Harper's 3rd Birthday Interview

Today is Harper's big day, as of 5:15 a.m., but the celebration has been going on for about 24 hours, now. It is my personal opinion that birthdays for kids are such a big deal - especially once they 'get' it - that there's no way all the fun can/should be packed into one day. Also, there's the matter of nap time. An entire 2 or 3 hours of precious hooting/hollering time lost to sleep. That will not do.

So we decorated a vanilla cake last night and tonight we'll have a chocolate.

Haters gonna hate.

Anyway, I love the interview idea. I'm going to ask the same questions every year on her birthday. However, she was particularly amenable yesterday and anyone with a 2/3 y/o knows you don't scoff at a good toddler mood. . .

Me:  Harper, since tomorrow is your birthday, I'm going to interview you.

Harper: Huh? Surprise!

How old are you? I'm two years old.

Right. Tomorrow, you'll be three years old.

Yeah. I'm three years old.

Who is your best friend? I don't know. 

What is your favorite thing to do? Nope. Not yet.

What's your favorite color? Purple...Pink!

What's your favorite food? Pink cake!

What is your favorite thing to do with your family? 1,2,3 families! Harper counts them all! ((ok..))

What is your favorite toy? Henry's squishy ball.

What do you want to be when you grow up? dinosaur hunter

What makes you happy? smiling

What makes you sad? happy

What is your favorite TV show? Bubble Guppies

What is your favorite book? 1 color for A,B,C Books or big heavy blue book (Berenstain Bears compilation) I have no idea about the former. I'm pretty sure it means coloring books with words. ..but these are totally not her favorite. Berenstain, yes. Huge fav.

((pause for first lengthy potty emergency/disaster..the details of which I do not care to retain))

Continued bath-side:

What do you like to learn about? Uhh.. Harper doesn't know. Pictures. Mommy, find the missing pictures to go in the hat tree. ((?))

What is the best part of your birthday? Pink cake!! Sooo ("so" is her new conjunction of choice and begins almost every sentence with it)...next, we decorate a crown!

Where do you like to go? The car!! 

             Where do you like to go in the car? The red light stops the car. Daddy in the car! Let's go get 
him!

What is your favorite treat? Chocolate!

What do you think about at night before you fall asleep? Bed.

What famous person would you like to meet? Grandma!

What do you want for your birthday? Candles and some eggs!

What's your favorite thing about your birthday? Huh. The cake.

Momma, more questions?


Before I can think of one. . . .

BONUS ALERT.

Harper begins making up her own. I type furiously.

What do in car? Mommy, Henry, Daddy, Harper.

What's Harper's brother's name? Henry!

Are you a boy or a girl? Girl! I'm a girl, Mom!

What does Harper do? Spinning in a pink dress.

What's the best color? Pink. 


Happy Birthday, sweet girl.

Happy Birthday, Momma!

I've heard just about enough.

This camel's back is getting weak. 

In three weeks, we're moving back to our hometown. 

I am a whirling dervish of packing and sorting and throwing away the last four years of our life. 

I can not wait to get back to Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Did you just raise an eyebrow?

It is home to Fort Bragg - you know.. where the men and women who protect your freedom work and train and live and have families.  You may have heard of it. 

You may have a story of a night you spent there. 

And if you did, or your grandma's cat's hamster's turtle's llama spent a night there, as sure as you have a mouth to spew it from, I'm sure you have an opinion.

But what, on Earth, makes you think it's a good idea to insult the city where I was born? Where my family, and my husband's family, have chosen to live for generations?

Maybe it would be a better idea for you to ask me about it, instead. 

And another thing:

Those of you who are from Fayetteville and moved off someplace and have gotten too big for your britches and run it down every chance you get? ..You're from there, too. For shame.

Top of the Muffin to ya - Weeks 4 & 5

Over the last two weeks, I've lost 2 lbs. Which is painfully slow, but exactly how it should be because I'm still (guys and gals not of the parent persuasion, look away now) breastfeeding.

I'm currently on the Don't Eat So Damn Much diet. Three meals. No snacks. Water. Duh.

Our whole house has had the plague, so running was put on the back burner in favor of not publicly coughing up a lung on a busy street corner.

However, it seems that simply keeping the house 'show-ready' with two babies is enough to have me doing the sleepy jerk by 10 p.m. every night.

Future Muffin posts may address the loathing I feel for the namers of 'salads' such as Strawberry Pretzel, Taffy Apple and Ambrosia. Yum. and.. dammit. Call it what it is. The big ass recipe.
 
And also.. these people who "forget to eat." Evolutionarily flawed or....advanced?

Off to scrub something before my psychotic break open house on Sunday.

Don't forget to check out Laura at Navigating the Mothership, Amanda at The Sassy Southern Belle and the baby brain!

stoicism.

Henry has it.

Just kidding.

Harper's literal life.

Harper: Mother (that's what she's been calling me since we got a fresh copy of her favorite scratch and sniff book, Little Bunny Follows His Nose. it gets a laugh. she persists.), I want to pick a bouquet (thank you, Fancy Nancy).

Me: Ok. Front yard or back?

Harper: Both!

((frenzied running about. choosing of azalea sprigs. occasional falling. whining. laughing. bee spotting. multiple "unexpected" presentations of flowers: "Close yo eyess, Momma. Supwise!! Ok. Now you do it. I cwose my eyes."))

Me: Harp, that is an excellent bouquet. Let's take your picture with it!

Harper: (always game for a photo. always.) Ohhhhkaaaay!!

Me: Ok. Hold your flowers up!

Top of the Muffin, to ya! Week 3

All Hell broke loose this week. . . 

Harper got sick on Monday - one of those feverish sniffle things. Where she'd wake up multiple times in the middle of the night, losing her marbles, because she couldn't breathe through her nose or. . . her throat hurt. . . or something. Coming from a, well, dramatic child who - just last night - flung herself on the floor and cried because one of her blackberries fell on the floor and expelled some blackberry juice. "There is gore! Please help!" You can imagine how the sniffles have the potential to be world-ending.

Henry started teething HARDCORE on Monday. I haven't put down the 17 lb baby since. Yep. Holding him now. He's kicked the computer off my lap twice.

I'm also currently holding a microphone and singing "The Farmer in the Dell" repeatedly, but that's neither here nor there. Especially since Harper continues to request "Lub Chack baby" but God, I hate the B-52s.

Anyway.

I was up forty jillion times every night.

Damn, I was tired. And it was cold this week!

One morning at 6:00 when Harper was up for the day and Henry was exhausted but. . . up, and Brandon suggested that I go for a run that night, I very nearly pulled a 'Harper' myself.

When Brandon really would get home from work, all I'd want to do is just. . . .sit down, but it's when we'd start working on the house. Because it's going on the market. In a week.

And don't even get me started on Easter lunch and subsequent leftovers. . . 

Excuses.

They'll always be there if I want to use them.

So I buckled down in other ways: I drank a ton of water and just tried to not make terrible decisions until I could come up for air.

And I have.

Harper slept through the night last night. Henry only woke twice.

Verdict: Down 2 lbs. for a total of 5. 

Don't forget to check out Laura at Navigating the Mothership for Fitness Friday and Amanda at The Sassy Southern Belle!

Top of the Muffin, to ya! - Week 2

This post comes to you from the couch portion of the couch to 5k, to which I stagger through the door, heaving and fall.

I kid. It's not that bad. Easy and fun, really.

Of course, it's only day 2. So there's that.

And make no mistake..

I'm that girl. The one you drive by and suck in a little air through your teeth, maybe wince, and shake your head. "Poor thing." I would look no less pathetic if I were wearing high-waisted acid wash jeans and sporting a fanny pack.

Haters.

..Really though. You know how some people don't dress for the gym? They just go and run on the treadmill in like...khakis or cords? That makes me giggle every time.

So.

This week, I focused on making small changes in addition to beginning a standard C25k program.

I quit 'stress eating.' This is where you might roll your eyes and if I see you do it, I will send Harper over to poke them out: Being with a toddler all day can be stressful when she's having a bad day. Stressful. Enough to go and...eat something. Someone hold me.

I quit sugary carbonated beverages. And for Pete's sake - no more big glasses of juice.

I quit the crockpot. (Y'all..seriously. Don't flood me with Pinterest 'healthy' crock pot recipes. I will pin the tail on that donkey eventually, but right now, nothing good (for me) comes out of that thing. Precisely because I want to eat the whole damn thing.)

I quit the Easter candy. I shake my head that I even have to write this.

I quit making cookies after dinner.

One rave this week - 

Cooookie. ..j/k. My humor? Brought to you by a 2 year old.

Dunkin' Donuts Egg White Flatbread. The veggie and turkey sausage options are both spot on. 

Verdict:

Down 3lbs.

Please, please check on Laura at Navigating the Mothership - she's so much healthier than I. And probably doesn't eat Dunkin' Donuts anything. And Sassy Southern Belle? How'd you do this week?