i’m up to all kinds of mischief this week.
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Posts tagged as:
life
i had the greatest weekend ever. i spent it with over 100 ladies (& maybe one or two gents) who are creative, inspiring & overall just complete visionaries. i loved getting the opportunity to meet and greet a few new, & several familiar faces. i loved chatting & getting to know new friends. i loved feeling important as i exchanged business cards. & i loved, loved, loved, LOVED getting to meet several of my absolute favorite blog crushes… marie of make & takes, allison of petite elefant, & carrie of this is me journal & this mama makes stuff (okay, you caught me. carrie & are practically bffs from way back when, but i did LOVE getting to spend the weekend with her). but that wasn’t all! i also got to spend a little time with the beautiful, creative & awe-inspiring heather bailey. (excuse me for a moment while i pinch myself, i still can’t believe i actually got to meet her. & yes, she is absolutely amazing! definitely one of those people you want to hate, but you just can’t – she is just sooo incredibly genuine & gosh darn nice!)
make & takes marie, this is me carrie, petite elefant allison, & me(photo stolen from allison. & allison, you’re right…
the close-up, in your face pictures look way better.)
it was so incredible being surrounded by so much “greatness.” i felt like a starstruck little kid, visiting disneyland for the very first time. it took everything i had to restrain myself from taking pictures with everyone & asking each one of them for their autograph.
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early sunday morning, along with about 13,000 people, i laced up my sneakers, loaded up the playlist & hit the pavement running… for my first ever 1/2 marathon.
although running 13.1 miles is definitely a daunting task, it’s a wee bit easier when you have a friend or two by your side (or at least in the near vicinity).
with an “official chip time” of 2 hours, 13 minutes & 15 seconds and a division place of 239 (of 1252 women ages 30-34), i’m feeling pretty good about myself. not bad for a gal 4 months & 4 days post baby, & about two weeks of training. now the question is, what’s next?
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recently i was challenged to write about myself using 25 words or less. kinda like my own, self-describing personnel ad, complete with self-portrait. here was the end result…
cherry coke drinking, crushed ice loving, bike riding, apron wearing, marathon training, surprisingly shy, REAL orange county housewife & mama of 3 with ADD crafting tendencies.
care to play along? i’d love to get to know YOU even better.
step one: take your self portrait. no primping necessary (check me out in all my mountain biking glory… complete with helmet hair & a thin coating of dirt)
step two: describe yourself in 25 words or less
step three: introduce yourself to the world (or at least me), by posting it to your blog. just make sure to leave a comment here, so i can make the blog rounds. or, if you’re feeling lazy, just post your 25 word bio in my comment section. either way, i can’t wait to get to know you just a wee bit better.
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do you ever wish you could hit “pause” on life?
just to enjoy the moment just a wee bit longer?
charlie’s growing up so fast. where has the time gone?
just to enjoy the moment just a wee bit longer?
charlie’s growing up so fast. where has the time gone?
ana, thanks for pushing the pause button on our memories.even if, it was just for one afternoon.
images by ana brandt.
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last night we had a little party.
nothing fancy, just a little shin-ding.
we took silly pictures.
we dined on sweets & treats
there were even party favors.
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once upon a time, in a land so very far away… a girl met a boy. the setting was picturesque, a quaint little ski village nestled away in the mountains.
as the fates would have it, late one afternoon we find both the boy and girl – alone, in this magical winter wonderland. & as if destined to meet, together they rode the last chair lift of the day, to the top of the mountain. just as their journey began, the snow softly started to fall, each little snowflake glistening like diamonds. & the sun was slowly setting, casting a beautiful, soft candle lite glow. and, just like in the fairy-tales… it was love-at-first-sight. by the end of that momentous chair life ride, they had fallen madly in love, each knowing that they had finally met “the one”.
okay, so maybe that really isn’t exactly how it happened. but we did meet at sundance, & for one of the parties involved there may, or may not, have been a slight inkling of love-at-first sight, although it may have taken the other party a couple of months to notice (let’s just say that i am definitely a blonde, & often times can be a bit oblivious. i thought we were just friends). & it definitely was fate, because honestly, i’m really not that good of a snowboarder, & to think that someone actually hired little ‘ole me to instruct others in the art of snowboarding? yes! no question about it, it was definitely fate. but, eight years after pledging our eternal love to one another, we are still just as happy, & more in love than ever.
as they say “life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.” and together, jeffy & i have had plenty of take your breath away type of moments: we’ve feed the sharks in bora bora, rocked out at more concerts than i can count, survived the wilds of australia. had two wild & crazy boys, a baby girl (with a boys name) & a pup named gigi. sailed the spanish coast. remodeled our entire house – ourselves. got literally lost in italy (to this day, i’m still amazed we aren’t still lost wandering around the italian countryside). went to the winter olympics. surfed in hawaii. cheered for the angels more times than i can count. snowboarded beneath the shadows of the matterhorn (the real one, not the one at disneyland). made it out of canada alive. practically lived at disneyland – we’ve been so many times. lived like the flintstones in turkey. kissed with the eiffel tower looming overhead. graduated law school. passed the bar exam. kissed the blarney stone. finished my MBA program. scootered around greece. attended the tour de france & to many other adventures to name.
what’s even more amazing? it’s only been eight long short years. we’ve still got the rest of our lives ahead of us. i’m not saying our life together has been “practically perfect in every way.” we’ve definitely had our share of ups & downs. but if we’ve made it this far, i know we can weather every & any storm. i can’t wait to see what the future has in store for us. i’m definitely looking forward to continuing to live… happily ever after.
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sorry for the rather quick & sudden disappearance. being a mom to three can sometimes be just a wee bit stressful and overwhelming (but so, totally, totally worth it). so, when life gets crazy & hectic, little things start to drop… the laundry, showering, making dinner, & unfortunately blogging. but i’m back, at least for today.
so, by now, you are probably wondering what today’s title means. any guesses? 8.15… is it a date? a measurement of time? perhaps it represents a distance of some sort. actually, it’s a measurement of weight: 8 pounds 15 ounces. that’s how much charlie weighs today. woot! woot! confused? wondering what all the excitement’s about? well, to make a long story short-ish, little baby charlie has what’s called “failure to thrive.” never heard of it? basically it means that she is having a hard time gaining weight. maybe now, you can better understand, that all-too-sudden & definitely unexpected blog vacay… finding out you’re practically starving your baby, tends to leave a mother feeling like a complete & utter failure.
at birth, charlie weighed 7 pounds even. definitely not huge, but she wasn’t exactly tiny either. unfortunately, battling an awful case of thrush & taking some heavy-duty antibiotics. (the side effects of which include: nausea, stomach pain, low fever & loss of appetite. all of which charlie experienced on daily basis for about a month, which resulted in one very, very un-happy baby doll.) well, all this drama, caused little charlie to slowly eat less & less, which resulted in me producing less & less milk, unbeknownst to me. so, at 2 1/2 months charlie weighed just 7 pounds, 11 ounces & was taking in only about 1 and 1/2 ounce, of the suggested 4 ounces needed at each feeding. ay crumba! upon learning the news, that not only was charlie teeny tiny for her age, she had completely fallen OFF the growth chart, suddenly we went into survival mode, as you can imagine… feeding her every 2 hours, round the clock (sorry charlie! no more sleeping in for you!), nursing her, & then supplementing her with formula. oh heavens! i feel like all i do is feed this poor child! now, at 3 whole months, charlie weighs a whopping 8 pounds 15 ounces. still really, really small. & i still need to closely monitor her eating & feeding. but, she is once again, back on the growth chart. wahoo! don’t believe me? here’s the proof.
so, while we aren’t completely out of the woods, yet. i can safely say, we are on our way. i hope you don’t mind if we celebrate the little weight gains along the way. next week are hoping to cross the 9 pound mark – now that will truly be cause for celebration. one day, i’m sure, little charlie will complain about how hard it is to lose weight. i’ll just have to remind her of the days when we were absolutely thrilled to hear she had gained a pound.
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going on month number two in little charlie’s life, i still find myself pretty much housebound. that’s right, i haven’t quite gotten the hang of taking three kids out on the town. & as much as i’d prefer to be crafting, holding my little baby, doesn’t leave much time for projects. so, these days i find myself watching lots of tv. did you happen to catch oprah’s the truth about motherhood episode? maybe it’s just the stage (of life) i’m in right now, but i swear the entire show was the extension of an on-going conversation playing inside my head. everything they said, i could totally relate to… “oprah is saluting moms everywhere and letting them know they have support. ‘we hear from mothers all the time who say they feel alone. they feel overwhelmed; they feel sometimes inadequate. and you say you’re afraid to admit the truth for fear of bing judge,” oprah says. ‘so today we’re creating a judgment-free zone, a sisterhood of motherhood where anything goes.”
when they said “the expectations we have on ourselves is completely unrealistic. this generation of women was raised to believe that we should and could do it all… and that list (of expectations) is so huge that we think if we can’t live up to that, then we’re not good moms.” i wanted to shout: AMEN! & i couldn’t agree more with the idea that “the one universal truth about motherhood seems to be that no one ever tells you what to really expect.” so, today, i too am “creating a judgment-free zone, a sisterhood of motherhood where anything goes”. & although i LOVE being a mom, (i really, really do!), sometimes, i wish i had been more prepared for motherhood, if you know what i mean. so, here are some of the truths about motherhood, that no one remembered to tell me. maybe someone else can benefit, or possibly at least relate…
* every woman doesn’t LOVE being prego. there definitely are some women who do, but i wasn’t one of them. i hated getting fat, i never had that “pregnancy glow”. all in all, pregnancy isn’t exactly my favorite stage in life.
* recovery AFTER the delivery can sometimes be harder, and worse, than the actual delivery. (i was put on bed rest for 6 weeks after i had gavin.)
* stay in the hospital as long as possible. you might be bored & lonely, but when you go home, you’re on your own. at least in the hospital you can call a nurse for help.
* i must not have paid very good attention during health class, because i did not realize i would bleed for weeks. (a bit personal, i know, but a truth about motherhood that i did not know.)
* breastfeeding might be natural, but it is definitely NOT easy & often times it can be painful
* hemorrhoids, ‘nuf said!
* your boobs will never be perfect again… they’ll get super huge (& probably painful while engorged), & then they’ll shrink down, practically becoming indentations.
* just because you carried the baby for nine months, doesn’t mean you can soothe & quiet them when they are screaming bloody murder, for hours & hours on end.
* sometimes, you’ll go days without showering. a pony tail will become your new ‘do, a hat your new best friend, & you can go hours without realizing you haven’t eaten anything.
* finding the energy & time to do all the things you “used” to do isn’t going to be easy
* sleeping more than 2 hours in a row should be considered a luxury
* getting the time & energy to clean the house, fold the laundry, or load the dishwasher will make you feel like you’ve won the lottery
* counting the number of wet & dirty diapers will become your new hobby
* you’ll find yourself thinking “of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes. Full hours can be a little bit intimidating and most activities take about half an hour. Taking a bath: one unit, watching countdown: one unit, web-based research: two units, exercising: three units, having my hair carefully disheveled: four units. It’s amazing how the day fills up. (especially when you are feeding the baby every 6 units!)”via about a boy.
* in the end, holding your little baby, seeing them smile, hearing them laugh… will make you forget everything else, as though it never happened, & make you willing to possibly, do it all over again.
edited to add:
* i always knew i was going to breastfeed, i just was never prepared for how much i could (and would) leak. i didn’t realize that i could soak through my shirt, even while wearing a nursing pad.
* i wasn’t prepared for being man-handled by everyone. i didn’t realize that i would also get used to totally strangers grabbing & “feeling up” my boobs.
so, your turn. what are some of the truths about motherhood that you wished someone had told you? what’s the real scoop on motherhood?
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