42 with a 4 and 2 year old!

Man. I'm 42. Forty two. Not 40 or 41. It even sounds strange to say that's my age because it just sounds...old. Yes I had a birthday and need to update my bio.
And you want to know what I was doing last night? Looking up if 42 is too old to have another baby. For some reason I got the itch to research older mothers, etc. mostly I found if your heart says do it, go for it. I'm not saying that's where I am at, but what prompted me thinking about it was my birthday AND annual storage fees were due on my 3 grade B embryos. I just wonder are they boys or girls, would they look like my girl or my son, are they healthy and viable?  Although it's hard to imagine anything other than my babies now.
Let's face it, I've got my hands and heart full. BUT if for some reason I wanted to lose my mind and 'go for it', it would have to be soon...beyond my age now (and even AT my age) it's hard for me to imagine. I've not read any stories or blogs about single moms and by choice having 3. Lots about the 1-2 debate but I think beyond that it just seems nuts.

We hit a major milestone....my girl got her first haircut at 4!!!! With curly hair it's been amazing thus far in that it just keeps curling up, no real need to cut it. I figured though we should trim it and at least get the ends, or about an inch 1/2 or so. Well it shrunk like 5 inches!  I've slowly adjusted to it being shorter because seeing her longer curly hair is just oh so cute.

BEFORE

DURING--didn't get an AFTER!

We've gone back to preschool in the new class and she's doing awesome! She LOVES this new teacher and seems so happy. I am confident I made the right move by advocating for her and myself that the old teacher just wasn't a good fit. Easier to do in preschool I think because kindergarten I think you get what you get. Speaking of, she goes in the fall. To kindergarten!! I have to call our school because I think there has to be some round-up and the way preschool works it wouldn't surprise me if it's now.

What actually got me more was that we just did preschool registration for my son! We are sticking with the same school for him and we went to the open house last weekend. He will be in the 'older twos' class since his birthday is October and he'll be three.  There are only two teachers and I just put our preference as the one who seemed I connected with best. I wasn't sure about 3 or 2 day but I decided to try 3 at first.

That is if we are here in the fall. My company announced a move and I don't know what it means for our group yet. Unsettling for sure but I'm trying to just do my job and stay focused until I know something and can then decide what to do.
Honestly I am just tired of starting over. So many moves and with children as a single parent it is exponentially harder--I know because I've done it both ways. In addition to the move, I had the opportunity to talk to a manager in Chicago about a different job still  with my company and after talking through, I turned it down. I just didn't see enough upside of that location, that job, and financial considerations.

In meantime I'm trying to focus on decorating the house I have whether I stay here or go. I still have not hung anything on the wall and it's been over a year. So sad! I did try working with a decorator and I found that she was bringing her style in way too much, not hearing or 'getting' what I was envisioning, and cost a lot of money for not a whole lot. Live and learn. The reason I did it was these things overwhelm me and I have limited time, but the experience not great so I'm going to try and finish myself, still trying to finish picking out curtains.

I had gone through my emails from 2016 so I could write this nice summary of the year, reflect, and set out my plan for 2017. We'll, my phone ate my notes and I don't have it anymore. Gah!
What I do remember was it was a hard-ish year. My girl started preschool in January, and soon after that lots of  health stuff--my son broke his arm in February,  we had wave after wave of sickness, we took our first family flight in November, and a lot of no sleep. I had a lot of testing for eyes and digestion and sleep and a lot of time and money later nothing any more other than what I already knew--benign bleph.aro.spasm and mild sleep apnea. This getting older thing--I had shoulder surgery for sports injury (slap repair) in 2003 and I think it's just now acting up again. Add it to list for this year.

What I am focused on this year is getting stronger physically. Am doing more exercise with kids and want to keep it going by getting back into the gym for resistance/weights. I miss doing it.

I feel like I'm coming out of the haze/fog of raising babies and now can exhale a bit and get to know my girl as a blossoming precocious 4 year old and get my son to start using words to communicate as a 2 year old. I really am blessed with these children. The days are not easy but they are getting easier physically as they can do more for themselves.  My energy is returning (when no one is sick that is) and it feels good. I've stopped drinking diet soda w exception of maybe one or two a week. I find that I am much less anxious and sleep better without it.  I had been toying w starting Jenny eating program and just decided to do it two weeks ago. It is--ok. I find that it is very restrictive and I don't feel that great, lots of hunger. No bueno. So I will do the 3 weeks I signed up for them figure out a new game plan.

2017 will bring some exciting things our way, we are ready.

Grrr blog.ger. I wanted to add some detail about my birthday day at the top but can't figure out how. So I'll just add here it really was great. I was resting in my room and when I can out the nanny and my children had decorated my door, outside my door, the dining area--balloons, streamers, cake, present, and hande-made cards from the kids.
It was so unexpected and SO awesome to walk out to, it just made my day. And my girl couldn't have been sweeter--she kept hugging me and wishing me happy birhday ALL day and it never got old. I'm sure that's what my son would have said too ;)

Happy New Year 2017!

You know I've got a four letter word to describe our holidays.....S...I...C....K. In fact I looked back over 2016 posts just to remember all that happened and that little word was part of most of our year.

I want to first share a few pictures from the holidays...

I absolutely LOVE this picture with Santa

Here's what happened afterwards!

Poor kid....my son in these pictures had a respiratory infection and pink eye. Thanks to his sister.  This was right before Christmas so both of them had it......then right AFTER Christmas it came to me in the form of gunky cough and most likely strep throat. I went to Dr. finally after 6 days and got some antibiotics. I am finally on the mend.

So, that means we had sickness in our house from Dec 19 - January 6. Happy new year indeed.

Our Holidays....on the bright side I was so happy with the presents I gave everyone....my girl got her crutches and sparkly pink drum.....my son got a push shopping cart that he hasn't stopped pushing since Christmas.  I ended up with 6 presents each and that felt about right. Although when we added the presents from friends, relatives, and my sister....it was a lot under the tree.  My goal is to make Christmas not SO big.....I want them to enjoy presents, but not be overwhelmed and just unwrap one gift, throw it down, and go on to the next.

We did go to Christmas eve candlelight service at the church my girl goes to preschool at. It's the first time my girl could hold her own candle, and first time my son went.  Let's just say it was not easy keeping him busy during the service. He wanted to be BUSY...MOVING....and not sitting, and not keeping his hands to himself. He spent time drawing, coloring, getting up, getting down, taking a diaper wipe and 'cleaning' chairs and other people.

One moment that made me cry was when one song came on (there was a lot of music) both of my kids spontaneously decided to 'dance' in front of their chairs and with each other.....I just looked over at both of them and my heart just welled up. In that moment I would say I felt joy. Joy at having my children, seeing them so happy, healthy, and free to express themselves.....it was just wonderful.

On the downside...some of my sister's visit.  You never really know how it's going to turn out, and this one wasn't a great one.  I don't know what happened, but most of the visit....so--much--tension.  It all started when we were doing some shopping on the 23rd and I was exhausted from everyone being sick and not sleeping that I was a little irritable.  I noticed it and apologized to her. Well later into that day and into Christmas Eve she just started talking much shorter, talking less, and being quite snarky.  As an example, we were wrapping gifts on the 23rd in different rooms and we were sharing tape...for some reason I only had one. When I came out I stuck my arm out so she could give me the tape so I wouldn't look at all her presents--she throws the tape on the floor instead of giving it to me. Rude. Then later after we all wrapped our gifts she starting putting the presents under the tree....I said we should probably put them in the closet so the kids wouldn't get into them and she snaps back, "Why, don't your kids know the meaning of No?". Ummm.....yes they do, in fact. However you can't expect a 4 and 2 year old not to touch a big heap of presents under the tree. Gimme a break.

So later that evening I came out and tried to talk w/ her....I told her I didn't appreciate what she said about my kids and how she was acting towards me. She says, "I'm sorry" in a snarky tone. I said it didn't seem like she sounded sincere and she flips off, "Well, it wasn't".  I ended my attempt at talking w/ her after that. In fact, I simply decided I'm not going to feed into it and we simply didn't talk much.  It made Christmas eve and Christmas day just not a lot of fun. You could cut the tension w/ a knife as they say. She was barely talking and I didn't feel like trying to mend it. I tried, didn't work......and frankly I got so upset in my mind that I kept saying over and over....she needs to be accountable for her actions. She needs to understand that she can't just come here, act rude, and expect it to just be fine when she decided to start talking again (which she did closer to when she went home).

I wholeheartedly feel like she owes me an apology. The thing that gets me is I paid for half of her flight. For her to come and act like this with no apology? No thanks.

What I hoped was that my children didn't feel the tension, but they are pretty perceptive. In fact, since there isn't much conflict in the house in general, I think my girl felt some of it and it probably was strange for her....my girl would tell my sister--you need to speak nicely to mommy! (even if my sister was kidding about something).

There were some good times sprinkled in there.....the three of us played go fish at night, my sister cooked a lot and our Christmas day dinner was absolutely amazing (prime rib, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, sparkling juice), opening presents and seeing the excitement.

Interesting though, my son wanted NOTHING to do w/opening gifts. Same thing he did at his birthday. He walked around, went into the kitchen, played w/ a toy here and there. He didn't want to open anything.

Overall it wasn't the easiest of times this holiday.....all the sickness, the up and down visit w/ my sister, the lack of sleep, etc...but we still managed to have some fun, decorate inside and outside the house, get the tree up, put up all the ornaments, got everything I wanted to get for everyone, and enjoy some time together...and some special moments w/ the kids.

I was going to review 2016 and talk about 2017 but I may save that for next post.

We spent new year's at home w/ the kids and our old nanny amy came to stay w/ us shortly after my sister left until Jan 2--for 5 days. It was so nice having her visit. 

I didn't want to do fireworks for new years so as the kids were done w/ their baths, jammies on......we were all sitting in my girls room. She said she had an idea and got a bunch of rubberbands....she said they could be our fireworks!! It was such a GREAT idea!! So we started shooting them at each other, into the fan, etc. we had SO MUCH FUN! We even turned on Katy Per.ry's Fire.works song on and at the top of our lungs we were singing her song, shooting rubberbands in the air, and dancing in the room.

Now THAT's my idea of a Happy New Year! :)