Wrapped Around Her Finger?

I think it's safe to say that life in her house is back to it's semi-sane nature. Jon and I are getting along better, I haven't cried hard enough to make my eyes puffy since this weekend, Amelia slept well last night... I'm sure this will last about two days.

Anyways, last week I had a training for work that required me to be in the office for a couple days. When I have a good babysitter at the ready, I sometimes enjoy the break in routine. Mostly I enjoy being able to eat my lunch without having to feed another little person. Lucky for us, I did have a friend who was happy to entertain my little monkey all day, so off I went to work. And then she started texting me pictures like this:

And this:

I know, right?!? How cute is she??? The next day produced equal cuteness:

Of course, being absolutely adorable can be rather tiresome:

You may notice how her face is all squished up in many of these pictures. This is because my friend tells Amelia, "Say cheese!" and she does with much gusto, and this produces the look that you see above. I think it's hilarious.

By the time my training was over, I was quite ready to be back to working from home. It's probably a good thing that I had some separation to make my heart grow fonder of her because she promptly swung into a pre terrible two's stage. Everything is either hysterically funny:

Or makes her absolutely miserable. Yesterday when she was tired, she crawled underneath the dining room table and started sobbing. I didn't take a video of that, so you'll just have to take my word for it. When I was toddlered out last night, she crawled all over me and demanded full attention, to which I replied "When do you think Daddy will be home from work?" This morning she was smacking my leg and begging to be up on my lap within thirty minutes of waking up. To which I replied:

"Don't you want to go play with your daddy?"

To which he replied: "Daddy has to leave for work in fifteen minutes!"

I clarified that it would be perfectly acceptable for her to help him get ready rather than play together. Whatever will get her out of my hair, husband.

At least she still has one of us finding her irresistible:

Mama's Gone Crazy!

Do you ever have one of those fights with your significant other where you fantasize about doing horrible things to him?

That happened to me yesterday.

That fight was also followed by car trouble which resulted in me missing my sanity time at the gym to go pay $150 for a new battery instead.

I was not a happy camper. In fact, I cried for two hours yesterday morning. While this probably sounds overly dramatic, I will admit that I still have times where I do not handle stress very well. And, if crying till my eyes are swollen and disgusting gets out all my angst, then so be it.

The unfortunate part is that I now have a daughter that witnesses all this. As I sobbed and yelled at my husband on the phone, she was toddling about playing with her toys. At some point, she approached me with a cup of peaches, stating "Peach! More!" So I dragged my miserable self into the kitchen for a spoon, tried to suck it up and stop crying, and placed her on my lap. While I had calmed down somewhat, I was still crying a little. Amelia poked one of my tears, as if to say, hmm, Mama's eyes leak sometimes too! Ever the counselor who is looking for teachable moments about emotions, I told her, "That's right, Mama gets sad sometimes too."

To which she replied "More! Peach! More!"

My gratitude about such a morning is that I have oodles of strong, supportive women in my life that are willing to drop everything and do whatever will help. I had at least two offers of taking Amelia off my hands for a few hours so I could have some me time. But I have to admit, I didn't need it.

Amelia stayed the hell out of my way all morning. She was probably the best behaved she ever has been.

I imagine she was thinking "OMG, my mommy has lost her damn mind, I'm staying out of her way!" Or, maybe sobbing uncontrollably does not lend itself to want to cuddle with the crazy lady.

Either way, I was thankful that I could just be my emotional self and had I needed some time to be alone, I could have had it. Today things are back to 'normal', if there even is such a thing, and I'm counting my blessings instead of used tissues.

(Almost) Back in the Groove

This was the post that I started earlier this week:

I've had it. Completely had it.


Little Miss Typhoid Mary, as I am officially now calling her, has given me her rash. I suppose it was inevitable. Luckily we still have some cream that was used to treat her and so now I am anxiously waiting to rinse all this crap off me in eight hours. It isn't as painful or itchy as I imagined, just annoying. And, in the back of my mind, I keep thinking there are worse things that could be happening to us right now.


Despite that, I've had it. I pretty much had a mommy temper tantrum this morning.


My husband listened patiently and promised me sushi as soon as we are well. He apologized profusely for needing to be gone the entire weekend to come due to work. He said all he could think of to get me to calm down and look at the sunny side of life.


Things will be sunny again, right?


Yes. Yes they will. I mean, they have to. Today marks a full week of dealing with fevers, rashes, body aches, doctors appointments, prescriptions, benadryl, tylenol, cancelled plans, whining, and meltdowns. Some have been Amelia's. Some have been my own.

Oh, motherhood. You are indeed a rollercoaster. I will also admit here that I am the mom in my cousin's post who was plotting to create a benadryl induced family nap.

Just admit it. You've thought about (or done!) it too!

We've both recovered from whatever crappy virus that we had and I'm now incredibly behind in housework. Sometime during this week our outfits consisted of maternity pajama pants for me and a red Christmas sweatshirt with rainbow striped pants for her. That was the day that I considered going to a thrift store and just buying us new wardrobes, but alas, I have rallied what's left of my energy after not sleeping for the past three nights (thank you, toddler teething) and done three loads of laundry. It all sits in basement, begging me to fold it.

And yet, here I sit, playing games on Facebook and drinking wine. The healing scabs on my face indicate that I've earned it.

I've said it once, and I'll say it again... Amelia's lucky she's cute, or I'd sell her to gypsies:

Holiday Craziness

I'm still here. It's been a week since I've written anything, which is funny considering that last week I thought 'Oh, next week I'm off, I can probably post every day!'

HAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!!

I have high aspirations.

I don't always actually meet them.

Since last Wednesday, I have bought and wrapped presents, made cookies, stayed overnight at my grandparents, wrapped some more, visited my in-laws, spent time with my parents twice, went to our local butcher to fill our basement freezer, and today I'm working. Even though I'm on vacation.

SIGH.

I know, I know, it's like this for everyone this time of year. And yet, each year around Thanksgiving I think 'THIS year will be different. This year I will relax and enjoy the Christmas season.

Again: HAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!

No, I did enjoy it. I have a wonderful family and enjoy many blessings throughout the year. You just have to wait a week to read about them on my blog while I recover from what can only be described as a holiday hangover sans alcohol. I like to keep my readers in suspense.

Thirty One

Friday I turned 31. It was a weekend full of excitement. Friday we went to eat at the new Mexican Restaurant in town. Saturday I started my day with a spinning class with the hardest instructor at my gym at eight in the morning, then followed it with taking Amelia to see Santa read a story at our library (she fell asleep-- clearly not impressed by jolly old Saint Nick), then a haircut and a massage. Sunday was my birthday party with the family.

It was a good weekend.

Now I'm busting my butt to meet a deadline at work and anxiously counting down to Christmas. Not so much because I'm dying to get presents but instead because I need to get/make the presents that I'm giving. I have a ton on my plate right now, just as probably everyone does around the holidays.

In any case, if you'd like to give me a virtual birthday/Christmas gift, click on the banner at the top and vote for me on Top Mommy Blogs! You can vote for me each time you read my blog, so it's a gift you can give me throughout the year :)

We've Returned to the 21st Century

You read that title right. You didn't know that we were living in the stone ages in my household did you?

 

I mean, we totally believe in birth control and all that. No Duggar situation going on here.

 

However, even though we are doing our part to keep the human population down, we've been living without cable. For four years.

 

FOUR.

 

Four years of no Food Network, no Monday night football, no Intervention or Hoarders. No Keeping Up with the Kardashians. No DVR.

 

You ask how I survived that long. Well, first of all, I'm a big nerd and I love to read. It was an adjustment at first, but I simply made more trips to our local library. And, when you are sans 500 channels and re-runs you, GASP, can be more productive. If you want to, that is. Otherwise you can rent movies and watch cooking shows over and over on PBS Create. Or, just sleep.

 

Oh, glorious sleep. Sleep where you are totally out on the couch by 9:00 p.m. and after you go to bed at 11:00 p.m. you don't stir until 9:00 a.m. Oh, sleep, how I miss you.

 

Sorry. Sleep is my favorite fantasy.

 

Anyways, maybe you're asking, why did you finally get cable then? (Actually satellite because although we can see a major university from our house, we can't get cable where we live. In the middle of corn fields. Just like Children of the Corn.) Well, perhaps you recall me telling that I got a new job where I work from home. It's still fabulous, but let me tell you this-- I adore anything childish, including any kind of cartoons, but I reached a point last week where I thought I was going to throw something big and heavy at our brand new fancy schmancy TV if I had to watch the same episode about earthworms on the Cat and the Hat Knows a Lot About That! one more stinking time.

 

And so, now we have satellite TV. Mommy gets whatever prevents her from destroying major household items.

Only two days into having several channels again and my memory is returning of what living the glorious life with cable is like. Here are some highlights:  

• Commercials suck.
• DVR's make them better.
• Even the TV shows that my husband and I like are completely different (Ahem, no I do NOT want to watch the Science or Military Channel with you, husband. Thanks so much for the offer, though). Opposites do attract.
• Not only does TV watching waste time, but so does scanning through the 120+ channels that we have, which I do about three times before I recognize that nothing is on, so I might as well turn it back to Disney.
• My daughter likes Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. Don't tell her dad. 
• She also likes to dance to the theme music for Pulp Fiction, and I believe that this makes me the cool mom.
• Hoarders makes me feel better about my house.

And now, it's time for me to find where Amelia hid the remote control so we can watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse all day. Happy Thursday!

Happy 'I've Kept My Daughter Alive for a Year' Day

This is it! Today is our daughter's first birthday. It amazes me that a year ago she looked like this:

And now we have this:

I recall that on her first New Year's Eve, things were getting a bit easier as a mother and I made this New Year's Resolution: to keep her alive during the coming year. My husband half laughed, half looked concerned as if I were making some threat on her life, but let's get real here: when you are a new mom, you feel like every noise your baby makes is going to equate to doom. Any little gasp, wheeze, sigh, or scream means something could be wrong. And heaven forbid if they are QUIET, because then you fear that the baby has stopped breathing (thanks so much, SIDS campaign).

Maybe instead, I should call it Happy 'I've Kept Most of My Sanity for a Year' Day. I've mentioned before, Amelia had colic in her early days and all in all was pretty high needs for the first four to six months. For the first two months, I held her constantly because she would cry if put down. I held her as I put dishes away, as I slept, as I made our frozen meals for dinner. I cried during cooking shows because it felt like I was never going to enjoy creative time in the kitchen again. During weeks two through six of her life, she would have evening/early morning screaming fits that would last for two to three hours. I would circle the dining room table, singing, shushing, bouncing, rocking, until finally I would burst into tears too and my husband would wake from his slumber before heading off to work, take her from me and order "GO TO BED". I would nod miserably, feeling like a failure as a mother and wondering if this was her disposition now, what would it be like as a toddler?

I must be doing something right because as Amelia nears toddlerhood, this is generally our girl:

A happy, silly little girl who adores her mama and who is too busy to sleep well but so worth waking up throughout the night for. She loves her books and Sesame Street, as well as her dog and kitty, and can say 'hi', 'dog', 'kitty', 'book', 'Daddy', and 'abcd'. A squealing, giggling little bundle of energy that will scream as you walk towards her in hopes that you will chase her down and tickle her.

And so, in summary, I've not only managed to keep her alive during the past year, but also managed to raise a fairly happy, very healthy little girl. This indeed is something to celebrate.

Happy birthday, Amelia May. Mommy loves you.

I'm a Sucker

There was a point in our life where we owned six animals. SIX. Two dogs, two cats, two guinea pigs. It was like livin' in the freaking ark in our house. Mostly it was because I had hormones raging and needed to get knocked up like NOW. So I collected pets instead. The husband was not completely on board with it but my pouty lip and teary eyes are very convincing and I generally get my way when it comes to these matters. It was fairly short lived, though, when one of our dogs ate our cat's head.

I'm not kidding.

It's almost Halloween so I felt like I could stick that detail in my blog and it would be appropriate.

Anyways, we gave both dogs back to the shelters that we adopted them from, and were left with Mikey, our fat cat who also happens to be my first adulthood pet. Oh, and those two guinea pigs that I didn't even really like and promptly got rid of shortly after I found out I was pregnant. But, I'm a dog person, and I really missed being a dog owner. My family always had a dog while I was growing up and I was almost more depressed about living life sans canine than I was about our poor beheaded cat. Six weeks after the gruesome incident, I had talked the husband (thanks again pouty lip and teary eyes) into getting a dog. Best decision we ever made:

So now we have one cat, one dog, one baby. Good numbers that don't come anywhere near the animal hoarder I almost was. Mikey and Molly are awesome with Amelia, and so my rule has become: No more dependents in our house unless they come out of me.

Until yesterday.

Two nights ago, we had a cat sneak into our garage. Jon did everything he could to try and get it out, but mostly he made it terrified, and it refused to leave. Yesterday morning, I searched the garage and thought it had wandered out during some point in the night, went to shut the garage door with a satisfied smile, and the damn thing ran back in and up the stairs to the attic. I sighed, opened the garage door again, and texted my dad about borrowing their animal trap. I felt good about being adament that we get rid of it. After all, it was probably feral anyways.

Later in the afternoon, I took the girls for a walk down the gravel lane by our house. As we were finishing our walk and nearing the end of the road, there was the kitty. I should have kept walking and been grateful that it was out of our garage. But curiosity got the best of me and I tried to approach it.

It was friendly. My story, and convictions to not keep any more animals, goes downhill from here.

Molly was obviously excited about meeting a new friend, but I thought surely this cat is not going to like her, adding to my list of reasons not to keep it. Instead, it walked up to her and rubbed against her, then meowed and rubbed against me. To top things off, it was thin. Super thin. I could see it's hips and spine sticking out.

I can't have a living creature be within five miles of my home and have it be thin. It's my southern heritage. I must feed things and get them fattened up so they know I love them.

With that, I called Jon and told him about the underfed critter, and he told me to feed it. The first cardinal rule of not increasing the number of animals on your property is DO NOT FEED THEM. To be fair, I'm sure he could hear the pouty lip in my voice.

And so, now we have a cat living on our property. It attempted to get IN our house yesterday. I texted, facebook messaged, and called everyone that I could think of, begging them to take this friendly outdoor cat. No one wants it. And you know why? Because our world is oversaturated with the darned things. Face it:

Cats are the new zombie. When the apocolypse comes, cats will outlive us all.

When I woke in the middle of the night last night, I heard it raining and worried about if it was dry and warm. After I fed Mikey and Molly this morning, I went out to the front porch to find it curled up on a blanket. I fed it, gave it water, and even gave it some of Mikey's treats. I petted it a little and could feel every vertebrae on it's spine. I sighed, knowing that we are now a three pet household unless I can find someone to take a barn cat.

I would like to say I'm going to remain firm about it remaining outside, but let's be honest, I can't make any promises. Winter is coming and I can envision a cold day coming that will make me say, Oh, come on inside...

I don't even like cats.

I'm such a sucker.

Five a.m. Dialogue with My Brain

It is before six in the morning, and here I am, typing away. Not because Amelia slept miserably. No, I would say this was one of her better nights. I'm up because I can't sleep. This never happens to me. I ADORE sleep. Prior to motherhood, I was a minimum of eight hours a night sleeper. Ten or eleven hours was stellar. I've been like this for as long as I can remember, sans childhood when I would think of every last excuse to stay up just a bit longer. My mother likes to remind me of this frequently... "Boy, Amelia sure is my little party girl! Not you, you were a sleeper. Great sleeper as a baby. Never gave me trouble..." Uh huh, thanks for that reminder, Mom.

I woke up at 3:30 a.m., fed and cuddled my little darling. My first thought was "Wow, she waited longer than usual for her middle of the night feeding, that's awesome!" I closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep. I dozed till 4:30. Looked at the clock. Decided I was uncomfortable and would risk rolling onto my stomach, potentially waking the baby. Ah, success. Should definitely sleep well now!

Nope.

This was about the time I started having an interesting conversation with myself. I wonder if this is what insomniacs go through.

Hey...

What? What the hell? Go to sleep, brain. Amelia is sleeping, we need sleep.

Umm... well... I was thinking we could get up?

 ?!? WHAT?!? It's early!!! Go to sleep, let me sleep! It's raining and cool and cozy, we could be getting lovely sweet sleep right now. Be quiet.

Well, don't blame it all on me, YOU are the one that drank that diet dr. pepper in the afternoon.

So what? It tasted good and I was still dragging from Labor Day.

Uh huh. Dragging. Is that what they call it?

Yeah, OK, so I had a few drinks, whatever, GO TO SLEEP!

... It's been five minutes. Can we get up yet? You could have a peaceful cup of coffee and surf the net while the whole house is sleeping! Wouldn't that be terrific?


Oh, wow, yeah, that would be really nice, especially with the rain, you know how I love the... WAIT, no, no way, it's still really damn early, and you know I can almost never sneak out of bed without waking Amelia. This is a bad idea, leave me alone and go to sleep.


No, listen to her, really, she is sleeping well! We could pull it off.


NO!

Sigh, OK.

{Five minutes pass}

I was thinking... it's cool out today, we could bake? Want to? Huh? That pumpkin bread pudding you've been wanting to try? Soup for dinner?

Yeah, this would be a great day for it! And I have to go grocery shopping to do anyways. What else should we do? Can't run this morning and don't like to take Amelia to the gym in the morning, I don't like the daycare lady that covers the early shift. We have some cleaning to do, so... HEY, WAIT! Why are you bothering me again??? Ugh, it's only five, we have been up for a half hour.

Yeah, I know, I keep telling you, let's get up! PLEEEEAAASSSSEEEE?????

Sigh. Fine. You win.


And so, I slowly worked my way out of bed. It was rather Mission Impossiblish, as Amelia is so mobile that I surround both of us with a fortress of pillows in case she wakes in the middle of the night and attempts to escape. I lit a candle in the dining room so I wouldn't wake Jon, started coffee, turned on the laptop. Thirty minutes later, Amelia was up. Now she is watching Baby Einstein and despite two cups of coffee, I'm tired enough that my eyeballs practically feel fuzzy. I foresee an afternoon nap in my future... unless my brain spoils it for me.
 

Coffee Break

Despite Amelia's snot, it hasn't been a bad week. As stubborn and determined as she can be, Amelia usually stays in good spirits when she's sick. She also seems to have chilled out in the 'whine until Mommy walks me around the house' department. Generally she can talk Daddy into it when he gets home from work, which is nice for Mommy's back.

Although it has not been so bad, I still hit a wall Thursday. I'm not quite sure what happened, but my overall theory is this: you can only spend so much time with someone, whether they are your own flesh and blood or not. Jon thinks this is amplified by the fact that I still co-sleep with Amelia. I think that's complete crap, as somehow I sleep better at this point with her by my side than when she's upstairs. Either way, by Thursday afternoon, I was texting Jon frantically, begging him to watch Amelia for a bit so I could escape.

Jon replied with a 'What in the hell's your problem, calm down, I'll watch her, you don't have to beg!' response. Which is true-- as Amelia gets older, she does better and better with her daddy and he has no problems watching her. I actually think I have some guilt about asking him to care for her. You are saying "WTF is your problem, Amanda? He's her daddy, there's no reason he can't care for her in the evenings." I think of it this way, though: Jon heads off to work everyday while I'm at home, and he still has several property maintenance things that he has to do on our two acres in the evenings. So, when he comes home and I practically throw the baby at him, I feel like I'm shoving one more thing onto his plate. As a result, I rush back home quickly when it's 'mommy time' and probably don't ask for that time as much as I should.

A second issue is, I always realize that many things that I do during mommy time, I could do when I have the baby in tow, so I often back out of time that I could be spending in solitude. Pondering going to a local coffee shop always makes me wonder, what will I do there that's so different from what I do at home? I can both read and browse the internet while watching Amelia, even if I do feel a tad guilty (you see the running theme here-- mommy guilt) about plopping her in front of the TV so I can partake in some kind of activity that doesn't involve diaper changing or episodes of Sesame Street.


I pushed all those thoughts aside when Jon arrived home that evening, dumped many baby belongings out of my bag, packed up my laptop and books, and left the house, radio blaring. That right there was worth the time out of the house. I've had to change very few of my listening habits since most of the music I like is not vulgar in nature, but I do miss the outrageous volume I indulged in at times while driving my car. Parking my car behind Panera and not having to double check my bag for diapers, wipes, toys, cheerios, and sippy cup, nor having to either carry a car seat which is ever increasing in weight or lugging out the huge stroller was freeing too. Not to mention, it is absolutely delightful to get on facebook without having to bounce a baby on my knee or respond to some kind of insistent fussing.

It would seem that God was trying to show me that more frequent mommy time is a good thing, because starting at that time, a string of unrelated positives started happening. Or, maybe I just noticed the good things because I wasn't frazzled any longer. I found a twenty dollar bill in the bottom of my bag. I got a positive e-mail about a job opening that I REALLY want. We had a terrific afternoon yesterday getting ice cream and going shopping. I got an interview for aforementioned job. We had an awesome time as a family at a high school football last night, and I got to catch up with one of my friends at the game.

Spectacular.

It's with this in mind that I'm starting to pencil in mommy time. MOPS group, coffee at Panera, movie with a friend, whatever. My new goal is to start doing this for myself at least once a week. Pushing aside my time because I want to be a good wife and mother was clearly working against me. Giving myself the time to hit the virtual 'refresh' button is not only a gift to myself, but a gift to my family. I came home that Thursday evening with not just coffee breath, but a smile on my face, hugs to give, and patience to pass around. Definitely a lesson learned while on the path of parenthood.

Naughty Little Monkey

My daughter has been terrorizing me since we returned from vacation. This may be her only way of protesting our reduction of her TV time. At this point, I would be willing to negotiate and let her watch cartoons all day if she'd just stop hanging on me, fussing, whining, screaming, and staying awake so much.

My real suspicion is that she is going through a developmental growth spurt. She would let us help her walk around the house all day if this wouldn't lead to my husband and I being hunched over in pain (and no, she does not like any type of walker. That would be too easy, wouldn't it?). I keep taking deep breaths, praying, and telling myself to be patient. I remind myself that it took us over a year to get pregnant and how badly I wanted a baby. I tell myself it won't last forever. I count down the minutes till her father gets home so I can have a break.

However, my mental tactics are starting to fail me. When Amelia woke this morning after eight short hours of sleep, I ran through a list in my head of people who could maybe take her for a couple hours today, just so I can gather what's left of my sanity. While I'm used to Amelia sleeping less than most babies (she typically only sleeps 9-9.5 hours, 10 hours is super for her), last night she only slept eight hours. This short night of sleep was after she wailed for a half hour last night, refusing to nurse so she'd shut the hell up so she'd calm down. Jon attempted to shout over her wailing so I would know what was going on during the season finale of Master Chef while I circled the dining room table bouncing her and humming. Thirty minutes after laying her down in her crib, she awoke screaming.

Earlier this week when we went to Meijer, more so I could get out of the house and amuse her than any real need for groceries, pretty much every person walking by would point and say "Oh, isn't she CUUTTTEEE????" It was a struggle for me not to ask them if they wanted her.

 So far this morning I've eaten a couple handfuls of pretzel M&M's and she has eaten part of her Mickey Mouse books. Oh, I didn't mention that she seems to have pica? She's like a little goat, munching and gnawing on whatever she gets her hands on. If it's paper, down the hatch it goes. Not even her "baby-safe" books can escape her one little pointy tooth and slobber that would probably eat it's way through steel.

Please don't leave the following comments after reading this post:

• Just wait until she starts walking.
• Just wait until she's a teenager.
• Enjoy her now, time with your baby is short.
• How could you be upset with her, she's just a BAAABY....

These comments will be deleted shortly before I throw my laptop out the window and grab another handful of candy.

Now, excuse me while I suck down another cup of coffee and say my mommy prayer for the day... Dear Lord, please help me be patient and let Amelia take extra long naps. Amen.