And the Little One Said

We have a roller! Not an expert roller, but a back to front roller. Claire is on the move, and I got to witness it. I also got to see her first smile and here her laugh for the first time. Lucky me, perk of being a stay at home Mom.

Unfortunately now Claire is following in the foot steps of her big sister. She rolls from her back to her front, gets stuck, gets angry and yells for help. When I put her on the floor, leave the room and hear her yelling I know the exact position I'm going to find her in. Beached like a little whale.

It's exciting, yet shocking. Wasn't she just a newborn? Wasn't I just pregnant? Wasn't I just 20? Time is zooming by and I have no choice but to enjoy the ride.

Since it's thankful Thursday today I'm thankful for my hair. Yes my nesty, crazy messy hair. We have a love hate relationship but I'm thankful for it all the same. Crazy hair is better than no hair at all right?

A Diet That Works

Hello 120's!!!!!!!!

No not tempature. At least not yet anyway. Weight! I have 4 ish pounds to lose until I'm at my pre baby weight. Before you roll your eyes, and think about how lucky I am that most of my weight just "melted" off let me tell you. I've worked REALLY hard to get to this point. Ask my husband, he'll tell you how grouchy I've been, LOL.

No seriously, I've been doing zumba but I've been following the military diet which has worked really well for me.

I can't do juice diets and all that jazz. I can't cut out carbs or sugars. I just can't. I feel deprived and then I get frustrated. But with this diet you don't have to cut out a complete food group to lose weight.

Do this for 3 days, eat sensibly the other 3 days and have one day where you can cheat to your hearts content. That is what has worked for me. Looking at this you are probably wondering how an egg and a  piece of toast can keep you full, but it did for the most part. And I usually feel satisfied after every meal. 

I realized how much snacking became a habit when I was pregnant. I think half of the time I want to snack just because I feel like I should, not because I'm hungry.

Don't get me wrong, you won't see me in a bikini anytime soon. Just because my weight is almost where it was DOES not mean the consistency of what is there is like it used to be. There is a squish to my gut that only 9 months of baby growing can bring. I have a lot of work ahead of me in the exercise dept. But, it's a step in the right direction.

Ways my Child is Like my Cat

Being that Brynlee is my first child, all of her behaviors are new to me. I'm not sure if these are behaviors all kids exhibit at some point or if I'm just lucky. But as we muddle through the beginning of what will probably be the hardest summer to date I can't help but draw a few parallels between my child and my cat

1.  Underfoot, always. I swear Brynlee/ Mitzie will anticipate what room I'm going into and purposely run into it in front of me. Why? Why I ask? It's like that irritating person in the aisle at the grocery store going painstakingly slow. They are taking up the whole walk way and you are stuck behind them.

2. Chair thief. If Brynlee sees me going to sit down somewhere, she will dart into the chair before me, on purpose.

3. It seems like basic functions ( like getting her own snack) or using the bathroom properly have evaded her.

4. The idea of pesonal space is nill. If I do actually make it to my seat before she tries to steal it, she will wedge her little body right in next to me. I have to lock the door behind be if I want to go to the bathroom alone. I can't even walk into my closet  without company from kid or cat.

I know, I know. These are all desperate attempts to get attention ( i'm irritated, not stupid). But I'm not sure I have that much more attention to give. I'd like to put myself in a hamster ball, just to get a few feet of space.

In case you hadn't guessed this day has been a bit rough. It could be the golf ball sized hole I found in my new favorite throw blanket at the hands of the 4 year old captain destructor. Or maybe it's the baby vomit that I got to clean up from the swing, and several other places. Or possibly it's the neighborhood trip to the river that I wasn't invited to. In their defense I never could have gone. Where are you supposed to put a 3 month old while you are floating down a river all day? Insert point about this shaping up to be one tough summer. Let's not mention the girls night that I put together tonight that I'm not longer attending.

In short this day sucked. At least in 2 more hours I get to turn my AC back on and it won't be 85 degrees in my house anymore. Ah the woes of a stay at home Mom.

Facebook Photos, a bit of Perspective

These pages on facebook where people in the local community buy and sell things are really big out here. Maybe they were big in Simi and I was just unaware. But they are all over the place here.

I've bought and sold a fair amount of stuff on these sites. I've gotten some really good deals, and have been happy with all of my purchases so far. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how different people actually look in person than in their facebook photos. Like most of the time you wouldn't even know it was the same person.

I get trying to put your best picture on the internet, totally. You won't see me posting pictures of myself with double chins or closed eyes ( and there is plenty of both, believe you me). But I like to think that my profile picture looks like me at least, maybe just from a good angle. :)

It got me thinking about how easy it is to look at people on facebook and think they have the perfect life. And maybe they do. But maybe they don't. Maybe we are just seeing them put their best foot forward. Maybe their lives are like every other normal person on this planet filled with peaks and valleys and ups and downs.

We had a great lesson in church today about mothers. One girl commented about how her house is never clean and it makes her feel like a failure sometimes as a stay at home mom. I understand where she is coming from. For some reason even though we spend all day chasing kids around keeping a clean house feels like something we should be able to do and it's really tough! Especially since we have tiny people following us around messing up everything we've just cleaned. However a lady in her mid 70's also commented. She said that her husband used to use their kitchen table as his office. His stuff was all over and it drove her crazy. He has since passed away, and her kitchen table is now clean. What she wouldn't give to have it be a mess again.

The point is there will be a day when I will look around at my toy free house and miss the days when it was cluttered with kid stuff everywhere. So I'm going to work a little harder to not be bothered by the constant clutter and enjoy it.

My profile picture is not perfect on facebook. My life isn't perfect either. And my house looks like a toddler and baby had a party and caused a toy explosion everywhere. But that's ok. I'm going to work a little harder on relaxing and enjoying these imperfect moments before they pass me by.