It's Been a Great Month

Lots of playing. Lots of walks. Lots of fun. Even some swimming! I can't wait for the days to come.

Weird

On my way in to work this morning, I was driving behind an old, teal sedan. While we waited at a stoplight, the driver threw her cigarette butt out the window. Bad. We continued driving, I was listening to NPR (note to self, time to pledge) and had the windows rolled down because it was nice outside. I started smelling gas fumes. The smell continued for a few blocks and I started watching my gas gauge, to make sure it wasn't me. I then realized it was the car in front of me. The car wasn't dripping gas, it was spewing gas. It was really gross. I switched lanes to try to pull up next to the driver and let her know she was leaking gas, but traffic prevented me from pulling up beside her. We finally reached the street where I had to make a right turn and the leaky car got in the lane to make a left turn. Even though we were a couple of lanes apart, I noticed that not only was the car spewing gas, it was also smoking. I looked up to see if the driver was looking in my direction, and I saw her roll down the window and reach for a cigarette. I started honking to get her attention and when I did, I signaled and mouthed that she was leaking gas. She nodded her head and mouthed "I know." I made my right turn and drove away as fast as I could. What was she doing throwing her cigarette butt out the window if she knew she was leaking gas??!!

Oh No!

What happens when I leave the boys alone??? The Peanut gets a new outfit.



That's right, that's an old pair of Hanes, with arm holes.






This is a great sight to come home to.

Working Mom

I've been back at work for 2 weeks now. The first couple of days were easy. The next few were hard. Being at work isn't so hard, it's when I go home and I see what I'm missing that I sometimes feel sad. I tend to only get 2-3 hours with the Peanut of play time before it's time to go to bed. So now my weeknights and weekends have a whole new meaning. I used to have a long list of things of stuff I wanted to do on the weekends, but now all I want to do is hangout with the Peanut. And not getting enough rest at night just adds to the emotional stress. But we're managing.

By the second week, stuff at work got a lot more stressful. I went from hanging out with my son 24/7 to working on developing a numerical model of a bullet for new and improved armor designs. So work is challenging. My boss was in my office a few days ago, and we were trying to figure out how a material model was working and he said: "blah, blah, blah, that's right, because what is the log of 1...?" Huh, the log of 1? Uhhhhhhh?? What's a log? I blanked. The only logs I had been thinking of for 3 months were pooppy and nursing logs. And my boss was referring to something completely different. And I've had more than a few similar incidents. Hopefully my boss doesn't think I'm a total idiot now.

The husband is doing great at home. And the Peanut and husband are developing a great relationship. The husband is now becoming the Peanut expert. But fortunately I still have the boobs so the Peanut still enjoys seeing me come home.

I can't believe I'm a working mom now. So much has changed in the last 4 months. I honestly can't remember what we did with our time before the Peanut was born. And my little joys in life are different now. I am happy to see mustard yellow poops in my son's diaper (the best color to have). I cheer when I can pull a booger out of the Peanut's nose. Before the Peanut I was indifferent to baby clothes and didn't care too much about other babies, especially if they didn't belong to friends or family. Now I love baby clothes and all things babies. And when I see another baby I either reminisce about when the Peanut was that young or imagine what the Peanut will be like when he's older.

Well, it's Friday and I can't wait for the weekend to start. Pictures later.

What We Have Been Up To

This is my last week on maternity leave. I am sad. I can't believe I am going to have to leave the Peanut. The good thing is that he'll stay with someone that loves him as much as I do, his daddy. I'm sure the two boys will have lots of fun together. The Peanut will have a much easier time parting than I will - as long as he gets fed when he wants it and his diaper changed when he needs it.

Over Easter weekend we went to the OC to visit my family. The Peanut was great on the flight. He ate, slept, sucked on his pacifier, and looked around. And of course he charmed a few people. A lady sitting behind us commented to her travel mate that the Peanut was a cute baby. :) The Peanut got lots of love from the family and friends. One of my aunties nicknamed him the blender since he loves to get bounced and swayed.

The husband's brother met up with us in the OC and we all flew back together. During his visit, we went to the new California Academy of Sciences at Golden Gate Park. It was awesome. We didn't get to see a lot because we got there late and it was crowded, but the Peanut loved the fish. However, after about 30 minutes of fish he got a little over stimulated and needed to take a nap. But we had so much fun showing him the fish at the aquarium that today we took him to the pet store to check out more fish. But the store fish weren't as cool.

The Peanut is now 3 months. He's able to mostly support his head, but he doesn't have much control with it and he still often bangs his head against our shoulder or head. So we still try to support it. The Peanut has also started holding on to things, like a rattle. He doesn't yet reach for anything, but I expect that is a couple weeks away. We've also started teaching the Peanut some sign language. We are keeping it simple with words like mommy, daddy, baby, nurse, milk, happy, love. We are using signs from a baby sign language book we got, but I don't think they are appropriate American Sign Language signs (at least not all of them). Hopefully the three languages we are using won't be too much for the Peanut.

And now, for more exciting stuff...PICTURES!!!

Puppy Kiss!!!


Close-up


Hanging out with some oranges in the OC.


What the???


Family Easter picture.


Yummy fist.


Artistic bath picture.


Check out the fish!

Co-Sleeping

A few weekends ago we decided to co-sleep with the Peanut. He gave us 6 hours between feedings which was awesome. But, we were so worried about squishing the baby that we barely slept. The following weekend, we tried it again. The second time around we loved it and were hooked. We've been co-sleeping since. It's so much fun. It's like a little slumber party every night. The only thing is that since we are not planning on co-sleeping in the long term, we probably need to go back to having the Peanut sleep in his crib. But maybe we'll enjoy it for another few weeks.

This weekend we are going to OC to visit family. It's the Peanut's first trip. We are quite excited. We were thinking of visiting the in-laws in Italy later this month (but decided it would have been too logistically difficult), so the Peanut already has his passport. He is set!

Today we went to the San Jose Museum of Art and checked out an Andy Warhol exhibit. The Peanut was awake and observant the whole time. There were certain paintings he liked and would stare and smile and others that made him fuss. He's already an art critic.

In non-baby news, over the weekend I went to the openning game of the new Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) league. It was a fun game and it was awesome to see some of the veterans like Brandi Chastain and Tiffany Milbrett still playing so late in their careers. Chastain turns 41 this year. Wow! Before the game, a friend of ours had a tailgating party at her house. Now, since most of my readers are not from the mid-west, let me tell you a little something about mid-west cuisine (my friend is from the mid-west). If you live in the mid-west, on special occasions, next to your meat and potatoes, you might find a jello dish. My friend had talked about these dishes before and I never quite believed her. She described dishes that included ingredients like jello, fruits, pistachios, carrots, and other stuff you would probably not use in the same sentence with jello. Well, this particular jello dish had baked pretzels layered with a whipped cream, cream cheese, and sugar filling, and then topped with jello with strawberry chunks. It was actually quite good. Sweet and tart at the same time. So not that bad. UNTIL I realized that the dish is a side dish and NOT a desert. I had some leftovers but I ate my jello dish for desert.

Happy Easter everyone!!

Bits and Pieces

I walked into our bedroom last night to find Monkey sitting on the husbands laptop. She had Googled "]67" and there was drool on the laptop.

A few nights ago, around 3:30 am, I had fed the Peanut and had changed his diaper. I was sleepily putting his clothes back on with all the lights off except the nightlight. As I was finishing, I glanced up at his face and realized he was staring at me with a very concerned look on his face. He looked really cute and I smiled. He smiled back at me with his big, toothless grin. My heart melted.

I am getting better and faster with the one handed typing.

There's a "big sale" at the trailer park near our house. Hmmm.

Oh, did anyone participate in Earth Hour last weekend? We did. The husband bottle fed the Peanut by candlelight while I read Walt Whitman out loud. It was fun, except for the Whitman part. His poetry is kind of depressing.

I was pretty sure I had a lot more stuff but I can't seem to remember any of it right now. So instead, I present and Ode to Brady Part II (Part I is here).

Brady???


Brady!!!


Daddy and son.