Happy Turkey Day!

Wednesday
Ahhh... a few moments of peace and quiet to write this. Gerard has taken Gerrit with him to run an errand and Willem is sleeping for a few moments. Today I got nothing accomplished... again. At 5pm I was still in my PJ's. I had dressed Gerrit and managed to fold a load of laundry (that was all wrinkled because it had been washed three days ago). In fact, now it's folded but still not put away. I did the dishes that had been sitting in the sink for four days. Gerrit and I played a bit today and read some books, but I didn't get any more boxes unpacked. Mostly, I felt like an utter because Willem kept feeding throughout the day. Nursing makes me really tired, too. All I want to do is sleep, but obviously Gerrit makes that a bit difficult. The house has yet to be cleaned and I never did take Gerrit outside today. Yes, I feel like a bad wife and mother. I'm exhausted. I'm sleep deprived and physically very tired, but at night I have insomnia. I think it's because it's my only "me" time during the day. Now I should be doing chores during this time or unpacking more boxes, but I don't want to do any of that. I just want to veg out, watch movies, read, etc. Gerard has been giving me an earful about coming to bed so I don't get sick. I know he's right, but I just want some down time for me.

Tonight I had one of those scary mommy moments. We had finished dinner and Gerrit was ready to get out of his booster chair. I was burping Willem on my shoulder and was headed toward Gerrit to help him down when it happened. Gerrit tried to stand up in his booster and then slipped and flipped over face down- his noggin heading directly for the floor. I lunged forward to catch Gerrit's shirt and help ease him down- there was no way I could actually help him avoid the fall altogether. While I was lunging toward Gerrit with my left hand, the baby also lunged with me and I almost dropped him. Phew.... fortunately, poor Willem almost got whiplash. All survived, although Gerrit was quite upset.

Thursday
This morning we went to a playgroup and spent the early afternoon with Liesel and her kids. I've decided that I need a morning activity each day to help me make adequate progress in getting out of the house each day. I realize I still have a newborn (under a month old even), but if I don't get at least "try" to get a jump start on the day, I can end up in still in my PJ's late in the afternoon with little to nothing accomplished except nursing Willem and feeding and playing inside with Gerrit. Even if I come home and get nothing else done during the day except a few hours out in the morning, I will feel as though Gerrit has gotten some outdoor time and that's some progress made.

Tonight was a complete disaster with dinner. It's Thanksgiving. We didn't have a traditional dinner as we are planning to do that on Saturday with some other American couples from my German class. Instead, Gerrit and I made a cute little turkey craft for Gerard, and I made a mushy card for Gerard telling him some reasons I am thankful for having in my life (really trying to get out of my "pissy" mood and back to focusing on the positives right now). I had also planned a very simple dinner and a chocolate cake for us to enjoy later this evening. It all started out fine, but then somehow it just went awry. Now I am normally pretty bad in the kitchen, but tonight was exceptionally awful. I had planned some swedish meatball type things with a gravy, potatoes, and veggie - Right up Gerard's alley (minus the veggie). So the meatballs and gravy came out fine.... for the most part... and that's what I was most worried about. Somehow I completely fouled up the easiest thing in the world- mashed potatoes. I ended up accidentally pouring in too much liquid and ended up with potato mush (more like cream of wheat), and when I was adding salt the lid popped off the salt shaker and a bunch of salt poured into the potatoes. So... now I had extremely salty cream of wheat potato mush. Lovely. Oh well, Gerard and Gerrit were still kind enough to eat a bit of it. Ah well, I guess they were showing that they were at least thankful for my efforts. :)