Week 38, off and
running! This week, overall, was pretty quiet. Never really a bad thing in our
house!
Monday was off to a
SLOOOOOOOW star, as expected. The girls and I overslept, and were a little late
to daycare and work. I wanted to give Olivia some time to sleep in, to make
sure she was feeling better, and just didn’t want to be rushed. Luckily, she
seemed perfectly fine, and normal as can be. Hopefully whatever was bothering
her doesn’t reappear. I was off to work and I still feel so incredibly
unmotivated. I just cannot find it. Aside from just not being into my
work/load, all I can ever think about is the mile long to-do list, and all of
the things I could be doing at home. And, I just feel exhausted and worn out in
general…ALL THE TIME. I feel like I just need some time off, sometime away, all
to myself. I need to re-energize and re-focus. Like that will ever happen.
After work, I picked the big girls up from daycare, and we played outside for a
little while, before heading in to make dinner and hang out for the night.
Eliza seems to have a cold going on, and appears to be teething, so I think
she’s going to be in a pretty bad mood for a while. She’s not usually the
happiest of campers on weeknights as it is, so we’ll see what happens. After
dinner, we watched a little TV before sending the girls off to bed, and then we
settled in for a late night Vikings game. Their season opener was Monday Night
Football, in San Francisco, so it was on SUPER late. I hung in there for quite
a while, but it was seriously a horrible, terrible game, and even I eventually
had to throw in the towel and go to bed. Dangit Vikings!
Tired Girls = Slow Morning!
A Note That Came Home with Olivia Today - I Love that she Loves Learning So Much!
On Tuesday we had a
much better start, even with the late Monday night. Eliza had a rough drop off
at daycare, she was crying and reaching out for me and SERIOUSLY, that will
break your heart in pieces! I hate dropping off my kids sad or crying. I just
have to remind myself, it’s temporary, and by the time I pull out of the
parking lot they’ve moved on when we have days like that. I had a much more
productive day at work, and now I just need to hold onto that new focus and
keep it up. Christian had his follow-up appointment today, to discuss his
upcoming surgery (to remove the “scar tissue” mass on his chest”. It is an
outpatient surgery, so he will come home the same day – which is great, but
it’s still surgery, and he does need to be put under for it – which is scary.
He’ll have to take about a week off work, but we’re hoping he’ll be feeling up
to it a little earlier, and his work can put him on lighter duty for a few
days. They should be calling to schedule it soon and, as scary as it is, I sure
hope it happens sooner rather than later, so we can stop being so worried about
it. I picked the girls up after work, and met Christian at home. Amelia’s
soccer practice was canceled for today, so I left her and Eliza home with him,
while Olivia and I were off to her practice. Christian had dinner ready when we
arrived home, which was a nice change, and we arrived home to find Amelia
passed out on the living room floor. Turns out, now she’s not feeling too hot –
I sure hope she’s just exhausted and it’s nothing more than that. So, she was
off to bed. Meanwhile, Eliza was completely miserable all night long –
screaming, crying, throwing fits and NOTHING would cheer her up. It was a
LOOOOONG night in our house. Thankfully, I did eventually get her to sleep, a
little earlier than usual, and luckily she did stay asleep all night. Olivia
ate dinner with us and watched a movie before she was off to bed as well. Poor
kids, it’s always something with them!
My Tired Kindergartner!
All of our Orchard Visits - Love!
Wednesday started
off pretty typically. Everybody seemed well and in better moods, and we were
all off to work, school and daycare for the day. It day started off a little
chilly, but it warmed up quite nicely. That early fall crisp is starting to hit
in the mornings and evenings, that’s for sure! After work, we stopped home, and
I again left Amelia and Eliza home with Christian...this time Olivia and I were
off to school for her 1st Grade Curriculum night. We got to visit
her classroom and she showed me around, then we were off to the library to
listen to the teachers talk about all of the stuff they will be learning and
working on this year. I can’t believe how much they learn – it’s CRAZY! They
said kids her age are now learning things that kids from our generation didn’t
start learning until middle school (like entry to geometry for example), and from
listening to them and reading through the handouts, I definitely believe that.
These kids are going to be smarter than me in no time, that’s for sure. The
meeting ended up running late, so we hurried home for baths and dinner before
shuffling the girls off to bed. I think it’s going to be another rough morning
tomorrow, but we’ll see. Some storms were rolling in as we went to bed, which
doesn’t help. You just never know how the house will handle stormy nights.
Christian’s supervisor has approached him again about the potential to taking a
management position on the overnight shift, which is also a new revelation
we’re discussing. He worked overnights for the first few years he worked there,
probably for about 4-5 years, and moved to days when I was pregnant with
Olivia. And, he only moved to days because his union went on strike, which
lasted a few months, and some of the employees didn’t return to work when the
strike ended. So, it was pure “luck”, if you can call it that in that
situation. They’ve approached him about taking this position a few times over
the years, and they continue to have bad luck trying to fill it with a
reliable, capable person. He basically told Christian they’re having issues
with the current supervisor, and IF it doesn’t work out with that person, the
job would basically be his if he was interested. We’ve always been pretty
anti-nights, but it’s actually starting to sound like it won’t be so bad. He’d
be home in the evenings for dinner and to hang out for a little while to be at
soccer/softball, and then would leave for work, likely returning around the
time we girls leave for work/school/daycare in the morning. Then, obviously,
sleep most of the day. Of course, he doesn’t want to be back on the nightshift,
but we used to be much more worried about the logistics of things. However, the
more I think about it, the more I think that it might not be so bad after all.
So….there may be more to come on that topic over the next few weeks, we’ll see.
Thursday was a pretty standard, quiet day. I’m not sure why, and I think it’s
kind of strange, but overall Thursday has always seemed to be our low key day
of the week, for as long as I can remember. Kind of strange. We thankfully had
a pretty peaceful night, even with the crazy thunderstorms that hit. I will
say, we’re pretty lucky in that storms don’t seem to affect our kids, or our
animals too much. Whew! Everybody did wake up with some kind of sniffle, cough,
runny nose going on though – which sucks. It is that time of the year though –
those spring and fall weather shifts wreak havoc on the immune system! Outside
of that...work, daycare and school were pretty standard, we had a quiet night
of dinner and some cuddle time, and it was my Friday at work, which always
makes every day better!
My Throwback This Week - to a previous orchard trip. Look at how little!!
Friday was a pretty
busy day around the house. It was my Friday off, WOOT!! Christian was off to
work, and I let the girls sleep in a little bit before dropping the big girls
off at daycare. Eliza and I stopped at Walmart for a few things, and then hung
out at home. After breakfast she was pretty tired, so she went down for a morning
nap. That doesn’t happen too much at home – she usually just takes one long nap
around lunchtime, so she was definitely exhausted. Then, I looked around like a
deer in headlights at our disaster of a house. It seriously looks like a
tornado hit it….every room, every corner of the house. It’s so overwhelming.
Eventually, I got to work. I got the living room pretty cleaned up, started on
the kitchen, but mainly focused on getting everything back into the general area/room
it belongs in. That’s always my Step 1 in cleaning – makes it a lot easier to
clean and organize a room, if you know everything that is supposed to be in
that room is there. In my world anyway. Amidst the cleaning and picking up,
Eliza woke up, we had some lunch and played for a while, before she took an
afternoon nap. I’m dying to get a sitter(s) for the girls one of these weekends
so I can just have the house to myself, and really hit it hard – just clean,
clean, clean the day away. And, we’re actually contemplating hiring a cleaner
to really scrub and clean the kitchen and dining room good…floors, walls, countertops,
cupboards, appliances…everything. I feel like they’ve just become a lost cause
at this point. We’ll have to keep talking about it, but I think it would save
me a lot of sanity! Finally, we picked the big girls up from daycare around closing
time, stopped at Target, and met Christian at home for the night. We made
dinner, hung out for a while, and the girls were off to bed, one by one. It was
a pretty early night for all of us.
Spent the Day with my Honey!
Saturday, oh
Saturday. You’ve somehow become my most exhausting day. Christian was off to
work as usual, and he’s been going in much earlier on Saturday’s lately. Which,
I think causes the girls to wake up earlier as well – so, it was an early start
to the day for all of us. I did some dishes and more cleaning in the kitchen
while the girls watched a movie…we had breakfast, and got ready for Saturday
soccer. Olivia’s team has been doing pretty bad lately – it’s horrible to say,
and they don’t technically keep score yet this year, but man do they get killed
every week. The coaches have been getting pretty frustrated because the overall
issue with the team is that they just do not listen. Several of them really
have a lot of skill, and they could be a great team, but they just really need
to work on listening, passing and spreading out on the field. Hopefully all of
that will start to come over the next few weeks. It doesn’t help that the two
other teams in our leave have quite a few really tall, big girls – so a lot of
the girls on our team are still pretty intimidated by them. Hopefully they gave
over that as well over the next few weeks. Olivia did play MUCH better this
week though…focusing, keeping her hands to herself, thankfully. Amelia steam
did really well this week, and she played AWESOME! She didn’t get a goal, but she
came SOOOOOO close a couple of times, and she got a really awesome assist,
passing it to a team member right in front of the goal. I was so proud of her,
and she was beaming with pride herself. After her game, we stopped at the park
to play for a while, and FINALLY made our way home. These mornings are exhausting!
We had a little lunch when we got home, and Eliza was down for a nap. I started
some laundry, and the big girls played downstairs for a while…before they
started fighting and yelling and being loud – waking Eliza up. UGH, seriously,
little in life makes me more upset than somebody waking the baby! I collected
myself, and ended up walking the girls down to the park for a while to burn off
some energy. It hard to take Eliza to the park now though, because she wants to
do everything, and I just can’t keep up with her. I can usually get Olivia to
play with her and keep an eye on her for a while, but she wants to do her own
thing too, so it only lasts so long. We spent a pretty good amount of time
there, and arrived home just as Christian did, from work. The girls stayed
outside and played with him for a while, while I relaxed and folded some
laundry. Then, he started draining the pool, and cleaned the cover. I can’t
believe it’s time to pack away the pool already!! Definitely the end of summer
mark right there. We had dinner, watched some movies with the girls and hung
out for a while before sending the girls to bed, and relaxing for a while…before
passing out ourselves, of course.
she sure has grown...
Sunday was a pretty
typical Sunday in our house. It started off slow…the girls slept in for a
while, I showered right away to wake up and get the day started, and then got
to work on folding the last of yesterday’s laundry (while starting today’s loads…laundry,
I hate it!) . I did some more work cleaning up the kitchen while everybody else
got ready, and then we were off to IHOP for breakfast. We had never been there
before, and decided to try it out (vs. our Perkins breakfast staple). It was
alright, but I think we’ll definitely stick with Perkins going forward. Eliza
went down for a nap when we got home from breakfast, and I was back to folding
laundry, while we watched the Vikings game. Then, the big girls fighting
started up again, and I swear I’m going to lose my mind. I don’t understand why
they have to pick at each other and pick ON each other every chance they get. I
bed and plead with them to just leave each other alone, to separate, to do
their own thing when they can’t get along, and they will not listen. On top of
that, Olivia has had the WORST attitude lately, and suddenly. The eye rolling
has started, the annoyed moans when she doesn’t get her way, the toddler-like
fits when we tell her no. It’s been getting worse over the last few weeks, I
guess since school started up, so I’m sure it’s partially related to being
tired and busy, but I feel like we suddenly have a teenager in the house
already. It’s SO frustrating, and just a little glimpse into our future. I’m exhausted
at the though; already. We finally got them separated, and they watched some
videos and relaxed for a while. There was peace, for a while. Christian later
brought them outside with him, after the game ended, while he cut the grass and
I finished up laundry. The girls’ BFF, Bella, stopped over to play with them
for a while, until I had to take the girls off with me to pick up some winnings
from a contest I entered recently. I won a coat for Eliza, which we picked up,
then we hung out and waited for the “pick-ups” to end, to see what would be
raffled off from the no-shows. The girls played at the park for a while, while
we waited – and it was actually a really awesome park, with a lot of structures
I’ve never seen before. The girls were having a blast…until a storm rolled in
and we had to retreat back to the contest area, out of the rain. They were
giving out books to the kids, so the girls each got to pick one out, and then
during the raffle I ended up getting some snow boots for Olivia and a costume
for Eliza. It was a pretty good haul! While we were away, Christian and his
friend Lorenzo grilled, and we sat down to eat right away when we arrived home.
Not much more time left of grilling season; we have to take advantage! After
eating and some play time, Christian gave the girls their bath, while I put the
last of the laundry away. Finally, he and Lorenzo went out for a couple of
beers, I got the girls to bed, and then I finally settled in with Hulu, in the
peace and quiet, and enjoyed some me time before bed. Me time…is there anything
better than a little me time?! Absolutely not!
she gets right in line to get her hair done - it's so cute!
Until Next Week!
XOXO
