Lately

Instead of trying to write out the latest happenings in several different posts, I figured I would knock it all out in one.

- We're slowly getting settled in the house.

- Ryan has been working 12 hour shifts for the last month, hence the slow settling speed.

- Cam started Kipper swim lessons a few weeks ago.  We love his instructor, he loves to jump off the side and into the pool, and other than some little turd pooping in the middle of lessons last Saturday, I'd say it's going quite well.

- September is looking to be a busy (and wonderful) month.  Cam and I jet off early in the month to see The Terry Family and then at the end of the month, we are taking a family vacation with Ryan's parents and sister (and her family) to Southern California - complete with a day at Disneyland.  I'm not trying to wish time away, but I. Cannot. Frigging. Wait.

- It's been hizity-hot here in the Pacific Northwest.  We normally have a very mild climate - not too hot and not too cold, but the low 90's are a smidge too high for us non-air conditioned folk.  The nighttime in the most uncomfortable.  I would let Cammy sleep naked but I have this deep rooted fear of waking up in the morning to a poop filled crib and child, even though he has no idea how to remove his diaper (yet).

- Ryan's parents came for a visit at the end of June and they were super helpful in getting settled and helping us fix a lot of the little things that needed fixing around here.  Ryan's sister and her family were supposed to join for a quick weekend, but they ran into some plane trouble and never left St. Louis.  Boo.

- Camden's speech is sort of exploding.  He picks up on words and small phrases and tries really hard to repeat a lot of what we say.  His new favorite work is "basket," but it comes out sounding more like "batshit."

- He also has one random Spanish word - aqua. 

-  We've been working on animal sounds and identifying body parts.  So far, he knows that cows say "moo," kitties say "meow," sheep say "baa," and dogs say "woof."  He can also point to his head, nose, ears, tummy, legs, and feet.

- I play on a women's slow pitch team and have for the past few years.  It was really hard for me at first to go from a highly competitive Divison I softball team to "just for fun" women's slow pitch.  I'm really enjoying it this year - except when we're scraping the barrel for players and those of us with "young legs" get to be the courtesy runners for some of the older ladies.

- Cam has also started to say, "No." He doesn't say it in a defiant way (yet), but usually if you ask him a question (any question), he responds with, "No?" as if he's unsure. 

"Camden, do you want to go to Disneyland?"

"No?"

"Camden, do you want some water?"

"No?"

My favorite was the other morning when I caught him bracing himself on the sliding glass door, clearly pooping.  When he finished, I said, "Did you go poo poo?"  And of course, he said, "No?" complete with head shake.

- I wrote an entire blog post dedicated to our recent experience of switching daycare.  I keep debating on whether or not to post it, but the more time passes, the more I just want to forget about it.  I'll just say it was not a smooth experience trying to leave his old daycare.  We found an amazing in-home daycare that is in a great location in relation to our new house and my work, and couldn't be happier so far.  

Right now the hardest thing for me to swallow is that he cried at drop off almost every single day at the old daycare, and he was there for six months.  I kept thinking it was separation anxiety, or habit, and that he would get over it.  I wondered if he didn't like it there or if something was wrong, but tried to assure myself that the tears and clinging would stop.  It never did.

He's been at new daycare for two weeks now and hasn't cried at a single drop off.  In fact, he barely seems to notice when I leave.  I get a kiss, and a wave bye-bye, and then he's busy playing with the kitchen set or whatever toy he's found.  At pickup, he doesn't ever seem ready to leave!  He's always surrounded by these cutie-patootie little girls, so I guess I don't blame him for not wanting to leave.  

I'm sure that in time I will get over our fairly dramatic experience with old daycare, but right now I'm beating myself all while being incredibly thankful that he is now so happy.  I started to cry at a drop off last week, purely out of relief that I'm not leaving him in a state of tears and panic.

- All of a sudden I'm feeling more comfortable and confident in my job. The last two years I've been very intimidated by my technical knowledge and experience, and lacked the confidence shown by others around me. I have no idea what caused the change but I like it.

 I know there is more. So much more. But this is all my overworked brain can muster and probably more than you wanted to know anyway. 

Take Luck,

LP

10 on 10: July 2014

10 on 10: 10 pictures on the 10th day of the month!

Document a snapshot of your life & find beauty among the ordinary things in your day!

Clearly, I was feeling uninspired on the 10th of April, May, and June. 

[1] Good morning.

[2] The calm before the storm that is, Camnado.

[3] Wakey, wakey.

[4] My kind of corner office. 

[5] Sonny Jo Jo is getting gray.

[6] This looks like a kiss denial, but he kissed his hand and then put it on my lips.  I'll take it.

[7] The screen gets a real kiss.

[8] Ready for a fence.

[9] Railroad tracks make me think of Stand By Me and The Walking Dead.

[10] Goodnight.

Take Luck,

LP

Sonny's Escape

Sonny may look sweet (she is) and innocent (she isn't) on the outside, but she is mischievous to her core. 

When we lived with my parents for a short time pre-Ridgemont, she would find any hole in their backyard fence to escape from.  I can't even guess how many times we were out there looking for her, listening for her collar jingle-jangle beyond the fence, and how many patches my poor dad had to make to try and keep her inside.  She always escaped, and we always found her.

I mentioned that our new backyard is only partially fenced, and because Brock and Sonny have a new fondness for chasing the birds and wild bunnies that frolic in the yard, we put them on their leashes when they go out to potty.  Normally I've got Camden in my right arm/on my right hip and a leash in each hand.  It really is a sight.  Brock is an idiot, but listens pretty well.  Sonny is mischievous and doesn't listen particularly well.  You see where this is going, yes?

Yesterday evening, right after Ryan got home from his seventh consecutive 12-hour shift, I started dinner when he went up to shower.  Both puppies were sitting at the deck door so I grabbed Camden and their leashes and made a big, big mistake.  Normally, I either put their leashes on while still inside or they are good little puppies and wait while I put their leashes on immediately after stepping outside.  Not today.  

The door opened and they both took off.  And I mean, took off, heading right for the line of trees that stands between our backyard and a ravine.  

I ran down the steps and into the yard, almost stepping on a playing-possum-rat (gah!) yelling at both dogs to come back.  Brock, bless his big, dopey heart, stopped at the tree line, obeyed and came right to me.  Sonny ran into the trees and didn't look back.

I stood there, looking like an idiot, calling her name, and could still hear her collar jingle-jangling, then confident that she would hear the tone in my voice and come back with a proud smile on her face.  Nothing.

I ran up into the house, put Brock inside, and came back out with treats (and Camden in the Ergo) thinking that she would certainly be lured out by the sound of me shaking the treat bucket.  No collar jingle-jangle.  Nothing.  The I'm-about-to-lose-it-lump started it's creep up my throat because I knew exactly what was (or wasn't?) beyond the trees.  The ravine.

I started to panic and kept yelling her name, my voice really starting to shake.  I went next door to ask permission to go look in their backyard.  I kept shaking the bucket and calling her name, stopping every few seconds to try and hear the jingle-jangle I so desperately wanted to hear.  Nothing.  Ugly crying commences.  

Ryan joined in the search (just what he wanted to do after another long day at work), and I don't know if it was because he was so tired or what, but he was emotionless.  Emotionless as if he was preparing for us not to find her.  Forget ugly crying, I was hysterical.

I kept calling her and calling her.  Nothing.  No rustling of bushes, no jingle-jangle.  Nothing.  Just the image in my head of her falling down the ravine and me becoming exponentially more panicked with each passing minute.  For every time I called her name, Camden would echo with "Shu-She" and I became even more hysterical at the thought of him losing his Shu-She.

About 15 minutes into the search, I called my parents for reinforcements.  I don't really recall the conversation with my mom, but somehow she understood my words through my sobs and said they would be right over.

I ended up going to three different neighbors houses, asking I could look in their backyards, and giving them a quick description of what she looks like.  They were all very nice and obliging to the crazy-hysterical woman who's child wasn't wearing pants (sorry, Cammy).  Each one of them was quick to point out that, "You know if she goes down the ravine... She's not coming back up."  All I could do was swallow what I really wanted to say and respond with, "That's what I'm afraid of." In case you were wondering, what I really wanted to say was, "THANKS, EFFING ASSHOLE!  I HADN'T CONSIDERED THAT POSSIBILITY!" They also let us know that bears, coyotes, mountain lions, and big daddy raccoons roam the woods surrounding our neighborhood. Fabulous. 

More "Shu-She" calling, more bucket shaking, more time passing.  Nothing.  Except more hysterics, hyperventilation, feeling nauseated, and every few seconds Camden giving my mid-section a little squeeze with his arms (which by the way, he'll never know how precious and perfectly timed those squeezes were).

For whatever reason, I kept going back to this one section of our neighbor's yard.  They had a small rock wall dividing their yard from the ravine, and behind the wall growing on what small amount of land left was a bunch of bushes.  There was a small path/opening beside the wall where they could drop their yard clippings.  Standing in that opening and feeling totally defeated, I shook the bucket again.  And guess what I heard?  The faintest little jingle-jangle.  All shakiness left my voice and I called her name.  More jingle-jangle and the slightest rustling of bushes.

From wherever Ryan was looking, he could hear the change in my calls and came over with my parents. I did the really stupid thing, of course, and went into the opening to stand on some seriously unstable pile of yard debris, calling her name, trying to encourage her to come out.  I could hear her trying to move and could tell she was stuck.  Ryan, the hero, came over and ventured out further to try and see her, and he spotted her right away.  She was so far back (and stuck) in these bushes that I had to go get our hedge clippers so Ryan could cut his way into her.  He got her out, handed her to my dad, and then my dad helped pull Ryan out.  It was like our own damn 45-minute search and rescue mission.

We headed back towards the house and once my heart started beating regularly I sat down on the grass and said that since I knew she was alive, I was going to kill her.  Just kidding.  But I really did say that.   

Once everyone was back inside, and Sonny in timeout, I kept thinking that this little search and rescue mission could have ended differently, and I forced myself to just focus on the fact that we found her.  She's ok.  Perspective really set in when I realized, she's a frigging dog (who we love very much, obbbbbbviously), and cannot begin to imagine how indescribably awful it would be if I thought I'd lost Camden.  I won't even go there.

So, you might be asking yourself - did she just blog about losing her dog for 45 minutes?  Yes, I did.  Was it a dramatic and traumatic experience?  Hell yes.  But, trust me when I said that I also realize it pales in comparison to others misfortunes.  Sometimes, with everything we have going on in life, I have very little patience left for these dogs.  This experience served as a good reminder of how much I love them both and how important they are to our family. I wrote out this dramatic manifesto because I want to be able to look back on these 45 minutes someday, maybe someday when Sonny isn't around anymore, and laugh at how big of a little shit she was.  

And how Camden called her "Shu-She."

Take Luck,
LP

The Move

We officially moved this past weekend and I officially never want to move ever, ever again.

When I starting packing up the Ridgemont house, I kept thinking that we didn't really have that much stuff and we could whip it out in a day.  Wrong, wrong, wrong, with an extra side of wrong.  Ryan and I were amazed at the amount of stuff we had packed into our 1,500 square foot home. 

After we signed our closing documents last Monday night, our relator gave us our new keys and I commence the cleaning of the Terrace View house.  We purchased it as a short sale, and it was pretty obvious that the previous owners gave up on the upkeep of the home when they gave up paying for the home.  Mom and I started with the carpets on Tuesday night - vacuuming, spraying, scrubbing, and shampooing like crazy.  A few hours made a big difference.

I took Thursday off of work and spent the entire day cleaning the rest of the new house and started to wonder if they had owned cleaning supplies of any kind.  I'm not a clean freak by any means, so for me to say it was bad - is really saying something.  I totally understand them knowing that they were losing the home and losing motivation to keep things up - but good grief people you were still living there.  I worked my booty off.

Friday was moving day which meant Ryan making trips back and forth with the big stuff in the U-Haul, and me making trips back and forth with the smaller stuff in the Subaru.  Cam also had a hard little lump on his neck that wasn't going away, so I threw in an appointment with his pediatrician to confirm lymphadenitis (a swollen lymph node) just to make the day even more interesting. While Jess watched Cam, Ryan's buddy Mat came to help us out, and without him - we'd probably still be moving.  Just kidding, sort of.

Saturday we woke up feeling much better than we had anticipated. We kept moving out of Ridgemont and making trips to Terrace View.  Once all our crap was out of the house, I started the deep cleaning process and was so thankful that 1) it's only 1,500 square feet and 2) we are clean people so it didn't take a crazy amount of time and effort to get it done.  I started to feel a little sad knowing that we were leaving our first house and that soon, another family would be living in it.

Sunday we woke up feeling like we got hit by a New York City taxi cab, but persevered and went back to Ridgemont for the last of our stuff.   On the way, and proving just how pooped we were - we had McDonald's and Red Bull for breakfast.  Let me just say that other than their hashbrowns, I had never eaten McDonald's breakfast. Maybe this experience was influenced by my overall state of exhaustion, but I was drooling and swooning over my Sausage McMuffin like I haven't drooled or swooned over food in a long time.  It felt good to be bad.

We had to make one last trip to Ridgemont on Sunday afternoon to load up Dad's truck with the pile of crap that was left on the side of the yard, ready for the dump.  When we arrived, the property management lady was inside doing her walk-thru/inspection in preparation for the new tenants to move in Monday.  She is nice (but super condescending) and didn't waste any time in telling me that the cleanliness of the kitchen was unsatisfactory and that the tenants were "going to have a conniption fit."  I'm pretty sure I gave her the look of death and explained that the kitchen was cleaner than it has ever been.  She walked us through the "deficiencies" and proposed that we refund the tenants anywhere from $150-$200.  Yeah, no.  Not so much.

Long story short, between Ryan, my mom, and some neighbors, over six more hours were spent cleaning the kitchen, just to make sure there would be no reason in hell for the tenants to complain, or for the property management lady to make the same proposition again.

I'm not usually one to gush about how wonderful my hubby is.  I gush plenty about how he irritates me, clearly, but I have to say that Ryan really (and I mean, really) impressed me this past weekend by how much he stepped up.  I lost my shit when the lady was pointing out everything that was "unacceptable" in the kitchen, knowing how hard I worked to get it ready.  I knew/know she was just doing her job, but I was mentally and physically done and not up for doing anything else.  Ryan saw this, hugged me, and was lightning fast to tell me not to worry about it - that he would handle it.  Uhhhhm, I'm sorry, who are you?!  Whoever you are - you are amazing.

He stayed at Ridgemont until 1am.

So, like I said, many unexciting paragraphs ago - we are officially in our new house and getting settled, while new tenants are in the old house.  I drove by Ridgemont on Monday evening after picking Camden up from daycare and was surprised how sad I felt seeing someone else in our house.  I decided I shouldn't drive by there anymore.  It's still pretty chaotic at Terrace View with painters tackling rooms that needed therapy and boxes needing to be unloaded and organized.  Oh, and did I mention that Brock seems to be terrified of being left alone and is peeing all over the place? There's that, too.  

The new house doesn't feel like "ours" quite yet, but I think it will once things quiet down a little bit.  We are loving the views, loving the layout of the house, and all the extra space we have.  Cam has had no trouble with the transition and seems to love running through the house and climbing up the stairs to his new bedroom. The backyard is only partially fenced so I am not loving taking the dogs out on their leashes and standing there while they do their business.  I'm pretty sure dogs like their privacy, too.

We now live 4.0 miles from Target and 4.2 miles from Panera Bread Co. AND Fro-Yo.  Dangerous, I tell ya.   

We could not have done what we did without my parents going above and beyond and saying "yes" to anything we asked. They rock. 

So, congratulations.  If you are still with me, you just finishing reading the least exciting blog post in the history of exciting blog posts.  You deserve a medal.  Or some fro-yo.

Take Luck,

LP

Camden - 18 Months

My Camden Boy is 18 months old.  A year and a half.

I keep asking myself how this even happened, but with the craziness that has been the past few months - it really is no surprise that it snuck up on me.  Time sucks.  I am loving this stage of his little life, just like I've loved all the rest before it.  He has moments of starting to test my patience, but he is still a sweet, funny, and wild little tornado child.  So much so, that my mom has started calling him Camnado.

It's been awhile since I laid out the latest happenings of my man cub, so without further ado:

- He doesn't walk.  He runs.  Everywhere.

- Climbs on everything.

- Loves to play with balls and his baby golf clubs. These toys quickly become weapons. 

- Favorite songs are "Barbara Ann" by The Beach Boys and "Starships" by Nikki Manaj (not even kidding), "Hot Dog" from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and of course, the Bubble Guppies theme song.

- Loves to blow kisses and give real ones, too.

- Gives the best little man hugs and if you are lucky, he will pat your back, too.  A few times I've been crouched down/bent over picking up something and he's come up behind me and given me a backside hug and pat.

- LOVES his daddy.

- Does not tolerate wearing shoes and/or socks while in the car and tries to pull his socks off with his teeth.  Usually unsuccessfully.

- Had his last shrimp swim lesson and will start kipper class at the end of the month.

- Is quite the little chatterbox.  We can't understand 90% of the things he says, but he sure tries.

- Says mama, mommy, dada, daddy, ball, baby, dog, gaga (Grammy), papa (Grampa), Ray-Ray (Rachel), ouch, nana (banana), hi, bye-bye, and Xbox.  That last one, I'm not as proud of.

- Thinks any fruit or vegetable is a banana (nana) and refers to it as such.

- Loves his puppies and tries to say "Sonny" but it comes out "Shu-she."

- Signs "more" and "please."

- Has 12 teeth.

- His favorite books are Barnyard Dance, Is Your Mama a Llama, and Brown Bear, Brown Bear.  The scary thing is that he can pick these three out of a stack when asked. The scarier thing is that I can recite each of these books by heart.

- Recently started jumping.  Or maybe it's hopping?  Seeing a toddler jump/hop is hysterical, by the way.

- Still wants his breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  And yours, too.  And many, many, many snacks.

- Uses a spoon and fork to feed himself.  We're still working on minimizing the mess that comes with self-spoon feeding.

- Can point to his head, nose, tummy, and toes, and thinks "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" is a hoot.

- Has started making diaper changes really, really difficult.  Legs are kicking, a pelvis is thrusting, and there is just generally a lot of squirming going on.  If I had four feet I'd be able to pin his shoulders and his legs.

- Can mean mug like nobody's business.  He gets that from his mama.

- Loves crackers.  Any kind of crackers, really - but his favorites seem to be Ritz, Honey Maid Graham, and Annie's Honey Bunnies. Whatever you do, don't try to give him Annie's Cheddar Bunnies.  Apparently those are not so much his favorite and he will let you know that you've eff'd up.

- Double fists when eating crackers.  Always.

- Smiles and laughs at himself when he lets out a burp or toot.

- Loves to "help" vacuum, sweep, dust, carry things, and put things away.

I could go on and on about this little busy guy.  He lights up our life and we are so grateful to get to be his parents.  I see his smile and hear his laugh and everything seems right in the world.

Until next time.

Take Luck,
LP