It's a mess!

I used to live in filth…back when I lived by myself and even before that.  I would leave dishes all over the place; clean laundry was mixed with dirty laundry in piles on the floor.  It didn’t bother me at all.  Fast forward to today… living like this really bothers me now.  It makes me uptight, grumpy, and frustrated.  But the difference is that years ago I had plenty of time to clean up I just chose not to.  Now I really want to have a clean and un-cluttered house but I just don’t have the time.  The girls were part time (3 days/week) at school up until 3 weeks ago, but now they are full-time.  I now realize that on my day home and Ryan’s day home we at least got a few things done, and it made way more of a difference than I realized!  I would usually do several loads of laundry, pick-up, vacuum, and swiffer just so the 1^st floor looked decent.  I would do this during the girls’ afternoon nap.  There are just not enough hours in the day now!  And don’t even get me started on all the things that need to be done outside…

4 month stats!

Luca is 4 months old today (8-9-11)! 

Weight: 14lbs 9oz

Height: 24.5"

Sleep: 2 naps/day (when at home), varies at school...Nightime: goes to bed between 7:30-7:45pm, wakes up around 6:30am.  Started rolling over around 3.5 months, and now typically rolls over and sleeps on her tummy. 

Luca is an EASY baby.  She is always smiling.  She is happy being held, she is happy laying on the floor, she is happy in her bouncy seat. 

Luca school pic - 3 months

trained!

Just realized I never followed up with the last potty training post.  Lola has been trained since my last post and is doing very well.  We put her in pull-ups at night.  Some mornings she wakes up dry, some mornings she is wet.  She wears underwear during naps and is generally okay - at school she is 100% and at home she is more like 90%.  Don't know why there is a difference. 

Got to hang with my college roommate Jen this morning.  It had been WAY too long since I saw her last.  It was great to catch up. 

Both girls are napping right now, but I didn't even dare to try and take a nap.  I know if I tried then someone would have woken up!  Plus it takes me so darn long to fall asleep that it is never worth it unless Ryan is home.  I have never been a good napper. 

Potty training…ugh. I don’t think we are doing it like most people do it. I think you are supposed to take a weekend and try it, but we have been half-assing it now for a while. Basically she goes on the toilet at school fairly consistently. But her diapers are not usually dry. For the past few weeks (actually almost a month) when she runs around naked (or without a diaper but with a shirt on), she goes on the toilet every time, and has only had a few accidents. And when I say ‘accidents’ I mean little dribbles as she runs to the toilet because she got to the point where she had to go badly and she just couldn’t hold it all in. So a month ago I bought some underwear and tried those but for some reason she had a few accidents where she actually pottied full on in her underwear, so I just stopped using them because she seemed to do fine when she was naked. Last Friday she woke up DRY in the morning! She usually wakes up SUPER wet… so I thought that maybe it was time. So this past Saturday I pulled the underwear back out and she did great for 2 days! But Lola is so extreme...I would put a diaper on her when we had to go places and she would potty or poop in her diaper and not care at all. She would go all day in a poopy or wet diaper. But she is obviously capable of going in the toilet and understanding when she has to go and capable of holding it in.

So this morning when Ryan took her to school, he asked her lead teacher Sharrita what we should do. I hate to put her in diapers because I know she will just go in them and not care. But I know it will be a lot of work for the teachers to deal with her in underwear. I think trying underwear at school might be both easier and more difficult at the same time. Easier because a lot of the other kiddos are potty trained (she is in 2-3 year old room) and they go, and she sees them go. This is why she is good about consistently going at school even though her diapers are not usually dry. But more difficult because she gets distracted at school because there is so much going on. I don’t know if she will want to go inside to go potty (or even realize she needs to go potty) when she is right in the middle of playing outside. Anywhoo, much to my surprise, Sharrita was super excited and said she would put Lola in her underwear and see how she did! So I guess we will see when I pick her up today! :)



This is Lola yesterday in her Dora underwear
listening to Daddy's i-pod.  



Back to work!

So today is my first day back to work!  And what am I doing?  Obviously not working...  ha ha!  This return to work is bittersweet.  I think because this is (most likely) our last child so I really tried to enjoy my leave as much as I could.  I really enjoyed the days when Lola was at school and I could hang out with Luca by myself.  I truly enojyed spending time with Luca, and I felt so much more relaxed and comfortable this time.  I don't think I really savored every minute with Lola, but this time around was totally different in a good way!

We had an awesome 4th of July.  We went down to my parents' house and relaxed for a few days.  I went and bought Lola some fireworks.  It was the first time I had bought fireworks since college!  I only bought the 'boring' kid-friendly fireworks - snap pop thingies, smoke bombs, and some parachutes.  She even stayed up to watch fireworks!  It was almost 2 hours past her bedtime, but she was able to stay awake and see them. 

The girls in their coordinating outfits! 

password

For some reason my password hasn't worked when I have tried to log-in the last few times to write, so that is my excuse for not having posted in a while.  Ha ha, lame excuse I know... 

So our driveway is complete!  Let me tell you how nice it is to come home and know that we each have a place to park and that we don't have to worry about one person parking behind the other, and then re-arranging the cars in the morning.  After parking on it for 3 weeks now, I have to say that if I had it to do over I would have made the main part of the drivway 1 foot wider.  I know there is always a lesson learned, so that is mine.  I could use just a little more room on both my side and the passenger side when getting myself and the girls in and out of the car.  We ended up doing some planting beds along the side of the driveway and we also added a berm garden just near the driveway.  I don't have any pictures yet though!  I don't really want to take pictures until the berm and beds have filled out a bit.  This is a picture of the berm my parents' and I built 2 summers ago.  It actually looked great last summer but is even more full this summer.  I'm guessing the newest berm will look good enough to photograph next year!   :)

 

We only bought a few plants in this berm. My mom divided a lot of her plants and some of her friends' plants and we used those.

 



Random

Well, the driveway is finished!  It took almost 2 weeks because of the rain, which was kind of a pain but totally worth it in the end!  But why, oh why, can't I just be satisfied with the driveway by itself?  Instead, I am now adding landscaping along the drivway and also adding a new garden berm near the driveway!  I seem to have an addiction to yard projects.  I will post pictures when it's all finished. 

I had good intentions of writing a novel, but Luca is now crying.  When she is awake she almost always wants to be held so there isn't a lot of down time for me.  Gotta run!