My poor little klingon

So my oldest looks like a Klingon out of Star Trek today. We had a total "bad mommy" moment the other day when we were grocery shopping and she managed to flip herself out of the grocery cart and land on her forehead. Talk about "things that can happen in the blink of an eye". All I did was turn around to get the milk out of the fridge and BANG there she was lying on the ground, face down, SCREAMING!

Luckily she was ok, but wow does she ever have a huge goose egg on her forehead. It appeared almost instantly and freaked everyone out. By the time we made it home, dropped off the boy with his Papa and made it to the hospital to get her checked out, she had almost fully recovered. No signs of a concussion, thank goodness. So now we just get to spend the next few days watching the fluid from her egg make its way down her face, changing her appearance on a daily basis.

Is this a moment in parenting where you take pictures to remember the bad times and the good ones?

I'm sure my feelings of "bad mother-ness" will take longer to heal than her actual wounds. She's actually talking about the event with pride in her voice now.

You know you're a mom when....

you spend your afternoon quiet time making a broccoli salad to take to the daycare summer BBQ.

What to eat?

Have I ever mentioned that the part of domestic life that drives me crazy is having to constantly think of what to eat? It seems like my day is filled with meal-making and I hate having to constantly think of something healthy and nutritious to eat, that both kids can have. And then, the kicker is thinking of something to eat for me and my husband. Adventurous in the kitchen, I am not and so meals get pretty boring around here. Even worse is when I'm hungry (like now) and trying to think of what to eat.

Where is the kitchen fairy who will conjure up delicious meals and clean up afterwards?

Third child contemplation

I must be a lunatic for wanting a third child. Some days I wonder how I make it through the day surviving with the two that I have already. This preschooler vs toddler age is brutal. Tantrums, fighting, screaming.......my blood seems to be on a constant low boil. My throat is sore at the end of the day from yelling - stop, don't do that, do this, come here, PLEASE share. Adding another one to the mix? What am I crazy? Then I'd have this ongoing battle PLUS the non-stop needs of a newborn and then when the third one gets old enough, there will be a battle of three wills, not just two.

But I try to see longer term. These early years are the most in your face, moment to moment challenging, I think. When they get older, sure there will be new challenges - attitudes, yelling for different reasons, but they'll be more independent. There are moments now when I look at my oldest and can't believe how big she is already and that my "baby" has slipped away. There is part of me that doesn't want this stage to be over. The "firsts" and the "new developments". There is a constant ache in my belly for something more. Can I ignore that ache? Can I impose MY will on my husband, who doesn't want another? Who gets to come away feeling disappointed - him for taking on another child or me for NOT getting to have another child? Who would regret their decision more? How will either decision affect our marriage?

I think about these things ALL the time now. It consumes me, at the moment. The future is uncertain and I'm too much of a planner to not want to know what happens next. I don't need to get pregnant now - I just want to know whether that is the path in front of us or not. My mind is tired of standing at the crossroads, looking at the fork in the road.

A new use for quiet time

Well here it is, my new use for quiet time. As a mother of two small children, we have fallen into a pretty predictable routine that mostly consists of feeding, entertaining and sleeping. I'm looking for something to fill the void when the children sleep in the afternoon - their "quiet time". I walk around with deep thoughts racing through my brain and no place or time to put them to paper. So this will be my paper, a place to come to when something grabs me and screams to be written. It's not so much a place to share these thoughts with others, but a place to make my thoughts real, share them with myself. It's a place for raw, unedited thoughts. A place to dump my take on that day - positive or negative. A place to complain. A place to rejoice. A place to scream. A secret place.....a place to find myself.