Oooooh…so THAT’S why they say…

Consistency is Important!

CAUTION: THIS BLOG CONTAINS SNIPPETS OF A PERSONAL NATURE. IF YOU WILL LOOK AT ME FUNNY OR THINK OF ME DIFFERENTLY AFTER READING THIS, AVOID THE ITALICIZED AND RED PORTION OF THE LAST PARAGRAPH.

For the time being, I’ll tell you about Brighton’s newest things. He now tells us what a CAT says (softly) “Muuuuu” and what a COW says “MMUUUUHHHH”. He’s very smart. He will pick out a ball and bugs in every single book we read. I also caught him in the bedroom with the radio blaring and dancing. It was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. He closed the door for privacy LOL and hit the “sleep” button on Dad’s alarm radio, and proceeded to dance the day away!!

UGH! What a long night lastnight. I dreaded putting Brighton to bed lastnight for fear of sitting in my rocker in his room for an hour, rocking, and rocking, protecting the opposite boob and tender nipple from which he was nursing (that’s an on going battle I’ll talk about in another post), rocking, singing, rocking, waking my feet and legs and arm up…you get the idea. For some reason I was just dreading it! So instead of keeping consistant and doing what I always do nowadays, I opted to lay down with him in our bed at about 8:30 and fall asleep with him…WHAT WAS I THINKING?! It was a VERY long night. Not only did I have NO pillow, I slept on a space approximately three inches wide by 6 feet long all night long. We fell back asleep at around 6:30 (he woke up for good at around 5:00) then we both slept until almost 9! It turned out to be a good day afterall. But I’m still protecting my innocent nipples…oops. sorry about the no warning! 😉

How my life has changed

On my Mamasource webgroup, a soon to be new mom posed the question “how has your life changed?” She asked about money, chores, sex life. All those fun things. But my life has changed in profound ways, not so much in the little ways. So I thought I’d share my response:

“You know, my life changed drastically, but those things you mentioned are the minor things that I didn’t even really notice. Money got diverted to diapers and miniature clothing instead of double tall skinny vanilla lattes and lunch out every day with my friends. Chores? they now include bathtime every other night and picking up tractors and little people, Sex Life? Well, that’s not a whole lot different than it was before. Though for the first few MONTHS poor Daddy was on his own.

The ways in which my life changed were: I feel more compassionate towards other people. When I get upset with someone, I am shocked back into the reality that they were someone’s baby once. I can no longer watch violent movies or television shows. I get TONS of hugs and kisses from a chubby cheeked toddler. I respect and miss my mom more than ever. Make sure you let your mom know how much she means to you. My mom died the day after my son was concieved. I never thought about just how much she did for me or how much she went through (my dad passed away when I was 15, so she was a single mom for a long time.)

So my life changed in BIG ways, in profound ways. The basics, they just kind of filled in like water through a jar of marbles. Just make sure your jar is full of marbles :)”

Let’s see if we can do this again…

Christmas 2006

Christmas Hangover

I love the Christmas season, but I’m glad it’s over. Now I just have to get rid of this blasted Christmas Candy I made!! Brighton woke up on Christmas morning to already set out toys. Namely a “Little People” barn set, a “Smartville Tree House” and several trucks. He had a few yet to open from Mom and Dad and of course his stocking. His eyes lit up when we walked out into the room and he saw all of his new stuff. He almost didn’t want to eat breakfast, he was so busy! He opened a little at a time so as to not get overwhelmed – which he ended up being anyway. But he managed to get through it 🙂 He also got a lot of tractors from Aunt Amy and “The Petes” and from Grammy & Grampie O. among other fun stuff. I’m not going to list all the things he got or it would take up all of my blog. But you get the picture. His favorite thing so far is his “Twilight Turtle”. We put it on at night and he can sleep under the stars. While I’m rocking him to sleep I try to figure out what the constellations are. So far, I’ve only found the little (or is it the big?) dipper. We turn it on and he says “Stars Mom!” It’s so cute 🙂 O hyeah, one thing he had in his stocking is a cookie made by a friend of ours. She makes the best sugar cookies, cut out like santa’s and beautifully decorated. Mom put them in each of our stockings and we ate them on Christmas morning. It’s not something we do all the time but since Christmas is a celebration, we decided it was OK for the little man to eat his on Christmas Morning AFTER he had some of his breakfast.

Elfamorphasis

This is the most hilarious thing I’ve done in a long LONG time. It’s a great release after a long day at work. Enjoy all! Click on the title to go see Brighton’s elfamorphasis. And just for fun, here’s DAD’S and MOM’S

Mom Guilt…A Rite of Passage

Mommy guilt is a powerful thing. It comes in all shapes and sizes. The little guilts like giving your child that piece of cheese that just fell on the floor in the supermarket – but it was only the floor for like two seconds?! Then there’s the medium size guilts. Like for example switching your childs bath soap causing two days of rash – and three calls to the doctors office asking if it is something you should worry about.

Then of course, the big guilts and the “mother load” guilts (no pun intended). Tonight is one of those nights. I worked lastnight so didn’t see my boy all night (but was with him all day long) then worked all day today. I knew that I HAD to get home and get some sewing done tonight to finish up a Christmas present or I’d never get it done. So after taking an extra long, extra hot shower, I promptly was mauled by my toddler, and was stuck there for about 45 minutes. You’d think that after a day of working and the night before only having had about 3 true hours of sleep, 45 minutes of down time with the boy would be just what the doctor ordered. Oh no. I have things to do! I felt a bit like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland with a pocket watch and being late for a very important date! Well, as I was finishing, the boy was really starting to fade and get very tired. So dad took him in his bedroom and rocked him to sleep. I finished up my project and opened the fridge to put away recently purchased fruit and noticed the floor of the fridge was a mess. So instead of saying to myself “I’ll finish that tomorrow and go take over for dad so I can spend some time with my bug” I instead started cleaning the fridgerator floor. WHA?! I hoped Brighton would still be crying when I got done, but as I was walking into the hallway, I noticed the crying had stopped. I tip-toed to the door, slowly opened it up and my boy was fast asleep 😦 A wash of regret flowed over me and I felt that warm, heavy, yucky feeling of mommy guilt (did you think I was going to compare it to peeing my pants?). This was one of those opportunities where I could have chosen to spend a few precious minutes with my baby and instead I decided to clean the fridge. I could have rested tonight, with baby in arms. But instead I decided to finish up that project when I really could have done it on Sunday. Well, I’m washing my guilt away with a Leinenkugels Apple Spice lager which doesn’t taste nearly as good as Brighton’s freshly washed hair smells. Oh well. I have to work tomorrow for a little while (actually, I’m taking my rug rat dogs in tomorrow becuase they stink) but it will only be for a while. I’ll make it up to him.

Finally

After my meltdown the other day (which was spurred by an ultra slow connection and the B&N Website) I went to have DSL Installed. YAY! It is SO much easier and faster. Brighton appreciates it too. I also finally managed to get my friend Jill’s packages out on Monday. Jackie’s birthday was in November, and Jill’s on the 8th (SEE I REMEMBERED!) and I’ve been meaning to send it out before now but kept adding things and you all know how I like to make one trip rather than 10 little ones…

Brighton has a busy weekend ahead of him. Friday night we’re finally going to meet little Pete. As Andrew said, Amy and The Petes are coming over for supper. Sounds like a music band doesn’t it? Andrew is making Chicken and Buscuits. While he and B-dog are shopping, mom’s going to take the dogs to work and get them cleaned up. Mom has to work at Starbucks on Saturday but Sunday night we’re going to Grammy and Grampies for Christmas Eve. Then on Monday Morning, we’re going to open presents from Santa and then we’re having Christmas Brunch with our families. Brighton will have a lot to say I’m sure. He’s a real jabberbox these days. Most things sound like “DOG” or “SANTA (SANNA)” or “KITTY” which I’ve finally figured out what he was saying over breakfast. He would say “KEE” then point at the cat as if to say “DUH MOM! There’s the kitty. SHEESH!”

If we don’t see you, have a very happy holiday!

Stolen Moments & Minor Meltdowns

Now that Brighton is getting bigger and more independant, I really have to cherish stolen moments like rocking him to sleep in his own bedroom, sitting quietly on the chair reading a story or just having him give me a big hug. I also am learning that I have to control my temper. I had a meltdown today where I had to put him in his bed and go into my bedroom (where I slammed the door) and screamed into a pillow three times. It was a stressful day around here and it took me over an hour to get out the door. We finally made it around 2:00 pm. Not a pretty sight. I’d much rather have him look at me with love and security rather than the way he looked at me confused and a bit frightened while I was freaking out. Who was it that told me being a mom was easy? Oh yeah, no one.

Here’s Brighton’s photo with S anta.

The Worst Christmas Cartoon Ever

OK, I just finished watching the hands down, worst Christmas cartoon ever. Since Brighton is asleep (for three hours now) and my peanut butter buckeyes are chilling awaiting their hot chocolate bath, Andrew and I decided to sit down and turn on the boob tube. Our choices were Golf (yuk), Ice Skating (double yuk), some show on PBS about how stupid anyone over the age of 20 is when it comes to technology (hey, I have a My space page), an infomercial for some program probably to make me rich which of course, I turned off, or what we eventually settled on, The Worst Christmas Cartoon Ever. “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”. The song, I love. The song conjures up warm fuzzies from a time past when Dad and I used to ride in his 1985 Monte Carlo, blaring his cassette radio, singing along to the song. Never once did I hear “Grandpa’s gonna sue the pants off of Santa” set to a rumba. The gist is Grandma drinks too much eggnog spiked with a memory altering tonic (that also just so happens to act as reindeer nip), goes outside presumably to walk home and gets struck by Santa and his reindeer. Santa proceeds to take Grandma home to the North Pole, and apparently with his other three victims, hospitalizes her (who is physically fine but can’t recall who she is or where she came from). While grandma is recovering in the North Pole drinking hot toddies and cocoa with peppermint schnapps (OK, I added that but SOMEONE was drinking them when they made this cartoon) her scheming daughter was having poor old stupid grandpa sign over POA to her so she could sell the beloved store where Grandma makes her ever popular fruitcake and make millions on the deal, along with her trusted sidekick and attorney, Slime. So Jake (the grandson) writes to Santa telling him what happened and that he wants his grandma back home for Christmas. Naturally, of course, Santa figures out that she is the one victim who can’t identify herself and Santa brings her home. Where Of COURSE the scheming daughter decides now that grandpa should sue Santa for the disappearance of grandma, leaving the scene of an accident and attempted sleighicular homicide. Jake finds the vial, gives some to grandma who miraculously gets her memory back (oh yeah, the daughter has been hiding grandma in a log cabin in seclusion after Santa brought her back), and they head to the courthouse to show the judge that grandma is NOT missing and is right here. I won’t go on, but to tell you that Santa is vindicated, all is well with the world and toys will indeed be delivered thanks to Jake and his dog, Dufus. The end.

Andrew and I stopped watching twice to look at each other is complete disbelief. Then promptly cracked up laughing until tears flooded our eyes. OK, mine anyway. Andrew just rolled his eyes and muttered “shoot me now” to the tele. All I can say is I am very glad that Brighton wasn’t awake to see that one. We’re going to plan on putting in a video tonight rather than watch what’s on basics. Maybe National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Yeah, that’s much better.

PS. Brighton’s newest words are “HAT”, “DOG” and “SANTA”. Which actually sound like “HAAAAGH” “DAH” and “SANTA” Yes, Santa sounds a lot line Santa…go figure.

Overcaffeinated and undertired

Once again, I overdid the caffeine tonight at work. I even made my grande caramel macchiatto with 1/2 caf. Guess it doesn’t count when you still have one shot of full leaded espresso in your drink huh? Anyway, I am tired, I just have to wind down I guess. So I put on my sleeping socks and made myself a cup of citrus green tea which will keep me up all night going to the bathroom.

Brighton is doing so many funny (and annoying) things nowadays. He’s definitely testing his limits with mom. I’m not sure if he does this with Dad or not but I’m inclined to think “No.” His current favorite toy is a green laundry basket. His favorite game is for mom to carry him around in it and tip it over with him in it. Don’t worry, he’s prepared, doesn’t hit his head and giggles the whole time. My son, the stunt man. I attempted to get his photo in the basket, but as you can see, he caught sight of the camera, and decided it would be more fun to grab that instead. We also decided to go ahead and decorate the tree – with ornaments. This was great fun for Brighton. If I had a good pic, you could see that the tree is only decorated 2/3 the way down, stopping at approximately Brighton Height. Well, apparently my typing has awoken the sleeping bear, so I must tend to my offspring. Have a grand night everyone!