It's Good to be Home - Rambling!

It is always nice to get away. To get out of the routine. To do different things. But I am always ready to come home. We had a great week in Ohio. It was extremely busy. See Tim's blog for more details.

It is funny how quickly your perspective changes. Before we moved to WV, we lived in Akron, a small city in Ohio. We lived near downtown on a very busy street. Lots of traffic, lots of close neighbors. It never bothered me. Now we live in the woods. (hence Adventures in the 100 acre wood!) Our closest neighbor is about 3/4 of a mile away. (except my parents) In the summer no other houses are visible. We go to visit
Tim's family who live in rural Ohio and one of our first comments were how much traffic noise they have! And yes they live near a fairly busy road, but it has maybe 1/4 of the traffic we were used to in Akron less than one year ago!

Now we are back to our 100 acre wood and it feels good. This week is also busy. We are having a camp out here for the kids at church this Friday and a church picnic on Saturday. Lots to clean up and get ready outside. We left the house in good shape, (I can't stand to come back from a long trip to a mess.) but there is of course a mountain of laundry to do and mail, bills and blogs to catch up on. It will get done. I am not going to stress over it.

I decided while we were gone that when we got back, we needed to start letting Vivian cry it out to go to sleep. She does well going to sleep during the day, but at night we were having a rough time. While we were gone I learned to play poker. (just fun no money) We would try to play at night after the kids (except Vivian) went to sleep. She was such a stinker. She would go to sleep and after I put her down she would wake up within ten minutes. It was so aggravating. I tried every trick I know!! Three nights I just gave up (this was around 11:30 or later) and went to bed with her while the rest of the adults played cards. Of course she slept just fine then! UGH! And we moved her to the crib when Tim came to bed.

So today for her first nap I did the routine with her and put her down. She never even broke into a full cry and was asleep within 20 minutes. Her second nap we were running around so she slept in the car. This evening I did the routine and put her down. In about five minutes she was crying. I cleaned up the kitchen, folded laundry (it is easier for me to let her cry if I am busy), she was quiet. I went in to check on her (dumb move) and she wasn't quite asleep. She started crying again. I started blogging. Within a few minutes she was quiet again. I didn't check on her this time. Keep typing! After a few more minutes still quiet. I check the monitor to be sure, still quiet. Very gently open the bedroom door and SHE IS ASLEEP! Ok now the kick yourself in the rear time. Why didn't we do this months ago???!!! You would think on the fourth child I would know to try this sooner.

The other thing I really want to accomplish before Tim goes back to work full time (mid August) is potty training Nolan. We got a start on this awhile back, but haven't really been consistent with it. Part of the problem is he now thinks it is funny to poop in his diaper. I think because we have made too big a deal of it. You know "Oh yucky. You went poop in your diaper!" The other problem is I really need three or four days (in a row) to work with him. Days where we don't have to run anywhere and I am not hard pressed to get a bunch of stuff done at home. Ok I rarely have one day like that let alone three or four in a row! I think I need to just mark out three days on the calendar and just do it! Or maybe he will just wake up tomorrow and just decide to be potty trained! Oh wow I just drifted to lala land there I think! :)

Ok so now Vivian is asleep and I am still rambling on. It is good to be home. Good to be back with you all and good to get back to the normal. Even if normal means mountains of laundry, an empty refrigerator, and two in diapers!