Drop It Like It's Hot/Feel the Burn

so my weight and clothes-fitting-ness keep going up and down, but generally i'm feeling pretty good and looking less like a funhouse mirror version of myself.

not that i'm quite ready to put away the muumuu, but i'm dangerously close. so i went jeans shopping today (heart the buckle). and, miraculously, i managed to find some semi-stretchy, ass-highlighting, leg-lengthening jeans that can be worn mid-way up my pannus so as not to accentuate either my below bulge or my moist and juicy muffin top!!

the jeans were a success. the shirts, however, notsomuch. the problem is, these wonderful life-giving mammaries are still huge like meatloaf's bitch tits. and so no shirts fit very well.

and i'm not working out as much as i'd like to. i find that i'm really busy now that i'm back to work. between keeping the house in order (kinda) and playing with/feeding el bebe (a lot) and working full time, i'm worn slap out. (= lazy blogger, sorry guys). so i'm not running often and haven't done yoga in weeks. and i can feel the repurcussions. the other day i was making henry squeel and giggle a lot by quickly dipping him down to the floor. so, essentially, i was doing full squats. and he kept laughing, so i kept squatting.

i, maybe, did 12 of these. this is 4 days later and i still am feeling the burn. oy.

but we're getting there, day by day. inch by inch. ounce by ounce. figuring it out and recognizing my body under the fluff.

Can You See the Resemblance?

this is me making my henry face. and henry, making his....henry face.

Three Months and Thriving

first day at daycare went great! we somehow had actually sent him with everything he needed (i had this nightmare vision of us forgetting something like diapers and them having to use paper towel and duct tape or forgetting milk and them giving him cut up pieces of flank steak or head cheese because it was all they had).

they figured out our hippie cloth diapering thing w/o a problem. they also swaddled him when he needed it and he slept and ate well. tra-la!

and when i got there to pick him up at the end of the day, the main teacher of the infant room said "he's very serious. we finally got him to smile and laugh a little at the end of the day, but it took a lot of work." but when i woke him up and he saw me, he was nothing but easy, huge smiles. which made me feel like a million bucks. he actually knows me and evidently even likes me! huzzah! it's possible that this is the staff's method of making new parents feel reassured about leaving their spawn for the day. i'm guessing when he says his first word or takes his first step while there, we'll get a report that says something like "henry is SO close to walking. try working with him tonight..." that's just good business.

so at 3 months he is happy, healthy and beautiful. and more and more fun every day. he constantly "chatters" with coos and other funny noises and he smiles and laughs fairly easily. he rides better in the car, his sh#t fits are fewer and farther between. he tends to just sort of fuss/whine instead of explode now. and he is drooling and chewing on everything...don't feel any tooth buds yet, but i think they're lurking not too far under the surface.


and he's starting to reach for and play with things. he always has something in one of his little monkey paws and it's then immediately put in his mouth.

and he sits up stronger and more independently...although left unaided he still tips over on his head (no surprise-those cheeks must be heavy!). but he's pretty laid-back, so if he tips over onto something good to suck on, no problem.

he hasn't rolled over yet, but he does sort of scoot himself w/ his legs like a tadpole. especially if he's been put on his tummy and he's pissed. he makes annoyed noises and scoots. probably toward the door to escape.

what else? no doctor visit this month, but he's over 14 lbs now and growing like a weed.


all in all, he is a little pile of heaven and we're feeling very blessed that he landed with us.









v

First Day of "School" Tomorrow.

well, tomorrow is tiny dancer's first day at real daycare. i have his backpack packed, his lunch made and all his clothes labeled with his name. it will be just like school except the kids are encouraged to crap themselves and just like summer camp except that i doubt very much he will be making any dream catchers.

i'm a bit anxious about it just because no stranger has watched him yet. we've been fortunate enough to have just family caring for him so far (my amahzing sister, erica, for the past couple weeks while i work- taking great care of him, PLUS doing laundry, cooking, etc, etc..this week she made vegan pizza! everyone should get themselves an erica). he's pretty easy going, but the centers have safety restrictions on swaddle usage and how/where they can sleep and such, so i'm hoping he plays by the rules and sleeps for them. we shall see.

i was whining a bit about how nervous i am when we dropped in the center earlier this week to finalize things and the director ("ms. patty") said that some parents cry the first day, some are fine, and some scream at her. wha-wha-what? yes, she said some get really irate and take it all out on her. that doesn't seem very sensible. i mean, you're worried about what kind of care your kid will get at this new place so you stress out and you yell at the caregivers, basically starting your kid off on the wrong foot with them and potentially causing them to get worse care. lame. it's like the patients we have to chew us out in pre-op before their surgery for us running 15 minutes late, not realizing that they're about to be neked and unconscious and wholly at our mercy. just sayin'. might want to be polite, right? right.

robb drops him off tomorrow. i trust there will be no yelling. wish him luck!!

Circle of Life, La la La la LA-LA...I Think I Might Be Pumbaa

my grandfather's funeral was this weekend and it was emotional, of course. not only for his loss but also with all the old family pictures floating around of my aunts and uncles and my sister who passed away. some i never met (and wish i had) but i know their deaths left holes in the lives of others and some i miss desperately and wish very much that they knew my little hank.

what a blessing it is having this little pile of joy. how much healing we all get from tiny arms wrapped around our necks and big toothless smiles thrown our way.

i reflected that, unfortunately, most of the funerals i've been to in my life were those of young people. my sister was 10 when she died and i've mourned the deaths of several teenagers and young parents. not that any death is easy to understand and cope with, but a life like my grandpa's that was long and lived fully with potential realized and accomplishments logged is easier to see come to a close than those cut so short, i think.

i've wallowed in loss a lot over the last while. i thank God every day that He pulled me through the last few years and kept me intact enough to still be able to experience this joy and wonder at henry's new life. and i thank God for this perfect, amazing, healthy little boy. it is overwhelming how blessed we are.

it does make me wonder about the 'circle of life' and regeneration. henry's social security number is a lower number than mine which we take to mean it is recycled from someone who has passed before him. is there any truth to the 'recycling' of souls? hard to say. robb allegedly described having been a grandfather when he was age 2 and old enough to talk. who knows....

:)




sometimes it is totally believable that, although he can't talk to us, he understands everything that is going on.

and he is not amused.

Do You Have a Case of The Mondays?

back to work this week. everyone has been really sweet and concerned about how i'm adjusting. there have been good moments and bad, but overall, i'm doing fine.

i mean, i miss young hankenstein, but that's expected and i'm getting through it. i've always missed robb while we're apart, but it's unrealistic to expect someone to pay us to hang out together on the couch all day long,

and i like getting paid since i'm partial to things like food. and toilet paper. so i'll go to work for my 40-ish hours/week and just love the hell out of both of them when i'm home on nights and weekends. and since i get paid great money (think scrooge mcduck rolling around on mountains of gold coins) to do something mostly really fun, i don't mind being at work at all. and it means we can afford to pay for excessive things like organic food and cloth diaper service (yipppeee!).

it helps a lot that we haven't had to put monkey in daycare yet. he'll be starting at the center next week 2 days/week and will otherwise be home with my sister, erica, until she finds a nursing job. so he's in her really capable, fun hands and i need not worry. plus, she's somehow finding time to not only watch him but also do laundry, keep the house clean and bake vegan muffins! what the what? we should have hired a nanny long before we had a kid. this is awesome.

and at the day care center, he will learn english, spanish, and german in their toddler program. erica is also working on molding him into a sophisticated chap. he gets tummy time often and hears english and elfin spoken in "true blood" regularly. :)

so far our morning ritual is working out ok. i wake up a little after 5, shower, nurse henry when he wakes up and then robb plays with him while i pump, then i squeeze on some hank cheeks for a while and robb gets ready and then we all canoodle for a bit before i go to work. robb leaves a little while later after getting henry changed and ready for the day. after we're both gone, i imagine erica and henry sit at the kitchen table and have a cup of coffee listening to NPR while reading the paper and making jokes about bernie madoff and the decline in quality chardonnay grapes.

and it was a short work week...this weekend, we head up north for my grandpa's funeral. it is a sad time, but not only are we grateful that grandpa may now find some peace from his pain, but i have to admit that i am distracted from my grief by my own ecstatic joy with henry. and the family feels some comfort from his little warm hug, too, so i'm glad to deliver him up there to bring sunshine to this dark time.

i had to find something appropriate for henry to wear to the funeral and visitation and such...and surprisingly, carter's does not carry solemn black suits for infants, so we settled on a long-sleeve button up onesie and a vest. it'll be pretty warm tomorrow, so this dapper ensemble will likely not involve any pants. 100% class this one. :)

Mommy Is Losing Her Sh#t

so...i go back to work tomorrow.

i don't want to talk about it.