Dental School is pretty intense, apparently...

...but this guy's always got time for crying babies!

If ever there were a blog update...

I'm currently sitting in a Super 8 in Lincoln Park, Michigan..

The AC is blasting a cool 64 degrees, and for the most part, is muffling the noise of the oncoming trains that pass by the hotel every 20 minutes.  There is a Lean Cuisine frozen dinner to my side and Axton is watching his second hour of Nick Jr. Sprout.  Anchor is napping.  We will most-likely venture out of the room after lunch to swim in pool.  This is bliss.

Pure and utter bliss compared to the NIGHTMARE of last week!

Last month, we sold almost all of our stuff and packed what was left into a U-Haul.  40 hours of cross-country-car-trippin' and 20 a couple McDonald stops later...we made it to our house in Licoln Park.  Without going into too much detail, the house was a mess and not livable for our kiddos.  The previous tenant moved out hours before we got there, so the house had not been cleaned or inspected.  Let's just say that we were afraid to let the boys walk around.

And, there we were.  Stir-crazy children.  Josh was starting school the next day.  We had no food, and the kitchen was not sanitary to keep any groceries.  The house wasn't safe for the kids to explore. We had to return our U-Haul truck.  So, we did what anyone in our situation would do...

...we got in our car and drove to McDonald's to regroup.

The past two weeks have been stressful and trying (and expensive!) to say the least, but we found an awesome house and are set to move in next week!  Not to brag or anything, but we have awesome family who have done so much for us during this whole ordeal.  We would be in an awful predicament had it not been for them...or our smart phones!

On the plus side, we REALLY do like Michigan thus far, and Josh is at an amazing school! And...the kids are now fully-acclimated to sitting in the car for LONG periods of time!   This is going to be a great experience and I can't wait to share it with everyone via this blog!

Now, if you don't mind, I am off to enjoy my Lean Cuisine, which, if I may be so bold, is WAY better than McDonald's!

Welcome to Michigan!

Tangled Web Woven

A friend of mine said something kind of genius...

"Christmas cards take too much effort.  Trying to fit all that 'pretend perfect' into a letter once a year is impossible!  Blogs are way easier because you have the whole year to try to fool people.  You can spread the B.S out a little bit more!"

Touché.

I think family pictures are pretty symbolic of this point also, at least when it comes to our little fam.  I don't know about your family pictures, but we normally take somewhere between 10 and 2,395 pictures in order to get ONE good shot where everyone is smiling and looking adorable...all the rest are the real moments when someone has either spit up or picked their nose...or chose what seemed like a cute outfit that would surely hide any love handles but, in fact, did the opposite ...cough, cough.  Those should probably be the ones that make it into picture frames because that is who we really are!

  Another friend of mine said, "I hate blogs.  People are either lying about their life being so perfect or they are funny about their life when it sucks."  (I'm paraphrasing there.)

This got me to thinking about these:

These are just a handful of pictures on our computer of me.  They are the ones that are hard for me to look at for one reason or another.  Pregnancy weight gain.   A huge spider bite in between my eyes.  What I look like when I wake up.  No make-up on and out of shape.  There are a lot more pictures (tons) that make me sad.  Everyone has them.  You should know that this is terrifying for me to give others access to.

But you should also know this...

As I was going through pictures trying to genuinely find the notorious ones that usually make me cringe, something happened.  Because the point of this was to find the "bad" pictures, I actually started noticing that there were a lot of good ones.  Pictures that reflected great times in my life, fun adventures, and wonderful moments with my children.  The embarrassing ones didn't seem as tragic to me, and I actually found myself thinking, "Ok, I don't look THAT horrible.  I could deal with other people seeing me at what I consider to be some of my worst photographic moments."

Then I thought outside of the realm of pictures.  I can be more comfortable with sharing the imperfect parts of my life too.  I can be ok with my struggles and weaknesses.  I don't have to try to hide who I really am, and I certainly don't need to be ashamed of the "bad" moments.  I can do away with the phony Christmas-card mentality.

So that's where I'm at right now.  We'll see how brave I can really be, because I'm not too sure how willing I will be to share that I just went to McDonald's after almost crying when I weighed myself at the gym the good, the bad, and the ugly.

*Staying true to what I just said about being more honest and blah blah blah, you should know that I am neglecting my screaming baby and have just yelled at my other child to be quiet so I could think and finish this post, and make all of you think that I am awesome.*

Progress.

 


   This has pretty much been our week.

           

     I'm not complaining.

Shout Out!

Just wanted to give some props to my friend Kate and share with all of you her awesome new children's boutique:

ivorykate.com

We're talking seriously ADORABLE and must have items...original baby shoes, bowties, headbands! She does it right and is the most fashionable person I know, so trust when I tell you that you'll love her stuff! Check it out!

"You Play Like a Girl"...YUP.

Buckle up, friends.  This post is about to get long...and real.  With strong opinions and likely grammatical errors and run-on sentences (did you see what I did there, English majors?).  Little to no pictures of my cute children.

Still with me?

Awesome.  Sometime last year, I wrote about a seemingly-small, and to many, insignificant incident that I experienced at the local YMCA.  You can read about it here.  I approached it with a sort of tone that might have implied it was just a silly and whimsical situation, but in all actuality, it has been a real thorn in my side.  

In summary, my husband and I played basketball at a gym in which I was the only female player.  My presence was not well received, and I was openly subjected to sexist remarks and attitudes, despite (or maybe I should say "in spite of") my equal, if not superior, basketball skills.  After this experience, we haven't gone back to play...until a few weeks ago.

I really love playing basketball.  It seriously is the one thing that I can honestly admit to being good at and is something I love about myself.  I know the game inside out, and I love it just the same.  If I would've made different decisions in my younger life, I know without a doubt that I could've done really great things with my career in basketball.  My parents invested countless hours and thousands of dollars in my potential, and I put in the work.  Basketball is not only a huge part of my life, but is also now a treasured activity that I get to share with my husband, and it has bonded us more than I can express.  Though it may sound trite, playing makes me happy and I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't play anymore.  

Why am I telling you this? 

Last week, my husband and I went back to play again.  The first few days were great.  There was a younger group of men that were not even phased by my presence.  It was normal.  Then, on the third day, some familiar faces turned up...

"No, no, no!  These teams aren't fair.  We gotta switch things up.  We got the chick on our team?"

"What's the matter, you sitting out because we're being too mean to you, sweetie?"

"Ok, it's me, Mark, Chris...what's your name, bro?  Ok, Josh... and the girl."

"Dave, Dave!  Just keep working her on the screens, chick doesn't know what she's doing.  Easy shot.  She doesn't know what she's doing."

How mild are these comments in comparison to the monstrosities others face based on their gender, race, religion, sexual-orientation, etc.?!  It's still hurtful and maddening, however.  Like I mentioned earlier, basketball means a lot to me, and to have someone act like I am inferior and don't deserve to be involved based on my gender is NOT OK.  I admittedly cowered to this pathetic demonstration, and offered to sit out if my presence was going to cause any problems.  My first and last mistake.  I am not going to be pushed around by some egocentric, uneducated, chauvinistic jerk who has nothing better to do than search for my weaknesses instead of addressing his own.  On a more positive note, I guess more than the disdain for this perpetuated attitude, my heart is full of gratitude for the famed and unheralded alike, who have battled the sting of discrimination and endured for change.  I want to be that caliber of a person.

In conclusion, "You play like a girl" is a compliment, and I won't let anyone insinuate differently.  Look out, haters.

   

"

The Slight Shift of Slumber

Tonight we got home pretty late after Josh's basketball game.  I wanted to just put the kids to bed so I could go to bed myself.  This day had been a trying one...an emotional one.  I tried for twenty minutes with no avail to get both kids calmed down, and after denying Axton's tearful and very adamant pleas for me to lay down with him, I left the room frustrated, only to hear Anchor begin to cry louder.  Eleven o'clock.  My kids were wide awake and cranky.  Perfect.

After a few minutes of hearing their lasting cries, I stopped paying attention.  But not too long after that, I noticed that both kids had suddenly stopped crying.  I went to check on them.

As I peeked into the room, I saw Axton cradling his baby brother in his arms and carrying him over to his bed.  He had successfully picked Anchor up and gotten him out of the crib somehow.  I could hear him whispering, "It's ok little brother, it's ok.  Axton's here.  It's ok sweet baby."  He brought Anchor into the bed with him and put the blankets over them, continuing to whisper over the baby's soft whimpers, "It's ok, it's ok".  Once under the blankets, I saw Anchor instinctively curl into Axton, and his soft whimpers immediately turned into a dull, rolling snore.  All the while, Axton's hand gently patted Anchor's back in a sweet and uneven rhythm: "It's ok.  It's ok.  Axton's here."

And I watched as my children fell asleep together.