knock on wood

I started back to work this Monday and was surprised to find it wasn't that bad! I'm super lucky that I have a very flexible schedule in an office filled with young moms, so everyone is very understanding about my struggle with getting back in the swing of things. I'm going to go to work late most days, and will get free days with Ellie as often as my schedule allows. Monday was my long day (12:30-7) and Tuesday was short (10:45-3:30). I'm home today and will just work a few hours tomorrow and Friday. Each week will require more of my time and mental energy, but for now I'm just enjoying seeing my work-kids and getting out of the house.

Lessons from my first days back:

• I like my job!
• Working (especially while not pregnant) is a gazillion times easier than taking care of an infant by yourself all day.
• I feel so much more like a real person when I get dressed AND look in the mirror before I leave the house.
• It's really nice to talk to other adults!
• Kids are so much bigger than infants.
  
• Anything you do is so much easier when you don't have to plan for, pack for, and lug around a baby and tons of baby stuff.
  
• I need to allow myself a little more wiggle time at work instead of trying to come in as late and leave as early as possible. Even though I'd rather be with Ellie, I need to give myself time to eat, pump, and breathe.
• Holding and kissing Ellie after returning home from a day away gives me the most comforting feeling in the world.
  

Ellie seems to be doing okay, too. She was happy both days when I took her over to Laura's. She's even flirting with her youngest son. She's completely off her normal schedule when she's at Laura's and doesn't sleep or eat very well, but falls back in the swing of things once we're home. I'm hoping this gets better as Laura gets to know her more, but for now, I have to be comforted by the fact that she still seems happy when we pick her up, even if she is tired and hungry.

David and I have been reading/thinking/talking a lot about work and life and what's best for Ellie and our family. I'm thankful that David is willing to be involved as Ellie's main caregiver whenever he can and that we've found Ellie a one-on-one nurturing childcare provider. With this childcare set-up, David and I are both able to maintain ourselves outside of our roles as mom and dad, but we're also both making accommodations to spend extra time with Ellie. The best part is that Ellie gets the best care from all 3 of us (Mom, Dad, and Laura) because we're splitting up the responsibility instead of letting the stress run one person down.

I feel a little bit guilty about not feeling bad about returning to work. Given different circumstances (if we won the lottery, say) I might still choose to be a stay-at-home-mom. I also realize that my feelings might change after a few weeks back at work, when the excitement of returning wears off, but for now I'm glad this transition has been worlds better than I expected!

all good things...

Ellie is being tons of fun as I prepare to head back to work next week. I've been spending her naptimes figuring out my work schedule and getting creative about how to cram the biggest amount of productive work into the shortest time away as possible. Her time awake has been spent going to the zoo (looking at her favorite book), flying in a spaceship (trying out a jumperoo that's too big for her), and visiting the ocean (her light-up infant toy). She's all about her hands lately and especially likes chowing down on her fingers. Every once in awhile she'll hold onto a toy or object we hand her or dangle in front of her face and she pulls them right up to her mouth, smooshing them all over her face. She's taken a karate lesson and enjoyed a bollywood dance after watching SYTYCD last night. She's loving her Bumbo, my frizzy hair, and having her toes eaten. She even figured out how to make waking up at 4 in the morning the best thing ever by smiling so big that her paci falls out of her mouth. Today, I think she met her cousin Finn for the first time (they were really looking at each other!). She's almost 3 months old and I am amazed by how much more fun she gets everyday. I'm so glad that I was able to be with her for all of these good things. I'm so excited for the belly laughs that can't be too far off.


This time away from work has been A M A Z I N G. The first two weeks were painful and groggy. The third week was scary and I felt like I had no idea what to do. Weeks 4-6 were restless weeks when I (we) had to get out of the house. Week 10 was spent on shopping sprees. I don't know where the rest of it went. To nummies, poopy dipes, snuggles, kisses, and bounces I guess. It's sad that Ellie won't understand how close we were these first few months of her life until she has kids of her own. Say wha??! Now I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, I'm filled with gratitude for all good things in my life...thanks, baby, for being the coolest thing ever. Thanks, work, for letting me get to know my baby girl. Thanks, mom, for everything you did with me and for me that I'll never remember.

back to work: attempt #1

Today was the day I had scheduled myself a few meetings at work and arranged for Ellie to go to Laura's. We were considering it a trial run; a chance for me to figure out what and how to pack for Ellie, see how it felt to leave her with someone to go to work, and a chance for Laura to spend some one-on-one time with Ellie to see how they fit. The morning went well--I had started packing Ellie's carryout bag a few days ago, had milk and a clean bottle all set, and made sure to get in 2 feedings before dropping her off (an attempt at keeping my milk supply up!). I got myself ready as quickly as possible and think I looked...mostly unkempt! I carried Ellie over to Laura's and (weirdly) as soon as we walked in the door she let out a yelp... I'm assuming she just wasn't psyched about going inside from the bright sun... that makes sense, right? She calmed down right away, I gave her some kisses and handed her to Laura so I could run back to our house to get her bouncer.

I didn't feel bad when I left. I am confident that Laura is giving her plenty of love and attention, but when I got back to our house (30 seconds later) I started crying; it just felt wrong. I shook it off, knowing I would be back in only a few hours and headed to work.

My meeting that was supposed to start at 11 didn't start until 11:45. A regular thing at my office that is so much more annoying now that I have a baby girl I could be spending time with instead. It was hard to focus on work. That's probably partly because I have been out of the swing of things for 10 weeks, and partly because nothing at work will ever matter as much as my daughter. I called to check in after my meeting and Laura told me she had given Ellie half her bottle then she fell asleep... WHAT?! I had to (have to) get over the fact that Laura might not be able to keep Ellie on the schedule we've set up. Ellie always eats a full meal, stays awake for 45-60 minutes, then sleeps for 45-90 minutes before eating again. Other than that Laura said they were both fine and happy, so I continued on to my next meeting (after phonecalls to David and my sister to discuss how hard this is).

As soon as I left I felt like I was in a race to be home. I swear there's never been more traffic. Even waiting for the garage door to go up to pull in seemed to take forever. I left everything in the car and walked over to Laura's instead of going home. Ellie was awake, happy, everything was fine. Laura had given her most of the rest of the bottle, she had slept for about 10 minutes, refused to burp, startled herself awake with gas, listened to piano music, heard a cat meow, watched the kids play a card game, and bounced, a lot. It had only been 4 hours, but it was hard. I had a headache (I hadn't eaten since breakfast and I was super anxious), Ellie was hungry and tired, Alden needed attention, and I was confused about what the rest of my life would be like.

We've decided that it's best for me to keep working; I have a flexible schedule that I have a lot of control over and my benefits were cheaper than what was offered for David. Logically, it makes sense for me (and David) to keep working. It affords us extra income and gives us both a chance to pursue intellectual/social interests. I wasn't prepared for the emotional attachment that came on so quickly and strong with a baby. When I got pregnant I hadn't thought too seriously about what our lives would be like when there was a little person depending on us. I assumed that we'd both be able to work as we were. I saw people at the office doing it, our moms both worked, people do it... people do it alone, it couldn't be that hard, right? It is that hard. This was only one (half) day, and I'm not looking forward to going back. Laura (who stopped working after returning for one week after her first child was born) says she thinks it's instinctual, for a mother to want to be with her kids. It must be, because no matter how many times I go over all the reasons I should and want to work, my heart still aches to think about leaving her everyday. I know I'll go back and I know we'll all be okay, but I'm not giving up on the goal of having Ellie in "substitute care" for as few hours as possible for the first few years of her life. I'm thankful to be able to start this journey with Laura, who is sympathetic and willing to cater to all of our needs, but I know that David and I have the most to offer our daughter and more than that, I know she has more to offer us than any job we'll ever find.

growing pains

In the morning baby girl and I went over to hang out with the family that will be watching her when I return to work. We see Laura frequently when we're walking in our neighborhood, and every time we give her the positive (and truthful!) report on Ellie: "She really only fusses when she's hungry or tired," "You always know when she's pooping," "She puts herself to sleep if you leave her alone in her bouncer," "Loud noises don't bother her," etc. Ellie and I have fallen into a pretty calm schedule at home and she's done well with other adults when we visit family or I visit work so I really didn't have many concerns.

Ellie had a full belly and was wide-awake during her normal smiley time. Laura picked her up and she made her rare, but extremely heartbreaking pout-y face before she started wailing.

Ellie barely ever cries. We've only seen tears on her cheeks twice in all her two months. In only a few minutes she had wipe-able tears. Laura seems to be the sweetest woman in the world and was really worried that Ellie was already super attached to me and not ready to hang out with other people. I tried my best to convince her that I don't think that's true, told her the things Ellie likes (bouncing! windows! kissy faces!), and tried not to intervene. Laura took Ellie outside to walk around, look at trees, and learn about cement trucks while I hung out with her son and mom. Ellie calmed down about 15 minutes later. Shortly after that we found out the reason she was fussing was because she was working on a poop! After Laura changed her diaper, Ellie was more than happy to play with her hair and return her baby talk and smiles. I think that made us all feel better. I'll take her back next week for a short trial run while I go to a quick work meeting, and we'll probably try to spend some more time there in the next few weeks so that Ellie and Laura have more time to adjust to each other.

If we were good parents you would think that would be the only stress we'd put on the bambino for one day. Instead, it happened to be time for Ellie's 2 month check-up complete with multiple shots. I'm so thankful David is still the kind of dad that is willing to leave work to help out when he can, so he came home from work, got all dressed up in a hot dad outfit and we headed to the doctor. The appointment was great. The shots were not.

She hung out with David since I was already too anxious. I jokingly told him I was going to take her shopping after the shots instead of feeding her so that she would learn to buy stuff instead of eat when she is unhappy. David suggested we go for a walk instead. David started singing her songs about birds and trees as we waited for the nurse. I told him to be careful or she'd always associate birds and trees with bad things. He changed to singing about race cars, messy houses, and bad breath. She got three shots and screamed more than she ever has before. When she was done I snuggled her and we sang to her. It took about 10 minutes for her to calm down and fall fast asleep. That probably doesn't sound that bad if you haven't gone through it with your own kid, but since we've barely seen her upset to this point, it was torture for us!

I know there are lots of difficult things coming up in her life... more shots and dropping her off at daycare are only the beginning. She's a little more hungry and a bit more fussy, but we're all doing okay tonight; just getting in extra snuggles whenever we can.

P.S. Anyone know if you're allowed to take pics in the doctor's office???

success!

Ta Da!!! Big accomplishment this weekend--we made it through our first out of town trip!

We got off to a later start than expected, still made all of the planned stops (3 before 1:00pm!), fed Ellie all of her necessary meals, partied for her cousin-to-be, and introduced her to so many new people without too much crying! When she started getting fussy in the car she calmed down well enough when we played her favorite reggae song by her boy Ziggy Marley. She also received the best gift ever from her Great Grandpa Strong. More on that later...

We remembered everything we needed (except for my swimsuit). A short list to look back on for baby's next excursion: tons of diapers, wipes, diaper cream, blankets, washcloths, bags, extra clothes, paci, clean/dirty clothing bags, bottle, cooler, pump, Miracle Blanket and Boppy.

Ellie only needed one outfit each day (me too!)--no explosions or leakage! She only cried when she was hungry, tired, or Uncle Andy's bearded face got too close ;). While it was stressful or complicated at times, we were able to plan well enough to keep Ellie pretty close to her usual schedule and still spend quality time with everyone we needed to see.

When we got back Sunday afternoon I was feeling so proud of ourselves and our baby girl, and so lucky that we have so much wonderful in our lives. I have to admit, my happiness probably also had something to do with the fact that we slept in til 10:00 while Grandma hung out with Ellie. The world does look brighter through rested eyes! My mood wasn't even deterred when we came home to a dirty house, flooded patio, and clogged drain. I'm sure traveling, meeting new people, and visiting friends and family will get easier with time and experience. It is so awesome to share our baby girl with people we love. We left Alden home this trip, thankful that Uncle TT was able to watch him while we were gone. We wouldn't have been able to do what we did if he was in the car with us. That will be the next challenge... When we got home, Aldy and I went on a date to the pet store to get the new dog food that he loves and eats (thanks, Bella) and a rawhide. Hopefully that made it up to him.

she got it

Ellie and I went shopping yesterday afternoon. So far, she doesn't look very much like me. She has her daddy's lips, nose, and probably eyes, but there have been a few things we've noticed that must come from my genes. Her reaction to her daddy's endless kisses, for example, is very similar to mine. She also has the chubbiest (and cutest) baby thighs ever and we definitely can't attribute those to David. We have also shared the same beautiful milk/spit-up/slobber stained look for the past 2 months. I tried to make an effort yesterday before heading to the mall. This included pulling my hair down out of a ponytail and putting on a bra and deodorant. Big deal! I know I didn't look good but I was sure I was presentable. I was wrong.

After browsing around a few stores (and, yes, talking to a few salespeople) I went to try on some clothes. Walked into the dressing room, looked in the mirror and realized that my shirt had giant milk stains in front of both boobs. I shouldn't have been surprised to see the stains; I was wearing the same shirt I wore to bed the night before and pretty much every piece of clothing that's been worn over the past 2 months is stained in one way or another. All I could do at that point was laugh at myself, and use it as more motivation to buy some new clothes that fit my new (current) body.

David and I don't spend much time bothering with our physical appearance. With a few exceptions (ahem, wool clothing) we don't worry too much about the clothes we have or don't have, I don't usually wear make-up, David usually has something colorful in his teeth, and it's a lucky day if I remember to pluck my eyebrows or that one dark hair growing out of my chin (I think I get this from my Nanny!). We love each other despite all of this, including all of this but we'll both admit that we frequently feel ugly, unattractive, or unprepared in different situations. I hope Ellie learns from us that looks aren't everything, but I also hope that she'll be confident and secure enough in herself to feel beautiful and comfortable in every situation she finds herself in--something that her dad and I still struggle with. I want her to know that she is beautiful, just the way she is.