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Kinetic Kids Gym

As I mentioned in the last post we had a tour yesterday with Kinetic Kids Gym.  When we walked in the door Noah started putting his arm out directing me to go towards the gym area.  We couldn't get him in there fast enough!  Once we got his socks and shoes off he was able to go play and he had the best time!

Today on the other hand...didn't go so smoothly.  It was not a problem of whether or not he enjoyed the gym, because he thoroughly enjoyed it!  It was that is was a class instead of open gym.  Trying to get him to sit through the instructional time was a nightmare.  He would just scream and wouldn't sit with the other kids, but you do have to keep in mind...Noah is an only child, never been in daycare or had nearly any interaction with other children...so this is a very new concept.  We are going to sign him up for the class so that he can learn a little bit of structure.

The class starts with a little bit of free play and then a bell rings and they all are supposed to go sit on the mat for an instructional minute or two...then they do an obstacle course....then instruction...free time...instruction....course and so on.  So about half way through the class Noah started to do the obstacle course and I went from completely frustrated to such a proud Mommy!  He had so much fun once he got the grasp of the course...now hopefully throughout the next few sessions we will get down the instructional time too.  We will just have to see!

The Squealing, Screaming, Terrible Twos

Well, as you all know...we have a toddler on our hands now.  One minute he is behaving as if you are blessed with the most well-behaved child.............then one second later it is like your life is a nightmare!  If you are also a parent, you are probably laughing at me because each parent has their turn, but you know exactly what we are going through here.

Noah has always been very shy, which has not been the best attribute in his personality.  He doesn't like anything to throw him off balance!  The other day we were at the grocery store check-out and Steven was putting the items on the conveyor belt; while I was handing him a thing or two from the top of the basket and watching Noah.  Well, Noah sees that there are a whole bunch of those 5 hour energy drinks right in front of him and he wanted to start playing with them....I didn't see anything wrong with a simple distraction to keep him quiet while we were in the check-out.  He wasn't drinking them or anything, just rearranging them on the little shelf.  So then I hear this woman next to me in the next isle start to correct Noah.  "NO, no, don't touch that, BAD!"  And she smacked his hand away!  I wanted to punch her in the face!  Noah came and crawled between my legs to hide from her and started to cry.  I looked at her and glared and then bent down to Noah and told him that everything was okay.  This upset me so much!  The woman looked at me as if I was incapable of being a parent, but I bet she probably doesn't even have a child!

Anyway...We are trying to add more activities into Noah's day to make him burn more energy and have a little more education.  Oh, and of course, we are attempting to begin potty training...so far it is going very slow.  I personally believe he may have to have a little bit more advanced speech before we can fully begin the journey, but he is saying basically a new word a day.

He seems to be quite spoiled rotten right now in which he screams whenever he doesn't get exactly what he wants...so we are trying to curtail that as quickly as possible!  We are going on a tour this afternoon at Kinetic Kids Gym to see the atmosphere and decide if the Kinetic Discovery Class is what we want to do for Noah to help him build social, developmental, and physical skills.  I will keep you posted on that!

Little Love Bug

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A Day Full of Big Boy Fun

Well, our little boy, who was never little, is definitely not little anymore :)  He is growing up so quickly and I am so glad that he was never in daycare because I am sure it would have been even faster.  I am so lucky to have a job where I can spend as much time with my son as I would if I didn't have a job.

Things have been taking a turn the past few weeks and we've been starting to see a change in each of us.  We have actually gotten our house almost 100 % clean which is amazing!  We have never had it this clean before!  I LOVE IT and it WILL stay this way!

Anyway, now back to the point of this post:  Noah is ready for potty training and we have no more diapers in our house!  We decided they are now illegal in our home HA-HA!  We now have Pull-ups which are pretty much like diapers, but a transition to underwear.  Daddy and Noah are going out tonight while I am attending my gym classes to go and buy some BIG BOY UNDERWEAR!  This will be exciting and a lot of laundry to do for me :)  Ha-ha!  I figure he can wear regular underwear at home and during the day and when we go places he can wear the Pull-ups.  So far we have been doing the Pull-ups for a day and just trying to get Noah used to the idea of the potty...then we will move into more serious training after that :)  He successfully sat on the potty quite a few times today without screaming and pretended to wipe himself, put it in the potty, flush and CLOSED THE LID!  He is such a good boy!!!!  I am so proud of him!

Then after he went potty he wanted to brush his teeth, so he grabbed his stool and brushed them...then grabbed the toothpaste and decided he was going to wash his hands with it...then wiped his mouth...and licked the organic strawberry toothpaste!  AHAHAHA!  He is too silly!  Here are some pictures!!!  ENJOY!

A Gremlin; A Sweetheart

A Gremlin

As the day is coming near an end and Noah's living-room toy box was empty and he decided to hop in.  Well, it was cute and all...until we couldn't figure out what was wrong.  As you can see in the picture above....he did not want his picture taken, but shortly we realized that all he wanted was a toy because he couldn't really reach any of them without knocking himself over.

So then we grabbed him a ball and he happily went about watching Despicable Me while sitting in his toy bin!  Absolutely adorable :)

A Sweetheart

Money and Grown-Up Talk

Our lives have changed quite a bit in the past few months.  Steven lost his job with Papa John’s in October and at that point I was unemployed.  I had started my own Mary Kay business, but it wasn’t bringing in anything more than a little bit of spare money here and there.  We were scared out of our minds and didn’t know what we were going to do with no income.  It was a terrible experience, but it really makes you think about what the important things are in life.  We were thrown into a new schedule of being with each other 24/7 and being completely broke.  We were running extremely tight on money to start with due to the fact that I was not working…so this was quite the wakeup call.  We immediately began applying for jobs and in the beginning of November we both had some luck.  Steven found a job with Potomac Parking and is now the Parking Lot Manager for the Harrisonburg lot.  I landed a full-time nanny position on a teacher schedule along with a tutoring position with Tutor Doctor of Shenandoah Valley.  With both of us working and finding better employment we tripled our previous income…thus allowing us to finally catch up on old bills and to move closer to the adult world. 

I may still be disappointed with the fact that I am currently not “using” my degree, but it will always be there for me if I need it.  Right now my two jobs are perfect because of Noah and Steven’s job is so flexible that he can still attend school.  We are living in a wonderful duplex home and in hopes that we can stay there another year.  Unfortunately our landlord is thinking about putting the house on the market and we may not be able to renew our lease.  Other than that we have taken over car insurance, bought a car, and soon to take over our health insurance as well.  I know some people may shame us for not having our acts together when Noah was born, but we have been living on our own for quite some time now.  The only thing preventing us from tying the knot is the health insurance…but fortunately we are planning to get health insurance here in the next few weeks and are in high hopes to get married in the next year.  I know it is a bit of short planning, but we don’t need anything extravagant.  All we need is supporting people who love us to come to our wedding and show us that they care.  So…keep your fingers crossed that all works out and we can pull this all together here in the next few weeks to see if a wedding is even a possibility. 

Our Polite Child

Noah started to say thank-you very early on and we are so proud of him.  Now he has started talking more and more, but he only will say 1-3 words at a time.  Today he came to me with a movie in his hand and said, "watch it."  I was so proud of him for saying that!  Then a little bit later on he came to me again with another DVD and his hands were very stick from a lollipop he was given for being a good boy.  I told him to go see Daddy because Mommy was busy with baby Landon.  Steven then cleaned Noah's face and hands then asked him if he wanted to watch the movie.  Noah says, "watch it."

Steven then says, "Can you say, 'please watch it'?"

Noah YELLS enthusiastically, "THANK YOU!"

"Can you say, 'please'?"

Noah YELLS, "THANK YOU!"

"Can you say, 'please watch it'?"

Noah YELLS once again, "THANK YOU!"



Steven and I were cracking up at this point because Noah has not started to say please yet.  He says thank you for everything and is extremely good about saying thank you, but please is a different story.  He will even say thank you for "your welcome" when he feels the need.  So after a couple more times of Steven repeating the same thing to Noah and only getting "thank you" out of him he gave in and put on the movie.

We are so proud of Noah for always using his manners, but hopefully we can get the word, "please" out of him soon!  He has started to say so many words the past few weeks!

Enjoy!

Noah and Grandma looking through bendy straws at each other!  This was so super cute!

My little cuddle-monkey, couldn't ask for a better son!

My father and I!  He is such a silly man!

Noah playing with Nanna B!  They were having a lot of fun tossing the football around in the kitchen!

My wonderful fiance and I on New Year's Eve 2010!

A birthday cake means so much more when it is homemade!  I enjoy making this monkey cake for Noah!  I am going to make it every year until he asks for something different!

Motherhood and Sense of Self

The other day I was at work (I’m a nanny) and when the little one was ready to be put down for a nap…I decided it was time to relax a little and watch a movie.  As I was looking through the movie channels, I came across “Motherhood” starring Uma Thurman.  Obviously, I chose to watch this, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing about it.  I was having a bit of an “off” day as some would say and this movie was just the thing to make me feel better.  I didn’t know what to expect of it, but I knew that Uma Thurman is an actor I enjoy.  I personally feel that this movie is the perfect depiction of the relationship of a mother to herself and how stressful life can become as a parent.  You tend to lose a sense of self and trying to grasp who you were before seems to never become a possibility.  I felt a relationship form with the character and myself when I realized she was a writer and a mother.

I have been experiencing the difficulty of feeling a self of myself as it seems much of who I was before has faded away.  I have attempted to continue my writing, but often times I am either too exhausted or just cannot concentrate.  I started writing my book in August of 2009 and still have not finished.  I know that writing a book takes time, but I feel as if I should have been done by now.  I have a solid beginning and have written the last chapter, but now it is about time to fill in the middle.  It becomes quite difficult to continue writing when you have two children on your hands.  I only have one child of my own, but I take him to work with me.  This is beneficial because I do not have to pay for childcare myself and I get to spend time with my little boy…but often times it becomes very hectic. 

The child I care for is 5 months old and such a good baby.  He is very calm and self content, just as Noah was when he was an infant.  Noah, who has now reached the age of two, can rarely seem to stay in one spot for more than a second.  He is always on the go pushing his cars around and making noises.  So, I am fortunate enough to have two extremely well behaved children on my hands…yet I still seem to feel stressed at some points.  When one cries, the other cries…when I give attention to one, the other feels left out…and yet I have desired to have a second child of my own recently!  I am crazy!

So, the movie “Motherhood” helped me to realize that I am not the only person out there stressing over the small things like grocery shopping or planning a birthday party!  It is difficult to be a parent, homemaker, and a writer all at once!  I wake every morning at 5:30 to give myself enough time to get ready and leave the house by 6:30 AM.  It takes me 20 minutes to drive to work…usually get off around 4:30 PM and then once a week I tutor for two hours.  My second job is tutoring in English, Spanish, and Study Skills.  Then I also have to make sure I cook dinner for my family, manage to do all the shopping for staples, fit in a gym workout, and manage to be in bed by 9:00 PM so I have enough rest…notice I didn’t say anything about caring for little Noah!  He just gets tied into everything!  HAHA! 

Gratefully I have a wonderful fiancé who has a job that is also quite flexible and recently we have been able to switch days on who has Noah during the day.  Steven is still in school, so on the days he has an early class I take Noah with me to work, but on days where I can be home in time Steven keeps him at home.  This has started to give me a little bit of relax time throughout the day and I am finally reaching a balance point to where I can fit some writing in!  I had looked at my blog about a week ago and realized how long it had been since I wrote….so be ready for much more to come…AND if you get the chance watch “Motherhood” because it is a great depiction of how hectic life can become when you have so many things going on!

Lastly, if you get the chance, please add yourself as a follower on my page!  This will help me to know who my readers are!!!  THANKS!

Optimism

Ah the joy of hitting the gym with a good friends makes your outlook change a little bit.  Yesterday I was down in the dumps and not quite feeling up to par, but today I am beginning to feel much better.  I have never done any type of drugs and I never will, but I will say working out is like being on a high...not that I know what one feels like, but I can't really imagine a feeling that would be better!  HAHA!  I really miss working out.  It is something I haven't really done since our little cuddle-monkey was born!

Now I am sitting home relaxing for a little bit and then hitting the sack so I can go to work in the morning.  Tomorrow is a new day to give me a fresh start on optimism!  I am trying to lose weight and live my life with a "greener" style.

Have a good night to all you readers or a good morning if you are starting your day.

A Few Memories For Your Viewing Pleasure :)

Is feeling like a bit of a failure today...