Okay, so it has been way, way, WAY too long since my last post. I know you hate excuses as much as I do, so I won't blab on about just how crazy everything has been. Which, of course, is true, but nevertheless.
Here's a few things that have gone on since my last post:
1. We bought a house. And moved 3 days before Thanksgiving, which resulted in much insanity, but hey, we have a house! It's ours - well, it really belongs to the bank, but what else is new?? They of course are expecting money on a regular basis, which sure makes it feel like ours!
2. One of our beloved cats got out and was missing for 3 days. If you aren't a pet person, this won't mean much to you, but if you happen to love animals as much as I do, you'll understand that I was absolutely frantic. Our cats are indoor-only and we lived in a neighborhood that had a lot of wildlife, such as coyotes and foxes...need I say more? We were very, very lucky that a neighbor around the corner saw our cat in her backyard 3 days later and found one of our "Missing Cat" flyers and gave us a call. Our beloved Danger Kitty (yes, that's really her name) is back. Whew!
3. The economy has been rotten. News, right? Hardly, I know. But it has hit our home as much as any other, and one of my biggest freelance clients laid off all of their contractors, which included me. Not good. Not good at all.
4. Did I mention I was pregnant? Oh, yeah! I'm pregnant with Baby #3 and while I'm terribly excited, I had a rotten first trimester. Hard under most circumstances, nearly impossible with two small children under the age of 4 who don't even KNOW about the baby, much less care why Mommy is so sick and tired. Luckily, that stage has passed - the first trimester, that is, not my kids caring why I can't be 100% all the time - and I'm really starting to enjoy the pregnancy again.
5. Life in general - John traveling, me backing the car into the (closed) garage door, the stomach flu going through the house, etc., etc., etc.
6. Christmas! With family in town and trying to be a good little Santa with the economy in the toilet. Sound familiar?
7. Sabrina turned 4. So, so hard to believe my little girl is that big! She has been really insane lately, full of talking back and refusing to listen to directions or well, anything I have to say. I feel like I'm talking to this insolent teenager, only a miniature one. I'm truly afraid to think of what she'll be like when she is a real teenager. But in the meantime, I often feel like I'm floundering, trying to find an effective way to parent her that doesn't include yelling or going insane. (Both of which seem like reasonable options more often than I'd like to admit.)
Whew. So I'm sorry I've been MIA. I promise to do better. And hey, what is a better New Year's resolution than to say I'll be here on a daily basis, keeping you caught up on our little life of mayhem?? Okay. So I'll see you tomorrow! Happy New Year!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Underachiever
So I got a pedometer, after wanting one off and on for a long time. I actually got it as a reward through my gym, which I thought was fitting...plus, it was free, which is always a good thing!
Anyway, I strapped the thing on this morning, confident that I'd be happily surprised by my total by the end of the day. They say that you should aim for 10,000 steps a day. Surely with chasing after two small children and going up and down our stairs what feels like 10,000 times a day alone, I would come pretty close, I thought.
So it's now 3:40pm, which one could say is relatively near to the end of the day. I mean, obviously, it isn't midnight or anything, but the kids should be in bed in the next 4 hours and things will slow down considerably after that. And at this point, I have a grand total of (drum roll, please...) 2180 steps.
Not exactly the 10,000 I thought I'd easily rack up. I guess they intend for you to include a workout (most probably a walking one) and do things like park at the end of parking lots so you have farther to go, etc., etc. And I haven't worked out today because I'm fighting off a stomach bug that Sabrina brought home from preschool. So maybe if I had gone to the gym and left the little counter on, I'd be closer.
But still. An 8,000 deficit? Sheesh. Guess these flip flops ain't meant for walkin.'
The good news is, I'm just stubborn enough and competitive enough that I'm going to aim for that 10,000. And yes, I'll be going to the gym tomorrow. Does the elliptical machine count? We'll find out!
Anyway, I strapped the thing on this morning, confident that I'd be happily surprised by my total by the end of the day. They say that you should aim for 10,000 steps a day. Surely with chasing after two small children and going up and down our stairs what feels like 10,000 times a day alone, I would come pretty close, I thought.
So it's now 3:40pm, which one could say is relatively near to the end of the day. I mean, obviously, it isn't midnight or anything, but the kids should be in bed in the next 4 hours and things will slow down considerably after that. And at this point, I have a grand total of (drum roll, please...) 2180 steps.
Not exactly the 10,000 I thought I'd easily rack up. I guess they intend for you to include a workout (most probably a walking one) and do things like park at the end of parking lots so you have farther to go, etc., etc. And I haven't worked out today because I'm fighting off a stomach bug that Sabrina brought home from preschool. So maybe if I had gone to the gym and left the little counter on, I'd be closer.
But still. An 8,000 deficit? Sheesh. Guess these flip flops ain't meant for walkin.'
The good news is, I'm just stubborn enough and competitive enough that I'm going to aim for that 10,000. And yes, I'll be going to the gym tomorrow. Does the elliptical machine count? We'll find out!
Monday, July 7, 2008
Unhooked...and unhappy
So I decided to cut back on my caffeine intake and switch over to decaf coffee. It's not like I drink a ton of the stuff, just two nice big mugs of the stuff in the morning and that's generally it. But I certainly do need my morning coffee, and John and the kids joke about Mommy needing her "go juice" when I'm grumpy in the morning. On a particularly bad morning, I might swing through the Starbucks drive-through and get me an extra boost of coffee. You gotta do what you gotta do.
But, well, we've decided to perhaps try to start for baby #3 (WOO HOO!), and I read recently that there is a new study out that says women who drink 200 milligrams of caffeine a day, the equivalent of 2 nice big mugs (ahem), have a 25% chance of miscarriage. And I'm one of those totally paranoid women when I'm pregnant. I spend the first trimester living very much in fear of something happening, even though I've now had two babies and no miscarriages. Even just writing this is making me tense, as if it's possible to jinx something that doesn't even exist yet.
In any case, it seems prudent to pull back on the whole coffee addiction thing, and even more prudent to do it now and let my body adjust, instead of waiting for the total exhaustion of early pregnancy to happen at exactly the same time.
So when we were at Wal-Mart this weekend (do we know how to party or what??), we got a little coffeepot and some decaf coffee for me, since John has no plans on giving up his caffeinated stuff in the mornings. And he very gallantly made my first pot of coffee this morning and presented me with a cup of the stuff with a flourish. And sure, yeah, it tasted basically the same and life went on as normal. But then when I was driving Sabrina to preschool, I realized that I felt as if I was walking chest-deep through water, all sluggish and slow and altered. This was no fun at all.
The feeling generally persisted all day, despite a couple of big tall glasses of decaf iced tea for lunch, which I was hoping might perk me up a bit. When I put the kids down for their afternoon nap, I crashed as well. This helped until the headache hit this afternoon.
So yeah, not loving this detox biz. I liked my caffeine, thank you very much. And I miss it quite a bit. But maybe tomorrow will be better. And maybe by the time the next baby is on board, I won't miss a beat when I get handed my morning cup of decaf. We'll just have to see.
But, well, we've decided to perhaps try to start for baby #3 (WOO HOO!), and I read recently that there is a new study out that says women who drink 200 milligrams of caffeine a day, the equivalent of 2 nice big mugs (ahem), have a 25% chance of miscarriage. And I'm one of those totally paranoid women when I'm pregnant. I spend the first trimester living very much in fear of something happening, even though I've now had two babies and no miscarriages. Even just writing this is making me tense, as if it's possible to jinx something that doesn't even exist yet.
In any case, it seems prudent to pull back on the whole coffee addiction thing, and even more prudent to do it now and let my body adjust, instead of waiting for the total exhaustion of early pregnancy to happen at exactly the same time.
So when we were at Wal-Mart this weekend (do we know how to party or what??), we got a little coffeepot and some decaf coffee for me, since John has no plans on giving up his caffeinated stuff in the mornings. And he very gallantly made my first pot of coffee this morning and presented me with a cup of the stuff with a flourish. And sure, yeah, it tasted basically the same and life went on as normal. But then when I was driving Sabrina to preschool, I realized that I felt as if I was walking chest-deep through water, all sluggish and slow and altered. This was no fun at all.
The feeling generally persisted all day, despite a couple of big tall glasses of decaf iced tea for lunch, which I was hoping might perk me up a bit. When I put the kids down for their afternoon nap, I crashed as well. This helped until the headache hit this afternoon.
So yeah, not loving this detox biz. I liked my caffeine, thank you very much. And I miss it quite a bit. But maybe tomorrow will be better. And maybe by the time the next baby is on board, I won't miss a beat when I get handed my morning cup of decaf. We'll just have to see.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
The mom fog
Okay, here's a question for all you parents out there - do you remember your child(ren)'s infancy in detail? Can you remember specific days, detailed events, and concrete memories of individual things that happened? Or are you like me, where you look at pictures of your little ones and marvel at how small they were and find that you almost can't remember that time? I look at pictures of Sabrina and Nathan from even just a few months ago and can't get over how much they've changed...but I also can't remember life at that time in great detail.
Why is that? Does life provide a general fog over a time in your life when you are generally exhausted on a regular basis? Is it a psychological thing so that you won't remember just how hard each and every day of raising small children can be, thereby ensuring that the continuation of the species goes on? I don't know. But it frustrates me. I want to remember more, I want to look at pictures and have more than just a overall recollection of what was happening at the time of the photo. I want to remember exactly what it was like to have that baby at that exact point in time.
I want to remember other things as well, funny things that Sabrina says that I think I'll always remember but am realizing that over time, I may forget. Like the fact that she calls suitcases "zootcases," air conditioning is "hair conditioning," ping pong is "ding dong," my nipples (hey, I'm a nursing mom, what can I say) are "nibbles," and so on and so on.
Sigh. I always vow to slow down, cherish each moment, enjoy this oh-so-brief time in their lives. Maybe that will help the memories concrete themselves in my mind. But then I get caught up in the sometimes mind-numbing boredom of raising two small kids and the oh-so-very-down-to-earth things that go along with it, like reading the same dang book over and over and over and changing diapers and coaxing them both to eat carrots. It's hard sometimes to remember that yes, those times are to be cherished as well, instead of rushed through. It's hard to slow down at all sometimes. But I know I need to. For this stage, this too, will pass, and in only a couple of months, I'll be squinting at the pictures I took this week and thinking "Look how cute they are! How small! Boy, what was that like? I can't remember!!"
Why is that? Does life provide a general fog over a time in your life when you are generally exhausted on a regular basis? Is it a psychological thing so that you won't remember just how hard each and every day of raising small children can be, thereby ensuring that the continuation of the species goes on? I don't know. But it frustrates me. I want to remember more, I want to look at pictures and have more than just a overall recollection of what was happening at the time of the photo. I want to remember exactly what it was like to have that baby at that exact point in time.
I want to remember other things as well, funny things that Sabrina says that I think I'll always remember but am realizing that over time, I may forget. Like the fact that she calls suitcases "zootcases," air conditioning is "hair conditioning," ping pong is "ding dong," my nipples (hey, I'm a nursing mom, what can I say) are "nibbles," and so on and so on.
Sigh. I always vow to slow down, cherish each moment, enjoy this oh-so-brief time in their lives. Maybe that will help the memories concrete themselves in my mind. But then I get caught up in the sometimes mind-numbing boredom of raising two small kids and the oh-so-very-down-to-earth things that go along with it, like reading the same dang book over and over and over and changing diapers and coaxing them both to eat carrots. It's hard sometimes to remember that yes, those times are to be cherished as well, instead of rushed through. It's hard to slow down at all sometimes. But I know I need to. For this stage, this too, will pass, and in only a couple of months, I'll be squinting at the pictures I took this week and thinking "Look how cute they are! How small! Boy, what was that like? I can't remember!!"
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go...
Ever try to mop with a 3.5-year-old "helper" and a 17-month-old deep in the throes of separation anxiety? The result is laughable. You know how on some of those "Clean House" shows they sometimes test the dirt level in someone's house? Well if they came in and did a scientific examination of my floors after I was done mopping, I think they would end up laughing at me. Big, deep laughs that would imply that I was oh-so-foolish and that my floors were still oh-so-dirty. "Lady," they would say, "You just pushed the dirt around and added some soap suds on top of it. You shouldn't have even bothered trying."
Well, I do try. But Sabrina adores helping, so she wants to help spray the cleaning solution (made of just vinegar, water, and a couple of drops of dishwashing detergent for that very reason) and use her own little mop while I try to maneuver around her with my own mop. And Nathan follows us around, stepping in the watery mess and crying and wanting me to hold him, which means that I then mop even more ineffectually with only hand and hold him in my other arm. We make our rounds around the wood floors, with the results getting less and less thorough and/or impressive as we go because my determination starts to flag and my frustration starts to rise. In the end, I don't know how much actual cleaning gets done.
I do try to manage a pretty decent cleaning of the house once a week, driven partially out of some deranged sense of what a so-called 'housewife' should do...but the house we are renting is a lovely three-story place, and there's a lot to clean. Not to mention the fact that it is physically impossible to keep a place clean with kids. I mean it. But once a week, I do my best to clean the bathrooms (a very necessary evil), vacuum all the carpets, get all the crumbs swept up, and the floor mopped. We used to have a housecleaner in California, which seems silly now since we only had a small, two-bedroom condo. Now, here we are in this lovely large house, and it's me and the kids, traipsing around lugging a vacuum and mop and all-natural cleaning products so that Sabrina won't poison herself when she helps me clean the toilets.
I should videotape all of this someday. It would be worth a good laugh down the road.
Well, I do try. But Sabrina adores helping, so she wants to help spray the cleaning solution (made of just vinegar, water, and a couple of drops of dishwashing detergent for that very reason) and use her own little mop while I try to maneuver around her with my own mop. And Nathan follows us around, stepping in the watery mess and crying and wanting me to hold him, which means that I then mop even more ineffectually with only hand and hold him in my other arm. We make our rounds around the wood floors, with the results getting less and less thorough and/or impressive as we go because my determination starts to flag and my frustration starts to rise. In the end, I don't know how much actual cleaning gets done.
I do try to manage a pretty decent cleaning of the house once a week, driven partially out of some deranged sense of what a so-called 'housewife' should do...but the house we are renting is a lovely three-story place, and there's a lot to clean. Not to mention the fact that it is physically impossible to keep a place clean with kids. I mean it. But once a week, I do my best to clean the bathrooms (a very necessary evil), vacuum all the carpets, get all the crumbs swept up, and the floor mopped. We used to have a housecleaner in California, which seems silly now since we only had a small, two-bedroom condo. Now, here we are in this lovely large house, and it's me and the kids, traipsing around lugging a vacuum and mop and all-natural cleaning products so that Sabrina won't poison herself when she helps me clean the toilets.
I should videotape all of this someday. It would be worth a good laugh down the road.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Vegas, babies, Vegas!
We just got back from a quick trip to Vegas, with the kids in tow. I realize immediately that you may read that and raise an eyebrow in judgement. "Vegas, huh? What a great place for kids!" Yes, yes, I know. I know, okay? But we really needed a couple of days to relax and play and just let down our guard a little, but I still don't feel comfortable leaving the kids with other people overnight, much less for a few days. So to Vegas we went, and we brought a good friend of ours who is single and loves the kids and is totally great with them. And it worked out well - we all hung out during the day and saw all the cool, kid-friendly things there are to see in Vegas, (and yes, there are such things), and then we took turns going out at night while one of the adults stayed back and took care of the kids.
So see? It's not like we were the ones hauling exhausted, falling-asleep kids through the casinos at 11:00 at night. Our kids were asleep in the non-casino hotel by 7:30pm every night. Just like usual.
But yes, we were the ones hauling kids through the casinos during the day to get to the indoor shopping forums and the animals. You can't help it - you absolutely can't NOT go through the casinos to get anywhere in that town. I realize it's on purpose, and I realize a lot of people would say that for that very reason, we should have left the kids at home.
So you tell me - which is worse? Do I leave the kids with someone else for a few days, knowing that they would miss us, especially me, terribly and Nathan is still in the throes of separation anxiety anyway? Or do we take them with us and do the best we can just so we can have a few hours over a few evenings to play and have fun and be actual adults for awhile?
It's a toss-up, and not one I expect a consensus on. I don't like that they inhaled secondhand smoke in the casinos, of course not. Did I try to physically block Sabrina's view of those moving billboards of mostly-naked women you see everywhere on the Strip? Yup, I did, and when she noticed at least one ad of scantily clad girls, I laughed and said "Silly girls! Look at them in their undies! They should get dressed, don't you think?" (She agreed, just for the record.)
Sigh. I guess it's just one of those parenting things. When do your needs finally outweigh those of your children? Do they ever, really, entirely? Or do you just compromise like hell and hope that it all turns out okay?
By the way, you know my last post? The one where I glibly said that I had almost completely weaned Nathan and sure, yeah, my hormones were changing, but that I wasn't going to get my period or anything. Um, yeah. Wanna bet?
Woo baby - what a lovely surprise to have that good ol' visit from Aunt Flo, and what an unexpected visitor, seeing as how we haven't seen (or missed) her for over two years. She's gone now, after a miserable week of me saying "After all this, I'm SO going on that pill where you only have like four periods a year!" I know, I know, most women have this to deal with once a month and yes, I was one of them until I turned into a baby-making-and-nursing-machine.
So what am I whining about? Well, just that I didn't expect it. And we were on vacation when it happened.
Here's what I think - I think life's crazy enough with two little ones and nursing and weaning and feeding and dealing with colds and falls and heat waves and babies who stick Tinkertoys in their mouth when you aren't looking and manage to gag themselves and throw up all over the living room carpet. I think God could grant mothers a break and let US choose when we have to deal with a period on top of it all. That's what I think.
So see? It's not like we were the ones hauling exhausted, falling-asleep kids through the casinos at 11:00 at night. Our kids were asleep in the non-casino hotel by 7:30pm every night. Just like usual.
But yes, we were the ones hauling kids through the casinos during the day to get to the indoor shopping forums and the animals. You can't help it - you absolutely can't NOT go through the casinos to get anywhere in that town. I realize it's on purpose, and I realize a lot of people would say that for that very reason, we should have left the kids at home.
So you tell me - which is worse? Do I leave the kids with someone else for a few days, knowing that they would miss us, especially me, terribly and Nathan is still in the throes of separation anxiety anyway? Or do we take them with us and do the best we can just so we can have a few hours over a few evenings to play and have fun and be actual adults for awhile?
It's a toss-up, and not one I expect a consensus on. I don't like that they inhaled secondhand smoke in the casinos, of course not. Did I try to physically block Sabrina's view of those moving billboards of mostly-naked women you see everywhere on the Strip? Yup, I did, and when she noticed at least one ad of scantily clad girls, I laughed and said "Silly girls! Look at them in their undies! They should get dressed, don't you think?" (She agreed, just for the record.)
Sigh. I guess it's just one of those parenting things. When do your needs finally outweigh those of your children? Do they ever, really, entirely? Or do you just compromise like hell and hope that it all turns out okay?
By the way, you know my last post? The one where I glibly said that I had almost completely weaned Nathan and sure, yeah, my hormones were changing, but that I wasn't going to get my period or anything. Um, yeah. Wanna bet?
Woo baby - what a lovely surprise to have that good ol' visit from Aunt Flo, and what an unexpected visitor, seeing as how we haven't seen (or missed) her for over two years. She's gone now, after a miserable week of me saying "After all this, I'm SO going on that pill where you only have like four periods a year!" I know, I know, most women have this to deal with once a month and yes, I was one of them until I turned into a baby-making-and-nursing-machine.
So what am I whining about? Well, just that I didn't expect it. And we were on vacation when it happened.
Here's what I think - I think life's crazy enough with two little ones and nursing and weaning and feeding and dealing with colds and falls and heat waves and babies who stick Tinkertoys in their mouth when you aren't looking and manage to gag themselves and throw up all over the living room carpet. I think God could grant mothers a break and let US choose when we have to deal with a period on top of it all. That's what I think.
Friday, June 13, 2008
The terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day
Holy cow, am I ever in a bad mood today. Why? Not so sure. Yes, the fact that Nathan woke up at 4:45am to nurse and never went back to sleep might have something to do with it. But that's really kind of a regular occurrence and not one that usually turns me into the Grinch.
John has gingerly suggested that maybe it is all my changing hormones and he's probably right. I somewhat recently weaned Nathan back to only nursing at his bedtime and the (oh-so-early) morning feed. The rest of the day, he's on his own. So yes, my hormones have been shifting because of that, but we've been on this schedule for a couple of weeks now. You'd think my body would have adjusted. And of course, since I haven't actually ovulated or had a period since we conceived Mr. Nathan, and we don't use birth control because it seems I really don't ovulate when I'm nursing, my mind has jumped ahead and thought "Hey, cool, baby on board...?"
But it seems very unlikely, since I really don't seem to ovulate until I wean completely. It was that way with Sabrina, and seems that way now. So it's just an additional mind trick to play on an already cranky mind. Not cool.
Blech. I need a nice fuzzy frothy drink, like say a strawberry margarita, and a warm sunny beach to lie on for a few hours, with no demands or guilt or needs placed on me. Which just makes me all the more cranky to contemplate.
Sigh.
John has gingerly suggested that maybe it is all my changing hormones and he's probably right. I somewhat recently weaned Nathan back to only nursing at his bedtime and the (oh-so-early) morning feed. The rest of the day, he's on his own. So yes, my hormones have been shifting because of that, but we've been on this schedule for a couple of weeks now. You'd think my body would have adjusted. And of course, since I haven't actually ovulated or had a period since we conceived Mr. Nathan, and we don't use birth control because it seems I really don't ovulate when I'm nursing, my mind has jumped ahead and thought "Hey, cool, baby on board...?"
But it seems very unlikely, since I really don't seem to ovulate until I wean completely. It was that way with Sabrina, and seems that way now. So it's just an additional mind trick to play on an already cranky mind. Not cool.
Blech. I need a nice fuzzy frothy drink, like say a strawberry margarita, and a warm sunny beach to lie on for a few hours, with no demands or guilt or needs placed on me. Which just makes me all the more cranky to contemplate.
Sigh.
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