ahhh the weekend is here :-)

This looks like a mug shot--it's my new haircut

Mimi with Nana (husband's mom) at the beach

Just being her cute self.

Mimicans playing with my breastpump (Betsy)

Just being a little cutey again :-)

I was never as thrilled to see Friday come as I was this past Friday! Weekends never meant this much to me before.

This past week was a crazy mess of my first week at my new job. I won't go into the job details--let's just say there are a lot of things about taking this job that are a BIG change for me. some of them....

Getting up at 6am

Wearing business clothes everyday

Not being with Mimi

Being the lost "new" person who takes a wrong turn off the elevator and is lost...

So it was a long week. I hope it gets easier. I hope being away from Mimi gets easier, being up early gets easier, I hope it all gets easier.

So now can you see why I am so happy this weekend came? Ugh, I am exhausted. I have spent a lot of tears this week probably from stress and being tired.

My husband had taken our daughter down to South Florida with him for two days to visit with his parents, who were visiting his grandparents--I dont' understand why they couldn't come to see us, but let's not go there. So because it was my very first week at work, I couldn't take time off to go with him. It was my first time EVER since Mimi was born that I wasn't with her at night. In the days leading up to the trip I thought it was going to be so hard, I pictured crying myself to sleep and crying at my desk, and crying into my cheerios....To be honest, I missed her, but I was so tired and busy and stressed, I fell asleep without one tear. Now I know that I can do it and Mimi can do it. Thank god for frozen breastmilk.

So on the breastmilk front---I am STILL nursing. I have 7 more weeks until Mimi is 12months. Barring any weird reactions to milk, I am going to wean her at 12 months. After 12 months I will nurse her in the morning if she wants and at night if she wants, and if she is upset or sick and needs comfort nursing, but I'm not going to be dedicated to my pump (betsy) like I am now. My body will be happy about this change I think. I think I did alright. It was (stills is) a sacrifice, but well worth it.

I am a p90x failure. I only did it twice this week! TWICE!? seriously, I'm a failure. This week I vow to get 4 in. I still want to do it. It makes me feel awesome and strong and it definately burns the ol' calories, but i'm sooooo tired at night, ugh. I am still down in my weight and pants size so i'm not gaining, but i'm not losing this week. Must try harder.

I'll post some photos from Mimi's trip to the beach with her daddy. She has his skin (thank god) and not my fair easily-burned skin. I did instruct my husband to slather on the ol' sunscreen though.

Hope you all have a great week next week, but most of all enjoy this weekend! I know I am!

Jen :-)

-oh I got a new haircut today, do you like it?

-oh and Mimi too her first steps today :-) !!!!!!!! She was standing in front of me holding my hands, I let go and she stood there by herself, then took two steps forward, then she did it again for Daddy. We were both so proud!!!!

Opinons opinions

On Wednesday May 19th, Heather W. from Better Homes and Gardens published an article titled “The 10 Commandments of Dining with Little Kids." Beginning the article with the phrase “Let me be clear: I am not anti-kid,” Heather W. goes on to list 10 ways that childrens' presence in restaurants “irks” couples hoping for a kid-free dining experience.

One of them was:

"THOU SHALT NOT BREAST FEED AT THE TABLE

Yes, I have seen table-side breast feeding at a four-star restaurant. If at all possible, take it to the ladies room. (Note: most upscale restaurants have really nice restrooms!"

People (breast-feeding ones mostly I gather) went NUTS on Better Homes and Gardens.

Let me share my experience. When we went to Portland for my brother's graduation from culinary school, he took us to this fancy rooftop restaurant so we could see the view of the city. We all sat down and shared a nice bottle of wine and enjoyed the view. We happened to have Mimi with us and she was 3 months old. Normally, I wouldn't bring an infant to a nice restaurant for a few reasons. But we had been walking around the city all day and this was a spur of the moment thing.

1. If i'm going to pay to have a really nice dinner, I want to enjoy the experience, I find tending to my kid 24/7 takes away from my dining experience, so for Mimi's sake and my mine, I leave her home for such occasions.

2. Other patrons are also paying money to enjoy the experience. I personally don't think a women should be FORCED to leave the restaurant or FORCED to go into the ladies room to nurse, but I myself felt uncomfortable whipping out the boob in such a place.

So I DID go to the ladies room, which had a lovely chair that Mimi and I sat in and nursed, then I returned to the table with a happy sleeping 3 month old and enjoyed my wine. I didn't' feel like I was forced to use the ladies room to nurse.

Having had a baby and nursed in public quite a bit, I truly believe there are some places where you should be MORE discreet than others. No on should ever tell you that you can't feed your baby in public, but please respect the comfort level of other people to and try to be discreet. It's all about respecting others. Just because it makes someone a little uncomfortable to see a portion of your breast doesn't mean they would want you to let your child starve--it just means they are not used to the situation, give people a break sometimes.

Mixed Bag

Mimicans being my cutey

I love this phot0...she looks like she's posing!

Today was a mixed bag. It started out with me dreaming of wolf spiders hovering over my head while I was sleeping---when my alarm went off at 6:15am I jumped out of bed thinking there were spiders about to fall on me--and if you haven't ever seen a wolf spider frickin' google it and you'll jump too!

The morning got better though, I quietly grabbed my pump and sat at the computer while I pumped for Mimi, who was still sleeping. Normally I nurse in the morning, but I had to get to work early to go out on a lake sampling, so I pumped. I watched youtube and read some really lovely and supportive comments in response to my video about breastfeeding (and considering quitting). That's how I got hooked on youtube you know--nursing and pumping, because when you don't have cable and it's 4am you need something to pass the time!

After I pumped I stepped on the scale to weigh myself as I do EVERY morning because i'm a little neurotic......and.....I was below 200 lbs for the first time in YEARS! I am so pumped. Last week before I got sick with a sinus infection I was around 203 and 205, circling back and forth.
I am so friggin proud. My husband weighs 196, so when I get below him I am celebrating...and not with food! And I know this is random but I just wanted to thank Courtney and Jess, my fellow youtube/blogger moms that are doing p90x and watching their calories and who motivate me and leave me really supportive comments. You two keep me truckin'.

So back to my day---went to work and had a GORGEOUS day on the water. The weather was calm and cool, the boat ramp wasn't crowded, we had no equipment issues, just gorgeous. I wish I had my camera to show you how beautiful it as out on the water this morning. It was bitter sweet--my last time sampling. This coming monday I start my new job and won't have time to sample anymore. So sad. I hope my lake days aren't over.

The rest of the day was a mixed bag---like this phrase of the day!?---I picked Mimicans up at daycare and all the kids looked exhausted! I guess they were out playing in the sprinkler all afternoon. Mimi has been transitioning from taking two naps to one BIG nap, which is okay, but she's not quite able to make it from 2:30 pm to bedtime with NO sleep in between--by dinner time she's a brat--I think I will push an afternoon nap--albeit a short one for a little while longer. We had fish tacos for dinner made from Mahi fillets and Mimi LOVED it. She ate fish and corn tortillas and cheese and tomatos for dinner.

She nursed for awhile after her evening bath and CRASHED by 7:30 and was snoring away. She was really cute in the tub tonight:

After putting her to bed I ran to CVS and grabbed more bandages for my sliced up hand from the breadknife incident, and picked up some Luna bars :-) Courtney HIGHLY recommends them, so seeing how she is awesome (and they were on sale for 99 cents), I grabbed a bunch of those to try. I shall review my fav flavors after trying them all.

At 9pm I was all geared up in my gym shorts and sports bra ready to do the p90x leg workout and there was a knock at my door---needless to say, a hour later my friend who stopped by left and now I am friggin' exhausted and I"m not going to do p90x tonite. I've tried to do it that late at night before and it was a disaster. I think I'll do it first thing in the morning since I don't have to be to work early tomorrow. I was kind of bummed, I was excited to do it, but I can't stay up until 11:30 working out, I'm so tired from getting up early this morning.

So much other stuff is going on but this random blog post has gone on long enough!

Jess Craig--have a safe drive back from where you are!

Laura--totally enjoying photos of Kaleb in his euro tub!

Courtney--Feel better! I'll be thinking of you!

Grace--have a great trip to LA!

Emily--I hope Leanne feels better!

Enough shot outs!? Okay i'll stop. Bye Y'all!

Husband

I spend a good amount of time on here complaining on how my husband has irritated me or pissed me off in some way. It's about time I say something nice.

These past few weeks have been really stressful for my little family. My husband and have had to make some pretty big family decisions together over jobs and finances and school, etc. My husband is the level-headed one, the one that doens't cry when he's stressed or have melt downs. He's logical and rational. We decided TOGETHER that I would resign from my fellowship so I could take this job. We actually sat down together and weighed out our choices and the advantages and disadvantages of me taking this job or not. I won't go into them--but it was a tough choice. My husband knows that taking a full time job on top of finishing writing my disseration is going to be tough. He supports me knowing the next 6 months will be long, but in the end the family will benefit. Me, him and Mimicans, our little family. He's been really flexible about helping me find daycare coverage for Mimi while we wait for her to able to transition to full time at the end of June.

My husband also was there for me this week as I try my best to kick one nasty sinus infection. Monday through Wednesday it just kept getting worse and worse, he convinced me to call the doctor, as he whipped up vitamin C drinks for me and tried to keep my hydrated. He has a weird obsession with the power of vitamin C, I don't get it. He helped out more than usual with Mimi and housework, cleaning up the kitchen after dinners and bathing his daughter every night , when we usually take turns. He kept her busy in the mornings so I could get ready on time too. Tonite he blew me away by bringing home my favorite (actually our favorite) soup for when we are sick---won ton soup. He insisted on running out to the drug store at 10pm to get me Mucinex D because he said it will help more than the cheapo wallgreens fake PE sudafed that I bought because it was buy one get one free. He bought me a beautiful purple flowered bod of tissues and a bottle of Pellegrino to take my decongestant concoction with. God bless him today.

He has been so positive about me doing p90x and losing weight. He tells me EVERY DAY how beatiful I look, and how my clothes look so nice on me, etc....The other day he said the sweetest most beautiful thing to me. My friend Kim said I should write it down and read it when I feel like things are rough between us......

I was laying on the living floor trying to get Mimi to play with quiet, non-noisy toys because we were trying to watch a show (Legend of the Seeker because we are nerds) and I was entertaining her with blocks and gigantic legos and board books, dressed in gym clothes from hitting the gym that day on my lunch hour, and he said "Our daughter is so beautiful and you are so beautiful, when I look at the two of you I just want to have more babies with you" I thought that was sweet.

So I'm not going to talk about Mimi, or weightloss (even though this sinus infection has made me drop 3 lbs), I"m going to dedicate this post to my loving husband.

Monday Morning Ups and Downs

Mimi's waving "Hi" to her friends out there!

Let's start with what pisses me off this morning and just get that right out of the way!

My husband decided that he wanted to do the grocery shopping "his way" this week. Which means he likes to go to 4---YES 4 f'ing supermarkets to get our weeks worth or groceries, fine you say right? NO--because he went to 2 on Saturday (a mexican market and asian market) and bought random shit to make dinners that he has no recipes for, and neglected to go to the actually grocery store and purchase things we NEED, like break, milk, eggs, fruit, yogurt, food I can actually give to the baby that isn't imported from Mexico. This makes me angry. Because now I wake up jonesing for some fruit and yogurt and we have nothing to eat for breakfast, which is usually the meal that I eat the most at. Not to mention, since he has no real recipes for the random assemblage of crap he bought, I either have to get creative or wait for him to get home to cook, which he gets home after 6pm, so then we dont' eat until 8pm, which is the baby's bedtime. So I am irritated. So this morning I went to the F'ing grocery store MYSELF and purchased the foods we NEEDED. Thank you very much.

Also I annoyed that whenever I approach my monthly cycle now I get HELLA cranky and have nausea. Being nausea sucks and makes me paranoid that I'm pregnant every month--which i'm not, because I'm on birth control and quite frankly you have to have sex to get pregnant (TMI). Also, every since I was pregnant I want to throw up every time I brush my teeth. A nice leftover symptom from having an exaggerated gag reflex while pregnant. This also does not make me happy this morning.

And dont' ask me how my mother's day was---because that will make me angry too. And spare me the details of how wonderful your husband is too. I'm rally happy for you that your husband is wonderful and thoughtful, etc etc. but keep it to yourself. Thanks.

Okay--I think I'm done with the annoying stuff......Moving on.....

SO on a positive note, this was the first weekend in a month that I did not gain back the weight I lost during the week on the weekend---so perhaps maybe...jus maybe....this week I will actually lose some pounds for good. That I am proud of. I am proud at how I ROCKED the p90x chest and back workout last night.

Also I'm counting down the days to not being home with Mimi anymore=----not counting them down like I'm excited and can't wait===counting them down like I dread missing her. So I'm savoring ever hug, ever kiss, ever giggle and every little mess. I savored our trip to the grocery store, I savored her eating her free cookie from the bakery with excitement. I savored talking to her as we wandered through the toilet paper aisle. Now she is napping and I'm going to get some work done, and when she wakes up I am going to savor my afternoon with my adorable smiley child who is my world.

Mommy Guilt

So----exciting news I guess---I have accepted a full time position with the Univeristy that starts May 24th! This job sounds like it is going to be an exciting career move for me. Unfortunately I had to resign from the my research fellowship to take it. It was a really tough decision. After talking it over with my husband, my advisor, our student affairs coordinator, I have decided it is in my best interest to take this position.

It is a scary world out there right now in the job market. I have well-qualified friends with Masters degrees who can't find work. I have members of our lab who graduated last year with the same qualification I have and are willing to move anywhere in the country who can't find work----

I have been applying for positions since December, and this is the first job in my field that has materialized into anything--that is so scary. My choice was to either leave my fellowship and take this job, or HOPE that if I waited until August (the end of my fellowship) that another LOCAL job in my field would come along---I just couldn't risk that. We have a mortgage and a family. This job ensures that our family will continue to live at our current lifestyle and my daughter will get to remain at her current daycare fulltime.

Which brings me to the topic of my blog---MOMMY GUILT.

Part of me is so excited for this job--to work with other scientist on excited research topics, travel, etc....but part of me looked at the calendar and realized I will only get to be home with my little girl for 2 more weeks during the weekdays. Right now she is going to daycare 2 days a week. I have grown used to this, I work those two days and look forward to the other two/three days home with her in our jammies playing with toys and cuddling up to nurse. At the end of June she will start daycare 5 days a week full time. I feel horrible about this. What if she likes the lady that runs the daycare more than me? What if the lady at the daycare sees her take her first steps before me!? Am I a horrible mother? Will I miss her too much? Will the weekends be enough?

I try to tell myself that she LOVES the daycare. She gets to play outside, be with other kids, and get taken care of by someone I know really well and someone who loves her. I remind myself that not many parents have the opportunity to stay home with their babies for almost 11 months like I have. I feel blessed that I found a job so that we can provide for her and not have extreme financial stress on our family. I feel blessed that I found a job locally so I can maximize the time I will get with her at the end of the day before bedtime. Some of the other jobs I applied for were up to an hours drive away.

So I guess the guilt won't go away, but I can sit here and rationalize that this whole situation is a good thing. In any case---I will be savoring every moment with my child this next 2 weeks. I will kiss her fat face all day and sit and play and take her to the park and swim and do it all!

I love her so much, I hope I made the right decision.

Mimi's First Beach Trip!

Swimming at our friends heated :-) pool

Fun at the beach

It was super Windy!

Doesn't like the water!

BIG FAT LIP!

So I had to go to a conference in the Destin area on Friday, so I decided to make it a weekend trip and spend some time at the beach and with friends. Destin has some of the most gorgeous white sand beaches i've ever been to.

It was a long drive up there thursday night and Mimi cried and fussed the first two hours of it. I tried giving her a bottle, singing to her, NOTHING worked. So frustrating. We stopped after 2 hours and had dinner at the Macaroni Grill---which I have to say is the only corporate italian place I enjoy the food at. As soon as we unclipped the carseat she was little miss smiles. She laughed and giggled and at eggplant parmasean like it was her job. She finally went back to sleep in the car when we headed out for the other 2 hour part of the drive. She slept really well in the pack and play at our friends house without a problem.

Friday I presented at a conference which was probably one of my worse presentations, due to lack of preparation which was my own fault. Some people complimented me on it--think they were just being nice, cause it sucked! I did do some great networking while I was there. I was using my friends office to pump during the coffee breaks of the conference and called my husband to check in on him and Mimi. I don't know how this happened, but he really hasn't had to take care of her ALL BY HIMSELF for more than 1/2 of day. He had to watch her from 7:30am to 5:00 pm. The first thing he says to me is "there's been a little accident, but don't worry she's okay" WTF, I leave her with him for ONE DAY and "there's been an accident!?" Apparently, she was playing on a bed and he was standing right there getting dressed and in a split second of him spraying on deodorant, she made her way to the edge of the bed, fell, and busted her lip. In his defense he yelled back "you make mistakes too!" YES but I make mistakes, not be careless, there's a difference. Men are really careless sometimes. So he had a fat lip with two cuts on it ...perhaps where teeth went through the lip? dont' know--but she as fine and survived the rest of the day without bloodshed. GGRRRR I can't even type about he indicident anymore--it irritates me how careless my husband can be.

We went to the beach saturday which was really fun, but windy. It was hot, but so windy that they closed the water for swimming. We ended up just playing in the surf, digging in the sand, and playing bocci. I decided to let Mimi be naked which earned me some disgusted looks from other beachgoers===doesn't bother me. Mimi did not like the water, but I think she enjoyed the sand and the sites. We took my friend's 8 year-old daughter with us beacause her mom had to work. She was fun and kept Mimi very busy. We went to a beachy restaurant that was full of knick knacks and such, they even had baby alligators you could feed.

Sunday we drove home. I was a little annoyed at my husband because he wasn't hungry so decided we could not stop from 11:45 am to 6pm when we got home. Mimi had a gigantic blow-out poop diaper IN HER CARSEAT (cue wife yelling at husband again for neglecting to stop), needless to day next time I won't ask him to stop, I will tell him to stop so I can check the baby's diaper and let her move around a little. Ugh.

Home safe and back to business. Mimi is napping right now after a busy morning. I had a job interview this morning which was rather interesting. Mimi also played in her kiddie pool outside because it is 95 degrees! ugh! She was trying to reach over and grab dirt and eat it, along with rocks, so we nicks the pool and came in for her nap.

Hope you all had a great weekend too!