A Good Idea?

Toddler bed or no toddler bed has been a debate I have witnessed among many friends lately, so I decided maybe we should jump on it and say goodbye to the baby crib.  We tried a foray into this once before, Mason even did well in it for one night, then the next night he fell out and was traumatized (and so was I).  We put the crib back up, but it has been about 4 months; it was worth a try.

Mason's bed time is at 8, we got a late start and I ended up putting him down at around 8:25, it is now 9:30 and we have already changed the bed back into the crib!  Needless to say it did not go as planned.  I laid him down awake as I do every night and said, "See you in the morning, I love you" and shut the door.  Next thing we know Scott and I hear the door opening to his room and hear the little pitter patter of his feet down the hall.  He peeks his head into our room and says, "HI mommy daddy!" He is so proud of himself. 

We decided it was best not to give up.  Scott laid him back down and mere seconds later we hear the little man running back to our room.  I give it a try, even decided to lay down next to his bed to try to get him to go to sleep.  He lays there, holds my hand. kicks his feet, once even licking the side rail (this boy has a thing for licking, I'm not sure if I should be worried or not).  The later it got the more I realized this wasn't happening.  Scott puts the crib back together in about a minute, he is becoming quite the professional. 

Mason is now sleeping soundly in his crib, where he will stay until he tries to climb out or reaches 50 pounds, whatever comes first!

We're Still Here

So... we aren't dead, just comatose from all of the sugar and holiday festivities.  This year was actually much less hectic than others, so I really have no excuse for not posting lately, other than I didn't feel like it (don't tell). 

 Mason will be 2 in exactly one week!  I'm kind of going through denial about the whole thing and I really want my little baby back.  Did you hear that I want my baby back, not another baby, just so we are clear! 

Changed over the laundry the other day while Mason was jumping on his new mini trampoline, went back in to find an entire snack carton of Goldfish Crackers dumped all over it and Mason was proceeding to jump all over them until they were itty bitty little crumbs.  Lesson learned, no snacks on the trampoline!

Going to play with my little man, you will hear from me again soon, I promise!

Here is a picture of us making the most of the holiday season and baking goodies!

Bottomless Pit Baby

I’m pretty sure Mason is going through a growth spurt; either that or he’s training to be a competitive eater.  The other day he ate 9 (NINE) chicken nuggets, but I thought it was a fluke considering I forgot to feed him lunch.  Yep, I forgot his lunch, call CPS now, I am a bad mommy.  We were playing and having fun, and then he fell asleep, next thing I knew his friends were coming over for a play date and he hadn’t eaten.  So I figured the chow down I witnessed that evening was a result of that, little did I know it was just the tip of the iceberg. 

Every time I turnaround he is asking for food, he will eat anything from a plain piece of bread, to a hardboiled egg, to applesauce.  Oh God, don’t get me started on the applesauce.  First of all he calls it, “lalalala” so it makes me laugh whenever I hear it and he has gone through two big containers in a week.  I use the organic no sugar added kind so it is pretty good for him, but there are side effects, nasty stinky side effects if you know what I mean.  No kid stands a chance against that much fiber. 

Overall I’m glad he is eating, especially more than Cheerios and Cheese Puffs, which is the diet we were on for a while.   He will probably revert back to his old ways and my next blog will be complaining about him not eating, he is anything but predictable.

A Little of This, a Little of That

Just realized it had been a while since I had posted anything.  Mostly because I have been so busy with school and my internship I barely remember to shower, let alone blog.  So I decided to do a highlight reel of sorts, picking out the best (and worst) things that have happened lately.

No Phone Zone

Coming up in 5 short weeks I will be a college graduate, with this comes a huge loan repayment.  I have been looking for online jobs so I can keep up this stay at home gig, but I have had no luck.  I decided on a whim to apply online to a few retail stores for a Visual Merchandising manager position.  As I was sitting in the mall parking lot the other day, getting ready to leave, I receive a call back from a lady about one of the positions.  I answered it figuring it was the crazy lady yelling in Spanish that usually calls me once a week.  Mason was yelling, just to hear himself I’m sure, there were a lot of other background noises, and it turns out I miss her name and what company she is calling from.  I felt about 5 seconds behind for the rest of the conversation, but I gather enough information out to realize I have a phone interview for that Friday.  Friday rolls around, she never calls.  I’m assuming she thought she was talking to the slowest college graduate on earth and wanted nothing more to do with me.  Moral of the story: when in doubt let it go to voice mail.

Turkey Time!

My family is lucky enough to be spending Thanksgiving with friends, southern friends, which means amazing food that we will never eat at home, because as much as I try I can never find it in my heart to use as much butter as Paula Deen.  I thought, wow I won’t even have to make a turkey or all the sides this year, how easy!  Can’t wait for Turkey Day!

Photographic Aspirations

I recently won a contest through a different blog site, Joy the Baker. This gave me the chance to get $100 worth of holiday cards through the site minted.com.  So after setting up all of our Christmas decorations we decided to try to get a great picture of Mason smiling by the tree.  We were clearly delusional.  Out of the 56 shots we took two turned out relatively well, but then I uploaded them onto our computer to find out that in one of those two his entire face was covered in snot!  Needless to say we used the other photo and hopefully we will have a beautiful holiday card.  During this process we did something that can only be considered one of the worst parenting moves ever. We took a candy cane off of the tree and gave it to Mason.  At first it was just to hold, and then it moved onto him eating it.  Now all he wants is “nandy” off the tree.  Way to think that one through, huh.

Here are a few of the more questionable shots.

Sit still, you guys are crazy!

Oh wait, candy, of course I'll sit still for candy.

Ha ha, fooled you, back to being crazy, must be all the sugar!

It was a simple trip to Target...

I’ve known for awhile that Mason is getting to the age where everything needs to be done his way and he needs to show his independence.  Even though I have known this was coming, even witnessed it on occasion, I’m pretty sure I had decided to ignore the fact that he is becoming his own person, as I am sure a lot of mothers do.  Well it blew up in my face today, in public, Target to be exact. 

It was just a spur of the moment trip to grab diapers; look around, more of a wasting time adventure than anything really. The time change had thrown Mason off of his schedule and we were trying to delay bedtime just a little (wait, could that have been mistake number one?).  As we were walking in Mason yells, “Cart!” as he always does and we asked him if he wanted to ride in the cart, to which he replied, “NO!” as he always does.  We decided (stupidly) to let him walk as long as he held a hand. 

He listens for a while, probably just buttering us up for his master plan.  It starts with him pushing the cart.  At barely 32” tall he needs a little help with this so I had my hand along the top bar while he pushed from down below.  He looks up and says, “Excuse me, Excuse me” and pulls my arms off the cart.  Scott steers the cart from the side, so a melt-down is avoided.  Then our clever little man decides to ditch the cart, besides who needs that slowing you down anyway? 

He takes off into the clothing section, neither Scott or I notice for a second, which really points out what superb parenting skills we have.  Scott runs after him and decides to hold him, or try to.  A wiggling, yelling, grunting match ensues, which is embarrassing and frustrating.  We know that Mason just wants to walk, but we also want to leave with the same number of people that we came with. 

We go through the store and more of the same continues to happen. Cut to us standing in line.  I am so frustrated and worn down I can’t stop laughing which is only cheering Mason on. He makes a run for the Mr. Clean floor cleaner they have by the checkout, yelling, “Juice, Juice!”  I scoop him up and he starts to kick, yell, and get red in the face, the whole nine yards.  People begin to stare, which makes my face turn red; I’m sure we looked like quite the pair.  Scott gives me the keys and stays behind to pay.  I tote a screaming Mason out to the car and try to put him in his car seat, notice I said try.  He begins to go into stiff body mode; every kid has one, you know, where all of their little muscles tense up and no matter how much you can bench press it is nearly impossible to get them back into a seated position. 

Finally I succeed, but now he is sitting in the back seat completely silent the entire ride home.  Scott asks him if he is mad at Mommy and he says, “mmm, hmm”.  Never mind that this is what he says in reply to any yes or no question (the other day I asked him if he was covered in poop and he said, “mmm, hmm”)  I am still heartbroken.  I know this was only the beginning and it makes me dread the toddler years, maybe I’ll start shopping online!

New Rules of the Universe

There are a few things that I am beginning to learn are just rules of the universe, they cannot be avoided and cannot be changed. 

1. When you change your child's diaper and are in a hurry to get out of the door, they will immediately poop in the fresh one.

2. If you clean a window or glass door, your child will immediately go lick it.

3. If food is a. expensive b. healthy or c. took you a long time to make, your child will throw it on the floor (or on you).

4. If food is a. cheap b. crap or c. you threw it together in 2 minutes, they will act like it is the best thing they have ever eaten.

5. If you expect your child to behave they will throw a fit, if you think they will throw a fit, they will be a perfect angel.

6. You child will have a meltdown in the middle of the grocery store (multiple times).

7. As above mentioned meltdown is taking place a snooty older woman will come by and either give you a condescending look or completely horrible parenting advice.

8. All of the childproofing materials in the world are not enough to stop a clever toddler.

9. Autumn mix candy corn must be consumed by the bag full, there is absolutely no way to resist its powers (or is this just me?).

Genius? I think so!

My little helper!

A few times in my life I have had some really great ideas; marrying Scott, becoming a stay at home mom and joining my mom’s group are all ones that really stand out.  Now I am sure I have had my greatest mom idea ever!  I have talked before about our struggle to find things that Mason will eat (as any parents of toddlers do) and that I came up with the great idea to let him dip pretty much anything he wants in ketchup.  This worked wonders and Mason has been eating pretty well, even branching out to a few meals without slathering food in ketchup! 

I wasn’t really thrilled with the fact that ketchup has high fructose corn syrup; something my husband thinks I worry about too much.  This has even become a joke when we go grocery shopping, he will pick up something and say, “Oh no! High fructose corn syrup, guess we can’t eat that,” sarcasm all over the place.  So to get rid of the ketchup and still have a happy eater I have come up with THE BEST IDEA EVER!  It’s probably been done, maybe even by some of you, but it just occurred to me and I love it!  Replace the ketchup with baby food!! Simple, yes. Effective, so far.  I have begun replacing ketchup with things like pureed sweet potatoes, bananas, apricots with mixed fruit and carrots.  He loves the dipping so much I don’t even think he realizes there was a change.  This allows him to get extra fruit and veggies while still eating what I make for him. 

It has become extremely messy, the other day he even said, “Mmm, drink” and picked up the baby food container and drank the food out of it, but I say so what.  As long as he will eat up those veggies and fruits I am all for it!  I’m sure a lot of you were so excited to be done buying baby food as soon as you could, I was there too!  I am definitely not saying this is replacing table food in any way for Mason, it is simple an alternative to the ketchup he was becoming all too familiar with. 

Here’s a great recipe that Mason loved to dip in bananas:

Oatmeal Pancakes:

• 1 cup fat free milk
• 3/4 cup quick oats
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 4 large egg whites
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Start by heating the milk to very warm, but not boiling.  Pour the milk over the oatmeal in a small bowl and let sit.  Whip egg whites with an electric beater until stiff peaks form.  In the meantime, combine all remaining dry ingredients.  Stir up oatmeal/milk mixture and add to dry ingredients.  Once the egg whites are stiff fold them very carefully into the other batter, making sure not to overmix.  Cook 1/3 of a cup at a time on a greased griddle.  These will be very fluffy, but they won't produce bubbles like other pancakes, so be careful not to over brown them. 

 

Projects, Painting, and Playing: It’s hard to multitask

It has been a busy few weeks in the Jowers’ household.  I had to quickly come up with an internship that would allow me to stay at home and also allow me to graduate on time.  This was rather stressful but after some frantic searching I found an online magazine that needed an Associate Style Editor, what a relief.  We also decided it was time to remove the watered down Pepto Bismol paint from our bathrooms and spare room, it was just too hideous.  With all of this adult activity going on I found it hard to remember to stop and take time for Mason who showed his displeasure with all of the activity by climbing on chairs, screaming at the top of his lungs, and even hitting himself.  Scott and I tried to distract Mason from the unsafe and ear splitting activities he was fond of by setting up toys, getting paper and pencils to color, or even turning on the T.V. (gasp, I know)! 

None of our distraction tactics worked and I quickly realized I just needed to play with my son; put down the work that could wait until after he went to bed, stop stalking people on Facebook, and leave the kitchen to be cleaned later.  I took Mason to the park, went on a walk in his wagon, and set up a race track for his cars.  He loves the park (of course) and really likes riding in his wagon.  The cars are a new obsession for him and we spent 25 minutes last night driving them on our side table, he was in Heaven.  Today we didn’t turn on the TV once, spent most of our day upstairs in his room playing, and had the best day I can remember!  I just need to take that time out to remember what my job is, mom to Mason first, student and intern second.  It is going to be a long three months until graduation, but who needs sleep anyway? 

Hello… Hello… Can Anyone Hear Me?

For those of you that know me (let’s face it this blog is small, you all know me) it is a well known fact that I like to talk.  As Mason begins to come into his own, and by own I mean attitude, it is becoming more and more apparent that I will soon be talking completely to myself.  Living in a household with two males is hard enough, pee in places pee shouldn’t be, sports all the time, and pizza as the preferred food choice, now apparently I have to deal with selective hearing.  I thought I had at least until Mason was a young adult to talk his ear off while he listened contently to everything I said, not! I can say, “Mason, Mason, hey buddy, Mason” over and over again until I am blue in the face and the child will not even acknowledge that I am making a sound.  It appears that he only can hear me when I say, “Snack, Walk, or Bye-Bye”. 

This would be hard enough to deal with if I still had a husband that listened to my every word, yeah right!  There are days where I can tell Scott a funny story about something that happened at the park or something cute that Mason did and he will look over and say “Sure that sounds fine”, believe me that is not the appropriate response.  A particularly disturbing incident happened one day after he came home from work.  To be fair, he works very hard and I understand he wants a few minutes to relax in front of the T.V., but on this day it pretty much threw me over the edge.  I went outside to grill us a wonderful chicken supper and Mason thought it would be funny to lock the back patio door, something I didn’t know he could do.  I am standing outside with a plate of hot chicken in one hand and a half-full cup of marinade in the other saying “Scott, Scott, hey, open the door”.  He doesn’t even move his eyes away from ESPN.  I should note the window was open and I was yelling rather loudly, I’m pretty sure they neighbors even felt sorry for me.  I began to bang my head against the door, not in angst but in an effort to get him to remember I was alive.  Mason was standing at the backdoor this entire time looking at me and laughing, I am convinced he knew exactly what he had done, probably revenge for the diaper change I had just subjected him to. 

Finally Scott looks up and says “Oh, do you need a hand”.  Yeah, I could have used a hand five minutes ago when I started yelling at him in the first place.  He thought I was yelling “Stop, Stop” to Mason instead of screaming “Scott, Scott” at the top of my lungs.  My biggest question, shouldn’t have five minutes of yelling “Stop” at Mason elicited a response as well?  It looks as if this is only going to be a growing problem in the Jowers household, my only defense will be to keep a spare set of keys on me at all times and talk to any available adult that shows interest J

Living Life with the World’s Smallest Food Critic

I have never claimed to be a great cook, I’m moderate to good on my best days, and I am the first to admit I have had some epic failures in the kitchen. One dish that comes to mind as completely atrocious is spaghetti pizza, pasta on top of crescent roll dough; it was mushy, heavy, and disgusting. I have learned from my mistakes in the past few years and I have a recipe box filled with several standby’s that get us through weekly dinners. Occasionally though I like to branch out, especially now that we are eating healthier and Mason eats most everything that we do. With that said, almost everything I have made the child has ended up on the floor, in my face, or a delightful combination of the two at one time or another. Something that he loves one day is like kryptonite the next; he can even turn on me in the middle of the meal.

A few weeks back we had a few fresh strawberries left in the fridge and I thought, why not make a fresh strawberry puree and put it into homemade pancake batter. It was great, just enough strawberry flavor, light, and fluffy (those were my thoughts at least). Mason threw them on the floor after one pretend bite and after a 15 minute long battle he ended up eating a bowl of cold peas, for breakfast. For supper last night I wanted to try a Middle Eastern dish called Falafel which you put into pita pockets. It is an aromatic combination of chick peas, garlic, cumin, steamed broccoli, and olive oil all ground up into a paste and formed into little patties that I baked in the oven. We then put them into our whole wheat pitas, topped with a Greek yogurt cucumber sauce and dug in, or I did at least. Mason actually put up a good effort, eating an entire Falafel patty, but it was my husband that this time acted like the child. One tiny bite into the pita (not even breaking into the Falafel) and he tapped out. He gave me a look and I knew I would be fixing him a pizza, just my luck.

I have had a breakthrough on the Mason front; I’ve realized as long as the child can dip his food in something, anything really, he will eat it. I’ve gave him nectarines dipped in plain yogurt, bread dipped in applesauce, broccoli dipped in homemade cheese sauce, and of course the go to for all children, hot dogs dipped in ketchup. As long as he can “dip it dip it” as he likes to say, he will clean his plate. I know that I have many years of uphill battles ahead of me and if I can at least get the food under control I might have a fighting chance!

Does this baby make me look fat?

Pictures from before and after pregnancy

Let me just start out by saying that I had been on a weight gaining trend for about 4 months before I got pregnant, nothing major, just a few pounds that I could have easily lost. As soon as I found out I was expecting all hell seemed to break loose. For some reason I got it in my head that since this is the first and only time I am planning on being pregnant (more on that later) I would go all out and eat whatever and whenever I wanted. As you can tell this is going to lead me down a very bad road. By the time I was about 15 weeks along I had already gained quite a few pounds, due mostly to what I would like to call “2nd breakfast”. I would wake up in the morning, usually eat the biggest bowl of cereal ever seen, and then two to three hours later eat again, usually a pop tart or some other disgusting sugar filled food. All through this pregnancy my OB never once said, “Hey Sarah, why don’t you lay off the food for a little while, you fatty”, I really think that might have helped, or I would have eaten her, either way someone should have said something.

I forget how far along I was but my husband went with me to one of my checkups and of course they had to check my weight, as they did with every appointment. He chose this day to stand right next to me and look at the scale, something I have never been comfortable with. This is where he coined the term “triple-deuce”, of course referring to my weight. After I cried for 30 minutes in the parking lot of the hospital and told him what a horrible husband he was, I got over it and laughed along with him. If only I had known that “triple-deuce” would soon be a distant memory, yes that’s right, I was still gaining what seemed like a pound a day. To get me through without becoming clinically depressed I kept thinking, “oh it’s not a problem, I’ll just work out after I give birth”, if only I had thought about the little problem of actually having a BABY to take care of night and day!

After wonderful Mason Scott was born on January 4th, 2009 I was what dr.’s like to refer to as morbidly obese, and still nothing was said to me about getting my weight down or starting a healthy eating program, way to drop the ball Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton. In the first few months I pretty much never left the house, embarrassed because I was the size of a Mack Truck. Around March or April I began to walk occasionally, very occasionally, and when I could get away I would head to the gym. This was slowly taking off the weight and by May I am happy to report that I was far away from the “triple-deuce” label that had started to haunt me, but I still had a long way to go.

In August of 2009 I joined 24 Hour Fitness and I believe it is the best decision I ever could have made in regards to my health. They have a wonderful childcare center, great hours, and good equipment. Now through the last year of hard work, some dieting (no more 2nd breakfasts for me!), and determination I have lost 95 pounds and over 13% body fat. If just one person can benefit from my experience it was worth it, although I would never go through it again!

Introduction

This is my first official post of my first ever blog!  This is an exciting new adventure that I wanted to start based on all of the funny and exciting stories I have on a daily basis.  A majority of people label being a stay at home mom "SAHM" an easy job, or not even a job at all; but within the last 19 months I have worked harder than ever before being in charge of this little ball of energy, Mason Scott.  I am truly blessed to have been given the opportunity to stay at home with him for the first few years of his life and I truly hope to remain at home for a while.  With this  new chapter has come adjustments in my relationshipp with my darling husband, adjustments in my spending patterns, and in my responsibilities. 

The main goal I want to accomplish with this blog is to give insight into what every SAHM is going through as well as share a few of the mistakes and adventures that I encounter every day.  In fact, as I write this Mason has colored his entire shirt pink with highlighter and is moving on to his hair :) I guess this post is done for now, more to come soon!