Judecorp.

I am so excited. Today is our Special Punk and Mama day! We have been looking forward to it for a week.

Punk gets out of school at 11:30 today, so I didn't go to work. Well, I wouldn't have gone anyway because my work school district doesn't have school today, LOL. But anyway. Tukey is at day care today, so I am going to pick Punk up and take her out to lunch and a movie. I don't know who is more excited, her or me!

With two kids, we have a lot of one-on-one time doing things like running errands or reading an extra story, things like that. This is like a special treat for us, to have outings.

I think we will both have big smiles on our faces when we pick up Tukey this afternoon. :)

Summer is winding down and going back to work is looming just around the corner. There is one more week of summer life before Labor Day. How is that even possible? We have had a great and busy summer, so I know the time has truly passed but I am not ready. I am clinging to summer kicking and screaming even as the leaves begin to turn and the tomatoes are plentiful on my kitchen counter.

We spent the summer living a simple life, accommodating the baby's naps and just enjoying each other. I treasured the snuggly television watching with my daughter while my son slept in his room for his morning nap. We made crafts and played with water in the sink. We practiced writing letters and completed workbooks. She is falling right into my childhood footsteps - little nerdlet in training.

My son began the summer as a mostly immobile little guy who was content to swat at toys on the play mat and is now a nine month old force of destruction. He can tear apart my clean living room in less than a minute, climbing up and pulling things down, dumping over containers, scattering toys with might and mission. He shrieks and babbles, pulls the cats' tails, and adores his sister ferociously.

We spent a bunch of time this summer watching Punk's BFF, and it was great (and restful) watching the girls interact and watching C grow into an honorary big sister, handing the baby toys and talking to him so sweetly. We took weekly trips to our CSA farm and the big girls picked tomatoes and beans, cut flowers, and helped me choose the plumpest vegetables. We had a number of play dates with school friends and other babies. And kept the living easy.

We are now entering a new chapter in our lives together, me and my two. The baby doesn't remember going to day care and has entered the world of separation anxiety, which is likely to make the next few weeks rough. We switched him from the big day care center to the lovely, cozy home day care that Punk attended when she was two-to-three. I think this will be better for him, to have his own area for sleeping and a mom's touch, not to mention being around the corner from my job so I can fetch him as necessary. Punk is headed back to her Montessori classroom but will add two more days of after-school care since the pick-ups in the afternoon have to shift to accommodate picking up the baby first. She is looking forward to no longer being the youngest child in the classroom and it will be good for her to have some new kids to mentor.

I am not looking forward to going back to work but it will be nice to see the friendly adult faces that sustain me throughout the work day. It is nice to be wanted at work and I have enjoyed the relationship I've made between my agency and my school. I will enjoy seeing how my clients have grown over the summer and see their sun-kissed faces at the start of their new school year.

Time seems to march quickly when the work week hits full swing and I'm gobsmacked to realize that I will soon be planning my son's first birthday party. To think we are mere months away from first steps and words. It is humbling to be entrusted with these sweet souls.

I don't know what the next year will bring for my children and me, but we are ready for it and will meet it all with love.

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.

I had all of these intentions of going to bed early. I have this lingering cold that I would like to stop lingering, and my left tonsil is misbehaving again. I was hoping to be in bed by 9:30.

But now I'm doing all of the baby's prep for day care tomorrow, and I'm waiting around to do his late night diaper/dreamfeed. Which means I won't be in bed for a while yet. Which means after the 2am and 4am wake-ups, I'll be dead on my feet at 6am.

I don't need a lot of sleep to function adequately, but it's hard to handle work and kids when I have to do all of the overnights AND stay awake for the late-night feed. That extra hour or so of sleep makes a real difference when I can sleep uninterrupted from 9:30pm until about 2-2:30am.

Damn.

I went back to work today.

I was not even remotely on task.

(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 managed to earn myself another week off from work, thanks to a very scary situation that may or may not be resolved. This is kind of a bummer coming off the heels of school vacation week, because I only get paid for what I bill, which means if I don't go to work, I don't get squat. I only saw 4 kids on Monday due to wonky scheduling and had the bulk of my clients yesterday, today, and tomorrow, when I will be here, on the couch.

I am not very good at sitting on the couch, though. I already am itching to do the dishes and clean up some stuff, and I want to go outside! Also, I would really like to be at work making money.

Hopefully I will be cleared to go to work next week. Cross your fingers!

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.

I had 7 appointments scheduled today and only one showed up.

Seriously, I was ready to walk out.

This has been a lovely couple of days. Simply lovely.

For starters, the weather has been /amazing/, very unseasonably warm (summer weather), and spring has sprung here in the Happy Valley. (It's funny, I was looking at posts from a year ago this week and it was the same thing, so I'm guessing I should expect late April springs out here.) The arborvitae is alight with yellow blooms, the violets and dandelions are taking over, daffodils and tulips are up everywhere, and the flowering trees are fragrant and beautiful. I love it. Except for the part where my yard is a disaster. But we are going to use the tax return on some of that action.

My mother has been in town since Thursday late afternoon and we had a nice visit. She enjoyed hanging out with Punk (of course) and Punk is always looking for an extra doting adult, so it was win-win. My mom hadn't seen Punk in nearly a year, so it was a big change and Punk is really engaging and fun these days - good times. My mom walked her around the neighborhood in her wagon, did endless amounts of puzzles and oversaw lots of coloring. (Punk likes to have an audience when coloring.) We went out to a lot of meals in restaurants and spent a lot of time outside, going to parks and hanging out in the back yard. And of course we took Punk to the carousel, as you saw. Mom left after lunch today and I know Punk is missing her. I'm sure it's mutual.

This afternoon, we headed out to Holyoke to have a play date with Julie and Moey at the home of some of Julie's friends. It was a good time and they had a great set up for littles - a gorgeous deck and cute little landscaped yard, kiddie pool, sprinkler, sidewalk chalk, the works. Since it was in the 80s today, Punk got to have some April pool action, which typically doesn't happen unless we are visiting Jen's parents in Florida. I can't believe my kid was in a kiddie pool in April! Wild! Anyway, she had a grand old time filling up a little watering can and pouring it on herself ad nauseum and she was terrified of the sprinkler. Whoops. It was nice to meet Julie's friend (a two-mom family with a 4 year old) and it was doubly nice to enjoy the weather.

Tomorrow I begin the first of two days of orientation at my new job. The hospital has a two day orientation where they provide breakfast and lunch. SCORE! Then I am off on Wednesday and will go to work on Thursday and Friday. I'm not sure what my actual schedule will be, but I do know it will be so weird to be working! I have been sitting at home for so long, hanging out in my pajamas, and doing random busy projects around the house. This is definitely a shift in the old gears!