Date Night :-)

So Friday night my friend watched Mimi for us and we decided to have a night with just the two of us (meaning me and the husband).  You are going to think that our date night was pretty pathetic....but we had a good time.  Things have been super stressful lately, so it was nice to get out together and talk about things.

So....

After dropping off Mimi for the night, I went for a quick run while my husband relaxed, then I got ready to go out.  I am so sick of blowdrying and straightening my hair that I just left if wavy.  Yup. I"m that lazy.

Us leaving to go out

My husband decided to not shave and look like a bum, but he's my bum :-)  By the way, all the photos are from my phone, so they kind of suck....

 We decided to go to Chipotle, which we both love.  We're not crazy restaurant people, mostly because we're too cheap these days and we are both trying to keep weight off, so restaurants are usually a no-go for us.  Here's the best part, my husband had found a buy one get one free coupon for Chipotle, lol. You go my couponing husband!!

mmmmm Chiptole

3 Veggie Taco :-)

Husband enjoyed his tacos too

After dinner we went to Kohls.  Kind of boring, but we never get to just casually shop without a crying toddler.  We love looking at kitchen stuff together.  We tried on some hats for fun.  I also tried on 5 inch heels and did a catwalk strut for my husband in the shoe department--sorry guys, that one is on his Iphone.....

Trying on hats at Kohls

Do you see how ridiculously large my husbands head is? Hats never fit him, kind of wondering what would have happen if I didn't get a C-section with Mimi! She has his head!

We were going to go out for a beer but decided to go home.  We curled up in bed and watched a movie together, we were both asleep by 11:30pm.  Awesome.

It was really nice to get out and be with my husband.  We're considering making some big changes, so it was nice to talk out some of our options with jobs, moving, babies, etc.

So thanks again Grace for watching Mimi for us!

Faking It

My friend Kerry once told me "Wow you're really good at faking it..."

Now if you have a dirty mind you can take this one direction, but what she meant was that I can mask my stress, frustration, anxiety, etc.. and leave people to believe I feel like this:

This is me today before my run.  This is my normal everyday smile that I put on for my coworkers, my boss, my daycare provider, my friends, my child.....  I think the bright colored shirt is even more of a trick....

I think the only person that really sees how unravelled I've become is my husband.  He sees the true toll my stress takes on me, he deals with me, my grumpiness, my exhaustion, my migraines.  What a guy right?

Unlike this smiley photo of me, my life right now isn't happy and sunny.  On my run tonight, I was trying to think of the perfect word to describe how I've been feeling lately.

Drowning.

I feel like I'm drowning in stress.  The stress of being a full time working mother.  The stress of working full time while trying to finish writing my PhD.  The stress of keeping up with the normal day to day home tasks (cooking, cleaning, laundry etc).  The stress of my workaholic boss drowning me in work and pressuring me to work 110% all the time at a job I dread going to.

I'm drowning in guilt.  Guilt from dropping my kid off at a daycare everyday and only seeing her 2 hours a day during the week. Guilt from dumping my stress on my husband and pressuring him to fix things (ie get a better paying job so I can stay home).

I even feel like I'm drowning in health problems.  The last few weeks I started getting debilitating migraines.  I normally would only get them a few times a year, but I've had 4 or 5 this MONTH alone.  These migraines make it impossible for me to function.  Most times I can't even get out of bed, except to throw up.  I can't stand light, noise, food, my child, anything.  I feel like being put in a coma.  Finally I went to my doctor and found out my BP was 177/110.  Holy Shit.   So for those of you that dont' ever really think about blood pressures-----normal is 120/80.  Never in my life has that happened.  The doctors and nurses thought that it was a mistake, they tested me 5 times in both arms with two different machines.  My doc told me if I didn't get my pressure down I could have a stroke.  Yikes.  My first thought was that this is stress.  I feel more stressed right now than I have my entire life.  The only times I ever felt like this were times like my Masters defense and my Qualifying exams, but those lasted 4 hours, not 8 months.

So Doc put me on blood pressure medication and made me follow up this week.  When I went back this week my BP had only come down slightly.  I am just so frustrated.  All this work to lose weight, exercise, eat clean, have stress relieving hobbies, not even taking blood pressure medication worked.  I refuse to accept that this is my fate, taking blood pressure medication everyday of my life starting at age 29.  Something's gotta give, and it's not going to be family.

Needless to say my husband and I have some pretty important decisions to make.

Now to end this post on a less dramatic note......

We took Mimi fishing this weekend at a family fishing event, and me, a fisheries and aquatic sciences major could not even catch my daughter a blue gill :-(  but we had fun anyway...

When people fight dirty...

I have had the most unpleasant blog commenting experience this week.  I have been reading this woman's blog for awhile now. I actually found her blog through her videos on youtube.  Not only did she suffer a devastating miscarriage between 7 and 12 weeks, called a "missed miscarriage" (and one of my biggest fears when I was pregnant), she had to quit breastfeeding shortly after her son's birth.  I was particularly impressed with the fact that she re-lactated after having to quit breastfeeding due to anxiety and taking medication.  I did not even know that this was possible.  Reading her re-lactation journey made think "wow, this is dedication" not only from her side, but from her husband's too.  I admire this woman.  

As parents we all choose to do things differently, and because I differ in how I do things does not mean that one of us is wrong.  Now, don't get me wrong, I don't believe in the expression toted by youtube moms "every mother is different and every mother is right."  I do think their are things that people do that are wrong--how about putting coca-cola into your infants bottle?  Or letting your 2 year old play in the street?  These are undoubtedly WRONG things to do.  I am open-minded to alternative styles of parenting.  For example, I chose not to co-sleep, but I don't think it necessarily wrong, in fact I can see the appeal.  I didn't use pacifiers really, but I'm not against them.  I didn't use formula, but that wasn't because I think it's evil poison, I  just was blessed in that breastfeeding came easily and I was able to produce enough until after 12 months.    I don't think that I'm closed-minded.  I welcome people to disagree with me.  I encourage debate, and I have learned things from friends and fellow moms disagreeing with me and sharing with me their research and experiences.  I certainly would not call myself unintelligent, I think the 3 degrees I have would suggest I'm not uneducated, a bad speller maybe....

I don't however appreciate people that fight dirty by leaving comments that are intended not to be intelligent, but to be rude and hurtful.  By intentionally being rude and hurtful, it's neither productive nor intelligent.  I especially don't appreciate when people leave rude comments, and don't link their blog or email, so they basically drop a rude comment under an anonymous name and disappear.  That is spineless and pathetic.

Being apart of the online mom community has so many benefits, but too often it is spoiled by rude mothers.

In Rachel's case (the women whose blog I referred to), we do not necessarily agree with each other on all subjects.  That does not mean that one of us is wrong, bad parent, etc.  What I like about Rachel, is when she did disagree with me, she choice to share with me her research that detailed why she thought I was mis-informed.  I respect her so much for this.  Thank you Rachel for sharing your journey through pregnancy, miscarriage, nursing, and parenting.  I hope that you continue to share your thoughts and ideas with the online mom community, and not be put aback by rude comments from spineless people.

Braided Headband

I didn't come up with this, I found a tutorial on Cakies, another woman's blog.  I was cleaning up our kitchen and one corner just had shopping bags full of my sewing stuff, because I dont' have a "sewing room," I mean geesh I dont' even have my own closet...

Anyway, I was sorting through stuff and realized I had TONS of scrap fabric.  I was on a mission to use these scraps for something good.  Voila.  Braided Headbands.  I like headbands but I'm not very stylish so It will take some time for me to get used to doing something different.  Don't mind how miserable I look in these photos. I'm home today going on day 3 of a migraine and couldn't bare going to work today.  Plus I have a doc apt at 3pm to make sure I don't something else crazy going on in my noggin other than migraines (from stress? hmm who knows).  So I haven't showered, have on no makeup, and feel generally miserable....

Here you go, I made three..

oo and sexy glasses to boot!

Mimi's Valentines Day

My husband and I don't really celebrate Valentine's Day....but Mimi did.  By the end of the day I was so sick of hearing about Valentine's Day, even more so then when I had no spouse and felt alone and miserable on Valentines Day.  I'm kind of happy it's over--that might be grumpy me with a migraine talking though....

Cookies I made for Mimi's Daycare at 11pm the night before....

My friend Kim trying out the damaged ones....

Mimi ready for daycare watching Dora while Momma and Papa get ready.  Yes I am a crappy parent who used TV to get stuff done.  But atleast I combed her hair on this day....

Late Night

When I got home from work today I drank two cups of coffee to jazz me up for my run. Yes, I am addicted to caffeine.  The first thing is admitting it right?

Well it's 3 am now. I'm WIDE awake.  I went to Walmart with my friend and got some cute fabrics, even though I said I wasn't going to buy anymore until I used what I had (whoops), and came home, cleaned my kitchen, and sewed a shirt.  I winged it with no pattern and it turned out kind of okay. lol  Up until now I had only been making stuff for babies and toddlers.  I'd like to get good enough to make some cute shirts and summer dresses for myself as well.  Dont' mind my awesome lack of makeup, I had already washed my  makeup off for the day after my run (3.1 miles today woot woot!).

I have a lot on my mind lately.  I am feeling a lot of stress and anxiety over my job.  When I was finishing up my Masters degree in 2007, I was so terribly stressed out that I had a lot of medical issues related to stress.  Life settled down a bit (work stress wise) and I have been fine, but now my problems are coming back.  Migraines, stomach problems, insomnia---just waiting now for my shingles to come back! Geesh!

My husband and I have been talking a lot about finding a way for me to be at home with Mimi and work part time from home.  As we delve into the ideas of changing jobs, possibly moving, etc. I can't help but daydream what life could be like if our "plan" really came to be.  Will being home fulltime with Mimi make my stress go away? Will I get a new set of stressors like anxiety over my career (or loss of it), and consequently the guilt over wanting to work out of the home?  Will I constantly be bothered by the fact that my husband supports us? Will I feel like my PhD was a waste of precious time, money, and energy as I stay home raising babies and leaving a giant 5 year gap on my resume?  Am I selfish and a horrible mother for even thinking these things?  See why I can't sleep?

Well in my insomnia, I baked two loaves of bread for us to have with breakfast tomorrow....er...um...today.... Good thing I bought coffee, when Mimi wakes up in 3 hours I'm going to be hurting!  My husband (unlike perfect husbands like Courtney's) does not know what letting your wife sleep in means.   He thinks if he and Mimi are up, they should pounce on me and wake me up too.  Hell, why not let Buddy our 70lb lab on the bed too?  Mommy doesn't need sleep.  Ugh, well atleast my house smells like freshly baked bread right?

My little valentine

My Little Valentine :-)

So Valentine's day is coming.  My husband (and me too mostly) agree that this is a Hallmark Holiday 110%.  But why not have a little fun with it? I'm not expecting roses, chocolates or anything of the like.  I generally don't enjoy flowers because they just die on your kitchen table in a vase, such a waste, and I eat chocolate everyday anyway! My husband and I made this tradition a few years ago of going shoe shopping on Valentine's Day.  We go to the shoe store and don't feel bad splurging on footwear this one day a year.  I'm getting new running shoes and I am SO PSYCHED!

At Mimi's daycare they are having a party and eating red and heart-shaped things all day.  I'm going to make some heart-shaped cookies on a lolipop sticks and send her to daycare in this homemade outfit.  So I've mentioned that I have been sewing a lot right?  Well a lot of the things I sew are going to be gifts for my friends having babies, two of which read my blog, so I don't feature too many of my creations here.  This skirt however was a weekend naptime project that I'm pretty darn proud of.  I found the tutorial on this girl's awesome craft and sewing blog.  She calls it the "Market Skirt."  You'll notice mine had no pockets, which is simply me being too lazy. I thought it looked cute without however.  I made one for Grace's Daughter Dahlia as well.  We're hoping to get some cute photos of the two girls in them this weekend.  Let's hope Florida's crazy weather will be in our favor.  I am hoping to make some green ones for St. Patrick's Day next month.  I have lots of little girls I know that would look darn cute in them!  Mimi's shirt I also made.  It's a $5 shirt from target and I appliqued felt hearts on it that cost $0.29 per sheet.  Altogether, I'd say this outfit costs less than $8, not bad right?

Things in life have been looking up a little.  I'm continuing to train to for my 10K in March.  I am up to 4 miles and plan to run 4.5 miles this Sunday.  Things have work have improved and some changes have occurred.  My husband may have some changes coming up too, we'll see.

I want to give a quick shout out to Kaleb!! Kaleb turned one on February 9!!! Click on over and check out the Pile family's blog to read all about it!

Ugh this video irritates the hell out of me!

Okay, so this woman is putting up a video about why she thinks spanking is wrong.  Dude.

I put a comment on her video explaining that I slap my child on the hand when she is about to do something that harms her, like touching the stove, opening the oven, touching electrical device, etc.  This is the ONLY time I hit my child in any way.  My husband and I both agree that this deters her, and teaches her NOT to touch those things.  Any other time she is acting out or misbehaving, she gets time out, which seems to be working well for now.  Going by what this woman says, I'm abusing my child and not teaching my child anything.  First I'd like to point out that her kid (only kid) is an INFANT.  She claims in another video that we as commenters can't claim that she doesn't know what she's talking about just because she has an infant because she's been a babysitter and worked at a daycare.  Well now sh*t, you should NEVER hit someone else's kid PERIOD.  It's not your job to discipline anyone else's child.  I never once hit a child that I took care of.  She responded to me saying "if you're close enough to hit your child why not just remove her from the situation?"  Great answer from someone who doesn't have a toddler.  Well, because frankly, that doesn't equate with a one year to "don't touch this hot dangerous thing it could hurt you."  MY one year old doesn't have the ability to reason and say "you're right mommy, when I touch this hot thing, it could hurt me really badly, I should just walk away right now."  Let me tell you, I only had to slap her hand once for touching the oven door and she HAS NEVER TOUCHED IT AGAIN.   And of course I tell her "hot no! don't touch" I'm not a friggin idiot, I know how to teach my child wrong from right, but when it is something dangerous I try words first, but sometimes she is too focused on what she is going to do that it's as if she can't even hear me.

I would say I've slapped her hand maybe 3 or 4 times in her life.  I watch this video and the woman's tone is so condescending and judgmental.  She makes her statements such as "by hitting your child you're not teaching" then right after it says "oh, but i'm not saying people who hit their children dont' teach them."  That is like saying "Chocolate is evil, I never eat it, but i'm not saying you're evil if you eat chocolate." UGH, if you're going to put yourself out there and give an opinion, have a backbone and stop saying cover you ass statements afterwards to avoid offending people.  That is so friggin irritating.

You know what, when I was a kid I was hit with a belt when I was bad--I man hard, hard enough to leave a mark.  Looking back on this, I really don't see how hitting me like that taught me anything.  My husband was hit with a wooden spoon when he was a child.  Both of us agree hitting her as a punishment isn't really our preferred way to punish her.  But slapping her on the hand to get her attention about a potentially harmful situation is NOT abuse.

This video really gave me a bad taste in my mouth.  I don't think I'm going to watch this woman's videos anymore.  She is so condescending sometimes.

Mental Health Day

I meant to do this last week--but the week got away with me!

On Wednesday's I'm supposed to take time to work on my dissertation.  It's a "deal" I worked out with my current superviser, where I am allowed to cut back my hours if my work if caught up to this.  UM......who's getting the deal? Because my boss is getting 40 hours of work out of me for the price of 35....anyway. I digress....

So this Wednesday, I woke up at my normal time, had breakfast with Mimi, and instead of throwing on jeans, I threw on gym clothes.  My husband looked at me, as if you say "um, I thought you were going to go work on your dissertation!?" because he knew I was putting my running stuff on.  I said, "yeah i'm going to take a 1/2 mental health day, then go work," he grimaced and left with Mimi.

So my 1/2 mental health/dissertation day turned into a 100% (much needed) mental health day.  To be perfectly honest, i've been a little depressed lately. I'm not talking about being blue and getting over it, I'm talking about laying in bed forcing yourself to get up and face the day.  Sitting at work lifeless hating what you do all day.  The worst part if how if affects my relationship with my husband.  We fought and bickered for an entire week.  I needed a day for myself.

I spent the morning digging my way out of 7 loads of this:

How would doing laundry make me relaxed? Having a messy home KILLS my mood. I can't relax OR be productive in my home when it's like that.  So I tidied and did landry for a few hours.









Then I went to bed bath and beyond to replace my bathroom scale that had broken that morning, because YES I AM A RELIGIOUS WEIGHER. I weigh myself every morning.  I'm not obsessed about my weight, but being aware of changes keeps my diet in check.  I used a coupon, that was expired and they took it anyway.  Thank you Bed Bath and Beyond for being so super cool.  Then I stopped in the bookstore and picked up a book that I have wanted for awhile.   It's called the "Raw Food Detox Diet" however It's more of a lifestyle than a diet.  I've read a bunch of it, and plan to do a separt blog post on this....

I have to point out, the other book, underneath "Running for Women" sits on my nightstand.  When my daughter comes in she points to the cover (photo of women running) and says "Mama!"

God bless you Mimi.  Mama would love to be that lean.  Speaking of running, when I got home, I decided this 1/2 mental health day must become an entire day.  I went running in some warm humid weather.  I did my usually 3.1 miles and LOVED running during the day.  I never really get to run during the day except on weekend.  It was like a gift.  I got home was craving protein.  I made myself a tuna sandwhich on homemade bread and didnt' fret over the mayo because I just burned 400 calories.

It was sooooo good.  I love tuna, but I watch my consumption for a few reasons----1.  I hate the smell of it in my house/office.  2.  It has more mercury than other fish choices  3.  It inevitably if made with mayo (high calorie and fat), and I dont' eat fake or light mayo---if you're going to eat it, just eat the real stuff!

I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, cleaning, prepping dinner then picked my angle up from daycare and spent the rest of the day with her not stressing about anything.  

This day made me wonder what it would be like to be home fulltime again.  Granted, I didn't have my daughter with me, so It's not a true reflection of life at home with baby.  Although, the only thing I did that would have conflicted with having her home was running, and I can run with the jog stroller, I just dont' prefer it.  I look forward to being home with kids more over this next year.  I'm working towards it.