Yep, I was THAT mom.

If anyone has ever taken a 3 year old shopping then you know what a pain in the butt it can be. Gone are the days where she sits happily buckled in to the cart. Someone (DADDY) introduced her to riding on the end of the cart. Which leads to frequent hopping on and off. And making the shopping trip take twice as long. It also doesn't help that she now knows how to unbuckle herself if I do happen to get her kicking and screaming little butt into the appropriate seat.

Which is what happened last Saturday during a trip to the best place to go if you want to witness bad parenting skills, Walmart. That day I fit right in. I was in the process of picking out some new lamp shades. Grace was settled in to her seat, happily (or so I thought) distracted by a book we grabbed off the shelf. I was facing away from her and suddenly heard a loud crash. She had stood up, grabbed the edge of the shelf, pushed the cart away from the shelf and lost her balance. Well, you know what resulted from all that. The screaming ensued about 2 seconds after she landed face first on the floor. She ended up with a huge fat lip, a goose egg on her forehead, and a pretty bruised nose. Thank God, her teeth were fine and her nose wasn't broken.

So, I apologize to whomever had to take care of my abandoned cart with all the unpurchased items in it. And thank you to those that stood there and stared at me.

What to do?

Do you ever feel so completely overwhelmed with the day to day tasks of life that even thinking about tackling a new household project brings on a meltdown?  When I get the kitchen cleaned, the living room picked up, and the laundry put away I feel accomplished, but then I think about all the other things I'd like to do (organize closets, put away totes of stuff from our old house, redecorate) I wonder where I will find the time and energy.

Ideally, I'd like to assign each day a specific set of tasks and stick to it, but with my work schedule varying every week it's just about impossible.  And who knows how much time I waste on the computer. I'm better than I used to be, but it's still a struggle to yank the thing away from me now and then. It always seems like the days when I'm super motivated to get stuff done end up being the days I have to work in the evening, so my time is cut short. It's one of the times that I am envious of stay at home mothers. (Other times I am so glad for the escape of work. Shhhh, don't tell my kids that.)

Every once in awhile the thought occurs to me that one day all of my kids will be in school all day while I can do whatever I darn well please. Maybe then I'll get my house organized. Or maybe I'll just take a nap.

If anyone has any suggestions on how I can better manage my time and tackle the big things, feel free to share.

Dinner made easy!

It's the never ending question. Just when I think I've answered it, it just comes back the next day. WHAT'S FOR DINNER? It's like dirty laundry of the food world. It never goes away.

How many of us feel like this all the time?

I'm always looking for recipes that are easy and, of course, yummy. For the longest time Joe did most of the cooking because he enjoys it, but with school and work he just doesn't have time to. I'm just starting to like cooking more and becoming a little more creative. I've always loved baking, but cooking has never interested me much.  If I see a picture of something that looks delish, but then the recipe contains a gazillion ingredients I usually won't make it. I need simple.

My all time favorite app for my phone is the Allrecipes.com Dinner Spinner. It's so helpful, especially when I'm on the go and need to find something for dinner. I really love that once I find a recipe I like I can save it as a favorite for another time too.

Like many of my friends, I've started using Pinterest. I've found so many awesome looking recipes on there, among many, many other things. Here's one that I made the other day:

Parmesan Honey Pork Roast

You can find the recipe HERE. Everyone in my family loved it. I will definitely be making it again.

So, now I better publish this post so I can...go figure out WHAT'S FOR DINNER.

Poilet Taper

Just tonight I think we've rounded a huge corner on the potty training front with Grace. She'll be 3 in May, so it's about time! For awhile she's had an issue with peeing on the potty. Not really sure why. Just tonight, though, she's peed on the potty 3 times in just a few hours. That's more times than she's done in her entire 2 3/4 years! She wore underwear all day today for the first time, and though she had 2 accidents (one pee, one poop,) overall did really good. The girl has got to have a bladder of steel! She peed in the morning and then not again until 4ish in the afternoon. I am sooo hoping we're close to done with diapers in the Shinaver house!

So that leads to the title of this post. Grace knows that when she goes on the potty she gets to use...poilet taper. Yep, that's exactly how she says it. Every time. Even when you correct her. It's the cutest thing.

Ok, done being the annoying mom who talks about her kid's bathroom habits.

I'm Baa-aaack!

Hello, my name is Stephanie and it's been nearly 3 months since my last post. I have no excuse...well, unless you count having a baby, moving, getting our old house rented out, and starting a new job. I guess it's one of those things, like when you fall off the wagon when you're on a diet and just don't know when to hop back on. I've missed writing, but just didn't know where to start.

So here I am! I will do better. Part of me thinks you don't really care about my life with a husband and 3 kids, but I guess I'll blog about it anyways, if only to have record of it to look back on when I wonder where the time has gone and my children have grown up without my permission.

So look out, 'cause here I come! : )

Looking Back

One question that I've gotten since I delivered Gianluca, is will I be a carrier again. I must say that having the complications that I did have made me think a little bit harder about it. It really is a big risk to take, no matter what my personal history is. At my postpartum follow up visit I asked my doctor what his thoughts were, because I certainly would never do it if he didn't think I should. He thought it would be fine with one stipulation. He said he'd rather me just have a scheduled c-section instead of labor and have another VBAC. He said that way the situation is more controlled and he'd for sure be there. Which is exactly what Joe and I had agreed on when we had talked about it.

Of course, I'm not jumping the gun on this. I'm not even going to begin pursuing it (if I do at all) for at least a year. I need to give my body a break (and my family too!)  Right now I'm enjoying not being pregnant. I really thought that I would miss it, but I think the weight that I have lost has helped that. From pumping breastmilk, I'm down 20 pounds from when I got pregnant. Woo-hoo! Now, I just have to keep it off.

There is one way that I would be carrier again for sure. If Sarah and Brian would ask me to. I still would like to wait awhile (and I think they would too, lol), but I would definitely agree to do it again in a heartbeat. I would love to help give Gianluca a sibling.  As for doing it for a different couple, well, Sarah and Brian have set the bar pretty high when it comes to intended parents. ; )

All the while I was pregnant, people told me what an amazing thing I was doing. I always thought, "Eh, anyone could do this, I'm not anything special." It didn't really hit me until I saw him in Sarah and Brian's arms. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I really realized that if I hadn't carried him he wouldn't be here. I mean yes, I know it didn't necessarily have to be me. If not me, they would have had someone else as their carrier, but you know what I mean. Don't get me wrong though, I give all the glory to God. It really would not have happened if He weren't in charge.  I thank Him for giving me the ability to do what I did.

Just call me the Milk Maid

Back when I was still pregnant I had talked about how I was going to pump breastmilk for Gianluca. I wasn't sure if it would go that well because it can be difficult to establish a full milk supply by pumping alone. Well, apparently I'm not one of the difficult ones.  I didn't get to start pumping until the day after he was born because of my complications, but that didn't set me back at all. The lactation consultants at the hospital are super helpful. The one that I saw the most told me to get at least 8 pumping sessions in in a 24 hour period and that it didn't even matter if they were evenly timed out. I went by that advice and I've had nothing but success. By about 2 weeks after the birth I was up to over 40 ounces a day. I couldn't believe how much milk I was making!

It does take up quite a bit of time (about 30 minutes/session to get the full amount out), but I've gradually gotten down to fewer sessions a day. And surprisingly, I haven't seen a major decrease in my supply. I'm down to 4 sessions a day and still making between 35-45 ounces a day. The curve ball was thrown in last week, though. I went back to work. So far, I haven't seen a huge change, but I've only worked 2 nights.

I told Sarah I would pump as long as I can, so we'll see if I can work full time and still keep a full supply. I've told myself not stress about it because at least he's gotten as much as he has already. Wouldn't it be awesome if we could make it a full year though?

Brian's parents have been coming to pick the milk up every few weeks and the first time they came down they brought a small cooler. It was kinda comical. I ended up getting our big cooler out of the garage because there was no way it was all fitting in the little one!

I must say, an essential item to have is a hands-free pumping bra. It's let me do things while I pump instead of just sitting their idly. Because of it, I've also done a few things that I've never done before...like pump while in the car...as a passenger aaaand a driver. LOL Yeah, I'm sure it's quite a sight if anyone notices and I'd have some explaining to do if I got pulled over or in an accident, but hey when you're busting at the seams and still an hour away from home you do what ya gotta do, right? : )  The other day, actually, Joe was driving, I was pumping and talking away to him and not paying attention. Well, we drove by a group of junior high age girls who apparently saw me. Joe starts laughing and says, "You just totally grossed those girls out. You should've seen their faces!" Eh, whatev. Someday, they may be in a similar situation. If not, then they at least had a funny story to tell their other friends. : )