or looking for the Funnies, we’re not really sure which. 

Internet?  Meet Joanna. 

Oh, you know and love her already?  Fantastic.  But just in case anyone doesn’t already know her, allow me to make introductions. She is a fun, witty, kind and strong momma from Texas who I “met” through Twitter and blogging and who always makes me smile.  If you don’t already know about her blog, go directly to Raising Madison and check it out.  You’ll see why she’s easily one of my favorite reads and the best part, she’s a great gal that I’m happy to call a friend.  (Unless she thinks that’s creepy, then I’ll just go back to being an adoring fan.) 

About a week ago, I realized that I was going to a have a “work is kicking my ass week” followed by a much needed “headed to the beach” week and keeping up with my corner of the internet was going to be a challenge.  So I asked Joanna if she would be willing to write for me while I was otherwise occupied.  Luckily for you, she agreed. 

Without further ado…. 

I love Krista’s blog so when she asked me to guest post I was super excited but completely at a loss for an appropriate topic. She mentioned writing about a moment when I realized I wasn’t mommy of the year and I knew that was the one I had to pick. Let’s be honest, I’ve had a LOT of those moments. 

I sat down to write and began this post no less than 10 times. Every time it was so heavy and talking about how we all make mistakes, blah blah blah, we can’t always be the “perfect mom”, boring boring boring.

Here’s the thing. There has been no defining moment where I thought “man, I do not have it all together.” Because honestly? I think that almost daily. I could go on and on about how at Madison’s first doctor’s appointment it didn’t even cross my mind to bring the diaper bag that I had spent the last month of my pregnancy perfectly organizing or how I left her sitting in her bouncy chair after I heard her poop because she was being quiet only to find my 2 week old child rubbing poop all over her face just seconds later. But I won’t.

I’m going to let you guys in on a little secret I’ve learned. You get to start over every single day! I know I know… you’re blown away that I shared this TOTALLY NEW information with you. But really, I think this is something that needs to be touched on.

In the midst of the shittiest day there is a light at the end of the tunnel (and no, I’m not talking about bedtime although bedtime is sometimes referred to as “happy time” in our house). That light is a new day. And before you think I’ve gone all soft & touchy feel on you with all of my “things will be better tomorrow” bullshit I’ll share something else with you. Tomorrow may not be any better either. It may even suck worse. But after tomorrow? There’s another new day. Are we seeing a trend here? 

We get a fresh slate every day.  And despite how much of a pain in the ass babies can be in the beginning, they don’t hold grudges. So yeah, maybe yesterday in your sleep deprived haze you told your 4 week old to “shut up and stop freaking crying or mommy is going to start drinking.” But today? Today she is smiling for the first time, went down for 4 naps and didn’t projectile vomit on you. Or maybe she did, but the day after next? It goes better.

I can say with confidence that every day I do at LEAST one thing that would classify me as “not mommy of the year.” But I don’t dwell on it and I start each day with my clean slate & try to be a better mom.  It’s a struggle and if I had to grade myself at the end of the each day I’d probably find myself to be a solid B student, but once in a while I knock it out of the park with an A+ and on rare occasions I fail miserably and hope that tomorrow is a better day.

It almost always is.

Baby girl turns 1 in three months and two days. 

‘scuse me while I recover from the whiplash of  THREE MONTHS AND TWO DAYS.  Who gave her permission to grow up? To walk around furniture, crawl on all fours, say da-da, try to clap and feed herself? 

While at some moments I want to cry over the pace of her first year, (I assume the next three months will go as rapidly as the first three), I also want to throw her a kick ass first birthday party! 

There will be presents.  There will be lots of hugs and kisses.  There will be a super sweet outfit with adorable shoes (duh).  And, there will be cupcakes. 

Sunday, I started my quest for the perfect cupcake recipe with a lemon cupcake with cream cheese frosting mentioned by Beth Anne on Twitter and then sent to me by Mrs. Lusher.  (Who says Twitter is a waste of time??)  The cupcakes were tasty.  Light, citrusy and refreshing.  Perfect for a summer picnic for grown ups.  But for baby’s first birthday party?  In late September?  I’m not so sure. 

So, my search continues.  And this is where you come in.  I’m asking (pleading, begging) for you to send me your favorite cupcake recipes.  I have three months to try them out, while trying not to gain 12 pounds.  So, send me your best cupcake recipes.  Difficulty level should be easy.  If it involves a double boiler, I’m in trouble.  You can leave them in the comment section or send an email to notmommyoftheyear@gmail.com.

Keeping in line with the summer picnic theme of this week’s Momma’s Munchies tour, this recipe is perfect for a backyard BBQ or 4th of July party.  I did not do the lemon curd part (remember – double boiler stuff intimidates me), instead I did a lemon cream cheese frosting, mixing together 1/2 a stick of softened butter, a block of softened cream cheese, 4 cups of powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. 

Updated for the Way Back Wednesday post from Stephanie…  If you didn’t have enough wedding fun last week, check out these posts! 

- – -  (original post) – - -

Can I just say that I love twitter blog hops.  A) It gives me something to write about.  Because some days, I’m just not sure which part of my life to bore bless you with.  B) I get to know more about people whose parenting blogs I read.  So? Win win. 

Anyway… jumping into the wedding. 

July 4, 2008. 

I waited six years for this day.  Six years to stand in a church in front of all the people I love and who love me and promise to spend the rest of my life with a man I adored.  Adore.  And, I really wish I had been blogging then.  Because I remember the months leading up to it as a whirlwind of dress shopping, meetings about flowers, budgetting and rebudgetting, browsing travel magazines and stalking my wedding registry. 

And I loved every second of it.  I loved the planning, stress included.  I thrive on excitement and details.  I sort of like being the center of attention, ahem.  But also, I loved the security and comfort of knowing that once that day was over, my life, my family would begin. 

A few weeks of searching led me to the dress.   It was simple and classic.  And it still makes me sad that I’ll never wear it again.  Perhaps some day, after a few glasses of wine, I’ll trek up the steps, pull it out of the special perservation box, slip back into it and flip through my wedding album.  Or not.

The day of the wedding started with a workout and breakfast with my best friend.  Followed by hours, yes hours, of primping, makeup and hair. Until it was time to zip up the dress and put on the jewelry. 

And then I waited.  FOR AN HOUR.  In my dress, in the hotel room with my brother and my maid of honor.  Trying not to wrinkle the dress and ignoring the rumbling of my belly. 

The nerves hit me on the way to the church.  I was caught up in the details and trapped in the back of a limo on a windy road.  The looming dark clouds were threatening to rain on my wedding day, I was wondering how the flowers looked and hoping that I had left enough time for pictures.  As I was waiting by the corner of the church, watching the last few people walk in, it was all I could do to not hurry them along, so I could have my turn to walk down the aisle. 

Once I got to the front of the church and saw him.  Everything got very calm. 

During the ceremony, we stood together and looked out at our family and friends.  Pointing out faces of people we hadn’t seen in a while, waving at young cousins and grinning at each other.   We laughed at the jokes that our priest made, hugged the families, said our vows, lit the candle and walked out as Mr. & Mrs. 

Then… we got our party on.  With traditional dances between husband and wife, father and daughter, mother and son.  My grandparents were the last couple standing at the end of the anniversary dance.  We made people who wanted to see us kiss stand up and sing a song to get it – no clinking glasses, thankyouverymuch. Craig and I served the cake to all of our guests, our way of making sure we spent a few minutes with everyone who spent the day with us.  We danced to YMCA, We Are Family and all the traditional Central PA wedding dances.   We drank champagne… and beer… and wine.. and oh my aching head the next day.  We didn’t eat enough, but we laughed, accepted hugs and well-wishes and caught up with old friends. 

At some point during the reception, the rain that had been threatening all day finally came.  At the time that our reception was over, it was POURING.  Craig and I walked to the door and then it hit me.  The one detail I forgot.  To arrange our transportation from the conference center to the hotel.  It was only a few blocks, so maybe I thought we’d walk it. But the sheets of water falling from the sky meant that we needed a Plan B.  So we waited while my mom and aunts cleared the centerpieces, we helped the DJ tear down, loaded gifts into the car and piled in the back of my aunt’s SUV. 

:: sigh ::  A girl can’t get it all right, can she? 

So that’s it.  That’s my wedding day in a five-minute blog post.  The day I joined Craig’s family and he joined mine.  The only day I’ve had just about every person I cared about in one room. 

The day I learned that some things are worth waiting for. 

**are you new here?  do you know about Joanna and her #Karing4Keegan fundraiser?  She is doing a really good thing, raising money for a family who needs the financial help as they focus on helping their baby boy fight cancer.  I count my blessing every day, every hour, that I have a healthy baby. I wish I could do more.  But maybe? If we all do a little, it will add up.  Go read about Keegan, help if you’re so inclined, say a prayer if it’s what you do and hug your child a little tighter tonight. ** 

I’m torn about what to write tonight. 

I’m tired.  C woke up at 3:15 this morning.  And, although I got her back to sleep without too much trouble, I couldn’t fall asleep again.  So I’ve been up since practically the middle of the night. 

I’m sick.  Actually, I’m not sick yet, but if moms were allowed to get sick and if it wasn’t an uber-busy time at work, I think I’d be coming down with the cold that Craig has been fighting for a week and a half.  But my body seems to have an innate way of knowing when I can’t afford to be sick, so I stay just barely on this side of healthy until I get a day or two to relax.  And then it hits me like a ton of bricks.  So that means the weekend should be a good time.

And… I’m just… blah.  Disconnected.  In a funk.  Too much going on in the parts of my life that I don’t blog about to be able to string sentences together about the parts that I do share. 

So… with that… 

I’m signing off.  To do some old fashioned journaling and thought processing, to sleep and to overdose on cold medicine.   And maybe to find someone who will kick my ass back in to gear. 

Be back tomorrow with something more fun to read!  (or at least with a cute picture of my kid.) 

Ciao!

Internet! I haven’t been this excited about summer since the summer of 98, before I went to college and took full advantage of sleeping in until noon, working at MickeyD’s and drinking beers camping in the woods. 

If you read the Twitter Home Tour post from a while back, you saw that when we built a house, we put in a pool.  Now, you should know that this pool is sort of silly.  I live in a town where it’s warm enough to swim about 3 months out of the year.  But Craig’s happy place is in the sun, so we put one in.  And, guys?  It’s so worth it.  Even if it doesn’t add $5 of value to our house. Because this weekend, we put my daughter in the pool and SHE. LOVED. IT. 

We were hoping to give her a little bit of pool time on Saturday but a late nap combined with a picnic that we were headed to and a mom who forgot to buy swim diapers meant that she only got to dip in her toes.  She stuck in her little toe and looked up at Craig with wide eyes.  When he smiled at her, she giggled and kicked her right foot while keeping her left leg way up in the air out of the water. 

On Sunday, we decide to go for it.  We lathered her up with suncreen, blew up the baby raft and wiggled C into her swim diaper and suit.  (side note:  do you know how hard it is to get a baby girl into a swim suit?  I think it’s a little like trying to put two weeks of clothes into an overnight bag.) Once she was properly dressed with a hat that she was willing to keep on her still sparsely covered noggin, we headed outside. 

As soon as she saw the water, she was kicking her feet and flailing her arms. We lowered her into the water and into the baby raft and with only a slight moment of hesitation, she leaned back and soaked it in.  She grined and giggled, kicked her feet and splashed with her arms.  She chewed on the toys attached to the raft (does anyone know if this is a bad thing, by the way?) and just thoroughly loved being in the water. 

I joked with Craig this weekend that if it hadn’t taken him six years to marry me and build me a house, that perhaps I could have enjoyed the pool with a pre-baby body for a year or two before we decided to procreate.   But this?  Watching my little girl as she plays in the water and gets excited to be outside.  This is so much better. 

She is such her father’s daughter already, but I love that she loves being outside and I can’t wait to spend my summer chashing her around with the camera.  ::sigh::  Even if it means I have to suck in my post-baby belly as I do it. 

How did you kick off your summer this weekend?

Dear Hotel Chains Across America,

I know it’s all about competition and doing things different than the hotel down the street.  But do you think maybe, just maybe, you could all have a group meeting and decide what trial sized toiletries you will be offering?  They don’t have to be the same brand; I haven’t completely lost my mind.  But maybe you could all agree that you will have little itty bitty bottles of shampoo, conditioner and lotion in the bathroom when I check in. 

Because the way it stands now, I’m not sure what will be there.  Some of you have shampoo but no conditioner, while others have the 2-in-1 combination (which, thanks but no thanks).  Some of you have toothpaste, others have q-tips.  Sometimes you offer body wash, sometimes it’s just plain soap. 

My point is that if I KNOW what you’ll be offering, that’s one less thing I have to pack. And that would be super.  Because maybe if I knew that you would have shampoo and conditioner,  I might have remembered to grab my power cord for my cell phone or a fresh bra.   

Thank you for your consideration. 

Krista

PS.  Also? Maybe consider getting some pillows that aren’t as hard as rocks.

If you’re not my mother or don’t follow me on Twitter you don’t know that I spent the night away from baby last night.  With a late meeting yesterday and an early meeting today both taking place two hours from home, it made more sense to just spend the night than to drive home.  I would have gotten home just in time to put C to bed and left before she was awake and spent 8 hours driving.  So. I spent the night away from my baby and Craig stepped into my shoes. 

The good news is everyone survived and Craig sent me a picture of my adorable baby smiling early this morning.  The bad news?  I woke up every hour wondering if she was awake.

Last week, another blogger, Lindsey Ivory, asked for my advice on labor and newborns.  She has been asking the internets for her weekly “From the Mouths of Moms” column since in a few short weeks, she’ll be bringing a wee one into the world too.  Anway, ask & ye shall recieve, I say.  I gave her the good, the bad and the very, very ugly.  If you want to see how my answers stack up, go visit her blog. 

Also, I want to not care about my ranking on Top Baby Blogs, but um… I do.  So, if you’ll do me the itty bitty honor of clicking on this link, and then the next one where it asks you to vote I would be so thankful.  Don’t worry if you’ve clicked before, you can actually do it once a day (you know, if you wanted.)

It is my favorite part of the day.  It is 6:45, I sit with a cup of tea and my laptop, catching up on blogs, email or work with the video monitor next to me.  Craig paces around the kitchen pausing at every noise to ask “is she up?!”  Soon, she will open her eyes or begin to toss and turn.  I will see that she is starting to wake and say to him, “in just a minute.”

When I give him the go ahead nod, he drops his spoon or his newspaper and dashes up the steps, often two at a time, yelling, “I’m coming to get you baby girl.  DADDY WILL GET YOU.”  In the monitor I watch her look around because she hears his voice and she starts to grin.  She knows what comes next.  He sweeps into her room, picks her up out of her crib and showers her with kisses and ‘good morning’ hugs. 

She smiles sleepily at me as her daddy carries her down the steps.  I take the paci out of her mouth and say “you don’t need that.”  I kiss her forehead and she pulls my hair.  “Good morning to you, Mommy.”

In a few minutes we will rush to get her fed and dressed and out the door as we both start our busy days.  It is those ten minutes when she first wakes up, and she smiles and tells us about her dreams that will be with both of us until we get home.

My goal for the weekend is to step away from the laptop.  No working, no blogging, little tweeting (I can’t go completely cold turkey.) I just need a break from the click of the computer keys and the demands of the email and to-do lists. 

The weather is supposed to be sunshine-y and beautiful so we will be going for lots of walks, shopping, having brunch with friends and visiting family. 

In the meantime, I leave you with C’s wish for you to have a Happy Easter – whether you celebrate with church, family, colored eggs or vodka, she hopes your weekend is full of smiles, sunglasses and laughter.