Im back, really this time!

I started this blog with the intention of writing every day and sharing my life, as a mommy “on the go”.  Once I was heavily pregnant with my daughter and taking care of my son, who was still one at the time, not only did I not have the time, or energy to write, when I DID have time, I did not feel like I was “on the go”, and therefore had nothing to write about.  I was wrong, there was always things I could have written about, but I just wasn’t feeling so inspired.  Then I realized that people still write on their blogs, even when they dont “feel” like they have something to say….because eventually, they DO end up having something to say, and it sometimes inspires others.

Even though, I still am not “on the go” as much as I once was, there is still a lot going on in my life, and ive decided to stop self sabotaging, and go ahead and write even when I dont feel like it, because for one, its therapeutic, and it might also help someone else through what they are going through.  Which leads to why I wanted to write today.

I am SO incredibly thankful that my husband is supportive and does what he can to be able to afford me the opportunity to stay at home with our children.  There are so many things that I get to see and experience on a daily basis that most moms dont get to, because they have to be at work.  I get to live more life, and have more fun than most moms because I stay home with my kids, and that is the best thing that I could be doing for them, and me.  It is so easy to become cynical with life, but when you are around children all day, there are the times where they get on your nerves, but mostly its an amazing experience to watch them grown, learn, and in my case, watch them interact with their siblings.

Earlier, my heart warmed because of my two little munchkins.  My daughter had been sleeping, and to get our (mine and my sons) attention, she let out a high pitched scream.  As he always does, her brother dashed to the room and jumped on the bed to see what was going on with her, and as soon as she saw him, her eyes lit up, and she squealed with delight, and reached for him, and he gave her a big kiss, hugged her, and proceeded to jump all over my bed.  Its moments like these that I am so glad that I am home with them to be able to see things like this.  I could easily send them to daycare, and no one would blink, or think twice about it, but to see these two have this time together is absolutely priceless.  I look forward to seeing how their relationship grows and develops over the years, big brother is already super protective of his little sister.  Im just grateful that I get to watch it all develop right before my eyes.

I love you munchkins!

Traveling with Two Under 2, Part II

Wow, is all I can say.  It took me almost a week to recover enough to even be able to write about my first trip with both of my children.  But then I remembered how bad it was, regressed, and decided to wait until we got back home to write about the whole travel experience.  Still traumatized, I waited even longer, and now, here it is.

For the flights going to Dayton, I did everything good mommys are supposed to do…packed a bunch of my sons favorite snacks, his favorite toys, got him TV on the plane so he could watch cartoons, had Mr. Bluefin (his stuffed fish) ready in case he wanted to take a nap, and NONE of it mattered.  He just wanted to do what he wanted to do.  The first leg of the trip, he did well during the take-off, watched cartoons for a little while, and I thought, wow, this won’t be as bad as I thought it would/could be.  THEN the whining started.  He decided that the cartoons bored him, he didn’t want to watch them anymore, so he started to throw the earphones, almost hitting the woman in front of us.  So, I thought, well maybe he wants a snack.  Pulled out his favorite granola bars, no dice.  Cheese and crackers?  No thanks, crumbled them up and threw them on the floor.  FINALLY got a hit with the fruit snacks, but only had two little packs left.  It wasn’t enough.  He started to get mad that there weren’t anymore, so he started whining again.  Ok, pull out his Bumblebee Transformer, nope, doesn’t want that….okay…maybe the laptop he just got that he loves so much.  Nah, not really interested, played with it for about 5 minutes, and threw that too.  Then the whining started again.

I’m thinking to myself, thank GOD this is only a one hour 45 minute flight, but then I thought, man, he’s gonna do this the WHOLE rest of the way, then thankfully, the drink cart comes by to save the day.  For a little while at least.  He’s calm for about 15 minutes while he sips on his little soda.  I am thankful to the flight attendant for getting us a re-fill and buying me another 15 or so minutes of whine-free time.  So he whines for most of the rest of the flight, but I tune it out for the most part, and just try to keep him quiet enough so that he’s not disturbing all the other passengers.

So then this horrendous smell starts to permeate the air, and im looking around like, “who the HELL is THAT?!?!”  Then, to my dismay, I realize its my child, and I had to laugh out loud a little bit.  So I take him to the incredibly small bathroom, change his rancid smelling diaper, and think, there’s not much else that can go wrong.  BOY, was I wrong.  About 20 minutes later, we’re sitting down, well im sitting down, he’s jumping on the seat, squealing, because the man behind us is playing with him.  I try to get him to sit down, and then he turns and looks at me, shakes his head, and then throws up ALL OVER himself, me and his sister, who is in a sling.   I don’t even have time to say anything but, “Oh!”, the beginning of OH MY GOD!   I just sat there and looked at him for about 15 seconds, too stunned to do anything else.  The man sitting behind us (who obviously has flown with children before) immediately popped up out of his seat, and got us some paper towels.  The flight attendents were also really cool and helped us out.  After that leg of the trip, I vowed to never again travel with two small children by myself.

Coming back to California, however, wasn’t so bad.  Miles still didn’t want to walk around the terminal or the jetway to get down to the plane, which made things more complicated, but didn’t really phase me.  I was SO happy once we completed our trip that I just took a couple of days and didn’t really do much of anything that required me having to get the kids ready and leave the house.  Now if I could just get these suitcases unpacked…

Life Changes

So many things in life change, and it can happen so quickly that it will make your head spin.  Welcoming a second baby into the family is definitely a major life change.  Not just for you, who can at least prepare for it, but if you have older children, its a major life change for them also.

My son was 21 months when his sister was born, and its amazing to watch him changing and adjusting to her being in what was formally “his space”.  He has definitely stepped his energy level up a few notches, but he is also a really loving big brother.  When I was pregnant, I would always point to my belly, and say, “your sister Micah is in there”, and he would rub, and sometimes kiss my belly.  I wondered if that would continue once she got here, and it has.

Its the sweetest thing to watch him with her.  He loves to give her kisses, and when shes crying, he’ll stop what he’s doing to go to her and try to calm her down.  Don’t get me wrong, when she first came home, he wanted to love her, but  was NOT happy about her being here, and tried to get some little licks in (lol), but it didn’t take him long to warm up to her.

Initially, I worried about them being so close together, but people assured me that they would be very close because of their age difference.  I am already beginning to see signs that they will be pretty close, and im excited to see how that bond changes, and evolves over the years.

Ah, if we could all be like children and take life changes in stride…

Baby Steps 2.0

Well, it’s interesting how things happen. Last night, I wrote about not wanting to force my son to walk, and that he would do it in his own time, and today…he’s walking! We were sitting out on the back porch trying to stay out of direct sunlight (it’s hot as HELL in Dayton today), and he was holding onto the railings, walking across the porch away from me. I thought for a minute, maybe he’ll get nervous and start freaking out, but he was okay. He kept turning back and laughing, so, I didn’t think anything of it, he was having a good time.

Each time, he held on, and walked a little bit further away, and im just trying to make sure that I can jump up and grab him if he decides he wants to jump somewhere or falls. I offered him some water thinking he would follow the railing back, but he let go of the railing, and just walked over to me. Just like that! At first, I thought I was seeing things, but he took small little steps, and just kept making his way over to me. I couldn’t believe it. My baby walking!!! Almost immediately, I flashed back to the first time I saw him, wow, my baby. And now, WOW, this is MY baby, walking to me for the first time. I cried in excitement, and I am not a cryer. This is the next step, he’s on his way. Getting bigger every day, and giving me more things to be excited about and look forward to!