The Life of a Stay-at-Home-Mom

Hmm. It's been a banner five days since I last posted. I'm now so impressed by those people who are able to post with extreme regularity when they are home with children. I could always find time to post at work during lunch, but the kids don't seem receptive to losing Mommy to the computer (and I don't really blame them).

So the big news is that this morning Marcie pulled herself up to standing in her crib. I wish I'd snapped a photo, but she was mad and wanted to be picked up and it wouldn't have been pretty. So I didn't. Yesterday she was almost there, and today-- viola! Today she also has a rash. It's little tiny red bumps on her arms and legs. Not the tops of her arms, just the bottom. The only dietary item I introduced today was vanilla custard, so I guess that's off the list for a while at least, which is too bad because she actually seemed to really like it. (As a side note, for thsoe of you without time to follow the news, spinach is out of our diet for a while, too. Ecoli. Scary stuff.)

Also quite interesting was Casey's behavior this morning. He got up at 6:15am, but Marcie was still sleeping. So we wandered out to the family room, where we played with his Thomas trains and ate breakfast (cocoa krispies-- oh-so-nutritious). When I woke up Marcie at 7:30 so I could give her a bottle before we had to leave, there was a definite shift in Casey's behavior. One time out (for hitting me) and one time out in his bedroom (for yelling at me and refusing to go to regular time out) later, Casey was in good spirits, and off we went to school. It helps that he loves walking to school (and by walking I mean that he loves having ME walk and push THEM in the stroller). Plus he's not sleeping as well as he could be. It took him an hour and fifteen minutes to fall asleep Saturday for his nap. It took him over an hour to fall asleep at bedtime Saturday night. And it took him a while to fall asleep last night. But it's not that he's getting too much sleep because he seemed tired on the soccer field Saturday morning. So I think he's struggling. Interestingly, he has never once told Marcie to go away (though he tells me to go away all the time). And he's never called her a name or told us to take her back, or anything. . . So my guess is that he feels really torn. He loves his sister but he misses being an only child.

So speaking of strollers, as you can tell from the photo above, we bought one. Jason wanted a duo-glider (Graco), which is a tandem. I was leaning toward the sit n'stand, which is what most parents with kids three years apart in age seem to have. But after learning the duo glider only holds up to 40 pounds in each seat, we decided to explore the McClaren Techno Twin. We have a single McClaren, which we absolutely love and which was well worth the ridiculous price. I liked the sit-n-stand, but it didn't seem very comfortable. The front seat doesn't recline very far, and there is no back rest to the back seat. And no sun cover. Plus I'm so short, it just didn't work for me to have Casey standing up in front of me. Then we saw the most amazing stroller I have ever test-driven. The B.O.B. It's a jogger stroller, but it glides. It's like pushing a single stroller. It was amazing. But I just couldn't justify spending $539 so I could walk the kids to school and glide while doing it. So the McClaren won. If Casey were a walker, it probably wouldn't be a good option, but he still prefers his stroller when we're at the Wild Animal Park and such, and so I'm happy with it. (And special thanks to Keely and Grace for helping work through what we wanted!)

Speaking of Keely and Grace-- they are these two fabulous women I used to work with/for. I say "used to" only because Keely left in June to have a beautiful daughter (Katelyn). I say work with/for because Grace started out as a co-worker and has since become my boss. She has a son (Lucas) who is a year older than Katelyn. This is cool because it makes Marcie the "bridge" child, as she is almost exactly half-way between Lucas and Katelyn's ages. So when Grace was expecting Lucas, Keely and I purchased a Jumperoo for her to use with him. It was Keely's idea, and it's a great contraption. Well, on Saturday, Grace and her husband and son stopped by for a visit (they didn't really "stop by" because we aren't really on the way to anything-- really, they went way far out of their way to come to the house to see Marcie and bring us toys). They brought a car, a leap pad table, and the jumperoo for Marcie. What fun, what joy! She loves the new toys, and the jumperoo is excellent exercise for her legs! Yippee! You can tell she likes it from the photos, don't you think?

So I've been trying to capture a great photo of Marcie and Casey to use on the adoption/birth announcements we're sending out for Marcie (some time next week, in theory). This has not been an easy task. But Sunday morning I was able to snap some cute shots-- here are just a couple:

I think that's about all in stay-at-home-land. I really thought I'd be more bored than I've been. Between driving Casey to speech and walking the kids to school (which is how I'm getting in my exercise), and feeding Marcie, there isn't much free time in the day. Sure, I get the dishes done most days and vaccuum a couple times a week-- and even throw in a load of laundry here and there, but I still wonder where the time goes. On Saturday Jason worked all day after taking Casey to soccer in the morning. By the time he got home, I'd been with the kids all day and wanted some grown up conversation and companionship, but I had promised to go to a birthday party. Jason had just walked in the door, and he really wanted to unwind. Now, you'd think I would totally understand this. I'm all about unwinding at the end of the day-- not interacting with more people. But I was so crazed, I just wanted his attention. . .

I hope that some day in the near future when I work all day and Jason is home all day with the kids (there will likely be three of them by then), that I remember how I felt on Saturday-- how desperate I was for adult interaction. Even though Grace and Matt had come by. And even though I loved spending time with the kids. So I'm recording it as a reminder of how I felt for me to read years from now.

Oh, one more cute thing. Marcie, if she is tired, will sleep anywhere (not so much if she's not tired). Check out where she fell asleep while Jason was in the shower:

Well, this was a long post. I hope not to wait so long between posts next time. We are slowly adjusting into our routine, and I'm getting back into the swing of law school. We'll probably just get things figured out and it'll be time to go back to work! But that's how life is sometimes-- just when you get used to something, there is a slight shift to adjust to . . .