Sunday Hodgepodge

My lovely little peanut has been so excited about the weekend that she's decided to wake up at the butt crack of dawn both days (that would be 5:15 a.m., folks). Perhaps I tempted the slumbering fates that be when I decided to stay up till midnight or later both nights. Either way, here I am, watching Sesame Street with her before the sun even rises.

Because I am barely awake enough to type, I thought I'd share a few links for your reading pleasure. The first is my guest post on The Random Blogette from Friday. I share the reasons that I started eating a plant strong diet (that would be mostly meat, egg, and dairy free), as well as some resources for those interested in eating more meatless meals.

I was also briefly featured in this SparkPeople article about the contents of one's fridge. Scroll down to the bottom, and that's me! I use SparkPeople to track my daily calories and fitness and sent in my fridge photo in an attempt to win a Kindle Fire. While I didn't win that, I did manage to win three free e-books on health and cooking. Yay!

Next, my dad is experiencing his own published fame today as he is featured in The Toledo Blade! He shares his marble collection and how he came to enjoy collecting his beautiful glass orbs. It truly is a sight to behold and holds a special place in my heart because we often go to many local art festivals together in the summer. Usually I even get to put my two cents in when he is trying to determine which marble to purchase. I also get to sit around and listen to his sarcastic banter with Larry and Bret, two of his favorite (and local!) artists from Hot House Glass.

Finally, something that I found so true and quite funny. It's a humorous piece about what stay at home moms actually do during the day. If you subtract the baby, and add a full time work from home job, this is what my day is often like. It tickled my funny bone so much that I made Jon listen to me read half of it out loud.

Are you linked out now? Good, because I'm ready for a nap! I suppose since we are up so early I will be making us banana pancakes and counting down the hours till we take an afternoon snooze. Lord knows I need it! Oh the joys of motherhood :)

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.

Young At Heart

Amelia is a Sesame Street addict. We have 22 episodes saved on our DVR and she's seen them all multiple times. Although only 17 months old, she can sit through an entire one hour episode without moving. I can generally judge what kind of day we're having by how many I let her watch by dinnertime. When she was sick recently, I believe we hit a record number of four episodes in one day. I have them all memorized. I know all the songs. And actually?

I love it.

When I envisioned being a mom, all of this 'childish' stuff was exactly what I was looking forward to. Watching cartoons together. Coloring. Playing tea party. I enjoy all of it. When I can take her to her first Disney movie at the theater, I'm pretty sure I will be giddy.

There are rare occasions where I realize that she isn't even paying attention to her cartoons, and I can watch real grown-up TV where they talk about current events and so forth. It takes me about five minutes to turn it back to PBS Kids.

Not because she's whining over it. More because I want to know which cartoons are playing at the moment.

What can I say?

I guess I'm just young at heart.

Here are a few of our (my?) favorite Sesame Street clips:

Who doesn't love Adam Sandler?

NANANANANAAAAAA!!!! Cracks me up every time!

Set your piggies free... we should all remember to get outside and let the grass tickle our toes :)

(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:

A Basket Full of Illness

Since I last reported about Amelia's silly antics, things have gone downhill in our household. I was on Spring Break all last week so I had plans to take her to see a friend and then to my grandparents overnight. Alas, the morning that we were supposed to leave, Amelia got a fever. We cancelled our plans and my little peanut slept much of the day:

When she woke up, her fever had spiked again, but once Mommy made her cozy on the couch, she was happier:

The following day, the fever had disappeared, but she was in a bad mood, so we assumed maybe some molars had broken through. She whined and whined AND WHINED all day. By the time the evening rolled around, she was crying and unable to sleep soundly. She had developed a rash on her leg, which we had assumed was a bad case of diaper rash. By the next morning, it was clear we were wrong, as it had spread to her face and hands, as well as gotten scaley and spread to the size of a softball on her inner thigh.

Off to the doctor we went.

A tentative diagnosis and $60 worth of skin creams later, we were spreading Amelia in goop, changing sheets and doing laundry, and praying that this stuff was not as contagious as the doctor said it could be. So far, neither of us have gotten it, so I'm a little doubtful that it's what the doctor thought. The creams do seem to help and she is much improved by today.

Me? Not so much.

Saturday afternoon I developed horrible body aches and my throat started to hurt. We didn't go to church yesterday since Amelia looks like she has some sort of plague, and I felt like sitting up for a whole hour would be pretty unsuccessful. I hoped I would improve enough to head to my parents for our Easter meal, but we had to skip that too.

I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty disappointed that I felt like hell on Easter. Even today, on my last day of break, I'm pretty sure that we are going to be mostly homebound since it feels like shards of glass are scraping down my throat when I eat. But moping about it does no good, so I'm going to suck it up and enjoy some good snuggle time with my little girl and perhaps take an afternoon nap. Who wouldn't want to cuddle up to this?

Loves Mama's linguine!

Wherever there's food and a toddler, Molly is sure to be close by!

You can see a little of her rash in this naptime pic.

You may also like:

• Snots
• Yuck Part II
• CHOMP

Ornery Little Thing

I've been marveling lately at the things toddlers learn that you really don't think about when you imagine how your child will develop. Here are some examples:

• Learning to walk backwards
• Walking on tiptoes and trying to jump
• Predicting what comes next- whenever I grap the diaper bag or put my shoes on now, she says 'Bye bye!'
• Fimding new body parts- yes, well, maybe not so terrific since it led to Poopocalypse 2012.
• Answering questions- any questions you ask her, the answer is 'No.'

I think that for the first year, everyone knows the timeline for standard developments, like sitting up, crawling, walking, but to me these other things just kind of pop up out of the blue. When she started walking backwards last week, she had the most amazed look on her face, like 'Hey, check me out, I can move the other direction without turning around!'

Yesterday, it seemed like everything that Amelia knows how to do converged into one string of ornery events. Let's start at the beginning.

In the morning, I decided that I was going to be lazy. Every time a break rolls around for me, I pack it full of get togethers and things to catch up on, then I end up being more exhausted than I was before I went on break. I spent the beginning of the day on the computer and knitting, while Amelia watched Sesame Street. A half hour later she walked over to me and handed me crumples of a purple crayon. Apparently, Mommy had forgotten she had let her color. I discovered she had eaten half the crayon, and she was sitting not ten feet away from me while doing so. It's a good things crayons are non-toxic.

A couple hours later, she decided that the crayon was not enough to satisfy her appetite, so she brought me her new economy size box of goldfish. This box is half the size that she is, and here she was, stumbling around after me with it in her arms, proclaiming, "More! More!!!"

Her goldfish are not the only thing she can reach on our lower shelves. She can also get to the dogs treats, which I often let her feed to the dog. While I was in the living room cleaning up a bit, she decided Molly must be hungry and retrieved the entire container of treats, opened it (don't ask me how because it has a latch on it), and sat next to the dog feeding her treat after treat. By the time I caught the gluttonous duo, Molly had consumed at least ten dog biscuits.

SIGH.

Although the above descriptions probably paint the portrait of a mommy with her head up her butt, I can assure you that I do supervise Amelia all day. These toddlers sure are tricky, aren't they?

The icing on the cake was when I had to scold Molly for eating Amelia's peanut butter sandwich from her hands. I felt a little bad for yelling at her since Amelia is just as guilty for feeding her all the time, but I had already told Molly to lay down and stay. Instead, she snuck away while I was preparing my own meal and attempted to devour Amelia's food. I was less than impressed and went on a tirade. When I was done, I huffed off and returned to what I was doing. Not a minute later, I hear Amelia saying "No! No!" I walk back into the dining room to find my daughter wagging her finger at Molly and scolding her. Monkey see, monkey do!

All of this really wears a girl out:

Note how she is still gripping her snack cup. I assume she is concerned that Molly will thief her cheerios while she sleeps :)

Poopocalypse 2012

We were really busy this weekend. From spending time with family, to planning our garden (OK, my husband's garden, I've gladly handed it over to him since I'm so busy working from home and taking care of Amelia), to visiting a close friend in the hospital, it felt like we were constantly on the run. So, Sunday morning I decided to leave Amelia with Jon while I took Molly to the college campus down the road for a walk. The start of the day was gorgeous, and it was nice to take a walk, just Molly and me. She was my constant companion pre-Amelia, running all my errands with me and often accompanying me to the houses of friends and family. These days it is too overwhelming to pack her and Amelia and the stroller, along with leash and diaper bag, so she's often stuck at home.

It was a great walk. I'm a two time alumni of the college, and they had done a lot of construction over the summer, so it was great to see all the new buildings and landscaping. Plus, I really exercised hard this week, so the walk loosened up all my tight and aching muscles.

Molly and I were finishing up our hour long walk when I received a picture message from Jon. Aww, I thought. It must be a cute picture of my little sweetie pie.

Instead, it was a picture of an overly full diaper.

Are you serious?!? My husband did not just text me a picture of a poopy diaper. It was so unexpected that I started giggling. I texted him back, "Uh oh, did we have a poo bomb? Better you than me!", and continued on my way.

Not much later, I received this text: "It's on the her and her clothes, the foot rest, toy box, tub, and Daddy."

Wait, what??? How did she get poo all over so many things? I was giggling so hard at this point that I was rather glad that the campus was fairly deserted.

When I arrived home, Jon was in a fairly worked up state, waving his hands around and describing how he hadn't even known at first that she had pooped, but when he did figure it out, he seemed to find evidence of this biological function all over the house.

You may be asking, how did it get all over so many things? Well, there are two parts of this. First, I try to make sure Amelia gets a fair amount of fiber in her diet. She is a great eater, but not so hot on veggies, so I am always inspecting food packages and trying to buy her treats and breads with a higher fiber content. Any mother knows that a constipated baby is an unhappy baby and therefore, I try to avoid that issue. Apparently, I'm doing a great job at making sure things are moving along for her! The second part of what I am now deeming as the "Poopocalypse of 2012" is that Amelia has discovered her butt crack:

Because she has found this part of her anatomy, she often sticks her fingers back there and pushes her diaper down, or in this case, makes a mess of whatever her diaper happens to contain.

And yes, I am definitely putting this picture in the "Items to show a future boyfriend" pile.

So there you have it. The events of Poopocalypse 2012, successfully managed by my dear husband. It's a good thing that I enjoyed that walk because he may never let me out of the house again!

Post Poopocalypse

**Psst.... did you catch me over on Curvy Girl Guide Friday? Here's the link!