how old am I? what day is it?

On Tuesday night, Matt and I had this conversation..

Leah: Is it Monday or Tuesday?
Matt: Tuesday
--- then less than three minutes go by ---
Leah: Wait, is it Monday?  No, no... you just told me it's Tuesday.

Next.  I seriously cannot remember how old I am for the life of me.  I am 27, I think.  But I literally spent a decent amount of time the other day trying to figure out if I was 26 or 27... and don't laugh and ask me to subtract the current year from my birth year.  In the moment, such logic had totally escaped me.  I had convinced myself that Henry was born when I was 25 and that Sam was born when I was 26. Somehow I missed a year in there, but eventually did the math and realize that I am 27.  The sad part about this, though, is that I've probably had the same conversation with myself two other times in the last three or four months.  Can't even imagine how bad this will be in the future... Oh well.

Pictures

Since I've been overwhelming you with words lately...

I now love instagram.   This is me and my sweetness!

Here is Henry after he fell asleep on my bed while I was posting about naptime on Monday.

Henry decided that he wanted Sam to cuddle with his penguins.  Isn't he a sweet big brother to share his penguins?

This is Henry taking up our entire bed.  I wanted to show you for proof.

Look at those baby blues. I love him.

Sam's eyes are turning out to be quite blue as well!  Isn't he a precious little doll?  I love him too!

girl scout cookies, door handle covers, and random thoughts

First of all, Matt called me from work today to ask if we wanted to order GIRL SCOUT COOKIES!  Umm, yes please.  You may remember this post from two years ago in which I confessed my love was lacking for thin mints. Fortunately this year, Matt consulted me before ordering a gazillion boxes of thin mints!  So we will be getting Carmel Delights, Peanut butter chocolate patties, lemon whateverthey'recalleds!!!  They will all very soon be MINE ALL MINE!  (Oh, and Matt got thin mints for himself.)

I must say that I got my hopes up thinking that maybe, just maybe, Matt was actually getting the cookies AS he was ordering them... only to be disappointed when he walked in the door cookieless.  Oh well.  Anticipation makes it all the better.

AND... thanks to "my fitness pal" I can now enjoy the girl scout cookies in moderation, instead of scarfing down entire boxes and/or completely depriving myself.  Usually after dinner is over, I assess how many calories I have left to eat, and I plan my dessert accordingly.  Some days I get to have a brownie AND ice cream.  Other days I just get "light ice cream" or like one cookie or something.  And, a grand total of ONE day, I have skipped dessert entirely.  So it will be with the Girl Scout cookies.

NEXT.  I finally worked up the resolve to get some of those handle thingys you put over the doors so the kids can't get out of them.  Click here if you don't know to what thingys I am referring.  So it's installed, but tell me... Why is it that this is making me and Matt so SAD for little Henry?  I mean, is it any different than standing at the door and holding the knob?  He actually gave up on the door very fast tonight with the knob cover, so maybe it's better for him to not have the false hope of being able to open the door.  Who knows?  But the very worst part is thinking about how he will respond around 1AM when he decides that he wants to come cuddle in mommy and daddy's bed and can't get out of the door.  Poor baby!  I can't help but make a frowny face just thinking about it.

Lastly, let me share this random thought I had with you the other day... I should drive an ambulance or a fire truck.  Seriously, how awesome is it that everyone just gets outta their way!  And if people DON'T get out of the way, the fire truck gets to HONK, HONK like nobody's business. There's something in me that just wants to lay on the horn sometimes.  For no reason at all.  YES, that sounds like fun to me!  Let me drive a fire truck!!!!!!!!!

Now that you all think I am certifiably crazy, I am going to go "night night."  Peace.

they're playing a trick on me

I can't tell you how many blog posts have been interrupted during nap time recently... meaning that I've started about 15 posts that have never been posted... The fact that I am even starting this one is a success.

Let me tell you about nap time, and you tell me if you don't think my children are secretly scheming so that they can drive me crazy.  (This is not supposed to sound like complaining, more just like picture me running frantic through the house trying to get everyone to sleep so I can have 20 minutes of peace... and laugh because I fail about 95% of the time.)

Here's a timeline of 12pm - 2:30pm ish.

12PM - Time to feed Sam.  Henry realizes that mommy cannot 1- pay attention to him or 2- move, so he literally destroys the entire house.  I tell you the kid's goal in life is to take everything from where it actually belongs and put it where he thinks it belongs... THE FLOOR.  Mommy's thinking, "Why does it take you so long to eat, Sammy?"  By the time I finish feeding Sam, it's time for Henry to eat lunch say around...
12:20 PM- Feed Henry lunch, while Sam is in his bouncy chair and/or swing and/or both.  Sam is mostly happy, but then decides now would be the time to have a big poop.  Okay, sorry Henry, mommy has to change Sam's diaper, I'll be right back so you can finish eating lunch... In the 3 minutes it takes to change Sam's diaper, Henry finds more things to destroy... what, that pile of folded laundry is on the bed?  It should definitely go on the floor?  What, there's a clean pacifier sitting in Sam's bouncy seat?  I definitely need to put my hands all over it and throw it under the couch.  Somehow feeding Henry lunch and paying attention to Sam while he is awake takes a little bit of time... then it's time for mommy to eat lunch.
12:45ish - Mom eats lunch, but needs to entertain Henry, so she gets out the crayons.  But Henry doesn't want to color by himself, he wants mommy to color.  So she's trying to finish a bowl of salad, but she has to take a break every 20 seconds to pick up another crayon and color... no biggie.  But it takes awhile...
1:00 ish, mommy swaddles Sam and puts him in his swing and he starts to fall asleep.  Meanwhile, we get some milk in a cup for Henry that he drinks while we read books and/or watch a TV show together.
1:15- Sam is finally asleep, and it's time to put Henry in his room for a nap... not fun.  Mommy (and Daddy at bedtime) literally have to stand by his door and hold it with our hands until he falls asleep.  We hold the door handle in one hand and the monitor in the other to make sure Henry is falling asleep.  He will go back and forth from his bed to the door, from his bed to the door, hoping that at some point the door will open.  Usually he gives up after a few minutes and goes to sleep.  Today he finally gave up after about 20 minutes.  I got 20 seconds to go turn on the dryer (for the noise barrier, friends) and run to the bathroom before I started to hear Sam working up to a fuss... mainly just because he was stirring, but it doesn't matter... ONE cry, one tiny PEEP will ruin the whole thing and wake Henry up... so it's now like
1:40 ish- and I RUN to Sam in the swing, SHOVE the pacifier in his mouth, pick him up as fast as possible and RUN into my bathroom where I plug in my hair dryer and turn it on (it's still on right now at 2:15)  The blow dryer will block out Sammy's screaming and it calms him down, so it's a winner.  At this point I reswaddle Sam and put him down... funny that now that I actually have the nerve to let him cry for 5-10 minutes, I totally can't because I can't deal with Henry waking up.
1:50 - spend the next 10 minutes simultaneously watching the monitor, cleaning up the house that Henry has literally turned into a disaster area, and keeping Sam quiet while he stirs/sleeps etc.
2:00 - I pick up my computer to write this blog post, and Sam is still trying to get out that ONE peep that will wake Henry up and ruin it all... (I just turned the blow dryer back on, by the way)
2:26 - I am almost finished with this post and guess what!  It's time for Sam to eat again. :)  Yippee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So fun.  When Sam is finished eating, Henry will be ready to wake up from his nap.  LOVE it.

Okay but Sam can wait three minutes for me to tell you this awesome story from today.  We were in Target this morning because I just had to get out of the house buying things I legitimately needed.  All was well, but then something happened and Sam decided it was time to GO.  He was supposed to be sleeping, not due for eating for another 45 minutes... so I don't know what that was about.  Anyway, he started crying, which got the attention of another mom who exclaimed to her children, "Oh that is a really little baby!  That's a newborn cry!"  So as I am sticking his paci in his mouth, she asks me, "How old is he?"  "Six weeks and very loud," I answer, as the pacifier totally fails me and does not get him to calm down.  And then I tell you the truth, she looked straight at my chest and said, "I bet that [referring to the cry] is triggering a letdown."  Umm.  Okay, woman!  Really?  For the record, NO, it was not triggering a letdown. And is it just me or is that a weird/ mildly inappropriate thing to say to a stranger?  Okay.  And let me just say that I RUSHED to the checkout line, and as soon as I payed, Sam decided he was just fine and stopped crying.

Wait, I kid you not.  It's now 2:35, and Henry just walked into my room having woken up from his nap 45 minutes early.  Oh it's true.  He fell back asleep on my bed in less than 5 minutes, but there's no way he gets his full nap in now that Sam needs to eat. Thankfully today I am laughing about it... some days I have literally started crying, other days I have gotten a bit too angry.

I gotta go. Sam's about to lose it. BYE! 

I thought of something!

My apologies for the "not really a post" post yesterday.  You'll be happy that I finally thought of something to tell you.

Apparently we now have what some would call a "family bed."  Not by choice.  Shoot me in the face, did I just admit that to you?  No offense, of course, if that's how you like to sleep.  It's not for me, but it happened...

A couple of weeks ago, Henry just showed up in our room in the middle of the night.  He walked in and very enthusiastically greeted us. "Hiiii!"  Like it was totally normal.  On that particular night, we took him back to his room and laid down with him until he fell asleep.

A couple of nights later, the little stinker found his way back into our room, this time, with his pillow in tow.  Matt and I, at this point, were both totally out of it, so instead of ushering Henry back to his room, we both just told him it was time to go "night, night." When we didn't hear him crying/talking/awake anymore, we just fell back asleep... only to wake up a couple of hours later (around 3 AM) to find him asleep on his pillow on the floor next to our bed.  Not exactly comfortable, seeing as our floors are hard laminate, not carpet.  (By the way, I am still mad at myself for not getting a picture of this.)  So we felt sorry that the little fella had spent two hours asleep on our floor and pulled him up into our bed.  Little did we know that would be the beginning of... family bed!

Now, EVERY NIGHT, Henry wakes up, usually around 1-2am, and comes and crawls in our bed with his pillow.  The problem is, we are too exhausted to deal with it... neither of us really wants to go into Henry's room and lay down with him, so we just let him keep doing it. You'd be surprised how much space a little 36 inch toddler can take up in a king-sized bed.

Anyway, since Sam is still in the bassinet in our room this means we are all sleeping in one room.  Sweet, yes.  But this ain't really my vision for nighttime sleep in our household.  (You're welcome for the ain't.)  Yeah, family bed is not gonna cut it. I like sleep way too much to let this keep happening for long.  One day soon, I will work up the energy to put an end to it.

In case you're wondering... and I know you are... that lack of discipline on my part at nap time yesterday came back to bite me in the rear.  Oh yes, it did.

Here's to sleep.  Goodnight.

warning: brain not working

Both kids are asleep... it is a beautiful, beautiful thing.  Although, I will confess that in order for this to happen, I had to cheat on Sam's "eat, play, sleep" routine so he just went "eat, sleep" and I had to compromise with Henry (*something we do a lot these days) and he is sleeping on the couch, not in his bed.  This means that neither kid will sleep as long as they actually should, our schedule will be messed up later (hopefully not in the middle of the night), and I will pay for it, but in the moment, my discipline went out the window and all I wanted was peace and quiet.  So here we are.

Go figure that here I am with a free moment, and I don't even know what to talk to you about.  There's a brain dead mom for you.  I am always thinking all week long that I "should blog about this and that," only to get here and forget it all.  Therefore this post will be random and full of things that I just want to talk about- if I can think of any of them.  Disclaimer made.

Who am I kidding?  I have sat here and written three or four paragraphs, only to decide that they are too boring to post and delete them.  With that, I am going to sleep.  See ya on the flip side.

a mom post about kid stuff

Henry is wanting to do all things baby.  Examples?  He had me swaddle him yesterday.  He pretends to suck on a pacifier.  He sits in the bouncy seat. (And also gets very upset if we put Sam in the bouncer.)  And last but not least, he tried to NURSE the other day.  Oh yes.  I was feeding Sam, and Henry crawled up next to me. I thought he was about to kiss Sam on the head, and he went straight past Sam's head for my youknowwhat.  Okay, so I won't lie, it was actually a tiny bit sweet.  But you guys all know how I feel about breastfeeding (nothing's changed there, I don't love it - even though it has been 100000 times easier this go-round), and so we put an end to that little attempt very promptly.

Here's some bouncy seat pics.

22 month old Henry in the bouncy seat

Ham in the bouncy seat.

A little newborn Henry in the bouncy seat.

There hasn't been a lot of sleeping going on in this house.  Sam was doing awesome at night, and then since he was sick, it's been hit or miss. I will say that the night Sam did sleep like a champ, we got bombarded with very loud thunderstorms - so instead of being up for hours with a newborn, I was up for hours with a toddler who was understandably scared and disoriented.  Just another day in paradise.

And since I know you are all wondering, Sammy Wams did awesome at his 1 month check up.  Unfortunately I left the little sheet that had all of his percentiles in the room at the Dr. office, so I need to call to see if they can get me another one... I do remember that he is 10lbs, 3oz and that he is 22.5 inches long with a normal sized head. They had to remeasure his length bc his percentile jumped so much, but he was 22.5 both times.  (I personally think they got it wrong last time and that's why it looked like such a big jump.)  Whatev. So that was that.

Lastly, I just wanted to inform you fellow bloggers that because of my aforementioned iPhone, I have been reading a lot of your posts on the phone and therefore have not been commenting.  Please accept my apology and know that I am keeping up w/ your posts!  That's all for now folks.  Here's to hopes for good sleep tonight!

short month

Today marks Sam's 1 month bday!  Tomorrow is his one month check up!

Apparently we are continuing the trend where everything that has to do with Sam goes by ten times faster than it did with Henry... starting with the pregnancy, continuing with the first month.  One month was like a lifetime with H... probably cause all I did was sit at home and stare at him all day. 

Here's a pic of sweet Sammers. (Other nicknames include: Ham, Hammers, Sammy, Sammy Wammy... list goes on.)  

Don't judge me for wearing Christmas pjs in January... judge my parents!

Since he's been sick, I haven't been snapping tons of pics, so this is the same one I put on FB today.  Sorry to those who have seen it twice.  He gets so mad when the flash goes off in his eyes, so he's asleep or squinting in about 99% of pics.

For the record, I typed this whole post with my left hand!  Motherhood at its finest.

my fitness pal

I'm sure you will all be glad to know that the pity party has ended, and the last three to four days as a mom of two has been quite pleasant.

For the record (and I might take this back in a month or so), the transition from one kid to two kids has been nowhere near as difficult for me as the transition from zero to one.  One to two seems much easier to me - perhaps I will expand on that in a different post.

In the meantime, let me tell you about the latest excitement in our marriage.  Matt and I both recently downloaded the "my fitness pal" apps on our iPhones.  If you don't know about it, it's a calorie counter and exercise log to assist you with your weight loss (or in Matt's case, weight gain) goals.

So.  I am allotted approximately 1500 calories a day, although it doesn't take into account breastfeeding, so I pretty much exceed my limit every single day.  The main reason I am using the app is because I could easily down a large bag of peanut butter M&Ms in one day and think nothing of it.  By writing it down, I am less likely to eat 1200 calories worth of junk food in one day (something which I actually did one day last week).  Not just 1200 calories, people - 1200 calories worth of candy, cookies, ice cream - in addition to breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  So my commitment is to enter every single bite. 

Meanwhile, we decided that Matt would make a goal to gain about half a pound a week.  Apparently when I deliver babies it has the same effect on Matt as it has on me - weight loss.  The only problem is that he's never gained any weight to begin with, and there's not a baby coming out of his uterus.  Very problematic.  So in order for Matt to reach his goal weight, he needs to gain half a pound a week for almost 30 weeks.  Long way to go.

Anyway, the result of this goal is that he is supposed to eat... wait for it... 2500 CALORIES A DAY!!  TWENTY FIVE HUNDRED!  That is assuming that he doesn't exercise (and he always exercises).  Now, let me be honest here.  I am serious when I say that I think I could easily eat 2500 calories in a day.  I think I could easily do it several days in a row.  Junk food just doesn't register in my brain.  I have no problem consuming empty calories.  Matt, on the other hand, is different.  So 2500 calories (plus) is going to be a big challenge for him.

Last night before dinner, I had less than 300 calories left that I was allowed to consume.  Matt had 1800 that he needed to consume.  For the record, he failed and so did I.

So long story short - we have opposite problems.  Somehow it seems like if Matt was also trying to lose weight, it might be easier for me.  Instead, while I am not eating, I will be spending a good amount of energy making sure Matt IS eating.  We will keep you updated. :)

ya know...

After that last post, I thought of an awesome new year's resolution!

"Quit feeling sorry for yourself!"

Yep, sounds like a good one for me.  Cheers.

reality bites

I kind of like the title to my post, even though it's super negative.  I knew I wanted the word "reality" in the title, and "bites" just came rolling off the tongue.  The goal isn't to be negative, but I'm not so sure I won't be...

There's nothing like ringing in the new year with all FOUR of us being sick with a terrible cold.  Yes, even baby Sam.  We are all sick- coughing, congestion, sore throats, and runny noses (and the children are quite fussy as a result).  To be quite honest, it sucks.  Fortunately for Sam (and us), he hasn't had a fever, but the rest of us have.

Like, honestly, the transition to having two children instead of just one isn't difficult enough... we also must ALL feel like crap during this major transition.  I'm not bitter or negative or anything.

Ask me if there is anything sadder than listening to a newborn cough.  I'm sure there is, since otherwise, he is healthy, but it's so sad to hear that little man cough.  His eyes are all red and sickly looking too. :(  Ugh.

Henry was the first to come down with the cold about a week ago, and we tried SO hard not to get his germs and not to let him touch or go near to Sam.  Oh well.  We failed.  That's life.  Now we're all hacking, sneezing, etc.  GERMS EVERYWHERE! It's unavoidable.

I think the hardest part about this is that we have to go on being parents.  Unlike any other job where you can just stay home and take care of yourself until you get better... we still have to wake up in the middle of the night to feed one baby, and wake up (or rather, get woken up) before 7 AM by the other one.  If we stopped doing our jobs, then our kids wouldn't eat, bathe, get their diapers changed, or sleep... which would actually be more of a punishment for us.  So there ya go.

On the bright side, maybe when we all feel better, having two children will seem like less of a challenge.  Cause literally right now when the day is getting started I think to myself, "How in the world am I going to do this today?"  And somehow I survive.  I'd like to say that I'm thriving and that this is all bliss... but that would be a lie.  So that's it, I survive.

Anyway, I'm sure you've heard quite enough complaining! Must get back to life... back to reality...  plus my newborn is crying quite loud.  He at least gave me 30 minutes, which I appreciate.  Thank you, Sam.