Face Lift

With the new year quickly approaching, I have been making an effort to get organized in EVERY aspect of life.  I feel like the holidays always force me to do so, for various reasons.  I always have to update my address book, in order to send out Christmas cards!  The house gets a good cleaning/decluttering of toys, to prepare for the arrival of Christmas guests and Santa's presents!  Lastly, it forces me to organize our storage as I lug Christmas tubs in and out of the crawlspace!

I really un-plugged the last week or so, for many reasons.  1.) SLEEP- I have missed it so.  Transitioning James to a big boy bed proved a little more tricky then I had originally anticipated.  2.)  Family- I really wanted to soak in each and every moment of family-time this holiday season.  3.) HOLY PICTURES- I have been working on organizing all of James' baby pictures from the last two years of life.  Yes, there were also some wedding pictures in there (come on, that was only THREE years ago)!  I am proud to say that I am ALMOST finished with his baby book (sheesh).  I always have to finish anything I start, so I will not be defeated by the baby book!  I am back now, and with a new look!  I decided the old blog needed a "face lift."  This is partially due to the fact that I just became downright pissed off every time I looked at the age in my "about me" section, and realized that I was indeed older then the stated age!  Time is moving too quickly, in no time at all it will be ME that requires the face lift!

I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays!  For all of my parent friends out there.....I hope you have been able to get you children back to a state of "normal" after the excitement of Santa and all of his toys, late bed times, doting Grandparents, and enormous quantities of cookies and other various holiday treats!  I know it took us a solid three days, but I am happy to have a "hint" of normalcy back in our day-to-day lives!!!

Weekend (Mis)Adventures

This weekend was not much fun, especially seeing as I felt like a zombie for a majority of it!  I have been dealing with a pint-sized Houdini.  I consulted one of my few girlfriends that has already had the pleasure of dealing with the "milestones" of Toddlerhood, and she told me to just remain consistent with placing James back in bed.  This tactic was a massive failure on Friday night, and resulted in him waking up and climbing out at 1:30 A.M. and then again at 5:30 A.M.  So first thing Saturday, I ventured out to find some "awesome" (James' new favorite expression) bedding for James' big-boy bed!  I had already purchased a very cute dinosaur picture at T.J. Maxx several months back, and had decided that I would build his room around that!  Victory was mine at Kohl's, $129 Dino bedding set on sale for $42!

We spent the entirety of Saturday afternoon converting James' room.  We had to do some re-arranging of his furniture to make the full sized guest bed fit in his room, and we moved his crib and changing table into the spare bedroom.  Ummmm.....wait......Saturday I am supposed to be baking..........seeing as we are traveling back to Onalaska on Sunday for family Christmas and then I have a cookie exchange on Monday.  Well my lack of sleep, resulted in a MAJOR lack of ambition.  I made a batch of caramel corn, and settled for some Trader Joe's boxed Gingerbread Cake Mix.  The aforementioned cookies were going to have to wait........but with Monday morning work tasks looming...........when am I going to bake them?  I decided to worry about that later, and book it to bed once James was asleep.  I was thrilled at how excited he was to sleep in his new "awesome" bed!  I almost felt as though this transition was too easy, but I simply chalked it up to me being an "awesome" mommy.  I heard little footsteps again at 1:00 a.m., so I quickly met him at the stairs and placed him back in bed.  This activity was repeated about 15 times until approximately 4 a.m. when I decided to stand on the other side of James' door and hold the handle shut.  Can we say child abuse?  Try Mommy abuse.........what a horrible feeling...........I felt as though I was going to be sick from guilt.  Luckily James' protests only lasted about 2 minutes, and then I heard him creep back to bed.  We didn't hear another peep from him until 8 a.m.!

We celebrated family Christmas with the in-laws today, and had a great time.  Upon returning home, I was feeling quite deflated. Tonight I made a very UN-Kathryn like decision.  I decided that tomorrow I will venture out to a local bakery to purchase (GASP!) the cookies for the cookie exchange/book club meeting.  This was a hard decision for my Type A being to come to grips with; however, for sanity's sake I felt it to be the necessary decision.  Besides, I need some time to try and finish the book (wink, wink)!

The Day Has Come.....

I have been dreading this day for several weeks now; James has learned the joy of escaping from his crib.  I saw him do it while I was in his room putting away clean laundry about a month ago.  Instead of reacting at all, I simply turned around and decided not to acknowledge the behavior whatsoever (thinking that my lack of reaction may delay this becoming a regular occurrence).  I was right in my assumption, as he did not attempt it again for several weeks.  Today was a whole different story!

I was happy to have met up with some girlfriends late this afternoon for a pedicure, I am sure glad I did as my relaxation helped me keep calm with a very challenging little man tonight.  Upon returning home from my pedicure, Jake informed me that James had a very short nap AND that he decided to let himself out of his crib when he woke up!  I knew that bedtime was going to be UGLY, and I was correct.  My child did not settle into slumber until 9:30 tonight, and this is after I had scooped him up and placed him back in his crib about 20 times.

Looks like my afternoon of baking may be put on the back-burner, I am thinking it is time for the BIG BOY BED!  I really don't feel like purchasing any furniture, especially seeing as we are only renting our current house.  I think I may do some shifting of what we currently have, and worry about replacing the guest bed when we actually have overnight visitors (which is not often, considering our families only live an hour away).

I think it is time for a beer!

Mom's Deserve Vacations, Right?!

Upon reviewing my vacation days for work, I was shocked to find that I had a week remaining.  Use it or loose it, right?  So here comes the kicker...........If I am taking vacation, do I drop James off at school?  Considering I have a few Christmas errands to check off my list, and the fact that we are celebrating Christmas with the in-laws this weekend......school is looking very appealing.  Truly, how much fun is it to run errands all afternoon with Mom?  Another factor to consider, how much child care I have already paid for versus what has actually been used!  We essentially made a 2-week "donation" to James' school.  He was far to sick to go, so I gladly stayed home and nursed him back to health.  The end result of this scenario is a Mommy that is short on sleep, and has had very little time to herself.  I decided the best way to handle the question of to send him or not to send him, was to do both!  Yesterday we spent the entire day, doing everything James loves!  We played with cars, watched Shrek, had our favorite lunch, made a trip to Barnes & Noble, and even went to see Santa!  Today, I just focused on getting caught up on life (errands, laundry, Christmas cards, small home organization projects).  It is truly amazing how much you are able to get accomplished when you don't have a little person to chase through the isles of Target, or a husband walking behind you asking what we are doing for dinner. 

So I did mention this is a vacation, right?  Somehow I am not feeling the relaxing side affects of a vacation; is it possible to enjoy a vacation when you are at home and constantly have people to take care of?  I think I need a vacation from my vacation.  James enjoyed seeing all of his friends today, so much in fact, that he choose to tell me all about it through the entirety of dinner.  I think he can do another half day tomorrow, and I may try to focus on having some "me" time.  I should likely try to finish  our book club read, "The Marriage Plot."  I would feel pretty ashamed if I showed up to Monday's meeting/cookie exchange not having read MY selection.

The Plague

So, I feel as though the Siegert household has been struck with the plague.  Now, I am very much used to the run of the mill cold (it comes standard with any child that attends day care).  However, James has been home sick this week with bronchitis and a double ear-infection.  I must also add that he was sick the WHOLE week of Thanksgiving with an ear infection, and it appears as though he never entirely kicked the bug.  As any mother will tell you, there is nothing worse then not being able to make your munchkin feel better at the snap of your fingers.  I feel as though I have two options this cold/flu season: 1.) Put James in a bubble prior to sending him off to school 2.) Quit my job and stay home so he is not exposed to any germs.

I am lucky enough to be able to manipulate my work schedule; therefore I never have to drop James off at school if he is feeling under the weather.  What about those working mothers who don't have this luxury?  What do you do? Use your own personal/sick days?  I am not sure how many of these one gets, but I can say with all certainty that I would have blown through at least 3 weeks worth since James has started school.

I adopted a "take no prisoners" kind of attitude today, and decided that although my own personal hygiene had been lacking over the course of the past few days (due to only acquiring about 5 hours of sleep in two consecutive nights).  I whipped out my Method and went to town on both bathrooms and all of the major kitchen surfaces, threw out all of our toothbrushes and ordered Jake to bring home new ones, washed all of the bed sheets in hot water, and threw all the pacifiers in the dishwasher to be sanitized!

I actually managed to take a shower myself, and scrub a day and a half worth of James' snot off myself!  Of course, all of this was done while James was napping.  I am exhausted, and my clean sheets have been beckoning to me. Good Night!