I need my life plotted out on a map.

Maybe it's just the cooler weather, the desire to have another baby but not being sure about anything, being in a job I'm not sure is going anywhere.... I don't know what it is, but I'm in a funk.

We haven't done anything this summer, or gone anywhere. Well, I guess we did get a fence built, but I mean more along the lines of getting away. It's been too long since we've been camping. Even if we only went once a year, it was the time I looked forward to the most. This year I've been on the fence about it because A is only a year and a half, and I think bringing her would be hectic. There's no way she'd stay in a canoe, she doesn't really swim too much... I'm not really sure what we'd do with her if we brought her. Also... I feel like she'd be hard to get to sleep and we'd just be exhausted from having her up all night.

So... On September 13th, I'm heading out for one night with a few girlfriends, and we're going to camp. Wine will be involved, and I think it will be a nice little getaway.

That's good. I should be happy, and I am.

But I would really like to go camping with my husband like we used to. He wants to go somewhere, and we're both fine with leaving A. with grandma for a couple of nights, but whenever I mention camping, he keeps trying to suggest a cottage or a yurt or something. If we had more money I'd do a B&B or something, but realistically, I don't really want to pay upwards of a $120/night to camp out in a yurt, which is basically just a glorified tent, and a cottage or cabin is about $160/night. I guess it's not really that expensive, but compared to camping in a tent which starts at about $25/night... well, I guess you can see what I'm saying. I don't think communing with nature needs to be expensive. We have all the gear we need.

We'll go camping, and we'll go in a tent, and hubs will put on his game face about it, but I have to wonder why all of a sudden camping isn't good enough. He used to love it. He's the one who got me in to it many years ago. I know people change and all, but this is something that we used to love doing together, and it's sad that I have to twist his arm to get him to go.

I guess I can see where he's coming from. He wants a 'real' vacation. I want a real vacation too, but I'm stuck in this mindset of being frugal since I don't know if I'll even have a job in November.

I'm tired. Tired of getting stuck in a contract situation. Tired of getting a job that isn't permanent. Tired of being in an industry that seems to really be getting me nowhere. I feel like I'd like to take some courses or something, try something else, but at the same idea, I have no idea what I would do with myself.

I need to get out of this funk. I'm not unhappy. I have a great family, a beautiful place to live, I really have plenty and couldn't ask for much more (except a real job). Hubs is even on board for a second baby, and I want one like... yesterday... but I just don't know what lies ahead.

This post is kind of all over the place... but I guess that's how I feel lately. So I'll end it now. Ugh.

Oh, it's a working mom's life

Now that I've been back to work for a while, I am definitely remembering those days where I just want to be done work for the day. I like my new job, and I've adjusted to working from home well. It was rough at first, because even just going back to work after a year off is disorienting.. but I think I've got the hang of it now. :)

DD has adjusted well to her new daycare too, life seems to be settling down a little and less chaotic for sure. There should be a good ebb in things until November when I should find out if this job will continue. The life of a contractor sucks but at least this job has hope of becoming permanent, so that's something.

We've been busy outside of work here too. Over the last few weekends, my husband and the next door neighbours have been building a fence for our homes (townhouse). Tim has been tired and crabby because he's out of shape, and putting up a fence is a lot of work.. but I will take his crabbiness for one super awesome fence. I can now let A. play outside without having to chase her through everyone else's yard. Yay!

Our neighbours are awesome. We have a dog, and wanted to fence off the yard for A., but if we didn't actually need it, we probably wouldn't have divided the yards. Yesterday neighbour lady peeks over the fence while we're sitting there eating supper, and her husband walks in to our yard to talk about breaking up the payment for the fencing supplies. If it would have been anyone else, Tim and I probably would have been like "Wtf?", but because it's them.. it was more like "Hey, come on over." J. (neigbour lady) runs through her house to come around the other side, then they joined us for supper since we had way too much food anyway. J. is a hair dresser, and we'd been talking about her doing my hair. She had the colour for it, so after supper, she just mixes it all up, then dyes my hair outside while the guys were cutting the tops off of the fence posts. hahaha How awesome is that? She's coming back today to lop off my hair, I'm excited.

We're at a really good place in life right now. We have great neighbours, I have more friends than I've probably ever had in my life, my daughter is amazing, my husband is amazing... I'm a happy little camper.

Fashionista

A dress with ladybug rain boots. Oh yeahhhh!

Last post, I had written about my daughter's new habit of holding in poop. Just what you wanted to read about right? Ha! Well, I've been dealing with poop for a couple of weeks, so why not share with the rest of the world?

Anyway, it seems like maybe this phase is coming to an end. She's been holding herself constantly for two weeks to the point where she gets upset when she can't hold it in. I've been taking advantage of bath time since it's the only time she actually will go, and putting her on the potty when I can see her trying to hold it. That has been successful. I'm not trying to potty train my 16 month old, but it was the only place/time she was going.

I decided to try bribery to get things back on course. You poop anywhere (hopefully in your diaper), and you get a Smartie. Since I've started that, she seems to be going again, so I'm rolling with it.

Hopefully this doesn't screw things up too bad when we get to real potty training when she's two. If we're lucky, she won't remember any of this by then!

Oh poop

For a while now, my daughter has gotten in to the habit of pooping in the bath tub. My response to this was to tell her 'no poopoo in the tub'. Well.... My daughter has caught on to the "no poopoo" part, because not only will she not poop in the tub, she won't poop at all.

At first, I'd watch her thinking maybe she was constipated, as she'd stiffen up her body whenever she needed to poop... but after a while of analyzing her posture, then watching her do it in the tub I realized, SHE'S HOLDING IT IN!!!

She's not constipated, she's not backed up... she's just misinterpreted no poopoo in the tub as, no poopoo EVER.

SHIT. (No pun intended).

The next day at daycare, my DC provider told me that A. was holding herself all day, to the point where she was screaming because of it. Her solution? Put my 15 month old daughter on the potty... And guess what? She went.

I'm not sure how I feel about putting a kid this young on the potty, so throughout the weekend we tried to see if she would just forget about the no pooping thing and stop holding herself, but nope... she was insistent on holding it in unless I put her on the potty, then she would go.

I figure pooping on the potty no matter the age is better than not pooping at all, so I'm just going to go with it, and hope that this doesn't screw anything up in the long run.

Wordless Wednesday

Ashley's many hats - Made by her mama