LADIES WHO SHOWER, SHOWER TOGETHER

(excuse the awkward title of this post....)

a dear friend is getting herself hitched in a couple of months,

and we were like WOOOOO woo wooo

let's do 'er up a shower

and so we did.

i gotta say, we put together a shower as a group effort

and that seems to be the way to go...

 

 

the remnants. 

 i say, success! 

and some group pictures from that day. (photos from/by laura)

the hostesses with the mostest 

shower attendees

tues morning ladies love

we love you elizabeth!

WEEK 2 OF BEING A WORKING MAMA AND A BEAR SUIT

Per your requests, this post will have photos of baby bear suit sprinkled in.. 

Before I went back to work, baby was doing so wonderfully with her sleep schedule and was sleeping longer and longer each week, with a good 6-7 hours of sleep at night by the 6^th week…But then the bottle came into her life. Although now she latches to the bottle, according to the daycare, she doesn’t drink enough, which means she had adjusted in order to get extra feedings when I’m at home with her, including the middle of the night. That little bugger got wise. It’s my second week back at work and while I still find it miraculous that I can survive and get through a workday on 5, 4, sometimes 3 hours of sleep, I am praying that she starts drinking enough out of the bottle during the day. Let it be heard...six hours of uninterrupted sleep is heaven.

On Monday,

 instead of the usual 8:00PM 11:00PM, and 6:00AM feedings at night, Sloane decided she would like to nurse at 8:30PM, 9:30PM, 11:00PM, 12:00AM, 1:00AM, 4:00AM and 6:00AM. It was like a free-for-all. This left me with about 3.5 hours of sleep and a very long work day the next day.

On Tuesday, 

as I was driving to work and feeling the blunt pangs of exhaustion, I reflected on how glad I was that it was a Friday. Pause. And then I realized it wasn’t.

On Wednesday, 

I felt particularly sad and bereft leaving baby at the daycare.

On Thursday, 

my phone somehow went missing, so I didn't hear the alarm, woke up an hour later than I needed to, hit every red light, and was late to work with no phone and having forgotten my lunch and all my snacks.

You would think a week like might wear a person down to her bones, but the thing with having a baby is that she makes everything totally worthwhile. Knowing that I can see her at the end of the work day, saying good morning to her as she wakes up and stretches like a maniac, and having time to nurse her in the evenings makes even the roughest days a good one. And with each day this week, there were things that made up for the squeeze.

On Monday, 

Sloane sat on her dad’s chest and smiled and giggled at him non-stop. We noted at how she kept trying to stay sitting up instead of leaning back like usual, and laughed at how she stared at her toes, all wide-eyed.

On Tuesday, 

I put her in a brown bear fleece onesie and felt victorious that my dream of dressing my baby like tiny animals was coming true. K. was considerate about how tired I was that night, made us noodles, and tended to baby while I napped in 30 minute intervals like a drunkard in between feedings.

On Wednesday, 

she smiled during her bath. She's been more and more smiley these days, but for some reason when she takes a bath she is all business and super serious. But on Wednesday, she smiled while I was washing her. And when K. came home, he spent his usual time playing and cracking up with her and she made sounds and faces that sounded and looked like her learning and practicing how to laugh.

On Thursday, 

a check-up at the doctor’s told us that she is growing as she should, and our little family went out to the Food Truck Court at the Hardywood Park Craft Brewery for a really nice evening.

So, even tiring weeks are good ones. And really, when you have a tiny baby bear around the house, you don't feel like complaining too much. 

papa bear and baby bear, of course. 

insert, post script, addendum...

I'd like to add, that on Friday, which is when I'm writing this, when I got home, I nursed, took these pictures, add some semblance of a dinner, and then went out to run errands with baby in tow, in heels (that's right, HEELS), to three different places before those places closed, which was all in the span of 1.5 hours. That's three stops of taking baby out of car, completing task, putting baby back in car, and driving to next location. I felt like superwoman.  But when I got home and the weariness set in, I felt like a feeble old lady And then while I was uploading the photos for this very post, S. exploded out of her diaper, with a poop so powerful that it went up to the back of her neck, out of her clothes and all over both of us. When I took off all her clothes so that I could bathe her, she proceeded to pee all over me. She is now blissfully asleep in my arms and I am pretty much spent and there are oh so many chores to do around the house, but I'm taking the time to write now so that I can stick my flag down in the land that is the end of this week and say, I survived! And   thank God it's Friday...

me and bear before going on our errands

THURSDAY NIGHT IS A GOOD A NIGHT AS ANY

there was a meeting of the awesomes tonight.

 i've been meaning to check out hardywood park craft brewery for a while now, and when i heard that they started having the food truck court there every thursday, you know i jumped all over that. 

k. baby sloane, and i headed over there for some dinner and ran into an old friend and met up with other good friends, including the tobins who were in town/thearea for a whirlwind tour of things, and it was so nice to see their faces 'round town again.

the weather was perfectly cool, the pumpkin beer was delicious, i got to eat fish tacos, and sloane was passed around in her brown bear suit and slept the whole time. 

it was a long day and we were pooped but it's hard to not appreciate such a night, maybe even more so after a day of eyeball-squeezing work. 

oh, and there were crepes. 

we shoveled that gooey, chocolatey-ness  down our throats, 

and saw that it was good.

APPLE PLATES

 I do this thing where I fill my bag with healthy snacks that I can have during the day so that I don’t get to the point where I'm making poor decisions based on my stomach telling me I should eat everything in the vending machine at work. Hopefully this works in favor of both keeping me fueled properly and helping me get back to pre-pregnancy body. My go-tos are little cans of v8, cheese sticks, cartons of almond milk, yogurt, fruit snacks, and apples. This past week my after work snack is slicing the apple into thin plates and topping them with almond butter. Sometimes it's dessert, and other times it's breakfast. I like my apples au natural, but the almond butter gives the fruit a nutritional boost, and it's delicious. I also get a kick out of eating apples in the shape of circular plates.

MY FAVORITE THING TO DO IN THE FALL

You know what, I really am quite fond of autumn, but it was cold this morning, the kind of cold where my hands want to cry from being chapped but can’t cause they’re too dang dry. It’s officially carrying-hand-lotion-everywhere-I go weather, but that is ok with me if it means we can go apple picking!

i spy a 9 week old apple picker

I love apple-picking. I am an apple-loving gal and I love everything about going to an orchard and picking apples of them trees myself. When my sisters and I were young, my parents took us to orchards almost every fall, and memories of those trips give me both nostalgic aches and great comfort, and I always vowed I would make this a tradition in my family, which is why when I started dating Ken I had to make sure that he was on board. But then I learned that the man is allergic to apples. ALLERGIC TO APPLES! Have you heard of such a thing? I was pretty horrified when I learned that, I’m not kidding you, I felt like that could be a mark against reasons why I should marry him, that’s how serious I am about apples. But he was totally wanting and willing to come with me to pick apples, and it turned out he was real helpful in carrying the heavy bags of apples, AND since he couldn’t eat them, there were more for me! So, really, it worked out splendidly.

This was probably our fourth or fifth time apple picking together, but this time we were pretty excited about bringing baby along. She wasn’t too helpful picking apples but she seemed to enjoy being out and about, getting fresh air, and enjoying the view. Rusty always gets a little hysterical on these trips – probably the combination of the mountain air + lots of attention from strangers, so this time we decided to get him a little backpack to wear for the dual purpose of apple-storing and weighing him down to wear him out. For some reason people loved seeing a wolf-like dog wearing a backpack and he got so much love.  I imagine that's what hanging with a celebrity might feel like. And he didn’t escape and make us chase us around the orchard like he usually does, so all in all it was a success.

READING WITH MAMA

I can already tell that I am going to miss my baby being so little....

...so i'm going to try to enjoy being able to hold her in my lap
like this, 

for as long as i can.

LES MISERABLES

Omyy I'm excited...

BAWWAB

you guys, I DID IT.

i made it through the first day of back-at-work-with-a-baby.  that’s BAWWAB, for short.

there was much anticipation leading up to said event, but I survived, and I am happy to have knocked down day one. thanks for all the love, by the way. it felt wonderful to know that there were people rooting for me. i’m making all this sound like a major event, but it kind of is…so i’m gonna go ahead and throw myself confetti and describe said event.

last night, i ran around like the roadrunner with coyote hot on her trails, but with 20 things to check off the to-do list for things to get ready. when I finished, later than i wanted, i felt wane and a little bit like a heroine of a novel. i laid down next to k. who is sick, the kind of sick where you can’t breathe through your nose because it is somehow clogged and dripping at the same time, but who provided excellent body heat and i fell asleep quickly. unfortunately, i woke up in the middle of the night at 4:30AM…i’m pretty sure it’s because i was a ball of anxiety about the morning. and then i couldn’t go back to sleep, which is the worst. the worst! which reminds me - you know what else is the worst? clipping your baby’s fingernails and accidentally getting some skin. GAHD. that happened the other day and i felt a little bit like sobbing. i didn’t, but i felt like I might. right when it happened, she froze momentarily like whatheheckisthat, and then erupted into a shocked-sounding crying that was very wretched. i took picture of the tragedy and immediately sent to k. so that he could join me in being horrified at my lacking skills as a clipper of baby’s nails. wonderful man that he is, he didn't make me feel too bad about it.

this was before it got bloody... sob.

anyway. rabbit trail. so back to the morning: i woke up to my alarm at 6AM and proceeded to get myself ready, get the baby up, diaper changed, and nurse. then i did my morning pump, finished packing sloane’s bag for daycare, as well as the pump bag, my bag for work, including my lunch (that’s count em... three bags!), grabbed sloane’s paperwork for daycare, said goodbye to husband and made it out of the house with baby by 7:50AM. boomboompow. and i had a stomach ache the entire time. but leaving the daycare wasn’t so bad. it helped that she was asleep, otherwise, someone would have had to drag me out the door… i made it to the car, still more consumed by the frantic need to just make it to work on time, and then there i was, back at work.  just getting through the door felt like a big fat accomplishment. and you know? it kind of just felt like old times, nothing much had changed there and there were a few faces that i was genuinely glad to see again. there were a lot of ‘welcome back!’s, including one from the nice man who restocks the vending machine, and i was flattered he remembered. AAAND i got through my first pump…which is really one of the things i was dreading the most.

they had a room on the 5^th floor, for which i picked up a key from the receptionist up there, and it turned out to be a smallish room that used to be a small shower room so it is all kind of sterile and cold. and at first, i felt terribly awkward walking past the people who have their computers right in the next room and i was just imagining them looking up from their computers like, ‘WHAT is that whirling pumping noise?’ and feeling embarrassed when i had to walk past them, but it turned out that the room also has a fan that seems to block out the noise (seriously. can they come up with a pumping machine that doesn’t make so much noise??) and it was actually semi-relaxing. i still need to figure out how to best double-pump, but more about that another time.

it wasn’t until about 1:00PM that i started kind of feeling sick to my stomach missing sloane. that was probably the time when it became officially the longest i had been away from the baby and my body and mind started doing werid kinds of things, just missing her. i cried a wee bit at my desk, looked through all the photos of her on my phone, and felt tortured, until cotton-brain from sleepiness took over. it was probably also the adrenaline wearing off.

WHOOSH.

then the day was done.

and i felt this great relief. the kind of relief in realizing that i made it through the day not just by my sheer effort, because there was that too, but i was mostly carried through on the backs of prayers that people prayed for me specifically that day. this happens to me, and so does the realization, and thus, relief.

and fast forward to the reunion. 

it felt so dang good to have baby back in my arms again. 

she started crying when i walked in but as soon as i took her into my arms, she stopped crying, curled up against me and snuggled in. 

here she is. after her first day of daycare and she is passed out, hard. 
it was a big day for her, too. 

this isn't going to be easy, but at least after today i know that it's not impossible.

so far, and it hasn’t been that long so don’t take this as sound advice, it seems like the trick is to keep busy. it seemed like the times when i wasn’t keeping busy were the hardest.  but can we also posit that all this time away from her will make the times with her all that much sweeter? yes, let’s posit, and agree with that.

BACK TO WORK

I go back to work tomorrow....

How do I feel? I feel somewhat fine, only a little bit miserable, and mostly exhausted about it. The exhaustion probably comes from running around trying to make sure everything is ready to go for the busy morning tomorrow, and trying to remember everything (so many things!) The misery comes from thinking about leaving her at the daycare. But yes, I'm also totally fine. It will be fine.

Regardless, I'm pretty sure I will be looking at this picture a million times during the work day tomorrow.

LEAH DUNCAN

i really love leah duncan's drawings/designs, especially her recent fall collection that you should check out here. she has prints, calendars, tea towels, scarves, and pillows.  i pretty much love every single thing. here are some of my favorites: 

TO THE BREAST, TO THE BREAST

you know, like beyonce's "to the left, to the left"....?... yeah. sing it.

disclaimer: this post is a lot of boob talk.

at one point last week, i was feeling confident about going back to work. well, in a kind of "i can do it" bravado that is totally necessary for one to move on in life without being a whiner, but now that it's down to the last few days, i'm feeling very much in the thereisnowayiwillsurvivewiththisamountofsleep mode, and i can feel myself about to launch myself into the kind of stress that is an anticipatory stress, you know, the kind where the anxiety escalates into hysterics.

here's the deal: i want to keep breastfeeding while i work and i want to feed my baby breastmilk for as long as possible. in theory it sounds like a great idea, but in practice it means breast pumps, pumping at work, bottle feeding, and being a master of the schedule.

AHH the pump. i have this pump that is called "pump in style" and it makes me feel a little bit angry looking at it because it is in the form of this sleek looking black purse, which is all well and fine but it's so heavy and has tubes coming out of it and thinking about lugging that thing to work every single day and then locking myself in a room at work to have that machine pump me everyday is making me feel exhausted just by thinking about it.

by the way, i feel like this is the kind of thing where i should wait a few months to write about, so that it can be a victory post rather than a post where i espouse all my fears. but it's going to be the latter becuase i am trying to organize and then kick all these anxieties in the butt.  so.

when i was pregnant with sloane, i knew that i wanted to breastfeed. the benefits of doing so were extremely convincing. but i couldn't wrap my mind around it.  first, the idea that my body, which i imagine to only be made up of things like water, blood, muscle, and tissue, was somehow going to make and produce a milk-like substance? werid. and then i was going to have a baby suck on my breast to obtain that milk? even werider. it all seemed so...animalistic. which probably goes to show that we live in a society that makes boobs so sexualized and taboo that sometimes we feel awkward about our own boobs. but to my relief, once the baby was here and she needed to be fed, putting her to my breast seemed to be the MOST NATURAL THING ever. it's fascinating to me how it works that way. my brain just kicked into the nursing baby gear, which barely remembers how strange i thought it would be to do this. don't get me wrong, it was not easy. the first couple of weeks was a little bit dreadful and mostly hilarious. i was lucky that sloane latched quickly (maybe due to a natural birth?) but my body went a little overboard in producing milk and it felt like i was leaking everywhere and getting engorged (this is when your breasts feel like they might explode). i felt ridiculous. but after those few weeks, and with the help of a nursing bra and nursing pads, things normalized and i got to a place where i felt like i had a handle on it - the first time i nursed in the car oh so easily and casually because we we weren't going to get back home in time, i felt like a rockstar. it's not a feeling that i had even known to imagine before, but when i'm nursing (thanks, endorphins), i get this overwhelming sense of love and purpose. it's such a fantastic feeling to know that i can provide for my baby in this way, that she needs me, and i do love having that time to bond with her. it's sweet.

WHICH IS WHY it is hard to try to get her to take the bottle when she obviously hates it so. this baby has been a good baby and will only cry when she is really super hungry, which she does now with great fervor when we are trying to administer the bottle. so when she's like that, i just want to give up and nurse her - hey! i have a boob and you already like it-  but i know that we have to keep working with her to teach her about the ways of the bottle becuase that's going to be her source of food when i'm at work. it's been a rough past couple of weeks becuase of that. the natural thing and my instinct is to just put her to the breast when baby is hungry, but now instead i have to struggle with her to take milk from a bottle and then connect to a machine to pump. it's frustrating, but since i can't work from home and work may have a problem with me bringing the baby to work, it must be done.

so i grit my teeth and march on. i've been trying to bottle feed her about twice a day, and each time it's a whole production. it's different every time but it goes something like this - a half an hour of her playing with the bottle with her lips and tongue, 10-15 minutes of crying because she wants the breast instead, falling asleep for a little bit becuase she has worn herself out, and then more crying when she wakes up and realizes i want her to take the bottle. all of this results in her having consumed little to no milk. giving her the bottle also means that i have to pump in order to keep my milk production up (which has decreased drastically, and this is another source of concern), which means my entire day is nursing, trying to bottle feed, pumping, aaaaaand repeat.  to top it off, because she's not getting enough at the bottle feeding times, her feeding schedule is all messed up.  the last two paragraph sof me describing this was to inform, but mostly to vent.  so thanks for listening.

deep breath.

i have this incredibly awesome and slightly annoying gift of being able to think and feel doomsday talk for miles, but at the same time, i can have the most positive outlook on it. and sometimes i try to avoid the positive outlook becuase i'm like, just let me whine already! but really, i'm grateful for the positivity because too much anxiety and stress can be a time waster and obviously, i'd like to spend my time elsewhere.

so yes, i'm dreading the next couple of weeks of transition. yes, i wish that i had a flexible enough job that allowed me to work from home or allowed me to take my baby with me to work. and yes, a maid or a personal assistant would also be nice.

but the reality is, i feel so lucky to have this baby. i feel so blessed to have a good baby who doesn't cry too much and really, is very reasonable. i am thankful to have a good husband and i am thankful to have a job that will allow us to help pay the bills and such. i am also pretty darn lucky to have so much resources at hand (thanks, Google), as well as conversations with a couple of working moms who have done it and survived. it probably will be difficult, and don't mind me if i use the blog to further vent in the future, but i know i CAN do this. mostly because, i MUST. but also because, i CAN. i believe (even when i don't) that God would not give/bless/assign me with more than i can handle, and i just need to remember that as i go forth.

another deep breath.

God, some requests please: can you please help sloane take to the bottle?
and just as importantly, for my sanity, could you make sure i get sufficient sleep, especially during the weeknights?
and please help me to be good at all of this.

thank you, amen. the end.

REINDEER PANTS

how radific are these reindeer pants?!

if it turned out that i could pull these off i would rock these so hard..