Baby A

My littlest, who just turned a year old a few weeks ago is proving to be so much different from her siblings. H and K have always been energetic and talkative but A is all of that and more. I didn't think it was possible for a baby to have any more than my first two but she proves me wrong at every turn. I love watching her big personality develop, she will be a force to be reckoned with. She never stops, she talks all day in her own language, runs through the house giggling and screaming, stops long enough for a kiss and a hug here and there. It's been a whole year of absolutely no schedule ever. I keep trying to get a schedule and as soon as I have something down for a week she'll throw a wrench in that plan. Bedtime is anywhere between 7 and 10 PM depending on how she feels about it and morning wake up can be anywhere between 5 and 8 AM. She still does not sleep through the night but gave me a week of sleeping 6-10 hr stretches at night and then last night was up every 2-4 hrs. She'll spend a week taking awesome naps of over an hour long and then decide she's only going to sleep 30 min at a time. I think I've about given up on schedules with her. She is a little lady who knows what she wants already and who am I to try to change her mind? She is the boss in the house and sometimes I worry that I've spoiled her or something to make her this way, but then I think no she's still a baby it's not possible to spoil her yet, I haven't done anything too drastically different from when her brother and sister were this age. For now I'll keep my coffee maker going and accept that I don't need sanity for the next few years.

Running on caffeine

Turns out remembering to write a blog post everyday is harder than I thought. Especially when the one year old decides to boycott sleep and insist on being attached to you all day and night. What is it about 3 AM that makes a baby think it's party time? There isn't enough caffeine in the world right now.

As if the teething/developmental growth spurt/just trying to drive mom mad phase with the baby isn't hard enough, we also have the on the verge of puberty angst with the oldest. H has decided he needs to argue with me over EVERYTHING. I get where he's at, trying to grow up and gain independence, I remember going through it, but it's hard on the mom side too. I'm still considering adding one more to our family, am I crazy? Going through this with 3 more kids, my hair will be completely white by the end.

I've also realized how much I've taken getting a shower in for granted. When A was born J was laid off from work so he could snuggle her while I showered. Once summer came and he was working again the big kids were home to watch her for 10 min. Now, it's just the two of us all day and I'm lucky to shower twice a week. Those two showers are shared with A who is, of course, into everything now. There is no such thing as a relaxing shower right now.

I've also decided to take on a million crochet projects and am currently working on a Super Mario Bros. blanket for H, featuring Luigi of course. 252 granny squares to crochet and sew together...I'm hoping it's finished before Christmas. I found a pattern for some dishcloths for the kitchen, because we are sadly lacking in dishcloths and I hate buying them. There are a million patterns for baby everything too and I fear A will be too big before I get the chance to make most of them.

Well, time to do some homemaker duties and we'll see if I can keep up a little better with this blog than I have so far.

I jumped on the blogging train

This is my first ever blog post. I love reading blogs, there are several I read everyday, and it seems like a fun thing to do. Will I attract readers or will it just be a new age diary? Either way it's nice to get my thoughts out.

I'm a stay at home mom of three, two are in school and one is too little to carry the other half of a conversation yet. The dogs and cats don't care to talk much either. Staying home now is so different from when I stayed home 8 yrs ago. I don't know know why but I seemed to have it together so much better back then. I didn't have the internet distraction or a smartphone to always be "plugged in" to said internet then so that's probably a big part of my problem now. An upside to this distraction was stumbling upon an online community of crazy women all having babies around the same time as I was. Several of those women and I spun off into a smaller Facebook group where we became even more tight knit. I've never been much of a joiner as I've never felt I really fit in anywhere, but I'm glad I joined this group.

This post will probably all over the place, as will subsequent posts, because that's how I am in real life too. I rarely stay on topic, but wander away from it and eventually come back to it, only to wander away again.

Ok, so a little about me. I have 3 amazing kids, Hunter who is 10, Kala who is 8 and Abigail who is almost 1. When I was younger I always wanted 4 kids, but I envisioned them all right away. Of course, life is what happens when you're busy making plans so I didn't have all my kids one after the other. Having a third so many years later has it's pros and cons. Pro is the older kids can help a lot more but a con is feeling like you are starting over when you're so much older and more tired.  Not that 31 is old, but it's a big difference from 21. Also, do I still want one more baby? Some days I think yes, I want my 4 and Hunter and Kala are so close I want Abigail to have that bond with a sibling too. Other days I think maybe 3 is enough. We also have far too many animals which is most likely affecting my view. Running a home and taking care of 3 kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats, and a dozen chickens makes a busy day. I love my life off the beaten path though. I grew up living in the middle of a moderate city but always dreamed of living outside of town on several acres of land. I never liked having my neighbors right there and in my business and now I've got plenty of space from them.

I must attend to mom things now, breaking up a tug of war between baby and dog.