Our kitchen has since had a complete make over with beautiful new tile, a new light fixture, new paint, white cabinets, and silver pulls (and that hideously placed chandelier is now gone). The kitchen makeover was a present from Shawn to me when I went out of town one weekend:
And a homefront update:Shawn: Shawn is currently out of town on a middle school trip. I counted the days he'd be in town in the month of November (I was trying to plan out meals for our grocery budget), and it was something like 12 days if we're gone for a week at Thanksgiving like we'd hoped. At some point in those twelve days we need to do several home improvement projects, cram in doctors appointments, have a birthday party for Jude, try and attend as many birthday parties/dinners/last minute you're-leaving-and-we-want-to-spend-time-with-you get togethers as we can, and pack up our entire house. If you're wondering how on earth we're going to do all that, well...we are, too.
Jen: I'm trying not to get overwhelmed. A good indicator of how crazed I'm feeling is how many different to do lists I have and the length of those to do lists. I usually have at least one, sometimes as many as three when I'm feeling extra busy. I have six running lists right now. This is not good. Despite the craziness, I'm really trying to take things one day at a time and accomplish the tasks for each day as they come. I'm also really trying to enjoy my boys and not overlook them out of busyness. I have to admit that I'm so relieved to be a stay at home in this period of our lives. I'm fairly certain that's the only way our house as any semblance of order and stability for the kiddos.
Jude: Jude is crazy about trains, ice, letters, and cheese right now. Most of his days are spent enjoying one of those four things. Judeabug is also passionate about reading and books, and is more than happy to bring me book after book to read. I'm sure you know how much I just hate that. :) He now knows almost all of his letters, so I'm focusing a little bit more on teaching him colors and numbers. He loves to count, but is a little confused about how it works. He counts, "...two...eight...pie....L..." and two is by far his favorite number! After two years of enthusiastic "Da-Da!"s, Jude is finally saying, "Mommy!" It sounds more like, "Mohhh-Meeeeeeee," and is said with all the sweetness my little heart can stand.
Cohen: I do believe Cohen is on the tail end of his 12 week growth spurt. So far he's hit his growth spurts exactly one day after he's supposed to and they last about three days - which is in contrast to Jude's spurts that lasted about a week. While I think some of that contrast is just a difference in kiddos, I also think some of it is because I've learned. When Jude would growth spurt, I did my best to keep him on a three hour schedule and sleep an extended period at night. I also had to give Jude several bottles a day because I was working and had a hard time pumping as much as he was taking when he went through growth spurts, and I'm very careful to not give Cohen bottles during his spurts. I'm sure that's why it took my milk supply a week to catch up to his growth. With Cohen, I feed him as soon as he begins fussing. That usually means every 2-2.5 hours during the day and every 5 hours at night (I know how blessed I am that it IS 5 hours at night...Jude would fuss every 2 hours round the clock). It does mean my life has to kind of be on lock down during those days (especially since Shawn's out of town and I can't really go anywhere where I can't feed Cohen and run after Jude by myself...which is basically nowhere but my own house), but it's worth it. The day before Cohen started his growth spurt, he slept for 11 hours, and I have high hopes that he'll start that consistently once he's done.
So the Maurer home is bracing for chaos right now, but we're so grateful for God's provision and grace. My posts will be super short and sporadic for awhile, but once we get settled it's important to me to use this blog as a tool to show both our families from the north and our friends from North Carolina what our life is like. And on that note...Cohen needs to eat and Jude is spilling AlphaBits all over the floor. Motherhood calls!
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