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Tomorrow, my eldest child starts kindergarten. How did we get here? She was bottle fed from day one. Not a single ounce of breastmilk has touched this girl’s lips. We never used a sleep sack, and she refused a swaddle blanket.

The night we started sleep training, I drank an entire bottle of wine. The next night she slept in bed with me, because my heart (and my liver) couldn’t handle it. Every so often we still let her crawl in between us, when she finds her way into our room at night.

Despite the warnings discouraging screen time, she became very familiar with the voices of the Real Housewives before the age of one. Mostly because her mother needed to hear something other than her own thoughts, when she was cooped up, alone, in an apartment in West Texas.

This girl survived Johnson and Johnson bath products, Purell hand sanitizer, and Bounce drier sheets. She ate Gerber baby food from a pouch, switched to a front facing car seat before she was officially 2 years old, and was sent away to school shortly after.

I’ve used a leash on her more than once. I’ve lost track of the time outs. She’s had more hot dogs and chicken nuggets than I ever thought possible.

And yet…

 

Continue reading “‘Twas the Night Before Kindergarten…” →

 

I’ve gotten pretty good at reacting to things in my life. Happy things, like hearing my babies’ heart beats for the first time. Scary things, like the day my husband came home and told me he had lost his job. And funny things, like finding my child in her crib,  playing with her own feces.

All of these situations–happy, scary, and funny–elicited relatively easy reactions from me. Were they to happen again, I would know exactly what to do. I know what my next steps would be. I could probably even demonstrate which faces I would make, and what I would do with my hands.

There is one reaction however, that I have not been able to nail down. Despite getting older and wiser. Despite giving myself pep talks in my car. Despite practicing in my shower the night before:

How are you supposed to react when a doctor calls you fat?

Continue reading “How Are You Supposed to React When A Doctor Calls You Fat?” →

I had a therapist say to me that if she didn’t take copious notes during our times together, she wouldn’t believe how quickly things change in my family from week to week. Decisions I would discuss at one session would be completely changed and forgotten by the next. I’m sure this did nothing for my case against insanity, but it’s the way I have always been.

I come from a long line of hyperactive extroverts. The kind of people who say stupid things like “I’ve tried and tried, but I’m just not a person who can take naps” or “Why relax on vacation when you can hike, bike, swim, take a basket weaving class, and learn the local language?” Therefore, I feel like I am doing something wrong if I don’t have at least 25 plates in the air at one time. This had led to a full, stressful, beautiful, chaotic, and interesting life. But it also hasn’t been very conducive to keeping up with weekly blog posts.

Not that I’m vain enough to believe that anyone has been dying to know what’s been happening in my life, but I figured I would catch everyone up with what has been going on in the Porter universe since I last wrote.

February:

(Not necessarily in order of importance, but kind of in order of importance…)

-The Eagles win the Super Bowl.

-I find out I’m pregnant with baby number 3

-We decided we are going to buy a new house.

-Hire a realtor and start packing boxes

 

 

March:

-Scratch the house purchase, let’s renovate instead!

-Fire Realtor, hire a contractor, an architect, and a designer

– Keep packing boxes

April:

– I can’t breathe out of my nose. I can’t hear in my left ear. Are you supposed to cough up green goo? Surely it’s just a head cold. It will get better.

-Weren’t we supposed to have blue prints by now? Oh, the contractor is in Europe for 2 weeks? We can’t get ahold of the architect? Eh, it will be fine. I’m sure we’ll be in the new house when the baby comes.

-Update, not a cold. Bronchitis and a severe sinus infection. Antibiotics for 2 weeks.

-Boxes. So many boxes.

 

May:

-Strep Throat! Stomach bug! Don’t forget, you’re also pregnant. Are you eating and sleeping enough?

-Finally get blueprints. House will be done by Thanksgiving. It’s cool. Moving back in with your parents is what millennials are supposed to do, right?

-Submit renovation permits to the Borough.

June:

-Permits rejected.

-Renovations cancelled. Let’s move instead!

-Re-hire realtor–clear out entire house, get it ready to list, and move back in with your parents. You have 2 weeks. Go!

 (It’s fine! It’s all fine! Did I mention, I’m fine?)

-Sell house in 2 days. They want to close in 30 days. Oh, but you need to put a new roof on the house, or they’re going to walk away from the deal.

 

To those of you who have read through this tedious recap, I thank you!  We have made it to July, which despite travel and house hunting has been relatively calm. I’m still very pregnant, very tired, and as of today, very homeless. Today we close on the sale of our house. The first house we owned as a family. I almost find myself getting sentimental about it. Every time I do however, a tiny pair of baby feet stabs me in my organs, snapping me back to reality, and reminding me that we have bigger things to worry about.

I am painfully aware that my problems are 100 percent #firstworldproblems, and I have no right to ever complain. There are so many exciting things happening, and I cannot wait to see what the future holds. I just hope next time, it doesn’t take me 6 months to post about it!

 

Love Always,

#MillennialMama