Early to Bed

My bedtime lately has been 10pm. I need to push it back to 9:00. Last night I went to bed at 8:30 because I hadn't gotten more than 7 hours of sleep in weeks. Many nights I've only gotten 6 hours. I function best with 8-9 hours of sleep. I tried to take a nap yesterday, but since Oliver only takes 20-30 minute naps now, that didn't work too well. I feel rather frazzled, and I figure getting a better amount of sleep might help. Today is our eighth day at home, and Oliver hasn't made any progress in returning to his pre-vacation self. For the past 6+ months he was getting an average of 14 hours of sleep a day (sometimes as much as 15). Yesterday he had 10.5 hours total (9 hours at night and three 30 minute naps). So he's losing about four hours of sleep a day. This translates to a yawning, fussy baby and makes it oh so much harder for me to do things like cook, clean, do the laundry, mow the lawn, pack, do schoolwork with Nadia, etc. Had I known this was going to happen, Oliver and I wouldn't have gone on vacation.

The weather has been ALL over the place this past week. When we got back the highs were in the 60's and then it went to the 70's and then the 80's and then the 90's, and yesterday the high was only in the 50's! This time of year we usually don't use the furnace or the air conditioner, but we used the air conditioning for the first time this year a few days ago and then last night we had to turn the heat on for the first time in weeks. A few months ago I would have thought the 50's was balmy weather, but after being in Florida and then experiencing a brief heat wave here in PA, it felt so cold! At this time of year (when we're not trying to go swimming), my favorite weather is when it's sunny and the highs are in the 70's. The kids took advantage of the rain we had this week and enjoyed jumping in puddles although when we were walking back from the park on Thursday Ian discovered he didn't like jumping in really deep puddles because then the water splashed up higher than his boots. Yes, my little boy doesn't like to get wet (he cries when I wash his face after lunch), and he insists on using a fork to eat a brownie. I love you, Ian, quirks and all!

 

We haven't heard anything since Monday morning from MVCC. We're assuming that no news is bad news and that they picked the other candidate. What I find ironic is that we are so disappointed about a job that really was far less than desirable for so many reasons. This position involves teaching 19 credits a semester (I used to teach 12 credits a semester) for a salary about $10K less than what I started at 10 years ago, and our contribution toward our health insurance would be about $5K a year, double what we used to pay at my university. Also, upstate New York is definitely not where Paul or I were hoping to end up, but we would have accepted if they had offered. I am so tired of checking higheredjobs.com, chronicle.com, and Paul's two email accounts multiple times a day. We've submitted a total of 57 applications thus far for at least 60 jobs over the past 8 months. We expect to find out in the next week if Paul will be interviewing in-person at West Liberty. A little glimmer of hope would do our hearts so much good.

The realtor hasn't posted our listing on realtor.com yet. I am disappointed. I remember that in the past when we listed a home that there were several showings within the first several days, which is why I was SO thorough with cleaning and decluttering prior to Wednesday. I moved the kids' hampers into their closets, two floor lamps into the basement, etc. I am trying to remind myself that #1 God is in control (obviously I'm not!) and #2 four houses have sold very quickly in our small development over the past 10 months. We don't have any competition within our development because the house that went on the market in February sold this month, and the house that went on the market in March is under contract. The one that sold the fastest was our next door neighbor's. Theirs was on the market for less than 5 days in October, and the new family moved here in November. The last two times we sold a house it didn't go that fast, which is why I feel like we're late in getting started if we want to move the end of July or sometime in August, but hopefully everything will work out just right. It does feel strange to be trying to sell our home before we have any idea where we're moving.

 

Aunt Tina with the kids at the zoo

 

 

 

Rhyme Time!

The kids have picked up certain skills before I even expected them to such as Nadia walking when she was 9 months old and Ian learning the letters of the alphabet before I even worked on them with him. Other skills have taken longer than I expected them to such as Nadia learning to buckle her seatbelt and Ian learning how to eat. I am not sure why we as parents tend to get worked up when our child isn't on par with other children we know. Ian didn't crawl until he was 12 months old, and he didn't walk until he was 15 months old. Who cares? I realized after he started walking what a blessing it was (primarily when I carried him around at Nadia's gymnastics lesson) that he started walking a bit later than I expected he would, although the pediatrician told me he was still in the "normal" range. I think part of it really is pride. We want our children to be one of the first to accomplish a certain skill rather than one of the last. For example, I know many kids Nadia's age are much farther along in their reading skills than she is.

I really, really don't want to push my kids. Why rush childhood? I would have loved it if she was already ready to really take off with reading, but she hasn't been. She is great at memorizing words, but although she knows the sounds each letter makes, the concept of sounding out a word truly hasn't clicked for her yet, and that's okay. She'll be turning five next month. Years ago children weren't expected to learn how to read until first grade. Now that expectation has been shifted back to kindergarten in most schools. Yes, some preschoolers can read well, but that's not the norm. A couple of years from now I'm not going to care whether she started reading when she was four or five. I'll just care that she loves to read and is continuing to grow in her skills.

One skill that Nadia didn't grasp the first several times I tried to work with her on it over the last year was rhyming. She's very auditory so I thought it would be an easy skill for her to learn. Nope. Every once in a while I would test the waters, and if it was still going right over her head, I would drop it for a few weeks or months. While we were on vacation, I discovered (out of the blue) that she now knows how to rhyme. This certainly put a smile on my face, and it reassured me that my approach of just waiting until the time is right, is the way I want to go. I haven't pushed the kids At All with their self dressing skills. I waited until Nadia started expressing her independence that she wanted to do it herself. I think the only thing she has yet to learn is to tie her shoes, and for now I plan to continue buying shoes with velcro. As long as the kids express an interest at a reasonable age, I am going with the flow with many skills. The next time I hear about a child a similar age of one of my children doing something he or she is not yet doing, I am just going to remind myself that it isn't a race, and in a short while it won't matter to me how old my child was when he or she mastered that skill. One notable exception would be chewing and sleeping. I doubt I'll ever forget how long it took Ian to master those two very important skills!

The one I'm longing for Oliver to learn is to say my name. I told him a few weeks ago that would be the perfect Mother's Day present, but thus far he only says one word (dada). I remember asking Nadia the same thing in May 2009, but she didn't give me my wish either, haha. If I had to pick three things for Ian, I'd focus on continued improvement with self-feeding a wider variety of foods, greater independence with going to the bathroom, and less crying and whining in general. My mental list of goals for Nadia is the longest. Four of the ones I'm hoping she'll master in the coming weeks and months include learning how to pump her legs to keep the swing going (I've tried so many times to teach her that skill!), feeling brave enough to learn to ride her bike without training wheels, learning how to read by sounding words out, and realizing when she needs to blow her nose so the long strings of mucus will go in Kleenex rather than down her face, on her clothes, the floor, etc multiple times a day EVERY day. We also need to work on her soccer skills if she truly wants to play on a team again in the future. Last night she had soccer practice for the first time in five weeks.

Paul is very discouraged about the job search. He had been trying not to get his hopes up, but when he found out on Monday morning that he was one of the top two candidates, he got his hopes up again. On Wednesday his advisor said she had talked with the Dean. This school hadn't requested letters of reference with the application as most schools do. Yesterday another of Paul's references said the Dean hadn't contacted him yet. Paul has four references, and only two of these can speak to his experience as a teaching assistant, and his advisor isn't one of them. The community colleges don't care about research just teaching experience. I'm hoping God is closing this door because He's going to open one at West Liberty. An invitation to interview in-person there would do my hubby a world of good. He's made it to the top three twice and the top two once, but what he really needs is to be chosen as the top candidate somewhere. It's hard for me to see him so depressed. I keep telling him he has four cheerleaders at home who love him very much!

 

 

Thankful Thursday

1. We made it home safely from our vacation and enjoyed fabulous weather while we were there.

2. Gabby, Alexis, and Beth (our beloved neighbors and babysitters who moved to Oklahoma) surprised us with a brief visit and gifts on Monday. We hadn't seen them for 11 months. What a special time it was!!!!

3. Paul worked SO hard and did SUCH a nice job with several spackling, sanding, carpet cleaning, and power washing projects the last five days. He's going to work on Saturday because he took yesterday off to work around the house and sign paperwork.

4. Oliver woke up at 2am on Monday morning. I let him "fuss it out." It was the right decision as he then slept a little past 6am. Because he was only fussing, I was able to close our door and go back to sleep. I know from experience with his siblings that had he been crying, I still would have heard him through our closed door. This didn't work on Tuesday morning. Wednesday he slept until 5:45am! This morning I let him cry for a little bit at 2am. I think it's reasonable to expect him to sleep at least 9.5 hours (8:30pm to 6:00am, especially since he's lost his ability to take nice naps.

5. Paul is one of the top two candidates for Mohawk! The search committee picks their top two, and the administration picks from those two. The Dean contacted Paul on Monday to say that he would be contacting Paul's references. They had interviewed five people. It was so encouraging to know he made the next cut. We'd MUCH rather go to West Liberty (his last phone interview), but he'll accept the job if Mohawk offers it!

6. Nadia and I picked out 2 flats of annuals on Saturday. We both enjoyed the outing as well as planting them on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

7. Ian and Oliver like lasagna! I am so very thankful that Oliver is such a good eater. His current diet includes being nursed once a day, formula the rest of the day, and table food (no more baby food aside from some baby cereal mixed with other things). He only has two teeth, but that doesn't slow him down!

 

8. Paul's parents loaned us a carpet cleaner, power washer, and the truck. We planned to put more things in the truck (ex. the broken treadmill in our basement), but on Tuesday night I sawed off a bunch of tree branches fron five trees to make it easier for me to mow the lawn, and I pretty much filled up the truck. There was still room for a few more things but not the treadnill.
9. The weather is supposed to be much cooler starting today. The highs were in the low 90's the last two days here in PA in May! Yikes! It felt hotter here than it did when we were in Florida! Walking to the part is much more enjoyable when the temps are in the 60's and 70's. Once our swimming pool is open for the summer then I'll hope for temps in the 80's, but right now I'd like another couple of weeks of spring like temperatures!

10. Nadia attended the musical rehearsal last night, and I found out Ian is old enough to do it this year. I'll take both of them next Wednesday night!

For Sale

Today we signed the paperwork to put our house on the market. If I could go back in time I would have stuck with our original plan to put it on the market 7 weeks ago, but that's water under the bridge now. In some senses it might still appear to be too early to try to sell the house since Paul doesn't have a job offer yet. We're still hoping he'll start a career as a chemistry professor in August, but even if he doesn't, his current commute to work is one hour each way. Even though we've been planning for quite some time to try to sell our house, it still hit me as rather official when I saw the sign in our yard. I've already left my job so pretty much the only connection I have to this town right now is church. I did find myself feeling rather emotional at choir rehearsal this evening thinking that I might  not be singing in this choir in the fall. I joined this choir in January 2009. Next Sunday I'm playing the flute with the choir, and in two weeks we'll have our annual "Choir Sunday" which means we'll be singing five anthems that morning.

Ever since we got home, it has felt like we've been under a lot of pressure to get the house ready for 1pm today. I was trying to be really thorough in cleaning so that the realtor could take pictures and also in the hopes that if our house started to be shown a few days after that, we'd be ready to show the house. Paul was doing things like power washing the fence and one area of the siding, steam cleaning a few areas of the carpet in three rooms, spackling, sanding, etc. I put more toys in the basement to make it easier to keep the house clean. I figure that we'll be outside a lot more and won't need to have as many toys inside. I'm hoping it won't take long to get the house under contract mainly because keeping the house ready to show is going to be really hard with three little munchkins. I actually feel a little sense of relief now that the pictures have been taken, and I'm ready to show the house if someone wants to see it later this week. Cleaning the house and unpacking from our trip has been much harder because Oliver's schedule is totally out of whack.

For more than 6 months Oliver's naps have totalled an average of four hours (sometimes as much as five). On vacation this wasn't the case, but I expected that would likely happen. I didn't think that it would be this bad after we'd been home for five days. Aside from going to the library and ballet on Tuesday afternoon, Oliver has been at home the past five days to make sure he could take his naps in his crib at the right times. Wrong. A short nap for Oliver in the past was 60 minutes. Usually his naps were at least 90 minutes long.

Yesterday he took ONE nap in his crib, and it was 20 minutes long. Today he took two naps in his crib (30 minutes each), and then as you can see from this picture he took a brief nap in the stroller on the way to the playground before dinner. Oliver is usually a very happy baby, but over the past five days he has been a very fussy baby. This has led to a frazzled mommy. If I had to do it over again, I wish Oliver and I had stayed home in PA and not gone on the vacation. I really hope he goes back to taking nice naps - for his sake and mine. Now that the rush for getting the house ready is over, I want to get back to doing schoolwork with Nadia tomorrow. I did start reading Mrs. Piggle Wiggle to the kids today. I hadn't read them a chapter book for more than two weeks, and we were all missing it! Both Ian and Nadia had been asking me the last few days to start reading a chapter book to them again. Speaking of vacations, I asked Paul today what his three most favorite vacations were, and I was wrong about one of them. He said Aruba, not Italy, was his third most favorite. I was right that he thought St. Lucia was #1 and England/France was #2. I have many more vacation pictures to post, but I thought I'd share some I took today instead. The dress Nadia is wearing is the one I bought at a yard sale shortly before we went on vacation. It's long enough that she'll be able to wear it more than one year. I think it's stunning!

Downtown Disney!

 We didn't eat out that many times (nine meals) considering we were on vacation for ten days. We bought lunch at the zoo, ate a dinner at the Patio (restaurant near the pool at our resort), bought lunch at the Magic Kingdom, got a dinner at Subway, got lunch from Dunkin Donuts on our way back to Jacksonville, ate one dinner at the airport, and we went to three sit down restaurants - Perkins, Denny's, and the T-Rex Cafe in Downtown Disney. The latter was our biggest splurge. On Thursday morning we went swimming and then had our picture taken at the resort (so we could receive two free 5x7's). Our next stop that day was a trip to Downtown Disney for lunch and to visit the shops. The kids enjoyed playing with the legos and potato heads and riding the train. This picture (at left) is Paul's favorite from the trip. It was taken inside the Lego store.

In Antigua and Grand Cayman, Paul's parents shared a unit with us. I am sure they got more rest, sleep, and quiet since they were in their own unit this time. We also had separate cars, which again meant their time in the car was much more peaceful and quiet as Oliver does not like to be in a car seat unless he's asleep. Vacations with little ones are definitely not as relaxing. The exception would be our trip to Antigua when Nadia was 10 months old. Of all the vacations we've been on over the past 12 years my three least favorite were the cruise, Grand Cayman (because of the lousy weather and the fact that the food at the restaurants and grocery stores was SO expensive), and our trip to Florida in 2010 (because Paul was studying most of the time and Ian wasn't sleeping). My most favorite vacations from the past 12 years would be #1 St. Lucia (2001), #2 Mexico (2002), and #3 England/France (2002). St. Lucia is also Paul's favorite, but our trip to Mexico wouldn't be in his top three; I think he'd put my #3 as his #2 and Italy would be his #3. Aside from the nights in the hospital, I haven't had a night away from the kids since Nadia was born. We almost went away for a weekend for our 10th anniversary two years ago. A little trip with just Paul would be heavenly. Maybe in 2014 we can take a little getaway.

 

This trip went much better because the weather was perfect, and although Oliver got up at 4am or 5am most mornings, I still got far more sleep than I did on the first two vacations with Ian. We might not be able to go on a getaway this year, but I think at least a date is in order. We've been on only one date in the past twelve months, and that was with Oliver. It's been more than a year since Paul and I ate one meal without any kids. These years with the kids is going to fly by (unfortunately). Some day we'll be able to go on vacations as just a couple again, and maybe someday we'll be able to go on a vacation with them when they are married and have kids. It definitely was helpful having Paul's parents with us. Paul's dad even got in the water (two different days!). He hadn't been swimming since we were in Antigua (2009). The water in the splash pad was COLD (unlike the water in the swimming pools, which was nice and warm). Pop Pop went with Ian in there several times. I told Ian that this was true love. Our kids are so blessed to have four grandparents who love them very much.

 

 

 

 

 

Magic Kingdom!

Tuesday morning we got up bright and early to head to Disney. The guidebooks and websites said that if you arrive between 8:15-8:30 then you would have 30-45 minutes to meet princesses on Main Street before they open the rides at 9am. This wasn't true. We were there much earlier than we needed to be as we arrived at 8:00am. They let us in only a few minutes before 9am. We went straight to the new Little Mermaid ride. The kids loved it. At the end of the day, Nadia said it was her favorite. We had NO wait, and later when we passed it I saw the line was 50 minutes long. Next we headed to story time with Belle. This was our longest wait of the day, but it was a bit shorter than it would have been because a bunch of people in front of us gave up and left the line because they temporarily closed it for a few minutes. The kids were assigned roles for acting out the story. Nadia was in seventh heaven because she was chosen to be the Beast (they liked her roar) which meant she got to dance with Belle! I should have taken a video of it!

Ian was chosen to be the dog who was turned into a footstool. He was a very quiet dog (didn't bark when they asked him to), but he was SO excited when Belle came in the room. You can see in the picture he's jumping up from his seat and waving hi to her. While we were waiting in line I got fastpasses for the Winnie the Pooh ride. We went on that and the Dumbo ride after we finished with Belle. Fastpasses are wonderful. Because of them our wait for almost every ride was about 5 minutes or less.

We planned to have lunch at the Beast's castle (Be our Guest Restaurant). The guidebooks advied getting there at 11am to avoid a long wait. The line was already 2 hours long, and every time we went by it was that long. It was disappointing, but we weren't waiting 2 hours to get in a restaurant. Instead we ate at the Pinocchio Village Haus (no wait). Then I took the three kids to Mickey's PhilharMagic. Even though Ian wouldn't wear the 3D glasses, at the end of the day this was one of his two most favorite "rides." Next Paul and I took the kids on the carousel. I was going to hold Oliver, but they said he had to be on a horse. The other kids never did this at that young of an age! Next all seven of us rode Peter Pan's Flight using fastpasses, and then we finished out time in Fantasyland with a ride on "It's a small world." The teacups were closed that day. We tried to visit Ariel in her Grotto, but the wait was 40 minutes long. The same was true for Merida (the newest Disney princess from the movie "Brave"). I got fastpassses for Buzz Lightyear's ride, and Ian fell asleep in his stroller. While he napped Paul took Nadia to the Town Square Theatre. The wait was about the same length, but she got to meet three princesses (Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty) for that wait instead of just one. That satiated her desire to meet princesses because later in the day there was a short wait to meet Tiana, and she declined.

 

After riding Buzz's ride (Ian's favorite of the day), we headed to see the 3pm parade. Nadia and Ian were about to burst out of their skin with excitement. They were screaming with delight and shouting the names of the characters in the parade - Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, Tiana, Belle, Snow White, etc. It felt very hot standing there for the parade. I can't imagine going to Disney World in the summer. After the parade was over we headed to Adventureland to ride Aladdin's Magic Carpets and the Pirates of Caribbean. I went and got Fastpasses for Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad before we watched the Country Bear Jamboree. I think that was Oliver's favorite. Paul was excited to ride the Thunder Railroad with Nadia and I because it was under construction when he was here last (January 1980). He waited 33 years to ride that ride! Nadia laughed her head off during the WHOLE ride. Priceless. Then the three of us rode the flume ride. Nadia was hoping to get soaked, which didn't happen.

We ended our day with the 7pm "street party" (small parade) and a little shopping on Main Street. Nadia and Ian each got one new toy. It was the only souvenier we bought them on the trip. We ate snacks we had brought with us as our dinner. On our way out of the park the kids took pictures with Mickey Mouse. We left around 8pm so we didn't stay for the 9pm fireworks. We had taken the monorail into the park that morning so we chose to take the ferry back to our car in the evening. We were parked close enough that we didn't use the tram to get to our car. The kids went to bed about 9pm that night, and it was one of two nights on the trip that Oliver slept past 6:00am. Most days he got up at 4am or 5am, but there were two mornings when he woke up between 6:00-6:30am (once at Aunt Diane's and once at the resort). The amount of walking had been difficult for Grandma at Sea World so she wisely rented an electric wheelchair at Disney. It was by far the most expensive day of our trip (at least 25% of our total expenditures for the 10 day trip were made on this one day), but it was a very special day.

 

 

 

Sea World!

Last Monday we went to Sea World. I had taken Nadia and Ian there myself in August 2011, but this time things were a little different because Nadia was tall enough to ride two rides she couldn't go on last time, and I could ride some others because I wasn't the only adult this time. We arrived when the park opened and headed right to Journey to Atlantis. It was the first time any of us had been on that ride. There was absolutely no line, and we were the only ones on our particular flume. It was definitely more elaborate and a bit scarier than the average flume ride. Next I rode Kraken, which is a roller coaster with loops. I can't remember the last time I went upside down on a roller coaster, but it's definitely been more than 12 years. It was awesome! I had zero wait for that ride either, and on a typical day at Sea World the line is more than one hour long. I should have also gone on Manta at that point (another roller coaster), but Paul thought he might do that one with me so I just headed to the doplhin show where we all agreed to meet. I was there 10 minutes before the rest of the family so I definitely would have had time to ride Manta, and it turned out we never rode it later in the day.  At least I got to ride one of the two rollercoasters! I'm sure we'll be back again in the future. In hindsight we also should have stopped in the morning to have Nadia's picture taken with the person wearing the Shamu costume. She asked, but there was a line when we first came in. I assumed we could do it on the way out. Nope.

The first photo was taken of Oliver during the dolphin show. As you can see, he really enjoyed the show! He was very attentive as he watched the dolphins, parrots, etc. and smiled quite a bit as he stood on Pop Pop's lap. At the end of the day Ian said it was his favorite show. Next I planned for us to head to the kid rides, but on the way we ended up deciding to alter our schedule and take in the Pet's Ahoy show earlier than planned (dogs, cats, pig, skunk, birds, mice, etc.). Ian didn't seem to enjoy this one as much as he did two years ago.

 

Paul's parents and Oliver went to Shamu's stadium to save seats while Paul and I took Nadia and Ian to the kids rides. Some rides we were the only ones on the ride! After seeing Shamu we came back to the rides, but it was a lot more crowded then. Doing the kids rides before the Shamu show is definitely the way to go. Nadia did the splash pad for a few minutes also. Then Paul took her on the Wild Artic ride while Pop Pop and I took Ian and Oliver through the walking portion (walruses, polar bears, and Beluga whales).

Paul and I then took the kids to the sea lion, walrus, and otter show. After that we took them through more animal exhibits (sharks, sting rays, etc.) and then decided it was time to head home. Sea World can be almost as expensive as Disney, but we got three of our four tickets for free, and we packed our lunches. On the way back to the resort we bought two footlong subs at Subway for dinner. After we ate we took the kids swimming. Paul's parents went out to Olive Garden as it was their 46th anniversary. We had a great day!