Therapy

Ladies and Gentlemen, prepare yourselves, because I would like to vent. I would normally do this much more privately but after being married for almost 8 years now I've learned which things I can vent about to Joel and which ones I need to call my sister or girlfriends about. This is one that I would not use Joel for. So normally, I would call my sister or my girlfriend (probably you, Mer, since we always so many of the same complaints :) but I just don't feel like getting on the phone most of the time now and watching my house fall apart before my eyes while I talk for 10 minutes. Ok, here it goes, starting with this:




So this is how I feel these days. This morning Joel had Gabriel and told me he would hold him until I hurry and got dressed. I literally stood in front of my clothes for probably a good 7-8 minute staring. Just staring. Trying to remember the days when I could just throw on any number of cute jeans. This is no longer my opportunity. Now, I spend way too much time trying to convince myself that I *might* be able to fit my cow size booty into some of my old jeans. Then I spend the rest of the morning in a self wallowing depression. I'm kinda tired of the small number of articles of clothing that fit my lower half. I've told Joel I would like to join the local YMCA. Through them I lost all of my baby weight from Ben (and some). But Joel, sorry honey, does not want me to join a gym. I assume because for Joel, money trumps all. Despite health or self esteem boost, I think he would prefer to save the money. I explained to him this morning we either spend money on a whole new wardrobe for me or at the gym. Personally, I would rather be healthy and keep my current wardrobe. He was not happy with me after that statement.

The problem with the gym is that I'm tired. And busy. Those two things don't mix well with getting up at the ghastly hour of 6am to go work out. I usually feed Gabriel around 5:30 and I'll I want to do is get back to sleep after that feeding. If for some reason, he thinks it's an appropriate time to get up, I either make Joel get up with him or I'm not a nice Mom until about 11 o'clock. Right now is a particularly bad time because all the kids are sick. And sick babies like to feed a lot. Too much. So I've been getting horrible sleep for sometime now. Gabe has been waking up 3 times a night to feed. And though this goes against the code of motherhood, I actually got sick as well. Which pretty much is the biggest slap in the face when you're a Mom. Why? Because it doesn't matter when a Mom is sick. I still have to get up in the night and feed a baby. I still have to make lunches and dinners. I'm still taking care of the other sick people in the house. It takes so long to get better because there's no rest for this sick person.

I'll stop my ranting here. I'll finish another day. On another topic. But just so you understand here's the recap:

So there's a horrible cycle here. I have baby weight still on me. I want to go to the gym to work it off. But I have a baby. So I'm tired. Too tired. Then I get emotional because I'm tired. Then it feels like all those pants that don't fit are laughing at me in my closet. Telling me to just go ahead and donate them. Then I want to cry. But I know it's partially because I'm really tired. So I think all about how I would feel better if I went to a gym and fit into those clothes. Then I would laugh at them. But then I hear my baby cry out, and my two year old yelling my name through the house, and my 4 year old asking me what we're doing today, and my 5 year old asking me to make her lunch for school and I think~ MY PANTS ARE GOING TO WIN!! I'LL HAVE TO DONATE THEM AFTER ALL! Stupid pants. Stupid shirts. At least my shoes still fit.

No Shame

This is again about Collette. As noted on the side of the blog, she is the humor in our household so it goes that she keeps us laughing. Today we went over to a friends pool to swim. There was an older, semi overweight lady there laying out on a lawn chair. Note to readers~ I am totally UNAWARE of this conversation. The lady told me after the fact what their conversation went like. When she told me I didn't know if I should laugh or be embarrassed. Here's how it went down:

Collette~ Do you have a baby in your tummy?

Lady~ No, I'm too old to have a baby in there

Collette~ Oh, are you going to die soon?

Lady~ I could, I guess

Collette~ Like Michael Jackson?

Lady~ Yes, kinda like Michael Jackson.

Oh Boy. Laugh? Cringe? Both.

Collette's excuses~ gotta love 'em

Anytime I ask Collette to help me around the house, she almost ALWAYS has a reason why she can't. Here are just a few that I have heard over the past week or so.

1. I can't, I'm hot

2. I'm too tired

3. I need to watch a show

4. I have to color first

5. No thanks

6. I want to hold Gabe first

7. But I don't want to

8. Why? Is someone coming over?

9. Can you do it for me?

And my favorite this past week (drum roll, please...)

10. I'm busy growing.

Bubbles

A minute before this shot, Gabriel was smiling - stupid camera phone latency.

Honesty

My conversation with Abigail today:

Abigail: Mom, my friend Faith who's fat showed me this tree...

Me: Umm, stop right there. What did you just say?

Abigail: (repeat first line)

Me: Abigail, we NEVER define or describe people by their weight. That's not ok.

Abigail: Ok, sorry, Mom. So, my friend Faith who has a big tummy showed me this tree at school...

Geez.

Big Head!

Benjamin is hilarious with this helmet on. He keeps saying "bye," because he knows he has to travel somewhere with that helmet.

I stayed home this morning with Laura getting oral surgery -  abscess = yuck. Hooray for spending a little time with the boys (though Gabriel was alseep the whole time).

Some more vacation time

We did a lot more during the week Joel took off than just Santa Cruz. But that's all we've had time to post up to this point. After Santa Cruz we took the kids and Brooke to go see Berkeley, both the city and where Dad went to school (Go Bears!) as well as San Francisco. Another jam packed day but lots of fun. Here are some of the highlights of our trip: We ate. A lot. A lot of really good food. Oh, and we saw some cool sites. Here are some of the sites and a lot of the food:

Here Ben and Collette are eating some delicious creme puffs we got from Telegraph St. in Berkeley. Yumo!


Showing off Daddy's school.


Go Bears!! Never too young, right?


Mmmm~ digging into some Blondie's pizza


The adults are digging into some delicious Vik's Indian Food.


Off to Lombard St. I like this shot only because it's hard to get a good shot of Lombard from the car but I think you can get the idea in this one and the kids really want to go to Coit Tower someday which you can see in the distance (ok, if you click on the image)



We then went over to Pier 39~ mostly to see the sea lions but to enjoy all the touristy stuff over there...both for our kids and for Brooke.


I like this shot of Ben and Joel. Ben looks so coy here.


Here are Abigail and Ben checking out the boats in the Marina



And lastly, the reason we stopped by~ to see the sea lions. I think our kids were the loudest kids there. No, not loud like running around screaming or anything. Loud like, "I need to connect with the sea lions and make the most obnoxious sounds possible that sorta sound like a sea lion in the event they mistake me for one and come this way." Yes, that's exactly what it sounded like. Don't doubt me.


Ok, that wasn't exactly the last thing we did. We went and ate one more time at a spot right on the pier. Nothing spectacular after what we'd been eating previously but it was good and the kids had a great time with Abigail's new surfer friend (she's holding his hand?).

Friday Night Activity: Train Ride

Start in Sunnyvale, up to Palo Alto, back to Sunnyvale.

I think Benjamin was a little excited and surprised the whole time.

The girls made friends with a German speaking southern californian.

Fun!

A comparison

I tried to take these photos around the same age. I think Gabriel is one week older than Ben was but pretty close. And mostly I wanted to do this so I could see the similarities between them. Any guesses on who's who?? And do you think they look alike?