For months I fought the dinner time battle with Port. He is an extremely picky eater, and so every night I would serve him up a plate of what we were having and every night I would toss the same plate of food in the trash because he wouldn't eat it. Every night we fought with him about sitting at the table, and 9 times out of 10 he would end up crawling all over me while I was trying to eat my meal.
It was frustrating and infuriating and I became so tired of the battle.
And you know, parenting is all about picking your battles. I got to the point that I didn't want this one anymore. I also realized that part of the problem is that Port still isn't really on our schedule when it comes to eating. I can regulate breakfast and lunch, but he was still hungry every night around 5PM. Unfortunately, that is right when I am either cleaning the kitchen or just starting dinner; there is no way that I could have dinner ready that early. And it doesn't make sense to do that as a family - Hubby is never home from work that early.
I even give the boys a big snack when Kiddo gets home from school. It still didn't change the fact that Port is ready to eat at 5 every day. And if I don't let him eat anything at 5 in the hopes that it will make him really hungry when supper is ready, it always backfires on me. Either he bugs me and cries and stays underfoot the whole time I am making dinner, or he works himself into a tizzy by the time dinner is ready.
So, a couple of months ago I stopped trying to conform him to our schedule. I feed him what he wants at 5 (usually a hot dog, cheese, sandwhich or nuggets) and then at dinner time I give him vegetables and fruit that I know he will eat. Many times it is nothing more than a banana and some carrots or grapes, and some times it is a banana, some carrots and grapes. haha.
*cough* I said he was a picky eater. No seriously though, he will also eat apples and pears, raisins, cranberries, cherries, strawberries, and blueberries. Occasionally I will give him some beans if we are having them, or chicken and okra when that is what's for dinner.
And let me tell you, it's not perfect or ideal, but it is sooooo much better! He doesn't always stay at the table, but he does sit long enough to eat something. And I don't have to worry so much about wasting the food anymore. I wish he would try more foods and be more open to tasting stuff, but right now I don't have enough energy to fight him on it. Later on, when he is older and better at communicating, I will try to get him to taste new things.
Until then, I am stocking up on bananas every week.
Until,
D :)
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Busy Being Fabulous
Tomorrow marks the beginning of the craziest time of the year for me. I have 3 photo sessions this weekend, next weekend I will be in Dallas for a couple of days shooting a family session and a wedding, and I have 2 sweet mommas who's babies are due on the 15th. I will be working in newborn sessions for them both. I am so blessed to be able to do all of this and I am excited about it even though it will be pretty stressful.
This is nothing new of course, it is always the busiest time of the year. I just have to keep reminding myself to take it all one step at a time, one day at a time, and to do what I can, when I can. It will all get done and I will have so much fun along the way.
Now, if only I could ship the kids off to the grandparents for a few weeks... ;-)
Until,
D :)
This is nothing new of course, it is always the busiest time of the year. I just have to keep reminding myself to take it all one step at a time, one day at a time, and to do what I can, when I can. It will all get done and I will have so much fun along the way.
Now, if only I could ship the kids off to the grandparents for a few weeks... ;-)
Until,
D :)
Thursday, November 11, 2010
When I Come Back Around
In the fall of 1999 I graduated from college. Finally. After many, many semesters of floundering, changing my mind, and failing classes, I finally got my head together long enough to finish up a major in vocal music education and get myself a degree. I took my EXCET exam, barely passed, and was awarded with all level general music education certification.
Getting married in the spring of '99 really helped; at that point all I wanted to do was finish something, anything, and have that accomplishment. I didn't want to drop out and have all that time and money be a waste, and I was concerned about having something that could potentially get me a nice job if I needed it.
If I wanted it.
See, even though music has always been my passion, teaching music never was. But, heavily influenced by my family and friends, it was what I studied in college anyway. And I guess, to me it was more about filling the need, the primal desire to sing, that kept me in the program. Singing was all I ever wanted to do, and I took the opportunity to do it in the only capacity I felt I could.
And all of this is not to say that I never enjoyed teaching - my student teaching experience was really fun and I did enjoy it immensely. But I never had an excitement about it unless I was right there in the thick of it. I didn't want to do it if I didn't have too. Of course, the hours didn't help either - have I mentioned before that I am not a morning or a scheduled person?? Yeah, that was a HUGE disadvantage to teaching.
So anyway, in the fall of '99 I received my degree and since it was technically in the middle of the school year, I decided to take some grad classes (what was I thinking???) and substitute teach until I could apply for full time school positions in the spring.
Because that is what you do when you acquire a teaching degree, you teach. Right?
Hubby and I sort of had a desire to move to Austin. If we had to stay in Texas it was the only place we could really see us living, so I started researching school districts in that area. I was told by several people that the Round Rock school district was one of the best, and from what I could tell the pay scale was slightly higher than the other districts. It seemed like fate when that spring an elementary school music teacher position in a Round Rock school opened up, so I sent in my little, pathetic, blank resume. When they called me in for an interview, I put on my most teacherly attire and drove the 3+ hours from Huntsville to Austin. I pulled into the parking lot of a school I had never been too, in a city I had only dreamt about and sat in my car for a few moments to collect my thoughts. A teaching job wasn't really what I wanted, but it made sense and it would provide us with some security so it was the most logical choice. I loved working with the elementary aged kids when I did my student teaching and I felt that level best fit my personality and inexperience. So I went in to the school, totally aced the interview (they LOVED me) and then I came back to my car. I sat in the space and stared at the wood fence that lined the parking lot. It was done. Either they would offer me the job or they wouldn't. I prayed for God's will and drove back to Huntsville.
A few days later they offered me the position.
I had the weekend to think it over and make a decision, so Hubby and I once again drove to Austin to look for housing. This was way before the internet made shopping on line for housing easy, so we had to make the long drive. We spent all day Saturday looking at dumpy apartment after dumpy apartment and then drove back on Sunday looking at dumpy house after dumpy house. We returned to Huntsville Sunday night exhausted and weary. There just wasn't anything that we could afford on a teacher's salary. We couldn't take into account Hubby's potential salary because we weren't even sure he could find a job right away.
Even back then we were practical. Sort of.
So on Monday when the school called me back for an answer, I turned them down. Something about it was so easy, and yet I knew that that decision would change the trajectory of my life forever. I never went into public school teaching, and instead Hubby and I uprooted everything we knew and moved to Arizona the next summer to start a totally new life together.
I haven't thought about that school or that decision in years. I couldn't even remember the name of the school or where it was. And in my mind, it was almost as if the whole thing was a dream. It really didn't even exist in that "former" life of mine. So much has changed since then.
Last night, I pulled into the parking lot of an elementary school in Austin. I was there to judge an art competition for the students participating in the Reflections Art Program. I pulled in a parking space and looked up at a wooden fence surrounding the lot.
I was at the same school, in the same parking space that I sat in almost 11 years ago.
Life is a wonderfully mysterious, amazing thing.
Until,
D :)
Getting married in the spring of '99 really helped; at that point all I wanted to do was finish something, anything, and have that accomplishment. I didn't want to drop out and have all that time and money be a waste, and I was concerned about having something that could potentially get me a nice job if I needed it.
If I wanted it.
See, even though music has always been my passion, teaching music never was. But, heavily influenced by my family and friends, it was what I studied in college anyway. And I guess, to me it was more about filling the need, the primal desire to sing, that kept me in the program. Singing was all I ever wanted to do, and I took the opportunity to do it in the only capacity I felt I could.
And all of this is not to say that I never enjoyed teaching - my student teaching experience was really fun and I did enjoy it immensely. But I never had an excitement about it unless I was right there in the thick of it. I didn't want to do it if I didn't have too. Of course, the hours didn't help either - have I mentioned before that I am not a morning or a scheduled person?? Yeah, that was a HUGE disadvantage to teaching.
So anyway, in the fall of '99 I received my degree and since it was technically in the middle of the school year, I decided to take some grad classes (what was I thinking???) and substitute teach until I could apply for full time school positions in the spring.
Because that is what you do when you acquire a teaching degree, you teach. Right?
Hubby and I sort of had a desire to move to Austin. If we had to stay in Texas it was the only place we could really see us living, so I started researching school districts in that area. I was told by several people that the Round Rock school district was one of the best, and from what I could tell the pay scale was slightly higher than the other districts. It seemed like fate when that spring an elementary school music teacher position in a Round Rock school opened up, so I sent in my little, pathetic, blank resume. When they called me in for an interview, I put on my most teacherly attire and drove the 3+ hours from Huntsville to Austin. I pulled into the parking lot of a school I had never been too, in a city I had only dreamt about and sat in my car for a few moments to collect my thoughts. A teaching job wasn't really what I wanted, but it made sense and it would provide us with some security so it was the most logical choice. I loved working with the elementary aged kids when I did my student teaching and I felt that level best fit my personality and inexperience. So I went in to the school, totally aced the interview (they LOVED me) and then I came back to my car. I sat in the space and stared at the wood fence that lined the parking lot. It was done. Either they would offer me the job or they wouldn't. I prayed for God's will and drove back to Huntsville.
A few days later they offered me the position.
I had the weekend to think it over and make a decision, so Hubby and I once again drove to Austin to look for housing. This was way before the internet made shopping on line for housing easy, so we had to make the long drive. We spent all day Saturday looking at dumpy apartment after dumpy apartment and then drove back on Sunday looking at dumpy house after dumpy house. We returned to Huntsville Sunday night exhausted and weary. There just wasn't anything that we could afford on a teacher's salary. We couldn't take into account Hubby's potential salary because we weren't even sure he could find a job right away.
Even back then we were practical. Sort of.
So on Monday when the school called me back for an answer, I turned them down. Something about it was so easy, and yet I knew that that decision would change the trajectory of my life forever. I never went into public school teaching, and instead Hubby and I uprooted everything we knew and moved to Arizona the next summer to start a totally new life together.
I haven't thought about that school or that decision in years. I couldn't even remember the name of the school or where it was. And in my mind, it was almost as if the whole thing was a dream. It really didn't even exist in that "former" life of mine. So much has changed since then.
Last night, I pulled into the parking lot of an elementary school in Austin. I was there to judge an art competition for the students participating in the Reflections Art Program. I pulled in a parking space and looked up at a wooden fence surrounding the lot.
I was at the same school, in the same parking space that I sat in almost 11 years ago.
Life is a wonderfully mysterious, amazing thing.
Until,
D :)
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Let Beauty Awake
Port woke me up this morning with his diaper in his hand.
The boys have been getting up earlier since the time change - it's not as bad as some of my poor friends, but I certainly don't like being woken up before my alarm goes off. I suppose it is pretty nice when I am greeted with a sweet smiling by and a gentle "good mownin mumma". But when the wake up is an open wet diaper tangled in a pair of pajama bottoms sitting on my chest, it doesn't exactly start my day off right.
I don't care to get up before my alarm either, because it leaves us too much time to get ready in the morning. And if there is downtime I get sleepy. I like to get up and keep moving until we are out the door. But anyway, I suppose it could be worse.
The other night when I was out with my girlies, I recalled a story I never blogged that you might be interested in reading. It was from our vacation to Arizona a couple of years ago. If you are new around here or don't remember, Hubby and I took the boys on a 2 week long trip to Flagstaff for our annual family vacation with the inlaws. Kiddo was almost 4 and Port was only 4 months old. I blogged the first few days of the trip but I am pretty sure I never finished it out. {on a side note, I titled almost all of them with the songs from Ralph Vaughan Williams' Songs of Travel. I thought it was pretty brilliant... ;-) }
To refresh your memory (or get you up to speed), we drove to Arizona, stayed in Flagstaff for about a week and then drove back. We were packed into our little CRV and towed a trailer with the stuff that didn't fit in the car. Port was still very new, and thankfully sleepy, and I was pumping 8xs a day to feed him. On the drive there and back, we traveled pretty unplanned; that is, we didn't really reserve hotel rooms or anything along the way. We basically landed where we did, found a hotel and would stay the night. We stayed in a few dumps and a few pretty cool places along the way.
On the way back home we were in New Mexico (I think) and had come to the point that we were ready to stop for the night. We started looking for a hotel and it just happened to be time for me to pump again. I had no problem pumping in the car, but since we were so close to stopping I decided to hold off until we found a place to stay. We found a seemingly ok Motel 6 (they are always a crap shoot - sometimes decent, sometimes awful) and decided it had the best rate that we were going to find in that area. Being the end of the trip, we were a little tapped out financially and really wanted to save some money. So we stopped, paid for the room and then towed the kids up to our room. As we walked through the hotel grounds, I was disturbed by one, the sheer volume of people staying there, and two, the overwhelming smell of pot coming from several of the rooms.
uh huh
We went in our room and it became very clear that we would never be comfortable there; with all of the loud ruckus in the pool and the doorways of other rooms, there was no way we could rest. So, Hubby went back down to get us out of the room (and get our money back) and we decided to try the Motel 8 across the street. It looked pretty nice; it had much newer construction and a very tall fence around the perimeter of the property. The lobby looked like something out of a 5 star luxury hotel and when we walked into the room - AMAZING! It was so beautiful! I was so relieved to be somewhere comfortable, quiet and nice!
The room itself was set up in a pretty unusual way. When you walked in the door, the bathroom with toilet and shower was to the right. Walking in lead you straight through the vanity area; when walking in and opening the door to the right, there was a huge 6+ foot wide mirror on the left. Looking in the mirror from the door you could see the bed room portion of the room in the reflection. So you walk in, are immediately in the vanity area and then walk through to the bedroom. The beds were on the right, tv on the left and sitting area at the far end of the room next to a big window.
So if you followed that - that was the general layout of the room. Basically one big rectangle with the bathroom tucked off behind the front door.
We got the boys settled inside watching cartoons and since I was about to explode, I set myself up to pump while Hubby went back out to the car to get the rest of our things. I set up on the bed and did my thing. And being that it was just my family, I didn't really care and I was so tired, I didn't bother with covering anything up (you know modesty flies all out the window when you become a mom; especially the second time around). So the boys were watching TV and I was pumping and all was right with the world. After a few minutes I hear a key card in the door and it begins to open. I say to Hubby (who is coming in the door), "so did you get everything ok?"
I looked into the vanity area to the mirror which showed me a view of the door. It cracked open and a head popped in and a man with a big smile on his face saw me...
and his expression immediately changed to horror.
As did mine, because the man was not my husband.
As I scrambled for something to cover myself, he mumbled a hasty, "oh my God I am so sorry!" and scurried out the door. I can only imagine what he thought I was doing, hooked up to some sort of medieval torture device.
I was too tired to be terribly alarmed. I figured it was the cleaning crew or something with the wrong room, and I was pretty sure they'd walked in on much worse. But then, the phone rang. I answered it and the concierge was on the other end.
"WHO ARE YOU and WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THIS ROOM!?!?" the voice yelled at me. I calmly gave her my name and told her we just checked in a minute ago. I asked her what the problem was. She replied that someone else was assigned to that room and she gave it to us by mistake and that her horrified guest had just walked in on me. She realized she had messed up and quickly got off the phone with me without so much as an apology.
I wonder how long that poor man had nightmares...
Until,
D :)
The boys have been getting up earlier since the time change - it's not as bad as some of my poor friends, but I certainly don't like being woken up before my alarm goes off. I suppose it is pretty nice when I am greeted with a sweet smiling by and a gentle "good mownin mumma". But when the wake up is an open wet diaper tangled in a pair of pajama bottoms sitting on my chest, it doesn't exactly start my day off right.
I don't care to get up before my alarm either, because it leaves us too much time to get ready in the morning. And if there is downtime I get sleepy. I like to get up and keep moving until we are out the door. But anyway, I suppose it could be worse.
The other night when I was out with my girlies, I recalled a story I never blogged that you might be interested in reading. It was from our vacation to Arizona a couple of years ago. If you are new around here or don't remember, Hubby and I took the boys on a 2 week long trip to Flagstaff for our annual family vacation with the inlaws. Kiddo was almost 4 and Port was only 4 months old. I blogged the first few days of the trip but I am pretty sure I never finished it out. {on a side note, I titled almost all of them with the songs from Ralph Vaughan Williams' Songs of Travel. I thought it was pretty brilliant... ;-) }
To refresh your memory (or get you up to speed), we drove to Arizona, stayed in Flagstaff for about a week and then drove back. We were packed into our little CRV and towed a trailer with the stuff that didn't fit in the car. Port was still very new, and thankfully sleepy, and I was pumping 8xs a day to feed him. On the drive there and back, we traveled pretty unplanned; that is, we didn't really reserve hotel rooms or anything along the way. We basically landed where we did, found a hotel and would stay the night. We stayed in a few dumps and a few pretty cool places along the way.
On the way back home we were in New Mexico (I think) and had come to the point that we were ready to stop for the night. We started looking for a hotel and it just happened to be time for me to pump again. I had no problem pumping in the car, but since we were so close to stopping I decided to hold off until we found a place to stay. We found a seemingly ok Motel 6 (they are always a crap shoot - sometimes decent, sometimes awful) and decided it had the best rate that we were going to find in that area. Being the end of the trip, we were a little tapped out financially and really wanted to save some money. So we stopped, paid for the room and then towed the kids up to our room. As we walked through the hotel grounds, I was disturbed by one, the sheer volume of people staying there, and two, the overwhelming smell of pot coming from several of the rooms.
uh huh
We went in our room and it became very clear that we would never be comfortable there; with all of the loud ruckus in the pool and the doorways of other rooms, there was no way we could rest. So, Hubby went back down to get us out of the room (and get our money back) and we decided to try the Motel 8 across the street. It looked pretty nice; it had much newer construction and a very tall fence around the perimeter of the property. The lobby looked like something out of a 5 star luxury hotel and when we walked into the room - AMAZING! It was so beautiful! I was so relieved to be somewhere comfortable, quiet and nice!
The room itself was set up in a pretty unusual way. When you walked in the door, the bathroom with toilet and shower was to the right. Walking in lead you straight through the vanity area; when walking in and opening the door to the right, there was a huge 6+ foot wide mirror on the left. Looking in the mirror from the door you could see the bed room portion of the room in the reflection. So you walk in, are immediately in the vanity area and then walk through to the bedroom. The beds were on the right, tv on the left and sitting area at the far end of the room next to a big window.
So if you followed that - that was the general layout of the room. Basically one big rectangle with the bathroom tucked off behind the front door.
We got the boys settled inside watching cartoons and since I was about to explode, I set myself up to pump while Hubby went back out to the car to get the rest of our things. I set up on the bed and did my thing. And being that it was just my family, I didn't really care and I was so tired, I didn't bother with covering anything up (you know modesty flies all out the window when you become a mom; especially the second time around). So the boys were watching TV and I was pumping and all was right with the world. After a few minutes I hear a key card in the door and it begins to open. I say to Hubby (who is coming in the door), "so did you get everything ok?"
I looked into the vanity area to the mirror which showed me a view of the door. It cracked open and a head popped in and a man with a big smile on his face saw me...
and his expression immediately changed to horror.
As did mine, because the man was not my husband.
As I scrambled for something to cover myself, he mumbled a hasty, "oh my God I am so sorry!" and scurried out the door. I can only imagine what he thought I was doing, hooked up to some sort of medieval torture device.
I was too tired to be terribly alarmed. I figured it was the cleaning crew or something with the wrong room, and I was pretty sure they'd walked in on much worse. But then, the phone rang. I answered it and the concierge was on the other end.
"WHO ARE YOU and WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THIS ROOM!?!?" the voice yelled at me. I calmly gave her my name and told her we just checked in a minute ago. I asked her what the problem was. She replied that someone else was assigned to that room and she gave it to us by mistake and that her horrified guest had just walked in on me. She realized she had messed up and quickly got off the phone with me without so much as an apology.
I wonder how long that poor man had nightmares...
Until,
D :)
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Throwing It All Away
So today I tossed out 419 pieces of paper that the kids have drawn on. Most of it was Kiddo's drawings. I kept about 30 that were really great/unusual/memorable and tossed the rest. Several coloring books were tossed as well.
419. Yes, I counted.
It's not that I intentionally counted, but I just kept a running tally in my head, counting as each piece went into the trash bag, much like I counts the steps I take or measures in music.
What you don't count your steps everywhere you go? Oh, must just be me then.
The music measures, well that would be the result of years and years of training.
Anyway, the pages filled a 33 gallon trash bag. Please don't get onto me about recycling them or shredding them or all that - if I waited until I got around to shredding, it would never happen. If I could figure out all the rules for recycling paper and then had to sort all the pages based on whether it was colored paper or marked on with marker, crayon or pencil, or if I had to sort based on the presence of glue or staples or whatnot.... yeah, the stacks would still be sitting there.
I try to be as "green" as I possibly can, most of the time. But right now I am just going with the momentum I am feeling and getting rid of stuff.
Baby steps.
I also cleaned out a fully packed-to-the-gills-running-over 13 gallon trash can full of plastic shopping bags and took them all to the recycling bin at HEB. I completely filled their bin. My apologies to HEB. At least I was able to do the right thing with those. Of course, then we got home and Port had a poop-tastic diaper. A plastic bag would have come in handy to dispose it. Thankfully I had a plastic bag full of onions, fresh from the store. It worked just fine.
Aren't you glad I talk about poopy diapers?
The weirdest thing happened today when I was at the grocery store with Port. We were in the frozen food section and he was babbling away, making no sense but just happy as a clam, when out of the blue he screams, "My ear!! My ear!!" He whined in pain and laid his head down on the cart. I looked at him and rubbed his head and didn't see anything alarming or unusual. Almost as quickly he sat up and was fine. I thought he may have had a brief ear ache or something; he's had a lot of sinus drainage lately. I had pretty much forgotten the whole thing until we got out to the car and I put him in his car seat. That was when I noticed his ear was swollen and red. Upon closer inspection, I discovered a spot that looked like a pin hole. It was as if someone had poked him with a needle.
I have no idea what got him. There wasn't anyone else in the isle that I can recall and I certainly didn't see any flying insects. My best guess is that he was bit by a spider, but the hole was really big. I can't imagine what kind of spider could leave that large of a puncture wound and not be seen in the process.
Ahh the mysteries of HEB...
I shall leave you with the mental jukebox song of the day. A friend introduced me to the tune, and now I can't get it out of my head.
Until,
D :)
Dear John, Taylor Swift
419. Yes, I counted.
It's not that I intentionally counted, but I just kept a running tally in my head, counting as each piece went into the trash bag, much like I counts the steps I take or measures in music.
What you don't count your steps everywhere you go? Oh, must just be me then.
The music measures, well that would be the result of years and years of training.
Anyway, the pages filled a 33 gallon trash bag. Please don't get onto me about recycling them or shredding them or all that - if I waited until I got around to shredding, it would never happen. If I could figure out all the rules for recycling paper and then had to sort all the pages based on whether it was colored paper or marked on with marker, crayon or pencil, or if I had to sort based on the presence of glue or staples or whatnot.... yeah, the stacks would still be sitting there.
I try to be as "green" as I possibly can, most of the time. But right now I am just going with the momentum I am feeling and getting rid of stuff.
Baby steps.
I also cleaned out a fully packed-to-the-gills-running-over 13 gallon trash can full of plastic shopping bags and took them all to the recycling bin at HEB. I completely filled their bin. My apologies to HEB. At least I was able to do the right thing with those. Of course, then we got home and Port had a poop-tastic diaper. A plastic bag would have come in handy to dispose it. Thankfully I had a plastic bag full of onions, fresh from the store. It worked just fine.
Aren't you glad I talk about poopy diapers?
The weirdest thing happened today when I was at the grocery store with Port. We were in the frozen food section and he was babbling away, making no sense but just happy as a clam, when out of the blue he screams, "My ear!! My ear!!" He whined in pain and laid his head down on the cart. I looked at him and rubbed his head and didn't see anything alarming or unusual. Almost as quickly he sat up and was fine. I thought he may have had a brief ear ache or something; he's had a lot of sinus drainage lately. I had pretty much forgotten the whole thing until we got out to the car and I put him in his car seat. That was when I noticed his ear was swollen and red. Upon closer inspection, I discovered a spot that looked like a pin hole. It was as if someone had poked him with a needle.
I have no idea what got him. There wasn't anyone else in the isle that I can recall and I certainly didn't see any flying insects. My best guess is that he was bit by a spider, but the hole was really big. I can't imagine what kind of spider could leave that large of a puncture wound and not be seen in the process.
Ahh the mysteries of HEB...
I shall leave you with the mental jukebox song of the day. A friend introduced me to the tune, and now I can't get it out of my head.
Until,
D :)
Dear John, Taylor Swift
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