Parenting While Sick And........

You guys, I am so over having the creepy crud.

It started last Friday as a throat tickle. I felt awful Saturday and Sunday. By Monday morning, I had no voice.

By no voice, I mean I could squeak out some words before I started coughing. (My husband found this hilarious. I can't blame him...too much.)

Tuesday was no better. Neither was Wednesday. By Thursday, I could at least talk for the most part. But I've been coughing a little through the days and a lot more when I lay down at night.

And I'm OVER IT.

But let me tell you about keeping up with a toddler in this condition.

First off, my child loves to be read to. Not having a voice and coughing when I tried to speak meant I couldn't read to her. Cue the meltdowns!

Disciplining becomes...interesting. Barely being able to talk makes it difficult for A) the child to realize your tone means trouble and B) why they're in trouble.

Stopping your child from getting into things they aren't supposed to from across the room becomes impossible. Normally, you can say "No" loudly and at least startle them into stopping. When you can't talk, you end up making a mad dash across the home to stop any catastrophes from happening. Which then zaps all your energy because you're, ya know, sick and....

Pregnant? (Yes, pregnancy hormones make me ridiculously sleepy.)

Yep! That plus sign definitely means I'm pregnant with baby number two!

I've been trying to do a decent job of tracking my cycles so I can be prepared even it comes. And I was pretty dang certain I was late by Wednesday. So I took a test Thursday...and a "let's double check" test Friday....and both came back positive!!

We told his parents yesterday and my parents, along with my brother, sister-in-law and a few close friends today. We're all pretty excited! And now you all know!

Until next time!! 

Traveling With a Toddler

Last Thursday marked the start of fall break for my husband. So we decided to take a whirlwind trip back home to visit our immediate families. By whirlwind trip, I mean we left Wednesday after lunch and came back Friday afternoon. 

Now, traveling with a toddler is some tricky business. I like being over-prepared. Which means at least one extra outfit and one extra pair of pajamas for the little one. You never know when pee will soak through, or someone will get sick. Which also means an extra shirt and pants for both mom and dad. Fortunately, the extra clothes weren't needed this time around!

Along with packing, we like to make sure Rin has all her "babies." It's hard enough to get her to go to sleep in a strange place. Surround her with her normal stuff! We also like to make sure she has something to entertain her in her down time. Got all that? Pack it into the car.

The next step is timing the drive. It takes us around two hours, sometimes a little more, to make the trip home. Rin's afternoon nap usually lasts about two hours, so we try to leave right after lunch. 

Here's where things got fun for us. We stopped to get gas (and caffeine). Rin slept for about an hour, then woke up. Guys, the look she gives us when she's stuck in the carseat and sleepy is one hilarious grumpy pout. Okay, so great...she didn't get a good nap in. Hey! Maybe that means she'll sleep tonight!

Fast forward a little to when we arrive at our (super cheap) hotel. Once we finally got checked in, we headed up to the room. Andrew brought in our stuff while Rin did what I imagine every toddler does in a new environment...explored EVERYTHING. I mean, she opened drawers, climbed chairs, tried to climb the bed, went into the bathroom....EVERYTHING. We unpacked everything as quickly as possible and headed right back out to my brother and sister-in-law's house to meet my parents. At this point, as you can imagine, my rambunctious and sleepy toddler did NOT want to be back in the car seat. 

Once we got to our destination, Rin looked right at my mom, also known as Bubbi, and said "Paw-paw?!" while pointing away from her. This girl loves my dad (Paw-paw). After hanging out around the house for a little while, we three and my parents went to eat at a Mexican restaurant. I'm never sure how well Rin will eat at a new place, but she had much food since lunch, so she ate. And ate. And ate. We discovered she loves salsa (as she was trying to dip her chip into my bowl). When she was finally done eating, we headed back to the hotel.

If you're traveling with a toddler, and said toddler usually goes to bed fairly early, expect their sleeping schedule to be SCREWED. Rin usually goes to sleep around 7. We didn't get back to the hotel until after 7. To keep some semblance to normalcy, I gave her a quick bath, read some books, and put her down in a pack-and-play. Guys, did I mention getting a toddler to sleep in a new place is really hard?! I think she finally fell asleep around 8:30.

The next day? Breakfast with the grandparents! Breakfast was delicious, and again, Rin ate. She normally doesn't cooperate with breakfast out, so I only ordered her an egg. We all ended up sharing something with her....bacon, biscuit, grits, toast. Girl was hungry! After that, we went back to hang out with my sister-in-law and her three boys. Craziness ensued with lots of stuffed animals and playing. This was the first time I can remember Rin really playing with her cousins.

Then it was nap time! We had a "picnic" on the hotel bed for lunch, then all three of us passed out. Andrew had to wake both Rin and me up. After we all got our heads un-fuzzed, we went to Andrew's parents (Grandma and Grandpa)! 

You guys, Rin went right to them even though she hasn't seen them in months. We all went outside and she played and played and played and played. They have three shelties, so there are plenty of balls to play with. She moved them back and forth through the yard. She took Grandpa in circles on their back porch. She tried so hard to get one of the shelties to play with her. She played on the swing set. She met one of the neighbor's giant birds. We all had pizza for dinner and she happily sat on Grandma's lap to eat her dinner.

We got back to the hotel around 7:30 that night after lots and lots of fun and conversation. After baths and books, it was time to sleep! This night, Rin was out. We laid her down and "hid" so she wouldn't stay awake just for us and in less than five minutes, she had stopped playing with her "babies" and passed out. We didn't stay up too much longer than her. 

Friday morning, we got up and got some really not good continental breakfast. Here's a piece of advice: if your toddler has been well behaved the whole trip, do NOT say anything about it! You will jinx it! I made the mistake of mentioning how well behaved she was and she started going crazy and not listening and crying for no reason and just....AGH! 

After checking out, we grabbed some actual breakfast, then headed back to my sister-in-law's. This morning was beautiful and warm, so we all played "soccer" in the front yard. As you can see, it was more just kicking a soccer ball around with the two oldest boys while Rin and the youngest boy ran around with plastic baseball bats, giggling.

All seven of us left to grab lunch with my brother. Trying to get food for four adults and four children under the age of six is...interesting. But fun. After lunch, we swung back by Grandma and Grandpa's for a bit. Rin played. When we left, she slept maybe thirty minutes until we stopped by Statesville to see Bubbi and Paw-paw again. I don't think Rin slept much more than that on the road. We finally reached home around 6:30 and we were all exhausted! I was started to not feel well. 

We all went to bed fairly early that night. 

Now, this may be too much information, but I have issues going to the bathroom when I'm traveling. If your toddler has this issue as well, be prepared for a poop-storm (yes, I'm censoring myself) when you get home. You will clean more poop up in one day than you thought possible from such a tiny person. I won't go into any more detail than that.

Moral of this long story?

When traveling with a toddler, be prepared with their favorite things, especially bedtime things.

Take extra clothes (just in case).

Be prepared for the sleep schedule to go crazy.

Don't jinx yourself by talking about their good behavior.

Take lots of snacks.

Be prepared for poop after getting home.

Oh, and be prepared to be completely and totally exhausted from the massive amounts of fun that you've all had!

Until next time! 

A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That (AKA food, games, and politics)

Hello all. I'm going to start with some more lighthearted writing today, then add on some seriousness at the end. That way, if you wish to only read the happy things, you can do so without having to deal with my serious (more politically involved) thoughts. Because I know many of you are sick of seeing politics, and I understand.

So! This week has been mostly fun. I made homemade "chex mix" Monday, which was quite yummy.

Ingredients:

4 C rice chex (or crispix)

2 C pretzels

2 C goldfish

3 T melted butter

4 tsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp lemon juice

1/4 tsp onion powder

1/4 tsp garlic powder

hot sauce to taste (sriracha is great)

1) Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.

2) Mix all the ingredients and put in a 9x13 pan.

3) Bake for 45 minutes, turning every 15.

*I do it for a little less time as my oven runs hot.

4) Dump out on paper towels and let cool. 

Then I made pumpkin bread Tuesday! This was the second time I've made pumpkin bread. I found this recipe on Once Upon A Chef, which is also where I found a delicious recipe for chocolate banana bread. 

Now, the first time I made this pumpkin bread was last week, and it was the first time my husband ever tried pumpkin bread. He is generally anti-pumpkin because of all the pumpkin spice outrage. I believe his actual words on the topic are, "I'm sick of it." BUT he tried it, and he really liked it! Score! Plus Rin really likes it too. So....double score! And me? I love pumpkin bread, and this tasted amazing, soooo....TRIPLE SCORE FOR THE WIN!!!

Since this recipe makes two loaves, though, and I'm not sure there's a good way to cut it in half, this week, I made it on a day that we had friends over and "forced" them to take some home with them.

Speaking of! We tried a new game this week (after the peanut had gone to bed....because playing tabletop games is IMPOSSIBLE if she's awake) called Ascension. Oh my gosh, you guys, it is so much fun. And not too complicated. Beginner's luck was with me on this night too, because I kicked butt the second time around. I normally wouldn't brag, but I almost never win games with these guys, so I'm still feeling excellent about it! 

The rest of the week included the first pot of chili of this autumn season. We strained the chili so Rin could eat it, and eat it she did.

And today, I tried something new. Rin likes to "help" with the laundry, so I got her to put her own clothes away (yeah, not folded, but she yanks them out randomly anyways, and I get tired of re-folding them). She LOVED it. Thank goodness. I'd like to think that if we cultivate good habits in her now, she'll keep at them when she grows up. Then I remember what I was like as a teenager/young adult, and I can't help but think "Lord help us all." Haha!

To conclude the lighthearted section, here's Miss Thang playing blocks with her daddy:

Now, on to more serious matters.

I'm finding out a lot during this current presidential election season.

I'm finding...
...that this country is deeply divided on almost everything.
...that I know less about my extended family than I thought I did.
...that hatred in this country is rampant.
...that we, as a people, seem to have forgotten that the president, while the face of this country, is not who holds all the power.
...that we, as a people, don't seem to care about the smaller elections, thought those make a more regular difference in our lives.
...that the "liberal left" and the "conservative right" tend to view each other as enemies.
...that we, as a people, can't seem to accept that others see life differently.
...that we, as a people, see different from us is just wrong.
...that we, as a people, have lost (if, indeed, we ever had) the ability to work together to find a compromise.

You guys, if you talk to someone who isn't voting the same as you, or who doesn't believe the same as you, don't listen just to have the chance to attack them. All that does is create animosity. Maybe if we listened to understand, we could instead compromise our positions to find one that works for all people. Or maybe you could find your mind changed, or at least expanded.

It hurts my soul to hear and see some of the things people are saying to each other. They call each other stupid, sexist, racist, arrogant, misogynistic, lazy, and many other names I won't repeat  Maybe in some cases, it's sadly true. But I can tell you what we mostly are, and that is ignorant. We simply do not know everything. We don't know as much as we should because we turn a blind eye and refuse to listen to the valid concerns of our neighbors.

We are no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave. We have become largely the land of hatred of differences and the home of the scared of everything different.

And that, my friends, breaks my heart.

If you wish to know more about what I personally believe, or anything else, feel free to ask. Until next time...

Life...It's freakin hard!

Good afternoon everyone!

Man, it's been a long time. Life gets busy, you know? And sometimes that busy-ness is, well, sucky.

I'm going to be real with you right now.
Married life is HARD.
Parent life is HARD.
Add the two together? It is the most difficult, beautiful, frustrating, gratifying thing ever.

It's especially difficult when all you see are the happy snips of life people post online ALL. THE. TIME.
And, come on, we ALL know no one's life is that perfect. But we fall for the trap of comparison anyways. Why is that? Why can't we all be real with each other? I'm sure I've written about this before, but it is something I feel needs continuous attention. Maybe, just maybe, if everyone can really grasp that what we see of people's lives online isn't a full reality, we can stop comparing and stop feeling like crap about ourselves.

And then maybe we can start feeling comfortable being REAL with each other. (I'm not telling you to air all your dirty laundry on social media either. I'm just asking you to stop acting like everything is picture perfect in your household.)

Now, here's the biggie. In order for us to be real with each other, we have to be real with ourselves (gasp!). We need to figure out who we are and be that person. You aren't just a mother, father, sister, brother, wife, husband, daughter, son. You are a HUMAN BEING with a sense of self. Who you are is NOT defined by your relationships to other people.

Mothers, I'm talking to you specifically now. I know I'm guilty of this, I get so caught up in being "mom" that I forget how to be myself. I forget to do what I enjoy, and eventually can't even remember what I enjoy doing! Let's try to stop falling into this trap. Yes, your role as "mom" is so very important. But you can't be your best mom-self if you can't remember how to be your self-self.

After falling into this trap myself, I've had to rediscover what I enjoy doing.

Some things are still the same from when I was younger:
Reading
Singing
Dancing
Coloring (anyone wanna have an adult coloring party sometime?)

Some things are new to my adult life:
Yoga
Baking goodies
Some video games
Wine (can I get a heck yeah?!)

Now, my new trap that I'm falling into is that of not being fully present with my loved ones. Even if I'm doing nothing else, my mind drifts when I'm with them. It's part of what has me scared to take care of myself. I start thinking I won't want to come back from my sense of peace from yoga, or whatever world I've immersed (finally just learned how to spell that word) myself in.

However, I wonder if I take the time to truly enjoy myself in some of these things, would I be able to start being fully present? If I allow myself to drift away into what I love, will I be able to concentrate more in this world?

Has anyone else ever had this conundrum? Or am I going crazy?

So I ask you all...

How do you find balance in your life? How do you juggle all your hats without losing your sense of self? How do you find the motivation you need to get even half of your to-do list done in a day?

Please, share your answers with me. I would love to hear them.

Much love to you all.

And to give a bright end to a solemn post, here's two pictures of my silly toddler.