oh the joys of boys

Today Gabe ate so many Spaghetti-Os at lunch that he made himself sick.

Cooper was obviously bored after his nap today, so he grabbed some painting material from his diaper and went to town on himself and his crib.

Gabe's in the back-talking/disrespecting stage of his life, and Cooper's still stubborn as a mule. Life will never be dull in this household. :)

funny looks

We took Cooper to Children's for his pulmonologist consult today. Everything's fine, he's maintaining very well, and we'll wait and see what this winter brings for him. Hopefully he'll weather it just fine and we can try stopping the maintenance inhaler in the spring. If not, then we'll just keep him on it. No big deal. Back to my story, and the original reason for this post -

At the appointment, Craig took Cooper with the lady to be weighed and to get vitals while Gabe and I stayed in the exam room. This was the conversation:

"Are you Dad?"

"Yep."

"And is Mom in the exam room?"

"Yep."

Then he explains to me that the lady proceeds to give him the "Man, you must be stupid" look.

Craig just smiled and thought the situation was amusing, and decided that she didn't need an explanation.

He doesn't care what people think or say, or how they look at him. We are mom and dad. Period.

:)

Love my family!

Finally! Halloween Pics!

A Brother

As I was laying Gabe down for a nap we were talking about playing in the fall leaves later today. I mentioned that I would be taking lots of pictures so we could send some to Cooper's first mommy.

He asked if that was the one that kept him in her tummy until he was ready to come out and I said yes.

And I said I was very glad that Cooper was part of our family now.

Gabe says, "Me too, I am very glad to have a brother."

And I am very glad that he's very glad to have a brother! They melt my heart!

Tis the season

Gabe just got over strep throat. Now Cooper is sick...... again. His is all respiratory stuff............. again. Thank goodness his pulmonology consultation is next month. We're home sick today doing breathing treatments, inhaled steroids and oral steroids. Poor kid. He can't even run around without wheezing. At least now he's on a maintenance inhaler and some allergy meds. I think that will help a lot. We had planned on going up to mom and dad's this weekend. I was glad Gabe was on the mend, but I don't know if Coop will be well enough for us to go. I guess we'll just see how the next couple days goes. I am thanking God today that we're able to build up vacation time at work for situations like these. Praise God for good insurance and vacation time!

My first 5k EVER!

I think my time was somewhere around 36:49, but I'll have to check the official time when they get them submitted. That's not very fast at all, but I just don't care. I jogged the whole thing at a steady pace, so I am very happy with myself. I probably wouldn't have even known about it if my friend Dusty hadn't mentioned it. I'm glad we did it together!

Mom Guilt

Today I wonder - Why is there such a large amount of mom-guilt attached to everything?

If I work, and my children go to a sitter I feel guilty for not being at home. If I take an unpaid vacation day and stay with the boys I feel guilty for not contributing to the family finances. Some days I'm glad to be out of this house and around adults! And then of course I feel guilty about that too. I feel guilty when I take time for myself and go running, and I leave my husband with the kids. I know this is good for them, and I know this is good for me. But I still feel like I have taken something from them. I struggle with getting the regular tasks accomplished (laundry, lunches, general cleaning) and still finding time to have quality time with my children. They need me. They also need me to get all those other things done at some point. I worry that I discipline too much, that I say no too much, and then I feel guilty. I wonder if I'm not doing it enough and they'll grow up to be hellions........ and that would really make me feel guilty! A friend just wrote about what a tough decision it was for them to choose to bottle feed. We have all struggled with that problem too! And you know what, I bet guilt was part of the equation somewhere for all of us if we ended up choosing the bottle for our child.

I wonder if all moms struggle with this balance. Most moms do I think, we just try not to talk about it. I think this is because admitting some of these things that make us feel guilty feels like we have admitted mommy failure. No one wants to admit to mommy failure. I wonder if we hold standards that are too high. I also wonder if we put this pressure on each other. I think we might..... just a little bit. Do I worry about what another mom might think of me when I admit some of these things? Yes I do! Do I put a lot of the pressure on myself? Oh yes....... I do!

I think it comes with the territory of being a mom. But when did it become necessary in our culture to be everywhere, and be everything to everybody?