doubletake

In the future, DO NOT EVER offhandedly remark about how easy/simple/straightforward ANYTHING that relies on temperment (baby's, mom's, dad's, grandma's...) was for you to a new mom. This is harrasment on the lowest level and probably will only make yourself feel good/superior for like a minute but will cause infinite misery/stress/worry/fury for her.

In related news, I currently despise my neighbor's daughter with the white hot fury of a thousand suns.

Why no, sleep "training" isn't going well for us. Why do you ask?

Saw Kayo and Linda downtown; piroshkies and catching up. Leta very good, pretty quiet but allowed hugs and played with them after a little bit of shy.
Did not bring bottle; she was too excited to nurse and kept getting distracted so instead of going straight home afterwards we took a detour to West Seattle and dropped in at the midwives' office. Saw Christine this time.Leta was pretty hungry but tanked up pretty quickly. Got cupcakes and came home. On the bus home we met a girl in a wheelchair with a cat (Leta LOVES cats!) and later, after two older ladies got really worried because there was a yellowjacket on the window near us, a sweet ninja knight in shining armor caught it in his bare hand and let it go out of the window.
She was super excited to see her Daddy when we got home.
Peaches and yogurt for dinner. Pulled to stand (augh!) on my leg while I filled the tub. Noooooooo!

EFFFFFFFFF YOOOOOOOOUUUUUUU.

Seriously, SUCH a bad mood this morning. And nobody else is even up yet.

Stayed up late last night because the fruit flies were swarming so badly that they were bumping into my face when I went to wash my hands. I was on a mission. A two-fold mission:
1) Find whatever it is they're eating and get rid of it.
2) Clean the whole bloody kitchen spring-cleaning-clean so that it would be easier to starve them out (read: I won't have to stay up late looking for hidden food/puddles of water). This mostly meant doing all of the hand-wash dishes that had piled up over the last few days.

There is this...THING...which I have observed. If the sink is completely empty and the counters are completely empty, we can maintain that cleanliness level easily for several days. Dishes get dealt with as they happen, stuff gets put away. As soon as ONE FREKKIN' CUP gets left in the sink, it's all over. Suddenly there are dirty dishes piled everywhere, greasy pans on the stove, food scraps in the disposal, and the sink is half-filled with grimy dishwater because the drain is covered with the unwashed masses.

Except I have a 6 month old kid who has been waking up every hour or two all night SCREAMING and hysterical (growth spurt? gas pains? teething? bad dreams?)...and so far the only thing that works is to nurse her back to sleep. Which only I can do. And she's mobile. And the house is not childproofed. Or safe. It's not really adult-safe either, but at least we know to put pressure on the wound and not to stick our fingers in the sockets. Soooo, not a whole lot of time to patrol the kitchen on Cup Watch. And I'm not a single mom, so the cups are not all my fault.

Like this morning, when I walked into the kitchen at 6 AM after a late night of broken sleep, early because I couldn't go back to sleep once David had flumped back into bed after a bathroom trip and She With The Two Teeth was startled while nursing and OW, and there were FOUR DIRTY CUPS sitting on the pristine, like-seriously-I-moved-my-KitchenAid-mixer-off-the-counter-just-so-it-would-look-less-cluttered, clean countertop. Over the dishwasher. Which by the way, is dirty. And only half full.

HULK SMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSHHHHH.

Which, honestly, took a whole 5 seconds to resolve (put 4 cups in dishwasher, close door). I just...rargh. RARGH.

She's now 6 months old...and a bit.
She's also...
...pretty mobile, via a modified commando 'crawl'. She will come to you if you tell her to. That's pretty damn awesome.
...LOUD and very interested in telling us alllll about...something. Something involving a lot of vowels and yelling.
...started solids. Apples, sweet potato, banana, and avacado. And rice rusks. Andbroccoli tonight.
...sleeping...inconsistently.

...to say the least...

....sooooooo tiiiiired...:D

...well, if only XYZ had been 'update journal', I'd be pretty close. I can barely keep up with Facebook, let alone my email. Slowwwwly becoming human again, as opposed to a monster that only emerges from her cave to make panicky calls to the pediatrician and fail miserably at A Nice Meal Out, Come On, She'll Fall Asleep In The Car.

State Of The Union:
Me: Bed and Breakfast. All joints seem to be failing, probably due to her preference for side-lying nursing. Getting more proficient at a lot of things, sadly, driving is not yet one of them. Have gotten in some decluttering and a wee bit of sewing.
He: Work goes well; big raise and bonus this year so he's a little more motivated to stay. Anemic again. :(
Her: creeping, babbling, laughing, fricken adorable. Adores tags, rattles, and her Daddy. Still refuses pacifier, dislikes but tolerates bottle on rare occasions. Does not sleep through the night or nap reliably, probably related to continued slow weight gain. Two teeth. We're waiting for the 6 month mark for solids but she's already REALLY interested. :/
Cats: coping, poor things. Yumi is incredibly tolerant. Aoshi has been brave...ish, mostly because he can't stand being alone.
House: slowly...slowly...soooo slowly working our way toward kichen remodel. Lots of other projects to finish first.
Greg: Moved back in with us, paying rent which is why we'll be able to do the kitchen remodel.

Her, update: Very happy.
Yumi, update: Rapidly losing fur.
Me, update: Gotta go.

Been a while.
Had a baby.
Parents went home.
Baby needed emergency surgery and a 9 day hospital stay.
David's job started needing him more.
Laptop died.

Now, NEW LAPTOP! It is an Ultrabook and sooooper shiny and awesome. First new computer I've had in 13 years. :D

Parenthood is working out. Colette is now 2 months, totally adorable and just a wee bit colicky.
Except for today, which we started out with an extra-early wakeup call, pediatrician visit, and 3 shots. Heheheh...let's just say, CRABBY PATTY. Baptism class is tonight. No babysitter. My cousins are going also, for their new baby Nate (5 days younger than Leta). They also have no babysitter...for Nate, or for their two older boys. There is apparently one other couple attending...eheheheheh...sorry, folks!

Will have to backdate (almost finished) post detailing home birth, which was great.

Stillllll waiting. :)

Parents are here; hooray! They brought many baby goodies, and leek starts, and a partially completed birthing stool (which Dad will hopefully finish today). We're all sort of on a slow, comfortable pace which I am appreciating. Finally got to Dunn Lumber, which turns out to be a very nice hardware store, and I picked up the siding we need to fix the hole in the side of the house where the old range hood 'vented' (except for the part where they used a sprayer for painting the house before we got it and sprayed over the mesh that covers the vent, rendering the thing useless). It's supposed to rain a bit today but I'm hoping to get that primed and painted--want everything ready to go before we put a 'real' hole through the wall. Need to find some Teflon tape so we can do some plumbing work today, too--gotta hook up the diaper sprayer and maybe even the kitchen faucet David bought me for Christmas (eeee!). 

May have met contractions...maybe not. People keep saying 'you'll know it when you feel it' but I'm still a little worried that I'll go into labor and not realize it until it's far enough along that prepping for the birth will have to be rushed. Do not want stress. WOULD like to be able to sleep better (HAH!) and am starting to think that getting up every two hours to feed/change her may be easier than this is--there's only a couple of 'comfortable' sleeping positions and those eventually make my hips hurt, so I've been getting up early because I just can't sleep through the pain anymore.

Blueberry banana bread for breakfast. Yum! Froze carrot soup pucks and leek/kale strata yesterday. Freezer is approaching 'burgeoning' but I'm pretty sure we'll go through most of it pretty quickly after bebe arrives and parents go home.

Must take trash to curb before the guy gets here.

No baby yet, and it could be a few weeks still. However, come hell or high water, she will be out by the first, since that's "42 weeks" and the medical community doesn't like prolonging gestation past that (that's when the midwives would be 'obliged' to transfer me to standard care...aka chemical induction and/or C-section...of course, the ladies have a bunch of tricks up their sleeves for making sure that doesn't happen, so I'm not worried.)

( Whine, kvetch, moan.Collapse )

Oh, but parents on their way! Very happy about that.

Friday, Colleen came over and we hung out for a while and then she went with me to my midwife appointment, which was nice. Taylor (midwife) let her hear the heartbeat and feel the baby (who is apparently really low now, which explains my newfound ability to breathe without getting lightheaded again...and my newfound need for a bathroom every 15 minutes) and we talked a bit about what happens if she doesn't come 'on time' (basically, if we start reaching the end of the window where a certified midwife can preside, although neither midwife thinks we'll get that far).

Saturday was kinda busy; I painted the closet underneath the stairs and put in an organizer, and we got the first can light working after MUCH craziness:
(David is in the attic, I'm downstairs.)
Me: "Hooray! The light is on! I'm pressing the dim button. It's still bright. It's still bright. It's still bright. The indicator is still at the top...damn. Why isn't it working? Wait, now the indicator is lit in the middle. It's blinking. The light is still bright. The indicator is on the second to last spot. Still bright, wait, now the light is dimming, now it's at the bottom and the light is di...now it's at the top and not blinking and the light is bright...now it's in the middle...I'm not touching anything...it's blinking...the light is still bright...I'm still not touching anything..."
Him: "Okay, kill the breaker."
Me: "What were you doing?!"
Him: "Uh...nothing."
Both: "...."
Yeah. So there was that. I lost count of how many times I flipped breaker 6, but we got it in the end with help from Curt and a lot of internet research.

Sunday was the second baby shower. Which was super fun and awesome...I got to see many of my favorite lady-people (Angela, Cherylyn, Yenny, Sarah, Kayoko, Linda, Liz, Anna & Colleen all came, it was a great group) and Colleen made lots of yummy snacks and OMG TINY TINY CUTE THINGS GALORE. Like, galore-galore. Tell women that they can go baby shopping for frilly cute things and then stand back! We mostly sat around, decorated baby headbands and talked about...well, about all sorts of things, babies, books...including 50 Shades of Grey, LOL!...TV shows, movies, knitting...babies...babies...babies...and then there was a lot of gift unwrapping, and we had cake...it was a great day.

Honestly, Colleen did 95% of the party prep (I made a cake, which we actually hadn't planned for, but Pinterest and Preggo are a dangerous combination) and the house was pretty tidy even though it looked bad (David and I had done it up nicely the previous weekend, so it hadn't had time to get too bad). We did some minor cleanup in the morning, and David ran me down to Michael's to pick up some ribbon roses and elastic and stuff for the headband project, but that was about it. Even so, yesterday I ended up barely making it through prepping 3 meals (all cop-outs, we're working through leftovers and trying to clear the fridge, so not a lot of actually cooking involved), a load of laundry, a load of dishes, some minor cleanup, and one baby bootie (machine sewn) for the whole day. I took three naps, watched a bunch of TV (which I could recap approximately 3% of), and that was it. I was exhausted.

Needed another nap this morning after breakfast, putting away laundry and taking out the trash/recycle/yard waste, but right now I'm feeling pretty good so we'll see how the rest of the day goes. We're about to go down to VM to talk to a couple of pediatricians so we can pick one, and maybe get some vaccinations (DTaP and influenza) if they'll do them there. Otherwise, I guess we'll need to stop by a Walgreens or something. "Birth tub" (aka kiddie pool) arrived today so we're gonna do a dry run tonight and make sure it doesn't have any leaks.

Still need to install the car seat and have it inspected, 'strip' the cloth diapers I bought, and install the diaper sprayer on the water line behind the toilet.

Officially at 37 weeks, so FULL TERM. Her lungs should be developed enough that they won't try to stop labor if it starts now. Taylor says she things the Grib is at about 6 lbs right now. Wonder what she'll be when she comes out...

Feel huge. Still able to tie my own shoes...barely.

Sleep has been an issue for both David and I--I'm still spending most of my sleep time in shallow half-consciousness or REM filled with disturbingly vivid, wacko dreams, waking up every 2-3 hours to pee....which makes him wake up, which keeps me up as I try to get him back to sleep... His work has picked up, meaning that by the time he's done for the day, he's really Done. So we haven't got much done around the house...still no lights in the kitchen. And it has been really cold and wet out, so I have been pretty lax on the whole 'take a walk every day' thing. Which means very, very little exercise (especially for him) most days...which doesn't help with the sleep for either of us. Monday, we did an IKEA run, which meant a lot of walking, after which I stayed up until midnight assembling a bookshelf, laundry hamper bins, and dresser for the nursery. I slept better than I had in weeks, but still woke up around 6 AM, unable to fall back asleep. Need more exercise. May have to start mall walking, or just going to different big box stores to get in some walking in the warm and dry...

Yesterday I mostly worked on sewing projects--cut the old flannel sheet with bunnies on it from my baby days (adorable and sentimental for mum, but stained, and the elastic was shot) into a receiving blanket and a bunch of cloth wipes. Also managed to finish a crib sheet--out of the adorable elephant print I bought months back...I did the sewing for the second sheet today (the lovely tree/leaves cotton) but will need to make a trip to Joann's for more elastic before it can be finished.

Crib parts arrived today, so tomorrow I can hopefully put it completely together...mostly as a test, since I think we'll probably disassemble it and move it out of the nursery along with most of the other furniture for the home birth. Have ordered the birth tub; just need a couple more items and the birth kit will be done. Still have to finish packing the just-in-case 'go bag'. Made appointments to meet-n-greet two potential pediatricians next week.

I made myself work on my emails/calls list today, including calling Costco to see when they'd be getting the pannini press we wanted back in stock. They had ONE in the store, and apparently there was a $20 manufacturer coupon for it, so we changed our evening plans and went right over. Also picked up a new rice cooker (that apparently can act as a small slow cooker, which was what was actually on my list...but multitaskers are my fave and we can pass down our cooker to Greg and Sarah) and an immersion blender that was on sale. Forgot coffee, so we stopped at TJ's on the way home. And then we got home, and I couldn't fit the few groceries we had bought into the fridge/freezer. So the rest of my evening was/is (taking a break because kneeling to get to the fridge brought on the Braxton-Hicks something FIERCE) organizing/clearing...and the rest of the week is going to be leftover smorgasbord for every lunch and dinner. Ridiculous. I have GOT to get that under control...:(