Round 2

That was short-lived.  Turns out being a working mother at a terrifically busy place doesn't leave a lot of time or energy for things like blogs.

Fast forward 2 years and I'm in an entirely new place.  Literally.  I quit my job, my husband works full time outside of the house and I work full-time in it.  We moved to a new town, bought a new house and my personal favorite, had a new kid.  In future posts I'll be breaking down this picture and discussing some of it's finer points. (The hack job toddler hair cut, no shower mommy, the bearded husband and the "matriarch" face of my precious infant.)

I still don't know how I feel about blogging.  It seems so self absorbed to think that others would actually care about your life but I enjoy reading other people's blogs so maybe I should just get over it.  I plan to write about my life with a BUSY 3 year old boy and a mystery 4 month old girl. (I say mystery because I really can't pin her down yet.  Maybe that's going to be her thing.)  I want to discuss the difficulties of going from busy middle management of a manufacturing facility in the pharmaceutical industry to wearing yoga pants, no make-up and running around the house all day.  I want to talk about how it feels to talk to other women and tell them you "stay at home".  I want to talk about how I feel talking to mothers of 1 kid now that I have 2.  I want to talk about my ideas for changing government here in the US and finally, I just want to put myself out into cyberspace.  Scary because then it's out there but you never know what can come from just putting it out there.

Nothing Say Memorial Day Like A Hot Bowl of Chili

...is a statement you understand if you live in the Rocky Mountain West.  Yesterday morning I sprung from my sleep 3 minutes to 7:00 am and realized that all our beautiful spring plants were coated in a heavy white blanket of snow and the sprinklers were about to add a coat of ice.  The weather reports leading up to this Memorial Day weekend warned of winter weather advisories but I can't help but wonder how many Rocky Mountain natives are sitting in lawn chairs in T-shirts commenting on how warm it feels while in reality are nearing hypothermic levels.  They no doubt packed up their camping gear (and snow tires and chains) and left for the mountains at the crack of dawn uttering phrases like, "I'm from Montana.  When I go camping I'm all in." Or, "32 degrees, pfffft....can't forget my swimsuit."  Or, "Someone bring me a cold beer.  It's in that snowdrift outside of the tent."

The forwards tend to circulate the internet about "You know you're from (insert notorious state here) if..." and they're always good for a chuckle.  Here are a few more to add to the lore:

You Know You're From The Rocky Mountain West When...

1. You have chili on Memorial Day.
2. You scrape the snow off the grill to have steaks the day before Memorial Day.
3. Your laundry has shorts, fleece pants, tank tops and ski gloves all in the same week's load.
4. You can't mow the lawn this week because it snowed last night.
5. You got to enjoy the flowers from your apple trees for one day before the wind knocked them all into the yard.
6. Your garden is enclosed in various forms of supports, pulley systems, PVC pipe apparatuses, blankets, old bed sheets and heat lamps so you can actually grow a few veggies between the frosts.
7. You pick plants based on how weather resistant they are instead of how nice they are to look at (or in the case of my parents, you pick them based on which ones the deer won't eat).
8. Your kid's diaper bag has: sunscreen, sunhat, shorts, 6 blankets (all various weights), a fleece vest, a winter coat, a jacket, a pair of mittens, socks, a rain slicker and no room for a diaper.

 Yeah...so it's been done before but this week made me laugh.  Especially since it's supposed to be in the low 30's tonight and 75 by Thursday.

Pruning Trees

This weekend Sean and I decided to prune the lilacs.  When we moved into our house almost 3 years ago we were thrilled to finally have grass (not the decorative rocks that covered every inch of our old yard), shade trees (not little twigs reluctantly peeking over the tops of cut up coffee tins, cursing us for planting them in the hateful climate of Laramie, Wyoming) and lilacs (Sean's all-time most prized tree). Because we loved our greenery we have been very cautious about cutting or thinning it...and what is left is a lot of overgrown foliage.  So armed with a hand saw (obviously Sean) and some awesome tree pruners (obviously me) we got to work.  The first couple of branches stung the heart just a little especially when I saw the branches hit the ground, purple flowers breaking off in protest.  Ugh!  Why are we doing this?  But then I looked up and noticed that I could see a peek of blue sky in the upper branches and I felt a little better.  Still frowning a bit I set to work on the lower branches.  As I squeezed the handles of the pruners I felt a little guilty at how much I liked the feel of the branch snipping loose.  I felt like a total jerk.  Poor tree!  All that hard work growing that branch and I just swoop in and kill it.  But, guilty pleasures are hard to resist and soon I was snipping and thrashing that tree into a pruned delight.  I stepped back to admire my work and I realized that not only was I smiling, Sean and I had held a conversation.  About us and things that interest us.  Not about work.  Not about the baby (love you Evan!).  Not about the cat that despite $300 in vet bills is still peeing where she's not supposed to.  A conversation and a project that was about us.  It hit me like a ton of bricks when I found myself saying to Sean, "I feel a bit like an overgrown lilac tree lately."  I tried to pull the words back but alas! they were gone.  Great.  Now I had to explain myself.  Well...I feel like I've been going and going and going, producing lots of branches but they're all fighting each other for space.  I didn't really realize that I couldn't see the sky until right now.  Well...no, I don't want to cut any of them down because they all have something to offer and I'm not sure which branch is the most important one yet so I want them to just be there when I need them.  Yes, I know that many of those branches can't bloom because they're too packed in.  Yeah...I know that a healthy tree doesn't have spindly branches, no flowers and a ton of suckers growing at the base.  Yeah...you're right...it would be better to pick a few branches and focus on flowers.

I guess it's hard when you're a busy little lilac tree shouldering the weight of the new owners who finally have trees instead of rocks.  People are so glad to see green leaves and new branches that they really don't step back and realize they can't see the sky.  The lilac keeps plugging along, because that's what lilacs do, but healthy growth requires more than growth in all directions.  Sometimes you have to prune your losses and lose a couple of flowers for the sake of a tree that's worth looking at.

...Not Very Big Is He?

People are mean.  I don't think they want to be mean, they just don't always think.  I remember reading all the stories from other moms about the idiotic things people have said to them or the unsolicited advice that came their way and I thought..."oh, whatever...ignore it and move on".  But then it happened to me.  Yesterday while at the grocery store I was happily picking up butternut squash, sweet potatoes, avocados and peas and someone peeks at Evan and asks how old he is.  I proudly say "Almost 7 months!" and this broad retorts, "Oh, not very big is he?".  I awkwardly trip over a slew of words that against my will pour out of my mouth..."He's tall though!  He's in the 50th percentile! He loves his solids!" Then, red-faced and confused about what just happened, I steer my puny, pale, embarrassment of a 7 month old toward his father.  What just happened?!  Why did I share the details of my perfectly normal baby with this perfect stranger?  Why did I feel the need to defend his size (which by the way is perfectly average) to this woman?  I totally panicked, but not next time (and you know there will be a next time).  The next time I'll be ready for the jerk comments with some equally matched jerk returns.  Here are a few of my favorites:

"Yeah, he's small because he's undernourished.  We don't like to feed him."
"Yeah, face punch for you."
"Yeah, must be nice to be skinny, huh?  Huh? (And then I jokingly jab her muffin top and pinch her back fat).

Evan is totally normal.  He truly is in the 50th percentile for weight and the 75th for height.  He eats things like acorn squash, peas with mint, applesauce with cinnamon and avocado.  Sean makes all of his food and Evan gobbles it down like a champ.  Is he small?...Well, statically speaking he's smaller than 50 percent of other babies his age which by my account makes him average.  I guess he's not very big and I'm OK with that.

...And That's Why We Went To Mexico.

As my sister-in-law Erica's wedding gets closer and Sean and I hear more wedding planning horrors...er...stories we find ourselves ending most conversations with "and that's why we went to Mexico."  In a few days Sean and I will celebrate our 3rd anniversary which is always a fun time for us.  We love to think back to the warm sandy beaches, the one-stop shopping for the entire wedding package through the hotel's wedding coordinator, the beautiful flowers, and the crystal clear water.  There was also the pouring rain, the wrinkled dress, the intestinal distress and the suspected sand fleas...but hey, that's why we went to Mexico.  Happy soon to be 3rd Anniversary Peeps! (And thanks to all who were there with us enjoying that awesome day!

Me Time

My good friend Sarah just responded to an email that I wrote a few weeks ago where I told her that I was going to start a blog on May 1st as a present to myself to encourage more "me time".  Since I don't have time for a blog (note that the date is not May 1st) I think it's clear that this idea has no chance of failing whatsoever.  My main goal right now is to publish this so I feel like I did something.  I don't know what I'm doing.  Sean just told me that I should really use a different program to make better use of this blog that I just spent 30 minutes setting up and don't understand.  So, this is me doing something for me by talking about me to you.