Thursday Kevin looked at me with desperation in his eyes and said "I need you to continue your search for dining room chairs." Like a good wife I obliged and headed straight to Hudson Madison to bring home the chair I had been admiring but wasn't willing to pay the price for.
When Kev came home, I showcased the chair. He took one look at the price and said, "if you can get them down 25% we'll take them."
Challenge accepted.
I worked my magic.
And I'm pleased to say: the chairs are officially mine! Well in 4-6 weeks they'll be mine!
Yes, friends and family! No longer will you dread coming over to our house for dinner!
I have been searching high and low for dining room chairs for over a year! Nothing appealed to me...well accept these ones but I wasn't willing to pay the price. I was really hoping to find chairs at Home Sense but after a year of countless trips there I ended up empty handed.
I debated back and forth between fabric and leather chairs. We have alot of brown in our kitchen and living room area (our cabinets are brown, are table is brown, our desk area is brown, are chairs are brown, our couch is brown). And I really wanted to break up the brown color. I thought about cream leather dining room chairs but then worried about them getting stained by jeans (you know when the dye from blue jeans gets transferred onto the material). I love the look of fabric chairs but thought leather ones would be more practical because we have kids. In the end the fabric ones won and I'm stoked! I've decided to keep two of the sweet pleather chairs for Lincoln and Nathan-I'm not ready for them to ruin the new ones. And as for London-I'm going to buy her a highchair. I've been anit-highchair for awhile now. They are big and bulky and not easy to clean (well at least I think so). With the boys I just used a little Fisher Price highchair that connects to a regular chair. It was practical and easy to clean.
I've now been told by Kevin to slow down on shopping! We'll see about that one Kev!
I normally print all my photo's and stick them in an album. My girlfriend Angela (of TypeA Photography) took my belly, birth and newborn photo's. I didn't want to just stick them in an album and store it away. This time I wanted to do something different. I wanted to show case my photo's. And I thought making a photo book would be the perfect way to do just that...and it was:-)
I've made a few photo books through MyPublisher and they've turned out really well and in my opinion I think they make great gifts for grandparents:-) I find My Publisher easy to use (and trust me I need easy) and they always have super good deals going on! I always wait till they have their free page offer-that way I'm able to get 70% off. I got my book, with 100 pages, for $35 (plus $15.99 for shipping).
London's book came in the mail today and I'm in love! It's perfect! Everything to do with my pregnancy, her birth and her first month with us! It's such a special keepsake.
I've now decided I'm going to do one for each of the boys!
I was in the midst of washing the laundry room floor on my hands and knees (yes it's 11 pm on a Saturday night) when it dawned on me...you need to blog more. And I totally planned to but at the end of the day all I want to do is relax...or wash the laundry room floor.
It's moments like these (washing the laundry room floor at 11 pm on a Saturday night) that make me realize I miss my husband. Life is boring with out him. And unfortunately I've lost him to Vegas! I'd like to believe he's hauled up in some motel right now, cold, lonely and alone, missing us...but I'm thinking that's highly unlikely! He's probably at a club jersey turn piping it (I joke...well at least I hope so:-)! Every time he goes away a little piece of my heart hurts. I like having him home. And normally when he has to travel for work he's usually gone for a night-I can handle that. In fact I can handle 3 days but anything after that I start to miss him like crazy!
The kids.
I probably have to take a deep sigh on this topic. My kids behavior is well...kids behavior. Nate is 2. Lincoln is almost 4. Crazy times in this household I tell ya! A few weeks back Nate went through a whining/crying stage which started from the moment he woke up to the moment he went to bed. It was exhausting. Walking into his room in the mornings was hard. He was never in a good mood and it's just not the way I like to start my mornings. I don't know what was up with him. He's normally such a happy sweet kid! But literally...he became miserable. He'd sit at the kitchen table and cry and it would be over something silly like wanting milk. Nates a great talker...he's always been a good communicator and then he just started crying and I'd run around asking things like, "do you want the green spoon, do you want water, do you want a different bowl, do you want Cheerios, do you want milk, Oh you do want milk well then why didn't you say so." And then he'd wine about the cup it was in and then spill the milk all over the floor...and well you get the picture. He's finally back to himself and finding ways to be mischievous but he's got this smile and that look and it's kinda hard to get mad at him:-) Now when he wakes up I hear the same thing every morning, "Mom! Mom! Mommmmyyyyy! Mom! Mom! Mooommmmyyyy!" And he's happy therefore I'm happy:-)
And then there's Lincoln oh my sweet Lincoln. He's found a way to test his boundaries. I'm hoping this is "an almost 4" stage where he's talking back, not listening, smiling when I tell him not to do something and being completely resistant. I don't know what's gotten into him but he's not himself. Normally if he gets sent to his room for a time out he goes and then when he settles down he asks to come out-this has worked great for us!!!! Now it's a struggle to get him up there! I've also been dealing with the issue of sharing and taking turns. Strong Start is a great place and I've been loving it! I haven't been loving the crying scenes during gym time. Every time Lincoln cries over the plasma car. He thinks he should get it and once he gets it he doesn't think he should give it up. They have a 2 minute time limit rule (that isn't entirely enforced) but I'd like for him to learn about time limits and sharing. This has been a struggle. And normally I take him into the hallway and make threats like, "if you don't share we are going to have to go home, or if you don't share we can't come to strong start" so on Thursday I finally followed through with my threats. We walked out of the gym. He was resistant! And so was Nate. I packed up my 2 crying kids and we went home. I didn't want to leave but I knew I had to do something about it. I decided we'd go back the next day and Lincoln and I talked about how he was going to wait his turn and share and not cry during gym time (he'd also been saying that the whole week prior to this incident). It was redemption time and we were going back. I was bound and determined to teach my child patience and waiting his turn. And waiting his turn he did...with a bit of whiny-ness but there were no tears shed and no one was dragged out of the gym crying! And once he was on the plasma car he dominated that thing but we'll still continue to work on sharing! No one ever said parenting was easy:-)
crazy they are mostly good. But let's face it...it's more fun to write about the craziness! Well at least I think so! Crazy days make me thankful for the calmer days. Crazy days also usually give me time to reflect on life and what's important!
It's now 12:15 am and I can happily say I get to see my husband today:-) And I know 2 little boys and a sweet little girl who are missing their daddy like crazy. In fact a sweet little boy told me today Daddy was his bestfriend...this was after I told him he needed to spend some time in his room:-) Oh Lincoln, you know how to tug on my heart strings:-)
I had the brilliant idea to stay up till 4:30 am painting Lincoln's-probably a mistake on my part. I clearly didn't get enough sleep (like 4 hours) which resulted in me having a short fuse. It wasn't the kids fault it was mine. I lacked patience. My children annoyed me today. I'll admit it.
And then came the laundry. Someone left a pack of gum in their pocket...I don't wanna name names but I will tell you that all that was in the wash was Lincoln's bedding and 3 pairs of Kevin's jeans. Nothing like scrapping gum out of the washing machining, clothes and bedding. Today I only conquered 1 load of laundry...well 2 if you count the fact that I had to wash the same load twice.
Then I went to go order the photo book I made for London from MyPublisher. It consisted of 100 pages. I went through all her photo's and put my heart and soul into that book. I logged on and it was gone. Non existent. I phoned the help line. Well since someone hacked into our computer and took $5300 from my account we had to get the computer re-formatted. I backed up all our photos. I did not back up MyPublisher. I assumed it was saved through them. It wasn't. So all that hard work went down the drain. I cried. Then proceed to make her a new book.
My house is was a mess. The front door consisted of 6 pairs of shoes, a potty with piss in it, 6 glass milk bottles, my purse, miscellaneous clothing, 2 bags of groceries. My counters were dirty, my floors had crumbs on it. Cereal from yesterday's breakfast was still on the table. FYI we don't normally live like this. My house was a wreck therefore I felt like a wreck. And it didn't help when Lincoln and Nathan went upstairs, after I had cleaned up Lincoln's room, and threw all the stuffed animals all over the floor.
I wore this all day.
Dinner tonight consisted of a rotisserie chicken...it was store bought. I even cracked open a cold one. It was that type of day.
And then came this moment. The moment I saw this photo:
I cried again. He is perfect and precious. I then smiled and decided to take my baby girl upstairs and have a bath. It was perfect. We girl talked and made all sorts of promises to each other until our toes were shrivelled.
So here I am thinking my night was turned completely around. I was happy so I told Kev "let's put the kids to bed early and sit on the patio by the fire and drink coffee." Sounds romantic right? Well some how Kev ended up outside by himself sitting by the fire drinking coffee while I was inside with an almost 4 year old who was lacking in respect, a screaming baby and a content 2 year old. No hard feelings Kev:-)
And now to finish this post with the wise words from Kelly Clarkson..."What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!" Why thanks Kelly for the reminder.
All is good now...the kids are in bed and tomorrow is a new day:-)
It's been a week and 4 days since my vent about s-h-i-t! And boy did I need that vent! Kev came home a few hours later that day, after not responding to my text, and says, "It smells clean in here!" Yes, yes it did! I think I went through a whole bottle of lemon lysol that day! I love the smell of lemon lysol but it's a bit much when used in excess! I wish I could say the next day was better...but it wasn't. We had three more accidents. But this time was different...this time we laughed. Yes "we" because Kevin was home so I wasn't the only one cleaning up poop and I realized Nate's poor little tummy wasn't feeling so good so when the accidents happened (and we could hear them happening) we just laughed and cleaned up shit like we enjoyed it!
Venting helped! And I really appreciated the support! And I think I have a new moto: vent, reflect and move on. And that's just what I did that day! I vented, then reflected on the things in life that really mattered (and shitty on the potty didn't make that list), and then I moved on. I love the clarity that reflecting gives! I knew tomorrow was going to be a new day and all though we didn't have great success and I knew cleaning crap out of underwear wasn't the end of the world.
Mother's Day we had a breakthrough and that is when I saw that light at the end of the tunnel. We put Nate in a diaper that day because we were heading to Steveston and didn't want to be dealing with any accidents. He was resistent to the diaper but did really good-no accidents in the diaper at all! We kept the potty in the back of the SUV just in case and he used it to pee and when we got home he finally pooped on the potty (funny to say but that was the best Mother's Day gift). And I'm pleased to say he's been doing it every day since then! That's a week and 2 days of pure pooping success! I've only been putting a diaper on him at night time (his diaper is abit wet in the morning) and he wears his underwear for nap time and has been waking up dry! He still calls pee poo which is totally fine with me and I'd have to say we are almost there!
I am so proud of my little boy! He's been such a trooper through this process (I wish I could say the same about myself)! As much as I hated getting frustrated I'd have to say I needed that...I needed to regain control of my emotions and see the bigger picture! Patience is definitely key when it comes to potty training!
WARNING: This blog post will probably contain ALOT of foul language...mostly the word shit because this post is about shit!
I have to vent!
I have cleaned shit out of underwear 3 times today! Yes 3 times! Nathan has received 3 baths and I have run the washing machines 3 times (because you can't wash that shit with your regular laundry)!
Arg! We have been potty training for...I don't know...2 weeks now and things have been going good. By day 4 Nate was telling us when he had to pee on the potty, we had a few turds and a real good poop on the potty. He wakes up dry from his naps and has now been waking up dry in the mornings. And then this week things have sorta started to slide backwards...in the pooping department (he's still peeing on the potty like a champ)! I have been cleaning crap out of his underwear for a week now! And it's so gross! And once when I was cleaning him up and giving him his "you need to poop on the potty and not in your underwear" speech he laughed at me. Seriously! I'm cleaning shit off you and you are going to laugh at me. Awesome!
OK so I do my whole..."Nate pooping in your underwear is gross and you need to tell mommy or daddy when you have to go poop on the potty" talk and I've been saying it firmly so he knows I'm serious and that it's not a joke or a funny matter. I was hoping that would work (you know the firm mom voice) but it's not. And the last incident may have done it for me. I know his tummy has been bugging him today so I had him sit on the potty while I cleaned up the kitchen (he had 2 prior poop accidents today) and he's complaining his tummy hurts and I know he has to poop so I tell to just sit on the potty and wait till the poop comes out and then what happens...he stands up and spray shits all over himself, the floor and the toilet. And cleaning up your own childs fecal matter isn't any different than cleaning up some strangers...OK maybe it is but it's still not fun!
It's been a shitty day...literally. And then I snapped at Lincoln when he asked me something but I was mid shit clean up and I got frustrated and sent them all for naps! And sent the hubby a text that reads: "He just shit all over the bathroom and himself...I'm done." He hasn't replied yet...I don't blame him! And now I'm frustrated at myself for getting so frustrated and I'm feeling like an awful parent. I keep telling myself "he'll get it...he'll eventually get it and this will all be a distant memory." That time can't come soon enough. Sigh...One day I will laugh at this...right? Now time to de-stress and clean...because I haven't already done enough of that today...
TGIF and I don't have to cook:-)
Sorry if I grossed anyone out but I really needed to vent!
