White Trash Weekend

In reality not really........but it sure does sound like it....

Saturday I spent half the day packing up my gigantic family for a 3 hour outing.

While packing up to go to my cousins wedding shower BBQ, I had to argue with Jesse over why it is okay for Janee to wear a tank top and it is NOT OKAY for him to wear a wife beater.

Really?

So we headed off to the BBQ. upon arrival we realize my not often seen Uncle is there with his wife, who is a charactor.

I will spare all history and drama but lets just say she decided to go nuts for no reason loudly and call my mom an idiot...nothing says "Congrats on your upcoming nuptuals!!" like a fight and some name calling!

Seriously if J and I are left to represent and are considered the "sane" ones? What do we have left?

So we left the BBQ and finished it up and J & D's house for some good old Coors Lights and some shit talking as well as laughs.

Sunday, even though all 4 kids are sick, B still had time to bust out his new train tent! Thanks Grandma! I am not sure why I thought that this tent would solve the problem of us constantly having a tent built in our living room. Seriously, try to sit on our couch and wait for Janee to screech at you that it isn't fair your ruining their tent. Anywho, apparent the train tent is not enough...but it adds to this bullshit. You honestly cant get across our living room....



By the way: Notice the 3 year old playing cars in the background ignoring the tent completely while the 12 year old crawls around inside.....



But it was all okay when Mike told me he would take me on a shopping spree. Seriously, the economy must be turning around because our favorite outlet mall is open again and anyone who knows me knows I have a soft spot in my heart for this place....Including Mike. Come one! How jealous are you that He told me he would get me ANYTHING I wanted?

So off we all went to the precast concrete place down our "road" to go through the trash pile.



Before:





After:



Not to shabby! For a trash pile.

And bonus points for Jesse looking all kinds of embarassed while loading up the concrete trash into the truck for me while I am paying him with the poker money he lost. :)

And this one is special for you Grandma G!!!:

I really do Love my Husband

The weekend

Was semi eventful...now that the J's are off track, I am considering the whole week a weekend.

The kids started off night 1 by playing poker. Jesse is now in debt $55.00 and Janee $30.00. This works out well because I want to pool up this year. The pool that has been stored in a pile in the back of Jesse's truck for two years now.

What better people to hire right? So 65 fights later, here is the progress:


There surprisingly were only 2 small holes, and it was actually quite clean.

Brody got a bike. I went to Walmart and they had little boy bikes for $25.00. He hopped right on and has been riding ever since.....minus some helmet debocles.






Brody also took to reading to Harlee.........



Now that the weather is warmer the snakes come out........



And finally the geat finger paint fest of 2010....




Next post will be my new laundry room pictures......

Seriously?

Can someone please tell me why the drive up ATM has a note on the screen saying "This machine offers assistance for the visualy impaired"? And............it is a touch screen.

??

Just sayin'

Car Seat Sleep or Crib...

Last night was ridiculous as well. Not only was she up like a 2 week old, but from 5:30am she cried until about 7:30 regardless of what I tried.

Now I am wondering if her stomach is still an issue and I should stick her back in the car seat for sleep for another couple weeks....

On a brighter note, I am 11 pounds lighter, and fitting into the clothes I wore to Stagecoach last year...which was 2 weeks after findiug out I was pregnant. This is great-ish news because it is 80 degrees and it was either shrink into shorts I own, or buy fatter sizes. Luckily, that is working out so far.

I have to cut this short because my kid just opened the door and took off without asking!

Nevermind

Friday was a fluke.

The hours got progressivly worse.

last night she was up 3 times to eat! WTF? For weeks consistantly, she would go to sleep at 8, wake up at 3:30, and go back down till 6-6:30.

Last night I layed her down at 8, she woke up at 1:30, 3:30, 5:00 and 7. Seriously?

At least I she sleeps in her crib so that is kind of almost one thing off the list, pending we dont regress with that too.

Today, however she has mowed down 30 oz already which is 10 more than usual for this time...so I am holding my hopes high for tonight.

I will update with weekend pictures on another post. When I am not totally exhausted and sleep deprived as if I have a newborn.

The night

Well she woke up at 3am to eat, which is her normal time. But this was super excellent since she went down an hour earlier than usual.

So she chugged 4 oz, and I laid her back down. She waited about 10 minutes before screaming. I went in, rubber her belly for 3 seconds before she stopped crying, and then she fell asleep.

a.m.a.z.i.n.g.

This was so out of charactor for her. I hope it lasts!

She didnt wake up till 7:30 this morning either, and she usually wakes up at 5 for another bottle.


I also have my last end of pregnancy symptom starting up. This is one of the most heinous I think. The hair loss. Disgusting.

Seriously.

New habits begin

My kid has no self soothing skills. My kid hates pacifiers. She can only be calm sucking on a bottle. I have never been able to bottle feed her. She likes it propped. She is also a snacker and does not eat full meals. She sleeps in her carseat(habit developed from needing to sleep semiupright for her stomach).

Today is the end I decided after loading her up in the stroller and walking into Barnes and Noble only to have her have yet another meltdown over nothing. She is either sleeping, "eating", or flipping out......

I have 2 options. I can break each habit slowly over time and put both of us through misery, or I can break them all at once, have some super hellish nights, the both of us, and then live happily ever after. I chose the 2nd.

Tonight we will be using the Ferber method to get her to sleep. I dont have the patience or the energy to do this over time.....Supposedly, this is the fastest way to get her to sleep on her own. IF you can tolerate the crying. And I can. I have pyched myself up for it.

So like any reasonable parent, I put a bunch of Coors Light in the fridge, and got myself prepared for the allnighter I was about to pull.

My goal was to feed her at 7pm, to be in bed by 7:15...asleep....ideally 30 seconds later, but that is not realistic.

She was freaking out for her bottle at 6. So like any normal parent, I rapped old Beatsie Boy albums to her.

By 6:20 she was so over me. I thought now is the time! I have FINALLY annoyed her to want to go to bed!!

So I put her in Pj's, and I sat down to feed her. (By the way, I upped the nipple size as a special surprise to her - no sucking but not eating...she is going to eat!)

And then

She ate

and ate

and ate

and ate

5 1/2 oz she ate!

This seems like nothing for her age BTW....but for her she pigged! She rarely eats 4 oz.....usually it is like 2 oz over 3 hours.

I felt like parent of the year already....so I put her in her crib and said goodnight.

Of course instantaneously she freaked out. So I set thetimer for 5 minutes and let her go. 5 minutes later, I went in, rubbed her belly for a minute, and left.

seconds later, hysteria again. So I waited out 5 minutes, and went in again. Rubbed her belly, and left.

She is still asleep.

Oh.My.God.

She is in the crib, asleep, on her own! After eating a MEAL!


Not sure what the night has in store, but I feel semi accomplished. Last time I decided to let her cry it out, she popped a blood vessel in her eye after screaming for 15 minutes. And the screaming not getting softer, but louder....You would think she would have gotten tired but not my litle bundle of joy!

Anyway, I will be going to sleep crossing my fingers.

And for the record, I only had 1 Coors Light ;)

Random Sidenote

Brody prounounces Harlee's name: gnarly

Urban Dictionary says the definition of Gnarly is: A slang term for something extreme. Used in bad and good cases.

Hmmm....

What is new....

It was another rainy weekend here which means more construction cluster around here. Actually, rain is not an indicator of whether we have a project going on or not....we always do.

It was time to change the filter and UV light for our drinking water! Simple in most homes, but not here in the Graff house. Changing the filter turns into, adding a storage tank under my sink, to realizing the freezer is leaking so now we have to pull it out to find the leak which then leads to the dishwasher being pulled out which equals me washing baby bottles in the bathtub at 9pm.

Yay!

By the way, please tell me my kitchen sink undercabinet is freakin' impressive!




Anyway, for those intersted in the reason my freezer was leaking? There was RICE clogging up the drain. <3

Anyway to follow up that last post regarding hats, I had to put a normal picture of Harlee in here so that everyone doesn't think she always looks ridiculous...and true to form, she is still either sleeping or pissed off.



I kept trying to take her picture in this jacket because it is fabulous, but she would have nothing to do with it.



She even has a new deal where she eats pissed off. She grunts angrily when she eats if it takes me to long to get her a bottle between the time she starts crying for food and I actually get there to feed her.

Seriously.

It is like she is saying "I am hungry so I will eat, but know I am SUPER pissed off at how long it took you to accomodate me"

Anyway, I managed to get this picture while she was happy for a few seconds.



By the way while taking the above picture, B got jealous and asked me to take a picture of him, but then pretended he was shy.





The kids also played Rock Band Ghetto style



Janee also got her ears pierced over the weekend. They are going through so much bullshit lately, Mike thought I should take Janee out to do somthing fun and distracting.



She was all freaked out of course so I told her I would get mine pierced too. So I took one for the team and pierced the top of one of my ears. I didnt really want it, but I actually kid of like it. Plus it is a reminder of the shit going on right now and hopefully the good future outcomes.

And I will leave you with this.....



Wow!

Dear Friends

Thank you so much for all the free things you have given Harlee and I. I am so thankful that we have friends who will donate all their old baby things to us! However, we have decided that Harlee does not need any more ugly hats. Although they provided me with 1/2 hour of laughter and heinous pictures to torture her with later in life, I think that we wont be needing anymore.

Thanks for thinking of us,

Love Christy

Patience

I have decided I need some.

I am sorry, but there seems to be a slew of assholes in parking lots lately that decide they want to park in my space.

Which REALLY pisses me off when I have not 1 child in a car seat, but 2. And to put them in the car you need to actually OPEN your door!

I dont understand why I pull into a parking lot, and park far away just so I can have some room to get my kids and all their shit out of the car, and some jackass ALWAYS parks not just right next to me, but in my spot.

I then realized I am always pissed off lately. Don't get me wrong, I think my life is super annoying right now, and probably most that know the entire situation would agree, but I am thinking there are better ways to handle it.

So, rather than giving myself a heart attack from being stressed out all the time, I will try to devlop patience.

12 weeks

Oh the drama........

seriously.

There is so much ridiculousness going on right now I wouldn't even know where to begin.

I think every night I have laid in bed thinking "What the Fuck?"

And most if it is centered around the exwife running into the house....

Aside from that, which I wont even go into detail on..........

The dog is done.

We were going to have her put to sleep yesterday....BUT decided Sunday night that we should wait a week, considering all the other emotional BS that the kids are going through right now.

So, next Monday it is. I think.

It is so hard to figure out what to do. Some days, like this past Saturday, she could not get up to go pee. So Jesse would carry her to the rocks to go potty. But then Monday, she was half ass walking again. (Half ass being about how she has been for months now)

And so it is.