this week's adventures in motherhood.

It's been a watery week here at Chez Larking.

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Yesterday, when L went down for a midday nap which I was hoping would be a long one, I decided to do a really quick and easy holiday craft project (post coming tomorrrow -- stay tuned!). I headed downstairs to grab supplies from my craft shelves (sidenote: is it bad that the bookshelf I designated for my bins of supplies isn't even close to being able to contain everything?) and as I planted my foot on the bottom step, I felt a SQUISH.

Not good.

After flipping on the lights, I realized that the basement was totally filled with standing water. Not just puddles here and there -- like, wade-worthy amounts.

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Needless to say, the rest of the day was not what any of us expected. Husband home from work early, baby rudely awakened from her nap by the sound of the wet vac, $700 for a new sump pump... But I felt like I took everything in stride, which made me pretty happy about how far I've come in the past few weeks. Two months ago, a day like this would have rocked my world -- the thought of L having no good naps for the whole day and stressing about finances would have done me in. But I was fine! Calm, even! As my brother would say, "feelin' good, feelin' great."

And then -- this morning hit.



I'll spare you the gory details, but let's just say that I must have been more upset yesterday than I thought, because a tiny little setback this morning (quick summary: early nap wake up, poop smeared across crib, screaming baby and mama) almost derailed what I had been looking forward to for the entire week. But I pulled my $h!t together, loaded L in the car, and drove...to our first swimming lesson!

Yup, that's us. A fellow mom was nice enough to snap our pic, though it turned out super blurry (maybe I should be grateful you can't see how red my eyes were from crying?). The class was pretty amazing. I was hoping that this would be a good way to meet a few new moms, and I tried to strike up conversations with a couple of them, but no one was biting. Oh well. L and I splashed around and blew bubbles and generally had the best time ever for 30 glorious minutes. I haven't been swimming in so long and I almost forgot how much I love it -- I used to teach swimming lessons as a summer job when I was a teenager, and I spent two years on my high school's swim team -- so it was a blast getting to share that experience with L for the first time.

Afterwards, we came home and totally conked out -- L slept for almost 3 hours! When she woke up from her nap, she was really talkative -- I wonder if she was trying to tell me all about what she liked about the class. :)

So, moral of the story -- I'm not as chilled out as I thought. But we're getting there, right? Can't wait until next week!