Waking up at 6:30am is a Mother's Day fail. I like to sleep in on the weekends, just because I can... usually. I haven't been lately because I have been immersing myself in whole days of yard work, torture to say the least. The baby woke up this morning and the monitor was going off, as usual I was trying to nudge my husband, but our king bed is ginormous and sometimes I'm too far away from him to reach. (I blame the cats who determine our sleep positions.) Finally I acted like I was getting up, which I thought would work since it IS Mother's Day, but it didn't so I was just like, "The baby has been awake for like an hour..." and he was like, wow I never heard him and shuffled off.

I settled down and was like aah, this is the life and then our toddler starting knocking on his door. The door that is like 4 ft. away from the baby's room across the hall. I was wondering what had happened to my husband because the knocking continued, then I realized he was probably putting the baby back to sleep so I had a moment of "Aww MAN!" I started to get up and the knocking got more pressing and I was hearing "Dada, I have to go poooop." So I went and unlocked his door and he like's "Dada, I need to go potty!" He sees it's me, I'm just like ok, ok... let's go. Potty time is not complete without the collection of things he carries with him out of his room so he has to rearrange it all on the counter before he goes. "I got a fish, I have kiki." Kiki is his blanket. I attempted to go back to bed, but then I was like well, I'm not too tired so maybe I'll claim my Mother's Day rights to a middle of the day nap. I do have to raid until 12:30 am for the next 5 days afterall.

I missed last night's SNL with Betty White too, I was too busy researching alternative milks to give my kids because taking my 2 year old off of Cow's Milk has done wonders for his Eczema. He's currently drinking almond milk, but it lacks a lot of the vitamins that cow's milk offers, so I will definitely have to supplement with a daily vitamin. He used to take them, but we ran out and it's not something that's been on my "Omg, we're out of this and I'm wiping my butt with fast food napkins" kind of need list.

I am wearing my new pajamas that I hand picked before pushing my husband out the door with the kids though and they are awesome. I have things I need to do today, but I don't want to take them off. On a normal work day, where my husband goes to work and I feed the demands of my children, I don't get dressed. I stay in pajamas allllll day long, life is good.

There was an article on the news the other night with a poll about having a favorite child. I don't know what the results were, I didn't even care because I thought it was kind of a crappy thing to advertise on the news. As a kid, you probably think your parent's have a favorite and it isn't you so if any kids out there saw that news headline, it probably only confirmed their feelings.

Aha, they do have a favorite... I knew it!

Once upon a time, when we were a family of three which seems like ages, but in reality, it has only been a short 11 months, I was worried that I would favor the only child I had known. Here I was with a little 17 month old funny guy and one just a month away and I wondered if the new little man would fit into our family or if I would always favor my oldest because he was here first. When he was born, there was no question that he fit... he was the obscure little piece missing in our family puzzle. Sometimes I feel like people who talk to me might think he is my favorite, but really, he's just a baby and has all those new baby features and new baby smell. If people dare ask if I have a favorite, the response is always the same: I favor the child who is behaving. Really though, even with one in his terrible twos and one who is teething molars and chewing on things worse than a pitbull puppy, they both have things I love about them. My oldest is a comedian and a humanitarian, he loves to help, but gets easily bored if he's not creating adventures and exploring things which leads him to mischief all too often. The baby is my baby, he cuddles and laughs, he loves to explore your face and rip it off (innocently) at the same time. He loves his big brother and wants to do everything he does. No, there are no favorites when it comes to them, my family is my heart.

My baby took a step today, it's not walking, but it puts up even closer to having a baby who isn't a baby. As long as he still cuddles with me, I'll be ok, but the day he doesn't may just be the day I lose my mind and talk my husband into a third. (Assuming the baby is potty trained by then too because I will never effing do two in diapers at once again... EVER!)

Last night I went down to this local earth market store, it was very different from your average Whole Foods. There were no babies being toted around in $500 strollers or the parking lot lined with Lincoln Navigators or Suburbans, the people inside looked like they should be shopping there and that didn't include me. It was a very small place with interesting features and some reasonable prices, I thought. The whole place smelled like patchouli and I'm sure had I been looking for indian hair tampons, I just may have found them. I was there looking for g diapers, the g diaper website said this place carried them, but they didn't. All they had were Seventh Generation chlorine free. I'm going to get them anyway, but now I will have to order them through diapers.com, which I was planning on anyway... you really can't beat their price right now. I'm not a hippie and my family doesn't only eat organic or use natural products, but I do have a child who watched Wall-E three times a day and it really makes you think about how life will be (or not be) if we continue to live this way. The prospect of 2012 completely scares me even though I don't think it's true... very much like Y2K. Until the moment passes when it's deemed not true, I will have this anxiety in the back of my soul. The movie didn't help. The anxiety isn't for me, it's for my children. The fact that I brought children into this world who may not see 5 years old because of some Mayan calendar prediction is scary and while it would be ok for me to go since I have lived and done almost everything I have wanted other than see Greece, grow old with my husband, and watch our children grow up and become adults... the last two are impossible if something happened to me and just knowing they could go on without me would be ok as long as they lived long healthy lives, but that isn't how the prediction of 2012 goes. Regardless, when 2012 does pass and we're all still here, I will feel better about knowing that I at least did a little bit to help the earth by not allowing an additional 1.5 years of diapers end up in the landfill for 500 years. I may have to edit this post if it doesn't work out though, even though I'm fairly confident it will and it will totally piss my husband off if it doesn't and be added to the list of fails.

I don't neglect to post because I don't want to, but whether it's the kids, Lich King, or sleep (which ranks high on my list) it tends to fall behind and is one of the lesser priorities in my life. Maybe if my blog grew inside of me for nine months and did things like throw up in the middle of the night or scream until I acknowledged it's existence, you would see updates more often from me. I can only say, thank god that's not how this works.

I do enjoy the blog, I think of things I wish I could write about all the time and then Priority #1 always comes in to play and mommy brain fails me. I'm starting a summer class soon so that will unfortunately be referred to as Priority #2. (the kids and husband are number 1... I included the husband to not look like a d-bag, but really he doesn't need diaper changing or butt wiping, again, thank god!)

I'm a big fan of Diagnosis: Urine and it gives me lots of hope and fear for my own future. I don't foresee having 4 children, but I do believe God has a sense of humor and while I'm content with two right now, should we try for a third (another boy, inevitably) I imagine he would throw twins our way just because we probably act like we have it all figured out. I look forward to the day when I can declare Wipe Your Own Ass Day! although I'm still reveling in the fact that he uses the potty at all because it was only just over a month ago we were still doing diapers. Although when the time does come to declare WYOAD, I hope that by then he's figured out you don't wipe and then try to blow your nose in it.

Hello, Hello?

I wanted to write about something last night, but instead watched a movie with my husband and then today spent the morning in the yard, the midday with the kids at the beach and the afternoon back in the yard, of course. The growth in my garden is amazing and I am awestruck since the only other thing I have ever grown, from a seed... so to speak, was my children. I feel like I did a pretty good job there as well.

I was driving home yesterday from shopping and saw a man, walking down the road at 7pm at night (still a lot of daylight) with a traffic vest on. The kind that is reflector yellow with the bands of reflector tape around it. He was walking with his dog down a somewhat busy road in a very residential area... waving. He waved at every car, I waved back, happily. But I wondered how many other people waved to him as well. I also wondered why he was waving, it was a bit odd, but I'll sum it up to being overtly friendly.

I live in a neighborhood with lots of kids, kids I don't know who belong to parents I don't know. Our "subdivision" (the only thing that makes us a subdivision in my book is the check I write to the HoA every year for dues) is two different streets with two cul de sacs branching off and in the one year we've lived here, I have talked to two of my neighbors and one was a awkward confrontation. The other one is a friendly relationship with my next door neighbor, but it isn't too friendly. Nods here or there, friendly conversation. As for everyone else, it's like they don't exist. I make attempts here or there to wave as I pass other neighbors, but the looks I have gotten usually deter me now. I waved to one of neighbors yard men the other day as he was riding his bike to her house and I thought he was going to crash. On the way home, he waved back at me, maybe he recovered from the shock of a friendly person. I want to greet other people in stores and not get looks for it. I was talking to my friendly neighbor this morning and basically told him in nicer words how anti-social I felt this neighborhood/community seems and he asked me if I was from around here. No, I'm not, but that doesn't mean good manners and a neighborly attitude shouldn't apply here.

I met a very friendly almost 10 year old yesterday at a Redbox with her father. She sang the five dollar footlong song to me, but replaced the lyrics with 5 days til' my birthday. That was a friendly family, good for them.

Optimism and Reality

I wish I could find a hobby that suited me, one I could have time for and stick with and enjoy. I just started a garden, a little square foot garden that I planted a whole bunch of mismashed things in not really knowing the specifics and now I plan to cross my fingers and pray things grow. I'm pretty optimistic, the plants that I had bought already potted seem pretty happy in my little raised planter. I get excited looking out the back window and seeing this project, but if it fails.. I fail too.

I once wanted a jump rope workout book set complete with a jump rope. It's a pretty typical occurrence that I get what I want, something that I feel constant guilt for, but I got the jump rope set with big dreams. I was going to work out and have a rockin' bod all thanks to this jump rope and magical book. Of course, I wasn't planning on jumping out where people could see me, but we had a townhouse apartment that was located on the 2nd and 3rd floor of our building with a sizable balcony. I went home and when no one was around, walked out onto the balcony and as I started to jump, I realized the balcony was actually too small. I went inside since the upstairs was a loft and the ceilings were high, but still not enough room. The jump rope ended up going into a drawer, only to be seen occasionally and I think it was eventually thrown away among our many moves... however it still finds it's way into conversations when I want things and my husband gets to say something snarky like, "Is this going to end up like the jump rope?" Probably.

If I could only remember the rest of the things that ended up like the jump rope, but the jump rope is unfortunately one thing on a very tall order of other big dreams gone kaput.

New Endeavors

Here's to the start of a new era for me, blogging!

Unfortunately, I'm too socially inept to go meet people in person and actually make a conversation so I will cower behind my computer and if people choose to jump in and join the conversation, so be it. I've only started following blogs about a year ago and then my favorite blogger closed up shop, but not before introducing me to another great blog and then finding another blog somehow from there. In addition to these, I frequent a lot of coupon sites and am trying to become an ultra coupon clipper money saver, but am still somewhat mediocre at it. Money saved is money saved though.

My first job however is to my boys, 2 years old (Ugh!) and a cuddly 7 month old, you know.. the one that you have to hold and not just hold, but stand up and hold because that's the only way he will be mostly quiet and happy. Sometimes I think I was crazy to have them so close together, (18 months and 2 days) but naturally, I wouldn't trade them for anything. My OB suggested (from her personal experience) that I have them 18 months apart. Guess what happened when I called her up to set up an appointment? She was now only doing the Gyno portion and I was forced to find a new baby doctor. It worked out, we had already moved away at this point and I was somehow going to suffer going 1.5 hours away for 12+ appointments over the course of nine months? No, probably not, but I still never got the chance to thank her for the mess she's gotten me in to. She had to have had a nanny, if I were a doctor, I would. Although somewhere in the day I start to lose my mind by being tag teamed by diapers and whining for various things all while trying to keep one quiet praying they won't wake the other, I'm fortunate to be able to be at home with them because there are lots of things I would miss otherwise, unfortunately, because I stay at home, there are probably a lot of things I take for granted too.

One thing I can appreciate though is silence, Ahhhh.