Sweet Spot

May it only sting a moment
when you dive into that blue
'cause by the time you hit the surface
it has rearranged you
this is the sweet spot of your life.
 - Antje Duvekot

I don't know exactly how much time I have spent in the last 6 weeks staring at my daughter and thinking about how awesome she is, but I wouldn't be surprised if you told me it was one zillion hours.  She's beautiful.  She's cute.  She makes funny faces.  She is full of sweetness and innocence.  She gets mad and grunts when her tummy hurts.  She flails her limbs reflexively and sometimes punches herself in the face in the process.  She has huge blue eyes and looks at me with such intensity at times.  She smiles a lot now, and sometimes she almost laughs.  I know that's coming soon.  My favorite times are when she is scrunched up like a little bug, asleep on my chest.  I love that tummy-to-tummy time.  Last night I was held hostage by her cuteness in that position for about 3 hours, and despite the (literal) pain in my neck and my inability to get up to use the bathroom or to even reach my ringing phone that was out of arm's reach....I knew that there was nothing better than that.  No other place I'd rather be. This is the sweet spot of my life.

This is our life right now

This extremely accurate description of feeding a baby is exactly what our life is about right now.  I laughed so hard I cried.  Todd laughed so hard he woke the baby sleeping on his chest.

Firsts

This week was full of firsts for us - first trip in a store with the stroller (this, of course, came after the first time standing in the middle of the parking lot trying to figure out how to work the stroller, not being able to figure it out, putting it back in the car and carrying the baby instead).  First trip to visit one set of SJ's great-grandparents.  First time (for me) being sneezed on by a baby who had a full mouthful of formula.  First time SJ slept 5 hours at night (only happened once so far, but still - yay sleep!)   And lots of other mundane firsts that seem significant only to a baby's parents.  :)

But also, my first Mother's Day.  Thanks, Baby.  I'm glad you're here.

I'm not totally capable of planning and sticking to a menu right now  - we're kind of taking things one day at a time and things aren't totally predictable at the moment.  Plus, nice people bring us food sometimes, and we don't always know when that will happen, but it is very much appreciated.  But, here's a general plan, which may or may not be adhered to. 

Breakfasts:  oatmeal or peanut butter waffles

Lunches: leftover baked ziti, carrot-sweet potato soup, salads

snacks:  grapefruit, lactation cookies

Dinner:

Monday:  salad, grazing on random things

Tuesday:  stuffed pork roast, roasted Brussels sprouts, macaroni and cheese

Wednesday:  baked tofu, salad

Thursday: Mexican lasagna

Friday:  leftover Mexican Lasagna

Saturday:   In Lancaster

Sunday:  I don’t know - can’t think that far in advance right now. 

And....we're back (I think)

Yeah, so.... I had a baby!  The last few weeks before SJ arrived were crazy busy with many doctor's appointments, wrapping things up at work, doing renovations in the master bedroom and the nursery, cooking piles of food to stock the freezer for after the baby arrived, etc.  And then, in the middle of the night on her estimated due date, SJ decided she was ready to join the outside world.   I was scheduled for an induction the next day, which I was somewhat unhappy about because it meant that the doctor on call when I would be in labor was the one doctor in my practice that I really did not like.  But, SJ said "forget that!  I'll come out now!" and she was here 6 hours later.

And everything was good and happy and we were getting her straightened out about "day" vs "night" and all seemed right with the world until last Monday when she was vomiting a lot and seeming kind of listless, and a few hours later we were in the ER getting and IV into her.  What?  Baby Girl!  You are giving us a run for our money.  We spent all of last week in the hospital getting every test imaginable and trying to get her weight up.  No one wants to see "failure to thrive" listed as their baby's diagnosis.  Ugh.  Baby! What's going on?

Well, they still don't know for sure, but now she's on a foul-smelling formula that she seems to be tolerating pretty well, and she's eating a lot.  Well, it seems like she's eating a lot, but she still lost a little more weight since she was discharged from the hospital (come on, baby!  Eat!  More! Stinky!  Formula!).   We will get another weight check in 2 days.  I should have my own private parking spot at the pediatrician's office.  I think we're going to be there a lot.  The docs are all great, though, and I'm really glad we went with this practice. 

So, that's where we are.  Baby does pretty well sleeping at night, and she's eating like a champ, but still needs to pack on some weight.  She also smiles and I swear she uses her hand to push her pacifier back into her mouth when it starts to slide out.  I think she's a genius.  Except for this eating thing.  She could use some remediation there. 

And I am back in my pre-pregnancy jeans today!  Woot!  And my shoes fit again.  Huzzah!  I guess that's what happens when you gain all your weight at the very end and it's all in the form of water retention.   Or, that you don't have time to eat because your sick baby requires even more attention than a typical infant.  That could be it, too.  Oh, and eating hospital food for a week.  There's that.

So, this is my introduction to parenthood.  I think this one's going to be a feisty trouble-maker.  Bring it on, baby!  I'll try to keep up.

Countdown: 6 weeks

give or take.

I haven't been posting anything, but I have been super busy, and only adhering moderately well to the menu plan each week.  I still do it, but things haven't always gone as planned for a variety of reasons.   One of those reasons is that I haven't been sleeping well, so I haven't been as productive in my after-work hours because I'm just tired and don't always feel like doing what I had planned days earlier.   C'est la vie.   We've also been eating out more often than usual, not because I haven't felt like cooking, but because friends have been going out a lot recently, and I feel compelled to take advantage of those opportunities right now because I know that pretty soon it won't be quite so easy to do so.  But we're still plugging along over here.

Anyway.  This weekend!  Thank you to everyone who had anything to do with the shower this weekend, because it was super awesome and perfect and beautiful and tasty.  Seriously.  Awesome party, and I hope this baby knows how much he or she is loved because it's pretty clear to me.  Lucky baby.  :)  I didn't have my camera with me (uh, I may have lost the camera, actually.  Need to find it or buy a new one before baby arrives.  Can't have iphone photos as the only photos.

Here's the plan for this week.  It's not super ambitious, but we're eating out at several events this week, and I'm still trying to work my way through our freezer of unknown treasures.   This week I pulled out a pork roast and some awesome toffee brownies, both of which were a nice surprise.  Who knows what else I'll find in there! 

Breakfasts:  oatmeal or smoothies

Lunches: matzoh ball soup, baked tofu

snacks:  grapefruit, yogurt

Dinner:

Sunday:  apple-cranberrystuffed pork roast, roasted Brussels sprouts, carrot-sweet potato mash

Monday:  pizza

Tuesday:  out, for a fundraiser dinner

Wednesday:  at trivia, maybe potstickers

Thursday:  breaded chicken tenders, leftover veg, leftover carrot-sweet potato mash

Friday:  Swedish meatballs, egg noodles, lingonberry jam

Saturday:  @ St. Patrick’s Day party, probably shepherd’s pie, potato soup

Whine, whine, go away

Bleh.  I'm sick.  Two weeks ago we had some norovirus going around our campus, and I was so, so careful about washing my hands, using lots of hand sanitizer, and wiping down every surface in the office with the high-powered health center sanitizing wipes.  And then I go and get an epic head cold from someone we had dinner with twice last weekend.  She didn't tell us she was "getting over a cold" until she was already in our car.  Grr.  

I had to present at a conference this past Friday, and I started feeling sick Tuesday night.  It wasn't too bad during the day, and got worse each night.  So, thankfully I was fine on Friday (well, at least not sneezing my way through my presentation), but then yesterday was way worse.  I had a small family baby shower in Lanc yesterday that I had to go to (obviously, since it was for me), and I really, really hope that I didn't get anyone else sick.  There were two grandmothers there in their 80's and 90's and I would really hate to see either of them get sick.  I tried to stay in the corner and I washed my hands a lot and didn't touch anything.

But seriously?  Being sick and pregnant is not the most fun thing in the world. I can't take anything for it. I just have to go through box after box of tissues and whine a lot.  Heh.  I'm not very good at being sick.  I went out and got some chicken soup from the Jewish deli today.  Yum.  If I could taste it.

Anyway, I'm not even going to bother posting  a menu this week.  I don't feel like cooking anything, and I'm sure T doesn't want to eat anything I've touched.  So, I went to TJs and got some ready-made stuff, and we'll eat out of the freezer and be boring this week.  I just can't deal with standing up in the kitchen trying to make food right now.  All I want is a Popsicle.  Whine, whine, whine.

Time capsule

I spent much of the day today cleaning out a closet that hasn't been touched since we moved in here 7 years ago.   It was like opening a time capsule - all of the random things that I have not wanted to throw away, but didn't really have a better place for.  I did end up throwing a lot of it away now, but I can see why I kept it originally.  The closet contained old family photos, my third-grade recorder, art supplies, drawing pads full of old (bad) artwork, the scratchy blanket I brought home from Spain in 1995, the materials I used to study for my grad school comps (and then couldn't find (because they were buried in this closet) when I was studying for the licensing exam so I had to buy them again), a pair of French opera glasses that I think belonged to my grandparents, a framed award for perfect attendance in elementary school.....

What do you do with that stuff?  I don't really want to throw a lot of it away, but I don't know where to put it.  I went out and bought some large plastic bins to put all my large art supplies in, which will be stored in the basement.  But the rest of it?  I don't want to just stash it away in a box somewhere, to find again in another 7 years.....  I guess if that did happen, at least all of the junk has been removed now (old appliance manuals, internship notes, etc).  I think I have it whittled down to the better, sentimental stuff now.  I guess I could store it in a bin in the basement.  I just don't know what else to do with it.

Anyway......I can't believe it's Sunday evening again already.  I feel like lately I have just been living to get to the weekends so I can do stuff around the house.  I am very aware of how few weekends we have left to get the house ready to bring a little person home to live here.  We finally got a contractor in to take a look at the closet in the baby's room, which needs to be replastered, or covered with drywall, or something.  We need to get that done before we can really start moving stuff into that room and decorating.  The plaster removal is going to make a big mess, so I don't want to fill the room with stuff we then have to remove again (or clean).  We did shift a lot of furniture around in other rooms today, which was a start.  I am eager to be able to get that room set up, though.

So, here we go with another menu plan for the week.  I finally got this pasta dish made.  It's been on the plan for awhile now, but I never go to it.  I was able to use up some stuff from the freezer, and it's tasty and delicious.  I didn't have the time or energy today to spend a lot of time cooking, since I spent all day cleaning and moving furniture, so I'm going to take the easy route and just go with pre-made stuff out of the pantry and freezer for lunches this week.  I'm ok with that.  We already have it anyway- might as well eat it.

Oh, and I'm presenting at a conference on Friday, which I've never done before.  Yikes!   It's on something I could talk about in my sleep, though, so I think it will be fine.  We only have an hour anyway, so it can't be that bad.

Breakfasts:  oatmeal or smoothies

Lunches: random use-ups: turkey chili, vegetarian chicken patties, spinach lasagna

snacks: string cheese, almonds, grapefruit

Dinner:

Sunday: Cheesy Ham and Pasta Bake, veg

Monday:  Leftover Cheesy Ham and Pasta Bake and leftover veg

Tuesday: salmon cakes, roasted Brussels sprouts withsundried tomato pesto, apple barley pilaf

Wednesday: at trivia, maybe French Dip sandwich

Thursday:  margarita pizza

Friday: tilapia, green beans, mashed potatoes

Saturday:  will be in Lancaster