Crazy sleeping toddler fun

This Video is Exactly Benjamin!

So I have to share a sleeping pic of each of my kids and tell you the insanity that surrounds!

First there is Benjamin, the oldest! Our 3 year old! He has to have very specific things in his bed and a very specific routine!

He must have all 27 dinosaurs in his bed! Most are 2 inches tall or less but one is like 2 feet tall! Lol

Then all his sports ball pillows, the cast of Toy Story, 4 very large monkeys, several small pillows and his tiger bebe!

Then there is Princess Cloee! Shes 2 and she has to sleep in her princess castle! And inside her castle she has 4-5 blankets, all 6 of her Minnie Mouses, an assortment of zebras an elephant and which ever other thing she has favored for the day!

 

Then you have our sweet little cosleeper who refuses to sleep alone... Its sweet until you get a foot in the neck! hahaha

Are anyone elses kids this crazy? lol!  Some days I wonder! hahah

Life happens

I think I am officially off my hiatus! I really didnt mean to have one but as we all know life happens!  In November Benjamin turned 3, Cloee 2 and Jaxsen 1!  Then thanksgiving then a fun challenge when i had a panic half way through bc my brides maid dress was literally 4-5 inches away from closing and tried starving and hcg and other things for quick alternatives and ended up having to have my dress signigicantly altered, gaining more weight and being miserable!  Christmas with a million sets of families, stomach bugs, flus, headaches, er trips, urgent care trips and the list goes on!  Its been pure craziness!  I just wanted to take a few mins and share a few fun pics and a little of the craziness with you!

First off besides being totally mad at the fatness my body has stored on (that will be another post too) I am in the I totally hate my hair stage and why the heck did I ever cut it off!  I had a horrible experience with my last appointment (will share in another post) and just cant get to be ok with it!

Today I tried something new and I was asked 'Arent you going to fix your hair?' Haha!

 

 

  This is Jax, he is now 14 months old and a total biggie piggie!  Here he is eating a waffle! Eesh! I dont want my kids to have these bad habits lol!

 

 

 The kids all got new house shoes for christmas! Benjamin calls these his tiger feet and getting him to wear them is a serious fight! haha

 Heres our chunky monkey sleeping like a man! haha! Hes too cute!

Benjamin has been a total ham lately!  love it! He sits like this then says.. Mommy do you know what im thinking?

Followed by something totally random like 'i think you have a chicken in your eye?' lol

My princess had the stomach bug for a whole day and this is her just snuggling me she is too sweet for words!

Just a little catch up.. cant wait to get back into a serious routine!  One where things make since, where my laundry is somewhat caught up and where I can have a little down time to sit and read all the blogs I love!!!  Talk to you soon! Thanks for stopping by and reading and Im looking forward to sharing so much more with you soon!

Postpartum, Depression and a need for Me Time

While browsing twitter this morning I came across this awesome post  http://blogs.babble.com/babys-first-year-blog/2012/08/30/mommy-needs-a-break-not-a-guilt-trip/   Every once in a while you come across a post that you feel you could have written yourself, one that you so identify with that you wonder how someone got in your mind and put your own words into a post.  I have found several of those lately but this one even more so.  This post has nothing to do with the background I want to share with you but it has everything to do with what we as mothers go through on a daily basis!   I have never shared this because I know that family reads my posts, I know that friends read it etc.  But along the blogging realm I have realized that I learn so much from other mommies who bear their hearts and tell real life experiences and maybe if I share this lil background tidbit it will help some other mommies in the process. When I had our last baby 10 months ago, Benjamin wasn't even 2 and Cloee wasn't even 1 and my husband was in the middle of a 13 month long deployment tour in Afghanistan.  Thankfully he got to be home for the birth but left very soon after.  Once he was gone all the wacko post pregnancy emotions started taking a heavy toll.  With the severity of my emotions and mood swings I thought for sure I must have postpartum.  I talked to a few other people I trusted and all passed it off as the stress of having 3 under 2 and a hubs in a war zone, it also got passed off as I need to pray more, I need to spend more time with Jesus etc.  I totally believe that 3 under 2 was a stresser and spending  more time with jesus would surely help but at the same time I knew there was much more going on with me that was not within my control.    For the next 5 months I tried to pass off my irrationality just as my friends told me to, it would get easier once the hubs was home from deployment, hopefully!  In that 5 months I spent most of my days totally a stress ball, yelling at my kids over every little thing, crying for no reason at all, feeling like I could put my fist through a wall were just a few of the overbearing things I was dealing with.  Of course adding a lack of sleep, waking up at least 3 times a night with the baby and at least 3 more with a fussy teething 1 year old didnt help at all.  I had crazy anxiety about the deployment, more so than ever before.  I began freaking out, having nightmares, spending every waking moment in fear that the Chaplin would be at my door with horrid news.  Every time I heard a car door or a noise I would rush to the door, brace myself for the worst and peek out the peep hole, or through the blinds in the bathroom.  It would often take me 20 mins or more to calm down afterwards knowing that it was ok.  Waiting for my hubs to call was like living on pins in and needles.  I know all women go through these types of things during deployment but this was beyond irrational and would literally cripple me with fear.  When my hubs returned from deployment Jax was 5 months old, I hoped that once he was settled all the emotions would subside.  After all I wasn't alone anymore, I didn't have to do it all by myself,  my hubs was safe etc. A month passed and I was still the exact same, extreme mood swings, irrationality & anxiety still prevalent.  Though this time my anxiety wasn't about war it was about expecting the car to crash, thinking the kids were lost, etc.  My poor hubs got the brunt of it.  One min I was happy lets get it on and the next min I was crying for no reason and freaking out about nothing.  After a few more months I told another friend what I was going through and she told me that another friend of hers was going through the same thing and I should talk to my doctor.  WHAT? Talk to my doc? I had always been one of those people who was skeptical about depression, pills for it etc.  My mom was always negative about people taking depression pills etc.   After talking to my hubs we decided that a trip to the doc wouldn't hurt.  Sitting in the room with my doc I talked about my crying fits, my crazy mood swings etc and he agreed that I was likely suffering through some serious postpartum or just a bat of major depression and anxiety.  We decided to give a few things a try.  Only my hubs and 1 other friend even knew that I was taking something for depression.  I was fearful for my mom to know, knowing that I might get the talk of people being over medicated, didn't tell another friend for fear of the gripe of needing to spend more time praying etc.  I just didn't want other people to know i was taking a depression med.  We tried lexapro... it was awful, it made me crazy tired among a few other things.  Moved to Effexor which after upping the dosage seemed to help a lot except it had some bad side effects which after my appt 2 days ago my doc decided to change me to a diff med. I  was fearful about changing because I was finally starting to feel normal again.  Of course I had days that were bad but for the most part I was doing great except for the side effects.  Well the new med he changed me to was supposed to be most like the effexor and have less side effects.  Well 24 hours after my first pill I feel like a total whack job again!  The kids had been awful allllll day, the hubs came home and had to go lock himself up to do homework.  I finally had had enough and text him saying please come give me a break.  By the time he came out I was crying uncontrollably.   Ugh I hate the adjustment period.  But the plans are to hopefully be off everything with in 4-6 months.   Really what I want other mommies, especially new mommies, to know is not to ignore the signs.  If I had talked to my doc when i first started going through this I would probably be all better by now but instead I passed it off.  If you are feeling depressed, having crying spells for no reason, irrational mood swings etc it wouldn't hurt to talk to the doc.  I don't think medicating yourself is always the answer but if you have postpartum or even just depression in general its good to seek help.  Be it counseling or whatever. Thats the background that I wanted to share but beyond the effects of postpartum every mom has days.  Whether she is in perfect health or dealing with whacked out emotions, has been a mom for years and years or is a brand new mom, bad days happen!  And its okay to vent and its okay to ask for help.  What is not okay is bashing or being negative to moms that do so.  I often have people trying to dull out advice and instead of being helpful all they do is royally tick me off.   If you know a military wife whose husband is gone or even a single mommy, instead of telling her how to do something how about offering to help, giving her an hour to run to the store alone, or an hour just to sleep?  When my hubs was gone I had several people say oh were gonna do this and that and while the hubs was gone I never heard from them.  I had several people say oh I know how you feel my hubs had a business trip this weekend.  Shut the crap up! haha my hubs is in a freaking war zone not vegas for a 'business trip'  Sorry for that little side tangent hahaha!  Any way as moms we love our kids unconditionally and we cherish every season but there are always going to be times where we are just stressed, aggravated and need a break where we just want to pee alone or take a pooh with out the kids tearing the house up, where we just want to soak in a bath or go for a walk to relax.  It doesn't mean we love our families any less, it doesn't mean we don't cherish the moments it just means we are human and unlike people who work outside the home, we don't get 2 15 min breaks and an hour lunch break to ourselves.  We don't get the quiet drive to and from work alone.   A mom works 24/7, she doesn't get sick days, she doesn't get paid time off or holidays.  Lets be moms helping and encouraging moms and not pointing out what other moms are doing wrong? Sounds good to me?! 

This is an average day in my house...  go to the bathroom for 2 mins and come out to this... hahah  Have a happy day mommy friends!  Hope this helped someone! PS check out the post before this for a super fun Friday Blog Hop!!! Lots of awesome Mommies and bloggers linking up!!!   http://monkeysandtutus.blogspot.com/2012/08/friday-chaos-blog-hop.html

Introducing Mommy To Mommy Q&A!

Hi fab readers!  I have what I think is an epic idea (oh how I hate the word epic, yet always use it! ha) Anyway! Starting next Thursday I am doing a Mommy to Mommy Q&A Feature that will run every Thursday! The idea is, I love getting advice from other mommies and I always find ideas I never thought of and I wanted to get some thoughts and ideas from other mommies and share with other mommies! Right now I am planning on doing one topic a week, and with in each topic several questions that 5-7 mommies will be answering.  I will also do a lil feature and links back to the mommies taking part in that week! My thought is this is more geared to mommies of kids under 5 :)  If you have older kids you can still participate but the answers would be geared to when your kids were younger. So here are the first months worth of topics:  Email me if you are interested and which topic you would like to be a part of ! monkeysandtutus@gmail.com   Eating with Kiddos  (Questions like how to get kids to try new things, dealing with picky eaters, snack ideas etc) Playing with Kiddos (Questions like craft ideas, cleaning up, sharing, organization etc) Potty Training Juggling kids, play dates and house hold chores Many more to come! These are just the first ideas! Email me if interested and also please comment other topic ideas or what questions you would like answered! Cant wait to get this party started!!!

Followers - The numbers game

I usually don't post on Tuesdays because its our family day but I had some time this evening and had something hit my heart that I wanted to share :) I was laying in bed browsing twitter and came across a conversation about followers and people requesting you follow them etc.  As I read the comments I have to admit I felt a little convicted.  I don't think that I have ever gone and posted hey come follow me but its easy to fall into the follow me and I will follow you fad.  Lately I have been consumed with the numbers.  Less than 3 weeks ago I had less than 100 followers and I have been so excited to see that  number rise each day. And I will always be excited about seeing that number rise! But not just because the number is bigger but because I am making that many more connections!   I have been working hard for my followers, entering hops, finding new blogs to read, making new connections and new friends. And I have truly been working on making my blog something that others will want to read and finding other blogs that I want to read as well.    A few days ago I changed my little comment saying to 'follow me and ill follow you' I have been totally guilty of skimming through blogs and thinking I like this and half reading their post before making a comment, basically trying to get a follow back with out saying it flat out.  Needless to say I am changing that now because at the end of the day thats not what its about.  If you leave me a comment or follow me I will always do my best to make it over to your blog and hopefully follow you to but I am not going to feel guilty about not following someone expecially if their blog has nothing to do with anything that relates to me, ya know?   So from now on I am going to stop fishing for followers so to say.  When I follow a blog its going to be because I really enjoy the content and the blogger and not just simply because want a follow back.  Do I want a ton of followers, of course I do! Do I want you to have a ton of followers, Heck yes! But I want readers and actual followers etc not just a bunch of people who clicked follow to get a follow and never read a word I wrote.   At the end of the day I hope that I am writing relevant things.  I hope that I am making meaningful relationships and connections.  I hope that you follow me because you like what I have to say and I hope to continue to make some new special friends and great connections.    Happy Tuesday Loves! Hope to see you tomorrow!  Tomorrow I plan to share about our trip the Tiger Safari and still have to tell you the deets about the peanut butter playdough!

Mommy Hair Epic Fail

Any other stay at home moms ever have a day where you absolutely dont have time to take a shower? How about 2 days in a row?  I know I am not the only one.  Or how about have time to get take a shower but dont have time to do your hair?  I have been growing my hair out for a year and am finally in the stage where I can pull it up.  The problem is I absolutely can not rock a pony tail for anything!  I envy those of you who can rock cute pony tails, buns etc!        In my moms marital advice to me one of her things was always get ready, always take a shower, always look your best for your hubs etc.  However being a mommy of 3 under 3 it just doesnt always work out. The other day I stopped by a fellow mommy of 3 lilttle ones house to drop off something and she was totally rocking the high messy bun! I knew she was having a busy day but dang she totally looked great with her high messy bun and greasy hair! Why oh Why can I not pull this off?  I dont think its that bad? Do you? haha  

    So today we needed to run to the Sams (which is an okie version of costco) I thought I could rock a high messy bun and some yoga pants and a tank. Aparently I was wrong hahaha!     Anyone seen the episode of King of Queens where Carrie is always wearing a bun and it totally disgusts Doug? He cant look at her with out getting turned off etc.  Now I have to wonder if my hubs feels that way about my pony tails.  He would never tell me if he did because he is just to amazing.  To prove a point I took a good hour to get ready and wore a dress to the store haha! Men have it so easy! They dont have to blow dry, straighten hair, put on make up etc. Anyways Heres how I ended up at the store!

 

So whats your favorite Mama Look? 

911 saved my baby, a week later I did the same

I have always been that mom who didnt care if her kids ate in the living room.  I know tons of people who make food stay in the kitchen but I just have never been that way.  I grew up eating more meals in the living room on a TV tray then in the kitchen.  My kids usually eat their meals in their seats but often eat snacks in the living room. 

I am pretty sure that if I opened up my vacuum bag it would consist of puffs, gold fish, cheese its and cheerios.  Well my perception totally changed last Sunday!

I was sitting on the couch and the kids were playing right in front of me while snacking on some cheerios.  My 9 month old, who often eats cheerios with no problem, all the sudden started choking.  When I say choking, i dont mean swallowed wrong and coughing a little, I mean full on choking, face turning colors, not able to breathe choking!

I picked him up and was hitting him on the back, searching his mouth etc, he puked up some cheerios but still was not breathing.  I immediately called 911.  The lady walked me through infant CPR and after I laid him on his back and gave him several pumps he started breathing right as the Police came rushing through the door.  The police were here in less than 3 minutes, which made me incredibly happy.  He came in and checked him out and cancelled the paramedics.  By that time Jax was smiling and happy and acting like nothing ever happened.

Through the rush of adrenaline i was surprisingly calm but as soon as he left I burst into tears. 

 

Its so easy to think Oh that will never happen to me, and I have often thought that. But over the last 2 years I have known someone that was killed in a plane crash, car crash, boat crash, leukemia, cancer, overdose & brain tumor.  Life is short and I am learning to never take it for granted!

 

Last week while browsing Pinterest I came across this pin

 

It saved me last night during dinner!  We were out to eat after church and when my hubs stepped away to the bathroom, Jax started choking on a lil piece of tortilla.  He was gagging and turned red and i pulled him out of his chair and did just as illustrated above!  He puked ALLLLLLL over and was fine.  I was covered in puke, our bag and Jax were covered in puke but it was ok because he was ok.  It is so important to know how to help your baby if something like this should happen!

Needless to say I am pretty sure he isnt having any more things that arent totally pureed for quite a while!

Reorganized, cleaned and threw out the crud

I don’t know if you have this happens to any other busy mommies out there but my kids rooms tooooo often look like this a day after I spend lots of time cleaning them!

Today I decided enough was enough! Looking in her room there is sooo much stuff in there none of them ever plays with so I gave it an overhaul! Did some organizing, rearranging and some serious decluttering!

 Heres all the befores

And here is the afters! So much better!  We got this super cute bed at IKEA and my mom made all the bedding, curtains etc!