twelve months of mommyhood.

the year started with me being in my second trimester.  i started and failed a 365 photo challenge. we found out that baby b was a girl. austin turned eleven months. i did an aerobathon and almost died. we bought new furniture, our first grownup purchase. austin learned to walk! bought my first DSLR and fell in love.

....................................

in february, austin turned 1! i had awesome pregnancy hair. we added a new member to the family. make that two members to the family {*cough* new car}. new tattoos. SPD ruined my life. bellybutton stuff took over my wardrobe. i vlogged  and sounded weird.

....................................

march came and austin joined The Little Gym. i realized that a lot of the friends i made at JBLM were really losers. austin had his first haircut!! we flew down and spent spring break in san diego. while down in california, i pierced my lip. hubs got his official orders to move to Texas. we danced for babies. i was a pregnant, fitness-loving fool and austin had his first ear infection.

....................................

april fools brought on the fall of the century. we got a new buddy. husband was almost the ex husband... just kidding. lol  happy 2 year anniversary to us. we celebrated by going to see a show with my classmates. totally soooo over being pregnant. pre-term labor? yep. BEDREST. BELLA WAS BORN!!! adventures in the nicu. austin goes to visit the grandparents.  start the process of discovering bella's biliary atresia diagnosis.

....................................

bella has HIDA scan and two liver biopsies. mother's day. bella comes home from the hospital. austin meets his little sister. i discovered pinterest and lost more time. #momof2. GRADUATION! cut my hair super duper short. pnw bloggy playdate. ate the best salad of my life at wendys...for FREE.

....................................

june came around and i went to bloggy bootcamp!!!! bella had her kasai procedure and proved she was a gangster baby. fathers day came around and the kids had things to say to their dad. we essentially spent most of june in and out of hospitals and keeping tabs on the bellalina. it was a stressful month, to say the least. we also drove over to spokane to celebrate my grandmothers 75th birthday, while charlie went to air assault school. it was a great week with my family.

....................................

july brought about serious tests to my character, but change has been permanent. my mom came over and we celebrated the fourth really laid-back style. made the leap and started my photography business. the army medical department turned 236 and we celebrated. austin had his first kiss.  charlie turned 25. i started getting incredibly sad about moving away from washington. i discovered zucchini and became obsessed with it. {thanks pinterest} this video rawked my face and can make me laugh for hours.

....................................

my besties and i got together for another closet fat kid pig-out reunion. i had a big crush on bella's doctor. i did a 20SB blog swap and met Elaine. my grandmother passed away. :( making summer 2011 one of the worst i can ever recall. and i discussed the ongoing debate of SAHM and WOTH moms. 

....................................

my ppd started getting worse, but i didn't know it. i participated in a post-wide/ nationwide singing competition- operation rising star. i made it three rounds before getting cut due to lack of audience votes. laaaame. resentment was hitting full force.  we went to the puyallup fair and austin was in AWE. 

PPD smacked me in the face. another girls night for CFK!  oh, and i turned 24 and had my senior recital on the same day! and there was also this big ole uproar that facebook changed again. but i like it.

....................................

october brought on a pumpkin patch takeover. it was fun exploring since they're a little older than austin was last year. austin started potty learning and then decided he'd rather just play with the potty. i made the Pioneer Woman's chicken tortillas soup and have since made it at least once a week. bella beat me up. i had a change of heart about being a SAHM thanks to Jesus. my littles showed me that sibling love starts early. pinterest gave some thin-spiration. i had an ear-infection!! and we had family pictures with amy from photographybyamylee and a good life blog.

....................................

in november we went crazy. well, the truth is we've always been crazy. lol my family came to visit and i had a revelation about motherhood. pinterest inspired yet another thing: glowstick bathtime!! we kept up the tradition of weekly dance parties... everyday we  shufflin! i also flashed back to the 2008 version of me.  november blurred into december and i was totally not ready for it. i finished my bachelor's degree at Cornish College of the Arts. i packed up my house and moved cross country to texas. i spent Christmas in San Diego and i'm about to go through a MAJOR life event. 

....................................

in retrospect, 2011 was one of the most challenging years i've ever had. it was filled with incredible joy and incredible sadness. i'm ready for 2012 to hurry up and get here. there's so many resolutions i have that just happen to coincide with beginning january 1st. no matter what, i'm determined to grow and change and be a better person in the new year. i hope you've enjoyed the journey of mommyhood this year. so saddle up, refresh your google reader and hang on. i'm about to DOMINATE 2012 babeh!

broken heart.

i'm incredibly upset. i haven't been this upset in a long time. i'm mad, disappointed, hurt, outraged, sad and broken. and i hope you'll bear with me as i try to explain.

i have a large family. well, on both sides it's large but i grew up with my mom's side of the family. my grandmother had eight children. i don't know exactly how many grandchildren she has, but i know austin and bella were her fifth and sixth great-grandchildren. and pretty much all of us have grown up together. for the most part, things have been great having a big family. the downside is mostly due to the fact that everyone knows everyone's business, nothing is sacred and you just can't be alone at all when you're "home".

when i was thirteen, i started realizing that i was different from the family. if i didn't look almost identical to my mother, i would've assumed i was adopted. i didn't think the same way. i didn't believe in the same things. i behaved differently. i questioned everything. i guess you could say i wasn't "drinking the kool-aid". and that made me the black sheep. i was constantly put down and belittled for being the odd one out. one big thing was that i was true to my emotions. i felt them. i lived them. but that wasn't allowed. oh true, people cried and got angry and were happy and what not. yes. but you weren't allowed to have an emotional reaction to something they considered "trivial". for example: my grandmother always cries over the littlest things. i remember she cried when i was cooking her famous macaroni and cheese. i can see why she was crying, but there really wasn't a reason to cry. i'm gracious when she cries. everyone else, puts her down and says she's overdramatic. another example: when i get overwhelmed, i tend to cry. my family has a tendency to jump down your throat for anything they disapprove of. so what did i do? i cried. i'm being overdramatic. you see what i mean?

anyway. i grew up feeling incredibly inadequate. they have a way of subtly making you feel like less than human. the phrase: "who do you think you are?" comes to mind. i was constantly told what i was good at and what i wasn't good at. not constructive criticism, mind you. but- "you're bad at such and such, so you shouldn't do it. but i think you're really good at this so you're gonna do it.". i don't know if that makes sense, but it does in my head. i didn't realize it at the time, but from ages 13-21 i felt like i wasn't worth very much [despite the fact i acted like my poo didn't stink] and i needed to please everyone and everything in order to be worth anything to anyone. it's no secret that i slept around a lot as a young adult. that's because i craved acceptance and i thought that i could get someone to "love me for me" by having sex with someone. i convinced myself that i was in control of the situation, but deep down i knew i wasn't. i also clung super tight to boyfriends and friends. they were the ones that accepted me so i hung on for dear life. and when i was dumped or cheated on or a friendship ended, i entered that downward spiral again.

i don't know what the trigger was, but i suddenly realized that i needed to be happy being me regardless of what everyone else thought. you always hear you can't have true love until you love yourself...and friends, that is true. but i didn't really understand it until it happened to me. and you know what i realized, the people that are most threatened by me are the ones that aren't okay with me thinking on my own and having my own opinions. the friends and boyfriends who don't like me, the family that puts me down and calls me selfish, isn't okay with me putting my own happiness before their own.

tonight i called my sister to celebrate a fitness milestone and i hear unrest and lots of screaming and yelling in the background. to make a long story short, my family is jumping hard on my sister and making her feel inadequate. it's nothing new. there's always drama with these people. but i'm sitting here listening to them put her down, begging her to put me on speaker phone so i can stand up for her, and having the picture come into a more clearer focus. she's currently home on summer vacation and she's all alone out there fighting off the wolves. and my heart shattered when i heard her say how unhappy she is, how alone she feels, and how they basically make her feel like she's worth nothing. it hurts so much because i can't be there to physically stand in her corner and tell them to back off. they are incredibly toxic and they don't even realize it. or maybe they do and they just don't care. i never wanted my sister to feel the way that i did growing up. i wish i could just make all of those feelings of inadequacy go away for her. i wish she knew her worth!

and it brings another picture into focus: how terrified i am of passing that on to my children. if you only knew how scared i am of making them feel the way i felt.... no one should ever feel like they're not worth anything. i'm so terrified that my kids will enter the world in search of something that i should've given them as their parent. i think about it all the time. when austin is crying over something seemingly meaningless, i remind myself that at that moment he is upset about something that is legitimate to him and i should address it. i pray pray pray to God that i don't keep passing the emotional abuse down the line. and i pray that my sister finds the strength to believe in herself and not let these toxic people, blood or not, ruin her.

i ♥ you sissy.

i'll call that a lesson learned.

in continuing with my #momof2...OH, THE HILARITY! segment of my blog...i'll share some lessons i've learned in the last two days of having both of my kids home.

when going to the grocery store, keep it to one hour. two hours in the grocery store results in a screaming baby and a toddler who loses your shopping lists and some other important papers...that no one will return. :(

seriously..go to bed at night. don't try to blog or edit pictures or clean or ANYTHING after 10pm.  otherwise, you'll hate those decisions when your kids wake with the sunlight.

it will never fail. one will go to sleep, then the other will wake up. accept this as your reality and you'll be fine.

have snacks ready. at. all. times.

don't worry if your toddler is sleeping in an awkward position because if you move, you won't get a nap. he'll learn his lesson for next time..lol

obviously most of my recent learned lessons concern sleep. can you tell i'm a bit sleepy?

the hardest thing i've ever had to do.

with all that's been going on lately, the last nail in the coffin was when my babysitter quit on us. i can't lie and say that it didn't make me feel incredibly lost and disappointed, considering the timing and the way it was done. but i still appreciate all the help she has been since she started watching austin. after receiving the confirmation text, i broke down. i walked austin into the living room to get him some milk for a nap and just fell down in the dining room and cried. him and buddy came and sat near me, and at one point- austin gave me a hug. seriously...my heart.

after a few minutes of sobbing, i pulled it together and went to the rocking chair with my chub and cuddled him. i sent a text message to my mom. i had been ignoring everyone's phone calls because i knew they were going to ask about bella and i just couldn't form the words that things were wrong. i gave her the cliff notes version of what had been happening that day and she jumped right into rescue mode. [it's times like these that i love my momma...lol] she suggested charlie and i let her come pick up austin and keep him for two weeks while we focus on giving bella our undivided attention. she, my aunt, and sister are coming over here in two weeks to bring more stuff for the babies so they'd bring him back then and should we need more time, she'd be willing to stay with us until everything calmed down.

immediately, my heart broke. i knew right away that this was what we needed to do, but i didn't want to. i couldn't just be without my austin for two weeks. TWO WEEKS!? and he'd be on the other side of the state? *insert anxiety attack here* but after talking to charlie and mentally reviewing my options, i knew what we had to do. my mom bought a last minute ticket over to seattle [not cheap, people] and showed up yesterday afternoon. austin was really excited to see her. and it made me feel so much better to see him with her. she also got to see bellabean so that was another bonus to her coming over.

austin is so attached to charlie and i. we are all very, very close and austin usually has a hard time being away from us...mostly charlie these days, but still. lol i have never been away from him for more than a few hours and knowing that i won't be able to go see him whenever kills me.  i'm worried that if we skype [for my own selfish reasons], that we'll upset him. and that's the last thing i want to do.

i know he is in good, capable hands and will have a blast the entire time. it's me that won't be okay. charlie has work to keep him occupied. other than eight feedings a day, i have nothing else to do. and i'm  afraid i'll be miserable the entire time. i know i'm incredibly blessed to have the family that i do- for them to jump on a plane last minute and come to our rescue. it's just hard. that's my baby- my first born. my little chubbah bubbah.  but the fact that they're willing to open their home to my children makes me really happy. and knowing he's taken care of makes it easier to focus on my Bellz and even myself and charlie...something i don't think i've been able to do lately.

i know this is Gods way of telling me to stop trying to do it all on my own because that's what i've been doing. He is forcing me to rely on Him and others. and it's the toughest thing i've ever had to do. but i have faith that it'll be one of the best.

Things I've Learned in Mommyhood...

austin turned one this past weekend. i was in full denial, but i couldn't help but think back over the last year. this blog started as a love journal and has progressed to Welcome to Mommyhood...now that i've got a year down in this mommyhood business...i feel like i could share some of what i've learned. because, i'm a pro at this, you know. lol *winky*

feel free to add some in the comments section. i think i might make a tab of things like this..because there's obviously more, but mommy brain is a real disability and i'm suffering from it. lol 

Lessons Learned in Mommyhood

toys that make noise and light up and a lot of fun, but not nearly as much fun as a box of tissues, a Wii controller, wires, and anything that makes noise when you bang on it.

even if you've fed your babe and his stomach can't possibly hold anymore...if you eat anything in front of him, he'll want you to share.

teething sucks.

sometimes letting your kid do those things that you don't want him to do will make him [and you] the happiest. so go ahead son, run around with that pen and risk poking an eye out.

it's totally okay if you bring your kid into your bed at night all because you don't want to face the reality that he's growing up.

those shows targeted to preschoolers are actually pretty interesting. and those songs are catchy as all get out.

you are the parent and the final authority on all issues.

God made dirt and dirt don't hurt. so let him eat it.

the best way to get a moment of peace while playing mommy is to take a bubble bath with your kidlet. run some warm water, make some bubbles, put the kidlet near your feet and lay your head on your bath pillow and zone out. 

take lots of pictures. you'll be amazed at home much they'll grow and change in just a short amount of time.

all that advice about sleeping when they sleep...take it. you'll thank me later, i promise.

don't put too much pressure on yourself to be "perfect". but don't be lazy either.

if your kid wakes up before you and isn't crying, go ahead and get a few more minutes of zzz's.

you'd have to be a heartless, cruel human to not think that a dancing toddler is the cutest thing ever!

it's okay if your son starts to prefer daddy over you. he'll always be your little baby. and when he needs some comforting, he'll jump right in your arms.

diaper explosions happen...and usually when you have a limited supply of wipes.

every kid is different. so don't worry if so and so reached milestones before your kid does, they'll do it when they're ready.

it's not creepy if you stare at your kid. it's not.

babyproofing your house may make things easier. but not babyproofing keeps you in shape.

some times you'll want to pull out your hair. sometimes you'll cry. there will be times you'll wonder why you even had kids in the first place. you'll doubt yourself. you'll hate your life. and it's all okay.

because in the next moment, they'll do something so tender and so loving that you'll remember why they were wanted. 

and you'll thank God for the huge blessing that comes wrapped in such a great package.