An Update on Life Lately + Pictures From my Phone

Josh has been in Chicago the past four days and is currently on a plane returning to us now. (Praise the lord!) I can't wait for him to get back so I can say "your turn" for the next week straight when someone needs a diaper change or wants to play zombies/army/batman/pirates/etctetcetc. Work has been crazy, house stuff has been crazy, weaning has been crazy. It's all crazy. (But then I remember what sweet Audra's month looks like and I want to slap myself upside the head for even complaining. Seriously, girlfriend is superwoman.) I'll get to the down and dirty details momentarily, but first, pictures...

1. House Stuff. 

I never, ever, EVER plan on moving again once this is all over, and from what I gather we haven't even had it that bad, which is insane. It's all just such a ridiculously asinine process. You negotiate and negotiate and finally sign a contract (or two) and you think you're more or less good to go, but you're not. You're not even close. We had inspections on both houses which led to more negotiations (still ongoing as we speak) and then we found out that our current house tested positive for radon (great!) and so you think you could just give the buyers some cash so they can take care of it when they move in? But oh no, their loan is FHA and it can't even be approved until the radon is mitigated. Which means we have to deal with getting that whole system installed which in turn means everything is on hold until then. Perfect.

Cut to our new house where we had to wait THREE WEEKS to get the appraisal back. Three weeks, people. It was overdue by a week and the appraiser was no where to be found. Wasn't returning phone calls, emails, nothing. So we just waited in limbo wondering if this appraiser ever actually even existed and if maybe someone shouldn't be filing a missing person's report? Finally, just this morning the appraisal magically came through with no explanation for the delay or lack of communication. Whatever, it appraised and that's all that matters. I guess.

So, we're back to re-negotiating everything based on all the new information from the inspections and also back to getting new quotes and more house repairs done. It's just like two months ago all over again!

2. Weaning. 

I officially ended nursing on the 1st of this month. So, we're a week strong tomorrow. It wasn't planned, I was just waiting for the right moment. That morning when Oren woke up wanting to nurse I just didn't really feel like it, so I figured I'd try to get him to go the whole day without. It wasn't easy, but we did it. So the next day I did the same and the next and the next, and now it looks like we're really doing this thing. I'm relieved and elated that it's going so well and that neither of us has been too emotional over it. I'm also glad that I didn't pre-determine the exact day I was going to stop so I didn't make too big of a deal over our last time. Sometimes, for me, it's easier that way. I didn't know it would be our last time, so in my head I didn't make it more sad or more difficult than it needed to be.  So yes, overall, it's going well. Does Oren still ask to nurse? Yes. Does he still wake up at 4am everyday? Yes. But now the lack of nursing just gets him all pissed off and worked up so instead of nursing for an hour our two every morning we now come downstairs to the living room, cuddle on the couch and watch batman. I've also found that spoonfuls of peanut butter right out of the jar and a sippy cup of milk with a squirt or two of Hershey's extra dark syrup seems to do the trick when times are tough. I have no idea how long this will go on, but one day I'll sleep again. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

3. The Rest

As I mentioned before, work's crazy busy. It's a good problem to have and seeing all my hard work come to fruition is extremely satisfying, but I'm feeling a little burned out none the less. There's not much I can do about this, it's not like we can exactly turn away clients, so we're busy until...indefinitely, I suppose. It is what it is, but man I could use a vacation. (94 days and counting!) 

In good news, Abby's birthday is today! Happy birthday Abbysnail, you're the best sister in the whole wide world and I love you soooo much!

Also, those would be her birthday dinner pics above. I mostly just threw those in as an excuse to include the picture of my dad in his old eagle scout uniform that we dug out and made him try on while we were there the other night. Fun fact: My father, a life long liberal, once had an NRA membership and a badge in marksmanship?! What? Who would have guessed?! Of course, that was before the NRA was a bunch of right wing lobbyists as he puts it (and I may or may not be leaving out a few other adjectives). To which I say, ok dad, whatever helps you sleep at night ;)

Beyond that, just living the single mom life the last few days as I've already mentioned. Thankfully there has been nice weather, plenty of ice cream to go around and hours upon hours logged at the park the past few days. I'm hoping May settles down a bit from here on out, but let's get real, it's only going to get worse before it gets better. Let's not forget that whole packing and actually moving to an entirely new house thing coming down the pike. 

So, um, I guess wish me luck if you'd be so kind and go easy on me if the blog posts aren't quite so plentiful, ok? As for me I'm off to bed since it's after midnight and 4am is just around the corner...what can I say? I'm livin' the dream ;)