Overwhelming

I've been feeling overwhelmed lately.  Again.  Still?  It's been a long time, it feels like.

Weekdays are 100% filled.  From when my alarm goes off at 4:30 until I go to bed at night, every minute is accounted for in some productive way.  At least a few week nights a week I end up trying to squeeze something in like a quick trip to the grocery store to pick up more eggs and almond milk, or a haircut from my pregnant-and-going-on-leave-soon stylist.

When Oliver is up early, the morning hours are squeezed even more full, because I can't be efficient myself.  I actually discovered The Mother Goose Club the other day, and for the first time ever, it gave me ten minutes to do my hair and make-up.  And then I felt guilty, because I let the TV internet videos babysit my baby.  (But watching Oliver chair dancing in my big computer chair was one of the cutest things you'll ever see, and he was actually singing/humming "Where is Thumbkin" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" while I changed his diaper afterwards.)

And weekends.  Weekends.   Weekends are the only time we have to run errands and do chores.  They are also the only time we have to do anything social or fun.  I keep thinking If I can only get through ________ (the birthday party, the visiting friends, the weekend trip) life will "get back to normal" and I'll have time to catch up.

But you know what?  It's not happening.  My house is a disaster.  The clutter is taking over.  We're surviving on spot cleaning as necessary, laundry thrown into the washing machine in the morning and hopefully, if I'm lucky, it'll make it into the dryer before I leave for work.  (Once, I forgot soap.  And once, I left the lid open and forgot about it overnight, and the load of laundry sat stewing in a tub of water halfway through the cycle for 12 hours.)

And, to top it off?  One of our cats is sick.  For the last several months, she's had digestive issues of the messy variety.  Stool samples are clean, bloodwork is clean.  We tried a round of antibiotics, a round of probiotics.  We put both the cats on incredibly expensive prescription food.  The vet is stumped.  Steve has been a champion researcher, and we've recently moved on to grain-free, high protein, limited ingredient food and more homeopathic treatments... that may or may not be helping.  

I'm so, so sad for my cat.  She looks pitiful, and no one knows how to help her.  I'm tired of cleaning up her messes multiple times a day, and I want her to feel better.

We have to move.  This condo has shrunk, and our little family of three humans and three animals hardly fits.  If we want to think about a future sibling for Oliver, we need more space.  And I'm not getting any younger, so that probably needs to happen in the somewhat near future.  But before it does, we need to organize and purge in a major way.

And just... I'm having a hard time keeping up with it all.  

So I finally did something about it.  Work's a little slow right now, so I asked if I could reduce my hours to four days per week, at least temporarily.  I don't know what the loss of income will do to our savings account (especially in light of the eventual home upgrade), but I think it'll do wonders for our collective sanity.  

Since daycare isn't any less expensive going four vs. five days, I'll probably still send Oliver.  I'll do "responsible" things like grocery shopping, cleaning, and organizing/purging our belongings, leaving the weekends for family time, relaxation, and social things.  I sure hope it helps.

Through all of this, I just have to say, I don't know how single parents do it.  Here we are, two equally-involved partners, and we're losing our minds!

Dad's Day

Well, I don't know about Steve, but I had a pretty fantastic Father's Day!  (I think he did, too.)

It started off with letting him sleep in, which is such a rare treat.  After getting Oliver back to sleep, I walked the dog and made a sneak trip to the grocery store for ingredients for breakfast.  Unfortunately, Oliver had woken up by the time I got back, but there was coffee made and I threw together a little "snack" (yogurt mixed with apple sauce and a drizzle of honey) to hold the boys over, since breakfast wasn't going to be particularly speedy.

My breakfast pizza idea ended up being even more homemade than I'd anticipated, since the tomato sauce in the fridge (which sat with one pizza's worth gone from it for a few months, since the last time we made pizza) was moldy.  Ew. 

I made the dough.  I tossed a tomato left over from yesterday's grilling out into the blender with some spices, and then cooked it a bit.  I cheated and used the homemade breakfast sausage Steve made last weekend.  Cooked four eggs sunny side up, then slid them onto my pizza invention, sprinkled with mozzarella and parmesan cheeses, and baked.  Um, YUM! 

Then we headed out for a Dad-requested long walk!

Lookin' cool in those shades

Sighted: bicycle built for THREE!

Stroll along the wash running through town

Oliver zonked out in the stroller, so we ended up walking a little farther than we'd planned...

Zzzzzzz.....

... and ended up stopping at Ralph's for deli sandwiches and a fruit cup to share.  Impromptu picnic in the park!

Picnic time!

I've been trying for weeks to capture Oliver's little old man shuffle.  (See above.)

ZERBERT!

We were gone over three hours.  I did mention it was a looooooong walk, right?  We came home and tried to put Oliver down for a nap, but he was too energized.  We watched the newest Star Trek movie and he finally dozed off.

All in all, a darn enjoyable day!

Father's Day gift: "The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree."

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

Toddler Time

Eight days after his first birthday, Oliver learned to walk.

By "learned to walk" I mean this:

Prior to then, he would take one or two steps.  For possibly a few months, he'd take one or two steps if the thing he was holding onto was close enough to the next thing he wanted to hold onto.  And in the more recent weeks (before "learning to walk"), he'd take one or two steps away from something (a door frame, the coffee table), and then go down on all fours and gorilla-walk away.

Peek-a-boo!

And after then, after he "learned to walk," he started out walking a lot.  More than half of the time when I put him down, I could put him down to standing.  And he'd take eight or ten tentative little steps before deciding that crawling or gorilla-walking is much more efficient.

Astronaut baby!

But the other almost-half of the time, if I tried to put Oliver down standing, his legs would turn to noodles and he'd sit.  And no one but no one was going to get him to stand up or walk.

So.  Oliver would walk when he wanted to walk, and he wouldn't walk when he didn't want to walk.  And he didn't walk when four-limbed locomotion was more efficient.

Hotel room fun!

 That lasted a few weeks, and then one Saturday in May, he started getting himself right back up when he fell, and that was it.  He was a full-time walker, no-time crawler.  And here we are, a week into June, and he's so fast I have to jog to catch him if he really gets going.  He climbs up stairs like it ain't no thang, and he tries to climb down stairs, too, but his mom and dad are a little more nervous about that.  He climbs off our bed or the couch, up onto boxes... he's on the move, all of the time.

Airport running

Balls are the BEST.

Ten days after his first birthday, Oliver signed his first two-word sentence: more milk.

"More" is sometimes still more of a clap than the actual sign for more (and sometimes it's two fists knocking together), and he does "Milk" with both hands.  It's really, really adorable.

Milk.  How'd that foot get there?

That first night after he first signed "more milk", he woke up in the middle of the night (like he's been doing).  And I went and laid down with him on the mattress in the nursery, snuggled him against me.  And he wiggled until both his arms were free and signed more milk.

Okay, little dude, message received.

Speaking of night waking, I've mostly phased out daytime nursing, so Oliver had been stepping up the nighttime nursing.  To be fair, he's been waking up mid-night for the last *coughcough* many weeks, and I'd been totally zen about it.  Until I'd been surviving on five or so interrupted hours of sleep myself for weeks and weeks and weeks, which is worse than it was when he was a tiny little thing because at least then I didn't have to be up and out the door for work every morning.

Brushin' teeth

And he's been waking up between 4:30 and 5:30 since he turned one, which means that Steve has already left for work (around 5:30) and I'm tasked with getting myself ready while spending every minute with Oliver.  It means I bring a basket of mostly-ignored toys into the bathroom while I take a shower, and try to be speedy while Oliver stands at the shower door and opens and closes it.  Sometimes he hands toys in to me, and asks for them back.

New game: throw it down the stairs

It means I blowdry my hair sitting cross-legged on the floor with Oliver in my lap, wanting me to turn the hair dryer onto his hair every few seconds.

It means I put on make-up while Oliver picks up every single thing within reach on the desk and drops them onto the floor, one by one.  (Today, he's playing with one of my unused make-up brushes.) (And by "playing with" I mean "tasting".)

It means it's really difficult to get out of the house for work on time.

Future hairdresser?

 Sometimes it means I spend two hours in the morning trying to get Oliver back to sleep because he's clearly exhausted and cranky and wants to sleep, except that he doesn't. Those mornings, which are way more frequent than I'd like, I'm frazzled and rushed and Oliver's upset and I feel like I'm wasting most of the precious little time I have with Oliver with us both unhappy.  If he'd sleep until 6:30, I could work out and get myself ready efficiently, and we'd even have time to play together before we have to leave. 

Balloons are so cool!

But again, these days won't last forever, and I will miss the times when Oliver climbs into my lap and lays his head on my shoulder, even if some of those times are when I'm drying my hair.