Week in Review

This week I’ve had very little time for blogging and I’ve been very tired. But it didn’t really stop me from working out twice, playing volleyball and taking walks. Ty is still not sleeping through the night!

RIP: Our TiVO remote. It has fallen off the armrest of my chair so many times that finally broken into 16 pieces. This means I had to watch through the commercials because I was too lazy to get up and press the buttons on the actual TivO unit. I was thinking about teaching Jack how to use all the buttons which is like the old fashioned remote controls: using your kid to get up and change the channels.



I finally received my two “mothers” necklaces. Here they are. For this one, I got Jack 8-26-03 Ty 6-24-05. I showed them to Yvonne and she gave me the ultimate compliment: “You’re such a mom!” Melissa said she thought she’d never see the day I was like this. I admit that I was a workaholic until I had kids and probably was a little scary. :-) It wasn’t uncommon for both me and Brian to work until 7 or 8 PM at night most nights. Now I burn rubber getting out of the parking lot at 5 every night.

On Wednesday I was very tired all day and wondered how I was going to get through picking up the kids, eating dinner, feeding Ty, getting Jack ready for bed and then follow through on my commitment to do pumpkin carving at Tami’s house. Fortunately, Brian had dinner on the table when we got home and Jack said he wanted to go night-night halfway through his first book. I was thinking how much I wanted to go to sleep but I always follow through on my social commitments (with the exception of that time I was to meet Jill B for lunch and slept through it!) so I left the house at 8 PM with my pumpkin to headed to Tami’s. It was just three of us, Julie, Tami and me, but I had a really nice time and felt reenergized after doing some socializing. Julie and Tami are single and I find hearing about their lives an interesting diversion from kid talk. Julie is living in a townhouse downtown where there are shops on the first floor. The owners of the shops must live above the shops. How cool is that? I think that would be a great way to live if I were single or married with no kids in the near future.

Thursday night Brian and I went to dinner with the kids and Brian’s human resources rep from work. I got to talk to her about what she is doing about female retention where we work. We have a difficult time hanging onto “technical” women for various reasons. I’m going to join her task force to see what we can do about it. Mostly the issues are around the male dominated culture (and not very female friendly) which isn’t going to change any time soon. I have a few ideas that I need to flesh out that I will be proposing. This isn’t really part of my job but something I feel strongly about so I will pursue it. After dinner I played volleyball. The nights are just beautiful here and it’s awesome to play outdoors. Friday I got a chance to meet Ann and Emma for lunch. Emma disclosed that she may be moving to the east coast to be closer to her family. As I said before, it seems like everyone moves away from here to be closer to their families!

Saturday morning I slept in until 7:30. When I was single sleeping in meant sleeping until 11 AM. Now sleeping in is sleeping until 7:30. Ha! I went to get my hair cut which is at a place about 35 – 40 minutes away. I’ve been using the same guy to cut my hair for almost 10 years. After I got my hair cut, I met my friend Jill M for lunch and then she had to go and get her hair cut and colored (she is now using my guy). I got home and Brian was heading out to the ASU – U. of Washington football game with Burrito, nickname for his fraternity brother friend who is now a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) doctor. And single.


Jack was running around without his underwear and peed all over the couch. Then he emptied a nail polish size bottle of cuticle oil all over the chair in the family room. Then he peed at the dinner table (he wasn’t wearing his diaper). We made a fruit cobbler together but he didn’t last long enough to eat it. His normal bedtime is 7 PM but tonight he asked if he could go night-night at 6:20 PM. He is funny that way. Brian came home and both kids were asleep. Brad (the doctor) hung out for a while so I could grill him on his love life. He is quite eligible being a doctor and looking very young like Doogie Howser. We didn’t make it to Tami’s Halloween party. We are just so tired in the evenings!

On a very sad note, our friends who live in Pacific Beach, near San Diego, are moving to Seattle. We visit them frequently and stay with them. They live walking-distance to the beach and coffee shops and my favorite restaurant for breakfast. I hate the thought of staying in a hotel when we go there.

Good News in Chandler

This summer in our great city of Chandler, a woman was breastfeeding at a public pool. She was covered up (keep in mind it's usually around 110 degrees during the day). Someone complained to a lifeguard and the lifeguard told the woman to feed her child in the restroom. That started a big hubbub and the city council then proposed to make an ordinance that said that women who breastfeed should be "appropriately covered" [whatever that means] but if someone complained, then they would be asked to go to a private location (like a restroom or 120 degree car) and if they refused, then they would be arrested. Needless to say, all the mothers in the city were infuriated. Breastfeeding is a protected right in like 38 states but not Arizona. So we got some good news in the past couple of days:
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1027breastfeeding-ON.html

Chandler has become the second city in the nation to enact a breast-feeding law, making it legal in the city for a mother to nurse her child "anywhere a mother and child are allowed to be." The council on Thursday voted unanimously to approve the measure. Their decision met with cheers and a standing ovation from more than 50 mothers, most who were holding babies, who packed the room. The council also passed a resolution asking the state Legislature to follow their lead and exempt breast-feeding from indecent exposure laws. Although 35 states, excluding Arizona, have laws that permit public breast-feeding, Philadelphia is the only other city with one, City Attorney Michael House said. The push came from a group of nursing mothers after a Tempe resident was asked not to nurse her child beside a Chandler pool in June.

Wednesday I went to an all day staff meeting with my new boss. I’m not sure my new boss has a sense of humor. I can’t put my finger on it but something about him makes him unapproachable/difficult to relate to. I am going to reserve judgment… he may be acting a certain way because he is new and needs to establish himself in this group. If there is no levity in this group, then I will be unhappy. Anyway, the demographic in the room is men who have worked here for 15 – 20 years, with kids and stay-at-home wives. I am the only woman. My boss wanted to work straight through lunch and I said, “Can we have a 15 minute break?” He said, “Well, the food is right back there [in the back of the room]”. Then he said, “Oh, I know why you need a break…” I felt a combination of relief and horror that he came to realization that I needed to go pump but then he said in front of everyone…”Oh you want to go work out.” Errr… not exactly. He did concede to a break but he still has no clue what I needed to go do, even though I told him I was breastfeeding when he came on board a couple weeks ago. I think this is definitely one of the things that makes it hard for women to go back to work. People who haven't been through it before just can't relate.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Me and my boys. They are the most precious things to me in the world!

Today, Ty is four months old!

Ty woke up to eat at 3 AM and then again at 6 AM. When I came out to the kitchen, Jack was already eating his breakfast. He pointed at my shirt and said, “Purple”. I was wearing purple but have only been reviewing red, yellow, green and blue with him. So I was impressed by that.

My day started off well with a funny story from Yvonne. She went to the gym for the first time in a really long time and so she was working out pretty hard. She noticed that a couple guys were checking her out and that made her feel good. After about an hour or so of exercising on various pieces of equipment and doing crunches, she wondered why her sweat was pooling on her face. She reached up to her face and realized that she had her large, dark sunglasses on! She’s not sure why she didn’t a) notice this in the mirrors or b) notice it was really dark in the gym, but I thought that was the funniest thing I had heard in quite a while.

I had a good workout during lunch but did not wear my sunglasses. I think my pooch is getting bigger instead of smaller so I cranked it up a notch in aerobics today. We are fortunate to have excellent aerobic instructors at our work gym who are all employee volunteers. The one who teaches Mondays and Tuesdays is a 50 year old woman who looks like she is 30. She teaches at other gyms in the Valley. I was sucking some wind towards the end. This afternoon I found out that Melissa, who I have known for years, grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness. We got onto that subject because her child’s day care wasn’t going to have the kids come to school in their costumes because they didn’t want to offend anyone. I grew up in a church that was anti Halloween, Christmas, birthdays and so was she (although I wasn’t a Jehovah’s Witness). It’s interesting to celebrate a holiday but have no memories or traditions of that holiday when you were a kid.

This past weekend was very busy. My friend Tina had installed some dark wood floors in her house and I thought they were very interesting. We decided that these floors would look great in our dining room. Our dining room has carpet that has been peed on by the cats several hundred times. Needless to say, it was really disgusting. When we got the go ahead from Tina’s husband that he could get the same wood and install it for us (he has a wood working business), Brian ripped out the carpet on Friday night. We’ve treated the area with those special enzymes that work on cat pee and I think the smell is out of the concrete but the baseboards may be hosed. We’ll see how it smells tonight. I’m very excited to have this wood floor as I think it will be great with the red walls.

On Saturday we went to the Intel Fall Festival that was run by the Intel Parents Network, an employee group that does special stuff for parents and kids. I’m the chair of that employee group but missed all the planning while I was on maternity leave. It was a nice event in the park and they had a lot of cute games for Jack. Late that afternoon, we went to IKEA to look around and have dinner. We have so much fun there… we spend a long time in the kids’ section letting Jack play.

On Sunday we went to Schnepf’s Farm which is out in the boonies—it’s a fall festival kind of thing that caters to families and kids (are you catching the theme of our weekend here?) Jack rode a carousel and a ride where the cars go up and down. He did the pumpkin launch and played in the kids’ area. We had chili and yummy corn on the cob. I spent the rest of Sunday doing about 7 loads of laundry and various other chores. I gave myself a pedicure for the first time in a long time and hated it so much that I briefly considered hanging up my volleyball career.

Brian made fish for dinner tonight which Jack ate heartily. He also ate tomatoes, cucumbers, and asparagus. He is such an awesome eater. I hope it continues. I ran to Nordstrom's to get a couple make-up items. The sales woman asked if I needed anything else and I said "a bag of cotton balls" in a joking way but I really did need some. She proceeded to dump a bunch of cotton pads in my bag. Now that's why I shop at Nordies. You can't beat the service!

Friday, October 21, 2005

Eating chocolate covered strawberries
The carousel at the Zoo-Note Jack's model pose
Jack and Ty looking nothing alike and yes, Jack does have matching PJ's.

This week had some significant milestones. Today Ty laughed out loud for the first time and Jack spoke his first grammatical sentence. Jack had a red mark on his head and I asked him what happened and he said, “Ty did it.” For some reason I have a feeling I will hear this sentence quite a lot in the next 16 years or so. Still it was really exciting to hear him say this, plus he appears to be picking up words at a much faster rate than before. I hope this isn’t a phase but he is not whining as much either. Maybe communicating is helping that.

This is the first week we made cookies together. We have made brownies before but not cookies. He liked the chocolate chips but refused to eat the batter. More for me. It’s just a matter of time before he figures out the batter is the best part. We also ate chocolate covered strawberries. After not letting Jack have any sugar for two years, it feels like I’ve gotten sugar happy but to Jack, plain yogurt, bananas and kiwi fruit are just as much of a treat. He is such a good eater.

Thursday night I played volleyball with three friends that I’ve played with on and off for about 9 years. I hadn’t seen Radney in about five years. We had such a good time catching up that I stayed out for an hour and a half, even though I was pretty tired and it was almost 10 PM by the time I got home. Playing sand volleyball does terrible things to my pedicure but as much as I like a nice pedicure, I would rather be playing sand volleyball. Perhaps it’s time for closed toe shoes. Anyway, it’s always fun to get together with people that you know from years past—they always bring up embarrassing stories like the way I got drunk at a Halloween party while dressed as Rubbermaid (French maid costume with condoms hanging on me). A few of my blog readers were there to witness my most public debacle as it seems every single person in Phoenix was there (1998).

I exchanged a couple emails with Camille who I met at work here and she moved back to Washington to be closer to her family. She has two kids also, and recently went back to work. I have to say that I really, really like going to work. Intel isn’t the right place for a lot of people but it so well suited for me. I don’t really like confronting people outside of work (I can’t even bring myself to tell the woman at the nail salon to stop cutting my cuticles off) but for some reason it comes easy to me at work because it’s expected and rewarded. The thing is that I feel guilty for wanting to work. We could live on Brian’s salary with a few cutbacks but I want to go to work and I think I will always work to some extent. But I feel like I should be saying something like, “I love my kids so much that I need to stay home with them and not have anyone else raise them.” Why doesn’t that feeling supersede my desire to work? For me, working turns the time that I spend with my kids into a drug… I get so much pleasure from the time spent with them that I feel intoxicated. Well, it’s something that I struggle with every single day. I guess there is a sweet spot for me as to how much I work versus how much time I spend with the kids. I just need to find it.

Up next: our saga with the artificial turf people and saying good-bye to the carpet that the cats have been peeing on for the past 6 years.

The Weekend

Today an acquaintance in the cafeteria at work asked me if I was pregnant. I saw the look of horror in her eyes as these words tumbled from her mouth as she simultaneously remembered that it was just under four months ago that I gave birth. In a way I felt bad for her because she quickly realized her faux pas but it was depressing because I still have a roll of fat and skin on my belly from being pregnant.

Friday night was book club and I think we set a new record. I remember only discussing the book for about two minutes. The rest of the time was spent drinking wine and margaritas and discussing the normal girl stuff of kids, husbands, family, and Jeanette’s love life. Saturday morning I took Jack to a birthday party at Toy Town which is a neat little indoor town with a ton of toys and dress up clothes. Jack had two meltdowns: the first was when another boy took the car he wanted, he even though there were three other cars whose differences were only discernable to a 2-year old and the second was when a small piece of his cake landed on the floor and I didn’t let him eat it. Fortunately, the birthday party was for Jack’s day care owner’s son, who is in the 2 year-old room with Jack so most people were familiar with the irrational actions of a 2 year-old.

Saturday afternoon I went to the library to pick up a book I noticed at the bookstore the other night. It’s called “Don’t Go to the Cosmetics Counter Without Me”. The author of the book reviews just about every single skin care product and cosmetic on the market and evaluates them based on their effectiveness according to medical journals and the most recent research. I admit that I am lured into buying beauty products that promise reduction of wrinkles or blemishes or sun spots or post baby loose skin and rolls of fat. After looking up her opinion on all my products, according to the book, I’m getting scammed on about 99% of the products. I guess her point is that not getting wrinkles is more of a result of good genes, lack of sun damage and lack of smoking, or just a great face lift, than it is about moisturizing. The truth hurts.

On Sunday we packed up the kids and picked up our Chinese friend from Malaysia at a nearby hotel to take her to the zoo. The weather was cloudy and nice (yes, cloudy is nice in Phoenix) and we had a really great time. Jack loved the turtles the best I think, which are outside the entrance which made me think we could save money on our zoo membership next year by taking Jack to the zoo to just see the turtles. They have a new carousel and Jack rode it for the first time. He was very serious while riding it but seemed to enjoy it nonetheless. After returning from the zoo, everyone but me took a 2 – 3 hour nap which was nice because I’m in the OCD portion of my Harry Potter book (I can’t put it down so I read at the dinner table, in the bathroom, etc.) What really impresses me about the author of the Harry Potter books is her imagination. Remember when we were kids and we would say things like: let’s pretend that you are a fairy princess and I am the ugly stepsister and… blah blah blah… (see, I can’t even make up an example because I NO LONGER HAVE AN IMAGINATION). I feel like I left my imagination back at my elementary school in the 70’s, never to be seen again. What a beautiful, undervalued thing that all kids have and so many adults have lost.

Thursday night I was so tired that I finally let Brian sleep in the other room with Ty. I told him that I expected Ty to eat once during the night and again any time after 5 AM. Any other time would be unnecessary in my opinion. Well, Thursday and Friday night, Ty went to sleep at 7 PM, woke up at 1:30 AM for his feeding, and then around 5:45 AM for the next one. I guess there is some truth to the fact that they can smell mom when mom is close by. I expect that by 6 months, he should be able to sleep 7 PM to 6 AM with no feeding and that is just a little over 2 months away. That will be so nice! Now that the feedings have gotten under control, it’s time to get him to sleep in the crib versus the swing. Last night I fed him and we put him down in the crib and we let him cry. We did the shushing sounds and patted him for hours while he screamed. OK, Brian told me it was actually 10 minutes before I picked him up. After I picked him up, he immediately stopped crying, let out one of those sighs, we swaddled him and he went to sleep. I supposed we are making progress but letting him cry was too heartbreaking for me.

Work is going well. I’m a program manager and our jobs are to manage programs that have beginning and ends so we don’t always have a job lined up. I didn’t have one when I returned to work and was secretly hoping that I could surf the web until the end of the year to readjust to going back to work. Within three days I realized that we were heading for a disaster in a particular area so I jumped in to help, started giving direction and advice and now they want me to travel to Oregon this week for 1 ½ days for a meeting. I don’t want to do an overnight trip because logistically it’s a pain in the rear since I’m a personal milk factory. I remember taking a larger suitcase with me on an overnight trip after I had Jack… an Intel guy from the airport made fun of me for having a big suitcase for an overnight trip and I said it was filled with a breast pump and other lactating accouterments and no clothes. He immediately shut up and walked away. Even if I just do a day trip, it’s about 4 hours of traveling each way, just to get there at 10 AM and leave at 3 PM and spend 45 minutes of that time lactating and having to explain to a roomful of men why I need a 15 minute break instead of a 10 minute break. Fortunately, I just mention the word “breast” and they don’t want to hear anymore. I think I will just call into the meeting which will be torturous but less so than actually going.

I finished my first audio book on Friday. It sure takes a long time to read a book that way. Much slower than actually reading it. But still a great way to pass time while walking. I also finally won a purse off of eBay. I admit that I like Coach purses and have decided that eBay is the best way to purchase them because I have a philosophy that you don’t have to pay full price for anything. People ask… are they real? Yes, they are real. I don’t really know how these people get the purses, especially the ones that are currently available in stores. I know some come from outlets but those are not currently in stores. If anyone out there knows how this works, please let me know. I’ve been bidding on a particular one for the last few weeks but keep getting outbid. I finally got one for a great price but had to hover over the computer obsessively… I told Brian that I’m finally satisfied with the ones that I have and he asked if he could have that in writing. Absolutely not.

Well, I’ve got a ton more to say but our TiVo is filling up and I need to watch something. I’ve already dropped West Wing and Survivor this season. I think Lost and Alias are kind of slow and boring. Desperate Housewives is starting to suck. I think I’d rather blog and read after the kids go to bed.

Personal Growth

I’ve always been deficient in a particular area. I’m not sure how to describe it. It’s not lack of empathy or sympathy. It’s not lack of compassion. It’s not lack of emotion. I think it’s that I don’t like showing the emotion of sadness to anyone. This is why I absolutely hate crying in movies. This is why I hate going to funerals. This is why it’s hard for me to reach out to people who are going through a difficult time—I feel the sadness too and get overwhelmed by the emotion and don’t feel comfortable exposing that to someone. I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with someone else displaying this kind of emotion. I don’t know why I am like this although my family isn’t really good at showing emotion.

As with all deficiencies in my life, there comes a time when I need to get over it. When Annette lost her baby, it was scary to go to her house to drop off dinner. What if I started crying in front of her? Would this make her feel better or worse? What if I said a really stupid thing? People tend to do that in these situations. I asked a friend of mine who also lost a late term baby what should I say? What should I not say? I guess what I learned from this experience is that first and foremost, you have to acknowledge what has happened. Pretending that it didn’t happen now or 5 years from now is the worst thing you can do. The second thing is that the fear of facing someone who had experienced a tragedy is much worse that actually facing that person. And finally, it's silly to worry too much about what you're going to say because really the most important thing you can do is to listen.

Working Mom Guilt

Ty has been sleeping in our room since the day he came home. He sleeps in a swing next to our bed but the swing is not turned on. As soon as he starts to rustle around, I get up and put him in bed with me and he eats. Most of the time I wake up and he is lying there and put him back into the swing. Sometimes I am too tired. He always wakes up to eat one more time so when I finally get up in the morning, he is lying in the bed with me.

Sunday night was the same story but now that I cannot take naps, I am getting pretty tired during the day. So Monday evening, I told Brian that he should spend the night with Ty in another room. I don’t really think that Ty needs to eat that many times during the night but it is the path of least resistance. I think if he sleeps in another room with Brian, he could get through the night without eating and be soothed with a pacifier at various points in time. However, the more I thought of this scenario, the more anxious I got. What I realized was that part of me is enjoying the closeness and bonding aspect of feeding Ty and having him sleep in the bed with me. I would actually miss that part of the feedings. Now I understand more why women perpetuate this cycle--Part of it is that we are so tired and it’s just easier to feed them, but the other part is that we enjoy that time with the baby. After coming to this realization, I noticed an article in the paper last night: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1010sids10.html

Washington Post
Oct. 10, 2005 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON - To minimize the risk of crib death, the nation's largest organization of pediatricians is recommending that babies be put to sleep with pacifiers and in their own beds, despite intense opposition from advocates for breast-feeding and the "family bed."

The American Academy of Pediatrics, hoping to settle some of the most hotly debated emotional issues related to the care of newborns, is for the first time endorsing routine pacifier use and explicitly advocating a ban on babies sleeping with their parents.

In recommendations being unveiled today, the academy's first new guidance in five years also toughens its long-standing policy that babies always sleep on their backs, saying for the first time that even sleeping on the side is too dangerous. Babies should, however, sleep in the same room as their parents, the academy concludes.

The recommendations come as more American women are juggling the competing demands of work and motherhood, leading increasing numbers of new mothers to sleep with their babies in what some advocates call the "family bed" as they search for additional time to bond with their newborns.

First of all, isn’t it amazing that the epiphany I had showed up in the paper just moments after I had the epiphany? Maybe others knew why they were doing this but it didn’t really occur to me until I told Brian that he should forget the plan… I would continue to deal with Ty during the night. Why would I say that if I am so tired? Working mom GUILT.

Weekend

Tonight I am psyching myself up for a full week of work. Is it almost Thanksgiving yet? Before I forget, I have to let everyone know about a new radio station here in Phoenix. Thanks to Melissa for letting me know about it. It's Star 97.5 and they play lounge/jazz music like Ella Fitzgerald and Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. I love this kind of music and listen to it at home all the time. I'm glad to have it in the car now, although when Jack is in the car, I have to listen to Itsy-Bitsy Spider and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

I also wanted to note that my favorite TV show right now is Grey's Anatomy. It takes a show like this to realize that ER needs to get off the air and put us all out of our misery. And it's not just that I think Patrick Dempsey is good looking. I am watching Desperate Housewives but is it just me or is it just not as good as it was in the first season?

Jack earned the right to watch a Baby Einstein video by peeing in the potty five times over the past week. It's marginal progress and I'm still not sure that he's really getting the cause and effect thing down. He goes in the potty all day long at day care so something about being at home isn't motivating him. We do let him run around without any diapers or underwear sometimes on the weekend. He tends to be more open to using the potty when he doesn't have to pull his pants down.

On Saturday morning, Brian and I took the kids to play volleyball. I hadn't played in about a year (since I got pregnant with Ty). I want to start playing again in the weekly league so I thought I should go out and practice. We took turns playing and watching the kids. I got really ticked off when the guys I was playing with didn't set me. I know I'm a little rusty but it's just pick-up ball. It tends to be a chronic issue--that guys assume a man is going to hit better. They just keep setting the guy over and over and half the time the guy hits the ball into the net or out. But they keep setting the guy. I was really grumpy when we left. I was more tired chasing after Jack than I was playing volleyball though.

Yvonne and Colton baby-sat on Saturday while Brian and I had a very rare dinner out. Jack acts very differently when Colton is there (Colton is 10 or 11 years old). Jack starts to show off and acts really silly when Colton is around. But he just loves him. I feel very blessed to have a friend willing to baby-sit my kids but even more so that Jack just LOVES them. We were gone from 4 to 7:30 and Jack hadn't had a nap. Yvonne said Jack fell asleep at the dinner table. Of course, if Brian and I were home, he would have had a giant meltdown. Isn't it funny how kids act better around people who are not their parents?

My ex-boyfriend Bob sent me an email this weekend. He's the guy I moved here for and was with the night I met Brian. I broke up with him in 1998 and starting dating Brian 2 weeks later. I used to run into him occasionally at the dance studio. (I will note that I was the one who got him interested in ballroom dancing and then he got really into it after I broke up with him). After reading his email, I dreamed that night that he wanted me back. He was trying to kiss me but I was holding a towel over my face. I don't remember much else. This was a little different from the recurring dreams I have where for some reason I have to get married and my only choices are my ex-husband or my ex-boyfriend and I'm really bummed out and keep saying, "Where's the guy that I like?" meaning my husband. It's always nice to wake up next to the right guy--the one that I like. And I don't mean Ty. :-)

How smart is Jack?

Tuesday night we were getting Jack's pajamas on and he was naked so I asked him if he wanted to go potty. Usually the answer is no, even though he will pee in his diaper 10 seconds later. Well this night he said he wanted to go pee and I tried to stand up and he pushed me back down. "NO MAMA", he said. I tried to follow him into the bathroom but he pushed me out and closed the door and said "NO MAMA". He wouldn't let Brian in either. So we listened at the door and heard him say, "Yea, Jack!" which is something he says to himself when he does something he's proud of. By the time we got into the bathroom, he was already on his stool, rinsing out the bowl from his little potty in the sink. The question is: did he really use the potty or did he pretend to use it and then hide the lack of evidence by rinsing the bowl before we could see it? Because if he goes to the potty 5 times, he gets to watch a Baby Einstein video. It was a scary thought that Jack could deceive us in order to watch a video at such a young age. I still wonder why he closed the door. Does a 2 year old need privacy? Even I, a 36 year old woman, don't get privacy in the bathroom anymore. Jack comes barging in and then Brian comes in to talk about something because now the door is open. We might as well just have a toilet in the middle of the family room so I can at least watch TV while I am doing my business. I can't really talk and use the bathroom at the same time. Other women can and like to try to talk to you through the stalls at work. Not me. God forbid I should be going #2 and they want to keep talking.

I got up at 6 AM on Wednesday and we managed to leave the house on time. Driving to work was a little strange because I kept looking in the backseat and panicking because Ty wasn't there (Brian does the day care drop-offs). There is some luxury in going back to work in that there some alone time. After chatting with the usual crowd, I went to the cafeteria to check out our new grill. Our cafeteria for years only had a salad bar with brown lettuce and hot dogs. Well, the hot dogs weren't on the salad bar exactly. So having a grill is very exciting. So I had a fried egg and cheese sandwich. After eating the sandwich, it was time to head to the lactation room. The lactation room where I work is actually the nurse's office but there is never a nurse in there as demonstrated by the layer of dust on the desk and the 2001 calendar sitting there. The exciting thing about the lactation room is that there is a restroom inside that of course no one uses except for me and perhaps any other breastfeeding mom who uses the room. This is exciting because I am assured no one will talk to me while using the restroom. I started to read Harry Potter and calculated that 12 pages = 4 oz of milk.

On a whim I decided to head over to the gym during lunch to do the lunchtime aerobic class. I felt a little like a sausage putting on my workout clothes. I guess I haven't quite gotten back to my pre-pregnancy body. Oh, well. I bumbled around on the step for a while and then they moved to the core/abdominal exercises. I think I left my abdominal muscles on the delivery room floor because I couldn't do the exercises and just lay on my mat in a heap. I wish society thought flabby stomachs and loose skin were badges representing the beauty and miracle of childbirth.

I don't exactly have a job yet although "they" have something in mind for me. It's extremely ambiguous although people think if there are a bunch of words in a powerpoint presentation, then that is enough information to direct the work of a bunch of people and spend several millions of dollars. So I'm wading through all the presentations to make sense of it and to figure out what I should be doing.

We decided to celebrate my return to work with a trip to Carraba's. It had to have been the most unenjoyable dinner ever when Jack had a biggest temper tantrum I've ever seen. Screaming and crying and we are still not sure why. Jack saw me feeding Ty with a bottle of leftover breastmilk and got really mad. Took the empty bottle, put it in his mouth and didn't let go until we got home. I guess he is a little jealous of Ty. But he was also really tired.

Back to the grind again this morning. Cheese omelet on the new grill. Met Heather, baby Peyton and Christine for lunch today at a Korean place. At 4:30 PM I'm in a meeting and get a frantic call on my cell phone from day care, "TY IS STARVING." Given that he weighs 3 lbs more than average 3 month old, it was a little hard to picture my child with his bones sticking out and starving. So I quickly grabbed all my stuff and got to day care where he was just sitting there smiling. Go figure. I was assured that he was screaming earlier. I will probably up my reading to 20 pages of Harry Potter per pumping to keep up with Ty!

October 5

In memoriam:
October 5, 2002 Bonn W
October 5, 2005 Abrielle Sofia Hess

Ready for Work

For the last two days I've gotten up at 6 AM to prepare myself to start work on Wednesday. It's quite brutal since I've been sleeping until 8 AM most days. I usually feed Ty anywhere from 1 - 3 times a night, so I'm pretty tired in the morning. I wake up and Ty is in the bed and I have no recollection of how he got there. I have to say that while I don't like waking up to feed him, I do like having him in the bed with me. No, I am not becoming an attachment parent (the people that have their kids sleep in the bed with them for years and years). He just looks really cute when he is sleeping in the big bed although it's not so cute that I am about to fall off the bed because Ty and Brian are taking up all the room.

Ty went to day care with Brian and Jack. I threw myself into errands and chores. I reorganized my makeup and toiletries. Does anyone else keep buying new stuff before the old stuff is gone? I don't know why I do this. I have so many half finished bottles of shampoo and lotions. I guess the next bottle is going to be the magic potion that gives me thick hair and clear skin. Ha! And God forbid I should throw anything away. There are probably people with greasy hair in Africa who are suffering. So I've decided that we are going to use up all this crap before buying anything else. We are out of shower gel soap and instead of buying more, I have about 25 packets of samples that I have collected over the years cluttering the shower. I also put an old bar soap in there as well. I asked Brian if shampoo could be used as body soap because we have about 14 half used bottles of that. I'm out of shaving cream but have started to use an old conditioner to shave my legs. This isn't about saving money but about not being wasteful and getting rid of clutter. And why do I feel compelled to buy something at Clinique to get the free gift with purchase THAT I NEVER USE? All those little makeup bags they give you are so hideous anyway.

I managed to go out for lunch, get to Target and Costco, pumped twice, discussed termite warranties with a pest control company, obsess about my watchlist on eBay, clean the kitchen, clean the bathroom and do a load of laundry...all before picking up Ty at 3 PM. It's AMAZING what you can get done without a child with you. Ty did very well at day care. The two main childcare providers were there when Jack was there so I know them very well and Jack just loved one in particular, Ronni. Ronni just came back from having her own baby. I love knowing that Ty has the two great people that Jack just loved. I brought Ty home, fed him and he conked out from 4 PM to 6:30 AM! (there were a few feedings in between but he never really woke up).

Today my main goal was to get picture frames for the pictures of Jack and Ty that I am taking to work with me. I got them and have a few pictures in my bag, ready to be put on my desk tomorrow. I met Tracy at Paradise Bakery so we could get lunch for Annette H (the great massage therapist). Annette is in the hopsital because of complications with her pregnancy. (I will note that Good Sam Hospital has valet parking. What is the world coming to? But hey, it was free, so we took advantage of it!) Here are my positive blog vibes (prayers) for Annette - that her body will allow her to carry the baby to a very healthy, full-term 36 weeks. And that her doctor will look like Patrick Dempsey. And that her stomach will be flat within 4 weeks of giving birth. OK, we can negotiate on the last two but the first one is non-negotiable.

Milk production today: 12 oz

Ty and I met up with Brian and Jack at Rigatony's on Friday around 5:30 PM. Brian had a nice glass of chianti waiting for me. I really needed it. I got upset at Brian for never having time to talk to me during the work day to set up plans for the evening. I think everyone at work leaves before 5 PM on Fridays except for my husband! I got over it since soon I will be too busy at work to make plans myself. But I won't stay late on Fridays! Jack did pretty well at the restaurant as usual.

On Saturday the only planned activity I had was to meet with a studio artist from Smashbox cosmetics at Nordstroms. I also got to meet the two guys who invented/own Smashbox. For anyone who hasn't heard of Smashbox, it's a great costmetic line that is only sold in Nordstom around here. I bought a few things. A lot of people really love their primer which is something that fills in pores and lines and makes foundation go on really smooth. My mother-in-law buys it in bulk when she comes here from Washington. I wore it the other night to Bianco's and Ann N. kept saying how nice my skin looked. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy to wear much make-up normally and I tend to not use the primer. Maybe when I go back to work... what am I saying?... trying to get two kids out the door to day care before work. I'll be lucky if I get my hair brushed and get out the door without spit up and yogurt on me.

Today we went to Octoberfest with Jill, Gert and Connor. Remember how my brain is still missing? This was my brilliant idea and for some reason I associated October with cooler weather. It was so freaking hot out there. We got there at 10 AM and I was sweating as soon as we got the stroller set up. Maybe it was my black tank top... black absorbs so much heat... but I only have a black bra that fits me right now. I didn't have a choice. I was hoping for some kiddie carnival type rides but they only had the blow up type things for kids, which Jack seemed to like. They also had a splash park that Jack really enjoyed and I didn't mind running through all the water as long as I wasn't thinking about the bacteria infested waters. We topped off the morning with beer and pizza.

The frozen breast milk is thawing right now for Ty's first day at day care tomorrow. I am not going to work until Wednesday and this is a trial run, not for Ty but for me. Any woman who has gone back to work can tell you how miserable it is the first couple days your child is in day care and I plan to get my crying over with before I go back to work. Just thinking about it make me very sad. I'm used to being around the little guy all day and night. But he will be fine. And I will be spending some good quality time with my friend, Medela. (inside joke for breastfeeding moms)

Things about work I'm looking forward to:
- Getting scrambled eggs from the cafeteria so I don't have to cook
- Having a reason to wear something other than tank tops and flip flops
- Having more flexibility to run errands (sans kids)
- Seeing Yvonne and Melissa and Cheryl and the other women at work that make things entertaining
- Doing aerobics at the work gym
- Following a schedule
- Reading books in the lactation room
- Loving every minute of the time I have with Jack and Ty because I missed them so much during the day