Happy New Year!

I am not usually one for New Year's resolutions...I always find myself making them with the best intentions only to break them by the time spring rolls around.  However, I am determined to do a better job of blogging about life.  I originally used this blog as a personal diary/therapist.  I poured my heart out about infertility, IVF, and other ramblings and the blogging world listened silently (just the way I like it:-)  However, I have come to realize that as soon as things in life got "better" i.e. we had a beautiful baby boy, moved back to Denver, and went about living life as parents, I tossed my therapy sessions to the curb.  I WAS CURED!  Much like we find ourselves praying the most when we "need" something, I found myself blogging the most when I knew I needed it.  But in the last six months, I found myself needing something I could not label. I felt uneasy, unsure, and at time lacking confidence.  Did I need a job? Check.  I'm now nannying for two sweet girls and have a little photography business on the side.  This did alleviate that guilty feeling we stay-at-home mothers feel about buying a Starbucks only to feel undeserving of it.  I hate that feeling!  But I needed something else.  Exercise?  Definitely.  I'm still working on that one, but I have been getting up early to get in a quick 30 minute work out before starting my day.  And I do feel better when I do that.  The more and more I have thought about this, it has become clear that I miss blogging.  It's good for me.  Life becomes funny when I talk about it/write about it, even if it wasn't funny when it happened.  I start to take myself too seriously when I don't blog.  So...

Dear Diary,
I resolve to blog routinely about the mundane events in my daily life.  I resolve to find the humor in the every day and to learn from it.  So here it goes!

I'll start with this quick tid bit.  Charlie had his first bout of stomach flu this past weekend.  It started at 11:00pm.  Rick and I were watching a movie (5 Year Engagement which I highly recommend!)  Suddenly we heard him cry.  It wasn't that whimper of a child who wakes up and cries himself softly back to sleep.  This was the ear piercing cry of pain.  We checked the monitor to find Charlie sitting in his crib playing with his pacifier.  At least that's what we thought...  I ran upstairs to find he was in fact puking all over himself with his hands reaching into his mouth to remove the puke.  I was instantly terrified.  Molly and I have discussed our fear of this moment at length.  We have a few friends who's children have had their first stomach bugs and we knew it was bound to happen, but we were both freaked out by the proposition.  What do you do?  How do you get through it?  Will we puke when we see them puke?  Can they puke in a toilet?  Well, all of these questions were answered that night.  No, they cannot puke in a toilet.  No, you will not puke when they do, although for days afterward my mouth watered reliving the whole thing.  I think the worst part is that a 17 month old does not understand what is happening.  One second you're sleeping and the next there is something in your mouth that has every intention of coming out.  Charlie could not figure out how to get through it without using his hands as shovels. And this is how I ended up with my son's puke in my mouth.  I'll let you take a moment to let that register.  Yep.  It happened.  If I have one piece of advice for the mother of a puking child it would be, breathe through your nose and keep your mouth shut.  I think this was the third or four time Charlie puked that night.  By then Rick and I had devised some sort of semblance of a plan.  We set up shop on our bed (covered in towels).  When Charlie puked we would lean him over a towel so we could puke into it, then we'd change the towel and wait for the next bout.  Unfortunately, this time Charlie used his shovel hands successfully only to flail his arm over his head, his hand landing precisely in my mouth, as if spoon feeding me a delicious meal.  I'm still in shock over it.  And yet, the power of motherhood allowed me to not only survive it, but to continue holding my sick son throughout the night, covered in puke with little but a paper towel to wipe my face.  I'm happy we have that first stomach bug incident past us.  Charlie was a trooper.  12 hours later he was nearly good as new.  I can't say the same for his parents!

Happy New Year!