Weekends

Summer weekends are awesome, now that I'm not pregnant. It's been two summers since I could really enjoy myself! I can run around with Cam at the beach, do chores with Aaron outside in the heat, and finish off the day with a nice gin and tonic.

We are having a lot of fun being busy. This weekend my Mom visited on Sunday, and we took the kids to the beach while Aaron worked on the backyard (yep. still not done). Taking the kids to the beach is definitely NOT a one person job. Cam is still nervous, and Maggie, well she is a little water baby. She can sit up on the edge - but she actually LOVES being in the water... so I hold her in the water so she can splash around, and the other person needs to wrangle Cam. But it's fun.

4th of July weekend, I had the great idea to send Aaron off for a weekend with his buddies, while I take the kids to see their Grandmother in Nantucket. I'm also taking a friend, but it's going to be interesting, to say the least. I'm hoping it's ok... but we'll just have to wait and see. I've never visited my in-laws without Aaron. I'm hoping that it's just a fun weekend at the beach.. but you know - prep for the worst and hope for the best!

Oh - and I'm still going to the gym, and still feeling great. I also forget that a lot of really nice people are at the gym - so it's a nice way to break up the day. Let's hope work stays calm so I can keep this up!

When will I ever learn?

I feel great after 2 days of going back to the gym. I'm a moron. I was in a total funk, and was just not going... and that is stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. You know all those studies where they say that depressed people would feel better if they just exercised? I totally understand that, and the fact that it's hard to motivate even when you KNOW you will feel better.

I took a Groove class (didn't LOVE it) and a Kick class (true. love.). Neither was pretty - thing are jiggling like jello pretty much from the neck down... but I really felt great 'pretend' punching. Apparently I need to punch things. Who knew!? About ten years ago, I used to take Tai Kwon Do classes, and I loved it. Taking this class reminded me why. I'm sure that I don't have the time to take classes like that again (taking martial arts classes is a whole lifestyle, like triathlons), but I can take these Kick classes a few times a week!

In other news, I'm super, crazy excited for my new vacation idea. I have 2 half brothers - one lives in Orlando and I never see him. He has twin girls (12 years old) who really really want to met their new cousins. But he doesn't have the funds to get here. My other brother lives in IN, and has 4 boys (12,13, 18 and 22). They are a BLAST to hang out with. So I was thinking, maybe I would visit them sometime this summer. Well, when I called to ask, and we were trying to figure out a date - his wife asks - what are you doing for Christmas? They have 2 time share condos for the week between Christmas and New Years at Disney, and said we could use one! Does a vacation get any better than that? I'm even working on getting my mother to come also, so we would have an extra set of hands on the flight. I'm crazy, crazy excited about it.

OK - back to work.

Totally Random

• I've been feeling really tired. I guess I whine about it enough that Aaron told me to go to the doc. The doc took blood and I'm low on B12. Interesting.


• I decided that starting tomorrow, I'm going to start going to the gym more. By 'more' I mean 'more than zero'. I was going like gangbusters for a while, and then I went back to work and I was SO tired all the time... but I need to do this. I know I will feel better - but it's so hard to do it. You have to plan to bring the clothes, or get the kids to out of the house in time, blah blah blah. Enough excuses. And starting tomorrow will be easier because I work from home on Weds and the gym is really close to the house.


• One of the main reasons I wasn't going to the gym was because I really like the spinning classes - and the times those run are just hard (like 5:45 AM or 6:30 PM). I'm going to try a 'Groove' workout tomorrow. God. Save. Me.


• My mom was forced into retirement last week. I personally think it's a good thing (she is 68). I'm hoping that it opens up the ability for me to take long weekends up at the cabin - but I have to admit that she isn't really great with the kids. But I think some of it is just me being nervous.
• My brother got a new job -and it's a good thing. But it means the week long vacation I had planned in August (he was going to visit with my nieces) is off. So now I'm trying to decide what to do with my vacation time. I think I should take a week off in a row - but some long weekends would be fun too. And there is a lot to do in our area... so a stay-cation makes sense.

Indecision and cupcakes

I'm pretty decisive. Well, at least about important things - for whatever reason, I have major issues picking out which steak to buy at the grocery store, but that is a whole other story. But I digress. On Saturday, after a perfectly wonderful day, we were set to visit friends for a little playdate/BBQ. Maggie got up from her nap at around 3:30 - and I tried to feed her a bottle. She's in that weird stage where she is teething/eating solids/bottles and she isn't an every 3 hour bottle baby any more. Sometimes it's 5 hours, sometimes 3... and sometimes she'll throw back an 8 ounce bottle like it's going out of style... other times it's a struggle to get her to eat 2. At this point, she ate 2.

And Cam gets up from his nap and we need to leave. It's now 4 PM, and usually, if we were staying home, I would just stretch her until bedtime, and she would have a bottle and do her usual nice sleep. But she had only drank 2 ounces, and her bottle before that was at 12:30. As I was packing up my diaper bag, I seriously said to myself out loud - 'I have no idea what to do'. I was thinking if I brought a bottle, it would screw up bedtime, but if I didn't, we may have a melt down of epic proportions at my friends house.

I just stood there for 5 minutes. Seriously. I couldn't decide.

In the end, I brought a bottle. What was the big deal? Geez.

Other funny story? She was getting a little fussy, so I had her sitting in between my legs on the ground. Cam came by with a chocolate cupcake he didn't want, and perched it on my leg. I was talking away with the other mom's and one of them points at Maggie and starts laughing. Yep - Maggie grabbed the cupcake and almost ate the whole thing! It was thankfully a mini-soy-nut free cupcake - but it was hysterical! She had chocolate all down her face, outfit, and a huge shit eating grin on her face. That's my girl.

Who needs a bottle when you have chocolate cupcakes?

Summer weekend!

Thanks for the good words yesterday. I went out to lunch with a friend and did some venting (she may have asked if I was in therapy - the answer was yes - but it isn't like I can go every day, lol). And got home and the babies were wonderful and Aaron was a sweetheart, and the wine was flowing - so all is good. Oh - and that new sippy cup that freaked Cam out? I tested it out myself and I totally understand why he was so pissed. It's this crazy complicated one in which you need to bite on the straw to make it open in order to get the drink to come out. It claims to be spill proof (major selling point for me - he flips milk around the back of my car going UH OH with his other cup. 'Uh oh' my ass. More like 'Weeee Mama! I sprayed milk everywhere!!) - but it's also baby proof. WTF!

I was all excited because Maggie has started to blow raspberries - she does it and giggles. It's too cute. Of course, I was so sure she was super advanced in this skill so I googled when babies should be blowing raspberries. 4 - 6 months. She's over 6 months. Oh well. It's super cute nonetheless, and when the whole family is doing it, I can't stop laughing.

I'm getting all excited for this weekend. It's going to be sunny and in the 80's. My plans include a morning at the town beach, a BBQ down the street, then ANOTHER BBQ for dinner on Saturday. Of course Sunday is Father's choice - so we'll have to see what we decide to do. We may go see Aaron's father in the nursing home, but it's still up in the air.

I feel super smart, because I spent some time this morning cooking - making muffins, potato salad and throwing dinner in the cock pot... and this way, I've avoided being in the kitchen for any major amount of time this weekend! Hurrah for me.

Fed up.

Something in me just snapped this morning. I just wrote this big long thing about what fired me up, and I erased it. I never get annoyed by the news - but this morning the TV news (which I watch to get the weather)was talking about the BP exec who made a comment about the 'small people' and then NPR had a piece on the new morning after pill and those that are against it. I could go in depth about my beliefs on all this but let's just say it set me off. After and evening of dealing with my mother's new drama (they are asking her to retire. She is 68. It makes sense to me) and a morning of dealing with toddler drama (OMG MY MOTHER GOT ME NEW, DIFFERENT SIPPY CUPS AND IS ASKING ME TO DRINK OUT OF IT) I just kind of lost it. Not in a big dramatic way, but I'm seriously fed up with bad news, crying babies, money issues, packing lunches for toddlers, cooking in general, working, dogs, back yards, parties, EVERYTHING.

I'm sure it will pass - but currently I'm fed up and want to run away and just be alone and unmolested for a long while.

Doubt that is going to to happen anytime in the near future.

I deal with too many fluids

I'm working from home today. When I got home from dropping the kids at daycare, there was some white dog vomit looking stuff near the couch and two dogs that skittered away like they did something wrong. It looked weird, but whatever. I have two boxers - and boxers are well known for their stomach issues and eating gross stuff. Between the dogs and the kids, it doesn't even phase me anymore. I brought out the cleaning stuff, threw the guilty looking dogs outside, and got to work.

Around noon, I left the room and made myself lunch. When I came back, the dogs scattered and there was more throw up in the exact same area. With a heavy sigh, I threw the dogs outside and cleaned it up again. At this point, I'm considering calling the vet - because the throw up looks weird - like milk? And I was wondering if they got into something bad...

A couple hours later, I ran upstairs to switch laundry. I come back downstairs to MORE white 'throw up'. It was in the exact same place, again... and now I'm thinking that my dogs are pretty good about not making messes on the rugs - but throwing up in the same place three times is pretty unlikely. I picked up the couch and I see completely chewed and destroyed sippy cup. With milk in it.

The fact that I just resigned to clean up white dog vomit over and over again before it clicked it may NOT vomit is a sad commentary on my life, no? I bet you all want to be me.

Resiliency

I wonder if that's a teachable thing. Because I am clearly resilient. I would love for my kids to be too. I know people who have become completely unhinged at the loss of a pet. I acknowledge it's sad, but also a part of life, and move on. Life throws curve balls, but you move on. (Note to my life - enough curve balls here, thanks!)

But lately, I feel like that resiliency has come at a price. I've always been the kind of person to call a spade a shovel - Aaron calls it a complete lack of tact (I don't think it's THAT bad). I do call it like a see it. But I usually have some some of feelings when bad things happen. I've noticed that lately, I've kind of become an unfeeling asshole. For little things - like when watching my beloved show So You Think You Can Dance, when people were getting cut in my mind I was thinking - Jesus. Why do they care SO much? And then of course I thought that for most of them it's a dream job and a once in a lifetime opportunity... but my first thought was 'Seriously? Crying over a dance show?!' That isn't it, though. My mom called all sad about her college friend who was diagnosed with cancer. And my first thought was - 'Well, you are 70. People start dying around then' - thankfully my filter kicked in and I didn't say it out loud... but I'm really nervous I'm turning into an asshole.

I know to some degree it's a good thing, not sweating the small stuff. I guess. But I certainly need to turn up my internal filter a bit! I know for a fact that everyone has different levels of dealing. And we now know that I can deal with a lot and survive - but I hope that I regain a bit of my sensitivity. Right now I feel like I'm a bit of a hard ass. I guess realizing it is a good first step, right?

NC summary

I don't even know if I mentioned this, but before I went back to work, I had this brainstorm that I should go visit my father and stepmother as a mother's/father's day present for the both of them. We haven't visited them in about 7 years, and my father hasn't met Maggie yet. I don't really need to get into the family dynamics - but a good way to sum up my father is that he is a racist, homophobic, sexist, very far to the right Republican, type two diabetic, married 6 times jerk. My stepmother is a sweetie. Which doesn't make a lot of sense, but whatever. Anyway - she helped a lot on her visit after the twins were born, and I thought I could suck it up for one weekend and go visit them.

Which was this past weekend. I only took Maggie (visions of Cam on an airplane include duck tape to keep him in the seat and a lot of crying. Cameron will NOT BE CONTAINED). She was a complete angel. And I came back with a bunch of good stories for cocktail parties.

• Losing my carry-on baggage. Twice. In order to go to the Greenville, NC airport, I had to take a regional jet. My carry on was too big (pretty much any carry on was too big if it wasn't a small purse) to actually carry on, so they gate checked it. And in the process, managed to lose it. In that bag was Maggie's meds (that needed to be refrigerated), a hand made quilt for my stepmother, all our clothes, diapers, ect. I did finally get it back the next morning... but not without less than 2 hours on the phone. And more than once I was told I shouldn't check important things. AUGH! And on the way home, they managed to put my stuff from the gate check into the normal checked stuff - but for a small bit I thought it was lost again.
• Going out to eat. Saturday night, dad asked if I wanted to go out for raw oysters. I thought that raw oysters in NC was an interesting choice (I was thinking BBQ was more a speciality) but figured what the heck. It was an all you can eat Chinese place. All you can eat raw oysters. At a Chinese restaurant. I didn't have any.
• Church. I went to church with him. Let's just say that an Anglican church in the bible belt is a bit different than a Unitarian Universalist Church in Massachusetts.

Maggie was a super trooper the entire trip, with big smiles for everyone. I'm glad we went - I know it was a big deal for my dad. We may not be close, but he is my father, and I feel that he should have some sort of connection with my kids.

Check up, sitting, and body image

Both Maggie and Cam had their check-ups yesterday (6 month and 18 month) and both are doing great. Maggie is up to 15.5 pounds (at six month, Cam was at 21 to give comparison)! It's funny to talk about Maggie with the doc - I keep saying stuff like 'But Cam was eating 3 meals by now!' (because Maggie is only eating one - but at least she seems to actually LIKE to eat now). My doc just laughs and tells me that Cam is NOT normal, and Maggie is. Lol.

They are so different in so many ways. Cameron jumps into everything, whether he is ready for it or not. He was fighting to sit up at 5 months... trying to crawl at 7... cruising around at 8. And he'd fall. A lot. And just keep trying. Maggie, on the other hand... I think she waits until she can do it 100% to show us. She wasn't even trying to sit last week. This week? She sits on her own for minutes at a time:

And, I'm sure you can tell by the look on her face, it's serious business, this sitting thing!

And on to me, and my revelations. I was reading this blog, and they were talking about how hard it is for people to get over hanging out in bathing suits (or shorts or tank tops or whatever) - and she said this "If I could tell you how to have unshakable confidence and feel secure in your beauty while running around mostly naked in public, I would. I’d also be fantastically wealthy. We worry about being too big. Other girls worry about not having curves. Guys worry about their man-boobs or hairy backs. It’s a universal problem whose cure is mental, not at the gym or the surgeon’s table. We have to realize that everyone sees us, all the time, and they already know what our bodies are like. You know what? That’s okay". Damn. That is so true. I was walking around our front yard on Sunday in my bathing suit and a pair of board shorts - and Cam started walking next door. And I was thinking I should run up and get a shirt before going over to my friends house. Um. Hello!?! She knows I'm chunky. Wearing a tee shirt doesn't hide that, and will just make me hotter on a muggy 80 degree day.

So - I'm trying to work on my body image issue this summer - finding a flattering bathing suit and then just having fun running through the sprinklers with my kids and digging in the sand. I'll let you know how that goes.

Hurrah for fun weekends! And cute baby pictures.

This is the first weekend in a while we've been home - and I was ready for some fun after wallowing in self pity on Thursday and Friday. And we did have fun! It was a beautiful weather weekend, not a cloud in the sky - so we were outside all the time. I even jumped a few personal hurdles.

A girlfriend on my street gave birth on Friday, and I thought it would be really hard to see her little girl (side note - hurrah! A little girl that Maggie will know in school! In the same grade! On our street! It's fun, because my other girlfriend has a girl Cam's age - it's awesome to have close playmates). It was really important to me to see her quickly - just because. But I was going back and forth on it - I wanted to meet the little one, but then I didn't want to a) bother her in the hospital, and b)was nervous that I would cry seeing a little newborn girl. I figured the longer I waited, the harder it would get, so Aaron and I just went on Saturday morning, and I'm glad. She was so sweet (and little!) and I was just happy for my friend. She already has a 3.5 year old boy, and I think he will just love his little sister.

We had a play date Saturday afternoon with our daycare friends.... I was nervous at first because the first 20 minutes of playtime involved a lot of MINE and then crying from one toddler or the other... but then they seemed to work it out and had a blast. We've pretty much decided to get together every two weeks, it was such a hit.

Remember when I mentioned that I went to a mom's house (to buy some baby stuff) on the twins list that had 3 year old twin girls and a 4 year old? How she was so nice, and that I would have loved to maybe be friends, but thought it would be too hard - you know, since she basically had the family I was 'supposed' to have? Well, she posted that she was selling a basketball hoop - and I totally forgot it was her - and asked if it was still available. It was, and she offered up a play date Sunday morning. And I was like.... deeeep breath..... OK. And Cam and I had a BLAST! And the other mom was super nice, and loved holding Maggie (I forget that mom's with bigger kids love to hold babies). He had so much fun playing with the big kids, and they were sweet to him, and the father was grilling ribs , they invited over for lunch, and Aaron came over too. What a good time. It was fine. I'm sure we'll do it again.

On Sunday, Aaron's mother came to spend time with the kids. It's hard, because Aaron is trying to mend their relationship, and sometimes she just doesn't get it. Doesn't get things that are hard (like talking about how Nora's spirit is flying around the house!? Augh. Sometime I hope it is, but other times I hope she is at peace... and then I get to wondering maybe she would be at peace flying around? I hate thinking about it). But it was great, and the kids loved her.

Shall I end with a few cute baby pictures?

Here is Maggie swimming for the first time - she LOVED it.
Another friend on the street gave us this bounce house - and Cam had a BLAST in it.

Fun for all!