The Crazy Month of August

Just so nobody can say I didn't post for a month, here's a cheat! My sister wrote an adorable blog post (complete with pictures) about the weekend she came to visit. So here it is for now. I'll catch up once I finish my book (hopefully before my deadline!) in a week or so. By the way, I turned 30 this month! Woohoo!

Oh, and quick details from Maddie's 6-month checkup: 13 lbs, 14 oz (11th percentile) and 26.5 inches long (77th percentile). Quinn's 3-year: 33 lbs. (69th percentile) and 37 inches (40th percentile). The doctor calls him Chatty Cathy. Maddie is sitting up by herself now and scooting all over the place. We're getting closer to potty trained. Not there yet, but closer. That's all for now, folks. Love, Us.

Mopping Up Puddles

Well, I was so ready to say how much I HATE potty training when Quinn maybe, just maybe, seems to have gotten the hang of it. We spent all day today (while we were both awake and at home) keeping Quinn naked from the waist down. When I did try to put underwear on him, he peed on the floor. One other time he peed on his chair at the dining room table, but he also managed to do it right a few times, including "number 2"!! We've hit plenty of other milestones recently, too. Maddie rode in her stroller sitting up (not in her carseat) for the first time yesterday. She seemed pretty happy with it. She's also rolling over now, mostly from the back to front. She "talks" a lot more now, much louder, too. She eats rice cereal, sweet potatoes, peas (not a fan), pears, and squash. She's a very neat eater, too, not nearly as messy as Quinn was. Thanks to the solid food, she seems to be putting on a bit of weight. She is still not fitting into her size 0-3 month pants, for the most part. But she's outgrowing her pajamas and rompers in that size because she's the longest baby in the world.

Quinn buttoned his pajama shirt last night, which was a big step for him since we haven't been practicing that at all. He pretty much knows his right from his left, and he's really good at singing "Jesus Loves Me." He loves to help with the laundry, which is great for practicing his color sorting, and is especially helpful when Miss Maddie is screaming her head off and won't let me put her down. Everybody thinks she is such an angel, but that girl has a set of lungs you wouldn't believe. She has got to be teething, and she better cut her first tooth earlier than Quinn did, or I will go stark raving mad in the next 6 months. Well, I know that is a sad excuse for catching up, but it will have to do for now. My paychecks have been on a ridiculous delay lately so I am trying to work really hard to finish my current book ahead of deadline. Plus we are planning a trip to Florida to visit family and hit Disney before Quinn turns 3 and costs a fortune. Gotta go now. Love, Us.

Frustration

I want to say in advance that I know I'm being irrational here. I just need to vent. I put Quinn down for a nap an hour and a half ago. He refuses to sleep. I have tried everything I can think of. We are supposed to meet some new people at the playground at 3:30 today, but at this rate, I don't see how we can go. He is upstairs screaming right now. I feel like he's doing this to me on purpose. (See first sentence.) I really really need to make some more friends, and I was really excited about today. We had a great morning, a good lunch, and I thought he would go down for his nap just fine--the same way he does EVERY SINGLE DAY!! But no, the one day that I really need to do work (I'm about 40 pages behind on my current job) and get out, and he refuses to cooperate. I tried letting him sleep downstairs on the couch where I was working. I told him we are going out to play as soon as he takes a nap. I tried begging, pleading, threatening, and ignoring him, hoping he would eventually get so tired he'd fall asleep. Nothing. The last time I went upstairs, it was because he was yelling and banging on stuff. The child has dark circles under his eyes, for crying out loud. I crouched down next to him to talk and when I dropped my head in frustration, he reached over and ripped out a chunk of my hair! WTH?!? I am so angry right now that I cannot go back upstairs no matter what or I will say or do something I'll regret. God help me, I need a day (or week) away from that child.

Miscellaneous Life

So I am finally able to catch you all up on the comings, goings, and doings of the Halaby clan. It's been a while so I apologize if things are a little haphazard. Seems my editorial finesse is elsewhere, perhaps hiding behind the bags under my eyes. Lots of room there, ya know. I hope I'll make it up to you by sharing lots of pictures!

Last Saturday was a big day. Maddie turned six weeks old and Jalal and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. Since he had to work that night, we had to wait to actually celebrate until last night. We got a babysitter and went out to dinner. It was nice, especially the bottle of Cabernet. I haven't had a single drink in probably close to a year, so that was wonderful! I don't know if it was the wine or the relief from being out with my husband at dinner and not having to replace anyone's pacifier or ask for the 17th time if someone would please drink his milk. We really had a nice time, only we didn't have time to make it to a movie and we didn't know what else to do, so we just drove around a while and then came home early. We joked about getting a hotel room and just sleeping for a couple of hours, but it was cheaper to just go home and go to bed early. Hah! What a couple of dorks we are.

Maddie is smiling now, and it's adorable. She gives this big gummy grin and her dimple shows, and it just makes my heart melt. It's hard to catch on camera since it's just me trying to make her smile and take the picture at the same time, but here's what I've gotten so far.




Quinn is such a beast now. He has so much energy that he just literally runs around the house slamming into things at random. Whenever I get mad and fed up and tell him to stop doing something, he throws himself on the ground so hard that he ends up hurting himself. Does it make me a bad mom that I don't feel sorry for him one bit at that point?

Ok, to back up to what I've missed. We had our Easter Egg-stravaganza at the Bridge the week before Easter. Quinn had a blast, decorating cookies, coloring pictures, and finding eggs, of course. I love my church. We all feel so at home there. I have friends there who come up to me and say, "Quinn's a little stinky, so I'm going to take him to change him. Where is your diaper bag?" Isn't that crazy? It's amazing that it really doesn't take long to feel like they are family. My pastor's wife, Chris, is awesome. She works at her kids' school, so she had spring break last week. Midweek, she emailed me and emphatically insisted that I take her up on her offer to watch the kids while I go out and do something. I finally agreed and had almost two hours to run not-so-kid-friendly errands, like the Cartridge World, because of course I ran out of ink just as I received my first job after Maddie's birth. I also hit Hallmark because can you imagine me struggling with Maddie while Quinn ran up and down the aisles "reading" cards? Especially now that he knows some of them play music, I can't control him in there. Anyway, so Chris made it through most of his stack of puzzles while Maddie slept the whole time in her swing. It was so great of her to do that.






Speaking of puzzles, Quinn is amazing at them. He mastered his 12 and 20 piece puzzles months ago, but he would do them over and over again. When Trish came up for Maddie's birth, she brought this 48-piece construction scene puzzle from Melissa & Doug, a company I LOVE! I told her it was way too difficult. But it was just a few weeks later that I had to go out and find more of them because he was putting it together so well. I found two more just like it at Ross, a fish one and a dinosaur one. Here we are less than 5 weeks from his first attempt at the first one and now he can put them all together just about as quick as I can. It's crazy!!

We made it to the mall to visit the Easter bunny again this year. It started to look a little iffy with Quinn beginning a minor freak-out, and all I could think of was the Santa Claus fiasco last Christmas. I hate paying more than $20 to have pictures of my kid screaming on the lap of a stranger dressed up like a character. But when we told him he had to show his little sister how it's done and that he could ask the Easter bunny for a "special treat," he changed his tune. They turned out pretty cute. Here are the ones Jalal took.




Easter was really nice. We got a few pics of the kids all dressed up. Miss Maddie looked absolutely adorable in her Easter dress, and Quinn, of course, was quite the handsome little man. After church, we had a lovely traditional Easter dinner. For the first time since we met, Jalal made his mom's baked ham recipe, and I loved it! Those Hawaiians really know what they're doing with that ham and pineapple combo. Mmm mmm starts with M, as Quinn would say. Here are the little lovelies.






Somewhere in there in the last few weeks, we went to a circus in Spartanburg. To be honest, it was a little ghetto. Well, it was sort of half-ghetto/half-redneck. Hope I'm not offending anyone, but we were all abused by the urchins sitting behind and beside us. They were horrible. One little girl even reached over and grabbed a handful of our popcorn!! Seriously? Does anyone teach their children manners anymore? Do you think they have the decency to be ashamed? (The parents, I mean.) Anyway, Quinn had a good time, and he even rode an elephant. I think the next time we'll spend the extra money and go see Barnum and Bailey instead.




Well, I was flattered when I got an email from my contact at Cambria Press two weeks ago asking if I was ready to come back to work for them. I suppose that's a good sign, right? I just finished my first project for them, and wouldn't you know it was in Chinese. It was a good book, actually, but it was literally in Chinese. Well, some of it was. I have now done books that were partly written in Chinese, French, Herati (an Afghan dialect), and math. Yes, that's a language, and one I don't speak. But as stressful as it is watching the dishes and the laundry and the diapers pile up while I work frantically toward a deadline, I am so happy to have work. And I do like this job, so I am glad they like me, too.

Whew! That was a lot. I'm sure there is stuff I've missed, but it's probably minutiae. Like Quinn making Maddie scream when he throws her "teddy bear" (GloWorm) at her and hits her. Or how all of Maddie's pants are about 2 inches too big in the waist and fall off her. Or how we tried to take Quinn to a movie today to see "How to Train a Dragon." How even though we'd just eaten lunch, we had to feed Quinn peanut butter crackers, yogurt-covered raisins, Reese's Pieces, and a lollipop just to make it through the movie. (Don't judge us!) We also have had a couple of play dates with Maureen and Sarah and even met a couple of new moms. So we are making new friends, which is great. Oh, and whoever taught Quinn to say "are we there yet?" can bite me. Okay, time to go to bed. I'm exhausted! You probably are, too, after slogging through this post, which feels huge to me. That'll teach me to wait this long before writing! Love, Us.

Tough Choices--Oh, and Brownies

Warning! This blog may tend to ramble a good bit, considering how long it's been since I posted and how much is going on in our lives. What? Stuff going on? Have I mentioned that today I am 39 weeks and 1 day pregnant? If it hadn't been for a strong conviction that Maddie and I weren't ready and a tough decision to do what was right for us, she would probably be here right now! That's right. We almost scheduled an induction for today. Our options for inducing were today and Thursday the 25th. There are so many "good" reasons to induce, from Jalal's time off and scheduling convenience, to having my mom here both to watch Quinn while we're in the hospital and to be here when the baby comes home, to knowing that Trish would be here for the birth, to not having to worry about going into labor when Jalal was stuck at work 40 minutes away and the roads were icy (we actually had almost 3 inches of snow Friday night and ice again yesterday morning). It would take a lot to counteract all those "pros." But the single biggest "con" was that I wasn't all that excited about checking into the hospital at 5 a.m. and getting hooked up to all the crap and machines and, my least favorite, the Pitocin. I hate Pitocin. I was on it for about 5 hours with Quinn, and it was no fun. Well, I guess it was a little fun in hindsight for Trish and Jalal (and probably the nurses) to laugh at all the things I said and did. ("I'm sorry I pushed!!" is still a big joke around here.) But I was so looking forward to avoiding it this time around if at all possible. I was (and still am) convinced that a second labor will be easier and shorter and totally doable without pain meds--as long as I don't have to have Pitocin. That's my goal, and my plan. Hopefully Maddie will come on her own in the next 8 days and we can avoid all that mess altogether. Another issue is that yesterday was my deadline for editing a 500-page economics book. I finally finished it after a sprint to the end at about 7:00 last night. If I had to then get up before dawn to be at the hospital, my mood last night would not have been relieved. As it was, I have been feeling great today! Catching up on my QT with Q-ball, going to the bounce house today and then playing an exciting game of Candy Land, taking a long nap without setting an alarm, painting my fingernails and reuniting with Facebook, which Jalal had parental blocked me from for the past week so I would get my edit done. Granted, I still have a lot to do, from baby laundry and writing thank-you cards, to paying the hospital bill in advance (seriously?) and charging the camera battery, to cleaning the bathroom and vacuuming the stairs (yes, it really needs to be done even though I am 9 1/2 months pregnant--blame the hormones). And of course, there's the Olympics to watch. Can't forget that. I guess what it comes down to is that I finally (agonizingly) made the decision that I felt was right for me, even if it means Trish and Mom can't be here and even if it messes up everyone else's schedule and even if it happens in the middle of the night. So be it. So there.

Something that is bugging me right now is the stupid Marriott. Jalal took Thursday and Friday off this week to prepare in case Maddie came as those are his last two days of his work week. Now it turns out he has to go in to work at 6 a.m. on Thursday to suspend someone and for a couple of hours on Friday because the general manager is doing an audit of his departments. That sucks!! My mom is flying in this Friday just after our very last OB appointment, and I was so hoping maybe Jalal and I could get away just the two of us for a little bit, maybe for lunch or a movie. Guess not. Oh well. I'm sure we'll get back to our biannual date nights in a year or so. :(

Last Friday afternoon, we got some snow, real snow! The last wintry weather we had in Greenville was all slush, so it was great to see the fluffy snowflakes falling fast and furious from about 3:15 until around midnight. We went outside twice to play in it, and Quinn discovered just how fun it is to throw snowballs at Mama and Dada. We could barely get him back in the house and had to bribe him with hot chocolate. We had a really great time, made a couple of small snowmen, and even took some pictures of the baby bump (pretty bumpy at this point), which are so overdue and which I will post at some point when I find the camera (I think it's still in the pocket of the coat I was wearing that night). I can't believe we got almost three inches in that short time, and that it was all melted off my car by about 3:00 the next afternoon. We did go through a ton of firewood, though, and now have just about half a dozen logs left from our whole truckload. Let's hope winter is close to over now!

Last night I was so happy to be done with my job for a while that I decided to make brownies at 9:00. When they finished, they smelled so good, and all I wanted was a warm, fresh brownie and a glass of cold milk. I pulled out my trusty plastic knife that I use only for brownies and went to work cutting them almost fresh out of the oven. I got through the first two slices and then the knife pulled up a corner of one of the brownies. I pulled it out to see why, and saw that the tip of the knife was bent into a hook shape. Guess the brownies were still a little too warm. Whoops. Now I have to find another brownie knife. Hah!

So it's crazy to me how different this pregnancy has been than the first one. I started off with Quinn almost 30 pounds lighter, I was working out pretty regularly before and during that pregnancy (dragon boating, walking hardcore, weights, belly dancing), and I worked full-time, so I didn't have constant access to a kitchen full of food (at least, not my own). This time, I am starting heavier, working out less (did I mention I have a 2-year-old?), and I spend most of my time at home, where Jalal reliably buys ice cream and snack foods whenever they are on sale (um, every week!). So how is it possible that I feel so much better this time? I still weigh less than when I delivered Quinn, and barring some crazy binge sessions in the next week, I can't possibly gain enough to pass that number (and no, you don't need to know what that number is). I am surprisingly not miserable. I do waddle, of course, but I can keep a decent pace up walking for a while. I don't groan EVERY time I have to stand up. And most importantly, I don't have cankles!!! This is huge for me, since with Quinn I had to rely exclusively on flip flops (which I hated), and even then they left upside-down V indents in my hugely swollen feet. I was so grumpy and miserable one week before Quinn's birth that I almost refused to go out for my birthday. My sister and Jalal and a couple girls from work had to drag me out for lunch and ice cream cake. Ice cream cake!! I almost turned down ice cream cake, if that tells you how dire the situation was. It makes me pretty happy that I'm not just wishing this to be over.

Well, I think that's all the rambling I have for tonight. Hope y'all managed to stay awake for that. If not, no worries. Have a brownie. I think I will. Night. Love, Us.

How Does Your Mind Work?

I often think of this question in relation to Quinn. For instance, he woke up this afternoon from his nap, and I didn't get him up right away. I usually let him wake up fully to minimize the drama when I go in there. I listened to him on the monitor for a while. The first thing he does is start singing, "Elmo's World." After that, he moves on to saying "shower" over and over. He's lately obsessed with showers and wants to take one all the time. Instead I took him to the pool. Next best thing, right? It was the perfect day for it, pretty warm but not blazing hot. The pool was cold but not frigid. Quinn would have gladly stayed a couple more hours, but when the sun hid behind the clouds, I was ready to head home. But we did meet a nice family there. Maybe we'll run into them again. The mother was really sweet and gave me some pointers about teaching Quinn to swim. Their 3-year-old girl loved Quinn and dragged him around with her.

I have to admit, I've been really lazy unmotivated about work the past two days. I just want to sit around and read for pleasure, or watch Quinn kick a soccer ball. Unfortunately, that doesn't pay the rent! I guess I better get my butt in gear, huh? I'm halfway through my Praxis project, so I'm right on schedule for that, but after Quinn's medical "issue" Friday and my being less than diligent the past two days, I'm kind of behind with my other work. I guess I better step it up. Thursday Jalal is off, and we are having a date night, going to an early movie and then dinner at Saskatoon, a wild game restaurant we've been wanting to try since we moved here. Quinn is going to spend the evening with Maureen and Sarah. Well, this certainly isn't helping me get my work done, so toodle-oo! Love, Us.

It's a Two Skittles Day

For those of you who don't get the title of today's post, two Skittles is the reward Quinn gets for going number 2 in the potty. He did it! Now, if you've been reading, you know that we are sort of gearing up for potty training. I know it's early, but there's no harm in getting him used to the idea. He has started calling his little potty chair "Bobby." He's been saying "Bobby" for a while now and we have no clue what he means by it. He always says it very enthusiastically, like "Bob-EEE!" He sounds like a cartoon character. So when I started to say "potty," I guess he confused the two. Now he calls his potty Bobby. Cute, right? I admit we haven't been super consistent about it and I seem to be the only one who will suggest he try to go, so that's tough. This seems like it takes way more effort out of me than Quinn. One of the blogs I follow just had a post about potty training the other day because that mom has gotten two boys out of diapers by age 2 so far. Unfortunately, one of her techniques is to let them run around bare-bottomed while plying them with lemonade. NB: She has wood floors! I have carpet, and I'm not ready to let him run around peeing on the floor yet. Anyway, while I was on the exercise bike this morning (just four more minutes!!), he started grunting and going on. I said, "You're going to the bathroom right now, aren't you?" to get him to associate the feeling with the words. He runs over the gate at the hall and starts saying "Bobby, Bobby!" So I get down from the bike and take him to the bathroom. Now, he eats way too many bananas, so number 2 is not always effortless. He sat on Bobby for a while and then wanted to get up. I got him to sit on the toilet instead and after a few minutes, we had success! I let him flush and say bye-bye, then we had to wash his hands (better than usual because he actually put his hand in the toilet before flushing). He has his own soap now, too. Then he got two Skittles and lots of praise. When I finished getting everything and everyone cleaned up and put back together, I looked at the clock and saw that it was only 9:00. REALLY? I feel like it should be noon by now! I'm exhausted already. And my to-do list is staring at me right now. Other than running the dishwasher and doing most of my bike workout, NOTHING has been done. Jeez. Did I mention that Jalal had a day off yesterday? Hah!

Seriously though, some stuff did get done. We bought a new router so our wireless is back up. Don't assume that I'll blog more as a result, but I am trying. I have a couple loads of laundry to catch up on, plus I'm still behind on my work work (that's the paying gig) thanks to that really bad edit the weekend before last. I admit I didn't get much done on Monday because we had friends over. Some of you not on Facebook may not know this, but we got snow! I'm talking anywhere from 3 to 6 inches of the stuff! It started Sunday afternoon. We had a great time playing in it, but we didn't expect as much as we ended up getting. Starting about 8 p.m., Jalal's work phone went nuts and everyone called to say they would not be coming in to work the next morning because they couldn't drive two or three miles in the snow. Now granted, it was supposed to be pretty icy, but those people didn't think about how far Jalal would have to drive to get to work. The phone didn't stop after we went to bed, so neither of us got a good night's sleep. Crazy-suicidal as it was, Jalal did get up and leave for work at 4:00 in the morning. He took his time (hour and a half instead of 35 minutes), threw on his hazard lights whenever it got slippery, and tried to stay out of the way of all the stupid people (18-wheelers included) who didn't think they should slow down at all. He called I-85 the "85 Luge." Nobody could believe he made it to work, but what was he supposed to do? Almost everyone else called in, the restaurants were slammed because everyone was snowed in at the hotel, and even his own boss (who assured Jalal he could handle it) couldn't make it out of his own driveway. Some of his night crew did volunteer to be there, so they got through, but it was a crazy day. Yesterday, when the power went out (some 17,000 people were without in Spartanburg and Greenville Counties), people were yelling at the front desk because they couldn't blowdry their hair, and the whole reason they stayed at the hotel was that their power was out at home! Anyway, my friend Karen's power went out Sunday afternoon and I told her she and the kids were welcome to come over on Monday if it wasn't fixed. She took me up on it and grabbed Happy Meals for the kids and Quinn on her way. She and I ate the yummy chili that Jalal made the night before. Even though her kids are older, 3 and 4, they had a blast playing with Quinn's toys, and by the time they left, every single one of us was completely wiped out. Quinn loves Karen. He always tries to sit in her lap and cuddle with her whenever she's around. I think it's great. Gives me a break! So the snow is about half gone now, but it was so beautiful! I just kept taking pictures because I never thought it would snow like that here, especially not in March! And now it's supposed to be up to 70 degrees by Friday. Crazy! Well, I better jump into my to-do list now. The washing machines is calling to me "Use me!" and the dishwasher is whispering "Empty me." Darn talking appliances. Love, Us.