Happy New Year!

From the Self-Evident Supermom household to yours, have a very happy new year!

It's as if she's mocking me,
saying, "Oh, you fool,
you think 2 is bad? Wait."

This year will bring a new job (surprise, surprise!), a new schedule for both me and L., the dreaded Terrible 3s (3 is the new 2, have you heard?), potty training (ugh, eventually), a wedding, L. starting school and, hopefully, more topics to write on and more productivity, all while trying to maintain simplicity.

Every year, I make 10 resolutions. I figure I have chance to keep at least one.

Before I set my goals for 2014, I'd like to just take a minute to list my accomplishments of 2013. Not for bragging purposes, but as inspiration that sometimes, despite what my inner critic thinks, I can do it!

Failure to Laugh

So, if you've seen my blog in the past week and a half, you've noticed I haven't posted anything. Unfortunately, when it came down to it, I picked the wrong year to try to participate in the 31 Days challenge. All week, I've had Kirsten Dunst's voice running through my head from "Elizabethtown" -- coincidentally another Cameron Crowe movie, the writer/director of "Almost Famous" from where the photo used in my 31 Days button comes from.

"You failed! You failed, you failed, you failed, you failed, you failed, you failed ..."

Day 3: Being extra observant

Today, I laughed at: L.'s cupcake face
We went out to dinner to celebrate the boyfriend's father's birthday tonight. Before leaving, I was terrified. Absolutely scared to death about bringing a toddler into a public restaurant. But, she went right into the high chair and played with her toys on the table, especially since the boyfriend's mother brought ones she had never seen before. It turned into a wonderful dinner and the whole family ended up taking so many pictures of L. and her cupcake face.

Surviving a cold with a toddler

It was inevitable. I was getting sleepy at work, the tickle in my throat was getting more annoying and what I thought were allergies were getting stronger. None of this clicked until the head congestion set in halfway through my last day of work for the week and I realized I was getting sick.

Ugh, one of the worst annoyances to a mom. The common cold. On top of being annoying to deal with, deal with a cold has to be one of the biggest triggers of Mom Guilt. And I have to keep reminding myself to take time for me. But, tell that to any mom and she'll nod graciously, but secretly think, "Yeah, OK, like that every happens."

So, I prepared. I got my liquids, my Tylenol Cold and Sinus and my tissues set up in the living room and L. got to watch as much TV as she wanted while I sat like a zombie, pretty much doing the bare minimum of making sure she didn't hurt herself or get into trouble. 

It's the little things

I only have my daughter for half the week. Even though I'm not an avid fan, the boyfriend periodically will remind me how comedian Louis C. K. finds himself a better parent because of only having his kids half the week. I guess that's true. I get to give 100 percent in that concentrated amount of time, rather than stretching my energy over the course seven days.

For a long time when the separation was new, I would hold myself to the expectation of having something fun planned for every time I had L. That got to be too much energy and waaaay too much money. I've also realized that L. gets as much excitement from pulling up to our neighborhood park as she does when we drive halfway up the state for free admission at Kidcity Children's Museum every third Thursday of the month. It recently resonated with me that it's the little things when I see her that add up to big memories.

Here we are at the park and L. is being chased by little Freddy Krueger.
Five minutes later, little Freddy would not share any of the sand toys.
Little Freddy Krueger is a jerk.

Thirty good deeds to celebrate turning 30 #30for30

Yesterday was my 30th birthday. And I was lucky enough to have my daughter all day! I had seen a blog post via Pinterest about a woman who performed 38 good deeds to celebrate turning 38, which also gave me a lot of great ideas. So I decided a few weeks ago it would be a great way to spend my 30th birthday!

And, boy, did it keep us busy! It also meant a crazy number of times I had to get L. out of her car seat and into her stroller and then back into the car seat, which was exhausting! Aside from waking up sore from all the running around I did, I feel I got quite a good workout in my arms from the car seat shuffle.

But that's not all I felt ... even after the first good deed, I start getting this feeling like I was a superhero. My boyfriend had gotten me a crown that I wore pretty much all day. Of course, because I had a crown, we had to make sure L. had her crown. But, of course, she ended up asking for mine anyway.

Here's what we did: