How do you justify your time???

On a recent face book post a friend of mine posted the following question (and I'm paraphrasing) 'How do people justify going to the gym rather than spending time with their family ... I just dance around the living room with my boys.' I'll admit that when I first read it my thought was 'do I have to justify it? Should I feel guilty for wanting to take time to myself?' I mean we do a LOT together ... I let her in the bathroom to play in the sink while I poop for petes sake. It was quickly followed by me thinking 'Why the hell should I have to justify anything to you.' Now let me say that this girl is someone that I would consider a friend and I don't think she meant anything by her comment. I would never fault her for asking a simple question. It also got me thinking. I did respond with the fact that I put Marley to bed and then go to the gym. But I do think it's important to take time for yourself, make yourself better etc. Dancing around my living room is not enough to take care of the muffin top that I have going on! haha. Here is what has continued to bother me. As a first time mom it took me a LONG time to realize that I desearve time to myself and I shouldn't feel guilty for taking it or wanting it. Of course, a night away or an hour at the gym is different then spending every night in the bar, but I think you get what I'm saying. The guilt associated with being a mom (for me at least) can be huge. An example? When Mar was just a little babe I hardly left the house. Looking back I know that I was dealing with some mild depression on top of being majorly sleep deprived. But I HATED it when Ben would go out. It made me resent him. Why didn't he feel for our daughter what I felt? Why didn't he need to be with her 100% of the time? I even felt guilty for wanting a SHOWER by myself. But it caused a lot of problems for us. Now that Marley is older and I have learned that doing stuff on my own is wonderful sometimes, I feel like we have a great system worked out. Ben and I go and do our own things when we want to while the other one (typically) stays at home with Mar. For instance? I'm going out tonight with girl friends while Ben stays home. This weekend on Saturday I slept in while Ben and Mar ran errands, got breakfast and visited with nana. Sunday Ben slept while Mar and I went out to get groceries and have breakfast. It makes me LOVE our 'alone time' together and also love that Ben gets his own special daddy daughter morning too. The point to my ramblings in that it's OK ... for us at least ... to do your own thing. To not let go of yourself just because you are a mommy. Yes I am Bens wife and Marleys mommy ... but first I was me. And I will not be made to feel guilty for wanting to make myself better. Whether it be my going to the gym, going out with friends or taking a shower on my own.

Christmas Past

My sister in law just informed me that Santa is coming to one of our Christmas'. This got me thinking of Christmas past and all the things that make me love this holiday. I had to share some of my favorite memories. *The year my cousins and I got bean bag chairs. We spent the rest of the night jumping off the top of the steps on to the bean bag chairs. I'm pretty certain the chairs were busted by the end of the night and thrown out. But we had fun. *Because my parents were seperated I often spent christmas eve night traveling from my moms to my dads. I can remember very distinctly getting to my nanas house late. It would be all dark outside and the whole world would be quiet in anticipation of Santas arrival. All the lights were off in the house and I would lay on the couch watching the lights on the christmas tree blink and glow, utterly at peace with life and all it had given me so far. *One of my funniest memories may have been when santa came to my moms house for the first time. This was my first experirence with 'creepy' santa and he spent more time with the 'big girls' sitting on his lab then the little kids. As one of the 'big girls' (I think I was maybe 19) I was still a little terrified. From the looks of my cousins they all were too. *My favorite part, always, of every Christmas is when my Papa reads the Christmas Story from the bible. It makes me cry every time and I love it. Sometimes it's hard for me to remember what this time of year is about. For me its about our Saviour and my family. It's remembering to turn off the lights and sit in the quiet wonder of the christmas tree, if only for a few minutes, to let go of everything that we hold on to way to tightly and embrace all we have been given.

Potty Time !

We started thinking about potty training a few months ago. It was early but Mar seemed to be kind of sort of getting ready. So I bought a potty chair and we started indtroducing her to the idea of the whole thing. Lately she's been a lot more ready and goes in the potty a lot. She even tells us she has to go when we're out. My big girl! So today I went and bought her big girl panties. And now (sigh) I'm almost a little sad about it. How did my little peanut who I swear just yesterday was 2 months old, turn into a big girl who goes potty on her potty chair?! Now, we've had our bumbs along the way. Last night she dumped all of her toys out of one of her storage boxes and peed in that...whoops. Annnnnd she responded all night with a 'nope' every time we asked her if she had to go .... but we're getting there. Luckily she still wants to snuggle up and lay her head on my shoulder. If I lost that right now I don't know what I'd do!

Wow it's been awhile

Where to begin - sometimes time goes by so quickly I can hardly keep up. Here is a dose of what we have been doing lately with some more posts to come. Halloween has come and gone and our lil peanut was the cutest sweetest little strawberry that I've ever seen. We did a hay ride the weekend before Halloween that she thought was amazing. And on Halloween night we hit up just our neighbors houses. She didn't really get it but she loved that they were giving her treats. Marley then helped hand out candy when we got home. She kept wanting the kids to come back and kept saying 'Monsters? More?' That very same night we THOUGHT we had our own monster. After we'd put Mar to bed and the lights were off to deter any more trick or treaters we heard what we thought was loud footsteps coming from upstairs. The door to Mars room creaking open had Ben running, two steps at a time, up to her room. No intruder was found. What we DID find was one Marley Lou walking out of her room and calling for daddy. Yup she'd climbed our of her crib and she did it one more time that night! Dang dare devil kids! It might have been that we were watching some scary Freddie VS Jason or something on TV but she creeped the two of us right out. In other, more daily type of news Marley is talking talking talking. She's putting more and more words together and she will repeat pretty much anything you day. Including all the bad words. She's moved out of her high chair and into a booster seat at the table that she LOVES to sit in. She's not scared of well ... anything and shows us every minute of every day. She goes down the big water slide at the Centre (in our laps of course). She practically dives into the deep end of the pool with no concern that she can't swim! And now at home she's started dunking her own head under the water as it comes out of the faucet. Needless to say she's a little water baby. Every day she amazes me and makes me smile.

2 more cloth diaper reviews

I'm not shy about saying how much I have loved our choice to cloth diaper our daughter. We've had a few bumps in the road but have a pretty strong rotation of clothe diapers right now that I'm very happy with. We go between fuzzibunz elite, bumgenius 4.0 and a few Grovia all in ones. I've been pretty happy with this rotation and therefor have not really even looked at more diapers. Recently, however, I caught a sale on G diapers so I picked 2 up and then happened to be on Etsy and say a diaper that looked very well put together and was on the more inexpensive side. I thought I'd try em. G diapers - Seem to run a little small. I got a medium for my very long and lean daughter and I'm kind of wishing I would have gotten a large. Sometimes the velcro rubs on her hips a little bit. So far so good they. I like that they don't have pocket so I can just toss them in the wet bag when we're done and I like that I can use a new cloth liner if the diaper itself is not wet. My husband find the velcro easier than snaps as well. They'll go into the rotation for sure. The second diaper is from HappyBuns on etsy. It's a pocket diaper with a Charcoal bamboo insert. I've bought other diapers off of etsy before and just have not been super impressed. I did really like one of them but found that they ran small and just never bothered to buy more from that seller. This diaper, howwever, is different. I LOVE it and have already bought another cover (we have tons of inserts). We typically don't cloth diaper the babes overnight because we just have not found a good solution for it. She's leaked through everything. She stayed in this diaper until 4am (when she happened to wake up for a bottle and I just changed her then) and had no leaks at all. She could have def. stayed in it over night. I also love the leg gussets on the diaper. Because Marley has skinny little legs we sometimes have problems with her leaking out the leg because she's super active and they gap. That does not happen in this diaper. Hoping I can convince my husband that we actually do need more diapers so that I can buy more of these! haha.

My little button pusher

Marley Lou has many a nickname in our house. Mar Mar, Beauty and Princess to name a few. However, lately our little baby peanut gets one name and one name only. Trouble Maker. Marley appears to be at the age where she is seeing how far she can actually go. How much will mommy and daddy actually put up with? Her new favorite thing to do is hold up her little finger and say 'no no no'. Think she hears that a lot? haha. Yesterday she was sitting her in high chair pushing all the food off. I told her no 47 times (ok thats what it felt like) and she just looked at me and kept right on doing it. The other day we were playing in the living room. She went to the stairs, I told her 'Marley no, you stay down here'. What does she do? Goes right up the stairs. Really kid!? Now when I actually do yell at her and tell her something very firmly she cries and wants a hug. So I KNOW that she knows shes doing something wrong. (sigh) for now I will continue to re direct, say no, be mean when I have to and set every limit possible. And while I HATE repeating my self 100 times a day. I do love that she's got a little mind of her own. ;)

My crazy hectic mornings

It's not very often that I have a calm and relaxed type of morning. I tell myself every night that I need to get everything ready, get up ontime (before MarleyLou) and get ready. Yeah, that never happens. Even IF I have everything ready the night before I always feel rushed and un organized. Two things in the last two days, however, have made me pause and enjoy my mornings with my lil baby. Yesterday was really kind of a frantic day and Marley was especially wanting her mommy and asking to be held every two seconds. As I was holding her she let go of her sippy where it promptly landed on the floor, cracked open and splashed milk all over my pants. I said loudly 'Oh Marley!' And she said to me for the very first time ever 'oh Shorry'. And I just paused for a quick moment and said, thats ok. We cleaned up the milk together and went about our morning. But that wonderful moment when she said sorry to me made my whole world pause. And then today I was a little more prepared and was taking some time folding laundry in the living room before we had to go. My little girl came up to me and held her hands up so I picked her up and she laid her little head right on my chest. We stood there for a few good minutes just her and I in the quiet of the morning rocking and cuddling. I LOVE those moments so much. When my whold world stops and it's just her and I.