Girlymama

1. Gain less then 10 pounds. (As I am cursing fancythis for dropping off a big ol’ bag of peanut butter balls and chocolate covered pretzels on Sunday night. I will get you back, my friend.)

2. Finally… finally… decide on paint colors for the master bedroom and bath. We have only lived here for over 2 years, after all, and it is high time to finish things up. I may be turning to ya’ll for help, cause I’m stumped.

3. Exercise. See Goal #1.

4. Clean out the floor of my closet by finishing up my Christmas returns (including the gifts I am returning because I forgot to give them to people. Duh!!) and making a Goodwill run.

5. Spend 1 hour playing with my kids every day. Not absentmindedly helping with a puzzle while talking on the phone, but really engaging and interacting with them.

I got this cookbook for Christmas:
Deceptively Delicious, by Jessica Seinfeld
I was so excited. I really like feeding my kids healthy food, so I was super pumped to get a bunch of recipes that would share “Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food.”

Not. What. I. Thought.

Every recipe calls for some type of pureed fruit or vegetable. As in brownees made with pureed beets or chicken fingers with pureed cauliflower in them.
What??
Firstly, who has time to cook and basically make baby food from scratch to add to the food you’re already cooking?
Secondly, what about that is “simple?”
Thirdly, how is this “teaching my kids to eat good food”? This is hiding good food in food that looks like ‘bad’ food. Wouldn’t it be much, much healthier for them to keep eating the salads they love rather than sneaking beets and yams into desserts? Wouldn’t that teach them that they like desserts rather than the ‘good’ food that is hidden in the dessert? And isn’t this doing the opposite of teaching my kids healthy eating habits for life, by getting them used to having healthy food disguised as bad food?

Anyway, I am highly disappointed and will be returning this cookbook for something I will actually use. Like maybe this one…

I would pay good money to be able to crawl back into bed this morning. And stay there all day.

Instead of going out in the cold to do the 27 things on my to-do  list….

Do you ever look at your planner and think, “Well, we can’t do anything else this week because there is no more space to write anything.”

And its only the first full week in January! Oh dear.

So my 18-month-old niece is visiting this weekend. And someone in our household is having major jealousy fits.

Grace is being such a brat! She is throwing a fit about anything and everything Emma touches.  If Emma has it, she immediately wants it. Regardless of it being a baby toy that Grace has totally ignored for the last two years… its hers and she wants it back now. Oh, the whining and the tears. And you can only imagine what happens if Mommy or Daddy attempts to play with Emma. Land sakes alive, you’d think Grace had been abandoned in a Wal-Mart in Oklahoma for all the abandonment issues she apparently has developed overnight.

I think someone in our family is going to have some major readjustment to do when her little baby brother arrives in a couple months!

I am proud to say that I have lost 2 pounds since I have been home. This brings my monthly weight gain down to 8 pounds, which for some reason I feel much better about. I feel less guilty then when I could say I  gained ten. Single digits sound better.

I decided that my best weapon against gained excessive pregnancy weight is to stay away from my family. Every time my mom or sisters went to any store they would come back with bags of Chex Mix. Which I absolutely LOVE and cannot resist. (Including when they went to Sam’s. And, let me tell you, that is one heck of a big bag of Chex Mix. Which I totally ate.) Nevermind that my mom kept baking cookies day in and day out.
Then my husband goes to Switzerland. What does he bring home? A watch? No. This:

What am I made of? Stone??  I’m only human!! And a very hormonal human, at that! Next time he’d better bring me a watch. Or at least something I can’t eat.

If I could just stay away from my family – who seems determined to get me to gain at least 80 pounds with this pregnancy – I’d be fine.

Yesterday I cleaned the house. For almost five hours. There was not “organizing” or anything involved. Just cleaning. Our house was thatdirty.  I hadn’t given the house a good clean since before we left for India, so things were looking very sorry. Plus, my mother-in-law was coming to visit this weekend, so serious cleaning was called for.  I think I spent a hour on my knees just scrubbing the general vicinity of the kitchen table.
I know that sounds very OCD, but you have to understand that my kids are very fond of dropping their milk. Not spilling their milk. Dropping. So that there is a milk explosion all over the walls, floor, chairs, underside of the table, curtains, light fixtures, and – often – everyone sitting at the table at the time. (This is guaranteed to put Mommy in a very good mood, as you might imagine.)

So, anyway, we’re ready for our house guests this weekend. And  my kids are determined to get us un-ready. Do they have radar? They seem determined to make our house as messy as possible before everyone arrives. Seriously. I came upstairs and they had unmade the guest bed and dumped all the bedding into the pack-n-play that is set up for my niece. Then they somehow moved the mattress in front of the door so that I couldn’t get into the room. Then they took out every toy they could find and lined them up around the room, like a gigantic toy snake.Then they emptied the dresser drawers onto the floor. SERIOUSLY. This all happened while I was putting away the groceries.   (15 minutes, max)
I think they are plotting ways to put me into labor. Or ways to make my head explode. All of my resolutions about “watching my words” and “being gentle” with my kids are being seriously tested.
Anyway…. I’m off to pick up my SIL and niece at the airport. She is traveling all the way from Minnesota with an 30-pound, active 18-month-old in her lap, so she will probably be needing a nap when she gets here. Or a stiff drink. Maybe both.

Just about every blog I read has been talking about New Years resolutions.

I don’t really have any right now. Or the mental energy to think of any. The last 48 hours have been spent watching my life flash before my eyes, as husband got asked on Monday to take on a new (humongo) account at work that is going to involve lots of hours and lots of extra traveling. (He’s had this new job one day and he’s already scheduled to be gone almost every weekday of January and every weekend in February…)
So our next year sounds like it will be very busy and very crazy as he takes on this new position. I’m really, really excited for him since this is a tremendous opportunity for him/us and I need to help him out by letting him do what he needs to do.  So I guess that’s my resolution. To support Husband in this new endeavor. And entertain you all with my adventures in single parenting. And when he is done, to thoroughly enjoy the gazillion airline miles and hotel points he will rack up with one doozy of a vacation 😉

Ironically, we had just been talking about how we were both itching for a change. A move*, new job, something out of the ordinary to shake things up around here. We’ve lived here for 7 years, which seems very long to both of us, and we are just feeling restless.
Lesson: Be careful what you wish for. Because 18 hours later your boss could call you and turn your work life upside down by giving you exactly what you asked for!

*We’re not moving. We think. Possibly short term. Eventually. But probably not. Clearly, we are still confused by all of this.

1. being back in our house after being gone for almost a month.

2. feeling my baby kick. Most of the time 😉

3. that there are no longer Christmas cookies in my immediate vicinity.

4. coffee. What is possibly better than coffee when its so super cold out? Yummm… I’m going to go get another cup right now

5. Peppermint Mocha Coffeemate. My holiday indulgence. Along with cookies.

6.  getting organized for the new year. I have a serious addiction to plastic storage boxes…

7. helping my daughter as she learns to read. And seeing her look of triumph when she succeeds.

8. when my kids ‘kiss the baby.’

9. listening to my kids sing along to music. Their new favorite song, I am proud to say, is Across the Universe, by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Glad they are getting a well-rounded education.

10. having long conversations – in person – with my husband. (This has been rare this past month 😉

Go to Musings of a Housewife to see more!!

I finally have the camera back, so I can show you the Christmas present that I got from my husband!!
Ta-DA!!!!!!
Its a long story. Got a few minutes?

This summer I was in Boston for a family wedding and I found a diamond ring. Seriously. Just laying there in the street. I asked around, but couldn’t find the owner. So I had this ring. Unfortunately, it was very ugly. And huge enough to wear on my thumb.
So when we were in India, we got it reset! And here’s my Christmas gift from my adorable husband – a new wedding set!! I love it!