New Year's Resolutions

Stolen from George Takei

New Year's Eve found me somewhere I haven't been in a long time - at a party. Yesterday afternoon, Finn and I loaded up and headed to my sister's house for a slumber party.  Once the boys were in bed, the grandparents were left to hold down the fort, and the rest of us went to one of the neighbor's house for a lovely New Year's Eve party.  I wasn't too sure how long I would last (especially without alcohol to fuel my need to watch the ball drop) but I made it up until midnight, and then even later when J and I went back home and stayed up late talking about our family.

Morning came way too early, but it was an early that started with my little boy snuggled up close to me.  It wasn't long before he heard his cousins downstairs and demanded that we go down to join them.  It was such a joy to see them all interacting.  Finn is just old enough to play with them, and he worships D, his oldest cousin, so much fun was had by all.  It was noisy, either with laughter or shouts or tears, and occasionally maddening, but still so much fun.

I napped with Finn this afternoon, and as I dozed, I thought about the clean slate of the year ahead.  Over the past few months I've made huge steps towards getting my life ready for baby #2, but I've still got a long ways to go.  I know one of the realities of having another child is going to be that I will feel like my life is out of my control at times, and I'm going to have very little free time to myself.  If I'm going to not just survive it, but also manage to enjoy it, I'm going to have to change a lot.

 I've cleaned out the guest bedroom, and started to imagine what it will look like when it becomes Finn's big boy room.  One of the biggest disappointments about this house is that it doesn't give me as much play room as I'd hoped for Finn (though it is much better than my condo).  This weekend I decided that it was time to embrace the clutter, and accept the fact that my house may not look "pretty" for the next few years, but it will be functional.  I rearranged the living room in a way that gives a lot more space for storage of Finn's bigger toys, and gives more room for play as well.  It's not pretty, but it's comfortable.  I've tried to organize all the toys - they've just been thrown into bins in the past, but starting now I'm making a rule that all the pieces of toys, puzzles and games must be kept together, and I'm going to try to find some sort of organization for all the other toys. They toys will be enjoyed much more if they're organized, and the clutter will have some sense of order to it, as well.

I've also bought myself a magnetic weekly calendar.  Each week I have certain things that must be done - I need to spend a certain amount of time on work stuff, I need to do bills once a week, I'd like to read blogs and perhaps write a blog post a few times a week, and starting later this month I'll need to add in time for studying for boards. And then of course there's things like laundry and other household chores. I'm going to put all these tasks on magnets, and each week put them on different days of the week, and try to stick to it.  I decided on magnets so I can easily rearrange if something happens one night and I end up not getting everything done, or decide to do a blog post on my night that I'm supposed to study. It's going to take some experimenting, but I think it might be something that works well for me.

Finally, I'm going to have to start following a budget more strictly.  I've been lax the past few months, but I can't afford that anymore, especially if I end up needing IVF.  I'm going to go back to making lists for my weekly trips to Target, and not buying anything not on the list (a book here, a cute shirt there - it adds up quick!) I'm going to get back to taking my lunch to work most days, too.  I could easily save $250 a month just by doing those changes right there.  After this 2ww is over, and I know what sort of expenses I'm facing in the year ahead, I'll be sitting down to go over my finances and come up with a much more focused plan.

I've never been one to stick to schedules, or be overly organized, but it's time I changed that.  It turns out that life as a single mom is much easier that way!

Growing Eggs

I've found it ridiculously hard to believe that I'm in the midst of TTC this past week.  I think about it a lot, but the last time I did this, I was consumed with it.  Now I'm distracted by washing dishes, changing diapers, storytime and blowing bubbles.  It's always in the back of my mind, but not overwhelming.  Is this the beginning of the second child always feeling neglected?

But today I've been feeling a lot of twinges in my ovaries, and some generalized achiness in my pelvic region, so it's been hard not to wonder what's going on - and suddenly I'm awfully nervous about tomorrow's monitoring ultrasound!  What if my twinges are nothing and I have no developing follicles? What if my lining is really too thick?  It's all very real feeling now (the shots weren't real feeling enough, I guess).

ETA: Oh!  I completely forgot the main reason I was writing this post was to discuss my protocol, as a few asked questions after my last post.  I'm doing the exact same protocol I did with Finn.  Femara 5mg CD (cycle day) 3-7, and then Gonal-F 150 starting on CD 5.  So that gives plenty of time for the Gonal-F to work its magic on the follicles that Femara got started.  I'm now on CD 9, and just took my last scheduled dose of Gonal-F.  With Finn I ended up taking one more dose of Gonal-F before triggering for my CD13 IUI.  We'll see what tomorrow shows!


I rearranged my dining room furniture on Saturday night, putting my dining room table longways in the middle of the room, instead of parallel to the flow of the house.  I've never thought much about feng shui (and I have no idea if this change was feng shui or not) but it suddenly makes sense to me how much of an effect the placing of furniture can have on a room.  I'd not put the table longways in the room because I thought it would make the rooms feel too broken up (the downstairs is an open plan - shotgun style - you can look straight through the house from front door to back), but now that I've done it, I'm surprised to see it makes everything feel better.  The dining room now feels like a useable room, instead of an empty space.  The table is easy access from all sides, and there's now room to put some of Finn's larger toys out of the way on the floor, and you can see the window from the table.

Best of all, it's allowed me to move Finn's high chair into the dining room, so instead of pictures with backgrounds that look like this:

in the kitchen - after blackberry snack

or like this:

breakfast in the dining room

 We now have pictures with a background that looks like this:

dinner with the newly rearranged dining room

Just like that, I like my house a million times more.  I might even get around to taking pictures of it.

Thank You!

Picture Nanny M texted to me today

I owe a huge thanks to all of you who posted such nice, uplifting messages on my last post. And a huge thank you to all of you who were nice enough to keep your mouths shut, instead of yelling at me to quit my whining (even though I deserved it!) The commiseration responses made me feel so much better for feeling the way I do - and the ones that reminded me that I do have a lot more to do these days than garden gave me permission to not feel so guilty about not having the cutest home on the block. Two comments in particular have really stuck with me, and I've been thinking about them over and over again. Evelyn's comment, "when you finally do move out of that house you'll miss it for all the good memories it'll have." And Abby's comment, "if people could see how full-to-bursting your house is with LOVE, everyone would want to live there!"

Hit me over the head with a hammer - here I am with the VERY THING I have wanted my entire life, and I'm feeling down because my house isn't perfect. I know it's normal to feel this way, but I think I've indulged those feelings long enough, and it's time to move on.

Ever since I moved here, I've had this constant thought, "this house is only temporary." Which is true, but temporary could end up being 3-5 years, easily. So instead of feeling like I have to get everything done right now, or that I won't try to make everything the way I like it since I won't be here long, I'm going to work on gradually finding things that fit this house. Not expensive things (I do have a boy, after all) but things that I like that work here; adding my own touches, as Surly Mama said. MN's suggestion about Craig's List was brilliant, too.  And the fall season of consignment sales is just around the corner!

 **** 

 On a completely different note - I'm a pretty firm believer in the power of the mind body connection. Not in the "if you believe it enough, you will get pregnant" sort of way, but more in the way of "every little bit helps". I realized today that for the past 14 months I've concentrated all the positive energy in my body to making milk. And now that it's time to start thinking about my ovaries again, it's hard to do! It's almost a physical act, turning my thoughts towards growing healthy eggs. I've been doing femoral massage every night, I'm listening to Circle + Bloom's precycle meditations, and taking my supplements again which are all helping, but it's still a conscious effort to steer my energy to my reproductive organs.  After over a year of thinking only of growing healthy eggs before I started trying to conceive the first time, it's weird how foreign it feels to me now.

Home Envy

Finn with his favorite toy

This post is about something so ridiculous, I'm almost embarrassed to even write it.  You see, I have horrible house envy.  As many other things as I have going on right now, and with all the difficulties that others are facing, I feel silly being this bothered by my house, but I just can't help myself.

I live in the most adorable neighborhood.  Cute little houses, most with even cuter gardens and front porches.  People here decorate their houses for every holiday, including the 4th of July.  Not just a flag, but full on decorating (one house even had red, white and blue twinkle lights).  My house is a rental, and it looks like it.  The guy who owns it mows the lawn, but only every other week, so half the time it looks ragged.  I have a small little plot of flowers in the back, but that's right next to the plastic pool and water table, which are much loved by Finn, but not so pretty to look at.  I'm the only house on the block with no garage, and I'm right on the corner, so the plastic stuff is hard to miss.  My potted plants are all dead or dying because I can't remember to water them every day and my front porch is just about empty, except for a few of those dying plants and a couple of small lawn ornaments.  I walk by the other houses in my neighborhood and wish that my house was more like them.

Classy, right?

I like the inside of my house, but it is not what I would ever choose if I were buying a house.  It's small, with an open floor plan - you can see straight from the back door to the front door (shotgun style?) The kitchen is huge - there's actually a lot of wasted space with the way it's laid out, but that gives Finn plenty of space to play.  The kitchen table that I love is way too big for the dining room, my furniture doesn't fit quite right in my living room, and the carpet is just a little worn (and it's not hardwood floors).  All the rooms upstairs are small, my bathroom is downright tiny, and I traded in my custom built closets for wire racks...but I have a wonderful front porch off my bedroom.

It doesn't feel like home.  My condo was not right for me and Finn at all, but it felt like home. Not because I'd lived there so long, but because I had made it into a place I loved to be.  I'm having a hard time doing that here, mainly because because of time and money, but also because I am so frustrated knowing that if I could sell my condo, I could buy any one of the homes in this neighborhood and live in a house that I truly loved.

It's ridiculous, I know.  The market sucks, and I'm lucky that I'm still able to pay my mortgage.  Besides, I've only been here since March. While I want to have everything perfect right now, that's just not going to happen. Over the next few months I am going to buy a few more things to organize the mess so it's easier to keep the downstairs neat.  If I could just get motivated, I could get my bedroom completely finished so I could feel cozy and happy in my room, instead of surrounded by clutter.  I would love to buy all new furniture for Finn's room, since what I have was bought for the tiny room I had in the condo, instead of the slightly larger, but much brighter and airier feeling room he has now.  Instead, I'm going to try to find a new bookshelf for his room now, and be happy with that.

While I'd also love to buy a cute set of seats and table for the back, and wooden rocking chairs for the front, I can't afford to do that, either.  I'll keep my eyes out for sales this fall, and maybe I'll luck out with something I can use next year.  Next spring, I think I'm going to plant some hydrangeas in the back to add more color, and to do more to block the ugly air conditioning unit.

I need to get myself to stop wishing for the home that I just can't have right now, and work on making this house into a place that feels like home for me and Finn. We're going to be here a while, so what's really silly is letting myself get so caught up in home envy that I don't do anything to make it better.  And let it bother me so much I waste time writing a blog post about it instead of actually working on the projects I'm in the middle of right now.

Memorial Day Weekend

Dancing outside to Adele

Saturday morning, Finn and I headed out to his third swim lesson.  As soon as we walked in the door he started clapping, he was so excited! He loved the pool time, and while he hates floating on his back, he doesn't mind getting his face wet at all.  He even went under the water 3 times without tears.  Since we've started swim lessons I've gone from having a baby who hated getting his face wet in the bath to a boy who doesn't mind it at all.  Sure makes hair washing a lot easier!  Again I was the only mom in the pool, the rest of the babies (there were 4 of us this week) were there with their dads.  I struck up a conversation with one of the moms after the class was over; it seems the moms come too - to change their babies after the class.  The mom I spoke to said, "I don't know how you do it, coming alone to class with him, and then having to get you both changed after."  She was incredibly nice, and actually insisted that I leave Finn with her while I went to get changed after he was dressed.  Sure made getting dressed easier!

Sunday we met my sister and her boys at the park for breakfast.  The only bad thing about my move is that it's put me another 20 minutes away from her.  We've been trying to find ways to meet up at a halfway point, but before this weekend our meet ups were all at restaurants, which doesn't work all that well with 3 kids ages 5 and younger.  The park was a stroke of brilliance (great idea, J!)  We spread out blankets in the grass and had breakfast together.  D finished eating earlier than the rest of us and was ready to go play, so we pulled out the "how fast can you run to that tree?" challenge.  It always works like a charm. He played and was happy, and we finished our breakfast in peace.

D Running

After food, then headed to the playground.  Most of the playground is still out of Finn's league, but he loves the swings, and he did enjoy going down the slide a few times.  They all loved playing in the sand after that (while I tried hard not to think of all the cats that had used the sand box as their litter box).

The rest of Sunday and all of today has been spent working on the house. I moved 12 boxes of books from the guest bedroom upstairs into the outside storage room downstairs, sorted through old clothes and maternity clothes and worked on decorating the nursery and bathroom.  Finn's nursery is almost done.  It turns out it's awfully hard to hang shelves with a baby around, so that will have to wait.  I have a valance and a poster on order, and might end up getting a different bookshelf for the room, but once all that's done, it's finished.  I don't know why, but one of the big things I wished I had in my condo was a bathroom I could decorate for Finn.  And now I have one!  It's the only room in the house that is actually finished.  The rest of the house looks even messier than when I started, but hopefully next weekend I'll be able to take care of that.

Not the best picture of the bathroom, but you get the idea

On the weaning front - I didn't get the guest bedroom bed cleaned off today as I'd planned, so I was going to put off the sleep weaning for a week.  But then at naptime today he was fighting sleep in bed with me, when he so clearly need to nap.  So I put him in his crib and he was out in 5 minutes.  When tonight started out as another rough night on the going to sleep front, I decided to try Finn in his crib again.  It look at little longer, maybe 15 minutes, but he's been asleep in the crib for almost 3 hours now. I have no idea if it'll last the night, but it's a good start.  It's not what I had planned, but in the long run this might be the best way to go...I guess I'll see what happens tonight and go from there.  Makes me a little sad, thinking of sleeping alone...but my sore neck and back aren't sad at all.

Joy

Thank you all for the great comments after my last post earlier. I'm going with the overwhelming consensus and exploring my options, and not making any decisions right now.

This past week has been horrible at work, but home has been great.  My parents are here, and have been an amazing help with getting unpacked and putting all my new Ikea furniture together.  My new house is still a mess, but the vast majority of the boxes are unpacked, so it's just a matter of getting things put away.

Finn is so much fun - he is full of smiles and giggles and just a joy to be around.  When I come home from work, he squeals and jumps and greets me with huge open mouth kisses.  He loves to blow kisses to anyone who asks for it - he's more consistent with that than he is with waving.  Right when we moved, Finn learned how to sit up from a lying position, and even after two weeks he always gives me a huge grin when he does it.  He's finally crawling, though not consistently; most often he just scoots from one place to the next.  He's in to everything, and interested in everyone and everything around him.

If I laugh, he laughs.  I give him the comb after I comb his hair, and he tries to comb his hair, too.  I put hand sanitizer on, he rubs his hands together like he's putting hand sanitizer on his hands.  When music comes on, his little body starts to dance, and his whole face lights up when songs he especially likes come on (right now he's loving Adele and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious").

He loves his raspberry teether

One little curl on the back of his head

His newest funny face

Years ago, when I imagined being a mom, this is what I dreamed of.  Funny face and all.

All Moved In

With boxes before the move

I had big plans to catch up on everyone's blogs tonight.  I made it through about two days worth, I think, and even then couldn't comment on everything. Miss one week and I feel like I've lost months and months of people's stories!

Our move went incredibly well.  The only bad things about the move were the packers accidentally packed the cat food and the clothes I'd set aside for work on Friday (so I wore dirty clothes to work - the horrors!)  I didn't realize that my new house has gas heat, and so I didn't call the gas company to start service.  And Sunday night was one of the coldest nights of the year.  But the gas is now on (and it was over 70 degrees today), I've worn clean clothes to work every day this week, and I finally have internet service again!

Finn mesmerized by the new dryer

I'm also surrounded by boxes.  Nanny M has helped with the unpacking, but there's still hours and hours worth of boxes to go through.  I probably should have gone used the time before packing to go through my belongings and get rid of the things I don't need anymore, but since I first emailed my relator about moving on January 16th and moved 6 weeks later, I guess I just didn't have the time!  Despite the chaos around me, I love being in a house.  I love being able to sing to Finn at the top of my lungs and not have to worry about the neighbors hearing.  I love pulling into the driveway and seeing Finn's face smiling at me from the kitchen.  I love the birds outside my window in the morning and the bright sunny open space inside the house.  Even though work is more miserable than ever (more about that in another post), I still drive to work with a smile on my face because being in a house feels so right.

This is Vagus' favorite place to sleep

I love to travel, but I'm also a homebody.  I never realized before this week how much my outlook on life is shaped by the home I live in.  I loved my condo - it was the first place I've lived in ages that felt like home.  But it didn't feel right with Finn.  This house isn't my dream house by any means.  But it's the perfect house for us right now.  And that makes me very happy.

It usually makes Finn happy, too, but not right this second

Overwhelmed!

I took this picture a few weeks ago while out with Finn and Heidi (yes, we had a baby in a bar).  It definitely sums up the way I feel these days.

This past weekend, Finn and I flew up to New York to surprise Heidi for her 40th birthday.  We had a wonderful time, which more than made up for the fact that Finn was not a happy traveler on the way home.  I would love to devote an entire post just to our wonderful weekend with Aunt Heidi, Aunt Mindy and Uncle Josh and oh-so-adorable-Cousin Anabel, but I just don't have time to even do it justice!

Somehow, I had it in my mind that the actual moving part of moving wasn't going to be that bad, since I'm lucky enough to have movers that are packing me up in addition to actually moving my stuff.  The packers (well, packer) has been here all week, and there are boxes everywhere.  But there's a lot of stuff I still have to do myself: packing things I don't want the packer to do like my bathroom and my drawers of financial papers, etc, pulling out clothes for me and Finn for the next few days, and disconnecting tv equipment so it can be packed.  And then there's the stuff I have to move myself: things in the fridge, my wine (I can't believe how much wine I have), cleaning stuff, and my super fragile things that are also very sentimental.

It's a lot to do in a week.  Especially when I have this pesky thing called a job that is taking up so much of my time.  But I have a wonderful nanny who will be taking care of Finn on Saturday while the movers are here, and has been helping out with getting things together and organized this week, and who will be a huge help once we're moved.  And I have friends who are coming to help this weekend, and hopefully next weekend, too, and then my parents will be here the following weekend.  So while it's all overwhelming, it will all get done, and I'll probably even have some fun while doing it as long as I don't let myself too crazy.

I didn't get around to notifying my internet provider that I'm moving until tonight.  And while I can get TV hooked up on Sunday, I can't get my internet back until next Thursday.  NEXT THURSDAY!    I could go without TV until Thursday, but going without internet? I'm not sure how I'm going to manage going without reading my blogs for that long.  I might have to take my computer to a restaurant with free WiFi during lunch next week just so I can check in and see how everyone's doing.  I'm already behind with the commenting, I'm going to be ages behind now!

And now it's almost 11pm.  It's amazing how easy it is to procrastinate with a blog entry.  I'm going to leave with a little pic spam, and I'll be back soon - hopefully before next Thursday.

Anabel giving Finn kisses

Finn discovering the joys of putting things in the toilet

Moving On Up!

I found a new home for me and Finn!

A week ago I drove through the neighborhood I wanted to live in, and just drove around.  I was about to leave, when I saw a "For Lease" sign in the front yard of a cute yellow house.  It took a week to arrange a time to see it, but when I walked in the front door I knew it was going to be the house for us. I'd never actually buy it, but it's perfect for us right now.

The downstairs has a nice open floor plan, and the kitchen is big enough for Finn to play on the floor, or even to have a little kids table there when he's older.  There are a lot of big windows, plenty of storage, the yard maintenance for the tiny yard is included, and it has 3 bedrooms.  It's not my dream home.  It's all carpet (which might be a good thing when he starts to learn to walk), the bedrooms are small and the bathrooms are tiny, there's no garage and the fridge is probably not big enough - I think I'm going to have to buy a new one.  But the best thing about it is the price - the monthly rent is significantly less than what I'll be getting in rent for my condo. I can put that money towards what I owe on my condo, so when the market improves in a few years, I can sell my condo and buy the absolutely perfect house for me.  (Ok, so we all know life NEVER goes according to plan, but at least this is a plan that has the potential to actually work out!)  

Now to find someone to rent my place!  We've had 6 showings in the past week, and two were really interested.  My realtor thinks we should have someone soon - I hope she's right.

I guess it's time to start thinking about movers.  Wow.  I can't believe we're really going to live in a HOUSE.  No more loud neighbors.  I can have a bird feeder again.  Finn will have a place to run around, and can actually have some riding toys (do they still make Big Wheels?) when he's old enough.  Woohoo!

House Hunting

I looked at another house yesterday.  It was in a wonderful neighborhood, but the house itself had a weird layout - it's 4 bedrooms, with the master bedroom downstairs, right off the back porch.  It's a house that has a detached garage, and in order to get into the house from the garage, you have to enter through the master bedroom.  Who designs a home like that and thinks it's a good idea?

The owners have the master set up as a den, as it's right next to the open room that's the dining room, living room and kitchen.  Only each part of that room is fairly small - I think if you take out the bedroom/den, the downstairs living area is actually smaller than what I have right now.

Still, there's more tons more storage (there's actually room to put my dishes in the kitchen cabinets!) and it's a great neighborhood with a nice, fenced in backyard and just a short walk to the pool and a playground.  I was considering it, until I found out that the the owners would want a 2 year lease, 2 months rent up front, plus a $500 non-refundable pet deposit, because they're highly allergic to cats (which explains the elderly cat they have wandering around the house).  Well, at least they made that decision easy for me.

I've been looking at homes for sale in the first neighborhood I looked at last weekend.  I love them all (they're all the same builder, a builder I've loved for ages).  It makes me so sad to know that if I could sell my condo for what I paid for it 6 years ago, I could easily afford to buy one that would fit me perfectly.  Stupid economy.  Why doesn't somebody fix it, already?

There are times that it's better not to know what's ahead, but in this case, I really wish someone had told me not to buy a place in 2005.  I would have missed out on the tax benefits from writing off the interest, but in retrospect, that would have been just fine.

Aside from continued house hunting, we've had a nice weekend so far.  Finn's suddenly developed a bit of a temper.  When I take something away from him, it used to make him cry.  Now he looks at me and actually lets out a yell with a look of outrage on his face.  He looks so indignant, it's hard not to laugh.

Frustrated Baby

He's not crawling, but he is rolling to move around, especially when we're in bed.  When he wants something that's just out of his reach, I can see him thinking about how he can get it.  He tries to get into crawling position, but never quite makes it, or gets frustrated when he gets there and can't figure out what to do.  Yet.  I'm definitely enjoying my last few weeks or so of a non-baby proofed house.

#200 (Take 2)

Four posts ago, I posted what I thought was my 200th post.  Turns out, I had 4 saved drafts that Blogger was counting as posts, so today's post is really #200.  I thought about writing something deep and insightful for my 200th post, something profound about my life as the single mom of an 8 month old.  But then my thought process was interrupted by a teething baby with a cold who woke up to cry inconsolably for 45 minutes before finally falling back to sleep, and now I'm tired, hot, sweaty and covered with someone else's snot.

So instead of a contemplative post, all I have the energy for is a post about my latest news:  I've decided to move.  After all that work I did on my condo last year to make it ready for baby, it's just not big enough.  There's no way I can sell in this market, and I can't rent it for what I pay on my mortgage every month, so I was pretty sure I was stuck.  Until I had the (very belated) brilliant idea that I could rent out my place for the same amount that I could rent a decent house for.  Last week I contacted my relator friend to ask her if this was even a possibility, and today we went to look at houses!

The first house was one I was already in love with after looking at it online, and when I walked in, I knew it was perfect.  An open floor plan, bright and sunny with lots of storage space, a tiny yard and a huge porch off the master bedroom.  Which means, of course, that when we called the listing agent she said, "Oh, we already have two very qualified applicants, so sorry."

The other place we looked at was horrible, and we couldn't look at the third place I wanted to see.  I've spent the past hour looking online at homes to rent, and while there are plenty out there, I don't really like any of them, but there are a few for sale that I love.  Stupid economy.

I have picked out a few houses I might want to look at next weekend, and I'm hoping there will be some new places listed this week. I've also spent a lot of time the past week decluttering as much as possible, getting my place ready for showing.  My relator thinks I could have the place rented out within the next 30-45 days.  Let's hope I find somewhere to live before then!

A part of me wonders if I'm crazy, adding more stress and work to my life.  But I really think this is something I have to do, especially since I'm planning on TTC #2 this year.

Because despite the crying and the snot and the exhaustion, it's all worth it.

ETA:  I just talked to my sister.  She told me that in his prayers tonight, my nephew D asked, "Please send Aunt Shannon a big house with plenty of good food."  I love that boy.