Here's the List

I've been pondering since the weekend about what to post this week. While I had almost decided on several grainy cell phone pics of Amelia cuddling with her daddy and sleeping along with a weekend recap, eh, that sounded boring. As Facebook has been flooded with people's daily gratitudes during the month of November, I've decided I should post my own list.

I should add here that although I rarely make a written list of gratitude, I do try to reflect at least once a day on what I'm grateful for. My cousin writes a daily list and e-mails it to several of her friends, and I generally am obsessive about checking my e-mail until she sends it. Partially because it is a way for me to stay connected to her even when both of our lives are very busy, but also because it is a good reminder of the small things in life that help people get past bad days, tragic life happenings, and grumpy moods. As soon as I read it, I think about what I am grateful for, and because she sends it early in the morning, I can start my day feeling grateful and remember to be this way during the day.

For instance, when Little Miss Grumpy Pants will not sleep through her whole nap and I am stuck holding her while I'm trying to work one handed? I take a deep breath and look at her soft features, her slow and peaceful breathing, her pudgy little arms, and realize that I will miss this cuddling some day. What else am I grateful for?

• My daughter is healthy and happy. I really take this for granted until she catches a cold or flu, or until I think of the many people I know that struggle with infertility or have had children that have passed away. She drives me a little nuts some days, but she is a blessing and we are so, so fortunate that she is well.
• I have awesome parents. They do an immense amount for us, from providing Amelia with clothes, diapers, and toys, to babysitting and listening to me gripe when I feel like I being pushed over the edge by motherhood. They are terrific, loving grandparents and let me know often that they are here for me anytime.
• I have a wonderful marriage. It is not always easy, and we go through our up's and down's like any other couple. I have really been reflecting lately how good of a husband and father my spouse is. He is kind and makes me feel like the most beautiful woman alive. He appreciates my cooking and ability to do 50 things at once to keep our home up and raise our child. He apologizes when he's wrong, and he tells me I'm a good mom frequently. Watching him cuddle or tickle Amelia melts my heart and I'm so grateful that we are raising our daughter together.
• The rest of my family is awesome too! It would take me all day to go through each and every one, but trust me, I'm blessed with a great family. When people complain that they have to deal with family gatherings during the holidays, I have no idea what they are talking about. I look forward to stuffing myself and then laughing around the table after a good meal.
• Employment. I think this is a huge thing that I took for granted a year ago, and I really try to be thankful for it every day. Luckily, so far my job is making this easy. I had a few qualms about working for an online school, but it's only taken me a couple months to be amazed at the teamwork and positive attitudes that I witness every day.

• Wonderful pets. I know, some people are not into animals, that's fine. But we are, and we pretty much have the best ever. As our daughter has been edging on abusive towards Mikey (our 8 year old 13 pound cat) and Molly (our sweet, obedient 3 year old golden retriever), I'm reminded every day that we are lucky to have them. I don't have to worry about Amelia being hurt by one of them, and she is growing up knowing how to be kind to animals.
• All the other standards to be thankful for: a warm house, food on the table, clean water, a safe area to live, transportation. I list it off like it's nothing, but all it takes is turning on the news to be extremely grateful for any of these things.

I really could go on and on. I've been thinking of tons of 'small' things to be grateful for every day. However, I have onion rolls to start baking and a daughter to play with. So, I leave you with a picture of three of my loves and a wish for you to have a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with gratitude.

The Big Cake Smash

I know you've all been on pins and needles waiting for a first birthday recap. First of all, any girly girls slash party planners out there that get all thrilled about first birthday parties because they are a terrific excuse to adorn your baby in tutus, lace, and pink EVERYTHING, don't get too excited. Also, there was no theme, no Sesame Street, Dora, glitter, fancy decorations, none of that. I don't do frivolous unless someone appreciates it and guess what? Amelia wouldn't because hello, she's ONE.

I know, I know, how did God give us a girl when I was going to squander away all the chances to be excessively girly? When it's time for her to learn about make-up and high heels, I will need to designate another family member to be in charge. Otherwise, she will be a plain Jane like mommy.

I have to say that it was a really good day. Some little girl slept horribly awful the night before (sure, we can pretend she was excited about her party, but the truth is she's a terrible sleeper 99% of the time), and mommy was exhausted in the morning. But I had to plow ahead and get the house cleaned and bake a cake, so I slugged down a pot of coffee and got to it. Luckily my husband devoted his entire morning to helping out and continued to clean when I took Amelia's morning nap with her. The downside was that I was still taking a shower when guests started arriving around 11:45, but Amelia and I were in a better mood so it was worth it.

As a side note, I have to say that her birthday in November works out for us fabulously. My husband's and dad's birthdays are in the summer, and we always have their party at my house. So now? Super clean house twice a year. That means I can be a negligent house cleaner the rest of the year.

I think the rest of the recap should be told in pictures since there were enough cameras in the house to feel like we were the Kardashians.

We ate lunch first and I don't have pics of that because hello, we were eating lasagna and who has time to snap pictures when you are stuffing your face with italian goodness?

Afterwards, the opening of gifts:

Not too sure if she should really be tearing things up...

One of her favorite gifts, her phone. Have I ever mentioned the girl likes to talk?

Another favorite gift, her weeble house! Mommy likes to play with it too :)

She's smiling here, but she is not too thrilled with her baby doll. When it giggles she throws it across the room. Not a good omen for if she ever has siblings.

"Did you see how many presents I got?!?"

I can't resist posting an adorable daddy and daughter pic!

Molly waiting for the cake smash, knowing that Amelia will share with her.

Sticking her fingers in the ooey gooey pumpkin caramel cake.

She wouldn't eat any until Mommy fed her a little piece.

Finally eating a little.

This is what she does when she's finished eating-- she's smashes her food all over her tray. It drives me crazy!

Of course my dad had to take a pic of me restraining her from any further cake smashing.

Looking drunk while drinking her milk.


Many family members noted that Amelia was fabulous during her party and I have to agree. We had guests over for four hours, and she didn't fuss or whine once. I had originally thought about having a huge party at our church and adding our close friends to the guest list, but like I said in the beginning, I'm not a pro at party planning. And, I had read that such big parties can overwhelm little ones. I'm really glad that we stuck to our traditional family celebration at our home where Amelia was content and happy. It was a terrific celebration :)

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!

The Numbers

Today is November 7th, and what I call my secondary anniversary. Fourteen years ago I sat in my parents driveway in Jon's black Dodge pick-up truck as we debated if we should 'go out' with each other. You know, like, be boyfriend and girlfriend and stuff. Fourteen years seems like a crazy long time when you put into perspective that I'm 30 years old. That's half my life, people. Not to say that it's been one seamless relationship without any breaks, but mostly, we've been a couple since high school.

All day I've thought about what kind of mushy things I could write about our relationship, but blah, isn't that boring? Then this afternoon I just could not stop thinking about fourteen years and how many events, emotions, celebrations, and upsets that includes. So here are the numbers...

In fourteen years, we've:

Been engaged twice

Married once

Shared one apartment and one house

Owned five different vehicles

Had five pets

Earned three college degrees

Attended one funeral

Attended many more weddings

Gotten in countless fights

Forgiven each other just as many times

Been separated by military trainings and deployment three times

Had one beautiful little girl

Christmas 2010

Happy secondary anniversary, darling husband <3

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.

One Big Blur

Our weekend was crammed full of a little bit of everything. Jon had a friend visit from out of town, and as I knew that this would result in a lot of drinking, golfing, and staying up late, I packed Amelia and I up and headed to my parents. Yes, I am that great of a wife. Lucky for me this friend is allergic to pet hair, and therefore, Jon had to clean much of the house. Shockingly, it was just as clean when we returned last night, so it seems like a fair trade.

One of the biggest highlights of the weekend was the race that I ran Saturday morning. This is my third 5K since I started signing up for races in August. My goal was to run it under thirty minutes-- I would have been thrilled with a time of 29:59. Instead I ran it in 29:07!!! I was so excited that I would have done backflips if I knew how. Here's Amelia and I post race. See how happy (and sweaty) I am?

Following the race Amelia and I headed to our house so I could clean up and eat. Then we went to my friend's house to meet her new daughter, stopped at the grocery store, visited my cousin, and headed back to my parents. It was a busy, busy day and it showed-- Amelia passed out for 7:00 p.m. I thought this was one of her late naps, but instead, she was out for the night:

I was worn out too, so I headed to bed by 9:00 p.m., which was a smart move because little miss sunshine was up by 5:15 a.m.:

Sunday was a little more relaxing as Amelia played with her grandparents while I read on the couch. Perhaps this does not sound all that exciting, but any mom knows that being able to read more than a couple of paragraphs at a time without chasing down your toddler is a treat. Grandma and Grandpa really know how to wear her out and she took a ninety minute nap in the morning, which is fantastic for our busy little girl. When she woke up, she needed some cuddling from Grandpa:

In the afternoon, we met my husband and his friend for lunch and then spent a little more time with my parents. It was a great weekend. Much better than my other October weekends that were filled with the flu and missing my first 10K. Today we're back to the daily grind and counting down to Amelia's first birthday on Thursday :)

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.