Tuesday talkin'

Can we start with how cute this little guy is? He just got a hair cut, which I haven't debuted in pictures yet, but it's even more adorable, or at least as adorable as his mop of hair. I keep the front and top long, and just had them clean up the sides and back into layers so that we stop getting asked if "she" wants anything to drink at restaurants. We finally figured out that this little guy has pretty nasty allergies. I get bad ones every Spring here, but they usually go away by the end of May, which they have. For Ryker, he's basically had a runny nose for six months and it was making me nuts. Last week, he woke up with crusty eyes, so we've been super diligent about him getting his Claritin, the only stuff that works, and BAM! The kid is not nearly the snot bucket he usually is, he's in a better mood and he's just way more fun. 

An Instagram filter ay have helped that picture above, but let me tell you, those were some damn good homemade lamb gyros. I picked up the lamb sausage from Whole Foods that they seem to always have in their butcher department and now I understand why, it's amazing! I just browned it up, served it on the Naan from Whole Foods (tastes way better than their pita), mixed Greek yogurt with some cucumber and red wine vinegar and topped it with feta. It took about 15 minutes, all said and done. The veggies are just the asparagus stir fry in the prepped produce area of WF sautéed in some olive oil. Ryker at two whole plates of those veggies and half that gyro all because it was supposed to be mine. I'm wondering how to proceed with my sometimes picky eater, here's the situation. If I give him a meal in his high chair, 60% of the time these days he will be very picky about getting exactly what he wants and not eating (or feeding the dogs) whatever he decides is sub par. I can then put the same food on my plate, sit down to eat it and he will sit next to me and eat every bite. Our pediatrician says to make him what I want him to have, serve it to him and if he doesn't eat, he doesn't eat. I try this, but I'm weak so the kid gets the four bananas a day that he wants because his pitiful little "more nanny?" requests are too cute. I'm tempted to let him to continue to eat off my plate, since it means he's eating things like tons of veggies and exotic tastes like lamb sausage or curries or spicy burgers and things he normally wouldn't be interested in trying. What do you think? 

I've got today through Thursday off, which is pretty sweet. I applied to a dream job today and then another that pays a pretty dreamy salary but that would be kind of dry, but hey, you can't win them all. I figure if I keep putting my resume out there to new stuff that I'm qualified for every day, then eventually someone has to cave and hire me, right? That's my best attempt at the power of positivity right now, haha. I know it is still early in the process (roughly 90 days) but I want to know that we will be good now! 

We've got 15 days until I am full term and that is SO EXCITING! I've been feeling pretty good lately, except for sleeping which is basically impossible. I'm officially destroying Vic's attempts at sleep as well, which just isn't very cool of my half unconscious self. At least I know that when Baby Girl gets here, I'll be getting up all the time to accomplish something. Getting up every two hours to pee is just dumb. Watching this belly of mine continue to shoot out is pretty nuts! Lately, I've come up with a pretty good regimen of making sure I get my suggested supplements from my midwife in, along with fresh produce and even though my workouts have been the same, my weight gain has stalled a little over the last 10 days or so. The part of me that wants to stay as far south of 190 as possible is loving it, the part of me that wants to make sure Baby Girl is growing wonders if that is ok. I know she's getting great quality foods, along with some french fries and the occasional cupcake, so I'm not too worried. Here's what I'm getting daily:

A little more than the recommended serving of Natural Calm, which can be found here, or I get mine at Whole Foods. I'm taking a little more than the two teaspoons that my bottle lists as a serving because it helps get things moving that way, if you know what I mean. 

2000 mg of Vitamin C, which is supposed to help strengthen the amniotic sac and may also help with preventing transmission of Group B Strep during delivery. Here's a version from Amazon.

1 scoop of this Amazing Trio of different grasses, which I'm taking for the Alfalfa. It's a good source of Vitamin K, which should help with clotting and I am in no way ok with postpartum hemorrhage, so load me up with clotting abilities, please! It can be found here or I get it at Whole Foods. 

Fish oil, we take the Kirkland brand ones from Costco, two a day. 

I started making an amazing juice drink with 1 cup of Good Belly probiotic drink, the blueberry acai flavor, plus a scoop of the Amazing Trio powder and an ounce of spinach to help get some veggies in. It's higher than I'd prefer in sugar, but it tastes good and kind of masks the grass clipping taste, so I've come to look forward to it. I also found this smoothie recipe on Pinterest that my sister pinned that is so good, but I tweaked it a little to add my protein powder that I'm obsessed with. It has 1 cup of chopped carrots, a scoop of Snickerdoodle protein powder, half a cup of Greek yogurt, half a cup of milk and some ginger/cinnamon/nutmeg to taste. It's amazing. 

As long as I get everything above, I feel pretty good, but there are generally a lot more apples and carrots mixed in there for lunch, and then whatever we choose to do for dinner. Tonight will be three nights in a row that I've cooked a home cooked meal, I'm getting back into the groove! For some reason I took like six months off from cooking, whoops. But now I'm back and it's been delicious :)

Stressin' like a Boss!

So, this isn't one of my normal posts, just a warning! Sometimes a girl just needs to vent and ramble about some stuff. I promise to be back to normal programming after this :)

You've heard of the silly "Mommy Wars", right? Where stay at home Moms shame working Moms and vice versa for whatever reason. I never understood the concern over this, or why in the world any Mom was wasting what pressure time and sanity she had on worrying about what another Mom was doing with her day. As a working Mom, do I get jealous of others who get to stay at home? Yes, until Ryker is in one of his lovely "I'm two and you should do what I want" phases and then I count my blessings that sometimes I get to drop him off for the lovely Miss Peggy to deal with him at school. I don't need the Mommy Wars to give me guilt, you know why? I'm great at that all on my own.

I'm basically a professional stresser, I stress myself out as a hobby. It's not a great hobby, and I'm sure my time could be better spent learning to knit (I went to Michael's once to try and learn that...way too confusing) but instead I spend my time finding new things to worry and obsess over. Normally, I have found my baseline level of ridiculous stress that I can deal with, but this pregnancy has been especially rough because of it. Of course, I'm excited for our baby girl to get here, I can't wait to hold her, see Vic with his Daddy's girl and see Ryker as a big brother. But, I also spend my nights laying in bed thinking about crazy stuff that just gets me worked up and emotional. So, in an effort to just put my concerns out there and move on, I'm making a top 10 list of my self imposed Mom guilt so that I can just move on and enjoy the precious last 6 weeks or so of this pregnancy.

1. I'm so uncomfortable, and it's 90% of what I think about. Ryker's pregnancy was a breeze, but it also ended at 33 weeks. I'm 33 weeks and 1 day, and it's totally true that pregnancies can be 100% different for the same woman, this one has been pretty uncomfortable. From round ligament pain, heartburn, not being able to keep food down, to the latest hip/pelvic pain, I feel like my body sucks at growing a human. I worked out up until the weekend I had Ryker, like real lifting, and with this baby I can barely make it through my half hour stroll on my treadmill. I don't feel like a fit, strong Mom, I feel like I'm out of shape and can't imagine the work it will take to get it back. (This is my main self imposed guilt issue!)

2. What if Ryker feels neglected? How confusing is breastfeeding going to be for him? He suddenly wants me to hold him all the time, is he going to resent the new baby for being attached to me while we attempt breastfeeding exclusively? I don't want him to feel like second fiddle.

3. Having one kid reshaped my relationship with my amazing husband, what is having two children going to do? I tend to get caught in Ryker and his needs, putting them before ours as individuals and as a couple, I need to get a hold of this before I am trying to put everyone before our relationship. There's a reason I love having this man's children, he can only be defined as part of me, my other half doesn't even explain it.

4. I haven't cooked more than one or two meals for us as a family since last Fall. Lately, I've been stressing over Ryker's veggie intake, despite the fact that the kid can and does eat whole cans of green beans. Now if only I could get them to be fresh green beans (he doesn't like those).

5. I am leaving my current job for a new one in September, just about two months after I am due. The fun part? I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT I AM TRANSITIONING TO. I just want a job, so that I can feel like I'm not going to flounder, all unemployed and useless in the Fall.

6. Laundry for days.

7. I don't know how to relax. My midwife says I need to so that the baby can benefit from my relaxing hormones. I've started hypnobirthing, which is helping, but generally just knocks me out.

8. Between work, school and getting pregnant, I totally dropped the ball on any and all friendships.

Look at that, I thought for sure I'd get to 10 and then go on, but I'd have to search for more things and that really would be crazy! As I wrote this list it did exactly what I wanted it to, it made me realize how silly most of this is and that I can take steps to assuage all of this. There have been so many articles out there that I have seen about taking Instagram Mom accounts with a grain of salt, they might post all the happy pictures but who knows what they are actually going through? Lord knows how much time I waste scrolling through women that I follow for motivation but only end up feeling like I'm not balancing everything as well as they are. So, starting today, my focus is going entirely internal in regards to my family and myself. I want to enjoy the end of this third trimester, especially since I am officially in uncharted territory and I want to help create an environment that allows my boys to enjoy it too, instead of just seeing me feeling uncomfortable and bad for myself. I can't wait to be able to hold our little girl in my arms, but I know that I will miss feeling her constant movement inside me, even when she's pressing on my hip bone as hard as she can! Let's take a moment for ourselves, Moms, and just appreciate everything we do instead of worrying about what didn't get done. We're basically the shit. Now, it's time to go get my little guy out of bed and cash in on my Good Morning kiss!

Guess who's 2!

DISCLAIMER: Of course, life with a toddler is mostly unexpected and impossible to plan. We think Ryker got a nasty case of heat sickness last week from school, because our kid is a fish and needs insane amounts of water. I wrote this post the night before his birthday and am just now getting around to posting a week later! He's all good now and his teacher makes sure he always has access to water, that kid could drink the ocean after play time. Enjoy!

My baby boy is going to be two tomorrow! I can't believe the way that time has flown by. The first year was a lot of fun, but I think that even with the trials that come with having a mobile toddler in the house, this last year has been pretty amazing. Watching Ryker learn new things every day and really seeing the ways in which his personality is starting to blossom has been absolutely amazing.

My little guy still loves to eat like he's trying to catch up to his Daddy in no time. He regularly eats as much, if not more than I do and is still my skinny little guy, but don't be fooled...he's super heavy when you go to pick him up! He's sitting at about 30 pounds these days, which spurred us to finally get him into a new car seat about a month ago. We went with the Graco Nautilus 3-in-1 and have really liked it, so much so that we bought the same one for each of our cars. I've learned that the easiest way to try and have a happy ride home from school (he's usually pretty fussy after a day of playing with his friends) is to make sure that his cup holder is stocked with a drink and have a snack ready for him. The kid is a water fiend, just like his daddy! Since his school provides his lunches and snacks, I try to make him the best dinners possible but lately he's been obsessed with green beans, so his dinner diet has comprised of lots of green beans and either frozen fishies from Dr. Praeger's, chicken nuggets or whatever we happen to be grilling that night. He also lovingly refers to bananas (his favorite fruit) as "nannies" and God forbid he sees one that you don't intend on giving to him, he'll lose it. Be careful when you peel it too, he doesn't like it when they break in half!

His vocabulary has absolutely exploded and he's pointing out things all around him as he learns their names. Lately, he's been finding stars and cars everywhere and last week he pointed out an airplane that was flying by while we were driving! Some of his other favorite words/phrases include: what's that, uh-oh, oh no, bye-bye, Mommy and Daddy, baby, Ah-Ah (the name of his monkey toy), night night, I don't know, and many more that I can't think of right now. He sings and dances, which I think is just the cutest thing ever and just last night I got him to repeat back his version of "I love you" and it totally melted me. He can point out his hair, nose, eyes, fingers, toes, shoes, belly and ears and loves to find them on his stuffed animals as well. 

The kid is OBSESSED with books. Sometimes I just have to hide certain ones so that I can get a break from reading the same thing over and over. We just got him a basketball hoop for his birthday and we're hoping that he enjoys that, recently he's had a lot of fun throwing a ball around the house and yelling "ball!", so hopefully he'll love the hoop just as much. We also got him a lego table because he loves the one at our local Carter's store so much, which makes shopping there really easy!

There are so many other amazing things that he does and says every day. Sometimes, especially as this pregnancy progresses, he might make me doubt my abilities to stay sane with two children, but more often than not he's cracking me up and making me tell Vic how cute his is and how I think he's a genius. I can't believe it's already been two years since that little guy came into our lives and shook everything up. He's changed me in so many ways, the biggest of which has been my patience and my obsession with making sure our bed time routine happens. No, it isn't a strict bath and book routine. Every night I lay him down, we sing a song or two with our faces cuddled up on his stuffed owl, he kisses me "night night" and I say "I love you sweetheart, have sweet dreams". Some nights he won't be as stoked about bed times as others, which is mostly rare, so I'll sneak back in once he's asleep and make sure all of that happens no matter what. Tonight I may hold him a little longer, our nights of him being my only baby are numbered! He'll always be my first child, and only now do I see how special that is. I love you, Stinker, happy almost birthday!  

I can't believe it's been a year since this picture! I bought him another blue cake for this year, new pictures to come!