Moving

Yeah, we're moving this week. Yeah, I kind of forgot how much I hate it. I think eventually - When the old house is clean and empty, and the new house is clean and full - then I'll have that funny amnesia and forget all about how sucky this part is. Until then, I've got a hundred more boxes/baskets to unpack (and find a home for their contents) so that I can refill them and start over again. Yay!

But really, things are moving along pretty well. We are at the point that we are staying at the new house with most of the essentials (minus furniture -that is coming tomorrow). After that, it will just be getting those odds and ends, and stuff that "needs-to-come-eventually-but-I-won't-die-if-I-don't-have-it-today". So, we're getting there. But, I really want to start crafting and decorating, and can't yet. That's the part that's killing me.

In the mean time. I'm looking for ideas for paint. This new place is screaming for some color. Anyone have some favorites that I might not have thought about yet? Thanks!

Christmas

So, I've decided to go home-made for Christmas this year. I already have a few good ideas, and I'm pretty excited. I've even decided that I am going to post the projects as they are finished, just not say who they are for...I do have to keep some mystery to the whole thing. ;) Anyway, stay tuned as I am hoping to get started in the next week or two.

Also, if you have any wonderful/fun/creative/just really cool homemade gift or craft ideas, please share. I am always on the lookout for more.

Canning

I've decided - after spending a summer watching my more "domestically inclined" friends can a bunch of fruit and stuff - that I would like to try my hand at doing it too. I'm planning on doing applesauce; mostly because it is about the only thing I'm not to late for, and I know my family will eat it. (My mom is already doing peaches for me - so I figure I can trade some applesauce for them)

Anyway, I need to "procure" some apples and a food strainer/grinder, so I am looking for advice on the best places to purchase these items. Obviously, I would prefer the source for the apples to be local (I mean we do live in Washington), but I'm all about where ever is cheapest (i.e. local or internet) for the other canning supplies.

Thanks for you help! Comment away!

What?!?!

I can't think of anything better to name this post. I am totally caught off guard by Buggy's most recent "stage", and it is very quickly making me crazy.

Buggy has recently developed an intense phobia of wasting water. Yes, you read that correctly, wasting water.

This morning during bath time, he threw a fit over me running the water for more than about 1 minute, resulting in almost no water in the tub for them to bath in. When it came time to rinse the soap off of them, I had to run the water some more so that I could actually rinse them off. This resulted in (I'm not even kidding here) a full-on total and complete MELTDOWN. From my (almost) 5-year-old son. Because he said he was afraid that I was wasting water. We had a good LONG talk about how taking a bath was not wasting water, and that sometimes we need to let the water run so that we can use it. I thought he understood me at that point.

I guess not.

Tonight, I had to bathe Baby Sister again, because she pooped everywhere. The boys were already in bed, but the bathroom is right next to their room and they were still awake. I turned on the water, gave her a bath and was headed back to her room with her to get her dressed, when Buggy yelled at me from his room, in tears (once again, unfortunately not kidding) worried that I hadn't turned the water off, and that I was wasting water.

AAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!

He isn't afraid of water itself. He likes to play in the sprinkler, and he loves swimming. This isn't a water phobia. He truly is afraid that I am just going to go around leaving all the water sources in our house running at all times, and wasting water. Really.

When I am doing the dishes he will frequently lecture me because I am running the water. (Of course I am running the water...I'm doing the dishes. That requires water.) I'm getting frustrated just thinking about it, and really don't love that my son must suddenly think that I am completely stupid.

I don't know where this came from, but if I ever find out who/what/where he picked this up from, I will gladly give that person/company/tv channel a piece of my mind.

We are pretty "green" at our house. We recycle, a lot. We have a compost bin, and all of our appliances are high efficiency. (not even mentioning the cloth diaper thing) I am trying to teach the boys to be more environmentally friendly, but I don't know how to do it if anything they learn gets translated into "we can't take a bath for fear of wasting water".

Is my kid just crazy. I know he has a tendency to be pretty intense, but come on. I worry that he is going to need therapy just to be able to take a stinkin' bath (let alone live a normal live). I pretty much don't know what to do. I have tried to explain things rationally to him, it seems like a thousand times, but I don't know if any of it is sinking in or if we are just going to have to continue to deal with these un-real reactions to things like running water.

Has anyone else's kid(s) ever done something like this? Or, am I alone in this boat. Please, someone tell me this is normal....or tell me what I can do to make it more bearable.

Thanks for listening to (or I should say reading) me rant for a few minutes. I feel better now that I have this one out there.

Any Ideas?

Baby Sister still has her days and nights very, very mixed up. Not that she isn't adorable when she is wide awake at 2:00 in the morning, but I am fastly approaching the "Bone Crushing" stage of tired, and will soon be unable to function normally. The only sleep I can get is while holding her and sitting in my recliner (okay, but not the best sleep ever).

I know it hasn't been that long since I had a newborn, but I am short on ideas that are working to help her sleep at night and not during the day. Not to mention, the fact that for some reason, I can lay her down during the day, but if I try it at night, she strongly protests. So I am asking for help. Please.

Everything I've read says that I can't expect her to be out of this stage until about 3 months old. Is that really true? She has teased me with a couple of good nights, and now I don't know how to re-create those circumstances. Sorry, I'm rambling. Anyway, if any of you out there have ideas, I'd love to hear them. Thanks!

Does Anyone Know How To?....

Does anyone know how to get a kid to stop pooping every time he gets in the bathtub? We have a three time repeat offender at our house, and as much as I like cleaning the tub that often (not at all) I am so ready for it to stop.

Relapse?

So for roughly 5 nights in a row (with one exception), Beefy has been getting up. I don't know what is causing it, or why, but when he gets up he doesn't just go back to bed. It usually takes an hour or so of rocking, or me sitting by his bed, or multiple "get back in bed now" trips from my room to his to get him to stay.

I can almost set an alarm by the kid, he seems to do it at around 4:30 am. I am starting to wonder if there is something wrong? He isn't sick, hasn't been running a fever, and is always dressed plenty warm. I just don't get it.

Does anyone know if it is normal for a 2 1/2 year old to relapse back into the sleeping habits he had as an infant?

What's New in Our Lives?

Just a few items, that didn't quite warrant their own post, but that I wanted to get out there anyway.

1. Today was Beefy's last day of therapy (hooray!). All of his testing came back right at the 50th percentile. It was good enough for his therapists, and definitely good enough for me. Plus it means I don't have to get up early on Tuesday mornings, which I am very grateful for.

2. I have an ultrasound next week. I am excited, but a huge part of me is really scared too. Is that crazy? But, we should be able to find a gender which would be great and a definite perk.

3. The boys are very excited about Halloween. Buggy asks me every night if it is Halloween yet. I think that the thought of another week and a half just might kill him.

4. I am tossing around the idea of using cloth diapers with this next baby. Maybe I really am crazy, but I've gotten really good feedback from people who have done it, and found only raving reviews online. I am looking at using this particular version. Kind of cool, no? I would love opinions, on this subject especially.

I hope everyone has a great day.

My Dilemma

Right now, Beefy has a bad case of the "2 year-olds", and I find myself facing parenting challenges I've never had to deal with before. I know some of you will laugh, and others will hate me for admitting that I've never had to deal with some of this stuff, but I find myself at wit's end, and am desperate for some advice on how to proceed. So here is a taste of what we are facing:

• Separation Anxiety - I can't leave a room without him throwing a fit. Now this isn't a 24/7 thing but it is often enough that I am starting to get really annoyed which in turn makes me cranky, which causes me to be short-tempered and grumpy with my kids which I don't want to be. I am afraid to get a babysitter because I don't want to inflict my screaming tantrum-throwing child upon her. It isn't just that he has to be in the same room, but he has to be on me, either sitting on me or being held. I know this shouldn't bother me, but it is really starting to interfere with my everyday life. He has also in the last 4 weeks refused to go to nursery at church, which is something I've never had to deal with before, and that is also making me very anxious.
  
• Sleeping - He has decided that no matter when he goes to sleep (be it 7:30 or 10:30) he needs to wake up at 4:30 am. In the past when he has gone through these stages I have been able to just rock him quickly back to sleep. These days though it takes more like 45 minutes to 1 hour of rocking and even then, sometimes it doesn't work. Because he shares a room with Buggy, I have a hard time putting him back in his crib and just letting him scream it out like I would do if he were alone. Because of our latitude, it is getting light at 4:30 am which just adds to the problem. Then there is also the issue of changing beds. We have a toddler bed for him, and I know he is getting to the age where we should move him, but I have a hard time getting motivation to set the bed up when I can't get a decent nights sleep as it is.
  

Once again, to some these may seem like silly dilemmas but I would really love some advice from anyone who may have been here before. I don't often ask directly for parenting advice so consider this a monumental occasion for me, and leave me a comment. Please. Thanks.

A plea for help

If anybody is reading this and you have a cute blog, please send me some ideas. As i look through my friends blogs I see all of this crazy cool stuff that I have no idea how to reproduce, as this is all very unfamiliar territory for me (my computer knowledge is limited). So to all my friends out there with cute blogs (you know who you are), please tell me how you did it. Help!