on baby showers and babies

I was at a baby shower this weekend. 

Let me rephrase that: I was at a baby shower/dinner party/shindig/gathering of the year/feast extraordinaire this weekend. Our good friends are expecting their first baby in March, and I got to spend the evening on Saturday celebrating them and their probably/most definitely best/most awesome baby of 2016 baby.

I mean, come on, a gift teepee?! Genius. 

Insert a paragraph here about how beautiful and amazing and fabulous and to-die-for everything at the shower was. Ellen, I'm hiring out your friends (a.k.a. profesh party planners) when I am pregnant one day!

And actually, that right there ^^^ that's what I want to talk about. When I am pregnant one day. 

I spend a lot of time thinking about babies. Not because I feel my ovaries whispering, Eeeeeeemily, where's your baaaaaaaby?, but because that's just something someone who wants kids in the future and has always wanted kids thinks about. Just like some people think about pizza a lot because they've always liked pizza and plan on continuing to like pizza (I think I fall into that category as well...). 

If you had asked a young Emily what her future looked like she probably would have said something about dancing a lot (I think she meant on a stage and not in her kitchen, but whatevs), and that she wanted a brood of children and she wanted to start having that brood young. Now, don't get me wrong, I never wanted to be the next 16 & Pregnant star, but I just always imagined having my kids early on and being done with the brood by the time I was 30. 

WHAT.

HAHAHAHA.

Ugh, Young Emily, you are so funny. 

Really though, trust me guys, Young Emily was a hoot. ;)

Being done? By 30? Birthing 3 to 4 (or heck! Let's add in #5 for funsies) kids before I turned 30? 

Have you ever sat down and done baby math before? Like x+y = making a baby. Then divide that by z and you get the nine months to grow the baby. Then add a, b, & c and you'll find the number of months it takes your body to recover from the Great Birth Event (where you poop on the table and don't you dare tell me otherwise. I can see through your lies), and somewhere in there you have to add in the # of months/weeks/years you go without sleep and then...

Well, and then you end up with me being a lot older than 30 when I'm popping out that last little Ricky Jr. My b. We obviously will have to call him Lil' Ricky and not Ricky Jr.

Here's what little Big Ricky looked like. Read: here's why I have to have fifty children. 

Ugh, 'scuse me, but I totally forgot the math part about adding or subtracting or multipli-viding the years I want all of Ricky's lurve for me and me only. Selfish? You bet your bottom dollar. 

My point is that maybe I shouldn't spend so much time thinking about babies. Because I'm not very good at math, I'm easily stressed out, and when you start to think about it for too long you/I get scared.

The same scary feeling you feel when you look down and realize you ate an entire box of pizza. Hashtag my stomach hurts. 

But I guess what my REAL point is is that being at this beautiful shower on Saturday and being surrounded by beautiful moms and moms-to-be made me realize that you know what? Screw it. Doing the math isn't worth it. Stressing out about the timeline isn't worth it. Trying to plan my life down to the second isn't worth it. Worrying about pooping while giving birth isn't is worth it. Because  at the end of the day I know that I want our Weiss/wise brood of children, I want to snuggle the shiz out of them, I want to include them in on the kitchen dance parties, and 30 is just a number and/or a hot, fabulous, young age. An age that I can rock with or without having children or starting to have children or finishing having children. 

My brain hurts from all that math. Time for some breakfast. 

I'm off to snuggle the shiz out of Ricky some more and enjoy not having a brood of children running around just yet. And that's a-okay because they'll be here eventually (way down the road so calm down, Dad). 

on working hard and playing harder

Once upon a time I swore I would never go to college and get a dance degree. I went on to say that I would never teach ballet, especially to children. I had taught ballet to young kids for years and always thought I would end up doing something else. Well folks, life is puhretty funny. Because here I am...about to graduate college with a dance degree and continue on with my new job of teaching dance to the cutest kids in Atlanta with a great new studio. And I couldn't be more excited about it. Freds told me I was obviously just denying the things that I really wanted to do.  

I have spent the week in Charleston training for my new teaching job. The studio originated in Charleston and brought a location to Atlanta this last year. Teaching proper dance technique to kiddos is no joke and I have had the pleasure of observing, learning, and teaching a grand total of seventeen classes this week. Seventeen! This is a dream come true for a dance freak like me. As if reliving my glory days of ballet classes and rehearsals in the studio life wasn't exciting enough, I got to spend this week at the beach and in this beautiful city! !!! Exclamation points all over the place, people!!! 

!!!!

I met the sweetest teachers here in Charleston and am so excited to begin work with their studio this summer in Atlanta. So technically, while I did spend my spring break week working, I consider it more of playing. I got to work play dance with some sweet, sweet children and spend free time getting my freckles on at the beach. I also got to eat a plethora of nom-licious local food. Charleston, you were too sweet (and delicious) to me. Thanks for making me not want to return to the ATL tomorrow. I love you long time! Promise I will be right back. That promise only makes me feel better, I MUST COME BACK. 

p.s.--I often forget I do not have sun friendly skin. Every summer we go through the same thing. I'm like Heeeey body, let's go get our tan on! And my body responds, Heeey stupid pants, hope you enjoy your terrible sunburn! Well, if you can tell at all from the last picture my latest sunburn work of art is a two toned body. One side blood red and one side bright and white. It's called body art and I am the master. 

sit, sit, sit on some babies

ba·by-sit also ba·by·sit 

v. ba·by-sat also ba·by·sat (-st), ba·by-sit·ting also ba·by·sit·ing, ba·by-sits also ba·by·sits

v.intr.

1. To take care of a child or children in the absence of a parent or guardian.

2. To take care of or watch over someone or something needing attention or guidance.

For those of you who do not stalk me quite as well as I stalk you, I've spent the last year and a half with the best job: babysitting. Tending to children. Giving them guidance. Ya know, doin' my thing, no big.

Today was my "last" day. For now. I'm sure I'll have a night or day here or there but I'm trying to get the wheels going on getting to school, finishing undergrad, having a college degree and all that boring schmoring stuff. I spent the week doing full time mommying with one of the girls that started it all. Started the era of Nanny McEmily. An era that began with a few hours a week for one family and eventually grew into full on full time nanny work for two or three families with several little kiddos on the side every now and then. Phew, and this has been the best era. Even better than anything Nanny McPhee could or would do. That's right, I said it.

There were days when I would hurt from laughing so hard with the kids. There were days when I would want to cry and whine louder and harder than kids were crying and whining. There were days when I would come home and shower the snot and germs off me (there were also a lot of days when I didn't shower the snot and germs off me...). But there was never a day when I would come home and not realize how lucky I was to be doing what I was doing. (my family is not allowed to comment on the prior statement).

Being around kids is the best (even on the terrible-horrible-not so good days). The best playtime, the best laugh time, the best eat like a kid time, and even the best therapy time. (Yup, I get my free therapy from 2 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 8 year olds). I feel like I have spent the majority of the past year stressing out about what wasn't happening in my life; however, I just needed (and still need to...) look at everything that IS happening in my life. I mean, hello, the kid's biggest worries include: Phineas and Ferb sometimes coming on during nap time, a minuscule amount of crust being left on that PB&J for lunch, and bath time playtime never seeming to last quite long enough (dontcha just haaaate when mean babysitters make you get out of the bath even though your whole body has turned into a giant prune?! it's the absolute worst.)

Favorite moments of sitting on those babies include: Snuggle time in Emily's lap (if I had a nickle for every time I heard, "Can I pleeeease sit in your lap?" ::pouty smile::...). Reading books before bed time. Singing Disney channel show songs at the top of our lungs. Singing Christmas songs during every month of the year. Drawing lots and lots of hearts and flowers, but also drawing lots of cars because we're not all girls, mmkay? Stuffing baby dolls up our shirts so we could be mommies and have MORE babies and have the BIGGEST family ever (!!). Practicing piano and playing duets. Eating froyo like there is no tomorrow. Trying and deciding that pretty much everything does taste better with peanut butter. Playing Just Dance until we had burned off 900+ calories and couldn't move our arms.

I can think of a lot more. But in fear of having you decide to stop reading my blog after an hour or two I will end there.

Basically to sum up, kids are cooler than you. I love getting to be Nanny McEmily. And I love taking crazy babysitter pictures. Thank you to all my little babysitting kids---you have made me smile harder than a fat man (or just me...) on free froyo day and laugh louder than a baby getting tickled by the Tickle Monster. Enjoy!