A Day in the Life (guest blogger)

Given the invite, I've decided to document a day in the life of me. And, with some helpful assistance, I'm adding pictures to prove how fascinating my day to day life truly is. Actually, instead of fascinating, dare I say...luxurious. At any rate, enjoy.

4 a.m. My day starts early. In fact, I'd already been up once or twice on this particular day for about 2 hours or so. At this point, I've already eaten (mmm), had my diaper changed (I love the fresh fresh feeling of a clean diapy), and am hanging out for a few minutes as I'm getting ready to nap (note the heavy eyes). I loooove stretching, too; I especially love stretching right after the aforementioned eating and diaper change (I just feel that good). Outfit #1

7 a.m. I got to eat again (mmm), which again made me sleepy. Notice my stuffed friends. They give me something to look at when I get a little bit of alone time. The caterpillar rattles. He's kind of fun. He was a particular favorite of my cousins', I hear.

8 a.m. This is the outfit that Daddy chose for me today. But, Mommy didn't really like it. It's not exactly my color (or fit), I guess. Accomodating as I am, I did my part and promptly made a mess when Daddy had my diaper off. Hehe. Outfit #2


10 a.m. New outfit ("So Sweet"...this shade of blue is a nice color for me, I think) yet lack of blanket underneath me. This can only signify one thing--spit up. An unfortunate occurence that doesn't really seem to bother me all that much. It's not like I do the laundry. This is some of my "just me" time. Outfit #3



See...I told you that the caterpillar is kind of cool.

11 a.m. I tired of the alone time. Really, I'm a cuddler and really just want to be held 95% of my day. Obviously, Daddy gave in to my demands.

I feel limp. Ergo, I am relaxed. Utterly and completely.

1 p.m. Daddy finally got a shower and a fresh change of clothes. He came back in time to help out when I was fussing. Really, I was just tired and needed a comfortable position. This is a particular favorite when I'm unhappy. I'm really good at holding my head up for long moments at a time, though you can't see that in this picture. My little outfit is unbuttoned cause I just got my diaper changed, and Daddy was trying to let my little belly button stump get some air (it hadn't fallen off yet...ewww). Mommy loves my little frog legs when I'm in this position.

A little later... I'm a bit of a trickster, and like to leave little suprises for Daddy, especially. His shirts are particularly nice to spit up on. It's just about a daily occurence with him. I've only felt the need to spit up on Mommy once or twice. Maybe I'll be nice to Daddy tomorrow...Happy Father's Day.

5-ish p.m. Mommy reads a lot with me. She finally figured out how to read while I eat, too (no idea why it took her so long to learn this skill). She found time for a shower today, too, but the hair didn't get dried.

7 p.m. Another feeding, another fresh diaper, another moment with Daddy while Mommy does something else. I love him.

8 p.m. More Mommy time. More reading. Falling asleep. Outfit #4

8:30 p.m. Every once in a while, I will sleep by myself during the day. And when I do, I epitomize cuteness...and froggy legs.

10 p.m. Laying on Mommy's lap...this is my I'm-filling-my-diaper (yet again) look.

Ready for another night of cuddles and a snack or two throughout the wee mornin' hours. All I need is my sleep sack and sockies.

Just a couple of pictures

Ben was trying to calm Abby down last night, and in the time it took for him to lay down on the ground, Abby went from crying to sleeping. The dangling foot was a nice touch.

Theoretically, Ben thought that Abby might like to look at something on this play mat that we have. She didn't stay awake long enough to test his theory.

I just like her facial contortions.

Mom's Meeting

I run in new circles now. I've moved beyond the sundry life of the non-parent and now engage in meaningful conversations about weight gain in ounces, feeding techniques, and diaper brands. It's amazing how quickly one loses one's adult topics of conversation in favor of everything about baby. Right now, it's still fun, and I don't miss what used to be, at least not yet. Every Wednesday now, Abby and I pack up and head over to Mom's Meeting to weigh in and chat up the other moms and babies. Really, Abby sleeps, and I kind of sit along the wall and try to figure out what to do. There's really a way to do things at Mom's Meeting, but it's a pretty casual group with mom/baby tandems coming and going. Everyone just seems to know what to do, so I figure that it's best to just observe.

A couple of my observations:
***I'm now part of a group of women who don't mind nursing in public.
***Abby likes to sleep through the hour-long session. I like it when Abby sleeps through the meeting, too. I'm still working on having a baby out in public let alone a crying baby. But, I dare say that we are the only duo of mom & sleeping baby. I'm still thinking about whether that is normal or not.
***As if on cue once introductions were done, every mom had all of a sudden whipped out fresh diaper, wipes and outfit. I haven't even gotten Abby out of her carrier yet. I'm thinking that a) these ladies have done this before, b) they're professionals cause they're definitely just chatting and doing all of this at the same time...so polished, and c) is it like a secret handshake? choreographed diaper changing?
***I ditched it 20 minutes early...no one to talk with and was there anything else going to happen?

Abby gained 9 oz. this week. Good for her! She's graduating out of the newborn size diapers and clothing!!

P.S. For my next post (or for a soon to come post), there will be a guest poster...stay tuned!

my little WOW and I'd like one more piece of cheesecake in Room 20, please

Giving birth is really a WOW and surreal event. It's only been about a week and a half, but it seems like much longer since I was big and round and rolly polly and getting annoyed by people who were constantly bringing attention to my girth. But then again, it's been such a quick 9 days since Abby was born late Monday (Memorial Day) night. Now, I'm enjoying sleeping on my back and getting out of bed with ease (which is a useful ability now that I am enjoying a series of short naps of a night).

I was fully prepared and accepting that my baby would be like many (if not most) other newborns, the ones who are "eh..." and bloom to adorable cuteness after a few months of ripening. I'm not someone who generally thinks that brand new babies are all that cute. Probably I'm prejudiced, but I seriously think my little girl was cute when she first came out, in all of her bloody goo. The miracle of childbirth...the first thing that I remember thinking is "Whoa, she's so pretty, not ugly!" I'm alright if others don't agree with me. I'm confident in my motherly pride of her cute little nose and facial expressions. I'm sure that all babies have such cute expressions, but since I'm not much of a baby person in general, I haven't been around little ones that much and this is all new and therefore exciting for us. Another dissapointment of this whole pregnancy thing though--I didn't cry when she was born. I thought that I would. I also thought that I'd have cravings, though.

Labor was...easy. Really. It was easy after the epidural, but I was speeding along quite well without it. But the giddiness and utter sense of fuzzy warmness is intensely satisfying when the whole process can be quite scary. I was only in the hospital for 6 hours before she was born. In fact, we came straight from my in-laws house where we were hanging out with the fam and eating ice cream (a common Cox occurence). We almost came back home rather than the hospital, but as labor moved along quickly once I got there, thankfully, we came straight to the hospital instead of driving 20 minutes to our house and then back another 20 minutes. We were prepared to do this since I started feeling the crampy contractions when I got up Monday morning. But, since this was my first experience with contractions, we really weren't *sure* until about noon. For all of those women who told me "Oh, you'll know when you're having a contraction"...psssshhhhhh. Obviously not. I thought I was, but they didn't really match the description(s) that I'd had from medical peeps like my doctor.

The epidural was faaaaantastic and made me somewhat giddy. It was almost fun lying there, chatting and joking with Ben (who totally rocked throughout the whole labor thing), watching the season premiere of "Jon and Kate Plus Eight" and then the Cubs-Pirates game (yes, I literally was watching the Cubs lose, a nice little punctuation note for the wonderful event, as she was born...a nice diversion), and watching my contractions come and go and come and come and come on the monitor by my head. The epidural was the best 4 1/2 hours of my medical history after the worst 30 minutes of pain that I've ever experienced. That pain level can really rachet up quite quickly apparantly! At one point as the anasthesiologist was working, I had a blood pressure cuff squeezing my arm, a big old contraction and a catheter being inserted in my back all more or less at the same time. But five minutes later...warm, warm fuzzy numbness.

The day was just full of bizarre, surreal moments for me/us. I.e. leaving the house in the morning knowing that we probably wouldn't come back for a couple of days and that we'd probably have a baby with us when we did return; walking into the hospital knowing that I was going to have the most painful experience of my life; changing into a hospital gown knowing that I wouldn't be wearing "normal" clothes for a while; having no qualms about losing all of my personal space; watching my body go through contractions without feeling it.

So it was wonderful, and tiring (mostly mentally), and the room service for the next 2 days rocked. Too many visitors. Sitting and waiting an hour to be discharged after we thought that we were already discharged. But in the end, we got to take the little bundle of Abigail home with us (wow...this one is mine, like, permanently!), and because of the delay in Abby's discharge, I took the nurse's advice and ordered one more piece of cheesecake for dinner on Wednesday. A little creamcheesey shooter to cap the hormonal smorgasboard that is labor, delivery, and recuperation.

48 hours

or, how functional communication consists of the three-word phrase, "I don't know..."

I'd type more, but it takes a long time to type while holding a sweet, sleeping, three-day old newborn. This message is just a teaser. :-)

Poor sweetie

My poor sweet cheeks is having tension issues. He was all tense and stressy during track season (middle school girls track...didn't know that was stress inducing) a few weeks ago. And now, he's all short of breath and tight chested again. He's cute and being all fatherly hormonal.

About 1/2 an hour after we went to bed last night, our cat woke me up with her pitiful cries, (for some reason, I always think that Ben is semi-awake like I am) and I, of course, thought that Ben should be the one to shut the bedroom door so that I wouldn't have to heave myself out of bed. The conversation went approximately like this:

me: "Ben, I think that you should shut the door."

Ben: "Is it time to go??"

me (groggily, laughingly, bemusedly): "No."

Ben...1/2 asleep and moving quicker than he ever does when I ask him to get up and do something got up and shut the door. Good boy. Sometimes it's more arduous convincing him that it's his turn to get up.

Now, tonight, he's lamenting his tension issues again. He hasn't been sleeping as well overall. He's all rushing trying to get things at a point where his grading is caught up and his finals are done and printed out. It's just a busy time of the year at school getting everything done in the last few days anyway. I think that he's taking this part of the pregnancy harder than I am! I only have to deal with crampy muscles and tired feet. My finals have been given and graded. In fact, if I don't go into labor like we both really think that I just might this weekend, then I really won't have *anything* to do this week. I don't even know what I'm teaching for sure next year, so I can't get a head start on figuring that out. I could clean a little...yuck.

Maybe I should give the poor guy a head rub. Maybe he should give me a foot rub like he promised last night. But that sounds harsh...he does deserve some relaxing, too. Poor guy has been working super hard all semester. We/I hear all the time "Oh, you must be so ready!" Not really. We're tired. We could really use just a couple of days before the stork visits. It may be a bit uncomfortable for me at night right now, but she's still calm and compact and easy to take out for ice cream. We just kind of like that about her staying where she's supposed to be. In the meantime, and in lieu of a head rub, my boy will get some hugs. He's a keeper.

Visions of grandeur

When we bought our house, I was quite excited to get out and plant a few plants and have pretty flowers and bushes and maybe a little garden somewhere. And that summer passed with little more than grumpy weed pulling. I hate weed pulling, and they grow so darn quickly.

The next summer came and we bought a couple of plants, pulled some ugly bushes, and the weeds grew some more. I overwatered and underwatered as I figured out how to water. It seems that it's harder than I thought. I grew up with a true gardener mom and have helped her water her menagerie of plants in her greenhouse and outside. I've helped her garden. Surely, I know some things. But the weeds still grew and the plants were mediocre at best and no gumption was gathered to pull more ugly bushes. And it costs money. I'm cheap enough that my visions of grandeur usually satisfy me, even though I sigh often when I come home and see my denuded looking house, so spindly and pitiful looking compared to the lushness of houses around us.

Then the next summer came and Ben and I planned out and produced a raised bed garden. It turned into a riot of vines and tendrils and fruit and pitiful veggies, but it was still fun to piddle in nonetheless. My whopping red pepper was something to behold. It was the size of a head of garlic. Pitiful. And the general scourge of weeds continued. I quickly realized that the nice neat border around the fence that so attracted me and looked so neat and clean and easy to take care of when we bought the house took about a week to revert back to a jungle-ish state. Apparantly, green thumb that I am, I did not realize at the time that you have to spray weed killer like crazy to keep it that way. Dumping chemicals into the soil just because you're too lazy to pull weeds is something that I don't like. So, I tried the tactic of just planting wildflowers in the space last summer to negate the weed-age. Instead, the weeds just grew in between the wildflowers, and all became even more garishly jungle-like and basically ugly.

This summer, the weeds are already rampant. We have 3 decorative thistles, mega thistles really, growing right beside our cement slab of a patio. I finally got some flowers potted after having them sitting in their sad little pots on my porch for a couple of weeks. My calla lillies aren't coming up (???), only 1 canna bulb sprouted (but it's going strong!), my hydrangeas are kind there but seem to be stuntedly not growing, and my raised bed is again quickly turning into a riotous mess. Alas the mint that I so excitedly planted 2 summers ago. It is villainous indeed. But, the irises are being fruitful and multiplying and purpling my world beautifully right now (I love them...they require no work!), my new lilac bushes are doing quite well, and my hibiscus is courageously returning for another year, even though it seems to be smaller and smaller each year.

My visions may be grandeur-ous, but my reality is only half-so. Mostly because the weeds are growing and no one is pulling them. I hear people (i.e. women...I still don't know too many guys who partake quite liberally in the cleaning of the dwelling when married, though Ben is pretty good, I admit) say how they actually enjoy cleaning. I can't fathom such an outrageous idea. Such is also my state of mind when I hear of people (again...women) who enjoy pulling weeds. Why? What mental complex do you have that you enjoy crouching, pulling, hacking, lugging, sweating, and digging at stickery thistles and pesky stalks of whatever grows in between the slats of my fence? How can this be therapeutic in any way? There are maybe 3 days a summer where the conditions are just right and the stars have alligned just so when pulling weeds is okay, but never really enjoyable.

At least with weeds in my backyard, I can close the fence door and my blinds so that no one will be looking at the messiness. Unfortunately, cleaning is another bugaboo that I have not yet learned to enjoy and one which I cannot so easily shut out. My mom would be appalled if she knew how little I clean like she does, a real house purging. It's a good thing that she doesn't live close enough to know, and it's also a good thing that people do come and visit us once in a while; that does give me some incentive. Right now, the inside of my house is as much of a grubby mess as the outside. Any takers who are truly mental and enjoy weeding, gardening, pulling bushes, and/or cleaning houses? I'll feed you copious amounts of chocolate...