Overwhelmed and refocused

So, I took an extended leave from blog because to put it simply I just got overwhelmed. I love my blog and I love my blog friends but I got to a point with it where I felt obligated and it wasn't fun anymore. I am over that and have actually really missed my blog and realized it wasn't actually the blog that was sufficating me. With the new year I am going to focus on getting some of the me that I found when I started this blog back. So WELCOME BACK to me. I look forward to reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. I look forward to filling this thing back up!!

Wordless Wednesday

Teaching the Itsy Bitsy Spider to her favorite cousin.

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A new favorite recipe

I have been baby showering a ton lately.Either planning or going. Seems like everyone I know is having a baby in September. I apparently did not drink that water. Saturday I went to a shower for one of my best friends and we all know shower food tends to just be shower food. Well her family is true good Southern and they always have something wonderful. This time they had this salad jello thing and I figured I'll take it to be nice and then I tried it. OMG it was amazing so I am gonna pass the recipe along to you today. I hope you enjoy.

Strawberry Jello Pretzel Salad

2c. Coarse crushed pretzels

3/4c. melted butter

3 tbsp. sugar

6 oz. cream cheese

1/2pt. whip cream, whipped

3/4c. sugar

6 oz. strawberry jello

2c. boiling water

2 pkgs. (10 oz) frozen strawberries

Stir together first threee items and press into 9x13 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes; cool.

Combine next threee ingredients and cover cooled crust. Chill thoroughly.

Make Jello and while hot add berries and stir until thawed and separated. Chill until thick an almost set. Pour over cheese layer and chill several hours.

Just over it..

I am having a major bite my tongue moment this week and to avoid probably serving jail time I am just gonna put it out on here. I will leave individuals nameless and they can feel free to stay spineless in there own corners this way.
 I was the first in our family and I am the first of all my friends to have a baby. There were few things I knew about being a mom before I actually had that angel and as most of us know until you have one you don't know. She is my princess. She makes everything right when everything is going wrong. I didn't know unconditional love until her and I thought I did.

First off if you are not a parent yet you can not say a word to a mother about anything CAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING YET!!!! Not to pat myself on the back at all but I don't think I am to bad of a mom. Mosey makes my job very easy but I think I do very well. Every decision I make in my life I think about her first. She will never be in a situation that I think is bad for her. She will also be allowed to be an individual and not be sheltered from the world. My thoughts and opinions will never have to be her thoghts and opinions.

The decisions I make for my child are educated and well informed. I did research and interviews befor I picked her pediatrician and I trust him totally. We have these men and women who are highly educated and informed beyond my realm of thinking and so we trust them with our children to help guide us in the right direction. I 100% decided to have my baby vaccinated. Until the day my childs doctor looks at me and says not today Mrs.D this is a bad idea and it could hurt her. I will trust them in knowing that it is a wonderful thing and she will never have to know the awful things she is being protected against.

The daycare my child is in 2 days a week is wonderful. When I worked full time and had to leave her at 3 months old I knew it was gonna be okay because she was there. They have always been open and honest with us and we have never wondered about anything. If they tell me it is okay to bring my baby to school then she is going because she loves it. She thrives on that social interaction. Friends and peers are wonderful for them at this age.

I am just going to say (because I could go on for days) that I am a mom and as a mom don't ever and I mean ever tell me or someone I know that I am not a good parent. I will kill for my child and am very willing to shut anyone up who wants to think I won't. She is in every breath I take and there are days that I take the easy route and we order pizza or we skip a bath and go to bed early. Some nights we stay up late playing and some we follow our routine to the fullest. I drag her every where with me cause she wants to go. She is my baby and my buddy. She truly is my world and I dare anyone that would like to cross me or M.D. for that matter on our decisions for her and see what happens.

Help wanted Ad

Today I am finally going to do one of Mama Kat's prompt's. I always say I will and forget. Well not today and you can do one or two just go visit her site.

One of her prompts today was write a help wanted ad.

Help Wanted
please apply ASAP for this is a job that needs tackling

I am looking for a very motivated (and by motivated I mean the energizer bunny) female or male.

The job will consist of 16 hour work days Mon-Sun with actually no physical day off. We can arrange an hour break here and there but please do not expect one every day.

You will be here and ready to go at 7am. No tardyness or else you loose a good hour of quality work time around here.

You will begin by making breakfast for the princess of the house for she will begin to stir very shortly and then you loose all hope for major production early on.

While you wait for her roayl hinus you will do a load of laundry and unload the dishwasher.

Once this is done I will promise you the princess will have awoken and at this point you must rush her to the bathroom to make sure there are no accidents. She will be a little tempramental and demand to be left alone to eat her breakfast and watch "Street".

During this time you will clean all the bathrooms in the house. Once you are done change out the laundry and check on the master of the house. He will probably be happy to hear from you since you won't be bugging him about anything while he is at "work" and you are at home.

Now get the princess dressed and take her out with you to walk the dog. I warn you though this takes practice. The princess will want to hold the leash and OH MY GOSH the dog will of course run away. Chase it and when you catch her bring her back in and give her a treat (cause we are suckers for our dog).

Now you will set the princess up with an art project of some sort while you are getting ready for lunch. At this point my mom will of called 2-3 times and I am gonna need you to take those calls. She is very dear and will probably add a couple things to your list for the day just smile and talk sweetly and you can move on quickly. Clean the art project up and hang it on the fridge. Lunch is served and you can sit down and eat as well. After lunch clean it up and start to suggest we have quiet time for a little while. Take her up to her room and convince her that this the the only way possible. You will end up bribing her with a walk down to the park later.

While the princess naps clean the kitchen and vaccum the living room. Begin to think about dinner and make your list for the store cause I will promise you that you will be out of something.  Change the laundry out yet again and fold towels (I know I think they mass reproduce around here).

The princess will be up from her nap by now. Get her a bag and toss her in the car to run your errands. These vary daily but almost always include a trip to the grocery store. Some days you will have doctors appointments, play dates, or library time. I am gonna need you to be a wonderful multi-tasker and be able to get it all done on these days as well as the extra activities.

Come home from the store and take the princess down to the park. She has 45 minutes and then you must get back to start dinner.

Start dinner and change that damn laundry out one more time. The man of the house will be home shortly but at this point you have been out looking like hell all day so he probably won't care and if he does tell him to bite you.

The man of the house will come in and the first question will always be "What did you do all day today?" Just smile and say "oh just hung out at the house with the princess." Go finish dinner and serve it. After dinner the man of the house and the princess will play while you do the dishes and clean up from dinner. You will now leave the man of the house to his video games or baseball and go give the princess her royal washing. After her bath you will read Cinderealla 6 times and then discuss with the 2 1/2 year old why she MUST go to bed.

With the princess finally asleep change the laundry out AGAIN and you may now at this point go home. First though you must check on the man of the house and make sure he does not need a thing.

This job is very thankless and the pay is pure shit but at the end of the day you will be helping me out dearly for this has been my schedule for a long time and I would like a day to enjoy my coffee and perhaps read all day. I say one day cause that is all you will last. After one day you will probably be forced to tackle the man of the house and demand pay for if nothing else his complete and total ignorance for what you do all day.

Go stop by mama Kat's and visit some of the other lovely ladies that took her prompt for the day.

Wordless Wednesday

"Dude seriously no more pictures." - Mosey

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Wordless Wednesday

Oh did you marry your babys daddy?

FYI: I am going to make this a two part post so look for the ending tomorrow.

I wish I could say I have only heard this once but alas I hang my head in shame for these people and must admit I have heard it a bazillion times. I think today I will take you all for a litte trip down memory lane and hope all the people who truly feel the need to say that (which I have taylored my response to be "shoot bitch I ain't seen that lazy mofo in like two months I married my new baby daddy. If you see my old baby daddy have that ass hole call me he owes big mama some money.") read this post. Maybe I will print it off and hand it out.

So our tale starts a long time ago in a land far far away (in our hometown 10 minutes away from our new town). M.D. and I met in highschool. Please don't cue the awwws just yet. We were best buds forever. He dated a lovely girl for 6 years (and by lovely I mean a very crazy scary could kick my ass from here to next week). So needless to say I didn't want to try and poke through that force field. Well we all went away to college and would all meet back up on breaks and what not. I started dating my soul mate (NOT) just as M.D. broke up with sweet lovely girl. Not good timing. Well two years later we reconnected one night out with old friends. I knew then it was our turn. We dated off and on cause I was a player or whatever. Finally we committed and talked the M word.

So one very fateful evening we were out having a beer with friends and I looked at my dear friend and said has aunt flow visited you yet and she says yes she just left and all of a sudden my stomach sank because I knew. I was working for my parents full time managing there restaurant and so M.D. picked me up there Sunday and we took a pregnancy test and it said YES. I almost fell over and was waiting for M.D. to look at me and be like "oh hell no" but no, you know what he said. We are gonna have a baby that is awesome. WTF...Really? Why aren't you running? He didn't run because he really did love me. We told my mom the next night and she didn't lose it which was good but she did insist on telling my dad who was thrilled. M.D. and I were 22 and 23 at the time this all happened so we were plenty old enough to take responsibility. We both had great jobs and were stable and I think our parents knew that.

The doctors appointments started and we found out I was due November 7th. M.D. was amazing through the whole thing. I was still living at my parents and was so crazy hormonial and he came every single night and hung out. I started chilling about month 4  and we really started to enjoy being pregnant. We went for our ultra sound appointment to find out what we were having and we both cried when she said it was a girl. Then she said "Let me show this to a doctor really quick". My heart sank I knew something had to be wrong. I met with a doctor who wasn't my regular and she very abruptly and quickly said you have lost 80% of the fluid in your amniotic sak and we need you on bed rest till further notice. She then hurried out and left us with open mouths and no answeres. We met with my doctor that following Monday and she said to drink lots of fluids, stay in bed, and she would check me in two weeks. Those were the longest two weeks of my life. We went back in and all was well. I could return to work 3 hours a day if I sat on a stool and only rang customers out. Well this is kind of where all the baby daddy marriage questions come in. The restaurant my parents have is very family oriented and everyone kind  of feels like they are family so of course they all knew M.D. and I's story. Well when we found out we were pregnant we wanted to focus on a baby and add marriage later.

The rest of my pregnancy was pretty easy going except for swelling like a large

water balloon. M.D. and I bought a townhouse and moved in together which was wonderful. I was taking things easy and we were enjoying all our time with friends and family.

I was going to the doctors 3 times a week for fetal monitoring and urine samples. Finally on October 26th my doctor said "it is time for us to take her". I was getting pretty sick and it was going to affect the baby. So on Friday October 27th 2006 we went in to be induced. In all sense of the word we were ready. The room was done, the clothes were washed, the house was spotless, even the carseats had been installed by a professional. They started me on a pitocin drip and after about 3 hours broke my water. My labor pains were awful but I wasn't diolating past a two. I got my epidural and the angels sang. We hung out, lots of friends and family came and went, we took naps and talked the doctor every hour. Finally after about 11 hours of labor all my monitors started going off. My nurse and doctor came in and said you are having a c-section now. I was hysterical M.D. was downstairs with his brother and this was not my plan. within 20 minutes we made it to the operating room (with M.D. thank God) and had a beautiful 6lb. 2oz baby girl.

To be continued tomorrow...