Happy Holidays from Us!

Just had to share this cuteness!
Happy Holidays everyone!

Mod Ornaments Holiday Card

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Yay me!

Ever step into the elevator on the top floor of a building and see your keys fall from your hand in slow motion, and then be forced to stand there listening for them to hit the ground, But you have to stand there listening for what feels like forever because you are having to wait for them to fall several stories down because you are the lucky winner of the drop your keys right in the crack of the elevator threshold game?

I have. Tonight. Lucky me!

the next day Update - The Elevator repair company came out this morning and retrieved my keys. I really don't want to know how much I just cost the company for a 5 minute service call.
Thankfully people were still in the building so I caught a ride home last night, and I live close enough to work so I enjoyed a lovely stroll into the office this morning.

A SAHD's first venture into preparing dinner

So last night my husband wanted to cook us a yummy dinner as part of his new SAHD responsibilities. He called me at work to find out what time I'd like dinner to be ready ideally. He's still new to the world of multitasking which cooking a multi-dish dinner takes... ok so he's still new to cooking in a timely manner in general but that's not the point I'm trying to make. Takes practice you know. Throw in learning constant new tricks to take care of a quickly growing baby and you've got a good time.

The dinner turned out awesome, even if we did have to reheat it in the microwave since SOMEONE wouldn't stay asleep long enough for us to sit down to eat and we ate around 10:30pm, but again, not the point I wanted to make.

He put his sights on making brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes and lamb chops. The Brussels sprouts were roasty and not at all bitter. They were pan roasted with BACON FAT, bits of crispy bacon and caramelized onions. This was more of a holiday kind of dish and yes I think I'll ask him to make them for Thanksgiving this week. He seared off the lamb chops in the cast iron pan, and they came out a little (very) rare. Practice... he needs more practice. But then comes the mashed potatoes....
We were out of butter, or at least enough to REALLY make mashed potatoes so he substituted cream cheese. I love him.
THAT's THE POINT I'M TRYING TO MAKE.
That is all.

Back to Work

While being back at work doesn't mean I automatically will have time for blogging you know since I'm WORKING, but I would like to start jotting down little bits and pieces more often and I hope being in front of a computer most of the day will give me the opportunity better than when I was on leave and very rarely sat down at all unless there was a baby attached to me boob (Arrrrrg - sometimes the pirate just has to come out).

I've been back at work for a week and a half now and that first week wasn't so bad. It was sort of like a little break from the all day long baby care of the last 6 months. I enjoyed having somewhere to go, a reason to shower and get dressed and to get out of the house. Eric is home with LilMiss so he's getting to learn some new daddy tricks and getting more comfortable with his role as the primary care giver, but I think he misses the freedom he had while I was home.

I have been going home to feed her at noon when my schedule permits, and there were a few days Eric brought her to me after her afternoon nap. Those were nice little breaks but I don't foresee them continuing long term. I also took a day off last week as she had her 6 month appointment (HOW IS SHE ALREADY 6 MONTHS OLD?) so really it felt like I had a short week.

Today though. Today was hard to leave her. I had the total Sunday blues last night where I just wanted to hold and cuddle her as I didn't feel I got enough during the weekend. Plus, I'm really really tired. Between getting shots last week and the time change this weekend, and she's doing this new thing at night where she goes to sleep easy but wakes up frequently for the first four hours wanting to be held and cuddled and really, anything but be put back into her bed. She has been sleeping in our bed more in the last week than ever before. Not really the trend I want to start especially since I am planning on transitioning her to her own room and crib really really soon.

So I guess this is my new life. The life of a working mom, a bread winner, an always tired, never enough time woman who's just going to have to let go of the word "perfect".

tee hee - I just called myself both a mom and a woman. I all growed.

Crying Over Burnt Milk

I just burnt 3 cups of milk because I just HAD to go look at the Internet while I was doing my nightly scalding which I know only takes minutes and I should never even walk away from the stove.

I know I should let it go, but I just can't.

Eric had to throw it out for me as I couldn't bare the thought.

Do you see what my life has become? Milk milk milk, poop, milk.

Oh, and since I must live up to the mommy blogger status that I am trying to maintain, we have had our first turds. I know, you're so glad you know that.

Coming soon... Sleep Training. Why are we doing this again?

Sorry Earth

Back when we were trying to get pregnant I became a little obsessed with researching cloth diapering. I picked out the diapers I wanted to use, it became a factor when we were searching for a house/apt rental, and I convinced my husband that we should give it a try. He's the earth loving type and was willing to do whatever I thought was best, I had done the research!

Then my mom's singing group gifted us a WHOLE YEAR of cloth diapering service. Now, I was a little taken back because it caused me to rethink things because it meant doing cloth diapering a different way than I had planned. I'm not a really quick to accept a change in my expectations, so it took me a while to accept such an awesome gift. You see, I wanted to use pocket diapers ($$$ and fancy as all heck) but the diaper service pretty much forces you to use flat pre-folds and diaper covers. I LOVE the cute diaper covers, so I convinced myself to give it a try since hello! Awesome gift! Plus, one of my good girlfriends used the same service and she raved about it and loaned us her newborn diaper covers while we gave it a try.

Then we had the baby. A teeny tiny baby (well teeny to me) . She came home wearing Pamper Swaddlers Preemie size. So, so tiny. I wish I had thought to keep one. We decided to wait on the cloth because they were HUGE on her and I'd have to buy all new covers so we kept using the glorious Pampers Swaddlers. GLORIOUS I TELL YOU!

When the wee one was big enough, we started using the cloth. She had some fairly caustic poops for her sensitive bum and would end up with horror of all horrors in rashes every day we used cloth. She was getting changed 1-2 times an hour and yet still the rashes were causing my baby to cry each time we walked to the changing pad. So we went back to using disposables whenever there was a rash because they soaked up the Breastmilk poo so well it kept her pretty darn dry. I know this is the opposite of what "they" say, but that's how it worked for us.

It's been a couple of months of cloth when at home and disposables when out for more than an hour and overnight. It's been working well. We've gotten very good at folding the diaper so her monstrous poops stay contained. Most poop leaks have actually been when using disposables. (yes, i'm talking poop on my blog... I'm a mommy now, it comes with the territory, deal). However it's time to move up in diaper sizes, buy new covers and she's getting more and more squirmy, and the big kicker... Eric is going to stay home with her during the day and he favors the convenience of the disposables (and I don't think he liked that I asked him to dunk and swish poopy diapers in the toilet to cut back on the.... smell).

The thing is, we learned the greatness that is the disposable diaper. Yes, landfill bad. Yes, resources to make bad. Yes, awesome gel is questionable to babies health. But also, cloth diapers aren't really all bright and shiny for the environment either and the parent happiness is a factor. In my opinion cloth is still better, but the convenience of the amazing absorption and super dryness of the glorious Swaddlers has won over her daddy and I'm choosing to let this one go.

I'll have to tell my mom today that she'll stop getting the diaper bill soon. I hope she doesn't feel it's turning down the awesome gift, because it's been great. I just think, for us, right now, we're gonna try something different.

(yes, I'm writing this to convince myself of this decision)

Mmmm Milk

The most unnatural thing I did today was to grab my pump while my baby was crying that she was hungry and I headed into our home office.

My frozen milk stash has grown. Grown to over 400 ounces (I stopped keeping track) It was hard earned and took many hours of lost sleep to obtain. When I was so obsessed with pumping, I was thinking I was building and protecting my milk production because my LilMiss was tiny (TMI - or I'm err uhh large?) and we both had a hard time with breastfeeding and as a bonus I was growing this stash of awesome milk for my baby to use when we started solids, or when I went back to work or in case of emergency or illness, so I thought it was a necessary evil but it was for the good of the baby and you'd do just about do anything for them. But a few things have happened since we started down this road:

#1 - I have a little bit of oversupply now so I HAVE to pump at least once a day usually 2-3x though since I haven't gone back to work yet and LilMiss isn't needing the extra I produce at the moment which is why the freezer stash grows an average of 6 ounces a day.

#2 - I have discovered I have an issue with excess lipase in my milk. Lipase is an enzyme which breaks down the milk fat to ease digestion for the baby. However at times I have produced too much of this enzyme so it causes my stored milk (even while frozen) to turn a little, and sometimes a lot, funky. Ok fine, it's worse than funky, it tastes and smells of fish. Sweet fish, but still fish. Yea, gross I know. The degree of smell/taste change seems to be totally variable as I've thawed out some from different times that smelled a little different than fresh and some that were outright gross to my nose. They say this milk is still perfectly fine to give to the baby if they accept the taste/smell change. Luckily LilMiss seems to still take it just fine in a bottle but I have opted not to use it when making her cereal and thinning out her purees as I don't want her to think all her food has this same fishy taste.

Since I've discovered this (MONTHS LATER), every night I scald the milk which I'm going to store and not use within a day. The scalding process stops the enzyme but also kills off some of the beneficial elements of the milk. Not all, but some. Since I haven't returned to work yet (3 more weeks), I am freezing almost everything I pump. I have been freezing in 4 and 2 ounce bags, so if there is any over that then I save it for the next days cereal.

Frankly I feel lucky I only have to do the whole scalding process once a day. Some women's milk gets the funk on within minutes or hours of pumping. I seem to have a little over 24 hours though I haven't time tested it lately.

#3 - The earliest milk in the stash has hit the 3-4 month freezer expiration, so even though I haven't returned to work (WHOA IS ME! I GO BACK IN 3 WEEKS) we don't really need to give her a bottle at all but I don't want to throw out this milk. So this brings us to me pumping even though we're together.

Eric is now giving her a bottle in the afternoon from the freezer stash and I pump to maintain my supply and replace the milk in the stash on the other end of the date range. Realistically, this would be the time he would be giving her a bottle when I'm back at work so it seems to make sense. Sure he could give her this freezer stash bottle at night, but I actually cherish that time I have with her and when I'm at work, her nighttime feeding(s) will be a special time I still get with her (so I say now while I can still nap and sleep in late. I might feel differently when I'm expected to be able to think at 3 in the afternoon instead of nap).

#4 - Our fridge freezer filled up with milk a few months ago, um yea.. that's a lot of milk, so we went out and bought a manual defrosting chest freezer. Milk primarily stored in this type of freezer can be held for 6-12 months! I don't know how long I'll be able to keep up this whole pumping thing, and I've heard way too many stories of moms not being able to keep up with the demand once they are back at work or just have voraciously hungry babies or both. So maybe this freezer stash will help keep us in booby milk for her as long as we can, preferable to her first birthday. It's perfectly fine if it doesn't but might as well give it a shot.



I knew you were all dying to know what's going on with Cherry and her boobies, so that's the current story. I'm not a die hard breastfeeding maniac at all, to each her own. I feel lucky it worked out for us and honestly I have enjoyed this time with her even though, yes, it does still hurt just not as bad as those excruciating first 2 months where the sleep deprived state put me in a terrible place to deal with such pain and frustration. Plus, it's pretty darn convenient when we are out of the house a little longer than we had planned and she gets hungry.
Why look.. I have a little snack for you right her darling. nom nom nom.

The Best Vacation Ever

Uh Hi there! Yea, yea I am still alive. And all is well around these parts.

This week I started back at work. Well sort of. After being on Maternity leave since April 12th, it was actually kinda nice to be back in the office, sitting at a desk, and catching up with co-workers. I wasn't really doing much work work, more busy work as most people didn't know I was there and I was mostly there to get adminy things accomplished, like updating passwords, getting access back to systems, setting up my laptop which died while I was on leave and submitting for a 5 week vacation.

Yea, that's right, 5 weeks. I have taken the disability and bonding leaves supported by the lovely state of California which paid out some monies for part of that time and protected my job, but now I'm back but have 6 weeks of time off accrued so I'm going to take some of that to tack onto the end of my leave to extend this precious time with my growing up way too fast baby girl.

I had been accruing vacation time and saving it for just this reason for years. Each time I'd hit the ceiling of how much they let us accrue, I'd be reminded that I didn't have a baby yet. But finally, I got to sit down and sign into the HR system thingy and submit my request for a whole lot of time off. It felt weird. It felt wrong. I thought, I could come back earlier and save more of this time. I'm stingy with my vacation time because it always costs money to go on vacation, money I didn't really have, and I always wanted to be able to have this chunk of time to take when I had a baby. And here I am. with a baby. so day by day I asked for 8 hours off. It was pretty much awesome.

We might go away for some of it. We might not. We might take day trips. We might just stay home and stare in awe at our little miracle and repeatedly say, "did you see what she just did?" as she learns and explores the world around her.

I'm very grateful I have had this time with her. I don't know if going back to the corporate world later will be easier or harder than if I went back after the 8 week disability leave, but I don't really want to think about that right now because today, right now, will never come again and I'm loving just being in love with my baby.

When the Baby naps...

The baby is starting to wake up from a 2.5 hour nap. You'd think this means I got some crap done around the house, right?

Well I try to lay down with her for the afternoon nap because it seems to make her sleep longer. As in her usual 20-30 minute nap turns magically into 2+ hours. And these long nap days usually coincide with easy put to bed nights. Plus, I'm going back to work soon so these opportunities are limited so I gotta get'em while the gettin's good.

So great! You got in a nap too. Don't you feel better? Stop rubbing it in! - you might say.

But alas, I think I looked at my phone for the whole time. Twitter, Facebook, reading and re-reading blog posts and articles, BPA Free teething toy research, talking to lovey while he looks at BPA Free chewy things at the store.

However, even though I didn't sleep, I still feel a little refreshed. Wonder if my lovey made dinner? Maybe he got the tea stains out of the kitchen sink from his mother's recent visit. (I'll answer that now before I even leave the bedroom -- no and no)

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DATE NIGHT!

My Mother-in-Law is visiting for a week. She hasn't been here since the wee little baby was a month old. She stayed with us for 3 weeks back then and has been itching to come back out since before she left.

Tonight, kind of spur of the moment, we decided to go out on a date night while MIL watched the baby. LilMiss has started taking a long nap later in the evening (which I know everyone advices against but its what her little clock is doing, so we're going with it) so about half way through we got ready and headed out.

We went to one of those Brazilian steakhouses where they come around to the tables with meat on swords and they cut off pieces for you as you want it. There was a little salad bar/veggie buffet thing, you know to make it a round meal, but that's not why people go to these places. We were there for the meat, and for the most part the meat was GOOD!

Sure, we talked about parenty type stuff the whole time, a little family gossip, a little "wonder if I've pissed off my friends with unsolicited advice" talk, a little "are we on the same page?" talk, and a little "I really appreciate you" talk. It was great. The bulk of the talk was around co-sleeping and how to make that work and for how long. Questions like... how might a couple have more kids in that situation, if you know what I mean!

We got home to a fairly happy baby girl who took a bottle well, and had slept for another hour after we left (although woke up screaming which isn't normal for her), and was on the floor with Grammy playing on her tummy (did I mention she's rolling now, ALL THE TIME, like won't stay on her back for anything). Of course now she is fighting with all her might against daddy because she's sleepy but you know, she's a fighter! And me, I just pumped a ton because baby got a bottle and mama was uncomfortable.

Oh, I hear the daddy walking this way with a bounce in his step and going "shhhhh". She's asleep but refusing to be put down. See, she knows we left her and she's not letting us do that again! :-)
I guess I'm off to get ready for bed. I have a feeling someone will be sleeping with me all night and I'm totally ok with that.

Middle of the Night Bitterness

Been up for what feels like hours and I'm really tired and I have things in my head that want out, but my wrists are freakin' killing me. It's awesome.

Tonight I woke up with a bitterness I can feel in my back, in my gut, I think maybe even in my feet. I don't know where or who or why but it's there. I am deciding I'm just tired. Really really tired. And I should likely fight the urge to wake up my husband right now and say the words in my head because I think it would go over poorly. I am in such a general irritated state that I might feel the need to tell him the shower needs to be scrubbed right now at 3am or throw a fit about how he moves his feet in his sleep and its making a racket. Yea, maybe not the best move.

I have this feeling I need to take a few days off. I don't know what I'm taking them off from since I'm still on leave from the kind of work that pays US dollars, and I cannot take time off from my new mommy job, or my wifey job, or my moo job (breastfeeding/pumping), or my worry about money job or my clean the house job or my get ready for MIL's visit next week job... oh wait. YES I CAN! I can take some time off of some of those jobs. Or maybe I just need a day or an afternoon, or maybe an hour.

So much irritation needing out. Can't hold it in. Must let a little out...

I hate that my leave is more gone than left to live.
I want to travel and to spend time out of this rented house I do not feel at home in which costs more than I wish we were paying, and is a mess and full of crap, our crap which we moved here and it spilled all over the place.
I want to see family.
I want to see friends.
I want to also not see family and friends and to be with my husband and my daughter somewhere other than here, experiencing something new.
I want to not be worrying about the money it will cost to do such things.
I want daycare to be figured out.
I want to pick out a flippin' stroller so I can stop researching them and start taking walks while I still have the days free to do so.
I want to feel like I don't have to hold my tummy in anymore and it returns to a better than its pre-pregnancy state without me actually having to do anything.
I want to stop pumping all the time and yet have a freezer stash so big we need more freezers to hold it and I wouldn't cry if one of the freezers gave out.
I want to not worry about the one freezer giving out.
I want the go with the flow person I was a few months ago to come back because the worrier I was before I got pregnant has totally moved back in and I think I don't need that right now.
I want the weather to not be so hot we can't sleep and not so cold the heater is on daily, but this summer here in this place isn't working out like that.
I want my daughter to sleep.
I want to sleep without pain.
I just want to sleep.

My moo time is done now (not much in the bottle though likely due to the lack of sleep and irritation) so I'm going to go sleep now... maybe... if my daughter is sleeping without flailing about and my husband isn't making so much noise with his feet rubbing on the sheets or his snoring or his knee cracking....

Post! I want to Post already!

I get up just about every morning, sometimes when it's still dark out, and I slip away from LilMiss to go.... well honestly, pump so I can breath again and because I really want an excuse to buy a new freezer. Sometimes I sit in the dark with the kitties who miss their mama but mostly I come sit here, in front of the glowing Internets and read or write or edit/weed through the hundreds of photos I've taken the day before.

So you note up there that I said 'write'. Yes, I've been writing. Writing posts for this here blog. But wait, you haven't seen much posting going down. That's because no sane, organized writing flows from these fingers, and most never get finished before someone wakes up. Not that my posts were masterpieces before, but I read them and they are just blabbering nonsensical whining so they sit in my list of unpublished posts for another day.

I am finally one of the many. I am a mommy. I used to be a blogger. And while the world of blogging isn't as forefront to my day as it once was, I'd like to finally say I'm a freakin' Mommy Blogger! I don't' know why, I've just been wanting this for so many years and damn it, it's my time to talk about poop!

So here goes. I'm going to post this here morning's masterpiece and then go back to bed because my baby sleeps until 11am. It's how we roll.

Sleep, where for art thou?

I'd like to start this post by noting that I'm writing it from my phone because LilMiss decided to fall back to sleep after a very cute and giggly "good morning" and she's in my bed, and Eric went to run an errand so I can't leave the room now because what if she decides she is going to roll over right now? Sigh

To start, when I was pregnant, Eric decided we should co-sleep, what? Most the world's cultures do it! This wasn't my plan as it wasn't what I was familiar with, plus I knew I'd be the one going back to work so I was all about the crib...In her own room... ASAP.

Then we agreed to using a co-sleeper bassinet or a pack'n'play in our room for an unagreed to length of time. I just asked that we revisit the topic occasionally as time passes.
This is all while she's still cooking.

We get home from the hospital after a very brief stay there considering I had a C-Section and she's sleeping in the co-sleeper just fine. She's tiny(5lbs), and sleepy so we are waking her to feed her around the clock.

Fast forward to a few weeks later and suddenly she won't sleep unless she's being held. I blamed the MIL visiting and holding her ALL DAY, but then decided it's just a phase. I started laying down and nursing her to sleep and we'd move her once she was deeply asleep, but this would only work for the first 4 hours. After that she seemed to want to nurse every hour so I started keeping her with me in bed. And now...against what I had planned...we are co-sleeping in our bed all the time.
And naps? In arms. Can't be put down.
I kind of love it though but it's getting to be exhausting.

We're at 3 months today, and a month ago her Dr said we might want to consider some sleep training by 4 months and I didn't even tell him about how she won't sleep out of arms at all, just that we don't put her down until she's totally asleep. He's a fan of putting them down drousy.

We were just doing what worked so we could all get some sleep. She just sleeps so soundly and hard when she's with me versus moving and kicking and waking herself up when she's alone. Plus, now I find I miss her and our time if she does successfully sleep in the bassinet.

So what to do?

We haven't been consistant with bedtime routines because she is generally so sleepy she fights us and going to sleep unless I lay down so no point in saying we are going to do a bath and story if she's just tired and crying for the boob. She doesn't seem to go to sleep soundly until about 10pm and doesn't really wake up until 10am, but he'll she takes her longest nap late in the afternoon so is she really ready for bed then?
So I guess we need to start everything earlier?
That means when I go back to work, by the time I get home she will be already starting her bedtime routine? THAT F-ing blows!!

I've been reading some methods and have asked Eric to read some too because he needs to be all in on this and not me just telling him how it's going down because that never works out well for anyone.

Why can't she just tell me what to do?
What did you all do with your kids?

Ahh. Some giggle smiley baby is staring up at me. I must go chew on her now.


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Post about Posts

I have so many posts floating around in my head but so little time to type them out so here are a few topics I wish to touch on in upcoming posts (you'll note a new theme to my posts by the way...):

Breastfeeding and my obsession with milk production - Moo
Cloth Diapering - why am I doing this again?
Baby Journals - Did you do one?
Milk Production - pumping all the time, pumping all the time (sung to My Girl likes to Party all the time)
Precious time - Me or the Baby
Boobies - No baby, look at Mommy's eyes!
Milk Storage
Co-Sleeping
Which came first the cookies or the milk? Cookies for Milk Production
What do you really call them? - Nicknames
Boobies
Milk Stash
Why won't you sleep baby?
Making baby food
Missing Home
Going back to work
Daddy Daycare
#2?
Carpal Tunnel doesn't go away
Left handed Bejeweled, Right boobed feeding
Boobies - how often can we say 'Boobies' in this house in a day?
Thinking of buying a freezer to put in the garage for milk
BOOBIES!

Did I mention I'm obsessed with Milk Production?
I used to be obsessed with my eye brows.

Alone Time

Hi!
It's almost 1am and I'm awake and alone and I think I like it for the moment.

LilMiss is sleeping..sorta.. I think... I keep hearing little noises on the receiver who's transceiver is pointed at the co-sleeper thingy next to my bed while I'm on the other side of the house AT A COMPUTER (which has only happened a handful of times in the last 2.75 months, 90% of those times during this week). The monitor system doesn't work well in this house which must have lead in the walls or something because our wireless network also have VERY limited range, so the receiver is only about 30 feet from its mate and it still has interference, but I turn up the volume so I can still hear whats going on in there since I closed the door. Thankfully the house is small.

Eric is sleeping in the baby's room which is kinda funny if you think about it as she's in our room. There is a twin bed in there and he has to work in the field tomorrow so I told him to just sleep the whole night in there, but that he should expect to sleep less this weekend. :-) Usually if he has to work in the field, he sleeps the first half of the night (2-4 hours) in our room and then helps with her first feeding (changing her diaper while I pee, gets me water or anything I need, then hopefully puts her back to bed), and then if she doesn't appear to be going back to sleep right away then he'll move over to her room to get a few more solid hours. He's the pro at putting her back in the co-sleeper as she just won't do it for me 75% of the time, so I may regret my generosity.

Then why am I here you ask?
Yes I am tired, and yes this keyboard is causing twinges in my elbows and wrists, but I miss you guys! So I went through my reader and admiringly skimmed through your blogs and I might sorta be caught up a little. I even commented here and there but not many so I apologize if you didn't feel the love. I've rediscovered the feed reader on my iPhone, so I may remember I can read blogs while feeding her and stuff, but commenting may be more difficult. And here I was limiting myself to staring and refreshing Facebook and Twitter over and over again in an effort to remain connected to the outside world. Silly me.

I shall go fold a load of laundry now and then turn in. Wish me luck in not waking her up! Maybe tonight will be another 7 hourer. too bad I've already blown almost 4 hours. (inside voice - HOLY CRAP! I'M DUMB! Screw the laundry)

STOP IT!

Today the straps on the car seat were moved up a notch. Sigh.


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Swapping

I have two piles of baby clothes on a shelf in Lil'Miss' closet getting ready to be packed up for storage.

One is full of gifted or hand me downs which I have come to the conclusion that she will never wear as they are not at all her shape. She is a long slim baby, 37% for height and 1% for weight, and apparently a lot of clothes are made for short round babies. I finally pulled these clothes out of her dresser as I got tired of digging around them. She pretty much wears Carter's clothing everday as they seem to fit her perfectly, although her jammies are getting too short in the arms and legs but still loose in the middle.

Then, this week I have begun a pile of clothes that are already too small for my Lil'Miss. I had pulled out the preemie clothes that were way tiny a while ago, but now even the larger of the wee clothes don't fit lengthwise. Then yesterday I started swapping out some newborn clothes for 0-3 month clothes. Only one brand so far (Gerber). I do hope she'll get to wear all of the cute 0-3mo summer outfits but it's looking unlikely.

Part of me hurts doing this size swapping thing as it is happening so fast but the part of me that enjoys dressing her up is excited as the clothing possibilities open.

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Snuggly Mama

My Lil'Miss has taken to sleeping on Mama. Daytime naps, nighttime sleeping it doesn't matter as long as she's on the mama. While I love the cuddles and kissing her sweet head, I kinda wish I could put her down successfully at least occassionally. Like now for instance. I was raring to go scrub the office floor of cat litter and pee since the cats have found a new way to show thier jealousy by peeing on her activity mat I keep in there. But alas, I must sit on the couch all warm and snuggly.

While being a snuggly Mama is rewarding, it's also sweaty, tiring work. Hot baby=sweaty. And tiring because, well warning to anyone who hasn't cared for a newborn, they don't get the memo that "sleeping like a baby" means calm, still, quiet, deep sleep. At least not this baby, so I don't really get
much sleep myself. And crazily I'm not napping right now while everyone else is in this house is on this bright Sunday afternoon.
I'm just not sleepy but I'm sure i will be right as everyone is waking up. It's how it usually goes.

I know this is just a phase and I'll want to be able to return to this time down the road when her head looses that sweet baby smell or when she won't let me kiss her all over anymore so I'm not meaning to complain. Just sometimes a little time sans baby might be nice.

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Random thoughts which come up while trapped by a baby nap

How does one untangle from a sleeping baby without waking them up?

Why must farting wake up the baby? Her's not mine.

Why will she only sleep well when on or cuddled into me? Not totally complaining at this point in time because she's cute and cuddly but I foresee this might be a problem in the future... Like in 5 minutes when I just can't hold it anymore.

Man I'm glad I could reach my phone with my toes! Too bad my glass of water is out of reach...or maybe that's a good thing.

So much for running errands today. Dinner of frozen or canned food products might be ok. At least there are organic Strawberries from the farmers market trip yesterday. Or maybe I can whip up a cheese and salami sandwich. See, totally don't HAVE to go to the store.

Crap, there keeps being things I need to add to my Costco and Grocery lists but I never remember when I have a moment to jot them down.

Last weeks shots totally threw off our night=deep sleep routine. She was just too fussy. And then the 2 nights of fireworks killed 2 more nights. And today's long nap isn't going to help. At least I got in a few hours of a nap too which will dramatically help me cope with the current sleeping issues.

No kitty. Don't step on the baby. How do I explain to you why it's ok to step on me but not her?

I think she has eczema on her ear. The skin flakes off.

Ok. Five minutes up. Sorry baby. Mama's don't wear diapers.

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My new morning

I got up this morning to find Scout Ants in the kitchen. Of course I shall choose to blame the fact that no one did the dishes yesterday, but I'm sure that's just a coincidence. So I spent my precious baby free morning hour cleaning and scrubbing the kitchen (Eric usually cuddles/naps with the baby on mornings he doesn't work until she decides eating again would be more fun)
After the ants appeared gone I then scrubbed the floor, then the garbage can and then sure why not the stove/oven too.
Of course my wrists are killing me all the while but my need for clean was too great.

Now I have again nursed the baby and am pumping my foot on the baby bouncy seat to get this little one to sleep long enough for me to eat some breakfast hopefully before lunch time. I made oatmeal on my clean stove about 2 hours ago. Mmmm

Wish me luck on the eating. It's my toughest daily challenge (oh and Eric has totally already showered and is back taking ANOTHER nap and it's not even 11am yet as I sit hear in my bathrobe ...sheesh)


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Work distraction

Today I went to the East Bay for a doctor appointment and decided to drop in on my friend Jules for a brief visit and maybe lunch. Instead I bugged her all day long.... Babies make for a good distraction from work.







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Growth Spurt

We clearly just went through a growth spurt and I need not worry about my milk supply at the moment (which I obsess about). I weighed her early last week and she was 6lbs 12oz and today she is 8lbs 12oz.

We may actually get out of newborn clothes and into 0-3month clothes before she's 3 months old!


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Micro posting

Real quick on the updates....
Had a baby.
Its a girl.
She's tiny and perfect but growing and changing so fast.
Breastfeeding has taken over my life so thankfully I'm taking the max leave time we can afford.

I have found I miss the blogging world but I have zero time for reading or writing, and my todo list of things I actually HAVE to get done only grows (bills, pleasing the grandparents with photos, eating, etc) so my brother suggested I write micro posts from my phone when I can. So let's try it.

I dunno about it because I blog for the community and if I don't have time to put into it then maybe I just shouldn't try. But then again, maybe these micro posts will keep me a little connected until I figure out how to migrate my former life into my mommy life.

Who bets I'll give up within a week?


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What getting ready for baby means to me...

So I think I need to explain my situation a little bit.... and maybe vent a tad.

My house is trashed. We moved over a month and a half ago and there are boxes everywhere. I'm not exaggerating. They are everywhere. I trip over them all the time and they are stacked 2-4 high, and on every flat surface. And within the last week, more appeared full of hand-me-down baby stuff which I just pushed into the baby room to make go away for the time being. This house is not functional as is and we've just been making due.

We were not able to even start unpacking for weeks as we thought we had lead paint in the kitchen and bathrooms and well, everywhere so we had to fight with the landlord for a while until he agreed to get a lead risk assessment done. Turns out everything is at ok levels, but we had already lost that momentum of moving and had begun living with just the bare essentials found in the essential boxes and just walking around the others. Once you start living out of boxes, it's much easier to keep living out of boxes. It's kinda like vacation where you have your essentials with you and you just make due. Add to that the fact that I've been exhausted and worked 12-14 hour days since we moved in, and this is the first few days to do anything else in my life.

We eat out every night or get take out because the kitchen... not functional. Much to still unpack and to figure out what we need to get to make it more functional. Sure we can make toast and eat cereal and we've managed to make rice and oatmeal, and a salad or two, but actual cooking can't quite happen in there yet... again, too many boxes in the way, stuff on the counter which doesn't have a home, and in general the layout sucks to begin with.

Then there is the old/grime factor. We moved into a 50's foreclosure property which was purchased to be rented out. Our landlord did the minimum needed and that minimum is gross to most people's standards. We had THOUGHT he would have it cleaned before we moved in, but NO he didn't. Liz came over the day we moved in and scrubbed a lot and there was still so much more scrubbing to be done. I won't even go into the state of the yard because I have little problem letting that go before the baby comes, but the mold, and the stains, and the just general grossness.... that all needs to be taken care of.

Some things are beyond repair or elbow grease. Some things need more elbow grease than my wrists will allow. And some I'm going to scrub the hell out of no matter how much it hurts me because I cannot continue to live with mold and grossness. For example, tonight I purchased some fairly caustic cleaning products (which I probably shouldn't be using in my current state but oh well), some rubber gloves, and good ol' Mr Clean Magic Erasers. We generally use very "green" cleaning solutions like vinegar, H2O2, and Baking Soda, but this place is beyond those products. My toilets are now white. I am opting not to tell you their prior state, but I no longer gag when I take a bath where I am at an angle where I can see under the rim (not that the stains were only under the rim). Again... NOT EXAGGERATING!

To add to the fun, Eric and I are clutter leavers. Have a space, crap will fill it. We do not have a dishwasher, and we (Eric) do not have a habit or see the point of cleaning the dishes every night (or the counter, or the wipe out the microwave when something explodes, or hell closing a drawer after its been opened). We don't have good homes for the crap and some feel that an adequate home for crap is shoving it into a drawer, or box, or cabinet, so you just end up with crap drawers and cabinets and crap full of crap. Sure I can't change all of that now, but some of the crap needs to go and now is the only time I will have in the next year to deal with it. Sure this stuff is lower priority, but this week I needed to find some of MY crap which had been unpacked into the crap places full of crap because important papers got mixed in.

Sure, I am embarrassed that we will be having guests stay with us, so some of this motivation to get our own shit together prior to the baby's stuff has something to do with that. But mostly, once the baby is here, all of the boxes, the mold, the gross, the crap will not be taken care of. This house is not clean and not in a state to bring a baby into. And I won't even go into the fact that we are expecting guests and we still do not own a guest bed.... just one more thing on the list of things to figure out.

Baby's don't need a lot of stuff. Some diapers, some clothes, my boobs and a place to sleep. We have that. There is no point in going through the bags and bags of hand-me-down and new clothes now, because if I wash them, I have no place to put them yet so no point in washing. Another thing of the list.... baby's dresser or some sort of closet organizer (and hangers) or even plastic tubs.

Today I also needed to buy the things I need when I get home. Like sleep nursing bras, and ginormous maxi pads, boob cream and cotton pads to clean baby's sensitive bum and random goop because Eric will not be in any state to be trying to figure that stuff out on his own and I'm not going anywhere after a C-Section for a while. Also, needed to continue to deal with the property I just sold as the banks seem to like to continue to take auto-payments out for a mortgage which is no longer active and no.. they don't give the money back. And you know what tomorrow is? It's tax day... nuff said. Non-baby stuff needs to happen before this baby arrives. Period.

So in essence. Me taking care of all of the other stuff and not setting up the baby room (which the baby will not be even using for a few months and will essentially be a place to hold baby stuff and a guest room), really IS getting ready for baby.

Much To Do, and its only day two

Because I am on maternity leave I am supposed to be resting right?
Well if I didn't have a list so long of things to do, I would rest more! I know that all will be fine if nothing on that list is done RIGHT NOW, but you know how things are.... sometimes you just need certain things to be checked off.

Like right now, I really need to unpack all the crap we move here with. Yes, we moved 6 weeks ago but that was 6 weeks of working 14 hour days and being far too tired to touch anything when I got home. We've gotten used to living out of and with boxes, so its kind of easier to just keep walking around them, for now. I am not allowing myself to go through all of the generous gifts and hand-me-downs which are accumulating in that room there behind me which I try to avoid as it would be so much more fun to sit down in there and go through bags and boxes, not to mention also sitting down to write out some thank you notes.... OY I have much to do.

I don't even have an actual list going, which probably makes the brain list seem even longer. Perhaps that will be thing one on tomorrow's list.... to make a list.

Yesterday, day one of leave, I sat on the couch, all day with my iPhone in hand texting/IMing away with my girlfriends who I haven't gotten to talk to much since I've been so darn busy at work. I was also researching who knows what via the Internet on that thing for HOURS. Then we headed out to a "newborn care" class which blew chunks (which was one of the topics as well) but Eric seemed to enjoy it so someone got benefit out of it. We ran many errands and went out to eat dinner which I had a hard time swallowing the bill when I'm not making much money at the moment with the whole not working thing, but also recognized we will not have many more opportunities for such niceties soon.

Today, I had many goals which I think I got 4.5 things accomplished, even more if you include showering and getting dressed and feeding myself...ok I didn't feed myself very well and getting dressed counts when you just put clean PJ like clothes on post shower, right? But I did pull my laptop out and get it set up and got caught up on Grey's Anatomy thanks to Hulu.com while I sorted/filed/shredded many a paper in my "need to deal with" pile of papers which moved here with us. Of course I still have little piles of papers all over the desk looking for new homes, but they will wait for tomorrow. I'm sure I could have sorted far quicker if I was not staring at the monitor for hours but 6 weeks without TV and being home alone calls for some mindless entertainment. Oh crap, Eric is doing taxes tomorrow so I guess I must clean up the piles tonight... drat!

(Question: Do I really need to keep all of the Wedding Cards we received? That is one of said piles of papers)

Count down to Maternity Leave

Psst! I have 2 more full work days until my Maternity Leave starts. Then maybe I'll actually get unpacked, get Internet service at the house, and get my ergonomic desk set up at home so I can type there and then MAYBE I'll ACTUALLY POST SOMETHING ABOUT THIS PREGNANCY!

If I didn't mention this before, we moved over a month ago. Yea... we're crazy and moved at the end of the 7th month. And I'm too freakin' pooped to unpack so we live in a sea of boxes. And no, the baby's room is not set up, please don't bring it up. We do not have any furniture in there yet (well nothing that will stay in there) but we are picking up a crib this weekend (Thanks Liz!). The "baby's room" is full of a lot of things overflowing from other rooms and a wonderful ton of generous gifts and hand me downs from friends and family. (THANK YOU AWESOME FRIENDS AND FAMILY!)

Anyone got a twin/trundle bed we can use for a guest bed? apparently Moms and Moms-in-laws like to have beds when they stay over to help out.

So much to do, and so many naps fit in.

Poor Pregnant Sick Me

This is a post full of whining. Oh right, that's pretty normal for around these parts so I shouldn't have to preface it.

I'm sick. And I'm pregnant. you know that that means? LIMITED DRUGS! I love my cold medications, and all the ones I usually reach for are off limits during this journey I'm on. Sigh. I'm currently working on cold #3 of this pregnancy and #4 of the cold/flu season and actually #1 was in June so that's BEFORE the season even started and it was the worst of all.

Started out as a tickling cough, 2 days later insane sore throat and prolonged coughing fits, 2 days later add head congestion, and then .... the dreaded YELLOW MUCUS coming from everywhere I turned.

I am doing all the things I'm supposed to do:
Resting as much as the Mr. Mucus allows
Sinus Rinse
Lots of Hot/Warm fluids
Steamy deep breathing sessions in the shower/bath or over the stove
Salt water gargling
Eating well

Since Mr Mucus turned colors over the weekend I decided it was time to see the doctor. I'm not one to go to the doctor unless really warranted and this pregnancy warranted the trip. My OB was out today, so I saw another in the group who I've seen before so I knew he was REALLY sensitive to the emotions of Women's Health and would not fault me for coming in with a cold (he had helped me through my miscarriage).

He was pretty much awesome and convinced me that taking a Codeine cough syrup was the way to go. I picked up my prescription and a refill for my inhaler should the need arise during a coughing fit. Now, 2 doses later, I'm not convinced of its effectiveness. Still coughing. Have managed to give myself (or maybe the baby started it) sore ribs, and my back decided that coughing is a good trigger for spasming. The coughing has even been triggering fun puking... good thing I had kind of gotten used to that a few months ago.

I'm falling apart people!

Oh yea, and I'm supposed to be packing some everyday to be ready for the big move on Sunday. Yea right.

CRAP - I hear something. Eric's making sinusy noises. CRAP CRAP CRAP!

Location Location Location

Next weekend we are moving and I'm sort of happy about it. Moving to be closer to my office and therefore a large part of my daily life will finally be closer to my impending new family. As I've complained about thoroughly over the years, I have a LONG ASS COMMUTE (3-5 hours daily). I live in an area of the country which is CONGESTED, not LA congested but pretty damn bad and sprawling out from a few major cities.

I grew up on one side of a bay and have lived within a 10 mile radius all my life, but I have worked in or near one of the major cities on the OTHER side of the bay for over 10 years. And the headquarters of the company I work for is way down at the southern tip of that bay in another one of the major cities and I'm expected to go there occasionally and never know if/when my position will be moved there. Lots of people live in one city or area of the bay but work in another so the highways and bridges are therefore full of people all trying to get to and from the same places around the same time of day which equals... that long ass commute. Whether by train or car, my commute is long. When I take it, public transportation may reduce the insanity, it's still a huge part of my day and daily expense.

Because I want those 3-5 hours back to spend with my upcoming new family, we are moving to the SAME CITY as my current office. We are renting a place which isn't perfect but the location to my office can't be beat. The rental comes with a few cons which we will just have to wait to see how they play out. Yes I'm going to focus on the negatives here because I need to get it out and really the main pro is the main con too:

- Virgin Landlord/Owner: very clearly has never been a landlord before but thankfully he hired a real estate agent to help him but mostly we'll work with the landlord directly. We've met once, and he was nice but seemed green. He agreed to take some things away we don't want/need, to finish up some repairs and to install a water line for our fridge so I still get ice and filtered water (yay!) instead of using his smaller, older and honestly, stinky and moldy fridge (Eric didn't see my issue with it but he never looked inside). One nice point, he is going to give us the keys a week early so we can move in over the weekend even though our lease begins on the first.

- Kitchen: you might know that I love to cook and well, this place has a tiny kitchen lacking much in the way of amenities and things like counter space and storage, and the lay out is not ideal. It'll work out but we're going to put some money into it in the way of IKEA furniture and someone is going to have dishpan hands and it's not going to be me (yea right).

- Color: Said Virgin Landlord does not know the way of the neutral color palate for a rental. The interior walls are newly and beautifully (craftsmanship-wise) painted lime green and he bought and installed curtains for most of the windows, all of which are a print of blue of some sort. Yes, lime green and blue.... everywhere. And no, he didn't save any of the paint for touch ups nor remembers the color code or brand of paint for us to redo his work should we choose to reduce the pain. I am VERY emotionally effected by color, so we'll see how I deal with this one. Oh and I won't even go into the newly painted exterior color (ok yes I will). Think poo. Poo of someone who ate a jar of mustard and a can of peas. Yay! Awesome location!

- Shared space and utilities: There is a "cottage" in the small backyard which is rented out to a separate tenant. We will be sharing utilities and common space with this person whom we've never met. The lease doesn't have as solid of terms as I'd like in the way of how the sharing happens so that was probably stupidity shining through on my part. The current tenant has given notice, so who knows what that will do to things. Maybe the new person will be an awesome new friend of our new family and really easy to work with in terms of the utilities and backyard.

- Doubled Housing/Living expense: Our current place is cheap. cheap cheap cheap. But we live to our means and my never seeming to end student loans takes up a large chunk of my net salary. And somehow, thanks to the market and plummeting interest rates, this area is now even cheaper for those lucky people who buy here now. By moving to the other side of the bay alone, we are increasing our cost of living a LOT, plus things just cost more over there. Have I also mentioned we are having a baby and I hear they are expensive too. Guess taking my lunch to work will no longer be a good thing to do and more a necessity.

- Location: The city in which I work is the city in which I work. Work sometimes is not the best part of my day so the city in which I do it can have negative feelings associated with it. For years I have gone to this city to do ... work, and then I get to go home and live. See what I mean?
Plus this city has a completely different climate than where I call home so some adjusting will need to happen.
And its not the best area. As in most cities, it has its good and its not as good areas, with many different socioeconomic groups and cultures which I like and then again don't like all the time. The wrong side of the tracks means something here. Yes, call me a yuppy snob but I don't think I used to care as much about this sort of thing except when I lived alone and now with the thoughts of baby on my mind. There is no cute downtown to stroll along with the stroller, but there is some shopping nearby so that's helpful but I've been spoiled by living in a fairly affluent area where even the Target is nicer than most.
Oh and there is a major airport nearby too.... with a flight path for the international huge jumbo jets which you can tell the name of the airline who owns the plane because you can READ it from the ground. The path goes over my office so I'm sort of used to it, but we'll be waiting to see what that sounds like from our new place.
And while my commute is shrinking to almost nothing, Eric's is growing. True he doesn't have to drive for his work everyday, he still does have a lot of driving to do to get to clients for meetings and installs which are all on that other side of the bay.

And my biggest con is also... LOCATION but for a very different reason.
I am essentially moving away from home for the first time. Sure I moved out of my parents house many years ago. I have moved from rental to rental to owning to rental to rental to rental to owning, but never left the comfort of a 10 mile radius from my parents and the house I lived years 0-24. I know where I live. I know where to get things, how long it takes to get there and who to call when I need help.
Here, my mom comes by for lunch or to play a game almost every Sunday on her way home from church. She takes care of my cats when we go away. She brings me soup my father makes for me when I'm sick. She's my mom and she's here, and I'm moving over there.
Eric's plant nursery, part of the core of his business is at my parent's home. He goes there to care for his plants, to visit with my parents and has dinner and conversation with them far more often then I do. And I often get the benefit of leftovers my parents send home with him to be waiting for me after I get home from my long ass commute.

I am finally moving away from my parents.

And some people may not get this, but the biggest con is that I'm moving away from my friends. My core strength is my friends. While my parents are big, in my life my friends have been bigger. They listen to me, they help me cope and they give me so much more comfort and knowledge and help than they will ever know. Sure we are already spread out in the area, and the majority of our communication is and will remain via the Internet, but right now I know they are all within a 30 minute drive. And while I'm not moving out of state, I am moving at minimum 1.5 hours away so there will no longer be last minute lunches or shopping trips or visits. They have busy lives too and we already have infrequent times we spent together. I had just hoped that this new phase of my life would have more of an ever present, as in in-person, support of my girlfriends who mostly are all already going through this journey.

While my support network is not in this new town, we'll make due. I guess. We have to. It's for the good of our new family.

Getting down to counting on fingers

Counting down to events in one's life has always been a big deal. As a kid we were excited about our birthdays or Christmas or Summer vacation. As adults we have graduation, weddings, jobs ending or starting, vacations (again) and then there are births and all those countdowns that go with them...

In 11 weeks...
27 Weeks down and 11 more to go for this impending birth. No that doesn't add up to the traditional 40 but this baby is coming at 38 weeks at the latest.

Why you may ask?

Well back here, I had a uterine surgery to remove some fun fibroids which were threatening to drain me of my blood and almost ruined my wedding, not to mention gave me a lovely plump 4-5 months pregnant look. Evil, benign things. Because of how the surgery went down, I should not go into labor as my uterus likely couldn't handle the stress of it and might rupture. Seeing as we don't want that to happen... you know, the whole death thing...this baby is coming by C-Section at the latest on May 6th. That's her drop dead delivery date. Oh, that doesn't sound good, so let's go with Project Management terms...her Commit Date!

I'll be having an Amniocentesis at week 36 to check on development and if she appears ready, she'll deliver at 37 weeks (10 flippin' weeks away!.... I can count that on my FINGERS!), and if she needs a tad more time she gets 7 more days to hit her commit date and then she's coming out!

That's right, this ride of pregnancy apparently ends with a baby in arms and me a mother. Funny how I knew that, but am just starting to actually KNOW that, and I probably won't really know it until a week into the fun new stage of my life which is parenthood. Holy CRAP! I'm going to BE a mother on Mother's Day this year (May 9th in the US if you haven't looked it up yet).

In 7 weeks...
I'm to going on MATERNITY LEAVE! Oh how I wish for this day to come quickly as I am uncomfortable, hardly sleep (writing this at 3am), am sick for the 3rd time this pregnancy (thank you compromised immune system), my pelvis hasn't gotten the word that I'm having a C-section so every step I take is painful as it "loosens", and well work? I don't talk about that here but I'll be just fine to let my controlling ways go aside or redirected for a few or 6 months (or as long as we can afford it). 7 more weeks. I can make it 7 more weeks.

In 3+ weeks...
We are being blessed by 2 Baby Showers being thrown for us. One by my wonderful co-workers and another by my beautiful girlfriends. I guess I should actually put some stuff on those gift registries because apparently people like to give us stuff. WOO!! I just wanted to celebrate our new stage of life with friends and to eat cupcakes (I am dreaming about Lizzie's Coconut Cupcakes daily!) but the generosity and excitement of our friends is overwhelmingly awesome and they want to know what we might want to help us with the world of baby.

The baby registry thing has me baffled a little because while I realize the market of baby stuff is huge and our loved ones want to buy us things to help us with this journey, I am also full on down with the land of hand-me-downs because #1 - it's less stuff going to landfills, #2 - if my friends used it and loved it and want us to use it too, then its usefulness has already been proven and I don't have to do the research!, #3 - lots of times the stuff GOES BACK to them so I don't have to then find a new home for ALL THE STUFF! (I like to live with less stuff in general, idealistically not always in practice, and I realize babies come with stuff, so easy ways for stuff going away is good!).

Alas, while I am having a tough time learning all there is to learn about the stuff which helps with baby, and having to come to terms that this is really happening, its actually kind of fun to peruse the shopping sites and reviews and picking out the things which will soon decorate our new life (and living room, and car, and...)

In 2 weeks...
We are going to our 2nd of a series of baby related classes. We went to a Mid-Term pregnancy class many months ago which was informative but nothing new was learned which I didn't already get from the Internet or books. This next class is BREASTFEEDING. The first of the practical classes on our schedule. Apparently stuff will come from my chest and there will be a baby who wants to suck on me and will be nourished and neither of us will know exactly what to do and we're going to learn some info on how that all happens. CRAZY and beautiful and amazing and did I mention crazy?

Sure we girls learn to deal with the oddity which is our period and we get use to that idea fairly quickly, then this pregnancy thing takes over our lives and our bodies and we learn and adjust but never REALLY know what its like until we're living it, and then after that comes breastfeeding which to me is still weird to think about. So yea... classes, teach me, show me the way!

In 1 week...
We move. Yes move. We are renting a place closer to my work so I can cut down my commute. Improving ones quality of life suddenly becomes more important when things like babies come into the picture. My commute will essentially go from 3-5 hours per day depending on traffic or if I go by train, to 10-30 minutes which I can WALK if I so choose to do (to leave Eric home with the 4 door car and the baby, because a 4 door car is better than a work truck for baby's safety and my sanity - C you know what I'm talking about!).

The short sale of our townhouse is progressing and while we will have an overlap of mortgage and rent payments (and utilities, we keep forgetting the cost of those utilities) for a few months, this move is going to make the end of my pregnancy a little bit easier... sort of (I'll go into the reasons of that Sort Of in a different post) and postpartum breastfeeding while working and balancing the support of a business owning husband who will also be at least part-time daddy daycare and struggles with depression life WAY easier.

So this weekend, we PACK. Holy Crap, change is happening.

The countdowns of many big changes are getting really close to their ends, and one big one's beginning. Change is good. Change is good...

Still Here. Still Pregnant. Still Hurting.

VERY quick update....

1. I am still around even though I don't comment much on your blogs or write ANYTHING on mine. I'm very busy at work and have to choose carefully when I'm going to use my hands.... see #4.
   
2. I am still pregnant (YAY!) and am currently in my 21st week. I am showing a bit, some days I'm bigger than others, and I've taken NO photos of my progression which is something I always wanted to do and just need to at least start already because I can't turn back time.
3. I am having some complications where I get lightheaded and my heart races and sometimes I end up with an irregular heart rhythm for a few seconds. I've done an EKG which showed nothing but a fast pulse (of course). I'm betting I'm just anemic.
4. I now have what is known at Pregnancy Carpal Tunnel. I had Carpal Tunnel already and tendinitis all over both arms and hands but now its a little different and the pain is even worse. I had heard that pregnancy could make it worse but I couldn't see how it could be any more painful... guess what? IT CAN! YES IT CAN! I've ordered some Speech Recognition software so we'll see how that goes. Maybe I'll actually start documenting this experience finally.
5. We are in the middle of doing a Short Sale on our place and will be looking to rent a place closer to my office to reduce my commute. We're still debating the pros and cons of locations and amenities. A lot has to do with our daycare decisions. More on that later.
   

So that's my quick update.... oh, and one more thing.

IT'S A GIRL (insert both ultrasound technician's disclaimers here)