Long Days

It has been another long Tuesday afternoon. Surprisingly enough, things have been running very smoothly with Ben away at school. I was very worried that his absence would be detrimental to my studies, but instead it has encouraged me to be more productive; maybe it's because I work better "under pressure", or maybe it's because Ben and I subconsciously fulfilled our own personal roles within and outside the home that has caused us both to take initiative. That sounds vague, but it makes perfect sense to me. Ben has been a wonderful stay at home daddy, but he is a happier person being productive outside the home. And I take more initiative taking care of the house and the girls, and as a result my house actually stays relatively clean.

We will see how long the comfort of this routine lasts though. An intense program like the one Ben is in can wear a person down pretty fast. Hopefully I can be a supportive and understanding wife during the next two years. Not only will Ben be in an intense program, but I will be finishing up a double major while taking care of two children and doing the occasional hair cut/color. I pray everyday that neither me nor Ben break before it's over.

My accounting class is very interesting. I can understand how some people find it dull and taxing (no pun intended), but it keeps my interest. I know that everything that I learn in my intermediate classes will be applicable to my job. The only problem that I have with the class is that it is in the evening. I've never had a class run until almost 8 p.m. and it's killing me. My brain usually shuts off automatically (thanks to many years of working, and now having kids) around 6 or 7, so I kind of feel like a vegetable sitting at my desk occasionally wiping drool off my face with the ridiculously small amount of energy I can muster up to lift my hand. Okay, so that's quite the exaggeration. But seriously, I feel like the whole time I'm rubbing my eyes trying to keep them open.

Samantha and Penelope seem to be doing okay with Ben's absence. Sammie occasionally asks about daddy and points to the door; It's obvious that Penelope loves having me around more, but she can't speak so I don't really know what she is thinking. Ben was gone all day so the girls haven't seen him at all, and they won't see him again until tomorrow evening just before 7 pm. I know that Samantha will be really excited for that, she has developed a very strong attachment to Ben since he was laid off last year.

Penelope broke her first took last Tuesday! Today, around the time that her Aunt Jesimee came to babysit, she broke her second tooth. I knew that second tooth was coming in because she was fussy all morning for me. Jesimee told me that there was a little bit of blood in her mouth when she checked; she also said that Penny was super happy and giggly all day for her, which makes sense if her tooth finally broke. I remember the discomfort when my wisdom teeth were coming in, so I feel so bad for those teething babies. It is hard for us mommies, but our little babies have it so much worse.

Penelope has also been standing up all by herself. She no longer relies on anything to boost her up. I can't believe it! She isn't even 10 months old yet. I think that she will be walking soon because she has also started attempting to walk by herself. Occasionally I will catch her pushing away from the couch, or she will walk while holding on to something with one hand instead of two.

Samantha keeps learning new words every day. Every single thing I say, she will repeat. She is now using pronouns like "me" "you" "I" and so forth. It's interesting to see how she went from repeating what I say, to actually putting words into context. So far, I think her favorite word is "chocolate." She has got that word nailed. She is definitely a Peacock.

She has also developed an interest in shoes. I didn't think that I would catch her walking around the house with my tennis shoes on, or trying to figure out how to get the flip flop to stay between her toes. But here she is, a complete goober. She knows she is a goober too, and she makes sure that I appreciate her silliness everyday. What would I do without this entertainment in my life? The personality that she brings into our family has made me so grateful that Ben and I got pregnant when we did. The same goes for Penelope, especially now that she has become such a giggle monster.

Lake Chelan, June 10th-12th

Samantha was so excited to play at Lake Chelan, even though it was really dark outside, she couldn't even hold still for a picture.

Here she is being a little bit too cute. The older she gets, the more silly faces I get from her. She especially likes to use them when she knows that she is in trouble. It's way too hard not to laugh sometimes.

Penelope did not like her life jacket at first. She cried pretty hard, but she eventually got used to it.

When we went to get her life jacket at the store, she wouldn't put it on unless I tried one on with her. She loved it! And then after a few minutes of play she realized that it was hindering her ability to explore and splash in the water. It was too late by then though, she was stuck wearing it.

Penelope was having a lot of fun. It was hard to get her to stay in my arms though. I was worried that she would fall right off the edge of the patio and fall several feet onto the rocky shore below. She is at the age where she loves to explore but has no concept of danger.

Samantha absolutely enjoyed herself in the water. The dog, Peyton, equally loved going into the water. Samantha would occasionally mimic Cam and throw sticks into the water and watch Peyton bring them back to her (which wasn't always successful). I tried to get Samantha to go further into the water with me, but her life jacket made it hard for her to keep her feet on the ground.

My two favorite girls in the whole world. They made the trip exhausting, but it made me extremely happy to provide them with an exciting vacation. We all needed some fresh air.

There were two ducks that had claimed this part of the shoreline as their own territory. They probably did that because we were feeding them bread. I think Ben had more fun doing it, to be honest. He would hand Samantha bread to feed to the ducks, but she kept every other piece for herself.

Happy baby!

Warms my heart and soul. Nothing could make this mamma happier than smiling children.

It took several attempts, but she finally decided that it was "okay" to splash her feet in the water a little bit. It is really fun to see the differences in my kiddos. Samantha was not this particular nor was she careful at this age.

She screamed her head off until we got in the boat and headed out into the lake. The rhythmic motions of the boat eventually put her to sleep. I love this picture because she was trying so hard to stay awake.

I was trying to get rid of my farmers tan by putting sunscreen on the parts of me that already had some color. My shoulders are still itching...

Not sure if she was getting bored, or if she liked the boat ride.

She was out pretty hard. The boat was going through the wakes and making us jump up and down in our seats, and here she is sleeping through it all. What a trooper.

At this point, my hair would not have been wet if I hadn't accidentally catapulted myself and Samantha out into the water right before we were going to go tubing. Samantha had no interest in the water or the boat ride after that. Penelope sure looks comfortable though, regardless of how annoying a life jacket like that one might be.

Glad to be back in the boat, but even more glad to be heading back to shore.

Beginning of Summer...Quarter.

Well Summer quarter has begun officially. I only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays this week, but I will have hours and hours of homework in each class every single day. It really is unfortunate. I was expecting the workload to pile on as soon as I started my upper division classes, but I forgot that class times were less flexible; I also didn't take into consideration Samantha's stubborn attitude towards sleeping without a binki. It is a fight with her every night and I am losing my patience with it. I have to wait an hour or two just to start my homework because it is impossible to study with her making such a racket in her bedroom.

I can already feel the stress building. It frightens me, to be perfectly honest. I have so many responsibilities within my home and for school. Sometimes I feel like I am alone in it all. I fear for when Ben starts school next week because it's just going to get worse. I love my husband very much, and he does help with things when I ask him to...but I wish that I could afford a nanny to help out. I'm lucky if my dishes get done once a day...if my table isn't clustered with so much crap...if my laundry was cleaned, folded, and put away all in the same day (or even within just a few days)...if my bathroom got a good scrubdown more than just once every 3 months...if dinner was actually cooked from scratch more than once a week, or if dinner was even cooked at all...if I could spend as much time on my studies that I actually want to...if I got a full 6 hours of sleep undisturbed...I could keep going if you like.
What makes it worse is that my GPA last quarter brought my cumulative GPA down. Instead of ALMOST being at a 3.7, I am barely above a 3.6. I cannot allow that to happen again! I am determined to graduate with at least a 3.7. It is my goal. I want to be able to say that regardless of my messy house (which is completely unavoidable at this point), late night last minute readings, and all the peanut butter and honey sandwiches I managed to feed myself and my children, I kicked some serious booty in my Business classes.

I wonder sometimes why my blog looks so boring, but then I think of how last quarter went and I remember that making my online blog look nice is such a poor use of my time. I'll be lucky to make a post for the next 3 months. But it's important to me to document these moments during this crazy time of our lives. I will appreciate it a bit more in a few years, and maybe then I'll make it look nice too.

I have pondered a great deal about pursuing a Masters Degree. I like the idea of having that on my resume, but after hours and hours of stressing about it (I have messed around with my graduation plan so much, it doesn't even resemble my original plan), I have decided that instead of wasting almost a quarters worth of classes, I would just double major instead. All I need is 10 credits more to meet my 225 to be CPA eligible after I fulfill all of my accounting courses. Why should I waste my money on a Masters program? It would be more worthwhile if I were pursuing a career at a huge firm directly out of school...which I am not. A career, yes. A huge firm, no. So...I am going to attempt a double major. I have added Business Administration with a specialization in Human Resources. Human Resources! After some research, I think that I might actually enjoy that. And it's pretty useful too. It's like studying people in the business world. Not quite psychology, but maybe just as interesting? I don't know, we'll see. Wish me luck. The worst that can happen is I won't enjoy those classes (but certainly, what could be worse than economics?) as much as I could have enjoyed others. I'd rather have a double major than a bunch of random useless (for my career) classes.

Finals Week

Spring finals have finally arrived. I have never been more excited to have an entire week off of school in my life. I feel slightly discouraged that I have summer school, and then right back into fall quarter undergraduate slavery. I swear that we will be better with our money so that I don't feel so much pressure to do summer school next year. 

I think that my grades will be decent this quarter. I am expecting two A's, and A-, and a B or B+. Can you guess which class gets the B? ...Econ. Thanks to Macroeconomics, I officially hate learning about inflation, business cycles, fiscal policy, employment, and technological advances. I'll leave that up to the people who find it interesting, and who actually believe most of it. It disinterests me because I feel like there is so much to learn before you can actually apply any of it (which I suppose is true for most cases); However, by the time you learn it all...it's all subjective anyway. No one can predict the economy, and those who do never get it right anyway. I'm sure there is plenty of value in knowing it all, I'm just not interested enough to waste my time. Accounting is my thing, and I'll stick to that.

Samantha chewed up her very last binki today. It was the last straw for me, and I wasn't about to give her one of Penelopes either. She would just chew right through that one too. I should have just taken them away from her months ago, I've learned to hate them with a passion over the last year. I just kept making excuses on why she wasn't ready to give them up because I didn't want to face the fact that I was the one who couldn't deal with it. But today...oh boy...I had enough of it. This woman right here was not about to give her 2 1/2 year old the pleasure of forcing a trip to the store for a measly binki. What happened might you ask? 2 hours of nonstop screaming. I have never completely ignored either of my screaming kids for more than 15 minutes before. It was quite the experience. Going cold turkey is really hard on the both of us. I hate hearing her scream but it just gets worse when I go in there to comfort her. I have to remind myself that I'm doing both of us a favor by doing it now. I'm determined to ween Penelope off the binki before she gets this old. Ben and I are already in the habit of keeping her binki in the crib. I don't even want her to think about it outside of bedtime. I vow that I am never going through this again.