Things That Have Been Happening Lately...

- I've been working quite a bit.

- I've been trying not to be addicted to Starbucks. (I work directly above one.)

- I have really bad baby fever, but not planning a second child anytime soon, don't worry.

- I've been thinking about wedding planning a bit. Just a bit.

- I don't have much else to say, so here are more Chloe quotes.

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May 4
While changing her diaper. "My butt." She giggles. "Cute." Giggles again, then serious, "But don't touch it. It dirty."

May 16
"I see the park. Now I can be happy."

May 18
"Mommy can you give me a ponytail?"
I don't answer her. After a minute...
"Mommy, I asked you nicely!"

May 20 - 2:00am
I hear Chloe's bedroom door open but she doesn't come in my room so I meet her in the hallway.
"Mommy I want to talk with you."

May 20
"Mommy, I think I want to be sorry now."

May 26
"Eric I wanna talk with you."
"What do you want to talk about?"
"My mommy."
"I like your mommy."
"My mommy's cranky. She won't talk to me."

May 29
At a restaurant with Chloe and Madi, they babble to each other and somehow get on the topic of Santa and Christmas. Chloe says "Merry Christmas." Then later...
"Eric, are you Santa?"
And later, while Eric was gone paying the bill: "Mommy I want to go with Santa."

Things Chloe Says...

Chloe is so full of words and fun these days. I've started keeping track of some of the funny things she says in my phone when they happen.

Random things she says a lot:

"That's not how you play!"
"Mommy, why you do that?" - Usually when I do something she doesn't like when playing.

Mommy: Are you my girl?
Chloe: No, I Chloe.


March 25, 2014
Mommy: What's up, Chloe baloney?
Chloe: What's up, Mommy baloney?

April 9, 2014
Chloe: The water's gone down the hole.
Mommy: Then where does it go?
Chloe: The pyramids.

April 16, 2014
Chloe and Eric picked me up from work. I got in the car:
Chloe: Hi Mommy, did you have a good work?

April 22, 2014
(Chloe got a new stuffed Diego doll)
Mommy: Do you like your new Diego doll?
Chloe: Yeahhh. He's beautiful!

April 28, 2014
Eric: Are you jealous?
Chloe: No I not, I'M CHLOE!

May 3, 2014
Chloe and I were playing in my bed with a couple of boxes and their lids. I had one and she had one. We traded. Hers had a big hair in it, so while I had it, I picked the hair out and threw it away. When we traded back, she opened her hair-less box and said:
"Oh no. Did you eat it?"
A minute later she tries to pull hair out of my head to put back in the box.

May 3rd - "Look, an oval!"
We can thank an iPhone app for that knowledge.

May 3, 2014
Chloe and I made a fort and were playing in it. We needed to hide because she said the witch was coming.
Mommy: Why do we need to hide?
Chloe: Because the witch is angry.
Mommy: Why is she angry?
Chloe: Because she's mean.
Mommy: What is she going to do if she finds us?
Chloe: She going to smash us.

While in the fort I also taught her that Princesses is the proper word, not Pinpesses. I love her pronunciation so much better though.

May 3, 2014
Chloe's belly started hurting so she needed a bandaid put on it. That didn't stop the pain, so she thought she needed another.

Early morning wake up call

In Chloe's room, we normally have a child-proof lock on her door handle so she can't get out and roam the apartment in the middle of the night. Even though it's a tiny apartment, I still sleep with the baby monitor on so I can hear her better, but I don't hear her door opening. 

She also likes to open and shut her door a lot throughout the day when she's playing. So we took the handle off yesterday since everyone was home for the day. At night we forgot to put it back on. 

I was in a really deep sleep when I heard a noise beside me this morning. I open my eyes to find Chloe staring at me next to my bed. I sleepily pull her up on my bed and she hugs me then cuddles down with me for a minute. In typical Chloe fashion, she can't lay still for longer than a few seconds. So I finally look the the clock. 6am.

We weren't due to get up until 6:45am. I thought it would've been closer to that time. 

I quickly got her a fresh diaper, a new drink and told her it wasn't time to get up yet. I tucked her back into bed and drifted in and out of sleep myself for the next little while. It was still early, but a little closer to the alarm going off, even though I had set it for 15 minutes later in hopes of falling back to sleep, when she started singing in her bed. One of my favorite noises. It was early, but I could even appreciate it that morning. 

I finally dragged my butt out of bed and crawled into bed with her. She wanted to read a book for all of a minute before she was ready to get up and play. 

I'm kind of tired today. 

But there are much worse ways to wake up. 

Even so, Eric's task for the day is to take her curtains down and hang them up better. The sun shining on her face this morning is probably the reason she was up so early. Normally I have to wake her up. 

Things are hard lately

Earlier this week. I bought a second-hand Diego plush toy. It matches the Dora one I bought for Chloe maybe about a year ago. She absolutely loves it, and plays with both of them all the time now. And of course her little Boots the Monkey too. Sometimes even her Pikachu doll plays too. I spent $5 on Diego, $2 on Dora because of the paint in her hair, and a few dollars on Boots on Ebay. Overall, the best $10ish dollars ever spent, because she's in love. I love seeing her so happy. 

Things haven't been too fun lately. Eric's job shut down. He found a new job a few days ago, but it's going to part-time for quite awhile, and by the time he starts the new job, he'll have had 3 weeks off with no pay. 

To add to that fun, his ex is fighting him in court soon for child support payments (which he already makes, but not sure how he'll afford with his loss of income), for 50% of his daughter's daycare, which he also couldn't afford with no job, or even with one. When she was in our care, the government helped us with the costs because we're low income. She doesn't qualify because her and her boyfriend make a lot more money than us. She's also fighting for a very strict visitation schedule. Madi will need to be picked up between 7:30-8:20am on the days he takes her, and she wants it to be the same days, always. He already committed to taking her all Thursdays a long time ago. We got a huge book in the mail yesterday from her lawyer, complete with texts and emails they've exchanged. He's obviously going into this court appointment with their intentions to make him look like the worst father in the world. There were even some blatant lies in the book. It's insanely stressful. In the document it states that he owe her 50% of all daycare costs since she stopped living with us in October. 

If she wins and he's ordered to pay the child support and daycare effective immediately, I don't know where they expect the money to come from. He's doing all he can to find a full-time job, and it's not his fault his former job shut down. We're terrified. 

It doesn't help that since becoming common-law, the government decided we need to pay back all money they've given to me since we started living together. You think they would've given me the heads up on that when I specifically called and asked when they needed to know about our marital status changed. They said when we became common-law, aka a year. I guess they just forgot to mention that they'd take away all money from me from the day we started living together. That was a nice bill to get in the mail, considering we had two children in our care for most of those months. 

To add to that, I've started waking up 2 out of the last 3 nights with a toothache. It's from a tooth that was pulled but they left a piece of it in long ago. I'm calling first thing Monday to see when I can get into the dentist. 

The stress just won't stop. 

As soon as I manage to push one thing out of my mind, we get a new letter in the mail either from a lawyer or the government to kick us in the ass again. 

We're pretty sure that with all the money everyone thinks we owe them, our wedding may not happen anytime soon. So we'll be out even more money in the deposits we made, but we shall see. The officiant is already paid in full, and I already have the dress so maybe it'll happen. 

I'm tired of stressing. Usually I just try not to think about any of it.

The toothache is the hardest to ignore. 

Our Easter Weekend Away

This Easter was a great one. We spent the weekend away, staying with some of my closest friends (a married couple). The drive up was difficult - Chloe was not impressed with the sun in her eyes, and kept throwing sippy cups, toys, even treats we gave her as a distraction. I was relieved when we finally got there. She doesn't know my friends too well, since they live so far away, so I tried to explain to her who they were - that they were at her birthday party. That wasn't a great idea because she then thought we were going to her birthday party. Luckily she forgot about that by the time we got there. 

Immediately when we arrived, I realized I forgot to pack pjs for Chloe. Fail.

And all stores would be closed the next day. We rushed to the grocery store and bought her two pairs of pjs. 

When we got back, I realized I forgot mine too. Double fail. I wore Eric's pj pants to sleep in all weekend, which were way too big and not very comfortable. 

On our first full day there, Chloe decorated cookies and we just visited with my friends and their family. We went out for a lunch, then afterwards split up and Eric and I took Chloe to a park and the car wash. She enjoyed both. After that, we met up with people at a different park. Later on, we went for some frozen yogurt. We all loved it. 

Once we were home and Chloe was in bed, we watched The Heat. I loved it. 

The next day was zoo day! We got up and ready and went to the zoo. It was colder than expected, and Chloe didn't seem overly excited, but she didn't complain or whine. She loved the Easter egg hunt (see the top right picture below) and especially the Cheetos she got in her treat bag. 

Afterwards, my friend was amazing enough to watch Chloe so Eric and I could shop. Shopping wasn't very successful. I need jeans, but apparently I don't have a size. I'm between sizes. We ended up just buying hand sanitizer and train tracks at Toys R Us. 

That evening we had dinner at my friends parents' house. They are also like family to me so the company was great, and the food was amazing! So good. 

And that was our last night there. 

We woke up Sunday and Chloe found a trail of... well, see for yourself on our YouTube video outside the bedroom door. 

She loved the egg hunt, loved her Little People car, her beach ball from another friend who lives in the Dominican. She especially loved the chocolate chicken that had a chocolate egg inside filled with Smarties. She devoured those Smarties. We hung out until around noon before we hit the road to come home. 

About halfway home, when Eric was paying for gas, Chloe told me she was sad. I asked why, she said because she wanted her Daddy. Luckily, he was home so she spent about 3 hours with him that day. She had to take her beach ball with her to his house.  

Monday was back to work, for a 10 day stretch. Not looking forward to it, but at least two days are already down.