Wordless Wednesday.

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Harmony

One Tree.

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Harmony

One of my friends just posted this on Facebook and I’m totally stealing it. I just love it so much. Every word is true.

“Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.

Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being “in love” which any of us can convince ourselves we are.

Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.

~Louis De Bernieres

Happy Freakin’ Easter.

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Harmony

Meet my children. That’s Eczema on the left, and Attitude on the right.

Happy freakin’ Easter!

Friday Conversations.

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Harmony

ONE: Look at my nipples, Mommy.

ME: I see them.

ONE: Do you like my nipples?!

ME: (sigh) I like every part of you.

ONE: I LIKE YOUR BOOBIES!

ME: … Thank you.

Dieting Is Killing Me.

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Harmony

I need to vent.

I HATE dieting. HATE. I like to eat real, good, real good, food. I am not one of those people who love fast food and fried stuff. I actually prefer vegetables and I avoid red meat completely. I can’t even eat a doughnut because it gives me a stomachache. I eat pretty healthy, except once a month when I will eat anything that crosses my path.

I simply get really hungry. I chase children in a two-story townhouse all day long and I have an addiction to the YMCA, so it’s not like I can starve myself. I need to eat. So I do. I try to make smart choices. Sometimes I eat cookies. But overall I do okay.

I’m mad because I want to lose 20 more pounds and the scale is stuck and I started using My Fitness Pal to help me track calories and now I’m frustrated because I screw up every. freaking. day.

Today I had a reasonable breakfast, measured out my coffee creamer like a good dieter, and went to the gym. After 60 minutes of Zumba I was starving like a freak so I ate an apple in the car on the way home. I also stopped for coffee because today is payday and I think I deserve a little Starbucks in my life.

Lunch was a healthy combination of chicken and cous cous. I was STARVING. I ate until I was full. I estimate that I ingested about a cup of cous cous. So just now, when I entered my intake into My Fitness Pal I learned that I ate 880 calories worth of cous cous. How??? How is that even possible? It makes me furious.

And now I have 278 more calories left for the rest of the day which makes me want to laugh and then go stick my face in a pizza and drink the oil that pools at the top. Here it is swimsuit season and my swimsuit which was purchased right before I got pregnant with TWO will not cover my ass. It makes me want to sulk.

I’m sulking. HMPH.

Today I Don’t Like Them.

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Harmony

Today I cannot STAND my kids. ONE talks constantly and TWO moves constantly. It’s quite a combination.

I just want to change your diaper, TWO. Please stop moving so much … let go of Mommy’s hair …

ONE, I told you to stop trying to drink baby Tylenol out of the bottle, you’re not going to be able to get it out anyway so please just STOP …

I am blaming my lack of patience on hormones. So you can probably understand why I was excited to see that tonight’s dinner recipe contained this:

No Roots.

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Harmony

By popular request, I am posting an “after” picture of my hair since I used Root Rescue.

I have NO roots. It matched my hair almost perfectly! The best $6 and 10 minutes I ever spent. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a “before” picture which is a shame because I looked a LOT like this:

Wowza.

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Harmony

Today was Husband’s day off and I was able to attend a baby shower for one of my dear friends at my former place of employment. I left the kids at home with Husband and I tried to enjoy every minute of my outing because I knew whatever I would find when I returned home would probably not be good.

I was right. As usual.

Learn From My Mistakes.

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Harmony

I do not recommend attending Body Pump class (60 minutes of full-body weight training) for the first time ever if you will be stranded with two children by yourself for the remainder of the day. I also do not recommend taking said children on a trip to Walmart to buy a few groceries after the muscle fatigue has had time to set in.

Learn from my mistakes.

The Magic of Childhood.

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Harmony

After several days of badgering, I finally admitted to ONE that this was not the real Easter Bunny. Just a person in a rabbit costume.

I tried. I really tried to keep up the charade. But that kid is so damn persistent. As I type this, he’s bombarding me with questions about when he can go to high school and why flamingos stand on one leg. A person can only handle so much before they break.

ONE: Is the Easter Bunny real?

ME: (evasively) What do you mean?

ONE: I mean … IS HE REAL?

ME: (evasively) You saw him at the mall, didn’t you?

ONE: That bunny didn’t talk. Was he really the Easter Bunny? Yes? Or no?

ME: I’m so tired. No. No, that was not the real Easter Bunny.

ONE: Is the Easter Bunny real?

ME: NO. Okay? NO. He’s make-believe. Now … eat your lunch. And try to enjoy the rest of your childhood.

Yesterday, a terrible thing happened.

Let me preface this by saying that I am struggling to adjust to summer break. Struggling. Like … it’s good? But also horrible? Can something be good and horrible all at once? Because I’m pretty sure that is exactly what parenthood is.

Making the transition from having all three kids in school for 6+ hours per day (and working during those hours), to having them home all the time and trying to get my work done in addition to mothering in a loving fashion, is not going great. As I have already established in multiple blog posts from previous years, summer is effing relentless.

Pepper is obsessed with two things: outlets and babies. Here she is showing her baby doll the outlet in her bedroom. #multitasking

Thankfully, this year is somewhat easier than previous years simply because my children are getting older and more independent. Pepper will be 3 next week, so I think we’re finally on the upswing after a very dark time in the Valley of Motherhood.

Yesterday afternoon, we got home from playing at the park. The boys jumped out of the van, heard some kids next door playing, and asked if they could go over to play. I granted them permission and took Pepper inside. Her clothes were filthy — covered in layers of peanut butter and dirt — so I stripped her down to a diaper.

I ran to the bathroom with her trailing behind me, always my little shadow. And then, my mom called. She’s not feeling well and I can barely hear her on the phone. I was straining to understand what she was saying — did she just say she needed to go to the hospital?! — and naturally, my toddler got really loud at exactly that moment. As her shouting drowned out my mother, my stress level started to rise.

I went to my bedroom and closed the door. My daughter cried from the hall, and when she stopped, I was thankful. When I emerged only a few minutes later, the house was quiet. A panicky feeling started to rise in my chest, and then it felt like my heart stopped.

Just.

Stopped.

Beating.

Our back door was standing wide open.

Screaming her name, I ran outside. She was gone. Or hiding. Or missing.

I heard a woman’s voice — our across the street neighbor — yelling at me that she just saw a little girl cut through the fences in the backyard.

“She went that way, sweetheart! I was standing here watching her!”

I was barefoot and it did not matter. I ran. I ran until I found her. I couldn’t feel my feet. I couldn’t feel my body. All I could hear was my own voice screaming her name, and my heartbeat deafening my ears. That is what blind panic feels like.

My 2-year-old was wandering one street over from ours, wearing nothing but her diaper. She was holding a toy pet carrier with a little stuffed dog inside. I will never forget the way her face looked when she saw the horror on mine.

“NEVER AGAIN,” I said to her.

“Not with my dog?” she said.

“NEVER, EVER. Do not ever leave this house without a grown up,” I said, as I wiped away my tears.

I’m sharing this story to demonstrate how quickly children can disappear. How many times have I heard stories of toddlers wandering the streets and thought to myself, WHERE WAS THE MOTHER?

That mother is me. I was right there. It happened anyway.

I’m a damn good mom. I am capable. I am aware. I am not negligent. But children are fast. And sometimes quiet. And things happen. So today I’m hugging my babies tight, grateful for their safety, knowing that sometimes other mamas aren’t so lucky.

(If you liked this post, then you should follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter!)

I Was That Mom

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