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!