The weekend review

Do you like my new layout?  It was time for a change...

What a week and weekend this was for us!  On Tuesday I spent the day in our state capitol meeting with legislators and helping participants find and meet with their legislators.  This week our president signed into legislation the biggest and most controversial health care plan since Medicare.  It may or may not be a surprise that I (almost completely) support this legislation.  I had an entire post written my head about it, but you know what?  I'm just going to keep it in my head for a while.  One hting I will say is whether you support it or not, what have you done to make your voice heard?  Have you called your local, state or federal legislators and senators with you opinions?  Have you stood in line to see that important decision maker?  Have you hand-written your ideas of what would work and left notes for the leaders you couldn't meet with personally?  Well, have you?  If not, then quit complaining.  Call your legislators and senators.  They work for you .  Make your voice heard!

There is something about this view that just makes me feel empowered.

Ok.  I'm done now.

I had to work last Wednesday to help one of my participants try and find an apartment with his section 8 voucher, so that meant I had Friday off!  BBZ is finally healthy again, so we went to my work on Friday for our fish fry fundraiser and had a blast!  My boss has a daughter who is just 4 months younger than BBZ and she was there too.  We ate in the big auditorium and watch the 2 of them run around and climb and just be one-year olds.  It was so much fun!  The afternoon was gorgeous so we walked up to a neighborhood park to enjoy the day.  That was an experience.  I'll tell that story another day...

Saturday we went to a wine store that was having free wine tasting and the Easter Bunny!  The place was packed and we walked toward the store where the Easter Bunny was standing outside.  BBZ was petrified of him!  He held on to N for dear life and cried when we got anywhere near him!  I snapped a picture with him crying and a very nice lady walked by and asked if she could take one of us.  They aren't great, and his crying face is too cute!

Saturday evening I got to spend with my very best friend Laura!  We had an amazing evening and while we had to wait 2 hours for our table at PF Changs, the night was full of girly conversation and therapeutic friendship.  You know how you need to have a date night with your husband or wife once in a while to rekindle the flame?  Well I felt like Laura and I needed to rekindle our friendship flame, and we sure did!  Between my busy life as the mom of a toddler and her with her beautiful 6 month old daughter, we haven't had a day with just us in a very long time!  It was so wonderful!  While us girls were playing, N took some photos and videos of them playing outside.  This is my favorite...

Today we took it easy because the boys stayed up a little too late last night.  BBZ took a nice nap and we headed to N's sister's house to celebrate her birthday.  We had pizza and cake and by the afternoon the sun popped out.  This week is supposed to be sunny and warm and finally like spring!  I am so ready!  BBZ's 18 month doctor appointment is on Wednesday, so I will have his stats then.  Have a great week!

My 200th Post!

And what better way to make note of this landmark post than to dedicate it to my sweet little exactly 18-month-old baby boy!

Happy half-birthday, my little love.  You make every single day exciting.  Your smile and laugh are contagious.  I think back to the things you do during the day and laugh outloud.  You still wake me up at least once every night, but you know what?  I'm ok with it.  For some reason you still need me at those times, and I will be there when you ask me to be, and I always will be!  Promise.

This picture cracks me up!  Check out the Napoleon Dynamite snow boots that you insist on wearing!

You look too grown up in this one!

Pondering deep thoughts...

Exploring this world around you.

Loving that tummy!

The video is of how we spend our Saturdays now...it's not the way we used to, but man is it fun!  The 2 girls are Nikki's beautiful babies.  The one BBZ pushes (we're working on  it) is only 6 weeks younger than he is and the older girl is 4.  The little boy will be 2 in May and is the girls' cousin.  They are so much fun to see together!

Lots of little Things

BBZ has slept all night the last 2 nights.  This is the first time in months that it has been 2 nights in a row!  He has also been home with me the last 2 days, so it could be that he was getting sick and needed to sleep more.  But then again, when he is sick he tends to wake up more.  Who knows, but I'll take it whatever the reason!
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I tried to let BBZ cry a little on Monday night when he had a hard time going to sleep.  While he was in there crying I picked up my copy of "Mothering the Nursing Toddler" and turned to the chapter on night waking.  It made a huge impact on me and on my willingness to go into his room at night.  Then he slept through the night.  Oh well, it was still worth the read.
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We get Netflix and can watch any movie we want through N's Xbox 360.  I have been watching the 1st season of Lost, which is awesome!  I finally know what all the fuss is about.  The bad thing is there are 6 seasons with between 16 and 25 episodes in each season.  Let's just say I have plenty of TV to watch for a while!
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N also found The Wiggles and introduced them to me.  They are kind of creepy, but I can't seem to get their songs out of my head.  And BBZ loves them!  And I love the way he says Wiggles. 
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BBZ has turned under our dining room table into a little fort that he insists that I play in with him multiple times each day.  He also insists that Delilah come under there with us, which is a little tight, but it works!
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Our washer broke over the weekend, so we bought a new set on Sunday.  They were delivered today, but at first I thought the washer wouldn't work for us because well, it's a little too fancy.  We spent a little extra money and went for the environmentally friendly one, but I didnt' realize that it saves energy by using a sensor that measures the amount of clothes in the washer to determine how much water to use.  You aren't supposed to open it once the cycle starts or it could mess up the sensor.  This doesn't jive well with my cloth diaper washing routine.  I won't bore you with the details, but I think it might still work with the extra rinse and some adjusting to my routine.  Overall, it's pretty nice to have new appliances!
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Ok, I think that's it.  Back to work tomorrow as long as BBZ's illness subsides.  Happy Hump Day!  Oh, and St. Patty's Day too!

Who am I to Judge?

Once again, this is a blog that I have been writing in my head for a while, but a post on another blog today made me sit down and spell it out.

I have come to realize that judging someone for their choices, whether it is about motherhood, or free time, or breastfeeding or child discipline, is an utter waste of time and energy.  I have judged.  I have been judged.  I will be judged for this post.  That is simply the world we live in.  I do think we have control over this though.  I think that we can choose not to think the way our minds do...does that make sense?  I remember going to a talk once about racism at my graduate college shortly after graduation.  The man doing the talk had spent years researching and working with people about racism.  He told a story about a time where he was boarding a plane and saw that the two airplane pilots were men who were black.  He said that for an instant he had a thought in his mind of

"do those men know how to fly this plane?"

This is from a man whose life's work is dedicated to battling racism, yet he passed this completely biased judgement of these 2 men, simply because of the color of their skin.  His point was that racism and judgement is so engrained in people, that our minds jump to a conclusion.  The important thing is though, we can control what we do next.  In his situation, he questioned that thought and realized how absurd it was and went on about his business boarding the plane.  This is the part we have real control over.

The inventor of Bum Genius has a blog and wrote this post about how she came to terms with what she thought she would never do as a mom, until she became one.  One thing that struck me in this article is when she asked a mom who came into her store if she would like to sit down and nurse her baby.  That mom was struck with saddness over her inability to breastfeed.  So while other mothers could have been looking at her with the bottle and passing judgements, she was judgeing herself, much worse than anyone else.

The post I read today had to do with grocery shopping.  The blog itself was about how the author was seemingly judged by another shopper for picking up a weight watchers dinner.  One woman commented that she can't help but notice when someone has not-so-healthy (aka processed) food in her basket because of the obesity epidemic in this country.  I certainly agree that there is a problem in this country, but I work with people who are of extrememly low income, most of whom are eligible for food stamps.  Junk food is cheaper.  Grocery stores like the one in my neighborhood cater to people of low income who buy processed foods and snacks full of high fructose corn syrup and sugar because the shoppers either don't know which foods to pick or they can't afford them.  I generally drive farther out of my way to get my produce because the store in my neighborhood has second rate produce compared to the exact same store that's located in the wealthy part of town.

I remember setting up for a holiday party at BBZ's school last year and a woman stated that she thinks a certain age is too long to breastfeed.  There were others in the room and I remember thinking that I don't know who in this room breastfeeds and whether or not they still are and I would hate to offend anyone.  A few weeks later I found out that someone I know and respect breastfed her children until they were 5 or 6.  This certainly invokes judgement of all kinds, but who am I to look at this woman and tell her that her decision for her children is wrong?  Who am I to tell anyone that their decisions are wrong?  Please know that I am not talking baout people who do illegal things.  I have a rough spot for people who don't use car seats...and blinkers, but to me those are rules that have laws attached, so that is a bit different.  Am I making excuses for some of my judgements?  Yeah, I guess I am.

But in reality, I have no place to judge anyone, for anything.  Ever.

Waaaaay Back (and wordless) When-sday! The Crew Seeing WSP in Carbondale 3/7/07

It will not be this way forever.

This is the post I wrote in my head this morning.  It's not a happy one, just as a warning.

I am tired.  Tired of waking up every night with my nearly 18-month-old.  Tired of trying to let him cry (or whine, really) only to be even more frustrated than if I had gone in AN HOUR earlier.  Tired of fighting with my husband in the middle of the night because we are both frustrated and exhausted.  I'm tired of thinking it is my fault that he can't put himself back to sleep because I nurse him to sleep.  Tired of thinking that I am supposed to know what to do and I don't.  I'm tired of remembering when he slept 12-13 hours without even a peep.  I'm tired of being angry with my son for something I know he has no control over.  I'm tired of being tired.

Then a few things happened to me today that made everything come into perspective:
He napped from 8:30am - 10:30am, which he never, ever does.
We played outside with some new toys I bought for him on Craig's list and his face lit up like it was Christmas morning when he saw them.
We went to lunch and sat outside with our jackets off.
BBZ tried to pull his short sleeve shirt sleeves down because he obviously didn't know what short sleeves feel like since it has been 95 days since it was above 50 degrees.
We bought a few new rugs for our beautiful new floors and spent only half of the amount we budgeted.
We went on an extremely long walk in our amazing neighborhood while N explained the plans for 2 of the nearby parks to improve.
I slid down a big slide with BBZ.

It's hard at 1 or 2 am to think clearly, especially when a toddler is crying in the other room and I don't want to make the wrong decision about whether or not to go in and help him.  N actually ended up going in there last night and he didn't even need to nurse, he just needed help settling back down.  I have to keep reminding myself that he does have an ear infection, that we've made the right decisions so far, and that he has never tried to manipulate me, even if he does need to nurse back to sleep.  It will not be this way forever, and no matter what I cannot always make the right decision.  As my very wise office mate has said to me, motherhood is a crap shoot.  I have to trust myself and trust BBZ and hope this doesn't last too much longer...(and I really hope it doesn't, I don't know how much more I can take!)

Money well spent

This week has been crazy around our house!  We decided a while ago that we wanted to get new floors on the downstairs level of our house.  The floors were a beautiful pine wood that the previous owner refinished, but they were also our subfloors.  I imagine what happened is that the lady who flipped our house tore up the carpet and saw these pretty pine floors and kept them as the main hardwood flooring.  The bad thing about this is that they are meant to be sub floors, so dirt when down to the basement.  Plus, there were lots of weak spots (our house is nearly 100 years old) and the transitions into the attached rooms were off.  We started looking at laminate flooring, but the floor is too crooked.  Lima Contracting did the work and did an amazing job!  He told us that laminate wouldn't give like hardwood so it won't last.  We had to pay a little more for the hardwood, but we think it was money well spent...what do you think?

I love this picture of BBZ!  He was listening to N's iPod in the hall where the guys left there things for the night.  Look how shiny the floors are!  N and I agree that they will never be as clean as they are in these photos.

In other news, this week has been rough in the sleeping department.  BBZ has been waking up a lot and resisting going back to sleep, so Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings I brought him to bed with us between 1am-4am after trying for at least an hour to get him back to sleep in his bed.  He would fall alseep on my shoulder, but the second he hit his mattress he would wake up and want me to pick him up.  In our bed he slept until 6:30am each morning, which was better than nothing.  Last night in the bath I noticed that his ear was draining and he kept sticking his finger in it and whining.  So when he didn't want anything to do with his bed after 1am last night (although N somehow got him to go back to sleep) I thought there might be something going on.

Let me just say here that everytime I take BBZ to the doctor I worry that nothing is wrong and I will look like an idiot for taking him when he has a common cold or other minor thing.  Not that I want something to be wrong, but you know what I mean.  He rarely gets a fever, so with that and diarrhea being the only symptoms that keep him out of school, taking him to the doctor without those symptoms always seems risky.  But that being said, I am almost always right that something is wrong.  I took him a few weeks ago when he was pulling on his ears but couldn't tell if it was teeth or ears, and his ears were fine, but his throat was sore.  Today he had an ear infection that was draining through the tubes and a throat infection.  I bet his thraoy has been sore for a while and never got better from when he saw the doc before.  The tubes are doing what they are supposed to do, and we would normally be able to treat the ear with drops, but because of the throat thing we have to do oral antibiotics.  I was kind of mad at first, but then I realized that he has been without an ear infection for almost 6 weeks...there is no way that would be true without the tubes.

So under the weather our BBZ is again, but he has 1 dose of amoxicillin in him today, so hopefully he will feel better tomorrow.  All these doctors suck with all the co-pays, but I must say it is also money very well spent.

Scrub-a-dub-dub in the tub...

My Little 17-Month-Old babe, splishin' and a splashin'...

Not me! Monday

I did NOT give BBZ a half dose of Tylenol when we went to our concert on Saturday so he would sleep for the sitter.  I would never give my child medication without a good reason.  (he did develop a cough that evening that would have certainly kept him up if it weren't for the Tylenol, so maybe it was ok afterall...or so I am telling myself)

I did NOT lose my temper this morning and yell at BBZ for getting into the dog's water for the 4,537,876th time.  He did not immediately begin sobbing.  I did not run over and swoop him up and apologize for yelling and want to cry with him.  I never lose my temper and always have a handle on everything because I am a perfect super-mom and never let things get to me.

I am NOT convinced that my shortage of sleep is to blame for my little outburst.  BBZ's new waking time of 5:30am is perfectly fine for N and me, so that would have nothing to do with it.  We are NOT super excited about daylight savings time just so BBZ might make it to 6:30am.

I did NOT devour a huge high fructose corn syrup infested apple danish this afternoon to try and sugar-rush my way through the rest of my work day.  I know sugar has a huge crash effect and would never feast on something with such empty calories and bad-for-my qualities.

Want to jump on the Not Me! Monday train?  Head on over to MckMama's blog and see what she and the other moms have not been up to this week.