Thank Goodness the Weekend is Over. I Need Rest.

Weekends are supposed to be for resting and relaxing and recuperating from your busy work week. Sometimes I'd take the busy work week over my weekends, and this was one of those weekends.

I am now working on passing kidney stone gazillion and one (ok, it is really 11 or 12 since September- I lost count around mark 7). If you've never had a kidney stone, consider yourself lucky. Kidney stones are hands down the most pain I've ever dealt with. And just to quantify that statement I've had appendicitis and its removal, gallbladder attacks and its removal, two csections, migraines lasting weeks, broken bones, and pneumonia from a cracked rib. I'd take all of those at once over getting one more @$%#! kidney stone.

So I'm already pretty cranky and puney from dealing with my kidney stone. And with a newborn and a toddler you never get enough sleep. This weekend, Reagan decides she wants to be a cuddle bunny and high needs. She wanted constant attention. To the point that she was trying to hit Bailey and smack her bottle away because Bailey was in my lap and not her. Because of course, Bailey was being pretty high needs too and wasn't content anywhere but being held either. Usually Reagan doesn't want anything to do with cuddling and sitting in your lap for more than four seconds. But because Bailey was there, she wanted to be too and would cry and cry. Which of course, would get Bailey crying. So I'd have two screaming babies while I wanted to cry from my pain and the screaming made me want to bash my head in. Bill wanted to get some yardwork done so I took my cranky, whiney self and my two screaming babies and we went shopping. I had five shops on my list. I was home in two.

After my shopping fiasco I took the girls in the house and fed Bailey. Since Reagan wasn't getting attention she diverted herself to objects she knows she shouldn't be playing with. Like my ceramic cereal bowl I lazily left on the arm of the sofa. I had already told her once not to play with it. But like the mother of the year that I am, instead of removing the bowl and the temptation, I left it there. She decided to see how well gravity works with the cereal bowl and tossed it over the edge of the sofa. Of course it couldn't have just landed safely on the carpet and the lesson of gravity is learned once again. Oh no! She had to toss it at the precise point at which it would fall and smack on the floor lamp sitting near the sofa. That was so she could learn another principle again, "broken."

Yes, Reagan's path of destruction continued, this time with a broken cereal bowl. I heard the shatter and knew what had happened. Reagan looked at me and instead of the solemn "Uh oh, it's broken" that I expected, I heard glee and renewed fascination as she said, "Broken! It's broken!" She jumped down and went to check out her work and was absolutely giddy that she was able to turn one thing into 20 with hardly any effort. This is not a good turn of events.

Have I also mentioned that Reagan is a monkey? There isn't anything she can't get into, including the upper kitchen cabinets. Nothing is safe. She got into my purse sitting on the counter and found a purple pen. This time she limited her graffiti work to tribal body art scribbled all over her belly and arms before Bill caught her. But she had already had a shower that day so she wore her tribal art proudly the rest of the day.

Oh, and why had she already had a shower that day you ask? (Warning...this paragraph is not for the weak stomached) Well, let me tell you. Because Reagan really likes beans, any beans. But they don't seem to like her all that much. For dinner the night before I let her have a whole lot of baked beans and joked, "Hehe, daycare can deal with that diaper tomorrow." Oh wait. It is the weekend. Daycare doesn't deal with that diaper, I do. So while Reagan learns physics lessons on gravity and "broken", mommy learns karma- in the form of a diaper. Reagan didn't just have a nasty, poopy diaper. It wasn't just a little blowout. It was the blowout of epic proportions that had beans all the way up the back to the neck. How exactly does poop and beans get from the diaper all the way up to the neck? I am dumbfounded. Anyway, I gagged through getting her undressed and cleaned up and tossed her into the shower. She played in there for 30 minutes and would sing and shake her booty while getting her Saturday Night Fever dance moves on. It really was pretty cute and cheered me up some.

My house is also a wreck from this weekend. It was looking pretty good for a while and over the weekend we didn't do squat to clean it because Bill and I were both so ragged. Reagan can turn a clean room into one that looked like a tornado went through in less than five minutes. Speaking of tornadoes, we apparently had one go right through our neighborhood this weekend. It hit the street before and after us, and skipped us fortunately. We are all ok, but somehow the tornado got into my living room and kitchen. Think I can claim that on homeowners insurance?

This morning I woke up with a massive sore throat and laryngitis. It compliments the kidney stone well and just tops off my weekend nicely. Maybe I lost my voice from all the yelling I did, again karma.

I apologize for the cranky, disjointed, random post. I think it matches my mood appropriately though. I just have one question: Why aren't daycares open on weekends?

That Sisterly Bond

"Big sisters are the crabgrass in the lawn of life"
- Charles M. Schulz
Oh wait, I'm a big sister. Well, I have a few sisters that probably sang this as their mantra for many years. As of now though, many are asking me how Reagan is doing with Bailey. The answer is she is doing pretty well. We really don't have any jealousy issues. Instead we have the big sister puppy dog that doesn't know her own strength. She wants so badly to be the little mother and to be involved. And we try to involve her to the extent you can any 21 month old...with extreme caution.

Reagan loves to give Bailey kisses. Many, many kisses while crushing her in the process. Reagan likes to climb up to see Bailey in the bassinet to see if she is sleeping. She will carefully pull back the blanket and if she sees closed eyes, she puts the blanket back...over her whole head... suffocating her in the process. Reagan has taken to sitting in her chair and feeding her own baby her toy bottle when she sees me feeding Bailey. But when it comes to burping, Reagan wants to help me. She pats Bailey on the back with the gusto that would knock the wind out of Payton Manning.

But I remind myself that she just wants to be included, she just wants to help, and she just wants to be loved like this new little intruder. Reagan is doing a fantastic job being the big sister. I just wonder if Bailey will agree a few years from now.

Equilibrium

I like to think I am a woman of technology. I spend much of my life on a computer. I can stop a DVD from blinking "12:00" in 20 seconds or less (yeah, I wanted to use "VCR" instead of "DVD" here but I'll stop myself, being a woman of the times and all). I can TXT U on my l33t phone (call me LTR). I can use the navigation system in my car to get me anywhere fast. And yet when it comes to blogs, MySpace, and the Facebook, I've been conspicuously absent. Until now.

I've finally decided it is time to get with the times and get me a blog thingy. I need an outlet to share on my crazy life with two under two. I could use a place to record the life of my family. And it's about time I find a use for the 5,000+ pictures filling my hard drive with no place to go.

I'm not sure where this is going yet, or how often I'll post. But I do know that I have much to write about in my life and my ongoing quest for finding a work/life balance with two young children and a busy career. So, that is what this blog is about for me, it is finding and keeping my equilibrium and allowing you to share in the evolving process.