This is why I don't mop

So I mopped the tile for the first time today in....well I had to clean cobwebs out of the bucket first, so it's been a while. Anyway, I mop away, I feel great about finally mopping instead of just sweeping.

Not even 30 minutes later, Emma spots ants all over the floor I had just mopped, Grant chucks his cracker bowl full of crackers onto the floor, and I'm feeling irritated because I just mopped. Why are ants crawling on my CLEAN floor, but weren't on my DIRTY floor?

Then at snack time, Grant spills yogurt all.over.the.floor. And I had to leave the room to take a few deep breaths. Normally, no big deal, I'd just wipe it up. But I had just mopped! I wanted the floor to be slightly clean for at least 12 hours.

See, this is why I hate mopping. Give me a broom any day.

This thing called Mom

I logged in to write a post about our ant takeover, and to share my unscientific results that lead me to conclude that ants are nocturnal. As fascinating as that topic would be to everyone, I just can't get a conversation I had earlier today out of my head.

First, some background. I'm currently saturated in Mommy things. Along with being a stay at home mom (or a work at home mom when I'm doing Arbonne things), I'm on the team that is getting the MOPS group started at our church, I volunteer almost weekly in the church nursery, and I coordinate the volunteer schedule for the nursery at church. Add to all of that the moms I meet at the park (today it was a woman I went to junior high and high school with) and my friends who are moms, and it's an understatement to say that I'm surrounded by mommy.

And as good of friends as I am with several of the moms, and as much as I talk with other moms about teething or sleeping or rough days or whatever, we hardly ever talk about our hardest mommy moments. It made me start to wonder if I was the only one who wanted to run screaming from the house some days, or go back to work just to not have to clean a poopy bum one more time or to stay in bed all day and pretend I wasn't a mom. It made me wonder if I was mom material. Especially stay at home mom material.

Then I started reading the book that goes along with the MOPS curriculum, The Mommy Diaries. The moms who write the "diary" entries are like me - they sometimes feel like they are drowning in the mommyness, they sometimes long to be alone, they sometimes are overcome with frustration, with anger, with sadness at the loss of their before mom life, they wouldn't trade their kids for anything in the world. They are honest about their shortcomings, about their growing pains, about the adjustment to being a mom. They were saying things that I hadn't heard people say to me before. I started to have faith that I wasn't the only one.

Today's conversation that has left such an impression on me was with a mom that has three girls, with a fourth on the way. She has creative ideas for her kids, she is nurturing, uses a calm voice all the time, her children are calm and complaint. Basically, she has it all together. I watched her kids at a local park this morning while she had a doctor's visit, and when she came back to pick the kids up we found ourselves chatting about the adjustment we went through when our first kids were born.

She said to me "I still worry that I haven't bonded well with her because I had such a hard time and I needed so much help. I sometimes feel like she bonded so much more with her dad as a newborn."

I was floored. Her honesty was so refreshing, and it was so awesome to hear a mom share such doubts. Such normal, human, motherly doubts.

Because really, as moms, we are so so so hard on ourselves and how we are mothering. We exhaust ourselves to ensure our children get the very best experiences, the very best this and the very best that. We lose our selves in the mix, we doubt ourselves, we beat ourselves up. All in the name of doing the best by our kids.

My conversation with her, combined with my reading in The Mommy Diaries has made me realize I am not alone in my feelings, my doubts, my guilt. I vowed to myself on the drive home from the park this morning that I'm going to start being more honest about this thing called mom. I'm going to reach out to my fellow mommys, lean on them and provide them with a place to lean. We're raising the next generation here people, and we're going to be better moms if we turn to each other for love, support, and a great big hug in times of stress and doubt.

Hug on mamas, hug on.

Not as mute as we thought

The speech therapist who did Grant's assessment called last night to go over his results. Good news is he's making progress and doesn't qualify for services yet. Bad news is he has some red flags so she wants me to call her back in 3 months if I still have concerns.

His receptive language was off the charts, but I already knew that. I mean the boy can follow 2 step directions with ease. And he totally blew her away with all of his signs and how well he uses them. She agreed the noises he was making were weird, and he's dropping the last letters of most words. Her biggest red flag was that he doesn't babble in strings (or really at all) while he's playing, and while he'll imitate silly noises, he doesn't really imitate words. And he's got the whole sensory thing where he licks everything and chews fuzz and won't put certain foods past his lips. If he was a pregnant girl I'd say he had PICA. I've been brushing his lips when I brush his teeth, and he's tolerating that more. He's responding to deep pressure on his shoulders too when his body starts to get out of control.

So we'll keep doing what we're doing and see where we are in 3 months. She's sending some developmental milestones so I have something to compare his abilities with in the next months.

For those of you who knew I was going to be secret squirrel about my former job, I ended up fessing up that I was an ECSE. It actually helped, because then we could "talk shop", and she took my sensory concerns more seriously.

She did tell me to get rid of his paci, but that's not going to happen any time soon. He only uses it to sleep, and I figure he doesn't need to be speaking while he's sleeping!

I hope I don't forget.....

-the little "woooooo" that comes from Grant when a live song comes on the radio
-Emma's sheer delight at making a "silly" face for the camera
-Grant's 'beow' for the word cat
-the way Emma studies and corrects to get just right the angle when taking a picture with my ancient cell phone camera
-Grant's down dog yoga pose when he thinks he's doing a somersault
-Emma's beam routine when she felt like Nastia, and her gymnastics teacher's reaction at her incorporating several beam elements into the routine
-Grant's "whew" when he's taken a long drink of water
-how Emma nibbles chocolate chip cookies to make them last as long as possible, savoring each little nibble

Good bye Strawberry Shortcake

Alas, despite my best and repeated attempts, Emma will not be having a Strawberry Shortcake birthday this year. Despite the fact that she loves Strawberry Shortcake, and despite the fact that I bought Strawberry Shortcake party favors from the Target $ spot months ago, Tinkerbell invitations will be going out in the mail.

I had to weigh the $5 I spent on party favors against an hysterical fit in the aisles of Target today, and the loss of $5 won out. Although I'm still thinking about handing out Strawberry Shortcake favors anyway. Mainly because I hate the whole concept of party favors. But that's a blog for a different day.

Newest love

Gillette Venus Embrace razor - best shave ever. Seriously, ever.

The Hallway

The hallway light was on the other night as I walked from the living room to my bedroom. The light is rarely on, so it offered a new perspective and made me realize that the hallway has played quite a role in our family's lives.

The first night Emma was home the hallway light was on most of the night. I fumbled hopelessly in the "dark" of her room trying to get her, nurse her, then get her back to sleep without slamming my numb stomach against her cradle. Hour after hour I walked down that hallway to feed her or put her back to sleep, the bright light making me squint, my sleepiness causing me to forget to turn the light back off. The glare of the light reminded Hubs and I that our life would never be as it was before Emma was born.

Both kids took their first steps down the well lit hallway. It provided a long soft place to walk from one parent to the other, or in Grant's case, from one parent to a sister. It was an exciting time, my heart bursting with pride that each child had tackled such a major accomplishment.

Nowadays, the hallway has several uses. It's perfect for working on somersaults, although Grant tends to crash into the walls more than he rolls down the hallway. It also provides a nice place for a rousing game of chase, and Emma often uses it to gain some speed before she completes her Olympic vault in our room. Recently, it has become the time out spot for Emma because she HATES to sit alone, and her room was too much fun for a time out.

Friday, Emma and I got married over and over and over in the hallway. She put on her "marrying dress", we held hands, and marched down the hallway as I sang the bridal march song. Then we got to the end, promised to love each other forever, kissed cheeks, and declared ourselves married. Grant clapped and said "Wooooo" to celebrate our ceremony.