Friday Free For All--The Random Mish Mosh of Things I Didn't Tell You This Week Edition

1. OH! So you wanted to hear actual details about my pregnancy related doctor’s visit this week? How rude of me! The hip pain and locking I’ve been experiencing is, in fact, sciatica. Who knew? I met the third and final doctor of my practice and she might be my favorite so far…she curses more than I do! She began documenting my chart re: the sciatica so that I can get out of work as soon as possible. Apparently, (according to her) “insurance companies typically don’t give a damn when it comes to pulling a woman from work because of sciatica. They’re all run by men who do not understand this pain.” So we’ll keep record of it and I’ll stick it out another week or two, and I’ll be done working. My insurance is pretty lenient though; I was pulled for a hemorrhoid the last time around….
2. Speaking of embarrassing pregnancy symptoms, I had a sneeze stuck all day yesterday. I kept getting the “ha ha….” But no “CHOO!”. Finally, at about 10PM the choo up and surprised me, and I, well, peed a little. The joys, right? What is the most embarrassing thing that happened to you while pregnant? For me, and nobody even knows, it was when I was 8-months pregnant with Lucy and we were in Virginia Beach. Our second night there, we decided to take Bud for a dip in the pool. I was amazed at how relaxing the water was; I felt light, and comfortable, and didn’t have 15lbs resting on my bladder. We stayed in for quite a while—I even stated for a bit once Hub and Bud were done. Getting out was the issue. Standing on the deck, all of the sudden my legs were warm. I thought “well what the…..did my water break??” Oh no. All of the pressure being back on my bladder caused me involuntarily pee. I couldn’t do anything but laugh hysterically, and be glad that nobody else was around. (The second most embarrassing pregnancy thing for me was Bud pulling down my whole shirt, from the neck, in the grocery store. There were exposed breasts involved. Maybe THIS is the most embarrassing…..)
3. I have developed a craving for anything containing apple compote. The Tim Horton’s by our house has a delicious apple cheese danish and I have had to set a serious limit on myself to 2 per day. I’m glad that none of the others in my daily path carry them, for I would be in big trouble. McDonald’s apple pies do not figure in to my 2 per day limit, in case you were wondering.
4. Lucy has taken to a fun new game where she asks such questions as “what if I turned in to a table?” or “what if I turned in to the ceiling?” I’ve taken to wanting to hurl myself out the window.
5. We took a really fun trip to Canada’s Wonderland yesterday, which is actually where Dora and Diego live. Spongebob was visiting from the Ocean as well. Despite being stuck in traffic for 3 hours on the way home, it was a great day. We took it really slow, and let the kids do pretty much whatever they wanted. We were afraid Lucy would be too small for the rides, but she just made it. It was our first big outing without a stroller, and it was missed—not for kid-porting, but for storage. Olivia will give us reason to use it again soon though!!! Here are a few photos:


Bud Lucy and Me on a Swan Boat. (Alternate title: Holy Bazongas!!!!)



Watching Bud Ride



You should have heard him trash-talking the other kids! "You're going in to the wall...I'm slamming you in to it. You'll never hit my car!" and so on...



Diego is a bit creepy, no? A lot creepy? Yeah...



Didn't stop Lucy though....



BY FAR Lucy's favorite ride



My absolute favorite photo of the day



Here it is the right way though

6. I am back to work on Monday, so more regular posting will follow. I am committed to catching up on blogs now, before Hub gets home. It's impossible to get on the computer when he's home. I am fearing that my blog will be severely lacking while I'm on maternity leave.

30 Weeks

Thirty Weeks is a real bitch--honestly. Think about it--I am not yet far enough where it could be "any time now", however I have been pregnant for 30 weeks. An especially long time given how soon I found out. I likened the third trimester to post partum last week, and as much as I'd like to tell you this vacation has been a party, it's mostly been ferociously dismal. Hub might use some more colorful words to describe it, but I will stick with dismal.

Lets keep the complaining to a minimum, shall we? Terrible cold, a bout of sciatica to end all sciatica, and just a general miserable disposition. Yes darlings, it is no mistake that I have not posted this week. You don't want to hear from me.


Here is the good- I have only gained 22lbs so far, my blood pressure is low, swelling is minimal, and for the first time in (my) pregnancy history, I can still wear my regular shoes.

Yes, the good. We have a pretty big day trip planned wit the kiddos tomorrow, so hopefully more of the good to come.

Since Swistle Brought It Up--On Weaning

Here in blog land, we all share our knowledge on certain subjects, give feedback and support each other on a daily basis. I am always taken aback when I am able to do the same thing in real life and in this situation, I really just feel so good about it.

My friend (and employee) Kel was scheduled to come back from her maternity leave last week. I got a frantic phone call 2 days before because she was trying to wean her baby girl and just could not do it. She was hysterical over it, could not stop crying, and the baby, while taking a bottle ok from others, would not even think about taking it from her.

She was adamant about not pumping at work; she just didn’t want to go through it. She thought that weaning was the best option—just get it done with overall. We talked for a long time about it; she knew that I had nursed both kids even after coming back to work and wondered if there was any way she could still do it without using a breast pump. She thought that she was going to hate breast-feeding and that it would be no big deal to stop, but the bond just took here completely by surprise.

I felt like, so pro-lactation in that moment, it was amazing. In short, this is what I told her:

Breastfeeding is different for everybody. I was able to nurse Bud until he was 8-months old, but by the 6-month mark was having a hard time pumping enough to keep him going. I gradually began to stop pumping at work, but still nursed him at home before and after work, as well as all weekend long. Nursing all weekend always boosted my milk supply and I was able to maintain long enough. By the 8-month mark, we were both ready to be done with it, and the transition to all bottle (he was on a lot of solids by then anyway) went very well (I got pregnant the next month, and my boobs never completely emptied, but I left that part out.) Lucy was different from birth. First, because of the NICU, I was unable to nurse her right away, and due to her hypoglycemia, they had to give her formula right off the bat. She came home with strict instructions for supplemental feeding for the first week or 2. She took the breast easily, but definitely preferred the bottle. Once I had gone back to work, and she to daycare, it became harder and harder to nurse her. She weaned herself at 4-months. I was ok with it because I knew I had done my best.

Bottom line is that this proves how different it can be from child to child and for sure from mom to mom. If you don’t want to fully wean her, you don’t have to. If you nurse her before you leave in the morning, and when you get home at night, your body will adjust your milk supply. You can more than likely easily do both. The decision is yours though; try not to feel like you are depriving your baby. Most importantly, the bond you have shared while nursing doesn’t go away just because you stop. You are the baby’s momma for life.

In the end, Kel used her stimulus money to take 2 more weeks off of work to see if she could work out some sort of routine. I’m hoping that everything works out the way she wants it to. And I’m glad she felt better after talking with me, the same way that I feel better after hearing from all of you all the time.

Comparison

We all do it, right? Personally, I love to compare any number of related things and then spend hours pondering what it all means.

Do you compare your kids though? If you don’t have kids, do you compare yourself to your siblings? I don’t mean in the sense of “Why can’t you be more like your sister?!”, but rather, traits—how they got them, and again, what does it mean?? I found myself doing it even with one child. Here was Bud, looking exactly like his daddy, but with my temperament. Similarly, there is Lucy, who resembles my family (but not me), but has the exact stubborn mentality of her father.

I love trying to make sense of it all; and think about what kind of people these kids will grow up to be.

Here are some of my favorite comparisons of my children:

• Bud’s hair is thick and dirty blonde. Lucy’s is super-fine and dark, dark brown.
• Bud’s eyebrows are so blonde they are almost white. Lucy’s are as dark as her hair, and she actually has a borderline uni-brow.
• Bud’s eyes are steely blue, except for when he is mischievous, at which point they are a bright, twinkly green. Lucy’s are hazel, gravitating toward brown when she is upset, green with yellow flecks when happy, and blue/green when she wears those types of colors.
• Bud eats nothing that is good for him. If you asked him his favorite foods, you would hear items along the lines of chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, sugar cereal, pop tarts and goldfish crackers. Lucy is the best eating child I have ever met. Her favorite foods? Broccoli, apples, salad (with green olives, cheese, croutons and ranch—and she will tell you if something is missing), cheerios and bananas in milk, and of course, fruit snacks.
• As he did in the womb, Bud sleeps stretched out on his back, hands above his head and toes pointed out. Lucy remained curled up for my entire pregnancy and sleeps the same today.
• Lucy can crack a t-ball like you would not believe. Bud would prefer to dance.

There are aspects in which the children are similar as well:

• Both are extremely well spoken and verbal for their ages. Both spoke full sentences before their first birthday.
• Both have the same speech sound delays in that “r” sounds like “w” and they have a slight lisp.
• They have the exact same (my) nose.
• They have the exact same (Hub’s) sticking out ears.
• They both have supreme antagonistic abilities and know exactly how to push our and the other’s buttons.

I think it’s going to be fun when Olivia comes, to see whether or not she will be a completely different person. Will she resemble one child over the other? Will Bud and Lucy’s similarities carry through to her? What traits will she have that are 100% different from each of the children?

I can’t wait to find out!

Mild Complaining; Kitchen Photos

I’m tired to day and very cranky thanks to 3rd trimester blues. I swear, for me, the 3rd trimester is worse than the post partum period. Of course, I write that and it seems harsh considering I wasn’t even sure that I loved Lucy all that much until she was close to 2-months old. It’s probably safer to say that when I’m in it, the third trimester is worse—my mood is definitely worse than post partum. And I am so in it right now—starving, but I can barely eat because there is no room and if I eat too much I seriously can not breathe not to mention the heartburn. The top of my stomach, under my ribs, is falling asleep. I have to pee every 10 minutes, but only a trickle comes out, and I have horrible insomnia which is making it hard to hold my head up here at work.

I’m not going to bitch (anymore) today though--hey, I'm on vacation starting Wednesday! I’m going to post some photos of our trip to see Thomas the Train yesterday, as well as kitchen progress!! WOOT!!

Bud working on the tear down—the door to the left, to FIL’s apartment is no longer there:




New cupboards, lights and countertops—the right of the sink is where FIL’s door used to be:





We have some plaster to take down on the other side still and we are moving the entrance from the living room in to the kitchen over to accommodate a breakfast nook. More photos of that soon. We also have to paint, do the electric, plumbing and floor. I can’t wait until we are 100% out of the 70’s!


Here are photos of all of us at Thomas yesterday. It was a bleak day; very cold and rainy, but the kids and their cousin J had a lot of fun.

Where I Blog From

I typically blog from work, so here, my friends, are some photos of my very messy desk/office.

Let's start with the full panned effect, shall we?? This is my office from left to right:





Some close ups of the actual desk:






And finally, my piles and junk, just for you, Tessie!





So what do you think?

Friday Free For All--Work Stuff

1. I had a minor nervous breakdown on Tuesday when I was working late and could not find my evening Zantac in my purse. The laughter of my employees brought me out of it, as I had the entire contents of my purse, including tampons (um, why are they still there??) spread across my desk. For some reason, none of us could stop laughing. I did find the pill, entangled in about 400 receipts held together with a broken off pen top.
2. We actually laugh a lot at work. One of my employees is a complete germophobe and slathers her entire body in antibacterial gel about 30 times a day. Another employee came over last Friday to tell me that she had seen the girl disinfect the change she just got back from the pop machine. I laughed so hard that I cried. I’ve thought about rubbing my ass on her keyboard A la Elaine, but she actually wipes down her entire desk when she gets in every morning.
3. Tomorrow is my scheduled Saturday to work. I was thinking about taking some photos of my desk to show the world where I blog from. You might be disgusted though because I keep it in a horrible state of disarray. But I know where everything is.
4. I still have one of three bags of Munchos left. You thought I didn’t have any self control.
5. My boss regularly sends me links to check out celebrity gossip and odd things she finds online. She is the best laid back kind of boss there is. She’s also a bad influence on me when it comes to eating and shopping, which is why I have to be well on track with a post-pregnancy diet before I get back to work.
6. We have an employee in my department who has “chemical sensitivity”. A few years ago it was mandated that nobody on our side of the building wear perfume/cologne/scented lotions and no cleaners from home were allowed. We actually invested in this vinegar based cleaner that 1. smells like, well, vinegar (or douche, I’m told) and 2. does not do a very good job. This employee lost a lot of weight last year and all of the sudden we noticed the smell of perfume on her. Scented hairspray too. And she started coloring her own hair. Nobody takes precautions any longer; however the “chemical sensitivity” signs are still posted all over our side of the building.
7. Our coffee machines dispense coffee for free. It is not good coffee. We are not allowed to brew coffee at our desks, or have any other small appliances either.
8. We have an unofficial Lactation Room that despite my booking months in advance had people in it holding meetings at my designated times. I found an abandoned office with a lock and no windows the last time around, but we have since remodeled. I am contacting site management to turn the original room in to an official Lactation Room so that nursing mothers no longer have to worry about being evacuated to the bathroom in order to bring milk home to their babies. (I use an electric pump anyway, so the bathroom thing does not fly for me.)