Tough love

Sydney LOVES giving hugs to Graham. And they always end up with Graham being knocked onto the floor :)

Best Kept Secret (or maybe it's a not-so-secret, secret)

I don't know why it hadn't dawned on me before, but I just realized that I could make my own baby oatmeal. I made baby food for Sydney when she was this age but I only made homemade fruits and veggies for her. I bought rice and oatmeal cereal from the store. I never realized I could make oatmeal and rice cereal for her. Maybe since there was no information about it on Babycenter.com, I thought it wasn't possible?? haha I don't know.

Anyways, I was feeding Graham his very first bowl of oatmeal cereal (Gerber brand, from the store) when I thought to myself, "there's no way this has much nutritional content. There has to be a way I can make real oatmeal for him".

I searched online and finally found a website that taught me how to make it. Who knew?!! I seriously can't believe I didn't know this. And I couldn't believe how easy it was. All you do is put a few cups of steel cut or rolled oats into a food processor and grind them down to a fine powder and cook about 1/4 cup over the stove top with 1 cup of water for about 8 min.

Making oatmeal cereal at home is much, much more nutritional PLUS it's a small fraction of what the boxes of oatmeal cereal cost at Target. Maybe it's a sign of the season of life I'm in, but finding this out made my month!! Does that mean I'm lame? I think that might make me pretty lame.... Oh, well.

Anyway, on to some pictures of my little boyfriend.



I really don't know how so much preciousness can exist in one tiny, little boy :)

This is hard

I wish there was a better way to prepare for motherhood.

I'm the oldest of four children. I've been babysitting since age 11 and I worked in a church day care during the summer in high school. I've taken child development classes and have read many books and articles pertaining to the subject.

Nothing can prepare you for the real thing.

There are some days I can't stop smiling because I'm so happy. But there are also days that end in tears. Actually, some days begin in tears.

Often I feel worn out physically, mentally and emotionally. The day to day tasks can be mind numbing. Growing up I thought that I would always feel this sweet, fulfilling feeling as a mother. The truth is, is that I don't.

For a long time I've been really disappointed and even depressed about that. Motherhood is such a noble and great calling, right? Then why don't I feel noble and great?!!!

I think I'm slowly finding some answers.
1- hormones
2- this quote by Elder Bednar-

"In my office is a beautiful painting of a wheat field. The painting is a vast collection of individual brushstrokes—none of which in isolation is very interesting or impressive. In fact, if you stand close to the canvas, all you can see is a mass of seemingly unrelated and unattractive streaks of yellow and gold and brown paint. However, as you gradually move away from the canvas, all of the individual brushstrokes combine together and produce a magnificent landscape of a wheat field. Many ordinary, individual brushstrokes work together to create a captivating and beautiful painting."

I feel like I'm just beginning to understand this concept. While each day might not feel like it was a noble, great or super fulfilling day, as I look back over the last two (very short) years that I've been a mother, I realize that what I am doing, as a whole, IS great and noble. And beautiful! I believe in what I am doing. I know it is so important to be with my children and to teach them. It can just be so hard to feel like you are making any difference at all some days.

So I'm trying to shift my paradigm. I'm realizing and trying to come to terms with the fact that each day will not feel like a victory or be super happy and wonderful. BUT the end result will be.

Little Man

Here he is! Graham Travis Simon came into the world at 2:22 am, February 24th. And what a CUTIE he is!! (If I do say so myself. I AM his mom. It'd be wrong if I didn't think so.)


He looks a lot like Sydney did when she was born. Tons of dark hair.

Doesn't he look like he's doing some rap/gangster (or whatever you call it...) move with his arms in this picture??! hahaha

Travis is so excited to have a son. He introduced him to basketball (via ESPN) within hours of his birth. It was quite the bonding experience :)

My big baby with my little baby.

Still a little bit in shock that I'm now a mother of two. (and a little worried if I can actually manage it all.)


I'm typing this with one hand so I'm just going to report the Reader's Digest version of his birth.

• Wednesday afternoon (the 23rd) I'm checked by my doctor at an appt. I'm 4ish (almost 5) cm dilated. I had also been having mild to strong, irregular contractions for a week or so.
  
• My doctor strongly suggests that I meet her at the hospital that evening where she'll break my water and see if that can get things going.
  
• On our way to the hospital my contractions begin to pick up more regularly. Yay!
  
• We arrive at the hospital around 5:30 pm
• The doctor breaks my water around 7:30 pm
• Labor progresses while I dine on broth and jell-o :) (In the rush and excitement of things, I had forgotten to eat before we went to the hospital. Dumb.) Anything tastes good when you're starving and in labor.
• I use hypnobirthing techniques to help me progress to 8 cm. They are really helping and I'm almost there!
• After a few hours of great progress, nausea and vomiting kick in (that was the worst...) and I give up. Epidural Please. And HURRY!!
  
• Epidural is given (ahhhhhh..... sigh of relief) and we wait just another hour or two before it's time to push.
• I push for about 25 minutes and we finally meet our little GRAHAM!

All things considered, the experience was wonderful. I felt so much more at peace and was more calm this second time around. Labor, delivery and the recovery is so much easier the second time. Knowing what to expect and knowing that I had done this before gave me a lot of peace and confidence.

We were also really lucky to have Travis' mother out here for the birth. She helped so much during the days prior to after his birth. Some awesome friends that we met at church we're so kind and kept Sydney while we were at the hospital so Travis' mom could be with us for his birth. It was such a sweet experience.

Frustrated

I've been dilated to 3 (almost 4) cm and 50% effaced for almost two weeks. Very inconsistent contractions also started about a week ago. I've had 4 episodes of consistent contractions that made me think "ok, this is it this time" only to lead to nothing.

A due date is more like a guess date. Babies come in their own time. Blah blah blah. I knooooooow.

The highs and lows of waiting are driving me nuts!

Diaper Check

Sydney is starting to mimic a lot of what we do.

Today I was kneeling down to put some clothes away in a dresser. Sydney came up behind me, pulled the back of my pants open and said, "mommy, poop?"

How sweet of her to check for me :) haha

I'm thinking if she's willing to check for me now, hopefully she'll be willing to check my diapers (and change them) when I'm 90, too.

A side note from the Mr.

Hello friends, family and web stockers.

The last month has been nuts! They say wisdom comes with experience. Don't move if your wife is 7-8 months pregnant, haha. Here's the deal, I asked Lindsay to move from an 1800 sq. foot huge town home into an 1100 sq foot 2 bed town home and we're getting ready for baby #2. I don't blame Lindsay one bit for freaking out :)

Sydney, Lindsay and I weren't very excited to leave our awesome friends in Acworth/Kennesaw and we weren't happy about leaving our first home, but things are looking up. We got our first call about the house (no word yet, but here's to positivity in a down market :)

Rubbermaid ROCKS!
I LOVE my new job at Rubbermaid! My new boss Betty is the coolest lady and is very considerate when it comes to family needs. Brand Marketing is my calling in life (for now) and I couldn't be happier to get involved with a solid brand like Rubbermaid. Recently I visited the International Builders Show in Orlando to scope out the competition. It was fun to sneak through competitor booths and check out what they have going on.

So far I've been able to compile spreadsheets to analyze sales data, build an entire trade brochure, rename most of the products within our product portfolio we're responsible for, and get to know some really great people at work.

Home life
Nice Lindsay has returned! haha, my wife has returned. I now eat awesome meals every night (sometimes I even help :), Lindsay is mostly happy with our tiny town home and we're getting to know great people at church. 2011 is shaping up to be a great year and I'm looking forward to the manliest step of all, welcoming a brand new boy into our home and equaling out the pink/blue colors within the Simon family walls.

Hope you all are doing well. Come live by us in Charlotte, jk. :)

Travis

Finally....

I'll just skip the part where I'm supposed to talk about how bad I am at blogging because you all already know that. On to the fun stuff.

I was just re-reading over the last post and I laughed out loud when I read over what my dear, sweet Travis wrote. Especially this part, "I've felt many emotions ranging from confidence to hopelessness and Linz was steady through it all (at least outwardly she was. Haha)"
Ohhhhh, my poor, poor Travis. Little did he know that would be the last little bit of steadiness that he saw from me for a week or two! I was more than excited and thrilled that he got this job and I was actually looking forward to moving to a new place. Those things weren't scaring me. What was scaring me was having to find a place to live (which would be much smaller than where we currently were), packing up our entire lives and moving in less than two weeks. All while being 7 months pregnant and trying to keep up with an almost two year old. During this time all three of us also got stomach flu and we flooded part of our house. I WAS STRESSED!! I tried to be a good sport. I really did. But let's just put it this way, the two weeks leading up to our move were not my most graceful two weeks by any stretch of the imagination! The Lindsay monster may or may not have come out. Ok, it came out. I sure am grateful for a very forgiving husband :)


Here we are ready to start unloading.




Anyway, it's been over a month now since we've moved and things are beginning to settle in place and we're finding some normalcy. Overall, we are REALLY enjoying living in Charlotte (well, technically just north of Charlotte). The landscape is really beautiful. The people are nice and Travis' commute is 9 minutes. NINE MINUTES!!!!! After commuting an hour each way to work for a year, we couldn't be happier about that. Travis loves the absence of traffic and I LOVE having him home earlier. I love having so much quality time together during the week. Sydney loves it too.

After such a crazy and chaotic moving process, we decided it would be best to spend Christmas with just our little family. It was a really sweet, quiet Christmas. It was fun to just be the three of us and start some Simon traditions.

We have pretty limited space in our new home so we decided to go with the 15 dollar Walgreens special for our Christmas tree :) I love it. I think we'll end up keeping it forever. It will always remind me of our very first Christmas with just us.

Oh how quickly the mood can change at our house with a 21 month old around haha

Here are some pictures from our Christmas morning.

Sydney talking on a play phone from her grandparents
Sydney spending some quality time in the time out chair. She's a frequent visitor to this spot :)

My present from Travis. Check out that wrapping job. Somebody was obviously paying attention in principles of design class. He never disappoints!

My love :)



The week before Christmas the Bowen fam stopped by for a sleepover! We had so much fun chatting, catching up, eating and getting in touch with our 5th grade levels of humor :)

In other news, on Monday I will officially be 35 weeks pregnant. How is that possible? How did 35 weeks just go by? Ready or not, he's coming and he's coming soon. I better soak up all the good night's rest while I can. I'm excited to see what Sydney thinks about him. I actually feel pretty optimistic about how she'll adjust to having a baby in the house. She seems to be interested in other babies that we see or play with. But that's completely different than bringing another baby into the house to live and split attention with. We will see.

We're getting North Carolina license plates!

Travis met a guy who worked for Rubbermaid this past summer while playing on a rec. basketball team. Travis casually mentioned to him one day that his goal is to work in marketing instead of sales (which is what he's doing now). The guy who works for Rubbermaid suggested Travis apply for one of the marketing positions that were opening up at Rubbermaid in Atlanta. He did, and soon found out that he wasn't selected for an interview.

When Travis was applying for the position he had me read over the description of the job. When I read the job description my first thought was, "wow, that is exactly what Travis has always wanted to do. This is what he has a love and talent for!" So we were pretty disappointed when he didn't even get a chance to interview.

A few days later we were talking about how awesome of a job that would have been for Travis. Travis got back on the website to check for more openings. There were no openings in Atlanta but there was one in Charlotte, North Carolina. I think we both figured it was a long shot, but Travis decided to apply anyway to see if he could at least get an interview.

He ended up getting more than just one interview :) After two phone interviews and one 4 hour interview at the office in Charlotte, Travis officially received a job offer Friday afternoon!!! We are so excited!! Travis is pretty much bouncing off the walls :)

They want Travis to start mid December so the next few weeks will be a little crazy around here trying to get our things packed and ready to go. We're still discussing details of exactly how to make the transition (do we try to sell our home? Rent it out? Do Sydney and I stay here temporarily?) but it's official....We're moving!

And yes, my head is spinning. I feel totally overwhelmed trying to sort out these details while pregnant (my brain is NOT the same when I'm pregnant. I feel like my brain functions at half my normal capacity. Boo.) So we're taking it one day at a time :)

Travis' take:

Hey to all you blogstockers out there; we're happy you decided to look us up. Waiting to hear back from Rubbermaid has been one of the most STRESSFUL experiences of my life (just ask Linz :) I've felt many emotions ranging from confidence to hopelessness and Linz was steady through it all (at least outwardly she was. Haha)

With each day that passed the window of opportunity seemed to be closing and then Friday at 5:30 I got a call and the job!

I'm excited about this new position in marketing and can't wait to get acclimated to Charlotte and find a way to sell our home in Atlanta.

Lindsay is officially excited/nervous/stressed and probably a few other things she's not telling me - HA!

Lindsay has been an amazing support while I've been searching/applying/interviewing etc. The past two weeks she has worked so hard to help me stay positive and moving in the right direction all while Sydney has been disgruntled because our "family time" has taken a hit. Sydney loves attention and is at her best when she has quality time with those she loves (me! jk, she likes her momma more than me).

THE END - T$

A new fall tradition

I love fall. I love the crisp air, the colors on the trees, pulling out sweatshirts, cool mornings and evenings, football, the smells, and the FOOD. Apple crisp, all kinds of soups, cornbread, vegetables, ahh, it's all so good!

We've been taking advantage of the beautiful fall weather and have made walking up Kennesaw Mountain a new Saturday tradition.

A view of Little Kennesaw on the way up to the top.


What a hunk. Pushing Sydney all the way!


I love that smile!

She loves when we let her walk part of it. I think it makes her feel like such a big girl.

On the way home. Can you say too cool for school? Check out that look!