Posted on

I Give Love a Bad Name

Last Friday I was at my laptop (shocker!) in our dining room and both the kids were in the room with me, Joshua coloring at the table and Sophia crawling around being mischievious. Eventually she wandered over to our window seat where I had my cell phone plugged into the charger and started going after it. I got up and walked over to her, said “No touch!” and redirected her attention to something else but she kept going back for it (stubborn little booger!) After about the fifth time, I picked her up, held her face close to my face, and said in a loud voice, “SOPHIE. NO. NO TOUCH!” Then I put her back down and redirected her attention (again). Joshua turned from his coloring, looked at me, and said, “Mama, I love you.”

“I love you too, baby.”

“Why don’t you love Sophie?” (He asks as he slowly pushes a knife straight into my heart.)

“(Horrified gasping noise!!!) Joshua, I love Sophie with all my heart!! Why do you think I don’t love her?” (I pulled the knife out of my heart and then picked up Sophie and hugged her tight to illustrate my point.)

“Because you yelled at her.”

“Baby sometimes I have to raise my voice to try and get you or Sophie to pay attention to me. I am just trying to keep you safe.”

“Oh.”

I wasn’t sure he understood so I took him over to the couch, sat with both kids and proceeded to explain how I would always love him no matter what, and that there was nothing he could ever do to make me not love him. I gave him hugs and kisses and tickles and tried to make us both feel better.

Then I tried to shake off the blanket of Mother’s Guilt that had come to rest heavily on my shoulders, and continued with my day. But that darn blanket is very linty, and I kept having to pick little pieces of guilt lint off of me for quite awhile.

Post to Twitter

Posted on

T-Minus GINORMO and Counting (One year ago this week!)

(Before you read today’s enthralling post, if you haven’t checked out my post at TopBlogMag yet, pleeeeeaaase head on over and do so! Thanks!)

The following is from a blog I had before Emily and I started Mommin’ It Up. It was kind of just a family and friends thing, but I wanted to share this post with you all. It was written one year ago this week when I was 37 weeks pregnant with Sophia. Enjoy!

Well it’s 4:43 in the a.m. and even though I took a Tylenol PM, I can’t SLEEP! I’m not happy! I’ve been up for about two hours. I went to sleep at ten and fell right asleep but no such luck with staying that way. My belly is so ginormous that I just can’t stay comfortable even with the bed all to myself and my three strategically placed pillows. As a matter of fact, I’m not even GROGGY from the ol’ Tylenol PM so maybe I need to take 2 next time. One for me and one for Sophia. I haven’t taken any in a few weeks but then I took one Wednesday cause I was desperate and it really helped so I thought I’d try again tonight. Oh well.

I’m still behind on my weight gain from my last pregnancy but nevertheless I feel like a giant. I try very hard to walk gracefully but I am officially no longer walking but either “waddling” or “lumbering” at this stage. I am happy to report however that my feet and hands have not really gotten swollen yet which is great cause they were definitely FUGE (that’s how Joshua says “huge” – it’s so cute!) at this point last time. I can even still wear my wedding rings – HOLLA! And my normal shoes! I wore my mom’s shoes, which are a whole size bigger than mine, for about the last two months of my first pregnancy. THAT’S when you’ve REALLY thrown fashion to the wind, my friends.

They say when the last few weeks of pregnancy, the baby gets less active because it runs out of room in there. My girl apparently knows how to make the most of what space she’s got ‘cause she’s still throwing a kickin’ dance party several times a day. One of my friends says she just likes to hold her belly and smile when she feels her baby move, but Sophia is such a crazy girl that my comments are usually more along the lines of, “This kid is trying to kill me!” or “Oh my GOSH she’s driving me nuts!” But then of course if I don’t feel her move for awhile I get anxious…it’s good to know she’s doing so well. I just wish she was doing so well a teeeeeensy bit more gently.

I think I am in the official “nesting” stage. I’ve been doing laundry like it’s going out of style, and I hate laundry! I cleaned the kitchen really good yesterday, put away all my maternity clothes that were too small or not warm enough, and I’ve vacuumed TWICE since Thursday. I washed all of Sophia’s 0-3 month clothes yesterday which was really fun to fold them all and just imagine that soon she’ll be here and I’ll get to play “dress up” with her every day!! Bobby and I have made a list of things to do before she is born and I got several things crossed off this week. He is working hard on her room. Her bedroom wall now has no holes in it! YESS! Way to go Daddy!

I’m trying to spend some “special time” with Joshua before his sister gets here…it does make me a bit sad to know I’ll never be able to give him 100% of myself again. Today we went to McDonald’s for lunch, and he dipped ALL his chicken nuggets in the caramel sauce that comes with the apple dippers, and it was so funny! But he ate every last bite and usually he eats juuuuuust enough to stay alive so I was pleased. We went shopping for some things for the baby and he was such a good boy at the store, he really made me proud. We had a really nice day. Something that he did this week that just melted my heart (granted, I am emotionally unstable to the max right now!) was when he woke up Thursday morning, I went in to get him and he gave me a big, tight, warm hug. I said “I love you so much!” and he said “I love you TOO so much TOO!” Holy prozac I nearly lost it. He is such a sweetie!!

On that note, I think I’ll wrap it up and attempt to put myself back to sleep. Hope you all are sleeping well and not getting the crap kicked out of your insides.

Post to Twitter

Posted on

My Little Attachment Parenting Activists

Some of my blogging buddies practice Attachment Parenting, and I think that’s great. I don’t personally practice it, and I don’t even think I knew what it was when Joshua was born. It involves, among other things, co-sleeping, extended breastfeeding, and stay-at-home-parenting. If you want to learn about it from someone who actually knows what she’s talking about, check out Adventures in Babywearing or the Crunchy Domestic Goddess.

So, like I said, I don’t practice Attachment Parenting. But my children seem to be advocates for said lifestyle. I am a stay-at-home-mom, and I breastfed Joshua until he was 13 months old, but I’ve never co-slept (except a couple nights on vacation with Sophie this summer because she was up every hour!) mainly because a) I am a very light sleeper and have some as-yet-undiagnosed sleeping problems and b) my hubby is a very heavy sleeper and I’m afraid he’d definitely and unknowingly squish a baby by rolling on it. However, at the age of three, Joshua has decided he’d like to co-sleep with me (not Daddy). He’s had two different phases where we’ve had a hard time getting him to go to bed in his bed without a fight. He’s just coming out of one of those phases, but even though he’s going to bed fine, he still manages to wander into our bedroom somewhere between three and four a.m. several nights a week. Once he’s there, I pull him into bed with us because I am too tired to do otherwise. He whines and fusses about Daddy being in the bed until I wake my husband up out of exhaustion and frustration and he splits. Then I pray Joshua is tired enough to go back to sleep without wallowing all over me, so that I might also get some rest.

And that’s just Joshua.

Sophia, at ten-and-a-half months, is very attached to me. I didn’t have to make any special efforts there. She wants to be on me all the time. She is constantly climbing up my leg – my husband just shakes his head in wonder. “She sure loves her mama,” he says. Understatement of the year! I really should’ve just bought a nice sling months ago so I could just wear her 24/7. It would be much more convenient. Then I wouldn’t have to pry her off my leg all the time so I could walk. The other night I was trying to eat dinner and she was standing at my side, pulled up on me, rubbing her face all over my lap. Then Joshua, who was grumpy, climbed in my lap as well. Neither wanted their Daddy, even though they generally love him a lot. I guess this should make me feel like every woman or something but it generally just makes me claustrophobic (and hungry)!

Sophia is also going to be an AP advocate on the nursing front. She still looooves to nurse. I planned to nurse her about 13 or 14 months but I am pretty sure I won’t be able to wean her until she’s about six. She is very fond of rubbing her face into my chest or licking my shirt when she wants to nurse. She’s very subtle, that one. I do love nursing her, I just hope I won’t have to finally put my foot down and wean her so that she can go to kindergarten.

If I had it to do over again, maybe I’d go back in time and practice AP, because honestly, at this point, I’m not sure I have a choice anymore!

Post to Twitter