It's hard to believe that my littlest baby turned two today! In some ways, it feels like I just brought her home from the hospital, but in other ways, it feels like she's been part of our family forever. 

At two years old, Vivien Louise is the biggest hot mess I've ever seen, and I mean that in the most endearing way possible. She's a hoot, and she marches to the beat of her own drum. She rolls in her own special way, and, believe me, she doesn't give a sh*t whether you like it or not. Which makes her all the more adorable. I've never met a person so free spirited. We definitely chose the right name for our lady baby--Vivien stems from the Latin verb, vivere, which means "to live." And our tiny human cat lover is full of life, that's for sure!

She is currently 100% obsessed with kitties, and has acquired quite the collection at this point. She meows incessantly, and can do a spot-on impersonation of Grumpy Cat, complete with a hiss. I am, however, beginning to wonder if she's taking the cat obsession to an unhealthy level, as she has recently taken to licking my legs whenever I sit down. But I guess she could have worse hobbies. Like Playdoh eating, which she also totally does. 

One of Vivi's favorite activities is eating, and she enjoys the finer things in life, like Gouda and Brie, noodles, cake, fruit, and cured meats. I usually make her eat a balanced meal, but it is pretty funny how she immediately goes for the good stuff. She's definitely my kid. 

She spends a lot of time looking at her books, and she loves when we read to her. She also really loves music and enjoys singing anything, especially our own special version of "The Wheels on the Bus," which somehow includes cats and elephants and zebras. I don't think zebras are supposed to be on the bus, but who am I to judge? She is quick to hop on our piano and play a little ditty, and sometimes I could swear she is actually playing real music. I think she may be our family musician in a few years. 

At two, Viv definitely is in full-blown toddler mode. She is prone to the typical tantrums of any two year old; we still aren't 100% positive that she won't turn out to be a serial killer, but I think we are almost out of the woods there. Unlike Bobby at this age, Vivi's tantrums are hilarious and video-worthy. It's hard to look at her with a straight face, and it's impossible to be mad at her because she's so ridiculous. There's definitely something different about a little girl in that respect. I usually have to turn my head and laugh so she doesn't see me. 

She isn't without a few idiosyncrasies at this stage of life. She has the curly afro hair of a 1960s Bob Dylan, and she has a raspy little voice. Whenever she gets cornered into doing something she dislikes, she panics and says, "Oooookaaaaayyy," in a really aggressive way that sounds identical to Lil Jon, circa 2005. She has the cutest little lisp when she says the word please (sounds like pleathse);  she is a consummate iPhone disabler; and she loves ripping off her diaper in public. She also knows all her ABCs, can count to 20 (although she leaves out numbers 14-17 because they are worthless), and confidently thinks that every single color is yellow. 

Most of all, she does everything big. Her big brown eyes sparkle, and her smile is big and infectious. Even her emotions are big, including her love--she loves her mama and daddy, grandparents, and especially her big brother. 

Happy second birthday, my sweet little Vivi Lou. 

I knew you were special the moment I laid eyes on you. 

Friday Faves

I haven't posted this week for good reason. 

I've been really busy. 

Doing nothing. 

We had to drive over to Jacksonville for a house planning meeting, and Alex had a short work trip simultaneously for the rest of the week, so what is a girl to do? 

Answer: drop the kiddos off with the grandparents, hitch a ride with hubby down to Jax, and lie around in the hotel room for three days. Alex was concerned about my well-being, which I though was cute. 

Alex: "Are you going to get bored, just sitting around in the hotel room for three days without a car?"

Me: LOLOLOLOL

I love doing nothing. I actually gave a 10 minute speech in my Speech 1102 class about my favorite activity, which is doing nothing. I can wax poetic about nothing, because I am a lady of leisure. I wish I could put Lady of Leisure on a business card, but alas, nobody is interested in doing business with me. 

I aspire to be a poorer, less-classy Jackie Kennedy hanging out off the coast of wherever. 

So the prospect of being child-less and essentially people-less for a couple of days greatly appealed to me. I am up to my ears in little people every day of my life, so it is a dream to get a few days away doing NOTHING in a clean hotel room on the beach. I have been waking up just in the nick of time to still get my free breakfast downstairs, then I go upstairs to continue a strict regimen of reading, napping, reading, a little tv watching, an afternoon nap, and then some afternoon reading. I had planned on getting a thirty minute workout in each day, but I decided I didn't want anything to interrupt my lying around time. 

It's been amazing, but sadly, all good things must come to an end (and honestly, I really, really miss my little beasties and can't wait to see them). Tonight we are going out to dinner at the best French restaurant in the city to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary, and we will head back to collect the kiddos tomorrow. Side note- I cannot believe we've been married five years! Five years and still kicking! Holla.

Some Friday Favorites:

I've been hunting for a new swim suit for Summer. I have a beach bachelorette weekend to attend in June and then a July beach wedding in Mexico, so I'm looking for at least one more suit. I am eyeing this sexy one piece, because it shows some skin while still keeping the important stuff covered. I've had two babies; I don't need it all hanging out. 

I love this little two-piece romper for Viv. The safari animals are on-point for Summer!

I'm loving these opal ear climber earrings by Kendra Scott. They'd be a perfect accoutrement to a good Summer outfit and a must-have for all the Summer soirees I'll be attending!

This video is so funny. And accurate. We were laughing about how spot-on it is after dropping the kids off with my mom in the Hardee's parking lot off I-10. With the first kid, you have to make sure your breast milk is reheated to a perfect degree and leave a detailed list of all the baby's activities. With the second/third/fourth kids, you're all like "you do you." Call me if somebody is dying; I'll meet you at the hospital. LOL. Seriously this video. 

I always love a good white dress for the Spring and Summer months. This dress is a good one. It would be perfect for anybody, but I could see it being really adorable for a bridal brunch. 

I'm gonna get these pajamas for Viv for her birthday, I think. Kitties and puppies? Can't miss. 

This article about the 8 types of moms you see at Target is spot on. I'm numbers 1 and 4, in case you're curious. Can't get through a damn Target trip without opening 67 packages of treats as hush-money.

I do not personally love adult rompers on me. I think they're adorable on a lot of other people, but they aren't usually flattering on my body type. This black romper from H&M, however, could be a game changer. 

And finally, this adult cake smash photo session is too funny. I know it's satire, but this may need to happen for my 30th. ;)

Happy Weekend, friends!

Sand Tantrums

Over the weekend, we planned to head East just a ways and visit my parents in Panama City for a little beach getaway. But as we rolled out of the driveway on Saturday morning, we realized that we had a tire with a nail in it that was rapidly losing air. After making several calls, we decided to stop at the Walmart on the way for a quick repair at their auto shop. We figured this would take 30 minutes, tops, so it wasn't a big deal. We stopped and grabbed a bite to eat, Vivi harassed a baby she didn't know, and Bobby improvised with a pool noodle to use as a light saber in the store. Just your normal shenanigans. After a long thirty minutes, we headed back to the auto shop, only to find out that it wasn't a normal nail hole to patch up in our tire. Instead, the tired was punctured with two nails and a screw (how??), so we needed a whole new tire and then to have them balanced. Of course we did. So what began as a simple thirty minute stop ended up being a two hour, three hundred dollar stop with lots of shenanigans. Vivi chased down a lady in a wheelchair scooter and tried to climb up in her lap to ride with her, while Bobby was knocking everything down off all the shelves with his long pool noodle/light saber. Meanwhile, amidst all the shrieking and crap getting knocked off shelves, Alex was totally oblivious, like a typical man, doing man-stuff like looking for the correct engine oil for our car. How can men conveniently tune all this bullshit out? I cannot. But we all got to the end of our ropes once Vivi started pitching an epic hissy fit on the floor of Walmart because I wouldn't let her have a set of jumper cables. You've hit a new low, Viv.

Finally, after a way-too-long and way-too-expensive visit to everybody's favorite store on Earth, we were ready to hit the road again on our new tire. Once we arrived at the condo, we quickly hit the beach. It was a glorious Saturday at the beach, if that's possible to say with kids. Doing the beach with kids is not my favorite thing, unless you are staying at a condo that's on or near the beach. I don't like packing up the whole farm just for a couple of hours at the ocean, and then bringing back a small country's worth of sand in my car that will never ever come out. I guess that makes me a curmudgeon, but I only go to the beach when we are staying at a condo; I'm not a day-tripper. And being at the beach with small children is hard work. There's not a lot of relaxing being done. But I made my peace with that from the get-go, and we had a really nice day. We forgot Vivi's swimsuit at home, so she beached al fresco, which you can get away with when you're not even two.

#notanlines
We chased the kids for most of the time, since Bobby was set on playing with everyone's toys except his own, and Vivi pilfered through everyone's belonging within a five mile radius. We chased birds and played with dogs and pretend-rode jet skis. And had sand tantrums. Because you can't leave the beach without one of those. 

Ah, a sand tantrum. Slightly classier than the Walmart floor tantrum. 

After a few hours in the warm sun, and after Alex gave Bobby a swimming lesson in the heated pool, we headed back up to the condo to get warm baths and then watch Netflix and chill. We ate pizza and hung out and just enjoyed each others' company. I love spending time with my parents, because the kids love them so much, and it's so fun to watch them together. Vivi follows my daddy around like a little puppy dog because she knows he will always give her treats and bites of whatever he is eating. And Bobby loves curling up in their bed and reading or watching tv with them. It warms my heart to see my kids enjoying time with their grandparents; they're so lucky that they have this time with them. 

Sunday morning was a chilly one, so we slept in. 

Just kidding, we were up at the ass crack of dawn eating Pop Tarts and watching Peppa Pig. It was a little too cold to go on the beach for a while, so we chilled in the living room watching documentaries  because that's how cool we are. Meanwhile the kids begged us to go down to the beach approximately every three minutes. So finally the guys took the kids back down for some sand time while my mama and I cleaned. And then it came the time to hop back in the car and head back home. 'Twas a fun little beach weekend!

I am really looking forward to this week. The beasties and I have a busy day full of errands today, and then we are dropping the kids off at my parents' for a few days while we head to Jacksonville to finalize some things for our new house! They just put down the boards at our homesite, so it's really happening!

Hope y'all all have an awesome week! XO

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

It's been a while since I've done a post bitching and moaning about the woes of living life in a home (a home which resembles a Fisher Price crack den) with two toddlers. And that's simply because life has been manageable for the last couple of months. When life is enjoyable, I don't want to take the time out to blog about it. I want to spend my time in the moment and enjoy the Eskimo kisses, the "mommy, you look like a princess" days, and the good afternoons full of sun and sweat and love. 

But to everything there is a season. And this new season of behavioral inconsistencies is apparently here to kick my ass. 

Which is why I do not discourage day-boozing. 

Vivi, while usually my more agreeable child, has become a typical two-year old and everything that entails. She pitches fits, which is standard fare for a two-year-old, but she's also developed a violent little temper that includes, but is not limited to, throwing things, kicking, screaming, and full-on cage fighting. She's a beast, and I'm hoping that this phase leaves immediately, because I hate seeing my normally pleasant little angel act like a member of the Manson family. 

To be fair, most of these outbursts are totally on-par with most two-year-old woes. She talks plenty, but not yet well enough to communicate her desires, so there's a lot of frustration for her when we don't understand the things she wants. Some of her frustration stems from wanting to do more than she is physically or mentally able to do, usually involving toys.  And then the other 50% of her frustration comes from her brother. Oh, her brother. 

The face of an angel.

Bobby and Vivi. They'll antagonize the shit out of each other until they're blue in the face, and yet it all seems to be a game in the end. It's all forgotten after a while, after kisses and hugs and chocolate. 

They are finally at an age where they really play with each other and love each other so much. When Vivi wakes up in the morning, she pops her little head up out of her crib and says, "Where's Bobby?" And then when Bobby gets up, the first thing he says is "Oh, hi, Bibi!" 

They actually want to be together most of the time and seem sad any time they are apart. 

Moments like that melt my heart.

 But they are scattered between shrieks and hollering and time-outs and the occasional spanking. 

Yesterday, however, was an experiment in torture. 

I woke up in a pleasant enough mood at 7am to the tune of coughs and meows. I got us all downstairs for breakfast, made a smoothie, and began to try to shake the dust from my eyes. We aren't good morning people.

 It's really hard to be a good morning person when you have one tiny person whining about God-only-knows-what, and the other tiny person whining that he wants Pop-Tarts, but not too hot, and orange juice. Please. The "please" gets me. You'll get a lot of places in life with good manners, included not being murdered by your mother over breakfast. Had he not said, "please," I would have gone in a different direction for breakfast, but I decided that Pop-Tarts and OJ sounded like a winner. Meanwhile, I was also trying to get Vivi the milk that she was still shrieking over. I wasn't going fast enough for Bob, so he came over to reiterate,"MAY I PLEASE HAVE ORANGE JUICE. PLEASE."

But Vivi's crying was at an all-time high, and Bobby's frustration was growing out of control, and I was going as fast as I could..which really only resulted in my hands shaking and me spilling half of the things I was trying to pour. I just had to take a step outside for a second. 

People- breakfast for two tiny humans should not be this stress-inducing. 

After everyone had cooled down from breakfast, we had a relatively stress-free morning that consisted of the kids completely undecorating my sofas while I tried to get some work done. It was one of those days where you could swear it's 5pm, but you look at the clock and it's only 9:15 in the morning. I got up to change the laundry, only to find that Bobby had somehow gotten ahold of a can of Play-doh. Now, I don't know if I have mentioned it before, but I. effing. loathe. Play-doh. Whoever invented Play-doh must have been a man who wanted to see the sanities of all mothers die. I don't dislike Play-doh because I'm a fun-hating Satan in a skirt yoga pants; if my kids play with it outside (or ideally at school, far, far away from me), then that's cool. But my home is not a Play-doh friendly home. And this was a good reminder of why I made that rule in the first place. Play-doh was everywhere. Smushed in carpet. Smushed in toys. Smushed in clothes. Smushed in Vivi's mouth. Oh my God at the Play-doh disaster. 

I decided to avert the inevitable disaster that would come soon and proposed that we get out of the house, so we quickly got dressed and then ran errands out in town. Bobby was so excited to make another trip into Publix; I figured that this was due to the free cookie, but no, he decided to tell another person that "Mama is going poo poo in her pants!" 

Y'all this is the second time in a week that he has done this, and it has occurred in Publix both times. I don't know what in the world is causing this random, embarrassing nonsense to spill out of his little mouth, but it leaves me in an awkward predicament of how to clean up that encounter with the other person. (I usually go with, "haaa..hhhaaaa...no, no I'm not. I promise, I actually am not doing that.")

After the errand run, we came home for lunch. After lunch, Bobby asked for more playdoh, and/or some Apple Jacks, and/or to go outside. I shot down all of his requests with the thing a child never wants to hear: NAP TIME. 

Well, Bob didn't take too kindly to that, and despite all the progress we have made with him lately, he reverted back and pitched a big ol' hissy fit. He was mad as fire and crying, which led to a coughing jag, and eventually he started puking all up and down my staircase. 

Are you serious right now. 

I cleaned him up while giving him the Eye. You know, the mad-as-hell, I'm your mama, and I will kill you Eye. So he did not pass Go or collect $200; that kid went straight to his room for time-out, where I told him he had to stay until I said he could come out..or else. And it turns out that lasted a solid three hours. 

Once Viv had awakened, I could see that she had clearly gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. Completely unnecessary tantrums ensued until I finally figured out that she wanted a cup of apple juice, but not in just any cup--in Bobby's cup. Why do kids always want what the other one has?

Finally my parents dropped by to save me from myself, and my daddy took the kiddos outside while my mama and I did some quick cleaning during their little time away. There's no point in even bothering to clean when kids are inside the house. That's rookie mistake #1.

Later on, we had our friends drop by for dinner and play time outside, which was one of the only sanity-savers of my day. Even though it added 2 more kids to the mix, it was worth it to gain one more adult friend. The kids played to the max, although a lot of it entailed me chasing Viv out of the street, but when it came time to get ready for bed, we totally skipped baths and went straight to bed. They were warm and snuggly and compliant during bedtime, which made me feel even more guilty for being frustrated all day. 

Once I got into bed, I laid there lamenting to myself -where did the last few weeks of my semi-easy kids and decently-enjoyable life go? I really thought I had something going and that things were falling into place. But it seems like when I take one step forward, we end up taking two steps back sometimes. On some days--good days--I think I've really got a handle on all this, and I will occasionally even entertain the idea of a possible third child down the road one day. And then days like yesterday snap me back into reality and remind me, no, no, I have enough of a shitshow as it is.  

But on the bright side, I hit my FitBit step goal, and you can't put a price on that. 

We woke up anew today and all in pleasant moods, plus we get to collect Daddy from the airport, so cheers to a hopefully wonderful Friday!!