Tag: Mom Life

You’re the Reason We Can’t Have Nice Things

img_9755I have a fancy new white couch and a toddler.
WTF was I thinking???

I also chose white cabinets for our kitchen remodel. I’ve obviously lost my mind.

I spend wayyy too much time wiping hand, feet and God knows what else kind of prints off everything from the couch to the light blue colored walls. I feel like my time might be better spent doing other, more important things than erasing toddler grime, but I made my nice clean bed and now I must wipe it down before I lie in it.

The funny thing is, it doesn’t really bother me anymore. As my son entered his 3rd year with an impressive resume of destruction, I realized I’ve let go of some of my nitpicky tendencies and just accepted things get dirty, things break, and things stay in new condition around a toddler about 2.5 seconds.

Oh I see those sparkling clean white/grey/beige Instagram feeds from popular mommy bloggers, looking all fresh and put together. I understand it is possible. And while I admire their aesthetic, that’s just not me. My life is messy, colorful and often smeared with mud and/or chocolate. I learned to relax and not stress over the mess.

messy toddler room
Godzilla in a TuTu

I mean, I wouldn’t turn down a regular maid service so I could spend more time putting together fresh pastel ensembles in a spotless house, but unless this blog thing really blows up, I am the maid service around here.

And our maid sucks…lol

Let them eat cake! Or potato chips… or cookies – Dealing with a Picky Eater

My days used to be spent lacing people up in corsets and helping them pick out fancy costumes. Now I feel like 95% of my day is spent trying to find something my toddler will agree to eat. It’s quite a lifestyle change and takes some adjusting.

feed me memeWhy do toddlers hate food? Or love something one day, or at someone else’s house, so you stock up on it and then they refuse to even touch it? This is how I ended up with a freezer full of chicken nuggets and several boxes of crackers with one cracker eaten.

I clearly remember my great-grandmother feeding me steak piece-by-piece, while I ran by pretending to be a little bird stealing it from her fork. It probably took 45 minutes for me to finish the entire thing but she kept up with it. I now totally understand why. Being a parent has given me insight into certain things from my childhood that I never really would’ve understood otherwise. I also remember her making me a pizza at 10 PM at night just because I said I was hungry. Parents (and grandparents) will do anything to get a kid to eat.

I can tell Keelan is going to be a skinny kid, just like me when I was little. His dad too! But he’s also growing just fine and he does let me know if he is hungry. Sometimes he eats a lot, and some days it’s like he exists on air and a few strawberries.

I hope he eventually embraces our love of good food and cooking. Right now I might as well make him a nice dinner and then dump it on the floor because that’s where it ends up. But I will keep trying! I really look forward to the day he is helping me make gourmet dinners the kitchen and picking out his own sushi at dinner. (Early 20s maybe? Lol)

Until then, I’ll just keep slicing up those hot dogs. Unless he hates them this week of course.

So, what food rejects do you have lingering in the pantry?

Getting Cozy with CozyPhones

I’d been wanting to try a set of CozyPhones to see if they would block out my husband’s snoring. It’s loud and awful and always interrupting my sleep. I bought some expensive ear plugs that worked great at blocking out every noise except the snoring. It’s like he snores at some special frequency immune to sound barriers. (As a side note, I recently found some nose plug thingies that actually work great to stop him from snoring)

CozyPhones are a soft headband with earphones inside. They come both wired and Bluetooth capable. If you are using them for sleeping, I’d suggest going Bluetooth. It’s kind of weird being connected to your phone while sleeping if you flip around like I do.


They also make some really cute Paw Patrol headphones so I was hoping to convince my son to wear them in time for our summer trip to Ireland, but no luck yet. He just hates having anything over his ears!

I found them really comfortable to wear, even for side sleeping. Ear plugs bug me and I usually have to take out the one that’s pressed into the pillow, so I was impressed that I couldn’t feel the earphone part inside! I used a white noise app and they blocked out almost everything. Everything except the full-throttle roaring from the other side of the bed.

So while they failed the snore test, they do have many other uses! They do work great for sleeping when you want to block out most noise, they would also be great for winter time running or snowboarding. But then, I may have found the best use of all. Helping me find a little peace and calm when my son is losing it in extended tantrum mode:

I’m sure I’ll be using my CozyPhones a lot on our upcoming trip. The name suits them well- they are really soft and cozy! They also make lycra ones for activewear. You can find them on their website CozyPhones.com or on Amazon.

*  Any Amazon link is an affiliate link  *

We’ve Become Those People

My husband and I used to go out to dinner a lot. We would usually sit at the bar and spend several hours drinking wine and eating appetizers for meals. We rarely sat at a table and would just enjoy the experience of sampling food and drinks.

th2nr6ln33
Not my actual child, but you get the point

Now no more bar for us- we need a table that can fit a highchair, or preferably a booth where we can pen the kid in at one end. Also, you probably want to stick us somewhere in the back where we won’t be a nuisance. But not too far back because one of the kids may open the emergency door and set off the very loud alarm.

So the other night, as I sat on the toilet at the restaurant, listening to the screeching alarm going off, I totally knew that was our table causing the commotion. We were out to dinner with friends that had two boys, 4 and 6. So I did not burst out of the bathroom worried there was some sort of actual emergency. I may have actually lingered a moment or two longer than usual, hoping the alarm would be off by the time I stepped out.

Back in before baby days, we would be at the bar, rolling eyes and laughing at the hapless parents trying to enjoy a meal and wrangle their children. Most likely thinking what a bunch of brats they were and how if we had kids they would be sitting quietly like little angels.

Bwahahahahhahahahha

Oh how the mightly have fallen…right off their barstools.

 

My Week in Review – Little Donuts, Blue Ice, Clams, 16 Years and a Pile of Dirt

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you had a good week. Since I didn’t want to stick to doing a weekly round-up on a specific day or a specific number, I just decided to keep doing what works best for me- a random mishmash posting when I feel like it! No rules! lol 

My Week in Review 5/28 – 6/3

img_3574Rediscovering childhood favorites- We went to Art in Park this weekend, where unfortunately it was boiling hot with about 110% humidity (yay, Florida summer!) so it was a very sweaty event. Keelan spotted someone with a blue colored treat and immediately started asking for blue ice cream. I quickly figured out it was flavored ice and thought that sounded like an amazing idea.  I used to always go for the blue raspberry flavor when I was little and we’d hang out at the ball park. It was a total childhood flashback as soon as I got my first taste! I hadn’t gotten a flavored ice in over 20 years. I love the ways kids bring a little bit of your childhood back into your life.

National Donut Day was Friday, June 1st and it just happened to coincide with my first visit to The Mini Bar, a new local gourmet mini donut shop that also sells beer and wine! It also just happens to be in the same plaza as an indoor trampoline park so we had an impromptu wine and donut break before going back into the madness of the kid zone. I think we found a new tradition!

Clam shells were everywhere on the beach the past few days. Open and empty, just washing up with the tide, hundreds of them all along the shoreline. I scooped up a bunch for our shell collection. I tried researching to see if this was some kind of annual phenomenon or weird clam season but had no luck. All I managed to find out was the name of the shell is Dosinia.

It was our 16th wedding anniversary this week. Hard to believe it’s been that long! I couldn’t have picked a better partner to spend my life with. We’ve gone through a lot together and are lucky to have grown closer as we’ve changed, adapted and grown up a lot since our college days. I love our life together and all our adventures. Here’s to many more 😘

Our next big house project got underway when a big pile of dirt was delivered this week. Keelan was ecstatic about this development. I’m sure he’d rather we leave him the dirt pile, but when the pavers come in we will be turning this into a patio and fire pit.

That’s it for last week. This upcoming week is pretty open so who knows what adventure awaits! The only big thing on the calendar at the moment is next Saturday when I participate in Dream Day. I’ll be dressed as Antiope from the Wonder Woman movie. It’s a huge event for children with life-threatening medical conditions, put on with PRI Productions and the Make-a-Wish foundation. They transform their building into a fairytale wonderland for the day and I get to go help the fairytale come to life!