WHAT? Speak up, I can't hear you...

In other words, this is the reason why I was completely deaf in my right ear for two days...

Most of you know that John had back surgery in September. For over ten years he was living with constant pain in his back. This past summer the pain reached new levels and the compression on the nerves started to severely decrease the strength on his left side. We decided to bite the bullet and go for surgery. John's PCP pulled a few favors and got us in with the Chair of Neurosurgey at Penn. Normally there is a six-ten month waiting list for surgery, but considering John's level of weakness he was fast tracked and had surgery within three weeks. Surgery went well and we can safely say that it was a success. John can now function like a normal human being.  One "side effect" of this new normal functioning John, is that he now can sleep soundly through the night. Which means we've discovered that soundly-sleeping John snores like a bear.

What does this have to do with me being deaf?

I used to be able to sleep through just about anything - ask my mom, you could have set a bomb off in my room and if I managed to survive the blast, I still would have been sleeping soundly. Something happened in the last year, I don't know if being a mom has the added benefit of being a super light sleeper, but now I can't sleep through loud noises. This includes John's newfound habit of snoring. Once we realized that John's snoring was keeping me up, we decided we had three options:

1. I could continue to get shitty sleep
2. I could smother John with a pillow
3. I could start wearing earplugs 

Considering I'm one cranky bitch when I don't get enough sleep and really wouldn't be fair to Ari if I was sentenced to life in prison (we've all watched enough CSI to know I wouldn't get away with smothering John) we opted for number three.  I started wearing the pink foam earplugs and life was good.  John decided we should take a good thing and make it better, so he grabbed me a pack of silicone mold-able earplugs which were supposed to work better than the little pink foam ones.  Sounds good right?  Thinking it wouldn't be much more difficult than molding my old field hockey mouthpieces, I decided to give it a go and mold these things. The whole process was supposed to work as follows:

• Mix the two putty like substances together until it is a teal color
• Gently push in ear
• Wait 10 minutes to harden
• Remove

This was working well up to the 60 minute mark when the putty was still putty like.  I tried to remove the putty and it wouldn't come out.  Then John offered to "help" me get it out.  In a moment of weakness, I consented to have my husband attempt to extract the putty from my ear.  I'm sure you can imagine where this goes - in an attempt to extract the putty from my ear, John pushed a piece down into my ear canal.  Instantly I lost hearing in my right ear.  The sound was not muffled, sound was entirely gone.  John offered to get a BBQ skewer to try to stab it and pull it out.  Thankfully, my better judgement returned and I declined.  The following morning I made an appointment with an ENT, who couldn't see me until the next day (Friday).  When I finally saw the ENT and she pulled this little piece of (now) hard silicone out of my ear, it was damn near orgasmic.  I could hear again!

Lesson learned here kids?  Never confuse your engineer husband with a medical professional.

still selling the house - a lovely Cape Cod

So as I previously mentioned, I'm a little behind on the posting so just hang tight, I'm slowly updating you on everything that's been going on.  I've had a few people reach out about the progress on selling the house, so I figured it should have its own little post...

Our house has been for sale now for a little under four months.  In that amount of time we've had over 30 appointments plus our open house, so we're definitely getting a lot of foot traffic through. On two separate occasions we had people that were pretty close to making an offer - two different buyers asked to come back a second time to see the house with their parents.  The first couple came back a second time with their parents, after the apointment their realtor noted "they really love the house but have decided it's just not quite big enough for them. Lovely home", which means their parents talked them out of it (you don't come back to see a house for a second time with your parents and then realize it's too small; mom and dad pointed out it was too small).  Another couple came back, again with their parents, and the feedback from that second appointment was "She loves the house, but he really wants a basement OR a garage. They are still thinking about it and I will keep you posted".  I can't blame this one on the parents; I guess magically between the first appointment and the second appointment our house was going to grow a basement or a garage.  Hmm.  Anyway, the second appointments got both John & I pretty excited, we really thought we were going to get an offer!  It was kind of a let down to read the feedback and see the "they love it but..." statements and know we weren't going to get an offer from either couple.  Sadly, the disappointment we would feel over not getting an offer is greatly overshadowed by the disappointment of getting a shitty offer.  A few weeks back we did get our first offer in, but it was insultingly low.  The couple offered us 30k less than what we were asking for.  Now at the time, our house had been up for a little over two months, we're anxious to move so we can get on with our lives, but we're far from "lets take any offer that crosses our plates".  Best part?  Their realtor told our realtor that their max price was 25k less than our asking price.  Really people? 

Lovely Cape-Cod, looking for a LTR...

So what has this whole process taught me so far?  There are a lot of reatlors out there who are complete ass hats.  I'm amazed with some of the feedback we get, for example the showing from Sunday left the following feedback "while the house is beautifully done, she does not want a Cape Cod".   Why in God's name are you showing your client a Cape Cod if she really doesn't want a Cape Cod?  Seeing it in person doesn't change the fact that it is a Cape Cod style house.  Or to another realtor, "my client really liked the house, but she needs to get comfortable with the area".  Why are you showing your client houses in a neighborhood that they don't like?  We've had realtors show up insanely late (the cape-cod lady was here 5 minutes after her one hour long appointment window ended) or some not show up at all.  At the end of the day we still live here!  Please respect our time by showing up on time, canceling appointments if you have no intention of coming and, above all, know your own client and don't show them something they would have ZERO interest in!  Ugh, it annoys me so much I even brought out the ctrl+B on that one.  Asshats (my guy excluded). 

As far as where we're looking to go, I'm started slowing down my searches on Realtor.com etc.  I've fallen in love with a number of houses, one in particular that's in Woodstown Borough, but I'm afraid to get too excited.  We've watched other houses we like be sold and we haven't even had a legit offer yet.  At this point I'm frustrated, but I'm trying to keep a good outlook.  John and I didn't expect to have the house on the market for less than a year, so to be in month 4 and to be this antsy is a little silly on my part.  I guess I didn't expect to have so much traffic through the house, which is why it is discouraging.  To have so many people come through and not one make a legit offer is what gets me down about the process.  We've had others leave awesome feedback ("top of their list, when do your clients want to close?" or "they love the house, keep us posted") but it hasn't turned into anything.  One of the appointments this past weekend, obviously not the one who hates cape-cods, expressed interest so time will only tell if anything comes out of that.  In the meantime, I'm trying to be patient!  

catching up - how I need to get my shit together

Well, my resolution of posting once a week has been shot to shit considering it has been over two months since I last posted.  I apologize to all seven of my trusty readers out there (Hi Mom) that I left you hanging for so long, but it has been a hectic few months.

Basically, this is all about how I need to get my shit together.

When I found out I was pregnant, I change a lot of behaviors.  I realized that a lot of what was normal for me would not be healthy for the baby.  Some stuff was an absolute no-brainer, I immediately stopped smoking as soon as I saw the positive test.  I also decided to make some less obvious changes - I stopped working all the time and started doing normal hours. I started eating better, I cut out coffee (though I did indulge in decaff as a treat) and I even managed to completely stop drinking Diet Coke which is amazing considering I'd have at least 20-30oz a day (with the exception of a few happy hours, where I cheated and had a DC). I manged to keep some of these habits up for a bit even when I returned to work from FMLA, but slowly they started creeping back.  My good eating habits pretty much went out the window, fast-food has become a way too frequent part of my weekly routine.  DC and massive amounts of coffee fuel my everyday existence.   In January, shit hit the fan and I started smoking again at work (for what its worth, only at work).  I'm back working 11-12 hour days again, yesterday was beginning of week three of me coming into work at 4am.  I'm generally not taking very good care of myself.

So basically, I need to get my shit together.

I keep saying to myself it was so easy to stop these bad habits when I found out I was pregnant, because I wasn't doing it for myself I was doing it for the baby.  You know what?  Just because Ari isn't inside of me any longer doesn't mean he doesn't deserve to have a healthy mom.  You know what else?  I need to change for me.  I have taken some steps to work towards being a healthier Andrea.  I joined Weight Watchers, and I'm down about 15 pounds from when I started.  I've committed to not smoking, and so far today I haven't a smoke at all and only two yesterday and none over the weekend, and no one has been murdered yet.  I've started a couch-to-5k type program and I've committed to doing some sort of activity at least five times a week. When I've gotten my ass up and out, I feel much better. Not just physically but mentally as well.  The hardest thing I'm going to have to do is let go of the work baggage.  My work related stress drives so many of the other things, I have no choice but to let go.  I'm trying to reconcile the fact that I will never be as caught up at work as I would like to be even if I worked 24/7 and there will always be work related stress.  I stopped working all hours of the day when I found out I was pregnant, and you know what?  The office didn't close down, production did not stop.  All was well.  And you know what?   If I stop coming in at 4am, the office won't close down.  Production will not stop.  All will be well.

So this is it.  The last of making excuses and not pushing myself to change.  The last of saying "it was so easy when I was pregnant" or "I'll go to the gym tomorrow, I'm too tired".  I'm not pregnant, but being pregnant shouldn't be the only time in my life when I get my health in check.  There will always be a reason not to change, but none of them outweigh the reasons to change.  This is me, getting my shit together for my son, for my husband and above all, for myself.  And don't you worry, I'll keep you posted along the way.

reflecting - Ari's ears & old Greek ladies

Wow!  I can't believe it has been almost 2 weeks since I've enlightened all of you with tales from my life!  I know, you all weep a thousand tears...So what have I been up to?  Cleaning, crocheting, mommy-ing, working, wife-ing, you know the usual.   I've been working really hard on my granny square blanket crochet project, I can't wait to share the progress with all of you!  I'll do that in a separate post considering that little squares of yarn pale in comparison to photos of the kiddo.

Mom!  My ears are just fine

The other day John and I were discussing, yet again, who we think Ari looks like the most.  It really throws us off that this kid has blonde hair and blue eyes - it looks like we stole him from a Swedish couple!  When I look at Ari, I see a lot of John especially from the nose down.  One thing we realized the other day when we were looking back through our pictures was that we think Ari has John's ears.  You can already see them starting to stick out!

Ari's adorable ears got us thinking about the strange advice we've received over the last 11 months, particularly the strange advice we've received by older Greek ladies.  We were warned that Ari's car seat was going to make his ears stick out.  We've also been told that we shouldn't buy shoes that are too big for him because it will encourage his feet to grow larger than normal.  John's mom was convinced that something was wrong with Ari because, according to her, John was able to hold conversations and run around by the time he was 9 months old.  Around Ari's first birthday we should shave his head so his hair will grow in thicker and healthier.  Hands down though, my favorite piece of advice was about the cats. We were told not to allow the cats near Ari's crib.  Reasonable right?  Probably thinking maybe there are some allergy concerns? Nope, not to allow the cats near Ari because they'll steal his breath (apparently this is a popular enough of a legend that Snopes has an article on it).  What kind of crazy advice have you been given?

sick - the first CY12 office cold

My office has notoriously horrible ventilation. By "my office" I mean the suite I work in - I dont want you to think I'm all fancy and have a door an whatnot, I'm a cube monkey. All 30 of us breathe the same recycled air. Think airplane cabin air minus the filtration. Whenever one person gets sick it makes it's way around the office. I pulled the short straw this week, lucky me.

I was saying to John that I would much rather have the flu for two days then deal with a cold. At least with the flu you know it's going to end and no one expects anything from you because, well you have the flu. A cold on the other hand can last two days or three weeks. There's never an end in sight. All of your symptoms are crappy but not bad enough to really take time off. And no matter how bad your head hurts or how wonderful it feels to feel like you're swallowing razor blades, no one gives a shit. Case in point, today at the office a co-worker commented on my pathetic sounding voice and even more pathetic appearance and asked sweetly "are you coming down with the flu", to which I replied "no, I think it's a cold". Her tone completely changed and she said "oh. It's JUST a cold" and rolled her eyes and walked away! No love for us cold sufferers out there.

Anyway, cold or no cold, I'm still crocheting away. Right now I'm enjoying a cup of tea, watching my new favorite show Infested (more on that later) and crocheting. I'm almost finished with the blanket! This isn't the best picture, it's from my iPhone (actually this whole post was written on my Blogger app, thanks technology), but here's a shot of my work in progress. Should be done soon!

crafting - upcoming crochet project

So remember when I said I wasn't as crafty as my friend Pinds?  Yeah, the statement still applies, but remember in that same post I said I was going to try to actually complete at least one project this year?  I'm actually on my way to following through.  Yay!  Right now I'm working on a much over due baby blanket for Ari.  It isn't pretty, the stitches are not exactly even, but you know what?  I'm almost done.  I have no idea why this crocheting thing is working better for me then the knitting thing, but hey I'll roll with it.  I started crocheting Ari's blanket about 3 weeks ago, I'm now on my third skein of yarn and the blanket is almost the right size.  Basically I just picked up the old yarn I had for the ill-fated knitted blanket and started crocheting in a simple shell pattern, there really wasn't much of a plan except for "I'll see how this looks after a bit".  So skein number three is well underway and I don't feel like ripping it all out nor am I completely embarrassed by it which to me is a sign of success!

The success with Ari's blanket has lead me to believe that I could take on an actual legit project.  Just in case I eff it up royally, I'm not going to show you what the finished product is supposed to look like, but I'm super excited about the yarn I purchased for the project, so I will share that.  The pattern called for particular colors in the Lion brand Wool-Ease line that no longer exist, so I drug John & Ari to JoAnn's with me to help find the colors needed in a different brand.  John was a good sport and helped me pick out the colors that best matched the pattern, without complaint (or at least he didn't complain out loud).  Aren't the colors pretty?

selling the house - progress report

Single family home, looking for a LTR...

We've had our house on the market now for a little over three weeks.  On Sunday, January 29th, we had our first open house!  It wasn't exactly the best feeling in the world, as I noted on Facebook, but I know it is a necessary evil.  After everything was said and done on Sunday, we had a total of 5 families come through so I guess that it was successful open house.

Aside from the open house, we've had a total of 9 appointments and I think one couple was pretty close to making an offer before deciding the house was too small.  That's the main feedback we're getting - great place, just a bit too small.  I don't know if I should be happy that this is the only negative feedback or frustrated.  If the feedback was "orange is a hideous color for the laundry room" or "there are way too many pictures of that ridiculously adorable baby up" then we could address it - paint the laundry room, remove pictures, etc.  There is nothing I can do about the size of the house!  It is a little over 1,200 square feet, just like most every other house in the neighborhood.  If someone is looking in our neighborhood, they aren't going to get much bigger than that.  Every house was built in the same cape-cod style.  At least our house had dormers in front and the back of the house was raised (for lack of better word) so the pitched roof is only in the front.  It opens up the bedrooms a bit.  Admittedly it is a smaller place, which is one of the reasons why we are looking to move, but when we were looking in 2007 we understood that it was the standard size for the neighborhood.  The market is different now, and buyers can afford to be pickier than we were in 2007 - we looked at a number of houses all over Bucks county and found that if we didn't make an offer the same day the house was gone.  This is obviously not the case now.

All told, I think the process is going good so far.  I was really worried we wouldn't get any traffic through, so the fact that we've had so many people in is a good sign, regardless if they think its too small.  This at least shows us that people are looking and their looking in our area.  Everyone who has left feedback about the price has said it was priced right, so our concerns about being priced too high for the area are quieted.  I will say that it is a giant pain in the ass to keep the house in Alimmatiri Show Ready condition.  I understand from when we were house hunting in 2007 that not everyone thinks their house should be absolutely spotless when people are scheduled to see the home.  John & I go absolutely crazy when we get the call/email that someone wants to see the house.  Almost every night we vacuum and put away wash (though we fell down on that job last week), but we almost do everything all over again (or at least double check everything again) in the hours leading up to a showing.  Here's the checklist we follow prior to someone arriving:

• Bathrooms: wipe down counters, dust mop floors, dry shower/sink (if needed), make sure toilet lids are closed, fix "queen mother" towel displays, hide "everyday usage" towels, Windex mirrors, Windex sink in downstairs bathroom (the glass gets spotty)
• Bedrooms: make our bed, straighten comforter/pillows/pillow-pal on the bed in Ari's room, fold Ari's awesome quilt over the end of the crib, arrange his animals, dust visable surfaces, turn bedside lights on in our room, vacuum again if puppy/kitty fur and/or Andrea's shedding is visible
• Kitchen: Windex counters and stove-top, wipe down fridge, microwave and dishwasher, dust mop, wipe down sink, make sure all dishes are put away, take down "everyday usage" dish towels & put up "queen mother" dish towels
• Living Room/Dining Room/Office: vacuum area rugs, dust mop hardwood floors, dust, vacuum couch & dog beds, leave the door to the closet in the office slightly open so it looks like we didn't close it all the way (the door sticks)
• In the 30 seconds before leaving the house: collapse pack & play, collect dogs, hide baby gates, put dogs in car, blow out candles, put Ari and pack & play in the car, grab entertainment for the sit-and-wait, grab any remaining random bags (laptop bag, diaper bag, Andrea's work bag).

It is a lot of work!  I wish John & I could be slightly less OCD, but I just can't imagine leaving our house in anything less than pristine condition when people are coming by with the intent of purchasing our home!  It would be like trying to sell one of our cars and not having it detailed before having someone stop by to look at it.  Cleaning out the poppy seeds from my AM everything bagels that fall in my emergency break lever-well-space thing could make the difference between someone buying my car and leaving it.  So making sure every little corner in our house is spotless could make the difference between someone liking our house and loving it.  I don't ever want someone to refer to our house as "remember the place with the cat/dog hair on the couch", just like John and I referred to one house we saw as the "split-level with all the laundry on the floor in the one bedroom".  I want someone to say "remember that amazing house on Hillcrest Ave?  Not only was it awesome, it was spotless.  Let's make an offer right now".  

Fingers crossed kids.  Hopefully this house will be gone sooner rather than later. 

failing, mommy style - Ari's Black Eye

I had to send John the following text message this afternoon:
                "I accidentally gave Ari a black eye" 
It's true.  I gave my ten and a half month old a black eye. Obviously not on purpose, I don't go around purposely punching my baby, but man it certainly was a big Mommy Fail moment...

We had another showing this afternoon, thankfully John did not have to be in the field today so he was home with me to assist in the pre-showing mad dash around the house.  We worked out the logistics of who was going where with what - John ended up taking his car and running some errands, I took our SUV loaded with the pack & play (we try to de-clutter the living room when we leave), the baby & the dogs to go hang out in the mall parking lot while the house was being shown.  I realize I probably look like a crazy person sitting in the parking lot, crocheting, with two dogs and a baby in the back, but it is what it is.  I digress, anyway when I came home John was still out running around, so I unpacked the SUV and brought everything/everyone back in the house.  On a normal day, one of us puts together the pack & play while the other entertains Ari.  Since I was flying solo and I didn't have a second set of hands, I figured it would be easier to put the kid in his "pod" on the couch and put the play pen together.  For whatever reason this seemed like a better idea than putting him in his crib upstairs, honestly because I didn't feel like going back and forth.  I plopped him in his pod and started putting the play pen back together.  I was 99.9% done, all I was doing was putting the sheet on the little mattress and when it happened.  Ari leaned too far forward in the pod to try to reach for something on the coffee table and he started to go over head first off the couch.  I reacted and tried to grab him and in doing so my right thumb went right into his face.  He was startled, but I think I cried more than he did.  I felt, and still do feel, horrible!  Thankfully it hit him where it did because a little higher and my nail would have gone into his eye.

Thanks mom.

All said and done, it probably won't be a full on black eye but you can already see the slight bruise and cut from where my nail hit him under the eye.  Poor guy!  John is doing his best to make me feel better, reminding me that part of growing up and exploring will sometimes lead to bumps and bruises.  FACT: Ari will get hurt and there will be nothing I can do about it.  John also told me that 50% of parents drop their kid in the first three months, so if we've come this far and this is the only injury we're not doing too bad!  He might have made that statistic up, but I really don't care, it did make me smile!  I know the entire experience upset me more than it upset Ari - in fact as I was holding him, crying and repeating "mommy is so sorry" over and over again, he started playing with my nose and laughing.  I think the kid is ok and I'll manage, that is until my next mommy mistake.  

well rested - shhh

I'm actually afraid to talk about this, so I figured writing about it would be a good way to celebrate without running the risk of jinxing it.

In November we drove down to Florida to visit with John's mom.  The drive down and the subsequent stay there really threw off Ari's sleep schedule.  Up to that point, he kind of just created/maintained his own sleep schedule, he was a really great baby and had been sleeping through the night (for the most part) since I had returned to work in June.  The Florida trip threw everything out the window.  When we got back it was to the point where he would only sleep if one of us was holding him.  Although one of my favorite things to do is take a little nap with him, sleeping in the twin bed in his room with him is a far cry from "taking a little nap".  After heeding the warnings from some of my Mommy & Daddy, Auntie & Uncle, (and one "uncle" who happens to be a pediatric nurse) friends on Facebook, we decided we needed to kick this bad habit before it developed into a 6 year old Ari crawling in bed with us.  We started the Cry It Out (CIO) method around the middle of December. It really worked to get him to go down for the night, though the first few days were horrible. Basically we'd let him cry for 5 minutes before going back in his room to comfort him and we'd repeat these intervals until he fell asleep. Thankfully the longest was a total of 40 minutes, but possibly the 40 longest minutes of my life! John was the one going in to comfort him but listening to my baby cry without going to him was really painful.  Anyway, CIO lasted about a week and Ari started going to bed without much complaint each night since the beginning of January.

After successfully living through a week of CIO, with the exception of a few 'I can't find my binky' freak-outs moments,  Ari started sleeping through most of the night but he was not sleeping very late in the AM.  Without fail he would get up between 5:30 and 6:00 every morning and he was quick to let you know that he was ready to be out of his crib - read as: screaming like he was being murdered in the face - so we'd run in with a bottle to calm him down (and keep the neighbors from calling DYFS).  Not a big deal for me since I get up at 4:45 and I'm usually out the door by 5:30, but I know John would definitely like to sleep past 5:30 considering he has the toughest job in the world - he works from home full-time and takes care of Ari.  Many nights John is up into the wee hours of the morning catching up on work he couldn't get done during the day, though he admits sometimes this is due to the fact he just rather play with Ari than work but still, 5:30am-1:00am is a really long day regardless of the circumstances.  This past Sunday night, Ari went down at 8:00pm and got up at 7!  When he woke up, he didn't cry, he just played in his crib until about 7:30 when John grabbed him!  The same happened yesterday.  Today, my work from home (WFH) Wednesday, he slept until 8am!  I still woke up early (6ish) out of habit, but I was able to go back to sleep until about 7 when I decided to get a jump on the day and I was nice to get up because I wanted to, not because I had to!

excited - the house is up!

We're no longer getting ready to list the house, the house is officially for sale!  As of last Friday our wonderful a little "Alimmatiris Estate" went up on the market.  Within a few hours of the listing two separate realtors contacted Joe about seeing our place.  Within hours!  So we had two showings on Saturday, one on Sunday and another one yesterday.   4 showings in 5 days in a crap economy, with our house being priced higher than the one down the block...  I'm cautiously optimistic, which in Andrea speak means "slightly less pessimistic than usual". But hey, so far so good.  I honestly was really worried the house was going to go up and we wouldn't get any hits at all, so I'm definitely pleasantly surprised.  If you're interested, take a peek at the listing.  Better yet, take a peek at the listing and then tell all of your friends who are looking to buy that they should buy the house because honestly, it is pretty great & the people who live there are freakishly awesome (so I hear) and the awesomeness is now apart of the house.  Seriously though, if you're looking for something in the Philadelphia area, give Big Joe a yell.  He came highly recommended by a woman I both trust and admire, and so far John & I love working with Joe & Stacey.  Now if I'm still sitting on this same couch in this very same living room in June 2013, I might have a slightly different opinion (Joe if you're reading this I'm only slightly kidding).

In other real estate related news, John & I are doing exactly what we shouldn't be doing and are obsessively searching through listings on Realtor.com for houses in NJ.  Though we won't be actively looking until we get an offer on the house, we are actively researching (researching = finding nice houses on Realtor.com then spending lots of hours in the car driving around South Jersey looking at the neighborhoods).  We're not sure exactly where we'll end up!  So far I'm leaning towards Swedesboro/Logan, Woodstown/Pilesgrove, & Mullica Hill to start.  Its rather ironic that 12 years ago all I could think of was getting the hell out of South Jersey.  Now I can't wait to get back.  Until Ari, I never realized how important it would be for me to be close to my family.  We spend almost every weekend driving back & forth to Alloway (about an hour and forty minute drive each way) so Ari can hang out with his aunts, YiaYia & Pops.

It wouldn't be a post without a picture of Ari, so here's the obligatory baby photo of the evening.  I was sitting on the floor messing around with my camera and he kept reaching over and trying to tap me on the head.  Actually what I interpreted as "I want to tap mom on the head" was probably more like "I want to rip mom's hair out by the roots", but whatever.  Anyway, he looked adorable peeking over the side of his pack & play, so I took a quick shot.  Don't you just want to eat his little face!

recovering - Ari discovered the stairs!

My little man is ten months old today.  I know this isn't the best photo, but I just had to share.  Ari lunged at the camera when I tried to take it - we were nano-seconds away from having a drool covered camera.  I think this is a great shot to commemorate his 10th month here.

Today was the first official day of my nice 5-day weekend.  I'm happy to report I got to sleep in for an extra hour and a half (don't get too excited, I got up at 6) before diving into a rather hectic morning.  After spending a few hours working - when am I ever really off - John and I dove into finishing up the last minute preparations before our realtor, Joe, and his wife, Stacey, arrived to take photos.  Thankfully the weather cleared up enough before they arrived!  The photos won't be sunny, which is a bummer, but I'm sure they got some pretty decent shots.  Before they left Joe put a lock box on the door - our house is almost officially for sale!  I will certainly be posting links to the listing as soon as I get my grubby little hands on it.  Although it has been a hectic week trying to prep the house for photos, it is really nice to sit back in an ultra-clean and mostly de-cluttered house.

House listing aside, my life as I know it is completely over.  Ari has discovered the stairs.  More accurately, he's discovered how to climb the stairs.  I'm sitting here recovering from the excitement and ensuing panic that I feel regarding this discovery.

Hey, you mean you don't HAVE to carry me?

This is pretty cool mom.  

Safety First!  Thanks Dad!

Almost there.

At the top!

The first trip up the stairs was a success!  Now that he has been returned to the confines of his pack & play, I can finally exhale!

getting ready to list the house!

Some super exciting news this week - J & I decided to just bite the bullet and list the house.  On Wednesday met with a really awesome realtor, Big Joe McCarthy.  Joe was highly recommended to us by my boss and I can see why!  His personality fits right in with J & I, he was able to keep up with our witty banter.  J & I liked him immediately.  Joe and his wife are coming out next Thursday to take pictures and our happy little house will be on the market next Friday.  As excited as I am about listing the house, I'm also a little bummed.  We are going to take a rather large hit on the resale - we're listing for less than we bought our house for in 2007!  So right off the bat we're losing money.  On the flip side, this is the time to buy a house so the money we're willing to spend will go a lot further than it would if the housing market was still booming.  What I'm truly bummed about is that we'll be saying good-bye to our first house together.  As much as I complain about this place, I really do love it.  It is our first home - we got engaged here, our first child was born here (well at the hospital, but you know what I mean).  This is where our life together really started, so it will be a little sad to say goodbye to it, but saying goodbye here means we get to say hello to our forever home. 

In other unrelated news, I found a few pictures on my memory card that I forgot to load to Flickr.  I love this picture of A3 in his little emo baby outfit!

I can't believe how much bigger my baby has gotten since this picture was taken on 10.29!  It is absolutely amazing to me how much he changes.  Just this week he went from being able to stand without holding on for only a few seconds at the begining of the week.  Today when I got home from work, he just stood in the middle of the pack & play 'chatting' away!   I feel like I miss a lot when I'm at work - I'm super jealous that J gets to spend so much time with him, though I will never envy J for having to work & take care of a baby all day.

making her 2012 resolutions

Before I get into 2012 resolutions, lets do a quick recapp of how this whole thing started. I initially created this blog in January of 2011 after my dear buddy Pinds started her blog last year, which she created to keep track of her projects. I decided to steal that idea and keep track of the adventures of my pregnancy and experiences as a new mom (among other things). One thing you will quickly realize about the difference between Pinds and I is that she is insanely creative. And crafty. And grammatically correct. And far more organized than any other human being I know. Although I stole Linds' idea last year, I did not steal her organization and follow through (nor her ability to properly use the English language). So here's to hoping that in 2012 my follow-through and procrastination will look a little more like Pinds and a little less like me (I can never hope to be as crafty or creative, so I'm not even going to try).

Now on to those resolutions.

• Blog: Let's actually get this done this year Andrea! I am committing to posting at least once a week. I think I can do that!
• Take pictures, lots and lots of pictures:  I took a ton of pictures of A3 in the beginning.  The first 3 months of his life are very well documented.  However, once I went back to work the photos started to become less and less frequent.  The majority of the photo's I've taken since June are on my iPhone and aren't that great.  I need to actually use my awesome new CoolPix L120 and I hope to spend sometime with my trusty D80 but if I can just get in the habit using the point & shoot vs. my iPhone at least once a week I'll be a happy gal.
• Obligatory 'lose weight' resolution, with a twist:  So I had a baby in 2011 (FYI).  I gained a TON of weight (50 pounds) with the kiddo, not to mention I gained about 20 pounds right before I got knocked up.  With that said, I'm not going to set myself up for failure by setting some unrealistic goal.  My resolution is to simply be healthy.  I'm going to start using MyFitnessPal again, which helped a buddy of mine lose a bunch of weight last year (it really is a good app, if you're interested).  I would like to get to the gym ideally five times a week, realistically I'll be happy if I go at least once.  I would like to eat better, cut out the fast food and super snacking and if I'm lucky, I might even be able to get Mr. A to conform to using normal portion sizes when he crafts his culinary masterpieces for dinner. 
• Knitting / Crocheting:  I am committing to finally finishing at least ONE project this year.  I know that isn't a big number, but I've been working on the same baby blanket since I found out I was pregnant (July 2010 in case you were wondering).  Best part?  The blanket is ugly.  So it is time to scrap it and start over.  I think a class at Y-Knot Knit might be in my future. 
• Get Organized:  Pretty straightforward, but I need to get my life organized again (both at the office and at home).  

I know 5 resolutions might not seem like a lot, but I case you haven't noticed I have a hard time with actually following through (hence this is really the first post in almost a year).   Wish me luck kids!  Here's to a blogging, photograph taking, knit project making, healthier, organized me in 2012!   Cheers!