Letters to my things

Dear Nasal Spray,
I don't know why I resisted using you for so long, but you are marvelous. You help me breathe at night, and unstuff Benjy's nose, too. Thank you for being so effective.

Dear Crochet Hook,
Why are you only nice to me when we're doing single crochets? I thought you were better than that. I thought you were magic. Why did you have to spoil the illusion when we moved on to the half double crochet? You will regret it when you spend the rest of your life making very boring scarves.

Dear Socks,

I'm glad it's summer already and I don't have to wear you anymore. No offense, but I hate you. Have a nice life in my drawer for the next 5 or 6 months. Try not to get too dusty.

Dear Sammy's clothes,
Really? You just jumped off the shelves of your own free will? I don't believe you. Did Sammy put you up to this lie? I knew it.

I Give Up

Do you ever get to Friday thinking, "If it were any day but Friday, I would go stark raving mad"? Like you can't believe how long the week has been, and if it were even one day longer, you might strangle someone. Sammy and I have been grumpy with each other all week- I've been dealing with Benjy's stuffy nose, he's been testing every single boundary he can. Today I decided to make peace and do something nice for him. He begs to go to the McDonalds playplace every time we drive by, so I took him there for lunch.
Things started off well. I told Sam that he had to eat lunch before he went to play, and he happily consented to eat some french fries, all of his apple slices, and 4 bites of chicken nugget. Then I took off his shoes and let him loose.
Sam loves playing with other kids, but not when there are a lot of them and they are noisy. The playplace, unfortunately, was pretty full. He was too scared to climb very far up any of the equipment, but seemed to have a ball jumping off the little steps he was willing to climb. After about 20 minutes of that, he flopped down on the floor. As he was blocking the other kids, and he hadn't been playing, anyway, I picked him up and said in my most cheerful mom voice, "Time to go, bud!"
Toddler meltdown! He kicked, screamed, and beat on the table as I put his shoes back on. It was embarrassing, and frustrating that after trying to be extra nice to him, I was now going to have to discipline him. The price to pay for throwing a fit is to spend the afternoon in his room, so that's where he is. And I am ready to be done with this week.

How to Lose the Baby Weight

Since giving birth to Benjy about six weeks ago, I hear a lot of "You look great! I can't believe you just had a baby!" and "Wow! You got back into your jeans fast!" and "What's your secret to losing the baby weight?"
I know the people who ask this don't actually want to know how I lost the "baby weight", but if they did, I would tell them this:

1. Give birth (it tends to take away the majority of that weight)
2. Breastfeed
3. Lose ten pounds the first trimester of pregnancy from throwing up
4. Be a skinny person

No one wants to hear that, because #1 is sarcastic, #2 is obvious, #3 is too self-pitying, and #4 is out of anyone's control. I happen to be a skinny person, and I can take no pride in it because it is not the product of anything that I do (as my husband will attest, I have an addiction to junk food). I just am that way, just like some people happen to put on weight more easily than others. And since no one actually wants to hear how I lost weight, I don't have anything to say except nervous laughter (which, written out, looks like "heh heh heh"). Sorry I don't have any magical dieting secrets to give away, but I do have a good joke that I read in a joke book I had in elementary school:
Want to lose ten pounds of ugly fat?
Cut off your head!

heh heh heh

The Walk

Our health insurance provider offers incentives for adopting a healthy lifestyle change every two months. For January/February it focused on healthy eating, and for March/April the goal was to get 30 minutes of exercise 5 days a week. Having a baby one week into the challenge meant that my exercise abilities were going to be limited, so we decided on taking a 30 minute walk after dinner. We have loved our family walks, and I hope we keep them up even after the challenge is over.

Starting off!

We do the same loop every time, and after we turn the second corner, Sam starts protesting. "No go home Mommy!" he says, OVER AND OVER again. It's always at the same place on our walk.

This is where the litany starts; you can see I'm tired of hearing "No go home Mommy"

We distract Sam from his chant by pointing out pretty things in the nice little condo complex we walk through. A lot of our friends live here, so Sammy knows it pretty well.

See? Pretty trees!

Sam always insists on deviating from the sidewalk to go "monster truck" up the steps.

And Ryan is almost always happy to oblige. Benjy tolerates the bouncing around very well.

The last five minutes of our walk is a cut through the park. As we passed the softball fields on our walk yesterday, we slowed down so we could watch the games going on. A woman jogged up to us and asked if I would help her out. Apparently the 9th member of their team was running late, and they would have to forfeit their game. She wanted me to put on the glove and stand in the outfield until the last girl showed up so that they could play. I was wearing jeans and clogs, not exactly softball attire, plus I had my glasses on. AND, as Ryan told the lady, I just had a baby and am not really in any kind of physical shape to play softball. But I did feel bad that they would have to forfeit, so... I said yes. They shoved a glove into my hand, and I trotted out to right field. After the first half inning, the last player showed up, and I was released, though many of the girls asked if I wanted to stay and play. I kept saying "No, I just had a baby, I shouldn't be playing softball," when what I really wanted to say was "I would like to finish the nice walk with my family that you interrupted, and I am WEARING CLOGS." But I am a nice person, at least on the outside, so I kept my inner snark to myself.

After my triumphant stand on the field. Do I look like I'm ready to play softball to you?

I just had my six-week postpartum check today, and I got the all clear to participate in physical activities that are more strenuous than walking. I can also lift more than 20 pounds now (shh, Sammy, don't tell anyone I've been carrying you around for a month). I think I might take up jogging. I hate to run, but I do have a really nice jogging stroller, so... I'm thinking about it. Plus, Brigadoon is going to have some good dancing in it, and the 30 seconds we learned at the audition wiped me out. I need to get my endurance back.

I'll Go Home With Bonnie Jean

I'm doing another musical this summer- this time it's Brigadoon, which may be the funniest title of a musical, ever. It's fun to say, at least. I will be singing and dancing in the ensemble, and our first rehearsal is Tuesday!
Don't know what it's about? Check out the Wikipedia page.
In other news, I once again feel lame for not blogging very frequently, and am going to set a goal to post five times a week. Which, let's face it, will probably last all of one week. Then I'll have to find a new goal.
Last night, Sammy fell asleep in his high chair during dinner. I LOVE when that happens, because he looks really funny, but I also hate when that happens because he wakes up really cranky ten seconds after we get him in bed.

Isn't he funny? He drank the smoothie, but couldn't stay awake for the Nutella toast or the cheese!

Sammy is so jealous that Benjy gets to sit in the swing

Needy

Benjy seems to feel that after sleeping in his bed all night, he is entitled to be held the rest of the day. He is so tired that he falls asleep as soon as I pick him up, but as soon as I lay him down next to me, he wakes up and cries. Silly baby.
Sammy has had one consistent discipline problem for almost 2 years: he destroys books. He rips them up, sometimes just a page or two, sometimes the entire book. It's been driving me crazy, but I haven't found a way to get him to stop. Last night he ripped up another book after we put him to bed, and it drove me over the edge. I took away all his books, and told him he would be confined to his room this morning. So it's been nice and quiet over here so far today. I just haven't done anything because Benjy won't let me!
We had a little Easter egg hunt for Sammy last Saturday. Holidays are so much more fun once your kids get old enough to be excited about them!

Can you spot the eggs?

Just hanging out in the stroller while big brother runs around

And that's all I have for today.

Family Date Night

In case anyone wondered, I made it through my first day alone with the boys. Part of my motivation was knowing that for our 30 minutes of exercise this evening, we were going to walk along the Jordan River Parkway instead of just around our neighborhood. Exciting! I had lots of stale bread I'd been saving up to feed the ducks, and we had a freebie coupon to The Sweet Tooth Fairy, aka all the ingredients you need for a happy Tribe.
We love Family Date Night. This was Benjy's first time along for the ride, and he was very good company. Sam was so excited to go ride in "poopy Daddy truck" to feed the ducks.

We finally taught him to smile without looking like a shark

There were ducks and Canada geese aplenty hanging out on the river. We noticed that mallards are poor sports about missing out on a piece of bread. If another mallard beats them to the food, the loser will chase the other one and peck its bum, just out of spite!

 This little boy loves his daddy

And when Daddy is around, he tolerates Mommy :0)

One duck actually snuck up on us. It swam out of the river, climbed up the bank, and waddled onto the little bridge trying to get some food. Sadly, we didn't see it until we'd finished all the bread!

It took some self-control, but Sam managed not to chase the duck

This picture doesn't do justice to the sheer number of ducks that were fighting over our bread

After we fed the ducks, we finished our walk so we could record our 30 minutes of exercise. We drove to Sweet Tooth Fairy on the way home. I'd been dying to try out their new Samoa cupcake. No, it didn't taste exactly like the Girl Scout cookie, but it was amazing nonetheless. We ate our treats at home instead of at the store, because really, who can eat a cupcake without milk? Not I. 

Benjy let me make it halfway through my cupcake before insisting that he needed a snack, too. Ah, babies.

One last picture, showing off my freakishly long fingers as I feed the ducks. Benjy has apparently inherited my overlong digits.