An overview of the past nine months

At the start of my maternity leave, in July, I pictured a year of leisure....enjoying snuggles with my baby, going to programs, making yummy meals for SR while she was off at preschool.  There has been nothing leisurely about this maternity leave.

• I started with my c-section - yes it was elective, but I still came home to a baby and a toddler 2 days after surgery and fending for all of us (with help from my doting parents, of course).  
• J-Bear had his circumcision and I had to deal with changing the gauze - why does no one ever prepare a new mom of a boy for the changing of the gauze.
• At the same time as the healing was going on from the circ, J-Bear got the most horrific diaper rash, that got worse and worse - the skin literally peeling off his bum.  Turns out I had burned him by eating citrus foods/fruits and he was burned with my breast milk.  Each diaper change was agony for both of us and it took WEEKS to heal.
• When J-Bear was five weeks he went by ambulance to the hospital because he choked on air from drinking a bottle of my breast milk, when I didn't realize I had to take the bottle away when it was empty - I can blame baby brain, or I can just say it was total ignorance and stupidity on my part.
• I had a tooth extracted without anything other than freezing - the visualization was worse than anything I could have predicted.  
• The pain in my mouth didn't get better with the tooth being pulled - turns out I needed the other three wisdom teeth pulled and I chose to have the sedation even though I was breastfeeding.  
• In September my mom was searching to buy a new car - but she liked my car that was completely paid off....so I sold her my car and I bought a car that was probably way out of my price range considering I'm off work for a year.  So now I have a new car that I didn't need - but the extra space is nice.  In October I purchased my Ford Escape.
• In early December I put my condo up for sale - I started cleaning frantically every day for showings and not able to pay attention to my kids.
• I sold in February with an end of April closing.
• In December, J-Bear got his first bout of Croup and went back to the hospital.  That sound in the middle of the night was horrific.
• One month later, J-Bear got his second bout of Croup.  I was prepared this time with the steroid on hand.
• SR got Croup in the first week of March and it came out as a respiratory virus, Bronchiolitis, in J-Bear - he was put on puffers.  He continued on puffers for a few weeks and his pediatrician said he has a "happy wheeze" - not in distress.
• One week of no coughing for J-Bear since his croup in December.
• Now he has the worst cough he has ever had.
• Today was his 9 month check up and his Pediatrician said J-Bear has asthma.  I can't help but wonder if it was caused by the smoking next door neighbour that I complained and complained about - who finally has stopped smoking because his landlord got hit with the legal bills from the condo.  It makes me so sad that our happy home could have caused him to have asthma.
• I am in the final stages now of buying our first house - I'll talk about that next.
• It is now 9 months of waking up every two hours to feed J (as I type he has just woken up for his first feed of the night - and it's not even 10pm - if I don't go he will get more and more worked up).  The pediatrician asked me today if he's sleeping - NO HE'S NOT SLEEPING!!!!  He wants me to let him cry....but J-Bear has no self soothing techniques (SR sucked her sleeve) and he's legitimately hungry.  He's a very big boy but he barely eats any solids.  He wants his milk all night long.  With two upcoming moves I'm not going to start anything new...and after nursing him just now he didn't want me to put him down, and so we had snuggles....and he's only my baby for a little bit longer.

• HOUSE NEWS - this has been very hard on me and my parents.  I live in a neighbourhood where the housing market is getting way out of hand.  All houses are now going into bidding wars - if you want in, all conditions need to be waived prior to the offer date - meaning if you want a house inspection you do so on your dime not knowing if the house will be yours.
• I paid for a house inspection on a house I didn't end up bidding on.  
• A few weeks ago I was at a toy sale.  I bumped into an acquaintance - we have a mutual friend and our kids went to the same daycare.  I had heard rumblings that she was a choice mom but I think she's very private.  So we were chatting at the toy sale and I mentioned that I had sold my home but had no where to go - my parents are taking us in.  She said that she is selling her home.  She wanted more than my very top dollar, but said I should call/email her.
• We got in touch and it turns out that if we eliminate the agents' commissions then she makes what she would have made anyway and I get an "affordable" house in a neighbourhood I otherwise couldn't have afforded.
• I'm not going to lie, it's been quite a roller coaster doing a private sale - from day to day I thought she was backing out and I would go with my agent to see other properties.  Only to then have her act as though nothing was wrong - I think we communicate in different ways.  
• She's a great girl and I think it's so nice that I'm buying a house from another choice mom.  I hope everything works out.
• The house is less than 6 years old.  It's about a two minute drive from my work - could be less if there are no red lights - and it's in a great neighbourhood.  I have one VERY close friend on the street and two families who I know quite well also on the street.
• My parents are not as thrilled - they help me so much from day to day - my dad takes SR to preschool every morning, and if I stayed in this neighbourhood he would have been taking J-Bear to daycare next year when I return to work.  He also drops off groceries every morning when he picks SR up.  My mom comes every night to help me with dinner.  I'm giving all of this up, b/c the house is about 10 minutes (much more in rush hour traffic) north of here.  It might not seem like a distance, but it really is - my mom won't come regularly for dinner anymore.
• The owner has a lot of upgrades in her home and it looks really nice - I still have some work to do when I take possession.
• It's all very scary  - living in a condo I have a lot done for me.  I'll have to figure so much more out.  Will I be able to cope on my own back to work with two kids and a house to take care of?
• And as for J-Bear's daycare situation, he's been on the waitlist since I was 3 months pregnant.  There aren't infant rooms around.  But it's a lot to bring him back to this neighbourhood every morning and then drive back to my new neighbourhood for work and then do it again at the end of the day.
• So J-Bear is currently registered for an infant room with 10 kids and 3 teachers - it's where SR started.  The babies can nap and eat and play whenever they need to until they are ready to progress to the toddler room at 18 months and up where the schedule is more structured.
• The daycare I can put J-Bear in near my new house will accept him into a toddler room (18 months and up) when he turns 15 months (beginning of October).  That means that he'll be the youngest and he won't get to nap when he wants, he will sleep on a cot, and he'll have to act like a big kid....and my parents will have to watch him for the month of September for me and transition him into daycare in October.  
• DECISIONS!!!!!

That's all I've got for now...I need to get to bed.  J-Bear will be up again to feed soon.  And I have to remember to register J-Bear for a program at 8:30 tomorrow morning or we won't get in!

I'm so glad I am blogging again!