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NASA Rocket park and Tayta

We went down to Houston last weekend to see my parents and let Ricardo have some time to get work done before the semester started. Xaris knows that her Gramama works at Starbucks, and now she knows that her Tayta works with the rockets! She has been pretty interested in space stuff, so I asked my dad if he would like to take us to NASA's rocket park on Saturday morning. Xaris did pretty well, she was very interested and chatted about the space ships and patterns and moon rocks even though some of the rockets were a little intimidating (they are kind of huge). On the way home to my parents house, plus the whole drive home to Dallas she kept saying "thank you for the space rockets!" and "thank you for the moon rocks"...which means she was really impacted by the trip! I had fun with hipstamatic on my iphone, and some of the pictures turned out pretty swell!

Here we are!!

Tayta explaining what was what...where the people go etc...

Some of them were touch-able!

I love this--her hair was in braids all night, so when I took it out and made her ponytail in the morning, it was kinking out all over the place! too cute.

This was part of the tunnel that the astronauts would walk down in order to get to the rocket.

We listened to what they sounded like when knocked upon...

Did I mention how HUGE the rockets are?

Thanks again Tayta! It was a great visit!

ICE! and trens

Over the holidays we had some fun. We had planned on celebrating (a little early) our 6th wedding anniversary with a 2-night stay at the Texas Gaylord Hotel for the Dreamworks ICE exhibit ("Shrek the Halls") and all the other fun stuff they do. Unfortunately, we had all been passing around a cold/virus for a few weeks and that was the week I ended up with a sinus infection, so we stayed home. But, we managed to at least get to the ICE show on it's last day before closing down, and had a lot of fun.

Xaris loved her jacket, which was too big on her! They did have a smaller size, but for some reason they gave her one that came down to the floor and slightly more, and was way too long in the arms. Once it was on, she flapped her arms a couple of times, and realized that she had coat all the way down to her feet, and declared it her "penguino!" She didn't want to take it off.

She didn't like the exhibit at first, but we soon realized that it was not because she was frightened, but just that the 9 degree temperature inside the exhibit was just too frigid for her nose and mouth. Once I put my neck fleecy on her, covering up her nose and mouth she was happy and didn't want to leave. Or, at least once we left, she wanted to go back in. iX was snuggly in her ergo, zipped up underneath my jacket...she slept through the whole thing.

I was really happy that we went, because I was SO disappointed we had to cancel our anniversary trip. Maybe next year :)

I also took Xaris to see the trains exhibit at north park mall. She was very thrilled, because her favorite movie for the past several weeks has been the Polar Express. We have family movie night on Fridays, and she consistently asks for the same movies again and again. At preschool they had a special Polar Express party where the kids got to wear their pajamas, watch the movie in the theater (yes, our church has a movie theater), and drink hot (lukewarm) chocolate. They were each given a ticket, and a jingle bell as a gift, and she has been playing with her ticket (now ripped, and taped paper) and bell ever since.

The train exhibit had a ton of trains, and one was even the Polar Express!

bad mom complex

I was talking with a few friends (who are also mothers of toddler-aged kids) over the past couple weeks, and noticed one thing--we all seem to feel either guilty, inadequate, or at the very least slightly lacking in one or more areas that we'd like to have control over. We are looking for being able to nail down the right routine for the family, find the right activities or places for our kids, figuring out how to balance discipline, expectations and silliness with our toddlers...and because we're not there yet, or have experienced failure along the way we end up feeling like bad moms.

And I remember my mom telling my sisters and I that it was her "year of being a bad mom" (we finally told her that her year was up a few years later...and the honest-to-goodness truth? She was never a bad mom).

Makes me wonder if we are just hard-wired to have a "bad mom complex"? What do you think?

My examples...

I feel guilty about not spending enough time with the 2.5 year old. But I feel guilty that the 3 month old isn't getting nearly the time or attention her older sister got as an infant. And there are loads of other things thrown in...I am really starting to come to terms with my illness. I never thought of it in those terms before, but it is an illness: chronic migraine disorder is something that for me is constant, somewhat but not completely treatable, and it affects my quality of life. One of my main migraine symptoms is irritability, which is unfortunately directed at those whom I love most and spend most my time with. So I feel guilty when my sickness affects my spouse and my children. When I have a migraine, I am a bad mom. And here's the catch--if I decide to take migraine medicine, I cannot nurse for at least 6 hours. So if I don't have milk already pumped (and for some reason, I'm not great at pumping, and my milk does not freeze well), iX will need to have a bottle of formula at least once during that time. And since I really wanted to be committed to breastfeeding, I feel guilty either way!! What's wrong with this picture?

I wonder if I'm providing enough education, enough fun, enough discipline (or too much discipline, since I'm the primary disciplinarian in this household)--I feel like I'm the mean mom way too often these days...as I write this post at 11:03pm and the 2.5 year old is STILL awake. Still awake after more than 2 hours of fighting sleep (is it possible for toddlers to have Restless Legs Syndrome?!?!) and getting in trouble various times during those few hours. I don't want "mean mom" to be her last thoughts or mental image as she goes to sleep, but I'm sure our lovely and pleasant story readings, rocking chair time and prayers has faded in her mind after 2 hours of struggles and trouble.

I want my daughters to know how much I love them, and how much I believe in them, their talents, gifts and God-given capabilities to serve in this world. Perhaps this "bad mom complex" serves a purpose because it makes me try all the harder. I am also coming to believe that the bad mom complex is not from God. Awareness is a good thing, but self-doubt, worry, needless comparison, and beating oneself up with endless guilt is something entirely different--and hardly helpful.

So what's to be done? I don't make New Year's resolutions, because I believe that life should be a constant process of improvements and goals. These thoughts just happen to coincide with the beginning of the new year :)

I want to be affirming as possible to other mothers...particularly friends of mine who are in similar places, or will be soon :) Perhaps we can eradicate "bad mom complex" forever! (or if there are any of you who have NO idea what I'm talking about, please share your secrets!)

I want to let go of the worry. I think I'll always worry about my kids a bit, things like their safety, health, whereabouts, etc. (It was horrible at Disneyland last October--I needed to be within eyesight of X all the time in order to feel ok). But I need to stop worrying about a lot of things I do waste time worrying about. I need to recognize the beauty of children and how they learn and grow and maybe stop worrying about how mine are progressing (unless someone tells me I should be worried)!

Kids are all so different--I have a wonderfully brilliant 2 year old who can eat without making a mess (does not mean that she will though), can pray in creative and complete sentences, but still can't quite manage to consistently get the alphabet straight. She has not needed a diaper since July, but she still cannot jump (that's right--can't get both feet off the ground!) She loves to play with balls, but cannot kick or catch them very well, and instead prefers to balance on them, on her stomach for much longer than I want to let her (one thing I've been worried about...what's up with that obsession?) We are all very different as adults, so why should I stress about who she is as a child and instead enjoy the gift of getting to see her grow and develop into that?

The third thing I want to do is a little more practical and measurable. I think it would be easier to get over "bad mom complex" if I actually do improve in some of the things where I feel like I am short-coming. On Pinterest I've seen a few sites about homekeeping--particularly the organization/cleaning and meal planning. Meal planning is something that I've never managed to be able to do, but I would like to have a better plan which I'm sure would help with the grocery shopping and the budget! So that's my priority for right now, perhaps a plan with a few housekeeping/organizational projects for each day too. I'd love to know what other people are using/doing, if you have something that has worked for you and you'd like to share! If I find anything great or that looks like it has potential, I'll post it, (or re-pin on Pinterest).

Long post, but maybe it will be a productive one!

peace....

Christmas

We had a lovely Christmas, albeit a long-drawn-out one.

We had Christmas with my parents the 18th of December while they were up visiting us. Then we had our own Christmas on Christmas Eve morning, because I would be working the next morning and straight from work we were leaving for Mexico. 2 days of driving later, we had Christmas with Ricardo's family!

X had a Christmas party with her preschool friends

And we also had a santa come to preschool to take pictures with the kids! It was a trial run for our visit with santa and the professional photographer a week later.

This is just an iphone picture of the printed picture, but I was so happy with the results. Even if santa did call iX a "him". :) Doesn't the bow on the head give a little clue??

de Mexico con amor 2

I can't upload photos to the blog from my phone, so I couldn't post anything in Mexico. I didn't get any great photos, but here are a few iPhone pictures from our week in Mexico with all the cousins! We didn't see them all, but saw quite a few, and had a lot of fun playing!

Different time zone and different schedules meant that we were all awake 3 or so hours before the rest of the family. We tried to [quietly] entertain ourselves in our room, which turned into lots of climbing on papa.

Playing play-doh with Leila and Febe. Febe is only 5 or 6 months older than Xaris, but what a size difference! She's very tall!!

Leila, Febe, and Xaris

Movie time (lots of Expresso Polar!) these are the youngest cousins: Nagay, Xaris, Oliver, Leila, Febe. (minus Ilane)

Xaris cleaning up!

de Mexico con amor

Just a quick post, since I'm in another country and haven't figured out to load photos from my phone yet :). Those will come soon in another post. We've been in Mexico since Monday, celebrating and spending time with Ricardo's family. Xaris has loved playing with all her cousins, but has not done a good job of remembering to speak to them in Spanish. She has learned some new words though, and proven that she understands others and CAN speak to them in Spanish, I think she just forgets, or does not understand that there are people who don't speak English (since she has grown up with the experience of mama and papa speak both, and most of the rest of her world speaks English).

tres

iX is three months old today!

It's a crazy busy time of year for my job, and trying to balance that with an infant and a toddler seems to have left me much less time than I would like...I almost forgot to make cupcakes! But I'm glad I did, I pulled it off in 30 minutes, making up a recipe that turned out to be my new favorite! (Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate chips and a candy cane hershey kiss instead of frosting--I'm not a huge frosting fan anyway).

Our sweet girl is getting big! I love having a chubby baby--her cheeks and legs are deliciously kissable. She is probably tired of mama always munching on her cheeks. She has recently found her hands and on occasion enjoys her left thumb. She still sleeps A LOT (day and night), which I don't remember X doing. For some reason in my memory, Xaris was at two naps or so during the day by this age, while Ilane is maybe awake twice during the day. I'm probably exaggerating, but that is the way it feels, this baby is so different in her sleeping! And I will not complain!

During her awake hours, she is very alert, loves to watch her mama, her big sister and the big kids at church. We had her first giggle about a week ago when I tickled her, but a few days later papa got her to continuously shriek with laughter while he ripped up pieces of paper. She is extremely generous with her smiles still--eye contact will win you one, complete with dimples. She does not show much interest in toys yet, but has an owl in her crib that she has started talking to. She also talks quite often with mama, usually interrupting her nursing to say a few "ooo's" (in Chewbacca style, with a growly-throat noise), before returning to her meal.

She's a doll, and I can't wait for her to know how many people love her!

Here's the video of her laughing. She gets serious once she sees the camera, but...I guess that's just a baby thing.