Monthly Archives: February 2013

What Makes A Mom?

So I was planning this whole witty post about how the move went,  but instead I’m going to write a little about the move and a lot about my crap-tacular day.

First: the move.  We had our stuff delivered from storage on Tuesday.  So Tuesday morning we wake up early to drive over to the house and wouldn’t you guess, but we woke up to another big snow storm.  (Sarcastic) yay!  When we get to the house we get a call from the movers that they are going to be late because they are driving down from Grand Rapids in the snow and the weather is pretty bad.  They finally get here, and I can only properly describe the day as “emotionally trying.”  One of the first items off of the truck was our patio table, and 8 hours later when everything was off there was probably a foot of snow on the table.  It’s not enough that it was snowing like I live at a ski resort, but there were probably 20 mile an hour winds as well. Kill me.

The movers broke Lucas’ crib and put a hole in the wall of our rental.  The hole shouldn’t be a problem seeing as how the owners are so picky that we have a clause in our rental agreement regarding the number of nail holes we are allowed to put in the walls.  But that was only nail holes and didn’t say anything about mover-created punch-out holes.  So we should probably be fine (enter: sarcastic eye roll).

So anyway, I’ve spent the rest of the week getting internet set up and enough of the boxes unpacked that I could make beds and we could get the hell out of that apartment and all that it entails.  The morning of the internet guy it’s still snowing like crazy and Angel and I decide that we are sleeping in the house come hell or high water snow.  I bring the dog with me and she’s still a little confused about where we are and what we’re doing to her.

I start with Lucas’ nursery before all else so that the baby has somewhere to sleep.  Because I’m so obsessed with it, nursery 2.0 is nearly immaculate before I start on anything else in the house:

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I then move on to making my bed and clearing a path to the nursery and as soon as I pull the sheets out of the box, something clicks in Molly’s mind, and she finally realizes what’s going on:

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She slept with her nose buried in my down comforter for over an hour before I could get her off and make the bed.  It was like she hasn’t slept in a month since our house was packed and finally realized that she was home.  I understand, dog.  I get you.  So I made our bed and started to unpack clothes to make room for us to move in our bedroom.

While I was unpacking, I caught my supervisor sleeping on the job a few times:

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One looooooong day and 7K+ Nike Fuel Points later, I call it a day and am about to crawl into bed with Angel says to me “I’m in the mood for hot chocolate and Amazon videos on the iPad.” and once the idea was planted, I thought it sounded great.  The only problem?  I hadn’t stepped anywhere near the kitchen yet.  So we went down thinking how hard can it be to find a giant Keurig machine in a box? The answer: hard.  An hour later, we have found the mugs, the hot chocolate and cider k cups…. everything EXCEPT the Keurig!!  The last box that it could possibly be in and I start diving in.  All of a sudden I see black and silver amazingness and scream “Yes!!!!!” and start throwing around packing paper like it’s going out of style.  Except when I get it out of the box I quickly notice that the freaking water tank isn’t with it.  Which means that it’s somewhere in one of the 23 kitchen boxes that we have in front of us (assuming that that really is all of the kitchen boxes and none made it downstairs, like, say, my underwear getting stacked in the basement with Angel’s tools and painting supplies).  God must have had mercy on us, because I found it only 5 minutes later and about an hour and a half after we started looking.  Here is what our “kitchen” looked like after the hunt:

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Then yesterday it’s more of the same and we get DirecTV installed and rejoin the world of trashy TV.

So on to today’s crap-tastic events.  Angel was going to be home from 12:30-2 and I planned on leaving the baby with him and actually venturing out on my own minus baby for the first time in about a month.  He agreed and the second he got home I was gone.  I had to go to Target to get a few things to organize the house so I could finish unpacking the kitchen and to Babies R Us to get a sleep sack for Lucas.

To properly get you into my state of mind, let’s start with the sleep sack.  Okay, so our new location is a tad colder than sunny Phoenix.  As a result, at night it’s a touch colder as well.  We still swaddle Lucas, but he’s too active at night now and gets out of it.  It takes him about 2 hours in his sleep but once he does he gets cold and then wakes up and cries.  So I asked my mommy friends and came up with the idea to get a sleep sack, which is like a sleeping bag that he wears and can’t get out of when he moves around.  So I’m standing in the aisle and I think the stress of the move hits me.  I start BAWLING.  Okay, there are cotton ones and fleece ones and ones that swaddle and ones that don’t.  Lucas like’s to be swaddled but you don’t want the baby too warm with the fleece but he’s too cold now so will the cotton be enough?  But then what size do I need since he’s between them?  I don’t want to have to replace it in a week but I don’t want it so loose that he suffocates himself in his cold sleep.  And I think you get the idea.  Here’s a crazy lady in the aisle at Babies R Us sobbing over swaddling blankets.

I make it to Target but then run out of time to go to the grocery store before Angel has to be back to work so I run home.  Now, sidebar, I’ve been subtly asking Angel to shovel the driveway every day that we’ve been here and it keeps snowing.  But he drives an SUV so snow is no big deal.  Okay, so I get home today and my car gets stuck half way up our seemingly-mile-long driveway.  I think to myself “f it” throw the car it park and go inside.  I annoyingly tell Angel not to hit my car on his way out as I’m putting on my hat and gloves to go throw snow around for a few minutes.  So I tell Angel to put Lucas somewhere safe (like his crib) while I’m outside.  Mentally, I know I have about 20 minutes before he’s going to need to eat and I need to get rolling to get my car in the garage.  So I start shoveling, Angel gets ready for work, and leaves telling me that he’ll call me when he’s done and I tell him that’s fine but my phone is inside so I’ll see it when I’m done.

20 minutes later I go to head inside to wake up and feed Lucas and Oh My God, the door is locked.  LOCKED!  So here I am with my phone, keys, and BABY inside the house that I am now locked out of 2,000 miles away from anyone I know.  I calmly check all of the doors while mentally looking for rocks to throw through a freaking window to get to my baby but decide that I’ve been enough crazy for one day.  So I remember the landlord telling me that the neighbors are an old couple and I figured that they would probably be home in the middle of the afternoon.  I walk over, knock on the door, and am sobbing when I introduce myself as the neighbor who just moved next door and I’ve locked myself out of the house trying to shovel the driveway and my 3 month old is upstairs so can I please use their phone to call my husband and/or a lock smith?  Long story short, 2 hours later I’m sitting on the step, leaning against my door crying I assume as hard as Lucas is upstairs while Angel tries to pick the lock with an old credit card and we wait or a locksmith.  Right about the time the locksmith gets the door open I’m about to come undone and just start running up the stairs to grab Lucas, who is screaming this blood-curdling scream like I have never heard before.  I come downstairs 20 minutes later with baby in tow and it starts snowing and I tell Angel (pardon the french): “I’m not going anywhere near that fucking snow shovel!” And then I make him take me to dinner because I never made it to the grocery store and it’s hard to cook anyway when you won’t set your baby down.

Once I calm down I call my mom to tell her about this and she says to me “some people think that having a baby makes them a mom.  It’s things like this that make you a mom.”  She’s a wise woman.

And that’s how we came about getting a spare key to the house.

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No Coffee on Monday For Mommy

It’s been a busy few days!

On Valentine’s Day, Angel took me (and Lucas) to dinner at this Italian restaurant called Bravo.  Every Valentine’s Day that we have been together, he would always take me to this little place in Phoenix called “Aiello’s” that was amazing.  While this place was no Aiello’s, I love that Angel was sentimental enough to pick another Italian restaurant.  The food was great, the wine was good, and it as a great date night with my two boys- both smiling at me all night.

The last 3 days I’ve spent at the house painting bedrooms.  3 bedrooms, 4 paint colors, and 6 gallons of paint later, I can hardly move my arm because it hurts so badly but the rooms are more our taste now.  The bedrooms were painted interesting colors that just didn’t match our decor.  For instance, here is the before and after of what’s going to be my craft room (that I negotiated in the move):

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We went back to finish up on Sunday because these…. bold? colors needed two coats of paint to cover.  On Sunday, Lucas decided it was the perfect opportunity to scream when we set him down.  He was screaming like we never give him attention, which I know for a FACT is false because I ambush him with kisses and cuddles often.  Hours and no progress later, he finally fell asleep:

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In the bathroom, because that’s how we roll.

I went back this afternoon to finish putting the rooms back together because the movers come tomorrow morning to deliver our stuff from storage!!  I can’t wait to have my bed back.  I have turned into such a bed snob after sleeping on this crappy, small,  mattress with itchy sheets.   As it seems, Angel and I are incapable of sharing a bed smaller than King!  I’ve kicked him in my sleep, and he’s elbowed me in his, and our poor puppy isn’t sure where she fits so she takes her half out of the middle and I usually have some limb hanging off the side and into the baby’s rocker, which I literally have to crawl over to get in and out of bed.  These are what our sleeping arraignments look like in this glorious crap castle.

On the topic of sleep, my little munchkin has slept 8 to 8 1/2 hours a night for the last 3 nights!!!  I’m so excited that he’s not waking me up at 4am anymore, that I wake myself up and lay there for an hour to make sure he’s not waking up.  It’s a very efficient process.  If my internal alarm could just let me sleep, I would appreciate these 8 hours a heck of a lot more.  Instead, I wake up at 6 or 7 feeling like I took a hit directly to my chest and I can’t feed the baby fast enough.

At 7 this morning, I was so distracted by the fact that he was smiling at me that I hardly cared that he wouldn’t go back to sleep.  That’s a total lie, I’ll take sleep over smiles any morning when I don’t have coffee in the house.  And I don’t.  We ran out 48 hours ago, and they feel like a loooong 48 hours.  I don’t want to go get more, though, because tomorrow I plan on tearing into the kitchen boxes to find my Keurig machine and say “goodbye” to crappy ground coffee until our next stint in temporary, furnished housing.  I anticipate that to be 6 weeks after hell freezes over my dead body.

And because I talk about Lucas like the proud momma that I am (and it’s the internet and my blog so I would like to see someone stop me), here is your overdose of cuteness:

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In other news, every Wednesday Angel has the opportunity to load up on Kellogg’s goodness from the employee store.  We usually talk on Tuesday night about what he’s going to get so that we can plot what we need and what we’re sending to friends.  Last week they were out of our usuals, so Angel came home with this gem, which is like a sugar high in a box (if that translated into: ah-mazing):

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Do you see how awesome this is?!  It’s Fruit Loops with something like Lucky Charms marshmallows.  I’ve never seen these in stores, and that’s one of the awesome perks of Angel’s new job.  The other being that I get to spend 7 days a week in sweat pants with my poop machine if I feel like it.

And finally, happy 3 month birthday to my little man.  He’s growing up so fast and the time is flying by.  Mommy loves you!

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Happy Valentine’s Day

Just for the record, Lucas fell asleep an hour ago and I’ve spent the whole time trying to figure out how to use this new computer so that I could actually update my blog and not the 3 photos and 5 words that you all got a few days ago.  My last personal computer was purchased in 2002 and didn’t have wireless internet and “Windows Home” and the work computer that I had been using was rocking Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2007.  Now that I’m on Windows 8 with Office 2013, I feel like I’ve been driving a 1976 VW Beetle for years and Angel just handed me the keys to a Lexus with self parking capabilities.  I know this machine can do so much more then I’m giving it credit for, but I’m spending hours trying to figure out where the gas cap is.

So an hour later, I at least know how to edit my photos and add my little website tag to them, which is more then I had the other day after I spent 30 minutes in Photoshop trying to open a file.

Two days ago, I took my little pooper to our “new” house and we got the keys!

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I was excited to talk to the homeowner because she was a stay at home mom who was apparently extremely involved in mom groups and I wanted to pick her brain about where these such groups meet.  A few minutes later, I learned that the group she was involved in was through her church and was a bible study with an elaborate day care that takes your kids for an hour or two while you’re in the study group.  That’s not quite what I had in mind as a “mom group” so I politely passed and decided that I would just Google my options as soon as I learn how to use the internet on this computer.

Yesterday I went back to the house with Pooper and we had a few ladies from La-Z-Boy come by to measure the living room and give us some options for a couch to replace the disgustingly dirty one that came with Angel when I acquired him.  Bachelor couch is not dog and baby friendly and we’ve been so impressed with the rocker from La-Z-Boy that we have in the nursery (or storage, whatever) that we decided to go see what they had.  I’m pretty sure that the ladies didn’t take us seriously, but that’s the theme for this crap hole that we’ve moved to.  Perhaps I’m just in the wrong parts of town (which is possible because I don’t know any better yet), but everyone looks at me and automatically assumes that I’m a struggling teen mom playing house.  Most of the time it doesn’t get to me, but some times I just can’t take the looks and whispers because Angel and I have worked really hard for what we have and the ability for me to comfortably be a stay at home mom.  But I digress.  So yesterday when the ladies were leaving the house, the one was trying to see how serious we were about purchasing a couch and asked what our budget was and immediately started talking to me about financing options.  When I said “I don’t think we’re interested in financing.  We would just pay cash.”  She was trying to suppress a laugh and then spent 15 minutes asking me how old I was without actually coming out to ask.  I finally said “I’m 28.” and she replies with a “Wow!  You look great!”  And you look old.  What’s your point?  If I wasn’t getting this kind of discriminating looks and comments everywhere I went here like I’m living way beyond my means for purchasing both spaghetti noodles and spaghetti sauce at the same time I may actually be offended by the way that the lady was acting.  But instead, I think I’m just (sadly) getting used to it since we’ve moved here.  I miss the area we lived in and friends that we had who were all in the same position.  I’ve never felt like I was in an elite income bracket until I moved here and it’s a really uncomfortable feeling.  And then I get mad for feeling uncomfortable for what I have because again, we’ve worked really hard!  So I just turn the other cheek and then try not to be snobby because I hate people like that, but it’s hard not to come across that way when the lady from La-Z-Boy is standing in my living room asking me how old I am and commenting on how nice the house is.  Listen, bitch, sell me a couch or get out of my house.  This feeling is really what I’m struggling the most with here and I hope it gets better when we move into the house which is supposed to be in a nice area full of families and stay at home moms.

In a lighter note, Lucas has been waking me up earlier and earlier and refusing to go back to sleep.  Going are the days of sleeping until 10 and feeding him and going back to sleep. This morning I was looking for the snooze button on my human alarm clock and spent 5 minutes pressing his forehead but he wouldn’t shut up and go back to sleep.  I’m going to have to take this back to the store.

So instead, I got up, made coffee, and dared to put Lucas in his Valentine’s Day outfit early.  I call this a “dare” because he’s been blowing out his diaper and staining his clothes nearly every day.  Angel and I assume this is a sign that we either forgot how to properly put on baby diapers, or Lucas is outgrowing them.  I’m guessing option 2, so we’re going to finish up what we have, and then finally move on from the newborn diapers.  In the mean time, here’s a photo of Lucas on his first Valentine’s Day (before he poops out of the outfit) while he lays on a changing pad without a cover because he pooped all over that and it’s in the washer.  At this point, a drop cloth would be more appropriate for my house.

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Angel is taking the three of us to dinner tonight in Kalamazoo and I’ll be sure to tell you all about it tomorrow because I need more practice on this computer and because I don’t have much else to do while I’m living in temp housing.

 

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<—– Look what I learned how to do!

Wait A Minute Mr. Postman

Today, I had some amazing deliveries.

First, I ordered this iPhone case on sale at the Coach Factory store:

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When I went to pick up that delivery in our Crap Castle office, there was a second package waiting for me:

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My NEW computer!!!!  I’ve been rocking my work computer for years, and since I turn that sucker in when I travel to Arizona in March (see: ending employment to stay home with my poop machine), Angel got me a sweet new Ultrabook that I know nothing about, other than it’s sweet and looks pretty 🙂

I put the case on my phone, sent Angel a picture of the computer box, and just started to tear into the box with UPS rings my door buzzer to deliver a package.  Thinking it was Amazon diapers, I went to the door to get it and was surprised with this:

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It’s the embroidery machine that I’ve  been eyeing for months but refused to buy because I thought it was too expensive to buy for myself.  So my awesomely awesome husband surprised me and got it for me!!  I had no idea he even knew which machine I was looking at, but he totally nailed it and I love him for being so thoughtful.

Short post tonight because it took me an hour to figure out where Internet Explorer on this computer is, and I’m overwhelmed with all of the new machines that I got today from my husband who thinks that I deserve them all.

He’s awesome ❤

 

History Repeats Itself

Hm…. Where to start?

First, my adorable baby apparently doesn’t want to be set down tonight, so I had to start this blog post 4 different times before I could actually get writing.  And now I write this

I’m sorry, what was I saying?

Yes, that I’ve had to start this post 5 times because I keep stopping to try to make Lucas fall asleep.

Yep, 6th time’s the charm….

Sometimes it takes 7 starts to a

I digress…. And I also think I have at least 4 minutes to collect my thoughts this time

Nope, sure didn’t.

Okay then, so this week I think I finally got into the groove of being a stay at home mom.

Aww, that’s cute.  There was a 20 minute pause between that last sentence and writing the rest of my blog because Lucas decided that he was hungry and I had to feed him.  So let’s talk about nursing for a minute, shall we?  It’s been going much better since we moved to Michigan.  Mostly because I’m lazy, partially because I don’t have the resources readily available that I did in Arizona, but really mostly because I’m lazy, Lucas has been nursing 100% of the time.  I haven’t gone near a pump or a bottle in about 2 weeks.  In fact, I have no milk in the fridge because I had to put it all in the freezer or throw it out (and cry) because he hasn’t had a bottle in so long.  Yay me!  (And maybe a little bit Lucas).  But I still call “BS” on books, people, and lactation specialists who make it sound like nursing feels like magical unicorns giving you hugs while you sip Mai Tais on the beach.  It’s more like dangling it in a tank of piranhas who haven’t eaten in a  week.  What I wouldn’t give to be able to strap off my boobs, throw them in his crib, and get a good night’s sleep!!

Yesterday I took a shower (because I promised Angel that I would) and took Lucas to Target to get a sewing machine and then to the fabric store to get fabric for burp cloths and blankets.  Why?  BECAUSE I’M BORED!  The fabric store was in the loveliest part of town: located between the Salvation Army and a couple of pawn shops (see: “Crap Castle”).  The trip was even complete with two moms screaming at each other that the other was a “ho” in front of their children.  Sweet, right? My mom apparently did the same thing when she moved a young family to California, so I have that in common with her, and that’s fine by me.

Sorry, another pause to read a Dr. Seuss favorite to Lucas and put him to bed, so don’t mind me if the next little bit of my blog post rhymes and has made up names that you’re not sure you’re pronouncing correctly but then it’s not like there’s an audience you’re reading to who knows any different, so feel free to skip a few pages to speed this bedtime up.

Anyway, what was I saying?  Something about history repeating itself and I unknowingly did what my mom did when she was in my position.

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Now that Lucas is in bed, I promise to have the rest of this post won’t be as scatter-brained as I think I’ve proved that I now live my life by.

So anyway, I was sewing these burp cloths all day yesterday just because it seemed more productive then watching more murder mystery shows on daytime TV:

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I’ve gotten into the habit of not waking up until 10am, mostly because I don’t work and Lucas still lets me sleep.  Last night I put Lucas to bed an hour late, so instead of eating at 7am and going back to sleep until 10, he ate at 8 and then daddy kept him awake while he was getting ready for work (grrrrrrr).  So right after daddy left for work, I snuck another man into my bed.  And by the grin on his face, he knew he didn’t belong there:

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So after I decided that there was no sleeping through those giggles, I got out of bed to make coffee and run some errands but quickly changed those plans when I looked outside to find that my perfectly clean and snow free car looked like this this morning:

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Angel was nice enough to clean off half of it when he left for work, but I secretly think he only did it to say “now you have no excuse for not changing out of sweat pants and leaving the house” but the joke it totally on him because I didn’t change out of sweats, and instead sat on the couch all morning with Lucas watching paternity test results on Maury:

watching tvLucas gets very into finding out if the ho is telling the truth or not.

Angel probably knew the car stunt wouldn’t guarantee him that both Lucas and I would bathe today, so he sent me a text message about 10am saying “for dinner tonight do you want to” and then I honestly didn’t read the rest before I answered “yes!”  I’m just glad he followed it up with “go to dinner in downtown Kalamazoo” and not “cook me a 7 course meal complete with lobster tail”  So by 5 o’clock this evening, I was so excited at the idea of putting on jeans and going on a date that I had Lucas fed, bathed, and dressed and Molly pottied and in her cage, and I was in clothes that were clean and my hair was curled.  Curled people!  I don’t think you understand how excited that means I was.

We dug out my car, drove out of our crap castle, and went into town to a nice European restaurant.  No idea what European food is?  It’s like heaven when it means that I didn’t have to cook it.  He even took me to grab a glass of wine before dinner where 2 ladies (one who works in OB) guessed that Lucas was either 2 weeks or 6 weeks old and were totally floored when we told them he was 3 months next week.  Then came the famous follow up question that I get every time I leave the house: “Was he a preemie?”  Nope, I fully baked my tiny baby.  The manager at the restaurant mentioned that we had a “very well behaved baby” which is great to hear since he was being exceptionally fussy tonight at dinner and we were in an establishment that probably only had high chairs because they were legally required to and not because anyone brings children there.  But “yeah, this one’s on the boob so he can pretty much go anywhere” (name that movie! *Sweet Home Alabama*).

When we got home, Angel and Lucas had a moment.  When the two of them start smiling at each other, I hardly care that the guy living above us is running in place to bad techno music while he washes laundry at 11pm.  I kid, I totally still care, but this is pretty adorable:

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The first week of staying home was interesting.  I may be the only person in this town who doesn’t shop at Goodwill and can afford to wash my jeans on a regular basis, and I get people whispering to each other when I grocery shop at my local Wal-Mart (that is seriously my only grocery store option around here.  Fried food, anyone?) regarding my Coach diaper bag and clean hair.  9 days, 2 Kindle books, and 6 burp cloths later, I had a total melt down to Angel one evening about how I hated this place and he can’t move me out of here fast enough and I can’t stay in the house all day every day and I need to make friends.

To prove my point, I sent Angel a text message this afternoon that said “I just finished up sewing a baby blanket with matching burp cloth.  I’m about to start sewing a new bedding set for our bedroom if you don’t help find me friends stat”  He wrote back with a phone number and said “call this number immediately” for the phone number of a mom’s group leader.

Next week’s goal: adult interaction.  I don’t care if it takes mom groups, extreme shopping, or jail.  Mark my words that next week I’ll talk to someone who doesn’t speak 2 month old in a venue that requires me to put on pants.

Crazy going slowly am I.

Baby Timeline

Whatever, I’ll keep posting pictures, because in case you didn’t gather this from my previous post, hubby let me sleep until 11 today so I’m clearly not sleepy right now (and I’ll pay for this later).

My baby is growing up too quickly:

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…Yet still so tiny

TGIS

TGIF? Screw that.  I still have to wake up in the middle of the night, change 1,000 diapers, go to the grocery store, cook, clean, and have dinner ready by 6.  How about TGIS when I have a hubby who takes the baby into the family room to play at 8am and lets me sleep until 11.  Now that’s something to be thankful for!

Here’s what my new normal looks like in photo montage:

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1. Wake up the sleeping beast

2. Get screamed at while I attempt to change a dirty diaper and get the baby dressed

2. Get screamed at while I attempt to change a dirty diaper and get the baby dressed

3. Feed the baby

3. Feed the baby

4. Baby peed in the process so change his diaper again

4. Baby peed in the process so change his diaper again

5. Time for morning cuddles.  Eating is a lot of work

5. Time for morning cuddles. Eating is a lot of work (creepy sleeping but awake eyes)

6. (No photo) Mommy has 30 minutes to shower before the baby wakes up

7. Time pauses for a while because the baby is smiling.  Everything else can wait

7. Time pauses for a while because the baby is smiling. Everything else can wait

8. Use the phrase "dig out" in reference to your vehicle

8. Use the phrase “dig out” in reference to my vehicle

9. Bundle up the baby

9. Bundle up the baby

10. After all of this is done, I have roughly 30 minutes of sleepy baby (as long as I don’t try to take him out of his car seat) before he starts screaming and it’s time to start this whole process over.  Realize that you can’t get anything done in 30 minutes.  Turn off the car, don’t dare touch the sleeping baby, and enjoy 30 minutes of peeing in peace, brushing my teeth in peace, pretending like I was ambitious enough to read (in peace), and picking up after the baby.  In peace.

Lather, rinse, repeat.