Um, Awkward! Some Things You Should Just Never Say

Posted on May 10, 2013May 11, 2013 by Amy

The other day I saw my next door neighbor for the first time in over a year.

She was out in her yard, and I walked over with the girls to quickly say “Hello” and let them pet her dog. Neighbor Lady says, “It’s so good to see you!!!!!!!!!” Then she shifts her eyes rather pointedly toward my stomach, wiggles her eyebrows up and down, and excitedly says, “Are you?….” Of course the unspoken word was obviously “Pregnant?!”

I’m not.

Awkward.

So, here’s how it played out. I gave a terse shake of my head and said “No,” probably rather grumpily.

She quickly replied with, “Oh-I-was-just-asking-because-you-said-you-wanted-to-keep-going [with having more kids].”

Okay, that’s true. But… awkward.

Fortunately we were saved by my girls chattering about Neighbor Lady’s dog and how he looks like our dog who died (this might have been slightly awkward itself in a different moment, but as it was, it was quite refreshing), and about their hopes for future purchases of bicycles and stuffed hummingbirds and other random, innocent, oblivious things.

Then, Me: “Okay, gotta go!”

And as I walk away, the final parting shot, Her: “You look great!”

*sigh*

‘Kay. Here’s the deal. Yes, I do still have about 10 pounds I’d like to lose since having Baby Sis. Yes, she is 13 months old. Yes, my belly is squishier than it has ever been before.

I look okay. Not great. Okay.

But still. There are just some things you should never say. Right?

I’m someone who gains 50+ pounds when pregnant. I have tried to exercise and eat well during the three times that I have been growing another human within my body, but I gain insane amounts of weight even when I do this.

So. I have given in to just eating ice cream and becoming huge, knowing that I can lose it all after the fact.

It worked out pretty well the first two times.

This is me the day I found out I was pregnant with Miss:

About 8 months after Miss was born and shortly before I became pregnant with Lass:

Around 8 weeks pregnant with Lass:

After having Miss, I came close to regaining my pre baby body fairly quickly (of course it didn’t seem quick at the time, but now…).

After Lass I came a little less close, a little less quickly, but still got fairly near my goal.

Around 9 months after Lass was born:

About 9 weeks pregnant with Sis:

Now, 13 months after having Sis I am still nowhere near my goal weight, or even the weight I was when I got pregnant with her (which still wasn’t quite to my goal weight).

Crap, it’s a lot harder to get there this third time around! I know I can’t really complain, because I haven’t done the work to get there…

But it still feels pretty crappy to have my neighbor look at my (poofy but not that poofy) stomach and ask if I’m pregnant.

So the moral of the story? Never ask someone if she’s pregnant. Just don’t do it.

If it isn’t completely obvious, you are playing with fire.

Even if it is completely obvious, sometimes it’s not really, so you’re still playing with fire.

And truly, if someone is pregnant, and you can’t tell by looking, and she’s not talking about it, maybe she doesn’t want you to know. Just don’t do it.

I’ve hit the CrossFit workouts pretty hard the past two days. Nothing like a little motivation.

Thanks Neighbor Lady 🙂

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Doing Summer

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Amy

We’ve been doing summer a little differently this year. Last year we spent several days each week at the pool in the mornings, and were outside playing constantly. This year, with the arrival of Baby Sis, plus Miss having school on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, swimming on Monday and Wednesday mornings, and our standing play date on Fridays, and with naps in the afternoons, well, we haven’t been outside as much so far this summer (except for the two weeks we’ve spent at the Farm already, of course). This summer we’ve been chilling out around the house a bit more when we are home.

It’s different, but still fun. The big girls have taken to putting on their own dance parties.

The little baby play table next to Miss is what she was playing the music on. My little budding DJ…

Lass initially just wanted to watch.

I won’t dance. Don’t ask me.

But of course she started to get into the music before long.

And eventually really let loose.

Miss is really into playing her games and being crafty.

She and I made the “crown” she’s wearing from rolled up strips of a Snow White page she colored and yarn. The idea came from our summer babysitter, who brought over this craft and made necklaces with the girls one day. Yep, I now have a babysitter who does crafts with the girls. Her own crafts, that she prepares and brings with her. And cleans up. This is huge. I love this.

Baby sis is just such a little lover. She’s the happiest little baby.

She has started to giggle a tiny bit. Here is the progression of one of her giggles:

Miss takes an art class on Wednesday mornings before her swimming lesson. Yesterday Lass and Sis and I ran a few short errands and then sat outside and had a snack while waiting for her class to finish.

It was the perfect spot for a little snack picnic.

So far summer has felt very full. Maybe it has been a little too full, with school and swimming and art and play dates and travel and all the other day to day stuff that has to fit in there too. But it has been good. Today was Miss’s last day of school for the summer, so we will have a bit of time freed up for pool and park mornings or just playing outside in our own yard a bit more. Tomorrow we leave for Kentucky to visit my parents. My Grandma will be visiting them too, so we will celebrate her 90th birthday and have a family reunion this weekend. I can’t wait for her to meet Sis. My parents haven’t seen her since the week after she was born. She’s three months old today.

It’s gonna be a great trip.

Wednesdays with Lass

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Amy

At least once per week, on Tuesday or Wednesday or both, I have a special morning with Lass while Miss is at school. Sometimes we run errands or just go home and play. Often we go to a local cafe where they have a big play area for little ones. Sis comes along of course, but mostly she just sleeps or chills in her car seat or wrap, so it is special time for Lass and me to hang out. Her little personality just seems to blossom during these times. She is so curious and chatters away about everything she sees. She loves to look at the mural at the cafe and point out each animal she sees. She plays in the little house and with the train table.

We have a snack. She likes to climb up in the chair at one of the other small tables, point to the other chair and say, “Sit? Mama sit?” Then we sit at the table, just the two of us and chit chat.

Yesterday she wouldn’t take off this paper bib after her snack.

She is growing and changing so quickly. She’s 21 months old today. Her vocabulary seems to grow every day and she now speaks in full sentences. She has little things she likes to say a lot, like “No yet,” if you ask her to do something or “Okay?,” meaning, “Are you okay?” She pats or rubs my arm or leg if she can when she asks this one. She is very interested in taking care of her baby sister and tries to be able to do all the things her big sister can do. She is now wearing a “big girl pony tail” like her big sis. She looks so grown up.

I love my mornings with my middle girl.

Reload

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Amy

As I’m adjusting to life as a mommy of three, I am finding I have not been blogging as much as I’d like. I intend to get better about this. But in the meantime, I might “reload” a old favorite post here and there just to keep from going too long without posting. Here’s an oldie but a goodie from the first days of Miss’s potty training. I still cringe a bit when I read this one…

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When I started as a prison psychologist, I had to go to the same two-week training that the federal government makes all correctional workers go through. Among other things, I learned self defense, spent a lot of time on the firing range, had physical fitness tests, and learned lots about how to prevent and handle a “major disturbance,” which is prison staff lingo for a riot. I remember one instructor saying something like, “We have the control in our institutions because the inmates let us have control. There are way more of them than us, and they could take control at any time. We will always get it back, but don’t forget that they could take it.” I heard this idea several times in various trainings I went to over the years. I think the purpose of saying this was to stress to us that our control was fragile and we needed to exert it with respect, lest our residents decide they weren’t gonna take it anymore.

Fast forward seven-ish years to a day in the life of me, The Mom, the one with the “control,” and Miss, The Toddler, the one who generally goes along and lets me have control because life flows better that way. The one who decided yesterday that she wasn’t gonna take it anymore and went into all out riot mode. Yes folks. My 2’7″, 26-pound 2 year old brought me to my knees yesterday.

Remember my post from the other day when I said potty training was going so well? Remember how I said I firmly believe you can’t force a child to go to the bathroom? Well. My daughter firmly proved me right yesterday. And I never even tried to force her to go to the bathroom. I just tried to get her to not go on the floor. Or on her little chair in her room. Or on the couch. Yesterday was not my best day as Mommy, and Miss decided to seize control of things by controlling what she could – her bladder. Yes, potty training worked very well. Miss does know when she has to go and she is able to tell me. She had been doing this very well all week. One thing she had not been doing at all was napping. So after five days without a nap, we were both tired and a bit frayed. She had an accident yesterday because she did not tell me she had to go. Throughout the entire training process up to that point I had been super positive and upbeat, even with accidents. “Next time just make sure you tell Mommy when you have to go so we can keep those underwear dry, okay?” Well, yesterday I had a not-so-wonderful Mommy Moment and I scolded her for her accident. Nothing too awful, but I definitely used a stern voice and told her that she was supposed to tell me when she had to go and not pee-pee on the floor. I think I gave an exasperated sigh or two. I did manage to regroup fairly quickly and then in my more upbeat voice repeat the usual reminder to tell me when she has to go the next time. But apparently she was not all that forgiving of my moment of testiness. From that point forward, she was in control and letting me know it. She refused to go to the bathroom when I took her in to let her try. I never pushed the issue, but did try to get her to go a few times in an attempt to stop the madness that had begun. She wouldn’t even sit when I’d take her into the bathroom, but then would go moments later in a less favorable spot. She wasn’t giving an inch. Suffice it to say, she had many accidents throughout the afternoon. I was trying so hard not to get into a power struggle with her, which was ironic, given that I had absolutely no power with this issue at all.

Things did improve somewhat right before bed, but by that time I was a wreck. I was berating myself for being the most horrible mother ever, and thinking I had ruined all the hard work we had done on the potty training by scolding her and that I had perhaps scarred her for life as all sorts of Freudian theories came to mind. And yes, this is a bit of an exaggeration, but not much. Just ask my mom, who I called near tears while chugging a glass of wine within minutes of putting Miss to bed. Or my husband who wasn’t able to get home until late last night and came in to find me grumpy and tearful and asking him to go get me ice cream (he did).

Of course, at the end of the day, when your toddler takes you down, you just have to get back up. By the time I went to bed, with the help of my husband, my mom, some wine, and some ice cream, I was feeling much better. I went to bed hopeful that yesterday would just be a bump in the road and that today would be a huge improvement. And of course it was. Miss had only one accident. She was happy to go on her potty and glowed at the praise she received. I was going to leave her with our babysitter so I could go grocery shopping this afternoon. I desperately needed to get some groceries and had wanted to go yesterday after her non-nap, but she refused to go to the bathroom, and I wasn’t willing to take her out in public with a full bladder with the way things were going yesterday. So today I thought I’d just avoid any problems and let her stay with our babysitter, whom she loves. But as I was getting ready to go she said, “I want to go store too. Pwease Mommy. I not get my pants all wet.” Well, that just melted my heart and so of course I let her come along. We had a great time. And when we got back, wonder of wonders, Miss finally took a nap! Oh halle-freaking-lujiah!!! All the world looks so much brighter on this side of a nap.

There are days when being a Mom just kicks the crap out of you. I really believe that there isn’t any more important job. Therefore, when things don’t go right, when I screw up, my feelings of inadequacy and guilt are greatly magnified. I question myself and feel like a failure. No one can make a mother of a two-year-old feel more impotent than that two-year-old. But amazingly, even when she is being a stinker and I’m at the end of my rope, the girl is sweet and loving and brightens my world. Just when I feel like I want to go crawl under my covers and stay there, she will say something like this comment from yesterday, “Lass so sweet, Lass so cute,” and then when I ask her if she’s cute say, “No, I not cute. I pwetty.” My girls make me laugh. They make me smile. They make my heart swell until it feels like it’s going to burst. Sometimes they make me want to pull my hair out. Always they make me want to be a better Mom. Even yesterday. Hell, especially yesterday! I’m not perfect, and sometimes I totally suck at this Mom thing, but in the words of that instructor, I “always get it back.” I guess that’s just what moms do. We do our best for our kids and sometimes we totally lose it. But we always get it back.

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I hope to be back soon with a fresh post and some new photos!

One Wonderful Guy

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Amy

I’m enjoying having my husband home this week. We have been relaxing and he’s helping me get as much rest as I can. Other than the days Miss went to school, he’s been letting me sleep in, which is such a wonderful luxury. I slept until 9:30 one day! It was amazing. He’s been outside with Miss and Lass a lot too, which they love. They’re working on getting our garden planted.

The girls helped him plant some veggies in these boxes today.

Then he opened the sandbox for them.

Oh, how they enjoyed the sandbox. This was Lass’s first experience with it.

I must admit, I’m usually not a great lover of the sandbox. But I think my lack of enthusiasm comes from having Miss in it last year in the middle of summer when she was hot and sweaty and sunscreened and it was nearly impossible to get the sand unstuck from her. Today, it was no prob. Brushed right off.

Miss found a worm. She didn’t want anything to do with it.

But Lass thought it was pretty darned cool.

It was a great day for lots of playing outside.

I love looking out the window while cooking dinner and seeing my husband chasing my girls around the backyard, playing “Monster,” or teaching them to kick a ball. Sometimes I glance up and see them all just lying in the grass chatting and snuggling. It warms my heart. He is such a great girl daddy. He is so thoroughly outnumbered, and I think he loves it.

I’m taking advantage of having my husband home this week and trying to spend some good one on one time with each of my girls. My older girls have been such troopers through the whole adjustment to having Baby Sis home. Miss loves to help with her, but I’m trying to give her some special attention all of her own too.

When I first brought Sis home, I was worried that Lass might get lost in the shuffle. Miss was so interested in Sis and wanted to hold her and help with her all the time, and Sis of course just needs lots of attention and time. I felt nervous that Lass might get left out. So I have made a special point of trying to make sure that doesn’t happen. She’s such a little lover that it hasn’t been hard to get in lots of extra snuggles with her and give her some special time.

I am not going to make the mistake I made with Lass of not introducing her to a bottle until she was five or six weeks old, at which point she flat out refused it, and continued to do so until I gave up trying to get her to take one. Sis isn’t necessarily loving the bottle yet, but she has done pretty well taking it both from her daddy and from me this week. I’m trying out a few different bottles to see which one she likes best. I have just about every type of bottle ever made from my attempts with Lass, so she has lots of choices.

She is such an amazingly easy baby so far. I’m finding it so easy to just soak up the sweet moments with her.

Unfortunately my sweet littlest one has had a little tendency to scratch the heck out of her face. Poor baby.

You would think, this being my third time doing this, that I would have mastered the art of cutting newborn fingernails by now. No. I suck at it. I tried three times yesterday to get those suckers trimmed and she was so squirmy I couldn’t get them done. I know. I’m a total wuss. Today I finally wised up and cut them while she was sleeping. Mission accomplished. Why didn’t I think of that before?

I’m loving having three precious girls. And one wonderful guy.

Pigtails and Stuff

Posted on April 7, 2012December 31, 2013 by Amy

I got both of my girls to wear pigtails in their hair for a brief time yesterday. Miss usually won’t let me do anything with her hair except a ponytail, but when I put Lass’s hair in pigtails yesterday, she was suddenly interested. I just had to get a photo of the two of them together.

Preferably with both of them looking at the camera…

I love Miss’s posed smiles for photos.

Close enough!

Miss really wanted to put her Baby Sis’s hair in pigtails too.

We’ve had a great week.

Almost every day we’ve gotten out of the house at least a little bit. Yesterday we stayed home for a lazy day, but otherwise we’ve been out and about. I already mentioned getting out for gymnastics class on Monday. Tuesday I got the girls up and was determined to get Miss to school on time. I got them all ready to go and we got out the door only a few minutes late for the 25-minute drive to Miss’s school. We got there and I got Miss up to the door, only to realize that I had completely forgotten it was Spring Break this week. Miss didn’t really get what Spring Break is, but we had a good laugh about going to school when it was closed.

The girls love playing with their Baby Sis’s stuff. The photo below looks a bit hostile, but Miss was just showing Lass how to cover her mouth when she coughs.

Sister hugs.

And kisses.

Nothing like playing soccer with sparkly Mary-Jane-ish shoes on.

Baby Sis is sleeping and nursing like a champ. She wakes up once at night and then sleeps late. All of my girls have been sleeping a little bit late this week (except Tuesday when I had to wake them all up for “school”) so I have been thoroughly enjoying sleeping until 8. And my husband is off work for the next week. I’m loving this and the Easter festivities coming up this weekend with dyeing eggs, hunting for eggs and baskets, and meeting the Easter Bunny on Sunday. I’m a happy mama.

Happily Rolling Along

Posted on April 3, 2012December 31, 2013 by Amy

We are adjusting happily to having Baby Sis home.

I was thrilled with the response of my big girls when we first brought her home. Miss was ecstatic. Lass was intrigued. They were both happy and loving.

Miss ran right into her room to get a book to read to “Baby Sissy.”

Lass kept wanting to pull her blankets off to see her better.

And my protective eldest repeatedly put the blankets back on, very gently, so she wouldn’t get cold.

Miss was excited to help with her sister’s first bath at home.

She constantly wants to hold “her baby.” Lass just wants to wear multiple tutus (there are five on her below).

We had a bit of a birthday party over the weekend.

And the girls “helped” their Daddy start getting ready to plant our garden.

Miss spent lots of time telling stories with her Grandma. I think this one was a story about how her baby sister spit up, and how Lass used to spit up when she was a baby, and Miss herself used to spit up when she was a baby…

I was sad that my parents left this morning, but must say I’m pleased with how our first day on our own went. I even got a shower and made it with all three girls to Miss’s gymnastics class. Early. Miss is very into helping and she and Lass play together so well, the adjustment has gone very well so far. I have been told that the shift from two kids to three is easier than the transition from one to two. I’d say I agree with that. A good friend of mine also made a statement that I think is very true. She said, “No matter how many kids you have, when you bring home a new baby it’s going to make things a bit crazy for a while.” Yep. Today, though I made it to gymnastics with clean hair and three adequately dressed and groomed children, I did forget to brush my teeth and put a coat on. Goals for tomorrow, I suppose…

Motherhood and Miscellany

Adjusting to Three