Very merry

Just checking in! I have been staying at my parents' all week and of course am very very sick. I don't know what it is but every fucking time I come here it's the same damn cold/flu thing. This time the baby got it first which was a little scary when she was 103F for way too long but she's good now. I'm excited to get home and open presents if the weather permits. I have my SSS gift waiting for me I'm sure and I can't wait to post about it. I also need to tell you all about things 6 year olds say and how awesome making gingerbread houses isn't.

I hope you all have a fun and safe holiday type time of the year and that Santa has brought you all exactly what you deserve. I miss blogging and hope to be able to commit to it more in the new year.

Ho Ho Ho!

In good company

It seems that a majority of the blogs I follow are busy apologizing for not posting lately, so I'm not going to do that.

One year ago yesterday I learned what my body was capable of doing. I went through labor and delivered a healthy baby into a family so full of love it needed another human to hold it. I learned what it meant to have my heart expand about 6 lbs 2 oz. I was afraid to deliver my child via VBAC. I was afraid to change my marriage. I was afraid to ruin my oldest daughter's life by making her a big sister. I was afraid when they told me this new child had a heart murmur. I was terrified to leave the hospital and be responsible for a baby who seemed so impossibly small.

One year ago today I was in the hospital with my one day old baby and my husband who was basically as fresh as a one day old himself. Watching him become a father has been almost as amazing to me as watching Diva grow into a toddler. He didn't think he was ready to have a baby in our lives. He was angry when we discovered that we were pregnant. He was... reluctant for most of the pregnancy. He was nervous and removed during labor. He was radiant when he held his daughter. He was head over heels in love with the tiny bundle they put into his arms. As were we all.

Diva came into our lives and turned everyone's world upside down. Most of all that of her sister. Tiny was forced to learn that the world didn't revolve around just one child. She's been learning to share time and attention and her grandparents with someone she's also responsible to help keep safe.

And I have learned what it's like to parent two beautiful daughters. I have learned how very different two children can be, and how different I am as an adult from being a single teen mom. Every day I am more conscious of how fleeting the moments are and how much I will miss this baby in my arms. I find myself pushing her to be more independent in some areas while trying to hold her back in others because I'm not ready to let go.

Diva is a go-getter. She's determined. She's unstoppable. As a child of one year, she is a gale force wind when she chooses to be and can melt you like the sun. She spins in circles because she likes to get dizzy. She loves to be chased and chases her sister all over the place. She fills every minute of our day with music and has been dancing since the day she took her first steps. She has dimples that literally grab you by the heart and squeeze. Every day I think I can't handle another second, sometimes because she's always into everything and sometimes because my heart can't take any more love.

This last year has been the best of my life. Watching my husband become a father in a new way, watching Tiny become a sister, and watching my smallest bean grow into a sprout. This year I've learned what it means to live your dreams.

Holding Diva tonight, I looked back to all those middle of the night feedings when she was new. Those nights I held her on my shoulder and patted until she was asleep. Tonight her head and shoulders weigh about the same as her whole body did a year ago and her legs don't even fit across my lap. Her hands have started to feel gigantic when she lays them on my arm or leg. I miss the baby she's growing out of and look forward to the child she's going to become.

Happy birthday my sweet baby. Happy birthday my giant child. Grow old with me, the best is yet to be.

Quiet

All is quiet in the luckily household. This is because I have lost my voice. Have you ever experienced this particular joy as a parent? If so you will know the frustration of getting your very flighty 6 year old ready for school when you are unable to yell at her. Oh boi, that is a treat people.

I don't know if my quietude is due to illness or just lack of sleep mixed with stress and talking too much with my cousins during christmas shopping bonanza this last weekend. Either way I need a long hot shower and a good snooze. I just wanted to let you know that I am not dead nor have I been committed to an institution for the case of the crazies I am coming down with just thinking of all the things I need to do and the two, count them 1 2 days I have to do them in. If I don't make it back before, I hope you have a fabulous Thanksgiving and please thank your host/ess for all of the stress she has gone through to make your day a little more perfect. That turkey didn't just appear out of nowhere beautifully cooked jerkface. And please look at how clean those floors are, you better not have tracked anything in.

Eat tons, drink responsibly, and tip your waitstaff!

Thank you for your service

I just wanted to take a quick moment to thank all the US veterans for their service. As you may know, we are a military family and my husband is currently on his second deployment and his third is being whispered about. Trust me when I say that I know how difficult it is to serve your country and yet how easy the decision probably was. There are people out there who abhor what you do, who think your job is pointless and making the world a terrible place. There are people who protest and picket. Please please take time to look for the people who support you. The people who love you for the sacrifices you make to give us the right to choose whether or not to support you. Look hard and you will see ribbons on vehicles and tears in mothers' eyes. You will see wistful glances as the flag goes past in the parade. You will see admiration in the eyes of a child. You will see a baby who begs to be picked up by anyone in uniform. You are appreciated. You are needed.

I personally could never serve in the military. I couldn't handle the authority and the discipline. I couldn't commit to the possibility of taking a life even to protect myself or another soldier. I couldn't deal with the time away from family and friends. What you do, what you give up to be a soldier is amazing and worthy of praise. We wouldn't be the country that we are today without everything that you do.

Thank you for your service from one military family to another.

The good die young

Whenever I talk to people who have known my husband longer than I have, for some reason they always mention that he's a 'good guy'. It's actually pretty uncanny that ever single person uses those same words. He's a good guy. He's always been such a good guy. I feel like I should buy the man a cape and a theme song.

What does that mean exactly? I know it's good, it's right there in the description. But let's look at what a good guy does based on the conversations that I've had with these people. They don't cheat on their girlfriends/wives. They keep a steady job. They are respectful of their elders and women. They don't get arrested/in trouble too often. They help out their friends when possible.

Now read those again. Isn't that what we should expect of everybody? Why do people always find it necessary to comment on the fact that my husband does what is commonly expected of men? Why can't I formulate a sentence that isn't a question? These conversations leave me wondering if other people don't act this way. I wonder if other women have to put up with husbands who are less... decent than my husband. I wonder if other people don't help their friends out quite so often or try to keep it quite so real.

I'm not saying that I don't see how downright amazing Michael is. I'm only saying that I don't know if the people that say he's a good guy are judging using the same criteria I do. I guess it's possible that they've seen the little things that he does that make him wonderful I just like to feel that I know more about him than the average joe. I don't know, maybe a man that helps someone who speaks little to no english find the cookies he wants in walgreens when the employees fail to do so is just not able to hide his awesomeness. Maybe the friend who gets out of bed at 4 am to spend $700 (that he never expects to see again) bailing his friend's dumb ass out of jail is going to get a reputation for being great. Now I'm wondering if people talk about Mike's deeds when he isn't around.

Yesterday when I was making scrambled eggs, I almost threw up because at that moment it was the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen or smelled or done. That's not normal. I'm thinking it's a tumor.

What's for dinner?: Chicken B'stilla with homemade bread for dessert because it didn't go into the oven until after supper was over. I'm not buying bread with preservatives in it any more so I'll be learning to bake my own. My first attempt turned out pretty awesome.

the yuck strikes back

I don't understand how I am getting so sick all the damn time. I sort of thought not working would have meant less exposure to germs and thus less illness. I was sort of wrong. So far I've been lucky that it's just really bad colds that I'm getting but each time I get so completely wiped out that I have just barely gotten my house out of the disgusting state it's in before I get sick again. So this time, I've decided to just take a couple of days to recuperate and not do anything around here. No cleaning, very little cooking, minimal movement, and naps whenever possible. Hopefully CPS doesn't come knocking before I'm back on my feet.

What's for dinner?: Leftover sloppy joes from the batch I made for the teachers at Tiny's school for conference evenings. I need to stop volunteering for this crap because it's always just me doing it and it all adds up. Do you hear me tiny town? No more. For awhile.

You put the accent where?

I never really considered the fact that a book fair is something that children are not born understanding. Tiny ran in to the school library while I was dropping off food in the teacher's lounge and as I was about to walk into the library she ran out and said 'You need money for the books!', like it was this huge revelation and she needed to let me know before I made the mistake she had made. I guess maybe I should've explained exactly what we were walking into before we got there. Oh well, however bad I may have felt for her naivete, it was quickly erased when kept refusing to comprehend the fact that we were only going to buy two books. I think I said it four times and she still tried to give me three. Those are the moments when you have to wonder if your child is an idiot. I mean seriously?! Did I stutter? Then trying to somewhat control the quality of book she chose while still letting her pick books that she was interested in required a lot more patience than I had expected. You'd think that a school book fair would have fewer crappy choices but you'd be wrong.

Diva has been a little terror this week. She hates other people (hopefully just for this week) and is getting pretty pissed off that they keep trying to hold her. She's been crabby and tired and sleeps like poo and has been just all over the place. I'm pretty sure she has also decided that I'm ugly. And stupid. And smelly. But mostly just really ugly. She keeps covering my face with things. Her favorite is to take a dvd off the shelf and hold it up to my face until I take it away from her. I think she would prefer if I just held a piece of paper in front of my face all day long. Or maybe she's trying to tell me she wishes Mari Windsor was her mommy this week. Touche eleven month old, touche. (sidenote: I wonder how one does an accent mark in blogger. I'm sure I could gurgle (even further to the side: this is from a commercial and if you haven't seen it or the movie it advertised it's an out of touch mom's way of saying google) the answer but I'm too lazy for that)

What's for dinner?: Open face stroganoff sandwiches which were delicious and made me sad that Michael couldn't be around to try them because it's one of the few meals I've made lately that I think he might really have liked.

Jumble

Things Diva has learned to climb onto today:
my bed
the tv stand
my lap while sitting on a dining room chair
the couch
the back of the highchair after she wiggled out of the strap that has been tightened several times

Times Tiny has been in the naughty spot: 4
Reasons she has been there: 1
Time she has spent playing with toys: 4 hours
Time she has spent playing with her OWN toys: 5 minutes
Number of meltdowns Diva has had: 782 kajillion
trick-or-treaters we had last night: 6
bags of candy I bought: 3
ell bees I'm going to gain: prob 13

I am struggling with decorating issues. I'm having thanksgiving at my house for the first time ever. I sort of feel that this occasion calls for special thanksgiving related decor. But I have tons and tons of christmas stuff and I really love decorating for christmas. I also live in the cold tundra of the US and since my christmas decorations are blue, white, and silver and more 'winter' related than actually christmas, would it be acceptable to skip the harvest stuff and just put up my christmas stuff? I wouldn't put up my tree until the day after thanksgiving or maybe the day after I get all my thanksgiving dishes washed.

Croup-de-doop

Last night I had a dream that the girls and I were searching for something and it was vitally important to Michael. I can't remember what we were looking for but we had a map and portions of it were fuzzy like they were a mile away and had a glare. So we were following this map and the first part of it was at some sort of resort that I know for a fact that I've dreamed about before and it's a very creepy place. It's always foggy but people are swimming and these people are all swimming very quietly and slowly and have no expressions on their faces.

So we get on a raft in the water and this raft takes us all along this lake that is just huge and eventually we get to a very desolate shore and just as we're about to alight on land, wolves coming stalking out of the woods and pace along the shore watching us. I know that I'm supposed to get onto land here but obviously the wolves want my baby so I can't do that. We keep going on this raft which was self propelled in some sort of weird dream way. As we're floating along I realize that the sun is super bright and shining right on Diva who for some strange reason is only wearing a diaper. As I realize this, the look on her face is so serene and knowing that it basically says "Yes mother, I am going to get very sunburnt and we both know there is nothing you can do about it. I accept this."

Eventually we get to some sort of weird shop run by two older ladies and it reminds me of a bait shop crossed with an antique store. I don't know what they were selling but I got the distinct impression that they weren't being fully truthful when answering my questions about the map and directions.

What does this dream mean? That Diva has croup. She started making horking seal noises yesterday evening and I called ask-a-nurse twice and steamed her in the bathroom and let her toddle about until 1:30 am until she piled up a bunch of pillows and then feel asleep next to them on the living room floor. It was super cute. Then this morning her stridor (the seal noises) got worse and very constant and since the nurse had told me that was bad I decided to finally take Diva to the emergency room so I wouldn't have to freak out about her breathing anymore. Of course I was worried about her possibly having H1N1 and respiratory complications which is the most serious concern for babies getting the pigfluenza. Long story short, I freaked out, doctor diagnosed croup, cold air is good for croup so trick or treating was on like donkey kong.

If you already have a clumsy child, I do not recommend purchasing a mermaid costume for said child. Let's just say there will be a couple of bruised shins in this house tomorrow.

I bought three bags of candy to give out because I didn't know what kind of traffic the new house would get and figured that since we're very close to a school and there are four front doors within less than twenty feet of mine that we might get a lot. I was wrong. We had six trick or treaters. I have a lot of candy to eat. Must go put myself in sugar coma now. Hope a spooktastic evening was had by all and that you all check your kids candy and throw away the single Oreo cookie they were given. What the fuck was that lady thinking? Germs! Poison! Stale Oreos! I am grossed out and also wishing I had some Oreos to go with my shitload of candy.

pink towel comedy tour

Have you ever tried to do a 57 minute pilates workout with a 6 year old? I recommend it. Your core gets a little extra workout while you stifle your giggles at the noises the child will make when trying to coordinate her parts to do the double straight leg. And it's a great way to occupy them for 57 minutes. I don't know why it never occurred to me to work out while she was still bopping around but it may have to be a new routine for us. Her form is terrible and she makes silly noises and faces and flails all over the place and it makes the hour go faster.

When I asked her if she wanted to do pilates with me she asked if she got a mat. She has been jealous of my new mat that I got a couple weeks ago, mostly because it's something new that she's not suppose to touch. I told her that she didn't have a mat but that she could do it on a folded towel next to me. As I was starting the video I told her that if she liked working out with me and she made it a habit that we could maybe get her her own yoga mat. Of course after half assing the moves she did do and not doing the ones that she couldn't figure out, at the end she asked if we could do it again tomorrow and when we could get her a mat.

I just learned that they have a plethora of knock off designer hand bags in Kosovo. I am drooling at the implications. Hello Christmas!