Raising Our Family And Trying To Remember It All: December 12-18

I had a really busy week this week. Tuesday, Aubrey and I tagged along with my mom who wanted to go shopping at the Gaffney outlets. I was a little nervous about taking Aubrey so far with her being newly potty trained, but everything worked out pretty well. I did a lot more window shopping while Mom did the real shopping, but it was a nice day to enjoy the outside shops so I didn't complain. I did start winding down as we hit the last row of stores and I had to take my ring off because I was pretty swollen, but otherwise we had a great time shopping. On the way home, Aubrey did give me a good laugh. She decided somewhere in the no-man's land between Cleveland County and Gaston County that she needed to go potty. I really didn't feel comfortable with mom stopping on the side of the interstate so I asked Aubrey to hold it for a few minutes. She appeared to be ok with that, but then a few minutes later she said "I need to go potty now Mommy" and I knew we needed to stop quickly. Luckily, the next exit had several fast food stops so Mom picked the closest one and I jumped out of the car to grab Aubrey. I realized that Aubrey had kicked her shoes and socks off by this point and I knew I didn't have much time to get them back on, so I picked her up and carried her into the restaurant. Carrying her is not easy anymore, especially when you have a 36-week pregnant belly in front of you. I got her inside and the realized I had no way to set her down on the floor since she was barefoot. So, I was trying to squat down to grab some toilet paper to put on the floor all while trying to keep us both from falling over on the nasty floor. I am sure it was pretty comical to watch, but I was silently cursing at the difficulty I was having. Luckily, I brought our emergency potty so she didn't have to sit on the real potty and we managed to leave a lot easier than we arrived. Lesson learned for next time is that she needs to have some sort of shoes on when we go in somewhere to potty because that was way more difficult than it should have been.

Wednesday, I actually got to enjoy some me time out of the house. Mom kept Aubrey so I could go get Mason's car seat installed, go to my company Christmas party, and then go to the doctor. It was so nice to go out by myself. I love Aubrey with all my heart, but getting her in and out of her seat, plus the constant talking, and then the slow pace of dragging her with you can really wear you down after a while. It was also really nice to be around my friends at work because I really have missed them. While I am so thankful for the opportunity to work at home, I do feel isolated sitting at my desk alone all the time. I was also pleasantly surprised that my friend brought me another bag of clothes for Mason as well as a bouncy/rocking seat for him. I have really enjoyed all the hand-me-downs this time because it has saved us from having to buy a ton of stuff, which is much appreciated with our smaller budget. I was a little sad when I had to leave the office, but I had to scoot fast to make it to my doctor's appointment on time.

Saturday, we decided to brave the mall to pick up a few things and thought Aubrey would enjoy seeing all the Christmas sights at the mall. The mall actually wasn't too crowded when we got there, but by the time we left it was a crazy house. I was so glad that we didn't have any serious shopping to do because it was so busy. We saw Santa walking from the office area back to the visiting area and Aubrey acted like she wanted nothing do with him, despite all of her recent conversations about wanting to be nice to Santa after her last visit. Luckily we weren't going to try to visit him because the line was crazy long, but I still wish she'd warm up to him just a little bit.

Sunday, we made a huge grocery run so I can start marathon cooking and fill the freezer before Mason gets here. I also bought stuff for Aubrey and I to make cookies and it turned out to be the best part of the week. She had so much fun "helping" me and it was awesome to see her so excited. I am so glad she and I can do things like that together and I hope I can remember she really did like spending time with me at one point in her life when she gets to be a teenager.

Sunday night we made our first trip to see the McAdenville lights as a family. Aubrey has been so ecstatic about all the Christmas lights this year so we figured she would love seeing a whole town of lights. Unfortunately, she didn't take a great nap so she was really whiny by the time we got there and was mad that we wouldn't let her out to walk. My original plan had been to walk around, but I knew if walking around the mall had worn me out, the even longer jaunt through McAdenville would kill me so we decided to just drive through them instead. Aubrey finally started to calm down and enjoy the lights halfway through and was asking the whole way home to see more lights. I wish we could go again this year, but hopefully next year we'll be able to enjoy them even more.

Only 1 week til Christmas and I can't wait!!