At the time opening my mouth really wide and laughing seemed like a good idea. Now I realize I look like an idiot. After nearly 3 years of marriage I am finally putting together our wedding album. I am sharing a few of the photos to show you how much fun I've been having with this process. Fun. Lots of it. Nothing like scrolling through a thousand photos and figuring out how to organize them into an album I don't have to hide when my parents/in-laws come to visit. In case you were wondering, yes, I had purple in my hair. And, yes, I had fake extensions. Three years later and I would marry Logan all over again. He is my best friend and I am grateful. It takes a special man to put up with me and I know it!
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Sadie has entered a new stage. Now when I scold Sadie she immediately asks for "dadda." Whenever she hurts herself she needs dadda to come to the rescue. When Logan comes home after work Sadie runs to the door and jumps on him screaming "dadda! dadda! dadda!" In the morning she wakes up and immediately asks for dadda. I'm starting to feel like chopped liver around here. (This expression has always irked me... I love chopped liver. At my house chopped liver is eaten first, with a spoon preferably. Where the hell did this expression come from anyway? It can't be from the shtetl.) I'm also have a difficult time containing the jealousy oozing out of my soul. After all the sacrifice, worry, time and love I resent my boring status. I know Sadie loves me. But where is the excitement? The enthusiasm? The OMG MOMMY IS HERE?!?!?!?!?!? Have I given Sadie too much love? Too much support? Am I around more than she needs? In any case I've discussed my (perhaps irrational?) fear with Logan. What is it you ask? Imagine this: Sadie on some crazy MTV show at 12 showing off her bazillion dollar bat mitzvah party and the cool car her dadda bought her for becoming a woman. Horrible. And more realistically, where does this money come from? Money aside, Logan is a softie. He's a sweet softhearted man that does not like to say no to anything. How will we raise a good, respectful woman together? I am afraid of the war of the parents. I know about this war because I was an expert at maneuvering the battlefield when I was a kid. Ask Papa for this, ask Mama for that. If Papa gets upset tell him Mama said it was okay. Reverse strategies when necessary. Unfortunately this tactic created a lot of marital strife between my parents. Logan agreed that Sadie will not get an MTV show or a party worthy of television. He also reminded me several times we are on the same side and Sadie will not ruin our relationship. We are the united front. We are best friends surviving parenthood together. Today he is exciting, tomorrow I will be exciting, in a few years her best friends will be exciting and then one day some horrible boyfriend will be exciting. These are the stages of life. Ultimately I am Sadie's mom and I will always be excited to see her. A sickening cute video of my two loves: Play dates are confusing adventures. On one hand I get to hang out with awesome moms who I want to spend more time with, on the other hand I have to navigate relationships and dilemmas between my daughter and the other kids in the playgroup. My daughter is not an easy going personality. She is also two years old. Her friend's toy looks a lot better than her toy. It isn't a problem when we are hanging out with older kids who don't mind passing toys back and forth. This is a huge dilemma when playing with other kids under the age of 5 who refuse to share their toy.
I am a big believer in teaching Sadie how to share. Sadie gets a few minutes with her toy and then the kid who wants to play with the same toy also gets a few minutes. The sentiment does not seem to be shared with other mothers. It leaves me in a bind. On one hand I am teaching Sadie how to share and on the other hand I want to respect the other mothers and not cause a scene about sharing. This leads to the inevitable Sadie meltdown. After a few hours of this joyful refereeing I am ready to curl into bed and hide. I'm not sure how to handle this conundrum. Do I let Sadie throw constant temper tantrums over the unfairness of the situation or do I demand the other mom encourages sharing between our kids? For now I find it easier on my sanity to avoid play dates altogether - knowing full well this solution cannot possibly last. My two year old is obsessed with shoes. She LOVES shoes. Her life revolves around shoes. I bought her a six pack of princess shoes a month ago - half of them are broken from overuse. My daughter is a shoe-a-holic. The last time she accompanied me to the shoe store, she was able to contain her enthusiasm only for a few minutes before finally ripping off her shoes, screaming "SWHOES!" and grabbing the nearest pair of heels to slip her feet into. Her little body wriggled with ecstasy as shoe after shoe was grabbed, worn, walked in and discarded. I spent the time running after Sadie and cleaning up her shoe mess forgetting I was the one who needed a new pair of shoes. A month ago I bought Sadie a pair of Keens. They are water resistant, durable and great shoes for playing outside. Sadie refuses to wear them now claiming they are "owie" every time they come near her. She prefers to wear her princess shoes - the same ones that gave her blisters recently. Yes the plastic crappy princess shoes that gave her blisters don't hurt, but the Keens are owie. I finally gave up on the Keens after Sadie left them outside overnight giving the dogs the perfect chew toy. Do you see the cute pink sparkly shoes in the picture? Don't they look great from the outside? Yes, I admit, they are somewhat dirty in the inside of the shoe but does it really matter? Does it? Well, to Sadie they warranted a full blown melt down a few weeks ago. Melt. Down. The shoes were owie and yucky and ewwee and no matter how many times I tried to clean the inside with baby wipes Sadie refused to wear them. She also refused to wear any other shoes in the house. Recently I purchased Sadie two new pairs of shoes. A pair of purple Crocs and a pair of gym shoes that are pink and covered in glitter and light up when you walk. I want gym shoes that do that. Well, maybe not, people might point and laugh every time the lights flashed. And yet, maybe they would all be pointing out of jealousy at the coolness of my shoes. The world will never know. Lazy and brilliant (brilliant in avoiding a shoe store with Sadie) I decided to order the shoes through Zappos. Sadie sat at the computer and picked out the shoes with me. Every day for a week any time someone would pull into our driveway Sadie yelled "SWHOES! MOMMY! SWHOES!" When her shoes finally arrived the excitement overwhelmed us both. It was a miserable few weeks without shoes Sadie approved of in the house. The purple Crocs became an instant hit. A day later Sadie decided to try on her new gym shoes and ran outside into the dirt. Five minutes later her white and pink sparkly shoes were coated in dirt. I didn't care about the dirt until Sadie declared the shoes were "OWIE!!!" Now I knew I was in trouble. Zappos only takes returns on shoes that look like they've never been worn. I've spent too much time now trying to get the dirt out of every little groove on the bottom of the shoe. Toothpicks. Baby wipes. My nails digging into the small little spaces. WHY ARE THERE SO MANY GROOVES? WHY DID SADIE HAVE TO PLAY IN THE DIRT IMMEDIATELY AFTER TRYING THEM ON?? WHY WON'T ZAPPOS TAKE BACK A SLIGHTLY DIRTY SHOE??? There are so many good questions regarding this issue. I have a theory Zappos inserted a dry slowing glue to all the small crevices in the shoe to collect dirt and prevent returns. Thankfully Sadie is more than happy with her Crocs. I haven't heard a single complain about her shoes in days. This is good because I was getting close to banning all shoes for Sadie until she was ten. The moment I knew I was having a girl I couldn't wait for the day we would make challah and light shabboes candles together. Every shabboes Sadie watches me light candles. She stands by my side participating in a tradition passed on from Jewish mother to daughter for generations. When I cover my eyes with my hands Sadie covers her eyes and prays alongside me. Together we continue a tradition hundreds (if not thousands) of years long. We are another link in the chain of Jewish women. When Sadie turns three she will light her own candle for the first time and hopefully pass on the custom to her daughter.
Another beautiful tradition passed on from mother to daughter is making challah. Last Friday Sadie helped me make challah from scratch. We stirred the flour, sugar, oil and eggs together. Every ingredient was greeted with a "what's that?" Sadie's desire to participate slowed down the process a lot - a simple stirring of ingredients became a battle of who could stir and how much of the ingredients would stay in the bowl while Sadie stirred. Once the dough rose on its own for a few hours Sadie and I spent over an hour kneading the dough. I loved watching Sadie work the dough with her fingers. Her enthusiasm and joy was infectious. Making challah with Sadie became an act of bonding. Sadie and I were infusing our challah with love. There is a yearly tradition for San Diego folk, it's the Del Mar Fair. We skipped the fair last year and decided to experience the fair as a family on its opening weekend this year. It took longer than an hour for us to drive down there, fight traffic, get a parking spot and walk to the ticket counter. Upon entering the fair Sadie demanded "yummies" and we set off for junk food alley. The smell of fried food permeated the air. There were people everywhere. Pregnant women, couples, singles, young and old came to the fair to enjoy crazy food, wild rides and walk inside exhibits. We started with french fries smothered in cheese and fried onions hoping that would hit the spot for Sadie. Unfortunately it did nothing for her. Dadda Logan jumped to the rescue whisking Sadie away to the nearest ice-cream vendor. Minutes later he brought a visibly happier Sadie and a beautiful hot fudge sundae. Have you noted the colored sprinkles? You know Dadda Logan loves his little girl if he's covering the ice-cream with whip cream and colored sprinkles. I think I may have forgotten to mention the kettle corn that we had to buy before we did anything at the fair. And when I say we, I mean me. In the parking lot one of the parking attendants was carrying a bag of kettle corn - it took all of my willpower to resist jumping out of the car, grabbing the bag of kettle corn and pouring the bag into my mouth as quickly as possible. I'm not sure I even remembered to breathe as I inhaled the kettle corn. After ice-cream came the funnel cake. Logan covered half of the cake in strawberries and other half in Bavarian cream. I took a few bites and understood immediately that eating any more funnel cake would be detrimental to my digestive health. Once food was dealt with we walked through the flower exhibit, the gardens, and then headed to the livestock area. Afterwards we walked around the rides and entered the kiddie rides area. Sadie watched with glee two old elephants walk in circles with paying customers on their backs. I was torn between giving her an opportunity to ride the elephant and feeling disgusted at how rundown the elephants looked. Logan and I agreed to skip the ride this year to avoid a philosophical debate regarding the elephants. After five hours at the fair I was feeling rundown. We came home, I showered and laid in bed for hours holding a sleeping Sadie and resting. I spent the night waking up from pain throughout my body. At 24 weeks of pregnancy spending an entire day at the fair is not easy! Sadie slept from 7pm yesterday until 10am this morning.
A fun day that does not need to be repeated until next year :) |
Meet the Blogger!
I'm a mom. A writer. A lover of good fantasy. A proponent of nursing when possible. A birth advocate. I am absolutely horrible at keeping my house clean or the dishes washed or the laundry done. I strongly believe in women having a positive birth. When we start to respect women's rights to birth the way they want, we can start to treat women as equal people in this world. Archives
February 2016
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