And life can go back to normal!

If you read my most recent post, you will know that the last few months have been filled with much uncertainty. I have to say that I feel quite a bit of relief to know that we will not be making any big life changes this summer! We're both still a bit sad over the lost opportunity, but feel like it was the right decision for us right now.

Nathan is becoming such a wiggly little guy! When we put him on his stomach, he wiggles and fights to get his knees and feet under him and then pushes himself forward, even moving a few inches now and again:). He's generally such a happy guy, although the night sleeping has not been fantastic lately. He often wakes up needing his soother and a little pat on the back (or a bit of hand-holding!) and then goes back to sleep. He has been eating twice at night consistently, although the last two nights have only been once, so fingers crossed! I'm getting ready to try him on cereal in a week or so, so we'll see how he likes that. He still has never slept through the night without waking up at all, so I am anxiously awaiting this day.

Adam's tantrums seem to be getting a bit better, but he has started throwing things down the stairs with a lot more regularity. It's something he's done periodically for a while, but the last little while, it's been a lot more often, and a lot of times he's not even mad when he does it. The other day, I had given him a full Iced Capp from Tim Hortons while he was in the garage and quickly came in to do something. It was not even a minute later, and he had made his way in from the garage, gone upstairs and chucked that Iced Capp down the stairs. I was so incredibly angry! On some level I know that yelling at him will not help, and yet my first reaction is for him to see how angry it makes us when he does this kind of thing! Surely kids see us angry and think they should not do this anymore, right?? I know, it doesn't work that way:(. It most certainly hasn't been helping in this situation, and he's doing it more and more often with all kinds of items. I realize that it's quite possible he's trying to get attention, but how can you not pay attention when his ride-on train comes sailing down the stairs?? Or is he just curious to see what will happen when he throws something?? He IS a boy, that's just the kind of crazy thing a boy would do! In any case, we are trying hard to think of ways to stop this - maybe giving him a box of soft balls on the top of the stairs and showing him that it's okay to throw THESE things . . . perhaps we can save our hardwood floor at the bottom of the stairs?? Might be worth a try!

On a more positive not, Adam loves to make us laugh:). If he says or does something and we laugh, you can bet he'll say it again. Such a funny guy!

Have to tell a little Lynsey story now:). The other day, there was a fly in the house so I had the door open, trying to shoo the fly out the door. She says to me, "But Mom, won't leaving the door open just mean another fly will come in?". Hate it when she's smarter than I am lol!:)

Operation Relocation a No-Go . . . for now

Sooo most (if not all) of the people that read this blog will know that we have been considering a move to Seattle. Anyone I've talked to about this is probably surprised by the title of this post - in most of my conversations with people, I have definitely sounded more like we were going than not. However, as most people that have made big life decisions know, making the final call can prove to be tougher than originally anticipated sometimes! Anyway, since I haven't posted anything about this yet, I feel a bit of background info is necessary.

Back at Easter, Brian got an email from a recruiter at Amazon asking if he would be interested in applying with them (they are based in Seattle). My initial reaction was, "What? Seattle?? Maybe if they offer you the moon!" Brian was interested in at least seeing where it would go, so he went through the interview process with them (some phone interviews, and then in-person for 4 hours - they came to Calgary). The result of that was, well, nothing - no offer forth-coming from them. Brian was a bit disappointed (understandably - you always want to be the one to turn THEM down), but what surprised me was that I was a bit disappointed as well. Interesting - didn't think I was open to moving, but apparently I had come around a bit! Anyway, I felt at peace that Amazon was not the right opportunity.

Moving on.

Microsoft had also contacted Brian at this point and we decided that there was no harm in pursuing this opportunity. After many phone interviews and a three day trip down to Seattle where he endured hours of technical interviews (I was exhausted for him!) he came away with an offer!

I should back up and remind everyone that at the beginning, we said the offer would have to be too good to pass up, like a 30% raise or more, in order for us to consider it.

This offer was not that - not even close. It was a marginal raise, mind you with a decent signing bonus and full relocation package, but really only enough to cover the expenses that we would have (selling the house especially was going to be quite a hit for us since we just bought it and spent a pile of money into it).

Disappointing.

Our first reaction was no, it's not good enough to pick up our life and move - to another country at that! What do we know about living in the US! Scary! He would have almost 2 weeks less time off overall (which they were not willing to negotiate at all) which was a let-down for sure. However, we took our time thinking about it, and the more we thought about it, the more tempting it became. They did sell it as a great opportunity for Brian to grow his career, which we have no doubt that it would be . . . eventually. But do you trade a good thing now (he works for a great company now that has many perks including a lot of vacation time and lots of flexibility with working from home etc.) for something that probably will be beneficial in the future? And we don't know how far into the future! Big big decision, but we were both getting romanced by the thought of a change . . . we were definitely leaning towards going.

Then we found out that the education system is different down there and Lynsey would not be entering Kindergarten this year (you have to be 5 by August 31st). This was disappointing at first, enough for us to really want to say "no", but after some conversations with some different people, we were sufficiently satisfied that holding her back would not cause her any harm, and even coming back here and being the oldest in her class would not be detrimental to her.

Back to yes.

And THEN Brian has a mid-year review with his current company that was very positive - they see him as a real leader in the group and are looking to develop him further. The timing is interesting, as we had already decided that we would make the decision that night (this was yesterday). Even with this, we still wanted to go - I kept thinking that even though it would cause chaos in the short-term with the move and everything, we would not regret making the most of a good opportunity, even if it didn't pan out perfectly and we ended up coming back.

And then we started questioning - how good of an opportunity is this really?? We started getting a serious case of 11th hour cold feet! We re-evaluated the pros and cons and by the time we went to bed, we were both un-enthused about going. I had said all along if Brian was really excited about the job then we should go for it, but he had some reservations about where he would fit in etc. We went back to our original decision when all this madness started - we would only go if the offer was amazing. We both wanted the offer to be so good we couldn't turn it down, but at the end of the day, it just wasn't. And so the saga ends - we said, no, life goes on.

Or does it?:)

This process opened our eyes up to the fact that we are open to moving, which I never thought that I would be. The HR lady at Microsoft told us that if we change our mind in the next year we should give her a call - "We might get you down here yet" were her words, or something to that effect. So while the timing and offer were not the right opportunity right NOW, who knows how we'll feel in a year? I know I sure don't!:)

Why can't babies be born knowing how to sleep?

Just when I was expecting Nathan to start sleeping through the night . . . he went the other direction:(. In the last week, he has been getting up twice to eat, after several weeks of only getting up once. Also, he wakes up more often during the night needing some rocking or even just a little pat on the back to get him back to sleep. I should have known that this could and likely would happen (with my luck!) but I was so hopeful that he would just keep getting better! He has been sucking on his fist like crazy, and the drool is definitely coming in large quantities at times, so I believe the dreaded 2 year teething process has begun. He's generally pretty happy when he's awake, so I don't know for sure that he's in pain, but I don't know what's going on with his sleeping if it's not teething. He has been a bit gassy again lately, too, so that could be part of it. OR he's just becoming more alert and aware and doesn't like it when we leave him alone in his room! That's the one that scares me the most because it's the hardest to overcome and constant! He is a pretty happy little guy, though, so that makes up for a lot of the problems we've been having lately:).

Lynsey had her dance recital on Sunday! So cute! She did so well - I'm so proud of her! This is her last week of preschool as well - it's hard to believe in September "real" school starts . . . wasn't she JUST born??:) Love that girl!

First giggles!

Well, not a whole lot has happened since my last blog post, but I feel the need to do a post so I don't get too far behind:). Both Nathan and Adam were a bit off last week, so the great nights we'd been having with Nathan turned into just okay nights. He actually needed to eat twice not last night but the night before, which was frustrating since that is not the direction we are trying to go with night feedings! I'm guessing we won't be able to eliminate the night feeding until he's on cereal. He started giggling this week! On his three month birthday he blessed us with chuckling for the first time - so cute! He is such a sweet little boy:).

Now that Adam seems to be feeling better, he has been really chatty the last few days! It was a busy week and we had a lot of visitors (Becky and Gordie were in town so we got to spend some time with them). Visitors to our house really stress Adam out, but by the end of the week, he was handling it much better! Brian and I actually got to have our first date night since Nathan was born on Thursday, and we were really worried about how he would do. He screamed and had a half hour tantrum when Coraleah got there, and I was not optimistic about how he would do at this point. We had him calmed down pretty well by the time we left, but he still looked stressed. I got a text 45 minutes after we left saying that he was doing GREAT - what a relief! I think sometimes I don't give him enough credit for knowing what's going on, and he has been showing some signs lately that he is able to cope a bit better with his stress these days. He is still impulsive and still feels the need to throw things on the floor at mealtimes and down the stairs when he gets mad (that drives me CRAZY!) but overall, I would say he is gaining some coping skills.