Week in review

This video is for the grandmas. Here is our lovely Anna-boo, look at how talented she is. Anna loves her Bumbo, it is the perfect seat for her on the beach. Anna does NOT like the feel of the sand, and the Bumbo keeps her high and sand free.

Yesterday Anna surprised Kate and I by blowing out of her diaper right before we went into the library for story time. I didn't have a back up outfit, so I cleaned her up, put her in the Bjorn, wrapped her in a blanket, and hoped that people assumed she had on a tank top. My new friend Sarah lives close by, so we went to her house for lunch and to borrow a onesie to get us through the rest of the day.

I've had a couple of experiences here that I would never have had in Salt Lake. While walking out of the library yesterday my friend Sarah and I (Sarah has identical twin girls - they are as cute as they sound) had a woman make the comment to us, "Oh great, just what we need, whining kids at the library". At the time our 4 children were behaving beautifully, not to mention the fact that we were on our way out of the library. There are a lot of mentally ill people in Santa Monica and I'm getting used to their comments. I'm not sure of this woman's mental state, but I wanted to say, "they should probably be at home watching TV". Or something like that; however, earlier this week when I was at the mall I had a similar experience and did say something snide back and have wondered since if I did the right thing. I'm undecided. So far I'm thinking these things:

1. these experiences are good for me
2. I need to look the part of a responsible Mom. What I mean by this is that I want other people to know that I made the conscious decision to be a Mom because I believe it is an important job, the most important job I could have. I've been preparing for this role for a long time, and I'm a good Mom and can have confidence in my abilities and my decision. Outwardly this does not mean looking like your appearance doesn't matter, this means getting ready for the day like you would any other job. I'm choosing to think of it as putting on armor.
3. People are always going to have something to criticize, you better be sure of yourself or they will find your weakness and jump on it.
4. I love my kids and am glad I'm their Mom.

To continue with my armor theme, yesterday I told Kate we were going to slay the Costco dragon. Costco here is like Walmart the day after Thanksgiving. People everywhere, boxes strewn across the aisles, it's a mad house. Kate and I pretended we were on a mission and occasionally we would use our shields and swords. I told her we needed to put on our courageous faces and do battle. She loved this idea and at various times would throw her arms into an X and catch the eye of people standing nearby. Our fellow shoppers seemed to enjoy our theatrics and it made the trip a lot more fun.

In synopsis, I really like it here and I'm glad we are having new challenges and thinking new thoughts. I'm particularly grateful for the mom and kid group we've been able to join, as it would be lonely without them.