Monkeys make a mess

Okay the real reason I haven’t posted much lately is that my mind is a million different places. And I seem to start and go off on one tangent that branches off onto another. So I’m just going to start with my weekend and see where it takes me.

Last week before we left my mom got her results back. It looks like whatever the found on her mammogram this year was benign. After her visit here, she had her mammogram, they saw something and scheduled a sonogram for the following week. She called me as soon as she knew. Needless to say it’s one more thing to be grateful for. I’m glad the doctors are being over cautious. The caught the last tumor very early, so my mom avoided chemo and/or radiation after he surgery. I’m just glad this one was a benign cyst. I’m not ready to lose her yet. I know breast cancer isn’t exactly a death warrant but it’s hard to see someone you love suffer.

We left for my mom’s Thursday morning. Originally we planned on going after Ken got off work, but he found out he had Thursday off because of Veterans Day. The drive wasn’t too bad. Luckily both kids travel pretty well. We got to my mom’s around 6pm. Made it in time for dinner, which was Taco Soup. My stepdad likes making soups and Ken enjoys eating them.

It was a long night though. My mom had set up a pack-n-play for Quin and an air mattress for Alex. The last two times we’d been to visited Alex slept on the air mattress.
Well he spotted the P-N-P and said it was “Alex bed” That’s where he wanted to sleep. It wasn’t worth the argument because Quin has been sleeping with us anyway. This way he went to bed with no real protest. Since we were all in the same room, Quin waking in the middle of the night for his feeding of course woke Alex. He woke several more times before I gave up at 6am and took both boys downstairs and let Alex watch Playhouse Disney. I slept a little bit on the couch. I think we all finally got moving by 10am.

Friday was my massage appointment. My mom thought I needed one so she arrainged for an appointment with the massage therapist who worked with both her and Bill. It was a fabulous hour. I was told that I really need to make this a monthly occurance once I got home. If I couldn’t afford a full hour then to at least get a half hour and alternate upper and lower body. She felt a lower body massage was a god idea because I’m starting to develop the circulation problems my mom had until she started therapy. For me it’s the beginning stages, my mom was in such bad shape that even excersise didn’t help and only caused pain.

I guess Ken had a bad hour or so. Alex kept getting up from his nap and walking around. I had fed Quin before I left and left some premade formula on the off chance he decided he was hungry still. That didn’t go so well. I guess he took 5 sucks from the bottle then started screaming and flailing when he offered it again. By the time I got home everything had resolved itself but Ken was a bit frazzled. I said welcome to my life.

The rest of the afternoon was easy, everyone napped a bit. Karen and the kids came over after they got home from school. Alex watched Cars with his cousins. After dinner mom and I went to Target. She needed more china. The set she has serves 12 but we had 16 people coming Saturday for thanksgiving dinner. We knew we couldn’t get the same pattern because it was discontinued so we found a solid set in one of the colors of the pattern. She also picked up a dozen wine glasses, she only had 8. Once we found everything she needed we went to the children’s section because I needed to find stuff for both boys to wear for not only Christmas but for the photos for the card. I may do little photo shoots separately with each kid before I try one together. I was able to find what I wanted for Quin but they had nothing really for Alex. I was looking for casual holiday shirts for but not really finding something I liked and that he would wear.

Friday night was a bit better, though Quin was a stinker. At 11pm mom and I had tea and dessert. I had tried to wake Ken who had passed out on the couch. He didn’t wake until after mom went to bed. Anyway, I fed Quin and figured I’d head upstairs as soon as we were done. But no he was wide awake and it took me until 1:30 to get him tired enough to sleep. We were up again early Saturday, the difference this time is that Ken took Alex downstairs when he woke, then he came back up and went back to bed. I think we were allowed to sleep until 8am.

Mom was actually up early, for her at any rate, to start cooking. Bonnie and the boys arrived around 11am. It was good to see everyone and Bonnie was really excited to meet both Quin and Alex. Gifts were exchanged, one for Quin from Jason and Kristin, a sleeper , a blanket and a teething ring. Then my mom gave Bonnie a Christmas present from, oh 8 years ago. For a long time, since there were so many brothers and sister as well as spouses, my mom’s family drew names so you only had to get one present instead of 10 (or two for those who were married). Well that year mom got Bonnie, she got her a present, wrapped it and packed it for shipping. She talked to Bonnie, who told her not to send it until she sent mom the gift she owed her from three years earlier. Bonnie never sent it, so neither did my mom. Then the package got stored up in the attic to be unearthed last spring. My mom told her she was taking this present with her no matter what because she didn’t want it cluttering her house any more. Didn’t matter what it was even if Bonnie couldn’t use it, she was taking it with her. She wanted it at the time so she was going to take it now. Turned out it was something useful, placemats, dish towels and cloths. So everyone was happy.

My sister and her family arrived, with cookies and rolls. Followed soon after by Ray and his family, then my other step-brother Billy. Bill’s friend George came as well, though his wife and brother, who were also supposed to come didn’t. Dinner was a huge hit. Everyone enjoyed my sweet potato casserole. And my cousin David who is a chef loved my mom’s rice stuffing. He liked it so much he was raving about it the entire trip back home. (My aunt called once they got home to thank us and told us all about it.)

David right now is between jobs. He’s finding he has to dumb down his resume. Most of his recent positions had been in high end restaurants, the jobs he has been applying for are for mid-range family/casual restaurants. The one he really wants is an Irish Pub and restaurant. He has worked in a lot of different styles and levels but when people see his resume they think he’s overqualified because of where he worked most recently. This then lead to talking about Food Network and the shows, like how annoying Rachel Ray can be. It also led to talking about Duff. I guess David didn’t realize Charm City Cakes had done our wedding cake. He was impressed. I then mentioned plans we were hashing over for a combined 40th birthday party for Ken and I. I plan on having Duff do another cake for us for that.

Now this party is a year and a half away. Ken and I are 6 months apart in age. So we figured instead of two big separate birthday parties, one in March and one in October. We’d do one in July for both of us. We weren’t really sure what other people do because most of the other couples we know have an age gap of 2 to 8 years. No one is having a milestone birthday in the same year. It’s funny how I’m kind of getting excited about this. Now the date of this is really going to depend on when/if I get pregnant with a third. We’re going to start trying in September, if we get pregnant right away, that’s a May/June baby so not a problem. And if I don’t get pregnant until say March it still won’t be a problem. The only time it’ll be a problem is if I don’t get pregnant until October/November. And if I don’t get pregnant at all so be it. I told Ken my cut off was my 40th birthday. If it doesn’t happen by then it wasn’t meant to be and he was going to get snipped. (See what I mean by tangents)

Everyone left by around 6pm, but there had been so much going on that it seemed much later. Alex didn’t get a nap because everyone started arriving about the time I would have normally set him down. We got him ready for bed soon after the house was quiet. I took a nap, with Quin, on the couch from about 8 until 10. I got up when Ken came in to tell me tea was ready. Him and my mom had a long discussion about family and childhood. The gist of it had been that almost no one has a good childhood. Every family is dysfunctional on some level, some are just worse than others. That being said, my mom feels that, at some point in your life you have to take responsibility for your own happiness and let the past go. She’s sorry it took her until she got breast cancer, two and a half years ago to figure this out. In the last year she’s talked to two of her sisters about this. One has really made an effort to change, the other is starting to get the message. Her biggest hope is that Karen and I figure this out earlier than she did.

Sunday was shopping day. We planned to get out by 10 am. That didn’t happen, it was about an hour later. We kept the trip pretty short because we had the kids with us. It ended up being just DSW and Old Navy. Got home in time for lunch and naps. Karen and the kids came over after dinner, so Alex played with them until his bedtime. Monday we got on the road around 10:30 and stopped in Grove City for the outlets. I hit Children’s Place and Gymboree with Quin while Ken took Alex to Black & Decker. We met up dropped of bags at the car, then went over to the Gap where Ken found a shirt for 5 bucks. After some lunch we hit Kid’s Gap and found some more stuff. Now I had a gift card for $25 we’d used some of that for Ken’s shirt. After using my $10 buck back coupon, we finished of the card and got 77 cents back, so basically 35 dollars work of stuff for nothing. I love when that happens. We wandered around a bit more then got back on the road. We were home by 7pm.

I dumped Alex in the bath tub then got him to bed afterwards Ken and I had dinner. The rest of the week has been normal, laundry, doctor’s appointments, chimneys cleaned, playgroup. The doctor appointment was for me. I had my 6 week post partum and got the okay to resume life as usual. Lynn even encouraged me to try for a third, I think because she had three. I’ve already decided I’m not going to hope for a girl this time because chances are it’ll be another boy, if it is a girl it’ll be a nice surprise. I also go the okay to go back to work. I’m thinking if we can get Quin to take a bottle on a regular basis I may go back for a couple evenings a week starting in December, instead of waiting until January. We’ve tried giving him a bottles a couple times a week for the last three weeks. The first time we’ve had success was yesterday when he took an ounce of expressed milk before deciding he didn’t like it.

Speaking of babies we finally got the crib put back together. So now I can start putting Quin in there for naps. We needed to do this because the guess room has been storing all the nursery furniture. My dad and Donna will be here most likely Monday through Wednesday, possibly Sunday through Wednesday. Then they go up to my sister’s for Thanksgiving. With all the drama in Ken’s family it looks like we’ll be having Thanksgiving on our own this year, which is fine with me. Ken always gets so stressed and annoyed when he spends more than an hour with his entire family. He and Su have had a couple long talks the last few days and decide it was best for everyone to just chill we’ll all try at Christmas not to drive each other nuts.

I think I figured out why I like Alex’s hair short. It’s because his dimples pop out more. Or it seems that way to me. Speaking of haircuts I’m three weeks past desperate need. Though everyone liked my hair at my mom’s. I guess what annoys me is it’s so thick it’s heavy and the natural wave wings out, which I hate. So if I get an inch or two cut off it’s more manageable. Not that it’s ever really manageable unless it’s super short but it’s better.

Things to do this week. Move the rest of the furniture into the nursery. Go grocery shopping. Make a page layout of my nephew so that I can get my sister’s birthday present together. It’ll be late at this point since her birthday is next Wednesday. I already gave her a card but I wanted to surprise her with two framed scrap pages. I also have a couple of challenges I want to do and I’d love to get started on a couple of pages for Quin’s first year book. I think pictures for the Christmas card will have to wait until after Thanksgiving. I’ll need to clean the family room so we can get a tree, Alex is losing some play area for a couple months. Finish making my Christmas list which is very short this year. Keeping it to basics this time, not getting stuff for everyone and going overboard this year. Though we did decide to get my mom a new chair for her home office for her birthday which is the beginning of January. My step brother had me take a picture of him with Bill and Billy, so I’m getting framed 8x10s for all three of them. Then stuff for my nieces and nephew, Ken and the boys and maybe my dad.