Can A Mom Get A Break Around Here?

And lately the answer has been no. But that's okay - like I told Grandma Jennie, there will be plenty of time to rest when I'm dead. Or when they grow up and move out. Then I'll probably wish I was back to the craziness and exhaustion that has defined my last few days. In fact, as I am typing this, my children are both confined in Olivia's exersaucer and jumper (yes... Abby climbed into the exersaucer again and she can't get out. I am leaving her there for now. It is safer).

So... our craziness started Saturday. We took the girls to Mackinac City for the day with the intention of getting Abby some winter appropriate shoes of some sort and we heard that the Hush Puppies store was having a sale. It was a great sale, so great that they were all out of Abby's size. But we had a good time being tourists and checking out the other stores. Sunday was also busy - we attended the birthday party of Abby's friend Autumn and tried to get cleaned up a ready for a busy week. And I committed myself to helping our friend Andrea with two extra emergency foster kids (she already has 2 adopted foster kids and another that she has permanently and will be adopting). So yes... I willingly put myself into a situation where there would be 7 kids and 2 adults with all the kids under 5 and two of whom didn't speak English. It was a hard day to begin with, then my friend Kimberlee called to tell me that the doctor thought her water had broken and she needed someone to take her two little boys so she could go get that checked out. So... 9 kids, under 5, two who can't communicate with Andrea and I. Yep... I'm tired. Still. Luckily, Kimberlee's water hadn't broken, so we are still waiting for that baby to arrive in a few weeks. And the Spanish speaking foster kids were moved to a Spanish speaking foster home near the school where the little boy attends. But boy, did that day wipe me out.

Olivia hasn't helped matters any. She has reverted to newborn sleeping habits at night. She is up at least once, and some nights twice. And if I don't nurse her, she is not going back to sleep. We tried Monday night to get her back to sleep without nursing. After 1 hour I gave in and fed her. After 2 hours she finally was sleeping soundly enough for me to lay her down. Grr..... Some days I wonder why she can't get with the program. It wouldn't be so frustrating to be up in the middle of the night every night had she not slept for 11 hour stretches just a few months ago (for like 9 weeks). I know she can do it. I don't know how to get her back into the sleeping habit without depriving the rest of us of a lot of sleep. The Ferber (cry it out) Method does not work for this child. So yeah... I definitely have 2 strong willed children. This could be a long, long 18 years.

And all of that only brings me to Tuesday, when my willingness to watch Kimberlee's kids for a dentist appointment and house viewing turned into another 5ish hours of extra children. They had a lot of fun. Maize, maybe, did not. I am happy to have them around to entertain Abby, but it makes resting or getting anything done impossible. Abby loves having "her boys" Rian and Huron over. She even thinks they are her brothers. So, we'll keep them around. Then she can have 2 "brothers" without me having to have 2 more kids.

Now onto Thursday and Friday and then Trick or Treating. And maybe by December my life won't be so crazy busy. Or Olivia can sleep through the night. Or something...

Catch-Up

Okay... so I'm behind. Quite a bit. We've had a busy few days. Abby and Olivia had a great time with Great Grandma Jennie and Grandpa Steve and Great Aunt Ruth. Abby even let Aunt Ruth stay in her room without putting up a fuss, so we were pretty proud of our little lady.

Olivia had her first trip to church Sunday morning. She did great. Abby did not do so great in the nursery. She had a little bit of a breakdown over being left, but she did make it the whole service without us being called back to collect her, so that's not bad after 5 weeks of missing church. I'm sure after a few weeks she'll be back into the routine and not freaking out when I leave her. Or then again...

Olivia also had her first stay with our babysitter Kitty. She and Abby did great - Kitty still had all her hair and was smiling when I got back. It's nice to have a baby sitter who can handle Abby and still think having Olivia around is a bonus (she called the night before to make sure I knew she was totally okay with having both girls since I had been considering taking Olivia with me to the service for Uncle Jeff's dad Bud Mansfield). Since both girls did so well I guess Steve and I will be taking a date night soon.

So all of that gets you through Sunday and Monday. Then we got to today... play group day. Abby and I were excited to get back to playgroup and to get outside at the park to play. We packed Olivia up for her first trip to playgroup and the park. We got into the car, which Abby has lovingly dubbed "Big Black" and took off. Then we got rear ended by a college kid who was running late for class. He got to be a lot later by the time I called the police out to make a report since my bumper now has two big cracks in it. Luckily no one was hurt and since he was going less than 5 miles per hour and I was parked the damage was pretty minimal and the air bags didn't deploy. Olivia slept through the whole incident and Abby didn't really care although she kept saying "that kid knocked down Big Black." She has a funny way of expressing herself sometimes. So we finally made it to the park after all that excitement. Abby had a great time and played all over the playground without being clingy. She was really excited to see all her friends and I enjoyed visiting with the other moms. I'm hoping our next trip out is much less eventful.

New Things

Abby has two big new things since yesterday afternoon. The first is a new baby sitter in her lineup, her friend Autumn's older (17 year old) sister Kasi. She had a great time with Kasi last night while Steve and I were both at board meetings. She talked and talked about "our friend" Kasi after I got home. I'm so thankful that we now have two baby sitters that Abby loves staying with.

The other new thing in Abby's universe is her twin sized bed, which arrived via UPS earlier today. Abby and I put the first of the two beds together this afternoon so that we'd have a idea of what we wanted to do as far as mattresses and box springs. Abby and her dad have a date planned for tonight to go look at mattresses. She was very excited about her "princess bed" and I hope that will transfer over into excitement about sleeping in it. In the process of moving things around we did manage to crack an electrical outlet in half, but that was only a 95 cent repair that Steve will have to make sometime tonight or tomorrow.

Playing By The Door

Abby stayed with her favorite baby sitter Kitty tonight and they had a very interesting time. Apparently the whole two hours we were gone they spent playing with various toys, books and puzzles, but only sitting next to the back door. Weird...

We will begin the packing and getting ready for our trip down for Thanksgiving tomorrow after we attend the funeral for our friend Dan. He was an amazing person and a great example of living the Christian life, even with his medical issues and other challenges. We aren't looking forward to the funeral tomorrow, but we know our friend is in Heaven and is finally healed.

While we are at the funeral, Abby will be playing with her friend A.J. and A.J.'s grandpa (who she calls Apple). I'm not sure how Abby will react, but she will certainly be happier there than she would be at a funeral or staying at Steve's office with his assistants, which was our only other option. And now... on to little people time. Abby is a very demanding task master.

Pumpkin Fun

Of course, pumpkin carving wasn't nearly as fun for Abby as it was for Steve and I, but we are pretty sure she still had a good time. Abby and I made her pumpkin a Blue's Clues pumpkin, so she was excited about having a dog in her pumpkin, especially when we lit it up with the candles. We also made a traditional-ish jack o'lantern. Of course, it couldn't be totally normal so we gave it a Michigan "M" for one eye and Steve gave it teeth for ears (an incisor and a molar, in case you are wondering). He didn't have that pumpkin done in time for us to take it's picture, so we only have Blue to show you today.

We left Abby with her babysitter Kitty on Tuesday and she has been talking non-stop about it. She must have had a great time because she keeps telling me about Kitty reading her books and keeps asking if Kitty is coming. I'm so glad we have someone to watch her that we all like a lot.
Here is Abby's pumpkin lit up. Carving it was quite a trick. I have a lot of knives and drills to wash as a result.

Abby exploring the insides of the pumpkin (after I had done all the yucky work).

Official Homeowners

We signed all the paperwork and have the keys... we are now officially homeowners. Yippee! Abby and I have even done some major cleaning in the cabinets. We only have a few left to clean before we can start moving our dishes in.

Other than the big closing we've had an uneventful day. Abby was wonderful for her babysitter Kitty and even smiled and laughed while playing with her. She also had a play date this morning while I was at a local United Way function. It was a very eventful day for her. And tomorrow she has another play date planned while I sneak out to my first official lawyerly function in the U.P. - the local bar association luncheon. Hopefully she continues to be a well behaved lady.

We have lots of gardening to do, lots of cleaning to do, and lots of moving to do. It's going to be a monumental task, but hopefully it will be the last big move we make. That's what we keep telling ourselves.

Snowing, Going, But Hopefully No Blowing

We are getting ready to hit the road this afternoon, so we are hoping that there isn't any blowing snow. There is definitely going to be snow, so we are just hoping it stays in one place. Abby is all ready to leave for Hastings, but the rest of us aren't so ready.

I finished another baby afghan (that's 4 for this year) yesterday and have to take it to the post office and send it off to Baby Patel. We are all excited for her arrival and happy that Abby will have another dental school baby buddy. While finishing that afghan, Abby, Maize and I watch the pastor's daughters again yesterday. They are busy, busy little girls and we were all really tired last night. We did get some good laughs though, especially when the littler girl said to her big sister "let's pretend to be girls playing with dolls" while they were playing with Abby's baby dolls. It was too cute.

And now... back to packing. I need to find my Christmas Suit so Nate and I can look sharp for Christmas Eve. I haven't convinced Steve to participate in our tradition yet, but one of these days he'll do it, maybe.

7 Months Old

This is what it looks like when you are 7 months old. Abby had a great 7 month old day today. First she got to have special daddy time, since it was my turn to get the sleep in shift. Then after her naps she got to hang out with her babysitter Kitty while her mom and dad went to see the James Bond movie. After that she got to try eating cheese for the first time. Abby loves cheese. And she also was practicing her words today, especially Daddy and Hey. Someday she is going to just start talking in complete sentences.

Abby heard that her Grandpa Scott got a deer today, so maybe next spring she can try some venison. Yummy!!!

Dog Party!

Another thing we love about fall is getting to wear cool hats. Yesterday Abby got to try out her basset hound hat. And since she was wearing a hound dog hat, she and Maize decided to have a hound dog party on the couch. It involved lots of petting, licking, and cuddling. We are lucky to have a dog who is very good with little people - even if she is not so good at other things like going to the bathroom outside.

Abby had a good time with her babysitter last night and was even asleep when we got home. It was amazing! She really likes Kitty, so it makes leaving her with a babysitter very low stress. And it always helps when you come home to a kid in clean diapers and sleeping. Even the dog was sleeping when we got back. We may have to take a date more often.

It is going to be chilly next week, so we will be having lots more hat parties. We still have quite a few cool hats to try out. Happy Thursday! Steve has tomorrow off so we can play until late tonight and Abby loves playing with her dad.

Testy Tuesday

Abby is in one of her special moods today. She doesn't want to take a nap - thanks mostly to Maize who woke her up right after I got her to sleep. I tried to get her to nap and even laid down with her, but it was mostly crying and playing with her feet interrupted with sort bursts of sleeping. Since she is in rare form and I have some remnants of food poisoning or some other illness we are quite a pair. Luckily she is enjoying her exersaucer on her own and is relatively happy for now. We will see how this works out tonight when Steve gets home and Abby's not had a good nap. I think she is getting very close to having teeth come in because she is getting much harder to get relaxed and sleeping.

Over the weekend we got to take Abby into the pool at Weber's Inn where we were staying. She hated the pool at Grandma & Grandpa Hodges house, but it was probably the temperature and not the water. She loved swimming at the hotel. Of course it was typical Abby - straight faced and not looking to excited - but the splashing and 45 minutes in the pool without a whine were a good sign for her trip to Boyne this weekend to waterpark with Grandma Mary, Grandpa Scott, and Aunties Hannah, Emily and almost Aunt Courtnie and Uncle Nate. If we could have only had Uncle Dan, Aunt Mel, Uncle Glenn and Jack along too it would have been a perfect family retreat. We'll have fun just the same but we miss those guys!

Tomorrow night Abby is going to have her babysitter Kitty come over and spend the evening with her so Steve and I can go on a real date and to a meeting at church so that we can become official members of the church we have been attending. Considering Abby's recent seperation anxiety I am keeping my fingers crossed that Kitty won't be pulling out her hair by the time we get home.