My Try's

Oh friends, how I have neglected thee!

I have been as busy as a one armed paper hanger (did any of your mothers every use that analogy?)

But as the year comes to a close, I find myself missing the camaraderie of blogging and the connections I have made with so many of you lovely folks.

So I am going to return to blogging, hopefully on a more than once a month basis as I now have about 35 pounds to lose, 2 girls scout troops to manage, and a quarter of a marathon to run in April.

I was reminded last week by one of my cousins who reads the blog (hi Jen!) that I have people out there who care about my ramblings and are heartened by the real life non-sense I share here in this forum.

So with my brand new camera, a membership to the gym and a tablet for at home blogging, I am just about ready to do 2014 up right.

I figured a good way to start would be to make a list of things I want to do this year. so here are my Trys, because I don't like the finality of a resolution and really I am trying my best, so here's what I am trying to do this year.

1. Lose the 35 pounds that I have gained over the last 2.5 years.
2. Complete training for the quarter marathon.
3. Have dates with my babies, one each month.
4. Date my husband.
5. Go apple picking in the fall
6. Attend Brew-fest with Erin (awww-yeah)
7. Do up Halloween big.
8. Host a Thanksgiving meal at my house.
9. Make Christmas Cookies
10. Go swimming more.
11. Build a fire pit and pergola in my yard
12. complete the 52 week money challenge.
13. Do the Mud Run event for the MS society (if they have it)

I'll eventually make a page to track these things, as well as the 5 pounds incentives I am going to be giving myself as I lose each increment.

aaaaannnnnndddd....PINK EYE FOR EVERYONE!

What the french!?!?

If Darwin had an ounce of a clue of what he was talking about, pregnancy would start an internal chain reaction that would turn a mothers body into the immune equivalent of the incredible hulk. impervious to colds, stomach bugs and able to blast out germs simply by breathing on the children.

ME HEALTHY

But no, that's not how it goes.
Let me go over the awesome that has occurred in my life for last few days.

Friday: Pumpkin waked up with a goopy eye. Just one eye, easy enough to treat but we all know that it's never that simple. So I call and get drops for her goopyness and head to my Mom's for a black Friday shopping day protest which involved corned beef (yum!) and wine (thank god)

Saturday: (very early) Jammer wakes up and has a fever and can't breathe. I give him tylenol and feed him when he cries but he never really wakes up for the whole day (cue frantic mommy). So at about 3 pm I take him to urgent care where they give him a once over and send me to the pediatric ER where they poke, prod, cath and xray my little guy to discover....nothing. They send me home and say if he gets worse to bring him back. I arrive home to find that Doodle has had a very long, very late nap and is not interested in bed time (joy) and proceed to be awakened every half hour all night by one or the other of my boys.

Sunday: after about 3.4 hours of sleep (that's cumulative, through the whole night) I get up and continue taking care of my tiny guy who feels worse than yesterday. He wakes up crying...with no sound coming out. His throat is so raw that when he gets hungry and starts squalling he cant make a sound that I can hear, although I bet the dog down the street was going biserk. Almost as soon as she got out of bed, Sunshine develops goopy eyes and her face starts getting puffy, like someone has been using her beautiful baby blues as punching bags. so she starts crying and I send her back to bed. I go to the grocery store, sans children and when I arrive home Doodle also has crap running out of his eyes. (cue mental breakdown) so I call the after hours emergency number and the nurse, who was very kind, called in a script for drops for both kids. So I'm at CVS at 8pm on a Sunday waiting for two sets of drops with a toddler who looks like a prize fighter and nursing a 9 week old who can't make noise when he cries. (winning at motherhood, right here)

Monday: Jammer's eyes begin leaking green crap, WHAT!?!? (after a short period of fetal postion crying and wailing) I call the doctor, again; and go to the pharmacy, again; and now every eye in my house is being treated with antibiotics, except mine. It's really only a matter of time until I start goobing green crap from one or both of my eyes, but in the meantime I am going to withdraw my life savings and retirement account and invest it in research to create an antibacterial bomb that will instantly sanitize the entire house.

cause

ew

Full of Awesome

Hello World,

I have returned from the land of "I just had a baby", after taking a slight detour into "I'm so freaking pregnant" I sat for a bit in "Aww lookit the baby!!!" crossed through the desert of "How many days left of maternity leave" and come out in the real world just in time to realize that I HAVE 4 CHILDREN!!!!!

Sweet green jumping jesus, mothering four children is not for wimps. It's work.

And not like my day job, where I sit at a desk and drink coffee and type things and go to lunch.

It's hard work.

It's:
I'm Hungry
WAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa
She hit me
I'm to tired to go to school
but I don't want cheerios
"so help me if you don't put your fracking shoes on"
we missed the bus
my boobs are leaking at a work lunch meeting
WAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Pointing at cheerios and screaming
"Mommy, Doodle fell of the couch"
But I hate meatloaf
I know you have an infant stuck to your boob but I need a snuggle right now.
WAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I'm hungry
i'm thirsty
I hate Walmart
Why don't we ever do anything fun
"Why is there cereal stuck to my hair"
Why are you so bossy
Mommy, I know that 2+2 equals 4
Can you read this?
Why can't we got to chuck e cheese for dinner
WAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Babe, did you cook anything?
I'm Hungry
Where are my work pants
WAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Snort, sneeze, sniffle, sneeze...........ewww
Why don't you have a diaper on?
Mommy, I want to go to the city and go in the sewer to meet the ninja turtles
Why can't we have a dog
HOLY GOD who gave the toddler a marker!?!?!
WWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
No, you cannot walk to grannie's house. 
dah! dah! dah! dah! dah! dah!

from 7:30 am to 9:30 pm every, single day.

It's work.

But I'm still pretty happy about it, even if it's hard. I love every hard, wonderful, awful, breathtaking, infuriating, amazing minute of my incredibly blessed life.

And Baby Pictures...

Doodle and Jammer

Samuel James 8lbs,8oz

Ninja Mommy and Jammer

Sweet Baby

Week 35: Boobs, Braxton-Hicks and Babies

So August is apparently national breast feeding awareness month. I've read several other blogs on the topic and I'm not going to re-hash what others have said better. I will say that I feed my kids when they are hungry, I don't go into the bathroom and I'm not embarrassed to sit in a restaurant, mall, doctors office or national sporting event and feed my kid the way god and nature intended us to feed our kids. When Hooters closes, Victoria's secret stops having fashion shows and people in general start wearing a whole lot more clothing, I might move to a more secluded spot, until then, tough titties, you don't want to see someone using boobs for what they exist to do, don't look.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

I'm having tons of braxton-hicks contractions. they are not painful but they do remind me that time is growing short and I am woefully unprepared for the insanity that is headed my way. This week I got the baby clothes sorted from Doodle and re-arranged the nursery to make way for Squirt's crib. I still have so much to do before he gets here. My spare room is a little wild since we are still not fully able to use the master closet. I still have a giant pile of craft crap that needs a home and am in the midst of attempting to set up a munch craft space somewhere in the house. As far as baby items, we have mostly everything we need. The crib is not imperative prior to him coming home because he'll sleep in the bassinet for the first few weeks anyway. everything else is ready and in place.

I've  been having the girls lug, load, transition, fold and put away their own laundry each week which has significantly cut down on my work load. They each have their own basket and when it's full they do laundry. Then they put it away and All I have to do is supervise. It's kinda nice.Our house is cleaner than it has ever been. Seems like Jeeves has gotten the nesting bug too and we are both cleaning like mad. He tends to over mop and go a little vacuum crazy while I tend to organize so I can find things when I need them. Soon there will be no "catch all" area where crap gets piled. I'm slowly liquidating the crap and if it doesn't have a place, it doesn't stay in the house. Either the shed, the dumpster or the goodwill get it.  

Oh, I am tired. nature tends to help mom to be get ready for the sleepless nights that follow giving birth by in-acting a late term insomnia on some women. The only problem with that is that nature is also preparing my body to make milk for Squirt by releasing large amounts of prolactin, which makes you sleepy among other things. I'm starting to slur my words and think that I'm hallucination when Doodles toys start making noises in the toy box with no one touching them. The Toy Story music song book is the worst because the music it plays in the middle of the night is a little jarring and creepy.

Wait...I said what?

The life of a mother is never dull, and to illustrate that point, here are some statements that I have actually made recently.

-Where are you underwear? (we were at walmart)

-Why does your brother smell like perfume?

-Cupcakes are not dinner unless you are in college.

-Stop chasing people to put stickers on them.

-Oh god, why are you wet?

-Everyone in church doesn't need to see your underwear (thank god she was wearing them)

-If you don't get your hands out of your sleeves I'm going to cut them off, your hands, not the sleeves.

-You don't get to be the boss until you pay the bills.

-Your sister doesn't need another mom, hush.

-Your brother is not a dog, stop whistling at him.

-Why is your face purple?

-If you make that noise again I'm going to cancel Christmas.

-Dude, you smell.

-Hey, no more underwear jokes until you remember to put them on every morning.

-nope, keep running, you have enough energy to run in my house; you can keep doing laps around the yard.

-the next person who giggles doesn't get to have a birthday next year.

You mean we have pee again?

As I may have mentioned, I live with two skinny, sassy little girls and am currently pregnant. What may not be obvious about this situation is that these two separate circumstances equate to an enormous amount of time being spent in bathrooms. On the occasions where I am also hanging out with one of my three nieces, the bathroom traffic increases to nearly rush hour levels.

For instance, during a grocery/school shopping trip last week with my two soon to be students and mother I was in the bathroom at Walmart 4 times. We were in the store for less than an hour. Shut the front door!
While I appreciate the clean factor and non-creepiness of the Walmart bathrooms, I am a little miffed about spending so much time in there. It's weird that I know which stall has a working lock AND and hook so your purse doesn't have to sit on the floor.

Additionally my soon to be born son has taken a liking to waking me up 3-4 times a night with swift kicks to the bladder that both hurt and have me hobbling to the bathroom like an arthritic moose, trying not to wet myself and hoping that none of the other three hear me awake and think it's party time, (I'm looking at you Doodle!)

It's summer, in Missouri, which means I'm gulping down fluids to keep dehydration from setting in and help my system not retain water which increases the bathroom trips as well. It also doesn't help that I want to eat water rich foods all the time. Watermelon, cucumbers, and celery are almost daily additions to my diet these days. Filling, full of fiber and cool they are perfect pregnant food. sort of.

So that's my life these days, tired, potty filled and more than a little irritated about having to be both productive and nice to the people around me. It's harder than you might think.

Baby Center? We Need to Talk...

I appreciate the weekly emails about the blood flow, poundage and fruit ratio of my little bean. But the supplementary emails that tout the benefits of pernieal massage and the evils of Ramen noodles and pizza rolls are damaging to my calm.

The 5 Worst foods during pregnancy?

Apparently one of them is lettuce.

For real, at the one point in your life when your doctor ought to be shouting to the heavens if you choose salad over an extra large chocolate coated cookie sandwich with frosting in the middle, and the baby center geniuses folks say, "Don't eat iceberg lettuce...." (pause for dramatic effect here)

Let's be honest folks, if you are eating a salad while pregnant and you were not Jillian Michael's prior to becoming pregnant there is a better than average chance that salad has any (or all) of the following heaped on top: steak, fried chicken, cheese, 8 cups of dressing, fruit, candied nuts, and maybe broccoli (you know, for fiber) and possibly the tears of the innocent. Come ON!

Like anyone gives a shit about the lack of "nutrient density" of the the vegetable they have chosen as a vessel for pepperoni, ranch and black olives before they begin shoving the accompanying pizza or fettuccine into their face. (I live in Missouri, and when you get a lunch serving of pizza or pasta it is typically accompanied by a salad with pepperoni and black olives, if that's weird to you, look up IMO's; educate yourself.)

Also on this list, frozen and pre-packaged lunch items. Those time saving, sodium packed bundles of disappointment that you turn to when going out is not an option and you forgot to pack your all natural, gluten free, free range, yada, yada mc-yada. Look, no one is choosing to eat the microwave stroganoff because they looked at a pantry full of other healthier options and thought, "Yep, I'm gonna increase my risk of cancer today,"

Let's give preggo, who is already nervous about birth, concerned about that last pre-pregnancy test cocktail, and feeling guilty for not microwaving her cold cut sandwich (cause, eww), a break.

Here's my philosophy, (unless you are craving dirt, clay and cigarette butts, in which case seek help) eat some food, feed your baby and relax because there's enough other crap to worry about each day. Didn't you read about how cell phones can cause your baby to be left handed...gasp! How am I going to troll pinterest and facebook in the bathroom now?

This is week 32, bring the snark!

Uncharted Territory: Pumpkin and Sunshine

My oldest turns 7 tomorrow. She starts 1st grade next week and then goes off to college...yeah I know it's not that fast but I feel the need to hold forth about the oddly disconcerting feeling that I am losing my "I've got this" style of parenting daughter that heretofore made them a joy to be around and people wanted to spend time with them.

They have so much attitude. just at the point where they are able to grasp multiple instructions and actually be helpful around the house, they also lose the ability to hear me speak. It like I'm speaking at dog whistle decibels and they are able to ignore me in ways that are both creative and insanely maddening.

Pumpkin she has apparently lost the desire to wear regular clothes, at 7. I could understand this at 3 or 4 but seriously, how many times do I need to tell one short person to go put something on to cover her ass when company is on the way over. She will wear the same pajamas for 3 days but ask her to find a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and it's lie you've just asked her to search for the holy grail with no camel or water. I have no idea how she makes her spine do that creepy slumping thing, but something must be broken in there for her shoulders to be that close to the ground and yet she still manages to remain upright.

She glares at me when I tell her to do things. Not hard things, any things...all the things. GLARES AT ME, like I've just told her she can never eat another cookie. Hate filled eyes of death, from a 7 year old. I'm not a violent person but this particular behavior makes me want to knock my eldest child into the middle of next week and then kick her ass on Thursday.

I put myself in time out, and look at baby pictures of her to remember the times when she wasn't an anxiety producing troll who seems to live to make me pull my hair out.

Sunshine has her own issues. She wants to help me and is very sweet to me still, but she also doesn't want to help in the ways I actually need help. She wants to cook on the stove and slice apples. I need her to pick up the messes she makes and help me with her brother's toys that are all over the floor because I can't bend over; thanks to my pinched and angry sciatic nerve. When she gets frustrated she whines and cries, like sobbing crying over not being able to find the open package of hot dogs because she wants to eat one.

Waiting is apparently super hard for her and we have at least 4 different "how many days" countdowns going on right now. One till the first day of school, on till the baby comes, Christmas-of course and one to her 6th birthday. She turned 5 in April, I don't see how that number of days even registers with someone who can't consistently count higher than 50.

She also has this seriously obnoxious habit of asking for things and after being told no she makes this, "aaaaawwwwww" sigh/moan/complain/almost cry noise that is the mommy equivalent of nails on the chalk board. I almost had a mental breakdown the other day because at 9:30 am when I told her she couldn't have a ring pop for breakfast she made the noise. I don't remember what happened for the next few minutes, I've sort of blocked them out. She ended up in her room for the better part of the morning, cleaning.
Because, I've decided that's better than spanking.

I don't feel guilty and the house is cleaner. Win-Win.

At this rate, with the snotty-ness being doled out by my daughters, no one is going to want to be around them, but I am going to have the cleanest house on the block.

"Oh you don't like being told to go to bed, that's fine, if you're awake feel free to sort the recycling, empty the dishwasher and straighten the den, I'm going to watch Ink Masters and eat ice cream."

Whizzing through the day

Not hypothetically, actually.

I began the day at the lab where in addition to the blood draw, I had to provide a urine sample, god only knows why.

Then on to the OB where I got to pee in yet another cup.

and later, I'll be going to the endocrinologist who'll no doubt ask me to pee in a cup.

Today is the day that I peed in cups across the entire county.

aren't you jealous?

Also, this happens to be my 500th post on this blog. Missed celebrating that milestone by hey, what can I say, I got shit to do.

More?

One of the things that I religiously teach and re-iterate to my munches is manners. Please, thank you, etc. One of the ways I do this when they are tiny is to teach important terms in sign language. More, Please, and Thank You are the first ones followed by eat, drink and help, all super easy.

It's the biggest deal when they start using the signs without prompting. Doodle was being super fussy last night and I asked him what he wanted. He put his tiny fingers together and did the sign for "More" which for him right now means he wants a drink of milk. I was so proud of him. He is 16 months old and is going to be a big brother in a couple of months. He is so sweet and such a boy. He makes me cry sometimes with how loving he is, giving hugs and then giant open mouth kisses that leave a bit soggy but feeling quite adored.

The past month has been trying for me, so I apologize for my lack of update. It's hot, I'm pregnant and I've been diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes. Not that I have any symptoms, or have gained a significant amount of weight, only 12 pounds to date (totally normal) I have an appointment with the fetal medicine specialist today and hopefully I will discover that my GD is mild and I won't need any medical interventions.

I've been crafting away, as per usual, and have some pics to share. I hope everyone out there in blog land is feeling healthy and staying cool. Niether is the case in my life these days but I see relief in sight, this baby will come at exactly the right time for me to be home and happy for the whole month of October, which if you remember is my favorite time of year, gonna be awesome, I can tell.

Here's some photos from the last month.

Heavy Topic: baby weight gain.

In the spirit of being completely honest, I am going to tell you my weight and that only because while I may not always be doing things right, today I am proud of this little win.

I am 25 weeks pregnant and from week 20 til now, I have only gained 1 pound. I went from 210 to 211 in the last 5 weeks and that's pretty great. I've gained a total of 12 pounds this pregnancy and if I stay in the healthy range of 25-30 lbs gained, I will also count that as a win. My blood pressure is good, my labs came back normal and in a few weeks I'll be doing the glucose screening to make sure that Twitch hasn't sent us into gestational diabetes hell. I'm healthy as a 30 year old pregnant chick can be.

If I gain 13-18 more pounds I will be right back where I started in 2010, too big for my own good and not at all happy with life.

But, and it's a big butt (no, i'm not just talking about my own) I will have had two babies in less than 3 years and managed to not have any complications aside from sciatica as a result. I hope to be able to lose the weight again, we will have to see when the time comes. Now is not the time to be thinking about weight loss, i realize that, but it's hovering in the back of my mind and I wish it didn't bug me, but it does.

Toddler + Pregnancy = Problems

I'm baking a tiny, and I have a little dude. This translates into a few situations that I didn't remember from 5 years ago when I was last pregnant and had a toddler in the house.

First: Doodle does not understand that mommy is a gestating monster and sometimes the hormonal strain on my psyche cause me to want NO ONE TO TOUCH ME EVAR!!!!!. He loves me and wants the assurance of being able to run up get a quick snuggle and then make tracks toward his sisters' room because they've left the door open again. I'm trying to keep it together but there have been a few times when I've totally hid in the laundry room listening to the rumble of his tiny feet as he searches the house for me. And then, and then, when he puts his sharp little elbows of death in my abdomen I almost hurl. He is getting more and more emotionally injured every time I have to more his arms/elbows/knees/feet quickly away from the developing fetus in my midsection. I can see the despair on his face, "Mommy, why don't you love me?"

Second: Toddlers cannot feed themselves. My girls are old enough that occasionally Pumpkin has learned to use the microwave with some shouted instructions. She can nuke leftovers, mac and cheese and hot dogs for her self and Sunshine when I'm not in the "sure I'll play short order cook...what do you mean you want lasagna?" mood. Doodle just lays on the floor and cries until I figure out that hungry is the problem and have to get up and make food because he's little and all of his calories matter, and I can't in good conscience feed the kid snack packs for breakfast and lunch, that would be wrong.

Third: Carrying around a toddler is hard on your back when you aren't fighting the center of gravity problems that come along with pregnancy. Toddlers get heavy after a few minutes and it's easy to turn wrong, bend funny or just move too quickly and then you try not to drop the little dude while you also try to catch yourself to keep from crumpling to the floor in a sciatica induced daze of pain. Also, he cannot walk to the car independently yet, so sometimes just getting out of the house is a trial. I vaguely remember having a little trouble with this when Pumpkin was tiny, but I didn't start having "help! I've just been shot in the ass!" pain until about three weeks before Sunshine came along, so it wasn't like I spent months in pain.

Fourth: Sleeping is hard enough during pregnancy without adding in the bi-polar nature of toddler sleeping patterns. I've developed insomnia for the first time ever and it seems that Doodle has a mommy sleeping radar. When I'm awake he usually sleeps fitfully and if I'm not in the room, breathing calmly he will pop up and think it's time to boogie (not cool dude) So when I'm finally ready to fall back asleep (damn prenatal insomnia) he's all thrown out of whack and not ready to settle down and sleep.

Fifth: (and really only for your giggle factor) the singular weirdness of lying in bed with my toddler and being kicked from both the inside and the outside of my body is to say the least: disconcerting. I think they are all ready communicating with one another trying to find ways to make life crazy next year when infant twitch turns into Tasmanian devil number two and they begin leaving a trail of destruction through my life.

Of Mice and Women

Last weekend's plans started out with such promise. I was going to the lake, with my girl friends, sans kids for 3 whole days. 

delicious. 

Then I got a cough which never really developed into anything but stuck around all week, nagging and irritating and almost pant wetting for a few days. 

suck town. 

Then I spent all of Thursday night awake and coughing, hacking, sputtering and spazzing. It was not a fun way to spend the evening, BUT! I was going on vacation (sing that, it sounds better)

I get up to shower and then head out for the weekend and suddenly my chest hurts, and I can't catch my breath and I nearly black out in the shower. Whoa, wait, what?

Change of Plans: Preggo goes to the ER instead of the lake with the besties Friday morning. 

After a few hours in the ER, verdict: I have an upper respiratory infection aggravated by allergies and take some mucinex, you're not going to die, Huzzah! plans back on. 

So, I hitch a ride with Red who had to work Friday and we get to the lack around 11:30 at night, after a harrowing drive through the hanging gardens of Babylon, the land before time, and the Shire. Seriously our directions had us wondering if we were going to end up driving off the edge of the world for a little bit.

Saturday we spend relaxing, laying out in the most excellent sun and swimming in the slightly brown lake. Super awesome. good food, good time with the ladies who make me laugh, a trip to Hoosier wal-mart, and the day passed with relative ease and enjoyment. 

excellent

We stayed up late and at around 2 pm I made my fort of pillows, climbed in and settled down to enjoy the bed which contained no one but me. 

 

HOLY CRAP!!!

at about 4 am I woke up feeling like Thor had been hammering into my right arm for the last two hours! It hurt to think about moving my arm. I worked out that nothing was broken and then propped it up on some pillows and willed myself to go back to sleep because perhaps this was all just a bad dream....

HOLY CRAP!!!

45 minutes later I'm awake again, and it still hurts, what the hell, try to get back to sleep.....

and repeat until around 10 am, when i gave up on sleeping well and got up. Ice only helped a little, Tylenol not at all and finally against doctors orders I grabbed some ibuprofen and swallowed that as well. I tucked my angry arm inside my bra and shirt immobilizing it against my body and getting real familiar with my left boob and when that seemed to help I decided a sling was in order. 

After another trip to the Hoosier Walmart I came out with a sling and a wrap for my CTS prone right wrist, got everything wrapped up and spent the rest of the day in "relative" comfort. We shopped at the outlet mall and I picked up things for my family, who I was starting to miss, and got myself some fun lotion things and the Bath and Body Works. 

I get home around 9 on Sunday night and head to bed with a muscle relaxer and hot sock to ease away the last of whatever the frack was wrong with my shoulder and wake to only slightly less intense pain, stay home from work, putter around the house all day, and then get ready for bed along with the munches. 

Then it happened. 

THE ITCHING!!!!

Apparently I had gotten a sunburn on the most excellent laying out in the sun portion of Saturday. It didn't even register on the pain scale so I hadn't been to concerned about it. I should have been. 

I felt like a drug addict having a bad trip, I was convulsing and yelling and crying and rubbing my itchy back on everything I could think of that would provide relief. 

nothing worked. 

I took Benadryl and Tylenol and a muscle relaxer and had Jeeves slathering inches of aloe goo on my back and nothing was helping. Finally we consulted the Google machine and someone recommended ice packs ...numb the skin?

GENIUS

So, I sat with frozen hot dog buns, vegetables and other assorted grocery items pressed against my back while the last of the twitches faded, the muscle relaxer kicked in and I felt tired enough to not care about the itching and went to bed. 

My relaxing weekend turned into an exercise in sick, pain and crazy. 

To their credit, none of the awesome group I was traveling with got sick of me and threw me in the lake, so thanks for that guys, I hope I didn't dampen your fun this weekend. 

Lets do it again soon!

Ha!

Crafting, Sorting, Listing, Trashing, Etc

The past few weeks I have been hanging at home for the most part because I'm on a bit of a budget lock down and need to save money for the things happening in the next week. In case you've never met me I can justify just about any purchase under the sun especially craft supplies and baby shit. So in light of my sequestration (< is that a word?) I've been doing some work.

I have been crocheting like a mad woman, including several baby items, a blanket, a sweater, some washcloths, and various other things that strike my fancy. I sort of figured out that baking, cooking and crafting are the outlets my body chooses for nesting and now that I've hit 23 weeks and have between 15-17 weeks to go, I'm starting to feel it.

I've also been sorting. the baby clothes had been overtaking my closet and with the new addition on the way I'm actually going to create a nursery and so I needed to move shit back and forth between two rooms.In the past 12 months there has been a sort of musical bedroom activity happening in our home. Currently Doodle and I are sleeping in one room, a giant pile of assorted whatnot resides in the soon to be baby room and the girls room had become a pigsty. Shit needs to be worked out.

Lists make me happy so when I'm in asinine meetings I make and remake lists and then when I have 2 or more of the same list made I compare them, re-write them, dispose of the extra papers, and put the uber lists I my purse to forget about until I go through the process again and realize I have 2 uber lists and have to create a supreme list. Yes I realize this borders on madness, at least I'm not doing drugs.

During the purge of the crap in my daughters' room I rounded up two trash bags worth of broken crap, McDonald's toys, paper scraps, dried out markers, bills that hadn't been paid, and a lunch box that smelled odd enough I didn't open it to figure out what was inside. I also rounded up a whole trash bag full of toys to donate to charity and we still haven't gone through the pile of crap in the playroom/spare room of death. Good lord.

So this is week 23, shit is getting done, I've been married for 9 years, and I'm ready for the weekend during which I will be at the lake, with my girl freinds, swimming and eating, and not changing diapers or getting anyone anything to drink. Bliss.

It's.....

Monty Python's flying Circus, hahaha, just kidding...

IT'S A BOY!!!!

Baby Ninja Number 4 is a boy! Now I'll have two big girls and two little boys and my heart is super duper happy about it, Doodle and Twitch are going to be as close as Pumpkin and Sunshine are.

Big happy beaming smiles, YAY!!!

Anyway, here are some photos to brighten your day. It's been a busy, baby loving filled few weeks around my house.

ITS A BOY, See Boy Parts 

Waiting with Grannie for the ultrasound

Sunshine Lost a tooth. 

Sunshine clowning at the fudge shop

Erin, Diva Sunshine,...and Pie

Sunshine on her special train trip day

Getting ready for field day

Daisy Girl Scout Mother/Daughter Tea

Me and My doodle

Pumpkin loves Doodle

So does Sunshine. Sibling Snuggles!!

Okay Jeeves, we get it, your the best

Okay, so I know that I occasionally complain about the dude-ness and man screw ups committed by my husband, but this weekend he was a prince.

Mother's day is a day, just like any other but he turned it into a weekend of awesome. I went to bed friday night and woke up to a totally clean house and cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Then Mutti took the kids and I went for a 90 minute prenatal massage and reflexology session. (ZOMG) Then I came home, picked up the family and we all went out for Saint Louis style pizza with my Mutti and the Grands.

Sunday we went to church, and then had a BBQ with my extended family on my mother's side and then came home and relaxed for the rest of the night. Preggo hormones reared their ugly heads last night to make me weepy and sad for reasons unknown but all in all it was a lovely weekend.

He went a little overboard with the gifts and laid out for me on table was a memory foam pillow, red roses, cardinals pajamas, a lovely card, chips, salsa, a new bath towel, and sour patch kids from my family...they know me so well.

I also received two hand painted mugs from my little girls and countless flowers, hugs, kisses and I love you's all weekend. It was so nice, and made me feel very pampered and loved.

Sometimes it's nice to be the momma.

Dude, where's my pregnancy?

which leads to Tuesday which means it will be 7 days until I find out how Twitch is doing and if we are welcoming home a boy or girl come September.

I'm still not feeling terribly connected to this pregnancy, not sure why but with a few exceptions (occasional sciatica  no beer and crazy-pants hormones) I don't really feel pregnant at all. Perhaps it is a body image thing, I feel fat, not really pregnant. Before your baby's growth starts pushing your uterus up and out of your pelvic area, it just displaces fat and the jiggle you used to be able to suck in on a good day becomes a wobbling daily reminder of how out of shape you are. I'm not feeling particularly attractive these days and I'm basically as tired as I've ever been in my life. I look sort of okay in the morning but as the day goes on, and my ability to hold in my sadly lacking abdominal muscles fails, I go from looking sorta pregnant to looking like a girl who can eat a whole cake by herself and ask for seconds.

I don't feel the baby move as much as I think I should, but I'm not sure if that is because I'm too busy, expecting too much or just being impatient. As I may have shared during the last 10-12 weeks of each baby growing cycle it looks like my infant is doing acrobatic wonders in my womb and I can feel it moving, kicking, and sometimes it feels like even the "pseudo breathing" is noticeable.

basically I'm discontented and bummed out and I need tequila but I can't have as much as I want and a little will not cut it. I'm thinking around November I'm going to throw a "Never Pregnant Ever Again" Party and drink tequila while eating unpasteurized cheese and smoking, just because I can.

Anyone want to help me with that???

Because...Oh My God!

Look, I know I've been sort of crappy with the posting lately, but to be fair, I am growing a human, working full time and raising three short people. The three short people will be the topic of my rant today.

Last night Erin and I got together, originally to have some outside time enjoying the weather but 10 mintues before that was supposed to happen, Missouri happened and the balmy breezy gorgeous day turned into a gray dreary afternoon. So after sewing Pumpkin's girl scout patches onto her vest, we opted for a trip to the craft store which then became dinner at a local "kids eat free' place.

An Aside: Kids eat free is every mothers wet dream. When you are at home and have nothing to feed your kids they are hungry enough to chew the paint off the walls, however when you take them out for dinner at a sit down joint they would rather wash fishy dishes then eat the obvious swill (read: actual good food) that has been placed in front of them. Cripes, when will I understand them?

I have been attempting to avoid spanking my children and trying not to yell. Yesterday tested that resolve, big time. While in the store they were whining and difficult and running away and arguing with each other, ad infinitum. Make a long story short, they were being super, duper bratty and I wanted to whack someone on the butt.

But we were hungry and I did not want to cook, so we went across the parking lot to O'Charley's and got steak dinner for us and kid food for them. Doodle Bug ate like a champ, a huge helping of mac and cheese and broccoli.The other two not so much. Pumpkin ate her food but when Erin and I suggested that she might earn a special treat if she were to try a bite of CHEESE COVERED BROCCOLI, she became the rudest child I've ever met. Sunshine ate two rolls and then refused to eat anything else and then started crawling around under the table and singing and trying to lay down in her chair.

I don't know when I lost control of my kids but last night the behavior was not what I expect from them. Erin and I decided that a point needed to be made, so we drove through the golden arches and for 2.16 we proved that when you are not polite you have to watch while other people get treats. We didn't want ice cream cones but we each ate one, making sure to mention how good they were and how glad we were that we had eaten our broccoli so we could have a treat. Then when we got home, I had them take a bath, clean their room and go to bed.

Fast forward to this morning, Pumpkin says to me that she doesn't want to go to school because she is going to have a bad day because last night I didn't let them watch TV or give them a treat. I said something to the effect of, "You earned that situation, I'm the mommy and its my job to teach you to be good, you change your behavior and I'll be able to change mine." she just glared at me.

Sometimes instead of spanking and crying, there is ice cream and clean bedroom.

Pink Eye, Ear Infections, And Dick Face Doctors

So, I have been MIA for the last little while, for good reason, my life has been a roller-coaster merry-go-round of shit and sick and girl scouts and work BS.

My oldest started complaining that her eye hurt at a birthday party on the 6th, then a few hours later she had definite zombie eye and I called our friendly neighborhood hippie doctor, who was not in, so I spoke to her associate. He was a nice dude and called in a prescription. Which was filled at one of the two 24 hour pharmacies in our area WHICH DOES NOT ACCEPT OUR INSURANCE!!!!

So we went next door to the OTHER 24 hour pharmacy which shares a parking lot with the first and they did take our insurance but it took 45 minutes to get the script sent across 20 feet of asphalt and I ended up with three kids at the pharmacy until the wee hours. Fast forward a week.

Pumpkin begins complaining of ear pain and whacking herself in the side of the head. So I take the other two to Mutti's house and carry my semi conscious pumpkin into Urgent care. She has an ear infection, Yay! So after another trip to the pharmacy and paying for two more prescriptions, we go home and try to get everyone into bed because Mommy is tired.

This week is our Accreditation survey at work so the office has been a mad house and I've been elbow deep in paperwork and compliance issues.

Meanwhile Doodle starts a runny nose and begin leaving snail trails all over the house and adorable (read"oh my god! Disgusting!") snot hand prints on the laminate floor. Then Sunshine wakes up crying with a sore throat and at 2 PM yesterday I get a call from Jeeves. "Hey Ninja, Doodle has pink eye now and is still snotting like his brain a struck a leak, can we give him Pumpkin's leftover eye drops?"

really?
REALLY???

So I leave work early to take the tiny broken one to an emergency appointment at the doctors office. (Background: Doodle has not had a clear bill of health since October, Dude has ear issues, and they are persistent.) SO... Doc Hippie starts telling me about how I shouldn't give him Tylenol because he will develop asthma and that "most moms" think their baby has an ear infection and it's just a cold...yada-yada-yada. (The subtext here: "you probably brought this kid in for nothing, bad momma, stupid momma, hypochondriac-momma...")

Then she looks at his eye, which now looks like he's been in a prize fight, and takes a look in the ears and then looks at the chart and says, "Oh, he's been ill for quite a while, antibiotics, and you should take him to see an ENT so we can get this cleared up."

My Internal Dialogue  Woman, I KNOW when my kids are sick and I would not put up with your condescending bullshit if I didn't think this kid needed something to help him feel better. If you give me one more bit of lip, I might kick you in the taco. Come on, give me a reason to hurt you.

So, she's typing up the visit notes and referral to the ENT and I say, "I really want him to start feeling better, he's such a happy little guy, I hate to see him feeling so yucky"

And no shit she says to me, "Well, you shouldn't be so upset, your child didn't just get transferred to the hospital via ambulance today, did he?" Suggesting that my concern for my child is not okay and I should just shut up because someone else's child had to go to the hospital.

I was fuming, what an asshole! My kids are legitimately sick and I am being a good and responsible mother, and while I am sorry that another child had to go to the ER; my child is my focus and the severity of his condition in relation to another child means nothing to me when I am trying to care for MY FAMILY...

deep breaths

Happy Birthday Sunshine Girl!

Five years ago today, I woke up in the middle of the night in labor with Sunshine, she came fast; with a few pushes and a big snort! Since then she has been a spinning, dancing, singing whirlwind with blond curls and blue eyes and the boniest knees I've ever seen. She makes up words and tries like hell to get everyone to laugh along with her when she is in a good mood. She is a beautiful little girl, though being 4 has been a bit trying for her emotionally. There is a lot of crying and whining and "It's not fair!!!" at our house these days. She is hilarious and often asks questions like, "Mommy why is blue?" or "Mommy why should kids never jump up and down and hold dogs?" (wait, what?)

For her birthday this year, she wants a Pizza Birthday. Pizza Street has a party room, arcade and face painting/balloon artist on Tuesdays, so tonight her party is going to include her favorite "spot pizza," cake, ice cream, soda, video games and a balloon hat. In lieu of party favors we are going to give each kid about 3.00 in game tokens and let them play until they are gone. The restaurant has soft serve ice cream on the buffet, so we will probably make some cupcakes to take along. Maybe I'll even get industrious and make pizza themed cupcakes, we'll see.

I bought her a new dress and some shoes and we are getting her a "big girl" bed for her birthday. Then this summer I am working on a quilt with her name on it for her new bed. Since I'm doing one for each girl, I'll probably finish them in time for Christmas gifts. Apart from a bed and new clothes, she is getting a new booster seat for the car, probably a toy and some preschool books that she can practice numbers and letters with, which will undoubtedly be her favorite thing because she wants so badly to go to school. In fact turning five is not nearly as exciting as when it will be "Reaggie School Time" as she calls it.

I'll post a bunch of photos tomorrow so you can see our pizza celebration!

I Have a Body by Baby

Today my temporary baby storage facility is being featured on one of my very favorite blogs. The Beer Bitch is my hero and she makes me smile and having my bod and some of my story featured on her blog is the shit. If you have a free moment and want to take a look, leave a comment, laugh hysterically at my crazy inch long stretch mark that didn't get the "below the belt" memo....here is the link

http://www.ilikebeerandbabies.com/2013/04/body-by-baby_8.html

Hope everyone is having a good Monday  it's a little shitsville around here today, but I'm sure the massive amounts of carbs I'm about to consume in the form of a cheese coated bagel are going to turn that all around.

Or make me need a mid-mid-morning nap even more.

Baby Love #2: Sunshine Girl

It's no secret that I'm a momma. I love my babies to pieces and in the great hush before the storm that having 4 kids will undoubtedly be, I'm feeling nostalgic, and emotional and in love with my babies (well okay, my baby and two Big Girls, they hate it when I call them my babies.)

I find my self spending great amounts of time just being with them, soaking up all of them, the things that make them, them.

My Sunshine Girl: My 2nd Baby

When I started this blog, my younger daughter had the nickname Booger. I called her Booger-butt from the time she was born. I've also called her Rotabega, Reaggi-Roo, and now I call her my Sunshine girl

She was born in 2008 with a great big snort. She hadn't even fully cleared the hatch yet when she had us all giggling because of the great big snort. She is such an energetic little thing and lord is she tiny, so skinny that i have to alter every pair of pants I buy because they just slide right off her tiny little tush.

She loves rainbows and for the longest time she had never seen a real one in the sky, so I made her a crocheted rainbow blanket while I was pregnant with her brother and in the last year it has become one of her most prized possessions. When someone is sick or cold she will sometimes offer it to comfort them, and she wraps up in it each night like it will keep all the bad things away.

Boy can she talk! Sometimes her brain gets ahead of her ability to make words come out and she gets caught on skip, saying the same words over and over again. As soon as someone she hasn't seen in a while comes into the house she pounces, telling them all about the three special steps to saying prayers, and how to dance like a princess and how after the summer it's time for her to go to school but she wants to take bananas and apples for lunch every day because she wants to be healthy. Occasionally she talks so much we have to beg for a few minutes of quiet because she just keeps going, rapid fire, like if she pauses the world might stop turning.

Occasionally she will still crawl her bony little body into my lap and fall asleep and those moments are ever so precious, her warm little limbs all curled around me reminds me of the tiny snorting little thing I brought home five years ago.

She's almost 5, so Happy Early Birthday Sunshine Girl!
You'll never know dear, how much I love you.

Um?...Big Ass?

So yesterday, post Easter church and festivities; Mutti, Jeeves and I took the munches to a local playground because it was beautiful outside and everyone needed some fresh air. Doodle crawled around and tried to eat mulch, Sunshine ran around, holding her pants up with one hand, and Pumpkin climbed to the top of everything. It was awesome, I took pictures,













I love my babies.

Okay, so at one point my mother mistakenly took a short video of me walking away from her. I was wearing a skirt and flip flops, and my ass looks enormous. Sweet merciful heavens, I have not been paying attention. and while I was busy being bitchy pregnant and loving on my babies I have developed a really, really large ass. It's time for Plan P, the pregnancy plan. I don't know what it is yet, but as soon as I figure it out, I'll let you know.

Hi, My name is Nellie (I am a Ninja), and I have a big ass. I've been sour patch and ice cream free for 24 hours, and I am getting ready to eat a salad for lunch. I can create a smaller ass while growing a tiny human, and hopefully, whatever it might look like, Plan P will help.

Baby Love: #1 - Pumpkin Girl

It's no secret that I'm a momma. I love my babies to pieces and in the great hush before the storm that having 4 kids will undoubtedly be, I'm feeling nostalgic, and emotional and in love with my babies (well okay, my baby and two Big Girls, they hate it when I call them my babies.)

I find my self spending great amounts of time just being with them, soaking up all of them, the things that make them, them.

My Pumpkin Girl: My 1st Baby.

She is six and a half now. She wants to build a real robot fish, (god only knows how I am going to make that dream come true) She has a hard time when she doesn't have the right answer to a problem right away and she tends to freeze up when someone asks her to try something new.

She is a Daisy Girl Scout, finishing her very first year in the organization. She has earned all of her daisy petals and even remembers some of the names of them. She is proud of her Tunic and the patches and badges on it. She likes to pull it out and talk about the different things we have done to earn them. She loves meetings, and selling cookies, and saying the promise and I'm pretty sure she enjoys the time we get to spend, just her and I doing lots of Girl Scout things together. She gets super excited when it's a meeting day and says, "just you and me, Mommy?" when I say that it's time to go.

She loves playing outside, the freedom to run, and throw balls and swing and slide and climb on things is like a drug for her. She wants badly to be able to roller skate well and ride a bike without training wheels. She even drew a picture of the three steps it takes to learn how to ride a bike with no training wheels. That being said she also knows how to relax like no 6 year old I have ever seen. She will cuddle right up next to you with a blanket and watch TV all day when the mood strikes her.

She is so set in her ways, so resistant to change. We have to prepare her with much talking and sometimes even diagrams when something new is going to happen. Then we discuss, ad nauseum, until she feels confident that she knows what to expect, but you can still see in her face the barest hint of anxiety when the new comes along, not sure if it's going to roll out the way Mommy and Daddy told her it would.

She likes to play along with her favorite TV shows and is happiest when she can pull out toys that match the shows and act out the on screen shenanigans. Her favorites these days are Octonauts and Doc McStuffins. She also really loves playing on the computer, the games and activities at Disney Jr's website are a powerful motivator for her. I can even get her to clean the play room!

She is the sweetest most thoughtful little girl I have ever known. When someone she loves is sick or hurting she wants to hug and kiss all the bad things away. She knows the power of a good hug and never does it halfway. She also is quite the kisser and gives everyone a hug and kiss when leaving, even if she doesn't know you very well.

She is starting to show signs of sarcasm and wears her dry sense of humor on her adorable little face. It's just amazing that she has been a part of my life for over 7 years (pregnancy included) I'm so proud to be her Momma.

What did you Expect?

Not This!

I did not expect to have the mother of all weird nose problems.

Note: when you are pregnant your body retains water, you have extra blood flow and fluids in general squishing around in you. Not surprisingly this sometimes equates to pointless congestion not caused by mucus. This type of congestion is not helped in the slightest by blowing your nose, because that only further agitates your sinus tissues and makes the sinus pressure worse. Can anyone say migraine?

I did not expect to begin producing snot like the damn Nickelodeon Gak factory. I don't understand how one body can create this much snot. Some of this has to be liquefied brain cells. People think, in part due to the look of general malaise but also because of the constant nose blowing, that I must be sick. "KEEP YOUR KIDS AWAY FROM SICKY THE PREGGO!!!" The fact that it is soon going to be spring, and I live in the allergy capital of the known universe means that this problem is only going to get worse.

Not only does my nose run all. freaking. day. long. But also, when I sleep at night, all of that awesome sinus refuse dries up and in the morning I feel like I've got the entire grand canyon inside my nose. When I was a child this was an easy thing to fix, go on a spelunking mission and pull the offending crustaceans out of there. Not such an easy fix as an adult out in the world. Yesterday, my daughter thought she was being cute and pinched my nose, it hurt so bad I almost kicked her in the throat. Seriously, a 6 year old pinched my nose and the dried crap up there cut the inside of my nose and I began bleeding. Bleeding!!! What the French?!?!

Then, I smell dead things. They don't know they are dead. They walk around thinking they are alive, but they smell dead. Oh the humanity! I never realized that a smell could do so much to my well being, but there is something in the vent in front of the loveseat in my den that makes me want to curl up and die every time the furnace runs. It's just that vent, none of the others (even though they are connected) smell bad, and it's only when the furnace is on. Jeeves thinks I've gone off the deep end, he says he can't smell anything. I closed that vent and put a big magnet on top of it because each time it turned on this combination of cat pee, death and old pizza came wafting up from the floor. It was very distracting.

Shut The Front Door!

Thanks, Missouri. 

Now, I know I never communicated the need to dig myself out of over a foot of snow, but you saw that on a Monday morning, nothing would make me happier. I had to use a broom to reach the top of my minivan. I rolled my pant legs up to my knees and still ended up with soggy cold hems. 

They call this type of snow, "Heart attack snow" do you know why? because shoveling out of the heavy wet stuff has been known to KILL PEOPLE. 

Anyway, in other news, I'm exiting the first trimester this week. Soon to be feeling awesome, right...right?

Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it. 

The weekend started out well, with a trip to the circus, lunch at a pizza buffet with the munches and trivia with my friends, but then yesterday it began snowing at like 8-ish in the morning and didn't stop until after 11 last night. Jeeves suggested getting some supplies, even though I thought the snow was much ado about nothing, I stopped at the grocery store and that turned out to have been a good plan. 

I'm just amazed, it's the end of March, Easter is next week and our kids are going to have to wear rain boots to do an Easter egg hunt in the yard. Criminey. 

Photo Friday

It's been awhile since my photos have been up to par and I have received some comments that they are not showing up, so after sucking it up and paying for a flickr account I've been doing some downloading and thought for the next little bit I'll give you a break from my blathering and show some cute on fridays.

It's from awhile ago, but still cute

Doodle in his favorite chair

Dino Face Painting with my Girlie-Que's

OMG Mommy! U So Funny!

Why is this on me?

Crowing, which is the cutest thing ever

Happy Weekend from Ninja Land. 

What Did You Expect?...Not This!, Item 1

 I am almost through the first trimester of Ninja Baby #4. I thought in light of the positive response I received from several of my posts while baking my Doodle Bug Boy, I'd continue sharing this time around.

With that in mind today begins a new series of Mommy to be related posts, called "What Did You Expect?...Not This?" Wherein I will expound on the not so glamorous and often kinda weird as shit things that go along with being an incubator.

Today our topic is: Murderous Rage at only vaguely upsetting things

This morning. I woke up to a severely messy house. I wasn't in the office yesterday so in between working from home I took Doodle to his one year check up, took Sunshine for her pre-kindergarten screening and then took Pumpkin to a girl scout meeting. Needless to say, not much in the way of straightening happened in my life yesterday. Right? My own fault, Messy house, kinda my doing. This morning I woke up unrealistically pissed that no magic fairies had come and cleaned up my house while I was sleeping. I mean, if anybody in the history of the world deserved helpful cleaning elves, it's this bitch. I was so angry that I had to stop myself from waking my daughters up and making them clean the house with threats akin to those made by Colombian drug lords. (I was in their room, ready to yell when I had the realization that this course of action might potentially create mental health damage for my sleeping children.)

Earlier this week some thing happened at work that was out of my control, and had to be dealt with. The problem was that it was not well communicated to me and took me by surprise. I had to leave work for an hour and clenched my teeth so hard that I gave myself a migraine because, "NOBODY FUCKING THOUGHT TO SEND ME AN EMAIL" (not a very appropriate response)

Last week I bought myself some Chinese food for dinner, and I got the big size so I'd have leftovers. Then my leftovers disappeared. I was so angry I threw a glass (which broke) and yelled at my poor husband for 10 minutes  About CHINESE LEFTOVERS. Then I cried like an emotionally disturbed child and curled up on the freshly swept (thanks to broken glass) floor of my kitchen.

Can I just say, being pregnant is a gift (albeit one you cannot exchange) and I appreciate that my body is healthy and strong enough to make babies...however, I'm getting real tired of this shit.

I fail...at some things

I failed at training. My best friend,  partner in crime, and macaroni and cheese buddy asked me to run a half marathon with her, and not realizing how my life was going to unfold I said yes. 

and then I didn't train. 

and then I got pregnant. 

and then I still didn't train 

and then I feel like crap all the time

and then I still didn't train

and then I have a subchorionic hemorrhage in my uterus. 

and I'm not going to do the half marathon. 

so I failed... 

at not being a flake. 

Sorry friend, hope my other attributes are enough to make you not be disappointed with me for long, cause I LURVE YOU, and I'm gonna stand at the finish line holding a sign, and wearing a GO ERIN shirt, and holding pom-poms, and buy you a beer, and drive you home and make you some pre-race pasta (maybe something with cheese and shrimp?) and a huge chocolate cake for when you are done, because I am so proud of how hard you are working to do this. It's amazing, as are you. 

On to things I do not fail at. Twitch is growing and I heard his heartbeat today.  I also do not fail at girl scout cookie sales, and my little Pumpkin girl has sold at least 237 boxes. that's not an abstract or inflated number, that an actual tally. Although to be fair, Erin did sell about 4 cases at work, but Pumpkin made phone calls and a face book video and she worked her little freezing tush off at a booth sale last weekend. There are a ton of fun girl scout things happening over the next few months, including a trip to build a bear, a fire house visit and a bounce house outing, so I'll try to remember to share. 

Happy Birthday Doodle!

So, this is a day late, because well yesterday I was busy, with a work and a dentist appointment and a baby birthday party, I was way too busy to have a migraine (totes did, dammit)

So my Doodle bug turned one yesterday.

OMG, lookit that bebe smile!!!!

We bought a few Camouflage decorations and plates and things because we thought it fit him really well. I may not have mentioned it before but my doodle baby has the funniest crawl. He uses one foot and one arm and scoots his other leg underneath of himself  He looks like a wounded warrior, so we have also taken to calling him Lieutenant Dan (10 bonus points if you get the reference.)

So I made a big pot of pasta and red sauce, some Alfredo as well, a salad and some yummy bread from the bakery at Walmart. (btw, the bakery at Walmart has amazing bread, we had Parmesan cheese bread sticks and everything french bread with our dinner, and it's all gone.) Anyway we all ate until we felt like we would explode and then got down to the party part of the event.

Hmmm, cake you say?

I could like this, yeah, it's okay...

Wait, why is it all over my hands?

Seriously, get this shit off me!

He never really made the mess we expected, but he was getting sleepy, so I gave him a quick sink bath and he got his presents. A train toy from Mommy and Daddy, some clothes and a cup from Pa-pa and grannie Rose, and a car seat from Grannie. All in all a good first birthday party. We tend to do smaller first birthdays in our family, it just makes sense to me.

I can't believe it has been a whole year, it's flown by and been amazing and wonderful. My life is inexplicably sweeter now that this tiny guy is part of it. I find myself feeling calmer and more loving and paying more attention to the moments that run away from me as the time flies by.

He is so funny, and has such a remarkable sense of humor. He knows that things are funny and he does them with the intention of making us laugh and when he gets a laugh he has the hugest grin on his face, like, "Score I'm Funny!" He is into everything and when he hears the word no, he waits to see if it's a real no or a passing one. He'll stand really still and slowly reach back toward whatever it is to see if you are going to get up and come re-direct him. And as soon as he sees you coming eh plops down and takes off in the other direction.

He's also a lovey little man. He gives these great big hugs, with his arms around your neck and everything. He kisses your face with big open mouth slobbery baby kisses and does them European style with one drooly kiss on each cheek. He loves his Momma, and now he'll say Momma when he is crawling through the house looking for me. He plays hide and seek with me and when he finds me he giggles and crawls even faster to come in for a hug.

I'm so glad he is a part of my life.

Doodle Face!

.