Sprinkles of Real Life 3

Sprinkles of Real Life 3

It’s been forever since I did one of this. In fact my last one was last fall. And well, so much has happened since then.

Mom Life

Goose is officially 3 and a half. She’s definitely a threenager. She picks out her own outfits every day and has strong opinions about everything.

The funny thing is: most of her opinions are pretty much my opinions. And I understand like 90 percent of the decisions she makes. Take her outfit choices for example. I do not remember the last time this kid wore jeans and a shirt. Nope. She lives in fluffy dresses.

While yes, it’s true that I spend like 99.9 percent of my time in pajamas or gym clothes, I WISH I HAD FLUFFY DRESSES TO WEAR ON THE DAILY.

It warranted caps because that’s how much I wish it. Particularly fluffy dresses with sparkles. And I 100 percent get it because I remember when I was 5 and got a tutu with silver glitter hearts all over it and a fake fur coat for Christmas. Guess what I was still wearing by the time my July birthday rolled around that year? Yep. That tutu with that coat.

So I get it.

What else in mom life? Well 3 and a half. It’s been a big month towards independence for her. She is FINALLY potty trained.

Nobody told me how much potty training fricking sucks. It has got to be the single thing about being a mom that I have most loathed. Give me tantrums or sleepless nights over potty training any day of the week. As we were going through it, I kept thinking of the phrase in the trenches because that’s how it felt to me. My back ached from helping her on and off the potty and ALLLLL the laundry. (If you are getting ready to potty train your kid, just buy stock in the detergent company. Oh- and Oxiclean! That stuff is a lifesaver. And a clothing saver. We have not lost a single piece of clothing to an accident. I’ll link what I use here ((disclosurer affiliate links)) —>This Spray, trust me get the 2 pack, and this powder, again go big or go home for potty training)  I have never done so much l I was tired and frustrated and hated having to be a slave to the bathroom.

Now I just complained about it a lot, but honestly she was pretty good about it. We waited until she was ready and one day she woke up, wanted to use the potty and did and said she was done with diapers. The first two or three days there were a ton of accidents including one very unfortunate accident involving the bathroom sink and another involving Target. She survived fine. I’m still scarred by those incidents. Now, I feel like a construction site advertising that it’s been exactly two weeks since our last accident. Of course now that I’ve typed those words, she’ll have one today.

In other news, she got her first big girl bike this past weekend complete with training wheels. We went to the park during the three seconds of nice weather we had and she actually rode 3 miles. I couldn’t believe it. I kept watching her while she rode in her polka dot dress, wearing her tiara, that she is made of magic and glitter. It was like watching my life through a movie lens. Cheesy I know.

Sad Dog News

You already know this if you follow me on Instagram, but our two dogs both passed away late last year. Our doxie mix Heidi was 16. Our lab was only 8, but unfortunately had cancer. Going through losing a pet stinks, but I definitely learned something about myself: I am a dog person.

I can’t not have a dog. I love them too much. Plus I have come to really enjoy the company of a dog snuggled at my feet or- let’s be honest here- snuggled on my lap while I am working. The best company ever. Also, our 3 year old was pretty dang devastated about not having a dog. We were planning to wait until the weather warmed up before we got another dog but we lasted less than a week before we realized we couldn’t stand not having a dog. Plus fate happened.

Meet Holly

We started visiting shelters to get our daughter used to the idea of a new dog that wasn’t her doggy. (She and our lab were inseparable.) I was also considering the idea of volunteering. Our first visit was a disaster. She played with a puppy and the puppy was too rambunctious for her, chewing on her shoes while they were on her feet, nipping her, etc. She adamantly said she wanted a dog but not THAT dog.

We were like ok, no big deal. We talked about it, and having had a puppy before knew it would be very different than what she was used to so we decided we would try to take her regularly to visit new dogs. Well, our second visit, she saw a dog making sad eyes at us.

The dog was a silly looking mix breed with a white and dark brindled coats and black spots with very expressive eyes. Goose dubbed her “the back doggy that is whipe.” (Yes whipe. That’s exactly how she says white, changing the t to a p and adding extra emphasis on the h sort of like the way Stewie does when he says Cool Whip.)

We shrugged. We had been hoping to adopt a lab mix but this dog seemed sweet. And she was. We asked to see her and the dog came and laid her head on my lap and wagged her tail goodnaturedly while Goose danced in excited circles for her. She licked Goose’s sticky toddler hands.

I wasn’t convinced. We had only lost our lab a week earlier. I wanted more time. The shelter urged us to fill out paperwork to adopt her, telling us she was very popular and we were the third or fourth family that day that had seemed taken with her.

I wanted to sleep on it. The shelter told us if we wanted her then we should be there bright and early the next morning. They opened at 9. For us that is early. Goose sleeps late (yes I have THAT unicorn child) and had been waking well past 11 that week. The next morning she was up at 7:30 for the first time in ages and immediately said, “Mommy, let’s go see my black doggy that is whipe.”

So all that is to say, we are now the proud new parents of the black doggy that is whipe. We named her Holly. My 3 year old, aka my mini me, has dubbed her Holly Jolly Christmas.

She is very sweet, but only about 8 months old. There are times when it feels like I have two toddlers underfoot. With the crazy bad weather we’ve been having there are days when we all are cooped up in the house and the dog and the Goose run circles with each other and the dog chews everything in sight including our tv remote control. Those days it feels like spring will never come.

And spring really needs to hurry the heck up. I’m over all the snow the Northeast has had lately. Goose looked out the window the other day when it was so windy and bitterly cold, considering it’s APRIL, and was like, “Mommy. Someone needs to go tell Elsa they are sorry. I’m tired of her being so mad.”

Me too, baby girl. Me too.

Running Life

The late spring is killing all kinds of plans I have. First up: it’s delaying planting my garden. I used to have quite a vegetable garden before I had Goose and I plan to grow one this year for the first time since I was pregnant. She’s old enough where she’ll play outside while I work in the garden and will probably even want to dig in the dirt with me. So there’s that.

Second thing this late spring is killing for me: running.

I’ve been doing great most of the winter, logging my miles on the treadmill. I started training for a half marathon. But I’ve literally only run outside twice since last year since I just don’t do cold. And I’m having trouble building my distance more on the treadmill. I have made it to 9 miles and I am stuck. By the end I am so bored, and questioning why in the world I wanted to run a half marathon in the first place. This is even with running to tv and music. (PS. I am obsessed with Imagine Dragons when I run. I don’t know why, but the song Thunder is my I’m running out of steam jam. It normally pumps me up enough to get me through my last mile.)

Also, I managed to get a good case of bursitis in my hip so that’s super fun. I’ve been down this road before when I was dancing 6 days a week in college. I forgot how painful it can be. So I’ve been dialing it back a little while I let my hip do its thing and adding in more yoga and strength training to hopefully prevent it again.

But really, I think my hip was just saying whoa stop trying to make me log long runs on the hamster wheel. So I’m hoping when the weather finally breaks I can do my long runs outside. I don’t even need sunshine though it’d be awfully nice.

Blog Life

Lastly, this weather is killing my food game. By now I am so over winter food. Don’t get me wrong, I still love soup, but my soul wants salad and lettuce wraps and fresh fruit and corn on the cob.

I also wouldn’t turn my nose up at a slushy frozen cocktail or a good ice cream cone to be honest. But I just can’t when its still snowing outside. Honestly the only thing I am really making these days is the French Onion Chicken I shared here last month. I LOVE this chicken so much. It’s my current favorite meal. And normally I hate chicken. Every time we have it, I wonder what we could do to make it more delicious. Could we sub in another kind of protein? And nope, it needs to be chicken. Because it’s breaded in Parmesan cheese and even just writing this, thinking about it, makes me want it again even though we had it for dinner twice this week and one of those times was two days ago.

But I digress… bloggy life.

I’m going to be slowing down my 2-3 times a week posts for the summer. I’ll pick up the frequency again in fall because there is so much amazing fall food to make. Really all the pumpkin. I’m already excited.

In the meantime, I plan to post 1-2 times a week instead. I’m going to be taking the time to update older posts and really learn video. I hope to release 2 new videos a month. When I really get a good workflow down, I plan to do one a week. You guys, it’s a whole different, frustrating beast but I’m getting the hang of it slowly but surely.

On that note, are there any recipes you want to see me do? Any over the top burgers like these or these? Any drinks? Salads? What do you want? What do you crave as we head into spring and summer? Please email me at [email protected], leave me a comment here, or say hi on facebook and let me know.

Well, a zillion words later, and I’ll wrap this up. Happy Friday and I promise not to wait another 6 months for my next sprinkle of real life.