Mememememe

I was tagged by Electronic Goose.
The Rules

1. Post the rules before you give your answers.

2. List one fact about yourself beginning with each letter of your middle name. If you don't have a middle name, use your maiden name or your mother's maiden name.

3. At the end of your blog post, tag one person (or blogger of another species) for each letter of your middle name. Be sure to leave them a comment telling them they've been tagged.

My middle name: Francine

F-French: I am part French, just part and Belgian French.

R-Recycle: I recycle almost everything. It's a bit anal I know but it makes me feel good and it helps planet/people/prices. Plus I don't have to buy garbage stickers for recycling. We had 1 recycling bin, then we got another one. After while I started to use a Rubbermaid bin. Now need to go to our shed and grab another Rubbermaid bin which will make it 4 recycling bins. Wonder if there's a limit in this town?

A-Alcohol: I gave alcohol up years ago in support of my husband who struggled with it. Neither of us drink it and I don't miss it . . . . at all. I hate beer, wine, and anything that tastes like alcohol. I always ordered the "Fru-Fru" drinks and couldn't even drink those if they tasted too much like alcohol. I was always the responsible one in the group who'd drink Peach Snapple Iced Tea and smoked Marlboro 100's Cigarettes and made sure everyone got home safely. Not drinking for several years now I must admit bothers others more than us . . . . . especially people with drinking problems.

N-Neat: I say this a lot like, "That's really neat!" Got it from my Mom. She's pretty neat herself. Oh, and I like things to be very neat and organized.

C-Crab Legs: My favorite food. I rarely get to eat them but I can really eat a lot of them, yes dripping with melted butter too. Gotta be the good ones too or they aren't worth my time/money/effort. Mmmm!

I-Independent: I am very independent. I like to figure things out by myself and I truly love to do almost everything from day to day just "Little Buddy" and me. It urks me terribly when I meet extremely codependent moms/women that cannot function without their husbands. I think this just mystifies my MIL, she is the total opposite and constantly wants me to call her/them when hubby is gone (which she knows is all the time). I can't stand to be doing everything with everybody. She probably thinks it's sad, I would feel sad if people were with me all the time, every day. Don't get me wrong, I love to do family get-togethers on occasion, and thoroughly enjoy doing family stuff (mommy, daddy, baby) on my husbands days off. I know women who don't even go to the grocery store without their husbands . . . . . . huh? I find it's not very efficient either. If you have more than one child, leave them home with daddy and go by yourself. Much less stressful, even kinda relaxing. I take little buddy with me when daddy's at work.

N-Negative: I am very Negative about my Nasty Neighbors. They are extremely Noisy and Neglect their yard and house. Because of them, we want to move to a New place. I will Never buy my teenager and his friends alcohol like they do.

E-Earth: Every day I am working on having more and more respect for our planet Earth.

Since I don't have 8 people to tag starting with all the letters of my middle name, I will tag 4 of my blog friends:
I am tagging Cheryl from Red Pens & Diapers, Suzy Q from Squirrel Chatter, Organique Gal, & Jenn from Living on a Whim

Curb Find - Double Take

I garbage picked a broken Radio Flyer tricycle from a house near my sisters a few towns away. I figured I could order replacement part(s) then I could fix the tricycle for Little Buddy to use in the future. Would you believe the same house threw out another broken tricycle a few weeks later. Same model number. My sister called to ask me if I wanted her to grab it for parts. I of course said yes. We had 2 broken tricycles hogging up the little space in our crowded (with junk) 1 car garage. I finally got around to fixing one tricycle with parts from the other tricycle. Thus, we now have 1 almost perfect Radio Flyer Tricycle. Little Buddy will not be able to ride it for awhile but it's waiting for him. We also went to Toys R Us last night just for fun. Little Buddy loves it there. I saw the exact tricycle. It was $59.99. I was even more thrilled. I love garbage picking!

Todays Blooms

I was inspired by Nadine of In Blue Ink. Check out her post In My Yard.

Blog Thoughts

Is it just me or do you ever get intimidated or lose interest when you find a new interesting blog then want to leave a comment on a post only to discover that there are already 20 comments?

26.2 Pounds This Morning!

Odd, I actually had carbs & dairy yesterday?

Little Buddy At The Zoo

Bakers Square Tragedy

I am in shock and want to cry when I heard that Bakers Square is filing chapter 11 and closing 56 restaurants. I love Bakers Square, especially their pies. I also have my favorite meal from there which I haven't had since shortly after delivering little buddy. The same meal I ate the night I delivered and then hurled the next morning in my hospital bed while nursing. It is a chicken fingers dinner (w/ extra honey mustard sauce please) with seasoned french fries, I add on the garden salad w/ ranch dressing. Then I top it off with pie. My favorite pies from Bakers Square are pecan, chocolate cream (w/the mini chocolate chips on top), french apple, & strawberry rhubarb. I truly probably like them all but those are my favorites. It saddens me that they may go under and I see most of the locations by my house are already closed. Not sure about the one by the mall yet? I'm afraid to drive by. I have grown up with Bakers Square and remember when they were called Poppin Fresh Pies. Guess I will have to go and have my favorite meal there one last time if I can find one that is still open. To read more about this loss click here. If you also have Bakers Square memories or favorites please comment.

This One I Like To Call Subdivision Plastic

Can you believe that this stroller full of plastic came from our walk yesterday. We made our way through the long way and the stroller bin was full after half of the walk. Sad. Hoping this all came from blowing out of recycle bins on windy days but I'm sure much also comes from people who litter. Not sure why you'd want to litter at all or at least litter in your own neighborhood. See my Pik Stik. We picked up a 2 pack at Costco for under $20 a week or two ago. That was the night we had grandparents watch our little guy and went to see Funny Games (which by the way I would not recommend . . . . very disturbing . . . . . husbands pick). We got out of the movie early and wanted to kill time before going back home. Anyway, these Pik Stiks are awesome. I am short and constantly need one in the house to reach things. I also clean up litter constantly wherever we go when we walk so having one in the stroller also handy, plus I don't have to use the germy outside one in our home.

Today was our first day at the Little Learners class I signed little buddy and I up for. This is the second week but last week he and I were sick. We also had a Tot Rock class on Monday that was pretty fun. I think he had a good time. I love being involved in classes like that with him. He is very, very slowly coming out of his shell. I think I prefer the Tot Rock class. It has lots of music and dancing and clapping and stomping and singing too. Little Learners is fun but it is more of an introduction to preschool so it's not as interactive as Tot Rock. This winter we weren't in anything. Last spring, summer and fall we took swimming, mommy and me, infant massage and attended a few free story times at the library. I would also like to do mommy/baby yoga and maybe some tumbling.

We kinda turned a corner with the sleep issue. I managed to shift his bedtime to 9 instead of 8. He then was either sleeping through the night or only waking once. Yeah! He then went back to 2 naps instead of one. He started to get up earlier which took some getting used. From nursing all night to not I have noticed the weight loss slow way down. I am currently down 24 pounds. That is good but have 18 more to go to get to my conception weight. I DO NOT want to conceive again at anything higher. I was big as a house last time and very uncomfortable so I feel that if I at least start at the same weight as last time I will have a head start. This time pregnancy will be different for sure. I plan to eat more healthy foods and more sensibly. I am not pregnant and want to wait til little buddy is at least 2 or so to try again. We'll see.

Tango Was Here

Bad Dog!

Give Me Your Opinion

Well, I am having some trouble finding blogs that aren't, uh, well, weird. Not weird in the good sense anyway. I find a few trends when looking into finding interesting blogs to read. For the most part I do concentrate on mom blogs but also would like to have a few non-mom blogs. In my searching I find some bizarre things and wonder if other people find it equally odd when searching people/blogs/profiles. One of the biggies is the moms/women with extremely high opinions of themselves. You know which ones I'm talking about. Their little picture looks like a head shot or glamor shot. One I found the other day had me (herself) in her interests, that was it nothing else? Others are so full of themselves they don't mention much of anything else in their blogs. I have even found some with a rather provocative picture of themselves as their profile picture. Since when is this a beauty contest? I thought it was a blog where you write about yourself and your life and post some pictures.

Another type of blogger I find a little odd are the extremely religious ones. One time I found one that said in her interests "raising Godly seeds," and "spreading God's word through the promotion of music, sewing, cooking, baking...nutrition." Not my thing but if it makes you happy I guess that's cool. I just find it alarming when someone/anyone is sooo into God that they seem to lose themselves. My sister got that way for awhile, it was creepy. She was always talking in this odd kinda Stepford-like tone that was bizarre and she never cut up about double meaning jokes, sarcasm, complained about anything even minimally, it was all God, God, God. Thankfully she came out of it but during it it was a Hell for the rest of us. Even her husband didn't know what was going on. I admire those who are spiritual and are very involved in their church and are kind, good, and have a sensitive Christian attitude. Trouble is that so many people I have met that have lost their identity at church or in the Bible like this are often very judgmental and frequently tend to look down on others. I have met a few truly spiritual individuals in my life. They seem to be a little more in touch with being human, more accepting, wanting to help others, and can/do hold the majority of their conversations without bringing God into it. They are, well, very private about their spirituality. I like to think of myself as being private about my own spirituality even though I do not put myself in the same category. I hate to use these words but the ones that scare me are lost, lacking what was once their identity, ignorant and happily living in their own little Godly bubble, almost brainwashed it seems. I can not relate to these people at all. I find that a lot when searching SAHM's.

The other type that I find are the "every-molecule-in-my-body-revolves-around-my-children-types." I am a mother and I love staying at home. I waited til I was older to have children so I could stay at home and establish myself in life first. I got 2 college degrees, made damn sure I was done with all the partying, got a house, worked all over the place doing all kinds of things, working with all kinds of people, travelled, spent several years with my husband and had a lot of fun first. I could go on but you get the idea. Maybe it's the younger moms that lose themselves in their children. Don't get me wrong, I have lost myself in motherhood too but I still hang on to various parts of myself that made me "me" before I had a child and even some things from before I met my husband. Like the overly religious types they have trouble blogging about much else besides their children. They seldom talk about who "they " are. They take daily joy in how their children eat, sleep, poop, etc. They never write about the exhaustion, insanity, etc. that comes with this crazy ride called motherhood. I do not drink or party or have girls night out, it's just not me. I do have interests that have nothing to do with being a mom though which I cling to for my own sanity. On the flip side, I do find some moms when searching that have interests that do not at all seem very "motherly." Honest to God, I read one moms interests one day that had such things as bisexuality, boobs, butts, sex, marijuana, etc. listed. I'm not a total prude but all I could think was, poor kids. Plus how does any mother have time for all that? I barely have time to clip my nails, make food, poop, clean, e-mail, call people, blog, etc., how on earth do they work that crap into their schedule? Hmmm.

Once in awhile I find a cool blogger/blog and enjoy what I read and comment. Never to hear from that person again. If I get some comments on my posts I am sure to read that persons blog and comment back even if we are on different levels there is almost always something that you find to relate about. There should be a name for those bloggers, they are so self-blog-involved they wouldn't dare read other peoples blogs. Is theirs soooo interesting? Clearly some bloggers start blogging for the sole reason to write about their family, children, etc. and post pictures mainly for their family to read/see. They don't have any interest in having outsiders involved and started their blog to keep family updated so as not to have to send so many e-mails . . . . . oh well.

My blog is mine. I am a stay-at-home-mom. I still have interests, opinions, likes, dislikes even though I am a "mommy." I only gave my blog info to a few select people, only one or two of which are family. If I gave my blog info to everyone I'd lose all my material. How could I write about my MIL and stuff like that if it was for everyone to read. Another reason I don't show my face, mention my town, family names, things like that.

So, does anyone out there follow me? Am I nuts? Why is it so hard to find normal bloggers? Aren't there bloggers out there who have an identity and still love to be moms? Another question: Why do so many moms scrapbook? and stamp? Guess I'm a little disappointed many moms have such generic interests. Not that there's anything wrong with scrap booking but isn't there more to life and why do soooooo many moms either worship their Bibles or their scrapbook or themselves. If anyone out there can relate to any of this please comment. If anyone out there has a fabulous way to find these types of people that don't fit the above, please tell me how to find them. I usually go to my profile, hit SAHM, then scroll through the pages. If there was a better way to do it I sure wish I knew what it was.

Fart Proudly?

I never thought Benjamin Franklin would have written about farting. Funny.

A Tired Post From Sleepyville

When I say Sleepyville I am referring to me. Things have gone from bad to worse in that department. Waking every 2-3 hours to go pat a baby on the butt/back or put my hand on his chest til he falls back asleep has now turned into crying to go down for nap, sleep, throughout all sleep? A cry that escalates into screaming bloody murder in less than a minute. I understand that my little buddy is 6 teeth behind. I also now feel what I think is a large molar on his bottom right gum when I brush his teeth with the finger brush. He got a doozy of a cold on top of it with a bad fever of 102.3 in the first 2 days which is now gone (fever not the cold). So now the appetite is all kinds of screwy, general mood is downright crankiness and the sleep situation which I didn't think could have gotten worse . . . . . . has. I am so tired of being tired. I think this is going to be pretty bad til the cold is gone and all his teeth come in, maybe when he's 2 or 3 I will get some sleep. Last night oddly he slept through the night after screaming for over an hour going to sleep last night. My husband couldn't take it he wanted to leave so he wouldn't have to hear the screaming. I said, "Me too!" My husband wants to pick him up and hold him til he falls asleep every night which I now refuse to do unless he's terribly ill or injured because he already knows how to fall asleep alone and from awake. As of last night I am implementing the go in every 5 minutes and pat him tactic (no talking, lights, picking up, or touching face etc.,) which worked wonders at around 3 months he was able to go to sleep alone and awake and then began to sleep through the night doing just that. From what I understand the teething of molars can create horrible pressure in the ears and often ear infections too. I think that's why he cries when we put him down to go to sleep and cries out through the night. I would have thought the Motrin, tooth & gum brushing & massaging, homeopathic teething pellets, breastfeeding, and intense nose clearing with nasal spray galore and the sucker bulb would have made him slightly comfortable before bed. I told my husband last night in a whisper in the dark of our room (so nobody would hear us and think we were coming in to get him and get even more mad), that I think I am losing my #$%&ing mind. Sorry if this offends you, I think I am not alone when I say that children are totally a blessing and a joy but they can completely make you batty at the same time. I hope that this passes soon. Perhaps the go in every 5 minute thing will work it's wonders again. I hope so.

22.4 Pounds This Morning!

Hip, Hip, Hooray! Speaking of hips, much smaller hips, butt, thighs, well and everything else. Why is it that the weight first leaves the breasts on women in weight loss? No fair. I see myself as a much thinner Val with the breasts I have now and long hair too. Of course that's a pipe dream. I know that as I lose more weight the breasts will decrease in size too, and when I'm done breastfeeding well I hear they go down smaller than they were originally . . . . . oh goody. In combination with losing weight I decided to have a "Hair-a-thon". I haven't gotten my hair cut since December and I'm going to see how long I can go. I have been overweight with short hair since mid pregnancy, I now intend on achieving the opposite. I used to have longer hair, OK shoulder length is a big deal for me cause I have such thin stringy hair. However, it was always nice if I didn't get a shower to throw my hair in a ponytail or bun and could actually leave the house. Now with the shortish hair I cannot leave the house in the morning and let people actually see me. It's greasy, sticking out all over the place and gross. My beautician (the only person in the world that I have found that can cut my hair the right way), up and moved to Atlanta over a year ago. Since then I have had some horrible cuts. She was back in town in December so I got a normal cut again. Now I'll just wait til she's back again to get it cut. She'll die if/when she sees this mop. The disadvantage to the longer hair is that my little guy likes to pull on it for fun. Ouch!


I/we are still getting shitty sleep. My son is up at least every 2-3 hours all night long. I have much less energy now and after having a full nights sleep for a little over 8 months, well it's extremely frustrating. After talking to many moms, the pediatricians office, the LC's, and doing internet research I think I figured out what his problem is. For the last few nights I haven't been nursing at all. I decided to try something else after noticing much of the time he wouldn't even suck he just latched on and laid there. I was also up to my eyes in pee pee diapers. Changing diapers in the middle of the night while my son screams, cries, & thrashes is not very relaxing for any of us. If I didn't he would wet through the diaper doubler, the diaper, his clothes, and bedding. Changing all that in the middle of the night very traumatic for the entire household. So, after all the investigating I believe that it is a combination of 2 problems: teething for the last few months (he has extremely slow teeth, 14 months and only has 6 teeth), and nighttime separation anxiety. He has stranger anxiety very bad no matter what I do. He likes people from afar but then if they get too close, look out. He often wants me over my husband. This I think is quite normal . . . . . to a degree. It is obvious that he has stranger & separation anxiety pretty bad while awake (which is very common and normal at this age), so I can easily see why he would have it while asleep. I go in his room now and either pat him on the back or place my hand on his chest and he is instantly soothed and goes right back to sleep. Between the tension in his mouth from the teething, he probably has 4-6 teeth working their way through at the same time and the separation anxiety he probably feels quite restless. Can't wait til this phase passes. Thanks for reading my yammering. These issues may seem quite trivial but to an exhausted mother doing this for over 3 months it is quite unsettling and chaotic.

I Hate To Sound Desperate, But I'm Desperate!

I was wondering if anyone out there had any advice for me. I have a 14 month old son as you probably know. He slept through the night from 3 months til he was 11 months old. At that time he got very sick and also was cutting the top front teeth, 4 at the same time. It was a horrible time. I was just up all night and nursing him constantly to get him through. Ever since (end of December) he is up all night. He also lost his second nap during the day. So he still had a pretty good morning nap which I tried to gently shift to later in the day with no luck. Now he goes down for a morning nap at 10:30 and only sleeps for an hour. Then has a very crabby afternoon and wants to crash for the night at anywhere from 5-7 pm. HELP? Many people tell me to just keep doing what I'm doing and it will eventually subside but it is tearing him and our household apart. Others say to let him cry it out . . . . UG! I tried this for 1 time, my husband and I couldn't take it, he was screaming bloody murder. Everyones rest is messed up. Is this a bad little habit he got into after being sick or a phase since he has learned to walk? What should I do? I thought this would be over after a few weeks/months, now we are going on three and a half months. I'm hoping there may be a few experienced mothers (or even dads) out there that may have some advice or another mother that has experienced the same thing. Please help me if you can. Our pediatrician's office always has a cold, heartless solution to many things. Thanks for any help anyone can lend.

Sleepless In Chicagoland,
Momma Val
P.S. Often if I try to nurse he just latches on and goes right to sleep, then he's up again in an hour. Could this be a separation anxiety issue rather than hunger?