Blogging at naptime.

Dear Emma's nap time,     I hope you remember me.  It's been days now since we've encountered each other, and quite honestly I miss you more than I can express.  I'm composing this letter to you against a recurring symphony of "MAMA!!!"'s in ascending and descending tones coming from the other room, a painful reminder of our separation.    Side-note: the symphony took a brief pause when a small glowing technological entertainment device was presented to the conductor by a deranged audience member with unwashed hair and cozy pants as she attempted to hide what could be considered an "unhealthy" piece of leftover pumpkin pie in her right cheek...   Back to us.  I guess three and a half years is a pretty good run.  We were good for each other.  I gave you an angelic unconscious child covered in love and peace and a "Frozen" quilt from Target's Black Friday Sale.  And you gave me the most wonderful gift of all.   Alon...

I've decided to title all of my blogs after One Direction songs from now on. As a 35 year old woman, I feel like this is a really wise step for me. I dedicate this blog entry to every boy band, and also to my lovely friend Jess who refuses to join Facebook and instead insists that I blog about my life instead of just seeing how many "likes" I can get on pictures of my homemade vegan, dairy free, gluten free, nut free, sugar free, carrageenan free scones. I have deemed this past week for my family the "Week of Isolation." It all started when my husband and I had the crazy idea to try to get away for our first kid free overnighter. Who does that??? We don't. Because when we try, our son wakes up sounding like a seal. Not this one.  This one. The Doctor heard one bark and immediately said "Yep, that's croup." Thus validating every webmd.com search I have ever completed in my life. In the end we did take the adorable tiny hum...

I turned 35 today.  It's easier to type that out than write it down on paper.  I just feel as if what I equate this elusive "35" to be is so far from where I am.  I am partly a grown up now I suppose because I go grocery shopping, I've been driving for almost 20 (!!!!) years, I just became physically ill while typing that last portion, and I have tiny people that call me "Mama" and demand that I put their needs ahead of my own (for the most part). I had envisioned waking up rested and refreshed this morning to greet the new number I am privileged to wear.  Instead, I found myself quite awake and in tears at 4:15 am because my husband's kind plan to give me the night off was met with deafening protests from a teething one year old.  It was a chance to catch up on my East Coast early morning birthday wishes on Facebook however, so there's the bright side. Sidenote, sometimes, I just throw commas into my paragraphs somewhat randomly because I'm ...

It's 10:30 at night.  My children have been silent for at least an hour now.  I normally pride myself on being someone who never complains about the heat in WA, but when it makes the tiny people I live with unable to sleep well, I take some issue. Since I can't bring myself to be creative on two separate social media outlets, here's a little glimpse at my earlier Facebook status which prompted this fancy blog entry on this super high tech site with the ridiculously long name... "There is nothing sweeter than the sound of a tiny voice saying "Mama." Unless of course it is at full volume, from behind a bedroom door, competing with the screams of a 9.5 month old in a separate room, for the entirety of what should have been an afternoon nap.  In the above case, it can be likened to the sound of screeching metal, cats in heat, booming fireworks that awaken your children at night, and of course the merciless death of a mother's dream of being alone ...

Dear sweet baby Ben, I don't know if you'll have a chance to check your Facebook today, so I wanted to give you some advance notice that tomorrow is the day they told us we should be expecting you.  Now, they do sort of arbitrarily hand out these dates to future mothers, getting our expectations up likely beyond what they should be. But just in case you are thinking about making an appearance in the next 24-48 hours, I wanted to present some reasons that could reinforce your very wise, well-made decision. The first reason could be classified as a bit "selfish" on my part I suppose. I'm just really so completely ready to not be pregnant anymore. Don't get me wrong, I have considered it a tremendous privilege to carry your sweet little self in my belly for all these many, many, maaaany weeks now.  It is truly a miracle, one that makes it difficult for me to understand how anyone can carry a human life inside of them and not fully believe that there is a ...

I'm a firm believer in not cluttering a blog with posts written within a year or less of each other.  Yearly blogging is what keeps the people coming back.  They call this writing element " Suspense. " Or "raising a tiny human with no leftover energy to blog."  Either way. I tried to Tweet for a while there but I can't seem to work well within the restraints of 140 characters.  I'm an internal processor who likes to process via writing, so my hashtags alone end up exceeding the character limit.  #dontlimitmetwitter #howdoesmileycyrusdoit I will share one of my most recent Tweets however, because it just deserves that kind of public exposure. "Your eyebrows look really nice, they've really grown in!"   #stuffmymomsays #thankyou? Since my last installment here, approximately 18 months ago, I've gotten some sleep, watched my baby turn into a delightful toddler, and decided to bake another kid inside of me who I hope to unveil to ...

"God loves a lullaby in a mother's tears in the dead of night, better than a Hallelujah sometimes.." - Amy Grant I remember when a friend half-jokingly reminded me of this lyric when I was having long nights with Emma in the early days.  Well, those days are back courtesy of my currently least favorite 6 letter word Eczema (my formerly least favorite 6 letter word was of course Monday ).  I have a suspicion that Emma really understands and appreciates the benefits of sleep.  We've had some great nights when she hasn't been struggling with stomach issues or itchy skin issues.  But recently we've had some terrible nights due to the latter.  I feel like a bit of a wimp because I know that it could be worse and that mothers around the world go through difficult seasons with their kids, but after being up from 11pm to 1:30am last night with Emma and then attempting to settle my mind into sleep, I started mentally composing this blog entry.  I have ...