Boo hoo hoo

That's me crying.
Man, I'm having a lousy day!
My sister and family just left today after a great 5 day visit. I'm sad. That's part of the problem.
Then there's the hormonal part. Aunt Flo's gonna be coming to town soon.
And then there's the biggest problem. Holden.
This kid is killing me! Physically and mentally.
He sucks at sleeping.
It takes about 30 minutes to actually get the kid to sleep, and then he's up 30-45 minutes later. VERY frustrating!
At night we're lucky if he sleeps 3 hours at a time.
He's usually overtired and cranky because he wants to go to sleep, but can't.
We've tried the cereal at night and on the good nights he'll sleep a 3 hour stretch.
It doesn't seem to matter where he sleeps, he won't STAY asleep.
He's a needy crabby guy and I'm mad at him.
I know that sounds awful and it's not his fault. Yes, logic tells me these things but I get so upset and frustrated with him. I feel like an incompetent mother.
Why can't you just go to sleep Holden? Why do I have to hold you and carry you all day long? Can you just please give me a break?!?
And when I do get a little break I dread going back and dealing with the crying baby who can't sleep.
He's not a very good nurser either. He likes to play tug-o-war with my nipples and he usually wins. Let me tell ya that it DOES NOT feel good!

I tried trading babies with my sister. She has a sweet little Hailey girl that can fall asleep by herself, and doesn't scream and cry for an hour, and sleeps, and is just a good natured baby.
My sister did not want to trade. They're driving back to California and she knows Holden screams in the car.
Darn it.

People told me "Oh, it will get better after 3 months."
I'm still waiting. He's 4 1/2 months old now.
Will it get better? Will I feel better? Can I be a better mom?
I really would like to enjoy being with my baby. And I DO love him. I do, I do, I do. But at the same time he makes me so mad. It's hard for me to just suck it up and do my job as a mom when all I want to do is escape.

They're done!

Click here to see pictures from our trip.
Now my next venture will be to print them all!

Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad

We're BACK!

It feels good to be home.
We had a wonderful trip although it was not much cooler in Toronto at all!
Now we're just trying to get back and organized. You know how it is after being gone for so long...piles and piles of mail to go through, loads and loads of laundry, many groceries to buy, suitcases to be unpacked, the knee-high grass to be cut, oodles of pictures to download...
And lets not forget all the blogs I need to catch up on! I managed to squeeze in some quick computer time while we were away, but couldn't read nearly as much as I wanted to.
I'll have lots of pictures to share as soon as I get enough time to go through and organize them all!

***********************
Our trip started at Dwayne's mum's house. Soooo relaxing...she lives in this cute little town that you walk around almost everywhere, leave your doors unlocked, but still have enough amentities to keep you satisfied.
We played at the little beach, walked the downtown, ate good food, drank GREAT beer, and visited with family. She watched the kids so we could actually SIT DOWN FOR A MEAL! Unheard of around our house. She handled Holden's screaming fits like a pro. Sophie was ecstatic because almost nothing was off limits at her Oma's house- she could dig in her make up and lotions and potions, splash and play in the water buckets, and got lots and lots of lovins!
(CAN YOU PLEASE MOVE DOWN HERE TRUDY??!!??)
Sophie had birthday party #1 there. Clifford cake for her, good food and beer for the adults. She got to meet her cousin Emilie and loved playing with her! And somehow scored a lot of money for a two year old on her birthday.

***********************
After a few days there, we headed to the city to Dwayne's dad.
Sophie loved playing with family there. Her family included her Grampa & Lori, her uncles Kyle, Andrew, and Darryl, Astro the dog, Simba the cat, and Bert the talking bird. Never a dull moment for Sophie- she laughed and played with them all!
We visited a little farm one day where she was delighted to see and pet the sheep, goats, ponies, and almost caught the geese. She's still talking about that farm.
She had party #2 on her actual birthday. A Dora cake this time and plenty of presents to open. We also got to meet the extended Lum family.
And she finally got her "stinkin" balloons!
I got to play with Wayne's cool expensive digital SLR camera while we were there, the Olympus Evolt. And I absolutely need one now too!! (It's that DES- digital envy syndrome that Kristine's talkin about).

***********************
More stories later...

Adios Amigos

We're headed out tomorrow for our big trip to Canada, better known as the land of "Eh?" and BEER and "oot and aboot" and other funny things.
Hopefully I'll get a little bit of my sanity aand patience back as I pawn our children off to the grandparents and drink lots of good beer!! That's my plan at least.
We'll return the 19th so I'll come back loaded with lots of pictures and stories about beer and loonies and beavers. And of course Sophie's 2nd birthday!
Dwayne has informed me that the relatives have live computers that I can use so I'll be checking in...

I'm losing it here

Today I am losing my mind.
I went in the bathroom and shut the door and screamed "FUUUUUUDDDDGGGEEEE!" as loud as I could, except it really wasn't fudge I said, it was the real "f" word.
I've had it with my daughter.
She can't play nice at all. We went to a friend's house this morning so the kids could play. Yeah, that went over well. First Sophie wanted me to hold her, which is ok except I have a baby to hold and take care of also.
Then when she's playing I hear her crying and saying "that's mine" "That's not yours, that's Sophie's" "Mine, mine!" etc. When actually none of the toys were hers.
Then she starts pushing the other girl. PUSHING! I did not raise her to push other kids. But did she listen to me when I tried telling her that we don't push our friends? And when I tried to reason with her why we don't do that?
Oh, that would be the day, when Sophie actually listens.
Everytime I asked Sophie a question or offered her something, I was given the the nice reply of "No" or "Uh uh."
OY VAY!!
I am so glad we are leaving on vacation this weekend. I'm dropping the kids off at their grandparents and leaving. I'm heading straight to the bar and I'm not coming back!
I think the other reason I've lost it is the lack of sleep night after night.
Did I mention that Holden sucks at sleeping and taking naps? He does.
He takes piddly 30 minute naps throughout the day, usually woken up by his sister's crying. Then at night he's so tired he cries. And it's not the sweet little cries you hear from many babies, it is the SCREAMING LOUD CRY that could only come from my children. (This is a little payback for being so loud myself I suppose).
So yes he CRIES and CRIES at night until he finally falls asleep at 11pm or so. This is an unacceptable bedtime for my baby.
And when he finally gets to sleep, it doesn't last very long. He squirms a lot at night, wakes up, and is forever losing the pacifier, so I am up about every half hour sticking it back in. I know a solution would be to not let him have the paci at night, but after the hours of screaming he likes to suck on it to get to sleep. And we are so tired of the crying by then, neither of us dare take it away for fear of him starting back up again.

We have his 4 month Dr appt tomorrow so maybe, hopefully she'll have some wonderful advice for us.

Twist tie use #97

When you're at the lake and the clasp on your swimsuit breaks, a twist tie does the job very well!
This was a blessing in disguise because even though the swimsuit top was trashed, that meant I had a real reason to shop for another one.
And where do you go to find a cute, affordable suit? Target of course!!

Way Back Wednesday

This is a new game TheKeptWoman wants us to play on Wednesdays.
Today I share pictures from junior high.

Here I am in 6th grade...

Don't you like my sweater that says "HOT"? You know you want one.

And 7th grade (definitely had better hair this year)...


And then there's 8th grade or if you're Canadian you say "grade 8"

I think I looked better the year before.

The First Wedding...that never happened

Here's the requested story of the wedding that got called off/postponed 2 weeks before the date.
I'm trying to figure out where to start the story. It would take quite awhile to tell it all so I'll try and give it to you in a nutshell.
I was engaged to my love named Todd. I was 19 at the time and in college. Our love was very deep and INTENSE. We loved each other with every ounce of our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls. We couldn't stand to be away from each other and rarely ever were. (of course hindsight and a little growing up tells me this is called "codependency" and is unhealthy for a relationship, but we didn't realize that at the time)
We were engaged in the fall (you saw the ring) and everything was honky-dorey. Slowly as the year passed on, I became depressed. I had had a good friend pass away in the fall and didn't know how to deal with it, as well as some other inner issues with myself. Todd stood by me all the way. I received treatment with medication and therapy and began to heal. But somehow I had really dragged Todd down with me in the midst of my dark depression. So as I began to heal and realize that it was healthy for couples to be apart, he clung to me more. The more I tried to heal and have a life of my own outside him, the more he clung and resisited.
Round and round in circles we went. Our intense love, high emotions, and passion also brought on intense fighting and psychological undoings.
This was getting closer and closer to our wedding that we had been planning throughout the year. But we both thought things would get better. I mean we loved each other that's all that mattered right?
Well, along came June and two weeks to the wedding date. The invitations had long been sent out. The plans had been made and everything paid for: the church and pastor, the wedding dress, the reception hall, the cake, the dj, the flowers, the caterers, the bridesmaids and groomsmen, guest travel arrangements, etc.
But were we ready? We truly did want to get married, we loved and cared for each other deeply and longed to be together forever. But for as passonate and strong as our love was, so was our fighting. So when you are screaming and fighting at each other everyday and don't know how to deal with the changes in the evolving relationship, should you still get married? We decided the best choice was to postpone the wedding until we could get it together.
A very hard and heart wrenching decision to make, not to mention embarrassing too! Had to call all the guests and try and explain it. Not to mention all the wedding details/vendors to be cancelled and the $$ that was lost. And a whole lot of crying to be done.
And after that...
well let's just say I'm not married to him now. We never did reschedule the wedding because after months and years of being together and trying to piece back the realtionship the way it used to be, it just didn't happen.
So that would be the very short version of the story.

Now I'm happily married to my love, Dwayne. A much different kind of love- more stable and constant without the high degree of drama all the time.

SPF

For those of you who are new here this is Stuff Portraits Friday (SPF), a weekly event brought to us by Kristine.
Here are this week's categories:
-your keys
-your view from the front door
-something you kept from a past relationship


Definitely the minimalist here: one car key and house key
But my car key is hidden in the remote, you have to push the silver button and it comes out like a switchblade. cha-CHA!


Ahhhh, so nice... this was a big reason why we moved here. A private cul-de-sac, no view into neighbors' houses.


That would be the engagement ring. We called off (actually postponed, but eventually never did happen) the wedding 2 weeks before the big day. A story for another day..

The pull-up

These are Sophie's attempts at putting on her own diaper. Good try Sophie!
(Notice that both legs are in the same hole)

She's too smart I tell ya

We were at the library for our weekly Monday afternoon of killing time and keeping Sophie entertained. Oh I mean we were there reading and checking out books to enrich my child's mind. Yep, that's it.
So anyway it was time to leave. She never wants to leave. I kept reminding her that in a few minutes we were going to go home (trying to avoid a big tantrum at the surprise of having to leave). And then I say "Sophie it's time to go home."
"No." (big surprise there)
"We have to go home so we can cook dinner and see Daddy."
"No."
"Ok, I'm leaving."
I walk away out of sight and watch her behind the bookshelf. She looks up and says matter of factly "She not leave me."
What?!?! She's totally supposed to fall for that for at least another year. She's not even two yet- how does she know I'm not really going to leave her?

scorpion update

Well I found one more live one, very tiny, but thank goodness Dwayne was home to save me. He killed it quickly and without so much as blinking. Me on the other hand, he had to calm down.
That makes 3 live ones in about 3 weeks. Too many for me!!
I have serious scorpion anxiety now.
My friend Carrie sent some websites on how to get rid of scorpions. While reading all the suggestions people also talked about the places you find the scorpions...crawling out of the light fixtures/ceiling fans, in your closet, shoes, your bed linens, under appliances, etc.
While I'm reading all this I start feeling them everywhere. The tag scratching my neck was a scorpion, the computer cord that just moved was a scorpion, the noises from Holden were scorpions, the spots on the floor... they were everywhere I tell you! I got really freaked and think I had a full on anxiety attack.
It hasn't gotten much better. I am constantly on "scorpion alert"- wearing shoes at all times, turning on the lights and scanning the floors, freaking out if something unfamiliar so much as touches or tickles me. I've had nightmares about them.
Like I said, I have serious scorpion anxiety.
My mind thinks the house is filled with them and at any turn I'm going to find one and they'll attack me.
So yesterday was no good when I DID find one. This one was dead, long dead and even in pieces. But it was a scorpion none the less.
Thank goodness we'll be leaving for Canada soon. I don't think they have scorpions up there. I can take a break from all my anxiety and the hard work of being on scorpion patrol all day long.
Of course when I come back my house will be full of them again.
I feel like my dad being so obsessive... I hope this is not a sign of things to come.

Our weekend excursion

My friend Renee got married this weekend out at this lovely ranch in the little town of Fayetteville, TX. It was a nice getting away from the weekend usuals around here. And so peacefful out in the country. What a nice time!
We left Friday with the car packed for a two week long trip- if you have small kids then you know what I'm talking about- the pack n' play, snacks, sippy cups, diapers (lots of em!), wipes, breastpump, toys, clothes, pacifiers, thermometer, children's tylenol... and the list goes on and on. But we were gonna be out in the middle of the country so you never know what your gonna need. And there's no local Walgreens or HEB to run to quickly if you forgot something.
So anyway, we got there Friday and went to our little farmhouse we rented for the weekend. So cute and quaint... please take a look at our photos in the Fayetteville slideshow.
Sophie was SO excited to see real cows! We also got to see horses, goat, sheep, ducks... she she would say "just like my farm at home" (her Little People Farm).
Then we tooted around the little town for awhile; met some interesting country folk.
One lady who was sitting on her front porch swing came out to chat with us and admire the babies. She went on to tell us the names of all her relatives (including her brothers, sisters, 13 grandchildren, and 27 great grandchildren), the neighbors, their names, ages, and how long each had lived there. Yes, one of the perks of living in a small town: an elderly know-it-all who knows your business and everybody else's in town too!
Saturday we helped get ready for the wedding. I'm a little upset at myself for forgetting to take a good picture of the ranch where it was held- duh!
But the wedding was short and sweet and the reception was a lot of fun. Got to see an old friend from college, Carrie, who I haven't seen in forever!
Sophie stayed up way past her bedtime but did surprisingly well. Of course we PAID the next day!
We took our time leaving Sunday and planned it so the kids took their naps in the car on the way home. Ahhh, peace and quiet. Nothing like the trip on the way there where Holden cried, I mean screamed, for about 45 minutes. That was delightful. He finally calmed down after I got in the backseat. Then Sophie and I watched Baby Einstein on the DVD player in the back. She thought that was pretty cool. And what do you thnk she wants to do now everytime we get in the car?

the SPF (stuff portraits Friday)

This week we have:
-something stolen (or borrowed and not returned)
-unopened (or unused) present you forgot to return
-your perfume or cologne

I know you will all be SO jealous of these glasses. But you cannot have them! I stole them fair and square from the hockey rink. They used to be the glasses that the skate-sharpener person would wear, but they matched my outfit that night and I HAD to have them. And they look so much better on me anyway!


The big bottles, the formula, the car bottle warmer... never opened them or used them. I kept saving them just in case I might use them, but never needed them.


This is why I smell so good...

Mommy and Holden

I hardly ever get in the pictures since I'm always the one taking them. So I thought I'd post one of me and my cute boy.
Holden's three months old now and getting so heavy to carry around in that darn carseat carrier.
He likes to smile and play with us a lot. He likes watching his big sister too (I just hope he's not learning how to throw a mean temper tantrum like her).
And here we are in my favorite seat of the house- the one in front of the computer of course.
I told Dwayne we would have to bring his tablet (seen in background) along when we go on vacation to Canada. And he's like "I don't want to carry a computer along. Why do we need to bring a computer with us?"
Um, H-E-L-L-O!?!? "I'm Jackie, have we met?"
I have serious computer needs. My 20+ daily blogs to read, my email, my Bo Bice updates, music, photos, do I need to go on? And people will want to read about our trip to Canada on my blog.
I'm still recovering from that silly question.

too hot

Sophie: "Mommy, I want to go play outside."

Mommy: "Not right now, it's too hot outside" (like 99 degrees)

Sophie: "I'll go blow on it." Goes to window and blows. "Ok, it's just right."

I HATE HATE HATE them!

Scorpions that is.

My weekly babysitter, who is deathly afraid of bugs- cockroaches, scorpions, spiders,... calls me this morning while I'm out shopping.
"I just wanted to say that Holden's ok, so don't get worried that I'm calling. But I found a scorpion! Actually, Archie found it and was playing with it." panic in her voice
"UGH! I hate those things." me, wondering if she'll actually be able to kill it.
She wanted to get the bugspray and kill it from afar, but I wasn't sure about flooding our wood floors with that stuff. But I definitely didn't want it running around free.
"Do you think you could get one of Dwayne's shoes and kill it?"
"Well I'm really afraid to. Maybe I can put a box over it and trap it til you get home."
"Ok, you can get shoebox and put something heavy on top of it so Archie doesn't want to play with it some more."

Later when I get home, there's a shoebox with a footstool on top, surrounded by 2 dining room chairs. Just to be safe.
I don't blame her.
Why is it that I always find the scorpions when Dwayne isn't home?!? I have to be the brave one! Have to kill them and make our house safe for the children. That is really the only reason I think I'm able to do it.

I carefully removed the chairs, stool, and box and screamed as I beat the thing mercilessly to death. 20 whacks with my shoe did the job. Then 12 papertowels to pick it up and throw it in the garbage. Meanwhile my heart is racing and I'm practically shaking, but the babysitter is cheering me on!

Everytime I find one of these fuggers I am scared for a week or so in the house. I start seeing them everywhere, the dead leaf on the floor, the dark spot on the wood, the pattern on the rug... and then I get scared to walk around barefoot too. And I love to walk around barefoot- who wants to wear shoes in the house?

Please send some juju my way that keeps all the scorpions away!!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

Here's a peek at our Father's day...

Hmmm...looks like a lot of sleeping!


And the tiniest, cutest feet ever...

More pictures

Yes I was in a picture-taking sort of mood this weekend!
And there are even more at Flickr- just click on one of the pictures and it'll take you there to see more.
You know what I love about digital cameras? You can take naked pictures and don't have to worry about the perverted photo lab guy keeping them or refusing to give them back to you. Oh yeah, and you can take lots and lots of pictures, ditch the ones you don't want without having to worry about wasting an entire roll of film.

Here's our house...


The Saturday morning coffee...


The newly refinished deck


The almost-two-year-old who can be SO cute and sweet, yet can turn right around and be a big pain-in-the-butt!