I’m already losing track of how many nights it’s been since the boys have gone down without bottles. Either four or five. Big boy beds, no bottles, sleeping through the night… I thought it would never happen and then it happened way too fast. Is it wrong to be secretly relieved that sometimes they fall out of bed in the middle of the night and want me to hold them?
I love them so much that sometimes it’s physically painful. It’s like getting punched in the gut, but inexplicably you like it.
Every week or two, I revisit childhood journals for hilariously awkward and occasionally mortifying stories. In this entry, I recap a a neighborhood barbecue and revise my summer to-do list (pictured).I’ve typed it exactly as written, except for replacing identifiable names with initials in searchable text.
Tuesday, June 20, 1995 (6:53 p.m.)
“Celebrate Good Times!
Come on!”I’m having a great summer, so far. On Sat.17, I went to the Gilmore’s house. JH was there. Remember him? We went out in 5th grade.
Anyway, we played volleyball, talked and sa shared an ancient bench we thought would collapse any second, and sat nexto to each other on the Gilmore’s patio.During volleyball, I kept hitting the ball into a bush that was right next to the volleyball court.
“The bush isn’t playing, Kristen,” he kept telling me.
In the 2nd game, every time I did something good he’d exclaim, “Score 1 (or 2, or 3, etc.) for the cheerleader!” Continue reading
My journal from November 7, 1995.
From time to time, I like to revisit childhood journals for hilariously awkward and occasionally mortifying stories. Here’s my rumination on what may or may not have been a crush on a long-time friend (who, incidentally, is still in my life – along with his delightful wife and three hilarious young daughters). I’ve typed it exactly as written, except for replacing full names with initials in searchable text.
Tuesday, Nov 7, 1995 (7:44 p.m.)
I don’t think I really like MA anymore. Maybe my prolonged crush was just a wierd habit. Sure, MA is gorgeous, but he doesn’t know I even exist. I don’t really care anymore. I’m going to concentrate my interests on someone a bit more responsive, someone breathing; someone who likes me back; someone like AG, maybe.
We are constantly flirting with each other, especially in GT. DD, TY, and DB think we like each other. CH and JT think we like each other, too. I think we like each other. I don’t know……… Do I like him? Does he like me? Do we like each other? Continue reading
This post WAS supposed to be sponsored by Grammarly, but they failed to deliver on their promise of compensation, so their sponsorship credit has been removed. Should they decide to keep their promise after all, I will reinstate it. However, based on this unfortunate situation, I can no longer recommend them. I sincerely hope that’s temporary. Grammarly did eventually sponsor this post and make good on their promise.
This myth is near and dear to my heart, mostly because I believed it until fairly recently. If you’ve followed the blog for any length of time, you know I have twin toddlers, a full-time job, and a variety of part-time jobs and projects all vying for my time. Oh, and a husband. And two dogs. Can’t forget them.
Point is, I’ve got a lot going on. And despite the fact that writing is who I am and as important to me as breathing, I’ve let it slide since the kids came along, and I’ve used them as an excuse.
There. I said it. I used my kids as an excuse. I did it because I was scared. I did it because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be good anymore, that after I became a mom I wouldn’t have anything important to say that didn’t involve my children (who are remarkably adorable) or their bodily functions (which are remarkably gross). I did it because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be taken seriously as a mommyblogger.
Most of all, I did it because I felt like it was time to put on a new identity — someone’s MOM — and I didn’t know how the old me fit into that.
Well, I figured it out: The “new me” suffered greatly as a result of ignoring that voice inside that told me to WRITE IT DOWN. Over the last several years, without taking time to reconnect with myself and my thoughts and my goals and my reactions, I stopped dreaming. I lost touch with what makes me happy, what exhilarates me. I became clumsier and clumsier at expressing myself. My thinking and dreaming and speaking and writing and finding joy and LIVING are all tied together.
I’ve had time. I didn’t use the time, because I didn’t think it was important enough. I was wrong. Continue reading
When we moved to Florida in December of last year, we took a month to get settled and then we became organized, meal-planning beasts. I’m not sure when it all fell apart, but we haven’t had a formal meal plan in month and our grocery bill has gone up, up, up as a result. Despite the fact that Jesse has two Herbalife shakes a day for meals and I have at least one, which a saves us a TON of money on those meals. Despite that we are STILL spending way too much on food because we’ve gotten lazy about it. Continue reading