Whoa child, slow your roll

I'm sitting here drinking my coffee (from my new Keurig!) and eating cinnamon roll cake before my kids wake up. I really, really need the time to myself these days.

You see, we have a problem in our household of epic proportions. I don't know what happened here, but sometime in the last four weeks, Gabriel has become what I can only describe as...a moody teenage boy. I wish I were joking, but we are dealing with some major behavioral issues and we're grasping at straws trying to figure out how to deal with it.

Not listening, not wanting to say hello to any of his family, blatantly lying to me, throwing HUGE tantrums like a 1-year old, refusing to pick up his toys...the list goes on and on and on.

We can't really pinpoint when this whole thing started, but I am sure it's a combination of things. When he was sick, we just let him lay around all day long and obviously didn't make him go to school. With the holidays, he hasn't been to school in about a week anyway, so his routine is completely messed up. His grandparents - my in-laws - have been coming OFTEN and they tell me, in front of him, to stop disciplining him (because how dare I discipline the little darling angel in front of them?!) so that kind of throws a kink in things.

And then the whole Christmas thing where he's spoiled without having to be good? Yeah, that really doesn't help.

I thought that lazy Elf on the Shelf would do the trick but nope. He could care less.

So now I'm in the early stages of building a behavioral chart with rewards and goals and consequences and hoping wishing praying to the good Lord that it works. This is too ridiculous.

Thank GOODNESS he goes back to school today or else I might end up crying in my closet.

Are your kids going whacko because it is the holidays? What have you done about it?

Merry Christmas!

So many great things this week. So many happy memories. So many devilish eyes in photos. I guess that's what happens when you rely on an iPhone in the evening with bad lighting. Whatever.

My family. This is the first picture in five years that has included all of us siblings. Having my brother back was...interesting. A good interesting.

 
Nat and I didn't get the memo that we were looking cute...

SANTAAAAAAAAAA.

So excited to open presents!!!

And the best part? Having little babies means they don't wake up at the crack of dawn and come pounce on us to get up...yet. We actually prolonged the opening of gifts so we could throw a breakfast casserole and cinnamon roll cake in the oven.

I had the lovely pleasure of hosting my parents and siblings at our house. It was so nice to play games, eat, relax and enjoy each other all day long.

I'm just so happy. I have no more words.

How was your Christmas?? Was Santa good to you?

My heart hurts

Like most of you, I have been unable to clear my head. Between the photos of those sweet, precious little faces on Facebook and the constant coverage of the Sandy Hook tragedy on the internet and TV, there has been no escaping it.

My heart hurts.

My mind is reeling.

For a few minutes, an hour maybe, it'll slip my mind. But then something will remind me of what happened and the anger comes back. The fear. The sympathy for the ones left behind.

I think of the parents who will have to stare at presents left unopened under the Christmas tree. I think of the husband of the principal - a hero, who put her life on the line for her kids - and the pride that he must feel through the pain. The family of the teachers who were so incredibly brave that day.

I have seen a lot of anger directed towards those who believe this issue is about gun control. People frustrated by the state of mental health care in the United States. People are blaming the lack of religion in schools.

People are angry and other people are pointing fingers because how dare they make this a political issue or a health issue or a security issue or a religious issue?

How dare they lack sympathy?

How dare they make this a political agenda?

Because we all want something to blame so that we can start to somehow put together the pieces in our head as to how and why this happened. So we can understand and fix.

I say, let people cope with this indescribable, awful event the way that they will. Some people respond with anger. Some are called to action. Some cry and kiss their kids. It's okay.

It's okay to grieve in whatever way you grieve. Let's all stop pointing fingers at each other. Let's take a few days to figure out where we go from here. And then, let's get angry. Let's get frustrated.

Let's make changes so we - as parents, as citizens, as human beings - can try to prevent these God-awful things from occurring.

In the meantime, I'm going to start with hugging my kids a little tighter. To honor the victims by making each day special for my boys. By showing kindness to friends and strangers alike.

That is where change starts.

What to expect when you're...

As I type this, I literally feel like I need to prop my eyelids open just to keep from falling asleep. I haven't been able to stay up past 8:00 pm since like...two or three weeks?

Attempting to create something for dinner that doesn't entail pouring milk and cereal into a bowl is excruciating. My body aches like I just ran a marathon (not that I even know what that is like).

I can't even talk about my boobs. The thought sends me into painful shivers. I can't wear a bra, yet letting it hang all freeballs is just...too...much. My only saving grace for this pain is to lay flat on my back with them just plopped up. Nice visual, right?

I guess I should just go ahead and say it. 

I'm weaning.

As we approach Jonas' first birthday in a few short weeks, we've reduced some of his daytime nursing sessions so that he is nursing longer in the morning and the evening, but not during the day.

At first I thought it was from being sick last week but no. This is ridiculous. I've been googling scary shit all night that is telling me I may or may not have diabetes or heart disease or a million other awful things but then it sort of dawned on me.

I AM NOT PREGNANT. It is 99.999999999999999999999% impossible. At least I think so. The week before being sick I felt normal. I started weaning about a week or two ago and it just so happens that this is the time frame in which I've been feeling fatigued. 

Exhausted. 

via

Seriously, neither of those words cover it.

After my google sesh, I realized that this is like the thing nobody talks about. I didn't experience it at all with Gabriel. There are like 3 articles on fatigue and achiness and yet 234,629,094 on mood swings and engorgement.

I'm convinced that the boob pain may be mastitis because this is unlike any plugging of ducts I've ever had. And I've had a lot. 

So tell me, if you're early preg and feeling fatigued or weaning and feeling fatigued or just plain feeling fatigued, what the heck do you do to make it through the day? Right now I'm relying on spaghetti. And cereal. And ordering pizza. All of which do not happen to be in my preferred wheel of healthy eating. 

And hey, if you experienced this while weaning, tell me! I'm feeling like a freak and my husband is convinced I need to exercise...which may or may not be true.

Where did last week go?

...and all of a sudden, it's December.

Last week was pretty much a blur. I had intended to cook dinner all week, work on some different projects around the house, continue Christmas crafting and complete a bunch of work. But then the week from hell happened and I got none of those things done.

On Monday afternoon, I ended up getting sicker than I think I've been in at least six years. It was bad. I think I may have had strep throat but I'm not sure and I just couldn't make myself do the 2 hour drive to go to the doctor. I had a fever, chills, sore throat and headache and at one point I swear I was hallucinating that Jonas had six fingers.

Adrian had his own hellish week and I couldn't expect for him to help me out when he was pulling 13+ hour days.

And, of course, I worked 25 hours last week. Um, that hasn't happened since I was actually employed full time. I'm not complaining, it was come back to me when I invoice the clients and it couldn't come at a better time. 

Anyway, I am feeling back on track this week, ready to tackle the day and basically put back together the shitstorm of a house that I'm staring at right now. 

I'm about to do some meal planning...tell me, what are your go-to meals? I need some inspiration!

Here are some photos from last week: