Natural Disaster Week

It's been quite a week around here.

On Tuesday, we got up and got ready to make the drive to Trader Joe's--however, the weather was absolutely gorgeous so we decided to go to the pool instead. CJ cooperated by being adorable for about a half hour, and then falling asleep. Ava and I had a great time in the pool and then I got out for a little while while she continued to splash around. As I was sitting there, somebody came up to my chair and started shaking it...at least, that's what it felt like. Then the fence around the pool started rattling. I was confused for a minute and thought maybe the ground was shaking because of the construction a few doors down but that didn't seem right. Then I thought maybe it was an earthquake, but...really? In North Carolina? (A few years ago I felt a small earthquake in IL, otherwise it never would have crossed my mind) So, I went to the most reliable source I could think of....FACEBOOK. ;o) Sure enough, people from NC up to NY were posting about the earthquake. On a good note, aside from some structural damage to buildings close to the epicenter (VA outside of DC), nothing really happened except people in California could be heard laughing at all of us here on the east coast. ;o)

Today, hurricane Irene hit us, but as far inland as we are it just resulted in a rainy, windy day and no damage. It was actually pretty nice, all cozy in the house with my family. Ava was surprisingly good, considering she was trapped inside all day--she's been on a Land Before Time kick and all of the movies (twelve, I think?) are on Netflix streaming, so she watched a few of those, we colored pictures and painted our toenails, and she played dolls in her room with Craig. CJ was mellow, and we had plenty of snacks and comfort foods to keep us happy as well. The kids went to bed tonight without too much drama, and now Craig and I are enjoying a movie (and in case it seems rude for me to blog while we're hanging out, he's playing games on his iPad. ;o) 

 

Speaking of Ava, we're really working hard to keep things as structured as possible for her, especially at bedtime. I have no idea how things got so out of hand, but before I knew it, she wasn't going to bed (wanted to fall asleep in our room) and wasn't staying in bed (wanted to get in our bed). Things aren't a hundred percent under control but we're moving in the right direction: right now I consider it a success as long as she's falling asleep in her own bed and if she gets up, we can talk her back into her bed, even if it means one of us has to sleep in there with her for a bit. I've also given her a Princess flashlight to entice her to stay in bed and it hasn't worked any miracles, but has definitely helped. I have to sneak in after she's asleep to turn it off, but hey, whatever works! She has said some pretty hilarious things this week, too....

1.) Tonight she was goofing off and wouldn't settle down and obey at bedtime, so I had to threaten her:

Me: "Ava, you are not making good choices. If you don't settle down, I'm going to have to spank you."

Ava: "But, MOMMY...I am your CHILDREN!" 

2.) Last night I gave her a picture of Craig and I (from back when we first started dating ten years ago!) in lieu of us sitting in there with her:

Me: "Here, I have a picture of Mommy and Daddy for you...that way when we aren't in the room, you still have us with you."

Ava: "Thank you so much! Oh, you guys look CUTE! Daddy has nice teeth, and you have nice teeth! They're big!"

3.) She keeps taking CJ's things--toys, blankets, pacifiers--and insisting they're for her daughter. Ha.

I'll end with a few pictures I took this week...

Ariel is receiving an oatmeal body treatment courtesy of Ava. She loves playing with her food...she stages elaborate dramas with carrots, cucumbers, bread crusts, etc. Her imagination is really something to behold...

 Playing on her swingset...I usually end up in there as well. Last time, we were being attacked by Darth Vader but managed to fend him off by throwing burning sticks at him and setting him on fire.

 CJ watches from the sidelines, clearly amused.

 CJ is very attached to me...as long as I'm in sight, he's very happy. In this picture he was chilling on his Boppy lounger while I folded laundry. His attachment to me is both flattering and frustrating. I can't be annoyed though, I am crazy about this kid!

 FINALLY taking bottles with ease! Yeah!

 I'm not really sure why, but we never bought one of these Bumbo seats for Ava. I regretted that last week when I realized how convenient it would be for CJ to be able to sit and hang out with me, but didn't want to spend $40+ on it when he's our last baby and we'd only use it for a few months. This one is a loaner from a friend...thanks, Mary! :)

 Ava trying to make her brother laugh. This is why, even though she's at the peak of her terrible 3's, I'm still crazy about her.

 My beautiful little girl, who is still a carbon copy of her father.

Helping Daddy mow the lawn--she LOVES when he drives her around the yard on the riding mower.

Clever Girl...

Warning: don't watch this video clip if you've never seen Jurassic Park and/or it bothers you to see someone being eaten by a dinosaur. 

What on earth was the point of that, you ask? Calm down, I'll explain. ;o) So, as everyone residing on planet Earth knows by now, Ava is very strong-willed, and very smart...which is actually kind of a scary combination in a 3-year-old. She has figured out that she would rather do as she pleases than receive any kind of reward, treat, sticker, etc. In many cases, punishment won't work either or we are limited in our options (I cannot let her have an all-out crazy tantrum at 3am, for example, because we have a baby to think about and I may be good, but I'm not wrangle-a-screaming-baby-and-a-tantrumming-preschooler-in-the-middle-of-the-night good). Over the past few months of dealing with her, I've come to realize it's much like the video clip above: I may think I've got everything under control, that I'm handling a situation and I've got her right where I want her, but the next thing I realize, she's been handling me the whole time. As frustrating as this is, I can't help but think, "Clever girl!" I talked to Craig a little while ago and am begging him to back me up in adhering to a strict schedule with her. Hopefully this will eventually stamp out any notion she has that the bedtime routine and where she sleeps at night are negotiable. As much as I miss work now more than ever, I'm very grateful for not having to worry about a job on top of everything else.

Strangely enough, CJ is the only one in the house who currently sleeps like a pro: he's inconsistent, but on his "bad" nights, he'll wake up to eat after six hours (but then go right back down again for a few more hours). On his best nights--two this week--he has slept straight through from 10pm-8am!!!! It's AWESOME. If I could only get my firstborn to sleep, I'd be in a great place right now! He is such a sweetie too...he smiles and laughs a LOT, and I love acting like an idiot just to make him do it. :) He's also begun taking bottles from Craig, woohoo! I'm not planning on switching to bottles anytime soon (going to start slowly transitioning when he starts eating food) but it's good to know he will now take bottles, and not only from me.

The in-laws visited last weekend and we had a great time! Ava loves her grandparents and was mostly good for them, she kept the ornery behavior to a minimum and was pretty loving most of the time. Good heaven, that girl could have everyone wrapped around her finger if she was always as sweet as I know she can be...maybe the tantrums are a necessary evil to keep us from spoiling her. ;o)

That's about it for now, I am not doing pictures in this post as I'm going to bed. Wish me luck!

Sandling Beach

I was up about 5:30 or so to feed CJ and he decided to stay up for a bit: he was having a bit of a tummy ache I think, he seems to be better now so I'm just waiting for him to get tired enough for me to put him back down. Didn't get much sleep last night...Ava got up at 2:30 (only once, so that's an improvement!) but I'm so stressed out that I didn't get back to sleep again until after 4am. If you are on my facebook page (likely that's how you arrived here in the first place), you know she's dealing with a lot--we all are trying to adjust right now--and is a mess right now, so I won't repeat all of that.

ANYHOW...I decided this was a good time to do a fairly quick blog post. A few days ago, my mom, Ava, CJ, and I headed over to a nearby lake for some swimming and a picnic, since it wasn't going to be ridiculously hot out. It was great! We all enjoyed the fresh air, Ava made friends with a little boy and they had fun playing together (no photos, I didn't want to look like some kind of creeper taking pictures of a kid I didn't know), my mom and I took turns hanging out with Ava or watching CJ. I was able to feed him twice in the car, so we didn't have to work around his feeding schedule. Hoping we can go again one of these days!

 On the beach with Ava and CJ. Yes, I'm white. Very, very white. 

 Mimi and CJ

Playing in the sand

Enjoying a picnic lunch in the shade

 View of the beach from the shady area where I sat with CJ while Ava and my mom played in the lake

 CJ enjoyed resting in the shade...I got to read about 1/3 of a magazine while he slept. ;o)

Mimi and the grandkids

***On another note, the camera is finally fixed! Hopefully after today I'll have higher quality photos to post, although shots from my phone will still appear when I'm feeling lazy. :)

Reunion, and Bedtime at Our House

Okay, I had to wait to post this until one of the subjects of the post put up her photos, which I've stolen since we still do not have a functioning camera, aside from the one on my iPhone 3, and that one is kind of pathetic. ANYHOW...on Saturday, I took the kiddos and headed over to Christina's house to hang out for a few hours with her and Emily, a friend/former coworker who moved out of state a few years ago. At the time of that move, Christina (who is the friend/former coworker who was also Ava's babysitter extraordinaire for a year and a half) only had one child, Emily and I had none...now we have six between the three of us! Anyhow, Emily was in town for a few days so we did a little former FA employee reunion and chatted while the kids played. It was so nice to catch up...we met Emily's sweet Sophia and I met Christina's baby girl, Anna, who is ten days younger than CJ. Ava had a BLAST with Will and Adeline, who are like siblings to her--she also enjoyed entertaining Sophia. It was a great morning and I wish we all lived closer to one another!

 Former FA Girls! Emily, Christina (with Sophia), Melissa

My sweet little boy

 

Ava and Will entertaining Sophia

Ava playing with Will and Adeline...she loves them and talks about them frequently even though we don't get to see them much.

 Adeline playing with Sophia

Bedtime at Our House

Ava can be very difficult at bedtime...for awhile, we had major issues with her where we had to sit in her room until she fell asleep, and then at some point during the night she'd end up in our room anyhow (we made her sleep on the love seat in the sitting area, but it was still not cool). I managed to work with her and FINALLY get her to fall asleep on her own and mostly stay in her room, although she has frequent nightmares and will cry out and occasionally still come to our room. More recently she's taken to getting up and running around after I've put her to bed. Sometimes she goes right back down, sometimes it requires a spanking or at least the threat of one. Tonight, I was feeding CJ when she decided to get up...Mom was hanging out in my bedroom and had already confronted her once (Ava said she thought she saw a ghost and heard a strange noise, and was searching for "clues." What a character...!) so we decided to ignore her. We heard her for awhile, saw her peek in once, and then silence. When I went to put CJ in his crib awhile later, this is what I saw upon exiting my room:

Kid was PASSED OUT in the hallway, even with the hallway lights blazing. She didn't even wake up when I carried her to bed! Wondering if maybe ignoring her is the way to go from now on, maybe this is just a passing phase...aren't they all?

Aaaaaaand on that note, guess who just showed up at my bedroom door. Good grief. I better go....

This and That

It's been a week since I posted, and it's been busy: Mike and his girlfriend were here until yesterday, when they headed back to FL at 6am. My mom arrived last Thursday and will be here until Friday. Craig has been in and out, as is normal. Anyhow, it's been great seeing family and having the extra company! Mom and I scrubbed down the house yesterday (okay, it was 98% my mom, about 2% me...but I did wrangle the spawn) and because it was too hot out, we spent the afternoon watching a movie and having popcorn with Ava while CJ napped. Today, she'll take Ava to the pool while I do a Target run (my first with only one child in three months!) and then this afternoon, Ava and I get haircuts. Nothing terribly exciting. Speaking of Ava...we finally got her into a preschool! Not only that, but this specific program is an answer to EVERY preschool-related prayer I'd been praying: close to home, priced in the middle compared to other preschools, three days a week, and an option to pay extra for something called "Lunch Bunch," where the kids get to stay an extra hour for lunch and playing on the playground. I would LOVE to do that just once a week to give Ava extra social time and myself extra sanity time. ;o) School starts September 7th and I'm not sure who's more excited, Ava or me!

This week's Ava-isms:

 Mike and Ava, playing with water balloons on the swingset. Ava told me that they were throwing them at Darth Vader.

*Ava has been really into telling me secrets. This consists of whispering into my ear things that are not actually secrets, and some of what sounds like gibberish. Yesterday her secret was: "Mommy. I'm going to school, but you can't go to school naked. You have to wear clothes."

*Me: "Ava, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
 Ava: "Touching your boob."
 Me: "Well, we don't do that. It's rude."
 Ava: (pauses to consider what it means to be rude and how she can be polite) "May I please touch your boob?"

(Before you think my kid is a pervert, please note that to a 3-year-old, there are no "private" body parts, even though I'm working on this with her. She might as well be showing interest in my elbow.)

*Ava still gets upset when we have houseguests: with a new brother and all of the comings and goings around here, she desperately wants it to just go back to Mommy, Daddy, and her. (Or better yet, just Daddy and her, probably because I'm the disciplinarian. She still tells me to go back to the hospital.) Yesterday she was having epic meltdowns all morning and said to my mom: "GO HOME! GO HOME TO YOUR FAMILY!" It was kind of funny, kind of sad. Poor kid.

CJ at 11 weeks:

 My mom and CJ

*Although my baby boy seems to be a lot more smiley and mellow than his sister, he's definitely not as interested in consistency and routine as she was as an infant: although he does seem to adhere pretty well to our nighttime bath/feeding/bed routine and pretty consistently takes a good late afternoon nap, he likes to change things up quite a bit: I can never tell what time he'll wake up for a night (or early morning) feeding: yesterday it was 5am, today it was 3:15am, the day before yesterday it was 6:30am.  He has also decided to switch his allegiance from those Avent "Soothie" pacifiers they give out at the hospital (after I bought two more packs) to the Nuk ones I bought for Ava that she never used. Not a big deal, but when I tried those with him before he refused them. Mom popped one into his mouth the other day and he thinks it's the best thing invented since the boob. Speaking of which, remember how I got him to take a bottle, no problem (three times)? Yeah, Craig and I left him with my mom on Saturday so we could catch a matinee of the final Harry Potter movie (AWESOME, by the way) and get dinner...left him with a bottle full of milk, not a drop of formula....and he refused to take it. Screamed bloody murder until I got home and nursed him. At least this date was close to home, as we were able to come home from the movie, feed him, and then go back out to dinner. I guess I'm going to have to bottle train this kid or not have a life for the foreseeable future. (Oh wait, I don't have one! So we're good.)

 

The rejected Soothie pacifiers

 

CJ's new best friend: the Nuk

In non-offspring related news, I made EPIC Sweet Potato Chili Cakes with Cilantro Lime Sour Cream:

Recipe can be found here. Thanks, Paula Deen! (Please note: if you make these, the liquid in the recipe is too much. You can either add less of the egg/milk mixture or add some Panko bread crumbs to help absorption, or a little of both. I personally like the texture when some Panko is added.)

Clarification

Upon re-reading yesterday's post, I realize it makes it sound like Craig and I are having problems...that's not the case. It's just that he doesn't understand my stress and frustration from caring for a baby and a crazy 3-year-old by myself 24/7 (and keeping up with cooking and cleaning), and I don't understand his from living out of a suitcase and being away from home constantly, and trying to do schoolwork on top of that. It's easy to idealize what the other person has because we each feel like we're doing the more difficult task. But the important thing is that we realize those feelings are normal, that this amount of stress is temporary, and we're taking it on to make things better in the long run. He's still my best friend and partner in crime, and I'm glad we're in this together. :)

(Having said all of that, I hope he remembers that I'm stressed and sleep-deprived when he walks into the garage today and sees that I accidentally knocked the side view mirror off of the car while he was away...in my defense, it's hard to back out of the garage when there is no room and you have two kids melting down in the back seat...;-)

Kicking and Screaming

 CJ is 72 days old today!

The title of today's post does not refer to one of my children (although both of them do plenty of it), but rather how I feel like I'm getting through life right now. By now, anyone reading this is probably aware of my difficulties with Ava (thank God for Mike and Gio and all of the attention they're giving her this week!)...we've figured out she's mostly bad when Craig is around, probably because when he's home it throws off her routine and she is very emotional regarding his coming and going. Although she does require some mommy attention (mostly for her bedtime routine), she's been happy to let my brother and his girlfriend spoil her. CJ is a good baby, but he's still a baby and I forgot that with them, if it's not one thing it's another: we survived the peak of fussiness (3-6 weeks), and then he started teething. I'm pretty sure I can feel one tooth on the verge of poking through, aaaaaaand now he appears to have hit a growth spurt. (Not sleeping as long at night, naps aren't as good, fusses and tires easily, eats a lot more.) He's passed out on my bed right now and that has given me time to straighten up the house, make lunch, and start this post...we'll see if I get to finish it or not... ;o) Ava is at a nearby lake with Mike and Gio, I wanted to go but it's just hot and humid enough to make it too uncomfortable for the baby. Disappointed but enjoying the quiet and calm around here for as long as it will last!

 Poor CJ! We see this face a lot these days.

Anyhow, I feel like I've finally hit some sort of stride around here but many days I also feel like I struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by feelings of despondency. When I don't have guests and Craig isn't around (which is most of the time), it's very lonely and can be overwhelming. I miss my job, I miss my friends, I miss having a shred of sanity and simple things like washing my face before noon or eating food that isn't stone cold. I feel inadequate for not having a job outside the home, and then I feel guilty for feeling that being a full-time mom is not something of which to be proud. Sometimes I feel like an extension of Craig rather than my own person...does that make sense? It bothers me that on our tax forms I will be listed as a "dependent"....can't they list me as a "wife who had a good job that she was good at but is taking a few years off to take care of the kids and the household because her husband works all the time and is going back to school"? I mean, is that so much to ask? ;o) In addition to being good for our family, this staying home thing is a lesson in humility and keeping one's pride in check.

I don't want to sound like I'm complaining, rather, I'm just laying everything out. I know there are so many mothers who's struggles are a hundred times greater than mine: real single moms (as opposed to my part-time single mom-ness), military families, etc. It's not easy but I DO realize that we are--that I am--incredibly, undeservedly, blessed. Not a day goes by without me falling a little more in love with my sweet CJ. Even on Ava's worst days, when I'm tucking her into bed I just want to hold my crazy little firecracker of a daughter (she comes by it honest) and stop her from growing up. And even though Craig and I don't seem to understand each other much right now because we're both dealing with stressful but completely different situations, we both agree that: 1.) that's okay, and 2.) we'll get through it, and most of all 3.) we love each other and have a good thing going.

(Note: I realize the picture quality is poor these days: our camera is broken (Craig is supposed to be sending it to Sony for repair, not sure if it's actually happening or not) so I've been taking pictures on my iPhone 3. Sorry!)