Summer of Babies: Fall 2012

Yesterday as the first snowflakes fell from the sky, I realized that I had not written in my Blog for fall yet! Yikes! So here I am, sitting on the fluffy couch with my cozy blanket, watching Roseanne, listening to Molly chew on her deer antler and counting the minutes till Tony comes home. (For today, I appreciate him)

This Fall has been amazing. I am really enjoying 4th grade, my new team, the anxious ears that actually understand my humor and the amount of Technology that I actually get to use with the kids. It is awesome and I am so glad that I made the jump.

Reagan has been so fun lately, she is really understanding what we tell her and communicates more and more each day. However, she also whines more...so we are working on that! My favorite thing that she does now, is that she will occasionally kiss her baby doll before she puts her into the shopping cart or before putting her in the stroller, "just because..." and so matter of factly.

Molly has been a sweet puppy. She is working hard on not jumping on people when they come in the door and her leaking is "getting better". We are convinced she is just a lazy ass and "forgets" to ask to go out! We love her anyways. We were thrilled that a new dog park opened up this fall just a few minutes away from us. My favorite part is when Tony comes home talking about all of the dogs like they are old friends. "Yeah, Molly was playing with Mara today" or "That JoJo is a stinker". Molly loves going and it is wonderful taking her there, especially if she had a long day alone.

Tony's job is going well, and he has been working very hard. I know that he comes home overwhelmed, but I think that he is learning a lot about sales and being a strong leader. He may not agree with that, but I do see that he comes home with tiny excitements when the "sales floor hits" and he was "running the floor". Now, we are coming to the "most wonderful time of the year" and I know that things will start to get crazy for him, and us!

This weekend was especially exciting. I had to drive to Grayslake for my Reading Specialist test. I thought I was doing well until I looked down and realized that I had filled in A for 7 circles in a row! Damn it! They wouldn't do that right? So I had to go back and re-read all of them! By the time I finally got home, I felt like a ton of bricks had fallen off of my shoulders. I was never a good test taker and hopefully, I don't have to do that again!

To reward myself for a "job well done" on my test, Tony and I made dinner and then busted out the "Yummy" wine, that we had been saving for a few weeks now. Reagan and Molly were playing on the floor with their toys. As if it was in slow motion, Reagan grabbed for my 3/4 full wine glass and dumped it all over herself, the coffee table and the carpet! Now, I could have just changed her, but I really didn't want my 19 month old smelling like a drunkin' lush. So I put her in the bath and scrubbed her down, while Tony scrubbed the wine out of the rugs. After her bath it was bed time and she went down fine, (maybe she took a few sips of the wine, while it dripped down her face...lush). I poured myself a new glass of wine and got ready to snuggle with my husband, when I heard Molly bang on the back door. I nudged Tony to let her in, pointing at my "well deserved" glass of wine. So he got up and she came storming in! He sat down beside me and all of a sudden, we both jumped up yelling "What is burning? " He ran into the basement, screaming "Grab the fire extinguisher". I was thinking "WTF, I just changed the batteries on that smoke detector, why isn't it beeping!" That's when I realized it! The damn dog got sprayed! I grabbed Molly, threw her outside and processed...Shit! We had to wash her! At first, we thought she got sprayed by a cat or rolled in something, because it didn't smell like skunk. It had sort of a garlic smell. So, Tony scrubbed her with her soap, and dish soap. I shotgunned my "well deserved" glass of wine and researched how to get skunk smell out. Meanwhile, Tony has already let her out to dry and had took a shower himself, when I realized that dog soap was not going to cut it. We had to use hydrogen peroxide, dish soap and baking powder. So...I got in there with her and scrubbed her down. Meanwhile, Tony did more research on how to get the smells out of the house. So for about 2 hours, we washed the walls in the bathroom, baking sodaed the carpet, litterred the house with cups of vinegar, did 2 loads of laundry, washed the floors,plugged in every air freshener that we could find, and then we finally called it quits. So two exhausted parents put a still "stinky" puppy into her cage at around 10:30pm on Saturday It was a freaking exhausting night! Not to be outdone by a 19 month old with a fever and throwing up the next day! AHHH!!!!

Reagan and I enjoying Chevy's!

So that is just one of the highlights of our Fall. The next few weeks are already exhausting me. Not only does Tony have the busiest season of his job coming up, but I also have 28 conferences scheduled within the week. Thankfully, Reagan started the week off with a fever, so that put a damper on conference number one. Next week, we will be hosting Thanksgiving for about 20 people, which is actually a lot smaller then previous years. Tony does have to work that evening at 9pm. This early start sort of makes me happy, cause it has put the kabosh on him wanting to "fry" the turkey! (Talk about fire extinguisher!) This year, since I will not be working "Black Friday" that I might actually try to go out and take advantage of some of the deals! Who knows, maybe it could be a new tradition...however, I will not be waking up at 2am!