project 365: week 8

Sunday, February 20th:

Anyone that knows me, knows that our cat and I have quite the love/hate relationship. As in, I hate him and he loves to make me crazy. But we're also (very secret) cuddle buddies as evidenced by the picture my hubs snuck of us watching tv. Yes, my arm is around my cat. Weirdo.

Monday, February 21st:

Finally got around to taking BG's 46 week picture. Oops.

Tuesday, February 22nd:

My best girl and I on our picnic date.

Wednesday, February 23rd:

On Wednesday, BG and I headed up to Maryland to spend a few days with my parents and little brother. We stopped in Florence to meet up with Uncle Marine and BG got to play with her Granny and Grandaddy for a while.

Thursday, February 24th:

Somehow we left the 70 degree temps of South Carolina and arrived to this in Maryland. This was at Fort McHenry in Baltimore. Guess who didn't even pack a coat? Nice.

Friday, February 25th:

My entire family at the Calvert Marine Museum on Solomon's Island. The wind was fierce!

Saturday, February 26th:

Us again at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. Let's pretend that BG isn't wearing socks on her hands because her mother didn't pack gloves.

me: 10 months post-partum

I do multiple updates a day week on Baby Girl, but I don't really update too much on where I am since becoming a mother almost eleven months ago. Since once upon a time, this used to be a blog about an adult girl and not a baby girl, I thought I'd give you an update on me.

First of all, the physical.

I am back to pre-pregnancy weight. Finally. Don't think I look the same, because I most definitely don't, but I weigh the same. My hips are wider, parts ride lower (ahem..), and I'm softer, but I'm working on all of that.

I've been getting out and doing some running, but I had to relax on myself with the working out thing. I'm not going to be able to work out every day. Not with the schedule Mr. P works and having BG all the time, but I make it work. Most days, I run with the little. Occasionally I get to go run by myself and I freaking love it. Running is still my release. It's important that I make that time.

Now for the emotional. Let's get all Dr. Phil for a bit.

This is going to sound so obvious, but it blew my mind and sometimes still does how much I love my daughter. She is the light of my life. I look at her everyday and my heart nearly bursts with love for her. She's more than I could ever deserve.

I'm tougher than I even realized. I survived a month of no sleep. I survived a baby that wanted to eat 27/7. I survived a baby that cried the entire first month of her life almost. I survived 45 hours of labor and the residual effects of that. It dang near killed me, but I survived.

I miss some of the little things from pre-baby. I miss going out with friends on a whim, or going to grab a late dinner with the hubs (we eat at five thirty now people. With the seniors). I really miss sleeping in or spending a whole entire day laying on the couch.

I miss being "carefree". My thoughts are constantly on her. Every action I take, I worry about how it will affect her. Every night out, I have in the back of my mind a running worry of how she's doing and how I miss her. I can't turn that off. I'm someone's Mom now. I will never be number one again.

I still love watching tv, surfing the internet, playing with my dogs, sports, running, a cold beer, and shopping. Although all are done in great moderation now.

I have very little patience now. I tend to get ran over by people because I can be too nice and put up with too much. Not anymore. My time away from Baby Girl is too precious to spend it with people who don't make me the priority that I make them.

In the same respect, I've realized that those true friends that I do have, I want to keep around. That actually takes quite a bit of effort seeing as how most of us have jobs, kids, husbands, etc. But it's worth it. I love a phone chat or a night out with my girls. I still loves a night spent talking about clothes, work, and things we liked before we were Moms.

I've had a hard time staying "me" and not becoming absorbed in "Mom". Not going to lie. It's hard to make sure that I still get "me time", the hubs still gets his time, and Baby Girl gets her. I still don't quite have that figured out, but I'm getting there. I'm also remembering that before her, I was a pretty awesome person. I refuse to let that girl disappear. That's harder than I thought it would be..

Most importantly, I am happier than I have ever been in my life. I'm more content than ever. I am one hundred percent positive that what I'm doing right now, being Baby Girl's mom, is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. She's amazing. Life with her, is beyond words. I am so, so happy right where I am.

I am more in love with Mr. Perfect than ever. Parenthood is freaking hard. Becoming parents was hard enough, but becoming a Mom and Dad has been ridiculous. We have fought, bickered, cried, and made up more times than I count in the last 10 1/2 months. But at the same time, I would not want to be sharing this moment in time with anyone else. He is the best Dad. It melts my heart to see Baby Girl light up when he walks in the room. Seeing how much he loves her, makes me love him that much more.

In a nutshell, I am doing excellent. I think I'm managing pretty well. I've got an amazing kid. She sleeps well, plays hard, eats like a champ, and laughs 98% of the time. She's happy and well cared for. So is Mama. ;) Life ten months post partum, is pretty awesome.

(almost) wordless wednesday: video edition

My little camera hog..


and..

My girl waving. She melts me.

vitamin d

I don't know about you, but the weather this winter has really made me a downer. Add the major life changes we've had going on in with seriously gray, wet, cold weather, and I'm quite the Eeyore.

Not so fun.

Thankfully, I dare say spring is in the air.

If you don't believe me, you can come listen to me snort, cough, and sneeze as I battle my change of seasons hay fever. Super fun.

This morning I got up and went running while the hubs stayed at home with the little. It was gorgeous out. Sixty five degrees, sunny, with a breeze; heaven.

I hit the pavement with a smile on my face and enjoyed every second of my run.

It was so pretty out that I had to crank up the radio and roll the windows down for the ride home. Belting out some Train with the wind in my hair made me feel like ME again. Something I haven't felt in months.

I decided that in spite of the millions of things that needed to be done around the house today, it was simply too pretty to be indoors. So I packed up some lunch and took BG for her first picnic in the park.




She loved it. Of course she didn't do very much eating in between the staring at people, rolling in the dirt, and attempting to give her mom a heart attack by crawling straight for the lake (ie: the birds).



Clearly that fear wasn't passed down.

We had such a good time. I know I'll always remember sitting out in the sun with her watching her take it all in. Everything is so cool through a child's eyes.



After lunch, we headed over to the playground for a bit. She is still a big fan of the swings and today was even pumping her legs a little bit in there. Stop. Growing. Up.



Then we hit up the sandbox. BG is slowly coming around to playing in an oversized catboxthe sandbox (it's a daily battle to not let my neurosis rub off on my child..). Today she was everywhere! I was just happy to sit on the sidelines and not get dirty.

Bliss.







Then we came home and clearly BG loves the outdoors as much as I do, because she didn't want to sleep at all the rest of the afternoon. I think she just wanted to play outside.

I don't blame her.

However, I needed to get some stuff done so she got to watch a movie and eat some snacks.

I'm so excited for spring. Vitamin D sure is going to do this girl good.

project 365: week 7

Sunday, February 13th:

On Sunday, BG and I drove down to Athens to eat with the bff and her family. Her parent's house has stairs and while AP and I were chit chatting, I turned around and saw this. Yep, apparently she can climb stairs.

and... (it's another double day whoop whoop!)

This is my little when she's supposed to be sleeping, but for some reason was wired and wanted to be up. So I let her watch a bit of the Grammy's in bed with me. Does this look like the face of a baby ready for bed?

Monday, February 14th:

My oh so yummy cake I made for Valentine's Day. Delicious!

Tuesday, February 15th:

BG's first time in the sandbox. She wasn't quite sure what to think of it, but then dug right in. She never became a huge fan of the dirt on her hands, but she would dig with the shovel. What will I do if she's a girly girl?!?

Wednesday, February 16th:
Umm fail. I took absolutely zero pictures this day. Blame this on the fact that Mr. P was off and we spent 98% of the day watching the first season of Glee. Real productive.

Thursday, February 17th:

Let's ignore the fact that she's covered in food shall we? BG's become obsessed with her shoes. But not with wearing them. She wants to carry them around, and pull them off and chew on them. We're going to have to teach her to show more respect to shoes!

Friday, February 18th:

Cuddling with my baby after something scared her. We'll just let the fact that it was me that did it slide...

Saturday, February 19th:

My big girl drinking out of a cup. She's getting so big!!

pasture vs. palace

This morning, Baby Girl and I managed to make it to our second service at one of the churches we've tried here in town. When we were there a couple of weeks ago, both Mr. Perfect and I both were very impressed with the praise and worship as well as the preaching. That Sunday, they were working through a study on David and this morning, I got to hear the final sermon of the study.

Something the preacher said this morning really stuck with me. He was talking about how if we can't praise God while we're in the "pasture" then we'll never get to the "palace". Let me see if I can break it down.

David spent many, many years as a young boy tending sheep before he ever became king. The whole entire time, he praised God. He wasn't dreaming of better things, he was praising in the time and circumstance he was currently in.

How many of us are guilty of always looking forward? We think, if we work this job we hate now, it will bring us riches in the future. Or we look at our neighbor who drives a better car, lives in a better house, or has better clothes and we long for our days when that will be us.

I personally know I am guilty of all of the above.

I've talked in depth with close friends about how I feel like right now, my little family has taken a step backwards. Meaning this; we got knocked out of our comfort zone when Mr. P lost his job last year. Big time. Fortunately he found a job very quickly, but now? We're in a new place, I left a great job (and currently don't have one at all), and sometimes it feels like we're sinking.

But is this our pasture?

Things worked out very, very quickly to get us to where we are right now. Doors not only opened, they flew open. I find it no coincidence that we are here right now. Maybe this is our time to just sit and be and try to figure out what God has in store for us next. This is our pasture. Our time of just praising God and doing what we need to to get by.

Let me break it down even more. Let's take them out of the picture and just talk about me.

Like I said, I left a great job to come up here. It made me crazy, but I was doing what I loved. Now I'm at home with Baby Girl everyday. It wears on me. Not going to lie. I have looked for work up here. I don't want to work all the time because my time with her is too precious, but I would like something just a couple of days a week.

But that hasn't happened. I literally have had not one lead. And it's hard. I've never looked this long for a job in my life. But something hit me while I was listening this morning.

This time that I currently have with my little girl is precious. I will never ever get this back.

Maybe the reason I haven't found something is that this is what I'm supposed to be doing right now. Figuring out how to live smaller and relishing every single second with my adorable little angel.

Things aren't as easy as they once were. It's hard being in a tiny apartment when we're used to our own house. However, these are some amazing days we're having. We laugh so, so much. BG is becoming a little girl in these walls.

This might be our pasture. But as long as we stay strong in our faith, as long as we do all this with each other, well, our palace will be amazing. In due time. Right now? I am loving where we are.

46 weeks.

This past week has been an interesting one to say the least.

It's official, Baby Girl is throwing fits. So far it's only when she's super, super tired. She gets frustrated, falls to the floor, throws her head on her hands and screams.

She is so my child.

She really no longer wants to be held at all. To further push that point, she has learned that if she throws her arms straight up in the air when you go to lift her, that she's very hard to hold on to.

Me almost dropping her the first time she did that has done little to deter her from that fact.

She's learning to drink from a regular cup. I see this as unnecessary but I read some negative things on the sippy cups, so we're playing around with this. I am in no means giving up the sippy, just seeing how she does. She's not great at it, but the funniest thing is, she is totally aware of the purpose of the cup now and has taken to trying to drink out of the cup we rinse her with in the tub. Not so tasty.

She's also started leaning down in the tub and lapping the water up like a dog. Kid is a bit odd. But so hilarious.

I Googled "does my child sleep too much?" yesterday. I almost got massacred by some of my Twitter pals, but seriously, my kid sleeps a lot. She's so busy that I guess it's normal.

Who am I kidding? I would give up food for sleep. Once again, so my child.

She is deathly afraid of a couple of her stuffed animals. Deathly. The other day I sat on a bear that giggles and when she heard it, she screamed and took off crawling across the room in tears. Me, being the World's Best Mom that I am, had to see if it would happen again. It did.

Plus side to terrifying your child?

She'll totally cuddle with you to calm down.

I can't believe I just wrote that there was a plus side to "terrifying your child".

Wow.

I adore this child. She is becoming the coolest little thing I have ever met.

blah.

Is it spring?

Is it winter?

Do I live in the South which goes from 25 degrees one day to 75 the next?

Yes.

And because of that, I've got the sickies. Blah.

So until my nose isn't dripping all over the keyboard and I'm not scratching my eyes out, adios.

Ha. I'm sure I'll be back tomorrow.

Enjoy the warm weather folks! If it isn't trying to kill you.

wordless wednesday: bathtime fun

our love day.

Yesterday was pretty much perfection in my book.

I think the little got the memo that it was a special day, because she was an angel.

Minus the refusing to cooperate with my impromptu Valentine's Day photo shoot, but whatever.











I'm thinking someday, the millions of pictures I have of her back, or her little butt as she scampers off will melt me. They make me crazy right now though. How do you get a ten month old to sit still?!

BG took two incredible naps yesterday and made me feel like a new woman. We also finished up her Valentine's gift for her Daddy (which we actually still have some in the works, shhh!!) and even got dinner cooked.

Mr. Perfect and I had decided not to do gifts this year because we're in super budget mode, but he still came in bearing a card and chocolate (the way to this girl's heart) and a card from BG. Funny enough, I got him chocolate too. Great minds people..

BG was super excited to show her Daddy what she made for him.

I know I cut his head off, but wanted you guys to see Picasso's BG's frame.


Mr. P and I got BG a Praise Baby cd and a Mickey Mouse doll which she is terrified of.


I mean seriously terrified. She burst into tears when we pulled him out. I don't get it. She loves him on tv. Maybe the whole in the tv, out of the tv is too much for her.

No clue. But she hates him. Today I let him sit in the living room and watch us play, and she avoided him like the plague. Nothing I like better than wasting money.

I Googled "fear of stuffed animals" though and she isn't alone. Who am I kidding? I have a fear of dolls and a big stuffed mouse is about twenty times worse.

When I put it that way, I kind of feel bad for making him give her kisses earlier.

Hmm.. Mother of the Year. Seriously. I have it in the bag.

Once we got BG in the bed, Mr. P and I sat down to a nice romantic dinner prepared by moi.

And then the fire alarms went off. Are. You. Kidding. Me.

And it wasn't even because of my cooking this time.

So we woke up the little, got the dogs, attempted to get the cat which lead to a mutilation of Mr. P's arms, and then headed outside to stand on the hill with our neighbors while our maintenance man ran around like a crazy person trying to find the key to turn off the blasted alarms.

Nothing says love like freezing outside with a bunch of people you don't know, your dogs trying to start a fight with a great dane, and a siren blaring in the background.

I pink puffy heart Valentine's Day.

Eventually we made it back inside where we ate, Mr. P fell asleep on the couch, and I blogged. Life is kind of awesome.