On Pink Sparkly Nail Polish

Back in the days when I was footloose and fancy free (ahem, childless), one of my favorite evening activities was to give myself manicures and pedicures. I think it started the summer Mike was working in Puerto Rico - I rented every season of "Sex and the City" and spent all those cold, lonely nights re-watching my favorite show and soaking my feet in a big tub of warm, soapy water and filing my nails. Yes, yes, I'm aware that there are nail salons available for this very thing, but for some reason I just sort of like doing it myself. (Also, I always seem to get cut by the poor nail technicians. I've determined I must have thin skin, but nonetheless I'm kind of terrified of contracting a horrible, flesh-eating disease.)

As you can imagine, this sort of activity is kind of difficult when there is a toddler running around. But on Friday night, with a baby shower to attend the next day and the weather heating up (also, maybe some gentle nudging from my sister), I decided a pedicure was in order totally and completely necessary if I ever wanted to show my feet in public again. And so it was that our little family (Mike included!) found ourselves huddled on the couch with our feet soaking while we watched "March of the Penguins" and Anna and I poured over the polish colors in my stash. Fun family times, right?

While trying to paint Anna's toes proved to be one of the most infuriating tasks I've taken on as a mother, it really had me thinking a lot about having a daughter. Before I ever had kids, and even up until the moment Anna was born and Mike declared, "It's a girl!", I was pretty convinced I was destined to be the mother to boys. I'm not really sure why, but for some reason it was all I could picture, even though I grew up with only one sister. I can remember getting a package from my mom in the mail for my birthday when I was pregnant with Anna and it was filled with knitting needles and yarn and other fun sewing and crafting goodies and it was the first time I thought to myself that I might be a little sad if I never had a daughter, because then who would I send crafty care packages to? And now I'm pretty convinced that I'm destined to be the mother to all girls - which is basically me confessing that now that I have a daughter, the idea of a baby with little boy parts scares the crap out of me.

I know, without a doubt, that Mike never expected to be spending a Friday night up to his shins in bubbles and shouting, "Pedicure Party!" while his daughter and wife debated the merits of pink sparkles. But I also know that Mike and Anna share one of the most amazing and natural relationships I've ever witnessed, even though sparkly things are high on her list and not-so-high on his. I suppose being a parent is like many things in life - you have no idea what to expect, and then you just learn as you go, even if it's not what you planned or imagined.

But watching the man you love throw his idea of a good time out the window to appease the little girl you adore, you can sure feel a lot better about knowing that no matter what, it's going to be amazing.

Especially if you have a fresh pedicure.

Mike took this picture one evening out in the yard.

What was going on while I was at the aforementioned baby shower.

Playing ball with Dada.

Noodles!

Now that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, I want to make sure that this space doesn't become all pregnancy, baby, blah, blah, blah. Yes, obviously, I will write about my excitement and fear and all the other fun things that go along with bringing a person into the world - how could I not? But for today, I thought I'd share another of my favorite recipes. Especially since I finally feel like actually eating and cooking again.

I think I was first inspired to make this after reading a recipe in the Rachael Ray magazine. I kind of took what she offered and changed it up a bit to fit our tastes. It's an easy, quick meal that is awesome for summer, and it's totally toddler approved. It's also awesome because you can throw in whatever veggies you might have on hand. And the leftovers (if you have any) are delicious the next day - perfect to take to work or eat in the driveway while your kid creates masterpieces with sidewalk chalk!

Cold Asian Noodle Salad

What you need:

(Since this is not an actual recipe, my measurements aren't too exact. Sorry!)

1 package of Soba noodles - you could use rice noodles if you want to go gluten free, or even regular spaghetti would probably work
Ken's Lite Asian Sesame salad dressing - or something comparable. I also have made dressing from scratch using tamari sauce when feeding gluten-free eaters. Probably better for you, but I'm lazy!
Spinach, chopped - a couple of big handfuls
Carrots, grated - I used probably 7 or 8 baby carrots.
Fresh cilantro, chopped - a big handful
Peanuts, chopped - a handful
Green Onions, chopped - two or three
Any other fresh vegetables you want to add - this is a great way to sneak veggies in. I usually add an orange or yellow bell pepper, but I forgot to buy one. I usually add fresh basil, too, but I haven't started my garden yet and the basil at the grocery store didn't look that great. I bet cucumbers and tomatoes would be delicious!
Cooked Chicken - again, I'm lazy, so I used a rotisserie chicken (also, I'm struggling with raw meat these days), but you could save money by cooking your own.

What you do:

1. Prepare the noodles according to the directions. Soba noodles are super fast - they cook in about four minutes. Drain and rinse in cold water.

2. Chop or grate all your veggies and herbs and the chicken.

3. Mix it all together in a big bowl and pour the dressing on top. I just eyeball it - I try to go on the light side, that way you can add more if you want more flavor. Give it another stir and you are good to go!

Warning: Lady & The Tramp inspired eating may happen as a result of serving this meal.

Enjoy!

And not to be all pregnancy, baby, blah, blah, blah on you, but we're super excited because tomorrow we have our big ultrasound. Spoiler alert: not finding out the gender! Yes, yes, I know that this will drive most people crazy. But what can I say? We love a good surprise. And the color yellow.

Happy Wednesday!

Chuck Norris Has Got Nothin' On Me

It occurred to me over the weekend that at this time last year I was handing in my final Master's Degree project and putting the finishing touches on my half marathon training. My half birthday was last week, which means I turned thirty more than six months ago. And I started to feel a little down on myself. I mean, I basically went all Chuck Norris on the last year of my twenties, what with finishing my degree and running two half marathons (and obviously a ton of other cool stuff that I can't seem to remember right now). Since then, though, it's been kind of a random assortment of crafting and baking (thank you, Pinterest) and just sort of living life - all in a really great, non-martial-artsy kind of way.

But just as I began to think that thirty had gotten the best of me, I remembered that I'm doing something that even that silly Chuck Norris couldn't, that my thirtieth year (Or is it my thirty-first? That math is confusing...) is going to blow most others out of the water because of one small (well, about the size of an apple right now) reason.

The Arends clan will become a family of four in early October - and this little girl will  be a big sister!

So while it's true I haven't been logging the miles on the treadmill (thank you very much, morning all-day sickness) or writing any thesis papers, I suppose I can cut myself a little slack. There is a tiny person growing inside me, after all.

Even Chuck Norris has to take a break sometimes, right?

If You Give A Mama A Trip To Target...

I can remember a Mother's Day from when I was younger, probably eleven or twelve, where my dad took my sister and I to a Detroit Tigers baseball game, leaving my mom alone. At the time, I can remember thinking how sad she must have been, that her whole family was abandoning her on the most special of all days and how she must have spent the afternoon waiting by the window for us to return.

And then I became a mom myself, and I imagine now that the second our car rolled out of the driveway she was doing a little happy dance in the living room. It was probably the best damn Mother's Day she'd had in the history of ever.

On Friday, my in-laws came and scooped up Anna for a day of Costco shopping and visiting relatives in Grand Rapids. All week, I had been planning in my head what I was going to do with my temporary freedom, and it mostly involved a Starbucks run and a glorious, peaceful, toddler-free trip to Target where I meandered through the aisles and stocked up on Easter basket goodies. The only bad thing? The part where I had to pay for all the fun stuff I had blissfully thrown in my cart.

As if the day couldn't get better, my Target adventure was followed by a sushi lunch date with Mike. We sat at the bar, conversed like real grown-ups, and didn't have to stop our conversation twenty times to pick food up off the floor or flag the waitress over to bring us some more milk or more napkins. It was glorious.

And I swear to you, the rest of the weekend played out like that children's book, "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie", because it seems those few precious hours of Anna-free time were just what I needed. I finally cleaned and organized the toys that were threatening to take over our living room. I swept and mopped every floor in our house. I washed windows. Heck, I even painted my toenails. The next morning, I cleaned and vacuumed out my car. I was on fire, and all it had taken was a soy latte, that red bullseye, and some wasabi.

Sometimes, as a stay-at-home-mom, I don't feel entitled to take days off. It's so hard to remember that even though I'm not on a payroll or punching a clock, I so need those mental health days to decompress and drink coffee alone and try on twenty things without a two-year-old trying to escape the dressing room.

All my cleaning and toe-nail polishing was followed up with a visit to meet my dear friend's baby and a trip to my parents' house to celebrate Easter. We ate cheesy potatoes, eggs benedict, and lots of chocolate, and finished the day with an egg hunt out in the yard.

This is what the mullet looks like first thing in the morning.

"No pictures!"

Ready to hunt.

My Aunt Janet is the master of the egg hunt.

I hope everyone's weekend was as awesome as ours, even if you didn't get to go to Target.

This afternoon, we embark on a trip down to Florida - Mike is fishing with his brother, and Anna, my mom and I are heading down to visit my sister. I'm looking forward to the beach and the sun. And maybe even giving my mom an afternoon or two off so she can go to Target!

Happy Tuesday!

You Can't Have 'No' In Your Heart

There's a running joke around our house that Anna has, by leaps and bounds, the coolest hair of anyone in the family.

And when I say coolest, I mean "looks the most like Joe Dirt".

Leading up to her birth, I was convinced my baby would enter the world with a head full of long, flowing locks. Heartburn doesn't lie, does it? And according to all the old wives' tales, constantly reaching for the Tums during pregnancy means  your kid will pop out ready to be the next Pantene model. Well, it turns out all the old wives are full of it, because Anna had barely a fuzz covering her noggin - a fuzz that stayed put well beyond her first birthday.

Finally, though, her hair did begin to grow.

Except. Well, except for one small problem. Her hair is growing, yes. But it is only growing in the back.

People, my child has a mullet. She is business in the front and party in the back. She could get through a security checkpoint into Canada without a problem or a passport of the paper kind . I'm pretty sure any hockey team would give her a spot on their roster simply by looking at her. It's hard core.

On a good day, she resembles Florence Henderson in her Brady Bunch days.

On a bad day? Well, let's just say that she would fit right in with Billy Ray and his achy, breaky heart.

If you are ever feeling sad, I urge you to use Google Images to look up "mullet". You will be giggling the rest of the day.

She was born in the South, after all. Maybe this is her way of telling us she wants to be a country music singer when she grows up.  

Just to clarify, The Band Perry (pictured on the right) is a current band. This picture is from the last year, meaning those dudes cut their hair like that on purpose. Maybe Anna is a trendsetter?

Sure, we could cut it. But then how in the world will we torture her with pictures when she's a teenager?

We've tried putting in cute little barrettes or headbands to distract people from what's really going on - usually involving bribery in the form of gummy bears - but they never seem to last longer than an hour or two. I have to say, despite the fact that she is still mistaken for a boy (with a really bad haircut) on almost a daily basis, the idea that my daughter could easily be an extra in a White Snake video makes me smile.

If that's not love, I don't know what is.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to enroll Anna in guitar lessons and buy her some cowboy boots. And maybe add a little hair-growing serum to her milk while I'm at it...

I Need A Kristintervention

In more ways than one. For reals.

Today is my sweet sister's birthday. And while Kristin is basking in the sun in the faraway land known as Florida, I am sadly stuck in Michigan. (Although, no complaints about the weather, because I have been doing quite a bit of basking myself. Thank you, Mother Nature!)

We won't be drinking margaritas together to celebrate, but that doesn't mean she hasn't been on my mind all day, because I sure do miss her.

Do you know who else misses her?

My house.

Remember that time she came over and basically kicked my ass and ordered me around and forced me to get organized? Weeellll...let's just say I haven't exactly been living up to her expectations. I'm pretty sure every surface in my house has suffered my abuse, and it ain't pretty.

I don't think I can convince her to leave the beach to, ya know, beat me into organizing my life. Which means I must take matters into my own hands.

I've been pondering a few things I've seen on Pinterest, like a daily cleaning schedule or one of those "52 Weeks to an Organized Life" deals. I don't know. I'm feeling overwhelmed. And embarrassed.

On a scale from one to ten, how pitiful is it if a stay-at-home mom wants to hire a cleaning service? (Although, as I said to my friend Katie today, my house is too much of a wreck to probably even get a cleaning service to come!)

You gotta start somewhere, right? So Kristin, in honor of that magical day you entered the world, I'm going to clean at least one room of my house today. If that doesn't shout "I'm so happy you were born!", then I'm not sure what does...

Happy Birthday, sister! I hope your day is surface-abuse free and full of wonderful things that make you happy. I love you!

Anyone have any tips or pointers for me? Experience with those daily cleaning schedules? HELP ME!

Nap Time, I Thought We Were Cool

I think that Mike and I are dealing with a little Post-Traumatic Stress when it comes to Anna's sleeping habits. I mean, the kid has been slumbering twelve to thirteen hours a night in her own crib for more than a year, and I swear to you the one night she happens to wake up we both get all twitchy and angry and totally revert to our sleep-deprived maniacal selves. That's the way we functioned the entire first year of her life, because girlfriend was not what is known as the kind of baby who, well, sleeps like a baby. Or, rather, maybe she was, and the person who came up with that expression is a huge jackass.

I've been noticing lately lots of pictures of kids popping up on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram sleeping in totally random places - sacked out in front of their blocks, curled up with the family dog, sawing logs in their high chair - and I find myself chuckling and feeling just the tiniest bit jealous. Because there is no chance in hell that Anna would EVER fall asleep anywhere but in a moving vehicle, someone's arms, or her crib. And while we've come leaps and bounds since her first year, (despite her lack of spontaneous nodding off) there have been some changes 'round here in her sleeping patterns, and they've got me quaking in my boots.

The rarest of all Anna sightings - spontaneous sleeping!

I am starting to fear that Anna is coming to the end of napping days. It hurts almost to type it. Nap time - those treasured two or three hours every day when I can pop open a bottle of pinot and catch up on reality TV (ha)- seems to be disappearing. I put Anna in her crib, and no joke, two hours later she will still be in there laughing and singing and talking to her toys. She's not crying or complaining - she's genuinely having fun. As I type this I can hear her calling to Super Grover to bring her a sandwich. Some days she finally seems to give up and go to sleep, but by then it's pretty much the time she's supposed to be waking up, and her whole schedule gets out of whack. Other days, she fights it and I relent and go get her. At first, on the days she would miss her nap, come six o'clock she would be a walking little terror. But lately I've noticed that missing her nap doesn't seem to throw her off as much as it used to, and she goes to sleep at night much faster and easier. Is this how it all ends? Please say it ain't so!

Two smaller things have been happening, but none so life-altering as the loss of the nap. First, Anna has rediscovered sleeping with her mama and dada. It started one of those twitchy nights when she woke up for some reason or another, and instead of putting in the work to rock her or sing to her or rub her back while she went back to sleep, I simply scooped her up and brought her into our bed. As I was doing I thought to myself, "Oh, this could be trouble!" But then we all snuggled up and slept wonderfully and that was that. Until two nights later, when she was up again. This time, I was more determined (less lazy?), but Anna had other plans. Immediately she was asking, "Sleep in dada's bed?" Well played, kid. So far, it hasn't been too much of a problem - she's probably been joining us about once a week, and both Mike and I sort of like having her around. She did sleep with us the entire first year of her life, after all. The girl knows how to get what she wants, though, and we have created a (snuggle) monster. I submit the following photo as evidence:

She somehow convinced my sister to share a twin bed with her...

The last thing is much less dramatic, although it definitely has the possibility to be, well, messier. Several mornings a week I open Anna's door to find a small pile on the floor consisting of pajamas and a diaper. And a naked, bouncy toddler grinning up at me. So far, no accidents, but who knows how long that luck will last. The girl wants to be naked, I guess.

Who can blame her, really?

All is quiet in her room now, which means that she'll probably be asleep until dinner. So I best be gettin' my drink on. Or, you  know, folding some laundry.

Parents - when did your kids drop their naps? Am I fooling myself in thinking this might just be a phase? And any tips for keeping my baby clothed (and her crib free of poop)??