Rambling Never ending to-do list

I keep telling myself my next post will be an update on everything about our lives, so I keep avoiding writing anything because I am not ready to sit down for a few hours and hash that out. Small quick update (I will eventually write something more comprehensive): We are going GREAT! George loves his job, Kylie and I are happy at home, my migraines stopped when I stopped breastfeeding, Kylie is growing up and can do lots of "big kid" things now, and I am starting to get the hang of the balance of playing with/teaching Kylie, cleaning/organizing, and having "me" time.

So here I am, writing not a true update, but something more for myself than anyone else. I felt like making it a blog post to maybe give people an insight into my world lately.

Things I try to do every day/ every other day (in approximate order of importance)

• Play with and teach Kylie! It's not something I keep on a to-do list, but it is the most important thing I do every day. I try to do at least one Kylie-centered crafty activity every day. Today we drew with markers on big paper for about 30 minutes. That was fun and creative and we worked on color names, grip (holding the marker to draw,) strength (opening markers,) and independence (she got to choose colors.) Anytime I want a break from physical labor and my brain is too full of French to learn more (this happens quite often) I play along with whatever Kylie is doing. Sometimes we put buttons in the button slot (I cut a button shaped hole in the lid of an old butter container,) sometimes we build with legos, sometimes we just play silly kiss-the-belly wrestling, etc.
• Learn French via Memrise. I currently have 6 different French courses I am working on, each with different time goals (through Memrise, I need to keep my streak!) If you want to know the exact names of any of them so you can join me, just ask.
• Sentences, 45 minutes. This basically goes like so- Learn "I," Learn "to like," Learn "I like," Learn "fruit," Learn the sentence "I like fruit." This is nice because just knowing words does not help with how the words go together. Not everything is a direct translation. Since it is not all learning new words, but rather how they go together, I can do a lot in a day. 
• Nouns/Adjectives, 15 minutes. The course says that it is the first 1000 words you need to know in French. Very useful, but trying to do too much a day makes me forget things.
• Infinitive Verbs, 5 minutes. The most common 450 verbs in French. Can't speak without verbs!
• Irregular verb conjugations, 5 minutes. This has the present, past, imperfect, future, and another future (?) for a LOT of irregular verbs. I am working my way through the present tenses in order of "I know that one!" or "That sounds useful." It ends up being one verb's present tense conjugations each day, and occasionally I need to water a bunch so no new learning happens that day. Once I do all the present tenses, I will tackle the other tenses.
• Foods, 5 minutes. I wanted to be able to name most things in a grocery store, so I added this one. 
• Toddler vocab, 15 minutes. A lot of this is stuff I already know, but in slightly different form, which is way more challenging than I would expect. Ex- "an orange" as opposed to the usual "the orange." It also has words that I use a lot, but are not "common" to everyone, such as diaper, stroller, teddy bear, etc. It's mostly easy stuff I know for now, so I have it set to 15 minutes until I get to the more brain-straining new stuff, and I will change it to 5 minutes.
• In total, that is 1.5 hours minimum per day learning French. I have also started filling out "verb cards" to help visualize all the tenses for verbs. I have many more to go, and then I need to use them to help me learn past tense, future tense, etc. There are 13 tenses for verbs in French (at least, I am learning 13 of them.) Most of them have multiple forms (I, you, s/he, we, y'all, they.) That is more of an ongoing project though, especially for out of the house since I have physical cards. 
• I do not usually sit down and do all of this each day at the same time, or my brain would want to melt. I do a little in the morning (particularly watering in the morning) then when I want to sit down/ when Kylie wants to sit on me when she is getting sleepy for naptime, I do some more. I usually end up dragging myself through whatever is left 10-11pm. I really need to play catch-up though, and learn as much as I can as fast as I can, so I can teach Kylie French while she is at the perfect age. I speak simple sentences to her in French during the day. =)
• Wash clothes or diapers/Put away clothes. If we do not have things to wear, that would cause lots of problems. If Kylie does not have any diapers... that would be very bad. I try to keep them put away, but some weeks it does not happen as soon as I might like. If Kylie is in a good mood, it works fine, if she is in a cranky mood, she ends up making it way harder.
• Have something for dinner. Lately I have been making freezer meals, which are AMAZING. It usually takes a whole afternoon to prepare 6 meals, we eat one that day, and I have 5 other days worth that I put in the freezer. That means sometimes when I think about what to do for dinner, I just put one on the counter to thaw and then pop in the oven. The afternoon of cooking is nowhere near as much time as I would spend making dinner over 6 days. At one point we had 15 meals in the freezer. So "have something for dinner" is just choosing what to make that day and putting it on the counter around noon.
• Wash dishes. This is more of a goal, because lately I have only been washing what I NEED to wash. I need to play catch-up with dishes very soon. I can sometimes get Zach to wash dishes instead.
• Pick up toys/trash in living room and vacuum. This happens every other day or so. Kylie is a "free-range" toddler, so she eats sitting on the floor, and ends up making messes a lot. Also, the toys make an extremely hard to navigate maze by Day 2. If I ever have to be on the phone for a while, I pick up the toys then. Multi-tasking! 
• Wipe kitchen counters, Sweep kitchen, and mop kitchen. This happens at least twice a week. Again, Kylie makes messes and it requires cleaning up after her.

That is the end of the "things that actually possibly get done regularly" list. My day goes something like this: Wake up around 9:30am to Kylie waking me up (not crying, she just sits up and starts smooshing my face with her hands usually.) We either hang out in the bedroom/her room for 10 minutes or so, or take a shower. The hanging out is so she does her morning pee before getting a fresh diaper. For a while, she would pee in the potty in the mornings, but lately if she starts to pee in the potty, she gets scared and will hold the rest until she gets a diaper on, so we just let her pee in the diaper for now and change after. Kylie gets a diaper change and picks out a shirt to wear that day, and we head downstairs. We stop by the kitchen and get Kylie breakfast (raisin bread and water lately) and me some avitae from the fridge (caffeinated water!) I sit at my computer and check my e-mail, messages from various sites, etc while drinking my avitae and Kylie eats. Once I wake up a little, I do some Memrise (maybe 30 minutes?) 11am or so, Kylie usually starts wanting to get into my lap, which is code for "I need mommy attention." I choose something on my list above (minus dishes) and we go work on it together. After that we have lunch together on the floor (leftovers most days.) Then Kylie is good with "mommy time" and will usually play a bit on her own, so I try to work on things that are less Kylie-friendly, like dishes or clearing off my desk. I usually get tired of cleaning 2-2:30pm or so, and play with Kylie. This is usually where the craft time is, or going to the pool. Kylie gets sleepy 3:30-4pm. Sometimes she will just go lay on her bed and sleep, and other times she wants some cuddles while she gets drowsy, and then I put her on her bed. When Kylie is doing her "circling the drain" sleepy mode, I cannot be doing anything "interesting" or she will perk up and refuse to nap. The computer is deemed not interesting to Kylie, but dishes, cleaning living room, and folding laundry, are super interesting. Therefore, I usually do more Memrise when Kylie is sleepy. Once she falls asleep and my brain hurts again, I go work more on non-Kylie-friendly things. Calling places (so Kylie is not trying to steal the phone to talk in it, or screaming in the background,) sorting mail, washing dishes, starting on dinner if I am cooking that day, etc. Kylie usually wakes up from her nap, we play, go to the park, or do a chore together, and then George gets home and we have dinner. George and I usually play a game together on weeknights if Kylie is being in a decent mood. She will generally play on her own in the evening, and come over to me periodically to get in my lap for 5 minutes at a time. I think of it as recharging "mommy time" for her. She starts getting cranky 10pm or so, and starts winding down and wanting more lap time. This is around when I do whatever is left (if any) in my daily Memrise regimen. When Kylie eventually falls asleep I put her on her bed in the living room until one of us is heading to bed upstairs. We take her upstairs, change her diaper, put on PJs, and tuck her into her toddler bed. The toddler bed is touching our bed, so I can cuddle her in the night if she wants, but she is on her OWN bed with her own blanket. If she is semi-awake after changing at night, she will go lay in her bed and cuddle with Owliver (her stuffed animal she picked out.) Then the whole thing starts over the next day.

Obviously that is an ideal day, and there are MANY non-ideal days. Last week I was not feeling well, and this week Kylie is teething, which is part of why our dishes situation got so bad.

The things I should get to in a somewhat timely manner list. I am going to start trying harder to do at least one small thing from this list each day. I was pretty good about that for 2 about weeks, then I dropped the ball last week when I was not feeling well.

• Empty a box. We still have boxes from when we moved in 4.5 months ago stashed around.
• Take everything out of something (drawer, etc) and put back in neatly/organized. My desk drawers are getting crazy because I store random things in them to keep stuff away from Kylie.
• Call a place. I need to set up appointments/pay bills/ask questions, etc. I hate calling places though.
• Open some mail. I am maybe bad about that...
• Sort papers on the table into the filing box. 
• Put upstairs objects upstairs where they go, and downstairs objects downstairs where they go. It's mostly only an issue for upstairs things. They get left downstairs and then put on the table/my desk and just sit there for a long time. I might take it to the top of the stairs, but I don't actually put things where they go often enough when it is on a different floor. Mostly because Kylie likes to be on the same floor as me and that task involves a lot of back-and-forth.
• Do super important paperwork. I have been avoiding a few things that I should really do.
• Put things on freecycle or a selling site. Cake tins I will never use, our old stroller (we got a new one,) spinning wheel, I am sure there are more things...
• Build Kylie's new toddler table. 
• Blog more often.

I feel like there is more I should add, but I don't know what. My life is exhausting, and I am only able to chip away at the non-daily stuff that needs to be done. It IS going though, just super slow. If I get help (if people visit and want to play with Kylie) I can get things done faster, but even at the current rate things will eventually all get done. We just joined the YMCA, and I hope to go to some Zumba and Yoga classes on weekday mornings. It will take away time from my already busy schedule, but I think I will feel better and so can get more done in the long run. Kylie already started her swim lessons on Sunday and she loves them!

I am really not sure what the take-away is from this post to anyone. It was more of a thinking-in-text for me, and maybe a reference for later. I will do a better update blog post soon hopefully. =)

Rachael

A New Chapter

We are about to embark on a new chapter in our lives (again.)

Before you criticize, let me be the first to say I really wish things have gone differently and my life was less crazy. I hate moving. Anyways... We are moving back to Boston!

We really loved Boston and I was very sad to leave, so I am super excited to be going back! George got a job with his old company, which he loved, and even better- this job (and pay) is what he was working toward when we decided to leave. In other words, it is a promotion from his old position =) Zachary (my brother) has also decided to live with us again. 

We have a lot of ideas of what to do (and not to do) to try to be a lot more stable this time. Our move date is Feburary 18. Wish us luck!

Rachael

Picture Update

I worked on it most of the day today (to which Kylie did not approve,) but I got all our pictures sorted and edited! All from the camera and both phones, yay! All the pictures are on my G+ account, just call/message me for access. Here are some of my favorites:

3-3-14

4-21-14

5-13-14

5-18-14
Kylie gets her first Tablet! I borrow it a lot.

6-26-14

6-26-14

7-20-14

7-29-14
Helping put away diaper laundry

7-31-14
Breastfeeding in public, like usual

8-1-14
Playing "toybox" on the sofa next to me

8-9-14
Good shot of Kylie's eyes

8-15-14
Drinking some PB Chocolate Love with me

8-23-14
We ran out of regular soymilk for Kylie's night cereal, so we used
chocolate soymilk instead. She was happy with this.

8-30-14
One of the very rare times I caught her with the binky in her mouth.

9-2-14
Kylie's favorite house toy! It teaches opposites.

9-7-14
About to make cookies together

This is my sister Bianca...

... and this is the look-alike doll I crocheted for her. 9-19-14

9-21-14

9-21-14
I had FINALLY just finished knitting that rainbow blanket Kylie is wearing.
We both love it!

10-5-14
Sneaky face! This is Kylie's "about to get into trouble" face

10-6-14
Kylie LOVES pepperonis and cheese

10-11-14

10-26-14

10-26-14
Kylie was very proud of herself for getting on top of the box to see over the fence

10-26-14
My Halloween pumpkin!

10-30-14
Halloween Party!
I was sick 10-31 actually, so I am glad we went to a party the night before.
Kylie's friend Nikita's mom sewed the bodys and flippers and I crocheted the feet and hats.
Kylie is not wearing her hat because it was too warm, she stole my horns instead. =)

11-16-14
Kylie "brushing" her teeth while we get ready for bed.

11-10-14
First time in a stroller! We always wore her in the Baby bjorn before,
but now that she is close to 20 lbs it is getting hard.
She seems to really like the stroller now though, since she is already used to being a part of conversations.

11-21-14
We went to the midnight release of Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire!

11-28-14
Being lazy on Daddy

As I said up top, there are many more pictures, all of which you can see on my G+ if you are in my circles. Just add me or message me and I will add you =)

Rachael

Holidays for Kylie!

I am pagan. This means I celebrate Yule (winter solstice, usually the night of Dec 21) rather than Christmas. To me, this has evolved to actually mean that Yule is a small family unit holiday, and Christmas is what we celebrate with extended family.

That being out of the way, the subject of this blog post- What presents does Kylie want for the holidays? No one should feel obligated to get Kylie anything. She has lots of toys already. But for those who want to get something, I made this.

Kylie likes:

• Blue. If she has a choice of colors, Kylie usually goes for the blue one.
• Lots of parts. Kylie particularly likes toys that have a bunch of things that can be put into/taken out of a container.
• Sound effects. Originally when Kylie was a tiny baby I said I didn't want her to have any toys that make sounds/music. We have a few toys like that anyways, and they are Kylie's favorites. 
• Flippable pages. She likes turning pages back and forth. In traditional board books and also in toys.
• French! Kylie has been learning french (via me talking and disney movies,) so any toys that speak french are great! We only have one- a Baby Einstein piano.
• 12-18 month toys. Kylie is quite advanced for her age, and so toys directed at her age group do not go over as well as toys directed to the one above her.

A few ideas:

• LeapFrog Letter Factory Phonics and Numbers
• Fisher-Price Peek-a-Blocks. She has a few hand-me-downs and LOVES them. They come in lots of varieties.
• Fisher Price Little People A to Z Learning Zoo Playset
• Duplos. We have a collection going already. She cannot actually play with them yet though.
• Big buttons! I am collecting big (2in+) plastic buttons of various shapes and colors to put into a bag to play with. It helps with finger dexterity.
• Gift cards! Always an easy option. Toys R Us is good, Carters (clothes) is good, Amazon is even better. =)

And some please don't gets:

• Play food/kitchen. We want food to always be real food, and if she wants to help cook she can help for real.
• Stuffed animals. I feel like we are drowning in them already.
• Walkers. She can almost walk on her own.

As always, if you are unsure about something, feel free to call me and ask! Particularly if you think she might have it already. 

Rachael

Life gets crazy

Kylie is 10 months old now and doing AMAZING! She is cruising everywhere and can even take a few steps on her own. She understands simple phrases and will sometimes repeat them to me. "All done." "Come over here." "Not in the mouth." etc. Her giggles are the best sound in the world. Her dancing to music is just about the cutest thing too.

As always, Kylie comes first our (George and my) life. Sometimes to the detriment of ourselves. Things have gotten a little crazy and life decided to flip upside down for us. George lost his job about a month ago. I feel like we have discussed every possible direction for us to go after that. Should we stay in Cali where our friends are? Go to Texas to be near my family? Virginia to be near his family? Massachusetts where we were before? Apply places and go wherever they take us? After lots of thought and introspection we decided to go back to Virginia for now.

Marya has graciously offered for us to stay in the big house until we can/want to afford to get our own place. George's old company is possibly looking for remote workers, so we are hoping to get in on that. A period of time with George working but not needing to pay ridiculous rent will be very nice. Our bank account is not so happy with how our life has been lately. I am very much looking forward to Kylie getting to know her family. And the house- I LOVE that house. It has a properly sized kitchen (you could ballroom dance in it!) and a huge pantry space. The giant room (living room/dining room) has huge windows all around to let in natural light and to see the beautiful trees. 

Because of all this life-crazyness, I have neglected things like uploading the TONS of pictures of Kylie from my camera and phone. I will do that eventually. I know everyone wants to see Kylie =)

Rachael

Almost 6 months!

Kylie is the most important person in my world, and the same is true for George. No matter what we have been going through, she is ALWAYS put first. Not just for things like feeding and diaper changes, but also playtime and walks and working on skill sets. Sometimes I think if I loved her any more I might explode. =) I LOVE HER SO MUCH! She gets showered with hugs, cuddles, and kisses throughout the day, every day. Here are some things she does/likes now at almost 6 months old. 

One of her favorite things to do now is stand up (with help.) 

She has been eating solid foods for a bit now (since she was 4 months old.) Sometimes I give her a smashed up version of whatever we are eating, and sometimes she gets standard baby food. Her favorites- Indian food (with spicyness!), tomato basil pesto, guacamole, and sweet potatoes. We tried a "normal" sippy cup with her, but she usually swallows a bunch of air because she doesn't turn it upside down. I got her a straw sippy cup instead and she LOVES it. She drinks water (she likes it with ice) all the time now. Sometimes she has juice, but she really likes water.

Kylie now can roll back-to-front and front-to-back on both sides, even with a toy in hand! 

She also started TALKING! The things I have heard her say:

• "Hi"

• "Hey" 

• "I luh" and "I luh t" Kylie version of "I love you" and "I love you too"

• "Mmm Mmm" Which can mean "Mommy" or "Noms" (We call breastmilk noms)

• "Daduh" 

• "Acha" She called me this first, which is "Rachael." she started saying Mommy a few days later

• "Mommmmmmma" Kylie likes to draw out that second m in Mommy

• "Liza" When addressing Liza

• "Wa wah" Asking for her water cup

• "Cah hee" Asking for sips of George's coffee (I have no idea why she likes it so much, and she only ever gets a few sips once it's cooled.)

Kylie gets mad when people put things in their mouths and she doesn't get to taste it. She will taste something at least 3-4 times before deciding she doesn't like it. (Which is AWESOME!) 

If you kiss her a bunch she sometimes giggles. 

Sometimes after kissing her we can ask "Can I have kisses too?" and she will put her open mouth on a cheek and say "Muh." They get very wet, but it's SUPER adorable! Although, she doesn't like kissing George unless he is freshly shaven.

We have been swimming a few times, and she seems to like it. She has a floatie she sits in with her bottom half in the water, and she likes to kick her feet to move around a bit. She likes when we "swim" around the pool. She has not been underwater in the pool.

She continues to LOVE showers.

Kylie had a lot of fun playing with her auntie B in June.

She loves when we sing songs, particularly ones she recognizes. Her favorites-

• The Itsy Bitsy Spider (Mr. Mike's version, which is longer)
• Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (SMBC version, which is MUCH better)
• Going Through the Motions (From Buffy)
• The Ants Go Marching (in which we take turns making rhymes for what the ants do when they stop)
• 99 Bottles of Juice (in which we take turns saying how many bottles are taken down and then everyone does math quickly to continue, ex. 86 bottles of juice on the wall, 86 bottles of Juice, you take 8 down, pass 'um around, 78 bottles of juice on the wall)
• The Alphabet Song, with ASL signs (slightly modified to give each letter the same about of time- L, M, N, O, P is slower to not sound like one letter, and I end it with "Y and Z" with Z being a lower note that resolves the song, so the stupid end is taken off)
• Let's Make a Rainbow (Carebears song)
• My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic theme song (most of the songs from MLP: FIM actually)

Kylie has her own computer, it's a Samsung Galaxy Note Tablet that we named "Gala." I borrow it sometimes to play with. It's great for in the car- she can play all sorts of cool games that have things that flash on the screen when it's touched. 

And finally, some closing comments from the Baby herself! (Since she has been trying to grab my keyboard for the last 15 minutes.)

6+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++8596x ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++hhhhhhhhhttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttbk xbdqjdjqhqh 47777777777777777777777/*//777777777777777777777777giii+i 2.........................w /

  .iikxdknnnnnnnnnnnnnn,,,

Rachael & Kylie

Blahness

Blahness- That is about what I feel like most days. People need an update on our lives, and after putting it off for a few weeks, I have convinced myself to actually talk about it. Firstly, Kylie is doing excellent and she is an AMAZING baby! I love her more than anything else in the whole world, and she is always taken care of and loved and kissed. More on that later. George and I, on the other hand, have had some issues... 

Me

My doctor diagnosed me with PPD and started me on medication before I even realized anything was wrong. I few days after seeing her I really started to notice the things she was talking about, and I was glad I was already starting getting help. The details are not as important right now- the gist of it is that it SUCKS and as much as I love Kylie, I also wanted to go crawl into a hole and die. It's very hard for people to really understand what it is like, but trust me I wanted to "get over it" and "suck it up" more than anyone, but it just doesn't work that way. The first diagnosis was on May 17, and I am just now starting to come out the other side. 

I had back pain and a migraine most days, and as my doctor put it, "it's hard to tell if the pain is causing PPD or PPD causing pain." Part of how I coped with still being able to pick myself up off the floor to take care of and play with Kylie, was taking Oxy. Every time Kylie would cry for me and I felt like I would rather die than get up, I took an Oxy. (My doctor said this was okay.) It improved my mood 1000x and I would play and laugh and walk around, etc. I am quite aware it was a band-aid on the problem, but I was also starting anti-depressants, they can just take a while to work. 

This is all I will say about the Oxy usage: I was taking a little, which went up to a lot, which went up to a bunch. Kylie and I both went though some terrible withdraw back down to a little. Working on getting it to none, but that might not happen for a while. Do I regret it? No, not at all. Was/Am I addicted? In the biological sense, yes, because I went through withdraw going back down. In the psychological sense, no, I never felt like I couldn't live without it. I was/am in a better mood with it, but that is because feeling the full pain of a migraine sucks and makes me irritable. My doctors know all the reasons I take it, and they are okay with it.

George

I was not that great to be left alone with Kylie, because there was a 30 minute delay between "I WANT TO DIE, oh I guess I should take Oxy." and "Yay! Let's play!" So George took some of his paternity leave to be with me until I was a bit more stable. He was pretty much always on call for helping with me and helping with Kylie. He was also trying to keep the house in a decent state of cleanness (because dirty gives me more anxiety). 

As people who know George are probably aware, he has his own struggles with depression, so he knew exactly what I was going through. Unfortunately, I am his rock that keeps him stable and gets him help when he needs it before things get bad. He was busy helping me, and adding a bunch more stress in his life, while I was busy trying to take care of myself and Kylie. So... George started spiraling down into depression once again. We got him into a psychiatrist as soon as we could, and started back on medication. 

Combination

The big issues comes with the fact that BOTH of us were (are) struggling at the same time, AND we have a baby. Our support system out here in California is basically non-existent. For the last two months or so, it has been about like this: 

• I start to get a little better! 
• George starts to crash.
• I use all my energy keeping up with chores, loving and taking care of Kylie, and helping George get stable.
• George is starting to get better!
• I start to crash because I used so much energy.
• George uses all his energy to keep up with chores, loving and taking care of Kylie, and helping me get stable.
• I start to get better!
• George starts to crash because he used so much energy.

You can see why this is a problem... Overall things to get better, just very slowly. When we seem like we actually are finding a stable point for all of us, life throws stuff at us that starts it over again. (That happened twice so far.)

Kyile

Kylie is the most important person in my world, and the same is true for George. No matter what we have been going through, she is ALWAYS put first. Not just for things like feeding and diaper changes, but also playtime and walks and working on skill sets. Stay tuned for my next blog post- all about Kylie!

Conclusion

George and I are slowly, VERY SLOWLY, getting better. A support system would be a pretty great thing for us, and it would have made this issue way easier in the first place. I have not posted on social media for a while now- At first it was because I was just so blah and didn't care. After a while though, I was waiting to see how long it would take for someone to wonder where I was and if I was okay... on the 4 different sites I frequent, only on one did someone ask about me. 

Anyways, I'm getting there. Slowly. Maybe next week I will actually upload the TONS of pictures I have of Kylie. =)

Rachael