The last 24 hours. House sitting. JBF Sale. Fender bender. Home. Ruined load of laundry.

I've officially, OFFICIALLY, earned my mama badge.

And I want to give it back.

Ha! Not really. I may be exaggerating... I guess we'll see if I want to give it back or not after this load of laundry is done.

Let's start at the beginning.

Last week a friend asked if we would like to house sit for them while they're gone for the week. All we had to do was feed some chicks, enjoy the perks of a great big yard with lots of outdoor toys, and we even got to use their car. Which was awesome, because for a few days, we didn't have to worry about planning around Aaron's work and school schedule if I needed to use the car. It was a great deal! A stay-cation. 

Notice the tall violet socks, with jean shorts, a fall colored dress, hair in her face because she likes it "long" and knight armor. I love this age. :)

Last weekend, I also decided 1 to be a consignor at the Just Between Friends Sale. Here are some pictures from last years' sale if you wanna check it out. Over 100,000 items sold at that sale and you bet ours were going to be some of them. Sell Sophia's clothes from last fall/winter and have them pay for the next sizes up for this year. Plus buy all of Silas' fall/winter clothes since he's growing like a weed and we hadn't expected our four month old to be wearing 12 month clothing already. Mama frugality at it's finest. Sign me up.

So hard at work I went, organizing, uploading, hanging, bagging, taping, and tagging. 

(Insert nicely organized tagged items ready to go. Heh.)

Fast forward a few days. I fell asleep the night before the last drop off day. The night I was supposed to finish everything.

I let myself sleep that night thinking I'd get up early. When I got up, I realized had Aaron left some of the tagging supplies at our house. And locked our house key inside... So he had to go get a spare key from my mom before I could start. I mean I could have started.. BUT I tried to finish one day while Sophia was in the room and it was horrible. Horrible. A major crisis. I was packing up Sophia's old things. Toys she hadn't touched in forever. Shoes she couldn't cram her feet in anymore. She couldn't handle it. And neither could I.

Oh yeah, so I made it with five minutes to spare before they locked the drop off doors. Got my stuff inspected and put it all out. And I was ready for the presale the next day.

Aaron had to work late Thursday evening, so I asked my dad if Sophia could hang with him and he said "of course!"

We were running behind, then dad was running behind, and by the time I got to the JBF sale, it was 6:50.

(Hmm. This is turning out to be much longer than I planned on.)

Anyway, I spent two hours searching for the things on my list and fed Silas in the middle of that in the breastfeeding tent. He's entered the distracted stage, so I'm reeeeally glad they had an actual tent to close us in. But even then, he took forever to eat. He looked around with wide eyes off and on the whole time. It was much too loud in there. Plus, we were right next to a bunch of battery operated toys = majorly distracted baby.

Then spent 45 minutes waiting in line to check out.

Checked out, and was told to go around to the side of the coliseum to pick up my "large" item.

Loaded up, drove around, unloaded, walked down to get our Go-Pod.

I was looking for an exersaucer type seat for Silas, but wanted to avoid the bright, bulky, plastic ones. I found portable one and thought it was perfect. Our house is pretty small, so it'd be easy to put away when not in use, and it has a bunch of loops to hook toys from. This is the "large item" I could have easily packed up and carried with me while shopping. Why I didn't think of that, I don't know. Wish I would have!

While I was walking back to the car, I notice another car parked at an angle behind me, and a lady looking at the back of my car. I thought maybe she noticed I had a flat tire or something. Nope. She says "Is this your car? We just backed into it."

Excuse me while I throw up.

You what?!

It's not my car...

I've never been in any wreck (well, unless you count my freshman year of college when my jerk of a boyfriend ran into my car. With his car. ...Out of anger. But let's not go there.).

I was nervous enough to drive someone else's car.
I was careful.
I didn't text (never do that anyway) or talk on my phone and drive.
I used my blinkers religiously.
I didn't speed.
I went slow.

I looked both ways even when the my light was green.
I did everything right!

Why? Why, the one time I borrow someone else's car, do I have to get backed into. When that's never happened before!?!

Since it was on private property we weren't able to file a police report, but could fill out a form and swap it with the other person involved. It was an official piece of paper with both insurances.

The lady who hit the car was really sweet and understanding. Even though that piece of paper wasn't necessary she gladly waited for the police to come.

Two of the volunteers from the JBF sale waited around some with us. One was actually someone that used to go to church with me that I haven't seen in at least seven six or seven years, and the other was the children's director of the church Sophia went to for a Mother's Day Out program. They helped distract and keep me company during it all. Which was nice. Glad God put them there... otherwise I'm pretty sure I would have cried.

All while this is going on, Aaron and Sophia are waiting for me. Aaron locked our house key in the house, again, and I had the extra key from my mom. I'm only two hours behind schedule at this point. Only.

Finally, I head home to our house since Sophia missed home and wanted to stay the night there instead of our friends'.

I get home, and the key doesn't work. Actually, mom gave me two. Neither of them are ours.

Text my dad asking if he still has our house key. His reply: "Did I ever have your house key?" (He did. Both of my parents got one when we bought our house two years ago.) Great... Mom lives twenty-five minutes away and there's no way I can stay awake another hour to go get it.

Aaron pulls up with Sophia. I'm bawling in the car. Silas is crying.

He goes around back and breaks a small window pain that had a crack in the glass, reaches in, unlocks the window, crawls in, and walks through the front door. My knight in shining armor. He starts to tell me he broke the already broken one, but I stopped him mid sentence and said "thanks. I don't even care. I just want to be home."

A few hours later I'm laying in bed with the most monstrous headache. The kind where you have to have your husband put pressure right between your eyebrows. The kind that comes from extreme stress and exhaustion. The kind that, even though you can usually fall asleep on command (not everyone can do that? Oh. Well, I sure can, and do!) it takes an hour to fall asleep. The kind of headache that wakes you up a few hours later and makes you take a Tylenol.

I woke up this morning with major knots in my stomach knowing that I had to call my friend and tell her someone backed into their nice, new car. Luckily, she is awesome. And completely understanding. Always. And has even had that happen to her. Twice! *sigh* She told me to untie the knots in my stomach and let it go. Cue Aaron singing Frozen's "Let it gooo, let it gooooo."

So I did. And was feeling better.

And somehow our house was a total disaster. Even though we were hardly here this week? Hm?

I start cleaning and throw some laundry into the wash. All Silas' new fall/winter wardrobe, a few new-to-me, expensive cloth diapers from the sale, and some of our other favorite clothes we wore this week.

And then I opened the dryer.

....

And everything is red and brown.

Despite me checking pockets, like I always do, two crayons sneaked themselves into the wash. And when I say sneaked, I mean in a secret pocket in Aaron's shorts. Ok, maybe not so secret. Just the side pocket on cargo shorts. ...that he never uses. Note to self: check the side pockets. ALWAYS.

And I thought I was baling last night.

$60 worth of JBF items. All of Silas' cold season wardrobe and some of our other favorite clothes. My new cloth diapers and fabric for more diapers. The chaos of the night before. The reason why someone else's car got backed into on my watch! The reason for my monster headache. All for nothing! All covered in red and brown wax.

And so I cried. And cried.

And cried.

Aaron started looking up ways to get crayon out and bought some miracle cleaner called Awesome.

All day I've been soaking, prewashing, washing, and extra rinsing that load of clothes. I've used 3/4 bottle of Awesome, homemade detergent (Washing Soda, Borax, Baking Soda, Fels Naptha soap, and OxiClean), and Seventh Generation Free&Clear laundry detergent.

I just checked the washer and about 90% of the crayon is gone. I'd show picture, but they're in another wash and extra rinse cycle of the free and clean detergent. Aaron's also busy using Magic Erasers to get the red wax out of the entire dryer! Arg.

So, back to that load of laundry.
I guess I don't want to give my mama badge back after all. It was hard earned.

I keep waiting for God to show me something through all of this. Now that I look back on it all, it wasn't so bad. I was probably due for a good cry anyway. Should I even post this? It's a bunch of nothing. A bunch of whining. Yes. Yes, I'll post it. For a few reasons.

1.) Check every pocket before putting clothes in the washer.

2.) Awesome works. And apparently it works on everything. I don't even want to know what chemicals are in that bottle. I'm just glad that in my desperate situation this Dollar Store miracle worked. And you better believe I will have it on hand for future emergencies.

3.) Make more copies of our house key and plant them all over the outside of the house.

4.) Start tagging the items I'll be selling at the spring JBF sale now. ;)

5.) 1 Thessalonians 5:18 Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. It doesn't say give thanks "for" but give thanks "in" all circumstances. After these last 24 hours, I'm just starting to grasp this.

Oh, and I just checked my JBF profile. So far, I've already made back double the total that I spent at the sale. Definitely worth it.
Minus the friend's car getting backed into. 

Something's brewing... and it's exciting.

Where do I even start?

I have so many thoughts, it would take forever to put them in any order so I'll just... start talking!

I like blogging. It's a fun hobby for me. Not as time consuming, messy, or expensive as scrapbooking (do people still even do that anyway?) but still like an online scrapbook. I like that.

I love memories and I love reading about other's memories.
I like to share what we're going through. I like hearing about what other's are going through and how they're handling it.
I like to talk. Especially about things I'm into. And I like learning how to do things or different ways to do things.
I love being a parent and being married. I like learning tools to strengthen myself in those areas. Or even just knowing that other people are going through the same things, too.

Sometimes being a stay at home mom is a lonely life. I honestly thought it would all come naturally. That I'd just figure it out as I go. Parenting. Motherhood. Wifehood. Along with being my own person and still having my own goals and dreams.
But this last year, it hasn't come so naturally. If fact, it seems to be getting harder. And I think it feels harder partly because I don't have something that I do for myself.

So that book I mentioned before, Desperate. Hope for the mom who needs to breathe. By Sarah Mae & Sally Clarkson. It's good. Real good. I'm only three chapters in and I'm already seeing my perspective changing.

Sally says "Motherhood was meant to be experienced with other mothers, aunts, grandmothers, and a community of women sharing the load."
We need other mom friends. And we all know how hard that is.
That's probably why mommy blogging is so popular.
(Which I am, by the way, stepping out of my comfort zone and working towards getting more mama friends. And no, not just online. Heh. It's easy to find like minded moms online. Real life=not so much. But yes, I'm working on it!)

Then Sally says "And remember, a wise woman is one who copies wise women."
I used to feel bad, weird, even creepy... ha ha, doing things the way someone else did. But there's a reason I did/do those things. Because they're wise. And thanks to Sally Clarkson, I feel like I have permission to keep on copying and learning what works for us in all aspects of our lives.

I was listening to this podcast the other day. I think it was from The Art of Simple, or maybe How They Blog, but they were talking about taking action. You've got to start somewhere. Just do it. Something will come.

I've been sewing for years and used to make good money selling totes and purses and even planned on going to the Art Institute of Dallas for it right before I found out I was pregnant with Sophia. I thought I was over my sewing days, until I attempted a cloth diaper the other day. And hey, I'm not over it at all! I've made little things here and there. People always say I should sell stuff. I knew I could, but what? What do I make and sell?

Then cloth diapers happened.

And that got my wheels turning.

I would love to start my own ByrdHouse business. Different product lines. Things for the baby byrd, mama byrd, and maybe for the sister byrd. Things for your byrd nest. Work on baby first, then add to it over time.

So I'll be working on that. And hoping in six months to a year I can launch a little online business. I guess I'm still considering an Etsy shop, too, but who knows.

Right now I'm just trying to learn more about blogging. What style of blog I want to write. Finding a balance between being too wordy or not wordy enough. Being consistent. Maybe a new domain name and leaving blogger and moving somewhere else.

I'm a little worried my lack of knowledge in the English department will hinder me though. Although, according to some, it might help since I'm not worried so much about format, being grammatically correct, and some other stuff that kinda went over my head. Ha! A friend gave me a book about creative nonfiction to read and I'm excited to dive into that.

I've decided to start Vlogging too. I learned that term yesterday. Vlog. Cool. Where have I been? I've had several people and friends ask how we cloth diaper, so I thought I'd do my first video on our cloth diapering system.

I plan on posting more than "keeping up" with us. All subjects. Family, parenting, motherhood, wifehood, marriage, finances, minimizing, organizing, food, natural alternatives, DIY crafts, babies. Everything. Not picking a certain category quite yet so I can see where it takes me.

Hoping I can tie all of this together, and eventually make something of it. It's been fun to think about. Part of me is thinking "who would even care?" Who cares what I have to say about what? But if there is anyone else like me, I think they'd like to visit my page.

I've been talking about this stuff for years to Aaron, and last night I went off on a long spill about it all. He said I should go for it. So I am.

And this even half of what the Lord is stirring up in my heart! Ah!

More to come later.
Sorry for the long post.
Lots of rambling.
Had to get it out some way!

And for your enjoyment... Some random pictures from last night. Aaron got a new phone. Trying out his camera.

To anyone who stuck with me through my babbling... What do you think? 

Thoughts? Tips? Advice? I'd love some feedback. :)

Silas- 4 Months

I had originally planned on doing posts for Silas every three months, but I forgot how much babies change in such short amounts of time.

All of these changes have happened in the last two weeks. Right at four months.

The day before Silas turned four months (two weeks and one day ago), he started fussing some when I set him down. I kept thinking "what is going on?" all day, but now I realize he's starting to understand more and not liking being separated from me.

I mean, he's not fussing all the time. He's really just starting to.

I've been waiting for it.

My sweet, easy going babe.

How long would that really last?

Along with some fussing, he's also started protesting the car seat. I didn't even realize he was old enough to know he didn't want to be in the car seat!? He has officially started arching his back and giving a little fuss about half of the time we load up to go somewhere.

He had his first big screaming cry in the car the other night. If Sophia hadn't been crying herself I know he wouldn't have gotten so upset, but she was, and he did. And it was a LONG 20 minutes home from my mom's house. I even pulled over once to calm them down. I was heart broken and drained by the time we pulled in the driveway. I think theirs were, too...

He also started rolling to his belly as soon as I put him on the floor. Then rolling and rolling more.

Laughs at the sound of our laughter.

Likes Peek-a-boo. But mostly when it's mama playing with him. ;)

Has a few ticklish spots. Ribs and inside of thighs.

Beginning to get distracted while nursing. Coming unlatched to look at me when I talk. Smiling or laughing mid feed. Startles and unlatches at loud or sudden noises.

Still loves his activity mat and starting to grab and hold toys.

Also weirdly attracted to screens. TV, phone, computer. Maybe all babies are? Sophia wasn't until about two years old. So it's weird to me.

Loves sister. Sophia always makes him smile and laugh.

Ready for bed between 6:30-7:30.

Eating every two to three hours during the night the last week. Growth spurt!

Wears 9-12 clothes.

A few weeks ago at his four month appointment, he was 17.13lbs and 26.5"

That put him in the 90% for weight and 97% for height.

Not that I care about that, BUT it is fun for me to see that he's in the 97% while Sophia was always in the 3%. Silas is about the size Sophia was on her first birthday. Whoa!

He is SUCH a mama's baby. 

So special knowing that my touch, voice, or snuggles can calm him in an instant. And I am eating that up!

He's still very easy going and a little bit "serious" 

Just like his daddy. ;)