Monday Funday

You know it's been a good morning when everyone ends up crying in their underwear.

+1 adult (not pictured).

I knew there would come a day when the seedy yellow stools hit the fan. Today was officially that day.

We were all dressed in clean clothes looking well groomed. There was a decided lack of cooperation by the underlings, but we were slowly inching toward the car, grocery list in hand! Ready to tackle that meal plan.

Zelie pooped and spit through her outfit and mine. Normal newborn stuff. Roll with those punches.

Will on the other hand JUST COULD NOT LIFE at all today. The back of his neck was itchy and it turned him into an inconsolable, angry beast. For example, I was sitting nursing (a hungry and very gassy) Zelie and he needed me to hold him and console him because he was trying to blow a fart on his arm and he COULDN'T DO IT. And WHAT KIND OF MONSTER ignores her child undergoing such torment?

His inner monologue:

Dearest Mother,

I see you are rather occupied nourishing your less-capable offspring.

However, have you noticed the debacle I am in? 

I require a fart noise.

I am unable to make said fart noise at this juncture. 

Please acknowledge my hysterics until I become occupied with something more important.

Ooooh, dog food.

I love sniffing dog food.

Byeeeee.

Yours Truly,

William Hugh (age: 1)

The fart noise problem. Just one example in a sea of options.

Every time I held Zelie (who oddly did not want to be set down all morning), he would say "TOO?!" meaning he wanted me to pick him up, TOO. Get it? Yeah, it takes me A REALLY LONG time to figure out what he means when he says things. So I cooked lunch with Zelie in the Moby and holding Will on my hip (or clawing at my legs when my arm needed a break). 

At least I was burning calories because you bet I was stress-eating tater tots by noon. 

Cue the mom guilt. I truly did want to help him because I read [the first half of] this book, which basically says you are raising a narcissist if you don't connect with your child when they are throwing a tantrum. My e-book loan expired before I could reach the second half of the book, so I basically don't know what to do after that. Something about redirection. Surely he will turn out okay, even if my attention and my hands are divided. If not, there's always boarding school.

Aaaanyway. 

I hope your Monday is going a little better. Toddlers able to make fart noises when required, babies pooping mainly in their diapers and spitting up in areas that don't involve pools of liquid in the center of your bra? All the normal stuff. 

Two Under Two

First of all, thanks for the support and commiseration after my last post. As of this week, I've been cleaning up my diet again. I went for a one mile run today pushing the duallie in 20mph winds and it was a new level of struggle for me, but ya gotta start somewhere. Then Will offered to stop by Chickfila and pick up shakes and WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME? I said yes. Yeah I'm into fitness! Fitness milkshake in my belly rn. So things are off to a great start.   

Anyway, I only have one week to go to wear the badge of the honor that is mom of two under two (so pithy!), so a photo dump/overly-detailed post of how we spend our days seems in order. Little Will thrives on routine, I think, so the general flow of our weekdays look exactly the same. 

Husband Will is usually out the door at 7am before we start our day, about around the time Zelie wakes for the day. Little Will not soon after, though I can usually let him roll around in his crib while I finish giving Zelie Breakfast #1. Every morning, I enter Will's room and he greets me with an emphatic "HI MOMMY!" If he's up in time, Little Will usually protests that his dad has to leave for work, but as soon as I mention he gets to watch choo choo trains or Mickey Mouse when daddy leaves, the tears magically stop and he starts waving bye-bye and aggressively walking Big Will to the door. 

His parental affection only goes so far, you see. 

I typically let Little Will watch a show or two while I drink coffee and wake up. Zelie cluster feeds, cluster poops. Will eats breakfast, too. Usually fruit, oatmeal, or a muffin with some orange juice (i.e., water with a splash of grovestand Tropicana… last thing this kid needs is more sugar… what's the word for it? Oh. MANIAC.). I'll ask him if he made a poopy, to which he responds, "No, thanks!" I check him, find one (always), and tell him he needs a new diaper, to which he responds, "No, thanks!" I grab him, cheerfully make him say "yes, ma'am!," and change his diaper. Then we'll usually spend our morning doing something to get out of the house. Commissary, Target, Playgroup, repeat. 'Tis our life cycle.

Upon our return, he MUST be given the opportunity to "drive" the car. You see, this involves Will  crying real tears until you put him in the driver's seat of our Subaru. You MUST then shut the door ("bye bye Mommy!") and allow him at least 3-5 minutes of pushing every button in the car. There are smudgy little finger prints all over my rearview mirror. The hazards are always always turned on. There is a 70% chance a blinker is on when you start the car. I use this opportunity to bring Zelie inside along with the diaper bag and any groceries. 

At this point, I prepare lunch. Little Will occupies himself by delivering mail in his Winnie the Poo car (a $1 yard sale find), climbing on furniture, and building all manner of houses made out of blocks, Legos, and his IKEA children's chairs. The mailman truck needs a house (a "meh meh how"), the choo choo trains need a house ("choo choo how"), and—you guessed it—the school bus needs a house, too ("bah bah how"). 

Still working on pronunciations. 

There is only one thing he is guaranteed to eat and it is cheese. Anything else is a bonus, though he loves eating "bubbies" which I discovered means "smoothies," (to my surprise, not boobies, which he is obsessed with since Zelie nurses all day) only because he (crying real tears, always) pointed at the blender yelling "BUBBIES"! This is my opportunity to guerrilla attack him with spinach. 

1pm. Glorious nap time. 

I take care of chores, read, nurse Zelie, feed myself, and/or veg with some Netflix. Lately I've been watching Jane the Virgin and I'm kind of loving it. Jane is a Catholic virgin from Miami who is accidentally artificially inseminated and becomes pregnant. About halfway through the series, there's an unexpected fart joke, when I knew— I just knew—this was my type of show. Also, a singing St. Therese statue. (Just watch the show.)

The afternoon is spent—dare I say it?—running outside?!

No, I won't jinx it. But it did happen today. 

Usually Will doesn't wake until about 3pm, so we just hang out at home until dinnertime. Today I think he was trying to sing the ABCs when I went to get him out of his crib. Random. We build more houses, read books, draw, try unsuccessfully to avoid another episode of Chuggington, etc. We'll get dinner started. Little Will loves sitting on the counter, grabbing things, and declaring them his. "MINE!" he says. "Put that down," I say. "Not a toy." To which he responds, "No, thanks." I measure the ingredients, he dumps it in the bowl. Usually I can get him to sit still on the counter with some snacks.

Around 4, Little Will starts asking "dada here?" every time the dogs bark. (They bark at everything that moves outside.) By 5:30pm, Big Will is actually home and please believe his little super fan is at the door to greet him. Chance of wearing pants: 50%. Chance of wearing cowboy boots: 95%. 

The rest is dinner, running circles around the kitchen island over and over, quality time with the fun parent, bath, and bed. You know the drill. 

And an illustrative photographic display:

Morning hangout. 

"Helping" in the kitchen.

A Zelie reject paci. Declared "MINE!" by you-know-who.

Trying to get out the door. Distracted by cuteness.

One-on-one time with my girl during Little Will's nap.

Advent So Hard & A Bit of Daily Life

It's Advent! I can't say it's snuck up on me, because it's been marked in my calendar for the past eight months as "THE TIME I WILL HAVE A BABY." Thus I am Adventing so hard, as only a nine-month pregnant woman can. Mary gets me right now. And I've been asking for her help a lot. 

So, I read somewhere that if the thought of doing ALL THE ADVENT THINGS during Advent sounds too overwhelming (*raises both hands*), then you should just pick three traditions to do this year. I've chosen St. Nicholas Day, the Advent wreath, and the Advent calendar. This in addition to putting up normal Christmas decor, etc. Getting our tree after my 38 week appointment tomorrow!

Of course, I had a bit of a crisis finding Advent candles. Why are they always so hard to find? I searched several stores, man! Finally, I found some purple and pink tea light-ish candles at the commissary and just grabbed 'em. Lo' and behold, I finally found REAL Advent candles at Michael's today.

GLORY!

And then I got home, excitedly set them up, and . . . promptly found last year's candles.

That's life.

But we're all set up now!

1/3 ain't bad. 

Yep, we forgot to start the Advent calendar yesterday. DERRRRP.

I'm pretty pumped for St. Nicholas Day. I wanted to do it last year, but I'd just started a new job, and Little Will was too young to be aware of what was happening at all whatsoever, so it was abandoned. NBD. 

Well, this year Little Will is ALL into the nativity set this year, which makes me so excited for St. Nicholas Day and Christmas in general. Side note: if you have a Little People nativity set and a toddler, just bite the bullet and buy the batteries to go in it so it lights up and plays Away in a Manger. So worth the trouble and the constant noise to see his little dance he does along to the music! 

Breakfast with all his friends.

He's also loving Little Blue Truck's Christmas with the blinking lights at the end. I can't wait for more neighbors to put up their lights in our neighborhood! 

For St. Nick's Day, we're going to leave out our shoes under the tree Saturday night. I managed to find gold chocolate coins at the BX. We're all getting special Christmas jammies (including Zelie!). I have a couple little surprises for Big Will and then Little Will is getting a St. Nick Shining Light Peg Doll and a St. Nicholas Book. 

Otherwise, the little man and I have just been doing our thing. Getting back into a groove after an epic four-day weekend with Will home has been rough! But yesterday, I finally took him to the Flip 'n' Play session at the gymnastics gym down the road. For $5, he ran around for two hours like a chicken with its head cut off and got to play on all the equipment. He had a BLAST.

And me? I had loads of fun in the bouncy sweatbox that is the gym by way of a million and a half Braxton Hicks contractions. I think I know where I will go if I want to naturally induce by way of bouncing around in a sweatbox. … 

It really was a lot of fun, though. An hour into it, they did songs and danced and played with one of those rainbow-colored parachutes. Then the bubble machine came on and things got real cRaZy. Afterwards, we hit up Chickfila on our way home and had lunch with Will at his office. Then we went home and Little Will took a THREE HOUR AND TWENTY MINUTE long nap. <3 <3 <3 Well worth the $5 admission fee for that alone. But then… THEN… he slept 11.5 straight last night, past 7am, which rarely happens these days.

Flip 'n' Play, I heart you.

I'm trying to remember to take more pics of us for the blog and to be able to look at later! I've been Snapchatting a lot recently, so I never have any saved photos anymore. (Is this such an annoying millennial problem or what?) But here's a grainy post-bathtime mirror selfie from last night:

Little Will at 21 months, 26 days. Zelie at 37 weeks, 4 days.

Zelie's room is almost complete! As complete as it's ever going to be anyway. Here is the "guest room" side of the room:

It's no Pinterest-worthy vintage airplane nursery, but this really is a drastic change from what it was. We had our framed college jerseys hanging, a blue quilt on the bed, and a dark green striped shaggy carpet on the floor. It was a nice room, but very masculine. Now it's much more girly and I even managed to incorporate the old, green blackout curtains (a necessity for childrearing in my eyes). I bought the rug online for Black Friday and it just arrived today. (The TV is in there from when Will set up the crib - it's not staying!) We just have a few pictures to hang and whatnot, which may or may not be done before she's here. We're planning to have her in our room at first anyway, where there's a Rock n Play and a changing table set up. 

I'm beginning to come to terms with the fact that we'll actually have two small children soon! As I've told many people, I am physically VERY ready to have this baby (ask me all the ways), but mentally/emotionally just terrified enough of two under two to be - ehh - not as ready. But I'm coming around and getting more excited each day. Which is a good thing because this baby is coming in the next three weeks whether we're ready or not! 

Monday Mornings & Meal Plans

Good morning!

Will is still working on those upper teeth, so we were up bright and early at 1:30, 5:30, and 6:15. I've been able to see the whites of his two big teeth for about a week, and I think I see part of his gum bubbling (is that a thing?), but they still haven't broke through. The thought of molars makes me want to poop my pants in utter fear. 

Yet somehow it just isn't as bad as when he was younger, and it doesn't hurt that our mornings look like this for the most part:

He cries until you go retrieve him from his crib, but once you go in, he giggles maniacally for the rest of the morning.

He is happy to be alive, that's for sure.

I nurse him (or at least I'll try), pop him in his high chair for a banana and/or scrambled egg while I brew some coffee, and then I get to leave him to his own devices barricaded in the living room, for the most part, until he's ready for his morning nap.

Not a bad spread:

SO MUCH ROOM FOR ACTIVITIES!!!

And yeah, we keep very few toys in this room. What a poor, deprived kid. I put them in our entertainment console and slowly ration them out to keep things exciting - though he usually ends up gnawing on the DVD remote, my phone, or the baby monitor. Whatever lets me sit and enjoy my coffee and muffin.

Switching gears. Nell started a new link-up to help you meal plan, and I need such inspiration and motivation, so here goes. 

// Sunday - Chicken noodle soup. I go off this recipe. Sort of. It's something that's really hard to mess up. I made a huge batch and gave half to the fam of a deployed airman!

// Monday - Broccoli cheddar soup (from Nell's own post!!) with easy bread. 

// Tuesday - Chicken and rice casserole. (I'll have to post the recipe at some point because I can't find anything similar online!)

// Wednesday - Grilled pork tenderloin, roasted red potatoes, and peas. 

// Thursday - Chicken pesto pasta. Basically an opportunity to throw in any and all veggies that have been sitting in my fridge! Spinach, tomato, peas, peppers. Anything goes.

// Friday - Eggplant parmesan. Trying out a new recipe I found on Pinterest.

// Saturday - Out. The plan is to head to Schlafly's with our Air Force Ball door prize gift card after hitting up the St. Louis zoo.

I have most of these ingredients in my kitchen already, so that's a win. And I should probably plan next week ASAP because pay day is Friday and we all know . . . 

. . . or the weekend immediately thereafter for that matter.

Hope you all CRUSH this Monday. 

Until next time.