S'mores Life

Last week I posted another "day in the life of..." story and I have been regretting it ever since. Why oh why did I pick a day that we had no play-dates/events that altered routine/Clara went down for longer than normal naps easily/Ian wasn't working OT/I didn't almost pee my pants/I wore clothes that were more than 50% free of food/etc?! Because ever since then Clara and God and life have been making me pay for it. That was the last day that she slept in until 6:45 a.m. Apparently 5:15 a.m. is the new wake up time. In Maryland, at 5:15 a.m., it is still dark out!  Not ok. Also, her longest nap since then has been 40 minutes. FORTY MINUTES, PEOPLE. SHE IS 10 MONTHS OLD!   And yes, I was able to semi enjoy a Starbucks frap that day but it wasn't a day that it was my lunch, the only thing I ate besides stealing goldfish off of my kid's tray (I have no shame) between the hours of 8am and 4pm. It was a day I was able to cook dinner...granted, there was a baby w...

Most of you who know me IRL (in real life...I like acronyms. AKA ILA. Figure that one out.) know that I am not crafty...I know how to get down with a glue gun and I love glitter (who doesn't?) but my future sister in law can attest that I am not a painter or artistic - just ask her about the Pic n' Paint plate disaster of 2009. Some of my close friends in Alaska can also tell you about the time (the first occurrence was in 2000) they tried to teach me to crochet and I asked if this is how you made string, and if I could just laminate my project together. If you don't believe me, check out some of the infant crafts I have done with Clara on this blog...in particular, t he Easter one where I may have given a bird a beak...and a mouth. Twice. No big deal. So anyways, while my pinterest followers may think that I am the next Martha Stewart based off of my pins, but really I am just an optimist and like to think one day I will be able to DIY it all. We all know we only do abo...

A few months back, my August moms group did a "day in the life of ___" theme for all of the mom bloggers out there to try. I enjoyed reading about their days and seeing how ours were the same and differed. But that post was written nearly five months ago and Clara has changed significantly and so has our routine! I decided to do this again mostly because I know all of my loyal fans are fascinated by the minute details of our day (ha) but also because I enjoy looking back and seeing how much Clara has grown and changed. It helps me appreciate the day to day. I chose today as the day to follow for two reasons - Ian has been working 12 hour shifts so he hasn't been seeing Clara at all M-F (read: mommy gets no break) and also because we have been having a lot more play dates in the past few months but did not today. I love our play dates and they have become a regular part of our week, but sometimes it does alter Clara's routine so I thought it'd be better to choose ...

You know you've been there...one of your parents is telling a story from your childhood and you think "WTF, Mom? You let me play in the street til midnight/cry it out/nurse til I was eight/etc.?!" You might have gotten this from some of my previous posts, but I can be pretty judgmental ( shocking ) and there are definitely still some things my parents did that I think to myself... Really ? REALLY?! But some of those things, now that I've become a parent, I actually understand or (gasp!) have even done myself. So, parental units, I no longer judge you too harshly for... Putting a sticker on the door during our nap times threatening the life of anyone who rang the doorbell.  Because you know what? If I had a threatening sticker (which, in their defense, really just said "Please do not disturb. Baby napping." but I knew the truth behind the words) perhaps LaKersha from Constellation Energy would not have knocked on our door TWICE last night at 7:30. Take a...

Weekly-ish...bi-weekly...Whatever, I'm confessing. Maybe not as regularly as I'd planned, but surely not for a lack of confessions, I am almost always embarrassingly full of those... This evening (which is actually what prompted me to write this) I learned what it's like to want to murder your husband. Not in a crazy, I will kill you in your sleep way...no in a, I love you dearly but YOU MUST DIE RIGHT NOW way. He got home from work as I'm putting Clara to bed and he starts banging around the kitchen and then the bathroom (which shares a wall w/ her crib - shows how much we were thinking about homicide and a baby sleeping when putting it up) like he wanted to let our friends 20 miles away know he was home...She was *finally* asleep when he stumbled his way into the shower making enough noise to wake her up through the wall. This man that I married, made and have begun to raise a child with - I actually wanted to hurt him. I had to go put Clara back to sleep not only...

A little while back I wrote a post about the culture shock we experienced moving from AK to MD. I promised I would write a post about what I like about Maryland, mostly so I could keep my Maryland friends since according to some people  I was a little harsh (I was holding back too, which should say something)...and since I'm lazy I'm just now getting around to writing it. It's kind of ironic that I started writing this list during a huge ass storm that is tearing through our state - the storms here are NOT making it on my list o' MD loves . But there are a few things that I do love about this place, most of them involving food. Not unlike most of what I love about Alaska. If you know me, this should come as no surprise. Of course my friends and family in Maryland are a given. ;) Cheesy, gooey, crab dip that makes my mouth go nom nom nom - Yes, like the song, Make Your Booty Go Boom Boom Boom  - which is fitting in more ways than one now that I think about it. I A...