Have you ever had the best part of your entire day happen before you've even turned on a light?
Cora was in our room at 5:45 a.m., wide awake, happy, ready to face the day. She's always so happy when she wakes up, and today is no exception. Jimi and I were tired, though - I'd personally been hoping she'd sleep in a little and let me sleep until at least 7. I tried to get her to lay down with us, hoping maybe she'd go back to sleep, but she was chatterboxing away - "Daddy LOVES his Batman shirt" and "Kitty Wibby scratched me yesterday" (he didn't, that was forever ago, but everything is "yesterday" right now). Jimi got up to start getting ready for work (overtime, yay!), and I tried again to get Cora to cuddle up with me and settle in.
From the other room, Geneva, sounding a little sleepy and confused, yelled out, "Cora?"
"What?" Cora hollered back.
"I love you."
Cora yelled back, "I love you too!"
Oh, be still my heart. Geneva continued, "If you want to come lay in my bed with me you can."
The only thing in the world better than mommy and daddy's bed is big sister's bed, so Cora bolted up and scrambled to cuddle with her sis before sis changed her mind. I could hear them talking as they got the covers situated, Geneva giving directions and peppering the conversation with little drops of "Good morning, little girl" and "I love you sweet girl".
Jimi called from the bathroom, "Well, that's the sweetest thing I've heard all week."
"Yep," I replied, "My heart is melted."
Happy Saturday!
Showing posts with label Cora. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cora. Show all posts
Saturday, October 27, 2018
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
I blog to avoid the internet.
Fifteen minutes tonight filling out permission slips and volunteer forms and her reading log - I feel so grown up! There's never a moment I drop the responsibility, never a moment their care isn't a live current running underneath everything else happening in my brain, but sometimes, when I have a quiet moment to sit and really think, it blows my mind that I am a mother, responsible for the lives and well-being of two other entire humans. What they eat, what they wear, when they bathe, how they play - I have a say in all of it. Not just a say - I damn-near control it entirely. It's crazy to me that someone let me have this much responsibility without checking to make sure I'm qualified in any way for this much power. No Pressure.
G had her first parent/teacher conference today, and it lined up perfectly with C's follow-up pelvic ultrasound, so Jimi took the phone conference in the car with G in the backseat while C and I went inside for her appointment. They were done with her so quickly, we were back to the car in time for the last part of the conversation. Basically, she's awesome. She's reading and writing at nearly a first grade level, which is awesome. She's ahead of most of her class in math, but she needs to keep practicing on her counting (that jump from 29 to 30 fouls her up every time). She's a little ray of sunshine, a joy to have in class, friendly and helpful to all of her peers. I heard the part about how they had to move her to a new table because she was too social, and how they expect they'll have to move her again eventually when she gets social with this table too, and I grinned because, yep, that's my girl.
They told us not to expect C's results for a few days. The technician took the pics, the radiologist "reads" them and sends results to our doc, then we should hear from our doc in a few days. I want to hold a goshdang Kaizen event to get these people in line - can't we remove a step or two here and multitask to improve turnaround? For gosh sakes. Anytime you're in an ultrasound of any sort, you desperately just want to know, "Does everything look normal?" She didn't halt the test and go get a doc for a second opinion or anything, so there's that, but when she was done, she did say that she needed to check with her doc and asked us to wait for just a moment. I felt a small pit of dread drop itself into the center of my stomach, but she came back within a few minutes and said we were all set, good to go. That doesn't answer any questions, though. So we wait. And keep sending out into the universe good vibes for no big deal.
My head is a mess, guys. I'm so sad when I scroll through my social media pages - pictures of new babies and family gatherings sandwiched between horrid tales from sexual assault victims and memes joking about sexual assault survivors posted by men I previously believed to be Good Men. I want to stay informed, but I've realized my desire to be informed is not so much keeping me abreast of current events so much as depressing the fuck out of me. I can scroll for hours in twitter and facebook and Instagram, but I'm not gaining any new knowledge or enlightenment from it - I'm just following the crowd into the hole of chaos and awfulness. I tried to step back last night; I drew myself a warm bath, threw in a bath bomb, turned on a YouTube meditation video to help with stress and anxiety, and tried to let it all go. When my bath was over, I didn't feel any better, I felt lost and still so sad. I asked Jimi if he would hold me; I just needed to lie in bed with his arms around me and feel safe. He did, and I cried and cried until I couldn't breathe through my nose anymore. I sobbed the big shaking sobs you cry when you're heartbroken, because I am heartbroken.
"I want to live in a world where everything is fair, where everyone is treated equally, where everyone has to follow the same rules." Why is that too much to ask?
I am aghast at the state of our nation today. I am appalled. But I've been doing a little learning, and I'm learning that I shouldn't be all that shocked. To paraphrase a post I saw somewhere by someone on some social media something:
In-fucking-deed.
So yeah. I'm having a hard time over here, but I'm taking steps to get better. A social media hiatus between now and election night is on the agenda. I'm even avoiding some of my favorite podcasts, because they're political and informative and the facts they give stress me the fuck out.
Self care, right? That should be the word of 2018. It's the only way most of us will survive it.
G had her first parent/teacher conference today, and it lined up perfectly with C's follow-up pelvic ultrasound, so Jimi took the phone conference in the car with G in the backseat while C and I went inside for her appointment. They were done with her so quickly, we were back to the car in time for the last part of the conversation. Basically, she's awesome. She's reading and writing at nearly a first grade level, which is awesome. She's ahead of most of her class in math, but she needs to keep practicing on her counting (that jump from 29 to 30 fouls her up every time). She's a little ray of sunshine, a joy to have in class, friendly and helpful to all of her peers. I heard the part about how they had to move her to a new table because she was too social, and how they expect they'll have to move her again eventually when she gets social with this table too, and I grinned because, yep, that's my girl.
They told us not to expect C's results for a few days. The technician took the pics, the radiologist "reads" them and sends results to our doc, then we should hear from our doc in a few days. I want to hold a goshdang Kaizen event to get these people in line - can't we remove a step or two here and multitask to improve turnaround? For gosh sakes. Anytime you're in an ultrasound of any sort, you desperately just want to know, "Does everything look normal?" She didn't halt the test and go get a doc for a second opinion or anything, so there's that, but when she was done, she did say that she needed to check with her doc and asked us to wait for just a moment. I felt a small pit of dread drop itself into the center of my stomach, but she came back within a few minutes and said we were all set, good to go. That doesn't answer any questions, though. So we wait. And keep sending out into the universe good vibes for no big deal.
My head is a mess, guys. I'm so sad when I scroll through my social media pages - pictures of new babies and family gatherings sandwiched between horrid tales from sexual assault victims and memes joking about sexual assault survivors posted by men I previously believed to be Good Men. I want to stay informed, but I've realized my desire to be informed is not so much keeping me abreast of current events so much as depressing the fuck out of me. I can scroll for hours in twitter and facebook and Instagram, but I'm not gaining any new knowledge or enlightenment from it - I'm just following the crowd into the hole of chaos and awfulness. I tried to step back last night; I drew myself a warm bath, threw in a bath bomb, turned on a YouTube meditation video to help with stress and anxiety, and tried to let it all go. When my bath was over, I didn't feel any better, I felt lost and still so sad. I asked Jimi if he would hold me; I just needed to lie in bed with his arms around me and feel safe. He did, and I cried and cried until I couldn't breathe through my nose anymore. I sobbed the big shaking sobs you cry when you're heartbroken, because I am heartbroken.
"I want to live in a world where everything is fair, where everyone is treated equally, where everyone has to follow the same rules." Why is that too much to ask?
I am aghast at the state of our nation today. I am appalled. But I've been doing a little learning, and I'm learning that I shouldn't be all that shocked. To paraphrase a post I saw somewhere by someone on some social media something:
The United States
was formed by
wealthy white supremacists
to promote their interests and agenda.
The system is working
exactly as it was designed.
In-fucking-deed.
So yeah. I'm having a hard time over here, but I'm taking steps to get better. A social media hiatus between now and election night is on the agenda. I'm even avoiding some of my favorite podcasts, because they're political and informative and the facts they give stress me the fuck out.
Self care, right? That should be the word of 2018. It's the only way most of us will survive it.
Monday, November 13, 2017
a day in the life...
The girls lost TV privileges last night for not listening. For three days, because that's the number that came out of my mouth with exactly zero forethought or consideration when I was doling out their punishment. They're actually being punished because they poked a hole in Daddy's air mattress, by jumping around on it when they'd been told over and over not to do that, to lie down and watch their movie or we'd put it up. It was patched easily, but still, when you don't listen and you break things that belong to other people, there needs to be repercussions. Television and candy are the only currencies my children recognize and in my efforts not to give them food issues I'm trying really hard not to give them candy and treats as a reward for good behavior and, as such, I don't withhold those things when they've been naughty, either. But TV, that magical rabbit hole, I can take it away and they feel it to their core. They're like little junkies, and those first few hours without are always rough, but even more so if you don't have something else planned, which, of course, I did not last night as I capriciously bellowed out their sentence. But whatever. It's not like I planned the second kid, either - living life by the seat of my pants over here.
Cora is in a phase. She'll be 3 in two short days, so I'm going to rely on the old fall back and straight up blame her wild behavior lately on her tender age. She is wild, though. WILD. If you're reading this, maybe you've noticed the Instagram feed over there on the right - did you catch the picture of her covered in enamel model paint? She'd been upstairs for a few minutes. Geneva was up there too, but it's a large space for two little girls, and it's not unusual for them to play separately. I don't know what I was doing downstairs - laundry, dinner, cleaning, drinking - but I realized I hadn't heard from her in a few full minutes. I started up the stairs as I called her name, and I smelled it immediately - you know the smell, that fumey paint smell. Oh shit was my only thought, and then she came around the corner and I said it out loud, "Oh shit." Her right arm was a swirl of sticky purple and red and white and black enamel paint, the sort that comes in tiny glass jars to be applied to miniature figurines with tiny little brushes; her left hand was the same, up past her wrist, and her chin and cheeks were similarly styled. Cora had found these 10 year old glass bottles on a shelf in a closet, unscrewed the lids, and had, I can only imagine, poured the paint into her hands and rubbed it onto her face and arms as if it were lotion.
In a blur, I checked her over with my hands and eyes the way a mom will, making sure she didn't have it in her eyes, her nose, her mouth - somehow, she didn't. I was yelling for Jimi at the same time, thinking in the back of my head, "He'll know what to do, he'll know an easy way to fix this, he knows something about everything." When he put his head into the stairwell and saw us there, saw colorful Cora, I saw the oh shit in his eyes, and his words only backed that up - he had no idea was to do, and he sounded a little higher pitched than normal. I don't want to say he was panicking, but he was close - he was scared, and that scared me too, but also, strangely, it made me calm down nearly immediately. I used my calm serious voice, the one that is very matter-of-fact, and as he stripped her down in the bathroom, I walked into the kitchen, grabbed the Dawn dish soap and my phone and delivered the Dawn to the bathroom as I googled "how to remove testors model paint from skin". The answer, if you're not interested in googling, is vegetable oil and glycerin soap. We had vegetable oil, and the CVS up the road had glycerin soap I figured, so I left Jimi and the paint-covered child in the bathtub with a gallon-bottle of Crisco Vegetable Oil and headed to the CVS. They had glycerin - not soap, but in a little squeeze bottle. I figured it would work well enough, and it did, with the Dawn, and with poor Jimi rubbing and sudsing for nearly an hour. He even got it out of her hair.
That's sort of the way it is with her right now. The Friday before the paint incident, thirty minutes after I'd left to head over to visit a friend, she apparently decided to try to change her own poopy pull-up and covered the bathroom in shit. I missed that completely, thank goodness. Poor Jimi.
But yeah, 2 days before 3. She's sunshine and rainbows and silver linings - she wakes up happy every single morning; she's quick to tell me she loves me and that I'm her favorite and that I'm beautiful; when she gets in trouble she says "I'm so sorry, Mommy. I'm so so sorry." But she's also into everything, like a little tornado. She bounces from one thing to the next without a break in between. I'm regularly surprised to find myself cleaning one mess while she makes another mess, again, for the 4th time, and we've only been home for an hour. I should stop being surprised, probably, but how realistic is that? I'm still ever the optimist, thinking all day at work about how much I miss my precious little angels and how they are going to be so sweet and loving and well behaved once I pick them up from daycare and we head home to a fabulous evening of family dinner, a game or two, maybe a walk around the block, then bath, story, bed...and then I actually pick them up and one of them is in a shitty mood and the other just wants to play but it's at the absolute most inopportune time because we're in a parking lot and there are cars and also other parents but I don't give much of a fuck about what they think but I do still care a little because i'm not going to yell "get the fuck over here right now!" the way I'd really like to do. And then the pouty one pouts her way into her carseat as I wrestle the playful-turned-screaming-banshee one into hers and by the time I'm buckling myself into my seat I'm angry and my heart is racing and what the fuck I looked forward to THIS all day?!
But I am still an optimist, because some nights are nights like tonight, when Geneva had a good report from her teacher and was giddy with the praise, and Cora ran into my arms and hugged me and said "I missed you so much!" We laughed our way to the car, the three of us, and got buckled without any breakdowns. Cora is newly forward-facing, so she can talk and interact in a brand new way. We talked and sang the new Taylor Swift song on the drive home, then we danced to Katy Perry and Psy in the dining room until it was dinnertime, when we changed the playlist to The Avett Brothers. Dinner was delicious, and so was the piece of Halloween candy they each got to choose from their stashes after dinner.
They wanted to paint, so we made it happen. Cora had a shower, then we played Baby Store. We can't watch the store being built, aka them getting naked down to their underwear/pull-up (presumably because new babies are naked under their blankets?) and into their blankets, so if we don't hear them the first time they call us to come shopping, or if we don't come to the store quickly enough, Geneva - who up to this point has given instructions to us in her lilting sweet voice "Pretend you wanted two little girls who were perfect for you but you had to go to the baby store to buy them and me and cora were the babies you buyed" - will break character and scream out in her angry voice "Mom!! You have to come buy us!" When we go into the store (usually the living room), they'll be laying on the floor or on the couch in pretend baby beds, wrapped in bedsheets or quilts that have probably been found in the basket of clean blankets and sheets I've just carried up from the laundry room, where said blankets and sheets were just as likely to have been washed because they'd been drug across the floor by these two versus having actually been used as bedding on a bed. They'll be goo-ing and ga-ing and making little baby-like noises, and my job as the mom is to walk up to each one of them, fawn over how precious they are, and then ask them if they want to come home with me and be my new baby girl. They always say yes, and I never have to actually pay anyone - I just pick them up and carry them to whatever part of the house Geneva has designated our pretend home, and then we either play kitchen or start all over. Sometimes Cora is already my baby and she and I go to the store together to buy her a sister. Tonight the game was Jimi didn't want any babies, but said I could have some if I wanted them. I went to the store, picked out each baby individually, then carried her to her daddy, who cooed and gooed over each girl in turn.
They were both thrilled with their game of make-believe, and didn't argue a bit when I announced bedtime/story time. We read a PeppaPig story about George and his dinosaur balloon. I held Cora a moment and snuggled her, but she wanted down - and promptly climbed over the rail and into her crib, where she covered herself up and said, "Goodnight, Mommy, I love you." Jimi came in to pat her as he sang to us all. Geneva was mad when I said I was going to sit with her rather than lie down in her bed - I've slept in there a lot the last few nights at her request and my back is a wreck because of it. She pouted, but I held her until she was over it and she let me tuck her back in without argument. She told me she loved me, I fluffed her blanket three times, and the night, that part of my night, the awake electric bright white part of my evening, was over.
And here I sit with the dregs of hot tea turned cold, surprised at how long it took to tell you those things and at how good it felt. At how good it feels. These are the days I want to remember. These are the stories I want to tell.
Also: Last night, Cora fell asleep early, so we sat at the table and ate dinner as a family of three. We were probably 2 hours in to our television moratorium. Geneva loved the mashed potatoes and asked for seconds. She loved her family. She was so happy to be eating dinner as a family. She liked the green beans a little. (These are all things she told us, verbatim.) She and I played Go Fish after dinner until bedtime - we tied once and I won once. She didn't even pout - she kept proclaiming how much fun she was having. There's seriously something to this no TV thing. I think our Netflix is suddenly broken...
Cora is in a phase. She'll be 3 in two short days, so I'm going to rely on the old fall back and straight up blame her wild behavior lately on her tender age. She is wild, though. WILD. If you're reading this, maybe you've noticed the Instagram feed over there on the right - did you catch the picture of her covered in enamel model paint? She'd been upstairs for a few minutes. Geneva was up there too, but it's a large space for two little girls, and it's not unusual for them to play separately. I don't know what I was doing downstairs - laundry, dinner, cleaning, drinking - but I realized I hadn't heard from her in a few full minutes. I started up the stairs as I called her name, and I smelled it immediately - you know the smell, that fumey paint smell. Oh shit was my only thought, and then she came around the corner and I said it out loud, "Oh shit." Her right arm was a swirl of sticky purple and red and white and black enamel paint, the sort that comes in tiny glass jars to be applied to miniature figurines with tiny little brushes; her left hand was the same, up past her wrist, and her chin and cheeks were similarly styled. Cora had found these 10 year old glass bottles on a shelf in a closet, unscrewed the lids, and had, I can only imagine, poured the paint into her hands and rubbed it onto her face and arms as if it were lotion.
In a blur, I checked her over with my hands and eyes the way a mom will, making sure she didn't have it in her eyes, her nose, her mouth - somehow, she didn't. I was yelling for Jimi at the same time, thinking in the back of my head, "He'll know what to do, he'll know an easy way to fix this, he knows something about everything." When he put his head into the stairwell and saw us there, saw colorful Cora, I saw the oh shit in his eyes, and his words only backed that up - he had no idea was to do, and he sounded a little higher pitched than normal. I don't want to say he was panicking, but he was close - he was scared, and that scared me too, but also, strangely, it made me calm down nearly immediately. I used my calm serious voice, the one that is very matter-of-fact, and as he stripped her down in the bathroom, I walked into the kitchen, grabbed the Dawn dish soap and my phone and delivered the Dawn to the bathroom as I googled "how to remove testors model paint from skin". The answer, if you're not interested in googling, is vegetable oil and glycerin soap. We had vegetable oil, and the CVS up the road had glycerin soap I figured, so I left Jimi and the paint-covered child in the bathtub with a gallon-bottle of Crisco Vegetable Oil and headed to the CVS. They had glycerin - not soap, but in a little squeeze bottle. I figured it would work well enough, and it did, with the Dawn, and with poor Jimi rubbing and sudsing for nearly an hour. He even got it out of her hair.
That's sort of the way it is with her right now. The Friday before the paint incident, thirty minutes after I'd left to head over to visit a friend, she apparently decided to try to change her own poopy pull-up and covered the bathroom in shit. I missed that completely, thank goodness. Poor Jimi.
But yeah, 2 days before 3. She's sunshine and rainbows and silver linings - she wakes up happy every single morning; she's quick to tell me she loves me and that I'm her favorite and that I'm beautiful; when she gets in trouble she says "I'm so sorry, Mommy. I'm so so sorry." But she's also into everything, like a little tornado. She bounces from one thing to the next without a break in between. I'm regularly surprised to find myself cleaning one mess while she makes another mess, again, for the 4th time, and we've only been home for an hour. I should stop being surprised, probably, but how realistic is that? I'm still ever the optimist, thinking all day at work about how much I miss my precious little angels and how they are going to be so sweet and loving and well behaved once I pick them up from daycare and we head home to a fabulous evening of family dinner, a game or two, maybe a walk around the block, then bath, story, bed...and then I actually pick them up and one of them is in a shitty mood and the other just wants to play but it's at the absolute most inopportune time because we're in a parking lot and there are cars and also other parents but I don't give much of a fuck about what they think but I do still care a little because i'm not going to yell "get the fuck over here right now!" the way I'd really like to do. And then the pouty one pouts her way into her carseat as I wrestle the playful-turned-screaming-banshee one into hers and by the time I'm buckling myself into my seat I'm angry and my heart is racing and what the fuck I looked forward to THIS all day?!
But I am still an optimist, because some nights are nights like tonight, when Geneva had a good report from her teacher and was giddy with the praise, and Cora ran into my arms and hugged me and said "I missed you so much!" We laughed our way to the car, the three of us, and got buckled without any breakdowns. Cora is newly forward-facing, so she can talk and interact in a brand new way. We talked and sang the new Taylor Swift song on the drive home, then we danced to Katy Perry and Psy in the dining room until it was dinnertime, when we changed the playlist to The Avett Brothers. Dinner was delicious, and so was the piece of Halloween candy they each got to choose from their stashes after dinner.
They wanted to paint, so we made it happen. Cora had a shower, then we played Baby Store. We can't watch the store being built, aka them getting naked down to their underwear/pull-up (presumably because new babies are naked under their blankets?) and into their blankets, so if we don't hear them the first time they call us to come shopping, or if we don't come to the store quickly enough, Geneva - who up to this point has given instructions to us in her lilting sweet voice "Pretend you wanted two little girls who were perfect for you but you had to go to the baby store to buy them and me and cora were the babies you buyed" - will break character and scream out in her angry voice "Mom!! You have to come buy us!" When we go into the store (usually the living room), they'll be laying on the floor or on the couch in pretend baby beds, wrapped in bedsheets or quilts that have probably been found in the basket of clean blankets and sheets I've just carried up from the laundry room, where said blankets and sheets were just as likely to have been washed because they'd been drug across the floor by these two versus having actually been used as bedding on a bed. They'll be goo-ing and ga-ing and making little baby-like noises, and my job as the mom is to walk up to each one of them, fawn over how precious they are, and then ask them if they want to come home with me and be my new baby girl. They always say yes, and I never have to actually pay anyone - I just pick them up and carry them to whatever part of the house Geneva has designated our pretend home, and then we either play kitchen or start all over. Sometimes Cora is already my baby and she and I go to the store together to buy her a sister. Tonight the game was Jimi didn't want any babies, but said I could have some if I wanted them. I went to the store, picked out each baby individually, then carried her to her daddy, who cooed and gooed over each girl in turn.
They were both thrilled with their game of make-believe, and didn't argue a bit when I announced bedtime/story time. We read a PeppaPig story about George and his dinosaur balloon. I held Cora a moment and snuggled her, but she wanted down - and promptly climbed over the rail and into her crib, where she covered herself up and said, "Goodnight, Mommy, I love you." Jimi came in to pat her as he sang to us all. Geneva was mad when I said I was going to sit with her rather than lie down in her bed - I've slept in there a lot the last few nights at her request and my back is a wreck because of it. She pouted, but I held her until she was over it and she let me tuck her back in without argument. She told me she loved me, I fluffed her blanket three times, and the night, that part of my night, the awake electric bright white part of my evening, was over.
And here I sit with the dregs of hot tea turned cold, surprised at how long it took to tell you those things and at how good it felt. At how good it feels. These are the days I want to remember. These are the stories I want to tell.
Also: Last night, Cora fell asleep early, so we sat at the table and ate dinner as a family of three. We were probably 2 hours in to our television moratorium. Geneva loved the mashed potatoes and asked for seconds. She loved her family. She was so happy to be eating dinner as a family. She liked the green beans a little. (These are all things she told us, verbatim.) She and I played Go Fish after dinner until bedtime - we tied once and I won once. She didn't even pout - she kept proclaiming how much fun she was having. There's seriously something to this no TV thing. I think our Netflix is suddenly broken...
Monday, February 13, 2017
Love
I love how happy and full of life my girls are - how easily they laugh, how well they play. Geneva makes up the best stories, the funnest games, and Cora's right there, right in the middle, picking up every nuance and detail Geneva puts down, playing along flawlessly, filling in the gaps, as if they were created from the same DNA, just slightly reorganized...
They are the best parts of every little thing. They are the hardest parts of every little thing. It is magic that they are able to do both of these things, all of these things, at exactly the same moments - and somehow, from the chaos, create beauty. Exquisite, breathtaking, heartbreaking chaotic beauty.
I love them with every part of myself.
They are the best parts of every little thing. They are the hardest parts of every little thing. It is magic that they are able to do both of these things, all of these things, at exactly the same moments - and somehow, from the chaos, create beauty. Exquisite, breathtaking, heartbreaking chaotic beauty.
I love them with every part of myself.
Saturday, July 18, 2015
The Best Parts of the Week
The Best Parts of the Week were, in no particular order:
Geneva told her sitter's husband this afternoon: "My mom is pretty." I'm not sure where that came from, but man, it sure felt good.
Know what was even better though? Last night, she and I went for a walk around the block. "I love you, Mommy." and "I love walking with you, Mommy." Wow.
This morning, Geneva was reading a book to Cora. Those girls. Geneva loves Cora so much, and Cora searches for Geneva constantly, her face lighting up in a huge two-tooth grin when she finds her sister. Watching them together makes me feel like maybe I understand my purpose in this life.
Geneva and I went swimming Sunday and Monday nights. The whole fam-damily went to Columbus OH for three days so I could do some training with my counterpart in that office, and the hotel we were in had an indoor pool with so much chlorine the water had a film over the surface and my skin started to burn after fifteen minutes. G gave zero fucks about her burning eyes and skin, though - she was SWIMMING! We took turns being sharks, holding our hands up like fins above our heads and saying "Do do, do do, do do" as we moved in for the tickle attacks. I wish sometimes I had a videographer who could follow me around and record all of these precious moments i'm going to forget in the next twenty minutes. I'm adding that to my list of shit to buy when I win the lottery or come up with a multi-million dollar idea. Videographer. I'll build them an addition on the back of the house so they can live on-site.
Full length mirrors. I'm almost back to my pre-pregnancy weight - thanks only to the tandem breastfeeding and poor nutrition that comes from being a full-time working mother of two because I sure as fuck can't get my ass to the gym - and my body is something that gives me good thoughts more days than not. I don't know how I look to other people, but when I see me, I see a strong woman who's given birth and life to two amazing little girls with this body...gotta respect it, you know? And I recently bought some new clothes that make me feel a little more sophisticated than my usual uniform of yoga pants, nursing tank, light casual cardigan/blouse. A few of the guys around the office have made some comments that tell me I'm not looking half bad for a 35 year old mother of two - a cheap thrill, sure, but a thrill nonetheless. (she says as she slugs another mouthful of refrigerated cabernet sauvignon from the 375ml bottle her husband bought for $20 in the hotel lobby and they never got around to drinking together because the kids never go to sleep early enough for the grownups to enough energy to have grownup time...)
I'll get a check for a couple hundred bucks for my mileage for the trip at the start of the week. Extra money is always good.
My husband is so awesome. Wednesday was sort of, well, really hard for me. For no particular reason, just because sometimes life is hard, even if the difficulty is of your own making or even in your own head. Hard is hard. I cried the entire way to work that morning. I was miserable all day. I got home that night and our conversation had me in tears again. He did what he's always done - he listened, and then he offered a couple of logical solutions, each with their own pros and cons he was patient enough to weigh out with me. He listened to my pipe dreams and pretended with me that there was actually a way to make them reality. He promised me that if I needed to follow through with those pretend fantasies, he'd work with me to ensure our success. I can't make the sort of changes I'd really like right now, but it's so reassuring and comforting to know that my partner will be by my side to help me work out viable solutions to my problems every step of the way. I love my Jimi. For so many years now he's been my safe place, my confidant, my best friend. The new and the shiny has long since worn off, but man, what we've got here, this beautiful thing we're still doing...we've got a special thing going, I think. one that seems it had to have been inspired, on purpose, intended, fated, destined, meant to be. Lucky, lucky us.
I have so many people who love me. I posted on facebook Wednesday: I'm struggling today with a lot of anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. My friends and family rallied to give me kind words of love and support. They made me cry happy tears. Sweet friends.
I harvested my first zucchini last night. Jimi sautéed it with garlic, olive oil, then squirted it with lime juice. Oh my goodness, it was so yummy. I sure hope we get another one. My eggplant flowered, I harvested one little pea pod that had the two most delicious peas I've ever tasted, we have about 8 tiny watermelons growing, and I think my seeds from Australia are actually growing. The sweet potato vines seem to be doing well, my beans and cucumbers are flowering - even the black beans! Did you know black bean flowers are pinkish/purple? They're so pretty.
I made it to Friday. Tomorrow's Saturday. YAY Weekend!
What was the best part of your week? And can you guess what this post was originally going to be about?
Geneva told her sitter's husband this afternoon: "My mom is pretty." I'm not sure where that came from, but man, it sure felt good.
Know what was even better though? Last night, she and I went for a walk around the block. "I love you, Mommy." and "I love walking with you, Mommy." Wow.
This morning, Geneva was reading a book to Cora. Those girls. Geneva loves Cora so much, and Cora searches for Geneva constantly, her face lighting up in a huge two-tooth grin when she finds her sister. Watching them together makes me feel like maybe I understand my purpose in this life.
Geneva and I went swimming Sunday and Monday nights. The whole fam-damily went to Columbus OH for three days so I could do some training with my counterpart in that office, and the hotel we were in had an indoor pool with so much chlorine the water had a film over the surface and my skin started to burn after fifteen minutes. G gave zero fucks about her burning eyes and skin, though - she was SWIMMING! We took turns being sharks, holding our hands up like fins above our heads and saying "Do do, do do, do do" as we moved in for the tickle attacks. I wish sometimes I had a videographer who could follow me around and record all of these precious moments i'm going to forget in the next twenty minutes. I'm adding that to my list of shit to buy when I win the lottery or come up with a multi-million dollar idea. Videographer. I'll build them an addition on the back of the house so they can live on-site.
Full length mirrors. I'm almost back to my pre-pregnancy weight - thanks only to the tandem breastfeeding and poor nutrition that comes from being a full-time working mother of two because I sure as fuck can't get my ass to the gym - and my body is something that gives me good thoughts more days than not. I don't know how I look to other people, but when I see me, I see a strong woman who's given birth and life to two amazing little girls with this body...gotta respect it, you know? And I recently bought some new clothes that make me feel a little more sophisticated than my usual uniform of yoga pants, nursing tank, light casual cardigan/blouse. A few of the guys around the office have made some comments that tell me I'm not looking half bad for a 35 year old mother of two - a cheap thrill, sure, but a thrill nonetheless. (she says as she slugs another mouthful of refrigerated cabernet sauvignon from the 375ml bottle her husband bought for $20 in the hotel lobby and they never got around to drinking together because the kids never go to sleep early enough for the grownups to enough energy to have grownup time...)
I'll get a check for a couple hundred bucks for my mileage for the trip at the start of the week. Extra money is always good.
My husband is so awesome. Wednesday was sort of, well, really hard for me. For no particular reason, just because sometimes life is hard, even if the difficulty is of your own making or even in your own head. Hard is hard. I cried the entire way to work that morning. I was miserable all day. I got home that night and our conversation had me in tears again. He did what he's always done - he listened, and then he offered a couple of logical solutions, each with their own pros and cons he was patient enough to weigh out with me. He listened to my pipe dreams and pretended with me that there was actually a way to make them reality. He promised me that if I needed to follow through with those pretend fantasies, he'd work with me to ensure our success. I can't make the sort of changes I'd really like right now, but it's so reassuring and comforting to know that my partner will be by my side to help me work out viable solutions to my problems every step of the way. I love my Jimi. For so many years now he's been my safe place, my confidant, my best friend. The new and the shiny has long since worn off, but man, what we've got here, this beautiful thing we're still doing...we've got a special thing going, I think. one that seems it had to have been inspired, on purpose, intended, fated, destined, meant to be. Lucky, lucky us.
I have so many people who love me. I posted on facebook Wednesday: I'm struggling today with a lot of anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. My friends and family rallied to give me kind words of love and support. They made me cry happy tears. Sweet friends.
I harvested my first zucchini last night. Jimi sautéed it with garlic, olive oil, then squirted it with lime juice. Oh my goodness, it was so yummy. I sure hope we get another one. My eggplant flowered, I harvested one little pea pod that had the two most delicious peas I've ever tasted, we have about 8 tiny watermelons growing, and I think my seeds from Australia are actually growing. The sweet potato vines seem to be doing well, my beans and cucumbers are flowering - even the black beans! Did you know black bean flowers are pinkish/purple? They're so pretty.
I made it to Friday. Tomorrow's Saturday. YAY Weekend!
What was the best part of your week? And can you guess what this post was originally going to be about?
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
I'm going to start blogging again.
It's nearly 11 p.m. on a Monday night. Our first Monday back to work after a week-long stay-cation. A week long staycation that was intended to be an opportunity for Jimi and I to catch up on some things around the house - laundry room organizing, painting, maybe a bedroom revamp. We went to the park nearly every day, and the zoo once. We kept the girls home with us every day but Friday and we were a family all together for 8 whole days and it was wonderful. We got our house in order (mostly) on the day the girls went to the sitter because it was Friday, the end of the week, and we couldn't possibly enter into our weekend with our house in the state it'd become while we were busy playing all week. Nothing was painted, nothing was organized (wait- i did organize the pantry. I'm counting that), nothing was revamped. But, hey, we spent a week together as a family. There will be time for painting and organizing and revamping when my girls aren't tiny anymore and no longer believe my attention is the most important thing in the world. All my life I've wanted to be the moon and stars for someone. Now I am. For two. My goodness, it's a lot of work.
So yeah, I had a baby. Back in November. Wow. I'm a bit late with that announcement, I guess. Poor baby. I've got a birth story for her drafted and saved on here somewhere. I'll post it eventually, I promise. I have to. If I don't, it'll give her a complex. "You wrote about G but not about me!" Nah. Not happening.
Her name is Cora Jaymes, and she's beautiful and perfect in every way. She arrived at 8:43 a.m. on Saturday November 15, 2014 weighing in at a whopping
...
It's 11:15 Monday night. :) Cora weighed 9 pounds 1.6 ounces at birth, and was 22 inches long. She's also had a stuffy nose for the last 3 months and it seems to be coming to its peak here lately. I had to step away just now because she got choked on phlegm in her sleep and started coughing and gagging. She and Geneva share a room now (as of 2 weeks ago - we finally moved our 19 pound, six month old baby into a crib and out of the bassinet!), so whenever the baby starts to stir, I'm in there as quickly as i can be so she doesn't wake Geneva with her cries. Also, it's a good idea to respond when you hear your infant gagging.
All of my worries were so dumb. I gave that last push, the one where you've decided "I don't care how bad it hurts I just need this to be over!" and you give it everything you've got - I gave that last push, and she was out and on my stomach and I looked down at her little purple warm body and saw that sweet little face and my brain was like "Oh. Of course." She's my girl, my daughter, my flesh - of course I love her as much as I love Geneva. Of course it's just that easy. Of course. It makes so much sense now, on this side of it, but my mom-of-one brain couldn't grasp the concept. This love thing, it's fucking powerful.
I can't catch up on everything now, not in this one post. And maybe there's nothing to catch up on. We've been living - this time has been so much easier than the first time, but that's not to say it's easy. Cora nursed easily, but constantly. My maternity leave was 8 weeks of plopping G in front of something "educational" on Netflix while I nursed our newest family member. Knowing that cluster feeding is a thing, and that it will pass, saved my sanity this go-round. Also, placenta encapsulation. 10/10, would do it again. Jimi's been awesome, as expected. I think Cora's his favorite, but mostly because she's a sweet cuddly little baby and Geneva says no and screams and demands that "mommy do it". She's the most awesome 2 year old that ever 2'd. God, she's cool. Seriously. Her vocabulary is out of this world, and she speaks so clearly. She has amazing thoughts and comments and observations. Well, maybe not, she's 2. But she's really cool for 2. She is incredibly polite, and i'm so very proud of that fact. She says "Thank you" and "Please" and "I'm sorry" in context and with feeling. She loves her little sister. She is a typical toddler and throws tantrums a few times an hour, but man, you wave that baby in front of her and it doesn't matter how serious the pout, her face breaks out into an amazing smile full of sunshine and love and she literally starts to coo and goo at Cora. She hugs her and kisses her and plays with her and takes her toys and tells her stories and is always concerned about "where's baby at?" Cora, for her part, is an equally awesome little sister. She loves her big sister and watches her every move, and I expect we don't have long before she's mobile. She cut her first two teeth this past week - we've been anxiously awaiting that day for months, because, as I said, she's been snotty for three months. What else do you blame a snotty happy otherwise-not-sick baby on other than teething? Cora is going to be a coppery redhead, I think, and it looks like her eyes are going to be a stormy blue or brown. She's fair like the rest of us, and favors Jimi more than Geneva does. You can tell they're sisters for sure, and there were times early on when I would watch her nurse and swear I was seeing baby Geneva all over again, but they are each beautiful in their own unique ways and don't really look a whole lot alike. And I am going to have to be so careful about how I comment on this in front of them, but oh my god Cora is so big compared to Geneva! Cora is hanging out in the 90th percentile for weight and the 100th for height, whereas G has always been real comfortable right around the 50th percentile mark for both. There's only a 10 pound difference in their weights right now. They are 20 months apart.
I can't wait to watch them grow up. They're beautiful together, and I get to help them and watch them blossom and become the amazing women they're going to be... I'm so excited that this is my life, my journey. I am so incredibly blessed. What did I ever do to be so lucky, to deserve such riches?
So that's why I'm going to start blogging again. Because I've missed too much already, and I don't want to miss more. I won't get it all, but if I can get even a small snippet of the awesome that is this moment, right now, well, it's a worthwhile investment.
It's 11:52 p.m. on the first Monday after vacation. The alarm is set for 6 a.m., but my human alarms will ring out at 2:15, 4:00, 5:30 and finally at 5:58 with "Mommy! Milkies!" (Yes, I'm still nursing my toddler. STFU about it, okay?) I've had two beers in the last hour it took to write this and I'll be honest, I've got a bit of a buzz. A rare reminder of what it used to be like back when I could drink more than half a beer before it got to hot or, more likely, forgotten. I've missed writing. It feels good to do it again, like going to the gym after being away for a while, but with more beer and sitting and less sweat and moving. I'll have to do it more often. Also, should go to the gym.
I want to go back and edit, but editing is for suckers. Or people who've had less than 2 beers. G'night, friends. Sweet dreams.
So yeah, I had a baby. Back in November. Wow. I'm a bit late with that announcement, I guess. Poor baby. I've got a birth story for her drafted and saved on here somewhere. I'll post it eventually, I promise. I have to. If I don't, it'll give her a complex. "You wrote about G but not about me!" Nah. Not happening.
Her name is Cora Jaymes, and she's beautiful and perfect in every way. She arrived at 8:43 a.m. on Saturday November 15, 2014 weighing in at a whopping
...
It's 11:15 Monday night. :) Cora weighed 9 pounds 1.6 ounces at birth, and was 22 inches long. She's also had a stuffy nose for the last 3 months and it seems to be coming to its peak here lately. I had to step away just now because she got choked on phlegm in her sleep and started coughing and gagging. She and Geneva share a room now (as of 2 weeks ago - we finally moved our 19 pound, six month old baby into a crib and out of the bassinet!), so whenever the baby starts to stir, I'm in there as quickly as i can be so she doesn't wake Geneva with her cries. Also, it's a good idea to respond when you hear your infant gagging.
All of my worries were so dumb. I gave that last push, the one where you've decided "I don't care how bad it hurts I just need this to be over!" and you give it everything you've got - I gave that last push, and she was out and on my stomach and I looked down at her little purple warm body and saw that sweet little face and my brain was like "Oh. Of course." She's my girl, my daughter, my flesh - of course I love her as much as I love Geneva. Of course it's just that easy. Of course. It makes so much sense now, on this side of it, but my mom-of-one brain couldn't grasp the concept. This love thing, it's fucking powerful.
I can't catch up on everything now, not in this one post. And maybe there's nothing to catch up on. We've been living - this time has been so much easier than the first time, but that's not to say it's easy. Cora nursed easily, but constantly. My maternity leave was 8 weeks of plopping G in front of something "educational" on Netflix while I nursed our newest family member. Knowing that cluster feeding is a thing, and that it will pass, saved my sanity this go-round. Also, placenta encapsulation. 10/10, would do it again. Jimi's been awesome, as expected. I think Cora's his favorite, but mostly because she's a sweet cuddly little baby and Geneva says no and screams and demands that "mommy do it". She's the most awesome 2 year old that ever 2'd. God, she's cool. Seriously. Her vocabulary is out of this world, and she speaks so clearly. She has amazing thoughts and comments and observations. Well, maybe not, she's 2. But she's really cool for 2. She is incredibly polite, and i'm so very proud of that fact. She says "Thank you" and "Please" and "I'm sorry" in context and with feeling. She loves her little sister. She is a typical toddler and throws tantrums a few times an hour, but man, you wave that baby in front of her and it doesn't matter how serious the pout, her face breaks out into an amazing smile full of sunshine and love and she literally starts to coo and goo at Cora. She hugs her and kisses her and plays with her and takes her toys and tells her stories and is always concerned about "where's baby at?" Cora, for her part, is an equally awesome little sister. She loves her big sister and watches her every move, and I expect we don't have long before she's mobile. She cut her first two teeth this past week - we've been anxiously awaiting that day for months, because, as I said, she's been snotty for three months. What else do you blame a snotty happy otherwise-not-sick baby on other than teething? Cora is going to be a coppery redhead, I think, and it looks like her eyes are going to be a stormy blue or brown. She's fair like the rest of us, and favors Jimi more than Geneva does. You can tell they're sisters for sure, and there were times early on when I would watch her nurse and swear I was seeing baby Geneva all over again, but they are each beautiful in their own unique ways and don't really look a whole lot alike. And I am going to have to be so careful about how I comment on this in front of them, but oh my god Cora is so big compared to Geneva! Cora is hanging out in the 90th percentile for weight and the 100th for height, whereas G has always been real comfortable right around the 50th percentile mark for both. There's only a 10 pound difference in their weights right now. They are 20 months apart.
I can't wait to watch them grow up. They're beautiful together, and I get to help them and watch them blossom and become the amazing women they're going to be... I'm so excited that this is my life, my journey. I am so incredibly blessed. What did I ever do to be so lucky, to deserve such riches?
So that's why I'm going to start blogging again. Because I've missed too much already, and I don't want to miss more. I won't get it all, but if I can get even a small snippet of the awesome that is this moment, right now, well, it's a worthwhile investment.
It's 11:52 p.m. on the first Monday after vacation. The alarm is set for 6 a.m., but my human alarms will ring out at 2:15, 4:00, 5:30 and finally at 5:58 with "Mommy! Milkies!" (Yes, I'm still nursing my toddler. STFU about it, okay?) I've had two beers in the last hour it took to write this and I'll be honest, I've got a bit of a buzz. A rare reminder of what it used to be like back when I could drink more than half a beer before it got to hot or, more likely, forgotten. I've missed writing. It feels good to do it again, like going to the gym after being away for a while, but with more beer and sitting and less sweat and moving. I'll have to do it more often. Also, should go to the gym.
I want to go back and edit, but editing is for suckers. Or people who've had less than 2 beers. G'night, friends. Sweet dreams.
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