Skiplovey

Looks similar, tastes totally different

2010-04-09T18:34:00.000-07:00

When Ben and I first started dating, I was mad, mad, head over heels crazy about him. I felt like the luckiest girl in the whole world to find him. He was the best thing ever, the most handsome, funny, talented.. you get the picture. Ever optimist that I am, I kept thinking "This is so not gonna last. Normal people like me never get this lucky."

I know, Miss Positivity right?

How could I possibly find someone so great, so incredibly wonderful who was as crazy about me as I was of him? And in San Francisco? Unreal, unheard of!

And then... a few short months later Ben was accepted into Graduate School. In Chicago. Two thousand miles away. I thought, "Right, of course. This is the end I was expecting."

But strangely, it didn't end. We were in love and we decided to continue on together. Several plane trips, many ridiculously expensive phone bills and 12 lonely months later, I joined him in Chicago and we've been happily ever after since then. Especially after we both decided to stop being vegetarians, but I'm getting away from my real point which is..

Oh my gosh this little girl, she is wonderful. So sweet, such a delightful baby. I keep knocking on wood, throwing salt over my shoulder, whispering how great she is in fear that the evil tree spirits will hear me and jinx my child. I know it sounds silly but dude, the little elves are sneaky and I fear them.

Already I'm terrible and awful, comparing Georgia and Nate. I don't mean to but it just happens, like "This little angel here? Hasn't used one burp cloth since we brought her home. Nate was going through two or three a day!" Or, "This one, she only woke up twice last night! Her brother wasn't doing that until he was six or seven weeks old."

I can't help it though, the experience I'm having this time around is a world of difference from last time. While I strive to emphasize that last time wasn't bad in anyway, just more exhausting, scary and sort of mind draining but very happy none the less. Happy in a more stressed, tired sort of way really. I know a lot of this newfound peace and harmony (and less crying) has to do with this being the second child, experience speaks volumes and yadda yadda yadda. No really, it is huge, especially for me since I'm particularly inept at doing things the first time. Tthis time around, I feel like I'm present enough to really enjoy everything instead of worrying all the time.

But then also? She really is such a different personality, a way more laid back and mellow version of babyness than I'm used to.

And while I'm cautiously framing every sentence in terms of "for now..." or "so far" just in case she decides to wake up one of these days exhibiting all the fussy baby habits that I'm used to,

for now, I'm really enjoying this very sweet baby.

...On my mind

2010-03-29T18:40:00.000-07:00

Introducing Georgia:

Born March 25, 2010 3:56pm.
6 lb, 3oz (exactly the same as her big brother)
19 1/2 inches (1/2 inch shorter than her big brother)

She is an absolute delight, oh my goodness we are so over the moon with this one.

Overjoyed, a little/A LOT tired and very glad to be home.

Details and hopefully a more coherent post soon...

I pink puff(il)y heart that

2010-03-16T19:36:00.000-07:00

Still here, still pregnant.

I am officially 39 weeks today.

Here I sit here on the couch, sick with a stuffy, puffy head and my nearly three year old. All frantic nesting has stopped. The kitchen is empty, the vacuum is quiet, the washing machine is motionless. Nothing going on but an old Disney movie.

All my plans completely sidelined by a head cold. It's totally crap to get a cold at 39 weeks pregnant. Also, it's doubly insulting to have a cold in beautiful weather. It's 85 degrees outside and in my feverish state it feels about 95. Ok I don't think I have a fever but I'm all achy, sore and swollen. Did I mention puffy? Puffiness has set in. My face has the round puffy look of "I'm really done being pregnant now!" and my rings don't fit anymore. Did I mention the head cold? It's enough to send a POPL over the edge.

Anyway, enough about me. Next to me sits this little dude totally absorbed in the tube. Normally when I put a movie on for him I wander out and try to do something productive with my time, send a couple of emails, start dinner, plan some new home demolition project. Today we're just chillin' together. I keep looking at him these last few weeks, feeling all teary eyed and sentimental. The days of it being just the two of us during the day, and just the three of us when Ben gets home, are singularly numbered now. I keep thinking about Nate when he was just a baby and how big he is now, such an independent guy, such a character. It's hard to believe that just about three years ago we were right on the verge of the new world that is Nate. So much has changed since then, a million, billion things. I mean I remember what things were like before Nate; like sleeping in, late night parties and that kind of non kid-life zaniness, but mostly I can't imagine him not being around. I keep looking at his huge blue eyes, his suddenly long, muscular legs, his sweet face when he's sleeping, and being so terribly head over heels in love. Not that he doesn't still do things that drive me completely bonkers but still, I find myself watching him lately and feeling a little mystified. How did he go from being a tiny squawking infant to this perfectly reasonable child that tells me that "I would like some grape juice while I watch tv please. Would you get me some?"

And I'll be completely honest with you, ever since he (finally) finished potty training last month, I think I love him even more. Yes, they say a parent's love grows and grows and lord it is true.

I know that in short time (can we make this soonish rather than laterish? Like this weekend would be perfect for me if anyone is asking...) we're going to bring home this little baby girl and our lives are going to be completely upended. In a good way, a crazy way, probably a little painful at times way too but definitely in a huge, unimaginable way. I'm finding it hard to wrap my mind around the fact that we're going to bring another squawking little bundle of wonders into the house and before we know it she'll be this personality - wiggling, scooting, crawling, toddling around. And then there will be two little / big personalities running all over the place that we'll be head over heels in love with. I know, I know, the kids... they GROW. But still, it just feels different when it's your own, y'know?

I remember reading someone's post awhile back while they were pregnant with the second kid and they were wondering how they could possibly love another child as much as they loved their first kid. At the time I thought, "Duh, you just love them as much but differently." And it's not that I've changed really but now I kinda get the perspective of what they were saying. And no, I swear I never think Duh when I'm reading your posts.

The last few weeks I've been alternating between feeling overly confident about Nate's ability to adapt to being a big brother and having doubt about how all these changes are going to shake out. He is very excited about his baby sister and hasn't expressed anything but enthusiasm about her upcoming arrival. He loves to read the book about baby sister coming home and was really excited about setting up her crib in his room. We talk about how when baby sister gets big enough then she'll sleep in Nate's room and he's seems happy about it. Whenever he sees little babies he always kisses them very gently and gives them big hugs.

But still, I know it's silly and surely the product of a hormonal, emotional nine month pregnant lady ravings (with a unhealthy dose of head cold mixed in) but I just so much want this to be a positive experience for Nate. And while we're wishing, ditto on that for us the parents. I will fully admit that when my parents brought my brother home I was interested for about a week. Then, as a none too mature 5 1/2 year old, I announced to my parents that I'd had enough and they should send him back to the hospital where they found him.

So I've got that guilt.

Anyway, here's for hoping for a smooth(ish) ride...

Last week, minus the head cold and a much less puffy face.

Is it in poor taste to flaunt a bathroom?

2010-03-09T14:14:00.000-08:00

Hey remember the bathroom, that fugly project from weeks a month ago? Right, well we did finish it and all that but then I got all busy frantically nesting and working and trying to fix my website plus the million other shiny round balls that grab my attention away from whatever I'm presently working on.

At long last, I give you....

The Bathroom!

Just to remind you, here is the before:

And after!

Before:

And after:

So there it is. Ahhh, it's a huge sigh of relief that it's finished and I love love love it. The former Home Despot special of yesteryear just feels like a bad nightmare now, I can hardly believe we lived with it for six years. All said, the renovation went pretty smoothly aside from the fact that it rained for four days solid right when they were cutting and laying the tile. Or my complete indecision on the paint color for the walls which pushed our project back four days while I waddled back and forth to the paint store buying more samples. Or the plumber who quoted me a $950 charge for an hour and a half's worth of work. Luckily a neighbor recommended a great plumber who did the work for 1/5 of the price and also helped Ben put together the shower doors, doors that practically required an engineering degree for assembly. The same doors that almost completely derailed our project when Ben (mistakenly) declared that they had to be mounted directly to the studs and we'd have to tear down the other side of the wall, which happened to be our laundry closet, to add an additional 2x4 to the framing. There was much despair for about ten minutes until, again luckily, the plumber showed up, read over the directions and pointed out (politely) that Ben was mistaken and it only meant that there had to be proper framing behind the whole shower and no we didn't have to tear down our laundry closet wall. I nearly wept with joy. Oh yeah, did I mention that I had a change of heart on the trim color as well and made Ben repaint all the trim? Yeah, I did. But believe me it looks so much better this way. You would have done the same thing. Ok you probably would have picked the right color from the beginning but you're so much better than me. Jerk.

Well it's all finished and none too soon. I pretty much ran out of energy a few days before we were "officially" finished i.e. Ben had marked off every last little detail on the massive to do list he'd assembled so he had to finish the rest. Which was completely fine by me as he gets a little finicky about these finishing details such as "vacuum closet" and "wash mirrored doors obsessively" so I left that for him to do. And then it took me a week of planting my butt on the couch during Nate's naptime to recover.

Now I'm back into the full swing of nesting, more on my beloved brand new deep freezer later, waddling around checking stuff off my deliriously long to do list. There's a tiny voice that keeps telling me to take it easy and rest up but then this other bossy voice comes in and tells me that he'd like some milk please. In his sippy cup. So since I'm up already, I might as well get some work done, right? Do you think I have time to carpet the two bedrooms and hallway before the baby arrives? Is that pushing it?

Be Here Now

2010-03-02T14:34:00.000-08:00

I know, I know it's been forever. But it's not like I've been sitting on duff eating bon-bons, I've been doing stuff. Real important stuff, check out these new digs! Ok don't check too closely, I haven't figured out how to port over all my old posts from Wordpress to Blogger without learning some complex coding so that'll just have to wait a little while. Unless somebody has an easy solution they'd love to share with me? Anyone, anyone?

So much has happened I feel the need for a bulleted list. I give you..

Things I've been up to lately:

Not packing my hospital bag. Well there's some paperwork in there and my toiletry kit but that's about it. I know I ought to get around to it, especially since I'm 37 weeks officially today (yikes!) but I feel like it's tempting fate a tad. I packed my bag all early with Nate, probably because my annoying doctor proclaimed at 36 weeks that labor was Eminent! Could happen at any time! Ready to pop any second! and then informed me at 40 weeks that we'd be inducing. So there my bag sat on the floor of the bedroom taunting my not going into labor naturally self. And then I went through and repacked the whole thing the night before my induction anyway. Um, maybe I'll actually put some real stuff in it next week.

Instead of packing my bag, I've been spending ridiculous amounts of time looking at furniture or appliances online only to get overwhelmed, frustrated and ultimately decide not to BUY ANYTHING AT ALL. What started out as a simple need for somewhere to put the baby's clothes morphed into a heated debate with Ben over a bunk bed vs. captain's bed for Nate. And how we won't be living in this tiny house forever, damnit! and those two will not be sharing a room indefinitely I don't care how many kids were raised in this house previously according to the crazy hoarding neighbor who, I might add, lives in a house with no electricity and no running water so I really don't think we should take any advice from him. (Yes no water or electricity. It's creepy as hell and the total blight of the block and fortunately for us, pretty far down but still. Ewww.) We both threw up our hands and decided on not buying anything. I think we're going to divvy up the space in Nate's dresser and try as Ben says "to make do". I give up, I simply cannot wrap my head around any more meaningful and lasting furniture decisions right now. Any little change that occurs in the house requires so much rearranging and rethinking because everything is so tightly arranged, all tetris like. Moving one thing sends ripples through the house, you can only imagine what's happened since we set up the crib. Don't get me started on the baby gear either, it's downstairs in the basement weighing heavily on my overtaxed mind. And then there's this funny little story about having to replace the buffet that was in our dining room slash nook, emphasis on the was, but now the contents are stacked 4 boxes deep in my kitchen. Extremely long and annoying story short, sometimes a hand me down gets handed (asked for) back at the most inconvenient of times. See also slash below re: rage / indignation / Pregnant and Pissed Lady.

Manual Labor (no not that kind of labor) at my son's Preschool, AKA POPL: At Nate's school there's this mandatory 10 hours of volunteer service that you pay $200 in advance and if you complete the time you get the money back. Of course I've completely ignored the obligation until a few weeks ago when I realized that A) time was running short on me being able to actually fulfill this obligation and B) I want that money back. So I waddled over to the office to find out what were my volunteering options. Somehow I got stuck sweeping the playground. Two weeks in a row. Pausing every so often when I got winded or had a Braxton Hicks contraction. And the mean ole office lady wouldn't even give me a full hour's credit for each time either. She crossed out my 1 and added a /2 to it when I asked her to sign it. At this rate, I'll never be able to complete that much time. Excuse me lady but did you notice this ginormous belly protruding from my shirt? No it's not girl scout cookies! Give me a freakin' break here, I'm sweeping the damn playground at full term. Ben told me it was inappropriate to say what I originally said about the playground since it is located at a church whereas I informed him that was simply an abbreviation for good. Harumph. Then I drove over to the antique store to look at dressers (when I was still in the mood to shop) and was informed the shop didn't open until 12:30. It's these types of interactions that have induced a state which I call Rage and Indignation, a stage I've perpetually been existing in lately. Seriously, does no one notice that I'm a hugely pregnant lady trying to get stuff done? And that normal stuff requires a Herculean effort on my slow, waddling part? Throw a few obstacles or uptight sales people in my way and you get Pissed Off Pregnant Lady (POPL). POPL is a not pretty thing. Many an unlady-like word has escaped my mouth lately and I'm slightly ashamed to admit I glared at the office lady at my son's preschool.

Do not upset this POPL. She is dangerous and could strike at any time. Step away slowly and quietly. Leave behind any Girl Scout Cookies you might be carrying.