What Not To Say

"You look great. For a mom". Uhm, thanks (insert eye roll). That is not really a compliment. I'm secure enough about myself that I don't need random strangers' compliments and insecure enough to enjoy them, but when there's a "for a mom" thrown in there, it's actually not a flattering comment. Well stranger, for a mom, I'm not doing so badly. My warped sense of physical self was so worth this creature. So there.










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Overindulgence

It is something I think many parents find difficult to balance. Okay, maybe just the ones like me because I know there are moms who seem to have their crap put together just so even if they don't in truth, but heck, I can't even make it seem that way. Anyway - sometimes it's just that box of juice or piece of candy to pacify your pouty toddler. Sometimes it's because you see how happy they are for it. While you read in thousands of parenting books that tell you, you shouldn't - sometimes it is simply to bribe them in the moment because you just cannot fathom one more throw down with your kid because that would make it your 34th throw down of the day. She is getting to a very trying age, where she pushes and pulls and tests and gets tantrummy and bratty. Thankfully not as often as I expected or have seen. When it's happening - there are many times where I find myself stumped as to how I should be handling it. Now for the most part, she's good. She does listen more often than she doesn't, she's also in kind a very happy, content child by nature. Perhaps that's what makes her meltdowns more difficult for me. She doesn't have them often, the fighting and crying spells but man - when she does it's literally a throw down. With a 2 year old. And more honestly sometimes just bribing her with a yogurt juice or a gummy bear saves me a little of my sanity but I know it's the wrong tone to follow regularly and that I really shouldn't be doing it at all. I know I've mentioned this often in the past but these little creatures need to come with how-to-for-dummies manual for moms like myself.




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Super Shopper

To go grocery shopping after work with the Bean is - for the most part very tiring. It's really grocery shopping in general. She wants in the cart. Then she wants out. She wants cookies and juice and string cheese and laughing cow cheese (those are still my fave!) and lollipops and everything else I don't want her eating before dinner but you know, it's also the best time of my day too. I mean, can it not be when she's so darn happy? Look at her...




There's a quote that says something along the lines of teaching your children to walk and talk for the first two years and spending the next fourteen telling them to sit down and shut up. I think I've told the Bean to sit down about every 3 and a half minutes the entire half hour we were shopping. Must be true.

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Superhero Mommy

It has been a tremendously long week for both the Beanie and for myself. When your baby looks to you as if you are a superhero who should be able to fix everything for her, and you can't, it's the most frustrating and hopeless feeling in the world. When she is sick or when she is hurt and there really is absolutely nothing you can do for her but promise it will get better - your self doubt, self loathing creeps in little bit by little bit. "Am I cut out for this?". "Maybe I'm not doing enough. What do I do?". "What if I'm not enough to do this?". In my heart of hearts, I know that I am the best mother for her mainly because I know there isn't anyone in this world who can love this girl more, but sometimes - .....

With that said, the weekend was a total kickoff to get me started on what is sure to be a long work week despite that July 4 is smack in the middle. Perhaps it's "Happy Mommy; Happy Baby", but that for sure works both ways.

No more sick baby!
















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Goals

Mommy's goal for the week will be to sleep before midnight for at least 4 of the 5 weekdays. My goal for the week is to focus a bit more on you than on work, household duties, problems and life. My goal is to be more patient with you and to try to listen to your incessant babbling and to respond to your incessant babbling because one day, you'll stop and I'll never get it back. My goal this week is to give you more kisses than scoldings. My goal this week is to give you more hugs than demands. The goal I can't beat is to love you more than I do now because I don't think it is humanly possible to love you any more than I do already.

I hope to the heavens above that you will always know this in your heart - I may not always succeed in the goals I make for myself, for you, or for us, but I cannot love anything more than I do you.

Every supermarket should have one of these. It's a shopping cart with a kiddie car attached to the front. It's a pain in the a$$ to push around the narrow aisles (why didn't anyone think to make the aisles wide enough for these carts?) but it definitely makes for some easy grocery shopping when your kid is occupied and thinks she's controlling which way you turn. Mommy score!




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One Of 'Em Days

I wake up in a crap mood hoping that by noon it'll be better but the day drags on and makes my crap mood into a pissy one - I couldn't wait for it to be over. Then I pick up my Bean and listen to her endless chatter in the backseat of the car, singing in her broken baby talk because she doesn't quite yet know all the words to all the songs, you can't help but feel a little ashamed not to be grateful for the moments. And boy, am I. At the end of it all, she's the result and for that, I can chalk up days like this as "just a bad day; not a bad life".




She's so anti photo!

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Happy Saturday

It has been one of the most relaxing Saturdays. Active still because "relaxing" is a rather relative term with a toddler around, but minimal tantrums and mostly happy 2 year old makes for the day a happy, relaxing one. She took a near 4 hour nap, we walked quite a bit after she woke, window shopped, picked up a pair of earrings for her because they get lost constantly and all in all, a nice red mango with strawberries kind of day. Happy baby; happy mommy. Relaxed mommy and an even happier baby. I need not wish for more than days like today.




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Rewind

Every so often, I click over to the first few months of my daughter's life, and the reason this blog was born. I wanted my feelings, experiences and ultimately my proudest moments documented to show how in love with the Bean I was as a new mom knowing nothing. At 29 months, she is the very core of me and still, I can say, I know nothing. It's always a learning curve and it's as challenging and mind-blowing and absolutely delightful now as it was then. Different, and alike all at once. Everyday I can only hope that I am doing just one thing right. So in a rather heavy discussion, it was said - "it's funny how things turn out". It is. Simply one different path, however slight, could have taken me down an entirely different road.

Fear

Some days:




Maybe it's the notion that I'm supposed to be, or that I have to be, that makes me feel like smiling even if really, I'm not up to it. Sometimes - before I know it, I'm really smiling and I mean it even if it didn't start out that way. There, of course, are days that I do and my heart isn't at all feeling it. Today is a bit like that. I'm smiling and it's not reaching anywhere. I'm doing it because - well, what's the alternative, ya know? The weekend is over and a great one it was as are most weekends, but tonight, my heart is riding a bit on the heavy side.








Oh, this little girl is the love of my life and damn it - what if I'm doing this all wrong and where do "I" fit into this? Is there such thing as "me" and a "her"?. If it ever came down to choosing - it will always be her and her only, but is that the only way it can be? Is there really such a thing as balance?
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Wrong Side?

When your kid wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, even if you haven't, it makes for one irritating and frustrating morning and it gets you started off on the wrong note just as well as if it were you who woke up that way. Then while you're trying not to lose your head on your doesn't know better kid, the mommy guilt rears its ugly little head taunting you and mocking you for being a crap parent, "she's only two for crying out loud", says it while that same two year old is hollering, "no no I dun want!" from the backseat of your car as I try my damnedest not to turn the car around to go back home and have myself a do-over. Is it really only 8:30 in the morning?!?

To soften it, here's the current monster baby in near pony tails. I love her slightly curled, super fine hair that just lightly coats the back of her neck - that I love to nuzzle when she's not trying to make me crazy












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