Random Picture Challenge!

Playing along with the Saturday Random Picture Challenge over at 4 Little Men and Girly Twins ! Come play along! This is from my March 2008 folder and is the 5th picture from the end!

This is on Amelia's 4th birthday in front of my Mom and Dad's (Mimi and Poppie) house! Mimi inflates the birthday cake in her front yard for every birthday but this was really special because the cake has four candles on it and she was turning four. She had just taken a bath in Mimi's jacuzzi tub and had her jammies on and wet hair. I love this memory!

Flutter flutter, flippity flop.

In honor of Valentines Day month and some red roses that arrived at my door today I thought I would talk about the stages of love. The first and shortest stage is when you first meet someone. Those first few weeks where your heart races every time you see them and your cheeks get red and you can't focus on anything but their lips. Your hands touch by accident and a tingle goes up your arm and you can't stop giggling. I remember this stage so clearly with Chris even though we were only 16 at the time. He would bike over to my house and we would take walks and talk for hours and hours. The next stage comes fairly quickly down the road of love. This stage is when you only have eyes for him and him for you. You are hopelessly devoted to being together. Usually this stage is cemented by some sort of formal statement that you are together as a couple. I guess that happened for us when Chris gave me a diomonique promise ring for Christmas. I wore it proudly and thought it was the most beautiful thing ever (I saw it in my jewelry box the other day and had to giggle at the cloudy stone and apparent rust on the band). Chris traveled to Russia around this time and sent me letter after letter expressing his love for me and I kept a journal doing the same. I remember crying every time I received one of those damn letters and feeling like my heart was breaking. He was gone for 3 months and to a 17 year old that was an eternity! Next comes the stage of no return. This is when you know that you will move on to hire level signified by a real diamond on your left hand. Chris proposed to me when we were both 21. We would sit for hours discussing out future together. How many kids we would have and where we would live. After we got married and got through the initial newlywed period we hit the next stage. We bought a house and started a family. With the birth of each child our love changed and became stronger. Three kids later and I still feel the flutter of my heart when I see him, I still miss him terribly when he is gone and I still love to talk for hours to him. I look forward to figuring out what stage comes next in our long and winding love affair. Whatever it is I imagine it will be magical and make my heart go flippity flop.

one flew over the cuckoo's nest

Stick a fork in me I am DONE with this week. Between Chris being out of town again, going to a funeral and the mid winter whine of the kids I have had it up to the ceiling. Add in some throwing up, a peeing accident and complete insomnia for the last few nights you will get temporary insanity. When through the haze you hear your 10 year old yammering on about spelling tests and pizza being the lunch choice for tomorrow you now the end of this wretched week must be within reach. I am reaching far and wide and hoping to get to Saturday.
What I need is an hour (or ten) alone, a glass (or ten) of wine and deep restfull sleep but what I am going to get at least for now is tween TV, herbal tea, and another night of tossing and turning.

The Mother load of guilt.

Ever since my children were born the one emotion I have been able to excel at is guilt. Starting with the guilt over choosing not to breastfeed followed by the guilt of using disposable diapers. On any given day I am sure I could find a dozen things to feel guilty over. From the kids not getting enough sleep and the right things to eat all the way down to them not having matching socks every morning. Mom's expect themselves to be loving, organized, friendly, creative and accomplished in every aspect of their lives and when they don't live up to their own expectations guilt creeps right in and takes hold. The minute the kids get off the bus we rush them to their activities and then feel guilty we didn't have dinner together as a family. If our kids are slow to potty train or ride a two wheeler then once again: guilt. Our society supports the notion that if something goes wrong with the child it is usually the mothers fault.
We try to juggle being a wife, mother, cook, housekeeper, friend but end up feeling like we aren't doing any one of them as well as we would like and feeling guilty about that.
How do we lessen the feeling of hurry, inadequacy and unobtained success? How do we make it easy to breath deeply and slowly and enjoy the process of motherhood and the small daily joys our children bring us?

Out of the mouths of babes.

A few tidbits of Amelia over the past few weeks :)

We got a flyer in the mail advertising a special Disneyland deal...it was plastered with Mickey ears and Cinderella's castle. Amelia came running in with it yelling "MOM look I got an invitation to DISNEY..can I go??? What will I take Mickey as a present??"

I was shopping at Target and told Amelia I needed to look for a shirt...she showed me a t-shirt and wanted to know if it would work. I told her no I needed a shirt to wear to a funeral. She was quiet for a few minutes and then said "will you have to hold flowers?" I told her I wasn't sure about that. I continued to look at shirts and she was quiet for a few while but then she said "will there be a box?" Apparently Little Bear has touched on the subject of funerals...




"Hey Mom!...my littlest nail is sooo long that it looks like the lady in the weirdo world record book!"

"I picked my nose and put it on a tissue and threw it in the trash!"

"MOM the cat loved it when I made him a cage in my room...I even gave him food and water."

Amelia, to her two sisters as she turned on the music "Let's rock this house!!"

"Mom, what does pregnant mean??" What does having contractions mean?" All this said with her baby doll stuffed under her shirt... Guess I should mention that Baby Story is her favorite show."

"I love that lipstick Mommy, it makes you look like a movie star, just like Hannah Montana."

NOT me Monday!

Joining the blog Carnival, Not ME Monday! over at My Charming Kids again this week! Go check it out and join in!

There is no way that Chris was out of town AGAIN during the ice/snow storm this week.

I could never have baked my special cookie dough brownies to bribe my neighbor to snow blow my driveway after the winter storm since Chris was out of town.

I certainly didn't stick the kids wet snow pants, hats, mittens and coats in the drier when they came in for lunch and then send them directly back out to play some more.

I didn't let the girls play makeover with whatever makeup and hair products they could find just to keep them busy for a little while on yet another day off.

I would never tear up at the idea of Chris's flight being delayed that would be silly!

I would never in a million years be a little teeny tiny bit relieved Caroline woke up with a belly ache and I simply had to stay home with her instead of go sit at my in laws..that would be immature and just plain WRONG.

I could not have sat for pretty much two days straight on the couch with a blanket watching HGTV just because I felt like it... that would have been wasting time.

Shadows in the night.

Have you every had a dream so vivid and alive that when you jolt awake it takes a while to realize it was just a dream? That happened to me last night and I haven't been able to get it out of my mind all day. I wonder if the dream could be a sign or maybe represent something. To be clear I have to say this was actually NO dream it was a nightmare. I wish I could shake the uneasiness I have about it but I can't seem to no matter how hard I try. Maybe a stiff drink and a sleeping pill well lead to a deeper nights sleep with no chance of ghosts or goblins.