Saturday, October 24, 2009

Tuesday's Date Night

I don't know if I've mentioned this or not, but every Tuesday evening we drop the chitlins off at Jarrod's parents' house and head out for some much needed alone time. Some people call this date night. We do too. Well this Tuesday we couldn't decide where to go. So Jarrod just started driving. We ended up in San Ramon. This is not too far from where we live. We were driving along when we saw a cute little italian restaurant. We pulled up and read the menu outside. It looked expensive, but it's date night. Sometimes you need to splurge. We go inside and they looked a little surprised to see us. They had more than one fork on the table. It was a really nice place. I regretted my decision to wear flip flops for this date.

We ordered our food. Jarrod ordered what he was thinking would be mozzarella sticks for an appetizer. But, it turned out to be prosciutto covered with a small salad with pieces of real mozzarella in it. That's not our usual salad, but it was pretty good. For our dinner Jarrod ordered Lasagnette Alla Napoletana, Individual baked lasagna filled with tomato-basil sauce, pesto and fresh mozzarella. I orderedGnocci Alla Piemontese, Home made potato gnocci with fontina cheese and truffle sauce.


When they brought our food out I looked at mine and thought, "We are paying $15 for this?"
Then I tasted it.

It was wonderful. It was awesome. It was like the tastebuds in my mouth were saying, "This is what we've been waiting for. This is the elixir of life!" It was that good. I made Jarrod taste it. I forced myself not to put some in my purse so that my sister-in-law, Rebecca, could taste it. I wanted to mail some in an envelope to my sister-in-law, Jessica. It was that good! I raved about it to Jarrod. So much so that when we got home he looked up how to make it. When he looked up the truffle sauce he decided he wanted to grow the truffles. Truffles are a type of mushroom. And the cheapest ones sell for $300 a lb. That explains why this Gnocchi was so expensive. It was like heaven in my mouth, people. It was that good.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Sleep. There's nothing like it.

Sleep is a wonderful thing. I didn't know how much I truely enjoyed being able to sleep until I had Crimson. After I had Simeon I did what every mother is told to to do survive. I slept when he slept. Sure, I slept at weird times, but I slept. With Crimson I was introduced to the wonders of coffee. I always thought it was too bitter, but with enough cream and sugar it become my elixir to survive the first few months. I'm going through this again. Sleeping when Eliana sleeps is not an option. Well, I guess it is. I can take a nap when she does because that's when Crimson takes one and sometimes Simeon. But, I look at this time as an opportunity to get things done uninterrupted.
I'm sitting here today exhausted, wanting a nap, but more importantly wanting ideas on how to get Eliana to sleep through the night. See, my thing is that I want to get up with Jarrod when he leaves for work. I want to make him breakfast, iron his shirt, hand him his lunch, and send him off with wishes for a good day. But, I also want to be able to spend some quiet time with him after the kids go to bed. This means that I stay up too late. Add to that the fact that Eliana will wake up anywhere from one time to four times during the night wanting to eat. Then I get up, or just woken up, when it's time for Jarrod to get up. It might take me just a couple of minutes to go back to sleep after he leaves, or 30 minutes. Then Eliana wakes up about an hour or two before Simeon and Crimson and wants to start her day. I try to doze while she plays on the bed next to me, but let's face it. That's wishful thinking.
I have Eliana on a schedule where she will get rice cereal, or oatmeal, for breakfast and some kind of vegetable for dinner. This is along with her nursing whenever she's hungry. I don't know if I should add lunch in with that or what.
So, I'm looking for answers on how to get a better night's sleep when I should be taking a nap. And if none of this makes sense then it's because I'm tired and should be taking a nap.
Yesterday I was tired. Friday night we went all the way to Stockton (an hour's drive for those that don't know) to have dinner with friends. Then we drive all the way back home. Meanwhile we have a birthday party to plan for Crimson, shopping that needs to be done, butterfly wings that need to be made, cakes that need to be made. But, we are, instead, piddling around and eating with "friends". That stressed me out. So, we get home (it was almost midnight, I'm sure) and I get started on the wings and the cakes. I finally decided to go to bed and start again in the morning. But, I'm so tired that instead of getting up at 6 I get up at almost 8. Around 10 we have to hurry and go because there are a few last minute things to get at the store and I ran out of supplies for the butterfly wings. Did I mention that the party started at 2? We get to my in-law's house around 11:30. I had butterfly wings to finish, a cake to put frosting on, a house to clean up, good bags to fill, and food to start cooking. Two and a half hours were barely enough time to do all this. We stay there until around 9 that night. My sister-in-law was having a karaoke party. I tried to stay, but I was tired and still had to get ready for church the next morning. We get home and I don't even give the kids a bath. They were tired too. I got up at 6 to get everyone ready for church. We got out of church a little later than usual (but it was a totally awesome service!) and lunch took longer than usual. So by the time we got back home we had roughly an hour for a nap. It's better than nothing. We had a meeting at the pastor's house. We ended up staying longer than we expected. We got home around 10:30, but I didn't go to bed until almost 12. I woke up with Jarrod, but couldn't drag myself out of bed. When we did start our day I had to fight with Crimson to make her bed. All she had to do was pull the sheet and blanket up and put her pillow on her bed. I wish my bed was that easy to make. So I said all that to say that I was really tired yesterday and sleep deprived. I was depressed. I went through this after having Crimson, but it was worse with her. I had a thought that sleep deprivation could be linked to depression and post partum depression. I looked it up, but didn't have much time to read about it. When I get depressed like that I like to clean. So, I rearranged the living room yesterday. It's something I've been wanting to do so I did it. And now I want to throw all of the kids' toys away and just give them sticks to play with. Because, their toys are all over the living room again. But, they would hurt each other with sticks.
Wow, this is a long, babbling post. Can you tell I'm tired? I'm going to go take a nap now. Hopefully I still have time.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Sleeping babies

One of the greatest feelings in the world is when a baby falls asleep on you. On of the most annoying is when that baby thinks she can't sleep anywhere else. I'm happy to report that Eliana has decided she can sleep in her own bed. We moved her bed into Crimson and Simeon's room. She's learning to put herself to sleep by crying it out. She hasn't had to cry for very long, thankfully. She sleeps so much better in their room. Well, I guess it's her room too now. When Crimson was a baby I had read something about babies sleeping better when they know their parents aren't in the room with them. I thought it was a little crazy, but I was willing to give it a chance. It worked! So I was willing to give the crazy idea another chance with Eliana. She's still waking up to eat, but not as often as before. Plus, I don't have to worry about her getting woken up when Jarrod's getting ready for work. I'm quite thankful for that.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

A couple of things

1. I hate Halloween.

I hate having to explain to my four year old son that the "man" in that yard will not hurt him. That he's just some stuffing in clothes and a pumpkin. I'm thankful that Jesus kept him from having nightmares about it. I've thought about getting away during Halloween, but where could we go to get away from it all? I thought of going camping. But, you have those weird people that like to sacrifice animals in the woods and stuff. I hate Halloween.


2. I'm so glad to be home.

Vacation is good for a person. It's nice to relax and get away from all the stresses and worries of life. It helps to get a new perspective on things. Like living in a 16 foot rv helps you appreciate your small townhome/apartment. Sometimes I miss the small space though. It's so much easier to clean.