Santa Never Had it So Good

Me: What do you want for Christmas?
Peanut: Bagel.
Me: A Bagel?
Peanut: Bagel.
Me: Anything else?
Peanut: No.

I wonder if he thought I said breakfast instead of Christmas? They might sound the same to a two year old. Either way I can totally handle it.

Take That School.

Me: Let's get ready for school.
Him: Nnnnnoooooo.
Me: Don't you want to go to school and have fun?
Him: No.
Me: Don't you want to go to school and play with all your friends and Miss J?
Him: No.
Me: You don't want to stay here with boring old mommy.

He crawls into my lap, puts his head on my chest and snuggles in.

Him: Mommy.

It's nice to be loved.

Music to My Ears

I love hearing my Husband read to Peanut. It's very sexy to me to have a husband that cares so much for his child. He takes time to read to him and play with him. I know lots of men that can't be bothered with that stuff. It's woman's work to take care of the children.

In our situation I do stay home with Peanut and will continue with new baby. I mostly take care of the child(ren) and do some housework and so on. The difference is, I get lots of help. Husband helps by taking care of Peanut or by taking care or me, or both.

My brother-in-law left the country to work a week after his son was born. He was gone about a month. I guess by the fifth child you just don't care? I couldn't pry Husband away from Peanut if someones life depended on it. He's a great father and I love him that much more for it.

On a brighter side of pregnancy, something good has finally happened. My boobs are getting bigger. They are huge or anything, but bigger. Definitely a step in the right direction.

So Much To Do

I would like to get some decorating done here at the Mutt house. I'm not feeling very inspirational. It's very easy for me to go to another house and design a pretty good looking room. Doing that for myself is hard. I know what colors I like, but I want all the rooms in the house to get along. In our old house the majority of the rooms were some shade of purple and/or green except the office. It was blue.

I see lots of houses on decorator shows and they all look like the whole house was planned, not just one room at a time. Does that make sense? Even though I'll work on one room at a time, I want the house house to be one gorgeous unit. I'm having trouble planning that. How much does a decorator cost? Can I get someone to come in and just give me advice? That would be great.

Meanwhile, screamfest is happening in Peanuts room. Again. Nap time has not been going well. For the last several weeks it's taken him over an hour to fall asleep. I've tried several methods, going in and soothing him, snuggling with him, leaving him to cry it out and they don't seem to work. Yesterday after listening to him for two hours I went to his room (furious), plucked him out of the crib and put him on the floor. I said "do whatever you want." I went downstairs and watched TV. He stayed in his room for an hour and a half reading. He went through nearly every book on the shelf, but he stayed in his room and he was fairly quiet.

Today, we are back to screaming. It's only been 22 minutes. Jeez that annoys the life out of me listening to him scream. It's not a crying scream, it's yelling mommy over and over. Gah. I know it's selfish, but I need the break from him. I need him to nap so I can re-charge for a bit. Even though he isn't in my line of sight, hearing him scream doesn't really let me charge anything.

I'm still in the throws of all day sickness. It doesn't seem as bad, but I'm still very gaggy? Is that a word? Food really sound good, but after about three bites I can't seem to eat any more. It's sad. We went out the other night and I had really good steak and seafood, but couldn't eat much. I brought home the leftovers, but same story. It would be nice if I could actually chow down for a bit.

It's been quiet for a whole minute. Do I dare get my hopes up? Nah. I'll just keep reading and hope for the best.

Out of the Crib and into the Fire (Engine)

How do you get a two year old to sleep in a regular bed? We have not yet moved Peanut to a toddler or twin bed. He's still in a crib. We would like to move him out of it so that Bean (the new kids name) can get the crib. The trouble is that only 10% of the time we put Peanut to bed, he has no trouble. He lays down and is asleep pretty quick. No crying, no nothing. I'd say 50% of the time we put him in bed he cries less than a minute and then gives up and goes to sleep. The other 40% he cries for a while. So. If these statistics hold true for a big bed, he'll go to sleep just fine 10% of the time. I think the other 90% of the time I may kill myself.

A month or so back we were at the Lake and it was time for nap. I put Peanut in the Pack and Prison and left the room. He was unhappy and screaming/crying. I figured he would have to just cry it out. Instead as I walked down the hall the cries got louder. The little punk figured out how to climb out. There was no putting him in it again. So I tried to get him to sleep on the big bed. I couldn't get him to lay down. I'd plunk him down and he was immediately out the door. Since it was Sunday we just left for home and he slept in the car. Otherwise he would have had no nap.

My fear is that we'll do this for every sleep time. I don't want to. Should we just buy another crib and leave Peanut in his until he's say, 12? Or will it not be as bad as I think?

We have a little fire engine toddler bed, but it needs some work. Since I've been sick I haven't had time to fix it up. I think husband wishes we would have just bought a new one, but he's willing to try. I wonder if this fun bed would be more incentive for him to stay in it?

The Crazy Continues

We had a family function this last weekend. Things went pretty smooth all weekend with a few minor exceptions. It seems my family is incapable of making any decision in less than 24 hours. Meaning it takes an entire weekend of discussions to get a decision made. But lo and behold we have our Thanksgiving plan.

The second hitch in our giddy up was the sleeping arrangements. My sister D has five (5) children. Oddly enough they all have to be separated to go to sleep. Add in three more children and you start to run out of room pretty fast. Peanut was going to sleep in the pack and play in our room. Unfortunately another child was going to start out sleeping in that room too. He didn't like that. He cried and yelled and fussed. I left him to it. We put him in bed around 8:30 which is the normal time. Somewhere around 9:30 or so, my sister J begged me to let her get him out. Sure. So he gets out and comes to the kitchen where all the adults are playing cards. He is in hog heaven. He snuggles in with Aunt D and has a blast. Somewhere around 11 he goes back to bed. I'm exhausted and want nothing more than to go to bed. Trouble is I have to wait until he goes to sleep. Plus there were two children already asleep in my bed.

So we all survived and mostly slept on the way home to recover. I think by now we are over it. So the other decision that was made is that Christmas will be at my house. I sort of assumed it would be, but was willing to go where ever was decided. Now I'm anxious to get some decorating done so it looks like I've been doing something all this time. Better get my butt in gear.

Winter in the Middle of Summer

Christmas has started. It's November 1st and a few radio stations here are playing all Christmas music all the time. Pretty soon we'll just hear it year round. I have nothing against the music, but Christmas is on one day. It just seems like the music should be more centered around that. Whatever.

Halloween was a success. Peanut really had no idea what was going on at first. We went to the neighbors house first and he just stood there. After a the second house he started to hold his bag out and smile. He did say thank you to each person too. We just went around our block. Two of the houses scared him and we hurried those along. One had a little skeleton that talked and moved. He didn't like that. Two other houses had big fake spiders hanging down. One we just went quickly past and the other the man came out of the house past the spider to give him candy. At the last few houses he did manage to say a quiet trick or treat. He was adorable. What was he? A fire man. Cute.

So what do we do with the candy? He doesn't usually get it and I don't really want to eat it. I guess we'll keep it a little while and see if husband eats it. Then we'll send it off to work with him.

I've still got the 24 hour morning sickness. Bleh. I'm ready to be done with the sick feeling part.

I'm not doing the NaBloPoMo or whatever it is. I thought about it, but I just won't post every single day. I will try though. I'll at least try to post more often that once a month.

It Aint Easy Being Green

So I'm only 8+ weeks along, but the morning sickness has kicked into full swing. This time around it's a bit different than the first. The first time, I felt queasy in the morning, threw up and then was fine and went about my day. This time I feel queasy all the time. Morning, noon, evening, during the middle of the night if I happen to wake up. Eating is the only thing that seems to help. One might think that's great, but I'm not a big fan of constantly eating. I'm trying to eat more healthy snacks, but sometimes what is in arms reach is what I get. Cookie? Sure. Apple? Great.

I'm going out of town for a few days for a big craft festival. I'm going with three other women. No children. It's crazy. I'm not sure I'll make it since we haven't left yet and I miss my boy already. I hope I can stay happy and healthy the whole way. We'll see. At least they are all sympathetic and will help me in any way they can.

What's new? Peanut started school last week. He seems to like it. He is a bit clingy at drop off, but settles down a minute after I leave. I think once he gets used to it he'll like it better. He's been napping there just fine.

We got to see new baby on screen at the last appointment. At least I did. Not much to see at this point really. There is just one and it's in the right place. Good to know.

Husband is getting his MBA. He starts this week. I think he is nervous, but he'll do great. I'm going to make every effort to give him time to study and do whatever homework he has to do. It's hard to give him space when I'm so happy he is home to play with Peanut for a while. We'll do our best.

Today is Peanut's birthday. I looked back at the pictures we have of him from birth. He was a big boy, but yet so tiny. He is a great kid and I look forward to many more birthdays with him. Both parties turned out OK in the end and he got lots of cool stuff.

Take care everyone! I'm off to my first vacation without Husband and the boy.

Sorry I Dozed Off.

I'm getting tired. Not quite the exhaustion that I had with Peanut, but I wear out much faster now. I went to work on a painting job yesterday and kept stopping and didn't get much done. Today I had the day to myself. Peanut went to stay with J. Since I would have no interruptions I thought I'd get huge amounts done. While it feels like I did, I can't really see the difference.

In hopes of staying more alert and lest vomitous (it's a pregnant lady word) I'm reading about what to eat when expecting. So far it makes me very sleepy to read it, but hopefully I'll get in gear and start eating better. My diet isn't horrible, but it could get a lot better.

Today I made the OB appointment. Husband is excited. He must have asked a dozen times when I was going. Does it make it more official to go to the Dr? She's just going to have me piddle on a stick and tell me to come back in a month. Oh well.

This is the time of year that always slips by so fast. Once the Holidays start rolling around it zooms by until February. Then it creeps until summer. I'm not ready. I'd like another couple months of summer. We have some outdoor projects that need finishing before winter and I'm not sure how much we'll get done. We have something planned for every weekend in October. While I'm excited for all the activities, I'm not so excited that nothing will be getting done on my house. One day at a time. The basement is starting to look pretty good. Slowly things are coming together.

I'm worn out from all this typing. I better go lie down.

Sweet Jesus What Have We Done?

So I'm like 3 days pregnant and my not quite two year old is screaming his head off upstairs. I'm not sure what set it off. He had an odd nap, but slept. He played pretty hard today with several other kids and maybe that was too much. I don't know.

We tried not to rush him, but it was past bedtime so we were pushing to go up and change to pj's. He went upstairs crying, but not screaming. Then we tried to take his clothes off. Whoa, he freaked. We basically ripped his clothes off and wrestled his pajamas on. Then he kept screaming. Want to read books? Noooooo. Want to snuggle? Nooooo. Want to go to bed? No answer, but not really a yes. After about 15 minutes of this husband put him in bed. Peanut took it to the next level.

He is now hysterically calling for Mama and Dada, but shoves us away and screams louder when we try to go in there. I just want to curl up and cry my eyes out. I'm doing this again? What made me think I can do this with two? Why on Earth did I think I could handle this? Did we just make the biggest mistake of our lives?

Every fiber tells me to go get him, but it only makes him angrier. Help.

I Knew It.

This whole pregnancy thing seems to be a numbers game. With cycle days and times and ovulation days and all the other numerical oddities that seem to come up.

Last cycle was all weird. We read this excerpt on how to have a girl and we were trying it out. Basically, the theory is you have sex for seven days after your period and then stop. That's all fine and dandy, but I didn't ovulate until something like cycle day 19. So even though husband thought we were pregnant, we were not.

Both of us were pretty sad about it. Funny, we were not totally sure we were ready for the second child, but once we didn't have it, we realized we wanted it. Make sense? Oh well. We both were comforted knowing it was a fluke cycle and we'd have more chances.

So this cycle we decided to just enjoy each other and not worry so much about taking an ovulation test every day. I sort of had a hint of when I ovulate. I guess this is pretty true for me. Gross, but true. So when it happened I sent husband a message telling him to come home so we could make a baby. Funny thing. He was playing soccer that night with his friends. They went out for a beer and he sent a message letting me know. Then I sent him my message saying I was laying eggs and he should come home. He felt the need to tell his friends. Great. Does a whole soccer team need to know when I'm fertile?

I anticipated my "." on a Tuesday and so on Friday I took a preggo test. Negative. See I really thought this time was it. I just felt like it was right. I would see pregnant women and just feel connected somehow. I guess wanting to be pregnant like other women makes me have something in common.

So about a week before I think my "." is going to start I start getting PMS cranky. It comes full boil on Tuesday night. Peanut us pushing me and I'm just raging mad for no reason. Then Wednesday morning I realize why. PMS. Time for the "." to start. Except it doesn't. I get like three drops and then it stops. I figure the stress and all sort of stopped it. But three days later still nothing. So I 'started' on Wednesday morning, nothing on Wednesday, nothing on Thursday, on Thursday afternoon I start to wonder what's going on. Is my body being weird again? What happens if we can't get pregnant at all? Two of my sisters both had trouble getting pregnant, what if I have trouble too? What lengths are we willing to go? Even though I already had one negative test I decided to take another. At least if it's negative I can relax and just let nature do it's thing and try again next cycle.

I guess that's why I didn't really get my "." this time. I'm pregnant.

Whole Bunch of Nothing

So this is my first week without any daycare. So far it's going OK, but not great. Yesterday, Peanut took no nap. Today he is napping, or at least he is very quiet in his room. I don't dare go check for fear of waking him.

I've been trying to plan the birthday. As you may or may not recall Peanut is 3 days younger than his cousin C. I called my sister to ask if she wanted to do a joint party again. She said yes and we picked a weekend. Great. My mom's reunion is that weekend and she will be out of town. Not great. Even though she went on and on about if we had to have it then she'd have to miss it, blah blah blah. Right. Like we're having it without her and want to hear about it for eternity. So sister sends me a message asking about the weekend before that. I said great. So I sent a message to another sister to see if she was free that weekend. She said she was planning on going to see sister #4. Not great. Do we run over their plans? We're sort of running out of weekends in October. This is why I HATE that they share a birthday. Because if it was just Peanut I would plan a party and whoever shows up gets to have a blast. Instead we have to play "please all the family all the time". It's starting to be annoying.

How old am I? By the look of my face you might guess 13. You'd be wrong, of course, but my pimples don't know that. I thought as you got older they sort of naturally went away. What gives? It seems like in the last week or so it's gotten way bad. It was one two once in a while and now is a bunch, now! I switched soap to something aimed at acne, but I'm not holding my breath. I guess I should drink more water and eat better. Will that help?

Also, I'm lonely. I took Peanut to the Mall today and realized how badly I'd like someone to go with me to talk. Most everyone I know is either A) at work or B) lives too far away. My sister is close and doesn't work, but her kids schedules are so wonky she has to leave by 11:30 to go get one of them. We didn't even get to the mall until 10:45. That doesn't leave my social time. Really I'd like to go shopping, to movies or out to eat with someone. I could take Peanut, but it would be nice to go as adults. Oh well. That's the price of having children. What do I need new clothes for anyway? Playing peek-a-boo a hundred times isn't exactly wearing out anything.

Blah blah blah, must be PMS.

Poke a Hole in His Head

My son was born with a mild hearing loss. We found this out within his first few weeks of life. When he was only a few months old he got his first set of hearing aids. We've never really known if they help him or not. Some times they really do and others it feels like a waste of time to get them in.

We see an audiologist every month. They take him in the sound booth and test his hearing for a few minutes. At his age he has little patience so they do a little bit each time. The theory is after a while you get the whole picture by putting the pieces together. Each time we go they also to a tympanogram test. For the last (almost) year his levels have been flat (bad), indicating fluid in the ears.

In July we were sent to our ENT to discuss the chronic fluid. We had to wait a month to see the ENT. Once there, he looked fine. So we didn't do anything. Today we went back to the audiologist and once again he had flat levels. Great. Funny thing though, our ENT happens to work at that hospital on various days. He was there today and we were able to see him. Yes. There is fluid. He didn't seem to offer much in the way of a solution. He mentioned ear tubes, but didn't really push one way or another.

The audiologist was pushing for ear tubes. She thinks it will be great for him. So we went ahead and made an appointment to have it done. We have a couple weeks to change our minds, but I don't think we will. It's a simple procedure, but they will knock him out. I'm not wild about that part.

This whole adventure is a catch 22. He isn't really old enough to tell us if the aids help him or not. So we go get testing done. Every time we test he has compromised ears (fluid) so his results are not normal. We have no idea day to day how he is hearing. The aids are set at levels based on his testing. What happens on those days the fluid is gone? Are we blasting him out of the water?

I hope these tubes resolve the fluid issue. Then we can test and I might actually believe the results. Then we can see where to go from there.

Now They Come to Me

So I was wondering why no one was commenting on my posts. DUH! I never updated my email from the move. There are comments, I just usually read them through email instead of in the actual comments sections.

Barbies New House

This is my new house. It's on a quiet street with nice neighbors. You can see the huge trees that line the back yard. When we are in the back yard or look out the back we feel like we're in the country. Since our street is curved the neighbor's houses are angled away and harder to see unless you are all the way in front or back.

So far things are going well. I'm hoping once we get pictures on the wall and such that it will feel more like home. It's definitely our house, but it's not quite my home yet. Make any sense? I'll post more pictures when it gets more organized.

It has four bedrooms upstairs so Peanut gets his own room and if we ever have the sequel he/she can have his/her own room too. The laundry is up there too. There is also a full basement with a full bathroom, storage area and wet bar. Our awesome friends J&A bought us a bar fridge for a housewarming gift. Cool. Things are starting to get where they should be, but it's taking a while.

Where'd It Go?

Peanut has a new trick. He holds his hands out palms up and says "Where'd it Go?" It's too cute! Now he asks about everything. If daddy is at work he asks "Where Daddy?" We saw a squirrel at the park and it ran into the trees "Where Go?"

It's seems in the last few days he is finally talking more. He's putting words together and saying more coherent things. He has always been a talker, but we couldn't understand any of it. Now we can usually get some or all of it. I'd say 85% of the time we at least know what he means even if we can't get all the words.

The move was rough on him, but he has finally settled down and is my sweet boy again. We still have moments, but they are normal almost two year old behavior moments. He has little tantrums once in a while and he carefully sits down and lays his head on the floor and then starts to wail. It's like "I'm having a fit, but I refuse to bonk my head about it". Too funny.

We're still trying for the sequel. We'll see what happens this month. I didn't do any egg laying testing, though I think we did time things better. Who knew it would be a 35 day cycle last time? This one seems more normal, but what do I know? I'll do a pregnancy test in a few days. I could do one now, but I'll wait just to be cautious. Or maybe I'll run upstairs and do it now. Aaagh.

Today is the last day of daycare for Peanut. I'm happy to be saving the money and the drive time for Husband, but sad I may lose my mommy days. My sister lives fairly close and we've talked about trading daycare days with each other. Free daycare, woo hoo! I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic. Their lives are much more hectic than mine so if something comes up it will be on her end. We'll see how it all works out.

Downright Neighborly

So we moved into out new house eight days ago. Yesterday evening during a walk with Husband and I asked about being neighborly. At the old house when we moved in one set of neighbors brought us treats. When we got new neighbors earlier this year we took over a pan of krispy treats. So after being here a week and not getting anything more than a hello from the neighbors I asked if people did that anymore. Husband thought maybe it was a lost polite act or people are too busy with work and kids in school. Oh well.

Then tonight we got home around 8:45pm and as we were getting Peanut ready for bed the doorbell rang. Fairly odd since we don't know many folks around here yet. One of the neighbors across the street brought us cookies. Our faith in nice neighbors has been restored. I guess they were letting us get settled a bit first. Either way, it made us feel special.

Do you think she heard me talking to Husband?

Not a Chicken. I Can't Lay an Egg, Or Can I?

We have decided to start 'trying' for another baby. My plan is to get pregnant in July or August to have an April or May baby.

I started researching how to choose the gender. True, there isn't much you can do on your own, but there are theories. Many of the studies you read about are very small and seem a bit biased. Anyway, the theory is that the girls swim slower, but live longer and the boys swim fast and die fast. So you do the deed every or every other night for a week right after Auntie F leaves and then stop for a girl. For a boy you wait a week, then do the deed for as long as you want I guess.

This all boils down to knowing when you ovulate. I am not deemed worthy of this information. My family member comes and goes when she pleases and never asks what I would like. So I kind of guessed. I also bought some ovulation predictor tests. At this point it's been 10 days and no egg. Well, no LH surge anyway. So one of three things has happened.

1. I have not ovulated yet, though it's getting to be almost past a reasonable amount of time.
2. I did and there was no surge to detect.
3. Faulty tests.

Husband thinks I'm currently with child. Too early to test, but I don't feel it if I am. Of course I didn't know I was pregnant last time until Flo just never showed up. I didn't know until almost 7 weeks.

I guess we'll just wait and see what happens. Fun.

You Sell One, You Buy One

I don't want to jinx anything, but here goes. Please knock some wood before reading on.

We've sold our house and better still, we've bought a new one. There is still time for things to go wrong, but all in all it seems like a pretty done deal on both accounts.

The offer on our house was made on June 24th. We had an open house and a couple came and loved the house. By Wednesday it was all worked out. Now we're just waiting to close on it. Oh yah, and we still need to move out.

We bought our house on July 4th. I saw it the Monday before and took husband to look at it on the 4th. We both love it so we made an offer. Later that day the owners made a counter offer we accepted and now we're waiting on this one too.

Our new house is wonderful. I'm so excited about it. It is a huge step up from this one and this one isn't all that bad. The new yard is at least twice as big with trees in the back. It has a pretty nice deck too. The bedrooms are all upstairs as well as the laundry. It has a den in addition to the bedrooms so we don't have to give up a bedroom for our office. The basement is finished and is a walk-out. There is also a built in wet bar area. Perfect.

There are things I'd like to do to fix it up a bit, but we'll have to wait for time and money to do that. First things will be painting a little and decorating. We plan to be here while the kids go to school up to high school. Since Peanut is our only right now and he isn't even two yet, we plan to be here a while.

Even though it felt like our house was for sale forever, it wasn't all that bad. It went relatively fast for such a flooded market. We feel very lucky to have a buyer. I'm not sure I want to re-live this anytime soon, but it wasn't too bad.

So now we will be busy packing and saving all our money for the new house. I'm so excited!

Number Two, No not That!

I find myself not sure about having another child. Some moments I want nothing more than to see two lines and have another. The rest of the time I can't imagine staying sane enough to raise Peanut AND a sibling. Peanut is a handful. He's two hands full. Actually, it takes several hands: mine, husband, and all the lovely ladies at daycare. Still another baby would be wonderful.

Factors to Consider:

1. I'm going to be 32 this summer. The older I get the greater my chances of trouble with the pregnancy or trouble to the child. The first pregnancy was healthy other than Peanut was huge. I'd say I'm about the same healthy body I was then.

2. Peanut requires SO much attention. How will I manage? I was exhausted with the first pregnancy. I fell asleep at 5 and woke up for a little dinner and went back to bed. I had morning sickness for the first 4+ months and maneuvering around a large belly isn't all that easy. Would it be better to wait until he is a little older and can understand better? Telling him "mommy needs to rest" doesn't mean much to him.

3. We got pregnant easily, but will we be so lucky? One of my sisters got pregnant on her first try and then couldn't conceive for almost 6 years. What if that is me? I can't wait 6 years.

4. We're trying to sell the house and move. Is it better or worse to be pregnant during this? Not sure. I think there are pros and cons to it all.

5. I'm scared another child will widen the gap between husband and me. We've not been as close since Peanut was born. I took on the 'mommy' role and long since forgot the 'wife' part. I've been slowly trying to get back to the multi-role person, but it takes time. Will being pregnant help or hurt that?

6. Would Peanut be better as an only child or would a sibling help? Would he be a good brother?

7. I'd really like any future children to not be born in any month between October to March. My preference would be April or May. I'd take June or September and settle for July or August. There are just too many other birthdays, anniversaries or Holidays to try to add another one in there. Which kind of means we need to get busy soon.

8. I don't want to be pregnant with anyone else nearby. My sister gave birth 3 days before me. My friend A gave birth 6.5 months before me. My friend H gave birth 6 weeks after me. Some of my thunder was stolen. While I enjoyed every minute I had to share the spotlight sometimes and didn't want to. What if I get pregnant and then everyone I know does too? This one ties in to #9 as a double edge. See it's nice having friends with kids the same age, but it's also annoying to hear all the comparisons.

9. Most all our friends have one child close in age to Peanut. It's OK to go out with them because it's all balanced. If we have another then we'll be the wonky couple with two kids throwing the balance off. I'm not sure I have a point here, but my brain worries about this stuff.

So. I don't know. I guess we'll see what happens.