Hide the Puffs!

Last Tuesday, I took Lily to her first play group. It was called "Baby Rhyme and Sign", open for ages 0-2.5 years. It was a free class offered at out local library designed to encourage young children to learn simple sign language and sing. Very cool class.

I really didn't know what to expect, as far as behavior was concerned, from Lily. She isn't really old enough to be a complete disruption but I was a little afraid that she might be scared of other kids, or at least apprehensive. Definitely not the case.

There were about 20 other kids with their caregivers. Lily sat back and soaked it all in at first but when the music started, Lily was all over it. She was dancing and clapping and wanted to touch every kid that crossed her path.

During the 10 minute open reading time, she respectfully sat in my lap and read with me. Then during the 10 minute open play time, she crawled around, stole a couple toys interacted with others, learned to share a little and then played independently. I didn't have my camera, just my phone, so this was the only picture I captured:

This was taken right after the toddler whacked her in the face with a beach pail. Surprisingly, Lily didn't cry, she just gave that girl the stink eye. Oh, and the lady standing to the left, a grandma that was infatuated with the red hair. She must have asked me 30 questions about it. Lady, it's genetics, that's all I can tell you.
Little people were rummaging through my purse and Lily's Puffs, or "baby crack" as they're called, were stolen a couple of times. 

A funny thing occurred to me as I sat back and watched Lily in the group. It was one of those "holy shit" moments, yet also an indescribable feeling.... I am a mom. A mom in a group with all these other moms.
Yes, I know, this is obvious and should have occurred to me at least once over the last 11.5 months, and it has, but not like this. For some reason, I welled up with tears of joy a couple times on this day, during this 45 minutes. Not that this was the first time that I welled up with tears of joy either but for some reason it was a defining moment in my short stint with motherhood. I pinned this feeling down to "Wow, my baby is growing up and I am helping her to become a person. She's not just a baby". She was clapping and dancing and laughing with other kids, it was just so cute and amazing. I realized just how much fun I am having getting to know her.

And about those Puffs...
When I went up to the front of the room to return a toy, the facilitator of the group said to me, "I noticed you brought Puffs. You might want to hide them or even leave them in the car. They seem to be a hot commodity around here".
Rookie mistake.

Embracing Down Time.

It's funny, even though I'm so busy with work, baby and life, when I think about it, I actually do have down time now that I don't utilize very well. I'm sure we all do this but it really just hit me in the past week or two that I can really be inefficient at time management, if that's even the correct term.
This is going to come off as though I being pretty harsh on myself and I DO recognize that I am not a lazy person, but we all have room for improvement, right?

Lily goes to bed between 6-6:30pm every night. We start her nighttime "routine" around 5:15ish (yes, I have eaten my words about schedules. I'll save that for a later post) and once she is in bed, she's usually down for a solid 12 hours. We've worked SO hard to make that happen and it is a glorious thing indeed. It gives me peace and quiet, especially since Dustin works 5 nights a week. Not that I prefer that he works nights, but it does give me "me" time.

Yet, here I sit at 9pm, un-showered for the day, 5 loads of separated laundry in my room, a full dishwasher, and I won't even begin to list the things I could clean....yet, here I sit. It's like I go brain dead at sundown now. I don't even answer many phone calls during time, or cook for my working husband ::gasp!::. I'm shocked at my own laziness sometimes!

Why is this? Sure, I'm tired, but why then don't I go to bed at 9pm instead of 11:30 or 12?Other moms run rings around me and still manage to be in bed by 10pm!

This is what I do during said down time: I internet, watch TV, eat dinner, text message, do an ab workout every night and recently started doing yoga from a free program On Demand (THANK YOU VERIZON FIOS!!!1), so I am doing something...but nothing really productive.

So, the point....
I'm working on some goals for this down time:

• Obviously, one of those goals is to work on my fitness level. I want to lose 10lbs and tone up. I have 2 beach vacations coming up, one in June and one in September, and I want to try shape up this spare tire. I will try to devote 45-90 minutes of physical activity in the evenings.
• I want to attempt to have my family eat healthier. Now that my kid eats adult food, this has been a bigger deal then it ever was. We aren't terrible eaters by any means but we were eating out a ton and we don't eat anything but carbs very balanced meals. We have have cut back on eating take out (sorry, Outback to-go girl) and I have been cooking once or twice a week. My goal is to make that more consistent and more well balanced. 
• I am going to attempt to do one household chore a night, whether it's wiping down the chair rail or sweeping the garage, it's ridiculous that I sit here and ignore these easy things. 
• Eventually, I would like to add crafting to the mix. Scrapbooking isn'y my thing but I would like to do some type of hobby/crafting to put my mind to better use.
• Read. I have the third installment of the Twilight series sitting on my nightstand....where it's been for about 6 months. Again, brain activity would be good.

Now, if someone would just hold me accountable for these things....

Happy Birthday Dad!

61!!!

We love you! Lily is so, so, so lucky to have you. She doesn't love anyone more than grandpa! 

Thank you for being such an awesome grandpa and dad. You're the best....