jennifer patel

chloe bravely telling the bellas she had her nodes removed Like Chloe and her nodes, I made the courageous decision to break all ties with formal employment this summer. I didn't want to lose my identity and be JUST a stay at home mom because that sounded so lame and a waste of my many talents. But just like I didn't want to major in education in college because I was not going to be a teacher but ended up becoming a teacher anyway because it was inevitable and I ended up loving it...I also LOVE staying home with my gremlins and spending all the time doing all the things. (Except homework. Homework can *all the curse words* die.) And while I feel confident in my decision, I still find myself telling service people who come to our house during the day things like, "If you need me, I'll be in my office working. I have to log in and make it look like I've done something today! *very contrived laughter*..." Every time I say it, I turn, roll my eyes and won...

i don't know anything about this picture, but alex still has that look every now and again... This Forever Day is a tough one. When we were going through the adoption process and found out we would not get to meet Alex until he was over 18 months old, we thought in terms of years. 'Less than 2 years is not that much time' we would tell each other. We didn't know. We were (I was) desperate for a child and we just didn't understand how time functioned with a child. We didn't care. Now we have a baby who we have had since his birth. That baby is still 4 months shy of when we brought Alex home. Now we know how much we missed. We missed so much. I cannot imagine giving my baby away at this age to strangers, who would take him to the other side of the world. I know everything about him...what he likes, what he doesn't like, how to make him feel safe, how to make him laugh and I know that he loves me and he knows that I love him. I'm reminded of...

He was One. Everyone says it, but I can't believe a year has gone by. This past year has been about experiencing everything that I never allowed myself to dream when we were struggling to bring life into the world. It is so overwhelmingly powerful that I still pinch myself to make sure it's real. Happy Birthday, baby boy. We can't even remember the time before you were ours.* *Except that one time when you were yelling at a restaurant on a Sunday night, and I watched a young couple walk out together...probably to go home and watch Sunday night HBO on the couch with their pets...because they definitely got their work out in that morning...and then lazed around their Sunday funday planning their next vacation...and maybe reading...and I was staring so long at this beautiful couple, I dribbled food out of my mouth onto my clothes...but it doesn't matter because they were already dirty with spit and slobber...and baby food...and let's...

Growing up, our family took road trips for vacations. We drove to various state parks and camped, making excursions to places nearby. It was great, but as a result, I had never been to the happiest place on Earth, until this year! V was at a conference in Orlando this past April, so we decided to fly out and meet him toward the end and take a family trip to Disney World. We decided to do this and start making arrangements approximately 10 days before the trip. As I casually went on Pinterest to find a good list of things to bring to the park, I learned that people start planning their Disney trips months (like, a year) in advance. Apparently, you can book your fast pass rides and park restaurant reservations 60 days prior to your trip. And you can hire a Disney planner to book said rides and restaurants and take care of everything else for you. People have published  books with the secret ins and outs of the parks. I began to sweat and waver on our decision, thinking we wo...

It's no surprise to anyone that I fall on and sprain an ankle about once a year. I've injured and re-injured them so many times, there are no ligaments left for balance. I have what is medically known (maybe even recognized) as chronic ankle instability. Despite my balance exercising in Pilates, experts think recurring sprains damage the nerves and prevent your brain from being able to detect how your foot is positioned on the ground. Anyway, that's from the first website that popped up on Google when I searched "Why am I like this?" I had big plans for Spring Break. We were going to take a small road trip to test how the baby does away from home and traveling. We were going to go to the Arboretum every day and sit in the grass and soak up the sun. I was going to ramp up the cardio again since V, miraculously, had some days off with us this week. We went to Oklahoma to visit friends and their new baby. Our baby did great. Our oldest got sick. Like hi...

I haven't written a post to my Dad on his birthday in awhile. As if my subconscious was aware of this fact, I started reading Promise Me, Dad by Joe Biden. Why? I guess I need to cry even more than I already do about everything. Such a cry baby in my years around 29*. As someone who lost a wife, a daughter and a son, Joe gives the same advice to all grieving people he meets. To slain, New York, officer Wenjian Liu's mother he said: "There will come a time when you'll go riding by a field that you both loved, or see a flower, or smell the fragrance of his suit when he took it off and hung it in the closet or you'll hear a song, or you'll look at the way someone walks, and it will all come back. But someday down the line, God knows when, you'll realize it doesn't make you want to cry. It makes you smile. The time will come when the memory will bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes. That will happen, I assured her. And that...

1/15/18 1st carousel ride. sure, it was cold and i forgot his jacket and he showed no emotion at all to gauge whether he liked it or not, but alex had fun! Can we revisit the Passion Planner ? It's a bit dramatic to use the word "passion" but I do love this planner. It is goal centered and you can write weekly and even daily focuses (foci?) to keep you on track. Like all goals, you have to stay motivated but getting to write on super, quality paper (sorry, trees) with different colored pens and markers pretty much does it for me. When I was sitting down yesterday to look at the week, I wrote, "Fun day with the kids" as today's focus since there was no school and Wintergeddon might trap us indoors for the next few days. There was so much to do around the house that I started working on things as soon as I woke up. To give Alex an answer to his never ending, "What can I do?" question, I started making a list of chores for him to comp...

On the last day of 2017, I experienced a miracle. I was driving Alex and myself to church in the frigid temperatures of the morning. As I got over on the freeway to take an exit ramp to the intersecting highway, a cop was slowing with his lights on. Even though he was close to my lane, I drove around him and looked in my rear view mirror, watching him stop across the two exit lanes to block the exit. Before I could process what that meant I felt rHonda, my white whale of a mini-van, begin to slide on ice. By some magic blessing from all that is holy, I manged to slide around the curve of the exit ramp past 4 cars who had crashed into the right side wall, staying in my lane the whole time until I found traction again on the ground-level road. I don't have a lot of positive things to say about driving rHonda, but the bitch can skate . I was overwhelmed with relief and thankfulness that we made it without crashing. My heart was working overtime in the cup holder next to me. Upo...