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Dear Maddie,

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a year since you came crashing into our lives. You have turned everything upside down and inside out. Our lives will never, ever be the same, and I am eternally grateful to you for that.

This time last year, Texas had the worst ice storm in decades. Daddy had to drive us all the way to Dallas on treacherous icy highways. This also meant that Nana and Papa had to miss your birth. Poor Nana was so upset that she cried. Luckily, the highways opened back up the next day and Nana and Papa were here in a flash. Great Aunt Jean, Tio Steve, Popie and Granny were there with us when you were born. They all stood outside the window of the nursery and watched the nurses taking care of you.

You were born three weeks and one day early and the doctors and nurses kept you in the nursery for a long time after you were born, just to make sure you were ok. You were born at 3:38pm and I didn’t get see your face or hold you until 1:00am. That was the longest time of my life. I cried and yelled and begged to see my baby. I had waited so long for you and gone through so much to deliver you and all I wanted was to hold you close to me. When they finally brought you to me, everyone had gone home for the night, even Daddy. It was just you and me all alone in our room. I looked at your chubby little face and everything changed. Suddenly, there was a piece of my soul living on the outside of my body. You were so beautiful and I was so afraid. I didn’t know anything about you or how to take care of you. I worried that daddy and I had made a huge mistake because we were obviously in way over our heads. How in the world was I going to be a mother?

But you know what? We managed, you, me and daddy. Every day we learn something new about each other and ourselves. Now, taking care of you is second nature and I never once think that we made a mistake. You are the best decision we ever made. You make our lives so much more meaningful and rich. Last night, as you gave me the customary eleventy billion nigh-night kisses, I thought my heart would explode inside my chest. You make me so happy, little Grumpopotamus.

You have a quick temper, you’re curious, demanding, and quick with a smile. Your laugh is as frequent as it is adorable. You love music and dance whenever you hear it which delights me and your daddy.

You’re my biggest wish come true and I love you as big as the sky. Happy Birthday, Maddie Boo.

Love,
Mama

Another post in which my ignorance is showcased for your entertainment.

Now that we’ve established that I’m pretty and I have great hair, I need your help. It seems that I am entirely ignorant of children’s nutrition. Hell, make that nutrition in general. Unless you are a Skimmer, you know that I have a history of being Very Overweight and Unable To Stop Eating Food That Is Shitty For Me. I am working on this and hope to have it under control soon. In the meantime, what the hell do I feed my kid?

Baby food is easy. She has a YoBaby yogurt with cereal for breakfast (along with bites of my whole grain bagel). Then, she has a fruit and a veggie for lunch and dinner. If the timing’s right, she also has some of whatever we’re having for dinner. We tried the baby food meats, but she didn’t like them. And really, can you blame her? They smell like cat food, for crissake.  But now that she’s got eight teeth either fully in or in the process of coming in, combined with her first birthday rapidly approaching, I think baby food is on the way out of the picture.

So help me out, pretty readers who also have great hair: What do you feed your kids for lunch and dinner? Do they just eat whatever you’re eating? Are you careful to make sure they have veggies and/or fruit with regularity? Protein? Do you cook lunch for them or is it mostly sandwiches? Any info you want to share is appreciated. I don’t want to screw up my kid by giving her my atrocious eating habits. I know she’s going to go through phases in which she will refuse to eat anything but saltines or fruit rollups, but I’d like to give her the foundation of healthy eating habits.

kthnxbai!

Before and After

Before – This is a crappy picture, I know. However, I didn’t have another one where my hair is down. It’s in a ponytail ALL THE TIME. Seriously. Anyhow, you can see it’s wavy, but this pic doesn’t do the frizziness any justice. Trust me, it was BAD.

After – I took this about 10 minutes ago in my bathroom. This is my actual hair now. No round brushing and no products other than shampoo and conditioner.

This one shows those pesky layers. The one at my chin is too short. I think I’m going to have the length brought up by splitting the difference between my shoulders and my chin. Sort of halfway in between.

Hair

My hair is well below my shoulders now. It’s amazing to me to see the pictures of Maddie’s birth and my hair wasn’t even to my chin. It’s grown so very quickly in this last year, but it’s different since I had Maddie. My hair is now super wavy and UNFORTUNATELY frizzy. Unless, of course, I separate it into five sections and blow dry it with a round brush. And really, do you think I want to spent 20 minutes of my morning devoted to blow drying my hair? If you do, then you are a total skimmer. Normally, I let my hair air-dry and then throw it back into a ponytail. While I approve of the easiness of this style, I disprove of the lack of style of this style. It’s so blah.

Friday, I went to Walgreen’s to comb the hair color aisle for inspiration. I thought maybe if I gave myself a bold new color, then I’d forget about how much I dislike my hair. Instead of a color, I found a product called “EasyStraight.” It’s at at-home chemical hair straightener. It was $29.99, so I dipped into my Christmas money and bought it. Once I got home, I decided to check out the online reviews. BIG MISTAKE. I was terrified to use it after that. After slowly making my way through about 20 reviews, I realized there was a HUGE disparity between the ratings. Either women rated it a 9 or 10 or a zero. I decided that this meant the product was good, but you had to follow the THE VERY COMPLICATED directions flawlessly. In my opinion, the women that rated it a zero either didn’t follow the directions, or their hair was too curly or coarse for the product.

I read the directions five times and even watched an instructional video on the company’s website, and then I felt confident enough to try it. I was reassured by the fact that none of the negative reviews I read stated that the person’s hair had fallen out. Their complaint was that the product didn’t work. I can live with losing $30 on a crappy product, not with losing my hair.

My hair turned out beautifully. There are still some sections underneath that have a wave, but that’s were my hair is curliest. If it bothers me that much, I’m sure I can round brush it and it’ll be fine. Right now, all I have to do is blow dry it an go. I’m thrilled! The only downside is that my haircut is no longer flattering at all. My hair is very layered because that’s what wavy hair needs. Straight hair? Not so much. So, I’m going to make myself a hair appointment and get it cut into a more flattering style. Problem is, I have no idea what that is! I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to give up length in order to ger rid of some of the layers. I guess I’m ok with that. I mean, it’s only hair and it will grow back. And I wanted to lose that damn ponytail anyway, right? Then why am I so scared?

Am Dying From Cuteness!

Check out these outfits I got for Maddie at Target today. Those of you with allergies to cuteness may want to skip this post, as it contains lethal levels.

She just got these Robeez shoes a couple of days ago. They match perfectly!

I wanted to get her some purple Robeez, but they were out of stock in her size. I found these at Target for half the price. And then I just had to have this dress, of course.

This is her birthday dress. I’m also going to have her one year portraits taken in it.

Here’s a close up of the pattern since it’s hard to see against my comforter.

There’s a little kid’s store in my (small) town and I decided to stop in and see what they had. They were listed on the Robeez website as a seller, so I figured they might have the purple shoes that were out of stock online. When I walked in with Maddie, the owner was ringing up someone, and she didn’t acknowledge me at all. I had to walk less than three fee from her in order to come into the store, so it’s not like she didn’t see me, you know? (And it was just the four of us in the whole store.) Well, Maddie and I browsed a little while the owner and the shopper just chatted away at the register, still completely ignoring us. They had a ton of adorable clothes, but there was no way I was buying ANYTHING from this store. I walked back out, again passing within three feet of them and still, she said nothing. I buckled Maddie back into her carseat and decided to be bold. Since I was parked right in front of the door, I opened it and told the owner, “Just FYI, I would have spent an obscene amount of money in here if you had acknowledged me when I came in. But you ignored me and now I’m leaving without spending a dime.” She replied that she was “so sorry about that,” and I walked out and got into my car. As I was backing out, she comes running out of the store, asking me to wait. I shook my head and drove off. I work too hard for my money to spend it where people don’t give a damn, you know? Common courtesy is all I ask.

For Swistle

In late 2005, Gerald and I agreed the time was right to add to our little family. I had hit snooze on my biological clock one too many times, and it refused to be silenced any longer.

I made an appointment to visit my OB/Gyn to let him know we were going to try and to see what I needed to do…. besides the obvious, of course. I have a history of ovarian cysts, so he scheduled me for a laparoscopy and hysteroscopy. He wanted to check things out and make sure everything was ok. He found some cysts that needed taking care of and he sort of spruced things up with a D & C. You know, spring cleaning for the uterus is very important. He put me on prenatal vitamins and told me we could try in three months.

When the appointed time came, my doctor decided that I could use a boost in fertility due to my polycystic ovary syndrome. I took whatever pills he prescribed (I think they were called Clomid), and we, well, you know and then waited. Nothing. As I confessed to another blogging friend, I actually took apart the negative test, looking for a faint “positive” line.

Next month, I took the dreaded pills again. They made me horrible to be around. Emotional, cranky and not at all attractive. Not really conducive to the whole reproduction process, if you catch my meaning. Another month passed without pregnancy. I was a wreck and convinced that we’d NEVER get pregnant. And confidentially, we were tired of all the pressure surrounding our sex life. Procreation isn’t as much fun as you’d think.

Meanwhile, my 30th birthday approached. Gerald planned and executed my very first ever surprise birthday party. We then spent a week on the coast to celebrate my birthday and our anniversary. I decided that we’d skip a month of “trying” because I didn’t want those damned pills to ruin our trip. We had a lovely time and I will always remember it as my favorite birthday. The week after, we half-heartedly “tried” since I was fertile, but neither of us expected that we’d get pregnant.

Two weeks later, I woke up feeling different. I went to work and felt funny all day. I had a metallic taste in my mouth and my boobs were killing me. Suddenly, I just knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was pregnant. I still think that was weird. I hadn’t been pregnant before but I knew it as sure as I knew my name.

The work day dragged on and finally, I raced home to test. I hadn’t missed my period yet, so I was worried the test might not show me that beautiful second line. Boy, was I in for a surprise. As soon as I took the test, the line showed up big as Dallas. I burst into hysterical sobs and ran to the living room. I showed it to Gerald, who sort of mumbled and looked at me like I was insane. Turns out, he thought I was crying because I’d gotten hurt. He had no idea why I was waving a pregnancy test around like a madwoman. Once we got on the same page, I made him drive me to the closest drugstore so that I could by another test to confirm the results. We got a box of three, and I took every single one. Four positives were finally enough to convince me that I was, indeed, pregnant.

I will never forget that sudden rush of absolute joy, followed by sheer panic. Yay, I’m pregnant!! OMG, I’m pregnant, now what??

And now for a real post

Maddie is all Walker: Texas Ranger these days. She walks all over the place now. Its incredibly exciting and incredibly sad all at the same time. Who is this BIG GIRL? And where is my TINY BABY? Jeez Louise… we are 10 days away from TODDLERHOOD. I could burst into tears at any moment.

Since we’re on the subject of Maddie, lemme tell you some of the adorable things she’s doing these days. (Because there’s nothing quite as annoying fun as a bragging mother.) She’s finally gotten the hang of Peek-A-Boo using her hands instead of objects. And when I say “gotten the hang of,” I mean her hands cover her eyes 50% of the time. The other 50%, she covers one eye and an ear, an ear and her forehead, both ears, etc. It’s the cutest damn thing I’ve ever seen.

She’s also giving hugs. She comes up to me and lays her head on my chest for a few moments, just snuggling me. Then, she’s off on her next adventure. The first time she did it was before bed earlier this week and I started crying like a dork. It was the first time she had shown me affection on all on her own and in her own way. Well, it was the first time I’d recognized it as affection. I’m sure she does other things like wail whenever I leave the room because she loves me, but that’s not nearly as nice as a hug.

She seems to be a little delayed on the speech front. She doesn’t talk much at all. She jabbers and calls me Mama when she’s upset, but that’s it. I’m not worried about it, though. Her hearing is just fine and she’s on track with all of the other milestones. She’s just a late bloomer on the talking front. If she turns out to be anything like me, she’ll soon start talking and NEVER SHUT UP – NOT EVEN WHEN SHE’S ASLEEP.

Yes, I realize I am a HUGE DORK.

I love LOLcats. I check out the cheezburger site a million times a day.

I submitted my own kitteh, so I’m begging you for votes.

Go here, and mine is the black “evil plan” kitteh. Vote for me kthnxbai!

UPDATE: Ok, the link will only be good for a little while. As they add new photos to the voting page, mine gets pushed back further. So, if you really wanted to vote, you may have to do a little digging to find it.

Not my cup of tea

My area of the blogsphere is rather limited. I don’t really “get around.” Most of my readers and I frequent a lot of the same blogs and I like that. We know the same people and know the “inside jokes,” as it were. It feels cozy and familiar, doesn’t it?

All that was to preface me saying that I went outside my normal boundaries and found it to be rather unpleasant, indeed. We all read Linda, don’t we? (For the sake of this post, I’m going to imagine that you all said “yes.”) When she started over at ParentDish, I started reading her there. Her posts are the same ol’ Linda that we all know and love, but the reception over there seems to be a little frigid. I find the other ParentDish commenters to be self-righteous and venomous. Not all of them, of course, but enough that it has tainted my opinion of the whole site. I’ve decided not to read Linda’s posts there anymore. I simply choose not to deal with those other people. I know that I am cutting my nose to spite my face, but I’m ok with that. I like it over here, where it’s nice and friendly. Where we can have a disagreement over, let’s say, the frequency of bathing our children, and still all be friends. There may be a cutting remark now and again, but there is almost always an apology and forgiveness immediately following. Those other people are downright mean and I don’t like them one bit.

No more wire hangers!

Maddie plays by herself most of the time. She’s got her play yard and toys and seems pretty content. I switch out the toys every couple of days so that she doesn’t get too bored. Every day, I get in the yard and play with her, but she’s been less and less interested in me.

And the truth is, I’m not too interested in playing in there, either. Lately, I feel like I’ve been neglecting Maddie. Oh sure, I see to her needs. She’s changed regularly, never goes hungry, and is clean. However, I just can’t seem to make myself play. I can’t plaster the big smile on my face and pretend to be interested in what’s going on in her yard.

Of course, I feel like a horrible mother. What kind of mother sees playing with her child as a chore? What kind of mother would let her poor baby play all alone for hours each day?

All of us, that’s who. I’m going to bet that every single mother reading this post has felt this way every day one time or another.  It’s normal, right? But it sure doesn’t make me feel any better about it. Today, I’m going to smile my biggest smile and play with my daughter. I don’t want her to remember her mother sitting on the sidelines when she was little. I want her to remember me being right down in the thick of things with her.