Feeling Cold

Well we've finally started to dip down into the 30's at night. I even turned our heater on the other day. And when it starts to cool down in Florida, I start to worry about my image. Yes, that's right - my image. After all, I like to talk a big game - oh, I say, I know about SNOW and I know about COLD. I've walked to class in negative forty degree windchills! I've walked over snowbanks taller than my dad!

And it was uphill you know. Both ways.

I digress.

Seriously though - I have dealt with really cold temperatures and with a lot of snow, and then when it is 50 degrees during the day in Florida, I want to pull out my winter coat! It's ridiculous. I try to save face by utilizing what I like to call "the double sweatshirt" method. This sneaky method is defined by wearing two sweatshirts - one a lightweight, thin sweatshirt and a second, heavier sweatshirt over that. Then I LOOK like someone wearing just a sweatshirt who is not bothered by the cold, but I have the protection of two sweatshirts.

You know, just in case someone looks at me and judges me for wearing a coat when it is cold outside. I think that's the craziest part of it all; I do this because I don't want other people thinking I'm overly cold. I never said that my brain made sense 100% of the time.

So I spent my morning commute debating whether it's worse to have someone think I am cold or to actually be cold - (and yes, you'd think that should be an easily answered question but here we are), when I noticed a guy jogging down the sidewalk in a pair of shorts and a pair of mittens and nothing else.

Well played almost naked jogging guy. Now I feel even worse about the leggings I put on under my skirt today.

Does anyone else have mornings like this?

So I'm hungry this morning and my loving and patient husband asks me what I'd like while I'm nursing the baby.
I say, I don't know.
He says, would you like a bagel? I can put cream cheese and regular cheese and a tomato on it and heat it up for you.
I say, that doesn't sound appealing.
He says, I'll make you just a bagel and cream cheese if you want.
I say, I really want stuffing. I want to eat stuffing.
He says, we don't have stuffing.
I say, I know. I think that's why I want it.
He says nothing. I eat a reeses peanut butter cup and drink some juice.

Happy Thanksgiving! Don't read this entry during dinner!

It's a given that I'm thankful to have this day off to spend with my son. I started this wonderful day off by putting him into a blue and tan striped onsie that had an owl on it. It wasn't exactly a turkey or a Thanksgiving theme, but it was the closest I had. He had been kind of spit-uppy since waking up, so I put a bib over that, thinking it would preserve his outfit until dinner time.

Oh, how naive of me.

When I put Silas down on the boppy for play time, he started fussing for a few minutes. I was just starting to ask Smiley to pick him up to see if he had to spit up, when Silas answered the question for me by opening his mouth and allowing ALL the spit up to spew forth. Normally he spits up and it's one round and that's it. This time, as I moved to pick him up, he unleashed a second and third wave. It was certainly a new record for him.

The bib stood no chance, the outfit was soaked, the blanket underneath him was soaked and it's only sheer luck of layers that the boppy was not also soaked.

Luckily, Silas seemed unfazed. He didn't cry and he stopped fussing right away, so I guess he's all good now. I'm thankful that it is only spit up at this point, and I am looking forward to his digestive tract continuing to mature so that there will be less spit up. Some day.

And then I'll have a new baby, maybe.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Sleepy, sleepy

So Silas just provided us with three nights in a row of a longer stretch of sleep, followed by me waking up to the alarm for work. It's wonderful, and it sucks.

It's wonderful because Silas is starting to sleep longer, which means that he is transitioning to sleeping through the night despite some cautionary concern that him sleeping next to me meant I was waking up to his every little noise to comfort him - clearly not true, because I'm sleeping like a log when I do sleep (a careful to not squish her baby log, of course).

It's less wonderful when it comes to my own sleep. Previously, my body had kind of decided "eff it, she's not getting more than an hour and a half of sleep, just kick her into REM sleep" and, while the dreams were weird as heck and I still wasn't very awake the next morning, I felt somewhat more rested waking up for work.

This week? Well, my body is starting to think I'm going to get a full night's sleep, and slows down the sleep process. So that I feel somewhat rested when Silas wakes up for his overnight feeding, but still tired enough to go back to sleep. Then my alarm goes off, cutting me out of deep sleep. I don't know how it works for you, but when I am abruptly woken up out of that stage of sleep, I feel like I have the flu; my stomach feels icky, my eyes feel sandy and my mind is just like "eff you and eff the world." Not exactly the response I was looking forward to as Silas started to wean off of night feedings.

But, nonetheless, it's a step in the correct direction and, god help me, now that I've written about it, Silas will probably wake up every hour this night.

Car madness continues!

Yesterday, I saw a car crash happen in the intersection I was waiting to go through. Someone laid onto their horn and the next thing I knew, I heard the unmistakeable crunch of car hitting car and saw a car spin and nearly hit the car in front of me as it ended up with its rear on the sidewalk, airbags fully deployed.

I've never seen airbags deployed in person like that. It was kind of surreal.

I don't know what the other car looked like. I think that a person was trying to make a left turn and misjudged the distance between cars and hit someone going straight. The light was green for them the entire time, so no one was running a red light. Just misjudging speed and distance.

Accidents like those freak me out because it's one thing to proceed cautiously into an intersection when the light first switches, but if it's been green for awhile, I'm not about to worry as much.

In any case, a police officer was right there, so he pulled onto the scene and I was able to go around (it was my lunch break to see Silas!) and I had the hardest time leaving Silas without giving him about a million kisses. Silas, on the other hand, was just all "I'm a baby and I don't understand kisses. Does this mean you're feeding me again soon?"

If I can be real for a moment here

Today at work was the first time I cried since I returned to work. I didn't really cry in any sort of spectacular way; there were just a few tears that welled up and my face turned red, kind of like when Silas winds up to bawl.

I didn't cry when I dropped him off my first day back. I didn't cry a week in, despite feeling like I can barely spend quality time with him due to having to wash bottles and make bottles and prepare my lunch for the next day and then go to sleep at nine to try to wake up somewhat rested for the next day.

But today a woman returned from six months of maternity leave with an adorable picture of her six month old baby, and I cried.

Apparently I can deal with dropping off my baby and going to work like a friggin' adult, but I can't control my jealously. I mean, I know plenty of people who have gotten or have more maternity leave than I did.

I don't know. Hormones might quickly become an old excuse, but I do know that my reactions are not strictly "normal." I just want to do my best by my baby and also, I still really want another baby. And it's 8pm, so I'm going to go start getting ready for bed.

Speaking of The Sebring

The Sebring's backseat is surprisingly roomy for a 2 door coupe style car. For all of you who have seen too many teen movies, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about breastfeeding, of course.

Having a baby makes the logistics of stopping by the store a little more complicated. For example, many people can say "oh, I need eggnog because it is now eggnog season and I would like some. I will get some on my way home from work." (Disclaimer: most people I know seem to dislike eggnog!)

But add a baby, and if the grocery store doesn't have a drive through lane, you have some decisions to make. Like, if the baby is hungry now, is it worth it to go into the store with him bawling? No. But is it worth it to go home, haul the carseat into the house, feed him, and then haul the carseat back into the car? Also no! (And simply not getting eggnog is out of the question.)

That's how fate found me parking off the the corner of the parking lot and slipping into the backseat to nurse Silas before we went in to pick up a container of eggnog. And it was weird. Which I found weird.

I know that there's this whole thing about nursing in public and some people are comfortable with it and some aren't, and I've surprised myself with how intensely I want to encourage people to be comfortable breastfeeding in public, but that's a discussion for a different day. The main point for now is that I don't mind breastfeeding in public. I have a baby, I have his food, and I don't have to clean up any bottles if he gets hungry while we are out.

For whatever reason, breastfeeding in the car felt a lot weirder than breastfeeding at a table in a restaurant or in Target or outside at a park. I'm not sure why. I think it could have been that people don't expect to see people inside the backseat of a parked car and so I actually felt more conspicuous back there. But I'm not sure. All I know is I felt supremely odd and I did begin to question whether eggnog was worth it.

It was.