Hey everybody! I finally got a minute to check out some blogs, read this post and was inspired to check in.
Things have been crazy.
We closed on our new house two weeks ago and I thought it would make me feel better – you know – have some closure on the whole thing – but it’s only made things worse. I love the new house – LOVE IT – but it still feels like we’re miles away from actually living there. We still are no where close to selling our current apartment – even though we’ve dropped our price to obscene levels. Every other week we get a looker but the only people who have been interested live in the building and are scared because they have to sell their own place. NOTHING is moving here right now. Absolutely nothing.
So since we have two places we thought we’d do a little cosmetic work to the new house before we move in. We’re putting in some carpet upstairs and we’d like to redo the first floor wood floors while it’s empty and my kitchen is beige to an extreme degree so I want to paint that as well as some other rooms and we need some electrical work done and I call and call and call vendors and I can barely get a proposal out of them and when I do, no one calls you back when you WANT TO HIRE THEM! It’s so unbelievably frustrating. I thought the housing market and everything about it was in a slump? Vendors were begging for work? Not around here I guess.
I honestly haven’t even started packing my apartment yet because we don’t have a move out date and I need that fire to get packing. Literally.
I’m back and forth all the time and it’s exhausting.
I have been knitting though! I finished all of the second socks to these first socks – so I have FIVE NEW PAIRS of socks for the winter. And believe it or not, I started a second set of five socks. All monkeys, all STR. I would be more than happy to show you them and I promise I will someday but the amount of work – taking the picture, loading it onto the computer, resizing it, blah blah blah – would just about kill me. That’s how emotionally, physically and mentally tired I am these days. And we haven’t even gotten to the hard stuff yet.
On the other hand, Meli is absolutely fantastic. She’s running, dancing, jumping (sort of) singing and she talks NON STOP from the minute she wakes up until she falls asleep. She has so many words and every day new ones pop out and she will try to say whatever you say. I’m working on happy birthday right now for my sister’s birthday on Friday. The saddest and sweetest thing she says is “here we go.” Whenever she’s upset and we’re in the car I guess I always say “here we go, here we go my love” to tell her that we’re on our way home and now, whenever she’s really upset she’ll start saying “here we go.” It just about breaks my heart but at the same time I’m bursting with the sweetness.
I’m in full court press on the weaning these days. I was doing fairly well weaning her during the day and then we took like eighty steps back and these week I’ve gone hard core. When she wakes up in the morning and has her last nurse, I tell her to say bye bye to the boobs, that we’ll see them when we go to sleep. We have our moments during the day, but for the most part she’s pretty good as long. I’ve got her drinking either chocolate or strawberry milk (our peds recommendation when she wouldn’t drink plain milk) out of these great cups (she prefers the straw) and when she’s upset I can usually get her to drink her milk while I hold her and she settles down. I have to say though we’ve been on the go A LOT. I feel like if we stop she’ll want to nurse so I run run run to keep her occupied. Another reason I’m exhausted. If things work our for the next week or so and we are through nursing during the day, I’m going to try this method for night weaning. My sister used it to wean her youngest – she said it was hard, but it worked. Oh and before I get crap for weaning her – the fertility clinic said she had to be weaned before I could start treatment again. What’s best for my family is best for my family. Discussion over.
Anyway, so that’s what we’re up to. They didn’t open our pool this summer because the construction is ongoing – when they work, that is, which is sad because we can’t even enjoy our last summer here. But we’re taking long walks and playing in playgrounds and I bought a hose and a wading pool for our new fabulous backyard. Summer seems like it might finally be here and I don’t care how tired I am, we’re going to enjoy it.
Hope your summer is going great! Thanks for checking in – I hope to be back soon!
L, C
Hey, just wanted to throw some support your way. It’s so easy to get criticized when you post personal stuff on a blog–so in favor of your honesty–SUPPORT!
There’s a lot of living on your plate right now and it’s hard to balance it all. Your doing well! Better than you think…there is light at the end of the tunnel.
You must have just posted this. I’m so happy to see you’re alive and well! I don’t envy you the move. Happy to hear about chatty Miss Meli. Best wishes, Cara. I think of you (& check the blog) often.
Welcome back and good luck with the renovations and then with the sale and then with the moving. Oh, and with the weaning, too.
It’s good to know you’re all well and to hear that you’ve finished all 5 matching monkey socks. Looking forward to seeing the newest li’l monkeys.
Best of luck to you all!
Weaning is hard. I had to do it when I was 20 weeks pregnant and it was very, very painful to nurse. I just told my little one that na-na (what he called it) was broken. And it broke my heart every time he asked. I would have waited longer to get pregnant but I was pushing 35 which meant I would automatically be considered “high risk” and I didn’t want that. So hugs!
Glad you checked in and am hoping that things go well soon in the apartment sale. Weaning was challenging with the girls, but it was easier to just bite the bullet and be done with it. Honestly, I felt like a dairy by the end, so by the time we were done, it was kind of liberating.
I check your blog almost every day to see how you are doing. And, I assumed right that you are over your head in moving stress. I hope the apartment sells soon and that you can get the work done at the new place without too much trouble. Like you, I find it amazing that companies don’t call you back when you want to hire them. Crazy!
Meli sounds wonderful as usual.
Do enjoy your summer.
I so wish I had 5 pair of monkeys. Weaning is so about when it’s right for you. Just as a bit to think about, on a blog I saw a mom who used band-aids and told her little one (2yrs+) that she had an owie…it worked. She offered a bottle instead. That just made me laugh. You’ll for sure find what works for you…and hopefully I’ve sent you a laugh too.
I love those straw cups! My little guy also enjoys opening and closing the straw.
No idea how anyone could give you a hard time about weaning! Zosia and I stopped at 10 months (and I had people asking me when I planned to stop) and she more or less made the call. You and Meli have gone so much longer. You’ve given her such a good start. Better than many babies get. Good luck to you and Meli making a successful change into a new mommy and baby relationship!
You go! For some reason I just had a few minutes and wandered over here. I have a young one that I am we=orking on weaning too! We do good through the day and then we can’t break the morning nurse! And then he caught a bug, fever and all and all we did was nurse. So back to square one. but that is ok. We will keep at it! Good luck to you!!!!
Nobody better give you crap about weaning. You’re absolutely right, what’s right for your family is what’s right for your family, and your family is who gets to decide that. Isn’t it sad that well-wishers turn into pushers? At any rate, I’m glad to hear you found your new home, and I sure hope things go as smoothly as they can from here on out.
With my own three, they each weaned differently. Good luck to all three of you. And good luck with the houses. Glad to see a post from you. I enjoy reading your blog.
I’m really looking forward to seeing how you paint your new house as I love the way you use and combine colours.
Kids are exhausting even if you have nothing else to think about so well done and keep going, and you’re right – what’s best for your family is what you know and is what’s best.
🙂
Cara, so great to ‘hear’ from you again. It’s a real shame that you haven’t had much interest on your current place, and contractors aren’t calling you back. What’s with people? Good luck with the weaning. Can’t wait to see pictures of the socks!
I’ve been a lurker for years, but wanted to say that I was glad to see your post (I check back every couple days to see if there is an update). I hope that you find a buyer soon and that all goes well with the weaning. In the end I’m sure your daughter will get more good out of a sibling to play with than she would out of a few more months of nursing at this point. I’ve loved seeing all the beautiful pictures you’ve posted of her as she grows up and hope to someday see tons of cute pictures of her with a brother or sister.
Cara, we used Jay Gordon’s night weaning method and I would l do it again, though we sort of melded it together with some ideas from The No Cry Sleep Solution. The only thing I would say is have you considered night weaning first before completely day weaning? We went from feeding constantly day and night to three 3 minute feeds a day (first thing, middle of the day and bed time – but no longer in bed, we changed up the bedtime routine entirely so that the feed was at the beginning of the routine instead of the end). Once we had a few weeks of success at the 3x3min feeds then we dropped them, I think something like one less per week. It was hard at all stages, but not cruel. Though she was still asking a year later…
Thank you for posting the link to that article on night weaning. I’ve forwarded it to 2 friends that are having a hard time in that area. Good luck to you with EVERYTHING!!
Hi Cara –
I too am a long time lurker. I don’t have children, but I’m a nurse and I loved the link to the great article about night weaning. What a good, loving plan. I wish you the best.
Glad you’re feeling up to getting out a few posts! Look at that little girl of yours… such a fun fun age.
I thought I might be able to offer you a little tidbit to help you out with your contracting troubles. Have you heard of Angie’s List (angieslist.com)? It’s a contractor review site, and it has worked wonders for us. We needed to have work done on our current home as quickly as possible and by calling the recommended contractors and telling them we were Angie’s List members, we will have all of our work completed in less than two weeks. We’ve had some plumbing, some relatively extensive electrical work, roofing, painting, plumbing and gardening. We managed to get estimates from two different vendors fr each job AND the work completed in a very short time. In the years we’ve been doing work on our homes, I’ve never seen such an amazing response, less than 24 hours for a call back from every single contractor. Sorry for going on and on, but I’d be glad to tell you more if you’re interested.
With you on that house motivation. We’ve been in limbo for months waiting to see if my husband would accept the job permanently. He did and we’ve bought a house in Ohio. Nothing like a second house payment to get me in gear. Now, I’m cleaning like a banshee trying to get this place in VA ready to list. Good luck with weaning Meli. I watched the videos on the most recent post and she’s just adorable!!
I find it amazing how people feel they have the write to comment on how we feed our children. My baby is 9 weeks today and we had to stop breastfeeding very early because it wasn’t working. It is interesting how many people feel they can just ask me right off if I am breastfeeding.
Good luck with the weaning and the second baby. We will have to start thinking about it soon, as I turned 33 the day my son was born.
I am sorry you are so stressed out.
Hopefully things will go smoothly soon, on all fronts.
Good luck to all three of you. And good luck with the houses. Glad to see a post from you.