Miss Marissa

I have really been enjoying Marissa lately. She brings me great joy. Whenever we have been apart, even just for an hour or two, she is genuinely happy to see me. In fact, she often gets a little emotional with joy upon my return, drops whatever she is doing and runs to be held by me. This is something Mason has always done for his dad, but not as much for me. It's nice to be appreciated in this way.
She is also becoming funnier and funnier. This morning, I suggested she take a nice warm bath. A minute later, she runs into the room and says, "HEY MOO-OOM! I'M NAAAA-KED!" and laughed at her own silliness. It made me smile.
Marissa is also becoming quite a good helper. She wants to help me cook, do dishes and clean up. She basically does half of the grocery shopping with her own tiny cart. She loves doing laundry and is really practicing how to fold the clothes.
My time at home with Marissa, just she and I, is coming to a close soon. She'll be starting preschool in a few months, and I will be going back to school shortly thereafter. I am trying to savor the moments we have together now, and appreciate the opportunity to be with her so much. I love that little girl with my whole heart, and I am grateful to be her mom.

My Kids are Awesome

Today, there was a birthday in Mason's class. His school doesn't allow birthday treats to be handed out during school, so there is usually a mom standing outside the classroom on birthdays distributing sweets to the kids as they leave. Today, the treat was a snickerdoodle. I watched as Mason waited to get his cookie, said "Thank you" upon receiving the treat and then immediately broke it in half to share with his sister. He did it without giving it a second thought, without me prompting and even without Marissa asking. His immediate response to getting a treat was to share it with his sister. I'll admit it, it made me get teary-eyed. What a cool kid.

Marissa has become an old pro at entertaining herself during Mason's soccer practice. She actually looks forward to playing with her friends, the other younger siblings of Mason's teammates. Today was no different than other days except that when we got into the car to leave, Marissa said, "Mason. You played awesome today! You worked so hard and got lots of goals. Nice job!" I don't know whether she was actually paying attention or not, but I could tell that it made her brother feel good.

Today, I am grateful for the sweet spirits I was given to raise. They are such awesome little people. I am so glad I get to be their mom.

One Step at a Time

So, I have totally sucked at blogging since we started looking for houses back in March. I feel all guilty about it, but I also feel completely exhausted pretty much all the time. I know that home ownership is generally a series of projects, but I have to believe that buying a foreclosure means those projects are larger in scope and more immediate in urgency. We have basically been in a constant state of fixing our fixer of a house, and between those projects and my pre-existing obligations that previously took up all my time, I am just spent. Every damn day.

All bitching/excuses aside, I am excited about our house! Already, the different online house appraisal sites show our house as being worth $50k+ (or close to 25%) more than what we paid, and that doesn't take into account everything we have done to the place. And we have done a lot: refinished the original hardwoods; installed (really nice) carpet in the bedrooms; took the master bath to the studs and completely remodeled it; installed a custom closet organization system in the master bedroom; replaced several doors; painted nearly every room in the house; replaced all the hardware in the house (it had really old, worn out brass fixtures/hardware); installed cabinetry/storage in the garage; fixed the plumbing in the garage for the washing machine; changed the exterior light fixtures; and, about a million other little things throughout the property. This weekend, Logan painted the exterior of the house, and I am so excited for the change! We have had several neighbors come by already to tell us how much better it looks, which of course made us feel really good.

This week, we are spending a long weekend in Colorado with Gavin and family (and we finally get to meet Ellie!!). We are super excited to be with our friends and to have a little get away before Landon's life gets extra chaotic, as it usually does around this time of year. Something about fall and/or the coming of the holidays apparently puts folks in a litigious mood, I guess.

Once we get home, Landon will get into full-swing trial preparation mode (for a trial scheduled for early October). And me? I will get full-swing into fixing the damn yard mode. Our landscaping currently consists of copious weeds on uneven/holey ground. I will be rototilling the entire 1/3 of an acre, digging trenches for new irrigation, laying out planter beds, preparing soil and doing some basic planting (seeding for grass and putting in some plants that do best when planted in the fall). Landscaping is our next big project, and it is largely going to be me doing it by myself (hooray?) for the next 6+ months.

After the painting and landscaping is finished, we start saving like crazy for a kitchen remodel. I have been crunching the numbers and am hopeful we can redo the thing for about $15k. After that, we have only minor changes that can be done as we have money for them, and then I think we start looking to sell this place.

I am grateful today for completing different stages of fixing up our home. It feels so good to have accomplished goals, even the small ones, and see how our home is really starting to show pride of ownership. I am grateful that folks are noticing and complimenting us on our hard work (and probably secretly feeling really happy that this eye-sore is getting closer to no longer dragging down home values in the neighborhood). I am grateful for the continuing help from our families, especially Logan, who is a total and complete stud. We wouldn't have anywhere near as much checked off our to-do list without his help. We are taking it one step at a time, and I am grateful to see our progress!

Sonoma

About a month ago, Landon's boss told him that he would pay for a weekend in wine country if Landon got a certain amount in settlement for one of their clients. After putting a little time going back and forth, Landon got that amount plus another 25% extra, then called me and told me to book our weekend in Sonoma for our anniversary.

We had a wonderful time in wine country this weekend. The weather was beautiful, the wine was delicious, and the company was perfect. We ate like kings and gave each other too many high fives (did I say too many? I meant just the right amount of high fives). When it was time to come home today, we felt reconnected and ready to take on the world again.

I am grateful that my husband is also my best friend. I look forward to being with him, and always have so much fun when we're together. He's a good man, that husband of mine. And he makes me laugh like no one else can.

Happy 7th anniversary, Landon! I love you, i.e.u.

Feeling Happy

As I sat on the small deck off our bedroom with my husband next to me, watching our daughter lovingly snuggle with and sing to our new pet rabbit, I felt happy. Really, really happy. Happier than I can remember feeling in a long time.
Happiness is good.
I am grateful.

My poor, poor blog

Apparently, all it takes for me to fall off the blogging wagon is buying a house. Buying, renovating, moving into and continually finding new projects in a house.
But I am grateful. I have a house that is mine (well, sorta). I can tear down walls, rip out floors, build, paint, landscape. Anything I want (and can pay for). I know where we will be living next year. And the year after that.
My poor, poor blog has suffered, but I am grateful for our new house. Our home.

Starting Fresh

The last few months have been among the most chaotic of my life. I spent the last several years fantasizing about buying a house. I really thought it was going to be so much fun! Alas, it was stressful and time consuming and difficult. But, we found a home we're really happy with and are excited to be starting fresh. Here is the last several months in summary:

Mid-March, we started actively looking for a house to buy. I chronicled the first offer here and here. We made offers on two different houses in a matter of two weeks, neither of which were accepted. Then another house we wanted to buy accepted an offer the day before we went to make an offer. We were feeling really discouraged at that point because there wasn't really anything left on the market that fit all our criteria.

I decided we should go look at a bank-owned home that was slightly outside of our target neighborhood (within the right elementary and middle school boundaries, but the wrong high school). It was much better than I was expecting. In fact, I even liked it. A lot. So I called Landon, and he came and saw it later that day. We talked it over and looked at a couple of other properties, and decided to make an offer on the foreclosure we didn't expect to like. After some back and forth, our offer was accepted, and we were under contract.

We thought that dealing with a bank-owned home would be easier in a lot of ways than a traditional sale. We assumed that they would be very motivated sellers without any weird hang-ups or moving issues. Instead, they were disorganized and slow and frustrating as all hell. Landon was freaking out left and right at the seller's incompetence. I tried to keep my cool, but I was definitely nervous about it all falling apart. However, thanks in large part to Landon's pestering, we actually closed early on the house. We officially became home owners on May 11, 2011.

The next day, we started fixing the house so we could move in. Landon gave our landlords our 30 day notice at the beginning of May, so we had a little more than 2 weeks to refurbish the original hardwoods, completely gut and rebuild the master bathroom, put in carpets in the bedrooms, paint almost every room in the house and do about a million other "small" things you have to do to a house so you can move in. Oh my hell, that was crazy, crazy, crazy. I will never give myself such a tight timeline again! Landon's dad and brother did about 80% of the work, with friends and my brother Brandon also stepping up admirably and helping us out.

We moved in over Memorial Day weekend, thanks to our families coming with trucks and a willingness to carry heavy stuff. I've spent the last two weeks getting our old house in decent shape so we (hopefully) get some of our deposit back and getting us all settled into our new home. My sisters, mom and Landon's mom have all come and helped us unpack, clean, organize and generally get settled in. Josh has also been helping out quite a bit around the house and with the kids. It's now starting to feel like home and not just a place where we store our boxes of crap and sleep.

Although my life has not been my own for nearly four months, I am able to see the light at the end of the tunnel now. My kids are feeling more and more settled, and I am feeling less and less like a headless chicken. We love our new home and can't wait to start our life in our very own house -- our home!

I have spent much of the last several months overcome with gratitude for so many people:

We are forever indebted to Gary and Logan for the many, many hours they have given us doing every kind of construction-related work imaginable. They have been here after work, on their weekends, and even stopping by during work hours (but, SHHH! don't tell anyone) so we could get into our home on time. It has been frustrating, time- and labor-intensive work, and they were doing it all for free. How blessed we are to have them in our lives!

We are also incredibly grateful for my brother Brandon, Chris Tolbert and Dave Parker for stepping up and helping us when our scheduled contractor flaked on us, again all for free. They are a huge part of why were able to move in on time, and we feel so blown away by how generous they were with their time and their talents and their labor.

Meagan and Caitlin stepped up and helped do the bulk of our packing (especially Meagan!). Then, they came and did a ton of the unpacking and organizing. So grateful for their time and effort and company.

Both the Bailey and the Rachac families, plus Chris, came and moved us into our new home in a matter of hours.

We are lucky people, Landon and I. We are so blessed to have the families that we do, who give so much of their time and their love and support and their labor to help us. I truly hope that we are able to one day repay each of them, if only in part, for their kindness and generosity.

There will be pictures . . . soon

So this here blog of mine has been without any photos for a while. There is a good reason for that. I broke my camera back in October. It took several months to fix, and while it was back in New Jersey getting repaired, I managed to lose my battery charger. So, you know, the battery is dead. And instead of searching the house for my battery charger (or buying a new one), I've been spending every possible minute trying to find a house to buy.

I think the lack of new pictures is, at least in part, why I haven't blogged much of late. I guess I'm visual like that. I want some pictures to go with my posts.

But my kids are going to Grandma's this weekend, and I am going to find my battery charger. And charge my battery. And post pictures on this here blog. For myself and like the two other people in the world who ever read anything I write. The End.

And as far as gratitude is concerned, today I am grateful for Spring. I am grateful for the tulips and daffodils and the redbuds (oh, the redbuds!) and the sunshine and the afternoons at the park and the days growing longer and the disappearance of seasonal mood disorder. Yay for Spring!

Moving On

So after waiting nearly 24 hours, we found out our offer wasn't accepted on the house. We were disappointed, but Landon and I both believe that things happen for a reason. Our offer wasn't accepted because that house wasn't meant to be our house.

I'm grateful for the experience. Now I know what to expect when we make another offer on a house. We aren't going to know for a while whether our offer is accepted. And I'm also grateful to know that I don't have the stomach for waiting on a short sale. I can't even imagine how we'd feel right now if our offer had been accepted. We'd still be waiting to hear back from the bank, and who knows how long that would take!

We're looking at more houses this weekend with Gary. There are a couple of promising prospects, so I am excited. Maybe we'll find our house. Who knows?

Tom Petty

The theme song for today has been, "The Waiting is the Hardest Part." We've been waiting for news all day, and it has been gut-wrenching. Literally. My guts have been seriously mad at me and the anxiety I am feeling. But let me back up a bit to explain why...

We got pre-approved for a mortgage as expected on Friday. We started looking at houses on Saturday. On Monday, we contacted an agent who had been referred to us by Landon's boss. While I was on the phone with her explaining what we are looking for in a house, she suddenly yelled, "AH! Your house just came on the market!" We talked about the house that had just been listed, and it sounded exactly perfect except the part where it is a short sale. Since we're operating on a limited time frame (we need to be in the house within 4 months to have time to register Mason at his new school before it starts in August), we had pretty much ruled out short sales. Our agent and I decided that it couldn't hurt to check it out. After talking to the listing agent and seeing the house, our agent decided she wanted us to see it and soon.

After trying hard to not get too worked up over the house, we went and saw it this morning. We saw it and loved it. While we were out in the back yard checking things out, I told our agent I wanted to put an offer on it. She agreed it would be good to move fast, so we finished the tour and went to her office. After calling the listing agent again, we discovered there was already a full price offer on the table. We decided to go in significantly over list price with a very limited set of demands. We really like this house.

Landon and I have spent the afternoon waiting to hear back. The first deadline our agent had set came and went. We waited four hours after that, getting very little done other than agonizing. Then a call from our agent -- EXCITEMENT! Only to be followed with more waiting. The meeting had been pushed back five hours. Wait some more. We're two and a half hours past the second meeting time. Our agent emailed to reassure us she is trying to get through to the listing agent, but she hasn't heard anything. "Don't worry!" Ugh. Too late for that.

We could have afforded more than we offered. We would have willingly paid more. It's killing me not knowing. It will kill me even more if our offer isn't accepted and the house sells within the range we could have paid.

This post totally isn't about gratitude, but I have literally been waiting all day and I need to do something with myself. Time to practice the art of letting go - what will be, will be. Breathe in, breathe out. If it doesn't work out, it wasn't meant to be.

But the waaaaaiiiiiitin' is the hardest part!

Cha-cha-cha-changes

I am the kind of person who wants roots and stability and everything to always stay the same forever. Change is hard for me. Like, it totally freaks me out and renders me spastic. It always has. For example, when I was two, we were moving from Las Vegas to Shingle Springs. I broke out in a cold sore. When they loaded up our refrigerator, I apparently totally lost it. "THEY TOOK THE REFRIGERATOR! THEY TOOK IT! IT'S GONE!" And that generally sums up my coping skills for change.

In the 12 (twelve?!?) years since I graduated from high school, I have moved at least 15 times. The longest I have lived in any one place is about 18 months. Obviously, many of the stays have been much shorter than that. Also, right after I graduated college, my parents sold my childhood home and moved to a place that will never be MY home. In short, I haven't had a proper "home" for a very, very long time.

Since Landon became a lawyer and we started a family, I have had a basically pathological need to have our own home. I have been totally incapable of thinking about it in any sort of rational way. I just want to buy a house and live there forever and ever and have a home again. Fortunately for me, Landon is much less crazy than I. He is the epitome of rational and sane and good at making decisions, so we have not bought a house. There have been at least 10 houses I would have bought had the decision been left to me, and every single one of them would have been a very poor choice.

Last year, Landon sat down and explained to me why I needed to chill the eff out on the whole buying a house front. He guided me through the process of saving for a down payment, creating a feasible 3-5 year plan for buying our first home, and helped me calm down a bit. I started saving my money via automatic withdrawals twice a month, and at the end of the year, Landon matched everything I had saved. It felt good to see us progressing along our long term plan and being all financially responsible.

Then suddenly, as we started to look at our finances, we decided putting both kids into private school was really just a terrible idea. The money we had been saving was going to get a lot tighter with having Marissa in school too. It was going to make the timeline for buying a house a lot longer than we wanted. So Landon and I sat down again to rethink our 5 year plan and decided that maybe we should be buying a house sooner rather than later. It just made more sense to get our family into an area that would cost more money to live, but that had public schools to which we could send our children.

Today we are meeting with a mortgage broker to start the process of buying a home. Landon has contacted a real estate agent his boss recommended, and I am scouring the internet to see what is available at our price point in the neighborhood(s) where we want to live. All of those desires to plant myself and grow roots will soon be fulfilled, and it scares the crap out of me. Suddenly, we're facing the biggest financial decision of our lives thus far and it means a whole lot of changes.

I choose to embrace the changes, even though it is a little scary, and be grateful that our plan is coming to fruition much sooner than expected. I'm so excited to be looking for a home in the area I know is right for our family. I'm excited to be taking this step with Landon and giving our family some stability. I'm grateful that our finances have sufficiently come together at this time to allow us to be taking the step of buying a house. And I'm grateful that soon I will again have a HOME!

My Hysteria

When I became a mother, in the sleepless, painful days immediately following the birth of Mason, I had the greatest revelation of my life thus far: I am loved beyond anything I could have previously comprehended. All the overwhelming emotion that was now focused on the tiny human being sleeping in the clear, plastic box beside me -- all the blind love and admiration and protectiveness -- someone else felt that way about me. Somehow, I finally understood so much about my own parents, the choices they have made and the way they treat me as I watched my tiny new son snuggled into my bosom. And I changed forever . . .

About a month after Mason's birth, I was watching The Incredibles at my parents' house. Now, I do cry often when watching movies, and being all post-partum certainly didn't improve that. So at the point in the movie when Elastigirl and Violet and Dash are about to get blown up by Syndrome's missiles, and Elastigirl shouts, "Abort! Abort! Abort! THERE ARE CHILDREN ABOARD THIS PLANE!" and Mr. Incredible shouts, "I'll do anything!", I was balling like crazy. Then Elastigirl goes and wraps herself around her children to save them from the blast, and I was really gone. I cried and cried. And every single time I have watched that movie, which is at like 500 viewings at this point, I cry. I laugh at myself while I cry, but it's like every parent's worst fear being played out in a Disney movie . . .

Last week, there was a huge earthquake in Japan. Soon after, there was a huge tsunami triggered from the earthquake. There were tsunami warnings for Hawaii, where I have friends who live right on the beach, as well as the entire west coast of North and South America. I worried about my friends -- had they heard? Did they know what was heading their way? A facebook post, "Tsunami warning" brought tremendous relief, and I cried a little knowing that even though the people I know and love were safe, there were many more who weren't.

I've spent the last several days trying to read as little as possible about the devastation in Japan because the media is so, so good at telling the most heart-wrenching of the stories. One of the first articles I read told of a woman whose small daughter was swept away right in front of her eyes by the tsunami -- she just wasn't able to hold on tight enough -- and I just lost it. A couple of days later, a friend posted a photo of two parents mourning over the body of their daughter who was taking a driving lesson when her car was overtaken by the tsunami. The mother stroked the daughter's hair in the wreckage of the vehicle, surrounded by mud and debris.

These are the stories that haunt me. Being powerless to save your own child. Knowing they are about to die and not being able to do a damn thing about it. Desperately trying to hang on only to lose your grip. And I wonder, how do you get past that? How do you pick up the pieces and move on with your life? There is nothing more frightening to me in this world than losing my child(ren) -- nothing worse I can imagine than that. It scares me in a way that I just can't think about it or else I will be consumed with worry and fear.

Today I am overwhelmed with gratitude for my children, that they are safe and whole and running around like maniacs. I am so grateful to be able to smell their morning breath as they nuzzle into my armpit much earlier than I would like to be awake. I rejoice in their noises and their needs and their sweet, sweet kisses. I am grateful.

This Goes Out to the One(s) I Love

Tomorrow I travel without my family. And, since I am such an optimistic person who never considers worst-case scenarios as the most likely outcome in any situation, I have been thinking about what my kids would remember about me if I died during my travels. What sort of legacy would I leave for them? Would they know how much I love them, or would Mason just remember how the last day we spent together involved me throwing away a gift he was given by his grandpa and the trauma that caused his tender little heart? Thinking these thoughts as I shopped for some last minute, handle these things before I go items tonight at Target got me feeling all sentimental, which made me want to write a blog post for the ones I love. You know, in case I die this weekend.

To Mason - my little Shugah Boogah. You came along way before we meant to start a family. I spent the first several months of my pregnancy with you scared out of my mind that I was going to be a mom so much sooner than I ever expected. Despite the timing being slightly off, I would not change it even if I could. You are an amazing little man . . . so kind, so sweet, so tender. You are smart, though you don't know as much as you think you do (not yet anyway). I admire your compassion and empathy, especially how naturally both seem to come for you. You make me laugh every single day, as well as melt my heart with your sweet spirit. When I need a hug, you are always happy to oblige. I hope that never changes. I love how seriously you take your role as Marissa's big brother. The way you look out for her well-being, the way you really want to teach her how to do things, and how gentle you are with her is amazing to me. The fact that you never showed jealousy towards her, even though her entrance into our family totally rocked your tiny world, really speaks to how loving and accepting you really are. I also love how you really wish you could have more siblings despite Dad's strongest attempts to convince you that more siblings would mean fewer presents for you at Christmas, less time with Mom and Dad in your day-to-day and other things that would sway pretty much any other five year old out there. I feel blessed every day that I get to be your mother.

To Marissa -my Little Princess. A few weeks ago, Grandma Rachac and I were talking about how amazing I find it that you are such a girly girl given that I never was. You are such a princess, but you are my "Paper Bag Princess". You like dressing fancy and feeling beaUtiful, but you have no problem getting out in the dirt, digging for worms or wrestling with your brother and dad. You'd be the first one to go out and save the one you love from any dragons there might be in the world, and I admire that about you. Distracting you from something you have set your sights on is basically impossible. You are determined, strong and persistent, but you are also charming, silly and fun. I am thoroughly enjoying the phase you are in now, as your sense of humor develops and emerges. I appreciate how sweet you are with little ones -- like our friend Marissa and your cousin Adrian -- and your love of animals is so sweet. You know to be gentle and kind, and you are already showing a great deal of empathy for those around you. You are confident and strong, and I admire you for that. I feel so lucky to be your mom.

To Landon. You are a fantastic husband and amazing father. I admire you. I respect you. I feel blessed to be your wife. You make me laugh like no one else, and you are the first person I want to spend time with every day. You have made me a better person, and you make me want to keep pushing to improve. Thank you for loving me. I am grateful to have you by my side.

I love you all more than I could ever properly express. I can't believe how blessed I am to be part of your lives, and am so, so grateful for each of you.

Ode to Love

I feel compelled to write a post this Valentine's Day, even though I'm generally not all that into this particular holiday. It always felt contrived and a bit disappointing, but I'm feeling the love today. This week is going to be the best week ever, all because of people who love me.

Tomorrow, Landon is taking me to see CAKE, my long-time favorite band, live in The City (also known as San Francisco). I haven't seen Cake since I was in college, which I realized this weekend has been nearly *cough*ten*cough* years. We don't normally exchange gifts because we are too pragmatic and generally just prefer to buy what we want for ourselves. But, when I saw that Cake would be performing in SF the week of Valentine's Day, I subtly implied that perhaps tickets to one of their concerts would be a nice gift (and by subtly imply, I mean, sent him an email that read, "Wanna get tickets to Cake for my Valentine's Day present?"). He quickly picked up on my hints and suggested that I buy the tickets myself using his credit card. Aren't we soooo romantic? And since Landon's mom loves us and her grandchildren (but mostly her grandchildren) soooo much, she will be driving straight to our house from work so we can make it to The City in time for the show. Feeling the love!

Then, on Thursday, my BFF (is it okay for a 30 year old woman to use that acronym?) is flying me up to spend a long weekend with her in Seattle. She booked a sweet hotel in the heart of the city for us to use as our home base for a long overdue, girls only weekend. She booked tickets to a show, but I think we're gonna spend a lot of time just hanging out and enjoying being together. I can't wait to get to spend some time with her! My mom and Landon's mom will both spend a couple of days with the kids so I can be gone for 5 (FIVE!) days.

So, I'm feeling lucky. I'm feeling loved. I'm feeling excited and grateful and really, really excited. Did I mention how excited I am? Best. Week. Ever!

WoooHooo!

Once upon a time, I went to a party. I had fun at that party. Lots of fun. Too much fun, in fact, such that I was rather sick in the night. The next day was Halloween, and even though I still felt rather sick, as the mother of two small children, I had to suck it up and take them trick or treating. So I did. And they had fun. And I sucked it up. There was no one to blame for my stupidity of the previous evening aside from myself, and I certainly wasn't going to let it interfere with my parental duties.

After we finished trick or treating, and the kiddos had nice full buckets of candy, I set my very expensive, very loved camera on the small sliver of seat between Rissa's car seat and the door as I buckled her in. I forgot about it completely, shut the door, and went home. Upon opening the door to let Rissa out, my camera fell onto the concrete floor of our garage. And it broke, but not visibly. It just didn't work anymore.

After much self-kicking for my wide array of stupid decisions in such a short period of time, I sat down and figured out how to send my camera into the company with whom I had purchased an extended warranty at the time I bought my camera. There were a few issues that made me not feel particularly hopeful that my camera would be repaired under the warranty, particularly the part where the warranty didn't cover damage from dropping the camera on concrete. Still, it was only going to cost the price of shipping the camera to their facilities, so I thought I at least ought to try. I didn't have another $1500 to shell out to get myself a new camera.

I shipped the camera in, and after several long months, including all the holidays and the various important moments associated with them, I received a package containing my completely repaired camera (for only about $20 in shipping both ways)! HOORAY!

So today, I am super duper grateful that Landon's cousin encouraged me to buy an extended warranty when I bought my camera. I am super duper grateful that I followed his advice. Finally, I am super duper grateful that my camera is all fixed and working so I can start taking photos of my beautiful kids again! WoooHooo!

Cheepies

Something that is nice about your kids learning how to talk is getting to really understand their little brains. You get to see how they take in information, absorb it and analyze it. You get to see how they think and make connections. And, you get to see how their sense of humor works. Lately, we have been enjoying a lot of Marissa's developing sense of humor. She latches onto a lot of what Mason does and says that makes her laugh and repeats ad nauseam, regardless of the response from her "audience". She spent the last week saying "green mac and cheese!" incredulously at totally random times in a voice that sounded an awful lot like an impression of Mason. I still don't get that joke, but it cracked her up for a long time. When doing or saying silly things, she often tells me, "I'm weird," or "I'm just being weird." That always makes me smile.
A couple of days ago, we were "reading" a vocabulary book about animals. When we got to the ducklings, she clearly couldn't remember what they were called. I think she was going for "chicks", but instead called them, "cheeps".
I said, "What are those?"
She said hopefully, "Cheepies?"
Then we all laughed.
We have read that same book at nap and bed time every day since then, and even though I have told her the proper name and given her the out of "baby ducks", when we get to the ducklings, she calls them "cheepies" and laughs at her tiny joke.
That Rissa is cute. I am sure glad she came to live at my house.

Rad

A recent conversation:

Me: "How was hot lunch today, Mason?"
Mason: "It was yummy!"
Me: "Yeah? Did you eat your whole lunch?"
Mason: "I did! I ate my whole lunch TWICE!"
Me: (laughing) "Oh yeah? You ate the whole thing twice? How did you manage that?"
Mason: "By being awesome."

Who can argue with that?

Oh, Rissa!

A few months back, we decided the time had come to take away the Rissa's pacifier. Her third birthday was fast approaching, and her teeth were only getting more "bucky". I had put off the dreaded day of saying goodbye to the paci long enough, and so we did it. We threw them suckers (ha!) away and had a miserable week.
In the months since, Rissa has decided to shed all the things that used to bring her comfort and help her sleep. About a month after we said goodbye to the pac, she spontaneously decided to say goodbye to her lovey "Pink Bear" (so creative are we in naming our kids' lovies). A few weeks after that, she decided she didn't want her blanket either.
So here we are, months after the fact, and Rissa still doesn't know how to fall asleep without her baby comforts. She sits in her bed and talks to herself, even providing both sides of the conversation "GO TO BED!", "I don't WANT to go to bed!", etc, cries, jumps around, and generally just avoids sleeping as long as possible. Since I have been a total grump for a while now, my response to this has been to be stern, threaten, and even yell right in her face. Obviously, yelling is super helpful in getting a child to sleep. Landon has been similarly frustrated with her sleeping issues and has also been known to get right up in her grill and yell.
I was feeling all crazy and desperate for her to start napping again since her cousin is starting back at school this week (and therefore can't stay with her here while I pick up Mase from school, run errands, etc while she hangs out in her crib for hours on end without sleeping) and so I can actually start working again during her nap. Then I remembered that I have a great tool in helping her figure out how to sleep... my sleep bible, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. I reread the chapters on toddlers/preschoolers and created a game plan. We're a couple of days into retraining her to sleep. It's not been fun or easy, but the end is near and I know the method works. I just need to get out of both our ways and let her figure out how to sleep like a big girl.
I am grateful for expert help from third parties who can be objective and not crazy, and who know that yelling at 3 year olds in an effort to get them to sleep is just dumb.

You want it, I got it

We went to a party this weekend, the husband and I. It was a party full of lawyers. Lots and lots of lawyers. The problem with lawyers is, for the most part anyway, they work so much that they don't really have much else in their lives. Therefore, most conversation with lawyers is about being a lawyer. I have found that I can hang in the lawyer talking since I am 1) married to a lawyer and 2) a reasonably good bullshitter. It's not my most favorite thing to do, be in a conversation with a lawyer about being a lawyer, but it happens pretty often and it is what it is. Sometimes it is better than talking to my 3 year old about the poop she just made, sometimes it isn't.

Anyhow, at this party, I found myself primarily engaged in conversations about being a lawyer, but as the night wore on I found myself almost entirely engaged in conversations about how great I am to my lawyer husband. Now, basically none of these people know me at all. They just know that I am married to a lawyer who works a lot, and they discovered that instead of bitching about how much my husband works, I was focusing on how much harder it is for him to be working like that all the time. Clearly, this struck a chord with these lawyers, and they nearly all became of the opinion that I am a fantastic wife and wonderful human being.

One conversation (that repeated itself several times, thanks to the increasing level of "drunk" being experienced by my fellow conversant) went like this:

Drunk Lawyer (what other kind of lawyer is there?): "You are so great!"
Me: "Uh, thanks."
DL: "Landon is so lucky to have you!"
Me: "I am pretty lucky to have him too."
DL: "I really love your hat!" (it was a costume party, my hat was awesome, and she was really drunk and easily distracted).
Me: "Yeah, it is pretty great. Thanks."
DL: "Landon is so lucky to have such a supportive wife! How are you so supportive?!" (did you notice how everything she said comes with exclamation points?)
Me: "Uh, well, he supports me too. It works both ways."
DL: "Wow! That is just so amazing! I really love your hat!"

So anyway, I was thinking about it this morning, and drunk lawyer was right. Landon is lucky to have a supportive wife. But I was right, too. It is easy (usually) for me to be supportive because Landon is so supportive of me. And most relationships don't seem to have that give and take. They are either one-sided, with one who always gives and one who always takes, or have two selfish people who live parallel lives. But not me. We both try to take care of each other and be supportive of the other and appreciate what the other is going through.

So thanks Drunk Lawyer for reminding me. Landon is lucky. And so am I.

Forgetting Gratitude

I have not been a very kind person the last few weeks, which is particularly sad when you take into account that time period includes Christmas. I have been short-tempered and sometimes even flat out mean, and most of the time, I haven't even felt bad about it. There are no excuses for this behavioral slump I have been in. It is a problem and I need to get over it. As I was pondering my attitude issues this morning, I remembered this, my forgotten endeavor to count my blessings, and decided it was well past time for me to practice gratitude.

Today, I am very grateful for a husband who, after working all day at a job that is demanding and stressful and hard, was willing to do the huge pile of dishes last night so I wouldn't have to. I am grateful for a son who proudly battled the ants that overtook our kitchen table in the night before I got out of bed this morning because he knows they drive me crazy. I am grateful for a daughter who really wants to use the potty and be a big girl now. I am grateful for a nephew who patiently entertains his cousins and mows the lawn and takes out the garbage, even the stinky diaper pail stuff. I am grateful for a 2 year plan that includes things that I can be and am really excited about, and the opportunity to learn personal discipline from someone who excels at it (Lando).