Bar Star

Many years ago but it feels like yesterday, I was a bar star. 

Dancing and drinking with a bunch of friends was my preferred way to spend the weekend.  My girlfriends and I would spend a couple hours pre-drinking and getting ready.  I miss having hours to devote to making myself look amazing.

Tonight Mike and I are going to see Nelly.  Ww both love  Nelly because he was  popular when we were (seperately) travelling in Europe.

It was fun and stressful getting ready wirh the girls.  Ally and Zoe both love when I  put make up on and we have fun with it. I missed having an objective and knowledgeable opinion today.  Ally thinks I look beautiful just by putting makeup on; which is wonderful  but not helpful when you are wondering if you look like a clown.

Postpartum Craziness

I have been doing some reading on hormonal fluctuations in the postpartum period.  There isn't much information (at least from my brief looking around) but what fascinates me is that even if you don't have your cycle back there are major fluctuations.  You may be saying, "Dah!"  But I didn't know.  I was honestly surprised and then I realized that is definitely explains many of the goings on around here.  And add to the mix sleep deprivation.

I honestly will have days where I hate my kids, husband, and myself.  I am in tears and I feel like I can not handle anything and I just want to lay in bed. 

Then the next day I will be perfectly fine and feeling great.  I am productive and able to play with my kids and manage the business.

So weird...

My poor husband.

Today is a great day, thankfully!

Crying it Out - does it really work in the long run?

As some may know we have had ongoing sleep battles with my almost 4 year old (eeekkk!  4!)  For quite some time.  The really bad fights started almost a year ago when she moved out of her crib to her bed.

Yes, our daughter slept in her crib until she was 3 and I highly recommend it....(even though as you read on you will find out that I have no idea what I am doing.)

She slept well for about a month and then the craziness hit and it really hasn't stopped.  There has been much crying and fighting.  Mike and I have done everything.  We have put up gates, child locks, bought cd players, rubbed lavender on her feet, laid with her, sang, read, spanked, ignored, not spoken, yelled, continuously put her back in her room like Super Nanny...and on...and on....

I feel like I have read every single book on sleep or at least the popular ones.  They all say the same thing eventually consistency, schedules, sleep logs and crying.

As I get ready to sleep train Georgia, I am really beginning to wonder if all this sleep training is just some buzz word that Dr. Ferber came up with.  Is sleeping through the night actually achievable for any child? 

I have never been too concerned about the number of wake ups my babies have until they are about one.  Then my exhaustion sets and and well...truthfully I end up pregnant too.  Maybe my expectations are too high?

I do think a regular schedule is very important and we do our best to promote good healthy sleep.  I am a firm believer that sleep is crucial to growth and development.  I love sleep, personally.

As I type, Mike has just taken Ally after her second wake up of the night (and it is only 11pm) to bed.  Yep, we are sleeping with our child.   For the past two weeks Mike has taken Ally downstairs at his bed time and they sleep for the rest of the night.  At first it was because the fight had started to happen through out the night too and we decided that sleeping was more important then the where.

Now I sit here perplexed because we had a tough night with Zoe (yes it could be the blasted time change too) and it seems that getting Georgia to sleep is also a fight.  I just feel like we are doing something wrong.  I admit that I have a very hard time letting my children cry it out but I have found that it works...or at least in the beginning.

Basically I sleep with my babies until they are about 6-7 months.  The rule I had was that you could sleep with me as long as you sleep.  Around 6 months each girl starts to be distracted by and want to nurse all of the time and not un-latch until morning.  I  can't do that for long before it drives me nuts and fighting to get my nipple away from an insistent baby is hard when you sleep together.  So we do cry it out and move then to their own bed and room.  Things seem to go really well.  Until they are older...

Yawn.... 

Why is it so hard?  Why is there so many tears and heart ache?  Why is sleep something you have to teach?

Lists, Schedules and Routines

I am fascinated by organized people.  I want to be someone who is organized and maybe someone who has a clean house.  Since cleaning out my closet last week and re-organizing a few cupboards.  I have started reading more and more organizing blogs.

The pictures are so beautiful and neat.  I love all the neat baskets and clean spaces.  I have always enjoyed clutter and feel that it is also a part of who I am.  But now I am wondering if that is really true?  Could I be one of those people who has a spot for everything? 

As I am typing and thinking about what I want my house and life to be like.  The clutter doesn't really bother me but it what is bothersome is that it doesn't just stop at too many nicknacks.  I can handle nicknacks, but what bugs me and eventually overwhelms me is the amount of stuff that just becomes a huge mess. 

Mess is what overwhems me and weighs me down.  It also exhausts me and I get to the point where having people over is stressful and I don't invite people over.  I love having people over and it is a shame that I let a messy house take that away.

I am going to try and follow the steps on I'm an Organizing Junkie each week and from reading Shannon's blog and a few others....I am going to attempt to set up a House book.  With routines and schedules and lists...Oh My!  Now I must admit I am excellent at making all that stuff up and I love it.  The hard part is sticking to it. 

Closet

I didn't get to my closet on Friday but I did reorganize some of my kitchen cupboards and hutch.  I had been storing all our craft supplies in my lazy susan.  I liked that cupboard because for the longest time the girls couldn't open it, well now they can and we have so much stuff that it is a huge mess.  I moved some of my entertaining dishes around in my hutch and found that there was lots of room for the crafts supplies and I could lock it up too. 

Today I did my closet.  My closet wasn't really bad as far as being organized but it was over run with clothes that either didn't fit or I didn't like.  I now have three garbage bags full of clothes to give to the Thrift store.  The next goal on my organizing check list is to actually take the clothes there this month!

Organizing

My friend Shannon introduced me to this blog I'm an Organizing junkie.  It has only been a few days but so far I am enjoying it.  I have been doing a lot more organizing lately because of Tupperware and I have really fallen in love with it.  Let me explain...I really have no sense of organization, it has to simple and easy for me to do it and get it right.  I once organized my mother's cupboards, and I labled the shelves.  I thought I was doing a great job until my Mom came and looked and laughed at me.  I had labled 3 of the shelves other.  She still tells that story. 

So I have re-organized a few of my kitchen cupboards and I have fallen in love with nice clean cupboards. 

They went from this:

To This:

Since becoming a stay at home mom, I have found that a messy house really weighs on me and it affects my mood.  I hate having a messy house but I still hate having to clean it.  But I do find the organizing I do to help with the cleaning.

I actually organized the girls toys and put pictures of everything so that they could put the stuff away.  They still like to just dump the containers but one day....

So the reason I started this post was because I have been bitten by the organizing bug and I am going to follow along as much as I can with Shannon and I'm an organizing junkie.  It will be interesting to see how I can minimize clutter or at least make it look pretty.

My hope is that I will become a great organizer so that I will have a cleaner house or at least one that takes less time to clean.  Seriously, I won't invite people over if my house is messy and I get stressed before people come to the point of wanting to cancel.  But on the other hand I often need that motivation and enjoy the house afterwards.

For today - my closet!  I wonder if Mike will let me do his...



Guest Post

I wrote another post for Get Fit Chicks.  Check it out here  http://www.getfitchicks.com/index.php/2011/02/guest-post-letting-yourself-go/