Bad Day

I haven't had too many bad days lately. Everything has been stable and imperfectly-perfect. I have been coping with the things that don't go right, and life was going great. But when I woke up this morning I had a sinking feeling brought on by the thought of Olive's upcomming surgery. No matter how many times I go through this, it still has the same level of 'scare-the-shit-out-of-me'. I am scared. I have every right to be but I can't show it, I have to be strong for Olive and Devin. All day I just wasn't me so things were not going right. My Mom use to say something to me when I was having a bad day, "Having a bad day is up to you, you can make it a good day, just think possitive" and I have been trying ALL day to change my additude and to try and be happy but the thought of Dr. Feng slicing Olive open and pushing around her organs just makes me sick. I can't get it out of my head.

I am praying for you Olive. I am not sure what I would do without you, it would be a dull world.

25 Things I have Learned from being a Mother

These are a few things being Olive's Mommy has taught me.

1. Love is not just a word. It is a feeling, a way of life, a reason for living, and a reason for dying.
2. You can enjoy doing things you really dont want to do.
3. Pretty much any "chore" can be made into a game. Taking out the toys can be just as fun and putting them back.
4. A baby hug can undo all the hurt in the world.
5. Patience is key. Do not loose it!
6. Touching poop WILL NOT kill you. It is also something to celebrate.
7. Dragging your feet while walking to the bathroom at night will save you some pain. Tiny toys hurt SOOO much more than bigs one when stepped on.
8. Shoes are optional, fighting it is just a waste of effort. Taking off your child's shoes in the car will save you a Battle you won't win.
9. There isn't just one right way. Sometimes the husband IS right.
10. Laughing instead of yelling will get your frustration out quicker. And it will usually cause your child to stop throwing a fit and laugh too.
11. Wanting to punch the lady at the checkout line for calling your girl a boy is completely normal. But don't act on it.
12. Needing a bath half way through the day means your doing everything right. And if your child needs a bath half way through the day it means they are having fun.
13. Holding the door open for the Mom with the stroller will make her day. Being there and doing that makes you respect other Moms SOO much more.
14. Doctor visits are never short. and usually don't go as planned, bring a snack and some toys.
15. Nothing will cure your blues better than laying on the floor and playing legos with your child. It's better than any cold beer.
16. There is no greater love than a love a Mother has for her daughter. It's true.
17. Not everything has to be perfect. And most of the time NOTHING will be perfect.
18. Time-outs are not just for children.
19. It will take less than an hour for someone to spill something on your laundry fresh bed sheets. It's inevitable.
20. Naptime works better than a "refresh" button. If your kid wakes up grumpy, it wasn't a long enough nap.
21. Being a "daddy's girl" isn't a bad thing. Nothing is sweeter than seeing your daughter and her dad bond.
22. Marriage gets harder when you have children, but it also becomes more meaningful.
23. Breasts have more than one use.
24. You don't need a road map, just look at my stomach! Stretch marks are not something to be ashamed of, they are battle wounds.
25. A womans body is a complete miracle. We create, house, nourish, comfort, and birth babies... who else can do that!?

My Little Reader

My daughter loves to 'read'. I have read to her everynight, since she was born, before bed. This is her favorite time of day. When we are done talking a shower and we walk into our room she ditches her towel and runs to the bookshelve. While I gather some clothes, lotion, hairbrush, and a diaper Olive picks out the book to read. It is normally "The Stinky Cheeseman" or "If You Give a Moose a Muffin". Then she crawls up on the bed (still naked) and I lotion her up and dress her while she holds tightly onto her book. While I get dressed she positions herself comfortably up against a pillow and sits, starring at me while holding her book, until I am ready. Than she crawls in my lap and we read her book, about 4 times. She turns the pages and points at the pictures while I read. We make a good team.

This morning I woke up, took Olive out of her crib and left the room to use the restroom. When I came back, this is what I found.

I guess she had found her old baby teething book. This is a funny picture huh? She is in her toy box. She does this about twice a day. She will one by one take out her toys until there is room for her to climb in and play. Not sure why she does this, or where she got it from but it makes me smile.

I love her.

He Means Well

Mr. S is always trying to find something unique for Olive. He brings home some very hilarious items. On his latest trip to the comic store, Mr.S brought home some reading material for little O.

-Lets make something clear before I tell you about the item, Mr.S is a man, meaning he skips on the details and doesn't investigate things very often.-

So he comes home all hyped up, "Look what I brought for you Little O! Daddy brought you a couple comics so that you have new reading material for story time before bed!!" He than turns to me and says, "Babe, I was at the comic store looking for the new World of Warcraft episode and saw this. It looked kinda cute and had to get it for Olive." He hands me the comics... "LENORE"

The cover of the first book was interesting but wasn't alarming. I opened the comic and started reading the first page. It was cute, it talked about how Lenore found a fairy princess outfit in her attic and was playing in the yard when some gnomes came up, mistaking her for their queen, asking her to come "home". Defiantly odd but in a cute/morrid way. It wasn't until I got to the third page that I gasped laughed my butt off. This is what I read:

When entering their "magical land"

Lenore- There's a Ba-zillion of you guys!

Creapy gnome- Yes, we've been bored so we've grown greatly in numbers.

Lenore- Wow! You can do that just by being bored?

Creepy gnome- Well there hasn't been anything to do so we've been... uh... doing the nasty. heh heh

Lenore- Nasty what?

Creepy gnome- Uh... you know, doing the horizontal hello?

Lenore- Huh?

Creepy gnome- Bumping uglies?

Lenore- Ugly whats?

Creepy gnome- Making the beast with to backs?!

Lenore- Where is the two backed beast?...

Creepy gnome- Ya know what?... let's just forget about it for now.

Yep, so it looks like I will not be reading these to Olive, rather, to myself. I find them very amusing (for me)

While Olive was taking her nap-on me- today, I read the first comic silently to myself and was pleasantly surprised. I loved it. It made me laugh and gasp and wonder. The artwork is intriguing and the jokes are very adult appropriate. I can't wait until I get to read the next comic that Mr.S bought. Here is a preview...

I am kind of disappointed that Olive can not share in on the hilarity of these comics with me. Olive loves comics. She has quite the collection. Her first comic was Supergirl. We have bought a couple of the serious of that one and she loves Astroboy, before it was a movie. Astroboy is a long comic, about 45 pages, we have read it about 100 times. Ha! She always picks Astroboy for storytime.

So I went online to see if I could find some more Lenore-based stuff and I came across this AWESOME video. Little Bunny Foo Foo was my favorite childhood song and Olive loves it too. She even tries to do the "hopping through the forest" with her hands while I sing it. But anywho, watch the video...

I find it funny. Lenore is my new obsession. Thanks Mr.S.

Brand New

This was taken the day after we got home from the hospital. She was brand new with a scent to match. I miss this so much.

I Can't Get Enough

Do you know how I met Mr. S? It is a sweet story. I first laid eyes on him at a Starbucks drive through. At first glance I thought he was Samoan. His smile was genuine and his voice was calm and friendly. After about 5 visits I worked up enough courage to ask him out, but with my luck he was not working, so I left a note. Yep, I asked him out with a note that he found in his locker a day later. I fell in love with Mr. S in that drive through. What do I love about him? Well first, he remembers what I ordered to drink that day,"It was a Hot Venti 4 shot nonfat Toffee Nut Late with no whip, your favorite winter drink." he reminds me. He remembers EVERYTHING. Which is not always a good thing but most of the time it is. What else do I love about him?

1.He is handsome (My 19th birthday at The Cheesecake Factory)

2.He is very helpful (Doctor visit)

3.He makes me laugh, my fat laugh. (Er Visit for one of Olive's kidney infections)

4.He is a wonderful Dad (Tule Springs National Park)

5. He values family (Devin holding Olive for the first time)

6. He can fix anything

7. He listens to me (Spent all 26 hours of my labor playing W.O.W because I told him to leave me alone)

8. He loves me for me. He is the only person I have felt that loves me for me.

9. He thinks I am beautiful, even when I first wake up.

10. And most of all because without him I wouldn't have my precious daughter.

I love you Mr. S. You make me feel so loved and protected. I know that you will always be here for me and I hope to show you the same. Your such an amazing Dad and Husband and I thank God everyday for bringing you to me. Thank you for working so hard for our little family. Olive and I are so lucky.

I Wear my Sunglasses at Night

Olive's new obsession- her sunglasses.

(Water and salsa stains from a dramatic lunch)

Hey, it keeps her entertained, I am all for it.

Picture from the Past

This weeks Picture from the Past is of my little O when she was about 8 months old.

Taken at Tole Springs National Park in Nevada

Sleep Trained

(Olive hogging our bed at around 10 months old)

Getting Olive to sleep in her own crib was so difficult. More difficult than anything I have had to go through with Olive (that isn't medically related) I am a pro-co-sleeper. I am all for bonding and making breastfeeding easier on new Mommies. When we brought Olive back from the Hospital the first time she was about 2 weeks old and I was in major pain from c-section complications. Devin went right back to working both jobs and taking college classes. So I was on my own when it came to taking care of Olive and cleaning and cooking as soon as we got home. Needless to say I didn't eat for about 4 days until Devin found out I hadn't and fed me. The c-section left me crippled. I still couldn't stand up straight and walking to the restroom just to pee was so excruciatingly painful I would cry each time.

All of this led to me keeping Olive in the bed with me. I was not able to bend over the crib and put her in or take her out. I guess Devin and I became comfortable with this arrangement because we never tried putting her back in the crib. Than her second surgery came. Staying in the hospital, they have rules about co-sleeping. Their rules are YOU CAN NOT CO-SLEEP. I felt like I was a criminal the way that the nurses talked to me about my decision to co-sleep with Olive at home. That is a different story. When we got back home Olive refused to sleeping her crib, she was in pain and wanted to snuggle with me.

(Olive sleeping next to me in our bed)

Well when Olive turned one I had enough. She is a big girl for her age (length wise) and she takes up a lot of the bed. Devin and I couldn't sleep comfortably in our queen size bed anymore. I decided that I was going to get her to sleep in her crib. WRONG. It was a nightmare. We went through many horrible experiences trying to get her to sleep in her crib. After about 2 months of not sleeping and being extremely frustrated I gave in. I bought that stupid book by Dr. Ferber. I vowed to never buy the damn thing, but I broke down. To my surprise the stupid thing worked. After two nights of doing what he wrote to do, Olive was falling asleep on her own in her crib and sleeping without waking up for 12-14 hours at a time.

(Olive always folds her pillow over and squishes herself in the corner of her crib)

It feels AMAZING to accomplish something that was giving me so much trouble and to do it on my own. I felt like a great Mom. But I missed her so much when I was sleeping. I didn't wake up to her in the middle of the night and every morning I wake up and love taking her out of her crib. But I refuse to give up nap time. Nap time with Olive consist of her sleeping on my chest while I read or watch some TV. Dr. Ferber recommends that nap time is also done in the crib but screw him! I need that time! Nap time is my favorite part of the day. Olive looks so "baby-like" and I get to sit down and take a break from cleaning, cooking, sewing, marketing. For that 1 to 11/2 hours everyday is my "Mommy time" as all the books and articles tell us to take. Nap time is for me to hold my baby and regress back to the days when she was not mobile and NEEDED me.

So for now I am keeping nap time.

(As you can see she has no problem sleeping in her crib now.. she makes herself comfortable)

Last Day for Candid Reviewer Giveaway!

Sarah-Paige from The Candid Reviewer got with me to host a giveaway for the winners choice of either a pair of loafers of ballerina shoes from my Etsy shop Tortoise and Hare. 

Well today is THE LAST DAY to enter to win a free pair of baby booties made by me. Go comment on the giveaway today before midnight. You might be the lucky winner!

Good Luck!