Some tweets I would send if I had access to Twitter from work

You know what’s awesome? When you’re already swamped and someone sends an email to 40 people telling them to call you right away. AWESOME.

 

I have been up hours past my bedtime for the past 5 nights. Saying I’m exhausted would almost be a lie. I’m practically in a walking coma.

 

How to tell you’re a parent, item 26,000: You regularly pick someone else’s nose without any qualms. Parenting is so glamorous!

 

One of the great things about moving is welcome to the neighborhood cookies from new neighbors. Yum!

 

Have spent approximately 2 hours today thinking about BBQ brisket. May be a teensy bit too obsessed with food.

 

Maybe should have been more specific in my wish for a lawn mower/house warming present. Mom hired someone to mow my lawn twice. Still nice.

 

Lessons learned from office Olympics: I suck at throwing paper airplanes, shooting rubber bands, and have a pointy head.

 

Need to buy a new wardrobe for Blogher. Hoping husband gets a promotion (somewhat likely) so I can go shopping!

All In

As of last night we're fully moved out of the apartment where we've lived for the past four years and into our very first house. I would post pictures, but the cord that attaches our camera to our computer is packed in a box I have yet to get unpack. I also have no clue which box it is. Saying I'm not great at packing would be a bit of an understatement. At least we did it and we're here, right?

Aaron and I are exhausted as are my dad, mom, sister, and best friend, all of whom helped us move. Aaron is bound to be even more exhausted tomorrow, as he's at the apartment right now finishing up all of the cleaning they asked us to do (which was a ton). I would have gone to help him, but he preferred to do it by himself instead of having help along with a baby there to drive him nuts. Gabbie is doing pretty well, but has been incredibly ornery and is driving him up a wall. Me too, but I have more patience these days (probably because I've gotten a small amount more sleep than he has.

The house, though, it's great. Gabbie loves to crawl from the dining room through the kitchen into the living room around to the hall and back to the dining room multiple times in one big loop. It is hard to keep up with her, especially when she's making laps using her walk-behind toy. We have to install gates on the stairs soon because she beelines for them as often as she can. Right now the boxes the gates are in are making excellent barriers to her getting on the stairs, but of course, aren't practical in the long run.

I'm loving the kitchen and the family room, the rooms I'm sure we'll spend the most time in throughout the years to come. The neighborhood is really quiet, and the neighbors are incredibly friendly so far. I'm really loving pretty much everything about this place, and I'm so far I'm definitely glad we decided to move here. 

I know this is all scattered, but like I said earlier, I'm exhausted. A good, satisfied kind of exhausted though. I still can't believe I'm a homeowner!

House Day

Well, this day has finally arrived. Today we close on our house! (And take on a huge amount of debt and responsibility - EEK!) When we started this process today seemed so incredibly far away, but now that we're here I realize how quick it all went. Less than a month ago we saw the house for the first time, agonized about putting in an offer on this one or another that we also liked, and came to the decision that this was the house; the one we plan on staying in, barring any job changes that take us away from the area, until our kids are grown, and possibly even after.

Wow, I kind of just freaked myself out with that one.

Anyway, so we close at nine (2 1/2 hours to go!), and then my plan is to go to Lowe's, pick up a Rug Doctor, and get cleaning at the new house. I've loaded my iPod up with back episodes of Wait, Wait don't tell me (and possibly a new CD, but don't tell Aaron), and I'm ready to go.

This is probably the 3rd most exciting day of my life, but I have to admit. I'm glad we're planning on staying in this house for a good long while. Another move may just kill me.

My Ode to Nursing Gabbie

The lactation consultant in the hospital noted right away, “She has a strong suck.” Then she told me how painful this might be to get used to, and oh was she right. For the consultant who taught the nursing class I took while 8 months pregnant: you were wrong. It does hurt at first, even if you are doing it right. The first few times Gabbie latched on, I de-latched her thinking she didn’t have it quite right. After all that de-latching we had to train her to latch again, despite the fact that she had it right the first time. I had it wrong, and I still feel guilty about that.

 

Breastfeeding is one of the hardest, most stressful and guilt-inducing things I’ve ever done. I worried constantly about whether she was getting enough. At almost three weeks I thought we had it down, things were going better. Then my supply went into overdrive and we had a whole new set of problems. Add to that the fact that Gabbie has never nursed well when there are other things going on in the room and a weekend trip to my parents and I got mastitis on my left side. I woke up to a sun-burned looking breast and the chills despite the fact I was sweating because I was so feverish.

 

She would cry every time I tried to latch her on, and so would I. It would take 30 minutes just to get her to eat and then she’d fall asleep after three minutes of nursing. This lasted for more than 6 weeks, and I thought I was going to lose it. Still, I persevered. Once I started back to work and she started daycare, it got somewhat easier. She missed me, and so now she was nursing for comfort as much as for food. As time passed, we got better and better. I still stressed out about it all the time – was she getting enough? Was she nursing often enough to keep up my supply?

 

She got teeth and one day she bit me. I sat her down on the ground so fast (but still gently) that it startled her. It scared her even more when I walked away crying. I was scared too; scared to let her nurse again in case she did that horrible thing to me again. Scaring her a bit seems to have worked, though. She only bit me one other time, and I kind of deserved it for trying to nurse her when she wasn’t interested.

 

Gabbie turned a year old and we started weaning. She had her last bottle last week, and now I only nurse her in the evening and the morning. After all of the hard times and frustrations and worry, I’m still sad to be almost done. She nurses less and less every week; now it’s more of a comfort thing than a food thing. I stopped worrying about my supply. If it’s there, great, if not, oh well. Now we’re just enjoying it. I get the feeling we’ll be finally and truly done when I go to Blogher at the end of next month.

 

Even though it was hard and I wanted to quit a million times, I’m glad I stuck with it. And strangely, even though it was hard and I wanted to quit a million times, I can’t wait to do it again with our next baby, whenever he or she comes. It wasn’t always (or even often) the starry-eyed, mother-baby bonding experience we all probably imagine, but it was ours and I wouldn’t change a thing.