don't get your hopes up

Our house will be on the market by Saturday afternoon. Tomorrow is the packing and cleaning marathon to get it all ready to have the realtor come and take pictures and all that. I keep telling myself not to get my hopes up that we will actually be able to sell in this market, but I think it is sort of defeating to do that. If I don't get my hopes up then I lose my motivation to get everything packed up. I need to see the goal line. Justin can see it too now which is excellent.

I think with this market the whole thing is just a little bit more stressful, but I don't really know. I have never sold a house before. It is hard to think of us actually getting a buyer. Then in theory if we do can we find a house in our price range that we want? We can easily get one that will work for right now, but we don't want to find ourselves in the position to want to be looking to move again in a couple years. Which brings us to short sales and foreclosers. And this is where the stress level cranks up a bit. It isn't a fast process. We might have to wait a while for decisions and answers. We might have to fix some things. That means we would need to live somewhere else temporarily if our house sells. How much are we willing to put into repairs after we buy? Where will that money come from? It is obviously getting ahead of ourselves, but at the same time things that Justin and I need to be on the same page on and be prepared about.

In other news, I am taking the kids to Ohio to see my grandparents in August. Cousins from both sides of the family will be in town and we are just going for a couple days. I was willing to go alone, but my sister is going to go with me so I can have a chance to go to the bathroom if need be. We had been planning a weekend trip out there with my brother and his wife and daughter but I think that will end up in the fall. It is much easier to go out there during the week when I don't work during the day, that is for sure.

Does it count as potty training when Ava takes off her own poopy pull up and goes and attempts to wipe? No? I guess it just means she really should just make the decision and give up diapers all ready. At this point, I think she just needs to feel in control of it. She is trying to be a baby again! Talking baby talk, stealing Rhys' bobo. She has the ability and the skills. She just has to decide to. I am not ready to go to negative consequences yet to make this happen and there isn't anything that she is willing to do it for, so for now, we will just wait.

my normal day

This is to remind myself of what I do with my time, if I am ever like whine whine whine. I do nothing with my day, I get nothing accomplished.

My Monday:
Get up at 7am
Feed Rhys.
Ava gets up.
Diapers changed
All of us eat breakfast (nobody eats exactly the same thing)
Wipe the little people down, along with seats and trays.
Get everyone dressed.
Pack pool bag including snacks, bottles, and water.
Drive to the pool.
Cover everyone in sunscreen and play in the pool and sand for about 2 hours.
Get everyone back in the car.
Go home.
Change everybody into clean and dry clothes.
Get lunch started (today was spaghettio's and peaches)
Giant Baby (the 14 month old I babysit 2 afternoons a week, don't worry his mom knows I call him Giant Baby) comes over.
Get Giant Baby set up with snacks in a booster seat and tray.
Everybody eats.
Wipe everything and everyone down again.
Get shoes on lots of feet and more sunscreen.
Spend 10 minutes getting out the door and loaded into the double stroller and Rhys in some sort of baby carrying device.
Go for a 30-40 minute walk.
Come back inside and get ready for quiet time. That is put kids in 3 separate rooms, get 2 cups of water ready, bobo's ready. 3 different white noise things going.

Ahh quiet time, what should I do?
This is where I clean the bathroom.
Then do a load of laundry.
Fold laundry.
Take a shower.
Pump.
Check email, etc. write this blog (it only takes 5 minutes as evidenced by the horrible spelling, punctuation and complete lack of sentence structure)
Study for my ICDVP test (75 questions based on 1000 pages of material. Must get 90% or better to pass)
After quiet time, it is play with the kids to keep them from killing each other, breaking things, and escaping.
Giant Baby goes home.
Clean up toys that have exploded.
Justin comes home and it is start dinner time.

I forgot to add the 3 more bottles I feed Rhys. The multiple diapers. The failed attempts at Ava going on the potty.

That is my day. Aside from more laundry done and some clean toilets, pretty much it looks like I haven't done anything all day. Yet I am tired, so then I get frustrated. So I can go back and look at this and be like wow, that was a long list of things done today.

better late than never

On his 7 month birthday, Rhys has decided that he will, in fact, eat babyfood. He just seemed to want food while he was sitting in his seat eating baby puffs, so I decided to feed him a jar of sweet potatoes. He ate the entire thing, with enthusiasm. He slurped it off the spoon. Apparently he does want to eat baby food, though we know that finger foods are good too. This will at least make it easier to introduce new foods. Maybe he figured out that we aren't always good with being consistnat and if he wants more than puffs and toast with dinner he needs to step it up and eat some babyfood for good flavors. (I do realize how ironic that statement is.) Maybe it was because we haven't tried giving him the dreaded cereal in a few weeks that he forgot to hate it. Either way, he is eating babyfood and now we will both have to remember to feed him regularly. Poor starving chubby baby.

7 months old

**I am technically writing this on the 17th, though I just haven't gone to bed yet, so it is still the 16th in my mind, details, details that really don't matter, but I don't want to confuse myself later on. ***

Rhys is 7 months old today. He is in such a hurry to be a big kid. He thinks he can walk and talk. He can't. He has come up with yells for all of us but I am not sure if he really knows what he is doing. (Didi, Mama, and Abba) Earlier this morning, and I mean early, he decided to get up for the day at 4:45. We played downstairs for a couple hours, but I was generally not feeling up for crawling around on the floor and he didn't feel like playing by himself. I got him to sit still long enough to cuddle in with me on the couch and I started humming different songs I was making up to him. It held his attention long enough that he forgot to wiggle and fell asleep with his forhead up against mine. I think it was my favorite part of the day.

He has been extra crabby the last couple of days. During dinner I saw the two little white lines in his gums, so teeth are finally coming. Who knows, maybe they will break through at exactly 7 months. He is also getting very close to being able to get himself into the sitting position. He has the camando crawl down and can get pretty much anywhere he wants to go. He is just my happy little guy who loves to give kisses and pull hair. He is the reason that my hair is the longest it has been in about 14 years and it is always in a pony tail.

I have been debating about quitting nursing him because...he just isn't very good at it and never has been. He doesn't seem to get it quite right to keep it from being painful. Several blocked ducts later and now with mastitis and another blocked duct, I am actually sad about the prospect of stopping. He really is still a little baby and I love our cuddle time together. Even if I don't want that cuddle time 5-10 times a day, once our twice would be nice. Not sure what I will end up doing. The logical part of my head is like quit! quit while you are still alive! Then there is the whole emotional side that is thinking, but he is my baby and I must nurture him.

sorry I forgot

I got distracted while writing that last post. I forgot to say that Ava's pressures on Monday were 20 and 19 which are in the high range of normal. In children pressures should be under 20, ideally below 15. Just for reference.

We are also working on getting stuff set up to get our house on the market in the next couple of weeks. We need to make sure that financing will be in place for us to buy a new house if we sell ours and then just pack some stuff up. That is about it for now.

potty training? what potty training?

So I don't know what day we are on. I could look it up, but I am not going to. We have had a few successes. Usually at least one time a day in the potty, but they are under diress and command. I kind of think today was the biggest success. She came into the bathroom with me and asked if I was trying to get the peepee's out. I said that I was and asked if she wanted to. She said, "Sure!" and pulled down her pants and gave it a good try. I am confident that she has the ability to do it, she just needs to want to, so for her to voluntarily try to go is a win in my book. I think if we push her too hard at this point, it will just slow things down. I am just keeping it in the front of her mind with lots of pep talks and books and wet training pants.

Last Thursday Ava had a routine office eye appointment. Her pressures had gone up a little bit. (29 right, 26 left) He wanted her to get another surgery consultation with a doctor from Children's. He was pretty excited that she was going to be having an exam under anesthisa during her laser treatment just to get another set of pressures, though she sat still like a champion and was completely cooperative. I think she does better with getting her pressures checked than I do. She knew exactly what was going to happen, step by step. It was pretty funny.

Monday was her first laser treatment with the new laser and dermatologist. We are back to the severe bruising, which we expected. It is very different now that she is so aware of herself. She keeps announcing that she is purple. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm purple. I think she is just having a hard time not being able to go outside.

I woke up in the middle of the night with mastitis. Justin worked from home which is probably the only thing that kept me from losing my mind. I spent the entire day in bed. I am working 16 hours tomorrow night so I am hoping I am back to functioning by tomorrow at least.

day 1 of the potty

Ava woke up wet (she wore her training pants and cover to bed) and didn't seem to care. She was pretty mad that I wanted her to sit on the potty. She did and peed. Much celebrating happened. And there ended our success on the potty for today.

I actually sent her to daycare in her pants. This resulted in a lecture about how we have waited too long and now she will be 4 before she is potty trained. Yes, thank you for the encouragement.

I will wash a lot of pee pee pants later and gear up for day 2.

pee-immersion

We have been slowly introducing the potty to Ava for...oh about a year. I did say slowly. She pretty much doesn't want to go. She knows she needs to and is pretty much physically is ready. She is all caught up in being a baby. Next week she is having a laser treatment so we will be in the house for a week or so. What better to do in the middle of the summer, stuck in the house, than to go full force into potty training???? She has an insanely strong will and has resisted all previous attempts of setting the timer to go every 45 minutes to try. She gets pretty annoyed with that after the 2nd round. Candy as prizes for even trying? She figured out she could go in, pull down her pants and sit there for 30 seconds and say she tried and get a gummy worm. 5 minutes later, repeat. She pretty much just likes diapers. She is going to be 3 in less than a month and so I am over it. Especially when she pulled off her diaper, with poop in it, in the livingroom, carried it to me and said, "I dropped some poop on the carpet. You better go clean it up before Dori eats it." So, we now have rubber pants to go over her training pants. Pull ups are just too cozy. This will at least be uncomfortable. I put her in them this afternoon and tonight she asked Justin for a diaper so she could go pee pee. See, must break the diaper addiction. I figure by Monday, we might have had a few rounds of maybe getting the pee in the potty before dive right in and make that our main focus. I have a feeling this is going to be a long, long battle of wills. I hope that I am stronger and smarter than my almost 3 year old.

Don't see this very good movie

I went to go see My Sister's Keeper today. I actually had not read the book first so aside from previews I had no idea what the movie was about, how it was supposed to go. I thought it was pretty excellent. Good editing, cinematography, soundtrack (the song from our wedding was featured prominently in the movie, so I may be a little biased), and acting.

Here is the downside of the movie. It is really, really sad. I cried through most of it. Other people in the theater were audibly sobbing. It wasn't that bad for me. So I guess you can go see the movie if you want to have a good cry. Don't go into it thinking, ok I will cry now, because then you won't. Just be open to the cry.

What are your crying movies? I have movies that I cry every time I see them. Terms of Endearment did cause a sob fest when I saw it the first time (with Val in my room during a sleepover, followed up by the sequel that I can't remember the name of. That was a happy night.) but it doesn't get me every time. The following do. I should note that I often don't cry about my life, feelings or real people. I choose to watch movies and tv and cry about fictional characters. On with the list...

Steal Magnolias
Glory (seriously I get so upset i can't stand it)
I Am Sam
Hope Floats
Losing Isaiah