Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Merry Christmas 2011

You've found the San Diego Angells' Holiday Letter 2011!

First and foremost: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all that good jazz. We are so happy to have you in our lives and we look forward to many more years of family connection, friendship and goodwill!

What did we do this year? Let's break it down by person.

Scott (admit it, you're most interested in our newest member!)Scott started the year off at just 10 weeks old. By that point, he had already been through several of our infamous parties, gone with mommy to Disneyland and had been featured in his first holiday card. But 2011 brought so many amazing changes that it's worth a recap. In the last year Scott has grown approximately 14 inches (and is now 33 inches tall), gained 16 lbs (28 lbs total), sprouted 10 teeth (although it will be 12 by the end of the year), and learned to crawl, walk, dance, throw a ball, and much more. He's gone from a diet of exclusively breastmilk to eating pretty much everything aside from hard choking hazards like nuts. His favorite food is still blueberries and he can't wait until they're back in season. He's got a few words, although his understanding is much better than his speech. He survived a week of mom and dad out of town with flying colors. And possibly most exciting of all, he's looking forward to being a big brother in a few mounths. Or at least, he would be looking forward to it if he understood what it meant. He gets along well with other children at daycare, both older and younger, and he should make a great big brother. Which brings us to:

Laura
I started off 2011 with quite a bit of extra baby weight and on maternity leave. I went back to work 3 days a week at the start of January and sent my baby off to daycare! Work is much less interesting this year because my two best friends at work moved away while I was on maternity leave and I'm now the only female scientist in the San Diego office. I'm still at Trex Enterprises, and I hit my 5 year mark in June. Through a fun twist with one of the other companies in my building, I got my favorite perk of the year: free lunchtime workout classes. I discovered that I really like to work out, and managed to lose all of my baby weight plus an additional 5 lbs and3 clothing sizes! I did all of this just in time to find out on June 29th that I'm pregnant again! Being pregnant with a little one has been challenging, but I feel like I'm in much better physical shape this time, and I'm also more mentally prepared for this journey. I am due to have another little boy on March 5th! I'm now officially in my 3rd trimester and I can't believe how soon I'll have two kids.

The big event of the year was a trip to Scotland for the wedding of Hope (my other soul mate) and Colin! It happened right around the time Scott was a year old and we were able to leave him home with Eric's parents (Thank you!). It was great to get some extended grownup time, to visit Hope and Heather (I had 2 friends move to Scotland in 12 months...pfft), and even just to travel again. It was the perfect baby moon. And thanks to all my working out, I wasn't the obviously "pregnant bridesmaid" as I had worried, even at 20 weeks pregnant.

Eric
Besides the Scotland trip, which I enjoyed as much as Laura, my other big milestone this year was turning 30. However, my own roaring 20s came to an earlier end, and I already have a (wonderful) wife, kid(s), and a house, so I don't really feel any difference. My big birthday weekend was mostly family time spent eating Thanksgiving dinner and putting up Christmas decorations. I've now entered my second year at OnRamp Wireless, which remains as fun and interesting as I'd initially hoped.

Overall the branch of the Angell family is doing well, preparing ourselves and our home for a second baby and trying to enjoy each other as much as we can.













Can't baby-proof the baby!

Scott and I spend the day together twice a week, just the two of us. It's really fun for me to play with him, and teach him stuff and just enjoy my child. We're doing ok, even with my growing belly. Mostly.

There's one issue we have. During diaper changes Scott likes to kick and laugh his head off. And he likes to grab anything he can (sometimes). This is incredibly frustrating and makes changing him difficult. And then, it's equally difficult for me to wash his hands after. 3 more (increasingly difficult) months of this s*it.

I can baby proof the house so he can run around. But how do I baby proof the baby from himself?

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Third Trimester

Monday marked the beginning of the third trimester. Ok, the beginning of what I consider the 3rd trimester anyway. December 5th is 3 months before March 5th. But as I discussed with Scott, pregnancy math is strange.

So far so good. I had some issues sleeping last week and for the most part, that seems to have died down for now. I have been waking up every day some time around 6:15 (right about sunrise), but it's nice to lay in bed even if I can't fall back asleep.

I'm not swollen at all yet! Yes! Although I realy think a lot of that has to do with the weather. But between not being swollen and working out this pregnancy, I keep having people tell me that I don't look pregnant except for the belly. That is amazing, given how big I got everywhere last time. It's really nice to be "that annoying skinny girl who ate a basketball"... at least, sorta. I'm not that skinny and my belly isn't quite that round.

My lap is rapidly disappearing. I feel really bad for Scott, since he still really likes mommy time sitting on my lap reading books or watching TV. It's much less comfortable now.

I have one friend who gave birth at just over 27 weeks (which is where I am this week), and her baby was fine, but among other things, he needed heart surgery and he was in the hospital for 2+ months! You read statistics about how babies born after a certain week have X chance of survival, but I'm glad I know one so that I understand that survival takes a lot of medical intervention. Not that I have shown any signs of early labor (although I am having the occasional braxton hicks contraction). And Scott was born on his due date. But if this kid decided to come a week or two early, that'd be just fine with me. I am still dreading a leap day birthday. That just seems like a bummer.

In any case, all is well.

Days to go: 88

Monday, December 5, 2011

I just want to eat sugar all the time!

Eating well is SO much easier when I'm working out regularly. It helps to have trainers who remind me to eat protein and veggies and avoid sugar and alcohol for 24-48 hours after working out. Right now I am still doing well at the first part, but I eat sugar ALL THE TIME. I feel like I'm craving it, and I probably am, but is that pregnancy related, or is that just because I'm a lazy bum.

I am going to Disneyland tomorrow, and I am determined to get a fresh candy cane. I am excited. And at least at Disneyland with a 14 month old, I'm carrying a lot of weight some of the time and walking around a whole lot. That's like working out right?

In any case, I am in my Third trimester today! 3 months to go.

Friday, December 2, 2011

Fun with numbers and other updates

I'm almost 6 months pregnant.

Things that are interesting:
-Scott and I combined weigh 14 lbs less than I did when I gave birth to Scott. That means we have 13 weeks to combined gain less than 14 lbs and me + Scott + new baby will still be under my highest weight ever!
(Ok fine, I'll give numbers. At my peak last time I was 210, Scott and I are combined 196 right now)

-Scott is sleeping through the night, 100% of the time. Ok he sometimes wakes up at 4am, but we ignore him.

-Scott is putting himself to bed, and the routine from playing to him alone in his room is less than 5 minutes.

-I am craving chocolate peppermint something fierce. It's my only major pregnancy craving this time around.

-Sometimes I get enough sleep, but Shamrock is making it hard for me to sleep through the night.

-At my last Dr apt, at 24 weeks, Shamrock's head was measuring at 26 weeks. This child is either going to be very large, or he's going to come in February.

-We have no name still. There just aren't that many boy names, and we're picky.

-Scott is still eating everything! He got 2 new teeth in the last week, two molars diagonal to each other, so I imagine their respective mates aren't far behind! His new food of the week is persimmon and he likes it! We made the decision to stop letting daycare give him juice.. he doesn't seem to have a preference for it, so there's no reason for him to be getting a sugar rush like that.

Days Pregnant: 186
Days to go: 94

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Blood, holidays and countdown!

Through a series of unfortunate events, I ended up getting up with Scott everyday for the last 3 days. And he's been waking up before sunrise.

Also, I'm running on day 2 of an off and on nose bleed. It's gross and I don't like it. In fact, I woke up congested, but it turns out that all of the congestion was blood, not mucus.

But I have 99 days to my due date! Crazy.

Thanksgiving went really well. Scott ate everything that there was to eat, liked most of it and was pretty good about staying out of the kitchen. He was a little freaked out to wake up from his nap with people here, but he mostly got over it. He had fun playing with the almost 3 year old that was here, and actually seemed to like interacting with the 6 month old too. I like that daycare is teaching him about other kids.

Meanwhile, the christmas elves have transformed our house this weekend and Scott is also doing really well with the tree. He's interested in it, but he's pretty good about not trying to pull any ornaments off. I loaded all the plastic ones at the bottom, so if he does get one off, it shouldn't be too bad.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Two Boys!

It's a boy!!

While this is great news for Scott (because let's face it, two boys stand a better chance of being really good friends than a boy and a girl do), I have been a little bummed about not having a girl too. Oh well, I'll get over it.

Or rather, I think I got over it. Why? Because yesterday Scott and I were at Disneyland (yes, again!!) and we walked by the name art booth. I was lamenting the fact that I'd never have a little girl to buy name art for, and then it dawned on me... I'm going to have two boys who will presumably want to do things for MOMMY! I have years of birthdays, mother's days, christmases, where my kids can get that kind of thing for me. It's certainly different, but I can still get to experience some of the things I would have liked to do for my little girl, only I'll be on the receiving end. I get to be the family princess forever :) That's cool.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

The last 24 hours have been a reminder why many people choose to space their children farther apart than we have decided to.

Things:
2 bloody noses
1 delayed nap (makes it hard to eat lunch when the child is still awake)
First time going to a restaurant and partaking in "kids eat free"... that was a good thing
1 family trip to the grocery store that we were all too tired to make
Roughly 10 hours of bickering with my also exhausted hubby
5 hours of sleep?
Getting puked on in the middle of the night
A few braxton hicks contractions

Basically, it comes down to the fact that our house is trashed, but we're both too tired to really fix it. I tried yesterday during nap time, but tidying house involves a lot of bending over and that's getting increasingly less comfortable, so I could only manage it for like 30 minutes. So we had a very tired fight about getting the house clean, managed to clean a little and then stayed up too late reading (I'm not really sure why on the last one). Then Scott was his usual needy self overnight, but we were both feeling entitled so neither of us really took the lead on tending to him. Then after about 45-60 minutes (don't have a clock in the bedroom so that I don't know how long it's been) of being awake around 1am, I got puked on. Scott fell asleep shortly after, but I still had to deal with changing my PJs, washing my arm, and changing my pillow case. It was just gross. And of course Scott woke up like an hour earlier than normal, so I got up too.

I'm having a rough day.

4 months to go. I don't expect this to get any easier.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Two things:

1) Last night I was able to feel Shamrock with my hand. That was cool!
2) My back hurts and tylenol is basically useless.

22 weeks tomorrow.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

21 week weight update

I love that I kept a record in my last pregnancy. And I love that I had the same kind of thoughts at roughly the same point in pregnancy.

So I'm about 21 weeks (got updated at my last ultrasound, new due date March 5), and I'm still down 6 lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight. I lost roughly the same 10 lbs in each pregnancy during the first 12 weeks, but last time I had gained it all back by now. But my doctor isn't concerned about my weight gain.

And I do know what the gender is, but I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks telling people in person first, because that's more fun!

Days Pregnant: 147
Days to go: 133

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Ok, I just looked it up.

I was 79 days pregnant with Scott (11 weeks and 2 days) when I "popped".
This time I was roughly 124 days pregnant (17 weeks 4 days).

I made it more than 6 weeks longer "not looking pregnant."

I'll stop complaining.

Popped

Ugh. I popped.

I mean, it's rad that I really made it to roughly 18 weeks before "looking pregnant"... but I am now going to be "the pregnant bridesmaid" which was the whole thing I was trying to avoid. Just two more weeks and I would have made it. But no, my abs have officially given out.

But it was week 12 or something when I popped with Scott, so I'm doing better anyway. I'm glad I've been planning a maternity wardrobe for my Scotland trip!

Monday, September 5, 2011

Damn you garlic!

Oh god, so ill!

I went out to lunch yesterday. I ordered a pesto pizza that I ate about half of, along with some bread and some of my friend's salad. I have the leftovers today for lunch. I ate a piece mid morning as a snack.

Turns out, there was a TON of garlic in the pizza that didn't come through as clearly yesterday.

Garlic is not my friend. It's still the most nausea inducing food this pregnancy (although bacon is ok this time around, at least mostly). I feel so very sick right now.

Damn you garlic!

Announcement Day!

Happy Labor Day! This is the day I'm officially announcing that.....I'm 13 weeks pregnant and into my second trimester! Really, today!

Now, for the real "I'm pregnant" post, that I wrote the day I found out.


Hello. Today is Wednesday June 29th, and today I found out that I am pregnant again.

Let me explain. My period has been going for maybe 5 months? I've forgotten at this point. I knew I could theoretically get pregnant, and that was a good thing. Eric and I wanted our kids to be spaced about 18 months apart! So that would put me at having one more period before finding out I was pregnant at the beginning of august.

My last period started June 6th. That means it's been 23 days. That's really quick to find out you're pregnant again. We weren't trying, but we weren't exactly not trying either. Why did I bother testing today, so close to my last period? I just had a feeling yesterday. First it started with me wanting TONS of fruit over the last two days, something prominent at the beginning of my last pregnancy. Then last night I thought "oh man, my skin is bad. Am I pregnant? I'll pee on a stick in the morning", but I didn't really do any math, I just had a feeling.

What's my reaction? Well, my literal first words to my husband were "Oh F*ck, I'm pregnant again." I mean, it's only one month early, why am I so bothered? I'm not really, I'm just scared. I'm also sad because it means I'll be 4.5 months pregnant at my friend's wedding in October, where I'm a bridesmaid. Who knows what that dress will look like now!

But I'm logged into baby center again, and the due date is sometime early march. Based on my last period, it's March 11th, the same day as original due date with my first miscarried baby. However, since I found out that I'm pregnant 23 days into my cycle, I imagine the date will be probably a week earlier than that in March. I'll update after seeing my OB and getting an estimate based on the size of the baby.

It's also worth noting that I miscarried after about 3 weeks for both my miscarriages. So for now, I'm keeping quiet, to maybe everyone? Haven't decided. Not telling anyone besides Eric today anyway.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Are we almost sleeping through the night?

Whoa.

Last night Scott went to bed at 8pm (per the norm).

At 10:30 he woke up. I got out of bed and had made it to the kitchen to prepare a bottle when he stopped crying. Huh. Ok, back to bed!

At 1:30 he woke up. This time I got a bottle, and filled it with water and he fell back asleep! This is exciting! Back to bed.

At 3:30 he woke up. This time I managed to prepare a bottle. I think if I had just left him for another 30 seconds he would have gone back to bed. But since he's use to eating in the middle of the night, I thought, ok, I'll give you the bottle. By the way, we've completely weaned, and we're trying to cut out night bottles, so at this point, his bottles are half strength formula. We're working toward just water bottles in the middle of the night. So I gave him the bottle and it didn't actually put him back to sleep. So I just put him back in his crib. By the time I washed out the bottle, and climbed back in bed, he had basically stopped crying already and fallen asleep.

At 6am he woke up again. This time I made the bottle and brought him to bed with me. Yesterday he woke up for the day at 6am so I wanted him to be as comforted as possible and sleep longer.

At 8am we both got up for the day.

So, moral of the story, Scott may be getting close to sleeping through the night. AMAZING!

Now we just need to stop crying for 1 minute a few times a night, because that still wakes me up!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Food Thief!!

So, I knew that teenagers eat you out of house and home.

But my kid, jumped ahead and started stealing my food, well, now. He's eaten all of my blueberries this week. And he stole about half my oatmeal earlier this week. And he even demanded my soup last night, AFTER he ate dinner.

Pfft. Food thief.

At least he's not a picky eater.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

nom nom nom

Feeding scott table food is so much more fun then feeding him jar food. He really enjoys new flavors and new textures and he's willing to try just about anything. I have the opposite of a picky eater and I really appreciate it!

Monday, August 15, 2011

Goody Bags

First, I read this article Can we please skip the goody bags

Then I started to comment on the article. And after I hit paragraph 5 or so I realized, I have more to say on this than a simple comment. So to the blog I go!

First, the recap: Goody bags are typically full of sugar and cheap crap toys, why do we keep doing them? And kids are rude about them and demand one from a party, but then don't care about them!

Now, I will start by saying that my son is only 10 months old, and so I'm new to this whole parenting thing. But he started going to birthday parties at 2 weeks old, and he's been to several.
The first goody bag I got, I was confused by, for pretty much the reasons stated in the article. It had a piece of taffy in it. Obviously, I ate that. But it also had bubbles, and it was my son's very first bottle of bubbles and I realized how quickly that bubbles are AWESOME!

So now I'm planning Scott's first birthday, and I'm making up goody bags (for the same kids whose birthdays he has gone to). There will be bubbles! And some cute card games that I got to give out as halloween treats to the younger kids, and it's a luau theme, so the kids will also get leis.

I am super excited to make the bags. I know they're unimportant, but at this age, the kids don't know Scott, the party is really for the adults, and to me they are party favors. In fact, I got incredibly cute boxes to put the loot in, so they'll in fact be decorations as well.

I think of goody bags the way I think of wedding favors. I didn't do jordan almonds at my wedding, or fancy chocolates. It was a wedding, there was food. Instead we gave away wine bottle stoppers and wine glass charms. It was something that reflected who we are (wine lovers :)) and they had love themes. People still use these gifts. I think for a kids birthday, the favors don't need to be something that will last a really long time, but something that can actually be used and enjoyed (and maybe even used up!) is a nice touch at the end of a party.

I wonder how I'll feel when Scott is 8 and I'm spending more every year to get things for a varying group of kids. But for now, I'll keep doing party favors, and I'll keep having fun with it.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Hello, Goodbye, Pre-Pregnancy Clothes

I've been moderately working out since March. I started swimming. At this point, I was a size larger than my pre-pregnancy clothes.

At the end of May I added a Metabolic Effect Boot Camp class once a week.
At the end of June I added a Zumba class once a week. When I started Zumba, I was in my pre-pregnancy clothes.

Today, at the end of July, I stood in front of my closet and thought, "I wonder if those pants fit?" I pulled them out, put them on, and zipped them up. Yes, they fit. Which pants are these? These are dress pants that I bought the summer before my senior year in college. I was 21 when I bought these pants. I weighed 15ish lbs less when I bought these pants. But today, they fit!

They are a size SMALLER than my pre-pregnancy clothes. Utterly amazing!

Formula before bed!

Ok, so we kicked Scott out of our bed like a week ago. So far so good. Well, mostly. He has still only been sleeping in 2 hour chunks, waking up pretty much every 2 hours like clockwork. LAME!

So I told my mom this and she suggested we give him formula before bed! My mom. My mom who made me cry because of the guilt trip she gave me for eating Jello while pregnant. So if it's approved by My mom, it must be worth trying.

We gave him 4oz of formula on Monday night (after Eric and I got the stomach flu and were both laid up all day), and he slept for 5 hours! Holy cow. He then nursed twice in an hour, and then slept for another 3.5 hours! That's insanity for us, and awesome. We tried again last night, another 5 hours! (Ok, I'm lying about both of these, in both cases, he woke up at some point during that 5 hour block, but he was able to be put back to sleep by Eric without needing to nurse, and fairly easily)

So tonight I will try giving him even more formula to see if we can make it longer. It's pretty exciting!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

One way ticket back to the nursery

Today is Thursday, I think.

On Tuesday night, Scott had his worst night on record. He fussed a bunch falling asleep, it took 3 nursing sessions and an extra hour, and even then, he woke up within 30 minutes. He proceeded to wake up every hour all night long, demanding nursing before falling back asleep. Then he woke up at 5:45, roughly an hour before he normally wakes up.

We have (ahem, had) his crib set up as a side car kind of thing, next to my side of the bed. So he had his own space, but he was right there for me to grab and tend to. It means I can nurse in bed too, and if he's on the right side, he can roll back into his crib when he's done.

But no more. Tuesday night was officially the last straw. Cosleeping is OVER. On Wednesday Eric and I (mostly Eric) moved the crib back into the nursery and we moved the nursing chair next to it. This way I can nurse in the middle of the night if I so choose, or just rock him.

Last night was the first tnight of this. Fortunately, I correctly identified sleepy cues, so we got him to bed at a good time. Then the night basically ran like clock work, with Scott waking up every 2 hours to nurse. SO not good for a 9 month old. But since I first need to get him use to being in his room again, I'm going to let him nurse at will for a while. Also, I'm SO sleep deprived, that I didn't have the energy to walk around with a crying child at 2:30am. Bleh. I'll work on cutting out night feedings soon, but not this week.

And I'm seriously reconsidering ever letting any future children into my bed. I think cosleeping was really nice for a while, but it only works as long as everyone is getting their needs met, and I haven't been for a while.

So Scott is back in his room, I am back to having my correct side of the bed, and now I'm actually getting out of bed 4x a night to tend to a little one. Hopefully things improve and Scott learns to sleep through the night before his first birthday.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

A Sign and a 3rd Tooth!

Scott signed for the first time yesterday!

And today he cut his 3rd tooth!

But the signing, I went off to an event last night (and most of the afternoon) and left Scott home with daddy. We are working toward weaning, so we're focusing on food and not milk. He did really well and made it about 5 hours after I left. He was in the middle of dinner, happily eating, when he decided that he was done and it was milk time. Daddy tells me that he very deliberately signed milk, and upon being served milk, calmed right now. Super cool!

The tooth has no real story, except I'm looking forward to the other top tooth coming in so we can feed him more foods (although we don't really let teeth limit us too much right now), and so that sleep can go back to something more normal for us.

Scott is 9 months and 4 days old!

Friday, July 8, 2011

Toy Store Time!

Whoa! I stopped paying attention for 2 seconds and my house turned into a toy store!

I mean, I know that I'm super excited about all the kid toys, and the pop-up house and the ride/push train and the balls and the stuffed animals, but this is nutty. I really feel like my house went from "adults live here, oh and maybe a baby" to "Kid Central!" overnight.

Meh, Scott is entertained most of the time and I get to play too. :)

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Scott's first post:

Things I learned today:
1. The car wash is scary. Please don't take me there again.
2. Evil Emperor Zerg is scary too.


That's all. Thank you.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Mom, where are my teeth!?

New photos are up on flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/hostofangells/

As far as I can tell, Scott is fairly typical in most ways. He's a little behind in language, ahead in motor skills. But there is one notable exception, at least to me.

He still, after 10 weeks of having them, only has 2 teeth. I know that teeth come in at different rates, but this just seems really odd to me to have two bottom teeth and no more. Seriously. I wish he would get some more teeth so I could give him more foods. Someday eh?

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Scott will be 8 months old next week. That actually seems about right :)

But this post is about me. He's amazing, but his impact on me is interesting too. Two things have happened since I gave birth.

1) I'm sleep deprived. Seriously, long term, sleep deprived. Scott typically wakes up every 2-3 hours all night long, even now. He sleeps in his crib some, but he spends a lot of most nights in bed with us too. This is so that neither one of us needs to wake up to get him. Sometimes I sleep in the guest bed with just Scott so that we both have a little more room. The side effect of this is that I am not always the kind of person that I want to be, particularly with Eric. My patience is in short supply and nearly all of it goes to Scott. I am cranky and snappy and irritable. I know that it's directly related to my sleep deprivation, so I can often step back and appoligize for it, but I can rarely fix it in real time. At least I know I'm doing it.

2) I'm motivated to actually work out. I want to lose the pregnancy weight (which I have), and fit back into my pre-pregnancy clothes (which I do, officially, as of last week), and have the stamina and strength to keep up with a little boy. I've never wanted to work out. When it was easy and free and I had access to pools and gyms, I didn't really do anything. At least, not regularly (beyond one semester in college). Sure, I've taken lots of dance classes, but I've never wanted to work out for working out's sake before. But now I do! And I've managed to fit it into my life. I swim one day a week with a friend and I do an aerobics weight lifting class another day. I feel so good about myself. Startlingly good. It's not that I'm super hot, I'm not really. I still have a belly and I'm 10 lbs overweight (by BMI standards), but I look better than I did 6 months ago, or even last month. And I have more energy. Despite the sleep deprivation, I am not exhausted all the time anymore! And it's all internal! That's the best part. I have one friend who looks at me regularly and comments on my weight loss success, but mostly it's all my opinion of me. I may have the best opinion of myself that I've ever had in life. Pretty funny, especially considering that I weighed 40 lbs less a decade ago.

So Scott is currently causing me to be less zen than I would like, but he's improved my desire to take control of my body and my self esteem. Overall, I think positive changes.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

On pregnancy weight gain

So, I started trying to get pregnant in 2009. At that time I weighed X. With each pregnancy and miscarriage, I gained 5 lbs. When I finally got pregnant with Scott, I weighed X+10. Then I gained 40 lbs with my pregnancy.

I've done a good job losing the pregnancy weight. I currently weigh X+6, meaning I've lost all of the "pregnancy" weight. I thought I was doing really well. Until I saw some photos taken of me over the last couple of weeks. I am startled at how different my body is. The hardest thing is the disconnect between reality and my self image. For the first time in my life, I think I look better than I really do. I know that it's only been 7.5 months, but I thought my weight loss was an indication that I was back in my pre-pregnancy shape. I'm not.

Something to work on I guess.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011


First professional photo shoot today! More photos to come.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Given the choice between a child who vomits all over me, and then gets diarrhea 30 minutes later and ruins pajamas #2 for both me and him, and a child who cries inconsolably for hours on end... I'll take child a. Last night was rough and I didn't sleep much, but at least Scott was pleasant through all of it.

It's been a really good and a really rough weekend, all at the same time.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Making a food source for my baby is absolutely fascinating.

Pumping was fascinating for a while. Putting big bottles of milk that came out of me into the fridge is still surreal. But pumping... well, it's gone from fascinating to me feeling like a cow. In that, 'I'm being milked' sense.

I spend something like 90 minutes a day doing things related to feeding my baby when I'm not with him. This is more time that it would take me to feed him were I with him. I pump 3 times a day while I'm at work. Each time takes about 20 minutes. And then I need to clean the pumping supplies. I use "quick clean wipes" the first two times, and then wash and sanitize the last time. And then at home I need to wash all of the bottles that we send to daycare (6 2oz bottles, one for each feeding). And I need to freeze any excess milk. It's like I'm getting the worst of formula feeding and the worst of breast feeding all in one. =P

But I'll keep doing it, for many more months. At least it's all working and Scott will take bottle or breast without concern.

Scott is (almost) 17 weeks old.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

No longer feeling pregnant!

Scott is 14 weeks old now. It seems that my body has decided that was the magic threshold to stop acting pregnant.

During pregnancy your hair stops falling out. Your nails get hard. Your period stops. As of yesterday, none of those things are true anymore. My hair is falling out in handfulls (this is just fine, it had gotten obnoxiously thick), my nails have been breaking for weeks now and my period is back in full swing (this one is really lame). But on the other hand, my body seems to have decided to stop looking pregnant too. Of course, I'm still over my pre-pregnancy weight and I'm still "fat", but my shape is no longer that of a woman in her second trimester. I'm actually pretty excited about the shape thing. Today I'm wearing a pre-pregnancy top and it looks pretty good. So that's cool.

In the world of Scott, he rolled over from his belly to his back yesterday! I gave him a better surface to roll on and it helped. Of course, when I wanted to see if he'd do it again, and put him back on his tummy, his reaction was basically "What? Seriously? I hate being on my stomach. Did you not just notice me correct the situation and roll to my back? None of that this time, I'm just going to complain until you fix it!"

But all in all, things are going well and I'm starting to feel like a real person again. I even kind of like coming to work. Kind of.

Scott: 14 weeks and 1 day old

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

12 week update (partially about mommy)

Scott is now 12 weeks old! And mom is back to work. And family is all gone for now.

I feel like I'm dealing with a lot of icky stuff right now. The most dramatic things are work related. I'm back at my job now 3 days a week. Leaving Scott in the care of daycare sucks, but it's a necessary evil. When I'm in a good mood I'm generally really positive about it because this is what's happening so I'm doing my best. I think daycare overall is good. It'll get Scott use to sleeping in a crib by himself, it'll socialize him (you know, when that becomes important), tt gives him variety that he craves, and I get to keep working. Working is sort of nice for all the obvious reasons, and it is a major financial benefit for my family because my benefits are awesome and my paycheck only goes half to the daycare costs.

But work is lame too. When I started here, I started with my best friend from college. We were roommates for 2 years, and then friends for 2 years, and then we had offices next to each other for 4 years. That's some serious support. The company is full of people a generation above us, and mostly men, so having that support network was key to us both surviving here. Then a year and a half ago, we got another friend of ours from college to start working here when she graduated! Score. But as of today, they've both moved on to other things, in other cities and I'm the last remaining female scientist in the san diego office. Today I ate lunch in my office and got a lot of sad looks from people. I spend a good portion of my time either crying or trying not to cry. It will ge easier, I know, but today is sad. I miss my baby and I miss my friends. I am SO thankful that tomorrow is one of my days at home with the kiddo.

So Scott has his first "cold"... although it really just seems to be some snot that's rattling around in his sinuses. He isn't coughing, has no fever, doesn't seem TOO much more fussy than normal, and no snot has come out of his nose. And he can still breath through his nose, if with somewhat more difficulty. This has been mostly fine, except last night he was basically snoring. He kept me awake for hours in the middle of the night while he slept peacefully, just loudly. On the bright side, he went 7 hours without eating and only ate once in the middle of the night! That's a really excellent thing! Now, if we can manage again, it'll be fantastic! Not that I get a choice mind you, but I can be excited when things go well.

In other news, Scott didn't poop at all yesterday for the first time ever. Babies do that, so I wasn't worried. But when I talked to dad this morning, he told me that the poop strike had ended after I left for work and in his words, "There was poop everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE! And then he peed while I was changing him." I do more than my fair share of the diapering, so this really made me laugh. It was probably the only funny and truly wonderful thing to come out of today so far. Thank you Scotty for making mommy's day!

Overall, motherhood is good but life is hard. I know things will get easier, but I'm allowing myself to wallow for a little while.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Sleep musings

Ok, I realized that I needed to end writing today with something more interesting.

Scott has stopped falling asleep in the living room during our normal nightly activities... at least, he doesn't often do this. In fact, I've brought him to bed with me the last couple of nights to try and get him to sleep. A couple nights ago he was nursing and I was playing a game on my phone, illuminating my face. He stopped nursing and just stared at me, smiling and cooing. Very cute, but I wanted sleep. So I put my phone down and we lay there quietly in the dark and he fell asleep. Interesting. I repeated last night, laying in the dark and again, he fell asleep. This gives me hope that maybe he'll be able to go to sleep on a ritual soon, maybe even getting him to sleep in his crib while I stay up and do things for a bit after he goes to bed, before I bring him to bed with me.

Sleep has not been an issue, but it's interesting to see how it's all developing.

Daycare Freakout

I'm back at work today for real. I'm attempting to work 3 days a week. This is day one.

Eric is currently still home with Scott, but he's going to be taking him to his first day of daycare shortly. I know I've been away from Scott before, and left him in the care of others, but prior to now it was all a one-on-one basis. That was much easier to think about. I'm trying to be really good and not freak out, but I'm getting so nervous about leaving my little boy in the care of people who will have other babies to look after at the same time. Sometimes he just wants to be held and walked around. Will he get that kind of care? I'm actually starting to cry over this.

Oh good, and if I didn't have enough pulling at my heart strings, Eric just called to tell me that he's gone through about 15 oz of frozen breast milk and it has all gone bad. That sucks as there is no fresh pumped stuff and it potentially means that all of the frozen milk is bad. I don't have a system for getting milk for him on Monday.

I'm maybe not ready for this after all it seems. But financially it makes sense for me to work. This sucks.