Kiersten’s Blog

It’s a fate that all parents swear will never happen to their child.  “I’ll be prepared,” they all say.  “I’ll make sure I always keep an eye on them.”  Then it happens to a friend’s baby.  Again, every parent says, “That will never happen to me.  I’ll keep a better watch.”  But the dreadful day is bound to come.  And it does.  It happens to the first child.  When the second child comes along, the parent remembers what happened the first time around and thinks that she has learned from her mistake.  “I know how quickly it can happen.  I’m more prepared this time.”  How wrong she is.  It happens to the second child, and the parent remembers why she was supposed to keep a better watch.  And she promises never to let it happen again.  Maybe it won’t happen again to this child, but if she has any more, it’s bound to happen again.

My baby fell off the bed this morning.  He occasionally rolls over, but not enough to roll off a bed.  That’s how it was with the first child.  I remember now.  He’s not much of a roller, but he’s a scooter.  He lies on his back, pushes up with his feet, and scoots into all sorts of places.  I was watching closely because I knew it could happen.  I left for just a second, when I heard a bump and a scream.  I found him on the floor, having bumped his head on the corner of the dresser on the way down.  Poor guy.  I don’t think he was really hurt, just scared a little.  I picked him up and snuggled with him, promising never to let that happen to him again.

Showered (including washing hair), makeup and hair done
Two kids bathed and fed
Dropped husband off at work on the way to preschool
Made it to preschool on time
Volunteered at preschool, all the while holding a squirming baby
Two kids fed
Miraculously got a four-year-old to pick up all of her toys while I did the dishes
Got four-year-old to watch the baby while I vacuumed
Got a Halloween costume for the baby
Shopped at Costco
Picked up husband from work
Had hot dogs for dinner (not much of an accomplishment, but we got home later than expected)
Ice cream at Cold Stone
Two kids asleep by 9
In bed by 10:30

I’d say I did pretty well.

I know the picture has nothing to do with the post, but I thought it was cute. She got her face painted by a clown last week at Denny's. She was really excited to be a cat.

London is a child of routines. We have a very specific bedtime routine that must be followed to the tee, or bedtime is a disaster. One of the very last things in this routine is for her to lie down while I turn on her nightlight, turn her music on, and get her a glass of cold water. I don’t know why it has to be cold. That’s just the way it has been for the last couple of years. In fact, before she could even say “cold water” she would say “hee wawa,” because “hee” is what you say when you get the shivers. Sometimes she even snuggles with the water cup. Silly girl. Anyway, tonight I finished the routine and put a cup of water on her bed. A few minutes later (as she was tucked in and almost asleep) she called me back to remind me that I had not given her the cold water. I told her she had water. That wasn’t good enough. It needed to be cold. So I dumped out the room temperature stuff and filled it up with cold water. The funny part is, she didn’t drink any of it at all. By the time she drinks it, it will be warm. It’s all part of the routine and heaven forbid I mess that up.

A couple of months ago, we put an offer in on a house. Okay, we’ve been putting offers in left and right but this is one I felt really good about. We found out soon after that we didn’t get it. Then suddenly we were called and asked if we were still interested. It’s a duplex and apparently the neighbor had some foundation issues that needed repair so he assumed our side would as well. A contractor was sent out to assess the damages and quoted us a $1500 repair, a far cry from the $30,000 worth of work the guy next door needed. We re-submitted the offer. By the time everything went through, there were already 42 other offers on the property. Because our agent was helping out the listing agent with getting the place inspected and everything, she didn’t submit the other offers, only ours, and our offer was accepted. There was still a worry, however, that the house had settled and was moving toward the hill in the backyard. Today we had the home inspected. There is room for about 3/4 of an inch discrepancy from the low point to the high point of the floor. This house had a discrepancy of 4 1/2 inches. I’m totally bummed. I was so excited about this house and have felt good about it from the beginning. Things seemed to be working out perfectly for us. Except for the fact that the house is falling down a hill. So now we wait. We don’t know what the cost of the repair will be, but we do know that they’ll likely need to jack up the whole house and re-pour the whole foundation. Obviously that would cost a lot of money. More money than we have. My hope is that the bank (since it’s bank-owned) will fix it and still sell it to us. The more likely scenario is that the bank will re-list it as cash only as is and drop the price. I’m not excited to start hunting again. But at least I’m not buying a house that’s falling down a hill.

This little guy rolled over on Monday!  From day one, he has hated tummy time, so I don’t give it to him as often as I should.  I’ve been trying to mend my ways.  He was on his tummy, pushed himself way up, and rolled right to his back.  It only happened once and he hasn’t made it from his back to his tummy yet, though I can’t imagine he would want to do that.  For the most part he just wants to stand.  He’s growing so fast and getting so big!  Don’t even get me started on that noggin of his.  Where did my baby go?

Those aren't freckles. It's sand!

London turned four on Friday.  I think she had the best birthday ever.  We weren’t planning on doing a party since we did one last year, but she wanted to have a bonfire at the beach.  It’s always fun to do that and it really is one of London’s favorite things.  We invited some family and a few friends and had a great time.  Taylor and his dad were the only ones who even went close to the water.  They, of course, had to surf.  London wore her swimsuit (as did I) but it wasn’t super warm so we never ventured in.  We just sat around the fire pit.  We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and had a good time.

I made Hello Kitty cake pops because London wanted a Hello Kitty party.  They didn’t turn out as cute as I had hoped and the faces got all smudged in the bag but London was excited about them.  Of course we also had to have cupcakes for the candles, although London only pretended to blow out candles because it was so windy that we couldn’t light them.  She didn’t care.

Pretending to be a surfer in the wetsuit Papa bought for her when she was a baby. She finally got it for her birthday this year.

The next day, Krystal took London to Sea World while Taylor and I visited with our realtor.  After we were done, we met them and played at Sea World for a little while before heading to Chuck E Cheeses for dinner.  What a day!  We promised London that when she no longer wore diapers, we would take her there.  It just happened to be the day after her birthday that we were able to go.  After being there, Taylor and I both wanted to call our parents and thank them for the few times that they ever took us.  That place on a Saturday is really not fun.  There were tons of people.  We were lucky to find a table.  Of course, the food is less than mediocre and way overpriced.  I had coupons but I forgot them.  In reality, I’m kind of glad I did forget them because we would have ended up with twice the tokens to use and we had plenty.  We were definitely ready to leave when we finally ran out.

All in all, London had a great weekend and we had fun spoiling her.  And she loves all of her new toys.

By the way, if you want to see more photos from this weekend (and other times) check out the photos link from our homepage.

After much searching and frustration, we finally had an offer accepted on a house today! We should close escrow by mid-November, just in time to get a Christmas tree! I’m really excited and London’s excited to have a purple room. She thinks that’s why we’re moving. Now for the fun part…escrow.

Ashton’s a big boy now, eating big boy food.  Now if he would only sleep through the night, but that’s a subject for another post.  Anyway, about a week and a half ago (on the 3rd) we started him on solids.  His first food: rice cereal with a scoop of prunes.  He didn’t mind at all.  This boy is an eater!  Since he’s been quite constipated, I’ve been feeding him just prunes lately.  He loves them!  I have learned that the easiest way to feed this messy boy, is to strip him down to just his diaper and be prepared to give him a bath when he’s done.  Since he can’t go more than five seconds without putting his hands in his mouth, he’s always a huge mess after dinner.  He gets those little fingers in his mouth and spreads those prunes all over his face and the rest of his body and chair.  It’s a good thing he likes his baths!

When Ashton was born, I was really worried that London and Ashton wouldn’t get along.  I’m sure they won’t get along all the time, but in the beginning, London really didn’t like him.  She especially didn’t like it when he cried.  She would scream at him and his cries would just escalate.  One time I was holding him, trying to get him to calm down and she hit me!  I would lock him in my room when I showered because I was worried what she might do to him.  Thankfully, things are much different now.  Now when I shower, I put Ashton near his big sister and she takes care of him when he starts to fuss.  She always wants to hold him and kiss him.  She’s the only one who has made him laugh.  She can always make him smile.  He gets excited to see her and she loves that he loves her so much.  They have a great relationship.  I’m so glad they’re such good friends already.  I hope it lasts forever.

On Friday night I babysat Katie’s Samuel.  London and Sam are such great friends.  I’ll have to admit, the last time I babysat him (along with his older brother), it wasn’t the best experience of my life so I wasn’t super excited to do it again.  I was dealing with a breast infection and was miserable.  This time was a totally different experience.  London and Sam play so well together.  I even let them stay up a little later because they were being so good and having so much fun.  Of course they made a huge mess in London’s room.  When I went in and saw it, I thought I would try a new strategy to get them to clean up.  I turned on the Mary Poppins soundtrack that we borrowed from the library to the song A Spoonful of Sugar and SNAP!  The job’s a game!  They went around snapping their little fingers and throwing toys into the toy box.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen that room cleaned up so fast!  After they were done cleaning, they danced the night away, watching every move in the mirrored closet doors.  Cute kids.