Being a Mom Means Living in Crazy Land

It's true. I live in crazy land. It's hard and I get depressed a lot. I love Gabe. He's a beautiful little human but he sure knows how to push the buttons. I'm sure it's not "know," but more of a "I'm three and I have an undeveloped brain" thing. There is a reason why I chose not to teach children and why I've decided to stick with one.

So....let's see what's in crazy land recently. I want Gabe to have lots of opportunities to experience different things, pick up skills, play sports, dance, see the world and all that. So I thought I'd start with T-ball. Seems harmless enough. I even picked up a little cheap t-ball set from Wal-Mart during the mild Winter months. He actually seemed to enjoy throwing some balls and hitting the ball and even running around a fake base or two. I thought it would be a sure thing to get him involved with our city's t-ball team. I also want to be super involved with whatever he wants/happens to be doing, and so I volunteered to be assistant coach for our team....sigh.

Gabe has absolutely no desire to play. He maybe play for 2 seconds with his neighbor friend. Games are even worse. So each week for games and practice my dearly devoted hubby has to take him home. So now I'm volunteering to help coach a bunch of 3 and 4-year-olds. Not a pretty picture. It's chaos. But I want it to be enjoyable so I don't want him to get a bad taste with not playing. We just let him enjoy it as much or as little as he likes and hope next year he'll want to participate more. But that leaves me stuck with the coaching thing. Oh well, you live and learn.

Then there's the puking this weekend. Can anything break a parent's heart more when there is literally nothing you can do to stop the endless puking? His little heaving body just broke my heart. Thankfully, it was only a 24-hour flu. Just lots of cuddles and kisses. That makes up for everything, at least for now.

Being apart of crazy land means that not all hope is lost. He keeps me guessing, hopping, frustrated, loved, excited, scared. Most of the time I feel like an absolute failure. I yell too much. I don't feed him well. I don't give enough love. Whatever. But then there's Mother's Day. And he makes a cute little impression of his hand, colors it with paints, and helps Daddy paint a plaque and glue on letters that say "I love you Mama."

I guess we just do our best and hope we didn't screw him up too badly ;) Gotta love Crazy Land! (well, sometimes, at least.)

I will get a new camera soon and then I'll post the adorable Mother's Day gift!

A Not So Vegas Weekend and Other Pics....

We tried to be good siblings and come down to Archie's sister's surprise birthday dinner last Friday night down there in Vegas. We thought it would be a fun time, quick, but fun with Gabe...sigh, not to be. We got down there late and Gabe was pretty ornery from the drive down. A local neighbor of my bro and sis in law agreed to babysit all the kids while we were out til 1AM. It was fancy, for sure. Never eaten anywhere as fancy! So we did get some good free food. And it was fun to see Archie's sister and her family again; it's been a long time. Plus, since she had no idea we were coming, it took her a few seconds to realize that she knew us when she sat down with her husband. She was thinking that the restaurant is so busy they have to seat them with people they don't know! LOL! I wish I had gotten her reaction on camera...priceless.

Gabe helping to clean car!

We stayed one night at the Orleans.

Archie's very nice lobster brisque

My super fancy green salad!

So after a fun evening with his fam, we got back to Gabe and he was so miserable. He had a fever and was hysterical and so we rushed him back to our hotel room and got no sleep. None of us, really. We wanted to stay Saturday and see a few things and then go back to Archie's sister's place for a pool party and dinner but it was not to be. We were all way to miserable so we packed up and checked out for home that morning. It was a good thing too. Gabe slept like twelve hours that night and Archie and I were pretty close to that. We were just so exhausted. So we lost out on one of our hotel room nights...sigh, no refunds. But hey, the things we do for family, right?!

Mother's Day was fun as well. Went to Park City and Village Inn in the morning! Not too shabby.

Well, other exciting news...I got my haircut a couple of weeks ago by a good friend and got some highlights! I love it! It's the shortest I've had my hair since I was a little kid so a long time! It's fun!

We also put Gabe in a toddler bed! Thanks to Autumn!

Memorial Day we met my parents and my sister Cheryl up in Bountiful where our grandparents are all buried and then ate at Chuck-a-rama! Food and food galore. They had some tasty scones and salad dressings! Gabe hardly eats anything so....I think we got him to eat some jello and drink some juice. And since Gabe is such a Daddy's boy he got pretty rambunctious and I couldn't do anything with him and Archie couldn't so we had to leave early before we were all kicked out for disturbing the peace! Such is life in the child lane.

I love this one!

We also went over to a friend's house and Gabe thought it would be fun to climb into her cats' condo! So cute.

Another July

With trying to finish of my medical transcriptionist  course I've been a bit busy and don't have a lot of time to blog so here's the long overdue update.

We had a great 4th of July with Ty and Cristi my bro. and sis-in-laws and their three kids along with a couple of their friends. We barbecued, played games, and ate lots of not so good things! Gabe had fun running around with his cousins and getting into good clean trouble! I just can't believe how big he is now. He's running all over the place and getting into everything! I wouldn't have it any other way.

He says "dada, mama, kitty" and other stuff too, but we have no idea what those are! Lots of just 'goo-ga-ga'! We love it.

He's still not a big eater, but he still loves his fruit, bread and peanut butter, oh and yogurt. He also loves eating whole apples too. I peel off the skin and he just dives on in! He's also going crazy with the utensils; he loves feeding himself yogurt and apple sauce. He's also pretty good with the fork and getting watermelon on it or his waffle pieces.

It's crazy cuz sometimes I think he'll have a really hard time with something and then he just proves me wrong and dives on in! Like I wasn't sure how he'd do with using utensils (obviously 18-month-olds aren't going to be able to use them all that efficiently), but I thought he'd be mad that I wasn't feeding him anymore. Nope! He loves it! Which is great for me since I don't need to sit there and feed him anymore!

Another funny thing...Gabe's hair. I just can't do a thing with it! I still think he's too young to sit down for a professional cut so I just trim what I can while he's in the tub...now he looks like Little Lord Fauntleroy...so cute, but grows out of control! It's so pretty, though.

We've also spent a ton of time visiting with friends and family over the last month. Almost every weekend has been spent somewhere or us having others over. Gabe has loved it! Gabe got to experience his first outside pool with my friend Autumn and her kids! He loved it.

This last weekend we set up our own outdoor pool and just sat out and soaked in the sun! We even got some of the neighbor kids to come over and enjoy.

It's been a great month and it's always so amazing to watch Gabe learn and grow. He loves books, or at least having Archie and I read them to him! He's got a few favorites. He also enjoys watching The Wiggles and Blue's Clues.

Let's see...Archie is also heading to Singapore next month for his work. He'll be training employees there for two or three weeks. I wish we could all go...

Still plugging through my online course and enjoying life!