ramonat latest

It’s quiet in our house this morning after a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday with our family. We had decided that we weren’t going to be traveling this year for Thanksgiving given that the holiday is short plus the fact that we have three children. We invited Nat’s parents to join us earlier this summer for Thanksgiving, and they graciously accepted. Nat’s brother, very pregnant sister-in-law, and Grandpa Thompson also joined us for Thanksgiving. With all the people, Nat’s parent kindly decided that the family would stay at a hotel in order to make everyone as comfortable as possible. I will recap the events.

On Wednesday, Nat took the day off since his parents and grandfather were coming in during the day. Nat took Sean to pre-school and stayed to volunteered. I was excited both for Nat and Sean, but mostly for Nat to see what Sean does at school every day. While Nat and Sean were still at school, Nat’s parents arrived. Jonas took some time to warm up to Grandma and Grandpa, but after 30 minutes, he was all smiles. While we had some time to spare, mom and I started parts of Thanksgiving dinner, which I think was a wise idea given the craziness of the next day! When Nat and Sean came home, we sat around catching up and waited for Great Grandpa Thompson to arrive. Great Grandpa Thompson arrived shortly after lunch, and we were able to eat a short lunch while the kids were down for their naps. The men stayed at home while mom and I headed to Sam’s for some shopping. In the evening, we had a lovely dinner of lasagna courtesy of mom. Nat and dad headed out to play his soccer game in an indoor league after the kids were down for bed. Mom and I stayed at home and waited for Ethan and Anne to arrive at the airport. Mom went to pick them up and the men managed to come home shortly after they arrived back at home.

Thanksgiving Day was pretty laid back for the most part. The boys were excited to have so many people around, especially Uncle Ethan since he so fun to play with! Karis was all smiles and was happy to held by anyone. She loved to flash her smiles at all her adoring family. Most of the day was spent slowly prepping for the feast while the children were running around with whatever adult was available. While the children were down for a nap, we were able to play Alhambra, a new game Nat got. In the afternoon, Nat and mom took the children out because they were getting a little stir crazy. Around 4PM, things started to get a little crazy as things were getting finished up for dinner. We had four cooks in the kitchen, and dad was getting ready to carve the turkey. We managed to get dinner on the table shortly before 5:30PM. It was quite the feast – turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry jelly, cranberry bread, pumpkin bread, rolls, peas, creamed spinach, sweet potato casserole, and pumpkin pie for dessert. Sean loved the turkey, and he ate 3 helpings! Jonas loved the rolls the best. Karis was napping while the feast was occurring. Needless to say, everyone was stuffed at the end of dinner!

Friday, we surprised Aunt Anne with a massage in the morning while the men stayed at home watching the Nebraska game. Most of the day was spent watching college football. We took turns entertaining the children, and by naptime, everyone was pretty tired out. We all took our turns resting while the children were down for their naptime. I made a Chinese dinner for everyone, and I was happy that everyone enjoyed the meal!

Saturday morning we headed to the bakery to get some treats while Nat, dad, and Grandpa Thompson stayed at home. Nat and dad were kind enough to rake our elderly neighbor’s yard in the morning. I had scheduled Nat for a massage in the morning, so that was his treat for the day! Mom and I decided that we should keep the kids a little busier during the day without being in the house, so we went to the grocery store in the morning. In the afternoon, Nat, dad, and Ethan took them to the pool at the hotel. The boys had a blast, and they were starving for dinner when they came home! We put all the kids down and had a nice dinner of rib roast with all the grown ups. It was nice to sit down to a meal without the kids.

Grandpa Thompson left Sunday morning before most of us were up. Mom and dad came over for a leisurely breakfast and left soon after we cleaned up. Ethan and Anne headed back to the hotel while we were at church. We enjoyed a lazy afternoon of NFL football and laying on the couch. After the kids woke up from their afternoon nap, we drove around the town to show Ethan and Anne around. In the evening, we were able to go out on a double date thanks to our friend Jason.

Ethan and Anne left early this morning, and we’re now back to our routine. I definitely think we need a break from our break! Despite the busyness, we had a fabulous time with our family!

I have the best husband ever, hands down. Please don’t try to argue this point with me because you will lose.

Life at our house has slowly been wearing on us as parents. Parenting three children under four years old is quite the task, and believe it or not, it’s quite exhausting. I started to crack under the weight of my job – maintaining the house and taking care of the kids. It’s hard to do both. I like having a clean and tidy house. I like making meals for my family (partly because I like to cook and partly to be a good steward of our money). I like doing something for my kids every day so they don’t go stir crazy in the house and drive me crazy. But the thing is, it’s hard to do all these things consistently over a long period of time, especially when you have interrupted sleep at night because of a baby. You become a bear; ok, I become a bear.

Unfortunately for my family, they get the brunt of my grouchiness, mostly Nat. It builds up unbeknownst to me while I’m doing the “daily grind”, and then one day, I realize what my occupation is doing to me emotionally and physically, and I explode. I feel run down, beat up, and I just really detest being a mom and a housewife. I feel under appreciated for all the work I put in, and I hate that I don’t see the “pay off” of all my work.

Then, my wonderful husband comes in. I rant; he listens. I cry; he holds me. I feel discouraged and want to give up; he loves me. After seeing me completely explode, Nat goes into action. He knows I’m burned out, so he starts figuring out what he can do to lessen my burden. He sees that I’m stressed about how Karis and the kids are doing, and he writes an e-mail to tell me how well everyone is doing. He nudges me out of the house so I can do something for myself. This in itself, is amazing. But what makes it even more amazing is that Nat too, is feeling the wear of every day life. He goes to work and works hard for 8 hours a day, comes home to the family, and doesn’t get a break until all the kids are down. He works two jobs, and he doesn’t complain once about how hard he’s working but tries to figure out how to make life easier for me right now. He is truly loving me as his own body, and I can’t get over this fact how he would even have the strength or energy to do so! I’m humbled by his love and service towards me, and I praise the Lord for what a wonderful husband I have. I know that Nat will be greatly rewarded in heaven for how he has served me and our family!

We’d like to welcome our newest addition: Karis Isabel Thompson. She was born on Monday, 5/30, at 6:54PM. She weighed 8 lbs and was 21 inches. She’s doing great, and I’ve been posting a little bit about her at our children’s blog.

I’m due on Wednesday, and the baby isn’t here yet, thankfully! We had a busy weekend of activity with Nat’s mom coming out and my mom coming out for Nat’s graduation. He defended last year, but he didn’t deposit his dissertation in time so that he could participate in the May graduation. We three women managed to corral our two boys for the two-hour ceremony. I was super proud to see Nat walk across the stage and get hooded!

Another reason I’m glad the baby is not here is because I’m sick with another cold. I think it’s the cold that Nat had first, then passed to the boys, and then passed to me. It didn’t seem to affect any of the men too badly, so I was hoping that I would be as lucky too. Two Sunday’s ago, I felt some chills and just felt very tired and low energy, much like Sean did a few nights before me. A few days passed, and I developed a cough. A few days after that, I had some sinus congestion. Then, the past two nights, I’ve started coughing. The coughing has been so bad the past two nights that I haven’t been able to sleep well because my coughing keeps me up. I’ve taken drugs for my congestion and my cough, but it doesn’t seem to help at night. I’ve coughed so much my throat is hurting again, and my sides are hurting. Sigh. I hope I can kick this cold really soon, and that it’s the same cold that everyone had. I also hope my mom doesn’t get this cold! I’d hate to have sickness going through our house with a newborn!

There are a lot of things going on today – Good Friday, Earth Day, Nat’s dad’s birthday, and my birthday. I had planned for a semi-quiet day especially with the somberness of Jesus’ death on Good Friday. I had told Nat that I’d like to celebrate my birthday next weekend when there was less going on. I still, however, still wanted to feel a little special on my actual birthday. It just wasn’t meant to be this birthday.

Sean woke up early, 6AM, this morning. Fortunately, he wasn’t crying, just moaning and talking off and on, so we left him in bed until 6:45AM. Nat, being the sweet husband that he is, decided to make pancakes for me this morning. Things were looking pretty good for a low-key, but still feeling special kind of day. We left the house in a downpour, and Nat got soaking wet putting the boys into the car. He got so wet, he had to go back in and change his clothes. Fortunately, the downpour ended a few minutes later, so none of us got very wet after we reached our destinations.

I had hoped that the boys would be on better behavior today, but I didn’t completely expect them to, given their age. However, Sean was extra sassy today in the morning with his disobedience, use of words we don’t like, and actions. I think it’s due partly to waking up so early, but I definitely didn’t care for his attitude. He got better throughout the day, but it was trying dealing with an ornery little boy today!

Nat came home early for lunch so I could head to the doctor. The doctor was running 30 minutes behind. He was quick about seeing me once I was in the office, which was nice, but I wish I had known earlier so Nat didn’t have to come as early. I ran over to our favorite bakery for lunch, and of course, there was a long line with no street parking. I circled the block a few times hoping to find a space, but alas, there was none to be found. I parked in a lot nearby, which was free today which I’m assuming because of Good Friday. The line was long at Mirabelle’s, and by the time I had gotten home, Nat had to dash off. He took at 2 hour lunch instead of 1 hour. He was very productive with his extra time at home! He moved Sean’s furniture into his new room and moved our bed and furniture into the baby’s room in preparation of ripping out the carpet in the master!

Before Nat left, he pointed out to me that in the second round of downpour, there was water getting into our basement. The previous owners hadn’t cleaned out the gutters, and water was gushing over a few sides, one of which was overflowing right above a spot in the basement. Unfortunately, Nat saw some water right outside of the breaker box in the basement, which freaked both of us out. I called our contractor who worked on our laundry closet, and he came by and looked at it. To our relief, he said it wasn’t too terrible, especially given the recent downpour. There was some condensation in the box on the bottom righthand corner, but he called his electrician and he said just to run a fan across it to dry. The contractor thinks that as long as we clean the gutters and seal off the portion of the porch that the water was pooling at, we should be ok. He also said that the water may have been getting into a screw that was drilled into the concrete in the panel box. In any case, he said the wetness wasn’t too bad given all the rain we had in such a short amount of time.

By this time, naptime/quiet time was halfway done. The plumber stopped by to put in the toilet, and it wasn’t very restful for me. He was using a lot of his power tools, so it wasn’t very quiet either. After Jonas woke up, I was just lazy and watched TV for an hour, and then let the boys roam around. I picked up dinner and my birthday cake. When I was pulling up for home, I just emotionally and mentally lost it. Nat looked at me and he said, “You don’t look like you’re having a very good day”, and I just broke down into tears. I told him I felt like I had a crappy day, especially since it was my birthday. I sobbed and blubbered on about how I wanted to feel special. Sean picked up on the crying and kept saying, “Mommy, you sad? Why you sad mommy?” That just made it worse.

Nat felt terrible that I had such a busy and non-special feeling day. He had tried to make it special with the pancakes and doing some chores, but everything just culminated to a blah day for me. I’m glad the boys are now in bed, and I’m hoping to head to bed early. Tomorrow, I know, will be a better day.