More of my ramblings, when we weren't yet telling anyone I was pregnant. I'm pretty lame, clearly I really wanted to talk to someone about it, thus the typing and blathering about nothing. Dork. And yes, still can't believe how quickly I showed with this baby. I am currently 15 weeks and I just look so darn pregnant, and I'm of course now gaining weight like a champion, nearly 10 pounds at this point. It's weird. Last time I barely wore maternity clothes before 18 weeks. I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, I haven't really changed my eating habits or activity level, other than needing something small every once in a while to curb the slight nausea I sometimes still get, but I just don't like it. I thought I'd know what to expect the second time around, but I guess not, and that is unnerving. Ahh well, here we go with the blathering about nothing...
So it’s been a few weeks since we found out I’m pregnant, and I’m going a little insane not telling anyone. I feel like this huge walking imposter, I have literally nothing to say to anyone because my whole life revolves around feeling nauseous and being so bloated that I already, at 7 weeks, cannot fit comfortably into most of my pants. But I can’t talk about any of that with anyone, so I don’t have anything to talk about.
Anyway, you read that correctly, already I’m having trouble finding things that fit me. Clearly I’m not ready to jump into wearing maternity clothes already, especially since NO ONE KNOWS I’M PREGNANT, but most of my spring/summer stuff from last year makes me look like a stuffed sausage. The bloat is insane, it started the week before I took the test, and it has gotten worse with each passing day. Funny thing is that I gained about 4 pounds that week before I peed on the stick, and I had total fit. Nearly 5 pounds in one week? What is going on with my body? Ha.
And now two weeks later, I weighed myself and I am down a pound and a half. But I have this massive bloated belly. So massive, I found myself Googling all weekend about showing early with your second pregnancy, how early is normal? Could I be pregnant with twins? Ahhhh, pregnancy. 1st trimester. My old friend. I forgot about what a serious mind-f$#% you are.
The nausea and reflux is going strong, but no vomiting yet. I need to be eating or drinking something pretty much constantly, or I feel nauseous, but then half the things I try to eat leave me feeling just as terrible. With my first pregnancy, I started getting pretty heavy duty morning sickness around week 7, to the point where I threw up every single morning before work, at least once, and then would often have to pull over on my commute to dry heave/vomit. The rest of the day was just torturous nausea. So I’m nervous, to say the least, that things are about to get a lot worse. Knowing what may be to come is just torture, but then I am, at the same time, too superstitious to even consider or hope for one second that it might not be that bad this time.
We’re planning on telling family this weekend, really there will be no hiding it, we’ll be at Dan’s family’s cabin for the holiday weekend, confined in a tiny little house with nearly 20 people, surely there will be drinking, of which I would normally partake, and quite honestly, I look and act like a pregnant chick, and I am a terrible liar. Keeping up the charade just seems so pointless.
I am feeling so much more cautious the second time around, I’ve known a number of people, friends, acquaintances, who have lost a baby in the first trimester over the past year, and I guess it’s just hit close to home. I’m irrationally scared of sharing our excitement with others, of talking about the future, of seeing the smiles on their faces. None of those things are going to cause me to miscarry, so what am I afraid of? It’s not as if I wouldn’t need the support of my family if we lost our child. Ugh. And now I’ve thought and written about this way more than I would like.
So yeah, telling family. YAY! I can’t wait to not feel like Dan and I are in this little bubble that no one can actually see but makes me feel sort of lonely and claustrophobic. I need to talk to people! I made a call to my midwife last week and it was strangely comforting to actually acknowledge this pregnancy with someone in the outside world. She said, “Another January baby, how exciting!” and my heart sort of skipped a beat.
A baby. My baby. Another baby. Whoa.
Don’t even get me started on the idea of having a baby in January. Right now, it sounds like the worst idea imaginable, but I guess that’s our reality right? I know Dan gets all annoyed with me when I rant on and on about it, but honestly, the idea of my maternity leave being in the middle of the three most horrible months of the year (come on admit it, January and February suck, and March is just barely tolerable), well I get sort of panicked thinking about it, and annoyed at myself for not “planning things” a little better. I craved the outdoors those first couple months with a newborn. I needed to be around humans, at least a little, or I went crazy. And now we’ll have a second baby, and a cooped up toddler in the middle of a Minnesota winter. Yeah, well, I’m sort of a downer about it. But maybe? Maybe a new baby will be what makes January and February not suck? Maybe we’ll have our breezeway project completed by then and we can hang out in that sunny little space and feel like we’re out doors? Maybe Gus can play in the snow in the backyard and I can supervise whilst sipping cocoa safely inside our cozy, warm little porch, cuddling and nursing my snuggly little newbie?
That is the image of my future life I will just have to believe in.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
May 12, 2011 (5 Weeks, 2 days)
So, my first secret pregnancy post. My goodness, it is awkward reading this stuff, I was really laying it all out there, mostly because I knew I wasn't going to post it, at least right away, and now, it's just embarrassing. Like reading an old diary from when I was fourteen. Ha, those are gems let me tell you, I love the teenage angst!
(I must add that when I first wrote that, pre-spell check, I spelled it jem, rather than gem, as in Jem (and the Holograms), my all time favorite 80's Saturday morning cartoon. If you're a fan of Jem, and I know you are, you HAVE to go read the Plot summary on that Wikipedia link. Priceless! So many awesome and ridiculous things I forgot about... like Synergy, the holographic computer that made the Jem alter-ego possible, and how Jerrica became Jem with just a touch of her awesome starlight earrings!)
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If that wasn't a random digression I don't know what is, goodness. Anyway, as I was saying, I didn't realize I'd feel so awkward about this writing I did only a few months ago, but whatever. I promised I'd post them. So without further ado... here's something I wrote two days after I found out I was pregnant.
Okay.
Whoa.
The test was positive. That really really faint second line that I had to convince Dan was there, yeah, that means we’re having another baby.
A family of four.
Two kids and a dog.
A 2 ½ year old and a newborn.
In the middle of winter. (Ugh.)
Holy mother.
So I took a test two days ago, the Tuesday after Mother’s Day. I had a feeling. And by feeling, I mean that quite literally. That morning at work I felt horribly nauseous, so that, combined with the fact that I’ve been feeling like a bloated rhinoceros for about a week… yeah. I had a bit of a realization, like, whoa, seriously, get with the program Alicia, you better take a test tonight, at least then you’ll know one way or another.
I’ve been nonchalant about the possibility that I could be pregnant, which I’m sure sounds sort of crazy, but it’s true. I couldn’t remember when exactly was the last time that I had, ahem, taken my monthly trip to the drug store, and we sort of decided a few months ago to just throw caution to the wind and see how quickly it happens without really trying.
That was our way of just dipping our toes into the waters of going for number two, because I don’t think either of us were really willing to say out loud, “Yeah, I’m totally ready for this, I can’t wait to have another baby!” It’s such a different mindset the second time around, I can’t really explain it. Of course we want more than one child, maybe even more than two, but now that we’re sort of finally getting into the groove of this whole parenting a toddler thing, and we kinda-sorta know what we’re getting ourselves into by willingly inviting a newborn into our lives again, but not really, because we’ve never had to care for a newborn AND a toddler at the SAME TIME… I don’t know. It’s scary. Exciting. Unreal. But yeah, that’s why we had to just sort of ease ourselves into it. Nothing like last time, which involved obsessing and taking my temperature every morning and charting and examining cervical mucus and completely refraining from any alcoholic beverages.
Shit though. It still only took like, two months. Ridiculous. Ease ourselves into it my ass.
It’s been two days, and it definitely doesn’t feel real yet.
Of course with everything I do, I’m thinking about how different it will be when we have another baby. When I nurse Gus I start to panic a little that now I REALLY need to get serious about weaning him, because no way am I going to tandem nurse a tiny baby and a two and a half year old. Now I feel like, in a weird way, I’m leading him on every time we nurse, and it feels mean, and it makes me sad that now there’s this deadline for his babyhood and he doesn’t even realize it. Or get a say in it. I know, it’s stupid, but it makes me really sad.
On top of all that weighty stuff, I feel like I’m just waiting for the 1st trimester agony to hit, the anticipation (dread) is killing me. I was sick almost every day until about 18 weeks when I was pregnant with Gus, and I remember what a baby I was about it, and I am really worried that I’m just going to be wishing away the next three months, and missing out on a fun summer with my son.
Oh, and yesterday I stopped for my morning coffee on the way to work, and just as I was about to order, it hit me. Oh yeah. Decaf it is. Blergh.
Of course I’m also nervous, cautious, because it’s still so early, haven’t even called my midwife yet, so many things could go wrong, and have gone wrong for so many other women before me. But yeah. THIS IS HAPPENING.
So anyway, that’s where I’m at, two days later. Believe me, even if it doesn’t sound like it, I am happy about this baby, it’s what we wanted. I’m so excited about growing our family, I look forward to what’s next, I can’t wait to see the belly grow, and to bring more giggles and smiles, and yes cries into our home. All of those shiny happy butterflies are there, they’re just surrounded by a little bit of shock and panic.
We’ve got quite the adventure ahead of us.
And because it's awesome, and "truly outrageous!" For your viewing pleasure...
(I must add that when I first wrote that, pre-spell check, I spelled it jem, rather than gem, as in Jem (and the Holograms), my all time favorite 80's Saturday morning cartoon. If you're a fan of Jem, and I know you are, you HAVE to go read the Plot summary on that Wikipedia link. Priceless! So many awesome and ridiculous things I forgot about... like Synergy, the holographic computer that made the Jem alter-ego possible, and how Jerrica became Jem with just a touch of her awesome starlight earrings!)
(Picture from Wikipedia)
Okay.
Whoa.
The test was positive. That really really faint second line that I had to convince Dan was there, yeah, that means we’re having another baby.
A family of four.
Two kids and a dog.
A 2 ½ year old and a newborn.
In the middle of winter. (Ugh.)
Holy mother.
So I took a test two days ago, the Tuesday after Mother’s Day. I had a feeling. And by feeling, I mean that quite literally. That morning at work I felt horribly nauseous, so that, combined with the fact that I’ve been feeling like a bloated rhinoceros for about a week… yeah. I had a bit of a realization, like, whoa, seriously, get with the program Alicia, you better take a test tonight, at least then you’ll know one way or another.
I’ve been nonchalant about the possibility that I could be pregnant, which I’m sure sounds sort of crazy, but it’s true. I couldn’t remember when exactly was the last time that I had, ahem, taken my monthly trip to the drug store, and we sort of decided a few months ago to just throw caution to the wind and see how quickly it happens without really trying.
That was our way of just dipping our toes into the waters of going for number two, because I don’t think either of us were really willing to say out loud, “Yeah, I’m totally ready for this, I can’t wait to have another baby!” It’s such a different mindset the second time around, I can’t really explain it. Of course we want more than one child, maybe even more than two, but now that we’re sort of finally getting into the groove of this whole parenting a toddler thing, and we kinda-sorta know what we’re getting ourselves into by willingly inviting a newborn into our lives again, but not really, because we’ve never had to care for a newborn AND a toddler at the SAME TIME… I don’t know. It’s scary. Exciting. Unreal. But yeah, that’s why we had to just sort of ease ourselves into it. Nothing like last time, which involved obsessing and taking my temperature every morning and charting and examining cervical mucus and completely refraining from any alcoholic beverages.
Shit though. It still only took like, two months. Ridiculous. Ease ourselves into it my ass.
It’s been two days, and it definitely doesn’t feel real yet.
Of course with everything I do, I’m thinking about how different it will be when we have another baby. When I nurse Gus I start to panic a little that now I REALLY need to get serious about weaning him, because no way am I going to tandem nurse a tiny baby and a two and a half year old. Now I feel like, in a weird way, I’m leading him on every time we nurse, and it feels mean, and it makes me sad that now there’s this deadline for his babyhood and he doesn’t even realize it. Or get a say in it. I know, it’s stupid, but it makes me really sad.
On top of all that weighty stuff, I feel like I’m just waiting for the 1st trimester agony to hit, the anticipation (dread) is killing me. I was sick almost every day until about 18 weeks when I was pregnant with Gus, and I remember what a baby I was about it, and I am really worried that I’m just going to be wishing away the next three months, and missing out on a fun summer with my son.
Oh, and yesterday I stopped for my morning coffee on the way to work, and just as I was about to order, it hit me. Oh yeah. Decaf it is. Blergh.
Of course I’m also nervous, cautious, because it’s still so early, haven’t even called my midwife yet, so many things could go wrong, and have gone wrong for so many other women before me. But yeah. THIS IS HAPPENING.
So anyway, that’s where I’m at, two days later. Believe me, even if it doesn’t sound like it, I am happy about this baby, it’s what we wanted. I’m so excited about growing our family, I look forward to what’s next, I can’t wait to see the belly grow, and to bring more giggles and smiles, and yes cries into our home. All of those shiny happy butterflies are there, they’re just surrounded by a little bit of shock and panic.
We’ve got quite the adventure ahead of us.
And because it's awesome, and "truly outrageous!" For your viewing pleasure...
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Gus has a secret...
...and he'd like to let you in on it!
It’s a good thing he’s got such a great best friend in his doggy, because life will be changing around our household in about 6 months.
NO NO NO Gus! We don’t ride Bella! She’s not a horse, she’s your puppy. GENTLE Gus!
Wait, what’s that say?
You’re going to be a big brother, in 2012?
Whoa.
How do you feel about this news?
Yeah, we’re all pretty excited.
Little guy, you’re going to be a great big brother.
We can’t wait to see if your brother or sister has that same bright smile. It has just been the light of our life these last, well nearly two years. The greatest joy we’ve ever known has been watching you grow into the silly, charming, precocious little boy that you are and we get to spend every day with you! How lucky are we, to be your parents?
Okay, we said NO GUS! Get off the dog, we’re serious about this!
Goodness, people keep telling me that he’ll do a lot of growing up between now and January. Are they just being nice?
Probably.
But I’m still going to hold them to it. ;)
(I've been blogging since we found out I was pregnant, but have been waiting to post them until friends and family were all in on the secret. So over the next week or so I'll be publishing some of those "flashback" posts. Warning: I was very neurotic and frazzled at the beginning, I'm happy to say I've calmed down a bit since then, though I'm sure all my worrying and fears about being a mom of two will only intensify as my belly grows. Truly though, we're so so excited, and feeling incredibly blessed to be adding to our family!)
(I've been blogging since we found out I was pregnant, but have been waiting to post them until friends and family were all in on the secret. So over the next week or so I'll be publishing some of those "flashback" posts. Warning: I was very neurotic and frazzled at the beginning, I'm happy to say I've calmed down a bit since then, though I'm sure all my worrying and fears about being a mom of two will only intensify as my belly grows. Truly though, we're so so excited, and feeling incredibly blessed to be adding to our family!)
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
Until I have the real ones...
So I promised pictures, but my sister-in-law stopped by last night after dinner (which was lovely and it was so nice to catch up with her) and then the rest of the evening sorta got away from me. Bath. Books. Snuggles. Rocking. Laundry. It was almost 10:00 by the time I finally sat down. I only got as far as getting the pictures off my camera, didn't even go through them, let alone get them uploaded.
Instead, you get the two pictures I took with my phone this weekend.
You're welcome. ;)
Instead, you get the two pictures I took with my phone this weekend.
You're welcome. ;)
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
The Fourth
We headed up to the cabin this past weekend, like we do every year on the 4th of July. The weekend started out crazy sauce on Friday night with some insane weather, and things got a little better the next morning when the sun came up, and then it got a LOT better when FINALLY we got power back after about 22 hours of flushing toilets with buckets and opening the refrigerator only when absolutely necessary and running to the store to buy more flashlights. Eff.
So yeah, Friday night at around 8:00 we were hanging out in the cabin, just having finished doing the bath and jammies thing for the little ones, getting them all ready for bed, when all of a sudden the weather turned… weird. Dan and his brother were roaming around outside, I think putting away all of the crap as thunderstorms were supposed to be rolling in shortly. And then the lights started flickering and the trees started dancing (seriously, it looked like the Lost smoke monster might be coming for us from the woods) and all of a sudden John (my brother-in Law, not John Locke) burst into the cabin screaming, “I think there’s a tornado coming, A TORNADO! Everyone RUN! To the shower house! QUICK! MOVE! RUN!” And that very moment the power went out and children were screaming and people were tripping all over each other, and I held on to my baby as tight as I could and raced outside toward the cement shower house with him in my arms.
Dan was the last one in the shower house, and we did a little headcount. Four children, three dogs, six adults, everyone was accounted for. The door was closed, and along with the wind howling we heard cracking outside and tree branches falling on the roof. It was dope scary people. Bella hid under the bench we were sitting on and was probably the last one to come out when it was all over. Poor little pup.
I wish I would have taken a picture of the sky over the lake; it was the freakiest thing ever, this huge dark foreboding wall cloud just hanging there. The stuff on the roof that we heard coming down on us were just a handful of small branches, no big deal, but just 150 feet down the road there were huge trees down blocking the road and on top of cabins.
Wow.
I guess the same storm ripped through the greater area of Wisconsin that we were in, power was out all over vacation-land, and though there were no actual tornadoes, the wind caused a lot of damage.
Thank God we were all safe, yes, I am thankful for that. But seriously… we were out of power after that until the next evening. UGH. And I was SO WHINY about it. Mother Nature is so inconvenient! I wanted to go home.
First of all, already we have this notoriously horrible (adorable) little sleeper. When we were at the cabin for Memorial Day Weekend, we had one terrible night where he screamed inconsolably for almost a full hour and a half in the middle of the night. We could do nothing to calm him, he didn’t want to be held, but if we put him down he’d just aimlessly stumble around and bash his head against the bedside table. If we put him in the pack-n-play he’d climb right out and stumble around and bash his head against the bed. Milk? NO! Boob? NO! Book? NO!
So was it night terrors? Scared to wake up in a strange place? We have no idea what his deal was, but it was just the worst thing I have ever experienced and everything I have done since in my life has been in an effort to avoid a repeat middle-of-the-night screaming scenario.
As an aside, I have to give the kid props, he’s sleeping so much better these days, which means we’re all getting much more sleep and the bags I’ve had under my eyes since he was a newborn are starting to fade slightly. But of course, all bets are off at the cabin. AND THEN Mother Nature has to throw a curveball at us, take away our blessed electricity so that it’s dark and scary. We were night-light-less and worst of all, without our beloved fan for white noise.
Gus wouldn’t go to sleep at first, he was understandably freaked out, and those walls are so thin, he could hear everyone loud and clear in the next room. We finally resigned to just hang out with him until he passed out. Reading books on the couch, chatting with my brother and his wife. After 10:00 we finally went to bed, mostly out of boredom, and of course the night went better than expected. I freely admit that I tend to overreact, anticipate the worst, and blow things out of proportion in my mind. I can be a real peach to live with sometimes.
Anyway, we remembered that we had brought this battery-powered portable ipod docking station, so we put Jack Johnson’s Curious George album on repeat and prayed for the batteries to magically never die. What’s amazing? They didn’t until 6:00 AM. Of course I barely got any sleep, because I would wake up every hour, look at the time on my phone, and be amazed that an hour had passed and the music was still going. Then I would convince myself that it was about to die… any second now, and Gus would be awake screaming, and he would NEVER go back to sleep with the deafening silence! Surely we were doomed! So I would just lay there, waiting, listening, afraid to even move and cause the bed to creak. Surely then he would wake up and we would be doomed!
Freak.
We were not doomed. The sun came up, and life seemed much more manageable.
Still, I was pissed and annoyed that the $130 of food I had purchased the day before was busy going bad in the refrigerator, and all of our phones were nearly dead so we couldn’t sit on hold with the power company to find out when we might have electricity again. We went into town for breakfast and it was crazy packed, because seemingly everyone outside of town was out of power, and there was talk that it could be anywhere between 3-5 days.
I was ready to pack up the car and head home the second I heard that, but cooler heads prevailed, and instead we ran some errands. We bought a power adapter thing for the car to charge our phones, a battery-powered radio to play static while Gus took his nap, more batteries for the flashlights, ice so we could save some of our food in coolers, and gallons of water to do dishes with (the water at the cabin is from a well, which is pumped by electricity, thus, I was not even able to wash my face that morning).
And we managed, and it wasn’t a bad day at all. And I read half of my book that afternoon lying out in the sun. In hindsight it was actually beyond lovely. The worst was just in the not knowing how long we’d be without power. My brother says it’s because I’m a woman and we worry about things that are out of our control. Yes, it’s insulting that he’s making a broad stereotype about women like that, but seriously, OF COURSE I worry about things that are beyond my control! I want to control everything! Everything would spiral out of control if I couldn’t, well, control it!
He may have me pegged.
Well as I alluded to at the beginning of all this, power was back on by the time we had dinner on the table. A few hours before we saw a couple trucks from the electric company drive past, and I did a little happy dance, and relented my earlier stance that if we didn’t have power by evening we were packing up and heading back to the city. Clearly they were working on it, and it was only a matter of time, and my need to control the situation in the only way that was possible started to subside.
The rest of the weekend was just perfection… beautiful weather, a happy little swimming toddler, blowing bubbles, tranquil boat rides, laughs around the camp fire, card games, sitting in the water with a good book for two hours. Funny how none of those things involve electricity, but still I let myself get so worked up about being forced to go without it.
Was this weekend just one big lesson about going with the flow, making the best of things, not sweating the small stuff, and all of those kinds of clichés?
Hmmm… maybe. Cruel lesson Mother Nature. Not. Cool.
(I'll be back tomorrow with pictures, still have to get them off my camera.)
So yeah, Friday night at around 8:00 we were hanging out in the cabin, just having finished doing the bath and jammies thing for the little ones, getting them all ready for bed, when all of a sudden the weather turned… weird. Dan and his brother were roaming around outside, I think putting away all of the crap as thunderstorms were supposed to be rolling in shortly. And then the lights started flickering and the trees started dancing (seriously, it looked like the Lost smoke monster might be coming for us from the woods) and all of a sudden John (my brother-in Law, not John Locke) burst into the cabin screaming, “I think there’s a tornado coming, A TORNADO! Everyone RUN! To the shower house! QUICK! MOVE! RUN!” And that very moment the power went out and children were screaming and people were tripping all over each other, and I held on to my baby as tight as I could and raced outside toward the cement shower house with him in my arms.
Dan was the last one in the shower house, and we did a little headcount. Four children, three dogs, six adults, everyone was accounted for. The door was closed, and along with the wind howling we heard cracking outside and tree branches falling on the roof. It was dope scary people. Bella hid under the bench we were sitting on and was probably the last one to come out when it was all over. Poor little pup.
I wish I would have taken a picture of the sky over the lake; it was the freakiest thing ever, this huge dark foreboding wall cloud just hanging there. The stuff on the roof that we heard coming down on us were just a handful of small branches, no big deal, but just 150 feet down the road there were huge trees down blocking the road and on top of cabins.
Wow.
I guess the same storm ripped through the greater area of Wisconsin that we were in, power was out all over vacation-land, and though there were no actual tornadoes, the wind caused a lot of damage.
Thank God we were all safe, yes, I am thankful for that. But seriously… we were out of power after that until the next evening. UGH. And I was SO WHINY about it. Mother Nature is so inconvenient! I wanted to go home.
First of all, already we have this notoriously horrible (adorable) little sleeper. When we were at the cabin for Memorial Day Weekend, we had one terrible night where he screamed inconsolably for almost a full hour and a half in the middle of the night. We could do nothing to calm him, he didn’t want to be held, but if we put him down he’d just aimlessly stumble around and bash his head against the bedside table. If we put him in the pack-n-play he’d climb right out and stumble around and bash his head against the bed. Milk? NO! Boob? NO! Book? NO!
So was it night terrors? Scared to wake up in a strange place? We have no idea what his deal was, but it was just the worst thing I have ever experienced and everything I have done since in my life has been in an effort to avoid a repeat middle-of-the-night screaming scenario.
As an aside, I have to give the kid props, he’s sleeping so much better these days, which means we’re all getting much more sleep and the bags I’ve had under my eyes since he was a newborn are starting to fade slightly. But of course, all bets are off at the cabin. AND THEN Mother Nature has to throw a curveball at us, take away our blessed electricity so that it’s dark and scary. We were night-light-less and worst of all, without our beloved fan for white noise.
Gus wouldn’t go to sleep at first, he was understandably freaked out, and those walls are so thin, he could hear everyone loud and clear in the next room. We finally resigned to just hang out with him until he passed out. Reading books on the couch, chatting with my brother and his wife. After 10:00 we finally went to bed, mostly out of boredom, and of course the night went better than expected. I freely admit that I tend to overreact, anticipate the worst, and blow things out of proportion in my mind. I can be a real peach to live with sometimes.
Anyway, we remembered that we had brought this battery-powered portable ipod docking station, so we put Jack Johnson’s Curious George album on repeat and prayed for the batteries to magically never die. What’s amazing? They didn’t until 6:00 AM. Of course I barely got any sleep, because I would wake up every hour, look at the time on my phone, and be amazed that an hour had passed and the music was still going. Then I would convince myself that it was about to die… any second now, and Gus would be awake screaming, and he would NEVER go back to sleep with the deafening silence! Surely we were doomed! So I would just lay there, waiting, listening, afraid to even move and cause the bed to creak. Surely then he would wake up and we would be doomed!
Freak.
We were not doomed. The sun came up, and life seemed much more manageable.
Still, I was pissed and annoyed that the $130 of food I had purchased the day before was busy going bad in the refrigerator, and all of our phones were nearly dead so we couldn’t sit on hold with the power company to find out when we might have electricity again. We went into town for breakfast and it was crazy packed, because seemingly everyone outside of town was out of power, and there was talk that it could be anywhere between 3-5 days.
I was ready to pack up the car and head home the second I heard that, but cooler heads prevailed, and instead we ran some errands. We bought a power adapter thing for the car to charge our phones, a battery-powered radio to play static while Gus took his nap, more batteries for the flashlights, ice so we could save some of our food in coolers, and gallons of water to do dishes with (the water at the cabin is from a well, which is pumped by electricity, thus, I was not even able to wash my face that morning).
And we managed, and it wasn’t a bad day at all. And I read half of my book that afternoon lying out in the sun. In hindsight it was actually beyond lovely. The worst was just in the not knowing how long we’d be without power. My brother says it’s because I’m a woman and we worry about things that are out of our control. Yes, it’s insulting that he’s making a broad stereotype about women like that, but seriously, OF COURSE I worry about things that are beyond my control! I want to control everything! Everything would spiral out of control if I couldn’t, well, control it!
He may have me pegged.
Well as I alluded to at the beginning of all this, power was back on by the time we had dinner on the table. A few hours before we saw a couple trucks from the electric company drive past, and I did a little happy dance, and relented my earlier stance that if we didn’t have power by evening we were packing up and heading back to the city. Clearly they were working on it, and it was only a matter of time, and my need to control the situation in the only way that was possible started to subside.
The rest of the weekend was just perfection… beautiful weather, a happy little swimming toddler, blowing bubbles, tranquil boat rides, laughs around the camp fire, card games, sitting in the water with a good book for two hours. Funny how none of those things involve electricity, but still I let myself get so worked up about being forced to go without it.
Was this weekend just one big lesson about going with the flow, making the best of things, not sweating the small stuff, and all of those kinds of clichés?
Hmmm… maybe. Cruel lesson Mother Nature. Not. Cool.
(I'll be back tomorrow with pictures, still have to get them off my camera.)
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
We've been busy
But not really, busy, per se. More like eating playdough.
(Not me.)
(Well maybe just a little, just to figure out why he's so obsessed with shoveling the stuff in. Because he makes the most horrible "yuk" face, but then just goes to town on it again as soon as I fish it out of his mouth. I still don't get it.)
Playing in the backyard.
Going for long walks, drinking iced coffee.
Running amok at the playground.
Just life.
For as crappy of a spring we've had here in Minnesota this year, we've been having a lot of fun. Life with a toddler is pretty awesome.
I'd like to get back here, hope to find time this week to write.
(Not me.)
(Well maybe just a little, just to figure out why he's so obsessed with shoveling the stuff in. Because he makes the most horrible "yuk" face, but then just goes to town on it again as soon as I fish it out of his mouth. I still don't get it.)
Playing in the backyard.
Going for long walks, drinking iced coffee.
Running amok at the playground.
Just life.
For as crappy of a spring we've had here in Minnesota this year, we've been having a lot of fun. Life with a toddler is pretty awesome.
I'd like to get back here, hope to find time this week to write.
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Vintage Gus...
...with his first girlfriend, Isla.
Such little chubby-cheeked punkins. I am thinking about the baby days these days, and missing them. It just went too fast. Life just goes too fast.
Except in the winter, after the holidays are over. Life really slows down then, when we're all wishing for spring. Thank God for April.
Such little chubby-cheeked punkins. I am thinking about the baby days these days, and missing them. It just went too fast. Life just goes too fast.
Except in the winter, after the holidays are over. Life really slows down then, when we're all wishing for spring. Thank God for April.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Life... according to my phone
I could go on and on about how much my new smart phone has changed my life, it's like when we got a DVR years ago, a whole new world opened up before my eyes. I mean, EVERYTHING is at my fingertips, I can barely comprehend what I did without it, and it's only been a few months!
I know, so cliche. But seriously. I have become one of those annoying people who is always messing with her phone. Because it is just that awesome. I'm sure it'll lose it's appeal a little bit as times goes, and I'll get less annoying.
Well since I finally got with the times and upgraded to said life-changing smart phone, I have pretty much stopped taking pictures with a real camera. So the tale goes, I never have my camera with me, but always have my phone.
Anyway, thought I'd finally get a bunch of random pictures off my phone, so I'm sharing here. They are not great pictures, obviously, but it's fun to look back and see what we've been up to. Lots of random, but lovely moments in life that have been captured, because of my new, awesome, life-changing cell phone.
Ok, when I was pregnant we got a huge bin of Thomas train stuff (probably worth $500+) from my old boss, and Gus is totally into them these days, as this picture from some Saturday morning a few weeks back suggests. Really, he's just hardcore into trains of any kind.
Big news this week is that he has finally moved on from saying Beep Beep! when referring to his beloved trains. The back story on that is, that I think my mom taught him Beep Beep! The same woman who also once pointed to an animal in a book that she was reading to Gus and asked me what it was. When, incredulously, I told her that it was an, um.... giraffe, she replied, "Oh yeah, that's right, I get those and zebras mixed up!"
Yeah, we had a good laugh about that, I love my mom. But needless to say, sometimes she gets things wrong, and while we can chalk up the giraffe/zebra mix-up to the theory that animals may not be her strong suit, I think we can also all agree that trains, decidedly, do NOT say Beep Beep!
Anyway, like I was saying, Gus now says his own toddler-ized version of chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-CHOO CHOO! It is, without a doubt, the most adorable thing ever, and I dare you to find something cuter. Other moms, we'll just have to agree to disagree if you think your kid does anything cuter than mine. ;)
We've hung out at the library a couple times during this looooooong never ending winter, and Gus just loves it, they have an amazing children's section, with loads of educational toys, puzzles, and set-ups, and of course, books. It's fantastic, though we were there on Monday, and I don't think I'll be going on Mondays at 10:30 anymore, because it was insanely packed due to toddler story-time. As wonderful and hilarious and cute as they are, that many young children (mainly, other people's children) in one setting, stresses me out.
As you can see, this picture was taken pre baby's first haircut, back when my boy still had a lovely little mullet.
This girl doesn't get a lot of blog-attention these days, but she is doing just fine. She's as sick of winter as the rest of us, but she suffers silently. Such a good dog, and seriously, I can't say enough how proud I am of how well she's taken to having a baby, and now a toddler take over our household. She just loves Gus, and though she certainly gets less attention from us than she did when she was considered the baby of the house, I think she prefers this life with him in it.
Oh goodness, is there anything sweeter than a sleeping child? Usually we stay as far away as we can from Gus's room during nap time, but that day we had to wake him up to go somewhere. I couldn't resist snapping a photo.
At the park. Sure doesn't look like spring does it? Whatever, so tired of feeling cooped up.
Bucket head! Gus plays peek-a-boo wherever, whenever he can, using whatever props he has available to him.
In our backyard, playing fetch with Bella.
His dad came home from work last Friday with cupcakes from Cupcake! Yum. He got Gus a Banana Fluffernutter cupcake, because it had banana in the name, and bananas are Gus's absolute FAVORITE thing in the whole wide world. I don't think Dan realized that fluffernutter implied peanut butter filling and marshmallow frosting. We were both a bit turned off by the combination, but Gus clearly enjoyed it.
We hit up the model train museum last Saturday, and it was a huge hit.
Gus just kept saying, over and over, WOWWWW! when a train would go by. We had a blast, and I have to say, doing stuff like this with your very own kid is simply, really freaking awesome. Showing them things for the first time, watching them be amazed and excited, seeing their little pint-size wheels spinning, well it's exciting and rewarding to be a part of it.
I know, this picture is frightening, with my blurry ghost-like head in the background, and Dan's face lit up green by the sun. But whatever, it is hilarious. We were at Costco and, without us even realizing, Gus snatched up this unripened pear from our cart while we were shopping. He was extremely proud of himself and after refusing to give it up, he continued to gnaw on it while we checked out, hit up the liquor store, as we got him in the car seat, and then throughout the entire drive home. It kept him quite content actually.
Ok, these are really random, but I liked my outfit that day, was excited for my new oxford shoes, and was kind of obsessed with the fact that I was wearing a wool blazer. For some reason I felt very 80's collegiate in my blazer and wine corduroys. Or very Jessi Spano. I dunno.
Blazer! Ok, now I'm obsessed with saying it.
I know, so cliche. But seriously. I have become one of those annoying people who is always messing with her phone. Because it is just that awesome. I'm sure it'll lose it's appeal a little bit as times goes, and I'll get less annoying.
Well since I finally got with the times and upgraded to said life-changing smart phone, I have pretty much stopped taking pictures with a real camera. So the tale goes, I never have my camera with me, but always have my phone.
Anyway, thought I'd finally get a bunch of random pictures off my phone, so I'm sharing here. They are not great pictures, obviously, but it's fun to look back and see what we've been up to. Lots of random, but lovely moments in life that have been captured, because of my new, awesome, life-changing cell phone.
Ok, when I was pregnant we got a huge bin of Thomas train stuff (probably worth $500+) from my old boss, and Gus is totally into them these days, as this picture from some Saturday morning a few weeks back suggests. Really, he's just hardcore into trains of any kind.
Big news this week is that he has finally moved on from saying Beep Beep! when referring to his beloved trains. The back story on that is, that I think my mom taught him Beep Beep! The same woman who also once pointed to an animal in a book that she was reading to Gus and asked me what it was. When, incredulously, I told her that it was an, um.... giraffe, she replied, "Oh yeah, that's right, I get those and zebras mixed up!"
Yeah, we had a good laugh about that, I love my mom. But needless to say, sometimes she gets things wrong, and while we can chalk up the giraffe/zebra mix-up to the theory that animals may not be her strong suit, I think we can also all agree that trains, decidedly, do NOT say Beep Beep!
Anyway, like I was saying, Gus now says his own toddler-ized version of chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-CHOO CHOO! It is, without a doubt, the most adorable thing ever, and I dare you to find something cuter. Other moms, we'll just have to agree to disagree if you think your kid does anything cuter than mine. ;)
We've hung out at the library a couple times during this looooooong never ending winter, and Gus just loves it, they have an amazing children's section, with loads of educational toys, puzzles, and set-ups, and of course, books. It's fantastic, though we were there on Monday, and I don't think I'll be going on Mondays at 10:30 anymore, because it was insanely packed due to toddler story-time. As wonderful and hilarious and cute as they are, that many young children (mainly, other people's children) in one setting, stresses me out.
As you can see, this picture was taken pre baby's first haircut, back when my boy still had a lovely little mullet.
This girl doesn't get a lot of blog-attention these days, but she is doing just fine. She's as sick of winter as the rest of us, but she suffers silently. Such a good dog, and seriously, I can't say enough how proud I am of how well she's taken to having a baby, and now a toddler take over our household. She just loves Gus, and though she certainly gets less attention from us than she did when she was considered the baby of the house, I think she prefers this life with him in it.
Oh goodness, is there anything sweeter than a sleeping child? Usually we stay as far away as we can from Gus's room during nap time, but that day we had to wake him up to go somewhere. I couldn't resist snapping a photo.
At the park. Sure doesn't look like spring does it? Whatever, so tired of feeling cooped up.
Bucket head! Gus plays peek-a-boo wherever, whenever he can, using whatever props he has available to him.
In our backyard, playing fetch with Bella.
His dad came home from work last Friday with cupcakes from Cupcake! Yum. He got Gus a Banana Fluffernutter cupcake, because it had banana in the name, and bananas are Gus's absolute FAVORITE thing in the whole wide world. I don't think Dan realized that fluffernutter implied peanut butter filling and marshmallow frosting. We were both a bit turned off by the combination, but Gus clearly enjoyed it.
We hit up the model train museum last Saturday, and it was a huge hit.
Gus just kept saying, over and over, WOWWWW! when a train would go by. We had a blast, and I have to say, doing stuff like this with your very own kid is simply, really freaking awesome. Showing them things for the first time, watching them be amazed and excited, seeing their little pint-size wheels spinning, well it's exciting and rewarding to be a part of it.
I know, this picture is frightening, with my blurry ghost-like head in the background, and Dan's face lit up green by the sun. But whatever, it is hilarious. We were at Costco and, without us even realizing, Gus snatched up this unripened pear from our cart while we were shopping. He was extremely proud of himself and after refusing to give it up, he continued to gnaw on it while we checked out, hit up the liquor store, as we got him in the car seat, and then throughout the entire drive home. It kept him quite content actually.
Ok, these are really random, but I liked my outfit that day, was excited for my new oxford shoes, and was kind of obsessed with the fact that I was wearing a wool blazer. For some reason I felt very 80's collegiate in my blazer and wine corduroys. Or very Jessi Spano. I dunno.
Blazer! Ok, now I'm obsessed with saying it.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
We just do
People ask me how I can stand it. The sleep deprivation. The every-other-hour wakings. I mean 18 months of this! How have you survived? I can’t believe he’s STILL NOT SLEEPING THROUGH THE NIGHT!
I know they mean well, but that doesn’t help. The incredulousness, the pity, mixed with undertones of, they must be doing something wrong…
After really bad nights, I start to believe them. He’s a walking, talking, happy little toddler. Why doesn’t he sleep like he’s supposed to? Why can’t he be normal? And I hate that I let that crap in every once in a while, because really? For the most part, we’re cool with it. We joke around, we’re self-deprecating, and I suppose it comes up in conversation. Because sleep seems to be like, the most important topic when you have children. But whatever. This is our life, we roll with the punches, we love our son so much, and truly? It’s only been 18 months. Of a LIFETIME. His lifetime. Our lifetime. He was a baby for like what, a year? Not even. It was gone like that, before I even realized it, that bald head was covered in scraggly blonde hair and those squishy little sausages he had for legs were walking (running) him all over his little world, which was just getting bigger and bigger by the day.
I feel like toddlerhood is just the same, fleeting, and I’m not going to get hung up on trying to make him sleep like we want him to sleep, because I truly think it’ll happen eventually. I’m not going to waste these precious days on sleep training, and I’m not going to get so obsessed with having a perfect sleep schedule that I have to constantly refuse invitations for family gatherings where Gus so joyfully participates in trouble-making amongst his numerous cousins and aunts and uncles.
He’s been sleeping a lot better over the last few weeks, after pushing through 2 of the 4 eye-teeth he’s been working on. (His poor gums are big giant puffs of redness.) A few nights ago he only woke up once, at midnight, then afterwards slept six hours straight. Not going to lie, it was glorious.
For some reason, that night when he awoke at midnight, he was so alert and wide awake, his big blue eyes staring into mine. We snuggled together in the rocker, and he pointed at things throughout the dark room, his sweet voice, jabbering on, telling me things in his own little language that I couldn’t understand. But I insisted with him that it was nighttime, and we needed to go back to sleep. So he laid his head on my chest and spent about fifteen minutes trying to get comfortable, changing positions, turning his head. He would sit up and look at me, then reach his arms around my neck and pull me in for tiny kisses, then lay his head back down.
Oh the sweetness. I held him long after he fell asleep, his delicious little head in the crook of my neck, still smelling of bath time. It was one of those moments… where I thought… if this is wrong, well then screw them, no this is perfect.
Of course I wish he slept better, but no, I don’t think we’re doing anything wrong. I think I have a sensitive little boy who wants his mama or daddy when he wakes up all alone in the middle of the night. Sometimes he chooses to go back to sleep on his own, but most of the time, no. He wants one of us.
We have a little boy who doesn’t brush off things like teething or sickness like they’re nothing. No, he needs help. He demands help. On those nights he gets up constantly, and he wants someone near him when he wakes up in pain. I do not love it. And sometimes I drag my tired body into his room and grumble under my breath in frustration. But he’s only been alive for 18 months, and I’m not going to expect him to be able to handle those things on his own. Sure, it’d be nice if he could, but I’m not going to push him. And I’m his mom, I brought him into this world, and I just can’t let him fend for himself when he so clearly tells me that he needs me.
Yeah, he needs me a lot at night. But in the morning, he is an exuberant, independent, and ferociously funny little boy. He is a blur in almost every picture I take. He climbs up on coffee tables and dances and cackles until you drag him off. He jabbers on and on, tells us jokes and long stories about trucks. Dan will draw him little pictures and he tells us what they are. Bus! Stop! Aaaps (Apple)! Ask him where something is in a book, and he points, “There it is!” He dances and jumps all over the house. He laughs and laughs as you sing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and then pounces and attacks you in a fit of giggles when you put your arms up in the air singing, “Out came the sun and…”. (Sometimes we do not know why he does the things he does.)
He is a normal 18 month old. And maybe there are a lot of normal 18 month olds out there who don’t sleep very well, like our little guy. Maybe people just don’t talk about it? Maybe they all cry themselves to sleep? I don’t know. Whatever. He’s happy, growing, learning, and constantly changing. And so are we. We’re not just “surviving”, like I think people sometimes believe. We don't deserve a "medal". We’re living and laughing and smiling and having adventures every day. And at this point, we're quite used to doing it all on little sleep!
I know they mean well, but that doesn’t help. The incredulousness, the pity, mixed with undertones of, they must be doing something wrong…
After really bad nights, I start to believe them. He’s a walking, talking, happy little toddler. Why doesn’t he sleep like he’s supposed to? Why can’t he be normal? And I hate that I let that crap in every once in a while, because really? For the most part, we’re cool with it. We joke around, we’re self-deprecating, and I suppose it comes up in conversation. Because sleep seems to be like, the most important topic when you have children. But whatever. This is our life, we roll with the punches, we love our son so much, and truly? It’s only been 18 months. Of a LIFETIME. His lifetime. Our lifetime. He was a baby for like what, a year? Not even. It was gone like that, before I even realized it, that bald head was covered in scraggly blonde hair and those squishy little sausages he had for legs were walking (running) him all over his little world, which was just getting bigger and bigger by the day.
I feel like toddlerhood is just the same, fleeting, and I’m not going to get hung up on trying to make him sleep like we want him to sleep, because I truly think it’ll happen eventually. I’m not going to waste these precious days on sleep training, and I’m not going to get so obsessed with having a perfect sleep schedule that I have to constantly refuse invitations for family gatherings where Gus so joyfully participates in trouble-making amongst his numerous cousins and aunts and uncles.
He’s been sleeping a lot better over the last few weeks, after pushing through 2 of the 4 eye-teeth he’s been working on. (His poor gums are big giant puffs of redness.) A few nights ago he only woke up once, at midnight, then afterwards slept six hours straight. Not going to lie, it was glorious.
For some reason, that night when he awoke at midnight, he was so alert and wide awake, his big blue eyes staring into mine. We snuggled together in the rocker, and he pointed at things throughout the dark room, his sweet voice, jabbering on, telling me things in his own little language that I couldn’t understand. But I insisted with him that it was nighttime, and we needed to go back to sleep. So he laid his head on my chest and spent about fifteen minutes trying to get comfortable, changing positions, turning his head. He would sit up and look at me, then reach his arms around my neck and pull me in for tiny kisses, then lay his head back down.
Oh the sweetness. I held him long after he fell asleep, his delicious little head in the crook of my neck, still smelling of bath time. It was one of those moments… where I thought… if this is wrong, well then screw them, no this is perfect.
Of course I wish he slept better, but no, I don’t think we’re doing anything wrong. I think I have a sensitive little boy who wants his mama or daddy when he wakes up all alone in the middle of the night. Sometimes he chooses to go back to sleep on his own, but most of the time, no. He wants one of us.
We have a little boy who doesn’t brush off things like teething or sickness like they’re nothing. No, he needs help. He demands help. On those nights he gets up constantly, and he wants someone near him when he wakes up in pain. I do not love it. And sometimes I drag my tired body into his room and grumble under my breath in frustration. But he’s only been alive for 18 months, and I’m not going to expect him to be able to handle those things on his own. Sure, it’d be nice if he could, but I’m not going to push him. And I’m his mom, I brought him into this world, and I just can’t let him fend for himself when he so clearly tells me that he needs me.
Yeah, he needs me a lot at night. But in the morning, he is an exuberant, independent, and ferociously funny little boy. He is a blur in almost every picture I take. He climbs up on coffee tables and dances and cackles until you drag him off. He jabbers on and on, tells us jokes and long stories about trucks. Dan will draw him little pictures and he tells us what they are. Bus! Stop! Aaaps (Apple)! Ask him where something is in a book, and he points, “There it is!” He dances and jumps all over the house. He laughs and laughs as you sing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and then pounces and attacks you in a fit of giggles when you put your arms up in the air singing, “Out came the sun and…”. (Sometimes we do not know why he does the things he does.)
He is a normal 18 month old. And maybe there are a lot of normal 18 month olds out there who don’t sleep very well, like our little guy. Maybe people just don’t talk about it? Maybe they all cry themselves to sleep? I don’t know. Whatever. He’s happy, growing, learning, and constantly changing. And so are we. We’re not just “surviving”, like I think people sometimes believe. We don't deserve a "medal". We’re living and laughing and smiling and having adventures every day. And at this point, we're quite used to doing it all on little sleep!
Thursday, March 24, 2011
On my ineptitude in the kitchen
Our refrigerator is barren… and in that I don’t mean that it can’t get pregnant. I’m talking about the other kind of barren. It is desolate, bleak, and deserted (according to my thesaurus). Really, we are in desperate need of a trip to the market, but that has proven to be an impossible task this week. Between a lovely late-March snowstorm and fitting in a long-overdue oil change on our car Tuesday… it just hasn’t happened. Maybe tonight? Oh if there were only a few more hours in each day.
I hate getting home after work at 6:00 and scrambling to get something on the table by 6:30. HATE. I think it probably goes without saying, but a pretty big part of having children means you’re in charge of feeding them, and it just feels inappropriate to have cereal or ice cream for dinner. At least until Gus is a little older. So anyway, poor me, it is the cross I bear.
On days that Dan’s not around, I am so that mom who runs around putting together a balanced meal for her 18 month-old that includes multiple fresh fruits/veggies, a form of protein, and some sort of whole grain, and then sits down and eats an orange and a bag of microwave popcorn whilst he feasts.
Yeah, I know. That’s not going to fly for much longer, as Gus gets older I think he may start to revolt against a system that involves broccoli for him, and Starburst jelly beans for me.
So we try to eat meals as a family as much as possible, preferably most of the same things, and especially at dinnertime. But yeah on those three nights a week after which I’ve worked 9 hours (especially after a busy weekend that did not involve grocery shopping)? Blergh.
I must say, after this loooooong winter, (right? it has seemed exceptionally long hasn’t it?), Gus has become quite the little connoisseur of take-out. Granted, (disclaimer!) we always supplement these meals with fresh fruits and veggies from our refrigerator, but seriously the child could eat his weight in chow mein, vegetable fried rice, chicken curry gyros, saffron rice, cilantro lime rice with black beans, and mostaccioli.
I am not proud.
On the other hand, he will turn his nose up at pizza, or anything that resembles a chicken nugget or fast-food sandwich. Go figure. But I can’t really take credit for that. Toddlers are weird and they have their own ideas about pretty much everything, don’t they?
Sooooo even though I have no idea what we are going to eat with it, I will take this opportunity to brag a little that I had the where-with-all to defrost a pork roast earlier this week, and actually threw it in the crockpot (slow-cooker?) before I left for work. I had to put my cell phone on top of the crockpot last night to make sure I would actually remember to do it this morning, and that did the trick.
And it has been lovely going about my day without that sense of DREAD about what we will make for dinner. It has been decided! The crockpot is a wonderful thing isn’t it? I should really take advantage of its awesomeness much more often, but again that would involve some foresight and meal planning, which you may have gathered by now is not really how I roll.
I fear the poor dog has felt tortured all day, with the smell of onions and peppers and meat wafting throughout the house. Don’t pity her too much, though, I’m sure she’ll get her share tonight during dinner, via the tiny hands of her favorite little toddler. Oh I can’t wait to kiss his cheeks, just a few more hours…
I hate getting home after work at 6:00 and scrambling to get something on the table by 6:30. HATE. I think it probably goes without saying, but a pretty big part of having children means you’re in charge of feeding them, and it just feels inappropriate to have cereal or ice cream for dinner. At least until Gus is a little older. So anyway, poor me, it is the cross I bear.
On days that Dan’s not around, I am so that mom who runs around putting together a balanced meal for her 18 month-old that includes multiple fresh fruits/veggies, a form of protein, and some sort of whole grain, and then sits down and eats an orange and a bag of microwave popcorn whilst he feasts.
Yeah, I know. That’s not going to fly for much longer, as Gus gets older I think he may start to revolt against a system that involves broccoli for him, and Starburst jelly beans for me.
So we try to eat meals as a family as much as possible, preferably most of the same things, and especially at dinnertime. But yeah on those three nights a week after which I’ve worked 9 hours (especially after a busy weekend that did not involve grocery shopping)? Blergh.
I must say, after this loooooong winter, (right? it has seemed exceptionally long hasn’t it?), Gus has become quite the little connoisseur of take-out. Granted, (disclaimer!) we always supplement these meals with fresh fruits and veggies from our refrigerator, but seriously the child could eat his weight in chow mein, vegetable fried rice, chicken curry gyros, saffron rice, cilantro lime rice with black beans, and mostaccioli.
I am not proud.
On the other hand, he will turn his nose up at pizza, or anything that resembles a chicken nugget or fast-food sandwich. Go figure. But I can’t really take credit for that. Toddlers are weird and they have their own ideas about pretty much everything, don’t they?
Sooooo even though I have no idea what we are going to eat with it, I will take this opportunity to brag a little that I had the where-with-all to defrost a pork roast earlier this week, and actually threw it in the crockpot (slow-cooker?) before I left for work. I had to put my cell phone on top of the crockpot last night to make sure I would actually remember to do it this morning, and that did the trick.
And it has been lovely going about my day without that sense of DREAD about what we will make for dinner. It has been decided! The crockpot is a wonderful thing isn’t it? I should really take advantage of its awesomeness much more often, but again that would involve some foresight and meal planning, which you may have gathered by now is not really how I roll.
I fear the poor dog has felt tortured all day, with the smell of onions and peppers and meat wafting throughout the house. Don’t pity her too much, though, I’m sure she’ll get her share tonight during dinner, via the tiny hands of her favorite little toddler. Oh I can’t wait to kiss his cheeks, just a few more hours…
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