America's High Five

Before becoming a mom, I didn't really believe people who said that babies go through 2-3 outfit changes everyday. Then, I became a mom to a baby who spits up/drools almost constantly. I hear this is normal for babies to release all of their bodily fluids all day, everyday, but I'm still not used to it. Despite the need for so many clothing changes, I'm still determined for Tripp to be a well dressed little man. I buy him new clothes all the time (at the expense of my own, now sad, wardrobe). Luckily he's been gifted lots of nice clothing items as well. Here's the little guy modeling two of his newest acquisitions.

This new hoodie is from his GiGi and is lined in the softest, coziest material. It seriously feels like a stuffed animal on the inside, which probably accounts for his big smile. I'd smile too if I was dressed in something so cozy.

Joe picked up this "America's High Five" shirt when he took Tripp for a walk downtown last Friday. Michigan really only has two peninsulas, but here it appears to have three - two formed by glaciers and a third formed from semi-dry drool.

The Barber's Chair

Even though breastfeeding has been a sad failure, I still want the little guy to have as much of the good stuff as possible. Therefore I pump milk 6-7 times a day. I planned to continue this once I started back at work and so far I’m still going. I almost never take a lunch break so honestly, it’s a great excuse to take a ten minute break three times a day. When I arrived at the client site the first day, I asked a manager from my company where I could find a private room. That led to me talking to the client HR who sent me to the medical center. At the medical center, the old, battleaxe nurse told me that I was SOL and to just use the bathroom. I was ready to explain health care law to her, but instead just went back to my company’s manager. She then went to the facilities guys and within a couple of days I had a private room. Our theory is that going to the men was so effective because they wanted to hear the words “breastfeeding” and “lactation” as few times as possible. J I think it also helped that I brought them some of those red velvet cheesecake brownies as a thank you treat.

Still with me? Here’s how the barber’s chair comes into play. The room that the facilities guys set up for me was being used to store hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of batteries. Before that though, the room was a barbershop, complete with a 1970s style barber’s chair. As you can see below it is olive green and looks like it’s from the set of Gran Torino. I laughed when I first saw it, but it is honestly one of the most comfortable chairs I have ever sat in. I’m quite pleased with my new lactation room and old barber’s chair.

Snow Day

For me, today is a snow day. It's not like the snow days in school where I'd wake up early to watch the school cancellations announced on the morning news and then I'd sit around the rest of the day watching tv until I felt like venturing outside and going sledding or playing in the snow. Today isn't about relaxation. I actually have a mile-long to do list. It's as exciting as school snow days though simply because I'm at home.

I've never been a homebody, but suddenly I'm turning into one. I like to go places, travel, be out and about. I'm still restless and miss traveling, but not nearly as much as I used to. I sometimes am frustrated at the amount of work it takes to leave the house and go somewhere as simple as the gym. However, lately all I want to do is be at home. This feeling is in thanks to the little person who now inhabits my house and is currently sleeping in my bed while I do work from my laptop in his nursery.

Last night it snowed more than it has all winter so I decided to email my boss and say that I'm working from home today. I know that wouldn't fly at most workplaces, but my job can all be done via laptop and I really have nothing to lose by demanding a little flexibility. So for today, instead of staring at the cube wall next to me, I'm looking at the trees caked with snow and a stuffed duck who's staring back at me.

Fat Tuesday

Happy Fat Tuesday! While some places like New Orleans celebrates this day with beads and King Cakes, here in SE Michigan we celebrate with paczki. Today Joe and I purchased (pre-ordered so as not to miss out on the awesomeness) four paczki from Zingerman's - rose hip, chocolate pudding, ricotta, and raspberry. We're saving the chocolate pudding for dessert tonight, but I can safely say that the other three were delicious. The rose hip was the most interesting and the raspberry reminded me most of childhood. This was Joe's first year trying paczki since last year I was in NYC on Fat Tuesday and he made his way to Zingerman's after they were all sold out. Tragic that Joe grew up without paczki in his life, isn't it!? I still remember being shocked when I was living in D.C. and nobody had ever even heard of paczki. Good thing Tripp will grow up having a special breakfast of paczki every year on this day. :) Next year when it's time for Tripp's first paczki we might have to make our way down to Hamtramck so that he can have one from an authentic Polish bakery.

Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies

Since becoming a mom my baking hobby has taken a backseat to things like playtime, tummy time, and endless loads of laundry. However, I wanted to make an effort to make something for Valentine’s Day. Thanks to Pinterest, I found a perfect treat – red velvet cheesecake brownies. While I am not personally a fan of red velvet anything, I thought that these were too cute not to make. They were a hit with Joe, who unlike me is a red velvet aficionado, and with all of my co-workers. They were also easy to make. As opposed to typing out the recipe here, I’ll just link to the original recipe on The Novice Chef’s blog. I didn’t change anything about her recipe except I did use reduced fat cream cheese instead of the real stuff. While these treats were very cute as red and white hearts, this recipe could easily be adapted for other holidays. For example, substitute the red food coloring for green and use a four leaf clover cookie cutter instead of a heart and you’d have a fun St. Patty’s day dessert.


*Photo Credit: The Novice Chef Blog

Waking Up

Leaving Tripp is extra hard on the days when he wakes up happy in the morning. Normally, he is not a baby who is happy to wake up…I can understand…I love to sleep and hate waking up too. Usually he cries for the first few minutes he’s awake, but sometimes he just opens his eyes, yawns, looks at me, and smiles. He was all smiles and coos yesterday morning when he woke up and that made for a nice start to the day. And because sleeping babies are as cute as happy babies, here's a recent picture of the little guy taking a snooze.

Going Back to Work

So, I’m back to work. 12 weeks of maternity leave + 2 week of PTO flew by. The sleepless nights seemed long, but the days were short. Anybody who’s talked to me in the past two weeks knows that I’m extremely unhappy with this situation. I’m commuting 3 hrs a day and barely seeing Tripp from Tuesday-Friday. Joe is having to do a lot more of the housework and childcare and I’m sleeping even less than I was before. This all stresses me out and my usual stress outlet, the gym, is now something that I don’t have time for during the week. Sounds like I’m doing a lot of complaining, huh? I hate that. I don’t want to complain…I know I should be thankful to have a good job and I am thankful, but I’m still not happy with this situation. I also know that there are lots of moms who have to work outside of the home five days a week and plenty of military parents who don’t see their kids for months. Still, it’s hard. I knew going back to work would be hard, but it’s 100 times harder than I imagined. I’m always so unemotional and with every other situation in life that I can think of I’ve talked myself out of being upset. Being away from Tripp is the one thing that has me really worked up.

The bright spot in all this is that Tripp gets to spend time with wonderful people. His grandma and grandpa watch him once a week and Inga watches him twice a week. No, Inga is not our Scandinavian nanny with blond hair and braids. Inga is our awesome friend who has a little bit of baby fever and some free time on her hands. Thinking about her trekking around Ann Arbor with Tripp in the stroller or baby carrier keeps me amused while I’m at work.

Back to Blogging

Now that I'm back to sitting in front of a computer for 8+ hours a day, I guess I'll make an attempt to go back to blogging. We'll see how this goes...