Guilt

There are a lot of things I was completely unprepared for when I became a parent. Everyone had said there was no real way to explain what being a parent was like, and I always scoffed at it. How hard to explain could it be? And then I had a baby, and thought, oh. I get it now.

But of all the things I was unprepared for, there is one that really surprised me. I had no idea how much guilt I would feel. Almost every day there is something to feel guilty about. Maybe it's just society and marketers and etc. etc. making me feel inadequate and blah-dee-blah. But for the few people who still follow this blog, you know how rarely I post anymore. And I feel awfully guilty about that.

This blog is it in terms of memories. I keep no baby book. I don't organize our photos (though I do take some). I have a terrible memory, so if I don't write things down, I know the details of this time of our lives will fade away. It kills me that Milo and Olive aren't going to remember anything from this stage of their lives. We have such good times and share such sweet moments, but the memories will melt away like an ice cube in summer.

Here's my plan. The list of occasions and moments I want to remember has become staggeringly long, and therefore I have been avoiding trying to tackle it--because where does one even begin?--but all that will begin to change. I have been spending a lot of time lately on an entrepreneurial adventure, but in a week or so I will hand most of that off to my business partner. I found time to work on that business when I would have said before that my schedule was full. Now I need to turn those hours into blogging hours (at least partially). No excuses, right?

To make myself even more accountable, here is the list of things I want to blog about:
Halloween (I know, I know, it was over six months ago. Yikes.)
Christmas
Olive's first birthday (How can I have missed documenting my daughter's first birthday?!)
Gymnastics
The Gender Reveal
My sweet Milo
Our trip to Branson
And probably hundreds more will come to me over time.

It's crazy to think how much I've missed. But I'm going to try to do better. I can't promise the writing will be stellar, but at least my kids will have some clue about what their early childhoods were like. I love those two more than I can even explain, and I hope that someday they'll read all these entries and maybe begin to understand that just a little. Here we go...

Happy Anniversary to Me

Today is the five-year anniversary of the launch of this blog. In celebration, let's NOT go digging in the archives to see what sorts of things were on my mind way back in 2007.

Thanks, loyal readers, for continuing to read. I know you can't get enough information about my children, since that is apparently all I have to talk about these days. (Thankfully, about fifty percent of my readership is the children's grandparents, so they're probably still interested in their bathroom habits and whatnot. Or at least they pretend to be.)

Since I've been a little lackadaisical in posting lately, here are some quick tidbits to quench your lenexicon thirst. (Five of them, one for each year of the existence of this blog.)

1. After pretty much eating whatever I wanted the last few weeks (Halloween candy, anyone?), I mysteriously (ahem) gained back a few pounds. So I decided it was time to get back on the Weight Watchers train. Good timing, what with it being Thanksgiving week and all. I wonder how many points are in pumpkin pie, because you better believe I will be eating some of that come Thursday.
2. Milo just learned how to quote song lyrics in conversation. Daddy is so proud. If you're lucky, you will hear Milo say, "I'm so excited, I can't just hide it." (Yes, he reverses the order of "just can't." Give the kid a break, he's only two.)
3. I ran my first 5K in September. This probably deserves its own post. Maybe it will get one someday. I am also running the Turkey Day run on Thanksgiving morning and the Jingle Bell Run in December. I can't believe it, really. I just started running a few months ago, and I will have completed three 5Ks before the end of 2012. I think that might make me a real runner, a title I never thought I'd have.
4. Now that I've weaned Olive, I really want to go on a vacation. Just a few nights away from those early risers would be amazing. But we need a new water heater, a new roof, and exterior house paint, and we hope to complete the landscaping in the backyard next year. So a vacation isn't looking very likely. Sigh.
5. Our bedroom is inching toward being completely decorated. I don't know why it takes me about two full years to complete projects like this. We now have a headboard and all the furniture we want. Still need to sew the curtains and hang the artwork. I just need about two kid-free days and I think I could finish it all. Any volunteers?

Look! Pretty!

In case it isn’t entirely obvious, I have done a little design updating. Isn’t it pretty? If you can’t see it, hit refresh. Or maybe shove the cat off your computer so you can see the screen properly. One of those should work.