Major life decisions...

The boys turned 10 months on Tuesday, and life has been so busy, it passed by without our taking a picture.  Bummer.  I'll have to take one this weekend and fudge it.

There is so much going on right now it's not even funny.  I don't know where to start.

First, I guess I should say Adrian has been sick with a fever ALL WEEK LONG.  He started Sunday night and it's Friday night and he STILL has a fever.  It goes up and down and up and down...no other symptoms.  I took him to the pediatrician on Tuesday evening to make sure it wasn't an ear infection or something else.  Nope.  Just a virus.  So nothing to do but wait it out.  If he still has a fever in the morning tomorrow, I may have to take him back to the pediatrician!  A normal virus has usually run its course in five days...

The constant sickness is getting to me.  In this case, I think either Carlos or I infected him, not the kids at daycare.  But either way, this is ridiculous.  We have to go back to Purelling every two seconds again, I guess?!

In addition to the daycare sickness, my new job has been stressful and is somewhat less fulfilling right now than I expected.  I suppose I feel that way because there has been so much else going on that I feel like I can't concentrate 100% on the tasks at hand, and it's the first time I've EVER felt like that.  I'm not sure I'm giving it my all, even though I can say I'm trying to give it my all.  Does that even make sense?  I had to leave early a few times this week and took today off to be with sick Adrian.  I had forgotten how DIFFICULT it is to take time off when you work at a high school.  It's not like working in an office...

We are fighting again with our neighbors downstairs about our noise level.  Long story that I don't want to get into on the blog, but this condo is not ideal for us with two babies.  The stairs are killing us and we make a lot of noise despite our absolute best efforts not to.  We are just not comfortable here anymore.

So, in the past week or so, we've decided to put the condo on the market, move in with my mom, switch the kids to another daycare in West Bridgewater, and hopefully buy a new house in Bridgewater, West Bridgewater, or Easton before spring.  Ideally, we'd buy something right away and not move in with my poor mother, but that may not be possible.

We've thought about this so hard, and this seems to be the best solution for us to be able to get out of here.  I can't stand another winter having to play musical cars in the driveway, and I'm terribly afraid of taking the boys down the icy front steps.  I PRAY that this condo will sell quickly and without any issues so that we can get out of here.

I'm so afraid to uproot the boys from daycare because once we give those spots up, they are GONE.  She has a waitlist over a year long.  We love our daycare here in Watertown.  But if we are going to do this, we have to bite the bullet and tell her we're giving up the spots.  I feel like I want to vomit every time I even think about putting that in writing because it makes this final.  We have to move if we give up daycare.  Or we'd have to come back and have a nanny lined up, something we can't afford.

I have to get the prayer warriors who helped us out when I was on bedrest praying for us again.  It worked last time...HELP!?!?!

Next time there will be pictures.  But I had to get this off my chest.

Mid-September Update

I've had no time to write lately because every spare second has been spent writing Secondary School Report Recommendations for Milton...I have 45 letters to write before around November 1, and I have written only about 16...and those 16 are probably going to need major reworking when I finally get feedback from my boss and colleagues.

This past week the boys were healthy, which was a blessing.  Thank you!!!  It helped me settle into the job a little more.  Unfortunately, instead of worrying about the boys, I worried about our downstairs neighbor instead.  Too long of a story, but essentially she says we make too much noise.  I'm sure we do.  So we're spending almost $1000 to carpet our front stairs and to buy area rugs and padding.  Gross.    But at least this way we can say in good conscience that we are doing everything we can.  We're talking to Adriano, our real estate agent.  If we can sell this place NOW, we will.  Can't stand it anymore.  More on that at a later date.

For now, because it's a Saturday night and I have to prep a recommendation letter instead of blogging, I'll just post some recent pictures.  I wish I could do more writing about my own kids and less about other people's!

Sebastian sat right down on Adrian

We had to lower the crib mattresses about 2 weeks ago.

Adrian LOVES Woody!

He's very gentle with him.

Last weekend we went out for breakfast and then went apple picking on the spur of the moment.  We went to Honey Pot Hill.  We were going to go because of the weather and my writing schedule, but we figured what the hell?!

Sebastian loves his bike!

The boys love their teething biscuits from Mugie.  They are eating finger foods like puffs quite well now.  They can't get enough!  We also stopped the rice cereal in their formula.  Seems to be going ok.  Adrian had a GI doctor appointment on Friday, and we've taken the boys off the iron supplement and are going to start weaning Adrian off his Prilosec.  Hopefully that will go well.  Sebastian now has 2 teeth on the bottom and one coming in on top.  Adrian has one tooth on the bottom and second that's poking through on the bottom.  He was weighed at the GI doctor and is 19 pounds.  She was extremely happy with his growth curve.  He goes up in percentile every time she sees him.

Took me forever to clean him up...

Are you KIDDING me?

Well, our fears came true: it got worse before it got better with the boys.  Last Friday, Adrian got sick with the same virus Sebastian had.  So he started with the same symptoms almost exactly a week after Sebastian had started with the bad diarrhea and low-grade fever.

Carlos and I were hopeful that it would be milder than Sebastian's case...Adrian never had the same frequency of diarrhea as Sebastian, but it was still almost as problematic.  He seemed very uncomfortable when he was pooping, and there was one moment that left me completely and utterly stumped--I still can't figure out how it was possible for him to get poop in the places he got it.

Anyway, enough of the gross details.  Suffice it to say, the past 2 weeks have NOT been fun or easy, especially with Carlos trying to study and teach himself to do a demo on October 2 and me starting a new job.  Carlos was a good sport, though, and graciously took the time off from work so I didn't have to.  My mom came up on Monday to watch Adrian so Carlos could go to work, and then Carlos took Tuesday off.  Today is Wednesday and both boys made it through the day at daycare.  I have all my fingers and toes crossed (along with my legs and arms and eyes) that they can do a few weeks without any illnesses!

And now some pictures and updates on milestones!

At daycare--out for a walk with the rest of the class!

Sebastian wrinkles his nose a lot lately.

Both boys are now pulling themselves up with help, and in some cases without help.  We had to lower the crib mattresses last weekend.  I was changing Adrian and noticed movement out of the corner of my eye.  I looked over and Sebastian had pulled himself up with the crib rails and was teetering on the top rail.  We IMMEDIATELY lowered the mattresses...Also, just today I noticed that Sebastian can all of a sudden go from on his tummy to crawling to sitting in a fluid motion.  He doesn't struggle to get from any one of those positions into another.  It happened all of a sudden!!  I haven't seen Adrian put himself into the sitting position, but I'm sure he will soon.  He's always liked crawling more than sitting!

I love their bed heads and their PJs

I could eat Sebastian up.

And I'd eat Adrian for dessert!

I've finally joined in the Instagram fun!  Love it!!  Although, they don't make great Blog photos when you blow them up this big...

Last Saturday, we thought Adrian was doing good enough to take him down the Cape to Michelle's house.  Or perhaps I should say we were naive enough to think he wouldn't get as sick as Sebastian.  We had to make a stop on the way down to change Adrian, and it only got worse as the day went on.  Poor Michelle and Jeff were good sports!  Sebastian loved this doll baby carriage!  Also, his pants bust open because of his little Buddha belly.  We just left them like that...

Adrian loved playing with Luke and Abby's toys!

 After lunch, we went down to the beach for a bit.  It's only a few blocks from Michelle's lovely house. It was a beautiful day!  We didn't put the boys IN the water, but they enjoyed the swing set with Carlos and loved touching the sand.

Adrian channeling James Dean

See?  There's the crinkled nose again!

 And finally, random shots from the past week or so.

I thought this was so hysterical when it happened.  Sebastian literally sat down on top of Adrian,  who didn't "complain" about supporting the weight of his brother.  He never complains about anything.

Adrian pulled himself up using the couch.

Sebastian pulled himself up in the crib.