Avoidance tactic #244 - Post a blog entry

I should be doing about fifty things right now. But I'm posting a blog. Sigh. My nice and friendly contact at the DCA told me today that our loan is scheduled to be processed by an underwriter either late Wednesday or early Thursday. I'm not sure how long it takes from there, but that pretty much dashed my hopes of a closing date this week. On the upside, if we close after August 6, our first mortgage payment won't be due until October (according to our broker who I don't really trust anymore). Of course, we would still pay interest for the month of September, which is significant, but still a good savings for the month. I guess we'll just have to see how things shake out. In other news, our car is acting up again. We did finally get the brakes fixed, but apparently it had several instances today of not starting. Justin is taking it to the mechanic tomorrow, but he told him over the phone he thinks it is probably the alternator (spelling?). Also, Katie has developed a decidedly pitiful limp. She does this on and off sometimes, but if it keeps getting worse, we might have to take her to the doctor. I'm hoping that between the car, the dog, and the pseudo-homeless thing, that is our dose of three unlucky things, and soon, something nice will happen. And of course, everything is all about perspective. Even though right now it feels like we are not having anything nice happen, things could be much worse. I'm just wishing we had a money tree to pay for all these things. Living without credit cards gets sticky in these kinds of times, but I still think it's worth it. Justin's budgeting skills are approaching the sublime, but it's not easy for even him to figure out how to accomodate SO many unexpected expenses.

In other news, Roxanne seems to be a little off from the moving. I guess I picked a pretty unfair time to night wean, but I really wanted to start fresh at the new house and make sure that from day one, she sleeps in her own room. I'll probably be spending some time in her room with her when we first move in, but I don't even want to start out letting her sleep with me. She hasn't nursed overnight since the Thursday before last, and she's finally getting the hang of it. She still asks for water, which she drinks a TON of, but she doesn't insist on milk. She is also not sleeping in the bed with me any more. When she wakes up in the middle of the night, I let her sleep in her Pack and Play in our room, but she is not allowed in the bed until the sun comes up. For us, it's our first step towards fully weaning. I want to take it slow and be done by her second birthday. Even now, we are down to 2-4 nursing sessions a day. What a breeze! But yeah, back to Roxanne's grumpiness lately... I think she can tell we are stressed out. She's been very clingy and grumpy in the last couple of days. In the car today, Justin got cut off by another driver and went on a rant about how terrible everyone in Atlanta is at driving, and she gave him the dirtiest look ever. I asked her what was wrong, and she said in a very disapproving voice, *lots of jibber jabber "Dada, no Dada" jibber jabber* She is such a sensitive thing sometimes.

Also, I'm in shock because I just realized that I will have been at my job for a year as of August 1. I can't believe it! It seems like yesterday I was miserable at Paul Hastings, crying every morning after dropping Roxanne off at daycare, etc. etc. Instead, I get to hang out with her all day every day. I realize that my job is not exactly a lofty profession, and a lot of times when people ask me what I do, I feel the need to stammer out an explanation of why I'm a nanny, and how I hope to do this or that in the future, but at the end of the day, it's a nice job. It gets stressful and irrational, and sometimes I wish there weren't so many bodily fluids involved in my day to day life, but really, kids are fun. Especially mine.

And just for fun, here's a photo of Roxanne right when I started my job. She couldn't even crawl yet!