Is it possible to do this without prescribed drugs (or unprescribed for that matter)????

I do sometimes ask myself this question....Is it possible to do this parenting thing without taking prescribed drugs? Yes, it is possible. HOWEVER, there have been times when I feel like calling 911 and telling them to bring over an emergency bottle of any sort of anti-anxiety medication. I'm assuming all mom's face these moments....right?!?!?!

Over the past couple of weeks, I've faced them a little more than I would like. The weekend before last was one of my all time worst weekends as a parent. Lola was hell on wheels to put it lightly. On top of this, Clay worked the ENTIRE weekend....all hours of the night...literally not home at all. With this, we had several things going against us

1) I mentioned a few blogs ago that Lo was waking up in the middle of the night and wanted to come to our bed. Well, about 2 weeks ago she decided she wasn't going to sleep in her bed at all anymore...only our bed. AND, we can't just put her down to bed to fall asleep on her own as she wants us to lay down too! Nice! How in the world did we let this happen?!?!? Talk about no time to yourself....

2) Around the same time Lo got a stomach bug. She woke up Friday around 12:00 a.m. and threw up all over me....exorcist style throw up. It was horrible! She proceeded to throw up throughout the night. We completed three change of sheets/clothes and the entire room reeked of throw up. This sickness continued through the weekend. It eventually turned into horrible diarrhea that turned into a horrible diaper rash...poor baby girl.... I felt so bad for her.

Ok...so far we have a sick baby who won't sleep in her bed....not so bad right?!?!? Well....

3) Lola wouldn't take a nap that entire weekend. Keep in mind Clay was working all weekend so that translated into 24 hr single mom who was fatigued due to lack of sleep and whose nerves were in pain.

4) Toddler fits!!! Hmmmm...I don't know what else to say other than they were out of control inconsolable toddler fits that happened throughout the day and night. Luckily, they seem to come in phases. If Lola is halfway functioning during these fits she'll back talk me. ALREADY!!! My goodness what am I in for?!?!?!? She'll say things like "Don't say No!" with a sharp stern tone. Or "Don't sit that way!". Or "Move you arm!". Mind you "my arm" is no where near her. She's only being Ornery which can be very disconcerting at times. Is this only the terrible twos or is there more to this????? Seriously, there was one point where I didn't know what to do anymore. I finally threw my hands up and started crying myself. Lola looked at me and said "Don't cry like a baby". Ummm....no she didn't! I think she eventually felt bad about this comment b/c at one point she stopped throwing the fit. Yea, I'm thinking it's bad when your not quite 2 yr old is telling you not to cry...uh huh! What are you going to do?!?!?! Of course, I have to say, it worked! It made her stop throwing the toddler fit. So, for all you mothers out there who have a soon to be toddler, mark this one down as a reference....this is a big tip to remember.

Anyhow, back to the title of this blog....at times I feel like I've lost all control of Lola and she is running my/our life rather than us running hers and I feel like I'm pending insanity (I was VERY close that particular weekend). But, somehow I made it through in one piece. Not without tears but I made it through. On Monday, I woke up 3:45 a.m. to head to Florida for a couple days and then North Carolina. Although it was VERY early and it's tough to be out of town, I think I needed this time away. It was a nice little break from all the toddler hecticness. We're all doing better now. We've gone about a week and a half without a toddler fit. I think I found away to get it all back under control.....

On a good note, painting is one of Lola's favorite things to do. I've attached some fun pics from one of Lola's messy paint sessions.

These boots are made for walking...

One of Lola's favorite things right now is putting on mine or Clay's shoes and prancing around the house. Or actually, it's more like stomping around the house. I have to keep my shoes put up and closets closed at all times. Otherwise, shoes would be spread across the house and we would constantly hear Lola stomping around in a pair of my high-heels. The other night she was in the nude and took it upon herself to put on a pair of my boots. She had a real good time with it and so did we.....

We're going through a very rough time with Lola right now. Of course, I want to keep this particular post light hearted so I'm not going to torture you with the gory details today. I'll just say, I've be googling things like "inconsolable crying toddler" a lot lately. Maybe it's just the "terrible twos"...I don't know but I'll get back to this another day. For today, I thought I would tell you some of the hilarious things that have come out of Lola's mouth. I realize it would be much better if I posted these comments as she said them but I haven't so I thought I would catch up real quick.

The other day in the car Lola said "My tutu hurts" so I said "Ok, as soon as we get home we'll change your diaper and it will feel much better". She replied "Yes. And it needs some Desitine". I seriously don't know how she comes up with stuff like this.

Or, last week Lola was playing with a bottle of Tabasco. I told her she doesn't want to put it in her mouth as it was hot, hot, hot. What does she do??? She not only puts it in her mouth but she takes a big ol' guzzle of Tabasco. Her eyes lit up like you've never seen and she started screaming "TAKE IT OFF, TAKE IT OFF". I said "Take what off?" and she said "MY MOUTH"...."TAKE MY MOUTH OFF". Poor thing. Her little mouth was burning so badly that she wanted me to take it off. If that was a possibility, it would make sense. I love how literal kids are.

Lola also gets some words confused which I think is real cute. She'll say things like "Help you" when she actually is saying "Help me". For example, if she wants to get down from a chair she'll reach her arms out and say "Mommy, help you!". She also gets her "ins" and "outs" confused. Say I'm in the bathroom with the door shut and Lola wants to come in she'll say "Help me out" rather than "Help me in". I love it!

Oh, I just thought of something else. My mom should cover her ears for this paragraph. I mentioned a while back that Lola learned about toots from Bella. Now, she's learned about burps and boogies too. All three of those make an excellent combination! Anyway, she is so funny when it comes to any of these three things. If she toots or burps, she'll look at me and say "Mommy, I just tooted" or "Mommy, I just burped" or it can be both at the same time. She usually is giggling when she tells me. My response is always "Lola, little girls shouldn't toot and burp out loud but if you have to then try not to announce it to the world and make sure to say excuse me". She'll just nod her head and say "Ok"...."Excuse me". She's also funny about her boogies. She doesn't like them in her nose anymore so she's been known to dig them out. Actually, half the time she asks me to get them but when she digs them out she'll yell "Boogie...yucky...need tissue...Mommy, get it off!....yucky...nasty!" The whole time she's saying this her little arm and finger are sticking straight out waiting for me to help her with the boogie. It's pretty funny!

I'm trying to think if there is anything else. I'm sure there is but I just can't think of it all right now. Even the smallest things melt my heart. The other day I had some glitter on my face and Lola said "Clay, Mommy has a star on her face....look!". Or, when I put on a pair of my boots or an outfit Lola likes she'll say "Mommy, you look cuuuuttteee!" Or "Mommy, I love your boots!" and she says all of this with great passion and expression. It's amazing. There is nothing better and I can't wait to see what Lola has in store next!

Team Leach

I'm not going to start this blog off by saying the typical which is "I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted a blog but things have been a bit hectic".....blah, blah, blah! Although, it's true! Anyhow, I'm going to skip the sob stories this round and get straight to the good stuff....I just don't know where to start. I guess I'll start where I left off....

Thursday, 12/31.... Our friend Brad came in town from Arizona and we had our NYE bash at the compound which ended up being a big hit. I think at points during the party there were easily 60 people here. It's interesting we were able to pull that off considering we don't know 60 people in Austin but I guess the word got around. We were most excited by the fact that we were finally able to pull off our long time idea of projecting abstract movies on the house and using it as a party prop. It was all the bit as fabulous as we had thought it would be! Now we've decided we're going to have movie night at the compound. We figure we'll invest in a projector, get our fire pits going, invite some good company over, kick back and watch a movie. How fun will that be!?!?!? Kind of like the old drive-in days. Maybe Clay will sneak his arm around me and try to bust a move...ha,ha,ha! I even cracked myself up on that one.

Then Friday came and we had big plans to take Brad to all our favorite places around town. In addition to Brad, Clay's cousin, RJ, was in town from Minnesota (I'm fairly certain he was happy to land in Austin where the temperature was 45 degrees vs the -20 degrees weather that he left in Minnesota) . We had big evening plans to take everyone to this great new hip restaurant on the East Side and go see a band afterwards. Unfortunately, this was only a great idea in theory as EVERYTHING was closed on Friday. I MEAN!!! That is a little ridiculous! Granted it was New Year's Eve but Austin is vaguely a tourist town so you would think at least restaurants would be open. Nope! Nothing was open. So, poor Brad didn't see much on Friday especially considering Clay didn't get out of bed until 2:00 pm. due to his hangover...horrible host. Anyway, that evening we were able to find one lonely open restaurant. We had to wait two hours to be seated but the food and company was great so it was worth the wait in the end.

The next big thing was the Tech football game. I'm not sure if yall heard about the debacle but our piece of crud school (excuse the language but I'm VERY upset) fired our football coach Mike Leach. Clay hooted and hollered over this and not in a good way! I mean he threw a FIT! He called the Athletic Director. He called the Chancellor. He said he would "Never support the school again" and he meant it. He said he was going to take our Alamo Bowl tickets and mail them back to the school and tell them "bleepity, bleep, bleep" (I'm leaving out the vulgarity since this is a family blog). Anyway, after a couple days, I was able to convince Clay we needed to go to the game. Not only did I not want to waste $180 we paid for the tickets but we also made plans with friends. We told them we were going to be there so we needed to be there. So, we went to the game and had a blast! We bought "Team Leach" t-shirts and "Fire Myers" stickers and supported the team. At one point the entire stadium was chanting "We want Leach" and at another point they chanted "Fire Myers". It was great that we were all able to get that out of our system and good to know others felt the same way. Also, at two points during the game, the entire stadium was able to give big "BOOOOO" to the little sucker that got Leach fired....Ugh!!! I have to say it was exhilarating! In honor of Leach, he gets a "Team Leach" blog on Hola Lola. We'll miss you Leach!!!Anyway, I'm off my soap box now....time to move on I guess.

So, after this big fun weekend, I packed up and was off to Florida Monday morning at 5:40 a.m. Just in case you're wondering, this calculates into waking up at 3:45 a.m.....OUCH!!! Now I'm back and have SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much to tell you about Lo (you won't believe some of the things coming out of her mouth) but I'm going to keep the blog brief today. Well, brief in my terms which really isn't considered brief I guess. With that, I PROMISE I'll be back tomorrow to share some fun stuff going on in the Odom household!!!

Where am I????

Tampa, FL

No offense to anyone from Tampa and/or anyone who has a great love for this town but there is absolutely nothing special about it. Can't wait to depart and get back to the baby girl!