Friday Night Leftovers

• It’s the last Friday of 2012 – can someone tell me how in the hell that is possible? The year, especially since June, has FLOWN past me.
• I realize that we are probably busier than the average family – and I’m sure that has something to do with the way time seems to fly by at warp-speed. But still, I just want a day to breathe!
• Christmas is over, and judging by the ridiculous amount of stuff all over the living room – I’d say we all had a pretty great holiday.  We had the in-laws over for dinner Christmas eve (which was a nice change) and spent Christmas morning at home and the rest of the day with my awesomely growing family.  It was pretty perfect, actually.
• I’ll post pictures from the holidays someday. Maybe. I hope.
• We got some storage items today to try and contain the insane amount of teeny tiny Barbie/my little pony/random itty bitty toys Gianna got for Christmas.  I can only hope this works because she really gets upset when she can’t find that one shoe for that one doll… And you know, it will help to keep those little parts our of the hands of little people.
• Mike and I are going on a date tomorrow. A real life date.  I can’t tell you the last time this happened (seriously, maybe my birthday? in MAY! or mike’s birthday in September?) or the next time it will be able to happen.  Very excited about it.
• Today was the only day all week that I worked in the office the entire day. Next week is going to be similar.  The only perk to being a salaried employee during the holidays, perhaps.  If you don’t count the fact that I have work to do this weekend…. but whatever, I guess.
• It is blowing my mind that in just weeks my little family of three will be officially expanded to a family of four.  I really can’t believe this is happening so soon!
• More on my thoughts and updates on this pregnancy soon. I promise.  I need to document these things before I forget them.
• I am in planning mode now for my sister’s wedding shower.  It’s going to be really fun but I need to get things pretty much settled sooner than later since, you know, baby!
• I have a million things going on this weekend, and a million other things I hope to accomplish. Which means I should try and sleep first….

A letter to my {oldest} daughter: have yourself a very merry christmas

 

Dear Gianna:

The age of 3.5 is pretty tough some days – so many rules to follow, so much to remember, so many things you just don’t quite understand yet.  But I think most days you would agree that the age of 3.5 is pretty awesome – so many fun things to do, toys to play with, people who love on you constantly and best of all – so much that you DO understand and so much you find amazing and just totally awesome.  That has not been more present (except maybe at Disney World!) than the past few weeks as you ask so many great questions about Christmas. And sing us lots of Christmas songs. And cart Krista your elf around with you wherever you go.

I know sometimes I am busy and tired and I am at work a lot, the past few weeks have been no exception to that. But I hope beyond anything else that you know how much I love you always and how much I miss you when I am not home.  So when you ask me to cuddle with you at bedtime and to just snuggle with you until the morning-time, know that I will do whatever I can to make that happen.  No matter how old you are or how big you get.  There is nothing like a Gianna snuggle to make my heart burst into a million smiles.

We have been getting some extra snuggles in lately, probably because we both know that your sister will be here sooner than later, but I’m not complaining.  It’s not always easy to get in the perfect position, but we figure it out.  There is always room on mommy’s lap for you, I promise.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  I don’t know how it got here so quickly, but it did.  And you are really excited for Santa to come.  Something we have been talking about lately is how to act all year long, not just at Christmas time, and how important it is to always listen to your mommy and daddy.  I know you get it and it’s okay to have days where you just don’t feel like it or days when you just want to stay home – and on those days, please just use your words to tell us what you want and how you feel.

This is our last Christmas as a family of 3 – which I think is pretty special and we have tried to make all the days leading up until now a little extra special for you too.  I hear that you are going to be getting all kinds of fun things from your grandma, papa, aunts, uncles and maybe even baby luci too!  Watching you experience Christmas and all the magic and wonder it has to offer has made it that much more fun for me (and daddy too).

My wish for you over the next few days is to just enjoy what the day brings. To enjoy being showered with love (and fun things, too) and to soak up all of the moments of all of the days and things that we do.  It’ll probably be a little overwhelming, and that’s okay too.  It’s tough to be loved so much sometimes – but believe me, it’s the best problem to have.

I love you and can’t wait to watch the next few days through those big blue eyes.

Merry Christmas, big girl

xoxo

Mommy

Wordless Wednesday

Gianna, the social butterfly.

Sleepover with her besties last month:

Hot chocolate party courtesy of her bestie’s mommy two weeks ago:

Threenager Problems #’s 1293 & 2917

I totally have enough material to make this two separate posts, but I have time to write now so one it is, but I’ll break it up.

Threenager Problem #1293 – disappearing listening ears:

Apparently at the age of 3.5, threenagers have outgrown the need to listen to their parents. Or, more obviously, they have matured to the point where they know their parents are full of shit and they don’t need to pay attention anymore. 

We have had the most ridiculous time lately getting Gianna to listen, or rather, reminding Gianna that she does have 2 working ears and is not at all hard of hearing.  It’s been ten kinds of awesome everyday around here.  We have problems with her listening to us about what to wear. And what to eat.  And about when we are doing what. And picking up. And washing her hands after she goes to the bathroom. Then there’s bedtime but we’ll get there… 

Yes – I do realize she is 3.5, so don’t get me wrong – my expectations of her hoover between “don’t hold your breath” and closer to “I’m sure she knows better”.  But she really does know what is expected of her (wash your hands!) and when things are expected of her(pick up your toys before bed).  We know that the more tired she is, the lower we need to set the bar as far as our expectations go, but it doesn’t make it any easier. Or less frustrating.

I am sort of at a loss in this department because not much seems to work as far as consequences/discipline.  lately counting to 3 has resulted in screaming from Gianna that she’s scared of counting; she will willingly assist us in putting her toys in a trash bag when she won’t pick up; she talks over us when we discipline her; the spew of attitude that comes out of her mouth some days is comical, but frustrating as hell.  I didn’t realize the amount of willpower this girl had and the sheer volume of angsty phrases a three year old could muster regularly. 

Mostly, I don’t know how to stand firm and strong and united as a parent all of the time.  How do you not break down and just give in sometimes?  When is it worth it to argue against the threenager and when is it ok to just go with the flow?  It’s such a delicate line to walk, and I know that.  I also know that I am largely pregnant and tired and hormonal which does not help my ability to manage the threenage’s decrease in listening skills at the moment.

Threenager Problem #2917 – nightmare at bedtime:

Which brings us to our next problem. The problem that zaps my energy like nothing else at the end of the day.  Because, in case you didn’t know – at 3 years and 8 months old – you don’t need sleep and are generally just never sleepy.  You are also very obviously well versed and have fine-tuned your ability to stall actually sitting still enough to succumb to the sleep you so desperately need.

When Gianna was a baby we had to put her to bed REALLY early so she would sleep before getting overtired.  She’s always gone to bed pretty early (7/7:30) and lately we have been putting her to bed between 8/8:30.  It worked for a few months without an issue. But lately, as in the past few weekish, it has not been working at all.  In fact – it has been downright awful.

Nothing in our routine has changed.  She just boycotts bedtime at all cost and at the expense of our sanity and ability to remain rational human beings.  Nothing is quite as frustrating at the end of a long day than an even longer, drawn out, painful bedtime.  maybe we need to bump bedtime back up again to 7/7:30 – to avoid the overtired insanity that ensues otherwise.  Again, it can be quite hilarious – the things she comes up with to NOT sleep are very creative – but also frustrating as hell.

I’m sure this is just a phase.  But it’s totally a phase that I need to squash before this baby comes.  Or try to manage better, at the very least.  I am not a yeller, generally speaking, but OHMYGAH I can’t take it some nights because seriously – go the hell to sleep!

We are family

I know I talk about my family a lot – but they deserve a special shout out this week (more than usual) for two reasons.

Reason #1:

My (twin) sister has been so incredibly helpful for my whole life. But the past few weeks she has been extra helpful and using the last of her maternity leave to help us out a ton.  She helped us out a few weeks ago when we needed a stand-in for our preschool parent-helper day (I had to work, mike had the flu) and served as the room aunt.  I think she probably had more fun than Gianna, but it was a HUGE help to us.

And then this past week – she spent the night at our house on Wednesday so she could take Gianna to school (mike had to work, I couldn’t be late for work to take her) which is awesome enough.  But THEN she came back to our house and spent most of the day doing laundry, putting away laundry, and helping get baby girl’s room  closer to being ready.  She cleaned Gianna’s room and her playroom too.  And while it wasn’t how I would do it (because, well, I am super anal about everything) it was done and it was so wonderful to have her help because we have been so busy lately to be able to do much of anything.

She really is the best ever and I am so thankful for her all the time – but especially this week!

Reason #2:

This week was my mom’s 50th birthday! Me, my sisters, and stepdad have been planning a surprise party for her since August and it was this weekend.

And she was SO SURPRISED! Everything was perfect and it wouldn’t have been without everyone’s help and wonderful secret-keeping-abilities!

 

My mom is the best mom in the whole world (I’m probably biased!) – she is always doing everything for everyone and we really wanted to make this day special for her.  There were 40-50 people there to celebrate her awesome-ness and it was perfect.

I love my family to pieces every day, but this week/end was another awesome showing of the love that we all have for each other and the crazy, endless love I have for all of them.

Medical Drama Tuesdays

It’s apparently a new thing around our house.

You see, last Tuesday I got a call from Gianna’s preschool (which I missed. twice. because I was in a very long auditing meeting) saying “don’t worry, but we think she needs stitches”. And I instantly burst into tears – because my baby was just SITTING there crying in the office waiting for her mommy to come and get her. And mommy was at work.  So, we got to her about 40 minutes later and once I saw her – I knew that yes, she did need stitches.

She is quite graceful, my little girl.  Turns out she tripped over another kids foot and hit her eyebrow the wrong way on the table.

So we did the whole ER thing.

(because our Children’s urgent care doesn’t open until 4pm. clearly nothing urgent happens to kids before then.)

((and I got pulled over on the way to the ER. so that was fun.  bleeding children do get you out of tickets though, FYI))

(((Also, I had no band aids or other first aid necessities so I just let her little face bleed all over the waiting room until it was our turn. I did wipe the blood off every once in awhile, I’m not an animal after all.)))

It wasn’t so bad – she took the stitches like a champ and got a purple popsicle that matched her outfit to show for it.  Her stitches are dissolvable, which THANK GOODNESS we don’t have to go through the trauma of having them removed – because removing the band aid off her face was traumatic enough.

Yesterday, Gianna had a dentist appointment. And it turns out we are not so awesome at brushing her teeth and she is also an awesome apple juice guzzler so she has to go back a week from today to have 2 cavities filled.  And I won’t be there to hold her hand because, you know, work.  But daddy will be there and I am sure she will rock that experience out as well.

Which brings us to this Tuesday's medical drama.  Clearly baby sister was feeling a little left out, after all with her pretty medically uneventful gestation process she hasn’t really stirred up any issues like her big sister.  Until today.  I had some spotting over the weekend, but nothing crazy and I really didn’t think anything of it until I noticed some light bleeding/heavier spotting this morning.  Which ended in my OB squeezing me in for an ultrasound (all is good, she is going to have chubby cheeks!) and a really long time in the waiting room for the doctor to say – sometimes these things happen, take it easy, call us if anything changes.

Not any kind of BIG drama, thankfully, but enough to stir up the hormones a little bit. And to get my boss pretty anxious over the whole – well, she really IS going to be having a baby sooner than later and HOLY SHIT we have no idea when that could actually happen. Which, I totally feel his pain on that.  But thankfully, I work for super awesome people who let me go to appointments whenever I need to and offered to give me the rest of the week off (which, was sweet, but impossible considering I need to bank those vacation hours for when the baby does come).

I’m hoping after next weeks cavity filling we are done with this very unfavorable Medical Drama Tuesday trend.

A glimpse into the crazy

I had someone ask me recently how I kept everything straight that is going on in my life. I said, I have no idea except that I have my trusty Google calendar. Organized by person and color.

If I didn’t have it all in here, I certainly would NEVER EVER be able to manage it all in my head. Or at all, probably.  And sometimes, I don’t have everything in here and chaos ensues. Pretty literally.

As you can see, most days are only displaying 1 or 2 of multiple things going on, and I know that Mike’s full schedule isn’t on here yet. Obviously, I am at work all day Monday – Friday, so I am gone from 7:30ish am – 6ish pm or longer as well.

A “normal” week basically goes like this:

Monday: Work, Bradley class, make sure Gianna is with whoever is watching her for the night

Tuesday: Work, Mike works, G has school, Mom takes G to school and her or Mike pick G up

Wed: More of the same, dance for G

Thurs: Work and school for G – usually this is our most “low key” day

Friday: Work, Mike usually has a sporting event to film

Weekend: Madness.

But we don’t usually have a normal week, so add in doctors appointments, meetings, etc. and the whole schedule is up in the air at any point in time.

On top of all that I am planning and/or need to have accomplished before baby girl arrives (in no particular order and probably not all inclusive):

• Christmas and New Years
• My mom’s birthday
• MIL’s birthday
• (step)dad’s birthday
• A very special honorary birthday party and donation event in memory of a special girl
• finishing up the baby stuff (room, shopping, finding a place for everything, organizing)
• organizing our tax documents
• plan my sister’s wedding shower
• getting the invites for said wedding shower printed/ready to mail
• attending a (jewelry) work event one weekend
• spend as much time as possible with G and Mike
• Maternity pictures
• Schedule G for gymnastics and then for swimming when that is over

Also, trying not to worry about how things will be after the baby comes and what will change and all of that because – what does it matter, life changes!?   But I would be lying if I didn’t admit to being a little bit panicked on how exactly we will adapt – I know we will, but my logistical brain is having problems figuring out how it’s all going to go down. 

So, if anyone is finding themselves with some extra time over the next few weeks, come on over, I am sure I have something I could use your help with! 

Also, if you find yourself with extra ice cream, go ahead and bring that over too – I’ll take a break from anything for ice cream right now!

((this is not in any way a whining post, or a post to get attention, or whatever. it’s just something people ask about a lot and also listing out all of the things that need done helps me remember them all!  I would not know what to do with myself if life wasn’t like this, I get bored far too easily and that is not good for anyone!))

((it may be an attempt to get ice cream though, because, seriously, love right now.))

Christmas Cheer

I mentioned before that I wanted to make this holiday season just a little extra magical for G, being her last one as an only child and all. but I also just like to do fun things with my family and there happen to be MANY options this time of year!

I realize it’s only December 2nd but so far this is what we have done:

Visited Santa

She apparently wants a chair. And a baby princess aurora. But a chair? Of which she already has one? She is very serious too.

Brought Krista the elf back. 

She even shares Krista with her baby cousin. She looks thrilled, huh?

Went to see the Nutcracker, just me and her.

She loved it (once she got dressed and out the door…) and said on at least 2 occasions “I just love this mommy”. Which, that right there is why we do things for/with our kids  - right?  She really enjoyed watching the dancers, although she was confused why they weren’t talking. So she talked for them… and asked where the princesses on ice skates were…. and danced at her seat.  But in the end, she sat on my lap most of the time, talked semi-quietly, and fell asleep during the dance of the sugarplum fairy. 

Decorated the tree

Made our yearly Toys for Tots drop off

and visited the decked out blimp hanger that her uncle works at

2010 – petrified of Santa

2011 – became part of the décor:

2012 – big cousin!:

Saturday Randoms

• I intended to do a little photo dump, but I am having technical difficulties. so randomness it is.
• I take a lot of pictures with my phone. Almost 2,000 since I got my phone last October, in fact. I also like to take pictures of G while she sleeps, apparently.  I can’t resist the innocence of those long eyelashes.

• Do you delete the pictures from your phone once you upload them? I feel like I don’t NEED all of these on here for ever and ever, but can’t bring myself to delete them either. 
• Mike is working all day. My plans changed about 29472x today, so right now we are home and G is playing nicely in her playroom after we had a fun morning hanging out, doing laundry, a little lunch, etc. A perfectly normal way to spend a Saturday yet something that we get to do only once or twice every year.
• That is not an exaggeration.  The last time we had NO plans at all for the whole day, well, I have no idea when that was.
• And it’s a good thing because the house has been neglected and with all the holiday things, and other things, going on the next 20482 weeks, we probably won’t have another one of these days for a very long time.
• Also a good thing to have no real plans today because it was a long week and my big old pregnant self is glad to stay in sweats all day.
• I am 31 weeks and 3 days (I think) pregnant and 2 things are official: 1) this little girl is JUST like her sister in utero –highly active. this only makes me slightly nervous for how things will be on the outside. 2) my maternity clothes are shrinking. Or, I am growing out of them. I am measuring exactly on schedule, yet the belly is huge and the hips are preparing themselves for birth leaving me with exactly 3 pairs of pants I can wear to work and a handful of shirts.  And I am too cheap to buy more. Except I have been debating getting a pair of maternity leggings….
• The cord on my computer charger is on its last leg. which is no good since the actual computer battery doesn’t hold a charge at all. must fix this sometime.
• I find all of the pictures of all of the elves highly annoying.  We have an elf, I do take her picture almost every day (am going to put them together in a little book for G, I think. or at least that’s my plan) but does anyone else really give a shit what is going on with her besides G? I didn’t think so….
• Who else is rocking out the Christmas shopping? I am 99% done with G (I can’t say 100% because her stocking isn’t finished and chances are, I’ll buy her something else she really doesn’t need in the next 24 days), and about 70% done with everyone else on our list.
• I realized that we have gone from the only one of our really close friends to have a baby to having 1 of TEN kids! I found some really fun stuff for the little people in our lives, though so I am excited about that!
• I also may or may not have a Christmas excel spreadsheet. Because listen – I can not remember anything and I know I would forget someone otherwise. (& this reminds me I need to update it….)
• Christmas cards are on this weekends agenda also – we didn’t do any specific pictures (maternity pictures aren’t until next month) and that is making it really hard for me to come up with what to use on our cards.  I realize I am WAY over thinking this. 
• Last weekend I got the playroom and that catch all closet organized and cleaned out. It took me 2 days to recover from all that work! (also, separate project post to come, I finally figured out what to do with all that craft stuff!)
• This weekend, I am attempting to tackle our bedroom and office area. Although, it makes me nervous just looking at it! I made a small dent already but I am probably the only person who can tell!
• and that is enough randomness for today. happy Saturday!