Author Archives: carrievoris

Welcome Back, Mommy.

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I am just feeling so very (choose one, any of them work) lucky/happy/grateful/in love today.

The sun is shining and the flowers are all in bloom. I was a packing machine yesterday (and I made up for my lack of moving organization over the past 2 weeks). I have been able to go on 2 nice long runs this weekend. AND I have had 2 (count ’em!) full nights of sleep this weekend! I’m talking over 7 hours, each night. Would have had even more except I stayed up, get this…reading a book. Not a Sandra Boynton or Elmo book, an honest-to-goodness, mommy, chick-lit BOOK!

Just for anyone taking notes – not that there is going to be a pop quiz or anything – but a “good to know” equation:

Beautiful day + exercise + sleep + leisure time = one VERY happy mommy.

And that is all I have to say about that.

The sleep part of the above equation is due to the fact that A. is back on track again. Thank you, thank you, thank you sweet girl! And it is amazing the difference in her little attitude. She is downright civil! It is like someone took my two tantrum girlies from last week and replaced them with two lovely little cherubs. I am seriously loving it.

Today A. and I had a little alone time, we went to lunch and did a little IKEA shopping and, just like my date with E. on Friday, we had an amazing time. She was perfect. She is so personable and soooo funny. I really love when she is well-rested and her real personality shines through.

I guess the moral of our little story here is that we need to divide and conquer. Although I feel like they get a lot of attention, maybe they really just need a little more personalized attention. A little more one-on-one time.

I think I can do that. Especially now that I am getting more sleep in one night than I was previously getting in 3 nights combined.  I’m back in the land of the living.

Rediscovering my sweet daughter.

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em_mama.jpgShe is still there. Under the whiny, bossy, nearly 4-year old, my sweet daughter still exists.

Not that I have ever stopped, or ever will stop, loving her. But let’s just say that there have been many days lately that I just don’t “like” the way she has been acting and we have butted heads. Hard. Continually. She has been taking pretty much any opportunity to defy me, argue with me, and flat out disobey me. I find this far more exhausting than physically running after A. all day long.

Yesterday I took a step back, reminded myself she is really still so little and I really tried to put myself in her shoes. In the past few months, she has been thrust into this “big girl/big sister” role, while her sister has been getting a lot of attention due to her cranky clingyness. I think E. is a little nervous about moving…again, and she knows that big changes are in the near future with all of this preschool talk. Yeah, that is a lot resting on her little size 4T shoulders.

So we had a “date day”. She decided everything we did. And it was just E. and Mommy. I must say I think I enjoyed it as much, if not more, than she did. We saw a movie, had dinner, walked around a few shops, and she picked out her birthday decorations. (Princesses, of course.) And she was perfectly behaved. She was more than perfect – we talked and laughed and took silly (really poor quality) photo booth pictures. It was so much fun, and not one grumpy word was exchanged.

As we sat snuggling in the movie theater, she sighed and put her head on my shoulder and said, “I love you, Mommy,” and my heart soared.

I think she needed to reconnect as much as I did.

Hi, I’m your new neighbor…and I’m crazy.

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Dear Crazy-Neighbor-Lady-Who-Just-Moved-Into-the-Building-Next-To-Us,

Might I start off by saying that I am usually a very gracious woman and am probably even best known as the neighbor most likely to share the goods from our almost weekly baking sessions. I think despite the scream-y girls, we are pretty decent people to live next to, and we try very hard to be accommodating, helpful and cognizant of our neighbors’ needs.

However, just because you managed to tell me the torrid details of your messy divorce and custody battle over one of your children, within the first five minutes of our meeting, I do not consider this just cause for us to be best friends, nor do our children need to be best friends.

And wanting to take a “peek” at our place (even after my insistence that our place was a wreck and full of moving boxes) does not give you, or your so-called monster child, just cause to tear through our house and leave a wake of destruction behind. I mean, really, how does one 5-year old boy manage to pull out every toy my girls own, in a matter of 10 minutes? And more importantly, why did you not stop him, or at least pretend like you were listening while I tactfully asked him to help pick up all of the toys they took out/not terrorize the cats/stay out of our bedroom?

I’d like to point out for the record, sitting perched up in your Hummer and talking about what cars other people drive and why they don’t have nicer cars if they seem to have so much money, it just makes you seem very petty and kind of sad.

And lastly, why on earth would you leave your son at my house for a “playdate” when my sitter answers the door and I am clearly not at home? This is a woman you have never even met (I mean you and I have only ever spoken for a total of 10 minutes, once last week!), who I am paying to watch MY children, (not your little demon) and you just let him stay-over? Are you really that insane?

Maybe I should not be so quick to judge. I know that you have a kind-of new baby, so maybe you just have “baby brain” and are still in the newborn fog. Is that it? Or are you just desperate to get rid of him on the one day of the week that you have to put up with him, too?

All I do know is that if I were a neighbor, I’d take 2 screechy girls over a crazy, judgmental mom looking for free babysitting, any day!

Sincerely,
Your (happy-to-be) soon ex-neighbor

Good idea or disaster-in-waiting?

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E. just saw one of these and said “Ohhhh…Mommy! Can I get one of those for my birthday?? I promise to be good!”  (This has been her mantra the past 2 weeks as her birthday rapidly approaches).

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Trampoline with Handles

I just can’t decide. Good idea? Let them jump on something other than my sofa and get their sillies all out. Or Bad idea? They are gonna bounce right off and crack their heads wide open.

What do you think?

Tragedy strikes our household.

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Really, you would think I was performing a hand amputation in our bathroom with no anesthesia this afternoon from the sounds of Em’s screams. I am talking blood-curdling, “help me I am being murdered”, screams that I am positive Daddy could hear sitting in the terminal at LAX (a good 15 miles away!).

What was the problem, you ask? A splinter. Not even a deep, you-have-to-dig-for-it splinter. It was a pretty good chunk of wood, but it was sticking out pretty far, so all I had to do was pluck it out. Easier said than done. I am literally holding Emma down so I can just get it out. She is screaming. Addie is standing next to me, thinking I am hurting Emma and she is screaming…it was quite the scene. When I finally got it out and got everyone settled down – Addie down for a nap, Emma on the couch with some cold water, we have this little exchange…

E: Mama. Aren’t you going to say “sorry?”
M: Um….for what, honey?
E: For hurting me!
M: I was just trying to get the splinter out so it wouldn’t get infected, Em. I didn’t make it hurt!
E: But it really hurt me.
M: Well, I’m sorry you GOT hurt – but I’d never hurt you on purpose, honey.
E: Okay. It’s ok. I’m sorry for making you hurt me, too.

I love that she realizes the importance of saying sorry when you hurt someone, but it broke my heart that she thought I somehow hurt her. If only she knew….

These Crocs were made for walkin’…

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contemplation

A. is obsessed with shoes. The shoes-of-the-week are these orange crocs that E. wore all last year. They are at least 2 sizes too big, but she clearly does not care and refuses to take them off.

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She is a girl on a mission. Such fierce determination.

Meanwhile, this is Em’s shoe of choice…

nakey feet

Nakey toes! She wants to take her shoes off at the park all the time that I have to play “bad Mommy” and make her put her shoes back on.

And here is a photo of Em, just because. Just because I love it and think it is so beautiful. I’m not sure why I love it so – you can’t really even see her face, but just that top part of her head. That part that I love to kiss. It is so sweet.

sweet em

Happy Wednesday.

Random Tuesday Realizations

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It is a crazy little Tuesday around here. We had a weird hurricane-like squall blow through, complete with huge wind gusts and sideways rain. And then, 20 minutes later, the sun was back out and you’d never know we had had a storm, except for the branches and debris all around. During the storm it made me realize that I really miss rainy, stormy days! I need a good ‘ol thunderstorm where you curl up on the couch with a mug of tea and just watch the lightning.

A few other realizations around here today:

Although A. is so freakin’ tall, she is still my baby.
We went to tour a preschool today that is close to our house and got A. on the waitlist for next year. I couldn’t believe how tall A. looked next to these 3-year olds. But then they are all running around like E. does, coloring, painting and telling stories, and A. just clung to me and took it all in, not quite sure what to think of everything. In that respect she still looked so “tiny” and baby-like. I still can’t believe that she will be one of those kids in just one year.

Forty-five minute naps for cranky, teething girls do not help to make the day go very quickly.
Ugh. No explanation needed here, I guess. But we are in for a rough afternoon.

Sometimes you have to pick your battles.
This isn’t something I just realized today, I have been trying to *remember* this for awhile now. E. is four, it isn’t worth fighting over what she wears now…there will be plenty of battles when she is a teenager, I’m sure. (But I especially love the color choices and the velvet shoes!)

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We move in one week. ONE WEEK!
Ack…got to get back to work.

We’re In….

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Guess what we got in the mail yesterday? Our first acceptance letter to preschool!
Yahoo! She’s in. We have a preschool. She has a definite spot for the summer and the fall!

We (me, especially) are so very excited for school to start. E. was so funny yesterday when I told her what was in the package and read her the letter. She then proceeded to tell everyone we saw yesterday, “I got a package and it said that I have to go to Sunrise Preschool!” It was funny that she said “have to” go, because she clearly is excited to “get” to go.

Anyhow, that is our exciting news for this Saturday.

Now, back to the regularly scheduled packing.

Real Moms

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I have a few blogs that I read every single day, and my bloglines (thanks, honey for fixing it!) has a running tally of 95 blogs that I check at least weekly. I am just amazed by all of the good reading material out there.  There are so many mommy blogs that I can commiserate with; trashy gossip blogs that I can escape reality with for a little bit; and then just some bloggers who make me laugh my butt off. It is inspiring and helpful in my own writing to continually be “trolling” for new stuff. It’s tough work to keep you people entertained!

Lately I have been following a “meme” called “Real Moms.” A “meme” (rhymes with “dream”) is kind of like those emails with the “get to know your friends” questions that you answer and send around. In the blogosphere, bloggers “tag” others with a “meme” and you are supposed to answer the questions, make the list, etc.

So anyhow, I’ve been following this “Real Moms” one and have seen some pretty fun ones. You are supposed to take a picture and finish the sentence “Real moms….”  I haven’t been able to come up with a really creative or original one yet – so I haven’t participated.  But most of them are really funny and as I clicked on one link last night, I was expecting to get another of these little glimpses into our “real mom” lives. Instead I was hit in the stomach with a post so amazingly beautiful and poignant and heart-wrenching all at the same time…I still can’t look at it or think about it without crying.

I can’t even begin to imagine or pretend to know what it feels like to lose a child, just thinking of the mere possibility cripples me. I think I would just completely shut down. But, I also think that this is a beautiful tribute and far better attempt at anything I could ever hope to write.

So, don’t say I didn’t warn you – just make sure you have a minute to yourself to really read this entry, and another minute to really compose yourself afterward.  Ready? Go read Bonnie’s meme.

And, then go hug your children. Tight. And be thankful for what God has given you.