Mommy gut reaction

Sometimes I think I am paranoid when it comes to Aubrey but other times...I don't know.  I just get a gut feeling sometimes.  It'll eat at me, but it's a gut feeling.  That was the case with last week. 

 

 

Aubrey was "off" last week.  It was not a huge deal, but it was noticeable.  Whenever she is dropped off at daycare she's usually like "peace out, you guys!" and runs off to play.  She was like that on Monday but for the remainder of the week she was hesitant and clingy to Mommy, not wanting us to leave.  Hell, on Wednesday she cried as she watched us leave the room.  And then I cried.  And she wanted to bring her butterfly with her and wouldn't let go of it when we left.  It was just weird for her, very un-Aubrey-like. 

 

So Friday we get a note saying that her teacher she has known since she has been in the toddler room since May or so was "let go" last Friday.  The second teacher she started with (they were the team in the room) left for another class in an older level but this lady was just fired.  And I'm not sure why, but still...she was let go on the 20th and we were notified on the 27th.  I thought it was weird because that teacher was always there in the morning when we dropped Aubrey off.  But T and I thought that she was just on vacation for the week, hence why they had the helper teachers there in the morning, the ones that only are in there when someone is sick or needs to leave the room for break. 

 

 

So yeah, no, it was because they fired her teacher, and they wrote us a note a week later letting us know.  I love her daycare, don't get me wrong, but they couldn't have let the parents know sooner?  I mean, I work in Human Resources so I'm sure what they did was wait for a Friday so we couldn't cause a stink.  But a whole week went by, and you know, kids at that age need consistency.  They get attached to their teachers, they trust them.  On Wednesday morning when we had that bad moment leaving her, the room was just chaotic.  I knew one of the teachers somewhat but barely knew the other two.  And none of them were really going up to greet her.  It was just odd. 

 

 

I'm not saying she's not in good care, because she totally is.  I just wish I was told all of this sooner because I would have put two and two together with her behavior.  Aubrey is not the separation anxiety type unless it's just me leaving the room with daddy there.  But she doesn't freak out like this.  And here I was thinking she was getting sick.  Hmmm....

 

 

So T and I will be talking to the director, not just to get all pissy at her and do what I did before and get us in trouble...no, I just want to express my concern and see how quickly they plan to get a permanent teacher there.  I don't like leaving my kid with people I don't really know and trust, no matter how safe the center is.  I still want to know them on a first name basis at the very least.  And maybe, just maybe, ask that next time they let us know a little quicker than a week. 

 

 

And maybe next time I shouldn't question my gut.

   

T to the G to the I to the F!

What better way to end this week than with a random Friday post?  I could not think of a better way to celebrate Friday!  Random?  What what?  So here we go....

 

 

This is an indication of where my mind has been lately.  The other day my office had two engineer volunteers come to our office to wipe out computers that were damaged in a fire that took place in the office in 2009 so they could be recycled.  All fun stuff, right?  I had no idea what I was doing so getting nerd help was definitely alright by me.  Anyway, so as I'm leading these incredibly smart (and dry) men to the conference room, I attempt to unlock the door.  With my car key.  And they didn't think it was funny.  Hmmm...

 

 

Two words for something on my mind lately:  cancer. sucks. 

 

 

So the other day, I was not able to pack my lunch, and well, the only place that delivers and is not pizza where I work is the Jimmy Johns.  I love me some Jimmy Johns.  And it was a particularly craptastic day that I ordered myself a chocolate chunk cookie.  And it was glorious, I tell you, glorious.  Can we say stress eating?

 

 

I can't keep track of how quickly Aubrey is growing and learning.  She knows body parts, she knows the names of her Sesame Street, animal sounds, counts along with the numbers on Sesame Street...I mean, seriously, she needs to slow down.  She's already going on 20 months.  Not ready for her to be 2 yet, no, not yet.

 

 

We have had luck finding a sitter through Care.com, but did you know they also had listings for personal assistants?  Seriously - people who will go run my errands, clean the house, organize my desk...keep my life sane.  Personal assistants.  Dammit, I want one.  Why can't I make enough money to pay for someone to keep myself straight?  Hell, I could pay someone to just clean out my inbox. Oh well...someday, my friends, someday....

 

 

So this weekend will hopefully be an uneventful one.  We're hoping to get a 5 mile run in to prepare for next week's Wine at the Line race.  God, I hope I'm ready.  That and going to an apple orchard with the Aubs.  I have been dying to decorate the house for fall, too.  I do realize how sad it is that I now get excited about decorating my house for fall....but, I don't care.  Yay fall!

 

 

If you are looking for a little light reading for the weekend, here's what I've been writing in between bouts of nervous breakdowns, so check it out:

 

ModVive piece - this got a little emotional for me:  Child Abuse and why some people don't deserve to live: http://www.modvive.com/2013/09/26/child-abuse-children-forever-haunted-neglect/

 

Another piece on child abuse and the adults that come from this:  http://www.modvive.com/2013/09/18/abusive-mother-receives-honestand-unrelenting-obituary-ever/

 

And my Catholic Pope crush on Pope Francis:  http://www.modvive.com/2013/09/23/pope-francis-speaks-core-church-values/

 

A Care.com piece on teaching children about different holidays:  http://www.care.com/child-care-teach-kids-about-different-holidays-p1017-q34002356.html

 

Women being entirely too hard on ourselves: http://www.modvive.com/2013/09/16/women-lets-stop-striving-perfection/

 

 

Have a lovely weekend everyone!  If you choose to read through these stories, which I hope you will, definitely don't end on the first one.  End on a high note...maybe read that piece on Pope Francis :-)

   

White flag

  This week has chewed me up and spat me out.  Seriously, I couldn't be more over this week than I already am, hence my lack of posting and my lack of articles this week.  I can't really go into why this week has sucked so monumentally per se, but it has.  I haven't been keeping track of the days, but it has come to my attention that tomorrow is Thursday.  Thank.  God. 

 

 

I'd like to go back to the weekend, if possible.  Last weekend, that is.  T and I actually got to have a couple night, going out to dinner for our anniversary.  Adult meal, bottle of wine, lovely view of the city at night, and incredibly awesome dessert.  It was all mine, too.  Two words:  Peach Cobbler.  Hell yeah.  This weekend is a bit more low key and honestly I could use it after this week.

 

 

I remember when I was a kid, I dreaded Sundays because it meant going back to school.  I still get that with the work week, but sometimes...I have those moments where I'm like "you know, having my biggest worry being homework doesn't sound half bad."  Maybe I could go back to those days for a bit, but not high school days...we're talking elementary school.  No responsibility, people cooked and did stuff for you, you played and your homework was easy. 

 

 

I'm rambling for you, but like I said, it's been one of those weeks.  So you get one of "these" posts but I am a firm believer in at least posting something, right?  Okay, I'll at least leave you with these adorable pictures...my dear daughter and her cousin BFF.  If this doesn't make you smile, I don't know what will!

 

 

 

   

Eat your veggies!

Awhile ago, I was approached by Green Giant to try out a new product they are releasing called Veggie Blends, and of course, I said yes.  With a daughter who rarely eats vegetables unless they come in the form of veggie chips, I look for any means to sneak them into her food.  Essentially, they are pureed vegetables you add into whatever you want.  I got a package just like this in the mail one day and was completely stoked:

 

 

Image courtesy of couponcrazygirl.com

 

First off, this is crazy nice of them because the box did not only contain three boxes of the veggie blends but also came in a really nice Tupperware container, with a wooden spoon, and a stack of recipes.  The three veggies I got were spinach, butternut squash and carrots.  So I got to work.

 

 

The first recipe was with meatloaf.  I added the carrot puree to my meatloaf mix, and honestly, you could not taste it at all.  You got veggies and had no idea they were there.  However, the meatloaf was not the best because that extra liquid needed to be combined with more breadcrumbs or something to hold it together because it fell apart as soon as I cut it.  But it was delicious, so that's all that matters!

 

 

I had huge success with my second recipe.  I made pancakes one morning for the three of us, mixing in the squash, adding a touch of cinnamon and vanilla.  They were awesome.  Even Aubrey ate them, which is saying something because she is a clever girl.  I've tried the sneaking vegetables in with her quesadillas and muffins before, and she picks them out.  But she ate these things right up, and T and I enjoyed them as well.  Score one for mom!

 

 

My last recipe was the spinach, and I'm still on the fence.  I made myself a strawberry smoothie, adding frozen strawberries, Silk, Greek strawberry yogurt, oatmeal and some of the pureed spinach and blended them all together.  You couldn't really taste the spinach too much, but there still was some hint of it.  I think next time I would add less spinach or maybe more fruit with the same amount of spinach, but I felt pretty darn proud of myself that I ate so healthy because spinach is one of those super foods that is really good for you. 

 

 

Overall, I really like these products.  They are just testing them out in certain markets, and if you are interested to see if they are sold in your area you can go here.  If you have picky eaters or just want to find a way to get extra vegetables into your diet, I'd recommend them. 

 

 

I need to come up with some other sneaky ways to get Aubrey to eat these...perhaps adding one of them to spaghetti sauce?  Making carrot muffins?  The possibilities are endless!

 

Random TGIF!

Random Friday - TGIF, folks!  Mostly because I'm tired and have a sore throat, so....yeah, here you go!

 

 

T and I are pretty excited for an anniversary celebration on Saturday.  We made dinner (honey chicken stir fry, of course) on Wednesday, but while we were eating we heard Aubrey talking over the baby monitor.  So it wasn't the romantic dinner as planned. It was a delicious dinner, though!  T has reservations somewhere, and I won't know until Saturday.  But seriously, just getting out will be nice.  A kid-free evening.  Ah. 

 

 

So I've taught my daughter how to chant for her future alma mater, I.U.  She's just learning to talk so the word Hoosier might be a bit much, but next year at this time, it is my intention to get her to memorize the fight song, just in time for March Madness.  She'll repeat anything, which is cute, but it does mean we have to listen to what we say. 

 

 

Have I mentioned every how much I hate waiting for repair men?  Oh I haven't?  Well, Thursday emphasized that so much more.  I stayed home for a treadmill repairman to come fix our treadmill...I received a call at 8 a.m. with an automated message saying to expect him in 20 minutes, we were his first stop.  Go to 9:30, and I start to wonder so I call the customer service center.  I get sent to about five different numbers.  Finally I get someone who says they'll let dispatch know.  And the repair man was going to call me.  He didn't.  Flash to 10:30, still no person, still no help from the customer service line.  I may have been less than kind to the woman on the other end of the line.  One hour later, still no Sears dude.  I do this again with calling the customer service line.  One of them hangs up on me - yeah, yeah,  after I use the phrase "this is absolutely ridiculous," but still.  I was told "oh he's behind schedule," to which I responded "please tell me how he's behind schedule when I am the first stop?"  On total, I ended up yelling at like 5 people, got nowhere with it, and they kept pushing the time back until 2:30, at which point I had to reschedule for another day because I had a doctor's appointment at 3:00.  I gave the woman on the other end of the line a pick of two days I knew T would be home and made sure she was aware that I took work off to stay at home for this.  I mean I know she couldn't do anything but these calls are recorded, right?  I swear, I hate customer service.  And then at the end of each call, they try to sell me on some free consultation of house siding crap.  I think at my third call I said "with all due respect, sir, I just want my treadmill repaired, not to be sold on more stuff."  Luckily for me, T will be the one at home next time.  Because by the time that last phone call happened I was about ready to cut someone. 

 

 

I'm not always a patient person, but seriously. 

 

 

Oh, and most random thing for the day - we listen to Kidz Place Live on XM radio, and I swear, they had a Kids Bopz "Gangham Style" playing the other day.  I died just a little inside.  Why do they keep making those CDs?  I've heard other disturbing songs before on these CDs but come on....

 

 

"oooh, sexy lady, whoop whoop whoop, whoop 'em Gangham style!" 

 

 

Ok, I'm out of things to write.  Have a lovely weekend everyone!

   

I do and always will

I promised that I'd post something about my anniversary other than what I posted yesterday, but first I wanted to let T read it.  See, we decided this year instead of exchanging cards, we would exchange letters.  So here is mine :-)

Three years ago, you and I were joined as one.  It is hard to believe that it has actually been three years since it feels like just yesterday.  I remember that moment, after Father Don had us recite our vows; we lit the unity candle and sat down. You looked over at me and whispered “We’re married now!”  It was hands-down the happiest moment of my life, only seconded by the day we welcomed our beautiful daughter into the world.  I waited all my life for you.  I didn’t realize it, but God had a plan.  He placed you in my life at the right time and the right place for the right reasons.  In those times where I doubted whether he ever had a plan, whether I’d ever find that right someone in my life, he knew. He knew that on June 25, 2008, I would meet my soul mate and my life would be complete.  You see, before you, I was just wandering through life.  You give me that strength and support that I always needed.  You are that light in my life that was missing for so long.  It’s like the lyrics of our first song “All this time, I felt so confused.  Then came you, and I just knew.” 

It is funny because we were both at that Race for the Cure that April of 2008.  We could have passed each other getting ready for the race.  There’s no way we would ever know.  We could have met each other then, but no, God had another plan.  And I’m pretty happy with how that plan played out.

I love you for so many reasons, though I do not say those words often enough and I should.  I love you for everything about who you are – your smile, the love I see in your eyes, your humor, your intelligence, your drive, your love for our daughter, your forgiveness and your unwavering support for me. 

They say love is a choice.  You get up each morning and choose to love your spouse.  To me, that choice is an easy one.  I hope that I do show you ever day just how much I love you, because I do, more than you will ever know. 

Three years ago today, I said “I do.”  Three years from that date, I still do.  And I always will.  I swear to you that I will always stand by your side, in good times and in bad.  I will love you forever, grow in love with you more each day.  Happy anniversary, sweetie.  I love you so much, today, tomorrow and always.

Love,

Alaina

Three years ago today....

     

  Happy three years, Tim!  I love you more today than I did that day and will continue to do so each day we take this journey together.     P.S. I'll be back with something I wrote for T tomorrow....but I need to let him read it first before I put it out on the blogosphere :-)  

What I've been writing....

I have been crazy busy with the writing lately.  I mean, I have a full-time job during the day, I'll write articles during my lunch hour and then at nights.  I think T's going to feel like that I'm slightly obsessed, but I love it.  That, and I have to say, I'm actually bringing some money in - a little bit but enough to have fun.  Because of my Mary Kay debt, we weren't going to get to go to  to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra Christmas concert, something T has done for years.  He's a member of the fan club so we have the ability to pre-order tickets and get floor seats pretty close to the front.  So who is the coolest wife ever?  Um, this girl managed to make enough money to get us 2nd row floor seats.  I think I deserve the best wife ever title for just a little bit.  But really, I want to make it up to him for my putting us in such debt.  The next thing to buy is the leafblower he's wanted since his birthday in July. 

 

 

So I've been busy, and here's a little bit of what I've been writing.  If you want to get updates on these articles, you should follow me on Twitter @viewfromnain or be a friend of mine on Facebook.  This is strictly a writing page, so you won't get annoying posts about other stuff.  But I post my articles there when they are published so just saying....

 

So anyway, this has been what I've written lately on Modvive: 

 

An article on collaborative workspaces, as inspired by T's new work environment - no assigned desks, standing desks, areas of "respite" and treadmill desks...totally am jealous

 

A piece on a parent's right to choose what is in the best interest of their child/children.  This came out of a recent appeals case regarding parents who wanted to forgo a second round of chemo for their daughter for fear that the chemo would kill her.  The hospital filed to be her guardian for medical decisions, and the court denied them saying that the parents were the ones to follow what is in the best interest of their child.

  Articles on Care.com have been published, and I'm totally stoked about these:    52 Ways to Thank your Nanny   8 Tips for Teaching your Children to be Thankful   Tips for Picking the Perfect Pumpkin  

 And lastly, I was contacted by a program called Teens for Going Green regarding a school initiative called The Conscious Kitchen.  I'm pretty proud of this Examiner piece because I got to speak to the two creators of this project, and I think it's a wonderful idea.  Chefs and local food purveyors have teamed up in Marin City, CA, to serve organic and healthy meals to students at an at-risk middle school.  Students have had a say in the menus, and due to donations by these food donations, the cost for breakfast, lunch and snack is only $5.00.  This is the same cost as what was provided by USDA standards previously, which I think we can all admit are pretty sub-par.  So please check this one out and pass it along.  I was the first contact they had for media coverage, and I really would love to see the word be spread and hopefully other schools will be inspired by this 

 

 

So that is what I've been writing!  Like I said, friend me on Facebook and you'll totally stay updated on stories, etc.  And if you ever have any tips you'd love for me to cover, definitely email me.  I'm excited to say, too, that I will be writing pieces for a local magazine in my town.  Oh if only I could live in Ireland and do this all the time....dreams, I tell you, dreams...

         

Welcome back, Motivation Monday!

It's been awhile since I've done a good Motivation Monday, and I think it's time for that.  I've been saying out stress has reared its ugly head here in the Nain and T household.  That and combined with lack of sleep, stress eating and very little exercise due to the lack of sleep, my weight has crept up five pounds.  I know, five pounds is not that big of a deal, but the thing is, it's a slippery slope.  Five pounds becomes ten and so on and so on.  So my motivation is to get my butt in gear again.  Get back to my ideal weight and feel a little better because you can definitely notice the difference when you let thing slip by the wayside. 

We do have a five mile race coming up the first weekend of October, too, and I am nowhere near a five mile right now.  On Saturday I managed to do a 5k on the treadmill, and man, that was hard.  So homegirl needs to get her butt out of bed even if teething makes Aubrey wake up in the middle of the night. 

That and I may do a couple weeks of my food logs.  I won't do them as long as I did before, but I need to get an idea of what I'm doing.  I know one huge thing I am guilty of is munching off of what Aubrey doesn't finish.  Bad, Nain, bad. Having a more than just one glass a night after a stressful work day probably is not helping either. 

So let's stop at five pounds and get back to feeling better!

Telling a story, from my own words

I should not be allowed to paraphrase when reading children's books.  I simply should not.  But I can't help it sometimes.  Aubrey has a lot of books.  She has two whole shelves full of them, but only a handful of them are "board books," you know, the kind she won't completely destroy and rip apart into shreds?  Well, no, I take that back....when we did take her up to my parent's house once, she had eaten off the entire corner of the cardboard "Oh the Thinks You Can Think" book.  It's all-natural, I suppose, minus the color on the cardboard.  Anyway....

 

 

I read the same books ALL the time.  Some of them are longer than others, and sometimes she'll discover a new one and will just want me to read that all the time.  Enter...The Children's Bible.  We got it from friends of ours for a baptism gift.  It is super cute, great pictures and very simplistic story line.   I mean it goes Old and New Testament in like 12 pages.   I think you can see where I'm going with this, those of you who know me all too well....

 

 

The Children's Bible is lengthy.  Aubrey has no patience.  Mommy has read it a LOT, or tried to read all of it before Aubrey impatiently turns the page.  (I still think there's something to that whole dumping her in the holy water thing.)  So the other day, out of sheer exhaustion and after already reading it TWICE before, I paraphrased.

 

 

"Ok, so Aubrey, God created the earth, and here we have Adam and Eve....and they look all happy here but they are about to sin.  Well, Eve does first.  And that's why you get a period."

 

Flip to second page....

 

"Okay, so these people really messed up so God wanted to just wipe the slate clean and said 'Hey Noah, build this boat.' and he did.   And Noah and his wife and 2 of every animal went on it and there was this big flood.  But they were heterosexual animals, Aubrey, note that.  Heterosexual.  (I say out of sarcasm...no I am not homophobic.)"

 

 

Third page - "See that baby in the basket there?  That's Moses.  He's this world's very first CHINS.  Someone just put him in a river, and see that princess?  She saves him and then....well...then, Moses happened."  (At this point T is laughing.)

 

 

"Okay, so David was a shepherd and there are his sheep.  See?  Sheep?  Sheep go 'baaaa?'"

 

 

"Daniel is in the lion's den, and it looks all happy in there, but what you don't see is that he was put in there to die.  You see those bones?  Those are human bones, Aubrey.  This book paints way too rosy of a picture..."

 

 

It goes on...she loved the picture of Baby Jesus, and I loved explaining that to her.  We get to the page of Jesus in the temple when he was 12 years old.  "Ok, so Aubrey, you don't get to just leave your parents and wander off without telling me where you are going.  Jesus scared his mom and step-dad.  I don't care who your father is, you don't get to go around scaring your mother like that." 

 

 

I'm going to hell.  For blasphemy.  Just wanted to put that out there.

 

   

No hitting!

 

 Someone please tell me that I am not crazy and that it is possible that the terrible twos start earlier than two.  Please.  Because that is the only way that I am going to feel better about the newest behavior exhibited by our sweet little blessing from God.  (I only kid.  We were told that children are a gift from God, which they are, but you'll see why the sarcasm later on in this post).

 

She hits.  I hate it.  Last week her teacher said that when Aubrey wants something from another kid, she does not exactly say please.  She hits the kid and takes it.  I know that being a toddler is a dog eat dog world.  I mean it is bit or be bitten.  But what happened to our sweet little girl who hugged kids in her class who were crying?  Why the hitting? 

 

She does not just do it to other children either.  No, she does it to both me and T.  ALL the time it seems.  I may be just a tad dramatic, but it's annoying.  And she actually hits kind of hard.  It's not always out of anger, too.  Sometimes just to hit.  The other day for no apparent reason the kid just hauled off and basically bitch slapped me.  We said no and told her it hurt in a firm tone, and she did it again.  And laughed.  And then kissed me. 

 

The other day in church she was doing her normal Aubrey behavior and as I picked her up to take her out to the community room to calm down, she hits me, right in front of a whole bunch of other church goers.  I could not react as I normally would which would be to grab her hand, say no firmly, and then put her in time out.  I just had to take her screaming and walk away. 

 

I know they make books on hitting.  I'm sure I could do lots of research on the subject, and her daycare teacher has assured us that biting and hitting are, in fact, very typical toddler behavior.  But I hate it, and I know T does. 

 

I'm not a fan of these toddler years.  Words of advice you moms out there?  Is it normal for her to start her terrible twos months ahead of turning two?

       

Day 1 of 5

 I'm not going to lie...on a scale of one to ten, I'm on about an 11 or 12 of not wanting to start the work week this week.  If I could just extend the weekend throughout the rest of this week, I would be sailing easy.  Seriously, I cannot emphasize enough how much I do not want to start this week.  But...here we are.  It was a busy, albeit good weekend.  Going into this weekend, I honestly was not quite sure how everything would be.  It did not start off too well with the Friday from hell. This is an accurate depiction of how I felt by the end of the day on Friday: 

 

 

It was bad.  Just really really incredibly bad.  I will not go into why because, well...I don't like talking about stuff like that here, but it was bad. 


Anyway, I needed some good Aubrey time this weekend...I promised T he would get to do man-like things and have a "T day" so Aubrey and I headed north to see the family for the day while we left T to putter around the house and take care of things he keeps saying he never has time to do.  (Am I not an awesome wife or what?)  I love getting to see Aubrey and her cousins play, and I know it means a lot for my mom and dad to see Aubrey.  So we hung out there for awhile until Aubrey was at that point of exhaustion where she's screaming and throwing herself back at the littlest thing.  Funny enough, as soon as I turned onto the highway just five minutes from my parent's house, she was out like a light.  But she had fun, and that is all that counts.


Sunday, we did not do much.  Well, T did more stuff around the house but Aubrey and I just kind of hung out as I got some sort of stomach bug and felt like death run over.  Or....maybe it could have been stress-related from the above depiction?  Regardless, we hung out, watched a little Colts football, did some reading (I can now do the entire Fox and Socks tongue twister book without missing a beat.) and of course, watched Sesame.  And tried my best to not think about the week looming ahead.  But here we are.  Day 1 of 5. 


What doesn't kill me makes me stronger, right? 

 

   

On the cusp....

Ever feel like you are just on the cusp of something?  Like you're right on the edge, and you think you can do something great but you're not quite sure if you actually can?   That's where I am right now.  And I have no idea what I'm doing. 

 

 

Confused?  Yeah, so am I.

 

 

I'd offer details but I try to not talk about my job too much on here.  It does have to do with my writing, but right now it's just ideas and possibilities.  I can kind of see something that I really want, but I'm afraid of really trying to get it.  Why?  I don't want to fail.  That is exactly what I did with Mary Kay.  I mean, I know it's completely different in a huge way, but at the same time, in my mind I'm thinking "why try?  I did that before, and look where it got me."  Sound rational?  No, it does not, but I'm never one for rational thinking. 

 

 

I love what I do, but I also love writing.  I want to combine the both of them.  I just have yet to figure out how I can do that and how I can actually make enough money doing this.  It's a lot more complicated than that, though, and for reasons I cannot get into.  But let's just say I have a lot of weight on my shoulders right now.  And I'm not just saying that because I want pity, because I don't.  I'm all for a challenge, and I'm up against one huge one right now.  And like I said, part of me feels like I'm on the cusp of...something.  I just don't know what. 

 

 

However, I do feel like I can say one thing...I've written in the past about some big moves that T is trying to make with work.  Well, I'm very proud to say that he has finished a huge project, has made some major advances at work and he has been moved into a new position.  It's funny because it's not exactly what we wanted.  It's not exactly the change we prayed for, but you know, God always has a plan...even if it's not the plan you want at the time.  It's the plan that is right for you.  And so here we are. 

 

 

So who knows what plans God has for me with what I'm deciding.  Maybe that's the key - I'm not really the one who should solely be deciding. 

 

 

but for now...I'm on the cusp.  I just don't what.

   

Back off my kid!

So I have a pretty healthy kiddo, that's no secret.  At 18 months old, my little girl weighs in at 32 lbs.  She's in the 90th percentile for her weight.  You should see the guns on her momma.  I mean, I could bench press the kid.  But anyway, she's not a chubby kid by any means.  She's proportional.  She just has the body of a bigger kid. 

 

 

I get somewhat irritated with family members when they joke about her size and how much she must eat.  Sure, she can't understand them, but let's not give the kid body image problems. 

 

 

People make little comments, and it's random people, too....like the lady at the checkout or some random person at the store.  It's irritating.  I know they mean well, but I've had some people be like "man, she is a really big girl!"  She's not about to be on Maury Povich any time soon for "Look how big my kid is!"  I'm not feeding her buckets of fried chicken for breakfast or anything.  She's just healthy. 

 

 

So I'm not sure why I'm so irritated with a comment we heard on Saturday.  We went for a walk on the Monon Trail in Indianapolis, with Aubrey in her running stroller.  She was just chilling, legs hanging out, and of course you could see the little girl's thunder thighs, and we've washed her shirts so many times that they are a wee bit tight.  But some bitch (excuse my language) of a lady runs by with her husband and looks at Aubrey and says "Oh, she's chubby, but that's okay!"  Um, what?  That's okay?  For you?  What?

 

 

T had to talk me down from wanting to go down and knock down her skinny butt, but seriously, who says that?  You can think it but maybe next time don't say stupid statements like that out loud, lady.  And thank God she can't understand what you are saying. 

   

Post-wedding recovery

We are back form a full weekend, all three of us absolutely worn down.  Poor Miss Aubrey went to sleep at six this evening (as I write this Monday night).  And it didn't take much for her to go to sleep at all, which is pretty impressive for little miss "talks a lot."  We're back from a family wedding weekend.  My cousin, Leslie, was married, and of course, a huge family party followed.  My family really knows how to have a good time at a wedding, and this one was no different. 

 

I have to say, though, that going to family weddings is a little different now that we have a kiddo.   Keeping Aubrey up way past her bed time was a tough one...we had a melt down but then she rallied, running all over the place like she owned it, dancing in the middle of the dance floor.  This is my kid, of course.  She had a blast dancing with her daddy and playing with cousins.  But by the time we got her to the hotel after 9 p.m., she was out.  The next day, no nap despite my best efforts, so by the time Monday night rolled around, the poor thing was about ready to just pass out.  You know your kid is tired when you say at 5:45 "you want a bath?" and she response with "Bath?" and gets up and walks to the gate, ready to head upstairs. 

 

I love that she has so much fun with her cousins.  They are older than her, the youngest being seven and Aubrey 18 months old, but she loves playing with all the big kids.  And our kid is quite the party animal.  I think we may have our hands full with this one. 

 

Anywho, here's to a short week!  Sorry if this post is one of those more boring ones...I'm writing this at the end of Monday night, about ready to pass out myself.  Here's to a quick, painless week!

  '