Catch Up Session

I haven’t written in a while. I usually use this blog as a type of therapy, but I haven’t been much in need of therapy lately (surprising, right?). A lot is going on in the Vallette household, though, and I thought I would catch you guys up.

I’m 30 weeks pregnant (woah!) and I have been relatively emotionally stable this go ’round. Hearing that probably makes you guys laugh (especially if you’ve read this or this), but it’s true. Marvin makes sure to include “Diana hasn’t been mean to us for no reason yet” during his joys at our Domestic Church Circle meetings every month.

I took a break from being emotionally stable a couple of days ago and had my first real pregnancy meltdown. A Diana pregnancy meltdown is a meltdown where you cry about something that does not remotely deserve tears. You cry long and hard about it and then feel like a new woman after. Sometimes I have pregnancy meltdowns even when I’m not pregnant because I am me. When I was pregnant with Dane I cried about the protein bar (which, to this day, is the second maddest I’ve ever been at Marvin). With Juliet I cried when Pitt Grill switched the buffet from breakfast to lunch. With this baby I cried because of naps. Yep.

I texted my friend to see how her sick little girl was feeling and she got back to me a few hours later. She started her text off with “Sorry, I was napping.”  This woman has three kids (similar in age to my kids) and she’s pregnant, too. That sent me over the edge. I was exhausted (because pregnant) and I had been laying on the couch with the kids watching a movie hoping that the movie would distract them enough that I wouldn’t have to parent for 20 minutes or so (just long enough for me get a power nap), but that plan was failing miserably and they kept talking to me and elbowing me in the baby. Marvin called me on his way home from work to see how I was doing and how our day was (because he’s the nice, sane one in our relationship) and I just broke down crying. He asked me what was wrong and the following sentence came out of my mouth and entered the world: “I’m just SO TIRED and it’s not fair that all my friends get to take naps and I don’t.” Yeah. I literally whined like a child about not being able to take a nap. I cried my little eyes out over that ridiculousness and then I felt like a million bucks. Hormones.

What else is going on? Well, we decided there was no better time to potty train Juliet than Easter weekend (dumb). She is 22 months and we failed miserably. Potty training is for sure the worst part of parenting, no? It runs a tight race with stomach viruses. So much pee. So much frustration. So much cabin fever. Someone should capitalize on how much disdain we have for this part of parenting. I am a cheapskate and I would easily pay $1,000 to have a stranger come in and handle it. Anyway, Juliet is not potty trained, but Dane is (yay!) just one month short of his 4th birthday. Potty training him was not miserable. He picked it up quickly and was so excited and proud of himself. We’re proud of him, too. I may just wait until all of my kids are 4 years old before potty training them. His little booty looks so precious in those underwear!

Yesterday I randomly decided to have some kid-free time to take my mom to lunch and get my hair cut (for the first time in 2 years). I dropped the kids off with Marvin’s mom around 11:30 and didn’t come back until 4:00 and maaaaaan. It’s amazing what a little refresher can do for your mommy spirits. I always wait too long to get recharged. I realized that I need to work on remembering I would be a much better mom (and a happier human being) if I took a few hours here and there for myself. That analogy about the airplane and the oxygen mask is cliche, right? Cliche, but true. I wish I didn’t have so much guilt associated with spending time away from the people I see every single moment of everyday, but, motherhood.

I have been reading alot lately (instead of using my free time before bed to binge watch TV) and that’s helped my mental clarity also. (You’d think I’d know this by now, but I forget the lessons I learn on the daily, obviously.) I really, really enjoyed “The Magnolia Story” by Chip & Joanna Gaines. I did not know who they were prior to reading the book. Joanna inspired me to not be so anxious and negative about investment properties (which I know Marvin will be grateful for) and she had some good points about making your home inviting to the tiny humans who live there. One thing that blew me away about them is their tv-free home. That is a big goal of mine. I think I could do it if the kids were a little bit older. Right now I use tv as “mommy is about to explode and needs a minute” time. One day, though!

I learned about this thing called bullet journaling and I love it. I cannot bullet journal because I don’t have the time to devote to making things look cute, but it inspired me to buy a pretty notebook to keep my to-do lists on (instead of the old envelopes I was used to using). I’m a list person. Just looking at this pretty thing makes me happy. Also, I’m about to start a new book “The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are” because I realized I might not like myself so much–that’s a different story for a different time, though.

 

I stumbled upon this dinosaur park in Henderson (which just so happens to be right next to Lafayette, which just so happens to have a Cuban restaurant). That’s my pre-baby goal: take kids to dinosaur park and stuff belly with black beans and platanos. Side note: why does Lake Charles not have a Cuban restaurant? We need one. You people would love it so hard.

Marvin and I (but mostly just Marvin) almost burnt the house down. You should know that in moments of actual stress and danger I am strangely calm and Marvin freaks the freak out (we switch personalities right quick). I was cooking french fries and a little bit of oil jumped out of the pot and onto the burner and caused a few flames under the pot. This happens to me on the reg so I just sat there waiting for the flames to die down. Marvin was in the kitchen visiting with me. He basically freaked out and moved the pot off the burner which caused more oil to spill which caused the fire to grow which caused Marvin to freak out a little more and start cursing. I told him I was going to go get a towel real fast. I ran to the bathroom to find a towel to throw on it. While I was gone Marvin threw some water on the fire (yeah, I said water on a grease fire). Anyway, we eventually put the fire out but the cabinets were stained black with smoke and the nobs melted off and Marvin burnt all the hair off of his arm.  Elaina was yelling at us to “get out of the house.” Safety Sally! The house was filled with smoke, like, filled. It clogged up our A/C filter (unbeknownst to us) and caused the unit to freeze a week later. We didn’t know what was going on and called a repairman to come out and spent $150 on that embarrassment. “Umm, yes ma’am, it’s because you need to change your filter.” Oops. (We had just changed it before the fire.) All because momma wanted some french fries.

School is almost over and the next few weeks will be super busy. Dane and Juliet each have a birthday coming up and the baby will be here before we know it. I think we have names down, maybe?

Overall, everything is moving and grooving over here.  Tonight our sweet circle priest is coming over to  have dinner and bless the new house. Fr. Luke told me he reads my blog (no idea how he stumbled upon it) which caused me to go into a mild panic. My blog is for real people who have real people whine sessions about the teeny tiny inconveniences of life– not a holy priest! Oops. Hope he still loves me raw and real!

We’re gonna have a baby, y’all. Four kids. Crazy. I’m excited and ready! Talk soon! Gotta head to the park for a play date!

This is how I wrote this blog post. Nakey baby in lap. One handed.

This happy little sign was at WalMart in the Easter section.