mingaling

Miss Short Stuff is finally tall enough to touch the floor and jump in her jumperoo!

I know what you’re thinking … “Um, is this thing on?” I’ve been busy, y’all.  BUSY I tell you!  Doing, er… stuff!  Yeah, raising a kid and all.  Mmmhmm.  It’s sort of the predicament when one of my non-parent friends asks what I’ve been up to – you know.  Stuff.

But the big news is we’ve made it to 6 months and no one has one lost their mind (me), gotten frustrated (him), or lost patience (her) with it all.  In fact, I have to say that the last few weeks (despite a few rough bits) have been exceedingly awesome.

Mia is just a doll right now.  She has become very cuddly and even publicly acknowledges that I’m her parent when I pick her up from daycare (even though I do not have the beard).  When she was tiny she hardly ever wanted to snuggle against me for more than a few minutes – now all of a sudden she must have some loving before naps or she will yelp to no end.  It’s such a strange contrast to how independent she was as an infant, but hey, I’ll take what I can get!  She is very active, flipping back and forth like some exotic legless creature and itching to start crawling.  Unfortunately she is not quite ready, so her version of this is a sad attempt to do the worm and flailing her arms about as she screeches.  Charming!

We also took a trip down to Orlando to visit with my family.  Mia was a trooper for the long car ride and did not implode upon contact with the humidity (the Mr., on the other hand, melted into a puddle immediately).  She had a great time at grandma’s and snuggling with her aunt and cousins, which also allowed for a lot of mommy time (wine + naps = AWESOME).  We even took her on her first trip to the beach.  She did so well, though she was certainly more interested in the sand than the water.

She has started solid foods, which is a lot of fun now.  In addition to breast milk, she gets oatmeal cereal and various new organic fruits and veggies.  It has been a lot of fun to try new things and combos with her.  So far she loves mango, banana + avocado, pears, and peas.  She is not a fan of carrot or yams.  I have kept up with my promise to taste everything that she eats, and I can definitely say I don’t blame her for a lot of her opinions.

Low points include us getting sick.  A lot.  Baby got a nasty cold, which then turned into a double ear infection.  I can now truly understand what it means to be a parent when you’re faced with an ill child and your every thought and emotion is consumed with worry and pray that she’ll just. get. better.  When she would stop crying from the pain and fall asleep, I would go lay down on the bed exhausted and instantly have the urge to call my mom and just say “Thank you.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  I had no idea.”   I just fretted over her fever and obsessed over her temps.  Poor thing got so used to a thermometer being up her butt she hardly noticed it.  The Mr. and I got bugs as well, including pink eye for myself.  Yeah, I could have done without that in my life fuckyouverymuch.  Mia is also teething and has all that comes with it, including drooling, rashes, pain, and sleeplessness.

But even with that, things are just … great?  Mia also has a new baby cousin, we celebrated the Mr.’s first Father’s Day, and love visiting with the grandparents.  We laugh and play and have adventures, then some days we just chill out at home and… well, I know it sounds stupid to write over and over again how wonderful things are, but I just can’t imagine us being happier.  And now I kind of think she feels the same way.

It got hot.  Fast.  The city is sweltering, the smog hovers above, and we’re all gross and sticky.  Luckily we have a few sweet treats around intown to cool ourselves off with:

First is the King of Pops.  Steven Carse’s mobile popsicle unit at N. Highland and North Ave. (in the Buddy’s lot) is a lifesaver on sweltering days (and often a pit-stop for me and the girl on our way home from daycare).  With exotic flavors like Blueberry Lemongrass or Honeydew Lime Zest, it’s a sure pick-me-up when you’re sticking to your leather interior.

Another popular spot is Orleagian Snowballs at Moreland & Ponce.   Who doesn’t love sweet, fluffy shaved ice on a hot summer day?  Yummy flavors like Blackberry and Raspberry combine for a sweet treat (even sweeter is the surprise gummy bear!).

Last is something that you don’t need to leave home for (well, at least you can pick it up in the grocery aisle) – a good ol’ pint of ice cream.  But thankfully this isn’t any old ice cream – Haagen-Dazs Five ice creams are all natural with only five ingredients.  My personal favorite is Passion Fruit.  It’s tangy and creamy at the same time, with the fresh taste of tart passion fruit shining through.  With new flavors like lemon and strawberry coming out, I’ll be happy to cool off with a spoon inside where the AC is kicking.

Inspired by Sarah and Maggie to join in Cassie Boorn’s project, I have written a little note to my 20 year-old self.

Dear 20 year-old Lori,

Congrats on graduating from college earlier than most of your peers, but don’t think that means you win.  It’s not a contest and you’re still going to make mistakes and fall on your face, so please relax and give yourself a break.

Please stop hurting so much about Daddy dying.  He wouldn’t want you to.  But he would want you to stop being so difficult with Mommy, so knock it off.

Thank you for waiting to get tattooed until for another 10 years.

You’re going to break hearts (believe it or not!) and get your heartbroken (many times!) but you will never know true love until you learn to love yourself.

For the love of god, STOP TANNING.

And everything will change when you look into your child’s eyes for the first time.  Remember this.

You are incredibly capable of handling so much.  Anything, really.  Just go for it.  Keep it real, laugh out loud, don’t drink too much, and enjoy the ride.

xoxo,

lori

I’d like to think of myself as pretty low maintenance (yes, even my husband will vouch for me).  I haven’t colored my hair in years and only require a trim every 10 weeks or so, and the only regular gig I go to is to get a pedicure.  Everything else seemed more of a “spa” treat when I could fit it in or when it was in dire need.  I do splurge on one or two products, but in general I use pretty good drugstore variety stuffs.  But as of late I’ve been seriously lacking some good judgment in the appearance category, mostly in the hair and face category, and there needed to be some changes.

I had a crazy bad breakouts after having the baby, plus some serious winter dry skin (face dandruff as I like to call it) and I finally caved and got myself a Clarisonic.  Holy moley do I love this thing.  My complexion is so much better now – it really was worth every dang penny.  Plus it runs on a 1-minute timed cycle and I still get to use my own cheap but fantastic Cetaphil cleanser.  Yay!

I’ve always been a tweezer whore.  Ever since I first dealt with brows, I have been OBSESSED with plucking my brows every single morning and night.  The problem here is that I pretty much plucked them to oblivion and they are completely crooked and skinny and one fat hot mess.  Thankfully, Whitney at WAX has taken pity on me and helped clean up my act.  I have been going through brow rehab with her for the last week or so and I haven’t touched those damn tweezers for 11 whole days.  I KNOW.

I had been getting better at getting my hair trimmed regularly, but I am an ass when it comes to my bangs.  For some reason I could not make myself get an appointment and get them trimmed when I know damn well that I am going to mess them up if I try to trim them myself.  Yet every time I go in, I have to sheepishly apologize and explain what the hell I was thinking when I lopped them off all haphazardly and ruined the haircut I previously paid good money for.  Why?  Because I’m a dumbass.  So now I make 2 appointments before leaving Grow – one for my next cut and one for bangs midway.  Was it that hard to figure out, Lori?  Really?  Geez.

And lastly, I kind of balked at all of this thinking that it would take SO much time and I have a baby and a job and blah blah blah, but it really has actually saved me time.  Instead of dealing with breakouts and spending 10-15 min a day plucking hairs out of my face, I can get all this squared away in little to no time at all.  So there, I’m a little more high maintenance than I used to be, but I’m 32 and it was high time I put on my big-girl panties and looked like a grown ass adult.  And you know what?  It’s working.