Today's Reality

One of my favorite mommy-bloggers, Amanda, is super awesome because she tells it like it is. She has three girlies and she writes about really good days with so much cute it should be illegal, and more typical days where 3 minutes with a cup of coffee is a major accomplishment. That's why I like her blog. I know she is happy with life but I know she has a real, normal, often hysterical life. So it is with Amanda inspiration that I tell you about my reality today.

• It started at 6:24a with happy pterodactyl baby shrieks.
• By 10a I had already given Lexi a foot-bath because of all the mud outside. She leaped out of the tub before I was ready for her to do such and flung muddy water on the bathroom walls and tile. Then she marched little muddy puppy paw prints on our white (I know, foolish) bathmat.
• Clean bathtub, walls and floor.
• 10:15a give fussy baby Cade a bottle. He drinks 3 ounces and I swear as much comes squirting out his nose all over me and him. I changed shirts but not jeans. Dear people in my afternoon meeting: sorry.
• At 10:30a, I had a fussy baby who would not eat and thus was unceremoniously tossed into his crib for nap #2. Thank God, it took.
• Bless Erin because she arrived at 11a to watch Cade-man.
• Phone calls, work, phone calls, work. Per the usual.
• Head downtown for a meeting. Accident or something on MoPac means 75 minutes of driving (total) for 50 minutes of meeting. Doh!
• Home, phone calls, work, emails, work.
• Go to steal baby Cade from Erin so she can leave and see...more MUDDY paw prints up and down the stairs. Find Lexi...her paws are so muddy I cannot see her normally white fur.
• Toss Cade into his crib with toys and give Lexi bath #2. Note: Neither Cade nor Lexi were pleased.
• Say "screw cleaning the tub. She'll just have muddy paws again tomorrow."
• Bring Cade into the bathroom, set him in his play-chair-thing and jump into the shower myself. As I'm throwing clothes in the laundry hamper, I eye-spy ants. In the laundry hamper. Talk about ants in your pants.
• Try to feed Cade. #Fail (Thankfully a few minutes into the struggle Erin texts me that he ate like a monster that afternoon, hence not being hungry.)
• Put fussy baby into his crib. He takes a catnap! Yay!
• During the catnap, finish cooking my dinner, pour a glass of wine and turn on Diane Sawyer. 15 seconds in she teases a story about the increase in alcoholism among women.
• Shut the damn TV off and drink my wine.
• Feed Cade green beans and tell him no bath tonight. Mama has already given the other baby two baths today and has reached her daily bath giving quota.
• Hang out with Cade in his room listening to a lullabye CD (thanks Tad!), FaceTiming with Ross and watching Cade practice getting up onto his knees in crawling position. Needless to say, this was the happy highlight of my day. Oh sweet baby Cade, I do love you.

College Man

Already a college man at just 7 months old.

Thanks Dr. Jane!

Dining Room Table: Check

If I don't blog for six days but then I blog twice in one day, that's, like, totally acceptable right? I know it at least brings up my monthly blogging average.

Good news! After 11 months of having a kitchen table in our dining room that was so small it looked like doll house furniture in the cavernous room, we finally got a proper dining room table! It is so BIG. And, because we're grown ups now (hell we have a baby), we even got the server/buffet thing. Complete with wine rack for six bottles.

We only have four chairs for now (we wanted to see how it all looked/fit before buying more) but we will soon increase that to six. And if we have a really big dinner crowd one night, we'll get old-school and roll in the desk chairs.

Next up: window treatment, artwork and my favorite CHRISTMAS DISHES.

(By the way - wine rack for six bottles and table that seats six. I don't think that is a coincidence. Everyone grab their own bottle!)

7 months old!

At 7 months old Cade is...

• about 17 pounds
• sitting by himself
• rolling a bunch
• doing baby push-ups but no crawling yet
• sleeping 11-12 hours per night, usually waking up just once or not at all (Hallelujah!)
• taking 2-3 naps per day
• eating fruit with breakfast and veggies with dinner
• not super enthusiastic about the carseat
• happy in his swing
• holding small bottles by himself
• starting to hold onto the handles of sippy cup/bottle hybrids

#Winning at Motherhood

Hi, nice to see you. I know it's been five days. I'll try not to go MIA for so long again.

At also helps to have a supremely cute baby

Tonight one of my not-yet-a-mom girlfriends asked me what I thought the tangible things were you needed to be successful at motherhood. I'm not sure how she defined success but I was mentally thinking "to keep your family alive, healthy-ish, happy and sane-ish."


She asked for the #1 but that's really hard. So here are my top 4, in priority order.

1. The real, genuine desire to be a mom. Because when you get simultaneously peed and spit up on while changing a poopy diaper only really, really wanting to be a parent will keep you sane. That and excellent baby wipes. Seriously though, motherhood is both wonderful and challenging. Sometimes at the same moment and sometimes you just feel one of those things. When you are feeling the latter, it is incredibly helpful to remember how much, in the big picture of life, you want to be a mom.
2. A good relationship with your significant other. I assume fatherhood is also wonderful and challenging. Inevitably there will be moments that you are both feeling the challenging part and will lean on each other. Many times that will get you through it. But sometimes you will fight. Sometimes you will have big, sucky, awful fights. You need to love each other and be so committed to each other that you can power through the big, sucky, awful fights. And work well enough together that even in the middle of that fight, you can get the baby dressed, fed, diaper bag packed, house locked up and be out the door to do whatever it is life mandates you do, fight or no fight.
3. A strong village. Not your literal town of course, but the village in "it takes a village to raise a child." People you trust with your kid, pets, house, car, self, etc who you can call to help with whichever one of those is needing some extra help. And who will find a way to help you, come hell or high water. The kind of people who will call in sick to their own job because you need them that desperately. People who will non-nonchalantly wash your dishes and not mention that you have spit up in your hair and your breath smells like a horse's rear. You really really need those people.
4. Financial stability. There is likely someone who will debate this one and that's fine. In my experience though, financial stability matters. In the pre-baby days, Ross and I had a seriously impressive (not from the dollar amounts so much as the organization) family budget. We could tell you exactly how many dollars came in when and exactly how many went out and to what. Post-baby, the reality is we know roughly how much comes in, what the big bills are and when they are due. I have no idea where all the little $5, $10 and $20 things go to like I used to. NOT A CLUE. And with a baby, there are a lot more of those. My point is for me, it is important to have enough financial stability not to need to track those things. Because if we are too tired to cook and we really just want to spend $15 on ordering in pizza, we need to be able to do that without concern.

So there you have it. In the World According to Cheryl, those are the four things you need to say you are #winning at motherhood.

PS BONUS I would say you need to be happy with what you did pre-baby. Like for us we really wanted to go to Europe. So we did. And if it is 10 or 15 (gulp) years before we can travel like that again, so be it. We checked that off our list. DOUBLE BONUS You also need Amazon Prime.

Busy Week in Babyland

Cade's social calendar is no joke. It is probably comparable to the Queen's. It certainly is more full than mine.

Last Saturday he had a playdate with Wyatt, the son of my friend/fellow Delta alumna, Andrea. Wyatt is exactly a month younger than Cade so they had TONS in common.

Then Sunday he spent the afternoon with Nana. When he came home we were having a game night which included Rowan, her parents, Uncle Ryan and Margeaux. More baby fun.

Monday and Tuesday he spent with Rowan, Piper and Miss Erin. Per the usual.

Wednesday and Thursday we kinda took it easy, just hanging out with Mom & Dad. But there were lots of stroller walks, dance parties, a few new (bath) toys and a couple of shopping trips. Last night he had a FaceTime dinner date with Great Grandma too.

Today Miss Ali came over to play in the morning and when he wakes up from his nap, we're going furniture shopping. Then Miss Brittany and Miss Nichole are coming over for a visit.

But wait - there's more! Tomorrow is Rowan's birthday party and Sunday afternoon is another date with Nana and Grandpa Jack.

I'm telling you - he is one BUSY baby.

(Knock on wood but he's been sleeping fairly well lately. Maybe we're finally wearing him out instead of the other way around!

Lunchtime stroller adventure w/Mom