At Home

Here are a few pictures I snapped while Caroline was home with me on Monday:

And here are some pictures of the flowers that the girls gave me on Mother's Day.

Basically, I spent 20 minutes messing around with the settings on my new camera  :-)

I Tried. I Really Tried.

This week I have really tried to make meals that incorporated the foods my girls like. I also tried to pick recipes that included protein - something that Caroline actively tries to avoid. Unfortunately, some of the meals actually made my girls cry. And other meals simply made them go on hunger strike.

I would have taken their tears personally, but luckily Steve was there to assure me that my food was edible and that he enjoyed it. (Whether or not he was choking it down to make me happy is neither here nor there.)

I thought I would share a couple of recipes that Steve and I liked. I won't tell you which ones the girls liked and which ones they cried about, but these two were certainly enjoyed by the adults in the group:

Braided Pizza Loaf

Chicken Pasta Casserole FYI - try any recipe on this blog. We have loved every one we have tried.

Neither one is particularly healthy, but in when in moderation and served with a salad they aren't too bad.

By the way, if any of you have a child friendly recipe that incorporates either protein or vegetables then I am all ears.

FYI

FYI: Some of you (i.e. the five people who read this blog) have asked how you can comment on the blog. I believe I have changed the settings so that anyone can comment.
Barring any horrifying/inappropriate posts, I will leave the settings like this. So feel free to comment away - just keep it clean :-)

Mama's Day 2012

Today I got to sleep in until 8 am. I opened our bedroom door to find the most adorable Mother's Day cards from Lucy. I came downstairs to find everyone dressed, flowers on the counter, and a wonderful breakfast being made.

Husband of the Year!

Simply put, it was the best. I ate without abandon and drank a lot of coffee.

Caroline was a huge fan of breakfast (as you can see in the picture above) until she threw up all over herself. It was an unexpected and tear filled end to a great breakfast. We took a tub and appeared to recover a bit:

Unfortunately, Caroline's fever returned and she had a pretty tough stretch in the two hours before lunch. This was the scene during that time:

We ate lunch and Caroline went down for a nap. Lucy went with me to Target and helped me weed the garden and plant some new planters in the backyard.

Caroline slept for over 3 hours and then woke up looking like this:

This is the face of the stomach flu

Lucy was a trooper today (for the most part). She managed to deal with the fact that everything revolved around Caroline and tried to be helpful along the way.

On a somewhat related note, Boog decided to join in on the digestive fun and puked all over our living room, kitchen, and front room. I think he was a little annoyed that we made such a fuss over Caroline and didn't do much to help his issue.

A Post About Me (sorry ... pictures of the girls will be in the next one)

I've been thinking more about why I like Mother's Day so much.

It's weird.

It's not weird because I enjoy it, but it's weird because I like it so much.

It's better than my birthday. It's better than Valentine's Day or Christmas or Thanksgiving or really anything else. It might be my favorite day of the year.

It's not because of any gifts I receive. I have plenty of other days in the year that offer that same perk.

It's not because it is a day when the people in my house focus on me. Again, there are other days, namely my birthday, when this happens.

Why do I like this day so much?

I suppose it goes back to a time before I ever became a mother. I was not the person who thought that she was born to be a mother. Babies sort of scared me, and I wasn't sure if motherhood was for me mainly because I wasn't sure that I would be any good at it.

What if I didn't like it? It's not like I could send the kid back.

And what if parenthood didn't suit me? I was a fairly selfish person before kids (some might argue that I still am) and the idea of giving up a part of myself to become a mother was pretty scary.

I feel like these were (fairly) normal fears to have, and thankfully I ignored them and took the plunge anyway.

Babies don't scare me anymore. I do like motherhood. And parenthood does suit me ... at least I think so anyway.

Now that I am a mother, there are times that I feel like this was what I was meant to do (even though pre-baby me never once believed that). Of course, there are times that I feel like an epic failure as a mother. And it is this weird see-saw between those two feelings that leaves me totally fulfilled and yet working to become a better version of myself.

My friend, Emily, writes a blog which I read regularly. I read it because we haven't seen each other since my wedding (almost 8 years?!) and I like to know how she is doing, to watch her kids grow, and to feel like I interact with her (even though we have not had an actual face to face conversation in nearly a decade). The other day she posted a link to this blog post. It really hit home for me and made me think a lot about myself as a mom. No one ever says to mothers, "Hey, you might not be good at this at first. You might feel like you are the worst. You're not. You will get better even though it won't necessarily feel that way. What you do matters."

I like being a mom. I like it because it's hard. I like it because no matter what there is room for me to get better and to learn something. Lord knows that my girls teach me plenty. (and Lucy will like this because she does think that she knows everything)

I like being a mom because even when I think I am a failure as a homemaker and I manage to screw up a boxed cake recipe, Lucy will come over right on cue and genuinely exclaim, "Mama, this cake is beautiful!" With that one sentence I will see the world through her eyes and know that life is good, that the people around me are the ones that matter, and that it isn't the boxed cake that she cares about. And neither should I.

So, back to my original point: I like Mother's Day. I like it because being a mom is the hardest job in the world, and I am slowly but surely, kind of, sort of, maybe starting to figure it out. And on this day, I am reminded again and again to look around and be thankful, specifically for my two sweet girls and the wonderful husband who has agreed to undertake the daunting task of trying to raise them.

I am also reminded to be thankful for my own mother and my mother-in-law. These two women (along with their husbands) are the ones who taught me and Steve how to be good parents. Perhaps one of the biggest perks of parenting is to watch your own children connect with your parents and to see the unconditional love that is exchanged. No one loves their grandmothers as much as Lucy and Caroline do, and that is something that I wouldn't trade for anything.

Diner

Caroline has spent the last 24 hours with a fever above 102, and she has been fairly miserable during that time. I don't blame her for being cranky since she is clearly not feeling well. She was up last night at 2 am (which NEVER happens) and has required constant medication to try and keep her temperature down. We put her down for a nap this afternoon and hoped that she would make it two hours. Instead she slept for over four hours and we had to wake her up because it was past 5 pm.

Our original plan was to go to the local diner for dinner (our favorite place to eat pretty much any meal) but after her sickness I was afraid it would be a total disaster. Caroline came through and woke up from her nap happy and was very content at the diner.

Here we are about to leave:

And waiting for our meal:

We bring enough toys to dinner for about 10 children.

Added bonus: the diner serves beer.

Caroline with her "guys" before her chicken nuggets arrived.

It ended up being a fantastic dinner and everyone left happy. As usual, I ate so much that I now feel sick. Ugh. But my turkey avocado melt with french fries was worth it :-)

Mama's Day

Today Lucy finally got to give me the Mother's Day (or "Mama's Day" as she calls it) present that she has been making in school. Here it is:

I have a few thoughts.

First of all, I love the gift. Mother's Day makes me so happy, and not because I get stuff. I love Mother's Day because it is a time that I reflect on how much I love being a mom and how lucky I feel to have kids. There are times that those two girls absolutely make me want to rip my hair out (see about 50% of my posts on this blog) but I would lay down in traffic for them. I don't mean to get sappy here, but they have changed my perspective and my life and it has only been for the better.

Second, this picture of Lucy makes me laugh every time I look at it. This is her "someone is taking a picture of me and asking me to smile and I'm getting shy all of a sudden so I'm going to slightly close my eyes and try to hide" face.

Finally, Lucy also loved this gift. She is quite vain and wanted to stare at herself all night. She even wanted to set up the picture on the kitchen table so that she and Caroline could admire her face while eating dinner.

So here's to my early celebration of Mama's Day with Lucy Goose. I could not have asked for a better start to my weekend.