Today, Your Due Date

Today I should have held you, 

Today I should have kissed your face, 

Today I would have marveled at the greatest blessing God can give...

Tomorrow I will cry, 

Tomorrow I will weep, 

Tomorrow I will think of you, and every day I breathe...

Years later I'll still miss you, 

Years later I'll feel that empty space again,

Years later I'll still wonder who you would have been...

Someday I may understand whatever's in God's plan, 

Someday the pain will lessen as I go about my life, 

Someday I will meet you...

ANGEL BABY MINE 





Hallelujah! Baby No More

***Warning: This post includes the words breastfeeding and boob. Proceed at your own risk.

The birthday cake has been eaten, the presents have been opened, and the balloons are deflated. My youngest daughter celebrated her 2nd birthday last week, and I thought it might be kind of fun to reminisce a little about life with Laney. Although, if you're expecting a heartfelt and nostalgic look into the past I may disappoint you. There will be no "Oh, where did the time go?" or "Couldn't she just be a baby again for one more day?" type sentiments from me. At the ripe old age of two, I think it's safe to say that the baby days are safely behind us, and here's what I have to say...

HALLELUJAH!!! PRAISE THE LORD ABOVE!!! Also, if you could see me right now I'd be doing a little happy dance. Picture "The Carlton." There, you've got it.

Three words. High. Needs. Baby. I had one, in every sense of the phrase. It is a real thing. Trust me. If you had one you would know. Without a doubt. Of course some babies may be high needs in some areas of their lives, but mine fit into every category of Dr. Sears' 12 Features of a High Needs Baby. So I've decided to make my own list, based on my own personal experiences.

You Know You Have A High Needs Baby If...

 

 

1. You spent the first two months of her life trying to figure out what was medically wrong with her. "For the love of God, someone please help me figure out what is wrong with my child! Because then we can fix it, right? Right?!"

 

2.  Your baby's cries reach an intensity and level of shrillness you never knew existed before. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia's definition of shrillness. "A word used to describe the quality of sounds that have a high-pitched, strident, raucous, screeching or harsh character [...] can also be used to describe a widely recognized and puzzling phenomenon whereby certain sounds are perceived as psychologically painful..." Psychologically painful? Sounds accurate to me.
 

3. A pacifier does anything but pacify your baby. This is the distinct communication I got from my baby when trying to offer a pacifier. "What the hell did you just try to put in my mouth?! Are you kidding me?! Get it out! GET IT OUT! What do you think I am, stupid?! Where's the real boob?!"
 

4. You've ever uttered the words, "She's sucking the life out of me," to the nice midwife at your six week postpartum check-up. And truly meant it.

5. The baby swing and bouncy seat have collected a layer of dust. You feel naked when you're not wearing your baby. Your baby carrier has become a part of your body, one as necessary as your heart or lungs. You do not leave home without it. Ever.

6. You have chosen to disregard all advice and have your baby sleep in your bed. It was the only way I survived the first eight months. The only way.

7. Car rides are like a form of medieval torture. All babies sleep in the car, right? Yeah, that's what I thought too. Other babies hate the car with a passion so strong they cannot control it, and the screaming ensues. Five minute ride or 50 minute ride. Doesn't matter. My coping mechanisms usually included fantasizing about driving myself off the road, or as a significantly better alternative, turning the radio volume up to a level certainly unacceptable with children in the car. Hey, I was only hanging onto a shred of sanity by that point. Cut me some slack. Must be that psychologically painful thing again. (See #2)
 

8. Your baby's breastfeeding "schedule" is nonexistent. Nursing 16 times a day is a completely normal occurrence. (See #4)

9. Upon arriving back home after a night out your babysitter immediately asks for a beer, and then downs it in five minutes flat. This is even more impressive when the babysitter is your mother, who normally has trouble finishing a beer in less than two hours.

10. You've ever wondered if your baby is bipolar. Her mood swings could rival that of any tween-age girl. Easily. Happiest baby on the block? Bride of Chucky? You're never quite sure which one you'll be dealing with.

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Sounds fun, huh? But all joking aside, once I finally gave in and accepted my daughter the way she was, it really wasn't that bad. I mean, we survived anyway. And you know what high needs babies turn into? High spirited toddlers. And that is an absolutely remarkable thing to witness.

If someone told me tomorrow that I would have to start over, back at the beginning, day one. Would I cry and beg and plead for mercy? Probably. But I would do it. In a heartbeat. How could I not? Look at that face.

 

 

And really, isn't that what motherhood is all about? Making sacrifices, doing anything to make sure they thrive. You love your children like crazy. Even though you may not like them all the time. 





Biannual Housecleaning (And My Brain On Drugs)

Okay, biannual might be a bit of an exaggeration. But let me explain something about how my brain works. I clean my house once every four to five weeks. I'm talking the bigger jobs, windows, mirrors, dust, kitchen, bathroom, sweep, mop, vacuum. That's the short version of my cleaning list. A little dirt really does not bother me. A few crumbs on the floors, fine. A layer of dust on the furniture, no problem. Unknown organisms starting to grow in the toilet, I'm good with that. I'm helping to build up our immune systems. That's what I tell myself.

Clutter, on the other hand. Agh! CLUTTER! I cannot handle it. Everyone remembers that drug-free campaign from the 80s, "This is your brain on drugs," with the egg in the frying pan.

That is what my brain is like when my house is cluttered. Except for it's probably more like scrambled eggs. That seems like a better metaphor. Everything has a place. Nothing is left out on counters, tables, dressers, unless it belongs there. Otherwise....scrambled eggs. I'm dead serious. I've learned to live with it.

So it's that time of the month, housecleaning, that is. It normally takes me about four hours to work through the entire list. I remember back when I used to do everything all in one day. So simple, right? Half a day of cleaning and I'm done for another month. Yahoo! Now, with two little kids at home? Not so simple anymore. It's turned into more of a housecleaning week.

Yesterday I decided to try and challenge myself. The oldest would be gone all day at school. I'd only have one child at home to account for. I WILL get this all done in one day!

And I did! Granted, half of it was done during naptime, but the parts that weren't involved a couple setbacks, one being vacuuming. My two year old has likened the vacuum cleaner to a rabid dog, which means I have to hold her while I'm vacuuming. At least for the first 10 minutes. After she's figured out that it's not going to chase her and gnaw her hand off then she's good to go. Then she wants to play with it.

Another problem I encountered, I get out my handy dandy Swiffer Wet Jet, push the button to spray the floor, and nothing happens. It's broken. Alright, I can handle this. Pinterest to the rescue! I'll just make a homemade floor cleaner and put it in a spray bottle to spray the floor myself. Except for the only spray bottle I can find to put the cleaner in is the one I put water in for brushing the girls' hair in the mornings. Whatever. I'm using it. I'll clean it out afterwards. I refuse to get down on my hands and knees with a bucket and a sponge and wash the floors the old fashioned way. First of all, I don't even own a sponge. Gross! Secondly, what do I look like, Cinderella?! This is 2014, nobody really does that shit anymore, right? (If you do, please don't tell me. I'll probably just pretend I didn't hear you.)

So there you have it. DONE! I managed to clean my whole house in one day. The girls' hair may have had a faint smell of vinegar and dish soap this morning, but I'm HOME FREE for the rest of the week!

Someone Better Call CPS, This Is Getting Serious

Of course, as most any other parent, I want the best for my kids, in every aspect of their life. And that includes teaching them how to live a healthy lifestyle. We typically try to follow the 5-2-1-0 rule in our house. 5 = At least five servings of fruits and vegetables combined, per day. 2 = No more than two hours of screen time per day. 1 = One hour minimum of physical activity per day. 0 = Zero sugar sweetened beverages per day. Normally we don't have much of a problem sticking to this, however, today would not have been a good example. Here's a little about how it went.


5 = Could one grape qualify as a full serving of fruit? Is a pickle a vegetable? I mean, it started out as a cucumber. That's got to be worth something, right?

2 = We might have blown this out of the water today. Daddy got home from work early today and the afternoon turned us into a bunch of lazy couch potatoes. I'll blame Daddy, that always works.

1 = Does walking to and from the car in the library parking lot count as exercise? Maybe if we add in the time spent during a heated competition of "who can sprint through the living room at full speed and head butt the couch the hardest?"

0 = The children may or may not have collectively consumed half a gallon of Arnold Palmer iced tea at dinnertime tonight.


So we had an "off" day today. So sue me. Just as with any other job, the job of a full time mom does not come with perfection. Far from it. I call these occasional days our "reality check" days. Reality check, my kids are well fed and not starving. Reality check, my kids got to snuggle under the covers and hang out with their parents today. Reality check, we made it through an outing at the library with no meltdowns and no missing children. And they had lots of fun. I've provided the evidence here.

 

Sometimes I think we all just need to take ourselves a little less seriously. Eat a pickle, and call it a vegetable. Live a little. 

"Princess Log" And The Midnight Snuggles

In case you're wondering, "princess log" is the nickname my husband has dubbed to our four year old daughter. And probably rightfully so. Here is the scenario. On any given night between the hours of midnight and 4:00 AM there is a pretty good chance that we will be graced with her presence in our bed. And as you can imagine, the nickname comes from the fact that she "sleeps like a log." All I can say is that she gets it from somewhere, and without a doubt, that would be me. I'm fairly certain that a tornado could be roaring not a mile from our house and there we would be, her and I, arms flung over each other's faces, blissfully enjoying our glorious slumber. According to my husband, these are a couple of very accurate examples as to what we look like during the varying hours of the night.

*Sourced from www.howtobeadad.com

 

 

Now here is something you might have noticed right away. This article refers to baby sleep positions. This is our four year old daughter that we're talking about. Every parent knows that there is an alarming amount of information on why you should never co-sleep with your baby, their safety of course being the primary reason. But nobody ever talks about the preschooler that frequently shares their sleeping space. If someone would have told me five years ago, before I ever had children, that I would be sharing my bed with my four year old I would have snorted, not me! I will never allow it!

 

Ha! Haha! Hahaha! Just you wait 26 year old me, you will do all kinds of things you never imagined once faced with the everyday challenges of parenting!

 

Here's the thing. Of course I realize this may be a problem, and maybe I should try to resolve it, but whenever I question her about it her answer is always the same. "I just like to snuggle with you, Mommy." Oh dear Lord, how am I supposed to say no to that? And you know what? I don't really want to, because here is what I picture in my head.

 

Fourteen years later... College move-in day (cue daunting music). How did this happen so fast? I will be brave! I will not cry in front of her! But, I will cry the whole way home. And later that night? Maybe I'll crawl into her bed to go to sleep. And you know what I'll be wishing for? One more night with princess log and some midnight snuggles.

 

 



 

 



 

 

 



Grocery Shopping...Our Weekly Adventure

There cannot be another household task that I dread more than grocery shopping. I hate it, every part of it. Trying to figure out our "menu" for the week and which meals I want to make, the actual trip to the grocery store, lugging everything into the house and putting it away in it's proper place. The way I figure it I have three choices. I can go to the grocery store alone, I can go with just the kids, or we can all go together as a family. I've done them all, and in my opinion none of these are good options. I don't know how many times I've heard women say that going to the grocery store alone feels like a vacation. Fuck that. That's ridiculous. Why would the words "grocery shopping" and "vacation" ever even be uttered together in the same sentence? No....just no. In my sick and twisted reality I would rather go with my kids, because it gives me some sort of distraction from the monotonous and mundane task of the grocery shopping itself.

Last night was one of those nights we decided to make it a family outing. And we didn't just settle for the grocery store alone. Our first stop was Party City, our local party store, to put in a balloon order for an upcoming birthday party. Next on the list, Once Upon A Child, a second hand store that sells gently used kid stuff, clothes, toys, just about anything you can think of. I got an email recently saying that they had just put out their stock of Halloween costumes, so I figured we better go before they get picked over. Yes, we bought our Halloween costumes in August. I am a planner people. I've already mentioned that. There was a bite to eat mingled in there somewhere, and last stop was the grocery store. Who can tell me the common denominator problem with all three of these locations? SENSORY OVERLOAD....Hello! Bad idea, really bad idea.

Now, I'm sure every mom can relate, there are some times after bringing your kids grocery shopping you feel like you could conquer the world. There were no meltdowns, no begging, hardly any whining, you even managed to get a compliment from a sweet old lady at the cash register on how well behaved your kids are. Last night was not one of those times. Not by a long shot. The begging started before we'd even made it into the store. They wanted to wear their new Halloween costumes. And why not? We are already facing the mind-numbingly boring job of grocery shopping. Lets make life a little more interesting.

 

 

I'm not sure how we all made it out of the grocery store relatively unharmed last night, but we did it, and that's what counts. I may choose to go by myself the next couple of weeks though. Maybe I'll just get drunk first, that might be fun. 

100% Chance Of...

One of my particularly "OCD-like" tendencies is that I am constantly checking the weather...all day long. Part of the problem may be that I am using weather.com as my source, which I've been informed by numerous people, sucks. Despite their advice, I am always going back for more. Kind of like that really bad boyfriend in high school that your friends keep telling you to stay away from, but it seems you're always getting back together one more time.

Anyhow, pretty much the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is check the weather. Or if we're being completely honest, the very first thing I do is grab my smartphone. Isn't that what we all do? Let's take a poll on how many of us reach for our smartphone in the morning before even getting out of bed. I bet the percentage would be startling. Not surprising, but startling.

So I check the weather, and the very first thing I notice is that there is a 100% chance for rain. This makes me smile on the inside because there is something very satisfying to my perpetually organized brain about seeing that 100%. I am a planner. I like these odds. Like, thank you weather man for finally knowing what the hell is going on today. And then I thought, wouldn't that be great if there could be a "life forecaster" sometimes. For example....

There is a 100% chance than your two year old will wake up at 5:45 again tomorrow. Thank you Mr. Life Forecaster, I will go to bed early tonight.

There is a 100% chance that you will want to die during Total Body Conditioning class this morning, and possibly be cursing under your breath at the back of the instructor's head. Thank you Mr. Life Forecaster, maybe I'll skip today's class.

There is a 100% chance that you will meet a really nice mom with two kids your age at the park on the way home. Thank you Mr. Life Forecaster, I'm glad I gave in to the pleas from the backseat, rather than going home like I wanted to.

There is a 100% chance that you will have a special moment with your daughter today if you'd resist the temptation of your smartphone. Thank you Mr. Life Forecaster, I'm so glad I did. And this is what
we did while the littlest little was taking a nap, Brooklyn was done with her quiet time, and I set down my phone...

Is there anything more adorable than a little girl dressing up like her Mommy?

 

Another cute moment from playing dress-up. And this is what they look like when they hear Daddy's work van coming up the driveway. Notice Laney, who has simply decided she is not satisfied with the stool we precariously put on top of the toy chest for her, but would like to stand on the 1/2 inch back rail.

 

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And in case you're wondering, it did rain today, but maybe I should still take this moment to say........

 

 

WEATHER.COM, THIS IS FOR YOU...

 

 

 

Taylor Swift - "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together"