Home

Yesterday was a good day. I didn’t feel destroyed all day and like I could take a nap if I was given even the slightest opportunity. Tater Tot was in a good mood all day and took “redirection” well (read: didn’t throw too much of a fit if I told her “no”). We got our grocery shopping done. The Daddy came home early from work. We had a fun play date with an unexpected surprise that Tater Tot loved. And she went to bed on time even though she took an afternoon nap. Yes, you read that right. She actually slept in the afternoon. I even had to wake her up from her nap so that her bedtime wouldn’t get screwed up. Wonder of all wonders.

Our friends B and Z came over yesterday to play on our newly renovated patio and Tater Tot had a lot of fun! She was so cute when she saw Z. She got such a big grin on her face. It was fun to see them notice each other while they were playing. They did “share” a ball without any drama, which was nice but they basically “parallel played”. I get such a kick out of seeing them grow and play. A little before they had to leave, a sprinkler came on that is in our community pool area but apparently the gardners adjusted it when they were there yesterday and it sprayed over the fence into our patio area. Hmmm…not so great for our patio but Tater Tot LOVED it! She stood under it giggling and prancing around until she was drenched! Since it’s a little slippery on the concrete patio, I think I’m going to put one of those sprinklers you attach to your hose on the lawn by the side of our house and let The Tot run around in that when it gets hot. Bring my lawn chair out there and kick back with her. Heck, maybe I’ll just sit under the sprinkler while she runs around! I’m all about easy when it gets hot.

Here’s to more days like yesterday!

Hey there! We’re home! It’s good to be home. One thing I noticed right away was how relaxing it was to be somewhere that I didn’t have the responsibility to do the dishes after every meal or get the laundry done. I didn’t realize that it made such an impact on my level of relaxation until I actually got home and saw that I had left a mess! So last night after The Tot was down, I got to clean my house. Blech. But it needed to be done. So now things are relatively back in order and we are back to our usual routine.

Yet again I feel the need to take better care of myself. Sleep more, eat better, exercise more. It’s not that I don’t have the time, necessarily. It’s that I don’t have the energy. After Tater Tot goes to bed, I just want to vegetate. Sit at the computer or in front of the TV (when it’s working!) and do absolutely nothing that requires thought or effort. That reminds me, I’ve gotta figure out where we’re gonna take our TV to get it repaired. Anyway, I digress. Back to the better care of The Mommy. I’ve been feeling rather unattractive lately. Just shy of presentable and not anywhere near where I want to be. And before “lately”, I’ve been okay with that. For a while I just felt okay about where I was in terms of my looks. As I’m typing this I feel incredibly shallow but it is what it is. And, if you were to look at me you’d probably say “what the heck is she talking about?”. I know that I AM presentable, really. I am a very normal-looking Mommy. Not too skinny. Not too fat. Not too trendy. Not too frumpy. Just kinda there. Problem is, I don’t want to feel just there right now. I would like to feel actually attractive. Not Hot-Mommy attractive. No cleavage-baring plunging necklines or Hot Pants for me. Just noticeable and in a good way. Not in the “Wow, she should really pay more attention to how she looks when she leaves the house” kind of way or the “She’s a good candidate for 10 Years Younger” kind of way. That’s actually how I’ve been feeling lately. Like I could see myself on 10 Years Younger. Although, after getting my hair done last weekend, I do feel a bit better.

The thing about looking better is that it takes effort. Imagine that. I guess I just haven’t been willing to put in that effort until now. For whatever reason, I am now newly motivated to do that. We’ll see how it goes….

We’re off on another jaunt to The Grandma and Grandpa’s House this week! Yay! I always like to go visit The Folks even though it can be hard with a toddler who likes her routine. She’s doing great, though and really loves running around the back yard. It’s nice, too because she’s getting used to Grandpa who hasn’t seen her very much. Grandma comes to visit and helps The Mommy occasionally so she knows Grandma but she hasn’t seen Grandpa very much at all. So now that she’s getting used to him, he can hug and kiss her without the “who are you?” freakout that toddlers can sometimes have. Very important for Grandpas, you know.

Grandpa does, however, consume a much lower octane of coffee than The Mommy so I might have to remedy that when we go to the store today. It’s the little things that get me through my day.

I did, however, actually sleep pretty well last night, for me. Crashed at a ridiculously early hour of the evening (let’s just say the sun hadn’t yet gone down) and only woke up a couple of times. Got up early enough to get The Dog situated with her morning stroll, pain meds, and breakfast and to type at you all before The Tot made too much of a ruckus. I hear her in there talking to Mr. Duckie but I think I’ve got a few more minutes before she gets belligerent…

I hesitated to bring The Dog on this trip. She’s not doing well. Some mornings she doesn’t even want to get up for her walk or breakfast because she’s in so much pain. The other night she had a really hard time walking around and it kind of freaked me out. But here at Gramma and Grampa’s, she seems to be doing well. She didn’t have trouble getting up this morning and was rolling in whatever it was she smelled out in the back yard. Probably either bird poop or cat poop. Lovely. I knew she’d like having a yard to wander in since we don’t have one at home. I wonder if she remembers and misses the days when we lived on the river up north and she used to run down the embankment and into the river to fetch the ball. And she had an acre to run around on…

Well, it’s about time to get The Tot up and start our day….gotta go!

Hey there! Good morning! I’m on the last half of my coveted cup of morning coffee and I’m almost finished going through the twenty kazillion emails that I get per day from all kinds of concievable sources. Some of them are solicited and others, well, let’s just say I don’t have any freakin’ clue what I have done to get on their mailing list. I try to unsubscribe from as many as I can but that takes more time than just deleting the suckers so…

Swell.com sent me an email letting me know that there are all kinds of summer stuff on sale over at their site right now. They’ve got some cute summer dresses on sale, mostly in the $25 range but some as low as $17! Now This Mommy may be using some of them as TOPS because I’m just not a teenager anymore and probably can’t pull off anything that short but if you can, more power to ya’! They’ve got some cool graphic tees, too. Mostly around $15. If you’re big on off-season stocking up, there are some long-sleeved tees on sale. I haven’t checked out the stuff for guys yet but it’s on sale, too and so is the surf gear. AND they’ve got $5 flat rate shipping! Head on over and check ‘em out!

The past two days have been really, really nice. Yesterday I got to go get my hair done and I did not once think about, worry about, or otherwise occupy my mind with how or what Tater Tot was doing. I knew that she would be having fun with The Daddy and that I could relax and enjoy myself. Today The Daddy watched her while I worked on fixing up the deck outside of her room. I went and picked up a market umbrella that someone was giving away on Freecycle, scrubbed the deck down, and moved some plants up there. I’m far from done but it was nice to make some progress. I’ve got one of the lattice screens sanded and painted and the other one isn’t in as bad shape as the first so I’ll get that one done soon. I’ve got the chaise lounge up there and I’m going to get a cushion for it in a print that matches the color of the umbrella I got today and incorporates the other paint colors that I’ve used.

I hate to say it but it was just nice to do what I wanted to do for once without having to keep track of anyone but myself.

That’s the sound of the light bulbs going off over Tater Tot’s head. Also the sound of the minds of The Daddy and me blowing.

Yesterday I had a hair appointment (hallelujah!) and, while I was gone, The Daddy was hoping that Tater Tot would take an afternoon nap. I had told him “Fat Chance, Buddy” because it’s such a rarity these days. Well, at some point during my outing, The Daddy says to The Tot “Is it time for a nap?”. The Tot gets up, points at the door (Daddy opens it), walks to her room and points at her crib. WHAT???? Did I just type that? Yes, I did. The Daddy lifts her up into her crib and she sits and quietly plays with Mr. Duckie for an hour. Good Lord! No, she didn’t nap but I would have never guessed in a million years that she would be willing to go get in her crib and have “Quiet Time” voluntarily!

Before my hair appointment, The Daddy and The Tot had been playing with the miniature basketball and football he had bought for her. She seemed to really like the basketball and kept trying to bounce it in the kitchen but The Daddy seemed intent on getting her to pay attention to the football. So he said “football” a couple of times and bounced it on the ground as high as it could go to get her attention. When it landed the last time she walked over to it, looked at it and as clear as day said “football”. We looked at each other like “Did we really just hear that?” and, yes we did. This is the little girl who still calls flowers “bow-ber-bers” and says “De-duh” for Dora the Explorer. WHAAA? Of course she wouldn’t say it again because we were so intent on getting her to but we both clearly heard her say it.

She has been intent on signing lately, too. She really likes to sign “eat” and, while I want to reinforce her signing, she signs it ALL of the time. We can have just eaten lunch and she will be signing “eat” a half hour later. And I’m positive that I’m feeding this kid enough at meals. So I try to get creative with what I feed her so that I’m not always shoving crackers in her face. She love tomatoes and pureed veggies, which is good. I think she has universalized “eat” to mean “drink” as well so I try and offer her milk or extremely diluted juice some of the time when she signs it. Always, of course, asking her if she wants something to drink and doing the sign for “drink”. I don’t want to confuse her so I’m trying to clearly show her the signs for eat and drink when I ask her if she wants something to drink or something to eat. Most of the time it’s “eat”. She’s an eater!

She signs “juice” and “milk” now and says “sheeeeez” when I ask her if she wants some cheese. She also sometimes very clearly signs “eat” and then “fish” because she wants to eat goldfish crackers. It’s so exciting to see her able to communicate more! She clearly knows what comes next in our evening routine, too since she is signing “milk” madly while I’m changing her diapers and putting her pajamas on (no we have not quite weaned from the bedtime bottle yet). She signs “diaper” when I am changing her and when I’m doing the laundry and assembling her cloth diapers.

The other way that she communicates lately is to non-verbally communicate her frustration at being told “no”. She has developed the pattern of stomping her foot, saying “Ahhh” and waving her arms and then doing a modified downward-facing dog with her bottom in the air and head on the floor! It’s pretty hilarious but I do whatever I need to not to laugh at her. I don’t want to crush her little spirit. Express yourself, Tater Tot!

Update: She now knows the words “boo-boo” and “Bandaid”! She fell and very minorly skinned her knee today so I cleaned it and put a Bandaid on it. She was enthralled with the whole Bandaid idea and kept saying “Bandaid. Bandaid” over and over. Of course, if you didn’t have the context of putting the Bandaid on her knee, you probably wouldn’t understand that she was actually saying Bandaid but she was clearly trying. It came out “Bandah” but I kept saying “Yes. You’ve got a Bandaid on your knee” and she would give me a huge grin. When The Daddy said “You’ve got a Bandaid on your Boo-Boo” she seemed to really like that and said “boo-boo” over and over for a while.

I swear it seems like a switch has turned on the past couple of days. This is fun!

Disclaimer: I am not complaining! I am extremely grateful to be a stay-at-home Mommy. I am merely noticing the differences between LBTT (Life Before Tater Tot) and LATT (Life After Tater Tot).

I remember when Friday used to be the end-all-be-all, wooohooo, kick-your-feet-up-and-sink-into-the-couch day of the week. Now when The Daddy comes home and says “Ah, it’s Friday”, I think “And? So What?!”. You see, although I don’t work outside of the home, I work at home all day long. Not a paying gig, unfortunately, but a gig just the same.

When Friday comes, I know that I have the promise of child care while I run errands on the weekend and an opportunity to nap if Tater Tot doesn’t seek me out while The Daddy is taking care of her. And if I don’t decide to do something creative with the time that The Daddy gives me to nap. I’ve really got to get over wanting a life. I need sleep more than I need a life right now, I think.

I have figured out that if I did nothing but take care of The Tot and the house (laundry, cleaning, picking up, etc.), that would take up all of my time. In order to blog, recreate in any way, shape or form, craft, or indulge any hobby I have to neglect one of my Household Engineer duties. For some reason that disturbs me. When did I used to get all this stuff done? One thing I have realized is that we have added a little person who makes big messes to our family so there didn’t used to be so much to get done. Think about it. We used to have two people with breakfast dishes and dinner dishes. That’s it. Now we have three people with breakfast and dinner dishes and two people with lunch dishes. More laundry, some of it with pureed squash and other such stains on them that need excising. And more stuff to put away. When did she get all these toys? And how do they seem to be continually strewn around my house? I swear they get up out of the toy box/storage containers/etc. and walk out into the living room by themselves!

So I’m not going to feel bad for not keeping the house up every once in a while (and maybe a bit more often than that) so that I can rest or do something I’d like to do. Try and make me!

In no particular order:

1. Tater Tot signed “juice” for the first time the other day! I love how imitative she is these days! But that means I’ve really got to watch my language…

2. Relationships are messy. That’s all I’m gonna say on that one.

3. There are a ton of ridiculously run-on sentences in the Bible. Check out Jeremiah 29:14. Dude, where’s your editor? (Side note: not bashing the Bible here. I like the Bible. Just an observation.)

4. The Daddy has been doing a ton of work on our patio so that it’s Tater Tot friendly and it looks great! More shade and lots of Tater-height garden flags/interactive stuff for her. She loves to play in the fountain!

5. Coffee is good.

6. I have not slept enough this week. (See musing #2 and #5)

7. The Coffee Bean and Tea leaf makes the best cold blended coffee drink on the planet! I treated myself the other day and mmmmmmmm….yummy!

8. I am really into rehabbing “found items” right now. I have found several things lately that people were giving away for free (Freecycle.com can be great!) that needed a little bit of work. I’m fixing up the balcony outside of Tater Tot’s room and our office. and trying to do it for very low cost. So free is good! I’m hoping to put a patio table, umbrella, lounge, some plant stands, a play area. I found two really interesting-looking lattice screens the other day that need to be sanded and painted. I think they’ll look really good once I’m done!

9. My family ROCKS! It feels really good to know that I have all of the support that I do and that there are people who can talk me down off the ceiling when I need it. And I really enjoy being around them. Unfortunately, two sisters live in other states and a brother lives 4 hours away. But Mom and Dad live just two hours up the road (an hour and a half if I’m drivin’ fast). And the little bro tends to visit Mom and Dad when he knows Tater Tot and I are going to be there.

Well, that’s about the size of it for right now…

Well, I have decided to pull Tater Tot from swim classes. We went yesterday and it just didn’t work well for us. She wouldn’t nap in the morning, of course, but started yawning as soon as we get in the car to drive to the pool. It was a complete zoo at the beginning which freaked her out a bit. There were three or four classes starting at the same time so there were tons of kids and parents. Last session there was just the one Parent/Tot class so it was much more low key. She’s a sensitive kid, I swear!

It took her the first third of the class to calm down. And I mean quit crying so loud that nobody could hear the instructor. I can’t say for sure but I could swear I got the evil eye from several of the parents of the calm, swim-class-loving children. Finally something that we did pleased her and she stopped crying. Phew. So we kicked around a bit with our rubber duckie toy in tow. She cried off and on during the whole class but by the end was enjoying herself. I just decided on the way home that two weeks of every day drama was too much for both of us. Add to that the fact that her nap schedule is in flux and it’s just too much. I want her to enjoy swim classes and it’s become obvious that she’s just not ready. She loves playing in the water at home but she just doesn’t want to deal with the pool yet. And that’s okay. It’s kind of a bummer because her friend Z is in this class but we’ll just have to see her another time. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only Mommy that things just don’t seem to work out for.

So instead of having something to get out of the house on time for every day, we’re going to kick back and take our days as they come for the summer. I’m good with that. Maybe we’ll head to the beach tomorrow….that sounds good.

Tater Tot is making connections all over the place. Yesterday she was sitting in the bath and holding the shampoo bottle (it makes a cheap, fun bath toy) and put her hand on her head. “Yes, you’re right, Mommy washes your hair with that.” *Huge Tater Tot Grin* Okay, so I can’t think of any other examples that I haven’t already written about but it’s just so fun to see her continue to sign the things she has signed and to be paying more attention to the world around her. She does this one thing that I haven’t figured out yet. She clasps both hands together in front of her and shakes them up and down. The only remotely close sign I have been doing is “help” but I’m not sure she’s been doing it at times she needs my help. Actually, it just occurred to me right now that it was close to the sign for “help”. Maybe I’d better pay closer attention! Duh, Mommy. Oh yeah! How could I forget? She’s starting to use her spoon more to actually try and get food to her mouth. She brings it slowly toward her mouth looking at me like “Look at me!”. It’s cute. But everything she does is cute to me. Ok. Not everything. Like trying to get her hands in the poop when I’m trying to change her diaper. Or throwing fits. Those aren’t very cute.

She is so intent on moving right now. She rarely sits still and, if she does, she’s most likely sleeping! Another thing she doesn’t like to do very much of right now. But she still does sleep through the night and manages to get in a morning nap. Sometimes it’s very late in the morning, but it’s still a morning nap. Most afternoons the nap is tossed out the window but she’s cranky enough by bedtime that I can’t think it’s time to get rid of the second nap. Maybe that’s just Wishful Mommy Thinking. The thing is, she falls asleep pretty easily and fairly early for her morning nap most mornings. Maybe I need to crank up the activity level after the first nap so she’s tired enough for a second nap. Or just start moving the morning nap later. We do start swim lessons again next week which will screw with her sleep situation even more since they are mid-morning. Oh, whatever! We’ll figure it out. For the most part, she’s a happy toddler who is busy exploring and trying to get her way!

She loves to make weird noises and experiment with sounds right now. And she loves it when Mommy does that with her. Makes for some strange meal times and outings but luckily I don’t mind making a fool of myself. Isn’t that A Mommy’s Life?