Sunday, April 22, 2012

Life with a one year old

Green, red and yellow fishy crackers mushed into the carpet = awesome rainbow carpet, right?

I've got to say - I love being a mom. The good moments far outweigh the bad, even though for some reason at the end of the day the bad moments stick out like a sore thumb.

Every day I get endless amounts of hugs and kisses, snuggles and lovin's. Though sometimes a little more than I want - it's hard to live without a personal bubble. Ever.

As a mom, especially a stay-at-home mom or an all-day-with-your-kid mom like I am, your "touch" meter gets used up daily. The amount of time any one person would want to have skin-to-skin contact with another is often times overdrawn. This can sometimes really take a toll on the relationship between mom and dad - because Dad isn't being hung on all day, and he still has some cuddling he wants to do at the end of the day.. sometimes literally and sometimes in the YKWIM? kind of way. Especially when it comes to bed time, I want to sleep in my own bubble, spread out on my side of the bed. Dad always wants to hug and snuggle me all night long, or sometimes he says "lay on my chest, hug me!" and I'm like "uhh no." I'm working on it though. I have to leave a little room for him, too.

I have to be honest for a second - my house is a mess. Not in a dirty, eww gross, kind of way like it was when Emma was first born and I just didn't have time to do any of this or that, but in a way where you have to watch where you step - I'm constantly stepping over or around things. It drives me totally crazy - I HATE IT WHEN THERE IS STUFF ON THE FLOOR! I'd rather all of the closets and cupboards be shoved full of stuff than for there to be anything - and I mean ANYTHING - on the floor. I don't know when this happened, because as a teenager I lived in a pile of clothes. Literally, my bedroom floor was a big, huge, giant, pile of clothes. I'm sure among other things but I vividly remember the clothes. But now? Oh man it makes me totally bonkers to step over/around/avoid things to trip on. I even cleared out the coat closet so I could shove Emma's toys in there. I moved all of her "big" toys (play kitchen, walkers, ball house) up to her room where there is no furniture (except for a crib of course) so that they wouldn't be on the floor in the livingroom.

Alas, no matter how I "organize" Emma's toys, 5 minutes after she wakes up in the morning it's her mission to undo everything I've done. While I get ready for work I think it's on her agenda to:

Empty all of my desk drawers
Pull all the toilet paper off of the rolls
Empty every cupboard that she can manipulate the child lock on
If the dishwasher is open, remove all contents and place them on the floor
Dump out the small trash cans
Find her legos and/or smaller sharp toys and put them under my feet
Empty the laundry baskets, and carry clothes into random places in the house

SO yeah, my house is a mess. So if you stop by unannounced - it's going to be ugly.

That said it's wonderful and inexplicable the joy of being a mother and teaching a little person that you made what the world is all about. Until you experience it there just is no way to tell you what it's like.

This post turned out a little more negative than I had anticipated, sorry for that! I really do love love love being a mommy and I love my little nugget more than anything in the whole world.