Stay-At-Home Mom

I'm enjoying living on my own schedule.

The first day that Curtis went to school, I was antsy. I spent about three hours moving William from room to room, swing, cradle, crib, floor mat, lap, repeat. I didn't know what I should be doing with my day. I didn't know when it was ok to take a shower, check the mail, or take out the trash, because I didn't have Curtis around to keep an eye on the William and Tommy duo.

But I'm figuring things out and this week is going really well. William sleeps a lot in the mornings, so I'm able to work on things. Yesterday, before The Price Is Right, I washed the Blazer with a hose and a sponge! I don't remember the last time that car was washed!

Today I replaced our broken toilet seat, and that was really a tough job! I don't know how much you know about the mechanics of toilet seats, but their held onto the porcelain thrown by screws, and those screws have big plastic nuts on the underside of the toilet. So, my toilet seat had rusty, corroded screws, and the nuts WOULD NOT screw off. The attempted unscrewing involved me sitting sideways on the toilet seat, with my head between my knees, trying to use pliers to unscrew the crazy nut. After an hour, I had an almost shredded piece of plastic that had moved down the screw a centimeter, with maybe 5 centimeters to go. That's when the Dremmel and safety goggles came out. Power tools are pretty cool. Since the nut was a little ways down the screw, I could get the dremmel in there and cut through the nut on two sides, then pull off each half with the pliers. Awesome! The other untouched nut was harder to cut since it was right up against the toilet, and this side of the toilet is closer to the wall. But I got the dremmel in there and figured if I could cut/melt off a big chunk of the nut, I could rip the rest off. Flying hot plastic pieces and several sparks later, I was able to rip off that crazy nut!! hahaha! I seriously ran two victory laps around the house with my hands up in the air. I've saved what's left of the nuts and I'll carry them around in my purse for a while, so please ask to see them! :-)

Close Call

Yes, we're settling in to our new house just fine. We bought two new houseplants, William is getting teeth and -breaking news- just rolled over on to his side.

But more importantly, I have a good story. I love a good story. Here's what happened... Curtis, William and I went out to eat and we left Tommy at home, of course. At our old house we were able to use a baby gate to keep Tommy in the living room (ok, a baby gate and a couple of strategically placed chairs), but at this house, the doorways are too wide for a baby gate, so Tommy has access to the living room, dining room, and kitchen. We usually do a good job of checking to make sure there's not much he can tear up before we leave the house, but this time we missed something.

We came home to find a package of hamburger buns (Tommy loves bread) ripped open on the living room floor. He'd eaten 6 of the buns and left 2. William was crying because it was time for me to feed him, so I got down to business while Curtis picked up the licked buns and scraps of plastic that weren't ingested. Curtis walked into the dark kitchen to throw away the ripped bag and buns and that's when he kicked a piece of glass. (dramatic music)

A piece of glass? What was made of glass that was sitting on the counter next to the buns? It was the jar that was temporarily housing Waldo the fish! I was stuck in the living room nursing William and relying on updates from Curtis. "Where's the fish?" "Can you find him?" "Is he dead?!" After a very long second, Curtis found Waldo, and found him alive! He put him in a coffee mug, added some Waco water, and voila! Crazy. Why didn't Tommy eat the fish? He would have been tastier than 6 dry hamburger buns. Waldo lives another day. Now we have a good reason to get his permanent home established.

Half-Packed

We made a packing plan, and it's really going well. So far we've just worked on one room a day, and packed up everything in that room except the big furniture and essentials. We've packed up all the drawers, shelves and closets in the dining room, living room, bathroom and our bedroom! Tomorrow we're working on our craziest room, the office/nursery.

In case you didn't see it on facebook, here's our packing helper:

Moving Plans

First, The Abilene Story:

I moved to Abilene in August 2001. My family and I parked at Gardner dorm, carried clothes, a pink ironing board and other assorted dorm stuff up to the third floor, and I met my roommate and best friend, Hannah. I loved my freshman year at ACU.

I married my husband in Abilene in August 2004. We got married August 7 at Minter Lane Church of Christ. Friends and family from across the state came to watch a tall and short couple tie the knot and a crazy groomsman knock over my little cousin to catch the garter.

Curtis and I lived in four different rent houses in our 79601 zip code (except for the three months we lived in Montevideo, Uruguay) while we both finished school and made plans for our family. Curtis worked at Radio Shack, grounds-keeping at ACU, and as a high school math teacher at Wylie ISD. I volunteered at the zoo for one semester and worked in the study abroad office at ACU.

In August 2006 we adopted Tommy, our first greyhound. Our first night together I sat in bed and stared hard at his black chest to make sure he was still breathing. We didn't have a fence so Curtis and I took him outside for all his potty breaks; middle of the night, before work, lunch break, after work, and before bed. The 10 pm walk was my favorite because Curtis and I did it together, even on snow days. Tommy turned 7 last week. He's a beautiful and sweet dog.

Of course this summer we had our baby, William, and became a stack of three nametags at church. It's been a blur of sleeping and not sleeping, visiting family and having family visit us. We thought it would be a long summer since neither of us would be working, a long summer to rest and get ready to move, but it was fast.


The Plans:

We're packing up this house, ending with a flurry of packing on Thursday the 30th, and we're loading up a U-Haul Friday morning. We'll unpack at our new house, figure out where the nearest HEB is, and get ready for Curtis's graduate school adventure.

100%

In the weeks after I delivered, it was easy to use numbers to explain how I was feeling. For example, on a scale of 1-10, my pain could be a 5. Or "I'm feeling about 80% today." But recently I've had a few people ask me, "So, are you 100% now?"

That question really throws me for a loop. 100%? I don't know what 100% means anymore. If it means that I feel like I felt before I had William, then I will never be 100%. For one, my belly button and other body parts have forever changed and there's no going back. But maybe more importantly, I have changed. I have a different life now, and there's definitely no going back.

A few months ago a "100%" day might mean that I wake up, feel rested, feel successful at work, check a few things off the household to do list, eat dinner with Curtis and watch a good TV show. But now that wouldn't be a "100% successful day."

I've thought that maybe 100% means how I feel emotionally, whether or not I feel confident and successful in my body and in my mothering. No, that can't be it. Then no one would ask people if they felt 100%. Sheesh.

100% pain free? I don't know. maybe? usually?

100% happy? not usually.

Does anyone else feel 100%??? Probably not.

Or maybe 100% can just mean that I'm doing ok. The people in my house are eating and sleeping and generally happy. Yes, we're 100% people and 100% family.

Oooh...

The blog is getting cooler. On the right sidebar, you'll notice our new feature: twitter updates! I think this will be fun.

Success at the Theater

We went to the movies!! Curtis and I watched Star Trek today and William sat in the seat between us and slept through the whole show! Well, he was a little unsettled during the red dinosaur part, but he went right back to sleep. I couldn't believe it! I was so worried that he would start crying... that I would have to take him outside... or breastfeed him during the movie... but he didn't cry, it was easy, and I loved the movie. A big success!

Another story: The ladies at church have been asking when I'll start coming to the afternoon bible study again. I haven't been since I had William. I decided that this week would be a good time. So, Thursday, 5:30, I pulled up in Kay's driveway and I was the first car there. I went up to the porch and noticed that the dining room lights were off. Kay answered the door before I knocked and said, "Well hi Lauren, what are you two doing here?"
"We came to the bible study."
"Is today Tuesday?"
"No, it's Thursday. Is the bible study on Tuesday?!"
Yes, I had totally gotten the day wrong. Kay invited me in anyways and I enjoyed a coke and a break while Kay and her husband played with William. I ended up hanging out on their couch for THREE hours! They suggested that I go run some errands or take a nap, but I was sure that William would need ME any minute, so I stayed on the couch. But he didn't need me and I should have taken a nap. Next time. And that was good to see that William can hang out with other people and be happy. I guess I knew he could, but it's hard for a mom to believe that other people can take of her baby.

William's doing really well. We just finished packing up his 0-3 month clothes and filling his drawers with 3-6 month clothes. Thanks to Hannah and her son, Mason, William has lots of cool things to wear. (Plus all our outfits we got at the showers!) According to the bathroom scales, he's 14 pounds! What a chunk. He usually goes to bed around 11 and gets up sometime between 4 and 7. He slept 'til 6 or 7 twice this week. Nice. We're still enjoying diapers and wipes from the showers and when those run out, we'll jump into our stack of gift cards. We're very thankful, even though I haven't sent out thank you notes STILL!

Here's a picture of William a few weeks ago when he was skinny and had hair... but I wanted to show you how he sleeps in his crib: all spread out!


And here's a picture of him sleeping in his swing today. :-) Look at that belly!