(Sometime between 6am-7:30am): Wake up with the kiddies (or should I say, get woken by the kiddies )

By 8:00am – kiddies and myself are dressed and we’re working on breakfast.  After breakfast, we play a bit (usually have a “dance party” to our favorite kiddie songs to burn off some early morning energy) and get Jolie ready for school – pottying, shoes/socks on, etc.

By 9:00am – Getting Jolie off to preschool.

By 10:00am – Back from preschool and Sam has been changed and is now napping.  This is Mama’s limited window of opportunity to do some cleaning.  Usually I tackle the kitchen first because it’s ALWAYS MESSY!!  Then, depending on the day, I do something else, like bathrooms or mopping the floors.  I also do laundry.  Everyday.  Otherwise the laundry gets way piled up.  But on days after a really bad night’s sleep and I’m exhausted, I try to also take a nap.

By 11:30am, Sam is up and we play or take the dogs for a walk if it’s nice outside.  Or go to the grocery store if it’s shopping day.  I eat lunch at some point, usually one-handed while I hold and/or nurse Sam.

By 1:30pm, we are back from whatever activity we’ve been doing and play some more.  I might try to sneak in an easy chore here while Sam “helps” (meaning, he sits next to me on the floor playing while I fold clothes or something and try to sing songs to him to keep him happy for a few moments).

By 2:30pm, Sam is changed again and I’m putting him down for another nap.  If I’m lucky, he naps for about an hour.  This is my other window to finish chores, and also to think of something to put together for dinner. 

4:00pm – Sam is up from his nap by now and has been fed.  We play again, check the mail, do whatever possible to get dinner as ready as possible so that I dont have to spend time prepping food when Jolie gets home.

5:00pm – LEave to pick up Jolie from preschool.

6:00pm – We are back from school by now and are sitting down to eat.

6:30pm – Sam, Jolie and mom are in the bath.  Sometime between 6:30-7pm, Daddy DJ arrives home.  Often, it is in the middle of our bath time.  DJ helps me scrub Jolie while I take care of Sam, who is likely getting fussy by now.

Now after this point, DJ takes Jolie and gets her ready for bed. She goes to bed between 8-9pm, exact time based on whether she took a nap or not.

Sam goes to bed between 7-8pm, depending on what time he woke up that morning and how long his naps were.  He hates getting ready for bed and screams… usually because he’s so dang tired by now.

If I’m lucky, I can nurse Sam down to sleep, put him in his swing (since he refuses to sleep in the crib) and he will sleep there for 30 minutes before waking up.

During that 30 minutes, I either take a shower, clean the kitchen,pack Jolie’s lunchbox for the next day, etc.  

When he wakes back up, I try my darndest to put him back to sleep by himself.  During the past couple of months, he has refused to do this.  The only way I’ve been able to get him to go back to sleep has been to put him in bed with me and nurse him to sleep.  And he nurses ALL… NIGHT… LONG… meaning Mama wakes up with a lovely full-body ache from having to contort my body to and fro all night to enable him to suckle.

2am.  Jolie joins Sam and me in the bed.  DJ is sleeping on the couch at this point, which I’m sure is just great for his chronic back pain.  Our couch is not the most comfy… 

6am-7:30am – Start over!.

This is why I have not been blogging – or doing much else that would classify as a hobby – lately. I’ve also been not really communicating with family members (sorry, everyone.  I hope the phone calls will resume soon!).  Promise I love you all and I am not purposefully ignoring you.   

DJ and I are working on getting Sam to sleep independently right now.  Sam’s poor sleep habits are really becoming… hmm, what’s the best way to say this while still sounding kind… it’s becoming old?  DJ and I rarely get alone time at all.  I rarely get to do anything non-kid or chore-related.  Yeah, it’s getting old.

So DJ and I are working to help Sam learn to self-soothe and sleep independently.  Please send us good vibes.  It would be so awesome to put Sam to sleep by himself at a decent time and have at least a couple of hours to myself to do something… fun.  Wow, what a concept!

On the bright side, our kids are happy (usually )and very healthy and we have had a very good week (not counting the poor sleeping issues).  DJ and I have been watching our diets and this has had a great impact on our ability to maintain positive attitudes.  Seeing the numbers on the scale move in a different direction (down, rather than up) for once is a great feeling.

We’re doing much better today, it seems.  Sam slept better last night – not great (still got up for a 2-hour midnight waking) but better, and he and I slept in until almost 9am while DJ cared for Jolie and took her to school. 

DJ is amazing.  He got horrible sleep last night, thanks to Jolie who woke him up multiple times in the night, yet he has such a great attitude today.  DJ is a special person.  A great dad, a great husband.  Sam, Jolie and I are lucky.

Sam’s hives are better.  I decided to make an oatmeal paste to rub directly on them.  That seems to be helping a lot and they are fading quickly now.  Hopefully whatever it is that triggered this reaction is also leaving his system and he will be 100% again soon.

I know he’s feeling better today – he took a 3.5 hour nap!  Without being held!  It was heaven – for him and for me.  I got to exercise, take a shower by myself, do a little cleaning, bake lots and lots of bunny and egg-shaped sugar cookies for Easter, and drink a lot of green tea.  It was wonderful.  I loved every minute of it… and had to check on Sam multiple times to ensure he was still breathing.  I was skeptical…

More good news – I signed up to attend a yoga retreat in October.  I could NOT BE MORE EXCITED!!!!!!!

And on top of all this, my good friend Whitney surprised me today with flowers and a mocha at my door step.  She knows I’ve been having a hard time here lately, and this was her way of cheering me up.  It totally worked.  Thank you, Whitney – you are a great friend and I love you!!!

Tonight, we’re headed out as a family for a little dinner and dancing at Crossroads shopping center.  Always a good time.

So yes, happy Good Friday to all!  And a happy Easter weekend.  May it be filled with lots of love, relaxation and chocolate eggs. 

But they make me question my sanity on nearly a daily basis.

They DEFINITELY make me question my abilities as a parent on a daily basis.  And my desire to parent an third child has completely gone out the door.  After Sam, I am through.  No more for me, please.  Thaaaaank yooooou.

To their defense, though, neither kid has been feeling totally great lately.  Jolie is battling a case of a mild ear infection and gets up screaming for her daddy almost every night (more so because of her need for a sleeping buddy than anything, though).  I tried to break her of this the other night (so that DJ could get some sleep) but it only resulted in her being awake from 1:00-6:30am, playing in her room by herself for half of that time because I was so exhausted from trying to get her back to sleep by herself (unsuccessfully). 

Sam is allergic to something.  I’m not sure what.  My hypothesis is that it was the pesto sauce I ate the other day that contained pine nuts.  I’ve not eaten pine nuts in years.  It’s the only new thing I’ve eaten lately, and I believe the pine nut proteins may have gotten to him through my breast milk.  It’s the only thing I can think of.

He’s currently broken out in hives all over his body.  I’m keeping him comfortable with Benedryl and oatmeal baths, along with Tylenol and garlic ear drops for the mild ear infection that he also has.  Combine these with teething (he’s gone a front tooth that is trying its best to cut through) and you’ve got a very cranky, needy child who wont sleep.  He wakes around 6:30-7:00am every day and doesn’t go to bed until 10pm.  He requires that I hold him pretty much all day.  And he all night (assuming he sleeps).  He’s forced DJ out of our bed and poor DJ has been sleeping on the couch now for weeks.  It’s exhausting.

DJ and I are both exhausted.

By the end of the day, I am mentally drained and ready to throw in the towel. 

On the nights that Sam doesn’t sleep, I dont sleep, and it takes great quantities of caffeine to keep me sane the next day. 

And I won’t even go into the details of trying to reason with and discipline a toddler while ensuring that she still respects me at the end of the day.  That in itself is absolutely…. ugh, I can’t even think of a word to describe it right now.  It’ll just drive you crazy sometimes.  Crazy, crazy, CRAZY!

But so far, I’m sane today.  So that’s good. :-)

And I love my kids.  I just don’t love parenthood at times.

I am bringing my blogging dry spell to an end by posting about our week of Jolie-inspired celebrations.  We kicked it off with cupcakes at her preschool on St. Patrick’s Day – the day before her birthday.  She was thrilled!

When we got home, we noticed that a little leprechaun had paid us a visit.  He turned the potty water green and sprinkled gold coins on the floor for Jolie to find.  Jolie wondered why he came to use our potty.  I told her it must have been because he was so excited that she is a big girl and goes potty in the toilet all the time now.  She also wondered why his pee was green.  I wasn’t sure what to tell her on that one.

(Side note – here are some festive shamrock cookies that I intended to send to my grandparents, but the little shamrock stems were so thin that they broke off.  I didn’t want to send broken cookies to you, Mimi and Papa, so maybe you will get Easter cookies in a week or two instead! :-) )

We had a big party for Jolie over the weekend.  Lots of her little friends attended and she had a BALL.  She absolutely loved it.  She felt just like a princess all day long!  Can you guess what the theme of her party was supposed to be?

Here we are, ready to load up the car and head over to the community center where we hosted the party. 

You can see all 100+ photos of Jolie’s birthday week/weekend by clicking HERE.

Happy birthday, Jolie!  We love you!

Happy 6 months, Sam!  I love you!

A few photos and videos of my little man, who is in full teething mode and drooling like crazy.  We go through multiple bibs a day because of all the drool. 

He has recently discovered the joy of toys and is beginning to enjoy playing… with SOME of them (although not his exersaucer… see videos below).  He does like to knock over his stack of plastic baby blocks a lot. 

He also loves seeing his sister act silly.  He just laughs and laughs at her.  And Jolie likes knowing that he thinks she’s funny.  It gives her another reason to ham it up (as if she needed another reason… she is naturally a diva, I think).

Wardrobe change!

Chill-axin’ on Mama’s bed.

And his not-so-favorite toy – the exersaucer (Jolie’s favorite toy at this age).

Exersaucer attempt #1:

Aaaand exersaucer attempt #2:

I think we’ll give it a few more days before trying that darn old exersaucer again.

I let Jolie watch too much TV this morning while I rocked Sam in the chair for his morning nap.

Convinced Jolie to go with Sam and me to Seattle.  After much protesting, she gave in. 

As if she had a choice.

Drove to Seattle.  Nice day.  GPS took us what seemed the long way.  Took us 45 minutes to get there.  Odd.

Destination: a cookie cutter store in Ballard.  I was super excited to get there.

Parking was not easy.  Younger child got upset about being in carseat for too long and started crying.  Older child started yelling for younger child to be quiet.  Mommy was getting anxiety.  And annoyed about not finding easy parking.

Finally got lucky and found a parking spot right in front of cookie store.  Anxiety began to ebb.

Paid $2 for one hour of parking.  That was okay.  Stuck the parking sticker on the inside of my passenger window.  Went into store.

Cookie store was blah.

Extremely small and cluttered (and not in a good way, cluttered.  Very slim pickings on the cookie cutters, and way overpriced.  And random junk scattered all over the counter.  Yucky.)

Still managed to purchase three cookie cutters.  Jolie got a strawberry shaped one.  I got a plain square and a cute snowman one. 

Probably wont use the snowman until next winter.  That’s okay.

Asked Cookie store lady for a recommendation for a good place to eat lunch that’s within walking distance.

She recommended Vera’s around the corner.

We went to Vera’s.

Jolie got a grilled cheese and oranges.  I got a bowl of minestrone soup. 

It was wonderful minestrone – some of the best I’ve had.

Jolie’s grilled cheese was good, too.  Very cheesy.

I got out my credit card to pay for lunch.

They don’t take credit cards at Vera’s.

Asked where the nearest ATM was located.  Wells Fargo was down the street two blocks.

Walked two blocks.  No Wells Fargo.  But there was a Bank of America across the street.

Crossed to the Bank of America ATM.  Got out $20.  Had to pay a $3 fee for using Bank of America’s ATM since I’m not a B of A customer. 

What a rip off.

Left ATM.  Noticed the Wells Fargo just a few dozen yards away. 

Oh well.  So much for 3 bucks.

Walked back to Vera’s to pay for lunch.  Spotted my car on the way. 

There was a white piece of paper stuck underneath my windshield wiper.  CRAP.

Had it already been an hour?  No way.

Paid for lunch at Vera’s.  Told cashier I think I got a parking ticket.  He said yeah, the parking police are vicious these days.  In need of extra funds for the city.

Great.

Returned to car. 

Jolie climbed into back seat, up into front seat, refused to listen to me and get back in her seat.  I had to try very hard to exhibit patience at this point.

Sam was screaming.  Very tired.

Jolie said she wanted a cookie.  Started crying for a cookie.

I wanted a stiff drink at this point.

Finally got both kids buckled in.  Both calmed down suddenly.  Weird.

Looked at my parking ticket. 

Written in the comments section: “No valid proof of payment receipt displayed”

Um, excuse me?

Looked at sticker on my window.

Oops.  Put sticker on my window incorrectly.

Stupid me.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Debated calling City of Ballard right then and there to beg for mercy (or else be out $40).  Heard kids begin to complain.  Decided to call later.

Began driving.

Decided I needed some sugar.

Decided to hit up Trophy Cupcakes in Wallingford about 3 miles away.

Went to Trophy.  Felt much happier walking through the door.

Jolie was DEFINITELY much happier.

Got a cupcake.

Jolie got a Pineapple Upside Down cupcake (all because it had a cherry on top) – caramelized pineapple bottom, pineapple cake, brown sugar buttercream frosting, cherry.

I got a Chocolate Raspberry cupcake (chocolate cake, dark chocolate ganache topping, raspberry buttercream filling).

Jolie only ate half her cupcake, meaning I got 1 1/2 cupakes today. 

Good, because I didn’t care for my chocolate one.  Not enough raspberry filling.  Would have preferred regular buttercream frosting to the ganache.

Let Jolie play in the nearby toy store while Sam puked on me multiple times during.  That was okay.

Left toy store. Wanted another cupcake but resisted.  Headed to car.

Told Jolie I was not going to tolerate the little attitude she began giving me. She was getting tired.

Sam screamed half way home.  He was tired.

Got home.

Put Sam to sleep.

Made some sugar cookie dough with Jolie.

Got email from gal on my old team at Microsoft offering me a part-time gig back on the team.  Interesting, flattering, very tempting (but not really possible right now).

Currently am listening to Jolie in the kitchen trying to sneak the dough out of the refrigerator.  She is attempting to roll it out, but it’s too stiff for her.  I wonder how much of it she’s eaten already.

The end.