Color makes me happy

I need color in my life. Bright, happy, bold, color.

We moved into our house and the walls has been painted a boring beige color and they looked good - so we thought we can live with this.

And we did, since April - but since I work from home and see these boring walls every day - I decided enough was enough and we went BOLD!!!!!!!!!!!

Peacock Blue was the color we picked and we love it!

We let the kids help us paint - which some people probably couldn't do - but we tried to have fun with it and show them how and then we figured we'd just paint over it and you know what, we all survived and the wall looks FINE!

We also have taken a "this is the kids house too" approach to our family room. I get that some people like to have formal rooms for sitting in - and that's great if that's for you.

We, however, bought a house to live in it. So, the back room in the house is the family room. The toys are back there and organized and the kids can not feel bad about playing or making a mess as long as we clean up afterwards. We are thinking of making a chalkboard wall back there for them too.
We let them play everywhere and there is no doubt that kids live here.

There are stickers on the walls. (Katie asked if she could put Tinkerbell on the wall and I realized - it wouldn't kill me and it would make her super happy - so we have Tinkerbell stickers on the wall)

There are streamers hanging up when there is no party planned.

There is a big piece of paper we leave hanging so the kids can just Draw on the walls. (this is why I want to add a chalkboard wall)


The living room is more of my room - with the peacock blue wall and couches I fought for during the house buying process. But even there - I have little baskets for their toys and a bookshelf that has some of their books on it.

They are little and they won't be little forever and I want them to feel comfortable in this house. I want this house to be played in and laughed in and to get a little messy sometimes.

So - now we begin the rest of the transformation we have to find all the finishing touches for the living room and then we can start  the dining room/kitchen make over.

I'm thinking some REALLY fun bright chevron pattern in the dining room and maybe subway tile backsplash or glass tiles for the kitchen.

Having our own house RULES and we are LOVING every minute of it:) There will always be time for us to make the house more formal later  - but for now - our house will be FUN!:)

After!!!

The next project will be to do the dining room. (seriously thinking Chevron or Damask stenciling) And then after that I am super excited that we have decided to do small updates to our kitchen.

The last room in the house will be our bedroom - but that's ok - I want to take my time with that. I'm thinking DIY Wooden Plank headboard.

Thanks for reading!

An email to my parents

I know, I know. It's been a long time.

Hopefully you enjoy this one. The below is an email I sent my parents Tuesday night.  

 

The background is that Katie fell at school and and skinned her elbow. The school cleaned her up and put one of those super cheap, pale tan really big, really sticky band aids on her so we couldn't see how bad it was.

The next day, I cut away at the part that was NOT sticking to remove the gauze that was covering the injury - and realized that the gauze was STUCK to a pussy looking wound.....

which resulted in my husband having to rip said gauze off her elbow -  revealing a larger than we were expecting wound - and sent Katie into an absolute downward tailspin of screaming, tears and more screaming. (YOU HURTED ME, YOU REALLY HURTED ME BAD)

I grabbed the keys RUSHED to Rite Aid and bought 40 dollars worth of crap.(that is not an exaggeration - it was legit 40 bucks)  Non stick, non-sting, non-tape band aids, gauze, Bacitracin, Neosporin (the spray AND the cream) and a 6 dollar box of princess band aids.

I also got some chocolate covered cherries to cheer her up. We finally got that covered and put her to bed. She proceeded to walk around with her arm at a 90 degree angle for about 4 days after this.

(she never breaks character once she gets an injury)

 

About 5 days later she got a blister on her foot - prompting this email to my parents....

 

 ________________________________________

 

 

Katie got a blister
from her croc shoes outside

when she realized she had a blister - she tried to avoid taking a bath.

When she realized that wasn't possible, she started screaming bloody murder as soon as her foot hit the water.

which turned into me making her sit down in the water and hang her entire leg OVER the bathtub so I could clean her up.

Then I had to get her dry.

Apparently some water dripped on the blister

so i tried to dry it

that was wrong.

I got her on the bed - eliminated all water that could offend the blister and told her she needed a bandaid so it didn't hurt at night she said yes - then said she didn't need a bandaid - she changed her mind.

I got the bandaid - more bloody murder screaming. I finally told her I'd either put it on nicely or hold her down and do it because it had to be covered.

She eventually sat still and I slowly walked her through how she wasn't even going to know it was there.
i told her to close her eyes (she didn't)

Thanks to my cat like reflexes I was able to put the bandaid on with NO feeling from her - to which she started laughing through her tears and I kept telling her AGAIN how she needs to trust me because I take care of her.

She stopped crying - and then asked me to read to her.

I.Win.Again.

Oh and then Dave mentioned we should take off her elbow bandaid which she heard, so I gave him my best DAGGER eyes - more crying and screaming from Katie - I told her she could keep it on - I read her a book and now tomorrow we can look forward to her holding her arm like it's in a sling AND limping on one leg.

Joy.

XOXO I'm BEAT - This mommy shit is HARD

________________
Moral of the story

• Have a STOCKED medicine cabinet (our first aid kit was FRESH out of neosporin and we had no non stick tape stuff) 
• Learn which battles to pick with your child when it comes to injuries, band aids....
• Get the non stick sticky stuff - it's like the stuff you use to wrap a sprain, only it sticks to itself instead of them

(She still has one piece of big, cheap ugly band aid stuck to her elbow but I was able to get ONE piece off by SOAKING it with baby oil last night

Goodluck parents everywhere!

I hope I never forget...

• How Benny takes a stack of pears that I have cut up and holds them all and takes bites out of all of them at once instead of eating them one by one.
• How Katie is always "just trying to tell you something"
• How excited Ben gets when Katie wakes up or when we start talking about her in the morning and how he runs to the stairs to run up and go to her room to see her and say "Katie WOKE UP!!!"
• How much Ben loves pasta and how pasta sauce ends up all over your face like a painting.
• How excited you get for M & M's 
• How Katie tells Benny if he goes pee pee potty that he can have M&M's 
• How Katie only picked pink and purple eggs during her 4 year old easter egg hunt at school and bypassed all the other, 'lesser' colors
• How obsessed Ben is that Woody have his hat on
• How good you are when I tell you that we are not at the store to buy a toy and you respond by saying... yeah, that's what I was just saying - maybe next time - and move on to the next thought in your head
• How you look for each other even if you were just fighting over a toy
• How Benny tries to copy Katie for even the smallest things like walking with your hands in your vest pocket today on the way into school. He didn't have regular pockets but he had really high ones so we showed them to him and he concentrated SO HARD on putting his hands in them so he could be like you
• How Benny rejected the white, chalky medicine and ran around the house saying PINK ONE PINK ONE - until I called the doctor and got the pink one:)
• How excited Ben was the other day when Katie and I both slept in (sick) and we finally woke up and how he yelled - katie come on, mommy woke up - katie come on!
• How Benny says LOOK IT
• And 'ere you go
• and how you both learned how to make coffee in the morning before you were 1 and would help by putting in the filter, counting the scoops, and pushing the buttons

It's the little things that I hope I don't forget. Not just the big things like first words, and first steps cause I think all the things above are pretty cool too:)

The things no one tells you about having kids

Oh, it will change your life forever, you can't imagine how much you can love someone else until you do it, they are precious gifts and blessings.

Blah, blah, blah.

Everyone always tells you the good things about having kids and the way it enriches your lives - but no one wants to be candid about the fact that there are also things that SUCK.

Here is a list for you (By NO MEANS is this all inclusive)
It's just the things that stand out to me at this point in my parenting life having a 4 year old and an almost 2 year old.

• Having them close in age is great - WHEN THEY ARE OLDER - in the beginning it will be like trying to brush your teeth WHILE eating Oreo's. They will fight, be jealous, do everything they can to get your attention (not good things), protest and cry about just about everything having to do with them sharing or doing things together. This does stop and it does start to get really cool when they get along - but it's not automatic that they will be as excited to have each other as you were to give them the gift of each other:)

•  Your life will revolve around poop. When, how, what color, did it look funny?? I'm not kidding - it happens. You also might end up spending quality time with one or more of your munchkins reading to them while they are on the potty. I don't know about you - but the idea of being in the same room with someone as they are pooping has never been high on my "fun things to do" list - and when they get to the age of using the potty - it smells  - It just does.

• You will not get to sleep for 8 hours at a time consistently - EVER. (Unless you magically can ignore the calls, cries, coughs, hiccups, etc over the monitor.)

• If you have more than one kid - they somehow band forces together and ensure that after you DO get a few nights of decent sleep in a row - that they will take turns crying, whining, dropping their binky so that as soon as you get back into your warm bed and get comfy and almost asleep - the next one is ready to jerk you back to reality. (we had a night like this last night and they are not few and far between!! hahaha)

• You will get puked on. It's inevitable. The adorable little creatures don't know how to handle the sensation of vomiting and will argue all day that they don't have to throw up and then in mid sentence - out comes projectile vomit.

• Surprisingly, this won't gross you out as much as you would think it does. In fact, you will probably become a puke catching pro - or an unfazed parent who can sit in a t-shirt soaked through with your kids puke and still have a semi smile on your face while trying to calm down your freaked out toddler. (this one is my husbands super power actually)

• You will forget what it's like to eat a warm meal - unless you are eating when no one else is around. Everybody needs something or someone needs to be stopped from throwing food, or putting their bowls on their head or spilling their whole cup of water that they insisted they would be careful with.

• Your kids will probably not want to eat what you want them to. And unless you want to be the hard ass that says - fine, then you'll go hungry. (and risk them waking up in the middle of the night hungry thus interrupting your sleep more, ) then you will become a short order cook and will have things in stock that you know they will eat just to save some peace and sanity.

• You will fight over clothes. No matter what - at some age, your chile will have be personally offended by certain types of clothes and will cry and fight tooth and nail to avoid wearing those. They will also get obsessed with wearing something ridiculous - a costume maybe or a certain set of pj's - my feeling is that there are plenty of other battles to fight - as long as it's weather appropriate (put long sleeves and pants under a summer dress) let them do it. They are expressing their creativity and it's not worth making them wear what you want. 

• As much as you want them potty trained - think of this, unless your child takes their diaper off after they do their business - the mess is contained - once you unleash them in your bathroom or that god awful little potty seat that you have to empty and CLEAN - all hell breaks loose and you will have to clean in places you never imagined before. Including the little potty seat you stick on the toilet so their little butts don't fall in. Open that baby up and disinfect it - all the time - trust me.
• Cleaning the sink is also something I never was warned about - once your kids learn to brush their teeth the real way - there will be particles of spit and toothpaste all over your bathroom sink area and you will have to wash it more than you have ever washed it before. Keep Clorox wipes handy:)

Yes, kids are amazing - in fact, there are plenty of moments where I just look at my two and tear up at how amazing and good they are being in that instant - or how clever they are when they are outsmarting us. And then, one looks at the other and they start pushing or screaming or telling each other what to do and I'm brought back to the reality that is toddler/preschool 'hood. It's humbling to make yourself think like they think and to try to understand why it's such a big deal that the tag in their shirt is itching them so bad they need to cry.

Their tiny little lives are all they have in their head. They aren't worried about work things, or paying bills or saving money. Getting the right dress up dress on of finding Woody's hat are the most important things in their lives right now. Enjoy it - embrace it - the innocence and beauty that it really is.

And try not to laugh when a tantrum reaches total breakdown status over wanting Cap'n Crunch cause they get REALLY mad when you do that.

;)

Happy Parenting!

Buying a house sucks

Here is what I have learned all 3 times I've tried to buy a house in NJ -
 (I'll explain why 3 times later) - the Realtors here are LAZY.

You give them a list of requirements of what you are looking for and they give you a blanket listing of all houses available anywhere NEAR your price range without filtering anything out.

Thanks to the INTERNET  - I can do that myself Realtor - what I want from you is for you to narrow down the field and show me what I WANT  - not all that is available. I also want from you some information on what the deal is with the houses - what's the back story - have you walked through , etc...

The listings of these properties are LAME. The majority literally have 1 picture on any website you go to and it's the front of the house... seriously?

If there are pictures - they are fuzzy, dark or taken at weird angles that make no sense. I've even seen some where they post pictures of the driveway covered in snow and I swear there was one that showed a flooded driveway. 

This is our 4th attempt at buying a house.

Number 1 - was before we had Katie when we were planning to move to Naugy - we worked with an AMAZING realtor (Jennifer Merrill in Naugatuck, CT) who helped us out immsensely (since we were doing this from out of state) answered our questions, did her homework, etc...

She set us up to think that all realtors were like her and boy were we wrong! She is AMAZING - all other realtors are just crap in comparison - particularly in Jersey.

We were all ready to go and then Dave got a promotion so we bagged the whole idea and ended up moving closer to his job in New Jersey instead.


Number 2 was last year. 

It was last year right before I started working again - we decided to casually browse places and found a place we liked. We felt the pressure of the market around here in North NJ and rushed into an offer - had the inspection done and then found out that all of the bones of the house were crap. Sewer, roof, garage, foundation shifting, chimney shifting  - everything you can imagine - so we ended up walking away because it was just too overwhelming!

Our mistakes with that house were that we used the realtor from the open house so it was a dual agent thing. When we got the awful inspection report - she did nothing. It was awful. Lesson learned on our part - dual agents don't work. 

Number 3 has it's own blog post because it's a foreclosure  - buying foreclosures is a horrible, horrible process... BAAH

Number 4 is a house we found that meets ALMOST all our must haves. It even has an extra room that is going to be my office which I am SUPER stoked about! There are 2 living spaces (one will be a family room for toys, etc... with a fireplace and the other will be the living room with the tv)

The kids will have their own full bath (a totally outdated pepto bismol pink thing) and we will have our own as well.

The only downside to this house is the teeny tiny kitchen.  It's in the town I love with GREAT SCHOOLS for the kids so we're super excited about it.

Because the kitchen is so small AND the bathrooms are outdated - it means we will have to do some work which we were hoping to avoid - but given the local market - we really can't avoid it and we will just replace tile, paint, etc... we aren't going to re-arrange those rooms. The kitchen will take a lot of money because there is no dishwasher. I have decided I can't live without one - so that will be the first project - finding a place for it and getting the plumbing and electric for it. We plan to keep the cabinets - but paint them and change out hardware. We are also talking about knocking down this dumb wall that is between our tiny kitchen and our decent size dining room.

We are not in attorney review - which is normally an easy process - BUT it's an estate sale - so some of the conditions they are coming back with are kind of rigid - so we have to think about that as we move forward. But I am hopeful that it will be fine and inspections will be fine - and renovations will be fun and everyone will be happy...

Cause this lady needs a serious win. It's been a rough few weeks  - I've been sick for WEEKS and feeling very down and sad over bad news coming from every direction - so every night before bed I tell my husband - we're gonna get a win soon - I know it... and I do!

Oh, and my realtor - has been MIA - no follow up or questions or how is it going or ANYTHING. I find that annoying. She stands to make a lot of money off of this for doing very little work so it would be nice if she stepped it up a notch. I mean seriously - I should be a realtor - I would take EVERYONE'S clients because I would do all the stuff for people that I wish these people had done for me so that I was happy with the home buying process...

Oh, and my lawyer - yeah he MAILED me the contract revisions the seller sent back to us - with no warning or phone call - wasting DAYS we could have been reviewing, etc.. so I had to ask him to fax me the updates so we could review and move on.. Don't people understand that when you are buying a house you don't want to sit around and WAIT?

ugh

Time Off

I work from home 4 days a week doing something totally unlike anything I've ever done before and I love it. I go to the office one day a week because it's an hour away(without traffic) and just too far for commuting to more than that.

Because I work from home and before I am doing something new - I work ALL THE TIME. There is always something to research, test, try, learn so I'm on the computer before 9 - until the kids walk in the door and most days again after they are in bed.

I'm a work-a-holic - I love working. I love challenges and this job has been one of the greatest challenges of my life because it's forcing me to think differently and learn new skills and grow. 

When Sandy hit  we lost power for a week and had to run off to CT to stay with my parents who had power. Every second I had with power I was trying to make up for time I couldn't work because we had lost power at home and I kept having to tell my kids I couldn't play, look, see, talk, etc... because I had to work. But it's nothing new-they hear it all the time anyway.

So - I decided to make a drastic change to my whole working mom plan. I asked my boss if I could  go down to 4 days a week. It's going to be expensive because taking them out for 1 day a week at their preschool isn't going to totally offset the money we're losing from me taking a day off - but I know it will be worth it. They are only little once. They are playing together and talking to each other and growing and soon enough they will be in school full time and I can work full time again and not worry so much about missing things and being unavailable to them.

Now I'm not really sure how this is going to work because some of the projects I work on require me to be available at weird times but my boss is amazing and is trying to make it so that my day off is really going to be a full day off. (That's the whole point right) (oh and PS - my boss doesn't use social media in any shape or form - so this is not a suck up post)

I'm not sure what that will mean for the 4 days I am working as sometimes my project load is overwhelming to say the least - but I will just have to learn how to pace myself and optimize my time. I'm also hoping that having an extra day at home will help me get stuff done around the house because it's a myth to think that when you work at home you get to do other stuff all day - there are LOTS of days when I don't even take a break for lunch until 2 - which just makes all the laundry piling up, dishes to do, etc... that much more daunting and stressful because I have to be here knowing it needs to get done and that I can't do anything about it.

I am hoping staying home doesn't mess the kids up too much. They really like school and I know I am no match for their friends in terms of entertainment - but I am up for the task and I will try.


So far - it's been 2 weeks of my new 4 day a week schedule and it's been nice. We do activities together - separate - get errands done and in general I just feel more relaxed.  The only downside is figuring out how to manage when my Friday at work is so busy that I can't wait to tackle and finish the latest project - but then not being able to get to it until Tuesday and having to get back on the same train of thought - but it's a work in progress and the kids are happy to be together for a whole extra day - so so far so good. Don't get me wrong - it's hard as hell  even just for one day - but it's TOTALLY worth it:)

I'd rather change a poopy diaper than get my 4 year old dressed in the morning

Let me set the scene:

We are sitting downstairs with our 2 year old and we hear the first rumblings over the monitor from our almost 4 year old who is starting to wake up.

Katie doesn't wake up and come out of her room - our princess requires an audience to wake up which is not always bad as she has NEVER gotten out of her room in her 4 years of life on her own - she always waits for us - so it could be worse.

Anyway - we start to hear the rumblings of Miss Katie and in a flash my husband and I both have our fingers on our noses which is our decade old sign for "NOT IT"

The loser of this game sulks off to the kitchen to poor themselves another cup o f coffee while the winner playfully suggests they might need to pack a snack for the journey.

And so begins the 4 day a week routine of trying to get her up and dressed so we can rush through breakfast and go to school.

This used to be no big deal - but lately our little fashionista has upped her game. In the beginning we would suggest the things that we knew she loved to wear to which her response would be I DON'T LIKE THAT. (rookie mistake on our part)

Then it became an argument about wanting to wear her pj's to school - to which we would answer that she can't do that because she wore them all night and they are for bed - without a heartbeat of hesitation her response would be  "but we can pick other pjs from the drawer that I didn't wear all night and you can wash them when we're done."

Anything we suggest is like we're asking her to wear the pink bunny costume from A Christmas Story.

So we go back and forth - negotiate - compromise - and then end up letting her wear whatever ridiculous outfit we can compromise on as long as it's weather appropriate.

And so continues the joys of parenting that no one tells you about.

Today she ended up in hello kitty tights, with 2 skirts on (one was see through so I had to convince her to wear the other one under it so you couldn't see her tights), a flowery shirt - a blue headband and princess crocs.

She scarfed down her cereal and was out the door by 8:10.

Success!