Three

Three.  My baby is three.  Actually, she is three years old and one month, 37 months.  Finally past the point where it is appropriate to refer to your children's ages in months.

Three is still full of new experiences.  Three is filled with new things that come out of her mouth that I can't believe she thought of it on her own.  Three is when she has discovered that saying, "I don't like you Mommy" will elicit a sad response.  It is also filled with cuddles on the couch with her looking up at me, "Mommy, I love you so much.  You are my best friend."

My three year old is spunky.  Sassy.  Sensitive.  My girl wants so badly to please her parents and if we show any signs of disapproval she will cry tears of guilt.  My baby seeks for approval and beams at our praise.

My baby is 37 months going on 148 months.  She loves to sleep in later than her parents, doesn't like to be told what to do.  My prepreprepreteen will sass you back, "Baby, please go throw this in the trash"  "No, YOU go throw it in in the trash."   She has her first crush on a boy (Calliou, and no her parents do not approve).

Three is still when she needs me.  Soon, so soon, I will need her more than she needs me.   My kisses still fix all boo boos, my funny faces still bring joy.  I know all the answers to her whys, I calm her fears when she is scared.

Three is perfect.  Three is fun.  An adventure, a journey.  I'm soaking in every moment grasping each of her thousand plus days around the sun.  I can't imagine anything better.  That is, in what will feel like just a few short months away, until we hit four.

Updates, in Bullet Points

Oh goodness.  Life got busy y'all.  I was semi doing better with updating and then the regular (life) happened.  So instead of trying to cover everything-here is the last month highlights, in bullet points.

*I think I might have conquered running a tiny bit.  It is literally one step at a time, but the next time I ran after my last post, I just decided that I wasn't going to stop.  I took a combination of advice of stretching, antihistamines and compression pants (well if you count kids yoga pants as compression) and I made it.  Not only did I make it-I ran an entire mile straight through.  I know that isn't much, but it is a start and I was damn proud.  Somehow Baby knew when I was struggling as I was pushing her stroller and just at the moment I was starting to fade, she cheered, "Run,  Mommy run!"  Somehow she knew I needed the encouragement exactly when I did.

*In regards to running, Boyfriend and I were doing great-going out three to four times a week.  The last two weeks though, not so much.  My life was obsessed with Mom's Night Out (update on a later bullet point) for Dallas Moms Blog as the event coordinator so my evenings from work went straight onto the computer to answer emails that I couldn't sneak respond to during work between calls.  Today starts new and I am heading to the gym directly after work.

*Mom's Night Out was a cold success.  I enjoyed working with the contributors to plan what I think is such a crucial event for moms.  We had almost 200 women surrounding each other with friendship, food and drinks.  I loved running around during the event, standing over the group watching all the details that were worked on by our extraordinary group fall together.  The day of  technology got the best of me on a number of things, but in the end everything worked together perfectly with the exception of our lovely Texas weather.  Every day last week was gorgeous, last Thursday I woke up to pouring rain and while the sun greeted us-it was downright chilly.

*Baby is starting to be creative in her truths (like how I just put that spin on lying?).  I know a three year old won't lie intentionally, but she is starting to come up with crazy things.  The biggest one is if you ask her how she got X cut on her she will tell you mommy or daddy did it.

"Baby, how did you get that cut on your lip?"
"Daddy pushed me into a tree!"

"Baby, what is that mark on your eye?"
"Mommy hit me!"  (ok, that one might be true, my nail and her eye collided in the dark).

Seriously though, we don't beat our child-even though one time in Target I yelled, "Baby, I'm going to beat you!" meaning that I was going to race her to the front door.  Hopefully she learns it isn't the best idea to tell people her parents push her into the table corners or bang her legs with a stick.

*I ordered my first Erin Condren planner with my gift card from my MNO swag bag.  To say I am excited is a little bit of an understatement.  I am a sucker for paper planners and these are so cute!

*Work is better than it has been in the last year.  I have a new lead who is very intentional with my career and I can already see the difference in my path.  It is so unreal how having  different people above you can make or break you, regardless of how awesome you are. It isn't that I have had someone in the past leading me that wasn't invested in me, but my new lead sees the same thing in me that I see in myself and it is inspiring to work my hardest so I can grow.

*I am going out of town with my best girlfriends in just 12 days to Chicago.  I am so, so excited and can't wait for my first trip to the windy city!

*Life isn't really going to get less busy.  I've just was just accepted to be a contributor for another national blog, it is wedding season, summer is around the corner.  I half love being that busy and maybe a quarter hate it.  There is something about knowing your days are filled with friends and family, knowing that you are so blessed to have so much to do because you have such great relationships.  I have said this every time, but I really do want to be better at updating so that I have the ability to look back at my blog and remember all the things that happened when life was whizzing by. 

Allergic to Running

I am allergic to running.

No, for real, I legit am allergic.  If I do anything more than a leisurely stroll, I will start to break out in hives on my legs, waist and back.  I have always been this way, but I very specifically remembering it becoming a problem when I was in sixth grade during gym class.  I spent many afternoons in the nurses office trying to tell them how bad it was but they just thought I was trying to get out of class.

Over the years I have made half hearted attempts to start running on the regular.  Every single time though the same thing happens.  I get to a point, usually five-six minutes in where I start to get a tiny itch in my legs.  Then I start to feel my waist twitching.  Then my legs start to swell, I will look down and they are huge and red.  I get to a point I have to make a choice, try and ignore the itching that is bone deep or scratch.

I always try to ignore it but then I will, no joke, start to have a panic attack from the itching.  I know that sounds CRAZY, and y'all I might just be, but this type of itch is a special mental and physical torture.  I wish it seemed reasonable, but it isn't in the least bit.

Yesterday, I tried to do C25K.  I made it my first mile before I was on the curb with Baby in front of me in the jogging stroller watching me claw at my legs, trying to literally not pass out from itching.  While doing so, I destroyed my legs.  (Please ignore the fact that my legs look like they have been amputated.  Also-I can make that joke since my dad really did have that happen.)

Each one of those lines today are where I scratched so deep, I have a blood line going up and down my leg.  Sexy.

Mentally, I want so badly to be a runner.  I want to be able to just put shoes on and go.  I want to be alone with my thoughts.  I just don't think it is in my cards.  I have had semi success with taking antihistamines prior to running so I am going to experiment with that the next couple of weeks.  In the meantime though, I'll just continue to tell people I am allergic to running and be told, "Sure....just like I am allergic to work" (or paying bills/homework/yard work or whatever other activity they deem not enjoyable).

Not Baby's Jeans

Last night my friend Steff and I went to NYDJ (formally Not Your Daughter's Jeans) Spring preview event at The Joule hotel in Dallas.  I love these events, not only are filled with wine and sweets but I have the opportunity to view products under most normal circumstances I wouldn't really pay a second glance to them.

NYDJ is exactly one of those brands.  Prior to this preview, I knew them as Not Your Daughter's Jeans.  I think my mom has a pair and I know they sell them in some of the higher up department stores (I know that I have seen them before in Nordstrom).  I never considered them a brand for me, because bluntly-I still thought of them as "mom" jeans.  A la SNL commercial for Mom Jeans.

But here is the thing.  I am a mom.  So technically, any jeans I wear I guess you could consider them mom jeans.  After having a baby, your body changes.  Regardless of if you lose all the baby weight things are just different.  I actually have hips though admittedly not much, which I consider a blessing but most woman gets just a bit...wider.  There are some moms out there that you could never physically tell they grew another human being inside them, but they tend to have a much higher discipline than I will ever have.

Back to the preview-Steff and I had the chance to try out several styles and some of their upcoming tops collection.  I immediately picked out a pair that one of the hosts was wearing because she looked so darn cute but they were not for me.  I might have been admiring her skinny waist but they just went way too high on mine and overall the fit just didn't work.  I don't blame the jeans though, I blame the woman.

I tried on a pair of black jeans though and immediately loved them.  Two bonuses about these-they came in petite so my barely over five feet (lazy) self doesn't have to have them altered and they have something called Lift and Tuck technology.  Ok, at first I thought this was a gimmick or sales pitch but these jeans honestly were are the first ones where my lower belly (or the ever so sexy muffin top) was flat and I have a slightly round butt.  Consider me sold.

I also tried out one of their tops, a simple drape top that I felt really great in.  It is versatile enough that I am going to be able to wear it to work or something those childless people call date nights.  I also feel like this is going to be one of those shirts that I throw on when running errands so I can look somewhat put together without the effort.

NYDJ did send me home with my favorite picks of the evening, but my opinions are my own.  They didn't ask me to write about them, but after yesterday-I just want women, and even the non moms, out there to not automatically pass the brand by because you might be pleasantly surprised. 

Sunday was Boyfriend's birthday.   Up until Sunday, I spent six weeks being the older woman which he was always very proud of, but no longer!  10 birthdays ago for him, I remember reading on his Livejournal about his 19th birthday and how he had waited so long to get to that age so he could related to the Old 97s song. 

"We came back and finished off a bottle of vodka, green apple flavored. I had like 8 shots in 45 minutes. Jared had to walk Katie to class because I was too drunk to go anywhere. Hutch told me to go to dinner with him and when I walked outside I lost him. Hot Jenna came by with a birthday cake, which was really sweet. If you have seen the Bachelorette, Jenna looks a lot like Trista, except Jenna is hotter and doesn't do that stupid baby voice like Trista does."

A small excerpt from that LJ entry, I remember being insanely jealous of this Hot Jenna he spoke of (who he still to this day refers to her as such, but she really is so I can't blame him).  I remember wishing that I hadn't screwed up our friendship for another boy, but that is another story for a different time.   Luckily just a few months later, that other boy decided I wasn't worth the effort and I have had the extreme fortune to spend Boyfriend's next nine and counting birthdays making him birthday cakes instead of Hot Jenna.

For me, birthdays are so important.  I feel bad, I don't think that I did enough for Boyfriend this year.  We had a great brunch with some of our closest friends, dinner with my mom, cake with Baby (apparently birthdays=lots of eating delicious foods) but I didn't really *do* anything.  We don't exchange presents in our relationship but normally I still like to find ways to make the day special. Last year, we went to Vegas and in years past we have made a really fun day out of it.  The only year that less effort was made was the year that I was pregnant but you can pretty much get a pass out of anything when you are pregnant (especially be 36 weeks and in prodromal labor already).

 Boyfriend is the most important person in my life, my main squeeze, my other half.  And even though he hasn't complained, I feel guilty I didn't take the time to show him how much his special day means to me-even if it doesn't mean that much to him.  Baby however, took extreme pleasure in wishing her daddy a happy birthday at least 25 times during the day and singing to him.  She was so cute, Boyfriend even let her help blow out his birthday candles on his cake.

I feel like my life is still on hold.  Yesterday I went to the doctor's for what they thought was going to be my final blood draw that would finally show that all levels of the pregnancy hormone was gone and I am considered in the clear.

Sadly that wasn't the case, I still have an elevated HCG count meaning not everything has cleared out if you get what I mean.  The levels were very low though so no additional measures are going to be taken at this point-if two weeks from now I still have the same level I will go through a procedure to complete the process but I really would like to avoid that.

It frustrates me.  I'm mad at my body.  I'm raging angry at my Mirena (which is in some dumpster by now with other medical "byproducts" where it belongs).  I still don't *feel* normal.  I'm still bone tired most days but I have noticed some days are a lot better than others.  It could be psychological but all the same, physically I am being impacted.

The other day Boyfriend, innocently made a joke that he wasn't sure if I was just not my normal self because everything isn't physically complete or if I'm just riding out sympathy for as long as possible.  I wish that I was abusing the situation and pretending to not feel well.  I wish that I didn't feel off in my own body.

I did talk to my doctor about it and she said it was totally normal and that it will take some time to get back to normal.  She said first my body is dealing with the hormones of the pregnancy, but now at this point my body is still working to level out from going from non hormonal birth control and all of that combined can cause the extreme fatigue.

Mentally, I'm ready.  I'm ready to feel complete again.  I'm ready to feel like I have the energy to get off the couch and have a tickle/wrestle fest with my daughter.   Emotionally, I feel like I need to take charge of my body since I lost control of it a month ago.  I just wish that I wasn't so tired the only thing I physically feel capable is moving from the couch to the bed. 

Boyfriend and I don't really do Valentine's Day.  Our first one together, it was pretty magical as it was the first one I had really had with a boyfriend.  It snowed a little over an inch (y'all-in Texas that is a ton!) and everything was beautiful and picture perfect.  He even took me to The Melting Pot, on holidays they do set menus at $80+ per person so for us as baby 19 year olds, that was big money (who am I kidding-it still is now!).

Another thing that happened that first Valentines Day I remember telling him, "We have been together for so long, 8 months!" to which he immediately responded with, "Nothing in comparison to forever".  We were kinda obsessed with each other from day one and knew we would get married very early on but that response always replays fondly in my mind.

I'm not sure what happened between that year and this year, our 10th Valentine's Day that caused it to not be a big deal in our household.  Maybe I was mad because one year I spent forever making him this story book full of inside jokes and he didn't appreciate it (and to be fair now, it was really, REALLY juvenile-something only a girl would love for her boyfriend to give her, not the reverse).  Or maybe my cheap self decided since Valentine's Day falls directly between my birthday and his, we just wouldn't make it a big deal.  I don't really know, and honestly I don't care-every day is a day we show each other how much we are about each other (or maybe every other day if we are keeping it real).

I realized this year though, with a child, Valentine's Day is going to take on a new meaning in the next few years.  Baby made me and Boyfriend, with the help of her awesome Nana, some pictures.  She was so proud and so excited to surprise us with them.  My mother even managed to surprise us that she could take Baby back to the past, the date on her card was Feb 14, 1990!

I can see the next few years her getting really, really excited to participate in activities surrounding the day.  I look forward to the not so distant future watching her pick out which boxed valentine that she wants to send to that special person she likes.  I know I would analyze each card to decide which would convey my crush without actually saying it.  The year I had animal themed cards (because my mom never bought me the cool trendy ones!) I would send a friend a card saying, "Owl Be Your Valentine" and to my crush, "Bow Wow Valentine, You are Perrrrrfect!"

Speaking of play on words for Valentine's Day, I want to leave you with this as my Asian cutie will appreciate.