Time is on the move.

I am not kidding the older I get the faster time passes.

Take January for example. It is almost over. (Let's all give a great big YIPEEEEE). JANUARY IS SO BLAH AND FULL OF BLAH-NESS.

My (not so little) little boy will be turning 1 (!!), two weeks from today. TWO WEEKS.

But the funniest thing is when I am at work. Now, just to be clear, I work with a bunch of 19-22 year olds. I am 26. However, I am not used to being the "old" one. I was a July baby, so I was always the youngest in my classes. This stayed true in College, as I didn't take any time off after high school. I went straight on in at age 17. Graduated at 21 etc. Then, I married Mike, who is 2 years older than me, and adopted a whole slew of friends who currently fall in the 28-30 year old range.

I am the youngest. I've always been.

But when my co-workers talk about graduating high school in 2009 I JUST ABOUT DIE OF SHOCK. BECAUSE IF SOMEONE GRADUATED IN 2009, AND I GRADUATED COLLEGE IN 2005, THEY HADN'T EVEN STARTED HIGH SCHOOL AND I WAS FINISHING UP COLLEGE.

They hired a 16 year old last week...

Wordless Wednesday 2

I can't wait!

This summer will be the first summer since 2006 (also known as the summer I was planning my wedding), that I will not be pregnant or taking care of a young child**.

My sister in law and I are planning on running together. Okay, okay, we are planning on ditching the kids with our husbands and heading for the trails for some long trail runs.

I can't wait.


**by young, I mean one that can't walk.

i wish i knew.

Do you think that kids get to be more work as they get older or less?

I think more. I mean some things get easier, but I think overall they get to be more work (juggling activities, school, friends etc.) and more expensive (music lessons, school, COLLEGE, sports etc).

I got into a "healthy discussion" with a friend about this the other day and am open to others' thoughts.

oh, dear, uneventful life.

I suppose it's not that uneventful is bad. I've had many events occur in my life and I am certainly busy, but I have nothing to blog about.

(Heck, I have nothing even remotely witty to post as a status update on facebook).

I've got nothing people! Let's see...

School, is still school. I sometimes feel like doing my homework and I sometimes do not. Regardless, I always have a lot to do, and I have resorted to getting up at 6 (or so) in the morning and studying until the kids wake up. This is what happens when naptime is now rest time. It's just me, my books, my coffee, and some country music. Good times.

We cut the nap for Lacey....sort of. See, if she doesn't get her nap she is just an absolute crank by about 6 p.m., so I decided that she gets 40-60 minutes of "rest time" each day. If she falls asleep I let her sleep for an hour. If she doesn't I let her rest in her room and come out after about 40 minutes or so. She has fallen asleep every time. But she is also going to bed at night without fighting it. Let's hope this trend continues!

Work. I work 4.5 hours this week. I think they are annoyed that I closed up my availability. Oops! I don't really care though. Okay, I sort of do because my paycheck will be even more laughable than it normally is, but I sort of don't care, because I can work 1 shift and still get free coffee...

Husband...mike is in Chicago for a few days. So it's just me and the kids. Spending money and staying busy. Actually we aren't really spending much money, but we are trying to stay busy and get out of the house often.

The weather is great. Its really, really great for January. It's still a bit too cold to take the kids out for walks, but it's not "warm up the car for 30 minutes and then get to the car and practically die from the cold" weather. In fact, we can see our driveway now. The cement is a wonderful sight. It looks like it will last at least another week.

eleven

today marks 11 months since Miles came (rather quickly) into our lives.

Eleven months ago today we had just moved into our friends condo and were living out of boxes.

Eleven months ago today I was religiously taking evening primrose oil to try to ripen that cervix and maybe, just maybe, help me go early. No, it didn't work but it made recovery (and chasing after a 16 month old 24 hours after delivery) a breeze.

Eleven months ago I had no idea how true the phrase "two is more than twice the work" was.

But we've made it eleven whole months. When I look back on these 11 months I sometimes can't figure out how we've actually made it this far. Sometimes I think how on earth did I keep them both alive and healthy? How did I get them to sleep through the night despite the noise each of them makes? How did I get them to nap at the same time nearly every day? How did I get my 2 year old potty trained with a baby around? How on earth did I manage to handle school?

I really have no idea.

But when the older one turns to the younger one and says "I love you my big boy" I figure I've done something right.

Saturday

Saturday, or maybe just the weekend in general doesn't hold the appeal it once did.

School started again for me this morning so from now until April I have class every Saturday morning. Class isn't a problem. Sure, sometimes the homework gets me stressed out and I have trouble finding time to do everything, but school is fine.

But then I come home from school and Mike goes to work immediately. So immediately that he is dressed with his coat and boots and keys in his hands when I walk in the door. He works until about 10. So Saturdays start to get long because it's cold and we can't go play outside and so then we try to get out somewhere. We decided to go to the mall today because if my husband can't be home then we might as well go see him right? Plus, I needed a coldbuster because I have a terrible cold and need to bust it. The mall also has an indoor play area and I figure I might as well get the kids as worn out as possible. Apparently about 50 other parents had the same idea. So there were a million kids crawling everywhere, I didn't have a place to put the stroller and I really didn't want Lacey going to touch all those germs, err, kids. Whatever. But I decided that since she is 2, if I made the decision to leave, she would protest and let me, and everyone within 50 feet know how unhappy she was with me.

No she did not want to go touch all those germs. There is only a handful of places that Lacey relaxes and goes and plays with other kids. The mall is not one of them, thankfully. So she played on the tractor and I put in the $.50 to let her ride and then when she was ready to go we went and got skittles out of the machine. Don't I just sound like the best mom ever? Seriously, those skittles were pretty much her dinner : (

Of course Miles decides that now since he is almost a toddler he needs to make sure everyone knows that he has an opinion. So he did. And he doesn't cry, he screams. Really loud. It's his gift I think. I gave him Jamba Juice. He stopped screaming. See- Good mom.

So then we left. And the mall parking lot is so darn icy. I had a few scary instances, but there were no other cars near by so the only thing I would have potentially crashed into is the snowbanks surrounding me. It just doesn't make for a very relaxing drive home when you have almost spun out a couple of times. Of course the highways aren't icy like the parking lots, but they still shake you up.

Not that it's easy to drive, even on the driest of roads, when you have one kid who is whining and the other kid who is repeating the same 4 word phrase over and over and over and over...."MOM, I NEED IT". Don't ask me what "it" was, because I don't know. All I know is that she was stressing me out and I was trying to drive in traffic and merge into the carpool lane, read text messages about my cousin who had a baby today, and she kept screaming "MOM I NEED IT" over and over again. Grr.

So we made it home and I tried to feed her dinner which she wouldn't touch, which is how skittles became her dinner. Then she showed Miles how fun toilet paper can be and I had teeny tiny pieces of TP all over my bathroom and in the bathtub. Sweet.

Finally got them into bed, but if you have, or have ever had a 2 year old, you know they don't sleep. She actually didn't do too bad tonight it's 9:30 and she is still up, but I think she is almost asleep.

So tomorrow I get to work at 6 and then I have class at noon until 5.

I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE MONDAYS!

Wordless Wednesday

spring fever.

I am going to complain a bit, so beware! And really I don't have spring fever either. Spring fever to me is when it is actually supposed to be spring (i.e. March or April), but it is still cold. When it is supposed to be cold (i.e. right now) and I am annoyed, I am just plain annoyed.

Today is one of those days that I want to run away from the kids screaming and pulling my hair out!!! The problem isn't exactly them, but I think it's the fact that we have been cooped up in the house for weeks!

I think we are all starting to go a little stir crazy here. It seems that it has either been freezing cold or snowing heavily. The thermometer has done little more than peak above zero since Christmas, and it's just so much work finding boots, hats, gloves, jackets, warming up the car, and going somewhere that we just don't.

There is only so much Sesame Street, coloring, doll house playing, kitchen creating one can do.

I knew this winter would be hard with the ages of the kids. I've been dreading it since last spring because I guess I like to think ahead like that, but Lacey is too young to go off on her own and play independently (or at the very least she doesn't), and Miles is too old to just sleep in the carseat. He is into everything, which means they both need or want constant supervision and that isn't the easiest thing when you're flying solo.

"Maybe when it's warm outside we can go to the park?" says Lacey.

"Sure, but it's going to be a few months." Ugh.

Hitting the Books

School starts this week.

You all know what I'll be doing!

2009

2009 was a busy year for us.

We started the year with uncertainty. We were without a job that would cover our bills, we were living 2000 miles from home, and I was 35 weeks pregnant. God brought us through a lot this year.

Our fourth family member was welcomed with open arms in February. Eleven short days later I got on a plane with my mom, my 16 month old, and my 11 day old and left Washington. My husband got in the car with my brother and drove 27 hours straight, and through a blizzard, and met us the following day in sub-zero temperatures in Fargo, ND.

The months that followed were hard. Really, really, hard. We were doing the community living thing, Mike was making a long commute each day, we were figuring out how to parent 2 kids under 2, Miles had severe reflux and colic, and I went back to school. All the while we felt a bit lost. Our lives were work and kids. We had nothing left at the end of each day. Because we were living with friends we didn't feel like we had a place that other friends could come over and see us, and trying to visit others was hard trying to balance bedtimes and naps. I think we did quite the job of covering it up, and putting on a good face. Maybe too good of a job. One thing that 2009 taught me was that we need to let people know when we are having a hard time, people want to help.

Things started to get better in July when we got our own place. We were looking for our own permanent place but that wasn't going to happen so we settled on renting in our ideal neighborhood, we moved again n October and I was able to get a part time job nearby which has indeed had it's own stress, but has also given us that extra push financially to get us on our feet again.

We've spent the last 4 days entertaining friends at our house. We feel like we are back on our feet again.

So 2009 was a year of big changes for us. But really, it was our year to get back on our feet. It was a struggle. In all honesty there wasn't one easy part of 2009, but my mom told me over Christmas that when she looks back at her life, with being young and married and having young kids, that the times that she is the fondest of are the times when it felt the most grim. You know what? I believe her. I really think that in a couple of years when 2009 is more of a memory and we look back on it we are going to miss it. We are going to see how much we grew and changed, and will be grateful for the lessons learned.

But 2010, I want you to be a good year!!