Take a Deep Breath......

Those are the words that come up every time I sign into my Skype account. I've actually taken akin to those directions, especially during the last month where I've found myself in several moments where I've needed to stop... and take a deep breath. I'm still not over the whole fall out of the house we were trying to buy, and when I think of it I sort of get sick. The house is off the market now, who knows if some other sucker is getting it or what, but I feel like I'm just going to have to deal with knowing that someone else will be living in my house for the rest of my life. Everyone keeps telling me it wasn't meant to be, and that when we find another house it'll be better. I'm sure that's true, but last weekend we looked at houses that were pretty dumpy and it just made me want to cry. That's when I stopped, to take a deep breath.... Tomorrow we're looking at more houses and I'm trying to keep optimistic about it, knowing that we are lucky we don't HAVE to move.

My other source of stress is my new job, which I love.... but is consuming all my time and energy. It's been a big adjustment going from part time to full time.... and from getting home around 5pm to now getting home around 6:30pm if I'm lucky. It's made it hard for Mike with Vince, and getting dinner cooked, and being able to spend time with Vince before he goes to bed, and getting enough sleep before we get up in the morning to do it all over again. My orientation is over and I started totally on my own this week; it's been good and I think I'll be able to handle it. My orientation was cut short because they didn't have anyone to cover my team... and I had to miss about a week of it due to Vince being ill, then me being ill, and then a Monday holiday. That was another time where I just had to stop, and take a deep breath.... it's all going to be ok.... and I'm learning so much every day at work, I'm looking at it as my year of residency. And I know millions of moms do this every day for decades of their lives so I think I'll live.

Meanwhile, Vince is growing in leaps and bounds; and now that I have less time with him during the week, I get home and I actually get giddy about having to change his diapers, or feed him and put him to bed. He's learning so many new things each day. I've been trying to get him to clap his hands for a couple weeks or so. Today he actually attempted to do it himself! He put his hands together and flapped one of them towards and away from his other hand repeatedly. It was so adorable. I'll have to get that video clip later. He's really enjoying the cats as well right now, and giggles hysterically every time they get anywhere near him, reaching out to try to pet (or grab) them. They look at him as though he just said some super insulting words to them, and then just walk away disgusted. He is sitting up just fine but still not crawling. Instead he'll lay on his tummy and start moving his arms and legs as if he's swimming through the floor. He also puts his butt in the air like he's thinking of crawling, but he'll end up moving a little bit backwards from where he started.

So anyway, life is stressful but I think we're going to make it after all. All I have to do is once in a while stop, and take a deep breath.....

Some Random Pictures and a Milestone

After the whole house buying fiasco, the rest of our weekend has been pretty anticlimactic; save a scene from our local park, and Vince starting to pick up his own food. We stayed home for Valentine's Day and watched a Netflix movie while eating left overs, how depressing is that! We were thinking over the fall through of the house, but we are keeping our hopes up. We did manage to go on some nice walks as it was sunny outside although very cold with the wind!

Here's a great picture of Vince completely bundled up for our walk. He's got his winter hat, winter jacket and pants, and he's wrapped in his bundle me.... with a blanket under there too! Needless to say, he fell asleep during the stroll while we shivered through the park and ran for the sunny parts and out of the shade. We had fun trying to help this guy retrieve his inter tube from out on this frozen swampy part of the park. He had the bright idea of tying a rope to his car jack... and then throw it out to the tube in hopes of getting it inside the tube. Then he could reel it in. Well that didn't happen. He threw the car jack, it missed the inter tube and crashed through the ice like an anchor. He couldn't pull it out, even when Mike and he both pulled on the string (why didn't I get pictures!). We all went looking for rocks to throw and break the ice and the next thing we knew he was walking out there, breaking through the ice, and getting knee deep in ice water! I watched him fall at least once. It was like a scene from dumb and dumber.... he ended up getting his car jack and inter tube back though, but had to run for the car to keep his legs and toes from frostbite.

Getting Ready to Brave the Cold

Then on Sunday I was commenting on how big Mike's feet are and how small Vince's are... and I decided to get a comparison shot for the record. Is it possible that Mike's feet were ever that small!?

Mismatched sizes

Then last but not least, I captured a little milestone of Vince's first attempts at using his pincer grasp to grab little rice puffs and feed himself! Something again, we as parents are excited to see our son doing... but may not be so entertaining for the rest of the world. Here is the video if you are one of those pincer grasp enthusiasts. We think it's pretty cool. I tried to do it with little pieces of avocado as well but that didn't turn out so well. He just squashed the avocado in his hand and proceeded to smear it over the high chair. We'll try it again in the future!

Vince Shows Off His Opposable Index Finger

Well I Spoke Too Soon....

Looks like the house is a no go now. The sellers realtor is a total donkey by the way. He's given us different stories about the roof and the pool since we have been asking what has been done. He'll tell us what's been done and what the condition is.... and then we ask for documentation (is that wrong!) and then he won't get it for us and his story will change. We put a phrase in our purchase and sale agreement saying that if there is something that needs to be fixed in the pool that they will pay half of it... as we cannot verify anything about the pool. We gave them that option, or the option of putting off the closing until the pool can be opened in April so we can actually see it. Is that asking too much! When our lawyer told their realtor he blew up at him and said forget it, without even consulting with the sellers!

Our lawyer asked him if he was being ethical towards his sellers and the realtor blew up at him again and that was that. I'm completely sick about the whole thing.. and I don't want to accept that it's over. Then again we have been getting the run around from this realtor from the start and we don't want to buy a house that will end up needing too much work!

I hope it's not over with this house though.... I'll keep you updated.

Things are Looking Better

It's Saturday morning, and as I look back on the week, I don't know how I made it through. Things are looking better though, as Vince is finally over his stomach bug, I finished my first week of work, and yesterday we heard that our lower offer on the house was accepted! After the inspection it was found that there would need to be some work done on the outside of the house, so when we got the estimate we renegotiated our original offer. The way my week was going I expected the sellers to not accept it..... but they did! We'll be moving to our new place in April, anyone want to volunteer to help take pink wallpaper down?

Below is a video of Vince and his latest trick. Here he is giving me some high fives..... if you can't see the video in your e-mail just click on the blog post title in your e-mail and that will take you to the blog, then you'll see the video.

More Baptism Pictures.... and Other News

Today would have been the third day at my new job as an NP, but Vince is still vomiting and not feeling well. So I'm home, and just finished cleaning up myself because Vince got sick all over me. I feel terrible that he is so sick, and I've come to my own conclusion that I think it's Rotavirus. Whatever it is, I hope this is the last day.... as I'm starting to really unravel; between starting this new job, having a sick kid that's up all night, and trying to negotiate for that house in Braintree, I don't know if I'll make it to the weekend! I'm astonished that I've somehow been able to escape this bug that Vince brought home, perhaps it's the iron stomach I created with my 3 years in Africa.

Well the point of this post was to share some more photos of the Baptism weekend. These are the photos we took, click on this link: Baptism Photos

Weekend Baptism Blowout

This weekend Vince and his cousin Andrew were baptized in Mike's hometown of Mamaroneck, NY. It was a two day celebration filled with lots of good food and good company; as many family members came together to celebrate the two boys. Mike, Vince, and I arrived late on Friday to Mike's parents house where his sister Lisa, Neal, and their two children Noelle and Andrew had already been for a couple of days. The house turned into a literal daycare center for the weekend when we arrived.

Cousins getting to know each other

Poor Vince wasn't feeling well and threw up a couple of times in the car on the way down.... this marked the beginning of what would be a sick weekend for Vince (complete with making half of Mike's family sick, include Mike himself... sorry everyone!!!) He must have picked up some stomach bug at daycare, and it ran through him for the entire weekend. He is feeling better now but we still have him on pedialyte because he wasn't able to get much fluids in.

Back to the fun part of the weekend though. Saturday began with Andrew's baptism at St. Vito's church. Mike and I are his Godparents so we were able to hold him during the ceremony, and help get him dressed in his gown. Afterwards we had a nice time at Lusardi's Restaurant sans babies. Mike's sister Donna was home with Charlie watching over Vince and Andrew (which is when she probably caught Vince's stomach bug).

Then on Sunday we did it all over again.... amazingly got everyone in the house fed, showered, ready and packed up to go to St. John's Lutheran Church and have Vince baptized during a service. This time it was Vince's turn to have the dress put on him (thanks to Andrew for sharing) and get his head anointed with holy water. Afterward we had a big party at La Riserva Restaurant with about 40 people to celebrate with. I'll spare you the details of how Vince basically baptized me with the bottle of formula that he couldn't keep down...

Mike's brother Charlie took some really great photos of the weekend. You can see some if you click on this link: Charlie's photos

Vince sporting his baptism threads, getting help from Godmother Lisa

Here's a few pictures from the after party

The boys got tired from all the excitement

I even had some Peace Corps friends show up for the celebrations.... and they brought Vince a present that I'm sure will prove to be his favorite. They heard through the grapevine that we will probably buy a house with a pool, so they bought Vince his first pool toy! It's a blowup bulldozer that he can float around in, complete with cool sunglasses, hat and baby crocs shoes to chill with in summertime.