Happy Feet Not so Happy for a Toddler

I ventured out with the potential puke/diahrea bomb also known as Jack today. He seems fine, despite the doctor's warnings about the virus coming back at any time. We went to see the movie Happy Feet. It got great reviews saying it was a good movie for the kids and all. But my kid did not like it at all. There were some really scary places where some seals and whales were chasing the penguin all over the ocean that pretty much traumatized the boy. And if it wasn't a scary scene, it was a preachy message about the environment and how we should not be fishing in the waters where there are penguins. I honestly don't have too much opinion about that issue, but I do not like it in my kid's movie.

It was cute in some parts and the dancing penguins did make me smile a bit, but all in all, I would not recommend the movie for any of the toddlers out there. Jack did end up crawling into my lap during the scary whale scene and then soon fell asleep for the last 30 minutes of the movie. So that was Jack's opinion of it all - a snooze fest.

Rotovirus... Or Maybe Not

Well we took the boy to the doctor yesterday and he thinks that Jack has the rotovirus. Now when he first said that, I thought it was some deadly disease, but my fears were soon calmed when I found out that the disease I was thinking of was the hauntevirus (sp?).

So the doctor went on this big tangent of how I was exposed to the toxic sludge, otherwise known as Jack's puke and diarhea. Seriously people, he scared me! I guess one little drop of the stuff on you pretty much guarantees that you too will be able to enjoy the good times of puking up your lungs or having them come out the other end. Sounds like fun eh? He also told us to get Jack what is called "Rehydrolite". He said that Pedialyte is basically worthless. And went on about the schedule of eating and drinking for the next couple of days.

But, the thing is, the kid is doing great. He has not had any symptoms of the horrible virus since yesterday morning and the "diaper incident". He even snuck 2 cookies out of the pantry while I was not looking and ate those. And when I asked him if he had any cookies, all he said was "huh?" with this face full of crumbs and chocolate. And since he was able to down those with no problems, I am guessing we are over it for the time being. I just hope that I don't get to enjoy all the fun that Jack and Daddy have had in the last few days.

So today was our first day back to just Jack and I together. We had Grammy, Papa, and Laura visiting us and then Jim got sick and was off work for a week since Thanksgiving. He went back to work today, leaving Jack and I to come up with stuff to do together. Of course, I have a pile of laundry a mile high to do and there's always the toilets the clean, but who really wants to do that? I may take Jack to the movie Happy Feet later on if he is still feeling better.

And after trying about 12 times to get a picture of myself that I don't hate too much, I came up with this to show you all my new hairdo.

Joy Joy (warning grossness involved)

It seems that something awful has invaded our house. On Thanksgiving night, Jim awoke and started throwing up and continued that for the next 4 days straight. Oh and there was also diarhea involved. He finally went to the doctor on Monday, who told him, "yep you have a stomach bug". Can you say "DUH!" He is now feeling better and is now about 10 lbs lighter (hate him).

So last night, it seemed like it worked its way into Jack. He was having trouble sleeping last night. He woke up around 11:30 and I got up to get him some milk, which usually puts him right back to sleep. Not this time. He spewed that milk and all the french fries from dinner all over his room about 15 minutes later. And when I say all over, I mean ALL OVER his room. So I got him cleaned up and the room stripped of all ickies and took him out to lay on the couch. He watched Thomas for the next two hours and around 2:30, I decided to take him to bed with me in the guest bed.

He woke up this morning and seemed fine. He was running and playing and being his usual self. I thought it was a one-time thing. He said he was hungry and wanted yogurt (not the best choice, I found out). About 10 minutes after finishing the yogurt, he had the biggest diarhea mess ever. I mean it was everywhere as in running down his leg and out onto the carpet, which he stepped in and tracked all over. I had just changed him and his diaper was overflowing. Gross Gross Gross.

He will be going to the doctor today. I just hope that it doesn't last as long as it did with Jim because the poor little thing will miss out on a lot of fun days coming up in school and elsewhere.

And if I get it, I will personally slap Jim silly for bringing home that crud in the first place!

Potty Training and The Lack Of

I can not believe that in 3 short months, Jack will be three and I can just say this, he is NOT ready to go potty on the big-boy potty. Not close. Nope. The reason why I say this is because the other night as we were getting ready to take a bath, I asked Jack if he wanted to go pee pee on the big-boy potty. He said yes (as he always does) and got up on the potty with the little Elmo training seat. He did as he always does and fake tries. He will sit there and grunt and push and say that he is "trying". Yeah right. I truly believe that he just thinks the potty is a really cool chair to sit on and that is it.

So after about 3 minutes of him fake trying, he jumps down and stands by the tub while it is being filled for his bath. It was not even 30 seconds after he jumped down from the toilet, that he was peeing ALL OVER the bathroom floor. He was having fun hitting the pretty yellow ducky rug, the side of the tub, and the wall. Can you say Mad? Can you say Frustrated?

We have even tried to tell him that he is NOT a big boy, which he usually takes offense at because he insists that he is a big boy and will tell us a thousand times a day that he is. However, when it comes to not being a big boy because he is still wearing diapers, he is very okay being a baby for that. In fact, he will tell you that he is a baby when the subject of potty usage comes up and being able to continue using diapers.

I don't feel so alone. I read on Erin's site that Ben is having the same problem. And yesterday I had a long conversation with another mother in Jack's class about the problem. It seems that her son, Kyle, who was turns 3 in January still refuses to use the potty. She suggested that we should have a potty-training party at her house and lock the boys up and just let them play naked together (that didn't sound very well did it?) until they get the idea that peeing on themselves is NOT cool. But our luck, they would think that it WAS cool.

In other catch up news, I am going to have post a pic of myself with my new hairdo that I got a couple of weeks ago. I was basically just tired of the nothing haircut that I have had since Jack was born (how sad is that?) and decided to go to the salon in town with the best repuation. It is owned by this guy who has done hair to the stars and has pics proving it in his lobby and I was lucky enough to get in for a haircut with him. I basically just sat down and said "do whatever you want". So he had one of his colorists put a color (soft brown) on my bleached-blonde frizz and then he cut away by taking over 4 inches off the bottom. But I absolutely love love love it. And it is so easy to maintain and do myself. I have really found the person who will cut my hair for the next 20 years or so. It was so much fun and a haircut that I would never have asked for in a million years. Fun Fun Fun. I promise, picture will be coming soon.

Making Up for lost time

It has been a few days since I have updated my blog and that is simply because of the sheer amount of activity that has been going on around here.

We had Grammy and Papa A. visit us from Michigan for Thanksgiving. It was nice to spend sometime with them and Jack sure enjoyed all the attention/spoiling that he received from them.

Below are some pictures from Jack's Thanksgiving program at school. It was the cutest thing to watch. Jack's class were the turkeys with the turkey hats on. He was sat in the very middle of the stage and I think more than a few people were snickering at him as he sat there ripping up a piece of paper and throwing it at everybody. Then he decided to take his turkey hat off about 300 times and then he thought it would be neat to take the hats off of the kids around him and put them back on their heads. He basically was doing everything BUT singing or whatever else he was supposed to do. But it was priceless.

Here is a little video. He is the one in the red in the middle. As you can see he really got it into the whole thing.

While the grandparents were here, we went walking through some gift shops in one of the casinos here in town and found this:
Of course the grandparents bought him the fireman rain coat and boots. If the fire truck was for sale, I am sure that would be sitting in our house at this moment also. Can you say spoiled child? And yes, the boy absolutely loves the coat and boots. He wears the boots all over the house and wants to wear them outside whenever we go somewhere and has a fit when we don't let him wear them or the rain coat every single day.

We had a really great Thanksgiving here at our house. Jim had to work that day so we had a late dinner, but everything went off really well and they seemed to enjoy themselves. So I believe the first holiday gathering in our new house was a hit. Jim got sick, as in throwing up all night long sick, that night, but thank goodness he was the only one in the family who got sick or else I would have been paranoid about my cooking! I am just going to blame it on what he had at work for lunch.

I hope everybody had a Happy Thanksgiving and now let the shopping begin! Yikes! And I haven't even started! That thought alone is freaking me out because I usually have most, if not all the shopping done by now. Happy Shopping!

A Couple of Jackisms

** Jack and I were sitting watching yet another Thomas show, when I heard Daddy open the back door coming home from work. I asked Jack who is that? And he exclaimed more than excited "Santa Claus!!!" I think he is a bit excited this year for Christmas. We have been reading Christmas stories at night and The Polar Express is his favorite right now. And the other day we received the Big Toy Book from Toys r Us and he has literally been studying the thing and brings it up to me so we can "read" it together. We will sit there and go ooohh and ahhh over the cars, trucks, trains, and race car sets. I told him he needs to ask Santa Claus for them when we see him. The next words out of his mouth are "When are we going to see Santa Claus?"

**Jack talks in his sleep lately. I am not sure what he is dreaming about but the last couple of nights I have heard him saying "My Mama, No MY Mama, Maaaammmmaaa". I guess I am important to him even when he is sleeping. I got up to check on him when I heard him and thought he was awake wanting something. But, when I walked into his room, he was very much asleep, but was obviously having some type of dream/nightmare because he was rolling all over and had thrown off all the covers.

Today Grammy and Papa A. are arriving. Jack is all excited to have yet more people to spoil him. And I am excited because I have more people to entertain the kid. Yay!

Middle of the Night Ramblings again

Well here it is 1:30 am and I am up and on the computer. Jim has been working nights and I HATE it. I just can not fully sleep when he is gone and anything will wake me up. Tonight it was the dog scratching on the floor by the bed. That prompted me to get up and let him outside to do his business and well after that I was up.

I can not believe that Thanksgiving is coming up so quickly. For some stupid reason, I volunteered to host the family Thanksgiving this year. I don't know what I was thinking, but when I heard the words "we can have it here" come out of my mouth, I felt like slapping myself. At the time, I was thinking there was going to be about 20 people coming. I have never ever hosted a Thanksgiving for more than oh 4 people, certainly not THAT many people.

And then this week, Jim found out that he has to work on Thanksgiving day!!!! At first, he thought it would be okay because he is on nights, but nooooo it couldn't be that easy. They are switching back to days, which means he will be gone from 6 am to 7:30 pm that day. Oh Yay! But after talking to my mother-in-law tonight, it looks like it will only be 11 total and we are 4 of those 11. My parents are another 2 who will be here and they will be put to work in the kitchen too. So I keep telling myself that it will be okay. Kinda like a chant. If I keep telling myself over and over again, it will be okay right?

Also if you want to cry watch this. My friend Jane emailed me this link and I sat here shaking and crying for that little boy and his family. I don't think I can watch it again. It literally made me get up and go check on Jack and I would of given him a huge hug if he weren't asleep. It has confirmed my mother's intuation about his car seat. Jack will be staying in his 5-point harness, tethered-to-the-car carseat until he is way past the recommended 40 lbs, which he should hit in the next couple of months. His current carseat can hold him until 80 lbs in the harness and that is where he will be. He may not like it, but at least he will be alive to argue with me. Call me an over-protective mother, but I do not want him to end up like that little boy in the video.

Alright now I will try to go back to sleep, even though I really want to grab my little boy and hug him and never let him go.

Terrors

I am not sure if I started something that I am going to have a hard time breaking, but at the time, it seemed right.

On Saturday night, after the aborted ER trip, Jack was not feeling well and didn't want to sleep in his bed. So because he was sick and all, I relented and told him he could sleep with me in the guest bedroom. He was suddenly very happy and perky with the prospect of sleeping in the big bed. And let me tell you, it was NOT a good nights sleep for me because the kid takes up 3/4 of a queen size bed - easily.

Yesterday, he was still not feeling well and was running a low fever pretty much all day long. He took a nap which lasted a good 3-4 hours until almost 5:00 last night. So that meant that at 8:00 when it was bedtime, he was NOT ready to go to bed. So I let him stay up after a couple failed attempts at putting him to bed. He was running around until 10:00 pm, despite my attempts at getting him to settle down. I kept telling him he needed to go to sleep or no school today. I thought bribery would work, espcially since it involved school and the possibility of not going. But that didn't even work. At 10, I took him into his room and told him he had to stay in bed and go to sleep. I left the light on, as I have to do now every night, and walked out the door. I watched him for a couple of minutes in there and I could plainly see that the boy is absolutely terrified of being in his room alone, even with the bright light on. And within a minute, he was screaming for me.

So again, I let him sleep with me in the guest bedroom, mainly because I myself was exhausted and need to sleep. And again, an almost no-sleep night for me. He was awake and crying for me several times during the night and then at one point he actually fell off the bed. And this bed is quite high up and I am sure it did not feel good doing that.

Now I am really wondering what to do about him being terrified of sleeping in his room. I don't want to spend the next few weeks or months having to sleep with him. Because quite frankly, I need more sleep than that will afford me. But at the same time, I don't want to terrorize the poor boy. This all started after Laura left and she told him about closet monsters and such. Argh.

Also, today was picture day at his school. He is having his very first school picture taken. And he was so excited about that. We even had a discussion about it during the night last night. He woke up and I told him that he needed to go back to sleep or no school and no pictures. He did not like that and then went on to tell me what he wanted to wear today for his pictures. He kept going on about "his nice new pants and new shirt". And was especially concerned about his hair. Oh geesh we are going through the teen years already as far as grooming goes.

Aborted ER Trip

Yes, last night we were in the ER again for the boy. Thankfully, it was aborted.

He started off yesterday in a great mood. We went to the mall in the morning to go to the JCPenney sale. They were having a 60% off sale on the dishes I wanted to get to feed the thousands that are coming to my house this Thanksgiving. And we were there because Santa was coming to town. Don't get me started on this whole Christmas "season" that starts in October, but I just do not like the fact that Santa comes to town BEFORE Thanksgiving. Just not right.

Anyway, he was supposed to drop out of the sky with his reindeer and parachute into the mall parking lot. Cute idea I guess. So we were standing around with 3000 other toddlers looking upward waiting for Santa only to see him just casually stroll out of the mall with Mrs. Claus. No reindeer, no parachute. I guess it was too windy for Santa to jump and risk the very probable fall into the ocean 300 feet from the mall. So yay Jack got to see Santa and shook his hand. We told Jack that we would come back and talk to Santa later to discuss the getting-toys situation. Yes he does have a list for him already. I think he is really getting the whole idea this year. Should be fun.

So then we went and met the Uncles at a craft fair near Jack's school. It was a great day to be outside strolling through 25000 (give or take) craft vendors. Literally the fair was about 3 miles long. However, about 30 minutes after arriving at the fair, Jack started really whining and complaining. He would not walk and we did not have a stroller (we have not used that thing since we were at Disneyworld in June). So we decided to leave early and headed home.

We got home about 4:00 in the afternoon and I took his temp then. He had 101.2 temp. I gave him some tylenol and laid him on the couch in front of some cartoon. At about 7, I noticed he was shivering and I though to my self "uhoh". I took his temp again, and it was 103.2. Not good. So I gave him some more tylenol and held him on my lap. At 7:30, I took his temp again and it was 103.8. At that time, Jim and I made the decision to go to the ER. So we both got dressed and put Jack in the car in his jammies and away we go to the ER. He was pretty much out of it and shivering a lot at this time.

We get there and of course wait and wait. We hear the stories of the current ER cases in the waiting room. There was a wedding party there in tuxes and dresses. I guess somebody at the wedding had a heart attack. There was also a teenage girl who was there with a severly broken nose and a huge fat lip. I guess she fell while skating. And from what I gathered, she enjoyed telling everybody she knew very loudly on her cell phone - all while blood was coming out of her nose. Lovely. There were two other little boys about Jack's age who were there for the same reason as Jack.

During our wait, I could tell Jack's temp was going down and he was starting to come back. They called us back to assess him and took his temp, which had gone down too 100.8. She told us to go back out and wait some more. So we go out to the waiting room and that is when the Jack that we know and love came back. The kid, who just an hour earlier was shivering and totally out of it, turned into Energetic Toddler. He was running up and down the hall, waving his hands around and saying "hi" to all the wedding party people.

So we came home. No ER bill. Can you say Yay? And no 5 hours spent sitting in the ER. He is still sick, but his temp has stayed lower today. It was about 101 last time I checked. Oh and I guess it takes a sickness to get Jackaroo to take a nap these days, because thankfully, he is now napping. Yay!

Closet Monsters, Dark, and Other Happenings

It seems that our house has been invaded by closet monsters and I guess they especially like Jack's room.

For some reason, Jack is totally convinced that a monster lives in his closet. He took my hand the other day and told me that he was going to show me the monster. As we were walking down the hall toward his room, he stopped and ran behind me and hugged my leg totally terrified to go into his room. I walked in the room, dragging him with my leg, and walked over to his closet to look in and guess what? The monster must have left the building because there was no monster there. And Jack, upon seeing no monster, looked shocked and said "It is gone!".

I think the reason for these closet monster sightings is because Laura, who was visiting us last weekend, told him about monsters who lived in closets. Thanks Laura.

But I guess the fear has been coming for some time because the boy is now deathly afraid of the dark. Every night as the sun is going down and it is getting dark outside, he says to me "It is daaaarrrrkkkk. It is spoookkkyyy. Why?" I tell him that the sun goes down every night, which he replies with an emphatic "NOOOOO". And for the last couple of weeks, he has been insisting on leaving his light on when he goes to bed. The night light is not good enough. No, he has to have his overhead light on and sometimes the hallway light on also. And if I turn it out during the night after he has fallen asleep, he will wake up and realize that it is dark and start screaming for me. So I have learned NOT to turn the light out and leave it on all night. Yay for our electric bill.

In other happenings, Jim finally had his nasal surgery on Wednesday. He had it in Meridian, where his mom and sisters live. So we got to see Grammy C and Aunt Ann while we were there. And to say that Jack loves his Aunt Ann would be a huge understatment. On Wednesday night, when Jim was in the hospital, she came over to Grammy's house and totally revved the boy up and had him in fits of giggles and then up and left us with a very wired-full-of-sugar-from-Halloween-candy Toddler. Thanks Aunt Ann. He didn't go to bed that night until after 9:30. Oy, never going to do that again.

Jim made it through the surgery well. He looked like crap when they wheeled him back in the room, but the next morning he was much better. Jack was a really good boy for me while we waited during the surgery. Although, I now know every floor and hallway of that portion of the hospital. There was a fountain on one floor that captivated the boy for a good 20 minutes! Anyway, Jim has bounced back really well considering they just basically ripped through his nose with a rotor rooter. He even cooked most of the dinner tonight! If it was me, I would of milked it for about 2 weeks. Yeah I am that pathetic.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween to everybody. Jack went to his preschool party today. Of course it wasn't a "halloween" party because it is a church preschool and they don't allow all the scary and evil halloween stuff. Instead it was called "Fall Festival" and the theme was a hoedown, which basically cinched the costume for this year. Unlike last year where I scoured the internet looking at costumes for weeks, this year I really had not given it much thought until a couple weeks ago when I read what the preschool theme was going to be. So all I had to buy was a flannel shirt and a fake US Marshall badge and added his cowboy hat, cowboy boots and a pair of jeans. Voila! A costume! Jim of course actually bought him a holster with six-shooters and I very quickly nixed that idea. Just wrong on so many levels. I don't want him to think they are toys, especially since we have those in the house (locked in the safe of course) because of Jim's occupation. But also there was no way that the church preschool was going to let him in wearing those things.

So I present to you Marshall Jack:

The preschool party was held outside on their playground. And can you tell they were just a wee bit excited about the whole thing? Here they are watching the helpers setup outside.

Jack with the sand. He actually played here for about half the party. At one point another little boy threw sand in his face and smacked the sifter out of Jack's hand. Jack did not take that laying down. He leaned over the table and growled at the boy and then hit the boy's sifter too. I thought we were going to have a sand-table brawl.

Then it was onto the painting table. They had cut up fruits and vegetables for the kids to paint and use them as stamps onto the paper. Very ingenius I thought. Of course Jack walked away with paint everywhere on his shirt, pants, and even his hat.

He also got a pumpkin and a happy face painted onto his face. But that did not last long because by the time we got home, both were smeared all over his face. However, he was quite upset when he saw his hat had paint on it. We were driving home and he exclaims all of a sudden "This Is Terrible!". I asked him what was terrible and he said his hat "was filthy". I also got a pumpkin painted on my face and it is still there, unlike Jack.

And the party ended up with a big fall festival feast of crackers, cheese, goldfish, and rice krispy treats. mmmmm.

Here he is being a smarty pants making funny faces for the camera. Such a silly boy he is.

We are not going trick-or-treating tonight because we have to drive up to Jim's mother's house tonight. Jim is having surgery (finally after a two-year saga) to remove his nasal polyps. But he had to do it in his home town because there were NO ent doctors here who took Tricare Insurance. Sad because there are a ton of military people here and no ent doctors who take their insurance.

But we are going to Grammy C's church for their children's halloween party where I am sure he will be getting some more candy. Just what we need. I admit that I was quite relieved not to have to deal with the whole trick-or-treat thing this year. You know who (me) usually ends up eating way more than I should.

Happy Halloween!

Pregnancies

I just want to congratulate two of my fellow bloggy Mommies on becoming pregnant with their second baby: Erin and Mrs. Flinger. Congratulations you guys. You both deserve happy and healthy babies.

All these pregnancy vibes have got me to thinking. Well to be honest, I have been thinking about a second pregnancy almost since the moment Jack popped out. But it does seem to be a protocol or unwritten rule that when your child reaches the age of two, that it is time to get pregnant again. And I have to admit that part of me would love to get pregnant again and see what other little person we can make.

But the realistic side of me says that I am done. Done. Done. Done with the whole baby business. You see, I am old. Way older than Erin and Mrs. Flinger who still have time to have another baby or two. I am looking at the big 4 OH in less than 6 months! OHMAGAH! How and when did that happen. And while I know that other women have babies at that age (Brooke Shields), they are not me. And I really do not think I could do it all over again. I like having nights filled with sleep and NOT crying/screaming babies. I want to get my body back, or I should say the flatish stomach that I used to have pre-July 2003.

So congrats to those who are venturing onto their second pregnancy. Sorry, I will not be joining you. I think some part of me will always wonder about that other child that could have been, but I think all mothers wonder about that in some sort of way. I am not alone there. But I will be sleeping quietly at 2 am in about 9 months or so while you guys will be sleep-deprived. At least I have that!

Sixty Three?!?

Yesterday my little obscure site here had an invasion. This normally very quiet blog that has on average less than 20 visitors a day, suddenly exploded yesterday. I had over 60 visitors yesterday! A record for sure. And so I had to research where all these people were coming from. And I found out that they were coming from Mindy over at The Mommy Blog. It turns out that Mindy had visited my site and saw the video about the model I posted earlier and used my link to tell people about it on her site.

Thanks Mindy for visiting and I am flattered that you decided to link to me. I just don't know what to do with all that attention in my little small obscure part of the blog world. :)

The Things He Learns in School

I just have to say that preschool has such a tremendous effect on Jack. He is learning so much that he never would of with just me. Before he went to school, he could not tell me names of colors. He would guess and every now and then guess right. But now, he knows them without even thinking. It shocked me the other day when he was talking about our "new tar" as he does every day. Yes the car is about 8 months old and not so new, but it is still to him and for some reason he is absolutely fascinated with the thing. But anyway, he was rambling on about the "new tar" and while I was driving I wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying, as I do a lot when he is rambling. But all of a sudden I heard him talking about his "white new tar" and I thought wow before school he never would have said his new tar was white.

Speaking of rambling, you see that commercial of that little girl with her daddy who is strapping her into her car seat and she is talking nonstop and her father is just nodding his head. Yeah, that is me and Jack. The kid does not stop talking. Ever.

Anyway, back to school and learning. He has music class every week and he now is so into music whereas before he didn't really care about it all that much. In fact for the last hour and a half, we sat on the couch playing with his toy that plays all kinds of songs. And he would say to me "Everybody sing" or "Shake it mama" wanting me to dance. And I guess they play freeze the music because then he would say "FREEZE" and we would have to freeze our dancing. Too funny.

They have also taught him to walk single file and hold his hands in front of him while he is walking the halls of his school. His school is at a church and they teach him to respect "God's House" and to walk that way through the halls. So, this Sunday when we were walking into church that we were visiting for the first time, I caught Jack walking very seriously and holding his hands in front of him. Such a good boy he is.

Speaking of church, I took this picture of the boy just before we left for church on Sunday morning. My handsome boy.

Two AM Ramblings

Hello there. I am sure you are all in bed sleeping right now. Me? Nawww. Jack woke me up about 30 minutes ago screaming "Mama, MY Mama, I want MY Mama". So since he was screaming my name and not oh say DADDY's name (who by the way was snoring next to me and never heard his son screaming), I decided I needed to get up and check on the child.

I guess he was having nightmares/growing pains. He was saying that it was "scary" in his room. And then in the next breath he was saying his legs hurt him, something he has been complaining about recently. My only guess is growing pains and hopefully that is it and not some unknown and dreadful disease. Yes, my mind can wander off to dangerous areas at two am.

So, I sat there on the floor next to him and rubbed his back and head until he fell back to sleep. I realized that the poor kid has his father's sinuses and can not breath through his nose at all. That was a topic of discussion at the pediatrician this last time. Turns out that Jack is highly allergic to whatever happens to be in the air - pollen, dust, cat hair, whatever. I found out that the purple ring that resides under his eyes most of the time is caused by severe allergies. And here I just thought it meant he was tired when the purple ring came out. Sometimes it is so dark that it looks like somebody gave him a black eye. So it seems that I need to put an air filter in his room, make sure I wash his pillow case always, and his hair, and have "indoor-only" clothes. Oy.

So as I sat on the floor watching him sleep, I suddenly realized that he is only about 3 or 4 inches from outgrowing the toddler bed! Granted, I could get him a smaller pillow so he would lay more toward the head of the bed. But still, I am thinking we may need to think about a twin bed within 6 months or so. And here I was thinking that the twin bed would be good until he was 4. Ha! Not Mr. Tall Jack. The kid needs to stop growing. I can't afford it!

And then there is the topic of me. I admit that I have been having a hard time lately trying to juggle between giving Jack enough of my attention and trying to get things done around the house. If it was up to Jack, he and I would be playing choo choos or putting together puzzles every minute of the day. And when I try to break away to do something he throws a fit and goes into his room and cries uncontrollably. I feel like I am pulled into so many different ways. Like yesterday morning, I had every intention of tackling the guest bedroom mess (kinda need to because Grammy and Papa are coming soon). It is bad. Really bad. Can't walk in the door bad. And somewhere in there is Laura's bedding for her bed (kinda need to find that cause she is coming on Thursday).

So anyway, I get up and make my way to the bedroom from hell. I gather up some stuff that needs to be washed. Take it to the washer and start the load. Then I hear Jack is up. So I go in there and say good morning and change his diaper. He wants to play choo choos. So we do for a little bit. Then I go and get breakfast for us. We eat. I load dishwasher with previous night's dishes. I close the dishwasher and because I am losing my mind, forget to turn the thing on. I go take a shower and then we are heading out the door to run errands and get groceries. It is 9 am.

We come back home at 12:30 pm. Jack is hungry. So I fix a PBJ sandwich for him. Sit him at the table eating while I carry in the 6,396 bags of groceries from the van. And while I am carrying the bags in, the running commetary in my head goes kinda like this: the cat box needs to be cleaned out it is looking gross, oh yeah I need to put the clothes in the dryer, oh crap the dog just pooped in the kitchen need to clean that up, uhoh Jack is still hungry need to find something else for him to eat, man this kitchen needs to be cleaned badly, look at that dirty floor, ugh the laundry room needs to be cleaned also, look at the kitty litter all over the floor, man I need to go pee really badly, why does the lady at Walmart have to use so many bags?, can't she put more than 2 things in a bag?, is it a rule only to put 2 things in a bag?, and the trash is overflowing need to take that out also.

At 1:45 after all the groceries put away, Jack fed, and a *few* of the things I mentioned above are done, I decide to put Jack down for a *nap* (Hahahaha). Yeah right. That lasts about 10 minutes before the screaming begins with "Mama come plaaayyyy with me". Oy.

So we play for a bit. We read books. We put puzzles together. We have a grand ole time. It is now 3:30. The doorbell rings. It is UPS with the new bench window seat I ordered. Hurray!

I bring The Biggest Box On Earth into my family room. Study it. Think about it. And then decide to try to tackle the task of putting the thing to together. Haha. Me. Put something together. I usually push the job off on Jim, but he has been working so hard lately, I thought that I would "help" him by putting together the bench that *I* ordered (not him).

Three hours laters and lots of "help" from Jack, Jim walks through the door from work and sees The Biggest Mess Ever in my family room. But the thing was almost completely assembled. Who knew I could put something together like that? Of course, it highlighted just how stupid I can be with stuff like that and Jim would have had it done in an hour, but who cares. And because I spent the last 3 hours on it, no dinner was made. It was a "get-whatever-you-can-scrounge-up" dinner for everybody.

After The Biggest Mess Ever was completed, it was time to get Jack into jammies and into bed. After reading three books, saying "goodnight", "I love you", "See you in the morning". I walk out to the family room. My day is done. After 14 1/2 hours of 'work". The sad thing is, the house looked the same as it did earlier in the morning! Can I just go back to "work" so I don't have to "work" so much? Seriously. This stay-at-home gig is HARD. And the only time I had to myself was the 5 minutes in the shower.

It seemed easier when we were in California. Jack took naps. Nice naps. Two-hour naps. The house was always nice (the trying to sell thing). We had a routine with playgroups, gym class, and the one wonderful day a week he went to daycare/school for the whole day. I had the SAHM thing down. It was managable. I even had time for the occasional nap myself!

Now, I feel like I am going and going and going and nothing ever gets done. I know that Jack is my first priority and I need that time with him, but I also need an organized and settled house which I do not have at the moment. And his school time is not long enough. By the time I take him there and come back, an hour has passed already. So that means I only have about an hour and half before I need to go pick him up. Not long enough people.

All I am saying is that something needs to give. Or I will lose my mind (if I haven't already). Alright now I will try to get back to sleep. Nite Nite. See ya in the morning.

False Advertising

This is really sad and maddening. I think every young girl should watch this and see what the "beautiful" people really are. This is a new Dove Commercial. What do you think?

Yay Pictures!

I can finally post some pictures so here they are.


Jack and the puppy. He was a cute thing and Jack sure loved him. But no puppies until at least one of the other animals in the house dies. That is the rule.

Jack feeding the ducks on Sunday. Important job and he sure takes it serious with his sunglasses on and all.

The ducks on the lake in our neighborhood. This is not the lake behind our house because we don't own that lake and it is not part of the neighborhood. We need to be really nice to the owner of the lake behind our house and hopefully he will let us use his lake to feed the ducks and maybe Jim and Jack can go fishing. Notice I said Jim and Jack cause I do not fish. Ever.

The big boy before school yesterday morning. He is growing way too fast. Way way too fast. And this morning he was complaining that his legs hurt and I am guessing it is growing pains. Looks like he is going to sprout another inch or so soon. Oy.

Update on Jackaroo World

I realize that I just have not been updating this blog like I should. The biggest excuse for that is the lack of naptimes. My time seems to be divided between Jack and his wanting me to play choo choos or puzzles all the time and the house which is still not settled. I am now tackling Laura's room in hopes to get it all set up for her when she comes for a visit in less than two weeks. I don't want her to feel like she is no longer a part of our family and really want her to have a nice room. But at the moment, her room is full of boxes. So to get back to my point, that leaves little or no internet time. Sad, I know.

I also want to thank everybody for their comments. I really appreciate them and even though I don't always comment back, I always appreciate knowing there are people out there reading my ramblings about motherhood and lack of naps. Thanks Judy for letting me know that there are in fact other mothers out there who have gone through this and have survived and come out the other end successfully. Motherhood sure can feel lonely at times. And Rbelle, yes my husband is the sweetest. He has the kindest heart and I am seeing Jack take after him in that regard.

Speaking of the puppy, I was going to post some really cute pictures of Jack and the puppy, but it seems blogger is not liking my pictures or something and ate them. I will try to post them later. Anyway, we no longer have him. I took him to the Humane Society on Saturday. I had Jack with me and had to tell him that I was taking him back to his Mama and not the real truth. It turns out that he was not a rottweiler like I thought and was probably closer to 4 weeks old and it was quite possible that he was sick. He definitely had worms and possibly Parvo, which makes me very nervous because I have a dog who has not been vacinated in years because she is highly allergic to the vaccinations and could be deadly to her. The lady said that they would do everything they could to save him, but there is no guarantee. I don't really want to know what happens to him to be honest. I think I took it harder than Jack saying goodbye to the little thing. I gave him a bottle just before we left and the maternal instict sure was kicking in with that little puppy. He was a cutie. But I did NOT like the whining and crying that he did all night long. Even though we locked him in the laundry room, he still kept me up most of the night. And I was having flashbacks to the first few months of Jack's life. There are some things that I don't miss about the baby stage and that is one of them.

Speaking of Jack, I took a really cute picture of him this morning (thanks Blogger for not being able to show it). He was dressed for school and looking like the big boy that he is. Jim even combed his hair and everything. When it is up to me, I usually just let Jack's hair do whatever. As long as it is not sticking up all over, I figure that is good.

Another update on the house is we got our built-in office put in about a week ago. We now have a really nice place for me to blog and I just don't have the time to do it. And we have so much storage for books and whatnot that I even have all my books from my childhood stored in there along with college textbooks and we still have empty shelves. How fun is that? Again, picture forthcoming when I can.

Oh and I also had pictures of Jack feeding the ducks at the lake in our neighborhood yesterday. Cute. Sorry y'all couldn't see them yet.

So that is it for the updates. We had a very rainy day here today, but it was hot, which is really weird for me. After living in Seattle for 9 years, I always equate rain with cold and then in California well there was no rain for 11 months of the year. But here, it is just strange to have rain coming down with high winds and sweating.

I have been planning to take Jack to the beach and get some good beach pictures, but it seems like something is always preventing it from happening. They have cleaned up the beaches a lot from the hurricane as far as the debris in the water and sand. But it is just so sad to see all the destruction still around and all the poor people having to live in Fema trailers. Sad, but makes you grateful for what you have.

And I am grateful to have my house, Jack, Jim, my family, friends, and all my friends on the internet also. :)

Thanks Jim

It was 7 am this morning. I was in Jack's room dealing with a temper tantrum because he did not want me to clean up his room and I had the audacity to put his Little People farm on the bookshelf. The doorbell rings. I go to answer it and it is Jim. He was on duty and he hands me this:
Yes that is right. He hands me a puppy (looks like a Rotweiler but don't know) who is probably no more than 2 weeks old. He also hands me a can of the puppy formula with syringes. I guess somebody found it on the side of the road and turned it in to the police station. And Jim being the big softie that he is could not let the thing go to the animal shelter where it would most likely be destroyed. So he brings it to our house! And he even prefaced it all by saying "I know you are going to kick my a$$, but I didn't know what else to do." Boy is he right. So I take the puppy in and Jack falls in love with the thing in about 3 seconds. I was holding the puppy and I said that he needed a blanket. Jack up and runs to his room and brings out his comforter from his bed for the puppy. Of course we did not use the Pottery Barn overpriced comforter, but an old towel. And it has been over two hours and the boy has stayed by the puppy cooing and awwing saying that he loves the puppy. Oy.

So now what do I do? I have to go to Petsmart today anyway to buy dog food for the other two dogs that we ignore most of the time. I think I will ask there about giving him up for adoption. I know we can not keep it. We have four animals right now that drive me absolutely insane. We spend a fortune on them with their vet bills and food. But the thing is, it is so cute and cuddly and even *I* are having thoughts about keeping the stupid thing. But no no no we can not keep it. No Way!

Thanks Jim!

The Fake Nap

Since the fateful day of "The End Of Naps", Jack has thrown me a bone a couple times a week and actually will go in his room and play quietly all by himself! Of course, it is all a pretense that he is going to be "taking a nap" when in fact he knows and I know that he will NOT be taking a nap. We do this little ritual every single day. I will say it is naptime. He will say an emphatic NO. I will say an emphatic YES. We will walk to his room and do the laying-down-for-a-nap ritual. I will walk out, blow him a kiss, he will say "nite nite", and then I will close the door. It is all a sham.

The reality of it all, is that in less than 2 minutes he will be up out of the bed and in most cases, screaming "Mama" at the door. He is very smart too because he knows I will ignore the screams for a few minutes, unless he says the words "I have a stinky di di". Then the smart, too smart for his own good, kid knows that I will come to change him. However, in about 50% of the cases, there is no stinky and I will tell him that and then he just laughs and the sham is over. There will be no nap forthcoming that day. Period. Sigh. No time for me to sit in front of the tv and watch the previous nights Gilmore Girls or get on the internet.

However, there are those precious few days such as this one, where he throws me a bone. I think he can sense my level of frustration with the no naps and realizes when I am at my limit with the frustration, he will then say to himself, okay fine, I'll give her what she wants. But he will NOT take a nap, oh no that would be giving up. However, he does not come to the door to scream my name. Instead, he will play in his room quietly for a period of time where I can find myself calming down and losing the frustration of earlier. And today was one of those days. And I got to see Lost that was recorded last night. An amazing 45 minutes of bliss. Just me and the tv and a cup of tea. Who knew that once becoming a mother, such bliss could exist?

Big Big Boy

I took Jack to the new pediatrician yesterday. It was mainly just to get to know the doctor type thing and I was very pleasantly surprised with just how nice and thorough he was. He asked the usual questions about his birth weight and how far along I was when I had him. I told him that I was induced at 37 weeks after a very long 5 weeks of bedrest and then made him laugh when I asked him if there was anyway he could put me on bedrest just for a day or two!

He asked me if he naps and then it was my turn to laugh because the kid will NOT nap. I try everyday to put him down, but he gets up. He said that it was early for him to stop taking naps, that it usually happens somewhere between 3 and 4 - NOT 2 1/2. Lucky me. I get the one who won't nap. Yay! And believe me I have been praying for a nap the last week because of the cold crud that will not leave me.

Then the doctor was amazed at Jack's level of language development. Jack, at one point looked at me and said "I do not like the doctor Mama. I want to go home." right in front of the doctor. He said that he was early for that also. Most kids I guess do not form two and three complete sentences. I told him that Jack and I have full blown conversations about things. Of course those things usually are about his choo choos, trucks, or cars, but they are important to him.

And his newest stats? I knew he was getting big, but when the nurse told me the numbers, I was flabbergasted. He is 34lbs (even tho at the vets he was over 35?) and 38 1/2 inches tall! He has grown 3 inches since his 2 year checkup! No wonder I had to go buy all new clothes for the kid! And he will not let me forget it either. He is telling me everyday "I am a big boy Mama!". Yes he is.

The Things We Do For Our Kids ... Part 1

Despite the fact that I felt like crap and was running a low-grade fever, I managed to take Jack to go see Dora today. It has been on our calendar ever since moving here. There is this awesome children's museum here that was wiped out with the hurricane (it sits literally on the beach). But with a lot of local donations, they managed to reopen about a month ago. They still have to rebuild their kids performing arts building, but at least the main building is back.

And today was the day that Dora was coming to town. So we just had to go - fever and all. Jack had a total blast at the Discovery Center and we ended up spending 3 hours there after the Dora show playing on the climbing structure and the train, boat, and crane. And all that activity? No nap. I think naps are a thing of the past unfortunately.


Miss Dora herself with Boots. She had everybody go through a little adventure using the map from the backpack just like the show.

Jack doing the chicken dance with Dora.

This is Jack's version of the Macarena. Yeah I know. The kid can't dance just like his mother.

They had this climbing structure there that was so cool. It had all these wavy carpeted things to climb all over and it was surrounded by this really strong netting type thing. It was made especially for toddlers and Jack absolutely loved it. In fact, he spent a good hour and a half inside that thing.

Part two

Jack, the hard hat wearing crane operator. And another little crane operator who just happened to be there also.

Turn that crane.

Here he is being a captain of the boat.


Then it was time to play on the train and pretend to be a passenger having tea or shoveling coal into the fire.

The boy shoveling coal or doing something with the coal.

Jack and a little girl preparing for a tea party on the train.

Another picture of the boy looking ever so big. There was once a time when I could not get the boy to stand still long enough to snap a picture, but now, he is practically begging me to take a picture.

Not Long Enough

Jack's preschool is just not long enough. I need more time people. I dropped Jack off at preschool today and then drove home with these big plans of doing more painting and laundry, and organizing Jack's room, and and and.... yeah the list can go on and on. However, since I am trying to recover from a nasty cold I caught a couple of days ago, all I want to do is go to bed and sleep and sleep and sleep. However, I can not do that because I have to leave to go pick up Jack in an hour. Thank goodness Jim was home on Monday and Tuesday so that I could indeed be lazy and sleep off the nasty bug that invaded my body. It was heaven. Especially since he had worked for five days straight before Monday for 12 hours a day. Talk about a long weekend.

Oh and also to update on our house of horrors. I noticed my carpet in front of Jack's bathroom was wet and by the end of that day, it was down right soaked. So the next day (last Thursday) I called the builder about the apparent leak and they sent out a plumber to look at it. He hemmed and hawwed for a few minutes, scratched his head, shrugged his shoulders and said that he couldn't figure it out. The only thing he did do was find where the leak originated, in our guest bedroom closet that we do not open because it is full of boxes. And upon discovering the leak there, we found several boxes soaked. Lovely. So the Chem Dry people were called and they came and tore up the affected carpet and tore out the now ruined pad. I guess they treated it for mold and threw a couple of blowers in my hallway and closet to dry it up. Nothing was done over the weekend, except we had these very loud air blowers going 24/7.

So yesterday, the plumber came back out and tore a big hole in my bathroom wall in search of the elusive leak. They did find a leak from my jacuzzi tub, but that wasn't THE leak since we had not even turned that tub on yet. So after a few hours of having plumbers in my house, the opinion now is that it is a roof leak. So the roofing guy was called and yep sure enough there is a leak in the roof. Yay. So to sum it all up, I still have ripped up carpet with no padding. It is fun to play the game - try not to step on the tack strips. I have a big hole in my bathroom. I have drywall that needs to be replaced. AND I still have a roof leak because they didn't have the right stuff to fix it.

And now I am really wondering about this house and whether it is going to fall down around me in the middle of the night. Now I know why the price was so right.

These Boots Were Made For Walking

So the other night when we were at Old Navy buying out the toddler section, we also bought these cowboy boots for the boy. Now, if it were just me shopping, I probably would have passed them up. But Jim was with us and before I knew it, he had Jack trying them on and he loved them. So we bought them.

Now we have a slight problem. He wears them ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. And he insists upon wearing them with shorts, jammies, or anything he happens to be dressed in. When we went out yesterday, I tried to tell him that he can't wear the cowboy boots with shorts, but the boy does not care one bit about fashion faux pas, so I dressed him a pair of jeans and off we went cowboy boots and all.

Today he was so cute walking around the house with the boots on and putting his toy wrench and toy hammer in his pocket saying that he was going to fix whatever. I kept seeing him putting the wrench on door knobs, turning the wrench around the knob and then yelling "I Did It!". Evidently he was "fixing" the door knobs. He also was pounding on the walls with the toy hammer and saying "bam bam bam". Too cute. Love this stage.

Horror Stories

Being a cop's wife, I am sure that I will hear more horror stories than I want to. Already since starting the job, Jim has told me about going to domestic abuse calls where the woman is crying she still loves the guy who beat the crap outta her, which I think is very stupid and pitiful. He also tells me about the robberies, burglaries, and false alarms around the city.

However, yesterday was his first fatality accident and after hearing it, I don't think I will ever forget it. It has haunted me. There were two ladies ages, 46 and 23 who were driving on the interstate. They were in the middle lane when they suddenly got a flat tire and had to slow down to try to get over. And just at that time, another car changed lanes into the middle car and didn't see the slower car with the flat tire and smashed full speed into their car. Jim said that girl was probably going 70-80 mph and there were no skidmarks or anything. The car with the two ladies was pushed 300 feet killing them instantly. Jim said that their necks snapped by the impact. He said they didn't feel a thing, just bam dead. The other driver lived and was taken to the hospital, but they had to use the jaws of life to get her out of her car.

Of course he also told me about the lady driving having brain matter all over the dashboard and other gruesome details. I have no idea how he could deal with that kind of scene and still be able to do his job. If it was me, I would probably be crying and throwing up all at the same time.

I guess it just goes to show you that you never ever know what the day is going to bring and to relish every single day you have here. Oh and hug your children a little tighter.

Like It Was Supposed To Happen

You know so much of this move feels like it was scripted, like maybe somebody bigger than all of us was directing the whole thing. Because I remember back in March or April, Jim and I started discussing the possibility of moving to Mississippi. He was getting incredibly fed up with his job and wanted out badly. We were falling behind financially in California. I mean seriously you need to make a $100K a year to sustain a life there, and we didn't do that with me not working.

So then about that time, this job opportunity came along, to be a police officer for the city of Gulfport. Jim sent in his resume, kind of on a lark. And lo and behold they wanted him to come and take the test, interview about 5 times and next thing I know we have our house up for sale.

Of course, we pick a time to sell our house when there is NO house selling going on in the area. And the miracle couple who came through at the last minute to buy our house with cash. Seriously, who has more than a half of a million dollars laying around in the bank?

And then we move into this neighborhood. It is a great neighborhood with a community pool for us to use. We did use it the other day for about 20 minutes before the big black clouds came in and made us leave the pool. And since then, it has been very much fallish weather around here, so that might have been the last swim for the year.

Anyway, our little "cove" as they call it here, actually a cul-de-sac is quite amazing. Like we were all supposed to end up here. Our neighbors next door are named Erin and Ben. I won't forget their names because of my bloggy friend Erin and her son Ben. They are a young couple just married. And the weird thing? She went to the same college I did near Boston! Now, let me just tell you, I went to a small business college named Bentley College. Nobody has ever heard of the school outside of the Northeast. And to wind up next door to a fellow alum, is just mind blowing. Of course, she graduated a full eleven years after I did. And yes another reminder of my "advanced" age. Oh and then there is the cat connection with them. They have a cat named Sammy also. Just too weird.

The other thing is that of the five houses on this cove, every one is either active duty military, or retired military. And Sonya, the mother of Jack's little girlfriend Alison, is going to the Federal law enforcement training center, the same one that Jim went to when I was pregnant.

So again, it seems very scripted and directed, which is kinda cool.

Always the Ladies Man

We are in trouble. Big trouble. About the time Jack hits oh say 10, he probably will have had more girlfriends than I have had boyfriends in my entire life. You ask why? Let me just tell you that his father has been teaching him things.

Like on Sunday night, we had the uncles over for dinner. The weather has actually turned fallish and for the first time in months, I actually put a pair of jeans on. So I am coming out of the bedroom and Jack sees me and what does he say? Something that he has picked up from his father. He said "ooooohhhhh sexy." Yes that is right, my 2 1/2 year old son called me sexy. I am having future flashes where I see Jack with a whole multitude of girls all over the place.

And tonight, I decided that Jack was in serious need of some long pants. Like me, he has not worn a pair of long pants since May and when I went to try to find a pair of long pants for him tonight, I came up empty. There was no way his jeans or any other button, non-elastic, pants were going to fit. So I put a pair of athletic pants on the boy, only to find they are about 2 inches too short. Can you say growth spurt? Geesh. So, off to Old Navy we all go. And while we were in the store basically buying out their entire toddler boy section, there was another woman there looking at toddler clothes also. She was fairly attractive and about 25 or so. And what does the boy do when he sees her? He goes "wooo wooo" in the same way men whistle at ladies. Yes that is another thing his father taught him. Jim and I just about died laughing and had to run around the corner. And then Jim high fives Jack!! Oh boy am I in trouble or what?

No naps and Painting ... Not a good combo

I know that it has been a few days since I last posted. I blame it all on the fact that the boy is NOT taking naps anymore. I have tried everything from laying down with him (he just ends up jumping up and down on the bed) to putting him down later in the afternoon like Erin suggested. Nothing works at all. Except for yesterday when the boy laid down on the floor in the family room and crashed around 5:00 last night. Jim picked him up and put him on our bed where he slept until 7:00. I changed him and put his jammies on and put him in his bed where he slept until almost 7:00 this morning. It was over 13 hours straight sleep. So I guess he is just building it up until he crashes like that now??? Whatever the reason, I do not like it. Especially on the days that Jim works and I have him all to myself for 12 hours.

Today we made a trek to Target and when I say trek, I mean trek! The closest Target is in another state! I had to drive to Lousiana just to go to the oh great store! Granted it was only 45 miles away and I used to drive that everyday to get to work in California, but still the whole principal of the thing. But we had fun. I was in search of a toy box for Jack's room and found out that they did not have any toy boxes in the store, so it looks like I will be ordering online. And Toys R Us? Yeah that is nowhere around here either. I know, it is almost criminal! However, there is a Barnes & Nobel really close by, where I have taken advantage of the free play area of the Thomas train table. A good place to spend an hour or so with the toddler.

I also found a great toddler playland at the Chick Fila. It is great because it is geared just for toddlers, unlike those at McDonalds where the big kids run over the little ones. Yeah we spent a couple hours there today.

I had to take our dog into the vet today to get his teeth cleaned and a tooth extracted. Yeah another $300 gone. I swear, we need pet insurance badly. Anyway, while there I had Jack step on the dog scale in the waiting room. I was shocked when it read 35.6 pounds! The boy seriously needs to stop growing. He has outgrown most of his clothes and I need to go on a major shopping spree for him very soon.

I am also very tired of painting and really wondering why I took on painting so soon. Well, I know why, because the white walls were bugging me to death. But with Jack and his no napping, it has been extremely hard to get it done. I have the kitchen almost painted, except for a little bit above the cabinets and the family room is a little bit over halfway done. I also need to get the office painted in the next couple weeks before they come to install the new desk. I figure it will be easier to paint with nothing in the room. But the thought makes me weary.

Jim is enjoying his job and it is so funny because I keep seeing him around town on duty. Today I saw him three times. Once while he was reporting an accident, once while investigating a disturbance in a parking lot, and once he drove right by me. I swear everytime I turn around, there he is. Of course, I did stop at a yellow light when I normally would have gone through, just because I did not want him to pull me over! Jack is always talking about his Daddy policeman to everybody, including the other parents at the playland today. I have a feeling, he is going to be a policeman for Halloween this year.

Since Jim is working this weekend, Jack and I are going to check out the children's museum that is supposed to be really great and probably enroll him in their toddler program that has all kinds of activities. I am grasping at straws these days to keep the boy busy can ya tell?

Sick Day

Jack's first day of preschool was today, or I should say, was supposed to be today. However, Jack had to stay home sick. He has had a cold since Saturday and then last night he was coughing through the night and had some really nasty stuff coming out of his nose, so I made the painful decision to keep him home. And let me tell you he was very unhappy about not going to school today. I made a big deal about packing his backpack last night for school and he was so excited. When I told him that he could not go this morning, he started screaming and crying and yelling at me "I go to schoooolllllll". I wanted to tell him I felt the same way because three whole hours alone sure sounds like heaven to me about now. I did get him to take his first nap in over a week this afternoon and it was not easy. I had to lay down with him in my bed and it took a good 30 minutes of me telling him to go to sleep before he finally did. Such wonderful bliss.

It looks like Jack is going to be taking Chinese lessons. His Uncle Bill, who is way above most human beings in IQ, knows so many languages, I am afraid to count that high. His latest passion is everything Chinese, including learning the language and how to write in Chinese. He called us the other night offering to pay for lessons for Jack. I guess his teacher also teaches toddlers and older children the Chinese language and well I couldn't refuse any educational thing for Jack. So starting on Wednesday, Jack is going to learn how to speak Chinese once a week. My fear now is that he will swear at me in Chinese on a regular basis and I won't have a clue what he will be saying.

Pictures Finally!

The views from our backyard. We have been having a good time watching the ducks, geese, and cranes around the lake.

The back of the house. Eventually we will do a big patio or deck with a patio cover.

The front of the house.


The unpainted part of the kitchen. There are even more cabinets that are not showing in this picture.

The freshly painted, as in this morning, kitchen wall. There will be plantation shutters there eventually, but at least the view is pretty.


Our new dining room table and china hutch. Isn't it pretty? Especially with that paint sample there on the wall.


Our halfway painted family room. This is just half of the room, the other half is kinda bare at the moment.

Settling Down

Things seem to be settling down here. I can not believe that it has been only one week since the movers came with all of our stuff. It sure feels like a month. We are as settled as we can be at the moment. We need storage badly and last night we contracted a closet organizer company to put a closet system in our very small master bedroom closet. We also are putting in cabinets in our laundry room and my favorite - a built in office system. After all that gets installed, we should be able to unpack most of the rest of the boxes, except for the disaster area known as the garage. That place is just down right scary right now.

We have also managed to paint most of our family room a beigey color. It sure beats the stark white walls that were driving me crazy. Now we maybe lacking in garage and storage space, but we more than make up for having possibly the largest family room ever. We literally have half of it empty and I don't quite know what to do with all that space other than let it be Jack's playland, which I am sure it will end up being.

My next project is to paint the kitchen a bright yellow. I plan on decorating it in a French country theme of blue and yellow. Of course, I can not tell Jim that it is "French" because he hates all things French. I just say "blue and yellow". And again, I think I might have the largest kitchen ever. I even have empty cabinets!!

I promise, I will get pictures up tomorrow on here. I have been reluctant about taking pictures until at least part of the clutter crap was taken care of, but I think I have sufficiently reduced it to an acceptable minimum to show the internet world.

Jack has been making friends all over the place, although he still talks about all his friends in California all the time. Tonight, he met the little boy, Alezander, who lives behind us who just turned two. And let me tell you, those two were best buds in about 5 minutes having fun throwing dirt at each other and basically doing all-boy things and getting filthy at the same time. He also has a little girl friend named Allison who lives two doors down from us. She is an older woman at the old age of three and again, they have so much fun together.

We had to go to the county Health Department yesterday to get a form for his preschool showing that he is up to date on his vaccines. He had to get two shots to make him current and he was NOT happy about that and did not like it one bit. In fact, hours later he was talking about the "lady who hurt him".

He has a pretty good cold today and sounds so miserably stuffed up with red runny eyes. I don't know if it is allergies, reaction to the vaccines, or just getting sick, but I sure hope it goes away by Monday for preschool. I think I am more excited than he is for it.

And yes, I will post pictures of the house tomorrow for all those who were wondering what we now live in.

Rest in Peace ... Naptimes

I just want to take a moment to say goodbye to something that has been the best friend to this mommy for two and a half years. Something that I have looked forward to each and everyday with joyful glee. Something that I would go out of my way NOT to miss, no matter what. What is that something you ask? That something is the all important NAPTIME. It is history, gone bye bye, and the way it looks, gone forever.

I am NOT happy about this latest turn of events in the life of the Jackaroo. I do not know why he picked NOW to stop taking naps. I NEED him to take naps so I can get my house in order and get rid of the endless boxes that I swear multiply during the night. I need the nap so I myself can catch my second wind to deal with Jack on those 12-hour long work days that Daddy does now. But Jack has other plans. He has had a total of one nap since we have moved here and that was the day after the movers came with all of our stuff and the kid was beyond exhausted. I do not know whether it is because we are in a new house, his room now doubles as the play room and all his toys are in there, or he has just become a big boy and doesn't need naps. I don't care what the reason. I just want naptime to come back. Now. Please.

Jack's Preschool

I enrolled Jack into preschool yesterday. It is such a nice preschool with an actual curriculum and his teacher is so nice. It was really quite funny because the director of the school told me that sometimes 2-year-olds just are not ready for preschool and if he had a lot of problems with crying all the time, they would have to remove him because it is just too disruptive to the teacher and other kids. I told her that it would not be a problem with Jack, in fact, when we went into his classroom to meet the teacher, Jack took off to the other side of the room without even a backwards glance to me and started playing with another little boy. I turned to her and said "see he doesn't even care if I am here or not."

I am so impressed with this school. They have a new curriculum every week with topics like sharing, family, and self-esteem and it is all christian based ideals, which I think is very important for kids. They also have music class every Wednesday for 30 minutes where they get to learn how to play different instruments and sing songs. They also asked me to pack an old shirt for painting everyday because they have art classes where according to the teacher, it gets very messy. His teacher is really amazing, because if I had 7 two-year-olds to contend with for 3 hours a day, I would be running out of the building shriekding, but she seemed so calm and really seemed to treat each child with respect and listened to each one of them. My hats off to her.

And I am already looking forward to the little Thanksgiving and Christmas programs they put on for the parents. I am already stocking up on kleenex for the occasions.

Starting Monday, he will go two times a week on Mondays and Wednesdays for 3 hours. Yahoo! Next fall when he is in the three year old class, he will go three times a week. They add a day every year until they get to kindergarten where it is five days a week. I am thinking we will be keeping him in this school all the way through kindergarten.

And Jack's reaction to the whole thing? As we were walking out of the school, I said "I like your school." And he said "me too. I go to school!!!" He is just a bit excited to say the least. And me too. Six hours a week to myself!

Another Never Say Never

I know I said it last time. It being never moving again and the other it being never move into a brand new house again. You see, this is my sixth, yes that is right, sixth brand new house. I have been the proud owner of 2 brand new houses in Seattle area, 3 brand new houses in California, and now this brand new house in Mississippi. And while they are nice in that everything is brand spanking new, they come with their own inherent problems. Like, for the past 6 days, I have had no power in my bathrooms and the builder could not figure out why. The outlets were just dead. That was finally fixed yesterday.

Another problem we have occured is I guess since the hurricane here, the phone company just has not had the time to keep up with all the demands of fixing what was damaged and all the new subdivisions popping up all over town, mine included. So for the time being until they can get somebody here to bury phone cable (hopefully before the year 2007, but we shall see), my phone cable is running out my back yard and down the back yards of my neighbors to the main road. Yeah, I give it two weeks until it gets cut by some neighbor cutting his grass.

There is also all the stuff that you just don't have when moving into a new house like window coverings. Right now we are using the old fashioned sheet tacked up in front of the windows method. Lovely. And I give us about another month of that fashionable look until we get blinds/shutters put up.

Yesterday was a day from hell. I had scheduled the new furniture to be delivered, the new appliances to be delivered, and the satellite tv guy to come and hook us up. And yes they all showed up within 30 minutes of each other, and not just them either. No, I had to throw in the electrician guy fixing my dead bathroom outlets AND the phone guy stringing my phone cable out my backyard. Can you say insane assylum cause that is where I felt like going after all that. Oh and throw in an ahem "nice" chat on the phone with Jim's ex to top my day off. Yes, alcohol was consumed last night by the way.

Today, I am hoping to go enroll Jack into a preschool. I finally found a part-time preschool. It is about 30-40 minutes away, but it is worth it just to be Jack-free for 6 whole hours a week right now. He is so pushing my buttons right now and NOT listening to me. He even looks at me daring me to do something when he is doing something he shouldn't be doing. Yes, he got swatted on the butt many a time yesterday. I know that he is feeling out of his element, but with everything going on, I do not need him to be turning into a devil child in front of my eyes. So the preschool is Monday and Wednesday mornings for 3 hours and when I called yesterday, they had just one opening in the two year old class. I practically jumped through the phone telling her I would take the slot. So I am going there today to enroll him and he starts on Monday. And thank goodness Jim has this weekend off because I seriously might have dropped the child off at the nearest corner and ran away! Just kidding, mostly.

We are in!

Well we got into the house. We closed Friday afternoon and it has been a huge whirlwind since then. We just got our cable internet hooked up yesterday, so I was without internet for almost 5 days! GAH! And we still do not have our tv hooked up, hopefully today. We haven't watched any tv in over 2 weeks and I can say that I am having withdrawals.

The movers came with all of our stuff on Saturday. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law came down to help me with Jack and unpack because Jim had to work that day. I do not know what I would of done without them. They were so great in keeping Jack busy and they unpacked my entire kitchen before the movers were even done with everything! I would of probably been in tears by the end of the day without them for sure. As it was, I was so sore the next day, I could hardly walk!

We have been busy trying to settle in and unpack. Our garage is about 1/3rd the size of our old garage, which makes things interesting. I don't think we will be parking in the garage for many months to come, if ever. My kitchen is absolutely huge with so many cabinets that I actually have empty cabinets! Gasp!

We also contracted to put a fence up. I was feeling so exposed with no fence because the people behind us who own the lake, are always driving right near our back of the house. I also have people coming to give me estimates about putting blinds/shutters in and doing a closet system in our closet. Our closet is half of what we used to have, which again makes things very interesting.

Oh and we also started to paint inside last night. We are having our new furniture delivered today and since I didn't want to move the huge entertainment system to paint behind it, I decided to paint that wall last night. And of course, it was a fiasco. I bought a quart of the paint to sample the color, then we went back yesterday to get another gallon. Well it turns out that the quart was two shades lighter than the gallon and I had to repaint the section of the wall that was painted with the quart. I did that at 6 am this morning, so now we have all one color on our wall, which is always a good thing.

I was going to start on the kitchen today, but decided that I just didn't want to deal with more paint for awhile. I decided to paint the kitchen a bright yellow.

Oh and during all this, Jack has decided to turn on the terrible twos big time. He has been a devil child and will not listen to anything either one of us says. And then the screaming, whining, and pouting that ensues is so much fun to deal with. I know that he feels out of his element and is probably confused about the whole thing. We did get his room sorta settled and all of his toys are in his room now. Of course, he has to strew the toys everywhere. You can't even see the floor right now.

I did find a mothers group in the area. I am going to meet them tomorrow for lunch at McDonald's playland. It looks like they have a ton of stuff to do and activities for the kids. I think we need to take a day off from unpacking and actually have fun. I have been trying to find a preschool to put Jack into a couple days a week with no luck. All of them are full time only and the mothers morning out program is totally full for the time being. So I guess I have Jack full time right now.

I promise I will post pictures in the next few days. I just don't want to take any pictures with boxes everywhere and outside the builder has a pile of pallets stacked in front of our house that is not very attractive. Of course they say they will take care of them, but that was 3 days ago. We shall see. I am getting mad about it now because I found out that is the reason why we are not getting any mail because they are blocking the mail box. UGH. It is always something I tell ya.

Anyway, that is the latest and it is really great to be back into the internet blog world again!

So far so good

It is 10 am and so far no glitches for the closing this afternoon. In fact the closer even called and said it was a go for launch! Still not gonna believe it until we get the actual keys though.

I have spent the last two hours on the phone getting the phone, satellite tv, cable internet, power, water/sewer and any other company that bills us monthly. Geesh that is work! So I think we have everything ready to go. Our cable internet won't be installed until Tuesday, so there will probably be no more updates until then. Hopefully next time I sign on is at our new house - finally!

We jumped the hurdles ... maybe

I think that if we stand on our head, shake our feet, and jump around in a circle 12 times, we might just might close on our house today. Of course yesterday I was feeling good about the whole thing until the closer called and said "oh didn't you know, we need X piece of paper". I go "uhhhhhh nope did not know that. Ummmmm don't have that particular piece of paper." After which she responded "well the close hinges on that piece of paper." And I go "ummmm well I guess I need to make some phone calls to get you the oh-so-very-important-can-not-live-without-that piece of paper." And she said "yep". Oh and because this is the south, she ended it with "baby" and "bless your heart" because in the south you can be rude but putting in a baby and a bless your heart makes it all okay.

But she was nice, I was just frustrated. So after maybe 4 or 5 phone calls between California and Mississippi, I do believe that they got the oh-so-very-important piece of paper.

At this very moment, we are set to close at 3pm and get our keys to our new house then. But because this has been THE wildest roller coaster ride of my entire life, I am betting on a few more glitches between now and then. But I also am betting that we actually DO get into the house today because the movers are set up to arrive first thing tomorrow morning. Of course I had to pay half of buuukoo bucks to get that to happen on a Saturday, but it was only half of the major buuukooo small fortune bucks that we would have had to pay if we did not close today. So I am happy, sorta. I do so hate to be parted with my money for stupid things like that.

Speaking of parting with my money, we went out and spent a small fortune buukkoo bucks on new furniture yesterday. We get to receive on Wednesday (Jim's birthday so I don't have to get him anything else, he gets a small fortune of furniture HA!) a new bedroom set (yay king size, Jim gets his whole side hehehe), a new dining room table with china hutch (I have never owned a china hutch before, now I do yay!) and an entertainment center for our big screen tv. The same tv that we were going to sell and buy a small fortune new tv, but because we didn't get the money we wanted for the house and the moving company is getting half of Jack's college education, decided to wait on the new tv. See, I can sacrifice.

We also have spured the economy even more by purchasing new washer, dryer and refrigerator. That was needed, well mostly. We couldn't bring our gas dryer into a no gas house (gonna miss my gas stove immensely) and the house does not have a refrigerator and well I also wanted a matching washer dryer ya know. So of course got the nice new front loading with pedastals.

Well that is the news as of right now. Jack is awake and calling me. Will try to update later.

Only a Week?

We have been here a week now and it seems a lot longer than that. We became official Mississippi residents last Friday by getting our new driver's licenses. Of course, just like in California, it was a huge long wait. Do they have some federal mandate stating that getting your driver's license must have a minimum of 2 hour wait or something? During our wait, Jack made friends with a little blonde named Hope, who was 6 months older. And when she was leavng he yelled out to her "bye girl!". Always the ladies man.

After our marathon wait at the driver's license, we headed to get our cars registered and after having dropped some serious cash (found something that is more expensive in MS than Cali) for two new license plates, we were all official and legal like in the state of Mississippi.

We spent the long weekend up at Jim's mother's house. Of course Jack was quite spoiled with all the attention from his grandmother and aunts.

Jim started his new job yesterday and got sworn in and all. I am very proud of him and he looks very dashing in his uniform.

We are hoping to be in our house by Friday. Of course that will happen if all the stars line up just right and we jump over about a thousand hurdles. If we are not able to get into the house on Friday, then we must spend about a thousand dollars for short term storage (as in 3 days) for all of our stuff. The moving company called me yesterday and said they are delivering our stuff no matter what and if we don't have a house, then all of our stuff gets unloaded into their warehouse and then loaded back up when we close probably Monday. Ugh why does everything have to be so hard and stressful. Trying to balance the builder and the mover is like doing a high wire act. And I am not very graceful!

We are staying with Jim's brother's house right now and even though they have been great to us by cooking great meals for us every night and letting our dogs run free of the house while their dogs are locked up, I still want my own house! I guess I should say I want my own bathroom more than anything. Cause I totally hate showering in somebody else's shower. I feel like I am invading their private space or something.

I have been planning in my head what I want to do with the house and how to decorate it. I even have all the paint colors planned out in my head and what theme I am going to use for the kitchen. It is really funny because the vinyl tile in the kitchen is almost exactly like what we had in our old kitchen. Hopefully someday I can replace all that out with hardwood floors, but for now they work. And the cabinets are the same cabinets except the new ones are a touch more cherry color and they actually have hardware on them. And I really didn't notice it until I was showing a friend the floor plan and she said that it was very similar to the floor plan to our old house. I guess we just know what we like and what fits for us. What I really like is that the community has a swimming pool that we can go to and wear some energy off for Jack. I will try to remember to take pictures today and post a few.

And as for Jack, well I have been trying to find a place to take him one or two mornings a week for some schooling and socialization. It seems that all the so called preschools around here are just daycares and do not have any part-time openings. However, just yesterday, I found that the church we might end up going to has what is called a "Mothers Morning Out (MMO)" program. I have never heard of that and it is just what I need to save my sanity. I didn't get all the particulars when I called because they were busy, but hopefully I can get Jack into that soon, like yesterday!

So that is our update. Really did not mean to write a novel here.