these days.

I did a post once documenting what our days were like when BG was younger. It's kind of fun to go back and look at what we were doing then.

Or at least I think it would be. I have no idea where that post is to be honest.

But for nostalgia's sake, lets just pretend that I'll know where this post is in a few weeks and write down what our days our like with our almost two year old.

Most of you know that I work part time. Which is nice and all, but I still work most days. And BG still is supposed to be in school by 9 am on days that she goes there. So that means at least four days out of the week, she's at school all day. Sad panda.

But it works.

Our days are insane but we've managed to get a good little schedule down. It's only taken us about six months. No biggie.

Monday is an early day for me. I wake up at 5:30 am (the first time) to shower and get ready and have some "me" time before I get BG up at 6:30. Now the little one is not a morning person by any means. It is rare that she gets up on her own on school days. Usually it is only if she hears her Daddy getting ready or isn't feeling well that she'll be up early. So I get her up, get her changed, and then set her down with breakfast and cartoons while I get us ready to leave.

We leave the house by 7:30, drop her off, and then I'm at work by 8:00. Fun times.

I also get off early on Monday, around 3:30, so I pick her up early and we hit up the park or a store or something fun in the afternoon. Usually Mr. P works late on Mondays, but if not, we all eat dinner around 5:30/6 or so (we are OLD), followed by an evening walk, bath time for the little, and then bed about 7:30/8 or so.

The evenings are our time. We like that she goes to bed so early so we can get some decompression time at the end of the day. It works for us.

Wednesday and Thursday I let the little one sleep til about 8 or so, get up, get breakfast and then we leave to get her to school around 9. I come back to the house those days to finish getting ready then head to work til 5. I pick her up, we come home and play outside until dinner time.

Friday mornings are the same, but I work late Fridays, so Mr. P picks up BG. They usually are playing and watching tv when I come home on Friday nights.

I'm off on Tuesdays. Sometimes I let BG sleep til about 8 and then Mr. P takes her to school. These mornings are my mornings. I keep her at school as long as I need to get whatever I need to done. Sometimes I pick her up before lunch, sometimes around 3. Either way when I pick her up, we hit up the park, or go do some shopping, or just come back to the house to play.

Most of the time on Tuesdays, she plays hooky from school and stays home with me. We play, we shop, we do playdates on these days and we love it. It's by far my favorite day with her. Something about having that day with her just makes my week even though I have the whole weekend with her.

We sleep late Saturdays and Sundays (til about 8:30/9; don't hate me. I know I'm lucky!). Saturdays are errand days, park days, shopping days, toddler activity days, whatever we can find to get into. She still naps about lunchtime so I get computer time, cleaning time, or just me time for about two hours. Sundays we go to church around 11, have lunch out, then she naps while we nap, or watch tv or something.

Our days are full. There is always something going on. She's always got something at school, or Mr. P has something at work, or there's something going on at church. Some days I do not sit down until well after she goes to bed in the evening. Sometimes I'm so tired that I go to bed the minute she does. Some days our days are so busy that both she and I end up in tears as we rush, rush, rush around.

Fortunately I'm getting better at doing nothing at the times that is allowed. We're doing better at just hanging around the house some. We're getting better at enjoying our quiet time with books and tea parties.

Life with an almost two year old is busy. But I'm pretty sure it's about to get even busier soon!

what she says.

I have to admit; I was teensy bit terrified that Baby Girl's speech may be delayed because of her chronic ear infections. She started talking early, but at the time she should've been stringing together phrases and such, girlfriend was having hearing issues and they just weren't happening.

Her doc told me that there may be a delay but she would probably start picking things up pretty quickly after her tubes. Oh how quickly that did happen.

BG talks a lot now. A lot. Like a lot, a lot. I can't even actually list all of her phrases because there are so many. But, there are some oh so adorable things that she says these days that I can't get enough of. Here are some of those:

"No touchy bumbeebees": We have bumblebees hanging out in the flowers right by our front door at the moment. She loves them and thinks they are so cool so I had to give her the "don't touch" talk. Now when we walk out the front door, she says this and shakes her head and finger. It's so dang cute.


She adds "right 'der" to everything. As in, "see Mommy? See that doggie right 'der?". This usually gets repeated multiple times.

"Help Ella" is a new one. It's usually the predecessor to her doing something she isn't supposed to, as in "Help Ella Daddy!" as she tries to climb out of the high chair. Or let the dogs out of the house. No biggie.

"I get treat!" We're sorta kinda not really potty training at the minute. BG knows that if she goes to the potty on the potty she gets a treat. So she's taken to telling us she has to go, pretending, and then popping up saying "I get treat!". Only she doesn't. So that goes over well. The other day, she told Mr. P she had to go, so he set her on the potty and she promptly hopped up and said "I pee pee Daddy! I get treat!". Only she hadn't so he told her that she didn't get one til she went. So she sat back down, "tried" again and popped up saying the same thing. To which he replied the same. She promptly shut the lid on her potty, climbed on top, grabbed his face with her chubby little hands and said "Daddy. I get treat now". Not a spitfire at all huh?

"I don't like it" or "I don't want it" with an emphatic head shake. This was actually "I like it" or "I want it" with the head shake until this past week. She just picked up the don't.

She thinks adding "please" to the end of a request gets automatic approval. If she asks you something and you say no, she'll ask again with the sweetest little "peas" on the end. Somehow we are still able to say no...

She gets so excited over the littlest things and I love it. If she sees a Disney princess, it's all "PRINCESS!!" at the top of her lungs. Or "doggie!" or whatever she sees at that moment. This is sometimes combined with jumping up and down and squealing.

When we pull into work at Daddy's store, she starts squealing "Daddy!!!" quickly followed by "I get sucker!". Ha. The treat. Although Daddy can be a sucker and gives her an actual sucker way too often. Ahem...

I made the mistake of bringing her a sucker a few times from work and giving it to her for the ride how. She called it her "prize" (surprise). Now, she asks for a "prize" the minute she gets in the car. Fun huh? Way to start a great habit Mom.

When we leave school, she says bye to all her friends (by name, it takes forever to get out of there) and then when we get to the door, she turns and yells back "I see you tomorrow!". Melt my heart.

Every day in the car I hear "I tinkle stars" (I want Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star). Once you start singing, she switches "I ABC's!". Start that one "I spider song!". By this point she's laughing because she knows it makes me crazy to not finish one single song. She better be glad she's so dang cute.

We still get tons of "I love you's". I will never get tired of that.

Gosh. There's just so much. And as she gets closer and closer to turning two, I realize how much she has changed just in a very short amount of time. I can't even imagine how much more we'll get to hear over the years!

this kind of love.

When I was pregnant with BG, I had a conversation with an aquaintance that absolutely baffled me.

She and I were at lunch and I was whining complaining okay, I was totally complaining about how tired I was and how plain over being pregnant I was.

She looked at me, serious as could be and said, "I'm surprised you're complaining. As much as it took for y'all to get pregnant, you'd think you would appreciate every single second".

I was floored y'all. Floored.

I wanted to be pissed because hello, ouch. But she wasn't being mean. At all. She legitimately thought that I wouldn't want to complain because of how precious my sweet baby I was growing was to me. And how longed for she was.

Sometimes after a really hard day with BG, I get down and out and aggravated and truthfully, in that moment, I don't like being a parent very much. It's freaking hard. She's trying and some days I just feel like I can't win for losing. She beats me at everything.

The fact that I wanted this child more than anything on the planet does not make parenting her a breeze. The fact that she was created using medicine and big time prayers, does not make her an easy kid. She didn't come with the knowledge that "my parents worked their arses off to get me here so I should be a peach".

She is still a kid. She is still rotten sometimes. She can still be tough.

I find as a woman who beat infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss that I am perhaps a bit more, how do I say this, aware of my child being here. I appreciate her. A lot. I am grateful to her for being the child that stuck with us. Every single day, I look at her and know that realistically, she would not be here without the miracles we witnessed to get her here.

I don't think parents like me love their kids more than parents who got pregnant easily at all. I don't. I do think it's a bit of a different kind of love though. It's a love ripened over years of waiting. It's a love that hurt when your husband had to look you in the eyes and promise you that the two of you would be parents someday. Somehow. It's a terrified love as you pray just to make it one more week. Then one more after that.

It's a love that explodes when your baby beats the odds and makes it past the point her brothers and sisters before her couldn't get past. It's a hopeful love when you finally buy your first baby item. It's a determined love when you stick a needle through your skin for the hundredth time knowing you'll do it a hundred more if it keeps your baby safe.

It's a scared love when you make decisions based off of "studies" instead of cold hard facts because you and your baby are in uncharted medical territory. It's an overwhelming love when despite all the odds, she breathes air outside of you for the first time.

After all that, how can I still ever complain about her? About parenting?

Because I'm normal. And I'm a Mom. And as much as I love her, this is still the hardest job ever.

But, it is hands down, the best one ever. Man, I freaking love that kid. She's my sidekick. She is the littlest love of my life. And even when she makes me crazy, I adore her. Always.

toddler-tude

I gotta admit; I used to hate the term "terrible twos".

I mean seriously, what a horrible term for these sweet, sweet toddlers.

Then I got an up close view of those said terrible twos, and you know? if the shoe fits....


Baby Girl will be two next week and holy wow y'all, the tantrums? out of control.

When she has them.

Now I might jinx myself, but eight times out of ten, we can avoid her tantrums or at least keep them semi mild. Those other two times? well the devil gets in her at those times and we basically just have to hang on and try to survive.

Kidding. Sort of.

What I mean by "avoid" is, I know, if she's tired, I can't push her. If I do, she melts down (a la the middle of Macy's episode). If it's bed time, it's bed time. Not time to try and make one more stop.


When BG was a teeny, tiny babe (sigh...), her "witching hour" was around dinnertime. And y'all, history is definitely repeating itself.

As of lately, dinnertime is our biggest issue. She doesn't want to be in her chair, or doesn't want to eat, or doesn't want to basically do anything we want her to do. Fun right?

The other night (keep in mind we know about this witching hour), her Dad and I didn't feel like cooking so we went out for Mexican. You can guess what happened.

BG didn't want to be in her chair first of all. She wanted to sit with on her Daddy. She didn't want milk, she wanted juice. Then she put a chip in the hot salsa and that was all she wrote.


She was done. A trip to the bathroom for a "talking to" and a trip outside for a spanking were all for naught, the girl was done. So we took our food to go and ate at home where she was perfectly content to sit in her chair and drink her milk.

Oh toddlerhood...

But.. sort of our fault right? We knew dinner time was a sketch time. It isn't always and I don't think it will be for long, but right now, it is.

Figuring our what sets her off, and trying to avoid it, helps us a lot. Getting down to her level and calmly talking to her also helps. Ignoring her doesn't seem to help right now, neither does time out. We're figuring it out though. We're figuring her out.


I got to be honest, other than the newborn days (still hands down WORST ever), this is about the toughest thing we've dealt with with her. While all my tips above do work occasionally, there are times when not a thing helps. When she just wants to scream or cry or kick and we don't get it. When nothing makes her happy. When everything makes her mad.

I guess that's the "terrible" part. She's not terrible, not at all. But how she acts is and how helpless it makes us feel is.


But like I said, we're figuring her out. Slowly.

The good (bad?) thing is, she's not even two yet. So it seems we'll have plenty of time to experience and figure this issue out. Yay toddler-tude!

a friday brain dump.

My child is sick again y'all. Again. I can't even explain to y'all the levels of frustration and tiredness running rampant in this house right now. We ended up back at the doc again a few weeks ago because her ears had so much drainage coming out that it freaked us out. Not to mention crusty eyes again. And wouldn't you know; she has another bleeping ear infection. Not two months after getting tubes.

Add to that the cough that won't quit and it is never ending. She can't get well.

I swear it's all allergy related, but she's also showing lots of asthma type symptoms (it gets aggravated by exercise and such). I just feel so bad because we have yet to find a medication that even touches her cough. Y'all... it's awful on her.

So we went back to the doc yesterday and ended up leaving with a few new medications. Fingers crossed, something works. The girl needs a break.

In less than two weeks, BG is turning two. I cannot even wrap my head around that. Next week, the blog will be all about her (so different from normal huh?!). My posts will be all toddler related and who she is at almost two years old. Insane.

For her birthday, her Dad and I are taking her down to Atlanta to see the aquarium. She is going to love it. Last time we went, she was only 13 months old so she didn't really get it. She also couldn't walk. Man... things are way different. Question for those of y'all who have been; we're planning on making a day out of it and doing the shows and stuff. Should we just plan to eat there, or sneak out for a few hours for a quick lunch and some fresh air?

I basically have nothing done for her party. This time last year I was basically done. I think I'm in denial this is even happening....

Mr. P and I are headed to this marriage conference thingy this weekend that he bought us tickets for (we are fine). Unfortunately our child care issues kind of got messed up leaving us with a toddler with nowhere to go. Thank goodness for Tiffany (or "TT" as BG calls her). She has stepped up and is taking care of the toddler for me. Fingers crossed BG doesn't scare her away...

I have about seven packages that currently need to be mailed but I have such an aversion to the post office. Guess I'll be hanging out there tomorrow along with the rest of society. Ga-ross.

That's all I've got.

almost wordless wednesday: more st. patrick's day

the evolution of St. Patrick's Day

I love St. Patrick's Day.

Okay. Scratch that. Let me rephrase.

I love St. Patrick's Day in Savannah. It is by far, one of my favorite days of the year.

Over the years, it's changed. A lot. But I swear y'all, it gets better and better every year.

I've lived in Savannah my entire life. As a child, we used to go to the parade every year. I'd sit on the curb in front of my parents, grandparents, and their friends in a green t-shirt, headband, and shorts. My childhood best friend, Amanda, on one side of me and the younger brother on the other side. The people in the parade still threw candy and the three of us jumped, danced, and fought over candy the whole time.

One year, the parade started getting out of hand (too much Mardi Gras, too little throwing of the candy) and we eventually weren't taken down there any more. Sad face.

In high school, the parade was still a huge deal. Although most of the time we didn't actually attend. High school is that awkward age where parades are lame sober and you aren't legal to drink so, boring. But it was still a huge part of where we lived. School shut down for us on that day. Thank you St. Patrick whoever you are for a day out of school and a day at the beach.

In college, I lived for that debauchery downtown. Judge if you must, but talk about a good time. The parade was fun and all, but truth be told, my friends and I spent more time in the bars at 10 am than out on the street watching marching bands. Absolute time of your life. What was really awesome is that one year, a friend of a friend lived in an apartment right over Bay Street, so we had the best view of everything. Plus? It was right over a bar. Win. The day (okay, week) of the parade was full of laughter, friends, day drinking, and plain old fun.

Now? Well the day is a bit different.

In the last few years, the town has really cleaned up the festivities. Big time. It's family friendly again (obviously not at night duh). The set up is oddly reminiscent of a football tailgate (here in the South where it's done properly). People head out at 4:30 in the am to get a good spot (thank you Josh). There is early morning cocktails, green grits for breakfast, face painting, kids playing games on the grass, and lots of men in green coats and polos and girls in green dresses. All before 10 am.

There's a 5:30 wake up call to get to your spot on time. There's Bailey's in your coffee (it's still St. Patrick's Day even if it is rated PG now). There's good friends and good food. There's watching your daughter and her friend play in the grass. There's watching the parade with your best friend, her daughter, and your precious girl.

No longer am I the young kid with my best friend trying to catch the candy the Shriner's throw out. Now? I'm the Mom in the back watching my child's eyes light up at the Budweiser clydesdales. Watching her wave "bye bye doggie", "bye bye drummer", and pretty much bye bye everything that walks by. I'm the Mom sipping the mimosa laughing at the college kids a few yards down with the two coolers of beer thinking of how that used to be me.

I'm the one making sandwiches the night before instead of out dancing. I'm packing Capri Suns and waters in my cooler. I'm picking out a cute green dress for me at the last minute while laying out my daughter's outfit I special ordered weeks ago. I'm getting yogurt and string cheese at the last minute instead of going to bed at 3 am.

The parade and the whole day look a lot different now. But dare I say I really, really love it more now than ever before? Sharing this day with my sweet girl and starting new traditions with my family and friends is priceless. And makes my love for this special day in my special city even greater.