Category: personal

around here // tuesday night

Last night was a normal night at home, but a pretty good one. I got home a little early, before David brought Meredith home which was kind of nice because I had a chance to get things tidied up (before they got messed up again) and a few things done quickly. I put together a batch of breakfast sandwiches to freeze for the rest of the week, then sat down to check out the state of Project Life. Right now I’m trying to put together the spread for July and I have the photos in place but I need to do the journaling and add the extras. I’ve decided that this monthly spread approach is not working for me because it gets SO overwhelming to catch up on and I lose a lot of little details. Hoping to get back to bi-weekly spreads soon.

My succulents sit in my kitchen window and are looking good. One day I will get around to adding more houseplants to my collection but for now we’re still in save money mode. The stacks of triangles are my quilt pieces. Progress on this has been sadly stalled for months. I have tried twice to start piecing them together but both times I’ve had difficulties with bunching up. I need a longer stretch of time to dedicate to figuring out the best way to do it. Either that or I need someone to come over and tutor me in sewing. Any takers?

When David and Meredith got home it was a flurry of happy activity. David cooked dinner while I finished up my breakfast sandwiches and Meredith ate a snack and played with the dogs. When I finished we went to the couch to watch her favorite TV show Jessie on Netflix. In the photo she is a blur because whenever the theme song comes on she jumps up and down and dances. It’s the best. Oh, and her pants and diaper had already been removed. I’ve just resorted to telling her not to pee and hope for the best.

After dinner we moved into Meredith’s room for some quieter play which usually involves reading all of the books. (I love that she loves books but I admit I am looking forward to when we can read storybooks or chapter books rather than The Belly Button Book, Nursery Rhymes, and Goodnight Moon over and over and over again. And those are the best ones.) Then she wanted to take a “peeshur” with me so I happily obliged. :) And thankfully the bedtime routine and going-to-sleep were only accompanied by a few cries and protests so I’m calling it a win all around.

August 21, 2013
quick takes / 16 weeks

I’m trying out the seven quick takes linkup today since it’s an excuse to just post random stuff, which is what I’m doing lately anyway. Not sure if I’ll always have seven though, so let’s just skip that part.

One

I’m 16 weeks along in this pregnancy and I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday. Especially in these early months before I can really feel the baby move I always get a little nervous before checkups. Yesterday about gave me a panic attack too. The experienced MA (Jen) who I LOVE is leaving the practice and so she was training a temp, and so it was just me and the temp in the room. First she starts analyzing my urine results and is staring at it for a really long time. Finally she asks me, “you haven’t been having any spotting, have you?” as if she expected something to be wrong. So already I’m worried.

Then she moved on to checking the heartbeat. She spent a whole minute (which seemed like forever) on the right side of my belly and there was nothing. Then she moved to the left side and immediately we heard what I knew was my heartbeat, but I could tell she was confused. Apparently the rate on the machine was jumping around and eventually she said, “okay the rate is 175 that’s very good.” But I told her I didn’t hear that rate, all I heard was my own. We then looked at the machine together and the rate was mostly in the 80’s. No matter what she did we could not hear a baby heartbeat. Internally I was partly freaking out / partly preparing myself for terrible news & trying to be at peace with that / partly trying to convince myself it was just because she’s new. Finally after a million years Jen came in the room and immediately found the baby’s heartbeat, in the 140’s. Then she showed the temp how to do an ultrasound in case she’s having trouble finding the heartbeat and I got to see the little kid moving around like crazy and looking good. So! That was exciting.

16 week photo:

Other than my scrubs for work I pretty much wear these shorts if I’m going out, lounge pants if I’m staying home, and a stretchy skirt (preferably maxi, but I only have two of them) to church. Choices are limited. I’m feeling great though.

Two

I promise all my takes won’t be as long as the last one. Anyway I made dinner again last night, so that’s twice in one week if any of you are keeping track. Huge accomplishment. I made these taco chicken bowls and I know it’s like slow cooker 101 but I was still proud that it turned out so delicious that my husband finished his bowl and my mother-in-law asked me for the recipe.

Three

Our house is one-story, about 2400 square feet. The front half has all real wood floors that I love, and the back half (a hallway and four bedrooms) is all nasty carpet that our dogs have torn up and stained. Pretty sure that I’ve whined and moaned about it here before, but it’s super embarrassing. So we are looking into tearing that up and replacing it. At first I thought we would just go all wood, but since I want it to look similar to the wood we already have I think that will be too expensive for us right now. So then we thought we’d do the hallway in wood and put new carpet in the bedrooms, and we’ll just keep the dogs out of there. My question for you is, have you ever put down wood floors or carpet? Where do I start looking for this stuff? What are the good companies to go to?

Four

I started thinking about a name for our second baby. Our anatomy scan is in three weeks so after we know the sex we’ll think about it more seriously, but I started looking at the social security website. I looked up the name “Meredith” and I was surprised to see that it keeps going down in popularity. Last year it was number 668! That’s so low. But it’s still traditional, and (in my opinion) very pretty, and it was a family name. Basically perfect. It’s going to be so hard to match that.

Five

I’m drinking coffee again! Like, for real! Hot coffee, in the morning. Every day. It’s sooooo great.

Six

I listen to a bunch of podcasts and at least four of them are book-related. This is making my “to-read” list extremely long. I truly mourn the fact that I will never be able to read everything I want to in this life. This isn’t a book blog and I know I post my quarterly round-ups of what I read, but I’m thinking of more thoroughly reviewing my monthly book club books because they aren’t necessarily things I’d pick up on my own. Will think on this.

Seven

Cheeks! She’s still got em.

August 16, 2013
pregnancy hormones in full effect

So I cried at work yesterday. A lot. It was ugly. I tried to pull myself together in the bathroom but someone even came knocking on the door to make sure I was okay. And then I kept crying off and on for about an hour and just could not stop it. My mascara was gone and my eyes were puffy. I hope I didn’t scare anyone.

The deal was, I had a rude patient. Rationally I knew that it was nothing personal to me (because I hadn’t done anything wrong and was nothing but nice) and I dug deep for sympathy and understanding because I know she is in a beyond stressful situation. Anything I told myself didn’t help though; I just kept crying. So embarrassing.

Happy ending though! Today she emailed the doctor’s office and asked them to tell me that she thinks I’m an excellent nurse and she knows she gave me a hard time yesterday. It’s the closest to an apology I’m likely to get so I’ll take it.

Also, last night I cooked dinner. Made BBQ beef taquitos and they were good. I also finally made the breakfast sandwiches I’d been meaning to and they were also good, so double win there. And I showered! And bathed Meredith! I am a domestic goddess!

I need to switch subjects real quick because I am having a hard time with my book club book, Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver and I just have to talk about it. The first problem I’m having is that I’ve been reading A Clash of Kings (which is the second in the Game of Thrones series) and I’m totally addicted to it and I’m to the last hundred pages and it’s fast-paced and all I want to do is finish it. So I’m kind of resentful of any book that interrupts that right now. Also, apparently this book is about climate change, and even if I was passionate about that subject I’m skeptical that it will make for an interesting story. Currently I’m only two chapters in and there’s been a lot about the difficulties of farming and I don’t know, it’s not grabbing me. And I have to finish it by Sunday! Sigh.

Anyway. I go to the doctor for a checkup tomorrow. Praying that all is well in the baby department.

August 14, 2013
we went on a trip, and some other stuff

Hey-o. It’s been a couple of weeks. Bear with me as life has been kind of a blur, but today I really miss blogging and want to get back into it. Right now a blog that is motivating me (and that I’m loving) is Camp Patton. I will never be as funny as she is but I love how she writes so regularly, just everyday relatable stories, and maybe I can do something like that.

So in that spirit, here’s what’s been up. Apparently I’m still growing a human inside of me, although I don’t always entirely believe it. But if we just go with the evidence, I’m 15 weeks along and into the second trimester now. Feeling pretty good most of the time. I think I’m in denial that my belly is actually growing because I walk around constantly sucking it in subconsciously, even at home alone. The bloating factor is out of control but it seems like lately the belly is maybe not all bloat?

Classy bathroom work pic I just took for the purpose of this post. I was hungry when I took this and not bloated (I don’t think) so this might be the current actual state of things. Not that exciting I admit.

***

Here is something else cool and kind of crazy that happened. Last Friday I got a panicked email from one of my best friends who lives in Nashville and it was the kind of situation where I just knew I needed to go be with her and would regret it forever if I didn’t. Thankfully I have an awesome husband who hatched the plan and we ended up dropping everything and driving through the night to arrive there on Saturday morning, toddler in tow. David then slept all day and drove back home again leaving Meredith and me to have girl time with our friend. (How awesome is he???) I took Monday and Tuesday off and then we flew home.

Hanging out at the airport Starbucks. I had a frappuccino (I can tolerate a little coffee again!) and Meredith downed a chocolate milk.

What we did in Nashville during our down time was: eat almost every meal at a yummy local place, visit different parks, sit outside and read while Meredith explored and played with the dog, and take afternoon naps. Y’all, I am hooked on afternoon naps now. Since I wasn’t at home I couldn’t use Meredith’s nap time to do chores like I usually do so instead I slept or just laid on the bed and read if I couldn’t fall asleep. It felt so indulgent and awesome. I’ve decided that from now on, on the weekends, I am going to do my chores while Meredith is awake and force myself to rest during naptime.

Oh, and here’s an adorable video of Meredith chasing some geese.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps6d59XtY8M&feature=share&list=UUq1PjU9IHmGG-iKAwH9PNAg

***

So you know how I’m kind of lazy about showers and baths? Well before my trip I was a couple days overdue for a shower and when I returned it took a few days for me to get around to another one and the result was about a week and a half since I had used my tub and the whole time an inflatable baby tub was sitting in it making the floor super slippery and yeah, I totally fell in the shower. I kind of caught myself, but I felt like a geriatric.

I was also super overdue for trimming Meredith’s nails and before work yesterday morning I all of a sudden couldn’t stand to send her to school with them long enough to be used as weapons but she was NOT cooperating with me. In a burst of inspiration I decided to give her my first bribe and told her that if I could trim her nails I’d give her a cookie. Immediate success ensued so I’m basically winning at this parenting thing.

***

We’re on a strict budget now, trying to prepare ourselves for the bomb of a second kid to drop and all, and I’m pretty good about not spending extra money but right now there are several things that I don’t necessarily need but they would really make life a little bit better and those things are: a new blender to replace my broken one because I miss smoothies, a kid-sized table and chairs, some good quality flip-flops like Rainbows, and a bunch more maxi skirts or other summer appropriate clothes that can transition into maternity wear.

***

Lastly, and this is the last point I promise, but I am making a plan to get my normal productive life back. This weekend my goals are to make and freeze a bunch of these breakfast sandwiches, meal plan and grocery shop for next week, and print photos so I can hopefully get caught up on Project Life.

So that’s my glamorous life, and get ready to hear more about it.

August 9, 2013
motherhood confessions

I have made a lot of decisions as a mother just to make life easier on us as a family. As long as everyone’s safety is taken care of, pretty much anything else is flexible. Especially now that I’m expecting again, things have taken an even greater turn for the laid-back, usually in favor of a little more rest or sleep. I know I can’t be alone in this, so let me tell you about it.

Here’s a blurry picture of me in my post-work laziness, and Meredith copying me. Not pictured is her lack of pants or diaper. Can’t keep clothes on that girl.

>Meredith doesn’t like bedtime and it’s hard to get her to wind down, so for awhile now we’ve been taking her on a drive almost every night to get her to fall asleep.

>She still sleeps in bed with us, too. It’s been good, but I’m ready to move her out at least to make room for a new baby. But I really don’t know if it’s going to work. We had grand plans to transition her a couple weeks ago but it keeps not happening. We might just keep going with the family bed out of laziness.

>She still nurses a lot too. There’s not much there, but she’s in a very needy stage and although a break sounds nice and I don’t mind the idea of weaning, I’m not going to force it. Tandem nursing a toddler and a newborn sounds overwhelming but it might just end up happening.

>We don’t do baths very often. For myself I try to shower every other day but baths are hit or miss with Meredith (whether she’ll scream through it or play happily) so it’s more like I force it on her whenever her hair gets nasty enough and otherwise it’s spot cleaning only. I also usually just throw her in the shower with me.

>When she first wakes up in the morning – on a work day while I’m getting ready or on a weekend when I’m trying to grasp a few more minutes of sleep – she immediately grabs my phone and I don’t even care how long she plays with it. Mostly she just likes to look through the peeshurs (pictures).

>Speaking of screen time, we don’t limit it right now but that’s probably because she doesn’t have much interest in it. There is one show on Disney called Jessie that she really likes (for a few minutes anyway) but apart from that she’s not into it. I wish she would be.

>There is no way I was giving up caffeine during this pregnancy. Coffee was immediately disgusting to me though (still sad about it) so I’ve been taking caffeine pills. Kinda pathetic.

>I am also not super reliable about taking my vitamins. I’m trying though, really I am.

>Let’s not even talk about food and the kinds of dinners we have around here right now. Or breakfasts. I figure at least Meredith eats pretty well at school.

You guys, there is more. But I’m out of time. Please tell me: what are your parenthood confessions? Because I’m pretty sure that I’ll be able to relate.

July 29, 2013