And then I became a Mommy

Posted on January 2, 2012 by measamommy

Ever since Mason could talk he’s been calling A and I Mama and Dada. We have always been fine with it, but we also have always preferred Mommy and Daddy. From day one, that’s what we called each other, and so I pretty much expected Mason to do the same. But he didn’t. Because he’s a kid, and kids (or maybe just mine?) have one sole purpose in life and it’s to make liars out of their parents. Anyway, no matter what, Mason would not say Mommy or Daddy. We play a game lately – which is super fun for me and A – where we ask Audrey if she can say ________________ (fill in the blank with any random phrase), and then Mason, who thinks he’s absolutely hilarious, will parrot it back to us. Even playing this game, and asking ~~him~~ Audrey to say I love you Mommy resulted in an “I love you Mama”

And then 3 days ago he randomly walked up to me and said “Juice me Mommy.” It was the first time I had ever heard him say Mommy and I thought for sure it was a fluke…. but it wasn’t!! Mama still comes out sometimes, but probably 90% of the time I’m a Mommy now!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAY!!! A just started getting called Daddy today too, so hopefully both will stick!

Want to know the best part? I know EXACTLY who got him saying Mommy… and it wasn’t either of his parents. No, I owe it all to Ilana’s children. Ilana, one of the owners of AppleCheeks, is in Charleston visiting me and Katie this week (and I guess they are visiting the town too….), and all three of her gorgeous girls call her “mummy.” Well after just a few hours with them, Mason was completely infatuated with them… and apparently picked up the proper way to address me

Posted in awesome friends, toddlers | 2 Comments

12 Pictures from 2011

Posted on December 31, 2011 by measamommy

The last 2 years, I’ve posted a picture from each month sometime around the end of the year. I figure it’s a pretty fun tradition, and realized today that it was time to do this year’s! So, here ya go! Happy New Year!!

January

February: Audrey is born!

March: We went to the beach to find Mom Rom and Pop Pop's Beach house

April

May: Audrey and I visit some bloggy friends

June: Mom Rom and Pop Pop move into their beach house and we start our visits

July: Mason Turns 2 at Sesame Place

August: The family explores Charleston, our new hometown

September

October

November: Her first Thanksgiving

December

Posted in cutest kid | 1 Comment

Christmas Recap

Posted on December 28, 2011 by measamommy

Ok, so I know it’s been ages since my last post. But this one is going to be short. Sorry. It’s been a whirlwind of activity here. Like crazy activity. We went up to Baltimore and stayed with my parents for Christmas, then drove back down the past two days. It wasn’t nearly as awful as I expected it to be, but it wasn’t exactly fun either (especially getting stuck on 95 for what felt like forever in Virginia). Anyway, I’ll update with stories later, but here’s a bunch of pictures from my time away And make sure you check out my Instagram feed (you can see a few of my recent pictures in the right sidebar) for even more pictures if this doesn’t give you enough of a fix!

Ok, so he's got a plane on her head. But at least they are both in the picture and not screaming.

He got to open one present on Christmas Eve!

After some presents, he needed some downtime. He went upstairs by himself and just sat coloring.

Audrey needed some downtime too. Lucky for her, a very comfy great grandma was just waiting to hold her.

Christmas Evening, Mom Rom and Pop Pop pulled out one last present for Mason, a plama car! COOLEST TOY EVER

Mason and Pop Pop played a game for about an hour - Pop Pop was the choo choo, and Mason would get his "luggage" and helmet for each and every ride.

I know it's not the best shot, but check out those smiles! Audrey loves riding the Plasma Car too!

Posted in babywearing, cutest kid, family fun, holidays | Leave a comment

The Playground

Posted on December 16, 2011 by measamommy

Yesterday, A and I took the kids to the playground in our neighborhood. It was a gorgeous day and I ended up getting some gorgeous smiles. I’m not sure who in the family had the most fun. You be the judge!

Posted in cutest kid, family fun, relaxation, sweet husband | 4 Comments

Decorate it forward with Kmart!

Posted on December 16, 2011 by measamommy

Remember a couple weeks ago when I showed you all the awesome outdoor decorations I got from Kmart for our house? Well, Kmart made the deal super sweet by sending me a holiday trim kit so I could “decorate it forward”. I had to pick one of my neighbors and decorate for them! It was so much fun, and really got Mason and I into the Christmas spirit (Audrey and A stayed home). We chose a family a little down the street from us – Dawn, Wally, and their daughter Laura. These guys have done an amazing job of welcoming us to the neighborhood, but more importantly – they introduced us to a local(ish) church, and so I felt like helping them decorate for Christmas might repay the favor… at least a little bit! We were sent a “trim kit” in Midnight Clear. When I heard about this project, I fully expected to get about 10 ornaments and be done. What showed up at my door was enough decorations for an entire tree… and then some!! So we headed over to the neighbors and got our decorating on

Here’s the before shot of the tree:

And then we got decorating!

The Midnight Clear set is really gorgeous. There were so many pretty decorations!

We had a really great time decorating the tree. Dawn made us some yummy cinnamon rolls to say thank you, and Mason always loves hanging out with “Dawn and Laulau”. I was really happy with the way the finished tree looked. Laura told me blue is her favorite color, so I (unknowingly) picked the perfect theme!

And, just because I love it, here’s one more photo… of me and my helpers!

This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. #CBias

Posted in awesome friends, cutest kid, holidays | 3 Comments

Poopie Post

Posted on December 14, 2011 by measamommy

Yep, this post is about poop.

Mason is potty trained. It’s fantastic. He tells us when he has to go, and waits until we are at a toilet to go. I don’t remember the last time we had an accident. (actually I do, but I don’t count that one because he was outside, dug a hole in the ground, peed in it and told me “pee like liberty dog mama!”) The only problem we are still left with is false alarms. Which believe me, I’m not complaining!! Ok, maybe I am complaining – but I’ll take false alarms over a non-potty trained kid ANYDAY.

Mason does not understand the difference between a poop and a fart. Whenever he has to fart he tells me he needs to go potty (or more specifically “do caca mama!”). We go to the potty and the second his little butt hits the seat he farts then tells me he’s done. Usually, after one of these false alarms, we’ll have a series of 3-4 more of the same drill. I don’t know what to do. After the first, I know he doesn’t actually have to poop. I know it’s just a trip to the bathroom so he can fart. 98% of me says just get over it and go to the bathroom… but I also feel like there must be some way to teach him the difference!!

Has anyone else been through this? Tips? Tricks? Or do I just wait it out??

Posted in toddlers | 4 Comments

Happy Holidays!

Posted on December 12, 2011 by measamommy

So A and I have this thing. Ok, so it’s not really a “thing” so much as something we’ve done the last couple years that we plan to make our “thing”. Whatever. When our friends and family open up our Christmas card, we want to make them laugh. It doesn’t really matter if they are laughing at us or with us, but we want them to laugh. Actually, that’s kinda our thing in general. When we moved down to South Carolina, our change of address card had a family picture of us in full confederate soldier/southern belle attire (courtesy of old time photo at the beach!). It made people laugh and we’re pretty sure it made them hold onto our change of address card at least long enough to write down the new address since we’ve only been asked for our new address a couple times and have gotten quite a few cards mailed to us this season

This year, we were having a hard time coming up with something to do. We didn’t know how to one-up the matching tracksuits we all wore without just going totally overboard (some might say we DID go totally overboard). For some reason I remembered how funny A and I think the pictures on the site manbabies are…. and an idea was born. We took pictures, and then with a little editing we ended up with our family photo, which I had printed out on some really nice cards from Pear Tree Greetings. We sent them out and have gotten SOOOO many remarks on them.

Then I heard about The Paper Mama’s challenge. And I have to say – I think I deserve to win She’s looking for the funniest holiday photo this year. Ready to see my entry?? It’s not the exact card we sent out… but it IS the photo with just a couple words added in

Merry Christmas. Or…. whatever you celebrate, I hope it’s fantastic!

Posted in crafty mommy, cutest kid, holidays, OMGWTF | 4 Comments

Gettin’ Big!

Posted on December 10, 2011 by measamommy

Well, Audrey is officially 10 months old!! I can’t even believe it. Time is flying. 2 months and she’ll be one!! She is a super fast crawler, and has learned to stand up… unfortunately, once she’s up she is stuck. She hasn’t figured out how to gracefully get back down, so she stands there holding onto whatever she pulled up on for dear life and screaming. It’s both funny and sad, and A and I only feel a little guilty when we laugh at her. She eats anything and everything she can get her hands on, and is far too busy to nurse on a regular basis – so it’s good she’s so willing to eat real food. I need to get A to take a picture of her favorite position for nursing. Unless she’s dead tired (or starving to death) she likes to have me lay on my back and she will crawl up to my side and lunge at my chest. She takes a few sips and then spends some time playing with my face or other things around her and crawling around before going in for some more milk. Repeat that times about 100 and she’s almost gotten a full meal. It’s a pain, but it’s the only way she’ll eat – otherwise she arches her back and screams at me until I let her back down to explore. A and I are trying to place bets on if she will walk before or after Mason did. She is certainly headed in the right direction, but Mason had been cruising for MONTHS already and she isn’t doing that at all, so we shall see!! She says “mom” and “dada” and can make a few other sounds. She is still happy and cheerful about 98% of the time and still doesn’t sleep through the night. Here’s her 10 month pictures – which are getting extra hard to take since she is so mobile and quick to leave the scene!

Posted in cutest kid, Gorgeous Tortoise | 1 Comment

$$$$$$ Want some cash? $$$$$$

Posted on December 8, 2011 by measamommy

It’s the holiday season, and if you’re anything like me every year that means you’re wishing you had just a little (or a lot!) more cash to play with and buy gifts. Well, here’s just what you’ve been wishing for! I’ve paired up with some great bloggers to offer not one, but 2 cash giveaways. You can enter one, you can enter both, or you can enter none (but that’s just silly!). Winners will be announced on the 23rd and will get paypal sent directly to them! So enter below, and then head on over to Little BGCG to enter the second giveaway!

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He’s in the closet

Posted on December 6, 2011 by measamommy

Oh, he’s in the closet.

That’s been my response for the past 3 weeks when people ask me where A is. “he’s in the closet.” It’s not what you think… I promise.

For three weeks, A had to work overnight. It’s why he was always home during the day and got to go on so many daytrips with us… like Cypress Gardens, and fishing, and of course putt putt. But what that also meant was that at some point during the day, A had to sleep… and so, he slept in the closet. In Mason’s closet to be exact. Mason’s closet is the most secluded area of our house, it’s big enough for a grown man to lay down in, and there’s only one window (which we covered with a blanket) so it can be relatively dark. A slept in the closet for 3 weeks straight and you know what? It wasn’t all that bad.

A is back on dayshift now and both of us are wondering if it wouldn’t be better for our family if he permanently switched to nights. We BOTH were getting better sleep. He would get up to 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep, and I could get as much interrupted sleep as I wanted. My sleep is always interrupted since Audrey doesn’t sleep through the night, but at least with him working overnight I could send the kids out of the room in the morning with A and sleep in as late as I wanted. We also liked that A got to spend more time with the kids. He got himself onto a schedule where he’d wake up just before going into work, and then would spend the morning and early afternoon with us before going to sleep. The only real “event” he missed was dinnertime… but he was always there for both breakfast and lunch! We also realized that A and I were able to spend more time together. On nights where he had off (he stayed on the schedule to make it easier on himself) I would stay up late to hang out with him knowing I could sleep in in the morning. We’d watch movies, talk, clean the house… you know, do all those things married people do BEFORE they have kids. We even got to go out on a date! Katie came over after the kids were in bed and hung out on our couch while A and I went out for a couple drinks one night. It was awesome. A did say it was a little strange to be drinking a beer as the first thing he did after waking up… even though it was 9pm, but hey… it was still fun

So now we are wondering. Would him working overnight really be a sacrifice?? There are some drawbacks… the biggest one, in my opinion, being that he has to sleep on the floor in Mason’s closet, but there are also some major perks! A says the only drawback in his eyes is that the two of us wouldn’t sleep in the same bed at the same time… pretty much ever. But for a cleaner house, more time together, and more quality time with the kids… is it worth it? What do you think? What kind of sacrifices do you make for your family??