Hanging on to my good mood.

All over the place today. There's too much bitchiness in this house to concentrate on just one thing. I have about 30 seconds in between running interference on these children.

Snow. It's so beautiful and white and pretty. It also causes my 2 year old to go nuts and whine and cry at the window because he wants to go outsiiiiide. So far I've fetched 6 snowballs just to shut him up.

Nothing is working to shut up the youngest one. I'm in the process of cutting out the morning nap in the hopes that the afternoon nap and bedtime goes more smoothly. You can only imagine his state right now. Tired and cranky doesn't even begin to describe. Right now he's got his head buried in my back and is crying.

Also, did you know that it's always your fault if your child forgets to set his alarm clock and wakes up 15 minutes before he's supposed to be out the door to school? I was reminded of that fact this morning. The atmosphere around here was eerily similar to every morning for the first 7 years of his life, a time that I never ever ever want to go back to. Horrors.

Me? I'm doing pretty good! These kids can't get me down, no matter how hard they try. I lost 3 pounds in the last week and so I'm well on my way to getting rid of that last 13 pounds that I mentioned a couple posts ago. Go Me!

No excuses not to get all my chores done now...damn.

I'm always on the lookout for ways to try and organize my life. For this reason, checklists really appeal to me. They also speak to the rule follower in me. Because deep down I'm a huge prissy rule follower. And checklists make me feel like I've broken the rules if I haven't done everything on them.

As I was surfing around on the net a couple nights ago, I stumbled on a site called Motivated Moms. I would link to it but I don't know how to. Feel free to educate me on how to do this.

Moving on, I came across this site. It has a downloadable calendar that spells it all out for you. Hell ya! Here's my $2, thanks PayPal!

It's pretty plain jane though, so I decided to fancy it up with some paper and whatnot, glued some magnets onto the back and voila:



And since this is a crafty kinda post, I also wanted to share the page I made last night of my little bundle of awesomeness, Josh.



I'd just like to tell Jess, I tried to make it bigger but it just ended up cutting off half the picture. Sorry dude.

Anyway, thanks for looking at my craftiness!

Wowzers.

Time to talk about laundry. My life revolves around laundry for the first couple days of every week. I wake up on Monday mornings resolved to do better! and get it all done! in one day!

I've got a pretty good system down but there's just so damn much of it. For a family of 5 we've got: whites, reds/oranges, greens/blues, darks, jeans, towels, and two complete loads of miniature humans clothes.

That's a lot, but that's not it. Add in the bedding: our king size set takes two seperate loads, then Liam's bedding, and then those darn mini humans again in one more load.

1 2 3....8 9...11...12. Wait. Did I count that right? Yup. 12 loads of laundry every week.

Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself when it's not all completed in one day. I never realised just how many loads there were.

I was going to expand upon this post about how proud I was that I took my moms advice and ironed my sheets and pillowcases this time around. But maybe I should just stop here and go downstairs and switch over the load.

Good plan.

Turning over another new leaf.

It's time to get back in the saddle. From January to June-ish I dropped a total of 31 pounds which is awesome. Go Me!

From June-ish to now I've managed to gain back 5 of those pounds. That may not seem too bad but dudes, let's do the math. If I can gain 5 pounds in 4 months then in a year I will have gained 15 pounds. In 5 years that's 75 pounds.

Kill me now.

It's those damn chips. I'm not picky, I'll eat any kind. I do prefer some tasty salt & vinegar but if all that's left is bbq well frick, pass 'em on over this way.

If I've got a hankering for some nacho's with cheese melted all over them and a couple of sides of salsa and sour cream, bring it on.

I've sent Jeff to the store at 10 pm to pick me up some chips and a slurpee. Without even the excuse of being pregnant.

The difference between my eating habits now and my eating habits 9 months ago is, when I put a single chip in my mouth I know exactly how bad it is and I have to ask myself "is this really worth it?"

So far, yes. Yes, yes, 1000 times yes. Literally.

Not any more though, I just have to find the willpower somewhere.

Today, 133 pounds. Here we go!

Hippies are really just lazy people.

Josh just celebrated his 1st birthday and he's still 150% attached to the boob. It's the longest I've been able to nurse any of my babies and there's no end in sight. It doesn't stress me out anymore though.

I joked this weekend at his party that he'd be 4 and still nursing. My sister freaked out even though she knows I'm JOKING. And then she called me a hippie.

Her reasoning? And keep in mind that this is gathered over the course of many daily conversations during which we discuss our completely opposite methods of parenting.

I breastfeed, happily! It's taken me a mother effing long time to accept it though.

I (used to) use cloth diapers. But then I got lazy about washing diapers for 2 kids and just bought disposables.

I guage my youngins health by inspecting their bowel movements. That one I'll admit is kinda gross.

I co-sleep. Another example of laziness, I can't imagine waking up in the middle night and trying to stay awake during a feeding in order to lay the sweet little bambino back in his crib.

I don't run to the doctor's office every time they get a sniffle, instead letting their body's fight infection on their own if at all possible. This one is mostly because I have a big fat mental block on taking any kind of medicine. I make an exception for Tylenol during teething however. I'm not a martyr.

I'm about as relaxed as if I HAD actually just smoked a big fatty when it comes to them licking juice off the sidewalk or eating sand from the backyard. ...again, could be the laziness kicking in. I brush it off by saying I'm allowing them to build up their immune systems.

So, while I admit I do approach parenting in a more earthy and casual manner it's probably just laziness.