+ My wonderful family helped me with half an hour of yard work yesterday and that made visible progress towards my goals.
+ Even though the baby is tiny and larval and so needy it is hurting me I love her so much that I am mostly maintaining good cheer through her demands.
+ I am better at asking for help with the baby than I have ever been. When I am feeling frazzled I ask Noah or one of the big kids to help me and everyone jumps at the chance. I am feeling productive and like my body gets to rest from the physical strain of carrying a bowling ball around 24/7.
+ Noah’s cooking lately has been awesome.
+ The Educational Specialist told us she has been lying to us and telling us we need to turn in more than we need to because most clients don’t turn in how much she asks for. We are basically done with the school year in terms of quantity of produced materials and we have five weeks to go. This feels weird. I will keep having the kids move forward, we will just be moving into 3rd/5th grade a few weeks early. We finished all of the current stuff already except for two more science experiments. And we have five weeks.
+ Noah and I discussed a timeline yesterday for making the website/clearing out the house enough to have staged pictures taken for the website. We are shooting for October. I will schedule a fancy-ass photographer to come in and do the family portraits/fun house pictures and it’ll be worth the money.
+ We got the dirt moved that I needed moved and now I can get plants for the beds this week. I am doing starts this year because holy toast I don’t have the time/energy for seeds. But I want the yard to look spectacular for staged photos trying to get someone to buy it. Those beds need lush growth in them.
+ The van is full for a trip to Goodwill and Half Price Books today. I’m aiming for a trip a week for a while.
+ I can already get rid of two book cases with what I have packed/gotten rid of. I haven’t yet. But I will soon.
+ Ze bebé is getting huge. Her 3-6 month sleepers are getting tight and I’m about to start putting her in 9 month sleepers just so that diaper changes are easier. She hasn’t moved out of the 6 month onesies or dresses yet. Just in sleepers because she’s so dang tall. She will be 9 weeks tomorrow.
+ Our sweetness is smiling more and more. I think it is funny that a lot of her smiles happen on the changing table after she has a clean butt. I think she likes the wall in spring because she spends a lot of time smiling at the butterflies.
+ On the parenting forum I’m participating in a “stop yelling at your kids” challenge and whereas I’m not perfect or on a long streak or anything I’m doing pretty well. When I take into consideration that I am: a)barely sleeping b)in contact with a needy baby for 20+ hours of the day c) in a really lot of pain d)limiting pain meds like whoa e)limiting sugar f)and trying to go through allll the shit in our house…. I’m doing pretty well! Go me.
+ We are having a fucking fabulous time researching where we are going to move. We are looking at countries all over the world. This is going to be the adventure of a lifetime. My life is so fucking insanely good I can barely wrap my head around how fucking cool this is. I get to be an international nomad. That’s going to happen. In the next year.
+ I feel intense gratitude that I am still in the bay and still receiving wonderful body work from my excellent providers. That’s serious luck. I will miss them.
+ This is a little weird, but I’m grateful that since I appear to be allergic to alcohol… Noah is having some stuff go on that means he shouldn’t drink either. It means I get to look forward to a time of solidarity in enjoying silly juices together because we can’t have grown up drinks. We have to enjoy one another without inebriation. I like that.
-I dislike how much I am nagging everyone in my house. I feel like a mega bitch all the time. But gosh my kids would like to still have their entire “job” be playing and that’s not an option any more. It was appropriate when you were 5. Neither of you are 5 now.
-I am super bummed that I threw up so I needed to cancel a social visit with a friend I haven’t seen in months. That sucks. I was looking forward to talking to her.
-I would like to sleep through a night without waking up to side lie nurse. My shoulders hurt so bad. 10 months till I can night ween. *sob*
-I’m a little mad at the Educational Specialist because she has been pushing my kids for most of the year and in the last two visits she admitted that we are the only family in compliance and she feels a little bad that she shoved *us* as hard as she did because we were fully in lock-step-demand compliance. We only needed one item per subject per grading period and my kids have turned in two or three samples per subject every meeting all year. Oh. I’m not mad because we did the work, I’m mad because we had to fight over formatting so much work for turning in. We could have fought over 1/3 of the fucking formatting and that would have made my life better.
-I hurt. I’m minimally typing so most of the pain is coming from being a baby toting device. She’s heavy. And side lying nursing is the god damn pits.