• Having a potty-training toddler
• Who will sometimes poop in the potty at school, but not at home
• Even if he is wearing Big Boy Underwear instead of a diaper
• Twice during the week before your first showing, including the night before
• Without telling anyone
• On the rugs
• And everywhere else he wandered before the smell gave him away
• Having a newborn
• Who cries unless she is actually being held (well, most of the time)
• And who is moving toward the poopsplosive stage herself
• Using your kitchen
• Going to awesome kids consignment sales (The woman in front of me had a Britax Regent for sale at $30 — WAH! As Noah would say, “I want some!”)
• BONUS: Having the entire economy, starting with the housing sector, begin to collapse completely.
• BONUS BONUS: Having a gasoline crisis in the metro area, in which almost no gas stations have gas, and those that do, have 2 hour lines and $20 purchase limits.

Other than being extra exhausted because most of my house stuff has been done while Josie sleeps after her last middle of the night feeding — which starts between 2 and 3 am — I’m doing ok.

Of course, if I don’t find an open gas station that has gas by Monday afternoon, that will no longer be true. Jill found one at 6 this morning, but by the time she left, the line was insane. At 6:30 am. On a Saturday.

At least I got the laptop functional. I hated HATED HATED not having Internet access for the last 2.5 days. Not even the little bit I’ve been getting since Noah was born.
Ok, time to join the rest of my sleeping family.

Sorry for all the radio silence.

We are still in the phase of newborn development where more than 80% of Josie’s sleeping takes place while physically on top of me. Or maybe being held in the crook of my arm next to me. That makes blogging surprisingly challenging.

On top of that, we are in the midst of real estate crazyness. The goal is to officially list the house on 10/1. There has been an almost ceaseless stream of painters and contractors in and out of the house since Josie was born.

Both Noah’s room and Josie’s room are being painted today. And tomorrow. We have no idea where Noah is going to sleep. Our room can’t be gated effectively.

Also, our Internet access has been completely spotty recently. Can I tell you how happy I am at the idea of leaving Comcast?

There is good news! According to my favorite midwife, I am officially in good health and have lost 22 of the 30 lbs I gained this pregnancy. And the little one I have to thank for that is waking up and demanding to be fed again, so let’s see if I can keep up that weight loss pace for a little while longer.

(Not that I don’t have some mixed feelings about this post-partum body of mine.)

I am the Queen of finding awesome deals at our local kids and baby mass consignment sales! In fact, those sales make the Top 10 list of things that I will miss when we move.

Today, I wasn’t even planning to go to the really good one this weekend. I’d forgotten about it. But I was going downtown to buy a birthday present for one of Noah’s classmates (Angry, if you’re wondering!). I saw the sale signs posted all over downtown.

So I dropped by, just to see if they had a few warm items in size 3-6 months.

Then I saw it.

A tripp trapp chair.

The $250 chair I’ve been coveting since the first time I saw it.

The perfect chair for my refuses all booster seats son.

For $50.

Having only $42 in my wallet, I continued browsing, pretty sure I was going to go find an ATM and return for my tripp trapp chair, but wanting to check and see if there were any other amazing finds.

There were.

Someone had also put up an Ameda Purely Yours breast pump in good shape for $50. They retail for $150 with no frills. They are my favorite pump ever. And I killed the one I got from Dr. Madelaine.

Fortunately, no one snagged either item while I was at the ATM.

And in Josie news, she has entered a seriously high maintenance phase. Cute, but high maintenance. Speaking of which, she calls.