Tuesday, July 31, 2012

If I ignore it, it won't happen, right?

It breaks my heart. I can't believe it's almost here and I'm realizing I can't hide from it. I want to. I have been.  I have purposely not thought about it and cringed when others brought it up.

My baby is going to be a year old. It's so close. Three weeks and five days. My baby is going to be a year old.

How do I stop this??? I want to keep her little, I want her to always fit in my lap. Always grin at me with her nose wrinkled up and tiny little baby teeth flashing at me.

At the baby shower last weekend there was another mom who's little boy is a week older than Baby A. I asked her if she was having serious emotional issues with her baby turning one. She just looked at me with wide, wide eyes and nodded.

And then I feel guilty for not thinking about it, not having a plan yet for a party, or gifts, or anything. So with a big sigh of resignation at the acceptance that my precious, tiny, beautiful baby girl is growing up far to fast, I have at the very least come up with a day and a theme for her party and will start to put the details together this week.

We will be having a tea party for her birthday. My little Baby A in our own personal Wonderland. Maybe I should dress up the dogs, tweedle dee and tweedle dum? Mad hatter and the door mouse? This could get funny.






Monday, July 30, 2012

The Cupcake

Baby A had her first cupcake this weekend at my Sister in Law's baby shower. She loved the frosting, wasn't as excited about the cake part. These are just a few of the photos. I love her big 'ole baby belly, covered in blue frosting! We stuck her in the kiddie pool for clean up. Way too cute!








Thursday, July 26, 2012

Treat myself to a workout!

I went to the gym last night! I can't tell you how excited I was to just go to the gym. All I did was spend 20 minutes on a treadmill, and I loved it. I was out of the house. I wasn't grocery shopping, or running errands. I  didn't have to worry about stopping my workout because Baby A woke up. I turned on my music and did 1.5 miles, walking half and running half. It felt like such a treat!

I also finally realized that getting a treadmill for the house would be a terrible idea. It would mean I'd still have to stop my workout if Baby A woke up. I'd still be in the house. I wouldn't be able to run with headphones on in case I needed to hear the monitor and at the end of the day, I wouldn't run the same way I don't yoga much at home because there are 100 other things that I should be doing instead. I need that separate place to go to. I have to get out and spend 20 minutes with nothing else to focus on except me. It's hard to let myself do that. Just me. No baby. No dogs. No husband. No work. Just me.

It sounds like such a small thing and it really shouldn't have to be a 'treat' to spend time on myself, but it is. I know a lot of mom's out there who understand completely. Even before kids, your personal time starts to move to the back burner depending on your family activities and commitments. I volunteer with dog rescues, mostly boxers, and I spend a fair amount of time transporting dogs, pulling dogs from animal control (not a fun place) and doing home visits with potential adopters. That's a commitment. My husband has his commitments which occasionally leaves me with household responsibilities and somehow, personal time gets pushed back. Now with Baby A in the mix too, it's even harder to find that time. I am going to do my best to make sure that this is a regular thing. Whether's is an hour yoga class, or 20 minutes on the treadmill. I need that escape. I need the gym.


Monday, July 23, 2012

Sew Important

I don't know why, but I always feel that I would be a better person if I could sew. There isn't really any good reasoning behind this feeling, I am just insanely jealous of people who can whip up a super cute outfit for their children out of scraps, while I am sadly working on my ability to sew a moderately straight line for cushion covers. (See nursery rocker below. Came out pretty good huh? Notice the lack of close up...)

Project Runway never ceases to increase this desire to be able to operate my sewing machine. I love that show. They're such creative people! There are so many things I feel like I should be able to do. Such as fix the fallen hem on my ONE good pair of dress pants that fit and look nice. I should be able to repair the elastic on the legs of one of Baby A's rompers. I should be able to sew curtains for the odd sized windows in the two upstairs bathrooms. I should be able to make little dresses for Baby A . How hard can it be? She's tiny, there can't be much fabric, why is this such a problem? And more importantly, why am I so intimidated by it!! I tend to stare at the sewing machine like it might bite me. I wander the fabric stores looking at dress patterns and instructions in awe and confusion. I would like to consider myself a fairly talented person in general and in most things tend to operate with the knowledge that there is very little in this world that I can not do or learn. Available time is definitely against me on this particular battle though. There isn't anything on my list of 'should be able to' that is high enough to require my sitting down and actually learning, although the pants are starting to get pretty high up there.

I can't quite decide if it's fear of failure, or plain old procrastination that's my true enemy here. There are too many other things on my list and I keep telling myself I'll get to it. Or maybe, I keep adding to the list so I won't get it. How do you get the jump on your subconscious to catch it in the act of circumventing a presented challenge? 

To try and catch it, I just looked up class schedules at JoAnn's to see what was offered and when. There is an upcoming Sewing 101 class on a Thursday evening from 6-8pm. I mentally thought, I could probably do that, but what is a 101 class going to teach me? How to thread my machine, I got that. How to pin my item, got that too. Bobbins, I can wind one. So now I start looking at Sewing 102 classes that may be a little more challenging. Well, those are three hours on a Saturday afternoon. Immediate: I can't do that, three hours on a Saturday afternoon that I should be home, making baby food for the upcoming week. Doing all the laundry that has piled up. Fitting in a workout somewhere so I don't get crazy...

oh wait, 

there's that subconscious...

Challenge circumvented. The pricing isn't even online. I'd have to go to the store (or call them) to find out. I can barely remember  to stop at Petco for dog food after work.

Fail.

Today's Perspective: Sewing might make me a better person. Oh well.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Fitness Inspiration

I love reading blogs written by healthy women, especially ones with 5 kids and they look amazing. It absolutely inspires me to do the same. Not that I have 5 kids, just the one little diva so far. And not that I'm not in good shape either. I'm only three or four pounds away from my 'pre-baby' weight. But being healthy means so much more than just being skinny. It's a lifestyle. It's a dozen choices every day. It's how we interact as a family and as a society. It's also about not going to extremes. There's nothing healthy about any extreme. Extreme running, extreme sitting, extreme dieting, extreme eating. None of that is healthy, although I think some would argue about the running example. Really though, our bodies need balance and a break, otherwise, they break.

I attempted the whole Jillian Michael's 30 day Shred program last month. I made it through about 15 days or so. I was getting up at 5 am to fit in a 20 minute workout program before the day started. Not really a bad idea, but it just wasn't sustainable for me at that level of intensity. So, instead, I've switched my gym membership from the location next to my house, which I pass at least twice a day, every day and rarely attend, to one that next to my daycare. I typically leave work at 4:15 so I can get Baby A and get home by 5 and have just a little more time with her during the evening. Now, twice a week, I will instead go to a 4:30 yoga class and still be able to get Baby A from daycare before it closes at 5:30. Yes, it's cutting out a little baby time in the evenings, but I'm very excited to get back into a yoga routine. I used to do an hour or more every day and kept it up through the first half of my pregnancy. The second half was a little harder to maintain a workout routine and then I just never got back into it.

Next week starts my Yoga Perspective. I'd love to eventually find a mommy/baby yoga class when Baby A is big enough to do it too. Right now though, I'd just love to tone up my left over baby belly and have a little less wiggle in my waggle.

Deep breath in and be calm...

Monday, July 16, 2012

Weekends wear me out

I'm not sure why the weekends seem just as hectic as the week.

So my husband was supposed to land Friday evening at 6 and be home by 7:30. Thunderstorms in Atlanta delayed him and he walked in the door at 10. I hadn't confessed my garage door incident yet and was holding to my original plan of allowing him a nice full night's sleep before telling him about it. I had a whole speech prepared. I had a great intro.

He was home for 20 minutes, and came upstairs to where I was brushing my teeth, and with wide eyes exclaimed 'what the hell happened to your car?!?!?'

shit.

I just started laughing. Doesn't it figure. Perfect end to the week.

Oh wait, it's not over yet. A while back one of our friends planned a surprise 40th birthday party for her husband on Saturday, a cycling buddy of my husband's that he's known for years. The 'boys' were going to take the birthday boy out for a special ride and, as it was explained to me, there would be a party afterwards for everyone to attend. This is all the information I had on the plans until Friday afternoon when i got the address for the party (at another cyclists house) and the time. 1-4 in the afternoon. Baby A's nap is from 1:30-4, everyday.

So, my husband, who's been out of town all week, had planned on getting up Saturday morning, leaving the house by 7 am, doing this ride which is a 3 hour ride and it takes an hour to get there, and then going straight over to the party house. While I'm home. With the dogs. And the baby. While he's at a party that I can't attend because he never told me it was in the middle of the afternoon. I never had a chance to get a babysitter. I assumed that, since he knew what time Baby A naps, and he knew what time the party was, if there had been a conflict, he would have mentioned it, with more than 24 hours notice. So, I got to be the single mom again, on a Saturday that I thought I would get out of the house. Have a husband, have a life. No, of course not.

So, while he was silently steaming at me for the garage door incident. I was silently steaming at him for not telling me any of this ahead of time, for agreeing to this whole thing in the first place, and for knowingly leaving me to sit at home with the baby while she naps and he hangs out on someone else's back deck and has a beer with his buddies.

Really?!?!?

Friday, July 13, 2012

Feeling less like Wonder Woman

And a little more like Wonder where that Woman went?

The last day of another week on my own. These work trips should be slowing down, which would be good. I attempted to start the week off right and have lunches done ahead of time, get up early and get out the door on time. It dissolved into chaos, as usual, and this morning I didn't even set the alarm. I knew there was no hope of getting to work at 8 and so didn't even try. I had no baby food in the house at all so I knew we were going to have to stop at the store. I intended to make some last night and ended up hanging out with my parents later than expected. Oh poor me, huh?

In addition to the no baby food. It's rained every day, which is great for the grass, bad for the dogs, and my hair.

Monday, Baby A cracked her head on the bathroom floor when she tipped over while crawling. Such a goose egg!

Tuesday, I managed to back the car into the garage door because I didn't check my mirror first. I always open the door as I walk out into the garage to put Baby A in her car seat. I have NO IDEA what happened. Either I opened the door as usual and then sat in the car and hit the door opener in the car, backing out while it was closing, or I didn't open the door as usual, sat in the car, hit the door opener and backed out while it was still opening. I haven't told my husband yet. I wanted to wait for him to get home and have a good night's sleep first.

Wednesday, I had the crazy thought that I could sit and have coffee in bed in the morning and ended up late.

Thursday, I was doing well, showered, hair dried, hair curled, baby fed, out the door for a walk with the dogs, RAIN. Ran back to the house. Now I'm sweating, my hair is a mess and I have to start over. Late.

Friday, F-it. I slept in.

My only bright and shining moments this week were that I managed to order contacts for myself because I"m  about out, and I scheduled pest control to come take care of the amazing variety of bugs that are currently crawling up the walls in my house. Uggghh. They're coming Monday between 1 and 5. *sigh*. Really?

Monday, July 9, 2012

No Reason for Sorry.

My husband's brother and his wife are pregnant. I had mentioned that previously, but we've all been waiting for the last two weeks to find out some important information. Their little girl has Down Syndrome. We've known it was a high likelihood since ultrasounds detected a heart defect but until the blood test came back it was a 50/50 outcome. Now is it 98/2. It is a little disheartening, however, I am with my SIL in this matter. It's still exciting. It's their baby girl. And after over a year of trying, they weren't sure was ever going to happen in the first place. She is going to be the most precious baby and beautiful child. She is going to learn to smile like Baby A did. She's going to learn to hold her head up, and reach for the bottle, and roll over, although Baby A never really did do that. The heart condition will be an unknown for a while and the treatment will depend on how the baby grows. They're not telling a lot of people right now because they don't want people saying 'they're sorry'. Or 'oh no'. Or 'what are you going to do'. There's nothing to be sorry about. I agree completely. There are a lot of unknowns right now, but there was never a point where I even felt the need to say 'I'm sorry'. It never occurred to me to say it. I'm not sorry. She's not sorry. She's going to be a mom. She's going to be a fabulous mom. I"m going to be an Aunt for the first time. This will be my niece and I'm excited. We all have a lot to learn, and will spend the next couple of months doing a lot of research, but all babies are new experiences and no two are ever the same. 





Monday, July 2, 2012

The Circus is coming to town (aka the packing game)

Way back when, when my husband and I were dating, we would visit his family or mine and it was he, and I and my one dog Old Lady (she wasn't that old back then). Everyone doted on her and she was the center of attention on all trips and visits. Packing involved a bed and some dog food.

Then we got married and got our second dog, Big M. Packing now involved two beds, more dog food and leashes since Big M isn't quite as well behaved off leash as Old Lady, although he does really well most of the time.

Then we had our daughter Baby A.

As mentioned earlier, we don't visit anymore, we invade. We are a traveling three ring circus and the amount of stuff that 'has to go' is amazing. There are diapers, wipes, bottles, formula, little spoons, baby food, dog food, dog beds, baby beds, dog toys, baby toys, baby clothes, baby bug spray, blankets, towels, etc, etc, etc (etc). Not to mention all my husbands things (who packs like a girl BTW) and Lord help us if he decides he wants to do some cycling while he's there since that's a completely separate bag of items necessary, plus bike. Some how, I can live out of an overnight bag for 7 days and he needs a suitcase the size of a smartcar. In addition, the whole family shares food responsibilities for the weekend and so we have to also pack a cooler with the things for the dinner we are cooking plus snack and breakfast items.

We fit all of this, plus dogs, plus baby, plus us, into our Xterra and the car carrier we bought last summer. Whenever we arrive at our intended destination and open the doors to the car, the circus explodes into fur, drool, spit up and general chaos as we pile out, clown car style with toys and leashes and bags falling out because luggage may have shifted during take off or landing.

We leave on Wednesday, I've been mentally packing for weeks and today started to make my lists. Baby lists, Dog lists, Food lists. I don't have a list for me yet. There is significant potential that I will make it to my in-laws house without underwear. I suppose as long as I remember my bathing suit, everything should be fine.


Did you notice how I started off with lists for Baby A, Dogs and me, and had to cross 'me' off?