Old Habits Die Hard

As a younger girl, I LOVED the first day of school. Getting new books. New notebooks, and pens. But most of all, I adored getting my syllabus for each class.

Cracking open my paper planner, and writing in assignment dates, homework dates, and more.

Getting oodles of meeting notices coming through from work doesn't totally make me feel the same way. I'm not sure why since the equivalent of work to a teenager is school. But it doesn't matter anymore because the void has been filled!!!!

Enter in Tillie's new daycare.

Each month, they send out a calendar of events, a newsletter and a menu. All 3 FILLED with opportunity of future fun, to-do's and check-list fodder.

The only difference is instead of my daily planner, I open up my Outlook calendar and go to town.

Send a letter Wednesdays? Reoccurring meeting set up. Check.
Pancake Breakfast?  Sure! Where do I sign up to volunteer to help?
Dress as your favorite Storybook character? Done.
Spirit Week? Let me just make note of what each day's theme is.

And I print out the menu and check-it when we menu plan each week to make sure that she isn't getting the same thing for lunch and dinner.

The really sick thing is that come the end of the month, I am actually thinking about and excited to get next month's newsletter and calendar email. It is sick and wrong.

And I happily own it. I am a nerd. An anal nerd. An anal over-organized nerd.

Double-Wide

There is little better than getting to spend quality time with friends that you miss dearly. While distance and let's call it "life pace" keep me from talking and seeing many of my friends as often as I would like, it isn't because they aren't constantly in my thoughts. This probably sounds like a really bad excuse, but it is one of the realities I have come to grips with as I continue on my motherhood journey.

So, when you have a friend that totally gets the reality of the above because they are living the exact same thing it is a blessing. But also a little of a curse because you take that pace of life and multiply it by 2. One of my dear friends, Amy, called me up a few weeks ago and was really wanting to get a visit on the books before #2 arrives.

So she, and her similarly aged little guy made the trek all the way from Milwaukee and we had a wonderful weekend filled with Toddler giggles, cries, "MINE!", and ultimately a few precious hugs and kisses.

In classic toddler form, Matilda took STRONG interest in toys she hadn't blinked at for the past 2 months, and of the toys that Paddy brought with him, she really only wanted 2--both his snuggle lovies. But they worked it out. Paddy is a HUGE talker and was very good about letting me know that Tillie shouldn't be dumping her cereal out of the bowl and onto the floor.

Now if only he could get her to listen--I would hire him to come do some effective discipline. We did lots of fun stuff--brunch out, story time, Wild Rumpus, Children's Museum, outdoor walks and parks. We stayed busy and tired those babies out so we could put our feet up at night.

Which brings me to the title of this blog post. There is nothing cuter than two babies in a bathtub together..

Take a look at this next picture of the two kids 'swimming' in the bath. 

Paddy Jr. may be almost 3 months older than Matilda, but Matilda's booty looks like it is about two full sizes bigger than his. I mean...LOOK.AT. THAT.THING.

I fully realize that Matilda will probably never forgive me for this post, but it just had to be shared. She has the thunder just like her Mama. 

The other amazing feat that happened this weekend was that we got a good picture of all four of us. You wouldn't think this would be that amazing, but what you don't know is that Amy and I share a long history of being incredibly unphotogenic while taking photos with one another.

There were so many other good pics of the weekend but they were all on my phone and I can't figure out how to get them off. So picture lots more adorablness of Paddy and Tillie.

Thank you for coming to visit us, Amy!!! You departure only makes me wish we lived closer. Tillie misses her buddy Paddy!

My Week in (SomeEcard) Review

Sunday Night:
The sinking realization that not only are we having a second child, but we really have no idea what we are even doing with our first...

Monday and Tuesday: Sleepless nights ensue as Matilda comes down with double ear infection, double pink eye without our awareness for a solid 48 hours...

Wednesday: Book club gets together with all of the newborns that have been born in past 2 months---FOUR BABIES in one room under 3 months.  That doesn't even count our 3 kids under 2, one in utero or the 'one big kid'--call him the Outlier...

We really could have our own show.

Thursday:  Had a moment at work that left me feeling like this...

But knowing deep down that some people DID notice. Which led me to think about this...

Aaarrrrgggg Matey. I would look mighty fine with a peg leg. And Matilda would love it if I carried a parrot around all day.

Can somebody please look into making this happen for me????

Annual Dells Weekend Getaway!

The Annual Dells trip happened this weekend and it didn't disappoint. Every time we get these three kids together it proves to provides more hilarity and cute moments, and I only anticipate this to continue.

There were a number of firsts this year:

1) First time my Dad got fully in the water to swim. I guess Grandpa Twiggy really can't say no to a Leo saying: "take off your shoes and get in the water Grandpa".

2) Finn conquered the BUCKET. This has been an epic four years in the making after a traumatic experience when Finn was little. He was so proud of himself each time he would stand under the thousands of gallons pouring down.

3) It was our first time in four years of going that we discovered the "Toddler" pool...thanks ONLY to my friend Summer who went to the Wilderness the first time this year. I can't believe we have been missing out on this as it was so much better--quieter, warmer water (bonus for the parentals), less busy and age appropriate.

4) It was the first time all 3 kids were spashing together in the big pool. Which was a ton of fun until all hell broke loose and Leo jumped into my arms, while Nate looked away for a split second and Matilda jumped in after him and plunged right into the water with no one to catch her. Luckily, my mom instict kicked in and I reach in and plucked her out of the water and held her by her swimsuit. Didn't seem to phase her. I, on the other hand, was pretty sure that much adrenaline would send me into early labor....

5) It was also the first time that Matilda extended her quest for the perfect ear for comfort to kids her 'own' age. Unfortunately, Leo didn't really quite know what to think of it. I love this sequence of pictures as it tells the story with no captions required...

And of course, I can't resist any 'excited' photos of Matilda when she gets whatever food she has been asking for. Here is her first bite of a banana she just couldn't wait for after a busy morning at the pool.

It almost rivals the cheese face....

Valentines Love

We started our Valentines Day off with a whole lotta love from Tillie.

We got to enjoy her for an extra long time before heading to work since she woke up at 5:30AM...

Lucky us. ;)

It gave us plenty of time to play with our Lovely Lioness.

Tillie's Daycare threw a Valentine's "dance" complete with some great music  that even I could get my dance moves on to. Although it did give me a weird feeling thinking about the lyrics of "If I Were Your Boyfriend by Bieber in relation to my not-yet-two-year-old/

The only problem was the Tillie was pretty overwhelmed by the whole scene. All of the older kids, the parents, the noise, etc. So it was less dancing, and more finger sucking/ear holding and swaying.

We did manage to get her face painted (the woman doing this was literally a magical face painter--it took her about 2.3 seconds to get a heart on Matilda's face)...

And she warmed up to the heart cut-out photo-op..

Then, we headed out for a family date night of Noodles, and a special Valentine's Day bath complete with heart foamies and dyed ice cubes that turned the water purple/pink/red. Tillie got quite a kick out of it...

And once the babe was in bed, the real date began:

Pajamas

Badger Basketball

Laptops

Email/Work

In bed by 10.

Bravery: Redefined

In the midst of making Valentine's for Tillie's classroom, I ran out of glue.
Yet, in the back of my mind, I KNOW there is a brand new thing of Elmer's Glue in hanging in the craft organizer in Tillie's closet.

But the problem is Tillie is SLEEPING.
And I know her closet door (which is a jammed shut door, not easily opened).

For most people, this is not that big of a problem. For me, this is a huge problem. I.Do.Not.Go.Into.Tillies.Room if she is sleeping. Nope. Not worth it.
So my options are to either wait and rush to get her Valentine's done tomorrow morning OR grow a pair of Mom balls and do it.

Nate's logic was pretty smart: in less than 2 months we are going to have another BABY in that room, so we may as well start going in there now.

So I did.

I got my glue.
I snuck a look at my baby girl snoozing.
The Valentine's are complete.

 I feel so rebellious. So brave. It was the biggest accomplishment of my day, which is either a sad commentary on my accomplishments at work, or a sad commentary on the successes I've had as a Mom to date.

Either way, I'll take it. And maybe, just maybe, I'll sneak into her room to catch a glimpse of her sucking her fingers with her little butt straight up in the air a little more often.

All in a Sunday

We had a particularly chock-full day today, which is good since we need to be getting as much fun and work done as possible each day before this baby arrives.

I"m not sure if Tillie likes arts and crafts because she gets to do them every day at daycare, because we do them at home or she really likes to do them, but no matter the reason it seems to be our go-to activity when Matilda gets up very very bright and early.

One of my very few New Years resolutions, was to start DOING some of my pins on Pinterest or stop pinning. And the reality is that so much of Pinterest is very simple inspiration, but it takes some level of planning and organization/remembering to do them. So call me crazy, but now I have a list on my phone reminding me of what I need to get to make some of the Pins happen, or just reminding me of the ideas.

I have a whole "matilda play" list, and one fo the ideas we did this morning and she seemed to love it. Simply drop some globs of paint into a baking pan/cookie sheet, let her go to town with her paint brush and/or hands and then press a white sheet of paper on top of it. Viola! Masterpiece:

We decided to be true Minnesotans and ignore the winter weather warning advisory (don't tell Grandpa Christmas cancellor) and headed to St. Paul for the Children's museum. Matilda loved grocery shopping, checking out her groceries (but please do NOT help her).....

She also concocted the below for us to eat for dinner in the play kitchen...

Who wants to come over?

While the drive there was easy peasy, the drive back was a little dicey. But we got back in time for a quick lunch and down for nap.

That is when the craziness hit the kitchen. We got dinner prepped and ready for Monday and Wednesday night, and started on dinner for tonight. We tried a new recipe on Pinterest (another notch in my NY resolution..), that was AMAZING. SO freaking good...Sun-Dried Tomato Basil Orzo Pasta. We paired it with steak. Yum. Yum. Yum.

Click HERE for the link to the recipe. As an added bonus, Matilda also loved this side-dish, cementing that this will become part of our rotation.

In other news, we successfully went out on a date Saturday night and had the neighborhood girl feed, play and put Tillie down with no incident. I honestly think it is because she is relatively petite in size and height, so Matilda viewed her as 'one of her people' vs. a scary strange adult. Either way. We will take it. Cramming in as many dates as possible before March 28th!

Find My iPhone

Nate has many nicknames in our house--one of which is "sir looks-a-lot" because his 'looking skills' are (ahem..) lacking at times. For example: "are we out of cottage cheese?" stated while looking directly at the cottage cheese.

So, when he asked me if I had seen his phone on Sunday morning after returning from Florida, I didn't think much of it. So he 'looked' and then asked me to press the alert on the "find my iphone" app.

Have you heard of this? If you own an iPhone this is a must have app...

Let me illustrate for you why this app is awesome:

1) You can put it on all of your devices so if you LOSE one of your devices you can play a noise to help you find it. 

2) You can track it via GPS to see where it is--note: you need to have your devices synched to do this. For example, our iPAD and each of our phones are all connected so when Nate loses his phone, I can look it up on my phone to find it.

         *Note: this also comes in handy when your husband says he is on his way home on his bike, and it is negative 20 degrees and it takes him too long for comfort so you are afraid he is dead on the trail.

3) If you do lose your phone, you can lock it, and wipe it clean from any other device that is synched.

ALL of these features came in handy on Sunday when we realized Nate's phone was gone.

Step 1: Play the loud beeping noise multiple times. No dice.

Step 2: Track via GPS--only to find the phone is NOT actually at our house, but in a less than desirable part of Minneapolis.

Step 3: Lock phone and deliver a message that shows up on the 'lost screen' that says this phone is lost, and gives a phone number to call.

We quickly figured out that this was either our taxi cab driver or someone who was in the cab after us, and Nate was very quick to want to go and knock on the door to ask for his phone back (which I was not a huge proponent of given my interest in having my husband be alive for the birth of our second child).

But, the universe proves that there ARE still decent people in this world. Our cab driver did eventually call us back, told us he had the phone and met us to return it. All he wanted in return was for Nate to call his boss to let him know he is 'one of the good ones', which we will do as well as gave him a thank-you reward.

Nate would have been rocking an old-school phone had it not been for this app though...so get it! :)



Parting Shots

We are home.
Back to reality.
Which means cold temps, snow, a house to clean, a fridge to fill, and oodles of work emails to sift through.

It also means we survived our two hours drive to Miami, a flight to ATL, followed by another flight to MSP. Tillie did well considering how long of a day it was an how little sleep she was going on. We had a few moments on the plane, but all handled it well. (although I was most surprised by how I handled her meltdown vs. her meltdown itself).


And while it is always sad to see a vacation come to a close, I will say it is nice to be in my own bed, and to not have Matilda in our room---that girl makes a LOT of noise when she sleeps--complete with nighttime serenades of ABC's and Baa Baa Black sheep when she wakes up.

Here are a few snapshots worth remembering as we close in on the impending reality that will present itself tomorrow...