Steamrolled by September

My last blog post was labeled "Goodbye August" and at this point I feel like this one should almost be labeled "Goodbye September".  September tends to steamroller me, but I have been trying to stay organized, stay on top of things and establish routines and this has probably been one of my better Septembers as a result.  I made a list of mini goals I want to accomplish.  Little things, like going to yoga two times in September and decorating the house for Halloween.  It is nice to have a list I can reach for when I have a few moments to really accomplish something, rather than just zone out in front of a screen.   One of my goals is to blog weekly which has been a challenge.  But here are a few updates. 

Isaac is in fourth(!!!) grade this year and is really showing a lot of maturity.  He is only going to the YMCA in the morning now.  In the afternoon he takes the bus home and lets himself in.  He has about 30 minutes until I come home with Hannah.  He has been really responsible with using that time until I come home to knock out his homework.  Part of his homework is always to read 30 minutes.  He has really stayed on top of that well without a  lot of nagging from me which I appreciate.   We recieved his PSSA scores in the mail and I was proud to see that he is advanced in math.  He is continuing with the viola and this year has started the trombone.  We are also fully in the swing of travel soccer.  His league this year includes teams in Delaware and Maryland, so it really is a lot of traveling.   It is a lot to keep track of but I am impressed with how well he can handle it. 

We made it out to my parent's house for dinner last weekend (another mini goal for September).  Isaac has been asking and asking so we squeezed a dinner trip out there on a busy weekend.  Isaac loves the basketball hoop there and even took some time to play with Hannah.  These pictures from that day have becomes favorites.  You can really just see how sweet he is to her. 

 

 

Hannah is still the light of my life.  She is trying and trying to walk and is getting better everyday. She loves to give herself applause for her efforts and then she knocks herself off balance and falls over.   She also loves to dance and will do so any time she hears music, even the organ playing the hymn at church gets her moving.  She is becoming really destructive curious.  She loves to tear apart Ryan's magazines and drop all kind of objects between the slats in our head boards.   Any open drawer is fair game for her to start unloading clothes.  She grabbed my tablet the other day and I discovered that she friend requested all kinds of people on facebook including my principal... awkward...

It is starting to feel like fall here finally.  A busy time of year for us but also my favorite time.

Always on the go

So you know you are a grown up when your weekends and spare time are no longer spent planning fun things for you and your special someone to do, but instead shuttling your child(ren) from commitment to commitment.  It seems like all I do each weekend is watch Isaac play sports.  I have most everything in the calendar in my phone, which syncs to my email and to Ryan's calendar, but I have taken to posting this on the fridge each week to give all parties a quick visual of each day.

Our days are jam-packed and we are always on the go.   I honestly don't know how moms with multiple kids in various activities don't lose their minds. It's hard enough with just one.

Anyways, here are some highlights:

Isaac continues to enjoy baseball a lot.  He is mostly in the outfield or occasionally short stop.  He is getting better each week and really looks forward to practices and games with his team the Riverdogs.  He likes to chew sunflower seeds or Big League Chew gum in the dugout to make himself feel like a pro.

I'm not going to lie, I find Little League Baseball to be mind-numbingly boring.  I think Hannah does too.  She always looks around with an expression on her face like "Oh man, we're HERE again?  Let me fuss myself to sleep now." I like to watch Isaac, of course, but the games are so slow.  They tend to start late, and go long. Yesterday Uncle Joe joined us for a game, which definitely helped pass the time for me and meant a lot to Isaac.

game face

  

 Yesterday was also team pictures which was almost a mini-crisis when we could only find one of his uniform socks.  We ended up driving to Dick's Sporting Goods ten minutes before the picture and picking up another two pack of socks.  Hopefully it was money well spent as I seem to spend an inordinate of time before each game locating baseball socks.  Isaac talked me into buying a special baseball with his picture printed on it.   I can't wait to see how they turned out.

We have also been getting back into the swing of soccer which is definitely more exciting for spectators: action packed and time bound. He had tryouts for the new season of travel and last week participated in a 4 v 4 tournament.  His team took second.

 The Philadelphia Union were there which was exciting too.
 

In non-sports related happenings we have been able to spend some time with all of Ryan's kids. For a while there is seemed like we could never coordinate schedules to take them. We had a beautiful weekend day when we played in a local park and even had a random lady ask if they were ALL ours, which made me smile.  Allison and Gabby love Hannah and are so good with her.  We have them again this coming weekend and are hoping to take them all swimming with our family membership to the YMCA.

There has been a lot going on with Isaac at school too.  My dad was able to drive in to be with Isaac on grandparent's day.  They visited the book fair together and Isaac got two books, one that he picked out that was Star Wars related and one that my dad picked out about George Washington "one of Grandpa's heroes".  Dad e-mailed me this picture of Isaac and his homeroom teacher Miss Hoyle. 

I was also pleasantly surprised to check my e-mail and find this note which couldn't have made me any prouder:

This is Mr. Lamison, Isaac’s Social Studies Teacher.  I am writing to you today to tell you what an amazing job Isaac has been doing in my class.  He has been working with great focus and attention to detail.  I am very proud of Isaac, and I wanted to take a moment to let you know. 

Have a great day,

We also managed to get over to the Art Show one evening after baseball practice.  Isaac had several pieces in the show.  

We are starting to come down the home stretch of the final marking period of school.  Soon summer will be here!

Finally Friday!

So I guess once a week is about as often as I am going to be able to update the blog.

 So one big change was my in-laws have sort of come on some hard times and have moved in with us for a few months while they prepare to move to Florida.  They have moved into what was Hannah's room and now Hannah is back in our bedroom which I am not too crazy about.  I have to admit, I was expecting things to be a lot harder than they have been.  They leave the house very early in the morning (like 5 am) and return home between 8-9 at night, so I haven't seen too much of them.

Isaac's football party went well.  The Sportsplex provided me with a high schooler to assist and he was great with the boys.  As much as I was dreading a birthday party, it was actually very easy and I know he had fun.  Isaac has been a such a trooper through the past few months that he deserved a party and some fun.

  He got several gift cards as well as some cash from the tooth fairy and he was so proud to go to the mall over the weekend and spend it.  We were having Hannah's picture taken at the Picture People so we let him go on his own to a few nearby stores.  Suddenly I have a child who is old enough to go to the mall.  Crazy!

He continues to be busy, busy, busy with sports and other commitments.  I just spent 30 minutes inputting all of his practices, games and tournaments into the calendar on my phone, so that I can keep on top of everything.   His soccer schedule was very easy with games and practices on set days and times.  Baseball is so sporadic, it is kind of making me crazy.  Plus when it rains they move practices to random indoor facilities at more than 10 bucks a pop.  It is worth is though because he seems to truly love baseball.  He has the biggest grin on his face during every practice.

We have filled up our entire huge trashcan with things we have gotten rid of, have several bags to go off to charity and I have sold quite a few things on a local yardsale site.  Ryan can be very sentimental about keeping things, so it is great that we are on the same page with decluttering the garage and basement.  It's nice to have some spaces cleared out.

Little Hannah Banana has had a nasty cold this week.  She has still been pretty pleasant all things considered but her sleeping routine has totally disintegrated.  She hasn't even wanted to eat much, which is how you know things aren't quite right.  She is still lucky enough to spend most of her weekdays with grandma.

Still alive... barely

I have survived my two weeks back at work. The long, cold days of hibernation during my maternity leave are officially over.  I am putting on real clothes, and packing a real lunch and going back to my real job.  And it's going all right.  Last week I was absolutely exhausted physically and emotionally overwhelmed.  Most of the days I got up with Hannah to feed her at 4 and then my mind started racing and I never fell back to sleep so by the time Friday rolled around I was in total zombie mode.  Thankfully I have gotten more sleep this week.  There were a few mishaps (a forgotten bus note for Isaac, misplaced car keys) but overall, things have been going fairly smoothly.  This week was definitely easier than last week, so hopefully that trend continues. 

The actual work part wasn't so bad-- my substitute was really good and stayed on top of everything very well, so it was an easy transition back in that sense.  So far things went well for Hannah staying with my mother and Ryan during the day also.  I miss her very much when I am away but I do feel good knowing that she is in great hands with my mom.  Bonus is my mom tends to bake cookies and other baked goods, which is always nice to come home to.

Ryan had an interview for a transfer to a store with his company that is much closer to home than the Center City location where he works now.  We are waiting to hear back.  I know he will miss the colorful characters of North Philly but it would be nice to have him spend more time at home and less time commuting.  

Isaac has been busy, busy busy.  He is playing Little League for the first time this spring and even though this is the soccer "off season", different soccer commitments keep popping up.  He ended up getting called to be a sub for a game in the winter league, since they were short a few players.  We brought Hannah along to cheer him on.

 

 Her first of (probably many) soccer games.  We declined an invitation to play in a travel league for spring since we are committed to baseball, but he is playing in a one day tournament, and he does have a few scrimmages.   He is still keeping up with Cub Scouts and viola and seems to have a lot of invitations for playdates, so he is always on the go.  He is having a football themed birthday party tomorrow, which should be really fun. 

 Last night he begged me to take him and Hannah to open swim at the YMCA. Ryan was working, so my initial reaction was "Ugh, not tonight" but I couldn't bring myself to say no without a good reason and so I agreed.  It took about 30 minutes for me to prep everything and get us out the door but it was actually relaxing and fun once we got there.  Hannah was unimpressed with the pool. Maybe because they only had large swim diapers and hers went about up to her armpits.

 

 She didn't fuss or cry but she didn't seem especially interested in splashing or water play.  We did watch Isaac go down the water slide over and over which was nostalgic.  When he was a toddler his favorite thing to do stand and to watch the big kids on the slide and now he is the big kid.  CRAZY.   He ended up having to retake his swim test and he passed with flying colors.  I really would like to get him back into swim lessons.  Maybe in the summer when we have more time.

 

 As usual, Isaac was super sweet with Hannah.  He pretended to be a shark and swam around her, gently splashed her and interacted with her.  Sometimes I am amazed at what fabulous kids I have been blessed with.  They really are the best.

Hannah continues to be the sweetest baby ever.  She is pretty reserved but she has a great smile she will flash, especially for Daddy.  She will look around the room for us and then grin when she spots us.

 

She is a pretty good sleeper and has had a few nights where she has only gotten up once, which has afforded me some longer stretches of heavenly sleep.  She also loves to sleep late (8:30 or 9:00) which is also a treat. Isaac used to be up for the day at 5 in the morning when he was that age. I always feel a bit sad when my alarm goes off at 6, knowing she will be sleeping for at least two more hours.  She is also my cuddle bug.  She is happiest in your arms, or in the Moby wrap and she will wiggle her body in to be closer and cuddlier.  She is starting to reach for things more and her movements seems more coordinated.

I am looking forward to a fun weekend.  I don't have much going on myself, besides shuttling Isaac to various commitments.  Happy spring!

Life Lately

1. My mom had Isaac for a whole week when I was starting on school.  Of course, they did all kinds of fun things and there were tears when it was time to come home.  One of his new favorite things to do is paint pottery with her.  This week she brought over this candy jar that was finally back from being fired.  How adorable is it?  I can't wait until October when we can get all Halloweeny up in here...

2. We had back to school night this week for Isaac.  His teacher described Isaac as a "riot" which made me feel relieved.  Of course *I* think he is a riot, but, let's just say, not everyone always finds him to be amusing.  His teacher's enthusiasm for science must be contagious, because he came home asking me if I had cornstarch so he could make his own oobleck.  It made a bit of a mess but he seemed to love it.

3. Ryan and I have been married for over six months now.  The other day I came home to find he had been hard core cleaning the house.  He had come up with this solution to our covers war.  I had to laugh when I discovered it but it has actually been working out well.

4.  As the lone female in this household for a few more months I am pretty much on my own while Isaac and Ryan are zoned out watching football.  I am trying, but I just can't get into it.  It's soooooooooo long.

5. It's the most wonderful time of the year!  Soccer season.  His first official league game was a terrible blow-out. They beat the other team 12-0.  Hopefully the next game is a little more fun to watch.  Go number 7!

sweet moments

First of all, how much does my child look like bat boy in the above photo?

 

Tonight I was laying on the coach being lazy and I thought to myself "I really should do another day on my 5K app."  Tomorrow evening is crazy busy so I knew I wouldn't be able to squeeze it in then, and it was still early with some light out.  Ryan asked me to put Isaac to bed before I left, and in a desperate attempt to avoid bedtime, Isaac asked to come with me.  And I agreed.  Even though he was in cargo shorts and soccer cleats.

 

And it was really fun.  He ran with me through all of the running intervals and we chit chatted together during the walking ones.We would shout out encouragement to each other to keep going.   It was such a sweet little bit of time with him without competing with electronics or phones.    And as we approached the house at the very end, he turned to me, grabbed my hand, lifted it above my head and said "Should we finish this together?" and we sprinted home.  I think he has been watching one too many episodes of The Biggest Loser but it was totally precious. 

Ten on Tuesday: Chocolate Cravings Edition

1. Isaac came home from school missing his other front tooth yesterday.  It has been hanging on by a thread for a while.

 And how weird is it that the gap in his teeth looks like the Batman symbol?  My friend Joe pointed that out.

2. I know I blogged about it last week (and, let's be honest, I will continue to obsess and perseverate on it until Memorial Day) but I am getting sooooo excited for our family getaway to Orlando this year. Disney World, here I come!!  Personal days away from school, here I come!!!

3. I lost Ryan's laptop cord and my work laptop is being serviced (don't ask) so that leaves me to blog from work or my phone. Both options kind of suck and are putting a damper on my bloggy enthusiasm. I wish I didn't destroy all technology that I touch.

4. Isaac's church teacher made him this adorable candy lei in honor of his baptism. How cute is this?!

5. So if you have been keeping up on my recent posts you know I have been rolling in my new minivan. It has been quite an adjustment getting used to driving a bigger and wider car and just a new car in general. This morning I was running late for work and it was raining cats and dogs and I hit a button on my key fob and raced inside. Turns out I actually hit the button to throw open the back hatch and I left it wide open with rain pouring in. Fortunately a coworker spotted it and closed it before random homeless people took shelter in my car. I am ridiculous.

6. I am OBSESSED with the game Ruzzle. It helps me be even more antisocial in the lunchroom at work. Look me up if you play: midwaydancer.

7. So what did we think of the all ASL episode of Switched at Birth? I liked it, although with all of the subtitles I couldn't multitask (read: play Ruzzle obsessively) like I usually do. I feel bad for Bey though, as hard as she is fighting for Carlton, she will never be accepted there. Also, I know it is so wrong but it cracked me up when she had to be like "The cops are here".

8. I have been craving chocolate like crazy lately. I may or may not have foraged through cabinets and the pantry last night until I unearthed a bag of chocolate chips that I promptly scarfed down.

9. Ryan found one of the cats in the dryer the other day. With the door closed. Thank Goodness it wasn't running! Only at our house...

10. Pretty much...

Happy Tuesday!!!

YOLO Monday

I posted before about how I was starting to feel just overwhelmed with things. The universe decided to give me a bit of a break. The court case I was going to be a witness in was settled, so I don't need to devote time to prepare and go to trial. I am a little disappointed, because I thought it would have been a fascinating thing to be a part of, but it is nice to have something instantly taken off my plate. I sorted out my health troubles, and am on some huge horse pills antibiotics that left me feeingl much better. I finally made progress on some things for the wedding that I just felt stuck on thanks to my devoted and patient mother.  Also Isaac is on a new medicine that seems to be helping with his vomiting. So those are all big improvements from this time last week.
 
Ryan, his mom and his sister joined me for the Home Show in Philadelphia. The night before I decided to make some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to bring along as a snack.  Typical me though, somehow I forgot to put the flour in and this is how they ended up.  Whoops.

We got up nice and early and drove into the city for the Home Show.   There was a groupon for admission tickets so we ended up getting two tickets for free.  Ryan's mom was so excited to see that  Action News from Channel 6 was there.  She volunteered to be interviewed and we were all tickled to see that they included her interview on the 11:00 news.

 Here is a picture of the a screenshot.  You can see me and Ryan and his sister Katherine behind us.

The Home Show was a lot of fun.  There were so many neat displays and my "Maybe SomeDay This Might Be Within the Budget Wishlist" keeps growing.  I ended up getting some cleaning products, a soup mix, scheduling some consult appointments with a home security system and an organizer.  We also spent quite a bit of time at the Sleep Number Bed display.  We might be buying one of these in the near future.

It was a fun day and nice to spend some time with Ryan's family.

What else?

How fun is this sweatshirt I got from super clearance from Forever21?

I don't remember exactly how much it was... definitely less than 10 bucks.

I actually watched the whole Superbowl for the first time, ever, I think, since Isaac and Ryan really wanted me to join them.  I really enjoyed Beyonce's performance, especially her all girl band.   Fingers crossed this week goes quickly.... Only a few more weeks till our wedding!

Quickly

• I ended up in the emergency room Friday night after I finally called my doctor about a nagging ache in my side.  That combined with my low grade fever, nausea, and general feeling of "blah" left him convinced I could have appendicitis.  Two rounds of blood work, an IV bag full of fluids and a CAT scan later, it turns out I just have a terrible UTI. 
• Wedding planning is still causing me to lose a lot of sleep.  There are a few important elements still aren't in place, RSVPS that haven't been returned, things I still need to do, people that need to be called, etc, etc, etc.  I either can't fall asleep at night and/or I wake up at night for whatever reason and then my mind starts racing and I can't fall back to sleep.  No bueno.
• Isaac is also throwing up all the time in school (but never at home...).  Their policy is barf = you have to go home that day which has necessitated a lot of juggling around of schedules on the part of me, my mom and Ryan.  One of us has to drop everything to pick him up, and then watch him for the rest of the day as he runs around the house, fever free and full of energy, eating everything in sight.  I dunno if he is making himself throw up, or faking it, or if he might have some kind of reflux or what, but it's getting old.  Yesterday when the school nurse called me at work again, she sort of got the brunt of my anger.  I was like "I'm a working mom!  I'm a teacher! Did anyone actually see him throw up?"  He got a big lecture from me last night about faking it, and I scheduled him a doctor appointment later in the week to rule out reflux or something.  Any suggestions or ideas on that front are welcomed. 
• In addition to all that I have going on in my life, in a moment of temporary insanity I agreed to be a witness on a courtcase.  I was just served my subpoena last weekend. A lady I worked with when I bought my house was fired from her company for shoddy work performance and is now suing them claiming she was fired because of her race and gender.  The company I guess started going through their files and found my scathing write up of my experience working with her and now wants to use me as part of their defense.  Which I think is actually really interesting and I would like to be of assistance.  It is unfortunate that the timing is early February.  
• Anyways, this isn't meant to be a list of complaints.  There are so many good things happening in my life right now too. My parents and Ryan's parents finally met each other at a nice dinner hosted by my parents.  I think everyone was a little nervous but all was well and the world didn't end.  We also had a nice birthday dinner for my dad on Sunday and played Apples to Apples.   My brother Tom inspected my car, so miraculously the 2003 Alero remains roadworthy for another year (or until she is replaced by a minivan or SUV crossover, you know, whichever comes first).  There was a Groupon deal on tickets to the Home Show in Philadelphia, so we are taking Ryan's sister and mom next weekend and they seemed so pleased.  Ryan and I have seen some great movies: Argo and Silver Linings Playbook.  Highly recommend both of them.  Finally, my brother gave the three of us tickets to the car show in Philadelphia and we had a great time.  Here is a picture from there:

 

So that's the update!

 

This boy...

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later...

My rough and tumble little man has been sporting this splint on his thumb after a skate board mishap.  It was adorably tragic after the doctor told him not to play sports for a few days.  He was like, "Mom, that is really hard for a kid like me."

He also finally lost that wiggly top tooth.  He decided he was ready for it to go, so he packed himself an apple for a snack and that helped it along.

This is what I found when I went in to wake him up this morning.  He loves his new Jordan's so much he slept in them last night (with his pajamas).   

Happy Monday all! 

Quickies

I woke up today singing the Gummi Bears theme song. So random! I haven't even thought about that song in ages.

We are finally getting back to normal around here after being housebound for Monday and Tuesday. Power was out in some of the elementary schools, so I ended up being off Wednesday too (Isaac had a 2 hour delay). We weathered the storm by watching a ton of movies, clearing out the DVR, organizing closets, FINALLY catching up on the laundry, and cooking and baking. I was so lucky that I didn't lose power at all as we have during previous storms.  We also got our pumpkins carved (in the living room, so as not to miss any of the NBA game)

We didn't even really have damage to anything either. Before the storm Isaac pointed out that our little tree in the front yard had one little leaf clinging to it. We were definitely tickled to see that it hung on after the storm.

Halloween was a big success.  Ryan agreed to hand out my candy this year, so we didn't have to be the super lame people with a bowl of candy left on the front porch. 

 

 

He even rigged up a whole Halloween scene complete with spooky music and sound effects and a fog machine. 

I was impressed!  My little werewolf Isaac got a whole pile of loot, and as usual, about an hour in declared he had enough and was ready to go home.

 

 

You would think only having to work two days this week would be a piece of cake, but it was a particularly rough day back.  We were supposed to have a potluck lunch.  I showed up with my plate of deliciously decadent cookies, only to discover I had misread the email and the potluck had been rescheduled to NEXT Thursday.  So I had no lunch.  I was forced to go out for lunch (which is always an adventure when you only have 30 minutes), but due to a long series of unfortuneate events I had no access to any of my money, so I wasn't able to buy any lunch.  Also, earlier that day my Albright advisor showed up at school and yelled at me about some paperwork which was really a big miscommunication, but still left me in tears.  Needless to say, I packed up my stuff and pretty much RAN out of the school building. 

I finally made myself go out to Kelli's to stamp last night. I have only been once since the school year started, but after my terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-day at school, I decided to go. Look at these cute cards I made!

If you are lucky, maybe I will send you one.

Happy Friday everyone!