ending our Faycation

Our Fay-cation is over, so it's back to school and work today. We made it through the weekend without any further unwanted events and enjoyed time some quality time with the boys (who like it when it rains because they get to have a sleepover in Mama's room!). But today the rain continues and there were over 100 road closing this morning. It took Jay close to two hours to drop the kids off at school and get to work due to all the detours. Seriously, I don't know how much more rain we can get! Thanks to all of you Weather Channel watchers for your calls of concern. We are doing fine. Just a little sick and tired of staying inside. The kids are itching to go for a bike ride and we spent the remainder of the weekend cleaning all those places that never get cleaned (our toaster oven looks brand new again). I also retired two laundry baskets of toys out of the kids room, thereby reducing clutter and increasing the possibility of maintaining my sanity for another day or two (too many messes makes Mommy bitchy). The boys still have yet to notice any of the missing toys. We are keeping an eye on the Ochlockonee river flooding which runs a little too close for comfort behind our house as well as Gustav out in the Caribbean.

This is what our radar looks like today...

This time we're right on the eastern portion of the red box. Fay has actually taken a slightly eastern turn after moving west over us during the weekend.

Fay, Fay, Go Away!

It's been raining for two days and is expected to rain throughout the day tomorrow. Tallahassee is currently at 10 inches and counting, with some areas reaching up to 20 inches. L.A. averages 15 inches for the entire year if that tells you anything!

Like they say, when it rains, it pours. So far, during a torrential down pour, Jay has had to drill holes into our privacy fence to help the water drain into the street (our back yard was serving as a drainage ditch for the all of our neighbors' water) and patch a shingle on the roof that was causing a water leak in the dining room. Nice. I seriously have never seen so much rain in my life. Oh, and our property, which lies in a flood zone, has flooded exactly one time since we've lived here...on the evening before being shown to a potential buyer. Today marks the second in seven years.

Earlier today, Logan and Gavin went to Nana's to get out of the house for awhile. They hate rainy days and were stir crazy after about a half hour of rain yesterday. Now, with this coming our way...

...(we're somewhere near the western border of the red box) they're stuck there 'till tomorrow and we have the "night off" with just Keegan. Darn. So we're watching Sex and the City (the movie), cooking potato-crusted tilapia, and waiting for the next house issue to pop up. Hurricanes were so much more fun 10 years ago when our largest investment was a Chevy Nova and we passed the time by taking shots at a hurricane party. Ah, the good 'ole days...

A day of firsts

First day of school.

First time with Ashley, our new nanny.

(here they are eating McDonald's fries and letting them hang off their lips)

First time in the big boy bath seat.

all good things must come to an end

Keegan's first day away from Mommy. He hardly noticed the difference as long as the milk was there, he didn't seem to care what form it was in.

Well, the day finally arrived...the end of summer, the end of my maternity leave, and the end of sleeping in late! Now, it's back to early mornings, back to battling traffic and the seemingly endless Tallahassee road construction, and back to reality.

My emotions about returning to work are mixed and depend on the time of day. My favorite time to be home is early in the morning. It's then that I appreciate the children and this time I have with them the most. I start by nursing Keegan, quietly observing him, in all his beauty and innocence, enjoying his morning snack. After singing a couple of lullabies and getting up a good burp, I place him back in his crib where I can nearly guarantee that he'll sleep for the next two to three hours. On a good day, the boys are still asleep and I get some time all to myself to drink my coffee, surf the web, and (only after I have procrastinated to the extent that I have nothing interesting left to read online) finally hit the treadmill. It's about this time that Logan will wake up and keep me company, incessantly asking question after question about this world we live in (Why did God make so much stuff? When can we get to see heaven? Why do you still have a big tummy, Mommy? How did Keegan get in there anyway? Why do we have telephone poles? And the list goes on and on). Eventually, we wake up Sleeping Beauty (Gavin) and snuggle up on the couch together to watch the Disney Channel. This is, without a doubt, one of my favorites times of day, and the thing I'm missing the most.


Fast forward to lunch time. As I attempt to make lunch with my left hand while juggling Keegan in my right, the boys practice their newfound Kung Fu Panda moves...on each other. This inevitably results in crying, fighting, and sustained injuries. Couple this with the fact that all three children are now hungry and tired, and one can certainly understand why I've been looking forward to the start of the new school year.

So, we are slowly getting back into our routines as well as finding some new ones. Last week, during teacher planning, I had to work, but the kids were still off. We have a new nanny, but she was still in Destin finishing up an internship, so I had no idea what I was going to do. Thankfully, the mother of the family I used to nanny for as a college student offered to help out. And boy how the tables have turned! Her five children seem all grown up. So much so that I hardly recognize them! When I started working for her, the youngest was just a baby and the oldest was 11 or 12. Now, that "baby" is a fifth grader and her oldest son is a 20-year-old college student. How's that for making me feel old!?!? Anita has done a wonderful job of raising her kids to be kind, generous, and polite young adults and it was so nice to be able to leave for work knowing the boys would be loved and cared for.

Tally's newest resident

Welcome to Tallahasse, Great Nana!

We're so glad to finally have you here!

just a piece

Logan and Gavin are complete opposites when it comes to many things. Logan loves condiments and dips on top of everything he eats (like me), Gavin wants it all "plain". Gavin can't get enough sweets and bites right into ice cream (like Jay). Logan turns down chocolate regularly (don't know where he got that from!) and licks his ice cream delicately so as not to hurt his teeth (like me). Most recently, we've come to terms with the fact that Gavin appears to be a night-owl and seems to have inherited the "Allison Sleeping Gene" (they can't get enough of it in that family). Logan, on the other hand, has always been early to bed and early to rise, like a true Coddington.

So, this is the bedtime scenario from the other night: Logan is lying quietly in his bed trying his best to go to sleep. Gavin is climbing on Logan's bed, singing, and hitting Logan with his stuffed snake.

LOGAN: (comes running out of his room) Mommy! Gray won't leave me alone.
ME: Really?
LOGAN: Yeah, and I'm trying to go to sleep! I need to go to sleep in your room!
ME: (usually I don't mind, but I have work to do in there) Baby, just try it one more time and tell Gray to stop talking to you.
LOGAN: No! I can't! I told you! I JUST NEED A PIECE OF QUIET!!!!!

working on my beer belly

tiny fan

Keegan

2 months

Keegan Stats

• He weighs in at 17+ pounds (can't you tell???)
• Sleeps (almost) through the night. He gets up after about 7 hours or so.
• Smiles and "talks" to anyone who will listen.
• Likes: his exersaucer, sitting in his bumbo watching Mommy cook, his big brothers
• Dislikes: the car
  

Duck vs. The Sun

The other night we were watching WALL-E and the following conversation took place between Logan and Jay:

LOGAN: What's that, Daddy?
JAY: It's the sun.
LOGAN: Oh.
JAY: (recognizing this as a teaching opportunity) This is what the sun looks like up close. It's 93 million miles away.
LOGAN: Whoa! That's almost as far as Duck!!!!!!

Yes, son, the trip home felt that way to Mommy too!

The best of Duck 2008

what a difference a year makes

2007

2008 (Baby Keegan joins the clan)

2007

2008 (same spot -- look how much they've grown!)

2007 (3 grandchildren)

2008 (4 grandchildren and soon to be 6!)