To be continued...

Blogger has served us well, but we're moving up in the world. We got our own website! From now on, we'll be chronicling our adventures in the world of marriage and parenthood at

www.manualnotincluded.com.

(click the link to be redirected)

WAZAAAP!

Sunday

Being a wife, taking care of Jim-Jim, working full-time, and going to school have been challenging. I've had to learn to do things once and move on, to be very efficient at whatever I do. I work very hard when I'm at work but when I leave the office, I leave it there. I don't think about it again until the following morning. Sundays are my day to do school work. I study very hard on Sundays and when I finish what I need to do, I'm done until the following Sunday. After work and Saturdays are reserved for enjoying my precious family.

Jim's love language is quality time. He's had to make some pretty severe sacrifices so that I can finish my masters. After we get home from church on Sunday morning, I sequester myself in the bedroom with my laptop and my breast pump, and I study the remainder of the day. Jim makes sure the boy is taken care of and that I'm fed. Every so often, Jim feels the need to remind me that he's waiting out there and to hurry up with the schoolwork. Just about every hour he pops in with the boy, and they "help" me study by making sure I haven't fallen asleep in front of the laptop. I look above my laptop screen to find them peering over the edge at me, beckoning me to come play. This is a picture of Jim and Jim-Jim letting me know study time is over and play-time has begun.

I only had one chapter to read, a quiz, and a short paper to write this week, so I was able to go out and enjoy the gorgeous day with Lil' Bit and Bailey.
Thank you Bailey for your contribution to that final shot!

Oh crud, what now?!

Let me preface this post by saying Jim is a stellar husband and father. I couldn't do this parenting thing without him but more importantly, I wouldn't want to! He's my best friend, and he keeps me laughing even when things get tough.

Jim and I are occasional readers of a blog called Looky, Daddy. http://www.lookydaddy.com/ This is an excerpt from Friday's post. The post goes on, but I was in tears, laughing so hard I think I peed a little, when I got this far.

"I'm gonna jump in the shower and then I'm going to bed."

"Can I ask you something first?"

My wife paused before she said yes. It is a natural side effect of our ten years of marrige."

Why was I laughing so hard? I call this pause my "Oh crud, what now?" moment. This is how my true-life version of that post goes.

"Kara."

What happens in my head: "Oh crud, what now?!"

What comes out: "Yes, babe? What do you need?"

Oh, that pause. That moment when you contemplate getting up and running rather than hearing what comes next. When being deaf seems more attractive than having your auditory faculties intact. I am very familiar with the pause. Is it bad that after 1 year of marriage we have a pause? We have experienced getting married, moving in together, finding out that we're pregnant, having a baby, and being forced to move yet again all within a year's time. Aren't the 5 leading stressors getting married, having a kid, moving, a job change, and death? Four out of five since we began dating 2 years ago...we've earned our pause!

Cheap

We get the worst parents of the year award. Jim-Jim had his first school portraits taken, and we chose not to buy them. Cute as they may be, our computer is bulging at the seams with photos of the boy, so we decided to spend our money on something we don't have in excess.
We are the only parents who received 2 sets of proofs. They tried to take the first set of pictures at meal time without feeding him first. Ha! Good luck with that one! Does it look like the kid has missed a meal? There's a reason for that. He is the most even-tempered, laid-back kid...until it's time to eat. We'll blame it on low blood glucose.

Daddy Edit:
I think it was the background that I didn't really like. I mean, a Christmas tree is cool and all, but not as cool as those 80s school pictures we took when we were kids. Don't you miss those?

Time Change

Fall back. Those words make my heart jump with joy! An extra hour of sleep! What could be better? Having Jim-Jim this year has made me aware that some don't honor the tradition of falling back, though.

1. People in AZ: Not pertinent but a fact none-the-less
   
2. The cat: Instead of screaming at us for half an hour at dinner-time, Chloe now screams at us for an hour and a half begging for her dinner.
   
3. My boobs: The female body is amazing! In addition to growing a human being, it has the ability to produce milk on a schedule. I pump at the same times every day so my body knows exactly when to produce breast milk, and this prevents me from walking around engorged all of the time. Unfortunately, due to the time change, my body is raring to go at 4:00am now instead of 5:00am. It sure does make for an uncomfortable last hour of sleep!
   
4. Jim-Jim: How do you tell an infant that he needs to stay awake an hour longer at night and sleep an hour later in the morning than his biological clock is telling him to do. A memo? A shaman? Morse code? We've been so rigid about his bedtime that the stinker is just doing what we've always made him do. If Jim-Jim came with a reset button, I haven't found it yet! And if not, he should! I'm going to ask for that model next time. Ah...who am I kidding? He could wake me up at 4:00am until he is 18 years old, and I'd still want another one just like him. He's such an amazing kid!

Skin and Bones

To all who have commented on my boy's size, look at him now. He's just skin and bones!

Okay, okay...that was pretty corny. Remember that old adage about the apple not falling far from the tree? Please have mercy on my son when he makes a corny joke. Offer a sympathy laugh or a snicker or something! A smirk, maybe? He didn't get to pick his parents, and he doesn't have much of a chance with our DNA and Jim and me raising him. Nature AND nurture, he's getting it on both fronts! He's destined to be a goober!

More corniness for your amusement:

They finally caught the cat burglar
I've got mad ninja skills

Where'd my pee-pee go?! It was there the last time I looked!