June bug

Although the official announcement has already been made on FB, for anyone out there who reads this, we are expecting our second daughter in June! She was a bit of an "oops," but are very happy to be completing our family. We have started prepping Emersyn with big sister pointers and encouraging love & affection versus poking and prodding. (That might be hard with a toddler for an older sibling though.)

We have decided to name her Synclaire Hazel. My cousin Megan has a friend named Synclaire and I liked the name. Hazel is for David's grandmother, who was killed in an accident when his father was a young boy.

The other big news of the household is that we are homeowners and moving to our home in Little Suamico sometime in March or April. We are in the process of replacing carpet, cleaning, and sloooowly moving stuff from Oconto to Little Suamico. As a matter of fact, I had planned on going to the house today to clean the bathroom (which was left disgusting by the previous owners!), however I can't motivate myself enough to get in the shower, shovel off the car and load Emersyn into her car seat. I am terrible at cleaning and actually had to google how to clean textured walls. But they have to be washed as they have dust and dog hair all over them. Yuck!! I guess the nesting has hit early since I spent a lot of time on Friday cleaning my cubicle at work and rearranging paperwork. :)

They're creepy and they're kooky, mysterious and spooky, they're altogether ooky...

...nope, not the Addam's Family.
I'm talking bugs, people. Since moving to our lovely "waterfront" home in Wisconsin, I've had to gain a new *ahem* appreciation for bugs. First, it was the ants. Growing up in Maine, I got used to ants. We had the black variety in our house every so often, but after putting a few ant traps out, voila! They were gone. So ants in our house, I can handle. Second came the spiders. And these are the kind of spiders that you see zoom across the floor out of the corner of your eye, but when you try to locate them, (place them gently outside/squish them) they are GONE!
A few weeks ago, I was horrified to discover an infestation of box elder bugs. They are also known as "Halloween bugs" because of their orange & black markings. Did I say markings? Why yes I did, because they are big enough to actually have a pattern on their icky bug bodies. Ok, so. I got used to the infestation because they were outside around the dog kennel & garage. I could forgive them for being on my property because they were not in my face 24/7.
Not anymore. Nope. Now they are in the house, crawling on the walls, ceilings & inside the windows. Yesterday, my girly, princess/Dora/Elmo-loving child came up to me with a clenched fist, offering me what I thought was garbage to throw away for her. Yeah. It was one of those damn "Halloween bugs!!"
And today. The proverbial "straw that broke the camels back. I saw one of those stink bugs crawling on my window (inside, no less) that I have been hearing about on the news over the past few weeks. Yup. E & I were having our lunch of macaroni & cheese, when she exclaims "buck!!" and points to the window. I expected to see orange & black creeping along, but no. The infestation has moved to a new level.
I'll bet next week, I am gonna try to squish one to see if they are really all that stinky...

Apple Picking Adventures...

Yesterday, E & I went apple picking with the playgroup we've joined. Although it was a little early in the season, and they only had McIntosh apples ready to pick, it was a great time with lots of photo ops. E really enjoyed picking apples off the ground, and when I wasn't looking, started eating some too. After picking our apples, we took a little walk through the petting zoo, which had some of the most friendly animals I have ever encountered...and we've been to our fair share of petting zoos this summer. The donkey even came right over to nuzzle my hand & the baby goats RAN toward us to investigate. E just loved it!

This may be due to sheer boredom, but...

...I've decided to try my hand at blogging again. Call it boredom, call it a form of therapy, but I'm hopeful that I'm more consistent with it than I have been since little E was born almost 2 years ago!
The move this summer has unfortunately proven to be the most difficult yet. I had always figured that once I had a child to keep me company, it would be smooth sailing... Not so much. I actually went on an anti-depressant for the first time in my life (I admit that I took myself off it a week ago, but that's not the point...). I haven't yet figured out why I've struggled so much. I think it has been hard for me to adjust to being a mom instead of being a mom/social worker. Once I can accept it, I think it will be ok.
So now that summer is officially over, my goal is to continue looking for jobs and to look into the possibility of getting a bachelor's degree in nursing. Although I love being a social worker, money talks baby and I think I need to have a more lucrative career.

It's transfer season!

'Tis that time of year again, when moving trucks roll in & roll out. This year an extraordinary number of my friends are leaving us behind. Amy & Matt to Kodiak, AK, Lindsay & Cody to Seward, AK and Jamie & Eli to Saugerties, NY. For a brief couple of days I thought we would be adding ourselves to that list. The powers that be have decided it is our fate to remain in Sault Sainte Marie for another year (or four).
I vacillate between contentment about this possibility & sheer terror. If Dave finally agrees to a second child, being here would be that much easier as I would see the same OB and have the baby in Petoskey again. I would still have my job & my friends there.
The reasons I feel like ripping my skin off at the thought of staying here? We're stuck in this postage stamp sized duplex, where we are constantly tripping over Emersyn's increasing amount of toys. I have to buy EVERYTHING over the internet. And I would theoretically have this job for another 4 years. I'm not sure my sanity will take it.
And so, as my friends head off to their new adventures, I'll hold down the fort in "The Soo."

...and one more thing...

Not too long ago, I was bemoaning the fact that my child would not accept any sort of "artificial nipple," including pacifiers or bottles. I was thrilled last week when she finally decided that she would use a pacifier... Except now, I'm pretty sure it's the only way I'll ever (ever) get her to sleep during the day... I've created a monster! What's that saying? Be careful what you wish for?

Getting back to normal...

I've been back to work full-time for 2 weeks now. Surprisingly, it feels like I never left. The only major difference is my schedule & that I make a conscious effort to leave by 4:15 pm every day. Hubby has been picking Emersyn up at daycare most days, which has been wonderful as it has forced them to bond. Emersyn is crazy about her father & he is a lot more confident with her (especially when she's fussy--he doesn't immediately hand her over to me).

One minor hiccup was the fact that she caught her very first cold that first week. It was pitiful to see her like this:

Awful, huh? I didn't dare give her anything except Tylenol & would obsessively check her temperature to make sure she was ok. Even her crying sounded congested. I was a wreck. Hubby told me I would turn her into Howard Hughes because I was making such a fuss. In my defense, there was a confirmed case of RSV at the day care. The most pitiful part? When she would still smile at me through her glassy eyes & body wracking cough. I wanted to cry.

So now, the only leftover symptom is her cough. I think she sounds like Scrappy Doo (I can't explain why, but it has something to do with how she tries to catch her breath between coughs). Oh yeah, and she still does have a little bit of a snotty nose. Who knew I would be so intimate with another person's bodily fluids? Anyhoo, I guess I can now say that we've made it mostly through her first illness. ...on to the next one.