Day 14- second day of ice skating with little man

Today was little mans second day on ice. Today there was much much snot and tears. He was so excited to go that he skipped his nap. My husband opted out of going and freezing his balls off sitting in the stands, so it was just the two of us. We got all of the gear on without tears, got on the ice and I suddenly couldn't skate. My legs were slipping all over the place, I started to think there was something seriously wrong with me, who forgets how to skate in a week? I look down right before I was about to tell Gray we had to go home because mommy forgot how to stand on ice, when I see that my blade covers were still on my skates... Duh. So I very carefully push little man off the ice, pull off my covers, then get him back onto the ice. They keep ice skating rinks cold, but at this point I was already sweating my ass off. So we get out on the ice, do one lap around, (with me bending over and pushing Gray around in his skate trainer) and we get back to where we started and he tells me "ok mommy, I'm done, we can go home now", I just spent 20 minutes to get us on the ice, I wasn't about to go home afters being on for about 45 seconds, so I talked him into staying a little longer.
We go around another few times, still me pushing him, he refused to try to do it on his own, then he screams "mommy!!! I have to pee and pooooooop!!!".... So I quickly get him off of the ice, ask where the bathroom is and I am told to go into the changing room, where the hockey players get changed. So we go in, bundled for the storm of the century, and it was at least 95 degrees in the changing room. I strip little man down as fast as I can, all while his little legs are wobbly on his skates, and run him into the bathroom. I look in the toilet and there are massive balls of tape in it. We were at a high school / boarding school for rich kids, and those little shits clogged the toilet with tape balls! So I lift little man up, and hold him in front of the urinal and hope and pray that he farts and is over the poop thing... Thank god that is exactly what happened, because I really don't know where I would I had him go. Would I let him poop on the tape balls? I would feel so bad for the cleaning people!
We leave the bathroom, soaking wet from our own sweat, and get back on the ice. I was able to talk Gray in attempting to skate on his own with his skate trainer (it's really just a little walker made out of PVC pipe). He stood still for about 2 minutes, moved is feet a little, screamed "IT'S TOO SLIPPERY! IM ALL DONE, LETS GO HOME NOW!" There was no arguing this one, he meant business. We were there for a grand total of 35 minutes. About 10 spend putting skates on, 10 in the bathroom, 10 on the ice, and about 5 taking skates off.
As exhausting as it was, I am sure we will go back next week. He came so far from last week, when he cried almost the whole time. He was so proud of himself for being able to stand on the ice without falling, and it was a proud momma moment as well. Hopefully within the next few weeks he will venture out and try to skate on his own a little more, and maybe we will even stay in the ice for more than 10 minutes. In any event, it was a great mommy and Gray day :).

Day 13-The obsession continues

I am pretty exhausted.  I do not have the energy to really think of something smart, witty, heart warming, and a little funny.  So I will talk a little about my day.  I woke up at 10, yup, you're reading that right. 10!  Dereck got up with the kids, and I told him I would be right down, I rolled over, fell asleep, and woke up 2 hours later.  As refreshed as I felt, I really hate sleeping that late, I felt like the day was almost over.  But I jumped up, went downstairs, worked out, came up to a sparkling clean kitchen! (how awesome is my husband!  Let  me sleep, AND cleaned the kitchen!)
I then ran my errands, first up was to obtain season 4 of Dexter.  I drove an hour and a half (round trip) out of my way to find it, but I did!  And it was the last one in the store!  I felt like a drug addict trying to score a hit, I had to go to a few stores but I found it!
After getting Dexter... oh wait... it doesn't matter.  Dereck just put little man to bed, and we need to start the next season!  Yup.. still obsessed

Day 12- 10 reasons I am happy its friday

1.  I will have 2 full days of adult interaction!  I can have an entire conversation with my husband without him interrupting me to tell me that he has to poop, he needs a drink or throwing himself on the floor because he didn't agree with something I said.

2. I get to sleep in tomorrow!!  (My husband and I take turns sleeping in on the weekend, it may be one of the best parenting decisions that we made... we are both much happier when well rested)

3. I get to sleep all night tonight! This one goes along with #1, but part of our agreement is that when it is our night to sleep in, we can also sleep all night and not get up with the kids if/when they wake up for the billionth time. On an average night,  I am out of bed 3-4 times.

4. I will no longer be out numbered, man on  man coverage is so much easier when dealing with unreasonable little people!

5.  I get to take two whole showers this weekend where no one is barging into the bathroom, and I can even do my hair and make-up (if I choose to)

6. Tomorrow, I can go to the store to get the next season on Dexter. (Yup, were still obsessed, and we are going to finish season 3 tonight)

7. I can go shopping BY MYSELF and leave the little people with my husband!  The only person I have to worry about getting ready is me!  I can actually leave the house without little man having a complete meltdown when I ask him to put his shoes on, or little lady taking a massive dump as SOON as I put her in the car seat.

8.  On Sunday, little man and I can go ice skating again. I am really excited to see him progress, and so glad that my in laws never taught my husband to ice skate, this is something just for mommy and Gray :)

9.  Sunday morning breakfast!  Need I say more?  Every weekend my husband and I make breakfast together, usually I cook pancakes and he cooks bacon.  Though last weekend he never drained the grease and inspired this blog: A letter to my husband (I am still pretty bitter about it) Also, little man decided he wanted to eat all of the bacon and we got  this picture:

(and YES.. I am still in the weight loss challenge, but damn it I am not giving up Sunday morning breakfast!)

10.  If I want to work out for more than 20 minutes (I am going to have to if I plan on gorging myself full of pancakes and bacon) I can, without having to stop every 5 to ask little man to please sop riding Robbi (our dog) like a horse, please don't hide her bone in the boxes, and please don't yell at her because she doesn't understand the rules of your games, she is just a dog... And then to pick up little man off of the floor because he came to the realization that Robbi is just a dog, and can not understand him.  The communication barrier is unbearable, and totally warrants a full blown temper tantrum.

Day 11- A letter to my children

Dear little man and little lady,
  I am writing you this letter, because I know there will be a day in the future that you two are going to bicker and fight like cats and dogs.  You won't want to share your toys with one another, and when you do share, you will inevitably fight because one of you won't play by the others rules.  You will  yell, and scream, occasionally try to wrestle your argument into the other. You will swear the other is doing things just to get on your nerves, and sometime you will be right. Inevitably one of you will yell "Im not touching, I'm not touching" while the other screams "MOM!!! ______ is doing it again!!!" Such is the life of siblings, its will drive your father and me crazy, but its normal, and once you are both adults you will like each other again.
  But today, while little lady is just 5 months old, and little man just 2 1/2 months away from 3, you are crazy about each other.  Little man, you will not let me get little lady out of her crib in the morning until you can go into her room, slide your little hand in the crib to hold hers and say "Hi baby Kadence!!  Good morning!!  Mommy, she is so cute!"  When ever it is time for a diaper change, I can not change it until you have hand selected the perfect diaper for her little tushie.  When it is time for her to play on her blanket on the floor, you get mad at me if I pick out toys, because you want to go over to the purple toy box and pick them out yourself, you are absolutely certain that you know which ones are her favorite.  When ever she is eating a bottle, you want to sit next to her, kiss her cheek and remind her of just how cute she is.   You are an amazing big brother, and it melts my heart how much you love your little sister.
  And little lady, the only person that can make you go into a full belly laugh is your big brother.  He will sing, dance, jump up and down, and make funny faces until you are laughing so hard you are squealing. You look up to him with such admiration, he is your favorite person in this whole world.  You watch every move he makes, and are often so intrigued by his antics that I have to fight you to eat your bottle.
  While I know that this admiration and complete adoration of each other will be on and off over the years, I just want you both to know how you started out.  Little man, when your little sister gets on your nerves so much that you just want to lock yourself in your room and ignore her for days, just remember that she looks up to you more than anyone, and always will, no matter how much she says that she can't stand you.  And little lady, as much as your brother will embarrass you, and probably pick on you, just know that if anyone else embarrasses of picks on you, your brother will very quickly defend you, and he always will.  He will always want to protect you, well into adult-hood, even when he swears that you are the most annoying person in the world.
 I am attaching two pictures of the two of you, I probably already have about a hundred, but I wanted to prove that yes, you two love each other.

Day 10-Post day 1

Yesterday my weight loss challenge officially started. At 7:30 last night, the 10 moms in my mommy group that signed up all left our families, and met up at a bakery to have our first meeting.  I usually can't wait to get out of the house of an activity or two a week, but last night I wasn't feeling it so much.  When I told little man I was going out for a little bit, he looked at me with big brown sad eyes and pleaded "no, mommy, please stay  here!".. Really?!?  He usually doesn't even blink when I say I am leaving, but last night he was feeling like he needed me. Plus, my husband and I had a very important date with Dexter after the kids went to bed! But I made a promise to myself, I was going.  I NEED to get back in shape, so I kissed his little sad face and told him I would see him in a little bit.  I walked into the bakery and was smacked in the face by the smell of freshly baked breads, and a huge display of desserts.  My weaknesses, carbs, and sweets.  I am assuming that our organizer had us meet there as torture.  It is a challenge, so maybe she thought we would break as soon as we walked in the door.  Smart on her part.  As I walk around the corner to our table, I see my fellow competitors, exhausted over worked moms, desperate for a change.  Then I see our instructor, I am going to call her Sargent Fake Tits, because I am certain those ladies weren't real. She was in a tight TIGHT low cut shirt, and tight yoga pants. (I am not sure the need to show most of your tits to a mom group, but all jokes aside, she did look great, and if anyone if commanding this group of exhausted moms, I am glad its her) She was a really sweet girl, and informed us that she was expecting her first baby.  As of now I  think she is sweet anyway, we will see how I feel about her in a few weeks when she starts barking orders and making us ban carbs.  After we all introduced ourselves, and why we were there, she made us get on the scale. YIKES.  It was BAD.  It was private, it wasn't shared with the group, but still.  I never weigh myself after a big dinner!  But seeing that ugly ugly  number made something click in me.  It said, "get off your ass fatty, get a hold of your life!"
Sargent Fake Tits gave us the assignment to go home and throw away anything we shouldn't be eating, and to write down everything that we actually eat.  I took it a step farther and downloaded a weight loss app that you can input all meals and exercising into, and it tells  you how many calories you can eat a day to reach your goal.  For me, my goal is 20 lbs.  Everything I picked up with the intention of eating, I would think "how am I going to explain this to Sargent Fake Tits", so far day one has been only healthy foods. (hopefully I keep that up!)  I found that in order for me to NOT starve, I am going to have to work out every day.  Without working out, my calorie allowance will let me eat about 3 crackers and a peanut.  If you know me, you know that I get grumpy when hungry, so working out is going to be imperative to this mission.  While the kids were napping, I went downstairs and got on my elliptical.  Wholly hell, I am much worse than I though.
At the end of this journey, I am just hoping to be healthier, and to not look so fluffy. Hopefully hormone over-loaded Sargent Fake Tits will be able to keep the motivation up of a group of sleep deprived, over- ran moms!

Day 9- The time has come

Today is the day.  The day I have been procrastinating, dreading, and making excuses out of for the past 3 years, time to get my ass in gear and lose the extra lbs, and get in shape.  Before I had little man I was in great shape.  I had no excuses then, I would come home from work every day, pop in my Ipod and jump on the eliptical for about 45 minutes a day.  After I had little man, I lost the baby weight pretty fast, but I never went back to being in great shape.  I would try to work out here and there, but I would just think to myself, "what the hell is the point"... We knew that we wanted another baby, so I really didn't want to work my ass off to get back into killer shape, all for another pregnancy to destroy my hard work.  But now, we are pretty certain that we are done with the baby making, and I need to claim my body back as my own.

In my blog A New Year I resolved to  myself to make some changes for a happier Richelle.  So far I have been keeping my promises.  I have been writing in my personal blog every day, I have began to make plans to do things that I enjoy, and tonight I am going to my first meeting for my weight loss challenge.  I will keep you all posted on my progress.  I may even bite the bullet and take a before and after picture of myself in a bikini.  I have real hesitations on showing the world my post baby lumpiness, but if in 8 weeks I am happy with my results, I will post the pictures to help motivate.

Wish me luck!

Day 8- A letter to my husband

Dear D-
  I am writing this in my blog because I know that you aren't going to read it, haha. I havent decided if I am going to send it to you or not, I really just  need to vent and don't want to cause waves.

  First of all, I have to preface this by saying that I appreciate all that you do for us.  I appreciate that you work hard so that I can stay home and raise the kids, and so that we can all have nice things.  I appreciate how you never tell little man that you are too tired when you get home from work to play "lions" "dinosaurs" or "ride on daddys head" which is really just his way of saying he wants to sit on your shoulders and fart on the back of your neck.  You know this, and you do it anyway because it makes him smile and laugh.  I appreciate that you always offer to stay up to give little lady her last bottle so I can go to sleep before one of the kids wake me up 3-4 times a night.  You always help out around the house on the weekend, and  I love you so  much for this.  And because you work so hard, I know that a majority of the housework is my responsibility.  I am OK with this.. within reason...
...BUT.. if you EVER leave a pan, crusted with bacon grease (when I wanted pancakes and would have cleaned the griddle myself because GOD FORBID you do it... but no you HAD to have bacon, and got little man to veto my vote for pancakes...) in the sink, with cups, silverware and plates piled on top, I will lose my shit.  Do you have any idea what happens to all the kitchenware that sits in bacon grease?  It then becomes COVERED with grease, so instead of just cleaning the pan, I had to clean a sink full of grease covered dishes... all while little man wanted lunch, and little lady was waking up from her nap.  So... if it happens again, I am going to change the dryer sheets to the ones that you are allergic to, and then act like I have NO idea why you are all itchy with a little rash all over your body...

You have been warned.... well maybe.  This warning is out there, weather you find it or not is on you...

Sincerely,
  Your loving wife <3