The Big Move

What can make life more complicated than raising 4 kids (2, 9, 11, and 14 years old), learning sign language, taking care of 2 houses, planning a wedding, working full time, etc? A move.

Over the past month or so, we have been packing up my apartment and moving things to Eric's house. Consolidating houses is one step towards our new, consolidated, life. Slowly, we moved the small things ourselves, but we left the furniture to professionals.

If anyone in the Charlottesville, VA area is looking for a moving company, I would highly recommend Student Services Moving Company. It was a long day, but they did a great job moving the furniture and disassembling and reassembling the pieces. The stress was mostly just me feeling antsy watching people carry my things around.

After the movers finished up, the goal I had for Wednesday night was to have Katelyn's furniture organized and make her room look like it was set up. We still have to decorate and unpack her clothes, but she was VERY excited to see her new, pink, room with her furniture instead of just a pack-n-play. 

Having all of our stuff in one house is making things much easier. Now...just for the unpacking. I'm giving myself a deadline of 3 weeks to get all of my stuff unpacked. 

As Katelyn would say: Readyyyy? Set? Goooo!

True Life: You can date and be a 1 parent family

After the break up, all I could think was "This is it". I believed there was very little chance that I could meet someone as a solo parent. The solo parent was not a life I had planned, or was prepared to handle on my own. I was prepared to make the best of it. Expecting that this would be the way things were for at least the next five years.

For just about a year, I sat alone in the evenings, watching Facebook and wondering what others were up to. Occasionally chatting friends, but mostly watching NetFlix online. On an extremely rare occasion, I would get a night off to blow off some steam with friends.

I checked out Match.com. Signed up for the free trial week. Unfortunately, the psychobabble you read...the part that advises you about creating your profile...scared me off. If I write this, it really means that...what?!? It was officially over, for a while at least. I would be a strong single woman.

Being a strong single woman is what I dedicated my time to. Working to provide for my young daughter so she would never look back and feel she was slighted by me. Our living situation was not ideal, I did not have a ton of money, but we were both happy, healthy, and safe. We would overcome this and have a better life. Only time would tell.

After a long, hard, day at work -- Mother's Day to be exact -- I get a facebook friend request from someone accompanied by a brief message introducing himself. At first, I was completely skeptical. I had no idea who this guy was and why he would find me of all people. Then I thought, "sure he can be my facebook friend but it will most likely not be anything more. He's way to old for me". We facebook chatted for a few days and then had a phone conversation. I agreed to go out to dinner with him, thinking, "a free meal? why not" still thinking of him as Jessyca's Dad since his daughter had been in my mom's class the year Katelyn was born.

He picked me up and brought me a coloring book since I hadn't been feeling well that week. He said it is what he and his daughters would do when they didn't feel well. It was in a princess gift bag and came with a set of crayons. Very cute and thoughtful.

Nice dinner and great conversation. He took me home and then we decided to go back out to get a drink on the Downtown mall, I didn't want to invite him in for a drink. I wasn't prepared for that. We talked for a couple more hours. Then it hit me, he wasn't Jessyca's dad anymore -- he became Eric. He saw me as a person, not just Katelyn's mom as I had been getting accustomed to. He genuinely listened to my tragedies, failures, hopes, and dreams. The one evening felt like a week of conversation.

Believe me, I know this all sounds ridiculous and cheesy. It was an amazing summer, luckily I have my parents nearby to baby sit on occasion. Although we both have children, we work diligently to make sure we have time for us outside of time with our kids. So far...the future is bright. It has been an amazing 5 1/2 months.

Here's to the future...

Pumpkin Pickin 2011

Life can be so busy sometimes that special moments are crunched into just a few seconds rather than the hours they deserve. Hopefully this time next year is less hectic. At times, I feel like life is passing me by. Like I've said before, I'm enjoying life right now, but it's a crazy fast paced life.

The Thursday before Halloween Eric and I took the kids to Carter's Mountain Orchard to pick out our pumpkins. Katelyn ran around like crazy and tried out multiple pumpkins before choosing the one below. She also grabbed a mini pumpkin that was more her size.

Pumpkin carving with a little one is interesting. It was the first year she experienced it. Clearly, she did not carve her own pumpkin. Sydney carved Katelyn's pumpkin for her. Kate watched intently and even tried some pumpkin guts. The photo below is Katelyn's inspection of the pumpkin after Sydney has completed it. She approved!

Happy Monday!

Mondays are one of my days off each week. Therefore, we do a real breakfast and morning cartoons. It's amazing that Kate loves Sesame Street & can feed herself yogurt with a spoon!

Where did my little baby girl go??

What's the #1 Rule in Life??

Growing up, my mom always asked my sister and I, "What's the #1 rule in life??" We promptly responded, "Life is not fair". (The answer was drilled into us). Unfortunately, thats only become more apparent the older I've gotten.

This has been one of those weeks where I feel that life has dealt me a bad hand. Don't get me wrong, I love Katelyn, but raising a daughter alone is hard work. It requires being on-call 24/7 and there is no one else responsible but you. People offer to help along the way, but in the end its your responsibility to make it happen. There are no second chances. There is a reason why biologically it takes two people to create a child. It really does take at least two financially, emotionally, and physically to keep one another afloat and do the job well.

Luckily, I've been able to channel my frustrations this week into unpacking and cleaning. Almost unpacked and the whole house has been cleaned every night before I go to bed. My goal for now is to keep the things I have control over in my life going well. That's all I can do. Everything else is just hoping for the best.

That's all for now.

Out with the old...

Do you think kids are effected by packing and moving or do they just go with the flow? Before moving into the new place, Katelyn had never been into the new place. While I was packing up our old apartment she began to act clingy and unpacked boxes almost as fast as I could pack them. Therefore, most of the packing was done in two evenings so she was less involved.

Friday night she stayed with my boyfriend Eric and his children so I could move everything aside from the furniture out of my apartment. Saturday movers came after I got off work and moved the reminder of my things while Katelyn was with my parents. Sunday morning when my parents brought Katelyn back to the old apartment she cried. Unaware that we had a new apartment she was weary.

Upon arriving in the new apartment Katelyn looked skeptical. Why were our things in this new/strange place?? Then she saw patches... out came a squeal and she pointed frantically looking at me as if she was saying "Mom, do you see this?!? Patches is here!!". And all was well.  Patches and Katelyn are both adjusting to the new place. We have nearly double to open space. Once the unpacking is complete it is certain that this place will feel like home.

Good riddance old apartment. This new place finally feels like home.

New Year, New Look

It's been quite a while since I have updated the blog. I wasn't sure that people were reading or that the content was worth reading. Information about our life is posted on facebook on a regular basis. I have made this blog more personalized with the layout and the photo banner at the top.

This year I plan to write about Katelyn and add posts about being a single parent. It's hard. According the the US Census Bureau in 2009 there are 13.7 million single parents in the United States. 26% of children are being raised in single parent households.

While this blog is not unique in its content. It is unique that it's only our story. The story of Trisha and Katelyn. Our journey through life just the two of us.

Food is Fun

Katelyn Ann has jumped off the deep end into her adventure with finger foods! So far we have not found a thing she does not like. Her favorites include: diced vegetables, bananas, whole wheat pasta, pumpkin muffins, whole wheat bread, and american cheese.

Now that she's had many experiences with "real food" she wants to eat whatever I'm eating. Last night she got upset because I wouldn't give her pizza. So I shared the crust. It's nice to be able to give her food out of my cabinets instead of all jarred baby foods. Its certainly going to save my wallet!

The best part is that she loves trying new things :)

Our First Month

Katelyn's first month home has been full of craziness. All three of us have had to get to know one another. Katelyn seems to know who Dylan and I are and to recognize our voices. It's nice when I can talk to her and she seems to be calmed (at least momentarily) because she hears a familiar person.


Our first week was a little rocky. Katelyn did not want to breastfeed or sleep at night for her first few days. This resulted in cranky parents and Katelyn losing some weight. By Sunday, Katelyn was 7lbs and 2ozs. This was almost a pound less than she weighed when she was born. Luckily, she caught onto breastfeeding. In addition, Dylan and I have learned her patterns and been able to get her to sleep most of the time. We're lucky because she sleeps for six hours at a time at night :)


I've done more laundry than I would ever imagine. Using cloth diapers we have to do a load every other day. Kate is also a baby that spits up a lot. She typically goes through 3 outfits per day. Hopefully she outgrows this soon so we can stop doing as much laundry.


There has not been a "snow free" day since Katelyn was born. She is too small to take out into the snow this year so we did not invest in a snow suit. This also means that her first pictures in the snow will not be until next year. (Especially because we're hoping the snow is over with!) Due to all the snow, we have spent most of our time at home. When we do go out, Katelyn is a great sport. We've done several shopping trips and she has yet to throw a fit in the store!


At this point, she has met almost everyone in the family. It's nice to have so many people that love her. :I plan to write about each of her "firsts" in seperate posts. It's been difficult to keep up with the blog, but I promise it will be updated on a regular basis from now on.This first month has been busy, but wonderful and we expect things will only get better from here!