Magic tricks

My husband thinks that our house is magical.  Well, I'm guessing this is what he thinks.  I can't think of any other reason he would leave things around the house that he wants to disappear.  

Example A:  Finn still wears a diaper to bed and when he wakes up, he comes up to our room with his undies and my husband switches them out.  Then, he puts it on the chest.  Every morning. 

Example B: This one is slightly more annoying.  When he changes Will's diaper, he puts it on these shelves.  You see the space on the right?  On the floor is where the diaper genie is.  Yeah. 

Example C: Also, in Will's room, he throws his PJs on the foot rest.  You see the closet door behind it?  That's where the hamper is. 

Example D:  My husband thinks that Good Will does a pick up inside our closet, because every time he wants to donate his clothes, he folds them and put them on the floor.  How convenient. 

Example E: When I complained that he got hair all over the counter when he trimmed his facial hair, he started to trim over the sink.  Thank goodness we got that worked out. 

Example F:  I am an obsessive recycler.  So I guess I should be thankful he puts it on the counter rather than in the trashcan.  He's always thinking about me. 

Example G: He's always leaving these all over the house for me.  What an ass. 

Awesome, sorta

Holy crap, I got the job! 

Have you ever seen that movie "Defending Your Life"?  After people die, they go on trial to see how brave they were on earth and decide if they need to go back or go...to the next place (whatever that is).  Their attorneys show clips from their life.  In one clip, they show the main character role-playing with his wife about how he's going to negotiate salary for the job he's going to be offered the next day.  He practices being a total hard ass, not taking a dime less than the money he wants.  Then, the next clip shows him taking the first offer given to him.  This was me.  I told my husband that I was going to insist on a specific number - that I was worth it and I would fight for it...then they called me, offered me the job for less and I said yes in .02 seconds.  Sigh.  At least I have a job now.

I decided to do a trial run with daycare today, drop the kids off and spend the day with my husband.  I was a wreck.  I cried on the way, while we dropped them off, and several times over the next few hours.  And here I thought I was ready to be away from them.  Having kids is such a mind fuck.  I don't think there could be a situation that MORE personifies "grass is always greener". 

Anyways.  I start on Monday!  Yay! (mostly). 

Point, Counterpoint

13 days after I had Will, I got a frantic text message from a coworker: "Dial into the conference bridge ASAP!" Turns out my boss - and co-owner of the company - was leaving. His reasons were cryptic and the office was alive was gossip. I just kinda shrugged my shoulders and went back to my delicious little baby. 3 days later, I get a call from my other boss, asking me to lunch. Because I'm cocky naive, I assumed that he wanted to talk to me about company strategy, since I was the most senior employee in our office.  Wrong.  Not only did he not feed me lunch, he actually said "I'm sure you saw this coming..." as he slid the severance agreement paperwork across the table.  Um, no.  Not really.  Just gave birth 16 days ago, didn't really think I'd be losing my job.  I had brought Will to the meeting because...ya know, 16 days old....and as my former boss left the room, I just looked at Will with tears streaming down my cheeks (see: Postpartum) and my mind went absolutely blank.  I mean, WHAT to tha FUCK.

Fastforward nearly 3 months.  After applying for about 80 jobs so far, I've had 5 job interviews (thank god for you, belly shaper) and by far my most promising one happened today.  I have a second interview on Tuesday, and I just feel like this might be THE ONE.

Had I not been laid off, I would have been back to work for 5 weeks now.  Instead, I've been spending day after glorious day in my pajamas surrounded by toys, burp cloths, and waaaaay too much Dora (River....Farmhouse....Castle!    River....Farmhouse....Castle!  River....Farmhouse....Castle!  River....Farmhouse....Castle!  YES, WE GET IT!  YOU ARE GOING TO THE RIVER, FOLLOWED BY THE FARMHOUSE AND THEN THE FUCKING CASTLE! SHUT YOUR MOUTH, YOU WEIRD TALKING MAP).  It's like groundhog day over here.

Cue internal struggle.

Stay At Home Mom Me: I am ready to go back to work
Working Me:  Are you kidding?  The last few months of pregnancy you were all "woe is me, I wish I could stay at home 3 months with the kids"
SAHMM:  Well, yeah, but that was when I knew I had a job to come back to.  Now, it's like this never ending series of days where I forget what it's like to pee in a room by myself.
WM:  I can't believe you are saying this!  You are bitching about wearing your PJs all day and hanging out with your kids?  Poor you.
SAHMM:  You have no idea!  You get to drive in the car by yourself and have interesting conversations with other adults and eat your entire lunch while it's hot and go to the gym.
WM:  Drive in the car?  Is this the same 40 minute commute that you bitched about on a daily basis?
SAHMM:  Well....yeah....but at least you get to listen to music and can hear yourself think.
WM:  And sit in traffic!
SAHMM:  Okay, okay, you're missing the point.  All I'm saying is....I miss the other parts of me.  The parts where people think I'm smart.  The part where I could go to the gym on my lunchbreak and blast my iPod.  The part where I was allowed to be a little selfish.  And most of all, the part where I could miss my kids.
WM:  Let me get this straight - You want to get up at 6am to get yourself and the kids out the door to daycare, pump in the bathroom at work, have crazy deadlines and annoying coworkers.
SAHMM: I just want to leave so I can want to come home.
WM: Dude, you are weird.

I want this job so bad.  I'm ready to go back to hating Mondays, I'm ready to bitch about my commute, I'm ready to meet new friends and have new challenges and use my brain for more than just trying to come up with a creative craft to kill an hour before naptime.  This has been an interesting experiment on if I want to be a SAHM.  And do I?  No.  It has nothing to do with my level of love I have for my kids - these boys make my heart go places it's never been.  And for them, it's time for me to go back to work - so I can miss them enough that I want to smother them with kisses and attention and love for the 3 hours I'll have them before bedtime every day and enjoy every single moment.  Because I'm tired of having the conversation where I go "Finn, blah (blah = come here, eat your lunch, pick up your toys, stop making so much noise while your brother sleeps, put on your pants, etc etc ETC).  Hey, blah! I saaaaiiiiid blah.  Finn, if you don't blah RIGHT NOW, you are going to time out."  Because really, all he hears now really is "blah".

So, wish me luck Tuesday at 10.

p.s....Stay at home moms:  Mad props.  Seriously.

I'm back

I find it slightly awkward that my last post in over 2 months was about grooming, but hey, whatcha gonna do? So much has happened (hello, new human!) and no one wants to read a novel of a blog post, so here's my summed up version:

- I was a bridesmaid in a wedding when I was 37 weeks pregnant. Oh yeah, I was hot, obviously.

- Once I hit 8 1/2 months pregnant, I actually started feeling pretty decent physically, but absolutely so anxious mentally that I could barely stand it. I was having almost nonstop Braxton Hicks during the day, and about 20 times I day, I thought "Is this it? Is this it???" My husband was going nuts and every time I called him at work he thought it was TIME. Every time I called a friend or family member, they answered the phone by asking me if they should meet me at the hospital. This was doing nothing to help my anxiety.

- 40 weeks came...and went.

- It was decided upon that I would be induced at 41 weeks. In the meantime I was eating spicy foods, having more sex than a woman with a belly my size should be having and spending far too much time in Dr. Google's office examining every perceived "symptom". The morning before my induction, I had an hour and a half of acupuncture. No dice.

- The evening before I was to be induced, I was snuggling with my husband and son on the couch, and I put my hand on my belly. I felt my little baby's leg, which was pretty common. I grabbed his leg and expected for him to pull it away from me like normal. He didn't do that. I was able to move his leg up and down my belly. Cue: freaking the fuck out. All of a sudden I realized I hadn't felt him move since the acupuncture. I started to shake my belly, trying to make him move. He didn't. I laid down on my left side and pushed in on my belly, always a sure fire way to get him moving. He didn't. Cue: absolute panic attack, complete with hysterical crying. I grabbed my phone and called my doctor who had given me her personal cell phone for when I went into labor. She told me to go to the hospital right away. We called a neighbor girl to watch our son and were out of the house in less than 5 minutes. The hospital is half an hour away from our house and I felt him move twice on the way, very slightly. Not his usual beating, but enough to make me chill out a little bit.

- The baby was fine - and I never got an explanation for his lack of movement, but all I needed to know was that his heartrate was good. And of course, as soon as the strapped me into all the monitors, he started his usual acrobatic routine. *HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF*

- They kept me overnight since I was scheduled to be induced the next morning anyway. Super short version of labor: Pitocin started at 8:30, mild contractions until about noon, doctor broke my water at 12:30, contractions increasing in insanity until about 2:30, epidural at 2:50, baby born at 3:10. Welcome to the world little one.

- So I post a pic on Twitter shortly after he was born. And so many wonderful people gave me congratulations...and wanted to know his name. Now, this threw me for a loop, although I should have thought about it sooner. I have all these fake names for myself and my husband and my kiddo on the blog. But for some reason, I just couldn't give my newborn son a fake name. So, I went into Twitter silence. And since then all these wonderful and funny and annoying and maddening things have happened and I have really really wanted to share them. But I felt like a tool just leaving all these people asking me the name and never telling.  So, his name? It's Will. And it's perfect. And so is he.

 

Note:  I've decided to nix the fake names....and I went back and changed them throughout the blog to my REAL name.  Scary.

Down there

Yesterday, for some unknown reason, I decided to look up birthing videos and photos. Google was happy to oblige, giving me more content than I could ever view. One thing that became clear to me very quickly (besides the fact that birth is....let's face it...pretty gross. I mean, yadda yadda, special and beautiful, etc - but come on, very very gross too, at least when it's a strangers birth captured by a zoom lens close up on her lady parts) is that NONE of these women were...groomed...in any way whatsoever. Not that this was totally shocking, but I thought at least one or two would be rockin' the landing strip, or at LEAST a tidy little triangle. Nope. Full bush, top to bottom, every single one.

So after going through all these photographic treasures, I went straight to twitter:

And I got more responses than I've ever gotten from a tweet before. Most of them were along the lines of "you can't take care of what you can't see", and also different variations on can't bend, can't reach, etc. One person (a dude, no less) said: "It's obvious this is your first pregnancy. :P" Ouch.

Argument 1: I have been taking care of business in that region for over 10 years. I'm not pruning into heart-shapes here. I can keep things pretty tidy without seeing what I'm doing.

Argument 2: If I was going to actually videotape my birth, I think I'd want to clean up the stage.

Argument 3: This is my second pregnancy, thank you very much. And furthermore, when my water broke during my first pregnancy, I took a shower and spent a few minutes shaving legs, armpits, ETC (if ya know what I mean).

Argument 4: I'm out of arguments, but 3 points is pretty weak.

Da Crib

We have completely finished up getting ready for the baby. I'm talking room ready, all furniture in place, clothes in the drawers, bottles washed and put away, half-packed hospital bag in the closet just awaiting the last minute items like toiletries.

This is a little ridiculous because:
a. I still have 6 weeks.
b. Once the baby is home, he is sleeping in our room for the first 6ish weeks.
c. We won't introduce the bottle until the baby is 3-4 weeks old.
d. I am convinced I have just given myself a due date of 2 weeks late by being so prepared.

I don't care because:
a. I will not have the energy to wash and put away baby clothes and blankets when I am 39 weeks pregnant.
b. Maybe I'll want to put him in his room during naps? And plus, this has given Finn a tangible thing to look at in anticipation of his brother's arrival.
c. I will be so happy that all those bottles are washed and put away when it's actually time to use them
d. Okay, I actually do care about this. Baby: Please do not be late. Please.

Pics of the new baby digs. We are stoked at how everything turned out:

Mural painted by my coworkers sister. We were a little afraid it was going to be too "Nightmare Before Christmas" but we are hoping the other colorful aspects in the room counterbalance it. It was inspired by this tree I found, but we wanted to make it a bit more...masculine or something. I made the mobile with felt pieces and sticks from a tree in our yard when the one I wanted from Etsy.com was sold out. Etsy mobile with shipping: $57. My mobile: $4

Magnetic wall art is SO AWESOME. Love this idea, not sure where else you would put something like this other than a baby/child's bedroom.

Scored this glider rocker off Craigslist for the smokin price of $175. The one I wanted at Babies R Us was $600, so I thought this was a steal. I wish I could explain to you the comfort of this chair. I make everyone who enters my house sit on it.

My sis-in-law is supposed to sew a liner for the little diaper basket there...but considering she's the biggest procrastinator of all time, it will probably be a couple of more months before I see anything.

OMG, that crooked picture is making me crazy. I must go home right now and fix it.

That little bird on the table is sooooo cute when it's lit up. A perfect little nightlight and goes with our nature theme perfectly.

32 Weeks

Holy moly, 32 weeks.

I had Finn three weeks early, which means I COULD be having a baby in 5 weeks. FIVE WEEKS.

The room is TOTALLY ready, which prompted my sis in law to say that this probably means that I'll be 2 weeks overdue. I told her I hated her for saying that.

Of course, I'm also in a wedding on October 3, and the bride asks me every 3 days how I'm feeling, if I think that I'll make it past the wedding (oh girl, how I wish I had insight in to that). Maybe the 2 things will balance each other out and I'll have him mid-October.

Fingers crossed.