My Mother’s Day was spent at my favorite place with some of my favorite people. It was full of all the good stuff; a patio lunch, playtime with cousin, wagon rides, cobbler and ice cream.
Author Archives: letterstoreesie
New Year’s Resolution Follow Up. I Still Love Food Too Much.
Follow up to my new year’s resolution post.
Exercising is going pretty good. Now that it’s getting warmer and staying light out longer, it’s easier to get walks/runs in after work.
Eating well is going as expected. There are cheat days and then there are Mondays.
Something I have discovered that has made this quest a little easier is the Skimble workout trainer app. It’s full of workouts you can do anywhere and allows you to search for workouts based on intensity level, length, target area, etc. I am a fan of searching for 5 or 10 minute workouts I can do while watching Tv. It’s free (woot) and has made it easy for me to squeeze in quick workouts while Reese is napping or for the ten minutes that an Elmo DVD can hold her attention. It makes me feel like I am doing something, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
Food and self-control have never been strong points for me. I’d rather burn off what I eat than not eat. Reese too is turning into quite a food lover; a foodie if you will (can I really call myself a foodie? Does the term “foodie” encompass those who are Auntie Anne’s pretzel club members?) Either way, last night at the park she showed us where her loyalties lie when she chased down a family who announced that they were going home for pizza. As they turned and walked out of the park, Reese began chasing after them yelling “Peezee!” She was ready to trade families for some Papa Gino’s and she wasn’t looking back. Personally, I would have held out for some Regina pizza but she’ll learn.
Elmo Rage
This is what we call Elmo rage.
Across the Charles 4/15/13
Pean
This month, Reese’s favorite thing is peanut butter. She wants it on everything. Anything we have ever given to her with peanut butter on it, she now refuses to eat plain. I get where she’s coming from.
Being 16 months old and all, she can’t say “peanut butter” yet, so she has shortened it (she’s her mother’s daughter) to a simple, yet unbecoming, “pean.”
She asks for it 24/7, and always with a hint of frenzied panic in her voice, as if she’s anticipating NOT getting pean and is warning us of what will happen if she doesn’t.
All. Day. Long.
The word has become such a part of our everyday language that we forget it doesn’t carry the best connotations. These are what a lot of the conversations in our world sound like.
“No pean”
“Do you want some more pean?”
“We’re not having pean right now”
“Ok, we’ll get you your pean”
“No more pean today”
“Pean’s all gone”
“They don’t have pean here”
I know I’m a grown up now and words like “pean” probably shouldn’t make me laugh anymore, but they do, ok? Sometimes I wonder what other people think when we are out in the world and my daughter is furiously throwing her rice cakes on the floor, screaming for “peeeaaannnnn” as I dig through my diaper bag for the full-sized jar of Jif that now lives there.
Hopefully, they just think it’s funny. Because it is. It’s hilarious.
Reese Hates Singing And She Doesn’t Care Who Knows It
Reesie has started a new habit which is majorly bossy and slightly worrisome, but more importantly, hilarious.
She gets royally ticked when people sing aloud.
I first noticed it a few weeks ago when my mother was over and Reese hit the music button on her little toy station thing. It started playing one of our favorite songs.
“There’s so many colors, here are just a few; red and yellow, green and BLUE!”
My mom and I sang along, like we always do when her music plays, and Reese flipped her shizz.
“Nooooooo!” she yelled at us while making a mad face and waving her hand around in her face. “No, No!” She looked scared and also pissed. We stopped, (Reese is the boss of us) and let her continue listening to her song in peace.
Later on, when she turned on her musical British teapot (hilar), we started the dancing and singing along again.
“Would you like a spot of tea? Some for you and some for me! Let’s take turns and always say, please and thank YOU!”
She stopped dead in her tracks and looked at us. “NO! NO! Nooooooo” she commanded, shaking her head and doing the wild hand waving.
I figured it was just my singing that offended her so much, until this past weekend when we attended our neighbor’s first birthday party.
All was going well until it was time to sing Happy Birthday. I had forgotten about her issues with singing and actually thought she would love hearing the song. The minute the singing began Reese looked at me with the mad face. Seconds later, the handwaving began. “Noooooooo! No! No!” She made sure to make eye contact with other party goers as well, as if to say “I’m talking to you too.”
This continued on and off for the rest of the song.
People noticed.
I assume this is just one of those random, weird phases that toddlers go through, but if not, we are all in serious trouble if we are embarrassing our kid this early in life.
Mom Guilt is a B
Another thing that motherhood has taught me: Catholic guilt has nothing on mom guilt.
I know I have said it before, but I feel guilty whenever I even think about leaving Reese for extended periods of time (other than to go to work or when I know she’s in bed for the night.) The fact that I only get to see her for one or two hours Monday-Thursday makes it very hard to justify ever leaving her on the weekends.
So a few weekends ago, when one of Andrew’s closest friends from high school got married out of town, I tried to plan a way where we could both attend all the wedding events without leaving Reese for the whole weekend.
Lucky for us, my best friend Sarah and her husband Ryan live in the same town where the wedding was taking place, and agreed to watch Reese on Friday and Saturday nights while we were at the rehearsal dinner and the wedding.
I have yet to leave Reese overnight anywhere and I really didn’t want to if I didn’t have to. So despite the fact that we had two nights booked in a hotel, I was still planning on spending both nights with Reese, either at Sarah’s house or picking her up and bringing her back to the hotel with me. The wedding was taking place in the hotel, so logistically, my plan was not ideal and some (Andrew) may even say it was stupid.
Friday night we went to Sarah’s after the rehearsal dinner and all spent the night there. On Saturday, determined not to lose all the money we put down on the hotel, I picked Reese up after leaving the reception and brought her back to the hotel.
It was an evening wedding so even though I left the reception halfway through to pick Reese up, it was still pretty late by the time we both got back to the hotel. I got lots of judgments/looks as I walked through the hotel lobby at 1 AM carrying my groggy 15 month old. The valet, assuming I was the only one in the car, actually almost drove away with her in the back before I could get her out of her seat. I guess he didn’t know our baby hangs late night.
After two days of being out past 11 pm (!!) and up before 6 am, Sunday morning hit us like a punch to the mouth. Pre-Reese, wedding weekends involved late nights and late mornings. We would roll out of bed on Sunday morning and hopefully have time to take a shower before heading to the post wedding brunch. This weekend, 6 am found the three of us sitting in bed, Elmo playing on repeat and Andrew and I literally counting the minutes until the brunch began.
Four hours later, we were the first ones in line at the buffet.
The time it took for us to recover from the weekend was enough for me to rethink my reluctance to leave Reese for an overnight, and to consider letting go a little.
We have family members who have been clamoring for a sleep over with Reese for some time now, and I think I’m ready to take them up on that offer. I know we’ll miss our girl and I’ll still have a few guilt-ridden moments, but when I am gloriously sleeping in until whenever I feel like it, eating entire meals sitting on a chair at a table, and not finding applesauce in my hair at the end of the day, I will know that I made the right decision.
Oh My God, No One Told Us That!
As I’ve said before, the first year of motherhood has shown me that there are a lot of things that people just don’t tell you. In some ways, I get it. No one wants to be the Deb Downer who squashes your pre-baby, blissful ignorance with the gritty details of their pregnancy, birth story, parenting experiences or whatever. Everyone’s experiences are not the same, so why cause someone to worry about something that may never happen? That’s fine and all. But for me, if you are my close friend/family member, I expect a heads up about certain things. Certain things that will remain nameless, but if you have ever had a baby, you probably have a good idea of what I’m talking about.
Although it was never explicitly stated, I pretty much understood (from books, birthing classes, my doctor etc.) that I could be straight up crazy for a couple of months after my baby was born. Overly emotional, over-protective, stressed, tired. Yea ok. I guess these are the socially acceptable feelings for a new mom to have and thus, the ones we hear most about.
Yesterday I came across this article. I will state that I am not a fan of the title. I don’t think it really reflects what the article is about, and in my opinion, it doesn’t provide an accurate depiction of how the mothers in the article seem to feel about motherhood. It did however, provide a brief moment of relief for me.
When Reese was a newborn I had nightmarish thoughts about awful things that could happen to her. Every article about a missing or ill child, a car accident, a fire etc. brought fresh fears and anxiety that reared its head at all hours of the night. Was it irrational to think that someone could lean a ladder against our home, climb up to the second floor window, cut the screen and take Reese? Maybe, but this image ran through my mind more than a couple of times.
Thankfully, I can’t say that I experienced anything as severe as what the women in the article went through, but I can relate to not feeling totally comfortable sharing these feeling with others. At the time I just felt like a paranoid weirdo.
Today, these fears are few and far between, but I doubt that they will ever completely leave my mind. I don’t know many mothers who don’t worry about their kids on a daily basis, regardless of their age. I guess it is the price you pay for having a child, and in my experience so far, it is a small one.
On Scary Elmo Bubblebaths
Nary a day goes by where I do not fear that I have scarred my daughter in some way. Last night was no different.
I bought some Elmo bubblebath this weekend thinking I was the bomb mom, and we tried it out last night.
Apparently, when you have never seen bubbles before, they can be scary. It kind of makes sense I guess. Normally your mom puts you in a bath with clear water where you can see all your toys and body parts, then one day she puts you in a bath full of white stuff and acts like its NBD.
Reese freaked out when I stood her up in the tub full of bubbles. She began saying “No! No! Nooooooooo!”, pointing at the bathroom door and trying to climb out of the tub with a look of panic on her face. Being out of the tub was not enough; the sight of the bubbles was too much and we had to leave the bathroom completely.
Getting back in took a few tries. I mean the bubbles were still in the tub, so I don’t really blame her. She kept looking at me with the saddest face imaginable and saying, “bubbles.” Normally, bath time is one of her favorite parts of the day, so I’m sure she was internally cursing me for screwing with it.
Finally, with her screaming all the while, I charged back into the bathroom and drained the tub of the cursed bubbles. I eventually got her back into the tub with just water, but it wasn’t the same. She was extremely cautious and inspected her bath toys, the water, and the wash cloth suspiciously.
Hopefully one day she will be able to forget this incident and won’t end up being the weird kid in school who is afraid of bubbles.
Here’s Reese in happier bath times.
Paula Deen
It is Friday, so I am working from home with Ms. Reese today.
A few minutes ago as I sat on our couch with my computer in my lap, she toddled over, graham cracker in hand, pointed to this picture on my computer screen and said, “Dada.”
Letters To Reesie 