Emerging as a human being

In January, Marek celebrated his first birthday.  In true third child fashion, we didn't have a big party, but I did make him a cake, and I did have a few glasses of wine.  I might have taken some pictures, I'm not sure.  He'll discuss this in therapy years from now, and probably read this blog as proof I'm a terrible mother.  But then 30 years from now he'll catch up and understand we're all just doing the best we can.

This week, Pete celebrated his fifth birthday.  My little baby can ride a bike, goes to school, knows his letters and numbers, and as of Monday, he can play with little legos instead of duplos. 

I've been a mother for five years now, and the time has truly flown by.  For the past five years, I've worn whatever fit my body at the moment (anywhere from a size 4 to a 14) and showered whenever I could squeeze it in, worn my hair in a ponytail more days than not and just generally let my physical appearance fall a little lower on the priority scale.  I spent two and half years pregnant, and another two and a half years nursing babies.  My body was squishy, my breasts alternated between perky and full and flat and saggy.  My belly and thighs are streaked with deep stretch marks, there's a gap between my abdominal muscles.  I wore yoga pants and flip down tops to allow access for the babies to eat.  There's nothing wrong with the squishy body and the sloppy clothes, it's where I was in life at the time. 

After three children, my body has stabilized (nowhere near my pre-baby body, but it shows the scars of having served a noble purpose and I'm pleased with it) and I'm starting to invest in myself again.  Buying shirts that don't have fold-down flaps for breastfeeding and wearing dresses with heels again.  I've even joined Premier Designs jewelry as a fashion consultant, serving others by helping them pick out jewelry for every occasion too.  After several months of success with Premier Designs, I decided to hop on the direct sales train, and I joined Mary Kay as well.  I'm using the cleansers and moisturizers, and trying to focus on saving three minutes for myself to toss on some makeup before leaving the house.  It's just three minutes, I don't use much but it gives me a polished look. 

I'm starting to re-emerge as a human being again.   I'm dressed in clothes that fit without an elastic waist.  I'm wearing coordinating jewelry.  I have a little powder and blush on.  I've been studying the Mary Kay eye makeup examples and experimenting with my makeup.  I've dried my hair.  I may not be a super model, and I may not achieve every one of these goals every single day.  There's still plenty of days I'm in sweats with a pony-tail.  But I'm truly starting to feel like a beautiful, put together woman again. 

Before you think that I'm pretending to be perfect, I should let you know that earlier this week, as I washed my face before bedtime, I noticed that I'd been wearing one eye of green eye shadow, and one of bronze, all day. 

I'm baaaaaaaack. Maybe.

I've completely ignored the blog recently.  Well, for a long time.  There's been a lot going on.  I like to call it "life". 

What's been ridiculous recently?  Well, the first thing that pops to mind is poop.  I spend my days surrounded by an unfathomable amount of poop.

Having spent most of the last year in a potty training epic with Chester, we've been solidly potty trained for about 6 months.  It's to the point that I don't bother reminding him for a potty trip before we leave the house because he'll automatically go.  Nap time and bedtime are their own ball-game, though, so I scored a bargain on about 300 pull-ups and having finished the package of Spiderman pull-ups, he's wearing camouflage under-jams to nap time these days.  Considering he just turned three in February, I'm thrilled with his progress. 

Marek caught some sort of bug last week, or maybe cutting his molars upset his stomach, or who knows why, but the end result was about a week's worth of horrible poosplosions and refusal of solid food.  Thank God we're still breastfeeding because I'm not sure what else he would have eaten!  The poor kid blew out diaper after diaper, and even woke up one night to fill his diaper and whimper.  He hasn't done that since, well, about this time last year when he was just a few weeks old.

Pete tried his very best to take the first prize for poop related drama.  One afternoon as I sat and rocked the baby in the living room during nap time, I heard a great crash and a scream from upstairs.  It turns out that Pete needed to poop during nap time.  However, he didn't want to get in trouble, so he didn't tell me, but rather, he attempted to wipe himself.  (Please tell me your nearly 5-year-old can't sufficiently wipe himself either?)  Typically I check after he's wiped, but since he was being stealthy, he decided to check himself.  That's right, he climbed up on the bathroom counter to look at his butt in the mirror.  The crash I heard was him falling off the bathroom counter, grabbing at the towels, the curtains and the shower curtains.  They all crashed to the floor together, causing the huge crash and screaming.  For the record, his butt was clean.

The dog wins the poop prize.  Our house sits right at the curb but the next set of houses are set back around a courtyard.  Believe me, I understand it's a hassle to carry your groceries from your car back across the courtyard to your house, but I don't appreciate that my neighbor has taken to driving through my backyard to park in the courtyard by their front door.  Aside from the potential tire-tracks and damage to the yard, my dog and my KIDS play back there!  Today's poop prize goes to Killer, because I haven't bothered to pick up after him this week, and he laid bombs in just the right place for the neighbors to drive through the poop.  Their car smells, and I don't have to pick up after the dog. 

So there's just a quick glimpse of our ridiculous life recently, and perhaps now that the Baby sleeps in his own bed, I'll have time to write more frequently.