Slurpees can't fix everything, but they sure can help

Today sucked. I don't have a reason why, other than it just did. After a very busy summer, today I had very little to do. This made my day drag by. Plus my patience and focus in general is not top notch on Thursday's. Little Pajama has been excessively whinny after about a month of being really, pretty good other than whining when its really obvious whats up (tired, hungry etc).

Today sucked because of all those little things that are elusive. The things that are at the tip of your tounge and you can't quite get your brain to realize. We've been busy, like REALLY busy lately. On top of planning a wedding, and coaching soccer, and working full time, little Pajama started kindergarten, which is great, and he seems to be doing really there. We run into his friends at the grocery store, and he'd already been to a birthday party.

This meant you know, another change. An adjustment to routine and schedule which, honestly I'm starting to wonder who that throws off more, me or him. Then that routine sometimes gets in further changed, since he doesnt have before/after school care at the school yet he still spends time with his grandmother during this part of the day. Today that routine got changed the last minute and rather than them being at our home as I had planned, they were at Grandmas, which taking a 5 year old away from his grandparents house is like pulling gum off the bottom of the shoe, you try and try and eventually end up throwing the shoe in the freezer, or in my case making your kid cry.

I've been exhausted (more on this in a minute) combined with everything else this exhaustion just overwhelmed me, As he sat in the back seat crying his crocodile tears, I tried to explain why I was upset, and started crying myself. I asked him if a Slurpee would help knowing there was a 7 Eleven just up the street and he said yes. So I said fuck it and I got us Slurpee's and you know what, we both feel better because of it. It was nice to do something small and simple just us, to help boost both of our moods, and it cost less than 5 bucks. (We got sour straws sooo ya know)

As a mom I am of course not a stranger to exhaustion. But the last few weeks I realized I hadnt been taking my iron supplement for well.. probably more than a year. I have historically low iron, which can lead to serious exhaustion. Were trying to be healthy so there is also just not a lot of red meat in my diet. I realized I needed to start taking my supplement again. Self care is unfortunately one of those things that mom's forget so easily. I know that I do anyways. I dont take as much time to linger in a hot shower, sip a cup of tea or read my book as I should, or hey put my own silent rant out into the blog-overse to be heard (because lets face it, this is less blog and more continuous mom rant) Which ranting is healthy at least to me.

I know I have a lot more to say about all of this probably, but I am going to go stir some soup, and take another slurpee slurp instead of continuing my rambling. Thanks guys. I just had to put it out there.

Lies Whines and More Lies

Being a Mom is hard. I can not stress this enough. Nor can I stress how much I love it enough either. These things make it exhausting as all get out however as well. Its been a while since I posted, and it had been a while since the post before that one too...

So if you don't know, I'm not only being Mom, and a full time employee, I'm also planning a wedding now. None of these things are all that easy on their own let alone combined. Inbetween the bigger conundrums like "Do I want to have a different last name than my child?" (No.) There are slightly smaller conundrums likes "Does this wedding invitation come in silver?" (UGH to many options out there!) Needless to say I'm exhausted, so is Daddy Pajamas so is Little Pajamas.

On top of all that crazy we have kindergarten starting in about a month. HOLY CRAP HOW DID THAT HAPPEN??? I'm so excited for him, but I'm also terrified of the wrath of a child who goes to school 6 hours a day 5 days a week. He is cranky. Part of his cranky I know is absorbed from my cranky. (My middle name should seriously be Cranky Pants I don't know how they put up with me.) He also is probably slightly starved for attention right now, as many of my evenings are spent on Etsy looking at wedding stuff, or pintrest getting ideas. (Have you ever been caught in a pintrest vortex its intense!) Whining is at an all time maximum right now and Daddy Pajamas and I are getting really tired of it.

We will hit strides like yay he's not whining this week. Then the next week he's whining about something else. A lot of it I'm sure is him testing him limits starting to find out what we will, and will not let him get away with. It's exhausting, but we are handling the whining.

The last few weeks a new, rather unpleasant phase has popped up. One that was unexpected and I'm trying so hard to be patient and understanding but its lying. Every other thing he says is a lie, a blatant of course that's not true lie. We've explained lying and why this isn't ok, they've gotten minorly better since then, Were sticking with it and doing our best to stay calm make sure he understands that we know hes not being honest without making him be in trouble. "Its a phase Its a phase Its a phase" (Hopefully I will be able to retire this mantra someday!)
We do know that this is normal phase and that before know it like so many other phases it will pass. If you have any tips for dealing with it I'd be happy to have them,

Hopefully all of the behavior issues we've faced since January, will start to calm down once we get through the wedding. I'm trying and I know that's the important thing, and as long as I'm trying I guess I will just accept that I am going to exist on coffee for the next 6 months. I do love him and I know its not easy on him. I will continue to remind myself of this, but in the mean time if he ran out of tears, my feelings wouldn't be hurt.

Saturday Morning Muffins

Saturday's are supposed to be the best day of the week. Relaxing, no work and all of that jazz. It rarely works that way however. I signed up to coach little Pajamas soccer team this spring. Its been fun and its a good way of keeping me at least a little more active, and its always a good idea to be involved in our children s lives. This means putting in more time and more effort, but its been worth it so far. Its not a that much more of a time commitment as we would be at practices and games whether I was coaching or not.

We've been rather unlucky the last couple of weeks. (I like early games, the kids always have seemed more focus at that time of day than the afternoon games.) Our games have been really late in the afternoon the last few weeks and this week is afternoon but not quite so late so that's something at least. 

Its late enough though that I was a little more capable of seizing the morning with little pajama however. Which is so much more important now that Daddy Pajama and I are busy planning a wedding too, (more on those adventures to come!) The real point I was trying to make is the importance of seizing the little moments. In the years to come little pajama wont remember the morning we spent last week running errands before his game, but maybe just maybe he will remember in the years to come the morning we hunted down a recipe for raspberry muffins and he helped me measure and pour the ingredients into the bowl of the kitchen aid. Or he'll have a bite of a muffin with a lemon glaze like we put on these ones and remember that after insisting he wanted a sour glaze not creamy he made me get him a muffin that didn't have any on it. He's a goof like that, but then again I suppose most 5 year old's are. 

The muffins came out fluffy and tasty just a little bit tart. They were perfect, not because they actually are a perfect muffin but because I got to make a memory with my son, and there will never be enough moments like that. Seize them when they present themselves, because I know come Tuesday when I am trying to make dinner, fit in a work out and have been at work since 8 am, I will be glad I had a good time on Saturday morning, just being us. 

Heres a cute picture from a few weeks back when he helped me make dinner. He insisted he needed an apron as well. Too stinking cute!

Its a gorgeous Saturday, time to get a move on! 

The case for vaccination

If you're children are fully vaccinated to what is allowed for their age and level of health. Thank you, you are doing a good job. If you child is not, well THIS POST IS FOR YOU! Feel like a winner? You shouldn't. I'm about to tell what is what.

Measles, wow what a scary horrific illness that can affect so many people. Especially children, well infants. It shouldn't be affecting children, because they really should be vaccinated against this, and whole host of other really nasty shit. The easiest choice to ever make regarding my child, was to vaccinate him, this might have even have been easier than the choice to breastfeed. For me both were no brainers.

If you are not getting your child vaccinated here is why you suck. Disney Land! Happiest place on earth right? Yea its great, now imagine you have gone to Disney Land, where your in close proximity to people, people from all over the world. Measles cases in America were basically non existent. Not any more. I saw headline today about more out breaks being reported in Illinois. I will not lie, I did not read the article. My blood was to boiled to read the article.

Have you seen the new story about the little boy in Marin County California who has been battling Lukemia, guess what, his immune system inst strong enough so he hasn't been able to get vaccinated yet, he is at a HUGE risk. Guess who else is at a huge risk? Every baby under the age of 18 months (I believe is when children get their first dose of the measles vaccination. These children who can not be vaccinated, largely rely on HERD IMMUNITY, these children who cant be vaccinated rely on children and parents who can vaccinate their children to do so. Guess what if you haven't vaccinated your child, and you hear about a kid near by who got an illness they shouldn't have to deal with, you are guilty.

If you do not vaccinate your children, you are selfish. Horribly terribly selfish. I minor irritation, or a few hours of flu like symptoms are COMPLETELY worth the knowledge that your child is protected against horrors FAR worse than those. Guess what vaccinations don't cause autism. The doctor who made up those lies has severely harmed the children in this country along with Jenny McCarthy and her spewing lies. (On a side note I can understand a parent wanting to blame something medical for thier child having to have a harder life, but a vaccination is NOT what caused this!) America has disappointed me once again. Are we so caught up in following other people that we don't listen to the health professionals we trust with the health of our children. BY all means if your child's doctor has real concerns and reasons about why your child should not be vaccinated, then you should not vaccinate your children.

Did you know that before the small pox vaccination was created there were mothers, so terrified of their children getting sick and dying they got themselves sick to be able to pass along lesser strains to their children in hopes of being able to protect them? Can you imagine? I am so grateful for those mothers, and I would never want to disappoint a mom who clearly understood what needed to be done enough to risk her own life by not using the modern medicine.

If you want more info on the subject, I highly recommend listening to the Sawbones episode about vaccinations. http://maximumfun.org/shows/sawbones?page=2
Then go find the one they did recently about Measles as well.


Here's another thing, starting at age 13 you can now for the very first time, protect your children from some types of cancer. Its only three shots and could save their lives. How cool is that??

And Happy New Year!

I started to write a post earlier this year, a few weeks ago to be exact. I've told myself day after day to go back and finish that post. The time has simply passed; that post would now register highly on the irrelevant side.

But before we find ourselves a midst the second month of 2015 I will take a few minutes to say Happy New Year! To say that the last few months have been busy would be a little bit of an understatement. And while January has calmed considerably, my energy has still been getting replenished.

I don't necessarily have a lot to talk about in this particular post, so I'll apologize right now for the high chance of rambly-good-ness.

To begin a bit of reflection on last year. It was a big year! With a lot of changes. Little PJ turned four, approved of a Daddy, and we all moved into together. He lost his Mom for 42.5 hours a week to the work force. He's had to adjust to so much, and I couldn't be prouder of him. Honestly I'm proud of all of us, however I miss him, and quite frankly I miss working from home, in my jammies. I am however quite fond of getting the bills paid. And work really isnt all that bad. I got a new job, Daddy Pajamas got a new job. All of that is what has made all of this possible for our little PJ. A home together. It hasn't all been easy but we're mostly doing really well.

With all of the big things that occurred last year, its strange to think of all of the things that will be changing this year. PJ will be turning 5! 5! September means he will be starting kindergarten. We are going to yellow stone in August, and in just a mere 3 weeks. I will be taking my first full week off of work. Its pretty crazy to see how the changes that have occurred previously all lead to the changes and the good things that could be coming in this year. There is likely some other pretty big pretty serious changes that will be coming, but I'll keep those myself until they are set in stone.

This year is going to be a good year, and I am so excited to see the changes that are made and embrace them and face them with the understanding that nearly everything that is challenging comes out better in the end. I'm impatient about the things I am uncertain about, but at the same time patient knowing that the more I rush into adulthood and further responsibility the tougher things will be.
However patience is difficult. This is the issue with the phenomenon known as the quarter life crisis. I have this incesint need to feel as though my life is moving forward. I know I'm not alone in this but when things "stand still" for too long, I become apprehensive always waiting for the other shoe to drop. There must always be big new exciting thing on the horizon something to look forward to and hope the world is continuing to move forward. There is a lot of good coming this year, but none of it is big in a life changing way. I suppose for now I will just have to be patient, and wait. Life will continue to move forward even if it is mostly only in small ways.