Sometimes a girl needs her mommy.

I'm 27 years old, and tonight, I knew the only thing that was going to calm me down and make me stop crying was calling my mommy. Even as an adult, sometimes I just need mom. I'm pregnant, emotional, exhausted and my patience was wearing incredibly thin with Kate tonight. After hours of whining, demanding things be done her way, and crying all the way home from Grandma's because she didn't get to close the front door the way she wanted to close it, bedtime was a trial. I can tell lately that she is trying to keep me in the room with her longer and longer each night- always needing to revisit certain pages of Goodnight Moon, sing ABC one more time, etc. Once in her crib in a fairly decent mood, I tucked her in, did our normal routine and as I began to leave the room, she began frantically crying that she wanted her book in a certain spot. Thinking she'd move it and be ok, I closed the door... leaving her PISSED and SCREAMING like someone was stabbing a knife into her repeatedly or something. I mean s-c-r-e-a-m-i-n-g.

Now for the bad mom part. I did the first thing that came to mind. Stormed into her room and yelled at her to stop yelling! Nice, Alison. Way to keep it together. Grabbed her from her crib, tried to calm her down, put her book where she wanted it, put her back in bed and left the room again. She was fine. I; however, was not.

If you've ever experienced Mommy Guilt, you know what I am talking about. That feeling that what you've just done has officially scarred your child for the rest of their lives. Now, looking at it written down, it doesn't seem nearly as bad as I made it out to be. But between hormones and exhaustion, I spent the next 10 minutes crying uncontrollably about what a terrible mommy I am for reacting so angrily. Matt is at a meeting and wasn't here to talk down my crazies, so I did the only thing I could think of- called Mom. After patiently listening to my ranting about "how could I get angry at a 2-year-old for being a 2-year-old?" and "what if all she remembers tomorrow is me yelling at her?", my mom calmly asked me, "Do you remember every time I yelled at you?" Hmm... no. Guess not. "And of all the memories you have from being little, do the times I yelled at you haunt you?" No, not so much. And not 5 minutes into the conversation, I am calm, sniffling and feeling much better.

Man, I love my mom.

20 minutes later, I hear Kate crying in her room and decide I just have to go in, shush her, tell her I love her so much, and get her calm. All it took was pulling her blankie back over her, rubbing her back and "Goodnight, mommy loves you..." and she was happy again and we both felt better.

Harder the second time?

I don't know if it's just that I don't remember it being tough when I was pregnant with Kate, but I'm fairly certain that being pregnant this time around is considerably more difficult. Maybe it's chasing a two year old around. Maybe it's that I'm not in as good shape as I was with her. Maybe it's just that every pregnancy is different. Or maybe it's a combination of all of those things. Whatever the case, I am finding pregnancy number two to be a little rougher.

Nonetheless, I am thankful. Being a mommy has always been one of the answers to "What do you want to be when you grow up?" for me, so to double that title is a huge blessing. Last week I had my check up and we heard baby's sweet heartbeat rockin' away at 156 bpm. Almost spot on with what K's was about that week... funny! The old wive's tales say that fetal heart rates over 140 bpm = girl, but my instinct says 'boy' this time. Now, I guess it kind of did with K, too, and we know how that came out, so we'll see. We have a little online baby pool going on and only 3 out of the 14 guesses are for a girl! Won't we all feel silly if it's another girl? Well- 50% chance! We will find out on February 25th... I CAN'T WAIT!

We're in the exciting, but exhausting, process of moving! We got our keys last week and Matt has been over there doing all kinds of work getting it ready for us to move on up. Still to be done: paint our room, paint Kate's room, install new shower in master, install new bathroom vanities, buy some furniture, install wainscoting in breakfast nook and... move. Oh... that last one is going to be a lot of work. We've got to be out of our current place by February 11th, which originally seemed like a ton of time... now, all of a sudden, he first of the month is less than a week away and I am panicking! I hate packing everything up! Luckily, we can start gradually moving things over there as we want, so that should take some pressure off... as long as I actually get on it. It is very exciting, though... it feels great to finally be making a place OURS, you know? Painting where we want and making any changes we feel up for. Love it! The adventure of home ownership begins!

And since I've been terrible about taking pics of the girl... here are a couple of crappy ones from my phone. Home shopping at Cost Plus ( sweet hat, no?) and hanging out on the steps at the new place (stairs will be a whole new adventure!).

So much for slowing down after the holidays...

You know how you go through a really busy time, and tell yourself, "It will calm after XYZ...". Well, I think I have been saying that for about 6 months. Seriously.

And, just when I told myself in early November that everything would slow down after the holidays, I found out that we're pregnant again! Well, I am pregnant... Matt is just along for the gig. So shortly before Thanksgiving, we found out. Exciting!

Once we knew this information, and had an ultrasound where our little one's heartbeat was good and strong, we started thinking about our house and that we're already so overrun with Kate's stuff... we'd be needing to make a move. So the house hunting began. We looked at a couple of different places, put in an offer on one, got outbid, and started over again. Recently, we found a place we really liked, and they accepted our offer! We're in escrow right now, but soon we'll be homeowners! So exciting!

So... in the near future we'll be moving. I'm unbelievably excited, but it is still moving. Moving is never all that fun. It never ceases to amaze me just how much crap we have accumulated in our almost five years together.

Speaking of which, February 5th will mark 5 years of marriage for Matt and I! I can't believe how fast the past 5 years have gone. We had talked about getting away for a bit for our anniversary, but it looks like we'll be right in the middle of renovations and moving, so we'll have to post-pone a bit. Que sara, I suppose.

So hopefully the new year will bring much health and happiness to everyone, including us in the Conrad house!

I love this season!

Hello, my name is Alison... [Hi, Alison] and I am a SUCKER FOR CHRISTMAS.

For real. I love everything about it. The lights, the music, the decorations, the smells, the food... all of it! Ok, well, maybe not being almost backed over by a crabby woman on an electric shopping cart at Target this evening, but I guess that just comes with the shopping territory. I can handle it. The ratio of awesome : not so awesome is in my favor.

I gave in this year and we went with a fake, pre-lit tree. I always said, NEVER!, and scoffed anytime Matt brought it up. But it was time. My sneaky two year old still puts everything in her mouth (umm, seriously- isn't she supposed to be over that?) and I didn't need to have a panic attack about all of the pine needles dropping by week #2. So, we went pre-lit and I have to say... I'm happy with my decision. Its super pretty, really easy and we can put it up much earlier than we could keep a real tree fresh for. I'm all about decorating early... did I mention I'm into the whole Christmas thing?

In the spirit of the season, we took some cute pics of Kate for our Christmas cards... isn't she the most?!




Well, it's late and I'm beat, but I promised myself I'd actually get this thing updated before a full month passed. Phew! Now if I can only make sure to get the Christmas updates up! We'll see how that goes. Baby steps.

Two Years Old!

How could it be possible? How can two years have already passed?

One of Kate's favorite things is watching movies of herself, so this morning we watched a few short clips on my laptop of when she began walking last year. I could have cried. Okay... I did. A little.

On Wednesday, my baby turned two. Two. Two years. I am that sappy girl who all day thought about the different things that went on that day two years earlier. When we started counting contractions, when we called the family, when she arrived... it doesn't seem like that could have been that long ago. But, here we are, 2009 and two years into my beautiful daughter's life!

We celebrated on the 14th with a little Yo Gabba Gabba party, since that is her favorite. Here are some highlights :)









This is while everyone is signing happy birthday to her... can you tell she digs the attention?


I bought her birthday shirt from GoldenShop on Etsy... she is fabulous! If you're in need of a custom tee, bib or party hat, she is your girl!

It was a fun day and she is loaded up on toys for the year! We need a bigger house! And now Christmas is coming! Where has 2009 gone? As much as I am freaking out about another year being over, I am excited. 2010 is going to be a great one!

Who are you?!

The past few days, this is the question I have been asking my daughter. Who ARE you and WHAT have you done with my Kathryn?!

It started with the anti-breakfast movement. Waffles? No! Fruit? No! Cereal?! No thank you. Well, at least there was a thank you in there. So the battle raged on.

The other night, after being told (for the 100th time) that the remote isn't a toy, this child threw herself on the ground in a full-blown temper tantrum, complete with kicking legs and screams. I pointed at her, looked at Matt, and asked [all together now...] WHO IS SHE!?!?

The latest assault has been launched at bed time. We go through the same routine. Every night. We do not stray. Every night. Then suddenly, one evening this week, it was as if I'd left her in that room with a savage pack of lions or something. She stood at the end of her crib (we have a video monitor), armed with her blankie and her treasured copy of Guess How Much I Love You, screaming at the top of her lungs. As I recall, it goes something like, "Na-na-NA MOOOOOOMMYYYYY!!!!!" Throw "DADDYYYYY!" in there a few times, too. Holy love.

But hey, I still love her.

Time flies...

Ok, so I let another month slip by without updating. How did a month already pass? People always told me, "If you think time goes by fast now, just wait until you have kids." So true. It's like I blink and suddenly we're in the middle of a new month already. August 17th? We're even more than halfway through the month... summer is almost over and fall is quickly approaching. My birthday. Kate's birthday. Thanksgiving. Christmas... aahhhh!

Though it's been a busy month, its been a good one. We spent some time with Kate's cousin, Madison, at the beginning of the month. Kate just adores her... and I am looking forward to having a great babysitter in a couple of years ;-) We visited Zoomar's Petting Zoo down in San Juan Capistrano one day- always a good time. My little miss Dr. Doolittle loves any chance to play with animals (or 'ammals' as she calls them). She couldn't get enough of this giant rabbit- which I'm pretty sure could've devoured her if given the chance- and made friends with one particularly greedy guinea pig.





We also spent a little time this summer down at Lake Mission Viejo. It's really great for little ones, since they can play in the sand without risk of big ol' waves knocking them over. She is a water baby for sure; never wants to leave. While getting ready to go down there the other day, I put her swimsuit top on (the rash guard kind) and kept her in a regular diaper and shorts until we got down there. As I got her bag together, she grabbed her swimsuit bottoms and proceeded to put it on as her hat. Hilarity ensued:


I promise- she was in no danger of strangulation. Just wanted to make that clear. No need to call CPS.

Looking around our home, I've finally decided (after almost 3 years) that we need more pictures on the walls. I wanted to put one of Kate in the tub in my bathroom, so one night during bathtime, I snapped a couple of my bubbly little love bug. Both will soon be hanging in my bathroom because... well, because they're too cute not to do something with.





We have a huge blank wall in our living room that I am trying to make some decisions about. I think I had the attitude that we're just renting and that I didn't want to put a lot of work into it if we were going to end up moving anytime soon, but its looking like we'll be staying put for a while, so I am feeling the need to make our space more "homey". I have no clue what to do though... I am craptastic at decorating. Photos? Mirror? Shelves? A little of each? Ugh. Who wants to come design a cool looking wall for me?!

It must be one of those phases, because I am feeling like I want to redo everything in our home. Though I've wanted to redo Kate's room for a while now, we can also add to the list new towels, new linens for our bedroom and new lamps (ok, well... I've wanted those for a while now, considering they're the same crappy Target ones from college). I've got the itch, what can I say.

I've also decided that someone should nominate me for "What Not to Wear". Yeah, I know... it doesn't really work that way. While my wardrobe may not really be all that offensive, it would be stinkin' sweet to get a whole new one courtesy of TLC. I'm just sayin'- Stacy and Clinton can pick out a sleek new look for me anytime.

I think I'm in a rut. Hmph.