This Life

   I'm trying to accept that this stage of life is just going to be busy, and messy, without much time for myself, or much of anything besides kids. But sometimes its harder than others. Right now I am struggling with the fact that my home is always messy. I had a nanny that worked 3 days, then quit with 1.5 hours notice to take a teaching job.  When I told her that was unprofessional, she got really nasty, and made a comment about how the dishes in my sink were disgusting. The truth is, she was right. I had had a bunch of visitors over the weekend, and hadn't been home much. I hadn't gotten on top of things, and there were a bunch of dishes. But the truth is, there is always some excuse. Right now, we just got back from vacation, and have been furiously looking for childcare. Along with a million other things. I have been working my butt off to organize and clean my home. It feels like it is just never going to happen though. Jason wants to be held all.the.time. Wesley wants to play all.the.time. I try to take time to clean, I even put them in front of a screen(gasp) to try to get time to clean, but it doesn't last very long, then they are back to making a mess faster than I can clean. Literally. It's just never enough. Before kids, if I had visited a house like mine, I would have been pretty judgy probably. I really don't know how other moms do it. I visit their homes, they are so much cleaner than mine. I hear other moms complain about how they can't keep their homes clean. I just think, if only they saw mine... There are used wash cloths that sit in the shower from kids baths for WEEKS. The clean laundry piles up until its a dirty laundry pile instead. My kitchen counters are never cleared, let alone clean. The vacuum doesn't come out until Jason dumps out a big thing of cracker crumbs everywhere, or something similar happens. I even started having a housekeeper come and clean every other week. I try to tell myself that next time I will have things picked up, and surfaces cleared. I don't know that it is ever going to happen. I purge things, because I think if I have less stuff it'll stay cleaner. It just doesn't. Not how I want it to.
The to do list is endless, as is the guilt about my lack of accomplishing things. I still haven't hung the rod in the coat closet since the remodel. Or put in the transition strip by the tile/hardwood. Or patched some holes, or a million other things. The yard never gets the attention it needs, even though I LOVE gardening.
The truth is we are trying so so hard. We both work our butts off from the moment we wake up, until the moment we go to bed. And yet I still have another mom criticizing my home. I know she was a jerk, and totally out of line, etc. etc.
  But there are other things. I feel like I was an awesome mom when I had just Wesley. I gave him everything he needed. 2 kids is so much different. When I get 1 on 1 time with either kid, I feel like an awesome mom again. But with both, they never get my undivided attention. The demands are endless from them, and exhausting. I think a lot of parenting is just about stamina. How many times can you say no to something before you give in just to make it stop. Or make them wash their hands, or clean up their toys, or get dressed, etc. Kids are experts at wearing you down. Hitting you when you are down. Finding your weak spots. Endurance. Its real.

I am also starting a big scary job this week. I have been assisting births for a while now, but I am stepping into the midwife role, and working lots and lots of hours. It is terrifying, even though it is something that I really really want. I am excited about it.  And grateful. But terrified. And feeling guilty about the stress it is putting on my family. I don't HAVE to work, not financially. Truth is, I don't even know if we will break even at first with childcare costs. And someone else will have to care for my children a lot of the time. And I will miss them like crazy. And it will be hard. But I need to work emotionally. I want to be the mom that can be happy as a stay at home mom, but I'm not. I need that other side of me. Guilt.

And my brother is going through hell with chemo. And theres really nothing I can do to help him. I hate it. Really really really hate it. And I'm scared it won't work. And I don't know what to say to him because nothing I say will take the pain away. I am a match for him for a bone marrow transplant, and will possibly be the best donor. It's awesome to think of helping him like that. But I worry I'm not doing enough with my health to give him the best. I had intention to get in amazing shape. But it's not happening. In fact the opposite is.  I had lost all the pregnancy weight, and was exercising a lot. And loving it. Then I hurt my knee and it took forever to heal, and still hasn't all the way. And then I broke my toe. And then I just got out of the habit. And I discovered I eat when I'm anxious. And boy have I been anxious. Never had anxiety, until Jason was born. Now I'm learning how to deal with that. And I want to diet, and exercise, and fit in my clothes again. But its hard. And I have a lot of things taking my emotional strength right now.

And I could just as easily write a post about how great everything is going in my life. Because it really is. I am super blessed and have so many good things in my life. I love my life. Really really do. But some days are harder than others.

House Transformation

I'm very happy to finally be making this post. After 4 months of hell construction we are finally at the ending. Not quite yet, as we wait out the day without plumbing, but close. And it looks done. And we got to move our stuff in yesterday. And I can finally see the light. Just in time as this baby is ready to pop anytime. I wanted to share before and after pictures to show the transformation. It is weird to see all of my ideas actually come to life. I made some good decisions about things, and some not as good decisions. But overall I like it. Let me know what you think. And I took these the day after moving in, so it is not picked up or clean. Too bad. I'm 9 months preggo remember and we have been dealing with no plumbing. But if I didn't do this now I doubt I would. So here we are:

Before

After- Yeah, the yard got destroyed- that will come much later... But new sidewalk. 

 Entryway

 New laundry room- it was in the kitchen before

Living Room before:

 Living room after:

Kitchen before:

 Kitchen After- It opens up into the living room now. We didn't redo the cabinets or anything, just opened it up.

 View from Kitchen into Living room:

 New tile:

Master Bedroom Before:

Master Bedroom After- Entryway to it from the hallway instead of around a weird corner in the front of the house:

 Master Bedroom after- This used to be the living room fyi:

Master Bathroom Before- it was too small to be able to take any kind of good pictures:

Master Bathroom After:

 Closet:

How we got to where we are today...

Our house is currently being torn down, at least the front half. It is sometimes interesting to think about the many things that led you to a certain point in your life.

When we moved to California 4 years ago, we had the idea that we would rent for a year, and then if we liked it we would buy a house. We liked it, but every time our lease renewal came up, we hadn't bought a house yet, so we put it off for another year.

Then we had Wesley. Our apartment exploded with baby stuff. I had to lug my chubby infant up and down stairs every time I left the house. We had a neighbor who was a chain smoker. And we had saved a lot of money, and wanted to invest it. My best friend was buying a house, and informed me of the process. Our lease was going to be up in a few months, and we decided to just look into it to see what we could afford. So we just talked to a loan officer. Then we just got pre approved. Then we just went out looking for day to see what was out there. We fell in love with a house, but our offer wasn't accepted. Bummer, but if we found such a great house the first day, surely we would find another one.

So I began stalking the retailer site that lists houses. I checked my email at least every five minutes waiting for new listings. With the market as it was, as soon as something was listed we had to run THAT DAY to look at it and make an offer. It became my other full time job, in addition to taking care of a colicky, reflux ridden child. We put in at least 30 offers. Offered 10K or more above asking price. Had 20% down, excellent credit, etc. But every offer was beaten out by cash offers. The market was insane. And our lease was almost up and we had to either renew for a year, or be homeless.

One of our offers that was initially rejected, had some buyers fall through, and we were up. But it was on a house that we barely put an offer on because we didn't really like it. And we were putting offers on every house that wasn't falling off a cliff (literally). It was old, it was weird, and it needed a lot of work. And the owner wanted to lease it back from us for several months so he could buy another house. Feeling desperate, and knowing we had some time before escrow really started, we went forward. But with the idea that it was our backup, and we would keep looking. We looked. And got rejected. And I should have been living on Valium. And we finally came down to the wire about deciding for sure about the house.

We looked at the house again, and decided if we did this, and that, and tore out that wall, it would be a lot better. And the house was below what we could afford, so we figured we'd put the extra money into fixing it up. We went through with it. We found a temporary apartment to rent for a couple of months until we could move in. And we moved our family.

When we got the keys, we started getting bids for the work. To get a/c installed in our old house, we had to deal with asbestos ducts. To replace the carpet that was worn through, we'd also have to deal with old tiles that used asbestos glue. Oh, and that wall that we were going to tear out? Load bearing. And to move the laundry out of the kitchen to the garage we'd have to tear up the foundation in our living room to get pipes there. Cha ching cha ching.  Huh, maybe we didn't know what we were doing when we bought this house.

So we got bids, and one of the contractors was also an architect. He had some great ideas about expanding the front of our house, and moving the laundry there. And it wouldn't cost much more than simply moving the laundry to the garage. He seemed great. But alas, he was too busy to draw up the plans for us. But he had a great friend who was an architect that could do it for us.

Enter, Mr. More Prideful Than An Orthopedic Surgeon. We met with him, and told him our ideas. He drew up some plans, and we all met together to review them. Not at all what we had asked for. But our lovely contractor drew all over them and took them a different direction that we liked. However, Mr. MPTAOS did not like it. And he basically refused to have any ideas or do any more work unless we paid him more money.  After trying to design it ourselves in the midst of moving into our house and trying to get a working fridge, dryer, etc., we were done with him. We reviewed our contract, and refused to pay him more. He went crazy on us, and chewed us out over email and quit. Good riddance, but we still wanted to use our contractor. He was super embarrassed about his friend, and recommended someone else.

Enter The Turtle. He had great ideas, and promised to put us on a fast track for city approval so we could start. 3 months later we had our first design. With 3 weeks between emails, and him actually unable to find us a structural engineer like promised, and him just not having time for the project, we finally found our own structural engineer and didn't submit to the city until a year after we moved in. That's right, an entire year.  But we finally got city approval!

With me pregnant, and feeling the weight of the ticking time bomb going off in February in my stomach, we needed to get started. And then our amazing contractor lets us know that due to family issues he is super delayed on his current project, and can't do our project anymore. What?!?!? We had tried to find other contractors and been super unimpressed.

Soooo... Baby brown #2 on the way, a house we don't like and never moved into fully because it was all going to be torn up, a fridge that didn't fit the current fridge space, a year living with unpainted walls and sheets for curtains, and nasty carpet we didn't bother replacing because it was going to be torn up too.... What should we do? After having a pity party, and deciding to give up on the project I'd spent a year of my life on, we decided to go another round of bids from contractors.

The first bid to come in was over twice what we had planned on spending. More tears, wanting to give up again, and we met with more contractors.

There were 2 bids in our price range-ish. One of the guys had impressed us a lot, and we both felt really good about using him. So we went forward and signed a contract, told the other guys we weren't using them, and rejoiced that something was working out. 24 hours after the contract was signed, the contractor called and said he was sorry, but couldn't do the project for the price in the contract. What?!? More tears, more wanting to give up, we gave #2 a call. He still wanted to do the project. He has good references and now we have our 3rd contractor.

So, here we are. They started work this week. Half our house is being torn up, and we are trying to live in a pretty tiny space surrounded by dust and noise. But there is a promise of a nice house at the end. And hopefully before the bomb explodes in February. Many adventures left ahead, I am sure...

The things I say now...

-Thank you for letting me wipe the poop off your bum

-Constant conversations about balls
  -Momma has your ball
  -Get your ball
  -Grab your ball
  -Don't put your ball in there
  -Where is your ball?
  -Momma found your ball

-Please don't pee on me

-Don't put yogurt in your hair.

-Thank you for not throwing your food.

-Let momma get your boogie.

-Don't pick momma's nose

-The trash is not a toy

-Don't eat ____

-Please eat ____

-Don't play in the toilet

-You have the cutest bum bum

-Momma wants to kiss your feet!

-I love you soooo much!


Life is interesting and so good right now!

17 months

It's been a while since I did a photo shoot with Wesley, so we did an impromptu one today. 

Updates on him? 

He is learning to run at this point, and just starts laughing when he gets going really fast. 

He is saying over 30 words, and has started putting 2 words together. Like- Lights off.

He is most happy when he has a ball and sidewalk chalk outside. He spends most of the day throwing balls around our backyard, and making me draw different things for him.

He started sleeping through the night all of a sudden. He went from waking up at least 4 times to nurse every night, to the next night only once, and the next night none. It is a miracle, and wonderful, and I feel human again.

He also dropped down to one nap a day with the same abruptness. One day two naps, the next one. No going back at all.

He got his molars, and is working on his canines now. Only 8 baby teeth left, and we are ready to be done teething!

He favorite thing right now is waving bye to Brigham when he goes to work. Not sure why it is so fun for him, but he loves it. Much better than the sad baby we were getting when Brigham would just walk out the door. 

We went to the beach for the first time in a while, and Wesley loved it. Threw sand everywhere, decided the seagulls were ducks, loved the sailboats, and wasn't afraid of the water at all. 

He is such a picky eater now. He will eat bananas, cheesy noodles, yogurt, eggs, watermelon, cheerios, popcorn, and junk food like chocolate. Ugh. 

Harper kept posing for the camera. Silly dog. 

Photo Recap

I'm attempting to use the blogger app for the first time. These are the things that I've taken pictures of the last few months. They seem pretty self explanatory, don't you think?