his new bed

Back in July with Lily's arrival a few weeks away and needing Lance's crib for her we purchased a bed for Lance. The bed was unfinished so Jeff stained it a dark espresso color and finished it before Lily's arrival, but Jeff didn't set it up until a week ago. It took 10 weeks for Jeff to finally bring it over from my mom's and fortuantely I was able to convince him to set it up right away because who knows when he would have done it and I certainly didn't want twin bed parts sitting in my living rooms for weeks. We were hoping that it would fit between the door and the front wall, but it was a hair too long, so we have it facing towards the window and blocking it a bit, but it will work until we don't have to worry about him falling out of bed.

I am very happy with how it turned out. It is quite cozy with the low ceiling and in the corner. It is the perfect setting for spending a rainy day reading in bed, too bad you can't convince a two-year to read in bed all day.


The only problem is that I need to get a fitted sheet to cover the bedsprings because the rail exposes the mattress underneath. So I love the new setup, too bad it is a pain to make and change.
Lance seems to be enjoying it too.

hi, my name is sarah and i'm a . . .

perfectionist.
Fortunately God has brought two people into my life to help me let go a little, Lance and Lily. Now with this swimming job I have to let go even more and give up trying to be perfect. I have had to reorganize my priorities especially when some certain toddler decides that napping is overrated which doesn't allow me any time to get anything accomplished. When I first took this job I tried to balance everything and it got really old fast especially on days when Lance doesn't nap. Not having the house perfect, perfect meals, laundry done and folded, and other things have driven me crazy, but I am trying to learn to let go. Now I am not going to be a slacker, but I have to find a balance with playing with Lance and Lily, getting bills paid, getting chores down, meals fixed, grocery shopping done, etc. I only have a part time job, how do moms who work full time do it? They must be supermoms.

we survived

we did it, we survived our first swim meet and it wasn't so bad.
I had been nervous, well downright terrified if I am going to be honest about this swim meet.
Why?
It was an hour away, Lily plus car is not a good combination and I had to drive separately from the rest of the team so I was worried about driving with her screaming for an hour with no one to help calm her down.
It could have been a long meet and if she wasn't a happy camper I don't know what I was going to do because I had to get lap splits for the swimmers.
I didn't know if there was going to be a place for me to feed her and change her diaper and clothes if necessary.
I didn't know if it was going to be hot or freezing cold.
Well all my worries were for nothing, she was a dream
I tortured the poor babe before we left by not letting her sleep so she would sleep on the way there and wouldn't feed her until right before it was time to go. Holding her off on sleep worked, she slept most of the way, but she did cry for the last 15 minutes of the trip, better than expected.
After getting there I fed her and she was awake for a little while. By the time the meet started she was asleep and slept through 90% of it. I couldn't believe she slept through the meet, it was loud with the swimmers cheering and the official blowing the whistle to start each heat, but she snoozed away in the sling. She woke up during the last break and I held her during the last two events. After the meet I fed her again and we headed home. She slept most of the way home too. So we survived our first swim meet. One down, I think about 9 more to go.

parking lot irritation

This morning I experienced a parking lot irritation.
The kids and I stopped at Walgreens so I could pick up some CDs to burn all of my photos on since my laptop is dying. The parking lot was virtually empty. Across from the door were five parking spots and I parked in the middle spot. After making our purchases we went back out to the car and as I was attempting to put Lance in his car seat a mini-van pulled up and was waiting on me so that she could park in the space right beside me. I tried as quickly as I could to wrangle Lance into his seat and he of course was putting up a fight to get his seat belt on. The lady in the mini-van was waiting on me and slowly inching up so I shut the door, walked around the opposite side and put Lily in the car then had to walk back around and get Lance into his seat belt. As luck would have it, the lady parked super close to my car and I wasn't able to get the door open fully and I was paranoid that in trying to get Lance in his seat belt I might accidentally hit my door which would then hit her door, fortunately that didn't happen. Though I got both kids in I am quite irritated at this woman in the mini-van. WHY oh WHY did she have to park in the space directly beside me????? Why couldn't she have parked one over? I do believe that the space one over was technically closer to the door of the store than the space right beside mine? She would not have had to wait for me to get my toddler in the car if she would have parked one over. There were also two perfectly nice spaces on the opposite side of my car, why not those spaces? With four available parking spaces it irritated me that she had to park right beside me and ridiculously close to me too, she was totally hugging the line. I should also note: there were also at least 15 other parking spaces in the lot that though not directly across from the door just as equally close to the door, why not those spaces? I don't know why this lady irritated me so much. Was it the fact that she didn't obviously notice that I had two small children I was trying to load up in the car and it takes more time and space then a normal person? Was it the fact that her need to park beside me made me take twice as long to leave resulting in Lily screaming the whole way home? Was it the fact that she seemed impatient to get into the space, but then sat in the car for a few moments before going into the store? Was it that she kept inching into the space and almost hitting my open car door in her need to get into the space faster? I don't know, but I hope someone invades her space the next time she has something to load into her vehicle. I know I should love people, I am just having a hard time today.

one word to describe life with two kids. . .

HARRIED!
Oh my goodness, today was pure insanity.
Let's see it started in the wee hours of the morning. Lily got up around 3:30 to eat and went back to sleep. Lance got up sometime after that and Jeff went and slept with him for awhile, then Jeff got up which caused Lance to get up so then I curled in bed with him, what seemed like shortly after that Lily got up to eat and Lance got up for the day. It was still dark out, too early I thought to get up, but both kiddos where ready to go, actually it was 7 am so it wasn't really too early, just felt that way. I showered and got dressed then Jeff got ready and left for work, I got the kiddos dressed and fed and out the door at 8:45 for a doctor's appointment which sounds easier then it actually was. What I failed to mention was that Lily who only wanted to be held screamed every time I put her down, which I had to do frequently since I was chasing after Lance to try and get him dressed and ready to go. We fortunately made it to the doctor's office on time, early actually. Lily got weighed and measured, Lance got his flu vaccine (the nasal one, which is much nicer than the needle in the leg), and Lily got checked out by the doctor. Things were going pretty good and then disaster struck. It was 9:35, we had to be at speech at 10, Lily still needed her vaccines, and she was due to eat, all the makings for a disaster. I fed Lily while waiting for the nurse, but only half a feeding to keep her relatively calm for her shots. Nurse came in, got Lily on the examination bench gave her two drops of the Rotavirus vaccine and the volcano erupted. Lily spewed forth everything that she had just eaten. She was covered, I was covered, there was milk dripping onto the floor, all over the examination bench, everywhere, the nurse I think got out of the way in time, lucky her. We got the room and Lily cleaned up and tried again to give her the oral dose, every drip she seemed to spit back out, it took FOREVER! Then the poor little thing had to get 3 shots in her leg. I felt really bad for her, I hate vaccines. While all of the drama with Lily was taking place Lance was unsnapping his overall bottoms, his new favorite past time, I really need to find some overalls (his favorite item of clothing) without snap bottoms, do they even exist that way? When everything was done it was 10 o'clock, we were late for speech so I hurriedly got Lily dressed, packed up all our gear, grabbed Lance and ran out of the office. Lance's pants were still not snapped so he looked like he was wearing a jean jumper, and he had a major cowlick going on so with Lance in his state and me covered in milk we looked real with it this morning. I got the kids in the car and headed to the opposite end of town for speech. I felt really bad about being late, but I had no clue where my cell phone was so I couldn't call and let them know so I just went as fast as I could. Thankfully traffic wasn't bad and we arrived only 15 minutes late. We went into the school and apologized profusely to the speech therapist about being late. I should mention that while quickly trying to get Lance out of the car and to his session I managed to snap a few snaps so he looked a little more pulled together but he of course undid them as soon as we sat down for our session. Lance was a little hyperactive and didn't cooperate very well which was frustrating because I really want him to show the therapist what he can and can't do. As we were finishing up our session I noticed that Lance was pulling at his diaper and sure enough it fell to his feet, it was quite heavy and was way overdue to be changed, but unfortunately I hadn't had a chance to up until then to change him. I put on a fresh diaper and got his snaps snapped so he looked a bit pulled together and headed home of course just leaving would be to simple. Lance was quite tired by this point from getting up early and as we were walking down the hallway he saw a car in the hallway that he loves and wanted to go play with it, I told him no, so he stopped walking and began to cry loudly and won't continue walking towards the door. Fortunately for me, his fear of being left alone is stronger then his desire to get his way so I began walking towards the door and he quickly followed, but he did whine the whole way. As we were leaving there was an older couple who were right behind us and they just so happened, of course, to be parked beside us. I tried quickly to get Lance and Lily in the car so I wouldn't be holding them up since the back door blocked their door from opening, but my efforts were in vain. Lance must have sensed my urgency and began to throw a temper tantrum and wouldn't get in his car seat or let me buckle him. He desperately wanted something and got quite frustrated at me for not being able to figure out what he wanted after several tried I finally figured it out he wanted his blanket. So once again I was quite embarrassed because I had a screaming child who I was wrestling into the car seat while trying not to hurt him and I was too dumb to figure out what he wanted quickly enough to prevent a temper tantrum. What a morning. We got home put Lance right to bed, he didn't go down easily, but both kids are now asleep and I am enjoying the peace and quiet. Hopefully I will have two quiet hours before the chaos returns. Harried that definitely describes my life with two kids.

i am noticing a theme here

there have been two themes to my life for the last year now:
1- i don't have any clothes that seem to fit
first it was maternity clothes, my clothes from lance didn't fit and neither did my regular clothes, then I got some maternity clothes and they fit until the end when I got so big I outgrew my maternity clothes and I should note I bought the bare essentials, not a large selection of clothing. Now my maternity clothes are too big, but my regular clothes are too small. I do have two pairs of pants that I bought after having lance that fit, but most of my transitional pieces from lance are summer clothes and not appropriate for the cooler weather we have, so once again, I have nothing to wear. It has been nine weeks and I am no where close to being able to wear my regular clothes and though it took me 6-8 months to be able to fit into some things after lance, I wonder if my bones will get smaller again this time or just stay the way they are. I hate not knowing what to expect and I tired of getting by on the bare minimum. I feel so frumpy with clothes that don't fit well and wearing the same thing over and over and over again. I hate having such a small selection of clothing because I hate doing laundry and I seem to have to wash things regularly. While pregnant I felt like I was washing my clothes every 5 days, it was crazy, I will wear clothing over again if they are clean, but with a two year old and a baby I rarely make it through a day without being noticeably covered in something usually food and spit up which smells and requires a washing. So being nine weeks postpartum, feeling frumpy, wanting new clothes, wishing I could wear my old ones, and wishing I had money to buy something new, I am sick of not having anything to wear, I mean something that I feel good in, I realize that not having anything to wear is nothing new for me.
2- we don't have any money
I haven't really written much about it because it seems that is all I ever seem to do anymore is whine about how we don't have any money and every few months I think it can't get any worse and it does. I am tired of having money issues, well not having any and I am talking, not enough to pay the bills every month. The lack of money has been a theme of my life this past year. I have learned a lot though. I have learned that needs and wants are two different things. I have learned that second-hand is just as nice as first-hand sometimes, especially for outdoor toys and books. I love hand-me-downs (especially for Lily, they are in much better shape then the boy hand-me-downs). That not having the latest baby gadget or must have item doesn't matter especially if it is a baby item since they grow out of them so fast and no one else cares what you have. That meal planning and sticking to the plan really cuts down on our grocery bill. That material things don't bring happiness, then again neither does poverty. That some of the happiest people are those who don't buy into commercialism and having the latest and greatest. So I hope that one day things will improve for us financially and I won't lose sight of the rough times we have had and that if one day God blesses us with more money that we won't just spend more and we will give more and save more, but obviously we aren't ready for that since we are still broke.

2 months already

Lily is now two months old, time is flying by, and she is really spoiling me by being such a good baby.
Saturday night/Sunday morning she got up for her once a night feeding and I was slightly irritated that I had to get up and feed her, but then I remembered at 2 months with lance we were getting up at least twice usually three times at night to feed, so once is awesome and I should be thankful. It is all about perspective.
I can't believe how fast Lily is growing, she is already in 3-6 month clothing and I think there might be some hand-me-down 0-3 month things she never got a chance to wear. I get a little sad putting away the clothes she has grown out of because I don't think I got to enjoy a lot of them because she had so many to choose from and I always wanted her in my favorites.
So besides growing fast, she is smiling a lot and it is so fun. She loves Lance and smiles every time he is around. Lance loves to hold her and give her kisses, but he also has his moments when he isn't too fond of her. On Saturday he was frustrated about having to get in the car and Lily was already screaming and he took his frustration out on her by trying to kick her in the face, it wasn't a good moment for the three of us. Lance is at a rough stage right now because he can't always communicate verbally well and so he gets frustrated and hits or throws things, I can't wait for speech therapy to start helping him use words and get rid of his frustration.
Back to Lily, Lily is a very happy content baby except when she is in the car and I have really enjoyed her and I am so thankful for her. She prefers to be held which is fine, but she is getting a little heavy for the Baby Bjorn, I wish I had a mei-tai style sling since she prefers to be upright. I love my New Native Carrier, but she prefers to be more upright and instead of reclining except for when she is tired then the New Native comes in handy because she passes out and takes her nap in it.
"They" say that you don't take as many pictures of second babies, but I think there might be an exception if the second baby is a girl which followed a boy. I have taken so many pictures of Lily, more than I did of Lance, now I didn't have my own digital camera when Lance was this age, so that probably had something to do with it, but I have taken so many pictures of Lily, especially in all her different outfits, I am really enjoying the girly stuff that comes with having a girl. Girl clothes are so much fun and hand-me-downs make things even better.

things that don't make sense

1- how I can get bitten by a mosquito at noon in the middle of October, aren't mosquitoes suppose to be gone by now?

2-the amount of milk that Lily can spit up, this afternoon she was crying, I thought she might be hungry, I began nursing her and then there was a small burp and then she erupted, she was soaked, my pants were soaked as well as the coach (so much that the slipcovers are now in the washing machine). she seemed to eject her weight in milk, it was gross and then after getting changed she ate some more, I guess the real question is, how much milk am I making???

3- how Lance's hair grows so thick and fast when Jeff is bald and I have fine hair that seems to grow so slowly, I would love to have his thick, full head of hair

4- how the smallest individuals in this house make the most mess- Lily goes through so many outfits, blankets, burp clothes a day, I can't keep up with her laundry and then Lance can destroy a room in seconds, if cleans up for other people, why not me?

5- why Lily loves swim practice, she is a perfect angel while we are at the pool, but on evenings when I am not there from 6-8 she cries and screams and is not a happy camper

6- why when we have the least amount of money we seem to have the most bills that need to be paid, the most things we need to buy, and the largest list of wants

an afternoon in the woods

Jeff wanted to get out in the woods on Sunday and enjoy the autumn leaves and the warm weather so we headed out after church. We got a sub to share for a picnic lunch and drove about 30 minutes out of town. Lily obviously didn't like our plan and screamed most of the way there so we stopped earlier then expected for our lunch. We sat down at a picnic table and within a minute of two we were up and moving around because the gnats were so horrible it was impossible to sit still so we walked and ate.
here is lance, lily and I walking down to the river after eating, trying to keep moving to keep the gnats from swarming


After lunch we went on the bridge that crosses over the river and goes underneath the road and back, we didn't explore the other side due to the ridiculous number of gnats.

the view from the bridge, it is beautiful and once more of the leaves change it will be even prettier

Jeff and Lance walking back across the river with the parkway overhead.

After hitting the restroom we got back in the car and went to the Foot bridge, our planned destination. The Foot bridge is a bridge that crosses over the river and is in honor of Bill Foot a local man who was an avid hiker. Right when we got on the bridge a train came by which made Lance's day since he could get such a good look at it and it was so close. It was so close that it shook the bridge we were on, a little freaky.

Jeff and Lance walking out to find a good spot to see the approaching train.

watching the train go across the river



Lance pointing to the passing train, the highlight of his adventure.



Lance, Lily, and I on the Foot bridge.

After crossing to the other side we explored, well Lance and Jeff explored, I was carrying Lily and since it is usually my down time I was tired and didn't feel like doing much hiking. Looking back I wish I had been more motivated to do the trail loop, but I was so tired and couldn't get motivated.

the trees and leaves were very pretty even though they hadn't turned yet

a cliff that was blasted out to make room for the original train bridge and track and in this area is not a small part of the AT.

Jeff and Lance exploring a small waterfall, lance is holding a rock he found

sharing a snack, m&m's.


it was such a beautiful day and nice and warm for October.


unfortunately Jeff just takes pictures and doesn't look to see if how they look, this is such a great picture of Lance because he has a nice smile, but you can hardly see his face.

perspective

I got a new perspective today and I hope I won't take what I do have for granted.
I am more of a glass half empty person and I don't always see the bright side of things, well I do in other people's lives, just not my own.
I have been very frustrated lately and negative because business has been slower than slow, bills haven't been paid, and I don't know how we are going to make it. We are so far in the hole I don't know if we can get out. I have been dwelling so much on what we don't have that I have forgotten to be extremely thankful for what I do have.
After running across some blogs today of women who lost their babies full term or close to, I realized how blessed I am to have Lily as well as Lance. These women were due around the same time I was so there loss really hit home to me because we were at the same stages of pregnancy that I was and yet we had such different outcomes. I know many women lose their babies early on which is difficult, but I forget and can't imagine going through 9 months of pregnancy, hours of labor, delivery or c-section and then not have a healthy baby in the end. I naively believed that once you reached a certain stage of pregnancy you are immune to loss, but you aren't. I have realized I am extremely blessed. My heart goes out to these women who suffer such a difficult loss and I am amazed at how most of them have such an amazing heart and they can still say that God is good. So I now know that I need to be better at thanking God for everything that He has given me because though I don't always feel it, I am rich. A new perspective that hopefully won't be lost in the daily chaos of life. Thank you to you who have put your story out there so lives will be changed and that through death comes life. May your loss make am impact on many people's lives, it has made a small impact on mine.

it is a lot harder with two

to try and clean the house.
with two kids you never can accomplish anything and right now both kiddos are asleep so I probably could be getting a lot more done then I am, but I also need some down time myself.
We are trying to refinance our house so someone is coming by to appraise our house tomorrow morning so I am trying my best to get the house looking neat, clean, and nice which is not easy because for everything one thing I get accomplished Lance messes up two things.
I love my home to be neat and clean and though I have had to drop my standards a bit now that I have two in the mix our house is too small to let it stay a disaster, there is just not enough room for everything. We need a bigger house, but we can't afford one right now so I am trying to use all the available space to the best of my ability. I need to edit down Lance's toys, but I don't know what to choose and if I put some away for awhile will I remember to rotate them out again? I am kind of nervous about someone coming over here and looking at our house. I love it and I know it needs some work, but I hope it really is worth what I think it is. I know it doesn't matter what others think, but I am a people pleaser so I do care. I really hope if we are able to refinance we can get a storage shed and replacement windows, oh that would make things so much nicer around here. Motivation for cleaning: new windows that won't let stink bugs in!

speech therapy

Before kiddos I taught high school biology. I had to attend several IEP/special ed meetings in my four years teaching and they weren't my favorite kind of meetings especially when they were for students with very pushy parents or those who wanted the sun, moon, and stars for their kid without the student putting forth any effort on their part. After several years of attending ridiculous special ed/eligibility/IEP meetings I promised myself that if I were ever a parent I didn't want to be like "those" parents (note: not all parents were difficult and a lot of time meetings were very helpful and productive, but of course, the difficult ones remain engraved in my memory years later). So now we will see if I will live up to my promise or not. I am now a parent of a special education child, well not exactly, I think, hopefully by the time he is school age he won't be special education. The tables have been turned and I am sitting on the opposite side of the table, I am the one who decides what services/accommodations my child needs and think the school system should provide for him. I was nervous about this mornings eligibility and IEP meeting. I didn't want to be one "those" parents, but I also wanted the best for Lance. Lance doesn't talk, well he talks, but not with words and he is delayed significantly. The city school system provides free speech therapy as well as other services for special education students starting at age 2 so we have sought out the free services available since we are very low of money and the insurance companies don't like to pay for speech therapy and I don't want to deal with the hassle of trying to get them to pay. So a few weeks ago we had him evaluated to see if it was just a speech problem or if their were other development delays going on. He passed with flying colors every aspect of the child study and then a week later he passed his hearing and vision screening. Last week the speech therapist evaluated him and found him eligible for services so today we had an eligibility meeting and wrote an IEP- an individualized education plan. It was so strange being the parent in today's meeting and not the teacher. So after going over results of the tests, his strengths, weaknesses, goals etc. we discussed what needed to be done next. The speech therapist recommends 2 hours a month of therapy which is the equivalent of 30 minutes once a week. At first I thought that sounded good, until I talked to my friend who is a special ed teacher. She said that I should request two half hour sessions a week because half an hour once a week isn't enough time and there is too much time between sessions for him to make progress. I see her point, but once again, from my experience of sitting on the other side of the table, I don't want to be one of "those" parents so I am questioning what is best. Our schedule already seems very busy and hectic and adding an additional morning activity doesn't leave us a lot of flexibility in our week. Also, ideally I wouldn't want to take Lily so I can focus on what Lance is learning so I can work with him at home so going more than twice a week could be cumbersome to find someone to watch Lily. Also, I would rather him go once a week and have it be productive then twice a week where he might get bored or too comfortable and not make any progress. The once a week recommendation is from the speech therapist, the professional, the one who has been doing this for 30 years, I want to trust the professional because this is what they do, what do I know? Then again, I wonder would he talk sooner if he was receiving services more often? Will I be disciplined enough to make sure that we are working on what he should be doing at home regularly or will I get lazy, thus making speech twice a week a better option? The other thing is, when it comes to IEP's it is easier to reduce services, frequency, goals then to add to them so should we start out with more and then reduce if he is frustrated or is too much for our schedule? So much to think about. I want what is best for my child, but I also know that you want to be on the good side of those who you are counting on because then they will do the best for you and your child, so I don't want to be a pain. Also, I don't want to be the know-it-all, give me everything you can, but I am not going to do anything kind of parent. Is what is best for Lance also best for me?

she's a sleeper

Too bad I didn't enjoy last night as much as say Jeff did.
Lily did it, I can't believe it. At only six weeks and two days she slept all night long.
She fell asleep a little after eleven and didn't wake up again and eat until 7:15 this morning! I can't believe it and I hope we will have many more long nights so maybe I can enjoy them since I didn't get to last night, long nights os sleep that is. I of course was up at two when Lance came into bed with us and I was up at 4 when she usually gets up to eat. I was also up at 5:30 to make sure she was still breathing and because I was worried about her. I was tempted to wake her since I thought I was going to explode if she didn't eat soon, but despite my slight nudges she slept on. I had a hard time getting back to sleep at 5:30, but finally managed too and was still amazed when seven rolled around and I realized that she made it all night. I remember at six weeks with Lance we were excited when he would sleep 5 hours. She is such a good sleeper, though I am afraid that just praising her will jinx me and she will be at all hours tonight. She has been a good sleeper from the beginning, our first night home from the hospital and she went 4 hours between a feeding, which surprised me considering how active she was in the womb. I don't know whether it is her or we are just more experienced parents who somehow have developed a good sleep pattern already? My mom says it is because she is a girl and girls are easier, and she may be right, wait, Lily is like her brother who doesn't like to be set down anywhere, not what I call that easy of a baby. Who knows, but I hope that next time she sleeps well I can enjoy it and no longer be programmed to wake up every few hours. Now if we can just get Lance sleeping better. Lance has never been a good sleeper and though he does sleep in his bed all night on some nights there are more nights when he gets up and since we have been getting up with Lily and have been tired we haven't fought him and let him sleep with us. This also contributes to my lack of a good sleep last night because Lance is a bed hog and occupies most of my half of the bed. Now if Lily will keep up her good sleeping habits and we can get Lance on one too, you will have one happy momma, well actually one less grumpy momma. On the topic of grumpy, I feel bad for both my kiddos this morning. I was very grumpy,the stress of life right now combined with my both my children's need to be held at every moment with a dash of cold weather making a cold house made me a grump. I got frustrated with both kiddos and I feel bad, our nice morning at home was full of crying, temper tantrums, and me wanting to call Jeff to come home so I could escape. I get frustrated so easily. Frustrated at Lily because I want to be able to play with Lance without holding her. Frustrated at Lance when he won't listen and he is whiny. And frustrated at myself that I don't have the patience and energy to deal with the two of them. Unfortunately this morning brought out the worst of all three of us, but I am learning how to be a mom of two and it isn't easy, especially since I have to often put aside my priorities and personal space.