The things Dr. Sears never told me...and other things about motherhood

That toddlers will refuse to eat food from the plate you served them instead expecting you to share with them from your plate. And when you try to direct them back, they throw you the most cutest eyes you've hear seen and says "share?"

That toddlers will politely get down on the floor, lay still for a second as if getting together themselves or pumping themselves up for the moment before kicking, screaming, and riving on the floor as dying from the flesh eating virus. And all you can do is look.

Or that your toddler will need a nap as you upgrade your phone to an Iphone, and your husband forgets his wallet, leaving you in the AT&T with a toddler as he darts clear across town to get it. As the toddler goes into overdrive, he chases another toddler around the store, who is afraid of him, darts behind the employee desks, laughing all the way HO-HO-HO, all with his mother trailing behind him. After she finally catches him, she attempts to hold him as he decides to do his best impersonation of spagetti, trying to slide through her arms. She takes business cards to distract him, which he promptly chucks at the associate with the arm of Barry Bonds. The cards miss the lady simply because she ducked.

Or that I would be THAT mom with THAT toddler in an AT&T store, who only can hold her toddler by the arm as he tries everything in his 3 feet 27lb arsenal to break her hold. Or that I would THAT mom with THAT toddler who gets the stares from hell as hes arched his back, melted to the floor, screamed, hitting notes that Whitney Houston could only dream of, like I was a serial killer.

Or that toddlers remember everything, watch everything even the things you don't think you do, and do it later. The good, the bad, and the ridulously cute. They are jacks of all trades with muliple personality disorder and a firm sense what they don't like and do like, and if they are confused they are going against you just to test you. And wrapped up in their chaos and daredevil ways is the best damn thing in the world: them.

or that I would love Hayden so much that he would become such a part of me not as just his mom but a friend, a playmate, someone to seek guidance from, to call when he is scared in trouble and everything else in between. And after not nursing for months now, still remember that breast have milk and try to sneak a nurse in the middle of the night.

Day 22: what makes you different from everyone else

hmm, this a question, I really have to think about because I have lots of things that I think are weird and really feel as if I am the only one who does this but am surprised time and time again that someone else does the same thing.

I collect cans, I don't mean I just care about the environment. I have collected cans since I was a child before everything became eco friendly. It was simply something you did to put a few extra coins in the house for hard times, or a savings.

I collect paper and pens, not intentionally but more by I really like notebooks, lead pencils, and pens, so everything I am in a store and see one that is really cool or that I must have I buy, and it really adds up.

I over analyze everything. Period. Everything is getting broken down, dissected, placed back together, taken apart again and pieced together differently just so I can know everything about it.

I like to know everything about everything. Its not that I think I am a know it all I just simply want to know because it really ticks me that I don't. I love information.

I have always like old things from music, to clothes, to house hold items. If you know me, you know that I would pick up an old book from 1777 just for the looks before I would a brand new shiny book. Antiques are always a choice, and find myself frequently heading down to Old Town Clovis' many antiques shops to daydream and window shop. I have a fascination with the Tudors and their era. I studied extensively on it and was very pleased when Showtime premiered the The Tudors. I also love, love the Victorian era. I love Victorian and Tudor dresses, corsets, and the entire shebang! I just love the look of older fashion. I love the look of the old days and in love with the idea being in the 50's wearing poodle sweaters and skirts, or the way the 70's brought the most brilliant and greatest musicians and music the world had ever seen. Everything seemed nice, bright, filled with innocence and naive. the classic looks of Audrey Hepburn, Dorothy Dandridge, and Marilyn Monroe or the sexiness of James Dean in his leather jacket and loner/bad boy image, and/or the playfulness of John Travolta and Johnny Depp impersonating those times in Grease or Cry Baby. Or the love stories that made you envy that guys can be such blatant jerks in this day and age, not that King Henry the 8Th was a Saint. I just love anything and everything old, from every era! I think this comes from my Grandma, who raised me. And one of the reasons I get along with my MIL so well because she is the same way. They make dreams and fairy tales in my mind. Little did I know that there are hundreds if not millions out there with the same love.


But I guess that one person can like or do one thing the same, even several but I guess what makes me unique is that no person is ever going to be exactly like me.

Day 20: Someone you love

Well, it would be too easy to pick David or Hayden and totally predictable. So I am going to go with my BFF Daughter Autumn, she has appeared on my blog sporadically. But I just love the crappers out of her, it really also helps that she is extremely attached to me and we are the same sign. She is the daughter I will probably never have.

Her and Hayden love to play together and are easily good friends when they are not beating one another up, I have no idea what is with toddlers and the need to hit, bite, throw, and/or physically harm another. I read that they love the reaction but that just sounds sadistic. But anyone I just love her.







She too has dimples and the most beautiful hair you'd ever want to see on a toddler. I can imagine all the trouble these two are going to get into growing up, I can't wait.

Day 15: Put your Ipod on shuffle: First 10 songs that play

*Shake, Shake* Shakes Iphone, hmm lets see what comes up...


Decode by Paramore from the Twilight Soundtrack

Dead is the new alive by Emilie Autumn

My Ghetto Report Card by E-40

Teenage Dream by Katy Perry

Offend in Every Way by The White Stripes

What If by Emilie Autumn

Orestes by A perfect Circle

Oh Go by The Pack

Dirty Diana by Michael Jackson

Lovers End by The Birthday Massacre

Falling Down by The Birthday Massacre

Scared by Three Days Grace



oops I put down 12 just got to writing LOL, but that's fine as you can see I listen to a lot of music from a lot of different people but yeah.

Day 13: A Letter To Someone

Dear someone...

2? Not yet! But getting there? Hayden, you turned 21 months a few days ago and I have noticed that I am way less emotional this year than last year. As a parent I can say with all honesty that I thought you'd never get to be 2. Not that I thought you wouldn't make it there. It's just that when entering my journey into motherhood, I wanted a baby. I wanted the cheeks with the love able fat, small clothes, holding an infant, rooms filled with the crystal pearls that is infant laughter - Not a toddler. Yeah, I knew you would grow up and over into one, that didn't mean I have to like it. Every time I thought of my baby growing into a noisy, busy terrible 2 tot, I cringed. I quickly Men in Black flashed it from my memory and envisioned babies, babies, babies. I wanted you to grow so we could do certain things still I never excepted such a change and that with every change and difference, you were shedding every bit of infancy.

Once you hit 1, I thought of you magically knowing everything and when that didn't happen instantly I settled back into "Oh, wait, at 1 you're still a baby? Score! You're just a big baby." Two months rushed by and I looked up and you were different: in looks, in proportion, in ability, and thought "and it begins."
You kicked into high ninja like action with lovely tantrums that sometimes made me pray David would get home, so that I could get a break. There was the lovely stage of whining for everything reason or no reason. I can't mark the day when your legs grew so long nor the day that your torso didn't grew from a tiny baby to hold torso into the long one you have now. I do recall the day I looked at you and saw "Wow, you look way different today. How did this happen." It was the weirdest thing, I thought you were like a changeling or something: same child, looks pretty much the same but you know the difference can sense the difference. With every passing month, at every end almost the beginning of a new one, you'd always change, or do something new. It could be as small as the way you looked at me, letting me know that you were thinking and calculating something. Or putting blocks in places you did before.
I never read stuff on toddlers the way I did infancy. I just didn't think much about toddlers. So in a way it has been a pleasant surprise that I love this age and even though I had lots of fun w/ "baby Hayden" You have no idea how much more fun you are now.
Sure I can't things away from you acting as if they have disappeared, you have long since overcome that, because you will follow to see where I put it and go get it again. In everything I have to be more crafty. I have learned the hard way that taking things and putting them high is a bad decision. You will money climb anything with no fear, wait strategically until my back is turned to retrieve it.
You raid my fridge at any given times. Grunting and gesturing that you want this and that. And after the millionth time of telling you "no, you can have this or that or - Okay, you can. Get in your chair," I ask myself how come the hospital never gave me a manual. Or when you tell me to "Shut up" with the gusto and 'tude of a child 5x your age, even though I never say the word. Or how you pick up words that I don't teach, or some you don't hear regularly, or comprehend things you shouldn't. (Well, that I think you shouldn't).
Then are the days, I trip over a toy, raving mad with embarrassment and frustration,and you come "You hurt? You hurt? I sorry, I sorry." As you rub my head. "Hug?" You hug me, "ahhh" (something I always say and now he says its really cute) and you offer a kiss, another rub before you grab my hand to show me something that you want to do. Be still my heart.
Even though I sometimes don't need you in my hair, pulling on me, asking me to come play with this or that and I'm really trying to get something done. I flash to the days that will come when I'm no longer a buddy, but "ew, Mom." And my time spent with you has dried up and you're off with Sally or Sue while hanging out with you buddies.
2 years are about to come, and I just think wow, 2 years, then 2 more, oh my 4 then 2 more you're in school already? Then 2 more, and wow you're my real big boy. My first, my eldest, the one I experienced everything with for the very first time. The first baby I carried for 9 months of anticipation, small kicks, and obsessive planning, the first baby that was mine to be held underneath a myriad of kisses and soft lips grazing your hair as I rocked you to sleep, eased the battle wounds of toddlerhood, or simply just while cuddling. The first baby I held on my chest awake way pass midnight just getting you to sleep because you refuse to close your eyes and lose sight of me even for your own good, to sleep next to me on my bed (Be still my heart, are these tears?) to awake next to, to go to sleep next to, to breath the same breath on gray and black dotted sheets night day, night day. For me to open my eyes to your soft breathing next to me, clutching me just a little too tightly, still loose in your valley of dreams but needing to know even in that valley that I am near.
You are my son, my love, my cliche. The tiny person that runs up and down my house babbling ferociously on his fake telephone, reminding of a business man whose stock has just plummeted. You are well versed, forever learning, forever getting into trouble, growing beyond any limits I have set, and faster than my brain can sometimes catch are process. You are Hayden. And I do love you.


And PICTURES!!
This one is not edited but the others are, the last is new, but the two in the middle are dos from the photos I posted earlier in the week. See how much I've learned?

Day 9: Something you're proud of in the past few days

This little baby here...



I recently went off the deep end and purchased a DSlR Camera and I'm way glad I did. I love this thing soooo much, I'm impressed with every little thing it does.

I was never too much one for pictures unlike most of my family who take more pictures on a daily basis taken models. I ran and hide every time I saw any recording device. It was not for me. I even hide away from the camera in pregnancy, not keeping up with my weekly belly shots.Still, I was often taken by photographers photos time and time again. especially portraits and nature photography. But everything changed once Hayden was born all that changed. I often found myself stealing my Grandma's camera to snap pictures of Hayden. In August for David's birthday he got a camera for his birthday, which I quickly took over. I become a total obsessed Mommy snapping millions of pictures every second of the day. I was never without it, I was always behind a camera snapping pictures, capturing the moment. I nearly died when October 2011 came around and I couldn't find my camera I panicked, lasting only a week before I had to replace it. I just couldn't live without one. I literally was saddened without my camera, plus it was time for an upgrade because as I took more pictures I realized things I didn't like about it, so an upgrade was in order. That is when I got my Canon Powershot 1400, which I highly recommend. For those in Auto mode,it gives really clear good pictures. And it fit me until I delve deeper into photography and starting learning aperture, ISO, and many other nifty stuff that affects pictures that I don't want to burden you with. While many things on that camera is adjustable you can't change the aperture or shutter speed major draw back for me. So I started looking for a good DSLR and googling best beginner DSLR cameras and reading thousands of reviews and recommends, I narrowed it down to the Canon Rebel T1i or the Nikon D5000. And the Canon won out because of the variety in it.
Since I love editing photos, I also got Photoshop Elements 7, which if I become any good at, will be upgrading to that latest one. I do have plans to check out some more editing software. Recommendations are very much welcome. Any who, I am very proud of my camera and finally I have a hobby! Yay! Even though its not candle making, which I haven't forgotten about I still really want to get good at it, I am happy that I got another hobby this year. One New Years Resolution down.



Oh and some photography blogs for you to check out

Thoughts and Whatnot

A Sorta Fairytale

IROCKSOWHAT

Day 7: A picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you

The birth of my son, of course! Having a child has changed so much of me from my thoughts, who I thought I was, to who I am; what I want in life; the way I think; look at the world- Everything. I knew that from the moment I decided to have a child that it would bring a happiness and pleasure so fulfilling that it would overtake me. Having Hayden definitely the most thing that has impacted me. I have gained more patience, insight on me as a person as a Mom. I love having Hayden and he is imprinted all over me.

Wordless Wednesday: Toddlers do the weirdest things

January 28th...

On the 28Th of January I had a birthday!! Yay, PARTY!! Well, kinda but not really actually, it was a Friday and most of the world was at work so I spent it with my special little man, Hayden. I slept myself into an oblivion this day, nice I know, and surprisingly Hayden let me as if he knew that it was my special day.
I cooked him breakfast as usual, got him dressed same as usual, decided to get dressed myself. Then take a walk around with him when I opened the blinds and saw what a pretty day it was.
As soon as we got outside, I saw how much Hayden changed. He smiled big open smiles at everyone, so many people thought that he was so cute. He waved happily at our mail woman, smiling with both dimples eating away at his cheeks. As we took our walk he obediently held my hand, bouncing like Tigger along the way. He giggled "Hi" to almost every person we passed. Even decided to be a big boy, literally mocking me, and walking along side me, gazing up at me as if saying "Look, Mom, I'm walking just like you."
I usually can care a less about my birthday but this year, I loved it, it made appreciate my family and son so much. It slapped me right in the face that it is the little things in the day that made Motherhood so worth it.

I did have a party on Sunday. Fun stuff even it rained and overall was a sad, dreary day in which I had a stuffy nose and an headache that wouldn't go away. And I tried out a new recipe that I had never had before: Shepherd Pie. I loved it. As soon as my MIL gets me that recipe I will try to make it myself yummy. i stuffed myself stupid with dinner and doubled my efforts with homemade cake (I'm a lucky girl) and even though I will probably be working off the calories and fat for an entire week, I loved it! INDULGING

On the third day of Christmas...

3 days and and 5 hours until Christmas, say what!!

I am so excited that I can't think straight. No, really, I have had a trouble filled week starting with Monday, where I lost track of all work, got up earlier than usual, didn't see Hayden for hours, and wasn't home for a sick amount of time (which is starting to show in my housekeeping.) My BFF of 12 years today had eye surgery to remove cataract from her right eye and I HAD to be there as a support system. My husband dropped off Hayden at my Mom's house, which was weird to awake and not see him nor be able to hug him and say bye. Following the surgery, my BFF and I gave into some much needed sleep (we both have toddlers under two) so we crashed until late evening. WHAT A CHRISTMAS SURPRISE.
But of course, I missed Hayden like crazy and had to get home to see my boy. I knocked on my door and immediately I could hear Hayden babbling excitedly behind the door, which he helped open. I love, love, LOVE the hugs he gives me after he hasn't seen me for a bit: I open my arms and he just runs into them, giving me the most precious hugs and kisses. I know 100% that he missed me, oh my. But today after our hugs and kisses, he leaned a bit as if he wanted Daddy to hold him. I told Dave this and Dave came to get him, but Hayden pulled back just stretching out his arm. Then it clicked: he wanted a group family hug. WE have all hugged together before but usually it occurs when I go to hug David and Hayden gets jealous, so I give him a hug and then we do a group hug. But tonight was the first night that Hayden just asked for it. It was so weird to know that was what he wanted. It was such a magical moment. Today, I have come to the conclusion that Hayden is fully aware that we are his family, that we love him, and so far we are doing an excellent job.
It is so rare when a parent can sit down, take in everything and sigh knowing that so far they are doing their best for their child AND their child thinks so too.
on the 3rd day of Christmas my TL gave to me: a magical moment with my family.

Truth Time: Savoring

I am home alone for the first time in a long time. Hayden is with my grandmother and David is at work. Sitting here like this reminds me so much of my life before I had Hayden and a J.O.B. When I was forced to try to find something to do and simply waited all day for David to come home from work. Once Hayden was born all that changed, I am now forever and ever busy or have something to do. Trying to work, clean, cook, and remember everything that needs to be done is stressful sometimes and I quickly remember my life before Hayden, silently wishing to have that freedom back. But when I have time alone, I am not at peace either and I feel as if my time is limited or that I have nothing to do. And when I do have things to do, which I do I really need to get started on some work related things I am UBER behind, but can't do because I am thinking about my little guy. What is Hayden doing right now, I should go pick him up so I can hold him, feed him, see him smile, etc. I miss him so much when I am away from him...even though he is only a few houses down, even though I know he is fine and happy and content. I miss him, I think about him so much I literally can't think or operate. I am extremely sleepy right now but can't sleep because I know I will think of only him.
It is also in these moments, I realize my closeness to him, my dependence on him...to be here, to do our daily routines, to socialize with, to hold, to entertain me, just so many things that are only him and I. He is my love, my everything, my being. Love: I hear so much, I even say at least once everyday, but its a word little depth little meaning to express something that is so unique that it can't be contained or talked about only felt and experienced. And I am feeling it- Experiencing it now.
It was a very long, hard road to get Hayden: one filled with lots of testing, reading, researching, tried and true attempts, faith, disappointment, hurt feelings, and lots of fear and shed tears. I thought I couldn't have children and that I would be never have a child that was of David and I, which I wanted so bad to see David in my children (And I love everyday that I see him in Hayden). And now I have that: I have Hayden. But I also feel as if I have lost time, lost emotion, lost the edge that comes with wanting a child so bad every month and not getting, knowing something is off in your body and that is up to faith and chance every month-EVERY FREAKING MONTH, and time holds no bearing except that is long and seems like forever. The hurt and bitterness that comes with seeing everyone else around getting pregnant and you're still not, the unfit parents you pass on the street taking parenthood for granted. I have lost some of the reasoning that I had in my abilities and determination I had to do this and do that in parenting, I had forgotten I think how precious and golden my son is to me, for I may never have another.
But today, I start anew with things. I think I don't think of that time, but obviously I still feel it, remember it. And I plan on holding Hayden a little tighter everyday, kissing him a little bit more everyday, making more time for him everyday because I love him so much! I will savor every moment with him, and hold it tight.