Eighteen Months

So, actually Caden and Brooklyn turned 19 months today.  While I wrote this post a month ago, I really wanted to wait to post it up until I got our 18-month photos back.  So here's a "month" post that's even HEAVIER on the photos than usual.  Enjoy!

Photo credit to our wonderful photographer, for one last session before we leave Madison.

Eat.  Three meals a day (7:30 am, 1:00ish pm, 5 pm) and 2 snacks (9:30/10 am and 3 pm).  I think Caden surpassed Brooklyn in the picky department this month!  Really, though, they are both good eaters, and most food most days gets devoured.  Like many toddlers, they are both suspicious of new foods, unless of course it's on mommy and daddy's plate, and then they want to eat ALL of it (with a "grown up" fork).  Also like many toddlers, they'll go through phases, or days where it seems they don't eat anything, and then turn around the next day and eat everything I have in the house, and then some.  

Sleep.  Bedtime at 7 pm, sleep for 11-12 hours.  Nap at 11 am for 1 1/2-2 1/2 hours.  Caden still wakes up a bit in the middle of the night, but we've found that the key is ignoring him, and he puts himself back to sleep pretty quickly.  He absolutely wails his little heart out for a few minutes, and then (usually) settles back down.  (Typically, Brooklyn sleeps right through this.)  I hate hearing him cry, but it sure beats having him in our bed for at least the next couple of hours.  A co-sleeper I am not, at least with a squirmy, wriggly, mouth-breather like Caden.  They are much more awake during the day, like their sleep has truly refreshed them. I especially notice this in the car, where they are much less likely to fall asleep even if it's close to nap or bedtime.

Play.  More words!  Just a couple of weeks ago, we received an evaluation in the mail for their 18-month doctor appointment, and one of the questions was if they had eight or more words besides "mama" and "dada".  At the time we got the evaluation, it was questionable...maybe more like 5-7 words each?  But in the two weeks before their appointment, they blew right past the 8 word threshold!  They must each have at least 10-12 words now, plus some random signs, sounds, and animal noises.  

Caden got sick this month, throwing up and then having some particularly nasty diapers every day for a week (like...10-12 times a day.  Gross.).  I felt so bad because he was absolutely NOT himself, but it stretched out for so many days that I couldn't even remember what his normal self WAS anymore.  He was whiney, clingy, wanting something different every 3.9 seconds, and generally, just a pain to take care of.  Luckily he is better now, and is in the BEST of Caden moods every day.  Smiling, laughing, running around, and testing limits (though it's hard to get too mad at him for throwing things when he thinks it's so dang funny).  

Brooklyn was also sick, though it affected her mood a lot less.  I think she kind of got ignored in taking care of Caden...no wonder she's better at playing by herself!  She mimics words and everyday actions constantly.  If she finds a stray (clean) diaper, she'll lay on her back, legs in the air, waving the diaper around like she's saying, "change me!".  She copies me cleaning with towels or paper towels, and has really started with "pretend" play: washing her hands or cooking in her toy kitchen and hugging/rocking her baby dolls.

Their independence is exploding, and it's a relief to take them to the park now and not have to be by their side every single second.  They are often content to play in the sand by themselves, and so confident with going up and down the stairs that I can watch them from afar.  They are generally bigger and stronger now, and can crawl up and down from things with such ease that even a month ago were a challenge.  Tyson and I agree that 12-17 months or so were rough months in terms of the constant care it seemed they needed, but 18 months is now our favorite age!  They are fun, interactive, good-natured, and naturally curious about everything.  

 

 

 

So Your Power Goes Out at Dinnertime

1. Power goes out.  All the lights, TV, oven, washer, microwave, power off on a cloudy evening, leaving you in a nearly dark and now eerily quiet room with two small toddlers.
2. Power flickers back on.  For about 1.2 seconds.
3. Power goes out again.
4. Power flickers back on.  For about .83 seconds.
5. Power goes out and stays out.  Toddlers panic.
6. You panic.
7. It's 10 minutes to dinnertime.
8. Look at oven, where dinner is sitting, half-cooked.
9. I know!  I'll just put it in the microwave!
10. Oh, wait...
11. Um...
12. Toddlers cling to you for dear life.
13. I guess we'll go...out?
14. Change a diaper with one child wrapped around your upper body like a small monkey.
15. Frantically pack diaper bag in the mostly-darkness.
16. Try to find three pairs of matching shoes.
17. Open door to hallway.  Hallway is also (duh) pitch dark.
18. Hallway is scary.  22-lb. toddlers both need to be carried.
19. Get toddlers to car, in car, and to restaurant.
20. Restaurant specializes in burgers.  Order burger.
21. When burger arrives, wonder why on EARTH you ordered a burger when you've had a weird aversion this entire pregnancy to ground beef in any shape or form, you IDIOT.  Take two small bites and nearly vomit in disgust.
22. Eat mostly french fries.  
23. Leave restaurant in the pouring rain.  Toddlers are encased in stroller, but by the time two kids and a stroller are packed into the van, you are a wet mess.
24. Hair is totally a puffy-humidity-frizz-ball.  You realize you have a lot else going on at the moment but come ON.
25. Get home.  Lights, TV, washer, are all brightly, noisily, gloriously back on.  (But not the oven, because you are an ADULT and realized it should probably be turned off before you left, in case it came back on while you were gone, and you're not really sure why but it seems like the right thing to do so blah blah REASONS.)  Sigh in relief.

Post Weekend

Thank the Lord for weekends.

And for fall.

And for fresh-baked apple cider donuts sprinkled with sugar.

(Not pictured, because we ate scarfed them all.)

 

 

 

 

(Hello, Mr. Bear.)

 

So We Bought a House

Oh yes we did.

Since we knew we wanted to move back to Minnesota, I'd been looking, looking, looking at homes in the Twin Cities.  Not always the easiest thing to do when your only option is searching online-but hey, it beats whatever people did pre-internet (I...don't even know. The horror!).

It's amazing how the more bedrooms you add to a house, the more the price increases.  Oh, so you want a fourth bedroom, huh?  Add thirty grand to the price, suckers!  The pickings were fairly dismal for our budget and the size house we needed, with our growing family. And for me being a somewhat picky interior designer.  Then of course there's all the beautifully staged photos that show perfectly online, but in person? You're not even sure it's the same house.  There were beautiful new houses in crappy locations, crappy houses in beautiful locations, houses missing fairly essential things like doors (?!?), strange smells, chewed-up and scratched wood work...

There was one I kept coming back to.  It was at the high end of our budget, but...it looked...so nice.  My mom went on some preliminary showings with our real estate agent, and after several disappointments, she called to say that I was going to really like this one.  I already knew that.  I went to check it and a few other properties out the following weekend. The other showings were just a cover, though.

It was the one.  I could picture living there, raising a family there.  The neighborhood was new, beautiful, friendly.  There's a playground right down the street.  I'm pretty decisive-I knew what I wanted to major in since I was in eighth grade, what college I wanted to go to since I was a sophomore in high school, and that Tyson and I were going to get married after a month or two of knowing each other.  This house was just the latest in Major Life Decisions That Shannon Decided On After Approximately 3.908 Seconds.

Not only did this house have everything we were looking for (right number of bedrooms, bathrooms, decent yard, etc.), it had things I never would have dreamed it would have been at this price point.  Cherry cabinetry, cherry trim throughout, quartz-not just quartz but Cambria quartz countertops.  Really, the biggest thing I need (want) to do to the place is paint the bedrooms.  Wallpaper a couple of walls.  That's it.  Like I said, it's at the high end of our budget, but not having to do any work to it?  A basically move-in ready home, only a few years old?  As opposed to having to take all the money we would have "saved" and putting it into necessary updates (like doors?)?  Sold.

It was a close call.  Tyson was waiting on a job offer, so we couldn't put an offer of our own on the house until he officially had the job.  The day he was supposed to get the job offer, our realtor called to let me know that they had received another offer on the house, but they would be willing to wait until that night for us to get our offer in.  Tyson accepted a job that evening, we put together our offer (e-signing papers at 10:00 that night), they reviewed both offers the next morning, and...chose us.  I wrote a letter to the current owners (also drafted at about 10:00 that night), and our realtor said that was a big reason they chose us.

That...was a busy weekend.  And a really strange one.

Tyson still hasn't seen the house in person yet.  And won't, until we close in just over five weeks.   Luckily he cares more about who will be our internet service provider than what the house actually looks like, so I think we'll be just fine.

Solo Parenting: One Week In

What's that saying?  "The days are long but the years are short"?

Right now, the hours-sometimes the minutes-they are long.

There was this.

There was also plenty of this.

The days themselves?  Actually feel kind of short.  Y'know, in a hindsight is 20/20 kind of way-once it's 7:30 pm, the kids are in bed and asleep, the place is somewhat-sorta-kinda back to a semblance of "cleaned" up, and I get to kick back for a little bit before turning in myself.  (This is when a glass of wine or bottle of beer would come in handy, but-alas!-pregnancy.)

And my days are longer.  Tyson usually gets up with Caden and Brooklyn and makes them breakfast in the morning, especially since I've been pregnant, so I can sleep for a just bit longer before getting up to shower and face the day.  Almost every day this week I got up (*ahem* dragged myself out of bed) around 6:30/6:45 to shower myself before getting them up and fed.

The days themselves aren't all that different.  Tyson is usually gone or busy working from home anyway, so I'm used to trying to fill the hours up during the day.  It's just that much more crucial for us to get out of the house now, since there is no relief walking in the door at just the right time to allow me to prepare dinner interruption-free.  This makes the evenings almost as different as the mornings, flying solo every night during the craziest two hours of the day filled with dinner, dishes, and baths before bedtime (blessed bedtime).

I thought that the worst part of Tyson being gone would be my Type-A-ness getting in the way.  Sure, the kids would get taken care of, fed, etc., but the other stuff like toys being picked up each day and dishes washed right after a meal might not happen since Tyson helps out with a lot of those things.  But (so far), those things have (mostly) gotten done. Granted, dinner is a LOT more simple around here, to accommodate its interruption-FILLED making, so there aren't a whole lot of dishes or prep work.  And the toys don't take that long to clean up, really.  Ten minutes, tops, and that's on an especially trashed living room kind of day.  

Besides the mornings (because I am not, never was, and never shall be a morning person, amen), the hardest part is maybe the most obvious: simply that there is no break.  It doesn't matter that I've already changed eight diapers-the next one is mine, too.  Cleaning up from yet another meal/snack/eating extravaganza?  Still me.  I put them to bed the past three nights, and tonight it's on me again.  (Until the weekend!)

(Though actually, the two things I dreaded and hated doing most of all this week were taking out the garbage and killing a spider.  I...guess my priorities are straight?)

Also, there's the fact that this isn't super temporary-it's not just this week, it's the next several weeks, over the next few months.  I don't want to compare myself to a single parent, (who I have even more respect for now), since I do have relief coming every weekend, but it is a lot of work during the week.  A lot of mundane, boring work, but mostly needing to fill up the hours-their hours-every day by myself from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm is exhausting.

In the end, sometimes I yelled.  Sometimes I was patient.  Sometimes I wanted to quit. Sometimes I wanted to trade spots with Tyson (I could learn to program with a PhD pretty fast, right?).  Sometimes I was creative.  Sometimes the house was filled with giggles. Sometimes I counted the hours until bedtime.

And really...isn't that what every week is like, anyway?