Hair Styling Instructor $144

Today I got my hair cut.

Finally!

For 6 months I've been wanting to cut it but I keep getting talked out of it by an anonymous person (Husbando, you know who you are).

My beloved hair dresser of lord only knows how many years came to my mother's house tonight to do our hair.

Bellerina was of course sticking her nose right in the middle of everything! So we spent a good part of the time explaining to her that Mama was getting her hair cut, and that Nana had been taken over by aliens.

She thought that the foils in Nana's hair were the funniest thing ever! If anyone reading this didn't know my mom highlights her hair, then I'm talking about a fictional person, of course.

So Bellerina got a full lesson in cutting and coloring hair, but I assure you that no scissors are going near those gorgeous locks until she's like 3!

Sub Shop Delivery Driver $64

Ok, so I was cook, packer and delivery driver, and I supposed technically I should include "plus tips" next to my $8 an hour salary but you get the idea!

Today I packed up a yummy picnic for the family and we went and had an al fresco lunch in the hopes that some fresh air would get rid of the horrible nose cold that Bellerina has.

It totally didn't work but we had a pretty good lunch, if I do say so myself.

I drove over to a little park just past Easton center loaded down with a mozzarella and guacamole sandwich for Bellerina, with a side of dill pickle and some fresh cut watermelon for dessert.

She is obsessed with guacamole, the more lemon and garlic, the better.

Definitely inherited her tastebuds from her parents!

The picnic was delicious, and afterwards there were S-W-I-N-G-S! But they didn't seem to knock the snot out of her. Darn it.

Barnes and Noble Theft Recovery $64

Yes, I should have known better then to bring Bellerina in to Barnes and Noble.

Rookie mistake.

In line checking out what is eye level for her?

One of the books that she has at home.

She doesn't seem to understand why I'm taking it out of her hands and putting it back on the shelf.

Initiate screaming.

I saved Barnes and Noble from a rouge baby book stealing ring.

Ninja $190

No one can escape the Kleenex Ninja Mama.

No one.

You can try to hide that snotty nose with a quick backhand across your nostrils, but Kleenex Ninja Mama will always get there first.

Her steely determination to save your hair and hands from snot makes her unstoppable.

Hiya!

Flight Attendant $192

Taking a child on an airplane is a scarier experience then giving birth.

Giving birth is natural.

Sticking 150 people 1/2" away from total strangers in a hot metal tube and suspending them 20,000 feet over land is not.

I was well stocked.

A half hour in to the flight I supplied her with a pillow (me), and she took a nice nap.

When she woke up we started our in flight service of a cold 7 ounces of milk, followed by a quick diaper change.

Then we had a nice dinner of banana and Cheerios while watching an in flight cartoon.

Aside from minor fussing, and the probably less than cute habit of saying "hi" to the woman next to me 25 times, it went well.

Restaurant Critic $288

Cafe Gabbiano, Siesta Key, FL.

5 stars from both myself and Bellerina.

I will start with Bellerina's assessment, she had the super fancy meatball and ziti with sauce. She was literally flapping her arms with joy every time she was given a bite of the meatball and she "Mmmmm"ed with each piece of pasta. How did I know that she gave it five stars? Every time I took longer then 17 seconds to give her the next piece she yelled "EAT! EAT!".

Now, those of you who know me will know that this next statement is not to be taken lightly:

I had the best meal I've ever eaten in my life there. Ever.

A whole Dover sole, deboned table side, in a white wine and butter sauce with escarole sauteed with garlic slivers.

The fish was a pillow goodness, perfectly cooked, with an amazing, not overpowering sauce.

If you are ever in FL, within an hour drive, go. It's located in a strip mall, but don't let that deter you, gorgeous interior, phenomenal food. My father is probably still talking about his veal.

Baggage Handler $85

Bellerina's baggage tag should read:

Falmouth->Brockton->Tampa

The Brockton layover is approximately 11 hours.

I managed to get everything she needed there, on time, and without massive damage.

Though a container of baby shampoo weaseled its way out of the safety of a plastic bag, and managed to hit two dresses, no major disasters.

I rule.

Samaritan $0

When I say Samaritan here, I'm not just referring to a nice person who picks your $5 off the sidewalk when you drop it and runs to catch up with you and return it.

I'm talking about the people you call when you're about to jump off a bridge. They have a sign when you're heading on to the Bourne Bridge, just in case you're super ambitious and seriously depressed at the same time. (It would be almost literally impossible to maneuver your way in to a jumpable position on the Bourne Bridge)

Today I spent 20 minutes trying to convince Bellerina that it was not actually the world's most horrible travesty that Mama and Dada wanted to take a family portrait on the beach. In fact, it could be kind of fun if she would just smile.

Just one teeny little smile.

Teeny.

Things will get better, it's going to be ok, you can do this, just one picture at a time, you're a lucky little girl...etc...etc.

I failed.

DPW employee $173

Typically if there is something wrong with your water, you call your city's DPW office and chat with a secretary for a few minutes, who assigns your job to a field worker, and eventually someone shows up and messes around with a fire hydrant outside, comes in your house with a wrench and jiggles a few things then tells you to give it 10 minutes and it should be all set.

Can you see that I've gone through this a few times?

Today I had a more direct line to my disgruntled water customer.

It went something like this:

Step 1: Fill bucket in the ocean, bring blanket side to baby so she can play with water and be under the umbrella.

Step 2: Watch as water gets dumped all over your towel.

Step 3: Interpret baby screams.

Step 4: Repeat process

I was a water hauling mule for hours. But it was worth every second when she waged war on the bunnies we made with the wet sand. She even had a battle cry, "Bye-Bye Bunny!" before she squished each one in to oblivion.

Optometrist $403

On the reverse coin of last night's awe inspiring psychological journey in to the wonder of loving your child I woke up this morning to a finger in the eye.

At around 5:45am Bellerina woke up and couldn't put herself back to sleep, strange room, 9 hours of sleep already, just a general non-conducive situation.

So I laid down in bed with her hoping to lull her back to sleep and squeeze in an extra hour for myself.

At approximately 6:45 I woke up to, "Eye...Eye...Eye" accompanied by a delightful stabbing to my left retina.

On the upside, I can still see. On the downside, I think she's figured out that is a fast way to wake up Mommy.

Psychologist $300

Since Bellerina is in a new environment this week she needs a little more TLC before she can fall asleep.

Usually I find this to be a annoyance.

But as I was laying there tonight, next to my baby, watching her stare back at me, with her hand on my arm, all cuddled up, I was just completely overcome with emotion.

How is it possible to love one little thing this much?

Shouldn't I just explode from this?

How can I so often overlook the adorable and precious moments like this because I'm more concerned that she's not following her normal sleep routine?

It was a good reminder that I need to slow down and enjoy what's around me, and every precious minute that I get with her.

Especially the ones that make your heart swell up so big that you're certain it's not normal.

Weight Watchers Consultant $104

Before you crucify me for saying I was a Weight Watchers consultant to a baby, let me explain!

To make it down the Cape for our vacation without sitting in 1,000 hours of traffic at the bridge we left at 7am. Of course, we couldn't check in to our cottage until noon.

The solution to killing that much time with a baby starts with breakfast.

Bellerina got a special treat, blueberry pancakes.

I ordered the children's size.

I'm not sure how large the children are who typically go to this restaurant, but clearly they only serve children of NBA players, who are trying to break Guiness World Records.

When Bellerina's pancakes came (that's right, plural), there were two enormous plate sized pancakes stacked on top of each other. Without exaggeration I'm guessing 10 inches across, with a 3/4 inch thickness. Insane.

Bellerina was undaunted as she dove in to the blueberry goodness.

After she had finished 3/4 of the first pancake, and showed no signs of slowing down I literally couldn't watch her eat anymore.

Where she put 6 pounds of pancake I still haven't figured out.

But I totally called breakfast on her and removed the pancake.

Personal Assistant $146

True story: I was getting my hair done at a salon in Norwell once and the girl in the chair next to me was Steven Tyler's personal assistant. And she spent the whole 45 minutes she was there complaining about how she had to go to his house at 11pm that night and pack his bags after he went to sleep so that they were ready when he woke up the next day to go to Malaysia or something crazy.

Today I was her.

Bellerina is asleep.

Tomorrow morning she will magically have a bag with her favorite clothes, toys, books (Ain't Gonna Paint No More has come out of retirement), diapers, sippy cups...you know, pretty much everything that Steven Tyler probably wants packed too.

And when she gets up her personal assistant will whisk her in to an outfit, and out the door for a 1st class travel experience, she will be deposited in front of a stack of blueberry pancakes before she realizes she's even awake.

I think that I would rather be Bellerina than Steven Tyler though. Her bag will be packed and waiting tomorrow morning, but she didn't have to suffer through 20 years of brain damage to get that service.

PS In case anyone cares...is anyone reading this?...we're on vacation next week, I will update when I can, but I'll still be keeping track for a big update next Saturday night! So don't give up on me, I'll be writing while I'm beaching it!

Mythbuster $1,000

When my mother's generation was having babies someone perpetuated a myth that she found out first hand today is in fact just that, a myth, totally unfounded in reality.

The incident that destroyed this myth forever went something like this:

Bellerina is in the tub at my mom's house.

Bellerina looks at my mom and says "poop".

Nana replies "No, no honey, babies don't poop in the tub".

3 second pause

"Oh my God! You pooped in the tub!!!"

Bellerina then looks at my mom as if to say "Did I not just tell you I was pooping? Why are you surprised?"

So my mother got Bellerina out of the tub, got out a plastic bag and used it to scoop poop out of the tub as though she was taking a dog for a walk, and then proceeded to immediately bleach the tub.

Moral of the story, when Bellerina was younger I expressed concern about an incident like this to my mother who said "Babies don't poop in the tub".

Myth Busted!

Lawyer in a Custody Battle $369

Bellerina is very blessed to have two loving aunts on my father's side. They are alike in a few ways, dark, curly, slightly untamable hair, astounding artistic ability, and a constant desire to be the one and only person Bellerina is paying attention to.

I am equally as lucky as my daughter, because I get to go to the beach, and they spend so much time fighting over who is going to watch her that I actually get to tan for more then 6 minutes!

So today there was a lot of "I'm taking her in to the water", "Fine then, I'm coming too!".

And plenty of glares while one was feeding her.

And of course, the obligatory yelling to get her attention while the other aunt is holding her.

She just loves the heck out of both of them, and she can say both their names, so no one is on top of that contest.

Fortunately today we had amicable joint custody!

Newspaper Reporter $131

I wrote a fun personal interest story today.

It wasn't actually for a newspaper, it was for my friend who I haven't seen in many moons.

Details of Bellerina's latest achievements, walking, talking, poking me in the eye to wake me up (with her feet).

I had to fit enough useful information in to keep her reading, when you have a baby you might want to look in to getting a Bumbo, without turning in to Dr. Spock.

And of course, I had to brag about Bellerina enough to make me happy, but not so much that she just skimmed the whole email.

All in all I think I put together a good piece, hopefully I get a letter to the editor back with a few witty comments about the things I said.

But, it might just go out in to the abyss of written but not read.

I guess that's the chance you take when you're reporting on something you love, but your readers don't feel quite the same way about!

Public Relations Representative $269

My sister in law and her fiancee had a super fantastically beautiful engagement party!

It was a perfect, intimate, friends and family meet and greet!

Bellerina was not as in love with it as I was.

She was totally overwhelmed when 43 people descended on my in-laws house.

Therefore I spent the majority of the night covering up for her bad behavior:

"Usually she doesn't scowl like this, I think she's a little overwhelmed"

"She smiles when you call her name, try that!" (Secretly tickling her foot)

Of course, everyone was a lot more understanding then if my client was shaving her head and beating cars with umbrellas, not that I've ever heard of anyone doing that, I'm just saying that PR Reps job would be a lot harder then mine was.

She pulled through in the end, once she isolated herself in front of a book of pictures of my husband as a baby, the smiles came out and she was jolly as could be. Of course, we got sneaky photographic evidence of this, because no one at the party would believe us.

Calligrapher $100

I'm a very lucky girl and my sister in law totally trusts me.

So she let me do the calligraphy on a sign that she was posting for her beautiful engagement party!

So while Annabelle was being entertained elsewhere I was able to write out a little something without worrying about getting a pen up the nose.

Last time I tried to write something and make it look pretty it ended badly.

Very badly.

Pen on my outfit, her dress, the floor....etc.

So it's a good thing I had all my in laws around while I was doing this!

Archaeologist $153

I delved in to the depths of a very scary, rarely trafficked, ancient burial ground.

It translates roughly in to English as "Bottom of the Diaper Bag".

There I found a few extraordinary artifacts.

First, what appears to be a Cheerio, though it has a strange gummy texture to it.

Second, a silver hoop remnant. I believe that it hails from a time when I used to wear these things called earrings without fear that I would lose a lobe.

Third, the artifact that I had been searching for, the very illusive small doll named Wendy.

Baby and toy have been reunited and my findings have been carefully recorded for posterity.

Professional Gift Wrapper $64

I just wrapped up an absolutely exquisite, totally stupendously awesome gift that I can't tell you anything about.

I fear that my SIL will read this blog post.

Therefore, the remainder of this post is on hold until Sunday. I will update it then with the best Engagement party gift idea ever, and a photo of how to wrap it like a pro! :)

Stay tuned.

Update: Here's a picture of Matt and Amanda's Engagement Survival Kit! Complete with a Spanish-English dictionary, Tylenol, the movie "How to Murder Your Wife" and of course, coffee!! Because no one can survive an engagement without caffeine.

Elementary School Teacher $173

I can picture being in elementary school, around 2nd grade maybe? And reciting the answers to math problems as a class. "10 plus 14 is?" And the whole class would chorus "24"....or something close to that number anyways.

Today, my daughter blew me away with her memorization!

Totally joking around I said "B is for" and she immediately responded "Bus!"...ummm...ok... "C is for" answered by "Clown!"...totally freaky. Of course, she has NO idea what a B or a C are, she is just memorizing one of her ABC books.

Which isn't too surprising considering that I spend half my life reading to her. And so does the husbando and her Nana.

But nonetheless I'm still impressed that my 14 month old has that kind of memory!

Of course her best line of the night?

Mama said "I am Eloise I am..." and Bellerina said "Six!".

And I think we all know that the only things you need to learn in life you learn from Eloise. Now if you'll excuse I have to go schlomp down the hall to bed.