Frazzled

I've been up late at night with a lot of insomnia lately. I know part of it is just the time of year and thinking about Christmases past and those no longer with us. Part of it is worrying about the future. Some of that is silly or not controllable and some of it is understandable. Lily starts preschool next week. How will she behave? Will she listen to her teacher? I'm sure it will all work out and that there will be some adjustment. My biggest concern is getting up early enough to get her to school. I've been working really hard this week to get Madi on some sort of schedule so that I'll be able to get up earlier in the morning. I was in bed last night at 10:15, which is good for me. But I laid awake until almost midnight. Pedro came in at 4:20 with Madi, who had peed the bed. SO, I got her to sleep around 5:40, and I didn't not wake up until 9. Lily starts school at 9. See the problem???




I did think that maybe Pedro could take her to school. As long as everything is ready, clothes, snack, bag packed, etc. He should be able to get her out the door. It's a new exciting thing that's going to take a bit of getting used to. Add to this the fact that the house is still in flux because the construction isn't done. WHEEE! There's just no place I can pick to put Lily's school stuff. I mean, I would put it somewhere but someone else *cough, Pedro, cough* will probably put his stuff there too. We're not good at sticking to rules. :P



Anyway, here are some pics from Christmas and a video. wheee!

So

I'm pretty grouchy. I say that I'm not sure why - but I'm pretty sure that I know why. The house isn't finished and everything is in flux. I did hang some pictures up tonight and Pedro grouched. I just can't take things being such a mess. ALL OVER. I was proud of myself for taking the time tonight to go through a couple of boxes and sort through things.

You see, we are waiting on having our new windows put in SO I don't feel like setting things up in the house only to have them covered in construction dust. So we wait.

Also, Pedro wanted a new desk and that's fine, but he took mine apart (I have his old one) and now all the things that were in/on my hutch don't have a home. And that's a lot of stuff. So I'm going through what I can but it's tedious and heck it's almost Christmas? bah!

So I'm feeling bogged down from all the chaos and grouchy because I can't do anything about it until the house is all done. *grouch*

But we did get a good pic with Santa this year.

Merry Christmas, y'all and happy thoughts for the New YEAR!



PS (I'd like to throw things out but our garbage is full and garbage day was yesterday so I have to wait a week and we already have garbage from an early Christmas so *SCREAM!*)

blarg

So I'm sick. Actually, the girls and I are sick. I know you might be thinking, oh good for Pedro, he's not sick. Oh he will be. And by then I'll be super tired and having to take care of his whiny butt. Ever notice what complete babies men are when they're sick???

Anyway, I'm also a little grouchy. I didn't sleep well last night but it wasn't because of Madi. Well, mostly not because of Madi. This cold is AWFUL. Are colds getting worse?? I know germs can mutate. It seems like they're getting worse. GAH

Anyhoodle, it's going to be another low key day at home. I might run out to the post office and then to get some milk because someone *cough* Pedro *cough* has been drinking all the milk. hmpf

One more time

Lily asking for a rainbow pony and a dinosaur

3 beauties

Found it!

I had a very productive morning and I found a brush for Lily and my camera. I'm on a roll! I'm also really relaly really tired. And my keyboard is weird. LIly was in here. Do I really want to know what happened? No. I do want a new keyboard though. THere are the thin ones that you can roll up. There's no grooves for food to get caught in and they seem easy to clean. Here's what I'm talking about.

Wow there are a lot of shingles being loaded on the roof and the whole house shakes every time a package is dropped. ACK Our house was not built to the most exacting standards. I told Pedro this morning that I'm about to go and live in the garage because it seems to be built better! It's not done yet, but it looks good.

Anyway, how did it get to be the 23rd already? I guess we'll have to get serious about getting the girls picture taken with Santa. gah Anyhoo, think happy thoughts for me that the roof stays up. And this is Lily's idea of cold weather clothes. At least you can see some of our new wall color in the living room.

So

I'm going through this thing right now where it seems like I can't find anything. And things that I have found keep on disappearing. It's very weird. Lily blames two girl ghosts. She blames them for everything but especially her room being messy.

Anyway, I only mention that because I'm wondering where the cable is for the camera so I can download some pictures. Sigh.

Okay, I found that. Now where's the camera? Jeesh

It's a nice quiet Vancouver morning - foggy and quiet. :) Both girls are still asleep. Madi is still waking me up at night. Sigh. She kept Pedro up for 3 hours Friday night so.... She was sick and we know that she's teething... She slept better last night, I thought. She's waking up, sitting up and looking around, BUT she's going right back to sleep. That makes a difference, instead of having to spend 15 or more minutes trying to get her back to sleep.

What is it they say? Everyone wakes up at night? But most of us just roll over and keep on sleeping. So I have to figure out how to teach her that.

I'm just happy that I got her to stop slamming on the bed. Baby steps, right?

Well, I had a good look around but I couldn't find my camera. I have some cute pics of Madi after she was eating bath bubbles.

You've got a ....

So we all went to gymnastics class this morning. Lily kept on going and sitting on the bleachers. I asked her what was wrong and she told me that she didn't have a friend to play with. This other little girl had just sat down so Lily went and tickled her. That was it - off they went to play. The little girl's name is Emma and she just turned 3. A lot of the kids there are younger and smaller than Lily. I'm not going to put her in gym next year. She'll be starting pre-school and with the other playgroups we almost go to that should be enough.

Madi slept through the night. ??? She was sleeping with Pedro. I guess we know where she should sleep from on. :/ I mean, I'm glad but why can't she sleep through the night with me??? Maybe I toss and turn too much. ??

Anyway, the back deck is almost finished. It's supposed to rain tomorrow so the guys will be inside painting the living room. It will probably take all day. :P The living room is where we all hang out. Oh, we'll be fine somewhere else but it will be a bit inconvenient. It will, however, look great once it's all done. :)

Oh and Madi's been cruising around her activity table. She also stands up, grabs my legs and bounces up and down screaming for me to pick her up. At least it's getting closer to her walking, right??? I spend most of gym class making Madilyn sit with her legs in front of her. I hope it's paying off. I'm so glad that there's only possibly four classes left. I might put Madi in the class next fall, once she can run and jump with abandon. If she wants to. :)

Happy Lily

She is almost always happy. Unless I'm not letting her run around outside naked. Or telling her to clean her room. Or not letting her eat a yogurt before dinner.

hmmmm

Maybe she is grumpy some of the time.

Madi

Madi did NOT sleep well last night which means that I did not sleep well last night. I got a pretty good night's sleep on Tuesday night and Wednesday, I was baking, cooking, cleaning. It makes such a difference to get a good rest. SIGH

Finally

Okay so Pedro's going postal over the sparse blog updates. If he'd only join Facebook... No, then he'd know all the bad things I say about him. :P

I did have other pictures from the trip to Canada but none of them were coming off of the camera - some error issue. They finally downloaded this morning. phew

I'm too tired to think straight - Madi kept me up a lot last night. Poor thing. So here are some pictures, y'all are smart and you'll figure them out.

argh

Okay, okay. I've been busy. The short story is that Madi's showing more initiative feeding herself and cruising. A little. She's been sleeping a little better but now I've been struck with insomnia. I wonder if I'm just used to waking up every couple of hours???

Today is October 18th, 2010 and Lily is 4 years old

How did that happen??? I asked her what she wanted for breakfast and she told me that she liked cake, while tapping her fingers together like Mr Burns from the Simpsons.

Yesterday, in the grocery store she tripped and fell and landed on her face. She's okay. But when we got to the car she told Pedro that I beat her on purpose.

.....

Then she laughed maniacally. Hands up, how many people think I'm in for a wild ride when she's a teenager???

And why does this picture seem so appropriate??

Canada Trip: Part 1

So I need to start writing this down or it will all disappear from my brain like so many dandelion seeds from a dandelion. Hush up, I've only had one cup of coffee. Well, two but the first one was decaf by mistake. :P And this is Madi blocking out the view of the ski lift from our balcony.

My worst fears, before leaving for vacation, had to do with the girls crying or being disruptive on the plane or in the car, etc. In actuality, our biggest troubles had to do with renting a car. You have to have a credit card to rent a car and you have to have room on it for the total cost of the rental, even if you have cash or a debit card to pay for it. So I'd rent a car for a couple of days here and there, leapfrogging our way across Alberta and BC.

Stressful? Oh, yes. I was actually losing a lot of weight the first few days we were there. Not eating and getting little sleep and running around took their tolls. Okay, I'm fat but my jeans were sliding off of my butt and to the smartypants who whistled at me in Okatok while I was trying to load the groceries and Lily in the car while my pants were falling down - :P

Anyway, we did make it to Fernie after a stressful morning of trying to arrange a car to rent. We had to cancel breakfast with my cousin and her husband and our friends Shaughn and Leslie. Booo.

The lodge in Fernie was gorgeous. Really. There were a lot of natural elements in the room: river rocks in the fireplace, real wood doors. It helped me feel more centered after all the chaos. And there were 3 tvs so you know that Pedro was in his element. I'm glad that it didn't snow, although I know that Lily was looking forward to it. We rented a Dodge Charger for Fernie and though it was fun to drive, it would've been awful in the snow. But we looked good. LOL

So let's see... the wedding was beautiful. Karie looked gorgeous. It was wonderful to see some of my old friends. :) I can't actually recall all that much because I wasn't getting a lot of sleep at night point. *Good grief.

Anyway, Karie's husband, friends and new family all seem like wonderful people and I'm so very happy for her. *sniffle* And I'm glad that we were all able to make it up there.

Congrats, Karie and Corey! :)

So then we had to find another car......

* whoops, I'm sure I meant THAT point.

Special

That's what I just told Madi. Not that she's special. I said that I was special. lol Because I'm her mommy and she shouldn't grunt at me. :) I'm kind of crazy today. I had trouble sleeping last night because I'm still coughing. Actually, I had trouble falling asleep. I didn't want to take more cough syrup so I willed myself not to cough. It did work. Around 1am. And then Madi woke me up a few times and then I had to get up at 7:30 to get ready for my 9am appointment. whew But my hair is cut and my feet are soft so it was worth the early rising. :)

It was an absolutely perfect day yesterday and though we did a lot of running around I just did not feel like going home after picking up our veggie share. So Lily and I went to the Rivanna River and checked out the trails. We probably hiked around about 30 minutes. The sun was going down and the temp dropped pretty quickly so we didn't spend as long as we might have liked to. It was really nice there. Not too busy, nice trails, etc. :) And no, Lily would not let go of the map.

Also, Madi had her well-baby visit yesterday. She only gained an ounce. Firstly, I never trust their scale because the baby has to be all the way to the right to get an accurate weight. Second, Madi did have some almost diarrhea for a week which may have made her drop some weight. She feels heavier to me! Our game plan is for her to double her full fat milk intake and see if that helps. Third, I did stop giving her juice (so fewer calories) because of her loose stools so that might have contributed too. The doc isn't too concerned yet because Madi looks good but we have to go back in 6 weeks for a weight check. :P

And in that vein, I shared my fattening potato soup with Madi today. :) She inhaled it.

Also, both girls got their flu shots (Lily got the nasal spray) and I feel like we're one step closer to being prepared for the trip. :)

Forgot

Also, Madi's been standing a lot more and trying to move. Or cruise. Not quite successful yet. But it's good to see her trying. :)

She also doesn't fall asleep on me anymore. She's getting to the age where she doesn't want to be held, thank you. Although it's sad for me, I'm glad to see her growing and changing. :)

Whiny

"Why don't you update the blog?" That's about all I ever hear from Pedro. Well because it's on the other side of the internet. *snort* Also, blogging is so one sided. When I put things up on Facebook, I hear back almost right away from people. And we have a little chat, etc. But here it's like I say "Marco...." And I never hear Polo. Did that make sense? Haven't finished coffee #2 yet.

I'm trying to get stuff ready for the trip but there always seems to be so much to think about. I know that we can order food on the plane and buy water/juice after security but it's damned expensive so I'm trying to figure out my own snacks, etc. I'm also trying to worry too much or that will overshadow the fun stuff. SIGH

Yay!

I never know exactly where my time goes. It seems like the day is poking along and all of a sudden it's time to make dinner or get the girls in the bath for bed. I mean, they don't sleep in the bath. Lily's sweet smile? She thought that she was getting a cookie. Madi and I had just eaten the last few. whoops!

Madi has been standing more and more even just from the evaluating sessions. I mean, the therapists gave me some ideas to try with her, behavioral and physical and it seems to have made such a big difference. She stood for over a minute today and tried to pull herself. She would not, however, relinquish her blocks so she never managed to pull up. lol You can see that she still has trouble with that one foot.





She did stand on that foot for a little while but it doesn't seem comfy.















And most importantly, my pie.

A Day

whew The evaluators came back today. Thankfully, they had a cancellation so they came by this morning. Better than two days before vacation. :/ The big guns came out: an occupational therapist and a speech therapist. Madi is lagging behind developmentally but instead of telling me what I already know I learned that there's at least one good reason for it.

The OT said that she has low tone and that means that it's a lot harder for her to do the things that other babies/toddlers are doing. It even affects her eating and speech. I'm hoping a therapist can come out next week for a session so we can get started on bringing Madi up to speed. I know she'd probably get there on her own but why not learn it now?

Busy!

Wow. What a day. Various parties in the house barfed. The last one was a good one -Madilyn covered us both in her vomit. She's fine. But she's like Lily in that if she has to cough, she may as well bring everything up! That and I was committed to cleaning up the house today. We've had a busy last couple of weeks and they're only going to get busier so... I did pretty well, all things considered.

Lily and her daddy and g-pa went to the airshow on Saturday. Reviews are mixed. Pedro would probably have had a better time if he'd gone without Lily. She's little and they were out for almost 12 hours. I think she did the best that she could. Gosh, I had something else to write about but those old brain cells aren't working...

Still

Still one of my favorite pics of Lily. This was an "honest" pic. She was mad at me. ha!

For M'Lou

Some more pics of the orchard. The carpets are all done and it feels so nice to be in a house where the floor no longer squeaks and we don't have to dodge the nails that the cats exposed with their scratching. I feel like a grown up!

wow, I have to admit that Stacy's Droid phone takes pretty good pictures. Maybe I'll get one next year. If my techno-phobe self can handle it.

Gosh the bean dip from Whole Foods is good. And to think that I almost wasted my money on some fried chicken. No, I don't have anything important to write about. I'm tired - no Madi still isn't sleeping through the night.

Ugh

Well, we're not off to a good start with the carpeting. Apparently, the boss had a shredded tire on the way to work so the guys went out to help him. I think they were supposed to be here at 9 but it's almost 10 so.... I know they'll get the work done today because we're having the work done in two days so that we can manage moving all the furniture.

But anyway, auspicious start.

Here's a pic from our trip to the orchard on Friday. We had a good time and it was blissfully cool when we started out. :)

We're also moving forward with our garage plans. I think we're all excited about the thought of having more room in the house. I know, it's a garage but we'll be able to put the bikes in there instead of the house....

argh

So much going on. We're getting new carpets in a couple of weeks. Working with a contractor to have a garage built. I'm researching new windows to have installed. Plus I'm working on ironing out the details of our trip to Canada.

Too much??

We'll survive. It's made harder by Miss Madi-cakes not sleeping through the night still. Last night she wouldn't fall asleep until 1! ACK! And then woke me up just before 5. I let her work on falling asleep by herself. LOL I just didn't have the energy. I'm finding that a lot more lately - not having the energy. I looked at the dishes in the sink, last night, that I was going to have to move to wash a pot to cook and I thought, no way. Sigh.

Anyway, I have a taker for the crib so we'll be able to get some things out of the house before the carpets are done. THAT is causing me so much stress. After eleven years in some place, a lot of stuff accumulates. I'm trying to weed some of the garbage out but it's not easy. I feel like we're down to the minimum! So just thinking of moving everything out of the rooms.... We're going to do it in two stages: All the bedrooms, then the living room. That way we'll have the space to put all the furniture.

Anyway, I need to work on my to do list again! argh!

What we did today

Holy smokes it is hot out there. But I was jonesing for some pizza and the lemon curd cupcake sounded too good to pass up so out we went. Pedro ate Lily's piece of pizza. Who does that??? I only had one slice of chicken parm - which was good because I've already had 2 cupcakes. :) We went to the place that you like to go to g-pa.


Note to Lily: you don't have to grow up THAT fast. She's rocking some red velvet cupcake around her mouth. She was shocked when I told her and ran to a mirror to fix herself AND her lipgloss. Sigh.












Madi is still keeping me awake at night. Not for as long but she has trouble falling asleep on her own. I usually have to grab her and snuggle her so that she can fall asleep. She seems to sleep best between 6 and 9:30 and so I'm very glad that Pedro lets us sleep in now. :)

So

I was trying to think of a cool title and you can see that I failed. I try to post but it's been really hard here lately. I don't get a lot of sleep (still) and now that Madi is crawling, I have to keep after her. Boy, she is a pistol. I can't put her in her crib anymore because she cries (thinking of just taking it apart) and so we put her on the floor while we go about our business. She doesn't like being left behind so she yells and stomps down the hall after us. She's followed Pedro right into the shower. :)

Madi still wakes me up at night. She's used to falling asleep in her high chair or on me, so it's hard for her to fall asleep anywhere else. But I try very hard to keep up a bedtime routine so at least she knows what's coming once she's had a bath and a story. It took me two hours to get her to sleep the other night. Only one hour last night. It's hard, y'all. I don't have a lot of time for me and it's making me grouchy!

I know this time will pass but I'm quite sure that I won't be missing this in 20 years time. I feel lucky in that way. :) Oh and it was funny this week when I went to the gym. Madilyn had chased her daddy into the shower again and was crying away. I thought, I'm not going to make it 5 minutes at the gym. But she took a look at the toys and the kids and I was chopped liver. Which was in direct contrast to Lily who cried the first half dozen times that we went there. Sigh.

Anyhoo, it's already quite late on a Saturday morning and I need to get some things done. This is a pic that I took a few minutes ago of Madi. The mess around her mouth? Peanut butter. :) Her hair? A mess from butting me in the back all night. She is getting better about getting back to sleep on her own so small steps.... or head butts.