Six Feet Under the Table

She slowly tiptoes out of her bedroom and pulls the door softly until it clicks closed behind her. Then boldly with purpose, she walks into our room, stands next to the bed, and taps me on my shoulder until I reach underneath her little arms, hoist her up, pull back the covers, and get her situated between us, snuggling in for the last 10 minutes of sleep. But today was a little different. The routine was the same, but instead of sleeping, there was way too much excitement. "Mommy, is it morning? Am I this many?" And she holds up a whole hand of fingers. FIVE. Not a toddler, not yet a big kid. She's that perfect in between. Oh, how I love this girl. I want to be more like her when I grow up. She loves fiercely. Listens quietly. Speaks up when she feels like she's being wronged. Nurtures like no other. Her favorite color is pink, but rainbow is a close second. On Monday, I asked her what she wanted for her birthday dinner. She chose the exact same thing we were eating ...

Welp, I've settled in, and my days are filled. My floors aren't getting mopped nearly as often as they did at first. That said, I haven't tried as many new cleaning supplies lately. This year I've been focusing on taking care of myself--something (someone) I've been neglecting for far too long. Here are a few of my current favorite things: 1. Thayers Lavender Witch Hazel  - Anyone else ask for toiletries for Christmas? Just me? Okay then. I had been wanting to try this for so long. And I'm so glad I did. My skin has never looked better. And the best part about it is that I believe it will last me a year ... and I use it twice a day. That makes it cost <$1/month. 2. Norwex Makeup-Removal Cloth  - Pretty sure I wrote about these before, but I'm too lazy to look. I just love them so much. I have one. I need to order more. Not that I wear much makeup, but I like not having to buy an extra makeup-removing cleanser in addition to face cleanser. Ain't ...

A couple years ago, I fell in love all over again ... with brussels sprouts. You see, there's a restaurant in Geneva, IL called The Patten House that makes these amazing Honey Sriracha Brussels Sprouts. They're these perfect crunchy orbs where sweet meets spicy meets bacon. And oh my word, they're what dreams are made of. Now that I don't travel to Geneva every day, I've been trying my hardest to perfect my own knock-off recipe. I've been comparing other recipes online, and I even got a tip about soaking them from my friend who heard it straight from the horse's mouth. It's taken about three months, but you guys, I did it. It's not a perfect replica (mine are baked, pretty sure theirs are fried), but holy moley, I love these. And my husband does, too. So whip up a batch and enjoy. (And let me know if you try them and like them, too!) Honey Sriracha Brussels Sprouts 1 lb. brussels sprouts - ends trimmed, cut in half, and soaked in water eithe...

Now that I've had a bit more time on my hands to do ordinary things (**ahem ... clean**), I've found myself navigating a world of products that over-promise and under-deliver. But there are a select few that I absolutely love. And though I could get through my day without them, I wouldn't want to. Some save time, some save money, and some make me look free spirited (and slightly crazy) as I'm contorting my body and running in circles to get away from bees. [read on] I've done the (not-even-remotely-scientific) research for the world, and I can't keep quiet about them anymore. Before I begin, you should know that I've received zero pennies for my thoughts on these products, so that's how you know my feelings are too legit to quit . This will probably be the most random assortment of products... but anyway, here we go. Everyday Products I Love 1. Grove Collaborative Wool Dryer Balls -- These suckers are straight-up MAGIC. They cost $15.95 for a s...

I'm the queen of worry. Worrying about things that may not even happen. Looking too far down the road and jumping to conclusions. I call it, "mental preparation." But perhaps I should stop at "mental." Long story short, I quit my job to be home with the kids. It has been an odd transition for me. In our lives, we take calculated risks. We weigh the options, make a decision, and leap. It's nice to be paired with someone who is confident and loving. Someone who listens to your freak-out moments, when you feel like your free-falling, and encourages you. Like last night, for instance. As we are figuring out the fine details of our new arrangement, I can't help but freak out. "Did I make the right decision? How are we going to do this?" He looked at me and calmly responded, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." Why do I constantly let doubt and fear overwhelm me? I guess that's why we need ...

I've had about a week to myself as my better half and kids went off on an adventure in Colorado. I don't remember the last time I had this much time to myself. Last week, I exercised the right side of my brain as frequently as I could. I finished two quilt tops and several random quilt blocks. I didn't exercise my body; my brain needed the attention. There's something immensely satisfying about cutting up fabric into smaller pieces, mixing it all up, piecing it back together, and creating something entirely different. It's my therapy. I listened to music loudly. I sat by the fire and stared at my phone for too many hours. I went on a quick work trip. I stayed up too late every night. I balanced the checkbook and paid bills. I made poor eating decisions and drank far too much coffee. Then today, I deliberately did nothing. No music. No creating. No makeup. I rested. I started reading a book. I watched a little t.v. And in the spirit of doing jac...

Well, hello there. It's been a while. And it's not because I haven't wanted to write. Life just got in the way ... like usual. Same old stuff. Busy job. Busy kids. Busy days. Busy nights. Busy weekends. Always on the go. Never slowing down... until I broke. For the past few months, I've been battling some inner demons. It didn't matter how much sleep I got or how regimented I was with a schedule, I. Was. Tired. And emotional. And had little patience. I had a week and a half off at Christmas, and in the quiet one day, I sat and examined my spirit. I felt spent. Like I had nothing to give. Unworthy. Empty. I KNEW that none of that was true. But it felt so real. And I had to figure it out. Enough was enough. I had heard that certain foods could trigger those feelings. So I decided to conduct a little experiment, and I jumped on the Whole30 bandwagon. What is the Whole30? For 30 days, you cut out all dairy, grains, sugar, and legumes. After 30 days, you reintr...

In conversing with my sister yesterday, I realized how infrequently I get to write these days. I looked over my past posts and noticed that the posts kinda trailed off in the end of 2016 and throughout 2017. I'm in a weird place. Tightrope walking, trying to balance motherhood in one hand, my profession in the other. It's taking more concentration than I imagined not to upset the balance. Being a full-time working mom is hard. Period. I do my best to try not to miss out on the important stuff, which right now is quality time, plain and simple. Juggling the daily to-do lists has my brain at max capacity. My daily routine consists of the following: 5:30a - Jump out of bed to turn off the alarm clock so it doesn't wake my sleeping husband. Quick shower, even faster hair/makeup routine. Get dressed. Wedding ring, fingerprint charm necklaces. Check. Check. (It's my way of bringing my family with me wherever the day leads me.) 6a - I run downstairs and grab somethin...

I've been absent for quite some time now. Which excuse would you like to hear first? If I'm going to be honest, the only real reason is simple: I got lost in life, and I only just recently discovered the way out of the tangle. Just before Christmas, I found out that the current business structure of my employer was changing. And though I wasn't losing my job, it was clear to me that my needs and the needs of the business no longer matched. I LOVED my job. I felt empowered. I knew how to do my job well. And I was good at it. I had friends that felt more like family. My family and I had a good schedule; a cadence. So when I decided to leave this job and these people I loved so very much, it felt like my world was flipped upside down. Who knew that 12 hours after I applied for a particular job, I'd get a call to interview. Two weeks after that, a job offer. There was a lot of fear. No longer would I be working from home three days a week. No more "best of both wor...

Last night, I held you in my arms much like I've done hundreds of times in the past 365. On this day, exactly one year ago (to the hour), you made your grand exit (or entrance, if you will). You looked much different than I imagined you would. Not that I had any idea what you would look like. The doctor handed you over to me. You were screaming, and then when I started to sing, you stopped. It was almost like you were listening. You slept in my arms all night. Body curved around mine, perfectly matched to the bend in my arm. Face nuzzled in. Warm. I could listen to you breathe all night. I have loved you since I met you. Over the past year, we've watched you bloom. You're still pretty quiet, but you're the happiest little thing. You're the introvert to your brother's extrovert. Quietly watching, never really trying, but doing everything perfectly well when you are good and ready. (I love that about you.) You're sensitive and sweet. You watch, and you mimic...

Last week, I finished Insanity for the second time. My life is a little different the second time around. I'm four years older, have two kids (one that just started sleeping all the way through the night about a week ago and another that is both an early bird and a night owl, which makes evening workouts extremely difficult), have a commute two days a week, and my husband works evenings and weekends. So what does this all mean? It means that I skipped at least 1 day a week, I wasn't nearly as strong and determined, and I was not as dedicated to being on a strict diet. But I still had awesome results: I lost 6 lbs., and though I should've taken my measurements to count inches lost, I didn't. I feel stronger and am more focused now that it's done. But sometimes convincing myself to do the videos was like pulling teeth, particularly in month 2 when the workouts were an hour long. (Ain't nobody got time for that.) Thank you, Sister, for encouraging me along the ...

Yesterday was a particularly challenging day. My 2-year-old was acting like... a two year old. Thus far, the hardest part of parenting for me has been the follow-through with punishments. I'm not talking about the actual following-though part, but the emotional/mental distress it causes me to HAVE to follow through. I've found, however, that it's important to follow through and then follow up... even at bedtime. Only then can Toddler Boy and I both go to bed happy. My son is too much like me in some ways. He. Can't. Let. Things. Go. Last night, I gave him an ultimatum: "You help me clean up, or you go to bed without a song." (He already lost the privilege of having a bedtime book read.) Then, after refusing to help me pick up his legos and then taking the bag and dumping them all out again, I had had enough. I tucked him under my arm and marched up to his room. His cries of "I want to 'hep' Mommy" were stuck on repeat. I said little while...

My husband surprised me by taking the whole day off work, so we took the kids to our FABULOUS new library before bed. When we got there, Toddler Boy went straight for the train table where he took things apart and immediately asked us to put them back together about a million times. And though, truth be told, it annoys me to reassemble the same poorly designed object over and over again, he was having so much fun. Then before long, another little boy joined the table. I'm guessing he was about 3, and he didn't speak English. And I just sat there and watched them interact in the most innocent way, neither of them noticing any sort of barrier. Toddler Boy would ask (ever so politely), "May I play with that, please?" and point at whatever it was he was talking about. (If you guys even knew how proud I was of my boy... there are no words to describe it.) The other boy would sweetly place whatever train/figure/piece it was into my son's hand. He would look my son in th...

Life has been a bit on the busy side. I used to think that having two kids was easier than having one. Then yesterday, I had just one of the kids, and I realized, nope—one is definitely easier. In the last four months, Baby Girl has started laughing and babbling. She's learning to eat pureed food and follow people with her smiling eyes across the room. She's an absolute joy. (Except at 2a, but that just comes with the territory.) Toddler Boy has developed a very active imagination. His trucks now have story lines and one is always "dribing home." He's very observant, and like every 2-year-old boy, listens to every word we say and repeats it. This boy has my heart, and he knows it. Between the "I lub you back!" and "I missed you, Mommy!" ... I am in trouble. And so are all your daughters. In the midst of all the gushing, real life exists. Baby Girl is trying to get a grip on this whole growing thing. She requires more food than her brother d...

To my son on his SECOND birthday: Yesterday, you turned your favorite number: 2. It's quite fitting that you are also 22 lbs., which is roughly the size of a 1 year old. Though our doctor informs us that you have the vocabulary of a 3 year old (at least). You know a lot of words, can string together 4-word sentences (including 4-syllable words), and you ALWAYS have something to say. You are polite—most of the time, saying please and thank you at the appropriate times. You STILL don't love to sleep (much to our dismay), but you love to laugh and sing and tell me when Baby is crying... even when she's not. You love big trucks, big clocks, and big jumps. You are an excellent hall monitor at the YMCA, pointing out when someone is running... though most of the time, that someone is you. You love to run. If I asked you your favorite color, you would without a doubt tell me, "lellow." But the truth is, your favorite color is blue. I suspect "lellow" is ju...

Baby Girl is almost a month old already, and I haven't finished documenting my thoughts/reaction to her. I need to get it down in writing before I forget. So here it goes... When Toddler Boy was born, my first thought wasn't "Oh, yay! My baby is here! He's so cute!" Rather, I didn't even look at him for maybe 2 minutes. Instead, my first thought was, "He's going to be an only child." But what would you expect from someone that just went through 31 hours of labor? With Baby Girl, it was different. Because we didn't know I was pregnant until a week before my second trimester, she didn't feel new to me. Rather, when I saw her, I looked at her face and took it in... because in my mind, she's always been. I don't know when she came to be, she just was. Our associate pastor came to visit us in the hospital and before praying over her, he read Psalm 139:13-18: For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mot...

After reviewing my first post—something I rarely do hence all the typos and grammatical errors—I realized that I forgot one detail. Remember how I said the nurse didn't see any water after I told her I felt the "popping"? Turns out, Baby Girl was acting as a cork... the water broke behind her. So it didn't come out until she was delivered. I thought this was weird, though I'm sure it's not uncommon. Now enter the days that followed. That night, Toddler Boy, my parents, siblings and their spouses, and my in-laws came to visit. It was a late night, but it was so nice to have them there. Toddler Boy was really confused. He wouldn't talk to me and didn't want to sit in bed next to me. Of course, he was also in bed sleeping and then woken up to come to the hospital. (And I'm so glad he was. In hindsight, I would've been disappointed if he wasn't there.) My brother took some amazing photos, and eventually, our family left, and we turned out t...

I can't believe it's been two months since I've last written. I suppose I didn't have anything new to share. But now I do! And here's my story... or Baby Girl's story, if you will. About a week before my due date, the baby moved and planted herself somewhere that inhibited my ability to walk. This made keeping up with Toddler Boy near impossible. My parents came to the rescue and stayed with us while we waited Baby Girl's arrival. At my 40-week appointment, it was clear she was still comfortable. But I was not. After a few tears and complaints that I just didn't feel well, and I couldn't walk, my doctor agreed to induce on my due date. Except while I was in the office, my blood pressure rose significantly high. If my blood pressure remained high, I was to go in that night. My mom checked it that night, and though it was higher than usual, it wasn't dangerous. So we waited. Because my due date was four days away, the hope was that she would co...

I don't (think I) complain very often, but I really feel like it, so I think I will. Consider that your warning. I generally enjoy being pregnant. I have it really easy: never sick, only mild heartburn, still have a decent supply of energy to wake up early, go to work, and keep up with the ever-busy Boy. But I think I'm ready to be done with it. This is not because I'm miserable or sick or anything. I'm just... kinda over it for right now. And I'm sure it's just me being hormonal. My 3-hour glucose test revealed that I have low blood sugar. Therefore, I have to test my sugar levels 4x a day. I'm on day 2, and I just don't want to do it any more. But lucky me, I get to test 4x a day for the rest of my pregnancy (<10 weeks), then 3x a week for 6 weeks, then get another 1-hr glucose test. Checking my sugar level doesn't hurt. But remembering to do it does. Baby Girl finds the front of my body to be the most comfortable. This means, I have to go...

This has been the year o' travel. My patience has grown exponentially, and Toddler Boy has become quite the frequent flyer. Of course, my pregnancy hormones have been through the roof, so that makes traveling alone with a toddler a little more interesting. Want to know how it went? Here it goes: On Wednesday, our flight was set to leave at 9:15p. Toddler Boy's bedtime is 7p. However, I scheduled the flight this late so that Toddler Boy would sleep. (Fun fact: Toddler Boy is too much like Mommy. He doesn't sleep on planes.) I brought the umbrella stroller just in case he got tired while waiting at the airport. (He didn't.) He explored every nook and cranny of that place, climbed up on the seats, looked out the windows, gave fist bumps to every passenger in line, and loudly applauded the pilots that FINALLY showed up to the gate 45 minutes AFTER the plane was supposed to depart. It was exhausting. (Fun fact #2: While flying SWA, if you travel at night with a toddler, ...