Mommy guilt

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While I no longer feel the crippling affects of postpartum hormones, the thing I can’t shake is Mom Guilt.

I think you just rolled your eyes at me. Mom guilt? How trite, you’re thinking. Moms can’t stop blathering about feeling guilty for working, for not working, for not serving super healthy meals, for letting kids watch TV, for buying non-organic animal crackers, for this and for that.

Well, this post is not about that kind of guilt. I don’t feel guilt about those things. I’m doing the best I can over here. There’s only one mama. Until I can get one of those Sister Wives I see on TLC.

Anyway, this type of guilt runs deeper. It’s about how I feel I have to be present for my daughter at all times. That every time I take time for myself, I am taking away from her. That needing time to myself makes me a bad mom.

I didn’t leave Kate until she was well over eight months. And then it was only for maybe an hour, mostly when she was already in bed. Then I stopped nursing and she took a sippy cup at 11 months, so I extended my time out by an hour here or there.

And everyone said, “isn’t she with Dan/your in laws/your parents?” She’ll be fine!

I know that! I know she’ll be fine.

It’s me I’m not so sure about.

But sometimes this mama feels like she’s got to get out with girlfriends or even just take a nice, leisurely trip to Target by herself, so she can browse instead of run through the store like a star on Supermarket Sweep.

It feels good to be alone. Until I feel that invisible appendage tug at my heart. I shouldn’t feel the need for a break. That must mean I’m a terrible mother.

While I know logically all moms need a break from childrearing, I can’t help but feel like I am taking from Kate. Mothering is so much about giving of yourself that it’s hard for me to see when I’m giving too much at the expense of myself.

When I do take time for myself, it feels refreshing. Without Kate, I can focus on my work. I like using my talents and strengths. And I also love remembering who Sarah is when I have the time to work on the blog, put together a craft, chit chat with friends over an overpriced cup of coffee.

It’s so easy to get lost in motherhood. So you give and give and give to the point of exhaustion. And maybe resentment. And definitely until you find yourself humming the tune to “Elmo’s World.”

So I’m challenging myself to use my Kate-free time to recharge instead of feel guilty, so when we reunite, I am a better mama. How can I be a good mom if I’m drained? You know how on airplanes you are supposed to put on your oxygen mask before putting the mask on your child? Why do you think they want parents to do that? So they can be at their best. So that when they need to help their kids, they aren’t so deprived of oxygen they can’t function.

There’s a lesson in there, I think. So instead of feeling guilty for taking time for myself to recharge, I’ll use that time to focus on me. Oxygenate my myself. And that makes me a good mother.

November favorites

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Contigo travel mug

I’ve searched high and low for the best travel mug. All the mug’s I’ve owned fall apart, leak, crack, fail to keep warm beverages warm for longer than five minutes, and – the most egregious of all – smell and taste like the previous beverage, no matter how many times I washed it out. If I drank Earl Grey tea one day, coffee the next, and chai the next day, each drink tasted half like the current drink and half like the previous drink. Gross. Just gross. So, after much research, I found these travel mugs from Contigo. They are the best. Since they are stainless steal rather than plastic, tastes and smells don’t linger. And, it keeps beverages super hot. Like, you’ll burn your mouth hot. So I often pour in my beverage and keep the lid off for a few minutes, so it can cool down. But, bottom line? Get this mug and happy travels!

Celestial Seasonings Sugar Plum Spice

So what am I drinking in my Contigo travel mugs? Celestial seasonings Sugar Plum Spice tea, of course! You all know, I am a huge tea fan. And I especially love Celestial Seasonings. Each winter, they come out with some holiday teas, and this Sugar Plum is one of my favorites. It is spicy and sweet and fruity. So good.

Miranda Lambert’s Four the Record

I’ve always loved Miranda Lambert. But I think this is her best album yet. I listen to this on repeat all day long. She’s old school Country with a twist and definitely worth a listen.

Homeland

Back in September, I was reading through The Washington Post’s picks for the best new fall shows. The article mentioned Homeland. It seemed interesting enough to try. I had no expectations. I figured, whatever, I guessed it was worth a try. So we watched the first episode. And now we are completely hooked. It is suspenseful and just the right amount of scary. Oh, and the characters are the best, especially Claire Danes. One minute, you love her. The next, you think she’s totally crazy. And the twists and turns and wild cliffhangers make it hard to wait for a new episode each week.

Revlon Lip Butters

I am super into beauty products. Especially drug store makeup. I love watching YouTube beauty gurus and learning about the latest and greatest in drug store beauty products. Earlier this month, the blogosphere and YouTube-ospher was a buzz with Revlon Lip Butters. So I found a couple YouTube videos reviewing the product, and I knew right away these lip butters were perfect for me. I am not a huge fan of lipstick. I mean, I love the idea of lipstick. But I can’t seem to apply it correctly, so it always ends up globby and all outside my lips. But these are sort of lipsticks, sort of glosses. So I scoured my CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, and Target for these lip butters for weeks. Until, one day, I finally happened upon them. The display was mostly picked over (I believe there are about 20 shades), but I managed to score a few. So far, I really love Pink Tulle. These are light, very pigmented, easy to apply, and hydrating. Do these have the staying power of a lipstick? Probably not. But that’s fine with me, I just reapply. So, if you’re like me and have trouble with lipstick, look out for these lip butters and give them a try.

Okay, you tell me, what are you November favorites?

Our kumbaya Thanksgiving

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Dan and I are super lucky because we never travel on holidays. My parents live 15 east. His parents live 15 minutes west. And, our families are kumbaya, so we hold a lot of events together, eliminating the need for us to choose or go both places. It’s the best.

This year, everyone made the 15 minute pilgrimage to my in-laws, and we decided to try our hand at deep frying a turkey. Deep frying a turkey? The best ever. It totally lives up to the hype. And now we want to fry EVERYTHING!

Here’s the story, in pictures:

This is the true story of how our family decided to deep fry a turkey for Thanksgiving. Here Dan and his Dad set up the fryer.

It’s always a good idea to read the directions. Especially when cooking in a manner that could easily result in flames.

My mother in law and Bentley stand back with the fire extinguisher on stand by.

The Turkey – all seasoned up before it hits the fryer.

In it goes!

Frying.

And it’s done! So quick!

Dan, Master Turkey Fryer.

Bentley’s sad. He wanted a taste of that turkey.

I make everyone come take a group photo. From left to right, Dan, Brendan (brother in law), Mark (father in law), Marita (sister in law – and special thanks to Marita for taking many of these Thanksgiving pictures for me) Maryellen (mother in law), Kate (the toddler), Susan (my mom), me, Mike (my dad), Rosemary (my grandma), Megan (my sister), Aunt Linda (Dan’s aunt), and Bentley, who clearly did not want his picture taken.

And I make them take it again.

We’re a fun bunch.

And clearly put a lot of thought into our outfits.

I think I’ll keep them.

I tried for a Mommy and Kate picture. But Kate wasn’t having it. Toddlers! So uncooperative!

Enough messing around. It’s time to fry a Thanksgiving classic dish. Onion rings, of course.

Here is Brendan, coating the onion rings.

And into the fryer!

And out they come! Confession: I don’t like onion rings. But, these? These I LOVED. They were way lighter and crispier and yummier than the restaurant quality. They disappeared off the tray faster than Brendan could fry them.

Kate eats her first onion ring. She loved it so much, she did not share with Grandpa.

Finally, it’s time to eat! On the far right is my lobster mac and cheese. And I also made the buttermilk cheddar biscuits. So good!

Kate says, dessert is the best! Especially if you smash it all over yourself.

Also, after a hearty meal, it’s fun to climb up down the stairs! Come on everyone, Stair Master time!

So that’s our Thanksgiving 2011 story. And if anyone is interested in deep frying Oreos, potatoes, cheese, or anything else, you’re cordially invited to a Bagley Family Fry. Toddlers and four-legged friends welcome.

Friday features: Thanksgiving aftermath

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In a turkey coma? Stuffed with stuffing? Cranberried-out?

Okay, enough puns. Sit back, relax, and check out my picks this week:

I totally love this post from Matt Cheuvront on letting go of self-censorship. I edit myself way to much, sometimes to the point that I wonder what it really is I’m trying to say. Going forward, I am taking Matt’s advice and letting more of me come out.

If you feel you overindulged yesterday, don’t worry about it, according to Zen Habits. I agree. What you do most of the time matters more that what you do infrequently.

I am all about easy crafts. So I love this fabric necklace idea from Kerri. So cute, right?

Recently I discovered Mindy Kaling from The Office writes a blog, and it is super funny. I really want to be her girlfriend in real life. Mindy, call me!

Did any of you go shopping on Black Friday? I raked leaves. And went through the 200+ photos from Thanksgiving. And plotted out a home improvement project I’ll talk about soon. So, no shopping for me. Let me know what treasures you found – and what’s on your wish list this year.

Happy Thanksgiving

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Yesterday I was in a bad mood. We were rushing around, at the grocery, gas station, and assorted other errands. And I needed to get started on my Thanksgiving dishes. And the house was a mess. And there wasn’t enough room in the fridge. And it was raining. Again.

But today? No bad moods allowed. There are too many blessings to count.

Including Kate and Miss Belle, who agreed to star in this short video:

Enjoy. Have a happy Thanksgiving. Check your mood at the door. Give lots of hugs. And, of course, eat your fair share of whipped cream. You know I will!

December Daily bandwagon

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Every year Ali Edwards hosts December Daily. And I want to participate. But I’m afraid. A layout a day for 25 days? How could I keep up?

But then I get jealous of everyone’s projects. What a wonderful way to savor the season. And since I am a little bit of a self-described scrooge, I thought this would be a way for me to celebrate my way.

Plus, I remembered how much fun I had with the Week in the Life project (scroll down on my Projects page to check out my Week in the Life.) I still look back on that project. And I’m glad I have those memories to look back and reflect on.

So, behold, the beginnings of a December Daily album. I thought about working on a 4 x 6 album, but I thought it might be too small. So I thought about a 12 x 12, but I don’t really like working on that size canvas. Which led to me to an 8.5 x 11 album, not too big and overwhelming, not too small.

I’ll share more of my foundations pages next week.

How are you capturing the season? Are you doing a December Daily? Making wreaths? Eating chocolate bark?

Pork and potatoes

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I never could figure out what to do with pork. As they say, it’s the other white meat. But what does that even mean? What goes with it? How do you cook it?

Once upon a time, I found this Hormel lemon and herb marinated pork tenderloin at the grocery. It was on sale. Already flavored. Sounded good.

So I bought it, brought it home, threw it in my deep freezer, and forgot about it.

The other day I finally went through our deep freezer in an attempt to piece together meals for the next couple days. And I found the pork tenderloin. I wanted to hide it beneath frozen pizza dough and chicken breasts. But I really like to either make use of things or get rid of them. So I brought it upstairs, popped it into the fridge to defrost, and fired up several tabs in Safari in pursuit of a recipe.

While I did not find an exact recipe, I pieced together enough ideas to come up with a crock pot pork and potato meal. Here’s what I did:

Ingredients:

-1 pork tenderloin (I used this)

-I bottle of marinade (The types depends on the flavor of your pork. Since I had a lemon and garlic pork tenderloin, I used a garlic and herb marinade.)

-1 cup of chicken stock

-red potatoes

I tossed the pork, marinade, chicken stock, and potatoes into the crock pot and cooked it on low for about 8 hours. After 8 hours, the pork came out super tender and the potatoes were cooked to perfection, not too mushy, not too hard.

This recipe is similar to my crock pot chicken and potatoes recipe, but since I used pork, it definitely gave the dish a different flavor.

Now I’m no longer afraid of pork. It makes for a great meal and something different that chicken. How do you prepare pork?

Making the most of your weekends

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Confession: I am not good at the weekend.

You all know I like to use a portion of Sunday to prepare for the week. But what about the rest of my weekend?

The truth is, I’m not that good at planning a good weekend.

I can plan my weeks just fine. I schedule my time as effectively and productively as possible. But my weekends seemed to nose dive into nothing.

What gives?

I think the issue is, the week is easy for me to plan because it requires a schedule. And each day of the week dictates a certain thing to be done. For example, my work meetings are always Monday mornings. And Kate and I have music and movement class Tuesday mornings. Wednesdays are for the grocery and other errands. Playgroup is Thursday mornings. Fridays are for whatever I could not get done Monday through Thursday – and oftentimes a fun outing with friends.

But Saturday and Sunday? They’re loosey goosey. And I don’t do loosey goosey.

But I also want to leave myself some breathing room on Saturday and Sunday because my weeks are wrapped tighter than a pair of skinny jeans.

So, what usually happens at Casa Bagley? Dan and I start asking each other, “what should we do this weekend?” And we keep asking it. And asking it. And asking it. And before we know it, it’s Saturday at 1 p.m. And we’ve done nothing. Nothing fun or productive.

Soon I couldn’t take it. We had to do something. But I did not want to schedule so much that I felt like Monday through Sunday were just one, giant, continuous loop of errands and chores and drudgery. So for the past couple months, I’ve been working a system that seems to be working. A system where I can have fun, relax, and get things done.

Here’s what I do:

1. The Wednesday rule. I try to decide by Wednesday evening what’s going to happen that weekend. If we don’t have something previously scheduled like a family dinner or getting together with friends and find ourselves with an open weekend, by Wednesday night, I want to nail down something. It doesn’t have to be a big thing or a small thing. Just something. I go through our perpetual task list/fun list with Dan, and we settle on The Thing we’re going to do. That way, even if we don’t do anything else, we’ve done at least one thing.

2. Pick three things. I had a hard time finding out what was too much and what was too little to do on the weekends. Some weekends I felt completely overbooked, running from one thing to another. And other weekends, we barely left the house once. So, I like to have at least three things going on. That could mean things for me personally or things as a family. Or a combination. So maybe I’ll plan to get together with a girlfriend and prepare a couple blog posts. Then I’ll pick something to do with Dan and Kate. Three things are a plenty.

3. Advanced planning. Somewhere around the beginning of the month, Dan and I talk about what goals we want to accomplish. Perhaps it’s raking the yard, having friends over for dinner we haven’t seen in a while, going to see a movie, whatever. Then we plot those out and actually schedule them. Meaning, they are in both our calendars. And then they are not forgotten. Planning ahead ensure we actually do the things we set out to do. It also reminds me that I need to ask my parent’s to watch Kate or pick up materials for a project.

4. Go-to things to do. Plans fall through. Things change. Sometimes you have to go with the flow. So, I keep a back up plan in my mind of alternatives. We are members of Meadowlark Gardens, so we can always pop over there for a walk around and some picture taking. Or we could walk around Tysons Corner. Or do research at Home Depot for our never-ending home to-do list.

The other thing to remember is, I always own my choice, no matter the choice. So, a weekend of lazying around, catching up on Grey’s Anatomy, reading Game of Thrones, preparing some blog posts, and playing with Kate at the park might not be some people’s idea of a good time, but it works for me.

Tell me, how do you make the most of your weekends?

Friday features: that’s all she wrote

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Holy moly, Thanksgiving is next week! What the what?! I know, right? I better order my turkey and get to work hunting down lobster for my mac and cheese!

Okay, so what’s shaking around the Internet this week? Behold, my picks:

I love this post from Matt Cheuvront on plans vs. missions. I didn’t appreciate the difference until now. Definitely worth a read.

Umm…these baked apples? Yes and yes!

I found Marriage Confessions back last spring, and I always enjoy reading Katie’s posts on babyhood, toddlerhood, marriage, and balance. She wrote two great posts this week. I loved this one on how she balances being a working mom, and also this one on how to take two kids to the grocery.

Also? This mom? Totally funny. Especially her take how other people perceive her as a mommy blogger.

See anything share-worthy about the Internet this week? Do tell!

Kate cam

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We are pretty minimalist in terms of baby stuff. When we registered, we didn’t go for wipe warmers, teaching babies how to read videos, nursery water. We’re all about the basics here at Casa Bagley.

So, clearly, we didn’t register or buy a video monitor. It seemed luxury. Why would we need that? I had a regular monitor that picked up Kate’s breathing, so that’s all we needed.

When Kate turned six months, and we were practicing a half cry-it-out, half give in and get her sleeping method, I could see where a video monitor would have proved useful. So often we’re hear her cry out. Then quiet. Then whine. Then nothing. Then screaming. So Dan and I spent hours, staring at each other in the dark and playing midnight games of checkers and Go Fish, trying to decide if we should get her. Since we couldn’t tell what she was doing, we probably guessed wrong half the time.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, Dan snagged a hot deal on an infrared camera. Not a baby monitor. An actual camera that would produce a feed, so I could watch her on my computer screen or via an app on my iPhone. The quality is outstanding compared to the grainy baby video monitors. And now I can see exactly what she is doing.

Which leads me to the point of this post.

It feels kind of wrong. Like I’m invading my toddler’s privacy.

When we were putting it up, I was giddy with excitement. Great! Now I can sneak a peek at her to make sure she’s okay without going in and potentially waking her up.

So that night after Dan put her down, we gathered around my computer screen and watched her. Then looked at each other. And felt like horrible spy parents.

There she was, rolling around in her crib, talking to herself, chatting up a storm. And then after the requisite 20 minutes or so, falling asleep.

I felt bad watching her that first night. And then the next day at nap. By that night I wondered if maybe this was a bad idea.

But then again, watching her sleep is the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. Well, next to Kate, herself, in the flesh. And Dan reports it warms his heart to watch her sleeping.

So I decided maybe it wasn’t that creepy of me. And it totally helped me out the other day. About five minutes after Dan put her down, I was working away on my computer when Kate made a huge fuss. Like the type of mayday fuss that meant COME GET ME, WOMAN! So I checked her out on the monitor, and yep, in a failed attempt to remove her pajamas, she had her arms pinned behind her head. So I went in and fixed the situation and went back to watch her on the screen. Crisis averted.

Anyway now I love the video monitoring system. So much I had to share these super sweet shots of my toddler sleeping. Oh, the many sleeping positions of Miss Kate Bagley.

Okay, video monitors – useful or weirdo?

PS – The last picture is Kate snuggling her monkey. And she’s fine. I’m right here, listening to her breathing.