The gift that keeps on giving

The Kraken's Mother's Day gift to me? After three hours of listening to her sing the ABC song, and STILL no nap, the Minotaur went up in dejected defeat to retrieve her from the confines of her crib. She met him at the door. When asked how she got out of the crib, she informed me "One day, I fell down in bed".

We are now on day three in the toddler bed, and she LOVES IT. I am not telling you she goes to sleep any more quickly, or wakes later in the morning, but at least (so far) she is actually staying in it, and begs to go to bed at night. I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon enough and I'll be chasing her all over the house at 2 in the morning, but for now she seems to have made an effortless transition.

So why do I feel so sad when I go in and check on her in the quiet dark? When I look in, somehow still expecting to see my baby, and instead I see this long, lanky kid with her legs dangling off the bed below the crib rails. I'm sure I'll recover, but I hope it happens before I throw Weight Watchers out the window with only 8 pounds to go and demand of the Minotaur that he impregnate me right. effing. now.

Happy Mother's Day

To all the mommas out there. I myself am one tired momma, and I am going to bed. It was a fairly relaxed Saturday, so all I did was:

1. roast a chicken and make the accompanying tomatillo cilantro sauce
2. Make chicken stock out of the roast chicken carcass
3. Plant two boxwoods and clear a garbage can's worth of debris from the yard
4. Four loads of laundry
5. Squeeze 30 lemons for lemonade
6. Weed (inbetween thunderstorms)
7. Chase a Kraken around the mall playground until she collapsed, sobbing for chicken nuggets
8. Purchase all the fixings for a succulent garden to go in the front yard

Which leaves only 23 items on the household to do list left undone. I know. I need to learn to let stuff go. But in the meantime, there had better be some flowers in the morning.

And now, for the first time ever on this blog, pictorial evidence that the Kraken truly does exist.

I'm back.

Has it really been almost a month since I posted? I feel woefully out of touch. So much has happened, and so little has changed.

I am now 10 pounds down, after a month and a half on Weight Watchers. This feels like good progress to me, especially as my face looks suddenly very different in the mirror.

The Minotaur and I have been engaged in non-stop landscaping adventures, which is largely why I've been out of touch - every spare nap moment has been engaged in outdoor hijinks. Ladies, I have a TAN from this madness. Me, with a tan. It doesn't bear thinking about!

The Kraken has not been sleeping. This is not a new pattern - we've certainly seen it before, but combined with her current short fuse and shrieking vocal skills, my patience has been stretched to its limit. Fortunately.......

The company I work for has recently decided that it needs to do something to promote the health and fitness of its employees besides just offering health and dental. I know that many companies are doing this these days, but I don't know how many companies the size of mine are doing so (we are getting bigger, but we are not huge). Anyway, after a week long competition to see who could generate the most 'steps' on an all-day-worn pedometer, they are now bringing in this amazing Amazon of a woman (the wife of one of our employees) to put us through a workout twice a week. That's right. Work sanctioned, work financed exercise. It has jarred me into returning to my old working out ways, to ensure that I don't look like a complete idiot when we are all working out together. I am so very, very grateful, and for the first time in almost four years, my body is starting to look familiar to me in the mirror.

That's really all my news. We are in full home improvement mode while the weather is nice but not chokingly hot, and I am 10 pounds away from the goal weight that I set for attempting a second pregnancy. I have a feeling it will be a very interesting fall.....