The Kind of Mama I Want To Be

When I was thirteen years old, my mom made me really mad. I don't remember what our fight was about, but I remember storming into my room, slamming my door as hard as I possibly could and then sitting down to write an angry list entitled: "How I'll Treat My Kids".

The details escape me, but I'm sure the list contained vast stores of knowledge that only a thirteen-year-old who is fairly certain she's got the whole world figured out possesses. It probably had suggestions such as: "I will never tell my kids no," and, "I will always let them have dessert," and, "I will let them have sleepovers every weekend if they did their homework,".

Since that day, I've thought a lot about the kind of Mom I want to be. Especially lately since I've...you know...become a Mom. I thought it was high time that I make a new list. Especially now that more of my chromosomes are here and all.

The Kind of Mama I Want To Be

-I want to be actively involved in my children's lives at every stage.
      ~I want to crawl with them while they're crawling.
      ~I want to chase them while they're learning to run.
      ~I want to be at every game, recital and school awards ceremony and cheer louder than anyone else.
      ~I want to paint with them and wrestle with them and beat them at races into the ocean.
      ~I want to live at their level and see what they see; rediscover this beautiful world through their eyes.

-I want to be Patient
     ~I want to learn not to sweat the small stuff.
     ~I want to enjoy watching them as they learn to behave and take joy in my role as their teacher.
     ~I want to use spills, tears, cut hair, soiled pants and marks on the walls as learning experiences and stay kind as I try to help them learn.

- I want to be easy-going
    ~I want to let them jump in puddles and splash in the tub and sink.
    ~I want them to get muddy and messy.
    ~I want to give them dessert sometimes.
    ~I want them to stay up late sometimes.
    ~I want them to feel safe when they need to tell me something hard.

-I want to live in the moment

    ~I want to gaze into my newborns eyes forever while I sing him to sleep.

    ~I want to memorize what it sounds like when their one-year-old voices are learning new words.

    ~I want to breathe in the smell of them when they're tiny and have that newborn smell and never forget how warm they are and how perfectly they fit in my arms.

    ~I want to be completely present while they bang on the piano and sing at the top of their lungs.

    ~I want to take lots of pictures, write lots of memories and remember lots of moments.

    ~I want to remember that they are only young once. I want to let them be young while they are young.

    ~I want to hold them tight and help them learn that they are never alone; that they never need to be afraid; that there is hope and happiness and beauty all around them. No matter what.

I want to cherish every moment that God gives me with them and never forget that they are His. 

My Second Baby Bird

Well, I finally let the cat out of the bag, as it were. Shem and I are expecting again! Here I will answer some questions that most of you are probably too polite to ask, but you're curious about anyway:

1. Yes, we planned this pregnancy.
     It's been really fun this time around because we did the whole, "Hey. You know what would be fun? Another baby. What do you think?" thing. I mean, don't get me wrong, Luke was the best surprise of my life..but there was something extra exciting about the anticipation of trying for a baby.

2. Luke will be 22 months old when the baby comes.
    So, really close to two years old. Originally, I really wanted our first two to be at least two years apart, but the timing just seemed perfect and everything started to come together so we decided to start trying a bit earlier than we'd originally planned. I think 22 months is going to be perfect.

3. I'm super nervous about having another one.
    There are several reasons as to why this is.
    -Babies are hard. I don't know if anyone has ever told you this, but it's more true than you'd think. I'm nervous about adjusting to a newborn while also taking care of a toddler. That is a horrendously terrifying prospect.
    -People might think this is silly, but I do not know how I can possibly love another baby as much as I love Luke. I keep having these thoughts where they'll hand me the baby and I'm like, "Meh. The other one was cuter." AH! I'm sure that experienced parents (including my mother) who have told me that this will not happen are absolutely correct, but still, it makes me nervous.
    -They won't nap at the same time. So. I feel like this means any shred of 'me time' I have been enjoying will be gone. Being as I'm inherently a selfish being, this depresses me. =)

4. I'm also super excited about having another once.
    Obviously. But really. Teeny, tiny toes and fingers, soft hair, the baby smell, how perfectly they fit in your arms at first, the first smile, the first giggle, how they know your smell and voice immediately, watching them learn and figure out the world...just all of it. I'm so excited to have all of those moments again. All of those firsts. Also, I think Luke is going to be the best big brother IN ALL THE LAND.

5. I've been really sick this pregnancy, but not as sick as I was with Luke.
    Thankfully, I've been able to function better this time around. My "morning sickness" has been more on the normal side and even though I do tend to throw up at least once or twice a day and have lost about 5 pounds (you wouldn't know it by looking at me, though...my waist is like a tree trunk right now) I can at least get out of bed and take care of my baby. Of course, I wouldn't be able to do half of what I do if it wasn't for my amazing husband and my family. They have helped and blessed me more than they even know. My sweet husband always crawls out of bed early to bring me food, he's been doing the dishes for weeks now, he helps around the house and takes Luke for me as soon as he gets home since the majority of my nausea/vomiting happens in the evenings. He is my rock. Next time you see him, give him a pat on the back for me and tell him he's awesome.

6. Yes, we are kind of hoping for a girl.
     We haven't done the girl thing yet, so that would be fun. That being said, I have a very strong feeling this baby is a boy. The pregnancies are VERY similar. I'm craving all the same things and all that. And I've had two very vivid dreams that it is a boy. So, I'm gearing myself for a boy. There are a lot of benefits to having a boy. We won't have to buy anything at all. He'd be totally set in terms of clothes and towels and everything else we have that isn't gender-nuetral. So that'd be nice. Also, I think it would be so fun for Luke to have a brother so close in age. They'd wrestle around and do all the fun brother stuff together.

Random facts:
Due: June 22nd (hooray for not being pregnant in July or August!)
Weeks: 10 and 3 days.
Weight gain: None. I'd gained a bit originally, but all that came off plus two more thanks to all the barf.
Gender Reveal: Either the beginning of January or the beginning of February, depending on how patient I can be/how much money I'm willing to spend to be impatient.

Alrighty! That's it. We're excited and we can wait! I'm so excited to feel the first flutters and kicks and all that good stuff and I just can't wait until this baby is in my arms. YAY reproduction!

My Soul-Mate

If you'd asked me three years ago if I believed in soul mates, I would have given you an unequivocal 'no'; explaining my belief that there are many good matches for many good people and that if you're both working hard at your marriage, you can have a successful relationship. I'm sure I would have said it as though I'd really figured all this stuff out. I'm sure I was sure at the time that my theory was fool-proof.

Then I met Shem.

And I really liked him. I liked him a whole lot. And I thought, "I'd bet that we could really work together and make a successful relationship out of this whole mutual attraction thing we've got goin' on here".

So we did.

When we got married, we were madly in love with each other. We knew we were supposed to be together. We knew we were a good match. But I don't think we knew the extent to which our match really was made in heaven.

I firmly and absolutely believe we were meant for each other. I am so completely convinced that Shem is my soul-mate that I can't imagine ever believing there was no such thing.

We're definitely not the same person, though in the ways that matter, he is kind of the male equivalent of me. We both communicate through humor and silliness. We're both people-pleasers and we hate confrontation. We both value family and friends and are loyal to those we love. We communicate in eerily similar ways. Which makes arguments a lot easier to have.

In other ways, though, he really does complete me. I know that sounds unbelievably cheesy, but what else do you call it when your spouse's good qualities are frequently the very qualities that you lack? He is teaching me every day how to be a better person. How to serve selflessly, how to be truly honest, how to relax and let small things go, and how to be calm in the middle of a storm.

I never expected to be converted to the belief in soul mates. And I'm sure that my original theory holds true for some. But let me tell you something: from this side of the fence, a real life soul mate looks like a pretty darn good way to spend eternity.

I can't wait to continue falling more and more in love with my husband every year. It's the best feeling in the world to know that I already love him more than I did the day we got married.

I love you so much!
Happy Anniversary.

The Great Fly War--AKA: The Zombie Fly

Shem and I found a colony of flies living in our house yesterday.

It all started last night. I'd just walked in the kitchen after putting Luke to bed to see Shem holding a full cup of water, waiting for a fly he had found to land. He had a disconcerting look on his face that told me there was every possibility that very soon, that full cup of water was going to be an empty cup of water and a huge mess to sop up.

"Whatcha doin'?" I asked hastily.

"Killing that fly." He answered without breaking eye contact from the winged beasty.

"With what?" There was a slight tremor of fear in my voice now.

"With this water. I'm going to drown it." The fly landed lazily on a rung of the blinds, none the wiser that it's ultimate demise was being plotted by my fully grown husband who was brandishing water as his weapon.

Quickly, I grabbed the fly swatter (yes, we have a fly swatter. I know, right?) from behind the fridge, "Honey. How about instead of flooding the kitchen, we use this aptly named device to swat the fly?"

He paused, "I have a better idea."

Uh-oh.

He grabbed the nipple to a bottle which was in the sink, waiting to be cleaned, and filled it with water, "We can't swat it while it's on the blinds; it'll escape. So, I'll startle it with a squirt of water and then you smack it."

I thought this over for a moment and then, deciding that the stream of water was so tiny it couldn't possibly result in flooding, I agreed.

He squirted it, but instead of flying out towards the woman with a fly swatter (go figure) it flew behind the blinds to seek refuge next to the window.

Shem pull the blinds open so I could get it, and that's when it happened: A torrent, a hurricane, an army of flies was released into my kitchen. I'm not kidding you, there were at least 12 flies and they all flew out at the same time. It was like sick, nasty, hairy, buzzy rain fall. I might have screamed a little bit.

It was then that my inner killer was released. I went crazy. I didn't hold back. No one was safe. Letting out a strangled war-cry, I flung that fly swatter as hard and as fast as I possibly could. Shem swiftly left my presence in an attempt to protect himself. (A wise move, I assure you) The flies broke ranks and scattered in every direction. I killed one. I killed another one. They were dropping like...well...you know...flies. Smashing, crashing, screaming...I really didn't care what I hit or where they were killed. I'd killed four before I paused, searching for more.

I found a few, unwisely chilling on my kitchen wall. After a couple more fly casualties, I had killed as many as I could find. I'd definitely won the battle.

It was now time to sweep up their tiny, squished remains. As I was sweeping, one of the dead ones miraculously resurrected, JUMPED at me and flew into my blouse. (People, I couldn't make this up if I tried.) I screamed, spun around in circles (in case you don't know, that's the proper technique for removing flies from your blouse. You can thank me later) and wiped my outfit vigorously in attempts to remove the nasty un-dead zombie fly from my person. I don't know if it worked. But since then, I've changed my clothes and taken a shower so I think it's safe to say it's no longer on me. Crisis (eventually) averted.

I'd won the battle, but not the war. I think I killed a total of six last night. There are at least six more hanging about my abode. I got two this morning. There is one buzzing stupidly against the inside of the blinds in my bedroom as I write this. There was one that flew out at me from behind the shower curtain as I was getting ready for the day (he will pay for his startling trick) And I know there are others. Ohhhh, are there others. Believe me, I WILL find them. And I WILL kill them. And the zombies? I will DOUBLE kill them. That's how serious I am.

They picked the wrong house, guys. The wrong. House.

Walking, Talking, Shouting. Also Music.

Michelle and I have begun to embark on an exercise routine in the morning again. We've been waking up at seven to go for a walk in the park together. I bring Luke. He plays in the leaves. It's a party.

This morning, on my walk back home from the park, I had my ear buds in and was listening to music. I try and keep the volume really low so that I can hear and respond to Luke as he jabbers about the world. Also, so that I can say hi to people who pass and hear what they say back so that I can avoid embarrassing interactions in which a really old lady will speak to me as though I can hear her and I will try to respond as though I heard her and it just doesn't work out because our conversation is like:

Her: My, what a handsome boy you have!
Me: Thanks! You too.

...yeah...

(Not that this story comes from experience. Okay, who am I kidding? Yes it does.)

So, there I am, walking home when I see a big, rather intimidating man who is also wearing headphones, walking toward me. I smile and look down so as to try and avoid interaction with him because I'm the scardiest scardy-cat of all time and was, at the time, imagining all the horrible things the guy would do to me if he were the type of guy to do horrible things to people like me. You can understand my horror then, when he, assuming I had my music blasting, shouted at the top of his lungs, "GOOD MORNING!"

I think I visibly jumped about a foot before regaining my composure, smiling and saying "good morning" back to him. Then I passed him ...and started walking a lot faster.

Overall, it was a really good workout.

When Luke-A-Duke Puke-A-Duked

Well, it finally happened.

Years before I had children, I dreaded this part of motherhood. I knew I'd be a pro at handling mud, clutter, general messiness, bloody noses, skinned knees, bee stings... I was ready for all of that. Heck, I even knew that explosive diapers would be no match for my supermom alter-ego. Potty training? Sure. Accidents? Bring them on. Two year olds painting with feces? Absolutely.

This is thanks, in part, to the fact that I did so much babysitting/nannying while growing up. Wiping a stranger's child's butt for a living has a way of callousing you toward all other horrifying things in life.

If I'm being honest, when facing most of those things in real life, they are much more terrifying than my naive 16-year-old brain thought they would be, but that isn't the point. The point IS; even at 16 I knew that the somewhere in the dark, shadowy, ugly places of my future the moment would inevitably come that my children would expel through their mouths that which they had just consumed and that it would be far worse than any other horrible happening ever.

This morning I had a meeting with destiny.

I gave my baby a bottle of milk this morning because I needed an extra few minutes to wake up and usually a bottle will buy me those minutes. I never expected, as I walked sleepily back into my room to wake up, that I'd be seeing that milk again so soon.

Twenty minutes later, awake and cheerful, I went to get my boy for a morning filled with laughter, singing and tickle fights.

Then it happened.

I smelled it first. Then I saw it. The barf. I'm not talking about that gunk that newborns hoark up on a daily hourly basis. Spit up has nothing on what happened to me this morning. I yearned for spit up after this morning. I would EAT spit up after this morning.
(no. I completely take that last sentence back.)

Also, he had rolled in it. Because just puking all over the entire right side of his bed, his bumpers and somehow the wall, wasn't gross enough. No, he also needed to paint with it and smear it all over his face and squish it into the strands of his soft hair.

It was then that I cursed the universe for having created this reality in which Shem had to work early today. Only today. Out of any of the days in this week. It had to be today. The cursed day. In which my innocence died.

Two hours and several buckets of scalding hot, soapy water later, the smell was entirely eradicated from my house and order had been restored, Luke was bathed and (kind of) fed. He was hungry, but not presumably because of his icky tummy. So breakfast greatly consisted of his throwing dry toast on the floor and spitting applesauce at me as a thank you for cleaning up his puke. Also, the dust pan was lost because he likes to play with it and put it who-knows-where when he's done, so sweeping up the bread crumbs was another fun adventure brought to you in part by my one-year-old.

I have no idea why he's sick. But I think it has something to do with the fact that he likes sucking on tables when we go out to eat.

So, that's how my day was.
How was yours?

Today's Adventure Brought to You By: Cravings

That moment when you go into a chocolate induced coma at around four o' clock in the afternoon and don't wake up until after five so now at 10:46, you're not the least bit sleepy and instead you're up thinking about nothing and watching youtube videos of X Factor auditions since you don't have cable and as you're thinking about nothing, you realize you should probably not be up watching youtube videos mindlessly waiting to become exhausted, you should instead be running about five miles to burn off all the chocolate you consumed earlier which is in every way responsible for all of this trouble in the first place so you stand up, trying to convince yourself to do a jumping jack or something, but the mental exertion of just thinking about doing something like that so overwhelms you that you realize, happily, that you are now ready for bed.