Bailey goes in for surgery to get tubes tomorrow, and I'm irrationally terrified. Which is pretty much my normal M.O. whenever anything even marginally stressful happens.
So, please send us happy thoughts and/or prayers, whatever you're more comfortable with. I really need this sweet girl to be happy and healthy again. Actually, I guess I should say consistently happy and healthy again, because she's mostly happy and pretty much always makes me happy no matter how bad she feels. We're so incredibly blessed to have this amazing child in our lives - there are no words to describe how much we love this sweet girl.
Sometimes I wonder why the heck I'm even trying to blog about parenting at all, because the crazy smart and funny writers at blogs like Rants from Mommyland and Stark Raving Mad Mommy and Pregnant Chicken somehow come up with genius topics and stories all. the. time. that hit the flipping nail on it's ugly little head, and I.....well, I wrote about breastfeeding (or not, as the case may be) that one time, and apparently it's the only thing people want to read about on this blog, judging from my stats. Although there was that one googler who apparently found my blog by searching for "ginormous belly pic." I'm pretty sure that pervert he found what he was looking for. Sweet.
Anyway, I have a few posts about our fun father's day weekend with pictures and recipes and everything (I'm so fancy!) about half written in my head which I WILL post this week. Maybe. If I have time. But we've got a lot going on, both at work and personally, so this week may be rough, blogging-wise. I don't want to vague-blog - but please just send us some positive energy and prayers regarding our living situation, if you will. We're trying to figure out whether we should risk going all Jack Torrance by staying in the cardboard box apartment for a few more months while praying that the legal gods (or partners in our firm, whatever) create some kind of miracle which lets us move to East TN, or whether we should give up on our dream of any part of football season in Knoxville by signing some kind of lease on a house or something here in Memphis. It's all complicated and scary and likely to end up with us making the wrong decision and either losing our minds or losing a bunch of money and we just don't know what to do.
In the meantime - you should read this post from Rants from Mommyland today about things no one told me about parenthood. Because it's true, it's funny, and they write way way better than me. Why are you reading this, anyway?
I'm going to get back to trying to figure out how to write about breastfeeding or how ginormous my belly was again.....hope y'all have a great Monday!
Just wanted to do a quick update that we are back, and we are alive. Overall, we had a great vacation - Bailey loved the sand, the waves, the ocean, and spending time with her family and friends. During our week, Bailey showed off all of her charm and even clapped, pulled herself up on a table and couch, and crawled (mostly) all for the first time while we were there! So even though she wasn't drinking her bottles or sleeping well, and both Scott and I were a little concerned, we tried to chalk it up to her being distracted by all the fun people around and a little off schedule.
Well, this probably should have clued us in:
This is one of the sweet pictures from Bailey's first sand and ocean visit, which occurred on our first day at the beach. In case that picture doesn't clue you in, it doesn't appear that sweet B got over the ear infection she'd been on medication for the week before we left for vacation, and then she somehow developed another one in the other ear while we were there. So, our sweet girl had double ear infections while we were at the beach, and we didn't figure that out until WEDNESDAY, when I finally visited the doctor (despite the major clue in the picture above, which was taken on Saturday. Please don't call CPS). Which meant that she slept terribly, she would scream when I even turned around, regardless of whether I left the room or not, and I couldn't stand to leave her for more than just a few minutes unless she was napping. Needless to say, although we both had a great time, neither B nor I got too much relaxing done.
So, after 2 doctor visits this week, one to confirm that the antibiotic she went on last week while we were at the beach didn't get rid of her infections, and another to determine that she was officially a candidate for tubes and schedule the surgery, I am officially exhausted.
I remember saying, in my pre-parent days, that I was so tired that I needed a "vacation after my vacation." Well, this vacation gave that saying a new meaning, but we're doing great, and Bailey appears to have broken a couple new teeth through on the top, so (KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK on wood) she has been sleeping better.
So, apologies for my late posting this week, and for what I expect may be slightly less than normal posting in the future - I do expect to keep blogging, but right now, I'm going to take as much of a vacation after my vacation as possible and remove all expectations from myself except to eat, sleep, exercise, and work (which is kinda insane right now). So, my posts may not be as frequent. But I promise that, in the near future, I WILL post some fun memories from our vacation and finally do an 8 month Bailey post (hopefully before it's time to do a 9 month post, but no promises).
Anyway, for something completely off-topic - in case you have a few minutes for something pretty funny - and, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, this link should NOT be clicked if you have an aversion to the "f" word or other offensive curse words - this is pretty entertaining. I haven't quite experienced most of this yet, but I can see it coming......
Also, this was so scary - but cute at the same time?!
I want to leave for vacation on a high note (which last night's post definitely was not - sorry about that, it was definitely the result of my habits of over-analysis and over-sharing + a glass of wine on about 5 hours sleep + the fear of another night with only 5 hours sleep (these days, that's out of my hands). Apparently when you put all that together, it = "poor me" blog posts. Duly noted.)
So - here are some things I'm loving right now, in no particular order:
- Running: ok, maybe LOVE is too strong of a word right now. But I'm up to 50 minutes, I'm getting stronger, and it's getting a wee bit easier. As in, sometimes I don't even look at my watch until 20-30 minutes in, as opposed to my former "holy crap it has to have been 20 minutes by now" which would then be followed by a watch check showing I'd only been running for 7 minutes, after which I'd curse and want to cry. So the "minute counting" running usually only happens for the last 5 minutes or so. I've even felt small bouts of the runner's high.
-The newly-redone Kroger on Mendenhall: It has, like, 17,000 types of cheeses. 16,000 of which I've never heard of, but look delicious - and they have free samples most of the time, so I can verify that most of them taste delicious too! (Something you should know about me: If there's a free food sample within site, I'm trying it at least 99% of the time. Even if I have to elbow some old folks out of my way.) It also has packs of 4 Yobaby yogurts for about a dollar cheaper than Whole Foods. And, it introduced me to the awesomeness that is Amy's organic frozen foods. Which are similar to Lean Cuisines, only organic (and therefore a little more expensive) and better tasting (I'm a calorie counter, not a fat gram counter, so the added fat grams don't bother me). They are my new go-to lunch foods to keep me from overspending on both money and calories at lunch. Also, they have an awesome name.
- The fact that Bailey said "mama" the other day: I know she had no idea what she was saying, nor would she even repeat it back to me afterwards. But while I was feeding her, she just looked right up at the ceiling fan and said "mama" (Yes - the ceiling fan. I wouldn've preferred eye contact, but beggars can't be choosers. Also, I'm pretty sure she wasn't calling the ceiling fan "mama" but one can never be certain....) I know I will probably regret saying this in the near future when I can't have a phone conversation without interruption, but right now I can't wait to hear that word more often!
- The fact that Bailey gets to spend time with her sweet cousins Maddie and Caroline, her aunt Angie, and her Mimi and Pops next week at Pawleys (although of course we're going to miss you Bill, Tracy, Omar and Preston!): I grew up going to Pawleys each year with my family and my cousins on my mom's side, Rob, Ginny and Sara, as well as my aunts and uncles, and I just love that Bailey is going to have similar memories.
Also, do you think Maddie could teach Bailey this pose?:
So fierce - Love it!
Ok, now I'm really going to head out - we leave for Knoxville tonight, then may go halfway to Pawleys tomorrow night, then all the way Saturday. Y'all have a great week!
I can barely keep my eyes open, as Bailey had me halfway awake from 3:30 a.m. on this morning, but I'm trying to stay up to get some time with Scott before we leave for vacation with my family, as he worked late tonight and now is trading cars with his dad so we can hopefully fit all our stuff in the car and actually sit in it as well.
I should be packing while I wait for Scott to get home, but instead I'm watching crappy tv (Chelsea Lately, to be exact), drinking a glass of wine, and making myself depressed by thinking about how quickly Bailey is growing up. And Memphis. Just in general.
I tried packing earlier, but then got overwhelmed and quit. Which means that tomorrow should be fun.
We took terrible pictures of Bailey tonight for her 8 month photo shoot. It didn't go so well. She didn't eat well at school, so she was super grumpy, and she is such a busybody these days that she just kept trying to crawl out of the chair. Also, there may have been a minor injury which occurred when someone failed to keep an eye on her for exactly 1/4 of a second and she managed to get her body halfway out of the chair, which, because of gravity, meant that her head was halfway to the floor and was only stopped from going all the way by her exersaucer leaving a little red mark gently knocking it before I could grab her. Please don't call CPS.
I'd planned to put the good pictures from our photo shot tonight together to make Bailey's 8 month blog post tonight, but instead I'm sitting here, drinking wine, and watching crappy tv. And writing this post, which no one cares about.
My new plan to jumpstart my metabolism by jogging and reducing carb intake has apparently resulted in me gaining a few pounds. Awesome.
In case you can't tell, I'm in need of some positive energy. Yes, this is vague, but whatever good vibes and happy prayers could be sent our way, I'd be totally grateful for them.
Sorry for being all whiny again, but to make up for it, here's a cute picture of Bailey from her 8 month photo shoot to keep you busy while we're gone..........Hope y'all have a wonderful next week and a half - we're going on a vacation hiatus (unless I get crazy and upload some type of app with which to update from the beach.....)!
Also, some outtakes which demonstrate why this photo shoot didn't exactly go as planned (despite my clearly awesome photography skills, which obviously don't result in any blurry pictures):
I can crawl! Right off the chair!
Mom, this is awesome!
Ahhh, I love Reilly!
Plus, now I know how to clap, which is totally awesome!
Oh, I've gotta go, I've got WAY more important things to do than sit here in this chair and look pretty - for instance, watch this, I'm going to make mom look away to put down the camera JUST as I decide to crawl off the chair!
