It's starting already

It's Tuesday again here. Which means I'm currently home, watching Ethan smear scrambled eggs into his hair. My days at home are a lot of things, but not dull.  Definitely not that.  

So, I learned something last week- the whole second child getting less attention starts WAY early.  

Scene: November, 2006.  My bathroom. I take a test, there's a faint line. Could it be? I worry and obsess all day. I do not tell Daniel, since I'm not sure, but I do discuss it at length on the weight watchers discussion board. I get up at 4 AM the next day and take another test. It's definitely positive. I excitedly wake Daniel up to give him a card and congratulate him. We talk excitedly for a few hours before I go to work. I get nothing done for a second day.

Scene: September 2008.  My bathroom. I remember just in time that I need to take a pregnancy test.  I do so, there's a faint line. I continue getting ready. On my way out the door to work, I wake up Daniel to tell him goodbye and mention that I got a faint line, similar to the one i had on the first day with Ethan.  He sleepily says that I should test again the next day to see if it's darker and rolls over and goes back to sleep. I agree and go to work. We mention it in passing that day, but that's about it.

So I would like this to be my public apology to baby #2. Please stick around, we very much want you and will try hard to not totally suck at taking photos of you, writing in your baby book and blogging about you.  But we're kind of lazy, and your brother is a bit demanding, so I'm not making any promises.

It's VERY early still. I just found out last week, and am only about 4.5 weeks along. But I know that I am going to want to blog about it if anything goes wrong, so it's only fair that you get to share in our joy as well. 

If you know me in real life- please tell me that you know! We've told some family and a couple of friends, but are going to hold off until after our first ultrasound (probably in a month or so) on telling everyone, just because it's easier to have a controlled release of the news.  

And I'd really appreciate everyone's prayers. My blood pressure is not well controlled right now, and I'm going into the pregnancy 20 pounds heavier than last time, so the doctor is already a little concerned. Hopefully I'll be able to keep the weight gain under control at least.  Although I did tell Daniel that any comments from him on whether or not I should be eating certain foods would NOT be appreciated and would in fact be dangerous to his health.

So, that's all from here. Time to go wash scrambled eggs off baby #1.  

Trying to figure out what to do

So, I have a dilemma. Our church's bible study is starting up again this week, and I was really looking forward to attending. I know I need this time of corporate study and worship, and I need to be reminded to make personal study a priority.

I got the book yesterday. I started looking at it last night. My blood pressure shot up about 100 points. I HATE the book they chose. There are some good points, but the things that I have problems with (although they make up just a very small subset of the book), are so overwhelmingly irritating to me, that I don't know if I can get past them. And it's not even just what the person is saying, but the way in which she presents the thoughts, and her background, which I feel makes her fairly unqualified to be talking about some of these issues. I know that others really like the book that they chose, and that's fine. It has some great sections and good ideas. But I'm not sure if I can handle 7 months of slowly going through a book that I would like to set on fire.

I truly don't know what to do. I'm all signed up for the class, and if I don't attend, people will notice. But I would be giving up 2 hours of one of my two days with Ethan to attend the class, and I don't know if that's a trade off I'm willing to make in this circumstance. Daniel said that I could always go and hope that others disagree as well, but I doubt it, in this group. And I really dont do conflict, so I am certainly not going to express my opinion. I'm wimpy that way.

In other news, the weekend was great! I'm working on writing about it for Type A Mom, and will post the link once it's up.

Ostrich

I have been behaving rather like an ostrich lately regarding all the economic upheaval. Just burying my head in the sand and humming loudly to myself to block things out. Truth be told, I just don't have the energy left to worry about things that are beyond my control. And it's not like anyone really knows what's going on right now anyway.

That being said, I have a friend who works for Wamu, which was bought out last night. We're praying hard for the friend's family and job and all those details. It's been a stressful situation for months now, and certainly didn't get better with last night's news.

Tomorrow we're off to the Wing Luke Asian Museum in the International District. It's free museum day tomorrow. Go here for details and passes. Then Sunday we're meeting up with friends for lunch and then taking them and their girls to the Children's Museum. We're loving our membership, it really wasn't that expensive and being able to take friends with us is so much fun!

Sorry I'm so dull today. I'm too tired to be clever. Maybe next week. Have a great weekend.

The weekend recap- full of angst, feel free to ignore

Here's the long, emotionally unstable recap of this weekend.  We headed up to Canada on Friday night, Ethan did sleep some in the car, which was nice. And he was even in a pretty good mood when we got to Daniel's parents' condo.  We were exhausted though, so went to bed pretty quickly.  

Saturday was a busy day, but not as busy as originally planned, thanks to the monsoon-like weather that rained out a picnic we were supposed to attend. THANK GOODNESS.  We did the usual lunch out with Daniel's parent's. Not too exciting, because his family doesn't actually talk to each other, for some reason. I take that back, his mom talks constantly, but the rest of them ignore her, and she's speaking Chinese, so I have no clue what's going on. I've probably only heard his dad speak a handful of words in the 4 years I've known him, most of which have been spoken to Ethan. So the afternoon was fine. 

Then came the engagement dinner. Which I knew was going to be tough. I do not like being bored or feeling out of place. I know, who does. But the truth is, I do feel bored and isolated and so out of place when I'm out with Daniel's family. You might as well put a flashing neon sign over my head that says "does not belong here".  And we do a dinner like this every single trip, because his family is social (with other people, not each other), so we are always going out with big groups of their friends. Here's the mental picture for you- a table of 16 people in the middle

 of a Chinese restaurant. 14 of the people at the table are Chinese-speaking Chinese people.  1 person is Ethan, who seems to already understand Chinese, and the other person is me. Oh, and no female at the table weighs more than 120 pounds. I'm not exaggerating.  Much conversation going on.  Much food brought out. None of which I actually eat because, even though it's relatively tame Chinese food, I don't eat pork or seafood.  I do eat chicken. But this is what the chicken looked like.

Do you see the problem here?  I always forget that in Chinese restaurants, the chicken is not fresh unless the head is on it.  If you order half a chicken, they split the head down the middle. Yummy.  I kept turning the food wheel thingy so that I wasn't making eye contact with it, but it inevitably came back. I did eat some chicken in the end.  

Thankfully Ethan had had quite enough of sitting in a high chair after an hour, so he and I left, as discussed earlier.

I went back to the condo and ate leftovers from lunch and watched TV and was happy. Although totally drained, because being in a situation like that is just hard on me emotionally. 

The real emotional upheaval actually came when we got home Sunday night.  I was totally fried because we'd spent a weekend in crowds and noise, between the engagement dinner and the mega church we attended and the fact that the places that we go always have TVs on and radios on and conversations going on and it's all just too much! Oh, and we stopped at the outlet mall on the way home, and, if you know any Asian people at all, you will know an outlet mall is NOT the place to go to get a break from Asian people.

(Again- I am not saying I don't like Asian people, many of my dearest friends are Asian, as is my husband (of course) and baby.  But it is a different culture and I do not get it most of the time.)

Anyway, Sunday night, we're home, and Daniel checks his email. And there's a message from future sister-in-law, and she sent pictures from the night before. I opened them and felt like I'd been hit by a truck. I was HUGE in the photos. I looked like the Michelin Man, especially standing next to all the thin people. I know I need to lose weight, but I had no idea that I looked like that.  I just did not fit with the rest of the group in the photos. THEN, I scrolled down and saw a picture of Daniel and his mom and future sister-in-law with the birthday cake (it was a birthday/engagement dinner), and that was cute. And THEN the next photo was Daniel's parents, Daniel and his brother and future sister-in-law. And they fit.  They actually looked like a normal Chinese family.  

I know I'm being completely and utterly insane. I blame hormones.  It's just that I want to fit in at least a little bit. This is my family now.  But sometimes I think we might as well be from different planets.  Daniel tries to help, but it's all normal to him, because he grew up in that culture and speaks the language fluently and understands the customs and little nuances.  I want to like them and enjoy my time with them, but it seems to be getting worse rather than better.  I've lived overseas in Ukraine, where I didn't speak the language, and that was challenging, but different somehow, as I'm discovering. I think it's because I'm more emotionally invested in this family than I was with my friends there. Or something.

We're not going to be seeing them again until Christmas, as they're off on world travels. His brother is off to Asia and his parents are off to Europe.  Maybe I can develop a better attitude by then. I hope. 

My favorite TV show is online!

As I've mentioned before, I watch  a lot of cable shows on hulu.com, since I don't have cable. But until recently, my HGTV shows weren't on there. Then earlier this week, we found Househunters on Hulu. And I watched the whole season in two days. Today I looked on HGTV.com to see if they had other shows, and found that they do! A large number of them, in fact. Including Househunters International!! I am so happy!

I know. I have no life. :)

Need your help, please

Good morning all!  Yes, I survived the trip to Canada, and yes, it was about as stressful as I thought it would be.  A bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy brought on by my snotty (literally and figuratively) mood, I'm afraid.  I'll write about all the events later, when I recover a bit more.

But I need input from you guys. PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE!!! I'm going to be writing over at Type A Moms, (go check it out!) about my life as an urban mom. And, although I love to write, I suffer from a serious lack of thinking-of-topics-out-of-thin-air ability.  I blame the fact that I've mainly been doing scientific writing or my random stream-of-consciousness blogging for the past few years.

So, what would you be curious to read about from an urban mom?  What sort of things do you wonder about?  Life in the city is normal to me, and I've kind of lost track of what might differ between my life and that of a surburban mom. Oh, and Ethan hasn't let us sleep more than 2 hours at a time for almost 3 weeks, so I'm utterly brain-dead and have no energy left for creativity at the moment. Anything to get me going would be a great help!

Watching the little one sleep

** Note- I am so sorry if this showed up 100 times in your reader, having technical issues with links this morning.

I seem to be watching Ethan sleep more these days than I did before. I think it's because he's at that stage where he's growing and changing so fast that it's almost visible. I'm scared that I'm going to put my barely-a-baby-anymore to bed one night and a toddler will be in his place in the morning (or at 2 AM, because he's teething and feels the need to wake up every 3 hours).

This time last year he wasn't even 6 weeks old yet. He was a floppy little thing whose only skill was to occasionally eat or poop. When we dangled toys in front of him he just looked at them in cross-eyed confusion. Then we'd take the toys a little further out in his field of vision, and he'd look at them in regular confusion. We had to keep convincing our cats to not sit on him when I was nursing, and explained to them endlessly that he was not some sort of wiggly pillow. They still don't really get that, but he can defend himself now, so whatever.

He was so helpless last year and needy. And now he's big and learning to walk and climb and knows how to play with all his toys. The other day at the Children's Museum he crawled up to the edge of the stairs, turned around and went down them backwards, just like I wanted him to do. Except we hadn't taught him that and had no idea he knew how. I congratulated him with surprise in my voice, and he gave me a look that could have come from the nearest teenager's face. You could practically see "Duh" just radiating from him. Fortunately he doesn't know how to roll his eyes at me just yet.

Since he's not been feeling well lately, he's been clingy. And he wants only me when Daniel and I are both around. And I love it. Because I know that my baby isn't going to be a baby much longer and I need to get all the baby hugs in that I possibly can. I'm looking forward to him growing up, that's for sure, I think he's going to be a fun kid. But I'm going to also take time to enjoy these last few days/months of baby, because they're going so fast.

This post written as part of an online baby shower. Go check it out!

Preparing

We're going to Canada this weekend. Possibly tomorrow night, and if not then, on Saturday. (Edited Thursday night to add- we're going Friday night. Whoohoo! I get to work all day, then load up the car, get the baby from daycare, get him fed and changed, fight Friday night traffic to pick up my husband at work, drive 3 hours and then sleep on a small bed with scratchy sheets for two nights!! Whimper.)  I should be packing. I'm eating ice cream and blogging instead. I think that counts as getting ready for the trip though, it's mental preparation.

Our trips to Canada fall into one of two categories:

1) we have nothing special planned and spend the time up there watching the grandparents play with/feed/entertain Ethan, while I sit on the nice couch and channel surf through hundreds of cable channels (we don't have cable) including HGTV and my beloved property flipping shows, and occasionally leave the condo to get things like coffee (which my in-laws don't drink) or go to the massive mall that's nearby. These trips usually leave me pretty relaxed. Or...

2) we have something planned for every second of every day, including visits with Daniel's old high school friends (I actually like all them, so that's not too bad, it just makes me feel very young), dim sum with my mother-in-law's high school friends (really, they're still friends!), more meals with assorted aunts and uncles who don't speak English, and so on and so forth. These trips usually leave me totally fried mentally and emotionally, as the crowds (there are always crowds at Chinese restaurants in Vancouver) and the lack of understanding conversations start to get to me after a while.

And have I mentioned that someone is sick on every visit? It's usually Ethan, but sometimes it's me.  So when Ethan was sent home from daycare with a fever yesterday, I was not even vaguely surprised.  He's fine, just teething. We had a weight check at the doctor today and everything else seemed fine with him. But he's hot and grouchy, so this is DEFINITELY the time I want to pack up piles of belongings and drive 3 hours to Canada.  Oh wait, no.

This trip should be vaguely amusing though. We're going out for dinner tomorrow night, to what was originally billed to us as a combination birthday party for Daniel, his mom and his brother's girlfriend. Which seemed odd to me, because it's not a big birthday year for anyone.  And Daniel's brother finally told us a couple of weeks ago that this dinner was in fact an engagement dinner.  Which is nice. But here's where it's weird- when Daniel mentioned it to his mom, she didn't know!  And his brother lives with his parents, so you would think that it would have come up in conversation. We all knew they were talking about getting married next summer, but had no idea that there was an upcoming engagement dinner. 

I suspect that I will have lots of blog material for you all on Sunday night/Monday morning.  The dinner is Saturday night at a restaurant where I will likely be the only white person and will almost definitely be the fattest person in the room.  (I just finished off the pint of ice cream, assuring that I will possess the fattest person title) But I will actually have food I like this time, because Daniel's brother realized it was cheaper to order some sort of chicken dish for me, rather than the fancy "set menu" foods that they have for celebrations. It's really a shame that I don't like most banquet-type Chinese foods.  But sharks fin soup and jellyfish are just never going to be my thing. 

Oh- I added a button for "follow my blog" on the left side of the blog here, right under the BlogHer ads. I'd love it if you'd click it, so I can see who's reading!

Time to focus on marriage

I've been thinking a lot about my marriage lately.  I'm so blessed to be married to my best friend, I was single until my late twenties, and really thought that I was going to stay that way, so it was quite the happy surprise to meet Daniel and fall so much in love with him. And we've been blessed to have a fairly easy time of things so far- we have very similar perspectives on life and family and money, so we havent had to deal with many conflicts.

But lately our marriage has kind of fallen off of our radars, in terms of something to put our time and energy into.  His new job is great, but it's taking a lot of his energy. And Ethan's teething (when are they not teething!). And the other one million things that are just part of life, but that take up the last bit of energy every day. We're functioning in that "roommate/friend" mode that is so easy to fall into in marriage.  Nothing is wrong per se, but things could be better. 

So I'm trying to figure out easy ways to get the romance and fun back into our marriage. Things that don't require much time or money or energy, because we have little of any of those things left.  I know this is important and that, other than our individual relationships with Christ, our marriage is the most important part of our lives and the foundation of our little family.  And I'd really like to get things a little bit back on track before I get pregnant again, because we all know that that is NOT going to help the situation. 

I think I'm going to dust off some of my Christian marriage books this afternoon if Ethan takes another nap and will see if I can come up with any ideas. But if anyone out there has any suggestions for me, I'd love to hear them. 

Remember how I posted about Children's Hospital last week?

So, last week I was at Children's Hospital to have Ethan evaluated for his little swallowing problem. And I was overwhelmed by all the kids there who are bravely battling actual health problems.

Tonight my friend Lizzie is there with her almost 6-week-old baby girl, Lucy, who was admitted after several days of running a fever. They've been through lots of tests, including a spinal tap today(I cannot even imagine how much that hurt Lizzie and her husband to watch), but there are no answers yet as to what is going on. PRAY for them, please.

Just go to bed already!

Unfortunately, that plea is directed at me, not Ethan or Daniel. They're both soundly asleep.  And I am up late. Again. Despite Ethan being up for about 50% of the night last night and us all having had a very busy day yesterday and having another very busy day on the schedule tomorrow.

I'm so very tired.  But once again, so totally loathe to give up this free time to read my books and play on the computer without the laundry/dishes/diaper changing looming large in the background.

I had a nice day today, we went shopping downtown this morning and I got my cell phone fixed (but didn't talk Daniel into getting me a new phone, darn it) and I bought one cute shirt for now and one that could be cute now but would be really cute if I was pregnant this coming winter (seriously, clothes this season-- totally cute for maternity wear! must get pregnant immediately! oh wait, already trying to work on that). Then we went to a potluck with our beloved church friends whom I haven't seen enough of lately.  We were all dragging from tiredness, as most of our kids got the memo about being awake last night, but it was still good to see them. I love these women- they've totally kept me from going off the deep end this year.  

But now it's night and we're home and I'm tired. But this is MY time and I don't want to go to sleep.  And there was something that came up in conversation today that's been making me really conflicted- several of the moms in my group (out of the 5 moms at the potluck, 3 are stay-at-home moms and 2 are working moms, I'm the only part-time working mom) talked about their husbands trying to give them one night a week when they were expected to go out on their own. Daniel is ALWAYS happy to let me go out whenever I want and has never had a moment's hesitation in any duty sharing. But the idea of me deserving time off has never come up, and I'm totally unsure about this. I work part-time, and he works full-time and has a much longer commute. But on the days that I work, I work 8 hours, then come home and take care of Ethan and clean while he naps and do laundry and organize things... and on and on. But Daniel works 40+ hours a week and has an hour commute in the evenings and gets no time to himself other than his commute and his occasional trip to the gym and his lunches once a week with his friend.

So, have I forfeited any time alone in the evenings by working part-time, since my work brings in almost no money and it's clearly something I'm doing for myself?  Should I be the one telling Daniel that he needs a night off?

WHY DID NO ONE WARN ME OF HOW CONFUSING PARENTHOOD WOULD BE???

Seriously, I don't know whether to hope for a positive or negative pregnancy test in a few weeks (yeah, we're in that fun part of the month when I can't do anything fun or eat anything fun like sushi or wine, just in case there might possibly be a little person trying to grow inside me, but I dont actually know that, so all the rules are just stressing me out). Maybe it would make things more clear cut if I'm home with 2 kids all day. Or not, in which case I'm in trouble, but now it's 11:30 and I'm too tired to think about it anymore.

In search of a new crutch

So, when Daniel and I were talking about trying to have another baby and were weighing the options and discussing optimal scheduling (trying to not be 9 months pregnant at his brother's wedding, trying not to have 2 kids too close together, etc.) and our lack of housing space issue, and me working/staying home... we somehow missed one VERY important thing.

If I'm trying to get pregnant/have a baby, I have to cut out alcohol and caffeine*.

I have a 13-month-old child. And a job. And two cats. And a husband with a long commute and stressful job who is willing to help out at home, but is totally worn out at the end of the day and lately has been spending his evenings talking to his staff members in Vietnam over Skype.

If I dont have alcohol and caffeine, I dont think I can deal with the things mentioned above.

I need to email my close friend, who is Mormon and somehow made it through three years of grad school without alcohol and caffeine. A concept that baffles me to this day. Maybe she'll have some advice.

*- I am a toxicologist and do a lot of developmental/reproductive toxicology work and know that there is not much risk from a small amount of caffeine per day, but I was up to 4 cups of coffee/diet cokes per day in the last several months and so have to cut back drastically.

Another great Thursday

I like Thursdays.  They're one of my two non-work days, so I get to sleep past 5:30 (when Ethan allows it) and have a slower morning and get stuff done. And I have a car most Thursdays, which means I can actually go places that are a little further from home than on my other day at home.  This morning I did laundry (of  course) and made zucchini bread from a zucchini that we had been given by my aunt and uncle.  Apparently the sight of Mommy actually doing something in the kitchen was intriguing/shocking to Ethan, because he happily sat in his highchair and watched me make the bread. Thank goodness, since I'm not sure how I would have managed to get it done otherwise.

Then he napped and ate lunch, and we ran out to Trader Joe's and the library to run some quick errands.

And then we went to Green Lake to meet Liz and Lucy!!! I had to talk to a stranger! :)  Thankfully Liz is great and so easy to talk to, and Lucy is a total doll, and it was a great time.  It's funny to meet up with people whose blogs I've read- I've done it a few times now, and everyone has been as fun in real life as they are online, thank goodness.  In addition to actually getting to have a real conversation with a real adult, the weather here is amazing today- one of those mid 70s Seattle days, with beautiful blue sky and a light breeze. Too perfect.

I think I might have talked Liz's ear off a bit though.  Sadly for her, I got over my fear of strangers a lot quicker than usual. Usually people can count on me being quiet for the first few meetings before I start talking incessantly.  Not so this time. Sorry, Liz!  But Daniel will be so grateful to you when he gets home and I don't talk his ear off as much as usual! 

Ethan kind of has a thing for Liz. He kept trying to hold her hand while we walked around.  Lucy was perfect and slept the whole time.

Haven't forgotten

I didn't actually remember what today's date was until I opened up my blog reader this morning and saw all the posts about 9/11. I knew that it was a Thursday today, but I don't generally know the date on my non-work days.  It's still a hard date to think about, even for those of us who didn't lose anyone close to us.  

I had just moved to Seattle a few weeks before. My parents had actually been out for a relative's wedding and had flown home on 9/10. (Oddly enough, Dad also flew home one day before all the flights in the UK were shut down a few years ago. Do not travel one day after my parents!) I hadn't started grad school yet, and had nothing to do that day, so I slept late. And like today, I didn't know what was going on until I opened my email and started reading emails from friends overseas, wondering what was going on in the US.  So I turned on the TV and sat and watched and cried.  I remember going out later in the day to do some shopping and being surprised the fact that life was going on as normal, but also at how quiet and subdued everyone was. 

Last year Daniel and I took a trip to NYC and visited Ground Zero and some of the buildings nearby, like the church where the rescue workers were stationed. It was a heart wrenching experience.

We have not forgotten all of you who lost loved ones that day or who have continued to sacrifice as military and military families since then to keep our country safe. You are in our prayers.   

Cool! (and not so cool)

So, you remember how Kristen, over at Motherhood Uncensored had the Blog the Recession thing going on? Well, I won this backpack from Land's End (I had completely forgotten that there even were prizes involved and was so shocked to get her email!) It arrived today and looks great! Given that it's about the same size as my kid, I'll probably let Daniel use it instead. He needs a new gym bag and this one will be fabulous. Thanks!

A small vent. I LOVE my husband and he is totally selfless and fabulous about 99% of the time. And I know that I talk way too much and probably say a lot of things that he doesn't need to listen to, but he's pretty much my only adult conversation on any given day, so he's just going to have to deal with it. And I've given him permission to not really listen when I'm droning on about work or mommy blogs or things like that.

But when I call in the morning from work to remind him that something particular REALLY NEEDS TO BE MAILED THAT DAY! and that it's sitting on the counter all ready to go or, that the baby HAS NO DIAPERS AT DAYCARE! and that the diapers and the baby's spare clothes are in a bag in the closet with his usual daycare bag, all ready to go..seriously, LISTEN TO ME!!!!

This is the number 2 thing I don't like about Daniel's new job (#1 is the commute)- he's using up all of his conversational and listening skills at work (and he talks a LOT), since he's a project manager and has to coordinate people and tasks. And he doesn't seem to have any words left to say or hear when he's home. :(

Okay, vent over. Time to go find a snack for Ethan.

Doing so much better

Back in the weeks (and months, let's be honest) leading up to Ethan's birthday, I was NOT doing well. Not at all.  There were days when I just sat in the middle of the living room floor and cried. Which freaked out Ethan, if he was around, and then he'd cry and I'd have to get over it.  Things were particularly bad right before his birthday, when I felt like I was reliving all of the emotions surrounding his birth and was still second guessing the decisions that I made and wondering for the 90billionth time if I could have just pushed a little harder and gotten him out on my own.

And then his birthday came and went and I was suddenly, strangely, fine.  It was like my brain was saying "okay, we made it through this year and those things that happened are all now in the distant past, and whatever."  It was really weird.  I feel like that was a whole different person and am entirely confused as to what her problem was.

Now, I do have to realize that life has also been extremely busy since Ethan turned one and the sun did come out, which also really help my mood.  And Daniel and I are working on a one-year plan for the family, which excites me.  It involves moving and babies and changes to lots of things, but I think it's a realistic plan, and it's a plan for next year, so I don't have to actually do anything for a very long time.  Other than try to have another baby. 

I think the only thing that I'm still feeling angst about right now is my social life. I snapped at Daniel yesterday when he told me he'd been out to lunch with his friend.  Which he totally needs to do and he deserves a break from working so hard.  I was just feeling annoyed because my social life is the thing that has fallen through the cracks lately. My coworkers and I don't really talk much, and my workdays pretty much involve me getting to work at 7, eating lunch at my desk, and leaving at 3 to go pick up Ethan and spend the rest of the evening doing mom stuff. And my days off are filled with walks and playing at home, but it's usually just me and Ethan.  And, although he carries on long, complicated conversations with me all day, I'm not really sure what we're talking about, so mentally stimulating they are not.  Things have been especially bad on this front since Daniel started his new job, because he is VERY VERY busy.  I occasionally catch him online, but never for long, and rarely more than once or twice a day. 

So, I need to figure this out, how to spend more time with friends and get out of my hermit-like habits.  I'm not entirely sure how to go about doing this, as I'm severely limited by my lack of a car 6 days out of the week, and living downtown tends to keep people from visiting me. And since most of my friends are also moms of little ones, coordinating schedules around naptimes and mealtimes is tough.  Weekends are family time, and I'm not willing to give much of that up. Oh, and have I mentioned that I'm completely and utterly scared of talking to people I don't know? It takes me eons to make friends when I meet people because I have such a hard time knowing what to say and I feel so stupid when talking to strangers that it almost paralyzes me at times. There is no good answer here! 

Oh well, something to think about for the rest of the afternoon while I do laundry and dishes, I suppose. :)

Our trip to Children's Hospital

Ethan had an appointment this morning with the occupational therapist at Children's Hospital.  I got teary within seconds of driving onto the campus, as it was a nice day and some of the patients were out for walks with their nurses or parents.  I cannot even remotely imagine what it must be like to have a child with an actual health problem.  The strength of parents with sick kids is amazing. 

We were a little early for our appointment, so sat in the waiting room watching the fishes in the fish tank, which Ethan enjoyed.  The appointment went well, and the occupational therapist was able to pinpoint the problem fairly quickly- Ethan has a problem with oral hypersensitivity, and doesn't like the feel of things in his mouth. She asked how he was doing with having his teeth brushed, and I told her that it's a gigantic wrestling match, as he fights having anything like that put in his mouth with all his strength. I'm not even 100% sure how many teeth he has these days, since he gets very upset when I try to feel his gums.  This is apparently very typical with oral hypersensitivity.

So, we have to try to massage the sides of his mouth with a special little brush and slowly introduce texture into foods that he already likes.  And continue getting him to eat by whatever means necessary, so that he doesn't lose any more weight.  He has a weight check next week, so we'll see how he's doing on that front then.

Now he's off at daycare while I try to catch up on work and not get too distracted by the laundry that needs to be folded or the dishwasher that needs to be unloaded.  I like working from home, but it can be hard to focus sometimes! 

Returning to normalcy

Mom and Dad have returned home, after a very long day of travel. On my end, mucho laundry has been done and our belongings have been shifted back to our bedroom/bathroom. Ethan still stops and looks around the condo occasionally to see if there are any adults around other than Mommy, because Mommy makes stupid rules, like "don't touch the electrical outlet" and he'd really like a second opinion. No luck.

Oh, and it's finally dawned on me that I am hosting a baby shower tomorrow. SO MUCH TO DO. Hopefully it'll all go well and look nice and all. I just want the mom-to-be to have a great time and feel special, that's the most important thing! It's a co-ed/bring your kids shower, so it's probably going to be completely chaotic, with at least 5 one-year olds and some other slightly older kids running around. The parents-to-be will probably end up completely terrified, but it's a little late to change their minds :)

So now just trying to make it through the day at work without falling asleep. I like to set realistic goals like those. Makes me feel like I've accomplished something when I reach the end of the day.

12:30 AM

It's 12:30 AM.  Ethan's asleep, Daniel's asleep, and I think my parents are asleep.  I am not.  I like having family here, and it's been a good visit, but I've had almost no time alone, so I'm finding the need to stay up late to get a moment to breathe. There are a few days every year in which I wish I had a bigger home, and this is one of them.

Tomorrow (today, I suppose) is going to be a tough day. In 10 hours, I'm going to have to go through the once-every-three-month ritual of tearing Ethan away from his grandparents at the airport and watch my mom sob as she walks away, while my dad tries to be strong and not break down himself. All the while feeling guilty for living 3000 miles away, despite the fact that I am back in my ancestral town, and it's my parents who moved away when I was a kid and never returned (although they tried REALLY hard to get back). 

It's been a good visit. But I'm worn out. From socializing all the time, from sharing a room with Ethan, from the giant piles of dishes and laundry that two extra people add to a household.  

I should go to bed so that I'm not completely exhausted on top of everything else. But that would be too logical.  

I was SO not going to blog about this

But the girls over at the WW board are finding it so funny that I thought I should share my humiliation here too.

I mentioned that Daniel and I went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast on Monday morning.
So there we were, waiting for our food, having a nice conversation. A group of beautiful blonde ladies got up from the table next to us and left. A minute later, the hostess made a quiet shriek, and we all looked over to see a pair of underwear sitting on the floor. The hostess and several waiters gathered around to look at the underwear and discuss what to do. They made comments about one of the blonde ladies having dropped the underwear and kept glancing out the door that they had just left through. Finally, the hostess hooked it onto her heel and hopped across the restaurant with the underwear, presumably to the nearest trash can. She returned and she and a waiter giggled about it for a while longer.

About halfway through this whole thing, I began to have the nagging feeling that the underwear looked familiar. Like a pair that I had tossed into the washer with the jeans that I was wearing that morning. I dont use dryer sheets anymore (got out of the habit since I dont use them with Ethan's clothes) and the underwear had stuck to the jeans until I walked enough for them to fall out, right there on the floor.

Moral of the story- check your clothes carefully! :)

September already?

I CANNOT believe that it's the 3rd of September already. Just way too unbelievable. This year has gone so fast.

Daniel and I had a lovely time on Sunday and Monday. We went downtown after church and lunch with the family and spent some time walking around and shopping before heading to our hotel. We stayed at the Arctic Club Hotel, which just opened a few months ago. It used to be a men's club (opened in 1908) for goldminers that made money in the Alaska Gold rush. We had a nice dinner and went to see Shrek at the 5th Avenue Theatre. The musical was great! The actor that played Lord Farquaad totally stole the show, in my mind, but all the other actors were fabulous as well. We enjoyed breakfast at the hotel and then headed back home to the condo, where Ethan and my parents were all still intact and healthy.

Then a few hours later we all piled into the car and drove up north a bit to meet Daniel's brother and his brother's fiancee for dinner. Their wedding is going to be very low-key, so much so that they apparently don't need to do much planning or actually set a date anytime soon. This does not sit well with me, because I need to have a schedule at all times. I finally got them to tell me that the wedding would probably be around Memorial Day. This is actually fairly important for me to know, for reasons other than my insane need for having things on my calendar in advance. We're actually trying to have another baby, and I really don't want to totally mess up the wedding by giving birth around that time and having me and/or Daniel not be able to travel up to Canada for the wedding. So, it looks like we'll probably have to wait a few more months to resume trying to produce another munchkin, as getting pregnant this month would put my due date pretty close to the end of May.

So, that's the recap of events going on around here. Mom and Dad head home tomorrow, so the reprogramming of Ethan will begin tomorrow afternoon. And I'm hosting a baby shower on Saturday, so there are many many things on my to-do list for the rest of the week. Sunday I plan to sleep all afternoon!