Wake me up when this winter ends

At least one person in our house has been sick since December 21st, when The Plague hit The Hubby.

Actually, I take that back.  Baby Girl had had a cough since the day before.  So make that December 20th.

So The Hubby had The Plague late 12/21 until 12/23ish (he was still feeling rough on Christmas Eve).  I felt really nauseous, but still don't know if it was from the anxiety of the situation or if I had a mild version of it. 

Baby Girl started puking Christmas morning (total of 3 times....completely freaked out both her and me).  This is why I haven't blogged about Christmas much.  The good news?  Most of the people at Christmas (we were at the in-laws') had already had The Plague.  Another piece of good news?  She was done puking by 8:30 a.m. and then acted like her normal self.  We thought maybe she was vomiting due to the phlegm in her stomach and not The Plague.

Puke session #2 for Baby Girl: morning of 12/26.  Oh yeah...it's The Plague.  We go to my parents' house anyway because that's what they want.  She then pukes the morning of 12/27 as well.  She throws up once, sleeps for a bit, then wakes up and is normal for the rest of the day.  We avoided everyone but my parents for fear of passing it along. 

Morning of 12/28....no puke from Baby Girl.  My mom, however, is another story.  Ugh.  We leave town and come home (my dad got sick the next morning).  At this point I'm coughing and have been doing so since just before Christmas.  When we get home from traveling, we get one last vomit from Baby Girl.  We've then left The Plague behind us.

The Cold, however?  Not so much.

Baby Girl starts coughing.  I'm coughing.  The Hubby is sort of coughing.  We take Baby Girl to the doctor and she's given azithromycin, hoping to knock this cold out.  I get progressively worse, but tell myself it's just a cold and will go away.  In the meantime, I lose my voice for about 3 days.  That part sucked.  Happy New Year.

By mid-week the first week of January, I go to the doctor.  I braved a snowstorm, but I went and was rewarded with a Z-Pack.  Got it in my system and I was feeling markedly better by the 10th or so.  Still had a lingering cough, but it wasn't horrible.

Baby Girl, however, gets worse again (although you would never know it...she has acted sick probably twice in her life, not counting when she was vomiting).  She makes a return trip to the doctor on Monday the 10th.  She gets a prescription for Omnicef and diagnosed with her fifth ear infection in seven months.  This means we'll be talking about ear tubes with our regular pediatrician at her 18-month checkup.  She takes the antibiotic like a champ (she's only hated amoxicillin so far) but is tugging at her ears a bit toward the end of the ten days of antibiotic, something she's actually never done with any of her ear infections.  We wait it out.

She's done with the antibiotic on 1/19.  Still tugging on the ears, but letting her go--this is also one of her tired signs.

We actually all seem fairly healthy for once.  Woohoo!  Maybe we've kicked it!

Oh no.  Of course not.  This is when God just laughs in my face.  The Hubby and I both start feeling scratchy on Saturday (1/21).  I wake up Sunday with definite sinus pain and a sore throat.  This morning I woke up feeling like I had two softballs in the back of my throat.  I would think it was my tonsils except I haven't had any for 25 years.  The softballs are gone at this point, but I'm still scratchy and experiencing some sinus pain. 

If you are keeping track, this makes over a month now that at least one of us has been sick.  And you know that if I get fully sick everyone else will, too.  I can keep from kissing my husband for a few days on the mouth, but my baby girl?  Oh hell no.  She offers up the sweetest kisses and even makes the smacking sound.  I'll do my best to resist, but it'll be tough!

Weekly Meal Plan: 1/23-1/29

In our effort to get organized again (more on that later), I'm going to start posting our weekly meal plans again.  We've been meal planning the whole time, but I think this will keep me accountable and love to share recipes with all of you! 

We figured out the meals Saturday night and Baby Girl and I went to the grocery Sunday morning.  We spent an ungodly amount for us ($95), but that included a lot of stocking up--pear juice for Baby Girl, WW ice cream (usually over $5 apiece, but on sale for around $3), paper towels (this was the first time I've actually paid for paper towels in years...and they were still on clearance), large bag of rice, large bag of string cheese (should last about 3 weeks--Baby Girl gets one daily in her lunch), and a few other things.  So this coming week's shopping trip should be a bit less expensive--I hope so, anyway!

Sunday, January 23rd: Taco Joes (delicious!), lime rice, and peas
Monday, January 24th: Ribs (bought on manager's special a few weeks ago), mashed potatoes (not a thrifty purchase, but I love Ore Ida's Steam & Mash), corn, and cornbread
Tuesday, January 25th: Chicken & Stove Top (my mom has been making this for forever) with mashed cauliflower
Wednesday, January 26th: Pork Chops & Rice (pork chops were also bought on manager's special)
Thursday, January 27th: Pasta & Bean Skillet
Friday, January 28th: Chicken Parmesan
Saturday, January 29th: Planning on eating out if we don't eat out during the week sometime--it's Baby Girl's 1 1/2 birthday!

Half a Lifetime

I just put on a sweatshirt from my high school's boys' basketball team.  It has their schedule on it and I got it from my Chemistry teacher--an assistant on the team.  I looked at the back, where the schedule is, and realized that it is from the 1995-96 season, which means I've had the sweatshirt for 15 years...half of my life.

It's so hard for me to understand that high school was half a lifetime away.  I felt like everything that happened while in school was incredibly significant.  I remember who friends dated, when we had first kisses, teachers, subjects, even specific tests.  Many people told me that college would be the best years of my life...but I remember high school as the happiest time of my life. 

College brought...complicated times.  Independence (and not necessarily in a good way).  A severe drop in self-esteem (not that it was great in high school...that *was* when I was not eating, after all). 
It's just so hard for me to believe that high school, the time I was the most popular, when I had great, lifelong friends, when I felt like I BELONGED was almost half a lifetime ago.

And, honestly, it makes me really sad.  It makes me sad to realize that I've lived as much time away from those friends as I did with them.  It makes me sad to realize that I've spent half a lifetime not feeling like I belong, like I fit in, like I'm liked. 

All this is really brought on by a picture I saw from college.  I was FAT.  Hideously huge.  And I was part of a group that had structure built in, but I still didn't belong with my smaller part of the group.  I just didn't.  And I hate that.  I spent all of my 5 years trying to fit in and never did.  And it makes me so sad to think about.  College was a time of failure for me.  Failing to get decent grades.  Failing to maintain a reasonable weight.  Failing to make people like me.  Sure, I had friends.  College is where I met The Hubby and some of our best friends.  But the masses didn't like me like they used to.  I used to be the "it" girl in my circle in high school.  Not college.  Not by a long shot.

This is another one of those posts that I'm just going to publish because it's late and I need to do some stuff and just get this off my chest.  I have a lot more to say about it all...high school...college...belonging...FAT.  But not right now.  Nope, I need to get my shit together and get out of here so I can see my girl. 

Her Favorite

Baby Girl has been going to the new sitter for two and a half weeks now and I think it's time I tell you all about it.

In a word?  Fabulous.

And the best part (you know, for MY ego) is that the sitter confided that Baby Girl is her favorite.  She's the one she brags about to her friends and who she enjoys seeing each day.  She says she's the happiest kid she's ever met.  She's always telling us how impressed she is by her talking and everything she does at her age. 

And the best part of Baby Girl is that she loves it there.  She's happy when we pick her up, but doesn't fuss anymore when we leave.  She waves as we go and plays with her friends.  There are 6 kiddos there total but all 6 are there only on Wednesdays.  Baby Girl is in the middle as far as age and I think that helps her--she loves doting on the babies and I think she learns from the big kids.  She's eating well, doing art, learning, playing...it's a great situation so far.

We have one small reservation--each of the last 4 days we've picked up the sitter has been on the phone and it's seemed like a personal conversation.  It strikes us as odd and a little bothersome.  We aren't sure how long we'll let it go on before we say something.  Her stated hours of operation are 7:30-5:30 and we all pick up by 5:00, so she's technically getting off early.  She's got some free time during naptime, too, to make business (or personal) calls.  But if that's our only gripe...we're doing really well :)

2011

I'm not one to make resolutions because I definitely don't ever remember keeping one.  So we'll call these....goals.

1) To cut out (or at least down) cursing in the car.  Now that Baby Girl is with us in the car almost every day, I need to watch the road rage.  It isn't healthy, either, but now I have another reason for chilling out.

2) To take at least one picture every day.  I have Cassie to thank for this one--I think it's a great idea.  I started on January 2nd and have taken pictures every single day.  And so far each day I've taken pictures of Baby Girl, of course.  It's an easy subject and I can't take too many landscape photos since I'm not at home when it's light outside :)  I'm hoping this will both capture moments as well as help me learn my camera.  My favorite unedited photo so far:

Beautiful, isn't she?  :)

3) I'm going to start doing something for me more often.  I have a hard time saying every day, but I'd like to do something for myself every day, even if it's as little as taking a 5 minute walk around the building at work.  Tonight I plan to do some working out after Baby Girl is in bed and then I want to paint my toenails--something I've done maybe once or twice since she was born.  I have a really hard time putting myself first, but I think I should make a point to *try*.

Pep-poo and other cute things

(This post was started a week and a half ago....and instead of adding to it, I'll post it now and be writing an 18 month update in a week and a half!)

The last two months have brought about a lot of changes for Baby Girl--most of them verbally!

Physically, she's got 7 teeth now (#5 showed up the Saturday after Thanksgiving, #6 that next Tuesday, and #7 that next Friday--3 new teeth in a week and no fussing involved).  We think #8 is coming soon based on a low-grade fever and some major chewing this morning (edited to add: #8 showed up 1/10). 

She's jumping.  It's mostly with each foot off the ground separately, but it's a-dor-able to watch her trying.

She LOVES pretzels.  Serious love.  Those and Goldfish.  We made the mistake of giving her some pretzels in the car one day and now she asks for them every time we get in the car.  But she says them "pep-poo" and it's so sweet...so we typically give in.  Not like she's asking for a Snickers. ;)

She's gone through some pickier phases with eating, but seems to be back to eating like a tank after our unfortunate illness.  We send her to daycare with the following: her lunch (leftovers from the night before), pretzels (probably about 25 of the little sticks), full can of mandarin oranges, small box of raisins, and something else.  She eats it all after eating over 1/2 cup of baby barley and sometimes part of a banana.  And then she acts like she's starving, so we give her some pretzels when we get home and then she eats all of her dinner.  And she still nurses in the morning and before bed.  That girl can put it away!

Baby Girl LOVES animals.  The new sitter has a bird, a cat, and a HUMONGOUS dog.  She asks for the kitty all evening and wants to pet it as soon as we get there in the morning.  She asks to see the dog (usually says "woof woof", although yesterday finally said something like "dog") when we're leaving--but she's scared of him when we get close (his head seriously comes up to my boobs and I'm 5'7", so I don't blame her).  We also have to pet the kitty (which she calls a kitty).  She doesn't call many animals by name, but rather identifies them by their sound (you should hear her make the elephant sound...so cute!).

She's also starting to string together words--at the sitter's she said "more color" to indicate that she wanted to color more or that she wanted a new color of crayon. 

Speaking of coloring...it's ALL she wants to do.  That, play with block, and read books.  But it always comes back to "color?  COLOR?"  It's cute....but gets annoying.  Because you know she can't do it on her own.  Oh no...she must have "mom-mom" (her name for me) or daddy color with her.  And we oblige...because we miss her so much during the day.  But we're running out of things to color on plain paper (because Grandpa makes paper, we get free reams all the time).  We typically do footballs, trees, flowers, and try our best at some animals.  She does circles, squiggles, and lines.  Curvy ones.  :)

Baby Girl also has reasoning skills that really impress me.  We'll be in the car and she'll say "Emma?" (one of the kids at daycare) and before we can respond, she says "home".  Yep, honey, Emma went home.  And the first day at the sitter's, K, the sitter, told her that Mommy and Daddy went to work.  So whenever someone else would be dropped off, Baby Girl would say "work".  Then when the first kids were picked up, she'd say "home".

Mojo

Like Austin Powers, I've lost my mojo.  This time, though, it doesn't just seem to be my bloggy mojo. 

I have four minutes to write this, so I don't think I can get in-depth completely.  But I guess I just needed to get *something* out there.

I'm feeling pretty down.  I don't know if it's the weather, the sickness that've encompassed our house for the last month, or a combination of that and other things.  I don't know how to fix it and I don't know if there's anything, really, to fix.  It's a never-ending circle of:

- I go to work
- I miss my kid
- When I get home with my kid, I'm exhausted and don't spend quality time with her
- She goes to bed
- I'm still exhausted and do nothing the rest of the night (The Hubby doesn't, either, which reduces my motivation even more)
- I miss my kid and feel awful that I didn't make the most of the little time we get together
- I go to bed
- I start the cycle all over again.

I get upset at little things.  I cry at the drop of a hat.  I don't feel like I'm enjoying my little girl when I actually have the time to do so because I just want to take some "me time", even though I know I'll get my "me time" once she's in bed. 

I get depressed at the state of our house, but don't have the energy to do anything about it.  Honestly, I feel like we're living in filth and I think it's mostly because we have mice.  Not one mouse....mice.  And I feel gross.  We find mouse poop in bizarre places (who knew mice could climb to the top of a 6-foot shelving unit????).  The Hubby removed two bodies from the house the other night, but we think there are more.  We have mouse poison in our basement and in the garage, which means we can't take Baby Girl to either place.  *I* don't want to go to either place to do laundry or clean because I don't want to come across another one (I was the one that discovered the first one when it scampered across the laundry room floor while Baby Girl and I were looking for clothes for her).  This means we have no clean clothes.  I might be wearing a puke-covered shirt.  What's worse is that I don't actually know if I am.  All I know is that there's something flaky on the entire left shoulder that I just discovered at 3:00.  And I got the shirt from my bedroom....what I thought were clean clothes.

It's a mess.  We're a mess.  And I'm so overwhelmed by it all that I just want to climb into bed and cry.

I'm not going back and editing and I'm just hitting Publish.  Not looking for pity....just needed to get something--ANYTHING--out there.  Because even this is better than silence.

The Sweetest Thing

A week ago, I was a bit incredibly anxious about sending Baby Girl to the new sitter.  It was Sunday and I was realizing how much I was going to miss being with my girl once The Hubby and I returned to work after 12 days off.  I, like I tend to do these days, started crying. 

Baby Girl looked up at me, said "Mom-mom?  Mom-mom?".  She leaned in and wrapped her arms around my neck. 

And then she put her sweet little hand on my face and wiped away a tear with her thumb.

I melted.

And then she looked at me and said, "Wet".  Yep, honey, mommy is a little wet.  And then I got a little wetter still.

Pumping....still

I think 95% of you will think "wow, she's a little crazy" when I tell you this. 

I'm still pumping at work.

Yep, Baby Girl is 17+ months old and I am still pumping once a day at work (down from 4 when I first came back to work after maternity leave).

The remaining 5% of you will probably be switched to the "she's crazy" side when I tell you this part. 

I have been getting just over one ounce per day.  ONE OUNCE.

I keep doing it because, somehow, I'm convinced this means I can still nurse Baby Girl on the weekends during the day.  And she still asks for it.  All.  Day.  Long.  The Hubby and I can't decide if she's bored, wants some bonding time, or if she actually wants milk (she'll say "Milk?", then if I tell her it isn't milk time, "Eat?"), but if she's asking for it, I want to give it to her because...I'm just like that.

I actually came here to post that I may be pumping for the last time at work.  I figured if I got less than an ounce today, it's not worth it anymore and that she really isn't getting much milk during the day from me anyway, so she'll probably be just as happy nursing and not getting anything.

But then I looked down and realized that I might get closer to two ounces.  And I completely rethought that. 

I feel neurotic for still doing this.  It feels silly to keeping pumping, especially since it doesn't matter much to me whether she's drinking the milk at the sitter's--it's ONLY about being able to nurse on the weekends.

So we'll see.  I'll see how much I actually get today, put it in the bag, and decide after the weekend what to do.  Just taking it one day at a time since I cry every time I think about being done with nursing.  I'll miss that time with my baby.  She's not a huge snuggler when she's not tired, so I'll miss the snuggly time we get together.  Ah...such an incredibly emotional thing, whether it's my body "failing" (obviously not a failure at 17+ months!), her leading the weaning, or my leading the weaning.