What I Learned in my First Week of Parenthood

We have officially survived our first week as a makeshift family of 3. To be completely honest, the week went way better than I expected. But that doesn’t mean it was totally easy either. We had sad moments and breakdowns and didn’t have enough alone time. But we also had a million laughs and hugs. Here’s what I’ve learned so far

One. Saying goodbye was harder than I expected. I knew it would be sad, but we had been preparing for this for months. We had practice weekends. The i’s were dotted and the t’s were crossed. How bad could it be? Nothing could have prepared me for watching a mommy hug her baby goodbye and walk away. My heart tore in two for them.

Two. Toothpaste everywhere. We’ve worked as a team to keep the place pretty clean, thank goodness. But for some reason, the one thing I cannot keep clean is Wy’s bathroom. Seriously. I found toothpaste on the light switch.

Three. The “Witching Hour” is real. My mom always used to joke about a certain time of day that I would completely lose it as a kid. Yeah, Wy has it too. 4pm. It’s real.

Four. I can’t wait for him to go to sleep at night. Seriously guys, I’m a new kind of exhausted by 7pm. Bed time comes around and I’m so excited to have an hour of grown up time and be asleep by 10pm. But you know what else? I can’t wait for him to wake up in the morning. As soon as my eyes open, I’m missing that little guy and wanting to hang out with him. The other day he slept way past the time I left for work and it took everything I had in me to not go in and give him a kiss before I left.

Five. Try, try, again. Fall off your bike? Get back on and keep going. Say the wrong thing and hurt feelings? Say you’re sorry and try to use better words next time. Leave a sink full of dirty dishes? Go to bed and clean them tomorrow. I’m not going to be perfect. I’m not the perfect “mom” or the perfect aunt or the perfect girlfriend. But I’m trying to keep everyone happy and the house clean and the dog walked and work done and tears dried and I think I’m doing a pretty good job at it for my first week.

 

Tomorrow I’m back to work and he’s off to camp. And every night the three of us get to come home to a family and I don’t think there’s anything better.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bars

I typically buy 4 bananas whenever I go to the grocery store. These bananas typically get eaten. However, the other day, almost a week after I had gone grocery shopping, Nathan said to me, “Those bananas need to get used somehow.” So I made it my mission to find a delicious (and not too terrible for you aka not banana bread) way to use our almost-bad bananas.

Off to Pinterest I went!

I found this recipe via Together as a Family and decided to give it a shot because I had almost all of the ingredients and it looked semi-healthy.

 

Ingredients

6 Tbsp of butter, softened

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup Greek yogurt (I used vanilla)

2 tsp baking powder

1 egg

3 bananas, mashed

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups flour

1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350.

In a large bowl, beat the butter until until creamy.

Add greek yogurt, sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt. Beat until combined. Add egg, banana, and vanilla extract. Beat until combined.

With a wooden spoon, stir in the flour. Add the chocolate chips. Stir.

Put mixture into a greased square pan (I used 8×8 but the original calls for a 9×9. I ended up putting a little bit into another small pan so there wasn’t too much in one pan).

Cook for 20-25 minutes. Use a toothpick to be sure it cooks through. Let cool.

I cut mine into squares, ziplocked them, and put them in the freezer. They’re going to be great to stick into a lunchbox as a treat.

Of course I ate one warm. It was ooey, gooey, and delicious. I can imagine it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top- YUM!

Enjoy!

My First Stitch Fix

I had a friend tell me about Stitch Fix and that she loves it. I’m not a big shopper so I thought this might be a good way to get a few new pieces in my closet every so often. My first box came today, and although I’m not SUPER in love with all of the pieces, the experience was super fun. I have to admit that I peeked on the app to see what was going to be included in my box. Part of me wishes I had kept it a surprise.

Both the pants and the shirt were part of my fix. The pants were too long and big on the waist. And the shirt was too tight on the arms. I let my stylist know that I loved the black, skinny look but not the bright stripes.

When I saw this shirt on the app I thought for sure I wouldn’t like it. I almost didn’t even try it on! However, as soon as I put it on I really liked it! I think it’ll be a nice, easy shirt for summer. But throw a cardigan over it and it’ll be great for work! I did end up keeping this shirt.

I really loved the look, feel, and fit of this dress. I can’t wait to wear it on a date night or to work!

I ended up keep two of the five pieces (there was a pair of pink sandals that I didn’t take a picture of) and had a lot of fun with my first fix! My next one is scheduled for the end of the month! Can’t wait to see how my stylist takes my thoughts and suggestions for my next box 🙂

 

If you are interested in trying out stitch fix, use this link. It’ll count as a referral and get me a $25 credit. Let me know if you try it out! Enjoy!

Make Your Own Coffee Creamer

One of my guilty pleasures is coffee creamer in my coffee in the mornings. Sweet, warm coffee is such a comfort but store bought creamer is terrible for you. I’ve read so many articles about how bad even a tablespoon a day is. So I decided to finally try a recipe for coffee creamer.

 

Oh how I wish I had tried this years ago. So easy. So delicious. The recipe I tried is Chocolate Chip Cookie Coffee Creamer via Shugary Sweets. It was perfect the first time around, I didn’t need to do anything different. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk

1 1/2 cup milk

3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

3 Tbsp light brown sugar, packed

2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. In a sauce pan, whisk the condensed milk, milk, cocoa powder, and brown sugar together on a low heat until all of the ingredients are well blended.
2. Remove from heat and add the vanilla extract.
3. Store in the refrigerator.

And that’s it! I’m telling you. So easy. Took me less than 10 minutes and it was so yummy!

Let me know if you try it too 🙂

 

Mom Practice

W has not moved in with us yet. We have 17 more days until he does. So we’re working hard on getting the house, and ourselves, ready for our new addition.

We’ve had two weekends that W joined us to help get him used to living here. The first weekend, his mom joined us, and the second weekend, it was just him. For the most part, it went really well. Bed time was the toughest. Sleep training a 6 year old is hard. But we’ll get there. 

W and Wesley (the dog) get along wonderfully. It makes my fur-mama heart proud to see my boy being a big brother. Also makes my uterus want to make him an actual baby but, um, no thank you.

W and I set off to the pool one day to meet my friend and her two kiddos. Let me tell you, it was so good to have some adult interaction while the kids played. Or, well, climbed on their perspective “parent” until told “Please stop climbing on me and swim.”

After the pool we visited Nathan at work. I told W, “Uncle Nini’s work cafeteria is like your cafeteria at school except twelve times fancier.” As we walked in I heard W whisper to himself, “Wow, this is twelve times fancier.”

On Sunday we went downtown to try out a new church. When we dropped W off at kid’s church, a nice woman asked me what my son’s name is. To which I quickly and awkwardly replied, “He’s not my son!” I later apologized to W and he forgave me, saying, “You’re still practicing.” Thanks bud.

As we were walking to church, W spotted the children’s museum that Nathan and I planned on taking him to after church if he did well, but hadn’t told him about. W looked over and said “Oh, wow, that’s a children’s museum. I bet it’s a lot of fun. Maybe after church we can ask some of the kids if it’s fun.” It was fun.

So. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m not a mom. I’m still learning and practicing. But this kid is a good kid. And Nathan is a good man. We’ll figure it out together.

Our home.

Less than a month ago I moved into our new home. It needed some love, a few updates here and there, but overall it’s a great house. It’s the perfect size for us (with an extra bedroom for W, thank goodness) and we fall more and more in love with it the longer we live here.

Our house is in the midst of being painted. And as I type these words, I’m sitting in the only place there is to sit while our wonderful painter completes the finishing touches. Tomorrow I’ll be able to put my clothes back in the closet, food back in the pantry, and furniture back in its rightful spot. I’m so grateful that we had the opportunity to have our house painted for a great price. It’s made a world of difference. Knowing our weaknesses, we would not have done a nice job with the painting.

On the left is a “before” picture of our kitchen. Ugly wallpaper, awful hardware on the cabinets, and an awful white countertop. The right is an “after but not quite finished” picture. The wallpaper is gone and the paint is a beautiful color. The chunky black hardware has been swapped for simple, sleek, silver bar handles. The counters are still the ugly white, but we have plans to trade them out for marble.

Things are coming along! More before/after pictures to come!

I’m not a mom.

But I’m about to be pretty close.

A little over 6 years ago he was born.

I was asked to be his godmother when he was one.

I fell in love with his uncle when he was five.

I just moved in with his uncle two weeks ago.

And in a month, his mom will be deployed and we’ll be his “parents” for the next year.

I’m scared. And excited. And unprepared. For an entire year, Nathan and I will be guardians for our 6 year old godson. It’s going to be a tough year, but I can already imagine all of the happiness our hearts will have. We’re going to learn to love (W and each other) in a new way.

This is Melissa and This is my Blog

I’ve blogged before. Haven’t we all? For a while it went well. Had some followers, wrote some fun posts. But life got in the way and no matter how many times I tried to start up again, I failed.

Who knows, maybe this time around will be the same way.

Or maybe I’ll keep up with it. Maybe I’ll get some followers, write some fun posts.

Right now it’s summer. And my life has changed in a big way and it’s about to change even more. So, why not document? Welcome to my blog. I’m Melissa and this is my space. Grab a cup of coffee and stay a while.