Too bitter to blog?

Perhaps, but I will try to repress my ever present frustration with THE ANGRIEST TODDLER IN THE WORLD (whose name starts with B and ends with ernadette), and with the fact that I am only just entering the 3rd trimester of this pregnancy and, well, I already feel like I have been pregnant f o r e v e r, and the fact that I feel like someone took something like one of those industrial strength leaf suckers and used it instead to suck every single ounce of energy from my body... but I will try to push those things aside and focus on some positives. You're welcome.

---

This weekend held many things for us at the Hahn home, among them was a much begged for trip to the history museum.
Starting to feel like your 3-year-olds aren't as smart/cultured as mine? Well, stop.
She only begs to go 70 times an hour because of the following:

From the top: Bernadette cooks fish for the 3 of us; While mother waits in tipi for her food; Naomi in a dunce cap that fits all too well; Naomi in another hat+apron; more fish cooking; a feast fit for a pregnant queen; Naomi studies; trading post; end with more fish cooking

More fun than you can handle, for real.

Next positive:
This morning the eldest tyrant in the home decided to sleep until... wait for it... SEVEN o'clock.
You have no idea how unprecedented this is, and how rested I should be feeling.

This of course meant that I had no excuse whatsoever to skip our morning exercises/walk around the block.

Which then brings me to the 3rd happy happening of the morning:  I walked for our enitre allotted amount of time WITHOUT feeling like I was going to pee my pants right there on the ground at any point (thousand exclamation points) And also meant we could stop to see the always asked for "crazy man" aka inflatable, flopping, cigarette man outside of the tobacco store near our home.

And all parties were happy, content and dry.
Have yourself a pleasant Monday.

SEE MAN

I am not a frequent Walmart goer. In fact, almost every time I go anymore I end up saying over and over and over again in my head while I search in vain for another ill-placed item "I hate Walmart, I hate Walmart....". But no matter my feelings on the illogical, frustrating set up of their store, their notoriously bad service (I speak only of OUR LOCAL Walmart here), or the fact that everyone walks at the pace of a handicap turtle right in front of you acting like they have no idea at all that anyone else is in the store trying to get groceries and not just there for their afternoon walk.

Now that I got that off my chest... regardless of my feelings about it, we simply had to head over there last week in search of some decent priced curtains to hang in the future nursery/Bernadette's room.

We entered the store and pretty much immediately came in contact with a fairly life-sized batman statue-ish thing which was being used to display Mountain Dew. Bernadette began insisting that we go over to it, and I thought it seemed harmless, so we stood in front of it for a second before I said that we must keep moving so as to get in and out of this h-hole asap.

As soon as we walked away she started demanding to go back and "SEE MAN." To which I would reply, "As soon as we're done with shopping, we'll see him one more time." To which she would reply, even louder and more urgently, "SEE MAN, SEE MAN!!" I kept responding calmly for the first 30 seconds at least, but then it started to get a little annoying. We were retrieving our 2nd or 3rd item when she shouted for the 100th time, "SEE MAN, SEE MAN!!!" and I had had it. "No Bernadette, we are not here to see a Batman statue, we are here to get groceries. We are not going back to see that man!" And, that was it.

I can usually manage meltdowns in the grocery store with my purse stash of juice/crackers/fruit snacks/pacifiers/blankies/etc., but all my efforts were in vain- this just broke her. No more promise of "SEEING THE MAN," how could she bear it? I hurried as quickly as I could through the store, purchased my items, somehow calmed her with some check-out line twizzlers--but no reunion with her beloved "MAN"--and we left. Thank God, we were done. We were slated to head to the Mall play place that day, but the trip was canceled on account of my voracious hunger and Bernadette's overly volatile emotions.

As it turns out,  the curtains stunk and we had to go back to Walmart AGAIN yesterday, and what a sweet, sweet reunion it was. Without saying a word to Bernadette about it, we walked in the store and she started immediately, "SEE MAN, SEE MAN!" I assured her that as soon as we got what we needed, we would go and see him, and, her emotions being much more in check (probably as a result of some separation from the high emotions that this relationship clearly evokes), she was ok with this deal. We retrieved some curtains (which thankfully work, so that I will be going nowhere near that store again for as long as possible), and then we stopped to see. the. man.

Oh, the JOY!!!!!!!

And the only thing that pried her away was the enormous box of fruit snacks purchased to be eaten in the car. They will probably never see each other again, but it was a match made in heaven, or at least Walmart. Same thing, right?

Tea Time

I know I promised no more grainy pictures, but I guess I lied.

The thing is that these should not be so grainy, but our camera that should be taking decent quality pictures did not do come through yesterday, so I figured I'd just give these the "antique" effect and it would look intentional anyways. 

---

Meet Henrietta and Georgiana.

We had a lovely tea party during a thunderstorm to make up for the fact that I promised to take them to the mall play place, but knowing my own weakness and level of hunger mixed with the plethora of delicious food court food varieties, I chose to stay home- thus not fulfilling my promise at all. Fail, but not a total fail:

Henrietta

Georgiana

There was a 3rd member of the tea party named George Fifflefaf (chosen by Naomi, but originating with her aunt, I think), but he/she was too awkward in all the pictures to be shown-- something about the large red feathered hat not fitting properly on her/his over sized head... and being too pregnant....

Naomi called us all by our tea party names for at least a full hour afterwards, so I'll call this broken promise a success.

Have a lovely day.

The Cling

Calling Bernadette "clingy" would be the understatement of 2012.
I have no idea what is going to happen when we introduce this new, more legitimately needy child to her and let her know that she will no longer the only one on my hip. It scares me.

see how scared I am?

I know it will be fine, I hope so. Ok I feel no confidence at all in how it will go. I can only hope that in the next 2 1/2 months she will find some pet outside that we can domesticate for her to attach herself to, or a 5th "beeka" (pink silk/plush blanket), which will top all the rest and be her new stand in mother.

notice my nervous smile?

The thing is that I have no interest in detaching her prematurely since I am super sentimental and sad about the fact that very soon she will no longer be "the baby" and that these are my last weeks of being able to give her the sort of only partially-divided attention that so longs for. (Yes the attention is divided but she seriously lucked out that she has a very non-clingy/independent older sister.)
So...  I pick her up when she asks me to, I snuggle with her as long as she wants me to, I give in almost every time she is expressing preference for me over Mike or another person, I am definitely enabling the clingy-ness.

Am I being selfish? Probably. Is this a disservice to her? I don't know, probably in some way someone could make the case that it is. But I will never have these exact moments with her again when there was no sibling younger than her outside the womb and I want to soak them up a like the little sappy sponge that I am. 

And so I say, cling on, oh clingy one, you have about 100 days of this paradise left...

A verbal explosion

I realized last night that I have failed to update my faithful readers on Bernadette's newest developmental milestones, and I am so sorry if you have been sitting at home, barely living your life, waiting to hear all about this. Here we go.

The past 2 weeks have marked quite a change in my 21-month-old's cognitive processes, and it has been really exciting. The few weeks prior to those weeks were pretty awful- she was sleeping badly, crying allllll the time, and I really was  wondering if there hadn't been some alien abduction and switching of children, or maybe Bernadette actually had a evil twin that I had birthed, not known about and was switched out for my sweet non-evil Bernadette.

As it is, neither were the case, and there was just a whole bunch going on in her little brain that she just had no idea what to do with. Here are a few of the verbal developments we've seen in a matter of about a week.

                                         
                                 
                                       


                                           Prior to explosion                                      After explosion
"I love you"                       "Ya you"                                                  "I wuv you, mommy"

"I need bottle"                   "bawuuul!!!!!!!!!"                                    "I eed bawuul, mommy"

"Where's Naomi?"             "Nomi??!?"                                              "Nomi seepin, in bed?"

"Where's daddy?"               "Da-eeeee"                                              "Da-ee seepin, in bed?"

"No"                                    "no!"                                                        "I will never!"

"Beast is bad"                      "bees"                                                      "da beast, is a baaaad"

"Little Einsteins?"                "veee-oooo"                                            "Veinsteins!!!"

"Bite of egg?"                      "egggggggg"                                           "bite of egg, mommy?"1


I have to say I am less than excited about the development of her words of refusal, which have undoubtedly only been picked up from her older sister, who pretty much says she will "NEVER" do anything you tell her to do.

Also, I am a tad embarrassed to publicly admit my exposure of their small minds to a handful of Disney films (don't worry, nothing newer than "The Lion King"), and that Bernadette has really taken to the Beast from "Beauty and the Beast"- a little weird. She discovered the story in our book of fairy tales and will occasionally just sit on the couch, stare down the picture of the beast jumping out and scaring the crap out of Beauty, and say to the picture repeatedly "Beast is a-growlin"- also a little weird.

The recent developments have also made for more entertaining conversations between her and Naomi, since Naomi claims to always know what Berndette is saying. For instant, I just heard this little exchange:

Bernadette: "mommy, bafuum?"(is mommy in the bathroom? the only place she goes other than right here and the kitchen?)

Naomi: "yes, Bernadette, I am a great dancer! Here I will show you!"

Bernadette: "ok"

She also just figured out "conditionals." For example, if we're trying to get her to eat dinner, which she always refuses to do, I can say "do you want chocolate chips?" she will say "yes," and I can say "well, you have to eat your hot dog to get chocolate chips," and she will do it!!

And as you can tell, my fantastic mothering skills carry over to their diets as well- I'm really firing on all cylinders over here.

There, now you know way more than you ever knew you didn't want to know.

Have a great Sunday!
                                  

Milestones sans Mike

If you consider finally being able to get your child's hair into pigtails a milestone.

Mike has been absent since Sunday attending what has been described as a "week of intensive study, prayer and discussion" aka a retreat for really smart people. And I have been spending lots of time at both of our parents' homes squeeeeezing as much child care out of them as I can and pretending to know what I am doing by myself.

I was encouraged our second day here when I was staring at Bernadette's long stragglers+male pattern baldness and thought, "hey, I think I could manage to fit most of that up in pigtails" with the exception of the reeeeeaaallllyy short pieces on the top. So I tried it and..........

Success was mine.

I suppose of all the "milestones" for Mike to miss, this was the best. Plus we got to see him at Mass everyday, so he was included in the rejoicing.

Did I really just do an entire post on putting baby hair in pigtails? You bet.

Take it or leave it, quick style.

In an attempt to make up for a week of blog absence while traveling, I will go ahead and bore you with excessive details about our trip and other things:

1) My beautiful sister-in-law got married and it went swimmingly, that is, they are married. It was beautiful. 

Picture stolen from facebook, I took ZERO. She married the one on the right (her left).

2) Mike and I had a bit of a scare on Wednesday evening after our arrival in Steubenville when we realized that my tent of a bridesmaid's dress and Mike's spandex suit had been left in South Bend. (Mike's suit ended up not fitting anyways, lesson learned-- always try on suit in store when picking it up, also don't trust suit salespeople).

Utterly embarrassing photo of me for poof that we acquired our wedding attire. Photo also stolen from facebook

One of the bridesmaids lives here in SB and we were able to get her into our house and into our closet in order that we would be clothed at the ceremony, we were very grateful.

3) The old MOH speech went off without a hitch, or at least I didn't say anything incriminating or too embarrassing.

4) The remainder of our visit looked something like this:

super blurry picture of Naomi in a life jacket about to board the USS paddle boat= cutest thing ever

Lot's of fun in the sun with Nana and Papa at the Hahn cabin on a lake

 5) And this:

LOADS of fun at Grammy and Gramp's house complete with many tractor rides. I even took them for a ride- too bad we did not capture that, huh?

6) Tuesday was intended to be another super fun Hahn family day but Bernadette's stomach had other plans for us. She woke up that morning utterly exhausted and out of it and before I could say "vomit," she went ahead and and did just that. Many, many times. I had just read Grace's post the day before and thought to myself "I am so glad we haven't had to deal with vomiting children in a while"... solidarity be mine.

7) Last but not least and not in the least bit connected to the rest, just for fun. I am trying to decide whether or not to cut Bernadette straggling hairs/rat tail. When they are curly they generally look fine and even cute:

cute

fine?

When they are straight they all too similar to this:

Straight haired Bernadette is nick-named "Vernon." Growing up in Mingo Junction, I knew many a Vernon with a rat tail. No seriously, I knew several.

 To cut or not to cut? That is the question.

Now we are back in South Bend and ready for some nice weather to come back to us. It is June and the heat actually kicked on in our house today. Redic.

Go the Jen and many others for some fab quick takes.
Happy Friday!

Sweaty sweet summer

 Enjoying a nice 90 degree day here in the Bend,

 filled with several 20 minute outdoor spurts for the girls,

 (I am a little hyper paranoid about sun burn)

 And putting Mike to work on our dinner.

He worked hard on perfecting his grilled chicken today putting together a crazy brine to soak it in prior to grilling

I have to say that this was honestly the BEST chicken I have ever tasted in my entire life. Mike was pretty proud -rightly so- and showed it by asking me a few questions while eating, like: "Did you know that chicken could be juicy?" and "Is it possible that chicken can be too juicy?".

It may be the case I am notoriously the very worst cooker of chicken on the earth, it usually ends up being something like the consistency of a dog bone and all parties are chewing on it just about as long as a dog would a bone. This, on the other hand, had more flavor than I ever thought it was possible for chicken to have, and I am advertising for no one, except my culinary genius of a husband.

Maybe one day I will share is secret, but I must consult the master first.
Happy Sunday!

7 quick takes: excitements and dreads

 I realize that this is all to similar to my "love/hates" edition of last week's quick takes, but I also realize that is doesn't matter, and that if there isn't some sort of logic to my quick takes I cannot participate in them as it makes me nervous and twitchy. So with this in mind, here are some things I am excited about in the coming weeks and some that I am dreading (in no particular order):

1) Super excited that I get to use my groupon that I bought for a pretty cheap hair cut and style this afternoon by MYSELF...
2) Dreading having it cut and styled by a man whose name I cannot pronounce and who was pretty awkward on the phone with me while I made the appointment, and I do not use awkward lightly here folks, he was super weird. And it was only a phone conversation. And the groupon is for a 45 minute cut, meaning there is no way I can get out of the awkwardness any faster than 45 minutes and it will probably go longer since he seemed like a BIT of a talker. Alright, I am done with this one.



3) Very excited for the upcoming nuptials of my sister-in-law to a fabulous guy next weekend. We leave Wed to begin the festivities and will return the next Wed after. Within this one I will say how stinkin excited I am that Hannah (said sister-in-law) will be living HERE in the Bend for their first year of marriage, always a fan of family in town and so excited to get to be around them during their newlywedship.

Hannah and Mike, because I could not easily find one of the 2 of us.

 4) Dreading 2 things about the upcoming event. 1) My matron-of-honor speech. Oh, did I not mention I am the MOH? Because I am. And there are something like 400 peeps coming to this thing. And I have nothing planned yet (don't freak Hannah, I am gonna nail it).

yeah, gonna nail it

5) and 2) (second part of 4, but I am not going to waste using up another quick take) Dreading that I realized this morning that I failed to mention to the seamstress at my dress fitting that I need some straps added to my dress. One week away from needing straps added and no one else but me knows that this needs to be done. No good. Again, don't freak out Hannah, I got it. I have about 7 plans in my head of how I will get some straps added to this dress. Seriously, I could have done a quick takes just about that, but I think that would have been lame.




6) EXCITED times 25 about the fact that Mike and I booked a hotel in this town in June (I will not tell you which weekend for fear that you will come and crash our party). My parents are coming to watch the girls for us so we can have a night away. By ourselves. I get a little short of breath with excitement just thinking about it.
7) As of late Bernadette has been just about the clingiest baby ever to toddle the earth. When I go from one room to another she weeps like I am being taken away for a life sentence never to see her face again. Therefore, I am dreading (just a little) leaving her for the night. I just don't want her to think that I have abandoned her and then have issues the rest of her life leading to undue angst and bitter feelings toward me for the rest of her life. That's all.



And so there you go, lot's so look forward to, a little to be scared of... man I had like 5 more I could have added, maybe I will do a sequel soon. But for now, go visit Jen and read some undoubtedly better quick takes here.

Children at play

Mike finished his last paper of his last year of course work for the rest of his life last night, or this morning, at around 3:30. YEEEHAW. This happened after a bed time of 4:30 the previous night working on the same said paper. His wifey (me), on the other hand, has been sporting wake times all too close to my husband's bed times due to a certain scary 3-year-old who, now that she can open her door, runs into my room at the ripe hour of 5:30 a.m. ready to start her day. Every. Single. Morning. Almost.

I am supposed to be napping right now while Mike gallivants all over town with both girls, but I couldn't sleep and my mother always said "when you can't sleep, blog". Lies, she probably still doesn't know quite what a blog is.

So as a result of the insanely early mornings, our morning play time often consist of something like this:

In case you can can't tell from at least a couple of these pictures, Bernadette is not actually tired since she sleeps until a reasonable hour of 7:30-ish as opposed to her wannabe nocturnal sister who is really completely exhausted:

I could write many tales of this difficult sleeper, but I will instead give you a little sneak peek at our babe in utero who was engaging in her/his own play time during an afternoon ultrasound (I don't know how much one can "play" inside a uterus)

The ultrasound tech put "yoga baby" on the top picture since the baby's foot is on top of the head (I love this tech, she is awesome)- so the baby was actually playing, sort of.

Also, we may or may not (MAY) have found out the gender of this baby today, but since this was only a 16 week ultrasound, I will hold off until the next one confirms what we pretty much know and then I will bust it out into the blogosphere.

I know you are all dying, literally dying to know, but I think you'll make it.

Monumentals

Yesterday marked some rather ground breaking things in a few different, sort of related, arenas.

1) I went to the doc for my 16 week appointment and found out that, since Christmas, I have already gained back HALF of the weight that I lost last year (if you read the post where I mentioned how much I lost you can do the math, if you didn't I will not divulge it now). Isn't that amazing!?!?! Personally, I am impressed with myself- also a little disgusted- but mostly impressed. If you read this post a while back you know about my preoccupation.

before

after

And back again. Bad lighting+awkward smile=typical ana pregnancy picture

and

2) I participated in the first form of exercise since being about 6 weeks pregnant- a 10 week break from working out and I went from having this as my daily workout routine 4 short months ago:

to barely being able to jog 1/4 mile. Also impressive.

Now I will give myself some credit here and say I had NEVER been that skinny/in shape ever in my life before, so I was bound to regress at some point AND I am actually ahead of the game in terms of where I was weight wise when I was pregnant with Bernadette- so I am feeling good.

But with all that said, I am beginning my pregnancy diet/workout regiment to attempt to not gain an average of 8 pounds every doctor's appointment. This plan really just means:

• no more daily fast food, for every meal
• no more mid-morning hot dog snacks
• no more nightly reeses cups (sniff)
• not more middle of the night confetti cake 
• do anything at all by way of physical activity. I think I will try some of Dwija's tricks.
• maybe try to eat every 3 hours instead of every 2

It's gonna be rough people, I am not gonna lie, but I think I can do it.

3) Unrelated, but watch out, I am sewing again.

And it is going to rock your world

4) And the last monumental thing that's been happening recently worth noting:

The girls are finally deciding to both smile for pictures together (yes that is a smile for Bernadette there) and it is making for some better pictures. 

Here's to changes on many fronts!

A Sunday Recipe

This is the first week of my official second trimester and I am more than a little excited about this. While I still manage to complain plenty about the nausea not having completely vanished the day I turned 14 weeks (like it's a birthday), it has undoubtedly gotten much, much better. I can do normal things now like drink COFFEE (so excited about this) and drink my coffee before eating anything in the morning (normal for me) instead of running to the kitchen as soon as I wake to get a bowl of cereal, or piece of ham, or stick of butter or anything to keep me from being hunched over the toilet.

Another normal thing I can now do is cook fun things for the fam without feeling like I am going to hurl when I see the picture of the food in the cookbook, the old Ana and coming back! It's just a matter of time before I bust out my *brand new* birthday sewing machine and sew something awesome... but we'll give that a little more time.

So this morning I made these. I borrowed "the Pioneer Woman Cooks" from the library the other day, so that is why I am all of the sudden posting her recipes, but I will be honest I should always be posting them. They are all amazing and I would like to own this cook book one day. These were the best pancakes I have ever had. Fo realz.

They made for a happy mother and children (and a would-be happy husband if he had not been up til the a.m. hours of the night/morning working on a paper, poor guy, he will eat his later)

To document the happiness:

The other child was happy too, but her face was not as messy and that always makes for a better, or at least more entertaining, picture.

Things you should know about

  

1. I finally finished an insane clothing organization project this past week, resulting in my drawers finally closing and many bags of clothing (dating back to high school) being given and thrown away.
2. Mike has been reading "Little House on the Prairie" to Naomi every evening, which I was pretty sure she was not entirely absorbing, if at all, since she is only just 3 and usually looks pretty spaced out while he is reading. Then, a few days ago, I walked into the restroom with her, and she looked at our plunger in the holder and asked, "Is that a butter churn?" I said "no" and begged her never to try churning butter with it. At least I know Mike's reading is not totally futile.

3. My sister came to visit on Thursday with her Beau, and we got to make lots of great food and go visit my favorite SB hot spot: the history museum, because we're cool and exciting.

4. One of the recipes we made is definitely worth sharing: THIS ONE by the Pioneer Woman. I am still drooling like a teething baby thinking about them, and I am having to restrain myself from going into the kitchen and polishing off the plate of leftovers. I cannot take any credit for actually making them, since my sister did all the work (I was making my first crab bisque), but I did do a bang up job eating them.

Picture from the cookbook because we ate them too quickly to take a picture of our own finished product.

5. Mike spotted these awesome glass canisters at the best thrift store in the world a few days ago and I went back the next day to buy them in order to organize my crazy pantry. AND since no one will see or care about this because it took place inside a pantry that pretty much only I open, I decided to force you to enjoy the glorious results with me:

before

after

I think the total for all four canisters was $6. Best. thrift. store. ever. Also shown: my ingenious idea for storing our borrowed library books on tape. I could sit and stare at these pictures all day.

6. And last but not least (I have to stop at six so it doesn't look like I'm trying to do 7 quick takes on a Saturday- never!), I know what you'll probably think when you see that I've posted youtube videos--"oh, it's just a youtube video that she thinks is funny and I don't have time to look at videos other people enjoy, besides she probably has no sense of humor, and I have a life." But seriously, do yourself a favor and watch these, but IN ORDER--the first one is an actual real music video that people apparently like, and the second is a parody. This will ensure that you laugh today. (Warning: there is at least one bleeped out F bomb in the second video that they do a terrible job of actually bleeping out, so perhaps this is not good to watch around young children.)