Blogging and old babies

Even though I had my old blog for quite a while, I feel like a newbie when it comes to blogging on here. I struggled to blog over there because I always second guessed whether or not my readers would even care to know what I did with my day. (The funny thing though is that one of my favorite blogs to read is one where the author documents just about every aspect of her day every day.) So I wouldn't blog if I didn't think it was worthy of my blog and that resulted in not meeting one of my goals for blogging - documenting the realities of my days.

MG (6 mos) had her six month check up today. Her pediatrician is this older grandfatherly gentleman who is great but so incredibly laid back about everything. On the one hand that's good but on the other hand, sometimes it would be nice to be given a but more specific instruction about things. Like for example, feeding solid foods to babies. I remember a little bit about what I did for ME (3.5), but not specifically. Last night, which was the first night I started her on rice cereal, I googled all kinds of info about what food babies could eat at what ages. Truthfully, a lot of it probably really doesn't matter anyway. Her doctor's only concern when it comes to feeding babies is that they not get anything that could be a choking hazard. Anything else is up to me I guess. So, since I prefer a little more guidance and direction, I will probably refer to my google search material and use that to decide what foods she gets when.

I can't believe my baby girl is already six months old. I was away for the weekend with a few friends for a quilting weekend. (MG (6 mos) was with me of course but ME (3.5) was at his granparents' house because Hubby was at a conference.) I had decided to wait until she was six months to start her on solids. She turned six months while we were away so I figured I'd do it soon after we got back. Based on my research, I really didn't think she needed to begin solid foods before this and selfishly I really didn't look forward to doing it because I already feel like I have too many things to do in a day. I'm behind on what feels like 1,001 things and I knew that entering the world of solid foods would only detract from the little time I do have to get to those 1,001 things. Don't get me wrong, I knew I would do it when she needed me to but I didn't think she needed it before now and I was certainly not wanting to rush anything along. However, when I got home last night, I was really excited about the idea of feeding her cereal and seeing what she did with it. She did so well! I think the fact that we waited as long as we did helped a lot. With ME (3.5) I started rice cereal and then stopped for a few weeks because he was just spitting it out. Two weeks later we started again and he got the hang of it. Anyway, she ate more than I thought she would and afterwards, I cleaned her up a bit and put her in her exersaucer. At one point I looked at her and I just couldn't believe it - all of a sudden she was an old baby. I know, I know - she's still young and she's still a baby but now my baby is eating solid foods and playing independently in an exersaucer. Not to mention the fact that she's also begun sitting up in the past week. She's so OLD! How did it happen? I'm enjoying her babyhood so much. It's exciting to see her personality emerge and it makes me excited to see who she'll become in the future. But on the other hand, I could just keep her like this forever! I've heard some people say that when they were done having kids they just "knew it." But I can't imagine the day when I wouldn't want a baby in my home. Maybe it will happen eventually but I just can't imagine it.

Hubby's across the street at our neighbor's house watching the world series with some coworkers. We were up really late last night and I'm tired! I intended to go to bed early, curl up with a book, and actually read for a while. (Can't say when I last did that! Reading these days is at most a magazine article or a page or two at a time of whatever book I keep in the bathroom!) But here I am at the computer and I keep having to tend to my boy who was put to bed an hour and a half ago! It's a good thing he has an early bedtime! Alright, I'm off to go read. Eventually.

Begin again

This is my second blog. And since I don't really blog all that often, why would I possibly need a second blog? One reason - anonymity. I began my first blog as a private blog to document life and help me sort through and process things. In an effort to be transparent, I opened up my blog to others which then resulted in people I know having access to my blog. The result was really the death of my blog. I don't really feel like I can be honest and transparent anymore. Part of the problem is that I don't take the time to blog regularly. So when I am moved to blog it is usually because I need to process things and of course the only things that need to be processed are those that are negative or stressful. The good things never need processing, just documenting! So I feared that my other blog (which was being read by people I knew) was becoming too negative and since I have friends (who read my blog) whose blogs are nothing but songs and praises about life and motherhood, I felt like I could no longer blog honestly. And I see no point in blogging anything that's not completely honest. So here I am beginning anew. I don't intend to be negative. My intentions are to blog about all kinds of things that happen in life but this is my place to document all of it - the good and the bad.

Update: I just learned you can back-date posts! Woo hoo! I intend to pull my older blog posts over here but it will take some time - probably one at a time.

Family update

I've been realizing that the only times I'm really drawn to blogging are when I'm upset or stressed or frustrated about something and need to process everything. My blog has two purposes. The first is as a kind of journal where I can process things - purpose met. But the second purpose is to document the everyday details of my life. Since I blog so irregularly, this purpose is not being met! So here is my first attempt to blog more regularly and document life (the good and the bad) more accurately!

We got back from vacation (a week at the beach then a trip to the zoo!) five days ago and I am just now feeling "recovered." Vacations with little kids are just not real vacations. As fun as it was and as nice as it was to be at the beach and be with my husband's family, I felt that when it was all over, I needed a vacation! I seriously was daydreaming of a weekend alone in a hotel room! I no longer feel that way but I'm happy to be home and back in the swing of our regular routine. I have finally unpacked and tidied the house. The laundry is even mostly done. I even did laundry while we were on vacation and somehow we still came home with what seemed like a ton of laundry. The good thing was that since I had done laundry there we had some clothes to wear when we came back and I didn't have to do the laundry until yesterday.

Before our vacation, MG (3 mos) was sleeping anywhere from 5-9 hours at a stretch at night. She didn't quite sleep as well on vacation (usually a stretch of 3-4 hours but it was 5 hours one night!), but she is now back to some good long stretches! The past two nights she's gone to bed in the eight o'clock hour and has slept until six or seven in the morning with a dream feed before I go to bed. Woo hoo! I am well rested again. (Kind of!)

My plan of a two-week potty training "boot camp" has turned into a summer of potty training "boot camp." It's taken A LOT longer than I ever thought it would but I think we're on the upswing now. I hope! We weren't able to do too much potty training on vacation so we decided to just let it go and resume when we got back. Well we started up again yesterday and it's going very well! ME (3) went all of yesterday and all of this morning without any accidents!!! Yesterday he did not initiate using the potty on his own but he went every time Hubby or I told him to. Today, he has gone whenever I told him to and has initiated it twice. Yes! Okay, as I was typing this he had an accident in the basement. Oh well! Still, one accident in a day and half is awesome!

Now that the summer is winding down, Hubby and I have begun the process of getting ready to sell our house. We'll be moving in June when Hubby finishes his residency and plan to "put our house on the market" (really we're doing For Sale By Owner - it's very common among the residents here) in January. We've made a master list of all the projects and cleaning that need to be done between now and then and hope to tackle it one by one over the next four months.
We're also job searching. Hubby has several job possibilities at this time. The hospital he's at now has offered him a position at the sister hospital where he moonlights. I'm not sure we're very interested in that option but it's still a possibility. Then there's a group between here and where his parents live that is actively recruiting him. We went down there several weeks ago for a "meet and greet" kind of thing. The group reserved a private room at a really nice restaurant and most of the physicians and their wives all came. It was crazy to realize that they were all there to meet us! We really liked everything we learned about this practice. Hubby will be going there later this month to see the office, the hospital, etc. Then today, Hubby left his cell phone at home (I hate that!) and got a call that I answered. It was a physician from a local ortho practice that is interested in Hubby. We talked for a bit and then I passed the message along to Hubby. Those are the practices that are pursuing him (and boy is it nice to be pursued!) but he has several other options/contacts to consider as well. The funny is that Hubby will be doing a fellowship from August 2009 until July 2010 so this job search is really for two years from now. It feels funny to be "planning" so far ahead for the future. But on the flip side, we found out our fellowship location last summer and now a year has passed and it's only a year away. Not only that but we're already making plans (e.g. selling the house, researching rental property options, etc.) for that time in our lives. So, although it feels far away, I know the time will pass quickly.

Lastly, we've made several big purchases lately and have upgraded our technology, some of which were planned and others were not! Hubby's had some good moonlighting weekends recently so we've been able to do this. First of all, we bought a new laptop which should be here soon hopefully! Our current one isn't all that old technically but computers become obsolete almost as soon as you buy them! So we got one that can replace our desktop and still handle all of our photo and video editing programs. That was a planned purchase. The next one, however, was not. On Sunday, ME (3) was playing in the living room and decided to (toy) hammer the television and broke it. So out we went shopping for a new tv. We actually ended up ordering one online and its on its way! Along with the purchase of the new tv, came the decision to upgrade our cable service. We've had bare bones cable since we moved here which worked fine for us. Then our cable company went ahead and changed the channels on us and we no longer get two of our favorite channels! So for many reasons, including a discussion and demonstration of the many uses and benefits of DVR, we've upgraded and the cable guy will be here next week. Lastly (well hopefully last!), we've bought a new heat pump. That was also an unplanned purchase. Well, it wasn't planned to be a purchase right now but we knew when we bought the house that we would most likely have to replace it (it's 21 years old) and saved for it. That will happen next week as well. So there are major technological upgrades happening around here in the next two weeks.

That's all for now! I'll try to blog again soon - maybe!