Waving My White Flag

Cooper is sick. Again. On the 1^st, he woke up with an upper respiratory infection. Apparently it was going around, and it lasted 3ish weeks, and usually developed into some sort of virus. He, literally, just got over that last week. He finally started having a normal appetite on Thursday. Yay!

Then, Saturday he woke up with a cold-sounding thing. Cough, runny nose, fever, etc. He took a FIVE hour nap. Five. And even then, I finally woke him up to eat dinner, and then he went back to bed a couple of hours later. Yesterday when he got up, one of his eyes was crusted shut, and green stuff was coming out. (TMI? Sorry) So, we took him to urgent care, where we found out he has RSV, which is not as scary as I thought it was. Maybe because of his age, and older “babies” handle it better, or so I learned.

Anyway.

He can’t go to daycare for at least a week. And Lee and I are super, super busy at work. Thank God for our parents. Lee’s mom is coming up on Wednesday to watch Cooper for a couple of days.

Last night, he went to bed at 5pm. For the night. Luckily, he has been sleeping throughout the night on his own. I don’t know how. Probably because he’s just so worn out. Although, he does seem to play well and act pretty okay during the day.

And then, this morning, his eyes looked horrible. Totally swollen and red and crusty. So I called his pedi’s office, and they said (in not such a nice way) that he probably has an infection in his eye and needs to be seen.

So, you know, just to recap: This poor child has basically been sick since September 1. Then he got tubes mid-December, and he was well again!! Then the damn upper respiratory infection, now this.

This weekend, I considered taking him out of daycare and finding someone to watch him at our house during the day. But I’m not sure. I like the structure of his daycare, and he needs to able to play with other kids, I feel. And, who knows if that would take care of him getting sick all the time, but I can’t imagine it would be anything else. And then, would he just always get sick later on when he started preschool?

I’m waving my white flag here. When will he stop getting sick?! Is this just what it’s like when you have little ones? I feel so bad for him, and worse that I can’t stay home with him. And don’t even get me started on how disappointed I am (and have been) with his pedi’s office. I think we are finally switching this time.

Weekend {Photo} Recap

First, I want to thank you guys for all of the comments on my last post.  I was reluctant to post it for a lot of reasons, but I am so glad I did.  I got so many comments, emails, and tweets about it, and I’m so grateful.  Even thought I assumed that I wasn’t alone, it was so nice to actually hear it. So thank you for the support!  I love this little blogging community :)

We had a fun, lazy weekend.  A certain someone was on pretty good behavior :)

I should probably be used to it, but I can’t believe Cooper is big enough to eat cereal with milk in it.  I

Cooper loves to help cook and bake.  We make snickerdoodles and he figured out a way to eat the cinnamon sugar with a fork.  Definitely my child!

He has started this thing where he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty when he’s eating. Apparently this is also true for his feet, because he wanted the sugar off of there!

We did some laundry.  With our helper, of course

He is really good at throwing the clothes into the washer

We took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather and went on a walk.

And that turned into an impromptu trip to the park

We wound down Sunday night by making dinner and playing trucks!

A Struggle

I’ve been thinking of writing this post for a while. I’m not a good writer, so I know that it won’t come out how I want it to, but I’m going to do it anyway because I need to get this off of my mind. It is something I honestly struggle with every day.

Motherhood. Friends, it’s kicking my ass. And that is so, so hard for me to admit.

Growing up, if you were to ever ask me what I wanted to be, my answer would have been “a mom”. I have wanted children for as long as I can remember. In college and grad school, I was a nanny. First, to a family with 4 kids, and then to a family with just one little girl. I rocked those jobs. Why do I not rock that “job” now? Well, a couple things I should probably remind myself of: 1)none of them were toddlers, the youngest was 5 when I started; and 2)I got to go home at 6 every night.

Cooper was, seriously, an angel baby. As an infant, I couldn’t have asked for anything better. He slept through the night at 10 weeks (on his own, I had nothing to do with that), he ate any and everything you gave him-even if he didn’t like it, he was happy almost all the time, he was so content.

And then, I have no idea what happened. He turned 1, we moved, he started daycare a few days a week. All of these things happened within a few weeks of each other. And it was about that time that he turned into, well, a toddler I guess?

Cooper is…a spirited child, I guess you could say. He is super sweet and loving, he will give you kisses and hugs all day long. But he is also mischievous, independent, and opinionated.

He hates being in the car for more than 5 minutes. Most of our car rides consist of him screaming from the back seat.

He hates running errands. HATES. We rarely even go anywhere with him because we just don’t want to cause the scene that the screaming will cause. When he was tiny, he used to love running errands. Well, maybe he just didn’t know he could complain? Ha.

I get nervous when he is around other kids, because he bites, pinches, and pulls hair. Truly, I think that he does this because he gets so excited and doesn’t know how else to show it, but still. He doesn’t listen when you tell him to stop. He does this to me and Lee all the time.

He totally knows what “no” means, he just doesn’t care. He thinks it’s hilarious to keep doing whatever it is.

He throws huge, giant temper tantrums. For the most ridiculous things. If he wants a Cap’n Crunch and you won’t give it to him? Watch out.

He hates food. All of it. And if you so get him to eat something one day, he refuses it the next day. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I can get him to eat Easy Mac. Yep. I know that it terrible. But it’s all he will eat!

If he knows he is not supposed to do something, he is determined to do it. (chewing on earbuds, chasing the dogs, climbing on tables, etc.) He will do whatever it is he’s not supposed to, and look at you with a big smile!

He does not play independently at all, we have to sit with him at all times. Lee and I wonder if this is because he doesn’t get to see us much during the week, so he wants our undivided attention when we are with him? We’ve started making a point to dedicate our evenings to him and not really worry about our dinner or picking up the house until after he goes to bed.

Lately, he has been angry and screaming his head off when it’s time to go to sleep. We have even pushed his bedtime back to 8pm instead of 6:30-7, and he still completely freaks out.

Deep down, I don’t really think C is any worse than other toddlers, but honestly? I never hear anyone else complain or talk about it. So then I get paranoid and wonder if my child is just super difficult or out of control.

I also know that I probably have an especially hard time dealing with it. I am so type A and controlling, and I have very little patience. And for me to not be able to control Cooper’s behavior, or his moods, well it really frustrates me. And I lose my patience too easily. I know that, and I try to work on it.

Lee and I get very little time with him during the week. Maybe an hour in the mornings, and a couple hours in the evenings. And sadly, most of that time with him consists of him screaming, being in a bad mood, and getting time outs. It’s so frustrating to me. And it doesn’t help that he rarely acts like this for my dad. It’s only when he is with us. Most evenings after we get him to bed, or after a hard morning and I drop him off at daycare, I have to force myself not to cry and try to convince myself that I’m not a bad parent.

It sucks and I’m so, so ready for this stage to be over with. At least, I hope it is a stage.

I have to admit, this is the main reason we are not having another baby this year. I know I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I definitely wouldn’t be a good mom trying to wrangle my toddler and take care of a newborn, and not lose my patience.

I’m not looking for sympathy. I’m not even complaining. I just need to get this out there. My toddler is a lot to handle. And I really struggle with it.

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t love him to pieces. I do. And, for the most part, I try and not dwell on these parts of our days, but it gets to me because I feel like it’s something I’m doing or not doing.

I hope this doesn’t come across as me being harsh on Cooper, because that is not my intention at all. It’s more about me. My shock that…I really don’t know what I’m doing, I guess? That parenting is HARD. That this little 25 lb human is totally teaching me a lesson. My dad laughed at me the other day and said “you thought having a baby was going to be so easy!” And I totally did.

And honestly, Cooper’s personality? It is a lot like his momma’s. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard for me. I’m trying to control him and he’s trying to control me. Maybe we both need a time out?

Project 366: Week 2

Thanks to the lovely Sarah and her wonderful tutorial on how to to Project 365 from your phone, I have a cute new way to start sharing my photos!  Seriously, if you don’t follow her already, you should.  She is so creative and has an adorable little boy!

Okay, now that I’ve finished pimping her blog out, here’s what we were up to last week!

 

Project 365: Week 1

Yay!  I’m going to do Project 365 this year!  I really hope I can remember to take a picture every day.  So far, so good, but I’m sure in the future you may get  a picture (or 10) of my pajama pants because I’ve forgotten and only remembered right before I go to sleep :)

January 1: We went to Target on New Year’s Day and Cooper  took his first ride in one of these fun carts.  i promise he was more excited than he looks in the picture :)

January 2: Cooper’s first time to watch the movie Cars.  His little expression crack me up!  He kept pointing excitedly to the tv.  It kept his attention for a whole 5 minutes!

January 3: This is my One Line a Day book that I mentioned in my 2012 goals.  See how small it is?  Makes it super easy to just quickly jot down a fun memory from the day.

January 4: Cooper got a tent for Christmas and he loves playing in it.  He will go in there and lay down.  He was vacuuming it on this evening :)

January 5: I snapped this pic of Cooper’s bed while he was getting a bath.  He sleeps with a TON of blankets!  One was missing because he has to hold it while he is getting his jammies on after his bath.  Funny boy!

January 6: Cooper didn’t sleep much, if at all, the night before because of an upper respiratory infection and teeth (poor buddy).  He fell asleep in the car on the way to daycare.  I felt so bad waking him up to go in.

January 7: We went over to my parents’ house to celebrate my dad’s birthday.  Cooper played with his Little People Zoo and he looked so big standing next to it.

2012: THE PLAN

I don’t usually make resolutions. Last year, I didn’t make any, and I felt good about that. And although I didn’t resolve to make any changes in particular, two things I’d been wanting to do for a while happened. I found a new job that I love, and we moved. So, 2011 was a pretty good year for us.

This year, however, I do feel the need to write down a few things I want to accomplish throughout the year. I wouldn’t call them resolutions, in particular, “goals”sounds more appropriate :)

So, 2012 goals!

Budget, budget, budget!! This is the biggest goal I would like to accomplish this year. We usually do pretty well with limiting our spending (ahem, when we try), but between the two of us, we have a car payment and three student loans. My student loans are horrible and I hate seeing the interest we will pay in the end. I want to pick the two lowest and pay them off this year. It’s a big goal, but I think we can do it!

Blog more! Ha! Notice that at the beginning of this post, I didn’t even reference the amount of time that has passed since I last blogged? Sick kid, selling/buying/moving homes, crazy happenings at work, and tv all won out over blogging for most of 2011. But I WILL be better in 2012. I have come to rely on this blog as a way to remember events and just general everyday life, and I don’t want to lose those memories. So, I will blog more! And, it will be boring, everyday life, weekend recaps, tons of pictures, etc. Because that’s what I like to look back on, and that’s why I started blogging in the first place. Those are also my favorite posts of others to read. I love peeking into your everyday lives :)  I need to start with…Christmas events!  A little behind, but could be worse!

Get back into a workout routine. Having a child really complicates the logistics of working out. I am going to have to get over the mommy-guilt of working out a couple of evenings after work, and for a few hours on the weekend.

Lose weight. Typical! Last year I lost 30 lbs. That was great, and I was happy with it. BUT! I was 20 lbs away from an ultimate goal that, quite frankly, I was too lazy to continue pursuing. Plus, I thought we were going to want to have a baby in 2012 and I didn’t want to “waste” the effort. Ha! For several reasons, we have decided not to have a baby this year, and I am going to finally make this long time goal a reality!

Watch less tv! I love tv. Love. Maybe too much. But lately, I have felt like tv has been controlling me. Sound stupid? Probably, but that’s they way I felt. I would like to have more time in the evenings to read or pick up the house, or just hang out without the burden of what show is on that night. I’ve already started out right by not watching The Bachelor!! :) I have actually only watched tv one night this week, and it was one show!

Work on decorating the house. I want to get the main living areas painted, and make curtains. As well as finish Cooper’s room, and possibly start on his bathroom.

Fill this out every night. I have been wanting one of these little books for over a year now, and I finally got one for Christmas. I can’t wait to be able to look back on years past and see what we were up to!