Oh man, I'm tired. I honestly was yawning at 7pm after I put Scarlet down. Now that's a downer. I'm turning 30 next month. 30! That's 10 years away from 40! Too old, too old. 30. It's like it's official. I'm officially an adult. I suppose it's been that way for AWHILE now, but getting old is never normal and I'm pretty sure it's just gonna be weird the rest of my life. I don't have enough kids to be 30. But that's ok. I'm pretty satisfied with my one, right now.

Oh my gosh. My last post. It was all about the pacifier. What a horrible thing to not put together. She seemed so unattached so I thought, "Let's take it away and see what happens." Well, I took it away on and off for a few days and she seemed no different either way. So I took it away completely for a few days and she did fine. Then I FIND one tucked away in there and say to myself, "Has this been in there the whole time?" And took it away without thinking. That's when she went BESERK and it took me 3 sad, horrible days to put it all together. She must have been using that tucked away pacifier to make me think she was fine the whole time. Just like that, as soon as I put it back in the crib- angel sleep. Just like that. Instantly and putting her down is like a dream again. Makes me wonder what IS gonna happen when we take away the pacifier for REAL. Well, I'm just not going to worry about it for now. Is it silly to hope she'll give it up on her own? It's been a crib-only situation for months now. She hasn't had one when she's not sleeping or had a bump on the head for atleast 6 months and I decided it's strictly crib only for the last month, though the last couple Sundays have been brutal (missing her morning nap) and I've wondered if I should bring it back in the game, just for church. Who knows.

So lately I've been feeling a little ill, haven't been sleeping well, blah blah and it makes me feel all crappy inside and like I'm not being a good Mom. Well I was whining to Greg about how I was having a "Bad Mom Day" and he told me it was all in my head and I thought about it. I honestly did everything the same that day, concerning Scarlet. The difference is my attitude. Instead of having fun when I'm singing songs or reading books with her, I'm just wishing I wasn't or counting the minutes 'till her nap. So as much as I do feel a little bad for not being "in it" with her, I realized I'm not treating her any different, so she probably doesn't notice anything's different. And then I was just thinking about it now. I was looking at all the pictures of her on my phone and they went all the way back to the day she was born. And I realized- WE ARE ALWAYS TOGETHER. Greg and I go out maybe once a month and I only go out with friends maybe once a month too. So that's about 2 evenings without my babe? I guess I'm aloud to get a little crazy inside, sometimes. That made me feel a little better too. I think the only times I DESERVE the Bad Mom Award is when I ignore her and watch tv. Which I've done more than I wish. But I haven't done it for awhile, which I'm glad to say. Anyway, this has just been on my mind a lot, because I've been feeling kind of crappy lately, which starts the whole crappy Mom cycle.

We got a Christmas Tree! I was ridiculously excited about it. Last Christmas was SOOO stressful. I probably never blogged about it, now that I think about it. Greg was SOOOOO stressed about his job, he literally said he was going to quit every night he worked. And then he would go in one more day. I remember when he'd be at work, I would wonder if he'd come home that night and say he quit. It even got so serious I put an ad on craigslist to rent out house and we were going to move to Eugene and I was going to get my old job. All the while, Scarlet was a few months old, my hormones were still completely out of control and did I mention last Christmas was stressful??? Anyway, my point being- we never got a christmas tree or decorated at all! And to be honest, I didn't even notice. So I was SOOOOO excited to do it this year! We went all out and got a really nice tree. We must have gotten rid of ours when we moved to Europe, 'cause it's gone now. THAT tree was $20 at Walmart, but this year I decided to just go all out, because we're going to use it every year the rest of our lives, most likely. So we shopped around a bit and the best one was clearly the one at costco. No comparison. It was more than I was hoping to spend, but I decided I just didn't care. So the box was pretty BIG. We looked at it, debated and thought it probably wouldn't fit in the car, but I just couldn't leave the store without it. So we get it anyway. I guess I just thought my hopes and faith were enough to have it magically fit in our trunk. Well it didn't fit. There was no way it would fit in any way. So there we were, the 3 of us, with a huge box in the costco parking lot. Long story short, we called our friend, Steve Jones and he came and got it for us. It looks great and I am satisfied. There were ornaments I got in Europe that we had never put up yet! And then my glass ornaments I made. I don't know if they look nice to anyone else, but I love them. I also put up lights on our porch. I thought they looked pretty good, and then I took Scarlet out in the stroller, at night, to look at the neighborhood lights. And then after seeing everyone else's, when I came to our house I thought, "Oh, THAT'S what our house looks like? I thought it was a little more spectacular." Oh well. It's just about Christmas Spirit. I've never put up lights outside before and I think they're cheery. After we decorated the tree, Scarlet put a crumpled up piece of paper on the lower branches. It was so sweet! I wanted to leave it there, but after a couple hours I took it down. I just thought it was so sweet she was decorating the tree with us!

Ok, I feel like I need to clear something up. Chocolate. Sweets. To say I've OFFED them is an exaggeration. I DID off them for a good month or two, but then little by little have worked them in. I don't keep them in the house, and basically only allow them on dates or when I'm out with friends. There have been a total of 2 insanely chocolate overload weekends, where we DID have it in the house. Both of those have involved candy bags from Costco that were consumed pretty quickly. So when I put it THAT way, it doesn't sound like I've OFFED anything. But when I compare it to what I was consuming before, it really is almost non existent. Because the 2 INSANE moments/days were what I was doing EVERYDAY. Now I'm just like a normal person. Or close.