I am woman...hear me roar!

Today started off as what could only be described as a bad day. My lovely daughter soaked through her pull-up last night and climbed into our bed in that state this morning, creating a laundry nightmare before I was even fully conscious. Then, as I was struggling to get some sort of beverage into my poor system, our cat wouldn’t leave me alone, so I gave him what he was begging for: some milk. As I was attempting to return the gallon of milk back to the fridge, I somehow lost my grip and kerplat…it fell to the floor. Of course, the flimsy lid flew off and the contents of the container gushed out. My oh so quick reflexes caught it before the entire kitchen had flooded.

Just when I thought the day couldn’t get much worse, I discovered that some critter somehow got into our garbage can and had made a huge mess in our driveway. Let’s just say I’m glad I’m not in the first trimester of my pregnancy, because I probably would not have been able to do clean up all the old garbage without getting severely nauseated. Luckily, I managed this task and silently thanked Yoshi for all the times he has had to do it when I left the lid of the can on a bit too loosely.

So, you are probably wondering, exactly which part of the day made you feel like an empowered woman? Well, despite my disastrous morning, I decided to try my hand at mowing our lawn for the first time in my life. Yes, that is correct. I have never mowed a lawn before. I guess my parents were afraid I would somehow injure myself or break the lawn-mower. For most of my adult life, I lived in apartments, and Yoshi has always mowed our lawn since we moved to our house.

Unfortunately, poor Yoshi has been very busy lately single-handedly remodeling our basement. He has been letting the lawn go, and I have been a little annoyed by the excess bugs, and also worried about what our neighbors must think. Today when I was driving Maia home from gymnastics, I saw a woman mowing her lawn uphill! Well, I was inspired and decided to take matters into my own hands. After all, how hard could it be?

With Maia, safely in the house watching a video, I managed to turn on the lawn mower with the help of the directions pictured right on it. Though I exerted a little more energy than I needed to, it was an overall positive experience. When I say I exerted energy, well, I didn’t realize the lawn-mower had a lever you were supposed to pull if you wanted to go forward much more quickly. I used my own force instead of the “power” version. Now that I know about the “power” lever, I might even do this on a regular basis.

Yoshi was quite proud of me when he came home, and I felt proud of myself as well! It feels good to know that I can take care of myself when necessary and won’t have to rely on a lawn-service someday. Next step: adding gas and oil to the lawn mower. I’ll let you know how it goes.

My budding young artiste!

Isn't this the funniest expression? Daddy took this picture and she saves her best faces for him. Is this reminiscent of Van Goh or what? Hopefully she will not go mad and send her ear to an ex-boyfriend when she grows up! Let's stick to painting and coloring pictures of princesses.

Art Museum Foibles

Today was such a rainy day, so Maia and I headed off to the art museum. The last time we had this adventure, she was barely two years old, so she spent most of the time running through the galleries. I trusted this time would go better.

The beginning of our adventure was excellent. The DAI has a special children's area with opportunities to create their own masterpieces as well as work on math skills a la Roman numerals. I picked up that worksheet for when she gets older. Maia was very interested in coloring all the pictures and looking at the artwork intended for children. Once we were done in the children's area; however, our trip took a turn for the worse.

Perhaps I should have previewed the galleries before taking in my three year old, but I don't really believe in censorship, so I didn't even consider the fact that the art museum might be a disturbing experience. Clearly, it was scary for poor Maia. First of all, the rooms are gigantic and have a cavernous atmosphere. We were pretty much the only ones there, so this lent an eerie feeling to the entire experience. Even I felt kind of eerie, though I tried to act normal.

Even worse, we went into the European exibit, and there were lots of pictures of wars and people dying. It definitely was not all horses, baby portraits and flowers. Maia's grasp on my hand got tighter as we walked by some of the larger-than-life paintings. I could see her little brain trying to process why these things looked so scary. Then she said, "Mommy, I want to go to the car now." I felt like a horrible mother as I tried to find the way to the nearest exit wondering if this would somehow traumatize her for the rest of her life.

I'm sure we'll head back sometime soon, but maybe we'll stick to the Egyptian room or something a bit more kid-friendly. I'll do more research first.

Can you sense the excitement?

I love Maia's face in this picture. On the first day of pre-school, she could not wait to get into the car and GO. The backpack makes it official. She is a big girl now.

I had big plans for all the things I would get done during my 2.5 hours of freedom. I envisioned myself going shopping or cleaning the entire house, but I ended up catching up on my DVR'd episodes of Oprah and sipping coffee on the couch. Hey, sometimes a girl needs her down-time! I was definitely feeling refreshed and perky when it was time to pick her up.

Today is her second day of school, and she was a little less enthousiastic about stopping what she was doing and getting dressed, but she was still happy to go. I packed a picnic lunch for us to eat at Cox Arboretum after I pick her up. Hopefully it won't be too hot out!

Pre-School!!!

Today was Maia's first day of pre-school. The day started around 6:30 when she woke up and stripped off her clothes in an attempt to get herself dressed. I assured her that we had plenty of time and that she had better eat breakfast before getting dressed lest she get some food on her outfit for school.
When we arrived, I was escorting Maia into the building when she dropped my hand and said,"I can go in by myself." The moment was definitely bitter-sweet for me. While I was glad I didn't have a sad little girl on my hands, I would have liked for her to miss me at least a little.
It went so well that I found myself wishing we had enrolled her in a three or five day program instead of just two days a week. Next year we will definitely look into that!

School's starting without me.

Today was the first day of school at the district where I used to work. Though it was nice to sleep until 7:30, I couldn't stop wondering what everyone was up to and wondering if I had truly made the right decision.

It has been tough adjusting to the happy home-maker role. I find that although I am not at work all day, my house doesn't look much better than it did when I was gainfully employed. This is probably because we are home much more, so our house has more chances to get messy.

I also imagined how wonderful it would be to spend all of my time with Maia and not have to leave her. Lately I have discovered that 24 hours together is not necessarily a good thing. For example, I'm much less patient than I should be. I find myself responding in anger to little things that are not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things. When I was working, I did not exhibit those feeling toward Maia, because I really cherished the time we had together. Hopefully we will hit a happy medium soon.

I'm optimistic that I will learn to love being a stay-at-home mom. Hopefully by the time our little baby boy arrives in January I will have hit my groove and will feel much better about my choice.

This picture was taken on Maia's 3rd birthday. We were in Colorado at a friend's wedding. She has lots of reasons to be smiling! I have finally left my job to be with her full-time, and she will get a new baby brother or sister in January. Needless to say, her 3rd year should be a very eventful one!