growing up – Melrose Mom-ing

Two years

As of today we’ve been living out here, in Massachusetts, for two years!

I’d say I can’t believe it, but I can.

It still doesn’t feel quite like “home” but I’ll say it now feels more like home than not.

Apart from the people we left behind, I don’t honestly think I have any major regrets left.

There have been some very hard moments in the last 12 months. We had to deal with the first death in the family (on the hus-creature’s side) and some similarly hard news on my own and that was tough.

I suspect that if and when the next immediate family baby is born I will find that equally hard but at least that will be a good thing that has happened.

It’s the hard moments that really make you realise what you did once you emigrate.

We’ve been discussing longer term options once (please oh great Flying Spaghetti Monster) our green cards are confirmed, and it’s making me a bit antsy. I’m sure it comes as no surprise to my audience that I very much would like to move out of here as soon as is comfortably feasible.

We’ve definitely decided to stay in Melrose until TT finishes school, but then might move further into Massachusetts but we shall see.

I think it’s part of trying to handle the giant cloud of uncertainty that this process leaves over your life – planning for when it no longer will.

The children are flourishing here though. #1 Son had a birthday party yesterday that was “organised fun” and despite constant orders to

Pay attention

From the party organiser…

No the hus-creature wasn’t able to take them to one side and explain, which I find myself (probably unreasonably) annoyed by…

He was able to come home with a smile on his face and tell me that he had had fun.

We also celebrated 19 years together and 12 of them married last week.

It helps that there’s only 2 days difference I will admit 🤣😂

Due to difficulties with sitter availability we split the difference and the hus-creature took me out on a wonderful romantic dinner cruise on Thursday night ❤️🥰

We spent some quality 1 on 1 time together with food, and booze and fantabulous views and it was amazing.

I was very spoiled and felt very loved.

We are over halfway through #1 Son’s summer camp and he is still coming out with a smile on his face which is such a relief.

We’ve had some minor breakthroughs with eating but are back on the ups and downs there sadly.

(He has now decided he no longer likes peas).

Got about a month and a half to go til Second Grade, and I’m still praying he gets to keep last year’s teacher as a. She is completely amazing and b. A little bit of stability will do him good.

I’m attempting a doctor-recommended diet which we are describing as “Keto aligned” as when you tell the counter staff at Burger King that, they give you this for your lunch:

Which is surprisingly non-horrible. Basically in an attempt to get a handle on my pain I’m to give up:

All dairy 😰😰😰😰
Enriched processed food
All added sugar in everything (including natural sugars like honey, agave etc)

As those of you who know me in real life can probably guess, this has gone down like a lead balloon. He would also very strongly prefer that I go vegetarian, but I put my damn foot down there.

That may well be where this journey ends, but right now? No fucking way.

Tea with cashew milk is 80% tolerable I have discovered:

And one of the local sushi places does a DIY Poke Bowl for $17 which was surprisingly filling:

So all in all? I’m not at “wanting to stab things” level of anger and rage yet. Though mostly that’s down to the hus-creature who is embarking on this with me to support me. Have I mentioned how much I adore this man?

In closing? Two years has flown past.

From this:

To this:

Many things

It’s been a busy few days.

TT is (whisper it) 100% reliable during the day on the toilet when it comes to doing a wee!

We have also had two days in a row where she has successfully done a poo in the correct place*

We have had no accidents all week thus far.

Night training is not happening, as we are attempting to wean her away from her middle of the night bottle and it’s just cruel to do both at the same time…

That and the one night we tried it she screamed bloody murder, fully woke up, and then actively refused to go back to sleep without said bottle – she won that round!

But she’s doing amazingly – especially when you consider she’s only 26 months old!!

Okay so she doesn’t now need the “cooling” pull ups we bought, or the plastic pants. Bugger. Ah well, we live and learn. And if we hadn’t have bought them, we would have needed them.

Sadly we had a bit of a backslide with #1 Son on the behaviour at school front today. He ran out not once, not twice but five time today, and even ran back into school at pick up time whilst the Mothership was talking to his teacher about the previous five occurrences.

I received an email from her this afternoon confirming that he had had an “emotional” day (stating that no-one would play with him and that he felt that no one loved him 😰) outlining her strategies for helping him tomorrow and giving us a framework to talk to him.

One of the problems is his refusal to accept that other children might just want to play games of their own choosing too – we are working on this…

He has had two more party invites though (one of which is ice skating – but thankfully with options for non skaters) which ought to help a little.

The other is a bouncing party – your guess is as good as ours on that – but that should at least be fun for him.

The lovely H brought up some presents for the kidlets today and he completed one of them

Momma and I are hoping that H will be able to join us on a small night on the town on Saturday.

His reading has come on in leaps and bounds. He actually asked to read with mom when he got home from school!!!!

He still hates writing, so I think that will have to be the next point of focus, but it’s amazing to see how well he is doing.

Mom met up with his teacher on Tuesday afternoon to discuss his progress and ensure that we (mostly her) are not confusing him compared to how they are teaching him in class.

It meant she got to meet his support team, and see his little cubby that they’ve built for him to (effectively) escape into when he gets overwhelmed.

Yes, it is literally a cupboard – it works for him.

He will also be having weekly sessions with his therapist every Tuesday at 07:15 – this means he won’t be too late into school, thus not impacting on his daddy’s work day too much.

As for me? I’m slowly getting back behind the wheel. I’m not great, but at least when I screw up I’m following through and have not (for example) crashed into a roundabout, nor ran a red light, nor turned into oncoming traffic without signalling.

Which are all things I did back in England prior to passing my U.K. licence

So I consider that I am doing okay. I need practice, and I need to pass my theory test (yet again) but I am studying and having gotten through half of the USA equivalent to the Highway Code today.

I’m now exhausted and have an incipient migraine 😂🤣

I also had my second post-op checkup yesterday.

My doctor is very pleased with my progress. I am to increase my doing of things, though not to lift anything heavier than a gallon until I’m the full six weeks post-surgery.

He does however want me to break up with dairy 🙀🙀🙀

(I mentioned I wanted to lose weight)

At the moment dairy and I are merely agreeing to see other people 😂🤣

I can cope with losing chocolate but not my cheese. And I’m trying to work out what I could put in my tea instead of cow’s milk.

But I’m going to try.

He next wants to see me in six months, and this appointment is already booked 😱

Mom and I also went up to knitting group yesterday and had much fun 👍🏻

*With many apologies to the non-parents in my audience, this sort of thing is big news when you are a stay at home parent!

And then she was two

Two years ago, after a hellish induction, I was staring in wonderment at the most beautiful baby girl in the world.

No, really, no other baby girl was ever this pretty. (The most beautiful baby boy in the world ever had been born three years prior you see).

And now? She’s two.

She’s a stroppy, opinionated, smart, strong bundle of amazingness, and I am the luckiest mama bear ever.

She had her new big girl bed as her main present from us:

With bedding from nanny and granddad and Lola-dog.

(Happy gotcha day Lola-dog)

We then added Aunty Harri’s canopy:

Whereupon she began practicing for the teenage years early.

She bloody loves the bed.

She did refuse to nap though, which ended in her passing out on me at around 15:30:

We then had cake when she woke up – well, when I woke her – she was not impressed. Aunty H came to join us for cake and TT ended up covered. So we had a bath.

With new toys. And bath markers.

Which she ruined by pooping in the bath 🙄🙄🙄

Then we put her to bed. For the first time. And, well, it was not as successful as it was for #1 Son.

TT on the other hand, was up and out before daddy finished reading her bedtime story!!!

She was then up and rattling the door handle after daddy left the room. I resettled her then.

When #1 Son went to bed she was still awake!!!! BUT was under the covers and stayed there while I went to get another bottle (that she requested).

We checked on her at 21:00 and she was asleep, still in bed, and mostly under the blanket. She had unilaterally decided no more sleeping bags dammit. We shall see how this goes – it’s bitterly cold right now, and duvets are not a thing for toddlers here it seems.

When we checked on her whilst getting #1 son up for his middle of the night wee, she was fast asleep, with that second bottle untouched which was great.

I can hear her occasionally drinking from her second official bottle through the monitor.

All in all, not as good as I hoped, but as well as I expected. Well, apart from the poop 🙄

Also, after we washed her hair, through judicious application of tablet, I was able to completely blow dry her hair, which left her rocking the Smokey Quartz (rather than Amethyst) look:

And the curls are dropping out at last!

Christmas Aftermath

Well the children have been thoroughly spoiled and I am so so grateful.

Firstly, it seems Santa got a tad confused and left presents in two places:

The kids were gobsmacked, and TT loved her “pin-gin” paper 💕💕💕

The Big Man listens you know 😂🤣

🎅🏻🎅🏻🎅🏻🎅🏻🎅🏻🎅🏻🎅🏻🎅🏻🎅🏻🎅🏻

But why all this play food and sets you wonder? Because someone dropped a line to him on what her “main” present was going to be:

(Can I admit that I’m more than slightly jealous? 😂🤣)

She has spent all day playing with it, with various play foods. I have extracted her lunch pizza from a pot on the hob, and most play foods have ended up in the freezer compartment!

Not to be outdone, #1 Son has completed construction of his main Lego set:

Even without the stickers he appears as pleased as Punch.

Tomorrow TT turns two. Tonight is therefore the last night for her in her cot.

Tomorrow she gets her first “Big Girl” bed.

Part of me is really sad about this. But she’s growing up. She’s not a baby anymore.

As children grow

It leaves you joyful but saddened.

The Tiny Tyrant is our last baby. I’m due to be spayed in less than 2 months.

It was always the plan. I’m happy with my children. My family is complete. I cannot hack being pregnant – I’m basically ill and stressed out for 40 weeks. TT nearly killed me by the end of pregnancy with her.

And with my medical issues I’m bloody lucky to have one child, let alone my perfect pigeon pair.

But she’s two in a week.

And she’s growing so fast.

Things she is now doing:

She’s now consistently switching from mummy to mum and from daddy to dad.
She’s saying “fank” instead of “ta”
“Duddle” is being replaced with “hug”
The question “what do we say?” is most often met with “peeeees”
Talking in proper sentences – “I hurt it my finger”
Attempting to count to 10 – she’s mostly reliable up to 5 already.
Opinions – oh the opinions 😬😬😬😬
Her birthday present is a bed.
When daddy said night night to her just now, she immediately began fake snoring 😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣