Hi friends. Please forgive my absence here over the last seven weeks. I was just busy having a baby.
Well, not for that whole time. First, I spent a few weeks feeling like a miserable, enormous, rickety pregnant lady. For most of my pregnancy I felt pretty much okay. And then one day I just woke up and felt awful. I had insomnia, acid reflux, and no self confidence.
During this phase I did try to finish a long list of projects and preparations. Nothing worth writing a whole post about. I shuffled some furniture around in Oscar's room to make way for his new roommate. He got a real twin bed and we added some storage for all his toys and books. This kid already has more possessions that I've had over the course of my entire life.
I finally made use of the closet in the boys' room with help from Ikea's Skubb collection of organizers, available only in purple for some reason.
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Before
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Milo Zeke arrived into the world in the early morning of October 30. His birth was quick and uncomplicated, much like his brother's. I'm like Mr. McFeely with all these speedy deliveries.
Since then I've been floating around in the parallel universe that is maternity leave, with my alter ego representing the me I always knew I could be if I only had the extra time. I do things like bake coffee cake for breakfast, wash AND fold AND put away laundry in the same day, pick Oscar up early from preschool and spend the afternoon doing fun activities I found on Pinterest. I gathered up the huge heap of mail from the breakfast bar, opened every last envelope, and dealt with whatever past due monstrosity lay inside. I went to Target, on a weekday and without a toddler in tow. With Milo fast asleep and strapped to my chest in his Ergo carrier, I sauntered around through the sparsely populated aisles, casually sipping a Starbuck's peppermint mocha. It was the one time I made it to the register without forgetting anything on my list. On Veteran's Day, when Oscar's school was closed, I successfully got both boys to nap at the same time before settling in for some rest myself. We all woke up after nearly three hours, then I made grilled cheese and tomato soup and watched Ellen while Oscar did a puzzle. I wondered how I would ever get back to my old life.
After the first three weeks, progress slowed as Milo stayed awake for longer and longer stretches during the day. At this point he can happily stay awake for five or six hours, developing a sort of maniacal look in his eyes, but only crying sporadically. This has put a damper on things. We mostly pass our time by nursing, during which I watch nothing but DIY Network and HGTV until I am practically vibrating with pent up potential. Then, we stand up and walk around and around the house while I inspect everything that's wrong with everything and make a mental list of future projects.
Lists are a big thing for me right now. I have trouble keeping my thoughts together when operating freestyle so I've had to glue them all together with ink and paper. There's something shamefully practical about excessive list-making. I can just hear me being described in a 90s alt-rock hit by someone like Train or Matchbox 20.
She wants to be the perfect mother
She wants to be the perfect wife
I said baby, stop making lists
And start living your life...
Barf. Anyway, what else is new... Oh! I made a pumpkin pie from one of the pumpkins I grew in my garden.
It wasn't actually that hard to do. Had it been difficult I would've written a long post about the ways in which I effed it all up. Turns out, success makes for a bad story. Actually the hardest thing about baking a pie from scratch from a pumpkin that you raised from a tiny seed is restraining yourself from bragging too much to your dining companions at Thanksgiving, and resisting the urge to stand 6 inches away and stare intently as they eat it. While I didn't actually have a slice of the pie myself (I don't like pumpkin pie and I'm not just saying that to be adorably ironic), it seemed to be received favorably. Or, at least, everyone described it as "not too sweet," which, now that I think about it may be the culinary equivalent of being told "you don't look fat" while I was pregnant. Thanks, I guess?
I also committed to a wallpaper for the ModLodge and ordered it. It's back ordered (of course), but I guess I'm in no hurry. Also, thanks to watching 65 episodes of Kitchen Crashers, I've decided the ModLogde Proj is only a temporary layover on the way to my final destination: demolishing the kitchen and joining the two rooms to make one mega kitchen with counter space for days. But now I'm just getting ahead of myself.
With a whopping three months left of this maternity leave, I hope I can at least accomplish a handful of goals from my many lists. Will I save the front lawn that was ravaged by drought? Will I spend the month of January on some kind of ill-advised fad diet? Will I catch up on Scandal and then start watching How To Get Away With Murder? Stay tuned to find out!
You are Wonder Woman!
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to experience Milo's "maniacal" look!