I have five days left until Cordy’s birthday party. That means five days to accomplish the following things:

• Order a cake from the grocery
• Plan food to feed everyone
• Call people who haven’t RSVP’d, so I know how many to feed
• Do laundry so she has something nice to wear
• Celebrate her actual birthday on Thursday
• Take Cordy to the evil doctor on Friday for her check up and shots.
• Get the carpets cleaned (my mother insisted on this one)
• Find some decorations lying around the house from last year’s party
• Dismantle the dining room table to provide more room

Basically, a lot of little stuff to do, just to have a casual birthday party. The hardest part will involve getting the carpets cleaned. We haven’t cleaned the carpets in the two years we’ve lived in our house, and well, we have three cats and a small child, so you can imagine how grungy they are. My mother insisted that we have the carpet cleaned before anyone came over, and she’s paying for it to be done.

But before the carpets can be cleaned, the clutter that is currently obscuring the view of the carpet must first be cleared out. Which means taking all of Cordy’s toys, all of my knitting supplies and magazines, and all of Aaron’s gaming stuff and banishing it to some other part of the house.

Essentially, I have to start with this…

…and remove everything except the large furniture.

Maybe I should start saving to have wood floors put in?

Ever since our house was broken into in July, I’ve been suspicious of nearly everyone in the area. They never caught anyone, and none of our stolen items were recovered. The police were pretty sure that the thief was probably a teen, since the items stolen (Playstation and games, laptop computers, video camera) were the type of items a teen would want to steal.

Now, every time I look out the window and see a teen walking down the street a little too slowly, or drive past a group of teens standing around on the corner, I immediately wonder what they’re up to. But it’s not just teens, either. If I see a scruffy-looking younger man, I get nervous also.

I hate that I’m now suspicious of neighbors, but there have been so many break-ins in our neighborhood lately that it’s hard to not look closely at everyone around you and see if someone looks shady.

For example, there’s a house across the street and slightly down from us. Many of the other neighbors suspect that the people in this house are up to no good. First, the man living there is an ex-con, who got out of prison right before he and the woman he lives with bought the house. Second, they have no teenagers, yet every now and then there are a group of rough-looking teens at their house. They are home all the time – one of the neighbors spoke with them, and it seems that the only income they have is from a paper route. A paper route? You can’t afford a house like that with only a paper route.

Also, there’s the issue that they have a video camera mounted on the roof of their garage, pointed towards the street and the houses across the street. Uh, what? Why do you need a video camera watching the street and the houses across the street?

Last weekend our next door neighbors had a break-in. They left for the day, they locked their door, but they didn’t use the deadbolt. In the afternoon, someone came up, got the front door open, and let their dogs out. We noticed the door open and the dogs out, so we tried to get their dogs back inside and shut the door. When they came home, they called the police, and even though nothing was taken, the police were certain that someone had gone inside. (They had nothing a teen might want, like game systems or laptops.) Our neighbors found that without the deadbolt, a simple credit card could easily be used to open the door. They’re now using the deadbolt lock all the time.

So, after all of this, I was a little startled when I came home with Cordy on Thursday afternoon and through the curtain, saw a teen boy walking along our back fence. Straight, black, greasy hair, loose white shirt, baggy jeans, maybe 15 or 16, and a facial expression that looked up to no good. I peeked out the curtain, while he walked very slowly along my fence, looking carefully at the backyards of our neighbors. When he reached the end of the fence, the neighbors dogs spotted him, and started barking, and he quickly turned around and started walking the other way along my back fence again.

We have a woods behind our house, so there’s no reason for someone to be walking around the back of our yard. I continued watching him, as he pulled out a cell phone and started to make a call. I opened my back door, staring hard at him to make him realize I was watching him. He gave me a slight glance from the corner of his eye, then closed his cell phone and walked to the side of my house.

I closed the door and walked into the kitchen to continue watching this suspicious kid, but he was gone. I ran to the front and stepped out onto my front porch to see where he went, but there was no sight of him. Where did he go? I paid a visit to my next door neighbor to let her know. At that point, the neighbor on the other side of my next door neighbor came over and said the kid was standing behind a shed in the backyard a few houses down. She had asked him what he was doing, and he said he was looking for his lost cat. However, she said she had seen him several days before also. We went back to look for him, but he was gone again.

At this point, another neighbor joins us, and says that she just saw a teen walking slowly around one of the cul-de-sacs. He was looking closely at each house, although now he was carrying books with him. (He had no books before. Also, this was all still before school let out.) She drove around the block a few times, but he had once again disappeared.

With all of this going on, what would you do at this point? I called the police. I’m tired of being scared in my own house, wondering when the next break-in will be, wondering if we’re going to lose more of our belongings again. I gave the police a description of the teen, and told them about his erratic behavior, and they said they would patrol the area more now, keeping his description in mind.

Yes, it’s possible this kid has nothing to do with our house being robbed. Truthfully, I have no idea who could be responsible, which is what makes it so frightening. But I don’t feel bad about calling the police on this teen. If the kid has nothing to hide, then he shouldn’t be worried. Of course, he also shouldn’t be walking through other people’s backyards, either.

At least one good thing has come of all of this. I’ve been able to meet more of our neighbors, all of them very worried about the current state of our street, and we’ve banded together to help look out for each other. We’re all keeping cameras near our back windows or doors to take a picture of anyone walking through our back yards. It’s not a Block Watch, but at least people are starting to take notice of what’s going on, and they’re deciding that they’re not going to stand for it.

Just in case you missed my subtle placement of the news in my last post, it would appear I am pregnant. Which means we beat our previous attempt record of 2 months.

The reality is still sinking in around here. We’re both excited, although I think Aaron’s a little disappointed that we hit the jackpot on the first try. After all, the real fun is in the trying, right? I never would have thought I’d get pregnant the first month.

And while excited, as this reality sets in, I find myself feeling a little overwhelmed at the thought of a second child. Two kids. Two separate beings, going in different directions, at different developmental stages. As an only child, I have no idea how people manage two children at once, but I’m going to find out. I don’t know which part will be harder – the beginning, where child #2 is largely immobile yet more high-needs, or later, when child #2 is walking and I have to try to keep two sets of hands out of trouble.

I was a little nervous when pregnant with Cordy, but I told myself that people have been having children for millions of years, and somehow most managed to raise a child without a crisis. Now I’m telling myself that same thing about having two children. There are several people I look to, both in real life and in the blog world, with more than one child, and I’m sure in the upcoming months I will be begging for advice.

So it looks like I’ll be due sometime around May 21, which means I get to miss out on being pregnant in the heat of summer this time! Woo-hoo!

On the to-do list now is to call my doctor to set up the first appt., and to stock up on ginger ale and crackers, just in case. When pregnant with Cordy, 6 weeks pregnant to the day, I was hit by a 24/7 nausea that didn’t go away until around week 12. (That day also happened to be the day we left for a vacation to the Disney resorts and Disney World. Sigh.)

While the thought of going through that nausea again is not pleasant, at least I can look forward to the 15 lb. weight loss that will accompany it.

Over the weekend I went shopping for a new pair of jeans. My jeans from last year were nearing the end of their lifespan, and besides, I think my butt has grown slightly over the summer.

I trekked to Lane Bryant, thankfully child-free so I could try on clothing in peace. The sales woman asked if I was looking for anything in particular, and I told her I needed jeans. In less than five minutes, I was loaded up with nearly every style of jeans available. Lane Bryant has just started carrying Seven7 jeans, and listening to the sales woman describe them, they sounded like heaven in blue denim. So I grabbed those as well.

In the dressing room, my ritual of self-shaming began. Pair after pair were slid, wiggles, and tugged on. Some were too tight in the hips, others too low of a waist-line, and still others felt too stiff. Regardless, all of them also suffered from the same problem that I always have: the waist was enormous and had a huge gap in the back. My body is simply shaped in such a way that clothing does not fit me correctly.

I know I’m hippy, but surely I can’t be the only one. Can they not make jeans that are cut to accommodate curvy women? Yes, I’ve tried the Gap’s and Old Navy’s “curvy” jeans also, and well, they’re still not curvy enough for me. Small waist + large hips = not one damn pair of jeans that will fit.

I tried on the Seven7 jeans last. The waist was once again too big, but not as big as the others. Otherwise, they felt like a second skin – not too tight anywhere, lightweight, and comfortable. Dreamy, even. Maybe with a belt they would be perfect.

After leaving the dressing room, I considered purchasing the jeans. And then I looked at the price tag.

$89.50

Let me repeat: $89.50.

No. freaking. way.

I debated whether I would be willing to spend that much money on a pair of jeans. The answer quickly became no. We’re trying to pay off debt, and this would not help the cause. Besides, we’re trying for another baby – if I got pregnant I’d outgrow them soon and waste all that money.

There were more reasons, too, and they all led to me putting the jeans back and leaving empty handed.

(Of course, I couldn’t leave the mall without stopping into Gymboree and spending money on Cordy’s fall wardrobe. Sigh. Cute baby clothing is my weakness.)

And it’s a good thing I left those jeans behind, too. Maybe now I should be looking at these jeans instead.

If you’ve ever looked at any of my photos on Flickr that were taken inside my house, you’d know that Cordelia is not suffering for a lack of toys. Many were gifts, some were impulse buys at the store, some were garage sale or consignment store finds. The living room is where most of the toys reside, and I think the toys are slowly taking over the room.

Walking through the living room, it’s hard to not step on a toy if Cordy has been in the room for more than 5 minutes. Her normal routine when coming downstairs is to dig through her toy bin and pull as much as possible out onto the floor. I guess she needs it all in plain sight for inventory or something.

The most dangerous are the Lego blocks and Peek a Blocks. Those things hurt like mad when you step on them. Little People are close behind that, and we have a lot of Little People and Little Animals cluttering the downstairs. Holding one in your hand, you’d think they were soft plastic, but if you step on one, the sole of your foot would disagree with that assessment.

The most offensive are the toys that make noise. These are usually the ones given to us by people who clearly hate us. Late at night, I’ll be picking up toys and putting them back, and one of the noisy toys is sure to scare the hell out of me by going off with no provocation.

Stuffed animals are the most harmless on the surface, but I’m convinced they’re like bunnies – if left alone, they reproduce at high speeds, so that soon every corner of the house is littered with them.

So, with this multitude of toys at her disposal, what is currently holding the mark of honor as Cordy’s favorite toy?

This:

A plastic cup.

All other toys are dead to her now, including Blue. But the plastic cup must go everywhere with her. Even to bed.

This is more weird than the time she stacked Diet Coke cans like blocks.