Back to Work

flowers for my first day back.  how sweet!

nice to come home to these sleepy dudes at the end of the day.  please ignore all the junk on the kitchen table.  something has to give.  that's what my books tell me.

Hi Cuties,
Today was my first day back at work, and it felt great to be back.  Of course, I missed Charlie horribly but there's something to be said for spending the day with other adults.  What I really wish is that I could be in two places at once.  I do think it was a good decision to ease Charlie into daycare.   His first few days were so hard for me (he seemed fine) and it was especially hard dropping him off on that first morning, so I'm thankful that I didn't have to deal with all those emotions today.  
I felt pretty energetic most of the day, but I am EXHAUSTED right now.  Even though Charlie woke up for the day around 5, it was still a major struggle to get out the door by 8, and the mister barely managed to get dressed and make it out by 9.  I can see how this is going to play out.  Every morning, I'll rush around trying to get stuff done: pick out an outfit, wash bottles, get Charlie's stuff ready for daycare, proclaiming "These are better off as 'night before' activities."  And then at night, I'll feel too tired and assure myself that I'll have time in the morning. After all, I'm waking up at FIVE AM.  That's what's happening right now, in fact, bottles be damned.  
It was noted that today's exuberance may have been a product of "first day of school-itis" so perhaps my dear readers may want to check in on my state of mind again in a week or two.  Until then, I am instead going to chalk it up to my new "no stress/no mess" attitude and bask in this moment of super mom-dem while I have a glass of wine.
xo,
C

Happy Birthday, Charlie!

Today Charlie is three months old.  I have to say, I love being a mom to this little guy.  Lately, he is all smiles and is so talkative!  When I think back to three months ago, it is hard to believe how far we've come.  I wasn't sure what to expect from motherhood, and while it has it's challenges, it's made me happier than I've ever felt. Today, Charlie woke up around 5 and it was pretty clear that he was just ready to wake up for the day.  He was so smiley when I went to take him out of his crib and he had so much to say as I changed his diaper and got him dressed for the day, that I didn't even mind that 5AM seems to be my new wake up time.  Who would have ever thought?  We love you, mister man!
xo,
C

First Mother's Day

breakfast in bed, courtesy of Charlie and the mister

what a sweet card, Charlie is so sweet, right?

exhausted from cooking breakfast

check out my new necklace

hanging on the blanket

cupcakes!

Hi Cuties,
Have I told you how much I love Mother's Day?  Since my mom passed away, Mother's Day, eh, hasn't been my favorite holiday.  But now that I'm a mom, it has taken on a whole new meaning and I LOVE it.  The mister and Charlie and I spent a nice day together with breakfast in bed, a new necklace and a picnic in the park.  I feel so lucky to be a mom to this little guy!
xo,
C
PS. Even though Sunday was my day, Charlie is all about daddy lately.  Man, does this kid ever love his daddy. When he hears Erik's voice his eyes get so wide and he looks all around for him and then once his eyes alight on Erik's face, it's just BIG SMILES and lots of baby cooing.  Don't worry, I'm not jealous.  At all, not at all. 

(Post) Pregnancy Nosebleeds and Daycare

Having kind of a rough week over here.  Charlie started daycare this week which has been a tough (for me) but necessary transition because I had to have surgery on my nose on Tuesday.  You may recall that I had a lot of issues with my nose and nosebleeds during my pregnancy.  I was diagnosed with something called a pyogenic granuloma, which is basically a benign mass that can grow in the nose or mouth during pregnancy and is prone to bleeding a lot.  While it is associated with pregnancy, it is pretty uncommon, so there isn't a ton of anecdotal information out there which is why I am sharing my experience here.  It is somewhat alarming to look up a pregnancy medical condition and find nothing online but medical case studies.  It is a blessing and a curse that usually when you look something up online during pregnancy you'll find message boards of sympathizers, all part of the "pregnancy community."  It is sometimes overwhelming, sometimes comforting and sometimes just annoying (if you are someone who gets easily annoyed by other people, ahem,) but at the end of the day it is nice to feel like you are not the only one dealing with some of the more challenging aspects of pregnancy. Anyway, sometimes these granulomas recess after pregnancy hormones go away but mine hasn't so I had to have it surgically removed.  I had to wait until we were very established with breastfeeding since I would be put under with anesthesia, which would prevent me from feeding Charlie for a few days.  This of course put me right up against my return from maternity leave and suffice to say this is not how I wanted to spend my last week.  


You know when Alexis from RHOC went in for her nose surgery in her Juicy sweatsuit and she was a huge drama queen about it, like crying onto Jim's shoulder and worrying that she wouldn't come out of the anesthesia, and all you viewers at home thought "god, she is such an asshole?"  That was kind of me.  I just got so nervous for this surgery, it's been hanging over my head for months.  And it honestly was kind of scary.  For some reason I thought they would administer the anesthesia before going into the operating room but no, they just walk you into the operating room, strap you onto the table and then knock you out, with all the doctors and nurse standing over you!  Picture me weeping to the nurse "tell my baby I love himmmm" and you'll begin to get the gist of how I was feeling.  I didn't cry though, only on the inside, you'll be pleased to know.  Such a brave girl!


Everything went fine but the recovery hasn't gone as smoothly as I'd hoped and I've been more or less out of commission since the surgery.  So much for my "lose the rest of the baby weight" boot camp I had planned for this week.  And so much for spending quality time with the baby.  I'm pretty much just sitting quietly over here with my nose packed hoping that there is no more bleeding.  The worst part by far is not being able to feed Charlie.  Now I know that I have bitched and moaned my fair share about the trials and tribulations of nursing (and I'm not done either) but it sucks not being able to feed him especially when he is at daycare all day.  I can't even really pick him up or smile at him even for fear of nosebleeds and I feel so helpless and useless.  At first, he seemed so confused and upset and it was KILLING me but now I'm worried that he is already over it and won't even want to nurse anymore when I am finally allowed to feed him today.  


Hoping to get back to normal soon so we can start to get used to our new routine.  And so I can enjoy Mother's Day which I am not even going to pretend that I'm not really, really, ridiculously excited about (a new holiday all about me, yippee)!
xo,
C

The Best Five Years

Cuties,
The mister let me know that it was exactly five years ago today that we met.  How cute is it that he put a little reminder in his phone?  There won't be too much crazy celebrating with a baby and my post-op nose but but we're planning to toast to us tonight after we get the kid to sleep!  The last five years have been the best of my life.  It's crazy to remember the first night we met.  I though Erik was so cute, but such a grownup, lol! We really have accomplished quite a bit in terms of  New York relationships in the last five years.  I mean, we have a family now, it's crazy!  Here's to us!  
xo,
C

Pittsburgh!

my arms were pretty tired from holding him the whole graduation, um, can you tell?

The cuties took a little trip to Pittsburgh this weekend to help my youngest stepsister celebrate her graduation from Point Park University.  Micky is the last of the five of us to graduate from college so my dad was one happy camper.  He is retiring like, um, tomorrow.  James and Jamie still have some grad school graduations coming up, so we're not out of the woods yet though!  I think I did a pretty good job maintaining my "flexible, take it as it comes" attitude this weekend and we had a great time.  The whole family only gets together a few times a year so we try to really make the most of weekends like this.  The mister and I, unfortunately, did not make it to the kegger.   It was one of those moments where it's just like, eh, we're old, and so tired, and we have a baby, but it was a little bit sad for both of us.  Charlie was a trooper.  He had his moments, and found the graduation to be particularly interminable, but nothing we couldn't handle and the poor baby did a great job considering he had to spend more than seven hours in the car yesterday.  (Yesterday was the Pittsburgh marathon and because of the road closures we couldn't figure out how to get out of the city.  It took almost two hours!  This may sound like a light hearted challenge but it wasn't!  It sucked! And it was not taken in stride!)

Now that we are home, Charlie is having some adjustment issues, especially after sleeping the day away yesterday.  We are easing him into daycare this weeks and I'm hating it.  It sounds like he did okay today but we had a rough afternoon and evening around here.  Hoping he gets some good sleep tonight to get back on track. 

The weekend, in pictures... 

Charlie got to spend some time in his special monkey seat that stays at grandpop's 

way too much sleeping in the car

polka dots!

lots of time with aunt lyss this weekend.

careful packing, easy access!

hanging out in the park by aunt micky's house

relaxing on aunt micky's bed

the Jamies.  notice the sunglass/belt coordination

the graduate with little mr. charlie

more carseat!

we walked around station square while the rest of the family took a duck tour

sleeping in the stroller, which, you guessed it, is also the car seat! aargh!

miss lyss, back from the duck tour

daddy and charlie sleep through any saturday night parties

packed and ready to go!

and...back in the car!

charlie slept through, oh, about the first ten minutes of graduation before we had to make a hasty retreat

big bed, little baby
 

everyone looks cute in this pic but me, but that's the five of us!

me and the babe

Breastfeeding in the Park

Charlie, rooting around for the good stuff

Hi Cuties,
How do you all feel about breastfeeding in public?  I have to admit, before having a baby, I didn't really have much of an opinion one way or another.  But after the, er, struggle the babe and I faced together the past three months, the thought of any outrage against public breastfeeding makes me very ANGRY.  Until you have an inconsolable, screaming infant, thrashing around in your arms, mouth open, frantically rooting in all directions for food, you can't really understand the urgency of the need to feed.  Until you can only leave your home base for two hours at a time lest your child completely melts down from hunger or your breasts start leaking copiously through your clothing, your opinion isn't worth much as far as I'm concerned.  Now, while I may support public breastfeeding, I do everything in my power to avoid it at all costs.  Maybe I don't have the coordination for it, but I haven't exactly mastered the art of the discreet feeding.  In fact, within the confines of our own apartment, it was pretty much a 24 hour peep show for the first two months.  And, no, there was nothing sexy about it, I promise.
Yesterday we took our peep show to the park.  It was a really nice day so Charlie and I went for a long walk (far away from home base if you catch my drift).  He had been sleeping most of the day and when we entered the park I noticed a woman sitting on a bench with her daughter out of the stroller playing on her lap, the two of them enjoying the warm weather together.  The baby was about Charlie's age.  "How nice, " I thought.  "I'll take my baby out of his stroller TOO so he can wake up a bit and we can can enjoy the park together just like those two."  "Why not?  Why shouldn't we just enjoy the day too?" I thought.  HA.  Apparently, I forgot the fact that Charlie has been, as we affectionately call him, a crankypants, the entire week.  Charlie was not so happy to be out in the fresh air.  In fact, he really really wanted to be back in his favorite position, doing his favorite thing, eating.  As soon as I picked him up he launched into a full throttle freakout and there was really only one cure.  So we sat on a bench in a deserted corner of the park and I fed him as discreetly as I was able.  Easy, no problem,  no big deal, right?  Oh, except for the random full fledged handkerchief-on-a-stick HOBO that happened to wander by.  I can only assume that my breastfeeding moment was a feast for his eyes based on the huge hungry smile he leered in our direction before proceeding to circle back around our area three times.   I mean, a hobo? Really?  As Charlie and I left the park after his impromptu feeding, I noticed the woman and her baby were still sitting on the bench playing happily.  How awesome for them!
You'll be pleased to know that I'll be packing all "easy access" clothing for Pittsburgh this weekend because there's nothing better than being in a situation where you're forced to whip out a breast in front of your dad and brother (but I'll do it if I have to, who even cares anymore.)  If you had told me that "easy access" would have been the number one requirement for a graduation dress, I never would have believed it, but it looks like we've come full circle (ha, I'm just kidding, calm down.)
xo,
C

Travel with Baby

Charlie and his cousin, Nate

This weekend we went to Long Island to visit with Erik's family.  It was a good trip and Charlie was so well behaved and happy to spend time with his family.  Since Charlie's new bedtime had only been implemented a week earlier we were pretty serious about maintaining his routine at Erik's parent's house even though he would be sharing our upstairs room with us.  "Oh whatever will we do?", we wondered.  We had forgotten the monitor and Charlie is pretty, shall we say, "sensitive" to sound.  The mister fiddled with the TV as we approached Charlie's 9 PM bedtime, but couldn't get it working.  Oh well, we figured, we'll just play word scramble against each other on our phones, nothing different than a typical wild night at home.  We put Charlie in his pack and play and laid back on the bed for a few minutes and I promptly fell asleep.  Like within three seconds.  The mister turned off the light, and that was it.  Asleep at 9:30 on a Saturday night.  I can't say I feel bad about it (and honestly I can't really say that our Saturday nights were that much craaazier a year ago.)  Besides Charlie and I have our own party every night around 3 AM so that's pretty darn cool.


We seem to be getting back in our routine of traveling around on the weekends, planning vacations and long weekends away.  Like many new parents, our goal has been to maintain some semblance of our former lifestyle, keep going places and keep traveling.  We want to be the kind of parents that aren't afraid to pack up baby and bring him along!  But the truth is, I do get kind of scared.  I think the key to being those kinds of parents is to be flexible and  just kind of roll with it, just chill the f out, you know.  That isn't necessarily my personality right now, but I'm really trying to get there.  Next weekend we are headed to Pittsburgh for my sister Micky's graduation and yes, there is pretty elaborate agenda.  Am I worried that Charlie might cry the whole way to Pittsburgh?  Am I worried he might not make it through the graduation? Am I worried that I might expose my breast to a lot of people to whom I don't want to expose my breast?  Am I worried that Erik and I will miss out on Saturday night's keg party?  Yeah, I worry about some of these things, but I really don't want to be the parents that stay home out of fear.  All of the above might happen and it could still be lots of fun but only if we roll with it.  Only if the sound of Charlie's tears don't bring on my own tears and the onset of full-on panic.  When it comes to traveling with a baby, the mister is much better at rolling with it than I am and I've noticed that his positive attitude tends to lead to positive outcomes, so I'm really trying to learn from him and other chill people I know.  But don't think I won't be stocking up on a hearty list of travel tips before Charlie's first plane ride this summer.  You can never be too prepared!  


xo,
C

Scenes from the Week

Beginning of week.  Charlie only calm when in sling.  Note, unmade bed.

Made a serious effort to not order dinners this week.  I'm not sure if you can call making a salad, "cooking," but if you can, I did!

Dance party USA!  Charlie loves to dance.

Lyss and I went out to dinner to celebrate her new job.  She is much happier about it than she looks.

Charlie's Converse socks courtesy of my cousins.

We finally got new sheets.  And I washed them.  Aaaand I put them on the bed. La di da.

This week has been a week of ups and downs.  Charlie started out the week very fussily but made a recovery at some point yesterday and gave mommy some smiles and fun dance moves.  Charlie loves to dance to random songs on my ipod and it is the cutest thing ever! Ever. Breastfeeding as usual has its good and bad points.  While it is a "sure thing" soother, I've realized Charlie has a VERY difficult time stopping eating.  He doesn't want to stop.  And then when he does stop, he is calm for a only a few minutes before he is frantically searching around for the next snack.  I was all like "WHAT is wrong with this kid?," until I realized I am the same way. Once I start eating I don't want to stop either which is why it is so difficult being home.  I have a sandwich for lunch and then I am all up in the pita chips 20 minutes later.  Always the pita chips.  This weekend, I very cleverly volunteered to do the grocery shopping and purposely did NOT buy pita chips.  And then the mister went out for a little bit later in the day and came home with a new bag. "Surprise, you forgot the pita chips!" Anyway, I think Charlie and I are both our own worst enemy.  Or maybe I'm both of our worst enemy.  Or something.  All I know is without the boob factor, my motherhood experience would have been completely different so far. It will be very interesting to see how he does in daycare.  I really think he'll do well not having my breasts to distract him all day long.  Me and my breasts will have to go and be distracting somewhere else.  
Today was the definite high of the week so far.  I washed the sheets AND I made dinner.  I just might finally be getting my homemaker shit together right as this maternity leave is winding down.  There will be not sheet washing once I'm back at work, no sirree.
xo,
C

Weekend Wanderings

Hey Cuties,
The weekend goes by too fast!  Actually, the days are going by too fast!  Three weeks left until I go back to work, plus we are "easing" Charlie into daycare, so our mommy/Charlie days are really numbered.  Saturday turned out to be a great day.  The weather held out and the mister really wanted to bring Charlie into the city in his baby carrier.  This seemed like a dangerous idea to me, considering that the only thing less predictable than Charlie's day to day behavior is the weekend subway schedule.  But maybe I need to have a little more faith because everything was fine.  We grabbed a quick empanada lunch and then checked out a few stores with Alyssa in an attempt to dress the new post-baby me.  Once we made it back to Brooklyn we took a walk and sat outside for an early dinner.  Days like Saturday make me think we can handle anything, that we can still maintain some semblance of our former lives even with a baby.  
Days like Sunday, not so much.  It was rainy here and Charlie woke up super fussy, a mood that he stubbornly held onto for the entire day.  We took a drive to visit some friends and then picked up Alyssa for Sunday dinner, with nary a smile but plenty of wails from the little one.  The good news is I think that we are adjusting to the fussiness.  It is less crushing than it once was, as long as we can get a smile or two thrown in the mix.  And today, spirits are up again.  
This week, the plan is to soak up as much baby time as I can.  And... to really start getting serious about getting this body back into shape.  
xo,
C