September 2012

Sunday, September 2 was Jeric's third birthday. My parents and sister came down on the 1st and we celebrated that night (they stayed overnight and went to the first hour of church with us the next morning, but had to be home by 4pm so didn't get to celebrate on his actual birthday). Jeric made the following demands for his birthday:

-A blue chocolate cake.
-Blue ice cream.
-Balloons.
-A robot.

I am pleased to announce that all of these expectations were met! A resounding success, I would say.

Of course, though, I only took video...I think my dad and sister might have some photos on their phones, which I will try to get from them soon. [Incidentally, I also just found a hidden folder on my computer that contains more than a few pictures that I nearly forgot about, and which belong with months that I've already posted about. So you might be getting some pictures-only posts in the next month or so.]

We took the easy route on the cake and got a small round cake (chocolate cake with blue frosting, per list of demands) from Wal-Mart. Jeric LOVED being sung to and blowing out candles. We ended up doing it four days in a row, until the cake was gone. That was a lot of fun.

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Wednesday, September 5 was Husband's birthday (27) (and also my brother Daniel's -- 23). Poor guy was at school or work all day. I really wanted to surprise him with a cake, but OF COURSE I couldn't find a recipe that included only items I already had at the house (I had no car all that week). Wife fail. I felt awful.
He actually didn't really care; he's not big on sweets and had said I didn't need to worry about baking him a cake.

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Rosebud learned to climb on things (I'm sure she'd have been climbing stairs at this point if we had any stairs):

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Some other cute pictures of the girl:

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My mom, dad, and sister came down to visit us on the 29th of September. (Mostly because my mom couldn't stand the thought of not seeing her only grandbabies until Thanksgiving...) They happened to come on the day of a local heritage festival held in a field at Husband's university, so we headed over to check it out. After we ate fried food and enjoyed some gospel bluegrass (it was awesome, truly), Jeric got to eat his very own BLUE snow cone. Behold:

Other pictures from that outing:

And finally, a funny story.

As we were headed out to the car, we passed a row of brightly-colored port-a-potties. Jeric was riding on my dad's shoulders, I was wearing Rosebud in the Ergo, Anna and my mom had stopped to look at some cute little piglets, and Husband wasn't with us because he was working at the Chemistry Club drink booth. Jeric saw the port-a-potties, and you can imagine that they were a curious sight for a three-year-old.

Jeric: Grandpa. What are those?
Grandpa: Those are potties.
Jeric: I need to go potty.
[Insert maniacal laughter here.]
Grandpa: ...Are you sure?
Jeric: Yep.

So off to the port-a-potty they went. My dad intentionally chose one of the handicap-sized ones (more room to move; besides, it also happened to be blue). A moment later, they came back out and went in a different one. Again, they exited too quickly for any business to have been completed. Jeric had this look of consternation on his little face, and my dad's expression was of mingled horror and amusement.

Apparently, when they went into the first port-a-potty, my dad told Jeric not to touch anything ("Why?") before they approached the seat. He said Jeric kind of looked in (I called my dad to refresh my memory of this story, and he couldn't stop laughing when he thought of the expression on Jeric's face at this point) and then decided it was too dirty and he wanted to try a different potty. So they did, but Jeric decided he really didn't need to go potty, after all!

August 2012 - Everything else

WARNING: August was a busy, busy month; this post is quite long! If you don't want to read it all, scroll and look at pictures. There is also a summary of the month at the bottom of the post.

I have already posted about what the kids and I were doing for the first few days of August. To tell the story of the rest of August, I need to back up a bit.

As I shared before, at the end of May, Husband lost his job. The day that he learned this would be happening, I started looking for a new job for him online. The local newspaper in the city where he'd be going to school in the fall just happened to post all the classified ads online, so that was helpful. I had been looking occasionally up to this point, but now I meant business! The very day that he learned he'd only be able to finish out the week at his old job, I checked the classifieds and there were two postings for full-time, 2nd shift maintenance jobs on the campus of the university he'd be attending. When he got home the next morning (remember, he was working night shift at the time), I told him about these jobs and he sat down and filled out the online application, and together we wrote an awesome cover letter to go with it (we could upload one and submit it with the application). 

And then weeks went by and we heard nothing. The listings disappeared from the classified ads, and we continued to look for employment elsewhere, believing the jobs had gone to someone else. Though he put in many applications, we heard nothing from anyone. Not a single call for an interview. We wondered if the fact that the address he listed was hurting his chances of employment, because we were living almost 3 hours away and thought that employers might see that and disregard his application because of it. (We did make reference on each application to the fact that we'd be moving as soon as he found employment, though.) It was a frustrating time. 

At the beginning of July (!), Husband received a phone call one evening while we were visiting at my parents' home. It was from the university's housekeeping department, and they asked him to come down the following week for an interview. We had thought the positions were already filled, but apparently they just took forever to go through the applications and decide who to invite for interviews. We were cautiously hopeful. He thought the interview went well, and was told that they had another week of interviews for the two open positions, and they'd be back in contact after the interviews were complete. 

A full ten days following the interview, we finally got a phone call! They were notifying us that they were going to call references that day, and that Husband should get in touch with those people he had listed on his application. Shortly thereafter, I received the following phone call from a friend of ours, who is a former coworker of Husband's and one of his references: 

Him: So, I just got a phone call from the housekeeping department at [the university]. They wanted to know what sort of worker [name] is, and I felt like I should probably tell the truth, so I went ahead and said a whole bunch of good things about him.

Me: GOOD!

Haha.

That evening, the housekeeping supervisor talked with Husband again and asked for permission to run a background check, which she said would probably take a few days and then they'd let him know if he'd be hired or not.

It was almost a week before we heard anything. Then, on July 31, the night before the kids and I left on our trip, he got the call. HIRED. This was such a weight off our shoulders. We knew it would be a difficult year, because his school schedule isn't exactly easy (he's a chemistry major and only has core classes because he completed his associate's degree), and he'd be working M-F from 4pm-12:30am. His class schedule was already put together, and he begins at 8am every day except Thursday and is taking 16 credit hours. So yeah, a bit nuts, but he was just thrilled to know he'd be able to support us, after all. We weren't sure what we were going to do before he got this job.

The next day, the kids and I left for our trip. We got home Sunday evening, and Tuesday afternoon Husband left because his job started the next day (August 8). A couple of weeks before we heard back about the job, we had signed a lease on a place just a couple of miles from campus (total leap of faith; the landlords were nice about the fact that we didn't have the full deposit up front, and allowed us to split the amount in three ways and pay with our first three months of rent). The previous tenant wasn't leaving until the 15th, though, so Husband left for work without knowing where he'd be able to sleep for the next week or so (we ended up moving on the 18th, which was a Saturday). He ended up being able to sleep on his supervisor's couch, though, so all's well that ends well. 

I'd been packing here and there all summer (the books had been boxed up for ages, as had outgrown baby boy and girl clothes, extra towels and bedding, my kitchen stuff...), but I really started packing in earnest after Husband left for his job. My mom came down a couple of days to help, and my mother-in-law kept the kids while my mom and I packed. 

Saturday was the third birthday of our friend Jane (the little girl I used to babysit full-time), so we went to her party and then spent the rest of the weekend and the first part of the next week at my mom and dad's house. Here are some pictures from the party (there are quite a few because my child kept making hilarious faces):

Time for presents. Jeric's crazy face.

Jeric and L watching Jane open presents.

Jeric and L's mom. Miss this lady. :(

The three of them opened the biggest gift together.

What Rosebud did during the party.

L and his big brother K are frightened by the intensity of Jeric's desire for cupcakes.

Jeric singing to Jane. (In the background is part of Jane's mom. I miss her, too.)

Tired and not so excited about cake and ice cream.

From the weekend we spent at mom and dad's:

Rosebud and Nana (that's how Jeric pronounces "Anna" -- we're working on that; he can say it correctly, he just forgets).

The kids and I returned on that Wednesday (the 15th; incidentally the same day that Rosebud's first tooth cut through) to continue packing. My mom helped that day, then came again on Friday to help with the last of the packing. My mother-in-law watched the kids, except when Rosebud was cranky and needed to sleep. She was a bit congested (I think largely because she was cutting her second tooth) and couldn't sleep well unless upright. (My mom brought me my very own Ergo that day! Like the one we borrowed from Joni for our Florida trip. Rosebud spent a good chunk of Friday being carried in it, and she slept in it quite soundly, which was awesome.)

This picture comes from one of the last few days before our move. I didn't have my camera nearby so I grabbed the webcam and took a still, which is why it's blurry.

My parents and my in-laws were all planning to help us move. My dad and my father-in-law both have pickup trucks, and my mom has a van with removable back seats. We planned to borrow a trailer for both trucks, and the kids and I would ride down with my mom in her van, along with a whole bunch of our stuff. Husband was still away working. Because of his work schedule (M-F 4pm-12:30am, as I said above), we discussed that he would get the keys to our place and stay there Friday night (the 17th), then would not make the drive to help move, but would meet us there the following day when we arrived. 

Imagine my surprise when he walked in the door at 1:30am! That crazy man had been planning to surprise me all along! And my in-laws were in on it! :) Originally, he planned to leave at 12:30 after finishing at work, which would have had him arriving around 3:30. But his boss found out about his plans and told him he could work from 2-10:30 instead, so he left at that point and arrived at 1:30. 

I mentioned we meant to have two trailers, but only ended up with one, so it was a good thing Husband came back! My father-in-law took furniture in his truck, and he and my mother-in-law left before the rest of us. My dad filled the bed of his truck and the backseat and front floorboard of his cab, plus he pulled the trailer with most of the furniture. Jeric rode with Grandpa and watched a movie on the portable DVD player. Rosebud and I rode in our car with Husband. I sat in the back with her, so we had the front seat, one side of the back seat, and our (very large) trunk. Because the kids and I didn't have to ride in the van with my mom, she took out both rows of back seats and we packed that thing full! It had at least as much stuff in it as one of the pickups. In the end, we did have to leave a few things to be brought down later (as I write this, most of that has made the trip, but our bookshelves are still at my in-laws' house and I miss those things!) but we fit more than I'd expected. 

It was a long trip, but we made it and had everything well-enough in place that we were able to make a run to the grocery store that evening for perishable foods and other things, like a shower curtain. 

And the rest of August was spent in a whirlwind of unpacking, settling in, and helping Jeric adjust to a new home when he'd just left the only home he could remember and could no longer spend time with his Nene every day. And of course, Husband started school in addition to work, which means that we hardly ever see him during the week. And Little Miss Clever Rosebud started doing this constantly just a couple of days after we moved (she did it for the first time the night before the move):

She'd been doing a sort of swim-crawl (she'd get on hands and knees and kind of throw her chest forward to the floor to move in that direction, then get back up on hands and knees and repeat) since she turned 6 months (instead of just scooting a bit), but figured out how to pull to a stand and cruise along the furniture by 6 1/2 months. She also figured out how to walk while holding our hands about this time. This child just can't sit still!

And that's our August! (It only took me almost two weeks to write this post.)

Summary, if you skipped down:

July 31: Husband receives job offer to work maintenance at the university he'd be attending beginning fall semester. His hours are M-F 4pm-12:30am.

August 1-5: Kids and I on trip to Florida.

August 8: Husband begins his job. Kids and I still at in-laws'; packing begins in earnest with help from my mom and mother-in-law.

August 11: Jane's birthday party, then kids and I head to my parents' for the weekend.

August 15: Return to finish packing by that Saturday. Rosebud cuts her first tooth.

August 18: Husband surprises me at 1:30am by driving back to help with the move after working the 2-10:30pm shift. We get an early start the next day and are all moved in by evening. Thanks to father-in-law for driving his truck, my dad for driving his truck with a trailer (and letting Jeric ride with him), and my mom for driving her packed-to-the-brim van, while Rosebud, Husband, and I rode in our car.

August 20: First day of school for Husband. I begin my life as basically a single mom during the week (though we see Husband a lot over the weekend). Jeric does surprisingly well with the adjustment to his new home, though he misses seeing Nene and Papa almost every day. Rosebud begins pulling to a stand and cruising along the furniture (as well as holding our hands while walking) at the ripe old age of 6 1/2 months.

August 2012 - Florida Trip

On July 31 (Wednesday), the kids and I met up with my mom, dad, brother, and sister for a trip to Florida. Husband had found temporary work (helping a man we knew from church with some construction work), so he stayed behind to earn a little money for our first month's rent when we moved. 

We drove all day and arrived in Orlando around dinner time. My kids were FANTASTIC travelers this day. We took a portable DVD player with movies, books, coloring books/crayons, and other small toys for Jeric. He sat in the back with Daniel and Anna most of the time (I rotated back with them a little, as well). Rosebud and I sat in the bucket seats in the middle row. She cried when we first started out, then got used to it and slept most of the way. We always stopped for about an hour when we got gas, so that I could feed her and let both of them stretch out a bit. Rosebud also had her first experience with Cheerios on this day (she was about a week less than 6 months old and this was the first non-breastmilk food she ever had).

Here are some pictures from the drive down south:

Don't be mad, you two.

How she spent most of the trip.

Curious George fan!

On Thursday, August 1, we went to Disney World! This was my third time at Disney World. I realized on this trip that I've gone once every nine years: age 7, age 16, age 25. So watch out for my next visit in 2021! Haha. (Coincidentally, my sister is nine years younger than me, so she has gone twice: ages 7 and 16.) We've also done Sea World and Universal Studios once each. All fun!

The last time we went to Disney, my parents bought three-day passes that never expire. We only used one day on that trip, and we used another day on this trip. (My dad says that he has known exactly where those tickets were located at every moment of the past nine years.) Anna's ticket had to be upgraded from child to adult, but even that was unexpectedly free! My kids were both under three (Jeric by one month), so we spent NOTHING to visit Disney other than food and souvenirs. 

Here are pictures from the Disney World portion of our trip. Some of these are from my brother and sister, some were from my camera.

Jeric got some Mickey Mouse ears right when we went into the park. Loved them! Still wears them often. (See on the left side of the picture? That's my mom. This is the most I've got of her in a picture. She kept ducking out of them! Also, she didn't ride any rides...motion sickness. But she says she still had a good time. I wish I had a picture of her!)

In the middle in the shade you can see my dad holding Jeric (see, he wore his Mickey ears almost the entire day), Daniel (with his back to the camera), and Anna (half-hidden). They were in line for the first ride of the day, the Magic Carpets. Jeric was so excited! I think he'd have been satisfied to ride it over and over all day long.

First break in the shade. She was a tired baby girl!

Grandpa, Uncle Daniel, Aunt Anna, and Jeric ride the Magic Carpets. They're in the one on the left. Grandpa in the front row; Daniel, Jeric, and Anna in the back row. If you click on it to make it bigger, you can just barely make out J-dawg's Mickey ears between his aunt and uncle.

Cooling off in the fountain. Sorry they're sideways. He loved this!

Cute girl.

Again, sorry it's sideways. This was Rosebud's very first experience in a stroller in her life! She didn't quite know what to make of it.

She was trying to get the straw in her mouth before this.

This is where she spent most of the day: in the Ergo we borrowed from Aunt Joni. Amazing! 

Hey, look, it's Captain Jack Sparrow! (Jeric was NOT a fan of the Pirates ride, but we did it because it was hot that day and the ride was nice and cool. We kept telling him they were "silly pirates" but he only kind of believed us. At least he didn't have nightmares or anything.)

At this point in our day, Daniel, Anna, Jeric and I rode the race car ride. Jeric was disappointed that he wasn't tall enough to drive the car, but he insisted on riding with his Uncle Daniel--not with Mommy. It was pretty cute.

Jeric also rode the merry-go-round with Daniel and Anna, but all of those pictures are on Anna's camera and I don't have them. :( He was so cute and loved it. I think he'd have ridden several more times.

The sword-in-the-stone was right by the merry-go-round, so Jeric attempted to pull it out (as did Daniel, haha). Those pictures are also on Anna's camera.

We then made our way to the teacups. Jeric rode with Anna and I and we let him decide how fast we would spin our teacup. While waiting in line, he said he wanted a yellow teacup, and there were only three. We were about halfway back in the line for our turn to ride, so we watched carefully for where the yellows would end up, and when the door opened, Daniel made a beeline for the one farthest from us. It worked like a charm and Jeric got his yellow teacup! He was so excited about this ride and just laughed and laughed.

The two of them just grabbed the nearest teacup to our yellow. And y'all, I have NEVER seen a teacup spin as fast as these two had theirs going. It was so funny to watch. 

Winnie the Pooh was on his way somewhere, and that lady was some sort of security guard who didn't let anybody high-five Pooh or anything! But Jeric still enjoyed waving at him. He also met the Rabbit (from Alice in Wonderland) and "Tigger the Tiger."

We then rode on the little kids rollercoaster next to Dumbo. Jeric insisted he wanted to ride it, so we let him try it out! He rode in the car with Grandpa, with Daniel in front of them and Anna and I behind. My mom stayed with Rosebud and our stuff whenever I rode on rides. 

After the rollercoaster, Rosebud needed to eat again, so she and I stayed with my mom while the rest went to ride Dumbo. Apparently, they have changed the way the Dumbo line works. You get in line and get a beeper like some restaurants use. Then you go to an indoor (air-conditioned) play area, where you wait until your beeper goes off. Then you get in another short line and get on the ride. Pretty cool, huh? Here's a picture of Jeric and Uncle Daniel playing while waiting.

After Dumbo, Jeric wanted to ride the train that goes all the way around the Magic Kingdom. All of us except my mom got on and rode a ways, but then Daniel, Anna, and I thought we might want to ride Space Mountain. So I left my babies on the train with my dad and the three of us walked over. The wait time posted was 100 minutes, though, and I knew Rosebud wouldn't make it that long without eating again, so I told the two of them to have fun and walked back over to where my mom was waiting for the train with most of our stuff. I arrived at almost exactly the same moment that my dad got off the train with the kids. The three of us walked over to one of the restaurants in Tomorrowland to wait for Daniel and Anna. Jeric also took a nap in the stroller, which he needed!

Rosebud and I waiting in the restaurant. Isn't she adorable?

When the big kids joined us, we walked over to an ice cream shoppe on Main Street in Downtown Disney. My brother decided he wanted to try wearing Rosebud in the Ergo. I think they look pretty cute together. She even fell asleep on him for a while.

We sat on the street to eat our ice cream. (I wish I had a picture of Jeric because OH MY GOODNESS he was a mess. It was so funny.) Then there was a show going on up at the Castle and Jeric wanted to see it, so Grandma, Aunt Anna, and Uncle Daniel (still carrying Rosebud) walked over with him.

Mickey, Minnie, princesses, etc.

We decided we'd had enough for the day, so started to walk toward the exit. We stopped and got a toy for Jeric first, and then we headed out.

Awkward. It cracks me up. (1) Anna's balloon ears. (2) Daniel's hand. (3) Jeric's imitation of Daniel.

Very favorite picture of the day. It kind of reminds me of that statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse.

The next day, Friday, August 3, we left Orlando and drove to my aunt's house in northern Florida. It should have only taken about 3 hours, but ended up taking twice that because we had to stop frequently. Poor Jeric had a bit of a stomach bug going on (not vomiting; the other end) and had a few accidents because he simply couldn't stop it (he has been potty-trained since April...one day he just told me he wanted to use the potty and that was that). It was pitiful! We ended up buying him some new clothes (two shorts & t-shirt outfits that he loves and wants to wear everyday...one was Toy Story, the other was Cars) and putting him in Pull-ups temporarily. He was so sad about it and it was just not fun at all. But by that evening he was much better and didn't really have any problems for the rest of the trip.

My cousin and her husband drove the 45 minutes from their house to visit while we were there. I was so excited to see her! She is the only girl cousin I've got (on either side of the family) who is within 7 years of my age (she's about 9 months older than me), so we were always good friends.

After my cousins left, my uncle took my dad, Daniel, and Anna to the beach for a little while before it got too late (they're pretty close to the ocean). My mom and I stayed with my aunt because my kids needed to go to sleep. We all planned to spend most of the next day (Saturday) at the beach.

Well, wouldn't you know, I woke up sick in the early morning hours. UGH. So I missed out on the beach! My aunt stayed with me and Rosebud, and I spent a lot of time sleeping it off. (By the time everyone got back, I was fine. I think it must have just been that traveling threw off my system.) I sent Jeric with the rest of them. He was SO excited to go to the beach. It was his first time and I HATE that neither his dad or I was there to see it. I sent my video camera with my mom, but of course the battery was dead even though I'd charged it the night before we left on our trip. They took pictures on their phones and my sister's camera, but I don't have them except for these two from my brother's facebook:

Baywatch...or something.

When I get the pictures of Jeric at the beach, I will definitely have to post them!

They left the beach in the early afternoon, earlier than planned, because a huge storm came through. We braved the weather and went out to eat that night at this huge mall, only it wasn't like any mall I've even seen before. It was more like a Tanger Outlet Mall, but it wasn't outlets. Then we did some shopping. :)

Here are a couple of pictures of my kids playing at my aunt's house:

We planned to go to the first hour of church with my aunt and uncle on Sunday and then head for home, but a(nother) torrential rain storm came through and we ended up skipping church and just starting out during the first lull in the storm. It rained off and on for the entire trip up the coast, and Rosebud didn't sleep quite as much as she did on the way down, but she did fine overall. Jeric was fine because he had Uncle Daniel and Aunt Anna to watch movies with the whole way. They dropped the kids and I off at our house at about 7:30 that evening. We had a great time! It was a fast, busy trip, but I'm glad we went.