A Very Merry Un-Birthday

To Me!!

I was born at 7 minutes to 11 on Christmas morning. I swear I was. The fact that my most favorite treat ever is a coke Slurpee found only at 7-11 is not lost on me. I'm the oldest of 5 kids and was my parents joint Christmas gift on the first Christmas they were married.

When I turned one they realized how royally jack-up my birthday was bound to be as I got older and never truly got to have my own special day. So instead of celebrating my 1st birthday, they waited. Beginning that very first year, I celebrated my birthday on April 6th. In what can only be considered Divine Inspiration, my parents decided that since we celebrate Jesus' birth on Christmas that I could celebrate mine on what is truly his birthday, April 6th.

I LOVE it! I love that on my "real" birthday I get to be with my family and have yummy food and now that I'm older I get to watch my kids experience the "Christmas Magic". It's always a wonderful day. Then, a few months later, I get to have my own special day and do fun things all over again. It's a total win-win.

This is all I've known. I've never NOT celebrated my birthday on April 6th. To me, it's as much my birthday as the day I was born. So it's always really bugged me when my friends (or usually the guy I was dating) would say "I'm not celebrating your birthday because it's not really your birthday." Then Christmas time would come around and it was always "I'm not celebrating your birthday because you celebrate it in April." The meanies. Most of the time, though, I was spoiled on both my birthdays.

Since I never expected much for my birthday on Christmas, I was always so incredibly touched (beyond what words can even describe now) that my Grandma Brown would always give me a special birthday gift AND a Christmas gift in addition to whatever she gave me in April. It wasn't much, usually a book, but it told me that no matter what, she remembered me and I was important. (But that was a common thing when it came to my Grandma Brown. She always made you feel like her favorite.) My brother and sisters would also wake me up every Christmas morning by coming into my room and singing Happy Birthday to me. That was all the recognition my birthday ever got on Christmas but it was always enough.

At our family Christmas party, the year I turned 16, my parents brought out a decorated birthday cake for dessert. Everyone sang Happy Birthday to me and I was so surprised and touched that I cried.

Those things aside, if I didn't celebrate my birthday in April, I really wouldn't get to have a traditional birthday experience. So, especially as a kid, I've always loved celebrating my birthday at a different time. Growing up, it usually meant that I got to go shopping with my mom then we got to go out to dinner. When we all got older, we started gathering in the immediate family and all meeting up for our Birthday Dinner.

This year has been no different. Yesterday was April 6th and my birthday has been wonderful!

• First, Shane and I both took the week off from work. Not to celebrate my birthday but just to have a break. This alone was a gift. It's been so nice to slow down the pace and feel a bit rested and not so stressed out all the time. (Although, the thought of my inbox come Monday morning is starting to get to me. I'm going to pay for the PTO, I'm sure.)

• Second, Shane has gone out of his way to make me feel special. He brought me lunch, gave me red roses (I never get flowers.. ever), a coke Slurpee, and a Flip HD Video Camera! Uhm, hello. My name is SPOILED!

• Third, we got to go out to eat with my parents and my sisters which is always a good time.

• Fourth, Lilly gave me a very thoughtful gift. She knew I had lost my ring (my wedding ring replacement since the original doesn't fit) so she found one of her rings and put it in a box and wrapped it up and gave it to me. So sweet and thoughtful. I love that girl!

• Fifth, Shane is taking me out on a secret special date-night tomorrow. My parents offered to watch the kids (since they are the only ones I can leave Allie with at this age) so Shane is taking me out. BUT- I have no idea what we are doing. He won't tell me. Which is very different than in years past. I'm sure we'll do dinner and a movie but where we go will be a surprise. It's fun having something surprising to look forward to.

All-in-all... it has been a fabulous week. My family has made me feel special and loved. It was just what this tired, over-worked mommy's heart needed. So, I've gotta tell you... having two birthdays really is the only way to go. You might want to try it sometime.


Crystal
Be A Hero. Be An Organ Donor.

Don't Try This At Home

I've never had chicken fried steak before.

Is that weird?

Well, it sounded kinda good so I gave it a try. Cooked it up and sat the famile down to eat. And it wasn't so good. Shane loved it. Having served his mission in the South he likes fried food (is chicken fried steak even a southern dish??) And he gobbled it up gravy and all. And the gravy was the worst part! Ugh! It was so foul.

Shane is a fairly picky eater so I think its safe to assume that there wasn't anything wrong with my attempt at CFS for dinner. The problem is entirely with me. I couldn't stand the texture. Now that I'm thinking about it I am much more of a fan of breadcrumb or panko fried items vs flour fried.

Either way, I don't think I'll be cooking that again anytime soon. The thought alone makes me feel quesey (did I spell that right?).  But hey, at least it was gross enough to kill my appetite so I didn't starve when I didn't eat my dinner.

I Could Really Go For A Coke Slurpee

But I won't have one. I've been off caffine since last September in preparation for nursing Allie. Since I'm still pumping there won't be any hard stuff for me. I even looked up the caffine content of a slurpee online just to make sure I wasn't avoiding it needlessly.

But I seems to have an added benefit that I wasn't anticipating... weight loss. My entire pregnancy I gained 6 lbs. Pretty good considering Alice weighed just over 6lbs. At my 6 week follow-up appointment I was 20lbs under my starting weight. And it keeps coming off.

So while I may be so insanely tired I almost fall asleep standing up... it almost seems like a fair trade.

Yawn!

Allie is almost 4 months old and while it pains me to see her getting so big (its no secret that I love babies) I had hoped the trade off would be more sleep.

Lilly was such a difficult baby. Her horrible reflux and constant UTI's made her cry and scream all the time. And yet even she slept through the night by 15 weeks.

This little punk isn't having it. And it's not because she isn't a good sleeper, she is. The problem is she's hungry. One look at her thighs (that have more rolls than a cinnabun and man are they cute) and you know she isn't starving. But she wakes up just long enough to eat and falls right back asleep.

At first she was making progress. Bedtime with one last bottle at 7pm. I would feed her one more time before I went to bed about 10:30pm and then she wouldn't wake up till 4am. She would quickly eat and go back to sleep until 830am. It worked! I was anticipating dropping the late night feeding soon and then move on to dropping the 4am one after that.

Alice, however is not hving it. About a month ago she stopped stretching the time between meals during the night and now eats every 3 hrs, day and night.

I guess I could let her cry it out but since it doesn't seem lik a habbit I'm hesitant to try. If she truly is hungry momma is going to feed her. Since I pump breast milk and give it to her in bottles I wondered if givng her some formula at night would help. I hear it takes longer to digest formula so I mixed half and half... didn't help. I tried adding some rice cereal... didn't help.

And while there is no question I will take this little munchkin any way I can get her (have I mentioned how utterly in love with her I am?) I must say I miss the zzzzz's.

I'm Never Going To Catch Up

Several things have contributed to my sparse blog posting. Two of them happened about the same time. I changed my blog template - went a more professional/less personal route and I got a new phone. I used to blog from my phone all the time. It was so easy to type up something quick wherever I was. But when I switched it became impossible to type almost anything and the less personal template of my own blog added to my lack of interest.

There is much more to it. Sometimes I pull into myself and don't have much to say that I want others to hear. This was one of those times. I'm still there. If my blog was private for just me to read I would probably post more but if that's really what I wanted I could just open a word doc or better yet, get a piece of paper and a pen.

Since I still love my blog (it's about as creative as I get so it feels like a piece of art to me) I'm going to try much harder to post more. There are two things that I think will help with that. First, I changed my template. A personalized header is still missing but when time permits I will get one made. At least now its not a cookie cutter code. I picked the colors and the layout and that's enough to make it feel like mine again. Second, I got a new phone. One that should make mobile blogging much easier. In fact, I'm typing this up on my phone right now. Very cool actually.

I may or may not share the many opinions I have on a wide range of topics. I've become a bit more personal with my opinions as I've gotten older. But you will see more journaling and family stories as this is the stuff I want to remember. This is my golden time. When my kids are young and I'm still finding my way. Hopefully by writing down my experiences I can teach myself a thing or two when I come back and reread my memories. I hope you'll stick around for the journey.

And I definitely hope the next post will be in the very near future.