Meet Our Newest Family Member!

Benjamin James Connelly
8 lbs 8 oz 20 inches long

Everyone (including big brother Jack) is happy!

Clutter

The other night I was bouncing around Facebook. Going from one friend's profile to another looking at pictures and status updates. I don't know how but I found myself looking at Jessica Alba's page. I started looking at her pictures. She's got pics of her and a friend at fashion shows and in Paris along with pictures of her kids.

There was one picture in particular that caught my eye though.

It was one of her husband and her newest daughter Haven was in her jumperoo. In the background you could see her beautifully decorated dining room. And her dining room table is what I focused on. It was covered in piles of clothes, toys, mail, and shopping bags.

Like MY dining room table.

Not only did it make me feel better about my piles of crap everywhere, but it made me like Jessica Alba all the more. She's a normal mom whose house is full of clutter.

Even if she spends weekends in Paris.

Two Weeks

That's how long I have left until I have this baby. And I can hardly wait! I am SO done with being pregnant! I want to be able to bend over again. Jack knows exactly how to take advantage of my physical limitations. If he doesn't want me to pick him up he just lays flat on the floor knowing I can't reach him. Little booger. He also loves to take off running anytime we're outside so that I have to run right after him. He's ridiculously fast and I'm VERY pregnant!

I'm sure the time will fly by. We have Easter next weekend and all the prep there. I have a few more things to do to get his room ready, and I have SO much to finish at work before I go.
As far as work goes, I am very ready to be done there. Things have been so busy lately. I don't know if it's that things are annoying and stressful or if it's just that I'm annoyed and stressed to begin with. Either way, I could use the break. It will be nice to only have to worry about 2 children and not 50!

We still haven't decided on a name for sure yet. We have two that we really like. (I like one more than the other and of course Spiderman likes the other) We've decided to wait and see which one he looks like.

Hopefully with some time off work, I'll be able to post more. We also just bought a new laptop to replace the one that died around Thanksgiving. It should make it a little more convenient to post since it's more portable. If I want to post now I have to go downstairs to use the computer we have there. Most of my living space is upstairs (I have a bilevel) and we spend more time up there and most of Jack's toys are in the living room up there. I can keep an eye on busy little boys if I'm upstairs with him instead of downstairs blogging.

So...that's where I'm at.

I Think I May Be Leaving My Husband

For my Cleaning Lady. She came for the first time on Friday while I was at work.

And I Love her!

When I came home, I just walked around the house for 10 minutes looking around and crying like an idiot. My house was clean!! And I didn't have to do it!!!
She scrubbed my bathrooms until they shined. She dusted and vacuumed and even did my furnature. My floors were mopped, my kitchen sink scrubbed out, the top of my fridge was cleaned, and she even scrubbed my stovetop and hood. I have been in this house four years and have NEVER gotten my stovetop and hood as clean as she did in one day. If I weren't so damn relieved to have a clean house, I would be self conscious about my housekeeping skills.

This couldn't have come at a better time since I was bleeding a little bit on Friday. With my newly cleaned house I was able to spend the weekend resting and hanging with my boys instead of unsuccessfully cleaning like a madwoman.

I could totally get used to this!

Overwhelmed

How would I describe my lifestyle right now in one word? Overwhelmed. Between work stresses, and keeping up with my toddler and my house I feel this way every day.
I'm embarrased to say that I am not really even enjoying what will probably be my last pregnancy. I can't seem to focus on the fact that I am going to have another little punk and get excited about it. All I can do is think about how much work the first few months are and how am I going to manage everything?
Then there's the baby's room. Every time I walk past it my blood pressure rises and I think of everything I have left to do. With my OB threatening bed rest I realize I NEED to make some changes.
Thankfully last Sunday my mom came and got Jackson so Spiderman and I could sort through the piles of crap. Now the room looks more like this.
We can start painting and organizing. It will be a huge relief to have this done. Also, she got me the name of a woman who cleans houses. I'm going to call her this week. I think I'll have her come every other week to get things under control and then just once a month after that. $60 a month for a little piece of mind? Totally worth it.

I downloaded a new book to my Kindle called Bringing up Bebe. I've always been a bit of a Francophile and this book has some interesting child rearing tips. Like the French, I have always wanted to be calm, serene, and chic about life. (I am SO far from this in real life) They seem to enjoy themselves WAY more than Americans do. This book also points out that this calmness also extends to their parenting. Their children (along with the parents) seem calmer, better behaved, and happier for it. I could use some of this.

As far as the work stress goes? I don't know. I am still so desperate to prove myself that I take things way too personally. It's exhausting. And my department needs a lot of work and hand holding. Any suggestions on this front would be helpful.

If He Weren't So Cute...

With a toddler you cannot show any signs of weakness. They pick up on that right away and totally use it to their advantage. They prey on the weak and can eat you alive. Jack is what my mother calls a "spirited" child. This just means that sometimes he can be a real jerk.

This past Friday was one of those times.

Weakness #1 Jack had been up in the night several times Wednesday and Thursday so I was tired. After work I decided to take him to Khol's because I was in desperate need of some new bras. I put him in the stroller/cart and off we went to the women's undies. While I was searching for my size, he managed to climb out of the stroller and remove an entire rack of bras. I stuffed him into the cart part and frantically picked up the bras. While I was doing this he was shoving who knows what from the bottom of the cart into his mouth. I fished that out of this mouth, grabbed my bras, and went to check out where I then got the evil eye from another mom in line in front of me like "why can't you control your child?" I held him the entire time we checked out and headed for the car.

Jack's car seat is positioned in the middle of the backseat rear facing. I have been meaning to turn it around, but was stalling as long as humanly possible. Also, my car is a Saturn Ion and the backseat, although a four door, is microscopic. I have to get into the car to put him in the seat and frankly the bigger my belly gets the harder it is to maneuver around back there.

Weakness #2. Because Jack is so "spirited" he doesn't always like getting into his car seat. This day was no exception. With his superhuman toddler strength and wiggling accompanied by loud screaming he managed to get away from me. I chased him around the car for 20 minutes with him staying just out of my reach. What a sight we must have been. Me sitting in the backseat sobbing in frustration and him smiling away in the driver's seat "steering" and occasionally leaning to sip from the straw of my McDonald's coke in the cupholder. At this point I called Spiderman to keep me from either murdering him or leaving him in the parking lot of Khol's altogether. Total Mommy fail. I eventually gathered myself, turned his car seat around, scooped him up, and flung my entire body over him and strapped him into the seat chanting you will get in this seat over and over again.

He has been acting out more and more lately and I know part if it is normal toddler boundary testing, but also part of it is me. I used to play with him more. Lately, I've been so tired or physically cannot get down on the floor for long periods of time to play with him like I used to. This leaves a very busy, curious child to entertain himself more...by climbing on things and getting into anything he possibly can. I feel like all I do is yell at him. He's going to think his name is Jackson No by the time he's two. If I can't handle him now what is it going to be like when Baby X gets here?

I know some of you mom's out there have been though this. Even you non-mom's can offer suggestions! I will try anything at this point! What would you do in my situation?

Has it been that long?

So why haven't I been posting too much lately? Several reasons. The first and most obvious is that I'm 6 months pregnant and tired. Then there was the business of the holidays. Then both my boys came down with the flu and had temps over 101 for a week. And finally my laptop completely melted down leaving me with very limited access to the internet since the other computers in my house were also down.
Since then Spiderman has set up our iMac so that I can use it, and we are looking around to replace our laptop so I will have more opportunities to be online.

That only leaves laziness and lack of anything remotely interesting to post about. I do have a few things roaming around my head that I hope to be able to put down in the next few weeks so bear with me.

In the past I've posted about the scary state of my office/junk room. Now that we have a new addition to the family it is going to be Baby X's (still can't decide on a name) room. That means we not only have to clean out the room, but also figure out where the piles of other shit in there have to go. I have already started to make piles of things to throw away, donate, and sell in my neighborhood's garage sale this summer. I've had to make some hard decisions about what do to with some of my books. It's so hard to part with many of them, but I just don't have the room!
We also put new shelves in our storage areas so that we have more room to relocate some of the things we do want to keep. All this work and I still have SO much I have to do. But in the end it will be worth it because I have kind of a theme decided on.

I'm not buying the whole bedding set because I did that with Jack and didn't use all the pieces. It just feels wasteful plus this room seems kind of busy. I am going to buy some key pieces like the lamp, wall hangings and curtains and use the color scheme. I might also buy the quilt set but for the toddler bed for use later.

What do you think?