Moc Mom

Moving Forward

2012-01-27T14:11:00.003-06:00

Today is Day 20 and I am not exactly on the plan still. I am still eating according to the plan but I had a ton of leftovers from week 2 so I am finishing those off instead of making the new things I was supposed to for week three. I maintain that every recipe I have tried has been delicious but after 8 days of having lentil soup for lunch I am sort of over it. : )

I have begun tracking my foods in Sparkpeople.com because I feel like that is the natural next step for me. According to that some of the recipes are actually lower in calories than the cleanse says they are. I have also begun stepping my workouts back up. Instead of just doing yoga I am doing three hours of cardio a week in addition to my two hours of yoga. The combination of those two things might explain why I have begun to feel hungry even after I eat. According to my heart rate monitor I am burning about 600 calories with each cardio session and some of my meals are closer to 100 calories than 200. Anyway, Sparkpeople makes sense for me. It is free, it is thorough, it is easy to use and I have had success on it before in terms of weight loss.

As this cleanse comes to a close I am pretty close to my previous goal weight. One thing I have learned though is that I can change the shape of my body. I have always been bottom heavy, pear-shape galore, because of that I never really thought I could do much to change that. I have some serious German genetics working against me, ask my cousins, all of them, except the boys which is totally unfair, but that is another story! But you know what, I can change the shape of my legs, my hips, my rear. I will never look like Kate Moss but I don't want to. I want to look like me, only fitter. That being said, I think I am going to amend my goal weight or maybe my goal pants anyway. I am not so hung up on a number, I care more about how I look in clothes.

I also have to say that eating this way has left me feeling great. I will add back bread and probably to some extent, everything I have eliminated but I am going to base my diet on fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and lean meats. I don't feel like sugar has the same hold over me it used to. I really do want to change my diet. I did not eat terribly bad prior to the cleanse but I often felt like I was a slave to food, like I had no choice, I just could not make good decisions. When faced with a choice between an egg white veggie omelet and biscuits and gravy I just never thought I could be satisfied with the egg white option. Now I know I can be. That does not mean that I will never choose biscuits and gravy, but if it can be a choice instead of a magnetic unavoidable type draw then I feel like I have won the battle.

When I am all done I will spend more time thinking about all of the changes my body and mind have gone through. Until them I am going to coast to the finish line where the SAG awards, some organic Belgian chocolate, a glass of wine and some cheese and crackers are waiting. (In reasonable moderate amounts, by my choice I should add.)

Really?

2012-01-20T19:03:00.002-06:00

Well, today is day 13 and I am over this. I like the food, and I feel great but I am tired of all the prep and I miss eating meals with my family. Because I am constantly making two meals I am usually eating by myself when everyone else is done. I also just miss having the freedom to make my own choices. I think that is the deal though, will I make good choices when I have that freedom? I hope so. I really don't want this all to be in vain. I do find myself wanting to return to mindless eating. It takes so much less energy. Lame, I know, just telling it like it is. I think the problem with my previous choices is not so much that I ate terribly. I ate pretty good, but I think I ate too much junk and not enough veggies. I am hoping I will feel differently tomorrow and I can get my mojo back.

Still going

2012-01-15T14:04:00.001-06:00

So here I sit on day 8. I can not believe I made it this long if I am being honest. Will power is not my strong suit and yet, here I am. What a testament to God's timing. I honestly think if I had tried to do this prior to this time in my life I would not have been able to. I am much more at peace with my body and much more tuned in to my mind then ever before.

I find the only times I am really grouchy about my don't list is when I am hungry. For instance, today after church I had my snack while the kids played at the play area and then we came home for lunch. Since I am starting week two today I have to prep and make everything. (Next week I think I will prep my week three stuff on Saturday.) So now I have to simmer my lentil soup for 25 minutes after taking 20 minutes to dice and chop everything and I am really hungry by this point. As my soup is simmering I try to pick up the house and come across a Hershey's kiss. Oh, I wanted that kiss so bad and I was so mad that I could not have it. I start to rationalize why I should eat it and then I just say no, I should not eat it for any reason. I decided to save it for when I am all done.

I had planned to weigh myself at the beginning and at the end. I decided yesterday that I would weigh myself after each week for a little added incentive. I lost seven pounds. I was happy but I am sure I will gain some of that back when the program is over. However, I could try to keep this lifestyle going. I am eating an appropriate number of calories for my body. I am working out, mildly for week one, but I will add more cardio and weights back in for week two. What is my next step? I wonder...

Snow Day

2012-01-12T19:04:00.000-06:00

I was cranky from the get go today because they were calling for snow and we got snow. Probably six inches I am guessing and Jeff is out of town. God has blessed me with some lovely neighbors and they blew my driveway out. What tremendous kindness! I don't mind the snow, on a day when we don't have a million things to do that require car trips. I did not grow up driving on the snow so it makes me a little nervous. It was a mess! Even my neighbor who has lived here all her life said she had white knuckles the whole way home.

I am not writing about what I ate today because that was pretty irrelevant. What is relevant is that I feel like I had a breakthrough today. It was a pretty stressful mom day. (Warning: this may sound awfully whiny to a working mom or even to someone with no kids, but we all have stress in our lives and it just takes different forms for different lifestyles.) I have been trying hard to do yoga this week while on this cleanse and I really wanted to make it to 9:00 yoga at the gym. That means leaving at 8:30 which is tough for us to do, without snow. We made it - Hooray! Then we came home for 40 minutes and left again to pick up Emelia's friend from preschool so we could carpool for gymnastics. Home for another 45 minutes and then off to gymnastics. I got 22 minutes to relax while Sam napped and Emelia was at gymnastics. Then we had a doctor's appointment and that is when my day crashed and burned.

I am tremendously grateful because my child is healthy and passed all the well check guidelines for her age with flying colors! Then it came time for shots. As soon as Emelia knew she had a doctor's appointment she began having anxiety about getting shots. I wasn't sure if she was going to have any so we prayed that God would keep her calm and she seemed to be ok. Then when we got to the doctor she did great until it was time to get the shots and then she FREAKED OUT. I had to physically restrain her while she screamed and cried and turned bright red. It is incredibly hard to watch your child experience that kind of terror. It was everything I could do to keep from crying with her. The whole thing probably only lasted for two minutes but it felt like my heart was being ripped out. She calmed down really quickly and we stopped at Target for a toy. Yep, I felt that guilty.

While we were at Target I was just a wreck, stressed and hungry and I was so close to just throwing in the towel. I just wanted a Turkey sandwich and some yogurt or a latte or maybe even a candy bar, something, anything, to make me feel better. Then I thought, it is over. Eating a whatever will not undo it. There is no longer an immediate stress stimuli so there is not need to eat. Even if there was a stressor, eating will not make it better.

That's it! I actually thought about it instead of just doing it. I not only thought about not eating, I have been doing that for five days now, I actually thought about eating, thought about why I was eating and then thought through WHY I should not eat. I was amazing really. Now, I confess that I still wanted a latte and a candy bar but at least I knew why I wanted them and why I did not need them. Maybe, just maybe, this time next week when the poop hits the fan I won't want a candy bar.

Day 4

2012-01-11T14:26:00.003-06:00

I did not sleep very well last night. I drank this detox tea in the morning which was the only thing I did differently otherwise I don't know why I had trouble staying asleep. I cut out the tea today we will see how it goes.

Breakfast : Grapefruit/carrot/ginger juice
It was good and satisfying but for some reason I was very hungry an hour later. I ate half of my morning snack before yoga class and the other half after class.

When I got home I had to make lunch for the kids and it was hard not to take bites of that food. Emelia had a friend over and she asked me to cut the crusts off her PB&J and it tool a lot to throw the crusts away instead of eating them. I have come to realize that is my hardest time of day! Weird!

What I realized today is that one of the reasons this feels so good is because I am doing something for myself. I rarely do that. I rarely make time to take care of me. It feels like a victory! What is funny is spending a little more time on myself has led me to be a better mom. I am less cranky, more willing to play and generally less stressed. Go figure!

Snack: Trail Mix
Lunch: Spiced Butternut Squash Soup

Dinner was really a hard time tonight. I almost gave up. I could not figure out how to peel the acorn squash in the recipe and I was frustrated and hungry and just cranky. I was on the phone with my friend and we just stop and prayed and sure enough about five minutes later I got the squash peeled with a veggie peeler. Weird, right? Oh, I never think of the simplest things, I have to make life complicated.
Lunch: Spiced Butternut squash soup. Delicious!

Cheating

2012-01-10T06:59:00.002-06:00

6:55 a.m.
As I start day three I am really proud of myself for not cheating. Usually with any sort of food related thing I nip a little from Sam's plate, doesn't count, I nip a little from Emelia's snack, doesn't count, but this time I have not eaten anything but the suggested foods. I have not added or subtracted anything, I have just followed the plan. With each day that I invest I feel like I am less likely to cheat because I have invested so much.

Breakfast: Orange Berry Smoothie
It is delicious but I am almost disappointed that there are no veggies in it. It feels
like I am not eating as healthy. I think because I can suck down a fruit smoothie without any special discipline but add some carrots and it may be a test of my will. (It truly isn't because carrot juice is so sweet, but you get the picture.)

I miss my coffee. The tea is fine but I miss the delicious creaminess of a well balanced latte. What I may actually be missing now that I think about it, is the sweetness of the sugar-free vanilla syrup and the creaminess of the nonfat milk. Off to get ready for Bible Study.

2:13 p.m.
I had my trail mix while I was at Bible study but I was really wanting carbs. Today my group added new members and I was asked to split off and lead a group of my own. I am terrified. I suddenly felt like a 12 year old girl trying to talk about the Bible with all of these older wiser women. After I calmed down and could really think about it I know God will lead these women through me which takes the burden off of me. All I have to do is pray and listen to Him. As my stress level increased so did my desire for snacks. I have come a long way from where I used to be as at least I was craving pretzels and not Taco Bell. : ) Yeah me!

We got stuck in terrible traffic on the way home and I was so hungry so I ate some pistachios in the car and ate a late lunch. I was worried that if I started fixing the kids lunch while I was starving I would start eating off of their plates.

Lunch: Avocado/Tomato/Pepper salad with lime/olive oil dressing
This meal tasted great but I had a tough time with the avocados. I don't mind how they taste but I struggle with the texture. I am going to try to "treat" myself to a cup of tea while Sam is napping. Hopefully that will take the place of a snack. I am full but yet I want to eat. That just seems so wrong!

Holy Detox Batman

2012-01-09T08:34:00.000-06:00

I am not normally one to talk about poop... okay who am I kidding, I am TOTALLY one to talk about poop, this morning's was a doozy. I wish I had weighed myself pre and post, I am sure I lost two pounds. Yikes! It did make me feel a strange sense of accomplishment because I felt like I am actually getting rid of the residual junk in my body.

I slept great! I slept soundly and woke a few times to pee but was able to go right back to sleep which is rare for me. I woke up at 6:15 feeling rested and refreshed.

I still missed my coffee with my quiet time but the decaf green tea felt slightly more satisfying today. The beet/carrot/apple/mint juice for breakfast however, was not my favorite. It was drinkable and not in a hold your nose and suck it down sort of way, but something just did not taste great to me. I am not sure if I should have peeled the beet first or maybe it was the mint. (Bonus side effect, the kids were fascinated with the juicer so I made them some orange kiwi juice which they loved.) Tomorrow I will stick to my carrot/grapefruit juice or maybe try one of the smoothie recipes. Again though, I don't feel hungry. I still had to fight the urge to eat my kid's food. I made them scrambled eggs, which I often eat for breakfast, and I really wanted some. I think what that says to me is that I eat what I crave not what I need. Hummm, now what to do with that?!?

I find myself looking forward to my next meal or snack. This morning I think I will hit the gym for some yoga and take my trail mix with me. I am interested to see how this process effects my yoga practice. I worry about having enough energy but we will see.

1:53 p.m.
Yoga was hard but I think that is mainly because I have not been to class since Thanksgiving.
I was not hungry after class but man, I wanted a snack. I had already eaten my trail mix on the way to class since I drank my juice at 7:00.

As we struggled to get out the door on time I found myself feeling resentful about not being able to have a latte. Oddly enough when I picked Emelia up from school I really wanted Jimmy John's. I was hungry but for some reason I really wanted a sandwich. The cravings seem to be so much stronger today and I am a little more frustrated by my lack of choices. I also am feeling a little tired. The dietitian who created the cleanse said you can expect headaches and fatigue the first three days. We will see.

Lunch: Kale/Carrot/Red Cabbage/Parsley salad and two fruit and nut balls.
I feel physically satisfied but I really want a snack. I usually try to relax at least half and hour while Sam naps and Emelia watches a movie and I think I associate that with food. I definitely see some patterns here.

I am feeling a little deprived today. I think it is because food or drink is often a reward for me. After Sam wakes up from nap I am planning a trip to the Goodwill as a treat of a different sort. Let's hope that works because when I think about 19 more days of this it feels really daunting. I am trying to focus on one meal or snack at a time. Next up roasted cauliflower for a snack!

Evening
My snack was good as was my dinner the Roasted Beet soup again, but today was really hard. It felt like constant cravings, hopefully tomorrow will be easier.

Welcome to My Food Journal

2012-01-08T13:05:00.000-06:00

So I know I was supposed to blog more and I know I DIDN'T blog more so now I make no promises, only attempts to chronicle the craziness that is my life. For my latest act of craziness I have chosen to do a whole foods cleanse. For the next 21 days I will be eliminating sugar, alcohol, caffeine, gluten, dairy products and processed foods from my diet. The first week is all vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds and a few condiments. The second week you add back in legumes and lean proteins. The third week you add back in gluten-free grains. So far I am two meals and two snacks into it and I have realized a few things about my relationship with food.

The first thing I realized is that eating is less about hunger and more about an occasion. I missed my coffee while I had my quiet time this morning. Not because of the physical need for coffee but because that is just what I do and it feels luxurious to have a creamy (yes I add cream and stevia to my coffee) cup of coffee while I talk to God before the rest of my world is awake. I found myself struggling today after church. I was mildly hungry but even after eating my snack and satiating the hunger I was still having a hard time with cravings. I realized it is because we normally go out to breakfast as a family after church. I was able to bounce back once I got home and saw the fridge full of produce that I most certainly will not waste.

I also realized that I eat off of the kids plates a lot. I made Emelia a peanut butter sandwich and normally I would have licked the knife clean. I gave Sam and Emelia each a few chips. As I put the chips on their plates I had to fight the urge not to eat the chips even though they are not a type of chip I love. Sam had a cookie and left most of it on the table. Normally I would eat those two bites instead of throwing them away.

Interesting, very interesting.

As part of this cleanse you are supposed to keep a food diary, not just of what you ate but how it made you feel. So this is my place for that.

I am going to start by writing down my goals for this cleanse so that if I need moral support I can come back and look at this.

More energy
Better sleep
Better moods
Establish healthier habits
Weight loss

I think this is the first time I have ever attempted any food related thing that was not all about being skinny. I have come to the realization that I will never be skinny. I can be healthy and toned but skinny just is not in my genetic repertoire. Kate Winslet maybe, Kate Moss not a chance. So, here's to new habits and new knowledge.

Food Diary 1/8/2011
Breakfast: Grapefruit/Carrot/Ginger Juice
Tasty, would drink again on my own, felt satisfied, missed coffee.

Snack: Cranberry/Blueberry/Nut Trail Mix
Good, helped me hold out for lunch.

Lunch: Kale/Carrot/Red Cabbage/Parsley Salad with Dijon vinaigrette and sunflower seeds
Good, hurt my jaw with all the chewing, felt full.

Snack: Fruit and nut balls (finely chopped dried fruit and nuts rolled in to one inch balls)
They were actually much better than they sound.

Update 3:45
I have a mild headache, probably from the caffeine withdrawal. Took one ibuprofen and it feels better. I am struggling to drink my water. I have only had 1.5 liters thus far. I guess I can guzzle while I cook dinner because that is often when I have a glass of wine. Roasted Beet and Garlic Soup is on tap for dinner, my bathroom habits should be CRAZY tomorrow between the roughage and the beets. I had to laugh when I looked at the recipe for dinner Iand saw it required leeks had to look them up on the internet to figure our which end you are actually supposed to eat.

I am not hungry but still had to fight the urge to eat the leftover chips from Sam's lunch plate. Dumb chips! I'll post again after dinner.

6:27 p.m.
Dinner: 1 cup roasted beet and garlic soup
The soup was a pain to make. I should have made it in a small pot because it was not deep enough for my immersion blender which meant I had to puree it in batches - drag! However, it tasted really good and it was very filling. I am currently eating half of Sam's leftover pear but that is allowed as a snack. I think this will be it for the night. Hopefully I can avoid the evening munchies. I am pretty sure I know why this supposedly helps you sleep better...because I am EXHAUSTED from cutting, chopping, shredding and otherwise preping all these veggies. : ) Looking forward to my apple/beet/carrot juice for breakfast.

Banished Blog

2011-09-03T14:50:00.003-05:00

So, I have sort of let my blog languish for awhile. Okay, more than awhile, months really, whole seasons even. I have been in a weird season of life. I am trying to make changes, lots of changes, maybe even too many changes, I am trying to change the types of food we ate - more vegies less junk. I am trying to clear the chemicals out of my bathroom. (My skin has never looked better, thanks Suki Skincare!) I am trying to focus more on my state of well being than on feeling fat. I still feel fat, so clearly that needs work. All of this stuff running around in my mind has left little time or mindshare (as we used to say in my PR days) to devote to blogging.

As I thought about it though I felt like I sort of had it backward. See, when I have so much stuff running around in my brain and I don't let it out anywhere my friend L gets an earful on the phone, my husband gets lectures about parabens and my sleep suffers. I should have been blogging about all of this craziness so I will try to find some time to do just that. Hello blog world, I am back - again.

Back at it

2011-03-21T07:43:00.000-05:00

Today I am going backwards... in a good way. You see before we moved I had been doing really well with finding time for the important stuff, things like having a daily quiet time, working out, logging my food (which is the only way I can eat healthy - otherwise I magically forget that I just had a piece of chocolate and proceed to eat another one) then we moved and everything just sort of stopped. I got back to my daily quiet time pretty quickly but the working out and eating well was another story. The kids were perpetually sick which meant no childcare at the gym for them which meant riding the bike in the basement (which I loathe) and we were cooped up. I don't like winter. At first I love boots and sweaters and then about two weeks in to it, I am over it. Well, winter is almost done and I feel mentally better than I have in a while. A little sunshine does that for me. So, now I am going back to what is important. FYI - clean floors do not make that list but games of Candyland with Emelia do. Dust free bookshelves do not make the list but puzzles with Sam do. Gourmet meals do not make the list but healthy choices in the crock pot do. Frankly I am sick of focusing on what is not getting done and I am going to focus on what is getting done. Yes world I am on it today! The memory verse I have selected for this week is this. 1Corinthians 6: 19-20 "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own, you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body." Jeff is gone this week so I have the chance to surrender everything and rely solely on God's abundant power through me. (I also have the chance to have cereal from breakfast every night.) I am taking God up on both offers!

HGTV Overdose

2011-01-30T18:31:00.000-06:00

I am sick. I mean really sick. I was a little sniffly yesterday but today I am miserable. God bless my husband who not only watched the kids but did the laundry and vacuumed.

When he got home yesterday we had a great talk and he is really stressed out. I am so glad I wrote on my blog yesterday because it really helped me work through my issues. It helped me to focus on the truths and supress the lies. Wow, it sort of sounds like voices in my head weird stuff but it isn't like that. You know though how when you are grumpy it just sort of snowballs in to this ball of junk. I put my ball of junk down though.

Having stayed in bed all day I watched a ton of HGTV. I can actually say that I am over it. I am on to the Screen Actor's Guild Awards. I am watching the red carpet - LOVE it! This Ross Mathews guy is just too much. I need him to go away. Okay, I get the gay sidekick for the lovely red carpet host but oy, he is just over the top. Now for cup of hot tea and then back to bed. Hoping I feel better tomorrow.

Already Struggling

2011-01-29T17:26:00.000-06:00

This is the first official weekend of the MBA program. Jeff has already been to ND for one week at the beginning of the month but this is the first of the "every other weekend" thing. I am already struggling. I have this awful feeling of why are we doing this. In the past whenever we have embarked on something really difficult (by choice) it has been with a very tangible outcome to look forward to. The best comparison I have is moving. The trouble with this whole MBA thing is I can not see what the outcome is other than some serious student loans and a piece of paper. If I am objective (tough at this moment) then I can see that it offers Jeff more options for advancement in the future and makes him more marketable. Great, then, tough to "look forward to" right now.

Jeff left Friday morning at 5:45 am and will probably be home around 6:30 Saturday. In the mean time Emelia is sick and "wants her daddy" and woke up multiple times last night. It just stinks. I want to be supportive and I know that I am being selfish. Unfortunately that knowledge does not stop the feelings of what is in this for me or our family? It sounds terrible even as I write it. I want to not feel that way. The only thing I can do is pray about it and work on it. Maybe once we are "used" to it it will not be so bad. Maybe when it is spring or summer it will not be so bad. I miss Jeff but mostly I miss our daddy because he is a bigger help than I often give him credit for.

I really do want to not be this way and I am trying to not let my feeling cloud my behavior. It is not like Jeff loves being away from his family, I know that to be true. Maybe that is what I need to focus on. What do I know to be true about the situation?

1. Jeff loves us and would not do this if he did not think it was in the best interest of our family.
2. Jeff does not enjoy being away from us and will not ever be away more than he feels is necessary.
3. Jeff is also struggling with this situation and is trying to find his footing.
4. We are a family that was created by God and He put this opportunity in Jeff's path and after praying about it we decided this was what God wanted for us so if I believe it is God's will than it should be my will as well.
5. I love Jeff and he loves me and he works hard for our family both at work and at home.

What is not a lie that I am telling myself?
1. Jeff doesn't care about me.
2. This is more than I can handle.
3. This is selfish of Jeff.
4. Jeff is off gallivanting all over downtown Chicago getting smarter as I sit home with the kids getting dumber by the minute.
5. There is nothing in this for me or the kids except sacrifice.

I recently heard a message by Andy Stanley and he said giving something up now for something better in the future is not a sacrifice, it is an investment. I will choose to look at this as an investment in Jeff and our future. Here's hoping I can talk myself out of the lies and in to the truth.

Not to be

2011-01-24T14:15:00.000-06:00

Jeff got me a new iPod for Christmas. My old iPod was beganing to fade. So I finally got the new one out and set it up yesterday. I spent two hours making new play lists to run. I downloaded a bunch of music and I was super pumped to finally get back to the gym and run. (I have felt crummy the last two weeks and managed to get to Yoga but I just didn't have the energy to run.)

I got up early and got ready and got everyone else ready. I dropped Emelia off at school and headed for the gym, where I found the driveway blocked by police cars. Apparently there was a chemical spill in the poolhouse and the gym was evacuated. Are you kidding me? I downloaded music! I made a play list entitled Run Forest Run! I hooked up my Nike iPod running gizmo! Alas, it was not to be so I came home and colored my hair instead. Before you tell me to run outside I will tell you that it was a breezy 20 degrees outside this morning. So no, I did not even consider running outside.

The Move Melt Down

2011-01-11T17:14:00.000-06:00

Usually when we move I have a melt down sometime in the first three months after we move. Usually it comes at a time when I am frustrated by something I can't find which triggers a "why did we move here" moment which is typically followed by a "I don't have any friends" moment. The whole thing usually culminates in a phone call to Jeff where I talk about how much I "hate it here" and he feels bad then I feel bad and then I cry and then we talk it through and that is that. (I tend toward the dramatic and I have no internal processor for my feelings which is a terrible combination.)

The thing is, I like it here, a lot. I like Batavia, I like our house. The people have been amazingly nice. The Target pharmacist called the other day to see how Sam was doing with his antibiotic. The Target pharmacist in Omaha never made that call. The urgent care doctor called today to see how I was feeling after seeing me in ten minutes flat yesterday. I mean really? And yet, I can feel the melt down coming on. Maybe it is less of a melt down and more of a softening, like when you leave butter out for a recipe, it still holds it's shape, but subject it to the pressure of a hand mixer and it turns in to a lump.

Jeff is out of town and Sam has been sick and then I got sick and now it is snowing. None of this is extraordinary but combined it just makes me long for people. People that really know me. Not the moms at preschool that I comb my hair for or the ladies from Bible study that I chew gum to hide my coffee breath from, but real friends who laugh when I tell them I have not brushed my teeth today and commiserate when I tell them the sound of my son following me around yelling "maaaa" makes me feel like I am being chased by a deranged billy goat. I am tired and PMSed and still a little sick and well, I want my mommy

I am trying to stave off the melt down wish me luck. Now back to my billy goat, my baby girl some popcorn and Cars.

The Kitchen

2011-01-07T07:22:00.000-06:00

The kitchen is coming along. The cabinets are done we are waiting on pulls. Of course the inexpensive nice ones I found online are backordered until February. Whatever! We will get new countertops when we save up the money this spring sometime and then a backsplash sometime in the next year. Jeff painted the kitchen last weekend and it looks great so the backsplash is a little less important but I do want some bling still. : )
Here are pics from the next round of changes and then I will post pics of the finished cabinets which look amazing!

They took all the doors and drawers to refinish them at their shop. They took out the non-working microwave above the stove and they tore up the soffitt and pulled it back to just above the cabinets.

We did end up replacing the lighting this round instead of waiting because it was much less expensive since the wires were all exposed because the soffitt was open.

The lighting made such a difference, I came in and started crying. The kitchen looked so beautiful even without drawers and doors.

This is Sam and Emelia's favorite morning activity, cuddling on the couch, it is pretty sweet till she steals the blanket or he pushes her off the couch.

This about sums up our effort to take a family Christmas picture. It totally makes me laugh, I love it!

Life's Instruction Manual

2011-01-06T07:29:00.000-06:00

Ever since I can remember I have said that I wish life came with an instruction manual. As my faith life increased I stopped saying that because people would say, "it does, it is called the Bible." I would think that is great if you are a pastor but what about for regular old me. Lately as I have been having quiet time and particularly as I have been reading this week I have realized it is for regular old me as well.

Twice this week as I have read Mathew I have come across verses I am very familiar with but the preceding or following verse I was not familiar with and they were the instruction manual. It was truly a Eureka moment for me. On Monday I was looking at Mathew 6:34 (which was the verse I picked in eighth grade for my confirmation verse, yes folks I was a worrier even way back then.) It says, "Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it's own." I know the verse by heart, great! But verse 33 tells us exactly how to do that. It says "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be provided for you. You see God tells us not to worry, (great let's see how well that works.) But then he tells us what to do instead. This is awesome, I love being told what to do - sometimes. : )

Then today I was struck by Mathew 17: 20-21. You know, the old faith like a mustard seed verse. "..For I assure you : If you have faith the size of a mustard seed you will tell this mountain "Move from here to there" and it will move, nothing will be impossible for you. " Now here is the kicker in verse 21. "However this kind of faith does not come out except by prayer and fasting." You see, here is the instruction on how to get that mountain-moving faith. I love it!

Now my prayer is that I hear the word, know the word, understand the word and DO the word. Finally an instruction manual for the rest of us.

Oopsie

2011-01-05T07:04:00.000-06:00

Well is looks like I did not achieve my goal of writing in my blog more in 2010. In fact I actually wrote in my blog less in 2010. I think I skipped entire months. You see I did not foresee this move. 2010 was supposed to be the year of nothing, well that did not happen. I don't suspect it will happen in 2011 either. : )

Jeff officially starts his MBA program through Notre Dame on January 10. That means every other weekend he will spend Friday and Saturday at their downtown Chicago campus. He will also probably need to devote anywhere from 15-25 hours a week to studying on top of the 32 hours each month he will physically be in class. This is a pretty daunting prospect for us. Jeff has always been very good at work life balance but he is also great at giving me time away from everyone and everything. Maybe I am spoiled or selfish but I also know I am a better mom for having some time with no one NEEDING me at that very moment. It looks like some of that time is going to have to give because we don't want to sacrifice family time. We will see what that looks like when the time comes.

Since about the beginning of November I have been waking up around six and having 30-45 minutes of quiet time with God before the kids get up. It has been really nice. God really reveals things to me through his word in that time. I was doing a devotional/Bible study from Beth Moore called Jesus: the one and only but I finished that so I have just been reading the gospels. I started with John and am now doing Mathew. Today the verse that really stuck out to me was Mathew 11:28-30. "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. All of you take up my yoke and learn from me for I am gentle and humble of heart and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

It is funny because last night Sam and Emelia were both having trouble sleeping. I slept about five hours on Sunday night because Sam was up and then slept well Monday night but woke up feeling terrible. I was so hoping to go to be early last night but just as I turned off the light Emelia woke up with a night terror. They are so scary, she cries and screams and thrashes but is not awake and then just as abruptly as it started it ends. So she went back to bed then Sam woke up and was up for two and a half hours. Normally we are advocates of letting him cry it out because he will usually go to sleep and sleep really well once he wears himself out but my dad and Nancy are visiting so I didn't want to wake them. It was rough. You would think he was asleep and then he would start up again. I was reciting this verse in my head. Come to me all you who are weary (I was sooo weary) and burdened (at that point I felt very burdened) and I will give you rest. (God, maybe you could start with the kids and then I could get rest.)

The funny thing is I could not remember what the reference was. I thought it was in Mathew but I wasn't sure then God being the sweet one that he is showed it to me today as I read. Thank you Lord for giving me rest for my weary soul and even for my weary body. Yoga class here I come - if Sam isn't sick that is.

Things to Remember about Today

2010-11-23T20:03:00.000-06:00

I ran six miles today. I would have never thought I could run that far or for that long. It was the strangest thing. Sam has had a cold so I have not been able to go to the gym in a little over a week. The last time I went to the gym Emelia had been sick so I had not been for a week before that either. Last week it was really tough for me to run. I walked two laps to warm up (six laps is a mile), ran a mile, walked two laps, ran a mile etc. until I had walked one mile and run three. Today I walked my two warm up laps and started to run and figured I would try to run four miles. I got to three and said, I can do five. Then I got close to four and said I wonder if I can do six. I just sort of hit a zone. It was awesome. When I stopped I walked a lap and felt drunk. I was dizzy and weaving and tired. It was crazy, I thought man I should have just kept running. I felt like Forest Gump.

Oh, and Sam said Please. It was also awesome.

Cowboys and Princesses

2010-11-18T08:35:00.000-06:00

I have not posted pictures for awhile so here are a few. Some are from Halloween and some are to chronicle the kitchen process. I will put updated kitchen pics up soon but this is where we started.

Our little princess... she was worried her teachers would not recognize her as Emelia since she looked so much like Princess Aurora.

They had a parade at preschool, she loved it!

So did Sam!

This is her class, the little girl dressed as Curious George was so cute, her older sister in the next class up was the Man with Yellow Hat.

Sam has loved Woody since we went to Disneyland. I actually found the costume at the Goodwill, yes it was unopened and from this year but missing the hat and boots (Target donated it!) , I just bought those separately. He was so excited and loves his boots.

Trying to get them both looking at the camera and not doing something silly at the same time is nearly impossible.

Sam wanted to take the hat on and off more than wear it so eventually I gave up.

Emelia was pretty unsure about this house but there was a sweet old man on the other side of the grim reaper.

Sam showing off his loot

This is the kitchen when we bought the fridge was huge so it really cut in to the traffic flow on that side of the room. The stove had two burners and the other side was a grill (apparently very top of the line Jenn-Air 20 years ago.) The microwave didn't work. The soffit hungover the cabinets by about a foot and was painted dark green so it felt like you were cooking in a cave.

We have gotten new appliances which was awesome! They all came from the Sears Outlet and were 40-60% below resale because they were scratched or dented in some way. I so don't care! We have been so blessed to find really good deals and really good contractors to help us. The electrician was here yesterday and it turns out he goes to our church! They took down the giant fluorescent light and the cans in the soffit were already gone so they put in two pendents and some recessed lights. When I came home from the grocery store and saw the results I literally cried. The kitchen looked so beautiful even with no cabinets or drawers and a huge hole in the wall. I can't wait to see when it is all done.

Content

2010-11-16T06:34:00.003-06:00

Once again I find that so much time has passed since my last post. Part of that is that we are working on the house and I think I spend every spare Internet minute looking at light fixtures or curtains or something like that. I truly have purchased (and returned) three sets of drapes for the dining room before deciding on the ones I actually hung. The sad part is once I got them up I really wished I had kept the first pair which I loved but really did not work with the room once we painted it.

We found a lovely couple who have a small business refinishing cabinets and doing some carpentry work. We have hired them to work on the kitchen. They tore out the gigantic overhanging soffit and it already feels so much more open. Currently the doors and drawers are at their shop being worked on which means you can see every sippy, every glass and every princess plate in my cabinets. It also means that my silverware is in a box, my utensils are in another box and so on. I am not complaining though, it is going to look great when we are all done and it is about 1/4 the cost of new cabinets. We are going to have to wait and do the countertops and backsplash (oh yes, I will have a glass tile backsplash) in the spring but I can't wait to see the finished product.

The crazy thing is even with all this chaos going on I feel really happy right now. More than happy, I feel content. The other night I was putting Sam to bed and after we read and I sang to him I just sat rocking him in the dark for a few minutes and I thought, I want to remember this moment. At 7:33 p.m. on November 14 2010 I felt content with my world. I have not lost that extra ten pounds and I need my hair colored (badly I might add). My kitchen is a crazy mess. My bedroom curtains are being hung up by nails right now and you could feed a child with the crumbs that are in the folds of the chair I am sitting in (stinkin' graham crackers) but I am content. I am not saying that none of that stuff matters or that I wouldn't like to eventually have curtain rods and a crumb free chair, but I have finally come to terms with the fact that none of that will provide contentment because it is very temporary. My relationship with Jesus and his love for me and my love for Him is really the only thing out there that isn't temporary. I have a hard time talking about my faith with people outside of my church (or past church) circles but as I was thinking about this the other day, I realized that the nicest thing I could do for anyone is to tell them about Jesus and how He has changed my life. It is tough because you feel like maybe you will be judged by people or people will think you are weird or crazy but really even if they do so what. It is not even really about the "eternal" implications of heaven and hell, it is about making it through this world. It is about knowing that someone who knows EVERYTHING about you and where you have been and what you have done LOVES you anyway. When my mom died one of the things I struggled with most was feeling like no one would love me unconditionally. When my mom found out I was having sex at 16 she was not happy and we had some serious talks but she loved me even though I disappointed her. When I got in a car accident that was totally my fault, she loved me anyway. It took awhile for me to really come to terms with the fact that Jesus loves me unconditionally even though he knows not just the public acts, but the private ones too. This is the source of my contentment. I can't guarantee that I will never feel discontent again and I still struggle with all kinds of things (not the least of which is my desire for perfection) but I know that righting any of the "wrongs" in my life will not fill me up only Jesus can do that.

Phewww

2010-10-04T20:38:00.000-05:00

I have not posted for quite some time because life has been crazy! On July 14 Jeff came home from his annual review and said well my boss wants to know if we want to go to Naperville. Conagra has an office in Naperville and Jeff had jokingly brought up the idea of him working from there because he was anxious to get back to a larger city. So we came to Naperville to see if we could even afford to make the move. We decided we could, it would be a stretch but we could get through. And here we sit two months later writing this post from our house in Batavia Illinois just outside of Naperville. What a whirlwind.

God has been amazing throughout this whole thing. We were able to sell our house before we even put it on the market. We had a tough time finding a house out here but we feel like we are in the right house. We are settling in. Emelia started preschool, I found the Target, we are moving right along.

Now to just take a deep breath and take it all in.

Woody and Buzz

2010-07-11T19:12:00.000-05:00

We are back from our Disneyland/Papa Dave's house vacation. A good time was had by all but we now face the challenge of getting back in to our routine. Oh boy! I will post pictures soon.

Emelia had some awesome quotes while we were gone.

When Princess Aurora had to go backstage she says "she must have to go potty."

At one pint I made her try to go to teh bathroom before we left for teh park. She sat on the toilet and said "the pee-pee is taking a relax right now and doesn't want to come out." Really? She is so funny.

Speaking of Poop...

2010-06-25T20:11:00.000-05:00

Warning - the following post is perhaps more info than anyone wanted to know but after the thought popped in my head I thought "I must record this mom moment."

Have you ever walked in to a bathroom at someone else's house and thought "The person who was in here before me must have pooped." You have this response not because it smells like poop but because it smells like lilac-scented poop. This used to happen often at my grandma's house. The grandkids would inevitably eat a bunch of junk but we were all pre-teens and were embarrassed that we pooped. Grandma always had a can of air freshener on the back of the toilet - usually orchard spice or some such nonsense. So you would walk in to the bathroom and it smelled like apple pie poop. Gross, I know.

So Sam has been eating a lot of blueberries lately. By a lot I mean I think he has eaten two cups in the last two and a half days. So tonight I took off his shorts and his diaper was full. I thought "that's strange" because when Sam poops people next door can smell it. When I opened his diaper I was immediately taken back to grandmas', because it smelled like blueberry poop. It also looked like blueberry pie filling. Instead of being completely grossed out I was oddly nostalgic for grandma's apple pie poop bathroom.

Parenting Tips from a Priss

2010-06-23T16:12:00.000-05:00

I confess, I am kind of a priss. Not so much in demeanor but in my avoidance of dirt. I am not a germaphobe and I have no issue with the things I can not see in dirt (like e-coli or what not), it is the mess that I see that bothers me. (If you have known me since high school or college and have seen my room you will know that this has NOT been a life long problem.) I somehow have come to equate pristine with serene. When everything is in its' place then all will be peaceful. (I don't know where I got this.) I don't like it when my kids' faces are dirty or their clothes for that matter. I don't like to make a mess and I don't like to play in the dirt. I am not an outdoorsy girl. I am not even a sporty girl. I like to watch sports but I still have traumatic memories of doge ball and gym class.

I am trying desperately not to pass this on to Emelia. I can't tell you how many times I would be sick to my stomach knowing someone was going to ask me to play volleyball at a picnic or softball at a company outing. I don't want Emelia to go through that. So I really try to be encouraging about playing sports and not being afraid of balls and the like. I am not so good about letting everyone get messy. Things have gotten better since Sam came because he is somehow inherently dirty - all the time. I try to just let them be. Messiness is not the end of the world and I am all for letting kids be kids. Emelia does have some priss tendencies - she doesn't like to walk on sand and she is like the princess and the pea if one grain of sand gets in her shoes. Sam could care less - you go buddy.

Today God gave me an excellent opportunity to practice priss-free parenting. We went for a walk around the lake. It is a 3.5 mile walk and then we stop at the playground. It has been raining since Sunday here so there was lots of water. When I tried to be fun and take a trail out to a little island I pushed the double wide through about five inches of mud. So now my tires are covered in mud as are my shoes. Okay, I will deal. We get to the playground and the sand is all wet and Emelia and Sam are shoveling in it. Sam proceeds to EAT a shovelful - with a smile and a few rocks spit back out. Okay, I will deal. Emelia has to go to the bathroom... in the outhouse. Okay, still dealing. Now Sam is covered in wet sand from head to toe and Emelia wants a snack. We head back to the car and I dust Sam off the best I can, I use a wipe to wash hands and I throw in some sanitizer for good measure. I hand each half a fruit and cereal bar. Sam mashes it up and shoves as much of it in to his mouth as he can. The rest he smears in his hair. I give up. We are going to Target, they will look like rug rats and I am just going to have to suck it up and deal. I did just that. We weren't pristine but we had fun, got what we needed and no one gave us a dirty look. The woman at the bakery even gave us a free cookie.

Maybe messy is more fun.

Baseball Babies

2010-06-22T09:32:00.000-05:00

For Father's Day I had a friend of mine take some pictures of the kids in their Cardinals gear for Jeff. It was not the best photo shoot either of them has had. Halfway through they both had to break for a snack and that is when we got my favorite photo...

This one cracks me up because Emelia is trying to "put her arm around" Sam but she ends up choking him and looks delighted while Sam just looks put out.

Everyone Poops

2010-06-21T11:03:00.000-05:00

This book is Emelia's current bedtime read of choice. Why this book and why now I don't know. The only thing I can think of is that bodily functions are funny at our house.

Jeff and my mom had something in common you see - they both loved potty humor. My mom would stand in the card aisle for an hour trying to find just the right fart card. Jeff makes up songs about poop and pee. Abba's "Lovin' Me Lovin' You" turns in to Goin' Pee, Goin' Poo, I do numbers one and two. Emelia and he father make each other laugh by playing a game called I want to eat... (then they fill in the blank with poopy diapers, or underpants or tushies.) I try to discourage this because the first time she blurted out that she wanted to eat underpants in line at Target I about died. Jeff is now on board with discouraging this but he can't help himself sometimes.

The other day Emelia tooted, I know because I could smell it. I asked "did you toot" and she giggled and said "aahhhh it smells rosy!" Then she proceeded to laugh hysterically. I am pretty sure my mom was giggling right along with her up in heaven.

I try not to be a stick in the mud but my manners alarm goes off in huge ways when this stuff comes up, which is ironic given my mom's love of the word fart. So, alas we try to compromise by reading Everyone Poops.

What a Difference a Day Makes

2010-05-18T08:18:00.000-05:00

Thank you to all my friends who sent me notes or phone calls of encouragement. It really was helpful just two get it out on paper (not really paper but you know what I mean.) God also used many different moments (calls from friends lyrics from a song, etc.) to give me a hug and say buck up camper. Today I am filled with wonder at how good God is. I feel like the funk has lifted and I can rejoice in who I am. (By the way I put sugar in my coffee - and I am done thinking about it.) I am certain there will still be days when I wish I was still a career woman but such is life,

Today is Sam's birthday. Can you believe he is one year old? As I was writing in my devotional this morning, there were days when I didn't think either one of us would make it to today. Those first eight months were really hard, those first six weeks were mind-numbing. So many times I yelled at God, where are you? Why won't you make him sleep? God was gentle and let me have my hissy fits and then reminded me that he never said life would be easy only that I would not have to bear it alone. I just hope that some day I can help someone else when they are in the midst of a baby crisis.

I recently did a picture wall at my house, I am hoping to post pics soon but here are some of the pictures from that all. Happy birthday Sam!

Value

2010-05-17T10:01:00.001-05:00

This past week I have been in a funk. To be honest I have been feeling dumb and a little worthless. If I look back I think I usually cycle through this feeling about every six months or so and it frustrates me that I can not shake it for good. Logically I know I am an intelligent person but recently I am plagued by passing thoughts like "you are just a dumb housewife and you have no real value." There are days when I pick up, sweep up, mop up and clean up incessantly, it is a never ending task with no real sense of accomplishment because it never gets "done". I know I have two small children and I know that I am honoring God and that I am doing a good thing raising my kids but knowing those things and feeling those things are very different. I believe that my emotions often lead me down the wrong path because they are not always based on truth and they are very hard to ignore. I wish I knew some way to confront the emotions and take the sting out of them.

When I worked I had clients who regularly told me how much they valued my experience and my insight. At this point I feel like I have no real knowledge to share with the world. Most days I feel like I have no idea what I am doing and I really don't like that spot. I used to be confident and even if I was not completely sure of a decision I could sell it to anyone within earshot. Now I spend fifteen minutes debating wether to use sugar or splenda in my coffee because I can't decide which is worse, the calories from sugar or the chemicals from splenda. Should I be eating this piece of string cheese? Should I let Sam have an oatmeal raisin flax cookie? Why doesn't Sam listen when I say no, is he too young or am I doing something wrong? Am I teaching Emelia that happiness comes from things when I get her a new doll? How can I find time to go to the gym, get my chores done and make sure Sam gets two naps? Am I a bad friend? Am I a bad mom? Am I a bad wife? Am I a bad christian? I sometimes feel like I am being held captive by the never ending doubts in my head. If I don't focus on a specific thing I can just become lost inside my own brain. Normally I do a pretty good job of navigating this sea of craziness but last week I could not seem to right my ship on that sea. Then I get mad at myself for not capturing my thoughts and taming my tongue and all the other things the Bible says to do and then I end up in this tailspin.

I am not sure why I am writing about this other than that maybe getting it out would help me to tame it. Writing about it does seem to bring some clarity to the funk. I have been having trouble identifying what I was feeling. The trouble with feelings is that they have no merit. They are not based on reality most of the time nor are they based on logic but I don't know what to do with these things. How do you place a value on your day when you stay at home? I think I start to assign value based on the nutritional value of my children's food, the cleanliness of my house, the behavior of my children, the things checked off my to-do list, etc. The problem with that is then I always fail. Not a day goes by that the floors are not dirty, I don't drink enough water, I have not had enough quiet time with God, my children have not eaten enough vegetables, we have not watched too much TV according the AAP, I haven't worked out enough, etc. I try to tell myself that some days I just have to be "enough" and be satisfied with putting in a good effort because no one ever died from watching too much Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or eating a fruit snack. In my mind I believe that, but these feelings of inadequacy just mount until I feel worthless and filled with doubt. Maybe the problem is not that I don't have enough knowledge, maybe I have too much knowledge. Maybe if I did not know about the toddler food pyramid and the AAP guidelines for TV viewing for children and the "seven rules for raising well-behaved kids" I would not know everything I wasn't doing right. I don't know, I guess for now the best I can do is pray, try to clean the kitchen and have another cup of coffee with splenda since I put sugar in the last cup.

Emelia's List

2010-05-05T13:46:00.001-05:00

Emelia told me she was making a list, which for her is squiggles on paper, but she loves list making. (Wonder where she gets that!?!) I asked her what was one her list and this is what she said...

Peanut Butter
Chocolate
Milk
Exerists (a made up word that she says is "fancy" for candy)

Not a bad list if you are three...

Cutie Pies

2010-04-20T15:55:00.000-05:00

I have not posted photos in awhile mostly because I did not know how to get the pics off our new camera but today I did it! (Go me!) Here are some funny pics of the kids.

Sam got in to Emelia's markers (washable thank goodness) and here is the result.

Emelia saw this dress on our first ever girl's shopping trip. She got to try it on in the fitting room. She loved the whole experience. She also had her first piece of chewing gum that day. It was a big day.

Sam is a really good eater. He seems to really eat almost anything you put in front of him except fruit. He only likes bananas, which is funny since Emelia only liked fruit at this age. They are just so different. Here he is enjoying spaghetti.

When the weather finally got nice we started venturing out but one day we were supposed to hit the zoo but rain sent us to the Children's Museum instead. They both had a blast.

Sam thinks his sister is about the funniest person ever. He is such a big fan. She is good with him but sometimes feels more strongly about her Barbie than she does Sam. It will be intersting to see where their relationship goes throughout the years. I remember having a conversation with my friend Amber about something relating to her brother and her level of love and devotion to him has always stuck with me as I think about Sam and Emelia. I just pray that they end up the same way.

One thing is for sure life is never boring.

6:58 and all is well

2010-03-30T07:05:00.000-05:00

It is 6:58 a.m. and I am the only one awake in my house. This is unprecedented. Em and Sam are both usually awake by 6:30 at least, one blessing from daylight savings time because Sam used to think 5:00 a.m. was a good wake up time. I had a cup of coffee, did my Bible study had some quiet time with God. Yahoo! What a good start to my day. We went to the playground last night and I am pretty sure the fresh air is knocking them out. It has been five months since we had any so it is refreshing.

I better go wake Jeff up. We have not had to set an alarm since Sam was born so he might be late for work.

More wit and wisdom from my three year old.... The other day I was mad at myself because I went to Hobby Lobby to purchase 2 yards of ribbon to finish this projects I was working on. I found that and more. Well I left the ribbon at the store. Ugh! Emelia asked what was wrong and I said I was frustrated. She said "mommy, do you need to take a deep breath or have a little quiet time with God?" Yes, Emelia I probably do.

Mini March Madness

2010-03-26T09:13:00.000-05:00

Apparently Emelia has been watching March Madness with her daddy. The other day she told me her pony's name was "whitey". This is what Jeff calls every Caucasian player whose name he doesn't know when watching basketball. (e.g, "Give it to Whitey, he's wide open.) All other players get called by their number but for some reason the white guys don't. I don't ask why, I just go with it. By the way, in case you were wondering, Emelia told me her other pony's name is Murray State. Awesome!

Off the Wagon

2010-03-09T16:11:00.000-06:00

I seem to have fallen off the blog wagon. February is always a sort of yucky month. As usual this one was no different. It has been five years since my mom died and one year since Jeff's dad died. It is hard to believe. On the 26 a good friend of ours lost his father and earlier this month a friend of mine lost a baby. It just seems like such a strange thing. I am adding it to my list of questions for heaven. February also seems to mark the time of year when I am so DONE with winter. March is never a whole lot warmer in actual degrees but it feels like spring is coming. It was 43 degrees and I almost busted out my flip flops. Needless to say I am happy to welcome March.

Things seem to be relatively calm right now. I should not actually even write that because the second I start to settle in I feel like I unravel shortly thereafter. I did want to take a minute and document some of the funny things Emelia has been saying lately. She is just becoming such a little person. She cracks me up. She is also so cute I just want to squish her half the time.

On our recent road trip to Bloomington we were in a McDonald's restroom where I was trying to get her to go potty before we got back in the car and she was sitting on the toilet singing and bopping around. I said Emelia focus, go pee pee. She proclaimed loud and proud " Buttocks, make pee-pee." I use the term tush but Jeff uses the term buttocks, needless to say I know where she picked that up.

This morning she was in the bathroom and she said "excuse me, I would like some company." Really?

She is really picking up on what we say. I try to teach her things and I get frustrated because it seems like she is not getting it and then one day she will just blurt it out. I was trying to tell her that we live in Omaha but she said no we live in a house. Yes, that is true but, nevermind. It did not seem to sink in and then two weeks later we were on our road trip and she said I want to go back to Omaha.

She is just a funny little noodle. So far this is my favorite stage. Sam is also hitting a good streak. I can't wait until he starts talking so I can really see his personality shining through. He already has clear preferences in food and books. He will eat almost anything but fruit. He only wants to eat things that he can pick up. He has a tough time with fruit because it is slipery. He likes fruit and yogurt and will still occasionally eat fruit if I puree it but he will eat a whole can of pinto bean in three days time. He routinely eats more than Emelia at meal time. Like his sister before him he loves cheese. He usually eats an entire thing of string cheese for dinner. I made these applesauce muffins that have butternut squash in them and he LOVES them. They are full of good stuff. One day he had a few to many and pooped three times in two hours.

At this very moment in this exact spot life is pretty darn good. I thank God for that and try to bask in the glow of His grace for the moment.

Difference

2010-02-17T13:26:00.000-06:00

I have come to realize that life with your second child is much different than life with your first. For instance...

I fished a small plastic squirrel out of Sam's mouth and noticed his tongue was bright blue. The exact bright blue as the play-doh Emelia had been playing with. I looked on the package of play-doh and it said "fun to play with not to eat." Yet no where did it say if ingested blah blah blah. So I assumed it was not a great idea to eat it but it was probably non-toxic. Now, if that had been Emelia with a blue tongue I would have been on the phone with poison control while looking up play-doh toxicity on the Internet and calling my Dr. on the cell phone. Oh well, Sam is fine, and besides it probably tasted better than the dog food I fished out of his mouth earlier.

Blah

2010-02-04T18:54:00.000-06:00

What a blah day. I feel like I just walked around in a stupor all day. Jeff is out of town and so it makes for long days. Emelia was up at 1:00 with a bad dream. I woke up all sweaty at 4:30 and then Emelia decided it was really time to get up at 6:30. I don't mind 6:30 but on the heels of a sleep deprived morning it was not pretty. I basically stayed in my pajamas all day. We all did. Emelia couldn't be happier and Sam doesn't know the difference but I think it just contributes to the blahs. It snowed off and on all day which is why we did not go anywhere. It was just a weird stereotypical stay-at-home mom day. I washed clothes, picked up toys, fed children, changed diapers, looked up a poop question on the internet, talked to a friend on the phone, ate leftovers (while standing up feeding Sam), washed dishes, handed out one spanking and two time outs, nursed, prayed, wished it was summer and pre-made the coffee so I can get up and do it all again tomorrow.

We are supposed to have our mom's group at church tomorrow. At last, a reason to get dressed.

Decision 2010

2010-01-28T15:29:00.000-06:00

No I am not talking about the midterm elections, I am talking about paint colors. I currently have nine, yes nine, paint samples painted on the wall. Since I am painting the entire downstairs, except the office, my paint color must look good on many walls so I have nine paint swatches on three different walls and my kitchen island. The guy at Home Depot thinks I am nuts, I have bought nine samplesize paints over the course of one week. I sort of think I am nuts too, but this is a big undertaking so I want to get it right. I am scared to paint but I have watched enough HGTV that I think I can do just about anything. We will soon see. I have been imagining how the living room would look for about nine months now. I lay awake at night thinking about how the living room will look. I am not sure why this has become such a big deal to me but I am sort of obsessed. I think maybe because it is like my office now. I spend so much time there. I also think I like a good project. I like to plan and prep and imagine and create. I am not great at this but I feel like I am getting better at it but most importantly I am enjoying it.

Reprioritizing

2010-01-25T16:16:00.000-06:00

This weekend Jeff went to a men's retreat at church. He came home with some interesting thoughts.

He decided it was time to fix our marriage - now. Our marriage is not broken but it is neglected. We both know it and we openly talk about it but we both just sort of feel like we can recommitt to each other when Sam is a little older and not so demanding. The problem with that reasoning, as Jeff says, is who or what will we be when Sam is less demanding. You can only walk in opposite directions for so long before you are to far away from each other to get back.

It is sort of like a car, you have to do routine maintenance so the engine doesn't fall apart. We had a great conversation yesterday when he returned. It was such a relief.

It is sort of like the elephant in the room that no one talks about. I love my husband and I know that he loves me but lately we have not been taking time for each other. We have not been considerate of one another and we have not been focused on one another. We have been really just getting by.

I am thrilled to reclaim my marriage because the most important thing I can do for my children is love and honor their father.

Not Much to Report

2010-01-20T12:37:00.000-06:00

Sam has been sleeping a little better the last two nights. He still wakes up but he is able to get himself back to sleep. I think I got eight hours of sleep last night. Hooray!

Emelia has officially given up her nap but she is doing well with quiet time. She goes into her room and watches a movie on the portable dvd player. She has time to just relax and I have time to not have to talk to anyone. It works out ok. I usually only get an hour but it is better than nothing. If you had told me three months ago that she was going to give up her nap I would have been devestated and fought it kicking and screaming but we have just sort of settled in to this new reality. Who knows,maybe when she starts preschool in the fall whe will resume her naps.

We are in the process of checking out preschools. I am not sure what I should even be looking for but luckily I have a book that tells me. : ) I have started doing school with her in the afternoon while Sam is naping. We just do letter/numbers/phonics. She knows all of her letters and can count to twenty. She is starting to get the hang of some phonics stuff. I need to try to find a book to guide me but right now we just use and alphabet book and talk about letters and sounds.

Other than that there is not much left to report. Oh, we got a new couch, I love it! I think I will go sit on it right now

What a day

2010-01-14T21:13:00.000-06:00

The high points of my day...

On the way home from the gym (high point number one) Emelia said "Look mommy the pink angel." This is a reference to the angels who came to the shepherds to tell them about Jesus' birth. In our book there are several angels and they are all different colors. Emelia wanted to know their names so I named them by their colors. I looked around expecting to see a billboard or something with an angel. I didn't see anything so I asked her where she saw the pink angel and she pointed to a beautiful sunset. I said, "It is the pink angel." She said, "God sent her to our house." Indeed He did sweet girl...

Then tonight I came downstairs after putting Sam down and I waited for Jeff to come down after putting Emelia down. Then I waited and waited and waited. When he didn't come down I went upstairs. He wasn't in our room so I peeked in to Emelia's room and he was fast asleep on her bed next to her, lights on. Apparently they were "relaxing" waiting for me to come say goodnight. Collective awwww coming now.

So Tired

2010-01-14T09:53:00.001-06:00

It was lovely outside yesterday - 41 degrees for the high. We ran through the sprinklers. I'm kidding but it was warm. I am not sure if it is the fluctuating temperatures or what but no one in our house is sleeping well right now. Sam is waking up periodically throughout the night. He usually gets himself back to sleep but I can't say the same for the mommy and the daddy. Emelia is trying to give up her nap so she sleeps about every fifth day but has quiet time otherwise. Sam went down for his morning nap at 8:00. Really? What is our problem? I don't know but I hope we figure it out soon before we all turn in to zombies - not the creepy kind, just the sleepy kind.

By the Way...

2010-01-11T16:09:00.000-06:00

I just took the dog outside and thought, "Man it is nice outside today!" The current temperature - 24 degrees.

It is all about perspective folks.

Spoke to Soon

2010-01-11T12:54:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a really good day. We went to church on Saturday night so we had a very leisurely morning. We went to Hy-Vee for breakfast and the kids were really good. Sam was content to munch crackers and puffs, Emelia ate two helpings of everything from the breakfast buffet, I got to drink an entire cup of coffee - while it was hot. Yippe skippy!

It just all felt very relaxed. Jeff and I were commenting on what a difference a month makes. After we came back from Turks and Caicos we decided to stop going out to eat for awhile because Sam just made it miserable. He was not happy in a high chair and wanted to be held but that left one of us eating one handed and both of us shoveling food into our mouths like a little Japanese man eating hot dogs on one of those competitive eating shows. Now he sits nicely in his high chair and munches on finger foods for the most part.

Last night at small group we were commenting on how we feel like we are finally hitting a groove, Sam is sleeping well, no one has been sick, we are just sort of back in the swing of things. Then we all went to bed...

At about 1:30 Emelia woke up crying and tried to come in our room but the door had shut and she couldn't get in. She had to go potty and ended up peeing in her pull up and was very upset. (Why she came to our room and not the bathroom first I don't know.) Fine, she went back to sleep. About ten minutes later Sam started sreaming - she had woken him up we think. It took an hour to get him back to sleep and his screaming woke Emelia up again. She proceeded to throw up in her bed. It was just a little bit but now it is 2:30 and I am changing sheets and pajamas. I thought maybe they would sleep late since they were both up during the night. Nope, Sam was chipper at 6:40 just like usual.

Here's to a better night tonight.

Must Get Out

2010-01-08T11:08:00.002-06:00

I must get out of the house today, I don't care how cold it is. With every hour that passes inside I think the naughtiness factor increases - for all of us. Wish me luck as I seek word from the outside world.

Rock Star

2010-01-07T10:54:00.003-06:00

Emelia is currently marching around the house in her pajamas and a crown singing "I am a rock star". Awesome!

So today I wanted to write down some thoughts on parenting that I thought about when I was up at 5:30 feeding Sam.

Parenting is hard. True, it is rewarding but it is hard and I don't think as a society we talk about it enough. One child is tough but two children is not two times as hard it is five times as hard and no one talks about it. When I was pregnant people would tell me that I had no idea what I was in for but that was just ominous, not informative. I often ask my friends who have multiple children why no one talks about the trials of parenthood and they always say no one wants to scare people. I say scare away! A little population control would not hurt anyone! (Just kidding!) I understand their point but there has to be a way to say this is difficult, and when it gets really hard and overwhelming, know that you are not the only one who thinks that. I think that feeling of isolation contributes to the difficulty of having two or more kids. I think Satan works in that isolation. He plants seeds of doubt and dissension in your head. "You are the only one who can't handle this." "No one else would understand because they have good kids." "You are a terrible mother, how can you even think that you don't like your kids?" Those thoughts fly through your head and you don't have enough wisdom or sleep to be able to process them as the lies that they are. These thoughts start to pile up and then you can not get out from under them without a complete breakdown/breakthrough. I have found that when I have a complete melt down I usually break through to a new level of understanding either about God's mercies or my own need for grace and love.

I, for one, am happy to talk about how hard it is so that other moms don't think they are crazy. To quote my favorite yoda mom (I will call her Q - like Q in the James Bond movies, she gives me the tools and the tricks to navigate my job.) "Sometimes you just need someone to sit on the porch next to you and tell you that you are not crazy." I want to be that someone for other moms. So for my friends who are new moms, new second time moms, etc. I am coming to your porch sister!

Fun Stuff

2010-01-06T12:09:00.006-06:00

So I forgot to write about Emelia's Christmas singing at church. I definitely want to remember that for posterity. Lucky for you we have a pictorial to go with the story.

Emelia loves to sing and picks up lyrics to songs pretty easily. (This is why I have had to give up Britney Spears - I know it was time.) So when we got a cd with the music for the Christmas program we sang it in the car non-stop. She knew the words and the motions and everything. She had a practice session on the Saturday before the actual program and Jeff said she did great. (I was home prepping for the birthday party.)

These are donkey ears in case you were wondering

So we put on our Christmas dress and headed to church. She was all jazzed up to sing. Sam had a little bit of a cold so I kept him out of the nursery and was holding him in the back of the church when they came in to sing. I was filled with pride. She looked so cute and she got up there singing and clapping - so cute!

Can you stand the dress?

The Bible is right, "pride goeth before the fall." Just as I was marveling at my little cutie she stopped singing, looked at her friend Allison and wrapped her up in a giant hug.

Yep she is a serial hugger...

She spent all but a few minutes of the rest of the program hugging Allison. Afterwards she told me how much fun it was to sing at church. I asked her why she decided to hug Allison and she said because Jesus is love. You can't beat that.

Good News

2010-01-06T06:59:00.002-06:00

Well, I am pleased to report that the expected high today is now 12 degrees. Great news, except that it accompanies another five inches of snow. Then tomorrow the snow will be blown around by 40 mph winds which will create blizzard conditions. Then the really good news... the high on Friday will be -2.

The real problem with this cold weather is that we don't leave the house. Last week out of nine days we went out once. It makes the days a little long and the mommy a litle stir crazy. I will sit inside and try to be greatful for the house I live in and the heat that I have. I can't imagine what it is like to be homeless during this particular cold stretch.

Really?

2010-01-04T17:07:00.002-06:00

Um the "high" on Wednesday is supposed to be 0, yes, ZERO. The low is -11. They are expecting wind gusts that will make it feel like -40. What is that?

The Binky Fairy

2010-01-04T08:17:00.002-06:00

The Binky Fairy came to our house last night and dropped off the Pony Palace (part of the Precious Princess line - don't get me started on that whole scam.) Emelia has always loved her Binky, from the day we brought her home. When she turned two we told her she could only have Binky at nap and nighttime with the intention of getting rid of it altogether in short order. The dentist had already lectured me about it. Well we never did get rid of it mostly because she was always happy to go to bed so she could see "friend binky" as she called it.

We went to the dentist again in June and she wanted me to get rid of it but this was at the height of Sam's reflux and I just did not have the energy to battle two kids every day. So again we let it go. Then we went to the dentist two weeks ago and she shamed me. She gave me that look and said she still has her pacifier doesn't she? I thought about finding a new dentist, one that would let Emelia keep her binky for eternity but I knew that was not the answer.

So instead we began to talk about the Binky Fairy. She was very in to the Barbie Thumbelina movie so I showed her one of the nameless fairies and declared that she was the binky fairy and that if she gave up her binky forever the fairy would bring her the Pony Palace. She is three and her understanding of forever is limited as I quickly found out. She handed me binky and asked if the binky fairy would come. I congratulated myself on how easy this was going to be and said of course. Then she rolled over and said can I have binky back now. So much for easy.

We decided that we would skip the binky fairy and just tell her that if she gave up the pacifier for four days without fuss that she could have the Pony Palace. Then when it was getting difficult and it was Dec. 23 Jeff said let's do this after Christmas. I agreed. Then on Thursday I could not find Binky when it was time for nap. I took it as a sign from God. That first nap was miserable. She cried but it wasn't a "I am not getting my way" cry, it was a mourning cry. She was so sad and really missed her friend. That night was better but nap the next day was hard again. I also think she may be getting ready to drop her nap. (I am so sad about this - I love nap time.) So put all of this together and nap has been tricky but nighttime has been ok. She no longer asks for her friend and it has been four days so the Binky Fairy came and she was so excited.

I know this is yet another milestone but I too am a little sad about Binky going away. He brought her great comfort when she was scared or tired or sad. He also was the last piece of babyhood she had. She is a big girl now and that makes me just a little bit sad.

The Magic of Disney

2010-01-03T07:36:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I had the honor of taking Emelia to her first movie theater movie. As it turns out it was also my first movie-theater movie since moving to Omaha in October of 2007. Yep, pretty sad isn't it?

We saw Princess and the Frog. It was a good movie. Some of it was a little scary and some a little sad but overall we really enjoyed it. Emelia did a pretty good job of sitting still. She would have been fine if the movie had started on time. The movie was supposed to start at 9:55 and at 10:10 they were just finishing up the last preview. The movie was good but the experience was awesome.

It was so great to see things through her eyes. The movie theater had a space theme so in the lobby by the concession stand there was this mini-planetarium thing with twinkling stars on the ceiling. After we got our popcorn she just wanted to sit on a bench and look at the stars. She thought they were so cool. She wore her Princess Tiana dress and showed it off to everyone who looked twice at her. The ticket taker said "my what a pretty dress" and Emelia said "thank you, isn't it lovely?"

Recently a friend of mine sent me a link to a blog entry about taking stock of moments that are as good as it gets. We spend a lot of time trying to create the perfect moment and trying to make things just right. Our kids don't really need any of that. They just need our time and attention. Emelia would have been happy if we sat in the lobby and looked at those stars munching popcorn for an hour. Sometimes we just need to be grateful for the moments that are as good as it gets for that day. Right now as we all watch Bolt at 6:30 in the morning while we eat our cereal I will be grateful for this moment because this may be as good as it gets for today.

2010 The Year of Nothing

2010-01-02T06:38:00.005-06:00

In 2010 Jeff and I are hoping to return to normal a little bit. I am going to use 2008 as a model. You see here is what the previous decade looked like... (feel free to debate amongst yourselves if this is really a new decade or not)

2000 - We celebrate our one year anniversary of dating in April, get engaged in July, yeah for us, move in together in August (not a choice I would make now but then it seemed like the way to go.)

2001 - Spend every waking minute looking at theknot.com and reading bridal magazines,get married, hooray!

2002 - Experience mostly wedded bliss, decide to move to St. Louis to be closer to family.

2003 - Move to St. Louis in January, mom diagnosed with breast cancer in April.

2004 - Mom in remission in January, mom has recurrence in September.
2005 - Mom dies, world falls apart, I turn in to a freak of nature, Jeff tolerates me, we eventually heal.
2006 - Pregnant with Emelia in April, she is born in December.
2007 - New baby, move to Omaha in October.
2008 - Nothing until September when I find out I am pregnant with Sam. That was the best 8 months we have strung together in a while. (It wasn't that I wasn't happy to be pregnant, but I was SO sick.) Do you see why 2008 is the model year, a whole lot of nothing.
2009 - Jeff's dad dies in February, Sam comes in May and rocks our world. Life is HARD all the time it feels like. I keep repeating God works all things out for the good of those how love him, not the easy.

So you see, I am looking for twelve months of nothing, not a single solitary thing. Just living life, having some family fun (thanks for the Mickey Mouse bingo Grammy E), going on some child free dates, taking a vacation, trying to eat better, live better and do better, you know just normal stuff. Oh to have some normal would be so extraordinary.

One of the things I am striving for in my normal world is to write more on the blog, 133 times to be exact. Yes, I set a number goal, yes it is a random number, but my type A self needs a goal and three is my favorite number. (333 seemed like a lofty goal so I went with 133.) One down, 132 more to go...

Photo Fun

2009-12-25T21:00:00.002-06:00

New Technology

2009-12-17T15:25:00.003-06:00

As soon as I get one of those fancy computers that can read my mind and type, my blog will be so much more current. I think I have started about 25 posts in my head but usually it is about 1:00 in the morning and I am not willing to plod downstairs to actually write the post. You all are totally missing out because I am really witty in my head especially when I am deliriously tired. I will try to summarize what has been going on.

Halloween came, Emelia was Tinkerbell, Sam was a pumpkin. It was fine. I am not a big Hallpween fan so it was what it was and that is fine by me.

A week after Halloween we went to Turks and Caicos to a Beaches family resort. It was really good. Jeff and I decided you have to adjust your expectations. Vacation with two kids is different then vacation with one kid which is different than vacation with no kids. So our trip was nice. Sam did great but Emelia had a little more trouble adjusting to change. She is very routine driven, so new settings and routines are tougher for her. (I have no idea where she gets that.)

It is so funny as I wrote this I remember one of the challenges was what to do with Sam because he could not sit up on his own then and the hotel room was all tile so we were constantly afraid he would bonk his head. As I type this he is sitting in our tile kitchen pushing the high chair back and forth. He started sitting on his own shortly after we got back and then he started getting up on all fours and now he is crawling. He is slow but deliberate and persistent. He just started crawling this weekend. He can even get himself back to a sitting position from all fours. He is so much more movement oriented then Emelia was.

Emelia turned three on December 10. I can't believe she is three already. Time is such a funny thing. When you are in the middle of it it seems like each day is an eternity but when you look back on it it seems like the blink of an eye. She is doing and saying funny things but she also gets a little attitude every now and again. She is understanding more things but still doesn't fully get things. I told her she could have a cookie or a piece of fudge for dessert. She opted for teh cookie. Ten minutes later she says "I don't want the cookie, I want the fudge instead." The only problem was she had already eaten the cookie. Nice try!

This is the time of year that Jeff and I both tend to be very reflective. I love fresh starts which is why I like mornings and the new year. I am especially excited to start this new year. I feel like I am just starting to get my bearings again since Sam was born. I still have rough days and trying to get both kids to the store in my small window between naps when it is seven degrees outside with two feet of snow on the ground is trying. Yet, I finally fell in love with Sam and I genuinely enjoy him most of the time. I distinctly remember when I fell in love with Emelia and it took a little longer with Sam but he is a sweet baby. He can typically be found in the front of a shopping cart charming unsuspecting bystanders. He is quick to smile and loves his big sister. Being able to see teh positive in both of my children is a refreshing cange of pace from the past several months and I am excited to take my brighter outlook into the new year. God is good and has sustained me through this trying year.

I have several goals for teh new year but one is to blog more frequently even if it is just a quick entry or a picture. Jeff got a fancy new camera and has been taking some great pictures. I really do want to remember these times even the ugly days.

Measurements

2009-10-26T09:59:00.002-05:00

When I was working in public relations and event marketing measurement was always a hot topic. How do you know if you are moving the needle? Do How to you quantify how many people saw your message? How many responded to it? How effective it was? Blah, blah, blah...

It becomes a challenge to constantly try to prove the merit of your programs and to justify the budget expenditure. I am sure that has only gotten harder as the economy has turned and the new corporate buzzword is belt-tightening. That is certainly one thing I don't miss.

I will say that I often find myself looking for that same measurement in my current job. How do I know my programs (discipline, play, learning, household management) are working? Is my target audience (Emelia, Sam, Jeff) responding? How effective is my message ("don't throw things", "poop in the potty", "eat more vegetables", "what are you thankful for today")? It is funny because I have better measurement tools now. I have real-time feedback and a very vocal (albeit small) focus group.

Emelia lets me know through her actions and words how I am doing. She definitely gets the potty message. At Costco this weekend we both went to the bathroom. She went pee, then I had to go. She says, oh so loud and proud, "are you going to go poop in the potty like a big girl?"

Sam also lets me know through his actions. When he is done with his meal he shoves his bib in his mouth and spits. This is a messy but effective tool for ending meal time.

I have taken to measuring my success in small wins. I like to think it is like stringing together a pearl necklace. Each pearl has some value by itself but when they are all together on a necklace they can be priceless.

Today my measurement is five nights of sleeping through the night, eight days of dry underwear (Emelia's not mine), three days of a clean kitchen and seven loads of laundry that need to be done.

God is Good

2009-10-21T09:31:00.005-05:00

So to update my Kindermusik sitch...

At Bible study I was all geared up to tell the teacher that we could not continue with the class when a very nice lady offered to come to our house and watch Sam while I take Emelia to class. It is such a good solution. The woman had just been talking about how since she retired she did not feel like she was needed anymore. I need her! What a blessing when God answers two prayers in one situation. Do you think he gives himself a big pat on the back or do you think he just says yep that is life as the master of the universe. I am not sure but I think it is pretty cool.

In other news... God is REALLY good! Here is a draft I saved last Friday night.

"So I never imagined that being a parent was this hard, and we haven't even begun to think about the teenage years. Right now we are potty training. As usual, I have read several books on the subject and none of them really answer any questions or give and real solid advice except for don't make a big deal of it your kid will not go to kindergarten in diapers. Great, not helpful at all. This really is one of the most trying things I think I have experienced as a parent."

Seriously, those first few days were so hard. Emelia is a pretty smart kid and I am used to her picking things up pretty quickly so I wasn't sure if she was being defiant or just wasn't getting it but she would stand there and pee and then ask me to clean up her pee. Really?!? Then Friday morning we had a blow up. She was whining about everything. I put her in time out, she started to whine, I yelled stop it, she started t cry really hard and peed all over the time out chair. I was beside myself with anger/frustration. Then she whispers "dear Jesus please don't let mommy talk that way to me." Are you kidding. My heart broke. Into a million pieces. Then I put her on the potty and I held her little head and I leaned in and I prayed. I prayed long and loud. She went in the potty that afternoon, which she had done before so I wasn't overly excited. Then we went to t eh pumpkin patch with my aunt. I stopped obsessing because well I was busy. Then that evening she says. I have to go potty. So we took her to my aunt's bathroom and she peed. It was a breakthrough. Then Jeff stayed home with her on Saturday and just totally focused on her, pumped her full of liquids and put her on the potty every hour and by the end of the day she had stayed dry all day. (She got a dress up dress if she stayed dry all day.) She has not had an accident since Friday and she even pooped in the potty last night. This was a breakthrough as she had not pooped - at all - since we started potty training. God is so good.

Okay, we are off to music class now. and to buy a Tiana dolly for our poop reward.

The Ups and Downs

2009-10-02T16:07:00.003-05:00

Yet again it has been awhile since I posted. When I am up at night feeding Sam I think about the posts I would write but then I never get the time to really do it. That is actually only a partial truth. I have time but I have to choose what I want to do with that time. I could clean the bathroom, sit down with a cup of tea and watch HGTV or write on my blog. Lately I have been choosing the second option.

Things here are interesting. I spent a lot of this week feeling overwhelmed. There have been several personal conflicts that have come up with people in my life which I find to be emotionally draining. I have also been over-scheduling myself. I am the nursery/toddler director for church which isn't all that hard but lately has been difficult due to more kids than volunteers. I am hosting a baby shower because as my friend Lindsey says, "anytime you push something out of your body you deserve a party, I don't care how many times you have done it before!" I have joined my normal Tuesday morning Bible study, which I need to be doing. I have also enrolled Emelia in Kindermusik, which I have decided I don't need to be doing. She really likes it but it conflicts with Sam's nap schedule (so does Bible study so that is back to back days of nap nightmare.) The other kids want to love on Sam in a really aggressive way and he is a distraction to the other kids and to me. Emelia doesn't get the interaction from me she deserves and I end up leaving class feeling like a bad mom on all accounts. So I have decided we are not going back. This is very difficult for me because it feels a little like I have failed, plus a very nice woman from church teaches the class and I am sure she will be disappointed. But I have been praying about it and I just feel like it is the right thing to do so I have to stick to my guns. Wish me luck on that one.

Sam is still not sleeping completely through the night but is down to one feeding a night which I think I will have to actually cut out for him sometime soon. I am giving him two more weeks until we go to full-on sleep training. I can do the one time a night thing and not feel to bad in the morning. More than anything what I am doing is trying to learn contentment in my situation. The author of the book we are doing for Bible study says "it can be well with your soul even though it is not well with your circumstances." That was pretty profound for me. I can rest in God's love, know he is the Lord of my life and still be frustrated that Sam is not sleeping or Emelia is whining or whatever. So that is what I am trying to do. I want to be able to rely on my rock when it feels like life is crumbling around me. Don't get me wrong, I don't feel that way often but usually once a month or so there is a day that makes me feel like I can't do it anymore. I had one of those days on Wednesday but I felt much better by Thursday. Sometimes when they are both crying and there does not seem to be an end in sight it just feels like too much for my feeble little mind. It is then that I need to just turn from the circumstance and dig in to my soul.

I am posting some more pictures because well, I finally took some. Check out Sam in his little "man" outfit, a sweater, jeans and a pair of vans. I mean really!

The reason it is all worth it

2009-09-07T14:15:00.001-05:00

Things are getting back to normal - PSYCHE

2009-09-07T09:42:00.002-05:00

Remember when you were in sixth grade and you would torment members of the opposite sex by telling them they were cute and then yelling PSYCHE! It was sort of a cruel way of saying just kidding. Well right now that is what life looks like in the Mochal house. It is just sort of God's cosmic joke.

I was just telling Jeff that Sam seems like a different baby - so much more content and calm. He's sleeping at night and all seems to be well. I was getting back on top of the household chores and I even managed to sneak in some trips to the park for Emelia.

PSYCHE!

Sam is no longer sleeping through the night, Emelia is sick (again) and Jeff and I have spent labor day weekend soothing our children and stuck in the house. We went to the park Friday evening and it seemed like such a promising start to the weekend then Emelia woke up fussy on Saturday and it all went downhill from there. Saturday night neither of them were sleeping which was SUPER awesome. It is funny because I have been pulling my hair out trying to figure out why Sam is not sleeping and how to get his schedule back on track and blah blah blah. Then on Saturday I read my blog from when Emelia was three months old and there it was. The ugly truth about sleeping through the night. The big fakeout. It started early with her too and then it disappears when they become old enough to be aware that you are gone and the binky has fallen out of their mouths and life is not good. I think we will have to Ferberize ( a sleep training method by Richard Ferber) him but I am waiting until he turns four months and praying he starts to learn to settle on his own. At this point he is waking up at 10:45 every night and needs to be reswaddled and rebinked to go back to sleep. The cruel irony is that that is just about when I have fallen asleep so I wake up CRABBY with a capital C and then I have trouble falling back to sleep. UGH. The good news is I know how to fix it the bad news is fixing it requires three days of H E double hockey sticks.

I think I will put that off for another weekend when Emelia is not feverish and delirious. The other day when her fever really spiked she sat up and said "I don't have any money and I don't have gas in my car." Okay, sort of funny, sort of scary and really random. Bless daddy's heart he is taking her to get donuts and diapers right now. She is wearing her nightgown with her princess Ariel dress over it and a pair of tennis shoes. Fine - clothes are not a battle I am willing to fight today.

Alright I am off to clean the bathrooms because if I can get it done while Sam sleeps and Emelia gets donuts I might be able to sneak in some HGTV.

spoke to soon

2009-08-12T15:26:00.003-05:00

So I think I wrote about our"banner week" on Thursday night and then this is what happened on Friday...

I had a plan, as I usually do, so I felt good when I left the house. The idea was to go to the gym, pick the kids up from childcare, hit Walmart for groceries and end up at McDonalds for lunch in time to feed Samuel. I went to the gym, picked the kids up from childcare (so far so good) and the girls said Sam was just starting to get fussy. I decided I would let Emelia have a snack at the gym snack bar, feed Sam and then go to Walmart hoping maybe after he was fed (early) he would nap through grocery shopping. Emelia was finishing her orange and I was burping Sam when I hear a massive butt explosion from Sam. I look down to see a river of poop running down my shirt. He was covered in poop, I was covered in poop, soon the floor would be covered in poop if I did not grab a rag and mop up the poop. I went in to the locker room, and changed his diaper, shirt and pants (thank goodness I had an extra outfit for him.) I however did not have an extra outfit for me. I could have just gone home covered in poop but I would not have been able to fasten my seat belt without getting it covered in poop and I was determined to go to Walmart as planned. I bought a t-shirt at the gym. As I was at the front desk explaining the situation a lady who was also at the front desk starting yelling about how gross it was that I was covered in poop and how she HAD to leave because she has a low puke threshold. I began to cry. I mean really, do you think I enjoy being covered in poop? Do you think when I was fourteen I said man one day I hope my only goal is to go to Walmart without being covered in poop. The lady working the front desk explained to me that she did not have any kids and just didn't understand. I am not asking for empathy, I am just asking for a little compassion toward your fellow man. Do you not think that I am mortified to be covered in poop? I was by the way. It just all reached a breaking point and I got in the car and sobbed. Then I went to Walmart, got my groceries, came home and congratulated myself on following my plan.

Banner Week

2009-08-06T22:02:00.002-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, it has been a banner week and here is why...

- I lost two pounds
- I did something fun with Emelia every day this week. Today we went to the zoo where she used her Mickey Mouse camera to take pictures of the gorillas and fish. My favorite part was she would say "smile Mr. Ray, smile Crush the Turtle" all of these are characters from Finding Nemo and our zoo's aquarium. When we discussed what different animals say she told Jeff that turtles say "most excellent." God bless Disney.
-So You Think You Can Dance ended BUT they are doing a fall season. YAHOO
and last but not least

-Samuel has been sleeping for eight hours between feedings at night.

MOTY

2009-08-01T11:37:00.003-05:00

To: Mother of the Year Committee
From: Erika Mochal
Re: Nomination

To Whom it May Concern:

I am writing to you to submit myself for consideration as Mother of the Year. In spite of the fact that I have recently thought about selling my children to the gypsies and leaving my newborn in the baby aisle at Target, I believe I am qualified for this honor due to last night's turn of events. Emelia has been dealing with constipation, welcome to my family's genes. She had a pretty painful bout on Monday when she had not pooped in four days and we had to resort to a glycerin suppository. (Not so fun but highly efficient.) Last night while I was feeding Samuel I heard her crying for mommy. Jeff said she wanted mommy to fix the poop. So I finished with Samuel, put him down for the night (awake no less, God love him for putting himself to sleep) and headed downstairs with another suppository swearing I was going to buy super high fiber bread. I got her up on the changing table and she was crying pretty hard and opened her diaper to find her little rectum expanded with poop poking out but sorta stuck. Oh no! There was no where for the suppository to go as the opening was blocked with poop. She was in so much pain so without thinking twice, I stuck my finger in there and dug out the poop. Poor thing was sweating like a pig when we finished but she was all done and in ten minutes was happy again. I learned two valuable lessons from this experience. My kid needs more fiber and no matter how tough things get or how hard it is I love my children and would do anything for them. As stated in article 10, section two of the motherhood code, manual poop removal is grounds for instantaneous Mother of the Year status and a glass of wine.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Sincerely Erika Mochal

Crazy

2009-07-19T14:11:00.002-05:00

So I know it has been a month but things have been very busy. We went to Jeff's family reunion which was fun. Then my dad and Nancy were here for a week. That was a fun time. I confess i was a little stressed because I felt this need to entertain even though I know n one expected that I just felt bad. Then we went to St. Louis for the All-Star game and now we are finally home. My rick star husband is sending me to Vegas for a weekend with a girlfriend. Can you believe it. He is watching the kids and sending me off with gift cards to the hotel spa. SERIOUSLY - he is so good. I am excited but a little stressed for him and stressed that I won't be able to pump enough milk for Sam. So i have basically turned myself in to a cow.

I titled this post crazy not just because life has been crazy but also because I sort of think I went crazy last night. I think a lot of it has to do with hormones and a lot of it has to do with being so sleep deprived. Sam woke up an hour after I feel asleep and was wide awake. I was beside myself. He wasn't crying but all I wanted to do was put him down and go back to sleep but he wanted to be awake and play. I was just despondent. That is the only word I can think of to describe how I felt. I felt like I wanted to walk out my front door in my bathrobe and start over somewhere. I just couldn't think about this being my life. I yelled at God. Where was he in the middle of this madness? Why wouldn't he make Sam sleep? I truly understood and had empathy for women how hurt their children. I know that is so un-pc to say but it is the truth. I don't condone what they did but there but for the grace of God go I. I had to wake Jeff up and give Sam to him because I just didn't trust myself not to flip out. I just felt lifeless. I was really scared. I came downstairs and looked up some verses in the Bible and that calmed me down a little then i went to bed. I couldn't sleep though. I finally fell asleep around 1:00 or so and I just remember thinking that it was all going to start over again in an hour and a half. The funny thing is that three hours later when Sam woke up , ate and went back to sleep in a half hour's time I felt totally different. i felt fine. I think I was just SO tired that I couldn't see through it all. Today I feel okay. I am a little tired but overall I am okay. I will be watching to see if I get back to that dark place because if i do i will call the doctor because I can't stay there for long without turning in to someone I don't want to be.

Joy to the world

2009-06-19T21:20:00.003-05:00

Today I had some real joy. Lately my life has been lacking that. I know I should be overjoyed to be a parent and blah blah blah but frankly I have been struggling this week with bad mood swings and the continuing tummy trouble for Sam. Jeff and I talk about how hard things are but one of the biggest trials is the lack of joy in our life right now. This week I had two blissful moments. One was watching So You Think You Can Dance on Wednesday night. I love that show so much. I literally spent all day Wednesday looking forward to it. Say wat you will about TV rotting your brain but I am pretty sure that show is going to sustain me through this acid reflux issue.

Then, tonight we took the whole family to a carnival. It was so impromptu. We are having Papillion Days which is just a random little festival in downtown Papillion (where we live.) I happened to take a different route home from Target, saw the carnival rides and called Jeff to say we should go. So random. Emelia had so much fun and I found joy in watching her giant smile on the merry go round and her look of surprise when the mini motorcycle lifted off the ground. Surprisingly they had lots of rides for little little kids. It was perfect. We ended with a trip to McDonalds and I am pretty sure it was one of the best days we have had since Sam arrived. Oh, one more terrific moment. I painted Emelia's fingernails and toenails this week. Every now and then she will stop whatever she is doing and look at her hands and exclaim "I look so beautiful." Oh to have that much self confidence. I pray she always feels beautiful.

The beauty of the blog

2009-06-08T14:46:00.003-05:00

I have a confession to make. Today during nap time I poured myself a glass of wine and read my blog from the beginning. What great perspective. I did make some observations though. Samuel is a more difficult baby as he is less easy going then Emelia was as an infant. I have also decided (and this should have been obvious but you know...) that it is harder with two. When Emelia was born I was able to do things while she slept. Now, when Samuel sleeps I try to play with Emmy or incorporate her in to my chores. (This is definitely a scam I am pulling on her but hopefully she will forgive me.) I do feel like Samuel is getting the shaft because I do not hold him, talk to him or play with him as much as I did with Emelia. Mostly I just want him to go to sleep so I can put him down and get something done. I need to work with him more. All things considered, I just forget that he is only 3 weeks old today. I feel sort of like he has been here forever so I think he should be going longer stretches at night and organizing his day into a more consistent schedule but he is just not there yet and that is okay. I am trying hard to just be okay with where life is and enjoy the little things as I said early on in my blog. I will hopefully be able to incorporate this new found perspective in to my life because things have been rather joyless of late. No matter what we do someone is not enjoying themselves. It is a tough road right now but I will be thankful for the perspective. I also looked at some early photos of Emelia and I think Samuel looks a lot like her.

Beautiful Disaster

2009-06-04T19:05:00.002-05:00

Here is our week at a glance...

Monday - We had Samuel's x-rays. The good news is that his anatomy is fine, the bad news is he has reflux. Apparently he will outgrow it within the next three months to a year. Yippee. We are also on some meds which seems to have helped with the "I'm hurting" screams. My cousin Amanda watched Emelia which was such a blessing because I don't know how I would have dealt with her at the hospital.

Tuesday - Tuesday was Jeff's birthday. I bought him the baseball package on DirectTV so he could watch his Cardinals. I planned to do baseball night at the Mochal household and bought brats and peanuts to recreate that ballpark vibe. I also wanted to get him a few polo shirts since I pried his ill-fitting ones from his hands last month. I went to Target to buy supplies for baseball night, diapers and shirts for daddy. I left without shirts. Dang it! So I went to Kohl's, found what I was looking for and left. I was also hoping to find a nursing bra but no such luck so I dragged the kids to the maternity store for a bra. Emelia was about over me at that point since I had told her we were going to have lunch with daddy and then canceled without consulting her. Found a bra, headed home with enough time to catch a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse before nap time. While I was in the bathroom I hear her scream out in pain and come running out to find her holding her elbow and crying hysterically. We have been through the dislocated elbow twice before so I guessed that is what it was. I called the doctor, they said come on in. So at five minutes till 2:00 (aka naptime) I packed up both the kids and headed to the doctor. I nursed Samuel in the exam room while waiting for Emelia to start using her arm again after the doctor popped it back in to place. We finally headed home at 3:45 with a cranky two-year old and a sleeping baby. I was beyond exhausted and just felt like crap. Everything just seemed to snowball, it was such a bad day. That night we had trouble getting Sam down to sleep so the sucky day turned in to a sucky night and I sat alone in Sam's room and just cried. I felt like I was being punished, like I had ticked off God and here I was reaping what I sowed. I know that is irrational but at that moment that is the best way to describe my feelings. I just cried out "God where are you?" Sure enough he answered.

Wednesday - What a better day. I went over to a girlfriends house and Emelia played relatively well with her daughter while Samuel nursed and slept and I was actually able to sit in the sunshine and have a conversation. I think it is the best day I have had since bringing him home. I also reconnected with an old friend who has twins and a toddler and we spent an hour and a half comparing notes on the difficulties of motherhood. It was nice to know that someone who has such a different life than me still struggles with the same things. Some motherhood conundrums are universal. My bathrooms still need to be cleaned but I at least felt like a human being for a day. Then it got even better when Samuel went 2.5 hours, 4 hours and 3 hours between feeding last night. When I went to sleep at 12:45 and woke up at 4:45 I felt refreshed - sad but true.

Thursday - We went to the zoo with my cousin and Emelia seemed to have a really good time. Samuel ate and slept, his usual routine. Emelia fell asleep on the way home but I stretched the trip in to an hour drive as I went across town to Babies R Us. I nursed Samuel in the car in the parking lot while she slept, got my bottle warmer and headed home in time to play puzzles and blocks before daddy came home. For the first time since leaving the hospital I don't feel like a zombie when Jeff gets home and I couldn't be happier.

I really like the Kelly Clarkson song Beautiful Disaster. There is a line that says"if I could hold on through the tears and the laughter I don't know, would it be beautiful or just a beautiful disaster." Right now I think my life is full of tears and laughter and it is a beautiful disaster.

The gas we pass

2009-05-29T09:32:00.002-05:00

So here we are on Friday which means I have officially made it through my first week on my own with two kids. It really has been a series of such highs and such lows. Let's start with highs.

Highs
1. On Tuesday I managed to go to Target and Walmart with the kids. I nursed Samuel in the Target food court while Emelia ate a hot dog and I changed her poopy diaper in the front seat of the car (mostly because I could not figure out how to get all of us plus a cart in to the bathroom) but we did it. i rewarded myself with two hanging baskets of petunias which brighten my day every time I pull up to the house.

2. I asked for help. This is a biggie. I called my aunt spur of the moment and asked if she could watch Emelia (while she napped) so I could go to the breastfeeding group at the hospital. I am so glad I went. I was able to get some help for my soreness, meet other moms and weigh Samuel. He is back above birth weight which is great.

3. I washed my hair - twice - and have so far managed getting everyone downstairs in the mornings.

4. My friends have been bringing us food and it has been such a blessing. I don't know what I am going to do when I have to cook again. It has also meant I don't need much in t eh way of groceries this pay check so I think I am going to get my hair colored.

5. Jeff continues to be great and I seriously could not ask for a better husband.

6. Emelia's behavior has greatly improved. We have had a few tussles but for the most part she is doing well. I actually think Daddy going back to work helped because now we are back to our routine a little bit more. She is trying to be patient but that is a tough concept for a two-year-old. Yesterday she anted a snack while I was nursing. I told her I would get her a snack as soon as I was done nursing that she needed to be patient. She responded, "can I be patient and have a snack?" Touche'

The Lows
1. I pretty much hit a wall every day around four. I am trying to nap when Emelia naps but it is hard for me to nap during the day. This leaves me not only low on energy, but low on patience for post-nap crankiness.

2. Samuel has developed some sort of gas issue that comes on every night between 10:00 and 2:00. I am not sure if it is something I ate or what the deal is but for instance, last night I nursed him at 9:00, put him down around 9:30 and we all went to sleep. Hooray! It seemed so promising. Then he woke up at 11:30 to nurse and began to scream shortly thereafter for about two hours. I tried everything, gas drops, laying him on his stomach, The five S's, pacifier, swing, everything but nothing worked. He finally just sort of calmed down on his own or maybe he got the gas out, I am not really sure but it was a miserable two hours. He has a Dr. appointment today so maybe she can help. Pray that she can!

3. I am still pretty weepy but getting better. The lactation consultant suggested that if I am still feeling "blue" by the end of next week I should see my Dr. for a mild anti-depressant for the short term while my hormones rebalance. Part of me thinks that would be great - solution in a pill. Part of me worries about that idea so all of me is just praying that things work out on their own.

4. Still having trouble with clothes but at least the weight is still coming off. Probably because yesterday for breakfast I had a cup of reheated coffee from the day before's pot and what was left of Emelia waffle with peanut butter. : ) I don't so much mind my body, it is just that I have had very limited clothing selection for the last nine months and was looking forward to my wardrobe again but I still can't wear most of it.

Overall things have gone better than I expected with the exception of the sleep thing. Emelia was easier at night than Samuel is so that is a little trying but I feel like we can get through it. More prayer and hopefully some help from the Dr. and we should be in good shape.

Seven days, seventy emotions

2009-05-25T14:49:00.002-05:00

So Samuel Wayne Mochal was born May 18 at 11:48 p.m. weighing 7 pounds 8 ounces. What a blur life has been since then. Labor was long, pushing was short, I will write more about that later. I feel physically pretty good but I have been on the hormone roller coaster something fierce. ( I apologize in advance, I spell checked but I don't have the energy to do much else.)

The baby has been relatively easy to care for - typical newborn eat every two hours, sleep, eat some more, poop, pee on mom, sleep, eat some more, cry a little, etc. Emelia on the other hand has been tough. She is fine with her brother and at times seems loving but she has just been pushing limits and testing boundaries. She had a melt down in Target on Saturday that lasted two hours. She was crying hysterically to the point of hyperventilating. She just could not pull herself together. It left me feeling really disheartened. If we couldn't get through a 20 min Target trip with Jeff and I both how will I ever do it on my own. Then Sunday she just had a hysterical fit over not wanting to wear her bib. Normally this would not be a battle I would choose to fight, so what she spills on her clothes, but she has been fine with her bib and the incident seemed a direct attempt to be stubborn. Yesterday was a dark day. I screamed at her had to remove myself from the situation for fear of screaming more or throwing something. I just had his sinking feeling in my stomach. I think the hardest part of just that I don't know what it will look like when it gets better so I can't picture it. I can't see the light at the end of tunnel. Everything is compounded when you are running on five hours of sleep a night as well. My emotions are just so close to the surface that I cry at least 15 minutes a day, over what, I am not sure. I also just keep thinking that if my mom were alive this would all be better. She would stay with us and coach me and give me a break and I would just be able to make it through so much better. I have aunts and I have Jeff's mom but none of that is really the same. Then I look in the mirror and cry again. I feel like i had come so far with my weight loss journey and here I am back at square one with nothing that fits. I don't have many of my bigger clothes because I thought I was never going back. Ha isn't that a pickle. I know rationally that I gave birth a week ago and should not expect much but I do. I expect to get the chores done and I expect to have a good child because I have worked hard for the last two years to raise a good child and run a good home and in one week it feels like it has all just fallen apart and I am not sure how or when I am going to get it back together again. When someone asks me how I am doing I literally say something like we're okay or we're managing but my eyes well with tears because I am not sure that either of those things is the truth. The scariest thing about it is that today is the best day I have had so far. I got eight hours of sleep - in two hour increments - I got the laundry done and I have washed my hair. I even cut myself some new bangs. I just think I needed to let all of that out. If you are reading this please don't feel sorry for me just pray for me. Ask God to give me wisdom patience and a reduced estrogen level. If you have tow kids and have advice on what to do with Emelia send that my way. If you don't have children please don't be discouraged. They are a blessing and one I would not give away - okay i would maybe loan them out but not give them away. I just need to recover and get some sleep and pray. Today I opened my Bible t o a passage I had randomly scrawled in the front. The reference was Ephesians 4:2. When I got there it said this. "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love." Good advice back then, great advice for today.

Still waiting

2009-05-13T12:26:00.002-05:00

So here I am one week from my due date and I swear if you told me I could induce labor by drinking pickle juice and standing on my head I would be hunting down the Vlassic jar. My oh my, I am ready for this baby. The nursery is ready, the house is ready, my body is ready but the baby apparently is not ready. I will try to wait patiently. I have this nagging voice in the back of my mind from the ultrasound where the tech said, "I would put the due date at closer to May 24 than the 20 but we will leave it on your chart as the 20th." What if it is not the 20th, what if it is the 24th? Really, that is not that far away but it feels like forever! Pray for patience for me and Emelia who is tired of having a mommy who can't go down the slide!

Lesson Learned

2009-05-05T08:41:00.002-05:00

I have learned a valuable lesson recently one I would like to write down because I will probably need to reflect on it often in the coming months. You see I am a fixer by nature. I like to help people, I like to solve problems and find solutions to dilemmas. You need a crib, I will scour Craigslist until I find one for you. You need some monetary help, here is what I have. You need someone to sign up to bring something to the bake sale/youth retreat/volunteer meeting/whatever sign me up for cookies or cake or whatever you need. That is just a part of how God made me. The thing is the reverse angle of that is very tricky for me. I have a tough time asking for help. This is a growing phenomenon for me because I don't think it was always this hard for me. It may have to do with my mom's death. I think before when I needed help my mom had some sort of spidey sense that tingled and she was always there before I ever even asked. The ironic part is I probably need more help at this point in my life than ever before and yet now I am the most reluctant to ask.

It all comes down to vanity/pride. You see on the outside I look like I have got life pretty much together. I am fairly organized, my house is usually pretty darn clean, I volunteer in several different ministries at church and overall I look pretty with it. The problem with asking for help is that in my little mind that is the equivalent of admitting I can't do everything and I don't have it all together. I can not dig up a garden when I am nine months pregnant or put together a compost bin that specifically says you need two adults to put this together. I probably should not be on a ladder trying to install a ceiling fan when my water could break at any minute. Yet, these are all things I have tried or contemplated doing in the last week. The real problem is this - by not asking my friends and family for help I am depriving someone of a chance to be Christ-like to me. I am depriving someone else of the chance to be the fixer which may be how God created them. There are various folks in my small group that posses the sort of handiness that I am currently in need of and yet I am reluctant to reach out. That is just plain silly and it is not what God has asked me to do in building a Christian community. So I am officially asking for help world. I need meals when this baby comes and someone to put a ceiling fan in Emelia's room. I need help digging up a garden - I will give you a summer's supply of free tomatoes in return for your help. For a little while I am going to need to be taken care of instead of taking care of everyone else. It literally pains me to say that, but I am learning a lesson.

Progress

2009-05-04T11:39:00.002-05:00

So, I went to the doctor today and I am one centimeter dilated and 50% effaced. Probably more information than some of you wanted, but too bad, it was cause for great joy at my house! My cousin's wedding is Friday so I have to hold out till after that. I told my doctor and she said she will be out of town until Saturday afternoon so we have made a date for Sunday. It would be lovely for baby X to be born on Mother's Day. So since I am clearly not in control of this at all, I am furiously trying to get the house in the best possible shape for this weekend because I am pretty determined to have this baby then and if not then next week I will lay around and watch movies and eat popcorn and M&M's with Emelia all week. Also not a bad plan!

21 days

2009-04-30T18:56:00.003-05:00

So here we are at 37 weeks, 3 weeks away from my due date and I have to tell you I am pretty darn uncomfortable. No position feels very good especially in the evening when the baby is very active and the "fake" contractions kick up. My hips hurt, I have shooting pains down the back of my leg - dude, get off my nerves, no really! Sleeping is a joke and my bladder capacity is equal to a thimble. I really don't remember being this uncomfortable with Emelia. With her I weighed about 20 more pounds than I do now but I just don't remember wanting to have the baby so desperately. I am so tired of being pregnant. I am sort of having a pity party so please forgive me. I just am ready. My cousin's wedding - which I am a bridesmaid in - is next Friday. It really is a shame, it is actually a pretty bridesmaid dress and yet I am just going to be so big. UGH! Once I get through that I think I will be even more desperate to have this baby because that is really the last big thing I have to get through. I also really need to be back in my own home by May 20 - my due date - because that is when the winner of American Idol will be crowned and the very next night the two-hour premiere of So You Think You Can Dance is on. Priorities people!

Swine flu but not really...

2009-04-29T19:23:00.002-05:00

Do you remember when they would give the head lice talk each year in school and suddenly your head would start to itch. Mine is actually starting to itch as I type this. That is how I feel about this whole swine flu thing. Last week Emelia and I had some sort of sore throat/fever virus that resulted in a trip to the doctor to see if it was strep - it wasn't - and if there was anything we could do - not a thing. So we stayed home from Thursday-Sunday and took Tylenol every four hours to try to keep the fever down. We did not have a cough and we did not have body aches but of course as I am hearing on the nightly news that they have raised the pandemic threat level I start to feel a cough coming on and wonder if we in fact had swine flu. I don't actually think we did but it is a lot like the head lice talk in school. Man there are a lot of things in the world to worry about. Good thing I am not a worrier by nature. : ) Oops, maybe that is not such a true statement.

In other news I think Emelia is about ready for potty training. The problem is there could not be a worse time than now. Baby X is supposed to be here any time in the next three weeks so everyone says don't do it now she will revert once the baby comes. Well that leaves me potty training her after baby brother gets here when I am sure I will have tons of free time and loads of free arms to help pull down pants/wipe tushes/etc. I am going to just pray about it. Yes I am praying about pee and poop, but quite frankly it is not the first time especially since I was so constipated when I was pregnant with Emelia.

When Emelia poops in her diaper now she will sing the song Jeff taught her - "dirty diapers, the kind that stink, dirty diapers the kind that stink!" It is to the tune of Dirty Deed Done Dirt Cheap. Yep it is pretty awesome. She also sings "My diapers pee-soakered, diapers pee-soakered, every day it's soaked away." My husband routinely makes up words to real songs about daily drudgery, it is alternately endearing and annoying. I can not sing the Abba song "Lovin Me, Lovin You" because in my head the words are "Goin' pee, goin' poo, I go numbers one and two..."

Hospital Tour

2009-04-23T13:04:00.003-05:00

Today I had my 36 week doctor's visit which means from here on out I go every bloody week. Seems like we are moving right along. I decided to tour the hospital where I will probably have baby boy x. Is it bad that my main concern was the food? When I had Emelia I went in at 6:00 am and did not have her until that evening and they never once let me eat which means by the time I did eat it had been almost 24 hours. Are ya kidding me with that? I have learned my lesson and will not go to the hospital without eating first.

Emelia has a little bit of fever that I am watching. I am not sure what it is but I know it's making her crabby. UGH! Is it nap time yet?

Just another manic Monday

2009-04-20T17:10:00.002-05:00

whoa, wish it were Sunday whoa, that's my fun day.... Not really I mean Sundays are great but they aren't my "fun day" really. Mondays however are pretty manic. I try to cram as many chores in to Monday as I can stand so that I can slack a little the rest of the week. There is a method to my madness. I am always pretty energized on Mondays. I feel refreshed after the weekend and I am ready to get to it on Monday morning. (note: except when I am eight months pregnant in which case I am not really raring to go at any point in time.)

Today I stripped all the beds including the two guest beds, washed the sheets and remade the beds. I did six loads of laundry. I cleaned the kitchen. I made banana bread for tomorrow's Bible study. I baked a loaf of honey wheat bread for Jeff's breakfasts this week - in the bread machine, I am not that good! I vacuumed the downstairs and had movie Monday with Emelia where we had popcorn and watched Finding Nemo yet again. Phew, now I am tired. You see there is a little bit of a selfish motive for all my hard work. I am hoping I will e so exhausted tonight that when my head hits the pillow I will fall asleep and stay asleep and wake up refreshed.

Only four more weeks to go, yippee.

My new obsession

2009-04-16T13:20:00.001-05:00

I really want a freezer. I am determined to find a way to move stuff around in the garage to fit one. Then I have to find one I like on Craigslist or on serious sale at the store and then I will have my freezer and love it!

She's crafty!

2009-04-13T14:44:00.002-05:00

I have to confess the Beastie Boys tune runs through my head whenever I break out the hot glue gun or the needle and thread. I am pretty sure that isn't what they meant but that is how it applies to my life now. With this new baby on the way I was inspired by my crafty friends and decided to see if I could stretch my nursery budget by repurposing things and making things myself. I have to say I am pretty proud of myself, I only used about 2/3 of my budget. I bought an end table at goodwill and painted it. It is not flawless but it will do.

I painted a shelf and used receiving blankets that matched my bedding to create wall decorations. I also bought vinyl lettering to make a mini-mural type thing. I even decorated a lampshade with ribbon and found a lampstand at the resale shop to make a coordinating lamp.

And last but not least I painted a bookshelf that was my mom's and bought storage cubes and glued monkeys on to them to make this. I also made a nightlight with this same little monkey! My nightlight budget was $10 (yes I made an excel budget and yes I allotted $10 for a dumb nightlight mostly because I had already seen one I wanted) but then I saw someone selling one on ebay and figured out how they made it - LED nightlight from Walmart $1.43 and wooden prepainted monkey from Hobby Lobby $.69 - and I made one myself.

You see the big space above the crib, that is where the babies name should go but at this moment in time I am not sure what that will be. I thought we had one picked out but it may have to be a gametime decision that is made in the hospital so if you have any great ideas let me know!

I am pretty sure I am going to take what is left of my nursery budget and get a bottle of champagne and a spa day once this baby gets here. : )

Things I never thought I would say...

2009-04-09T18:29:00.002-05:00

You see if you have known me for awhile, like since high school or college, you may be shocked at how I turned out, who I turned into or where life has taken me. Lord knows I often am. Recently I have been reflecting on that and here are some things that I find myself saying that really just make me giggle.

1. I got a really bad burn from the hot glue gun today!

2. Hummm, what can I make with a rump roast?

3. Holy cow I can't believe I got eggs for 77 cents!

4. Omaha is a great place for our family right now.

5. I enjoy being a stay-at-home mom.

6. Honestly, I would rather have you rub my back than make me a bowl of ice cream. (No really, my back constantly hurts these days.)

7. I really only listen to Christian radio.

8. I am so sick of winter. (I normally love winter but not in six month increments.)

9. Are you poopy?

10. I have been to Hobby Lobby three times this week.

I am a price matching fool

2009-04-04T14:09:00.002-05:00

i have become one of those women. For those of you with two incomes and more money than you ever thought you would have, I am the women you hate. Today at Walmart. I set down one item with a free coupon (which means the cashier has to write the items price on the coupon) and four price match items. I got Duncan Hines cake mix for .79 and cereal for $2.50, before you took of the .35 coupon for the cake mix and the $1.00 off three for the cereal. Jeff was dyeing.

Grocery shopping has become an art form for me. I spend about an hour preparing for it. First I look at the grocery ads for every store in town and circle extra good buys or things I need. Then I plan my meals for the next two weeks based on what is one sale. Then I look through the recipes for everything I am going to make to see what I need to make each meal. Then I check off the items I need on my alphabetized excel spread sheet grocery list. Then I go through my coupons to see what matches the items on my list. Along the way I am making notes on my list about who has what on sale so that I can make sure to compare Walmart's price and if it is not as good I can price match to the other store. Then I organize my coupons by aisle to match my grocery list. That way if I decide generic canned corn if cheaper than my Del Monte coupon I can put the coupon back in my file for use at a later date. It is a complicated process that gives me great pleasure. Today I saved $5.00 in coupons and $3.00 in price matching not to mention the savings from buying sale items. I got shredded cheese for $1.50 and that was Kraft 2% incredible!

I am a dork!

Is it really April first?

2009-04-01T08:52:00.002-05:00

Because it snowed yesterday. It was only a little and it didn't stick but still it was snow. Seriously what is the matter with the weather here? Today the high is supposed to be 55. Just when I get out my flip flops I have to put them away for my boots and just when I leave my boots out it starts to get nice. I have to say I would really like some consistency.

FYI - I am officially 33 weeks which means I have seven weeks to go. I had this crazy dream last night that all the calculations were off and I really only had two weeks. Then I was panicking because the nursery wasn't done and I still had baby clothes to wash and well you get the picture. Clearly I have some repressed anxiety. I am really anxious about this baby for some reason. I am so much more ready to be done than I was with Emelia.
I think I sort of feel like life is going to be really rough for about six months and so the sooner I get on with it the sooner I will get through it. I am ready for the lack of sleep but every day I think of new scenarios that will be a challenge. Like yesterday I was in the Target food court and I saw a women with a four year old son and a 9 month old girl I am guessing. Well her son had to use the restroom so she leaves her table with her food and her cart and grabs the baby and they head for the restroom. Now she had her purse in one hand and the baby in the other and I just thought how does she help her son with his pants? (I am guessing he still may need help who knows maybe they don't.) See my mind starts to reel when I think about actually trying to live life with two. Forget about when one is crying or being naughty, I am just talking straight living, like trips to the store or the doctor or whatever. I am sure you just figure out a way but it still makes me nervous. Okay I am working myself up in to a frenzy and I have not had any coffee yet so I better go get my single lonely cup of 1/4 caffeinated coffee that I allow myself.

By the way Emelia has begun to quote Beauty and the Beast - yesterday at Bible Study she burst out with "My father is not crazy, he is a genius!" So she loves a good princess movie and can quote movie lines at the age of two, she is definitely half Jeff and half me.

I mean really?

2009-03-26T16:44:00.004-05:00

Emelia let me put pigtails in her hair today and I loved it. I mean seriously, I almost couldn't look at her because it hurt. She was so stinkin' cute I could just melt. Needless to say we had McDonalds for lunch today because, well, really I couldn't say no.

The shortest month casts the longest shadow

2009-03-24T17:37:00.004-05:00

I sort of dropped off the blogosphere in February and I think I pretty much do it every February. It is just a really rough month for me. My mom died February 14. It has been four years and sometimes it seems like yesterday and sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago. The funny thing about it is if I really objectively look at my life, it is worlds better now than it was before she died. I am living the life God intended for me and am closer to being the person I want to be. Yet I miss my mom so much. I know God uses all things for his glory and I can truly see that in the loss of my mother but that doesn't make it any easier to swallow. Then this year Jeff's dad died on February 6. He was ill and he was 85 and we believe he is in a better place but that also does not make it any easier to go through the loss. Jeff and I are pretty sure we are destined not to celebrate Valentine's day because we had to cancel our date this year to bury his dad. This was really the first year we were going to celebrate since it is such a painful time for me. Maybe next year.

We are recovering though and sailing through March. I can't believe the baby will be here in two months. I am still working on the nursery and getting things together. I swear with Emelia I had everything washed, steam sanitized and in place by my second trimester. Oh well, life is different now. I am tired of being pregnant. I itch pretty bad and I feel like a huge tub of goo. Sleeping has become difficult which makes my energy level low during the day and well, I am just ready. I am grateful to have a healthy pregnancy and know I shouldn't complain, I am just ready to be done.

So anyway, I am back at the blog and will try to do better at keeping up with the world.

Here are some new Emelia pics that make me smile. Her two new loves are painting and dress up clothes. The trick is she has to wear all of the dress up clothes at once. If one necklace is good then five are better. Jeff calls it her Mr. T started kit. As for the paints thank goodness they are washable because she ends up with paint all over herself. I am currently in love with the coolest thing ever - Color Wonder paints from Crayola. They only work on special paper, not on clothes or faces or the dog.

Fat and Sassy

2009-02-04T17:07:00.002-06:00

Okay so maybe just fat. I have gotten my four pounds back and I swear nothing fits - overnight. Things fit yesterday and today nothing. I am trying to refrain from buying clothes because well I won't need them again and I don't have a ton of need to dress cute but I have started to feel SOOOOO frumpy and dumpy. I know that there are other things I should be worrying about and that there are people who have real problems that I could be praying about but I can't help being just a little bit sad about how I look and feel right now. I just wish my thighs had not gotten so much bigger. I have worked really hard to get to a place where I sort of like my body and here I am again hating it all over. I know I am pregnant and therefore fat for a reason but still I just wish it was all in my belly. Instead I think it is all in my head. I am my own worst enemy right now. It is like a snowball rolling downhill turning in to a class three avalanche with every check in the mirror. UGH!

"I am one good stomach sickness away from my goal weight"

2009-01-29T08:30:00.002-06:00

I distinctly remember this quote from he Devil Wears Prada because I thought it was so funny and yet for some women probably really true. I am pretty sure I have even thought something similar at one time in my life or another. I have always struggled with accepting my weight so ridiculous things like this seemed reasonable to me. Then you actually get a stomach sickness...

On Monday Emelia had diarrhea, not great but not the end of the world especially since she is still in diapers it is not horrible to clean up. At this point I would take that over puke any day because she can not control or aim puke so it is a far bigger mess. Alright let's gut back on the grapes, add in some bananas and wait for a solid poop. Fine. Well then on Tuesday around midnight that creepy little stomach bug had migrated to the mommy. I throw up nine times between midnight and 8 am. I figured it was just a bug but I was a little worried about getting dehydrated with the baby since one sip of water down equalled one sip of water up. I called the doctor, they said to come in, I did and it all went downhill from there. They said I was really dehydrated and wanted to call a home health nurse to administer some iv fluids and an anti-nausea medication. Okay fine. I went home and went back to sleep and stopped vomiting. Yea! As the day wore on I waited for this home health nurse to call, she did at 5:00 p.m. By this time I had kept down some gatorade and five crackers - wahoo! When she gets to our house she goes through all of this stuff with me (a 24 hour iv which I will have to get up in the middle of the night to change since she is arriving so late and blah blah blah.) Then she tries to start the IV , no go. Three needle sticks later, which brings my total needle sticks for the day to six since we had trouble finding a vein to draw blood at the doctors office also, i have nothing. At this point all the sticking and the anxiety has made my stomach hurt again and I have started to wretch. The nurse decide she will call another nurse out to try to stick me some more. (How long will that be I wonder - it took six hours just to get you here.) So finally I say no thank you I am just going to drink some more gatorade eat a piece of toast and hope for the best. She says she has to get a doctor to approve that, i say fine, use my phone. Voila, two minutes later she is gone and I have a sinking feeling I am going to have to pay for this whole fiasco anyway since she came out and opened all the supplies and now they can't be used on someone else. You know I should have listened to my instincts and called the whole thing off earlier in the day when I stopped vomiting. Oh well, lesson learned. The moral of the story is the baby is fine I feel world's better today and i lost four pounds. I have to say I would have rather gained four pounds than lose it the way I did.

I heart Costco

2009-01-10T14:04:00.002-06:00

Costco is seriously the greatest place on earth. Because I had mom's group at church yesterday and Murphy had a vet appointment I did not get to do my grocery shopping yesterday like I normally would on a pay day Friday. So today Jeff and I divided and conquered. He hit Fareway for the chicken breast that was on sale and Target for the cat litter that was on sale and I hit Walmart for my normal groceries. Then together we all went to Costco. First let me just say what a lovely gift it is to grocery shop without your child. I love Emelia but she adds at least a half hour to any grocery shopping trip and does not allow for a ton of extraneous time like calculating how much Tide is per load. Today I got to do that and what I found out was shocking.

I compared Walmart, which is the best price in town, against Costco and Costco was always cheaper. The trick is you have to be able to store it and have some extra money up front to buy it. Yogurt was literally .20 cheaper per yogurt cup. Tide was .13 cheaper a load and don't even get me started on Kleenex. Some things Walmart will always win because the generic is so cheap. A can of white beans for instance is .62 which you can't beat because they are generic and by the time you throw them in a pot of tortilla soup no one can tell the difference but on name brand items Costco is just such a good deal. The real reason it is the best spot on earth is that Emelia, Jeff and I can each have a hot dog and drink for $4.50. As Emelia said today "It is a beautiful day to sit down and eat a hot dog."

The name game

2009-01-07T17:14:00.003-06:00

I think I have Jeff talked out of Ananias - thank goodness but we still have not really come up with a name. I am very much a believer in instincts when it comes to this process. With Emelia I loved it from the start and I still love it even though I say it five hundred times a day. Even though I have been through a million baby name sites and made a list of names I like, there is nothing I LOVE so far. Jeff said we need to make a list of final contenders and then mull over those choices. That sounds logical and all but there is no gut reaction that way which makes it hard for me. Maybe it is different the second time around I don't know. It is not like there was a girl name that i was loving either so maybe I just need to stop looking for that lovin' feelin' and start mulling.

New Year New Me?

2009-01-04T17:30:00.003-06:00

So usually when the new Year rolls around I drink some champagne and make a list of all of the ways i will improve myself in the coming year. This year is different. I am already working out. I have no hope of losing weight until after May 20 and I have finally learned that I don't do well with New Years resolutions. Instead I made a list of projects for January. I do well with a list of small tasks that I can actually accomplish. I believe this is known as short term goals. I have already crossed three things off the list. Yeah me! It will be interesting to see what this year brings. I know life will be crazy for awhile and I know I am going to need to potty train Emelia but that is really all I can plan at this moment in time. If you know me you know that the inability to plan is like an inability to breathe. i am working on that for January and will probably be working on that straight through December's list.

Here are some things I am struggling with at the moment (besides the inability to plan)...

I feel fat. I know that I am pregnant so that is to be expected somewhat but I wish I could be one of those women who keep their shape and just look like they swallowed a ball. I do not look like that. I look like I swallowed the women from the before picture at Jenny craig. Everything has gotten bigger. Why is that?

I also have terrible pregnancy acne. Now I will confess there is some vanity in my distaste for my chin's new friends but mostly it HURTS. They are big cystic, you can't pop me pimples and they hurt. The bummer of it is that y ou can't use acne meds when you are pregnant. Isn't that just a big cosmic joke?

We are having a boy. Yes I will be caring for a baby boy. How does that work? I feel like the little boys I know are so different and I can't possibly begin to comprehend what to do with a boy. I have already begun to pray that God will help me to not compare them and to just love him for him and be content with who he is whoever that may be. Yikes! To top it all off Jeff and I are not even close to on the same page about names. I like Bennett and he likes Ananias. Yep you read that right...

Um okay I suppose that is about it for now. Time to make some supper.

Fun Times with DirecTV

2008-12-19T15:50:00.002-06:00

So we had some pretty crappy weather last night including freezing rain with a little snow on t op. I have a serious weather paranoia. I don't like storms, I get scared to drive on t eh snow and ice and I don't want anyone to go anywhere until the streets clear. So today we are hunkered down hanging out at home. Well about mid day I discovered that some of our channels are not coming in. I called DirecTV (who we love) and the nice gentleman walked me through a test which I apparently failed. He said it looks like your high definition channels are not coming in. I knew that part but ok why - because either the satellite is no longer angled correctly or there is snow or ice covering the dish receptor. He said you will probably need to wait for the weather to pass. Newsflash - it is December and I live in Nebraska. The average high for the next week is 12. So we may be talking about March before this crap melts. All I could think was dear lord please let all of teh good bowl games be on regular channels.

The Definition of Bitter Cold

2008-12-15T15:10:00.002-06:00

When I listened to the weather forecast this morning Rusty Lord (yes that is his name) told me that it was currently -4 but not to worry it was going to warm up to 8 degrees by late afternoon. Oh good, something to look forward to!

Where Does the Time Go

2008-12-10T09:34:00.003-06:00

Emelia is two years old today. I just can't believe it. She constantly amazes me, sometimes in not so good ways but mostly I just marvel at how she has become this little person. I love her so much and I could never have imagined that I would feel this way. I have loved a lot in my life. I love my husband more now than I did in the giddy first months of our courtship and I loved my mom more than I can say but I have just been blind sided by my love for Emelia. It is so powerful and unexpected and it just creeps up on you.

Yesterday she said hey mom and I turned around and said "what honey" and I could distinctly "hear" that same exchange between my mother and I and it took my breath away. I am now the mom. I don't know that I thought I would never be a mom but it was not something that I spent a lot of time longing for. Now that I am I can not imagine ever not being who I am today. As I think about adding another child to our family my fear is t hat I couldn't possibly love this new baby the way that I love Emelia because my heart just doesn't have room for that much overpowering love. I know God will fix that but it still nags at me none the less.

I remember so distinctly when she was little and I couldn't wait to see who she would be. i wanted to see what sort of personality she would have and it is slowly emerging. She loves animals and is very passionate about things - ELMO, books, jelly beans. Often she will tell me "Mommy I NEED jelly beans." She likes to cuddle and does well with a routine. (Thank goodness!) She likes to sing and hates to be confined, like in a shopping cart for instance. (Whoa is me this is a new and really tough challenge.) She is so smart and has a terrific memory. Yesterday we were looking at an alphabet picture book and she turned to the page for x and declared "look mom a xylophone." I mean really where did she learn the word xylophone? Currently if you ask her what color something is everything is green. Jeff is convinced she is colorblind. She likes to swing at the park and asks to do so every day. She is just a terrific child. Yes she gives me fits sometimes and yes there are days I miss the freedom of being a dual-income-no-kids couple but I would never go back.

I can't wait to see what the next year brings.

License Plates

2008-12-05T17:50:00.002-06:00

If anyone has license plates for my friend Stephanie's map project can you please send them to me? Here is a link to her blog so you can see her project...

http://svajglfamily.blogspot.com/

Oh the weather outside is frightful....

2008-12-02T07:44:00.003-06:00

No really, I am not kidding. It is suddenly really cold here. What I don't get - should have paid more attention in Mr. Kelley's science class - is how yesterday the high was 30 and today the high is supposed to be 50. Oh and tomorrow the high is 29. What makes Tuesday so warm? I know I have officially adjusted to the weather here because when I found out the high was going to be 50 I thought "hum maybe Emelia and I can go to the playground." Really, when did 50 constitute playground weather?

In other news, I have been able to return to the gym. I am just in time for the "12 Days of Christmas" promotion. If you work out 12 times between Dec. 1 and Dec. 24 you get a free t-shirt. What is it about free stuff that is so appealing? When I saw the sign on the door to the gym I was soooo excited. I really need another free t-shirt because the bag to take to the Goodwill is not full enough. I mean I don't need that shirt but sure enough I signed up at the front desk and darn it if I won't do it. I guess if nothing else it is good incentive to go to the gym.

Allright I am off to Super Wal-mart to grocery shop, spend ten minutes looking at the aquarium section (Emelia's treat for grocery shopping goodness) and complain about how expensive food has gotten.

Back to Work

2008-12-01T08:39:00.001-06:00

None of us want to go back to work today. Jeff was running late, I was not running at all and Emelia is just now getting up. Hope that doesn't mean she is getting sick. What a delicious weekend - food, shopping, football and lots of block building. Maybe Em will be an architect or a princess handler because man my girl loves her princess figurines. I love that she like Pocahontas the best.

Thoughts on a tree

2008-11-29T08:34:00.004-06:00

So you may remember a post from last December and early January where I talked about our tree situation in this house. To boil it down, Jeff likes a real tree, I don't mind it but I don't like the mess. (So weird for me right?) Last year our real tree died early so we ended up with a fake tree for Christmas. While technically I won the battle (and contest of wills) Jeff was really sad and I certainly didn't feel like a winner. The compromise was that going forward we would use the fake tree in another room to have the "perfect Martha Stewart" tree and then we would get a real tree for the front room to put up our mish mosh collection of ornaments from our childhood. Last Sunday everything changed. I went to church and the bulletin said that the church was looking for a Christmas tree for the new campus we are opening in Millard. They wanted burgundy and gold ornaments and lights if anyone had some to donate. That is when God spoke to me.

I didn't hear his voice but I knew as plain as day that I was supposed to give church my "Martha" tree. I pushed the thought aside because I was really looking forward to my "Martha" tree. When I got home Jeff and I split up to run errands and when I came home Jeff had bought a real tree. He showed great restraint this year and did not buy one that was too big or too fat. It really was the perfect tree. When I got out my Christmas decorations I pulled out the stuff I bought for my "Martha" tree and noticed that the ornaments were burgundy and gold - just what the church was looking for - and that is when I knew I had to give them that tree.

You see that tree was a symbol of vengefulness and stubbornness and disobedience. For those of you that have known me for a while you know I struggle with the Biblical concept of wives submitting to their husbands. What I finally realized was that it wasn't about not having a backbone or about being weak as an individual or about being a slave. It is about being a strong unit that works out compromise but when you can not work out compromise someone has to be "right" for lack of a better word and it is to be the husband. In our seven years of marriage we have never not been able to work out a compromise on anything - except the Christmas tree. (Crazy huh?) The fact that I can't let go of my tree is me being disobedient to him, to God and to my own heart. I am a pretty strong woman and I believe that God made me that way. I don't think the idea of submission in any way takes away from that - on the contrary, the ability to put aside my own will and stand in God's will for me takes strength of character and discipline. (I don't always have a ton of those two things but God has given me more of that lately too.)

The other reason I knew I had to give up that tree is because of what the whole concept of the "Martha" tree represented to me. See some people grew up with those kind of trees or like my best friend make them in to works of art. I was trying to be something I am not so that people would come in to my home and see my quaint little country tree and my sophisticated polished perfect tree and think I was all of those things. I certainly am more sophisticated than my family was growing up mostly because I lived in LA and was a victim of the keeping up with the Jones' culture but in my heart I am the sum total of my parents and I am proud of that. Most of the ornaments on my tree are handmade by my mom or Jeff's parents or in some cases Jeff himself and I love them. My mom and dad gave me an ornament every year while I was growing up and it usually represented something from that year. I have a pair of ice skates from the year I learned to skate. I have an Aladdin ball from the year I was obsessed with that movie. I have an engagement ring in a box from the year I got engaged. As I put all of those ornaments on the tree it is like walking through my past and remembering each year of my life. That is what my Christmas tree is all about - not perfection. I will confess I do stare longingly at the trees in department stores because their tidyness and symmetry are so appealing, but I love my tree and I will no longer be ashamed of my homespun tree.

When I took all of my still-in-the-box ornaments and my pre-lit tree in to the church office they were so thankful and thought it was so beautiful. Now hundreds of people can appreciate that tree and I can appreciate my country tree in all its splendor. (My camera batteries are dead but I will post pics of my tree soon.)

New Woman

2008-11-20T10:53:00.002-06:00

I feel like a new woman this week. I am finally over the morning sickness, I think and I have some energy which is so exciting.

Okay let me back up and fill in the last three weeks' details.

Colorado was great. It was nice to see family and I felt a particular increase in my bond with Nancy - my step mom. Emelia really took to her because she was the only one who really let Emelia come to her. News flash, little kids do not like to have people force a relationship. It is tough because I really want her to just run up and hug everyone but she doesn't and I know that is a good thing but people have expectations so it is a little nerve wracking for us parents. It really is a tricky situation. Emelia was great in the car but tested her boundaries a few times while we were there. There was a lot going on, six adults surrounding her at all times plus trips to the zoo and the rock garden etc. I tried to give her a little leeway but I also was not about to let her freak out because she wasn't getting her way which she did a couple of times. All in all I needed a vacation from my vacation. : )

I came back and spent most of last week preparing to talk at our women's retreat for church. The theme was Walking by Faith - different shoes for different seasons. I was one of six speakers speaking about trying times in our lives that God pulled us through. For me that was the year that my mom died. Her death was terrible, the grief was overwhelming but I basically buried all of that under work, alcohol and shopping, with a dose of overeating thrown in for good measure. By the grace of God my loving husband stuck by me but finally on new year's eve of 2005 I just told God I couldn't take it any more and he took it for me. So anyway, I was nervous about speaking and really just wanted my story to help someone else in some way and wanted it to glorify God. The speech went well, the retreat was awesome and man was I exhausted. I spent most of Sunday and Monday trying to catch up on sleep and get some energy. I decided since I was feeling so much better I would try to take my regular prenatal vitamin since I have been taking a regular multi with a folic acid supplement. Bad idea, man was I sick. On Monday I spent all day throwing up and feeling miserable. Tuesday was much better and Wednesday was better still.

So that brings us to today when I can report that I think I have begun to nest. Yes I vacuumed out the light fixtures and dusted the fireplace after cleaning out the toy box and organizing the closets. Most women don't start to nest until the third trimester but I think my natural anal tendencies combined with the extra hormones get me going a little early : ) Okay, gotta go, I am off to clean the refrigerator coils!

A Gift

2008-10-30T16:04:00.003-05:00

Today i am struck by what a gift I have been given. I had a park date with a friend who was relaying a story of a friend who went to pick up her one year old at day care and walked in as the worker slapped her child in the face. I could not come to terms with what I would do. I am so tremendously blessed to be able to stay home with Emelia. My mom worked and I never once felt like I lacked for anything in my relationship with her so I know it can be done successfully, but i don't know how I could do it. I think it is so much work. Staying home is work too, don't get me wrong but I am just I don't know feeling really blessed right now.

I can't believe I am going to have another one. It is so surreal. Jeff and I have been praying about this for awhile and then in July we decided to end our birth control and then in August I got pregnant. God must have thought we were ready. Suddenly I am not so sure. It has been hard being sick and trying to not make Emelia suffer because of it. I just know that God's priority for me is not to keep my floors mopped but to keep her heart full and her mind fed. (Never mind her belly - God bless the peanut butter sandwich.) I think it is good that it has been tough for me already because I know it will be even tougher when number 2 gets here so I suppose this is just a little on the job training. : )

All things considered I have an amazing husband who picks up the slack when I have less than a 100% to give, a relatively well-behaved loving little girl and a God who makes each day seem like a new chance to be better. I am blessed.

So Awesome!

2008-10-25T19:48:00.002-05:00

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My friend Penny made this for me and I heart it more than I can possibly say!

Afternoon Sickness

2008-10-24T08:03:00.002-05:00

So remember how some weeks back I was feeling the funk and feeling like things were just off, well they were. I was pregnant and didn't know it. : )

I am happy to report that I am ten weeks along and have seen the little bean with my own eyes and have heard it's beating heart (nice and fast like they like). I met my doctor for the first time yesterday (I normally have been seeing a PA) and I really like her. I really like the fact that I have a prescription for the crazy afternoon vomiting wave that washes over me which means I have kept all my food down for the lest three days. Yippee! Prior to that I had lost four pounds. I am pretty sure pregnancy is not supposed to be a weight loss plan. I am way more tired now than I was with Emelia. The days feel pretty long right about now but I am hoping that gets a little better in the second trimester. I will write more about my feelings and all the craziness in a bit. I just wanted the world to know.

The Christmas Hunt has Begun

2008-10-16T16:49:00.008-05:00

Last year i bought most of Emelia's Christmas presents from the resale shop. I figured she won't know the difference, I don't have to assemble anything and the money goes further. I still believe all of those things so I plan to do the same again this year. I have begun the hunt. I want a kitchen and a tricycle but other than that I am open to whatever gems i turn up. I found a kitchen for $10 two weeks ago. It s just the right size for her now and then I can look for a nicer one for next year when she outgrows it. I am not sure what else t o get her. Does anyone have any ideas for good, well-loved two year old toys? So far what she is digging right now is a five dollar stroller my aunt gave her and whatever comes out of the happy meal at McDonald's. : ) I will keep you posted on what I come up with.

It has been a busy month for us. We went on a whirlwind adventure to Iowa and Illinois. It was great to be with family. I felt like we got to see everyone we wanted to see and we ate a lot of fried chicken. It was neat to see Emelia establish relationships with my cousins kids and my aunts and uncles. She particularly took to my uncle Dick and still professes to miss papa Dick and puppy. (My aunt and uncle have an 18 year old Shih Tzu that Emelia loved but I am pretty sure the "puppy" was happy to see Emlia leave.) Then we came home and had a week to get the house in shape for my friend Lindsey's visit. It was a great visit. We hit the resale shops and ate plenty of Panera (she doesn't have them where she lives.)

We have a halloween party this weekend and I am anxious to see if Emelia will wear her Elmo costume for any length of time and or let me take her picture in it. We will have to see. Jeff and I will fall in to our usual costumes. Fifties girl for me and 70s guy for him. He loves to wear the afro wig. Hear are some pics from our Illinois trip...

Sorry about the long hiatus

2008-10-07T08:45:00.003-05:00

Two weeks ago we were in Iowa/Illinois (more about that trip to come), last week I was busy preparing for my friend to come visit and now she is hear! Yea for me!

I promise I will write more soon, but for now we are off to do the things we love to do together. Go to target, buy groceries and just generally exist.

Oh Boy

2008-09-17T16:49:00.002-05:00

Emelia has not napped today. I have tried putting her down twice. She didn't even attempt to nap either time. I am straining for peace. You see I didn't sleep well last night so I thought maybe I would also nap today. No such luck. So tired, so cranky so hungry..... UGH!

Funk be gone

2008-09-15T14:22:00.002-05:00

The good news is that I seem to be over my case of the funk, or as my mom would call it, the blue funk. (The blue funk for her though usually had something to do with menopause so I don't think I really had the blue funk.) We had a good weekend, busy but good. I still haven't ventured back to the gym but I have stopped eating everything in sight and as soon as noodle wakes up from her nap we are off to the gym. The weather has been really lovely this weekend so maybe my friend Thuy was right about my mood being effected by the dreary weather.

We started a new life group last night and I am so glad. It is so good to be in community with other Christians. It is funny because our group is really diverse, we have parents of 8 year olds, parents of triplets, parents-to-be and non-parents. We are all different ages and come from different laces but we all love the Lord so we instantly know there is a common denominator. It is just cool. The other cool thing is that coincidentally enough, none of us are from Omaha.

Okay, I have to actually get the kitchen cleaned still before sleeping beauty wakes up so see you later "agator" as Emelia says.