Judecorp.

We're not getting a Christmas tree this year. It doesn't really make sense to do it and Hurricane Tukey would destroy it, I think. The living room (the only place we can really put a tree) is kind of his safe space where all of his toys are, and I would have to move half of his toys and keep him out of his safe space, so that doesn't make sense at all. Maybe I will hang some garland on the ceiling and hang ornaments from it. I don't know. It's kind of sad, but I guess there is next year.

Punk is sad about not having a tree so I think I will buy a small fake tree and put it in her room. Maybe I will put her presents under her own tree, wouldn't that be something? I'd have to sneak into her room though. That could be disastrous!

Aaah, it's that time again.

Tuke had his first birthday party yesterday. It was a smashing success. Pun intended.

I haven't written here in a million years. In my head I am this regular, witty blogger. I have all of these clever things to say and even cleverer ways to say them. It just never happens, because by the time I get to a computer I am wiped. out.

I only work 3 days a week but it feels like 7. And I don't even really work full days some of the time. But it feels like it. I hardly sleep and I subsist on coffee. Good thing I love coffee, and I have an amazing cousin in Seattle who sends me beans from her favorite shops. Yum.

This coming week is school vacation week and I am doing a little babysitting (to make a little money) and my sister-in-law is visiting. I love when my brother visits too but sometimes it's nice to just have Gretchen over (just like sometimes it's nice to have just Rick). She is staying through Easter and it will be nice to a) have a week home with my kids and b) have some company while I do that. We can go on adventures and just in general chill with two kids.

Two kids. Woah. Two kids is a lot of work, and at the same time it isn't. Extra stuff to remember before you head out the door. Extra chaos in the mornings. Really needing a second set of hands at nighttime (they go to bed at the same time pretty much). He sleeps pretty well but still is up twice to eat and I don't go to bed as early as I should so I am always in a fog of coffee-hyperactivity.

Ideally I would go to bed around 9pm but there is so much to do in the evenings like pack the day care back, make sure Punk has a lunch for the next day, run the dishwasher so there are clean bottles, thaw milk for the next day, run laundry, etc. Since the kids go to bed at 7, all of those jobs get done after that. Thankfully they both go to bed pretty easily and (usually) stay asleep for a while so the stuff can get done.

In sum: Life is busy but awesome.

We don't have town garbage pickup here, so we contract with a local company and pay them to take our garbage and recycling. There are several companies to choose from.

I called our company to see if they had pickup for Christmas trees, because ours is out in the yard. She said they would take the tree for a $5 fee. No problem! So I made an arrangement to have them take the tree with my regular pickup.

In the past, when I've had tree pickup, they come with some kind of chipper/shredder truck and grind up the dry trees. But this morning I watched him just put it in the garbage truck with all of the other garbage.

Argh! That really, really annoys me. I could have put it in my backyard to rot if I thought it was just going to the dump.

p.s. What a fitting song playing right now, LOL.

I haven't posted here in a million years. Don't worry, no baby yet.

Things are chugging along. Yesterday was my last day of work until March 1st. I bet that will come around quickly. I am trying not to think about it. Or about not getting paid until March. (Whoops.) It will be a lean Christmas around here, which is probably for the best since I don't like all of the commercialism anyway.

Things are moving smoothly through this pregnancy. 38w now, haven't had a speck of a complication, knock on wood. BP is fantastic, weight is up to a scary number but in reality is only 20lbs up. I've just never been this heavy before. Looking for a milk donor, hoarding formula checks and samples. There is a crib in our house again. That's weird. Kid has been riding the 55th percentile forever, so I'm guessing he's set to be Joe Average Baby. It still seems big to me though because Punk was always teeny, in the 20s as a fetus and newborn. She had cord and placenta stuff though. Who knows?

Punk is a very big girl who is excited to be a big sister and is more excited to go to preschool. She loves school, loves the kids at school, and has made some friends. She has picked up some annoying 3 year old habits and I'm sure it's extra hard for her these days because my mobility is non-existent and my patience (and energy) is thin. This too shall pass.

We have bits and pieces of baby stuff in the house now - a swing is set up in the living room, the crib is in the baby/guest room, and we are collecting stuff. We'll set up the PnP in the bedroom soon, I'd imagine, and then we'll be done for a while. We should probably get some newborn/size 1 diapers because the pockets will be too big and bulky. Last time we borrowed a lot of infant prefolds which were a godsend, but we lost our hookup. :) Gotta wash bottles and get those ready also. There's gonna be a baby up in here!

Happy Halloween, everyone. Punk and Jen are trick-or-treating at the library right now and then we will run a bajillion errands. Can't wait to see all the kiddies in their costumes tomorrow. :) Have a great one!

(I hanker for a hunk-a cheese.)

I feel like I'm drowning. Seriously, seriously drowning. About a lot of things, but mostly somehow related to biting off more than I could chew WRT having another kid.

Work is draining every drop of energy I manage to wake up with, my productivity sucks which means my pre-baby paychecks suck. I'm financially screwed, my relationship is screwed, I'm physically unable to keep my house up to snuff, and my to-do list for this kid is eight miles long and if I'm being completely honest, is NEVER going to be finished before this kid arrives. Still need to find time to get to Quincy to get our infant car seat, still need to find time to get to Milford to borrow some stuff, haven't seen Grandma in a long while which I feel badly about, still need to assemble Punk's new furniture. Ugh.

I would try writing out my to-do list in order to focus, but I fear that would be a) depressing and b) way too long to be helpful.

So instead I will sit here and pout.

I woke up far too early because somehow some water/vapor got into the fan blades of our air conditioner and it froze, making this awful, awful rattling sound that was ridiculously loud (yet Jen slept through it, of course; her capacity for sleep amazes me). This was somewhere around 5am and I shut off the A/C yet could not get back to sleep. I was hungry, and then my head was spinning in too many different directions about where to put this baby when he arrives.

Easiest option (one that would cause the least upset to the set-up of my house) is to put both kids together - to somehow cram the crib and a second dresser into Punk's room and call it a day, thereby preserving the guest room. Punk's room is the darkest room in the house by location, and also has room darkening curtains and is therefore "the cave," which makes for good kid-sleeping. The guest room, in contrast, is on the other side of the house, gets tons of sun, and I don't think even the curtains would make that kind of difference.

Problem with this option is that in order to try to cram crib/dresser into Punk's room, a lot of other things need to come out, like her bookshelf, and her toy box, and some of her big toys (tool bench, dollhouse). Since we have a bit of a space issue, the only place these toys/things could go would be the guest room - to make it a sort of combination guest room/play room.

That sounds great in theory, except to do THAT, all of the guest room furniture needs to come out (right now there are a few random pieces of mismatched storage furniture in there) and go into the basement, which does not have standing water but can get damp - and i don't want the furniture damaged. (Some is my father's.) And also, the guest bed - which is a queen - would obviously need to come out and be replaced with either a day bed with pop-up trundle or a sleeper sofa. Both of these options would cost a significant amount of money.

And then there's my fear about the kids sharing a room and waking each other up. Punk was never a good sleeper, is still not a GREAT sleeper at age 3, and as a baby she woke up. A lot. Like, a lot. And I worry about putting a baby in there with her while she is chattering herself to sleep, and I worry about a baby waking up in the night to eat and waking HER up. I know that most kids eventually learn to sleep through the noise but there is no guarantee that my crap-sleep kids will be "most kids." I am tired just thinking about it.

And of course I have this desire to set up a space for this baby so he's not some sort of afterthought. To give him his own space with his own stuff, to have his own furniture and his own toys and his own place to play. To be able to imagine and identify and create a space especially for him like we did with Punk, rather than to stuff him in an already existing room/scheme. But then we won't have a guest room. Which means we won't have any guests.

Our sectional is technically the size of two twin beds but I somehow doubt that anyone would want to sleep in them. We have a queen-sized air bed thingie but nowhere to set it up if we don't have an extra room. And we have no local family, so everyone comes from out of town and I doubt anyone wants to pay to shack up in a hotel to hang out with us.

It's all so complicated, and now I can't sleep. Phooey.

It has been quite convenient to have a stay-at-home parent this past week or so, I have to say. Except for the part about not making any money.

The dishes are always done, the laundry is caught up, the beds all have freshly-laundered sheets. The clogged drain is unclogged, the house is stocked with food, and fresh hot meals are usually prepared every day. We don't have to worry about Punk eating a bunch of toddler junk or watching too much television (although she does still like to watch!). Doctor appointments gets made and kept, Punk's 3 year appointments are already taken care of, an allergy appointment is scheduled for next month, and most of the birthday party prep is already complete. And Punk is happy, happy, happy! (Case in point: today, after blowing me about 287389279832 kisses from the back of the car, she said, "Mama, I am giving you a LOT of kisses. Because it's I Love You Day.")

And then there are life's little emergencies, like when we realized last night that Jen's car needed to be inspected by Wednesday. Got that done this morning, after running to the store to order Punk's birthday cake for the party. Check and check.

The bathroom still needs to be cleaned and the rugs need to be vacuumed, but after stripping and making the beds, the heat has gotten the better of me. Maybe this evening. Maybe tomorrow.

Punk and I will be babysitting a friend's baby (I think he's 9 months old?) on Thursdays for the summer starting this Thursday. I'm a little nervous about how it will play out (will Punk trash their house? will she drive me bonkers? will she nap?) but a little bit of extra cash is always good, too.

You can just call me Super Mama!

We're off to a bang with the productivity, which is nice. It's nice to not feel nauseous anymore (knock on wood) and the exhaustion doesn't hit me until I stop moving, so as long as I stay busy during the day, I'm good. The beautiful sunny day helps, too.

I had plans of taking Punk to the library this morning until I remembered that it's Patriots Day and therefore the library is closed. Patriots Day is pretty much only celebrated in Boston and is a non-issue around here, except for UMass and libraries. Aah well, tomorrow afternoon then. Punk is jonesing to re-borrow the same Veggie Tales video we have borrowed no less than 5 times.

Instead of a library outing, I managed to purge some junk from our dining room and living room and then Punk and I went grocery shopping, where she discovered the amazingness of Campbell's condensed Disney Princess noodle soup. She was so enamoured of this soup that she ate nearly the entire can and kept gushing about the princess shapes and how great the soup was. Children's marketing at its finest. She followed it up with some kid-marketed yogurt and some pineapple, and then took a great nap allowing me to do several loads of laundry and go through my maternity clothes. Almost none of them are useful to me for work because when I was pregnant with Punk, I sat in an office at UMass and wore nothing but jeans, shorts, and tshirts. Sigh.

I also managed to leave messages for several roofing companies on Angie's List so I can schedule some estimates, and put away all of Punk's laundry, and ate some leftover chinese food. (No Princess soup for me, thanks.)

We are headed to the park to meet up with Jess and her girls, and then I'm making Hamburger Helper for dinner. I'm Mother of the Year today in the food department! :) But it's got whole grains and is marketing itself as "Wholesome Helper" which cracked me up so much I had to buy it.

So far today seems to be an awesome day. I hope it sticks!

Life as I know it right now is pretty effing awesome, except for the part where we're broke because I'm still building a caseload. It is coming along and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's just a long tunnel and my last (biweekly) paycheck was $271. OOF.

But the job switch has really been an amazing thing for our family and I don't want to speak for Jen but I think we're both really pleased with the situation. Punk is a lot happier and enjoys having more parent time, as I usually get to pick her up somewhere between 3:00 and 4:00. It's still daylight and we sometimes get to have a quick adventure after, like to the library or even outside to blow some bubbles. Today we had a little "snack picnic" on the front steps eating her apple slices and drinking juice.

We've all been eating more homecooked meals and that is improving. We still go out to eat way too much (especially with the aforementioned tiny check) but much less than we did when I was working late. Punk is eating less quick meals for dinner and we eat more dinners as a family. Because we've been cooking more, I've been buying more fresh vegetables (instead of frozen/canned) which makes me happy also. We've also been tossing less food because I try to find different ways to use it up.

The house is more under control and things like laundry and dishes get done on a regular basis. I lack motivation to wash the pots and pans sometimes but the sink is rarely full of dishes. The table is clean. Garbage goes out. I can run a load of laundry at night without feeling like a total zombie because I've been working a billion hours. I try to do most of the chores now since Jen is working 8 hours of overtime a week and I know she is tired.

One day a couple of weeks ago, I had gone out in the evening after putting Punk to bed for a quick run to the grocery store. I was thinking on what I had done after work and it involved several hours of playing with a toddler, a couple of loads of laundry, some dishes, a homecooked meal, bath and bed for the toddler, and a few other things... and I looked at the clock on the way out the door and realized that in my "old life," I would have just been getting home about 15 minutes before. It was staggering.

Things are good. Just really good. Of course, the spring-like weather and the imminent arrival of "spring ahead time" is just icing on the cake.

Today I feel like SuperMom. Not bad for my first day back at work after a week of sloth.

I stayed at work until 3, then drove to the office to take care of some paperwork and schedule with my supervisor, then went to pick up Punk. (Who, by the way, is now wearing underwear to day care. !!!!) We came home and I read approximately 98943890123890 issues of Babybug and Wild Animal Baby. I then set her up with a huge stack of Sesame Street books and went to make some dinner. In between I also did a load of laundry. Punk likes to "help" with folding, and she matches all the socks.

It wasn't the most amazing dinner - some cubed and sauteed chicken, cheesy rice (using up some of that velveeta left over from the SuperBowl), and some leftover vegetables - but it was tasty and filling and not terrible. I procured some applesauce for the toddler and put the leftover food away for Jen and rinsed out the dishes.

After dinner I let her watch the Veggie Tales video we borrowed from the library while having some snuggle time, and then we did bath and then bed prep. While running the bath, I also emptied her laundry hamper and wiped up some sort of spill/leak on the bathroom floor that I believe is coming from the diaper sprayer. Now the child is in bed (though I doubt she is sleeping, she IS quiet at present), I did another round of Laundry Switcheroo, and am now about to indulge in a little internet and eating of PEZ.

Somewhere in there I also realized that I forgot to pick up my prescription this afternoon, so I managed to convince a former coworker to pick it up at the hospital pharmacy and then - get this - drive it to Jen at work. All while cutting up chicken and switching out laundry.

SuperMom.