Archive for March, 2009
March 17, 2009 at 9:18 pm · Filed under daily
It’s been a long, long day. Tuesdays are my 11-hour days. I barely get home in time to give Lily a goodnight sleep and put her to bed. I get to do half the routine with her, as her daddy does the first half until I’m back. She seems very agitated, he said, unless she sees me before going down. So I get my giggles and my good night cuddles and off she goes. I get maybe 2 or 3 hours with her on Tuesdays. It hurts the heart. Really it does. But I’m comforted that she gets her daddy time during these days I have to work, and I get her for three-day weekends. They are building a really sweet bond together, and it makes me happy to see that.
And somehow, with all this working and housework and stuff to do, I still manage to get a layout up. A very simple out, but I was getting so tired of that last one, something had to be done! I’m super mama, don’tcha know?! Heh. I can do it all, except research term life insurance online quotes because that’s kinda boring. But everything else, I can do it.
An update on the development of my cubicle at work. A little more personalized, but still not yet “Helen”… It will get there in time.
And now, it’s time for the super mama to go to bed. Nighters, yo.
March 8, 2009 at 10:25 am · Filed under daily
It’s been a very busy week. My sister was in town for the whole week, off for her spring break, and while I was very happy to see her (I was looking forward to it), I was given about two days’ notice of her arrival (she’s the queen procrastinator), so I wasn’t able to have a lot of time to prepare for it. I ended up having to work most of the days she was here, and she was kept busy by Dave and Lily. The good news for this arrangement was that she got to spend a lot of time with Lily Bean, in a more relaxed setting: at home. She and Dave babysat her while I was at work, and this enabled my little girl to get to know her Auntie Sophie a lot more. By the end of the week, it was all giggles and smiles whenever Lily saw Auntie Sophie. It was very sweet.
Yesterday was her last day here, and I took her to the bus shuttle station. I had a good time while she was here. It’s nice having her around. She’s my best friend, outside of Dave and Lily. Being near her makes me really happy. I love my baby sister, especially now since she’s no longer “little” and we communicate on a more “adult” level. It’s nice. I miss her now, that she’s not around. Luckily, she’s been able to visit quite often — several times a year, especially since Lily’s been born. The flight here from North Carolina is sometimes up to 10 or 11 hours, but she’s been a trooper and she takes it all in stride. So we appreciate when she’s able to come visit us. When Lily is older, we’ll be able to make the trip to see her, and the tables will be turned!
At work, things are going pretty smoothly. Orientation is pretty much over, and I’m getting acquainted with having my own caseload. I already have three clients. Since I’ve done this exact type of work at my old job, the new boss feels pretty comfortable just letting me get on with it sooner rather than later. I am loving my new team of counselors, as everyone is educated, intelligent, compassionate, and cooperative. I am loving my new boss; he reminds me a bit of my practicum supervisor, Leaf, and I adored Leaf. The whole atmosphere is pretty relaxed. I feel like I’m treated equally, right, and valued in this job. I like it. It makes the work that much easier to do. I’m in the middle of decorating my little cubicle. Right now, it looks pretty bare, but it will be all spiffed up in no time!
I have to make it look personalized and cool so that all those electronics at the bottom of the desk aren’t the main focal point when you see my desk! I’m very happy with work. The only complaint, as I said before, is that it takes my time away from Lily. But, it’s a lot closer to home, and I see her more often than I did when I was working in Bellingham, so all is good with the world again.
Dave is managing well at home with Lily Bean. First few days, she wasn’t doing so well — she refused to nap for him and didn’t eat so well, and was very cranky throughout the day. She kept looking for me and wondering where I was and why I wasn’t the one who was putting her down for her nap. Poor baby. It just broke my heart. But now she’s doing a lot better, back to her normal schedule, and she’s treating her Daddy well. I couldn’t be happier. I love my family.
March 1, 2009 at 1:23 pm · Filed under daily
I don’t know if I’ve already updated everyone about my thyroid issues that I was talking about post-postpartum a few months ago. But I recently had it checked out and it looked like I did have postpartum thyroiditis. That sounds weird, but basically what it means is that my thyroids went crazy after the pregnancy, and as a result, I had hyperthyroidism. This gave my body the superhuman ability to lose tons and tons of weight in a short amount of time. You may think this is a great thing, but it’s not. It also enabled me to be extremely tired or extremely active, hyper heartbeat, weary, fatiqued from time to time, and have a low appetite. I was hoping I’d be able to keep some of the weight I gained during pregnancy, as gaining weight has always been more difficult for me. I gained 36 pounds, but after 5 months, I had lost it all, and some. Now, I weigh just a tad less than I did before I got pregnant. Oi.
But, the good news is that the thyroiditis seems to have disappeared, as per the results of my last bloodwork. I can feel it because I have more energy during the day and am more able to sleep better during the night (well, at least when Lily lets me sleep, that is). My appetite is coming back (though not as ferocious as when I was pregnant — boy I ate like a flippin’ horse when I was pregnant!), and I don’t feel like I should be skipping meals anymore. Sometimes that can be dangerous for me.
When my hormones were going whack at the very height of my thyroiditis thingamajig, I felt like I was taking 52343243 weight loss pills a day or something. It was that bad. I was losing so much weight, too quickly, in such a short time. And try as I might, I just was never hungry to eat enough. I’m so glad my body is finally starting to take care of itself again. Being a busy, working mom can be hard on the body and I sometimes forget to take care of myself because I’m always taking care of Lily. But, if I don’t take care of myself, how would I have the strength to take care of Lily, right?
Dave and I are trying to figure out and create some sort of routine with Lily, especially now that I’m back at work. Since my work schedule is full-time, though “time flexible” (which means I get to make my own schedule), not all the work days look like each other, unfortunately. This makes it a little hard on Baby Lily because she never really knows when Mommy is going to leave and when Mommy is coming back home. Poor baby. Regardless, I am trying to stick to the bare minimum of routine: I wake up with her and do her morning routine, and I do her bedtime routine with her. The middle is Dave’s job. He does well with it. But I want to be the first person she sees in the morning, and the last person she sees at night before she goes to bed. It’s just important to me because I don’t get to play with her during the day as often as I did anymore.
The good thing, though, about our new schedule is that I get 3-day weekends every week. This works out well because I can bust my ass off 4 days a week, and get time with Dave and Lily the other 3 days, in a row. It doesn’t feel too bad, it doesn’t feel like I’m “leaving” her everyday because I get to spend a lot of time with her a little less than half the week. That’s more than a lot of parents can say, y’know? Not every parent is as fortunate as I am, and I remember that everyday.
