my new hobby

so, i’m basically obsessed with my mac/digital slr/photoshop elements combination.  if i get a free minute (a big “if”), you can pretty much guess that i’m at my computer playing around with some of the pics that i’ve taken.  the hubs got me an amazing 100mm lens for my birthday, so that’s my latest obsession...but the best thing about this hobby is that i feel like there will always be something to learn.  so, a few weeks ago i posted this little pic of my ballerina but i complained that it was too dark.  with the help of rita from coffeeteaphotography.blogspot.com, i was able to lighten it up and give it a vintage look that i absolutely adore.  i’m sure there will be millions of iterations of this photo (i heart it) but check out the most recent! 

i also took the pic of the dandelion, above.  i love it for some reason...it reminds me of ballerinas in point shoes, wearing white tutus.  (well, the bottom half of the ballerina, at least.)

before

after

hola! we're ba-aaack!

So, I would classify the vacation as a resounding success.  We had a ton of fun (despite some truly terrible weather), hung out with great friends, spent quality family time together, and kept the kid SUNBURN FREE!  Little A (and her BFF, Little L) both LOVED the water.  Pool, hot tub, bathtub, jacuzzi, kiddie pool .....it didn’t matter.  If the girls were in water, they were thrilled.  We definitely saw our share of pruny baby toes over the trip. 

It turns out that Little A was definitely more high-maintenance than her identically aged counterpart, but she was really good nonetheless and only got fussy when we forced her to stay in the room too long.  (She also hated going into the town, but whatever...I give her a pass because it was pretty hot.)
OH!  And she was AWESOME on the plane.  We spoiled her with a first class experience, and she was just SO good.  SHe didn’t sleep on the way out to Mexico, but she slept half of the trip back and was quiet the rest of the time.  You could tell that the other passengers were nervous of the little wildcard, but she was on her best behavior. 

We were astounded by the generosity of our friends, just for inviting us to stay with them in their GORGEOUS timeshare...and the timing couldn’t have been better.  We were truly in need of some time away.

As for the weather, it sucked.  Hard.  That’s actually the reason for not having many pics -- we thought we’d have many more outside-y days than we ended up having.  But here are a few of the few.  (Oh, and we didn’t bring the big camera...so these were taken with the P&S.)

on the way there:

enjoying some sunshine:

chillin' with dada:

bathing suit in t minus 5 days

yes, you read that correctly...in just five short days, this little family of three will be heading south-of-the-border to enjoy a week in paradise with another family of three.  are we crazy to bring a 9 month old baby on a plane?  probably.  but i’m SO excited that i could squeal...we could really use a vacation, and i can’t wait for little A to go swimming for the first time.  i’m not thrilled about wearing a bikini but hey, that’s a small price to pay for an AWESOME trip!  mexico, here we come!
 
oh, and it will also be my first full week in my thirties.  don’t know how i feel about that, exactly, but i can’t think of a better way to spend it than with the sand between my toes!

where does the time go?

i just can’t believe that my teeny, tiny, little baby girl is already 9 months old...she has officially been on the ‘outside’ for longer than she baked!  i swear, in many ways, i feel like she was just born yesterday...and i’m already starting to think about her first birthday.  crazy.  anyway, just a little update on the peanut.  and yes, i may be totally bragging, but i swear that this kid’s a freaking genius.  she’s so tiny, but if you ask her where various objects are, she looks at them, points, and then says ‘yay’ and claps with a big ol’ grin on her face...she loves the celebration after she gets it right.  she knows how to find the microwave, many lights, clocks, fans, mommy, daddy, and daisy.  to me, it’s amazing...i mean, it really wasn’t too long ago when i was just waiting for her first smile, and now she has a vocabulary!  she may not be speaking per se, but she is SURELY understanding us when we talk to her, and she’s absorbing things like a sponge.  (note to self:  clean up language immediately!)  it would be one thing to say that i’m proud, but it’s more accurate to say that i could just burst with the amazement that i feel for this little girl.  she’s just...amazing.  yesterday morning she picked up her (clean) burp cloth and took turns wiping mommy’s mouth, then daddy’s mouth, then mommy’s, then daddy’s, and back and forth for a good few minutes.  i mean, WHAT?!?  she found the whole process very amusing.  i guess i’m just amazed that she has her own thoughts and actually knows how to do things.  maybe i have super-low standards, but the fact that she’s not just a “demands machine” anymore it just so awesome.  oh, and she has 2 teeth now!  my baby is growing up SO FAST!

oh, and yes, and she still sucks at sleeping.  i like to think that we’re getting a bit better, though!

my pet goat

 I’ve heard that people gain some sort of stress relief from having pets, and that they can lower their blood pressure just by stroking their dog on a daily basis.  These people have obviously never met Daisy.  I must first say that I do actually love Daisy, although it may not seem like I do when I describe the headache that she adds to our lives on a daily basis.  Daisy is beautiful & sweet, but she is also jealous, vindictive, and freakishly smart.  If everyone in the house is paying attention to the baby (the horror!), Daisy will proceed to eat things to get attention.  I swear the dog has PICA.  (Surely you know of PICA...it’s that weird pregnancy disease that causes pregnant women to each paint chips and chalk.  mmm.)  For example, so far today she has eaten the corner off of 2 dishtowels (and I caught her with a third!), simply because I was doing the unthinkable...I was feeding the baby.  She apparently can’t believe the nerve of me for providing nourishment to the baby, so she trolled around the house searching for something to eat.  (Mind you, I cleaned up all of the loose towels/blankets/socks/etc before I went to feed the babe, because I knew that Daisy would be on the lookout for such items.  I believe that she found the aforementioned dishtowels on top of the washing machine.)  Oh, and she also enjoyed some of the dangly things from my pashmina.  This was all in the span of 20 minutes or so.  I don’t mind calling Daisy a bitch because, technically, she is one...in both meanings of the word.  I love her, but some days it’s REALLY tough to like her...because she goes out of her way (using her freakishly cunning dog brain) to make my life more difficult.  Honestly, I’ll be shocked if this dog lives to see her fifth birthday because she eats so many random things...rocks, cement, socks, undies.  Literally, some of my favorite undergarments have made their way through her entire digestive tract.  Yes, I’m complaining about my dog on the internet.  Lame?  Perhaps.  But seriously, I JUST bought this huge pack of dishtowels from Costco and they’re almost all destroyed. 

never will i ever...

Before birthing my own spawn, I had my own (very strong) opinions about how my child would and should be raised.  From little things like “I will NEVER lick my finger to clean something off her face...eww!” (I’ve already done it, and she’s only 7 months old...) to more significant things like “I will follow my doctor’s opinions on when and how to vaccinate”, I had so many ideas about how to be a parent.  And admittedly, I was quick to judge other parents’ styles and think to myself that I would NEVER be like them.  My childless self said things like “I will NEVER let my child sleep in my bed”, or “I will feel totally comfortable drinking a bit of booze while breastfeeding”, but now that the little lady’s here, I have no clue about my own opinions anymore.  Everything is in the dreaded ‘gray zone’.  As someone who used to think of things as clearly right or wrong, the gray zone is an uncomfortable place to be spending my time.  I think it’s the biggest example about how I’m as new at being a mom as she is at being a baby, and we’re really just learning the ropes together. 

There are seriously dozens of examples of things that I’ve flip-flopped on, but here are two that have come up over the past weekend.  Example 1:  She spent the entire night in our bed two nights ago.  Right between us, where I vowed NEVER to put her.  But dammit, I was just too exhausted to keep putting her in her own bed and risk waking her up...so there she stayed, sleeping peacefully and snuggling so sweetly, breaking one of my golden rules.  (Secretly, I love having her there...she’s SO warm.)  & example 2:  I’m so paranoid about drinking any booze that I just can’t enjoy it anymore.  I haven’t had a cocktail in a year and a half, and guess what?  It sucks.  Totally.  While pregnant, I was truly fine with others drinking happily while I had to order a club soda because I was baking a baby, but now that we’re pushing 18 months (9 months of pregnancy + 8 months of breastfeeding), I feel jealous of how carefree others can be.  I’ve been doing what’s right for the baby since October of 2008, and here we are in February of 2010 and ohmyGod I just can’t wait to have a glass of wine.  Perhaps it’s part of my craving for my body to be mine again, even though I love nursing her and I’m SO glad that we’ve been able to breastfeed for this long and I have no intentions of quitting until she’s one (even when it’s miserable to pump while being at work...but more on that later). 

I think this whole motherhood thing is making me more understanding of the crazy ride that is parenting, and I realize that these superstrong opinions will likely change a hundred times over the next handful of years.  So, I raise a glass (of ::sigh:: club soda) to all the parents out there who have no idea what they’re doing, like me.  May we all find the strength to live in the gray zone and just go with the flow, making decisions that are right for this baby at this time. 

P.S.  While I’m proud of myself for going with the flow and changing my preconceptions in order to do what’s right for my child, let the record show that I am still not mature enough to enjoy hearing ‘I told you so’ or “remember when you said that you’d NEVER do ___”.  Yes, I remember.  Of course I remember...because these are issues that I used to judge other mothers on all. the. time.  

the backstory (aka how we became a family of three...+1)

My groom and I actually met at our first place of employment after college, & while we were developing a nice, honest, platonic friendship, he was totally my reason for actually blowdrying my hair each morning.  I had a crush, and a big one at that.   I like to think that he felt the same way, given the fact that we eventually got married.  We dated for a while, got engaged, had the wedding of our dreams, and bought a fixer-upper.  After a while, it seemed like a good idea to start adding to our twosome...so we adopted Daisy.  & then found out we were pregnant...the same week.  The puppy was planned...but the baby?  Not so much.  So, from the moment we picked up Daisy from the airport to the moment that I sit here and type this paragraph, our lives have been an absolute whirlwind.  I was pregnant, nauseous, and vomiting while the little furball’s mission was to bite my face. & eat the molding.  & do every other bad thing that people warn you about when you decide to get a puppy.  But somehow, in a wonderful turn of events, she became better (not good, but better) from the moment we brought our little lady home from the hospital.  & let me just say that this little girl has brought more joy, light, and excitement into my life than anything before, ever.  I’m learning how to juggle being a part-time employee, a part-time SAHM, a frequent work widow, and an admittedly sub-par housekeeper.  And while daily life may be rife with stress and feelings of oh-my-god-how-can-I-ever-get-everything-done, I’ve never been happier.  So here we sit...an over-worked couple with the most amazing little girl on the planet, doing everything we can to make her giggle.