Happy Mother's Day?

Oh, this week. This week nearly did me in. But I'm in sight of Monday, and the start of a new week, a fresh start. Plus the kids are sleeping, my husband is folding mountains of laundry, and I have a (second) cosmo sitting next to me, perspiring and pink and very, very palatable.

So Mother's Day. A day to be celebrated, showered with love, etc, etc. Except I spent most of mine wishing I wasn't with the two little people that ushered me into this club. And I feel terrible about it.

To be fair, I don't think I was at 100%, phyically, this weekend. And not without good reason. Here is a play-by-play (major points only) of the past 7 days for me.

Monday - in the midst of a several-meeting day, I get a call that Finn has thrown up at daycare. It's just once, so the teacher doesn't say I need to come get him, but I know what's coming. This kid doesn't just "get an upset stomach." He's sick. The gross kind. Sure enough, as I'm driving to pick him up, I get another call about more vomit. I bring him home, pat his back as he pukes some more, and do some laundry. His pillow pet did not fare well, it is now irreversibly lumpy.

Tuesday - Finn must be kept home, even though he is done throwing up. M. takes the morning shift as I head off to an off-site meeting. I head for home at lunch time to spell M. so that he can tie up some loose ends as he prepares to leave for a business trip. We both wash hands as often as possible, and fret quite a bit about who might be next.

Wednesday - Finn has cleared the 24-hour mark and can return to daycare. We all leave the house around 7 am - the kids and me for school/work, and M. for the airport. M. and I can't believe that Lucy, our little stomach bug-magnet, hasn't gotten sick yet. M. arrives safely in Albequerque, I work all day, and manage to get myself and the kids fed and to bed.

Thursday - I wake up around 3:30 am, tossing and turning. I eventually realize what's coming. I'm going to be sick. And then I am sick. Repeatedly.So now I'm sick - the BAD kind of sick - and I'm alone. No one to run interference with the kids. This is not good. I drag myself out of bed when Finn wakes up, and get the kids dressed. I don't brush Lucy's hair, I don't brush their teeth. I tell them that I won't be able to come to the Mother's Day Tea scheduled for that day. The kids try to convince me that I can come and just throw up in the trash cans at school. I decline. I drop them off, and give my regrets for the tea. I go home and sleep for a few hours. I drag myself out of bed around noon, and as I sip some water, my phone rings.

Lucy is throwing up everywhere.

I go get Lucy. AND Finn, because fuck if I'm going to go back again around 5 pm to pick him up seperately.

Lucy is sick, but full of energy and asking for food. I do my best to NOT give her food. She is clearly nauseous, but not puking.

They both essentially run circles around me for the  next 6 hours.

I studiously ignore the plastic bags of soiled clothing that came home with Lucy, unable to contemplate washing it yet.

I give them cereal for dinner, as I can't face cooking.

I get them to bed, eventually (after a bath), I shower, and tuck myself in to bed by 9 pm or so.

Friday - We all sleep through the night, and wake up feeling better. Lucy and I drop Finn off at school, and then I play the game of "entertaining an energetic toddler while simultaneously trying to put in a full day of work." It is hard. I paint her toenails in the morning to put off turning on the TV, so I can wait and do it just before the start of an important contracting meeting I need to call in to. She resists the idea of me running her around outside to tire her out, and makes us go inside after just a few minutes. She still manages to nap for a couple of hours during the afternoon, which is nice because I have a call with a Rear Admiral from the Navy I need to be completely present for.

I find a package outside the front door. A mother's day gift from M. - a coffee mug, coffee, and shortbread cookies. I eat some cookies.

We pick up Finn, eventually, and I get them Burger King for dinner. I don't get any for myself, because my stomach still isn't totally back to normal. There are many short cuts.

They go to bed, and I scrub 4 toilets. I wonder why we have so many goddamn bathrooms. I also wash Lucy's puke clothes, including her sneakers. The sneakers don't fare too well, I think we're going to have to get new ones.

Then I work for a couple of hours to make up for my time lost during the day, and go to bed around midnight. M. crawls in to bed at 2 am, back from Albequerque. I welcome my relief by turning over and getting back to sleep as soon as possible.

Saturday - I wake up at 6:30 and can't get back to sleep. I'm up before the kids, but not for long. They are both up within about 5 minutes of each other, around 7 am. I hadn't even finished some more of my shortbread cookies and a cup of coffee. I entertain them until 8-ish so M. can sleep in, then we start a busy day of spending money. I am exhausted by breakfast. I vow, once we are finally home, that the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc that M. has purchased is MINE, but I don't make it all the way through. Tummy still not great, tired - it's all working against me. Why can't I bounce back the way these kids seem to?

Sunday - I sleep in, as is my right. M. mixes up some cookie dough, and he and Finn make a heart shaped "cookie" for us to split for breakfast. More than decadent - sinful! I am now at my fourth day straight with the kids, and it's starting to show. I have little patience for the din they produce at Lowe's. I can't stand the "help" they offer as we try to knock out lingering yard work. Lucy insists on "sweeping" up the sidewalk (before we're even done with our projects), and manages to drop a broom handle on my head. I cried a little - not so much because of the head, but because I feel like I'm doing it all wrong. I'm not enjoying these kids at all. They don't listen. They talk at me all the time. They are SO LOUD.

I send Lucy inside and sulk. I shower and take a short nap. We go out for frozen yogurt, and this happens:

4:20 - (we are leaving our car, headed toward the fro-yo place) I ask Lucy "Do you need to pee?" She says no.

4:30- we are sitting at an outdoor table down the street from the fro-yo shop, just starting in on our yogurts. Lucy decides she has to pee. We leave our yogurts with M. and Finn to melt, and trek back to the shop to use the bathroom.

4:38 - Lucy and I are back; I've eaten a couple of bites of yogurt. Finn declares he needs to pee. M. takes him.

5:00 - We head quickly to Kohls to find Lucy new sneakers (since her's are pukey). Finn declares, as we are parking, that he needs to use the bathroom again. To poop. He and M. spend 15+ minutes in the bathroom, while I search fruitlessly for sneakers that fit Lucy.

We leave without sneakers, and also with a little less poop.

Possibly one of our most frustrating outings ever.

Followed, eventually, by dinner. And anyone who has ever eaten with a 3-year-old knows that THAT wasn't exactly fun, either.

But we eventually go to bedtime. Clean kids listening raptly to the stories I read. Snuggles and kisses. Some "I love you to outer space" declarations.

I wish I had more patience. I wish I had more energy. I wish I had more kind words, and less yelling.

I love my babies, who aren't really babies anymore. I just wish I could appreciate my time with them more - in the moment, not in retrospect, not in the abstract. Not because I feel like I should. My heart is full of them, and that is a double-edged sword. Nothing makes me happier, and nothing makes me more upset. This is what it's like, loving two (crazy, volatile, wonderful) beings so much, I guess.

Positive Thinking

It was supposed to be the perfect plan. Sign up for a 5-mile race to be run the week before we leave for our Florida vacation, train for it, and be in fabulous shape when it's time to don all those shorts and tank tops. It shouldn't have been hard - I've been slogging away at the jogging over this past winter, if not regularly, at least sporadically. By late May, I should be able to run 5 miles in my sleep, right?

Well.

I kept thinking I had plenty of time, until eventually I didn't.

I had other things to do, like baking and frosting cakes.

Could I have licked my fingers less? Probably.

Could I have run a little more? Definitely.

Luckily (I think), my vacation will be spent with many, many little kids in search of a human-sized mouse, and I don't really need to impress anyone with my bathing-suited figure. But I WOULD like to do a decent job during this race. And I WOULD like to resume feeling satisfied with my, erm, physical status. Not weight or appearance, really... except yes, that's what I mean. How I look, AND how I feel. I don't want to backpedal in how far I've come in the past two years. I want firmness in my limbs. I want to go for a run and not feel obliterated. I want to maintain my weight loss so far, and get a little bit farther.

Will I be satisfied, when I get a little bit farther?

When my kids squeeze my various body parts (which they ALWAYS do, no matter how many boundaries I try to set), I make a conscious effort not to recoil. I stand my ground, I smile, I make sure they know that while yes, this touching may be inappropriate (butts are not for touching, kid. No matter how much I want to pat yours), I am OKAY with everything they are feeling. Those lumps and soft parts and jiggly bits? Totally normal. I do that now, and I did that when I was 25 pounds heavier. I want my kids to think (to know) that there is no one body type that is better.

I believe that is true, intellectually. My body? Perfectly normal. My body 25 pounds heavier? Also perfectly normal. And yet emotionally, I can't get there. Why can't I do with my husband what I do with my kids? Is there a point where I will accept that when he (very appropriately) grabs my various body parts, they feel perfectly normal and OKAY? If I lose 10 more pounds, will I feel OK then?

I am disappointed with myself lately. Too many indulgences, and not enough discipline. I feel like a quitter, like a loser. Which I KNOW is stupid.

So this week, I want to focus on what I LIKE about myself. Including my body. And I'll start with this post. So please excuse me, I'm just going to step over here and compliment myself:

I always thought that my mom had beautiful hands. I think I have her hands.

I have a great smile.

My eyes are more than a little smashing. Especially when I wear mascara.

My hair may not be the thickest, but it's a nice, completely un-grey, natural color.

I have delicate wrists.

I can rock the shit out of a sexy top. It's all in the collarbones and shoulders.

I didn't get any stretch marks from my two pregnancies.

I have eyebrows I barely need to pluck.

*I* like my nose. You (and when I say you, I don't mean you, of course) may not, but I do.

If you play the right music, I WILL shake my booty. And I will enjoy it.

I can run faster and farther now than I could in high school.

I am beautiful.

How about you? What do you like about your body? How do you try to embody high self esteem for your kids (and yourself)?

Cakes and Parties and Three-Year-Olds, Oh My!

This exhausted chica needs to get herself to bed, but first I wanted to hop on quickly to share some photos from Lucy's birthday week. Her actual birthday was on Wednesday - cupcakes for breakfast, presents after school/work, and dinner out. And her birthday party was on Saturday, at a local park with a picnic shelter I was able to reserve through the county park system. We eyed the weather from the moment the 10-day forecast was in range - it went from sunny and 75, to cloudy-ish in the 60's, to the low 50's with a 50% chance of rain. Things were not looking good, but luckily the rain held off until just after the party, and the temperature was just cold enough to let the kids feel comfortable running all over the place (as opposed to the super hot they normally get as they burn off their enviable stores of energy).

Did everything go perfectly? No, of course not. And I wish I wasn't rushing around like a crazy person trying to MAKE everything perfect - I need to get better at accepting that perfection, aka the meticulously detailed over-the-top events you can find on any lifestyle blog, is not really "perfect." All the time and effort that one has to put into the littlest of details may make for pretty photos, but it doesn't allow for much quality time with the ones that matter most, in this case, the birthday girl. So I went with a lot of store-prepared food, we were light on decorations, and there were no homemade touches in the favors. But I'm more than OK with that, in retrospect, and I'm thinking that next time I throw a party for one of my kids, I'll outsource even more.

Though it was kind of fun making the cake. In a weird, masochistic way.

Here is Lucy getting a glimpse of her main birthday present from us - bedding to go on her new big girl bed. Including Princess sheets, as she has been insisting that she have a "Princess" bed.

We needed a light we could plug in to the outlet connected to the light switch, which unfortunately is located right next to the only place we could put Lucy's bed. To get around the need for a table, we opted for a lantern that hangs from the ceiling - I think it looks pretty cute!

This picture of the "other side" of her room gives you a sense of how tiny her room is!

This cake... Oh, how I slaved over this cake. I baked the top layer on Tuesday, the bottom layer on Wednesday, put the "crumb" layer of frosting on the cake on Thursday, and finished frosting and decorating on Friday. A four day effort. My mixer may never recover. But awesome, right? I'm a little proud of myself.

BTW, the cake topper and princesses were ordered from Amazon.com

Ariel had crazy eyes.

The back looked, admittedly, a little wonky. Eh. You can't win 'em all.

The cake in position at the party.

The birthday girl blowing out her candles.

Happy face.

Eating the frosting. Because that's all she ate, of course, as usual.

Four days of effort, and after ten minutes of cake slicing, it looked like this.

The party favors - little goodies stuffed into beach buckets. Would have been a bit more "on theme" if the weather wasn't quite so wintry.

Finn had a great time running ALL OVER THE PLACE.

I made this banner. Lots of cutting, gluing, swearing. And that was BEFORE it got all tangled up. Untangling it and hangin it was a three-man effort, and it didn't go up until about 20 minutes after the official start of the party. But now that it's made, you can be damn sure I'll be bringing this thing out for every single birthday until she's at least 18. I may make her bring it with her to college, so much effort did I put in to this thing.

THREE! My baby is three.

But she still fell asleep on my lap tonight as I rocked her in her bedroom rocking chair. Even though she barely fit, I still have that, for a little bit longer.

I Need to Stop Typing and Just Publish This Already!

Alright, let's see if I can get us all caught up. I've had about 16 different posts I've mentally composed over the last two weeks, but I keep letting myself get swayed by all the programming we have on our DVR and watching TV at night instead of blogging. Hopefully I can shove everything into one stupidly long post to get over this hump of laziness.

Let's see, the last time I wrote was about St. Patrick's Day weekend, over a month ago. The next weekend, Lucy and I took a little road trip to Philadelphia to visit my very good friend Jen, her husband Daniel, and their 8-month-old daughter Carmen. I brought Lucy with me because I thought she would have fun, and I felt like she was finally old enough where something like this is possible. And I was right - she did GREAT on the car rides (thank god for DVD players), she loved entertaining Carmen, and she even slept pretty well. I tried her in Carmen's crib at first, but she balked at that, and ended up sharing the air mattress with me. She went to sleep on her own, and when I came up later to hit the hay, she was hogging the whole bed. And continued to do so the entire night. But I didn't mind - it was nice having her snuggled up next to me.

Some photos from Philly (finally, Jen!):

Carmen and Jen

Isn't this one of the cutest faces you've ever seen?

I mean seriously, I could eat this child up.

Or these cupcakes. Did I mention we had cupcakes?

Lucy was a fan of the cupcakes.

Daniel - his enchilada-making skills are unparalleled.

We tried for a quick "photo shoot" with the kiddos in the morning, just before Lucy and I left.

No one sat still, per se, but I'm sure their way was more fun.

I have absolutely no memory of what we did the weekend after that (April Fool's Day weekend). So on to the next one! Which was my birthday weekend!

I turned 35. I am considering whether or not this will be the year I cease aging. I thought it would be 29, but here I am, still admitting my age. So we'll see.

My birthday was actually on a Friday, and I was determined to make it a nice day. I was scheduled to work from home, which is always nice. No showering necessary! But then I went for a run around lunch time, and managed to wipe out on the sidewalk. Not as bad as the fall I took last summer, but  not exactly fun, either. I scraped up both knees and the palms of both of my hands. Oh, and I bent back my left thumbnail which - ouch. I limped home muttering "this is NOT ruining my day" repeatedly, dripping blood from various body parts.

I cleaned myself up and finished out the work day, and was pleasantly surprised by M., who came home from work early. We picked up the kids, went out for pizza, and then came back home where I was showered with gifts, cards, and cake. Not that the evening was totally pleasant, since the kids were kind of a-holes while we were out to dinner. But whatever, they're kids, they don't know any better, right?

The next evening we had our babysitter come over, and M. took me out to Volt for dinner. It's a restaurant run by a Top Chef finalist in Frederick, MD, and it's one of those places that has been on my list of "things to do before we leave the area" for a while now. It was every bit as fascinating, pretentious, good, and expensive as I thought it would be. The dinner itself took over two and a half hours, with many courses and lots of ingredients I had never heard of. Also, I feel like I should point out that I had a hard time finding the bathroom. It's like the doors were hiding from me.

Rather than heading out to grab a drink afterward, which was our original plan, we went home to stuff Easter baskets. Because while we may not give the kids much in the way of a religious upbringing, we sure as hell participate in all the fun pagan parts of these Christian holidays. So eggs were stuffed and hidden, and baskets were filled with little toys and goodies. Finn was up early, of course, though he managed to walk right past his Easter basket on his way up to our bedroom without even noticing it. It took some convincing to get Lucy to wake up, and then it was game time. These kids, they are professional egg hunters. They had gotten some practice at daycare a couple days earlier, and there was no fooling them. Even the cleverly-hidden eggs were discovered by the time breakfast was over.

After appropriately decadent amounts of sugar and chocolate were consumed, we all headed out to a park to enjoy the beautiful day. We capped the day off by eating lunch out and ordering Lucy a twin-sized mattress for her birthday (more on that shortly). Some pics of the day:

When did these kids get so big?

An Easter basket gift. Finn was convinced it wasn't supposed to be Yoda because the green is the wrong shade. It took some convincing that yes, the Easter Bunny gave him a Yoda doll (with accompanying gumballs).

Spinning around at the park.

Not long after this, Finn had to take a little "break" because all the spinning got to be a bit too much for his stomach...

Actively trying not to have her picture taken.

We are getting closer to being up to date, I swear. So, a few days after Easter weekend/My Birthday Weekend, we picked up Lucy's new mattress. Now, to set the stage, Lucy has been in a crib all this time. We asked her at one point when she thought she'd be ready for a big girl bed, and she told us she'd be ready when she was three. Well, now she's almost three. In three days, she'll be three, in fact. So we had to get ready to make good on our promise to get her a big girl bed. And like Finn, we decided to skip the toddler bed option, and move right to the twin sized mattress and box spring instead.

The mattress and box spring were stuffed into our SUV on a Wednesday, and as suspected, Lucy didn't want to wait until her birthday to put that bed in action. So down came the crib, and up went the bed. We threw some extra sheets of Finn's on the bed for now, until we can give her room a proper "big girl bed welcome/redecoration" (coming as part of her birthday presents). She was super excited (actually, both kids were pretty excited), and the evening went off without a hitch - she fell asleep fine, and has yet to fall out of the bed (knock on wood).

Sleeping Beauty herself, later that night.

And that same night I had a dream I was pregnant (true story). Guess my uterus was a little unsettled with all this big kid stuff, with taking down the crib (and later, taking it to the dump! Yes, it is completely gone! Now we can officially never, ever have another kid).

And in other big kid news, Finn had orientation for Kindergarten last week. Gasp. I felt seriously weird being in a school not as a student, but as a parent. I kept feeling like the teachers and principals had, like, authority over me or something. But they were smiling at me and clearly trying to impress me and OMG I'm a MOM! Of a kid who is going to go to SCHOOL. Like, real school. This is odd to me. I feel like high school was just a few years ago, and yet there I was, getting information on joining the friggin' PTA. I may not be entirely ready for this. Thank god Finn is.

On a serious note, the school seemed wonderful. I have no concerns with it AT ALL, and I am very grateful for that.

I think we are now (mostly) caught up. There is a new home improvement snafu we've run in to that I could detail (in replacing a bathroom light fixture, we found out the original fixture was lacking an electrical box. Just, wires coming out of a hole in the wall. Can someone school me in how it is normal in any kind of lighting situation to just NOT have an ELECTRICAL BOX?) that is involving the typical layers of complications we always seem to run into whenever we try to DIY something. There's the new grill we bought yesterday, and these awesome BBQ sandwiches I insisted M. make on it tonight even though it was poring out. There is the party we are planning for Lucy's birthday, and the CAKE that we are making ourselves (M. insisted). This will not be a "Duncan Hines mix in two 8X8 pans as a layer cake" deal - we bought specialty pans and cake topper things. I'm researching things like heating cores and even baking strips and stuff that I never knew existed until about 5 minutes ago. I'm a bit frightened, actually. There is also the banner I am making for said party because of fucking Pinterest and it's hordes of beautiful, wonderful, totally impractical ideas. And in the process I am reminded that I am NOT crafty. It took me all day Saturday to cut out enough letters to spell out HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUCY out of patterned paper, and my right hand is now currently yelling at me from all the cutting I made it do. I kept making mistakes and had to recut about half of the letters as I was doing it, so what should have been only 17 letters was more like 25. And it's still not done. Martha Stewart I am not, that much is clear.

Also on the agenda is making cupcakes for Lucy's actual birthday to bring to school, cleaning up for the cleaning lady, making food for the party (the stuff that is NOT cake), buying the food for the party that I'm too lazy to make, putting Lucy's new bike together, finishing up the bathroom project before people come over the house, and adding the finishing touches to Lucy's bedroom makeover. Oh, and working. That has to happen, too. So if I don't check in on Lucy's actual birthday, here' s the link I would probably put up, the one to her birth story. It's probably silly, but I still go back and read that every once in a while. It's one of the best memories I have, such a wonderful, crazy day - the day that gave me my baby big girl.

Hopefully I'll be back soon to let you all know how it all turns out.