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!)

like a champ

Our perfect little Keegan had his first bottle tonight in preparation for my return to work. He handled it, well, perfectly. Didn't seem to even notice the difference (sob!). So I guess this means I really have to go back to work. Can anyone think of another out? Only 11 days of summer left. I'm getting desperate here.

home sweet home

We're finally back! I've never been so glad to be back in Florida with all the heat and humidity in my life. We took three days to drive up to the Outerbanks, but drove back straight through. That means we were in the car...with the kids...for 15 hours! The boys were great. They napped, ate snacks, and watched movies. Poor little Keegan on the other hand. He just hates his car seat so much and cried from the South Carolina/Georgia border all the way home. Seriously. After a few hours you just become desensitized to it. He slept 14 hours that night, so glad to be out of the car and back in his own crib.

listening intently

Whatever he's saying, it looks like it must be very important.

teach your children well

Like father, like sons. Jay won, and took Lee's money...again.

DUCK 2008 OR BUST!

Get ready Allison's, 'cause here we come!

playing with fire

The kids were in awe with those little sparklers...a first for them. That crazy Brit again. Do we know him?
Watching our amateur fireworks from the "safety" of the car. Despite how tired my kids look, they couldn't get enough of our fireworks shooting up high into the air. Later, the cops came by to confiscate the illegals. Luckily we were just finishing up and they left to pursue other dangerous criminals on the beach. However, it was the highlight of the night for all the kids who still can't stop talking about the police coming to our house!

back to the beach

I say "back" to the beach because I forgot my camera the first day, so we had to go back and get pictures!

Keegan did this the whole time...both days! What a dream baby!

food, family, and fireworks

If you read this post you already know a little bit about our Fourth of July. Here are some pictures to go along with it...

7 weeks & chubby cheeks

What can I say? The boy likes to eat!

Baby Rule #1: Never let the milk bottles out of sight. Sleep on top of them if at all possible.

wish I'd have thought of this

The smartest woman (it must have been a woman) invented this: the bumbo. It's this little rubber seat thingy that lets baby sit up before he can sit up on his own. Now Keegan can see the world around him (and watch and learn how to be a knucklehead like his big brothers)! Worth every penny. Actually it was free though. Thanks Steph!

two-year tradition

Before I was born, my Uncle Jimmy and his wife, Melissa divorced. As a result, my cousins moved with Melissa to North Florida. Over the years, we gradually lost touch until finally reuniting at my cousin Sarah's wedding in 2001. Now, as adults, we've developed our own relationship with this side of our family, living just three hours away. A relationship we value. One we plan on continuing. And one we feel would make our grandparents proud.

Melissa and Keegan

My cousin, Sarah, and her family

July 4, 2007 (watching fireworks at Ponte Vedra Beach)July 4, 2008 (Logan, Gavin and that crazy Brit about to watch fireworks from the rooftop of Melissa's condos, Via Mare)

baby soft again

Look at that gorgeous skin! His, not mine. LOL. After three long weeks of "prickly heat rash" followed by a nasty case of cradle cap, we are finally just about in the clear. Keegan's baby soft skin is back! For those that are wondering, cradle cap generally just looks like really bad dandruff. Sometimes though, it spreads to the face, neck, ears, etc. And then it's really gross. At one point, I thought I'd never see his beautiful baby skin again. His ears and neck were covered in this bumpy, yellow wax-like substance. It smelled bad and oozed out his pores. Strangers would say, "what a cute baby you have"...and then they got closer. I owe a special thanks and shout out to Karen Allison, Jay's aunt and a faithful blog reader (see link to her blog on the sidebar). Her frequent visit to my blog and reading of this post, allowed me to treat it quickly and get him on the road to recovery.

looking into the future

11 days from now from now we'll be doing a little of this...

...a little of this...

...some of this...

...and a LOT of this!

Duck 2008, here we come!

happily ever after

We took our first road trip as a family of five this weekend. We headed over to Jacksonville beach to visit my cousins for the fourth of July (I'll post pics of our trip later). Jay and I considered it a little dry run for what's to come -- we'll be driving to the Outerbanks (13 hours!) in a couple weeks. The older boys were good. Keegan hates the car. He starts screaming even when he thinks we're about to get in the car, but again, that's another post.

So, Logan got bored along the way and decided to write his own story. It went something like this:

Once upon a time there was a girl and a dragon...(some other parts here about the their adventures that I can't remember)...and then he ate her happily ever after. The End.

Finding normal

Keegan is six weeks old today. He fits right in with our family and somehow it seems like he's always been around. And a good night's sleep seems like something I haven't known in a very long time.

A six-week maternity leave is kind of the norm in America...unpaid, and yes, you can use your sick leave. After that time, the woman is expected to jump right back on her feet as if nothing happened. As if life as you knew it hadn't just been completely turned upside-down. Of course, in other countries, a woman might get 12-16 weeks off...paid! In some areas, the government even assigns a nanny to help for the first several weeks. She cares for the baby and does laundry too!

I've never understood how an American woman can just pick up and head back to work, on the rebound from a life-altering, exhausting, exhilarating six-week "vacation". I certainly couldn't do it. Hence, the disproportionate number of babies being born to teachers (or school psychologist, in my case) during the months of April, May, and June. The philosophy: If you're very fertile (obviously, we are...well, we were...took care of that!), and if you do your math just right (we do), you can time your baby so that you work the majority of the school year and then have the entire summer off to bond together (and recover).

But mentally, my six-weeks are up. Six weeks...42 days...is kind of the magic number in OB/GYN land. You can work out again, have sex again, and...according to America...go back to work again. So, I have to say goodbye to days spent holding the baby on the couch watching Real World marathons (and Denise Richards, and Living Lohan, and My Super Sweet Sixteen...) and hello to diet, exercise, and moving on with life.

Fortunately, Keegan's a great baby. And so, through a week of trial and error, I've realized that if I get up early in the morning with Jay and feed Keegan, he'll go back to sleep for a glorious two hours. If I'm lucky, the boys will sleep for at least one of those hours, allowing me to drink coffee, blog, sort laundry, run the dishwasher, and work out! I have then accomplished a days worth of work all before 7:30am.

Of course, it doesn't always work out that way. This morning, I ran on the treadmill while watching Little Einsteins and taking short breaks to heat up mini-waffles or break up a fight over who had the matchbox car first. But at least we're finding something resembling normal again.

He smiles

...because the milk is near!

reconnecting with my little fishies

Whoo hoo! I got to go somewhere without Keegan (No, my trip to Publix last week didn't count)!!!! This week Nana kindly offered to watch Keegan for the day so I could take the boys to the local pool. It's at the same place where we take gymnastics, so the boys see it every day and constantly beg to go there (Mama! We've been SOOOOOO good. Can we go swimming?). It also happens to be next door to Nana's house, so we drive by it pretty much on a daily basis. I can't blame them for wanting to go though -- it's a little kid's dream! It has a kiddie play area where the water never gets too deep, a cool water slide (which the boys are unfortunately too short for), and built-in water guns you can use to shoot all the dry Mommy's and lifeguards! Needless to say, they had a blast and I was able to have some much-needed time to reconnect and have some fun myself.