Or is it lost? Because while I am laying comfy in my bed, they cried it out in their cribs tonight. And I feel like a bad mother.
Cheerios all over the living room? Check.
Kitchen/high chairs wet and a mess? Check.
Ben rolled himself all the way under the crib? Check.
Maggie using her new tooth to bite me while nursing? Check.
Grades worked on like I told myself I was going to? Nope.
This post doesn't come with photos. Just frustration. I wish I had done this evening differently. I wish I could have handled this with more grace. But I didn't, the night is over, everyone is alive, and soon, all three of us will be sleeping.
Good night.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Pieces of Me
I have a little catching up to do again, and my Project 365 needs a little inspiration. I would love to get a little more creative with my photos, and not just take pictures of the babies, but come on, they are beautiful babies and I'm a proud Mama. My friend Beth has a lot of neat ideas so far, and I am hoping that since it's only January, my ideas will only improve!
I do feel like what I'm trying to capture is pieces of me. Pieces of my life, pieces of my family. Right now, I feel a little like I'm falling to pieces. Now, this is always the sticky part of blogging where you know part of your audience might not like what you're writing, but it's my blog, and so here it goes.
My Mom left me to go to Florida for three months, and I'm falling apart. It makes me feel and sound like a big whiny baby, but I need my mother. She had been filling a void in my life for company, and was darn useful in helping out around the house. The only way I was surviving before as a somewhat functioning person was with her help. I feel like I can get nothing done when I'm home alone. Coming home from the sitter, getting them dinner, changing diapers up and down the stairs, baths, pajamas, bedtime bottles, all of this is manageable on my own but it takes forever. I have papers to grade that aren't getting graded, blogs to post that aren't getting posted (ha ha) and a million other things. We have these daily chores around here that are about the only thing that we can do. Dishwasher loaded, unloaded, run, every single day. Diapers washed, every few days. Our laundry, baby laundry, piled up. I'm feeling like a failure, and I'm a little bit bitter that all of a sudden I have to do it all on my own.
There. I said it. I HATE having to work, I HATE not having enough time for my family, I HATE my husband's schedule that keeps us each single parenting for half a day, and I HATE that my kids have to be at a sitter's house four days a week now. Last week, I ended up giving the babies a bath because they didn't smell right. I took them out of their car seats and they smelled like someone else's house. It freaked me out and made me sad. I HATE being alone in the house all evening, I HATE my lack of motivation to make any kind of food which leads me to eat cereal all the time, and I HATE feeling like a crybaby because this is my life, and other people would live it just fine.
Vent over. On to picture captions, and then I'm snuggling this baby next to me. Did I mention that on top of all this hate I have inside me right now, I developed mastitis? I'm in pain, I felt incredibly sick on Sunday when it started, my milk supply has dropped in the boob that is infected, and I think it is making me exhausted.
January 9 - Just trying out the new color saturation setting (which I think I hate), just caught a little photo of my DH. You can tell it's a weekend because we're both up in the living room late at night. Most of the time the only time we see each other is when I'm in my pajamas asleep.
January 10 - Andy's brother Matt and his wife Patti are having a baby in March. We can't wait to meet baby Ryan! I am always hung up on how to introduce them - My SIL and BIL? My BIL and his wife? The problem being that everyone is an inlaw since I'm an only child. I have two sets of BIL/SIL combos, and it confuses me every time.
Also on January 10 - we turned 9 months! Holy cow!
January 11 - We have tooth! I was able to get it on camera, you might have to squint, but Maggie has a bottom tooth. I've been pushing for Fang, Andy calls it her chomper.
January 12 - The first time we took a tub bath together! There was much splashing and smiling, they were adorable, and of all the bath methods we have tried, this one really is the easiest for one person alone. I enjoyed it, and we will have better and more frequently bathed babies this way! I tried to get a group photo, but couldn't get their eyes of the toys and the water at the same time. I did however get these adorable individual shots.
January 13 - The only thing I got done on this day. I folded that basket of laundry. Yup, I felt pretty good about it!
January 14 - Every night, my goal is to get the babies to sleep on their own, by about 8:30, 9:00. It would be great if they even made it to their crib, but that rarely happens. This night I had put Maggie in her crib after she passed out with a bottle, but Ben wouldn't go to sleep. He was on the opposite side of the bed, but he rolled himself over and gave me that sweet little grin that means something along the lines of "hey lady, don't you want to cuddle me? See how cute I am?". Could you resist that face? And no, we don't do it every night, and yes, it is probably a horrible sleep habit to avoid, but man, do I love snuggling that boy. It's about the only time all day he will lay still and be happy about being held close.
January 15 - Clearly an exciting week for photos, since all I could think of again for this day was pictures in bed. . .but again, look how cute she is? Maggie is more independent about bedtime, she's not into cuddling most of the time, but is pretty good about falling asleep on her own. She does sometimes have to go to her crib when she gets rowdy and I don't want Ben to wake up, but most of the time CIO only lasts about 4 minutes.
This one made me laugh. Same night. It's 10:23. Do you know where your babies are? Certainly not in their cribs, they were both sound asleep in Mommy's bed.
January 16 - I woke up in complete frustration this morning about the state of our house. It is a disaster area. The problem is that with the daily stuff and the laundry we are constantly doing, the rest of the house gets neglected. We would like to sell our condo soon and move into a real house, and every time I look around and think about trying to bring buyers through our house, I could cry. I have ADD, and tackling big organizational projects are one of my biggest nightmares. It goes something like this: I need to clean off the dining room table. There are things there that do not have a designated place in the house (like mail), or that have landed there because we need to do something with the. I might start putting things away, but end up with more piles that need to go to places that don't exist (like my "I should keep this because someday I might be the kind of person who scrapbooks" pile), or I end up with a new project. Put away those books? Okay. But the books need to be sorted, dusted, or donated. Or read. Once the books are sorted, now I need to reorganize the other books. Oh, and box up the ones that are being donated. And that requires getting a box out of the basement, which reminds me that we need to go through my school stuff in the basement because I need a new hole punch. . .you get the picture. It's like that book, "If you give a mouse a cookie" except I don't get a damn cookie in the end.
So back to the pictures. We thought we could at least clear out the eat in kitchen, rearrange it and photograph it to make it picture worthy for real estate photos. See how nice?
Unfortunately, this is what the rest of the kitchen looked like so we could stage the eating area.
Same day, too cute to leave out. Ben and Maggie enjoying the newly installed baby jail. Ben was, of course, interested in trying to eat the bars. Look how big they look holding on and standing up! They haven't figured out pulling up yet, but we think they are closer and closer every day.
Last one from the 16th, we celebrated my SIL's 30th birthday with her family and ours. I made that cake, and was pretty happy with the results. We stayed late playing board games, and it almost felt like a family party pre-babies when I was able to sit and just play Cranium with the girls. I only had a baby in my lap for about 15 minutes :-)
January 17 - We had our first playdate with a large group on this day. A bunch of girls and kids from my local board got together. This was the only interaction I caught all day, mostly Ben and Maggie just sat on the floor and played with toys and stole them from each other, but this was Maggie talking to Katie. Aw.
January 18 - I think Daddy would be proud of the wrestling moves they appeared to be practicing. We can't leave them too close together now without something like this happening. Most often, it is Ben pulling Maggie over by the back of her shirt. She screams bloody murder and he smiles. Oh boy.
I did get photos for today, but didn't have a chance to upload. I'll try to get another post in soon.
I do feel like what I'm trying to capture is pieces of me. Pieces of my life, pieces of my family. Right now, I feel a little like I'm falling to pieces. Now, this is always the sticky part of blogging where you know part of your audience might not like what you're writing, but it's my blog, and so here it goes.
My Mom left me to go to Florida for three months, and I'm falling apart. It makes me feel and sound like a big whiny baby, but I need my mother. She had been filling a void in my life for company, and was darn useful in helping out around the house. The only way I was surviving before as a somewhat functioning person was with her help. I feel like I can get nothing done when I'm home alone. Coming home from the sitter, getting them dinner, changing diapers up and down the stairs, baths, pajamas, bedtime bottles, all of this is manageable on my own but it takes forever. I have papers to grade that aren't getting graded, blogs to post that aren't getting posted (ha ha) and a million other things. We have these daily chores around here that are about the only thing that we can do. Dishwasher loaded, unloaded, run, every single day. Diapers washed, every few days. Our laundry, baby laundry, piled up. I'm feeling like a failure, and I'm a little bit bitter that all of a sudden I have to do it all on my own.
There. I said it. I HATE having to work, I HATE not having enough time for my family, I HATE my husband's schedule that keeps us each single parenting for half a day, and I HATE that my kids have to be at a sitter's house four days a week now. Last week, I ended up giving the babies a bath because they didn't smell right. I took them out of their car seats and they smelled like someone else's house. It freaked me out and made me sad. I HATE being alone in the house all evening, I HATE my lack of motivation to make any kind of food which leads me to eat cereal all the time, and I HATE feeling like a crybaby because this is my life, and other people would live it just fine.
Vent over. On to picture captions, and then I'm snuggling this baby next to me. Did I mention that on top of all this hate I have inside me right now, I developed mastitis? I'm in pain, I felt incredibly sick on Sunday when it started, my milk supply has dropped in the boob that is infected, and I think it is making me exhausted.
January 9 - Just trying out the new color saturation setting (which I think I hate), just caught a little photo of my DH. You can tell it's a weekend because we're both up in the living room late at night. Most of the time the only time we see each other is when I'm in my pajamas asleep.
January 10 - Andy's brother Matt and his wife Patti are having a baby in March. We can't wait to meet baby Ryan! I am always hung up on how to introduce them - My SIL and BIL? My BIL and his wife? The problem being that everyone is an inlaw since I'm an only child. I have two sets of BIL/SIL combos, and it confuses me every time.
Also on January 10 - we turned 9 months! Holy cow!
January 11 - We have tooth! I was able to get it on camera, you might have to squint, but Maggie has a bottom tooth. I've been pushing for Fang, Andy calls it her chomper.
January 12 - The first time we took a tub bath together! There was much splashing and smiling, they were adorable, and of all the bath methods we have tried, this one really is the easiest for one person alone. I enjoyed it, and we will have better and more frequently bathed babies this way! I tried to get a group photo, but couldn't get their eyes of the toys and the water at the same time. I did however get these adorable individual shots.
January 13 - The only thing I got done on this day. I folded that basket of laundry. Yup, I felt pretty good about it!
January 14 - Every night, my goal is to get the babies to sleep on their own, by about 8:30, 9:00. It would be great if they even made it to their crib, but that rarely happens. This night I had put Maggie in her crib after she passed out with a bottle, but Ben wouldn't go to sleep. He was on the opposite side of the bed, but he rolled himself over and gave me that sweet little grin that means something along the lines of "hey lady, don't you want to cuddle me? See how cute I am?". Could you resist that face? And no, we don't do it every night, and yes, it is probably a horrible sleep habit to avoid, but man, do I love snuggling that boy. It's about the only time all day he will lay still and be happy about being held close.
January 15 - Clearly an exciting week for photos, since all I could think of again for this day was pictures in bed. . .but again, look how cute she is? Maggie is more independent about bedtime, she's not into cuddling most of the time, but is pretty good about falling asleep on her own. She does sometimes have to go to her crib when she gets rowdy and I don't want Ben to wake up, but most of the time CIO only lasts about 4 minutes.
This one made me laugh. Same night. It's 10:23. Do you know where your babies are? Certainly not in their cribs, they were both sound asleep in Mommy's bed.
January 16 - I woke up in complete frustration this morning about the state of our house. It is a disaster area. The problem is that with the daily stuff and the laundry we are constantly doing, the rest of the house gets neglected. We would like to sell our condo soon and move into a real house, and every time I look around and think about trying to bring buyers through our house, I could cry. I have ADD, and tackling big organizational projects are one of my biggest nightmares. It goes something like this: I need to clean off the dining room table. There are things there that do not have a designated place in the house (like mail), or that have landed there because we need to do something with the. I might start putting things away, but end up with more piles that need to go to places that don't exist (like my "I should keep this because someday I might be the kind of person who scrapbooks" pile), or I end up with a new project. Put away those books? Okay. But the books need to be sorted, dusted, or donated. Or read. Once the books are sorted, now I need to reorganize the other books. Oh, and box up the ones that are being donated. And that requires getting a box out of the basement, which reminds me that we need to go through my school stuff in the basement because I need a new hole punch. . .you get the picture. It's like that book, "If you give a mouse a cookie" except I don't get a damn cookie in the end.
So back to the pictures. We thought we could at least clear out the eat in kitchen, rearrange it and photograph it to make it picture worthy for real estate photos. See how nice?
Unfortunately, this is what the rest of the kitchen looked like so we could stage the eating area.
Same day, too cute to leave out. Ben and Maggie enjoying the newly installed baby jail. Ben was, of course, interested in trying to eat the bars. Look how big they look holding on and standing up! They haven't figured out pulling up yet, but we think they are closer and closer every day.
Last one from the 16th, we celebrated my SIL's 30th birthday with her family and ours. I made that cake, and was pretty happy with the results. We stayed late playing board games, and it almost felt like a family party pre-babies when I was able to sit and just play Cranium with the girls. I only had a baby in my lap for about 15 minutes :-)
January 17 - We had our first playdate with a large group on this day. A bunch of girls and kids from my local board got together. This was the only interaction I caught all day, mostly Ben and Maggie just sat on the floor and played with toys and stole them from each other, but this was Maggie talking to Katie. Aw.
January 18 - I think Daddy would be proud of the wrestling moves they appeared to be practicing. We can't leave them too close together now without something like this happening. Most often, it is Ben pulling Maggie over by the back of her shirt. She screams bloody murder and he smiles. Oh boy.
I did get photos for today, but didn't have a chance to upload. I'll try to get another post in soon.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Project 365 - Week One
So, while I really did intend to blow the blogging world away by posting more than once this week, eh, at least I did my part and took my daily photos, and am posting them in a weekly fashion as promised. Go me!
January 2nd - we met with Andy's family from Indiana for another Christmas get together. In typical fashion, we had to stop at Giant Eagle on the way to get Christmas presents for Andy's little cousins. This is typical, we are the people who buy cards on our way to the party, presents for the wedding the night before. Someday maybe we will get organized!
I wanted to include this one too, it is rare that I am actually IN the pictures, and I thought this was an adorable picture of me with my girl. Her mainly with the adorable. And look, aw, we match!
January 3 - This year's Christmas tree. It was beautiful. It is coming down tomorrow, and it always makes me sad. I love the look of the house with the sparkly happy Christmas tree. We went this year to try to cut down our own but it was dark. We picked this one out on faith and the recommendation of the nice guy at the farm. Prettiest tree I've ever had.
January 2nd - we met with Andy's family from Indiana for another Christmas get together. In typical fashion, we had to stop at Giant Eagle on the way to get Christmas presents for Andy's little cousins. This is typical, we are the people who buy cards on our way to the party, presents for the wedding the night before. Someday maybe we will get organized!
I wanted to include this one too, it is rare that I am actually IN the pictures, and I thought this was an adorable picture of me with my girl. Her mainly with the adorable. And look, aw, we match!
January 3 - This year's Christmas tree. It was beautiful. It is coming down tomorrow, and it always makes me sad. I love the look of the house with the sparkly happy Christmas tree. We went this year to try to cut down our own but it was dark. We picked this one out on faith and the recommendation of the nice guy at the farm. Prettiest tree I've ever had.
January 4 - First day back to school, of course I accidentally woke up Maggie when I went in to say goodbye. I have to leave work by 7 every morning. Andy and the babies don't get up until around 8:30 or so. I usually pick them up, snuggle them and smell them on my way out the door. Sometimes I wake one of them up. It's usually not a big deal. This morning, Maggie was a happy little thing, smiling, kicking. Andy on the other hand was a little sleepy. They walked me out and I got to smooch on my little girl before what was a tough day back to school. Have I ever mentioned here how much I would rather be home with my babies?
January 5 - Coming home everyday used to mean two smiling happy babies. They are usually ridiculously happy to see me when I get home. At some point, it changed to Ben being happy and smiley, and Maggie crying and screaming until I pick her up. It's sweet really. 
January 6 - Nothing much to say here except boy do I love this boy, and boy do I love this hat! It's a toddler size, hopefully it will fit awhile. My boy has a big head. 
January 7 - Merry Chistmas again! My grandpa was Russian (or maybe Ukranian, but that is a different story all together. He is one of the greatest people I've ever known, and I am honored that he was my Grandpa. You see, I didn't know it until I was 10 or 11, but my Grandpa wasn't really my grandpa. Which brings me back to a story about one of the other greatest people in this world - my Grandma.
January 6 - Nothing much to say here except boy do I love this boy, and boy do I love this hat! It's a toddler size, hopefully it will fit awhile. My boy has a big head. 
January 7 - Merry Chistmas again! My grandpa was Russian (or maybe Ukranian, but that is a different story all together. He is one of the greatest people I've ever known, and I am honored that he was my Grandpa. You see, I didn't know it until I was 10 or 11, but my Grandpa wasn't really my grandpa. Which brings me back to a story about one of the other greatest people in this world - my Grandma. My Grandma K is now 90 years old, and a truly remarkable woman. She had been married to a man who joined the Naval airforce. She followed him around the country, driving, taking trains to where he was stationed. At some point during their travels, she got pregnant with my mother. And at some point while she was pregnant, his plane was shot down, and he was never found. My grandmother says that at that point, when she found out, she wanted to die, and she didn't want the baby. But in the way of strong women, she went on. She survived being raised by her grandparents because her parents were alcoholics, her brother was in a POW camp in Germany, and she lost her husband while pregnant with their first child. Her brother came home, my mother was born, and a couple of years later, she met my Grandpa.
My Grandpa called me Little Bit, and us his girls. He told stories, drank alot of coffee and was in the First Special Service Force in WWII. By all accounts, he should have died in the war too, but he was convinced, as am I, that God had meant for him to meet my Grandmother and her little girl so he could take care of them. My Grandmother says that the only reason he married her was because of my mother. He adopted her, had her take his name, and by all accounts couldn't have loved her more if she had been his own. They called him the Mad Russian on the Force. He might have been crazy, but everything he ever did was for his family. He was the one you could call to come over and fix anything in your house, and I think he kept my mother and my grandmother calm. He was their protector, and their champion, and became mine as well.
He died when I was 17, and I still think of him and miss him almost everyday. I have this theory on my own personal angels in Heaven, and he is the one who I talk to the most when I need them. It's silly, really, but I know he is still watching over us. I still credit him when I find lost stuff, and I can still hear his voice when I am sad. He watched over my grandmother too, and I have to tell this story now even though this entry is going to get long.
The spirit of my grandfather lived in a lightbulb at my grandmother's house. Now that sounds crazy right? Grandma has a lamp in her living room that she always used to leave on when they were out to have a little light when they came home. After my grandfather died, she left it on all the time so she wouldn't be in a dark house by herself. It stayed on for years. 11 years. I'm not kidding. For 11 years, the light in her living room stayed lit without having to replace the bulb. It went out twice. The first time was when my grandmother was on her first trip without him and having a hard time. The second time was when my college boyfriend (who I had dumped) kept me up one night with him because he told me he was going to kill himself. The light was out that night at my grandmothers, but went on again the next day. It finally gave out, a couple of years ago. We kept the lightbulb.
Anyway, back to January 7. My grandmother has a dinner every year where we celebrate "Russian Christmas" in honor of my Grandpa. None of the rest of us are remotely Russian, but we celebrate anyway. Here is Maggie with her Grandpa. I only hope she has the kinds of memories of him that I have of mine. Oh, and the photo? She fell asleep while eating. Yogurt. That has never happened before! 
And today? January 8. Snow Day! Thank the good Lord! 
And today? January 8. Snow Day! Thank the good Lord! 
Really today, I would have loved to get a shot of our big news. . .Maggie has a tooth! But I'm not really sure how to get a picture of it. Maybe I'll try tomorrow.
Friday, January 1, 2010
So long 2009
I was glad to know you. It's weird to look back and think of last year. Good and bad things. Scratch that. Amazing and wonderful things, everyday ordinary things, fun things, priceless things, miraculous things, mundane things, hurtful things, tough things, little things, big things, perfect things, beautiful things, sad things, happy things, depressing things, exhilirating things, joyful things, heartbreaking things.
The year passed really in a blur.
From January and February where I dragged myself exhausted back and forth to work, March where I was medically told to sit around on my butt and watch more tv, April where we started as two people who loved each other and turned into two people who had created the two coolest and cutest little things in the world, May, June, July treading water, August where I miserably went back to work, September, October, November, routine and Andy working nights, and December where we ran around like crazy and made Christmas memories. While I would say this year went by fast, it didn't always. Nights crawled by when we were sitting up with babies, time moves slowly on nights when I'm home alone. We watched our little ones grow and change and learn amazing things, like sitting, and smiling and breathing. Andy learned how to change a diaper (and he said it wouldn't happen), I learned how to cut baby fingernails. We learned just how Maggie likes to be held, how Ben likes to bounce. We learned how to be parents, how to work as a team. It no longer takes us two hours to get out the door. We took approximately 6,000 photos.
I have had years that I would like to forget, years where the new year brings a promise of hope and I've felt optimistic that things will be better. The only thing I can think of that will make 2010 better than 2009?
4 more months of this.
I'm going to make an effort to complete a Project 365 this year. Project 365 is where you take a picture every day of something that is going on in your life and post it in your blog. I don't know if I can commit to the daily blogging (I'm going to shoot for weekly though!) but I'm going to try to take a picture every day. It's a chance to work on my photography skills, and a documentation of our life. We'll give it a go and see what happens. Above is my first entry. It's a crappy photo, but a happy moment. And hey, at least the dog is looking at the camera.
I'm going to make an effort to complete a Project 365 this year. Project 365 is where you take a picture every day of something that is going on in your life and post it in your blog. I don't know if I can commit to the daily blogging (I'm going to shoot for weekly though!) but I'm going to try to take a picture every day. It's a chance to work on my photography skills, and a documentation of our life. We'll give it a go and see what happens. Above is my first entry. It's a crappy photo, but a happy moment. And hey, at least the dog is looking at the camera. 2010. What a year it is going to be.
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