The Good, The Bad, The Smelly

Oooooh motherhood.  It's the most beautiful, stressful, unpredictable, heart-warming, and smelly job imaginable.  Sometimes I just look up and give God a little smile thanking him for a precious moment or smirk at him for giving me a challenging one.  Let me start with, THE GOOD.

There is so much good.  Despite the cliches of moms telling other moms what a genius their child is or that they're amazing sleepers, a lot of us spend more time talking about the bad, not that that's even the most suitable word.  Challenging is more like it.

Anyway, the good.  The smiles the giggles, the how could I possible love someone so much.  There is a lot going on around the GT (Griffin/Tyler) household, so I love stopping to reflect on the good despite all of the craziness.  Like, for example, capturing moments like these..

Oh how things have changed...

Kaylee is down to a pretty good night time routine.  We do bath, story, bottle (oh how we are trying to do sippy cup), then bed.  She goes down between 7-730 which is great.  She has come such a long way!  We'll get to the sippy cup issue when I talk about the challenging.

I am SO excited that it's getting nice out!  We used some of our tax returns to invest in a BOB stroller, and I am extremely glad we did.  It was so nice this morning waking up and going for a jog.  Fitting in work outs is definitely part of the challenging, but being able to do it together is something I'm excited about.

Wel also fixed up our backyard for Kaylee.

I'm so excited for the summer weather and to spend lots out here.  We'll be adding a little plastic pool, too, but that is currently being occupied, and is definitely part of the good.

While I was so excited for her to play in the pool this summer, she has had so much fun climbing in and out of it in the living room.  She'll also just sit in there with her toys and play.  Best 8 dollars ever spent.  Now it's time to decide if we need an indoor and outdoor pool.

Now time for the bad challenging.

Okay so I mentioned the sippy cup issue before.  Now, Kaylee LOVES drinking out of her sippy cup.  Let me rephrase, she loves drinking water out of her sippy cup.  She calls it baba, and let's you know when she's thirsty throughout any meal.  Now, she also transitioned very well to whole milk, so I assumed that the milk in the sippy would be easy.  Unfortunately, she just cries and hits it away.  Stay tuned on this one.

I have really loved working part time.   I love being able to teach a couple days a week, and it's great Kaylee is able to come with me.  As I mentioned earlier about her night time sleep habits, her napping is just as good.  She usually takes two 1.5-2 hour naps a day, EXCEPT on daycare days.  I feel so badly about it, but she does not nap there.  The cribs are in the same room as the babies, so there is lots of light and noise.  I spend my lunches putting her to sleep in the mother's room, but even after I lay her down in the room she only takes about a 30 minute nap.  This is definitely challenging because of many working mothers' BFF, guilt. 

Lastly in the challenging, is Gerald's newest schedule.  Well, it's from November so not really new.  He is on a rotating schedule where 4 days a week (different every week) where he works 13 hours, 7-8.  Since Kaylee is up around 7 and in bed before 8 then he doesn't see her those days, AKA I am acting as a single mama.  One of the weeks he works M-Thurs from 7am to 8pm and we call it SMW (Single Mom Week).  I love that I am home with Kaylee 5 days a week, but I'd be lying if I said by 4 or 5 o'clock I wasn't in need of a little break.  In other words, sometimes I'm just like, HELP.  We try to take more outings or visit grandparents on those days, but it's definitely something that continues to challenge me.    


THE SMELLY.
Maybe if you aren't a mom it's time to start reading, but if you're lucky enough to be a mom, then I'm sure you can relate.

Everyone has had those days with newborns where you've gotten covered in all different sorts of bodily fluids excretions from such a tiny, tiny human.   If you're like me, then you've definitely questioned, "How did ALL of that come out of such a cute, cuddly, and little baby?"  I've been there.  While there were dozens of days in the first year like that, a couple recent ones come to mind.

1. The Easter Bunny.
I got Kaylee all dressed up to go see the bunny.  We were making a whole thing out of it.  Meeting Gerald on his lunch, wearing Easter gear, and she was looking cute as ever.  I gave her a quick lunch then we were on our way.  Halfway to the mall it happened....Projectile. Vomit.  Now, it's not like the, "all the little baby threw up."  It was the, "Oh Sh*t....so this is actually going to smell and be gross now, isn't it?"   Despite being scared at first, Kaylee was a trooper.  The car will never be the same.

2. Walk for MS
This past Sunday, we met up with some of Gerald's work friends to do the walk for MS.  I had just gotten Kaylee a new diaper bag (yard sale deal), so I filled it up (smaller than the last), brought snacks for everyone and we were on our way.  Because it was smaller, I figured an extra outfit would be unnecessary for this little outing (I hope you see the foreshadowing here).  34.5 minutes into the 35 minute drive we were pulling into the parking lot on the beautiful spring day to walk for a great cause when I heard a cough...and there it was, again.  Everywhere.  Outfit, Carseat, Seat, Binki, Toys, everywhere.    Luckily we were meeting more prepared parents than I, and Kaylee borrowed a t-shirt from our friends' son.  Not so luckily, the vomit-filled car would be sitting in the sun for the next 3 hours.  This time, I will never be the same, or be able to look at cottage cheese again for that matter.

Thanks, Augie! 

Looking so sweet and innocent, yet so smelly.

Moral of the story: Give the baby some time to digest before embarking on a car ride.

Lesson Learned.