park adventures

today after dinner iggy and i took the kids to a park near the house that i haven't been to, and we had fun!

i usually go to the same park because i know it's made for smaller toddlers, and i've had experiences where i'll try a new park on a whim and then realize it's for bigger kids once we're already out of the car and anna's running around like a loony. i really need to take her to the park more often because she get's so excited.

iggy is normally the one that kills our park adventures because he insists that the kids have everything they could possibly need in the backyard. and okay, that's kind of true, but i stand by anna's need for adventure and new things. even baby iggy get's happier at the park.

anyway, this park is usually home to little league practices and games and it's pretty small so the baseball field was right next to the playground.

we've been deep in the world of babies and toddlers for two and half years now and it feels like a lot longer. i can't imagine not being a mom anymore, or not having funny odds and ends in my purse like broken crayons and fake phones, and sometimes i get sad when i realize my babies are growing up. i kept anna's pacifier with her name on it in my purse for months after she gave it up just because i liked having something of hers with me always. for baby iggy it was his silly texas longhorn with pacifier attached that stayed in my bag even when he didn't need it.

today though, seeing the little league practice got me excited for the time when our kids sign up, which is only a couple of years away. days of late summer sun, snack shack food, little uniforms, new friends, and cheering from the bleachers.

for today though, we stayed for a couple of hours on the little playground. i take the kids to the park by myself more often than going with iggy, so i know how skilled anna can be at climbing things and he was freaking out.

originally he wasn't letting her climb the honeycomb ladder for the slide and she was getting frustrated so i finally walked over from the swing set where i was pushing baby iggy to tell him she could handle it.

"Watch and be impressed" i told him. he looked at me like i was crazy and stayed right behind her with his arms ready to catch her, but naturally she didn't need him.

it's been mind blowing to watch those chubby little legs go from wobbly and constantly stumbling to steady and skilled in a year. it's seriously amazing how good she is at climbing and getting around.  she makes me laugh with how fearlessness. the other day my dad was on the roof taking measurements and anna saw him, climbed the short stairs and when she realized she couldn't reach she looked at me, smiled and pointed her little index finger to the roof like "mind giving me a little lift mama?" she knew it was a long shot and didn't even cry when i didn't, and instead clapped for her tata when he exhibited a perfect climb down in her eyes.

baby iggy is in the hair pulling phase of wanting to be mobile but needing help. the entire time at the park was me hunched over him helping him walk or making sure he didn't fall back when he was holding on to railings. for some reason when we go out, i always end up with baby iggy and big iggy goes with anna. i think it's because anna is always glued to me at home and iggy wants to bond with her, and baby iggy is very sensitive and gets scared easily and wants to be with me. sometimes i feel bad because anna looks at me a little hurt sometimes when i'm pushing the baby in the swing or going down the slide with him, but i hope she understands.

men are babies.

my little family has been swapping germs for a couple of weeks and naturally my husband has been sick through all of it.

today he asked me to drive him to the doctors because he was feeling so terrible, and i was bored enough to pack up the kids and do it.

anna luckily fell asleep in the car right away but baby iggy had just woken up from his nap so he was all chirpy in the backseat. the upside to this was i wouldn't have a symphony of car-haters crying together, but the downside is my little friend likes to make his annoyance of being strapped down known and i'm all anxiety ridden trying to make him simmer down before he wakes up anna.

since iggy was going to be a walk in, it was going to take about an hour and half, so my plan was to drive 20 minutes down the road to the brand new coffee bean and tea leaf (only one around here with a drive-thru!). but then i realized it was traffic hour and that 20 minute ride was looking more like an hour, so baby iggy and i munched on chick fil a instead.

and seriously ^^^ is one huge reason i want to move out of southern california. if you need to run errands after 3:30pm forget it. bumper to bumper until 7ish. i do live right between los angeles county and orange county so there's probably more commuters here than other areas.

anna eventually woke up and she ate a little too before both kids started getting restless and i was stuck leaning over the console and playing peek a boo with a pair of baby iggy's basketball shorts ;)

the grand finale came when iggy got in the car and told me he got two shots in the butt. he was pretty excited to tell me because obviously, he was very sick, and he wasn't being a baby like his mean little wife had previously accused him of.

we went to target to get his prescription filled and spent 1,043.00 as usual. just kidding, we managed to walk out with only one surprise purchase.





my nephew chris has this crazy castle that anna always wants to play with when she goes over.  i've put off buying it for her because i was positive she would be over it in an hour if it was hers. today she originally wanted a minnie mouse shopping cart, but i decided to talk her out of it because it's too bulky and similar to her baby doll stroller (and i didn't need another thing for her to be running baby iggy over with or banging into the furniture and cabinets), and the castle is at least something baby iggy can play with too. plus i tend to buy them a bunch of outdoor toys (where the playhouse is) and then spend my days wondering why i'm in the backyard for 8 hours and the castle is a nice indoor toy. im going to try to convince them to start playing with toys in their room rather than dragging them to wherever I happen to be, so we'll see how that goes ;)

i went to disneyland.again, but i provide some tips this time!

Over the weekend Iggy promised to take me to Disneyland sometime during the week without the little chickens and that day was today!!

i had one goal, and one goal only that was going to be achieved on pain of death.

to finally ride radiator springs.

both the babies are too small for basically anything in car's land, so we've been wanting to get on it for months. we've gone twice without the kids, but we just end up not going on because the line is insane.

first of all....we pulled into disneyland at around ten am, and there were huge lines in each lane to just to park. usually parking is the breeziest thing about going to disneyland.

when we finally got to the parking ticket booth the attendant was like " welcome back! and before you ask i don't know why everyone came to the park today!"

it was of no consequence to me because i had only radiator springs in mind.







an hour and  half later victory was mine! it was a really cool ride, the animation was great. since the rides at california adventure are the newest, they look really lifelike and cool, i'm always blown away at disney's attention to detail.

my sister told me the ride is best at night because of the lights, but we have no one to watch our kids at night so beggers can't be choosers.

if you're going to california adventure for the first time you should know that the Radiator Springs ride is the most popular, and always has a crazy line. It does have a fast pass booth by bug's land, but because it's so popular, the actual fastpass time can be hours away. we were there before 11am and the fastpass time was printing for 7pm at the earliest, so that might be something you'd want to sort out as soon as you walk in.

two, the cars seat 6 people in rows of 3. because of the odd number, there is a line for single riders that moves significantly faster, your party just wont be on the same car together or seated with a preference. i imagine if it's just two of you, you might get to go on the same car, but only if there was an even number before you, if that makes sense.

after the ride we went to go eat at boardwalk pizza and pasta. i'm set on trying all the restaurants this year, but i could kind of tell i wasn't going to like it once i saw the food. i got the bbq pizza and it was kind of cardboardy, and iggy got the ravioli. i'm not a fan of pesto so i can't give a decent review of it, but i think it was really small for ten bucks, and it looked oily.

after that we just called it a day and came home to sleep a little before we picked up our little chicks :)

currently:

 


Reading: I just finished the very last Sookie Stackhouse book, and i'm so sad i couldn't control myself and finished it in a day!! it's funny to think i started reading them 5 years ago, worlds away from where i am now. i actually never would have read them if iggy hadn't bought the first book, because i never go into the science fiction section. iggy doesn't really read for fun, but he liked true blood and heard that it was based on a book so he looked around for it one night while waiting for me to pick a book at barnes and noble. he didn't get into it because it's kind of a girly book in contrast to the show, but one day when i was at his parents house bored, i picked it up and kept buying the next book until i was all caught up and waiting for the new one to come out each may.

 Wondering: if i have time to take a sewing class this summer :o. i feel like i need a refresher course, and it would be fun.

Feeling thankful: for this super sweet woman i worked with at my last job. she was the supervisor at some time but stepped down and worked as the icu tech so i hardly worked with her for long periods of time but she was always really nice and kind. i was training with her the day i was let go, and she gave me a big hug and cried with me before i left. and fast forward to yesterday.....i got a package in the mail from her containing a letter of recommendation, a card full of sweet words, and a bracelet with vintage spinner charms. i had never seen one before and it was really cool! most of all it touched me that she took the time to do all that for me, just because.

Eating: i'm trying to eat healthy again ;) i don't know why, but it takes me awhile to get into the groove of cooking regularly if i stop. recently we've been going to disneyland and meeting up with friends and family so i got lazy. i realized i had a problem the last couple of times i was in the drive thru lane and the kids got all quiet in the backseat. i peered into my mirror and saw their eyes were big and glowy  and their little fingers were tingling with anticipation.

Watching: rhoc!!! i didn't get into the real housewives franchise until last year and i.got.hooked. orange county is my favorite!! i also started watching newlyweds last week. it seems a little slow, but we all know it's going to get juicy. the only show i need to start so my life can be complete is sons of anarchy in september :)

Working on: being the wife God wants me to be. I get frustrated easily with silly things and while driving home from target an hour ago, i heard the best message on kkla. a woman was separated from her husband and her prayer to God was to be able to see him through His eyes, as a child of God. It just really made me stop and think about how i've been seeing him before and how unfair i was being. and just for future reference, the reasons i'm ready to hang him out to dry and flog him are: his socks not making it to the hamper, not eating unless i serve him, watching the same movies all the time, and letting baby iggy eat oreos in the bed.

Loving:  Being home with my little people. Summer being around the corner. disney pass in my wallet :)

sickie babies

a couple of nights ago i was sitting on the computer and iggy and anna were asleep on the bed. suddenly anna sits up, turns to iggy, and projectile vomits all over him.

and she kept going.

i moved her to the floor as quickly as i could and rubbed her back.

eventually iggy sat up and just looked at his arm that was completely covered and dripping with vomit.

and i started laughing.

if iggy has one phobia its vomit. he can pretty much stomach everything else. and naturally our kids always choose him to throw up on without fail. i don't know if its because he's more cuddly when they're sick, and you never really know they're going to go from slightly under the weather to making you decide what you'd least prefer for vomit to end up on and directing their little faces towards that in the awful moment when it starts.

see i'm smart enough to do that and stand back but speak supportively and encouraging to my children while they vomit whereas iggy just freezes and watches with horror as his bulls jersey gets covered in their throw up.

anyway, all this to say that this has been my life this week. vomit traffic controller and bedsheet washer. with two small babies in a small home germs really take awhile to go away. one of them will be feeling better and then i'm giving the other cold baths at 3 am.

at some point in the day when this happens:



it's time to remove noisy shoes and slink around the house slowly to prolong the nap.

i'm thinking about cutting anna's nap out during the day because she just wakes up in such a mood. everything sets her off and we  had to start time outs today during dinner. and that girl can wail like an ambulance van.

so yeah. fun week ;)

photos.

Lately whenever i get on my beloved computer i get frustrated and all "cheese and crackers this thing is slow!!"

it's been a little over a year that i got my imac so you can imagine my anger about paying top dollar for a computer that sucks in a year.

iggy asked me what i do on the computer and i was all  "nothing!! i just use the internet really!"

well after rooting around.....





ha ha. how embarrassing right? 22,822 photos,and i've already deleted about 2,000 pictures that were blurry or too similar (i'm a rapidfire photomom, i shoot a bunch then have plans to go through them later) but i still have a ton more albums to weed through. i've only been a mom for two and half years!!! shtuff is getting real!! i obviously need an intervention haha.

i think what escalated my picture taking the most was my iphone. it just makes things so easy! plus sometimes i import my pictures but want to play around with the pics on apps so i leave them only to import them again (and sometimes again) the next time i plug in my phone.

so for the past few days  i've been weeding through a random month and relabeling it when i get a chance.

on the bright side i've been looking at my pictures from last summer and i had such a blast!! i'm old, jaded and unappreciative so i totally forgot all the fun places we went to.  seaworld! disneyland! knotts! soak city! irvine spectrum! chino hills shopping center!! discovery cube!! tons of restaurants!!

it dawned on me that i am a teensy bit expensive event though i fight tooth and nail when iggy says i'm the money spending culprit.

anyway. happy thoughts. here are some fun pictures from this month last year. anna was so baby looking!! and baby iggy was a little runt! and my hair was still terrible!! and iggy shaved his head for the tenth awful time!!




i also forgot i was making that awful crazy expensive neocate formula for baby iggy this time last year, and he'd drink it in teeny little hospital bottles. every night i'd measure out the formula, boil the water, mix it, and put it in the fridge. he would eat in tiny increments all day and night. two ounces here, three ounces there. i tried to have him wait it out longer than that but his little tummy couldn't handle it so he'd either vomit or it would come oozing out of his g-tube site.



to be honest i'm still a little bummed about not working, but looking at all these pictures from last year cheered me up because i have such a blast with these little people. i was still stinging to really let it sink in all the way. the only real disadvantage is these cute little people don't pay me, but it's okay i guess ;) they can take me shopping in my old age.

ever since i was let go i knew God was in control, and it wasn't such a loss and there was definitely relief to be able to be a full time mom again, but looking at 2012 in pictures really put things in perspective and made gratefulness really bloom in my heart. this time last year i was still trying to really bond with baby iggy and figure him out. i still worried about his development and how bad his cerebral palsy would be. he had a leaky g-tube!!! that world seems so long ago but it wasn't and i'm looking at my life with  a fresh perspective and content heart <3 br="">

Day 4, Saturday: Favorite quote (from a person, from a book, etc) and why you love it

 Day 4, Saturday: Favorite quote (from a person, from a book, etc) and why you love it


the picture was posted on the honest company facebook page
it's pretty self explanatory. every woman knows even before they're expecting a baby that that baby will be the purest love, but until you experience it firsthand, there is no explaining it.

i know this is incredibly dramatic but, i fell so hard for anna when she was first born i would burst into tears and freak out about bringing my beautiful baby angel into this world where so much could hurt her.

i actually got panic attacks and really bad anxiety for a few months, and i never even believed in them before! i would literally feel my chest constrict and couldn't breathe or think straight for little intervals when i first went back to work. i can barely remember the feeling but i do remember it being  big hurdles in my day that i would dread.
i pretty much went off the deep end for about two or three months .i also kind of blame iggy for this because he watched a ton of holocaust movies during this time which was basically the worst time in human history.

one of them was sarah's key. in the movie the jewish people are moved to a concentration camp and not told much about what is going to happen. after a day or so, the men are the first to be separated from the women and children. husbands were worried but remained stoic and kissed their wives and children and gave them instructions to not draw attention to themselves, etc.

then after some time the women were told to separate from their children.

"over their dead bodies" was basically the answer. it was such an emotional scene to watch as a new mom. the mothers in the movie basically began to claw the nazi soldiers to the point where they had to turn the hoses onto them and beat them to get them away from their children.

even once they were separated the mothers would throw apples or anything they could find of substance over the fences to where the kids were.

i'm getting teary just thinking about that scene!

so that's my favorite quote. off to cry now.

day 3, things that make you uncomfortable

Day 3, Friday: things that make you uncomfortable.

THE FUTURE OF AMERICA!!

haha just kidding. kind of. moving on.

1.)the good old house centipede.



most insects just bring out my inner stealthy assassin, but centipede's just squick me out. i think it has to do with how fast and squiggly they are but fdklasjfdkl;jf;lkasdj;l!!!! i hate them. whenever i find one i freak out and wonder how many of it's little friends are around.

2.)people who cuss at their kids. it just seems so mean. we all snap sometimes and yell at kids but i think cursing at them is a new level of hurt. cussing becomes a habit more than anything, i used to cuss aaaalllottt a long time ago, but once i had anna i worked on it and stopped for the most part.

3.)people with runny noses and no visible tissue. i mean that stuff is going somewhere you know?

4.) play centers at fast food places that aren't chick fil a. all the chick fil a's i've been to that have a play center have cute small places in a glass enclosed room, where other places have big cavernous gyms where a bully could pick on my sweet anna or a kidnapper could steal her. i went with my mom to a burger king a few months ago and the play center was outside with an unlocked gate and that shaved about 4 years off my life. what?

5.) stepping on things. messy rooms make me sad. a clean floor is a happy floor! and i have two kids under two so....yeah. i'm sometimes uncomfortable for large parts of the day.

How to not cosleep with your child.

 



 Day 2, Thursday: Educate us on something you know alot about or are good at. Take any approach you'd like (serious and educational or funny and sarcastic)



 


anna is two and she still sleeps in the bed with us, meanwhile my poor sweet baby boy is all alone in his room.

okay so baby iggy was in the nicu for 3 months so he actually prefers his own space. a few times iggy and i have felt guilty so we move anna to her toddler bed but he just doesn't like it and tosses and turns all night with a few cries. if he's in his crib he conks out all night without a peep and i check twice a night to make sure he's still alive.

the point here is, good habits started from the beginning solve problems.

see, everyone warns you against cosleeping. i warn people about cosleeping. it's one thing when it's a tiny swaddled baby and quite another when it's a big two and half year old with a tendency to sleep horizontally on top of all the pillows and sometimes your head. and she cries when i gently move her and place her vertically on a pillow like a decent human being!

if you're a cosleeping parent who loves it, 1.)you're a liar or 2.) your child has manners. i've tried to explain to anna that stepping on a persons head is just not nice and she looks at me like i hurt her feelings.

but here's the part where i reveal where most of us went wrong and ended up with a third bedmate.

if you're a first time parent, you're just excited to meet your baby. you just smile and nod at all the advice you are given. you haven't even decided if you want to cosleep or not, and it's not a big deal either way.

first fatal mistake.

this is how anna tricked me: she would have her days where she would cry as soon as i put her little body down. after a couple of hours and several attempts later, i just slowly eased myself down onto my bed with her in the crook of my arm and slept the most glorious of sleep. soon she was sleeping through the night and i thought i was the luckiest mom!

false.

anna played me like a violin. from then on whenever she slept alone she cried like i was abandoning her on the side of the road. after a long day of life as a WOMAN IN GENERAL i had no time for that. so she slept in the bed. ive attempted to move her to the bed in her room but she ends up crying at 2am and waking up the baby so they're both crying AT TWO AM.


so here we are now. the hardest thing about this is that i sympathize with her. i mean really, her whole life she's slept in a  big pillow topped mattress with memory foam pillows and a huge flat screen with her favorite person in the world (me) and her second favorite person in the world (iggy) and now she's suddenly expected to sleep in her spartan little toddler bed next to her baby brother (her least favorite person) of all people? how on earth is a little person supposed to take that?

blog every day in may challenge: the story of your life

 

1.) i'm so boring my life story mostly revolves iggy and my marriage. pathetic isn't it? :)

2.) i'm a talker.

I was born on december 10, 1987 on my sister's 16th birthday. she thought my mom being pregnant at her age was ridiculous and was hateful about the whole thing until i got a fever and nearly died. then she decided to pray for me and like me for the most part. my brother was 13 years older so one could say i was an accident, and one would be right.

to flash forward my life for the next few years: i was that girl at school with older parents who didn't let her do anything ever but bought her everything.

when i took geometry my freshman year of high school i met iggy who was a sophmore at the the time. he sat in the chair directly behind me for much of the year and we only had one short conversation exchange. years later he told me he he liked me then but a bunch of guys in the class liked me and would always talk about me before i got there and then to me so he'd be too pissed off to try afterward haha.

my junior year of high school i finally got a myspace account and added people from my school and saw this cute guy that looked familiar and after clicking on his profile i realized it was iggy, only....several pounds lighter and really really cute (we went to a massive high school and i had not seen him at all for 2 years). i added him.

we messaged, talked on the phone, broke up with our significant others and got together.

we had a couple of small break ups and one significant 3 month break up when we were 18, during my first summer out of high school. before when we broke up it felt like it would be a matter of time until we got back together..but this time i mentally moved on and closed that chapter.

i dated a few guys...guys that made me laugh, treated me well, had potential and i had fun with.

but i realized no one could ever make me feel the way iggy did, no matter how theoretically perfect they could be.

so...after that we started to date again. it was hard. it's difficult to get back with someone after you both dated other people, especially when you're so young and were each others first real relationship. we had a new potentially difficult problem to work through that took a few years, but we did it.

we've been together since and have gotten married and had 3 pregnancies total and two beautiful babies to hold (so far). baby iggy is our miracle baby, really check it out.

we've gone from being catholic by birth to being catholic in practice (we still have a few kinks to work out).