Two and Three Quarters
Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.
That’s basically all I have to say about the past couple of weeks. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot I could say, but I don’t want to rant and cry all over this blog today. Instead I’m looking forward to reaching our new destination and beginning a new life.
Stay tuned for tips and tricks on surviving with a one year old in an empty house and while PCSing.
In anticipation of our second baby, I’ve spent the past couple of weeks trying to potty train our two-year-old. I was faced with the dilemma of potty training when my son began to show the signs of interest before we made our big cross-country move 2 months ago. But with our looming move, I feared that inevitable poop and pee accidents on-the-road combined with the possibility of him regressing anyway would be a much bigger headache. So I didn’t end up fully enforcing the potty habit.
Now that my son has abandoned all interest in the potty, we are settled in our new home and the final countdown for Baby #2’s arrival has begun. What better time to have made the executive decision to begin potty training?! Here are some reasons we are falling short of success so far:
We are back from our four week leave over the holidays to see family and friends. It’s nice to be back home, though our departure from California is imminent. Movers arrived earlier this week to begin our PCS (permanent change of station) adventure. This will be our sixth move since we got together and third move with the military. Moving always presents some challenges, but moving with a baby and overseas has really given a whole new meaning to “challenge”. Here are my notes thus far, I’ll keep you all updated through the coming weeks.
Day 1 without HHG
Less than 16 hours into not having furniture, cookware, or kid toys I wanted to call it quits and go check into a hotel. I’m no quitter so I’m sticking it out as long as possible. The packers/movers were so efficient they got all of our household goods (that are going to Japan) done in one day instead of two. We still have several more days of packing/shipping left for our Express and Storage items though.
My daughter has had a runny nose and cough for a few days, but no fever so I have been holding out on going to the doctor. Her symptoms worsened last night so I took advantage of the “mover-free” day and took her to see our favorite Doc. Turns out she has bronchiolitis, a virus that’s going around. The doctor recommended I sleep with her in a chair for the next few nights so she doesn’t drown in her own mucous. Great, that will be fun with no furniture!
(Note: I asked around and borrowed a rocking chair from one of my Stroller Warriors sisters. So lucky to have them.)
After an exhausting day of cleaning up snot and keeping our daughter from falling all the way down the steps my husband gets home and I ask him to watch our LO a bit so I can take a minute to breathe. He announces he has to change and go to the bathroom first before he can help. I usually totally understand, but today I have so many issues with this! 1) he spends way too much time in the bathroom. Someone should see a doctor if they are actually going for that long and besides I can hear him playing on his phone. 2) I don’t get the luxury of hanging out in the bathroom for 30+ minutes BY MYSELF a day 3) I wish I were the one attending SERE school instead of home in an empty house, living out of a suitcase, sleeping in a rocking chair, with a sick baby. Locked in a cage for a few days alone sounds like a 5 star resort to me!
Day 2 without HHG
I put on the last wash load (or so I thought) before prepping our washer and dryer for storage and my LO immediately threw up on me and herself. This is going to be a long day. Not to mention I have to go pick up my husband’s eye glasses from downtown so he can wear them into the field tomorrow. Movers are coming this afternoon and I’m working off 2 hours of sleep. And by the way his glasses were ready back in October.
Movers were delayed today and didn’t arrive until after 5PM. So glad I spent the whole afternoon waiting around.
Day 3 without HHG and Day 1 of Solo Parenting
Got up at 4AM to take husband to base so he could go to the field for SERE training. I’ve been really annoyed with this whole process, but am really going to miss his help at night this next week.
Movers are due to pack up the last bit of stuff in our house today (i.e. washer/dryer, china cabinet, pieces of our sectional sofa) and put them in storage. When I got home from dropping DH off at work I remembered I needed to disconnect and drain the washer. Well shit! I had all our tools packed in our Express shipment so we would have them when we arrive in Japan, which was picked up yesterday. Now I’m running around at 7:30 in the morning knocking on neighbors’ doors trying to find a wrench. We have such great neighbors by the way. Got one! Now I really feel like a super mom because I squeezed my big, pregnant belly into our laundry room with the washer pulled out and climbed on top to disconnect the hose. Lesson learned: turn off water first! I some how managed to get both hoses disconnected and the washer emptied without completely flooding the laundry room. Whew!
Next challenge is catching the cat! Movers called and said they are on their way. I need to put the cat in her crate so she doesn’t escape while the doors are open. What does she do? Hides in the box spring of the bed that is about to get packed for storage. I’m halfway thinking I’ll let her stay in there and see if she survives 3 years in storage.
Stay tuned for more of my PCS adventure in the coming days!
We survived 2016! Thank you, eager readers, for bearing with us as Mallory traveled for the holidays and I moved all the way across the country. It was an exhausting December, for sure.
Now that I’ve gotten a little more settled and my growing belly has made me a little less active and energetic, I can sit down and think of ways I’d like to care less about things in 2017. So, here it is in the form of my 2017 resolutions, 3 ways IDGAF (this is an urban dictionary acronym) about this year:
As a parent this one seems easy. I say no to my kid all the time, “NO more cookies,” “NO more TV,” “NO eating off the floor like a dog.” But for some reason “no” doesn’t come so easily when making plans or taking on some added responsibility. So this is the year I’ll say no to “attending” yet another online party, no to social outings when all I want to do is watch a Netflix show by myself, no to free favors that overwhelm what I already have on my plate. A definitive “no” wastes less time and, in my opinion, is more courteous than a lukewarm maybe (which almost always turns to a last-minute no).
I’m not particularly productive when I’m on Facebook. I like to see important life updates and pictures of how everyone is doing, but occasionally as I’m scrolling through all of the humble-brags, repetitive sales pitches and bad information I think of deleting my account altogether. In my quest for good journalism and sound science, I find it especially hard to resist the urge to reply to every misleading headline or meme with the Snopes article that corrects it. But I also don’t want to alienate friends by becoming some sort of fact-checking vigilante. So, I’m trying to ignore the app more and hide the people who are a little too trigger-happy with the share button. I highly recommend it.
Arguably, I began doing this more at the end of 2016, especially when Mallory and I decided to take a bit of a writing break during the holidays and when I decided it would be okay to NOT get around to all of the Christmas activities I had planned. In 2017, I’m going to be quicker to accept the fact that I may not get around to doing the dishes at the end of the day, quicker to go ahead and let my son watch that extra TV show when I’m just too exhausted.
You see, I’m hoping that by worrying less and caring less about the trivial things that 2017 is going to be pretty awesome. Cheers to a new year, new homes and new sons for me and Mallory!
Two and Three Quarters 