Keepin' it Real ... and Random

A certain someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.  And she did it about 2 hours earlier than normal.  That pretty much made for a cranky Mommy this morning.  I was able to get her to lay down in the chair with me for about 45 minutes, but only because I let her hold on to my Do Not Disturbs. {Does she not understand what Do Not Disturb means??}  She has been on this kick for the last couple of weeks where at least a dozen times a day, I hear, "Hold Mommy's boobies," or "Drink of Mommy's boobies."  Four months after she is completely weaned and she's asking for them again.  And, I know I have to break her of this because in a little over four months, there's going to be a little baby attached to them and I am pretty sure it is going to make Olivia one unhappy little camper.  Not to mention, they need A BREAK.  It's not that she just rests her hand on them, I could probably deal with that.  There are times when she is squeezing and pinching the most sensitive part of them.  I know that this is probably too much information and Lord knows she is going to hate me one day for putting this out on the internet, but I am at my tits wits end!  Not to mention, my dad already knows all about this because he heard her beg for it on a daily basis when we were in Arizona.

Now, I know what those of you without children are probably thinking.  I think the same thing DAILY. Just don't let her have them.  Well, one, you probably have never met Olivia.  And, two, it's not that easy!  I could be wearing a turtleneck and if I am holding her, her hand is like a magnet to the inside of my shirt.  If I say NO, she throws a fit.  Literally, she will put herself onto the ground and tantrum for at least 15 minutes.  It's unbearable, but I do let her do it a lot of the time.  But, when I'm exhausted at 6:30 in the morning, the hand gets a hall pass so to speak.  Nothing like mixed signals there, Mom.  I know.


And since we're on the topic of tantrums or, really,  just being difficult, let me just say that we pretty much eat all of our meals outside these days.  It helps that temps have been in the upper 80s {WOOHOO} and it is still nice and warm at dinnertime.  But, the real reason is that getting Olivia into her high chair {or anything else that holds her down} is probably my least favorite part of the day and our meals are not so enjoyable when she is struggling to get out.  So, we've been eating outside and she sits in a little plastic chair and can wiggle and squirm and run around as much as she wants.  And, we get to enjoy our meals.  It's all about picking your battles and I'm calling that one a Win-Win.

Olivia does pretty well with most meals - she definitely has her favorite foods and strangely, one day she'll scarf down asparagus like it's her last meal and the next time she won't touch them.  She LOVES salad and likes to muncha muncha cruncha cruncha on her carrot slivers, but I've been wanting to sneak in some more veggies.  So, after seeing this recipe for smoothies, I decided to give it a try.

I had a bag of Jamba Juice smoothie mix and added a huge handful of spinach to it.  Sounds gross doesn't it?  It looked normal though and tasted just as delicious.  To be honest, I could taste a little spinach when I thought about it, but for the most part it just tasted like a berry smoothie.

We ended up drinking our lunch smoothies outside.  Olivia sucked hers down and then had some of mine.  Yay for sneaking some spinach in there!  I'm calling that a Win-Win too!

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm complaining about Olivia because that certainly isn't the case.  I know her behavior is absolutely, positively typical for her age.  And, I also notice that she tends to get more clingy when I'm not giving her as much attention as I should.  After a few tantrums this morning {while I was cleaning up the breakfast dishes and preparing food in the crockpot}, we went outside for some playtime and she was great.  

Beyond GREAT.

I love her - tantrums and all.

Happy Thursday from the Central Coast!