Mamaversary

     Today is my Mamaversary!!! Every year when we celebrate JJ's birthday, I silently celebrate my mamaversary. It was a day that forever changed my life so I feel it needs to be celebrated, but like most things in a mom's life, I do it quietly in the background while I'm shouting from the rooftops about my first baby's birthday.

     Five years ago today, I was laying in a hospital bed trying to "relax" and "get some rest" while I was being induced with JJ. The Pitocin and the Dilaudid were in the middle of a raging battle, that, in case you were wondering, the Pitocin totally won : ) After a sleepless night, I called in the big guns, and the epidural won the war!!!

     I couldn't believe anyone was telling me to relax and get some rest!!! Did they not know I was in labor??? How could anyone get some rest when my whole world was about to change??? By the time baby number 2 came, I realized that people do this every day, and Fat Dad and I both got some rest. Too bad her whole delivery took a quarter of the time that her brother's did : )

     Instead of getting some rest that night, I laid there contemplating the major turn my life was about to take. In between contractions, I couldn't help but be scared to death about what my future had in store. Neither of my kids were planned, that's why I call them my favorite mistakes, but with AL, I was already a mom. One more kid wasn't going to change anything.

     With JJ, oh man, everything was changing! I was a MAJOR party girl. I was selfish and proud of it. I lived for today without ever thinking of where that would leave me tomorrow. Then I found out I was pregnant, and that whole lifestyle came to a halt. For the first time in a long time I had to really figure out who I was and who I wanted to be.

    I'm still not 100% sure I know the answer to that question, but one thing was for sure, that baby deserved a mom who put him before everything else, and whether I was ready to do this or not, he was coming, and there wasn't anything I could do to stop it, and the non stop contractions were a great reminder that this was really happening!

     One really strong epidural and two and a half hours of pushing later, and my already stubborn little bundle of joy was here, and I have never been more in awe of something! I think I spent the first 3 months of his life just starting at him... and crying... and to this day I could just sit and stare at him. It's much harder to do now because he moves, and talks, and usually asks me why I'm looking at him like that, not to mention the never ending mountain of housework that came with him that is always screaming for my attention.

     I remember panicking when they said I could leave the hospital. You have to take a test to drive a car. I work at the Olive Garden and in order to serve someone noodles, I had to take a 7 page test to make sure I was capable of such a task. There are even directions on a bottle of shampoo, but they were just going to let me take a human being home and wing it!!! No directions, no test nothing. Just here's your baby, here's your bill, have a nice life.

     Ok, it wasn't quite that bad, and after I freaked out to the nurse she went over all of the papers and books they were sending home with me, that at the end of the day, I didn't even use! You can read all the books you want, but nothing prepares you for being a mother. You know who taught me how to be a mother... my son. Every stage he goes through is a new stage of being a mom that I am learning how to deal with.

     Five years ago today, I checked out of that hospital and into my new life. I came in all dressed up in my party shoes, and left with dirty hair and yoga pants, and I couldn't be any happier!

     So Happy 5th Birthday to my growing way too fast little man. I will be spending the whole day telling anyone who will listen that it is HIS special day, while I smile and silently wish myself a happy mamaversary because it's my special day too. I love that I have this blog to celebrate my mamaversary out loud with all of you! Cheers : )

Bieber fever...

     Lately, I've been feeling like I failed as a mother. Since both of my babies were still in the womb, I have tried to expose them to good music, and regardless of how hard I tried, it happened... my son caught Bieber Fever!!!

     There we were driving to Thanksgiving dinner, when the song "Beauty and the Beat" came on. As if it wasn't bad enough that this is a Justin Bieber song, it's featured musical guest is Nicki Minaj, the fakest barbie in the dream house. My kids love to dance so I told myself that was the reason for the attraction, and that they would forget about it as soon as the song was over. 

     Like the musical Gods in the sky could sense my stomach turning, and the fact that my aunt lives in the middle of nowhere, the station went out, and we went back to having a Bieber free holiday. One of the many things I was thankful for this Thanksgiving : )

     Fast forward a couple of days, and we are riding in the car, and out of the back seat, I hear JJ say "Mom, can we listen to that 'Beauty and the Beat' song again?"

     NOOOOOO..... my insides screamed in fear. He's not even 5 years old. Shouldn't there be an age limit to when you can contract Bieber fever??? How could I have let this happen??? Where did I go wrong???

    "Well, baby, this is the radio so we can't pick the song we want to listen to" was my best supporting mother response. 

     This morning on the way to school, I was flipping through the stations. I was still half asleep so I'm not sure what I was hoping to find, but still I was cycling through my presets half listening to what was playing. I was brought back to reality to JJ saying go back mom. I went back, and he excitedly said, "Yeah, Mom, this is Rock and Roll!" 

     As my ears caught up to the Led Zeppelin that was playing, my eyes swelled with tears...ok, not really, but for dramatic effect : ) "Yes, baby. This is Rock and Roll." Classic Rock and Roll. Suddenly, I was feeling much less like a failure!

     I realized that while I may not be able to protect him from Bieber fever, I have given him a massive supply of antibodies to help fight it off as fast as possible : ) 

     I also realized that whether it's Bieber fever or whatever the next new craze is, I will support his love for it. My parents had to go through my grunge phase, so I'm sure my mother's curse of ten times worse will apply to this as well! 

    

      

     

Bloggers Block...

     Lately, I've been in a bit of a rut. A blogging rut, a working rut, a big life rut. I don't know if it's the weather or what, but I've had no ambition lately. I've had plenty of things to write about, but a couple of lines in, I just fizzle out. Maybe bloggers block, I don't know.
 
     I don't think it's the weather because this is my favorite time of year. I love fall! There is something about a big pile of leaves that always makes me feel like a kid again : ) Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love that for one day of the year it's OK to be whoever you want to be, and let your imagination run wild.

<3 My little monsters <3

     One of the problems I've been having is that every post I want to write would go better with a picture, and guess who lost her camera... that's right, this girl. I think my house ate it, or somewhere there is a ghost taking some super sweet shots of his other ghost friends.

     Like the other day when I tried to make pancakes only to see that we had no syrup. So I thought chocolate chip pancakes instead... scratch that idea, we also had no chocolate chips. So I got a little inventive, and mixed some brownie mix in my pancake batter, and just like that we have a new family favorite. They are delicious, and I wanted to share their chocolaty goodness with you, but I've never seen a recipe post without pictures... or at least not a very good one.

     Then it was Fat Dad's birthday this week so I was going to dedicate a loving post to him, and the 12 wonderful years we've sent together. Then he decided to be a big grouch this week, and it's hard to write about how much you love your significant other when they are making it very hard to even say that you like them at this particular moment.
   
     I guess that was part of the post was loving each other even at our worst, and we don't spend everyday as in love as the first day we met, and we don't expect too. I think part of a real relationship is realizing you aren't going to agree on every aspect of life all the time, and there will be times when the other drives you nuts... like he felt through both of my pregnancies, I'm sure : ) ... but we still stand by each other, and that's what's kept us together for so long.

    So, I'm still here, even though I've been a little quiet lately. What's been going on in your world lately???

   

Songs I Love Sunday #2

    This morning while I was cooking breakfast, Pandora's playlist was so good I almost added another course just to keep listening. Here were some of the gems of the day...

Perfect since it was Sunday morning, and it's a bonus that it's one of my favorite songs by them

Always been one of my favorites : )

I sang this song to AL as a lullaby. The line "Cause I've never had so much to lose" would usually make me cry. Kids are the most humbling things in the whole world, and until them, I had never known a love as moving and as deep as I have for them : )

These guys are my new obsession!!! I've been very disappointed in music lately, and these guys were like a breath of fresh air : )

This was the theme of my weekend, but instead I fell asleep snuggling with the babes. Tonight, I enjoyed a glass with dinner...at 4:57... I'm going to blame day light saving time : )

Hope you're all having a great weekend : )

Nobody Likes a Bully...

     As I was flipping through Facebook today, I came across something that really broke my heart. I don't know if you've seen or heard about it, but a girl named Amanda Todd recently committed suicide due to bullying/harassment, and unfortunately this seems to be an increasing trend. Since it's anti bullying month, I felt like I should reflect on this a little on here.

     First, it sent me back to my teenage days, and how cruel kids really can be. Overall, I was lucky enough to have friends who loved me, and I also have thick skin. I knew it would get better, and it did. However, I could not even imagine what it would be like to be bullied in this day and age. I'm not a dinosaur yet, but technology has come a long way since I was a teenager.
   
     When I was a kid, you got picked on at school, and went home to a safe haven. You had a land line phone that the whole family shared, and if someone was crazy enough to call your house and be mean, my daddy would have taken over from there... he didn't even like my actual friends so I can only imagine how he would have responded to people who weren't!

     Now there is Facebook, and Twitter, and texting, and email, and I'm sure even more places that only kids are aware of, and you can't turn them off. This girl made a mistake, and then that mistake took over her life. Thanks to the ease of the internet, this girl lost herself... her childhood, her integrity, her self respect, and eventually, her life.

     My last post was about making moments, and enjoying your kids, and to be completely honest, I am scared to death of them growing up!!! Not just because they are my babies, and they grow up so fast, but because I want to protect them from this cruel world for as long as possible! I am scared to death of the middle/high school years. I can handle the attitude they will get, the fact that I will never be right, the independence. All that I'm ready for, but not being able to do anything about what other kids say and do freaks me out a little bit... a lot actually.

     We had a little situation on our little block this summer. JJ is one of the youngest kids on the block, and some of the older kids were being kind of mean to him. He is young enough that we could intervene, and all is good. One of the moms didn't think it was a big deal that her son...who is twice as old as JJ... was bullying JJ until Fat Dad threatened to go get one of JJ's older cousins to help him defend himself. Then the mom came out and got all upset that we were threatening her child and called the cops.

     I told the cops that her son had been bullying our son all summer, and my boyfriend was more than a little fed up. They said we should get them involved and not take things into our own hands in the future. She had told the cops that she knew they were fighting but kids will be kids. I love how it wasn't a problem until her son wouldn't have been the biggest kid involved.! I told the cops that if the mother had bothered to come out and talk to her son about bullying my son before we had to even think of getting someone to be his body guard it wouldn't have gotten this far.

     Needless to say, they agreed, went back and talked to the little boy, and all is good in the neighborhood again. This is the stuff I can handle. It was easy for me to get involved... it was happening in my front yard. I could do something to stop it from happening again. I can't stop the internet!!!

     I am not one to judge another's parenting, but I do wonder where her parents were in all of this. She tried to kill herself a couple of times. After the first attempt, I would have cut her off from the outside world for a little while. Whether it was something so simple as a new phone number to something more drastic like no more Facebook, no more internet, or even home schooling. I don't know all of the details, but I do feel like there had to be a better solution to this poor girls problems, and it's a shame that someone couldn't do more to help her.

     As for now, I'm just going to continue to build my kids houses as strong as I can, and work on building an open relationship with them so if...God forbid... anything like this happens to them, we can work on a solution together. At the end of the video she said I have nobody, I need someone. I know when you are that age, your parents are not really considered someone, but I hope that if taking their life were in the equation, I would equal someone to them.

     Further more, if my kids think that they will be allowed to have any kind of Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, even Disney Jr. account without me being one of their friends... and stalking them, and their activity on said account, they are sadly mistaken!!! Internet, you might be large, and in charge, but you should be warned that this mother will not go down with out a fight : ) I swore to protect these little people to the best of my abilities, and nothing tests a mothers ability quite like an injustice done to one of her children!

     On a karma is a bitch note, I will end with a story of karma biting my bullying self right in the behind. Our class was never physically abusive, but we were not always kind with our words... something I still struggle with sometimes. Anyways, there was a kid, we'll call him Mr. Hicks, in the class below us who we all used to pick on. I cannot remember a time when I personally picked, but I do remember being around my guy friends while they picked and not doing anything to stop them... which is just as bad in my opinion.

     Anyways, fast forward 5 years, and who does my cousin bring home for Christmas... you guessed it, Mr. Hicks!!! She eventually married that boy my classmates used to tease so badly, and you know what, he's a really nice guy! Had I taken the time to get to know him in high school, I would have seen that back then. Karma, you've just got to love it : )