The Struggle is Real

Written 9/29/19 but published late

So I've been struggling lately. I've been waking up every morning with my teeth clenched and I even had a stress dream last night that reflects my feelings. I recently had an interview at another clinic (the third clinic I've interviewed at). I thought the interview went really well and the clinic director (also a PT) and I really hit it off! We talked for like an hour and a half and I felt sure I would hear from her soon. But that was a week and a half ago and I've heard nothing but crickets. I even sent a follow-up email with no response. Not a "no," not a "sorry we chose someone else" just nothing. So anyway, in my dream, I was at this clinic and I was looking through a window into the director's office and she was interviewing another girl who was just so relaxed and confident and better than me in pretty much every way. And the director offered her a job right on the spot. And I woke up feeling just awful. It's hard for me to be home all day with the kids, especially with Eric gone 12 hours a day and us not even having our own space to be in. Trey and Patty's house is starting to get crowded now with them and us and Matthew and Valerie and Silva and Emma all living here! But I don't think that's the real issue. I think its more that I just feel so depressed about the fact that I've applied for 7 different jobs, been interviewed by 3 of them and most of the places have just not gotten back to me at all. I never heard from any of the school jobs I applied for. I did get one job offer from a clinic but they COMPLETELY low balled me on the salary. Like insultingly low. So I counter-offered and thought I made it very clear that I was open to negotiation and they didn't even bother to respond. Which I think is rude and frustrating and makes me not want to work there anyway. And I guess I just feel pressured because 1) I spent so much time and money getting this career where I can help people and really make a difference and now I'm not even using it 2) Levi is old enough for preschool and really wants to go to preschool but we can't afford to send him unless I'm working and 3) I just don't do well being a stay at home mom. I feel like my brain is atrophying. I find myself wondering what to do all day every day. I am bored, my kids are bored and honestly, I just don't particularly like playing incredibles, or fight or whatever it is Levi wants to do. My little boy is all about the action- running, and jumping and wrestling and hitting and whacking things with pretend swords and shooting with pretend guns. Which is super typical and great but I would just so much rather read books or do art or something! He's s sweet kid and can be so snuggly and he is so smart and has a great memory but he is also passionate and opinionated and when he wakes up too early or doesn't get enough sleep he can be soooo difficult. This morning he woke up at 6 (which is way too early for him) and subsequently had a melt down because his cheerios were floating on his milk. He wanted me to pour more milk for him and didn't understand that even with more milk the cheerios would not stay under the milk. And it was all my fault in his mind. So he threw a screaming fit and tried to hit me. And the morning just continued on that vein with Emery also chiming in on the screaming and trouble-making. And it's especially hard for me to deal with all of this right now because the biggest issue this past week is that Emery no longer sleeps. Ok, that's an exaggeration, but she's been waking up multiple times a night, sometimes for HOURS at a time. And waking up early on top of that. On Thursday she got up at 4:30 am and WAS UP FOR THE DAY. It's killing me. And she's been fighting naps which is ridiculous because she should be so tired! The last few weeks I've been trying to transition her to one nap a day because 1) it is so much easier schedule-wise and 2) she has been refusing her afternoon nap for a while which just doesn't work because then she was only napping from like 9:30 to 11:30 and then trying to go from 11:30 all the way to bedtime with no nap which meant she was so tired and cranky by bedtime. Anyway, maybe she isn't ready for 1 nap a day? I don't know, but also she is cutting a new bottom tooth. I can just see it starting to poke through the surface and I'm thinking/hoping that's the cause of a lot of her recent sleep struggles but even when we give her Tylenol it doesn't seem to help so I don't know. All I know is that I'm tired. I'm tired and angry all the time and I just want to be in my own house and I want to go back to work and I feel like we are just moving through molasses on everything. It takes forever to close on the house, it's taking forever to try to get a job, etc, etc. I find myself catastrophizing a lot, most commonly something along the lines of "what if she never sleeps again?!?!?" It also doesn't help that we've been here for 3 months now and I still don't have any friends. I tried to get together with the one other young person in the Denton 4th ward but then her daughter got sick, then my mom was in town, then she was out of town, etc. It just hasn't worked out. My life in Oregon feels like a lifetime ago when I was a different person. It's like I've taken a giant step backward. No more job, no more friends, now I have roommates who eat all our food and make not-so-subtle comments about my parenting constantly and I find myself having to label everything and work around other people's messes. We can't get into our house soon enough! But at the same time, I worry that once we move into our own house I will get even more lonely. But at least then we will be in our ward with other young families and a vested interest in getting to know them. And Eric's commute will be an hour and a half shorter every day which I'm hoping will make a big difference.

I know I need to wean and sleep train Emery. But I dont' know how to. Especially with her and Levi sharing a room right now. It's not like we can just let her cry because that will just wake up Levi who would then also cry and yell and double our trouble. I feel stuck. And I find myself wanting to escape a lot. I've been listening to more audio books. I finished Educated which was sooo good. And I'm almost done with this fun short fantasy series by Mercedes Lackey. I've also been doing string art again. I'm working on a big project for our master bedroom. It's a 24"x24" mandala in white on a deep dark blue background. I'm loving how it's turning out!

I'm realizing that when I don't get enough sleep, I devolve into a short-tempered, dramatic and depressed version of myself. And I'm sure that there are so many other things I could be doing better to help my mood as well: working out more, taking a probiotic, doing better about my scripture study and prayer, talking to a counselor, etc. I know I could/should be doing these things. But the daily grind sucks the will out of me. I feel like I can't do all these things and also take care of my children well and attend to my other responsibilities. I think the most important element is sleep. Maybe this week I will make a concentrated effort to read my scriptures every morning, work out right after the kids are in bed, and then go to bed super early and see if that helps.

Anyway, aside from me being a Debbie Downer, there have been some good things happening around here, as highlighted by these pictures!:

My mom came to visit and it was wonderful as always! We went to the zoo and played and just hung out mostly. 

The petting zoo was actually open at the zoo so the kids got to brush some goats which they both really enjoyed. 

Emery stole grandma's glasses and looks just like a little librarian! Sooo cute! 

We went to a little carnival in Little Elm and stood in ridiculously long lines for rides. I was melting but Levi had a great time! He rode a little roller coaster and some motorcycle ride but his favorite was bumper cars with Daddy. 

We went to the Spanish ward's cultural night in support of Valerie's family. Silva and Emery are just the cutest cousins as always. 

Just some boys and their trains.

Mike and Kristie got a new swing that my kids love

Oh the slime disaster! I took the kids down to the playstreet museum in Flower Mound and as we were leaving one of the workers gave Levi some homemade slime. I made the huge mistake of letting him "hold"it in the car. At a light I turned back and saw this! The slime was EVERYWHERE! And then I freaked out a little and Levi started crying because he couldn't get the slime off of his hands and his shorts and it was altogether a disaster! I ended up just throwing those clothes of his away and spending over half an hour scrubbing his carseat with vinegar that night to get most of the slime off. I have definitely learned my lesson! No slime in the car ever! 

These girls will hold hands when going for walks outside. I just love them! 

Puddle jumping (or rather running through!) with Daddy! 

I just love my bleached blond babe! 

All the house things!

We closed on our house!!!! The day has finally come and we are officially homeowners!! I can barely believe it. And I am wasting no time in diving into the remodel! All the utilities are in our name, Eric and I went and picked out countertops on Wednesday night, and I've got 5 trades coming tomorrow and Tuesday to measure things and give estimates! I bought the mortar to mortar-wash the fireplace and I have measured everything and made plans. The countertops will be ridiculously expensive (it was a bit of a stark reality check when they told us the estimate) but I really think they will be worth it for us. I just can't wait to start transforming this place into our home the way we want it! We've got Levi's mountain decals ordered and new trash cans ordered and our CREATE letters decorated to go above the craft table. I've got a million house things on my mind and I love it. This week while I am in the house I will take all my before pictures so that I can share before and afters.

Anyway, so that's been the big thing on my mind. But even with all this going on, I've been trying to make sure the kids and I spend quality time together too so that we aren't spending all our time running errands for our new house. On Friday night we had planned to go camping but the cold has finally come (yay!!!!) and it was just too darn freezing for us to sleep outside. So instead, we set up our tent in the backyard by the fire pit and set up our air mattress inside with a bunch of blankets and we did s'mores over the fire and read books and snuggled and even though it was cold outside it was cozy in the tent and it was honestly way more relaxing and fun than I thought it would be. It was so nice to kind of unplug from everything and just chill together. And then we just went inside and put the kids to bed like normal so we got a regular night's sleep. Yay! Also, Emery is finally doing better with her sleep again knock on wood! She actually slept all the way through last night! We put her down at the regular time and she didn't make a peep till we got her up for church this morning at 6:45. It was GLORIOUS!

Another random note, I have been really making an effort to do good workouts every single Tues, Thurs and Saturday and I am starting to feel a difference! I am not dying during the workouts anymore and I feel like in general I am starting to feel more fit and have more energy. I love it!

I realized that I haven't taken many pictures lately but here's what I've got. It's mostly pictures of Levi and Emery being cute together and with their cousins. :)

Emery's bangs are long enough now to be pulled back and it is just the cutest thing!! And that face. 

She just has the best smile ever!

Levi's cute little soccer team on picture day!

I made this for our room. You can't really tell from this picture but it's big: 24" x24" and I really like how it turned out! 

House Hunted!

We bought a house! Or rather, we have made an offer on a house and the sellers accepted! We still have to go through the home inspection and still have time to change our minds of course, but if all goes well, the keys will be in our hands by Oct 11th at the latest! Here it is:

So cute!!

As soon as we got preapproved for our mortgage we dived right into house hunting. Because I've been looking on Redfin and Realtor for forever, we already had a good idea of what we wanted/needed so it went pretty fast. We looked at a few houses with Curtis last Saturday and then a few more on Monday (Thank you Labor Day! haha) and then a new one had a price drop that put it in our price range on Friday, we went and saw it Saturday morning first thing and decided to jump on it! It checks all our boxes, has great curb appeal and is in an amazing school district. One of my favorite things about it is that it has a secondary master upstairs that will be perfect for when my parents or sister come to visit. There are several cosmetic changes we will need to make and it definitely needs a tree in the backyard ASAP but I'm starting to get excited about it. I sat down yesterday and made a list with Eric of tier 1-4 things that we need to buy/do for the house. Tier 1 are things to be done before we move in (like replace the kitchen floor and buy a washer and dryer) and tier 4 is things to be done sometime later down the road (like build a pergola for the back patio). I wouldn't say I'm in love with the house yet but I think I will be once we update it and get it how we want it. I think it's hard for me to be super excited about the house because I still feel really unfamiliar with the area. There's just so much unknown. We tried to go and visit the ward today. We drove 35 minutes to get there for 8 am church but when we pulled into the parking lot there were only a handful of cars. We were like, "oh no!" So we went inside and knocked on the stake president's door and sure enough, it was stake conference today! So I guess we will have to try again next week. Thank goodness we have until next Monday evening to change our minds and still get our earnest money back because I really need to see if the ward is welcoming/friendly/full of people our age before we decide for sure on the house. I mean, the church is just such a huge component of our social life and since we are planning on staying several years, it is crucial that we will be able to find people we click with in the ward. I need me some friends out here!

So that's our really big news. I'm excited to get into our own space in here. Since I last wrote in here, Matthew, Valerie and Silva have also moved into Trey and Patty's house. It's so fun to have them here and Silva and Emery are ridiculously cute together and like to share food with each other and give hugs. But it does mean more sharing of space, less privacy and our food and diapers are disappearing at an alarming rate! Haha. Although I have talked to them about the last issue and hopefully that will start to improve. Since they moved in, we have split up the days for making dinner. It didn't go so well last week just because Matthew had taken charge of Tuesday and Thursday and those are also the nights that Levi has soccer practice/games so the timing is challenging. We may have to switch some things around because on Thursday for example, I ended up having to scramble and make Levi dinner myself before we left because the meal wasn't ready in time for us to eat before we needed to leave (despite my telling Matthew at least twice that day what time we were planning on leaving for soccer). But it is nice to only have to menu plan and cook for half the days!

Emery and Silva. They like to ride in the little push car and take turns riding and pushing each other. Cousin playtime is the best! 

One of Emery's favorite activities is to ride in this little motorized car with Katie! She LOVES it.

Levi also likes to ride with Katie or Carson. He's hesitant to try to drive himself though.

In other recent news, I had two job interviews week before last in outpatient peds clinics. Both of them said they would get back to me by the end of last week but neither of them did which I'm guessing is a pretty good sign that I didn't get either job. Which is really a bummer. I feel likeI do not interview super well. I should probably do some practicing with Eric or something. He is great at that kind of thing. I did get a call on Thursday for a third clinic I had applied to and the lady said she would email me to set up an interview on Thursday or Friday but then she never did either. I wish people weren't so flakey. Just do what you say you're going to do! It's not that hard. If you don't think you'll be able to do it, don't say you will! It's so annoying.

Anyway, so I may be back to the drawing board on the job hunt which kind of sucks because I really do need a job and Levi is starting to really miss daycare and keeps asking to go to school. He is definitely ready for preschool. Although it has been a nice relaxing summer hanging out here at the ranch. He has gotten so imaginative this summer. He has imaginary friends (2 unicorns plus Poli, Amber and Roy from Robocar Poli the tv show) that he talks to constantly while he plays. He loves to be outside and is constantly climbing trees, playing "races" with his cousin Carson, "fixing" Papi or Nona's cars, watering the garden (and himself) with the hose, and just playing. He also likes to tell stories. For example, it just took him forever to flush and wash his hands after going potty because he kept getting distracted telling me about how Paw Patrol lives in his toy boat and how he climbs up on the roof and goes down the yellow slide and also about how grandma comes on Tuesday (we are all very excited!) and how we should make her a welcome sign and cookies and a goodbye sign and goodbye cookies and how he wants to show her his room with his clothes and especially his new pj masks underwear. He is definitely growing up.

Several weeks ago for FHE we had a lesson about how faith is like a seed and planted a little basil seed. I honestly didn't have alotof faith that it would sprout. I am not a good plant mom! But it actually did! Levi and I were so proud I took a picture of him with it! 

Just my little ranch boy out with no shirt and no shoes "cutting" the grass with a stick.

"Take a picture of me mom!"-instantly does emo face. So cute though! 

Emery is also growing up fast. Yesterday it hit me how she is no longer a little baby and how she is such a toddler now! She has started babbling more and more although she still doesn't have any real words besides "Dadi"and "hi." She does sign though: "more" "please" "all done" "help" and "thank you." I'm surprised she doesn't have more verbal words and I just can't wait for her to start getting those! Also she has started doing this cute fast walk/run that is adorable. She is also really into climbing and has figured out how to climb the kitchen bar height stools which is mildly terrifying haha. She also gives the best hugs and kisses!

Emery and Sytler (Josh and Haley's youngest son) sharing a kitchen chair until Sy pushed her off of it! #shouldhaveseenthatcoming

She climbs all the things!

Little thief managed to find Papi's secret stash of chocolate-covered Oreos and stole three of them before I caught her! She was soo proud of herself haha. 

Cutest little towel bundle ever! 

Oh also, Levi started soccer recently and it is just the most adorable thing ever and he loves it, even though he barely touches the ball during games.

Levi is very careful with the ball which is probably why he has a harder time jumping into the bunch ball of the game. It's a little too crowded and fast for him. He kicks well for kick ins and goal kicks though! 

Levi's cousin Westin has games and practices at the same time as Levi which is super fun! 

Last week at practice, Levi's coach had them line up like a choo-choo train and walk the lines of the field to try to teach them the concept of "out." We'll see at this next game if it worked but it was very cute! His coach seriously deserves a gold medal for teaching a bunch of little three-year-olds soccer! 

And the kids started music class on Friday and they both had a blast! It is so cute to watch Emery bounce to the music, and clap and laugh. She just LOVES music. I am glad that the class is only 6 weeks though because it would be a super long drive from McKinney where our new house is!

Also, Eric and I have been going on some fun dates lately. We've been to the temple, an FC Dallas game and then on Friday we went to see the Monet exhibit at the Kimbell Art Museum and went to a great Mediterranean restaurant afterwards. So grateful for an awesome husband who takes the time to find us babysitters and is willing to do fun things with me even in the midst of our busy life! So yeah, that's what's going on here. It's a lot but it's great!

Cute kiddos in their Sunday best! 

The other day the horses got out! Thankfully Rick was close by and able to come and get them back to the barn before they got far. 

They are the friendliest, sweetest horses! Two Saturdays ago I spent a couple hours taking some beautiful pictures of them for Emery's room because she loves the horses and they turned out great!