Mother Hoodwink

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Holy Crap, I'm bad at this whole blogging thing.

Well, we're all moved into our house. We still have a lot of boxes to unpack. I swear every time I unpack a box, three more appear in its place. It's not like I'm getting them wet or feeding them after midnight. What gives?

Only three days after our shipment of stuff arrived, I held Maggie's first birthday party at our house. Probabaly not the smartest move I've ever made but I wanted it to be exactly the way I wanted it and I knew I wouldn't be able to get that at my mom's house. I stayed up really late the night before making cupcakes. I love the way they turned out and so did all the guests. My friend, Kerry, gave me a lot of pointers on how to use fondant. She does crazy things with it. Like making her own and covering cakes and stuff. Me? I bought already colored fondant and basically played with it as if it were Play-Doh. You can check out the pictures on my Flickr photostream.



My little baby is now a toddler who doesn't really even toddle yet. She's still refusing to walk. We know she knows how. I bet she does it when we're not looking. In other Maggie news, her third tooth popped though. She already had her bottom central incisors. Now she has one upper lateral incisor as well which makes her look like a hillbilly. An adorable hillbilly but still.

Since it seems to be habit for me to get pregnant exactly a year after having a baby, I'm getting pretty bad baby fever. Exactly eleven months after losing my first pregnancy, I got pregnant with Gavin. A couple of weeks after Gavin's first birthday, I found out I was pregnant with Maggie. Since we know how this works, we've been extra careful lately. We want more kids, but now is not the time. Although, if in three months I'm publishing a post that talks about my new pregnancy, then I'll be thrilled.

Bullets

I didn't start this post out as bullets but my mind is so scattered that it just makes sense this way:

• We are finally moving into our place today! I'm so excited. I love my mom and am so thankful for her having us stay with her, but I am so ready to have my own space again. I know Gavin misses his stuff and it just breaks our hearts every time he asks for a toy or book that is in our shipment.

• My mom has a ridiculous amount of picture frames around the house filled with all of her children and grandchildren. There is one in particular that Gavin likes to carry around and show to people. It's one of my senior portraits. When he shows it to someone he always says, "Look, So and So! It's a picture of mama." When he shows me the picture, he can't comprehended that I am the same exact person in the picture so he comes up to me and says, "Look, Tara! It's a picture of mama." It's the only time I've ever heard him say my name.

• Josh and my very dear brother have spent this last weekend painting the bedrooms of our new house. We thought we only had to paint our room and Gavin's room. Maggie's room was already purple. Before we signed the lease we had only been in the house once and we didn't really take a good look at it since just moments before we saw it, we looked at the one down the street which looked just like it. Well after we got the keys and looked at the house again, we realized the two houses weren't exactly the same. In the other house the front bedroom was bigger and in this house the front bedroom is the smaller one. We quickly realized that Gavin's furniture wouldn't fit into his room and the purple room would be better for him. We could have just let Gavin live with purple walls but we didn't notice until after we signed the lease that two of the walls are pink. So there are three rooms to paint instead of two. My brother is really good at this kind of stuff and had most of the supplies so they knocked out all the painting quicker than I thought they would. Maggie's room still needs to be painted which we hope to take care of this weekend. Until then she'll be sleeping in our room.

• My little baby will be turning one tomorrow. I can't believe I am already getting baby fever. Maggie is just such a precious little girl. She's the most content baby in the world. We often forget she's in the room. She rarely cries and is so happy. I want four more just like her. We're having her party this weekend at our new home. I'm hoping we'll have at least the first floor all unpacked and looking good.

• Last night my family and close friends all got together at a sushi restaurant for my birthday. It was the first birthday with all my family and friends in four years. I'm so happy to be back home.

Things are about to be normal again!

After searching for what seems like forever, we found a place to live! It was hard finding a place that was big enough, cheap enough, nice looking and in a good neighborhood AND was close to family without being too far from Josh's work. We managed to find the perfect neighborhood. There were two homes for rent that were the same exact layout, just opposite. One we loved the inside of. There was newer carpet upstairs, no weird paint colors and a built-in in the garage. We applied for that one and the owners decided to go with another family. Boo.

We got the other house instead. Weird paint, dirty looking carpet and no built-in in the garage. We found out that we can paint whatever we want and not worry about painting on our way out, they're going to clean the carpets before we move in and we don't really even need a built-in in the garage. We're just happy to have a garage. Plus this house is in a cul-de-sac and backs up into the woods and is right next to the park. We can walk out our back gate, walk ten feet and we're at the park.

Maggie's room is already a pretty lavender color but we would have to paint Gavin's room a nice color because it just woudn't be fair that his sister gets pretty paint while he gets the standard beige. Our bedroom (Which is freaking huge!) has this weird sponge paint bullshit on one wall and tacky vines painted on another. The people that lived at this house before us were the owners and I have to say, they had some weird ass taste. The kitchen is painted a pretty rust color but they have this wallpaper border of pots and shit. They also had this small bulletin board in the kitchen and instead of taking it down while they painted, like normal folks, they painted around it. I know!

We get the keys this Thursday and plan on bribing our friends with beer and pizza so they'll help us paint this weekend. So in a little over a week, my bed that I am so in love with, will be joining my life again and we can start getting back to normal.

I guess I should update... Oh and talk about vomit.

We made it to Virginia! We arrived about a week and a half ago. It took us two days and the kids did so well. I'm still shocked at how good they were.

We're figuring out where we're going to live. We were approved for a home loan but we're still not sure if we want to buy. It's a big responsibility and we aren't sure if we're ready. Until we figure it out, we'll be living with my mom. Josh doesn't have to check into work until the end of the month and our goal is to have a place at least lined up by then.

Since being back home Gavin has picked up horrible habits from his cousins. He's learned the word "mine." The first time he used it, he was promptly sent to time-out. I refuse to have bratty children. He's also learned how to hit. The first time I saw my six year old niece, who should know better, hit Gavin, I was maybe a bit too harsh with her. I told her that if she ever hit Gavin again, she would have to deal with me and I am much bigger than Gavin. She didn't touch him again. I have pretty big mother bear instincts.

Gavin has also got his first stomach bug since we've been here. He threw up for the first time tonight. I'm not sure if most people know about this but I have a HUGE vomit phobia. It doesn't make me sick, it just freaks me the fuck out. I don't know why. It could be because I have not vomited for nineteen years. Yes, you read that right. It was third grade and I made myself throw up so I could stay home from school.

Josh was closer to Gavin and I was holding Maggie when he got sick so I let him deal with it. If Josh had been out of the room I would like to believe that I wouldn't have called for him and just handled it. I always thought that my phobia would not get in the way if I was taking care of my own children. At least I could watch instead of running out of the room to find a safe place to close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears and hum really loudly. It's a step in the right direction.

Gavin had been complaining about an upset tummy all day and had diarrhea and a fever. We went out to pick up a pizza for dinner but right before I ran into Walgreens to pick up some medicine to help with his fever. Right when we got home, I got him his plate of dinner ready and he said, "I want medicine. My tummy hurts." I asked if he wanted to eat first then have medicine and before he could answer, he got sick. Right after he finished he let out this high pitched scream of terror. Looks like vomiting freaks him out too. Josh calmed him down and Gavin declared, "I feel much better."

I gave him some Motrin, he had a bath and he started acting like his normal self again. He even wanted to eat toast, crackers and a banana before bed. Hopefully, whatever bug he had is gone.

Maggie is now eleven months old. I can't believe she's about to have her first birthday. This year has flown by. She still has no interest in walking. We can not make her stand when she's on the floor. As soon as she gets near the floor, she practically leaps out of our arms so she can go crawl around and explore. She stands when she wants to so it's hard to practice walking with her. It's such a contrast to Gavin who took his first steps when he was nine and half months old. Oh well. I'm sure she'll learn by the time she goes to college.

Updating may be sparse around here due to our endless search for a home. Look for me on Twitter where I update way more than I update here. Hope everyone is doing well.