at least not yet.
brett has been out on travel since monday, so i’ve been on my own with caylin in the evenings. well, 2 nights my mom stayed here but she was pretty much passed out by 8 :) but it’s the middle of the week and i’ve gotten a lot more done than i thought i would.
i guess before i go any further i should announce the potential big news. nothing is in stone yet, but… brett and i are building a house! it’s out near goose creek/moncks corner, so it’s a bit of a drive to work, but i couldn’t be happier with the location. our friends amanda and andrew are a few houses down, and we’re in love with the floor plan and the model home we toured. i’m stoked. so is brett. though, i must admit, i will miss this townhouse. i absolutely love it and how cozy it is. so many memories and life events here. i’ll probably cry when we move.
last night after work i drove up to the new neighborhood to make the deposit to secure the lot we picked out. it is 70 degrees down here in january (wtf), so the windows were down and i had randy rogers band playing on spotify. the closer to the house i got, and the further out of town, the better i felt. it felt so much more relaxed, and out near the country, like it was someplace i could be incredibly comfy coming home to. i’ve been longing for that feeling since i left boone. it’s no boone, by a longshot, but it’s better than our current location.
we picked out a lot that backs up to the woods, and has a (fairly) big backyard. i am so happy for loki… so happy. it almost brought tears to my eyes thinking it took this long to get a house and a yard for her. i mean, i’m 26, so it’s not like i could’ve done it much sooner, but she’s almost 7, and she deserves a yard. i don’t know how much longer she has with me, and i want her to be happy and enjoy the rest of her life. plus, caylin will love it when she’s old enough. when the day comes for her to get a swingset, i’m pretty sure i’ll be more excited than her and brett combined.
speaking of loki, she has a vet appointment today, hoping to god she hasn’t gotten any worse in the last 4 months. i will be a wreck.
anyway, went to make the deposit on the lot, stopped at food lion to get a rotisserie chicken and lettuce on the way home (don’t need to cook when brett’s gone, chicken caesar salads and ramen every night, it’s awesome), and came home to relieve my mom of her duties (ha). played with caylin for like 3 hours until i had her absolutely exhausted. it worked like a charm because she didn’t make a peep after i put her to bed. i got to enjoy a glass of wine without getting up 12 times to put her pacifier back in or feed her. decided to call it a night around 11:30.
i swear she’s going through a growth spurt because she is eating more than we can keep up with practically. for a while she had been sleeping through the night, but now she wakes up at least twice a night to eat (and i’m usually in zombie mode, formula all over the place). not that it’s a bad thing, but sooner than later i’m gonna have a hard time holding her. she is so LONG. she is in the 92nd percentile for height, which is up 2% from her last checkup. she is wearing her 9 month clothes. it’s ridiculous. i’m in over my head, and soon that will be literally.
i got home from work tonight and she didn’t want to nap for more than 20 minutes, so i’ve been going non stop since i got home. play in the bouncer, walk around, swing her around in front of the mirror (she loves the airplane game but gets a kick out of seeing herself do it), play in the bouncer again, let her sit in the bumbo seat while i eat and make more formula, sing and run around the kitchen to keep her entertained while i wash dishes and clean, play with her toys for a while in my lap, upstairs to let her swing/bounce around in her jumper, give her a bath, eat again, play some more. omg.
when i’m in the middle of all of it, i feel like i could just fall asleep then and there. there are only so many ways to entertain a 4 month old. but after it’s all said and done and she goes to sleep, i get a second wind. which is awesome, because i still need my me time. and brett time. and unwind time. and as much as i cherish my time with caylin, i cherish the down time as well.
brett and i have been spending most evenings on the couch watching boardwalk empire with a glass of scotch after she goes to bed. we only have a couple episodes of season 3 left to watch, and then i don’t know what we’re gonna do. dexter, homeland, and sons of anarchy are all over. football is coming to a close. we need new entertainment.
i was thinking the other day how i wish i had spent my incredibly free time more wisely before we had caylin. except for the part where i was toward the end of my pregnancy and miserable. that couldn’t be avoided. but before all that. we’re homebodies, and we love it. but part of me wishes i had taken advantage of being able to do whatever whenever in a place where there is a lot more to do that we haven’t even thought of doing. our mindset was, relax now while we can because it won’t happen as much when we have caylin. but now that we have her, i don’t think we thought about the part where maybe we should’ve done the relaxing somewhere besides our house more often. because we don’t leave it much at all these days. i feel like i always have at least 10% cabin fever.
i know that won’t last forever and in a few months it won’t be as difficult to take her places (amazing how someone so tiny requires so much stuff to go out for an hour). i just have to keep reminding myself of that. life is awesome, being a mom is awesome, and thinking about our new little family in our dream home is the icing on the cake. i’m excited to see how the next chapter of our life unfolds.