It’s that time of year again, when we’re waiting to find out if E’s going to be promoted switching jobs it’s sort of complicated and everything is up in the air. We’ve done this for several years now, including the time we got surprise orders to San Diego while I was pregnant, so it might feel like you’ve read this post before. (I assure you this is new, I’ve just whining about the same things AGAIN.) So far, things have always worked out and we’ve managed to stay put in Connecticut, much to my delight and E’s…less than delight. He likes the place, just not being passed over.

I’ll admit that in past years I was sort of relieved E wasn’t promoted. That’s a shitty thing to be happy about, but the logistics of moving are so overwhelming in our current house-owning state. We bought when the market was still high (not at the peak, thank God, or we’d be so far underwater on this house we’d never get out) so selling it without shelling out a huge chunk of cash is going to be hard. It’s even harder to realize that all the work we’ve put into it won’t bring us any return on investment and we’ll have to start over at zero dollars.  Not being a home owner has its advantages…but I love my home.

Beyond the financial aspect of moving, there’s the emotional aspect of leaving somewhere I’ve lived longer than anywhere else in my life. Actually, I’ve living in this HOUSE longer than I’ve lived anywhere else in my life – before this, my record was all 4 years of high school in my parent’s house in Virginia. I moved every single year of college, then twice three times in the first year of marriage. The funny thing is, I used to like moving. I grew up in a military household and thought I could keep doing it indefinitely. But the truth is, being settled is comforting. A support system is important to me, especially as a mom. I have mom friends. My kids have kid friends. I have a mechanic, a pharmacy, a preschool, a library card, a favorite playground, and a zillion other things I don’t want to leave.

But. Even after I’ve said all that out loud (and to myself many, many times) I am not going to freak out if we have to leave. We are still in the easily-movable years with the kids where they adjust and make friends quickly. The Navy comes with a built in support system for families so I wouldn’t be starting for the bottom of a sad, dark pit – more like half way up a ladder that reaches the top. Starting over without the enormous costs of a house could give us the freedom to build our savings faster and splurge on things like family vacations more often. If E got promoted we might actually see him on a regular basis, instead of just waving at him as he runs out the door for another 36 hour shift.

To be totally honest, a lot of our moving options sound kind of…exciting. San Diego. Hawaii. Japan. Guam. Yes, it would be insanely far from our families, but they’re all limited-time-offers (and I am SURE my friends and relatives would find a way to visit me in Hawaii). We have friends in a lot of those places already. Even if we get transferred to somewhere on the East Coast a change might be good for us – what better excuse to purge all our unnecessary stuff, get organized and start fresh? I’m almost ready for that kind of challenge. Almost.

There is just so much uncertainty in our lives for the moment, thinking about it and NOT thinking about it both take a huge amount of effort. I don’t have the energy for much worrying on top of the thinking too, but please excuse me if more of this leaks out of my head between now and the end of April.

I was really late to the Downton Abbey party – we didn’t watch ANY of it until November and caught up just in time for Season 3 to start last week – but I am just as obsessed as the rest of the country now. (Sidebar to my mother: The first season is on Netflix streaming, go watch it now.) It’s really good, in a whoa-I-really-need-to-watch-all-of-this-RIGHT-NOW kind of way, so I recommend starting it at around 9 am on a Saturday and just count on wasting the whoooole weekend.

Unfortunately, this week I pretty much spoiled the new season for myself by Googling an unrelated British actor (here’s a hint: I’m obsessed with his show). Before I knew it – BAM! Spoiled! Right on the front page of the search results! I literally shouted “Noooooooooooo!” and shook my fists at the sky in anger. I forgot that Season 3 already aired in the UK so the internet is full of interviews and recaps and details on who’s leaving the show, including why and how, and since all that info is already out there in the world no one writes SPOILER ALERT at the top of their articles so I can close my eyes and pound blindly on the keyboard until it all disappears.

DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU. I suggest not Googling anything or anyone British until this season ends – or pretty much ever again, since I’m sure Season 4 will air in England before they show it here. Curse you PBS!!

p.s. If anyone else KNOWS THE THING I found while I was Googling, LET’S TALK ABOUT IT (privately, not here! Don’t ruin it for anyone else!) Because OMG, WUT?!?!?!?

I don’t know if I’ve ever said this out loud before but we are officially a no-nap household. Neither kid – the 3 and a half year old or the just-turned-2 year old – naps anymore. It a) SUCKS and b) isn’t so bad.

Back in November I took ALL the advice I got on my post about Caroline refusing to sleep if I gave her the iPad, which was the only way to get her upstairs and into nap-time mode without a fight. I tried putting a time limit on it, which was about as effective as just punching myself in the face. I tried just taking it away and letting her cry/play on her own, but she responded by murdering several library books and a stuffed rabbit. I tried lying down with her, which lead to being actually punched in the face.

None of it really helped and fighting about napping is even more exhausting than not napping – so I gave up. I let her win. We went from 3 hour naps to no naps, which also means Evan almost never gets a chance to nap on the couch or floor so there is NO SLEEPING in my house between the hours of 6:30 am and 7:30 pm.

(Well, unless I turn on some Mickey Mouse Club House and leave the snack drawer open and let the kids fend for themselves while I lie on the couch and periodically shout “Stop jumping on your sister! We do not ride Brutus like a small horse! No, markers do not go in your nose!” with my eyes closed. That’s not exactly restful, although it does save me from going totally insane at least once a week.)

Since they’re not napping anymore other than an occasional car nap between errands, bedtime is almost always cake. Delicious, quick, easy cake that involves me sitting on Caroline’s bed playing on my phone for 30 seconds before she passes out. Mornings are also pretty good, unless a certain ginger wakes me up at 5 am by staring at me silently until I jump up mumbling “OMG I’M UP WHO WHAT TACOS”.

I’ll also admit it’s sort of awesome not to schedule our day around naps. Blocking off 3 or 4 hours a day really put a cramp in our activities, especially in the winter when nothing is open until 10 am and it gets dark at 4 pm. OK kids, let’s go have fun for exactly 43 minutes before we have to head home for lunch and Caroline’s nappy nap! I now have the freedom to lounge around in my fleecy pants all morning, take a shower and noon and THEN drag the gingers out to the totally deserted (no seriously, we were the ONLY people there at noon on a Wednesday) Children’s Museum or to run errands or whatever.

On the “SUCKS” side of the no napping is everything else you would expect. Yesterday Evan fell asleep in the car in the 15 minutes between the museum and his super quick second flu shot (NOT EVEN A SHOT just the nose spray) appointment and he turned into a monster. Thrashing, screaming, throwing himself down in the parking lot, trying to kick me, trying to kick the nurse, shouting “I DON’T WANT A POKE!” etc etc someone please bring me a large bottle of wine etc forever. There are meltdowns. Sooooo many meltdowns. Not to mention the amount of TV the kids are watching some days. It’s disgusting. I’m ashamed. But not quite ashamed enough to cancel Disney Junior and declare us a screen-free household. Nope.

To sum up: I love my kids, I love spending time with them, and I am absolutely signing them both up for preschool over the summer.

p.s. New blog header!! I’m going for clean and modern, although I’ll probably go back to copious ginger photos in a few months. I can’t help myself.

Oh hey, so remember when I had a blog where I wrote words? Yeah I don’t either but my husband assures me it was how he kept track of our family so I should post again. True story.

I’m not doing New Year’s Resolutions because it’s way past January 1st, nothing I’ve “resolved” to do is special and…well, I don’t want to. I never keep them, I’m totally bored with reading everyone’s “word of the year”, and you don’t really care if I want to have a garage sale this spring. Which means this is not a New Year’s Resolution post. But I do feel like I should admit this SOMEWHERE, if only so I don’t let it happen again, so here goes.

I’ve gained 13 pounds since December 15th – most of it in my arms and face, but somehow my jeans don’t button either. I’m not pregnant. I don’t have a thyroid problem. I just ate a ton of feelings – the Newtown tragedy, Caroline turning 2, the holidays, E’s stressful schedule, blah blah blah etc etc etc – and they all tasted like pie and spiked hot chocolate. Plus I did zero working out (or any sort of moving, really, my couch has a permanent butt imprint). The whole thing is entirely my own stupid fault so now I’m paying for it.

Lucky for you, I won’t be blogging about trying to lose weight (again) because it’s boring (again) and I’ve done it way too many times before and I don’t want to fail publicly (again). I just hope in a couple months I’ll be writing another (boring) post about how great I feel now that I’m 30 pounds lighter (boring AND annoying).

The second way you can tell this isn’t a New Year’s Resolution post is because I’m not going to vow to blog more. In fact, I’m probably going to blog less. Or at least post fewer tutorials and crafts and time consuming stuff and a lot more photos. I’ve discovered I really like taking photos and I don’t like worrying about blog traffic, so it was any easy call. I can’t promise I won’t bore you with photography talk, but I hope you’ll at least stick around for the ginger pictures.

Here is a photo of Caroline looking at an iguana. Happy 2013!