My goals and also a bit about halfway through whole 30

Half way into the whole 30, and I am just glad to be feeling happy about what's going into my body. If whole 30's goal is to lose weight, that's a bad goal. The way to loose weight is to have a calorie deficit, and no where in the whole 30 literature does it talk about counting calories. Basically, many people do lose weight because they are simply eating less calories based on the fact that veggies have way less calories than fast food options. But I think if you were already eating fairly clean, whole 30 won't really change that much. The main way I'm going to see the weight loss I wish I could achieve is if I start working out more. But that is so hard with my limitations. I did take a fitness pilates class this week and OMG I love it. I knew I would from the fact that I did it every week, twice a week, for months after G was born (until we moved). I really had missed it, and hated the fact that I'm no where near in pilates shape like I used to be. I mean. You guys. I used to take advanced reformer classes. It was no joke. But.... here I am. Two kids later. A torn up abdomen later. and busy mom life later....

Back to whole 30. So I was feeling super negative about my body at the end of last year. And just within the first week of whole 30 I was back down to the weight and body image I was before the holidays hit. So that's the best news out of the whole thing. And my kids are way less sugar dependent (honey counts as sugar, and seeing as how I no longer "have" to put it into their oatmeal...that's a win!) G also eats scrambled eggs without cheese in them, so also big win (they eat cheese other times of the day). I just wish they would eat unsweetened Greek yogurt...but tried that and failed (ended up having to squeeze in some honey before they'd finish their cups). Mostly they still eat ketchup with meat. I don't plan on fighting that battle yet, because I'll take some not-terrible ketchup over not-eating-meat any day.

My hubby hasn't had any alcohol in 16 days and that's a super awesome win (me too, but I wasn't a drink every night person like he was). We have not had late night unhealthy snacks (we had developed a 3-4 times a week chips and salsa habit) in 16 days and we have not had dark chocolate or anything sweet (aside from sweet potatoes or fruit) for that matter.

What a pride point!

But. I really want to start caring about pride so much less. I need to stop focusing on external. I always say out loud that I don't care...but I do. So I confessed it and we are moving on.

I feel like I've got this paleo thing on wrap, but I don't think after the whole 30 that I will keep it up AS strict. There will be wine sometimes and there will be weekly chocolate. I've said it before and I'll repeat, if I am happy with what goes in. I am happy with what is (size/shape/etc).

Now I need to focus on the things that matter. (body image does matter to me, though, because if I'm too hung up on my body I get anxiety and it leaves me strung out in every other area of life)

So. Thank you whole 30 for clearing my mind of the food and body woes. Here are my next goals.

1. Stop yelling at my kids. Sometimes I do better than others. I even went through a period of time where I was on a no yelling streak after I felt so guilty about yelling at G when she was 2.5. But then J's behavior got pretty bad and things escalated. I certainly wouldn't yell at my kids in front of Jesus....yet I do every day, since He lives in their souls. I must remember this and I must act on this. I ordered a book on amazon. I can't believe I paid 16 bucks for it. Thankfully I had a gift card balance. But anyways, it's called Yell Less, Love More. and I am hoping it's life changing. I bawled my eyes out last night after putting the kids to bed. Yesterday was the kind of day where I wished I had a job. And that's stupid because I know I WANT to raise them. I was just not a great mom yesterday. I guess we all have those days.
My yelling stems from resentment, impatience, perfectionism, and the fact that my son is SUPER defiant if he doesn't have 100% of your attention.
I don't need to yell at G. I guess I did enough of that for her when she was 2. So that's how I justify yelling at J...is that if I do it now, I won't have to in a year.....but that's a terrible excuse and I don't care what I did for G. I want to be better. I know I am a good mom and I know I show them crazy amounts of love. But I also know that yelling is damaging and does not set the Christ's love example I want to set.
I will surely always discipline my kids, but it is proven that fear is not an effective parenting tool. I thought it was. But it's not. I know this if I look back on my own childhood. Fear worked, but only until I figured out a way to undermine the fear. So the only way I got back on the right path was through self regulation that I learned NOT from the yelling part of my parents, but from the actual guidance part.

2. Stop living on my phone. I mean. I could be worse, but man I could be so much better. Deleting facebook was a huge step in the right direction. Next? instagram. I have to keep twitter for work, but I hate that platform, so it's not a time suck for me. The next step in operation not live on phone....email. But for work it is so so helpful to have on my phone....need to find a balance. Wish we could afford for me to quit that job. Then I'd really have no reason to be on my phone and I could even get a dumb phone again.... but we can't afford that so. Blah.

3. Stick to our budget. I take full responsibility for the fact that we have a good income but have to live so frugally and so budget conscious. I have more student loans (bills for that went up this month, we are paying almost as much on student loans as we do for our house, moral of that story, don't get student loans) and yet I don't work. Well. Not really any ways. I keep telling myself though, if we had more money to 'play' with, we'd have to donate more....because we aren't called to live lucratively as Christians. So maybe God knew that it would be harder for us to get to Heaven if we had more money....so here we sit. Nervously waiting for the other foot to drop that would land us in a terrible financial position. I hope that foot never lands. I have to stop being a martyr to organic food. But that's so hard knowing it's better for us. I can't unknow this fact. I get so conflicted finding a balance between feeding us healthy and better food versus having no money to do that. Life is so ironic. and cruel.

4. Trim the fat. In my life, that is. Certain acquaintances, groups, and positions have to be trimmed in order for me to be a better friend to those that I truly need and want in my life. So, I'm making the hard call on things to quit and say no to. Life is cruel again. Time is a big shortage in my life and I don't get enough sleep.

so, there you have it. pure and raw.

love to all.

What is Grace? From a 3 year old perspective

My sweet husband taught G to say the "Hail Mary" prayer a few weeks ago and she's been perfecting it every night since. This past week she has been following up the prayer with a question about some word within the prayer. A few nights ago she asked me what sinner means, last night she asked me what holy means, and then tonight she asked me, "what is grace?"

Stop. My. Heart. or SMH for those abbreviation loving readers. She is so thoughtful, smart, and inquisitive.

My answers have been age appropriate but also as close to literal meaning as possible. I've told her that everyone is a sinner. That we all do bad things sometimes, and that if we aren't being good, that's sin. She's used it in hilarious context since. I told her that holy is the opposite of sinner. That people in Heaven are holy, and that if you are really good and be nice to other people then that is holy.
But tonight when she asked me about grace, it was so hard. How would you describe grace to a 3.5 year old??

The definition is "simple elegance or refinement of movement" or "the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings" or "to do honor or credit to by one's presence"

There's really no way to break that down on a kid level easily. So I gave it my best shot. And stuck to the Christian definition.

I said that grace is when God helps people be holy, or good. It is when people are full of good feelings and thoughts and they do good things for other people. She seemed happy with that but then followed up with, "where does grace come from?" So I said it comes from God and it's inside people. So then she asked how it gets there. {I wanted to tell her that we get it at Communion and at church, but I didn't want her to worry that since can't have grace since she doesn't get communion yet--so I left Communion out of it.} I just said we get it at church, when we go to church and sing songs and say prayers. Then God puts grace in our bellies. I said that it goes in our bellies like magic from God and then it goes up into our brains and helps us do good things for others. So then she asked how God does magic.... (I mean.... I don't know okay! LOL) I said that God can do anything and he is so awesome that everything comes from God and he can really do all kinds of cool things, even cooler magic than Abbie Cadabbie (from Sesame Street....).

She wasn't convinced. She asked several more times how God gets grace in our bellies. And I tried a few different word combinations to explain it. Then she absolutely floored me and said the following.
G: "I think that maybe God puts grace in our bellies when we go to communion and the big people up there give us stuff and we get grace from God in our bellies like that."


I KID YOU NOT. This amazing three year old just gave you the most basic description of the beauty of Jesus/God in the Eucharist. All by herself.

I love her. I love how beautiful her mind and heart are. Thank you Jesus for giving me this most amazing gift. God is so amazing and I just know he has been leading her little heart through this prayer and learning what all of the words mean in it.


And the coolest thing is that she started asking those questions all on her own because she wants to understand the words she has been taught. I know Mary is up in Heaven totally smiling and clearing a place for this sweet girl in heaven. She will move mountains some day. But for today.....she's a totally typical 3.5 year old that had a meltdown because she didn't want to leave her best friends house.

Helper tiger and picnic

(Should have posted last week, lame blogger!) 

Our summer has been going along swimmingly aside from some stress, a cr repair, and a sinus infection bug that went through the house.

I'm going to try to post more here...so lately we've been....

Picnicking (mostly I pack our picnic but yesterday we had coupons and went against clean eating for a convienient and yummy chik fil a dinner)

Trying to fish as a family. Pretty challenging with young ones and a terrible fisher wife. Nice memories though.

Working. I have been doing a lot of happy family work and the kids usually come with me to small things. 

Reading. Summer reading program is in full swing and j is even growing in his attention span. He loves Pete the cat and llama llama! 

Cooking. Clean eating has been a year habit now, and it's awesome. Ie definitely gotten into a grove with the cooking and meal planning. It's just expensive. Anyone that tells you they eat clean and well on a cheap budget is crazy. There's no going back though. I can't let myself but anything with crap in it. It's shocking how well I shop the perimeter, except at target, yo'. I've been feeling generally great about myself and it's really only if we are traveling and I've not been eating well or if I've not been able to work out that my body image gets out of wack.

And then there's my helper tiger!

Check out her folding skills, to the left of my trifold are her half folded small towels. Love her!!

Just a quick post!

G told me today that the snack at preschool camp was "boonneeessss!" Like dog bonesssss! And I asked what they tasted like, to which she said, "like bones, like that dog I made that project with at the new "muu-nee-um"! Which translates to Scooby snacks! Lol ( we went to the children's museum a few weeks ago and in the art room there was a Scooby doo project)

Aside, muneeum and furnanure are my favorite words she says... Behind "I love you"

She recently told me that no one else is married but her aunt d and r. They just got married this past week, and it's G's belief that if we didn't go to your wedding, you're not really married!

She did great at YMCA soccer and has been exceeding my expectations at her gymnastics classes (no more parent tot, yay!) we also enrolled her in that preschool camp for a week for some socialization and for me and j to get some alone play. It's been great! We've also been hitting the library once a week and park play dates lots!

J was evaluated for speech delay today and it went really well. He's like super off the charts for receptive and non verbal communication, he just doesn't have words. Which is really similar to G, if you recall, but his craniofacial team was concerned so he's gonna get speech therapy. Should be something to do, and hopefully fun, at least.

He's such a little ham and there's been too much development for me to really catch this blog up on.

He has all but the 2 yr molars. He weaned fully on 5/29 (I got him down to just bed time, then about 2.5 wks later he decided he was done all on his own, kinda sad but at least it was "easy" ish). He hates diaper changes and has gone a lot on his potty, though not lately, so I need to just buck up and train him. He's 18 months on Monday so I'll write more about him then!

I've been doing an intense boot camp style workout. I think it's kinda working on toning my flab up but I mostly just need a tummy tuck for the skin hanging around... We go on a trip in a few weeks but a two piece is never in my future. Still working for the organic baby food company part time. We are all still eating 90% clean and loving it. I can never go back now.

My husband has been doing great at his job, and recently built himself a work bench in the garage from scratch (including running electricity and installing outlets). Super proud of the man I married.

We've had a few date nights and have been keeping busy with social activities or kid things (plus my job!)

Much love to you all!

Our First Marathon!

We recently ran the Garmin Marathon in the Land of Oz -- yes, we ran 26.2 miles!! Okay, we probably walked about half a mile of that, but still, that's a small percentage!

I have always said, and still maintain, that running that many miles is absolutely crazy. After we finished our half marathon last fall, we basically looked at each other and said, "We can totally do a full!"
So we signed up for one.
Then the training was pretty terrible. Training for your first marathon over the winter is challenging because you end up running long distances on a treadmill or outside in the freezing weather and then something ends up pulled, torn, etc...There were also illnesses to contend with, and not to mention our two kiddos. So needless to say we did not stick to our training plan very well. We did manage to get one 20 mile run in, and it didn't go too terrible.
Despite both having tweeked ankles and my husband falling down the stairs two days before our race, we went ahead with the run and beat our goal pace by 3 minutes!! (Originally I had wanted to run the race under 4:30, but from about week 4 on we knew that wasn't going to happen. We changed our goal to 5 hours. Then when we picked up our packets, we saw there was a 4:50 pacer, so that became our goal)

Here's a run down of how the race went for me (My husband said he hurt basically the whole time and in my opinion is seemed the worst part was the beginning for him - just speaking from how it came off);

Mile 1; Excitement, but then I saw a sweet girl with a "go mommy!" sign that made me think of how proud she must be of her mom and how hard that mom must of worked, and then it made me think of how hard I've worked and how I'm trying to be a good example for my kids.... which made me actually a bit emotional inside and I couldn't believe I felt a tear in my eye!

Mile 2; settling in, going smoothly, that last mile was SLOW! But we wanted to start slow because it sets up a better last half if you don't go out to fast. Hubby needed to stop and stretch, his ankle was hurting.

Mile 3; rain drops sprinkling down, sky looks very bad....greaaaattttttt
When we split from the half marathon there was a guy directing runners and he said, "to the right, hurts a little, to the left, hurts a lot" I LOL'd and said, "true true!"

Mile 4; a bit of a break in rain, my husband needed a porta potty stop, lost our pacer

Mile 5; picked up speed to catch our pacer, rain was pouring at this point. I was pretty mad about it

Mile 6; sprinkles, hills, puddles, grumpy at the weather but chugging along physically

Mile 7; TORRENTIAL DOWN POUR, thunder, lightening....yeah this is DUMB and INSANE but by God we're doing it

Mile 8; GU stop! I grabbed a chocolate flavor and cared only minutely that GU isn't clean...it was SPECTACULAR. The consistency is perfect and it tasted awesome. Definitely needed that pick me up during the miserable storm

Mile 9; decided that at least the storm is propelling us on, because who wants to WALK in the rain?? Get done sooner, get out of the rain sooner, just keep running! But we did heed the warnings to not let the rain make us run "too" fast, so we kept our pace right between the pacers.

Mile 10; Just as I asked my husband if he thought we had another hour or so in the rain...the sky cleared a tiny bit and the rain stopped! It was a miracle, haha. The wind was still around and so trees were still spitting water and the ground was disgusting, but my posture improved so much since now I was able to run standing up.

Mile 11; we are doing this! We were in a groove at this point. Walked up a short steep hill and didn't feel bad at all

Mile 12; we made it through the part of the course I was most worried about--the first 12 with the most hills and the rain had stopped, I was happy for sure! My husband was hurting pretty bad though. Walked through an aid station, stretched.

Mile 13; Feeling pretty cheery through the first half. Our time was right around 2:25 which was almost 20 minutes slower than our half marathon race time, but again, that was the plan, slow and steady to finish.

Mile 14; Neither of us are feeling to great. Since the rain had stopped, we had nothing to distract us from our hurting bodies.

Mile 15; walked some on the bridge, my smart husband brought a sample pack of biofreeze to rub on his ankle and he let me have some for my super aching knees -- I was SO surprised at the difference it made. Instantaneously my knees were rejuvenated. This was totally what we needed.

Mile 16; at the park and split for the trail.

Miles 17-19; Sticking pretty close with our pacer, watching those who had already made the turn run past us was a great distraction. We chatted some through the next few miles. Walked up a few steep inclines...stopped and stretched once

Miles 20-21; heading back to and through the park, stopped to stretch a bit, not feeling awesome, belly hurting but at 21.5 we saw the kids and my sister and soon to be brother in law! it was so great to see them!! I gave G a huge hug and sweet J got a kiss. They waved and it was perfect timing.

Miles 22-23; this was my "wall" but thankfully my husband was there to help me get through it. I didn't stop...obviously, and even at one point my hubby asked if I wanted to walk and I barked out a "no!" because I knew I wouldn't start back again

hurting!!

Mile 24; when we hit this point, I knew we'd finish and I had worked through the mental exhaustion of the previous few miles. My husband even said he was "excited" at this point, which propelled me even more because he's not an excitable person! We walked through the last aid station ready to smash the finish.

Mile 25; holy s$%* we are DOING THIS! We were passing people left and right at this point. This was our fastest mile. I think that speaks volumes to our training and our racing mentality. You can't start out too crazy, there has to be something left in the tank to finish strong...and we did that. I looked at a lot of the times on the results and we were some of the only people who had slower pace times at 13.1 and 18.5 miles than we did over all...because our back 8 was faster than our first 18 miles.... pretty proud of our finish

booking it buddy!

Mile 26; this course has an incline to get to the finish, and I knew that because I had run the route, and I had prepared us for that....we rocked it (painfully, but still).  My husband was a bit behind me, I slowed a tiny bit for him to catch me because I wanted to finish together

Mile 26.2; We both ran to the finish, what felt like a sprint was probably not, but we were going faster than the whole race and people were cheering...and the MC was shouting out encouraging things and said how impressed he was with our neck and neck finish. My husband ended up edging me out by 6 thousandths of a second! I'm totally proud of him, but he was apologizing because he "beat me." I don't see it like that though :-)

just finished...ya it was rough but so proud!

So there you have it! When I sit here and think about it, I can't believe we really did it!

times;

forgot to stop my watch until about a minute after we finished

The little girl that made me a momma is 3

Last weekend was G's third birthday. This is both welcomed and shocking. I "can't believe how big she is" but I also can't believe it's "only" been three years.

I can totally remember life before her, and in some ways my husband and I yearn for those years....because ya'll know being a parent is just tough, especially when they are so demanding of your time and energy....marriages are forever changed by kids. But in way more ways, we are so blessed, lucky, and happy to have her in our life.

This past year was such a huge one of growth for her.

First, she made potty training seem like it was like learning to fly without wings. OMG it was so hard. I'm sure you remember all of those blog posts....
But, she did it, we did it, it was a team effort. No accidents since last summer. Just today she wiped her own bottom for the first time & I had no clue! I was down turning on laundry (I knew she had gone to the bathroom) and when I got upstairs she was flushing! I mean...#cool. Can't wait for that journey with J....not.

Second, she went from barely saying words to telling stories, singing songs, pretending, having a vocabulary of probably thousands of words (who's really sitting there counting?), "reading" books, etc.... She is an individual person with all of these emotions, feelings, thoughts, ideas.... I love it. Seriously, I cannot believe she was in my belly just 3 years and 1 week ago. And then for her first 6 months of life she was TOTALLY dependent on me and my milk (God's provision, of course). I kept that little person alive...and now she is thriving. It's so miraculous.

Third, she started sleeping in her 'toddler' bed. She'll probably sleep in that thing for years...she's so petite, I don't know why we'd need to buy a "big kid" bed until she'll too long for it....that won't be until she's probably 6.

Fourth, she started "writing" and "drawing." She's pretty good at tracing letters, but only a few are distinguishable on their own. She draws pictures of stick people, with huge heads of course. She is pretty darn good at coloring within lines, and she can "cut" and use glue.

Fifth, gross motor wise, she's all there. skipping, hopping, dancing, etc...

Her personality is in full force, and it's all her. She's got 90% me and 10% my husband. I told him the other night, what did he expect since he "let me stay home and raise her myself." HAHA... he gets a good deal of quality time with her, though, and plays with her more than most working fathers do. I'm really proud of the effort he takes to be present in her life. I really don't feel like she is lacking in that department, which is good, because I wouldn't accept any less from him. Girls need their fathers. Her relationship with him will have more of an impact on her life than any other human relationship, in my opinion. Yes, her relationship with me or with her brother are very important....it's just my belief that a girl and her father is the relationship where she solidifies her self confidence in "male" subjects (not that I can't model that, it's just my belief that her relationship with her dad solidifies it), where she learns appropriate respect to demand from future love interests, and where she comes to respect or not respect her self worth.

To summarize G at 3---

Favorite;
food-- oatmeal with blueberries is a solid choice, she'd love to eat junky food all the time (like chicken nuggets) but that doesn't happen. She is pretty picky with meat. She likes cereal, eggs, carbs anything (pancakes, muffins, etc...)
song-- ABC song
color-- red
book--currently it's this 5 story collection of Bernstein Bears, but she loves just about any book you give her
show-- daniel tiger and super why
clothing item-- comfy pants
drink-- juice (but she only gets that at breakfast)
snack-- happy family anything, annie's homegrown cookies, fruit, yogurt
friend-- Levi
activity-- doing school cards or pages, she also enjoys playing "big kid" things with us without J around (like jigsaw puzzles, candy land, match game, doll house....)

She doesn't really nap these days, about 2/7 days she takes a nap, other than that it's "quiet time"
She sleeps about 10 hours over night. She takes showers every other day with our help.

least ideal attributes; TANTRUMS, duh. She gets REALLY set in her ways and won't change her mind for anything. Independence....but that's both good and bad. I want her to be independent, so I don't want to "break her of that" but it can be REALLY challenging
best attributes; she's a great helper, a really good big sister, aims to please, for her age is pretty reasonable, she minds me fairly well in public, she's cautious and observative, has a really good attention span

Basically she's really awesome but can throw the biggest fit you've ever seen. It's a passionate person problem. I'm the same way. Still.

For her third birthday I hand crafted a Daniel Tiger theme (thanks to PBS parents for the free printables)

Eating Disorder Awareness Week

Several years ago I wrote a series of blogs about my eating disorder. I also wrote how I hope to help my kids avoid behaviors and emotions that can lead to eating disorders.

I mean....the reality is.... I can't completely prevent that from happening. As much as I will fight tooth and nail to do my best, it comes down to only them. So that kind of sucks, but that's the plight of a parent.

As for me...since it is eating disorder awareness week, and I feel specifically called to catch "you" all up on how I'm doing.

I am better than ever. Literally, I have never been at such a strong place in my life with respect to a relationship with food and my body.

I really attribute this to eating fairly "clean." As I've written before, we really avoid processed foods and I make just about everything from scratch. I'd say we strive for 90/10, but most months hit 85/15.

If I feel good about what's going into my body, how can I feel bad about my body?

As much as I'd love to say I don't care a thing about the scale...I do a little bit. And I think that's okay, because we all need some checks and balances... I want to be healthy, and not throw complete caution to the wind. I do, however, know more than ever how much weight can fluctuate and how 150 pounds on one woman looks healthy and on another it looks too big.

Eating disorders are about so much more than food. They are about paranoia, isolation, control, stress, etc...

I think having an eating disorder is THE ONLY thing in my life I would go back and change. So many negative things happened to me in my life, but I wouldn't change them because they helped me become who I am today.... an eating disorder just plain sucks and I would definitely change that. But it'd be impossible to, because as I wrote in my older blog posts, it started forming at a really young age.

The point of this post is to put it out there that if you are struggling with an eating disorder, you can get through it. There is hope and all you have to do is make a series of positive and life altering decisions. Tell someone about it. Be honest with them and yourself. Make an action plan. Know there will be steps forward and backward. I didn't get to this place over night. My eating disorder was in full force 8 years ago and until last spring, I wouldn't say I was completely "cured." Because I still had disordered eating and negative body thoughts.

My sweet husband has been my rock through it all and he is probably really happy to not hear me be so negative about my body. I love it. Stretch marks and all.

I am;
strong
smart
friendly
helpful
passionate
supportive
loving
grounded
humble
confident
healthy.

unfiltered momma of two. eats fairly well and works out a few times a week. flexing in all my glory.

It is my hope that if we talk about eat disorders, more people are likely to step forward and say... hey, you know what? I've been through that, or I'm going through that... and it won't be this big stupid secret thing that people feel like they are alone in. I think we all really need to unite together against societal norms that perpetuate disordered eating and body image.

Making people feel loved is really the key. And it has to start BEFORE eating disorders take hold, because it's much easier to prevent an eating disorder than to get over one. Even when I felt loved by my husband, I still was within the grasp of poor body image and disordered eating.... it took quite a battle to get out from under it completely.

Moral of this blog, love your kids, love your neighbors, stop watching/buying/promoting the culture of thin.

The latest happenings

Basically my kids have been sick in some form or fashion since the middle of October...so that's been....awesome.

stomach flu
runny nose
cold
flu
rsv

hoorah!

I've been sick twice (I started the stomach bug in early October and had a cold or the flu over Thanksgiving), and my husband once. The kids just can't seem to get out from under it. We've had brief periods of health, and I use that term lightly, but 85% of this winter has been confined to our home with snot rags, sick juice, and TV. Ugh.

I know that it's "good" for the immune system to be boosted, and we are "due" because last winter there was one round of colds after the birthday party / baptism weekend, but that was all since we were homebound. I tried to be relatively homebound this year, but I guess you either are or you aren't because going to target doesn't count as being homebound and clorox wipe or not, there's millions of germs floating around that store and anywhere else we went....even if it wasn't some indoor play center. Heck, maybe those woulda been cleaner.

My life looks like this;
 
Run. Cook. Wipe noses and butts. Breastfeed. Watch TV. Work (I worked 50+ hours this month! money FTW!!!!). Attempt to visit friends, but generally lose on that due to illness. Attempt to go on a date but that hasn't happened due to illness. Go grocery shopping. Go to church when we aren't sick. Attend a few meetings. Go to the doctor. Oh, and I went to the dentist once. Woooooo!

Since I last updated you we celebrated my husband's birthday. That was nice, though it was supposed to be nicer with the date night attempt I mentioned above that still hasn't happened. Such is the life of a parent. He also kind of got hurt running and trying to be a general badass by beating my on our 9 mile training run. It's been almost 2 weeks since he last ran and I'm starting to worry he won't be prepared for the marathon. I really don't want to run alone...

G has gone through periods of awesome behavior and then crappy behavior. I'd like to think I'm doing a rockstar job of rolling with the punches, and have only really yelled once in MONTHS, so that's cool. I credit Daniel Tiger, The Orange Rhino Blog post I read, internal motivation that I don't want to model bad behavior and GOD above through prayer and intervention. Sometimes you just have to kill 'em with kindness and that's what I've been trying to do. We do discipline, but try to do all things with love. We are Christians, ya' know.
I also read St. Gianna's book (seen here Saint Gianna Molla: Wife, Mother, Doctor). Even if you aren't Catholic, it has a great message of being a better wife, mother, human....My husband has been reading it too, very motivating.
So back to G. Well, she's working on handwriting, because I feel like once she can write, at least a little bit, official homeschooling will begin. I'm beginning to feel more and more out of place with 'preschool' conversations because she's not going anywhere and won't be. I wish people wouldn't judge me for that. She'll be socialized just fine, thanks. I'm not crazy. I asked her today if she wanted me to be or teacher or someone else and she said me, so there's that :-)
She does want to go to a "school" / "somewhere else" for school, so I guess I'll have to work on that one.

She didn't used to get confused with "b" and "d" but out of no where she has started to. And also "6" and "9"

celebrating her besties birthday

She totally used to know those apart....maybe she's got dyslexia, or has too much swimming around her brain nowadays. I don't want to diagnose her since I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure she has sensory issues and may even be on the ASD, but not nearly enough for treatment. Especially since it is such a broad spectrum (I think nearly any kid could fall on it KWIM?). She's definitely not a truly typical kid though, but we've known that since she was a baby. Even my mom pointed out how quirky she is when G was only like 8 months old or something. Basically I am her mom, and I see her all the time. I also see a lot of other kids her age, and I know she's not like them in weird ways. Not that I think that's bad, and I'm certainly not seeking out treatment, because I think she has to develop her own personality and learn to manage her quirks. If there was something debilitative, sure, but in my opinion, there's not. What quirks you might ask.... well she's just extreme on so many things. OCD like, emotional overload like, extremely amazing memory....IDK I can't explain it, she's generally a sweet preschooler just weird, in an okay way. I love her to the end of the universe and back though. She is beautiful and makes me feel so happy.
Wow...got on a tangent there.

sick faces:-(

So J... he's doing really well despite his sicknesses. He's walking a lot at home these days, but not 100% of the time, and not when we are out and about for me to go get him some stride right shoes. That is on my to do list though. I can't wait for spring to get here so we can all go play in the yard together. Last spring was kind of a wash, because he had to be held when we were outside, and that's not as fun!
He has some "words." He'll say (in his own baby speak way) "bite"(which my husband unfortunately started him on as meaning "more food") "all done" "bath" "bed" "momma" "dadda" "ahh" (maybe G's name??) "bye" and "yeah"
He's getting a bit of an attention span FINALLY. He will read books for a little bit, and even has a few favorites (Sesame Street Nighty Night and a Colors slide-the-door book). He's not too interested in G's shows yet aside from the songs, and easily gets bored with toys (and moves between them quickly). He loves musical things and kid songs. He tries to write/color, but still tries to put them in his mouth, so it's a supervised activity only. He likes turning light switches, pushing buttons (like on the food processor), and being as "helpful" as I'll let him. He is OBSESSED with the dishwasher. He has sat on the potty a few times, but never gone (it was just because it's sitting right there next to the tub). He LOVES his blankey but doesn't have a lovey other than that. He's much more of a climber than G ever was, and he's much more curious (Whereas she was more likely to size things up from afar, he must try it to find out). He's still sitting rear facing, still nursing over night, and still my baby boy. I wouldn't change that for the world. XOXO.