My poor neglected blog.

I'm a terrible blogger lately.

I have been busy trying to decorate for Spring around here, get the outdoors pruned/weeded/composted etc, stay on top of the kids school stuff (which sounds ridiculous, but between registering them for camps/preschool for next year/kindy and things like homework "green day" "sink or float" day and more school feels like a part time job all of a sudden. I've been picking paint colors for Jakes room and the bathroom, planning Easter, planning Julia's birthday party (her family one, and then the one I am forced into doing at preschool), ordering Easter outfits, registering for T-Ball, dealing with the fact that Jake is getting molars, and, oh, trying to fit in a work out or two and manage staying in touch with all of my friends.

Not a complaint ~ I'm just shocked at how hard I feel like I've been working and how much still seems to need to get done.

Anyone know someone looking to intern for the job of stay at home Mom? I'll gladly take them on for the next three months. Or years.

This is rather how I feel

With Nate away for so long. Like I'm walking around confused and disoriented and people are laughing at me.

I mean, not really, but a little. I get lonely at night. Even with girlfriends and kids keeping me busy during the day, I feel really, really lonely at night this week. This is the downside to being crazy in love with ones husband......when they are gone for a long time you start to feel a little unmoored. I don't know if it is lingering sentimentality over Luke's birthday, or Valentines Day, or Julia's looming 4th birthday, or what....maybe just all of the change involved with a new job and school changes coming up for the kids and whatnot......but I feel off kilter. I need to take the box off my head and get it together.

An apology to the universe.

Story hour at the kids soon to be school. I discovered that the WCASD has a preschool link for Mom's of kids heading to our local public school. I signed us up for a story hour at Fern Hill Elementary, which is where Luke will (*Gasp, Sob*) go next year. I know that you can't see it in this picture, but my dynamic duo was holding hands when I took this. It was so much fun to be out on a random Thursday night while smalls slept and Nate studied at home.

The early part of the evening. We mixed up the dough and let it chill while we all took a shower and then I put an exhausted Jake to bed at 6:30. I admit to having lots of "WHAT THE HELL AM I THINKING" thoughts during this portion of the evening.

It got better, way better, this is my post shower pajamed kids rolling out the cookies. Jake was blissfully asleep, christmas music was playing courtesy of Pandora, and things were looking up.

They were a seriously huge help. They rolled the cookie balls, placed the mint M&M's, and sprinkled the sprinkles. We banged out 120 cookies in an hour or so. It was awesome, and fun, and we had great conversation.

The finished product.

I am stressed, and half of it is unfounded. I admit to being the queen of undue stress. Not proud. I just like to overthink and overplan things to the point of personal stomach aches.

Today was one of those days (again). Wake up, kiss Nate goodbye after barely saying hello as he has been away or studying all week (an end IS in sight, really really in sight!), pack the bigs lunch, make coffee, empty the dishwasher, make breakfast, clean breakfast, nurse the baby, do laundry, chug coffee, get em all dressed, get to school, get to the mall, meet Jeannie and Henry, shop for something relatively suitable for the three parties that this weekend entails, pick up things at Moms house, pick up the kids at 12:30, get the kids to nap, do laundry, talk to Bec and kiss sweet Tessa as she stayed at the house during nap time, run to nail place for a mani/pedi/wax, race home, do laundry, get to gym, make dough, feed kids dinner, shower kids, nurse Jake and put him to bed, make 120 cookies, bag them, and straighten up and fold 4 loads of laundry that Nate dropped off in his few hours at home this week. Cakewalk, yes? Everything happened except the gym.

We have three parties in the next.........48 hours or so. Two involve the kids (who are supposed to look relatively holiday fancyish, and all three involve me being some sort of presentable). One is downright fancy. I need one of those Superman phonebooths. I don't have one of those booths, damn it. I had grandiose plans. I thought that perhaps I would watch what I ate for a few days so as to be holiday fancy dress trim looking. I considered getting a spray tan. I even admit to putting some self tanner stuff on my face. I DID get a manicure and pedicure today, big treat.....but I ate 3000 cookies and everything else in my stressed out sight this week, am decidedly NOT holiday trim, and my awesome manicure is great.....but my fingers are stained red from the sprinkles that I put on the cookies all night. Oh, and I'm sporting like eleventy awesome zits courtesy of the self tanner I applied to my vain face. Super hot. I pretty much stink at this whole "trying to primp" thing.

So that is cool. I'm going to look decidedly holiday harried for the slew of parties ahead of us. It is actually a great thing for me, my kids keep me in check from being as crazy as this area can encourage one to be when it comes to personal vanity and whatnot. So, I'm decidedly not at my best, and I have to get three kids all dressed up tomorrow, wake them up early from naps, and get to a party (solo, with kids, to meet Nate there) looking relatively put togetherish. I also have to have all of their pajamas laid out and ready here at home, so that when we drop them off and quick change and race off we can hand them off to poor Brooke without too much hardship on her part. Do I sound like I'm complaining? I'm so not complaining, this is just me trying to work through my to do list.

Anyway. The point of this post is to rave about my kids. I had the super angst about today, for nought. The kids made tonight awesome. They are SO.MUCH.FUN at this age, once I get poor Jake to bed. I'm struggling with feeling like I don't get enough big kid time alone with the bigs.....so am trying to incorporate more evening activities, and work the two shows that they are allowed to watch on TV into the day or the post nap afternoon so that I can enjoy my post jake time with them doing more grown up things. That was a wordy sentence, but what I mean is that I miss Luke and Julia. I miss them because I get very little alone time with them, and juggling three is doable, but oftentimes I find myself negotiating to the least common denominator (Jake). Jake is super powerful, and he knows it. I am the queen of not negotiating with the little terrorists that preschoolers are......but then Jake figured me out. He has learned to SCREAM. He has learned to scream not just when he has been wronged (which is rarely) but when he wants something. And I have on occasion committed the cardinal sin of negotiation, I have actually said "JUST GIVE IT TO HIM!!!!!!". This is deeply, deeply wrong, unfair to the bigs, and simply does not jive with my parenting. So, I'm learning and changing course. Less will get done around the house, when all three are awake. I will learn to live with that.

I need to adapt. This is my goal.

Atlas

Ain't life a ball?

My dear sweet baby sister is getting married this Saturday, and I am simply too busy being emotional about that to think about blogging right now.

Friends and family are where it's at folks. At the end of the day, they are what bring joy. Not money, not status, not looks, not fame. Tonight I am simply overwhelmed with gratitude as I ponder my family, and my friends, and the joy of two happy healthy children.

Happy April Fools day and all that jazz. I had a real doozie planned for Nate, but he is out of town. Turned out that the joke was on me as I left my wallet in his car after our shopping date last night, and he left for the airport at 4 am this morning. I have no ID, no money, no credit cards, no nuttin. Thank God for online grocery delivery and the beauty of internet sites storing credit card information. Groceries coming tomorrow, life on slow till Friday when my husband, and my wallet, get home.

First Crisis?

Last Wednesday I had what I think is my first emotional meltdown of motherhood. There have been plenty of small ones along the way, plenty of postpartum tears and whatnot, but this one really rocked me.

Nate had been away for two days. It had been raining, and miserable. It was cold. We were inside for several straight days. We were playing the 5.30 wake up game. I was feeling tired, and slightly overwhelmed by Christmas Cards, planning, decorating, shopping, cooking, cleaning, and the two small children I am in charge of 24 hours a day when Nate is travelling.

I have goals as a Mother, and goals for how I try to discipline. I try to redirect my busy toddler. I try to not use the word NO all the time. I try to use positive reinforcement. I try to not yell a lot. We don't spank.

I fail to achieve my goals all the time.

Luke just turned 22 months old. Its an awesome age. His language skills are expanding exponentially, and I love hearing new phrases and whole sentences come out of his mouth. He is sweet and cuddly and yet a total blaze of little boy-ness. He also seems to have a biological imperative to touch, climb, or otherwise mess with every.single.thing. that he comes into contact with. Keeping his busy little fingers from touching/grabbing/breaking anything and everything is in and of itself a full time job. Trying to do that while trapped nursing a baby, or cooking dinner, or really doing anything at all is frequently an exercise in frustration, and sometimes involves me using my mean voice (aka yelling).

Last Wednesday was a particularly hard day. There was no playgroup, which I usually look forward to on Wednesdays. It was a long morning. Luke was in a terrible sleep rut, and was waking too early, taking shorter naps, and tired and difficult. I took the kids to the gym around 3.45.

I went to pick them up at 5 so that we could go home and start the insanity that is the dinner/naked time/potty/pajama/bedtime thing. Its an easy thing when Nate is home, but trying to get them both fed and changed and played with, and then to try to nurse Julia and put her to sleep while Luke is doing his whirling dervish routine in the bedroom is simply hard.

Anyway. Our gym's childcare is awesome. They have two giant rooms that the kids play in ~ one only for the older kids filled with a whole two story maze of tunnels and slides. There is coloring, and movies, and tons of toys. There are other kids. I walked in and the girls handed me Julia, who was all smiles. Then they went to grab Luke ~ He looked at me, yelled MAMA! with a big smile, but then instead of running to me like he always does he turned back to his toy and started playing. He didn't want to leave. A girl tried to grab him and he resisted. He started to cry as she brought him over to the door to give him to me. He laid down on the floor and started sucking his thumb. I had Julia in my arms, was trying to get her coat on, trying to get the diaper bag, and the keys, and out the door, and my son was lying on the floor, after crying at the idea of having to go home. I was mortified. I felt so rejected.

I finally got him up and out (by carrying him ~ while he protested vocally). I got both kids in the car, started it up, and burst into tears. I cried the whole way home. I cried when Nate got home that night. Several times.

I know he was tired. I know that he simply wanted to play more. I know that it wasn't a rejection of me, or an indication that I am a terrible mother. Even KNOWING all of those things, my heart hurt.

I started thinking the thoughts that must not be thought.

I started feeling jealous of everyone who comes over and simply plays with Luke for an hour or two ~ his babysitters, his grandparents, his Aunt and Uncle. I felt as though, as a stay at home Mom, I am suddenly nothing other than the person who says NO all the time. I felt like un-fun Mommy. I started thinking terrible, undermining things ~ telling myself that I was surely failing both of my children. That I was not able to give each of them the attention that they deserve. That it would be easier to work in an office all day and have it be someone else who is telling them NO, and then swoop them up for a couple of fun hours before bed. I started to realize that my kids might well not like me much of the time ~ I started to realize that I will be the main person who is giving them rules, giving them chores, and disciplining them.....and that that job ~ while enormously important, could well mean that I am not well liked at times. I really let myself get into it ~ I started thinking about teenagers, and rejection, and hearing "I hate you!" from my sweet sweet babies. I cried a lot.

Nate told me I was nuts. I was tired, Luke was tired, and that's all that it was.

I know that he is right, and our week went uphill from there. I calmed down. Luke started sleeping better. I gave, and got, extra hugs from him. I have picked him up from childcare 3 or 4 times since then, and he has come running to the door with his arms in the air each time. It appears to have been an isolated incident.

Do all Mom's struggle with this? Being the "heavy"? Being the one to do the lions share of the disciplining, and the entertaining (or lack thereof) and the teaching, and the cleaning up, and the non fun errands, while other people play the "hero" role swooping in for non stop fun time? I want more fun time. Just plain old fun time ~

Am I being insane again for feeling this way?

A week!

This may well be the longest I have gone without writing in my blog since its inception.

Last week was a long week. The weather was horrible, the time change had me getting up with the kids between 5 and 6 most days, Nate was out of town for 3 days, and Julia got sick for the first time. Good times. My poor baby girl was so congested that nursing became an Olympic event of "suck suck suck GASP!" as she tried to figure out how to nurse and breath with her nose out of commission. She was frustrated, and so was I.

She is better now, and the wake ups are slowly creeping back towards where I need them to be in order to not be a miserable person.

Nate left today to go to Germany for a week. I already miss him terribly, and I have to say that I have some anxiety about the week ahead. We play great man to man in our house.........but long days with just me get tough, and tiring.

When I used to work for Citi there were oftentimes days where I felt lazy, or tired, or grumpy. Days where I wanted to email with my friends and ignore clients, and responsibilities, and meetings, and memos. There were days where I stretched my lunch to a healthy 2 hours, or skittered out the door early. I could always compensate on other days.

Motherhood offers no such luxury. It does not matter if I am tired, or grumpy, or lazy. My kids are always the same. They are very young, and need a ton of direction and attention and love every minute of every day. On days where I feel on top of my game, happy, energetic, my kids are easy. On days when I don't, they are really hard. Last week I had a lot of those days in a row. I hate going to bed at night and feeling as though I wasn't the best Mom that I could have been some days. It breaks my heart. I think that we all struggle with the idea of "Perfect Mom", even though we all may have different definitions of just who or what "Perfect Mom" is. I hate that I get down on myself for things that simply are out of my control at times. There simply WILL be food on my floor. There simply WILL be moments where I lose my temper. There WILL be spills, and stains, and crashes and bangs. There will be some tears, from the kids, and from me. And there will be days where I know that I wasn't necessarily the best Mom that I can be. Its hard for me to accept. I am okay with failing myself at times, but failing my kids on occasion simply breaks my heart. There are moments when I am trying to change Luke's diaper and Julia keeps crawling into it and Luke is wiggling around and the wipes are on the other side of the room and I'm suddenly sweaty and stressed and can't place Julia far enough away so that she can't crawl back to me while holding Luke in place and I simply want to scream. There are days where I run upstairs to put wash into the dryer, and come back down all of two minutes later and find my kids gleefully splashing in the dogs water bowl, and all of the dogs food soggy and swollen and grotesque floating around in the water dish. There are days where Luke decides that he needs to pee on the potty right NOW and the teakettle is hollering at me and Julia is eating discarded graham cracker she found on the floor and the phone is ringing and any shard of inner zen I like to think that I have is long gone.

A couple of good things did happen today. I started my day utterly devastated when I realized that my cell phone had fallen out of my pocket at the Eagles game last night. It sent me into panic mode, ~ with Nate going away I simply could not afford to not have a means of communication. Plus, my blackberry was almost brand new, and I would have to pay for a new one as insurance does not cover lost phones. I cried a lot this morning. Around 1:00 our house phone rang, and a man said that he had found my phone on the sidewalk last night. He said that he would overnight it to me. I cried with relief. Thank you, random kind South Jersey stranger man. Also, I got my new issue of Wondertime magazine today.....so I'm off to soak in the jacuzzi and read all about how I can be closer to "Perfect Mom" tomorrow.

Nate took the camera to Germany with him, so in lieu of new pictures, enjoy some baby feet.

Baby feet make everything better.

Messy Motherhood

Generally speaking, I am a slightly obsessive neat freak. I like order and neatness, if not actual sparkling "you could eat off the floor" levels of cleanliness. HOWEVER........I am particularly, gleefully, messy right now. I am undergoing some sort of juvenile rebellion after the strictly enforced OCD~like neatness that showing/selling the house required of me the past 6 weeks or so. I may never, EVER again straighten the slipcovers on the couches (the knowledge that the couches are not making the move with us to the new house further heightens my resentment of those blasted slipcovers). I refuse to pick up Luke's toys every 5 minutes. Sometimes I don't even wipe down the highchair from one feeding to the next. *Gasp* I never for a moment even considered how sinfully decadent and delicious it could feel to just revel in a little mess. Add to that the fact that I have fantasies of drilling a small hole in my nose to drain my stuffed up sinuses, Luke has a cold, we are beginning to start packing, and I have been running around like a madwoman picking out Granite counter tops, lighting fixtures, carpeting and plumbing fixtures and ugh.....its been hectic. Can I say that I never for even a moment considered how many sorts of plumbing fixtures there are in the world? And that doesn't even begin to touch the number and variety of finishes available for those fixtures! Its a whole world that I never knew about. Truly. And picking out your closet lights? MAN! Hardly the pinnacle of excitement, but still necessary and time consuming.
I have had a hard time sleeping the past few nights as I contemplate the move, packing, the new house, and this hole that I want to drill in my nose (the scar potential scares me, so the new fantasy involves somehow doing it up through one nostril....thank GOD I don't have chronic or even occasional sinus issues or I may well have maimed myself long ago....) I picture Luke looking out of the french doors over the back porch taking in his first snowfall...him running around the yard, cuddling with his new brother or sister and me on the couch in front of the fire....I love the idea that he is going to wake up on his very first Christmas morning in his new home! Then my mind begins to wander and I picture how wonderfully neat I will be "in the new house", the incredible meals, the entertaining, the creative arts and crafts projects I will do "in the new house" ~

I shamefully admit that I have created this fantasy wherein I will be a better, more together, thoughtful, creative and all-around-wonderful person "in the new house". Poor house. Has no idea what sorts of pressure I am already putting on it in my sleepless nighttime craze!

Luke is now a waving machine. Its his new shtick, and he loves to show it off to Nate and I, but when we try to take the show on the road he looks at us like we are crazy. He loves to make liars out of us already. He is still standing around, then taking one step, and appears in no rush to really start walking. He has a snotty nose, but no fever, so I am doing my best to get it out of his system before we travel up the the burg for Thanksgiving. I cant wait to see the little bugger dig into his first plate of turkey and all the trimmings. Meals have become a disgusting adventure in taste and sensory exploration. We are hot and heavy into the whole concept of "finger foods". It is funny and scary at the same time. Luke delights in his food. He picks it up, eats it, drops it, rubs it in his hair, throws it to the dog, spits it all over his chin, etc etc......Every time I change him into his pajamas I find a small snapshot of the days meals inside of his onesie.
Motherhood, moving, and mess.

I almost forgot.......

Look carefully at the above picture and see if you can catch what's going on.

Luke is barefoot.........

And I am PREGNANT!

We are thrilled to announce that Version 2.0 of the Melis/Nate collaboration is on its way. We had an ultrasound yesterday and were introduced to the little grey blob that we cant wait to welcome into our family. I have to add that it is simply the strangest way to meet someone that you already love more than life itself. "This is the brain, and the heartbeat is that flicker there......" Can you imagine if you had met your husband that way? Or even your family pet? Its so otherworldly to look at that grainy picture and imagine all of the joy that it encompasses.
We are due March 23rd, which we just realized is Easter Sunday. We have a thing for holidays, I suppose. We are just festive like that. Although it is still early, seeing that little heart flickering away made us feel great, and we would appreciate all of the good thoughts and prayers you can muster for a healthy pregnancy and baby.

The maternity clothes that I just packed away a couple of months ago are on their way back out (That whole "you show sooner the second time around" thing is no joke, by the way)......

I have been more nauseous this go round....and inadvertently created the perfect storm of disgustingness by introducing solids into Luke's diet at the same time as I am dealing with morning sickness......something about those diapers and my stomach ~ Oh my. Its ugly. I am still nursing Luke full time so you all may want to be careful not to get any of your body parts near me when you see me ~ I may eat them. Sorry and consider yourself forewarned. Growing a baby while nourishing another is hard work and creates QUITE the appetite.

Anyway, we are thrilled, and we are going to be VERY busy with two babies only 13 or so months apart. We also have a lot on our plate with two houses to sell, buying a new house, and moving while pregnant......But we are up to the challenge and thrilled to see our family grow. Thank you all for the love, and support, and prayers that you send our way! We feel so very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends.