10 Things You Never Knew Until You Were Mom

10 Things You Never Knew Until You Were Mom

1. The existence of 4 am – Unless you were still drunk or up late cramming for an exam, this time never existed. Now it’s when your toddler starts crying because they have to go potty and when the baby wakes up because she just wanted to catch the sun rise with her mommy for the fourth morning in a row.
2. Your child will not be different – Remember walking through the isles in Target and you ran into that child, the one flopping around like a fish out of water in the middle of the isle because his mother refuses to buy him the $87.99 Lego set? Remember how you made a mental note as to how your child would never behave like that in public because you would teach them civility and manners and all things polite? Yeahhhh…your kid is gonna do the same.
3. Day care is sooooo expensive –At the low, low price of $307 a week your child will be offered the finest bottles, the cushiest cribs, and the cleanliest of diapers, all for the low, low price of missing their first smiles, giggles, and steps.
4. The Terrible Twos start at 1 – There is this little tiny switch that goes off in an infant’s mind when they realize “Hey, if I scream really loudly, Mommy will parade a variety of options to calm me down. Hmmmm… it seems as if the longer I scream the more options I have. What do I want today? A bottle, Mommy making silly faces, my crinkly butterfly, an extra long snuggle, it’s all so hard to choose.”
5. The Terrible Twos aren’t over at 2 years and 364 days – I’m not sure how long they last, my daughter is only 2 ½, but it doesn’t look as if they are ending any time soon. I'll get back to you on this one
6. Children’s toys are very loud – Apparently all toy manufactures are under the impression that children are VERY HARD OF HEARING AND MUST BE YELLED TO IN ORDER GRAB AND SUSSTATIN THEIR ATTENTION.
7. The town of Mommyville – The town where everyone has that half sympathetic smile and nod when your child becomes the one screaming on the floor in the middle of Target, where we exchange secret recipes for diaper cream yet still eye up each others mothering skills and decide to hate the mom with the three kids who still makes it to the gym twice a week and has graduated from the track suit and ponytail.
8. Band-Aids can heal anything – It doesn’t matter if there is not blood, if there is a Ban-Aid on it, it instantly feels better.
9. Love doesn’t stop growing – As each day passes you don’t think that there is any possible way that you can love your children any more than you do at this present moment, tomorrow you will wake up and find that you love than more than you did the day before.
10. Your husband – I knew my husband for 15 years before we had children but I don’t think I ever really knew him until we had our daughters. I have seen him in tears and terrified when we were told our daughter would be born 8 weeks early. I have seen him pick that same daughter up with so much love and compassion when I was ready to sell her to the circus after a 3 hour crying fit. I have seen his eyes light up after he taught our daughter to drive a remote control car. And I have seen his excitement when he found out we were having another girl and then hear him say it was what he hoped for. Without our children I don’t think I would ever have known my husband on the level that I do now. He is a wonderful man and terrific father and I can’t imagine my life without him.

Yep! She's All Mine!

Wordless/Wordful Wednesday

Like I have said before, my daughter is strangely obsessed with the whole breast feeding process. It’s a cute that only a mother could love.



Checking for propper placement


Yep,I think she's latched on.


And, we're good!

Green Eggs and Ham

Muffin Tin Monday!
My daughter is HUGE into Green Eggs and Ham lately. I found a video of Green Eggs and Ham and we have to watch it at least once a week at our house.
She got a huge kick out of lunch today with the Dr. Suess theme.



We've got Shredded Ham and Green Eggs and two little mice and a house.
Her favorite part is when Sam I Am asks "Would you eat them in a house, would you eat them with a mouse?"
Let me tellya those little mice were hard to make. But the celery house was all worth it. That was the first time I ever got her to eat celery without spitting it right make out! Ahhh the things we do for our children.

This lunch was brought to you by the letter Q and the number 17, oh and:

Stud Muffin

Enrique, My love, you know you will always be my Stud Muffin but today I must share you with the world.

What I love about this recipe is that it is sooooo easy to make and I always have enough leftover sauce to make spaghetti for dinner the next night. This is definitely a family favorite!

Christie’s Enrique Iglesias Cups
Or Stud Muffin Cups

1 pound hamburger
1 jar (about 14 ounces) spaghetti sauce
2 tubes (8 ounces each) refrigerated biscuits
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

In a large skillet, brown hamburger; drain. Stir in spaghetti sauce; cook over medium heat for 5-10 minutes or until heated through. Press biscuits onto the bottom and up the sides of lightly grease muffin cups. Spoon 2 Tablespoons beef mixture into the center of each cup. Bake at 375 for 15-17 minutes or until golden brown. Sprinkle with cheese and bake 3 more minutes. Makes 8 cups.

Pump and Dump

I HATE pumping. You know what… No, hate is not a strong enough word. I LOATH pumping. The mechanics of it all, the equipment, the fact that you shouldn’t drink, the lack of the ability to use your hands, the mess, the sound “whoooff slursh, whoooff slursh.” Yuck!

My two year old however loves it. She likes to hold the pump while it’s attached to my breast then alerts me quite loudly “Mommy the milk is coming out, I can see it, watch!” God the thrill she gets from it is just wrong! I used to try to pump discreetly but my daughter curiosity about the workings of the human body is insatiable. She is only two and I’m learning to pick my battles.

I’m not as bothered by how much my daughter has learned about pumping at such a young age. I find it hilarious when she sneaks over to “Mommy’s pumper” lifts up her shirt and puts the breast shield on her bare chest to “get milk out of her nu-nu’s.” I find it cute that she knows that the milk she drinks is different from her baby sister’s milk. I was fine with all of this until… She started to compare me to a COW!
After watching Baby Einstein’s Baby McDonald my two year old turned to me while I was pumping and said “You give baby Parker milk just like a cow gives me milk,” point’s to my boobs and says very enthusiastically, “It’s like a cow does Mommy!” A big smile on her face with her eyes all sparkly waiting for my typical “You’re such a smart girl” proud mommy response. Try horrified mother instead.

Beautiful, bouncing breasts. Where have you gone?

Where are those perky things I used to flash at parties in college to get free drinks? What happen to those good times we used to have when I would squeeze you into tight shirts and men would stare? Or all those wistful looks from the other girls when we would lay poolside? What happened to you? What happened to us?

I blame you breast pump. You’ve sucked my sensuality out right along with my milk. You’ve ruined my once soft and supple nipples and turned them into tough leathery nubs. I come to you with breasts full and curvy and you return them droopy and empty.
Why?
You’ve taken away my ability to drink a perfect pomegranate martini at the end of the night yet your breast shield, which I now hold so close to my chest, looks ever so much like a frosted, sugar-coated martini glass.

Keep Off Grass

My daily assignment (which was due like 3 days ago) was to come up with a list. This took me forever for two reasons 1) Like I have hours to just sit down and write, are you frickin kidding me this stuff takes time 2) I had a lot of shit to say this time. The more I wrote the crabbier I got and the longer the list got. FYI you should read the things I didn’t write. Good God I think I feel a book coming on!
Enjoy!

“Oh, it must be nice to be able to stay at home with your children. I wish I had that option.”

I’m really, really, tired of this comment. It comes at me from all angles. Every time I meet someone who works outside the home. I feel I should only go out in public with a bodyguard. Not for me, but for the women who direct this stupid, asinine comment my way. My teeth are starting to wear thin because every time I hear that I have to clench my mouth closed as hard as possible so I don’t rip out my hair while screaming
“Are you F-ING kidding me?”
Through other’s blogs I’m learning that being a SAHM isn’t always a choice. There are so many struggles and heartaches along the way and some of us do it because we feel it is the best decision for our families, while others do it because it is our only option. This is the single hardest job I’ve ever had and I realize more than ever that if I don’t take time to laugh along the way I will miss out on all the great things being a SAHM offers. So here is my So You Think the Grass Is Greener? list.


10 Ways Your Life Will Change When You Become A SAHM

1. Smell –Baby vomit will become your new perfume. The highly evolved breed of baby can distinctly sense when you’ve donned a freshly laundered piece of clothing. Their innate sense of territorialism will cause their stomach acids to churn causing them to spit up on you thus covering you in their personal scent, marking you as theirs. And because you no longer leave the house, you can’t tell just how bad you stink!
2. Hair - A ponytail will be perfect for all occasions, not because the look is ever so attractive but because your 4 month old will rip your hair out if it’s in fist’s reach if you leave it down, it takes all of two minutes to do, and it is great for covering up the fact that you haven’t showered in two days.
3. Lunch – It’s no longer a matter of where to eat but only what to eat. A peanut butter and jelly sandwich or chicken nuggets, again, for the forth time this week, or wait until the kid’s go to bed and eat half a sleeve of Girl Scout Thin Mints that you’ve hidden in the freezer.
4. World Knowledge – CNN is replaces with Playhouse Disney, Sprout trumps the morning news. You don’t know who replaced Ed Kennedy in the Senate (and you only kind of know why it should matter to you) but you do know who replaced Kevin on the Sunny Side Up Show.
5. Communication –You no longer have any ties to anyone living outside of Mommyville. You have learned a new language that only other Babyvillers speak. It’s in sleep schedules, breast pumps, developmental stages, and diaper choices. And while you may think that everyone on the outside world is listening, and they may be, but they don’t care. They only smile and nod at you all while wondering what ever happen to that girl who used to argue the flaws of the criminal justice system or knew the bouncer at the club who would always let you in for free who now goes on and on about their child cutting their first tooth and not sleeping for four nights because of it, or how much it sucks that their little one has learned to crawl, or how they had to learn the hard way that their child doesn’t digest apple juice.
6. Clothes – You will no longer pick out your outfit the night before taking the time to assemble your ensemble, debate between earrings, deciding on which shoes to wear. You will stay in your pajamas until your husband calls and says he’s on his way home at which point you will run upstairs, kids in tow, to dress as fast as possible to pretend that you haven’t been in your comfy penguin pajama pants and a shirt that’s been spit up on twenty times that day.
7. Friends – You know that friend that you slightly pitied because while you had a fabulous husband, and great job, a nice house, and a baby on the way she still lived in her tiny downtown studio apartment, dated so many guys you had to come of with new ways to remember their names (Sam the sexpot and Alex with the killer abs) yet took trips alone to “find herself,” who could go out every night of the week and still wake up in time to make it to her job that she half –assed her way through and then decided to quit in order to go to grad school because she still didn’t know what she “wanted to be.” Yeah her. You will secretly hate with every fiber of your being. She is still fun and wonderful but she represents a world you can never go back to. Sure you can try to visit but it will only make you feel so un-fabulous and ultimately guilty for wanting her life instead of your own
8. Shopping – Gone are the days of aimless mall shopping and the thrill of stumbling upon the Coach handbag that you couldn’t find last season or those sexy pair of kitten heels that would be killer with your new Gap skinny jeans, or the new line of eye shadow at Clinque. Milk, Bread, Cereal, Cheese, Diapers, Bedtime Bath, Wipes…stick to the list.
9. Sleep – All children under the age of six have this tiny sensor inside their brains that alerts them the moment their mother begins to drift off to sleep. It’s like a tiny alarm that makes them instantly hungry, afraid of the dark, have to go to the bathroom, thirsty, or just not tired. And because your husband has to “work” in the morning, it’s your job to comfort the upset child. Your sleep schedule is no longer measured in cumulative sleep but in broken sleep throughout the day. Falling back asleep while nursing your infant, catching a quick 5 minute nap on the couch while Barney is on, or laying down for 7 ½ minutes after your husband comes home while the pasta boils. Take what you can get!
10. Your Children – Your 2 year old will loose all social skills she had previously discovered at daycare. She will go up to random adult strangers and have in depth conversations with them and reveal overly personal information about you. Like how she is “going to the doctor’s tomorrow to get shots but not an epidural like mommy had” (yup that actually happened to me) or “Mommy had two martinis today” (yup that one too!). Your poor 2 year old will have the verbal capacity of a 3 ½ year old because you have no one else to talk to all day!

Stick to your own grass, mine is COVERED in poop.

Housewares Level 4

30 Days to a Better Blog

Can I first start off by saying this title makes me feel as if I’m participating in some strange fad diet consisting of consuming mass quantities of prune juice and some herb they aren’t allowed to sell in the US. “Try our program now! Results guaranteed!” Maybe in thirty days the nursing schedule vs. bottle usage formula (take your baby's weight and multiply by 2.5 then divide by the average number of feedings in a 24-hour period gives you the amount of expressed milk to give your infant) with have fallen out of my brain and been replaced with something useful.
I am only doing this because I firmly believe that if I don’t start using my mind again for something other than coming up with new ways to keep my two year old and four month old from slowly driving me insane, my brain will shrivel up and die.

So assignment #1: Elevator Pitch:
How I, a bitter jobless, stay at home mommy, amusingly navigate my way through, meltdowns, mayhem, and martinis.

There it is. The shortest assignment I’ve ever had and I only mildly BS my way through it. But give me a break. My kids only sleep at the same time for 2 hours out of the day and I have to at least pretend that I’ve done something around the house by the time my husband gets home. So…this is the best I’ve got

Stupid or Lazy

Since I'm horrible at making my life appear glamorous in any sense of the word I've decided to start on blogging assignments. Thank you MamaKat!

So for this weeks assignment I'm pretending that I have time to be bored. As a child I remember complaining to my dad that I was bored to which he responded "You can only be bored if you're not smart enough to find something to do or too lazy to go and do it. So which are you? Stupid or lazy?"

3.) Write a list of 10 things that can be done to stave off boredom.

1) Go to my Happy Place – A white sandy beach with softly breaking waves and a hot sun high in the noonday sky where beautiful exotic men rub my feet, bring me perfect pomegranate martinis, fan me with giant palm leaves, and in his slow, sensual dripping Spanish accent Enrique Iglesias asks “Would you like another drink, my love?”

2) Look around my house and think of things I could sell. Old books I’ll never read again, the hundreds of scrap-booking trinkets I’ll probably never use, the cat who for some God awful reason decides that the quickest way off the bed in the middle of the night is over my head, the kid’s toys they don’t play with, the clothes they don’t wear, the kids themselves.

3) Stalk people on facebook – Yup I admit it, I’m a stalker but my lawyer and probation officer suggest that I not go into details about it at this time.

4) Pull out all the scrapbooking crap and sit down to get one page done, sit and stare at it for twenty minutes, get it all perfect in my mind, start on said page, hear the baby start to scream her pretty little head off and get her up, try for the next 45 minutes to put every thing away as the toddler picks every pieces of scrapbooking crap that I’ve pulled out and ask “What’s this Mommy? What’s this Mommy? What’s this Mommy?,” then chase aforementioned toddler who is now holding all the pictures I selected in her chubby little peanut butter coated hands around the room while hold hungry, screaming baby.

5) Dream about winning the lottery – Nuf said.

6) Search monster.com for a job other that SAHM- yuck! For some odd reason I can’t seem to find any employers out there who wants to hire a desperate for adult interaction, slowly going insane mother of two with very little work experience, and who is willing to pay at least $40,000 a year. Ummmm, Hello?!? I’d be so thankful for anything that gets me out of this house that I would be the best damn work-whore they’d ever seen.

7) Eat random crap –Ritz crackers and cream cheese, pineapple slices drizzled with Arby’s Sauce, raisins rolled into a ball and coated in peanut butter, cornflakes with melted butter, Saltines shmeared with Smucker’s grape jelly, ham slices wrapped in lettuce leaves dipped in ketchup – I know it’s all very weird, so you can stop making that face.

8) Blog. It’s my latest justification for spending $30,000 for my unused 4 year degree in Creative Writing which all my professors assured me that I would have no problem getting a high paying career with. Lying bastards
9) Take pictures of normal things in a dark and twisted manner. My latest highly inappropriate yet hilarious photo shoot: Martini glasses and breast pump attachments. After staring off into space, trying to turn off my brain (see below for details) my eyes fell upon my breast pump and I got to thinking how much the utter suckers look a hell of a lot like martini glasses. I already know I have issues but you try looking at a breast pump and not think about a cow.

10) Stare off into space and turn my brain off. I like to close my eyes and try as hard as humanly possible with two children demanding something every fricking 10 seconds to just turn off my brain. As easy as this sounds, you try not thinking about anything for thirty seconds while your toddler is giggling from behind the locked bathroom door as you hear the distinctive whoomp-whooomp-whoooomp of toilet paper being unwound followed by shrilly laugh and ominous gurgling sound coming from the toilet as it desperately tries to consume an entire roll of toilet paper. It’s like yoga for the mind!

Seriously – with my life – who has time to stay bored!

Yup, I am becoming THAT mother

I used my daughter's bottle to measure out vodka for my martini.
Yup, that's the day I'm having!

Lost by a nose

Parker had her 4 month check-up today. She is a very tall, skinny healthy baby! Apparetly my breast milk works.
I talked to the MIL today afterwards giving her a report on my super long skinny baby stats. I don't know why this is but I frequently feel like I have to prove that my children belong to me and have my genes too! Yes my husband is tall and skinny but...I used to be too! I don't really know why the Mommy Bear in me roars when people compare our daughter's to my husband but it does and quite loudly at that. I hear a lot of how much my children look like my husband's side of the family. The length of Parker's arms, her hair color, the shape of her eyes, her clam nature, apparently all from Jeff's side. Emmy's eye color and hair color, and smile and cheeks and chin, all Jeff. It shouldn't bother me and most days it doesn't but today I felt like asking "Was I in the room when these two girls were conceived?" There has to be something that's me in my daughters.
I went to my evil, competitive place today. I was bound and determined to find at least one photo of me as a child where one of my children looked like me. Where I could point and say "See that's my nose!" I was going to find that one pictures and blow it up for all the world to see. I would find both my husband's and my baby book and compare them, damn it. I was on a mission. I was pretty sure I knew where his was and had a good idea of where mine might be. The search began.
I found Jeff's baby book that his mother filled out.
I found the guest book from my mother's funeral, filled out by 209 friends and family who attended her funeral and wake.
Today kinda sucks.

Setting them up for success

So I sent the toddler away today. To Nana's and Papa's for two days and two nights. She is gone and ouch, my heart hurts. She drives me bonkers but she is my heart. And my heart is gone. For two days and two nights. Sniff, sniff.
After Emmy left the house was really quiet. I put Parker to sleep and then just sat and kinda stared out the window for a while. Parker woke up about an hour later and you could just tell that she knew Emmy was gone.
Here's the thing. As far as children are concerned, Parker is an EASY baby. Please don't hate me but my child has been sleeping through the night since she was about a month old. And even early on she only woke up about once a night. She doesn't cry a whole lot unless her sister smacks her in the head or rolls over on her while she's quietly lying on the bed. She's extremely smiley and giggly and just plain happy. But she got up from her nap and knew her sister was gone. We played on the floor and I could actually devote all of my attention to her. I was all her's for the rest of the afternoon. What does she do? Rolls over! Yep that's right; she rolled over and over and over and over. It was like she was performing for me. She was all grunting and huffing and hauling her chubby little baby legs from side to side until she rolled over. And Mommy did nothing but clap and smile and coo at her. This went on for twenty minutes. I was completely focused on her for 20 minutes. No "Hold on Parker, Emmy has to go potty" or "I'll be right back, Emmy wants juice" or "I've got to go help your big sister." I was all hers. No competition.
And so began the crying!
She would roll half way over and get stuck, cry!
She dropped her toy, cry!
She couldn't see my face, cry!
And when she cried, I was right there with all my love and hugs, no waiting.
So my question is, Has she been neglected all this time or is just now figuring out what every girl on the planet knows... Crying is a very effective form of manipulation that one should master as early as possible.

So Here We Go!

Wow. My first blog. I feel so not old.
Well what can I say about myself. I am a new stay at home mom and I think that I'm half crazy for doing it. I don't ever get a lunch break let alone a bathroom break. It's the exact same thing every day 7 days a week and I am sooooo tired. Tired and bored.
This is the first break I've had all day and let me tell you it's not really a break. My almost four month old is sleeping in the next room (I knew she wasn't hungry but I nursed her because I knew she would fall asleep). My two year old is upstairs in her crib (Yeah she is still in a crib) calling "Mommy, mommy, what are you doing." I would like to call back "I'm ignoring you sweetie so Mommy can have a little time to herself before she rips every hair on her head out, my love." But ignoring will work for right now. Maybe she will take a nap, doubtful but I refuse to give up hope!
Is it too early for a martini?
I actually called a friend up yesterday at quarter to five and asked her that very question. Before she even had two seconds to say "Hello?" I began my justification... "So Jeff is on his way home and should be here within 15 minutes. Parker is screaming because I'm not holding her and playing with her and giving her 120% of my attention and therefore believes herself to be the most unloved and neglected 3 month old on the planet and Emmy is in the bathroom changing her underware after her third accident of the day but atleast this one isn't poop and I just want a martini. I got new martini glasses for Christmas and there is vodka in the refridgerator and I'm so tired. Did I mention that no one took a nap today? We tried but Emmy woke up Parker from two naps and now everyone is cranky. Is it too early to start drinking?"
Can I just say that cherry martinis are WONDERFUL!