Friday

Daily Gratitude Journal: I'm Grateful For Ice Cream

Today has been one of those days. It's just....uh.

Can I bitch for a minute? So I have this baby who is 6 months old, he's the cutest thing in the world (I mean seriously, look at this picture!) and he's a breastfed baby who like...eats like he's going off to war or something. The kid seriously nurses all.day.long. I mean for real, all day long. Why am I on Twitter so much? Because I'm sitting in my rocking chair nursing this tiny human 24/7 and my smart phone is really the only thing I can do one handed.

But this baby, oh my goodness! This tiny, sweet little thing of a man that looks identical to his older sister and has the personality of his older brother ~~and loves him some boobies like his daddy!~~ And nurses a lot.

(I forgot my mom reads my blog. My bad)

He can be perfectly content in his bouncy chair or in his bassinet while I'm off doing something totally glamorous and luxurious that only SAHM's do like eating bon bons (putting in a load of laundry), or getting a massage on my back patio over looking the Caribbean Ocean (going poop), sipping a tall glass of ice cold champagne (doing the dishes), getting a mani/pedi from someone who looks like a cross between George Clooney, Brad Pitt & Ryan Gosling (prepping/cooking dinner), or taking a shower all by myself without interruptions (yea right. Like that happens!) and I can't even sneak through the house without him seeing me because he goes all stalker on me when he does. I feel like I'm being ogled by a bunch of construction workers in this naked dream I had once of me running errands naked because I didn't have time to get dressed because I was trying to get 3 kids out of the house in one piece. I just forgot to put on clothes. However, I did make my latte. Priorities.

So anyway, here's what I'm grateful today:

1. Ice cream. And not just any ice cream either. Tillamook Chocolate Peanut Butter. Sent from the heavens. Go buy some now. I'm not kidding. I'll wait...

2. I'm grateful for new tub toys so that my kids will actually want to take a tub and want to stay in there long enough for mama to go to the bathroom in peace. (We have 2 bathrooms!)

3. I'm grateful for Freeze Bot. It's the indoor air conditioner my husband bought off Amazon last summer (and gave a name, of course) because he always says, "it feels like we live on the surface of the sun!" and damn, today he is right! It's so hot today!

4. I'm grateful for.....hmmmm....I'm kinda crabby today and all I can hear are kids screaming (they call it playing) at the top of their lungs in the other room (see number 2) and it's clouding the happiness side of my brain. Hmmm...what-am-I-grate--oh yea, I'm grateful for Coconut Cream Creamer because that is the nice little delight I added to my homemade iced latte today.

5. I'm grateful for my home espresso machine. Nach.

When I'm crabby all I think about is food and sweets and things like that. And no, it's not that time o' the month because I'm exclusively breastfeeding Mr. 6 month old so I haven't seen that little beauty (wrong choice of words) in about a year and a half! Another perk of breastfeeding til they go off to college. Ok that's probably a bit extreme... Maybe til they become teenagers then. Hey, mama's trying to avoid dealing with Aunt Flo. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!

So there you go. A completely First World Problems Daily Gratitude post. I've made the future generations of my family incredibly proud, no doubt, of the humanly contribution I've made in this world whenever they dig this up and read it someday.

C'est la vie!

Oh and I gave my fellow mom blogger friend, Domesticated Momster a shout out with the ~~strike out~~ in the first part of the post. Whenever she does it it cracks me up. She's very funny, go check her out and say "hi!"

Domesticated MOMSTER Blog

@DomesticMomster

My Daily Goal: I will take a picture each day that brings me happiness and I will post it along with my list of 5 things I'm grateful for. I invite you to do the same! These are not listed in order of importance. That is too much pressure for this writing exercise. I am just free flowing as I write and trying to be genuine in my thoughts and emotions and writing what I feel at the moment. Please join me! @coco_cana #DailyGratitudeJournal

For further reading: My Daily Gratitude Journals

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Saturday

The Glamorous Life Of A Stay-At-Home-Mom: Episode 1

On today's episode of The Glamorous Life of a Stay-At-Home-Mom:

Me: It's been a really stressful day. The baby's diaper exploded out of his neck hole, then he was doing dolphin spins on the changing table as I was trying to get all of the poop off. Once I finally got everything cleaned up and dried up and successfully avoided getting poop on his onesie - he peed all over himself as I was reaching for the clean diaper - soaking his onesie, the changing pad I just pulled out of the dryer and the wall where I hang my kids' arts and crafts.

Good thing that the runny paint look is so hot right now in preschool crafts.

So I decided to just put him into the tub. As I was filling the tub and arching him from my lap over to the bath he unleashed the barfing exorcist successfully drenching my shirt, my favorite, most comfortable (ahem...the only ones that fit right now) jammie pants, my socks, the floor towel, a bath toy, the kneeling knee pad and all of the fresh bath water in his nice, clean tub.

Fast forward a few minutes later to where we are finally in the tub and I have Tommy Lee drumming the water like it's the 80's. In walks my 7 y/o daughter who wants to show me pictures of a scorpion mom with a million babies on her (barf!), a cobra snake with venom dripping from its fangs (hurl!) and one of those screaming lizards that has the clown collar that puffs open when they are pissed (no thanks) And I'm spinning between a 6 month old wanting to go deep sea diving for a wash cloth at the bottom of the tub (while breathing of course) and the, " Look it! Look it! Look it mom! Check this out it's gross!" demands of a 7 y/o veterinary student who is covering my entire line of sight with her new book.

So as I continue to avoid getting soaking wet while I oil up my baby pig in a mud fight in walks in my (uncharacteristically) grumpy 4 y/o with a severe case of itchy bed head (reminding me I gotta do another check for nits A.K.A. lice eggs because we got that flier sent home from preschool letting us know someone had lice and brought their pets to school to share with the rest of the class) and he tells me, "everything is wet."

Meanwhile the bathroom is feeling like a clown car with, "Holy crap where did I get all these kids and do they accept returns?" in it, my favorite gloomy day - wanting to stay in and drink coffee all day - lounging attire has now been defaced with dried up baby poop, dried up baby pee, half dry and starting to crust up baby barf, baby soap, and bath tub water and the older kids are pushing and shoving like it's Black Friday at Walmart. Just when things couldn't get more annoying or frustrating my chain smoking neighbor fired up his table saw 3 inches from my kitchen door to tinker the day away and the other neighbor's leaf blowing addicted yard guy just showed up to perform a 2 hour lawn manicure using only his hand siren.

Cue the crying baby, the ringing phone and someone knocking at the door.

Several minutes later the baby is quietly and peacefully nursing, the 7 y/o is quietly and peacefully making some art by herself and mama is quietly and peacefully sipping the latte I made hours ago and have reheated twice already while quietly and peacefully rocking in my nursing chair breastfeeding the quietly and peacefully nursing baby turned napper.

Exxxxxxxhale.

All is right in the world again.

The E--

Not so fast -

Screaming from the bathroom:

"Caaaaaaan sooooooomebodyyyyyyyy wipe meeeeee pleeeeeeeeeease?!"

Baby wakes up and starts to cry.

7 y/o starts whining about being bored and wanting to play iPad.

Set the day to repeat.

Teenager: Ummm...wow. Ummm... Did you want whipped cream on your caramel frapp?

Me: Sure.

Teenager: Ok. Pull up to the second window and we'll have your order ready there, Ma'am.

Me: K. (Thinking to myself) Ma'am??!! What the hell? I'm young and hip. What's this Ma'am crap? It's not like I'm some crabby old lady!

(Car honks behind me)

Asshole in the convertible behind me: (Sticks head out the window in a way that is indicative of assholes) "Let's keep it movin', Lady!"

Me: Lady?!?????

To Be Continued...

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Monday

Daily Gratitude Journal: The Calm After The Storm

Sunday...

Beach towels and bathing suits drying on the line after a long day at the water park.

I realized I needed to sit down and focus on what I'm grateful for before I blow a gasket. I'm seeing a pattern here of me getting incredibly frustrated at some point during the day and then realizing I need to sit down and reconnect with my gratitude.

One of our dear children was playing around in the bathroom which resulted in an almost clogged toilet, and an entire roll of toilet paper and the plastic spinner (both at different times) go for a swim with a brown trout in the Yellow River.

Not cool!

Then Mr. Baby Love himself decided to flood his new high chair with poop. I say "flood" because if you are familiar with the poop of a breastfed baby then you're aware of the gold-ish, brown-ish, liquid baby poop of which I speak.

Mix that in with a fussy, overtired, hungry baby who just took a post-poop explosion tub, fold in two overtired, and overexposed kids from too much sun and fun from the water park, swirled around with them not wanting to take a tub, sprinkled all over my annoyance of the regular day-to-day drama that happens in a family and you have one very crabby, very yell-y mama.

There. I said it. I yell at my kids when I've been pushed past my limit.

Then I feel shitty about it and sit down to write a Daily Gratitude Post.

I'm human. And some days I'm a really sucky human.

Time to chill out, close my eyes for a bit while I love up on a tiny little breastfeeder who's all warm and clean and soft and calm and smelling sweet from his tub and think about more positive things from the day and from my life before I change the title of this post from Daily Gratitude Journal to Today's Rant And Grumblings Of A Crabby Mom.

The kids had fun at the water park and they swam their hearts out. We've been waiting for months for it to open - for it to finally be summertime so we could spend long days swimming like fish once again and it's here!

Daily Gratitude Journal: Sunday

1. I'm so grateful that my husband and I have taught our children how to "find their own fun" as I always say. They have dealt with the harsh realities of "being bored." They have learned that the world is not going to provide entertainment for them at every turn simply because they are bored. They have discovered that after about 10-15 minutes of being left alone to "find their own fun" after they have loudly proclaimed their boredom! (and quickly realized that they either do something or its time for chores), they are capable of inventing some great fun for themselves. Because of this they make up their own games, they go on adventures in the backyard finding new discoveries, they prefer to picnic outdoors for every meal, they build entire worlds out of dirt, leaves, bits of grass, picked flowers, pinecones, sticks and rocks. My daughter calls them "squirrel nests" or "animal hospitals" or "animal hotels." They have grown into true nature children who enjoy being outside and I'm so, so, so grateful for that.

2. I'm incredibly grateful that my mom's eye is feeling better after kind of a freaky scare the last few days. Nobody wants anything to go wrong with their eyeballs or God forbid their sight! I'm also grateful for ER docs and nurses and smart folks who are on call to help in these stressful & unnerving times.

3. I'm grateful for the calmness of the evening after bedtime. For crickets chirping outside and gentle breezes dancing with the leaves on our orange tree and the house not quite sure what to do with itself now that the kids aren't tormenting it so it just stays still and waits for morning.

4. I'm grateful for getting a time out and for reset buttons where kids cool off in tubs and mommies cool of in rocking chairs and daddies cool off in garages and babies cool off by filling their bellies full of warm milk and then everyone happily comes back together once the beasties have melted away and the lights are low and kids hair is cool and wet and daddies have gotten their tinkering fix and mommies feel rested and calm - taking deeper breaths, longer breaths and kisses are now replacing yells and hugs are replacing huffs and smiles are replacing snarls and yawns are replacing wild animal cries and, "Goodnight's" and "I love you's" are replacing the, "stop arguing's!" and the, "because I said so's!"

5. I'm so grateful for evenings. So, so, so incredibly grateful. Evenings, glorious evenings.