A New Routine

The weeks are sure going by quickly. We have all kept busy with school, gymnastics, chores, homework, and just spending time with all our family. It's funny how natural it seems to wander over to my mom's house with the kids and waste away hours and hours of time with her. I can hardly believe that only a few months ago we were still in Mexico and could only dream of it. :)

The kids really seem to be liking their school. Guthrie has a minor case of sour grapes and likes to complain - but he does great in class and I know he has fun once he gets there every day. Adeline wouldn't dream of missing school for anything. She walks out the door with a smile on her face and comes home with a (slightly tired and sweaty) smile on her face. She is just too bubbly for words.

Sullivan has been doing well in his little preschool and even learned to sing his ABCs in exchange for a sucker. :p

Truman is at a great age. He is almost 6 months now. He tries really hard to sit up and can balance for a moment before he topples over. He learned how to get up on his hands and knees and seems to have a compulsion to do it anytime he feels his stomach on the floor. This makes nap times a challenge because he sleeps on his tummy and he has to get VERY tired before he can resist the urge to practice his new skill and actually settle into sleep. We have also given him his first solid foods and he is CRAZY in love with it. Now I just have to deal with one more thing to do each day. Luckily, he doesn't mind too much if I substitute more nursing for the solid food at this point during a busy day. I know that not too far in the future that will probably change.

Kyle is in Pittsburgh getting ready to take his next board exam. He is scheduled for two weeks from today and then he'll fly home to Arizona the following Saturday. I can hardly believe that we have made it nearly 3 full months without him home. Funny that I originally thought I could handle a whole year on my own. Consider me SCHOOLED and we will definitely be dragging the whole family to New York for the last part of this sub-internship (nifty word meaning year to work like an intern only pay tuition to make it happen).

As for me - I won't sugar coat it - I've been pretty psycho. It has just kicked my trash to be the caregive of kids, tender of household duties, cleaner of car (okay I didn't do that, but I still had to feel guilty about not doing it, so it added to the burden), payer of bills, taker outer of trash, DVRer of kids cartoon (I broke a sweat with that one), etc. and so forth. Not to mention the working on top of it - but I am so thankful to have a job that let's me make the money without daycare, and driving, and clocking in, etc. On calm days, it just makes me happy to get it all done. On PMSy days, I go on survival mode. You can tell which day it is by looking at the house. Apparently, I've been on survival mode for a while. ("Why is she typing this instead of doing her dishes?")

We had a great labor day weekend in Pinedale with Kyle's family. It was a last minute decision to head up there and I don't really regret it. THEY might regret letting us come - but really the kids had a great, dirt-filled weekend and I did as little as possible, which was actually very little (Sorry guys).