Melanie ~ look at me with starry eyes...

I feel all productive and crap. I made Tim an awesome lunch. I swept and washed the floors upstairs. Made a peach pie with a lattice top. Made three batches of kale chips. Got the baby down for two naps. Even showered!

I ordered some blocks for Paxton, for his birthday (late, but he doesn't know) and some textured balls. He was playing with them at work and had so much fun throwing the ball and running after it. I went down to the playroom and found four balls, in the chaos that is our playroom. Two of them have little suction cups so when you throw them, they stick to the floor. HE LOVES THEM. It's so fun watching him. I hope I remember these moments forever.


I feel so much love.

My first real mother's day. We've always celebrated me being a stepmomma and then a pregnant momma, but this is my first year with a little squirmy cute breathing baby.

He decided to squirm and keep himself up last night. Between 11 and midnight I nursed him to sleep five times. Finally I asked Tim for help and he brought Pax downstairs and let him play till 3 am (Maybe I shouldn't have had that 5pm coffee...) and then slept with him downstairs till 5am, so I got 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep. I still woke up once, but forced myself back to sleep. Pax was climbing on me at 7 am, so we got up and played and I let Tim sleep.

Around 9 Tim made us yummy breakfast. Pancakes (I made the batter cause I make good pancakes), bacon and omelettes and my coffee with chocolate soy milk. Paxton ate a bunch of cereal and then half a pancake. We were all stuffed.

Best thing to do when you are stuffed? Go to bed! We all took a two hour nap!

Oh, and I had a very nice card from Paxton with a heartfelt note in there, who knew my 9 month old could write, and a nice card from my husband with a gift certificate for an hour massage!! I am in heaven. I cannot wait for the massage.


Pretty awesome day so far! I think we'll grill steaks tonight, and just chill all day. If I actually get dressed I might go over to the second hand book store and get myself some books. I have a gift certificate from my birthday in October I haven't had a chance to use. I also want to go buy myself some nail polish, and I should probably duck into Costco quickly.

Pretty nice day so far.



Happy mother's day to all the mommas in my life, on my friends list. Special love and compassion to the women who are still waiting and hoping to be moms one day. I remember thinking it would never happen.

Can I just brag and say that I came home to a spotless house? All the laundry done, the bed made with clean sheets, the baby's bed all clean. Bathrooms scrubbed down, stairs and house vacuumed, all clutter put away, shoes tidy, kitchen painted. Everything looks awesome. I married an awesome man.

Tim ended up seeing one of Reagan's friends when they were out for a quick bite to eat before the Valentines day dance. Her friend's grandma took pictures and asked Tim if he was on facebook so she could send him the pictures. (She was surprised he was, I don't think a lot of people are in their area)

Tim got this message from her: I will be sending the pics of the dance at the Betty Queen Center! If this is the Daddy to Reagan! It doesn't look like Reagan in the pic though! Reagan has the blond curls! It must be another daughter!

HAHAHAH, it's me.

Tim wrote back: Hi Sharla - thanks for finding me! The person in my profile picture is my wife (Reagan's stepmom) - but she will be thrilled that you thought she was my daughter.

I took a few photos at the dance that I'll send as well. Not sure how well they came out, but we'll see.

She replied: LOL! Your wife! YOU GO! She looks GREAT!

I told him he should write back and say "You should see her in real life".. cause I sure don't think I look like his daughter! :P

The picture:



I told Tim she was probably hoping he was single... ;)

Today is five years from the first time I set eyes on Tim in person. We met on livejournal about 16 months earlier. Crazy

I can't even explain how sexy it is to walk into the kitchen and see my Motivated Mom's sheet on the counter with two days almost fully checked off. Thank you Tim. It motivated me to quickly clean the upstairs toilets, another thing checked off!

My best friend's name came up on the call display tonight, and it was her 6 year old daughter, calling to ask if Paxton and I could come to her "kid party" for her 7th birthday. Her birthday party that they CHANGED because it was at the same time as the baby shower/open house my mom is throwing for me and Pax. (My mom said she'd change the shower but Brandi said no)

So adorable. I think Avery, Brandi's daughter, is as excited to meet Paxton as my mom!

Last time I came home she asked me if I'd have a sleep over at her house, I was half expecting that this time.

I just walked out of the bedroom to get some lunch (rough morning with Paxton) and there is a note hanging from the ceiling, telling me to stay out of the laundry room and not to look outside. Ooh exciting.


I think Paxton is either 1) teething, 2) fighting a bit of my cold, or 3) going through a growth spurt, or you know, maybe doing all three at once. This morning he would latch on and then just cry and cry, but there was milk. He was so tired, but just not himself. He was really clingy yesterday, wanted to nurse a lot. I have to say, he has not had a green poo in days, and it makes me so happy. I'm really REALLY happy that I didn't have to cut gluten/wheat/anything else out of my diet as well, as some of my friends have had to, for their babies.

For my birthday, Reagan and Tim will bake a cake, that's easy enough to do without milk. Frosting is a different story, but I saw this pretty awesome looking frosting that is made with maple syrup, egg whites and cream of tartar in a double boiler. It looks like marshmallow fluff, but will taste like maple syrup. And on that theme, I'm thinking I want breakfast for dinner for my birthday dinner. My go do dinner is always roast beef with yorkshire pudding, but I'm still sick and it's a lot to put on Tim's head and honestly I'm mostly just craving really cheesy pizza, so BFD it is!!!

I'm really ready for this cold to be gone. Seriously. It's just hanging on enough to be an annoyance.

Took the baby to get his passport today. As I was standing in line, a woman in front of me started talking to me in Spanish, but I only speak English unfortunately. She said "friend" and "English" and pointed to her phone, so I said okay and took her phone. Her friend explained to me in broken English that she needed to fill out a passport form, and could I help her. I said sure, I ended up asking someone if there was anyone who could speak Spanish, and thankfully the passport lady could. We just stood there talking about our babies with as little verbal communication as possible. The part that made me happiest was when she pointed to Paxton and said "two months?", especially after someone asked me how many days old he was the other day.

Then an Asian woman came up and started asking me questions in somewhat broken English, so I tried to help her as well.

It made me think, as I stood there, about my experiences with people. So often I come to my journal and write about negative experiences with people. I'm very open and friendly and I think I walk around with some kind of countenance that says "you can speak to me". The unfortunate thing is that sometimes that means that people are rude to me, or overstep boundaries, or think that they can say whatever they like to me. The nice side is that I end up talking to a lot of interesting people. Tim is always amazed at how I end up in conversations with people. I can't be in a line without having conversations with a few people around me. I like that about myself.

A couple weeks ago I was at the grocery store with Paxton, wearing him in my wrap. The woman behind me in the lineup was asking questions about my wrap, about my parenting, about Paxton. She said "You seem like you have it all together", which was an awesome compliment, and I think I was feeling more confident then than I have been the past week. She told me that she has a friend who has a 9 week old baby, and said she didn't know anyone who had babies and thought we'd mesh. She asked me for my name and email address, and gave me the other girl's name. I really need to email her. She owns a local farm, and I love farms!! (unless they are the evil animal abusing kind)

Walking around at Cox Farm this weekend, I had 3 separate women come up to me and tell me how much they love seeing mommas wearing their babies. At the museum a woman came up and peeked inside my wrap and saw that Paxton was nursing and went on about how great that was.

I spent a bit of time tonight thinking about other times like these. I've been feeling a bit torn down lately, this week I had someone send me a ton of emails telling me I was doing things wrong with Paxton, and she wouldn't back off. Her issues, not mine. I think I need to remember to focus on the good things in the world around me. I'm easily heartbroken, easily hurt, but I'm also easily loved! I get to decide what is my main focus. I'll still get hit by the bad, but thank goodness for the good.

Ahh, nice night. Tim came home from work with roses, and got dressed up, I wore a dress and heels, first time in a long time for that. We drove off and as we approached a certain part of town, I was trying to think of what restaurants were over there. I remembered this one little tiny hidden one that Tim showed me ages ago, which is Zagat rated and hoped he had thought of it too, and he had. Panino, if any locals want a new place to check out. They have a second restaurant in the Plains.

It was so quiet in there, and excellent service. Tim had been told that they have a good menu, but a long list of specials, and they did. They brought us a pottery canister full of tall thin breadsticks that they make there, plus bread that was just baked. We started with calamari and an arugula salad with their vinaigrette, fresh pears, pecans and gorgonzola. I had fresh ravioli stuffed with swiss chard and ricotta in a butter sauce with slices of fresh parmesan, Tim had pistachio crusted white fish with garlic spinach and carrots and potato. He said the pistachios tasted freshly crushed, it was all really good. We were going to resist dessert, since we had cake at home, but Tim really liked the look of this blueberry tart thing, which was really tasty. Tim finished off with some espresso and we were good to go. Bit pricey, but worth it.

He drove me to Nelson Park, where we got engaged and married, and we walked around looking at all the blossoms, and sat in the gazebo for a bit, talking and kissing.

Then we were dorks and ran to Target all dressed up, cause we needed a few Easter things.

Now home, ate slices of our wedding cake that I don't even remember tasting at the wedding. He opened his gift from me, a hand written journal, with entries I wrote about or to him over the last year and a half.

A year, and I love him so much, and I know he loves me, and I feel blessed. I hope we can be good to each other for our lifetimes.