Operation Backyard and 3 Year Old Boo

Well, Operation Backyard has seen some progress. I really wish that I had a digital camera so that I could post some pics right now. I think the space is really looking great. We have the climber up and the kiddos love it. Also, the playhouse was finished as of approximately 10:00pm last night. If standing outside in the dark finishing the playhouse by flashlight while the bugs eat us for late night snack isn't dedication, then I don't know what is! The sandbox is still a "pretend" sandbox while we wait for funds to put play sand in it, but oh well. We'll get there. I feel like my daycare space, both indoors and out, has seen more progress in the past two month than in the past close to two years that I've been open. It's great to see the place start to look as I've always envisioned. Of course I still have more wants and ideas for my business, but we'll get there!

On another note, I can't believe that my child will be 3 years old a week from Monday. It hardly seems possible. He seems so much a baby to me still in a lot of ways. But he is definitely Mr. Independent. His potty skills are coming along nicely in spite of a regression period after moving. Today he told me he had to use the potty while he was outside playing. That was a FIRST. Usually if he's outside playing he could care less about running inside to use the potty, so I was very thrilled. I've been hanging a package of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse underwear that he wants very badly over his head. I first showed them to him at Target last week. He has definitely stepped up his efforts to get to the potty on time since being told that we would buy his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse underwear if he pees and poops in the potty all the time. He really wants that underwear. He gets excited when he talks about it!

One thing that's kind of fun about our new location is that we're a few blocks from a local ice cream shop. I thought it would be horrible for me, but I've not been terrible. They have a kid sized cone that's only $0.70 and they even put a face on the cone. How cute is that!? So we walk there every now and then. We went last night while daddy was working on the playhouse. Boo was very excited because he got to bring "his own" money (i.e. my money that he claimed) to the ice cream shop. He kind of gave me a funny look when I told him he had to take his money out of his pocket and give it to the lady at the ice cream shop in order to get his ice cream. But I guess the lure of ice cream was too strong, so he gave in without a fight! After we got home he informed me that he wanted to go "bye bye to store and get money." Oh, really? That's how that works? Well, I've been getting it backwards all these years. Ah - the mind of a child. Everything must seem so easy and simple to them. I envy their ignorant joyful existence!

Because I Need to Be Busier

Well, those that know me well surely know that I need more things to keep me busy like I need a hole in my head...but yes...life is about to get busier for me. I just enrolled two little ones into the daycare - a six week old and a 13 month old. I'm really happy about it though. It seems like a good fit and I'm hoping that this will be a long-term thing as I really don't like having a revolving door on my business. But times will be hopping. Goodbye to my peaceful nap time break and hello to more juggling - just what I need in my life! I love my chosen career though and wouldn't trade it for anything. Yes, taking in new kiddos, especially infants, is always a bit rough at first, but once I adjust I find that I get into a rhythm that works. I have a wonderful group of toddlers and preschoolers who will adjust beautifully to younger ones in the home.

What caught me by surprise is that I started thinking about my daycare family. There's a 6 year old, 4 year old, 3 year old (in two weeks), 2 year old, and now a 13 month old and a 6 week old. It hit me that my son is in the "older" group. WHAT??!! When did that happen? He was 15 months old when I, and subsequently he, started daycare. He's growing up so fast. It's all just a bit nutty. And someday he'll move from the older daycare group to the school-age group and that will just be very strange.

Life - it all goes so very fast. But at least I'm not sitting around bored!

Blah Blah Blah

It's NOT raining today. Hurray. Hubby is outside now putting up the climber. Playhouse is still in a pile in the garage. If we get one thing up today I'll be happy. Progress would be nice. Speaking of progress, I really need to make progress on some things inside the house. It's kind of like we busted our butts to get the downstairs ready for daycare and DCFS compliant and once that was done we just kind of stopped. It's not been on purpose, but I guess we've been having fun, hanging with friends, and trying not to feel too stressed about the piles of boxes in other parts of the house. I have a few garbage bags in the kitchen that I would like to go through by week's end. It's plastic kitchen stuff. Some might even be garbage, as in tupperware with no lids. I'm definitely not hanging onto those things. So perhaps I'll start on that today. I also want to start cleaning stuff out of the garage - my nice lovely garage that I was so excited to get that I've been unable to park in because we have piles of crap in it. Blah - it will get there. But it's absolutely driving me nutso!

Of course what I really want to do today is dye my hair. I've never done my hair myself though. Hubby has always done it for me. Before hubby my mom dyed my hair for me. But he's busy and I kind of don't want to wait, so I may just say "to hell with it" and hope that it doesn't turn out too terrible if I do it myself. I'm going blonde. Hubby has been wanting me to go back to blonde for a loooong time. It's been forever since I've gone blonde. I usually prefer some shade of brunette. I would say that my worst shade was black, but that was even fun for awhile. Actually, no, my worst shade was ashy green - ash blonde gone wrong. I definitely don't use any color with ash in the name anymore. I go for golden, bronze, or neutral shades. Nothing with a cool tone.

So I guess the choice is dyeing my hair or unpacking some things. Either way I have the unpleasant task of some dishes and sweeping/mopping awaiting me. So perhaps I should do something fun and go for the hair. Hmmmm....Yep. I think I'm going to find some grungy clothes and go for the hair option. Blonde bombshell here I come.

Good Times with Grumpy Neighbor

Well, it's been a crazy week. Hubby has been sick all week thanks to an antibiotic that he was put on. He might be getting better. He did go back to work, but that was more because he just had to. He still feels like crap. We had a busy weekend and consequently I've been behind on dishes all week. We now have a dishwasher which is nice. I now get to stare at it when I do the dishes by hand and think what a nice looking appliance it is. Hopefully we'll get it hooked up soon. That will be a happy day for sure!

I had another run-in with grumpy neighbor today. He came knocking on my door this morning about the hose that has been moved. In case you're wondering, it's the hose that drains the sump pump from the basement. When he trespassed into our yard the other night he threw it up on the patio so that all the water could drain down into the soil right by our basement. That was thoughtful of him, wasn't it? So hubby moved it over a bit, still pretty stinking far from his fence. Also, I will say that his house is pretty far from the fence, so even if water seeps under his fence it's not soaking into the ground right be his house. But anyways, our yard slopes towards his. It's just the lay of the land. We didn't create it. Honestly, no matter where we put that hose the water is going to make its way down the slope. It's not my fault that it's been raining nonstop and the ground is saturated. Maybe if I could control the weather grumpy man would be happy. Eh - probably not! Anyways, our conversation did not go well. I started out trying to be polite. Really I did. I responded that we were working on it. He continued and continued and continued. I do remember telling him that I didn't appreciate him knocking at my door at 10:00pm at night due to my struggles with insomnia at which point he informed me that he didn't care about my insomnia. And then I snapped. I told him he wasn't allowed to knock on my door late at night and that he was absolutely not allowed to come into my backyard. Of course he kept talking as I was telling him these things. So since I couldn't get him to listen to a word that I had to say I ended the conversation by telling him repeatedly to get off my property. I think I even pointed and snapped toward his house a bit. Yes, my wrath came out! But you know, we love our house so much and even though we're still trying to get hubby's career squared away, in a lot of ways I feel like we are living the "American Dream". So what American dream would be complete without the grumpy neighbor? They go hand in hand.

Anyways, we're camping with friends this weekend and probably taking Boo to see Toy Story 3. And I'm hoping that there's a constructed playhouse in the cards this weekend, but we'll see. I'm not sure that hubby's going to be up for it. He's really had the life knocked out of him. I think he's just trying to function right now.

Insomniac Awareness

Hubby and I were watching a movie earlier this evening - some Star Trek film - something about some guy named Kahn. I don't know. Anyways, it was perfect. It put me right to sleep. So up up up the stairs I go. I'm laying in bed about to drift to sleep and then BANG BANG BANG on the door. It's 10:00 at night. I insist that hubby go downstairs to see who is banging on our door this time of night, especially when I look out the window and see that some man is walking around the side of our house.

So hubby heads downstairs to find out that the hose for the sump pump that he had been working on earlier this week shifted in the yard and was sending water to the neighbor's yard. Since this neighbor didn't get a response when he knocked at the front door, he walked around the side of the house, let himself in our backyard gate, and moved our sump pump hose. Okay - I get why he was upset. Yes, the hose needed to be moved. Apparently he was "trying to get a hold of us all day"?? Ummm...we were HOME all day long!! I struggle with insomnia. I was drifting peacefully to sleep when this man banged on our door. I'm sure that anyone who struggles with insomnia can appreciate my angst here. I am going to have to bite my tongue hard not to be mean and nasty the next time I see this man - hubby says I should be nice. Ugh - now I'm WIDE AWAKE and it will take forever for my body to settle back down again. I'd drink a beer but I've used all of my weight watcher's points for the day. Ugh. Anyways, I guess we've now found something we don't like about our house - THE NEIGHBOR. Who pounds on somebody's door at 10:00 at night to tell them about a damn hose? I mean, really, was it flooding his yard? I don't think so. It definitely could've waited until morning. Then he proceeded to come through our fence and into our yard and move our hose. I'm feeling so extremely violated here. I'm going to buy a padlock for the fence asap. Sorry old grumpy man - your access will be denied next time. And if you try to jump the fence you'll probably break a hip.

Focus on the positive.

I'm trying to focus on the positive as this week started off kind of crummy with hubby being sick as well as some other things. Sooo...I guess I'll dwell on what I can come up with.

Well, I've lost a few pounds after rejoining Weight Watchers. I did attend my meeting on Saturday morning like a good girl and it felt good to be back. Yay for that. Also, a friend of mine has talked me into trying this class at the YMCA. So I'm going tonight. All of our clothing is still a huge mess - the closets haven't been organized yet - so I had to dig and dig and dig, but I finally found my sports bra. Yippee!

Today has been a good day with the kiddos. We had a great walk and enjoyed the sunshine playing outside in the backyard this morning.

I still like my house and am so excited to no longer be renting.

I had some great girl time Saturday night and ordered some fun things at a friend's party.

A dishwasher that we bought from a friend is being delivered today.


Boo's birthday is coming up. As sad as it will be to see my baby turn three, I'm looking forward to celebrating him for who he is. He's such a wonderful blessing and I feel so lucky to have him in my life.

Well, that's my list. I'm going to attempt this type of blog more often, especially when I'm feeling a bit down!

Buzz Therapy

Well, ever since we've moved we've been working on getting Boo to sleep in his own bed. It's not been going great. It took us forever to get his bed set up for one thing. When we did finally get it set up, of course he didn't want it. I'm not a fan of cry it out. I won't stick him in a room and just let him cry and be miserable until he wears himself out and falls asleep. I'm okay with a little protesting given his age, but not all out sadness/terror.

Anyways, I was at the store the other night and we found a Buzz Lightyear flashlight that he liked. So before he put it in the cart I explained to him that it was for night night, but he had to sleep in his own bed in order to play with it and that he'd get to play with it until he fell asleep. So he said okay because he wanted the flashlight. Two aisles over he looked at me and said, "Mommy. I don't want flashlight." Well, I bought it anyways and we're three nights out and it's worked like a charm. He lays in bed and plays with it and I go in and shut it off after he's asleep. The last two nights he's crawled into bed with his flashlight as opposed to my having to place him there. Hurray for progress! I've been so lax about his sleep routine and I'm really at a point where I want him in bed by 8:30 every night. I feel like I need some down time and hubby and I need this time as a couple. So we'll see if this continues to help him be okay with going to sleep by himself. Here's to hoping!

Operation Backyard

Well, I've started working on the backyard even though there's a zillion things to do inside of our house. But we really want to get the kiddos set up for their outdoor play. However, the rain needs to GO AWAY!!!! Every day that we've wanted to work on our space it has rained. This is a huge problem, especially since we can't just plop play equipment outside and call it done! Due to DCFS licensing standards for the daycare we have to till and mulch the area for the equipment first. Then we can put the equipment out. It's not like it's going to be too terrible as far as the amount of work is concerned, BUT we need a rain free day in order to get anything done. Our playhouse is still a lump of wood in the garage because of all the rain. We now have a climber that has joined the playhouse in the garage. The sandbox still has no sand in it because that will also be put in the mulched area.

So hopefully someday soon all of this rain will stop and we can get something done. When it does stop, we'll have a sandbox, Clubhouse Climber, and playhouse. So we'll have a lot of great things when it's all done.

We do have a nice new grill to go in our backyard. I bought a bunch of meat from America's Finest Steak and so hubby got a new grill to go with our meat. Yeah - you know how that goes. We could use a deep freeze to go with our meat too!

Anyways, hopefully the rain will clear soon so that Operation Backyard can officially begin!

When Peace Like a River

When peace like a river attendeth my way...it is well with my soul. Okay, so the hymn is about God, but this is what popped in my head when I think about the fact that we own our home and are no longer dealing with landlords. For those who have rented and/or are currently renting, I'm sure you know what I mean. Some people are fortunate to have great landlords. Awesome - glad you are in that position. Since we moved to the Burg we had a so-so one and a really crappy one. I feel so at peace knowing that we are not at the mercy of how someone else wants to maintain a property. At our last place, I remember feeling frustrated day after day just trying to complete simple tasks. For example, trying to take a shower and the hardware would fall off while I was trying to use it (that's after the landlord "fixed" it), walking down the back stairs and remembering NOT to use the railing (the one my landlord "fixed" by shoving a heavy rock in front of the base of the rail), opening a cabinet in the kitchen to get something out and having the cabinet fall off on one corner. These are things that I do not have to deal with, or when they do come up I can ensure that they are fixed properly. If they are not fixed properly I will have only myself, and maybe my husband ;) , to blame. I guess it feels less stressful to know that we're a bit more in control of the situation. Not that we can control what may come up in terms of necessary repairs, but that we can work to find a solution that we're happy with.

I also feel much more confident in the space that I'm able to provide for my daycare and hope that this makes a difference when it comes to filling vacancies in the daycare. We have big plans for the backyard. So far the rain has really gotten in the way of those plans. But it is the middle of June after all. The rain has to dry up sometime soon!

Third Time is a Charm

Well, here I go again with Weight Watchers. This is my third attempt in the last year and a half. Attempt #1 was short and sweet. I did great, but got pregnant and quit since my goal was no longer weight loss. That pregnancy of course did not end in a baby, at least not one on this earth. I still firmly hold to the fact that my angel baby is in heaven waiting to meet me someday. Soooo...attempt #2 was started two days after I miscarried. For me, it was easier to grieve if I could do something positive with my body. This attempt was great. I lost 24 pounds on this attempt. That was early to mid last year. Then I got lazy with counting. I always seem to sabotage myself when I start to do well. I continued to stop and start. Part of the problem is that I was struggling to attend meetings regularly. Hubby took a summer class and worked Saturdays for awhile and I admit that threw me off and I never quite got back on track after that. The choice was drag Boo to my parents' house early in the morning or drag him with. Neither choice was appealing. For the first I had to get out of bed earlier. The latter choice meant getting grumpy looks from people who felt that I was not keeping my 1 year old quiet enough. So I never got back on track after that, even after hubby no longer had a Saturday commitment. My fault entirely. Then I decided early this year to exchange my weight watcher's membership for a family gym membership. I figured I'd use free online calorie counting software and get to the gym more. Well, it's not enough for me. I'm not successful at all with the online calorie counting site. It's not the site. It's me. Truly, the times when I was successful with weight watchers is when I attended my meetings regularly. So, I guess I'm one of those people that needs to be humiliated on a scale week after week in front of a perfect stranger in order to be motivated enough to stick with good eating habits. Hubby and I have talked and I have decided to join again. I need this to be the time that I make it all the way to my goal. So I'm hoping that in this case third time is a charm. I know that based on my past success I can do this. So here's to getting healthy. Cheers!

Oh...and in case anyone's wondering. I'm discontinuing my blog that was devoted to this. Life is too short to have five million different blogs!

The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner

I just finished reading The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer and I must say that I'm very unimpressed and kind of wish I could have the hours of my life back that I spent reading this novella. The characters were uninteresting and underdeveloped and Bree was an absolute idiot. There was just nothing overly interesting or surprising in it. Granted, if you've read Eclipse you know how things end for Bree, so it was bound to be predictable in a sense, but the writing seemed uninspired and amateurish. It came across as poorly written fan fiction. Anyone else read it?

Here We Are

Well, here we are in our new house. And I must say that we're loving it. The moving in process was exhausting and time-consuming, but we had some great help, including some dedicated friends that helped me peel contact paper for four hours one night (and it still wasn't finished after that). If I never see another roll of contact paper in my life, it'll be too soon!

We busted our butts the first week to get through the maze of boxes downstairs and get the place organized for daycare. We were tired, grumpy, and sore, but we had daycare up and running by Thursday of last week. Granted, not everything is in place, but we are in compliance with all of the DCFS licensing standards. The kids have a pretend sandbox in the yard right now because we haven't had the time or money yet to dig a hole and fill it with sand (our sandbox is bottomless). So I've just told them to play in the pretend sandbox for now. We have a pile of wood in the garage that is a playhouse that we ordered. We had to wait to put it together because some of the pieces were damaged when it come. Of course we've had the replacement pieces since Friday and it's still not done. We've been busy and I admit we've been kicking back a bit now that we've had a few moments to breathe. So hopefully sometime this weekend the playhouse will be put together. I don't know when exactly, but I really really hope it's finished before next week rolls around.

I LOVE the new daycare space. It's a zillion times better than the old space. It looks nicer, seems better organized, and has a cleaner look due to the seller's tasteful wall colors and window treatments. I've changed some of our routines in order to adjust to the new space and definitely feel like those changes are working out great.

I love my backyard, fenced in with a patio area. Wally has made friends with the two dogs next door and they like to run laps along the fence together. So he gets a lot of energy out that way. He's had a complete personality change with having a backyard to run around in. He's mellowed out so much that he gets to join me and the daycare kiddos on walks and during outdoor play. He also gets to have space in the kitchen during the day when he's indoors. Of course he still gets upset that he can't join the kiddos in the daycare area indoors. But he's way too excitable for that. He'd be on top of all those little kiddos! He does great with them outdoors though. They love to pet him and throw sticks for him to run after.

Our family room is also awesome. It's pretty small, but I like to think of it as cozy. We've got a fireplace that the seller's left (a portable electric one) and we mounted our t.v. above it. I admit that we did splurge on a flat screen because we realized that trying to fit our huge dinosaur t.v. and entertainment center into such a small space would've ruined the room. So we love it. We can turn the fireplace on, watch a movie, turn the lights off and it's instant ambiance. I'm all about ambiance. It must be the Cherrington in me - must have candles for meals, that sort of thing.

Now, our upstairs is another story. It's piled floor to ceiling with boxes in pretty much every room. Our clean clothes are piled everywhere because our closets are due for makeovers before we can begin to put things away. So it's a bit overwhelming to look at for the moment. But we'll get to it!

I guess the next big thing on my agenda is to start making phone calls on my waiting list to fill one daycare opening. I admit I'm dragging my feet a bit because I'm enjoying the momentary lull and I also want time in the new space with my already established kiddos before adding a new family/child to the mix. But I will not be able to procrastinate forever on this. So I will probably start making phone calls by the end of this week. I will say that I think it will be easier to fill openings now that I have a much nicer space. I tried to do the best I could with the previous space that I had, but it just doesn't compare to what I have now.

So, now here we are and I'm just feeling grateful and happy and peaceful in our new home.