The Fabulous Life of Stefanie

Ok, so I am definitely writing this post a day late, but that is what I am thankful for - that I fell asleep super exhausted last night and proceeded to get an amazing's night sleep! No late night blogging or tossing and turning with a toddler foot in my neck because she slept all night in her own bed! Thanks be to Mr. Sandman! Or, at least thanks to our awesome nanny and our own patience for working on getting her back in a better sleep groove. Today is Friday, tonight we have a dinner date with Kate and tomorrow I get to go for a long run and do whatever we want! Glory, glory what a good night's sleep will do for your outlook. I am hoping that we have turned the bend with the sleep thing, but even if not, it is so nice to get at least one night of good sleep! Also, I am in a total Christmas shopping mood and spent some time of Shutterfly making some very awesome photo gifts this morning; they are having a 40% off sale until Monday too so if you are in the market, now is...

Everyone has been doing these fun random fact lists on Facebook, and it totally reminds me of the good ol' days of MySpace surveys and Facebook notes. I love finding out random things about people, and I especially love when I find out someone has some weird quirk that I do! Little Chief Honeybee put one up on her blog and inspired me to do the same, so here is some randomness for your Thursday before Turkey Day Thursday! 1. I  knew that I wanted to work with criminals and outcasts ever since I was little and realized that marine biology meant having to do math. When I got my first "real job" out of grad school in the prison, however, I realized that the most important work has to happen on the outside of the walls, so that is where I found my calling. 2. I am terrified of bats; just typing that out gave me the extreme skin crawls and heebiee jeebiees. 3. I do not have a close family outside of my strong bond with my Mom and my maternal grandparents. I am jealous o...

Today my sweet baby girl turned two and I am incredibly thankful that I get to be her Mama. We are going through a rough patch with her sleep issues right now, but morning until bedtime she's kind of the most awesome person ever. We have so much fun together and she's taught me more about myself and the world around me in two years than I ever thought possible. I  am thankful that she is healthy, happy and thriving and I feel confident that I'm doing everything I can to help her continue to be all those things and more. Being a parent is serious hard work, but it also a g'damm blast. Thanks Maddie for being my favorite tiny human! I've been doing this every day for two years! Thomas pancakes, pjs and trains for her birthday breakfast!

Wow. my sweet little baby, who I swear I just brought home from the hospital, turned two today. I wasn't home when she woke up because I was out with my running team and she woke up waaaaay to early, but as soon as I walked in she ran over in her pajamas with her crazy bedhead and immediately wanted to be picked up and to begin our morning snuggle routine. I sang her happy birthday. which she has been asking everyone to do all week; "sing happy happy!" she asks/demands. I made her pancakes with funfetti the color of Thomas and let her play with her trains while she ate. We chatted about her upcoming day and our Skype date with Grandma tonight so she can open her presents "live" with her and then we got ready and off to pick up her nanny.  I was going to stay home from work today but I have most of the week off next week and my boss is on vacation and I know that Maddie will have just as much (ok, probably more) fun with her nanny. I will be ready to cele...

Tonight I'm thankful for vodka. And tonic. Together and in my glass.  I'm thankful for the opportunity to make amazing grilled cheese for dinner (thanks Food 52) while I listen to NPR.  I'm thankful for my Mom's hand-me-down knit leggings that I've been living in for my post-work wardrobe.  I'm thankful for the fact that it's been enough minutes since Maddie was screaming or hitting her head against her bedroom door for me to believe she might finally be asleep.  I'm thankful that I'll be up at 4am tomorrow to run with my team, and to be humbled by the individuals I run with who feel way less sorry for themselves than I do for myself.  I'm thankful for the chance to have another chance at the world tomorrow. 

I finally got around to taking a chunk out of the massive amount of digital photo organizing that I need to do. Maddie is almost two and we take approximately three hundred million photos of her daily, so I wanted to get them all organized on my external hard drive. I also have thousands of pictures from life B.P. (before parenthood) that I've wanted to organize and make some albums out of.  Going through all those pictures made me thankful for the awesome amount of fun, experiences and travel I did before Maddie came, but also how much we've done since. She's already been coast to coast more than once, all over the eastern seaboard and to most everywhere you can go that's worth going to in New England.  I pored over pictures of me and Matty's first vacation together (to LA for a wedding), my post-graduate school jaunt across Europe and those first precious few months after Maddie came into our world.  I'm thankful to have done all I've done, to get to keep ...

The weekend catch up continues, and I am glad I am writing this after a good night's sleep instead of at 10:30 last night when Maddie still wouldn't let me leave her side so she could go to sleep. We have always struggled with Maddie and her sleeping and have gone through all sorts of roller coaster weeks and months where she sleeps like a champ, doesn't want to sleep in her bed, loves to sleep in her bed, doesn't want to sleep at all - you name it, we have been there. Before we had her we agreed that we were going to always do what was best for the three of us to keep us happy, rested and feeling loved and secure, whether that was co-sleeping or using the Ferber method or a million methods in between and we did a pretty good job with sticking to that. Lately, though, I feel as though we have gotten away from that and the consequences have not been good. Instead of doing what works best for us we have been allowing our own stress and outside influences to move away ...