Andi Pandi

As you all know, there is really no such thing as TMI when it comes to these blog thingies, so here are my thoughts:

1. Since returning to work I have been pumping like a Mad Cow to make Sophie's breakfast and lunch for the next day.  The pump I have (Medela--the only way to go), is lovely and has a HUGE amount of suction behind it.  So I am wondering--why don't my boobs get hickeys around them when I use it?  Seriously, sometimes I have to actually use my finger to liberate my poor little booblette from the grip of the suction...

2.  How come I am only 2 or 3 pounds away from my pre-preg weight and NONE of the clothes I owned before will fit me?  Why am I not an eight again?  How can it be that different?

3.  How come when we walked when I was pregnant and weighing in the 180s, I was tired but not exhausted and now, weighing in the 150s, if I put Sophie in the Bjorn and go for a walk I feel like I am going to die?  I was lugging her around INSIDE my body and it didn't seem to bother me as much?  Where is the logic there?

4.  How come on the days I get more than 6 hours of sleep (we consider that a Baby Jesus Miracle at our house), I am actually MORE tired than if i get like 4 hours?  Is it because I never actually get to sleep?

5.  You know those little ridges we all got in our fingernails whilst preggo?  Why didn't those go away?  I look like I have a little mountain range in my finger nails?

6.  Why didn't the thick hair have the courtesy to stick around?

I guess those are all my musings.  If you have any thoughts or additional ideas, leave 'em in the comments.

lovie lovie!

Well, I apologize for not being a more diligent blogger...or even in the very least "picture poster".  I could do better, but it takes many steps and it wears me out after I have just spent time emailing out all the pics to family etc...so anyway...she is growing like a total weed!!  She got her first toof on Mother's Day--yay me!  You could hear the screaming all the way to the coast I am certain.  Actually, she handled it pretty well considering it must hurt like a total buggar.

She took her second plane trip last week out to Arizona to see her nana and pana and aunt leese and uncle blaine and alll the rest of her family.  She did great with it.  I on the other hand, am totally worn out.  So here you have it: pictures.

This is her serious, concentrating face.  Thank you for ignoring the green beans on her outfit!

I am the worst sick person ever.  I only get sick with the head-cold-congestion-aches-and-pains-crap about twice a year and twice a year I revert to a  three year old.  I get other things: stomach bugs and uti's and random other stuff, but when The Cold hits me?  I am a disaster of a human being.

I want to be cuddled on the couch like a three year old.  I want to eat but nothing sounds good.  Steve indulged me last night by standing in the kitchen asking:

Do you want soup?

um, I don't know, what kind?

Do you want a turkey sandwich?

I don't know, that turkey has pepper on it and my throat burns

Do you want pizza?

I don't know

Do you want cereal?

Maybe, what kind?

Do you want a milk shake?

Yeah, maybe

Do you want a slush from Sonic?

Yes. Thank you. Cranberry. A big one.

(The italics don't really represent correctly the amount of whining and patheticness accompanying these words.)

Poor, guy.  If it had been me, I would have asked about the soup, made the soup, served the soup and smiled sweetly.  He has endless patience with me.

What's different this time?  Well, she is tiny, and screams.  So, where I used to nurse myself back to wellness by laying on the couch and moaning, I now have competition.  I have found already that I can exist on little or even NO sleep at all.  Now I am finding that I can not only exist, but function pretty darned well.  Even when my head was so stuffy I was certain that trolls had snuck inside and built a booger-wall, I still smiled when Steve handed her to me at three in the morning to feed.

So, my whining has cooled a little and my self pity has calmed a little.  I used to be ANDI WITH A COLD LOOK OUT!  Now I am just andi, baby-mama, with a cold.  (in lower case, much less dramatic).

Not going to apologize again for not posting in a while...just going to get on with it.

I came back to work last week.  Only two and a half days a week.  It still seems like an eternity when you know your kid is at daycare with other kids who are probably hurting her as we speak! gah!  okay, alright, they are probably nice kids, even though I walked in one day and saw two little boys on either side of her swing pushing her back and forth at whip-lash speeds...and the little ADD/ADHD case named, well I better not say, who wants to put his face right up in my boobies when I am nursing the baby at lunch time: what are you doing, why is she doing that, how can she eat that, that is so gross, did my mom do that with me, how old are you, i am three and on and on and on ad nauseum.

So upon my return to work I came in contact with the only aspect of my office that i hate: The Stink Hole.  It is the single stall bathroom on the second floor that everyone universally uses as the poo-room.  I am sure it seemed like a good idea at the time--this way there is no stinking up the big bathroom and the remaining 4 stalls in there.  buuuuut, The Stink Hole has NO FAN!!  That means that the smell just sort of festers in there.  And it is warm.  Like abnormally warm.  Like compost-pile warm.  So you walk in and are slapped in the face with this hot, moist, septic tank situation.

At some point I think someone attempted to either spray something or burn something or exorcize the room or something because there is also a faint flowery smell.  Mixed in with the poo smell.

Has no one every heard of the courtesy flush?  Sure, you may get a little spray on your fanny, but in Europe they call that a bidea!  Its chic.  It is like a short bath for your ass.  Go with it!

The only potential solution would be to somehow prop the door open a little when it is vacant, but then that smell would waft through the entire second floor and nauseate the staff and raise absenteeism rates and everything would well, go in the shitter to be frank.

The benefit of The Stink Hole is this:  I have had to use it before.  Typically I will turn blue holding "it" in until I am at my home potty, but occasionally (too much fiber? I don't know) I have to use it.  So I wait until I am about to come undone, run in there and do the entire deed on one breath of fresh air.  I am a speed-pooper!

Frankly, I am suprised though that the room doesn't glow sort of green or have a little flame burning like at the dump.  Not only that, but I know who the lingering offenders are.  The people who spend like 30 minutes in there.  THERE AREN'T EVEN ANY MAGAZINES!  I think some of the older people just go in there to warm up.  (It can be chilly in here with the industrial air conditioners blowing all day).

So there it is: My Rant for the day.  I will try to come up with something fun to tell you next time and i PROMISE to be better about the posting.

Lovie!!

Hello Lovlies,

I have not been not-blogging.  I just haven't had a whole lot to report.  Woah, did I actually say that?  That's insane.  There is plenty to report. 

First, Little Girl Sophie is doing great.  She is up to a whopping 13 pounds, 14 ounces at three months old!  Me and my boobs are so proud!  My boobs and I finally came to an agreement that they would stop whining about being sore all the time and I, in return would stop hating them. Now, there is no pain and the nursing is going great and we are all getting along splendidly.

Second, I am officially lame and old and pathetic.  The on-going car fiasco that began with me wanting a four-door car to replace my sporty little two door car that the car-seat won't fit in, ended (somehow) in my owning a minivan.  We went to Arizona to visit Leesie the Sissy and rented a van and I loved it.  So, now I have a van and it is loverly.  and blue! (and of course I have no pics yet...sorry).  It really feeds my inner border-collie....this way I can round everyone up and transport them all, with all their gear!

Third, I am turning 30 in 18 days and not dealing with that too well.  I kinda feel like I was too grown up in my 20s or something.  I guess I went to Vegas several times and gambled and saw the titty-shows and everything, but I never did the whole spring break mexico thing or anything like that and that sucks because i realize now (that i am enormous in my post-pregnancy insanity) that i was so cute and tiny and should have run around all the time in a bikini, and why the hell didn't i think of that then?  dammit.  So, thirty.  Thirty with a minivan.

I am a public nurser and am starting to fancy myself a sort of Lactivist.  I see nothing wrong with it and I feel like I am fairly discreet and I even give people dirty looks BACK when they give them first.  Nursing is great, everyone else go to hell.  Okay that seems a little severe, but after getting through the pain and the agony of learning how, I think I am super-mommy now!

I only lack 8 more pounds until I am back to my prebaby weight and about 20 pounds until I am at a weight I will feel good about myself again with.  I am dreading having to put work clothes back on, because every pair of pants I own is going to fit like spandex leggings eeeep!

And now, what you came here for: pictures!!

This is funny!  When we went visiting in Arizona this month, we had nowhere for little one to sleep, so my sister put a pillow and blankie in her laundry basket and that was her little bed!  We loved it!

There we are on the airplane!  She slept the entire time.  I think this photo may be the only moment she was not connected to the boob though.  I was like a raisen after her nursing for two and a half hours!

This is so sexy and sweet all at the same time!  I wanna kiss her cheeks and I wanna....well, nevermind what I want to do to him! eeep!

She is gonna kill me for putting her girlie-bits on the internet!

We're all squashed up napping.  This is my favorite part! (except for the sexy man with the Bjorn!)

We're home!  After a month at mom and daddy's house, we have made it safely home.  Not without the required amount of mama-drama though:

As hubby and daddy were loading up the car and moving cars around in the drive way, my precious car took a wound to the driver's side fender that involved a big crunch from the bumper of an (uninjured) f-150...booo hoooo!

So we decide we have to drive it home, and after much evaluation, hubby and daddy decide that the car is road worthy and we have nothing to worry about.  Do you THINK that possibly stopped me from worrying?  In the first 30 miles of the journey home, I must have mentioned to steve (20 times) that we could

• a. not afford an accident right now,
• b. the medical care in that part of the country was sub-par (and i knew it first hand) and
• c. OUR PRECIOUS BABY IS IN THE FREAKING BACK SEAT!

After that amount of time though I finally unclenched and decided to relax by speaking non-stop for another 90 or so miles about crap that no one on earth cares about.  (How far did I walk to class in college? NO ONE, INCLUDING YOUR HUSBAND CARES BITCH!) Then, it started to get sorta rainy and sleety out.  Yay! New stuff to worry about! Then it went from a little sleety to down right icey.  And then it went to scary-icey.  And then we were like the minority by NOT being in the ditch! weeeee!  The last 75 miles though was like totally nerve wrenching.  Baby: screaming, Mama: biting nails and recalling broken-leg memories, Hubby: trying not to throw the car in the ditch to end all the tension and screaming.

We arrived safely.  Just in time to be iced in the house for three days.  (And do you think I have gotten around to unpacking yet? no. ha!  you are so funny.)

Enough of this crap already, here are your pictures! yay!

Sophie will now officially smile at you when you smile at her first! (and sometimes when you do nothing at all and she has gas!)

Her aunt leesie named this the Vibration Station.  We think she has little tiny baby-gasms...

I love this picture.  It looks like she is giving me "a look" about something. (Like the way it takes me more than 7 seconds to undo my top and get her fed?  Can we improve on that time mom? Are you really doing your best here?)

I love THIS one because her pants could not possibly be up any higher!  She is so long that she needs to wear 3 to 6 month old clothes, but is kinda thin so the waists are huge on her!

Sleeptime baby. I was able to keep aunt leesie from putting lip gloss on her pouty little lips!

And this one is the Creme:

Haaaaa! She burps best in the sitting-up-face-squashed position, but I am sooo saving this one for the first prom date she brings home!

Hello my lovlies...

I am still at mom and dad's.  I am returning home this week though and that means: pictures, posts and lots and lots of random crap from my brain!  It will be So. Exciting.  Er, at least not quite as boring as leaving the same damn thing up here all the time.  Sorry.

Bethiclaus and I are scheming together to be big dieters!  Her new years resolution is to get to 140 by July 4th.  Mine is to get to 130 by July 4th!  I love having a diet buddie!  (Mostly because non-dieting entities cannot understand how heinous it is to have to make a meal out of celery and rice cakes with butter flavored sprinkles.)

In that vein, I have a big suprise (bigger than you think...and maybe nauseating to boot) for you next week when I get home...It will be the kick off of my diet and may actually scare me into submission.

My girlfriend emilita found out that she is having a little boy this spring and I am so darned excited for her and yes...i may potentially have thought something like "oh, he will be such a nice boy for Sophie to marry, from such good people and with good morals and values"...But I swear, I will try not to think that way for another 20 years...it makes me sound like a 50 year old Jewish woman!

Okay, I tried to start a flickr account, and you know what?  It was more of a pain than it was worth.  I already have shutterfly and snapfish accounts and now to have to sit and wait while pics upload to flickr?  it is too much for me.  Oh, also, there are a few people that I know that like to have pics mailed to them, either in print or email and I am just UP TO HERE in pictures...I need like one central program that will let me order prints or books or whatever and also link to this blog.

Okay last thing:

New Years Resolutions:

1. Lose this damn weight.  I weighed 191 when Sophie was born and I weigh about 160 today.  I want to weigh 130. but will settle for 135.

2. Learn how to post links in my blog. (CHECK).  I had to actually go and read the stupid manual online, but I finally know how and I am thinking I am the very cool red-headed step child of the Blog community now for learning this.  (as you can see, I have posted two links in this entry and woah...i am exhausting myself with the coolness).

3.  Redo this blog.  So i went ahead and paid for the blog...sigh...which means i am committing to doing it now. (the last year was a personal-beta for me).  So now, I need to come up with some things to make this look nice....am sad that Zoot gave up on this stuff...sniff, sniff...

4.  Stop crying every single time the baby cries.  I can stand her little fussy stuff, but when she is just sobbing and crying and I can't figure it out, i feel like a total failure and cry along with her.  This. Must. Stop.

5.  Finish the cute little quilt i made for bethi's daughter...I gave up on it after our meeting last year fell through, but I really do think that later is better than never, so I am going to at least try to get the stitching done...or mail her the pieces, i don't know which one.

That's all.  That is all I have for now.  These aren't really good resolutions are they?  These are more like short term goals.  I need to think this through a little more.

Hello....er...(shuffles feet)....sorry I haven't been here in um, three weeks....it's not you, it's me.

I have been up at mom and dad's house for the holidays and while they do have the internet up here and I have not lost feeling in my fingers, I just haven't had much to say.  ("WHAT!!  You have a new baby that you owe us pictures of!")  Okay.  You're right.

Only one problem..I don't have any software to fix the pictures with and if I upload them at the size they are at right now? It will take a lifetime for them to load etc. 

So I promise promise promise that I will do it after January 7th when I get home.

Promise.

If you can't wait? Email me and I will send the enormous pics to you!

Okay...that said: I will attempt to make this an actual entry of some sort. (bullets of course, because I am too lazy to try to string together a coherent train of thoughts)

• Christmas was just lovely.  Our whole family was together and the weather was beautiful, which is unheard of in this part of the country.
• I got a new video camera that records to these cool little tiny dvd's, so eventually, if i try really hard, i will learn how to put video up here! eeep!
• Little Sophie is doing great.  She is growing like a weed.  At seven weeks now, she is already out of all of her 0-3 month old clothes.  She is super long and is getting even better at the neck control thing...although she still looks like a bobble head most of the time.  Mommy Milestone: I can now call out to her in the night and say "mommy's here" and she will stop crying long enough for me to get to her room! yay!
• Baby Blues Update: still here, but getting better.  I am trying to take it all one day at a time and smile with my little girl...but occasionally the blues get to me. 
• Boobie Update: Nursing is going much better.  A course of antibiotics and some pain meds and everything seems to be running smoothly now. 
• Fat Bootie Update: I am now down to a size 12.  I have lost 30 lbs since I delivered.  I am going to start dieting in January and try to get the last 20 or so pounds off...THEN maybe the blues will start to fade a little more too--right now i look like a deflated balloon!

At the tender age of three weeks, my darling little girl has a favorite song, and while it is not annoying now? I have a feeling this could be the end of my sanity.  One can only listen to A-Weem-A-Wep over and over so many times, right?  Her daddy dances around with her and sings The Lion Sleeps Tonight as if we are willing her to actually obey and fall asleep.  Not so much.

This is her squashy burp face.  We have to work her to death to get one teeeeensy little burp out and I am the worst at it.  Her daddy? The Burp-Meister.

Sophie got to meet her Grandpa last week: The Original Nap King.  This is one of the rare pictures that at least one of them is awake in.

Remember the pics I promised like a year ago?  Of the amazing afghan Bethiclaus made us?  It is amazing.  It is shown above, it matches our nursery perfectly and I am guarding it with my life from the little dog who somehow thinks it is hers...

OOOh, the lion sleeps on Bethiclaus's blankie!  Who knew that this was the cure?

Everyone is happy!

Sorry Sorrry Sorrryyy... No pics today because i am doing this one handedly and nursing simultaneously.  (edit: yay! pics at the end!)

I hate to be another trite mommy-blogger, but lets just talk for a second about the Miracle that is Breastfeeding, shall we?

I'll be nice and start with the pros:

• I am losing alot of weight, and that's good because I look like a deflated balloon-animal: the cow.
• I think it helps me connect with my little girl, which is also good because she gets passed around alot and I know that at least every couple hours I can demand that it is "my turn" with her.

Okay that sums it up.  The Cons?

• It hurts.  and it is really hard to get mad because you know it is like "the best thing ever" and "so good for your kid" and "going to make her a genius" and "if only Hitler had been breast-fed..."  But gah!  that whole "let down response thingy"  that SUCKS.  The books all cleverly describe it as "pins and needles"...I can see that, as long as it is the amniocentesis size needle that they are talking about and the pain they are refering to is that size needle being jammed in your boob over and over and over again.
• My child bites.  Enough said there?
• Latching?  Damn near impossible.  Still after three weeks using the shield thingy they gave me in the hospital.  Not sure if she will EVER learn to just nurse from the boob.  So she is starving and trying to latch on and sort of randomly banging her face into my chest...

I guess that is enough bitching.  (for now).  Am sorry that there are no pics this time...Any advice on the whole nursing thing?  I could use the encouragement right now. (edit: don't you dare tell me to "hang in there"...)

Okay, in a freak moment of generocity, my little girl fell asleep long enough to let me put these up!  wooohoooo little Sophie!

It is *very* cold here right now...think "teens" with windchills. eeep!