What's Currently Happening

This morning my friend shared with me it was just one of those mornings for her where she just wanted to yell "Shut the f*** up!" to her kids. I think any parent has had those mornings, afternoons, and evenings. I laughed and did the parent to parent shrug and nod expressing my understanding and sympathy.

My morning didn't start out as bad as hers. My morning was pretty normal with Babycake waking around 6:45, me stumbling to get her a sippy of warm milk with her allergy meds mixed in and then falling back into bed while she happily sings and drinks in her room. Then we did the usual breakfast, potty, dress routine and a little added bonus of me forgetting I needed to put the car seat cover back on after being washed from a pee soak. We then rushed out the door in order to make it to the Y in time for my exercise class. Rushing seems to be pretty normal for us. Something is always forgotten or misplaced and setting us back a couple minutes. In the end, we were early and I got to hear my friend expressed her frustration.

Class went well. Babycake and I had a great lunch play date with friends. Babycake had a good nap followed by a fun time in gymnastics and there was no major meltdown before or during dinner. We had a really good Skype chat with the hubs and Babycake went down for the night without too much fuss. So why do I feel so blah? Really the day, if typical, leans towards a pretty good day. Having a toddler means that by definition there will be tantrums and tears most days and today was no exception, but also not extreme.

Maybe I'm just exhausted, physically, mentally, emotionally. I wouldn't say I'm mad. I don't feel sad. I feel frustrated, but can't pinpoint why or what I'm frustrated about. Hubby has been out of town for a week and a half now. Babycake and I got to visit with him and some family for a 3 day weekend; but in all honesty traveling with a kid is not relaxing, not to mention I was not feeling well before we even got there.

We've had a leak from our roof to down inside our bedroom wall for months now, that we attempted to fix. However yesterday I had a roofer come to actually fix it, only to have it rain all day today and the problem is still here. With all the raining, our driveway is flooding again, meaning I will most likely wake to a flooded garage despite my setting up the sump pump outside and in our crawl space.

Also, I want to move. I'm done with this house. I want to live in a nice neighborhood with side walks and not on a busy street. To get our house ready to sell, we REALLY have to get new kitchen cabinets. Lucky for us the in-laws are getting rid of their basement kitchen to make room for a wine cellar.

Now, here's the fun time line part. We leave with the in-laws for Europe in June. Same time, we start renting our spare bedroom to a family friend in town for a summer internship. I want the kitchen done before then. Hubby doesn't come home to stay for another week and half. Yes, he is coming home this weekend b/c for my Valentine he got us concert tickets for Sat. Next weekend when he is officially back home, family are coming to town for the Indy 500. The next weekend we have 2 b-day parties, but we could definitely get more work in then, than the time we have in closer coming weekends; but that is the weekend before we leave for our trip. So... What to do... I don't know.

All I know, at 11pm, is that I am over being a single parent. I need a break. The time Babycake was watched by her grandparents and aunt this weekend does not count in my book as I was attempting to regain good health. I'm simply tired of being sick. I'm tired parenting on my own. I'm tired of trying to make schedules and plans work. I'm tired of living in this house. I'm tired. I'm going to bed.

My Thoughtful Mother's Day Gifts

Hubby and I will be celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary this July. In October we will celebrate being together for 10 years. If you've been with someone special for a long time, it can be hard to come up with a new and thoughtful gift. For the last few years hubby has simply bought all my gifts. It's not that I haven't wanted or needed  the gifts he gets me, but they are always on my wish list and I know that's what I'm getting. It has been multiple years since I was surprised by a gift he came up with all on his own for me. This Mother's Day though I was pleasantly surprised by my gifts.

My gifts consisted of a full body sport foam roller from hubby and Babycake (which was number one on my wish list), a hand made card from Babycake, and a rose from my dad.






Now, Babycake is two, so there is no way she could have drawn that lion, painted it's mane, and come up with it's cute little phrase "Mom you're great and I'm not lion." Of course hubby helped her. He informed me that he went on Pinterest (yay!) to find something I would enjoy and he and Babycake could make for me.



He said he got all the supplies out, went in another room to check something, and came back to Babycake working away on the masterpiece shown on the inside of the card. There was no instruction needed there!


What thoughtful and heart warming gifts! I feel so special. I hope moms everywhere felt special this Mother's Day too.

Letter Weeks Dd and Ee

Well I'm proud to say that I was able to keep my promise of continuing the Letter of the Week Lessons with Babycake. This was a great feat for me as the last two weeks all I've wanted to do was curl up and hide under the covers thanks to allergies. Here are the crafts and activities we did for each week.






For Dd week we made a duck with a lower case d, a dinosaur with a capital D, a door from a capital D, and we colored a dog.

For Ee week we made an egg that cracks open and has a lower case e. Then we made a capital E out of envelopes. We made an elephant from paper plates, and then we colored some ears we could wear by putting them on a headband. We also played "eye spy."

This World is Literally Killing Me

While growing up I was always coughing, not like a little cough, but a deep bronchial cough that earned me second glances from those nearby. I remember my parents taking me to the doctor's office and trying to convince them I had asthma and I needed to be treated. I don't have asthma and didn't get treated for it. However, I didn't get treated for anything. I don't know if the doctor only looked for asthma or what but I was never diagnosed with anything for my horrendous cough.

I have memories of years upon years of dosing myself with cold medicine to try to relieve my cough and nasal congestion (any ideas yet what the cause could be?) I almost always claimed the family humidifier at the beginning of fall and kept it through spring. When I went to college I kept the same routine, cold meds and my very own humidifier.

It wasn't until I was 23 years old, and practically on my death bed that I drug myself out of bed and drove myself to a med clinic (not the wisest choice when your vision is a bit blurry). It was there that I was told for the first time I had allergies, that they looked pretty bad, and b/c my immune system was so focused on the allergies it wasn't defending well, and had I waited another 24 hrs to come in she most likely would have hospitalized me with pneumonia.

Hu. Allergies. Who'd have though!

I never considered allergies to be my issue b/c I didn't have the itchy/watery eyes, runny nose, or itchy throat. I had a horrendous cough and congestion/ sinus pressure all over my face. The allergy commercials don't talk about that. (ok, now they do, but 4+ years ago they didn't)

Anyway, I was told to go buy some allergy medication with the D on it. "Remember the D. That's important otherwise it won't do anything for you" said my saving grace doctor. It was amazing how much better I felt just 24 hrs later.

That was about 4 years ago. I've switched meds about three times since b/c I become immune to them. So I looked into what allergy shots do. Did you know that within 2-5 years of taking allergy shots 90% of people no longer need to take medicine to control their allergies? Um.... Sign me up!

I made an appointment and was told I had to stop taking my allergy medication a week before the testing to get accurate results. Let me just say. I have been miserable and useless for the last 4 days, and yesterday was my test day. The appointment took 3 hrs. Two years ago I would have been annoyed with a three hr appointment. Now? Nope. It was three hours free of responsibility of Babycake. She got to go play with her friends and had a blast and I got to sit and catch up on reading in the doctor's office.

For the testing, they did 69 scratch tests on my back. I reacted to 57 of them. Because I reacted to so many, the doctor wanted to be sure my skin wasn't overly sensitive and that I wasn't actually allergic to everything. So 20 mins later I received 10 shots on my arms. 20 mins after that it was confirmed that yes, I am allergic to everything.

They then did the run through of what I need to do to care for myself. No mowing the lawn, if I'm near someone mowing the lawn windows are to be closed and if I'm outside I need to wear a mask. My cat can no longer sleep in our room (yeah like I could get that to happen. Anyone know of a good home w no kids we can give her to?) The list seemed to go on and on, in the end it was a lot of washing, dusting, cleaning and avoiding I was told I needed to do.

Now I don't have a filthy home. I dust at least once a week and clean regularly. But I don't think the people at the doctor's office realize how impossible it is to have a pristine home with a toddler. There just isn't time to do it all. Also my husband is out of town for work for the next three weeks, so I'm the one left to mow the lawn. Maybe I'll mow while everyone is at work so they won't see the ridiculous mask.

In the end I left the office with five prescriptions and a promise that in a couple weeks I can begin receiving my allergy shots. I'm still feeling crummy 24 hrs after the appointment, but I can tell the meds are doing something b/c it's not as horrible as yesterday. I guess this is what I get for living in the Midwest. Maybe we should move to AZ.

An adventurous Day

Hubby got to join Babycake and I at gymnastics today. We heard that there was horrendous traffic so we left a half hour early. That however was not enough. We spent an hour finding new routes to get to class at our local YMCA. We arrived a half hour late but we still got about 15 mins of tumbling and pictures in. 

Practicing sideways walking on the balance mat.

Spidergirl spidergirl no one climbs like spidergirl!

Babycake did great for coming in so late to class. She really loves tumbling and running around. She caught on fairly quickly to the new stations set around to practice on.




She still needed me to hold her hand through about half the stations but I'm sure she would have mastered them and left me in the dust had she had the whole class time to practice them. Hubby and I are so proud of her and swell with pride  when we see her beam with joy when she completes a task.

Once class was over, coloring pages handed out, and hands were stamped with doggies and ponies, we headed out. Only when we got to the doors, we saw even more cars lined the road outside. We found out traffic was due to an overturned semi covering both southbound lanes on the highway. For some reason the northbound lanes were closed as well. So we decided to stay at the Y and let Babycake play in the indoor playground another 30 mins. We then grabbed some juice and chips for her afternoon snack to enjoy on the ride home and headed out.

Again we spent an hour detouring multiple roads in attempt to get home. Finally, at five miles from home I called it. "We're having McDonalds for dinner." We pulled over, ordered dinner, attempted to convince Babycake to eat, and then enjoyed watching her climb the mountainous playplace. Fifteen minutes into her play Babycake climbs out whispering "poopy." One of the few words no parent wants to hear their potty training child say in a play area. Especially, when we had been in such a rush to beat the traffic that we forgot to grab her bag of extra clothes on the way out of the house 3 hours ago. So I grab her and rush to the restroom trying to convince myself that what she was meaning was that she needs to poop and not that she had just done the deed in her only pair of pants we had available. (insert sad/evil laugh only parents know how to make) Why was I trying to kid myself?

Needless to say hubby's first gymnastics day was an adventurous one; ending with our poop cover, peed soaked, tired toddler crying that it was her turn to latch the car seat buckles when we climbed back into the car for a 5 min ride home. I'm not sure he'll want to go again.  ;-)

Babycake's Favorite Author

When I was pregnant and registering for all the new baby items we would be needing, I was thrilled to be able to register for some of my favorite books while growing up. The list of course included The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?

Well we didn't get all the books we registered for but I was very pleased to receive Eric Carle's Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? slide and revile board book. I was also happy when this became Babycake's favorite book, and stayed her favorite for over a year. I credit her quick learning of animals and colors to our constant reading of this book.

Recently we celebrated Babycake's 2nd birthday and she received Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar board book as a gift from a friend, as well as E.C's Head to Toe board book and some Curious George books. Babycake still loves her Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? but that has been replaced with The Very Hungry Caterpillar for number one must read every nap time, bed time, and any other reading time.

Babycake does loves to do all the moves the animals do in Head to Toe. She laughs while shrugging her shoulders like a buffalo, thumping her chest like a gorilla, and kicking like a donkey. We have a few other Eric Carle books and she enjoys them all.

Babycake is a huge Curious George fan so we also enjoy all of our Curious George books. I personally have found our Sandra Boynton books to be the most entertaining for me. Boynton does a great job making the stories fun and educational for the child while humorous for the adult as well. We are so thankful to all our family and friends who have filled our library with these wonderful stories.

If you've got a little one I highly suggest these authors. They're entertaining for both parent and child. Win-win!

Letter of the Week Lesson Update

It's been a while since I've posted anything on this blog and even longer since I did my exciting new lessons with Babycake. As with most projects it was exciting and new and fun at the beginning, but then we had an irregular week, Babycake stayed out of town with grandparents, and life got busy. So I let my plans slide for a bit, and then a while, and now its been over a month,.. actually I really don't know what week it was that we last had planned/structured activities.

Of course we still read regularly, sing the ABC's and practice counting throughout our days, but it was so fun when we did a lesson everyday that related to a subject that continued to pop up throughout the week. I could really see the connections being made and the swiftness with which Babycake would learn a new letter. So I've committed to getting back on track. I've already made plans all the way through week Ii and we are only starting back up with Dd. (I obviously got far with this new phase) Wish us luck this time around lasts longer!

Finished crafts/activities from Weeks Bb and Cc.

Bat, Banana tree, Bumble Bee,
Butterfly, and Bus

Cast mask, Curious George,
and Caterpillar

Cc Week Cat masks with friends...
in a big box b/c big boxes are the most fun for cats and kids.