My New (un)Job

This week Josh started his new job at Columbia College.  He is the Coordinator of Communication and Technology for the Student Affairs Department.  From my perspective, there are a lot of positive aspects to his new job.  Here are the top 10 in no particular order.

1. He works at a place he enjoys and believes in. (two time graduate of Columbia College)
2. We have health care and free/reduced tuition to Columbia College or a sister institution.  (masters work here we come.) 
3. He has a sweet office with a big ol' desk. 
4. He has a lot of technology equipment that he gets to use.
5. His coworkers are nice and are supportive of family life. 
6. He can come home for lunch and has somewhat flexible work hours.
7. His office is a few blocks from our home. 
8. We have access to the gym on campus and has a family sports pass to attend sporting events. (I know, but it is still a perk)
9.  He still works with students and gets to use his skills as an educator to help people be successful while seeking out an education.
10. He gets paid. 

 Since Josh's job has started by new "JOB" has also somewhat started.  My new job will really start when the kid gets out of me. So for now it is kind of a "soft opening" like at a new restaurant. My new (un)job has a lot of positive aspects too. Here are of the top 10 in no particular order.

1. Naps
2. Lost of time to catch up on reading 
3. The pugs do not have to be in the crate/inside all day. (less dog mom guilt) 
4. Lunch dates with Josh and other friends. 
5. Lots of time to respond to emails and Facebook messages.
6. Lots of time to get/keep the home in order. 
7. Lots of time to cook or bake new things.
8. Lots of time to catch up on unfished crafts. 
9. Lots of time for online bargain hunting/widow shopping/pinterest.
10. Lots of time....   

Although this time is a little boring, I am thankful for it.  Most people would kill for the kind of time I am getting right now.  To be honest, I am enjoying it more than I thought I would.  I think trying to enjoy everyday for what it is, is the key to being happy at any "job".  Josh and I are both starting a lot of new things and I hope we enjoy everything.  We shall see how we are both liking our new roles in a month.

Nursery Tour

The nursery is finished! It has been so much fun to make this little space for our baby.  Josh and I both put in a lot of work.  We worked together well and it took our time to enjoy doing it.  I can't wait to put our little baby in here!

view from the doorway

crib and storage

rocker and storage

changing station

Everything is ready and waiting for our newest family member. 

Waiting on the Babe

I am due in 10 days.  This means I can have the kid whenever he/she wants to come on out.  I have not been so great about waiting on our child to make their appearance.  With good reason!  I want to meet this little person who Josh and I will be sharing the rest of our lives with.  Come on, this is a harder wait than the pugs endure while I am filling up the kongs with peanut butter.

I do keep trying to remind myself, that giving my child the gift of time in the womb is one of the best things you can do for the baby.  There are a lot of biological process that occur when your body can go into labor on it's own. With that being said, if the doctor told me today that I could be induced.  I might say yes. I just can't wait. 

Here is a list of things I have been doing to pass the time.

• meeting with anyone/everyone for coffee
• watching random things on hulu plus
• playing Viva Pinata (a very lame children's computer game) for hours
• checking Facebook like a maniac
• shopping online without buying anything
• napping
• cleaning things
• swimming today with my friend Kristy
• going out to eat
• eating lots of sugary things 
• Pinterest
•  drinking ice tea (decaf) by the pitcher full 
• whining 
• reading books about birth/child care

That is what I have been doing.  Not many people tell you about this time spent in limbo but here is one gal's thoughts that I really liked. It is a little long but it sums up a lot of how I feel.

She’s curled up on the couch, waiting, a ball of baby and emotions. A scrambled pile of books on pregnancy, labor, baby names, breastfeeding…not one more word can be absorbed. The birth supplies are loaded in a laundry basket, ready for action. The freezer is filled with meals, the car seat installed, the camera charged. It’s time to hurry up and wait. Not a comfortable place to be, but wholly necessary.
The last days of pregnancy— sometimes stretching to agonizing weeks—are a distinct place, time, event, stage. It is a time of in between. Neither here nor there. Your old self and your new self, balanced on the edge of a pregnancy. One foot in your old world, one foot in a new world.
Shouldn’t there be a word for this state of being, describing the time and place where mothers linger, waiting to be called forward?
Germans have a word, zwischen, which means between. I’ve co-opted that word for my own obstetrical uses. When I sense the discomfort and tension of late pregnancy in my clients, I suggest that they are now in The Time of Zwischen. The time of in between, where the opening begins. Giving it a name gives it dimension, an experience closer to wonder than endurance.
I tell these beautiful, round, swollen, weepy women to go with it and be okay there. Feel it, think it, don’t push it away. Write it down, sing really loudly when no one else is home, go commune with nature, or crawl into your own mama’s lap so she can rub your head until you feel better. I tell their men to let go of their worry; this is an early sign of labor. I encourage them to sequester themselves if they need space, to go out if they need distraction, to enjoy the last hours of this life-as-they-now-know-it. I try to give them permission to follow the instinctual gravitational pulls that are at work within them, just as real and necessary as labor.
The discomforts of late pregnancy are easy to Google: painful pelvis, squished bladder, swollen ankles, leaky nipples, weight unevenly distributed in a girth that makes scratching an itch at ankle level a feat of flexibility.  “You might find yourself teary and exhausted,” says one website, “but your baby is coming soon!” Cheer up, sweetie, you’re having a baby. More messaging that what is going on is incidental and insignificant.
What we don’t have is reverence or relevance—or even a working understanding of the vulnerability and openness a woman experiences at this time. Our language and culture fails us. This surely explains why many women find this time so complicated and tricky. But whether we recognize it or not, these last days of pregnancy are a distinct biologic and psychological event, essential to the birth of a mother.
We don’t scientifically understand the complex hormones at play that loosen both her hips and her awareness.  In fact, this uncomfortable time of aching is an early form of labor in which a woman begins opening her cervix and her soul. Someday, maybe we will be able to quantify this hormonal advance—the prolactin, oxytocin, cortisol, relaxin. But for now, it is still shrouded in mystery, and we know only how to measure thinning and dilation.

“You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you, Peter Pan. That’s where I’ll be waiting.”        -Tinkerbell

I believe that this is more than biological. It is spiritual. To give birth, whether at home in a birth tub with candles and family or in a surgical suite with machines and a neonatal team, a woman must go to the place between this world and the next, to that thin membrane between here and there. To the place where life comes from, to the mystery, in order to reach over to bring forth the child that is hers. The heroic tales of Odysseus are with us, each ordinary day. This round woman is not going into battle, but she is going to the edge of her being where every resource she has will be called on to assist in this journey.
We need time and space to prepare for that journey. And somewhere, deep inside us, at a primal level, our cells and hormones and mind and soul know this, and begin the work with or without our awareness.
I call out Zwischen in prenatals as a way of offering comfort and, also, as a way of offering protection. I see how simple it is to exploit and abuse this time. A scheduled induction is seductive, promising a sense of control. Fearful and confused family can trigger a crisis of confidence. We are not a culture that waits for anything, nor are we believers in normal birth; waiting for a baby can feel like insanity. Giving this a name points her toward listening and developing her own intuition. That, in turn, is a powerful training ground for motherhood.
Today, I am waiting for a lovely new mother named Allison to call me, to announce that her Zwischen is ended and labor has begun. I am in my own in between place, waiting. My opportunity to grow and open is a lovely gift she gives me, in choosing me to attend her birth. - Jana Studelska

Cloth Diapers

If you have every ventured out into new mommy blogs you will soon realize that cloth diapers are a big fat deal.  People in blogger land who cloth diaper talk about it a lot.  I think part of the reason of why this happens is because it can be hard to talk about it face to face with people.  I mean, I have a group of girlfriends who also use cloth and we chat. I also have some super supportive family who helped us out by buying us diapers. But for the most part, if you tell people you are planning on venturing into this world of reusable diapers, people look at you like you are crazy.  These are some comments I have gotten after people found out our family was planning on cloth diapering.

•     We will see how long that lasts.  
•     That's a nice idea. (looks away quickly)  
•     Can you even buy those? 
•     Not when you leave the house right?! 
•     Where will you wash them? ( I usually want to respond with "on a rock down by the crick")   
•     What?! Why?! 
•     You are going to put your hands in the toilet?! 
•     Is is because Josh lost his job? (only one really interesting person said this and I am sure they felt bad immediately) 
•     I am glad you care about the environment so much. I wish I could do that.  I just don't have it in me.  
•     Yeah... just you wait. 

I really hate the last one most of all.  I think I hate it the most because I am SO aware I have no idea what it is like to have a baby.  I know that I have no clue what it will be like to bring home this little person who is constantly in need and will be demanding of my time.  BUT I also know that I am not a dummy. People make a ton of decisions before the baby comes.  cradle or bassinet, breastfeed or formula, family practice or pediatrician, the list goes on and on.

Other people do this cloth diapering thing and I have very little expectations about how my time should be spent now that I am home full time. I also know that I am willing to sacrifice a lot of things in order to spend this precious time with my kid.  Even if that means washing dirty diapers every day.  (I hope it is more like every other day *fingers crossed*)

I think that everyone has the things they are willing and not willing to sacrifice to get anything in life.  I have things I would NOT be willing to do to stay home and for now those things have not come up.  Everyone gives up something.  One of mine might be the ease of throwing poop out in the trash.  I don't think my choices are right for everyone. One of the best parts of being a parent is there are so many ways to do it well.  I can see that from just looking around at my friends and family.  I am sure Josh and I will find a way that works for us but most of all, we will find a way that works best for our child.

Josh knows how to put on a prefold. 

We have practiced. 

He is a boss.

I Think I'm Alone Now

I have been at home alone for the past 4 days.  I normally HATE it when Josh is gone and I am stuck at home.  Not to mention that Josh took our only car and I was really stuck at home as it is too hot to walk anywhere. While Josh was enjoying the All-Star Game and the surrounding festivities, I got a lot of things done. Here is a short list of things I did.

• Revamped the bathroom with new navy accents.  I added a polka dot stripe to our shower curtain, made a soap dispenser, and decorated some hand towels to match.  It looks great. It makes our bathroom not look so white.
• I prepared all our cloth baby diapers for use.  I plan on doing a post about this so that is all I will say for now. 
• I cleaned the bedroom. 
• I finished the baby's room.  I am also going to do a post on this. more to come. 
• I made some more baby gifts for my pregnant friends.  This was fun. 
• Did some all around crafting while I could spread out and not worry about getting in Josh's way. 
• Hung out with some friends and talked about babies, life, and good movies.  I had a good time with everyone coming over to see me.  We don't have people over at our house very often and it was fun to show everyone the baby's room. 
• I watched the entire series of 'The Event".  It was not horrible but I wouldn't run and rent it. It was good company while I did other things. Any cheesy sci-fi series works well for me.  I currently have on "Persons Unknown" which is fulfilling my need for some noise in the house. 
• I attempted to create my own wool dyer balls like these.  But it was an epic fail.  I tried 3 times using 2 different tutorials so I think I will just buy them.  I might try one more time for my wallet's sake.
• Took lots of naps. LOTS 

I surprisingly had a good time while Josh was away. I think it helped that I felt like this might be the only time I have left to be alone for any stretch of time.  I spent a lot of time thinking about how different it will be when the baby gets here and will constantly be attached to me. I know that I will take time off when we get a babysitter or Josh takes the kid somewhere for a few hours.  I also know that our life is going to be drastically different in 4 weeks (or less) in ways that I cannot even imagine. I am looking forward to that.

I am so thankful for the past 5 years I have had with Josh when it was just him and I. I am also thankful for the little person we are about to welcome into out home. I am sure our lives will never be the same. I am also glad he is home now.
 It was getting a little lonely.

Love and Hate

Things I LOVE while pregnant.

• Nutella - I used to not care so much about this.  Now I care. I care deeply. 
• Pillows - These are a must in all places and situations 
• Cleaning - It makes me feel so much better about everything 
• Showers - Not just a necessary to keep friends anymore!
• Yoga Ball - this also makes me feel better
• Leggings - I look tore up but feel great 
• Air Conditioning - nough said
• Ice - I used to hate ice in my drink.  Now it is mandatory
• Milk - it will fix heartburn in a few seconds. I am still not a huge fan of the taste 
• Nonfiction Books - mostly about child birth or parenting. The list is long... for another day
• Being at Home - This is weird for me.  
• Josh

Things I HATE while pregnant.

• My Dogs - they want to sit on me and look at me all the time.  They go bonkers if they cannot be in the same room as me.  Currently I am working on Hamlet to quit licking my leg. grrrr
• Sleeping in Bed - mostly because I don't sleep in bed.  I mostly flop around and drive Josh crazy. 
• My Crafting Stuff - this is a love hate thing.  It just takes up so much space
• Being Outside Ever - too hot
• Cooking - I can cook it OR eat it.  I can rarely do both. 
• Shoes - I only have one pair left that fit and it is not looking so good.  I prefer to just go barefoot
• Smells - of all sorts

Baby Room Part 2

So, we have been working on this kid's room for a while and I am happy to say that we are getting closer .  Which is important since my due date is in 28 days! CRAZY!

Here is what we have done since my last post 

Josh spent some time putting together furniture. First he put together a dresser we got from Target.  It was quite a project. He then put together the crib and cubby system we bought for extra storage.  I was not allowed to be in the room while he was working. (for obvious reasons) So, I only have a few pictures of the furniture building.

I really love this crib.  It is large and yellow.  I think it looks great as a focal point of the room. It is not for everyone but it is for me.  I made the bed skirt for it which I saw on an internet tutorial.  It is cool because it will adjust to the correct height when we move the mattress down when the kid gets bigger. It was also SUPER easy to make.  I would guess that the whole thing start to finish was no more than 20 minutes.

  I love a fast craft.

Next Josh and I made cornice boards for over the windows. We did not want to weigh down the small room with big curtains and I really like how these ones look. It took us quite a while but it was quicker than sewing curtains. 

Josh spent a lot of time painting furniture we had white to match the new stuff we bought.  He painted a bookshelf that Josh's grandpa made years ago and a rocking chair that we got for a steal at "Hidden Treasures".  You can really talk those people down. I made a cushion for it that I am not so crazy about. I didn't have to buy anything to make it this size because I had some left over foam from a Craigslist purchase that I made about a year ago. You get what you get. 

I also painted a toy box that is in the shape of a giraffe.  It was a fun thing to do one weekend.  It turned out nice but when we went to apply the clear coat it got a little messy.  It still looks okay and will hold toys. That is the point.

Here is what the room currently looks like.  We have a ways to go but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

 

 Dramatic room reveal coming up next.