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.
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.
Spring is *almost* here. Yes, even in British Columbia, where rain and recently, snow have dictated our weather. We look out the window and it’s beautiful and sunny. Still a little chilly as far as temperature goes, but the *look* of it all is deceiving! It looks gorgeous outside! All the leaves are coming back on the trees, and the flowers are blooming. Everywhere I look, there are beautiful trees all around us. Makes me appreciate and remember why I love living here so much, even despite the gloomy rain half of the year. Hah! The maple trees are here, the Elm trees are blooming, the evergreens, of course, are always green. But still, it’s nice to see that green is coming back in style!
Today, I’m taking Lily Bean with me to Bellingham to visit with some friends. A long day for the little one. Hopefully she won’t mind too much and will be a good sport about it. Dave isn’t coming with us, so today is our first “outing” together, she and I — at least for that long of a period. I’m excited. We have a lunch date AND a dinner date. I hope she eats well today. She’s so distracted when we have company or when we do something different that’s outside of our normal daily routine. We shall see. I’m just waiting for her to wake up so I can get her ready and so we can go!
It’s Sunday and I am just so darn happy it’s still the weekend. I sort of had a 3-day weekend, but Friday was a very busy day, so I could hardly count it as a “free” day. Dave had a stiff neck and couldn’t move his whole body all of Friday and part of Saturday, so I spent most of the day trying to help him be comfortable (to no success, unfortunately) and taking care of the Lily Bean and catching up on housework. I am exhausted. I’m not ready to go back to work tomorrow, but it will have to do for now. Last night, I had some good rest since Lily Bean decided to grace us with a full night’s sleep with no wake-ups, so I was able to get my full 8-9 hours of sleep.
These days, we’re dealing with some ups and downs with Lily’s sleeping schedule. She used to be like clockwork — down by 9p, sometimes earlier, but almost never much later. Now it’s anywhere between 8:30p and 10:30p. It’s driving us nuts. I want her to have an earlier bedtime — at the latest 8p, not 10:30p! So, yeah, we’re dealing with that. It’s not too bad though. As far as the spectrum goes, she’s still a very good baby and her sleep habits aren’t as bad as many babies I’ve heard about, so I can definitely thank my stars.
I’ve got a lot of things to do, and a lot on my mind. Quite frankly, this year hasn’t started so well in a lot of ways, but I keep reminding myself that I’ve got food on the table, a loving family to come home to everyday, a beautiful vibrant little baby girl, my good health, etc. etc. etc. Things are all well. I am reminded constantly how fortunate I really am. After all, I know people out there who are not only suffering from this economic downturn, but also dealing with health issues like Mesothelioma. We should be so lucky we still have our health to carry us through the bad times.
Okay, so. Yeah. Dave and I spent half of the afternoon today re-arranging some of our furniture. Not sure why we did it, but that I wanted and needed a bit of a change. I’m nesting and I want our home to “feel” clean and tidy. So we re-arranged furniture. Not much, but yeah. I feel a little better, though Dave is annoyed because I made him lift furniture on a Sunday afternoon. Heh.
The house feels clean. I love when I have some time to clean the house — though these days, it feels like I have to make this time to tidy up everyday, or it will never get done and I will be left with a mess of a home while we run around amok trying to keep up with this still-relatively immobile child of ours. I don’t know how we’re going to manage when she starts crawling and walking and then running. Dave is suggesting that we get one of those dog collars that come with invisible “fences” so that we can lock her in certain parts of the house without having to get 3 dozen gates. Ha! Just kidding!!
But yes, I think it will be time soon to get going on baby-proofing the house. For the most part, there’s not much she can get into… but I have to make sure all the electrical wires and stuff by our tv stands have their own hiding spots away from little hands and feet. And all the plants with their hanging leaves and vines that she can tug at. And all the little statues and knick knacks on the bottom shelves of our bookshelves. Those got to go.
Ah, so much to do, so little time. But for now, we are done with furniture re-arranging.
Sometimes, oh just sometimes, I wish I had 2 extra hours in the day to do whatever I want. “Whatever I want” would mostly consist of writing emails back to friends and family, and updating blogs and making new designs. Yeah. Remember back in the day when I whipped up a new layout like I change underwear? Yeah, every single day (in case you’re wondering how often I change underwear). Yeah, that was pre-full-time-job and pre-baby. You got lots of time to make crazy layouts and even code them all in a day or less when you’re still in school and don’t have a baby. Now, just blogging seems like a task to me. And I also feel like I’ve lost touch with a lot of my friends, both online and offline. I think I’m still adjusting to having a baby. How do single mothers do it? How do parents with more than one baby do it? They must be whacked out of their minds, I imagine! Or martyrs. Yes, martyrs. Superheroes.
I have new respect for parents. And that’s big, because I always had a lot of respect for parenthood — especially working in the field I work in, where I see parents lose their children everyday. But anyway…
Lately, there have been some ups and downs, and many I do not want to share with the public. Only a few know. I know the pattern I am repeating — when things get serious and chaotic in my life, I tend to hide and not open up. Not even to some of my closest friends and family. I’m trying not to do it this time around, but I already feel myself doing it. It’s not that I’m in crisis or anything — just a whole bunch of stuff happening at once, and some of them leave me terrified for the future, and others leave me very excited. Maybe I’ll be more open to divulging what I’m talking about later on. Or maybe not. Maybe I just need a getaway vacation at Branson or something. Those vacation packages are really, really tempting. I think we will have to plan a family vacation sometime soon, to get away from “it all,” whatever “it all” is at this time. We’ve seen several vacation packages before, but the Branson ones seem most appealing.
Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve updated the site. Like, really updated, and not just dorky little mini-memes that don’t really say much about how I’ve been doing. Heh. The holidays are over now, and I’m still adjusting to getting back to the daily norm and the weekly routine. My sister visited for a week during Christmas week, and then I had about 4 days reprieve to recover (haha) before my brother visited for another week, with his girlfriend. They just left yesterday. I’m having a hard time playing catch-up. However, it was really, really nice to see them again. It seems that as time goes on, we change more and more. I feel like with every visit I have with them (since we live so far away from each other now: me in B.C. Canada and them in North Carolina), I am re-learning who they are as people, as individuals, as adults. Sometimes I see the semblance of days gone past, when we were all still little kids playing in the back yard, or bike riding in our neighborhood in California. Now, it seems like those days of old are so far away. At the time, they seemed like they would never end. Long summer days where we would ride our bikes to get away from our parents. Hanging out with George and Marian across the street (who have both passed on by now). Catching bugs during the summer together and raking leaves during the autumn together.
And now, the littlest one, my sister, is in college, old enough to legally drink. The middle one, my brother, is living on his own, making his own living. The oldest one, me, is married with a baby. How did all this happen so quickly? How did we all grow up so fast? Lily not only made a mother out of me, but an uncle out of Eddie and an auntie out of Sophia. Wasn’t it just yesterday that Sophia was Lily’s age and I was changing her diapers, albeit begrudgingly? Now, Eddie and Sophie hold onto Lily and speak baby language to her, laugh with her, play with her, and I think, “Wow… we’ve moved to become another generation.”
Sometimes time passes by so quickly. Nothing really stays the same. Things change, people change, age continues on. Sometimes, I wish I was still 10 years old, my brother 5 years old and my sister only 3 years old, and we were still underneath that low lemon tree in the back yard, playing a game that enabled us to, just for a little while, live in a far-off fantasy land where fairies and magical elves existed. But if I blink too fast, I am suddenly back here, in the present time, age 28, married, and babied. And I’m making new memories with my own little girl, helping her build imaginary worlds where her own fairies and her own elves talk to her and sing her songs.
December 21, 2008 at 4:06 pm · Filed under daily, meme
Wow. It has snowed more in the last week than I can ever remember in the last several years. Usually we get one day of snow, I get to skip out on work for a couple of days, and then all is well again. This year, my agency has closed its door for 5 days straight, and the snow is still coming down, so I’m not sure if it’s going to be open tomorrow either! Right on time for Christmas. It looks like we’ll have a white Christmas again this year. Last year, it snowed a couple of days before Christmas, but the snow stuck around until a bit after Christmas, so technically we had a “white Christmas” last year too. This year beats it though.
My sister is coming into Seattle tonight, but I won’t be able to pick her up because of the road conditions, so she’s going to be taking a flight into Vancouver tomorrow morning, and we’ll go and pick her up in Vancouver together. I’m so excited for her to meet Lily Bean. I wish she lived closer, but we do what we can to stick together.
I managed to make a new header image for the site. Ya like? I figure the summer girl-on-swing layout was getting a little old. I managed to whip this one up in a couple of hours during one of Lily’s nap times. There’s only a bit of time frame during her naps because she doesn’t nap for as long anymore. I missed being able to draw, so I thought I’d try my hand on another illustration for a layout, and voila!
I have a lot more to say, but I will end this for now, with a Sunday meme from Sunday Stealing:
1. What is a nickname a former (or present) lover gave you?
Dave calls me “Pixie,” or “Pix” for short. He is the ONLY person who is allowed to call me this.
2. How do you style your hair? If you just would say “cut” what style is it?
I usually just blow dry it and let it hang. Now, though, I tend to have it in a pony tail or bun, since Lily Bean has figured out she can grab my hair very easily. My hair is currently very long (mid-back) with long layers. Time for a hair cut!
3. What’s your least favorite Christmas song?
Any of the ones that have religious connotations in them. They sort of annoy me. I know “Christ”mas is really a religious holiday, but we don’t celebrate it as such.
4. How many colors are you wearing now?
Two. Light blue and white. I’m wearing light blue and white striped pajama pants, and a white tight tank top.
5. Are you an introvert or extrovert?
I’m generally an introvert but can hold my own pretty well in large groups.
6. What was the last book you read?
Erm. I don’t remember. Geez, it’s been a couple of months. That sucks. I’m currently verrryy sloowwwllly going through “Almost Moon” by Alice Sebold.
7. What’s one piece of fiction that changed your life?
The Secret Garden. It’s my childhood favorite, and it’s the first book that I can remember that made me really, really love reading.
8. If you are attracted to someone who is already in a relationship (or married), what might do you do?
I’d get over it.
9. Is there anything that has made you unhappy recently?
Yeah, a couple of things. One is our financial stress right now, but I know it’s temporary so I’m trying not to worry too much.
10. What’s your favorite dessert?
Orange sherbet. Hands down. And orange julius. Actually, orange julius would come before orange sherbet.
11. How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?
15 minutes. Heh.
12. Name one website that you visit daily. Why do you read it?
Plurk. Because everyone goes to update there and I get my quick fixes.
13. What was your last job before either you are at home or at another job??
This question is phrased very oddly. Erm, I was a child abuse therapist for a local tribe.
14. Do you like to clean?
Not really, but I clean often because I like a clean house.
15. What was the last song to get stuck in your head?
“Mercy” by Duffy. It’s downright catchy.
16. What’s the last movie you saw?
Stepbrothers. Heh. It was cute.
17. Pirates or Ninjas?
Huh? To do what with?
18. What is your least favorite thing to do that you have to do everyday?
Laundry.
19. Best time of your life?
Being pregnant. It’s the neat capability to be openly, wildly, and freely FAT without worrying about taking any diet pill supplements. Heh.
20. What are you most looking forward to in the coming year?
Some new possibilities.
Yay I get a free day from work! No work today. The office is closing at noon, but I didn’t even make it in because of the snow. No way am I driving into work, 40 minutes away, just to come home at noon again. I’m sure it would take close to an hour to get to work. I’m working on my paperwork from home, so the day is still not wasted, work-wise. Plus, I get to spend that much more time with The Husband and The Lily Bean.
The snow is coming down pretty hard too. I took a short video of it. I don’t know if you can hear it very well, but when I started the video, Dave said: “Are you taking a video for all those people out there who’s never seen snow?”
I said: “Yes. Don’t mock the people who have never seen snow. It’s a big deal, you know.”
Dave: “Oh, I am mocking. MOCKING I AM!!!”
Then I told him to say hi. He instead gave me a grimace from across the room. Heh.
So there ya go. Snow. This is taken from inside our warm warm home, just looking out the window. I had just put the Lily Bean down for her nap, so there’s no baby squeals of happiness in this one, unfortunately. We’re contemplating taking her outside later to enjoy it.
So it did end up snowing on Saturday — pretty much all day, and there was some left over on Sunday. Dave and I had planned to take the Lily Bean outside for her first encounter with snow… buuuttt, it didn’t work out exactly that way. Heh. When Dave went out yesterday morning to get his coffee, I asked him what it was like out there. He said it was butt-freezing cold! The windchill made it something like -15. Goodness. I don’t even understand what “-15″ means! I’m totally California-chick. He said he wouldn’t take out Lily Bean out there if it were up to him, and that kind of discouraged me. So we decided to wait to see if it would get a wee bit warmer before we take her out. The whole day came and went, and every time I looked out, the winds were going at what seemed like a mile a minute. The trees were all windy-like and swaying back and forth here, and we decided that we shouldn’t take her out in that cold. Granted, she’s a Canadian baby and she would get used to it eventually, but yeesh. Maybe next time!
Besides, we were going to make a snowman, and from the looks of it in the front yard, there wasn’t much snow left on the ground to make anything, since the winds were blowing all the snow to and fro. It looked like a blizzard over here. Then I saw Erin’s photos of their day out down in Bellingham, and I was like, “That looks SO MUCH sunnier than over here!” What the heck? And it looked like they got more snow than we did. How does that work, since it’s only half an hour from where we are to Bellingham? So weird.
We saw on the news all these accidents — specifically from Bellingham. They were showcasing some accidents right on Yew St., and it was so weird seeing my work stomping ground on TV. Cars were slipping and sliding and crashing into each other. One police car got out of control on a hill and just went sliding down. A police car! Goodness. I’m so glad we didn’t have to go out anywhere over the weekend. Everyone’s safe and sound at home. So today I’m going to take it really carefully, since I have two appointments in the back roads of Bellingham and Ferndale. I kind of want to cancel. I’m not so good in the snow, what with being a Southern California girl and all. But we need the money. Maybe I’ll just stay home and catch up on all my paperwork. We’ll see what happens.
I need to refill on my multi-vitamins. Specifically for pregnant and nursing mothers. I ran out but don’t have money to get more. Isn’t that sad? Though I guess I’m not complaining too much because they’re like horse supplements to me. They’re giant and I hate swallowing them. It should be another week before I can go get some more, though. In the meantime, I’m trying to eat more healthily and fully so that I can make enough milk for the Beaner.
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About
- Helen, 29 years old
- B.C., Canada
- Child & family therapist
- Agnostic Buddhist
- Married to Dave (7/22/07)
- Mother to Lily Bean (7/12/08)
- Left-wing, pro-peace nut
- Semi-hippy wannabe
This site here is basically a bunch of random, semi-daily tidbits whenever I feel like updating.
