It’s amazing how even a really challenging week looks so nice in iPhone photos. Do not be fooled by these posts.

Sunday:

Before I had kids, I never thought going to the grocery store alone would be considered a good time.

This is what went into that galette I made

Daddy's idea of playing with the baby

Monday:

Playground after Stroller Strides

LARGE iced Dunkin' Dark with skim milk and 3 Splenda

I think we need a bigger toy box. Or FEWER TOYS.

Tuesday:

Hi hi hi hi hi hi! Watcha doin????

Battle wounds from an asphalt vs. face fight. Poor baby.

He looks pretty happy for someone getting Taco Bell for dinner.

Wednesday:

I may have overreacted to it being just SLIGHTLY chilly that morning

Flowers & stripes

I ended up buying this outfit, mostly because the kids started SCREAMING and I felt guilty about making such a spectacle and leaving empty handed.

E had hockey so I had my own private knit night at home instead of going to the shop. Much less fun.

Thursday:

Thank God for baby gates. HAHA YOU CAN'T TOUCH ME NOW.

Lockup has turned her into a hardened criminal. Obviously.

Fiona Baby Sundress (pattern from Ravely)

Friday:

Ready to go to Stroller Strides

Presents in the mail. People like me!

Nursing the baby now comes with a risk of being kicked in the face

Bread aisle at Target. I guess people are taking this hurricane thing seriously.

Saturday:

Laughing cow wedges on toast

Back off woman, I'm just trying to watch WonderPets!

Concerned dog looks concerned, but our fronch porch has been cleared and we're ready for whatever Mother Nature throws at us.

So there isn’t much going on this weekend, besides waiting to see if Irene hits us. We’re directly in the path but our house is in an area safe from flooding and they aren’t talking about evacuating for any other reason. I’m a teeny tiny bit worried about our big tree falling down – apparently there used to be a matching tree on the other side of the house. It fell down during the LAST hurricane – but there’s nothing I can do to prevent high winds so I’m trying to use my energy on more important things, like taking a nap and baking cookies. I hope all my East Coast friends stay safe – and the rest of you enjoy the nice weather our hurricane is giving you!

Did you take any camera phone photos this week? Link up with one or lots using the linky below and grab the code (so it shows on your blog too!) over at Amy’s . It’s really fun!

Despite only being actually hung over for about 20 minutes on Saturday (Bob Harper’s workout sweat the booze right out of me) I’ve been BlogHer hung over ALL WEEK. Having to care for other people’s needs is exhausting, y’all. So is laundry, cooking, cleaning and keeping up with my other commitments. I need a maid. Or at least a nanny.

Sunday:

Obligatory over the wing shot from my plane ride

Ground from the plane

Yeah, sorry, all I did was fly. Unless you want to see a picture of the giant cheeseburger I scarfed down.

Monday:

Real life can't stop me from rocking the "Internets! Hell yea!" tattoo

Little Evan's newest trick is lining stuff up

I missed this face like WHOA

Tuesday:

GET YOUR FILTHY FALL CANDY OFF MY GROCERY STORE SHELVES. (Also, mmmm...mallow pumpkins)

A 5 minute grocery store trip with two kids is actually a 45 minute grocery store trip

Heirloom tomatoes from the CSA. Tomorrow they're going into pasta with goat cheese and herb butter. And then into my MOUTH.

My dad's job brought him to Connecticut so Little Evan got a suprise bedtime story with Bampa

Wednesday:

I came home with a suitcase full of stuffed animals for Little Evan - and my husband makes them all obsolete with one stupid angry bird.

My children are confused

Yes, please climb on my face.

Thursday:

First time I made it to Stroller Strides all week...and instead of doing sit ups I lay on the ground taking pictures. Am Lazy.

Don't even THINK about making me share this plum.

In bed, lights out, before 10. It felt FANTASTIC.

 Friday:

New favorite game: Caroline rides the bouncy seat like a surfboard while Little Evan bounces it. They made it up/play it all on their own. These children will be the death of me.

Nursing in public. I am SCANDALOUS.

True fact: of all the free stuff I got at BlogHer, one of my favorites was the rosemary Wasa flatbreads. I'm a weirdo. So I bought more.

Things she ate for dinner and are on her face: grapes, corn tortillas, fruit leather, bbq chicken pizza, fig newton. ALL OF THOSE.

Saturday:

Party dresses: they're not JUST for parties!

And then mama bought THIS MUCH stuff at Target!

Cheating on Caroline with my friend Amanda's 7 week old baby. SO TINY.

And now I am exhausted so I’m going to try to sneak in a nap.

Did you take any camera phone photos this week? Link up with one or lots using the linky below and grab the code (so it shows on your blog too!) over at Amy’s . It’s really fun!

Even though I had a wonderful time at BlogHer and am so glad I got to attend this year, leaving Caroline was a mistake. I shouldn’t have done it. I should have realized this wasn’t the right time to go and sold my ticket and spent the weekend hiding from Twitter, feeling sorry for myself and glaring at Caroline…but at least I would have been here for her. Every time I saw someone with a baby I was wracked with guilt and babbled endlessly about how I had a baby too but she was at home and I was pumping and I’m sure my husband had gotten her to eat by now even thought she’s never taken a bottle before but don’t think I’m a bad mom… and I secretly worried they thought exactly that.

It didn’t help that one mom said “Oh, I could NEVER leave my baby” in that tone of voice moms use when they’re judging you (even if they don’t THINK they are judging you and would deny it TO THEIR DEATH). Like the SAHM to the working mom: “Oh you are so strong! I don’t know HOW I could leave little Johnny all day!” or the cloth diaper mom to the disposable mom: “Oh I WISH I hated the environment so much that I didn’t care about filling up the landfills!” Well, maybe not that last one. But you get the idea.

One of my challenges is that I have never pumped with a purpose before. The freezer full of milk I left E with was just overflow from my early days of engorgement or Caroline sleeping a few extra hours at night. (Sidebar: I thought I had a GAZILLION GALLONS of milk in the freezer but between bottles she refused, bottles she didn’t finish, and a few bags with holes/freezer burn I came back to less than 20 oz. I was shocked.) I’ve never pumped to actually empty my boobs before, or to keep up my supply, and both proved to be a lot harder than I anticipated. While I was traveling all I had was a couple of hand pumps – my plan was to pop one on each side and get the job done faster – but doing that while standing up in an airport bathroom was impossible. And messy.

I was so sore. I couldn’t move without a constant reminder I was away from my baby and I SHOULDN’T be. My body was straight up guilt tripping me with the added benefit of physical pain to make it EXTRA GUILTY. It distracted me from focusing on the people I was there to meet and prevented me from giving everyone the hugs I was there to give.

Thank GOD the kind people from Hygeia Baby lent me a double electric EnJoye breastpump while I was at the conference  (and that my roommate was kind enough to drag it back to the hotel for me)(and also show me how to use it because I was freakin’ TERRIFIED the first time I looked in the box). By Friday afternoon I had gotten the hang of the fancy double electric action and was a regular milk machine, filling up bag after bag to donate to a local mom. I LOVED that pump.

But Sunday screwed everything up again – I returned the fancy pump and was left with my hand pump, I was stuck in an airport, and it was almost midnight when I got home. I had only pumped three times all day and after just a few minutes of nursing Caroline I was out of milk. My once insanely-overabundant supply had dwindled and we had to use the last of the frozen stash to calm the baby down. BOOB FAIL.

I threw my diet out the window and threw a giant chocolate bar into my face and I THINK we’re almost back to normal in terms of milk production but there still seems to be a lot of screaming. I suspect a top front tooth is to blame (which was NOT such a nice surprise on my poor nipple) but I’m going to worry about my supply constantly until the screaming quiets down a little. It’s made reentry to real life post-BlogHer (what?! it’s HARD) stressful and sleepless, both of which hurt my supply even MORE and then I’m trapped in a vicious cycle and can’t get out.

Also, I don’t think E is ever going to forgive me for the screaming he put up with before Caroline caved on the bottle. (She DID eventually cave, and now sucks them down like a champ. She might actually even PREFER the bottle, but too bad so sad baby girl, it’s back to the tap for you.) I suspect there was a LOT of screaming, but he’s being vague on exactly HOW AWFUL things were. Bless him for not complaining – although it might be because he’s barely speaking to me – but it hasn’t helped me feel any better about the situation.

So, to sum up, I am a selfish bitch who is now starving her baby and her husband hates her. I’m not doing so good at this mom gig right now.

Today is my 7th wedding anniversary. According to Wikipedia, the traditional gifts are copper, wool or a nice pen set. Instead of any of those, I gave my husband the gift of 2 babies – one of which refuses to eat from anything but my body – to single parent for four days while I went to California to party like a rock star. I won’t be surprised if he shows up at the airport tonight with his own one-way plane ticket to a dessert island far far away from groin-punching toddlers, teethy biting babies and dogs who are trying to shed themselves hairless. I wouldn’t blame him in the slightest.

But despite my jokes, I know he WILL be there tonight, with two happy and fed and clean and dressed and safe children who he loves and who love him. As much as I rolls his eyes (I swear they’re going to fall right out of his head) when I talk about blogging, he knows it’s important to me and so he supports me. The same way he supports me on the days he comes home from work and I’m lying on the floor covered in babies and practically in tears because all I want is FIVE MINUTES OF PERSONAL SPACE OMG so he sweeps the children up and away before he even takes off his uniform. The same way he supports our whole family by recommitting to serve his country twice, even though I know he sometimes dreams of civilian life. He is consistent and steadfast and strong and honest and just a really, really good guy who lets me write about (and complain about) him on the internet.

And tonight I will be exhausted and grumpy and dirty and hungry and want nothing more than to just hug everyone and then crash for 12 hours. Luckily, E took Monday off to help me recover (and vice versa).

I think I owe him a REALLY NICE pen set.

Obligatory wedding pictures (taken in the stone age on actual film, before everyone used digital)(that I’m pretty sure I’ve posted before) for the anniversary:

Happy 7th Anniversary, Evan. I wouldn’t take back one second of it.

This was my WordPress dashboard yesterday:

See that little number up there next to “posts”? The one that says 999? That makes THIS, the post you are reading RIGHT NOW, my 1000th post here on Bebehblog. Or maybe bebehblog. Or Bebeh Blog. One thousand posts in and I still can’t decide how I want to print my own name. Or how exactly to pronounce it, for that matter. Hey, free tip, if you start your own blog, spend more than .352 seconds coming up with a good name.

You should listen to me, I’m obviously an expert. I mean, I’ve written a THOUSAND THINGS on the interwebs.

I also passed my 3 year bloggiversary last week. July 24th marks three full years of me documenting pregnancies, births and babies in far too much detail. I posted twice my first day,  here and here, and got an earth-shattering 1 comments. If, for some reason, you find yourself trapped on a dessert island with no way to contact the outside world but somehow still with access to my blog, you can read every single post ever in my archives, right over there on the left hand side. It would be an excellent way to drive yourself insane even faster than just the starvation and isolation alone.

If I was a better blogger, the kind of big time internet famous I secretly dreamed of being when I posted that first day, I would have done some epic giveaway to mark 3 years of blogging. And then something even MORE epic for the 1000th post. I’m also coming up on 10,000 comments (well, sort of) and that probably deserves the MOST EPIC GIVEAWAY OF ALL (You get a pony! And you get a pony! And you get a pony!!). But alas, even after three years I haven’t had a single company hammer down my door to give me (and you) free stuff. It might have something to do with the fact that out of 1000 posts, approximately 976 mention my boobs. I am nothing if not a true professional.

So instead, you get the same thing you always get here: ramblings and bad jokes and pictures of my kids – although in reality, most people come here because they’re looking for circus birthday ideas or the baby tutu tutorial. Let’s pretend YOU came here for pictures of the kids doing fun summer things:

Watermelon Face

We call this look "wrapped around my little finger"

I'll take my ginger To Go

It's COLD!

He's actually fighting to get back IN the pool, despite the chattering teeth. He's turned into such a water baby.

Just the toes

One chubby peanut, nomming on a sandy pretzel

This is the life

This game is called splashy splash. Go ahead and try to guess the rules. (Also, pretty good for a point & shoot camera, right?)

Boating

My baby boy is now one of the guys

I hope three more years from now I’m celebrating my 2000th post.Although I don’t expect anyone to still be reading, I appreciate you today and always.

xoxo