2013- A Recap

As I'm nursing Kate to sleep just hours before we ring in 2014, I thought I'd take a minute to post a fun recap of our year :) 

January-

I was struck down with 'morning' sickness. Sam watched a lot of Thomas movies and I ate a lot of crackers.

We also made my pregnancy 'Facebook official', Sam got his first haircut, and we got the news that our new house on base would be finished and ready for us to move in in March! 

February-

The sickness haze started to lift and we got down to business getting organized for our move.

I also started leading the 'Couch to Crazy' group with Stroller Warriors. We started with a couch to 5k program.

Towards the end of the month we found out our new address and were able to drive by our still under construction house. 

At the very end of the month, Sam and I flew up to PA for a visit.

March-

Moving month!

We packed. And then packed a bit more. James had to be at the range the week we got our keys. So my mom flew down to help me out. She and I were able to move over a bunch of boxes and get the kitchen set up before the truck moved everything else a week later. I <3 my kitchen!

April-

My couch to crazy group ran their graduation 5k! I felt so proud watching them all cross the finish line!

We continued to settle into our new house and Sam loved everything about living in a house rather than an apartment. So many opportunities to play outside!

We also found out that the baby in my belly was a GIRL! 

May-

In May we finished up the last of our unpacking. Took longer than I was expecting!

Sam and I made the loooong drive up to PA for Tommy's graduation and shortly after we got back we had Sam's Thomas themed 2nd birthday party. We celebrated a little early since we'd be at the beach on the actual day.

June-

Sam turned *2*!!

We had a fantastic week and a half in Lewes with my family. James and I went out on our first date night ALONE since before Sam was born to celebrate our 3rd anniversary. 

When we got home from the beach we moved Sam's crib to the nursery and set him up with a BIG BOY BED! He did so well with the transition!

July-

James was gone for a good portion of July doing some training.

Sam and I stayed busy playing at the park, going running, and taking swimming lessons (they did NOT go well, although by the last day Sam did kick his legs and blow a couple bubbles)

The biggest event in July (besides Mom and Dad's visit for my birthday of course!) was POTTY TRAINING!! Yay! We stopped diapers cold turkey and never looked back! A day and a half of a lot of accidents and then it 'clicked'. Hooray for Sam! 

August-

Big month!

Early part of the month was spent filling the freezer with dinners, prepping the house for a baby, and doing fun one on one activities with Sam (like Mini Marine day at Daddy's work and a visit to a train museum!)

Then on the 20th our sweet Kate joined our family! 

September-

A lot of adjusting to having a baby in the house again.

My Mom came to visit and help out when Kate was 3 weeks old and James had to be in the field for a week.

This month I started to sllllowly ease back into running. I was SO happy to get back into it!

October-

My couch to crazy group ran their first HALF MARATHON!! This group of women were SO amazing! The amount of pride I felt hanging medals around their necks as they crossed the finish line was immeasurable!

I myself started running more and more and really started to feel like my old (non-pregnant) self again!  

We saw lots of grandparents this month! Gran'mama and Grandpa came mid-month and we went pumpkin picking. Then Nana and Grandpa Bob came at the end of the month and joined us for trick or treating! 

November-

James and I kicked off November with a 5k race. My first since having Kate! It was rough, but felt great to be 'back'!

Sam and I caught a nasty cold, complete with high fever, mid-month which kept us inside for a while. Cabin fever didn't take long to set in so I turned to Pinterest to find a few activities and crafts that might help alleviate some of Sam's boredom. 

We made the trip up to PA (first road trip with Kate AND first road trip with Sam in undies!) for Thanksgiving and were lucky enough that James' grandparent's Christmas brunch was the same weekend! It was awesome to be able to see SO many family members in one long weekend!

December-

So much holiday fun!!

We attended Christmas parties for both Stroller Warriors and 2nd Tank Battalion and went to a friend's for a super fun cookie decorating plays date.

The kids were getting their own table and chairs set from Nana and Grandpa Bob and since that would be top big for us to fit in our car with the rest of the presents at Christmas, they shipped it to us early. We took full advantage and had an early Christmas with just the 4 of us in NC. Big Christmas dinner and all! I made my first turkey and it was amazing!

We spent a few days in Maryland visiting with Gran'nama and Grandpa (and saw Uncle Josh and Aunt Julie too!) and then some time in PA with Nana and Grandpa Bob. Christmas morning was spent at Nana and Grandpa Bob's and the afternoon and dinner was spent with the Maida cousins. 

Sam really 'got' Christmas this year and it was SO fun to see how magical it all was for him! It gave my heart so much joy to ask him, "Who's birthday is on Christmas?" and hear his little voice say, "Jesus!" What a special time!

We have had such an INCREDIBLY blessed year! It has been so wonderful settling into our first house (rather than an apartment) and becoming a family of 4! 

I have so many hopes and goals for 2014. One that I want to share here is my goal to RUN A MARATHON. Yes. A marathon. A FULL marathon. 26.2 miles. I'm most likely completely nuts. It's going to be a fun year :)

Happy New Year!

2 1/2 (the 1/2 is very important)

Today is Sam's 'half birthday'. As of today he is officially 2 1/2 years old, and as of tomorrow he will be closer to age 3 than age 2. There's a part of me that wants to cry because 3 just seems so old. Then there's a part of me rocking back and forth in a corner praying to just make it to 3 without completely losing my mind. 2 is hard. 2 is really, really hard. 2 is also sweet, and still little enough to snuggle (sometimes), and exciting, and funny. And hard. So hard.

I love my amazing, smart, sweet little boy with all of my heart, but I also stand outside his bedroom every morning and take a HUGE deep breath while praying, "Please let this be a good day. Oh dear God, please let this be a good day.".

On a good day you'll find us happily building towers and cars with his blocks mid-morning. Singing songs, laughing, showing baby Kate different colors... lots and lots of kisses and hugs. Time goes by so quickly and nap time sneaks up on us before we even know what hit us.

On a bad day it's likely that you'll find me locked in the bathroom. One or both (or all 3...) of us will be in tears. I will be doubting my abilities as a mother and counting the slow (oh so very slow) seconds til nap time.

The other day was an epic example of 2. Throw on top of normal '2-ness', molars coming through, just coming home from a visit with both sets of grandparents, hunger, tiredness, and too many days in the house and... well, it was disastrous to say the least. And I am not proud of how I handled it. I yelled. I yelled WAY too much. I yelled for him to stop. I yelled for him to be quiet. I yelled for him to, "Just go and play!", I yelled, "And now you've woken your sister!". There was far.too.much.yelling. My yelling was just making his behavior worse because it was upsetting him, and the worse his behavior got, the more frustrated I got, and the more I yelled. It was a vicious cycle.

So I gave myself a time out. I took a handful of chocolate chips into the bathroom and locked the door. I ate the chocolate, I cried a little, shook a LOT, took several very deep breaths and came out to try again.

So much of mothering a 2 year old is 'trying again'. The lunch he devoured happily yesterday gets a firm, "NO!" today, so we try again. The songs we sang yesterday are no fun today, so we try again. We don't quite make it to the potty in time, so we get new undies and try again. I yell too much, I try again.

After the epic bad day earlier this week, I took a good look at how I've been handling Sam's '2-ness'. I don't think I'm doing a terrible job at all, but I do think I can do better. And then I read a blog post (it will.not.load. on my computer right now so I can't link the actual post, but check out www.theorangerhino.com if you get the chance!) titled '10 Things I Learned When I Stopped Yelling At My Kids'. And it struck a cord. Big time.

So I'm going to make a 'no yelling' pact. Right here right now. I will find other ways to teach Sam right from wrong. I will find other outlets for my frustration. I will recognize when I want to yell just because I'm sleepy, or because I'm tired of answering the same questions, or because I'm frustrated that our plans for the day aren't working out the way I wanted them to. I will raise my voice when it's appropriate, "Stop your feet Sam! No street!" or, "Your dump truck is too close to Kate's head!", but I will NOT yell, "Sam! Just go play!". I will not raise my voice to say, "That's ENOUGH!".

I think there's going to be a LOT of mommy time outs. I'm probably going to consume a LOT of chocolate chips (good thing I'm a runner?). But I think, in the end, this is going to help us through the 'terrible' (I feel bad calling them that sometimes....) 2s. I started the 'no yelling' thing yesterday afternoon through today and it's already been so.much.smoother. Sam isn't all of a sudden a perfectly behaved child (that would be weird anyway...), and I still get incredibly frustrated at times, but just in general, our day is smoother.

So here we go! I'm hoping when I post an update on my 'no yelling pact' in a few weeks that it will be a positive one! And to all the other mamas of 2 year olds out there, this is me giving you a big.gigantic ((((((((hug)))))))). If I could give you some chocolate, I would! (Have you noticed a theme here? I do love chocolate...)

Glamorous Motherhood

Want to hear a fun (and slightly embarrassing) fact about me? Before I was married I used to 'pretend' that I was married with children.  I's have imaginary conversations in my  head with imaginary children while I went grocery shopping or cooked myself dinner or did laundry. Yes, I do realize how very crazy this sounds, but honestly, anybody reading this right now who knew me then probably isn't even all that surprised  ;)

In my imaginary life with kids, I was always dressed in cute, stylish outfits. We were always on time, and my pretend children were always clean, smiling, and extremely charming. Everything was peaceful and every mundane chore I did was a fun learning experience for my perfect (made up) kids. Then I had a baby and the shiny, perfect, imaginary picture of motherhood I imagined started to crack. Then he turned into a toddler and the cracks got bigger. THEN I had another baby and the picture shattered completely.

Let me use what happened this morning to paint you a little picture.

Both of my kids have been battling stuffy, runny noses for the past few days. Around 4ish am baby Kate woke herself up with her snuffling and sniffling. I set her on the bed in front of me to change her diaper before nursing her. Mid-diaper change, a little bit of baby poop got onto the bed. Eyes only half open, I blotted it away with a wipe and then threw a burp cloth over it. I finished changing her diaper while holding her pacifier in with my leg. She kept spitting it out to cry and I was terrified she was going to wake her older brother up. So after all that, I nursed her and got her back to sleep for another hour and a half. 

Around 7:30ish Kate was awake and fussing. The first thing I noticed was that I must have gotten breast milk on her face at some point in the night and it was now crusted all over her forehead. Cute. The next thing I noticed was that her nose sounded super stuffy again. I tried to nurse her, but she kept pulling off and crying because of how stuffed up she was. So I got out the old booger sucker and went to town. Once I had finished torturing her clearing out her nose, she settled down and was content to sit propped up on her boppy pillow. So I went to get Sam from his room where he was being strangely quiet.

I opened his door with a cheery, "Good morning bubba!" like always, and he just stared at me. That's when I noticed the small pile of vomit on his bed. Lovely. He just kept looking at it, and then back at me. Luckily, it didn't really seem to be on HIM, just on the bed. So we went back to my room.I felt like he had probably gotten sick after gagging on snot since he had been super stuffy. Again, lovely. He wanted to nurse (yes, at 28 months old, he is still nursing at least once a day and we are very happy with this arrangement... different post for a different time) so I settled into bed with him to nurse. He nursed for a while and then just wanted to lay down next to his sister which is NOT like him. Meanwhile, she was making another nice mess in her diaper. Woohoo! So I got that cleaned up and took both kids to their bathroom down the hall. I put Kate in her bouncy seat and filled up the tub for Sam. We usually do baths before bed, but he kinda stank :/  As I was settling her into her seat I heard him start to whimper behind me. Uh oh. Yup. You guessed it. He was throwing up breast milk all over the bathroom.  He just kept backing up trying to get away from it, so he managed to cover quite a lot of space. When he was finished he was acting fine, so I deposited him into the tub, got him clean, and let him play for a little while.

Once Sam was bathed, and Kate had been tortured had her nose suctioned once more we went downstairs. Sam on the couch watching Bob the Builder, Kate down for her first nap of the day in her pack n play. I started to tackle the laundry trail the morning had left. Meanwhile, Sam starts screaming at me, "I WANT MILK AND CHEESE TOAST!" Ummm, no. Sorry. Bad choices kid. I gave him some dry toast which, thankfully, stayed put after he ate it.

The laundry took me several hours. Every time I thought I had gotten it all, I found a stuffed animal or a blanky that had gotten in the path of the storm. In between the mountains of laundry Sam continued to scream for cheese (why Sam, why?!) and I had to clear out Kate's nose again. 

Finally, the laundry was finished and all traces of vomit were gone. I was EXHAUSTED and Sam seemed to be a new man. When I came out of the laundry room for the last time I found him bouncing up and down on a balloon he had found and laughing hysterically. When he saw me he said, "Mama! LUUUUUUUNCH!". I almost said no because I figured it was probably like 9:30 or 10 in the morning. Then I looked at the clock and realized it was after 12. I gave him some crackers and apple slices and BEGGED him (unsuccessfully) to eat slllllowly. I should mention that at this point both my hair and my teeth were un-brushed and the shorts I had pulled on in between cleaning up bodily fluids that morning had several holes in them.

Mercifully, at this point BOTH of my (gross) children went to sleep and I was able to catch 20 minutes of sleep myself.

Somehow, in a very strange way, the reality of this morning is SO much better than the shiny pretend life I imagined back then. I'd much rather my crazy haired, grubby faced little boy. Who, from the back seat of the car the other day asked, "Hey! Sarah! You drivin?" and who sometimes blames his gas on his father by saying (loudly), "Excuuuuuuse YOU Daddy!" and then running away. His kisses are much sweeter, and his hugs much fiercer than any perfect haired, perfectly behaved little clone I ever made up back then. That pretend boy was pretty boring, and not nearly as funny ;) I'd much rather a baby girl who might poo all over the place or projectile spit up an entire feeding of milk all over my pajamas at 4 in the morning, but follows it up with a huge gummy smile and a sweet coo. That makes for a much more interesting and full life than the peacefully sleeping baby in designer rompers I pictured in my head all those years ago. 

Motherhood is not pretty. You might go way too many days without washing your hair (guilty). You might be lucky sometimes to just have on clothes that aren't pajamas, forget about a cute, stylish outfit. Your kids aren't always going to behave and you're going to clean up more disgusting messes before 8am than you previously thought possible. But motherhood is a gift. A messy, gross, exhausting gift. And as long as you can remember THAT as you wipe up pee for the 2348758th time that day, you'll be okay. In need of a shower, and possibly a glass of wine, but okay.