AUGUST 2008 ~ BUMP BUDDIES

[tinaO]

Hello all!

Rebecca - So glad your vacation went so well. That is wonderful! It sounded so relaxing. I know going back to work is tough - it is weird. Last week was my first week back and it is hard, but I also welcome the adult interaction and getting back into the groove of things. All my hard work before maternity leave is paying off as my sales are starting to happen, so I am very lucky...even if things are a little crazy right now at work. It will all slow down by Thanksgiving. I have Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks off. I am looking forward to it! Connor is going to the Goddard School, right? My friend put her children at the one here and they LOVE IT! She said they take such great care of them. Noah will eventually go there, but for now our neighbor is watching him 2 1/2 days a week. My husband watches him the other 2 1/2 days a week and on those days, I usually work at home to help out some. So, we are lucky. It is working well for us so far. Once my husband goes back to work, he will go to the neighbor full time until January. Then he will go to the Goddard School. I don't know. It is tough, though. It was so hard to leave Noah the first time!!! I felt like I abandoned him. I am also lucky though as he is right up the street, so I can work at home and run up at lunch and feed him...which I do. That will change when he goes to the Goddard School.

Noah has now started sleeping through the night! We are so thankful. He slept for 9 hours the other night! It isn't the most peaceful sleep as he stirs a lot, but hey - we will take it. Last night he went to bed at 10:15 p.m. and slept until almost 7 a.m. Napping is a problem for him, so we are really working at that now. It is getting better, but it requires a bit of work. I realize now that naps are important though and we have to somewhat force them on him...which he seems to be understanding now. It makes him less fussy in the evening.

I played bunco with a group of neighborhood women the other night - it was a lot of fun. We are all getting together on Halloween night after trick-or-treating in front of one of the neighbor's houses and doing a parade with all the kids in their costumes. It was my idea as an old neighborhood we lived in used to do it - it was so cute! They lined up chairs and ordered pizza and beer for the adults...while the kids paraded in their costumes in front of everyone...while the parents cheered. The kids loved it. So, we are going to do it with at least 12 sets of parents. I said we get to lead it since it was my idea - ha ha!

Ok, better run. My husband is playing golf today and Noah and I are going walking in the cooler weather. Finally! It had been so hot here. I still have not lost anymore weight. I walk probably 6 days a week. I just don't get it. Oh well.

Take care all!

[seltzer]

Hi all,

Long time no write. Glad to hear all is well with everyone. Things are good on this end as well. Keira is doing great--she slept for 8.5 hours straight two nights ago. I was like a pig in sh*t, LOL. Usually she has been sleeping about 6 hours at a stretch, which I think is fantastic. I am a little more rested. She is smiling up a storm and talking (cooing) like crazy. I have pretty much made my decision not to return to work...I cannot believe this is something I want to do, but I never knew what it would be like to have a baby. I cannot leave Keira at a daycare, though it's a great daycare. I just want to be with her all the time. We are going to cut our son down to 3 or 2 days/week at a daycare, & he will stay home w/me and the baby on the other days. I haven't told work yet...am totally terrified to do it. I really am freaking out over it. I figure I will stay home for as long as I want...maybe till the baby is 18 mos. or so. We'll see. DP is totally supportive and doesn't want Keira to be left at daycare either. Tough decision! On the weight loss front, I have about 6 lbs. to go till I am at my pre-preg weight...and then another 10 to reach my ultimate goal. I've been going to Weight Watchers & have lost 6 lbs. doing that so far. It's pretty easy. I haven't really exercised, though. I have still been struggling w/a lot of depression & anxiety. I don't have anymore time right now b/c the baby is getting agitated...but I wanted to fill you all in. Tina - thanks for the scheduling info. I am not strict w/the schedule but try to implement some of the guidelines. Who is the neighbor that is watching Noah? Is it a friend?

Gotta run for now...

[sharishu]

Hello Everyone-
I know it's been a WHILE since I posted last. I was in New York for almost 3 weeks for the Jewish holidays. It was GREAT seeing friends and family. It's sort of my 'reenergizing' trip for the year. I got so many presents, Elia is set for at least a year.

I am glad to see everyone is doing so well with their babies. Congrats, Tina and Seltzer, on Noah and Keira's great sleeping. Rebecca- glad you enjoyed your trip, and glad to hear that Connor is doing well. Elia slept well last night despite the long trip and 7 hour time difference; he slept from 11 to almost 5am, and then till 9am after his bottle, so not too bad!

I still have about a month of maternity leave left (I was paid for 4 months) and I will be setting up an interview with the person in charge of related services in special ed schools in my city. Seems promising! I haven't told my old boss of my plans to work elsewhere, but she told a co-worker that she has a feeling I don't want to return. I guess not having called her since my son's birth, it's easy to see how she drew that conclusion . As far as daycare, I need to check out my options now, too. There are women who set up daycare facilities in their house, and I have some good recommendations. So we'll see.

Gotta get some rest. I am majorly jetlagged.

xo,
Shari

[tryw8]

Hi Everyone!

I know that I've been absent and busy.

We baptized our son this past Sunday 10/26. He's three months old today. ... FINALLY ... He sleeps through the night. Hope everyone is doing good. I return to work 11/4. Not really looking forward to it, though. (It has to be done. My checking account is getting depleted.)

Have a Happy Halloween!

Karen

[tinaO]

Hello all! All is well here. Noah has now decided that sleeping 9 hours at night is fine with him. Amazing! I used to use him as my alarm clock in the morning for work, now I keep over sleeping! He is just such a happy baby, too. Our neighbor that watches him part time thinks he is just the easist baby. Personally, I think he puts on a bit of a show for her!

Halloween was such fun. Noah was a monkey. I will post a pic on our photobucket site of me and him. My husband and I walked around the neighborhood with other neighbors and drank wine - such fun! Then about 30 of us gathered together to have a costume parade of the kid's costumes. It was a lot of fun.

Amazing how much easier things are now, huh? Those crazy first few weeks seem like forever go! I am adjusting to being back at work. It is hard some days, but oh well. Gotta do what you gotta do.

Seltzer - So, you going to be a FT mommy??? WOW! Good for you!! I love Noah to pieces, but I am not sure I could do it full time. I just don't know. I would love to work PT, but that just won't work for my job. And to tell you the truth, I have the best of both worlds right now. My husband is still watching him 2 1/2 days a week from the house and I just usually work from home those days. That way I don't have to be away from Noah as much! How are you getting along these days? How is Ms. Keira?? Congrats on your weight loss! I have not lost a pound in probably 6 weeks. It sucks! Oh, the neighbor watching our son is one of my best friend's moms. She watches my friends kids, too....it is my friend's house and her mom just comes every day to the house to watch her kids. The kids love Noah! She has 2 little girls and a little boy and they just adore Noah. Problem is that they are all over him all the time - not long before Noah gets sick I am sure from all the germs! She is wonderful to Noah and so we feel very blessed to have her right now. Have you told work you are not going back yet???

Karen - your son is a cutie!! He has gotten so big!! How much does he weigh now? Noah was 11 pounds and 12 ozs at his 8 week check up (although he was 9 weeks at the time). So glad he is sleeping through the night - yeah!!

Shari - How awesome for you that you got to go back to NY. I bet it was wonderful! Hoave you decided what to do about day care yet? I am now debating a nanny option. I don't know! Our neighbor was just a short term solution - through the end of the year.

Rebecca - are you back at work?? How is it going? Is your son at the Goddard school?

Ok, gotta run. We are going out running errands today.

Take care all!

Tina

[seltzer]

Hey everyone,

OMG Karen! Cody is SO CUTE. COngrats on his baptism. It will probably be a while before Keira gets baptized. We aren't very on top of it and plus they usually don't baptize babies in the Episcopal Church until they are a little bit older. I don't love our church either, so that doesn't help, LOL. I can't say I am the most religious person.

Tina - How great that you can send Noah next door and you feel comfortable with the woman who's watching him. Even better that your DH is watching him 2.5 days/week. I must say I am so jealous that he is sleeping 9 hours every night! Keira did 9 hours one night and has done 7-8 hours on other nights, so she's getting there, but she normally does less than that...maybe like 6. Yes, I am being a stay at home mom until further notice. I feel a little freaked out about the decision and NEVER thought I'd want to do it. But I just cannot leave her with anyone else, period. I can't do it. I didn't know I would feel this way. I absolutely LOVE taking care of her. Go figure! I have never been an overly nurturing or maternal person, but I guess weirder sh*t has happened. LOL. I do miss work a lot, and am remaining on the payroll on a per diem basis as a consultant. I am trying to get my mother to watch the baby one day/week so I can work. I am taking everything a day at a time right now...still struggling with the anxiety and depression too. I hate my body and feel so fat and unattractive. I have lost weight, yes, but I have a ways to go. It's depressing. Last week I weighed in and GAINED 1.2 lbs. I was beside myself. I am getting really impatient with my abdomen, too. It's not the way I want it to be...I am doing crunches but it's not up to snuff yet. DP says it takes time, so I am trying not to freak out. I would like to get back to the gym and lifting weights. Right now, though, it's hard for me to get up in the morning and do basic crap like showering, preparing bottles, etc. Ugh.

The big news on my end is that yesterday we had a fire in our house. It was TERRIFYING. We are all OK, thank God, including our dog and cat. It was about 6 a.m. and I had just finished feeding the baby and was going back to sleep. DP and DS were downstairs getting ready for the day. Suddenly the fire alarm went off, and I assumed DP set it off doing something stupid...never thought it was a actual fire. I stayed in bed for a few minutes hoping it would shut off and when it didn't I headed to the stairs down into the kitchen. The baby was asleep in her cosleeper in my bedroom. When I got to the top of the stairs everything happened really fast: I heard DP scream: "Get out of the house!!" and she bounded up the stairs with our son & handed him to me. Right then I saw smoke billowing up the staircase into the living room (my bedroom is on the same floor as the living room and the front door). I grabbed my son and ran into the bedroom and grabbed the baby. My poor son was screaming and crying, just scared to death. I ran toward the front door off the living room and DP had gone back downstairs into the fire. I freaked out and screamed "Get out of the house!!" and ran outside onto the front porch. Two seconds later DP came out onto the porch, Thank God. She had put out the fire w/our fire extinguisher. She was going to fry some eggplant (at 6 a.m. mind you, she is insane) in a pan on the stove and forgot about it. There was about a 1/4 cup of olive oil in the pan and it ignited. She had gone upstairs for a minute to get a pair of pants for DS, and she heard the alarm go off. When she ran downstairs DS and our dog were at the gate at the bottom of the stairs crying and yelling, and there was smoke everywhere. I have to urge all of you to get a fire extinguisher if you don't already have one. Get the kind that puts out grease fires. The insurance company said we would have lost our entire first floor at least if DP hadn't put it out. OMG, so horrifying. DS was upset all day over it. A professional cleaning company is at the house now cleaning the mess and assessing the damage. We won't be able to go back into the house until this evening. The kitchen was damaged but thankfully not completely ruined. The stove and cabinets caught on fire, and of course all the appliances and stuff are ruined b/c of the chemicals in the fire extinguisher.

OK, well, enough blabbing from me. Everyone be safe & hope you had a better Halloween than I did.

[tryw8]

Hi Everyone:

We survived our first Halloween with Cody. DH wanted to dress him up as the blue M&M. Cody is now cooing and still kicking his legs plenty. They only thing that gets me is when he is sound asleep (really deep sleeping), he wakes up crying ... it's a scared or pitiful cry. I'm not sure if he's dreaming a nightmare. FYI: we tried the soy based formula. No problem with taste. Cody was probably constipated from it. He had difficulty pushing out at the time of bowel movement.

TinaO - At Cody's 8 week appointment which was actually @ 10 weeks, he was 12 lbs. 11 oz. and 23.75 inches long. Yes, it's so good that he sleeps through the night. But he's so cranky before we get him to go to sleep.

seltzer - We just had a new pastor at our church. We got to meet him when I was still preggers and we requested him to bless our new car. He does things a little different than the other pastor ... it's like a breath of fresh air.

I am glad to hear that you all are okay and survived the fire.

Few more days counting and back to work. I trying to figure out how am I and where am I going to "pump" at the office in private.

So sorry to post photos here. For the life of me, I can't remember the photobucket account to post my photos at. I do have my own, though.

Karen

[seltzer]

Where is everyone? Is everyone OK?? I posted a recent pic of Keira on photobucket. Hope you all are well...someone write soon!!

[seltzer]

Tina and Michele - I just saw your baby Halloween pics. TOO CUTE!! Thanks for posting them.

Shari - where are you? Hope everything is OK with you and Elia.

[sharishu]

Hey all!
I was thinking the same thing, Seltzer. Wheeere's everyone? Well, I guess we are all busy with our precious little bundles. I just posted on photobucket as well. OMG Seltzer, Keira is adorable! Those eyes!

Tina and Michele- I love those little halloween photos! How fun!

The baby gets up in the middle of the night a LOT for his pacifier. Help! I need sleep...

Hope to hear from you all soon.
Shari

[tinaO]

Hi all! All is great here - thankfully, Noah is still sleeping through the night. He will usually go down around 10 p.m. and sleep until around 6:30 or 7 a.m. His problem can be napping! When our neighbor watches him, he just doesn't want to nap up there for long! Poor thing came home yesterday and slept from 6-8:15 p.m. Then we fed him and he slept on my chest for another hour. We fed him a little more and put him to bed and he slept until 7 a.m. Oh well - would rather him sleep at night! I do worry a bit about his napping, though.

Shari - we stopped giving Noah his pacifier at night for that exact reason. I was so worried about him losing it and then looking for it! Ugghhh!!! Can you wait until he falls asleep and then pull it out of his mouth or will he still look for it? We do that with Noah sometimes to help him fall asleep and then quickly take it out before we put him down. We just need to teach Noah to fall asleep on his own. We still swaddle him and walk him around to get him to go to sleep. But he is sleeping so soundly at night now which is great. He used to make so much noise.

Seltzer - how is the stay at home mom thing going? I will check out the pics later on photobucket but am at work now.

Noah's head is a little flat on one side from his sleep position. We need to work on that!

Ok, gotta run. Hope all is well with everyone!

[sharishu]

Tina-
He WAS sleeping through the night, but now he is addicted to his passy! I don't know how to break him of it, I hope it passes. I did take it out of his mouth last night without him waking, but he was still looking for it again at 3 in the morning... and 4.... and 5. Oysh! I am glad Noah is doing so well, esp. since you started working. I went on an interview, and sent out my resume to some places, as I want to change jobs. How is work going?

Okay, off to eat breakfast before the little man starts kvetching.

Have a great day all!
Shari

[seltzer]

Hey everyone,

Things aren't that great on this end...I do like doing the stay at home mom thing, but the baby is having sleeping issues and this is making my life difficult. I am so damn tired. She was sleeping through the night and now all of a sudden not only is she waking up, but when she is asleep she keeps me awake. She cries out in her sleep a lot, grunts, thrashes, snorts, you name it. It is so aggravating. I will go to her to pick her up when she cries out and see that she's asleep. I don't usually pick her up - I just try to soothe her. If I do pick her up I just wait till she falls asleep on my shoulder and then put her right back down. So frustrating. DP and I aren't getting along very well either. I am so sick and tired of her behavior. I think DP is extremely immature and I've just had it. If I had a way to walk out the door now without hurting our son and had a place to go, I would leave. I feel very stuck right now, but it's important to me to keep my emotions in check b/c of the kids. Anyway...does anyone have any advice about the sleeping? Keira uses her paci to go to bed, too, and usually she doesn't cry out for it once she's dropped it. Hopefully that won't become a problem too. How often are your babies eating? She was eating about every 2.5-3 hours, but since her feedings have spread out her schedule has gotten a bit screwed up. The Baby Whisperer book says 3.5 month olds should be on a 3.5 schedule, and that 4 mos olds should be on a 4 hr schedule. How do you transition them? I can't necessarily get her to eat more at a feeding, and then she ends up missing a feeding and waking up in the middle of the night. I have become a total baby scheduling freak, which is pretty funny since this is (was) so not me. I love the schedule!! Has anyone's baby's laughed or rolled over yet? Keira is trying so damn hard to laugh...she has giggled a little but not completely laughed. She is also trying desperately to roll over but hasn't succeeded yet. She talks a lot, too - a lot of "gooos" and "cooos", etc. She is so good-natured. I am in kind of a bad mood today, so I am going to sign off. I am so miserable about my marriage right now (DP and I are legally married, which complicates things if, God forbid, we ever split up). Glad to hear you all are well...

[tinaO]

Seltzer - Sorry things are not going so well for you. Babies are wonderful little creatures, but they do add a level of complication to a relationship. You have been through so many changes...esp now being a stay-at-home mom. That requires a whole other level of adjustment. I had to laugh about Keira's noises. Noah had become the most sound sleeper and then all of a sudden last night, he was a mess. All night he cried out, grunted, groaned, etc. But he was asleep the whole time. It made us nuts all night. I have a terrible cold and have been sick all weekend, so it really sucked. Oh geez - I hope this is not the beginning of him doing that on a consistent basis.

I need to run to a mtg, but will post later about the scheduling thing. I am also worried about the transition! And Noah is still having problems holding his head up!!!

Hang in there!!!

[tryw8]

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed since I've returned to work. DH still treats me as if I'm still I'm full time staying home.

He royally screwed up dinner the other night. I wanted to call him an IDIOT but I couldn't because he was carrying a sleeping Cody. All I could do was go into the shower and cry. I had prepped a chicken spinach casserole. So when I come home, to pop in the over. I told Mark to preheat the oven. I put the dish in and then I went to start preparing for the following nights dinners. After an hour, I went to go get the dish, I noticed the the oven light wasn't on. (We use a table top oven on the outside patio rather than our range oven.) I opened the foil cover, the dish wasn't even cooked. One could see the red blood from the chicken floating on the top. I went inside and asked if he turned it on timer? He got defensive and said, "No." Okay, let me repeat that question another way ... Did you turn the knob to the left or the right? Right is on timer and left is manual. This is the first time that guy has ever preheated the oven that way by using the timer. The light was on when I went to put the dish in, though. I should have rechecked what he did. ..... then he adds salt to the wound by saying, "No wonder I didn't smell anything." DUH! If the idiot didn't smell anything, come and get me. He was with Cody in the Lazy Boy. I was so filled with disgust that I told DH he could eat out, I was just going to wait another hour for the chicken to cook. I was so angry. I went to take a cold shower.

I don't know how working mothers do it but I've got an idiot for a husband. He doesn't help out. His common sense is out the door. I never had any postpartum despression after I delivered but I've got it NOW.

Yesterday was all too classic. We went to the Mall for the first time in months and now with Cody. First, pack diaper bag with necessities and then the stroller. I think the last time we went to the mall ... was March 2008. Anyways, after being at the mall for an hour and a half, we returned to the car. We were freaking out because our car wasn't there. My brand new 2008 Toyota RAV-4! OMG! The thoughts were racing in our heads. We walked around in worry. While waiting for the cops to come so we could file a stolen vehicle report, we realized when we calmed down, we were on the wrong floor! We parked on the floor below. We've never been like this. I guess having Cody tells you were our focus is.

Cody did really well during his adventure to the mall. Even mommy and daddy too. I had to change his diaper while we were out. Managed a formula feeding also. It's a good thing I brought his frontal carrier. He was so fussy in the stroller. I picked him up and he was hot and sweaty. So I strapped him on my front. He enjoyed that especially looking around. I had to face him toward me because he can't hold up his head yet.