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I am almost finished! It has only been two weeks and I am almost finished with the Hideous Garage Sale Chair Project. This is a miracle. Ask The Daddy. This is the type of project that could very easily have languished in our garage for months. But my Mommy Butt has been busy, busy, busy while Tater Tot has been napping and after she goes to bed at night. And it’s turning out much better than I envisioned. I had a loose idea of what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it, and what type of fabric I wanted to use but I let it come about organically instead of holding on too tightly to my vision and I’m so stoked about how it’s coming out!

I knew that I wanted to do a slipcover but, not ever having done one before, I wasn’t quite sure how to go about it. I fully expected to have setbacks, get frustrated and, quite possibly abandon the project before its’ completion. But, so far so good and I’m almost done. I even have some good ideas about how to get around the tricky parts and I should be done by tomorrow or Monday. Imagine that! I’ll post some before and after shots when I finish as well as how I did it. I’ve got some basic sewing skills but nothing fancy so chances are you could swing something like this, too.

Well, I’ve got to go put some deodorant on because The Daddy and I are going on a date to the baseball game. Yes, it is sad that deodorant is the extent of my gussying up for a date these days. Huh. Maybe I’ll take my hair out of a ponytail, too. See ya’!

*Heavy Sigh* It’s been a long couple of days. Wednesday was not fun and yesterday we were recuperating. Let me rephrase that: I was recuperating and The Tater Tot was running circles around me all day while I tried to get her to slow down.

Wednesday started out well just like every other day at our house. Up at the crack of dawn, “music and dancing” when we get up to ease the indignation at having to have the diapers changed (she hates diaper changes these days), breakfast and a walk, playtime, nap time…you get the picture. Just percolating along as usual. Until Tater Tot took a spill that freaked me out. The way that she fell was such that I thought it best to take her to the Urgent Care facility just in case. I am a Cautious Mommy and am not prone to being laid back about all things physical/medical.

After the fall, Tater cried for a couple of minutes. Mostly, I think, because I screamed bloody murder and scooped her up, walking frantically around the house telling her that she was okay. After she stopped crying, she seemed fine but I was absolutely NOT fine so I loaded her in the car and we set out for Urgent Care.

While waiting at Urgent Care, The Tater Tot had the overwhelming urge to walk around the waiting room and, since some of it was tile, I took her socks off so she wouldn’t slip. We walked and walked and walked while everyone around smiled and told me she was just the cutest thing. Once we got in the waiting room I realized that her feet were nearing black in color. Hmmm…clean the waiting room much?

Apparently, the doctor we saw is as conservative as I am about all things medical and he recommended at least having her x-rayed. They couldn’t do that at Urgent Care. Why, I don’t know. So we had to go to the Emergency Room. Okay. Not great but not the end of the world. Although he wanted to transport us by ambulance, which I thought was a bit much since she was showing no signs that anything was wrong. But I understand they have protocol and all that. Wouldn’t have been a big deal. The local ER is three blocks from Urgent Care. Super. Let’s go. Uh, they’re on “bypass” whatever the heck that means. We get to take a half hour ambulance ride halfway down the county to the children’s hospital instead. All the while, Tater Tot is crying and agitated since they had to strap her car seat onto a gurney to transport her in the ambulance. Seriously, she was laughing and “talking” to me the whole way to Urgent Care without a single tear or concern. It would have been much better for her if they would have let me load her in her freakin’ car seat in MY car and just driven her down there myself. Protocol. What-freakin’-ever!

So I am using all available energy to calm her down and get her to the point where the paramedic in the ambulance can take her vitals continuously on the half hour ride after spending 20 minutes waiting for them to get the green light to even load her in the stupid ambulance and I realize that I have had to pee since we got to Urgent Care over an hour ago. I am agitated.

Since this is already a very long story, I’ll begin abbreviating. I spent 4 1/2 hours at the children’s hospital, 3 1/2 of which was spent holding and rocking The Tater Tot before The Daddy arrived. We spent a total of 15 minutes face time (if that) with anybody much less the doctor and were sent home with—luckily—nothing wrong.

On the ride home, I am in the back with Tater Tot dialing the phone trying to get ahold of the Urgent Care facility where my car is still parked to see if they tow if I leave it overnight. Since it is already an hour past Tater’s bed time and we are all pretty exhausted, we’re hoping that they don’t. I finally get ahold of them and they are nice enough to tell the security guard that I will be back to pick up my car after The Daddy gets off work the next day so they won’t tow it. I look over and Tater has eaten half of the hot pink “Visitor” sticker that I stuck on her for fun and she has her black, dirty foot in her mouth. I swear they’re going to yank my Mommy License and never give it back.

When we get home, I feed The Tot and put her down while The Daddy is off getting us dinner from the local fast food place since we never do that and we are both feeling the need for french fries. An hour, many fries and an ice cream Drumstick later, I am almost passed out on the couch so I go to bed, grateful that the day is over.

Yesterday I observed Tater closely all day and tried to get her to slow down but she wasn’t havin’ it. She seems fine and is acting normal so I’m sure she’s okay. *Exhale* Phew. Did I forget to breathe?

Hey, there! It’s been a while. How are you? And the kids? Anything new? You look great!

Yes, The Mommy has been Flaky Post-er Mommy for the past week or so. But if you read my post here you will understand a little bit more about my nature and why I sometimes don’t post every day. Or every other day. Or sometimes for a week! I like writing every day. Sometimes I just don’t get around to it. Maybe I’ll pick up some of those “round-to-it’s” at WalMart today. Yeah, yeah…stupid joke. I know. It’s the caffeine.

For the past week I have been indulging in a cup of coffee every morning. Prior to this, I had been decaffeinated for 5 years except for a brief stint just before New Year’s. It’s amazing what a little caffeine can do for months of sleep deprivation! I was doing okay without it but I just really enjoy a morning coffee buzz. I am aware that I am not fit for public when I am buzzing on caffeine (it doesn’t take much!) and plan my day accordingly. Although I’m sure there is an entertainment factor for those around me… The Tater Tot seems to like Twitchy Mommy just fine! She thinks I’m funny. Captive audience…what does she know?

Last week we went back to the Developmental Clinic at the hospital where Tater Tot was born for her one year check-up. They do things according to her “adjusted age” since she was born preemie. So they were evaluating her on fine and gross motor skills, eating, sleeping, and language skills. As I thought, she’s right where she should be. Actually, she’s ahead of where she should be in some areas. She walked circles around the place and could hardly condescend to sit down to do what the physical therapist wanted her to do for fine motor skills. It was pretty hilarious. She’s just so into walking right now that hardly anything else holds her interest!

It was also reassuring for me to hear that she may not talk as much because she is so intent on walking. AND that, when she starts talking more, she may regress with her walking skills. I am SO glad they told me that because Paranoid First-Time Mommy would have been looking up everything she could find on autism the moment those walking skills regressed. One of these days I’ll lighten up (she said hopefully!).

Of course they weighed and measured her, which is always fun now that she is a toddler. She doesn’t like to stand/sit/lay still for anything, not even a diaper change so good luck getting her to do that for statistics! They weighed her with a relatively full cloth diaper and her clothes on which prompted the neonatologist to comment, “She eats too much” in her heavy accent of unknown origin. She made this comment based on her height and head circumference being in the 50th percentile and her weight being in the 90th percentile. It’s a valid comment, I guess, if she had been weighed correctly but, as those of you who cloth diaper know, a relatively full cloth diaper adds a lot more weight than a full disposable. Think about getting a dish towel wet and putting it in your child’s diaper when he/she is weighed. So, the doc grilled me about what I feed her, which isn’t anything unusual, I don’t think. We talked about how much to feed her for a little bit and then dropped it because The Princess had reached the end of her attention span and her rope and was not going to allow us to continue.

All in all, a good visit and Tater Tot has no issues to speak of. The weight comment stuck in my craw a bit but I’m doing the best I can. What can I do? Cut back on Cheerios? Not feed her as many quesadillas? I’m trying to get her to eat more veggies but, as many of you know, getting a toddler to eat veggies is like herding cats sometimes. So I’m focusing more on getting her to eat a balanced diet. But, really, I know that she is doing fine. I don’t feed her crappy junk food. I don’t feed her all-organic, home made food either but I think I do better than average. I don’t believe that she’s at an unhealthy weight and she is a happy, active child. So I’m just going to do the best I can to get her to eat those veggies and not worry too much about it after that. What else can a Mommy do?

Hey, there all you Crafty Mommies! I was cruising Jo-Ann.com
for some crafty supplies for my projects and guess what I saw! A code for 50% off one regular price item ordered online TODAY! Use the code APRH750 and save your butt off! Go now! Get that die cut machine/sewing machine/scrapbook organizer/dressform/expensive whatever that you haven’t been able to justify buying at 50% off!

By nature I am a creative, unstructured soul who, as a child was often found laying on the floor with legs propped on the bed reading a book after being told to clean my room. A dreamer. A budding rock band manager. Never mind that the members of the band didn’t know how to put two chords together yet. An idea person. Don’t bother me with the ticky-tack minutae of actually making the idea work. Just clear some room and let me run with it. And, if I’m in the middle of a project and something else comes up, that project could be there for a while. A long while.

My nature was not terribly conducive to studying, although I did quite well in school anyway. It definitely was NOT conducive to getting through college, especially living away from home, although I did that relatively well, too. But that required some tweaking of my nature and development of self-discipline. By the time I had gotten through graduate school and several demanding, fast-paced jobs in a row, I had developed a full-blown case of the “over-responsibles”. To do lists have ruled my world for years and I couldn’t function without my organizer. Once it was stolen and I swear my world was turned upside down. I didn’t know if I was coming or going. Or where I was coming or going! While developing self-discipline over the years, routines became a large part of what kept me on track and accomplishing what I needed to accomplish. Whether they were study routines or routines to include daily exercise to keep my sanity amid the frantic pace of my life, they gradually became such a part of my life that I didn’t even recognize them as routines anymore.

After Tater Tot was born, I continued to function that way. Like I was still at my former job. To do lists and schedules and “why haven’t I gotten that done yet?” were constantly at the forefront of my mind. Blech! Over the past year, I have gradually been able to let go of the “franticity” (yes, I did make that word up) that used to rule my world. Don’t get me wrong, there are days when I still expect too much but I have gotten much better. There are also days when I recognize that I have gotten back in touch way too much with my kid on the floor reading a book!

There is a happy medium. A middle ground between frantic, produce-or-die-trying and slacker-haven’t-showered-in-three-days-let-her-eat-quesadillas-for-every-meal. And it involves routines. My unstructured nature (let’s call her Binky) balks at routines. She doesn’t like them. “Let me do what I want when I want.” she says. She thinks they are boring and evil. And sometimes I agree with her. They can be boring and it can feel like they are keeping me from doing what I really want to be doing. When The Tater Tot has gone to bed, I’d much rather be vegging out to the television or computer or working on one of my creative projects than starting the load of cloth diaper laundry or doing the dishes. And during the day, I’d much rather just “go with the flow” and do whatever I feel like doing whenever I feel like doing it.

Lately, though, I have found that our lives are running much more smoothly because of routines. There are clean dishes to eat off of because I start the dishwasher every night before I go to bed. Everyone has clean underwear because I start a load of laundry before Tater and I go on our morning walk. Clean cloth diapers are not hard to find because I start a load of them after Tater goes to bed and move them to the dryer before I go to bed. I am up early enough to load the diapers with inserts before Tater gets up in the morning because I go to bed at a decent hour. Our lives are much more peaceful when I am not running around like an idiot trying to do what I was supposed to be doing the night before. Each part of my routine only takes a few minutes but sometimes I just don’t feel like doing them. At all. But when I do, I see and feel immediate results. And when I am conscious of Tater’s nap schedule and schedule our errands around her schedule, our day is so much nicer! She knows what to expect. Consistency makes her a Happy Tot!

So, are routines boring and evil or the pathway to peace? Both. They are a boring necessary evil but they are the pathway to peace for This Mommy. If you’d like to find out more about routines and get some ideas for making routines of your own, www.Flylady.net is a good place to start.

The other day on our nightly “family walk”, after asking The Daddy how the surf had been that morning, I commented, “One of these days I’m going to get back out in the water.” He said back to me, “Yeah, I don’t even think of you as a surfer anymore.” I hope he was joking. It seemed like he was joking. I asked if he was joking. “Yeah, of course I was joking.” Hm.

That didn’t sit well with me and I started thinking about all the things that comprised my identity before I became The Mommy. School counselor. Wife. Surfer. Swimmer. Runner. Compulsive Project Starter. Sometimes Project Non-finisher. One time Triathlete. Some of that has definitely changed but other things remain. Like the project starter and project non-finisher. That’s hard-wired, I think (I am getting better about that, though). But the rest has seemed to just fall away until all that is left is Mommy. Oh, there are parts of my identity that are still important and that I make sure I pay attention to (um, like Wife, for instance!) but the majority of who I am right now and who I need to be right now is Mommy.

The way that I want to do things while she’s young seems to entail putting aside my interests and parts of me that I really used to enjoy. Sure, I could hire a babysitter and go do some stuff for me but I just don’t want to. The only person I’ve ever left Tater Tot with is my mother (and The Daddy, of course) and she lives an hour and a half away. Not conducive to all-the-time babysitting. I don’t want to go through the hassle of finding someone good that I trust and worrying about it anyway. I want to be the one taking care of her. That was the whole point of quitting my job. That’s just the way I want to do it and the way I think is best for my particular child. The way I figure it, I will figure out how to re-connect with those things I love later when she is a bit older (or I’m ready to lose my sanity, whichever comes first!). Not that I’m not going to do any of those things between now and then but I can’t count on immersing myself in them like I used to. No surfing 4-5 times a week. At least not until she’s in preschool! I’ll be the mommy dropping her daughter off with the surfboard strapped to the top of the car, peeling out at the end of the parking lot and heading straight to the beach.

So I find things that I enjoy doing that can be done in bits and pieces without being demanding like sewing, this web site, my hideous chair project, and “sprucing up” our house. I really do enjoy decluttering and planning free or low cost ways to make our house a pleasant, relaxing place to be. Since I’m spending almost all of my time here, I might as well make it a place I love to be! And, when the time is right, I may return to the things that I used to love. But, for right now, being The Mommy is fine with me.

Don’t forget to check out Beautiful Future’s “One Day I Will…” contest!

Every morning, The Tater Tot and I go for a walk/jog/whatever around our neighborhood. Some days are jogs for Mommy and other days are walks for Tater Tot to touch the leaves and flowers. Hot pink flowers, little purple flowers, red and green leaves, short palm fronds, ivy, and so many more! We see and feel sprinklers and doggies and wave to the people walking by us. It doesn’t ever get too cold here during the winter but you can still feel a difference when “Spring has sprung”. And our neighbors’ landscaping sure does look different during the Spring season. Everything comes alive.

The other day, as we were eating our lunch, Tater Tot pointed to her sippy cup that has flowers on it. Vwa-vwa. Vwa-vwa-vwa-vwa *high-pitched sing-song*. Points to the tulips on the dining table “vwa-vwa’. So I’m singing “vwa-vwa-vwa” back to her when I finally realize that there is a pattern here. “Yes, Sweetie, those are flowers.” Duh, Mommy.

Spring has sprung and the vwa-vwas are in bloom!

If you’re wondering what to get Mom for Mother’s Day, Shutterfly has some great personalized products to choose from! And now through May 8, 2007 new members can enjoy free shipping on orders $15 or more. You can also save 15% on high quality prints. Use coupon code: 22AF-PPTS (expires May 8, 2007).

I made Shutterfly photobooks of Princess Tater Tot for both Grandmas for Mother’s Day and they turned out so well! They’re such good quality. They’ve got quite a few backgrounds and photo layouts to choose from so the photobooks were really fun to create. The backgrounds come in a variety of colors, patterns and “textures” (they just look textured but they’re really cool!).

I made calendars at Shutterfly for The Grandparents for Christmas and I was equally as impressed with them. They have a TON of cute borders to choose from. Here are some other Mother’s Day gift ideas from Shutterfly. Check them out!

Click on it! It gets bigger!

It’s almost overwhelming in it’s hideosity, isn’t it? This bargain-basement, $5 garage sale chair represents my life today. Let me explain.

Last night I actually managed to get to bed at the time I had appointed as “bedtime” back when I set the goal of getting to bed on time in March. Things were lookin’ good! Of course I woke up at 10:00 and 1:45 but I got back to sleep quickly at 10:00. It was a different story at 1:45. Toss, turn, toss. At 2:45 I decided to get up and do something, even if it was just having a piece of toast and watching a little bad TV. The thought occurred to me that I had been meaning to make and freeze some chicken nuggets for Tater Tot’s meals lately but just hadn’t gotten around to it. What better time? So I set about making my toddler food, eating my toast, and watching bad TV until the nuggets were baked. At 4:00 I thought I might actually be able to get back to sleep. Miracle of all miracles, I fell back to sleep and didn’t wake up until 5:50 when I heard my little Tater Tot talking to herself. I thought to myself “I’ll just close my eyes for a second” since get-up time is 6:00 and when I opened them again it was 6:10! I really could have gone back to sleep even then but I wanted to keep to Tater Tot’s schedule so I got my groggy Mommy Butt up and started our day with a little Sing-A-Longs & Lullabies for the Film Curious George (Jack Johnson) (the first song is a great wake up song!).

Breakfast as usual except that I decided, due to my wack-a-doo night of semi-sleep, I would have a cup of coffee. Hmmmm. Here’s The Mommy’s brain. HERE’STHEMOMMY’SBRAINONCOFFEE!! We set out on our 2 mile walk/jog/pant as usual. During the Spring, Summer and Fall in our area there always seems to be a lot of garage sales (ya’ see where I’m goin’ with this?) and this Spring is no exception. We were jogging along on our merry way, stopping to touch some leaves and flowers when we saw our first garage sale sign. Nothing too interesting or cheaply enough priced to get excited about but it was on our regular route so no harm done. As we’re turning up the last leg of our journey, one block from home I see two more garage sale signs. Oooooh! Let’s go check them out. Tater Tot has been going down for her nap later lately so I figured it couldn’t hurt to take a little extra time.

So I head down the hill with Tater Tot fervently hoping that the sale wasn’t so far down the street that we’d have to hike up the hideous hill toward the end of the street. Guess what? It was. Right up at the top of the hill. I saw the gold velvet chair out of the corner of my eye and was oddly drawn to it. I looked around at other stuff, trying to ignore it. But it was calling my name. I liked how low to the ground it was and it looked comfy. I thought it would make a great little reading chair for The Tot’s room when she gets a bit older. “I could slipcover it” I thought to myself. I still tried to ignore it but just couldn’t so I asked the price. Five dollars. Five dollars? Five dollars. I sat in it. Very comfy. Hm. Seeing as all I had was a stroller, I couldn’t have bought it then anyway. So we head off back toward home and the second garage sale.

Again, not a lot that I was interested in but I saw a good-looking, nice-sized table that looked perfect for a sewing table. Too rickety. But there was a sale around the corner so off we went again. Nothing. Back to the other sale for the sewing table. Looked underneath and it looked like it just needed to be tightened where the legs attached. Asked the price. Ten dollars. TEN DOLLARS? Ten dollars. But there was a man that had asked about it while I was at the other sale and he was off asking the wife. Of course she said “yes”. Aw crap. I was beaten out by a couple of minutes. Oh well. You win some, you lose some.

Meanwhile, my tummy was growling since we had been running, walking and shopping for over an hour and The Tot looked sleepy so we headed off home.

Mommy Tip: Make exercise more fun by trying a new route or following the garage sale signs! I jogged/walked twice the distance today because we were following the signs.

The Daddy got home from surfing just as we did so I asked if he would be bummed if I brought home a hideous orphaned piece of furniture that I saw potential in. Nope. Do whatever you want. Wooohoooo! Put The Tot down for a nap and off I go to rescue my poor little chair. Of course it’s still there (because who else but me would want that monstrosity?) so I forked over the $5 and left with my treasure!

When I got it home, as expected, The Daddy thought it was hideous but we agreed that $5 is not too high a price for my happiness. And this chair makes me happy. I don’t know why. It’s not that I need another project because I definitely DON’T. But here it is. And I WILL finish it (she said with a look of determination on her face). It may not be finished today or tomorrow (or next week or next month) but it will be finished! I’ll post a before and after when I do. (Don’t hold your breath)