A blog about my career as a parent.

Saturday, November 03, 2007

Luxury

As I was savoring a rare, uninterrupted, 15 minute shower this morning I began to think, "Isn't it amazing how once you have children, your definition of luxury changes?"

A luxurious bath experience once meant 30 - 45 minutes in a hot, bubble bath with a glass of wine or cup of hot tea/coffee, listening to relaxing music on the radio. Now a luxurious bath experience is a hot shower before noon that lasts longer than 10 minutes and doesn't include children banging on the door, passing notes under the door, or hearing the baby cry as soon as you get lathered up.

Having a luxurious dinner involved a nice restaurant, a glass or two of wine, an appetizer, a delicious entree, and lingering over coffee or dessert while having a stimulating conversation with my husband and/or friends. A luxurious dinner now means getting to sit down while the food is still somewhat warm, getting to eat without a baby in my lap, and not having to get up or cut anyone else's food during dinner.

A luxurious bedtime experience used to mean going to bed with my husband, you fill in the blanks, sleeping late into the morning, and eventually getting up once the morning drowsiness wore off and the need for caffeine kicked in. Now it means going to bed and getting 5 - 6 hours of sleep before the baby awakens.

The interesting thing is, I appreciate and enjoy the type of luxurious moments I have now, post children, much more than the type I used to have.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

At Least I Won't Starve

Today when it was time to go pick S. D. up from pre-school, I couldn't find my keys anywhere. After frantically searching the house, I remembered that G. had been using my keys when we drove to our friends' house for trick-or-treating with the kids, and that he'd used his keys on the way home. Much to my horror, I realized that either my keys were locked in the car or were left at our friends' home. I called G. to ask him if he knew where my keys were, on the off chance he'd set them down somewhere I hadn't thought to look. Of course, no luck there. We finally reached the conclusion that he'd have to come home and let me into the car to see if they were in there.

I called the school to let them know that I would be late and why. Thank goodness for after care! Then I set about looking for the keys and moving things around with one hand while toting the baby around with the other. Finally G. showed up and opened the car. No keys in the console, side of the door, glove compartment or on the floor of the front seat! G. gave me his set and off I went to the school to pick up S. D. while he headed back to work.

At the end of the school driveway, who should I see leaving the school, non other than the friend who probably had my keys sitting on her kitchen table/counter. I stopped, rolled my window down, and told her what was up. She told me that they hadn't seen them anywhere. These are very neat people; they don't live in Clutterland as we do, so I figured that if she didn't notice them, they must be somewhere in the car, I just needed to search again.

After getting S. D. I realized that there wasn't enough time for me to go home and get back in time to pick up S. F. so I drove around hoping and praying that Little G. would stay asleep until it was time to get his other big sister. Luckily, he did. Of course those little eyes popped open the instant she got into the car, but amazingly he stayed in a good mood until we got home.

As soon as it was possible to put him down after we got home, I went out to resume my search. I decided not to limit the search to just the front seat where the adults sit. I thought, "How long can it take? The car was thoroughly cleaned before we went on vacation in August. It shouldn't take long to search." HAH!

As I looked in the back of the car, I began to get thoroughly annoyed with my girls, especially with S. F. the twelve year old. I allow my kids to snack in the car. I believe it helps to expedite the homework process. If they eat their snack on the way home, then they can get straight to the homework once they get in the house. At least that's the theory, admittedly it doesn't always happen that way in practice.

I was under the impression that S. F. had been gathering up most of the trash and pitching it when we got home. I figured there woud be a couple of things under the seat, but I didn't expect it to be as bad as it was right before my annual vacation car cleanup. Apparently she's been storing most of the trash under the seat, even though each afternoon I see her taking trash to the trashcan in the driveway. (note to self - find out what exactly she is throwing away)

I did eventually find my keys on the third seat of the car. Apparently they had fallen out of G.'s pocket when he was getting the girls into the very back of the car.

After being really annoyed with the girls for a while about all the junk that they've shoved under the seats of my car, I decided to look on the bright side. I realized that between all of the half eaten Oreos, half drunk bottles of water, partial fruit roll-ups, and of course mold growing on some of these, I'll be well taken care of if I'm ever in a car accident where I'm trapped and they can't find me for a few days. I'll be able to eat, drink, and make my own antibiotics until help arrives. ;)

Can You Believe It's November?

Halloween is over! :)

S. F. decided to be a panda bear for Halloween. We forgot about stuffing the costume with a pillow, and since we were over at a friends' house to trick-0r-treat, she looked more like a severely anorexic panda.

The kids had a great time. S. D. in her skunk costume charmed everyone with her excessive cuteness. Of course we had the obligatory touching of her curly hair by total strangers. I think we'll have to enroll her in martial arts classes soon. ;)

Of course we forgot to take our camera, so I'm going to have to make them dress up this weekend in order to get photos. Thank goodness that Halloween is on a Friday next year. Thank you Leap Year. I hate it when Halloween is on a week night. Even though the kids were angels last night, they were a bit testy and tired this morning. All in all it's pretty good though.

On to Thanksgiving and Christmas!

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Yea! I'm Accomplishing Something!

Here it is the night before Halloween, and I'm finishing up my eldest's costume, baking cupcakes for my middle one's Halloween party, and freezing food I cooked tonight for the next few nights. This feels like the most I've accomplished in weeks.

For the past month and a half it seems like all I've done is transport one child or another back and forth to the pediatrician or orthopedist. The baby and the four year old keep getting ear infections, and we keep having to tinker with the baby's Zantac dosage since he has acid reflux. S. F. broke her wrist playing field hockey. Now she's getting an orthosis, which is a fancy word for back brace, to try to halt the progression of her scoliosis. I think if the kid gets anymore x-rays she's either going to glow in the dark or develop super powers.

Thank goodness I don't have to take anyone to the doctor again until next month when the kids get their flu shots, and S.F. goes back for her next orthosis adjustment. Wait a minute, next month is the day after tomorrow. Oh well, maybe I'll get a break from being the super chauffeur after the New Year. ;)

I will say it does feel good to produce something you can see. The cooked food in the 'fridge, the cupcakes cooling on the counter, and the costume drying on dining room table (gotta love that fabric glue) do make me feel better. Now if I could just make the dishes magically get clean.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

The Saga of the Addition(s)

Doctor: You're pregnant.

Me: Are you sure?

Doctor: Yes.

Me: You mean it isn't early menopause?

Doctor: No, you're pregnant.

Me: What do you mean it isn't early menopause?! (Even though I'd done a home pregnancy test, I was still in just a little bit of denial. Can you tell?)

Fourteen months ago my husband, G., and I found out we were to have another child. This news came as quite a shock, because I wasn't supposed to be able to have more children. Our four year old exists solely because of IVF. The fertility doctor who performed my surgery prior to going through IVF and the IVF itself apparently is as great as he thinks he is, since we got pregnant with S. D. on the first cycle, and we got pregnant naturally 3 years later.

G. accepted it a lot quicker than I did. After his initial, "Holy cow! How are we going to afford to have another kid, and where will he sleep?" reaction, he was absolutely overjoyed.

Call me selfish, but I had come to terms with the idea of not having anymore children and was looking forward to going back to school and getting a part time job once S.D. started school full time. I mourned the news for a month, meaning I cried every time I was in the shower where no one could hear me. I had just gotten back into decent shape. I was up to 175 crunches a day, and I was doing 11.5 miles on the exercise bike 5 times a week. I was also upset because I'm not one of those women who have easy pregnancies; the prospect of lots of bed rest with a 3 year old running around the house was not a happy thought. If you ever need to know anything about hyperemesis, anencephaly, polyhydramnios, or incarcerated uterus's, I'm your gal.

It actually took having some spotting for me to realize that I really, really wanted this little baby. Don't get me wrong, terminating was never an option. I knew that once he/she got here that I'd love him/her as much my others. I was just mourning the loss of the future I'd come to envision. As soon as I was faced with the idea of losing the baby, I knew that I had to do everything possible to make certain he/she got here safely. Now that he's here, I am absolutely in love with this adorable little guy, and can't imagine life without him. What was I thinking?

Talking about this cute, adorable, little addition to our family brings me to the topic of the other addition we're trying to cope with.

After the initial shock of having another child wore off, we realized that our current home as is, simply isn't big enough. Of course, we also found out about our little guy's imminent arrival just when the real estate market started to tank in our area. Moving also came with it's own set of problems. Our 12 year old with Asperger's Disorder doesn't cope well with change. We figured the arrival of another child was enough for her to deal with, let alone moving to a completely different neighborhood. Also, in order to sell our house, we would have had to live in our camper to show it; otherwise we would never be able to sell it. Since having children, clutter seems to have become our natural habitat. There is also the problem of all of the 2/3 finished projects around the house that would need to be completed ASAP.

We decided that the best course of action was to build an addition to our current home. The fun is just beginning. First we had to find an architect and decide on the plans. This took a little longer than we expected. Now that we have the plans, we're dealing with the joy of finding a contractor.

When we first came to the decision to add on to our house, we thought we knew what contractor we'd use. The same honest, trustworthy builder who built not only my MIL and FIL's addition, but also my BIL's addition. This guy is great! Imagine our horror when my husband contacted him only to find out that he'd gotten out of the business. He told my husband that he'd gotten out, because he was tired of dealing with all of the sharks in the business. He wished us luck in finding that most rare of all things, an honest contractor.

We now have bids ranging from $160,000 - $300,000. (Yes, we live in the suburbs of a major city, meaning higher prices.) When the guy called me with the $300,000 quote, I actually laughed at him and asked if he was planning to use platinum as a building material. We could move 30 minutes away from where we are and have a four bedroom house for $350,000 - granted it would be on a postage stamp sized lot, but $300,000 for our little addition is a bit much. I think I offended him, because we haven't heard a peep from him since.

Then there's the contractor that told us he'd get a quote to us within a week. Five weeks later we got the quote, but he still hasn't gotten his references to us. My gut tells me not to go with him either.

We've had the 'good ole boys' contractors out, too. These guys are really nice, but when the lead guy told us he had to take the plans to three other builders to get ideas on how to go about building our addition, let's just say our confidence level wasn't too high. Now, I'm not a builder, but the plans the architect drew up seem pretty straightforward to me.

Then there's the guy who couldn't find our house and didn't bother to call to let us know he was planning on coming out anyway. My husband played phone tag with him for two weeks. He has a bad habit of not returning calls, and he doesn't even have the job yet. Imagine how bad he'll be at returning calls once work begins. We don't think we'll be using him either.

Of all the contractors we've had out to the house, only one has stood out. He came prepared with a quote based on the plans and photos he got from the architect. When we told him we thought he was a little on the high side, he reworked the quote and came back $20,000 cheaper within 24 hours. He also got his references to us within 24 hours of our request. I keep wondering what's wrong with him. He doesn't act like a normal contractor.

We'll keep you posted on the addition(s) saga as it continues. Maybe we'll have the baby out of our bedroom by the time he's in kindergarten.