A rare day of productivity!!

Here's my fabulous list for the day:
Neatened both living rooms (which stayed neat for about 15 minutes).
Vacuumed both living rooms while they were neat.
Vacuumed most of the hardwood floors.
Put on the attachment and vacuumed behind the fridge, under the stove (kinda) a lot of baseboards, under the 2 liter bottles, and in all of those kitchen crannies that the broom just doesn't get and the mop makes worse.
I got caught up on all the filing! Yes I said ALL!! (And then the mail cam 3 hours later so now it's not all done again.)
I even mopped with my wonderful spray mop. (And 3 hours later, I gave the baby a handful of chex in his high chair. )
I attacked the scratch in the wax on my wood floor with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and DID make the scratch look less like a scratch. Now it looks like an exceptionally clean lightening bolt through the middle of my kitchen floor. Hmmm... not sure if that's better or worse.

Also today, I enforced three time outs for spitting, two of which were directly at the cat.
Uncle Four volunteered to clean up the vomit off the carpet, much to my grateful surprise. And it was even oddly purple due to strawberry milk.

Hank is just nearly crawling and is occasionally getting really ticked off. Which will eventually lead to crawling.

One living room looks like a bomb went off again. Two kinds of flash cards, two kinds of building blocks, at least two puzzles, one sorting toy, three blankets, and one book, plus lots of other baby toys. All par for the course.....

Mood Changer

Lately, and it seems to consistently be on Tuesdays, I'm in a really bad funk. It's completely emotional and it affects how I feel physically, especially here now while I'm twenty months pregnant. I wonder what it is about Tuesdays. Maybe its because the week seems to be stretching ahead interminably. Sooooooo long until Friday, even if you have nothing planned for the weekend. And the last two weeks I have completely recognized that I needed some mood alterer.

Last week, on Wednesday, I finally figured out a really annoying problem at work. I wonder if I just really really wanted to have my mood changed and that's all I could find, but still, it worked.

Today, I was feeling icky and heavy and like the shuttle to work was the worst circle of hell. You know, basically wishing I drank, or smoked, or was addicted to prescription pain meds or something.

And then said some hysterical random $hit to my co-worker and she got tickled and I started laughing at her laughing and we couldn't stop laughing and it was wonderful! It was the high quality, non-nonsensical crap that normally happens at 3am on a camping trip. And I've laughed about it four times since I got home!

For the record it had to do with Michael Jackson, fake noses and other people's reactions to fake noses on women. See! Sounds like a riot.

With that huge giggle fest, a seriously delicious nearly hour long nap on the couch in my husband's office, and managing to catch the first evil shuttle just after my work shift (which got me home 20 minutes earlier), I felt great until 9:30 tonight. And even now, at 10:05, I'm still in a good mood and feel pretty good sitting down.

Listen to this list of accomplishments - and yes! for the first time in seemingly months, I actually HAVE a list of accomplishments!!

After I picked up Quint, I took him over to the train station and showed him a real choo-choo. Then we made a stop at Walgreens. Then we went to the library for the first time ever and checked out a dozen board books. Once home, we had supper, played in the balls, read some books, washed some laundry, got Quint in bed, put the infant carseat back together (a 30 minute strap-frustration fest), cleaned out my car, emptied and refilled the dishwasher, and cleaned up the kitchen.

I also have been silly with my husband several times today, which has not happened in quite a while. I've been a REAL ray of sunshine lately. But thankfully, he hasn't gone into the "be wary and afraid of the severe mood change" phase, but has just appreciated the mood, however fleeting it might be.

It also occurred to both of us seperately that this productivity fest has in the past, in other women, indicated that they will give birth in the next 24 hours.

Yes, that might be bunk. But, I have my fingers crossed. Despite only being 36 weeks pregnant.

28 weeks pregnant

I'm officially in my third trimester!! Why is it that it seems to be going so fast and so slowly at the same time?!
Here we are at week 28, or 7 months pregnant. That's little Quint with the blurry face. This is one of the maternity shirts Mom made me! You can't really see in the picture, but there are iridescent sparkles all over it. It makes me feel like a festive birthday cake. Which makes me crave sugary icing. Of course I crave all kinds of sugar recently. I wonder if vanilla flavored yogurt without aspertaim would satisfy my cheesecake craving?

Here's what Babycenter.com says about week 28.

By this week, your baby weighs two and a quarter pounds (like a Chinese cabbage) and measures 14.8 inches from the top of his head to his heels. He can blink her eyes, which now sport lashes. With his eyesight developing, he may be able to see the light that filters in through your womb. He's also developing billions of neurons in his brain and adding more body fat in preparation for life in the outside world.

At my ultrasound last week, the technician estimated his weight at about 2.5 pounds. Because my ab muscles were in fantastic shape before I got pregnant with Quint and absolutely horrible shape when I got pregnant with Duce, Duce is a much bigger strain on my belly muscles. I'm wishing for flying buttresses at a much earlier stage this time around. If I fold my belly bands double and wear them at the same time, I get some relief from all that unsupported weight. Also, floating the belly in the tub is a wonderful thing.

*subject change*

I feel like I've gotten squat done today, so I'm going to list it off in the longest way possible:
extracted the broken bulb from the hall fixture and replace that bulb
replaced the dead bulb in the peach room
replaced the button battery in the scale (I weigh 144.4 pounds!)
fluffed and hung all Hubby's dress shirts
picked up all the stuff from around Hubby's desk!

sorted said junk into the following boxes: trash, trash, trash, unused cords, stuff that goes elsewhere, tapes-CDs-CB, important looking papers.

stored the three trash boxes in the garage and labeled them "Monday" (guess when trash day is!)

labeled and stored the non-trash boxes in the loft
made a list of things to sell at a yardsale
took Quint outside for a few minutes (in the mud and white pants)
left Hubby a note to vacuum under his desk
labeled boxes in the garage for ARC
wrote in my blog
took a pregnancy picture
napped twice
ate thrice

OK, so that looks pretty impressive! Keep in mind that most of those took 5 minutes or less. Neatening Hubby's office took 90 minutes.

Mwaaahaahaahaahaahaa!

Yes, I hired a sitter so I could clean out boxes while Hubby was out of town. Lots of boxes went bye-bye. Out of his icky papers, I reduced 5 boxes into 3 smaller boxes. Just take a look!

Here's before

And here's after!

And for the shelves beside the freezer - here's before...
And here's AFTER!!
Yes, folks, that's right I have some EMPTY SHELVES IN MY GARAGE!!!

I also emptied the cedar chest of stuff I haven't looked at in 2 years and refilled it with blankets and pillows. I cleaned out one of those like 30 gallon plastic bins of "Precious Childhood Memorabilia" and now that box is 1/4 full. I gathered things to go to goodwill. I collected things to give away on Craigslist (does goodwill really want a box of random craft supplies? I think not.)
I cleaned out the outside freezer and threw away anything with the years 2006, 2007, 2008 or 2009 included in their "use before" date. But, I still kept the top of our wedding cake from 2002. Not that I plan to eat it, ever, but I still can't part with it. I threw out old medicines that Hubby would insist were still good. I threw away a whole container of growing stuff from the fridge without even opening it. I found 2 things to return to LL Bean and placed my order for their replacements.

I did NOT get my lunches packed for this week. I did NOT pump enough to get my milk supply back up to where it should be. I did NOT manage to wash my hair until this morning, and therefore skipped going to church with icky hair. I DID inventory my milk supply in the freezer and determined that I could use 4 bags per week and run out exactly on Quint's first birthday. And then I promptly sent 2 bags to daycare with him today. I did NOT get the microwave cleaned out. I did NOT get the fridge wiped out. But I can do those two with small fry underfoot.

Not gonna wallow in the stuff I didn't get done. Because just look at those pictures!!!

Great weekend!

I had such a great weekend! Not so much in the fun category, but definitely in the productive category. Out of my weekend list of 17 things, I managed to do 12 of them!!! That's 2/3 of my list!! Woohoo!!! And I got a nap or two in there, I got to hear my son laugh, and I actually enjoyed a large political picnic where it even rained a bit. Apparently, put a cute baby in a bib that says "wee-publican" and he's a huge hit!

I cleaned out the sloppiest box of precious papers of my husband's on Saturday morning while he was not at home. The contents went from a box about 30 inches by 15 by 15 (with lots of dead bugs in it), to a box 9inches by 6 by 18. Let's see..... a bit of rapid calculation.... that's less than one quarter the volume of the previous box! And the best part about the new box size, is that it can fit on top of a copy paper box on my shelves! All awards, group photos, and bound booklets kept. Large label (on both ends) that says what job he was leaving with this box and what year that was.

AND! I set the huge empty box on the front porch and after our regular huge trash bin was full, we filled the empty box up with other empty boxes and trash!! I love throwing things away!

For years, I've been an empty box keeper. I'd keep boxes forever because I might need a box just that size. Sunday, I asked Hubby if I could throw away several empty boxes that are in his office. He just froze. "You mean you want to throw away a box?" "Yes" "By all means, go do it right now before the urge is gone!" So I did.

The ONLY time my box keeping tendencies have been a help is with LL Bean returns. I started keeping one (just one!!!) of the large shoe boxes that they use to send us replacement shoes. So whenever Hubby has determined that his shoes are worn out AND he can do without shoes like that for 4 weeks, I whip that sucker out and we can have them in the mail in just a day or two! And yes, that particular empty box has a special place in the closet. The shoes go out, replacements are returned, and THAT box goes to the special place in the closet. Quite the little system.

For those of you who don't know, LL Bean has a lifetime warranty policy. So if you wear out an item, and send it back with your receipt (we keep a file of receipts), they will send you another very similar to it! Hubby has been getting at least two pairs of shoes per year from these folks since he was about 14 - when his feet stopped growing. We just wish they sold shingles, tires, and oil filters.

My baby likes to shake laundry. Last night I piled like 5 loads of laundry on my office floor and parked in front of the TV with my baby. For a while he just ignored the laundry and paid attention to every cord that was even kind of visible. But after I made a stack of his bibs.....oh my!! He knew these were his wanted to play! He does this thing where he'll hold a bib in one hand at shoulder height and shake it up and down, watching how it moves. Then he transfers it to the other hand does the same thing. Back and forth and back and forth. Then flings it aside and goes for another.

By this time, I had piles of hankies, washcloths, kitchen towels, baby washcloths, and T-shirts. He views this as FAR too neat and orderly. Let's shake all those too!! So many of the stacks had to move to the futon in short order. While his back was turned, I restacked the bibs. He turned around and found his gift of orderliness. Must destroy!!! While he shook and flung those, I got another load's worth of laundry folded and put out of his reach. Then he noticed another neat pile of laundry. While crawling toward that, I restacked the bibs and pointed at them! Disaster averted. I like this game! And so does Quint. You don't actually fold bibs anyway, so why not.

He also at one point put a bib on his head as if it were a cap and looked around, whipping his head around to feel it move on top of his head, while keeping it up there! I had to laugh and baby clap at that one. He beamed! I love this little guy!

I've gone through the rag bag and picked out things that are obviously rags, stacked them neatly, and put them in his toy basket. I also realized that I have some socks in the rag bag that look better than the socks I wear on a regular basis. Hmmm.... must think about that...

Inspiration

As many of you might know, I'm a big fan of the Style Network's Clean House show. I also liked the old show Clean Sweep that is no longer on the air. I especially like to watch these shows on Saturday morning which then inspires me to get off my butt and clean something. Usually just to prove to myself that I am nothing like the people on those shows. NOTHING! Nothing I tell you!!! The much more severe show Hoarders usually gives me a facial tick and sends me into an adrenaline fueled panic cleaning spree where I might throw out perfectly good items.

On my birthday this past year, I got a snow day. One of the things I didn't blog about was our Clean House marathon topped by an episode of Hoarders and what that did to us mentally. All three of us were home, and I had been cleaning while listening to the show all day. Hubby could hear the show too, even though it's not his favorite show - by a long shot. At about 2pm, we watched a few minutes of Hoarders and then quickly turned it off. A few minutes later, while Hubby was on the phone (big surprise!) I started cleaning out our entryway closet with something close to panic. I needed to prove that I could clean out a closet without a team of psychologists present! Hubby walked by. With sign language, I told him where the keep and trash piles were on the floor, and without a word between us, we sorted through the entire closet. In like 15 minutes. I was so proud.

Wednesday night, Clean House showed it's 2 hour show with this year's Messiest Home in the Country. This one involved HAZMAT suits. Seriously. Really good episode. The only down side was that it ended at 10pm when I should have already been in bed. And now I'm all inspired to clean up the rest of my vacation unpacking mess. In that episode, and in many episodes, all the walkways had junk closing in both sides so that there was a 4-6 inch wide path where you might be able to see the carpet.

Because our baby boy has started speed crawling, we've put up baby gates in several strategic places in the last week. As a result, everything that he shouldn't eat was moved to just behind a baby gate. This meant that the top of our stairs and our entryway hallway had a very narrow space where you could walk.

OH NO!!!! MY HOUSE RESEMBLES A CLEAN HOUSE HOUSE!!!

Small panic attack.

So before I went to bed that night, I cleaned up at least one small pile that was in a walkway. Thursday, I realized that this was a 3 day weekend, and I was so relieved that I would have time to clean up the house!!

So here's my super-duper list of what all we got done this weekend:
Finished unpacking both suitcases from our vacation. Washed, dried, folded, and put away all the laundry, ran the dishwasher 2 or 3 times, bought groceries, made 2 weeks worth of baby food, emptied the cardboard box of useful things we took on Vacation, emptied the wicker basket of useful things we took on vacation, threw away the latest baby-gate box and stored the extra parts together in the "unused parts of baby equipment" closet (AKA the entryway closet), threw away the DVD player that hasn't worked in years, emptied 3 overflowing trash cans upstairs, threw away some empty shipping boxes, neatened all toy/play areas at least 3 times each (large expanses of empty carpet make my heart happy), vacuumed, swept, cleaned out my trunk and put my standard stuff in it again, cleaned out the interior of my car of vacation ruble, cleaned off the kitchen table (this was huge!), organized and stored the project supplies that have been living on our dining room table, sorted all the mail we received during vacation (did not get it filed though), relocated all the pots, pans, and casserole dishes that we never use to the space in the kitchen cabinets that we never use! Now we have room in the cabinets for the stuff we DO use! This feels wonderful! Gathered and packed away all the burp cloths, small blankets, and other tiny baby stuff that we've just stopped using. Gathered things for the attic and actually got them into the attic. Emptied/consolidated one box of stuff from the loft. Improved the labels on the plastic bins with various sizes of baby clothes. Cut all of Quint's nails. Washed and replaced both changing table covers so that we can use the safety strap. Made a list of bills to pay online (left it at home, though). I threw away many things that if I had patience and time I could still use the last little bit but that hasn't happened in 3 months so screw it. Threw away a bunch of empty water bottles that FACE IT we are never going to reuse. I drank plenty of water yesterday for the first time in several days.

Other things I did NOT do that made me feel virtuous:

Resisted the urge to stock up on clothes detergent just because our cool dispenser was empty. We had plenty for probably a month.

Resisted the urge to buy (literally) 416 diapers just because I had a great coupon. That's about 11 week's worth of diapers. We are not low on diapers. At all.

Resisted the urge to shop for anything because my allowance has been running in the negative.

I let Hubby talk me out of buying redundant groceries, that could really wait a week or two.

Also, this weekend, I held and cuddled my whimpering son while he clearly didn't feel good and occasionally would just hold his ears and cry. He's near the end of his second round of antibiotics for ear infections and I feel sorry for the little guy. Lots of Ibuprofen this weekend and lots of reading the bottle to make sure we didn't OD on it. Last night at 4am, I felt a few stabs of ear pain myself and remembered just exactly how bad those suckers could hurt! I don't think I have an ear infection at all, but it was a good reminder for me and gave me more patience.

A rare day at home

Yesterday my son’s daycare was closed so I got to spend the whole day with him! We had a VERY eventful day which I will now tell you all about. I got soooo much done and Quint had a milestone himself!

First I let small fry sleep as late as he wanted and he woke up on his own terms. This makes for a happy baby and a Mom that is fully showered, dressed, and ready to meet the day. We went to the doctor where he got shot, which he was not in favor of, but then I nursed him right after which made it some better.

Then we went to my work where I hosted a Quint party. Monday, I sent out a meeting request to half the company letting them know that we’d be there at 10:30 Tuesday and come on by to admire my cute son. It was really fun! He performed admirably and was incredibly cute, sweet, and happy for the 15-20 women who squealed over him.

Then we went to Hubby’s work to show him off there! Again, he was a big hit, cute and sweet. Due to his need for lunch (he did get some plain cereal) and a pressing need for a nap, he was not quite as happy. But he was only a tiny bit fussy and handled meeting 85 more people really very, very well. It was incredibly sweet how his daddy would call out to people down the hall, “Come meet my son!” The pride in his voice made my heart swell!

We got some fast food for lunch and sweet boy conked out in the car almost as soon as I strapped him in. He awoke soon after we got home, though, which was a surprise. I thought he might sleep for an hour or more. For the next 3 hours, he played and chewed and played and chewed and drooled and was quite happy as long as I gave him a change of venue every 30-45 minutes. Lots of laughing and smiles.

During the whole day, I got the following done: (drumroll please) I made our bed, neatened the floor of our bedroom, put all the junk away that usually lives on our bathroom counter, hit the tub with soft scrub several times, washed the baby clothes that had been soaking in oxiclean, opened several windows, emptied the dishwasher, loaded the dishwasher, swept the hardwoods twice, mopped, put two layers of wax on the hardwoods, boxed up some stuff for my mother-in-law, froze some baby food, scrubbed all the carrots off the highchair, excavated the huge pile of blankets and pillows to find the bagpipes, sword, and bludgeon baton below, figured out a way to hang the sword and baton on a hanger, stored the bagpipes elsewhere, took pictures of tables to be sold on craigslist, fed Quint cheerios and 2 crackers and cleaned up the aftermath of that, stacked all the living room blankets and pillows neatly, and took Quint’s kilt, sporran, and christening outfit upstairs.

At 3pm, the tide turned on my laughing smiling baby….

He became an absolute fusspot, only napped a little, and was only consolable when he was in my arms, walking and whimpering. Was it prophetic that I put his "Little Crabby" shirt on him today? Hmmm… Tylenol time. And time to strap him to my chest where he alternately whimpered, drooled down my cleavage, and chewed on the baby harness while I continued to clean and neaten. At 7pm, I texted my sweet hubby asking him to come home from the “boy’s club” for moral support with the fusspot.

Just before Papa got home, things got better for the fusspot. He had been chewing on a much loved boardbook for a lot of the afternoon. I was playing with him on my lap when suddenly, I saw it! The tiny break in the skin of his gums revealing the top of a tiny tooth. A HA! That at least accounts for half the fussiness. The other half could be the three shots he received that morning.

So my little guy has his first tooth!!

Hubby asked if I enjoyed my day as a stay-at-home mom. I stared at the ceiling thinking… Well, perhaps the day he cut his first tooth is a bad day to try to analyze that. Next Tuesday, daycare is closed again so perhaps that day will be a better sample day. I am REALLY glad that we (Quint and I) got so many good hours together before he turned into a fusspot. That balanced the day out. If I had dealt with 2 hours of fusspot after a full day at work, I would not have taken it in stride as well.

I have a new strategy on the battle against clutter and preparation for a mobile masticating (look it up) baby: Each day I try to put away one tiny pocked of floor clutter. We have many such pockets around our house and I’m fighting them one by one.

I have realized that we have entered into a new phase in our lives that will last several years. The Cherrios Phase. That wonderful phase in life where you might find a cheerio ANYWHERE!!! Those little suckers will stick to anything and detach later!

Another thing I’ve learned in the last 24 hours… When you feed your baby bubblegum Motrin and then nurse him, you will smell like bubblegum until you shower next.