When You Become A Mom...

* Sleep becomes expendable, as do showers and makeup.
* The words "stinky" and "disgusting" take on a whole new meaning, like when your child poops in the bathtub.
* You become more protective than a mama bear.
* The greatest gift in the world can be a box of diapers.
* You learn to eat last and fast.
* Unless you love laundry, like me, you're in trouble.
* EVERYTHING your child does is cute, even if he just mumbles something unintelligible. And that's okay.
* You pray for new things, like 30 more minutes of sleep, or that you didn't forget a second change of clothes for the baby.
* Preparedness is expected. If you forgot the change of clothes, you can't go home when your baby has had a blowout. You have to go to Old Navy or wrap him in your coat. True story.
* You can never bring enough diapers.
* You don't get embarrassed in public. At least not until he's 3. Until then, it's just funny.
* You get to relive parts of your childhood, and to me, that's one of the greatest gifts about kids.
* You always have an excuse to leave.
* There's nothing like having your child say, "Cuddle?" and climbing up to snuggle you. That happened today.
* When you get to hold him those first few hours, you just feel like, Mom. Even though you've only held him for a few hours.
* You have a whole new set of knowledge. You know everything about humidifiers, Diaper Genies, car seat regulations, developmental goals, which diaper and diaper cream is best, what foods they can and can't have at what age. You learn to count their age in weeks, and then months, and then when they're 2, you sigh with relief.
* You miss them while they sleep and can't imagine living in a world without them.
* You thank God EVERYDAY for his most wonderful blessing.

Hate.

Lets just get it out there.

Things I hate.

1. When it's freezing but the sun is out. Don't ask. It's like an oxymoron to me.
2. How the news is always SO dramatic with weather that we have every year. Like, "Winter Storm 2009" and "Heat Wave 2009". It's either too cold or too hot. God must be giggling and shaking his head saying, "I can't make you happy!"
3. Medical insurance and insurance companies in general. My sister recently took her son to the ER for a gash in his lip. ALL they did was put super glue on it, no tests, nothing. They are personally being charged I think about $3,000.00. I don't get it.
4. Rudeness. I have been blessed enough not to have experienced it publicly for a while, but we all have had a time where you want to shake someone who is just plain rude to service employees or people on the street. Have some manners!
5. Christmas overkill before Thanksgiving. It's like the other fall holidays don't even matter.
6. People who aren't thankful for anything. Shallow, angry, selfish people who don't realize they have it so much better than probably 85% of people on the planet. I try to remember everything I have been blessed with, despite the hard things I have endured. It occurs to me that it's nothing compared with having no home, no food for your babies, or sickness. I am blessed.
7. I hate what happened to the many law enforcement officers and countless people, where their lives are taken without a second thought. No appreciation for the life they had built, or the family they would leave behind. It breaks my heart to hear so many stories of awful things that happen everyday, and I just wish there was more compassion in the world.

Sorry for the rant, I promise next post will be more positive. But I am thankful for all I have.

Funny Story...

This will make you smile. So, Tristan got up from his nap the other day, and I gave him a piece of cheese as a snack. He asked for another, so I said, "Okay, but that's it." Of course he replies, "Okay, thank you Mommy." So polite. So I leaned down and asked him if I could have a bite. Of course he says yes and I take a bite. Then he looks at me all serious and says, "That's it, Mommy." LOL Oh really?

It has been a recent problem that T likes to "feed the dog" when he's eating by dropping his food on the floor. Now I have learned to put Sebastian in the other room. But he did it yesterday, and when I scolded him, he said, "It's okay Mommy, Bastian's hungry. I feed him." LOL It's hard to argue with, isn't it?

Sadness.

So, you know when something profound and life-changing happens to you, and you don't know how you will get through the day, but somehow you do? That is what I am experiencing. Only I've realized I am much stronger than I thought and it amazes me how many great friends and family members I have. Despite the pain I have gone through lately, they have been there for me and I would just like to thank each and every one of them. I love you. You know who you are.

As for the issue, I have not been blogging (sorry!) because I really didn't know what to write. It does feel good to write something, and I really couldn't blog about anything normal right now. At least not until I wrote about the truth. The truth is, my husband Chris moved out. I don't want to discuss specifics, some of you know so I don't really need to. At least not yet. I am sad, and heartbroken, and am taking small steps to pull myself together and move forward.

That's all for now.

Jack In The Box = Yuck.

I usually don't ever eat JITB anymore unless it's Chris bringing us food for late-night snacks :) But Heidi and I went to our Mom's tonight and stopped by JITB to grab some food. I had forgotten how greasy their food is and literally 99% of the time they get my order wrong, not matter how much I make sure to confirm it. Tonight was no exception, they put cheese on my burger and smothered it in mayo. Yuck. It was sloppy and nasty. I had to take it back and even the second one was not good. From now on I will resume my no-eat-JITB. I had to eat a bowl of steamed vegetables at my Mom's to get some particle of nutrition in my stomach. Heidi and I have always joked when we've eaten JITB, " Mmm...this looks like a stomach ache! Yum!" Not so funny now. Remember when you were young, and you could eat whatever the heck you wanted? Greasy, sugary, high-caloric food and never have one side effect? Now I eat one greasy burger and am so affected that I have to blog about it! Crazy.

Dinner Time!

Tristan's dinner: Grilled chicken with barbecue sauce and oranges. Yum! (He's not too good with vegetables, I try but he only likes peas). So I give him V8 juice. And he loves it.

T is displaying my delicious pumpkin spice muffins that I made. I got the recipe off http://www.foodnetwork.com/ and made some changes that made it a little healthier, thanks to a lot of the reviews on the recipe. They are so tasty, and yes, those are pumpkin seeds on top. The recipe calls for them and they look very fall, but I'm not fond of eating them.

He is so trying to steal one while I take a picture. Sneaky!

My dinner. Mmm...chicken enchiladas! Only 40 more minutes till I can eat them...

And this is the mess I made to get them. I've been planning to make them for a week but alas, I have been lazy-dinner-girl. Living off my sister's leftovers and eating Chinese food (lunch). Shh!
Maybe if I get bored later I'll post the recipe.

Pumpkin and Salsa

I am being Betty Schmocker today and freezing cups of the fresh pumpkin that Chris baked and pureed for me. Apparently you can freeze it up to a year and use it to make a number of things. Like shrimp! (Forrest Gump). I will attempt my first homemade pumpkin spice muffins later today so hopefully they'll turn out great! Thank you to my imaginative husband for giving me an excuse to be Julia Child, and I'm sorry I laughed at you when you brought home 3 pumpkins and said you were going to gut them and bake them.

Thank you also to http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/ for easy instructions on the best way to freeze and use fresh pumpkin!

Husband Salsa!! Chris makes REALLY GOOD spicy salsa that we both love. Unfortunately, not many on my side of the branch enjoy spicy spicy, so we have to eat it all ourselves ;) Chris came home from work last night, blended some of the good stuff and made this really yummy brownish salsa that's warm because he roasts the peppers first. Oh, it's good. My mouth is watering right now...I would tell you what he puts in it, but I don't even know. From the looks of it he put our whole produce section in there! But he definitely knows what he's doing. I came in to taste it and he said,"Put 6 twists of the freshly ground pepper in there for me. No, 8." Lol...

Yum.