Daddy is out of town riding 4 wheelers with his brothers {as is tradition with it being the weekend before Thanksgiving} so it's just Wyatt & me at the house for a few days.
Wyatt is entering into the terrible tantrum stage of life and we needed to get out the house, so we went on our first mommy - son date tonight :)
We went to JoAnn's for some burlap fabric {I want to get crafty again} then to the grocery store and then we went to Olive Garden. We colored and looked at alphabet flash cards while we waited for our food and Wyatt may or may not have emptied part of the sugar packet bowl onto the floor. Oops! Little man was not a fan of the cheese ravioli, so he dined on bunny graham crackers, bread sticks, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin cheesecake. Yeah, mom of the year award right here, haha. Whatever. Dinner ended a little early due to an oncoming tantrum, but that was okay because it was almost bath time anyway.
{beyond terrible picture quality, but in that lighting it was the best I could get}
All in all, we had a good day. Hopefully the whole weekend will be full of days like today.
Holy heck I just realized I never shared our awesome news!
Wyatt graduated from his helmet :) He's all done! The tech was very happy with the results and so are we. While his head is not perfect, there is a very significant improvement. So yay Wyatt!
I'm angry that I lost my first son, Wyatt's twin brother. I'm angry that I had such a hard pregnancy. I'm angry that Wyatt has Ichthyosis. I'm angry that Wyatt had to come so early and spend the first 97 days of his life in a hospital. Not regarding Wyatt, I'm angry with myself because I don't love being a mom like I thought I would. I'm angry that my body is a complete failure and that I have to rely on science to have my family. Our house was broken into a couple of weeks ago so on top of everything I'm angry that some stranger invaded my house. I'm angry that they stole meaningful heirlooms and jewelry that I had planned to pass down to my children. Including a necklace inscribed with 'mom' that Jared gave me for Christmas when I was pregnant with the twins.
Oh my gosh I'm angry about so many things.
So angry that sometimes I see red and say things I don't mean and act like a complete child.
I'm
pretty good at hiding it most of the time, but have found that real life and being a
mom is infinitely more harder than I imagined it to be and that I just
don't have the patience to listen to a tiny person scream and cry and
tug on my leg all. day. long.
You know what else.
I'm tired of being angry.
I'm tired of holding on to things that I have absolutely no control over.
So I started going to anger management a little over a month ago.
I guess the timing for the break in was good because I had already learned some anger mgmt skills... gotta look at the positive right? But it hasn't been easy. It's been nice to go somewhere and talk with people who understand what I'm dealing with inside of my head though. I'm so glad that I'm finally helping myself to be a better person, a better mom, a better wife.
I want Wyatt to love me, not respect me out of fear. I want to be able to keep my cool and stay in control of myself during every kind of situation I may be thrown into, not completely lose it and see red. You know what I'm talking about right? Those moments where you're so mad and so out of control that it's like your floating above yourself just watching the scene. You're telling yourself, stop! You're making a big deal out of nothing! Absolutely nothing! So what if he forgot the ranch from the pizza place for the 10 gajillionth time? Is it really that big of a deal? It's not worth being mad about for the rest of the night! But you just keep floating up there, listening to the absence of ranch dressing turn into things like it means he doesn't care about me and that ranch was the one thing that could have made this crap day better {really? exaggerate much?} and so on... oh my gosh please tell me I'm not the only one that does this. I'm so embarrassed that things like this have happened... I can't believe I'm even writing it out.
First steps to getting better are admitting you have a problem though and boy do I have one.
In this class I've learned that there are 8 different approaches to controlling anger and different situations require different ways of approaching. Here's what they are.
-Respond don't react
-Empathy
-Stress Management
-Forgive
-Retreat
-Adjust Expectations
-Assertive Communication
-Change the Conversation
The one I struggle with the most is Changing the Conversation. I think it's probably the one most people struggle with. It's you feeding yourself things to make you more angry. For example about the break in, I just kept thinking about it. I kept thinking 'what if' this or 'I should have' that. All I was doing was fueling my fire. I needed to change the negative talk to something more positive. Change 'I should have made sure every single window was locked before I left' to 'thank goodness we weren't home when that happened.' and 'At least we're all safe'. It's ok to think that I should have made sure the windows were locked, and unfortunately I learned that lesson the hard way, but not to dwell on it. I've learned a lesson from the experience and now it's time to move on.
I have confidence that this class is going to help me. I'm grateful that I can admit that I have a problem and that I'm able to take the steps needed to take care of it.
Autumn is here and so is Wyatt weather :) It's still warmish outside but in the morning and evening it's been great for Wyatt to go outside, yay!
My little man is certainly growing up! He's cruising everywhere he can
and getting really fast at it. He's also really improved on standing
without support.
He's only got one more week with the helmet before it's off for good
Wyatt also had his hair cut again. Yes, we bribed him with oreos to hold still. Whatever works right? :) We've started soaking his hair in coconut oil during his bath time and then combing out the scales with a fine tooth comb and are thrilled with the results. His hair is looking the best it has ever looked in his life.
He is becoming more and more fascinated with books and reading. He will literally sit down with me for 30 minutes to read books. What 18 month old has that kind of attention span?!
I ran the Long Beach International Half Marathon in the middle of the month and completed with a finish time of 2:07.
And I had some pretty cute fans to cheer me on
Wyatt knocked out as soon as we put him in his car seat. He was a tired boy!
Jared and I were able to get away for another weekend and spent opening weekend at Glamis :)
Oh how I love 4 wheeling in sand dunes.
Halloween was a lot of fun for us this year. We really didn't do a ton. We went to a church activity for about 45 minutes and then came home and put Wyatt to bed. Teething and going through a growth spurt equals one really grumpy boy.
But, he quite possibly had the cutest Halloween costume ever. He was a little old man. Jared even made him his own walker out of PVC pipe and tennis balls!
I was a secret agent and Jared was an umpire. This was the best family photo we were able to get with a grumpy old man on our hands, haha.
Last Saturday we had the lovely Amber of Amber Katrina Photography take our family pictures for the second year in a row. I'm really impressed with her work and totally recommend her to anyone that lives in the LA/Pasadena area :) We did a 30 minute mini session and the next morning she had a little sneak peak of our session posted up on her facebook page.
During the session, Wyatt decided to show off and took SIX whole steps all on his own! The last two pictures are of when that was going on. He was SO proud of himself.
I can't wait to see the rest!
Every day since the shoot, Wyatt will walk anywhere from 2-6 steps before dropping to his hands, but yesterday, Wyatt got up to 36 steps in a row! I'm going to have a walker on my hands soon and I can't freaking wait.
When it comes to walking, sometimes he's happy and proud of himself and sometimes he's just tired and wants to stop and crawl, but he'll get the hang of it soon enough :) I have to laugh to myself when people say things like 'oh now the REAL fun is going to start'... because I know what they mean by that. But you know what? The real fun really is going to begin now. I'm really looking forward to running around and playing with this little guy!
The Last couple of eventful things that have happened are, one, Wyatt got both of his canines in this week. Finally. He's been working on them for about a month so I'm so happy they've finally broken through.
And second, Wyatt was assessed for Speech Therapy last week! The therapist that came told me she would put him at a little under a year old as far as his speech development is concerned and that she think he would benefit from having speech therapy. Yay! Now I just have to wait for the official report to go through so that we can get it started. Then we'll be back to 4 therapies a week... yikes. He needs it though, and it's not like it's going to last forever, I just need to suck it up for maybe another year or so? Geez, I hope it's not that long.
Anyway, that's about all that's going on with us right now.
My baby's growing up and becoming more and more fun to play with every day. :)
I'm pretty picky when it comes to my chowders. I like them to be creamy {but not run to the bathroom when you're done eating creamy} and I like them chunky. My mom has an amazing recipe for clam chowder that also makes a great ham chowder. I prefer ham to clams so when the nights start cooling off, this is one of my fall favorites. Here it is!
Ham Chowder
14 oz of ham - small cubes
1 C finely chopped onions
1 C finely chopped celery
2 C finely chopped potatoes {I usually add more bc I LOVE potatoes}
3/4 C Butter
3/4 C Flour
1 Quart half & half
1/2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
dash pepper
Add onion, celery and potatoes to a pot. Pour water over vegetables until covered. Simmer, covered, about 20 min. In a separate pot, melt butter, stir in flour, then cream. Cook and stir until smooth and thick. Pour cream mixture in with the water and vegetables and stir to mix. Add ham, salt, pepper and sugar. Enjoy!
Serves approx. 8
I forgot to take a photo when I made this the other day, but will add one the next time I make it :)
