon happy for them.  All of these women have been a part of my life for so many years that it's a natural reaction.

What I haven't quite figured out, though, is whether or not the reason I'm so happy for them is because I will have one more soul to commiserate with over how sh*tty parenthood can be.  I won't deny I am thrilled that they will get to enjoy the more wonderful parts of being a parent such as when your two year old sniffs your neck and whispers sweetly in your ear "You smell like peanutbutterjelly."  But I also won't deny that I look forward to the day when I see their child acting the fool my own does and all I can do is smile, shake my head, and say "Ah, I see so-and-so is at "that" stage of childhood" and then sit back and talk about all of the things we could be doing if it weren't for the existence of our spawns.  Admittedly, those things generally revolve around merely sipping wine in peace but that's because I've lost all ability to think of anything more cool than that.

Children are difficult.  Obviously.  This Blog wouldn't have continued to exist if they were easy (and if I were slightly more stable).  When they're newborns you're left wondering why the baby slept all night the night before but then wakes up every two hours the next night.  When they become toddlers you're left pondering many a toddler mystery such as why did they start flipping out when I said it was time for lunch?  I haven't made it out of toddler-hood just yet so I'll be sure to add more to the list but for now, that's enough.

In the end, I am thrilled that some of my closest girlfriends are joining me in the never ending quest to figure out why the hell we decided to have children.  I just hope they are as equally unstable as I am because I wouldn't be able to stand it if they actually enjoyed motherhood, pfffttt...

New Year, New Post

I suppose there isn't a better way to start the New Year than by posting a new blog about the New Year.  Or, New Year's Eve specifically.

The evening began rather innocuously.  We had been invited to a kid friendly New Years Eve party so, around 5:00, we made our way over with kiddos in tow.  About 15 minutes after arriving I was regretting that decision as at least half a dozen children ran screaming through the house.  Luckily, our hostess was on top of things and dinner was served very shortly thereafter which brought immediate silence.  A second luckily was that the house was stocked to the gills with alcohol so those who weren't DD could silence the children in their minds.  What?  Yeah, I said it was a kid friendly New Years Eve party.  In our group that means at 8:00 the kids get to ring in the New Year then go to bed while the adults continue to have fun.

With that being said, we opted for taking the girls home rather than staying through to midnight to avoid being on the roads with crazies and to avoid trying to get the girls to sleep in a strange house only to wake them a few hours later.

So, by 9:30 our girls were in their "own" beds (technically we've been staying at my in-laws for the last two weeks) and Marcus and I were hanging out when his parents came in from their own New Years Eve festivities which entailed the local town's celebration aimed towards families.  On a whim (perhaps a slightly drunken one) I convinced Marcus to take the passes his parent's purchased and go check it out because I, in the 20+ years living in this town, have never made it to the local celebration.  Grudgingly, Marcus agreed.  I think he had already been once before so knew the disappointment that lay ahead.

Needless to say, without saying a word (is that redundant?), Marcus was right and after about half an hour we decided to go home and made our way back to the car.  Marcus thought it would be fun to see how the other half lives (i.e. those who were partying hard at the local bars) and we took the long way to the car passing bars as we went.  As we passed one place in particular we saw a friend of ours serving and decided to pay him a visit despite the fact it was packed.  What we failed to notice was the place was packed with cougars and it wasn't until we had drinks in hand and a place to sit that we took a good look around and realized we were greatly outnumbered.

There is nothing more exhilarating than seeing a pack of cougars in action.  One group of ladies in particular really caught our eye and we watched them with great interest.  All were dressed for an occasion far fancier than a New Years Eve celebration at a local bar/Italian restaurant.  In truth, they all looked fabulous but I suppose that's what sets a cougar apart from others.  They all sipped their drinks as they shimmied but only slightly for fear of losing their spot at the bar.  As I leaned-in to give our bartender friend a kiss over the bar I felt all eyes on me, probably trying to ascertain who the poorly dressed ruffian was moving in on their territory (in truth, I was dressed to be outside not in a bar competing for man flesh).  I think they quickly wrote me off when our friend gave Marcus (in his well worn Virginia Tech hoodie) a jovial handshake and realized I was not a threat as I was there with an equally poorly dressed partner.  Later I regretted not sending Marcus into the fray to see what constitutes cougar prey.  Next time.

As the midnight hour struck Marcus and I gave each other a quick kiss then turned our attention to more important matters like how the cougars had somehow found the youngest guys in the bar to suck face with.  They were questionably making out with the busboys but my judgment was skewed by this point in time and really, the idea of these well-dressed 40 something's sucking face with busboys is way more entertaining than what I'm sure is the truth.

Suffice to say, these poorly dressed, parents of two toddlers decided that midnight was late enough and we eventually made our way to the car and home.  I learned a lot that night.  One:  Cougars get what they want.  Two:  Despite the fact I wasn't dressed like a Robert Palmer chick I apparently still have the ability to make others uncomfortable with my awesome presence.  Then Marcus comes along and ruins it.