a little frustration

it's sad how shallow i am at times...i'm so tired of not having anything to wear. while i knew i wouldn't be back to my normal sized clothing immediately, i didn't think about what that would mean practically speaking. this post-pregnancy body is shaped a little differently that it was before pregnancy...and definitely differently than my preggo body. which leaves me in quite a predicament of not really having anything to wear. i've spent a good bit of the past 7 weeks in a smaller pair of maternity jeans that i dug out of my closet...and then a random collection of shirts (mostly baggy ones that hide the little extra i'm carrying here and there or t-shirts). i think i mentioned before buying a new pair of shorts...which has added a little more variety to my wardrobe. but still-wearing the same things over and over again isn't working for me...especially since none of them are really flattering on my body shape. but, i'm still working on getting down a few more sizes, so i'm going to try to stick it out through these weird stage. but all the same-i'm pretty sick of it right now...

a new sound

this whole having a baby and being a mommy has really changed my outlook on a few things, the idea of romance being one of those things. i've always been one who enjoys spending a little quality time with the ones i love and, of course, gifts (bring on the flowers and chocolates, baby!). these things speak love to me (gary chapman's five love languages, anyone?)...and they still do, but other things speak love to me now. for instance, changing noah's diaper. after being by myself for hours on end while ryan is working, it means the world for him to change diapers when he is home...because the truth is, we all know that no one actually enjoys changing diapers..it's just not a fun job! especially with a little boy who likes to pee (and sometimes poopie) everywhere as soon as the diaper comes off. it's risky business attempting such a task! 

another thing that spoke of major love to me happened when we were in the hospital. c-sections are rough on the body, as you can imagine. during my early recovery time, it was excruciating to even attempt to go to the bathroom. and my sweet husband was by my side every time i needed him. nothing says sexy like helping a grown woman go potty! 

other acts of love: doing the dishes (how does that sink fill up so quick?!)..taking the trash out (like three times a day with all the diapers we go through!)..helping fold the laundry (those little clothes, wash clothes, and blankets take years to  fold!) and one i didn't expect? watching ryan love our little noah. as he holds him close and talks to him, my heart just melts. knowing that the love of my life loves our little boy almost as much as i do speaks love pretty loudly. :) 

so even though the voice of romance sounds a little differently these days, don't get me wrong-i still like the flowers...

"freeeeeeeedom!"

if you had passed me cruising down lakeshore yesterday around 2 pm, you might have thought that william wallace was near...but alas, it was me headed to spend a few hours all by myself. 

 for a few minutes, i felt a little guilty that i was enjoying being by myself SO much, but then i remembered that it really is okay to want to have a little break every now and then. the strange thing about being a mom is how rare alone time really is. noah joins me when i take showers, go to the potty, eat, sleep, etc. unlike a full time job, there is no off time on the evenings and weekends...and it's a little wearing at times. 

so yesterday was my first true outing all by myself. i went and met my mom and sister for a few minutes at brookwood and then just walked around for a while. i got a new pair of shorts because the one bottoms i've been wearing of late are my early maternity pants. while the size of the shorts was a little bigger than i had hoped, i was thrilled to be buying clothing without a stretchy waistband! it's hard not having many things to wear these days. when i was preggo, i loved wearing clothing that showed off my burgeoning belly...but that isn't working out so well now because there's no baby hiding inside the belly that's left! and most of my pre-pregnancy clothes are still a little too small...and, well, i don't really want to buy many new things because i don't want to be at this size forever. but, i need some things to wear... tshirts and old maternity pants aren't going to work EVERY day! it's all such a dilemma. anywho, back to my fun afternoon... :) after the mall, i jetted by the grocery store to get a new thing of mylecon for noah-he's been much more gassy over this past week or so and these drops work wonders!! i just walked around the grocery store for a while enjoying the fact that i didn't have a baby in his huge carrier taking up all the room in my buggy...fortunately, we didn't really need anything since ryan, noah and i had been to the grocery just the day before. but, it was nice to wander freely. after this, i decided to go by babies r us really just to compare the price of the gas drops. i ended up finding quite  a few needful things including one of those sweet mirrors that i can put in the car above noah's carseat so i can see what's going on back there. i'm sure he makes all sorts of funny faces! it will also be helpful in playing the "where did you spit your paci to??" that's a tough game when you are driving down the road with a screaming baby who is demanding you find his paci ASAP!

so, that was my afternoon...nothing too amazing, but it was still quite enjoyable. thanks, ryan! :)

photo of the day

a new favorite?

sometimes noah, like all babies, has trouble controlling his movements. his little arms fly around like crazy causing him to sometimes punch himself in the face, sometimes punch mommy and daddy in the face, and sometimes even punch his sweet great grandma in the face. thankfully, he's not very strong, so this doesn't really hurt and gives us all a good laugh! he also has trouble controlling his legs, throwing them all over the place and kicking like a karate hero or something. this, too, usually gives us a good laugh. it's especially funny when he's kicking all around as he tries to get a good poopie going on. which leads us to the other thing he sometimes has a hard time controlling...when he goes to the bathroom. or maybe he doesn't...could it be that it's all thought out and purposeful? as he gets older, he seems to have fewer and fewer "accidents"...they seem to come at certain convenient times, like right when we are in the middle of a bath, he pees all in the water! or the latest is when someone is holding him. i'm convinced that he only saves this for his most favorite people in the world. the latest victim: his aunt ruthie. he's actually gotten her twice, which makes me think she must be his very favorite. yesterday, the two of us met ruthie at the summit to look at some shoes for this weekend's festivities. okay, actually, i begged ruthie to meet me because i desperately needed someone fashionable to help me find shoes to match my new dress...anyway, i had decided when we got there just to carry noah in, rather than getting his stroller out-it takes such effort and we were only going to be there for a few minutes. and the pumpkin seat by itself is a little awkward to carry around if you don't have something to put it in. so, i just grabbed him and ran in. ruthie quickly helped me find a great pair and asked the saleslady to grab them in my size, while i walked around with noah trying to keep him content. i knew he was working on dirtying his diaper, but it takes him a little while to get it all out so i figured we had a few minutes. right in the middle of this, a friend called who was swinging by to give me something...i told ruthie that i was going to run out and grab it and she offered to hold noah for me. so, i tossed him to her and ran out...i was gone, seriously, no longer than two minutes and by the time i made it back, disaster had struck unbeknowingst to poor, poor ruthie. i think i forgot to mention what my oh-so-fashionable sister was wearing: a very adorable vintage dress, a gift from her dad. not a good mix with our sweet little noah. i should have expected something was up when i returned and he was just chillin' in her lap, looking like the happiest baby in the world. i commented on how much he must love her as i picked him up...and then i spotted it, two big wet spots right in the front of her dress. she was so kind about the whole ordeal and we had a good laugh...but i felt terrible. but do you know noah wouldn't even apologize for the mess?? he just fussed at me like i was the one who poopied everywhere! babies! 

super-senser

our nighttime routine gets pretty funny at times. noah has been such a dear to start sleeping many more hours of the night than he was at first. for this, we are thrilled beyond words. a little sleep does the body good, right? and ryan and i certainly value our sleep, as i'm sure all you other moms and dads with little ones would agree with! sometimes, though, as i have mentioned before..when we lay him down, he gets really upset. he's a boy who likes to have company around and loves the companionship of someone holding him snuggly. but, alas, this just cannot always be done, so, we lay him down all by himself in his nice cozy cradle and walk away to our own cozy bed, just down the hall (and i really mean JUST..our apartment is tiny!). usually, it will take him a second to realize that mommy is no longer holding him and then begins the crying...some nights, it's only for a minute, other nights it's for 20! when we first brought him home, i said we'd never let him cry over 5 minutes...which is no longer the case. anywho, on the nights that he cries longer, it usually goes like this: cry, cry, cry, silence....cry, cry, silence...scream, cry, scream, silence... and so on. during those moments of silence-which really can be anywhere between 10 seconds and 10 minutes, i find myself trying not to move a muscle...even holding my breath at times, because i'm certain the slightest change of position on my part will be heard by noah, since he's just right down the hall. i guess that means he has the hearing of, say, a dog..because we have a humidifier doing it's thing right near his cradle...and then our box fan doing it's thing right by our bed. the irony is that i'm pretty sure even if he can't hear those little noises, he seems to have a senser of sorts....almost like, "oh yeah, i was screaming my lungs out!" and so he picks right back up where he left off.

preciousness

sometimes i swear i feel like the milk that i pump is liquid gold...possibly even immensely more valuable. it is the secret to my sanity these days, the means of a little "freedom" every now and then. i had a breakdown today in the middle of a nice trip to aldridge gardens. ryan took noah and i to the Y near his work to watch him play basketball with some of his co-workers. while this sounded like  fun idea at first (i'll be honest, anything that gets us out of the house is appealing these days), it turned on me later. first of all, it's not all that fun watching people play basketball...while i sit longing to play on the sidelines. i felt a little like the kid who is picked last for the kickball team-not too fun! second of all, i had to take a bottle of my aforementioned liquid gold because i didn't want to nurse in the middle of the Y. later in the day, while we were walking around the gardens, my mom called and said she wanted to meet us for dinner and then take me, along with my sisters, to get our nails done. i LOVE getting my nails done and have missed several invites recently because the nail salon is just not the best place for a newborn...but, since ryan was off this afternoon and evening, i figured he could easily take noah home and have a boy's night. not a big deal, except for feeding him...thus the reason for my breakdown-i was going to either have to give up another bottle of my precious gold or turn down a mani/pedi trip!! it's times like these where, i must be honest, i start feeling a little trapped...i wish we lived in a country where nursing in public was a little more normal and that i felt a little more natural about it. but the truth it, this place is not built for nursing moms...not the malls, not the restaurants, not the churches. so, how is a nursing mom supposed to make it?! pumping is great and i'm super thankful for it, but i can only pump about 7 or so ounces a day, which is a little more than one bottle for my chunky monkey...and that 7 oz isn't all pumped until the very end of the day...which is good for storing, but not for actually getting out. unless i plan to only go every other day. anyway, it's all a quandry that i haven't quite figured out...but hopefully one day soon! 

snip-its from our week

*four weeks ago today, noah was brand new in this world. now it feels like he's been here for years, in some ways...and in others, only a few days. he is looking a little different every day! right now, he has this crazy acne thing going on, which started last weekend and is clearing up little by little. unfortunately, i also have this crazy thing going on with my face-it's not acne, but like this red rash that comes up after i wash my face-it's really strange and quite saddening. i'm not bragging because i know i have had absolutely nothing to do with it, but i have always had a great, clear complexion...something about the weird flux in hormones post-pregnancy is doing strange things to my face (and other parts of me, too :/). my hope is that as noah's clears up completely, mine will, too!! a girl can always hope, right?? :)

*last night, ryan and i had a night on the town. thanks to a little company called medela and their wonderful milk pumping machines, we were able to drop noah off with grammie around 4 and go off to have some fun. as it turned out, noah got to have a little treat of his own-dinner with grammie and uncle chris! ryan and i went out to dinner at j. alexanders, which is one of my all time favorite places in the world to eat...we even treated ourselves to a glass of wine and dessert!  and then we went to see ghosts of girlfriends past (thanks, cece!), which was a disappointment, but we still had fun! we missed noah while we were gone, but it was nice to get out! when we got home, we snatched him away and booked it to our place!

*noah has been doing really well at night, which we are sooooo thankful for. sleeping only 2 hours at a time was not working for any of us, so i'm grateful we are out of that stage (at least for the time being). he is sleeping 4-6 hours at a time now...and doesn't do the whole crying his eyes out in the middle of the night-he saves that for when we put him to bed right after his bath and late night dinner time. i mean, you'd think we were torturing him by the way he screams when we first lay him down...it's hard on the ears and the heart to listen to, but we think it's best for him, so we do it. being a parent is hard sometimes... 

*pumping is going really well. it's giving me the freedom to take noah out more, and giving others the gift of feeding him from time to time. i have had a hard time stockpiling it, but we finally have a little supply in our fridge...noah cracks me up when i am trying to pump...it's like he is somehow aware that milk is coming out of me and not going immediately into his mouth, and he gets furious! he screams and screams for the first few minutes, sure i am holding out on him. his eyes searching frantically around the room, trying to find the other baby i must be sharing my milk with. but, alas, it's all for him! he insists that i hold his paci in his mouth as he swings, nearly the whole time i'm pumping...which, let me just say, that mr. medela did not make the pumping contraptions for use during such reaching, stretching and moving around that noah requires during this time. the best part-juuuuussstt as i'm finishing up pumping, he drifts off to sleep, dropping the paci and no longer requiring my constant attention and assistance! 

...

i feel like i have so little to talk about of interest now that i'm a mom. i do little more than change diapers and clothing, feed, feed, feed, and rock noah. i was reading the other day something a friend said about having such a high about being a mom that the tiredness and everything else was hardly anything to even mention. i told ryan and we laughed about how we must have missed out on getting that high...parenting a newborn is stressful and frustrating at times. it's so hard to know what to do when noah is crying and crying and crying...i long for the days when he can talk so he can at least tell us what's wrong. every time he cries, it seems we go through a million questions: "is he hungry again?" "is something pinching him?" "does he have a dirty diaper?" "is he hungry again?" "is his diaper on right or is something getting squished down there?" "is he hungry again?" "did he pee through his diaper onto his clothes?" "is he sleepy?" "is he hungry again?!" so it goes...and a lot of times we have no idea. and then i question our capabilities as parents-not so much ryan, he's a great dad! but i wonder where my motherly intuition is-that one that is supposed to just know what's wrong with my baby always. it's all a lot harder than i thought it was...i have a much greater respect and aweness of my mom for having six children!

out on the town

noah and i had our first big outing together today. i have been scared to venture out without ryan for a number of reasons, but today was our day! cece called this morning to see if we wanted to go to lunch with her and papa g (ryan worked all day). we started getting ready about 10:30 for our 12:00 meeting, and still ended up being about 15 minutes late. it's just hard to plan with a baby-he ended up eating for 45 minutes! and if there's one thing i've learned, you don't take milk away from a hungry baby! let him eat when he's ready or regret it majorly later!! anyway, we had a wonderful lunch and even got to enjoy the company of roxie! noah stayed awake most of the meal-just looking around at who knows what. he's so funny because while he looks around a lot, he's not very good at focusing on things-like people...you can try to get into his line of sight, but he still doesn't seem to be looking at you. i know, it's a baby thing! (i will say, though, since i know he loves his mamma best ;) that he looks at me a lot, especially when he's eating-my face is just the right distance away then, so he can focus easily, i think!) now that we have ventured out, i feel more comfortable doing it more often...especially now that ryan is back to work full time. i also finally started pumping today (thanks again for your help, jamie! we are ever so grateful), so i feel like that will help us as we get out of the house. i have been a little fearful because it's hard to nurse when you are out and about...i'm not huge on the whole sitting in the car deal, and most places (stores, restaurants, etc) are just not nursing friendly. while i'm not nearly as shy as i used to be about whipping the old milker out, i don't want to make other people uncomfortable. so, now we can take bottles with us and it's not nearly such a big deal. i'm pretty excited about this!

photo of the day

notice the buttons! the proudest grammie:

(not actually from today...this picture is from the hospital.)