The rantings of a sleep deprived mother

I had a rough night.  Motherhood has been rough on me, as I am sure you have heard.  I probably sound like a broken record, sorry.  I am feeling on the brink of insanity and had to blow up on something, and I really didn't want it to be on my kids.  So you get to read my explosion instead.  Before I begin I want to make it clear that I love and cherish my children.  I am so grateful to them for I know that this is my GREAT life trial that I needed to grow.  Most of the time I thoroughly enjoy them, but its that percentage of the time that I am going to blog about today.

I think God gave me a daughter just like me to make me realize how annoying I truly am!  I was telling Aaron last night that she has to have everything a certain way or she will freak out on you.  You have to tell her good morning the right way, wipe her but the right way, push her in the swings the right way, and the list goes on.  Aaron has the nerve to tell me she is just like her mother!  I hadn't thought of that, and he's right:(  I know I have a huge thing about being in control, and apparently she picked right up on my worst habit!  So now we are two tidal waves fighting to see who gets to crash the beach!  I'm glad Aaron showed me what was going on,  because now, hopefully I can work on myself which in turn will help her.   Ironically Vaeh isn't what caused this rant.  It was Joseph.

Yes everyone, sweet baby Joseph has me dangling on that thin line between sanity and insanity.  Nothing would make him happier than to be permanently attached to me all day and all night!  As I type he is whining for me to hold him!  I have also said before I have the snuggliest baby, and at times I LOVE it, but at night, when I am trying to sleep I can't stand it!  My current sleep situation is as follows: we moved Joseph's crib into Vaeh's room, which she didn't like, so she sleeps on a mattress on the floor in our room, and since Joseph still wakes up at night and has to snuggle I pretty much sleep in Vaeh's bed with Joseph.  He is great about going to sleep.  He will just lay down, no problem, and I can walk away.  Its when he wakes up in the middle of the night he HAS to fall asleep next to me.  Now I used to just wait until he fell asleep and I would put him back in his crib, but it was too much for me.  I know what all of you are thinking, just let him cry a few nights, problem solved, right?  I just can't do that.  My husband and I practice attachment parenting, to one degree or another, and I have never been able to let my children cry for many reasons. 1)The sound of crying makes my insides twist and turn, 2)I can relate to them on some level, like if it was me, I would be terrified to be left in a dark room, alone, on the brink of my existence, crying my eyes out.  Bottom line, my instincts tell me to help them, so that is what I do.  I know the result, my insanity is on the line, but I believe it is what is best for them.  I don't believe you can spoil a child with love.

So that is my story.  For all of my pregnant friends out there, I know you are all afraid of labor.  Don't be!  That part was the best part for me, even the easiest.  The hard part is after, the actual parenting.  Its the best thing in the world, don't get me wrong, but it also may be the hardest.  Maybe I am just a whimp.  That is a very real possibility.  I think once we are done building life will get a little easier.  After all, Joseph and Vaeh are only seeing their dad a few hours a week now, and I am also gone more than they are used to.  Children are amazingly attuned to what's going on, and they are amazingly real.  What you see is what you get with kids.


I've run out of steam...good.  Hopefully you wont see another one of these blogs:)

Peace and sanity to all reading,

Lyndsey

The roof and progress since wednesday

We put our house up in 7 days(excluding sheeting and shingling the roof)!  That is the fastest we have moved so far!  We were able to put the trusses on our house on Thursday.  Minus a few minor things that didn't quite go as planned, our house looks great!  We were able to start on the 6th house yesterday and are hoping we will be just as fast there.  We are all still hoping to be in before Christmas.

Aaron having fun setting trusses

The crane putting the trusses on

After they finished Thursday night

The inside with our vaulted ceiling.  You are looking from our dining room into our living room.  To the right is our half wall to the stairs.

The next two days were spenting sheeting the garage and the back of the house.  All that's left to do for shingles is two overbuilds in the front and sheeting what's left of the front.  This is our side garage looking from the north.

The front of the garage fully sheeted.  Aaron's handy work.

The front of the house with the roof.  Anyone want to come pull our weeds?

The back and side of the house.  The back was fully sheeted in one night!

Fastest built house so far

So on Saturday we started building the exterior walls at our house.  I was there in the morning from 8 to two and during that time the biggest exterior wall in the back got put up and two more were in progress.  I helped cut blocking and headers, and Aaron and Jason were working on the exteriors walls with Ryan and his dad.  Aaron, Ryan and Jason stayed until 8:30 and in that time they finished all the exterior walls, half of the interior walls and even started the garage walls!  Woohoo! 

Today Aaron and I went in the morning to get the double top plate on and Ryan came with some of his inlaws to finish the interior walls and do the stairs.  So now we are just waiting for the garage walls to get finished and we can fly trusses.  From what I've seen that usually takes a few days, so I am guessing we can fly trusses late Wednesday night or Thursday.  We'll see.

As far as the other houses go the Wilson's and Jason and Lisa's have almost finished the drywall, and Monica's roof is almost all shingled.  So we almost have 5 down, 3 to go!

Lifting the longest back wall

More lifting

And its up!

Pausing for a pose

looking at the dining room, kitchen and living room from the front door

this is the hallway to the bedrooms and bathrooms(our master is the last room in the back on the left, the kids rooms will be on the right)

The front

The back

Here it is!

So, since my last post we haven't worked on our house much. We wanted to finish the house we had been working on. All we have left to do before we move back to our house is put a little more sheeting on the front of the house, tar paper the front and shingle. The shingles are being delivered today, so maybe I will be shingling the back of the house today.

I truly detest roof work! I don't usually do it, not because I am afraid of heights, probably more because it is slow work and Ia m impatient. I usually keep busy with punch list inside the house. Not this time. There haven't been that many people showing up lately, so I have been up on the roof. It should be okay today if we are shingling. That keeps you busy and goes fast.

The first house we did is ready for finish work! We drove over there last Sunday and it has stucco, drywall, closet shelves, doors, trim, and window sills! It looked COMPLETELY different! I almost didn't recognize it! Its amazing how a little stucco and drywall can make it feel like a home. Jason and Jeff's houses are due for drywall this week and probably stucco soon after!

We should all be back at our house on Saturday and we are hoping we will be ready for trusses by the following Saturday! The walls always go up fast, its just the roof that takes forever. I am really excited to finally see our house come to life! We have been waiting since January and at times it seemed like it was never going to happen, so I am really happy that it finally is!

We still would love volunteers so come on down!

Some of my handy work. This is the rim board on top of the green plate. It usually takes a few days to do this, and I'm not sure if it was the simplicity of the house plan, my expertise, or the fact that there were a lot of people helping, but we did all of that in 3 hours!

More rim and green plate. Here you can also see our teeny porch and all that wood laying on the floor is in our garage.

These are our load bearing walls in the basement. They were built, but they left before they were stood.

Laying the joists down. If you'll notice to the left we slid the joists right over the stairs. It would be fine if we wanted no access to our basement. Still making mistakes:)

The fixed mistake. We just had to cut a hole for where the stairs will go and put rim going around it. That hole will eventually hold our stairs. And if you look at the back of the picture they even put some flooring on. That's as far as we've come.