back to school

last night was our first back to school night ever.

i'm surprised i wasn't just a melted puddle on the floor by the end because the cuteness was just a ridiculous amount of too much.

it was so cute to be in that room that she is so familiar with, a place she loves so much, that makes her so happy. to be with her teachers, who she ADORES. the whole time i was just trying to look at everything through her perspective.

looking at all the little lessons on the walls, down super low so those little miniature people could see them, was too much. she had made a paper person with yarn hair that was supposed to be her. she had blonde hair and purple pants and a purple shirt on. she was one of the only girls with pants on. haha.

her school is SO amazing, i'm so thankful for them. they love kids an amazing amount and they put EVERYTHING they have into teaching and caring for all the children. i love how clean and organized they are, how attentive, how sensitive to the kids, how mellow and peaceful, how creative, and how excited they are about teaching my baby. i know she started at the best possible place she could have. i feel like she's got a good advantage just because of the school she's in. it may just be preschool but its important, so much is being formed in them right now and i just love feeling completely secure with the people who are teaching her.

they're constantly telling me how great she does, how ahead of everything she is, how on top of the lessons she is, what a leader she is, and how she hasn't had one moment of "transition" as they call it... (which means a hard time, from being dropped off, or changing classes etc) she all around one hundred percent enjoys school.

its beyond words to hear about all their little friendships forming and how the girls LOVE each other and are all calling each other "best friends" every day. i'm so excited that she finally has a lot of friends surrounding her each day. ... and she has friends who like to hug and tackle her as well... which if you know ara is BIG for her. usually she's the one tackling with the other running away in fear. she gets a lot of mutual hugs and tackles at school! yay!

and not to get all mushy, but it kind of made me like kids in general for that hour that i was there sitting in that tiny, tiny, tiny chair. woa.

its like they want you to raise your own kids

as most of you know, i do not want to be a stay at home mom.

i have been for the past 3 years because there was no way for me to do anything other than stay home with my little darlings. i am glad that i had that time with arabella and for the time i've had with nola as a baby, but i'm just beyond ready. i can't handle this anymore.

i've been aching to go to school. aching. since one of my friends started to do an online program, i've had it in my head. lately its gone to my heart. i dont know what exactly i'd want to go to school for. i know the things i'm interested in and can kind of see how they come together but really believe that school would help me grow and bring my plans into focus.

i'm really not into doing online school, this would be my last resort, because i NEED to be somewhere separate from my house and i need to have hands on learning, lectures, other people. plus i want to be a part of the world again, i want my own life where i talk to people. people who aren't 3.

if theres anything i regret (which trust me, there is... A LOT) i regret not finishing high school. did you know i didn't finish high school? i feel like its written on my forehead. at the same time i do realize i'm about a billion times more intelligent than a lot of people who do finish high school. i'm just frustrated that i didn't give myself the tools i needed... for life. i'm frustrated that good old mother didn't either. she raised me thinking school didn't matter and i was smart but couldn't really get good grades and didn't really need to. that's all fine and dandy if you never want to do anything with your life, or if you happen to be the exception (like my husband) who somehow does anyway.

the truth is i am smart, could have gotten really good grades, could have done really really well. if someone would have maybe taught me to do that, instead of teaching me NOT to. point is, now i really really want to. i want to get my GED, i want to go to a community college and i want to do something with my life, for myself.

so i've been trying to figure out daycare and seriously, its absolutely ridiculous. if anyone out there knows about things i dont, let me in on it, cause i'm stumped.

i'm pretty sure EVERY person i know who has young kids and has a job or goes to school either has parents who watch them or is single and qualifies for daycare that i dont because of income. (not that i'm complaining about our income...)

then if there is a daycare at a school nola doesn't fit the profile because she's too young. 2 and toilet trained. 2 years and 9 months. ugh.

right now my next move is a job at night. this will only equal out paying for nola to have daycare and daycare and preschool together will still be an expense, not something covered by my extra income... but i think its worth it. its hard because neither seth nor i want to have more time apart... as of right now we've got a couple hours every night where he works but is at least home and then by 930 i'm walking to our room asking if he's coming too. so on one hand more time not with each other will be hard, but at the same time probably wont seem all that different, since we never really hang out now.

i want to do this while i'm still young. while i still am the age where its normal to be in college. itll be weird enough if i'm in college when my sister is (if she goes) but at least (no offense) i wont be 30 and in college... which i guess could still be college age for some people.... but usually they can at least say "i'm 30, i'm in college, but i have been for like a billion years." i dont want to be all "i'm 30, i'm in college, i've been here for a year.... i took a couple years off right out of high school, which i didn't graduate from."

anyway, i want to do it while i'm still young, and while i'm eager to learn.

if i can find a night job this might all get real intense, real soon.

a new outlook

its all over.

all the bad things are done.

the stuff i mentioned that i had been going through the past couple weeks, the stuff that was making want to stay in my bed all day, its all over. i'm so much better. i feel back to myself and so thankful its all over. im sure its annoying that i can't explain, but i just wanted all of you to know that i'm ok, i'm completely better and i dont want to stay under the covers.

life has been so crazy the past 7 months, i mean beyond crazy, and its finally all ending. i feel like everything has been worked through in a sense and the work we have to do from here on out is very do-able and not overwhelming. i'm so thankful to be out of the baby stage with nola because i know that made EVERYTHING crazy.

it might be hard for moms who love being moms to understand, or moms who haven't had post partum depression, but seriously having ppd made me a different person. getting pregnant when you DONT want to at all and when you feel so comepletely not ready is beyond intense, especially when you have a one year old you JUST stopped nursing. for me nursing arabella was crazy, my hormones made me so different and i just wanted to be myself again and right when i got to that point i felt like it was ripped away again by being pregnant with nola. so from the point where i found out i was pregnant with her, i think is when everything slowly started going downhill. i'm so so so thankful for nola and since i know her i can't not love her.... i'm very glad i have her. but that was just my limit and i really was pushed by life over my edge. really over.

i feel like this last event was the very bottom of that deep deep valley that i was pushed into and i've come out. i can feel myself climbing and the incline is mild and steady.

i'm really excited for the new way i feel that seth and i are making our life together. for the time we've been together we've always just 'let things work out'... got married fast and thought 'well it'll just work out'... we had kids fast and young and thought it would 'just work out'... we were making the decisions but acting like we weren't. we were chosing how our lives would look but maybe not the best way we could have and thinking more along the lines of it working out than thinking about how we could make it the best possible... how we could make it really truly what we wanted and how we wanted. i dont like how people put their lives in the hands of someone else (or so to speak because truly its still in your hands). when we do that its like we're making huge decisions, hoping it will work out and blaming the outcome on someone or something else. i'm so excited that we have started to make decisions for our life because we KNOW what we want, we know what we want for ourselves, our children and our future and we will act accordingly. no more letting things happen and hoping they 'work out' no more making foolish decisions or hasty decisions and talking about how even though its maybe not the best it will be ok. sure its ok, its all turned out ok... but there has been A LOT of work and A LOT of heartache that could have been avoided with a little wisdom and responsibility. anyway all this is just to say that i'm super excited about the new outlook i feel like we both have on this life we are creating together. i'm excited because it feels like we are on the same page and it feels like there is hope. it feels good to truly know that we can create the life we want, we dont have to just take life as it comes... we are the ones making it... we are the ones defining it.

learn from my baby

i've been thinking about how i've been viewing myself lately and i don't like it.

a lot of you may get the impression that i am my biggest fan, and that's true, but i'm also very hard on myself. only in one specific way ;) i've become the kind of person that looks at myself as more dysfunctional than the people around me. i think this is something i'm sensitive to feeling and have taken on from others who feel this way about me. i have NEVER EVER used my past as my crutch. EVER. i have only the past couple years even started to admit to the fact that whether i like it or not my past affects me. i dont think it makes me who i am, but it affects me and i have to decide how, how i let it. anyway, because i have been surrounded mostly by people who would be considered the social norm... (i know nothing is truly normal but i think you all can understand what i mean, grew up in a family oriented home, parents still together, grew up being taught right and wrong, etc.) i have started to see myself as not normal and like there is something wrong with me. i have started to see the things i want to get better at and overcome as dysfunction and things these people don't deal with. i've gotten into the position with some people where i feel like the "bad" one and they are holding out hope that i'll get "better".. they're trying not to give up on me because i'm hard to "deal" with etc.... but today i realized that thats horrible! and ridiculous. i am NOT a dysfunctional person. i came from a dysfunctional home, but i am very functional, strong, smart, funny, motivated, determined and loving (yep i said it, loving). i'm a good mother, a good wife, and a good friend. i know these things about myself. i have made mistakes, but i have let those mistakes overshadow who i really am, in my mind. i've beat myself up inside and felt like i'm the worse one, the bad one, that im not as good as the other people in my life because they dont make those same bad decisions. but they just make other "bad" decisions, and if they haven't yet they will at some point, because that's what people do. we make bad decisions sometimes, and then we learn from them and don't make those same decisions next time. i'm not worse because at this time in my life i made some bad decisions, and i'm not dysfunctional. i'm just a person. besides that i have a million things about me that are really great and i may have strengths where those others have weaknesses.

i dont want to feel like i'm hanging by someones friendship thread anymore, and i'm not going to. i'm worth more than that. i'm not a hard person to deal with for everyone, just some people. i could take a lesson from my daughter here and realize that some people dont think i'm great but a lot of people do think i'm great. i want to be around the people who think i'm great and i want to be around people who i think are great! that's just where it works, where there's love, unconditional love. everyone has faults and everyone makes mistakes, i know i'll learn as i go how to make less of them, as will you, but in the mean time i want to be around people who dont feel like giving up on me because i make a mistake. i dont feel like giving up on my friends when they make mistakes and i dont want to feel like giving up on myself when i make mistakes. if i feel like giving up on a friendship its usually because i dont care about that person very much, so really we probably shouldn't be friends in the first place.... i want to be friends with myself and treat me how i would treat my friends. i also want to surround myself with people who treat me the same way. i want to be around people who really see me and appreciate who i am no matter what mistakes i make, and i want to do that for them. hanging out with people who think you are great just as you are is what makes you want to live up to that and beyond. hanging out with people who are waiting on you to change or get better only makes you feel like shit. same with what you think about yourself.

i know there have been very specific things weighing my heart down, but i think part of all that has to do with how i've been looking at myself the past couple weeks. and i'm done. i'm going to take this opportunity to remember who i am and be that person. i am sorry for my mistakes, but they are over, i have to let them go. i have to move on and keep being myself now with a little more learning and life under my belt. make better decisions in the future and be good at loving the people i love, which is who i am and something i am good at... despite how i've felt lately.

just some pictures.

best friends. how's noah's diap? haha poor saggy babe.



ara "sleeping" on her pool floatie.


the face clover makes ALL the time now. i LOVE it.


arabella is so pretty these days. its crazy.


lola and her long eyelashes.




ara asked me to take a picture of her and her "donkey".





and my pretty little tan family.





i'm so thankful for this family. lately every night after ara goes to bed i just cry because i miss her. i've needed her face SO badly lately. she's the only thing that's been able to really make me feel happy and ok. tonight is the first night in almost a week i haven't crawled into my bed and cried after she's asleep.

some people dont. but a lot of people do.

today arabella was going to the bathroom and i was sitting on the couch waiting for her, she had the door open and was talking to me. she started to tell me a story about how some 'big kid girls' told her she wasn't a big girl and she wasn't great at school today. the first time she told me the story it was the saddest slash cutest thing i have ever heard. she said they told her she wasn't big and wasn't great and she said that she was. she said (while she shrugged her shoulders and put her hands up as if to say "oh well") "some people dont think i'm great, but a lot of people do think i'm great." i had her tell me the story again so i could make a video of it. its so adorable. my sweet baby, how sad that anyone would EVER tell her she's not great! if you've met her you know how ridiculous that is... and that's not just cause she's mine... i would think it even if i just met her. she's beyond great.

*dont mind the part where she breaks away and talks about her vagina... she was going to the bathroom still so she just got side tracked.. .they do that.

vid sesh.

poor nola. always getting ignored.


school. she makes up weird names for her friends.


we dance a lot here. this is one of our less enthusiastic sessions... but i love when she wants to dance with me with our babies.... matching.


RIDIC.
ara just came out of her room after we put her to bed and she said she wanted seth to put her in bed but i said no, that i would... and her response was
'but mama is cold! mama is SO cold!'
so even my 2 year old knows my heart is made of stone? great.. haha.

be a feminist, just dont be a housewife.

arabella loves all the things i always wanted my daughter to love. and although i may seem like the kind of mother who made sure that she chose the things i wanted, i'm not. i have had very little influence, if any, on her deciding she's obsessed with princesses or pink, or nail polish or jewelery etc.. i mean, obviously she sees me use this stuff but when she has been into the things i despise (ie. baseball, yellow, dora, purple etc) i still tell her that its great that she loves those things. anyway, i've been thinking about all the things she loves, princesses and princes, her kitchen and all that entails, the baking, the cooking, wearing an apron. she loves talking about getting married and saying 'when i get married', and she loves taking care of her baby.... all this scares the shit out of me, to be honest. i'm not afraid i wont be able to teach her what i want to, but this just wakes me up and makes me realize i dont like the way its headed. luckily she's two, and i have a lot of time to move in other directions.

the point here is that i dont want to raise daughters who think they're role, or the things they should be excited about or enjoy are the traditional womens activities. i dont want them thinking they are supposed to love baking, sewing, or princesses. i dont want them thinking they are supposed to want a prince, that someone is EVER supposed to come rescue them, or that they are supposed to get married. i dont want them thinking they are supposed to have children. i want to teach them to love the things they love no matter what they are. if they get older and hate baking or cooking, god love them, i'll tell them to hire a chef when they grow up. if they hate princesses and want to be a soccer player, i'll tell them to bend it like bekham. (then i'll blush in embarrassment for myself). if they want to be single for the rest of their lives, i'll tell them to enjoy themselves and their friends. if they decide they love women, i'll tell them i'm proud of who they are. i want my daughters to understand that exactly who they are is beyond enough. they never have to get married or have children or do the things i've done or like the things i like. they are great just the way they are. i want them to think of marriage as something that is an option, something they can partake in if they choose, an added extra that they could certainly live without. not a necessity.

i might offend a thousand people right now, but i dont really care, it makes me furious that people, any people, think women should be mothers and wives, that we should cook and clean etc. i never want my daughters to end up housewives with children and thinking that's all they are. i get that some women like that that's all they are, and think its more fulfilling than anything else, but for me, if i end up with daughters who feel that way.... that will be the hard thing to deal with. i have to balance this extreme, because chances are they will get married and they will bake at some point, and i want to be happy if that's all they ever choose to do. but it makes me want to hide my sewing machine and teach them to be feminists.

the reason i want them to know marriage, sewing, baking, babies, are a choice, is because i didn't know. i mean i knew they were a choice, but i thought they were the obvious choice and any other would have been shameful. my mother didn't teach me how to be a good mother or a good housewife. she didn't teach me how to bake or sew, but something she instilled in me from a very young age was that i needed a man. i needed someone else to make me whole and i needed someone to rescue me. she taught me that i should learn to adapt and form around whoever this man might be that i will need in order to make him happy, therefore denying myself and letting me go. this is something i see in the church a lot, spoken about as a great thing. i see it as excruciatingly harmful.

most of the women that will be in their lives are women who either have gotten married, had kids and done nothing else... or women who have wanted that and didn't get it. i want more women in my daughters lives who have done no such thing and have no intention.

i know my daughters will look up to me and therefore might want to follow in my footsteps of marriage and children, if they are persistent i will have to love and support this choice. but i want them to know that this is NOT the only choice and any one of many options they choose could be the best for them. although i've already made the marriage and baby choice, i want to lead by example in other areas too. i want to show them that i am so much more than just this and i want more in my life than this, and thats not just acceptable, its great. i want them to see that seth and i dont need each other, we chose this and had we chosen differently we would be no less.

i want to learn how to give them a balanced view of marriage and children, and i'm not sure quite yet how that works but i am sure as hell not going to have little girls running around saying things like 'when i grow up and get married', or 'when i grow up and have babies' as if it is their only choice.

just like karl

i dont really know anyone in school. so anytime i think about school, or say the word school i think of karl. all day today i told ara she was just like karl.

so arabella was supposed to start on monday, but she COULD NOT wait. after we went to get all her registration papers on thursday the whole afternoon and evening she just kept saying 'i want to go to school! pleeeeease!!! i wanna go to preschool!' so i called and asked if she could start today. yes. she could. i went and got her a new backpack and a folder. i packed up her lunch and i was beyond excited.

we had pancakes for breakfast and a little photo sesh.

this was seriously the best day of my life with her so far. she was so excited that when we got there she ran right into her class room hugged and kissed us all goodbye and that was it... next thing i knew she had her own tea party all set up. fast.

my day was amazing, it felt like the longest best day in the world. i got to hang out alone, hang out with nola... AND take a shower! (without any tiny people peeking in the whole time)

her teacher said she was amazing. she went to the bathroom in the bathroom the whole time she was there and when i came to get her and asked if she was ready to go she shrugged her shoulders and looked indifferent.... i said 'wanna go see papa?'... she decided we could leave.

as i was leaving samwise held the door open for us and called arabella beautiful.

this is by far the best decision i have ever made. she can't wait to go back, and i can't wait for her to either.

when it was time for bed she said 'i want miss brandi to put me to bed'... so she likes her teacher.

wonderful










i had to throw these in, they're from a few days ago... i'm obsessed.... and i can't get enough of 'princess dora' GROSS.

time for backpack

arabella starts school on monday. i'm so ridiculously excited i can't even express it. she has been ready for school since she was like 18 months old as far as i'm concerned, we just couldn't afford to put her in, especially without a very good reason. i found a preschool that i loved when i first moved down here and even though i kinda looked into others, this one had my heart. i wont say what it is on here just so the world doesn't know where to find my child mon, wed & fri from 7:30-12:30... haha. i know that all toddlers are active and like stimulation, but theres not really anyway to describe just how 'involved' arabella is unless you know her. she has always been insanely social, really crazy intelligent and a non stop explorer. so its always been hard to keep her entertained, especially if we stay home all day... with no yard. people that know arabella know that she is so social that as a baby she never got fussy when we went out, she got fussy when we stayed home. anyway, all this to say she NEEDS this so bad she has for a long time but recently its gotten to a point i just cant handle anymore. obviously on top of her needing it.... I NEED IT. bad. to have time to myself is going to be amazing, to have time with nola without ara jumping on top of her, is going to be amazing.

i'm really excited about the school i chose because i love love love the director and owner, i love how they discipline, i love that the classes are SUPER small, i love the building and how clean and organized it all is, i love the events that they have, i adore the way they teach... its all exactly what i would hope for. they have movie nights in the summer too for the families where they put up a big projector and everyone sits on their huge lawn and eats popcorn and watches a movie. they have field trip type events that they bring to the school so your child gets super cool experiences without being a tiny child out in the big world without you there... they're really really into music and art, which is obviously super important to seth and i. so i could go on for about an hour over all the reasons i love this place, but i'll stop here. i'm very very excited and arabella is too, she loves her school, she loves the people there and she just keeps saying she can't wait! now we can put her purple backpack to use :)

i'm gonna have my 20's

.... i'm going to have my children too.

and i'm going to do it well.

smoking and drinking has the same affect on me that 'worshiping' or 'god' did. i can go out on my balcony with a glass of wine and a cigarette, look at the magnificent hills behind my home and feel the things i felt when i got down on my knees in church. peace, awe, love, hope, freedom, air. no wonder i needed to find god when i was done partying... i had to find something to fill that hole. haha. seriously though....

both these things are chemical highs you get from an outside source, well maybe one is from an inside source... i know some people really think the creator of the universe is interacting with them... and you know what? maybe he is.. but i think its us. we get all emotional and feed off of the atmosphere and create an emotional high that feels like something more. its not, its just our mind, chemicals creating a feeling that we like. the thing is, with smoking and drinking i feel more sober.

i'm glad i've found my new religion.

the sweetness

i'm separating my blogs.

honestly will be completely devoted to me and my mind.

the sweetness will be my children.

arabella

she is getting too hilarious for me.

here are some recent quotes...

'my daddy doesn't live at Disneyland he lives at work and baja fresh.'
(yes she has started calling him daddy sometimes, although both seth and i despise it)

she was making up a song the other day and the only three things i could recognize from it were 'I'm having a baby'... 'necicita'... And 'bob dylan.'

shes been saying a lot of adorable things like 'nola is my husband'... 'nola misses me and i miss her'... 'i like her. she likes me too. i'm married to nola.'

me: ara where did you come from?! Ara: from target.

she talks in spanish a lot saying 'por favor' and 'si'... yesterday she told me 'hable means speak spanish'.

just now i sat and tried to learn something she wanted me to do for like 10 minutes and i never achieved the exact movements she wanted from me.
she wanted me to sing 'i love my toothbrush, toothbrush, toothbrush' and then wave my hands in this VERY particular way, that i was just not getting evidently... and bend my knees up and down at the same time... then she wanted me to sing it and wave my skirt around after.. every time i would try she would make a frustrated sigh and say 'no, not like that, like this' and raise her eyebrows at me with widened eyes... like, 'do you get what i'm saying now?!' .... i didn't. i never got it. she gave up and then she started singing a song about giving up!!!!

outrageous.

mothers day

for mothers day we went down to the santa monica swap meet, got bored, then came home.

mothers day then got nice haha... we ate, and went to our favorite park. it was so relaxing and really really fun.
























and in case you missed it, see it here...

life is good

its crazy how much has changed in a matter of weeks.

i really think now that i had postpartum depression. i think that's the only explanation for how i felt, especially how i felt vs. how i feel now.

here is what we have been up to...


two cute girls always being adorable...















took a trip to cowboy town (which is actually paramount ranch)









and we've been working on getting our house the way we want it, finally





how cute is that baby in the bottom corner?!
we got that table off craigslist and we both just LOVE it.
we got that picture print from urban outfitters, which normally i dont like... but since it was a picture of bikes that look exactly like all the ones seth and i have owned and ridden together over the past 8 years it seemed very appropriate... and it actually makes a big difference. it feels very good to see bikes in our house, a part of us that's always there to look at.

i will write more about the depression and how things have changed later, my mind is still racing at the moment... i'm gonna need to talk it out more before i can write it down :)