I slept in my glasses (a.k.a.: "a note about Ambien")

This, people. This is why the Ambien bottle advises you not to operate heavy machinery after you take it. The bottle should also tell you not to text, call, write anything in the public domain, or try to cook. Fortunately, I got off easy this time. Jason tells me this morning that I fell asleep last night with my glasses on. That's never happened. Then it hit me: I blogged. Oh, God, I blogged. Then I read yesterday's blog. Ha! Oops. Then I panicked again when I opened up my laptop to see Facebook pulled up. Oh.dear.no.please. So far I don't see any traces of conversation from a sleep drunk girl but if you did receive a post, call, text, anything from me, please let me know.

No, I don't take sleeping pills often. It's a very rare occasion reserved for nights when I expect my mind to keep me awake on the eve before a day that needs my best. Yesterday I wasn't feeling very well - ate nothing but yogurt, a tiny bit of waffle, and some of Hannah's leftover smash cake from her photo shoot with Heather Hanna Photography. I started to get anxious about the fact that I was getting run down and I didn't want to miss Hannah's first birthday party. So to quiet my mind, I took one. Yeah, I did it. Guilty as charged. It's been several months since I took the last one. I forgot how quickly they kick in. Had I recalled, I probably wouldn't have opened the laptop thinking I could bust out a quick post.

The lesson here? Ambien is no joke. Use sparingly and away from communication mechanisms.

Mom overboard!

Thar she goes!

Hannah's first of two first birthday parties is tomorrow, and if you're wondering why I haven't been posting over the last two weeks it's because I've been gettin' my CRAFT on, girl! Hannah, my little ladybug, needed to have a ladybug themed birthday party. And BY GOD I was going to give it to her! Really, though, I just love theme parties. And I love crafting, I just never have any reason to do it. The good thing about have a kid now is that I get to do all sorts of crafts and say that it's about the kids. It's for the kids! No. No it's not. Do I want Hannah to have a nice birthday party? Of course! But she will care about three things in the room: food, her friends and family paying attention to her, and the balloons. That will be the extent of her interest. But, like I just mentioned, it's not just about her. It's about me and my inner crafter who has been repressed for so long and is now being released into the bright cold wild like a skinny dipping Amish woman feeling refreshed for the very first time.

Y'all just wait for it. I will post some pictures. Don't fear. It's going to be all kinds of Pinterest-y over the top and I honor my sweet ladybug angel the way she deserves to be celebrated every day!

I was going to post some craft pictures here but my Ambien is kicking in so I need to stop communicating in any form immediately. Nothing good happens when I am sleep-typing. Although it would be a neat experinent if I could take my Ambien and make myself type all night and see what happens. Would any of my dreams get catpure
k
Thisis where I geta little bit more tired and an=jst wantt =o read sometihng about swimming in a lake

Ambein works fst!

Hannah in her eleventh month out of my big weird belly.

I like to hear how long it took other women's bodies to recover from their pregnancy because I'm in my eleventh postpartum month and stuff still ain't right. Jason sometimes catches me pinching some of the extra fluff hanging on where my abs used to be. The adorable little mole that used to sit beside my belly button looks like a splotch of old brown concrete gum. My belly button looks like a puckered mouth. Do they make Lifestyle Lifts for stomachs? I am not interested in liposuction. I bet if I stood outside shirtless during a windstorm my belly would flap in the breeze. IT WOULD FLAP IN THE BREEZE. Oh dear gawd.

OK, this is not about me. This is about Hannah! She's 11 months old. In just a handful of days she will be a whole year old, and I will probably cry a little/lot. Wahoo!

I did her 11 month photo shoot a little bit unconventionally. She's on the move, so I just went with her. She came home from daycare and I just followed her around the house on her normal evening adventures. We ate food. We drank bottles. We walked down the hallway, finger in hand. We visited many places we didn't belong in mommy and daddy's room. We tried to climb into the bathtub fully clothed. We played "smack the toys off the ledge" in the bathtub. Success.

 

 

 

 

"Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana." - Groucho Marx

Today is my birthday! Whoop!
I love birthdays. The air always feels a little different, in a good way. Magical and special and happy. I'm not one of those people who fears age. I'm like a fine wine that gets better with time, or a nice hand-crafted piece of antique furniture, or just a senile old lady in the making. I am off work today and my darling mother has taken Hannah under her care so I can spoil myself. Here is how I plan to spend my birthday:

• Sleep in (check!)
• Update blog whilst sipping delicious coffee (in progress)
• Go get my license updated (ugh)
• Go buy myself things I don't need (hoorah!)
• Perhaps a massage? A pedicure? I just don't know where the day will take me!
• Pick up Hannah from her grandparent's house and take her home in time for the babysitter to show up
• Go to a delicious wine/steak restaurant in Chesterfield where I will consume delicious wine/steak among the company of my most treasured family members who could be in attendance
• Pass out smiling, warm in my bed

In the spirit of reflection (and, in some cases, embarrassing myself), here are some old photos I dug up in my archive:

I kind of look like Hannah, except my face is longer ("So I said to the horse, 'HEY! why the long face?'")

I look pensive but really I just fell asleep with my eyes open.

Jesse and I getting ready for a day of uniform-wearing at the ole Catholic grade school. Great jumper! Nice socks!

Dad's got a perm, Mom's got legs that won't quit, Jesse's gotta pee, and I'm asleep with my eyes open again.

"What do you mean you don't eat them with the shells on?"

Hannah Boo Boo isn't the only award-winning baby in this family tree!



"Whatcha thinkin' about?"
"Nothin, just baseball stuffs!" (Jesse and Jason will get this joke)

I was actually a sweatshop baby.

Oh, you know, just playin' superheroes in my sweat suit beneath the woven wall decal on top of the shag carpet.

Amazingly, I even smiled while sleeping with my eyes open.

I know a haircut done at home when I see one - nice bangs!
One more millimeter toward the ear and this would qualify as a mullet!

In my young political days, shaking hands and kissing adults.

Asleep.

There is absolutely nothing funny about this picture. It's perfect and I look amazing.

Zzzzzzzzz.

Thank you all for taking this trip down memory lane with me. I hope to see you all again at this very blog one year from today for another showcase of sleeping with eyes open and bad bangs!
[blows out candles]

The Girl Scouts organization is a brilliant pyramid scheme run by bakers.

Or maybe Girl Scouts is really a product of the Weight Watchers organization? How else are they going to continue getting new members? One GS cookie is like four Weight Watchers points. For perspective, my Weight Watchers points target when I was on the wagon was 21 points/day. I could have had about five GS cookies and that's pretty much it for the day. I owe at least seven pounds on my body to Samoas/Caramel deLites. You'll notice the Wikipedia description of Caramel deLites uses the following language: "Vanilla cookies coated in caramel, sprinkled with toasted coconut and laced with chocolate stripes."

LACED with chocolate stripes? Are "chocolate stripes" and "crack" synonymous in GS language?

Look at me pointing fingers. It's not their fault I ate an entire box of Caramel deLites yesterday in one sitting. It's my lack of self control. This is exactly why I need to detox from this type of food, as I mentioned a few posts ago. I felt really good at that time! Now I have a dunlop problem.

What's a dunlop problem?
My belly dun lopped over my jeans!!!!!

For the record, this is NOT me. But a few more boxes of GS cookies, and...

That's a pretty bad joke. Sorry.

So I have definitely not made my 30 day detox commitment, but instead I've made more of a lifestyle 85/15 commitment, meaning I will eat very clean the vast majority of the time but by god I am going to have some wine and a box of cookies now and then! And a boatload of toffee that my coworker made for my birthday today. And maybe a couple of bites of the ridiculous sopapilla that was in the break room today for "international food/dress" day at work.

Don't judge me! I eat mostly from the parameter of the grocery store and have managed to avoid a lot of dairy and processed food. We've also joined the YMCA so we can go as a family and swim and whatnot. I am really trying to work off the remaining baby belly considering it's been nearly a year since I was pregnant. Did I mention that Hannah is almost ONE???? Holy crap. I'm going to have some wine and cookies that day for sure.

Babies, birthdays, births, and babies' birthdays.

The theme of the past 20 days was "Babies and Birthdays."

In order of occasion...

Happy birthday to my niece Mykenna!
This sweet little monkey turned one on February 11th. We celebrated the prior weekend with the family in Lincoln, IL. She is a tiny doll baby with big eyeballs and a loving temperament. Jason and I love our niece and Hannah loves her cousin.

CAKE!

Grandma Paula is in grandbaby heaven.

Hannah latched onto the balloons, naturally.

Mykenna looks like the missing Olsen triplet. Right?

Also on February 11th, Baby Nora Dawn Walter was born!
We have been referring to her as "Pickle" in utero because we did not know if she was a girl or boy so obviously we needed to refer to the baby as a delicious sandwich accompaniment. Duh. Jesse and Monica did a fantastic job - Nora is absolutely gorgeous, all 6 lbs 5 oz 20" of her!

Jesse tapes us as we photograph him announcing..."It's a GIRL!"

The very lovely Nora Dawn

Such beeeauuutiful eyes. I love her so much.

This baby looks good on us, right? Uhhhhhhhh....

Hannah reaches for her baby cousin.

 

Aunt Mutherford and her sweet little niece Nora Dawn

Family portrait!



Proud papa, my dear brother Jesse

Family face palm

My gorgeous sister-in-law and loving mama, Monica.

 

On February 14th, we honored the one year birthday of our family's precious twin boys, Anthony & Wesley.

Exactly one year ago on Valentine's Day, my family lost two dear pieces of our hearts when God called Jesse and Monica's twin boys home 20 weeks into their gestation. I was 8 months pregnant with Hannah and I remember the absolute fear I felt when my mom told me that Jesse and Monica had found out at their ultrasound on a Friday that the boys had twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS). Just two weeks prior their ultrasound had shown that they were growing just fine. Things changed very quickly, and a few days later Monica went into labor. It was too early and there was nothing the doctors could do but deliver the boys while we all dealt with life's ultimate case of helplessness. I had been trying to stifle my fear because I had heard it was bad to have anxiety when you are pregnant, but I couldn't stifle my devastation and anger. Over the past year, I have watched the faithfulness of my brother and sister-in-law as they grieved, yearned for their boys, became pregnant again, and trusted God's plan as much as we all thought this part of His plan was unnecessary and awful. I can't make sense of it and most of the time I don't even try to. Instead, I open up to God when I'm angry about it, I cry when I miss them, I think about what I know in my heart they look and act like (two little dark-haired darlings, rambunctious and goofy), I beg God to forgive me for not thinking that things always happen for a reason, and I praise Him for giving me such a loving family, my comfort, the people I admire and adore. I honor and love Anthony and Wesley every day.

 

My beloved nephews, Anthony and Wesley