things i don't want to forget.

the other night around 3 am i heard little noises coming from his room, and after checking our video monitor, i realized he was sleep talking. he kept saying "go go go. mamma mamma mamma. go go go." that's a game we play where i hold him and run around the house and hide. (like a one sided hide and seek.) 

you guys. he dreams about me.

and he says "please" like "peas". do all toddlers say it that way? it feels like it's common, but i love it so much, and i swear i've never heard it as cute as the way he does it. sometimes it sounds like a request. sometimes it sounds like a dangerous warning. i'm a pushover, so i love it either way.

yesterday he brought me his mouse cookie book and after i read it to him, he thoughtfully took my hand, took me to the pantry, and asked me for a cookie. (and said please! how could i say no?!) then he brought me his fire truck book, sat on my lap, and just as i was about to begin, he hurriedly ran to grab his firetruck to join him for the reading.

like always, he needs a haircut.

every now and then he comes up to me and kisses my knee, or my shoulder, or whatever body part is easiest for him to reach. when he does this, i drop whatever i'm doing, cuddle him, and wonder how i got such a sweetheart. it makes the biting worth it.

have i mentioned the biting lately? it's not a good situation.

anytime we go out in the car, we listen to this album. his favorite song is "ophelia". sometimes when i'm brave enough, i put on npr to listen to the news and he conks right out, which makes me smile. i'm glad he's too little for me to need to explain current events to right now.

his favorite foods are pizza, toast, apples, and chocolate milk. he's in love with airplanes.

if i can't find him, there's a 90% chance he's in his teepee. he sometimes goes in there to hide hoping i'll come find him, but i think he also loves it to have some personal space. sometimes i wish i had a teepee my size that i could hide in. (i finally took the dead christmas wreath off of it, but it still has twinkle lights. those will probably need to stay on year round, right?)

the past few nights when i've put him to bed, we've been listening to this song, and he calms down, and runs his fingers through my hair. i know he's asleep when he's stopped.

xo

lately.

i've been a worse version of myself lately.
maybe the last few weeks of snow storms has finally gotten to me.

lately my patience (the one thing i feel like i'm normally on top of) has been so thin. his cry bugs me. his constant playful head butts (yesterday he got me in the nose while i was rocking him to sleep and afterwards i could taste blood in my throat); things that i used to chuckle at are making me scream inwardly with frustration. i'm tired. sleep has been escaping me more than usual, and the combination of that with everything else going on has made me this swamp witch in pajamas eating cereal directly from the box and waiting angrily for my husband to come home. (and i'm sure he's loving coming home to me, lately. sarcasm.)

lately i've been doing that thing where you count to ten and breathe. it works most of the time. ben and jerry's helps (until i step on the scale). youtube helps too sometimes. i promised myself i wouldn't turn to screen time, but you know- desperate times.

lately it's starting to really get to me that my skin and hair have been so weird since i had him. i don't feel like myself when i look in the mirror. why don't i feel like myself? do i need to lose weight? do i need to chill out? shower more?? finish my new years resolutions??! all i want to do is binge watch mindless tv on one screen, and online shop on another. i'm pathetically missing my laptop- right now i'm writing on an ipad (because the desktop is too much work), and typing takes about 10 times as long with about 10 times as many typos. (am i seriously complaining about the number of devices in my home right now??? i'm the worst.)

i'm frustrated about the news swirling around right now. i'm frustrated about a post my friend wrote casually dismissing the women's march like she's the only person affected or not affected by it. i'm frustrated at so much division when the goal, always, is for unity. i'm frustrated that i never have all the right answers when i want so badly to know how to fix things.

i'm in a dangerous ironic cycle of wanting to replace things in our home, and also wanting to simplify and minimize the objects in my life to make room for things that matter.
things like little cries and painful head butts.

and those previews for the movie "a dog's purpose" are killing me. i sob so easily when i see them. what does that mean? do i want a dog? do i just miss my childhood dog so much it still hurts even though it's been over 15 years? (the answer to both questions is a soft and firm "yes".) my favorite commercial right now is that subaru one where the dad dog is trying to get the baby dog to sleep. that one makes me cry too. what's the matter with me?!

my parents are in new zealand taking a well deserved vacation and i miss my mom facetiming me for no reason. i hope when teddy grows up he notices when i don't facetime him.

this week was annoying and i'm over it. 

here's a picture of my ferocious baby bear.

he's not so bad, i guess.
happy friday.
xo

naptime with ComfortCam (with a VIDEO!)

when we moved, a lot of things changed. we went from beige apartment carpet to creaky hardwood floors. we went from a third floor walk up surrounded by trees, to a single level surrounded by bright snow (at least for now). we went from sharing a bedroom with teddy to having our own space.

maybe i'll feel different with my next, but i loooovvveedd sharing a room with my infant. i loved it. i felt like i was more informed on how my baby was doing, and because the room had so much space, and also because teddy was an incredibly low maintenance baby for the most part, it really didn't feel like an inconvenience the way i imagined it would. i remember being able to sit up in bed only a few inches and being able to see his tiny belly moving up and down gently, and feeling at ease that he was fine.

after moving into our little white house, we let teddy sleep with us for a few nights, and then transition into sleeping in his crib (in his own room across the hall) by himself. every time i heard a noise either gid or i had to jump out of bed to be sure he was okay. there's a large window in his room; did we lock it? is it too cold? too hot? maybe there's something that's making a weird shadow or noise and it's scaring him? it drove me crazy.

nap time was almost worse, because the floors near our bedrooms are creaky (charming during normal hours, and annoying during naptime) and sometimes when i'd tiptoe to see if teddy was awake, i'd find him sleeping peacefully, and then would accidentally wake him up with the creaky floors on my way out. (mamma tip- don't let your infant get used to absolute silence when they sleep. creaky floors will be your undoing. i've been un-training him and it's made such a big difference.)

i shied away from baby camera monitors after reading horror stories about hackers getting into them and doing all sorts of creepy stuff. the world can be scary, and i'd rather wake up my baby with creaky floors than possibly have some digital peeping tom looking into my house, right?

guys, this image is in full color.
it made me realize how very very white our kitchen countertops are.

ComfortCam is a smart, wifi baby monitor that allows parents the capability to view their children at anytime from anywhere in the world. best part? the VERY best part?? they're "cloud free", meaning none of the media/images/videos are stored on any sort of server out in cyber space where they can be viewed and saved from an outside source. it's totally secure and private.

when the ComfortCam team reached out to me and asked if i was interested in trying out their smart monitor, i was thrilled just to avoid the creaky floor waking situation. you guys, 3 days after using it, i was hooked. the camera is easy to set up and connect to your phone (took me less than 10 minutes, and i'm a moron when it comes to this kind of thing.)

the application that you download onto your phone or ipad is easy to maneuver around, and the camera itself has infrared lights (for hd night vision), can pan, tilt, and zoom (no way for teddy to hide from me), duel speakers, and an ultra sensitive microphone (so i can hear him, or even talk to him if i want to).

biggest deal for me? the camera streams directly to my phone or ipad and not to some cloud. i can take snapshots, or record funny things teddy does (the other day he was doing mountain climbers in bed, and gid and i were watching on the ipad and trying so hard not to laugh too loudly in the room nextdoor). when we first started using the camera, i'd keep my phone on my nightstand and in the middle of the night, i loved being able to check in on him when i heard little noises to be sure he was okay. over the past several weeks, using the camera has made me feel more confident that teddy's fine in his own room.

sometimes he stares down the camera so hard. funny boy.

do you like how awesome i look in this picture?
i mean, super flattering, right? (ha.)

people, this is a product that we've loved having in our home,
and i'm grateful for the peace of mind it's given me.

here's a short video giving you a sneak peek of ComfortCam in our home:

thanks so much for such a great product, ComfortCam!

i hope you're having such a good friday.
happy weekend!
xo


this post brought to you by ComfortCam

being chill, and other things.

well, it happened. teddy turned on the oven without me knowing. i found it around 3 pm yesterday. who knows how long it was on. toddlers are dangerous, man.

ever since being home during the holidays, i've been feeling like i don't have enough pillows in my house. my mom has the best pillows, and there's always enough for, like 3 per person. trademark of a gold star hostess: high quality pillows in bulk. then again, she has an unreasonably large amount of scrunchies (you read that right- i'm talkin' the thick ones from the 90s) stashed in the guest bathroom, so-- you know-- no one's perfect.

mom, if you're reading this, you need to get rid of those.

teddy is growing fast and furious, and i get the feeling on a regular basis that he is the sweetest boy on the face of the planet. it makes me understand how people only want one baby.

a few months ago when we moved in, i was telling someone that i couldn't wait to get unpacked, buy all of the home goods we need (want), and finally have the house in order, and they laughed at me and said something to the effect of, "don't hold your breath," which offended me a teensy bit. ("don't hold my breath?! i will hold my breath! imma get this house done so fast you won't even see it coming!")

anyway, i'm realizing it'll take years and years before we have our house the way we (i) really want it. and for someone who's way more into instant gratification than she should be, that's annoying. whatever. this year, i'm going to be so chill- you won't even recognize me.

i'm still working on new years resolutions, and being chill is on the list.
(i'm already succeeding since i'm being so chill about finishing my resolutions though, so booyah.)

i started at bsu again this week, and reminded myself that this time last year, teddy was a six month old, and i was taking the class i now teach to try to get back into dance. life is funny.

there was this crazy blizzard, and now my sunroom ceiling has little water leak spots. it took me all night to paint that ceiling before we moved in.

freaking snow.
freaking cheap ceiling.

on second thought, i love my little house. leak spots and all.

but seriously i'll be painting over that as soon as the snow dries up.

happy thursday.
xo

teddy's shirt

midnight diary.

i'm wide awake. eyes open, breath calm, staring softly at the ceiling of the bedroom that i grew up in. this always happens. at home, i have such a hard time drifting to sleep. tiny snores seep out of teddy curled up next to me. was my room always this big? man, it seems spacious.

i think about all the things that have changed since i lived here. moving out of texas. college. tour. getting married. grad school. becoming a mom. a mom? how is that even possible?! how did i get here? 

my mind goes back to different memories from the room, and then to different memories from my life. like the first time a boy tried to kiss me, or that time i spent an afternoon crying because i didn't get a part in a play. i remember switching schools in junior high, not knowing anyone, and during my first day at lunch being invited by a boy to sit with him and his friends. it wasn't flirtatious. he just saw that i was alone, and felt sorry for me i think. i remember how the boy who reached out the invitation died a few years ago, and i never told him how much that meant to me; having someone to sit with on the first day at a new school. i wish i would've told him.

i remember my pre-teen and teenage heart getting butterflies, and then stomped on. the time the popular boy in school bought me 2 dozen roses on valentines day in the 8th grade, and then 2 weeks later forgot i existed (i probably should've said thank you or something...) or that incredible jerk who told me that every girl in our high school could stand to lose 10 pounds, and i took it to heart (and kept liking him! what the hell, alyssa?!) or that quiet boy who i had a quiet crush on, and never said anything, and then learned later, when it was much too late, that he had a quiet crush on me too, and how i wish one of us had more courage, or gosh, how the meanest people i knew were girls from church, and how ironic that was, and how i remember never wanting to make anyone feel the way they made me feel, particularly in a place that should always feel safe.

i think about how i really only had one best friend in high school and how she's getting her PHD at yale right now, (i don't have many close friends, but i do have excellent taste) and how grateful i am to have had such a good high school best friend. i remind myself to reach out to her (like we always do) and suggest getting together during the holidays. of course, i end up forgetting, and then wonder if subconsciously i'm avoiding spending time with someone who i think is so cool and accomplished because it will remind me that my life, while beautiful and not one i'd ever want to trade, feels blasé sometimes.

i think of how much it must've sucked for my parents to deal with kids in high school, and how much it's probably going to suck for me to deal with it too. i hope to myself that teddy is the kind of boy to invite someone sitting alone to his lunch table in junior high.

i pull the covers a little higher, look at the clock and tell myself it's definitely time now, time to go to sleep.

and after checking my email, facebook, instagram, and watching part of a documentary on netflix, i finally do.
xo