Time to go...

Well, almost anyway. We're officially in the "we leave the day after tomorrow" phase, yay! This is also my "get down to business and start packing" phase. Double yay! I'm definitely not the type to just throw things in the suitcase the night before I leave (ahem, Matthew!). I'm the make a bunch of different lists and plan my packing for several days before I actually get down to it. Some people call me OCD, or even anal, when it comes to this sort of thing. But don't you have to be when you're packing for a big family vacation? You can't go into this sort of thing unprepared. At least I can't. Blame my parents, I do! (Ha ha)

Anyway, today I'm doing laundry and bringing up the suitcases from the basement. Nothing is actually going in until tomorrow. Sophia will be the easiest to pack for, just throw everything she owns in the suitcase! She goes through clothes pretty quickly. I already know she's bringing about 3-4 pairs of shoes, two bathing suits, three hats...about a half a dozen dresses. Wow. Oh and hairbows, you can't forget the hairbows. Elijah is pretty easy, shorts, t-shirts, tennis shoes, a a pair of sandals and he's done. The hard part for him is packing his carry on. See, last year I didn't let him take his backpack. Since I was flying solo with the kids I wanted a minimal amount of stuff to deal with. This year, since Matthew will be flying with us (at least on the way there) I said he could bring his backpack. Also, we're not doing the stroller thing in the airport and are opting for the Ergo carrier instead. Anyway, he started packing his carry on last Wednesday, a week early, he likes to be prepared like his mommy! Of course he wanted to bring every single Star Wars figure he owns! We're trying to hold him to at least half a dozen. Oh and he wants to take his lightsaber.

Of course I'm not bring any form of entertainment for myself on the plane, since I will be wrangling Sophia the whole time. Ever since she started walking she has been so busy I'm not sure how well she'll handle sitting still for a few hours. Would it be completely out of the question to let her walk up and down the aisle a few times with one of us?

Okay, so I need to get back to work!

Child's pose...

Elijah always likes to do some yoga, or at least attempt a few poses. It's kind of hilarious to watch since his balance isn't great. This morning I was doing a little yoga while he did his summer school and Sophia decided to join in...




She does a great child's pose, don't you think? (The picture is blurry, I know, I let Elijah take it. Shhh, he's not supposed to touch the new camera, but this warrented it!)

Antsy...

That's how I feel lately. I've spent so long counting down to this trip that it's just driving me crazy at this point. You would think with it being much closer than before (a mere eight days) I would have some relief, but I don't. Instead I think I'm going a little stir crazy with anticipation.

I guess I should explain a little bit why I'm looking forward to it so much. For one thing, we live really far from all our families. About nine-hundred miles from Matthew's and over a thousand from mine. Our closest relatives are my grandparents in Ohio, still a good two-days drive away. With plane ticket prices being so high, we don't get to see hardly anyone at all since we've lived here. But once a year, we scrounge up our tax return, and this year with a little help from my parents, and buy three tickets to paradise.

Ha ha, sorry, I just couldn't help it. But they do live in Panama City BEACH. And after living in West Haven, CT for two years, paradise is a relative term.

But as I was saying, it's our once a year chance to see everyone we love, have a great vacation and just forget about the daily stresses of life. This year I find that I'm anticipating it even more than usual. Maybe because I'm finding life as a stay at home mom to a five year old and a one year old a big chaotic lately. Maybe because it's been a full year since I've seen most of my family (besides my mom) and a year since I've seen all my in-laws (besides my sister-in-law who came this past March). I really excited now, because I just found out that my grandparents are driving down from Indiana while we're in Florida, I haven't seen them since Christmas of '08!

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this already, but we're also staying for a weekend in a cabin with Matthew's family. I can't wait to see Elijah running around with his cousins and having a blast! Also, I finally get to meet my newest nephew! I'm sure he and Sophia will have a great time together.

We also plan on spending every minute while we're in Florida at the beach. It's been really cool here lately, so we haven't been to our beach in a while. And I'm kind of looking forward to the baking heat. I'm sure I'll take that back soon enough.

As of tomorrow we'll be within one week of our trip, which means I can start planning my packing. It's a process! I've got three people to pack for, not to mention I'll probably do some of Matthew's for him. Thank goodness we are all flying together this time and I don't have that stress to think about. Although I'm coming back alone with the kids. Also, our plane leaves super-early. I think next Wednesday we'll be waking up around three! But on the upside, we'll arrive in Florida before lunchtime.

Sigh...I can't wait.

Or have you heard that already?

Impulsive...

So, I colored my hair yesterday. It was much-needed. The top four inches of my hair were my natural medium, mousy brown. The rest was faded reddish brown. It wasn't that noticeable, but it was bugging me. I ran into Target Wednesday night for literally ten seconds, I had one other thing to pick up and a baby on my hip. So I basically grabbed the second box of color I saw. The first that I was drawn to was a super-brilliant red. I think it was the same color I did last summer. The Ronald McDonald red. It was fun last year, but my hair is so much longer now I decided I wasn't ready for it. So I picked my usual medium auburn shade.

Well, after coloring it I was kind of surprised that it was much lighter than my hair usually turns out. Usually it's a shade darker than I wanted, but it doesn't bother me since it fades out in the first few washes. This was a nice coppery-red, different than my usual color, but I liked it okay.

Unfortunately, even after straightening it and everything, my hair still looked terrible. I realized pretty quickly that the reason was that it hadn't been cut in a while. And by a while I mean a YEAR! So I did what any woman would do, I called my stylist, or at least the one I used a year ago. And I quickly found out that the salon had closed down! Now, normally I would scramble to find a back-up, but I've got stylist-trust issues, big time. And I don't trust many people with my hair. So then I did what most people would do in my situation...

I took out my scissors and cut it myself! Now, in my defense, I am a licensed cosmetologist and worked full-time in a salon for many years. Okay, like two years. But still, I've been cutting hair since I was eighteen and have cut my own several times.

It always seems like such a good idea at the time. I know how to cut hair, I need a haircut, therefore I should cut my own hair, right? Ehhh, wrong! About halfway through I begin to really question my sanity.

It always turns out okay in the end, it just takes me going back over it a few times to perfect it. And it's not something I can do long-term because the middle back always stays a little longer since you have to pull it to the front to cut it. Eventually you'll end up with a bit of a "tail" in the back. So I guess I need to work out my trust issues and find a good stylist soon.

Oh right, you want to see a picture?




Aaaaand I just realized I'm not wearing make-up, sorry. And yes, that's a miniature football player action figure over my shoulder. And yes, I live in a library.

Back to work...

Now that we're on summer break I keep telling myself this is my one chance to get a lot of work done on my book. Not surprisingly, I find it really hard to get a chance to sit down and work on it these days. For one, I can only work when Sophia is napping. That gives me about 3-4 hours a day. And a few hours before bedtime. During naps I'm usually busy taking care of more important things, teaching Elijah, showering, exercising, you name it, I always have something else I should be doing.

But, I could just kick myself for not working on my book. I mean, hello, I wrote a book, I should probably finish it, right? It doesn't help that all I have left to do is edit the thing. Probably the most important part, but also the hardest. When I'm doing the actual writing it comes pretty easy. And it's never hard to find time to just sit down and create, because you feel like your mind is going to explode if you don't get it all out on paper. Or sometimes, in my case, you might forget it if you don't hurry up and get it down.

Editing though? Editing is work, not fun. Work. So far I'm midway through chapter three, so I have a long way to go, but at least I'm getting it done. Yesterday I sat down at the computer with a purpose. I chose to sit at my desktop computer in the kitchen because it doesn't have internet, so no getting distracted! I got a comfy chair and a caffinated beverage and got to work. Of course I didn't get too far before Sophia was right beside me pulling all the pens and pencils out of my pencil holder, but she was being good so I just let her be.

Basically right now I'm just going through all my word documents and making all the changes that need to be made. I've already been through most of my printed version, so I've spotted most of my typos and sentences that just don't work. When I'm done going through it all myself I've been sending my chapters to a friend who is doing my editing for me and she points out all the things that I've missed. Apparently I use the word "that" way too many times when it is not necessary! Anyway, she sends back to me looking like this...



I always feel like a kid who got a bad grade when I see all this red! Dangit! That was a particularly troublesome page though. It's all for a good cause right?

So, that's where we are right now. After I finish editing I'm not sure what's going to happen. Of course I would love to be published and sometimes I even start feeling like it's actually good enough to be published, which is crazy I know. But the reality is that it's not very likely. Still it's been a lot of fun and I'm not going to let that stop me!

Crawling...

A.) What Sophia is no longer doing.
B.) What time seems to be doing.
C.) All of the above.

The answer is C, of course. Sophia is no longer crawling, but walking every where on wobbly, unstable little legs. We've had a few spills, but so far she's okay. She does give in and crawl when she's in a big hurry to get somewhere far, but mostly she's walking all over the place. Crazy!

And yes, time is crawling lately. I was looking forward to this week, where the kids and I had nothing on the schedule, but I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would. If I were busier, maybe the time would go by more quickly! If you've lost count, we're now fifteen days out from our big summer vacation. Which means it's far too early to pack or do any kind of trip preparation. That will have to wait until next week. Yes, I plan on spending a week packing, what of it? Semper paratus, my friends, always prepared.

Okay that was sort of lame, it sounded cooler in my head...

Anyway, yesterday all of us (except Elijah, of course) woke up with sore throats and runny noses. CRAP, right? I spent the whole day chanting in my head, "we're not getting sick, we're not getting sick". Normally a little cold is no big deal, I know, even with fifteen days until vacation. But I'm a little leery after the last time we all got sicker than dogs for two weeks. Please, not again. And that was just in April! But everyone woke up feeling much better this morning, so hopefully no one is sick.

And this basically confirms my belief that Elijah is, in fact, not human and from the planet Krypton, because of his insane immune system*. I swear, the kid never gets sick! You can't say that's it because I breast fed him or because he never went to daycare, because all those things are true of Sophia too, and she gets sick along with the rest of us.

I'm changing his name to Kal-El, I swear.**






* Krypton, Superman's home planet, duh!

**Superman's real name, no it's not Clark Kent. Incidentally, Nicolas Cage actually named his son Kal-El, not sure if he's faster than a speeding bullet, but maybe he has a great immune system too.

The Princess and I...

In the winter of '09 we first found out that our second baby was in fact, a girl. There were a lot of jokes about her being the "Princess". Out of all the grandbabies born so far, she was the fourth and the only girl. Now, after our third nephew was born last fall, she is one girl out of four boys. Technically, I guess she is the Princess. That's all good and well, it's a cute nick-name, but the problem with our princess? She has a royal attitude, let me tell you.

Last night it was the princess' decree that no one in the kingdom shall sleep. Especially not me, the mother of the princess. (I suppose technically that would make me the queen, but trust me, the job is more like the housekeeper than queen.) For whatever reason, I was up every hour putting the princess back to bed. She woke up congested and snotty, which is fun.

Every good housekeeper knows that Monday mornings are your busiest, you have laundry to do, dishes to wash and put away, floors to mop and sweep. Not if the princess has anything to do with it! So this morning this housekeeper cleaned the stovetop with a certain princess on my hip, tiara and all. (I kid you not, she was wearing a tiara.) Afterward she deigned to sit in her royal throne (aka her highchair) and drink her milk while I scrubbed the dirty floor under her feet. Dirty by her doing, mind you!

Thankfully my oldest has no such delusions of grandeur (despite occasionally fancying himself to be a Jedi Knight), most of the time he falls in with the help, like the rest of us. A mere squire in the princess' service. Perhaps a court jester when necessary.

This started out as a joke, truly. But now I'm beginning to realize just how much this little girl runs the show around here. We'll have to wait and see how the princess handles travel this summer. The good news is, despite being a miniature tyrant, she is quite charming, and all her subjects are quickly won over by her sweet personality. And then she'll insist you feed her all your food...

I have to go now, the princess is shoving her brother's colored pencils into the heating vents...

One of those days...

In case you missed it, my status update from yesterday afternoon read something like, "So far today I've managed to flood the kitchen, flash an old man at the beach and lock myself out of the house. Maybe I should just go back to bed."


And that's pretty much how it went down, and I'd like to say it got better from there, but it really didn't.

As far as the kitchen flooding, well, that's happened before. Blame the washing machine and poor plumbing. I'm still trying to finish washing clothes, but it's going to be a slow process until we can get a plumber out. For now I just have to keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't happen again. Which means I can't leave the house until I'm done washing clothes.

As far as the second thing. Well, let's not go there. Let's just say the blame falls on Sophia for that one! And really, I'm not positive he saw anything, but I was still mortified! Thanks Sophia. Let's not repeat that one, okay?

And as far as locking myself out of the house, well, that's happened before too. See we have two back doors. One that leads out of our apartment (which is the bottom floor of an old three-story house) and one that leads to the hall with the staircase that goes to the top floors. So you have to unlock two doors to get in. After we got back from the beach (which was a complete disaster because it was so windy we had to leave before the kids got sand blown in their eyes). I put the kids in the bath, Sophia got washed and went straight to bed. Elijah will play in the tub until it's cold so I went to put away out beach stuff while he stayed in. Of course my beach bag was full of sand so I went to dump it out. I left our door open, of course, but when I went through the second door it blew shut behind me. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but it's the kind of door that locks behind you unless you turn the thing, which I didn't. Which meant I was locked out. And even though there are other occupants in our building, I am usually the only one home during the day. Which meant I had to pound on the back door and yell until Elijah heard me and came to let me in (dripping wet and stark naked). Thank goodness for five-year-olds! On the other hand, the only thing I had left in my beach bag was my cellphone, so I could have called the landlord if necessary.

So there you have it. On top of all that Sophia has been super crabby lately, I think maybe she might be teething again? I'm kind of hoping she is and that explains the crazy behavior. Or we're just hitting the terrible twos a year early. I'm also trying to get her on a better sleeping schedule. I made her stay up until eight last night in hopes that she might sleep in today. And she did! At least, until seven. I'll take it!

Here's hoping today will be better than yesterday, though that shouldn't be too hard!

Early Morning Randomness...

Yes, I'm still here! Haven't you been wondering where I'd gotten off to? No? Oh, okay.

• As you can see from the time of this post, Sophia is still waking up early. I mean, six a.m. early. Elijah has always been an early bird too, he hardly sleeps past seven, but his sister is an even earlier bird! The problem is that she only takes two naps now. Yeah, you read that right, up until about a month ago she was taking a third, short nap before dinner. Now that she doesn't she's totally cranky and crabby and we simply have to put her to bed at 7:30. This is all fine with me, but she gets up early! Sometimes we can get her to stay up until eight, and then she'll sleep in a little longer, but not lately. *sigh* bring on the coffee!


• I guess I shouldn't complain. She's sleeping through the night without fail these days!


• For whatever reason, even though it's summer, I seem to have less time than usual. Elijah and I are doing a little summer school, but other than that we're free. But I feel like I've been so busy lately! May was a crazy, crazy month for us. We had two birthdays, playgroup every Tuesday, and between doctors, dentists and WIC, we had SIX appointments in the past four weeks. Craziness. Combine that with the trouble of only having one vehicle and I feel like I've been driving back and for to New Haven every other day. But now we don't have anything on our schedule for another two weeks!


• As I was saying, we've been busy. The weather has been so nice and hot (okay, like 80) the kids and I have been trying to get out as much as possible. I feel bad that we didn't spend too much time out doors last summer, it was kind of hard with a newborn! This summer I'm resolved to spend as much time out doors as possible.


• I'm thinking today will be a beach day! Woo! I can't believe I forget how close I am to the beach sometimes. Every time we go down there I tell myself we should go more!


• Because of all this early summer craziness, combined with having two kids at home full time, I've had very little time to write lately. This bugs me, but try as I might I just can't seem to find any time to work lately. When I do have free time, when Sophia is napping, I'm so busy doing all the other things I need to do without her underfoot. Exercise, shower, clean, school with Elijah. There just aren't enough hours in the day! Also, by the time she goes to bed I'm just plain tired and want to veg in front of the tv for a little while.


• It doesn't help my writing situation that I've been hooked on another book series. I've mentioned it before, but I'm currently reading the "Song of Ice and Fire" series by George R.R. Martin. I have nothing else to say but that they are freakin' fabulous books and I'm completely addicted! I just got the second last Monday and finished it yesterday. I was going to go get the third for my trip, but my mom beat me to the punch and bought it for me (she had a coupon, how could I say no?). Now she's holding it hostage in Panama City until I get there!


• WE LEAVE IN TWENTY DAYSSSS!!!!


• Excited.


• In other news...I did get some writing done on Saturday for about an hour. Not editing like I'm supposed to be doing, but a little work on book two. Yay. I love book two already, it's going to be awesome.


• Although I'm extremely upset because I lost my good pen. I mean the pen that I hand wrote my entire first novel with, it's the ONLY pen I will write with. SO SAD! But I think I know where it is. I had it with my stuff when I taught children's chapel last Sunday and I'm hoping it will still be in there this Sunday. If not, I will be devastated. I'm serious!


• Ah cold coffee....I mean yuck cold coffee!


• See this is what happens when you get up at the crack of dawn and try to blog.


• Well, I think that is all. Have I mentioned I'm going on vacation in TWENTY days?!!? No? Really? I am. It will be epic. EPIC!


• lol


• Oh crap, I made a resolution to myself the other night to stop using lol. It's getting annoying don't you think? Still not as bad as XD (which I still don't get because I think I'm too old). And not nearly as bad when people go "lolololol". Wait, what? You're laughing out loud out loud out loud out loud? How does that emphasize how much you are laughing.


• I don't get it.

Peace out! I'm off to get more coffee, it's going to be a crazy day!