Kids Are So Innocent

This was a fun little drawing that my five-year-old made for me of our small family. She was very cute and told me that it says, "Mom, Bella and Dad." I had to point out that, "Umm, I think that says 'bab', honey." She looked at it and giggled. In addition to "bab", there are a ton of things about this picture that would make one smile: the flower being bigger than the child, the fact that my hair looks like gigantic ears, that there is no way our bodies could possibly fit in the tiny house, etc. But the funniest part? Dad, on the far right, is looking a little, well, how to put this lightly? Phallic...

Happy Friday!

My 4-Year-Old Teenager

My Bella.

What a handful that girl is. She is just the cutest thing in the world - for the most part. Last night? Not so much.

While Daddy was watching football, Bella and I were upstairs hanging out in the master bedroom. One too many times Bella "accidentally" kicked me. When I had reached my limit, I sent her to her room. No yelling, just a firm, "Bella, you need to go to your room."

As she was walking away with her head down and her feet stomping, she said, "I wish I didn't live in this house!"

My ears must have deceived me. Little girls don't say that! This is teenager crap. I should have eight more years to prepare for that kind of stuff! What could I have mistaken her sentence for? "I wish I didn't lick a mouse"? That was more feasible since kids do weird things. But I knew I hadn't misheard.

I called Bella back into my room and said, "Bella, what did you say?"


Without an ounce of fear or humility, Bella once again repeated, "I wish I didn't live in this house."

The mix of anger and hurt were competing within me. I couldn't very well cry in front of her, so I told her to go back to her room and pack up her things if she wanted to live somewhere else. To my surprise, she walked away without a fuss. After a couple of minutes, I walked into her room to find her laying on her bed. I repeated that she needed to find another place to live if she didn't want to live in my house. She still wasn't scared or sorry. I told her to tell her dad she was leaving.


At this point, Bella knew that I meant business. As she was walking down the stairs, she started crying saying that she didn't want to leave. After a talking to from her dad, she apologized and suddenly became my precious little child again.


This was all in a span of 20 minutes. She is only four. Hot damn, being a parent is hard.

Attention Working and Writing Mothers: How Do You Do It?

I want to write, I really do, but between my 8-5 job, my quest to the land of Skinnybitchdom, house chores, and spending time with the fam, I find that writing is the last thing I have time for. I know I am not the only working mom out there that likes to write, so how do you do it? Here is a breakdown of my Monday through Friday schedule:

6:00-7:20 Wake up, get myself ready and my daughter ready (if it is a running day, Tuesdays and Thursdays, then I wake up at 4:45 am then come home and shower).
7:45 Drop Bella off at daycare.
8:00-5:00 I am at work. Sometime during my day at work, I find the time to blog a little bit. 
5:15 Pick Bella up from daycare.
5:30 Go to the gym (on Tuesdays I take Bella to gymnastics at 5:45). By the way, the Kindle was made for the gym! I love it - no clunky book to mess with, no page turning. Brilliant!
7:00-7:20 Arrive home.
7:30 Eat dinner.
8:00 Give Bella a bath.
8:30-8:45 I shower.
9:15ish-10:00 or 11:00 Watch TV with John while doing laundry.
10:00-11:00 Get to bed.

Seriously, how do you working mothers do it?! 

By the time the weekend arrives, all I want to do is chill on Saturdays. As you can see from my weekday schedule, there isn't much Bella time and I make up for that on the weekends. Since I do little to no cleaning during the weekdays, Sunday is my big house chores day. I am sure I could squeeze some writing time somewhere on Saturday or Sunday, but it is difficult.

I think that a lot of it has to do with how passionate one is with their current project; the more you are into something, the more time you find to do it. I have started reading Cassette from My Ex, which is a compilation of stories about past, real-life relationships in which a mixtape was produced.

Of course I had to go check it out! I did, after all, write a book about just this subject matter (which, if you are new to my blog, you can read the query here). I have to say that I love the book so far. A lot of the songs aren't ones that I am horribly familiar with (apparently mixtapes were more common among the indie rock junkies), but I can still relate to every single one of the stories I have read so far. 

I haven't given up on Nori and Mason's story, so I got Cassette from My Ex in hopes that it would ignite another spark in me to rewrite my book. I think I may have reached that point. Stay tuned!

Proud New Owner Of...

That's right! I got a Kindle for Mother's Day for being such an awesome mama! I was so excited that I cried! Actual tears of joy streaming down my face. I was a bit embarrassed by my reaction because I hate to seem so materialistic! But John did really good this year.

John knew I was interested in a Kindle after a co-worker brought hers in and I fell in love with it. Then I told him about how I was juggling a hardcopy of the The Luxe, by Anna Godbersen, on the elliptical at the gym, and a girl got on a machine next to me, placed her super slim Kindle on the machine and put her hands on the handles and started booking it on the machine. Meanwhile, I am only using my legs to power the machine because my hands were busy holding this huge (433 pages to be exact!) book open. I knew right then and there that I would need to invest in some kind of a digital reader if I was planning on continuing my quest to be a gym rat.

So thank you to John for always making Mother's Day so special! Hmm, now how am I supposed to top this on Father's Day?

And thank you to my absolutely gorgeous little girl, Bella! Because without her existence, I wouldn't have been one of the lucky celebrated people yesterday.

And the Extra-Curriculars Have Begun!

Last Monday, I took my daughter to a trial class at a kid's gymnastics place. It started out pretty rough. Mama had to run the warm-up lap with the rest of the 4-year-olds because Bella was too timid to jump into the class. I could hear the snickers of the other parents who were posted up on the viewing deck.

Luckily, Bella warmed up and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of class. I signed her up right away! It is a weekly class held on Mondays. I was bummed becaused Mondays are usually my good gym days. But ultimately, this works out:

5:00 Off work (HALLELUJAH!)
5:10 Pick Bella up
5:30 Go to gym and do 45 minutes of cardio
6:15 Leave gym and head to gymnastics
6:30 Arrive at gymnastics right on time because Mommy didn't allot for us to dilly dally.
6:31 Mommy perfectly sitting on a bench, writing her second book feverishly for 45 uninterrupted minutes
7:15 Leave gymnastics for home!

I haven't been doing much writing lately. Life just gets in the way. I have been working on my second book (which I have temporarily titled America's Match-Up) for over six months now and am only 9,000 words in. I am really excited about being able to pick up on book two because I really didn't think I could come up with a better story idea than Mix Tape, but I am really starting to fall in love with the way the story is progressing in my head for America's Match-Up.

That's it for now. See you tomorrow for Weigh-In Wednesdays! Oh mama is nervous about tomorrow's weigh-in (types the bad dieter as she eats a McDonald's cheeseburger). Not looking good. But I have managed to stay off the scale this entire week (I am an obsessive weigherer - real word? No? Should be). Unfortunately, I have also managed to stay out of the gym, except for Sunday. My pecs, triceps and shoulders are still screaming in pain! 

Sleep. Love Sleep.

When I was a teenager, once upon a hell of a long time ago, I remember running on a few hours of sleep a night, sometimes only taking a quick power nap. Nothing was more important than hanging out with friends and house parties. Go out Friday night until the wee hours of the morning (seriously, like 3:00 AM - the perils of my push-over of a single mom. SORRY, Mom!) and then waking up at like 8:00 to go to my part time job for eight hours on Saturday. Didn't need coffee, just my young age to keep me going all day.


Since becoming a mother in 2005, I have come to appreciate sleep.


If I don't get enough sleep during the weekdays, my mornings are pretty interesting. Here are some reasons that I need to get eight hours of sleep a night:


1.) I wake up resentful of the person sleeping in next to me because he has a day off. As a result, I make as much noise as possible to wake him. (Hey, if I can't sleep in, NO ONE can!)


2.) It is no fun putting your child's bubble gum flavored toothpaste on your toothbrush only to realize it a moment after it enters your mouth.


3.) I am an adult now; therefore, I shouldn't get my left hand and my right hand confused, resulting in putting a sippy cup full of milk in my mouth instead of the cup of coffee I am holding in the other hand.


4.) Slippers are not appropriate to wear to work.


5.) It is illegal for your child not be buckled in while driving. (Thank goodness I have a responsible 3-year-old who is more alert than Mommy and will scream, "I'm not buckled in, Mom!")


6.) Bad idea to whiz past your child's daycare, because frankly, she is too young to be put to work at the office. (Again, thank goodness for my child who pipes up to say, "I don't see my school, Mom." Making it possible for me to pull a quick, and illegal, U-Turn.


Man, Sleeping Beauty didn't know how good she had it. Personally, knowing what I know now, I would've smacked Prince Charming across the head for waking me.