Keeping my head above water

So, the car ride up was brutal.  We started off at 10 am and unfortunately did not get there until 9:00pm.  Since my night's rest wasn't the greatest I tried to rest while my mom did most of the driving.  I would just get to sleep and hear Charlie from the back seat "Mom, Mom, Mom, Mommy.." 

"What?!" I would respond and be retorted to with toddlerese.  The gist of the translation: don't go to sleep mom.  No problem kid.

The last leg of our journey was up "the hill".  That is what the locals call it.  We are only 500 ft above sea level.  As we start winding our way up every town gets a little smaller.  We go through a town with one stop light.  The next one doesn't even have a stop light or a store of any kind.  Now I am getting nervous.  We finally roll into Boulder Creek.  Couple of store fronts, one or two grocery stores and the local bar etc.  Almost all are closed down and it is dark.  As we come to the only three way stop in town panic begins to settle in.  "Oh no!  I have moved my family to hickville!!!  Mom, we are in the middle of no where," I whisper/shriek.  In my over exhausted state of mind that is what it looked like.  We go down the road a few more minutes and make it to the house.  The moving van is there and only 1/3 unloaded.  Though my stepdad and stepbrother left the night before they took a longer route and had only arrived an hour before us.  I began to cry uncontrollably and begged my mom to find Jesse and bring him to the car.  Our amazing church members were working to unload the truck and I could not keep it together.  After talking to Jesse my angel mother took me and Charlie back down the hill to a hotel for the night.  Finding a hotel Memorial Day weekend was an adventure in itself!  After a better night sleep (Quality Inn really has amazing beds) we came back the next day.  Things looked less bleak but still small town.  After a crazy two and half days of unpacking and recovery I said good bye to my parents and stepbrother.  Unpacking is still in progress but our house is slowly coming together.  The boys love their new school and so do I.  The town is small but I do have access to most things I need in under 20 minutes.  I have made some friends but have yet to find a pool to fulfill my aquatic needs:). All in good time.  Here are some pictures of our first few weeks.

Boxes make good seats

Checking out the view

Coolest bridge: photo op!!!

Our backyard

Santa Cruz

Some of our backyard finds

Boxes everywhere!

My way to cope...

Charlie is in charge of his wardrobe

Saturday adventure: this little place is actually in Santa Cruz.  It is a satellite exploration station for Monterey Bay.

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It has happened...

The phrase: "Why me and why now?" came to mind once or twice as I struggled through the last week and a half before and during our big move. Moving is no easy task.  Moving with three kids, no husband at home, and almost 9 months pregnant in hot, nasty weather is darn near impossible.  As I was moving things kept going wrong with the house.  First the a/c damaging the office floor.  Fixed it and replaced the floor.  Then, the water heater sprung a leak and damaged the office floor.  Replaced the water heater (ouch) and fixed the floor again.  Sent the husband out the door to get up to the new house and go to job orientation.  Then, termites.... REALLY?!?!?!  When I found out we had an unwanted party underneath our porch and how much it would cost to fix it all I sat down and had a good cry.  A looooong cry.  A headache producing cry.  Then, I went through what we needed to do to fix it.  I really didn't have time for the pity party to last so I gave the go ahead for the work and we agree to pay them out of escrow.  Isn't it amazing how things change?  The next day the exterminator brings over paperwork and tells me they can't be paid out of escrow.  Nice.  The day people are coming to load up the truck with our belongings I am scraping up money to pay for the house to be tented and repaired.  We had to pay out of pocket or the escrow could have fallen through or been rejected because of the discovery.  Ahhh, get everything into the truck already so I don't have to deal with this house any more!  

Friday afternoon we kicked things into high gear.  Thanks to an amazing friend who picked up the moving truck for me among other things, we were loading by 3:30 and finished by about 6:30.  I had many helpers and trying to coordinate this myself got to a point where we decided just get it all out of the house and into the carport area then the loading guys took it from there.  By 7:30 the floors were swept and the house was locked.  I eagerly headed to my moms where my boys were waiting.  Once arriving at Grammie's house all of us decided one last swim was in order.  The day had been so hot the water was barely cool enough to be refreshing but it felt great to get the weight off my feet and let the kids have fun.  I finally got the boys in bed by about ten and myself a little before midnight.  Knowing we had a long drive the next day it was an unwelcome surprise to have my two year old crawl into bed with me at 2:30 am.  At one point I got off of my edge of the double bed to slide him to the other side.  He promptly rolled towards the middle and kept snoozing away.  "Lovely!"  I thought as I made my way into the other room where my older boys were sleeping.  I attempted the roll to a side move with my oldest and slept on the full bed with him till the morning instead.  Remember this:  I am pregnant, stressed, and seriously sleep deprived at this point and we still have a 10 hour car ride ahead of us.  Yippee.

I made my way over to the house one last time to wipe down the kitchen, clear any last minute items, and give the floors a last once over.  Another friend helped me with that.  I really have some amazing friends and family!  You don't realize what dirty people you are until you move.  I vow to do better every time.  This time will be different!  Right... With everything done I locked the doors for the last time and took the last bag of trash to a neighbors trash can.  Ours were packed and I had been using all our neighbors trash cans to chuck stuff all week.  We had really nice neighbors or neighbors out of town.  Both were useful.  I looked at the house and just felt relief.  I was not sad to be leaving this money sucking leech.  I was only sad to see a place with memories be left behind.  I got back to my mom's and we hit the road around 10am.  The road trip will have to be another blog post folks.  I don't want to pack too much good stuff into one.

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Identification Please

It is interesting as we go through life we identify ourselves differently. 
        When we were in high school it was "I'm in ASB, I'm in band, I am a football, basketball, baseball player."  By identifying yourself you naturally fell in with a certain group of people.  If you were involved with many things you could move from one group to another and still have something in common with your peers. 
         When you move to college you identify yourself with your major.  The classes of majors are usually grouped close together.  You run into those people over and over again.  Same teachers. etc.  You have stuff to talk about because you all are going through the same thing.
       When you get married you start to identify yourself, in a woman's case, with a new last name.  This new last name and joining the ranks of the married folk can be difficult for young women.  Some older women do not know how to relate to the younger set.  What are they to talk about?  They all have kids.  What are you to talk about?  Many don't have an outside job.  Their kids are their job.  Talk about the men ladies.  Ya'll got one of those. 
       When you get pregnant you identify yourself by how far along you are.  People will open up and share horror stories with you if you are in your third trimester.  Watch out!  Then the child comes and you start to identify yourself by your child's age.  "Oh, I have a 13 month old and a 3 year old."
        As mothers, we naturally identify ourselves by our children.  I have gone through all these stages and found none of them to be surprising or weird.... until PTA.
        Oh, PTA is a different beast my friends and they identify themselves in a whole different way.  At the first PTA meeting we had to stand up and say our names, what committee we were on (I had yet to join one) and what grades our children were in/how many children we had.  Seriously, it is hard enough to keep track of how old my kids are now I have to announce their grade?  I sat there, waiting for my turn, rehearsing what I was going to say.  Oop!  I'm next: "Hi, I'm Rachel Wattson and I am not yet on a committee but I am here to help whoever needs it.  My children are in second grade and kindergarten."  I sit down.  Did you see my first fail?  I forgot to include that I had a third child!  Way to go me.  Anyway, it was over.  I wouldn't have to announce that again and if anyone remembered what I said and saw me with my 15 month old they could figure it out.  Fast forward a month later at the Book Fair I am helping with.  First off, I was not acknowledged by anyone in casual conversation.  Most likely because I did not have the chance to introduce myself when I got there.  The second day I came to help was not as crazy and during a lull I say "By the way, I'm Rachel." 
"Oh, hi, Sandy 5th."  In my head I am thinking excuse me?  Then I realize she is identifying herself by name and her student's grade.  Okayyyyy.  So I guess this is a regular thing then huh?

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One

He's one!  I have come to the conclusion that the more children I have the faster that first year flies past.  It feels like only yesterday that I was nursing him and praying for more than 4 hours of sleep.  So, here is to year number one my little Charlie man!  I love your smile, your laugh, and your budding personality.  Your sweet chubby feet and thighs make me smile.  I love how you walk around the house quacking like a duck and think it will get you out of trouble when you are suppose to be sleeping.  It usually does.  Happy birthday son:)!

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Oedipus Complex

Remember learning the greek tragedy in school?  About a king and a queen that have a baby.  An oracle or something tells that in the baby's future it will kill it's father and marry its mother.  So the king and queen do what any parent would do.  Send the baby out to die and to be sure it doesn't go anywhere they nail it's feet together at the ankles.  OUCH.  Long story short: baby found.  Grows up strong, happens to slay the king (his real dad) and marry the queen (his real mom).  I could tell the tragic part of the story, as if this first part isn't tragic enough, but the point is there is now a complex named after this greek character.
The Oedipus Complex is when a son is attracted to his mother.  Every boy goes through it.
 "I am going to marry mommy!"
"Mommy, you are the prettiest girl in the world!"
And so it goes.  Usually kids grow out of this around 6 or 7.  My son Ollie is still in it, pretty bad too.

We were playing the game life tonight and Ollie and I were a team.  The first thing Ollie says is "We are going to get MARRIED!"  He was super excited about it.  We got to the space and got hitched.  After which my 5 year old was as handsy as a horny first date.  He kept kissing me, hugging me, patting my back, and touching me in anyway he could the whole game.  At one point he laid his hand on my knee.  Hey there boy, gettin' fresh.  I must say, by the end of the game I was almost uncomfortable.  I kept telling him to cool it but he kept coming.  This makes me worry about his dating future.

I hope he learns to take no for an answer and he needs to learn that it's only a game not for realziez!  HAhaha!  I love my sweet affectionate boy but I am going to be on Frank's team next time.

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Flashback

I was driving in my car on the way home from errands today when I had a flashback.  I was thinking of when I worked at ColdStone Creamery right next to the Edwards Cinema in San Marcos.  You know, back in the year 2000 when it was a fun place.  People came in, created something great, and when they gave us a tip we sang.
One Saturday night I was working there with six other people, two of those were mormon.  Jeff Burns and Sean Chapman.  Cliff Barnum, a member of our church came up to Sean and said,"I'll give you five bucks if you sing "I am A Child of God.""
I am down the line helping another customer when I hear "TIP!"  That means we are about to sing.  Then I hear Sean start singing this primary song.  Jeff and I join in and we sing the whole first verse as the we continue to work.  The place was packed and here we were just singing away.  We finished the song and two minutes later another lady, one we didn't know, made her way up to the tip jar and put in a dollar "I want to hear that song again," she said.  Once again we sang.  I loved working at ColdStone.

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Engineer vs Imagineer

Frank is my literal, unimaginative child.  My sister took him to a playground once and said " Let's pretend the sand is lava!"  Frankie replys "but it's not lava.  It's sand."
"I know," says Heidi "but let's pretend. "
"But it's sand." Frank retorts.
Ollie, on the other hand, is extremely imaginative.  He is always showing me his "animals", making his stuffed animals come to life, and telling me stories.  Did you know Darth Mal is part rhino?  That is why he has horns. 
Last night, I played build a story with the boys.  We start with a character and setting then add a few sentences about what is going on.  I started then tossed the ball to Frank for his turn.  Jack, our character, was on the moon.  Frank says "and he flew home."  He passes the ball to Ollie.  Ollie says " he likes being home and plays with his toys."  Ball to me:  Jack decides he wants to fly again so he builds a rocket.  Ball to Frank:  and flies to outerspace.  Ball to Ollie: And he flies to Mars!  Then he meets an alien!  The alien says to watch out for the captain alien cuz he's mean but all the other aliens are nice.....
As you can see Ollie caught on pretty quick.  The next story we did poor Frank kept ending the story with his turn.  After a few revivals he gave up and didn't I know what to say.  Ollie kept giving his suggestions.  Seeing this happen last night I know Frank will need to exercise his imagination a bit.  I can see both boys as adults.  Ollie will think up crazy things to build and Frank will be able to use concrete materials to build them all.  Thus, my engineer and imagineer.

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