Hullo

Well, I was reading over my last post and it sounded like Ian's birth was a non-event. Not at all! It's just that I had told everyone the story already that I didn't repeat it on here.

Ian fit right into our family. Adding a second is MUCH harder than adding that third baby. Obviously there are some things that are harder to do now that there is a new baby in the house. Sleep, for example. But it isn't as bad as I had feared it would be. Jack is definitely acting out and I'm not too surprised by that. It is much more difficult for us to handle than we thought it would be but we're trying our best. We're trying to make sure that we get a lot of alone time with each kid and that's the best we can do at the moment. We're feeling a bit like a pat of butter that needs to cover an entire loaf of bread...spread a little thin. :)

In the meantime, Katie has started school. I'm a little tiny tiny bit concerned for her already. Math doesn't come easily to her so she gets frustrated very very easily (sound familiar??). But her reading skills are phenomenal. I'm very impressed with her and how well she's doing. She doesn't like getting up and going to school, though but I think that once she gets there, she's ok. Katie doesn't really talk about school but when she does, it is usually positive. I keep trying to talk to her to get her to understand that it is crucial that she gets as much out of school as she can but she's only coming up on 7. I'm not beating her over the head with it yet. She picks things up ultra-fast (hasn't gotten a single wrong answer on any of her spelling tests yet...she can read her little booklets that they make in class immediately, etc) so I'm not too concerned.

Potty training is NOT going well in this house. Jack refuses to use the potty. The other day he looked at me and said "Mommy, I am NOT going to use the potty". I told him that's ok. He can choose to poop in his Pull-Ups but I'm not changing him. So he gets into the shower to clean up each time. I think that as winter comes and it gets colder in here, he'll start to think twice about getting all wet. We'll see. I try not to make too big a deal anymore since it is now nothing more than a power struggle.

But on a positive note, I'm blown away by how quickly my kids pick things up. I know that everyone thinks their kids are special but seriously, Jack is now reading things, too. Granted, he's 'reading' by having memorized the story but he'll sit and 'read' "The Monster At The End Of This Book". It took Katie a while to get the concept that counting objects goes with saying the numbers in order. Jack is counting objects. I was making whoopie pies for a bake sale and he counted the cookies on the tray. They're brilliant, I tell you!

(A little side note: The woman running the sale IM'd Mike to tell him that the whoopsie cookies were selling very well. I giggled. A lot. Hee hee hee...)

Ian is eating and growing like a weed. At six weeks, he was already at 13 pounds and has grown out of his 0-3m clothes. He's in 3-6m currently and he seems to fit them very well. My fingers are crossed that he stays in that size for a little while but there are already some outfits in that range that are too small. Yikes.

I have no knitting, quilting, or spinning news. I haven't had time to sit down to make any significant progress on anything. I've been sitting at the spinning wheel for a little bit each night but that's about all. And if I really really can't get Ian to sleep, I'll knit a few rows on my latest project. I'm waiting to lose a bit more of my pregnancy weight before I start to make the alpaca sweater that is in my queue. I can hardly wait, either. I got this yarn almost a year ago for Christmas but because I was gaining weight with the baby, I didn't want to take measurements and knit a sweater out of expensive yarn that I could not wear because it didn't fit. So another ten pounds and I'll start working on that.

Speaking of which, I've lost ten pounds so far. I think this week won't post such a success (see the aforementioned bake sale baking) but that is far from meaning that I quit. I just took a pumpkiny baked goodness detour. :) I've got quite a bit to go but I'm proud of that ten pounds. I'm extremely proud of Mikey, too since he's giving this an honest to goodness attempt this time. He isn't doing the fruits and veggies so the loss isn't coming very quickly for him but it is coming. Yay us!!

Lastly, I'm going back to work next week. I'm not ready but my bank account is. I'm only going to do one or two short shifts (four hours or less) per week for a few weeks until Ian doesn't need to eat as often. Then I'll slowly start to increase. My goal is to try and get $1,000 in the bank for when we move. Then hopefully we can do at least a mini-vacation OR use it towards whatever moving expenses we don't foresee. I guess we'll see what happens. Wish me and my overzealous goal setting some luck. :)

Hopefully it won't be another two months before I see y'all again. Take care.