life with lance

IMG_2297

Originally uploaded by sarahhg

Lance and his little sister!

mr. smiley

Originally uploaded by sarahhg.

Growing up way to fast!

Yesterday I was very spontaneous, which is so not normal me, but I am proud of myself. Jeff was suppose to go down to Winston-Salem to meet with some of his sales reps and I had been playing with the idea of going with him for a week or two and decided this past weekend not to go. The original plan was drive down Monday night, spend the night in a hotel and meet with the reps on Tuesday. When I decided not to go, Jeff decided to just go in one day, leave early in the morning and get back that evening, but after talking to one of the reps he found out that they weren’t arriving until the afternoon and leaving early wasn’t going to work. Yesterday morning we woke up and I asked Jeff what time he was leaving, he said 11 which was right after an appointment I had, so I asked him if Lance and I could go with him. He said sure so we got ready and packed in case we spent the night and headed down. We borrowed a mini-van so we would have more room and Lance would hopefully enjoy the trip more. He loved the van, he loved being able to see the cars out the back window and all of the amenities the van had. Once we got down there he was great during the meetings, he loved going after the shoes and trying to tear the catalogues apart. Looking at the “back-to-school” women’s shoes was fun, but also frustrating. There are so many shoes that I would love to carry and it is so hard to figure out what will sell and how to get people in the shop to buy what we have. I wish I could order one of everything that I liked, but to try and narrow it down to one or two and then to get women into the shop instead of the mall is hard. Oh, and I didn’t even think about hoping that whatever style I choose won’t be at PacSun, but be popular! AHHHH, it is enough to make my head spin! Well the meetings with the reps didn’t take as long as we thought they might so we headed to Greensboro to go to dinner and while we were there we stopped at one of my favorite places: the Fresh Market! I so wish we had one in town, maybe one day when we aren’t so poor we will and I can shop there! Well the day was fun and I am proud that I didn’t just stay at home and I did something spontaneous.

Last night was a rough night for all of us. Lance was up a lot and very clingy. Jeff and I felt horrible due to our colds, sinus, whatever is wrong with us. I remember at 1 am saying- why can’t we just sleep? I was so frustrated, it reminded me of the first weeks with Lance. What was so frustrating was we know we can sleep longer than 3 hour stretches, but for some reason he hasn’t been sleeping well lately. I know that this too will pass, but it is hard in the moment. I remember those first couple of weeks dreading night time because it seemed to last forever and thinking that the no sleep was going to last forever.
Well I was feeling kind of blah today, but when I was uploading the pictures from my camera to my computer I realized I have one happy kid. He is always smiling and he doesn’t just smile with his mouth, his eyes get all squinty (he gets that from his dad), his cheeks get fuller and he just radiates. He also knows that he is suppose to smile for the camera, it is funny to watch.
Yesterday Lance started doing something new. He won’t clap his own hands but he likes to hold onto my hands and clap my hands. We had a good time clapping and laughing last night.
Before Christmas when Lance and I were working at the store I had a theory or should I say a hypothesis that Lance would always poop after spending a few minutes in the exersaucer. It seemed like every time we would get to the store I would stick him in to get a few things going and before I know it there was a foul smell coming from Lance. Tuesday Jeff brought the exersaucer home with him since we aren’t working there anymore regularly and yesterday I stuck Lance in to play and sure enough he had worked up a dirty diaper. Also when I was helping John with his homework Lance was playing in the exersaucer and when I pulled him out I noticed the poopy smell. So I think my theory/hypothesis is correct, the exersaucer for whatever reason relieves constipation in Lance and it is a lot easier than feeding him prunes!

I am so annoyed at people right now, and I know I need to let it go, but it just hard. Number 1 annoyance: dog poop in my yard. The city that I live in has an ordinance that owners are suppose to pick up their dog’s poop. For some unknown reason, this doesn’t seem to apply to our yard. At least once a week I step in dog poop and it is gross and really annoying. This morning Jeff stepped in some while bringing the trashcan from the street to under the stairs. I know that we have a large empty yard, but it is our large empty yard which should be free of dog poo since we don’t have a dog!!! I am saving up money to fence in the yard because I don’t want to deal with dog poop when Lance is older and will want to play outside.
Number 2 annoyance: people using other people and not being loyal. This doesn’t directly affect me, but similar things happen to me. A friend of Jeff’s had the owner of the bike shop sell his bike on eBay for him. He bought a new bike yesterday, did he buy it from the bike shop that sold his first bike for him? NO! I can’t believe that this guy did this, what was he thinking?????? That is so rude! It is one thing to buy from somewhere else, but don’t use the store to sell your bike! It is similar to our customers who will buy skateboard or snowboard stuff at other places and bring it into the shop to show Jeff what they got and tell him about “what a great deal they got.” I don’t understand these people, why do they think that we want to hear about how they bought something similar to what they could have bought from our store? That reminds me of another situation. Jeff’s brother called him one day because he was at TJMaxx and he saw a jacket that was the same brand that Jeff carries in his shop and he told Jeff that the jacket was 99 and asked if Jeff could sell him a jacket for less than 99. Well of course he couldn’t because 99 was about cost or less, well he told Jeff he “tried to give him a chance.” I think that this was extremely rude. It is one thing to find something that you are looking for cheaper and buying it, but you don’t call up the people to rub it in their face! I personally think that he was buying it not because he needed it, but because it was cheap. I also don’t understand the lack of loyalty in both cases. My sister and the bike shop owner would not buy something similar somewhere else and they definitely would not tell us about it if they did, they are loyal.
Number 3 annoyance: my clingy child. I love Lance to death, but he is driving me crazy! He wants to be held all the time and only by me. Today I had to go to the bathroom and he screamed and screamed, is it not possible to have a few seconds to myself????? Is that too much to ask???? Last night we were over at our friends’ house. They have a rock wall in their basement and I was trying to do a little climbing. Lance wanted me to hold him and every time it was my turn on the wall he would scream. As soon as I would stop and pick him up he would stop and turn to everyone and smile. It was very frustrating because I just wanted a few moments to myself.
On a positive note: I bought some fabric at the store yesterday to make pillows for our couch, I am tired of having non-matching pillows. There were so many beautiful fabrics at the store and I can’t wait to go back and find some fabric to make curtains for our bedroom and the playroom and maybe some more for pillows for the couch, I love pillows. I just have to get my sewing materials from Gram’s. I had hoped that I had some things stored with my sewing machine, but it is all in the sewing box that Gram has. The only problem is that Gram is a bit senile and thinks that my sewing box is hers, and I hope it won’t stress her out too much for me to take it. She won’t use it, but she likes for everything to be in its place and she doesn’t like change, but that is a whole other story.
Okay so this is longest post ever and there are dirty dishes to put away, I mean clean. Yeah, it is Friday, a rainy Friday, but Friday is Friday no matter the weather!

soaking up sunshine

Originally uploaded by sarahhg.

I can’t get believe how fast he is growing up. He can go from laying down to sitting up back down to crawl. He is my sunshine.

I am just amazed how quickly Lance is growing. He is now pulling up on things and trying his hardest to stand up. He just started real crawling last week and now he seems to want to walk. All of this trying to stand also means lots of falls which though tramatic for him means lots of cuddle time for m. He has started to dance, well more bob to the music, but I think it is really cute. He also is a lot more vocal especially when things don’t go his way, it is kind of scary. Last night, during a late night feeding I thought he was done and began to change his diaper, he wasn’t and he was so mad that I was not letting him eat, he screamed at the top of his lungs. I think I might have a stong-willed child like I have seen books for, I shouldn’t be surprised since I am very strong-willed. He also has gotten very attached to one of his blankets. We hoped that he would get attached to receiving blankets since we have an abundance of them and he kind of us, but he is really starting to favor a crochet blanket a teacher I worked with gave him. He loves to stick his fingers through it and get himself all wrapped up in it. He just took a tumble and bumped his head and is all curled up with blanket, I love this cuddly baby and I know I need to enjoy every moment because it will be gone before I know it.

This week I have tried to establish a schedule.  Wednesday and Thursday we got a schedule down, I was excited that it happened so easily and quickly.  Today the schedule has been totally out the window.  One thing I have learned about motherhood- change occurs all the time and you can’t expect anything to continue.  When I was a nanny I had both boys on a schedule and they were very predictable, Lance there is nothing predictable about him.  I am a bit tired because instead of his usual 5 am feeding (usual being the last two weeks with one exception) Lance was hungry at 2. He had been getting up at 8 or 9 this morning he was up at 7, in fact he was up before the alarm clock.  I was expecting Lance to sleep in since it is a rainy day, but nope he was ready to go.  I have not gotten anything done that I have wanted to do today, but it is all good because I have been very productive the last couple of days and I can have one unproductive day.  Okay, Lance has decided that he really doesn’t want a nap now though he hasn’t slept all afternoon. 

I was having problems with Blogger so I was thinking about switching to this blog, but Blogger updated and it works better so which Blog to keep?  Me being my ridiculous self has both going, I need to get a life.

I don’t even know if a commitmentphobe is really a word, but I am afraid of commitment.  I wasn’t always like this, having a baby really changes everything.  Before Christmas I was working at our store so Jeff could pick up more hours at his morning job, but it was very helpful.  In order for the business to succeed he needs to put a lot of time and effort into it and he can’t if he is only there for four hours and I am there for two hours and not helping.  I had a love-hate relationship with my work schedule, I did not like going in because it was in the middle of my day and I couldn’t always get important stuff done, but I enjoyed helping customers and spending time with Jeff once he got to work (we never left right after he got there so even more time was wasted, but it wasn’t really because we were spending time together).  This week I have been babysitting after school for the two children I used to nanny for, it is fun and it looks like this arrangement could last longer than just this week.  I would rather do this everyday then work at our store, but I would rather not have to work at all then babysit.  If I wasn’t babysitting then we could go to the store, though I don’t know if we would be any help, but I still need to work on bringing more women’s clothing and accessories to the store.  I just don’t know what to do.  I also don’t know why I am stressing about this so much, it isn’t like teaching where I have to sign a contract, I could do this for a month and if it isn’t working out do something else.  Why am I such an extremist?  I make things so much harder than they need to be.