Does this suit your copperosity?

Applying for Preschool & Other Life Changing Decisions

2012-02-09T13:56:00.009-05:00

Wrote the check and dropped it off on Monday for LO to start 2x weekly preschool in the Fall. She's #8 on the list of 9 open spots. Phew. I can't tell you how much I am looking forward to those free mornings already. Sure, I may just go to work, but what I can accomplish without her in one morning is approximately equal to 6 mornings with her. So, I may drop my hours again and then I'll have one morning a week to myself! Glee does not even begin to fully express my feelings about this.

Of course, since we are talking about moving, possibly this summer if the stars align, whether she'll actually go or not is questionable, but at least she's on the list!

Yeah, moving. Not on my list of things I really want to contemplate, but the 45 minute one-way commute (when traffic cooperates) is really starting to wear on DH, and in addition to his crazy long hours negatively affects the time we get to spend together and the time he gets to spend with LO both before and after work.

Good news, or bad, I'm not sure, is that our next-door neighbors house is already on the market for less than we'd like to price ours, but our neighbor two doors over on the other side is listed for probably twice what we can get for ours. We haven't talked to any agents yet (to either help us sell our house, or purchase in the new area) since we're still trying to figure out the area into which we'd like to move and whether we have to compromise between decent school systems and proximity to DH's office. (This despite the high likelihood that LO will at least start out in a private school.)

We've been doing a lot of looking at the houses listed on Realtor.com, and there are some certain deal-breakers (a house at the top of our price range should need to have much, if any, work done - especially not painting or ugly wallpaper removal) for both of us, and some things that, even though they bother only one of us, will remove the listing from consideration.

That last bit brings me to the discussion about how I'm trying to see things in our house as a potential buyer would, and frankly, it's a little depressing. We'll have lived here 8 years in March, and there are still areas which need first time attention, and other areas which need attention in a re-do way. I'm thinking the walls and trim need to be repainted at least on the 1st floor, but it seems foolish to spend that kind of money (Believe me, with a 2 story foyer we will be hiring someone. I don't do scaffolding!) if someone who buys it doesn't like the color.

And the clutter, oh God, the ever loving clutter that seems to accumulate overnight and then grows roots where it landed. When I look at pictures, I don't want to see clutter, no one imagines their lives surrounded by clutter: they imagine themselves dressed super-chic, cooking a magnificent dinner in a gourmet kitchen with no mess whatsoever while the children in designer clothing play happily on the floor with educational fair-trade wooden toys or do homework at the breakfast table and an irresistibly handsome husband walks in the door and beams at his exceptional family. That may be over the top, but you get the idea. To be honest, if clutter and mess was an ideal, Pinterest would be a bust!

Another Life Changing Decision hanging out there....trying for #2....still on hold. I still have a feeling that LO should have a sibling, and time is certainly tick-tocking away for me, but that sense of urgency I had six months ago is gone. Maybe my feelings about this will change but for now I'm 100% happy to leave it up to chance if we decide to go that route. DH thinks we will have problems again but is unwilling to pursue help again (our initial efforts seem to have had more of a negative effect on him than I); I'm more optimistic since once my cycles returned post-weaning LO they have been about as regular as I remember from before I started Depo-Provera. So, who knows. Either one of us could be correct, or we could both be. But in any case, we're leaning towards 5 bedroom houses so that there will be more than one guestroom, and still allow LO and any potential sibling their own rooms.

So, that's where things are - yay for preschool and time for myself 2x a week, but boo for the possibility of the prospect of moving (and the likelihood that all the good preschools in our new location have already been filled up by the time we make a decision).

Today Was A Pretty Good Day

2012-02-01T20:59:00.004-05:00

Well, apart from the visit to the dermatologist costing me another mole. This one about 4 inches below the large one I had removed over the summer.

My MIL came over to watch the Little One so I could go to the appointment, so that meant I had time to do fun things like run multiple errands without fighting the car seat battle at every stop, and time to wander a bit aimlessly instead of shooting through the stores like a scud missile.

I also got a chance to meet with the Director of the Preschool/lead teacher of the class LO would be in should we decide to enroll her in the fall. I liked her, I liked the classroom, I like that there is structure to the day but it also allows for some self-selection of activity within that structure. Yes, since the Preschool is tied to a church, there is religious overtones to the instruction but it seems to be pretty mild and not of the strident overbearing variety. Heck, even the older classes only have chapel 1x per month (unlike the weekly schedule my preschool observed). I definitely didn't have any gut negatives about the teacher or building, and the classes that were meeting today seemed to be pretty happy kids.

AND I bought a pair of trendy shoes. Well, trendy for me, the style is probably so last summer for everyone else. But they'll be great on our trip in April. Actually, I only bought one thing for another member of the family today (and it was on my list), everything else on impulse was for me! I don't know about anyone else but it's so hard to buy for myself now - I'm always finding stuff for LO or DH even if the plan is just to look for myself - so that limitation felt like a pretty big accomplishment.

I even got to go to the grocery store and not feel like I was tied to a ticking bomb which could erupt at any moment. But, by then I was running out of things I needed to do so I went home where I got to see LO and my MIL interacting without either one noticing I was there for a few minutes. (I really didn't sneak in, I just didn't make much noise.)

Yep, today was a pretty good day. Even if DH had a business dinner (wait, that meant I didn't have to cook dinner and LO and I could stuff ourselves silly with naan and hummus...it was a good evening, too!) and isn't going to be home until sometime before 10pm.

Update - bullet style.

2012-01-28T21:26:00.004-05:00

Trying to get to bed early tonight so here's a dump...

There must be an instruction in the secret kid handbook that says not to eat crusts. It's not something I've ever displayed, and yet, Little One follows it.
Little One adores oranges, especially the "Cutie" brand Clementines. What she doesn't adore is my telling her she can't have any thanks to the worst diaper rash she's had in a LONG time. I'm just trying to keep her acidic pass-through to a minimum and she doesn't understand the short-term benefits.
The diaper rash also lead to my getting peed on last night while comforting her mid-diaper change. Well, she hit not only me, but the play mat I was using as a changing pad, the floor, and the quilt on the bed under the mat (not soak through, over splash). It did a fantastic job of delaying bed time for both of us since I wanted to wash everything before it set in, and needed to spray the carpet for the same reason.
We got to spend the past few days with the group of friends we made at breast-feeding class and I feel so fantastic for getting to be with other mommies who get it and with whom there's no longer that getting-to-know-you stress; and for how nicely all the kids interacted.
DH and I are talking more and looking more at moving closer to his work so he's not spending the better part of 2 hours commuting daily on top of the crazy-long hours he works. The houses we're looking at are not cheap, and I realize that not everyone has the same taste, but I have to wonder why so many of these expensive houses have white kitchens and rooms full of wallpaper?! At least we agree that if we're going to spend X amount on a house, we don't want to have to spend another 1-2% of the purchase price on changing them. We did see one house we both agreed had potential until we realized that where it was located in the neighborhood meant having to give out full page directions on how to reach it - take the 2nd right then the 3rd left then the 1st left and the 2nd right....jeez!
At her 18 month appointment LO was 33.5" tall and almost 27 lbs which put her just about 93 and 80 percent respectively. No wonder she's so hard to hold when she's upset - she's greater than 50% of my height now! My mom brought, at her last visit, the growth chart they had in my room growing up; according to it, I didn't hit either of those numbers until I was 2.5-3 years old. I still haven't quite wrapped my mind between reality and that I was expecting a kiddo who fell a bit lower on the ranges. Especially since there was some concern from the OB about her size on the sonograms, then there was the preemie factor. I don't think anyone would have guessed she'd sprout so quickly!
Unlike one of her friends, she doesn't parrot/repeat back words, but I know they're soaking in since she occasionally comes out with something which surprises me (she correctly identified a "9" as nine, completely out of the blue!). But it still is currently driving me insane that she calls every color YELLOW! She can say brown also, but doesn't even try for red, green, blue...etc.
Her most recent accomplishment: climbing on top of the breakfast table twice today. Up on the chair than from chair to table. At least she's given up playing with the timer for our family room lamp (knock on wood).
Oh, she is working hard on bringing the terrible twos early. Falling down tantrums when she doesn't get her way on what seem to be minor things to me, but important enough to hold the line.
There's been no improvement on the car seat front, though I have started resorting to bribery - fries are a big treat, so they worked the 1x I could offer them; I also will offer some yogurt bites by putting one in my mouth for her to take like a little birdie which is different enough to get her attention; occasionally I can find something interesting with which to distract her but those items usually have a one use limit. Worst case, I have to crawl in the back and physically press her into the seat. Dealing with her and the car seat does not bring out my best parenting moments. It also seems the harder she fights it, the quicker she is to crash once we are on the road, so realizing that has helped my frustration levels, but it is still hugely embarrassing to deal with in public.
DH and I are discussing 2x week preschool for her in the fall. They take diaper-using 2 year olds and just happen to be located almost in our neighborhood. I'm hoping there aren't any red flags at my visit next week - I really need, and she needs, some time apart. It's not that I don't love her to pieces, I just need time to do things on my own and she needs more interaction with other kids than I can provide now that two of our friends have moved out of town.
I am now the only official employee on payroll at work. The other employee is working on getting his contractors license back, and will be treated as a contractor. Times are tough for custom builders. I'm not terribly worried about my position, I've cut back on my hours to something like a max of 6 hours/week if I have childcare for LO, and my bosses wife doesn't seem inclined to pick up the remaining duties I complete. One of these day's I'll be able to catch up (I was almost there before LO was born and then it all went to hell) and then she might be willing to take over. Until then, it seems to be working nicely for all of us.
DH and my 10th wedding anniversary is in March, and I have NO IDEAS! I thought our trip in April was the present to both of us, but DH keeps saying he has a great idea for and anniversary present, but can't find what he's looking for...it's a little nerve wracking!

Okay, it's quarter after 10 and I need to head to bed since I am on call until DH gets home in the afternoon/evening tomorrow. So much for weekends being a time for relaxations, as a SAHM all the days just seem to run together!

It Comes in Threes

2012-01-12T15:44:00.002-05:00

In the past week I've gotten scary news from three friends, two through blogging and one IRL, about their children (or children in progress).

I'm sending out as much good juju as I can, but please join me in hurling enough good at these situations to help overcome the bad that's there now.

And now that the three have become known, the universe can settle down now, thankyouverymuch!

Selfish Mindfulness

2012-01-08T12:52:00.003-05:00

Is there such a term? Because when I think about my resolutions for 2012 that's what comes to mind. If you are wondering, they are:

Better meal planning.
More effort into doing things for me.

They both benefit me, so there's the selfish part, but they both benefit the family in the global sense, so that's some mindfulness. Maybe.

Honestly, the first is really important because if I don't get things going late afternoon, the adults don't eat until 9pm instead of shortly after Little One goes to bed, which stinks when a good bedtime for us is around 10:30 or earlier. And the second is important because I need to remember to take care of myself so I can continue to take care of everyone else.

Doing things for me seems much more manageable as a goal than saying I want to exercise X times per Y ... or anything else.

Top on my list? Arranging an appointment with the best brow people in town for my first ever brow shaping. I figure since it's one of the first things I notice and don't like about myself in pictures and has been for a while, it's time to do something about it!

Also in my list is getting in shape for our island vacation in April. Those cellulite pockets left over from Little One (and thanks to age) aren't going to disappear on their own!

Share Some Love

2011-12-31T00:16:00.002-05:00

Contessa over at Writing, Yarn, Pucks & Diapers could use some love from some been there, done that ladies (and men too, I guess, if you're out there).

In summary, she's a few days post miscarriage of a 7/8 week pregnancy and dealing with the emotional fall out. There are some wonderful comments already, but more love is always better, right?

(I'd submit to LFCA but I just introduced her to Stirrup Queens, so it might be too much just yet.)

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T22:01:00.002-05:00

Confession...It's 10pm on Christmas Day and DH and I are in agreement that despite all the excitement involved with the opening of presents and all, it didn't really feel like Christmas.

Circumstances...DH has a wicked cold, gifted to him a week ago by Little One; the in-laws were here without the BIL [(in)conveniently, his med situation always takes a nose dive around every holiday so he is unable/unwilling to act like a normal human being so declines to participate] and left mid-afternoon; Little One has apparently decided to change her nap schedule from morning to afternoon without alerting me or her body of that decision (today she started nodding off in her high chair at 2pm while the adults were eating lunch after refusing to nap between 11am and 12noon); in the interest of a less stressful day for me we moved the big dinner to Christmas Eve, so there wasn't any sort of evening activity; etc.

Conclusion...We need to figure out how to bring in the magic of Christmas for us as parents and not just the "kids" we still are to our parents.

How was your day?

2 Years...

2011-12-15T17:15:00.005-05:00

Mel over at Stirrup Queens (if you don't read her already, you should totally check her out!), posted an interesting question today:

How have you changed in the last two years? If you’ve been blogging for at least two years, post a link to your nearest blog post to two years ago today.

This made me take a look back and realize that 2 years ago, this morning, I peed on the HPT that shockingly turned from one line to two, and subsequently into the 17 month old dervish who keeps me hopping.

I had no idea the ride (literally, in fact, on the day of her birth) I was in for, and despite my whining and moaning about certain things, I'm so happy to be aboard (though at times it's just by my finger tips!

The Christmas Card Hop

2011-12-10T19:34:00.004-05:00

Okay, so no hopping, but it sounded good to me in the title.

I'm working on updating the mailing list for the cards, in Excel, yes, so I can be speedy about getting them in the mail once we get either a picture with Santa (the 1st try this year - so ugly it wasn't worth getting even one picture!!!), or decide on an alternate picture option.

And as I was updating addresses and changes to families I realized that, hey, there were 5 new babies last year in my circle of friends and family. Three years ago that would have depressed me.

But since Little One surprised us and since we're not currently trying...I'm okay with that. That said, if it happens again next year and we're trying (that's a discussion for January) without successes, I might find it a tad more depressing.

I'll try to get back here again before the 25th, but if I don't manage it:

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

May your nights be silent and the calories of the season stay off your hips.

My 16.5ish Month Old and other stuff.

2011-12-05T19:49:00.006-05:00

Oh, Hi. How are you? How are things with you?

We're all fine here. Really. Thanks for asking.

So I thought I'd drop by, take out the dust rag and broom, and let you know how things are going.

Little One is a weed. By our measurements, 31", and floating between 25 and 27 pounds. You know, depending on the status of her diaper. Comfortably in 18 months but also some 24 months, mostly in shirts since her buddha belly is still in full effect.

She's a pretty good eater and doesn't refuse too much except green beans. But that's not really different from when she was starting out on solids, so no big surprise there. Favorites though are dairy products, green veggies (other than green beans) but especially peas, lima beans, and broccoli and fruit (fresh, freeze dried or regular dried). Like I said, the girl will eat most anything. I find it amusing when she tries to refuse something new, I convince her to taste it and then, YUM.

We're working on utensils so most food still goes in with finger power, and I have to admit complete laziness in not working harder with her on drinking from a cup instead of a straw. It will happen, and straw-drinking keeps the juice further away from her teeth when she drinks it, right?

Her favorite word is - no. Big surprise there, right? The favorite word I say? "Video" I found this YouTube channel: KidsTV123 which has a lot of original music and videos which are entertaining, yet also instructional (phonics, letters, numbers, etc.) and most importantly, don't drive me insane to listen to/watch. In fact, I find myself humming the songs sometimes. I put those on and she'll let me clip her nails (hands and feet) without complaining, and brush her hair, though putting clips and other things in her hair is a crapshoot since 9 times out of 10 she pulls them out within the minute.

Other words, right now? Ball - pronounced "bawl" in a southern drawl she doesn't get from anyone she hears on a regular basis. Cats are meow, dogs are woof, sheep are baa, cows are moo. And then the basics: mama, dada, papa, (ba)nana. Oh and besides, ball, her other obsession: ice. (eye-sch)

I blame that last one on the stupid canine teeth taking their sweet time to come in. But she has finally learned a baby sign language, or made it up on her own, for please since I almost always insist on it before she gets a piece of ice. (She takes both pointer fingers and points at her chest.)

I'm not sure when it happened, but Little One follows simple directions on a regular basis. And it is awesome. Except when she deliberately tunes me out. That's not so awesome. She loves to help put things away, especially her dirty diaper once I've wrapped it up. She also cleans up after the dog - picking up ever scattered piece of kibble from the floor. Yuck. Something which both pisses me off and cracks me up? When she gets the cutting boards out of their drawer, places them on the kitchen floor, and then carefully stands on them. They will be moving soon since I'm tired of washing them thanks to her and not other use.

She points to her nose, my nose, dada's nose, the cat's nose, the dog's nose... you get the picture. Will also identify eyes, ears, and mouths. And her toes. And in the tub when it's time to wash her shins and feet will sit down and lift one than the other when I ask her for the other leg. This makes me irrationally happy.

We made it through the transition to one nap which runs anywhere from 40 minutes to 2 hours (if there was anything I could get a guarantee on it would be the minimum nap being ideally longer than 40 minutes). Once through I finally figured out the reason that no one has written anything on the topic: It sucks. And there's no good way to do it except go through it. And, from my own informal poll, there's not enough similarity between kids to make any sweeping generalizations ala Pantly, Ferber or any of the other sleep experts. So, typically Little One goes to bed between 7 and 8 and then is up somewhere between 6 and 8. No rhyme or reason to how long she sleeps - earlier or later at night does not correspond to the same in the morning, and generally unless she has a cold or a bad dream once she's down, she's down.

So that's Little One - I take no credit for her sleeping or eating or anything good or bad, it's just the way she is.

~~~~

As for me, apart from the flukey long cycle which totally screwed up my annual visit, forcing me to reschedule and take whomever I could get before the end of October thanks to my husband's company changing insurance the 1st of November, I have been 28 days like clockwork, and in the world of TMI the CM some days makes me worry that there's enough to not only soak my underwear but my jeans as well.

Maybe I'm fooling myself, but it really feels to me like my cycles are back to "normal" and that gut-deep it was being on the Depo-Provera for too long that caused all of our problems. I guess if we try for #2 and have no luck that my views may change, but ... I've really found that since heading down the IF road, I really know when my body is doing what it should and when it isn't. And right now it feels like it's doing what it should.

This week I'll be making 12 dozen (14 including those for DH) gingerbread cookies (men, women & stars) for a cookie exchange. Whee! And I still have a ton and a half of Christmas shopping to do. Wait, make that a ton and a half of gift ideas to come up with before I can even start shopping.

My idea for my grandmother's present for Little One got hijacked, but in the best of ways. I had thought a creche/nativity that she could use for years (sturdy enough for now, but not childish for later), would be a good thing. This got passed to my grandmother who happened to mention it to her similarly-aged neighbors in the retirement community, who were generous enough to pass along the set she had bought as a child with her allowance and didn't know what to do with without a grandchild or great grandchild they are particularly close with. So I'll be gracious and accept it on LO's behalf with great effusions of gratitude, but, it's a little frustrating to have to start from square one again on trying to figure out some kind of meaningful present. Not to be morbid or anything, but how many years will they have together? I'd like the gifts to be lasting and not passing.

Well, DH has got the lights on the tree and is patiently waiting on the couch for me to attend to his baking yak (aching back) on the professional grade folding massage table he presented me with on my birthday. It's an equal opportunity use thing, but I have to admit, more often than not, our massages have a "happy ending." Hurray for relaxation!

Oh, and in exciting relaxation news, we have booked our 10 year wedding anniversary trip to Sandals Grande Antigua in April for 9 nights. A real treat for us to get away for that long and at the level of room we booked! I am a little worried about being away from LO for that long, but not enough to not look forward to getting away with DH without any other worries.

Okay, I'm really finishing up now. Everything has been cleaned up and is ready for my next visit. Hopefully it will be sooner than later.

Down the Rabbit Hole

2011-11-22T22:40:00.005-05:00

Every so often I get the itch to check the statistics - see where people are coming from, what they are looking for.

And in my view, the current crop of results is downright boring. For your agreement, in order of appearance over the last month the top 5 search terms have been:

copperosity/copperrosity (variations)
behr orange / apricot light
gunpowder punch
recessed tv (variations)
mini lupron with menopur

Where are the searches for poo, dirty diaper stink bombs and vomit? Apparently I need to up my game...or change my blog name.

And visitors have come from:

United State
Germany
Netherlands
Brazil
Canada

Also Russia, United Kingdom, Australia, and France.

I also looked at the lifetime top posts, which is what took me down the rabbit hole: Number one was the post about Little One's surprise arrival, another was about her first bottle, and I was off...(especially after checking out some FB picture's of a college friend's one month old - I had forgotten how tiny they are to start!)

So, if you landed here through one of the above searches, and stuck around, or are reading from a foreign (to me) country - please say hi! Or say hi! anyway and tell me what brought you.

Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving! to all my US readers. I hope your celebration is as enjoyable as the inevitable post-turkey haze.

Mish-Mash Slap-Dash

2011-11-18T12:58:00.003-05:00

And bullets (once again)...

Little One is fighting a cold. Which translates into fighting everything from having her nose wiped to diaper changes to napping to getting dressed*. She's SUPER when we're out in public, but honestly, I don't really enjoy the monster she turns back into we return home. So, we go out in public for both our sakes after her nap.
Ah yes, the nap. Why is it that I believed everyone and the books when they said one nap is great? They obviously missed out on the child for whom dropping a nap just means the remaining nap remains the same length. This means one nap anywhere from 40 minutes to two hours, but generally stays on the shorter end of that spectrum. Frankly, I miss an earlier AM nap because the later AM/early PM nap means I have to get up earlier in order to shower before she wakes up or I don't get a shower until half the day is gone and really don't feel like trying to accomplish anything until that point.
On the cute side, I made Campbell's chicken noodle condensed soup for LO yesterday (This is love as the stuff makes me gag.) and she learned how to say noodle. (noo-dah) Also says wa-wa for water and buh-bye, and makes the sounds for animals instead of calling them by name (woof, meow, bah, moo, bzz, hoo {owl}).
I have agreed to bake 12 DOZEN (yes, 144 cookies) for a cookie exchange. Gingerbread at that so it's not even as simple as glopping a lump of dough on the sheet and throwing it in the oven. And YOU KNOW that DH will be seriously unhappy with all of those cookies leaving the house even with the promised return of 11 dozen cookies of various types coming back in. So that means I'll be making at least one extra batch, if not two for his stomach (since with his pickyness he may not touch any of the others).
Which brings me to the realization I had last weekend while visiting the in-laws and celebrating an early Thanksgiving with DH's side of the family that everyone is coming to us for Christmas once again which means I'm in charge of all the cooking...or at least delegating once I have planned the menu. At least there will be cookies.
Next week DH is taking off work and planning to do projects around the house. I'm hoping I'll be able to leave LO with him on Monday or Tuesday so I can go to work and actually accomplish 100% instead of the 50% or less that occurs with LO there. Wednesday I'm driving to Richmond in the morning to meet my parents and transfer my Grandmother as she won't fit in the car with LO, the dog, and all of the stuff we haul with us when we head up to the mountain as we travel to my parent's house on Thursday (followed by spending the weekend on the mountain).

But today I'm meeting a friend at Starbucks to take advantage of the BOGO from 2-5 and catch up before the crazy begins. Yay!

*Please don't burst my bubble and tell me this is normal 16 month old behavior. I need the light at the end of this horrible tunnel!

One Point to the Kinder Gentler Side

2011-11-08T12:10:00.004-05:00

I'm just going to let it out here - the Duggars! #20? Really? After the issues with the last one, you think this pregnancy is going to be better?

Jeez.

Of course, this comes on top of today's Mississippi personhood initiative vote. What do you want to bet that the Duggars are all for that?

The evil part of me really wants one or more of their daughters/daughters-in-law to have fertility issues, and then perhaps they might understand that their procreative abilities don't bring joy to everyone. But no, even then they probably wouldn't get it. God's will covers a whole crap-load of willful ignorance.

The kinder gentler part of me, well, hell, she's being suppressed by the evil part of me, but if she wasn't I suppose she'd be more understanding. The evil part of me doesn't get it, but then I don't understand why anyone thinks they should have the right to tell me what I can and can't do with my body. And with that admission, the kinder gentler part of me emerges victorious to remind me of the little fact that by that thinking, I really can't say anything about the Duggar's choices. Damn it.

What I can say is that I'm tired of them making a big production about every freaking pregnancy. So they can get pregnant, stay pregnant and pop out healthy(ish) live babies. So can every 6th person (using the 1 in 7 metric). I do hope this pregnancy goes the same, but if not, I hope God's will comforts them because I sure won't.

Happy Halloween!

2011-11-01T11:19:00.003-04:00

Hope you had a great Halloween - with a super sugar coma today!

Pumpkin!

Little Fairy!*

And just for comparison - last years Pumpkin!

We took Little One around to a few of the neighbors to show her off - but only brought one piece of candy home - we have plenty of our own left to stuff ourselves with since our grand total of Trick or Treaters was: 2!!!

Our street just isn't very Trick or Treat friendly - the houses are mostly set back from the road, are a bit apart and there are hills(!) to contend with. But that doesn't stop us from hoping for more action! Next year though when Little One has a better idea of what's going on, I think we're going to do what everyone else does and hit one of the other sections of the neighborhood with easier access.

*DH took the pictures and they are almost all grainy except for the ones in which she has a strange expression or feature her burying her face in my crotch; not really poses I want to preserve. Good thing I already took her to Penney's and got some super shots in her costume.

Steamwhistle

2011-10-23T15:34:00.006-04:00

I need to vent...

We were supposed to go with DH to Wintergreen since he was working the Tough Mudder this weekend (providing medical care), only Little One popped a 101+ fever on Thursday so she and I ended up staying here instead, and I so so so look forward to the weekends to get some break since DH hardly sees her during the week thanks to his work schedule, but I know after this weekend, when he gets home he's going to be too tired to really do much (which means I feel bad asking him) which means of course that Monday comes without any sort of a break for me (of course had we gone with I wouldn't have gotten a break either, but that's beside the point).

Pout.

I know lots of people have it worse, but I'm really feeling the constant care (plus transition to 1 nap which is running closer to just an hour than I would prefer and doesn't start until between 10 and 11 usually so I'm in my night clothes until I can take a shower) is affecting me negatively - shorter fuse, more yelling, less effort.

Plus, it's sure not helping that Little One screams (in the key of bloody murder for anywhere from 5-20 minutes) herself to sleep every time I put her down for a nap, for the night, or even if she wakes up in the middle of the night which makes me feel like the worst Mom ever for not being able to get her to sleep either quietly or with a minimum of fuss. I'm glad she doesn't need me to be there to help her to sleep, I just wish she would be more quiet about it, or at least not sound like she's in physical pain.

Phew. Back to toddler supervision it is!

The Starred Items

2011-10-20T20:18:00.004-04:00

I just dumped over 160? posts that had been languishing in my starred items for weeks, months, years.

And you know what? I feel okay. A little sad that I didn't make the effort to comment in a timely manner as I had intended when I starred those posts to come back to later, but by now many of the situations have resolved. For those which have not, commenting on a earlier post just felt weird.

In those posts there were pregnancy announcements, birth announcements, and other records of the ups and downs of the lives of many people I've never met in person. Some were even the last posts written on what seem to be blogs gone dormant, waiting for the next life-event trigger to be revived.

Anyway. I'm sure that despite my best intentions in the future, those starred posts will again accumulate. So for that, I do apologize in advance for my lack of timeliness and/or the proper words to communicate my thoughts and please be assured that the lack of comments is not due to your content.

What's Up with the 15+ Month Old?

2011-10-19T22:38:00.006-04:00

Bullet dump...

If you're following the twitter feed, Little One managed to poop on the floor this evening. She was enjoying some naked time post-bath, and I was enjoying not fighting the power struggle of diapering her immediately. But, I smelled something, found a nugget, fought the diaper fight, and shortly after that she soiled that diaper but good. I'm SO glad I caught that in time!
One of the things I was doing while she wandered naked as a cloud (lonely / naked, whatever), was changing her crib sheet since it looked like she'd drooled/sweated/something on it pretty heavily at some time since it was last changed a week or so ago. As part of that effort, I was adjusting the skirt on the crib (which now tends to bunch on the floor thanks to the mattress being at the lowest level), and I noticed that what I had thought was a reflection of the pinky-red skirt on the carpet was actually a dye transfer where Little One had drooled over the edge of the crib (probably from chewing on the front rail) and it had soaked the skirt enough to transfer to the carpet below. Super!
The diaper power struggle? No fun. Tho' Little One does an impressive Yoga Bridge Pose. I'm almost exclusively changing her on the bed in her room instead of the dresser top with the changing pad since she reacts better there and if she does scoot away from me, and slips over the edge, the fall is less. She will still put up with the changing station on her play yard, mostly, but the dining room table provides an alternate location when needed.
Words...mama, dada, (ba)nana, doggie, woof, meow, hi, star, lastly and most awfully....NO. And yes, she does say no even when she does want something, so I get the fun of re-offering the item in question to see if she will accept it or not even as she is saying no. I'm trying to use other words and redirect her so she hears it coming less from my mouth in the hopes that she will use it less. (This is probably a futile effort, but I figure it's worth a try.)
At her 15 month visit, she had held steady at 24ish pounds, and shot up to 32+-ish inches. Her thigh chubs are starting to disappear. :( She's in 18 and 24 month clothing, depending on the manufacturer and item (def. 18 in pants, but 24 month shirts are a little easier to get on) and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
I am amazed on a regular basis that she has caught up so well from being a preemie. Perhaps a few delays on the verbal side (her younger male friends seem much more verbal), but that scale is pretty wide, so I'm not horribly distressed yet.
I continue to be so glad that I attended the 3x weekly breastfeeding group held at the local hospital as Little One and I continue to get together with the closer friends we met there once a week to two weeks, and I run into other mom's I got to know in passing there on at least a monthly basis.
Little One and I are enjoying the weekly Music Class which started in September and goes through November. I haven't met anyone new in the class to befriend, though I did find out one of the other moms was a year ahead of me at the same college and major, so that was a bit small worldish (she has 3 kids, the youngest of whom is in the class. The realization of how far ahead she was than I in the parenting department hit me a bit harder than I would have anticipated). And again, thanks to the breastfeeding group I was already familiar with two moms in there (one is a close friend, the other I knew in passing).
And not to brag (but of course I am) almost every time we go out in public, someone has to comment on her blond curls or how cute she is. It's almost enough to give me a swelled head. I mean, I think she's pretty darn adorable, but it's nice to hear it from people who have no reason to say so.
DH, Little One and I went out to the pumpkin patch last weekend and had a lot of fun enjoying the beautiful weather (despite the crazy wind). She got to see chickens and pigs and lots of different kinds of pumpkins, wander through a small corn maze (a maize maze, ha ha ha) and rode in two different kinds of wagons for the first time. We skipped the hay ride and pumpkin tossing, but did check out the kids play area (in the far right background of the photo below).

The wind blew her curls out. Usually she has sausage ringlets across her forehead and crazy hairs sticking out all over the place.

I guess that's all for now. Stay tuned for the next edition...when hopefully I'll have more to talk about than Little One. (This weekend there's a Tough Mudder at Wintergreen and DH is volunteering as part of the medic-corps...that should provide some good content!)

Oh, and if you were wondering, the second mole removal (the remainder of one of the first moles removed) came back just fine, so back to my yearly dermatologist check-ins without worry it is.

Transportation Solved!

2011-10-10T08:45:00.004-04:00

I've been fretting over what to do in regards to transporting Little One around the mountain on our visits to Wintergreen.

She's outgrown the Bjorn (and my bladder really couldn't take the pressure on it the last couple of times we tried it - thanks sweet pea for that little gift), and the strollers we have just aren't up to the terrain (the umbrella is too flimsy, the older-model Peg Perego too heavy), nor is my body up to pushing them or carrying her in my arms, nor is she up to doing so much walking yet.

What to do? What to do?

Some sort of carrier or all-terrain stroller was obviously in order, but which one, what kind?

After lots of discussions, DH and I ruled out an additional stroller as even an all-terrain model wouldn't be good on snow or mud, two regularly found conditions during the ski season.

That left a carrier of some sort. The decision on soft or frame came down to whether I could load Little One easily by myself. Frame won out. Then, what was available?

A little searching online, and it narrowed to a couple of brands. From there the question was which ones could I find in a store to actually try as all the reviews in the world can't tell you whether something will actually work for you or not. Luckily there's an REI on our way from home to the mountain and they carry both Kelty and Deuter carriers, and had both in stock.

To shorten a long enough narrative, the Kelty models were all on clearance, and REI members got a 30% discount on clearance items. The Deuter models did not get tried on (they were also more technical than we needed), and since Little One was getting a bit cranky it was a pretty quick trip in and out.

Based on one weekend's worth of use though, I can tell you that the Kelty 1.0 worked pretty darn well for both Little One and myself once I got it properly adjusted. She liked the ride, I liked not feeling like my arms were going to fall off, and my legs which are not used to hiking hills only complained a percentage more than they would have without an extra 25 pounds on my back. And the dog liked that she could go out with us.

Frame carrier for the WIN!

Send Earplugs!

2011-10-06T10:50:00.002-04:00

Little One has taken to screaming her fool head off at nap time, bed time, any time she wakes up in the middle of the night before she goes to sleep.

The first two times suck, but are bearable, there's lots of things to occupy my time while she's wearing herself down.

But the latter? Oh my goodness. To add such painful howling to the insult of already being awake at an hour which I much prefer to only see once a day? It's no go.*

Now, she's fussed herself to sleep for a long time (starting when? maybe around the time we stopped swaddling because she grew out of all them?), taking anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes to wind down, but this level of screaming is new and awful.

In the past few days she's also started to refuse the long-established ritual of book reading before naps, in a dramatic flinging herself off of my lap and running for the door fashion despite exhibiting the obvious symptoms of needing said nap - rubbing the eyes, yawning, turning into a limp boneless noodle when I try to put her back on her feet.

After settling herself to sleep easily for so long, for which I have been grateful, I feel like I've run into a wall with this change. I'm guessing she doesn't want to be left alone, but she won't go to sleep if I'm in the room, and I need the break (to do things like blog...and laundry without little hands "assisting.")

All my books talk about easing the transition away from parent-assisted slumber...I'm there, I just need assistance with stopping the howling!

*I was going to type 'it's no good' but I like the typo 'no go' better.

Musings on Clutter (Updated)

2011-10-03T09:29:00.007-04:00

In the fridge - expired medications from the last IVF cycle (2009).

In the freezer - bags of breastmilk, also expired.

In the pantry/trash - cans of soup. (Potato cheese broccoli from 2010 anyone?)

In my mind - residual sadness we didn't have an oops, residual tiredness thanks to a rude 4:45 awakening Sunday AM, the hope that my actual birthday* brings a SD(+?) card for my new camera & frustration that digital cameras don't include very much memory thus requiring removable memory so I can't play around with it too much just yet.

In the rest of my house - piles of papers on almost every flat surface to deal with "later", placed out of the way of Little One's sticky little fingers, with "later" never seeming to arrive. Or when "later" does finally arrive they are replaced as quickly as the prior ones departed.

It's a rainy yukky day and if Little One didn't have music class we wouldn't be leaving the house. When we return, I will find the energy to make cookies. Homemade cookies always make a day better! As do lap snuggles from the more anti-social of our two kitties.

And yet one more thing: Turns out one of the other moms in our music class went to the same college, in the same department, was only a year ahead of me, and her third is the same age as Little One. That stupid residual jealousy still crops up and bites me when I least expect it!

*One that feels bigger to me than some, as those ending in 5 or 0 can.

Hack Attack

2011-09-30T16:15:00.003-04:00

I'll be the first to admit I know very little about properly pruning things so they don't look cut back.

But there comes a point when I can no longer stand the look of a bush or tree and must attack it or suffer great annoyance.

Something tells me my husband is going to be the one annoyed this evening when he comes home and sees what I did to the dwarf japanese maples planted on either side of our front door.

Based on past experience (with the same trees) I know, like an impulsive and bad haircut, they will grow back. It just takes time.

At least this time I didn't try to trim off my finger along with one of the branches...I do learn from my mistakes (mostly).

Questionable Cycles - The Results

2011-09-27T18:54:00.003-04:00

For those playing along at home, I managed to use up one of the remaining HPT's this AM.

So negative there wasn't even an evaporation line along the positive indicator.

(I did dream on Sunday night/Monday morning that the test would be negative. After the dreams I had that Little One would arrive early and this dream, I'm starting to wonder...)

At the same time there was some light pink discharge which has yet to expand into darker territory.

WTF body, wtf?

I have to admit that despite all of the potential negatives to a positive, I'm disappointed. And frustrated.

And, less importantly but still true, annoyed because now I can't explain the last couple of pounds I've mysteriously put back on as anything but poor food and exercise choices.

I guess DH and I should talk about this tonight.

Questionable Cycles (Updated)

2011-09-25T22:34:00.004-04:00

Since I don't wish to share this with the wider world, lets just keep this between us (online) friends, okay?

When my period returned after Little One self-weaned, my first few cycles were spot on (no pun intended) 28 days. Last Monday was day #28. I don't like myself on BCP, so DH and I have been consistently using condoms for every episode of (ahem) relations, none of which have appeared to fail at any time. (Do I really need to say that DH is the only one I've been with?)

So, the question is, do I POAS Monday AM since I'm going on a week overdue, or do I keep waiting it out? Edit: Make that Tuesday since Little One woke up early while DH was still in the bathroom. Does it make me a bad wife for not discussing this with him, or practical for not making it an issue until it needs to be?

Whether the results are positive or negative there are plenty of reasons to freak out. I mean really, after all the trouble we went through to conceive Little One how ironic would it be to be in the small % of those who use condoms correctly and still get pregnant? And DH really isn't up to having a 2nd child right now*. On the other hand, negative could mean that my body is starting down the road to cessation of reproductive ability so ... that would just plain suck.

It's not like I'd be going out to buy some new since I still have two left from a three pack (the first was Little One's positive), and they do expire in October. Throwing them away with pee on them isn't much different from tossing them unused, right? Right?

Oh Lordy. I never thought that the possibility could be so stressful.

*We are to re-discuss in December/January. Insert a tome of various concerns and worries in this spot. Gah.

Mole, mole, mole (Take 2)

2011-09-25T22:26:00.003-04:00

So Friday I went down for what I thought was going to be a consult but turned into a removal appt. Not really prepared for that, but I really liked the surgeon (all he does is dermatological surgery) - and liked him even more after he admitted that he also had times when he had vasovagal response. (My trigger: medical procedures. Not really something one can desensitize to easily.)

But when I walked into the waiting room I was greeted by a sea of grey and bald heads. If I hadn't double checked the sign outside the door before walking in, I would have thought I'd walked into a gerontologists office.

Anyway, he supposedly has now removed all of the offending mole (suspicious cells...whee!) and an appropriate surround, including some lovely scar tissue from the sutures used to close the initial sample, and I should be receiving a call from the office in the near future regarding the results of the further testing.

As you might imagine, I would much prefer that this be the end of it. Because as per the first paragraph, I don't really want to work on that desensitization thing.

Damn Sunroof (or why you shouldn't let other people drive your car...)

2011-09-19T14:26:00.003-04:00

For you understand where this comes from, a bit of back story: We went on vacation Labor Day week and my parents stayed at our house with Little One (btw: it was bliss to just be adults for a week instead of parents). It just so happens that the annual State inspection on my vehicle was due in August. With one thing and another, despite plenty of nagging from DH, it didn't get done. So I asked my parents if they would be willing to take the car in while they were here.

No problem. They got it done. For which I am very grateful.

Except that today when I got gas I happened to be at the one station in town with a good touch-free car wash and decided to run it through since it had been a long while since the car had been washed by anything other than rain. As the pre-wash started, I happened to look up and saw some drips ease their way around the edges of the interior panel which covers the sunroof when it's not in use.

Yep, somehow in the week since we've been home, even while driving around, I missed that the sunroof had been left in the tilted open position. I'll take the hit, I didn't explain the home-link system of garage door openers to one potential driver thinking that the other potential driver whom has driven the car plenty and previously used the opener system would fill the other driver in. You see, there are three door opener buttons next to the sunroof toggle in the front ceiling of the vehicle. The driver (who shall not be named) thought they were (a) related to the open position of the sunroof, and (b) thought that pushing the sunroof toggle all the way forward shut the roof; which is incorrect - that is the setting for the tilt position. Shut all the way is in some amorphous area between all the way forward and all the way back.

So, of course, by the time I realized this issue needed to be corrected, plenty of water had accumulated on the panel and seeped around the edges, and started to pour out on me as I was attempting to rectify it with additional water coming down in the car wash. Thank goodness I keep a cloth diaper burp rag in the diaper bag or I and the interior of the vehicle would have been even wetter than we ended up. And now, in the garage, the sunroof and several windows are open to allow the remaining dampness to dry, hopefully without the additional fun of mildew.

Furthermore, I am reconsidering my desire to have a sunroof in vehicles here on out. Based on the actual usage vs. idealized usage and now this, I'm beginning to think they aren't really worth it!*

*I do realize that they are hard to avoid since they do tend to get lumped in with other comfort features like heated seats and auto-dimming rear view mirrors which I do still very much want.

DH's Excitement - fizzle

2011-09-01T10:59:00.003-04:00

So the phone interview was yesterday and he's not exactly sure that the position is what he was thinking.

Of course, since it was a panel interview it was apparently more of them asking questions and much less opportunity for him to ask any of his own. Hopefully if he makes it to the next round of in person interviews there will be more opportunity.

And at least the process has given him hope that there are options out there. (And we're back to his being so frustrated with work that he could explode...the boy's got issues.)

Oh well. Just when I'd started to get my mind wrapped around the possibility of moving back. Must keep telling myself "I am a leaf on the wind."

Irene Recap

2011-09-01T10:12:00.003-04:00

We survived. Minimal landscaping damage. A bit of water damage in the house thanks to the blowing rains, but we caught the drips before the puddles could cause further damage, and one of the shutters on Little One's windows blew off. All very annoying but dealable.

Bigger annoyance was the loss of power and the electric company's piss poor ability to project and/or maintain schedule of return. Connected to the loss of power was loss of phone/tv/internet...I didn't know what to do with myself! Luckily I had a 13.5 month old to keep me busy most of the days.

After Isabel (while our house was under construction), we put in the wiring and gas line for a large enough generator to run 50-60% of the house functions. This means if we watch circuits, the upstairs AC can run, the refrigerator and freezer circuits are powered and other things like lights and the hot water heater can be used. So, despite the loss of power, we weren't exactly roughing it from Saturday approx. 1:30pm to Wednesday approx. 7:30pm.

The biggest, most horrible thing: the house on the Outer Banks where we were to be vacationing next week was damaged enough by flooding that we will not be able to stay there. Not horribly, all very fixable, but things like the water heater and possibly HVAC system need to be replaced and that's not going to happen by this weekend. Not to mention the debris/dirt/ remaining standing water filling the yard.

So we are a bit adrift about what we will do instead. Since DH is at the point where he needs to get away and relax or explode, I'd like to prevent that. Unfortunately his analytical engineer mind isn't so good about going with the flow which makes last-minute alternate plans a hard thing to enjoy. And he has certain ideas about what he will and will not do, along with the part of him that doesn't want to spend the money. Trying to figure this out is a real JOY. ::eyes roll so hard they're going to stick that way::

If anyone has any suggestions for last minute but ultimately relaxing (do nothing) destinations, I gladly welcome them!!!

Moles

2011-09-01T09:49:00.002-04:00

Last week I had two moles removed. One on my upper right abdomen (stitched) and one on my upper left back (shaved).

And this is why I waited well beyond the recommended 2-4 months to schedule the appointment (other than wanting to not have to pump and dump for 24 hours thanks to the anesthetic shot) - the locations are awkward: one directly under my bra strap and one about an inch under the bra cup.

But the worst part...I'm having a reaction to the adhesive from the bandages. Brand doesn't matter though some are worse than others. And that reaction is worse than the healing pains of the shaved location and the stitched location.

Lab results should be back in another 2-3 weeks. I'm guessing the reactions might be healed by then, I know the two removal locations should be.

Update on DH's excitement, and other things.

2011-08-24T13:11:00.004-04:00

So those mysterious "things which may come to fruition" I referred to in the last post - that's because I didn't remember that I had already mentioned it. Sigh. Mommy brain sucks!

Anyway, he finally got a call yesterday to do a phone interview next week. Cue renewed excitement on his part. I'd actually started to put it to the back of my mind, so now I'm back to letting the stress about it percolate a bit when it catches me unawares.

But what else fun is going on? We've dropped Little One's crib to the lowest level. She's able to push herself on her kiddie car (steering is yet to be mastered). Today she pushed her corn popper toy for the first time on her own - I've given it to her before but today she grabbed it.

The really big new fun thing is to climb up the stairs and also onto the furniture, but she hasn't mastered getting off properly, so either she has to be rescued or she accidentally slips off and cries from the surprise.

Less nice for me (as chief cook and bottle washer) is that Little One, who used to love bananas, will no longer eat them. And instead of chowing down happily on black beans will now only pick at them. So much for a couple of the easy travel friendly dining options!

I tried one of the Gerber graduates meals recently (purchased to have on hand for either a night when dinner snuck up on us, or for eating out) and that was soundly rejected as well. If I let her, she would eat dairy 3 meals and both snacks a day. On the bright side, most other fruits are still happily chomped down, as are a broad spectrum of veggies. The only reason I would even consider multiple dairy-based meals per day is that protein is the hardest thing to get into the girl. Deli turkey (Boars Head Ovengold - which is pretty good for deli meat) and peanut butter are tolerated but chicken chunks, beef (ground or chunks), and fish (non-breaded) are of no interest. She won't even eat spaghetti sauce with ground beef in it.

I'm open to any suggestions since I'm hoping to get everyone eating together at some point and I don't want to be cooking and serving two meals unless I know our meal is something she has tried and won't eat!

More Thoughts About 'It'

2011-08-22T20:48:00.003-04:00

Heads up to any male/squeamish readers...TMI on the bodily functions may follow.

So, if the past two cycles are any indication, Auntie Flo is due for a visit on Wednesday. And all signs point towards that regularity continuing: Bloating? check. Emotions close to the surface? check. Craving sugars and carbs? check.

DH and I discussed the possibility of going for #2 a couple weekends ago. The conclusion is that if we decide an addition to the family is welcome, we're not going to return to the infertility chase.

Despite my being the one physically going through all the treatments, it was harder on DH emotionally than I realized. Not because he was being my rock, which he totally was, but because of the way his part was so much on the periphery. As he described it a while back, he started to feel like a trained monkey whose participation was required on demand. And when you feel that way about one thing, you start to wonder if it's true about other things...a recipe for relationship issues if there ever was one!

I still feel like our family isn't complete, and would like to try for another, but I think I'm okay if it doesn't happen. Only time can prove whether that feeling is correct or not*. DH isn't quite so positive that we aren't done. On top of that, there are some things which may come to fruition in the next six months or so which would be made more difficult if I were pregnant the time.

So for now, the plan is to revisit the discussion in December/January. And until then we're going to keep using the condoms as much as DH and I both dislike them because there is no way that I want to go back on birth control and potentially screw up my system (again) unless we're 99.9% sure that we are done.

*With the trigger for advanced-maternal-age rapidly approaching (T-2 months and counting), and I'm pretty sure extra watching of subsequent pregnancies thanks to Little One's premature birth (regardless of my age) I'm a bit more impatient in actuality than I make it sound here. But as so many advice columnists like to point out: when it comes to potential pregnancies, the no-sayer rules.

Enough Already!

2011-08-19T10:32:00.002-04:00

Little One has been in her crib for going on 40 minutes and do you think she's surrendered to the nap which even I can hear calling her name?

Just by my asking this question, you have to know she hasn't.

Off to see what can be done...

It's Gone to the Dog

2011-08-09T15:37:00.003-04:00

Enjoying a mid-afternoon snack of last nights rotisserie chicken - straight out of the refrigerator - it was klassy - I dropped a piece off my fork and onto the floor (I've not sunk so low as to not use a fork, yet).

I could almost see the thought bubble over our dog's head "MINE. MINE. MINE. YUMMY! YUMMY! YUMMY!!!!!eleventy-one!!!1!!" Followed shortly by "NEXT!"

It was a special moment.

And then...I saw DH more excited than in a very long time

2011-08-07T22:04:00.004-04:00

Work's been kicking his ass recently (see prior post re: 2/3 life at work...), and the mega huge project that's been eating his time will be ending in the next 6 months (hopefully!), and that means he's not sure what's next for him at work. After all the excitement of this big project, thinking about going back to what he was hired to do just feels like a let down or something.

For my part, I've been imagining him getting home at a reasonable hour so maybe we could try eating dinner as a family, more time together, extra energy to get to some of the projects around the house which have been backing up, perhaps even going for #2....all very good things.

Thanks to the level of work related frustration (big project=big issues) which has built up, he was doing a quick job search last night and found a position that has him giddy up and over the moon with the possibilities.

Where is it? Back in my hometown, where we met, where I said I don't want to move back because it's gotten too big, too congested, too not like the place where I grew up.

Thing is, I have to admit it'd be a pretty great position for him - and it would still allow him to be home for dinner, more time together as a family, all the items I mentioned above - but GAH! the moving back to the place I didn't want to move back to.

So, while he's been working on updating his resume, putting together a cover letter, and completing the annoyingly tedious online application, in an effort to wrap my mind around the possibility that we could be leaving the house I (mostly) love, the town I've finally made friends in, and the outlet shopping conveniently nearby, I decided to look at the housing possibilities.

And managed to narrow it down from 180+ to oh somewhere in the neighborhood of 25, some of which need serious TLC (of course it's the one I really like!), and some of which just need a coat of paint or new kitchen counters and/or a slap of paint on the cabinets. (Formica tops and oak cabinets were apparently really popular in the area. ::shudder::) And one needs a garage since it appears to have been turned into living space. (Why do people do this?)

I guess cross your fingers, but I'm not sure for what. It's nice to see him so excited by possibility, you know? But it's not so nice having the knot in my stomach thanks to how the possibility could affect me. (Just the thought of moving, even if it was to be merely within town, puts a knot in my stomach. Add in all the other negatives and, ouch! There are some positives, like already mostly knowing the area, schools, shopping, etc. and having my parents in town, but that last one's a double edged sword, KWIM?)

It's not like it's out of the blue that we would move, we've been talking about it for a while, but somehow this just seems more real, probably because it really would be necessary, not just convenient, and probably within the next few months not at some point in the future if all goes well for DH.

Hold me!

Small Rant, Complete with Many Asides

2011-08-06T19:29:00.004-04:00

Please tell me my husband isn't the only one who seems incapable of realizing when it would be helpful for him to separate a fussy baby and mommy!!! (I was making dinner for Little One (AKA trying to hide protein other than milk, yogurt or cheese in a sauteed veggie mix), she was in her high chair pushing against the tray until she turned red...and he was in the office ignoring the whole ordeal.)

Seriously, most of the time I feel like I'm left with 99% of the child care. To be fair, most mornings he does leave home before we wake up and most nights doesn't get home until after she's gone to bed, so he doesn't get much chance to see her during the week (which means 100% of the child care falls to me).

But even when he's home and around on the weekends, I still don't get a break because he's dealing with other things he hasn't had time to deal with over the week since he's spending 2/3 of his life at work or commuting.

I dunno, apart from the time I spend online, which is snatched here and there throughout the day, it just doesn't feel like I get any time for myself (and yes, I realize being at work doesn't really count as time for himself, but at the most basic level, when he needs to pee, no one wants to follow him into the bathroom). It's bad enough that I look forward to doctor's appointments because they give me a reason to find child care and be out by myself. And then I look back at the empty car seat and miss her. How messed up is that?

When he does spend time with her he's great and they have a good time, but all of the daily grind falls to me whether he's here or not, and sometimes that just doesn't seem fair. For now, I'm just waiting for the all Daddy phase to hit...hopefully that's less of a myth than the 2nd trimester libido surge.

Coupon Geeking

2011-08-02T10:12:00.002-04:00

So, we went to Target yesterday. Me with a shopping list based on items we use for which I had coupons, Little One with a snack cup full of crunchies (cheerios, puffs, etc.).

Score of the day: 4 packs of Schick Quattro disposable razors (usually a 3 pack, but these had a bonus fourth razor). I had two "buy one get one free" coupons, so I got two of the packs for free, but on top of that, Target was running a "buy 2 get a $5 gift card" promo, so I also walked out with 2 $5 gift cards.

So, essentially, I paid a little over $3 for 16 disposable razors which would have cost me over $26 without the coupons or gift cards.

How sweet is that?

Snippets

2011-08-01T09:04:00.003-04:00

Cleaning up splattered milk droplets after I knock the sippy cup off the table.
Little One stacking blocks on her own.
Little One screeching her versions of doggie and banana.
Finally understanding yet one more reason "they" suggest getting a dog first - neither is afraid to put their face in your crotch in public.
Saying "Hello Beautiful" to my morning cup of iced coffee made with coffee from Saturday (refrigerated since then), almost 1/4 c. of sugar and heavy cream. Diet food it is not.
Wondering how it is that despite being a stay at home mom I can still get very little done around the house.

These Are the Days of Our Lives

2011-07-26T17:41:00.005-04:00

It still seems like Little One spends the majority of her day eating or having her diaper changed. But with less sleeping compared to where she was a year ago.

I think I'm looking forward to days without diapers, and larger meals with fewer snacks. Of course, I'm sure those days will bring their own challenges.

For now I guess I'll just have to savor the many, many, many times a day she reaches out her arms in the seemingly universal baby body language for up. And the cackles as she and the dog chase each other around the room. And getting clocked in the eye with a block as she rushes over to where I'm laying on the floor to give me a hug and trips over her own feet.

In the meantime though, can someone find me an ice pack? That last one hurt!

My 12 Month Old (1 Year!!!)

2011-07-18T10:17:00.011-04:00

Wow.

How can time go so fast and so slowly? It just doesn't seem possible that it's been a year since Little One's early arrival.

She's gone from IV's and bili lights to solid foods, walking(!) more than she crawls, and babbling away.

At her 12 month appointment she weighed 23 pounds, 2 ounces, and was 31" long. That's quite a difference from her statistics at arrival of 4 pounds, 6 ounces, and 18.5" long! And puts her at ~80%, and ~90% respectively. Unbelievable!!! Because of this, she's wearing mostly 18 months with some larger 12 month pieces. (If you'd asked me before she was born (both based on my sizing growing up and her estimated weight) I would have told you she'd just be going into 12 months around her birthday.) And because it's summer, she's rocking a lot of dresses with bloomers which make (the dreaded) diaper changes so much easier than dealing with layers of snaps or pulling shorts off and on of a spinning dervish. Diaper changes are one of the biggest challenges we face. Especially when extensive cleanup is necessary. There are just too many other excitingly important things to explore and interact with to lay still for something as silly as a diaper change. She's also rocking her first pair of shoes, a pair of Robeez called Pep Rally (or something like that).

Little One is now completely self weaned; the last time I offered and was refused was on her birthday, so it's all whole milk, water and juice along with black beans, apple sauce, yogurt, and almost anything else she can cram into her mouth. While there are still a few foods I can spoon feed her, the preferred entry method is her own fingers. She's started to offer and take back pieces of food, and seems to enjoy the process of learning to drink directly from a cup vs. a sippy or straw.

She is also down to one bottle: 50% diluted milk at bedtime. The pediatrician isn't worried about it, and it both makes sure she gets enough fluids and serves as a soothing transition to bed. The dilution rate will climb to more water, and once she's drinking more fluids during the day I plan to back off the amounts of both milk and total fluid until it's not worth it for her.

I'm happy to report that Little One is still taking 2 naps a day. The first I can count on to start around 2 hours after she gets up and lasts an hour to hour and a half on a good day. The second runs anywhere from 3-4 hours after she gets up from the first, and is usually shorter. About half the time it ends up being in the car. I know that's not great but we live between 20 and 30 minutes away from almost everywhere in town so if I want to combine errands to save gas it means we're in the car when she crashes and a shorter nap. Bedtime is pretty steadily between 6:30 and 7 with morning wake-up between 6 and 7, but usually closer to 6 (to my dismay).

I think this is it for the monthly updates on Little One. I hope to get back to posting more mundane things (you know, like how I'm doing, which currently = a bad case of baby fever) on a regular basis, but if you don't get enough here, you can track me down on Facebook or Twitter through my dummy email account: kiribitz at gmail dot com

And I will leave you with two recent pictures:

Shoes. Looking much more doubtful about them than she actually is.

And cake. Homemade carrot cake (no nuts) with cream cheese icing to celebrate her birthday. It was a hit all around!

And Furthermore...

2011-07-06T15:34:00.003-04:00

Why have the inevitable few pounds that have returned since Little One started self-weaning without my eating habits changing all gone to my hips and not some more desirable place like my boobs?

It's Back!

2011-06-30T10:14:00.002-04:00

And you know, I didn't miss it one single bit.

Honestly, I thought it might just stay away for a while longer, but I guess somewhere between 18 and 19 months without is a pretty good run.

I am glad that I'm not going to have to encourage it to reappear through hormone manipulation though - which was the flip side of my thinking it might stay away a while longer.

The only two questions I have are:
1. Did it return because Little One weaned herself / did Little One wean herself because the milk started to change with the hormonal changes?

And More Importantly:

2. Why the hell did it have to return the day before we are due to leave to enjoy a long holiday weekend????

5x7 Folded Card

2011-06-29T11:16:00.001-04:00

Rough Edge 5x7 folded card

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View the entire collection of cards.

You Gotta Take The Bitter With The Sweet

2011-06-26T07:57:00.004-04:00

As when Little One's conception date neared, as her first birthday approaches I am once again feeling reflective.

Earlier this week, one evening as I fed Little One her bedtime bottle (it works, don't judge), I realized that that one particular moment was never going to happen again. And it's hit me hard, this realization that pretty soon she'd be walking then running and not looking back even as I cheer her on.

And, you know, I'm excited for that to happen. But at the same time, I'm not ready for her to no longer be my baby in the true sense of the word, even though she'll always be my baby in my heart. Even now I already miss and have started to forget how she was at birth, and every month since then adds more to both remember and forget.

That's the bitter. That I can't turn back time and really appreciate those first months instead of treating them as a fight for survival. Somehow, the times of easy snuggles and special moments got lost in the combined haze of sleep deprivation and the crash course in learning how to do this whole Mom thing.

The sweet is that it doesn't stop, that every day she changes and grows and reflects that I just might be doing something right despite every day continuing to bring new lessons for me as well. I am so excited to find out who she's going to be, what she's going to do, the many facets of this (little) person who arrived after so much frustration and hope.

At some point in my teens my mother told me that if anything ever happened to me she didn't know what she would do. I didn't fully understand what she meant until Little One arrived. It wasn't the guilt trip to keep me on the straight and narrow that I thought it was (though I'm sure that was a nice side benefit), but a pure expression of the deep deep love that comes from being a parent to a long awaited child. I just hope that I can express it better to Little One when the appropriate time comes than my mother did to me!

To The Mattress! (Now with more info.)

2011-06-11T14:23:00.004-04:00

On Wednesday I purchased a new mattress set (which DH and I had agreed on earlier, so it wasn't an impulse buy or anything). It was delivered today and the old mattress set was taken away for disposal.

And you know, I wouldn't have expected it, but letting our old mattress go somehow became a big deal to me. Not because I still loved it, I mean, really, how could I when over the past year I've awoken more mornings than not with my back hurting? But because of the past.

We purchased it sometime in the late-spring of 2003 (we did not get as much life out of it as we should have based on how much we paid) while we were living in the ghetto apartment. It moved with us to the townhouse we were still renovating while living in, and then to our current house.

When we first got it it was so comfortable. At the end of a long day, there was nothing like snuggling down into that cushy pillow-top and relaxing into sleep.

It the mattress upon which we did the deed multiple times while trying to conceive, both on our own, and with help. It is the mattress upon which Little One was conceived, and upon which whose water broke.

I'm not saying it should be plated in gold or anything (what a waste of gold that would be!) but it still feels slightly awful to so callously discard something which has supported us for so long (Sorry for the pun there.) and provided such comfort along the way.

Buying a mattress is a leap of faith. Even when you test them in the store, the 5-10 minutes you spend on them can't compare how they actually treat you for nights on end. I just hope that our new mattress treats us as well as the last (but for longer, of course!).

EDIT to ADD:
The new mattress is, after a week and a half, in one word: awful! We're both waking up every time we turn over and it takes us forever to fall back to sleep. Despite the back pain our old mattress was causing, at least we could sleep on it. I spoke with a company rep. today who wasn't optimistic that we could get any resolution until we'd given it a month to 'break in', but the manager who sold us the mattress is back on the schedule on Saturday, so we'll be going in to see him in person to find out what we can do sooner. Hopefully there is something we can do sooner so we don't go sleepless (in VA) for a month!

My 11 Month Old!

2011-06-10T14:13:00.003-04:00

Bullets as I am typing while she is napping.

Is cruising like a mad dog and really enjoys pushing around the various walkers (one at work, one at home, one at the in-law's beach house), but doesn't seem quite as ready to walk on her own as I had thought before Memorial Day.
Is obsessed with pictures and photographs. She would happily spend hours looking at the ones we have in the house. She doesn't because it involves our participation by holding her and pointing out who/what is in each picture.
Seems to be self-weaning. And by that I mean she's expressing very little interest in nursing - there's just too much else exciting to do. It makes me sad, but I think I'd rather her give it up voluntarily, like she did the pacifier, than to deny her. I'm guessing it's a combination of things - (a) I stopped pumping the Friday a week before Memorial Day, so my supply is probably dropping, and (b) a general nursing strike. At least with the dropped supply I'm not suffering from any negative effects.
Is vehemently opposed to being on her back, especially for diaper changes. It's a rare change which does not result in a full out screaming, red-faced, arched-back baby and quite loud yelling from my mouth. I hate to admit it but the thought of giving her a good smack has crossed my mind. Unfortunately. Of course, it's not a situation one can step away from to regroup when the change is necessary.
Is more and more vocal - not words so much but a good deal of baby babble and the occasional soliloquy with the babble in which discernible patterns and rise and fall of intonation is obvious. Also, screaming and other negative vocalizations when she does not get her way (AKA when I put her down after looking at pictures or pull her away from the oh so enticing things she shouldn't be reaching for.)
Has a favorite book. It's about anthropomorphic bunnies and all their activities. I am so over it!

And she's up. Maybe more later?

Ah yes, she has discovered that if she puts her hands over the side of the high chair the dog will lick her fingers. Joy.
Has started to indicate her wants by pointing. At breakfast at IHOP this morning she was all about the grapes I had brought.

Silly Deer, It Isn't THAT kind of bed!

2011-06-06T16:19:00.003-04:00

This little fellow (horn buds) casually crossed our back yard, hopped up into the bed, munched on a leaf or twenty, and decided he'd found a comfortable place to rest. Never mind that he was less than a foot away from our basement window (to the left). Perhaps he was a peeping deer?

In the Interest of Full Disclosure...

2011-05-17T21:01:00.002-04:00

...we have three, yes 3, trashcans in our Master Bath.

One under my sink in my vanity, on under DH's sink in his vanity, and one next to the toilet.

They are within 10 feet or less (maybe 5 or 6 steps) of each other (like a triangle).

Does this make us lazy or prudent?

500-ish

2011-05-16T14:21:00.002-04:00

At least that's what Blogger tells me the last post was.

Hurray?!

My 10 Month Old...

2011-05-09T10:15:00.005-04:00

Slept in until 8 on Mother's Day. Apart from the concern that something had happened, it. was. AWESOME!
Popped her 5th tooth (the top left center) on Saturday and has been a much much happier baby since then. Tooth #4 was sneaky and came in unobserved while I was watching #5 take its sweet time arriving.
Is cruising furniture and crawling like crazy and has stood unsupported for a few seconds a couple of times.
Loves the cats. They don't really return the sentiment. Ditto for the dog, but Little One gets less excited about her.
Still gets hiccups on a very regular basis.
Was 21 pounds, 14.8 ounces at the beginning of May. Her 9 month checkup in mid-April clocked her at something just over 20 pounds and 29 inches, maintaining her 90% height and 75% weight status.
And because of those two considerations, she has moved out of the oh so convenient infant seat and into her convertible seat. She does seem more comfortable without her little arms squished up against her torso, but it also means that if she falls asleep in the car I now either have to wait her out or wake her up. Neither option is great. And it looks so uncomfortable like her little neck is bent in half as her head lists to the side.
Is nursing at most 3x per day. I am down to one evening pump session and am planning to start shortening the time on that tonight from 25 t0 20, then probably drop 5 minutes every week. I'm not sure how much longer we will nurse but I'm hoping to taper off once she's hit a year. Kudos for anyone who has gone past a year but it's not for me! I'm actually surprised we've made it this far. I started out setting goals: a month, 6 weeks, 3 months, 6 months, and here we are. It hasn't always been easy or convenient, but I've made it work. Given that she's only had one tiny cold so far (knock on wood) and the amount of weight loss I've been able to maintain, I think it's been a good thing for both of us! I do think that if I had been fanatical about it before Little One arrived, I would have been more likely to feel like a failure in having to supplement with formula. As it was I went in feeling like it might not work, so was open to whatever worked best for us.
Has figured out how to open the drawers and cabinets at work. Thankfully has not yet translated that info to home. Guess I better get a move on on picking out safety latches...any suggestions?
Goes after paper products like I'm not feeding her enough fiber.
In that vein, Little One will eat almost everything. However, yesterday's lunch of apricots and sweet potatoes is not included in everything. I tasted it myself and don't blame her - it was super tangy! Perhaps the apricots weren't ripe? But she has enjoyed small bites of an apricot fruit leather so I'm thinking it's a tangy thing, not a flavor thing. I've not done much table food as we eat dinner at least an hour after she goes to bed, so she still gets a bunch of purees with more and more finger foods thrown in. The baby food recipe book I received has some with pretty complex flavor profiles, but doesn't make more than I would be comfortable throwing away if it turned out to be a big thumbs down from Little One. What I have discovered, surprise, is that anything is better with cheese. Mac and cheese - yes please! Scrambled eggs are also a fun morning finger meal.
Is not a big fan of the sippy cup. Too much effort to lift the cup. Straw cups are much more easily taken. Though I don't understand why the straws don't go down further into the cup. I end up tossing at least an ounce if not two after every serving because it was below the level of the straw. She still will rarely hold her bottle as well. Oh well, it's only an issue when we are out and she's getting fussy when I'm still trying to shop or run other errands. And if she's hungry enough she will manage to get most of the milk or formula in her instead of on her so, that's something.
We're working on 'gimme five' since she's a big fan of smacking her hand against flat surfaces. Unfortunately it seems to be translating to smacking faces...which is not. good. Then she smiles like it's a big accomplishment. Also not good.
Ahh, faces. Mine, in particular. Still subject to the teething chew. Cute when she was still gumming, not so adorable now that the teeth are engaged. Yow. I'm just waiting for her to draw blood. We don't call her the vampire baby for nothing!

I guess that's all. But I'm sure I'm missing something.

Ah, yes, clothing: the 9 month days are 90% behind us and she is comfortably into 12 months. And 18 in some items. (Am I the only one who wonders why clothes suddenly went from 3 to 6 month ranges?) It seems like most of her length is in her torso, so things like rompers and overalls even in 12 month are giving her diaper wedgies, while the length of the legs is perfect. I'm learning to look at the size charts on the clothing and not go by the months.
Much like I had trouble finding a decent maternity bathing suit (which, obviously, turned out to be not a big deal thanks to the early arrival), I'm having trouble finding a reusable swim diaper which will work equally well for sandy beach and pool use. Even the online diaper store I found which happens to be headquartered in Virginia Beach couldn't answer my question satisfactorily. Any thoughts?

Ok, that really is it, unless I think of something else. You've been warned!

What are you up to?

I've Given In

2011-04-27T14:45:00.003-04:00

(two posts in one day? It's been a long long time since that's happened!)

What I really want is an Alice, Mr. Belvedere, or Rosie (the robot). What I'm going to settle for...

...someone, or a company, who doesn't charge an arm and a leg to clean the house every two weeks.

I am finally willing to admit that I fail as the "perfect" housewife. But I come from a line of imperfect housewives - both my grandmother and mother had housekeepers along the way.

And we are lucky to be able to afford the help.

But I still can't help but wonder what that says about me to others that I am willing to admit that I can't do it all?

A Bit of Venting

2011-04-26T20:04:00.003-04:00

The thing is my DH is a bit of a recluse. Very low tolerance for attending social gatherings whether friend or family based. And has a thing about not doing anything except HIS birthday celebration on the closest weekend to his birthday unless it's something HE wants to do.

Last week we received a save the date from one of his cousins - for the birthday weekend. Triple FAIL as not only is it a social event, it is on the sacrosanct birthday weekend, and would require air travel to attend thanks to the location.

While I am not a huge fan of social events (hello, introvert here!), I adore that his family has made a priority of keeping good relations between cousins. Example, the cousins above are actually his second cousins. (No first cousins as both his parents siblings had the bad luck to die young.) Given the relative smallness of my own family (only 2 cousins on either side, total of 4) and that I'm not particularly close to the extended relations - mostly because of distance and limited time spent together growing up - I feel like I can see a bigger picture of the importance of continuing the relationships established by the prior generations.

For that reason, I really feel like we should go. That, and I feel like his prior avoidance of family events just makes it that much harder to keep up the relationships which means our Little One who is unlikely to have any first cousins of her own (only child on my side, health issues on his side) will be that much more disconnected from family as she grows up.

Perhaps that's the argument I should use? I fully recognize that I have a very dirty lens where family connections are concerned, but I don't like that he is tossing away decades of closeness for what seem like frivolous reasons. (not that I could say that to him without it getting ugly up in here)

I guess I'm just really frustrated that there doesn't seem to be any middle ground for either of us on this given the immovable parameters of his birthday, the wedding date and the distance.

So, I'm going to have to be the one who gives in and doesn't get to attend. I'm trying to be fair here and not start throwing flaming balls of vitriol, but they are steeping away...

Further information:

The last wedding of this family we attended was in the same locale and DH came down with suspected food poisoning (I blame not washing his hands before eating after air travel and using public transportation) so missed the wedding and most of the reception feeling ill. He's got IBS and Acid Reflux and even though he's on med's which now seem to work 90% of the time, he hasn't been able to let go of the mental issues surrounding such problems, and I think has added the issues at the prior location to those. Example: He does not eat when traveling for fear of issues arising when he cannot deal with them. And doesn't consider that others traveling with him do not have said issues and may still need to eat on a regular basis.
Also, DH doesn't want to travel by plane with Little One (even though she'll be over a year by then). I'm not looking forward to it, but I know it's more than doable.
Going would also mean that I might be able to visit with my cousin, his wife and their new baby before they come to visit his more local parents later in the year. And newish baby = great incentive.
I've already attended one wedding of this family without DH. But that time was due to a conflict of schedule for an event he could not miss (well, he could have, but it made a good excuse).
He is excellent at the non-guilt guilt trip: "Go, have fun. You obviously care more about ... than you do about me. I may not be here when you return. " Grrrr. I love him but sometimes he really drives me nuts. And right now he's driving me nuts.

Hmmm, think I'll stop there as this is starting to bring up some issues for me that I need to tamp down before he gets home from a 14+ hour work day and commute. Never the best time to bring up anything touchy as nerves are already well frayed. And dinner needs to be waiting because, surprise, he didn't get a chance to eat much today. Off I toddle to do something to a bit of meat and veg.

What to Do? Daybed Edition

2011-04-17T12:47:00.005-04:00

I may have mentioned once or twice or more (perhaps) that our bedroom was home to an elliptical and recumbent bike? And expressed the hope that I could enjoy their benefits just by virtue of sharing a room with them for hours a night? Yes? No? One can hope?

Anyway, the plan has been once those were moved to an alternate location (ie: the basement), then a daybed which has been residing in the basement would take their place. Well, the elliptical is half-way to the basement. All the lightweight parts have been removed and all that remains is the back-breaking base. The bike is soon to follow.

Of course, this means that we are that much closer to being able to move the daybed into our room, hurray!

But, as you can see from the picture below, the daybed is in need of some serious TLC. Well, at least when it comes to the fabric and cushions, both of which are around 40 years old. My mother had it covered and the back put on a few years before she and my dad got hitched in '73, it was in their living room until I moved out in '99, it spent a few years in my living area before DH and I got married in '02, and somewhere between '02 and '04 it got put into storage and then into the basement once we moved into the house.

(don't you just love the shiny silver background?)

The current fabric is a light tan wide-wale corduroy which was actually quite cozy before it suffered all the ravages of time. From a stylistic perspective, DH and I are not terribly fond of the shaping of the back cushions, and the round side bolsters have had it! The piece was originally open on both sides but my mom had the back put on to be more useful - it's 2-3" lower than the tops of the side rails.

The picture below shows where it will go against the windows in our room. To the left you can see the top of a cream club chair: not a good color choice as it turns out when you have two yakking cats! But the predominant colors are dark green and red with white walls. We had talked about painting the walls a light coffee a while back, but nothing came of it before the valances went up and there's no way they're coming down now!

(I adore the fabric on our bed and the valance!)

What I'm thinking is some sort of stripe, maybe, if I can find one which doesn't add too much contrast or clash with the red patterned fabric (there was a coordinating stripe but both were discontinued and I could only get enough of the pattern when I had the duvet, shams and curtains made). I'm contemplating having the cushion covers all be slipcovers so they can be washed. Which might be a problem because then they could fade or change and be obvious against the fixed fabric along the front. If not slipcovers, then something which can be spot treated in place with your normal everyday cleaning spray like Resolve, and not run or discolor like the fabric on our family room sofa does. (Note to self: Test colorfastness before making a final decision on fabric which will see lots of use and wear!) Gah. See, this is why I need your input!

Ideally this will be an area where I can eventually go to get away and/or for Little One to sleep if she needs to be in our room after a scary dream so she doesn't end up in bed with us. Therefore, besides the cleaning issue, I'm hoping for comfortable fabric which (a) doesn't act like a magnet for cat fur (see both commentary on club chair and family room sofa) or show every piece of fur, and (b) won't fade or discolor in sunlight since the back will face the windows and the curtains will be open from time to time; but I'm pretty open right now to any and all suggestions.

I KNOW some of you out there are terrific at decorating...I've admired the pictures you've posted of your own homes, so fire away...fabric suggestions, cushion shapes (and how many?), ...other accessories I should consider?

Seriously guys, I need all the help I can get!

My 9 Month Old...

2011-04-11T18:09:00.005-04:00

...was trying to help type this post until I put her off my lap. With one swipe of her hand she pulls up menus I had no idea existed. Thankfully no serious damage has been done, and I'm hoping it stays that way!

Still has just the two teeth but has started up again with the chewing, so I anticipate that more will be arriving before she's 10 months (fingers crossed). For the first two, the chewing stopped the closer they came to the surface, so I'm counting on that a bit to have an idea where they are since peeking into the mouth to see the upper gum is a tricky proposition. Those first teeth are S.H.A.R.P.!

For the most part Little One is crawling on all fours now, and has picked up the pace when she's moving. New target: a secondary water bowl. So much fun to splash in and spill onto the floor! (not so much for the poor schmuck -me- who has to clean it up) The pulling up continues, with the addition of figuring out that if she gets up on her toes she can reach past the halfway point on the coffee table and get to the papers and such we have attempted to push away from her sticky little grasp. She's also able to get from crawling to sitting and will occasionally use the sit spin sit to move around an area instead of crawling. (Anyone have a preference for a steam mop for the hardwood floors which she is now "mopping" with drool and her knees?)

Last week I added the third meal of solids - lunch. I'd been putting it off as we are generally not home at lunch time and I didn't want the hassle, but it really was past time to make the addition. To make it easier on myself I'm using predominately pre-made baby foods instead of hauling around the food I've been making. I've settled on the ones in the pouch that you can screw a spoon onto the end and away you go. Well worth the extra cost in terms of convenience. Though I do find it ironic that most of food in that type of package is organic - lets save the people and destroy the earth? Hmmm...

Her hair continues to grow in - longer on top and shorter in the back with enough wave to give nice "C" shaped curls after a bath but not enough to keep them once it's dried. When I lift up her 'bangs' I can see a shorter layer coming in, so it's getting thicker as well as longer. She continues to have dandruff on her soft spot and it is on the list of things to ask at her upcoming 9 month appointment.

This past weekend Little One had her first runny nose. Poor kiddo. Thank goodness I had the foresight to get a NoseFrida a while back. It's gross, but it works so much better than either of the bulb aspirators we have around the house. No fever, mostly same happy temperament, just a runny nose and occasional cough (I'm guessing from the yuck running down the back of her throat).

It seems strange to me that she's now been out of the womb for longer than she was in it. And longer out of it than we had ever anticipated. Prematurity was one thing I didn't really worry about so much despite the couple of dreams I had that she was coming early. DH and I had both gone late...and were both first babies...why should Little One have been any different? It makes me wonder if there's been any evidence linking premature single births to IF.

Nursery!

2011-04-02T20:56:00.007-04:00

Most likely includes more than you really want to know about the origin of many of the items. Feel free to skip the text and just ooh and ahh (or judge...whatever) at the photos. I never called myself an interior decorator. I just put things I like together and hope they work.

1. This is part of the view from the glider...The door to the left is the room entrance. The door to the right is the closet. The quilt was hand made for Little One by a woman whose sons were older than I but with whom we socialized as I was growing up - as her sons show no signs of reproducing, Little One gains a honorary grandmother. The dresser being used a changing table came from DH's family; on the left, the basket holding diapers came from a baby shower and had been part of a memory type game featuring many different small baby items. The trash can was appropriated from DH's brother's stuff currently stored in our basement (anything stored in our basement is fair game) and replaces the original white plastic one purchased by DH. The little blue table with the humidifier on top was painted and used by my mother before she met my father. The window valence and rod are from Target. When selecting carpet when we built our house I had reluctantly agreed to this color over the light green I preferred for this room, and once I saw it in, loathed it! But I have to admit, now that the room is in use and decorated, it bothers me much less, and I can appreciate having a neutral instead of the green.

2. This is the rest of the view from the glider...In this view you get a sense of the wall color which was chosen to complement the bedding set. I really wish that there had been more items available with the plaid fabric on the bumper since that was my favorite part! I do love the sheet fabric as well, but I'm not so fond of the cha-cha fabric used for the bed skirt (and optional accessory pillow and balloon shades which I did not purchase). The table on which the monitor and lamp (Marshalls from MIL) are sitting was sold as a plant stand but never used as such by us and had been in our bedroom next to a chair. My mother needle pointed the framed art above the crib.

3.This view is from the door... You can really see the wall color best in this photo. I adore the color (Apricot Blossom by Behr) - it changes throughout the day from lighter to darker orange and sometimes looks more pinky-orange depending on the light. The bed frame was used by my great-grandmother as a little girl. The quilt was made by my mother and I when I was in middle-school. The throw on the end was a gift when I was in college (and may have been part of a high school graduation present) from the same person who gave Little One the art on the wall to the left of the window. The blue fabric on top of the throw was made by my Aunt (Dad's brother's wife) for me as a floor mat when I was little. The blue-green pillow case behind the dark pink pillow case is part of the set I used from sophomore year through graduation from college. And yes, that is a Zoobie pet, Lola the Lamb, at the front of the pillows.

4. And finally, the messy portion of the room...Looking from the closet at the glider...the small dresser to the left of the glider is from my mother's family. Resting on top is the trusty hospital rental pump. The art to the right of the window is a framed Christmas card depicting a castle with animals in front. The art on the white wall hung in my bedroom and bathroom growing up. The table and cloth are about the only things left from when the room served as a combo craft and guest room, and only because the color happily worked with the bedding. Little One's books are spread along the floor, in the crate and box top to the right. Getting a bookcase is next on the list! The lamp is left from when my mother owned a lamp and shade store. A customer brought it in for repair and never came back for it, but it's perfect for the room because it has an infinitely adjustable dimmer so I can leave it on very low between the time Little One goes to bed and the time I go back in for the late-night pump. The tall dresser matches the one currently being used as a changing table. The photo frame on the top left of the dresser is one given to us as a wedding present. I'm not sure why the giver thought it was us, but it fits Little One's room nicely and holds the same photo from the Do Not Disturb post.

And that, in much long windedness, is Little One's room. You may thank my finally getting around to this to DH's initiative in getting the blackout shades purchased and hung as additional light in the evening thanks to the time change made it obvious that the accordion blinds on the windows were not blocking enough light on their own (you can see that in the pictures); and to Little One's oft repeated new accomplishment of pulling herself up in her crib, creating the need to drop the crib mattress and remove the last of the bumpers.

Shortly after these pictures were taken the bumpers were removed and the mattress dropped - leaving only the sheet and bed skirt. I'm very sad about the bumper's going, and I really hope Little One doesn't start to run her head into the now exposed wood and wake herself up at night!

5. Since you've made it this far...as a reward, here's Little One hanging out in an excersaucer at the office wearing a nice coating of her wheat teething biscuit.

In Which You Find Me Complaining About Naps, or Lack There Of

2011-04-01T09:39:00.005-04:00

Since Little One learned to pull up (yes, she's doing that now), getting her down for naps has been crap-tastic. This morning, I nursed her to sleep which took all of 7 minutes, let her sleep for 4 more minutes before getting up and putting her in the crib. Not a minute later POP! she was up on her hands and knees.

Gone are the days of 5-7 minutes of fussing before she crashed for an hour. Here are the days of 30 minutes of fussing/pulling up/crawling around the crib before she sleeps for only 30 minutes.

Am I a mean mean mommy for insisting she have that "quiet time" when she's obviously tired? Or am I missing the window of opportunity to get her down quickly? Or should I just let her sleep in my arms while impatiently thinking about all the things I could be doing which are harder to accomplish when she's awake and demanding my attention?

The afternoon naps are a rinse and repeat. Please tell me it gets easier!

My 8 (And A Half) Month Old...

2011-03-28T12:12:00.003-04:00

FYI: I've been pre-writing as things happen, and changing post date/time and then they don't seem to show up in my reader, so I'm guessing since I haven't gotten any comments you haven't seen it either, and I apparently still don't get Blogger. Any hoo - the original 8 month post is here.

Updates since then:
-Now a grand total of 2 teeth.
-Sleeping happily in a Halo Sleep Sack but also still does not object to swaddling.
-Starting to pull up-ish.
-Toe-climbing up the torso of whomever is holding her.
-The bed-time bottle has jumped from an offering of 6 ounces to 8. Doesn't mean she'll drink it all but when she does it's much more likely that she'll sleep through til morning.
-Does not agree with me that she needs to take longer than 30-40 minute naps. Doesn't matter if it's in the pack and play or the crib, it's a rare nap that lasts longer. And usually only on a day when it would be helpful for her to be satisfied with a shorter nap.

My 8 Month Old...

2011-03-22T09:15:00.000-04:00

Is crawling! She started at about 7 months with the up on the toes, butt in the air and backwards movements, and then about two weeks later she was moving forward. Favorite things to crawl towards: dog toys, shoes, electrical cords... She alternates between a breast stroke like movement, dragging her legs behind her army crawl style, and "true" crawling, depending on how determined she is to get where she's going.
Is wearing a mix of 6, 9 and 12 month clothing, with one 12-18 month outfit that is on the big side but will be too heavy to wear as it gets warmer so she's wearing it now. The 6 month clothing is about to be retired, and 9 month doesn't seem like it will be too far behind. She'll just spend a longer time in 12 month, though I'm very sad that Carter's doesn't make their adorable snap front sleepers in sizes larger than 9 months. I'm not ready for two-piece PJ's in that icky feeling fire-safe material!
Still sleeps swaddled. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but the few times recently that I've tried to leave her unswaddled she has woken up enough that I've ended up having to swaddle her mid-night for both of us to get sleep. I guess she'll let us know when she's ready to go free. I'm guessing it will be before college.
Hates having her diaper changed. Especially when it's a dirty diaper and not just wet. You'd think I'd taken the time to spread broken glass and tacks on her changer before laying her down on her back, she's that quick to try to flip herself over. It's a battle of wills, and I'm not sure who's winning; though I hold that she who cries first loses. I don't generally lose. Diapering on the floor just makes it 100x worse as she has a much greater opportunity to either roll herself or crawl away.
Has started to wake up during the night again. It's continued even after switching to a larger absorbency diaper, and more and more a quick snuggle isn't enough to return her to sleep. I'm thinking it has to do with learning to crawl, teething, the excitement of being able to use a pincer grasp...in other words: classic 9 month sleep regression time!
Seems to be satisfied with my having swapped out nursing for one and sometimes two of the bottle feedings now that she's getting more solid foods. So that means she nurses first thing, eats a good breakfast of oatmeal/formula/fruit, nurses mid-morning (depending on the stored milk supply, she may get a formula bottle while I pump), gets a 5-7 oz bottle of pumped milk (it depends on what the stored bottles hold from earlier pumping sessions) mid-day, nurses again mid-afternoon, eats a good dinner of usually two veggies or one veggie and meat with a cup of juice for extra hydration, and then gets a formula bottle while I pump around 7pm before she goes to bed. Then I generally pump once more between 10 and 11 before I go to bed.
Gets a diaper rash after she's eaten yogurt. Which is a real shame because she loves it. And because I had stocked up on it before realizing this. Of course.
Has pushed through tooth #1. Drool, sucking on my chin hard enough to leave hickeys, gnawing on her fingers. It's all happening at times. Yay?
Is going mum-um-mum-um, screeching happily, screaming in frustration and making many other noises as she increases her verbal repertoire. My favorite? When she semi goes up and down the scale as she's falling asleep in the car.
When being held and spoken to by another (parent or other adult) she'll stretch out both arms, hands up. It could be a shrug, it could be a tahdah!, it could be I'm happy to see you or meet you. But it's pretty darn cute (if I do say so as her mother).
While happy to meet you she doesn't want to be left alone with you. Separation anxiety...whoo-hoo.
Still continues to gather comments of how cute or beautiful she is on a regular basis. I think so too, but it's always nice to have others acknowledge.
Has started to sit in shopping carts and high chairs at restaurants using her Floppy Seat. *Do note that the Floppy Seat does not work in the plastic Target Carts.* This is a bummer since that's one of our regular shopping destinations - enough so that I signed up for a Target card to get the 5% back (which in my state almost covers the sales tax). The only problem is that trying to get to/from dinner and eat there between her dinner and bedtime generally leads to us inhaling our meals before she starts to squall. It's not good for the digestion.

Things I'm working on...
-appreciating that I am actually skinny without having to put much effort into it. I don't want to look back and realize that I didn't appreciate it like I do when I see my HS pictures. I'm pretty sure that once I stop milk production it's going to become much more of an effort. So, please don't hate me and try to remember I missed out on a month and a half of potential weight gain thanks to Little One's early arrival.

-figuring out weaning. On one hand, my milk supply has been pretty steady, if low, and as noted above I'm nursing more and pumping less which is really awesome; on the other hand, DH really needs a vacation thanks to job-related pressures and would like to take that vacation with me and away from Little One; I would like as well for the two of us to have time to reconnect, but increased nursing/still pumping makes it hard to schedule that for this spring unless something changes.

-deciding if I want to stop working or not. I'm currently working 2x a week, 3-4 hours/day. I'm getting paid for 2-3 hours a day since Little One still goes in with me and she requires a certain amount of attention which I'm sure will increase as she becomes more confident in her movement skills. DH is set against putting her into a care situation, and I'm liking that she's (knock wood) avoided getting sick thanks to not being exposed to huge numbers of other babies, so that's not an option. My employers have been very understanding so far, but I'm not sure they are going to be happy with the amount of time I can put in for the long run. But I really like my job and I'm good at it so I don't want to leave it; and knowing that the neighborhood church preschool starts at age two I'm wondering if I can make it work for the next 18 months.

-trying to figure out how to multi-task at home while caring for Little One. It's not my strong point. DH has asked several times if we need someone to come in to clean the house on a regular basis and I've demurred, but the next time he asks I think I'm going to say yes, because I'm obviously not getting it done. And now that Little One is crawling, it's that much more important for the floor to be clean. (You don't what to know how much fur and other fuzz I find in her poo. What? Not everyone checks their baby's poopy diapers to find out what's going in the mouth?)

What else?
Have I mentioned that DH is working crazy hours? It sucks in many ways, but especially since it means he doesn't get to see Little One every day. Now that Little One is starting to get a personality and is easier to interact with they are so much fun to watch together. And I love how excited she gets when she sees him. What stinks for me is that the time they spend together I'm generally not free to be involved in because I need to do something like cook dinner or clean which I have a hard time doing with Little One on my own. (See above.)

We went away for our first longer trip (Thurs-Sun) with Little One. Apart from having to inhale our dinners (see above) and Little One deciding that she had had enough of this car trip nonsense and howling inconsolably the last hour of the drive home (thank goodness the state troopers were elsewhere), it went okay. Not the best trip we've had as a couple, but certainly not the worst.

So, what are you up to?

Prayers / Advice Please! (Edited)

2011-03-14T15:21:00.005-04:00

My cousin and his wife were expecting fraternal boy/girl twins with a due date in June.

They recently found out that the boy has some level of Trisomy issues - I have received the information 3rd hand, so I was told it's not Down's Syndrome, it may be 18 - and had to make some hard decisions. Apparently they had an appointment today at which action was taken. After a couple days of bed rest they will go back to make sure their daughter is still doing well.

Their baby shower was scheduled for this coming Saturday.

I really feel for them. It stinks to learn that fertility and healthy babies are not things to be taken for granted.

I've Been Wondering...

2011-03-03T07:15:00.002-05:00

As Little One gets older, I'm aware that this period of bodily peace and tranquility will end, thus I'm wondering...

How old was your baby when your period returned?
Was it better or worse than before the pregnancy (you know, overall after a few months back in the saddle, so to speak) in terms of length, heaviness, pain, etc.?
If you breastfed your baby, had you stopped or were/are you still nursing?
Any additional thoughts you have on the topic?

On one hand I'm looking forward to the return, because it means, theoretically, that #2 may be possible. On the other hand, I'm really not looking forward to it at all, you know what I mean?

But I'd rather be at least somewhat prepared than caught by surprise!

Spork!

2011-02-24T22:27:00.002-05:00

Really.

These Spork Little's by Light My Fire are the top spoons for Little One. I purchased them on a whim, just thinking they were cute, but they shot to the top after just one use.

The obvious difference between them and the Munchkin Safety Spoons we've been using, is that the bowls are wider and shallower. And without that heavy coating of plastic which, frankly, isn't all that useful.

And oh my goodness it makes such a difference in getting the food cleanly into Little One's mouth.

Less food around the mouth means more food into the little tummy and less cleanup afterword.

As we all know, less cleanup means less screaming. (Why is it that cleanup after a meal appears to be such a traumatic event?)

And less screaming is good. As are these spoon/fork thingies.

(This is not a sponsored review.)

Do Not Disturb

2011-02-13T15:07:00.002-05:00

Almost 7 months...

My 7 Month Old...

2011-02-10T18:00:00.006-05:00

What to say? She continues to grow, grow, grow - both physically and personality.

She recently added high pitched squeals when she doesn't get her way to her verbal repertoire. I could do without that, but not the smiles I get when I reenter the room whether I've been away for a minute or hours.

She's working very hard at crawling - another source of the squeals of frustration! - and sitting by herself. The Rhesus monkey grip once reserved for my hair has now spread to her toys, the cats' fur, the dogs ears, papers she grabs out of our hands, and so on. The rolling from back to tummy has. not. stopped. It's especially fun when she's on the changing pad mid-diaper change. I guess that's why they put straps on them?

On the cute side she's enjoying pulling off her socks and sucking on her toes. And the Jenny Jump Up was a great purchase except that now she refuses to stand when I hold her up preferring to jump/bounce instead. I guess that means she's developing some excellent leg muscles for crawling/walking?

I did pick a high chair - this one - and while it's not perfect 100%, so far it's worked very nicely. We're having fun with solid foods. Sweet potatoes continue to be a favorite along with bananas and carrots. (BTW, fresh banana if it's fork mashed has little fibers that end up looking like little black/brown threads or worms in the diaper. This should be something included in all baby books but wasn't in any of the three I've accumulated. If you use an immersion blender or other mechanical equipment to break it down they aren't so obvious.) Greens are a little harder - peas are okay, broccoli (surprisingly) is okay in small amounts, but green beans are bad.bad.bad. and refused singly or mixed with a favorite such as sweet potato. Yogurt is yummy (Yo Baby Banana or with Apple and Sweet Potato) and so is oatmeal mixed with formula and fruit for breakfast. At dinner she's been enjoying assorted veggies singly or in combo followed by yogurt or recently a turkey, sweet potato and rice combo followed by banana on nights when she doesn't get oatmeal. Both meals are running at or more than 4oz.

Most of what she is eating I've made - though I try to find a similar manufactured product for the first try so that I don't waste food by making batches of things she despises. She's also drinking water with dinner as her soft spot has started to run a little depressed with the increase in solid foods and decrease in milk/formula fluid intake. I've kept offering the same amounts for each feeding, she self-selects how much she wants to take. (There's been a lot of wasted formula down the drain.) After trying a few sippy cups, the winner is a STRAW cup by Playtex. It's light weight enough she can hold it, and the design means she doesn't have to lean back to drink from it, which is a bonus when she's in the high chair. Plus, drinking from a straw means that if we're out I can get a cup with a straw and don't have to make sure to have a "sippy" cup in the already crowded diaper bag.

There appear to be two little tooth shaped lumps forming in the center of her lower jaw. Apart from some increased drooling (though, really, drool has been happening all along so increase isn't much more than a relative term) and the occasional love affair with Sophie or Babbit's paws (and ears), there isn't much else to talk about there.

On Monday, Little One weighed in at a whopping 18lbs 10oz which totally explains my constantly aching back and why I'm starting to research convertible car seats. Though I'm not going to give up the infant seat until I have to since she still crashes hard in the car and some days that's where every nap occurs so it's important that she not be disturbed when I go in and out while running errands. The thought of either having to wake her up or adjust my schedule so that all naps occur at home makes me sad.

Also, with that growth, I think we're seeing the last of the 6 month clothing, which kinda stinks since when pre-buying 9 month clothes I assumed she wouldn't be in them until later in the spring so they run to things like short sleeve t-shirts and shorts. And of course now all the stores have in are spring weight items, even though I'm sure we have yet to see the very last of the colder winter weather.

Speaking of cold weather, have I mentioned how much I adore the J.J. Cole Bundle Me I was given at a shower and thought I wouldn't need? Seriously guys, I can take Little One out when it's in the 30's wearing a short sleeve top, light-weight knit pants and no socks and she still ends up with dripping sweaty baby toes. It's amazing. Gross, but amazing.

On the semi-non-baby front, even working just two days a week is really cramping my social life. So I'm seriously considering resigning once I finish catching up on everything that fell behind while I was out. Thankfully DH's employer has seen fit to compensate him generously enough that this is an option for us. I really feel for working moms and single moms. I find it hard enough to get everything done even with not working 3 days a week, I don't know how y'all do it. Actually, I don't get everything done I'd like to, even at the most basic level. Something about having a 7 (gulp) month old who requires I pay attention to her instead of doing things like vacuuming or cleaning the bathroom or anything else which might make our house feel more like a home and less like a pig sty.

In summary: I have a happy healthy baby, a dirty house, and I want to quit my job. How are you doing?

Mostly Noth'n

2011-02-02T13:52:00.001-05:00

The letter after H keeps go_ng out on my laptop keyboard. _t's annoying.

That _s all.

PSA & Gratitude

2011-01-23T11:25:00.006-05:00

PSA: If the only way to reach a loved one while they are away is by cell phone, remind them to take the phone off vibrate at night so they can be reached in the event of an emergency.

I am grateful...

that I had just crawled into bed and was still awake when the smoke detectors started wailing last night.
that we live in a community with a on-site security team who are willing to make a phone call I didn't want to make for fear of being thought over reactive.
that there are fire departments in our county able and willing to respond to occurrences such as the one mentioned above.
that despite the wailing of the smoke detectors, the barking of the dog, the crying of the cats, and the general hubbub of multiple firefighters searching the house that Little One didn't wake.
that there was no reason for all the excitement other than either a bad battery or smoke detector which was easily removed from the system for the remainder of the night.

I am not grateful...

that DH was away, and unreachable when all of this went down because he leaves his phone on vibrate and charging away from the bed.

Can anyone tell me why the batteries for smoke detectors never die during the day but ALWAYS in the dead of night?

I don't know why it didn't occur to us after the last excitement while he was away (the power went out, the generator battery was dead..., but at least it was during the day, and I could reach him through alternate means since I knew his phone wasn't going to be on him) that such things could happen at night as well. But after this mornings much more rational phone call (what? you try leaving a rational phone message after midnight with screeching smoke detectors going off and your husband not answering his phone) he's agreed to take his phone off vibrate at night when he's away. This time it was nothing serious, but next time; well, let's hope there's no next time...

Bits & Pieces

2011-01-15T17:04:00.002-05:00

Things that would be worthy of Twittering, if I could be concise, but aren't enough for their own posts:

-Little One keeps turning onto her stomach to sleep during naps - and has her nose half into the sheet on the pack & play. It's how her daddy sleeps too, so there's gotta be some sort of genetic preference going on but the SIDS campaign makes me nervous enough to check her breathing on a regular basis. It makes it hard to get a good chunk of time to accomplish anything...

-From Friday (yesterday) through Monday, 3 out of the 4 days involve lunch with a family member or friend. 2 of the 4 days lunch will be/has been paid for by someone other than me. That's pretty swell.

-It's obviously deer (hunting) season when you first hear the baying of dogs then, looking out the window, see the herd of deer bounding through the back of your property.

-Took Little One out of her car seat and into a store in her umbrella stroller. She was barefoot since the Bundleme keeps her warm enough to make puddles of sweat under her feet. Got the first unnecessary comments from strangers on that action...yay?

-Knocked over a freshly pumped two ounce storage container of breast milk as I was getting ready to put the top on for refrigeration this morning. You bet I wanted to cry over that spilled milk! It felt almost as bad as the time the new 750 unit vial of Follistim shattered on the bathroom floor. It's not like I'm a fountain of milk here - it still usually takes at least 3 sessions of pumping to get enough milk for one 6 ounce bottle. Thanks to that spill, the next bottle will take 4.

-I think I'm glad Little One keeps her best behavior for when we're out in public, but sometimes it would be nice to get some of it at home too.

-And why does she feel it's necessary to cling to the sleeves of my shirts when I'm trying to change her diaper? So annoying!

-All but 2 or 3 of the Christmas decorations are finally back in the basement. Just waiting on the door mat to dry, need to get the runner off the breakfast table, and find the small clear glass tree. I wonder where I ended up putting that thing or if did I put it out? Eh, it will turn up. Probably in July or next Christmas. Heh.

-The boss is awakening. So much for me time!

More:
-At Target last week a woman pulled into the open parking space next to my vehicle. Unremarkable you say? How about this...when pulling in she knocked against the cart I was unloading pushing it towards me, and since I had pulled in to one side of my parking spot, she decided that the available space in my parking spot was hers to use as well. Then, instead of correcting her obviously sucky parking job, she just sits there and has the gall to give me a dirty look when I have no option but to open my door so it knocks against her vehicle so I can wedge myself through the small amount of opening left to get into mine.

-And because I think this is adorable and don't want to forget it - after I've finished feeding Little One her solids (peas and bananas tonight) she takes her bib or the drip cloth I've draped over her lap to hopefully prevent the spread of food to her pants and wipes her face clean. It's sooooo cute!

My 6 Month Old... (Updated)

2011-01-11T16:00:00.001-05:00

Is a busy little girl.

(and I have a lot to say about what's going on and my thoughts about it)

In the past month she's figured out how to roll first from tummy to back and then, more recently, from back to tummy. Unfortunately in the interim she forgot the first! We're working on that but there's a lot more screaming involved than I would like. Vocalizations have gotten louder and more conversational and our animals are much more interesting, much to their dismay.

She's also had an ongoing case of congestion, without an externally running nose but with an occasional cough. Saline drops have become a consistent part of pre-feeding diaper changes. Size 3 diaper changes! (We found out recently that Amazon has a diaper subscription service which takes a % off the price, and they send them to you automatically with email confirmation before each shipment. Add that to the Amazon mom discount and we're talking significant savings over buying them at the big box stores.)

Between Christmas and New Years she exhibited some unusual behavior, earning her a "sick" trip to the pediatrician. While waiting, DH expressed his opinion that we would walk out of there without an official diagnosis. And that's what we did. Along with a couple of glycerin suppositories, which luckily were not needed as she managed to finally work out the issue on her own. I don't know how a baby can get constipated within the course of a few hours, but somehow she managed to do it. But it was also that evening that she rolled from back to stomach for the first time, so maybe it was related to that. Or....

It could be that her schedule was off thanks to the holidays and visiting family and such, or it could be that she was having a subsequent effect of starting real food beyond the blah and boring realm of rice cereal. She really likes the solids once she figured out the swallow thing - so far squash and carrots are favorites while peas are tolerated. I tried bananas but they were much less of a hit - and when I tasted them I could understand why! We'll be trying them again, but only after I get some fresh. Processed bananas are YUCKY! The next new food is green beans.

So far, I've made pureed carrots with success, and have sweet potatoes, avocado, and green beans on standby. I'd heard baby food was easy to make, and it is, though I did ask for and receive a baby food cook book for Christmas - it has lots of great combination suggestions for level 2+ foods plus other basics like baby cheese sauce... Since we already have a blender and food processor and steamer basket, the only investment I had to make besides the fresh veggies was new ice cube trays. Cost savings - win!

She had her first sip of water from my Waterford water glass during Christmas dinner. Only the finest for my little diva. (hah.)

On Christmas Eve Eve she and I had lunch with my Grandmother, parents, Aunt & Uncle, their two sons, and their respective wife and girlfriend. Little One was a perfect angel at lunch happily eating her bottle and then settling easily into a nap (after a nice big poo - and of course the restaurant where we were having lunch does not have a changing station in the ladies room, forcing me to improvise), frustrating my younger cousin by stubbornly sleeping when he wanted to play with her. Hopefully now that he's outside of DC in MD (closer than NYC) he'll get another chance soon. The lunch was also eventful as the older cousin and his wife announced their pregnancy - TWINS! Of course I offered any advice but will only offer if she asks. It was really nice to hear a pregnancy announcement and not have jealousy and rage fighting with being happy for them. I haven't felt like that for a few years.

Little One continues to grow, and is comfortably wearing a couple of Carter's 9 month sleepers along with her remaining longer 6 month sleepers. Buying ahead based on her size in-utero, I didn't think she'd be in 9 month clothing this early, so most of what she has in 9 month clothing apart from sleepers are short-sleeved and short legged. Ooops. Guess I'll be making a trip to the local Carter's and Oshkosh outlets soon.

Christmas brought Little One a happy but small amount of new toys - including a soft dolly and refurbished 150+ year old family cradle, wooden stack rings, a community play things kiddie car - books (including copy #3 of "Guess How Much I Love You" which I can't get through without crying), and a couple items of purple clothing. (Purple isn't my favorite color. Ah well.) This was also the Christmas of the ornament - she is well supplied with 'My 1st Christmas' ornaments! It would have been much more overwhelming had we and my in-laws not decided to contribute to a starter savings account instead of buying toys.

Pacifiers are going away, though are still accepted on rare occasions, and the once-magical swing is no longer quite so magical. Little One now goes down for naps pretty well in the pack & play (She is mostly a tension decreaser at nap time. That generally means minutes of screaming before she finally conks out.), which still has the upper level bassinet in place despite her over weighing the limits. Again, see the back. I'm not leaning over the side to the point where I tip over myself to place her in it to sleep or pick her up (I wish they had more levels, like cribs do...). Since her room is the coldest in the house, naps in her crib don't go so well. We're still swaddling at night for warmth and to keep her from flipping over onto her stomach and subsequently screaming for rescue from her tummy in the wee small hours when we all should be sleeping.

Speaking of sleeping...we usually get a good stretch from somewhere around 8-9pm to 6-7am. Since DH is currently spending 12-13 hours / day working he'd never see her if she went to bed earlier! Right now she's passing out with her last bottle, but I expect that will change as she gets more solid food.

Since I get tired of a day full of the constant repeat of the lay on back, roll over, scream in frustration, return to back, roll over...rinse and repeat routine, and since she's not sitting up by herself yet, she's getting a lot more use out of the bouncer, both in action and as a chair. But she does love her play mat when I do allow the above routine to occur. (Does this make me a mean mommy or a practical one?)

Based on her new enjoyment of being held to standing with bouncy knees, I'm going to be buying a jenny jump up at my next trip to Target (delayed thanks to winter-ish weather this week) as my back just can't stand the continuous bending over. I'm also doing research into high chairs as sitting on the floor feeding her in the Bumbo can only last for so long. (Any favorites out there? I'm contemplating this one, though I've heard good things about this one and this one too.)

The 6 month appointment is on Thursday, so I'm really excited to see how she's doing on percentiles. As of last Monday, she was 16lbs 15.6oz, so there's a very good chance she'll be pushing 17 1/4 to 17 1/2 pounds at the appointment. Who would have thought my little preemie would be so on track?

UPDATED BELOW:
The dr's appointment went well - at 27" long she is now 90th percentile for height! (good grief, no wonder the 6 month clothing is too short) And as suspected weighed in just shy of 17 1/2 pounds at 17lb 6oz, so running close to 76th percentile there. Her little noggin is still lagging behind at 33%, but she doesn't look out of proportion, so no worries with that. Not that anything much could be done about it if it did.

Thanks to a grand total of 4 shots (including Flu #1) and the oral suspension, Little One is currently crashed, and I suspect that the rest of the day will remain low key, if a bit fussy. All the better to get the looming list of thank you notes for (forever incoming) baby gifts and Christmas written....

Fashion Update?

2010-12-29T16:40:00.002-05:00

The other day I went out to do some last minute Christmas shopping. And came home with two pairs of skinny jeans for me.

Now, considering that (a) I've been rocking straight and boot cut jeans for forever, or at least since I stopped pegging my pants in high school lo those many years ago, and (b) that I don't typically keep up with fashion trends as well as I should (see A), I now have these jeans that make my ass look hot (or so my husband claims) and many questions about what shoes I should/could wear with them. I'm guessing it's not the Sebago loafers I wore with white socks and the acid washed jeans, huh?*

Three things to keep in mind, please: (1) I'm not a big fan of having my toe crack exposed, I like flats that come up a bit higher on my foot, (2) I am carting around an almost 6 month old (how did that happen?) so would like to be steady on my feet, and (3) despite my best hopes, my feet did not grow during pregnancy, so I am still wearing a size 5, which is not a common size for many manufacturers.

You have been given your mission, should you choose to accept it, please leave suggestions - either shoes or links to examples...and thank you for participating.

*Don't worry, those were disposed of long ago. Both the shoes and acid jeans.

Ummm, you did grow up in America, didn't you?

2010-12-20T17:18:00.002-05:00

That's what I've thought a few times recently about my husband. And this is why:

1. I mentioned the Donner Party in regards to cannibalism and he had no idea what I meant. What kid in an American History class isn't intrigued by that story?

2.1. Little One has taken to sucking on her burp cloths (cloth diapers), wash cloths (given to her dry), as well as the sleeves of her shirts. Seeing this, DH came out with "she's a carpet muncher." And had NO IDEA what he was saying.
2.2. In trying to explain what he had said, I used the phrase "carpet matches the drapes." Again, blank stare.

Maybe it's because he's an engineer? I dunno - but I thought it was pretty strange that he wasn't familiar with any of the above things.

(I'll give him a pass on not comprehending when I mention recent celebrity gossip since I watch Entertainment Tonight & the other "entertainment news" show semi-regularly, and even the Today show covers a fair number of those stories after he's left for work.)

Please tell me that this isn't something only I've experienced!

A Year Ago...

2010-12-15T14:59:00.005-05:00

On the morning of December 15th, 2009 I shakily handed DH a freshly peed upon pregnancy test and asked "Does this say what I think it says..." At which point he looked at it, and asked me back, "What is it supposed to look like?" And thus began the adventure which lasted 7 1/2 months instead of 9.

(In looking for posts on my thoughts following that day, I found this quote from the Jan. 21st post regarding my first OB office visit. "I'm not sure I want to drive forty-five minutes to an hour to a hospital when I'm in labor." Oh the irony! But my instincts were right - I DIDN'T want to drive that long while in labor. Good thing it was only like 30-35 minutes instead, right?)

One thing I have to admit, the extra drugs from that cycle - Menopur, Bravelle, and Lupron - are still sitting on the bottom shelf of my refrigerator. I COULDN'T get rid of them while I was pregnant. First, because of the awful thought that it might not last and then I would have them for another cycle, saving us $. And later, because, well, superstition kicked in. If I got rid of them, something bad might happen. Same goes for all the extra supplies from that and previous cycles. They are still sitting, along with a half-filled sharps container, in our bathroom closet. It's like a junkies dream supply cache. I know eventually I will have to toss them all, or, better yet, pass the supplies along to someone who can use them, but I'm not ready just yet. (Of course, the question remains whether we are going to go for number two or not, and if so, whether sooner or later; so....they might be sticking around for a while longer. Unless, you know, we just relax. Hah.)

I'm not usually a reflective person - just not my style - but this fall and early-winter have found me thinking more than usual about the prior year. Where I was in a cycle, what drugs I was on. The ups and downs were more so than any other year we had been trying. The fall started with, after so many failed cycles, finally getting a positive. But, whoops, it didn't advance past the first beta. Then a different chemical cocktail with which to convince my body to produce eggs in the multiples. Which it failed spectacularly to do, canceling the cycle. (We were at Lowe's when we got that call. I was skulking in the aisles around the bathroom since DH was, ahem, using the facilities, and made the snap decision without him to not undertake one more certain to be negative IUI.) Which brings us back to the first sentence of this post.

BUT even on the worst days I know I would do it all over again. Every shot, every blood draw (even the ones at 7AM on a Saturday or Sunday morning), every invasive procedure, and each and every failed cycle. She's worth it.

My 5 Month Old...

2010-12-11T08:21:00.008-05:00

Went to see Santa for her birthday. Apparently meeting Santa for the first time is quite serious business as she barely cracked a smile despite the best efforts of the photographers crew and myself. And Santa.

Sleeping through the night is definitely the norm now and not the exception. We have yet to establish a true bedtime routine, and still depend on the swing to really settle her in the early evening before we take her up and put her in the swaddle when we're ready to go to bed. (Yes, I know we should be starting a better routine, but DH usually doesn't get home from work until after 7 so if I put her to bed after her last feeding he'd never see her since when he leaves in the morning between 7 and 8, I'm generally still feeding her or just finishing up.) We're using a fleece SwaddleMe in the larger size, because her arms are still pretty flaily and she wiggles, so as long as she stands it, we'll keep doing it to (a) help her sleep and (b) keep her warm. Her room is probably the coolest bedroom, so she'd get pretty chilly if she worked herself out from under a blanket. Some mornings I actually have to wake her to feed before my boobs explode (or worse get a clogged duct).

I'm still pumping though it seems like my supply is dwindling - most of the time I barely get two ounces total unless I skip a pumping, then the next time I pump is more, but not enough to make up for the missed pumping. At 5-6 feedings per day 4-5 of which are 6 ounce bottles, usually only one of those bottle feedings is expressed milk. I do have a supply of milk in the freezer, but I haven't wanted to dip into that until it's really necessary because I'm not making enough now to replenish the supply.

We did get the go ahead to switch to regular formula at the 4 month visit, so we did that, and I haven't noticed any slowing in her weight gain (right now she's pushing 16 pounds and my arms and back are feeling every one of those ounces), but it's definitely slowing down the bleed of cash from our bank account. We also got the go ahead to try rice cereal, so have been playing with that once a week or so. She opens her mouth like a little bird for the spoon, but then it just sits on her tongue, so obviously not ready yet.

Something she was ready for: This morning, for the first time, she rolled over from stomach to back! DH hasn't seen it yet though, so shhhh. She was showing signs during yesterday's tummy time, so I recorded her efforts, but of course, didn't have the video camera on or even near this morning.

And now for the contractually required poo coverage: in the past week Little One has gone from going every three days with a more liquid product, to going every day with a stickier product. I'm not sure exactly what made the change (different formulas?), but at least the lesser volume and thicker texture means less likelihood of a blowout. But why does she wait until she's in the middle of a bottle and I'm pumping to let it loose? Seriously, that's been the scenario for 4 of the past 5 days. It's not exactly convenient to deal with immediately so she's been sitting in it while I finish pumping. I don't know if it's bad or good that it doesn't seem to bother her...

Moving on: I'm still really enjoying out little group of moms - but I'm also sad because two of them are leaving next week to spend the holidays with their respective families and won't be back until the first week of January. It's also the same two who will most likely be moving out of the area spring/summer, so I guess it's good practice for that time, but I still don't like it! In a more mature view, those are the perils of living and making friends in a college town / military heavy area.

So that's where we are. If I don't write again before Christmas, I hope each and every one of you has a happy Christmas with a minimum of family Drama and an excellent start to 2011.

What I'd really like is my own credit card...do you think you can make that happen?

Weekend Followup & Little One Stats

2010-11-23T15:57:00.004-05:00

Well, thanks for the good wishes you all. The weekend wasn't the total disaster I thought it would be. The BIL was pretty quiet and didn't raise any ruckus with us. And while DH was playing intermediary with his parents and thought he was just on the phone with his dad, his mom got to hear that she drives him crazy too. (I think the saying is that eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves?)

Anyway, things have settled back down for now, as far as I know. But who knows what tomorrow, or even this evening, may bring...

~~~~~~~~

The craziness of the weekend totally overshadowed Little One's 4 month doctors visit on Thursday in which it was revealed that she was 25" tall and thus in the 72% for height based on age. WTF? How did she get so big? Wasn't it just yesterday she fit comfortably from head to toe on my thighs when I was sitting? For weight, 14 1/2 pounds put her in the 64%, and her little peanut of a head moved from 0.5% to 33% at 16". So all very good improvements, but pretty phenomenal progress for one starting out under the curve entirely!

Of course, the height does explain why some of her (3-)6 month clothing already seems too short even though she's got more than enough room through the middle.

Oh, and not to brag (too much), but I swear cute is going to be her first word since she hears it so much when I take her with me shopping or on other errands. Good golly gracious how I love her!

Today I picked out a "Thank You" card to send to the RE and his nurses. It's something I've been thinking about since she was 3 months old, and with it being Thanksgiving next week (already?) it just seemed like the appropriate time to express our gratitude for their efforts, kindnesses and hope on our behalf - as well as a good time to send of a picture of Little One (the little failed cycle that did!).

Give Me Strength

2010-11-20T08:08:00.004-05:00

DH left the house somewhere between midnight and 1AM and returned somewhere around 5AM this morning with his brother and parent's dog.

I may have mentioned DH's brother before, but I can't remember what I've said. Currently, he's back living at home, not working and trying to get his shit together. Of course, when you have Narcolepsy, ADHD, and most likely a thick layer of undiagnosed depression (because he won't see another shrink after one accused him of being a drug seeker and not really having ADHD) intertwined and on top of both the other two diagnosis, getting your shit together is a long slow process.

The in-laws are away and BIL went from being in a good mood at 7PM yesterday calling to say he was coming over to spend Saturday with us to calling DH at around midnight crying to say he wasn't coming. So off DH went to do what he could to contain the situation. ("They" say BIL does not have bi-polar, but I wonder sometimes...)

At 5AM when DH came in, I was up feeding Little One, so that worked out so DH could give me a quick summary of what went down, but now I'm trying to keep her, the chatty kitty and the dog quiet while DH and BIL sleep. Sleep it off in the case of the BIL. And of course, the dog is desperate to see the in-laws dog who is in with the BIL. (I want solid doors and good thick insulation between rooms in the next house...whenever or where ever that may be!)

It's not exactly a great start to a weekend. And unfortunately it was a truly crappy ending to a horrible week for DH. Please send good thoughts our way!

EDIT:
I got more info after posting the prior - it was much worse than I could have imagined. The events of last night could be the final straw on the camels back in many ways. I'm just not sure what's going to happen from here...

My 4 Month Old...Continued

2010-11-17T18:20:00.002-05:00

What, you're taking a picture of me?

Hmmm, I wonder when the next bottle's coming my way?

Ok, I'm over this...

My 4 Month Old...

2010-11-11T15:00:00.003-05:00

...smiles and babbles and still loves, loves, loves her swing. Actually, I think I've created a bit of a monster by using it so much. As in, we're going to buy a travel (folding) swing to take up to the condo and to other destinations since it is still the most reliable way to encourage her to nap. She is starting to enjoy laying on her back in the pack and play and playing with a chime I've attached to the overhanging edge of the changer, but she still loathes tummy time with a passion. That said, when we do do it (I find it's the hardest thing to remember to fit into the day) she is getting better at lifting her head up. I figure once she starts reaching for things, tummy time will be much more interesting for her. She test drove a bumbo seat this week and had no problems sitting in it, so some more of the BRU gift card money may head that direction.

She's also started to suck on her hands and fingers, though no true thumb sucking yet. (In hand related thought, why didn't anyone tell me about the hand and toe lint collections? Seriously...she collects more lint, cat fur, blanket fluff...and who knows what else in those locations. Between her continuing tenacious grip and wiggles, if I haven't been vigilant sometimes getting it out takes a small bulldozer and a commercial size dumpster.) With this development, she's becoming less reliant on the pacifier and has actually refused it at times in favor of her hand, so I'm thinking that I may follow the recommended guidelines and attempt to remove the pacifier entirely around the suggested age of 6 months.

At around 13 1/2 pounds, she has now tripled her birth weight and is comfortable in 6 month clothing. Of course, there are still a few trailing items of 3 month, but most of those have now been set aside, including her adorable pumpkin Halloween costume. Unfortunately, DH and I were the only ones to get to see her in it live as we had NOT ONE trick-or-treater. (Can you tell this bugs me? Because it does. Muchly.) It's not that she's round so much as she's just gotten longer so her legs aren't able to stretch out in the sleepers. Based on a very rough measurement involving a wiggling child and a metal tape measure, she's pushing 23". She also made the transition into size 2 diapers shortly after reaching 12 pounds. After trying several brands in size 1, we're still a Huggies family.

Next week is the dreaded(?) 4 month doctor's appointment, and of course I have a list of items to ask about, including what might be one of the most significant questions: can we switch off the preemie formula? At 2 6ish ounce bottles a day (everything else is either milk direct from me or pumped and from a bottle), that's a max of 24 extra calories daily. At this point with her weight gain, I'm not really sure she needs them any longer. (Speaking of breast milk, I managed to squirt myself directly in the eye today. You may laugh now.) Even with coupons, not being able to purchase formula in larger cans really adds up!

As for sleep, I barely dare to mention it, but she has recently had a few nights where she didn't want to eat again after her 6:30-7pm feeding until almost 6AM. And at least one of those nights she may have been content to sleep longer but since I've started to breast feed her first thing (1. because it's the fullest I am all day, so I know she's getting a good amount, and 2. it means I don't have to deal with a bottle and pumping at 4-6am), I had to wake her before I exploded. And that's with pumping between 9-11pm before DH and I go to bed.

Mostly I am getting enough sleep - not always as much as I'd like but enough to survive - but I did hit a wall one morning a couple weeks back after Little One had been up every hour from 3:30am or so. Of course, after I handed her off to DH so I could get another 30-45 minutes of sleep before he left for work, he put her in the swing and she went right out. Figures.

She usually gets 5, sometimes 6, feedings a day, usually 2 of which as I previously mentioned are formula; the first feeding of the day is a direct breast feed, the second may be bf or bottle (formula or breast milk) depending on when the first occurred, and then it generally alternates between breast milk and formula from there every 3 hours. According to the rule of thumb of 2.5 oz per pound she should be getting almost 34oz per day. With 5 feedings, that would be over 6 oz per feeding, and there is no way that's going to happen. I'm just going by what her hunger and spitting up seems to be telling me - that 5 oz is usually the preferred amount but sometimes 6 oz stays fully down even though it's generally a recipe for a larger volume of spit-up than if she had just stopped at 5.

What else? Hmm, she's moved into a pattern of going poo about every other day, sometimes longer. This means there is always a lot of it when she decides to open the flood gates. After a particularly eventful visit to the hairdressers, I realized that it would be a good idea to keep an extra pair of pants for me along with the extra shirt I had already stored in the car. A clean sleeper and two gallon size ziplock bags live in the diaper bag for these moments (one bag is for the dirty clothing, the other is for the diaper and multitudes of wipes needed for cleanup). The diaper rash which we had struggled with for so long seems to be defeated for the moment, though I do keep an eye out and apply preventative measures if it seems necessary.

I started back to work, very very very part-time a couple of weeks back. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I go in somewhere between 10 and 11am, and leave between 12 and 2pm. Little One comes with me, so I don't always get as much accomplished as I hope to depending on her mood of the day. Some days are fine, and others, well, I probably need to buy my boss earplugs for Christmas. As she gets more active, I'm not sure that it's going to be satisfactory for either of us to keep working but we'll see how it goes.

My social life is busier now than before Little One's arrival...On Monday mornings I still attend the hospital sponsored breastfeeding group, mostly now to track Little One's weight gain and my production, but occasionally I have a question. Wednesday mornings find me either at the local library infant story time or meeting up with some other mothers from the BF group at Starbucks. Friday mornings are more varied - Starbucks if we didn't go Wednesday, occasionally lunch with my Grandmother (attends church with my boss and gets the scoop from him since he sees Little One more than she does), tomorrow lunch with a non-mother friend. Basically, I'm out of the house most mornings during the week. I also try to run one long or two quick errands after each activity, always depending on whether I need to get home to pump* or Little One's mood to determine if it can happen or not.

Little One has somewhat settled into one or two morning naps depending on when she gets up and the activities of the day, and one good afternoon nap. Heaven help us if that afternoon nap gets messed with! Then we have one cranky baby (and mommy, since I need that down time too!) who screams inconsolably until she winds down and can finally relax enough to get to sleep. It's not much fun for either of us.

So, that's where we are. I'm very happily surprised that I'm really loving being a mommy. One of my biggest fears pre- and during pregnancy was that I would slip into some post-partum depression based on an earlier depression caused by a different major transition, but so far I seem to have avoided that fate. I really hope it continues!

*I'm still pumping as I'm not making enough except at the first morning feeding to fill Little One up properly - it generally takes at least 2 pumping sessions, if not 3, to produce enough milk for one 6 ounce bottle. That's also why she gets a couple of formula bottles. I've also started to drink a lot more water every day, which is helping with production since "a lot more water" means going from a couple of glasses during the day to 2 to 4 fillings of this really cool bottle I was introduced to by my brother-in-law. I highly recommend it!

Miles of Smiles

2010-10-17T21:15:00.001-04:00

Finally appeared this weekend...

Hope to catch in action very soon!

My 3 Month Old... (and other things)

2010-10-12T16:02:00.005-04:00

Wow. What a difference from 2 months.

While sleeping and eating are still a large part of her day, she's spending more time now awake and looking around. Some of that time is spent doing tummy time, of which she is not a fan!

She likes to look out the window and still loves her swing. I love the swing too - it usually puts her right out at nap time so I can do things around the house. Speaking of nap time, she generally eats every three hours during the day, and I can count on her waking up from her nap an hour before she is due for her next bottle. Yes, bottle. We're still doing those, with formula about every other to every third feeding. I'm still pumping but have mostly dropped the overnight pumping in favor of breastfeeding Little One when she wakes between 3 & 5 AM which typically gives me the chance to catch a few more zzzz's before the day actually starts. She also gets another feeding most days in the late afternoon or early evening.

As far as my admittedly fuzzy memory can recall, it wasn't long after 2 months that she actually started to "get" breast feeding - the latch got better, the sucking got stronger, etc. etc. Now, if my production would just increase, the formula and pumping could stop. Since the diaper rash cleared up, diaper changes have gotten much more pleasant for both of us. Part of that must be from the formula usage, but I also think that part also comes from her maturation as poopie diaper explosions are much less frequent than previously (down to once or twice every few days from every diaper!).

Every so often I have to call her a rhesus monkey thanks to her tenacious grip on my hair when I'm holding her against my shoulder. Even when my hair is up! She's really good at finding the few straggling hairs which are too short for the ponytail. OUCH!

As of Monday (3 months plus 1 day), she weighed in at 11 pounds 6 ounces, and is comfortably wearing 3 month size clothing. I have found that top and pant outfits that do not include a snap-under shirt are not as convenient - otherwise the shirt rides up and I spend a lot of time making sure it is tugged down. Annoying! Bibs are becoming an important part of her wardrobe as well - mostly as residual spit up catchers (today she had on one with a waterproof liner and it saved my shirt and her outfit by catching a totally unexpected very, very juicy post-bottle burp).

I started back to work this week, very part-time, a couple of hours on Tuesday and Thursday. So far, so good. I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep it up - while I was convinced I wanted to keep working before Little One arrived, now that she's here - she's more important than the income. Thankfully, we are able to live on DH's salary, so I do have the option. And I am very grateful for that. My employers are okay with my bringing her to work with me, for now, so I'm grateful for that also. DH is dead set against day care, so if I couldn't take her to work I wouldn't have gone back at all. And both of us had stay at home mothers, so that's what we both know and hope to provide for Little One as long as possible.

If I don't get out of the house by 10 or so, the harder it gets to get out of the house. So, weekly schedule - Monday: breastfeeding group, Tuesday/Thursday: work, leaving Wednesday and Friday for other social activities or running errands or even staying home and attempting to get things done around the house (easier written than accomplished!).

Not so obviously, Little One being more alert and awake means that I have less time to spend composing posts (it's been several days since I started this one for example...) and commenting on others' posts when I do get a chance to read. So if you feel like I've dropped off the face of the earth, it's thanks to Little One demanding more of my time. I do spend more time on Facebook thanks not feeling like I need to write so much (or am grateful for character restrictions), so shoot me an email (found in my profile) if you want to connect that way...

Until next time: I hope your life is going great!

Thoughtful Things

2010-10-04T14:50:00.005-04:00

Instead of writing a post complaining about the deer thinking our yard is their private dining hall, I thought I'd follow in the footsteps of JJ over at Reproductive Jeans who introduced Thoughtful Tuesdays a few weeks (months? errr..) back.

Since it's Monday, I'm jumping the gun, but here's a few things that have happened that were pretty darn nice...

1. In the grocery store parking lot post-emptying the groceries from the cart into the car and facing the conundrum of either leaving Little One in the hot car while I return the cart or returning the cart and then hauling her back to the car, a younger woman (perhaps one of the local college students) approached as she was entering the store and offered to take the cart back for me. Which she did and then entered the store cart-less. How awesome of her was it to do that when she didn't even need a cart?

2. Today I went to empty the dishwasher only to find that DH had emptied the lower rack this morning so all I had to put away were a few items remaining on the top rack. AND he put some things I rarely use back in the right place instead of just leaving them on the counter for me to deal with. Kudos to him!

3. One of the women at the hospital lactation group listened when I said Wednesday was my birthday. Rather than blow it off, she asked if I wanted to get together and celebrate it on a non-group day, and then made an announcement of the celebration at group this morning. How awesome is that? It's really nice to be finally, after 8 years of living here, making a few friends! (I'm not shy and anti-social, much. Hah.)

Just Because...

2010-09-18T11:11:00.002-04:00

After taking the picture this morning I realized this could be an ad for Target since everything but the baby and rattle in lower left corner came from there: the outfit (FYI: that's a Circo Newborn size she's wearing at 10 weeks since they run large, she also has the one in the link), the pack & play, & the fleece quilted play yard sheet (so cozy, I totally recommend it!). The bear is by Circo also but I can't find a link.

Have a happy Saturday!

My 2 Month Old...

2010-09-10T10:31:00.005-04:00

Ah, forget it. I can't tell you there has been much change - sure she's almost double her birth weight and has grown a few inches longer making much of the crop of newborn size clothing obsolete - but the cycle of sleep, eat, and poop pretty much remains the same.

And speaking of poop, we have had some issues there. As in too much poop, too runny poop, in every diaper. Overall, too much of an indicator that something isn't right with the innards or what goes into the innards. For 4 days over Labor Day weekend (Friday - Monday) Little One got nothing but formula*. And the diaper rash which had only gotten worse since she left the hospital despite liberal applications of various ointments and balms healed in two days, I changed diapers that were just wet, and I was concerned that she hadn't pooped in two days (fyi: if you do the thermometer or q-tip up the rectum trick to induce poop be prepared for a quick response).

On Tuesday I reintroduced breast milk, Wednesday that's all she got, and the bad poop was back by Thursday morning. Now I'm trying to feed both formula* and pumped breast milk, at alternate feedings, and am hoping that the combination settles things back down. So far it seems to be working for her...but I'd love to go back to straight breast milk if I can provide it since formula is expensive! (It's interesting that with BM she can go 4 hours but the same amount of formula and she's hungry again after 3. Shouldn't it be the other way thanks to the slower absorption rate of formula?)

Also still relying on the bottle since the amount of milk she receives from a direct feed is questionable (so I'm debating now on how long to keep the hospital-grade pump and if it's worth it to get a pump-in-style or other pump and how they compare to the hospital-grade version) thanks to both latch and continuing production issues.

It's weighing heavy on me. This realization that without changing my diet my milk may not be the best thing for her, and the doubt that even changing my diet may not resolve the issue, also the question of whether my production will be able to keep up with her needs. And again I ask, why can't this be easy?

Another weight on me is the disparity between her actual age and adjusted age in trying to track milestones. Some seem to apply to one and some the other, and I'm just left feeling confused about what she should be able to do when as none of the regular 1st year baby books I have address exactly how the tracking is different for a preemie, just mention that it's different. Yay. Seriously, she's actually 9 weeks old, but only 3 weeks adjusted. I have no idea what I should be looking for her to be able to do. And yet on Monday she's due for her 2 month shots. It makes no sense.

~~~~~

On the good news side of things, I got my flu shot this week, so that's checked off my to do list.

And she's finally put on enough weight and length to break out the baby bjorn - hurray for being able to do things in the house with both hands while still having her close to me, and for having a way to go shopping since the matching stroller to our car seat is being used by the person who lent us the car seat. Chicco products are great but they don't play nice with other products, including the so-called universal stroller frames, so I've been putting off some shopping I wanted to do because I didn't want to have to lug the car seat in and through stores which do not offer shopping carts into which I can place the seat to spare my arms.

Oh, I changed my mind and decided we needed a pack & play after all for travel (and at home since the moses basket is about to be outgrown, and with our dog, napping on the floor is not an option) and it worked very well over Labor Day for both changing and sleeping. We also have the automatic bouncer which is awesome. Though the current favorite is the swing. Thanks, Erika, for the recommendation!

What else? I hear that Little One looks like me on a regular basis, which I don't know if it's true or not since I don't really see it myself. Since I'm out with her much more than DH is out with her, it makes sense people see me in her. Or it's just one of those things people say when they don't know what else to comment on. She's still so unformed that I think it's hard to know exactly who she takes after or if there are parts that take after one of us over the other.

So, here I am, sleep deprived (why does she choose the nights I most need sleep to not want to go back to sleep herself after a feeding?) but moving closer back to my pre-IF-medication weight, and am able to report that while my shape has definitely changed to the more hippy, my jeans from last year still fit! And on that happy note I will leave you.

*Yes, those are two different formula brands - gotta love a doctor's office freebie. But the Enfamil seemed to go down and stay down better than the Similac which is what she started out on at the hospital. Figures since Similac sent me $5 coupons and Enfamil cheaped out at $1. But I'm thinking that once the current can of Similac runs out I'm going back to the Enfamil - it also mixed better with fewer bubbles.)

IF Ambush?

2010-09-01T15:51:00.006-04:00

Mic's post on September 1st over at IF Crossroads was titled "IF where you least expect it." What I thought it was going to be about was not what it was about, but what it was about is not relevant to what I want to write about. (Do you follow?)

What I thought it was going to be about was how infertility references can ambush you in pop culture. For example, there have been a couple movies recently which made noise across the IF blogosphere, to be specific: "UP" and "Julie and Julia."

As I was only on the fringes of the extensive commentary on both of those movies, neither of which I have seen, they seemed to have only a passing, decidedly implied reference to IF. So, after watching it, you could say I was a bit surprised at not remembering reading about the strong IF theme within "Did You Hear About the Morgans?"

I dunno, maybe I was tardy to class or skipped school that day and missed the commotion? Anyone?

So, there DH and I were, prepared to watch a Hugh Grant rom-com and wham! hello! infertility references out the wazoo! DH and I looked at each other as references started hitting closer and closer to home - and the movie got less and less funny and a little too real. Of course, thankfully, with Sarah Jessica Parker having had her own publicly acknowledged fertility and surrogacy issues the approach never seemed to slip into stereotypes, well, at least until the end (which I had some issues with...see below for spoiler details). In my opinion, there was a perfectly reasonable point at which the movie could have ended without veering into stereotypical cliches and fanciful timelines - but it didn't, to my regret.

And because it didn't, instead of leaving me laughing or satisfied with a standard rom-com happy ending, I found myself expressing my frustration to DH who could only agree with me and frankly, left me feeling a bit unsatisfied. Like going to a nice restaurant expecting a regularly sized meal but being served haute cuisine portions so you have to stop at a drive-through on the way home to actually get something to fill you up.

Have you seen the movie? What was your impression?

~~~Spoiler Alert: Don't read the following paragraph unless you have (a) already seen the movie, or (b) don't mind knowing the ending before you watch a movie~~~

During the movie it is disclosed that SJP's character had contacted an adoption agency two months before the events of the movie transpired. At the end of the movie, there's a screen flash indicating 6 months have passed. And then you see semi-closeups of SJP's character and Hugh Grant's characters leaving a plane arriving from an another country (Asian?) carrying an adopted infant. It's my impression based on what I have read online and elsewhere that 8 months from application to being able to bring a child home is an exceedingly unrealistic time frame for an international adoption. Then, just to hammer it home, you finally see a full length shot of SJP and whoops! she's pregnant thanks to a bout of make-up sex earlier in the movie.

Bad taste, meet mouth.

Not Playing Dead

2010-08-23T16:16:00.003-04:00

That's what the possum in our garage last week wasn't doing when my mother and I drove in after playing Bunco Wednesday night. What it was doing was clinging to the top of the lower sash of the double-hung window in front of my garage bay.

For the record: possums smell. And if you accidentally leave your garage door open at night they might very well take it as an invitation to make themselves at home.

It's not like we live in the middle of nowhere. We live in a very nice neighborhood, but one which still has a lot of undisturbed forest in common areas and unbuilt lots. (The developer didn't clear-cut the community which so many do.) Thus we have a fair amount of wild animals - a herd of deer regularly pass through our back yard, we've seen a fox every now and then, and lizards and skinks love our retaining walls for sunning and housing.

But this is the first time the wildlife has gotten quite so upclose and personal. Thank goodness the neighborhood security force is prepared and able to deal with such things. Mr. (or Mrs., who knows?!) Possum was safely apprehended and relocated and will hopefully never be seen again, at least in our garage.

The (Rest of The) Birth Story - Other Stuff

2010-08-22T12:42:00.003-04:00

A few more things that have come back to me and I wanted to share before I forgot...

1. The 10th was a rainy, rainy day. While I was pushing, the rain was pounding against the window in the birthing room. I'm wondering how long it will be before a hard rain like that doesn't make me think of that day...I hope it's a long, long time.

2. When DH's parents came, they stopped by a vending machine and grabbed a pack of crackers and a Coke for DH since he hadn't eaten all day. He had only drank about a third of it before the doctor(s) came in and got the birth process moving, so once all was said and done and it was just us and his parents in the room waiting for the all clear from the nursery so they could go see Little One, he was kind enough to share the rest of it with me. After hours of nothing but ice chips and water, I probably sucked it down way faster than I should have but that was the best tasting Coke I have ever had!

3. (This is slightly disgusting so skip it if bodily fluids disturb you...) Once I got into the hospital room, I was given a pair of the lovely mesh panties to wear along with the requisite pad and one of those cooling packs (which I couldn't really feel since that area was still a bit numb from the epidural, but I'm sure it helped). So there I lay in bed until I was given the all clear, 4 hours after the pictocin had been stopped and my legs had lost their tingling from the epidural, to get up and use the bathroom. It was at that point we, being me and the assisting nurse, found out that the pad had been inserted upside down. Doesn't do much for the absorbency to have the plastic side up...but it sure does make a mess!

This may be ongoing as things occur to me...or not. Don't hold your breath. Unless you want to pass out, but that's your choice, so don't blame it on me.

Quick Update

2010-08-16T14:33:00.003-04:00

The laptop screen was replaced by the combined efforts of DH and the computer guy at his office. Yay!
As of this morning's Breastfeeding and New Mother Support Group meeting (held Monday, Wednesday and Thursday at the local hospital) Little One had reached 6lb-6oz. Two whole pounds more than her birth weight! And the majority of that has come from my efforts at pumping. I feel slightly like Super-Woman.
While breastfeeding hasn't improved noticeably, adding just 5 minutes to each pumping session has jumped production nicely. Now instead of wondering if I'll have enough milk for each (supplemental) feeding I'm wondering what I should use for freezing the extra...a much better concern to have!
Another thing about the above group - it gives me a reason to get moving and out of the house a couple days a week, and it's great to get pointers and support from someone who knows what she's doing (a lactation consultant runs the group).
And I think I've made my first new mom friend thanks to the above group. With Little One arriving before the birth classes started, I didn't get to meet any other prospective mothers as I had hoped. So at least now I'm getting to know some other Mom's with similarly aged babies - while Little One is still so new and floppy, things like story time at the Library and music classes are kind of pointless, so this is a great social interaction for both of us. And much easier to start chatting with someone than at the grocery store or other place where chatting like that can be, well, awkward. But when you both have a boob out with a baby latched on (or trying to latch), it's kinda hard to be less than yourself.

And sorry, still no pictures. I think DH uploaded some to the other computer, but the laptop is so much easier, especially when sitting in the recliner with a sleeping baby across my lap. Maybe later, once I've gotten the 16+ thank you notes written that I need to distribute at Bunco on Wednesday. Wish me luck that both my hand and my brain don't cramp!

My 1 Month Old...

2010-08-10T16:40:00.003-04:00

(Otherwise titled: Holy Crap, I have a 1 month old!)

...has been seen sucking her thumb on more than one occasion.

...weighs almost 6 pounds - up a pound and a half from birth weight.

...is still wearing newborn size clothing. (Which is fine since we were given a LOT of newborn size clothes. It just gives me time to get her into all of the outfits. Though why people gave long-sleeve and long pantsed heavy weight newborn size outfits for a baby born during one of the hottest summers on record, I can't explain. Some days a onesie seems like too much clothing, I'm not putting her in anything much warmer. So any more we receive from this point out are going to get exchanged for larger sizes.)

...is currently a Pampers girl. I had bought a pack of Huggies on sale and she's only had blowouts while wearing those; so, Pampers it is (until I try something different as she grows).

...mostly loves being swaddled, though will also fight to get one arm out mid-nap. (The Aden & Anais Muslin wraps we received as a shower gift are excellent, though one of the prongs on my wedding band has gotten caught on the loose weave and picked it pretty easily.)

...is getting better at breastfeeding though we still aren't there 100%. Not sure we will be if my supply doesn't pick up some. (yeah, that's a worry for me)

...lets me sleep through the night. (Just kidding. Mostly it's doesn't let me sleep at night.)

...is still the cutest darn baby I have ever seen. (Sorry guys, mine's cuter, at least to me. Your perception may vary, but I guess you can't make that judgment without seeing a recent picture. I'll have to work on that.)

The (Rest of The) Birth Story - Part 2

2010-08-05T13:58:00.004-04:00

So, after hitting every bump on the interstate and what felt like every speed bump in the hospital parking lot, we finally made it to the Emergency Room at the Big Hospital around 7AM.

That's where things started to go downhill. See, a few years back Big Hospital had a baby taken from the nursery, and well, since then, they've really tightened up on security in the maternity ward. So, to get to labor and delivery or any other part of the floor, there is only one recognized way in - past the first floor cafeteria & gift shops, and up a public elevator to a lobby. Unfortunately the people in the ER did not provide very clear directions and we spent a good 10-15 minutes trying to get to point M (for maternity), going up and down elevators and moving around in circles until we eventually found a back entrance which a security guard bitched about opening remotely. Keep in mind by this time my labor was approaching every 2 minutes and getting harder. I was about to become the bitchy screaming lady on the gurney if the guard hadn't let us through.

But in we went and I was transferred to the care of residents and doctors I had never before met. A quick internal check by a resident moved me from (yet another) triage room to an operating room for delivery. At this point I'm panicking a little - I'm not getting a c-section without my consent, am I? No, it was just the only room open with enough space for both the birth team and baby team. Phew. A check in the operating room by a more experienced doctor moved me back to the triage room - apparently the resident still needed more hands on learning about the difference between 3-4 cm dilation and full dilation. But the move back to the triage room didn't happen before I once again needed to vomit, this time accompanied not only by labor but loss of bladder control. It's a good thing they kept switching me from bed to bed at this point, although the IV the first hospital had located in the back of my hand started to cause problems because there was no way I could bend my wrist enough to be able to support myself easily while moving across from one bed to another. That IV ended up bruising the inside of my vein (or irritating it as there was no external visual cue that it was painful).

With all the movement to and fro, and the time lost trying to actually find the maternity department entrance, it wasn't too much longer after I got resettled into the triage room that DH showed up. So much for the time gained from travel by ambulance!

And then we waited for the anesthesiologist to come do the epidural. And waited. And waited. And waited some more. Apparently even though it wasn't a full moon or any of the other common triggers for the department to be crazy busy, it was. When DH came in there were several women waiting in the lobby, including one at 34 weeks in labor. But thanks to my being a transfer - I got priority. Such as it was. Eventually we were told the anesthesiologist had a c-section and one other epidural to get through before he could get to me. So, I labored. And labored, and labored. And got to the point where I really REALLY wanted to push. And I wasn't supposed to. And it was hard (and I am overusing and. I know it. Just bear with me here.). DH was great, he rubbed my back when I wanted him to, and encouraged me through the contractions and didn't touch me when I wanted him not to, and fed me ice chips. His only failing - telling me both to "not push" and to "push through the contractions." Of course he wasn't trying to contradict himself, it was just the way he was phrasing it. Once I called him on it, he got better about choosing other words to encourage me to hold back and ride out the contractions.

So, finally, at about 10:30 the anesthesiologist finally made his way into the room. The contractions were pretty intense by that time and probably close to a minute apart. It made staying still for the epidurals pretty difficult. Yes, that was epiduralS. The first one kinked as it went in and they couldn't use it, so had to pull it and try again. That was not fun.

But once the second one was in and the medication started to flow, life went from being horrible to pretty darn good. I never felt the full out leg deadening, instead they just tingled, like pins and needles but without the pain. After that it wasn't too long before a birthing room opened up and I was moved, once again (actually they started out once but had to turn back for some reason, so that was another trip through the halls). And at some point DH was handed a white sterile suit and told to suit up, but I'm not sure why that was - perhaps they were thinking we'd have to go back to the OR for me to give birth. That was during the hell of trying not to push labor, so it's a little fuzzy.

Not long after we moved to the birthing room, my in-laws showed up. They had stopped at the house on the way down and picked up some items that would have been in the birth bag, had I managed to get it packed. You know - a hair brush, lip balm, things that make a girl feel better about herself. My parents were not able to come until the next day - my Mother was in an airport after leaving a conference and my Father waited for her to return home before they came down. So we chatted for a bit until a little before 1 when the doctors came in and said it was time to push. Then the in-laws got kicked out - they did not need to be in the room.

A pictocin drip was started to up my contractions since the epidural had slowed them down some, a quick in and out catheterization, and then I got the word to push. On my back. It would have been easier at an angle, but that's where I was. (If that's my only regret about the birth, then I think it went pretty darn well, don't you?) At 4-5 pushes per contraction, straining to push with muscles I could not feel while regulating my breathing, it took about 5 contractions worth of pushes and the Little One shot out and according to DH almost missed being caught by the person at the end of the table. That was at 1:27pm. Fewer than 12 hours after my water had broken so gushingly.

DH cut the umbilical cord and I was given a very brief look at her before she was whisked away to the side to be checked over by the baby team. At this point I realized there were about 10 people in the room whom I had never met before. Looking at my girly bits. Ah well, thanks IF for making that just that much less embarrassing. So the doctors and residents were doing their thing on my lower half, and I was straining to see what was going on with our baby. Our baby. How incredible was that? DH was over there but I wanted to know too...

At some time during all this, I was instructed to give another push to get the placenta out, and then a bowl of water was poured over my crotch to rinse away the blood (and whatever else may have been ejected during the pushing. I didn't ask.) so that a better inspection of any tears or other issues could be completed. With two level 2 tears, I got some stitches on each and there was some concern about some additional unidentified bleeding. Eventually the doc and resident decided it wasn't enough to be of concern, but I also scored having some pills to stop the bleeding inserted, and not where the baby had just come out of. The other opening down there. Thank goodness the epidural was still in effect!

Along the way, Little One was whisked away to the nursery and the bed put back together and the excitement was over. So again, we chilled with the in-laws (they returned after DH went to tell them she had arrived) and waited for the word that Little One was available for visitors, and for a non-birthing room to open up.

And that's the rest of the long-ass detailed version of how Little One entered the world 6 weeks ahead of schedule and shocked us all.

The short version goes: water broke at 2:45 or so, went to the local hospital, was transported by ambulance to the bigger hospital, it was crazy busy so had to wait for the epidural, and finally gave birth less than 12 hours after my water broke after only 5 contractions worth of pushes.

I think that covered everything - but let me know if you think I left out something you had wondered about or want to know more about...no guarantees that I will remember, but I'll give it a shot.

Quick Vent

2010-08-04T13:36:00.003-04:00

My husband grabbed my laptop by the top of the monitor last night (it was open on the other side of me but my hands were full of baby so I couldn't pass it to him) and "crack" was heard as he moved it. There is now a nice 3/8" wide white line down the center of the monitor.

Ironic thing- the warranty expired 5 days ago (as of today).

I'm just glad it wasn't me who did it! (but it still pisses me off)

Not That I Would Really Do This...

2010-08-03T15:20:00.004-04:00

Sleep deprivation at 2AM this morning had me contemplating the ad I would place on Craig.slist...

For Sale: One Baby, slightly used. All systems functioning properly and regular maintenance has been performed as per the manufacturers schedule.

It was one of those nights. The kind where your sleep-deprived brain can't look at a clock and recognize that it's past time for a feeding and that would be why the child won't stop fussing.

I know I said earlier she rocks my world - I just didn't know it was going to stay so far off-balance.

Oh, Hi, I am Alive...Just Sleepless

2010-07-27T19:11:00.007-04:00

More random thoughts:

Aden & Anais muslin swaddles are most excellent! Actually - a good swaddle is priceless when it comes to calming a fussy baby who really is tired but whose arms and legs won't cooperate.
Little One keeps getting the hiccups. Before meals, after meals, they just keep chasing her down.
Little One has found her index fingers, but not her thumbs. Of course, it's only because her arms insist on smacking her in the face.
We keep finding Cat the Elder in the Moses basket supplied by a friend who emptied out her house of baby stuff. Cute but not where he belongs.
DH and I have incredibly generous friends and family. After the first 2 showers (last Sunday and Wednesday) our large (5x8) dining room table was fully covered by bags and boxes, the gifts from the 3rd shower (Saturday) had to go directly to the nursery and it took a long time for my Mom and I to go through and organize everything in the room. As for thank you notes, I have to admit to a bit of ostriching on the fact that those remain outstanding. I suspect that it would be a good idea to set a minimum goal of two per day and just get started on them.
Of all the gifts, only 4 duplicate items - 3 Boppy's (2 identical, 1 different), 2 monitors, 2 strollers, and 2 of the same outfit from Gymboree (and the only outfits we received from there). I was thinking it was because the registry systems weren't updating properly, but then had a duh moment and realized it was probably because the purchasers didn't have the registry scanned at checkout.
My Mom left this morning after being here off and on for the past couple of weeks. I predict there will be crying as DH and I adjust to life without a third pair of hands for baby care and dinner prep and the many many other very useful ways in which she has been helpful. (As compared to the MIL whose helpfulness was much less broad and much more what she thought would be helpful as opposed to actually being helpful. But it was very kind of her to de-fur one of the family room chairs. gah.)
Yesterday was a busy day - the two week visit to the pediatrician* included having the last part of the scab on her belly button scraped off and having her frenulum clipped. She no longer has the little notch at the tip of her tongue and can reach her tongue farther out of her mouth than before - I'm hoping it helps with our attempts at breastfeeding, and should help in the future to prevent speech impediments. We also had to visit the hospital to have the the mandatory state testing (genetic level for 28 or so fairly rare diseases) redone since she had exceeded the max on one test by 3 points. None of the docs seemed to be bothered by that, but the state required that it be redone. So that was another heel prick. Poor baby. No wonder she was extra fussy and over-tired last night!
DH and I took advantage of my mother's being here last night to have a "date." He picked me up after he got off work and our first stop was to get him a haircut since he was getting shaggy, and then we went to a swanky steakhouse and had a $90+ meal of two steaks and one glass of wine. Not someplace we will visit on a regular basis, but a very nice outing sans babe. And I didn't even feel the need to call home and check on her until we were leaving the restaurant. But I resisted. I knew my mom would call if she had had an issue - which she did not. Yay for sleeping babies!
At last weigh in, I was under my pre-pregnancy weight by 3ish pounds (now that's moving into IF drug weight). Breastfeeding/pumping plus upset stomach from the iron pills are definitely contributing factors. Since I stopped taking the iron pills I have actually been able to eat again. Guess I need to call my OB's office and find out if I need to come in for an anemia check before my 6 week visit or not. In the meantime I'm trying to eat a diet heavy on those iron rich foods such as steaks and broccoli. Of course, my body isn't the same - squishy tummy, saggier boobs, wider hips - so I've found that even some of my larger pre-pregnancy clothes don't fit.
Schedule is similar to that in the hospital - feedings at 2, 5, 8, and 11 round the clock. Moving to breastfeeding would really help with the 11PM, 2AM and 5AM feedings so that I could get back to bed faster than now when she has to be changed and fed, and I have to pump and then wash the pump parts before getting back to bed myself since even when all goes well, it takes the better part of an hour from the time she wakes up.
When I'm most ravenous - 2AM when I'm up for the feeding. Thank goodness for Carnation Instant Breakfast (yes, I'm back on that), or as I'm starting to think of it: adult formula!
Afternoon naps are very important to my well being. I hope to be able to continue them next week after DH goes back to work and I'm on my own during the day.
Next week I'm also hoping to make at least one of the breast feeding support group meetings at the local hospital. Not easy since they start at 10AM, and after the 5AM feeding she and I usually sleep until close to 8AM and I have yet to master the less than 2 hour feeding/cleaning/shower and leaving the house.

So that's a sampling of what's going on around here. If Little One cooperates I'm going to try to get the rest of the birth story out next week. But no promises.

*Thought I had told you about him - after the stress of trying to find a different pediatrician with no notice last Monday, when DH and I went last Tuesday for the mandatory post-hospital visit, I was expecting the generic pediatrician - republican hair, middle-aged, and so on. Who we got is a cowboy boot wearing, shoulder length haired, two finger-tip missing and chin-hair stripped doctor with the same manner of the visual I was expecting. Definitely out of the ordinary but we've seen him twice now and I like him even better than I did after the first appointment. He's great with the little one and with me too, even when sharing some potentially scary news. Not going to share it, but it's a pretty common thing for preemies, so it should resolve itself as she grows, if not, then I'll really worry about it. For now though, nothing that can or should be done except wait for time to pass.

Another Surprising Day

2010-07-19T19:27:00.003-04:00

The MIL and I were greeted on our entrance to the nursery with the news that Little One would be able to come home today.

Cue deer in the headlights look and "holy shit" reaction.

We're home now (after a few more issues with things like having to get DH to leave work and bring the car seat and tracking down a new pediatrician since the one I was planning to use took vacation this week and neglected to designate coverage) and all is well, so far.

Wish me (us) luck!

The (Rest of The) Birth Story - Part 1

2010-07-17T08:35:00.004-04:00

So, where did I leave things less detailed...ah, yes, my water had broken unexpectedly between 2:45 and 3AM, and DH had called the OB's office. Of course, when the OB on call returned our call, the first question was whether it was urine or not. My report of a fully emptied bladder shortly before the event in question stopped that short and that's when we were told to get to the hospital.

Cue frantic dressing on both our parts. (And the realization that DH would have to wear his glasses as his contacts (and mine) had not been in the cleaning solution for long enough to neutralize the solution. Peroxide in the eye is quite painful! The problem with DH wearing his glasses is that the difference in vision between contacts and glasses is quite difficult for him to overcome, and can make him feel dizzy - not something you want when driving...but he did fine.) At this point I'm moving into an inner panic - what's wrong, what's going to happen, is she okay, am I okay, all questions only a doctor can answer.

With a quick stop by my wallet to pull out my ID and insurance cards, and a strip of my wedding ring and diamond studs DH gave me, we were on our way. No bag, no camera, nothing. (See, I had plenty of time remaining to put that together...)

At slightly higher than legal highway speeds we reached the hospital in record time, walked into the Emergency Room, handed over my ID and insurance to the admitting/triage nurse, signed off on a couple of forms (I'm sure my signature looked nothing like it usually does) and I was whisked away by wheelchair to a triage room on the maternity floor.

First order of business was changing into a hospital gown and getting onto the bed. Of course I tossed my pad into the trash - causing the nurse to have to go after it, I guess for fluid samples? I'm not really certain of the sequence of the following events, but I know they all happened at some time: cervix check (80% effaced, 1-2 cm dilated), ultrasound confirming that some fluid still remained and that Little One was holding her own, an IV line was started, and monitors for both fetal heartrate and contractions were wrapped around my belly. Once they determined that I was indeed going into labor, as I had not felt contractions until after we reached the hospital, they added two antibiotics (ammoxicillian and a steroid) to the IV line, gave me a shot in the ass of a steroid to help promote lung development for little one, and started me on what ranks as one of the nastiest tasting medications I've ever had the opportunity to ingest but which was supposed to stop or slow my contraction rate. (It was in a plastic capsule you had to chew on and tasted like mint flavored nyquil. Blech!) That one I got to "enjoy" every fifteen minutes or so.

The OB on call was, thankfully, the one I had hoped would be on call since I had heard such great things about him (thanks Leslie!) and he was in and out a few times as well. By this time it was obvious I was in labor and Little One could not be stopped from making her debut. So, based on my being at 33 1/2 weeks he felt it was best if I went to a bigger hospital with access to higher level care if needed. Of course, if I had made it to 34 weeks, he would have kept me local. What a difference a few days can make! I fully agreed with the better safe than sorry but had no idea what was in store for me next.

It took a while to find a transport crew to make the transfer to the bigger hospital, so it was about 6:30AM when we left. By that time my contractions had progressed to between 3-4 minutes apart and I was definitely noticing them. Let me tell you, flying down the road in an ambulance with lights and sirens blaring would be a lot more fun had I not been in labor. I'm pretty sure the driver wasn't a sadist, but it felt like we hit every bump in the approximately 60 mile trip. Along the way my contractions sped up to something like every 2-3 minutes and I found out they don't keep basins on the ambulance so I got to vomit into a bed pan. Clean, of course.

Eventually we made it to the other hospital and, well, let me stop there as this has gotten long enough already. I'll try not to keep you hanging too long for the remainder.

Status Updates...For The Week.

2010-07-15T09:40:00.007-04:00

Bullets from the brain dead...

My feet are slowly unswelling. The 5 1/2 bags of IV fluids during labor did not help. I don't know why I was expecting this to magically disappear once Little One was ejected. Today has been the best day yet.
So far, at 5 days post-partum, I am down 6 pounds. Leaving only 10 pounds to get to pre-pregnancy weight. WAIT> don't hate me...please, I still look 6 months pregnant from the side since my abdominal muscles and so on are weak, weak, weak, and I am almost continually starving (especially after the 2AM pumping) so I'm sure that these numbers will change for the worse as time passes and I eat more.
The window cleaners came this morning - it's been 3 years since their last visit, so more sunlight is coming in than in a long, long time. It's so worth the $$$. And was one of those things I had scheduled to occur before Little One came. Next week - the carpet cleaners.
Wednesday Little One was taken off the billi lights and moved out of her isolette into an open top bassinet. She also was allowed to put on one of the outfits we brought. All together now...AWWWWWWW. Unfortunately her billi levels went back up Thursday so she was back under the lights without her outfit. :( BUT she should be back to the outfits as of Friday evening.
Thursday I returned to the nursery after lunch to find the nurses taking a blood sample while Little One screamed. It probably upset me for longer than it did her since the sample taking was followed almost immediately by a bottle and almost an hour of sleepy snuggles with me.
Also Thursday her bottle was up to 25ml (plus 2 more so she wouldn't suck air) from the first feeding of only 5ml. An ounce is 30ml, so she should be there and beyond before I know it. My girl puts it away like a champion!
Pumping is getting easier and more productive. I'm so glad I can do this for her since I can do so little else until she stabilizes her billi levels and gains enough weight to come home. Though I have to admit the overnight wakings take more time than when she was still safely ensconced in my body and all I had to do was pee.
I think it was Amalah who promoted the Target breastfeeding tanks...she knows of what she writes! Very comfortable and perfect for the 90+ degree weather which has settled in.
I spoke with one of the doctors on Friday - the chances are very good if Little One can gain and hold onto weight after coming off the IV fluids and go through one day of scheduled unlimited feeds and one day of unlimited feeds on demand that she will be able to come home on Tuesday. Eeeeek!
The doctor also confirmed a minor tongue tie which has not prevented her from guzzling from the bottle (they would address it if it were causing feeding issues on the bottle), but I am still concerned might be an issue on the breast. Certainly something which I will be discussing with the pediatrician sometime next week. (Thanks go to, again, Amalah, for bringing this to my attention.)

Three Days Old...

2010-07-14T09:05:00.002-04:00

... and just finished her first bottle of breast milk.

I had no idea how much she was going to rock my world.

A Surprising Saturday

2010-07-12T16:48:00.003-04:00

So, Saturday. DH and I both had plans to do some more things with the nursery. I was going to finish moving out the remaining non-baby items such as wrapping paper and a few other assorted items like Christmas Cards which had been stored in one of the dresses and are now waiting to leave the room for the basement. DH was going to re-do the light/fan switch to correct the horrible buzzing noise caused by the dimmer for the light and put up the window valences (and perhaps go out and get the blackout shades I also wanted to add to install those as well).

In other words, nothing really major was planned outside of a good sleeping in before starting the day, but they were still items which needed to be addressed before the Little One made her appearance at the end of August.

Because of this, Friday night we both were up until Midnight - I futzed around on-line for a while until I got bored, and then I watched DH play a PS3 game he recently picked back up. At midnight I decided to head to bed even though I wasn't particularly tired and DH decided to come up with me. Unfortunately he had eaten something which disagreed with his stomach and shortly after getting into bed he got back out to spend some quality time in the bathroom. Me, I went to sleep until I woke up for my regular overnight visit to the potty only to find him still on the potty, not having ever returned to bed. I went down the hall to the 2nd bath and did what I needed to do.

You know what they say about plans - man makes them and God laughs? (You should since I mentioned it last week.) That's where the surprise came in.

When I got back into bed, and went to settle myself into my preferred side sleeping position, there was an almighty gush of liquid from my lady parts. It was an unstoppable torrent. Given that I had just fully emptied my bladder, there was no mistaking what had happened. Yep. My water broke at some time between 2:45 and 3AM Saturday morning.

At 33 1/2 weeks.

So, after fetching me a towel so I could dry off and make it to the bathroom for a pad and to the closet for clothes, off went DH to call the OB's office who told us to head to the hospital.

Less than 12 hours later, including a ambulance ride with lights and sirens blaring to a more high-tech hospital about an hour away by normal speeds, an epidural, a half hour of Pitocin to speed up the epidural slowed contractions, and about 20-30 minutes covering about 5 contractions worth of pushing, our little girl made her impatient way into the world at 1:27pm on Saturday July 10, weighing in at a respectable 4 lb 6oz, and measuring 18.5" long. In my unabashedly biased opinion she is the most beautiful little girl in the nursery.

She and I are both doing very well - I had two level 2 tears which have been are handled by Motrin, and apart from some slightly elevated billiruben levels, all her systems are working like they should be. Sunday evening she got the nod to start formula at 5ml and this afternoon to jump to 11ml. We even gave breastfeeding a try - we didn't do so well, but we're both learning as we go. Despite the positive outlook, current estimates are that Little One will have to stay for probably 3 weeks. =(

It's not exactly what I had planned for Saturday or for Little One's arrival, but it could have gone a lot worse. For the record, even when your birth plan is as simple as "go into labor on my own, and leave the hospital with a healthy baby" it can be too complicated.

More of the birth story and pictures to come once I can find and connect the camera to the computer.

33 Week Update

2010-07-06T09:06:00.005-04:00

7...

We celebrated the 4th of July with a long weekend at the in-laws house on the North Carolina Outer Banks (OBX). Left home Thursday night* and enjoyed 3 full days of glorious weather before returning home Monday afternoon and getting stuck on (1) the bridge off of the island for no apparent reason and (2) the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge Tunnel just before the tunnel thanks to a breakdown inside the tunnel and a mini-van driver ahead of us who chose to break for the light instead of going through. At least the second only lasted a few minutes, but it could have been ugly had the breakdown been an accident requiring assistance to come from off the bridge.

Family politics and fireworks almost always occur when DH's family spends more than a few hours together - in this case DH's soon to be 28 year old, but going on 8 year old brother got his panties in a wad and went flying out of the house at 4 AM one morning - I've mentioned before that he has problems, but if you want to be treated as the adult your birthday says you are, you need to at least attempt to act like one and not like a kid throwing a tantrum with access to an automobile. I seriously want to tell him to grow up - but I know it would just make things worse since he seems incapable of reacting to any criticism in a civilized manner.

Moving on...Little One is spending more and more time with her foot up under my right ribs. That's not so bad except that the torque from her pushing travels along the rib and around to my back where the rib attaches. The only thing that seems to help is moving from sitting upright to laying on one side or the other which changes her position enough to remove the pressure. Unfortunately I can't spend my days at work laying on my side! DH was talking about trying to take another long weekend down at the beach between now and her due date but I'm not sure I can bear the car ride again if she keeps this up. I know I'm bitching about it more than I did the morning sickness - at least with that it was over and done with, this is much more constant!

My MIL did bring the car seat to the beach, and as I suspected, it is not the exact model I had wanted - but it's close enough to give it a try. Instead of the Keyfit 30, it's a plain Keyfit with the 22lb limit. Guess when it's time for a convertible seat we'll be installing it rear-facing, though an 8lb difference means it's likely we would have to do that anyway. And it's not exactly the green/tan color I liked better, but the blue/green. Whatever. I give up. If we (I) end up hating it we can always buy the other model. (My MIL is very good on the guilt-trips...she should be Jewish.) It was slightly surreal to be driving home with a car seat in the back seat. It also gave the dog a taste of what's to come, no more full access to the back seat for her! I can't remember if I mentioned it, but we received the extra base from my cousin and his wife last week, so that's one more item off the list of necessary items. And the start of another necessary thing - thank you notes!

Our Baby Classes start on the 11th which I failed to realize, until the leader called last night to confirm that we will attend, is NEXT SUNDAY. But the 11th, it's in July, which is so far away still. Wait, this IS July. Aaaaaggggghhhh!!!

*Thursday night I came home to an attempt by our pup to turn the carpet and area rug in the family room into modern art thanks to her accessing and puncturing a ziplock bag containing a tub partially filled with exterior latex paint left over from DH's still to be fully finished deck rail replacement project. DH's fault for leaving it on the laundry room counter for two weeks within reach of the dog after the last time he left paint in there like that and dog got into it as well (which I did tell him about, but since the bag wasn't punctured and didn't leave the laundry room apparently didn't sink in)? My fault for not noticing it for two weeks and moving it myself? The dog's fault for being an inquisitive type when she's bored and finding it after two weeks of ignoring it? Who knows.

It was one of those "man makes plans and God laughs" moments - I remember distinctly thinking on the way home that I needed to finish the last bits of packing and then I really wanted to put my feet up for a while before DH got home. Instead I walked into the house to see a sheepish dog and a mess of off-white paint on our tan carpet and red area rug. Little One was not a fan of the fit of hysterical sobbing I gave into about 10-15 minutes later when I realized that the paint was dry enough to make it hard to clean up. And that's as much as I want to say about that now that I've gotten the carpet cleaners scheduled to come in two weeks and confirmed that we have enough extra carpet available which can be used to patch the affected area if they don't succeed in removing the paint. She's gotten into things before, but this is by far the most potentially expensive to resolve.

32 Week Update - Post OB Visit

2010-06-30T11:36:00.002-04:00

No need to discuss glove type as all exams were external. (Why I'm disappointed about this, I'm not sure.)

Heartbeat is still there, measurement is still on track, Blood Pressure is about the same. Weight, well, let's just say weight is up, but I'm blaming that jump on the additional fluid now residing in both feet. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

No news is good news!

Next appointment is in 2 weeks. Hopefully some cooler weather between now and then will help the swelling ease up some.

Oh, something I neglected to mention - the sleeping. Monday night I snoozed through "The Princess Bride" on the couch with my head resting on DH's leg (he was kind enough to put it on since I enjoy it, but would have preferred to play a game on the PS3; then since I was sleeping on him, he was kinda stuck, oops) and yesterday I dozed after work in the recliner for a good hour and a half which left my head fuzzy for the remainder of the evening. I'm sure it's related to the tossing and turning I'm doing in bed trying to get comfortable in the early morning hours post-wee and before the alarm goes off. I even laid back on the table in the exam room before the OB came in this morning and shut my eyes for those few moments. Bonus, it was more comfortable than trying to sit upright and in a position which gives the Little One greater opportunity to shove her foot under my ribs.

32 Week Update

2010-06-29T15:25:00.000-04:00

8...

Same old, same old. Still getting bigger, still getting slower, feeling less rested, and so on. I can't believe I still have 2 months of this to go through. (My gratitude at finally being pregnant only goes so far.)

Highlight of the week - getting offered a beer sample at the grocery store before the sample lady saw the bump as it was apparently hidden behind the cart before I changed directions. My response: I would love one, I really would! With just a hint of desperation in my voice.

The desperation in my voice may have been there thanks to starting to read the post-birth / early childcare section of my pregnancy book. I think that section terrifies me more than the birth section. I know this baby is going to come out one way or another, I just don't know if I'm up to motherhood. Great timing for that realization, huh? The number of hours I've spent with an infant can probably be counted on both hands, if not just one. I've been paid to babysit only once - when the people looking for a sitter were desperate and the kids were well out of the infant years. WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Thank goodness DH has more experience with this than I - even if his experience was 25+ years ago when his brother was born. This is another reason why I wanted to take the birth class - I'll be the one in the back feverishly scribbling notes and feeling like a dummy.

Sunday found me subject to The Nesting. It started with cleaning out our basement and kitchen freezers - shamefully, the prior had frozen meals with expiration dates from 2007, and the latter had a number of unlabeled containers with mystery contents. As I was emptying the containers into the trash I made a mental pinkie swear promise to myself to start labeling containers with the food and date before putting them in the freezer.

From the freezers I moved on to the linen closets. You'd think from the number of towels we have accumulated that we were hosting lots of very dirty guests on a regular basis. Not so much. And I'm left wondering why when we have 2 queen beds (ours and the remaining guest room) we have fewer sets of sheets between them than for the double bed which got much less use and is now dismantled in the basement. Hopefully the "order" in which I left the two closets makes sense when I'm no longer subject to pregnancy brain, and is maintainable. We'll see!

Next OB appointment is tomorrow - assuming it will be more of the same. I do plan to ask if it's safe to use the massage function on our recliner. Sleeping on my back has gone from being okay for short periods to making my right hand go all tingly so I'm spending more and more time sleeping on my sides and it just doesn't allow my back to relax and stretch out properly.

Yesterday I once again indulged in a pedicure. This time I went with a snazzy orangey/red called something like Chili Pepper. Much better than the bubble-gum / Barbie / pepto-pink I'd been sporting for the past three weeks. And the leg massages aren't bad either!

Speaking of feet - the OB from two weeks ago was right. :( Despite my efforts to elevate, hydrate and avoid excess sodium, the other ankle has also started to swell but has not yet reached the circumference of the first. My hands have also started to swell some, but is only noticeable as my wedding band is taking more effort to remove. Thank goodness today is to be the last of the streak of 95+ degree days we've had and temps should be in the relatively more reasonable mid-80's for the coming week.

And more feet - Little One is spending more time than I would prefer forcibly shoving one of her feet up under my right rib cage. That's about as comfortable as it sounds, and getting harder to redirect. I did read somewhere that a heel should feel like a gumball under the skin and that's definitely what I'm feeling down below both sides of my ribcage (when the one foot isn't trying to burrow into my lungs), but I'm not sure of the other bits I feel poking out every now and then.

Thursday evening we're heading down to the in-laws house on the Outer Banks for the 4th of July - we're both taking Friday off in order to extend the weekend just that much longer as it is the last time we're going to get away before the Little One arrives.

My MIL said she would bring the car seat down so we'll get to see it in person. She's a little OCD on the neatening and had already put it in the attic...but at least when I mentioned something about needing to look at it in person realized that it was a little unrealistic to expect that I'd be able to make a decision without seeing it for myself.

Anyway, my plans are to do as little as possible. Nap. Eat food I don't have to prepare. Nap some more. Read a non-baby book or two. No guarantees I'll have internet access so I'll wish all of you who celebrate the 4th (and those who don't) a safe weekend.

But I'll probably check in after tomorrow's appointment - just to let you know if I get to fight the good fight on the vinyl vs. nitrile (much more comfortable non-latex) gloves. I just know you are holding your collective breaths on this urgent topic. Hah.

Time Warp

2010-06-27T14:39:00.003-04:00

I offered to help my grandmother order something online using her computer on Friday.

What I didn't realize is that she still uses AOL dial-up. It was like going back in time!

Pity the Kitty

2010-06-22T13:40:00.003-04:00

(Or more than you might want to know about the output end of one of our cats...maybe a bit TMI if you are squeamish. Be forewarned.)

This week started out with an appointment at the Veterinarians first thing Monday morning. As you may guess or know from your own experience, it's never a good way to start the week.

Kitty the Younger is also known as the Houdini as she likes to position herself to scoot through the outside doors, especially when I am entering or exiting. So far she's been pretty easy to round up (especially with the help of our dog - perhaps she's spent a little too much time with the Aussie-Doodle next door given her herding skills?), but given that late this summer / early this fall I may not be quite so up to chasing her and that with visiting parents who despite being warned and careful about entry and exit might miss an escape*, DH and I had discussed updating her shots in the event that she does have an opportunity to explore outside for a while. After an allergic reaction to the rabies/distemper combo landed Kitty the Elder in the Emergency Vet as a young cat, we have not pursued those for him, and had followed in the same pattern for her. But that's not what happened on Monday.

On Monday, wait, let me back up a day...okay...On Sunday, we noticed that she was paying a great deal more attention than usual to cleaning her hind parts, but I (at least) chalked it up to a little digestive trouble and figured it would sort itself out. Well, Monday morning we noticed that she was making rather frequent visits to the kitty box, and as DH was cleaning the box he noticed that immediately outside the box were some small puddles of what looked like urine mixed with blood. Furthermore, before he could return the lid to the kitty box, but after the new litter had been filled, she hopped in and spent several minutes obviously straining to produce. The end result was a tiny little spot of damp on the litter. This was the last straw in the decision to bring in medical care.

Of course, when I went down to the basement to retrieve the travel carrier she pulled a Houdini and slipped down the stairs ahead of me. Fine. For once she proved easy to retrieve and I did so, tucking her to my side between my left arm and body as I went to grab the carrier. Well, it figures that as I turned from picking up the carrier, I tripped over the weight bar DH swears he'd use if there was a proper area in which to use it. (That was two years ago and several other large scale projects ago. Intent and action are not working together to convince me that he really wants to use it.) Well, as may be expected, with the cat in one arm and the carrier in the other, something had to give. Houdini extricated herself from my grasp with the assistance of her claws (ouch.) and I managed to catch myself before going splat face first (a few scratches & a couple of bruises, thanks, but no lasting damage). Now that we've established Trauma #1 for Houdini, lets move on, shall we?

Based on prior experience, I tried to leave plenty of time to stuff Houdini in the carrier before departure. Apparently after suffering through Trauma #1, 10 minutes was not enough time to overcome a kitty so very determined to not suffer the additional indignity of entering said carrier. Her grasp and employment of the starfish position showed she had learned well. (Make this Trauma #2) Now running late, against my better judgment I grabbed the empty carrier, an extra towel, and the cat and hopped in the car to make the 10-15 minute trip.

It's fair to say she does not enjoy riding in a vehicle. (Make this Trauma #3) When we purchased her, the 3 hour trip home was a constant barrage of pitiful whines, moans, and yowls. But add the activity of a curious, climbing kitty to the mix and driving became a tad difficult. My shoulders, the dashboard, my lap, the steering wheel were all areas to be explored, in rotation. The one place she didn't want to explore, the carrier I had carefully positioned to have the open door facing me. She seemed to particularly enjoy the steering wheel apparently hoping I would allow her to pull a Toonces (link provided for those not watching SNL in the late 80's/early 90's). It was either during one of those times or when she was perched on my shoulder that I hoped oncoming drivers could see and only wonder what was going on... Of course, when I realized she had urinated on the steering wheel at some point in her cycling, it wasn't quite so cute. Thank goodness for that extra towel, and that she didn't go on me.

Finally we get there (isn't it strange how time compresses and expands at different rates?) and Houdini still wants nothing to do with the carrier. Go figure. Since I had been told to come in before the first appointment I took a chance and grabbed the cat and the aforementioned towel and headed in. Only to be way-laid on my way to the receptionist by someone a few cookies short of a package who was there with a family group and bored, so wanted to chat about my cat and my belly and finally got blown off as the cat squirmed and I barged past him to the receptionist.

(Gawd. Such a novel I am writing.)

Anyway - there was a new Vet. Whom I hope sticks around since he has a much better manner than the one I was fearing would be there, but who apparently left the practice since my last visit (yay!). And three options for the issue of many non or little productive visits to the box - (1) UTI, (2) Crystals/stones, or (3) a shifty little fucker called Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease (FLUT-D) which is the diagnosis of last resort when (1) & (2) have been ruled out. Oh, and my casual mention of the events of Sunday (the hind parts) turns out to be an equally fun diagnosis of slightly compacted anal glands. In the end, they need a urine sample to run the tests, and I make the unilateral decision to deal with the urinary side before addressing that the treatment for anal glands requires anesthesia. So, Houdini stayed with the Vet to hopefully produce enough urine for testing before they resort to a catheter, which also requires anesthesia. While there she also won the double prize of the 3-year rabies and yearly distemper shots. (Traumas #4 & 5)

Finally, she produced enough to test and wouldn't you know, the results came back with (3) FLUT-D the clear winner as the bacteria were behaving themselves and no crystals or stones appeared. Apparently, 50% of felines suffer from this at some point, some repeatedly and without obvious trigger. Yippee. It should clear up within 7-10 days, but the anal gland issues still remain and may require another visit (but hopefully they will clear up without intervention). So, after work I returned to the Vet's office, gratefully accepted their offer to stuff her in the travel carrier for the trip home, and melted my credit card paying the bill for the visit, the testing, the two vaccinations, and drugs of both the twice-daily antibiotic and as-needed pain remediation varieties. (Interesting side note: liquid Veterinary ammoxicillin smells exactly the same as human ammoxicillin, but is white instead of pink.)

Home we headed, where I was grateful to have had the kitty in the carrier as I soon discovered that the small towel inside had been christened during the short trip. After cleaning the carrier, I also made sure to spray the steering wheel thoroughly with the spray we keep for animal accidents in the house as I had noticed a faint cat pee odor already when I went out to grab lunch. But that's what you get in 90+ degree weather. Thankfully, despite another hot day, the odor seems to have been neutralized.

I think I mentioned at some point that we've resorted to shutting Kitty the Elder in the laundry room at night thanks to his never-ending talking and nocturnal movements disturbing our sleep? Anyway, both kitties spent the last couple of nights in there and went back in before I left for work this and yesterday morning as I left thanks to Kitty the Younger christening a corner of a rug Monday night instead of making it to the kitty box. At least I caught her in the act, and I very much hope she didn't hit any other areas of the floor when I wasn't looking. We just don't want to give her the opportunity during the day while DH & I aren't around.

Yesterday she was pretty lethargic, but appeared to be feeling a bit better this morning as she came to visit me upstairs in the bathroom after DH let them out this morning and took some time to check out the world beyond the windows. She's obviously not 100% but we'll take progress where we can see it.

So, that's why you should 'Pity the Kitty' as she isn't feeling so hot right now. Hopefully both issues will clear up quickly and she will return to her normal self without having to suffer any further Traumas.

Of course, Kitty the Elder (all fur, no brain) doesn't understand why she doesn't want to play with him...and is resenting all the extra attention she's getting. He's the one I worry about come the end of August - Kitty the Younger and the dog should be just fine.

*Funny story about this: one of our neighbors has a similarly colored cat who roams the neighborhood freely (I don't agree, but different strokes) and the last time my mother visited to help with / learn Bunco I warned her about the Houdini tactics of our kitty, so she had been very careful as she went in and out of the house. But I had forgotten to mention the neighbor's kitty, and while half-dressed, my mother saw what she thought was our kitty outside (our cat can be a bit of a loner so pinpointing her location at any given time isn't always easy), so made a frantic effort to dress and retrieve said kitty before getting close enough to realize it was not our kitty. Of course, on my mothers re-entry to the house, our cat comes casually strolling out of which ever hidden area she had been occupying while my mother thought she had slipped outside.

31 Week Update

2010-06-22T11:30:00.000-04:00

9...

I have a confession. I am a belly rubber. Have been for a while now. But it's not meant as an attention drawing measure, I swear. It just feels really good, especially now when the little one is doing her best to stretch her boundaries. So if you see a woman in the grocery store absentmindedly rubbing her belly while contemplating a shelf, give her the benefit of the doubt, okay (especially if she's not wearing one of those baby slogan t-shirts)? It may not be what you first thought.

Last weeks OB appointment went well, with no need to plead for alternate glove measures as there was no internal exam. Phew. Heartbeat was checked - she had one. Fundal measurement was taken - 30cm - so measuring right on schedule there. Blood Pressure was fine (103/60?). Up another pound, so that's 1/2 pound a week gain. I can live with that. Birth size projected as somewhere between 6.5 and 7.5 pounds. There may have been a sharp intake of breath and comically wide popped eyes at the latter number. According to my girly bits, small is good! Most depressing comment - your other foot will probably catch up with the one that's swollen more thanks to the heat and humidity of summer. Jeez. Thanks for the encouragement there. Next appointment is in two weeks (from that appointment) with one of the docs I hope is on call for delivery. We'll see if I have to fight the glove fight at that appointment. Oh, the drama!

Strangely enough, I feel like I look bigger naked than clothed. For some reason I thought it would be the other way around. At least that has a simple resolution - stop looking at myself naked in the mirror.

Thursday night the Little One was boogieing down. Hiccups, movement, you name it, the outside of my belly was moving all over the place. It's so much fun to watch. Then over the weekend, DH and I were in the midst of enjoying a little post {ahem} what got us into this condition {ahem} time, and he got kicked (again, but at least this time not in the ear).

I have to admit that in my experience, the mythical 2nd trimester libido boost was just that, mythical. I also have to admit that even when I'm not especially feeling it to begin with, once we get started and the logistics figured out, it feels pretty good, even if the event is limited to weekend afternoons. During the week is pretty much out thanks to DH's crazy work schedule and my need for sleep only allowing us 2-3 (max) hours between his arrival home and bedtime. Those few hours need to include both dinner and time for him to decompress from the stresses of work, and since we don't have a DVR or Tivo, there are certain shows that we have to catch in time-slots if we don't want to wait for reruns. Weekend afternoons are generally much more relaxed and unscheduled.

No big updates to the nursery this week other than my pulling the remaining items out of the closet to go to the basement and hanging up the outfits for which I have hangers. I'm guessing except for perhaps hanging the valances (which are in the room, just not in place) not much else is going to happen between now and mid-July when the showers start. Even in it's half-completed state, it makes me very happy to go in every so often and take a few minutes to sit in the glider and soak it all in. I promise there will be pictures at some point in the future when it is more presentable.

One thing I've started to contemplate: meals for the post-birth period. Things like what can be prepared in advance vs. what would be good to have on hand for easy prep that will appeal to both me and DH (who has an aversion to most casseroles since the meat and noodles or other starch and veggies and sauce are all mixed together). Any suggestions?

Oh, I need your opinion on something else as well...I have been offered a used infant car seat in apparently the exact model/colors I have selected. According to my MIL who is closer to the person offering than I am, it's in excellent condition, no stains, no accidents, etc., etc. Am I being a prima-donna-first-time-momma for not wanting to go used (which I slightly feel like, but it's mah pwecious babeeee) even with a known history, or am I being smart? Halp!

30 Week Update

2010-06-14T14:46:00.004-04:00

10...

Rampant hormones, I has them. (And abuse of the caps lock key shall now commence to express my frustrations.)

I'm MOSTLY over it now, but I was informed the end of last week that the Sunday date that I had thought was set in stone for one of the showers wasn't actually going to be the date. Apparently the group that is hosting the shower doesn't get together to check calendars until after proposing a date and having it agreed to by the person/couple being celebrated. (DH and I are in total agreement - that's bass-ackward even if it's the way "they've always done it" per MIL) AND, so OF COURSE, the date which I had been given a month ago - didn't work for everyone - but the person "heading up" the planning hadn't checked with everyone else until RECENTLY. AND the date she was proposing (again without checking with everyone else first), was the following weekend which pushed it to 3 weeks out from the Estimated Due Date (EDD), you know, during the time the doctor said not to travel...grrr. Call me a reactionary first time mother, but that DOES NOT work for me. I don't care if combined the party givers have popped out 10+/- kids, they cannot make the value judgment that it's FINE on my behalf.

So, even though it means my MIL may not be able to make it thanks to another commitment SHE made (probably thinking that the date was set ... and the domino's start to fall) I've gotten word back that the weekend before works for everyone except the one person the planner has yet to hear back from. Oh.My.God. Pregnant women don't need this kind of stress. So, now instead of powering though and spending ONE weekend going to showers with a night-cap of baby class on Sunday night, it means that one day of TWO weekends in a row will be spent traveling to the same place, and the prior/following day will be less productive than two together.

Don't get me started on how I really hate that this shower is going to be held on a Sunday, so not only do I have to expend the energy to travel over an hour to & from and be social during (am introvert, social is an energy suck), but then also have enough in reserve to attend the baby class that evening. You'd think since the date changed anyway it could have moved to a Saturday, right? Apparently not.

All of the above withstanding, I am very grateful they want to do this for me, I just don't believe that the planning of a baby shower should in any way shape or form cause the expectant mother to stress out. Dates should be proposed, one should be agreed to, and that's the extent of the involvement the mother should have (with the exception of providing names and addresses for invitees whom the planner does not know personally) until she shows up. Does that make me a baby-momma-zilla?

In shoe shopping news, I ended up ordering another pair of the same exact flip-flop I've been wearing, just in a different color. Not exciting, but also much less humorous than the one shoe I tried on which hit at the exact widest spot of my swelling, giving my foot an exciting Minnie Mouse / Daisy Duck short and wide effect.

This weekend the in-laws, including the previously MIA brother-in-law, came over Saturday afternoon. My MIL and I fought heavy traffic on the interstate and went to the closest Babies-R-Us to do the in-store registry and take advantage of the coupon I had received for a $15 gift card. We found out a lot of things have changed since her boys were little - surprise! (Question: What exactly is a pack & play used for other than early changing, and naps/overnights? Is it the modern-day playpen, or has something else emerged to replace the playpens of the 70's/80's?)

We also found out that from now on, I need to be the one driving. Apparently my picture should be next to "back seat driver" in the dictionary. I'm going to blame it on the hormones. But it could be my MIL's driving. Possibly.

While we were doing that, the boys were busy painting the two walls of the nursery we wanted painted. DH did the cutting in, and my FIL and BIL rolled the walls. It could probably have used a second coat thanks to the number of areas which obviously needed to be touched up on Sunday morning when I went in to strip the tape I had put up in preparation (allowances have to be made for their painting using only late-afternoon natural light since the fan/light switch still needs to be corrected), but it looks fine without one thanks to DH hitting those areas while I supervised. (More with the "has to be done my way"... I sense a pattern here.)

So, crib is up, mattress is in, glider and ottoman are in place, the bedding set is waiting for a mattress pad and washing before going in the crib, I've gathered some books for reading, the walls are painted, there are a handful of crawlers and sleepers in different sizes, and one pack of newborn diapers in the closet...we're getting there. Dressers and chests still have to be changed out and possibly the twin bed put together with bedding(not a priority until we know it will absolutely fit), and I need to get bookcase sizing information to my dad since he graciously agreed to make one similar to the one he made when I was little. Oh, and once the low dresser is in, I need to get with a glass company to have a top made so it will be protected against spills and such once the changing pad is in use.

Little One is definitely filling out if the continuing growth of my belly is any indication. She also still enjoys hanging out with her back on my right side, which means sometimes I look down to a very lopsided belly. Also, have I mentioned the raptor like claws scratching me from the inside? I swear the kid's going to come out with fingernails longer than mine!

Since I am now on the 2-week plan, my next OB appointment is on Wednesday. We completed the hospital pre-registration/birth certificate paperwork on Sunday afternoon, so I'll take that in with me. I'm not sure what else will go on - but I suspect the usual: wee, weight, measurement, and possibly another internal check (Oh. Joy. Perhaps I shall request better fitting gloves?).

Apart from the walls getting painted, nothing else really exciting has transpired, so I guess that's a good thing. I'm thinking it may be time to start thinking about the hospital bag...but since the local hospital is 5 minutes away from Wal-Mart, I'm not too worried about forgetting anything.

And finally, I've decided a good weekday is one where all I do is go to work and go straight home. Any day when I need to do things like go to the grocery store or run other errands between work and home is a bad day, especially when it comes to the ankle of doom. What makes a good day or bad day for you?

29 Week Update - Another Item or Two

2010-06-09T09:49:00.005-04:00

I came home last night to a surprise: the crib mattress I had ordered on Saturday, and regarding which I had received an email Monday telling me had shipped but not to expect until the 23rd, had arrived and was waiting patiently at my front door.

Amazon? FedEx? I don't know who to thank, but it was a nice surprise.

I'm going to gather my energy this afternoon and go on a hunt for another pair of shoes. Wish me luck!