This Is Going to Hurt Me More Than It Hurts You….

Well, today was the first time I had to cause pain to my child for her own good. I now know that the worst sound in the world is that of your baby crying after her first vaccination.

Yep, she had to get one today at 6 weeks because we are moving to a “higher risk area” this summer so she needs some extras. I took her out of the car seat and she was all happy and sleepy until – wham!! She screamed like, “Hey, that guy just STABBED me in the leg and YOU just stood there and LET him do it!” She was not a happy camper. Neither was I.

She is ok now, though. When we got home I let her nurse and take a nap on me for 3 hours. So I think her confidence in me is restored. Who wouldn’t love someone who let them munch at the buffet for 3 hours?

We actually had to pay for this one. Since she is getting some extras that aren’t scheduled vaccinations we have to pay. It was only $19, and I am sure that Jack’s supplemental insurance will cover it. It should, since she only has to get them because of his job anyway. We will see. There are a few more she needs that aren’t covered, either. Hopefully they don’t cost too much either.

In case any of you are wondering where and when we are moving – I will write more about that soon. I just have to tell some people in real life first before putting it officially on the blog.

Hello Winter

Well, it is winter here again. The past several days it has been raining and COLD! Cold enough that I have to run down and turn on the furnace after Jack leaves in the morning to warm the house up a bit. Crazy – running the heat at the END OF APRIL!! Plus, this rain – if I wanted it to rain every day I would live in the Pacific Northwest.

Mostly it is annoying because it is cutting in on my outside time. Since, as you know, I don’t like to exercise in the cold and rain – and neither does Sammi! Plus, Jack has had to drive in to work all week so that means we have been trapped at home – and that just leads to internet shopping. So far this week I have purchased a nursing jog-bra (yay! I found one.) and several nursing shirts. Shhhhhh – don’t tell.

On a happy note, Sammi slept from 7 until 1030 this morning – only waking every hour to eat for 10 minutes. (I put Jack’s sleep shirt in the crib with her. I think it helped.) And Jack had to come home to do a little work here so he stopped for coffee, donuts, and sandwiches first! So, I had two cups of coffee today. Let’s see what that does to her!

Oh well, the weather is supposed to get better for the weekend. And next week will be fun because we will have visitors. Grandma and Grandpa from Oregon will be here from the 2nd to the 9th. Just in time for the Tulip Festival. I am looking forward to taking pictures of Sammi in front of a bunch of tulips and out and about in town. I mean, I can only take so many of her lying around the house – and there is demand for new pictures from all the grandparents so I have to keep taking pictures.

Coping

I, like many other nursing mothers, have a strategy for coping. Here it is:

Sleepy: Here’s some booby.
Crying: Do you want some boob juice?
Hungry: Have some more booby.
Being a pain in the ass: Here, suck on this and chill the heck out.

Usually, the boob is the answer to all problems. Except for last night. That’s right. Last night after being changed and fed the screaming began. For no apparent reason Sammi just screamed and cried and cried. I couldn’t get her to quiet down and eat or go to sleep for anything.

Finally, after a LONG time I gave in and become “one of those mothers.” That is right. At midnight I put her in the car seat and we drove around for 45 minutes. I even got gas so Jack wouldn’t have to in the morning. I saw other station wagons driving around and figured the drivers were other exhausted, at their wits-ends-mothers.

But you know what? It worked. We got home, I carefully lugged the car seat upstairs, gently pried her out of it – and then after a feeding she went to sleep for 3 hours! I just hope this isn’t a new trend of nighttime colic or something like that. Gas costs too much right now for that!

Bones

Here is why I love that TV show Bones. In the last episode they were in New Orleans so naturally it was about voodoo. At one point Bones and Booth are talking about it and Booth asks why she refers to it as a religion. She asks what religion he is and he says Catholic. So, Bones starts telling him the similarities between voodoo and Catholicism. At the end Booth says, “We don’t make zombies.” To which Bones replies, “Jesus rose from the dead after three days.” And here it is – the best line ever! Ready? Ok –

Booth says, “Jesus is NOT a zombie!”

Ha haaaa – Jesus is not a zombie! That makes me laugh every time I think of it. Even last night at 3 am when I was feeding the baby it popped into my head and made me laugh – and not just because it was 3 am!

Hey, guess what? I just made the baby laugh! I was tickling her and saying, “Who’s my little peanut?” and not only did she smile she actually laughed a little this time. I can’t wait until my Mom and Dad get to see her. And that reminds me – I better buy the plane tickets today. With these fuel prices they aren’t going to get any cheaper the longer I wait. Too bad I really can’t just click my heels and be back home in the Land of Oz.

Feed baby, change baby....

Wow, another whole week has gone by and I feel like I haven’t done anything. I did take the baby in for her checkup on Wednesday and she is up to 9 lbs 11 oz. The part that bugs me is at the office they say, “She weighs 4.4 kilograms.” So, I have to do the math in my head and think, “OK, that is 9 lbs something.” But I have to wait to get home and do the conversion to find out how much she really weighs. Stupid metric – at the grocery store I have to order 200 grams of meat, too. If I say I want ½ pound they just look at me funny.

It has been nice here lately, so the other day instead of going out for our walk we tried to run. My boobs still hurt. I need to find a good jog-bra before I try that again! I swear, if these were my real boobs I’d be forking out the dough for the reduction in a heartbeat. I put away my maternity clothes, even though I can’t wear my real pants yet. It was sad to see all my normal job-bras and normal everyday bras. I won’t be wearing them again anytime soon until after weaning.

This is my daily schedule: feed baby, change baby, feed baby, change baby, Yay! baby sleeping for 20 minutes – unload dishwasher, brush teeth, feed baby, change baby……
I feel like I just sit around all day and don’t do anything. I have to keep convincing myself that I’m not just sitting there – that I am feeding my baby and making her grow, or that instead of just sitting there and playing with her when she is all smiley that I am helping her mind develop or something. I read some lady who said that when her life was at its most boring was when her kids were happiest. Sammi is very happy. But it is just amazing how it takes 100% emotionally to breastfeed and take care of a new baby. I expected to be tired, but I don’t think I realized I would have to give so much! Not that I am complaining – she is so cute. It is still amazing that she is really here and really ours!

Baby Transpo

Well, we finally got that jogger stroller we wanted. So lately I’ve been going out on these 6K walks (3.7 miles.) It is so much easier with the stroller. Now with the stroller those 2 old ladies won’t have a chance to pass us again (hahaaaa!) The sling is great for shopping, wandering around the house, and short walks – but not so good for the exercise ones. It makes us both hot and sweaty, plus I can’t run with her in the sling because my boobs would beat her to death! Now, I just have to get in shape enough for the 10K race we are running in on May 27th (only a month and a half away – eeeeeee.)

I got the awesome pink camo diaper bag I wanted. Cindy gave it to me for my birthday – yayyyy! It is so cool – it makes you want to have a baby just to get the bag. And, as I found out today it also hooks onto the back of the stroller perfectly – and that comes in handy because we did a little shopping today on our walk, too. I had to buy some more feminine hygiene products because, hello? when does this post-birth bleeding end? I know I got to go 9 months without a visit from george but what? Now I have to have him here for 9 weeks to make up for it? It has been 28 days, people, surely that is long enough. Mostly it distresses me because I want to get naked with the hubs. Yep, it’s true. (See, I had no va-jay-jay trauma so I was ready at 10 days. But noooo, I have this crazy, post-birth george thing goin’ on so I have to wait! Auggghhhh!!) That was probably more than you wanted to know.

So, in closing, here are some pictures of both forms of my baby transpo. The cool new Chariot Cougar and the cool new camo sling (with the camo diaper bag.)


(I never get to blow dry my hair and do something with it anymore - let alone put on makeup - so only look at the baby, the sling, and the bag!)

Tax Time

Well, I have to get busy and find time to do my taxes sometime this week. I would have liked to do them BEFORE the baby – but I just got my last piece of paperwork I needed on Friday. I hate people who send out tax documents that I need at the last minute. Send it to me in January, please – or February at the very latest. NOT the beginning of April. Oh well.

My birthday weekend went well. On Friday I got flowers and a new watch from Jack. That was nice. I needed a new watch as all my genuine fake watches finally gave out on me. Now I have a genuine real Citizen Eco-Drive watch. It is very nice. My other birthday packages didn’t make it to me on time as Canada Customs has been holding the packages hostage. On Monday my Mom checked and the post office told her that one package arrived at Customs on the 30th of March and the other one on April 2nd. Who knows why it is taking so long for them to get here. Maybe they are suspicious that I have been getting so many packages lately. They should just call me so I can tell them, “Hello! New baby…birthday…Easter. I’m getting packages!”

We tried to go to this new restaurant on Friday – but there was a big line. We weren’t going to wait in line to eat at a normal bar restaurant so we went somewhere else and it was delicious. I had lamb in a cognac sauce and it was sooooo good. I don’t get to eat lamb at home because Jack hates it. Oh, it was just so yummy. And our waitress gave us a free shot of Sambuca at the end of the meal since she thought Sammi was so cute. She actually does pretty good in restaurants so far. At least my nursing shirts are coming in very handy. I can pretty much feed her anywhere very discreetly, and she is happy.

Sammi likes the weekends because Daddy is home with her. She likes having him around, apparently. It makes the weekends nice because she is so good, but makes Mondays hell. She is upset because he isn’t here (I don’t know – just guessing) so she is cranky and fussy all day long. Crying, refusing to take a nap, only eating for a few minutes at a time so it is constant. Then, to top it off, Jack went out after work and didn’t get home until after 7:30. I was HAPPY about that I can tell ya. I just handed him the baby and said to put her in the car and drive around until she fell asleep. Well, she didn’t fall asleep but I did get 30 minutes alone with no crying, so that was good.

Today she (and I) are doing better. : )

An Exercise in Futility

Yesterday afternoon we were supposed to go down and pick up the Chariot stroller we are buying and the box of cloth diapers for the loan program. (We get to try all the different kinds for a week to see which ones we like before we buy them.) The diaper place closed at 5 and Jack didn’t get home until a little after 4. So, now we are headed to the West end of town, during rush hour, plus – there was a baseball game that evening (and we drive right by the stadium) and there was a hockey game on home ice. So, on top of normal rush hour we have two sporting events that everyone is trying to get to. Then, to top it off there is a power plant fire right in Westboro, the area we are going to. This fire made ALL the traffic lights in that area go off. Not just blinking red or yellow – completely off. The traffic was horrible, and everything smelled like burning plastic. We finally got to the diaper place at about 4 til 5 –but it was closed since the power was out. We didn’t even try to go to the stroller place. We’ll just go on Saturday.

We didn’t really feel like fighting rush hour traffic back the opposite way, so I suggested we go to the mall. I needed some toner from the Body Shop and I wanted to buy a fat squisher anyway. (aka: a body shaper, known to your grandma as a girdle or foundation garment.) My maternity clothes are too big, but I can’t squish into my normal pants yet either. Mostly thanks to this new mommy pooch. Like my stomach was anything to write home about before, now it’s a real treat! Anyhoo, I thought if I got a body shaper I could manage to get into a few things, plus I bought this nursing dress that I was going to wear tonight when we go out and I though it would look better if I was smooth instead of lumpy. I guess I need to get few pairs of pants to wear now, though. I can’t just wear sweats and exercise pants all the time. It’s depressing! This whole having a baby thing is an expensive wardrobe proposition. You have the whole maternity set you have to buy, then the transition stuff, then the nursing tops. Geez, you have to have more than one kid just to make the wardrobe expense worth it!

Then, we went to eat at a restaurant in the mall. First time out with the kid. It went ok. I had her in the sling and she just slept and ate. Of course, every waitress in the place had to come over and see her, plus some customers, and two other little kids about 3 and 1 ½. I guess they like babies because they are even smaller than they are. It was kind of cute. I told Jack he’d have to take her out to a bar one night to pick up chicks. Having a kid in a sling is better than a puppy!

Oh, the reason we are going out again tonight is because it is my birthday. Yay! I am now 38. Holy kamoli! 38 with a 23 day old little girl – she’s a pretty good birthday present. : )

Songs

It is snowing again today. Just thought I’d let you know that.

I’ve decided we need to get some CDs of lullabies and nursery rhymes. It turns out, Jack and I don’t know any. I’m not even sure I really know the words to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. That doesn’t stop me from singing to Sammi, though. It is just that I sing her Johnny Cash songs. She likes Burning Ring of Fire.

She likes to have her feet rubbed, too. She can be crying her little lungs out, but no matter how upset she thinks she is if I rub her feet and sing Burning Ring of Fire she will be quiet for a little bit. Until she remembers she is hungry again, or needs to be changed.

So, if you know any good CDs for kids let me know! I can use them about now.

: )

The baby is really growing. Yesterday we walked down to the Well-Baby drop in and got her weighed. It was kind of cold and rainy, but I just bundled her up and grabbed an umbrella and off we went. I really wanted to see how much she weighs - and she is now up to 8 lbs 8 oz!!

Well, my appendages are finally starting to return to normal. Right after I had the baby I swelled up like someone who had eaten bad pork and my arms and legs swelled up like gas balloons. My legs were the same width from thigh down to ankle, and I swear that if I bent my toes enough my feet would have popped. It was very scary – but they assured me it was normal at the hospital, just from not being pregnant anymore and from all the IV juice I had while I was there. I looked like the Staypuff Marshmallow man, as those of you who got that picture of me in the recovery room know. I didn’t think it was ever going to end – but finally most of the swelling has dissipated. I think mostly because I am sweating it out. I wake up each night in a pool of sweat – it is very pleasant.

On another note, I have sweat out 25 pounds of it anyway. I gained 36 lbs this pregnancy, so I only have 11 to go to get back to my start weight. But then, unfortunately, I have another 20 to lose on top of that. Back in 2001 I joined Weight Watchers and lost 40 lbs – mostly because I had to lose it for the Army after I got activated and also because I realized that if I had stayed pregnant then that I would have gone over the 200 mark. I decided that next time I got pregnant I was NOT going to go over the 200 mark so it was time to lose it. Well, I managed to keep most of it off for these past several years, but last year after I got back from Iraq all I did was drink wine, eat cheese and chocolate, and work out sporadically. So, in 6 months I gained 20 lbs, and right when I decided it was enough and started doing WW again for a week –taa daaa – I am pregnant again. (But I didn’t go over the 200 mark.)

At least it is Spring so the weather is getting nice and we can get outside for some exercise. Well, it was nice. On Friday it was about 70 out - now, it is SNOWING!! My birthday is supposed to be in the Spring, but up here there is always the possibility of snow. (only 3 days away.) Jack and I are signed up to run in the Ottawa Marathon 10k race on May 27th. It seemed like a good idea when we signed up in February, but now I think it will be a personal record for me for slowest time ever! I’ll keep you posted on that. We still have to buy our Chariot jogging stroller. We tried to get it on Saturday, but the stores all had them in their warehouses yet. So, I think we can pick it up tonight if it comes in. Right now I cant’ run anyway, but later I don’t think I can run with Sammi in the sling so sooner or later we have to get the stroller so I can do more than walk around the neighbourhood. : )