I Do Exist!

Hello! This blog is still here! I'm still here! Promise!

I guess I got so busy with tax season (like, really busy) I neglected the blog, and then after tax season I kind of felt like I had nothing to offer. But now I'm back with just maybe a little bit of news to share.

We just moved in to a new house and wow. It's so nice to have our own space again. It's a bigger place than we've ever had and it really feels like we can breathe and spread out which is always nice. It's pretty in the middle of nowhere for us since we're so used to living on one side of town, but there are lots of frogs and other critters (even gators sometimes apparently? yikes!) to keep us company.

Skeeter is a year old and ugh she's so huge. She's walking all over the place and saying a few words. She loves to eat (and how dare you if you're eating something...anything...and you don't share with her) and she loves her Bubba and Pooh Bear. She's such a sweet baby. She's very quiet most of the time and so well behaved when we're out. We just love her to bits.

I've shared this here before, but I never wanted a girl. Because I'm a girl and I remember what it's like to be a girl and I just didn't want to have to deal with a child going through what I went through. But having a girl is so fun. Having a boy is pretty special, but having a girl is pretty special in a different way I think.

Punkin is growing up too. It's amazing to me sometimes when we're having a conversation that he can actually sit and have that conversation with me. He can tell me about his day and about what he likes and especially about what he doesn't like. It's a fun trip in to his brain.

I'm in school for early childhood education and it's going great so far. I'm really enjoying learning about how my kid works. I don't know that I'll ever really pursue a career in early childhood education, but learning about it is so much fun. It's nice to have something for me.

Austin is traveling like a crazy person with no kids for his comedy. He's gone three weekends in a row in August and I'm already dreading it. I'm proud of him for relentlessly pursuing his passion and making things happen for himself. He's getting paid to do what he loves, so I can't complain too much!

And now here is a lovely picture of my almost grown babies.

Come Back Kid

Hi! I'm still here!

This tax season has been so unbelievably busy. Just ask my very disgruntled husband. I went back to full time in February and since then I've been working nights and weekends whenever I feel like I need to catch up. Which has been often. It's exhausting and I think I've been sick for a month straight now. Between working nights and Skeeter still getting up in the middle of the night to nurse (torture!) my body is protesting.

Punkin turned 3 at the beginning of the month and to celebrate we took the kids to Disney. It was amazing. Punkin had a fantastic time and we had a fantastic time watching him. Skeeter was an absolute doll and besides having to make a quick trip to urgent care for an eye infection, everything went great!

They're both getting so big. Punkin is growing by leaps and bounds. He speaks like a little person now and the terrible three's are upon us! We're still working on potty training, but so far we're at a stalemate. He'll pee in the potty when he feels like it, otherwise he'll just pee in his pants if he's too busy. Don't even think about poop. He absolutely refuses to poop in the potty.

Skeeter is almost a year old! 2 more months and my baby will be a toddler! I can't even believe it. She's so very close to walking. She can stand on her own and it's like you can see the wheels turning in her brain to make herself take a step, but she ends up just falling to her butt. Soon! She's also saying words all over the place: Mama, Dada, Bubba (for Punkin), num num, banana, paw paw, night night...it's like she's picking up a new one every day. She'll be as big as her brother pretty soon, and her brother will be starting kindergarten. Where does the time go?

Austin and I are, of course, getting lost in the children and the general every day mess that is life. It's hard for us to get out at the same time, so I'm really trying to have just us dates at least once a week on the weekends. It's hard to make it happen, but I feel like it's getting more and more important for us to just be us together instead of parents and employees all the time.

Tax season ends April 15th, so I probably won't write again until after then! Here's hoping I survive!

Around

That's me. I've been around. I guess I can't complain that I haven't had anything interesting to write about.

Punk is doing very well in preschool. He still cries a bit in the morning when I drop him off if his teacher isn't there yet (he loves his teacher!). But he's always happy and playing when I pick him up. I can definitely see an improvement in his speech, both in the words he's saying and in his comprehension. Tuesday he was telling me how he rode the bicycle at playtime and how he learned all about dinosaurs in class. He was even telling me about how his friend Josh cried during breakfast. It was nice to be able to have a conversation about his day.

He's so very close to three now, and I can definitely feel it. His favorite game is pushing Momma and Daddy's buttons until we get all red faced and huffy. He loves it. It's been difficult navigating boundaries for him. Time-outs don't seem to work very well. I'm not a big fan of spanking, but he has been popped on the bottom on occasion and that doesn't seem to have much of an effect either. It's a work in progress.

Potty training seems to be at a standstill. He's great going pee pee in the potty during the day, and will usually tell us when he needs to go when we're out. He has a habit of holding it for a REALLY long time to avoid the potty, so we have to really stay on top of him or he'll have an accident before we can get him to the bathroom. He still won't poop in the potty at all. I'm kind of stumped on that one. I don't want to force it but man it would be nice if we could get him to do that. He's also still in a diaper at nap time and at bed time and usually wakes up really wet so I don't think he's even close to losing the diaper completely.

Skeeter is getting so very big. She's 8 months old now and babbling away. She says Ma, Da, Buh, Nuh and some other random gibberish. I hesitate to say it, but I really think she's starting to recognize Austin and I with "Mama" and "Dada". We call Punk Bubba. I also think she says "nuh" when she wants to eat sometimes. We refer to food as num num with Punk. I don't know why and I went through a period of trying to stop saying it because it's kind of obnoxious, but it stuck. So I always ask if she wants some num num and I think that's where she gets nuh from. Or it's my imagination. Who knows.

She has her two bottom teeth (which are ridiculously sharp...trust me) and I think she's working on more. She's crawling every where and pulling up and cruising. She's into EVERYTHING and has gotten to where she runs (crawls really fast) when she hears me coming up behind her. She knows I'm there to spoil her fun. She's a love and a joy and she and her brother are the prettiest babies in existence. Yes, I'm bias. No, I don't care.

I start back full time at work at the beginning of next month and I'm dreading it, but I'm looking forward to full paychecks again. Say a tax season prayer for me! It'll probably be another month before I update!

Grief

I have not been able to stop thinking about the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary since I first heard about it on Friday.

I wanted to write a post that day. But I knew it would be a jumbled mess of emotion and rage and terror. I told Austin what happened and he turned on the news to a scene of chaos and confusion. We watched for a few minutes, and just as I was reaching my breaking point the new caster announced "All of the 20 children killed were between 5 to 10 years old" and I lost all grip on emotion. I jumped up just as Austin was asking "How..." and choked through tears that I couldn't sit there and watch it any more. He hugged me while I cried and I fell apart.

Of course, I'm thinking about my own children and how I would cope if something like this ever happened to one of them (I wouldn't, by the way). But I'm also thinking of those children and the absolute horror they must have felt. Knowing now that they were all 6-7 year old first graders, the same age as my precious nephew, makes it all more real. My heart breaks for them, and it breaks for their parents. It breaks for the survivors and the emotional scars they'll likely carry for the rest of their lives. It breaks for that small community who now are struggling to put the pieces together and figure out how to move forward.

It breaks for the entire country. Because I think we all felt it. I think we all held our breath for just a second as our brains tried to process the hows and whys.

Now government leaders and know-it-alls on Facebook continue to discuss gun control and how this happened because God wasn't in that school (please). How only prayer will make these things stop and we need MORE guns and those kindergarten teachers should have been packing heat. But if we look beyond all of that and take a harsh realistic stance, nothing will make these things stop. They'll  continue to happen. It will continue to be tragic. And every time we'll talk about gun control and God and monsters, and we'll be at the mercy of mental illness.

No matter what gun policy is put in to place, I can't help but feel like we need to start at the roots of growth. We need better funding for early intervention programs. We need more schools with behavior specialists and more resources for behavioral therapy. Parents need help, and the fact of the matter is they don't always have the funds or the resources or the time to recognize that fact.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure no one could have predicted a tragedy on this scale. The fact that some news outlets are discussing Autism as a reason is infuriating and shows at best, a basic misunderstanding between ASD and a severe mental illness.  I just wish it was possible for teachers to be trained to recognize early signs of illness and act swiftly to get the parents informed and get them help. Maybe it wouldn't help at all. But maybe it would make one less child feel different and alone to know that other kids go through it too.

Nothing can fully explain this. No one answer will ever give the parents peace. I just hope time can ease the ache in their hearts.

Growing Up

Today was Punkin's first day of preschool.

We took him to meet his teacher and classmates last week. He walked into the classroom and shyly looked around at all the other children running around. They were just doing circle time and were starting to read a book and when Punkin saw that it was One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish he was very excited. It's one of his favorites to read with Austin.

We snuck in to the hallway with the teacher and peeked through the window to see him playing with trucks. We talked to the teacher about her curriculum and how we should handle potty training at school and when he usually naps. We peeked through the window a minute later to see him standing in the back of all the kids red faced and screaming with crocodile tears streaming down his face. He had realized we were gone and he was panicking.

Austin went and got him and carried him outside to where we were, and Punkin tugged on his hand saying "Come on, Daddy" as if to relay that he needed to get out of that place ASAP.

We've been trying to get him pumped for school ever since, telling him he would get to go play with friends and see Miss Sara (his teacher) and play on the playground. He wasn't enthused. Last time I asked "Hey, do you want to go see Miss Sara soon?!" he responded "Ummmmm....nooooooo".

So today was the day. We woke up late and scrambled to rush out the door. On the way there I talked to him about going to school, and he was fine until we got in to the classroom. He cried before we even left. I think all of the kids running around like crazy and being loud just overwhelmed him. We tried to get him to sit down and eat but he wasn't having it. We went ahead and left so it wouldn't be worse, and I fought back tears when I heard him wailing all the way down the hall.

On the way out we stopped in the parents room and had them turn the big TV to the channel that was his class so we could spy on him from a distance. Even with no sound you could see how upset he was. His teacher was holding him the entire time, trying to talk to him and make him feel better. We watched as a little girl walked up to him and offered him a toy and he refused it, pointing to the door we had just walked out of.

My Momma heart just broke. I felt like I was traumatizing him, like I was abandoning him. What if he thinks I'm never coming back? What if he thinks he's doomed to live there with a bunch of crazy kids forever? I know that's probably not true, but at that moment I felt like a horrible parent. I know he'd have so much fun with other kids and playing on the playground, he just has to be a little independent.

Sigh. I do not look forward to the day I have to do this all over again with Skeeter.

Update

It's been a while since I've been here!

Thanks to all my Momma friends who commented on my last post (either here or on Facebook) and gave me advice. It seems like Punkin has calmed down a bit, but he still has his moments of toddler insanity. Just today he thought it'd be a really neat idea to throw a basketball at Austin's face while Austin was eating a bowl of cereal. Needless to say, that didn't go well for him. He is now very familiar with the time out chair and can put himself there when I give him the stink eye and tell him "time out!". So, there's that!

Mostly though, he's pretty awesome. He's talking SO MUCH now. I can't get over some of the things that come out of his mouth. I love this stage. It's amazing and frustrating and hilarious and cringe inducing. I can't believe he's going to be 3 in just a few months.

He should be starting preschool two days a week in just a few weeks and while I'm so excited for him to be able to socialize with other kids, I'm also scared to death of those first few weeks when I just know dropping him off is going to be miserable. He's always been with us or a family member so I think he'll be a little put off at first. In then end, I think he'll love it.

Oh my, Skeeter is getting so big. She's been acting like she wants to crawl for ages and she's finally started scooting herself around pretty effectively. Not traditional crawling, she's kind of launching herself forward with her feet and army crawling. Either way, she can get where she needs to go.

I'm so excited to start her on solids in a few weeks. She'll be 6 months on the 19th and I'll probably give her a little mushed banana like I did for Punkin. She seems so interested in food whenever we're eating so it'll be fun to let her try.

Classes are going well for me and being part time is pretty much awesome. I'll have to go back full time during tax season unfortunately, but at least we'll be making more money and we'll be able to save a little more.

Things are as calm as can be expected at the moment. Hopefully it stays this way!



Two love bugs just hanging out.





Calling all Moms!

I'm hoping my other Momma friends read this and comment, because I'm getting a little concerned.

I've noticed in the past month or so a definite change in Punkin's personality. Where he used to be fun and (mostly) compliant and all around a happy kid, he's suddenly become overly whiny and clingy and defiant. I'm hoping this is just normal toddler behavior and maybe he's just learned he can assert his independence more now that he has a better grasp on language, but I'm worried something else may be going on.

In the past week or so, bedtime has been a major issue. He's always been a great sleeper, but suddenly he won't stay in the bed and we either have to lay with him until he's asleep or put him in the big bed until he's asleep and then move him. I want to make him feel secure and let him know we're here if he needs us, but I also don't want to get him in the habit of sleeping in our bed for fear it'll take forever to break.

I can't help but wonder if part of it is his diet. He's so incredibly picky and really eats the same 4 or 5 meals over and over again. And even when we give him those 4 or 5 meals, most of the time he hardly eats anything. Could he be low in some nutrient we're not aware of? Could he have some sort of food intolerance that's making him cranky?

Maybe he's bored being home all day. He's starting preschool 2 days a week soon, and I'm excited because I think it'll be good for him to be in a social environment with kids his own age, but now I'm worried the whole process will be made more difficult since he's become more clingy in the past few weeks.

He's been pretty good with Skeeter this whole time, maybe it's catching up to him now. The only time he seems a little jealous is when I'm feeding her and he wants to sit with me or lay on the pillow I'm using.

Sigh. Hopefully it's just normal toddler development, but I hope it passes soon. Any words of wisdom or advice?