Spring cleaning and other stuff

I know it's not actually spring, but I'm in a spring cleaning mood. I think I missed it (spring cleaning) in the actual spring because I had a new baby and 3 little boys with spring fever.

I cleaned out all our closets yesterday and do you know what the result was? Two BIG garbage bags and three BIG boxes full of baby girl clothes (I kept special outfits...), 18-24mo boy clothes, extra baby blankets with no special meaning, and random odds and ends. Plus, another box full of cloth diapers!

I also cleaned out half our cabinets and pantry, and that resulted in a couple of bags of garbage. I feel a lot better, but there is always more to do! Plus, the house is a disaster because I spent all day getting rid of stuff and organizing which means I didn't sweep or do dishes, or pick up toys or... oh well.

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Guess who has a birthday this week? Miss L will officially turn one on Thursday. I have been thinking about her birthday post for months and now here it is. I can't really believe it. I have no urge to have more children, but I sure do wish my last baby would stay small a wee bit longer. This is such a fun age.
I'm spending a lot of time this week working on birthday stuff. I'm going to try to make these owl cake balls , but in chocolate. So far, I've gotten the actual cake balls rolled and frozen. This is a project that has to be done without the children's "help" so it's being done in stages.

Stay tuned for Miss L's birthday post.

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I feel like we may be the ONLY people who don't have our Christmas tree up yet! We wanted to wait until after Miss L's birthday, so as not to get the two too mixed up together. (We do have our outside lights and decorations up though, so that gives me something Christmas-y to look at when I need a fix.) We will probably decorate Sunday and I am VERY much looking forward to it.

On that note, I guess I need to start addressing Christmas cards?
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I am re-starting Weight Watchers. I know it's a stupid time to try to lose weight, but it always works for me when I do it and I've gained a few pounds over the last month - and it's not like I was at my goal weight to begin with. (Thanks Stress, Halloween & Thanksgiving, and low will power...)
Who needs to wait till the New Year anyway?

Silent Sunday: The 5

The five greatest blessings in my life:

12 seconds of pure cuteness

Just tell me this isn't THE cutest 12 seconds you've ever seen...

So much...

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "Thank you." that would suffice.  
 ~Meister Eckhart


Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Flat v Boot

Alright, I have tried and TRIED to get a decent picture of these boots/flats/leggings but for some reason the darker colors just will NOT cooperate. I'm pretty much over it.

Here's the best I've got:

Black boots and leggings from Target.

For comparison, one flat and one brown boot. I honestly like both on, sorry the picture is so dark. The boots are a bit warms right now, considering it was like... 76 here yesterday.  These boots are from Old Navy in brown with brown tights. (PS - half off right now!)

So flats vs boots, there is no clear winner in my mind. I guess I'll have to wear both.

I swear this is the last post of my shoes. Scintillating reading, huh?

Dear ...

Dear Me,
For the love of Pete; stop volunteering for stuff. Despite your willingness, you cannot actually put more hours into the day.

Love,
Me

Dear Shoppers,
I definitely did not expect to see so many of you out on a Monday at 10AM. I will try very hard NOT to see you again until, say... January?
 Sincerely,
Hates Crowds

Dear Husband,
It's not that I don't want to travel, but I am sincerely worried about a number of things - the baby's health for one - and on top of that? I'm just not sure I have it in me to take on one more thing this year. I'm exhausted just thinking about it! However, I don't think that this is a disagreement I will win.
Love,
Resigned

Dear Father Time,
I'm not really loving how fast you have made the last year fly. Don't you know this is my last baby?
Slow it down, would you?
From,
Time Flies

Dear UPS & FedEx peeps,
I'm done with my Christmas shopping so we're going to be seeing a lot more of each other for the next couple weeks.
From,
Just leave it on the porch

Dear Car Line Parents,
This line would be a lot shorter if those of you without a bunch of other kids in the car would park in the lot and walk up. I get it, when it's raining or cold or whatever, that makes sense. But, this line is so stinkin' long, and just think how much faster it would be for all of us if those of you alone in your cars could just walk up and get them. Maybe I'm missing an angle here; enlighten me.
Sincerely,
Tired of Wasting Time

Dear Baby Girl,
Good pout you've got going on there. I am not oblivious, but do at least know better than to give in most of the time. Daddy, on the other hand, is powerless against that little face. Very talented, my dear.
Love,
Mama

I wouldn't let her have my coffee cup. Tragedy!

uh...

* D has been working 50 hour work weeks since shortly after L was born. She will be 1 in two weeks. Now? They want him to work 60 HOUR WEEKS. I'm thinking I probably don't need to fully explain how I feel about that. They even said that they need to work over the holidays if they are in town. Seriously? Hire some more people BigCompany. Hmph.

* I feel like I am FORCING Miss L to nurse. I know you can't REALLY force a baby to nurse if they don't want to, but she will literally not nurse unless she is asleep. Yes, that's right, I go in her room at night, when she is asleep, and nurse her before I got to bed. This is now the only time she will nurse.
If I try (like I do every day) to nurse her while she's awake she will either:
1 - bite me
2 - hit me and push me away and make ugly faces
3 - try to get down
*sigh*
She has a weak immune sysytem, if you remember, and by continuing to nurse her I feel like she is at least getting SOME extra immune boosting "stuff." I don't know how long this will last; I feel like the end is here.

* Speaking of immune systems, my kids have not been well for weeks upon weeks. Colds, sinus infections, and now croup. Ugh. It's going to be a long winter.

* We are "fighting" over what to do for the holidays. With Miss L getting sick so often (and she needs steroids when she gets sick, so it's not like a minor thing) I don't feel that traveling is in her best interest. (not to mention - $, time, and general pain-in-the-ass-ness)
D agrees, but wants to do it anyway. *sigh*

* My to-do list is much larger than my motivation to actually do any of the things on it.

Fashion update

Alright, on my last post I got LOTS of great comments and suggestions. What I learned:
* Those are leggings, not tights. (told you I was no fashionista. hehe)
* Half of you liked the flats.
* The other half liked boots.
*This made me feel like buying boots, so I did.

They haven't come yet, but look what I'm wearing today:

 A brown dress that's always felt too short, and therefore has been hanging in the closet, black leggings and brown flats. I'm just hanging around the house today, picking d up from school, and meeting with an insurance agent so casual is what I was going for.

Does it work?

I'm no fashionista...

and I need help!

I bought a new dress at Old Navy. It came, and it's super cute and casual and a nice orangey/pink color (it looks pink in the pictures, but it's not so much...)
The problem is that it's a bit short for chasing around kids, and also: it's cold outside often now.
I have not worn tights since I was 10. I see other people wear them and I think they are CUTE. I don't think *I* am cute/hip enough to pull them off, and I also have NO IDEA what shoes to wear with them. I tried on boots at Target today and left with none. I think I look dumb in them, but maybe I haven't tried the right ones? I don't know...

Anyway, here are pictures. I need opinions! Be honest, I would rather someone tell me it looks dumb now than let me go out in public wearing it!
Tights: yes or no
Black or grey?
Shoes: flats? boots? HELP!

Dress with tights and flats. Should I have gone with grey tights or no tights or forget the whole thing?!

side view... The front of the dress is sort of gathered, so that's why it might look a little poofier there...

shoes. Yes or no?

If no on the shoes, suggestions are welcome!
I tried on these:

ankle boots

 and pretty much hated them all on me. Suggestions on boots?

Photos from Target.com!

Aw, I love you guys.

Wow, the comments on the last post were really something. Understanding, helpful, sweet and supportive. I love you guys. *tear*

On a totally unrelated note, there are some pet peeves that drive me absolutely crazy and I am working on solutions. Solutions don't necessarily mean "make the kids/husband do what I want" but sometimes mean "adjust my way of thinking/feeling/reacting and/or give up control."

Mealtime:
My kids have become absolute heathens at the table. I mean - fake burping & tooting, tipping chairs, jumping up and down, saying "dirty" words like PEE PEE and POO POO (I know -hilarious- right?) generally not eating, whining about eating and complaining about what I made/asking for goldfish/dessert/anything else. The last straw came when one of them put their SHOES on their brothers PLATE. EW!
I don't think simple good manners are really too much to ask! 

So, new rules. Mean words, rude noises and rude complaints about the menu get one warning and then time out. No yelling. No telling you to STOP IT 598,724,085 times. Same goes for jumping, chair tipping and for all bad table manners. If you are done, you may leave but don't disrupt dinner for the rest of us.
No more begging you to take bites. This is dinner. Eat it or don't eat it. Eat 5 helpings of salad and no lasagna. Whatev. 
We don't have dessert that often, but I'm going to stop giving dessert a higher value than dinner. No more, "Eat this and you can have that."  We'll see how that goes... this is the hardest part for me. (That's also not to say that they can have dessert FOR dinner. Not at all.)

So far, it's going well.
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Rushing:
I have come to realize that I get MOST frustrated when I'm in a hurry. I HATE being late, but with all these little bodies to dress (and re-dress) and put shoes on and take potty and then pack lunches and backpacks and remember tuition/lunch money/homework/whatever and then put it all AND the kids in the car, well.... I'm late a lot.
You would think it would be easy. Just start sooner, give yourself more time, and be more organized. I know that is at least part of the answer but it's so hard to do!
O is S.L.O.W. No two ways about it. I have never met a child who takes SO MUCH TIME to stop and smell the roses. Of course, this might be an admirable quality, but not necessarily to his harried mother! I am *trying* to be more patient with him and give him more time/notice to do things. For instance, he insists on buckling his own car seat (he just learned how...) but it takes him a minimum of 5 minutes, plus the slooooow walk to the car, the climb into the last row in the van, the stopping to turn lights on and off, on and off, playing peek-a-boo with the baby, climbing into his seat, and, well, you get the point. Slow process.

I am trying to slow down too, and not rush him so much. I do it to all the kids, but he especially gets the brunt of my frustration in this area because he takes his sweet time to do everything. (As an aside, my own dad used to call me SP - Slow Poke - as a child, because I took so long to do everything. Funny how it drives me ker-azy now. I'm sure they are laughing at my payback. ha) 
What's a few more minutes, anyway?
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Random:
Do any of your kids freak out over stupid crap like what color plate or cup they get? My kids are driving me bonkers in this area. (and have been for awhile...)
I can't think of anything I can do about it other than:
1) Ask them ahead of time what color they want and try to accommodate.
OR 2) Give them a plate/cup/whatever in the first color I grab, and tell them to deal with it.
I definitely don't remember getting a choice when I was a kid, nor did I expect one. Sometimes I don't care, but sometimes I just want them to take the damn plate and shut up about it.

Anger & Anxiety

You know, before I had kids, I would not have considered myself an angry person. I had a lot of patience, and was very even keeled. I DID get angry, but it took awhile.
If I'm being honest, if I had read this post when I was childless, or maybe even when I had only one child, I would have thought terrible things about the person writing it. (One more way I've had to eat my words...)

When my first child was a baby, he never slept. I mean it. He was a terrible sleeper and even though I was madly in love I was MISERABLE. D & I were both exhausted, resentful, angry at each other from frustration, and did I mention exhausted? There is very little that is more cruel than being woken up after a few minutes of sleep - over and over and over again - until the sun comes up. I wish I could say it only lasted a few months, but we struggled for OVER 2 YEARS before d finally slept through the night. The first year was the worst though; I would get so angry at this tiny baby who was torturing me. I knew it wasn't rational at the time, I KNEW IT, and I wished it away and I walked away and I cried and pleaded and read every book and prayed really hard and tried every trick I ever heard of.

Despite the hell of not sleeping, we were desperately in love with that baby and still (maybe crazily?) wanted more. O was born right after d turned 2. d still wasn't sleeping through the night, but it would only be a few months until he finally, finally, FINALLY did.

That sleep deprived anger of the first year was my first real experience with what I could call true rage. I don't even want to admit that because being so truly pissed off at a baby is scary. I never did anything to him that I would regret (OK - I might have yelled at him to shut up, but he didn't know words yet so I don't think he's truly damaged.)
I always managed to walk away and pull myself together. I remember one night when my husband was out of town and d was still waking every hour and screaming when I tried to put him down. He was close to one at that point. I finally put him in his bed and shut the door (he was still screaming) and I took myself to my bed and sobbed. I was shaking from anger, and sleep deprivation and pure desperation. I prayed that he would stop crying because I was so angry I knew that I could not deal with him. Miraculously, he did stop crying.  I don't know what would have happened if he hadn't.
I know some of you reading right now are judging me, and that's OK. Someday you might experience something like this and you need to know that you are NOT alone, and not broken, and not awful. You are human.

Anyway, after O was born, we were in a sleep deprived state still/again but we were used to it and it wasn't as bad. There was the struggle of learning how to parent two instead of one, and it was a hard transition but things were going pretty well. I had some issues with baby blues, maybe even mild depression, but I tried to power through it. If you read my blog often, you will know that when O was 4 months old I got pregnant again, with baby C. I freaked. I was depressed, sick, and worried. I wanted the baby, but I mourned the loss of O's babyhood and I didn't know how I would manage 3 children - 3 and under. Looking back, I realize that I was depressed most of C's pregnancy. Please don't misunderstand. I WANTED him. I LOVE him. I was overjoyed when he was born and we all adored him from the beginning. He was such a happy baby.
We moved temporarily to Seattle when C was only a couple months old and I settled into a pretty deep depression. I was stuck in a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 small boys and a husband who was NEVER there and no car. I should have gotten help, but I did not. I couldn't talk about it.
I never told my mother, who I tell everything.
I never talked about it with my husband like I should have. I mentioned once how I thought I might need drugs and he thought I was joking. I never brought it up again.
I was afraid to say it. I just... couldn't.
I would have had to admit that I needed help, and I was constantly hearing people say how they admired me for holding it all together, and how they didn't know how I did it and I didn't want to admit that I needed help.

Luckily, the depression ended when the isolation did. When I came out of the fog I felt happy again, and things started to get better. I was different though, I think. I've always been a worrier, but the anxiety got worse. I was angrier too. I started yelling at a lot more. I have always hated yelling; my own parents did a lot of it. I just tried to do better, to temper my anger and as always, walk away when I could. I chalked the increased anger up to being a parent of 3 rambunctious little boys, and all the frustrations and irritations that can come with that.

Then I got pregnant with L. It was hard being pregnant and taking care of the boys too, and sometimes I was irrational, and too angry and probably too mean. Hormones can make you so irrational! I made a lot of mistakes, and apologized a lot.
However, I was blissfully happy after she was born. I was so scared that I would become depressed again, but I did not. I was really, really happy. 

I still am. I love my family and my life and, above all, my kids. They are my entire world and that's why it's hard to admit that I am still angry. I think I yell too much. I know that sometimes I am not fair, or nice, and sometimes I would be completely embarrassed if someone saw the way I act.
Why do I feel this way? I think it's a combination of having so much to do, no familial support nearby, and frustration and the kids doing insane things like finding safety scissors and then throwing them at each other (true story.) And of course, the fact that I am flawed.
NO ONE is perfect. NO ONE can do it all. Everyone makes mistakes and I make them all the time. That doesn't mean that I don't want to do better. I do. I try every day.


I've wondered lately if I should see a doctor, if I need some kind of medication for this anger, and especially for anxiety. Anxiety seems to run in my family, and I am weary of worrying. The anger is more controllable, except for about once a month when I seem to be a hot mess no matter what I try. Those are the times when I hear a noise, and lay awake in bed worried about an intruder breaking in and how I would gather the children and get us all out safely and simulataneously pissed off that my husband is sleeping soundly, not at all worried about our well being and safety. Or when my husband is 30 minutes late and I start worrying that he was in a terrible accident, and thinking about how I'm going to raise our children without him, and bringing myself nearly to tears at the thought. Of course, then he walks in, perfectly fine, and I want to kill him myself.
Even when I know I'm being unreasonable, I continue to be so...
In general, I love my life and feel completely blessed and satisfied, but I still struggle with these issues. 

I was recently talking to some friends - mothers with small children - and we all had similar stories. I know them well and I know that they are all good mothers who love their children more than life itself.  Yet, we all struggle with anger and anxiety. Are we all broken or is this just... normal? Do I need drugs or do I just need to try harder? Why is this so hard? I wonder if our mothers felt like this?


I know one thing: it made me feel better to know that I am not alone.

Silent Sunday: My Blessings in Pictures

Repeats

Doesn't it seem like you and your significant other argue about the same things over and over? D & I have been together for over 13 years and although the arguments have evolved over time, it seems there are some issues that come up over and over and over again.

* rugby
* politics - specifically, social issues. Luckily, this only comes up during election seasons.
* the kids, and how one of us is always the bad guy. (I'm the one...)
* household duties - this one needs it's own detailed list. ha!

• the litter box!
• dishes and why they can't be RINSED and put in the *&%^%$# dishwasher right away
• My shoes and the fact that they're always laying about. (It's true. I do not pick up my shoes and often there are several pairs all about.)
• My general hatred of laundry and tendency to wash/dry and not put away.

* General lack of romance and non-sexual affection.
* The opposite kind of affection as listed above...
* Listening, or lack thereof, and if you DID hear me why can't you just freakin' ANSWER?!

*ahem* Sorry.

Anywho. I think we're a pretty normal couple, and that most couples have little things like this that they fuss over without really fighting (most of the time).  We're generally in a good place and get along well, though seeing all our hot button issues in one place might not make it seem that way. heh

Do you have hot button issues?

11

Miss L is 11 months old now. It occurred to me that it is odd for me to not be pregnant at this point.

When C was 11 months old, I was about 5-6 weeks pregnant.
When O was 11 months old I was 7 months pregnant. (I know!)
When d was 11 months old I was not pregnant, but I had suffered an early miscarriage and was trying to get pregnant again.

I am GLAD that I'm not pregnant. I have no desire to have more children, I just wish my baby would stay small a little longer. Have I mentioned she's walking? She is. Very well, even. She's mostly sleeping through the night, and she's only nursing twice a day. She drinks out of a cup, she says a few words, and she is growing so fast. This is it.

My last in diapers. My last nursing relationship. My last.

There are so many firsts to come, though. For the first time, I don't JUST feel sad; I also feel excited. I can't wait to see what the future holds.

I sure will miss having a baby in the house though.

A few Christmas card outtakes

monkey...

I love the look on C's face in this one. He's looking at O like he's crazy and O thinks something is hysterical.

Cheesers

We attempted a hat.

We gave up on the hat.

One looking the wrong way, one cute smile, one set of closed eyes and one not-so-cute look.

Finger in the mouth.

Silly...

Finger in her mouth...

Despite what it might seem like, we did actually get some good ones that I'll share at a later date!