Lazy Days?

The summer is passing too quickly and I fear that if I focus too much on it ending, it will already be over before I enjoy these last weeks. And by enjoy I mean totally overwork myself in an attempt to get our house/yard/life organized and beautified by Mad's (if Mr. Bear is the original Angry Bear then our Baby Bear, who will soon not be the babiest of baby bears, can be my Mad Bear, since Mad is what I call her at home. Though I can't say I'll let go completely of my Baby Bear nickname anytime soon, or ever at all) 1st birthday. Birthday + party = people in my house.

I don't want my family and friends who haven't seen this place yet to think we're those awesome neighbors with dead grass. That might be what we are now but after this past weekend we are the awesome neighbors with dead grass and new randomly placed plants. Plus some piles of old ugly mulch that we are trying to get rid of (there is a lot of it!).

Rewind for just a minute. Can you believe this little imp is going to be 1? ONE!



Basically since buying the house I've worked my body to the bone and found even more energy than I ever realized I had. I can cook, clean, care, AND do yard work. Except on the days I work in the yard it's nearly impossible to get anything else done. I spent almost all day Saturday & Sunday outside trying to get the front yard ready for new grass. I'm sunburned and sore but we made progress. Unfortunately when I work in the yard I miss this little lady as she buzzes around the house doing what she does. Have I mentioned that she will be 1 in two months? I'm not ready for it. Already she feel so big in my arms when I nurse her. My sweet sweet baby.

This is her being a bookworm. She loves to read just like her mama and daddy.

You Have it & Then You Don't

Truly it has been an overwhelming feat getting adjusted and settled, neither of which I've done completely yet. Each morning I'm pulled in 3 directions. Play with baby, clean the house, or organize and unpack what is left in boxes. There is so much to do every day that I just start everything at once. We play on the floor for two minutes before I plop Baby Bear into her high chair and get out some breakfast dishes. Then I fold the laundry, after giving Baby something to make noise with of course, wash two dishes, and finish breakfast. When Baby Bear goes down for her first nap I am pulled in two more directions. Finish the chores I halfheartedly started, or shower because, lets be honest I look pretty awful. Before I realize what exactly I'm doing I find myself outside dressed in cotton shorts, my night nursing bra hanging out of a tank top, and an over sized cardigan, watering our practically dead trees. Once the trees are watered (thank God I took care of that urgent chore!?) I go into overdrive trying to finish what I started.

I won't lie, my house looks incredible for, oh, about 10 minutes every day. But don't you know that once you clean a mess up it's cause for making another? It's true. Breakfast mess gives way to lunch mess which is simply a prelude to the massive dinner mess. I can get the first two cleaned up fairly quickly and the third I'm working on. Working really hard, can't you tell? I suppose I should congratulate myself on making meals at all! The last couple of months, er since I was about 5 months pregnant, I've been slacking in the cooking department. I've made a small handful of meals but in truth The Bear has really been doing the bulk of the cooking or we have just been eating out. No more. I am truly striving to be the perfect housewife & mother. Next thing you know I'll be wearing dresses and low kitten heels while I cook in my lacy apron instead of too big rolled up jeans and a t-shirt that accentuates my postpartum belly.

I want to be that woman who has a hot meal ready when her man walks through the door. But who the hell are those women anyway? Robots? Do their babies not demand attention? Do they have a magical shower that also cooks meals and does laundry when you turn them on? Maybe I've yet to master the art of manipulating space and time. Could someone please send me that "how to" book? I keep reassuring myself that I'll get the hang of it, That I won't feel like I have to constantly choose between a shower and a clean house, time with my daughter or cooking a fresh healthy meal, sanity or complete and total INSANITY! Alas, today I am still struggling to figure it out. A hot shower not followed up by hair styling, a meal that took far too long and tasted far too mediocre, folded laundry that never found its way to the closet. I suppose I now know where to start tomorrow morning.......

*Here are some pics of Baby this last week. And no, I don't usually leave remotes and cords hanging around. Oh the joys of unpacking!

Home Sweet Home

It's 8:45 AM and Baby Bear is already down for her first nap. There is a garage full of boxes that I should be going through and a kitchen to clean. My bed needs to be made and one would think I'd take this quiet time to shower and dress for the day. But I'm exhausted. More than anything I want to nap but I fear it will be even more difficult to wake in an hour when nap time is over. My eyes burn today, more so as I think of the hours ahead.

We aren't yet settled enough that I have coffee waiting to brew so my mind is lagging this week. About mid afternoon, when my body is ready for sleep, my mind finally seems to catch up. I scratch my head and look at the piles I've managed to make while unpacking. It takes every last inch of energy to clear the piles out and organize my things the best I know how (obsessively) so things look better when The Bear arrives home from work. The kitchen must wait until after dinner when I get some sort of second wind.

By the end of the day my back aches and I think of all that is left to do. Pillows are towering at the bottom of the stairs waiting for a case. I know they all had one when we packed yet somehow they all seem to be missing. Just when I'm ready to take a few minutes to sit outside with a beer and some cookies, watch the stars, and worry about my sisters and their troubles, Baby Bear wakes. She is either genuinely upset and uncomfortable or she has learned if she cries and fights enough I'll pick her up, snuggle her into my warm chest, and rock her until she is asleep again. Refusing to allow me to put her back down I give in and put her in our bed where she snuggles on Mr. Bear's chest while they watch some Adult Swim cartoon on the IPad. I brush my teeth and climb in bed with them. I still ate my cookies. An hour later Baby is finally asleep in her own bed and I crash into mine. I was probably too grumpy with Mr. Bear that evening but hopefully he knows how much I love and need him. The hours of sleep I get don't feel rejuvenating enough and 7 AM is here before I know it. Which is what brought me to this moment of exhaustion.

But I love this house, oh, I really love it. I don't feel deserving of such a beautiful home. Even now, exhausted and lazy in my unmade bed, the morning light is beaming through our huge bedrooms windows. If only I had coffee I could sit outside and begin my day right. Baby Bear loves it too. She climbs the long staircase every chance she gets (even though she seems too small to climb so many stairs she's been doing it for weeks now, it took her only two tries to figure out how to maneuver them properly) and hauls her little self up onto every piece of furniture she can reach. If it's on the floor and taller than her (sitting down) it must be meant for climbing. Mr. Bear loves it too. He cooks me dinner in the kitchen (lentil walnut veggie burgers with yogurt cream sauce FROM SCRATCH!), he weeds the dead, overgrown yard, he putters around wishing he could feel settled and worrying, I'm sure, about bills and new larger mortgage payments.

*edit My battery died after that last sentence and then I didn't have internet set up yet sooo....I've forgotten if I was going to end with something intriguing. I wrote this about, oh, 5 days ago.

It's What We Do & How We Do It

Baby Bear is napping. We're going on two days of napping more than an hour each nap. = Heaven! Mr. Bear just left again, off to New York City until Saturday morning when he returns. On Sunday night he flew to L.A., then to San Fran on Tuesday, home to us for Wednesday night to drop off presents and snuggle with me in bed for one night, and now he's gone once more. So I'm here, trying to make time to write while wearing new pink shoes and the prettiest of pretty new earrings. Mr. Bear spoils Baby and I. He says he doesn't care if Baby Bear wears jammies all day long but he must be lying because he has impeccable taste in baby clothes (and shoes too!). He also buys the best jewelry (see photo).



While The Bear has been gone this week Baby has learned to crawl up the stairs and call for her Dada in the morning. The first morning he was gone she woke up at 3:30, in my bed of course, and said, in the sweetest yell you've ever heard, "Dada? Daaaaada?". He wasn't there to answer. This morning she was up at 6:30 and sat up, climbed on top of The Bear and hollared, "Daaaaa. Dada.", it was lovely. For the next hour she crawled around the bed smacking her lips before moving in for the slobber fest that is her kiss. She completes this kiss by chomping down on my face with her razor sharp teeth. It hurts. A lot. Then she cackles and smacks her lips in search of her next victim. I may start waking up in the dead of night panicky because I can hear lips smacking, coming to claim my flesh. I have a child zombie only she hasn't yet broken skin.

Tonight it will just be the two of us again. Hopefully by the time The Bear is home we will know if we have a house yet. All I'll say is that we've found our home, the one I see us raising our babies in the for the foreseeable future, but the market is so complicated right now and it seems that all the forces are working against us successfully becoming home owners. Let me just say, it's not us, it's them. If I never hear the words "short sell" or "negotiating price" or "bank" ever again it will be too soon. Now I have to go mentally prepare myself for a hectic weekend of BBQing and extended family by taking three shots of tequila (kidding, sort of). Yayhoo.