Just F*cking Doing It Club

Two nights ago I was up until 1am crying and anxious because how was I going to deal with having two kids? How was I going to juggle work, kids, Buster, etc. especially when CP is traveling? I should be cherishing the time that we have left as a family of three, instead I am feeling guilty because I am tired and annoyed. 

Yesterday I went to see my primary care physician about my foot. 10 days later I'm still limping and in pain so it was time to make sure that I didn't do something silly to it. After an appointment and X-rays, it was deemed by a student doctor that I didn't have a break that they could see in my foot but maybe I have a tiny stress fracture? And that the slight bit of extra fluid in my feet and the extra weight due to pregnancy are not helping. Their answer? Ice and Rest. Okay, so I will continue to suck it up as I have been and continue to get sh*t done.

Later in the day I had an appointment with my OB and talked to her about the possibility of getting postpartum depression if I didn't have it the first time. I have been more emotional this pregnancy and my google searching while up crying the other night didn't yield any answers. My OB's response was that it would be highly unlikely to get PPD if you didn't have it the first time, however, with a second baby there will likely be more anxiety and guilt. For instance, I could get anxious if both kids are crying so it was important to use my support network to help with Izzy while I am busy with the baby- especially before Baby Boy has a schedule. 

That didn't really make me feel any better, but reading this article- The Just F*cking Doing It Club- helped me a bit because it is so true. Once I had Izzy I was asked numerous times how I fit everything in. You just do. You figure out what works for you and you just do it because you have to. And that is what I will do once I have two kids.  I'll figure out what works for me and just f*cking do it.

Current mood: annoyed

At 35 1/2 weeks pregnant, I would say that my current mood about almost everything is annoyed.

-Last week CP traveled to New Orleans. This week he is in Puerto Rico. Next week he is in North Carolina. I keep trying to tell myself that it is probably best that he is traveling while I am still pregnant and hopefully it cuts down on the travel that he has after the baby is born (at least in the beginning), but there is no guarantee. 

-For over a week now I have been limping around. I have some unexplained pain on the top of my left foot. It's not red or swollen so after emailing my OB, she wasn't concerned about it being pregnancy-related, but despite me icing it every day, sometimes multiple times a day, the pain is still there. Google searching hasn't come up with anything specific so maybe I will try to get to my primary care physician tomorrow to see if it is anything important? I'm sure the extra weight of being pregnant is not helping matters, but I am wearing sneakers every day at work (switching to appropriate shoes when I have an important meeting) and walking slowly from the train to my office. I also often have an extra 35 pounds on me as Izzy is asking to be picked up so much these days....

-This past weekend we had a crawfish boil party, mainly to celebrate CP's 40th birthday two weeks before. It was 93 degrees out so I basically sweat the entire day. While we were getting ready for the party I was outside squatting down to pick something up (quite a chore these days) and heard a "riiiiiiiiippp." Sure enough I split my maternity capri pants. That was quite the ego booster.

-After today is over I only have 11 days left of work. I hate to say it but between my problem employee (who is quite a problem these days), and things not going so well (but out of my control) on a project, I am looking forward to the three months away. 

-Izzy has hit the "why" stage in that every.single.question. out of her mouth is "why?" I know that it is a specific stage of development and that it is good that she is so curious but I run out of answers pretty quickly.

-I feel terrible that during the week, my interaction with Izzy is more rushed and trying to hurry her- whether it is to get dressed, to go to the bathroom, to get in the car, to sit down to dinner, to brush her teeth, etc. I wish that there was more time in general to relax with her during the week- I just feel like we are not having any "fun" during the week (especially with CP gone). I know that I should be savoring these last few weeks with her as only one kid but solo parenting makes it 10 times more difficult and I have less patience these days.

Mostly I just feel rushed and not ready to have two kids yet. On the other hand, I am ready to not be pregnant anymore. July 15th is going to come very quickly....

Things left to do

Completed tasks for Baby #2:

-Infant car seat installed in the minivan

-Ergo purchased (the one I used with Izzy was a loaner)

-Childcare for Izzy and Buster procured (my parents)

Tasks in process:

-Sort hand-me-downs from friends into various sizes and wash

During Izzy's long nap on Sunday (we had a good pool workout that morning so she slept for almost three hours!), I opened up all of the bags and boxes of clothes we have received from two different friends. I was amazed at how many pieces of clothing we received- I really am not going to have to buy much of anything for Baby boy which is awesome! If he grows as fast as Izzy has been we don't spend that much time in each clothing size anyway.

Piles from L to R- newborn (0-3 mo), 3-6 mo, 6-9mo, 9-12mo, 12mo

Yet to do:
-Purchase diapers
-Bring down Izzy's old clothes from the attic and wash gender neutral clothes
-Bring down infant toys and contraptions from the attic (MamaRoo, playspace, bathtub, etc.)
-Purchase standing board for stroller for Izzy
-Set up Pack n Play with bassinet in our bedroom
-Pack hospital bag
-Book newborn photographer
-Finish all tasks at work and prepare the person who will fill in for me as much as possible

I feel like we should have more tasks to do to get ready for Baby Boy. What am I forgetting?

Microblog Mondays: Owned by Izzy

On Saturday, Izzy and I were playing with various shapes. I picked up a shape and asked Izzy what it was. "Octahedron" she stated. "No it's a diamond" I replied, but amazed that she even knew the word. I want to say that I knew exactly what an octahedron was, but all I knew is that it would have 8 sides. I asked my resident engineer, CP, what an octahedron looked like. "It's basically a 3D version of a diamond" he replied.

So technically I was right because I held up a 2D diamond, not a 3D version. However, the fact that my 2.5 year old knew the word octahedron and used it somewhat correctly? Boy I'm in for trouble. I guess the Leap Frog Letter Factory videos on Netflix we allow her to sometimes watch on the weekends are teaching her some things?

Of course, this is coming from the same 2.5 year old that sometimes can't tell the difference between a square and a rectangle so maybe she just got lucky....


Want to read more Microblog Mondays? Go here.

Almost Wordless Friday

Oh man. Izzy's daycare pictures came back this week and they are so adorable! Okay I am a bit biased, but thankfully she is smiling and not giving the camera a death stare like her winter pictures (I guess the kids were a little scared of the photographer).

Sassy

I'm not sure if she knows why she is holding an I but it's still cute

In other big news, today I am 34 weeks so I need to start to get things ready for Baby boy's arrival. What have we done so far? Uhhhh nothing. So this week I made an appointment with our local police department and had them install the infant car seat (they usually want you to do this around 36 weeks) and reinstall Izzy's car seat so that she is facing forward. CP had been pushing for her to face forward for a while now, but I had been resisting because it's simply safer to have her face backwards. However, with her height and weight, the passenger seat was pushed fairly far forward to make sure that there was the inch distance between the back of her seat and the passenger seat....which also meant that the passenger usually had their knees scrunched up against the dashboard. Not ideal.

So while I wish that we could have kept her rear facing for a longer period of time because she was doing just fine, Izzy is excited to view the world from her forward-facing seat and truthfully, it is easier to get her in the car. So far every time she gets in she notices "baby brother's car seat" next to her. She is definitely growing up.

Almost 34 week doctor appointment

It's been three weeks since my last appointment with my doctor and thankfully nothing exciting has been happening so it was a semi-boring visit (I'm just fine with it staying that way). Baby boy has been performing some big movements recently which surprised me because I guess I thought he didn't have a lot of room in there. Today it looks like he is breech because a strong heartbeat could be found for the first time towards the top of my belly. Breech doesn't cause an issue with a scheduled c-section but it does mean that a pediatrician will be in the delivery room if he stays that way (hospital policy).

Otherwise, I am feeling better than I was last time at 34 weeks. Biff and Harry the hemorrhoids are still hanging around, but aren't causing any issues so that's helpful. I am sleeping better- I remember getting up to pee every hour and needing to change positions every hour last time- again, still having to pee once or twice a night, but it's not an every hour sort of thing (not yet at least). Baby boy doesn't feel like he is pushing up on my lungs and making it hard to breathe (doctor attributed that to the fact that my ligaments have already stretched so baby is sitting a little lower this time around). I'm not taking Tums three or four times a day, so I'm guessing that this baby is not coming out with a lot of hair (if the old wives tale is true)? And while I would love a nap most days, I am not struggling without one- although I am likely drinking more caffeine than I did with Izzy (I tried not to drink any with her). No caffeine this time around would NOT be possible.

That being said, I am super emotional. The last two nights I have been crying. The first night was towards the end of CP's 40th birthday and I felt bad that I didn't make it more special (it was a Tuesday night)...but I was exhausted and sometime exhaustion makes me cry. I went to bed over an hour earlier than usual which was very necessary. Yesterday I had a rough day at work where my problem employee was causing me lots of stress, then I came home to a manical Izzy who was overtired and upset about everything (example: she was mad that I wouldn't give her a popsicle before dinner). She was hitting and kicking me and generally melting down while CP was asking me to bring plates and stuff outside for dinner, then CP made a snarky comment about not helping and I just dissolved into tears because I was doing my best to handle Izzy and couldn't do two things at once. He apologized, but I just felt like I couldn't do anything right. Argh.

But back to the doctor appointment- I did talk to her about tying my tubes during my c-section. She said that recovery is a bit tougher, but that it wouldn't affect my hormones at all. I would still get the same period as usual and the procedure would lengthen the amount of time I am in surgery (of course). If I had a lot of scar tissue then they wouldn't make a huge effort to tie the tubes. I then asked whether birth control would be a the better option for me because of my previous history of endo and my ongoing issue with fibroids. She did say that birth control or the Mirena IUD could be good options because they could keep some hormones in check and could slow/stop the growth of both conditions. Many women go on birth control between ages 45-50 anyway as odd issues with periods like heavy flows, sporadic bleeding and hot flashes tend to happen. I have to talk to CP, but I really am leaning towards the birth control or possibly the IUD. I really don't want a longer recovery than need be. I'm already going through a major surgery- why complicate things even more? And while I am adamant that this is my last baby, what if something happened to my kids? Would I want to have another one? I hate to shut the door just in case.

Needless to say, Baby boy is growing well and had a strong heartbeat. My next appointment is in two weeks where I will finally get another ultrasound to see how he is doing.

Microblog Mondays: Over or Under

I never believed that there was a right or wrong way to load the toilet paper until I had a toddler. In fact I thought that it was seriously stupid that people actually spent time thinking about it. Then came Izzy. Izzy likes to slap the toilet paper roll at times and if it is not loaded the correct way (aka "under"), the entire roll could spill to the floor.

So despite what the original inventor of perforated toilet paper said in his patent application, the correct way to load toilet paper is under. (The inventor clearly didn't have kids.)

Want to read more Microblog Mondays? Go here.

Extra emotional

I know that I am extra emotional these days, but three different things have left me sobbing recently and reaffirm just how lucky I am.

I don't even remember what I was watching, but it was about a person who went to visit an orphanage and instead of hearing the sound of crying babies as one would expect, they heard silence. When they asked a person that worked there, the explanation essentially was that after a bit of time the babies learn that no one is going to pick them up and comfort them if they cry so why bother? This tore my heart out to hear this. Babies are so helpless and to give up so early in life because no one is there for you....well, this just writing this makes me want to cry all over again. This story was of an orphanage in a foreign country, but I can only assume that it happens here in the US to babies born to drug addicted parents (or other scenarios where the parents are absent or unable to take care of their babies).

The other story that had me sobbing while walking to the train was while listening to the podcast Embedded. The May 25th episode focused on a Doctors Without Borders facility in South Sudan. The reporter, Kelly McEvers, sat by the bedside of an infant as she lay unconscious because of severe malnutrition and severe malaria. Later on in the episode, the girl woke up and asked for water which surprised Kelly. Turns out that even though the girl was only 15 pounds, she was three years old and could talk. 15 POUNDS at 3 years old?!? Izzy hit 15 pounds right after her 4 month birthday. There are no words.

Embedded podcast

Both of these stories are terrible and heartbreaking and it makes me mad that via mommy wars we fight about the stupidest stuff when we really should be so thankful that we were born in a first world country and don't have to worry about these life or death situations.

To try to end this post on a good note, here is a video that made me cry last night. As you know, most of my job has to do with homelessness so seeing this video made me cry happy tears. Maybe I am more tired this time around, but I am definitely succumbing to the hormonal cry more often during this pregnancy- CP is not phased by it anymore.

Microblog Mondays: Kid-free time

As much as I love my daughter, getting some kid-free time is always helpful. My husband travels a lot for work so often I am the only parent around. Thankfully this year it has been all travel within the US so he has been around on the weekends, but it is still exhausting (especially while pregnant).

On Saturday, a good friend from college was coming into town from NYC and we made plans to go to a Cubs game. I asked CP if he wanted to go, but he doesn't really care about the Cubs so it was decided that he would have a father-daughter day with Izzy while I hung out with my friend. I couldn't drink but I had two kid-free meals and a total of 10+ hours not having to worry about whether Izzy had peed recently, not having to listen to kids music, and the ability to have more than a 5 minute conversation with my friend. Not to mention it was a great Cubs game and they won! It was definitely needed as I am rounding the corner to soon having a baby that is going to need me 24/7 along with a demanding toddler!


Want to read more Microblog Mondays? Go here.

Izzy is 2 1/2 years old

2 1/2 YEARS OLD

In her flower girl dress for my sister's wedding this past weekend

Height: unofficial 38"

Weight: ~35 lbs

Taking a walk in the woods

New Tricks: Man, this little girl is STRONG. Recently she has been wanting to do the wheelbarrow all the time (we hold her feet and she walks on her hands across the floor). She also wants to do the wheelbarrow UP THE STAIRS so she will put one elbow up the stair, then the other one and pull herself up while we hold her legs. She will do about half the stairs, rest for a minute and then do it again. Crazy girl thinks this is fun. The other night CP taught her how to do a somersault (head down, touch your toes, roll over!) and every time she does once she laughs hysterically afterwards. She quickly caught onto the balance bike that our neighbor gave us and is starting to learn how to ride her new-to-us tricycle.

Language: Her best mispronunciation is "suncream" instead of "sunscreen." She still has a lot of problems with her s words so she still says stuff like "pill" instead of "spill" and "cooter" instead of "scooter." Yesterday she heard "tunder" for the first time (thunder). We definitely still have moments where we have no idea what she is saying and she gets quite exasperated with us. It also seems like every day she comes home from daycare singing a new song and she loves to sing songs to herself as she puts herself to sleep. She started singing "ABCs" before her second birthday and loves to count various things (still gets messed up once we get past 12 which is hilarious).

Personality: Izzy is a shy girl when in a new situation. She tends to want to be picked up by one of us and is rendered mute until she feels comfortable and then will eventually start talking and interacting with the strangers. When she knows someone though, she gives lots of directions. "Daddy sit here. Mommy ober der (over there). Buster come." Etc. When we tell her things that will happen in the future, she wants them to happen now or else she gets sad. One day we passed a school bus on the way to daycare and I told her that in a few years she will ride the bus to school. For the next week or so she was upset that she couldn't ride the school bus TODAY. Like most kids, she is not a fan of being pulled away abruptly from something fun, so I try to give her a run down of what we are going to do and give her timers (i.e. 2 minutes until we go upstairs to read some books). The timers seem to work well. She is a pretty good sharer which I think is mainly a product of daycare, but when she does offer us something (food, sticker, etc.) we praise her for sharing and talk about Mommy and Daddy sharing a lot too.

Sometimes a fan of Buster, sometimes not a fan of Buster.

Teeth: All in. Now we just wait for them to fall out in a few years!

Favorite Toy: She is fairly obsessed with Playdoh, crayons, and her bubble machine. We try to do puzzles with her but I think that they are still a little old for her (at least the ones that have been handed down to us) as I try to explain about end pieces and that all Elmo pieces should go together....while she tries to shove whatever two pieces are closest together.

Favorite Book: She is all over the place in what she wants to read these days but all of the board books that we used to read are scoffed at so I may move them to the baby's room soon. There are a few books given to us by neighbors that I want to shoot myself after reading (like a Scooby Doo book and a Strawberry Shortcake book), but such is life. After we read her the 2-3 books before bed, she wants to keep them in her bed so that she can continue "reading" them after we turn the light off.

Helping Daddy with lawn care

Other Favorites: Jumping off curbs. Going out to dinner. Putting stickers on herself and/or Mommy and Daddy. Counting all of the school buses that we see on our ride to school. Brushing her teeth. Putting Mommy's lotion on her hands. Playing at the park.

Keeping busy with stickers during a car ride

Sleeping Habits: These days she goes to bed closer to 8pm than 7:30 and wakes up around 6:30-7. I have been able to preserve her weekend nap but sometimes it takes her almost an hour to put herself down. In the meantime she will sing to herself, "read" books, give orders to her stuffed animals, etc. She seriously loves her big girl bed and hasn't tried to get out once.

Eating:  *Knock on wood* Izzy has not hit a picky period. We slowly have moved her into eating more of what we are eating but sometimes give her a choice. Last night she didn't want the paella that CP made so her dinner was strawberries, sugar snap peas, cucumbers, carrots, cherry tomatoes and a few sunflower seeds. She isn't a big meat eater unless it is a hot dog or meatball. Izzy is still quite obsessed with milk, wanting it in the morning when she wakes up, and with every meal. Otherwise she drinks water.

Olive fingers

Potty: No more diapers during the day! Pampers Baby Dry size 6 for naps and at night. About half the time Izzy will say "I need to go potty!" but otherwise, CP and I are taking her to go to the bathroom about once an hour. Sometimes she is more willing to go than other times....mostly when she is in the middle of something so we will tell her either that she can take the toy into the bathroom, we can come right back to what she was doing, or we tell her "two minutes until we are going potty!" She is big into following rules as well so we instituted a rule that once we take off her diaper (after naps/ in the morning when she wakes up) we need to try going to the bathroom.

Clothes: I seriously am calling Izzy the human weed these days because this month she is moving into some 4T clothing. Her 3T pants are getting to be too short and some of her 3T shirts are tight. Izzy is wearing size 8 shoes and is very opinionated about what she wears these days. The cute animal socks that she LOVED this winter didn't come in a larger size, so she is now obsessed with My Little Pony socks that I bought her on Amazon (CP hates them). She wears size 4 Hello Kitty and Zootopia underwear (she picked them out despite having no concept of the characters). If she could wear pajamas ("jamas") everywhere she would.

Outfit by Izzy

People: Izzy is still obsessed with CP and when I tell her no, she often cries and asks for Daddy. Little does she know that we are a good team and he won't bow to her demands either! :-) She gets very excited when I tell her that she will be seeing "Grandma and Grandpa" (my parents) and surprisingly enough (because we don't see them that often), my sister and her fiance. We have had a few of her friends over from daycare and she LOVES that. She really looks up to older kids, especially older girls. One night we were over at a friend's house- they have a 6 year old daughter. They played great before dinner, ate dinner together at the kids table, and then we let them go upstairs by themselves. We heard crying so the other mother and I ran upstairs and the 6 year old had jumped from the top bunk onto the lower bunk and Izzy thought that she could do that as well. Luckily she was crying for a minute or two (mostly from being scared). On the one hand it worried me that she would blindly follow an older girl, on the other hand I was proud that she wasn't scared. I would NOT have felt this way had she hurt herself though.

Media: CP has relaxed our tv watching restrictions a bit. He wanted to institute movie night every Friday with Izzy and I said that it didn't need to be every week. So we end up having it about once a month and she really only makes it through half a movie before we put her to bed. CP has been playing "I Like to Move it" from Madagascar and "Hakuna Matada" from the Lion King on his phone for Izzy and she asks for the songs all the time so that she can dance to them. Two weeks ago he walked her to the library and they rented The Lion King. I had never seen it but in watching it with her, I was a little worried that it was a bit too scary for her. She would tell us when she was scared and got in our laps, but seemed to do okay. We haven't watched Sesame Street for a while, but she has been enjoying the Leap Frog Letter Factory shows on Netflix (30 minutes on shapes or the sounds that letters make, etc.). Mainly the only time that she gets tv time is a bit of time on the weekends and the Friday night movie.

Classes: Izzy finished up soccer in the beginning of March. Her attention span was hit or miss during the class, but at least she was running around a bunch. Right after that finished, she started a swim class. Last weekend was her last class because we bought outdoor pool passes that start this weekend, but she REALLY likes to go to swim class with Daddy. I foresee us starting back up again in the fall because we see her making progress (although she is a bit too confident and thinks that she can swim without any help).

Doing prenatal yoga with Mommy

Illness: In the past 6 months it has mainly been colds, an ear infection, and strep. 

Tantrums: Although all of this makes it seem like Izzy is a perfect kid, I can assure you she is not! :-) She hits me on occasion...that's when I get down on her level and we talk about "nice hands" and "hands are not for hitting", etc. She definitely throws herself on the ground fake crying when she is unhappy about something- generally when we do something that she wanted to do or if she asks for a nack ("snack") and we say no because it's almost time for dinner. We don't use time outs, but do our best to calm her down and let her know that we are here for her. After she calms down, we try to talk to her about using her words and why we said no.

Putting on her own "suncream"

Other highlights: Izzy still talks about our trip to Hawaii, the lava, the steam ("team"), etc. Her first show- Sesame Street Live! Every once in a while she will sing to "baby brother" or put her hand on my belly if I tell her that he is kicking.

Excited for her new role!

In short, Izzy is amazing, demanding, hilarious, and exhausting all at the same time. :-)