I'm coming up for air briefly before I get sucked back into the vortex that is my life with three small children.
Of course, then there's also working full time, working on the house, and attempting all manner of projects that end up falling by the wayside halfway finished.
But, such is life in the blur. I'm referring to that stage of life when you can't remember where you left your brain. Your kids are eating Oreos for breakfast because you forgot to go grocery shopping, and watching more TV than you'd care to admit just so you can have five minutes to pee and shower without interruption for once. This phenomenon is described here, and explains pretty much exactly how I feel most days.
Let's see, here's a summary of events from the past few months since the blog split from BTBB. (Don't know what I'm talking about? Check out the sister blog, Beyond the Birthing Ball.)
I now have three children. I know, crazy. I'm one of a handful of people from my group of friends that even has kids already, let alone three. Let's just say that I always knew I wanted to be done having kids by age 30. Are we done? Well, that's to be decided. I at least need a break. I'm TIRED. But I've got a few years yet before the big 3-0, so we shall see...
M is finally, completely, 100% potty trained, and I couldn't be more excited and relieved. Having three in diapers was a little excessive, even if it was only for a few months. He's doing great, loves his big boy underwear, and even sleeps through the night with only the very rare accident.
The biggest advice I can give anyone on a potty training journey, is to wait it out. It's only going to happen when your kid is ready, especially for boys. I tried at a young age 2, mostly because of peer pressure, epic failure. (What is it with everyone's obsession with potty training so young??) Tried again at 3+, he was totally trained within a week or two, even at night. Not worth the extra stress, and if you start too young, it will take you three times as long to train.
J shows zero interest in potty training, which is ok with me. He just turned 2 a little over a month ago, so I'm not surprised. He has been desperately clinging to babyhood for everything it's worth ever since baby sister arrived. He is still not talking. Unless you count the handful of consonant sounds, and the dinosaur screams. (We call him the Pterodactyl.) I vetoed a hearing screen under anesthesia, mostly because my gut tells me it's not his ears that are the problem, and kids and anesthesia make me nervous. We're getting a speech evaluation soon, so I'll keep you posted.
Sweet baby Vi is getting so squishy and precious I can't stand it. I don't know what I did to deserve such an agreeable baby. She's been working on a couple of teeth that refuse to just give up and come through, but even that doesn't make her overly fussy. She is always smiling, loves sitting up with support, rolling around like a doodlebug, and grabbing her feet, blankie, lambie, or anything within a foot of her arm span. We also tried the jumper for the first time this week, which she was so excited about. Not a whole lot of jumping involved yet, but she loved "standing". I forgot how much I love this age. So loving and interactive, yet they not mobile and able to run away from you yet. Wish I could freeze frame her at about 5-6 months.
Z has been working a lot of overtime, bless him, and is really tired most days. He's such a great help with the kids too, even though I know he could just fall over and sleep right where he stands. We continue to work opposite schedules so that whoever isn't working, has the kids. Which is great for not having to pay for childcare, but not so great for keeping a marriage healthy. We make do, however, and remind each other that this is a season.
My work has been insanely busy as well, filled with record delivery days, new computer charting systems to learn, and construction underway for expansion to the L&D department. We have pregnant women coming out of the woodwork, and nowhere to put them! Makes for some stressful days sometimes, but our little second family of a team is great at griping about how tired we are, but then picking you up by the bootstraps and dragging you through the rest of the shift.
I've also been dabbling in a few projects on the side lately. One that was pretty cool and actually made me a little extra income, is freelance writing. I love writing, it's cathartic and therapeutic for me. (Hence the two blogs.) I got a few job offers for medical freelance writing and consulting as an OB expert. I learned a lot, and actually have had subsequent offers after receiving great feedback from the first two projects. I had to turn a few down because, well, I can only do so much and still have time to get a few hours sleep.
Of course there's always the never-ending house projects, as always. I do hope we get some good news over the next few weeks about moving forward with renovations and/or building in the near future. I'm excited to share what's in our future on that front very soon!
Right now, I'm focusing on maintaining my strict reverse hibernation from this disgusting Texas heat. We may have had a mild summer so far, but August has definitely arrived with a vengeance. Part of my survival also involved chopping all my hair off into a very short pixie cut. I had pondering such a change for while, but just had never had the guts to go through with it. I love it, and haven't regretted it for an instant.
Stay cool, more soon.
