Sometimes a mom needs to vent. Sometimes (ALL the time) I like sarcasm. Read with care.

It’s been one of those frazzled days so far. You may remember me mentioning in my morning post that Braedon woke up before 6 am this morning. I thought “no biggie” because then he would just take a longer nap while Makenzie was in school and I could make up the extra work time then. Let’s see how well that played out…

I went about the morning as I usually do on Friday mornings.

Then, as I cleaned off the counter tops I came across this.

Oops! Guess what mommy forgot to do her preschooler’s homework??? Once again, I thought “no biggie”. It would only take a few minutes to find a picture of my beloved little girl and fill out a few brief facts about her. Errrrr….if I actually had any pictures printed!

Blogger = you take TONS of pictures.

Tina = you never remember to take the time to get them printed off. I searched high and low but apparently we don’t have any recent pictures printed off. We don’t even have pictures printed of Braedon!! I fail at motherhood.

I fail at motherhood twice because on the way to dropping Makenzie off for preschool I realized I had also completely forgotten that I had to go in for a Library Volunteer meeting today to learn more about my monthly volunteer gig.

Or…what I thought was a quick overview meeting as the emails implied. Turns out we had to do the full two hour library duty. That would not normally be a problem at all – but let’s go back to the beginning of this post, shall we?

Braedon. Up since 5:40 in the morning. Library duty = no nap for the wee man. No nap = meltdowns of the century. For the last two hours I have listened to one of the following: a SCREAMING eight month old or the cat piano on full blast.

You may recall the cat piano from Baby B’s Dancing Video. It was the only way to console him. He loves that thing. I love it because it entertains him so well. I don’t love it because…well, have you ever been around loud and obnoxious kid toys playing nonstop for 2 hours?

I found a little solace in the humor that Braedon has apparently grown a mullet or rat tail of some sort. Yet again, I fail at motherhood for laughing at my child.

Just as sometimes things aren’t peachy keen on the body image front, things aren’t even close to always peachy keen on the mommy front. So, pass me a screwdriver (to remove some batteries), some scissors (to help my poor child’s hair), and some chocolate (you can figure that one out).

• Are you good about printing off pictures? Any suggestions for quick, easy, CHEAP places to do so? Online would be awesome!
• What is the last silly thing you needed to vent about?

***NuNaturals Giveaway winners will be announced tonight!!!

Good morning and happy Friday! I didn’t even think today was already Friday when I woke up, but then Peter assured me that, yes, it is in fact Friday. Works for me! That meant I could have my big bowl of oatmeal right away this morning.

Normally I have a pre-workout snack of some sort in the mornings – a bar, a couple handfuls of cereal/granola, a piece of fruit, etc – and save my oats for when I come home from the gym and can actually sit down and enjoy them. It also makes me not feel like I’m working out with a brick in my stomach. Rest days I get to dive right on in. And do you see it???

My peanut butter had a special little message for me.

I guess it knew I needed that today. Time for a little heart to heart talk.

I ended up taking an unplanned rest day yesterday because my right calf still felt super tight and tender. Logically, I knew I needed to take the day because I would rather have one day off than push a four mile run and weights workout only to get injured or even more pain. It made perfect sense and I was cool with the decision…until sometime in the afternoon.

This is me saying I still go a little mental sometimes and deal with things like exercise guilt. By the time afternoon rolled around, I felt fine and questioned whether I really needed the day off or if I had “lazily” taken a day. The exercise guilt started setting in and overtaking the logical side of my brain.

I started to let myself feel like I had been too lax lately and that I had lost my Body After Baby progress to my happy weight. Even though I’m fitting comfortably in my favorite pair of jeans – the #1 pair of goal jeans I had for myself.

I had already taken an unplanned rest day this past Sunday and felt like taking another was letting myself down…or possibly you all down. Was I being “lazy”? You know… because spending an hour chasing a toddler at the park is lazy, of course!

Basically – I got hit with the ridiculous stick and was in crazy land for a bit there. I guess we’re never fully immune to the body image and exercise/food guilt struggles that have dug their way in before. My oatmeal’s subliminal messaging pulled me out of that you’re-being-WAY-too-hard-on-yourself haze just in the nick of time. Because now I have to see if I can pull myself out of the why-are-you-waking-up-before-6am-baby-B??? haze.

• Give me either your favorite “love yourself” quote or just something you love about yourself this morning. Let’s burn the “ridiculous sticks” that like to try to beat us every now and again!