On why I blog...

When last I blogged I was adjusting to life with two kids. Life was not perfect but it was good. I had this sweet happy little baby who made my heart melt with each little coo. He was so content and mellow, completely opposite of my first active little guy. Which speaking of my first, he too had mellowed out considerably once his last teeth came in, and he entered a very fun age where activities could be completed and not just chewed on. We were adjusting, I wasn't sleeping through the night but aside from that I was loving life with my little guys. Summer came and I compiled a list of 50+ things I wanted to do ranging from trips to the zoo, to making ice cream, to taking nature walks. All in the name of enjoying summertime. But life has a way of keeping you on your toes. The moment that you think you have things under control... things suddenly change. For me the change came with the appearance of two little pink lines. I was pregnant... again. With my baby being only 6 months old, this was a complete shock. It should not have been possible and yet it was. I was not handling things well. I was just getting used to having two kids, I was not ready for this. I was scared, confused, frustrated, and feeling terribly guilty. I knew it would be very stressful being pregnant with two kids (then two and under) not to mention having three kids so very close together. I was already exhausted by the end of the day, already feeling stretched thin between these two children vying for attention and now I was going to be adding a baby on top of it all. I could not see how I was going to be able to do it all, and why I was being asked to do it in the first place. One day I was looking at a friends blog, I knew she had kids pretty close together and I was trying to psych myself up, trying to prove to myself that it was possible. I happened upon a post that she wrote about how she got pregnant with her third child. It sounded amazingly familiar, failed birth control, utter shock and three kids very close together. She talked about how hard it was for her when she found out, how she struggled with the news and how she got through it. As I read I felt amazingly close to this women that I know better from her blog than in person. I felt more calm than I had in months, as I read how she had come to the conclusion that she felt that her child coming to there family was an act of God, that the only way to explain why it happened despite their efforts to prevent it was that it was in Gods hands. As I read I knew that this was the exact situation I now found myself in. It was out of my hands, it was something that I was being called to do rather than something I was going to get a choice in. In return I got to have the opportunity to have faith that it would all work out. A few weeks after reading her blog I went back to write a comment, to tell her how much her words had helped me through a hard time. But when I went through her blog the post was gone. Lately I have been thinking about this a lot, I stopped blogging for a while because I didn't really know why I was doing it. People blog for different reasons they share their talents, a glimpse into their families, and sometimes for business purposes. I wasn't really doing any of those things on this blog. I was just writing the random sometimes comical happenings of family. But after this experience I know now why I blog. To let you know that they are not alone. Life is hard, and it's even worse when you feel like you are the only one. Just knowing that someone else has been there and gotten through it sometimes makes all the difference.

on looking through the eyes of my two year old...

Cubs is two...

 Technically he has only been two for the last 4 months. But he has been acting "TWO" for the last year...

 The terrible two are exactly as they sound... TERRIBLE.

And although I have paid my dues for a year, technically I still have 8 more months until he is three, so that means 8 MORE MONTHS of the twos!

Recently we have reached a new stage of the twos.

The days of screaming hysterically at the drop of a hat for no reason at all have pretty much stopped. This is partially due to the fact that before he could not tell you what he wanted so he would just lose it. Now he knows what he wants and is able to ask for it. Of course when what he is asking for is to run around the house with a permanent ink pen or eat an entire plate of cookies and you answer "NO", it still elicits the same response but at least now you have a warning.

Still life with this little guy can sure be frustrating. I am amazed at how many times I say NO in the course of my day. And how I can tell him something 4,357,968,467 times and yet he acts like it is brand new information every time. Things like "don't dump an entire glass of juice on the floor" or "you only take ONE piece of sacrament bread". Which directly translates into a sticky child sitting on time out most everyday and me dragging a screaming child out of church with his mouth stuffed with half of the tray of bread every Sunday.

My mom had some words of wisdom for me, probably from dealing with those crazy brothers of mine. She said that you have to look at things the way he does, through the eyes of a two year old. For example to him the impressive wave caused by dumping a glass full of juice on the floor and the added bonus of then being able to splash in the contents would be pretty cool if you were two and not worried about cleaning up the mess but rather living in the moment. Or when you see that tray pass by overflowing with bread, one piece of bread would be good, but a whole handful would be better! In a way it does kind of make sense. And although they know full well that mom said NO sometimes curiosity just gets the better of them

The other day my mom and I were walking through Target. Squish was sleeping peacefully in the car seat perched in the front of the cart and Cubs was playing with our assorted purchases in the back. When we passed by two children who had successfully finagled their way out of their respective carts and had now taken to racing up and down the isle. Cubs observed them for a moment and then swung one leg over the edge of the cart and announced that he wanted to get out. I attempted to convince him of the benefits of being trapped in the cart by using flowery language such as FUN and WOW!

 Then finally as distraction was clearly not working I asked the question "now why would you want to get out?" in the hopes that the answer would be "you know mom... I don't know. You make a lot of sense. Lets move on." It was a stupid question and the answer was simply "run." Because you see a two year old does not find great joy in shopping. Being stuck in a cart with nothing but a bottle of shampoo and some paper towel to play with while you mother compares prices of cleaning detergents is not actually very exciting. However, running up and down the isles narrowly dodging stacks of glass platters and nearly giving your mother a heart attack, sounds like good fun.

So I have decided to try and see things as my two year old does. Realize that he finds great joy and excitement in discovering things even though it makes my head hurt. And that I am now no longer able to go shopping with my children, I can go buying but not shopping. Meaning that when I enter the store I need to have a clear plan, get in grab a few things and get out quickly.

on an introduction...

Now that there are two little boys in my life I am realizing that blogging without using there names will get very confusing. So I will be using nicknames...

Meet Squish the newest member of our family...

and yes I really call him that.

Take one look and those cheeks and tell me that nickname doesn't fit.

A nickname for our first child is a little harder

Crazy ball of endless energy is kind of a long nickname...

So we'll have to go with an old one... cub or cubs or cubby. He earned this for not crawling on his knees like a normal child but rather doing the most amazing bear crawl I have ever seen...

And those are my boys.

on having a second...

Yep, we're talking child once again. Now if you have been with me from the beginning you will remember our first two chapters on having a second...

when I was considering it found here 

and when I was surprised by finding out that I was pregnant found here

Well... here we are on the other side.

I have two children. Crazy! and yet not as ridiculous as I had imagined.

When I was pregnant and freaking out at the idea of having two children a friend of mine told me not to worry that in her experience (she just had her second last April) things just sort of work themselves out. And amazingly enough I have found that is exactly what happens. That is not to say that life around here is easy or that our first is just fine sharing his parents attention but it is not at all how I thought it would be. Sure we still have temper tantrums and the terrible twos are still in full swing around here. There are many times when our first little boy will see me feeding the baby, pick up his glass which is filled to the brim with apple juice (note to self- stop filling his cup so full) and while looking right at me with a slightly defiant expression turn the glass over causing a rather spectacular wave of juice across our kitchen floor.

Jealous... um yes.

But then again there are those times when he is so sweet and you can see how much he already loves his little brother. He loves to kiss him and try and hold his hand. He is very concerned when the baby cries and runs to him to see what's wrong. When I tell him that the baby is hungry he goes and gets him a box of crackers which is sweet and funny at the same time. As observant as our little man is (ex. my hubby was playing with him one day and suddenly he started getting nervous and was pointing to his dad's hand saying Oh No. We looked down expecting to see a cut or bump... nothing. Finally on VERY close inspection we found the source of our child's worry was a tiny piece of dry skin by daddy's nail. Seriously the kid is a little ridiculous.) he still has not picked up on the rather obvious way that the baby eats, which is most certainly not out of a box.

And so we go on. Tackling one day and a time. In a strange way it is almost easier with two kids then with one. I think our little boy now has to be a little more independant because he now can't have our undivided attention anymore. Going out of the house is now a novelty so he is A LOT better. SO I think my friend was right there is no planning for another kid, but when the baby comes things just work out because they have to.

on nesting...

Last time around I did not nest. There was no need I had the baby's room ready like 3 months in advance our bags were packed early since my OB told us a month before my due date that it would be any day now since i was already dialating (to 1/2 an inch, I mean really I didn't know any better but she should have) so for the next month and a week at every appointment when she would say " I can't believe that your still here!" I felt completely justified in scowling at her and thinking mean thoughts. We were prepared for our first because I had nothing else to do all day long but sit around and prepare. Also i am not a cleaner, I never went into panic mode about the toilets not being cleaned when I brought my newborn baby home. He sure wasn't going to use the toilet so why did that matter? So I figured I would be a non-nester. Which was fine by me I didn't need to be scrambling around last minute vacumming the sofa cushions. I was happy to not have to freak out before having a baby.

But the other day I was at my OB's office and the week before she had checked me and nothing was happening, the nurse forgot that fact and got me ready to be checked again so my doctor did just for the heck of it and in a week's time I have dialated to a 2. With my first I entered the hospital when my water broke dialated to a 3.  This means that in all likelyhood this child will come sooner rather than later.

I went to target afterwards to grab some essentials before going to get my child from my mom's and suddenly it hit me, the need to nest. It was a little different thatn I expected, I still had no need to rush home and clean every surface in my house (much to my husband's dismay). But rather I had the need to grab every baby item in site and buy it. I stiffled the urge to empty the diaper isle of all of it's contents and instead circled aimlessly through the baby isles making a mental list of everything I needed to buy and do immediately to prepare for this child.

I thought of the clothes and blankets that had yet to be washed, where was I going to change the child, the changing pad is still in my first child's room, why did I have another child before the first was potty trained, should I buy another changing table?, does any home really need two changing tables? do I have enough diapers for baby #2 and 1, when was I going to be able to get to the store again? Should I stalk up on all diaper sizes just in case? And back to the diaper isle I went to contemplate this question and again resist the urge to purchase every diaper available as I did not know where I would put them all in our house. I needed to know how many outfits in each size I have for this little guy. What if he doesn't have enough clothes? Should I buy more? What sizes does he need? Should I buy them all just in case? We never got him a coming home outfit! How sad is that?! We have nothing special that is just his to bring him home in! And thus my mental and emotional breakdown began in the middle of target.

I thought my brain was going to explode from the mass of emotions and thoughts that flooded in in that instant. So I did what any women would do. I swung by the half off Christmas candy and picked up a bag of assorted chocolate candy that I proceeded to devore on my way home. Chocolate had an amazing power to soothe in a moment of crisis. I went home laundered every article of clothing in sight, counted diapers, made lists, and organized my life. I have become a mommy possesed with the need to clean and organize, but only baby items (again much to my husbands dismay.)

And so begins my time as a nester.

on things you should know about me....

My friend Ashley is having a link party all about the random things you didn't know about your friends. SO here we go...

 I LOVE coloring with crayons and playing with play dough, I am really 3 years old at heart. In fact to this day every time I see one of those boxes of 120 crayons I want to buy one for myself.

I had gallbladder surgery when my baby was 2 months old and it was the most physically painful experience of my life and yes, worse than birthing a baby a mere 2 months before.

 I like eating corn with my pasta, and not just when I am pregnant, this is something that my husband finds disgusting.

 I am the only girl in my immediate family so I one of my favorite things is getting together with my cousins. We all cram into the kitchen and it's loud and crazy and we usually get very silly.

I can't open my eyes under water, it creeps me out.

I love running around barefoot, and if it were up to me I would never wear shoes again.

 I do dumb things and accidentally hurt myself. I have sprained my thumb by telling a story and pretending to punch someone and actually accidentally punching a door. I broke my wrist jumping out of a tree. I have sprained my wrist jumping through a window between our living room and den the day we closed on our new house because I was so excited ( and yeah I was 25 at the time). And I sprained my ankle by standing on a chair to kill a spider and accidentally stepping off the edge.

Growing up I was scared to death of all the big rides at Disneyland. My mom would promise me anything in the park if I would go on Splash Mountain once and I refused. I didn't get over my fear of fast rides until I was like 14 and my cousins took me to Magic Mountain, my first roller coaster ever was Goliath, I thought I was going to die on that ride but in the end it cured me.

When I was younger I wanted dark brown, thick curly hair. Luckily I never went through with that plan and to this day I have never colored my hair.

My husband was my first kiss, in fact he is the only guy I have ever kissed.

When I was pregnant with my first child I kicked a whole in our apartment wall with my barefoot because I got mad at my mixer. Now lest you think I am also a ridiculously strong pregnant women you should know that that apartment was built when the earth was created so the walls were pretty thin, but still. There have not been any casualties so far this pregnancy.

I am directionally challenged. I can't tell you which way is North or South and I need a play by play of directions to get any where new.

I have only had one very best friend, she was more of a sister than a best friend really. Her name was Allie, and I rarely talk about her.

I love when my child naps but I often get very bored and find myself refreshing my facebook home page over and over hoping that someone will post something interesting that they are doing so I can live through them for a moment.

on loving it...

So last night my husband and I went out on a date. We are both sick but seriously needed some alone time after a long holiday week in which our child freaked out at both of the family parties that we attended. As in full blown temper tantrums every few minutes for a solid hour.

 My cousin suggested that he might be overstimulated and just not able to handle it. Which I think is exactly right. There were A LOT of people at both parties, like 25-30 and a lot of kids running around. So I do think it was just too much for my very active child who wants to be a part of everything to handle. But it's the holidays and families get together in large groups, there is really nothing that we can do about that so all in all my husband and I were very frustrated by our child's behavior and extremely embarrassed that the other parents could keep there 2-4 children under control and while our one child was melting into a pile of mush everytime someone said hello to him.

Especially since as soon as we got him home he turned into this totally different child. He was suddenly all loving and wanted to be held and sit quietly or play by himself and all traces of the flailing, screaming, hysterical child were gone. So while we understand that he has issues with large groups of people, what are we supposed to do about it? Especially since this is only the beginning of the holidays and there are MANY more parties that we will be attending, which frankly makes us wish that Christmas was over.

Plus the night before we had attempted the mall with the child and finally gave up after the boy protested LOUDLY to our every attempt at shopping. We even tried to bribe him with a chocolate chip cookie (and yes I am THAT mother who has resorted to bribes to get some peace in the store, dum dum lollipops are my best friend at the moment), but instead he decided to chew the cookie until it was the consistancy of glue and then smear all over his father's khaki sweatshirt (it should be fun getting that stain out). What child won't sit nicely in a stroller and eat a cookie? I will tell you... it's my kid.

So basically we needed a break.

As we were driving we started talking about the new baby and our hopes that he will be calm and easy going. I have hopes that he will be as he it is a lot easier to share my body with him than with our first. I am now 6 weeks away from my due date (Crazy I know!) and I can probably count on one hand the number of times that he has kicked me hard. This child is more into floating and wiggling he doesn't attempt to break free from the confinds of my stomache like my first did. So I was telling my husband that I am taking this as a good sign that he will be a calm little boy. To which my husband replied "Come what may."  It was his way of telling me not to get my hopes up and that we would deal with whatever came our way.

This reminded me of a talk from conference that I loved but the title was not just "Come what may" it was "Come what may and love it." And that's something that I need to work on. I sometimes get so caught up in how difficult my little boy is and I find myself wishing for him to grow out of it or getting frusturated and upset when he makes shopping trips, parties or my day hard. And I am not very good at loving it.  I think we all do this, we think "well... come what may." Like it's a bad thing, and we are annoyed at what life hands us. And we forget to love it. We concentrate so much on the negative side of any situation, and we focus on enduring it and not enjoying it.

I have a very active child. This is not something new. He is not one to sit quietly and watch life go by. He wants to get out and experience it, and enjoy it. And I need to be more like him. I need to just enjoy it. To not get worried when things don't go how I would like, or hung up on all the things that I have to do. I also need to remember that my little boy is 2, and shopping is not at all interesting when you are 2 but unraveling an entire roll of toilet paper apparently is. He is such a smart little guy and he understands so much that I often think that he is older than he is and expect him to act older too. Which isn't fair to him at all. He's just a little boy and I need to take more time let him be a little boy and enjoy that fact.

on getting to know my baby...

Being pregnant is an amazing thing. Sure your hormones are out of control at times and you feel like an 80 year old women complaining about your aches and pains. But seriously the downsides do not even compare to the amazing experience of having a child grow inside of you. And it's something that I think I have been taking for granted.

 My husband will ask me all the time about the baby and if he is moving or what he's doing or how this pregnancy compares to the last one. It made me think that it must be very odd to be a father. You must feel so left out during those 9 months. As a mother you get to know what your baby likes and does not like right from the start, you get to feel them move and be assured that they are ok, you know where the like to sleep and when, you get little hints into their personality everyday which helps you "get to know" your baby, and most of all you get to carry the baby around everywhere you go to protect them and keep them safe.

I think I am noticing all these things even more with this pregnancy than with the last. With the first you have nothing else to compare it to so you figure that being pregnant is kind of standard. But I am noticing how my first little guy's personality was defined when I was pregnant and is already so much different than this one. 

With the first... well he was CRAZY right from the start. i remember telling a friend when I was almost 5 months pregnant that at any point in the day if I stopped what I was doing and concentrated I could feel the baby move. Now I am starting to realize that that was very unusual. You usually have just started feeling the baby kick around that time and the kicks are very soft and fairly rare. But my little guy was VERY active a trait that has definately stuck with him. By the time I was this far along last time (8 months) I was being kicked to death all day and night. Something that if you know my little boy now is not so surprising.

 He was also a burrower (is that even a word?) from the start. He liked to see how much of his little body he could wiggle underneath my rib cage, which was a fairly painful experience for me. I would often wake up gasping for breath, unable to bend my body because I had this little ball of child wedged into my ribs. His favorite way to sleep was with his head in my ribs and his little bum sticking up. I would get up in the morning and have this lump sticking up right below my ribs where his little bum was. And now when he sleeps he lays on his belly in a little ball with his bum sticking up in the air.

This second little guy is much more mellow, which gives me hope that he will be a calm baby too. Where as my first seemed to always be testing the limits of his confined space this one is more content to just float. He kicks often enough so that I am assured that he is doing ok but certainly not at the same rate or intensity as his brother. He kicks more actively after I eat like his brother but I also notice that he kicks me when he is hungry too. Which is probably the result of being a second child, when I was pregnant with the first I didn't have someone else to take care of so eating regularly was easier. Now it' almost like he is saying "hey mom remember me? I'm hungry too!"

As far as sleeping habits, this one has so far blessedly stayed away from my rib cage! He prefers something that I have begun to refer to as his bowling ball impression. He will go completely limp and his whole body weight will lay at the bottom of my stomache making it feel like I have a bowling ball strapped to my stomache. It is really an interesting sensation because one minute he's peacefully floating along and then the next I feel like he might drop right out onto the floor.

It is pretty cool be able to tell already how different my little boys will be.

on leaving comments...

First off I would like to say that I LOVE comments!

I love to hear from you and to find out that you can relate to my crazy life. I am more than happy to have you link this blog on your own or share a story that I have written.

 I do ask however that you not use my family's or my name.

I know this sound a little obsessive but I have run into my fair share of wierdos on the internet and I would rather that they not know who I am.

I know that it's hard, I slip ALL the time when I am writting but if you could just double check before you press post I would be very grateful!

on how things are...

( I wrote this post a back in March, and forgot about it until I looked through my drafts, funny how motherhood makes you sentimental at the oddest of times)

We went to Disneyland this last Saturday as a family. I realized that was our first little "vacation" with just the three of us, usually my parent's or my husbands parents take us places, but this time it was just us. And it was an amazingly stress free and fun day. This was my little guy's 3rd trip to Disneyland in less than a year, but this time was different. Since it was only us we didn't have to worry about holding up the group while we changed a diaper, or let our little guy run off some energy. We went at our own pace, went on only kid friendly rides and had a nice relaxing day. And throughout the day I kept on thinking "Wow, this really feels like a family trip." Not like before when you were just hauling around a baby, trying to enjoy a trip, while attempting to fit your day around his normal schedule. But now he is older and I have mellowed out a lot and so we just went with it and if he napped, he napped and if not he was fine to run around and explore.

At the end of the night we went on Pirates of the Caribbean. My little man does not fall sleep on me any more, he has in fact vehemently refused to do so for the last 9 months. It is because he is a fighter he has never in his entire 18 months of life just drifted peacefully off to sleep in my arms. He always has put up fight squirming and protesting until he finally just collapsed from exhaustion. And now that he is older it is beneath him to be rocked or cuddled to sleep. He is far too independent for that and insists upon doing it himself.

Well it had been a long day, he had taken a nap in the stroller but he was quickly running out of steam. At this point he was either going to be very grumpy or become completely delirious. We went on the ride expecting to make it the last one and then have him fall sleep in the stroller on the way to the car. However, the ride made him a little nervous so he hung onto me and buried his face in my chest and the next thing I knew he was out cold. I think he is normally just so high strung that he doesn't sit still long enough to relax and drop off but since he was scared his eyes were already closed and he just fell asleep. It was so funny.

I didn't have the heart to put him back in his stroller because 1. he NEVER lets me hold him while he sleeps and 2. he was still clinging to me for comfort. So I carried him all the way out of the park and to my car. When we reached main street I was pretty sure that my back was about to snap right in half from the strain being placed on it but I ignored it.

That march to my car cradling my baby made me reflective of the years of mothering that I have ahead of me. The whole process is hard and many times extremely painful. You spend your life attempting to navigate your child through this crazy world, trying to hold and protect them and make them feel safe. Many times you feel like you wont make it, like the burdens placed on you are too hard. But then you look down at your little boy with his hands still clinging to your shirt seeking comfort and you give it, even though you feel that you have nothing left to give. And you do it because you love them more than anything.

The sad thing is that at the end of my journey I got to tuck my baby safely into his bed, but at the end of mothering we have to let them leave. You spend 18+ years giving them your entire life and then your expected to just let go. Especially boys. They become men. There will come a time when they wont want to be held and kissed and sheltered. They will want to move on and it's our job to let them. I thought of this as I walked through the park my arms screaming in protest.

 And then there was no way I was going to put him down. I was going to cuddle him to my chest and enjoy the fact that I could make him feel safe, that I could still protect him and take care of him and all I had to do was smile and pretend that it wasn't killing me. Because someday soon, sooner than I expect I will have to let him go, I will have to let someone else take care of him and all I will be able to do is smile and pretend that it's not killing me.

on naming a baby...

My biggest concern these days is that my baby will never have a name. I literally cannot think of a single boys name that I like. I am having serious issues with this. I have gone through my baby name book that has 5 million names and found exactly 5 million names that I feel completely indifferent towards. I have googled baby names and found only that celebrities must really hate their children because who names a kid "Apple" anyways. Also one poor little boy is named "Speck"... seriously. If that kid doesn't grow up with a complex then no one will. Who does that?

The other day I was with my husbands family and my sister in law and niece were trying to help me. I finally had to stop saying what I was thinking because every name that they came up with I either knew someone with that name (and not just like some kid that i ran into once in third grade) but like a cousins name or one of their kids names or a close friend. And I felt bad that I was shooting down all their names.

It is a lot of pressure to name a kid. This is the name they will be stuck with for the rest of their lives. Also this is the name that your will be hollering multiple times a day for at least the first 4 years of life so it better roll off your tongue naturally. You want it cute for when they are tiny and yet solid enough so when they grow up they aren't stuck as "Dr Stuey".

I guess the hardest part is that I have tons of girl names that I would love to use, but no girls currently growing in my belly so I am out of luck with that one. In fact I had the name, I was sure this baby was a girl so I had her name first and middle all ready. We had told our son and everything. So much for that.

 

I also LOVED my first son's name. I was set on it right from the start and had to convince my husband that it was the one. We had a list of other names too that we gave our parents (we don't tell the name of our baby until they are born partially because my husband likes to surprise people and partially because you get more people's opinions when you say "we are thinking of naming him this..." instead of "this is our kid, his name is..." and i think you need to see the kid before you can decide on a name because not every baby can pull off "Butch")

 

Sidetrack anyways, I loved my first little boy's name and now I can't find one that I love and I feel like I am just going to have to pick something and it won't be a name I love and I will always feel bad that the first child got the name I loved and his father's name as a middle name and the second just got stuck with something sad like "Howard" because he had to have a name and I had nothing.

 

Well that's the problem I have. But I guess I have 3 (oh my gosh I thought I had more than 3 months left! yikes! that was a reality check) more months to figure it out.

 

P.S. Please do not be offended if you happen to love the names Stuey, Butch or Howard they are just not my cup of tea. But if you like the name Speck you have serious problems.

on my weekend away...

My husband and I just got back from a weekend away from our child. The first time we spent a night away was about 5 months ago and it was a little traumatic for me. But this time way so nice. 

I love my child. He is everything to me. The sheer fact that I deal on a day to day basis with the temper tantrums and terrible two issues is living proof of that. I would do anything for my child. And admitting that I need time away from him or that I enjoyed myself immensely without him does not change that.

Sometimes I feel like all I am is a mother. That is all I do all day long and sometimes well into the night. Slowly things that you used to enjoy get replaced by diapers and bedtimes and laundry. My husband mentioned the other day that I no longer greet him when he comes home from work at the door with a kiss, and you know what he is absolutely right. At 6 o'clock when he gets home I am in the middle of making dinner while attempting to not trip over the child attached to my leg. I usually use "Look Daddy is home!" as away to pawn off the child onto him so I can have a moment of peace. But that is motherhood. It is what we all signed up for, and I love it, most of the time.

I never wanted my husband and I to become "those parents" who lose themselves in their children. You know the ones that every sitcom has done an episode on where the parents go to dinner or away for the weekend and they have nothing to say to each other so they keep repeating the same things over and over about their kids or how they like the lemon in their water or some other mundane thing.

 But I am happy to say that the weekend away proved that we are not "those parents". We laughed and talked about all kinds of things and really enjoyed being together. It was so nice and I highly recommend it to every parent. It was great to be just the two of us again. To remember how it was when we could be spontaneous and stay up all night if we wanted to. To reinforce that he was exactly the right guy for me to take on this crazy adventure with and that I am as in love with him now as I ever have been, and just because life gets in the way sometimes and raising a child can be stressful, at the end of the day there is no one that I would rather be taking this journey with than him.

(Another great thing about getting away is how much more your family appreciates you. Both my husband and my mother have had the opportunity to be me for a weekend and both have said how happy they are that I came back, how they don't know how I do it all and how exhausting my job is. And since I have been home my child has been attacking me with hugs and kisses. It is nice to be appreciated!)

on mothering the sick...

Warning: This post contains some details of the sicknesses going around my house. Read at your own risk.

I had a conversation about a year ago with my sister-in-law who doesn't have children yet and she asked me if I ever gagged while changing my baby's diaper or caring for him while he was sick. At the time I honestly answered No. She seemed worried and wanted to know how I dealt with the more disgusting aspects of motherhood.  At the time I didn't know how to answer her. I have taken care of so many babies in my life that a messy diaper doesn't phase me at all and when I see a kid start to gag (even one that is not my own) by instinct I put out my hand to catch it. So I wasn't much help because it has never bothered me. 

However in the last two weeks, two separate events have made me reconsidered the question.

The first event occured two fridays ago when my child had a random rancid diaper. Sometimes these things happen so I didn't think much of it and put the child in the bath (it was THAT kind of diaper). All was going well, I went to grab his towel, turned back to my child and he looked up at me and said "diaper change." Let me translate... this is what my child says when he needs to have a messy diaper changed, so he was telling me that he had just gone to the bathroom and would like me to change his nonexistent diaper. He has NEVER had an accident before in the tub and of course it was a stomach virus, nasty mess.

The second happened two days ago as I was heading off for a girls weekend. I got all dressed up and I was going to drop my child off at my husbands work and then meet the girls at my mother-in-laws house so we could all drive down together. On the way to my husbands office, since I was a little early, I decided to stop at the grocery store to pick up some granola bars as it is always good to keep snacks on hand when you are pregnant. I picked out the bars and stood in line. Then I looked down at my unusually quiet child, who I was holding as he has been a little clingy, to see his little body heaving as he proceeded to throw up all over me.

In both events I understood what my sister-in-law had worried about as the sights and smells I was assaulted with combined with my not-so-iron-clad pregnant stomach. In both cases there was a moment that I thought I was going to lose it right there and then, and then my little boy looked up at me. And in his face I saw a mixture of fear and pain and the tears rising to his eyes as he saw the panic on my face and realized that something was wrong.

 And that changes everything, just like flipping a light switch, your mothering instincts and your need to comfort and protect your child first above all else kicks in. It trumps everything including the overwhelming need to get sick, and you do the only thing you can do, you ignore the smell, the fact that your clothes are very likely ruined, your previous plans and you wrap your arms around your little guy. You cradle him to your chest and find yourself whispering words of comfort in an amazingly calm and controlled voice and that's when you realize that you have made it to motherhood. Really there are no tricks of the trade, there is no way to prepare yourself for dealing with any of it. But there is also no reason to worry because the instinct to nurture is ingrained in women so when you are faced with crisis you just do what comes naturally.

on being difficult...

I am a difficult women to live with. The combination of being pregnant and taking care of an active almost 2 year old has made me difficult. My hormones and emotions are seriously out of wack which is a bad combo in general but add to that a handful of temper tantrums, sleeplessness, a sick little boy and having an achy tired body from carrying around said little boy who is 26ish pounds and you have the mess that is me. My poor husband has gotten his fair share of tearful phone calls and not so pleasant grunts of hello as he has walked through the door the last few days. But today I realized how difficult I have become.

Back up for a second...

Yesterday was a bad day. I may have accidentally given my child expired frozen go-gurt. Who knew those things expired so quickly even when they are in the freezer? And yes I am awaiting my mother-of-the-year trophy for that one. This also explains a lot to those of you who saw me and the puddle of mush that was my son yesterday. Anyways, bad day meant hysterically sobbing phone call to my husband.

Now back to today...

It has been good. Almost pleasant. The effects of said rancid go-gurt are mostly gone and I got a good night sleep. It is days like these that I am totally on board with this having another baby thing.

A few minutes a go I got a call from my husband. It went something like this...

Me: "Hello!" in a bright cheery voice

Hubby: "Hey..." in a cautious, but hopeful voice. "How are you doing?" (he seemed almost scared to ask)

Me: "great! we just hung around the house today, the baby was in a good mood."

Hubby: HUGE sigh of relief. "thats good"

And then I felt horrible. I have that guy sitting on pins and needles just waiting to see what kind of mood I am in.

Me: "you sounded scared to ask that."

Hubby: caution returning to his voice "yeah kind of..."

Me: laughing "yeah I guess I would be too."

Lessons that my husband has learned very well...

Never cross a pregnant women.

Apologize profusely when talking to a sobbing pregnant women even if you have no idea what she is saying.

Use caution when talking to a pregnant women until you have accessed her emotional and hormomal level.

Watch for mood swings they can appear mid conversation for no apparent reason.

I know that being pregnant is no picnic but I am in a good emotional and hormonal state at the moment to realize that it kind of sucks to be the guy too. So I am going to try and be less difficult, or at least realize when I am not making any sence and just let it go.

on THAT MOM...

Yesterday I was "THAT MOM" you know the kind, it's the kind that you used to see struggling with an out of control child and in your professional opinion as an unmarried, childless women you thought "what is wrong with that kid! what a spoiled little brat, I bet THAT MOM lets him get away with anything at home. That's why he is flipping out. It serves her right."

Ok so maybe you are better than I am but I will admit that I judged a few poor frazzled women with a crazed child in my day as the worst mother in the world and that she must have brought this on herself.  And then yesterday all those moments of judging came back to bite me.

I went to a friends house for a baby shower, and my child was in a mood. He spent half the time stealing the other children's toys or food or really anything else that they touched in the 2 hours we were there, and the other half of the time he spent screaming, at the top of his lungs, for no reason. It was one of the low points of my life.

And I felt like such an idiot. Like everyone was wondering exactly what I let him get away with at home. And let me tell you, I don't let him get away with anything. I swear I don't just lay around on the couch all day and let my child have full run of the place. He is not allowed to trash the house or hit people or steal things. Time outs, and saying "I'm sorry" and "Please and thank you" are the norm around here. I have a fairly well behaved child on a day to day basis. Sure he's a little high strung and spirited but on the whole he's a good kid.

And so yesterday I realized something about THAT MOM. Maybe those poor women that I labeled as bad mothers were really, like me, just having a bad day. And I have resolved from here on out to be more understanding and sympathetic, and when I see THAT MOM with her kid in the store I will politely turn my head and pretend to not noticed the piercing screams.

on what today looked like...

From where I sit this is what today looked like...

here's to lazy summer days.

on things that ARE great...

This post was originally going to be entitled things that seem great... at first, and I was going to list all of the things through motherhood that you spend your time looking forward to and then it happens and you wonder why you were excited for it. Things like...

-when you are first pregnant and you are so excited to get all cute and round so you can wear pregnancy clothes and look pregnant.

(all of the mothers out there can now laugh at the ridiculousness of that statement, however we all felt it at first) and then we got our wish and suddenly you are gigantic and you realize just how good you had it when you didn't have to wear elastic waist pants. 

-or when you lay in bed being kicked to death from the inside and you thought "I can't wait till this kid comes out because I am sure that I will sleep better"

OH how wrong you are! Dealing with a baby at 3 am get old REALLY fast, and suddenly you find yourself wishing you could put it back in for just one night so you could sleep.

-or when your blessedly still child gets frustrated because he cannot move and keeps accidentally batting the toys just out of his grasp and you think "I cannot wait until he is mobile and can get the things he wants by himself"

And then he becomes mobile and insists upon hovering dangerously close to all the sharp corners in your home and you long for the days when he was stuck wherever you placed him.

-or when your child starts walking

This is perhaps the shortest moment of excitement in a mother's life. You shout for joy exactly one time and then you realize that your life is now over.

I had planned to put the following event on this list as well, but I changed my mind and then had to change the post as well...

-when the first time your child says "mama" is followed closely by the 5,000th time they say "mama"

I had heard and envisioned being so excited when my baby finally said mama and then being completely sick of hearing it as my child repeated the name endlessly all day and night.

and then my child waited a full 15 months to say it and although he has probably said mama a million times this week alone, I STILL LOVE IT! My little mother's heart just about bursts with pride and joy when I hear him call my name. Perhaps it is because I had to wait so long, perhaps it is because he has always preferred "dada" and has said so since he was 7 months old. I don't know but I still can't get enough of it.

I think it partially has to do with the way he says "mama." See dad is the fun one who throws him up in the air and tackles him to the ground so "dada" is usually said in excitement as he is running full tilt away from his father who is inevitably chasing him. Whereas "mama" is said in his sweet soft little voice. It is usually said when he needs comfort and almost always comes with a hug or a kiss. On that note it is "mama" that he calls for when he wakes up in the night. And I have to say that although I am a stickler for his bedtime routine and being all business when dealing with him in the night. But nothing breaks my heart and sends me running into his room like hearing him cry for "mama".

Other things that are as great as they seem...

-your baby's smile and laugh

-watching them learn and understand things

-having them be able to communicate with you and tell you what they want instead of whining

-watching your baby experience new things especially things that you did as a child

-SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!

-getting a hug and kiss

-when they are interested in watching tv. I know that nominates me for mother of the year but it is so true!

-labor

I know this one needs some explaining.

perhaps I should have said labor with an epidural.

After labor I remember holding my new little baby and turning to my husband and saying "that wasn't bad at all." Now that's not saying that it didn't hurt, especially before the epidural which is why I will be asking for one immediately upon entering the hospital next time. But there is something very empowering about bringing a child into the world. And then I look at this sweet little guy in my arms and thought "wow! I did that!" Plus you get a baby out of it so it is pretty great.

on having 8 kids...

Today I went to a funeral. It was a sad day. On the back of the program they had all the man's children and grandchildren listed. He had 8 children and 39 grandchildren when he died. After reading through the names my husband turns to me and says "I want to have 8 kids." I replied "Good luck with that!"

I wish I could tell you that he was joking. But my husband LOVES kids. So chances are he probably wasn't.

Just thinking about that makes me tired.

on being right...

My baby is screaming bloody murder right now, for no apparent reason. He is supposed to be sleeping, but he is not. He also only took an hour and a half nap today instead of the normal 3 hour one. I think he is exhausted and therefor beside himself.

Something you should know about my child is that he is not one to be coddled or snuggled. He does not want help being put to sleep but rather to be left alone. This is great on a normal night but on those off nights when he has trouble sleeping it is not, because he thinks that he wants help getting to sleep and yet he REFUSES to let you at the same time. It can be very confusing and aggravating.

This is how it usually goes. You hear the child scream so your natural instinct is to run into the room and snatch him from his bed. This will (and has many times) turned out badly. Because he then thinks that you are there to stay... forever, even though he really needs you to leave so he can get to sleep, and he SCREAMS when you try and sneak out after attempting and failing to help him sleep. Confusing...yes. Frustrating...yes! Especially at 3am.

So what to do? Well you let him cry for a minute and usually he goes right back to sleep. If that doesn't work you go in make sure nothing is wrong give him his binkie and say "go to sleep" and leave. This will work only if done properly and quickly. It is all business, you DO NOT pick him up or pat his back or give any indication of staying. He occasionally will let out a cry in protest when you exit and you wait 5 min (watch a clock and make sure it 5 because 1 minute can seem like 10 when you are listening to your baby scream). GO back in repeat the above and leave. In the early days of this method you double the time you wait before going back in until the child falls asleep on their own. Usually we don't go in more than twice. It works like a charm. Except when you don't follow it precisely.

We put our child to sleep at 8:20. At 9:00 he started screaming. He cried for a little while and then my husband said he would go in. I repeated the above rules to him because he is known to cheat. He went in and when he left the screaming began again. He can downstairs but almost immediately turned to go back up. I told him to not go back in, he had just barely left, I told him it would go badly if he went back in and if he tried to put him to sleep it would only get worse. But he didn't listen. At 9:05 he entered the baby's room all was quiet until 9:15 when my husband decided that it wasn't working and was tired of trying. The above bloody murder screaming then ensued. As my husband came back downstairs he seemed tensed for the lecture he was sure to receive from me about how I was right wasn't I. But I am tired and not wanting to start a fight I held my tongue. At 9:25 (with no one in the room) there was silence.

I am being a good wife and not rubbing it in but just for the record...

 I was right.

on temper tantrums...

I am getting tired of these. I mean REALLY must we freak out over every little thing?! Especially out in public. Does my child honestly enjoy watching his mothers face turn 50 shades of red and start sweating profusely as I am attempting to wrestle the child back into the shopping cart that I am trying to keep moving through the store to finish my errands so I can go home and crawl under a table and die from shame and embarassment.

I have been reading up on the toddler years to try and find some reason strike that reasons got nothing to do with this. There is no reason it just is. Well then, I have been trying to understand it more to possibly have chance of living through it. And actually after reading I was really on the road to handling it fairly well.

First, I learned that a child in the midst of a full blown tantrum is not in the mood to be reasoned, bargined, or bribed into cooperation. They are so beside themselves that no matter what you say (aside from giving them what they want in the first place) they don't want to hear it.  Here in lies our first problem, I have a very strong willed child. He knows what he wants and cannot be distracted from it. Unfortunately for him he has a strong willed mother, who was a nanny for many years and has never given into a screaming child and does not plan on changing that anytime soon.

My plan for dealing with this was to find a place away from people and just let him cry out his frustrations until he was done and ready to listen to reason. And it actually worked pretty well because 1. I was away from people so my child was not bothering anyone as he sorted through his problem 2. I didn't get upset with him as I have before while trying to talk him out of the inevitable tantrum, I just let him be mad and get it off his chest 3. He didn't get mine and an enire store full of people's attention which only fuels a tantrum and 4. Once he was done we could go on with life.

Second, children like mine do not handle change well. Part of his independence is that he doesn't want to be forced into doing things. Like getting his diaper changed. For a couple months he would completely lose it when we changed his diaper, we would have to just pin him down to get it done.

But now we explain to him what is going to happen and what will happen next so he knows what to expect and doesn't feel forced into it. He has done so much better once we started explaining it to him instead of treating him like a baby. Now we can say "can you go get mommy a diaper and lay down?" and he will, just like that.

Third, active children such as mine sometimes get overwhelmed and overtired which leads to the tantrum. My little guy is not an observer but a doer (is that a word?) Meaning he will not just sit back and watch things happen he wants to be involved. We have cousins that live close by and whenever we are with them he is great and loving life for about 2 hours and then he melts down. And I have determined from my readings that it is because he is so excited and active and involved that at some point he just hits a wall, and by nature he won't just sit down and rest and watch for a while. SO he loses it.

How we deal with this? Well 12 hours of sleep a night plus one 3 hour nap helps. (Don't be jealous it is my gift for dealing with a wild child everyday.) And when we notice a meltdown starting to form we take him away from the situation to let him rest and have a calm moment.

With all these things in mind you would think that I had things under control. And then today happened.

I had no motivation to leave my house this morning, I beleive it was a message from above that no good would come out of trying to run errands but we were running dangerously low on toilet paper. No TP + Pregnant bladder = trouble. So off to target I went. And I started by explaining to the child "We just have to go into this one store and then we will go get lunch." And he seemed on board with me until we approached the building. Then the screaming started.

fight or flight, fight or flight, fight or flight...

but we REALLY needed toilet paper so I pushed on figuring that I would find something in the store to amuse him. I was wrong. The screaming intensified. I got some of the dirtiest looks of my life from every person I passed. All the sympathetic mothers must have heeded the warnings this morning and just stayed home. I soon had a cart full of things and a completly inconsolable child who was challenging my every effort to keep him in the cart. I reasoned, I barginned, I begged, I even threatened that he was going to be "IN BIG TROUBLE" (scary I know). But he didn't care. Instead he tried to claw his way out of the cart and so that he could grab onto me with his vice-like arms. Hence the opening to this post and my reason for wanting to die right there in the middle of the paper goods isle.

The morale of the story is this 1. listen to those little hints that perhaps this is not going to be your day and cut your losses and stay home 2. Stock up on toilet paper 3. Don't ever claim that you have life under control because life likes to prove you wrong 4. Never take a hungry, tired, crabby child to target.