ba-ba.

i think we can all agree that raising children is the most rewarding, heart swelling, heart aching thing a human can do. when I'm away from my kids i feel an emptiness. life isn't complete without my kids. but this weekend i left them for two (point 5) days (2.5) (thats two and a half) with jeremys parents.

now my kids still take a bottle. and i don't care. you know why? because i can't nurse them anymore and that makes me sad. i see giving my children a bottle as a form of comfort. is conrad 2 1/2 years old. YOU BETCHA. am i ashamed he still has a bottle before bedtime? NOT AT ALL. and for those of you mothers judging me, guess what, i don't care at all. in fact i hold my head high. at the end of the day we are all so tired. we feed the kids, bathe them, and then cuddle them in their warm clean pajamas, read books and they suck on their little bottles and sink deep into mommy and daddys lap.

while we were away i told jeremys mom to give the kids their bottles. she is anti bottles!! no bottles! "grandma doesn't give bottles". i told jeremy he better tell his mom my children will have a bottle if they want one or so help me! no one denies my children of something that is comforting to them while we are away for my birthday/valentines for two nights.

when we arrived to pick them up sunday i was informed my children were not given bottles, or conrad his pacifier. jeremys mom proudly bragged and praised herself in the fact that my children didn't have a single bottle the entire time. i was so upset. i strongly felt like its not her right or responsibility to take away the bottle from my children. i am their mother and only i can and will have that hanging over my head. i felt like my whole body went numb when she kept bringing it up over and over. she was proud of herself. she said "they didn't ask for a bottle the entire time!". i know thats not true.

did my kids ask for a bottle when we got home? of course they did.

i guess my pride is hurt because i wasn't the one to take away the bottle. i don't need someone else stepping in to do my job. she even told me she tried making him go potty on the toilet. i just...that my job you know? even if she meant well, there has to be common sense in all this.

parenting is hard is so many different ways. its hard when someone steps in from the outside and tries to tell you how to even raise your own kids. the kids i carried for 9 months, gave birth to, nursed 80 times a day to keep alive. the same children i bathed, fed, and rocked every single night of their lives. MY OWN KIDS.

thats it. how would you feel moms?

SUNDAY FUNDAY!!

Jeremy and i were asked to speak this sunday in church.

the sunday we were asked we sat in the front row FRONT AND CENTER, NICE TO MEET YOU! bonus: we came in late. so as i walked from the very back of the chapel down that long, long, aisle to the VERY FRONT ROW i could feel everyones eyes burning on my christian louboutin six inch stilettos. Okay my shoes were from Marshalls but lets not get off topic here shall we? we are giving a talk in church for goodness sakes!

As we sat in the front row I tried to remain as incognito as I could. you know, lay down on the pew, putting my face in Jeremy's coat jacket, silencing my cell phone..what normal people do when they don't want the bishopric to notice you. oh side note: we came in late that sunday. oh but did i say that already?

Church is over. We're headed out the door. FREEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! after three very long hours in half nursery/half the hallway with crying kids/the opening prayer in sunday school before the nursery leaders dragged my sorry behind BACK INTO NURSERY. (i hate you guys by the way. jk i love you. jk i hate you. unless you're reading this then you're doing a great job not calming my kids down.)

okay wait, where was i? okay. walking out of church two girls stop me to chat. they talked to me so long that a member of the bishopric just so happened to grab jeremy by the neck tie and say in a cold deep smokers voice, "we'd like for you and your wife to speak this sunday". actually he had one of those machines you hold up to your throat when you lose your vocal cords, and I'm totally joking...

I finished up talking to the girls making pretend plans with them (in my head, because i hate making play dates with girls i hardly know, SO SUE ME!). My husband and the member of the bishopric are standing there and jeremy informs me "WE'RE SPEAKING THIS SUNDAY!!" to which i replied (this is a true story) "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" (and i threw my head back)(No seriously, i threw my head back. While this poor man was just standing there.) They both laughed and I did not. NO I DID NOT. I kept a straight face and said "Well didn't you tell him we'd be out of town?! Because we're going out of town remember?!" Again they both laughed. Again I said, "no seriously, i don't want to!" and then the laughs became just a half smile. Jeremy eventually walked away and it was just me and this evil man. So I said again, "no but really, thanks for ruining my Super Bowl sunday". To which he replied by looking down at his shoes and looking so uncomfortable he'd probably rock in the corner and cry if he wasn't in a public place. I giggled my feminine laugh and said "Oh I'm just kidding!!" and then he smiled and I walked away.

On the way to the car I told Jeremy "I told you we shouldn't have gone to church today!".

okay but on a more serious note. is it safe to say i have writers block? for a church talk. because i do. i can't even think of an introduction for ourselves. I'm at a total blank.

So far I have...

"Hi, im lauren but my friends call me law rhen, JK!!!!!!!!1 and we're the hoovers! like the vacuum!!! (and i'd whisper under my breath...)"at blogspot.com"...

nursery.

hey lauren! its me, Lauren! its you! hey! you look so pretty right now. i do? thanks! no really, like STUNNINGLY gorgeous. like, you have a butt that just won't quit. seriously? yea, for reals. gee, i mean, i know but wow, all this coming from you? YES! you incredible creature.

today marked the day of both kids going into nursery!!! don't be alarmed. that noise you just heard was angles blowing their trumpets in your living room. wasn't it magical? did you get goosebumps just READING that? i know, me too. lets hold hands.

in our church. when your child turns 18 months they get to go into nursery! ---oh sorry, i'll tell the angles to stop blowing that horn. they can't help it every time you read that.

so i blissfully skipped and leaped and did lunges and ran and jumped along the wall and did cart wheels and somersaults all the way to the nursery doors. in a DRESS no less, you guys! i shoved conrad in with all my might, and gave him a glass of water, and patted him on the head and yes this is all stolen out of the grinch who stole christmas. no but really, and then TEARS. sobbing, snot dripping, hysterical tears. from my 2 1/2 year old WHOSHOULDBEUSEDTONURSERYBYNOWBUTHESNOTSOBACKOFF!!!! and scarlet? oh miss independent practically strut into nursery like she owned the place. she did a sassy black girl snap back and forth and everything. and then she taught all the girls how to do the "bend and snap" and all the boys were drooling over scarlet. oh my dear scarlet!

except, once conrad started to SOB then scarlet began to SOB and then i began to walk out of nursery and not look back. and then the nursery leader said WHY DONT YOU STAY?! and then jeremy laughed a hard evil laugh and peaced out of there! i held out my hand for him, and when the door shut i looked out that glass window and held my face right up against it and i began to sob.

so for the r453464564Ed4533435 sunday in a ROW, i was in nursery YET AGAIN. and don't get me wrong i LOVE(hate) it in there!! and then when i asked the nursery leader if they mind if i just "slipped out" she said "WHY HEAVENS NO!!! stay at LEAST 2 weeks!" (no i swear to you, she said that) and then i threw a tantrum and threw my goldfish crackers on the floor.

i dreamed of the day both my kids would be old enough to be in nursery. later suckers! mama gets 2 free hours to herself! (where obviously i would skip church, get star bucks and take a nap in the parking lot) BUT NO! they cry. and so i stay. and i do so with a heavy loving heart.

so let it be known you guys! if you think I'm inactive, just peer through the nursery doors and you'll see me, melting small small small. (primary song joke. if you're mormon you get it. if you're not, its about a snow man. you're welcome.)

i'd like to file a complaint?

every single day i pick up my house. when the kids go to bed thats when i do most of the work. dishes, vacuuming ecter-freaking-ra. so on friday night before jeremy came home i picked it up in a frenzied panic. dishes! counters! sweeping! and so forth. by the very next morning it looked like i had done nothing. saturday after the kids went to bed i cleaned the house for hours. HOURS.

dishes again. sweeping. vacuuming. mopping. the bathrooms. dusted. washed our sheets and duvet and put them back on the bed. put away 2 cases of water bottles in our fridge, organized, folded laundry. i was a cleaning machine! i told jeremy when he woke up to please help me keep the house clean because i had gone to so much work the 2 nights before and never got to enjoy it.

by 4:30 the next day my house was a WRECK. crumbs all over my floor. toys all over. all the dvds pulled out of the cupboard, tons of dishes in the sink, the floor looked like i hadn't just spent an hour totally making it spotless. it was awful. we gathered the kids together to go to dinner at jeremys parents and i tried really hard not to cry.

i was so exhausted. even just the sunday before i made jeremy take the kids over to his parents so i could clean the house for a few hours in peace. i told him if the average person had gone to as much hard work as i had 7 days ago it would not look like our house now. at jeremys parents house i had to hide my head in a pillow laying down on the couch so no one could see the tears swelling up in my eyes. it took everything in me to not break down and scream out "being a mom is HARD!!!!"

so since sunday i've vacuumed a few times, put away toys, the bare essentials but i can't bring myself to motivate myself to clean anymore than your "make the bed daily" chores. its a mess. and i care so much. its like I've been through horrible torture and i just can't bring myself to get back to where i left off. I'm too traumatized by the whole situation of it all.

and i have to admit, laying down and reading a book every night, instead of picking up for hours and then going to bed is so much nicer. but help me! what do i do? i'd rather die than pick up ONE MORE MESS. and my floors? OH MY FLOORS!!!!!!

(when scarlet broke her bowl the other morning)

its a code war!

there are major pros and cons to a husband that travels. usually i think its a huge con after a 5 day work week of just me. usually i think its a pro after a 5 day work week. HERE ME OUT.

there is absolutely zero balance in anything. its either total extreme or polar opposite. sometimes he's been gone for 2 weeks at a time, and usually when that happens he comes home to find me with my hair sticking straight up, my hands contorted in a way like a 90yr old woman with carpel tunnel and I'm lying face down while stray cats groom my hair and body for me. this only happens 99.100% of the time though. see what i did there? did you think i was going to say 99.9%?

the pro to having a husband who travels is sometimes you get to sleep in! usually the first day, and heck, if he really loves you (he loves me) he'll let me go 2..and sometimes our mornings even start like this!....

6:50AM-the sound of our toddler waking up. he usually screams bloody murder in his way of saying "dear mother, riseth and shine, for i am awake and tis a day for hearkening and i pooped my pants". or SOMETIMES if you're really lucky he'll just whine at his door over and over to only be described as asking your alarm to set itself to the "nails on a chalkboard" setting and just telling it to surprise you at any given time of morning. but remember alarm clock, not after 7am because that would just be ludicrous! and your alarm goes, "dude! I'm not crazy! of course I'm going to go off multiple times a night full volume, but before 7am? you think I'm crazy?!" and i say "screw you alarm clock! you adorable thing you."

and then 99.100% of our conversations start like this. FIRST THING. (no, "good morning beautiful!" oh look, your here too jeremy.)

me: you going to get him?

jer: im so tired

me: i kept telling you to go to bed last night.

jer: just get up with him. you can take naps, i can't.

me: i know, but i've been up with them the past 2 mornings. plus i cleaned the entire house yesterday, and my body hurts from working out. and i took care of them while you were out of town for the day. plus you kept me up all night because you wouldn't go to bed!

jer: fine but i get to sleep in next week every single day. (he just gets to make up rules like this?!)

(i swear to you, verbatim)

thats how seriously, almost every.single.one. of our mornings go when he's in town. sometimes we stick to a system, of every other day the person gets up with the kids, but then that turns into a "who did more" war.

and then i wake up and i find dishes in the sink, crumbs as far as the eye can see, a pile of poopy diapers next to the front door, goldfish crackers smashed and embedded into my rug, sticky spots throughout the tile, dirty highchair trays, piles of blankets, every single toy of Conrad's slewed throughout the house...

and then i get on my hamster wheel and begin to clean it all up again, while messes are being made as i go. but i have to do it, in case someone stops by and thinks we're growing goldfish crackers like crystal meth spewing up from the carpet. because what else would explain all those crumbs?

rofl.

i kind of have this thing where i save pictures that make me laugh. i know. and a random hot picture of jeremy thrown in there







and of course, my very good looking husband.