I've lost my AH

Since I am officially back to working in an office (and not my recliner) I suppose that means I am no longer a WAHM, work at home mom. Now I guess I am just a WM, which really just looks sad. Pretty much sums up how I feel about it too. The first two days back to work weren't bad in themselves, I got to have a nice welcome-back lunch and it was nice seeing all the faces that I have been communicating with solely via e-mail all these months. But still, it sucked. A lot. I have been so spoiled getting to make my money and have my baby too, not getting both has left me feeling pretty glum. I had a full-out bawl fest on the hubby last night and I have just generally been feeling out of sorts about it. I range from feeling like an idiot for crying over something so trivial (things could always be worse) to just wanting to crumple up and feel sorry for my sad, sad self. It's like being post-partum all over again.

It doesn't help that things are pretty rough for us in general. The settling in process has not been easy, mostly because we are so definitely not settled. We highly underestimated just how uncomfortable living in someone else's house would be. It is not that my parents aren't accommodating, in fact they have been doing their very best to make room for us and assure we are comfortable. Nevertheless, we are still in a very foreign space for MR where there are no real baby safe spaces and just not a whole lot of space in general. My parents have been living a long time without babies and have filled their house up with all of the comforts that middle-aged yuppiness can provide. This unfortunately just doesn't translate very well for our needs. MR needs room to roam safely, we need a place to recede from my parents company at the end of the day, we all just need more room. And poor BL is feeling terribly awkward being the one staying home with MR in his inlaw's house. My dad works from home and my lazy 23 year old brother still lives at home (oh yes, that's right), so BL is constantly trying to shuttle himself in and out of the small available spaces and make due with the company of two males completely ignorant of the napping needs of a one year old. There is no more eloquent way to sum it up other than it sucks. We've made it to the weekend though. I am thrilled to get to spend some solid time with my little man and hopefully we can rally as a family and get ourselves back on track.

Oh, and a side note- I probably won't be posting quite as frequently as in the past. Seeing as I will be sitting in front of a computer all through the workday yet unable to spend that time (guiltily) blogging I won't have as much opportunity to get on here. So in anticipation of this, sorry if it goes a few days in between posts and/or if I don't comment as often as I used to. Things they are a changin'.

The other side

Well, we made it. We are still terribly tired and I am still struggling to string two words together and one foot in front of the other. But, we are here. Spokanites no more, Vancouver/Portlanders from now on. It's nice to know that there is no going back, that we have no more ties to the old city. All of our belongings are either in our POD (in storage) or underneath BL's parents house. Or in the room in which we are currently residing, my old room in my parents house. This is not ideal of course, and we hope it will only be for a few months time. It will need to be, for all our sakes.

Tomorrow I go back to work. Of course I have been "back" to work since MR was four months old, but tomorrow I will be going back in to the office, returning to a forty hour work week instead of my thirty, and not seeing my baby all day. It's pretty hard to take right now, I know there will be some nice aspects. Lunch will actually happen everyday. I will have conversations with real live adults. I will wear something other than my yoga pants to work. Right now though all I can think about is how I won't be spending all day playing with my boy, watching him grow, and my quality time will have to be squeezed into two hour packages at the tail-end of each work day. I'm sad. Can you blame me? Look at what I will be missing. This:

And this

Things are better on the family front, better than they were at least. Thanks so much for all of your well wishes, it's nice to come back to the internets and see your kind words. BL's father was only in the hospital for 48 hours and the surgery went well. Unfortunately he already had to resume chemo today, so cross your fingers that we don't have another relapse. Things with BL's grandfather are a little awkward right now, everyone seems to be avoiding the subject. Considering how much else we have on our plate, we have just been playing along with this. *sigh* We are here though, and we are together, so that is something to be thankful for in itself.

Coherence currently not available

Alright, the last 24 hours have been a mess. This is going to come in bullet form because I can barely speak a full sentence, let alone express whole thoughts on the computer.

-We are *this* close to being finished with packing and cleaning up the house. PODS comes tomorrow morning, and then we will spend all tomorrow cleaning up for our walkthrough on Tuesday.

-Our poor MR is freaking out about all the changes going on around here. His room has officially been dismantled and he really seems to have noticed the lack of his usual comforts. He is extra fussy and and quicker to cry. Naps have not been happening really. This simultaneously drives me up the wall and breaks my heart.

-We were at the U-Haul store to pick up a trailer for extra junk we will be taking with us and we got a call from BL's sister. BTW, Grandpa B passed away this morning. Oh, and BL's dad is back in the hospital. Emergency surgery to repair an infection. From the effin chemo. This.never.ends.

-I got nothing else. I'm sore from moving, I am emotionally drained from holding back the tears, and I am in desperate need of sleep and maybe a beer.

bdjkbkufb

That's pretty much how I am feeling right now. My legs are so tired of going back and forth to the POD, my arms are weary of lifting, and my mind is a puddle of mush. Mama is tired, and the week is just starting. This is our last full week in this house and we are in the midst of a big push to get things done before the POD people show up next Monday to retrieve our container (hehe, pod people). Combined with MR's newfound zeal for, well, everything I am finding myself dragging by the end of the day. I will be so very very glad when this is all finished. So glad that I will even be willing to overlook the fact that this will mean we are going to then be in the (close) company of my parents for the subsequent two months. That will be infinitely more appealing than chasing a zippy one-year old from one unpacked pile to another.

Blech, alright, that's out. I am very tired, but I am also getting excited knowing just how close this means we are to getting outta here. We've been trying to tackle a room or two a day to meet our deadline, really leaving the kiddo's room for last. This is mostly for utilitary reasons, as his stuff gets used the most, though also the small sentimental reason that I will be sad to dismantle my son's first room. Not a whole lot of thought went into the other rooms of this house, we always knew it would be temporary and there is only so much you can do in a rental when it comes to customization. I did my best to make MR's room his room though, so it's going to be sad to have to take it apart. Sigh.

Like I mentioned, kid is in to everything. And he is even threatening to start walking, he's standing up with any chance he gets and has started cruising at a rapid rumbling pace. He (and we) have become more comfortable with his tumbling ways, I think this stronger sense of security is what has inspired him to try for more. Oh man, the grandparents have no idea what they're in for.

He looks like he should be saying a really cheesy 'Ehh' right here

I can has forward momentum?

Long weekend

This past weekend was a LOT of work. It was all stuff that needed to be done, but now that I am taking a moment to sit down and reflect... I am tired. The mother is back in town helping us out by watching the MR while BL and I have been getting down to the business of moving out. We are planning on officially vacating the premises the last week of April, so we had to take advantage of having some solid time to get work done. This weekend wasn't so much about packing as it was of getting rid of that which would not be packed. Though it's been almost three years since we both graduated college we have still been trailing our collegiate belongings in beat-up boxes since then. A lot of that stuff is gone now, and good riddance. I won't even tell you how many trips to the dump we made, because the amount of waste we contributed is slightly embarrassing. I have no idea how that much stuff managed to hide in the corners of this house, because even now that it's all gone it doesn't seem like we did much. Some lucky Goodwill shoppers will be the recipients of my old clothes that no longer fit and the household goods inherited from roommates past. Those nasty recliners that have been sitting in the basement; gone. The general flotsam of broken cardboard, old dog beds, and other nameless garbage- gone, gone, gone. It's a huge weight lifted, and a very large check off our list.

The trip, now with pictures

See that sad little face up there? That is the reason why this trip has sucked so much. My poor little bug just can't seem to kick this fever. It's here, it's gone. It's up, it's down. He hasn't seemed to experience any other symptoms, except extreme crankiness, so I am still thinking it is teething related.
We're flying home tomorrow morning (early flight, hooray!) and I cannot wait to get to the house and collapse into my own dirty, unmade bed. Then it's back up and two more weeks of packing, preparing, and then finally moving.

I will be fair, this trip back home wasn't totally terrible. It was good to see family, as always, and for MR to reconnect with all of his relatives/babysitters-to-be. He was showered with early birthday gifts, which included enough clothes from his Nana to ensure a new outfit for every day of Spring. If you think I am kidding then you should check your local Carter's outlet, it's probably short in stock because she raided it. Her Carter's sprees are a thing of legend in our family.

He also got some fun new toys that included this little Eebee play mat, which is adorable and so much fun to watch MR play with. It can be used flat as a play mat, but it was more fun to build little structures for him to crawl in and out of. Okay, so yes, in reflection this trip was definitely not a total loss. MR is not the only cranky member of our family at present, I just need to remember that it's just a few more weeks. Then no more trips home, no more sleeping on the in-laws couch, just being home.

Going going, back back

Home. Again. For good reason though, it's BL's dad's birthday and they all could use a lift in spirits as things in cancerland have been hovering on the low end again. He is still cancer-free, no worries there, but he has had some recurring pockets of infection that just won't seem to stay away. Strangely the worst thing about the cancer has not been those rebel cells themselves, but the side affects from the treatments. Every time he goes through a round of chemo it rips his body up a little bit more, and following any sort of procedure it seems he ends up spending an extra week in the hospital. Blech. Anyways, I did not intend for this to turn into a cancer-rant post. We fly out tomorrow morning-ish and will be returning on Monday morning. Just a quick trip to sing Happy Birthday and share the MR love. They haven't seen him since he started crawling, so they are in for some fun. And by fun I mean MR is going to totally raid all the nic-nacs that his Nana has peppered throughout their entire house. Should be interesting.

Oh, and btw, I did survive our visit from the mother. It wasn't that bad and she was a HUGE help in taking care of the MR whilst we got some serious packing done. We still have lots left, but another dent was made.

On the road again...

Another pair of hands

My mom is flying in tomorrow morning to come and help watch the MR for us while we get down to some serious packing business this weekend. It's going to be a huge help having her here and it really will allow us to be more efficient in our efforts. We are fortunate that my mother is completely enamored with our little guy and has always been willing to come out and lend a hand with him when we have needed it. So with all this help that she will provide us, not to mention the chance at a date night for me and BL, know what the sad thing is? By the time Tuesday rolls around I am going to be so glad to say goodbye to her. Does this make me a bad person? I love my mother, but there is just something about being around her for extended periods of time that makes my eye twitch. Growing up in my family there wasn't a whole lot of communication that went on, whether it was between me and my mother or any other given family member. We just didn't do it. I have tried to be better about this as an adult in the hopes of improving our relationship, but old habits die hard. She has always been there for me when I needed her, she goes above and beyond the call of duty as a grandmother... so what's my problem? I've tried to answer this question many times, and I think it is just something inherent to our relationship. Can it change? I hope so, though I think it will require a lot of work on my part.

At any rate, I am looking forward to being productive this weekend and seeing that POD fill up. We've only got so many more weekends between now and when we hope to get out of here (mid-late April), so we are definitely going to take advantage of the in-house childcare. Mama's just gonna have to suck it up and learn to live with her own mother.

Scenes from the move

We had a very productive four day weekend (ah the perks of BL working for a Catholic University). We managed to get a whole lot more accomplished than I really thought we would considering everything was down around MR's schedule. The POD was dropped off late last week and we have just been packing as we can and transferring the boxes into the container when they are ready. It's incredibly convenient, kudos to whoever came up with this great idea.

We still have an enormous amount of stuff to sift through and dispose of. I am determined to purge all unnecessary belongings before we move, whether that sends those items to the dump or Goodwill I just don't want to pack along things that will remain packed and stored away in our new location. I feel the need to clean.

It's incredibly gratifying to see our house starting to empty around us. The walls have lost their frames, and the shelves (along with their contents) have been packed away in the POD. All of this means that we are getting closer to getting out of here. Hallelujah.

It's starting...

Look what showed up on our driveway today:

Now all we have to do is fill it. We started today, sorting through the (huge) pile of boxes/trash in the basement and emptying out some closets that have lain uninvestigated since their contents were first placed in them. We certainly have our work cut out for us, especially since everything has to rotate around MR's schedule and really only one of us can get anything done at any given time. Apparently babies, even almost one-year-old's, aren't such good packing assistants. Whodda thunk?

Let's be honest

In preparing ourselves for this move we have had to make a lot of decisions. There has been a lot of discussion as to what should go and what should stay with us in this transition. One of those items up for debate: the animals. We have two cats and two dogs, all animals that we acquired as individuals before we were married and then merged into our family plus baby. Of course we love our animals, but they certainly are just that now;animals. Not the babies that we used to treat them like, really they are largely ignored now, if not treated as an annoyance. During the day I have the demands of MR to meet, and by the end of the day we are more likely to greet them with a 'shush, don't wake the baby' then a good doggy pat. We continue to go back and forth on this issue. We're responsible for these animals, we made the decision to get them in the first place. But in the end? We aren't very good pet owners when we are so focused on being good parents. Especially being in limbo for as long as we have, and making as many frequent trips back home as we do, they really are leading a rather dull existence. We are hoping that when we finish with this move and are settled in our new house that we will be able to change this. There are a lot of factors that prevent our spending any attention on the animals right now that are tied in to the move and the reasons for it. So hopefully when the dust settles things will get better in that department. If not, well we are going to have to make some tough decisions.

If I click my heels three times...

So now that we have officially committed ourselves to this move we have got a lot on our plate, and by a lot I mean a whole huge mess of stuff. Aside from the fact that we are going to have to pack and prepare for this move with a now mobile child, we kind of have to figure out where we are moving to. Our little trip back home last weekend was in part to help us start laying the groundwork for some of this stuff. Our ultimate goal is to get ourselves into our own house. That sounds so nice, our own house...

Anyways, we aren't necessarily in the financial position to do that just at the moment, especially since we are moving before BL finds a job. Of course we would have preferred that he did have a job ahead of time, but we have been waiting on that since last fall and as we can all see that hasn't worked. Having to hold down a full time job here and making frequent trips back home to help with his dad's situation has not left a whole lot of free time for job searching. So our hope is that being back home for a few months with nothing but job searching on the agenda will help significantly, i.e. get him a J O B. In his downtime he can be the stay at home parent while I return to the office full-time :(. I have bittersweet feelings about this, but then that is for another post entirely.

As for where we will be moving to in the interim, well it seems we may have two options in that case. Initially we were thinking we would live with my parents for a few months, not ideal but an option that they were open to. Then this last weekend in the midst of discussions with BL's parents they suggested that they might be able to help us get into a house of our own straight off. Of course we would love this and would definitely prefer this to bivouacking at my parents house...there are just still a lot of details to sort out.

Right now we are just in the planning stage, but I am definitely excited. We're finally going home!

Holy crap, he's crawling

Like the title? Not the best use of my words, but it's the first thought that came to mind. It's official, MR can now crawl. Over the last month he has become progressively more mobile. He would roll, squirm, and slide his way from place to place. Even before tonight he has made tentative overtures towards crawling, but this evening he officially started to crawl. He went a few feet in one direction, then he sat down and turned to go in another. Then he crawled over to these little nooks we have by the fireplace, pulled himself up and grabbed a controller we keep stored there. Oh.my.shiz. It's exciting, but oh noes now I will actually have to be more active about what's laying around. I'm just so proud that my big little man has achieved this milestone, it's no mean feat lugging around his long little body. Not to mention that head.

In other exciting and also moving related news, we ourselves are moving! Finally!! BL gave his month's notice today, which means we will now be trying to get ourselves up and out of here in around that same time period. This will mean lots of work and a very busy month ahead of us, but I am just so thrilled right now that I am willing to accept this for what lies at the end. Going back home. Having a house of our own. Being back with friends and family. This past year we have been in such a stagnant state, constantly wondering when the move would happen and rearranging our life and our plans around it. So I am willing to spend some late night's packing and several weekends stressing, it's all going to be worth it.

Nice guys should finish first

My husband is a nice guy. I will admit that I am necessarily biased, but really truly he is a rare genuine person. He puts my cynical, less-nice self to shame and I am always amazed by his ability to keep being positive and being able to persist in the face of, well, assholes. Amidst all of the drama involved with my FIL and our attempting to move etcetera he has had to continue working underneath less than pleasant conditions. He's incredible at his job and despite the personal benefits of our having left sooner he insisted upon staying long enough not to leave them in a lurch. His job works around the school year, so May would have been an ideal time to depart.

Enter now the events of today, in which some incredibly malicious and downright deceitful employees who work underneath him filed a list of unfounded grievances against him. These are the people who bring down others in order to self-preserve. There has to be a scapegoat, and apparently my nice-guy husband looks like a good one. If it were me I know that I probably would have done something passive-aggressively vicious in return. Instead it is my sweet understanding husband who is left feeling betrayed and bewildered by this strange turn of events. It just kind of leaves my trust in human decency a little shaken. It always seems that the nice guys get taken advantage of, left to be held accountable.

We are taking this as a sign, and if things go as planned he will be giving his month's notice next week. So in the end this will all push us towards the end we have been trying to achieve, getting us outta here and back to home. Still, I wish the ends could have come by better means.

Home again, home again

Over the course of the last (almost) year we have made a lot of trips back to our hometown. Ever since learning of BL's dad's diagnosis we have been doing our best to be the next best thing to actually living in the same city. We are fortunate that we can make such frequent trips, with the help of the inlaws, and it has allowed us to see both of our families a lot more than we probably would have in this first year of MR's life. It also reminds us, oh so poignantly, how much we wish we were already back there permanently. We've been trying to get back there since early fall of last year, when we really were beginning to understand the scope of having a family member with cancer. Getting there just takes a bit of effort, it's an ongoing process.

We get to make another one of our regular roundtrips this upcoming weekend. I'm looking forward to it because we will actually be spending almost four days there instead of our quick weekend two. I can't even begin to explain how not pleasant that kind of turnaround is for MR. Fortunately as he has gotten older and more accustomed to these trips the repercussions have become less severe, but it's still not easy. He has to deal with the flight itself, sleeping in a new environment, being bounced around to see all the faces that want to see him, and his schedule is always bound to be knocked a little off. Thank the sweet gods that he has always been a good traveler *knocks on wood*, lord knows he has been on an airplane enough times now.

So yay for going home and seeing all the faces we miss, but I am sure I will return with bittersweet feelings and the wish that we didn't really have to come back.

Leader of the pack

In the grand scheme of things I am pretty young for a mother. Mid-twenties is not unheard of, and certainly not stigmatized the way a smaller number might be, but still I am ahead of the game when compared to the rest of my friends. This leaves me a bit lonely I am afraid. I continue to maintain friendships with a handful of people who I have shared my high school and college years, a number of those very close friendships. Amongst friends there always has to be a first, lucky me that this is my role. BL and I got married before the rest of them, but then this didn't necessarily set us too far ahead of the pack since we did have friends in long-term relationships and on the cusp of moving forward as we had. Married people are at least semi-relateable to the singles, slip into child bearing and things change a bit. My friends continued to be the loving and supportive people they always have been, but unfortunately it seems that being a parent is just one of those things you will never truly understand until you experience it for yourself. I can attempt to drag them into understanding my world, but really it just can't sink in.

I have come to accept this, actually I came to accept this a while ago and decided to take action. Make new friends, keep the old. I set out to make mama friends, and I did, but apparently life contains more surprises than just new parenthood. BL and I have lived in the same city we went to college in for (off and on) the last seven years. We never intended to settle here for good, but we also had a timeline for our escape as well. Things changed a bit when BL's dad was diagnosed with cancer midway through 2007. To make an incredibly long and complicated story unfairly short, we have been trying to get back home and out of this damn city ever since then. So mama friends fell by the wayside. Instead came the focus for job searching and frequent trips home. We are getting closer, and come hell or high water we will leave soon, but until we make the move and get settled again I just don't have the heart or time to make new friends that I would soon be leaving anyways.

So for now I am left wanting... and secretly hoping one of my friends gets knocked up. One can hope right?