Atomic Tonic

I'm thinking about blogging here again. Thinkin' thoughts about it. There are certainly things to blog about. These kids, they don't slow down just because I do, you know.

Posted by atomic at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Matilda, on the porch: "Linnea is eating chalk! Mama! She's eating chalk!"
Me, from the kitchen: "Ok. Can you take it away from her?"
Matilda: "I can't because she'll bite me!"

Posted by atomic at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wait. I have a blog? Huh. I keep forgetting. I guess I'm over the whole idea but not sure what to do with that information. I need to keep the site up for access to PSV, so what's the point in shutting down the blog if things need to stay active here anyway?

Well.

Got me there.

Here's some things:

Matilda turned three on the first of the month. This age might kill me.
Linnea turned one 10 hours and 3 minutes ago. She's got a hacking cough today. Sounds like a seal and I'm pretty sure her throat is sore as she whimpers every time she does it. Heartbreaking.

There. That should do it for a few more months around here.

Posted by atomic at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hai so I just spent 48 hours locked out of my own site and starting at this

instead of what you are currently staring at. That's what happens when you: get married, change your name, move, get a new phone number and drop the email address associated with the domain. You don't get a notice that your domain is about to expire.

So that was fun. Lesson learned!

Posted by atomic at 8:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't know how you do it. You mothers that stay home with your kids everyday. I'm home with mine, sure, but Matilda is in preschool (and used to be in daycare) twice a week. You folks that have the kids at home every single day? I don't know how you get through it.

Matilda is supposed to be in preschool today but I guilted myself into driving over there to drop off her naptime blankets. I was stupid enough to go into her room. I was weak enough to let her guilt me into taking her with me. I knew it was a bad idea. Mother knows best. Matilda and I need breaks from each other and we've been short on those these last few weeks. This week we've been in the house too much too, on account of the croup. Today was a really good day for us to spend some time apart but I let a two-year-old call the shots and I'm here to regret it. I'm short on patience and both kids appear to be short on naps, as in, neither wants one. I could really us one. I've changed three poopy diapers so far today. Two of those should not have been for me. The two that were antibiotics-induced, those weren't for me.

So we're all home, sickish, awake, again, still. I used to read suburban bliss and not get why she was always so excited for school to start. Why she seemed to dislike spending time with her kids. Then my kid outgrew that baby stage where they can do no wrong. Linnea is still in that stage. I'm enjoying it in her because I know it's not going to last. I know in two years I'm going to want her to leave me alone for 5 minutes. Today I want Matilda to leave me alone for 5 minutes.

Posted by atomic at 1:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Hey so have I told you all about my green smoothies? A few months ago, when I stopped eating sugar and flirted with a raw food diet (I love coffee too much to do more than that) I discovered the green smoothies. They, the raw foodists, say that you can't taste greens -- spinach, kale, lettuce -- in a fruit smoothie. Sounds impossible but it's true.

I'm no longer eating the majority of my food raw. I kind of wish I was, though, because the raw diet is certainly higher in fruits and vegetables and I hate to admit it but it does make you feel better. It also appears that you really can eat all you want and not puff up like a marshmallow...I'm talking myself into it again, right now, because I feel horrible and big with my current we're-all-sick diet of pizza and chocolate icebox cookies. Sure the sore throat and stuffy nose are not helping, but really I'm in a bad place with my current eating habits. Guess the Margaret Cho Fuck It diet hasn't really sunk in. (WHY are so many women so messed up about food? Why. It's heartbreaking and I hate it. I need another cookie.)

Anyway! Green smoothies. I'm back to cooking my carrots but I've kept up the green smoothies for breakfast because I like them. Weird, huh.

Green Smoothie

a banana
big handful of baby spinach
one lime, quartered and peeled
couple of sprigs of fresh mint
three slices of fresh ginger
handful of either mango or pineapple (I use the latter when I can and frozen mango when I run out.)

Toss it all into a blender, fill about halfway with water and blend for a good couple of minutes.

Posted by atomic at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm trying to come to terms with this blog. I'm trying but all I get is silence. I'm certainly not the first person with a public blog to feel trapped by the...publicness of it all. Writing for no one holds no appeal to me but the possibility of anyone reading this scares me. It scares me because I want to have control over who reads it but that's impossible.

I bought this domain in 1999. I did this and that with it and started some forums. For a while it was more of a 'zine with contributors. Then it was...I have no idea. Then it was more and then it was less. Then I got pregnant with Matilda and for a long time I gave up posting here and posted somewhere else. Mostly because it was a pregnancy/kid/parent blog and my friends didn't care about that and our family did. Then I moved everything back here and it's still a parent/kid blog. My friends don't care and the family does. And because the family cares, I tend to only post about the kids. The surface of life with kids.

How Matilda cooks us dinner in her kitchen all the time and pretends the pizza is a cake and either way it's "really too hot." How she hugs Linnea and tries to pick her up despite our telling her to stop. How she wore her bikini all summer and loves swimming and band-aids and telling me she wants oatmeal for breakfast when 7 times out of 10, she doesn't really. How she dresses herself and currently will only wear 30% of her clothing, including a too small light pink short sleeved t-shirt. We fight over it at least once a week now that it's too cold for short sleeves.

How Linnea is sturdy and strong and laughs the hardest for Matilda. How she eats everything and bounces when she wants more. How she claps and talks and points and pulls her ears when she's tired. How she rests her leg on my chest when she's nursing and kneads my thighs with her feet when she's sleeping.

But the reality is hard. I'm 9 months post partum and still can't get a handle on myself. I still have 10 pounds to lose. I can't reliably run 20 miles a week. I missed the last race I'd signed up for and I'm not positive I'll make it to the next one. This morning I saw a photograph of a stranger running the NY marathon and it sent me into a tailspin of depression. Niclas tells me I spend too much time on myself and not enough on the kids and yet I feel totally overwhelmed with the responsibility of two children. I feel guilty that I want to run an hour a day and I feel worse when I don't run. I'm angry at Niclas for judging my parenting and angry at myself for feeling guilty. I'm angry at my body for taking so long to recover from this second pregnancy and angry at myself for caring. I've tried to count calories and I've tried to eat less carbs. I've knocked out sugar and then cooked foods. I've done shots of olive oil. I've given up and tried Margaret Cho's Fuck It diet. I haven't been on it long enough to stop gaining. I've lost 5 pounds more than once and then regained it in a second. I'm saggy and even after hernia surgery on my belly button, I'm soft and round and my pants don't fit. I look old and used and as much as I try, reading The Shape of a Mother is not making me feel any better. I love my kids but I hate what they've done to my body.

I hate how overwhelmed I feel. The whining of the two-year-old often melts my face before 8 am. It can take two hours to get out of the house and both kids almost always freak out when we finally get back home. I hate that there's always someone to make me feel guilty about something -- buying Christmas presents or not writing thank you notes or not making a decent dinner or being short with Matilda or not getting the kids out of the house often enough -- or tell me I'm doing it wrong. I hate how some days, it's all I can do to pick up toys. I hate how I'm desperately thirsty all the time but can't seem to keep my water bottle handy. I hate that I feel like I fail at everything. I hate that I curse under my breath when Matilda spills a hundred dried black beans on the floor. I hate that she drives me crazy sometimes and I really hate that Niclas looks at me like I'm terrible when that happens. I hate that I gloat when she drives him over the edge and I hear him growl at her. I hate that I resent him for hardly ever getting up in the mornings with the kids. I hate how our relationship has changed since we've had kids. How I feel like when we met he'd do anything for me and how now it feels like pulling teeth if I ask him to get me water.

Posted by atomic at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Linnea started crawling last week. It'd taken her a few weeks to work out the logistics so for a bit of time there she was mobile and thus untrustworthy but not exactly crawling, per se.

Anyway. Girlfriend is now at it and she's reminding me of just how dangerous our house is especially now with the toys of toddlerhood all over the place as well as computer cables and light fixture cords. I'd give you a full list of the things I've pulled out of her mouth in the last week but it'd only send the grandparents into a tailspin of worry and seeing as how the grandparents are the entire audience of this blog, I'm going to skip it. Too bad because it's a pretty impressive list already.

(chapsticktopstaplecraftrhinestonetinybluebowlblackbeangoldenraisinstickerhairelastic)

I'm thinking this kid only worked out crawling so she could motor to furniture to stand up. Right now she's using Matilda's trampoline to work on the standing, one sock off and the other hanging on by a thread. She's also coughing like a seal because the kids have croup. The croup? I don't know. All these childhood illnesses, they sound so sinister and medieval. Turns out (the) croup is one hell of a cough and a runny nose but not quite on par with The Black Plague, although Matilda does have an ear infection (AGAIN), so she might be up for round two of ear tubes. Anyway. I can't say we're enjoying (the) croup but I think we'll make it out alive.

So what else. I never post here, do I?

We've been up to certain things. Put a bunch of kids in robot jammies in a bouncy house.

Dressed our kids up for Halloween.

Matilda is now in preschool a couple of days a week. Same place as her daycare, same days, just other end of the hall. For some reason that end of the hall changed a lot of things for her. In daycare she was quiet as a mouse. In preschool she talks all day.

Preschool hasn't changed how she feels about class photos, however.

So bershon already. I might have to put some black eyeliner in her christmas stocking. I also might have to start buying prints of these photos if she keeps this up.

(Speaking of Christmas. I've been doing all my shopping online this year and nearly 90% of it on etsy. I'm deeply in love with etsy and I want to share my finds but I can't ruin the surprises so you're all just going to have to go over there and poke around.)

Posted by atomic at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What would you do if you saw 30+ kids in these jammies all at the same time? Just a question. No reason.

...

We gave Linnea seltzer the other day. Kids. They're so much fun.

...

My constant hunger coupled with The Nursing Hunger has driven me to new lows of food obsession. Stopped eating sugar and flour two weeks ago because I was up to my eyeballs in cookies before I'd even had a cup of coffee. Replaced them with raw nuts and fruit. Been eating like a garbage disposal. Frankly horrified at my fat/nut intake but must remain satisfied else I'll be right back to hoovering cookies and the Nutella in the baking drawer.

Working out a new breakfast regime. Making my own almond milk and cocoa Lara Bars. Trolling Raw Food sites in search of interesting ways to eat more vegetables and thinking that the raw chocolate chip cookie dough is maybe not the best thing to try next.

Posted by atomic at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Two years ago we though feeding Matilda her first foods was fun (and messy)

but two years ago we didn't have a two-year-old to help.

Posted by atomic at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)