Let's Find a Cure

Being in the senior housing industry, I see and meet those with dementia or Alzheimer's every day. Or if I'm not meeting them I'm meeting their families and care givers. From a professional standpoint Alzheimer's is tough. From a personal standpoint it's excruciating. 

My Gramps, my mother's dad, has been experiencing a mental health decline for the past several years. We now have the diagnosis of Alzheimer's - and even though we knew that to be a possibility all along it's still a great blow. There is no cure. There is no getting better.

What was once a vibrant, social, hardworking, independent man, is now a quiet, reserved, and totally-dependent-on-my-mom person. Not only is this rough on him but it's devastating for my mom. However, she carries it like a champ! She's a true advocate for him and is totally devoted, especially since her mother, my Gampi, passed away almost two years ago. I can't imagine those that don't have a daughter like her to look after them or those that don't have the monetary resources for homes such as where I work.

This is why finding a cure for Alzheimer's is so crucial. With the baby-boomer generation getting older and our life spans getting longer, more and more will receive this diagnosis every year. The research and support that is provided by the Alzheimer's Association is amazing and my family whole-heartedly supports them. This year we did the annual Alzheimer's Walk with my whole family. My mom won an award for individual contributor and fund-raiser. She also (in my book) wins an award for being an amazing daughter and advocate for my Gramps. 

For more information on how you can help, visit www.alz.org. 

My Big Boy

Big news in our household!!! Conrad started pre-school! Our little guy (who will be 3 in October) started at a new "big boy school" on Aug. 31st. And boy were there tears. Lots from both him and me. The first day he was very excited:

Ahh....love that curly mop!

However, once it set in that this was an all-day, every-day affair the novelty wore off and he freaked out. I don't blame the kid - for the past almost 3 years he was with his daycare provider, Farzaneh, almost one on one the whole time. She had him since he was 4 months old and she was like a grandmother to him. He was totally spoiled! So he went from that to a class of 22 kids (and this kid doesn't like a lot of loud noises or ruckus) with lots of structure and schedules. It was a lot for him to get used to, poor guy. Things have gotten better but only after I had to have a conversation with the principal about receiving help from the teachers at drop-off. I kid you not, I absolutely need someone to peel him off me each morning. It's now an unspoken agreement between me and Sean that he does drop offs whenever possible because I can't handle the sadness - I end up running to my car and bawling :(

I know he'll adjust and get better and that this will be good for him in the end - hey it spurred his potty training and now he's fully potty trained before age 3! For baby boy #2 we will definitely put him in sooner in hopes that it will be an easier adjustment. It's these times that make me desperately want to be a SAHM but it's just not in the cards (or bank) for us. Major mom guilt here - what's a mom to do?! 

Where has the summer gone?

I'll say it time and time again - the days are passing by too quickly. I'm trying to spend as much time with my little guy as possible before #2 comes:

And Sean and I are desperately trying to get stuff done to the house because we know my ability to help will be much less once the newest baby boy comes. 

When we moved to our house one of the main things that attracted us to it and our neighborhood were the big yards and trees. However, the maintenance is slowly starting to creep up on us - we are just trying to stay afloat here! I think we'll eventually have to hire some professionals just to get everything done all at once as we can't handle it all. And neither can our cars! Here's just a part of a project:

We loaded my tiny SUV with 30 bags of mulch and 5 bags of top soil. We then had to go back for 12 more bags of mulch! Whew, home ownership is great but man it's tough work! Anyone know the name of a good landscaper? ;)

Pregnancy Thus Far

So unlike the first time around I've been horrible about keeping up my pregnancy updates. I've always heard that baby #2 gets the shaft and I'm afraid to say that I think that's the case here. Things are just so busy! If things are this busy now I'm super nervous for when we add another one to the mix. I only took one picture so far to track my belly:

For comparison, here's me at 15 weeks with Conrad:

And then when we found out it was another BOY we had Conrad introduce the gender with a balloon via Facetime with our families:

He had too much fun with that balloon, however, he was quite sad that it's not a baby sister. I'm sure he'll get over it once he sees how much fun he and his baby brother will have. Now just to decide on a name. If it was a girl we would have no problem - but however with a boy we are at a loss. I really like the idea of keeping with family names but it's tough to agree on one. I have a list with about one hundred 12 names and Sean likes maybe 5 of them. Oh dear.

Summertime Fun

Time is just flying by! This summer we've spent lots of time at the lake with my in-laws, which is, of course, one of Conrad's favorite places to be! With the boat, jet ski, go-cart riding, and swimming available all the time it's no wonder he loves to visit MeMa and Big Pop.

Every year we try and get to the lake for either Memorial Day or 4th of July and my in-laws are gracious enough to let our friends come too. We have been coming for several years now and it's funny how we started out with no kids and now we all have little ones running around!

We also took our annual beach vacation with Sean's family - and as always, the trip didn't disappoint! It's so hard to believe that this time next summer we'll have another little one added to the mix. Conrad is getting SO big and was much more brave with the ocean - in fact, we had to keep a tight grip on him as he wanted to go out farther and farther into the water!

More Catching Up

Since I have a lot of catching up to do since January and don't want to inundate everyone with a ton of pictures, I decided to break up our happenings since January:

Sean and I attended a beautiful wedding on the Chesapeake - weddings can still be fun when you're preggers but definitely not as fun as when you can imbibe on champagne!

Our town had its annual Memorial Day fair and it didn't disappoint! Conrad and Brayden loved the Ferris Wheel...Sean, not so much.

I ran another 10k with my BFF who is expecting baby #2 just one day before me!

Our little tiger had lots of fun at another town fair (let me just say I love where we live!)

Conrad and I are continuing to spend lots of time together before #2 comes. I'm trying to take off at least 1 day a month from work to just do stuff together with my little man.

Countdown to #2 continues!

Well Hello There!

So yeah, it's been a while...

Let's face it, being a working mom is not easy folks...duh. Finding the time to post things is HARD because of course all your free time when you're not working is spent with your kid (minor details here). But I recently decided to take the plunge and made the decision to "quit" Facebook (although lez-be-real this is not permanent, I've done this before - I just had Sean change my password so I can't get in - sad, right?). I just found myself wasting waaaayyyy too much time on it and there were too many political posts, articles, ads, and links to stuff I just don't care about. I found myself scrolling until I found pictures of people I'm still interested in (but can see these on Instagram!) and the rest was just fluff.

This is a round-about way of saying I'm picking up the blog again so that my friends and family who aren't on Instagram can have a way to still see pictures of our cute little guy and keep up with what's going on in our family. So, here's a quick recap of what we've been up to:

Yep, that happened! Baby Mc # 2 is expected to arrive Thanksgiving day! We are so excited to welcome this new addition to the family and can't wait to start working on the new room, break out all those old baby clothes and toys, and introduce Conrad to his baby brother! 

One of the best parts? Five of my good friends are also pregnant and we are all due within three months of each other! Maternity leave won't be so lonely this time around and I'll have fellow sober peeps to hang out with!

My main man is getting SO BIG...I can't believe he'll be three in October! And he's starting pre-school at the end of August (wahhhhhhh). Time is FLYING by!

Conrad is still pretty tall for his age and likes to act like such a big boy - we are in the midst of potty training (almost there! any advice for getting them to go #2? he's nailed #1 on the potty but can't seem to get past going #2 on the potty!!)

With my work schedule super crazy, Sean traveling for work a lot, and a lot of other family stuff going on we are just trying to relish this summer together before becoming a family of four!!

Time: PLEASE stop going by so fast!