Happy Birthday

My baby turns 2 at the end of the month. We threw her a party early which seems to be unavoidable due to the holidays, but she doesn't seem to mind it one bit. In fact, I think she enjoyed it immensely. What's not to love? Run to her heart's content without mommy yelling "stop you're gonna get ouch!" every 5 minutes. Pizza. Cake. The works. It doesn't feel as though it's been a full year since we celebrated her first birthday... You are the one best thing in my life and don't you ever forget it! I love you so much, my heart aches.

















Thank you guys all for joining us! She had so much fun, she's actually snoring as I'm typing this. - Posted using BlogPress

Discovering New Things

We have discovered stickers. They have invaded everything.

















Yes baby. Mommy is as proud of you as you are of yourself for discovering such new exciting ways of making bigger messes. They're fun aren't they? - Posted using BlogPress

The ABC Song

Please excuse my singing voice. Just ignore me but watch to the end. It's pretty darn funny.

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Fried

Over the weekend, Beanie felt the need to bathe my phone. Maybe it looked dirty to her. I should've taken a photo of it, but I was too shocked and rushed to save a phone that was probably not going to make it anyway and well, my phone is really what I use as a camera on a daily basis for things like this. It's fried. I didn't even have the heart to yell at her. She thought the phone was dirty. I mean really, what can you possibly do? So I took away the cup of water, dried up my phone in a bowl full of rice because I heard somewhere it soaks up the water that remains in the device, took a long deep sigh, sat down beside her and we ate yogurt with cheerios for breakfast. If I called you some time today, please understand that it's on voice control by itself so it turns on or calls whatever it thinks it's hearing. I get in about 3 text messages before it shuts off and reboots itself. Jen, I think it was something like 6am your time when I left you a voicemail of the TV talking in the background. I didn't know my phone was calling random people down my list. Whoops! I'd post up a photo, but I have nothing to retract any new photos from at the moment. This will just have to hold you over until my new phone comes in. Which by the way is supposed to be here tomorrow except noone will be here to sign for it. Cheers to all the toddler handlers out there! BIG. FAT. SIGH. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Ego vs Duty

I learned an important lesson this week. Doctors have a duty to address a patient's concern. Including complaints of children who are still non-verbal and the only thing you have to go on is an "ouch" that can mean a gazillion things. I took her to the ER on Saturday because it was a weekend and was so certain she had an ear infection. Oh no? Okay. We get sent home with Motrin at something like 6pm and most likely an eye roll from the attending resident and her pediatrician. 11pm rolls around and her fever spikes. Monday afternoon comes, she still has a fever and pediatrician sends me home with Motrin and Tylenol because you know, I couldn't pick it up from a drugstore myself. All my concerns are that of a first time, over zealous mom during flu season. Monday rolls into Wednesday. Her fever is not going away. I insist something is wrong. I insist with all things considered - my anal, perfectionist, over-zealous, borderline paranoid concern for my daughter - that I know something is not right. I am a first time mom, I am not experienced and the bean has never had an ear infection but I know my baby better than anyone else, and dammit, I would rather you prove me wrong and mock me than not check at all and throw my concerns into a pile of things to brush off. I searched and searched convinced I was not imagining this and finally found someone who not only confirmed my instincts, but in that time, my poor kid suffered all because doctors are won over by their experiences and their egos rather than hear out a mother's insistence that experience or none at all, she knows her baby best. Unfortunately, it turned out that my instincts were right so a small infection in one ear, not only spread to both ears but she had to be on much stronger antibiotics which can be quite upsetting to her tiny little stomach when all it would've taken was the proper initial diagnosis and a much gentler antibiotic could have resolved this nearly a week ago. So my inexperienced advice to moms (and dads) if you don't think your doctor is being careful enough or thorough enough and not addressing your concerns, go find someone who will and continue to ask questions because it's better to be the crazy mom who is wrong than the sane mom who does it all per doctor's orders only to realize doctors are wrong too. Not only because they're human, but also because sometimes their i-know-better-than-you-i-went-to-med-school egos won't allow them to admit an error. Proof? My bean's before and after pics.





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Big Girl

She becomes more and more a big girl from the baby she was, and is in some in between stage and I marvel over her changes, but still yearn for the baby in her at the same time.





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Turnip

Mommy's little helper. I guess it -her hair - does make her look a little like a turnip... At least you make a cute vegetable, baby.


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Happiest Sick Baby

Does she look at all sick?








She kills me with her cough. My poor baby... at least she's in good spirit. I think if she were just floppy and non-responsive because she wasn't feeling well, my heart would crack into a million pieces. - Posted using BlogPress

Counting Stones

It has become her favorite pastime. It doesn't matter if she finds them on the sidewalk, a park, underneath a random tree, anywhere really. If you have stones in front of your house or even in your house as decoration, and they're missing because we've been to visit, don't look at me...


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MM Mmm DEEE-lish

Now this is how you eat yogurt, folks





And this is how you wash it off


Just to clarify, for those crazy people who read and believe every word written on the Internet and go on full blown attacks because they lack common sense, these pictures were taken at different times, and no, I do not wash my kid in a washing machine. Just saying... - Posted using BlogPress

Oh Sweetness

Moments like these make my heart smile. We were sitting around eating a bowl of grapes. There was one remaining and of course, it's hers right? Let's face it, it's her birthday everyday. BUT - She takes a bite of it, splits it in half and feeds me the other half. She's a sharer. *Melts*. Yeah she's mine so I'm biased. Shut up.


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Got Diaper?

Yeah, I haven't doing much updating. Life got in the way. Speaking of which, I came out of the house with the munch poorly prepared. I had no diapers left. Of course, this is when she needs to poopies, right? I can't keep the poor kid sitting in her own doody so I take off her diaper, clean her up the best I can, and short of ideas, I made a makeshift diaper out of a maxi pad and a paper towel folded in half and some toilet paper so it won't rub against her skin while I frantically drive home pleading with her please not to pee pee in her pants. One of my many mommy history moments that I will never forget. Oh the journey.


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How Vain

So I turn around, she's playing with my phone and takes these pictures of herself. I have 11 of them. The same pictures. How she understands the reverse feature on my phone is what baffles me. That she knows the little button on the top turns the camera angle forward. This is the technology she will be growing up in....








So of course we had to take some more





I have never known a kid who loves taking pictures so much. Pictures OF HERSELF. She can sit all day looking at her own face and videos of herself all day. So-so-vain. Well, at least she's cute. To me anyway. - Posted using BlogPress

Anniversary

To those loved, lost, but always remembered. - Posted using BlogPress

Wow

I was choking with laughter. Does it get any better?


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Chapters

Occasionally I flip through the photos taken in the last near 20 months of the Bean's life and I can't believe it's been less than 2 whole years since she's been born and here she is now - a real person. Attitude, spunk, funnies, and all. I don't remember what life was like without her in it. I don't remember what I did or used to do before I was a mommy to this real, breathing, live human person I gave birth to. As it is one of the hardest things I've known, being a mommy has also been one of the best things in life and I couldn't, wouldn't, trade it for anything in this little world of mine because she is what makes my world a full whole one. This is one of my favorite pictures of her.


I still remember watching her sleep, this tiny little form, wondering in that moment, what I was before her. Here she is now, and I still fall in love with her again and again and again everyday. Yes, she also drives me crazy again and again daily, but that's her job and I wouldn't have it any other way.


And if you're wondering what that concoction of a drink is, it's kale juice. Yep. My kid likes green stuff. - Posted using BlogPress

Oh So Sleepy

There's just something heartbreaking about watching a baby sleeping in a carseat that I can't quite explain. Every time my Bean is fast asleep in her seat, my heart hurts watching her from the rear view mirror.


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Buggies

Know what that ugly thing on my forehead the size of a coin is? Do you? Guess? It's a mosquito bite. Do you see it? It doesn't even look half as bad on camera. I wear sweatshirts and long sleeve shirts at the park in any hundred degree weather and I make sure I'm in jeans and anything that covers most of my skin because so long as I am around, I am everyone else's insect repellent. So where do they target? My. Fricking. Forehead. All along my cheeks too, but my forehead! The little sh*ts! Do you know how much self control it takes to not scratch something so ginormous because it only makes the thing grow from nickel size to a quarter size? I've got bites everywhere and scars as a result. I thought being bitten on my feet was the worst. Let's face it, you look beyond ridiculous scratching away non-stop at your feet in public, and it's near impossible to walk and scratch your feet at the same time, but the forehead? Jeebus! Worst ever, I swear. I look like a moron, first of all, because it actually looks like something you would end up with after having walked into a wall or a doorknob, but what really makes it worse is that for every time I put my finger on it, it grows exponentially in size... Help. Me. They have no purpose. These blood sucking little craps with wings have no purpose in life yet they terrorize me daily no matter where I am! I learned something new about myself today. Having a mosquito bite on my forehead makes me super irritable and cranky.

Foodie

I used to eat. I mean the technical term my friend L uses is "food food". Not just food. I ate as much, if not more at times, than the dudes I knew. Since I've had the Bean, however, I'm lucky if I eat breakfast or lunch, and if I remember to eat, it's whatever is available in the moment and it doesn't even have to taste much like anything so long as it's edible. Today, my meal of choice for the morning is dry cheerios. Oh how I miss the days of slabs of pork, mounds of lasagna, and loaded pizza pies. I'm lucky to scarf down a slice, never mind the half a pie I used to do and it sounds disgusting but goodness, it was so fun. I have officially resigned as a foodie. Now I've got the Bean - she's much tastier anyway.








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ZZZ

Is there anything sweeter than a baby asleep with her butt stuck up high in the air?

Rant

Friend of a friend at a bar while celebrating a birthday: "You're a mom? [insert condescending look]". Yes, I am a mom. First and foremost, I am always a mom. I wake with my daughter from 6-7 in the morning until she's down for the night 13 hours later. I play, feed, console with hugs and drown her in kisses everyday, all day. I change diapers all day and bathe my baby daily and she is loved beyond belief. She is and will remain my main, if not often, my only number one priority. It is when she is asleep I allow myself a little time and space to simply be. Just because someone is a parent doesn't mean they are not allowed to be anything else but a parent and it certainly doesn't mean they are not allowed to let loose with a drink or two to celebrate birthdays or to celebrate nothing at all. I am not drinking myself to oblivion. It is not even possible because I know I come home to her and that means I don't even get to fully unwind. I am just taking off the edge from the pressures of what my every day life is like that you know nothing about. Noone gets to judge me and yet, they do. I'm okay with that, but the look? Oh, the look. I suppose I can't blame them, but you see, on 2-3 hours of sleep, I come home and the first thing I do is make sure in my post-buzzed exhausted self-inflicted state that she's sleeping in a dry diaper, I don't crawl into bed until I am certain I have everything she needs the minute she wakes up and I am awake with her on bare minimum sleep running and chasing after her, playing with her, and loving every minute of it. I do feel the need to explain myself. To those who do not know me well enough and even to those who do, it matters to me that they are aware of how important my daughter is to me and not a single day goes by without my doing everything in my power to be the best mom to her. Maybe not to any other kid or by anyone else's standard but I do know I am the best mommy to her and for her because noone in this world loves my kid more than I do. So suck back in your looks. You know nothing. This is my life. SHE is my life and if you don't have one, you don't know where I am coming from. She's one of the happiest babies I know which tells me, despite your crap look in which you view me, I'm doing exactly what I should be and it's not a piss poor job just because mommy needs some mommy time too.











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Piglet

The girl does love to eat...





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Pool Not Party

I, the mommy, thought it was a great idea to take the Munch to the pool. It was hot, sunny and just an all around perfect pool weather. And the Bean loves water. From bathing to showering to anything water related, she loves. She loved swimming classes so why wouldn't she love the pool??? We get there and child wants to have nothing to do with the water. Maybe because it's cold and she, being the princess, is used to the indoor heated pools. Who knows... So we went to the pool - to sit in the shade, under an umbrella, which we could've done at a park. For free.


The Bean in protest.


Much happier at the food court





Happier still to just be sitting around in her bathing suit. Not swimming. Oh and she peed on me to make sure she got her point all the way across. Damn swimmer diapers. She didn't even really need to be wearing one considering... - Posted using BlogPress