Truth from the Trenches: The Newborn Stage

Here are my thoughts on the newborn stage of parenthood.  (If you want to read something more faithful and inspirational, click here for a prior post.  What you are about to read here is neither of those things.)  Mind you, I haven't ever really been around newborn babies much until, you know, they handed me one at the hospital and said "good luck and God speed."

Here's what I've learned.

1. It just is damn hard.  No, for real.  This is easily the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.  And I've done some hard things.  Like half marathons and bar exams and long distance relationships and trying to give Cousin Swiss Mister love advice.  Having a newborn is harder.  I don't feel like many people talk about this, which is a bad thing in my mind.  If no one tells you what an absolute freaking struggle it is going to be, when you find yourself in the middle of it you might think that you are not doing it right or you are not cut out to be a mom or there is something wrong with your kid.  None of that is true.  When you find yourself thinking that, you remember that none of those things are true.  It's just damn hard.

2.  The end goal is to survive. Period. Blonde Oklahoma Girl described the newborn stage as The Hunger Games.  For real, if you and your baby survive, you have won.  Haven't showered in 4 days?  Still wearing your pj's at 5 in the afternoon?  Had to stop breastfeeding?  Decided to co-sleep?  Don't want to swaddle?  Accomplished not one freakin' thing off your to do list in the last month?  None of that crap matters.  If your kid alive?  Then you win.

3.  Everything you swore you would never do? You'll do it in the first month or less.  This would be funny if you were not exhausted and frustrated when you are doing these things.  I said I'd never let our kid sleep in our bed.  You know what?  The first 6 weeks that kid would scream if you set him down and I slept holding him every night.  Then one night, it was like he decided to get over it and now he sleeps contently in his bassinette without issue.  I said I wouldn't be a mom that let her kid watch tv.  BB loves football--I mean it's an unreal thing to see an infant focusing like that on something!  I could make this list go on and on for hours.  The point is, you might as well never say never.

4.  You won't mess up if you are trying.  God bless my Soulmate Friend.  As you know from the last blog in this series, she played it straight with me. She also told me something her mom told her during this time when she was about to have a breakdown.  "You won't mess up if you are trying."  If you're going to be having a baby, you write this down on your heard and remember it when you have no idea what to do and are sure you are ruining your child.  These words were my mantra for several weeks.

5. When you are at your wits end, they do something to make you forget about all the screaming and sleep loss and dirty diapers.  A grin.  Grabbing your hand.  Sweet sleepy snuggles.  About the time you think you want to send this kid back to the hospital and get a refund, one of these things happens and you fall in love all over again.

Add caption

Girl Between the Lines: Most Valuable Advice Someone Gave You

Today I am doing something a bit difference and joining a link up called "Getting to know the girl between the lines."  Each Wednesday they have a new prompt for people to write about.  This week's prompt is:  "What is the most valuable advice someone gave you?"

Well, in my typical fashion, I couldn't pick one thing.  So I picked four.  But I'm combining two of them into one topic, so it's really like three, which is basically like one, so there ya go.

Work hard.
The very first thing that always pops into my head when I hear a question like this is a comment that my dad made to me while we were at the show barn and I was about 14.  No doubt I was whining about my friends being at the lake or at the movies or whatever fun thing that "normal" kids did, while we were, again, spending 3 hours at the barn walking pigs and working lambs.  My dad said, "Tiffany, we may get beat, but we'll never get outworked."  A similar piece of advice on this topic came from one of my favorite people, my ag teacher, a couple of years later when he went on a rant at a judging contest where some of the girls apparently were more interested in other things.  He said, "Girls, you can't go around in a short skirt with poofy hair thinking everything is going to work out.  Sometimes you have to put pants on, pull your hair back, and get to work!"  Even now, more than a decade later, I try and live my life in accordance with these ideas.

 Finding God.
I distinctly remember a conversation with my mother about how some of our friends went to different churches than we did.  My mom said something that I've always remembered.  "You can find God in a lot of different churches."  I think that this comment has probably shaped my faith (and probably many of my friendships) more than any other statement ever has.  I am a firm believer that God is in many different churches, and whether you can feel him in one where you quietly pray on a kneeler or one where people yell and scream and flail their arms about while they are singing Amazing Grace, the point is that you're seeking him, and that you find the best place for you to feel him.

Relationship advice.
Long before I was in a serious relationship, I heard one of my best friends make a comment that I have always remembered and that I think was a seed of wisdom that I might not have understood at 21, but that I certainly understand and agree with now.  At SoulMate Friend's bridal shower, someone asked her what she loved the most about her husband.  She responded simply, "He's everything that I'm not."  When I was younger, I thought I needed someone exactly like me.  Someone who was loud and outgoing and Type-A and anal and whatever other adjectives you can come up with.  But what SoulMate Friend knew, and I've come to realize, is that maybe what we needed was someone who was quite different, but who could balance us out.  It has worked out for her and her sweet husband, Tuba Man, for sure and was something that I often think about The Boy from Texas.

Friday Letters

It's been a while since I've done some Friday Letters, so here we go!

Dear San Antonio:  If you could not be completely hot and humid and miserable tomorrow from about 11 am until about 2:00 pm while I'm sitting in a football stadium, that would be awesome.

Dear Boy from Texas:  I like it much better when we are in the same place, rather than just the same state (and 9 hours apart).  That's all I have to say about that.

Dear Pokes:  After a slow start, I have to say that I was impressed with you as a whole last weekend with the win over Mississippi State.  Let's start off faster and impress me even more tomorrow against UTSA.  Go Pokes!

Dear SoulMate Friend:  It's your last weekend in your 20's....we're grown ups!  How did this happen?  I was thinking about it yesterday and do you realize that we met when we were 20 years old?  That's a decade ago.  We were just little babies!  I couldn't be more thankful to have you in my life!

Dear Lack of Motivation:  I'm going to need you to take a hike and allow me to get out of bed in the mornings to get a good run in before it's 120 degrees and 120% humidity around here.  Because at the rate we're going, I'm going to be one of those people who will have to leave the house via fork lift.

Dear Fantasy Football Teams:  Please don't suck this week.  Seriously.  Especially in the Family League where I am matched up against none other than The Boy from Texas in Week 1.  Will our relationship survive being in the same conference for Fantasy Football?  Things could really get interesting if we follow SoulMate Friend's idea and make a little wager:  Loser has to move where the other one lives.   #packyourbagsbaby

Dear Easton Corbin:  I love pretty much every song that comes out of your mouth.  But I'm really, really loving your newest one.



Dear Blog Readers:  Have a great weekend!  Wear some orange.  Cheer for the Pokes.  It's football season!

My Advice to All the Freshmen

"You'll never remember class time, but you'll remember the time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So stay out late. Go out with your friends on a Tuesday when you have a paper due on Wednesday. Spend money you don't have. Drink 'til sunrise. The work never ends, but college does...”  ~Tom Petty

Well it's that time of year again.  When college towns are flooded with students back for the semester.  And a lot of those students are wide-eyed, scared-to-death, map-carrying freshmen.  I sort of just want to grab all of them by the shoulders and be sure they understand--really understand--what a great chapter of their lives they are embarking on.  The house parties and football games and club meetings and nights at the Penny and the chance to meet so many great people......seriously, college was awesome.

And, so, in honor of the new school year, I have come up with a little advice to all of the freshmen.  Take it for what it's worth, but please do understand that I graduated at the top of my class with the best friends in the world and memories that are better than I can even put into words.  I'm just saying that I might know a bit about how to approach these next 4 years.

1.  Go to class.  Let me say it again.  GO TO CLASS.  Even if you are tired.  Or hung over.  Or still drunk.  I don't care if you don't have time to fix your hair, have to wear your pajamas, or lost your book a month ago.  Go.  to.  class.   Professors notice.  And in all likelihood you are going to pick up some sort of information that will be useful for the exam just by being in the room.  It is honestly hard to fail out if you will sit your butt in the seat.

2.  Buy the season football tickets.  I know that you're broke.  I get it.  I remember.  But I'm telling you, buy the football tickets.  You can pretty much find a free lunch every day of the week if  you pay attention to the different club meetings, so use that extra lunch money to buy them.  Find yourself some nice girls with a house who like to cook and they will feed you dinner at least once a week.  Maybe more.  More money to add to the football game pot.  You can make this happen.

3.  Find your people.   I'll preface this with saying I had some great friends in high school.  Really great ones.  But when you get to college, you have the chance to find your people.  You're don't just find your friends because you all live in the same zip code.  In college you have the chance to go out and find friends who are your people--the ones who share your interests and your beliefs and your values.  Or maybe ones who have completely different interests or beliefs or values, but who laugh at your jokes.  You'll know it when you find them because your life will become better.  You'll feel more like you--the real you--then you did before.  These are the people who will stand up next to you on your wedding day and whose kid's birthday parties you will travel three states to be at and with whom you'll lament turning 30 one day.  Choose wisely.

4.  And your place.  Every college kid has to find their place.  The one that makes them feel at home and happy and safe.  Maybe it's a coffee shop or a bar or a church or a study room in the library. Or house full of boys at 44th and Western that was probably never cleaned in the 2 years that they lived there, but that just felt right.  Wherever it is, find yours and go back there when things get stressful, or bad news comes, or you accidentally almost blow you house up, or you just need a chance to re-charge.  Find it.  And enjoy it.

Our couch named Snuggles

Church

The Penny

5.  Have fun.  I know that college can seem stressful and busy and crazy.  Yea...wait until the real world hits, kids.  This is the time of your life.  You don't want to come out of it with regrets.  Don't get me wrong, you have responsibilities--you have to go to class (remember Rule #1), you have to study, you have to go to work--but you also need to make time to have fun.  It's okay to close down the bar one night and go to teach little kid Sunday School the next morning (College Roomie and I were pros at that!)  Go out to dinner.  Put down the books on Thursday and go dancing.  Frequent IHOP at 2 in the morning.  The best things happen then and you don't want to miss them.

And so, little freshmen of the Class of 2017, welcome to the next chapter in your life.  When you're about to turn 30, you'll love looking back on the memories you are about to make.  So they better be good ones.  Live it up.

WILW

"Sometimes the most ordinary things could be made extraordinary simply by doing them with the right people." ~ Nicholas Sparks

I'm in Europe.  Loving every minute.  And every good dessert. And old church.  And lots of amazing food.  You get it.  Here are some other things I am loving today!

1.  Baby Chocolate Brown.  I finally got to meet her last weekend and she is precious and beautiful and perfect.  The Chocolate Brown family honestly is so good looking, I'm almost intimidated being in their house.  Except that they're so darn nice and I forget about it.

2.  Speaking of adorable children, I can't leave out SoulMate Friend's boys.  I had a blast spending a couple of days with Little Linebacker and Little Fullback.  I think I had two favorite parts of the weekend--first the fact that Little Linebacker can now clearly say "Aunt Tiff" and second when he played his dad's tuba.  It was amazing.

Me and the newest addition to Aunt Tiff's football team

3.  This list of 100 things you should tell your daughter.  My favorite?  "A strong man is never threatened by a strong woman."  Amen to that!

4.  This blog about the Boston Marathon attacks.  And how horrible it was to bomb the people who watch marathons because of what they mean to the runners.

5.  ND Friend's blog all about her 30th birthday gift.  The picture of the St. Therese quote....the one that is written in handwriting that might belong to a third grader....that was from me. :)  You might remember my blog about my small part in this project here.  It was an amazing and perfect way to ring in her 30th year!

6.  Mrs. F.'s response to my text that I finished my half marathon.  What did she say, you ask?  "You know that you can stop doing things just to prove that you can do them if you want to."  She's a smart lady, that Mrs. F.  I'm pretty good at doing things just to prove that I can.  Half marathons included!

7.  This song called Messin' Around.  Adorable.



8.  This video of Vince Gill and Patty Loveless singing Go Rest High On That Mountain at George Jones' funeral.  Beautiful.

9.  This article written by a daddy to his little girl about her future husband.  The idea?  All of the articles we read as women about how to be sexy and fun and whatever to keep a guy interested are crap.  The guy should be interested because we are interesting, period.  Love it.

Jam Sessions, Tailgates, Touchdowns, Fried Pickles and a Marathon Relay

"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."  ~Anon.

Oh what a glorious weekend it was.  Let's get right to it, shall we?

So after what I can only describe as an insane day at work on Friday, I hopped a plane and headed for the Happiest Place on Earth.  That's right, kids.....I was off to Stillwater for game day weekend!

I do like it when I'm in Stillwater and the Pokes are in the end zone!

SATURDAY

Loud Oklahoma Girl and I kicked off the day on Saturday by headeing to SoulMate Friend's house.  This may have been my favorite part of the day, thanks to the adorable Little Linebacker.  First off, he was decorating the Christmas tree with "jingles" which is what he calls ornaments, so he was all wound up and excited. 

This kid totally has me figured out.  First off, when SoulMate Friend told him that Aunt Tiff was coming to town, he said, "Aunt Tiff go to the football game."  That is how I'm known to this child.  My heart is full.  Secondly, as soon as we walked in he said, "Little Linebacker wants a cookie."  His mama said no.  He then came over to me and said, "Tiff, Little Linebacker wants a cookie."  When mama says no, go to Aunt Tiff.  He's a smart one!

Up next came a tour of the house.  Complete with things like, "This is the bathroom.  That is the bath tub" and the like.  When we got to his room, we somehow ended up in a jam session.  Picture it, Loud Oklahoma Girl on the marracas, me on the little kid guitar, and Little Linebacker on the toy drums.  We rocked out to some We Wish You A Merry Christmas, ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Ba Ba Black Sheep (which turns out Aunt Tiff did NOT know the words to).  We ended the day with Little Linebacker singing us the cutest Thanksgiving song....which I have on video....but you'll have to stick around until Thursday to check that out.

She's having a baby in 2 monhs...could she be any cuter??

So after the wild jam session, we headed off to do a little tailgating and have a drink or two at Eskimo Joe's to pre-game.  That's where we met up with my dear Kiddo.  Bless his sweet 21 year old heart, he hung out with the old ladies and I think even had a good time?  He's a wild one that kid....I made it through three years with the Animal House Boys and never had a run in with the OSU police.  I was there for an hour with Kiddo and said run in may have occurred.  No worries, didn't have to pull the lawyer card.  Phew!

After that, it was game time.  I think that the word "domination" pretty much sums it up.  Nice work, boys.  Nice work!  Now let's get geared up for Bedlam on Saturday!

As we always do, we hit up the Penny post-game.  Any bar that has an air of cow crap, a bouncer wearing Carhart coveralls, and photos of cattle on the wall is my kind of place.  That's why it became my bar 8 years ago.  It just makes me happy.

Next up was Bad Brad's bbq for dinner.  And we went all out and ordered the fried pickles appetizer.  So.  Good.

We wrapped up Saturday night watching the complete chaos occur in every football game on tv.  I was so happy to see Oregon go down (and that mean that the Irish move up into the top two!!), but honestly was disappointed about K-State.  This is the same weekend that OSU got upset in OT last year, so I feel their pain.  However, as of today, the Fighting Irish are #1 and you know this girl loves it!

I'm this excited.  Again.

SUNDAY

 

Yesterday morning it was time for the big marathon relay event!  At the Tulsa Route 66 Marathon they have a marathon relay event where you get teams of 5 and then each of you runs between 5-5.6 miles, for a total of 26.1.  Now, for those of you thinking, "Wait a minute, she drank all day and ate fried pickles and then ran??"  Yea.  I did.  And I was worried about it.  That is until I started running. 

Me and LOKG at the start of my leg.

 As I usually do, I had three goals for the race:  (1)  Finish.  (2) Run the whole thing.  (3) Run an 11 minute mile pace.  I realize that's not an impressive pace, but my training had not been good and I was honestly worried about running the 5 miles.  Well from somewhere (maybe the fried pickles?) I pulled it out and wound up running....get this...just under 10 minute miles!  It was awesome!  The girl for the next leg was on the phone when I showed up because she didn't expect me for 10 more minutes!  I was pretty proud of myself, and I've got to stop being such a slacker in the training department!



Pre-race team photo

We ended up 24th out of 46 teams---not bad, especially considering we had one team mate doing her very first race ever and LOKG running 5 miles for the first time ever.  It was awesome!  Go Team Slow Pokes!

Team Slow Pokes at the Finish!

WILW

"There is a child in every one of us who is still a trick-or-treater looking for a brightly-lit front porch." ~Robert Brault

I haven't done a list of things i'm loving lately, so I've been saving up!  I've got lots of loves today and even more saved up for next week.  Here we go with the WILW list!

1.  Let's start with my three favorite Halloween photos/videos.  I'm not a huge Halloween person, but luckily some other people in my life are.  Here ya have 'em....my Top 5 Halloween moments for 2012.

Cutest Costume:  Soul Mate Friend and Baby Little Tight End's costume.

Craziest Activity:  My friend who is dressed like a pirate participating in an underwater pumpkin carving contest.

Most Unbelievable Transformation:  Pharmer Girl.  Check out this video--Pharmer Girl is this total country girl that grew up in small town New Mexico like me and who went all chola for Halloween.  Hilarious.




Best Kid's Costume:  My friend's little boy wanted to be a washing machine!

Most random costume:  Ashley as a loofa.  I LOVE it!

2.  My adorable Goddaughter.  Seriously, look at these pictures from the last week.  Could GBaby be any cuter?  Can't believe it's been 9 months since the traumatic experience that was her being born.

Gbaby eating the cookies I sent her in the mail.

Gbaby all bundled up for winter.

Gbaby sporting the shirt I got her at Notre Dame on game day!

3.  These photos.  Grooms' faces as they see their brides for the first time.  Holy cow.  If that doesn't make you want to get married, nothing will.  Adorable.

4.  This idea for asking your friends to be your bridesmaids.  Awesome.

5.  This story that BFF sent me about scholarships being given to walk ons.  You've got to see the video of what the coach pulled at UMass involving the cops and totally freaking out some kids.  Hilarious and awesome.