My day started off fantastic.  Yes I am still crazy jealous that we can’t get a bigger house, but with all the drama in this neighbourhood it made my day to hear that Bitchy B has been looking at homes in anticipation of moving.

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My Grandfather passed away in November.  Our whole family predicted that my Grandmother would be going shortly after.  She passed away this past Friday.  While we knew it was coming she was in good health so it still took us by surprise.  I’m not sure how I feel about it.

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Thing 1 wished Thing 2 a Happy Earth Day when he got up Thursday.   Thing 2 heard ‘Birthday’ instead.  He refuses to accept that he’s not 4.

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It turns out that I have Tonsillitis but had no idea!  My throat has felt irritated but not painful so I’ve been ignoring it.  Maybe I should have looked in the mirror because my tonsils are a pussy mess.  Yum.  I’ve NEVER had it before so I guess I can see how I missed it.

We want to move.  We’ve wanted to for awhile now, even before all the neighbour drama started.  Our current house is a 3 bedroom, 1300 square foot end unit row townhouse with a shoebox for a yard.  The boys have to share a room and we have no place for guests.  What we want is roomy detached home with 4+ bedrooms and a yard.  We’d prefer a new build so we can pick what we want.

Financially it can’t happen right now.  Housing prices where I am are high.  To get this house we’re looking at $450,000 – $500,000.  Money like that doesn’t fall of trees.  Our current house values at about $290,000 and we’re only 5 years into our 25 year mortgage so we still owe a big chunk.

The hubby makes a decent paycheck, more than most of our neighbours anyway.  We both do freelance work on top of it.  We still struggle.  It blows my mind how people with even half of our income make ends meet.

Anyways I’ll get to the point.  One of our neighbours has decided she is going to sell her house.  She is single mother and likely makes about 2/3 of what we bring in.  She bought a new home, a smaller home than what we want but still in the $325,000 range.

I’m sooooooooooooooooooooooo jealous.  It should be us.  We’re feeling more and more stuck here every day.  I know it will happen in due time.

Update:  as soon as I wrote this I looked outside.  The neighbour mentioned above has sold her house in less than 24 hours.  A second neighbour is for sale.

We’ve been working hard to make sure that Thing 1 has a ‘normal’ life.

We did opt to put him on stimulants and still hope we find other ways to help.  We started off with 5mg, then 10mg of Adderall but quickly found that the side effects were too great for him.  He had restless legs, never slept and when it wore off things became out of control.  We switched him to 18mg of Concerta.  Things aren’t perfect but manageable.

We have all of us in therapy.  We opted someone to come into our home a la Nanny 911.  I was so worried about this for fear of judgement but it turned out to be the best decision we could have made.  She has taught us to understand the way he processes information and how we can change certain behaviours in a way that he can understand.  We organize things more visually now.

We want to have him entirely gluten and casein free.  We’ve made some progress but breaks down at the idea of losing his favourite foods.  He gets locked in on what he doesn’t like about it and any change is difficult.  Since my Celiac requires that I be gluten free it won’t be a major lifestyle change to do this.

We’ve been supplementing him with zinc, magnesium and DHA/EPA (Omegas).  We’ve noticed the Omegas the most.  We didn’t think it made much difference at first until it became obvious when we missed a few days.

We have been honest with him about what is going on and why.  He is become much less impulsive, he no longer gets easily frustrated and is much less obsessive.  His happiness is shining through.

We’re getting there.

We all carry some stress, we’re human.  Sometimes it’s big, sometimes not so much.  What does make us different from each other is how we deal with it.  Some people keep it in, some write in diaries and others go for a run or something.

I complain.  I know, it probably makes me look whiny to people or that I hate my life or something but it’s not the case.  But for me it works.  I say my peace then let it go.  It’s like going to therapy but less expensive.  I at least try to switch it up so I don’t annoy everyone.  It may be here one day, facebook the next, a friend… whatever it takes.

I should probably find a new outlet though so that I don’t annoy everyone.  The truth is though I love my life, even the crappy stuff.  I wouldn’t be who I am today without it.

How does everyone else cope?  Does it work for you?

When in a group of women the subject of pregnancy almost always comes up.  This is true even among those who are not Mothers.

The Hubby overheard such a conversation with a pregnant friend.  He heard me talk about how much I miss being pregnant.  I miss the hiccups, I miss the kicks and I miss the growing belly.  It makes me sad that I will never have any of that again.

Needless to say he brought it up to me later than night.  He asked me if I regret my tubal (and his vasectomy).  I completely understand why he may have thought this.  I will always miss the good things about pregnancy and everything that comes with having a new baby but that doesn’t mean I regret our decision.  Had we not been ‘fixed’ I’d be at the Doctors right now making appointments to have it done.

It’s hard to explain.  Just because I miss those things doesn’t mean I’d want to do it again.  I cherish all of my memories but I’m happy to have them as just that.

Perhaps it’s different for men?