Karma please!

I don't really believe in Karma, but it sure would be nice if it were true. I feel like we've just had a string of bad luck, so we should have some good luck heading our way. Especially in the housing department.
In the Spring of 2009 I fell in love with a farmhouse. It was so cute, and exactly what I've always wanted. We signed a lease, packed up the apartment, and then, 2 days before moving day found out the landlord wouldn't let us move in. Instead he bulldozed that charming home and to this day I mourn it's loss every time I drive by the empty lot.
So we ended up having to move to another apartment complex. Over the past year and a half we have dealt with maintenance problem after maintenance problem. Finally culminating in a leaky roof that can't be fixed until the summer... hence the very, very, last minute move we went through this weekend! Craziness.
Now we will have our current apartment until July, at which point we will hopefully be moving into our very first house.
I can't help but feel that after the 2 previous nightmares we deserve a nice easy house buying process in which the perfect house suddenly becomes available at a super low price. Everything should go smoothly, without so much as a ripple in the process.
If only life was fair...

But for now I will content myself with celebrating the fact that my fears of having to deal with 2 kids to bring up and down the stairs to our second floor apartment is taken care of! Yay for living on the first floor!

I want Mommy

All day long, all Ryleigh says is, "I want Mommy".

It doesn't matter if we are in the same room together. She still whines and says she wants me. Sometimes we could be sitting on the couch together and she'll say it. Frankly, it's really driving me crazy!

It's almost like a separation anxiety thing... but not really. She has no problems at all when I drop her off in her class at church. She barely even acknowledges that I am leaving. It's only a problem when we're home.
I don't know if it's a phase or not.

I know there are times when I am with her, but emotionally unavailable. For example, when I am cooking dinner and she starts tugging on my pants, asking me to hold her. I explain to her that mommy is busy, I need to cook dinner, and then Ryan will usually take her out of the kitchen. She absolutely flips out. But I feel that it is important for her to learn that I cannot constantly be paying attention to her 24/7. Sometimes she even tries demanding that I don't take a shower.... obviously I am not going to give into a 2 year old's demands and I shower, but it's hard to enjoy my time with her crying at the door.

When I am not busy I make sure to spend quality time with her. Today we were kinda snowed in. I made a decision to not rely on the tv at all, so we kept it off. Ryleigh and I spent the day drawing pictures, doing puzzles, playing with her puzzles, and baking an apple pie together. We even took a nap together which is something we haven't done since she was about 2 months old. (she doesn't sleep well with others).

You would think that after so much time together she wouldn't cry for me later, right? Wrong. Even now as I am teaching she's whining for me.

It just doesn't make sense. We are never apart. Even when I am at work I'm still at home. Is she feeling like I am going to abandon her? She shouldn't be feeling the need to have physical contact with me 24/7, right?
This was how I was expecting her to react after the baby is born, not before :-(

Any of you expert moms have any advice? Or any reassurance that this is just a phase and it will be over soon!

Caution: I'm Fragile

I am such a hormonal/ crazy pregnant woman right now.
I can't control my emotions/ temper/ or tears.
It's ridiculous! Everything else about this pregnancy has been so incredibly easy, but I do not remember feeling like a crazy person when I was pregnant with Ryleigh. Is it different cause this time I'm pregnant with a boy? I don't know.

All I do know is I want to apologize to anyone who encountered my this weekend and got a good glimpse at my bad side. Ugh, I feel so ashamed at how I acted towards some people. Especially my husband.

Not everyone believes in soul mates, but I certainly do because I know there is absolutely no one else on this planet who would deal with all the crap I've been throwing at my husband. I can't believe he still wants to talk to me and comfort me after I've been a total jerk to him.

I just keep telling myself that I only have 47 days (-ish) to go... but I definitely do remember how crazy emotional I was after giving birth the 1st time, so I know it's only going to get worse.

So, thank you to everyone for bearing with me, and I want to apologize in advance for anything I say or do while dealing with these pre-, and post-partum hormomnes!! Thanks for still loving me :-)

January Stinks

Apparently a lot of kids have recently been born in January because this month is full of birthday parties!
Unfortunately, it seems to be the worst month to have a birthday. So far Ryleigh has had to cancel on one friend's party because she was sick. We have another one tomorrow, but Ryleigh has a high temperature, so we'll see how she's feeling in the morning...
Last year Ryleigh was sick for her own birthday.
I'm really, really hoping that she will at least be feeling okay for her 2nd birthday party next weekend!
Here's hoping for germ free/throw up free/fever free kiddos!

                 This was my poor sick baby last year. Thankfully she still seemed to enjoy herself!

A blog in which I whine some more

I have been trying so hard not to whine and complain, but it's just so hard when I'm all hormonal!
Today was especially annoying, and I just can't stop myself. Feel free to skip this blog if you want.

I want to get out of this horrible apartment right now! Today my ceiling started leaking. Ever since we moved in we could tell the ceiling has leaked before because there has been this nasty multi-ringed water mark up there. Well today, with all the snow and rain sitting on the roof it started leaking again.

So I called maintenance, and no lie, the guy came, poked a hole in the ceiling with my screwdriver, put a bucket under it, and left. He said there's really nothing they can do until all the snow and rain dries up. He also mentioned the fact that it is supposed to snow again this week.

So now with the hole, and the big giant wet spot on my ceiling all I can think is, wasn't it really dumb to put a hole there? Isn't it compromising the structural integrity of it even more? Will I wake up one morning to find the rest of it caved in?And if it's been leaking before what about mold? I was very concerned to see all the moisture that my ceiling has been retaining.

After dealing with this stupid mess I had to run to Acme. As Ryleigh and I walked out to the car I saw the disgusting piles of dog poop that our neighbor leaves on the grass and sidewalk. Well, the rain had washed away a lot of the snow today... so now instead of the couple of piles I thought were there, suddenly I noticed at least 12 piles of poop.

Ugh. So disgusting! So once again I had to file a complaint with the leasing office. Thankfully I talked to a woman who was as equally disgusted as I was. She promised to deal with the situation. I really, really hope she's effective.

I know I should be happy that I have maintenance men to fix our roof, but not when they do shoddy work. I hate knowing that the ceiling has leaked before and it wasn't fixed properly, so it probably won't be fixed properly this time either. And I hate living in such close proximity to disgusting, rude people. Hopefully when we're in a house we'll have at least a few feet in between us and our neighbors!

Again, sorry for the negativity and complaining but I'm just so frustrated with being stuck here! July cannot come soon enough!

8 weeks 1 day

That's right, D-day is just 8 weeks and 1 day away.

Some days I think, "Wow, only 8 weeks left! Yay!"
Other days I think, "8 weeks?! How will I ever survive 8 more weeks?!"
And other days I think, "Oh crap. 8 more weeks!"

I think really the biggest thing I'm worried about right now is how will I manage getting 2 kids out the door, and into the car? I am so not looking forward to dealing with a car seat, diaper bag, and a toddler going down the stairs outside our apartment. Ryleigh still can't handle stairs independently, so I will have to hold the car seat in one hand, and hold her hand in the other while going down the steps, which are seriously way too narrow for all that stuff to fit.... Maybe I could just rig up a pulley system off our balcony, that seems like a good idea. Haha.

I know I'll manage because plenty of other moms before me have managed the same thing... some with even more kids than I have. But I'm just sharing my thoughts.

The one thing that really comforts me is that with Ryan's new delivery zone he gets home during nap time now. So I just have to survive the morning activities alone, and then he'll be here to help me out the rest of the day. We are so blessed by his new zone I pray nothing changes it!

Big Blessings

Since we're expecting baby #2 there are not many things that we need to purchase this time around. The one and only thing we need for him is boy clothes, since he obviously cannot wear his sister's clothes.

All her life Ryleigh has been blessed with an abundance of clothes. Starting when I had 3 baby showers for her, and continuing thanks to hand me downs from wonderful cousins, and friends.
So I've felt kinda bad for Alexander that all he had were the few clothes that were gender neutral from Ryleigh's old clothes.

Well this week I got huge blessings, in the form of 4 bags full of clothes! We have been very blessed by our church family. And I even have another friend who offered more clothes today, but I'm thinking we may have to turn her down.

Now our biggest problem is trying to find room for all these clothes because all of our closets are maxed out!!

To quit or not to quit

I am seriously thinking about quitting my second part time job. It is entirely too stressful to try and squeeze 5 hours of work into my "free time" during the week, because as we're realizing I don't really have any free time. And this job came at a horrible time when Ryan has soccer 3 nights a week, so even if I wanted to work I can't because someone needs to watch Ryleigh.

But, ugh, I just don't want to quit 3 weeks into my position. I feel like it will make me look like a bad person.
Plus the extra 50$ a week could kind of, sort of, in a small way, help us save more for the big DP (down payment on a house).

What to do? What to do?

I am so totally stressed over this situation!!

Me? A napper?

I am not a napper.
In the beginning of Ryleigh's life I tried to heed the advice of "Sleep when the baby sleeps". Apparently it's great advice, but the problem with it is that I can't sleep.

I have been an insomniac for years. My doctors tried treating it, but without the aid of habit forming sleep aids there isn't much hope. I lay in bed for hours trying to fall asleep, but my brain just won't shut off. So, of course, this affects nap times too. If Ryleigh only sleeps for 2 hours, and it takes me about 3 just to fall asleep you can see that I have a bit of a problem.

Well, just in the past week I've discovered the solution to the problem. It's called, being a pregnant mom in the 3rd trimester. Works like a charm. I have taken naps for the past 5 days! It's actually kind of crazy considering how many sleep problems I've had throughout my life.

I'm hoping this new found ability to sleep in the afternoon will stick around after the baby is born too.

..... Now to just figure out how to fall asleep at night, cause not even the 3rd trimester has affected it :-(