These past 7 1/2 months have been the most challenging, yet beautiful months of my entire life.
I am exhausted. I miss running out the door, with just keys and purse in hand, to run a quick errand. I miss talking on the phone to my friends, and going to work, and eating lunch in public, and getting to chew my food s.l.o.w.l.y. and breathing in between bites.
But you know what? I love how you look at me in the morning when I come to get you out of your cribs. I love how when daddy or nana are holding you, your eyes will dart around the room, looking for me when you hear my voice. I love watching you learn new things every day, and I love to hear you giggle when I tickle you under your arm, or kiss your chubby thighs.
I'll get to go out to lunch with my friends again. And I'll get to chew my food slowly and enjoy every bite. I'll get to go shopping on Saturdays, and get massages and pedicures on lazy summer afternoons.
But I'll never get to have these moments with you back. You will grow up and your eyes won't look for me when you are in a crowd with your friends. Your hands won't touch my face when I'm rocking you to sleep, and you won't gnaw on my shoulder when your gums hurt from teething. I will cherish these moments forever, and never, ever, ever take them for granted.
Love,
Mommy
P.S. Thanks for not always being hungry at the same time. Double-bottle feeding you all the time was making me tired!
Made a trip to Ikea today, with the whole fam damily! WOW. This was our second attempt to get everyone out of the house to a "large group event" and it worked out pretty well. We got lots of stares, and many comments ("Boy, you sure have your hands full!") but all three boys were angels...really! This is why we get stared at: Jill is carrying around Landon in a chest carrier/Baby Bjorn, and he is 23 lbs, and the max weight limit is 25. Yes, my back and shoulders are sore tonight. He is out-facing and he is smiling and giggling OUT LOUD at anyone who gives him 3 seconds of attention. So of course, he is getting people to look at us! I am pushing a full size cart (which for those of you familiar with IKEA, they have "spinning" wheels on the front, unlike grocery store carts, and they are difficult to push straight!) which contains 1) Bronson in an infant seat propped up in the seat part of the cart, 2) 1 large diaper bag, 3) 3 jackets, 4) some merchandise that we picked up along the way (small stuff!) and 5) one Gage Fox, who I am repeatedly telling to "Please sit on your bottom", "If I have to tell you one more time to sit down on your bottom, you are getting out and walking, with your hand on the cart". Tim is then pushing the flat bed cart which contains the items we purchased. Talk about a TRAIN! Crazy! But it's our "Crazy Little World" and we make it fun!
So what did we buy?
I've been waiting (im)patiently for about 2 years to get a nice entertainment center for our living room. We have a 300 lb. tube TV that sits on an ugly TV stand in our living room. Tim has been wanting a flat screen, I've been saying, "There is nothing wrong with our current TV". Until I find out that there is no such thing as an entertainment center anymore that will allow for the said 300 lb. TV. So Tim wins.
The new entertainment center that I picked out from the local furniture store is being delivered tomorrow afternoon, and the new TV will follow later this week. But in the meantime, I wanted to get some of this CRAP (a.k.a. kids toys, games, books) out of my living room to make room for the new piece. So we purchased a book shelf/storage unit similar to the one we have in our basement. This has 8 "boxes" in which you can use for books, games, or purchase bins for toys. We will have 4 open shelves and 4 bins. We have put it in our hallway by our bedrooms, and it looks GREAT!
We also purchased another kids' table and chair set. We have a beautiful one that Ken made for us in our kitchen, but would like another for downstairs for crafts and such. And of course, we need a craft storage table for all the crafts, and that got purchased too!
What I love about IKEA is the fact that prior to making the trek today I was looking at Target online. For one similar book/storage unit that we purchased for $100 today, we would have paid double for at Target. The same goes for the table and chair set and the storage unit. I am just so excited to have the organization going on around here! Now THIS is what gets me giddy! ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE, ORGANIZE!
Come and visit and check out our new stuff! It doesn't happen often around here, as you can plainly tell!!!
At the beginning of the month, I got together with some of my girlfriends (many who have family blogs listed on the right side of the screen) and we got to talking about Facebook, and some of the things that annoy us. One of the things that came up was people who update their status every 5 minutes. Such as: "Going to do laundry", "Folding laundry", "putting the laundry away and then headed out to dinner with friends". That may be kind of extreme, but for many of us who are on Facebook, we see that at least one or more of our "friends" (a whole other topic!!) are regular posters with rather pointless headlines.
But then there are those people that I mentioned that like to put out posts that just require a whole bunch of "What is going on?" responses. Such as, "Just got some really bad news :(" or "SOME people just need to grow up!"
No kidding, the very next day I happened to pop onto Urban Dictionary to look up the meaning of my name (another Facebook game I got sucked into....a whole other topic!!!) and the "Word of the Day" was "Vaguebooking".
"Vaguebooking:
An intentionally vague Facebook status update, that prompts friends to ask what's going on, or is possibly a cry for help.
Mary is: "wondering if it is all worth it" Mark is: "thinking that was a bad idea"
Example: "Have you talked to Mark? He's vaguebooking again. I wonder if he's back with Mary..."
Opposite:
Tammy is: "in line at the grocery store"
I know that when it comes to Facebook, and especially since there are people of ALL AGES on Facebook, from small children (this is wrong, in my opinion; a whole other topic!!) to the elderly, you are going to get a little bit of everything. You are going to get those people that use Facebook as their ONLY means of communication and they want the entire world to know when they are cooking, cleaning, making friends and using the bathroom, and then you will get those that only check it for updated pictures of family members and friends (my mom). I used to update my status more regularly, but I was finding that I was getting annoyed with even my own status updates, so I've decided to to just let it go...unless there is something I really want to share.
I don't want to offend anyone that uses Facebook in a way different than I choose; but I did want to spark some discussions about your thoughts on those people who "vaguebook".... or other Facebook annoyances you may have.
As I haven't received too many comments on my last few posts, I will be interested who is reading my posts this lovely Friday in February.
I lied. I got something. A recipe. A darn good recipe! We had it for dinner tonight, and I got it out of the Cooking Light magazine.
Brown 1 lb. ground turkey. Add 1/2 cup each chopped onion, green pepper, and red pepper. 3/4 Tsp. Cumin 1/2 Tsp. Chili Powder 2 garlic cloves, minced. Cook until the veggies are crisp tender. Then add 1/2 cup fat free or regular salsa verde (green salsa) and heat through.
Roll out one refrigerated dough/pizza crust. Cut into fourths, preferably triangle shapes. Spoon turkey mixture into the center of each fourth, and top with shredded mexican style cheese. Fold and crease the dough. Bake and 425 for 12-14 minutes OR until golden brown.
As Gage is getting older, I find that I am telling him a lot of stories of "When I was younger". I remember my nephew Hunter loving stories that his mom, Carrie, or I would tell him of our own childhoods. I think kids are really fascinated that the adults that they know in their lives were actually "small" once, and did fun things like they do.
So it got me to thinking that this would be fun to talk about, and I would love to share with you some of my own fond memories of my childhood, and I'd love to hear about yours! If you have a blog of your own, feel free to post this, or just comment on my post. Either way, it's always fun to look back on the good ole' days and it sometimes helps to put things into perspective that we may have let our busy lives get away on us and we need to take a step back and remember when life was a whole lot more simple.
I remember listening to my albums and read-along storybooks on my Fisher Price record player. I LOVED that thing. I think that is why I love music to this day. I always checked out records and read-along books from our library. Does anyone remember the song, "Little Goldie Goldfish"? I have tried Googling it, but haven't come up with anything. I'd love to find that song again. I can still sing some of it. And for the "record" (no pun intended) I still have that record player and a bunch of my albums to go along with it!
My cousins and I used to be so creative. We didn't need boardgames or special toys to have fun. We would make up dance routines to any song (Toto 's "Child's Anthem" -Dear GOD! and Michael Jackson's "Beat It" to name a few). We would set up a full Obstacle course throughout my Grandma's entire back porch to resemble that of one you would find on Nickolodean's "Double Dare" show. We would play "house" and "Restaurant" for hours and hours at a time.
Riding my bike from our house on Grand Ave to a park about 4 blocks away. I am not sure I would let my boys ride that far away from home nowadays. I know bad things happened back then, too, but it just seemed different, didn't it?
Before the days of VCR's, do you remember actually getting excited to watch a movie on TV? Once a year, "The Wizard of Oz" would play on TV and it was such a special night for us. My mom LOVES this movie, so she was just excited. We used to get to pick out a special treat at the store for our "movie night" and I think both my sister and I were scared of the wicked witch, and maybe even the flying monkeys!
Saturday morning cartoons. When there WERE such a thing. Snorks, Smurfs, Ducktakes, Shirt-tales, Bugs Bunny...just to name a few. I also loved the Muppet Show, when we had cable (before 3rd grade when we moved to the "country" and didn't GET cable). When the Muppet Christmas show was on this year, I couldn't get Gage to watch it for 5 minutes. Just not interested in it.
I could go on and on, but (surprisingly) I have a couple of babies who are squawking for attention. I'm looking forward to hearing some of your childhood memories.
...the longest winter of my life. First of all, in regard to the daily posting, I didn't realize how pathetically boring I would be. The week is almost over and then I'll go back to posting every month or so, so that I actually have something to talk about.
Both Tim and I went to bed at 8:30 last night. Landon got up at 9:30, and I got up with him. Went back down a little after 10. Bronson woke up at this time, so Tim got up with him. 15 minutes later Landon got up again. So both Tim and I sat up until at least 11 with babies that seemed wide awake and ready to play.
A little blurry on exact time, but I know I was up again around 2, and then again at 4:30 and I know that Tim was up in between here with one of the babies. Finally when Landon was up at 4:30, I brought him back into bed with me and we both slept until 7:30.
He sounds awful. Sounds like he is having an asthma attack just sitting in his exersaucer or on my lap. We are headed into to see my Dr. (their Dr. has been impossible to get in with, frustrating) shortly and I am just going to tell her that I need to find out what is going on. Enough of "It's just a bad season" B.S. I don't know if they can do allergy testing on an infant, or if they can find out of their are lung issues....I don't know. But Tim and I cannot keep doing this every other week. It's pure and simple misery for us, and that is not counting how the babies feel. Bronson is still doing okay, but I make an appointment for him at the same time, because guaranteed tomorrow he will wake up sick. It's happened every single time.
So there. That is my pathetic Monday post. If time allows, I'll try to come up with something better to talk about than my sick babies...
