RazNoggle

So this is what my foggy brain is working through, and my lagging energies are attempting to accomplish today.

1. Clean and sanitize CHECK
. Bottles and baby items
. Pump

2. Finish packing hospital bag
. Pack Baby’s diaper bag CHECK

3. Finish sanding Baby’s dresser (Unfortunately I can’t seem to find the correct grit sand paper disks so I wasn’t able to work on this while we were “playing” outside this morning. Very frustrating!)

4. Set up Pack n Play and Feeding station w/ rocking chair upstairs. (I haven’t done this yet because I was working on….)

5. Clean infant car seat and Pack N Play Mattress CHECK (Have any of you scrubbed a pack n play mattress before?? I probably wouldn’t have had to do it except that I neglected to make sure there was always a sheet on it while Myles was using it at camp. And you remember me talking about how dirty he got EVERY day, right?? I never did get sheets that were meant to fit that thing, so today I’m going to measure it and make sure I have a couple. Trust me it’s easier to clean the sheets than it is to clean the mattress!! Still I’m pleased that it’s done, and think that I at least made somewhat of an improvement in it. And the car seat, well, it had been leant to my nearly-nephew for his trip to Canada and around AZ last year. I forgot what a burbler he was, but I was reminded when I took the car seat cover off! Whew!! Old baby burble really smells gross, just so ya know. It’s all clean and sparkling now though. The mattress and the seat are sitting outside drying and once that’s done I’ll….)

6. Find bassinet attachment and baby blankets in cellar (Then I can get it all set up in our room)

7. Re-thread car seat belts and car seat cover. (There was a huge drama over this task the first time I took the seat apart to clean it when we just had Qade. For some reason this particular seat is EXCESSIVELY hard to rethread. I’m hoping that some of my acquired “mom skilz” will pay off this time around and I won’t have to resort to screaming and cursing. Ha ha!)

8. Put Baby’s clothes in bins according to age (because I obviously don’t have the dresser done and am tired of her little clothes, cute though they be, piled up all over the house!!!)

So there you have it. At least the parts that I have thought of yet. As you can see there are very FEW check marks which means that I still have a LOT of loose ends. Loose ends are a bane in my life. I get to the point where I just can’t concentrate on any one job because so many of the other taks’s loose ends are flying around in my brain. Not to mention my brain is just bad enough right now on it’s own. Things are starting to come together a little bit though, and I’m sure with some effort on my side I can check several of these off before I go to bed tonight.

Speaking of bed, pray for me if you think of it. I’ve been sleeping lousy, no surprise there, for the last quite some time, and it does take a toll. I think it one of the cruelest tricks in nature to not allow you to sleep BEFORE the baby comes, cause it’s quite certain that you won’t be doing much sleeping after! Ha ha!! Anyway, I am ready for little girl to arrive, but have to remind myself that the “deal” I first made with her was to come Labor Day weekend. *Sigh* So I guess I’ll hold out for another week and hope she remembers her end of the deal!

Happy Lime Green Thursday!

Okay, so I certainly think this is better, though I’m still not convinced it’s “the fix” but it’s a start perhaps. Hmmmmm…. life can be so complicated! I’m working on adjusting my mental picture of what I expected this room to look like, but it might take a little while.

I need serious help here from my creative friends. These “dots” just are not working out as nicely as I anticipated. *sigh* The biggest problem with these right now I think is the size. I really was expecting larger dots. I told you I was putting them up with sticky-tac and that’s good because I’ve already moved them around. At first I was going to try them on two walls. Here are the photos. Keep in mind that because they aren’t actually “stuck” up there yet some of them are kinda curled. It looks even worse on these photos than in real life. I have no idea what I’m going to do!!

But it looked like a room with a bad case of chicken pox or something. They just aren’t big enough to cover that much space. So I took them all and put them on this one wall. Now there’s a big blank spot because that’s where the dresser and a Giraffe poster is going to go. Still, they just don’t look good to me.

So I’m begging for any suggestions or insight some of you may have on this, and in the mean time I’m going to leave a negative feedback on Amazon for these, because it’s really quite pathetic in my way of thinking!!

Well, I’ve decreed that this week is going to be a “non-school” week in order for me to get a little bit more done around here. I will be providing the basics of child care (which around here consists of making sure no one gets clobbered or bossed to death) and then attempting along the way to get the baby stuff DONE!! This past weekend just wasn’t long enough for me to complete my more-than-I-can-chew list, sadly.

Today while the munchkins were playing outside and between crises I continued to work on sanding the dresser. Believe me there were an abominable number of crisis to deal with today. Good grief. I can only sand with the compressor for probably less than a min before I have to let it rest, and it seemed that each time I lifted my head SOMEONE was crying or screaming. My goodness!! Nap time is a very welcome friend today! I have 3 more drawers to sand, and then I need to go over it all again with a finer grit sandpaper. I’m hoping I can get the drawers done this afternoon and start on the second sanding by tomorrow. In the mean time I’m going to fill some rubbermades with some of the baby clothes we have so that I can start to make sense of things. Right now everything that is SUPPOSED to end up in little girl’s room is strewn about the “family” room in no particular order. Living in upheaval makes me kind of crazy!

Also on my list of things to do today is wash what’s left of the newborn stuff and a few items that have been given me. I realized yesterday that I hadn’t dug out any of the burp clothes and such that were so much of a necessity with my very spit-upy baby boys! I nearly panicked when the thought occurred to me! Ha ha ha! Never mind that I don’t have a “bag” packed for the hospital or that I haven’t cleaned the pack n’ play and found the bassinet attachment yet, if I don’t have burp cloths ready we’re in BIG trouble!! I was so SURE that she was going to decide to make her debut last night simply because I wasn’t READY!! Ha ha ha!! And even though I felt totally panicked, instead of getting up and doing all that stuff all night long (which might have prompted her arrival) I just rolled over in bed and made a “decision” that today (and the rest of the week) would be “get ready for baby time.” Do you ever crack yourself up? It amuses me how spotty my common sense can be sometimes. Especially with the added benefit of mommy and pregnancy brain! So I’m in the process of packing my bag today as well. We’ll see what happens with the pack n’ play.

While I was shopping at Wal-Mart with my two lads in tow after my appt yesterday I had another of those “panic” moments… don’t ask me why this is happening, I’m not usually so hyper. This time it was about the fact that we have NO girl blankets!! I had this vision in my head that our sweet darling little girl would have to come home from the hospital swaddled up in one of her brother’s blue blankets! Wouldn’t that just scar her for life? Well, I saw a couple fleece blankets for $4 so now I can rest easy knowing that she has at least 2 pink blankets! Ha ha ha!!! Oh well, I have no excuse for myself really. I have insane moments now and then, and I’m sure that I’m probably not the only one.

I’m working today too on putting up the “dots” in baby girl’s room. I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed in them. There are 72 or something like that of them, but MOST of those are teeny-tiny ones. *sigh* So I’ve cut them all out and am now putting them up with sticky-tac in order to be able to move them around. I have to see how it’s going to look before I commit to actually peeling-and-sticking them on the wall. Hopefully Stu will be able to advise me tonight when he’s home. I’d rather not order more, but if it comes down to it, I suppose I will rather than hate the walls that I’ve been so excited about. Oh the crisis of life! I’m quite humored actually!

Hope you are having an equally hilarious day!

So sue me if the image I had in my had about this Saturday was me sipping a tall glass of iced lemonade while basking in a cool sea-flavored breeze as I gently swayed back and forth in an oversized hammock. Not like I really expected that to happen, right? We don’t live by the sea, and we don’t own a hammock…. though I should look into that! Ha ha ha! No, my more realistic expectations for today were to get a little extra rest and then to get some stuff done that is in desperate need of doing!

For a little while there, I felt like I had all this time to get “stuff” ready for the baby and suddenly I feel like we’re running out of time!! Ack! I’m so thankful that my bro came and painted the room for me though! I can’t tell ya what a HUGE help and boost to the process that was! The wall quote and the polka dots I ordered have come in, so one of my goals for today is to get those up on the walls. I think once that is done it will make a big difference in that room!! I am taking pictures of the process! Progress for me! I usually think of it half way through, so I’m not nearly as good at documenting my projects and things as many of my friends are.

The biggest project for today is the little lady’s dresser. My MIL found one for us on craigslist! Gotta love that! But I wasn’t wild about the kind of yellowy-light-piney look to the wood. SO I’m gonna “fix” it. Originally I was just looking for a cheap dresser that I wouldn’t feel bad about painting, because in my mind that was the easiest fix. However, this one seems to be “real” wood, so I’m thinking that a nice cherry or walnut stain on it will actually look awesome! So my hubby fixed me up with the compressor sander and I am busily working on it right now, can’t you tell? No really, I am! I have to let the compressor motor “rest” between goes so that’s why I’m sitting in the cool house writing blog posts. Hee hee!! It’s going well, and I think we’ll be able to get it done quickly. If I can check this and the wall decor off my list this weekend, I think I’ll be feeling more “ready” and less hurried, ya know what I mean??

I did sleep in today and that felt wonderful!! Pray with me that our little gal loves to sleep as much as her brothers have! Ha ha!! That would be a huge blessing! Even though I may not be technically “ready” for her to be here, I’m still ready for her to be here! And if you’ve had babies you know exactly how that feels! Yesterday I read through the manuel of my baby K’tan sling to learn how to use it. I need to practice though, so I’m thinking about making Myles my guinea pig this afternoon if I can catch him! I’m totally “into” slings right now. I didn’t use them at all with Qade. We had a baby bjorn that we used with him, and I like it a lot, but it’s not the same cozy feeling as a sling gives. With Myles I was just starting to get into using them when he was around 8 or 9 months old, so his slinging career was a short one, but long enough for me to know that I really like using them. So this time, poor little girl will just have to be “slung” everywhere. Hope she likes it!

The lads are having a great time playing outside while I project away today. They learned last evening that they can climb up the slide if they take off their shoes. So of course, that is the newest and greatest thing to do! It’s been nice this morning with having just them here to entertain and play with each other. There has been so much less drama, and much more getting along on their parts. I’m not even remotely saying that when the girls are here all the drama comes from them, not so, but having 2 more selfish beings in the mix can bring out the drama in everyone. It just is nice to have a little family time on the weekends. I’m lovin’ it!

Hope you are all having a swell weekend!! Toodles!

Yeah, this week has been a wash as far as successful nap time goes. Today was by far the worst!! But since it’s Friday anything can be endured right?? Today’s was a mixed blessing actually. Qade got up, less than an hour after going “down” to tell me he needed to “go pee” and then did! I was very proud of him for “taking care of business” but rather pessimistic about him going back to sleep. I was right on that last part too. He managed to wake up Myles, who has been getting up WAY early from his naps all week anyway, and even though I sat in their room for half an hour reminding them to keep their eyes closed and go to sleep, it didn’t happen. Not to be daunted out of getting a little peace and quiet for my own sanity, I just closed the room to their door. They’ll get up at 3 just as if they’d been sleeping the whole time. I insist on having some “mommy time” during the day even if they are just having room time and spreading their toys all over creation instead of sleeping.

Well, I came back out to the living room after closing the door on the boys JUST IN TIME to hear the girls getting up. *SIGH SIGH SIGH!!!!* Oh well, my mantra for today is “IT’S FRIDAY!!!!” I’m really hoping that the girls ma will show up early(er) today than she has been. It’s been closer to 4:30 or yesterday it was 5 before she came. I know it’s the first couple weeks of school so things are still trying to get settled in, but that’s going to have to change once the little one arrives for sure. I already told you it’s that space in time in the late afternoons that the boys are at their worst, and as I recall both of them as infants struggled in that dinner-bed time block as well. So if little sis follows suit that means that between 4 and 7 will be some tough times in our house for awhile. Therefore the ladies need to be gone by then. That’s my reasoning anyway. I’m sure it won’t be a problem though. Everything has been working out very well despite the daily disputes, which hopefully they are learning to managed better amongst themselves. Seems so anyway.

But back to the topic at hand. The boys will be going to bed early tonight so I can get a jump-start on my weekend resolution of relaxation! I think since they robbed me of my quiet time this afternoon, it’s only fair! Ha ha ha!!

Hope you all have a swell weekend, and get a good nap in if you can! Toodle-oo!!

I’m super-duper excited that tomorrow is Friday!!! Today didn’t go that well with all the munchkins. Seemed everyone was having a hard time listening and following directions as well as playing nicely together! Whew! I may be a fat pregnant lady, but I can still hustle if I have to correct some saucy or out right defiant behavior. If they think they’re going to pull that one over, hopefully today gave them a glimps into reality.

Anyway, I was glad to see the ladies go home, and glad to get my own two in bed! It’s been a long day, and a long week!! I’m seriously looking forward to this weekend, and will be as completely lazy as I possibly can be! Lazy days of parenthood are not nearly the same as lazy days of singlehood or even newlymarriedhood, but they are still good. Stuart comes from a long line of “non-relaxers” so he will most likely be as busy as ever this weekend. I guess it’s relaxing in it’s way, some people like to relax with more work, but I’m hoping that I can get some ACTUAL rest in there somewhere. Perhaps the lads can help their dad with the serious relaxation while I do the easy stuff!

Although, I’m pretty motivated to get baby girl’s room done now, so that might come into play with my weekend plans. My brother, James, came over for the express purpose of painting the room for me!!! Woo-Hoo!!! It was desperately in need of some new paint, and while I figured it would get done someday, I wasn’t terribly motivated to do it myself. Now it’s all shiny and new looking with a creamy color on the walls. The paint I chose has just a teeeeeeeny touch of a pink.. more like a far away suggestion. So that worked out well. It doesn’t look pink when you see it, but if you really look closely it has a touch of that Southwestern deserty pink in it. Now if the chocolate colored polka dots I ordered would just arrive then we’d really make something out of it!! I forgot to take a true before picture, but I’ll take one tomorrow before I put up her little wall quote. At least that has arrived. I’m really excited about this tiny room and the sweet little bundle it’s being prepared for! Yay!!!

Speaking of bundles, a gal in our church is having a shower for myself and another lady who just had a baby girl. It’s going to be on Sunday after church, and I’m sure will be a ton of fun! It’s hard to tell people what you “need” when you’ve already had a kid (or two) because most of the ‘gear’ and such is still usable. My wonderful sis-in-law is getting a car seat cover for our infant seat. I know it wasn’t a necessary thing, but I thought it would be nice to have something a little more girlie for her than the blue seat that Qade and Myles used. The cover I found is a giraffe print with chocolate and lime green accents. I love it!! Think I’ll make a hat or something out of it when it’s done being used! Ha! But anyway, back to the shower, I did mention that we can always use diapes and wipes! So I imagine that’s what we’ll be bringing home! It’ll be a fun day, though probably pretty tiring. I wear out very quickly on Sundays I’ve discovered. I enjoy the preaching and the kind people in the church, but it is a difficulty to live 45 min away and then have to take care of shopping on church days too. Still, I’m thankful for the church and the wonderful ladies who run the sunday school program for our lads!

I’m rambling rather randomly now, so I think that’s a sign that it’s time for bed! Hope that you all have a fantastic Friday!!! I certainly plan to. It might involve a lot of rope and duct tape, but I’m gonna have a good Friday! Just kidding, of course!!!!!!

Here is the other self portrait I took that I posted on FB. I thought perhaps I’ll stick it up here too in case any of you missed it there. It seems to be the favorite based on feedback. Ta ta!