Farrah, sweet Farrah

Ok so maybe my last post was a bit dramatic. Ok maybe really dramatic. Such are the highs and lows of mommyhood. Basically as soon as I hit "Publish Post" on the last post Farrah has been a complete angel. Well maybe not complete angel but significantly more angelic. The ignoring of her meltdowns seems to finally be working. They are much less frequent recently. She's been waving bye bye and blowing kisses all the time. And for a while she was on a kissing strike and wouldn't give mommy a kiss no matter how much I pleaded and now the kid loves to kiss any and everything. Yesterday she kissed her high chair tray and the water coming out of the faucet in her bath... so I mean everything! I'll turn around sometimes and she's behind me kissing my legs. So sweet! I'm relishing in this sweetness because I don't know how long it will really last. I'm hoping forever but the chances of that are slim to none knowing how many phases this kid goest through.

On a side note, I turned 27 on Tuesday... Happy Birthday to me! 30 is approaching faster than I would like but that's a whole nother post. I realized recently (through a meltdown of my own to my poor unsuspecting husband) that I wasn't taking any time for me. I was feeling drained and felt like I had nothing left to give to Farrah and everyone else for that matter because I wasn't giving to myself. So on my birthday I went and got a massage, dropped off Farrah with my mom and went to lunch with my husband and then he took me dress shopping to by an evening gown for a big awards night for my work at a seminar in Dallas we're leaving for next week. One of the best days I've had in a long time because I never do anything like that for myself.

I realized the importance of giving to myself this week. A hard lesson to learn as a mommy but also so important to be a good mom and a good wife.

Long time no see

Over a month in fact. I have a good excuse. I am officially a Sales Director and free car driver with Mary Kay! Yay! This promotion means so much for my family and I worked hard to see to it that it got done. I'll now have a free car plus insurance paid, life and disability insurance, oh yeah and my income is about triple what it was before.... no exaggeration. So you can see why I've been away for a while making that happen.

Updates:

Farrah had her 18 month Dr's appt. Her weight was in the 85 percentile, her height in the 90th percentile and her head size is in the 95th percentile! Homegirl has a big head! The Dr didn't seem concerned about Farrah's lack of vocabulary so I guess I'll just be patient with her and hope figures out there are more words than mama, dada and cat.

I've heard from a lot of people that this age is such a fun age. And to be honest, for me, it's been the most challenging. There are fun parts to it, but for me, it's been the most challenging time in her relatively short life, by far.

I was always afraid of being "that mom" with the kid that throws tantrums. I was even more afraid that I would do all the "right things" and my kid would still be a brat. Thankfully, Farrah is no brat, but she definitely has the tantrum thing down to a science. I've tried completely ignoring it, and I've also tried getting down to her level and explaining to her that it's not ok to behave that way. But remember how I said she says the same 3 words and that's it? Yeah, makes it hard to have a conversation so I have no idea if she even comprehends what I'm saying. I'll have to get it on video one of these days but recently, she just started doing this short, loud grunt of a scream when she's not happy about something and she opens her mouth and her tongue hangs out when she does it. Usually she'll do it about 4 or 5 times and it takes everything I have not to bust out laughing because it's hilariously obnoxious.

So enough with the challenges of raising a toddler, how about some good stuff...

Farrah loves the water and I took her to a neighborhood park that has these water features that shoot out of the ground and she absolutely loved it. That's where these pictures came from. Swim lessons are on the horizon. Maybe in about a month or so. I can't possibly deprive my child of her favorite activity so I need to make sure she gets lessons.

Ahhh the highs and lows of raising a toddler. Definitely more highs, just have to remember to breathe when the lows come around.