kapachino

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  • perfect weekend.

    I love – love – weekends where I don’t have plans. Most of the time plans are fun, but there’s nothing like free time. This weekend was good like that. If I could, I would start every Saturday this way:

    Wake up to a smiling baby ready to play. It’s early, but it’s okay because I went to bed early too.

    First things first. Have a cup of coffee and some breakfast while I read for a little while. Baby is playing happily on the ground.

    Get some laundry started. Meredith amuses herself – who needs a fancy water table when you have the toilet?

    Go for a run. It’s not too hot out yet and best not to put it off. :)

    Have some play time at home while I cool off – mirrors are loads of fun!

    Do the weekly chores. Quickly clean the kitchen and sweep the floors while Meredith chomps on some puffies. I can enjoy the weekend so much  more if I get this stuff done right away.

    Cook some blueberry & sausage pancake rollups. They don’t photograph well but sure are yummy!

    Later we visited a book sale and I got several board books for cheap, continued work on the bedside table I’m redoing with my dad, and had dinner with David’s parents at Steak ‘N’ Shake. Sunday we visited a new church, went shopping for household sundries, I got some craft time in, and we spent the evening at home together chatting and working on a puzzle.

    I’m recharged and ready for the week!

  • Currently

    Her first solo swinging experience produced mixed emotions of terror and exhilaration.

    ***

    Time // 3:51 p.m.
    Place // at work, about to leave for the day.
    Eating // nothing.
    Drinking // nothing.
    Watching // infusions.
    Reading // In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard.
    Wanting // some ferns for my living room.
    Thinking // about how I can read 30 pages a day simply in the time between parking my car and getting to my unit at work.
    Creating // a simple sweet cross stitch project.
    Hoping // to have some down time this weekend.
    Needing // to get connected at a church we both love.
    Anticipating //the arrival of orders of washi tape and essential oils I recently placed.

    ***

    Last week when we were all sick I was really thrown out of my working-mom groove. The whole week I didn’t exercise or cook, and I spent all weekend trying to get things back into order. This week we are all healthy again, but one thing after another has prevented me from really hitting my routine. I’ve only run once and cooked once, and it’s so hard to get the momentum going again.

    I’ve also been terrible at taking pictures, which makes keeping a weekly scrapbook kind of difficult. I still really want to keep up though, so I don’t care if I have a couple bad weeks. And once I get caught up again (I hope very soon) I’ll share my progress.

    This weekend I have plans to continue working on refinishing a table with my dad, but other than that – nothing! I am really hoping to have some down time at home because I want to get some things cleaned, go for a run or two, and work on my own projects. In between lots of Mermaid cuddles, of course. :)

  • Good Things: April 2012

    At the end of each day I write down at least one GOOD thing that happened, then I share them all here monthly.

    ***

    1 – Lots of work on Project Life; getting all caught up on chores with Meredith in the Ergo.

    2 – Another day off with a mildly sick Meredith and visiting David at work.

    3 – Working a full day plus reading while Meredith napped, taking her for a run, doing chores for the next day, and cooking dinner & sitting down to eat it as a family. Feeling like I’m getting this working mom thing down.

    4 – Taking an evening nap with Meredith and totally relaxing. Being nominated for the ICARE award at work.

    5 – Nice evening with Meredith crawling & playing by herself while I cooked.

    6 – Waking up to a 2-page love note from David.

    7 – Spending time with David’s extended family.

    8 – Easter with both families; watching Meredith “egg hunt”.

    9 – Having so much energy at work since I could drink coffee again.

    10 – An evening nap with Meredith.

    11 – A long sit-down dinner chatting with David.

    12 – Getting a raise.

    13 – Making plans with Dad to refinish furniture, hugs from Meredith, and David being so excited about the dinner I cooked.

    14 – Unexpected refund check in the mail.

    15 – Planning new cross stitch projects, mirror note from David, and dinner with the fam.

    16 – Good mail day – a magazine, wedding invite, & mini book.

    17 – David bringing home dinner so I could relax after a busy day.

    18 – Hugs from Meredith and making her laugh by sucking on her fingers.

    19 – Progress planning Meredith’s first birthday party.

    20 – Meredith’s reaction to me when I picked her up after work – she cried because I had to go to the bathroom and didn’t pick her up right away.

    21 – My friend Sara’s Red Tent gathering – a bunch of women sharing birth stories.

    22 – Seeing The Hunger Games with Dad at Alamo Drafthouse theatre.

    23 – Off work again with a mildly sick baby.

    24 – David taking care of me and Meredith while I was sick with fever.

    25 – Another day home, David bringing me my favorite sandwich & treating me to a milkshake, and lots of time spent as a family in the evening.

    26 – Coming home to see Meredith sleeping on David’s chest.

    27 – Watching Meredith play with her cousin Lucas.

    28 – Seeing Meredith play in the kiddie pool and stand up by herself and an afternoon with my dad learning to refinish furniture.

    29 – My nephew’s 3rd birthday party with the family.

    30 – A good run after not exercising for a week due to being sick.

  • chipmunks

    I discovered something awesome: putting Meredith in front of Photobooth. I had it on the chipmunk setting. I guess it has facial recognition, and it’s like it registered Meredith’s face, noted her already huge cheeks, and decided it didn’t need to alter them.

    Me: chipmunk. Her: skeptical, not a chipmunk.

    Oh look, one of her cheeks is a little bit puffed…

    She’s over it. This isn’t working.

    Oh wait. THERE we go.

  • how infertility changed me

    It’s national infertility awareness week, and before it passes by I felt like acknowledging it because although I am a mother now, I come from a place of infertility.

    I have PCOS, and although ours is not a particularly long story, we did undergo two years of waiting, an unknown future, one horrific miscarriage, many different tests and medications, and in the middle of it all my husband had both of his hips replaced. At the end of the two years I found myself in the therapist’s office struggling with depression that I didn’t want to let out of control.

    Once you deal with infertility, in any form, you are changed.

    In some ways it scarred me. I still carry the sadness, grief, bitterness, and envy inside of me. I still tense up inside when thinking about what it will take to have a second baby. I frequently get sad thinking that Meredith might be my only child, and then immediately feel guilty because so many people would do anything just to have one. I still find myself envious of pregnant women. I still mourn for the baby I lost.

    I think, though, that infertility has made me a better person and a better mother. We ended up conceiving through an IUI, and even though I had some serious discomforts during pregnancy, my main feeling was thankfulness. My daughter is a miracle to me, and I think I do a much better job at appreciating her than I ever would have otherwise. Every time I pick her up, even if I’ve only just put her down, I smile. Every time she learns something new, or smiles, or laughs, I am thrilled. When she cries at night or gets hurt or lonely or scared, I am secretly happy because she needs me to comfort her. I am so honored to be her mother.

    Infertility has also taught me to be dependent on God, to delight in His blessings, and to wait patiently on Him. Strange as though it may sound, if I hadn’t lost my first baby Meredith herself wouldn’t be here, and I can’t imagine the world without her. She came along once David’s hips were healthy and I had a new, more stable job. It was the right time.

    The Year of Suffering, as I call it, actually helped our marriage. We saw each other at our most helpless (mentally, emotionally, and physically), we were there for each other, and we became stronger.

    But you know what? If I had read this while in the midst of everything I probably would have thought: that’s easy for you to say. I get that. But I just wanted to say that I will never forget, I will never pretend that it was easy for us, and I will always be here for anyone who is going through it now.

    This isn’t an infertility blog, but I did write about some of my experiences. You can read about them here.