Confession

I love my blog. I love reading other blogs. It's great to see that others are going through some of the same things you are, and you're reminded that some are going through things you could never imagine. I love to write about the fun things we do as a family, silly things Bailey is doing/saying and maybe even the occasional new recipe (although not recently!). However, I rarely open up and share the hard things. Maybe it's shyness (not likely) or maybe it's me trying to "present" myself a certain way to the blogging world (more likely). Whatever the reason, for some reason I've felt the need today to have a sort of confession post.

As a mother, I doubt myself constantly. Is she watching too much TV? Is she getting enough vegetables? Should I read to her more? Am I disciplining her correctly? Doubts I've gotten used to, but...

Then there are nights, like last night, when your child is behaving much worse than you know she could/should and you just want to scream...and maybe you even do!

Bailey has horrible allergies and we're just recovering from the last big attack she had. Right now she has a horrible flemmy (I think I just made that word up!) cough and I know she isn't feeling 100%, but she absolutely wore me out last night. Of course Nick was gone for soccer stuff and it was just the two of us last night. She was fine until it was time for me to start making dinner. She kept crying at my leg "Mommy do", and I would try to ask her what she wanted me to do, but she just kept crying.

I gave her juice, she threw it down. I gave her a bowl and measuring spoons to "bake" with, that pacified her for a whole three minutes until the tears started again. Then she got in trouble for being too close to the stove, which caused another melt down. I went ahead and put her in her high chair and gave her some tortilla shell to snack on until everything else was ready. The crying continued. Finally I screamed. I, the "adult" in this situation, screamed at a 19 month baby for crying too much. I just wanted to sit down in the floor and cry too. We managed to finish dinner and get through the rest of the evening with only a few more tears shed.

When I went to bed last night, I cried. I had screamed at my baby for no real reason. She can't help it that she doesn't feel good and that she can't tell me exactly how she feels and what she wants. I prayed for God to give me the patience that I know I lack and to help me handle these types of situations better in the future. I know she'll never remember last night and me yelling at her, but I don't know that I'll ever forget it. And ok, in the grand scheme of things it could have gone worse, but still I feel so horrible! Chalk last night up on the mommy not-to-do list.

Maxwell Mini-Adventures

This year a beach vacation just wasn't in the cards for us at the Maxwell House, so we decided we do little trips...or "Mini-Adventures", as I've decided to call them, you know, just to make it sound a little jazzier! We took our first mini-adventure this past weekend. We got a hotel room in Erlanger for Saturday night and then went to the Newport Aquarium on Sunday. We had so much fun!! In true vacation fashion we let Bailey break all the rules and just have fun...we jumped on the bed when we got to our hotel room, we all took a nap together in the big King sized bed, she got to have more ice cream than normal for dessert and she got to stay up an hour past her bedtime :) We had dinner at Dewey's pizza, which I highly recommend, it was the best crust! Our hotel had an indoor pool and my little swimmer loved it! We would hold her stomach and she would kick her legs like she really knew what she was doing. I swear that child is scared of just about everything...except the pool. It was all we could do to keep her from just running and jumping in when we got there! Here are some pics of the trip.

Bailey with her new sunglasses, this is her Hollywood look.

Having a little pb & j on the way to our hotel, with her purse in her lap :) Mommy and daddy are excited!!

This picture is for Sarah and Ivy...they had belly dancers performing at the Levee, and I couldn't help but think of sweet Ivy and her talented little belly...sorry, they must have been on break here, no action pictures :)

Headed back to the hotel room after dinner.

At the aquarium. She packed Mr. Froggy Pants the whole time...it was a homecoming for him, that's where he came from!

Pointing to the big "feesh".

She kept grabbing her belly and laughing at the fish.

She would just sit down and then point and tell me "Momma here"...just a tad bossy :)

What a good little mommy, she wanted to make sure Froggy could see the jelly fish.

A cute sting ray.

On the way out.

All tuckered out on the way home :)

So, she was a little scared at first of all the fish, but then she realized they couldn't come out of the tank and she had a good time. However, there was one time that she had her face pressed up against a tank laughing and a huge fish swam by, stopped and turned and looked right at her and she about jumped out of her skin...it was so funny!!

This was a great first mini-adventure and I'm looking forward to many more this summer!!

**I do have one gripe. I had my heart set on seeing the Penguin Parade, which is something they do every morning right when they open. They bring 1 or 2 penguins outside and have a little "parade". The website said it happened at 10:15 every morning, so we got there at 10:00, only to find out that the aquarium now opens at 9:00 so they have it at 9:15. When the teen-age boy told me this I let him know (in maybe a not so nice tone) that they need to update their website because it still said they opened at 10:00, and people make plans based on that information. Nick told me I was being a "mean mom"...but I was upset, I had my heart set on that! Oh well, maybe next time!**

Problem Solving

Wednesday night Bailey and I played outside for about an hour and a half after dinner, and most of the time she pushed her baby around in the stroller. She has a tendancy to drift to one side or the other while pushing the stroller, and she kept running into the grass...but she figured out a way around that... It's so fun to watch her figure things out...kids are so smart!

RED Day

Yesterday was a really special day. I'm lucky enough to work for a company that believes we all need to take a break from what we're doing and give back to our community. Yesterday was Keller William's national RED Day...Renew Energize and Donate. Our Georgetown office decided to take on a few different projects. We started our day at the Senior Citizen Center. We were picking up meals to deliver to shut-ins, and while we were waiting on the meals to be ready, we visited with some of the people that were there. Now, I'm not very good working with elderly people, and I think it's because I've never really been around them. My mom had me when she was 20, so my grandparents were young, and are just now in their 70s and still very healthy. But I think it was good for me to get out of my comfort zone. You could tell they enjoyed talking to us. They just come there to socialize, get out of the house and they can eat lunch there. There was also a woman who comes to do exercises with them to help keep them active. They have a bus that picks them and up drops them off if needed. I did find my "old person" self while we there. There was a group of 3 women in the back of the room gossiping and when we went back to talk to them they were cutting up and picking on one another, they were cracking me up. None of them wanted to go do their exercises...they were so funny.

Here we are sorting the meals to be delivered. Our group delivered about 12 meals throughout Georgetown, Katy and myself delivered 5 of those. There were also 2 other regular volunteers there that took meals out. I kind of thought maybe the people receiving the meals would want to chat, but they didn't. Katy did know one couple we delivered to, so we talked to him for a little bit. After delivering the meals we all broke for lunch ourselves and then headed over to an elderly woman's house to wash some windows and sweep her front porch off. This was especially rewarding for me. You could tell she was so appreciative of just these small tasks, that probably took us all of twenty minutes to complete.

And here we are with Miss Irene. Such a sweet woman.

Last night we all met back up at the Community Medical Mission. This is a great program I just learned about a couple of months ago. A local doctor, Dr. Culbertson, started this center (along with much help from the community) about a year ago. This is a free service offered to Scott County residents who have no health insurance, medicaid or medicare. I wouldn't have guessed there would be such a need for this, but there is. There are several working families whose companies don't offer insurance, but because they're working they don't qualify for medicare. The Health Department donates their facilities every Thursday from 5:30-7:30. Everyone that works in the CMM is volunteering their time, even the doctors and nurses. There were 2 doctors there last night and probably 5 nurses. We all checked patients in, made files, appointments cards and any other "general" task that they needed. What I thought was really cool, was a young 13 year old girl who works there every week. Her mom is a nurse that seems to pretty much run the CMM, and she's there with her every week, and she said they come almost every night to do something, whether it's filing, calling patients or scheduling appointments. She was the main one that showed us what to do. It was refreshing to see a young person there helping others, she was fun to talk to. We also had one man taken out in an ambulance who came in complaining of chest pains. I couldn't help but think if the CMM hadn't been there, would he have seeked medical attention?

I think yesterday really meant a lot to all of us. We've talked about trying to help with at least one of these projects every month, hopefully that will happen. I think it's important for all of us to take time out of our lives to give back to those around us.

How Have 19 Months Gone By?!

I can't believe Bailey is now 19 months old!! The 9 months of my pregnancy felt like they took forever, but these past 19 months have absolutely flown by! We had Bailey's check up yesterday and she's still a very healthy little girl. I wish I had taken a picture of her frumpy face she was making for the doctor. She makes the funniest faces, but this is one of my favorites. I call her Frumpy Fran when she does this face. Her eyebrows scowl together and she purses her lips out...it's very comical. She got 3 nasty shots but was ok by the time we left the office. She got to watch TWO episodes of Blues Clues last night since she had to get shots :) Here are some updates...

* She's now 32" tall and weighs 24 pounds.

* I have a feeling that's we've hit the terrible 2's about 5 months too soon! Sometimes this child has more attitude than I know what to do with! But then she can also be the sweetest little girl ever. She loves to snuggle on the couch with me and we'll play the "night night" game. We cover up with the blanket, both say night night and then she pretends to snore. And then when I open my eyes she just laughs!

* "No" is still one of her favorite words unfortunately, but she also likes to say "Otay". One of my new favorite phrases is "I don't know"...I can't figure out how to type what it really sounds like she's saying, but it's so cute. She puts her hands out, shrugs her shoulders when she says it :)

* I taught her how to give Eskimo kisses a couple of weeks ago and she loved them...she called them nose kisses.

* Coloring is probably her favorite thing to do, besides being outside. And when she's outside she like to look for bugs. She squats down and says "Hi bug".

* She is obsessed with Blue's Clues!!! She'll bring me the remote asking for it. We really try to limit the amount of TV she watches, but if the television is on, she thinks it should be on Blue's Clues.

* She's getting more hesitant about trying new foods now. She'll look at it, say "No" and give it back to you. If she doesn't want to eat it, she doesn't even want it on her plate! She's also getting a little lazy about eating her veggies lately.

It's kind of crazy to think about, but me and Nick had originally talked about starting to try for baby #2 when Bailey was turning 2...which would be REALLY soon...but I think those plans have been postponed for a little bit. With me trying to get my real estate business going, it would be hard to be out of commission for a few months. And with Nick just starting his masters that would be hard too. I can't make up my mind if I'm upset about this or not. On one hand, I miss having a little baby around the house, and I don't want the kids to be too far apart age wise. But on the other hand, I don't know if I would even be ready to take that time and attention from Bailey yet. I guess we'll know when the time is right!

Mother's Day

Well I have not been doing good about posting lately. Too many things going on between negotiating contracts (yay!), housework and just life in general. I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day...I did! Originally Nick's soccer team was supposed to play in a tournament this past weekend. They would have had one game Friday night, Saturday night and then at 1:00 on Mother's Day...needless to say I wasn't very excited about this. But then the tournament was cancelled because the fields were too muddy to play on, I was so happy!

Saturday my family came over to have a cook out. Nick of course did the grilling and the rest of just relaxed while he did all the work :)

The kids all had a great time playing outside, it was such a pretty day!

Bailey riding her pony and my nephew Quentin riding her Princess car.

Bailey head butting the soccer ball...we may just have a little soccer star on our hands.

My boppy, uncle Mike and cousins Jacob and Anna relaxing on the couch.

My mom and mema.

Sunday we got up and had cinnamon rolls for breakfast and while they were baking we watched a little cartoons in bed. That afternoon we did a little yard work (which really consisted of Nick mowing and me digging up dead plants) and relaxed around the house. That night Nick and Bailey took me out to Olive Garden, it was so yummy!! They gave me a massage for my gift, which I can't wait to use!!!

I wanted to share an email with you all that I had received. It rang very true for me.

We are sitting at lunch when my daughter casually mentions that she and her husband are thinking of "starting a family."

"We're taking a survey," she says, half-joking. "Do you think I should have a baby?"

"It will change your life," I say, carefully keeping my tone neutral.

"I know," she says, "no more sleeping in on weekends, no more spontaneous vacations...."

But that is not what I meant at all. I look at my daughter, trying to decide what to tell her. I want her to know what she will never learn in childbirth classes. I want to tell her that the physical wounds of child bearing will heal, but that becoming a mother will leave her with an emotional wound so raw that she will forever be vulnerable.

I consider warning her that she will never again read a newspaper without asking "What if that had been MY child?" That every plane crash, every house fire will haunt her. That when she sees pictures of starving children, she will wonder if anything could be worse than watching your child die.

I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish suit and think that no matter how sophisticated she is, becoming a mother will reduce her to the primitive level of a bear protecting her cub. That an urgent call of "Mom!" will cause her to drop a soufflé or her best crystal without a moment's hesitation.

I feel I should warn her that no matter how many years she has invested in her career, she will be professionally derailed by motherhood. She might arrange for childcare, but one day she will be going into an important business meeting and she will think of her baby's sweet smell. She will have to use every ounce of her discipline to keep from running home, just to make sure her baby is all right.

I want my daughter to know that everyday decisions will no longer be routine. That a five year old boy's desire to go to the men's room rather than the women's at McDonald's will become a major dilemma. That right there, in the midst of clattering trays and screaming children, issues of independence and gender identity will be weighed against the prospect that a child molester may be lurking in that restroom. However decisive she may be at the office, she will second-guess herself constantly as a mother.

Looking at my attractive daughter, I want to assure her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy, but she will never feel the same about herself. That her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once she has a child. That she would give it up in a moment to save her offspring, but will also begin to hope for more years -- not to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her child accomplish theirs.

I want her to know that a cesarean scar or shiny stretch marks will become badges of honor. My daughter's relationship with her husband will change, but not in the way she thinks. I wish she could understand how much more you can love a man who is careful to powder the baby or who never hesitates to play with his child. I think she should know that she will fall in love with him again for reasons she would now find very unromantic.

I wish my daughter could sense the bond she will feel with women throughout history who have tried to stop war, prejudice and drunk driving. I hope she will understand why I can think rationally about most issues, but become temporarily insane when I discuss the threat of nuclear war to my children's future.

I want to describe to my daughter the exhilaration of seeing your child learn to ride a bike. I want to capture for her the belly laugh of a baby who is touching the soft fur of a dog or a cat for the first time. I want her to taste the joy that is so real, it actually hurts.

My daughter's quizzical look makes me realize that tears have formed in my eyes. "You'll never regret it," I finally say. Then I reach across the table, squeeze my daughter's hand and offer a silent prayer for her, and for me, and for all of the mere mortal women who stumble their way into this most wonderful of callings. This blessed gift from God . . . that of being a Mother.

I hope everyone out there had a great Mother's Day!

A Busy Weekend

Well this post is LONG overdue! I started uploading photos on Monday, but just haven't had the time to sit down and finish!! Last weekend was great! It started Friday night with the Chamber of Commerce banquet. We had our Scott County Leadership graduation during the banquet and Nick came with me. The food was very disappointing, but the company was good. After the banquet was over (which was at the Embassy Suites in Lexington) we went to the bar to have a drink with a few people from the high school and few from our leadership group. Mrs. Lyons, who is now a counselor, was my geometry teacher, and Mr. Southworth, who was my principal all through high school joined us...kind of weird having a drink with them!

Melissa, Julie, Diane, me and Amy.

And I had to have a pic of me and Nick, it's not often we get dressed up anymore. And I bought great new shoes, it's a shame you can't see them in the picture!

Nick had a soccer game Saturday morning and then something at school until 4 that afternoon, so me and Bailey and Brittany and Shana decided to go have a picnic at the park and feed the ducks. As soon as Bailey saw the ducks she got so excited. She was squealing and laughing and yelling "Ducks!". It was so precious.

I love this picture. She was eating her first big girl sandwich ever (peanut butter sandwich shaped like a teddy bear) and just watching the ducks. She looks so big here!!

After we finished lunch and fed the ducks we went over to the playground to play.

This picture cracks me up :) Silly girl.

Bailey and aunt Shana playing. Be careful what you start...

Bailey asking for "Moe" or more, if you don't speak toddler.

Sunday Nick had a soccer game in Louisville, so me and Bailey tagged along so we could all see Brooke and Clay. Clay went to the game with Nick, and me, Bailey and Brooke went to the indoor pool they have at their complex. This was the first time Bailey has been in a big pool. Mainly because I haven't had any desire to get in a bathing suit. But I knew she would love it and I've been dying to take her, so I found one that actually hid most everything it needed to and off we went. She had a blast!

She was getting a little angry that she had to be carried the whole time. They didn't have a kiddy pool, and she didn't want anything to do with the float...well, at least not while she was in the pool. She cried when we had to get out of the pool and kept saying "Wimmin'" (which sounds like women, but of course means swimming :) ) And then it was nap time. I laid down with her until she fell asleep...or at least that was plan, I ended up napping with her!! It was nice though. When I woke up I had to take a picture of my sweet sleeping baby.

After her nap she was ready to go back to the pool...

What a great weekend, think this one's going to be fun too!