Carry it for me...please

I'm not sure how I want to word this yet, so I'll start by saying that I think I am stressing out too much or something.

I have so much going on right now in my life. Our family went from the three of us to basically having 4.5 year old twins (with getting my nephew), I'm still going to school full-time, I have started working, and my husband is scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan within the next month. Just to add to that joy, I have all of a sudden been getting these weird headaches for every evening for the past several days. The past couple of days I have had a bit of baby fever and resentment and have been trying to hard to keep my mouth shut and not make snide remarks on social media. I have oftentimes found that it doesn't help my heart to do that, so I just don't.

I know many people in my life that would tell me to stop complaining...I got the second child, the son, I have always wanted...No. I don't. I love Lil Man, as a nephew. I will treat him as my own child. I will provide a loving, caring, warm, happy, healthy home for him...while he is here. This is not intended to be a permanent placement for him and I can not treat it as such. He has his own parents and they want him back.

He is NOT the baby I wanted. I want to be pregnant again, to feel my baby moving around and being cocooned in safety inside of me. I want to see my husband holding that tiny little baby after he (or she) was born, watching the love bloom and grow. I want to watch him put him to sleep on his chest and see the wave of peacefulness wash over My Love as his baby sleeps on his chest. I want to watch Victoria with her brother (or sister), helping to teach him things, hold him, love him, protect him, guide him, cuddle with him.

I don't know if our baby seeking story is over. The balance of wants/desires have changed for me. I have more moments where I have accepted my "only" child than not. I have less and less moments of the deep-seated desire for a second child. I had started coming to terms with it before the last failed cycle. I am ok if V is our one and only.

This wasn't supposed to turn into an infertility post. That's not where I meant for it to go, but it just did.

This post was going to be about how I don't know how I'm going to be able to handle all of these stresses in the upcoming months. This post was going to be about how everyone tells me how "strong" I am and how I can do this...I just wish someone could carry some of the stress for me...
 

My nephew

A lot of people have been asking me about my nephew. All of a sudden he is in all of my photos, and my posts on Facebook...Well, he is living with us for a little while. His parents are doing what they can to put their lives together to get him home with them, but until then, we have opened our home to him. He is a sweet little boy who is about 2 weeks younger than our daughter. The kids fight, of course, like all kids do, but usually they get along fantastically. We are all figuring things out together with the changed dynamics in the household and, I won't lie, at times it is really hard. Anyhow, the long and short of it is that for now he lives with us.

And here is Pirate Captain A's bed:

You'd better run child!!

We went to the park yesterday for some outdoor time because it was absolutely gorgeous outside yesterday. It is the end of January and a t-shirt and jeans was more than sufficient. The kids played on the playground for a little bit

After they got some playing out, we all wanted to go on a nice little walk on the paths around the park. The trails there are very pretty and it's a nice place to enjoy nature...except when Lil Miss decides to take off running. That alone wouldn't be the problem, but Lil Man decided he was going to walk with me...and I'm sorry, but that is a NO-GO with this mom. You need to exercise and get some energy out...GO! ...nothing...Run!!! Nope...he refused...so, I ran. I ran for the first time in a LONNNNNG time to make sure he ran. It hurt. I'm not going to lie to you...I have TERRIBLE knees and it hurt, but I didn't stop because I refuse to have a little boy in my house who can't keep up with a girl. Sorry kids.  He lagged behind us, but he kept running (though he complained about it almost the whole way). He will get faster as we do this more often...and I will probably do better as well. I'm thinking we go for another jog today (and maybe I'll wear better shoes).

And, as you can see from the photos below (when we finally got to the second playground at the park) he was none the worse for the exercise.

He finally ran ahead of me so I could snap a picture...

Chore Charts, Allowances, and Savings!

So we have made a chore chart for the kids...I'll let you know how it works for us...modifications may need to be made.
They have alternating days on some things or alternating times of day. 
I have made it color coded, Yellow=morning, Blue=evening, Purple=anytime.

The kids will start getting an allowance ONLY if EVERYTHING on the chart is done each day. Each Sunday we will dole out allowances. I am thinking $.50 a day. At the end of the week, they will each earn $2.50 spending money and $1.00 will go into a savings jar for each. At the end of a year, that is $130.00...not bad money for 4.5-5 year olds. They will each have saved $52.

I know some people think that chores don't let kids be creative, or steal their childhoods, but you know what? I did chores as a child and I'm ok. Also, it teaches that if they make a mess, they need to clean it. I like to have a clean house and I don't like having to get onto the kids about it, so if they are rewarded for doing it, I think it will be better. I wanted to add more to it, like folding laundry, unloading the silverware from the dishwasher, dusting, cleaning windows, and more, but we will see how this list goes first. I may add an "extra credit" type of chore list for them each later (or just an extra page).

Next, I went with $.50 a day because it is something they can see fill up a coin jar. They will get paid in quarters. It also allows us to work on math, coin counting, and more.


Why the savings? Well, I think it's important that they learn how to manage their money. I wish I had better learned how to do that while growing up and it's something I still struggle with today. If they only fulfill two days worth of chores, they will earn no money that week, but the $1 will still go into savings. Sorry kids responsibility is tough, but at least you don't have to pay taxes!

Practice acceptance...

Not sure why, but all of a sudden all of the friends announcing pregnancies, giving birth, talking about or complaining about their new babies, and posting pictures of them is really getting to me.

I just have to practice acceptance in so many parts of my life and this is one area I don't want to.

I hate this class!

I just have to say that Research and Statistics SUCKS!!!!!!!!

I am so freakin lost and confused and I hate it, hate it, hate it! And what really sucks...my next class is the same thing, level 2......aaaaaaaaaaaargh!!! Bad, bad timing for this class.

Haven't written in a while...

I could make all kinds of excuses as to why I haven't written in a while, but the honest truth is...I didn't want to. I told myself it was because of another failed cycle...I told myself it was because of Christmas break...I told myself it was because I have my nephew living here...I just didn't do it.

So, here I am now...let me tell you about our Christmas break. We (My Love, two 4 year olds, the dog, and I) drove halfway across the country to visit family. On our way, we visited my grandmother. There was no snow on the ground except where it was plowed from a parking lot...so we searched for a section of clean snow and let them play...

On our way from there to my parents, we drove through a cattle drive and that was pretty awesome except that our dog went insane because our car was surrounded by cows.

When we got to our destination, it snowed, so that was really awesome for the kids.

They had so much fun sledding

Ok, so I'm sure that moment wasn't fun for him...they hit a snow bank and it got him in the face...

and eating snow

and making snow angels!

The kids helped Papa and My Love to clean the pheasants they shot too.

We visited friends and family and had a good time and we had a great time on our way home. 
We stopped to visit some friends and went ice skating (both kids first time),

I have to say that she kicked butt at ice-skating!! She didn't want help and if she fell, she got right back up!

Our little buddy needed a lot more help, but he did really well

then went to the Gateway Arch the next day

The weather was icky and windy when we went into the arch...

but it cleared up some as we were there

That is a long ways down...

as we left the arch, the sun was out (but it was still very windy)

and drove to spend New Year's with our good friends and their children.

We drove through a lot of mountains on our final leg of the journey and let the kids out to play at one point:

We were all glad to be home when we finally got here...

Oh...I just realized I forgot to mention anything about Christmas!! I didn't get what I wanted, but it's been 3 years of that...so pretty used to that...anyhow...

We had a lot of fun at my mom and dad's for a small gift exchange:

Gramma got everyone silly suckers!

And the men all got silly string!

We had a fantastic time with my extended relatives for our Christmas gift exchange and party!!! There were 31 of us there and it was awesome! We didn't have room at anyone's home, so we celebrated it in my family's bar. Here is a picture





Santa came for the kids (guess they must've been good!)