house update

>

Words escape me as I try to figure out how to sum up the last week and a half. Our first week living with my parents has not been without bumps in the road, but I believe we're get past any initial issues. It's like a college dorm room without the 3am undie runs and late night trips to Denny's. Our schedules are all different and we all seem to be able to do our own thing without disrupting others' plans too much. I'm optimistic that our time here will be good, however I am getting rather nervous about this entire short sale process.

We started our home-buying adventure six months ago and if you asked me then if I thought it would take more than six months to move into our new home I'd tell you you're lying. Ha, goes to show how much I know about buying a home! I suppose this is almost like becoming a parent for the first time. You have all these preconceived notions about how everything will go, what you will and won't do, and expectations but once you begin the process everything changes. Buying a home is no joke, which we knew, but we know very little about the short sale process. Now that we are in the thick of it, I can say we are still naive about it, but willing to learn. What sucks is our realtor does not seem to know very much about short sales so getting the info we need is challenging.

We want this house and we want it bad. It's perfect for our little family and well worth the wait. I just hate to think that we could be living with my parents for more than a month or two, for both of us. It's more than a blessing to be here and without my parents help I'm not sure what we would be doing.

So cheers to them for opening our homes and please send prayers that we get a closing date very very VERY soon!

the early bird gets the....wait...not here!

>

One of my biggest never-ending struggles has been becoming a morning person. Before Logan was placed in my arms I had no problem staying up very late and sleeping in all morning long. I have never been much to follow a personal schedule and have always been okay with just doing whatever. A baby not only changes the love you feel for someone or your daily priorities but it also, quite obviously, changes your sleep patterns.

I can confidently say that I am now a morning person and while it is still hard to get going in the mornings, I do enjoy watching the world wake up over a hot cup of coffee and Logan's high-pitched shrieks while he toddles around the house chasing after the cat.

But wait. It's not that easy, is it? It's never been easy and honestly, it still isn't. If it was not for work getting up with Logan at FIVE AM would/is certainly not easy. Even on the days when he goes to bed later he is still up around 5:30. I'm very thankful that he sleeps great through the night but those early morning wake ups are never easy to get used to.

Two mornings ago he woke up at 4:30am and that was it. He was not going back to sleep and wouldn't you know it he slept three and a half hours at daycare! I was wishing for a 3 hour nap too! Now, we have more new adjustments being at my parents house. All three of us plus our dogs are in our little room. Logan has been sleeping great on his crib mattress on the floor no problem EXCEPT when he wakes up super early like that. He knew we were in the room with him and was wide awake. Normally, we would have let him just talk himself back to sleep or play quietly in his room. Needless to say, this week has been rough with the move and all the changes. I am insanely tired!

If you happen to room in with your toddler, please send along your wisdom on how to get him back to sleep. I will pay you in brownies. Yum. :)

Have a fantastic Memorial Day weekend!

I'll Be Back...

>Just a quick shout out that we're all still here! It's been a REALLY long, crazy, exhausting--you name it kind of weekend and it really has not slowed down yet! We have moved in with my parents and that is a HUGE adjustment. Both B and I are working this week, he leaves for Vegas tomorrow night and I head out of town on Friday. Finally on Monday we will all be able to relax! I'm visiting a few friends and that will be nice and relaxing on some level however, traveling is ALWAYS tiresome. And now it's well past my bed time. A few things to note:

• Logan loves ice.
• He is walking so well now he is nearly running!
• He STILL has a cough! I cannot decide if this has anything to do with teething, which I think it does, but I hate to just assume that. However it's his only symptom. And not just a dry cough. It's rather congested and yucky.
• Because he was sick at the beginning of the month he will not have his well baby check up for 15 months until he is just a few days shy of 16 months so I have no new stats to report.
• Logan is UNBUCKLING his seat belt that goes across his chest! I have no idea how the kid even figured it out but he's mastered it. We've tried everything to make him stop but he won't. I called Graco and they are sending us a new clip with the hope that the clip is defective. Ugh

A year ago today....

>Just a fun little post while I am in packing/cleaning/moving hell. Here is a post and a pic from a year ago. Enjoy and Happy Friday!!

(I did not write anything between the 14th and 23rd last year so here's a pretty good post. But first, a pic from 1 year ago:

May 14, 2010 “Boy do I have a treat for you! A FREE manual to parenting! Honestly, it will tell you eeevvveryhing you need to know when it comes to caring for that new little one of yours. Spit up? Weird poop? Inconsolable crying? Just use the index and you’re on your way!”Now, wouldn’t that be wonderful, to have a hard copy that says yes do this, no don’t do that, and why they hell would you think of something so crazy! I mean really, parenting is supposed to be easy! OMG, I wish y’all cloud see me smiling and laughing right now. I’ve only been a parent for a little over 3 months now and I am already eating words I voiced months before I became a parent of “I will nevers” and “This is the only ways” and so on…Well, the other day while eating lunch with a few coworkers, they were asking me how things were going. Three of the four people sitting with me were mothers. The forth person, bless her heart, has been trying to have a baby for next to 4 years now. I pray for her often and have made suggestions to her try certain things BEFORE doing any fertility treatments and I think she is having a hard time taking me seriously since the first time we officially tried to get pregnant, we did. This is one of those things you don’t tell someone who has been trying to have a baby for so long. So I didn’t, but she gets to sit and listen to me talk about how amazing my baby is…Anyway, I am not sure of the specifics of our conversation at the time, but somewhere in there she started to tell us (the mommas) about this parenting manual she and her hubs have about how they are going to raise the children the have someday. I could hardly contain myself, as I laughed, thinking of all the things I said I would never do and how I would do certain things one way. And now, now that I am that parent, how breaking those so called rules is so easy to do, especially out of sleep-deprived desperation. She was a good sport as we all laughed and said “Good luck with that!”. It just made me reflect on so many things I would talk about pre-baby. Even regarding our birth. As a first time mom, it was hard for me to take anyone seriously who was trying to tel me to be open-minded about our birth plan, about sleep habits, breast-feeding vs. formula feeding, etc. For example:While I was totally aware of my lack of pain tolerance, I was determined to have a pain meds free birth and well, back labor is a bitch so bring on the epi!I swore up and down that if I was hungry during labor, I was going to eat. Well, come labor you’re really not hungry anyway and that cherry Popsicle was the best damn Popsicle I had ever had! Never was I ever going to let my baby sleep in a swing at night. Well, when it is the only position baby is comfy in and you’re running on 2 hours of sleep, the kid is gonna sleep in the swing! People told me to sleep when the baby sleeps and I kept thinking, ha, I won’t be thattired…ha, I have never been so tired in my life!I would never take my kid to daycare, and I still haven’t, however I considered it when we were two weeks away from my going back to work and we still had no sitter. We would have paid more for childcare than I would have made working so…not worth it. Vaccines. A very loooooooonnnng time ago, even before B and I were married, I believed vaccines caused autism and that has since been totally bunked (and if you disagree with me, sorry). Well, in the last year I went from thinking I would not be vaccinating my babies to feeling strongly about doing so, only on a slower more drawn out schedule. Reasoning here deserves a whole other post all on it’s own. There’s more, but these are the things I can remember. All I know is that there is no such thing as a parenting manual and even if there was one, it would not work on every baby. It may even work one night and not the next. Babies are so unpredictable and our thoughts and believes, while with good meaning, can become unpredictable too. I love what I am learning as a parent.

busy busy busy!

>Just here to mention that in the last two days I have spent nearly 4 hours cleaning the kitchen. For the first time ever I invested in SOS pads and OMG they have become my cleaning lifesaver! I have scrubbed the inside and outside of the stove, oven, and stove tops and it sparkles pretty like. Also, the microwave, outsides of cabinets and fridge are done. Tonight I plan to accomplish boxing up all of the dry foods we will not be needing until we're at my parents house (ha! more on that later), box all of our books, and scrub the bathtubs. By the time I'm finished it will be more than bed time.

I'd also like to note for more of a personal record that I took an anxiety pill tonight. I've been doing great all along until this week hit and I am a frantic, panicky mess. Bless B, he has been so much help and done everything I've asked. He is currently scrubbing mold spots off the walls in our bathroom. I'm so blessed! On that note, I feel mildly drunk so I may have to go back and check my work tomorrow.

Peace out lovies! Only a few more days until our move!

i heart faces-may flowers

>

i heart faces is taking a break this week with challenges, but they did encourage everyone to post lovely photos of flowers to share. I LOVE LOVE LOVE our state flower, the Columbine. Those yellow ones in the bottom right corner? My faves!! And that hillside of multi-colored Columbines? To die for! I love that Columbines have a very mild, if any, scent and they are strong-willed. They have to endure harsh, cold, long winters here in Colorado and the reward is this. So lovely! I took these photos at the Steamboat Springs Botanic Gardens which is where B and I got married. So yeah, I'm a bit partial. Enjoy! And check out all the other lovely photos below.

PS I know that the photo in the bottom left does not feature Columbines. In fact, I'm not quite sure what they are but they're also in the gardens and I loved the white outline. :)

Daycare, revisited.

>

Logan has officially been in daycare for a month now. His start was more than rough and now that the biting has stopped, we are in full blown separation anxiety mode. I kick myself because I always bragged about how well Logan did with other people when he was younger. He never cried when we'd leave him with a sitter or my parents. He was such a happy guy and now that he is old enough to notice our absence he wastes no time expressing his anger over it.

The rip-your-heart-out-don't-leave-me cry slapped me in the face two weeks ago Friday. Logan is usually one of the first kids at daycare when I drop him off and I wonder if that makes it harder for him. He doesn't have the distraction of the other kids to play with and so far he could care less about the toys. Since then, he beings to cry the moment we walk into his classroom. I take his coat off and grab his paci to help comfort him. He's still crying when we get into the other classroom with his morning teacher whom I really like. She is sweet and does her best to help Logan calm down. I never have enough time to stay there until he's better but maybe that is a good thing. I literally have to set him down and dash out the door without looking back just so I can keep it together. All while he is screaming his little head off.

Logan's teachers reassure me that within five minutes he isn't crying and is happily playing. I believe them and I believe that this is the right daycare for Logan. The first week was gut-wrenching but I am glad we did not jump ship. I am usually a "trust your gut" type woman and while I was worried about Logan's safety, deep down I knew it would all pass. And it has. Logan is still sad when we leave but I know it will get better. Thankfully, none of this has caused me to regret the job change. Adjusting to working during the day was hard (I was napping with Logan every day!) but the job has been amazing! I used to hate hospitals. I would get a terrible feeling all over when I walked into one and it was not until a friend had a baby 6 years ago and I visited her did I get over that phobia.

Overall, daycare and work are getting better. Each day is new and different.

***

On a side note, I spent 5 hours packing with my MIL and we did an awesome job! Just a few things left in Logans room, our entire bedroom, some bathroom things, and then all the dry foods. Moving next Saturday! Can't wait. :)

here's to momentum

>

Thanks to who seems to be my only reader out there in blog land (based solely on comments-I know there're more of you out there!) I have some much needed inspiration to write more pointed posts that won't have me ratteling off all of the random crap we did last weekend. Sure, those posts will still be around every once in awhile, but I'm not proud of how crappy my writing has been lately. I have a degree in English and THIS is how I'm using it?! Time to take MORE time with my posts and really make it worth it for you to continue to be a reader/follower. And not just for you, but for me too.

Last night B and I were going through all of our old writing material we saved from college. We have countless binders and notebooks filled with writing that is so good I can hardly believe I wrote it. Really. With that in mind, I am going to be taking some time to really figure out what this blog means to me and how writing makes me feel. I love to write. But I hate writing pointless, boring things which people will skim over in their feeds (which most of you have by now!) lol. It's time for purpose.

Being that it is 10 days into May, I will say that regardless of my motivation to write more I will be writing less due to how crazy-busy this month already is and will be. We're moving in just a few weeks. Packing, organizing an cleaning are eminent and I am hoping to share how I get it done all while working full time with a child, hubby and two dogs to care for. Speaking of the dogs, we need to get them to the vet for their yearly visits which always costs us an arm and a leg. Note to self-one dog is enough (however I could not imagine our lives without either one!). Running has totally gone to the wayside and if there weren't other things like packing that I'm sucking motivation into then I would so be out there pounding the pavement with Logan. I loved doing it but there is no way my tired brain and body can work that into our schedule. And at the end of the month B and I are going out of town (separately) for four days. Wowza!

So that about sums May up. In the mean time here is a short list of ideas to help kick my writing rear into gear (haha!). 

• the ins and outs of being a working mother
• how to be a mother to a boy
• separation anxiety
• love and marriage
• weekly recipe (def for WAYYYY after our move)
• ...and more

Ideas?? Please share!! :)

BEST MOTHERS DAY EVER!

>Okay, I know this is only my 2nd Mother's Day but it was amazing! Sadly, I have no pictures to share, HOWEVER there is an amazing video I am trying to post from my phone and it's just not happening so I will do that as soon as I can. In the mean time, I must share how joyful yesterday was.

1. LOGAN WALKED!! He was walking across the room at my MIL's house and I was a blubbering mess!! It was so amazing and I am so proud of him! On Mother's Day AND his 15 month birthday no less!
2. He is cutting FOUR teeth! Two of which are his top 1 year molars so on top of having an ear infection last week, he was cutting those monsters. Sure does explain a lot! And yesterday he showed us all those lovely teeth! Soon to be 6 on top and 3 on the bottom (maybe 4...I think there is another one popping through...)
3. B bought me TOMS shoes for Mother's Day! They are black glitter so I can wear them to work. They arrived today and are too small! Monster feet here! I hate having to return things but I know these shoes are well worth the wait.
4. AND we are thisclose to a closing date on our house! SO EXCITED!!

As you can see it was a great weekend. I hope all you mamas and mamas-to-be had a great weekend with your little ones.

Now, excuse me while I go sort through the storage closet and get to packing!

writers block

>I'm not sure if our impending move, being sick and an overall lack of motivation has caused this terrible writers block, but I simply cannot put my thoughts together right now. I'd love some encouragement and suggestions on blog posts so I can get going again. Otherwise, you may just be seeing the i heart faces photo contest postings, which I am not participating in next week, so just wanted to let everyone know. I hope all you beautiful mamas out there have a wonderful mother's day, especially if it's your first!

the rundown

>I really hate doing these drive by posts but that is just how it is right now.

• Logan has been sick for over 2 weeks now and for a little more than that time he has barely been eating, has diarrhea at least once a day and since his last weigh in 8 days ago he has lost a pound. I took him into see the pedi this afternoon because when we came home from work/daycare he could not put any weight on his right leg. I panicked. I mean full on freaked. I was rushing around to get changed from my work clothes and Logan was crying and could not stand up. I had just seen his doctor at our hospital and knew she was not in the office so I quickly called the office to see what I should do. They had an appointment with the next best doc and we dashed over there. In the mean time, Logan was becoming more tolerable of whatever pain was going on in his leg, baring more weight on it and taking assisted steps. I was beginning to think I was a crazy mama who should have just waited things out but then I thought it was good to take him in anyway. The antibiotics and steroid he was prescribed over a week ago were not making one dent in his cough and overall well being. He spiked a fever of 101.4 on Sat and without motrin it stayed put and he was in my arms all.day.long. Trust me, I LOVE the snuggles and love he has been giving but not at the expense of him feeling shitty. His fever broke sometime yesterday afternoon and I summed it up to be a totally unrelated new virus he brought home. Regardless, his pedi was wayyyy more concerned about the weight loss and lack of appetite so we will be going back in on Friday for a weight check and then about a week after that for his 15 month check up. Oh my stars I am exhausted. I am tired and worried and frustrated that my sweet boy is sick. I've cried off and on all weekend with him. 
• I'm still fighting off my cold. Taking care of myself and a sick baby at the same time is next to impossible and explains why I am still just as ill today as I was three days ago. Oy.
• Logan and I did the March of Dimes walk on Saturday and I have a feeling the biting wind did not help whatever virus was just coming on. He was miserable most of the time, crying and sleeping on and off. I was nearly running, although I felt just as bad as he did. I am glad we did it. March of Dimes is a charity I feel very strongly about. I only wish we could have done it under better circumstances and had the same amount of fun most of you had.
• A few of you have asked about my job. First of all: I FREAKING LOVE IT! I love the people and what I'm doing. It is a ton of work and a lot to learn but everyone is so gracious and easy to talk to. I feel 100% comfortable asking for help and even being on my own for most of the time. All I will say is that I now work in a hospital (hence seeing our pedi there today). I've always wanted to work there and it has been an incredible life change. The only sucky part is hearing about the bad stuff. My office looks out to the helipad and according to my coworkers we rarely ever see patients brought in and/or taken away and there were TWO here today. One was for a newborn who died and was revived and flown to Childrens. I was instantly taken back to when Logan was born and how we had know idea what was going on with him. I have been praying for the baby and parents all day and have been extra emotional. I think it's good, though, that I hear about these things now so that I can get a thicker skin for it. That might sound bad but I don't want to be wiping tears away every time I hear a tragic story, especially coming from the L&D or Peds. 
• Anyway, that is how things are right now. I wish they were less frantic but heck, that would just be too boring! Ha...hope you're all having a great week so far.