Little conversations

Listening to Jack playing by himself is so amusing. The little conversations he has with himself and his toys are hysterical. This morning I heard him in his room saying "this little piggy" to himself: "This little piggy had none, this little piggy stayed home, this piggy had none, this piggy said wee wee wee wee all way home! That so fun. Yeah? Again? Ok. This little piggy...." and so on. I opened his door and he was just sitting in his bed still, playing the piggy game on his own toes. When I walked in he looked up at me and said, "Good morning mommy! You came to see me? Oh! You play this little piggy?"

And later he was playing on the landing at the top of the stairs and talking to himself and suddenly I hear him say, "Oh! Who's talking to me downstairs?" And he walks over to the stairs and looks down and says, "Oh it's Jake. Jake, you talking me? Oh, ha." (Jake is the dog)

Cinderella?

I scrubbed the walls today.

Not all of them, just the ones in the entryway.
Yesterday I scrubbed the wall next to the stairs where the dog supports himself to walk upstairs. It was filthy, as were the entryway halls. Maybe later (or maybe tomorrow or some other day) I'll get to the other dirty walls. Between the dog and the toddler those walls sure can build up nastiness fast.

It's those things I don't normally do that make me feel like my house is so much cleaner.. like washing the windows and scrubbing the walls, the sink, the toilet. All those things got left for far too long when both Garrett and I were working. I just didn't want to spend my time at home cleaning, ever. I've probably only mopped the floor a handful of times. Which is gross, because a lot of stuff gets stuck to that floor. I realized how bad it was when I mopped yesterday and it took me twice as long because I had to get down on my hands and knees and scrub some spots with a sponge. But now its shiny! At least for a few more hours.

I had just finished mopping yesterday when I heard, "Oh no! There's water everywhere!" and I turn around to Jack standing there staring at the wet kitchen floor, shocked.

Now that I actually do housework, I notice things that are gross and instead of thinking, "yeck." and moving on, I think, "oh that can be tomorrow's project" and it doesn't seem daunting or exhausting. Even though it's usually exhausting. I tried taking down the window blinds in the kitchen today and nearly died of over-exertion. For some reason my arms and legs get worn out so darn fast.

Those blinds, by the way, were a train wreck. Between Jack and the cat they had been mutilated beyond recognition. Every time I looked at them from the outside of the house I just thought how white-trash it made us look with those nasty broken blinds. So today when I washed the windows I said adios and threw 'em out! Why did it take me so long? Probably same reason I hadn't mopped or dusted cobwebs for so long.

I have to get the house overhauled before Max gets here, so the cleaning routine doesn't have to be so intense to maintain. It's just going to take awhile to get a good clean foundation. Back to square one, if you will. It's like spring cleaning, except that no one had ever spring cleaned before that.

And maybe one of these days I won't be embarrassed to have my friends come over. :)

SAHM

Jack's been in bed for awhile, Garrett's downstairs watching the Laker/Celtics game. I'm just lounging here on my bed.. and I realize the little background noises I'm hearing aren't just the Lakers playing downstairs, I'm hearing Jack running around and talking and squealing to himself in his room. I'm still trying to decide if I should go intervene or not.

I'm officially a Stay-At-Home-Mom now (SAHM), which means I'll be slowly losing my sanity in a whole new, much more enjoyable way. I have a laminated Daily chore chart for myself hanging on the fridge, and I much prefer it to the laminated chore chart posted on the fridge at Starbucks. This one I made myself, and I got to decide what I do when and you know what? I actually LIKE it. It keeps my house clean and I don't have to try and decide which messy part of the house I'm going to tackle today- I just look on my chart!

The fence and doghouse are both in working order but the dog seems to keep finding his way in the house... for longer periods than just overnight. This puzzles me.

Since I've started being a SAHM, I've realized certain tasks are not as easy as they once were, now that I'm 33 weeks pregnant. Like traveling up and down the stairs to do laundry is totally exhausting! I could only get part of the laundry done on my laundry day! Good thing I have two laundry days. WHEW, I might need an elevator.

And our garden is BEAUTIFUL and growing nicely, I cannot wait for those tomatoes. :)

Doghouse building + vegetable gardening

Hooray for sunny weather and weekends!

As I'm sitting here inhaling the god-awful reek of dog urine that I can still detect in our carpet, I relish the reality of the building project taking place outside my window: a dog shanty for Jake is in process of being built inside the newly fenced and gated side yard. It should be finished tomorrow, if it doesn't rain too much. The days of dog hair, dog urine, dog shit, dog drool on the kitchen floor, and the horrible snarfling noises will be forever banished to the outdoors. My life is starting to feel complete.

Another exciting development taking place is the freshly erected raised beds in my front flowerbed, for the purpose of a vegetable garden. Garrett built two 10inch 6'x3' beds to go under our front window and side patio, and they only await the dirt and vegetables to be complete! I'm so excited to be able to walk out my kitchen door and pull fresh veggies out of my garden! And to celebrate Spring and sunny days ahead I pulled out my patio furniture and porch umbrella so now my home is starting to feel more alive and ready for bbqs!

I cherish the thoughts of two whole months of summer without having to work, to dedicate to my home and family before little baby Max joins us! It will be great to have that time to get into a good routine of house-keeping and cleanliness before our lives our consumed with child #2. I can't wait to meet him!

Our drive down to California last week was loooong (we drove straight through) and so of course at a rest stop we had to get out and stretch a little- Jack and Casey doing some routine body stretches.

vacations

Jack and I just returned from a week-long visit to Southern California, where we got to see our beloved Lolo and Heehaw, and visit Disneyland with Gigi and Tia. It was a fun and exhausting adventure, and I'll write more about it later. So good to be home.

Rainy Day Things.

Jack has been sick the past two days and when you ask him how he feels he says "I feel much." Its so funny, every time.

We have him sleeping in our bed right now, because he will wake up coughing and crying, so he sleeps propped up on a boppy pillow, with his blankie wrapped around his head and shoulders like a little old lady and vicks vapor rub on his chest and feet. Its sadly adorable. I woke up at 3:30 this morning for work and all the sudden I hear Jack announce, "DADDY PARTED!!" (farted) it was hilarious, the kind of thing you don't normally experience at such an ungodly hour of the morning.

And speaking of going to work, I count the days until I'm done with Starbucks FOREVER! Which is hopefully June. The beginning of June. It just can't come fast enough. Every day that I work is like torture. Did you know that in the Starbucks Frappuccino Cremes (those are the blended drinks that don't have any coffee in them- like Strawberries and Creme) there are actually ingredients that your body CANNOT DIGEST and therefore just hang out inside of you for all of eternity, maybe some of them escaping without digestion. How horrific is that? I find myself amazed and appalled when I see restaurants advertising that they serve REAL food. Like it's a novelty. Starbucks jumped on that bandwagon last summer and started advertising that they serve Real Food. Simply Delicious. Like, what the hell have you been serving before? Products our bodies can't digest??

Someone came in today and bought a drink, one drink, that cost them $5.55. We calculate the regulars that come in daily and average out their annual spending at our store. One couple spends on average, $2100.00 a year buying Starbucks coffee. That's a down payment on a house.. or car.. or college..

It makes me wonder how much money I throw away a year, on things that do not last.

On another note, I'm very pleased with my climbing hydrangeas, they seem to be coming back nicely this spring and I'm hoping they'll reach a fuller growth than last year. They seemed so sickly for so long. And I planted lots of rununculus and some strawberries and I feel very happy to look at them everyday. They smile through the rain. So sweet.