Makeover Monday

I'm a bit slow at posting about Makeover Monday today (my link to moodswingingmommy's post isn't going to work because she's tarting up her blog this afternoon!), I am still trying to catch up with my very disorganized self.

My plan to improve on time spent playing with my daughter went well last week - albeit that I think it's created expectations in her that I will now paint, do play dough, crafts, music etc on demand, like all day, everyday! (not happening sweetheart!).

We kicked this off on Tuesday with a play dough session, starting with us making the play dough (Martha's got nothing on me!).
Wednesday instead of coming home straight after the library story time, we headed to a nearby splash park for fun and lunch with friends. Much fun ensued, and a nice long nap later was a great bonus for all of us.

Thursday's activities were music related and I sat with her at the piano keyboard for AGES!, going over the ABC song (at her request) over and over again - then suffering in silence as she clanged the keys - she had a blast! No photos, they wouldn't do it justice - you really would need audio, but since my technical skills aren't up to that yet, consider yourself spared!

Friday we had some crafts in the morning:


We even got this in before heading out to our playgroup at 10am at the play center (does that earn me extra mommy points?). Since I've said enough about our fun play date already, and since I think I might cry if I make myself recall the rest of Friday, now feels like a good point to stop discussing it!

We did have fun doing these activities, and I will continue to do similar, and some less structured fun stuff with Miss E. Over this past weekend I also had something of an epiphany that I need to look out for myself more, and that this in turn will make me a better mommy, too. Saturday and Sunday were spent just surviving, and so teetering on the brink of a mommy meltdown one of these days - my next week's focus is on ME!

I've already had my hair done today - and you all know how much better we feel after a haircut. And, as I've told everyone within earshot today, I'm going out for a girly night during the week (okay, maybe just a couple of hours since my 6 month old will require my lactating services before long - but it's a start right?!). My other goal is to teach myself a piano piece by reading the music! I bought a book of classical pieces for adult beginners. I don't know how realistic this is within a week, but I will give it my best shot - how satisfying it would be for me to sit down and play a piece as its composer intended it to be played!

Pass me a beer - please!

PMSing my way through the day - watching the clock until 'Daddy' gets home, let me tell you about my day!

Well, it really started yesterday - with me feeling irritated by this:



And it took IMing with my chum Megan, who is a way 'funner' mom than I, to realize my two year old was only enjoying herself. Megan, crazy lady that she is, says she is going to let her son squeeze all the toothpaste out of the tube just because it is fun! (it's okay, I pointed out her error in judgement, that it wouldn't be fun for him since she was allowing him to do it!) So, in the scheme of things, the toothpaste thing was no big deal, really, I shouldn't have left the bathroom door open - clean up and move on!

Today we had a fun playdate planned at an indoor playground (you know the kind - lots of climbing areas, ball pits, and lots, and lots of screaming kids!). Scrambling as usual to get somewhere on time Running a little behind schedule, I decided not to lose precious minutes by swinging by the ATM on my way there (thank you hubby dearest for cleaning out the $30 I had in my purse last night!), I decided I'll just pay with the debit card when I get there. So we get there, go to pay, open the purse .... NO DEBIT CARD! Frantically searching my purse for the debit card, and loose change, I scrape together two dollar bills, and the rest in coins for our $3.20 entrance fee. Major embarrassment of having no cash or other means of payment averted, but where the heck was my debit card?

We proceeded into the danger play zone, I parked the baby up in the stroller and asked one of the other moms to keep an eye on Miss E for a minute or two while I called the bank.

Called the bank - 'we can't help you, you need to speak to "Customer Service", I'll put you through' - rolling my eyes I think to myself 'whatever'. Get through to Customer Service and the unbelievably annoying recorded greeting asks me for my telephone ID number (don't have one), OR card number - don't have that either!!! After listening to several rounds of 'say or press 1 for this, say or press 2 for that and say or press 3 for the other', I was damn near ready to scream or press '666' and see if I didn't have a better chance of talking to a PERSON! Of course - the reason I had several rounds of this, is that the IVR system (Interactive Voice Response - I used to work in a bank, and I used to think these were a great invention!) is so sensitive that it picked up the noise of the kids screaming in the background and misinterpreted it as something I said so we stumbled through a few robotic 'I'm sorry, I didn't catch that, would you like to hear your options again?' No I F***ing wouldn't just put me through to a HUMAN! Eventually, I get to talk to a sickeningly cheerful lady - but I'm not complaining since I was feeling anything but cheerful at that point, she probably kept me from going completely over the edge. Go through a million questions with her and now have peace of mind that nobody is going to steal from our paltry coffers. It'll be a pain waiting for that new card though!

So having sorted the card business out I see the other moms happily snapping pictures of the kids having a blast - and Miss E was having THE best time so my inner peace was (temporarily) restored. I get my camera out - switch it on - batteries are dead! So, inwardly uttering a few expletives and self admonitions, I forgot about it, knowing I can get the other moms to email me some pictures.

I planned to hit the mall on the way home from the play place, to start picking up a few bits and pieces for our upcoming trip to Ireland. I drove to hubby's work to get his card (heh heh) and was going to do some damage with it. Sadly, lunchtime, with a toddler and a baby, not the best time to be dragging them around the shops so I decide we'll nip in quickly and pick up gifts for Granny and the Aunties at Victoria Secrets. I spy a 'Family First' parking spot opening up ahead as someone is reversing out of it - 'great' I think, the day is looking up - this was before the dumbass, sports car driving, single guy swung into said family parking spot and took off running into the mall. I was so mad! I took down his tag number (observed by two cops doing this by the way - but they were on their way in for lunch so they neither cared about the dude taking the mommy friendly parking space, nor the fact that I was writing down his tag number). What was I going to do about this? I called the mall lol! I just needed to let off steam. I told the girl I was so ticked off that he would do this and wasn't sure there was anything she could do about it. She said there wasn't, and she undoubtedly thinks I'm a nutjob - I don't care, I felt better after doing it :)

We head into the mall (Miss E is soaking wet by the way, having tossed the last bit of water from her water bottle all over herself), then the 'I want sumpin' to eat' starts - so we go straight to the food court (I know, yuck) and both of us scarf down Chick Fil A, leave the food court just in time before being accosted by the poor person whose job it is to dress up like a cow and tell us to 'Eat Mor Chickn'. I run to VS (run being a relative term considering I was navigating my way around pushing a Graco Tandem Stroller). I grab the first six packages of smelly stuff I see, pay and get out of there.

I thought to myself E has got to be tired and she'll fall asleep on the way home, but despite me taking the long way she is STILL awake - and she is in that 'way overtired hyper mode' right now - right now, and here I am typing - I'm just blocking it out pretending it isn't happening because that's the only thing I can do right now!

On my little IM chat with Megan yesterday - I said 'oh well, at least she didn't get into the diaper cream' - and yes you've guessed it - I spoke too soon, because not long after we got back to the house, as I was tending to her brother - this is what she did:

Look at her hands and leg.
So off we went for her second bath of the day.

I am SO ready for her Dad to get home, and he better come armed with beer and chocolate! I find myself asking though, why does Miss E never save any of this 'fun' stuff for her Daddy? :)

Gratitude

Conscious that I have managed to appeal to a handful of people who actually read this blog, I lay in bed last night thinking 'what will I blog about tomorrow?'

I thought 'I could reveal my odd secret that even though I am no longer pregnant, I still sleep with a pillow between my knees because it is so darn comfy' - but figured it would take all of a sentence to do that - and ta-da - a sentence is indeed all it took!

Then I thought 'I could write about my short lived experiment of actually getting up before my kids in the mornings' - which when my kids are involved, is a 6am kind of thing - I did it for a week and in the first few days it was nice having a peaceful half hour to an hour of drinking coffee and eating my toast (and getting to eat the whole slice myself!). But, since I didn't actually use that time to get anything done, when the babies awoke we were back to drifting from one poorly planned chaos to another - yesterday nursing a headache to boot. I thought 'sod this - I need my sleep, I'll try this again when my kids stop waking me up at night!' - which should take me to retirement age I'm guessing.

My main thoughts however, as I lay in my comfortable bed, in my safe, comfortable house, with my two healthy children, and my wonderful husband were those of deep gratitude. Having watched most of the Idol Gives Back special, I cried 'til my heart was sore at the conditions, the sorrow, the hardship, and the injustice faced by so many in this world - the program concentrated on Africa, and issues here in the USA.

I was born in Zimbabwe, and lived the first two years of my life in Zambia. The daughter of a teacher and a bank official - even though our life was modest enough, we lived richly compared to some I'm sure. I get very sad at the state that Zimbabwe is in today, once known as the 'Bread Basket of Africa', Mugabe is responsible for the dreadful deterioration of the country and starvation of many of his own people. I had the opportunity to go to South Africa a few years ago with my parents, and we would have visited Zimbabwe but I declined since I do not want to visit while he remains in power ( I have the distinct notion that he'd make me less than welcome anyway).

Maybe this is why Africa 'calls' to me in particular when it comes to requests for aid. The corruption and suffering in African nations is heart wrenching and I wanted to get up this morning and make my donation - so I did, at Idol Gives Back.

I feel so grateful this morning for my cosy life, for my childhood, for my health, and that of my family, for the fact that it is possible for me to stay at home with our children, even though there are definitely days when I'd gladly head off to work for some peace and quiet - or on those days when I succumb to materialistic desires and wonder if going back to work would allow me to get x, y, or z, I am profoundly grateful that we have the choice, and the means to stay at home. I am grateful that we have the freedom to choose how we live our lives, and we have opportunities to improve our lives, and those of our children.

In the midst of this gratitude I am struck by the responsibility I have to help those in trouble, or those whom are struggling in some way. As a small step I made my donation this morning and so I'm adding my voice to those pleading last night on American Idol. If you have not yet given a donation - please, please, please, click this link and do it now. Help those mothers, those children, those families, here, and in Africa - and as Eric McCormack said 'if everyone who voted for Sanjaya, gave just one dollar, it could do so much good' - how true!

Thanks!

Good Mom, Bad Mom

Last night my two year old inflated my mommy ego, filling my heart with pride and joy, then she popped it less than thirty seconds later, leaving it in a pile of soggy pieces!

I had been reading her several bedtime stories, wrapping up with a cute children's prayer book - I asked her a question after finishing the prayers not really thinking she'd grasp the concept but tried anyway.

Conversation went like this:

Me: 'E, what are you glad that God made?'

E: 'I like my family!' (she said it straight away, and I looked at my husband and said 'we must be doing something right').

E: 'Mommy, read these books again' (about 6 in total).

Me: 'I'll tell you what, why don't you tell me a story?'

E: 'I can't, I'm too busy' (I didn't meet my husband's gaze for fear that he'd make me acknowledge where exactly she'd heard that phrase before!)

Makeover Monday

Moodswingingmommy at Am I going mad or am I just a Mommy brought the concept of Makeover Monday to my attention this morning on her blog and I thought - 'this is for me'! One of my reasons for starting this blog, as I said in my profile, is to improve in a number of areas - my thinking being that if I commit to blogging about it, then I'll actually DO it!

There are several things I want to get better at in a variety of areas - as a mother, wife and selfishly, things I just want to get better at just for ME. Makeover Monday will give me some structure to chart my progress (structure is good, it is lack thereof in any part of my life that has me needing to make so many improvements lol!).

Rather than bore myself listing them all now - I'll just start with what I intend to focus on this week.

I want to take more time engaging with my two year old on the floor, in the backyard, playing with her and watching her learn. I will set up specific activities for her be it crafts, manipulative play, music or whatever, and I will actually PLAY with her for the duration of the activity.

I enjoy reading to her, and she is at a wonderful stage now where she actually listens and engages in the story with me, so it's not that I don't have any one on one time with her - I do, but I'm conscious that lately that I let my sense of boredom (yes sometimes getting down on the floor with her bores the knickers off me!) overrule the situation and I leave her to amuse herself more than I should - I need to do better.

Next week I'll post progress and provide photographic evidence! Today is a bust as far as getting into any specific activity - since we're going into full blown bedtime preps shortly. I did have her at toddler gym this morning though after a 4 week absence so that counts for something, right?

Equal, but different.

I have seen the question posed recently ‘Do you favour your first?’ My immediate reaction to that question was ‘absolutely not, I don’t favour either of my kids, I love them both the same’.

However, it is an interesting question, whether or not you love one child more than another, and I’ve been mulling it over a lot recently, and I have come to realize that I do not love both my children the same. This looks shocking when you see it in black and white. I guess I should qualify that statement and say, that I definitely believe I love my kids equally, but differently.

I suppose this is one of the learning curves for me as a mother, one on which I will get better at understanding and accepting that each child is unique in his or her own temperaments, abilities etc. And one on which I get better at modifying my approach and expectations.

When pregnant with my first baby, I was very sick for 5 months and truly wished every day to go faster so we could get to 9 months and have this baby out! Despite this, I was very focused on the baby, I anticipated and imagined how things would be with this new person in our house, when we would go from being just a couple, to becoming a family. The room was prepared, clothes all ready, all the gear, etc etc. When she arrived, we settled into life as a little family of three very quickly, and I was thrilled at how ‘natural’ being a mother felt to me. I trusted my instincts, and never really second guessed myself. She was a vocal child from the start, letting us know clearly when she was unhappy and wanted something done about it, (she’s still like that!). Now at two and a half, she is quite the conversationalist, articulate, funny, independent (downright stubborn if you want to look at it that way) and very outgoing. She is feisty, fun, absolutely adorable, and she has both her Dad and I firmly wrapped around her little finger. She has never suffered more than the occasional cold, and has only once had an illness involving fever – in short – we have never had anything to worry about as far as she is concerned.

My pregnancy with my son started off similar to my first – that dreaded nausea, and the puking sessions – thankfully though they did not last as long. With a toddler in the house to run after – once the morning sickness passed, I barely even remembered I was pregnant. No leisurely afternoons spent choosing baby equipment or décor for my second baby, no dreamy sessions picturing what we’d get up to, what those early days would be like – who had time? I feel guilty about this, and having spoken to other moms with more than one child, I know I’m not alone.

We found out the sex of our second baby at the 20 week ultrasound (something we didn’t do first time around), and while it did help me ‘connect’ a little more – I was truthfully so caught up in life with a toddler, my pregnancy, and my son were almost like afterthoughts. Then at 33 weeks, as if in an attempt to say ‘Hey Mom, it’s me in here, did ya forget about me?’, my baby decided he wanted to come early – I went into preterm labour which thankfully was stopped by a short stay in Labour and Delivery, and a terbutaline shot. My baby boy was determined though, and the following week he tried again – lots of frequent and strong contractions, once again needing the dreaded shot, and a spell on bed rest to help him stay put. And so, with these two bouts of preterm labour began my first real experience of maternal worrying. Even before he was born I have experienced anxiety with this baby that I never had to deal with as far as Miss E was concerned. He was born at 38 weeks, and we’ve had several more bouts of worry since he was born. His arrival face up, caused massive bruising all over his forehead and scalp, which his pediatrician pegged as permanent birth marking – more worry and a tremendous amount of crying as I projected us into the future and the inevitable teasing he would get at school – I cried and held him close, wishing I could just wash it off. Thankfully two weeks later most of it was gone, it was bruising after all. We have had in J’s short 6 months, 2 trips to the ER, several sick visits to the doctor and several follow up hearing tests with an Audiologist who wants to keep an eye on a mild deficiency in his upper frequency hearing. None of these things are life threatening and for that I am eternally grateful, especially when I consider the challenges some mothers face with their babies. J’s personality is very much more subdued than that of his sister. He is a sweet, sweet boy, quiet and very laid back (my guilt complex constantly questions whether this is in fact his personality, or the fact that he has had no choice but to patiently wait for my attention, which is so often demanded more forcefully by his sister?). So while I enjoy this and revel in his differences, I find myself worrying ‘what if he’s really shy like I was as a child’ ‘what if he’s ‘too quiet’?’, ‘what if the hearing thing gets worse?’ and so it goes on. I find myself as a result feeling much more protective of him than I am of his sister. From an early age she has demonstrated that she can get out there and take care of herself if you know what I mean? She will be the ringleader, she marches and others follow – she is the bossy one and so I feel I don’t have so much to worry about with her.

I do love both my children with all my heart – what mother doesn’t? – I definitely love them in very different ways. I'm hoping this is a good thing, and that I can continue to grow as their mother, loving them the very best ways I know how!

I’m a cheatin’ fool!

I was unfaithful last night – to my long time love. I feel awful. It was disgusting. I never should have done it. I swear I’ll never do it again. What was I thinking? What could have possibly lured me away to try this? ……

To try THIS???

What makes this all the more painful is that I am still nursing my 6 month old son, I only get one shot at a beer any time we’re out – I get ONE and I wasted it on this? When I took the first glug I imagine my face turned the same shade as the bottle. But since this was my ONE beer, you can bet I was going to finish it. I kept sipping thinking the taste would grow on me, you know like sometimes that first sip of a glass of wine is not so good, but the further down the glass you get, the better it tastes? Not so with Miller Chill- even the name makes me cringe.

I’m sorry Miller Lite, please forgive me – after this brief dalliance, you can be assured that I am a ‘one beer lady’. (And, when I’m finished nursing I’ll be a ‘one, more, oh yes another, oh, okay just the one more beer lady’ once again!)