You would think that being the only girl in the house that I would not be surprised with the grunting that goes on here. I mean my husband has been known to nod at me and grunt and I would know that means, “Why yes I would love another beer sweetie.” and that a long grunt with eyes closed while at the dinner table and eating a dinner I made means, “Oh my goodness honey, you out did yourself. The cabernet savignion bouquet paired with the fillet mignion and the red wine reduction sauce is outstanding with your roasted garlic mashed potatoes.”.

I learned quickly what my first son was trying to communicate with grunts and hand gestures when he was an infant. He was much more focused on learning and mastering physical milestones, he was all about stacking blocks and figuring out how to use his legos before one.

Now, with my second son I am often in awe over how well he communicates already as an infant. He is a great mimic and sounds like he is using words. No, this isn’t the delusion of a proud mom. I have had other people confirm that he is trying to imitate words being said and he is pretty darn good at it. My son has his clear and concise way of communicating when he wants to eat, play, and crawl. I officially can’t say he didn’t tell me when he needs or wants something.

My eldest loves learning new words and regularly amazes me. Of late he loves to say, “I suppose.”, and uses the perfect inflection when saying it. He uses other fantastic phrases and only likes to use them when he understands their meaning and asks you to say it so he can get the pronunciation down pat then put his own spin on it. My favorite is when someone is trying to talk about something and they don’t understand a word he uses, he then says it perfectly in an exasperated tone that says, ‘duh.’. Yes my children are a wee bit snobby.

So I have the caveman, short hand communication down pat with my guys and the one that is the biggest fan of communicating with grunts is the big one, you know, my husband and their father. Who would have guessed?

When Amazon announced it’s Authoritative DNS service, cheekily named Route 53 a few things popped into my head immediately. First, this should be a much easier way to get the effects of Dynamic DNS which we were currently leveraging DNS Made Easy for. Secondly, I wonder how much of a performance boost using it might provide.

We all have them, some are easier than other but they all have their own level of awkwardness no matter how many times we rehearse what we are going to say.

The hard conversations I have had are numerous from the awkward “I have a crush on you. Do you like me?” to “Do you want to get married?” to “What kind of discipline do you want use for our future children?”. Now that I’m starting to have those hard conversations with our children, you would think that that would be far off into the future but no. Now that my three year old is becoming aware of the differences in people be it size or color or hair types I realized we need to start making sure he knows his background is and understands that we all make up a beautiful rainbow that is the world.

Our first conversation went over better than I expected and left me in awe over the mind of a three year old. It went something like this:

M: “Q, did you know that you are black, Mexican, Native American, and white?”

Q: “I black? I white? I Mexican like Dora? Wow!”

M: “Yes you are all of those things.”

Q: “I black! I change color some day?!”

This is the point where I walked out of the room hysterically laughing, we are talking doubled over, couldn’t breathe, tears streaming down my face. Have I mentioned how awesome my kids are? Because they are AWESOME!

That’s me, I am the odd woman out in my home. I have two boys and my husband and often it feels like an all boy house as I cuddle in my favorite spot on the couch and attempt to read something girly. I’m happy to have my boys, they are awesome, I wouldn’t trade either of them for a girl ever. I find that all the boys get kind of quiet as my husband works on something techie, car related, or yard work related in their presence.

Now that my 3 year old is becoming aware of everything and wants to talk about everything he likes to remind me that I’m different. I’m shorter than my husband, by over a foot, I have curly hair he has straight hair, etc. His newest epiphany? Penises. Good times, let me tell you.

We had the following conversation:

3yr old: “I has a pianus.”

Me: “Yes you do.”

3yr old: “Baby brother has a pianus.”

Me: “Yes he does.”

3yr old: “Daddy has a pianus.”

Me: “Yes he does, good job son.”

3yr old: “You has a pianus?”

Me: “No I do not.”

3yr old: Looks at me shocked and with pity, “You not has a pianus mommy?”

Me: “No son, I don’t have a penis. I’m a girl and girls don’t have penises.”

3yr old: Furrows brows and gives me a concerned look, “Mommy not has a pianus.”

Me: “Yes son, I do not have a penis.”

3yr old: Smiles, “But Daddy and baby brother and me has a pianus.”

Me: “Right again son. Good job.”

I’m not sure my son will ever look at me the same way again now knowing that not only do I have lactating breasts but I don’t have a penis. He really seemed to be so concerned that I didn’t have such an important body part. I laughed hysterically after he left the room. I think his epiphanies will often leave me cracking up even when it means I am in fact the odd woman out.

Last week, I told you how you can use Amazon’s Identity and Access Management (IAM) offering to better secure the services and tools you use to manage your AWS environment with service accounts. Well on February 14th IAM got that much sweeter when they opened up the ability for IAM users to login to the AWS Console.

You know those moments when you are ready for a change, something big that will put some pep in your step? I have an afro. It has taken years to get it this long. My boys know nothing but me with braids or wearing my afro big. Every now and again I consider chopping it short like it was on my wedding day or for fun to straighten my hair for a minute or dying my hair. When I consider this I wonder how my boys would respond, if they would recognize me as their mom or if they would be upset by such a drastic change.

There are days that I wonder about plastic surgery, you know whether or not to get the mommy make over when the boys are grown. I’m talking tummy tuck, breast lift, and implants…right now there is no way that is happening. Other than the brutal recovery while trying to take care of my kids I also wonder what kind of example I would be setting. I’m queen of love yourself for yourself, embrace who you are so it feels like I would be hypocritical to change myself via plastic surgery. I wonder what that would say to my boys about what is important about the qualities of a woman.

Now I don’t judge nor encourage others to judge that may want to do cosmetic surgery. I am amazed by the actual surgeries, fancinated with the implants and techniques and amazed by the end results. I just don’t know if I personally can do it and still be me.

I remember just going and doing things for myself and now I have to think of the impact that my decisions may have on my baby boys. Things sure got complicated.

I was told on numerous occasions by the veterans of motherhood that you’d be amazed with the strange things you will, not may, but will say. It’s completely true. I was amazed by the truth of it when i had my first child, but the things that have come out of my mouth since having my second, dear lord! They are so out there that even I find myself repeating them out of shock and amazement.

Son, don’t headbutt me.

Stop sniffing your brother’s butt!”

Seriously son, look where you’re running. You will run into a wall like you did last time if you don’t look ahead!

Whatever your name is, stop it!

I regularly consider sharing these comical statements with family and other times I wonder if I’m the first one having to say some of these things. I know I’m not but dear lord I would love to meet some moms out there having to yell things like;

It’s not nice to drool all over your brother. I just put him in that outfit.

Or the ever embarrassing;

Please don’t bite my butt! That’s gross!

I’ve been making use of Amazon Web Services (AWS) quite a lot lately. In order to really enjoy the benefits of Cloud Computing (automation, agility, etc) I’ve had to use a number of tools to interact with AWS on my behalf.

All of these external tools ask for the same thing to enable them to make AWS API calls, your AWS Access Key ID, and your AWS Secret Access Key. Common practice is usually to just hand over the main set of these credentials, but there is a better (more secure) way, using Amazon Identity and Access Management (IAM).

My mom is one of the finest multitaskers, she did fantastic job of raising my sister and I as a single parent. I watched her on numerous occasions doing a million different tasks at once and doing so with a smile. I have no idea how she did it but she did it well.

Now that I have my own little family I find myself trying to be just like my mom, if not her than just like her mom (Grandmas rock, just sayin’). I love to say those little sayings that they drilled in my mind, you know like, “Be thankful you have to wash dishes because that meant you had food to eat.”. I say these things often grumbling under my breath at first but by the time I finish the phrase I can’t help but smile.

So when I’m doing puzzles on the floor with my toddler while breastfeeding my baby and hear the dishwasher running along with the washer and dryer I can’t help but grin from ear to ear as this means that I am doing what my mom and her mom and her mom before her have done for centuries. Taking care of my kids at the best of my ability with a smile on my face. Yet I can’t help but crack up when I answer the door while breastfeeding my baby and my toddler running around my feet and seeing my mom laugh with me (I’m pretty sure she isn’t laughing at me). I learned from the best. :–)

I have been kindly blessed with two beautiful boys. My eldest is going to be three soon and my youngest is six months old. They are amazing, interested in everything, and are already best friends. I know it sounds silly but when I was pregnant my youngest would kick furiously when his big brother was near. He still does this to this day, with a giant smile as he crawls towards his big brother. My eldest is simply in awe over the fact that his little brother is just like him only small and with fewer teeth. He regularly checks on his baby brother, tries to play games with him and loves to ‘read’ to him.

I do have a problem, and that problem is the youngest is trying to do everything his brother is already doing. Then the oldest is trying to be just like his daddy, which is wonderful but I was planning on having a little toddler for a bit longer darn it all. I love and adore these children and good grief they keep me on my toes from morning to night every day and I’m loving every second of it. My boys are still new and newer to me, will be forever I’m sure.