Milestones

Little A is reaching lots of milestones. It's so fun to watch and a little sad, too. Big A is receiving good behavior awards at school. She has her first 3rd grade Spelling test tomorrow. I'm making progress on keeping the apartment clean and making it more of a home. I suppose we're all reaching milestones. 

 Little A is walking like a pro. She's climbing onto everything she can. I'm SO glad we moved the bookcase from our room to the extra room. That room is blocked off with a baby gate. We have a TON of books. Now I don't have to worry about the bookcases falling on her. She's also starting to baby...toddler...run. It's so amusing to watch. Little A loves to play "Zoom!" She puts her arms straight out behind her, palms up, looks at me with her little mischievous face, and waits for me to do the same while I chase her around the house. 

Big A has brought home several Good Behavior awards. I've also received an email from her teacher letting me know Big A is doing well, behavior-wise, but does tend to get distracted pretty easily. I'm not sure what other suggestions I can give to the teacher. BF and I will need to sit down to see what we can come up with. We discussed Big A's ADD at the open house and gave her teacher some tricks that work for us sometimes, but it really is hit and miss with Big A. Something that worked yesterday and all of last week won't work tomorrow. It gets really frustrating at times, especially for me because BF isn't around much due to the hours he works. Some days are better than others. I still have days when I freak out and yell, but I'm working on it. 

I've been using the www.Flylady.net system since I became a SAHM in April of this year. There are times I fall off the wagon and don't do my routines or clean anything at all for a week. When Little A was teething a few weeks ago, I really got nothing at all accomplished. One of the many great things with this system is that you're never behind. You just jump in with the next Zone and go from there. My apartment was a mess, the floors needed vacuuming and sweeping, the sink was full of dishes, the dishwasher had clean stuff in it, and the laundry was piled up. Pre-Flylady, I would have freaked the fuck out, stressed about how much there was to do, yelled, and accomplished nothing. When Little A was feeling better, I was able to tackle the big items in 10 to 15 minute spurts. I got the bathroom cleaned, the dishes put away, the stuff in the sink washed, the living room picked up and vacuumed, and I didn't spend an entire day doing it. I spread it out over a few days. 

I've slowly been framing our photos and adding them to the living room walls. We move around a lot and I never saw the point in framing and putting up photos, but I finally got tired of staring at white walls. We have some photos up and I plan to add more as I get frames for them. I've found some really great deals at Savers and garage sales on frames. I have a really nice frame I picked up at Walmart that has several openings of different sizes. I've filled quite a few of the spots, but I need to look through all the photos on my computer to finish out the collage frame. I have Big A's artwork up on the wall. I have Little A's hospital photos. I have photos of my family and of BF's other children. It's really starting to look better in here. It's starting to look like a home instead of a place we'll be staying for a bit. That makes me happy.