Is It Fall Yet?

As I sit here on a calm Saturday morning, it is cool enough to wear yoga pants and a sweater this morning whilst I sip my coffee. This...is bliss. We have had a record breaking summer for high temperatures (okay, I don't know that for a fact, but is sure feels like it! Definitely the hottest summer I've lived here) and this pregnant mama is ready for the cooler weather that fall brings. I'm not one to thrive in a hot, humid climate...so this 30+ degree weather...I was not made for. It's not what we sign up for living in the prairies in Alberta!
Plus? I'm burnt out. Since the beginning of July, my schedule has been GO!GO!GO! If I wasn't working 2-3 shifts a week we were always busy. We were out of town or doing day trips to the city, camping, the lake, our BC vacation, swimming lessons...busy busy!...I wanted a busy summer and I got it. And now, I want summer to be over. I just want to relax. I want to stay in my own house one full day and not be committed to going anywhere. I think that's why I've not been feeling as good with this pregnancy. Busy, on my feet, plus all the heat...makes me sore and achy, so I'm looking forward to relaxing. Well, as much relaxing as I can get with a 2.5 year old to take care of! In the next 3 months, I want lots of coffee visits with friends, play dates with Luke, and snuggles with Blake, and a visit or two to see my mom, GG, and to see Ben, Jess, & Abby's new house. I want to get my maternity pictures taken with Katie. I want to do lots of baking and cooking for harvest. I just want life to calm down before Squishy turns it upside down again (and I mean that in the best of ways!) in November. I want to enjoy a date with my husband, it's been far too long.

Anyone else burnt out from a busy summer? Don't get me wrong...I've loved this summer. Braden had SO much fun and he's at such an enjoyable age. Nothing terrible at all about these twos for us, and that's the truth! But I want to enjoy home time and savor these last 12 weeks as a family of 3. I look so forward to meeting Squishy, but I need to cherish some down time and unwind from the summer shenanigans. I was going to write our "what we've done this summer" list. But just thinking about it makes me more exhausted, so I'll spare us all!

I think my last summer activity will be another trip to the zoo on a cooler day. I did buy a season pass after all...so I might as well make it worth my while! It's fun seeing Braden truly enjoy all these activities this year, this age has just been awesome!

Busy as a Bee

Well I've been keeping myself extremely busy lately. There's not much at work these days so I'm taking the opportunity to get stuff done around the house. I got out the other day during Braden's nap and spend about 1/2 hour picking a garbage bag full up of stuff from our house that all the lovely tradespeople (well, most of them) left behind. Then I opened the last crate from our builder and hauled out all of our window screens, hosed them off outside and then brought them inside and washed them all, along with the windows and window sills. It was quite the job, but it feels very good to have finally accomplished a task that has been nagging at me forever. Also nice to be able to crack a window open!

Then this AM I was downstairs all morning cleaning up all the mess that's been down there essentially since we moved in. Insulation, boxes, drywall pieces, cardboard, plastic wrap - you name it. Then I went over to the old house and cleaned out the deep freeze. I made 2 trips to the dump/recycling depot with a truck box FULL of stuff. Jerry was over yesterday and has taped and mudded a basement and our storage room downstairs. It will be SO NICE to have an extra bedroom downstairs so we can have more company, comfortably. As soon as Jerry is done sanding, I will get at it and start painting - there's always something to do around here! The theatre room is ready to be taped and mudded too I believe and as is the garage. Sorry, I gotta stop blogging about this - it's making me tired again!

Braden Stuff

Braden has been changing so much lately. He is growing like a weed and I'm assuming that's why he's been sleeping so much again and is getting back into a whiny/fussy stage. He still has only 2 teeth on the bottom, 6 on the top but his bottom gums are really swollen so hopefully he will get a bunch more teeth and just get it over with! Yesterday he had a 4 hour nap, I thought for sure it would be a 1 nap day....but then he needed another 1+ hr nap before supper too!

He is really wanting to climb on everything now and can almost make it up on our couch now and is even closer to getting on Grandma's couch. He is like a little Luke all over again. I remember thinking to myself when Luke was this age and running, running, running everywhere and SO busy "oh my godness! How does Laura keep up with him everyday!?" And now it's me! Speaking of Luke and Braden here's a pic from last weekend:

Then mom came for the weekend so I could work ALL weekend (yay!) and she came bearing bubble gifts!

Making "brrrrrrm! vrrrrooooom!" sounds:

One of the hardest things of having a busy little 15.5 month old is going out. I'm almost to the point of wanting to never leave my house. He never used to be one of those kids that fell asleep instantly in his car seat or loved his car seat rides, but he was always just content to be there. BUT, then he started running and it's like he doesn't want to be "stuck" in his car seat anymore. He can't even stand the ride to Strathmore anymore, he fusses off and on for most of the ride there.

So I reached out to my Facebook friends for suggestions and almost everyone, the "younger" moms said "portable DVD player". At first I thought - sure! Why not? I'll try anything. But I don't have the TV on for him at home, he doesn't have the attention span for TV shows/cartoons at home, and I think he would get really ticked off that he couldn't have/play with the DVD player if it was in the vehicle for him. I'm all for safety and have intentions of keeping him rear-facing in his car seat, but I even flipped it forward to give him a trial to see if that helped, but it seemed to make it worse. I will try a few more trips with him forward, but if it's the same I might as well keep him rear-facing.

Of course I won't stay in my house, but with the advice of the "older" moms (including my own) was essentially just to tough it out, don't give in, and "train" him to put up with his car seat. I sleep trained hm, so I figure I can car seat train him too. Eating out is very difficult right now too, he can tolerate the high chair for maybe 15-20 minutes and then he wants to get out and run. I'm hoping that this is just a phase and he'll just learn that car seat rides and high chair time is just part of life and he can't get out and run! :) I've had a lot of people say to me "oh the terrible twos are starting early!". I really don't appreciate that. Braden is not acting terribly, he's just frustrated because he still can't communicate everything or even most things that he wants. Signing helps, but he still doesn't have enough vocabulary to tell us what he wants. I think this is probably a normal thing for the age he's at. If you have any positive words of encouragement, I'd love to hear them! :)