Monthly Archives: August 2013

Currently and such

It’s Thursday! And I’ve now blogged twice in one week! {Working on getting back into the groove here, people}

Not Loving back to school time. My temporary stay at home dad/house husband started back at work this week. You know how kids hate starting back to school? Yea so do a lot of teachers. And their spouses. Me being one of them. I don’t think I’ve done more that 3 loads of laundry since we’ve been home from Hawaii. Yep. Sorry ladies, he’s taken. And since he has to leave for work at 6:30 in the morning, the girls and I are in the process of finding our morning groove all while making it to the end of our driveway by 7:15 AM for Rylee to catch the bus. Since she doesn’t start the bus riding until the week after next we’ve decided to practice this week and next. So far we’re 3/4. Not too shabby.

Cleaning my kitchen every night. There is just something so gratifying about turning off the kitchen light at the end of an evening and knowing my counters are clean and that when I come home from work the next day and need to get started on dinner, I’ll have a nice clean kitchen waiting for me. Plus, a dirty kitchen tends to be my main trigger of anxiety/overwhelming feelings so I’m trying my best to stay on top of that, particularly as we make the transition back to school.

Working a lot lately. A lot. My days are filled to the brim and I’ve been working some weekends recently too. There are some big-huge-amazing things we are on the brink of here. It’s super-exciting to be a part of it, but also exhausting. I’m trying to keep my head above water while maintaining a positive attitude. Sometimes that doesn’t exactly happen. Actually, these last couple of weeks it hasn’t really happened at all. I’m a big ball of fun. Let.Me.Tell.You.

Creating these fantasies in my head of what it would be like if Andy could in fact be a stay-at-home dad. {le sigh…}

Watching my babies grow right before my eyes. Rylee will have her first day of kindergarten next Tuesday. How? And Reese? Oh my. That girl changes daily. We’ve had a bit of a rough go of her going back to day care this week. Each day has been a little better but man…it’s not fun.

Holy moly, this post has been a whole lot of Poor me. Boo-hoo. Womp. Womp. Sad trombone.

I hate the end of summer. Clearly.

Catch ya on the flip side Summer…

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Ok. Officially pretty much done complaining about that.

Actually, no promises, but I’ll try anyway.

Since I can’t leave this post on such a lame note…how about a cute photo…that’s my baby pretend feeding my very first baby doll, Tommy. {all together now…”awwwwwww…”}

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{And as per the usual, I’m linking up with my girl Lindsey at Ot and Et. Have a blog? Join in would ya!?}

 

HK

 

 

 

12 Month Check Up…a month late

My baby just had her 12-month well check! Last week, but whatever, life is busy yo. And yes, she did turn one over a month ago. For the record, I had her appointment scheduled for just a few days after her first birthday but they cancelled it…we found out when we got there to check in. That was less than awesome. Since we wanted to do both Rylee’s 5 year check and Reese’s 1 year check together it took a little longer to get them worked in to the schedule together. Annoying but meh, it’s done. 5 shots and 1 blood draw later, on to the good stuff.

Weight: 20 lbs, 6 oz. – 51st percentile
Height: 29.5″ – 71st percentile
Head: 17.75″ – 45th percentile

Teeth: She’s up to 12 now! She cut her first molars while we were in Hawaii. So that was fun.

Food: There’s not much this girl won’t eat. Since our last check-up when I found out she was anemic, she’s been eating pretty much everything we eat. Including lasagna, enchiladas, bacon etc. She loves it all. It’s really funny to watch her feed herself because if you put a few different items on her tray, she will always go to whatever her favorite thing is first. Always. And it seems that she’s gone from loving avocados, to hating them and now back to loving them again. Weird little buggar. We still use the occasional puff and jar of baby food, but less and less. Mainly if we’re headed somewhere and we don’t know what to food options will be we’ll pack them along just in case. And this girl eats.a.ton. We have to cut her off a lot of times because I swear she would eat until she bursts. We’re trying to figure out where all that food goes…she must have a hollow leg like her daddy.

She stopped breastfeeding completely on her own. The last time se nursed was on the morning we left Hawaii to come home. That made a super comfortable 6 hour airplane ride home for me. NOT. At first I thought maybe it was just a nursing strike because of her molars coming in. She had done something similar last night she cut a bunch of teeth at once. I tried nursing her every single normal nursing time for a week solid. No dice. She wanted nothing to do with it. {Funny enough, it’s exactly how Rylee weaned as well.} For the next few weeks we used of our freezer stash of breastmilk, cutting her bottles with 1/2 whole milk that last week. Now she’s 100% on whole milk and taking 2 bottles a day, right when she wakes up and before she goes to bed. She’s not a huge fan of drinking milk from her sippy cups…we’re working on that.

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Anemia Update: We had her blood drawn and retested 6 weeks after her initial diagnosis. During that 6 week time period we had been giving her lots of iron rich foods and a supplement once a day. It took 3 weeks and a call to the doctor’s office to get the results of that blood draw. She was still low. Higher than before, but not where she needed to be. So we continued the supplements. Then at this check-up she had her blood drawn again and we received a phone call the very next day. Her blood work came back great! Her levels are within the range of where they want them. She can drop the supplements and continue to eat an iron rich diet. We’re finishing out the bottle of supplements we have then we’ll stop. She has her next well-check at 18 months and I’m assuming they will test her blood again, but they didn’t mention it when they called so we’ll see.

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Movement: Reese started walking full time two days before we left for Hawaii. At this point she’s getting around really well and just about running. She got her first bloody lip a couple of weeks ago thanks to her wanting to go everywhere on her own. She ate it on the transition from the grass to our front walk. Lately she’s all about climbing. Holy heart attach she loves climbing. In to things, on top of things. She doesn’t really care. If it’s something she shouldn’t be doing, she’s going to do it.

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Other: Reese has picked up the baby sign language fairly well. She signs hungry, please, more and all done. Now we’re working on saying thank you and please in situations other than food related. This girl cannot be scared…it may sound kind of sadistic or weird, but we’ve started looking at it as a challenge. You sneak up behind her or jump out from around a corner yell BOO! and she just laughs and laughs. Now that she’s mobile and she has a clear opinion on things, life is getting interesting! She’s in to everything. We keep all doors closed while she’s up. All cupboards are locked. She loves getting into the drawer that has our potholders and aprons in. She’ll pull out an apron and bring it up to us, essentially asking us to put it on her. Then she’ll just walk around with it on like it’s not even there. It’s the funniest thing.

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She’ll do just about anything for a laugh. I see the makings of a class clown. She loves peek-a-boo and the “uh-oh” game…you know the one…the kid “accidentally” drops something then says “Uh-Oh” and waits until you pick it up. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

We moved her from the infant carrier car seat to a still rear-facing, but bigger car seat. She could care less. I’m finally starting to get used to it…the visibility is pretty much non-existant and I don’t like that.

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While she isn’t too into snuggling anymore, she is all about giving hugs before you leave or when you get home and kisses. Oh the open-mouth kisses of a one year old. Slobbery, but almost nothing better than a baby showing their love.

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We had 1-year pictures taken a few weeks ago…I’ll get around to sharing those soon enough.

Work hard, play hard. Or something.

Oh Thursday, where did you come from? You sneaky bitch.

As you can probably tell from the lack of, well anything, around these parts that I’ve been a bit…preoccupied lately. Last week was straight up nuts–my birthday Monday, anniversary on Tuesday, then crazy work stuff Wednesday all through the following Monday that had me up late every night and up early every morning.

I spent the weekend in this very fun work-play mish-mash. You see, my company was a sponsor of a big outdoor country music festival. As a sponsor, we had a booth. So I was going to be staying/camping out there in a trailer working throughout the weekend. As a sponsor, we also got tickets for the concerts. I used a set of VIP tickets to treat my very best friend to a “girls weekend” as her birthday present from back in December. Friday, after checking in with the booth, we hung out at the trailer just BS-ing {and drinking} the afternoon away. We went to the concert that night {Carrie Underwood!}. Then I worked literally open to close, 12 hours straight on Saturday. Sunday I worked the morning/early afternoon shift then spent the afternoon hanging out {and possibly drinking some more} before heading in to see Darius Rucker.

Work hard, play hard used to be something I said {and did} quite a bit. But holy moly I think I’m too old for that now. Ok, maybe not too old, but at least very out of practice. I’m just now starting to feel normal again.

But you guys? It was so worth it. Getting to spend some quality, not just at a Thursday lunch date, time with a friend. Not just any friend. My best friend. The one that has been by my side for literally my entire life. Sure, like every friendship, we’ve had our ups and downs, but throughout the years, we know we have each other. No matter what. I know people go their entire lives looking for a friend like that, and I was fortunate enough to find mine the day I was born.

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B, I hope you enjoyed your {belated} birthday weekend. I will cherish that time we spent together for a very long time.

On the reality of parenting

The other day, I read the article that’s sweeping social media called “The Day I stopped Saying ‘Hurry Up’“.

To be honest, I found myself scrolling through the article, skipping large chunks thinking “Hurry Up and get to the point…”

Look, I get it. I totally do. It’s meant to be a “stop and smell the roses” thing. A “life goes too fast” thing. These statements stem from the same place the “Cherish Every Moment” statement well-meaning old ladies tell moms that are dealing with epic meltdowns in the aisles of Target comes from.

We lead busy lives, but there are plenty of times when we can throw our agenda out the window and take our time. There are plenty of times when not only can we do that, but we do do that.

At what point does “slowing down” and “not rushing our kids” stop?…because for their sake it can’t certainly go on forever. We need to teach our kids responsibility and not to mention common courtesy and the value of others’ time.

Like work, for example. I am expected to by at work by 8 AM, Monday through Friday. I’m sure if I sent my bosses a link to this article they’d totally understand me being late to work because on any given day my kid(s) take 45 minutes to eat breakfast and/or 25 minutes to put their clothes on. Oh wait, no, this is reality…that’s not an option. So, sorry kiddos, but HURRY UP!

Or what about a doctor’s appointment? Or church? Or a lunch date with a friend you haven’t seen in ages? The list can go on and on.

I’m not bullying my kid who simply wants to enjoy life as the author of the article says as she makes an inward reflection on her life. I’m pretty set on raising my kids to not be assholes and part of that is punctuality.

Yes, life goes fast. Too fast. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have places to be, by certain times.

My girls mean the world to me. I don’t cherish every moment because frankly, some moments as a mother just really suck. And I tell my kids to hurry up because sometimes I don’t care how many roses you want to stop and smell, I will pick you up and carry you like a sack of potatoes so we are not late to that doctor appointment. That doesn’t make me a bully. That doesn’t make me a bad mom. That just makes me a mom. A realistic one at that. And I love my kids just as much as any other mom. And I do cherish my time with them.

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So maybe we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one and you continue to live your happy life. And I’ll continue to live my happy life…and make it to work on time.

Solace

When life seems to move 100 miles a minute, it’s hard to slow down.

I guess I should preface that statement. You can break my “life” up into two different categories. Life at home and life at work.

Life at home is moving along swimingly.

Life at work, that’s the one going  100 miles a minute. Things are…busy. Busy is great. R&D on new flavors. Tradeshow & event planning. Social Media. Packaging development. PR opportunities. And so much more. All things I love.

With all these things comes noise. Every day in my office my senses are bombarded like nothing I’ve ever experienced in my professional life. The aroma of cinnamon or caramel day in and day out. The sound of coworkers on sales calls. The sound of (sometimes heated) meetings. Stacks of magazines and files and papers I need to review pile up around me. Two different computers I find myself toggling between multiple times a day. The buzz of my phone’s intercom telling me I have a call.

There’s times I’m just unable to focus.

There’s times not even my headphones can drown it all out. I just want to shut my door. Turn my phone to do not disturb. Shove all the paper piles into the trash.

I’m the kind of girl that needs silence…alone time…some sort of tranquility at least every once in a while.

Lately it’s been so hard to find.

Until today. I went into the lunch room, as I so often do. But today, it was empty. The lights were off. I shut the door so the odor of my leftovers heating in the microwave didn’t permeate the rest of the office. Instead of heading back to my desk after my lunch was warmed, I turned toward the long cafeteria style table in the center of the room and decided to sit down.

I ate lunch by myself. In the dimly lit room. And in complete silence.

Such a stark contrast to what fills my time while at work.

The silence was almost deafening. And it was beautiful. And refreshing.

And leaving me ready to tackle the rest of my day.