Sleeping in the buff

I always go and look in on Max and Emily before I go to bed at night. Well, tonight I went into Max's room and he was asleep buck naked on top of his bed.

21 day sugar detox

I have been taking a very hard look at my eating habits the last few months and have come to the conclusion that I have a serious problem with eating sweets. I hide them all over my house and am eating them all day long. If we have any type of desert in the house I sneak downstairs and eat some before I get Max up in the morning. (And then I tell him when he asks for a cookie for breakfast, "We don't eat cookies for breakfast!") I will eat treats after lunch, while the kids are napping, and then again in the evening. If I am reading, scrapbooking, sewing, watching TV, etc. I want a treat while I am doing it. As hard and embarrassing as it is to admit this in such a public way, I am doing it in hopes that by openly admitting it I will be better able to overcome my sugar habit.

My blogging friend Amy has decided to do a 21 day sugar detox and has invited others to join in with her. She has even created a blog where people can go to find motivation and support or write about how they are doing. After thinking it over for a couple of days I've decided to join her. For the next 21 days Jeff (who is joining me) and I won't eat any candy, deserts, soda, etc. Can I just say that it makes me a little nervous to say that, and sad that it should make me nervous!! I'm letting you all know this so that you can support me in this decision and to hopefully help others who may also need a little motivation to start eating healthier.

Here's to healthier eating!!

Swimming with Max

Max and I had our last parent-tot swim class today and I'm still trying to decide how I feel about the experience. I decided to sign us up after my sister did a blog post on the swimming lessons she was taking with her toddler and how much fun they were having. At first I was jealous that I couldn't take a class with Max, and then realized I could take the class, I would just have to get a babysitter and plan it around Emily's nap time, which would be more work, but I figured it would be worth it. After the first day of class I left feeling very frustrated. Max cried and clung to me the entire time and I wondered why I was spending so much money for this experience. It didn't help that it felt like I had accidentally signed up for the skinny mom parent-tot classes. Having my insecurities brought up by feeling like the fat, frumpy mom didn't help the situation. It did get better. By the end of the second class he wasn't crying and didn't want to leave the pool when class was over. Max loved going to class and the majority of the time it was fun, but I still had a lot of frustrating moments. Max loved being in the water, but he wouldn't kick or use his arms and if I didn't hold him in exactly the way he wanted he would squeal and grab at me. He was the biggest kid in the class and by far the most timid. Max won't even lay on his back in the tub and washing his hair entails five minutes of arguing and screaming, so you can imagine that the day we worked on them laying on their backs was awful. I'm sure I was pushing to hard, which just made him more resistant and I again left wondering why I was paying to have this experience. I'm sure I'll put him in swimming lessons again since he is not the charge right in there type of kid and needs to get very comfortable with things before he really enjoys them. At least I learned some things about Max, and the way we work together, that will hopefully be helpful for the future.

Bed Buddies

I'm not sure if it's a security thing or what, but now that Max sleeps in a bed he has a ritual of gathering up his favorite toys and blankets to sleep in his bed with him after we tell him goodnight. We'll hear him scampering around in his room gathering the chosen items. He pulls all of the extra blankets that I tried to hide in his dresser when he moved out of a crib, his cars are a must have, and usually a few more select toys and books of the day. This night I actually removed his big dump truck, play radio, and a few other large toys that he had laying alongside of him before I snapped this picture. I think my favorite thing he has taken to bed with him would have to be his Camelbak that he somehow managed to find in the top drawer of his dresser. It's always fun to go check on him before I go to sleep and see what he has deemed bed worthy that night.

A nerdy confession:

Recently Jeff and I have gotten hooked on "Battlestar Galactica". Jeff's co-worker owns the first three seasons (they're on the fourth and final season right now) and had lent Jeff the first disc. We watched it a couple of Saturdays ago and, if gas prices weren't so high, there's a good possibility that I would have sent Jeff to go get the next disc the following day. Instead I had to settle for Jeff calling him Sunday to ask if he would bring the rest of the disks to work on Monday. In some ways it really brings back my days of watching reruns of "Star Trek: the Next Generation" with my brother at ten every night, although I wouldn't really say the shows are very similar. In case you had any doubts that the creator of this show was a nerd, he has invented his own swear word, which still makes me laugh half of the time they use it. The up side to this, though, is that the swearing isn't really an issue, which is nice since it is a Sci-Fi network show. (You do need to watch out for the love scenes.) If your a fan of "LOST", you will probably really like this show. It has a lot of suspense, mystery and good dialog that make it really fun to watch. I always love it when Jeff and I have a show that we can watch together after the kids are in bed. Now we just have to work on moderation so that we still get enough sleep!

No matter how fussy she is or how poorly she slept, all she has to do is look at me with that big grin of hers and all I want to do is smother her with kisses!

Clutter Busters!

For the last month, Jeff and I have been working at getting our home organized and clutter free. We don't have a basement in our home, which means we don't have a whole lot of storage space. Plus, I've become anti-clutter the older I've gotten. I used to be a saver and would hang on to everything way past its usefulness. Now I'm the chucker in our marriage and Jeff and I are constantly debating about what we are going to keep and what we are going to trash. Part of the problem is that we inherited a lot of junk when we bought our house. Jeff thinks that we should make use of what we have and I think it belongs in the dump. The garage was a mess and the former owners had turned the master walk-in closet into a computer room and the storage room behind it into the master closet. We finally got new shelves and clothing rods put up in the closet (The Saturday before Emily was born!) and last weekend we tore down the old shelves in the storage room and took everything out and organized it, getting rid of a bunch of stuff in the process. We had all ready organized our other storage closet the week before. Today we tackled the garage. This was probably spurred along by me breaking of my side mirror off our new car when I was backing out of the garage last week. It feels so nice to know where stuff is in the garage and to feel like I have room to get kids in and out of the car. I love to live in an organized world! (Which is no shock to anyone that knows me.)

In a very Jeff like moment today, I left garage cleaning halfway through and started pruning some of our trees. I could not believe what a difference it made to our yard! I cleared off some low branches right inside our gate in the back yard and it really opened up the area. Today, for the first time since we bought our house, I felt like we were actually making some headway with our yard. There is still a lot to do, especially in the back, but it felt so nice out there today under the shade of our trees and the grass in the back only looks bad in the back half of the yard! That probably doesn't sound that great, but it is major progress for us and gives me hope that maybe next summer our yard will be an enjoyable place to hang out.

Aargggg!

I know that all kids make mischief and get into things, but come on! I would just like to be able to go for a few hours without telling Max, "Stop that!", "Get off of there!", "Put down that knife!", "Don't eat that cube of butter!", etc. My house reached the point of crazy baby proofing before Max was eighteen months old yet he is still constantly finding new things to get into and ways to drive his mom a little crazy. I know I'm not alone in this, but I needed to do some venting after finding him in his room with every single wipe pulled out of the (full) wipes container and then wadded into a ball and shoved back in.

Lovin' them socks

Max has been developing a sense of style recently. He has become a little choosy about what he will and will not wear. The socks have got to be my favorite, though. It's always the same three pairs, put on over each other. How he can stand to wear all those socks when it is so warm is beyond me!

Goodbye Old Friend

Well, the time has come to say goodbye to an old friend. On Thursday night I drove my old car for the last time. It was the first car the I ever bought, and with the exception of Adrienne's car that I married into, it is the only car that I have ever owned. It has never been the prettiest or nicest car. In fact, we were thinking that at one point last year it was about the twentieth most valuable item in our garage, behind the other car, several rafts, and some old building supplies. It has always been a good car for me though. After 11 years of ownership I have started to be identified with my car, which is not necessarily the best thing when you drive a 17 year old Cavalier.

While driving for the last time on Thursday I started to wax a bit nostalgic. I began to think of all the things that have happened since I purchased that car. When I bought it I was a young kid fresh of my mission. Since then I have lived in seven different places, and had been at five different jobs. During that time I earned both a bachelors and a Masters degree. When I purchased the car the majority of my dating experience included going to girls choice dances. Now I am married and have two children. I put ninety thousand miles on that car which translates to something like 125 days behind the wheel.

There have been a lot of good times in the car. Spring break road trips come to mind. There have also been some not so fun things. The time the starter went out in the driveway of an old girlfriend's house right after I broke up with her. Yeah that was a lovely experience. I think that for probably the last seven years I had always thought that I would just drive my car for another couple of years and then buy a new one. The couple of years always seemed to be pushed out another couple of years into the future. The Cav would always keep plugging along. I am definitely happy to be moving to a nicer car but I am just a little sad to see the Cav go.

Emily at 4 months

Emily turned four months old over the weekend and had her well-visit today. She is growing like a weed! She is 14 lbs. 1 oz. (60%) and is 25 1/2 inches long (90%). It seems like she has thinned out the last few weeks, but luckily she still has her cute chubby cheeks that I just can't help kissing about a hundred times a day. She is rolling over from her tummy to her back and is constantly squealing and cooing. She definitely has gabby girl genes! It seems like she is growing up so fast, but at the same time it is hard to imagine back to before she was a part of our family. The best news of all (for me that is) is my pediatrician gave me the green light to start adding milk slowly back into my diet over the next month or so and see how she handles it. Yeah!!!

Enjoying the Unexpected

I have decided that sometimes the best trips are unexpected and unplanned. They just happen spur of the moment, with a whirl of packing (with a baby, you always have to pack, even if it's only for half a day) before you head out the door. We hadn't planned on doing anything special today, but we ended up taking off right after lunch to go and visit two of my friends from my home town. It was fun to just hang out with some friends that I haven't seen in a while or very often in the last ten years and get to spend a little time gabbing about everyday life. My friend Apreal had a baby boy, Carson, two days before I had Emily so we had to get some photos of the two little cuties. Max, of course, found some cars and planes to drag around, even making a line of cars in the toy room. I didn't happen to get a photo of the two oldest kids, but the two little princesses are Apreal and Raquel's second kids, Kimberly and Bailey. It was a great day, and all the more fun because it was so unexpected.

No Fun!!

The verdict is in. I have been declared "No Fun!" by my toddler. I wasn't even hurt or offended. Instead I wanted to laugh! Is it weird that I feel like I have passed a milestone as a mom?