I’m impressed!!

So anybody that knows me knows that I hate housework. When hubby and I are both working full time, sometimes the dishes can sit in the sink for 2-3 days. The chores I hate the absolute most are dusting and vacuuming–mostly because they’re so time intensive. You have to move everything away, then dust/vacuum and then move everything back. It’s tedious! Well, I have been majorly impressed with myself this summer. Our vacuum has gotten more use out of it in the past two months than it has in probably the last year (or maybe even two!). Every Wednesday is free play gym at Gymboree from 3-430 and my mother has been kind enough to take JJ off of my hands and I vacuum each week! That’s a huge improvement because usally we might vacuum once every 6-8 weeks. It happens to be a chore hubby hates just as much as I did. I’d rather mop any day of the week, but since we don’t have any tile in our home (except our maybe 25 sq ft bathroom), there’s no mopping going on! I just hope I can keep  up the vacuuming at least once every other week once school starts up again in two weeks!

Crazy Kid!

Okay, so I’m about to lose my mind. It’s 7:15 am and I have already been up for 2 1/2 hours. My LOVELY son, JJ, has decided that it’s okay to wake up before the sun. Last night he was really tired and went to sleep at 7:45. The past week or two, he hasn’t been going to bed before 10 or waking up before 9. He’s been getting a full 11 hours each night. Granted, I don’t like him being up that late or waking up that late, but I guess I got what I wished for. So as I was saying, JJ went to sleep at 7:45. I knew there would be problems and so tried to wake him up on numerous ocassions. He woke for about ten minutes to have his bedtime bottle. He woke up at 11 pm and I was able to get him back down fairly easily. However, he was up again at midnight….sheesh! I couldn’t get him back to sleep, so I put him in bed with us and asked John to put him back in his crib when he woke up at about 4:45 or so….well, that plan didn’t go as I had hoped. That little stinker was wide awake by 4:45 am–which means I was not-so-wide-awake at the same time. What happened to sleeping 11 hours each night. I got jipped. Kid only slept 8 1/2 hours. NO FAIR!! I’m waiting for him to take a nap. Who am  I kidding? I need to take a nap. I only got about 4 1/2 hours of sleep. I sure hope this was just a fluke!

Weaning

Well, we did it. JJ is completely weaned. I think it was more saddening for me than for him. At a year I stopped pumping at work and was nursing 3 times a day. At 13 months, I dropped the afternoon feed. At 14 months, I dropped the morning feed and now at 15 months we are done. I was sad to have it happen. JJ could have nursed forever if it were up to him. He didn’t even put much fuss up about it. As long as he’s not reminded of it anyway (i.e., I’m covered up), he doesn’t throw a fit. He is down to one bottle a day as well–generally before bedtime. He has 2 sippys of milk and 2 sippys of juice a day. He’s such a precious boy. I am truly sad to have this part of our relationship end, but figured since I was doing it more for me than for him at this point that it was time. I am so thankful to have lasted this long especially because there were times when I wasn’t sure I was going to make it much longer.

What makes your baby laugh?

JJ is just a bundle of giggles. He laughs at anything and everything. Peek a boo is one of his most favorite activities and cracks him up. Looking at his own reflection in the mirror is quite amusing for him too.  He loves to play hide and seek…well mostly he hides, and I say, “Where’s JJ?” and pretend to look for him and he starts giggling. He’s super ticklish like his daddy too. Whenever I say, “I’m gonna get you,” he absolutely cracks up and starts running away from me. I must admit though, that although I really enjoy seeing his cute little face light up, that I really enjoy our quiet times when he’s just cuddled up next to me or we’re reading a book together. He’s growing up too, too fast.

Don’t know what to write…I’ll just put pictures!

It’s funny. Day to day as things happen, I think, “That would be a good thing to blog about.” Then I forget about it, don’t blog and the thought has left my mind. Now that I have time to blog, I can’t think of a dang thing to blog about. Maybe I could blog about all of my pregnant friends. There’s four of them now I think. Nah, been there done that, nothing exciting. Maybe I’ll just put some pictures up if I can find them on my hubby’s computer. Yeah, I think I’ll try that.

Working, working, working!

So, I have been busting my butt this summer so that I can find a job for the school year. This is a rough time to be a teacher though. I submitted applications to two districts (the only two that accept applications without open positions posted). That was to Riverside Unified and San Bernardino City Unified. I also sent in applications to a charter school in Riverside and to Alta Loma School District, even though the position they had listed was only temporary. I just need to get that one more year out of my way so that I can clear my credential.

This summer I’ve been working as well–as a stay at home mom. The thought had crossed my mind to get a job, but given the economy I didn’t even try. JJ and I have been doing lots of activities–Gymboree 3 times a week and swimming lessons in the beginning of the summer. I’d say, on average, I probably do about 1-2 hours of housework a day. I’ve also picked up a couple of tutoring clients–a second grader, a fifth grader, and a fourth grader. It’s been going well and it gets me out of the house for a little bit. JJ gets to spend time with nana and grandma when I go tutor because they come to watch him.

Gymboree!

So about a month ago we decided to take a free preview class at Gymboree. They have classes specified for different age levels. JJ is in level 3 which is for 10-16 month olds, so he’s a little more adventurous than most of the others in his class, seeing as how he’s almost 15 months old now. Needless to say, he loved it! I thought it was great too. They have lots of little things to play on that are arranged in different ways every two weeks. The instructors are great and have lots of energy. The only thing I don’t like is that the classes themselves are almost identical every week. There is bubble time and parachute time and time to call out Gymbo, as well as pushing the big air log. Other than that, there is usually one or two unique activities each week. The activities themselves are not very long, which I think is smart because attention spans aren’t that long at this age. It is $65 a month, which I think is kind of a lot, but it also includes free gym time 3 times a week. So you get 45 minutes of class time and up to 5 1/2 hours of free play gym time each week.

It finally happened…

So we just got back from our massive driving trip…Riverside to Tahoe, Tahoe to Chico, Chico to Sacramento, and Sacramento to Riverside. We were all absolutely exhausted when we returned. Because we were gone for so many days, I had a lot of catching up to do. When I woke up this morning, I was trying to get a lot of work done. Because of this, I wasn’t giving JJ a whole lot of attention. Soon enough though, he found a way to get my attention. See, it’s normal for JJ to dig through the diapers and occassionally give me one (or two or three or four, for that matter), so when he brought me one as I was working, I almost didn’t think twice. However, I decided to take a look down. What did I see? A naked little baby bottom! That little stinker took his diaper off and handed it to me! After some laughing, I gave the little bugger some loving, put his diaper back on, went back to work and he was happy enough with it.

Something’s gotta give…

…but what? I warn you right now that this blog is going to be long. I have a lot on my mind at this moment and it’s been almost a month since I’ve given an update. I went to bed over an hour ago dog tired, but found my mind wandering in many different directions. I figured since I was up that I might as well do something and here I am…ready to get all of these thoughts and ideas out of my head, off of my chest, and onto this “paper” so to speak.

It all started with my husband starting a political discussion in bed. He said he didn’t think it was fair that people who do not have children have to pay taxes to support education. This, of course, I wholeheartedly disagreed with, being a teacher and all. I thought of all the ramifications of this…like how everyone who does partake of the educational system having their taxes raised and, heck, while we’re on the topic, why should anyone have to pay taxes to support anything they don’t partake of–for instance, the welfare system. The only people who partake of that system don’t pay into it…the system would totally collapse if we used the same reasoning my husband had for education on everything else. Anyhow, enough politics. That’s just what got my brain going and it hasn’t stopped since then.

I’m a busy mom, like all other moms. I work full time outside of the home. I have a one year old at home to take care of, a husband and a household. That doesn’t leave me much time for anything else. Most days I’m able to handle the stresses pretty well, but occasionally, I just break down. I’ve always been a list person and I find great personal satisfaction in marking things off my list. It’s been so difficult to get anything marked off my list anymore. I seem to find more and more things being left undone and it’s very frustrating to me. Our home, for example, sometimes gets to the point where both my husband and I are disgusted with the messiness and unkemptness of it all before we do anything about it because we are both so busy. I’m out of the house at least 9 hours a day and my husband 11, so after we get home, make/eat dinner, and shower, we are wiped out.

My husband has always been the type of person who is very affectionate. He believes in letting others know how he feels often. He tells me how he loves me numerous times during the day–sometimes to the point where I tell him that I haven’t forgotten and that he doesn’t have to let me know any more that day. Granted, I tell him I love him every day too, just not 400 times a day. I never knew why he felt the need to do this until I had my baby. It’s funny…it’s like the emotions just pour out and the words follow. I tell my baby I love him more times a day than I can count. It’s like there’s just this need to verbally express the overflow of my heart. I can’t NOT say it. I totally, totally, understand how he feels and why he needs to say I love you many times a day. To the one who taught me that you can never be told I love you enough, I love you.

I guess there’s really only one other major thing on my mind at this time. It’s my work. I have so many conflicting emotions right now and I don’t even think that there’s one in particular that trumps all the others at this time. I feel stressed, jipped, excited, sad, and joyous all at the same time. I am so excited to see how well my students have done this year. They have grown so much and they have made me so proud with all of their accomplishments. I am joyous because I know they are going to be doing well when they go on to first grade. I am confident that I have prepared them for the academic challenges they will face next year. I am happy because I love coming to work each and every day and getting the opportunity to affect other people’s lives in a profound way. I am also happy because I get to see their smiling faces each day and they are (mostly) happy to see my as well. I am sad because this year is coming to a close and I will be saying goodbye to my first class and because I don’t know when or how long it will be until this opportunity comes my way again. I feel stressed because it’s the end of the year and there are so many things going on–benchmark testing, report cards, filling out cumulative files on each kid, skills day, spring program, packing up all textbooks, tearing down my classroom and that’s only the half of it.

My last emotion is feeling jipped. It’s an emotion I try and fight because I know that it has the capability of taking over and I start to feel bitter when that happens. I have worked my behind off this year, doing a job that very few people would do for the pay I have been getting for it. I feel jipped because I was promised something that didn’t come through. I know I have been given a wonderful opportunity this year. Everyone tells me how dedicated and determined I’ve been this year and how I’ve been such a trooper…easy for them to say. Their salaries are fair…I guess I wouldn’t mind so much, but that fact that our superintendents who already made over 6 figures a year gave themselves a 15% raise during this “budget crisis” just plain pisses me off because I couldn’t be hired on a temporary contract for 3 months that would have cost less than 3 grand total. I’ve actually thought about writing a letter to the superintendents or to the editors of newspapers complaining about what I consider to be an injustice, but then I just think of how it could possibly affect my future and my ability to get a job anywhere else and I stop myself. I just can’t help but wonder, when will I ever catch a break?

It’s depressing…I’m a college grad with two bachelor’s degrees, a teaching credential, and half of my units towards a master’s degree and I’ve never held a job paying more than 20 grand a year. Top that off with 9 years of student loans (and a few credit cards) and I’ve amassed over 67,000 in debt. It’s really sad. I love what I do so much….why can’t I get a job? What can’t I take some of the pressure off of my husband? I just want to make what I’m worth. Is that too much to ask? I’d really like another baby, too, but with all of the extra expenses that having a baby brings (especially the new home and vehicle that would be required to house and tote around a two little ones), it’s not going to be feasible for quite some time.

I just get through my days by knowing that I come home to an amazing family each and every day and even though we have our share of problems, we’re happy and mostly content and right now, that’s more than some people can say. I’m thankful I’m healthy. I’m thankful for wonderful friends and family. I’m thankful for the roof above my head and the food in my refridgerator. I really do have so many things to be thankful for…I just need to reminder to count my blessings more often than I throw my pity parties.

Happy Easter!

Well JJ got to experience his first Easter this year. He had to wait almost a whole year for this event to happen. He did NOT have a good time with the Easter bunny…I’d have to say it was an overwhelming fear/sadness/anger that he felt toward him.

Easter day was great. JJ started off the day in Sunday school with a few of his buddies, then came home to relax for a little while before heading over to Aunt Linda’s for lunch. After a filling dinner of ham, meatballs, olives, deviled eggs and pasta salad, it was off to the front yard for an egg hunt. Grandma Taylor filled a few plastic eggs with coins and taped them shut; then, they “hid” them. It was so adorable to see JJ walking around holding his Easter basket. He would find an egg, pick it up, shake it and continue walking. When he found another egg, he would drop the first one and pick up the second one. Stay tuned to my myspace (www.myspace.com/ucirvine2001) for the video of him doing his hunt. He looked so cute in his my first Easter onesie and bib. Nana got him a soft little bunny rabbit for my first Easter as well.

He was so exhausted by the time we got home, he fell asleep. Seeing as how he only napped 20 minutes in the first 8 hours of his day, I’m sure this nap is going to be a long one…..now the only other milestone we’ll have in the next few weeks is his birthday! Go JJ!!