Some Things On My Mind...

Sometimes I have very specific things that I want to write about. And other times (like right now), I'm completely scatter brained with no particular blogging map to follow in order to navigate my words to their correct places. I have several things on my mind, that are all fighting for a chance to come out, all at once. Last week I did a sort of "On My Mind" style entry, and I really enjoyed it. I liked how the words were able to just sort of easily spill out of my finger tips. I thought I'd try it again this week, but, less organized, in an adapted kind of way? These are just a couple of things that are on my mind right now...

I'm currently reading... The Time Travelers Wife. I had borrowed it from the library here on base, but because I almost never have time to sit down and read it, it became overdue and we had to return it. Last weekend while we were out doing our bulk shopping, hubby let me pick it up off of the rack and set it inside our cart. Now that I've scooted my eyes all the way past the 100 page mark, I feel more involved. I tried to sneak in a few hours of reading yesterday, while the kids were playing outside (yesterday was a rough day, by the way, and my plan to read failed), and then a little bit in the evening while the kids took a bath upstairs with Daddy. Since it was the last thing I was doing before I went to bed, I dreamt about it. When I woke up in the middle of the night, several times, I was confused. I couldn't remember what I had really read, or what had happened in my dream. The part about the mountain of peanut butter cups though, I figured probably wasn't real, and... why was that part of my dream anyways? Every time I returned to sleep, my dream would pick up where it left off. It never does that when I want it to, but when I'm completely confused, of course it does.

The weather was so nice yesterday... I felt the need to spend as much time outside as possible. I set up our largest pink blanket in the driveway, covered in in our "outside books", and let the kids have at it. They were really into the books at first, but eventually interests drifted. Now that Charlie can walk, hes all over the place. In the rocks, in Daddy's back corner of the garage (the danger zone: oil, tools, all that stuff), crunching his way through the dead grass on the side yard, falling and bonking into things, chasing after his sister who he can't possibly keep up with. I yell at him like hes a puppy. When he gets to a certain point on the cement patio, I shout "Charlie, sit! Sit down!". If I don't, he'll continue to walk, completely ignoring the step down into the rock bed, and land face first into dirty pebbles. When he sits, I say "gooood boy Charlie, good job!" ...see, just like a puppy. While I do my best not to take my eyes off of him, sometimes I just don't catch him in time, and if I forget to yell "sit!" even once, he walks straight off, and falls into the rocks. Every time.

Sometimes I get moody... and overreact to things that wouldn't otherwise bother me. Sometimes something rubs me the wrong way, usually on days that something else has previously upset me, and my emotions spiral out of control in a hurry. Yesterday was one of those days. Something upset me, followed by something else, and before I knew it, I could hardly speak I was so mad. So of course when I did open my mouth, all that came out was shouting, and possibly fire. After Christopher got home I vented (poor guy, what an awful thing to come home to), and we decided that what I needed was some physical activity. We put Charlie in the ERGO carrier for the 2nd night in a row, this time fitting on my shoulders much more comfortably, and off we went. We walked almost 3 miles before coming home. It lifted my spirits, and released all of the anxiety and anger that had been hanging over my head like an ugly rain cloud. Sometimes I forget just how good it feels to get out and moving. I'm easily overcome with pregnancy fatigue and a case of good old fashioned laziness.

I want my babies to be healthy... so I've been putting in the extra effort to cook from scratch, more often. Obviously, with all of our allergies and intolerance's, I don't have much of a choice. But when given the option for boxed chicken nuggets, I take it. For awhile there, they were getting cold cereal every morning. I know there is nothing wrong with cold cereal, but... I can do better. Oatmeal is healthier, and I've got the time to cook it (a lot of Mothers don't). Every morning, for the past week and a half, I wake up and get started on breakfast first thing. I fill my favorite pink pan with oats and water, throw in a dash of salt, bring it to a barely boil, and then back the heat down to low. I add a big splash of soy milk, cook it until it looks good and done, pour it into the Vita Mix, add a banana and peanut butter, maybe some berries instead, and I puree it into a delicious cream of oats. The texture then becomes something much more enjoyable than that of boring ol' oatmeal, and all of the ingredients are equally divied up. I pour it into two bowls- a toddler sized one for Eleanore, and a regular size bowl for Charlie and I to share. They prefer it with peanut butter and bananas, but this morning we had neither. Instead I filled the pot of cooking oats with both blueberries and raspberries, resulting in a bright purple puree in the end. The baby gobbled it up, as did I, but the toddler made a fuss and had to sit by herself at the table for an hour or longer until it was all gone. I'm not one to force feed if the child isn't hungry, but with Eleanore, its just a battle of who's boss. I don't spend all of that time in the kitchen cooking, followed by cleaning, for her to be a picky eater. What kid doesn't want to eat bright purple oatmeal? Next time I'm going to let her be the one to pour the berries into the pan. Maybe getting her more involved in the making of the food, even though its early and I'd much rather be working in my zombie mode alone, will help her appreciate all that goes into it.

Alright, seems like that's probably enough for today, heee. I feel a little less heavy in the head, so I must have gotten out all of the things that needed to go. Now maybe I should attend to my tantrum throwing three year old, who is currently sitting in the middle of the floor with both her arms and legs crossed, nose straight up in the air, repeating "I'm not going to talk to you anymore!". Maybe she doesn't understand that I like the silence, haha.