A Day in the Life of Me

4:55 am:
I wake up to someone opening my bedroom door, there is a light on in the hall and a crying baby in the other room. After informing my 3 yr old that it is much to early to be awake I give them both a glass of milk and with a little luck I get to go back to bed.

6:10 am:
I am woken up again this time my 3 yr old is pulling on my arm and informing it is time to make pancakes. Since "the sun is up" I lose the argument that its too early to be awake so I allow myself to be pulled into the kitchen and bullied into making scrabbled eggs and pancakes.

FYI: breakfast at our house mostly consists of cold cereal. I hardly ever make anything as crazy as pancakes in the morning those are normally reserved for "breakfast for dinner" days. So the fact that I'm doing this on a Friday morning which happens to also be the one day that my husband is picking up donuts from a eagle scout fundraiser we ordered is just bizarre. Donuts will have to wait for tomorrow I suppose. 

6:30 am:
While I'm working on pancakes my husband comes into the kitchen ready for work and since I have breakfast well in hand he gets to go pick up the donuts and head straight to work...maybe I'll never see the deliciously unhealthy Krispy Kremes after all.

7:45 am:
Breakfast is over. Both girls have eaten and I have just finished the last batch of pancakes. I make small pancakes so I have 72 leftover. I'll freeze most of them so that next time pancakes are in demand I can pop them in the microwave and go back to bed (one can dream).

9:00 am:
Surprisingly both my girls and I are dressed in normal/cute clothes and the kitchen is cleanish. No, I didn't do the dishes yet, but the front room is clean and so is the girls bedroom. Wow I feel like Super Mom right now!

10:00 am:
I'm watching a friends little boy who is best friends with my 3 yr old. They are getting along and all is fine. Even if the Super Mom feeling has faded.

10:45 am:
My mom calls just to talk. Yay for adult conversation!

11:15 am:
Someone is crying so I hang up the phone and rinse hand sanitizer out of someones eye.

12:45 pm:
We are eating lunch and the Super Mom feeling is long forgotten. I'm trying really hard not to yell at my kids, and I need to find a pillow to punch. All the "mom, Mom, mom, MOM MOM MOM MOM" is on my last nerve how many time do I need to ask what before you stop yelling my name and tell me what you want, its not like I'm even in the other room or something I'm right next to you just spit it out child. The house looks like a tornado hit and Dad is not going to be happy when he gets home to find that 2 different versions of Risk have been intermixed because there is no way I'm going to figure out what armies belong in what box. Good luck babe, hope you enjoyed your donuts this morning.

1:00 pm:
I'm thinking up an earned to invent so that the minute my husband gets home I can make an escape and to give me something to hold on to my sanity with for a few more hours....but that is no longer necessary because at this exact moment my mother in law calls and asks me if she can take my 3 yr old out for the afternoon. I am beyond blessed to live just around the corner from grandparents. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

3:00 pm: My 1 yr old is sleeping, my 3 yr old is on a date with her Grammy, and I'm writing about my day because its helping. It will remain a mystery as to when my house will look as good as it did at 9 this morning so I will be content that who ever reads this will know that my house was clean once today and that is good enough or me.

here is some proof

Okay so my days not over yet but you get the idea, and I know if I wait to post this I will never post it because I wont take the time to finish it. I hope that you and I both have a wonderful Friday evening.
...maybe I'll clean my house a second time today oh and this time I can listen to the music I want to listen too...

Dakota's Lullaby

I don't consider myself a super creative person, normally most of what one might perceive as creativity tends to be traced back to something I saw on Pinterest. However motherhood brings out the best of me as well as the worst but lets stay focused on the positive here.

I have recently discovered I have song writing skills, well sort of. I made up a lullaby for my 5 month old this week. (She is 1 year now and I'm just getting around to finishing this post.)

Now before I go on let me give you my oh so unimpressive qualifications for song writing. I can read music. I played the flute in marching band my freshmen year of high school and I have plucked out a song or two on my family's piano with my music reading skills. I sing the hymns at church but have a hard time staying in key, at least I can tell when I'm off which happens a lot. Also I have the hardest time remembering lyrics to songs. I sing hymns at church on a weekly basis and listen to a lot of Disney songs over and over again but the list of songs I can sing without the lyrics in front of me is surprisingly few.
I often think I should really learn more songs so I can sing for and with my kids more. However this goal has yet to get promoted from the someday list. 

So there I was, singing the same old song that I don't even like all that much. I thought anything would be better then that song so I just started singing her name to no specific melody and then before I knew it I had made up a lullaby, how clever of me. It was easier then I thought and a lot of fun. Why hadn't I thought of this sooner. Of course it is a wonderful discovery and I'm so excited about its success I'm starting this post at 2 am.

... 5 months later. 

That lullaby I made up in the middle of the night months ago has become a part of our family and more successful then I would have imagined when I first sat down and wrote this post. From time to time if you hear the baby crying you just might also hear her older sister singing Dakota's Lullaby.

Now I hope I have you all curious about this song and I do want to share it with you, but I want to do it with style. So I'm currently looking into making a fun you tube video with it, or more more accurately I've asked my cousin to make one. Hes amazing! You can check out his YouTube Channel here. Hopefully someday you'll be able to listen to Dakota's Lullaby on his channel.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

My blog is always in the back of my mind. Not that anyone could tell since I never actually post anything these days. Today I thought I'd look at the drafts I've started and never posted and I found this gem. After rereading it I've decided that I want to post this today even if it is almost a year old because it putts a point across that I'm just glad I was able to capture in that moment.

May 2015

I have spent the last nine months growing a little human inside of me and it was really hard for our whole family. On paper or to a doctor this pregnancy was normal. average. boring. No medical issues that needed addressing and now I have a beautiful healthy baby. I could go on for a long time about all the things that made the last nine months so hard but I'm not going to bore you with details. I'm just going to share something that I hope will help me and hopefully you in any future pregnancies.

As my due date approached and then passed,

while I waited for the exciting moment when active labor would begin, 

I was worried. 

I did not want to be pregnant anymore! I couldn't wait for it to be over! But I also was having a hard time believing that it would all be worth the past nine months. 

A scary thought:

To be at the end and feel like it will never end and wanting it to be over, but not to be looking forward to it. My worries included that recovering would be just as bad as being pregnant, also not getting any sleep and so many more negatives things that are often talked of when having a newborn at home. 

I still had a small amount of hope. I couldn't remember how amazing having a newborn at home was but I remembered missing it and wanting a baby again and how excited we were when my husband and I found out we would be having a second baby. I tried not to entertain these negative thoughts but they were there in the back of my mind. 

So now I have a one week old baby and I can say that it was all WORTH IT!

Yes I have been uncomfortable and in a lot of pain as my body recovers from labor as well as the 9 months of pregnancy leading up to it. I'm still recovering, still very uncomfortable but I can feel my body healing and I know that it wont be long until I am going on long walks again, playing racquetball with my husband, taking my toddler to the zoo and on other adventures, and doing so many things I love to do, becoming healthy, active and fit again. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

And yes I no longer get anywhere near as much sleep as I'm use to. But I haven't once minded being awake at any odd hour to feed and cuddle with my baby. I find enough time to sleep so I can function and that is good enough. I love my baby so much and I love watching her older sister be such a helper. Yes life is hard and I have a lot of ups and downs, and I can blame some of them on hormones, but life is also wonderful beyond words. Would I do it all over again? Most defiantly yes I would! Do I think that as this baby grows into a toddler I'll want another baby yes and I know it will be worth another pregnancy, but maybe not for a while because I really do not like being pregnant but I really really love having a newborn in my home.

Sometimes you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel until your almost out of it. 

Preparing for Motherhood

Recently I've been thinking or more accurately wishing that I'd prepared better for being a mom. I always knew I wanted to be a Mom when I grew up so why didn't I put more energy and effort in preparing for motherhood. Even as I entered college I knew my ultimate career goal was to be a mother. So why did I not study Early Childhood Education, or Family and Consumer Science, or Family Life and Human Development? Yes I looked it up these are real majors that colleges offer. Instead I did most of my GEs and then decided to study Biology because I realized how much I loved learning about the human body. I always said if I didn't want to be a stay at home mom so much I might have become a doctor. Biology opened up options for other good possible careers if  my 1st choice didn't happen right away or ever. I didn't want people to think that all I wanted to do was be a mom (I mean I needed to find a man before that was an option anyways). Now that I have my 1st career choice I see that it was silly of me to be more focused on a "back up" plan then on preparing for motherhood. In my mind there was a stigma attached to majors like the ones listed above. Looking back I am guilty of promoting this stigma and I am more sorry for that then you know. Now I admire those who studied those fields, they where the smart and courageous ones. How did I let the "back up" plan become more important then the original plan. I wont go so far as to say I regret studying biology, because I don't. I loved it. I will say I regret not taking more then one developmental physiology class. Maybe I'd be a better mom, more prepared for the challenges I currently face everyday.

To be fair I probably did a fair amount of preparation for motherhood and am being a little hard on myself. I'm a great mom and I'm sure most parents have moments of feeling completely over whelmed from time to time weather they studied family relations or childhood development in college or not.

Now with all that in mind I was reminded of one of my strengths today. That even with 2 small kids I am often on time to things and well prepared with a packed diaper bag in toe. Yes sometimes I'm late and/or unprepared. I have strengths but I'm not perfect and neither are my children. So why is this a strength? Was is something I learned at college? This might surprise you but the answer is Yes. No, I didn't take a class on how to be prepared and on time with children in college. What I did was much harder then that, I played basketball.

What?
Here let me explain:

I remember hearing things like this beautiful quote here that I found using google search just now, and articles and speeches about how sports prepared kids for life. I believed it, but I never really thought that playing basketball was preparing me for motherhood. But it was!

Playing college basketball and everything I did to achieve that goal prepared me more for motherhood then I could have ever imagine. So there are many reasons and ways I'm a better mom because I played basketball but I'll get back to my point and not go into all of them right now.

Since my 1st season of basketball in the 8th grade it was drilled into me just how important being on time to practice was. "If your not 15 min early your late" if I had a dollar for every time I heard that I'd be rich. I remember going to a basketball game after I'd stopped playing and the only thing I remember is how amazing it was to walk into the gym just in time for tip off and not hours and hours earlier. Along with being on time it was also very important to have everything I needed. This Checklist here is no joke I was always making mental check list and checking my bag twice before leaving to be 15 min early to practice. I had nightmares of forgetting a shoe or my jersey. I always had extra socks and whatever else in my sports bag.

(Although there is one thing on this list I found on pinterest that seems out of place, knee pads, who wears knee pads in basketball I sure didn't but my knees were always a lovely mix of black and blue.)

So I can tell someone I'll be somewhere at a set time and I can get there with a baby and a toddler in toe and when they have a blow out or pee there pants or need a snack or its cold and they want a coat or a blanket I will most likely have what I need to fix the problem. No I don't carry everything around all the time in a Marry Poppins bag, but I do have a diaper bag. Every time I leave the house I have spent some amount of time compiling what will be needed and what could be needed so I'm ready. My diaper bag looks like any other diaper bag I'm sure. And because basketball is a team sport I like to be able to help out my fellow moms. I love the feeling of being able to fix a problem either for my child or for someone else because I have a solution in my diaper bag. I like being that person who can save the day because I'm prepared, because I've been on the other end and It stinks and sometimes there Isn't someone like me around to help and that's the worst. So thank you basketball.