Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Serious case of Mommy Brain!!

I have been suffering from Mommy Brain alot lately but today it hit an all time high, or low depending on how you look at it. I don't even know where to start with this but here we go.....

After washing my hair last night I thought I had forgotten to rinse my conditioner out of my hair so I did a quick rerinse then hopped out of the tub. I pulled my hair up and headed straight to bed so I could blowdry it in the morning.

This morning I actually woke up with my second alarm, usually I do not hear any and my kids wake me up late. So up I go and thought, yay, I have time to read a little from my bible before getting busy. That was quickly interrupted when Claire woke up so I put in on the back of the toilet (no idea why!) and got her out of bed.

As the morning progressed, I started blowdrying my hair only to have it not fully dry. It felt weird and my attempt to straighten it made it look a littly greasy so I assumed I did not get all the conditioner out last night.

This morning was a rush rush kind of morning, I had to get Makayla to school and head straight to Effingham for Claire's 6 month checkup. Makayla could not find her glasses, she swore she had put them on the back of the toilet. After getting a lecture about being responsible for her things (Mommy cannot keep track of everything....blah blah blah) she went to school with no glasses on.

The two little girls and I head straight to the doctor where my brain could not focus to fill out the 6 month questionnaire. I had to reread every question at least 2 times. I finally got through it and had a great appointment except the shots :(

We continued on with the day, Hannah did not stop talking from before Makayla went to school until after lunch. She paused briefly to eat the yogurt parfait I bought on the way to the doctor office. After giving myself several pep talks that sound like this: "I am lucky to have a kid that wants to talk to me," "I am grateful that my child is capable of talking, "I am blessed, I am blessed, I am blessed!!!!" I decided we needed to eat lunch out so I could physically see that there are other adults out there. I saw several people we knew and sat close to a woman that loves to chat and left me thinking "aaahhhhh, an adult!!"

We went home to rest, the big girls are past the napping stage so I let Hannah pick out a movie. She continued to talk throughout the movie, even after I threatened to put her in her bed! Claire refused to be put down, I'm guessing it had something to do with shots earlier in the day. At some point I ended up back in the bathroom, picked up my bible and realized that Makayla's glasses were in there! I had used them as a bookmark and completely forgot!

Before picking Makayla up for school I had to put my hair up. It was feeling gross, heavy and my scalp was starting to itch like crazy. Before long it was time to head to the school. We load up the car, I start it, realize the garage door is closed so I shut it back off right away. Open the door, restart my car which sputtered out of the garage, my car does not typically do this. (lovely, mommy brain=flooded engine! Thanks for the heads up Rachel!) I shut it off, restart and it was still sputtering bad. I had to steal the right-of-way at a stop sign so the car wouldn't die but I made it to the school. Afraid I wouldn't make it back home I had another mommy on standby to rescue us. The 10 minute break helped my poor car recover and we made it home safely and smoothly. I apologized to Makayla for blaming her for losing the glasses and put them back on her face.

Since the girls had a cheer performance, we had to take baths early tonight. I went to grab shampoo only to find that I had bought THREE bottles of conditioner, no shampoo. My head was going crazy all day because I had not washed my hair at all the night before, I conditioned on top of conditioner! Now my hair and head is scrubbed, feeling fresh and I am beyond ready for bed!!

Monday, January 30, 2012

Weekend Refresher

I'm starting out this week feeling renewed and refreshed, by the end of last week I was ready to run away. I would have come back of course but had I had the extra money in our budget, I would have gotten a plane ticket and disappeared for the weekend! This had nothing to do inparticular with my kids or husband, I was just worn out and run down.

I was determined on Friday morning to revamp myself but continued through my day drained and whiney. Friday evening our MOPs group was having a BUNCO night, Greg and I had the opportunity for a date night but I decided I needed to refresh myself before anything else. I am so glad I got out with other ladies! We played BUNCO, then some of us went to El Rancherito and 4 of us went to see One for the Money. It was a good movie and I kept thinking about how familiar it seemed, talking to my mother in law, I have read several of the books and completely forgot!

Saturday I woke up feeling like a new person. My uncle came down and we enjoyed visiting with him. After he left I tackled Claire's disaster of a room, I have most of it cleaned up but now have a pile of stuff I need to find storage for.

That night Greg and I had some alone time out of the house. I would love to call it a date but it was just running around Effingham getting things our family needed with NO kids! It was wonderful....did I mention we were alone???

Sunday we had a lunch for Greg's parents 40th wedding anniversary. There anniversary is actually Tuesday but we are all so busy that night so we had them over early. My grandma came over for lunch also and after his parents left, she offered to let us take a nap and she would play with the girls. Silly me almost said no but thought again really quick and Greg and I disappeared. I crashed hard and could have probably slept until Monday morning. Unfortunately, my grandma has a life and that did not work out for us, haha! (just kidding!)

Sunday night, Greg and I watched Courageous together. That was such a good movie but nobody warned me that it would make me cry! I think Greg really enjoyed it too.

It was a much needed weekend and I no longer feel like running away! I am ready to enjoy this week and tackle our house that never seems to get all the way clean!

Thursday, January 26, 2012

6 months....already!

This post is almost a week late but I have had zero time and/or energy to get it done. Claire turned 6 months on Saturday and once again, she has changed so much! Her looks have not changed much but he has grown and developed. Next week she will have her checkup and shots so I will know her height and weight then.

It has been a BUSY last month. We have had Christmas, New Years and tons of activities in the mix!




As far as feedings go, I think she is starving.....can you tell? ;)

She has been nursing wonderfully still. She also moved into the wheat cereals. Last night she tried sweet potatoes for the first time. This girl is ready for FOOD! She watches everything that goes into our mouths, if I am holding a cup or drink, she is trying to get it in her mouth. I would not be surprised if baby food jars are short lived for this little nugget, she will go quickly into table food.

In the last month of sickness, she has needed antibiotics but stayed pretty healthy over all. She has an appointment tomorrow, she has been having fevers up and down the last week but now she is getting fussier and pulling her ears.


How much has she grown? I'm not really sure but I do know she is 17 lbs (at least). Her small diapers are just not going to work much longer. I found a good deal on a few mediums and one sized diapers. If we have more kids, we are set on for girly diapers, a poor little boy would be lost in the sea of pink!
Claire is officially in 6-9 months cloths :( Her room is a mess! I had just organized her 3-6 months cloths in the dresser and still have the newborn and 0-3 month cloths heaping over a bucket. I have moved her 3-6 mo cloths into a basket, and the right size is in her dresser for now. Oh well....I will get them organized....sometime!

Teething? Who knows!?!?! Makayla and Hannah were both 10 months for their first teeth.

New sounds and noises? Not sure if it counts but when she is upset and wants me she will say "MamamaMUUUMMM!" I am counting it as saying "mama" first!

Movement? She rolls all over! If she wants to get somewhere, she figures out how. She has tried to push up on her hands and knees but falls pretty quickly. One morning she was scooting backward but I think we are still a month or two from crawling. It would be neat if she proves me wrong!
She will also stand up to things if we put her there and stay close to catch her when she goes off balance....check her out!
After looking at this picture again, you cannot tell but they are standing up to my grandma's coffee table. And Aiden isn't really that mad, he wanted to walk around her but was blocked in :)

If I missed anything, I will update when I post her measurements next week!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Cardinal Caravan

I am far behind on this blog and managed to skip Christmas and New Year's all together! But that's ok!

After church today Greg and I were able to take the girls to the Cardinal Caravan in Mattoon. For those of you who don't know what that is, I'll try my best to explain it. A few Cardinal players, both rookie and retired and an announcer, travel around and sign autographs in the off season. The big names stay in St. Louis for the big Winter Warmup (I think!)



I was not sure we were even going when we left our house this morning and did not even think of wearing Cardinal gear. I seriously think we were the only people, and entire family, with NO Cardinal clothes on. Claire had some red when we left the house but an overflowing diaper left her in a sleeper :) We stopped at Dollar General on the way up there for little pink girly notebooks to have the autographs signed in, we were slacking on the fan favors for this trip!

Let me tell you the attention having all little girls brings! After waiting in line for awhile and seeing tons of little boys go through the line, they were quite a hit at the autograph table!

Here are some pictures of who they got autographs from.....
Tony Cruz, if you can see it, check out his diamond baseball bracelet....BLING!!!


Matt Carpenter and Zack Cox, they would not stop talking to eachother when signing, shame on them!



Jordan Swagerty (SP?), so nice to pose with Claire even though could care less who she was sitting with!


Rex Hudler was next and here is where it was fun. He saw Hannah first and asked "Who owns you?" I told him "I do!" He started talking about how cute she was and looked up, saw me holding Claire and said "Oh WOW, you have another one!" Then looked over and saw Makayla and asked "Is she yours too?!?" Of course I proudly said yes and he and the Andy Benes were really excited about so many girls. Then looked at Greg and told him congrats on all the girls and "way to go Dad!" and then Rex gave Greg a fist bump for having such cute girls.


Andy Benes is next and Claire once again could care less, she was knocking water bottles over that were sitting on the table. The guy to the right is Dan Mclaughlin, TV broadcaster for the Cardinals. He kept talking about our beautiful girls, even as we were walking away.


All in all, it was a great day for the Sidwells! I'm sure other kids were told they were cute today but this proud Mommy just soaks it all in anyway! Unfortunately the biggest celebrity of all for the girls was gone before we got through the line, Fredbird!!! That's fine though, we will catch him at a game this year!!!!