If you're curious...

For those of you who are wondering, yes, I will be posting the rest of the blogs about our Chicago/Iowa trip soon!  Stay tuned!

Can I clone myself?

The thing I hate the most about being a single mom is that I feel like I never have time for the Punkin.  It wasn't that bad this summer because I didn't have to go to work and we got to spend all day together, which I totally loved.  But I've only been back in school 4 days and I already feel like I'm neglecting her.  I've been trying to get to the gym regularly since we got back from vacation but I feel guilty whenever I go because she has to be in the gym daycare for an hour while I work out, which is an hour I could be spending with her.  So then it becomes a battle of what's more important: the long term goal of getting healthy and losing weight, or the short term goal of spending as much time as possible with Julianne.  I hate having to choose between the two.

Take today, for example.  I had to work regular hours (8 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.) but I didn't get out of school until about 4:00.  Drove to the sitter to get Punkin, then on the way home I stopped at Al.bertson's to get some stuff for dinner.  By the time we got home, it was 5:15, and I really wanted to go to the 6:30 BodyFlow class at the gym, which meant we had to leave at 6:15.  So I had an hour to get dinner ready and eat it.  I was also planning on Bren coming over after we got home, so I wanted to do the dishes, vacuum the house and change the sheets on my bed.  I started cooking dinner and doing the dishes at the same time, but it was difficult because Julianne wanted to be held.  When I made it clear that I was trying to cook dinner and couldn't really hold her, she decided to go wild.  She took off her diaper and started running around the house, and pooped on the throw rug in the kitchen and peed all over the living room carpet even though she is perfectly capable of using the potty and knows right where it is.  Sigh.  So instead of spending time with her, I had to clean that up.

Dinner wasn't ready till about 6:05, which means there were only 10 minutes to eat.  I figured I could eat when I got home, but Punkin needed to eat so I sat her down with a bowl while I got dressed.  So that was 10 minutes I couldn't spend with her because I had to make sure I was dressed.  We headed to the gym, I dropped her in the daycare, went to class for an hour, then picked her up and came home.  We got home at 7:45, then I only got to spend 45 minutes with her before bedtime.  We sat in my chair and shared a bowl of noodles (my dinner that I never got to eat!) and watched some TV before we went in her room and changed her diaper and put her  in jammies.  We rocked in the rocking chair while I sang "Rock-A-Bye-Baby" over and over (and over and over and over and over), which has really become my favorite nighttime ritual with her, and then she went to bed.

So all in all, I feel like I hardly spent any time with her today.  I'd say maybe an hour this morning getting ready to go and on the drive to work.  Then maybe an hour this afternoon on the way home from work and at the store.  Maybe 15 minutes at home while I worked on dinner, 10 minutes to the gym, 10 minutes home from the gym, and 45 minutes before bed.  So, in the 14.5 hours I've been awake today, I've only spent 3 hours and 20 minutes with Punkin, and I wouldn't call much of that quality time, since 68% of Punkin time was spent in the car.

I only spent 24% of my day with the love of my life.  I spent 55% of my day at my job that I... well... at my job.

I spent 7% of my day having "me" time, which is what I am constantly told is my workout.  But oddly enough, I don't think about myself during my workouts.  I think about Punkin.

I HATE HATE HATE that I can't spend more time with her.  I HATE HATE HATE it.

Iowa: Day 3

We were going to try to go to the pool today, but it didn't work for us because when we woke up, it was raining (again).  I was disappointed, because I figured that meant that we'd have to be stuck in the house all day.  It was nice just hanging out in the house yesterday, but the kids really needed to get out and do something.  Especially because Silas was having a hard time sharing with Punkin and that just led to a lot of fighting with each other.  It's frustrating to both the kids and the moms, so we were hoping to get out and do something.  It made it a bit worse because Jasmine is watching a little girl this week named River, so not only did Punkin and Silas have to share with each other, they had to share with River, too.  And having three kiddos 4 and under in one small room for the day wasn't really going to work out.

We squeezed the 3 munchkins into the back of the car!

Eventually we decided that even though it was raining, we would go into downtown Independence so we could go to some of the little shops and so I could take pictures of the buildings and whatnot.  We piled all three kids in the car and went down to this little country/antique shop called The Little Red School House and looked around in there for a bit, then tried to find postcards in the dollar store, with not much luck.  I was determined to find postcards to send home from Iowa since I didn't get a chance to send any from Chicago, but I so far I hadn't been able to find any in any of the store we went to.  We stopped in Connie's Hallmark and the drugstore, then we went to S&K Collectibles on the main street through town and I was finally able to find my postcards.  As we were leaving the shops, we realized the kids needed to be changed and it was time for lunch and nap, so we decided to head back to Jasmine's house (like a mile or two away - how's that for convenient?!) and go back to downtown later in the afternoon.

Trying to get on a bike in downtown

We did lunch and nap as planned, and then River's family came to get her, so Jasmine and I were ready to take Silas and Punkin back into downtown.  We got back in the car and drove back downtown, then parked on one side of the street and got out to walk around a bit.  Punkin really liked being able to walk instead of having to be in her stroller and found plenty of stuff to play with.  We went into Laree's and I was able to find some more (and different) postcards to buy.  There were also tons of toys in the store, but Punkin was mostly fascinated with several huge stuffed dogs that she found and spent a good bit of time sitting on the floor, petting "her" puppies.

After heading home from downtown, the rest of the day was uneventful.  We had corn on the cob and salad for dinner (the kids had some leftover chicken breast too) and Jasmine forced me to watch The Bachelorette against my will (despite my best efforts, I found myself actually somewhat interested and felt really bad for Chris when she told him to get lost).  Tomorrow we're going to Backbone State Park for a picnic!

Iowa: Day 2

Iowa: Day 2 was a whole lotta nothing.  After the adventures in Chicago and the long drive back to Iowa, no one was really in a hurry to do anything exciting.  I wanted to go to church, so when we got up in the morning, Jasmine called the only Catholic church in town and found out that mass was at 10, which gave me plenty of time to take a shower and get ready to go.  I had also decided that I was famished and nothing less than McDonald's for breakfast was going to satisfy me.  So after I was all ready to go, Jon and I climbed in the car and headed five minutes down the road to the only McDonald's in town.  Jon had gone out the night before to get some groceries and brought me back a huge box of Luvs diapers for Punkin, so I bought breakfast for everyone to pay them back.  After hardly eating anything for the last day and a half, those two little sausage burritos tasted like manna from heaven.  Of course I spilled some schmutz on my shirt, though.  Go fig!

St. John's Catholic Church, where I went to mass

After McDonald's, we were still way early for church and I had no desire to go sit and be stared at by the locals, so Jon drove me around through Independence and showed me where they take Silas to play, and where his mom lives, among other places.  When we eventually got to the church, Jon dropped me off out front and I went inside.  The church looks a lot bigger from the outside than it really is.  I liked it, though.  It was old, and it smelled like a church.  Everything was wood and glass.  I sat halfway up on the middle aisle and was very happy that no one seemed to be staring at me - all the people were really nice.

I had a moment of panic, though.  During communion, everyone filed themselves out of their aisles - no ushers standing there to make sure that everyone waited patiently - and we stood in line to go to the front of the church.  But I quickly realized that people were making the line in the middle of the aisle and the outsides of the aisle were for people heading back to their seats.  So I got confused with where I was supposed to stand, especially because I knew I wanted wine and no one in front of me was getting it.  I couldn't figure out whether I was supposed to get wine, then head back down the middle aisle, or get wine and then make my way to the outside of the pews and come in from the side.  It was all very confusing, but thankfully the guy two people ahead of me got wine and I just followed him back down the middle aisle.

Part of downtown Independence

After mass, I went outside to wait for Jon and took some pictures of the town.  It's a very cute little town - the epitome of small town America.  There's one main grocery store called Fareway, and then the tiniest little Super Wal-Mart I've ever seen in my life.  It also has a cute little main street with a pharmacy, a hardware store and some specialty shops.  It really does remind me of Main Street at the Magic Kingdom at Disney World.  It's the kind of town that I would love to live in one day - it seems like a great place to raise kids and know they're going to turn out okay and with wholesome family values.


Shortly after I got back from church, we had lunch and then the kids went down for a nap.  Jasmine needed groceries for the week, so she and I went to Wal-Mart while the kids slept and Jon kept an eye on them.  We got pulled pork for sandwiches, chicken and tomato sauce for pasta, salad stuff and grapes for snacks.  Jasmine also got Punkin a little "Iowa Princess" t-shirt and I bought Punkin a Dora blanket since Silas has his own blanket that he's protective over.  I was worried Punkin would wake up and freak out when she saw I wasn't there, but once we got back we found they were still sleeping.  Jasmine spent the rest of the day making pulled pork and pasta so we would have stuff for dinner and lunches for the next few days, and the kids spent the rest of the day in the playroom alternately playing and fighting with each other till bathtime and bedtime.

Ah, toddlers.  They're awesome.