Category Archives: Mark

Seeing red

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I believed William when he told me that I would not be making any money my first year of teaching because of all the expenses we have.  But I didn’t know how bad it was going to be until I sat down tonight and itemized all my expenses – day care, life insurance, vision insurance, short-term disability insurance, etc.  OMG!  My heart sank.  I won’t be making any money at all!  In fact, it looks like I’m going to be owing money to my employer or getting a negative pay check (if there is such a thing).  It’s absolutely horrible!

I know you are wondering why I’m putting myself through this torture only so I can be in a financial hole.  It’s for my boys.  It’s so that William and I can afford to send them to preschool.  Aidan greatly benefited from his preschool experience last year.  It would be a crime not to expose him to that environment again this year.  And I know Mark is ready for that challenge too.  Me staying home would be great for Caitlin and myself, but I know my boys would lose out on this deal.  It would be unfair to them.

*Sigh* What have I signed up for?  Other than the boys going to preschool, I don’t see anything else positive coming out of this experience (at least for this year).  I’m forced to put Caitlin in day care and I’m going to be dead broke!

My ray of light is the knowledge that things will get better by the end of next year.  Aidan will be starting kindergarten then and Mark will hopefully be potty trained (diaper expenses go down).  So basically I have to suffer for one year as I work towards giving my boys a better life and a jump start on their education.  I’ll just have to remember this “piece of sunshine” when I get my first (second, third, fourth… ) negative paycheck(s).

Ain’t life grand!  Ugh!!!  🙁

In the dog house

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So Mark gets a hold of the stinky, waterproof diaper rash ointment and decides to liberally apply it on himself while seated on one of William’s beloved sofas.  Needless to say, when I found Mark, he wasn’t the only think covered in the ointment.  I tired cleaning up as much as I could, but that nasty stuff was putting up a fight.  With dinner preparations and complaining kids to deal with I halted my efforts to get rid of the stuff on the couch and called William to let him know what he was coming home to.  William being anal about his sofas had this to say:

William:  Why was he on the couch?
My reply:  He was wearing a diaper! (Aside:  One day I decided to let Mark go without a diaper just to see if he was ready for potty training,  He ended up leaving a skid mark on William’s cherished recliner – which has since been cleaned – to which William has suggested that Mark not be allowed on the sofas without a diaper)
William:  I don’t care if he has a diaper, he shouldn’t be on the couch.
My reply: *Rolling my eye* *Hang up!*

My thoughts:  If you want to treat the boy like an animal, how bout we just tie a leash on him and have him sit/stay on the kitchen floor.

One rainy day

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Arizona experienced an unusual weather pattern this past week.  Temperatures went from 102 F (39 C) to 67 F (20 C) over the course of the week and included a fair share of wind and rain.  What I found most unusual was the mini hail storm we had… in summer!

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Check out the little ice cube that rained into my grass.

As odd as the weather has been, I’m glad we had a break from the summer heat as temperatures will be back up in the 100s F by the end of this month. 

Looks like the boys enjoyed the weather as well.

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The simplest gifts are the best

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William has redeemed himself.  This year I had the best Mother’s Day ever.  William and the boys presented me with a gift I will cherish forever.  Behold, my prized Mother’s Day gifts from:

Aidan
Aidan’s Picture
(Yes, Aidan drew the heart (which William say looks more like a lung), his signature rainbows (he loves drawing rainbows), the yellow sun on the far right corner(you can’t see it but the sun has an eye and a tooth), the butterfly, and wrote the wording by himself)

Mark
Mark’s Picture

Caitlin was excused this Mother’s Day for obvious reasons. 

Thank you William for the best Mother’s Day so far.

Moving on up

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I can’t believe we are almost at the end of February!  I’m a little annoyed at myself because so many fun things have happened in the past month that I wanted to blog about but never got around to doing it.  Instead of spending my nights on the computer I opted to lounge in my bed, relishing the peace and quiet of the night.  Anyway, here is a run down of this eventful month…

On February 10, 2008, Mark moved from sleeping in the crib to sleeping in a big-boy bed.  I was nervous about this move as I did not think Mark was ready for it, but considering Caitlin has become mobile and has outgrown her bassinet, we didn’t have much choice.  The first night he kept getting out of bed.  I think he may have been excited about his new surroundings and that he wasn’t imprisoned in his crib anymore… he wanted a taste of his freedom.  In order to curb this behavior, William or I would put him back in his crib (without his lovey) and wait till he had calmed down before moving him back to the bed.  We had to do this at least three more times.  He finally got tired of playing his game and we were able to move a half asleep Mark to spend his first night in his big-boy bed.  The next night wasn’t so bad.  He did get out of his bed twice.  The first time we did the whole put-him-in-the-crib thing.  By the second time, he had finally figured out what the repercussion was for getting out of bed that when he saw me coming for him, he ran back to his bed and did not get out of it till the next morning.  Bedtime has been smooth sailing ever since.  Naptime, on the other hand, is another story.  I did put him in the crib as a punishment for getting out of bed during naptime, but once I moved Caitlin to the crib, that wasn’t an option for me.  Naptime is increasingly difficult on the rare occasions that Aidan takes a nap.  Then Mark is so excited to have his brother in the room that he continues playing, banging walls, and screaming long after Aidan has fallen asleep.  In such occasions I have no choice but to take him out of the room and let him go without a nap that day.  I would rather have one child get a good nap than have two ornery boys on my hands.

The Boys New Bed
Aidan tests out his and Mark’s new bed.

Big Boy Mark
Mark’s first night in his big-boy bed.

In other news, Caitlin has decided to skip working on her crawl (she seems to be happy to scoouch around) and has moved on to more serious matters… sitting up.  Currently she can get herself into a tripod position, balancing herself with one arm while seated.  Of course I need to keep an eye on her because she is still not strong enough to hold herself up for too long and often ends up rolling around and sometimes knocking her head on something and getting really mad.  Also, a few days after Mark graduated to his big-boy bed, Caitlin was moved to her big-baby girl room.  I’m so excited because my house now has a baby girl’s room with a baby girl sleeping in it.  Also, I must admit, I’m enjoying having my room back.  It’s a luxury for me to be able to relax in bed at night and enjoy the silence.  I also like that I don’t have to worry about tip-toeing around the room in fear of waking the baby.

Tripod
In the tripod position.

Sitting
Caitlin can briefly support herself in the upright seated position.

One more thing before I end this post, I had a very special Valentine this year.  Now that I think about it, I think it deserves a post of it’s own.  So be on the look out for my post on my special Valentine.  🙂

The end!!

Goat pellet

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Mark pooped in the potty today.  It was the size of a goat pellet but it was still a poop and I was excited.  He has been peeing a few drops in the potty as well.  I haven’t made a serious attempt to start his potty training.  For now I’m going at a slow pace, letting him get comfortable with the potty and asking if he needs to pee or poop whenever I remember about it.  I’m just not excited about starting his potty training after all the work that went into training Aidan.  Definitely not looking forward to cleaning up that mess again.  Maybe he won’t be as hard as Aidan was to potty train.  After all, Mark wants to do everything Aidan does and peeing and pooping in the potty is one of them.  But, I’m not going to rush it and I’m going to let Mark learn at his own pace.  He may not be fully potty trained for a while but I think he is making a promising start.