By Shannon Magsam, Ladybug’s mama

I’ve been making picture albums for my husband’s family for Christmas and at one point last night I had a whole year’s worth of milestones covering the floor of the living room — a full-color photo testament to all the cool things my daughter did for the first time this year. When she was a baby, I documented every move: when she smiled, rolled over, walked, talked and started going pee-pee in the potty. But there are always a series of “firsts”, no matter how old she gets.

A partial list of the firsts from 2008:

• Got pneumonia. On her sixth birthday.
• Finished kindergarten
• Learned how to swim
• Rode her first big roller coaster in Hershey Park
• Walked on the boardwalk on her own two feet
• Visited New York City
• Took a trip on the subway
• Caught a fish all by herself
• Started first grade
• Lost her first tooth
• Learned how to ride a two-wheeler bike (Look ma, no training wheels!)
• Was a flower girl in a wedding
• Took her first horseback riding lesson
• Had her first sleepover (at home and away)

All those pictures reminded me again just how fast it all really goes by. I know that way before I’m ready, her year-end list will include things like drove a car for the first time and went on her first real date. It also reminds me that we’re never too old to add “firsts” of our own every year. We never stop learning.

What did you do for the first time in 2008?

By Shannon Magsam

So I saw this calendar at the Northwest Arkansas Mall the other day called Porn for Women. I have to tell you I was definitely breathing hard after flipping through January to December — from laughing so uproariously that I nearly wheezed.

My husband heard me from across the Calendar Club store and had to come over and see what was so funny.

The calendar features 12 months of manly men stocking the house with chocolate, encouraging women to talk without offering them a solution, cheerfully cleaning out the cat box and so many more sexy sentiments. They even have Porn for New Moms edition, which would be a perfect girlfriend gift for the newly-minted mother.

In this calendar, men insist on changing diapers and say hot things like, “No, you relax for a while. I’ve figured out how to fold everything one-handed.”

And my personal favorite: “Don’t worry, honey. Your mother and I will take wonderful care of the baby while you and your girlfriends are at the spa.”

This would also make a funny baby shower gift.

If you were to write a page in one of these calendars, what could your man say to make you swoon?

And now on to the next thing that made me laugh hysterically: This video helps remind your guy that good gift-giving is necessary lest he end up in the doghouse. Click HERE if you can stifle laughter at work, you’re not in danger of waking a sleeping baby and/or you’re not drinking anything that you wouldn’t mind squirting out of your nose.

Wasn’t that funny?!

Now, quickly, on to something else I read about this week that I really thought was bizarre: THIS PRODUCT for when you apparently need to go out and tie one on while breastfeeding. I read about milkscreen from one of my favorite bloggers. I was frankly surprised when she endorsed, rather than ridiculed, the product.

Have another opinion? Lay it on me.

By Shannon Magsam, Ladybug’s mother

Yesterday afternoon I ran out the front door on my way to a holiday event — barefoot. My black high heels were still in the car from the last work thing I’d attended. I’d slipped them off in the car in favor of a cushy pair.

When I stuck my right foot into the shoe I could feel something weird near my big toe. Upon further examination, I saw that it was a petrified French fry. I looked around my car and saw exactly how a greasy, hardened French fry could end up in my shoe. You see, it’s a little harried around here right now and we’re scarfing down way too many take-out meals. When you pull up to a drive-through and have to throw away three used cups to make room for the next one, you’re eating out way too freaking much. At least I know I’m not alone. Fast-food restaurants never used to have trash cans near the drive-through window, but now they all do. Because people are practically living out of their cars!

Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, I’m busy. I know, I know, who isn’t, right? We busy ourselves to death. Right now I’m really paying for it with the kid. She has been a bit, er, argumentative lately. Yes, I know she’s at an age where she’s learning waaaay too many smarty pants phrases at school (”Uh, yeah, mom, I get it”), but she’s really over the top lately. The other night as we drove home from a fun birthday party she got mad because I said no when she asked to go to Red Robin for dinner. I wanted to scream at her about being ungrateful, how she just got finished with a birthday party, for gosh sakes, not to mention all the other fun things we’d done over the weekend, but I resisted the urge and gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.

When she started kicking the back of the seat in a tantrum reminiscent of her 2-year-old self, I broke. Through clenched teeth, I hissed: “If you say another word about Red Robin or say another rude thing to me, or kick the seat, or yell, or whine (you gotta be specific, what with all the loopholes this kind of ultimatum can have) you will go straight to time out when we get home and stay there for a very, very, very long time.” And then I added, because Lord knows we sometimes fail to follow through, “And I mean it!”

Within seconds she was making sounds which would definitely not qualify her for a loophole. I didn’t say a word. When I stopped the car at home, I got out to escort her to her bedroom. To prevent that, she transformed into a living boulder and clung to her booster seat. It took all my strength (she’s 50-something pounds and I’m really short) but I hauled her screaming Linda B Blair self out of the car and into her room. My blood pressure was so high I thought I might have a stroke any minute. She stayed in her room (after the half-drag, half-carry it took to get her there) and I took deep breaths in the kitchen. When my husband made a move to go into the room, I halted him with a scathing look that said, “I started this, I’ll finish it.”

At one point, she yelled out, “You don’t care one thing about me, mother! Not one teeny tiny bit!” I recall the transition from using the words mom and mama to MOTHER when I was a teenager.
In the end I asked my husband to go in to talk to her. After he chatted with her for a long time she came out, contrite, to apologize. I still felt quite disgruntled, but said “Of course” when she asked if I would forgive her. Good example and all that.

Understatement of the year: Sometimes this mothering thing is just … hard.

Hi, dearhearts. No real post here today. Gwen and I are tending a booth at Candy Candy Lane at the Clarion Hotel in Bentonville from noon to 8 p.m. Come by and say hello! I’ll be the one with the bad haircut. Can somebody please tell me why, when my normal hairdresser was unexpectedly out when I arrived for my appointment last week, I said yes to letting a different person cut my hair? And can you also tell me why, when the haircut was finished and I really wasn’t satisfied, I gave said hairdresser a better tip than I give my regular one? These are mysteries, truly.

So, anyway, come by Candy Cane Lane if you can and sign up for a Bath Junkie gift basket or get some free candy-cane scented Bath Junkie lotion from our booth. Talk to you next week when my head is not about to explode (I hope). Did I mention a sinus headache that has lasted a week? Well, it hurts. The end.

P.S. — My head is also hurting because my daughter divulged a secret two nights ago. It seems she’s “in love.” Doesn’t that make your head hurt?