The Many Adventures of Motherhood

My husband caught this picture of me one afternoon when I'd fallen asleep sitting up, nursing our baby

My husband caught this picture of me one afternoon when I’d fallen asleep sitting up, nursing our baby

Those of you who follow me on Facebook have probably noticed a theme of me being a little overwhelmed lately. Today I thought I should stop for a moment and properly document the adventures going on in our household recently, and some thoughts on motherhood.  If you want to skip over my tales of craziness to the moral of the story you can click here and jump to the end.  Strangely enough this post is long. Not sure why, none of my other posts are ever long 😉

My Commitments and Projects

I posted this to Facebook the other day – “I’m pretty sure I’d be doing a whole lot less work if I were homeschooling Sam than I am by helping out with his class in the public school – this is getting a little ridiculous!”  I have gone back and forth for a while as to whether I should homeschool Sam or not (that’s a whole other post for another day), but I signed Sam up for kindergarten at our public school this year. He’s SO far ahead of their curriculum it’s silly, but we try to find things to keep him engaged at home.  When I went in for his kindergarten assessment I noticed that no one had signed up to be the room mom so I decided to take the plunge and sign myself up.  That commitment on its own really isn’t too bad, I’m mostly managing volunteers for all the class activities, which I can do via email from home – right up my alley 🙂  I’m helping with stations every other week on Tuesdays.  I’ve been surprised at just how much parental involvement is required to run our kindergarten class – I’m glad for the parents that have been so willing to do it, and that the kids are getting such a great experience – just overwhelmed with how much it requires from each parent.  In addition I’m our ward’s cub scout committee chair, Danny’s soccer coach, a freelance web developer, a local political activist, a visiting teacher… oh yeah, and a wife and a mother to three young kids.  It’s been a little busy around here

U04 Soccer

As I mentioned above, I decided to coach soccer this year.  The last time I played any sort of organized soccer was when I was in 3rd grade so I’m not the most qualified, but I figured that for U04 soccer (a league comprised of 3 and 4 year olds) my experience was sufficient.  I figured my whole goal was to let the kids play and not cry too much – if we were generally kicking the ball and playing something that resembled soccer that was enough for me.  I figured the other parents can’t get too upset since I wasn’t getting paid, and if they thought they could do better, I would gladly let them (our league had to refund  a lot of players’ money this season because not enough parents volunteered to coach).  It’s been more difficult than I thought.  We have a team of 7 players, but of those 7, two have refused to play at all, two have been willing to play occasionally (but sometimes “play” means sit on the field – Danny would be one of these two), one who is a really decent player – but gets really upset if the other team scores or if someone takes the ball from him, and two little girls who have been stuck playing every minute of every game we’ve had so far.  This last Saturday when the game started we had 2 players who showed up.. the other team had 9.  Oh, and one of my two was Danny who was upset about everything and didn’t want to play (his shorts wouldn’t stay up, his shin guards were wrong, his socks were wrong, his cleats were wrong… he’d gotten up too early, everything was wrong).  The other coach was understanding and subbed some of his players in and out of our team and we played with whoever would come out on the field at any given time.  I can’t even tell you how grateful I am for that very flexible and understanding coach for totally rolling with our ragtag team and just letting the kids have a fun time with whatever sort of team we had.  Also, a HUGE amount of thanks to my wonderful in-laws who have been coming to all of my boys’ games.  Eric had commitments as the Young Men’ president on Saturday and wasn’t able to be there, so his parents’ help of sitting with Maeli and helping negotiate with Danny was helpful beyond compare.

Danny’s Head

Two Saturdays ago while Eric was at some stake leadership training Danny comes into the house with blood running down his face.  I of course bring him in and get him cleaned up as best as I can while asking what happened.  He tells me that one of the boys in our neighborhood hit him in the head with a bat.  Outraged I go outside and confront the boy about this and he claims it was an accident.  I’m somewhat dubious, but I also don’t want to be accusing him of things that truly were accidental – plus Danny is still bleeding so I say something about not playing with bats and go back to caring for Danny.  As I get him cleaned up the cut doesn’t look too bad, it’s not very long but it’s opened up pretty wide from the swelling.  I’m pretty sure I’m overreacting but I text Eric to say that I’d like him to come home and look at it once he finishes his meeting, rather than going and getting a haircut as he had planned.  Eric arrives home within minutes and looks at the cut.  He concurs that it’s opened pretty wide and we should probably get it looked at.  While he carries Danny around he gets the rest of the story.  Apparently the boy who hit him had hit Danny on accident – but he’d been using the bat to try to hit another little girl and had just missed.  Awesome.  By the time I find this out I feel like it’s too late to bring it up with the mom or the little boy again so I decide to let it go and just be grateful that Danny wasn’t injured worse.  We’re fortunate to have a friend who is a doctor and lives a few doors down.  He takes a look at Danny’s head and is of the opinion that a butterfly bandage will be sufficient to let the wound heal properly.  Poor Danny complains sporadically over the next few days that his head hurts and gets a black eye.  When the bandaid falls off everything looks fine, but then he can’t leave it alone and picks the scab off and makes it bleed again.  Danny’s still wearing a bandaid today, a week and a half later because he’s too traumatized that it will start bleeding again 🙁

New Neighbors

Last week we were ready to to the bus stop and Sam was outside reading.  I called him in to get his backpack. When he got to the garage he said, “But Mom, there’s a master spider in here!” Sam can get worked up over things that aren’t that big of a deal so I was certain it was just a box elder bug. I told him, “don’t worry about it and come in” As I looked around the car I found that it wasn’t a box elder bug – IT WAS A TARANTULA! Ok, so it turns out it wasn’t actually a tarantula… it was a wolf spider that was the size of a tarantula.  I am a bit arachnaphobic, I hate, hate HATE spiders.  So to have a giant spider in my garage?!?  AHHHHHHHHHH!  I was not a fan.Downloads2

For some reason these spiders seem to be taking over our neighborhood.  That picture above is some of the pictures that have been posted to facebook of these spiders.  I’m not sure why I decided to make a collage… just looking at those pictures is enough to give me the creeps.  Oh, and black widows have been taking over our neighborhood too.  Greeeeaaaat.  I might not be outside much between now and when our neighborhood freezes over.

Adventure to the Doctor’s Office

So yesterday was an exciting afternoon.  We had scheduled an appointment for Sam to finally go in and get his last  immunization for kindergarten.  Since I am pretty severely trypanophobic we had scheduled this specifically for a time when Eric could take him.  About 15 minutes before it was time to leave Eric was requested to join an emergency call for one of his clients.  So instead of just Eric and Sam going, I got to take all three kids to the doctor’s office. I thought we’d be in and out super quick since we were just there for a shot, but we ended up waiting room for 1 hour!  During the wait of course Maeli started to get super tired.  When we were finally called back Sam was trying to bargain, he said he wanted a full check up before he’d let them give him a shot.  Luckily their protocol had them weigh and measure him, check his pulse and temperature, ask about the things that he’s been eating and did a pretty  decent mini check up.  His one specific request was that they look in his ear with an otoscope and the nurse even played along and looked inside his ear.  When she left the room Sam started getting nervous.  So I let him decide whether he wanted the shot in his arm or his leg so he could feel a little bit like he was in control of the situation.  He decided on his leg so I helped him take his pants off and sat him on the table.  Then I gave him my phone and let him play some games with the deal that if he’d be good for the nurse he could keep playing. That was great… in theory.   When the nurse came in, Sam  was upset but I was able to distract him with the game a few times, but I was trying to help Maeli who was now rather over tired. When the nurse finally was ready to do the actual shot Sam freaked out completely and tried to climb the wall. So she went out to bring in another nurse to hold him down.  Even with both of them they had a hard time holding him still.  So the second nurse called over, “Mom, some help?”  (she obviously hadn’t gotten the memo that needles tend to make me pass out).  So I buckled Maeli back into the stroller and tried to come over and hold Sam’s hand, but Sam was flailing and I couldn’t look at the needle without wanting to react the same way Sam was… I wasn’t much help.  They finally got the shot in Sam but he was still flailing and freaking out, so his heart rate was up… meaning he bled… a lot. There was blood everywhere.  All over his leg, all over his arm and all over his shirt (naturally, since he was wearing a brand new shirt yesterday). The nurse finally gets his leg cleaned up and lets him pick out a bandaid (he wanted the plain brown one, not ninja turtles, not iron man, not perry the platypus – plain brown) but he was still mildly freaking out. Maeli was crying because she was overtired. Danny decides to act up.  He had ridden in the stroller in and had taken off his boots.  He wouldn’t put his boots back on, and he refused to walk and let Sam sit in the stroller. As we walked out I needed to get a receipt from the office that Sam had gotten his shot for the school, I had to just hold Maeli while we waited for that because she was so upset at that point.  I got it, and we left the office with both Sam and Maeli in hysterics.  Danny on the other hand is feeling smug for having helped rile Sam up even more.  When we got to the van Danny hits his head on another car in his smugness so he’s crying too.  Awesome.  Everyone cried on the way home and we made frozen pizza for dinner, and called it an early night at the Hansen house.

Today’s Adventure

So, after yesterday’s adventure I was hoping for a quieter day today – hahahaha!  How naive I must be.  This morning I had to get everyone up and ready early because I’d volunteered to take in the snack today for “W” day and hadn’t made it to the grocery store yesterday ( it’s what I’d planned to do while Eric took Sam to the doctor’s.  Then last night I was helped Eric Hansen put a hitch on our van – because when you’re the Young Men’s president it’s important to have a hitch 😉 ) Luckily everyone woke up at a relatively decent time and I had all three kids ready before 8:25 and even remembered to text my friend whose son I usually walk to the bus stop on Tuesday to see if she could find someone else to walk him.  Good start!  We got all of our groceries and our W snack (wheat thins and gummy worms), but of course before we could check out the boys both needed to go to the bathroom.  Since Danny is still in the process of potty training I wasn’t going to mess with that and sent them together to the men’s room while I waited with Maeli.  It’s always a little stressful to send the boys into public restrooms on their own, but that went off without event.  We got bagels for everyone for breakfast (Danny wanted the chocolate kind – aka a donut – but I was able to talk him into a blueberry bagel instead) and got everyone loaded into the car without incident.  I realized though that I’d forgotten the actual snack bucket at home.  Luckily I was scheduled to help in Sam’s class anyways so I sent Sam with one grocery bag that contained the snack and promised to bring the bucket when I came in.

When we got home Danny started whining about not wanting to go to preschool.  You need to understand that Danny’s preschool takes place in the home of our next door neighbor.  The same neighbor whose house he runs away to on average once a day.  The same house that he’s so comfortable at that I found out (to my mortification) that he will let himself in the back door, go straight to the pantry, grab himself a granola bar and just join into the conversation.  You know, someone who he really doesn’t like 😛  But because I want him to go to preschool and it isn’t his idea, he never wants to go.  I decided not to address it since that only seems to get him more upset.  I take Maeli upstairs to Eric, and pick up Danny’s preschool bag.  Danny tells me defiantly, “I’m not wearing shoes, I won’t put them on” in the apparent hope that I care enough about whether he wears shoes to get him out of going to preschool.   I don’t 🙂  So I just pick him up and carry him over while he whimpers on my shoulder.  I set him down in a chair and he stands on the table stamping his foot… and I leave.  Presumably once I leave he calmed down again pretty quick.

So, back at home it’s time for me to shower and get ready to go to Sam’s class.  I get all ready, feed Maeli and take her over to my friend’s house.  She agreed to watch Maeli and Danny while I was helping at the school but let me know that her mom would be the one doing most of the watching.  I guess she’d forgotten to tell her mom I was coming because she wasn’t expecting me, but she cheerfully took Maeli anyways and I headed off to the school.

When I walked into the office to sign in I realized that I’d left both the snack bucket and the immunization form in my car, but I decide that I’ll get them after helping.  We start doing stations and I get a text from the girl watching Danny and Maeli.  Luckily I was wearing my Pebble so I was able to glance at my watch and see it, otherwise I probably would have ignored any incoming messages until after class was over.  The text said, “Sorry to bug you… so after preschool Anna said ‘Danny you’re going to go to Kashe’s.’  Danny promptly ran home and in the door.  And locked it.  He won’t open it.  So… I know you’re coming home soon.  We’re just trying to get Danny to open it.”  My heart sunk.  Not because this was unexpected, actually I had thought through this earlier in the day and thought that I needed to make sure our front door was locked before I left… and I thought it was.  Obviously, I had forgotten.  My mind started racing through how they could get in to him, while still trying to guide the kindergartners through doing their W page in their alphabet books.  I don’t have a spare key outside or anything like that so I thought I was just sunk and I’d probably have to bug out early to go get Danny.  Then I remembered that we have a keypad on our garage so I texted back our garage code.  My friend was able to get in and find Danny, who had come inside and was hysterical because (obviously) no one was home.  She showed Danny the text from me that I’d be coming home soon and I guess that was enough to convince him to go to his friend’s house (all of 4 doors down) of his own accord.

Once Sam was packed up we hurried out to the van, grabbed the snack bucket and immunization record to bring back into the school.  Returned both of those items to where they needed to go and turned in my visitors badge.  We got back to pick up Danny and Maeli.  Crystal tells me about their adventure with Danny (she was supposed to still be asleep since she’s a nurse and is working tonight).  She also tells me how Maeli cried at her mom every time she would look at her while I was gone 🙁  While we’re talking my phone keeps ringing from the school, but I decide they can leave a message and I’ll call back when I get home.  Sam however didn’t agree with that plan and answered it for me.  So while I’m loading kids into the car I’m talking to the school nurse.  She tells me that the paper I brought in was not sufficient and that Sam had 3 shots to get, not just 1.  My brain is a little frazzled but I remember that there should be two separate immunization records in Sam’s folder – one that has most of his shots, and another that records the two shots he’d received earlier this year.  She put me on hold and was able to find that, but I still need to get her an actual immunization record, and not the receipt saying he’s received the immunization, for the shot he received yesterday.  At this point I sort of feel like I should have expected that and agree to get her the right thing and hang up.

The Moral of the Story

So, as you might imagine, I’ve spent a lot of time lately feeling like I look in that picture at the top – e x h a u s t e d.  What you might not expect though is this – I love every minute of it.  That’s not to say that I sit there in the doctor’s office while Sam’s bleeding and freaking out thinking, “Wahoo!  This is a blast!” but I wouldn’t trade those crazy experiences for anything.  I love being involved and helping out and doing what I can do to help make this world a better place.  I am so grateful to have the opportunity to raise these kids and have these crazy adventures.  This is what life is all about, and even though it’s tiring, and messy, and stressful – it’s also wonderful, and exhilirating, and joyous!  I love being there in Sam’s class and hearing about how he’s well liked and polite.  I love seeing Danny’s face light up as he comes home from preschool because he’s excited to show me all the cool things he’s done.  I love watching Maeli discover new things and learn new tricks.  I can honestly say that when people look and tell me, “Looks like your hands are full” I can truthfully answer, “but so is my heart.”

In Doctrine & Covenants 58:27 we read, “Verily I say, men [and women!] should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness;”  At the end of the day I may be totally worn out and able to fall asleep as fast as this little girl –

But, I’m also able to answer the question, “Have I Done Any Good in the World Today” with a loud and resounding – YES!  And that’s the best feeling I could ask for.

So while I appreciate the urgings from friends that I can just say no to more things and to take more time to take care of myself… I don’t plan to slow down.  I’m involved in a lot, but I’m happy being busy.  The things I do might not always be done as well as I would like, or as quickly as I would like, but I’m happy to be able to do them.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go take care of Maeli.  I’m not sure what she’s gotten into but despite having been inside all day, and having showered this morning… she suddenly smells like dog poop.  While I investigate what she found and get her cleaned up you can enjoy this video that I think will speak to anyone who has found themselves in the midst of adventures like mine.

(If the video won’t play here try this link instead)

Rollercoasters

So it’s been awhile since I posted a High/Low and highs and lows seem to be describing my day today so, here we go…

High: This morning Sam woke up early (as usual) and we came downstairs.  After awhile I left him watching some Sid the Science Kid so that I could go take a quick shower while Danny was still sleeping.  Just before I jumped in the shower I saw Danny sleeping peacefully in bed with Eric.  When I got out, Danny was gone.  I go downstairs to find that he’d gotten himself out of bed, crawled down the stairs and was happily playing with his big brother.  I love my two little boys!

Low: Sam spent the rest of the morning terrorizing Daniel until I was about ready to throw him out the window.  Seriously, why can’t he just let his brother be?!?!

High: Some of the girls in our neighborhood have put together “Monday Madness” where one person organizes a playgroup activity and we all go to a park, or the splash pad or hang out in someone’s backyard for an afternoon.  It’s a great way for us to get out of the house and enjoy being with some other people.  Today we went to the pool in our neighborhood which is always fun.

Low: When we got there we were informed that Sam wouldn’t be allowed in the pool because he wasn’t wearing a swim diaper, and despite being potty trained, he is 3 and all kids 3 and younger must wear swim diapers.  I had to call Eric to bring up the swim diapers for us.

High: When we were packing up to go I realized that we didn’t have our little swimming boats that the boys use at the pool.  When I checked up at the Community Center I found that they were still there in their Lost and Found.

Low: Daniel didn’t want to stay in the little boats and insisted instead on running around in the shallow end and flopping himself underwater every few seconds.  Seriously, nothing I could do would convince the kid that he would rather be above the water than below it.  I got him and Sam in their boats for a little while and we did the lazy river a few times but Danny was getting mad (he hadn’t taken a nap this morning).  So, I pulled him out of his boat and was trying to carry him around and settle him down in the pool.  Sam then wanted to trade boats so I put him in Danny’s boat.  While we were walking around in the shallow end I was paying attention to Danny in my arms and trying to help him go to sleep and suddenly the lifeguard jumps into the pool and grabs Sam.  In the maybe 10 seconds (I don’t think I’m exaggerating at all, I really hadn’t hardly let go of the boat) that I wasn’t actively watching Sam he had managed to flip the boat upside down and was trapped underwater.  I felt like the worst mom ever.  I don’t think Sam would have really drowned, I really was keeping an eye on him, he just must have flipped that boat over so fast that I didn’t see it.  Better yet, all the moms in the neighborhood were there so they all know what a terrible mom I am.  #momfail

High: Both boys came home and fell fast asleep right away so that I could write this blog post.


This next set didn’t happen today but while I’m thinking about it I thought I’d write it.

High: While we were in California last month Eric and I decided to take a little one night getaway and go down to Long Beach to celebrate our 5 year wedding anniversary.

Low: Eric got roped into lots of work stuff that day and we didn’t get out of the house until after 5pm, meaning major rush hour and it was going to take forever for us to get to Long Beach.

High: We decided to stop before hopping on the freeway and go to The Cheesecake Factory that’s all of 5 minutes from my parents’ house.  Despite the massive amount of people waiting in and around the restaurant and us not having a reservation they were able to seat us right away and we enjoyed a great meal.  We took some cheesecake back to my family before we left and stopped quickly to go to the bathroom and grab some benadryl & sudafed (my allergies were making me miserable).  The delay made it so we were able to get to Long Beach in pretty decent time and we had a nice night together, got to sleep in, no babies kicking us and even got a late check out.  We had considered staying an extra night since we hadn’t left as early as planned on Friday but after a much needed good night’s rest we were feeling pretty good about life and decided to just head back to my parents’ place as planned.  We decided after check out to go to California Pizza Kitchen for lunch before heading back.

Low: When we drove over to the CPK we found out that we were only a few hundred yards from our hotel and they only had paid parking.  We would have been better off leaving our car at the hotel and walking over and back.  But it was too late at that point so we paid for 1.5 hours of parking and went to CPK.  We thought that would be more than ample but the waitress took so long bringing us our check that we were a little bit over that estimate by the time we got out.  We got to our car to find a parking ticket, apparently we’d only been given 1 hour worth of parking, despite our being sure we’d decided to get an hour and a half.  Boo, parking tickets are the worst.  We would have contested it, but you can only do so in person and since we live in UT, it wasn’t exactly reasonable to do so.  We couldn’t figure out how to pay online and our checkbook was at home so Eric stuck it in his laptop bag to pay it when we got back.  He pulled it out today to discover that it still hadn’t been paid and now the fine is $150!  Most. Expensive. Pizza. Ever.  Seriously, it would have been cheaper for us to have just stayed in the hotel that extra night than to go out for pizza.  We took home leftovers and they somehow disappeared and we didn’t even get to finish off that super expensive pizza.  Boo.

High: Our boys, who are often very clingy and only like us, did VERY well staying overnight with my parents (and my maternal Grandmother and Step-Grandfather).  Daniel ate solid foods fantastically (which he will NOT do in my presence, he thinks that if I’m around he should be nursed, always).  They had a fun night and we enjoyed a little bit of R&R without them.  We had a great trip overall.  I need to really write a blog post about the whole thing, but it hasn’t made the priority list yet.  Until then you’ll just have to know that it was a lot more highs than lows, despite what this post might make it seem!

07 June 2010

Low: Sam was super sick today. He’s had a runny nose and a cough recently that we had determined were allergy related (we deduced this scientifically – he went outside and it immediately got worse). Then last night his voice started getting hoarse like he had a sore throat which we also decided was probably allergy related. He didn’t sleep well last night after that. He didn’t actually wake up much but he was especially squirmy and rolled around the bed a lot like he couldn’t get comfortable.Then this morning he threw up. Not a ton, and I thought it could just be a result of all the mucus he had built up. But I also realized that Sam hadn’t really eaten much for his last several meals and had opted to play with his food instead. While this isn’t atypical behavior for Sam it was for that length of time. So I knew he definitely wasn’t feeling well, and just snuggled him and let him sleep on my lap. After a few more hours he woke up and suddenly puked the entire contents of his stomach onto me and my rocking chair. I had no idea that tiny body could contain that much volume! I quickly mopped off the chair and got Sam in the tub before realizing that I was also covered in puke and should probably remedy that. That was the only major puking incidence of the day but Sam was pretty miserable for the rest of the day as well and now has a fever! Poor little bean 🙁

High: My ward is awesome! After posting on facebook that Sam was sick I got two offers from people to pick stuff up for me at the grocery store and another offer to bring me some diapers in Sam’s size (especially helpful since Sam was also spewing out the other end). I was so touched by these wonderful examples of Christlike service. I’m really going to be sad to leave this ward.

31 May 2010

Low: Although Eric managed to get enough sleep on Saturday night, Sam and I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. I think I’ve seen every other hour every night for the past few nights. I spent most of the day yesterday trying to convince Sam to take a nap, and then most of the evening trying to convince him *not* to nap so that he would sleep well. Apparently neither tactic worked so we saw midnight, 2am, and 4am before going out to the couch at 6am and waking up at 8am. I’m starting to think I’d be much happier with 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep than I am with 8 hours of interrupted sleep.

High: Eric brought Sam into our bed when he first woke up and let him sleep with us for a couple hours. As glad as I am to have Sam sleeping in his own bed, I’ve missed having our whole family snuggling together at night. Also I’ve almost got my new website put together which will be great to have finished 🙂

Brittny – 24 May 2010

Low: Uhm, it’s the 24th of May and it’s snowing outside. Yeah, that was the view from out our study window this morning. Ew gross yuck. I keep wanting to box up all of our coats and snow gear as a start to preparing for our move… guess I’ll have to wait a little longer for that still. (Yes mom, I’m sure it is beautiful in California right now and we should move there. :P)

High: Sam is doing better at sleeping through the night, hurrah! Also, we ran the roomba last night so our front room is all vacuumed. Of course, when we run the roomba we move our furniture to be off the carpet so that we can get all the things that Sam has hidden under the coffee table, rocking chair etc as well. So usually when I wake up the morning after running the roomba I have to bring Sam out (while he’s still sleepy and cranky and hungry) and put him down for a minute while I take down the coffee table from the couch. But this morning the coffee table was already down when I got up! I was a little bit confused but very grateful that I didn’t have to make Sam mad and we could go straight to feeding him. I found out later this morning that Eric had woken up in the middle of the night needing a drink of water. While he was out in the kitchen he noticed that the roomba was done and thought of me trying to get the coffee table down while holding Sam and took it down for us. It may seem like a really small thing, but the fact that he thought of us in the middle of the night when he was half asleep really touched me. Best. husband. ever. Thank you Eric! I love you!

Brittny – 15 May 2010

Low – This is my fourth attempt at writing this post now…

Also, just feeling inadequate to do all the things I ought to be keeping up with – work, cooking, laundry, mothering, blogging, sleeping, dishes, vacuuming, freelance projects, my calling, temple attendance, scripture reading, praying, exercising, grocery shopping, budgeting, dating (but only Eric of course), service, family home evening… not enough hours in the day!

High – I found a decent blogging client for my droid! Granted it’s super annoying to write a full post with my thumbs… but I can! Now I can blog from bed, woot!

Also, I got some super cute pictures of Sam while we were playing outside today – we’ll see if I can add them to this post…

Well after much trial and tribulation I’ve decided to settle for a link to the photo gallery. Maybe next time…

Samuel

Cute pictures of Sam 🙂

Brittny – 11 April 2010

Low: This has been a ridiculously busy week. I’ve been working all week on a single page redesign on a website. It should have been a relatively easy project except that the requirements were impossible using conventional web design practices. So I had to use all kinds of strange methods and different programming languages just to get the page styled correctly. Ew. Yuck. Gross. Once I did have everything there was still the matter of getting the content on the page to work as well (I had a form that I had to trick it into thinking it had all the right data). On top of that I landed two new freelance projects and finally got the meeting set up for Theronyx with Axis41 so that we can get going on that website redesign and have another smaller freelance project that I’m supposed to have done. Oh yeah, and sleep training sucks (but don’t worry mom, I wouldn’t say sucks :P). I haven’t been getting a ton of sleep lately with that going on. So needless to say, I’m a bit tired.

Highs: All of that work = money. While it would be nice if my projects would line up and come one at a time I’m grateful to have a job that I can do from home and earn good money. I’m really grateful for all of the opportunities that I’ve been blessed with.

Plus, Eric let me take a nap today when we got home from church while Sam napped. It wasn’t a super long nap, but it was definitely needed. If I can get to bed at a reasonable hour tonight I think I’ll be ready to take on this week.

Also, while sleep training still hasn’t worked 100%, we are doing MUCH better. Sam now takes all of his naps on his own in his bed which means I have at least a little bit of time to myself during the day (albeit, his naps are generally shorter than they are when he sleeps on my lap, but I’ll take what I can get). Plus he will go to bed by himself at night for about the first 3 hours of the night which also gives me a little bit of time to wrap things up for the day while he sleeps. However, he usually wakes up not long after I go to bed – usually about the time I’m ready to drift off. I’m thinking he might be scared of the dark or maybe dislikes the total quiet that comes over the house when Eric and I go to bed. We might need to invest in a night light and start playing him some white noise again. Luckily he usually sleeps well once I hop in bed with him and I can get some sleep too. He has a queen sized memory foam mattress that I got at Walmart for ridiculously cheap so there’s plenty of room for both of us – even when Sam lays sideways – and Eric doesn’t get kicked out of bed. Win-win-win!

However, the real high this weekend came on Saturday morning. I woke up with Sam and I was feeling pretty overwhelmed with everything that I needed to get done that day and I was tired. I turned on my computer and saw this email –


Ryan and Taylor took Sam for the entire afternoon so that I could finish off that ridiculous project. It was really nice to finally get that project completed. After I finished it Eric and I had a “date” – if you consider eating semi-burnt potstickers at our kitchen table while listening to Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me a date (which apparently I do :P). And we were able to get our house cleaned up so we could have guests over that evening. It was funny because I’m used to only not having to take care of Sam when he’s sleeping so I felt like I needed to whisper the whole time he was gone. I feel so much more ready to face this week after getting our lives a little bit more in order. So I really want to say a huge THANK YOU to Taylor and Ryan for helping me out yesterday, it really meant a lot.

On to this week!

Brittny – 05 February 2009

Low: I was going in to work today for my annual review and to get to some meetings. That meant we had to be up this morning at 7am. So I planned ahead and went to bed with Sam at 11pm. Of course, he woke up at 12;30am and then wouldn’t go back to sleep until about 2am. I had somewhat expected that would happen and missing those two hours of sleep would have been fine… if I could have fallen back to sleep with Sam at 2am. Instead I couldn’t fall asleep until 5am for no particular reason. Sam wasn’t sleeping especially soundly so most of those two hours of actually being asleep were spent nursing Sam which just isn’t the most restful way to get sleep. Only getting about 3 hours of not so restful sleep is a pretty crummy way to start a busy day.

High: Believe it or not, going in to work today. I feel really blessed to work at Axis41. They have a really talented team there and I’m really grateful to be a part of it. I hadn’t realized just how much I missed being there with them. I’m now considering working it out so that I can go in one day a week and work there again. I think it would be good for me to get out of the house and also good for Sam to learn to be with other people. Next week will be a trial run while we’re with Mom and Dad to see how Sam handles being on his own during the day (well, not all on his own, but not with me :P)

Also, I got to take a 3 hour nap when we got home which was VERY beneficial.

Finally, the Lockwoods came over! I’m so glad that they live close enough for us to see them regularly. It’s so fun having family around to just hang out with and enjoy their company. Yay for family!

Brittny – 24 January 2010

Low: Our family had a really slow start this morning. Sunday mornings are still pretty rough since we’re not used to being up at 9am when church starts… let alone beforehand to get ourselves ready! We were late to church as a result, but…

Highs: … Sam was really cute when he woke up. At first he was *legs tired, so tired*, and just snuggling us and trying to figure out why in the world mom and dad were trying to wake us up. But when I took him into the bathroom and put him down to turn on the bathtub he immediately was happy and smiling and trying to hop in the tub. It was super cute! He also slept through almost all of church, which was definitely a blessing so that we could teach our Sunday School lesson and pay attention during the 3rd hour of Ward Conference. (yes, Ward Conference was another high 🙂

Also, Mom & Dad Hansen came over for lunch this afternoon and to visit us and play with Sam. I made our fettuccine alfredo all by myself and it turned out well (although it took me longer than I would have liked to get everything put together and on the table). We had fun visiting with them and showing off Sam’s new tricks. It’s such a blessing to have family nearby that can come and see us often.

Plus, after Mom & Dad Hansen left Sam was getting sleepy, so I took him to bed and nursed him to sleep and was able to sneak out and leave him alone in our bed. He’s still there now! Eric and I even got to spend some time by ourselves which is a definite rarity and something I really miss. I think it’s going to be a big driving factor in sleep training Sam. I just want to get to talk to Eric sometimes without a baby crawling over us! (Even if I do really like that baby 🙂

Hooray Sunday!

Brittny – 18 January 2010

Low: I spent all day yesterday in a house with cats. I think I might be allergic to cats because my throat hurts today (of course, my allergies have been acting up for awhile now anyways)

Highs: SAM IS WALKING! He’s so cute just toddling around the house now. There are few things as happy as watching that kid learn new tricks. What’s really fun is how proud he is of himself and how he’ll show off. One thing he does is he’ll crawl almost to Eric and then stand up and walk the rest of the way just to see us clap for him. He’s the best baby in the whole world!

Also, I got to spend all day yesterday helping a good friend of mine organize her bookshelves and discussing some deep topics of parenting. I’m so glad that I found Denise in our ward and we’ve made friends. I’ve learned so much from her and she’s such a great example to me.