Girls Like Star Wars Too

The Epic Nerd Saga Continues...
So when D and I found out we were having another spawn, something we immediately agreed on is that, no matter the gender, the baby room would be Star Wars themed. Everyone wanted us to have a girl...including D and Link. I would have been fine with another boy. Why? I'll give you a few reasons:
1. No teenage girl drama. I was a teenage girl. I don't want one of those in my house. They are awful. (Sorry Mom and Dad!)
2. Public restrooms. Do you know how easy it is to take a potty trained little boy to the bathroom out in public? It's awesome...unless they need to drop a deuce.
3. Star Wars themed room would be SO easy.

Aaaand we are having a girl so I wanted to make it apparent that it was a little girls room while still keeping it Star Warsy.

So here is my best attempt.

The big picture

I printed out some cool looking Star Wars vehicles prints. Sorry to those who I make mad with this but if you are selling art prints on Etsy, I would go ahead and watermark them. Because instead of paying a butt ton of money, I "saved as" and printed from my computer. Then I headed to Michaels where I found some nice clearance frames (11x14 size. 6 of them for $12) and bought some white mats that I painted pink with acrylic paint since they had no pink ones to straight up purchase. Bam. Cute, badass, and girly and they take up a good part of one of the walls.

Yes, you need to know your Star Wars vehicles at an early age!

-I also bought an 11x14 canvas and printed out a cute little silhouette of a tiny girl walking an AT-AT walker. One of my favorite images out there. I traced it onto the canvas and did a quick acrylic painting. Super easy.

Isn't she cute?!

-The hoop decorations were more time consuming. I used quilting hoops as frames and flannel fabric on the inside. Printed out a few cute images I could find with google (and possibly Etsy and Deviant Art... I can't remember where they came from. They might have been images on onesies!) and put these together. The I added a bit of detail with a black sharpie. No joke. Super easy. Way inexpensive and pretty cute. I did this same thing with jungle animals for Link's nursery 4.5 years ago!

R2-D2, Yoda, and Princess Leia have never been so cute!

 -The mobile! Unless you want to pay $80 for a mobile then you gotta make your own. Granted making this was not cheap because I purchased the plushies from Thinkgeek but the cool thing is that once the mobile is done with, I cut a couple strings on top of the plushies and they are simply stuffed animals for either Fetus or Link! Win. I bought a ladybug mobile for $5 off a facebook swapmeet page. Cut the ladybugs off, added a small thread hoop to each plush and attached them all with black ribbons. Took a lot less time than I thought it would.

Top view

Baby view!

The finishing touches were to replace our comforter in there so it was gray (and reverses to black) and get some new pilowcases. The giant AT-AT walker helps too. I also grabbed a vinyl wall decal Yoda quote that I think adds a lot to the room. It definitely popped more once I put it up. I think I might have even put it on there straight! I'm sure there will be a few more things to go in there, including a print I hope to get made or order that will be personalized similar to this:

 So there it is. Link has a video game room and Fetus now has a Star Wars room. It's been fun creating it because Link is just as excited. 1. He's getting a baby sister. 2. Her room is Star Wars and he loves Star Wars! And then of course they will share the pacman bathroom. I love all three of these rooms because I have basically created most of the things in them. (with the exception of the AMAZING paintings my friend Nicki did for Link's room. I know that starting them so nerdy so young will almost guarantee that we have a football player and a cheerleader but whatever. At least they will be well rounded!

A Time I Had

Happy Mother's Day

Dear Perfect Pinterest Mom
This morning you were joyfully awoken by your sweet cherub cheeked little munchkins jumping playfully on  your bed. Or maybe you got to sleep in because your amazing husband took your kids downstairs to make you an amazing breakfast to serve you in bed. Or maybe you helped get your kids ready to go out and eat a nice mother's day breakfast with the family. After you all ate you came home and reveled in the amazing day you celebrate being a mom to the most wonderful well behaved kids on the planet while you create yet another wonderful craft together and then frolic outside in the sunshine. You can't believe how lucky you are to share in such an amazing day with your kids and you family.
Dear Perfect Pinterest Mom
I am not you.

This morning I was groggily awoken to the warning bell of Lovey and the overdramatic loud licking of a dog. Both of who thought it would be awesome to wake up at 6am (the new norm in our house these days which I still am not adjusted to). When my very wide awake munchkin crawled up into my bed and I gained slight consciousness I was still thinking of what he had told me the night before: "I had a sad day and you make me sad." So of course I woke up in a "feeling sorry for myself" mood. I tried to force another hour of sleep on us but my kid can't breathe and was sniffing every 3 seconds and tossing and turning. So I turned the TV on for him and started cleaning my house. Apparently when I am mad or upset I clean. No, I did not shower.

I then lost track of the time and since I haven't set up the replacement phone fully yet I can't hear when people send me texts or call me. With the laundry going, the water running and the TV blaring I missed calls and texts from my friends who I was supposed to have breakfast with this morning. I then hear a frantic knock at the door. When I answer I am greeted by "Oh good, you're not dead." Yeah, I'm generally happy to be alive too. My worried friends had got in touch with another one of our good friends who lives nearby to come check on me and make sure I wasn't dead or in the hospital. Nope. I was just in a mopey self-depricating cleaning frenzy while I resigned myself to letting my kid watching TV and playing video games. I'm mother of the year, people.

Of course I then let her in and cried, uncontrollably, when she asked how I was. Yup.

Eventually I got to video chat with D!!! Yay. Except that then I cried uncontrollably at him. In the middle of our chat the friends I was supposed to have breakfast with showed up... with red velvet pancakes and offers to take Link. So I cried completely uncontrollably at them and their entire families. Because I am so emotionally stable today!

Now I know I sound ridiculous. I feel ridiculous. This is not me. But apparently my hormones, my exhaustion and my kid's inability to deal with the emotions he has about Daddy's deployment (so he takes it out on me) are making me into this crazy, unshowered, sobbing mess of a human.

I know Link doesn't mean it when he says I'm mean or I make him sad. It's usually when I turn out the lights before bed and he starts thinking about how he misses D. He can have a perfect day and still get all emo and sad at the very end of it and tell me that the day was terrible.

I know that most of the crying I am doing is because I am growing a person and my hormones are making my emotions insane.

I know that if Link watches TV a lot I shouldn't feel bad. It won't ruin him.

I know my friends want to help me and support me and don't expect anything in return.

I know all this but I still feel overwhelmed, crazy, guilty, sad, and like I need to get my shit together so I can repay all the favors!

I celebrate mother's day every day because I am grateful for my mom and I am grateful for the amazing little boy that made me into a mom. And on this day that I happen to be a big fat hot mess, the rest of the country just happens to be celebrating the same thing. I did not have the perfect morning. But my kid is alive, my fetus won't stop kicking me, my dog is alive. We are all as happy as circumstances allow and that's a lot! And now my house is clean! So you know what? It's been a good morning. And I'm not the perfect mom who made the perfect mother's day with her kid. But I am a happy mom and I can't believe how lucky I am to get to hang out with my intelligent, charmingly annoying, sassy, opinionated, talented, persistent, independent-at-inconvenient-times, "helpful," curious, adorable little boy every day...all day.

Being a mom is freaking hard. Especially when you are pregnant again and your husband is deployed. But we are still luckier than most and I'm glad I have one of the more difficult jobs in the world. I wouldn't change it for the world.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mommies out there. You are warriors no matter how old your kids are, how many you have, what they are (dogs, cats, humans, etc), if they are still with you, etc. ALL moms. You are amazing. (Dads too but today is mother's day so I'm focusing on moms!)

I'm not perfect but we are all alive and happy so BOOM world!

A Time I Had

Another thing I accept

As part of deployment I also accept that when I am home eating my food will be cold and if I decide to eat it hot before everything is done cooking/baking/frying etc, whatever was left on/in the oven/stove will burn. So cold food or burned food it is. But you know what? At least it's food and my kid and my dog are alive and eating their meals contently. OK Bowser is eating his meals contently. I have also accepted that Link will not eat most of the food I spend more than 8 minutes making. This includes chicken nuggets. He's alive. It counts.

A Time I Had

The Law of Deployment

Yet again I know I don't post much but maybe this will help me.
For those that most likely read this you know D has deployed. For those of you who don't know the "Law of Deployment" it's basically just Murphy's Law.

So instead of letting the pregnancy hormones get the best of me (which I have been doing lately...it involves a lot of overdramatic crying in a pillow) I have decided to blog about how ridiculous all the things that have gone wrong are. That and things I have just plain come to accept as normal that might not be under normal circumstances.

So here's a list of things that have gone missing (that I have noticed) since D left:
-the deshedding dog brush. Of course this has gone missing because I just vacuumed.
-Link's nail clippers. My goose is now a sharp nailed kitten.
-The whisk attachment to my hand mixer.
-Most of my sanity. Seriously, can't find it anywhere.

Here's a list of things that have broken since D left:
-Our address light and doorbell
-My brand new expensive cell phone
-Our printer (which is bad for a club secretary)
-My sweet little Inky's heart. Tonight he told me that he has a flight suit in his closet and maybe if he wears it he can go fly the plane with Daddy. I sobbed when I left his room.

A list of things I have come to accept since D left:
-Link's happy birthday banner will never be taken down. It is now a part of our home decor.
-We live out of a laundry basket
-My evergrowing collection of cups will grow and grow til there are none left downstairs because D is not here to make fun of me for it. (right now there are only 4 on my headboard... yes, I'm just protecting from alien invasion. Have we not seen Signs?!)
-Just as I am falling asleep every night my guard dog will bark to warn me that a leaf blew outside somewhere
-I will most likely have to chase the dog down after someone lets him out this week.
-Video games are essential to fun, sanity and mommy/son bonding (and also that I don't have to try to lose to my 4 year old, it just happens now)

I've also come to accept that I will live in a perpetual state of complete exhaustion. Inky has endless energy and whatever he doesn't take from me, Fetus is doing a a good job of stealing. Being exhausted is no longer a feeling but a part of my personality. I'm OK with it. I also knew I had amazing friends and a great support system BUT I had no idea how many amazing friends I had and how amazing their support would be. I'm so lucky. SO SO lucky.

A Time I Had

What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas

I honestly don't even know how to begin this post because I feel like it needs a decent build up for you to truly appreciate the thing that happened to me tonight.

So today I decided I was going to be productive and clean. Not just dishes and wipe down the stove, but clean out closets and cabinets kind of cleaning. It took me a good part of the day to do downstairs. I didn't have a ton of relax time. We then had some really great friends over for dinner and (as always) had an amazing time. I made some dinner. We ate some dinner. Then I had to go to a MOMS Club board meeting. 2 hours later I returned home. When I got home I cleaned the kitchen because D wasn't feeling well. At this point my back is killing me. Whatever, I'm a trooper! When done with that I came upstairs to add some things to the newsletter that I make for my moms club. I'm sitting at the desk typing away and I hear Link whimper. He's already been put to bed and after the one whimper I hear nothing.

Before I continue let me just explain one thing. My amazing, adorable, incredibly smart, wonderful, spectacular little boy sometimes sleep walks and he talks in his sleep. It's kind of endearing.

OK. So I hear nothing after the whimper. Until I hear something. I sit for a minute. What is that sound? It sounds like...oh he had to go potty. Wait a second though. That doesn't sound like it normally does. I get up from my computer. My amazing, adorable, incredibly smart, wonderful, spectacular little boy is standing at the very top of the stairs. And he is peeing. Like a freaking statue cherub at the top of a water fountain. In this one moment I wish I had a girl. Because in this moment if I had a girl that was peeing at the top of the stairs I would have a puddle to clean up. I don't have a little girl. I have a little boy and I am staring at a few drips at the top step where he did "the shake" followed by a staircase of pee that he totally launched (it was actually kind of impressive). But you know that scene in Kung Fu Panda where Po looks up at the stairs he has to climb? That was me. 

 

 

 

I have to clean urine off of ALL those stairs?!

My kid peed all the way down my carpeted staircase. In his sleep. He never even woke up. He sleep peed all the way to the downstairs from the top step. Yes, that happened. He has sleep peed before (not wet the bed but not been fully awake when he got up and peed in the toilet) so I'm not sure what made him walk to the stairs and stop an inch from the top step to urinate. I'm mostly glad he didn't fall down the stairs.

Boys are awesome. My back hurts. But my stairs are clean now. This would never happen at "naptime."

A Time I Had

"Naptime"

It's official. My kid has completely given up naps. I've known this for a while but if I snuggled with him I could usually get him to fall asleep after a bit and then sneak out. It wasn't ideal but as any mommy knows, NAPTIME ROCKS! Those days are over and I learned it the hard way this week.

Exhibit A

I am still a big fan of "quiet time" because he needs a break from his energizer bunny style of play. Well as I am sitting in the office working on a newsletter I hear a loud bang. Then I hear nothing. This is followed by a scream and dramatic crying. I run to Link's room, fling open the door and Link is on the floor by his window and his chair is on top of his bed on it's side. You can see exactly how it dumped him off into the wall. After making sure his eyes were fine and I wouldn't have to rush him to the ER I asked him what happened. He replied "I just falled off the chair and goed splat on the ground." Yup.

Today during "naptime" he comes up to me with his face slightly damp and says "Mommy, what do I smell like!?" All I could do was laugh. What the heck!? Luckily it was only foaming hand sanitizer that the little thief ganked from my purse but the possibilities of what it could have been are endless and terrifying!

I'm sure these shenanigans are going to continue and instead of being bothered by it, I'm just going to make these ridiculous events into blog posts for my readers to be enjoy.

Bye bye naptime!

A Time I Had

Greed Gets a Makeover

Link on the left with his friends Stewart and Harper

It's December. Christmas is upon us now and Link is in full force 3 year old greed mode. He's very excited by everything about the holiday this year since he finally understands it. But we had to take a step back and reanalyze what he actually understood. Yes, he gets Santa and the concept of that. We are not religious people. For our family this holiday is not about Jesus. It's not about Santa. It's about family and friends and it's about giving to others. This is not a post to invite everyone to slam my family and our beliefs or to spark controversy. But we do enjoy traditions and Santa is a part of that and so are gifts for each other. A week ago though I started to realize that Link was getting swept up in that and the "I want this for Christmas" attitude. Not cool. Something had to change.

Our "elf" thinks Link needs a greed-check.

I am one of those overachieving elf on the shelf people. This may annoy you. I don't care. I do it for our family. Today our elf showed up with an armful of cash and a note that read "Christmas is about giving to others. Take this money and go out and do something nice for someone else." Our first task was to walk Link through the house and go through his things to see if there was anything we could give away. A lot of the donations are for new toys only. Even so, Link picked out quite a few things to give away. Even if we were not donating to charity we told him he could give some things to his friends if he wanted. He got very excited. I'm sure if we hadn't been with him he might have actually given away all his toys to his friends. He was so excited about giving gifts to people. We were not expecting this but were pleasantly surprised. We now have a fairly large pile of toys and books that he will help us wrap to give to his friends. After this activity we knew we had to run a few errands anyway (buy dog food, get some tape, etc). We grabbed the cash and headed out.

Harper and Link with Santa. 

Our first stop was Petsmart to get food for Bowser. At the checkout lane we purchased a stuffed dog where some of the proceeds go towards homeless pets. Since we obviously didn't need the toy we put it in a bag in our van to donate. Next stop was Starbucks for a drink D has been craving and a little hot chocolate for Link. Included in our purchase was a $5 gift card that we had Link give to the next person in line. It was really cool to see. She was very excited to get it and while we were sitting down drinking our drinks she actually came up to our table after she got her drink with her info and facebook link. She's a photographer and she offered to do a free session for us. It was really sweet of her. We were obviously not doing this for any kind of return or anything. Just wanted to brighten someone's day. What goes around comes around I suppose. After that we ran to Target for some misc. household items. After picking up the things on our list we took Link to the toy section and he picked out some toys that we could take to be donated to Toys for Tots. When we were done at Target we hit one of the TFT drop off locations. Link added the stuffed dog from Petsmart to the bag of Target toys and carried them in himself and put them all the box. He was really excited about the whole thing. It made my heart smile. So even though he can be kind of rotten and sometimes I'm convinced his hearing is bad since I have to repeat myself 8 million times a day, I know he's an amazing and kind-hearted little boy and I'm lucky to be his mommy.

A Time I Had