9.27.2008

Employment

I quit my job this week. Went and cleared out my office on Thursday. It felt good. I didn't like the job anyway (sorry to any co-workers reading this!), but I'm too smart and talented to sit at a desk and put labels on file folders all day long. Needless to say, it was not difficult to walk away. Sure, there are people who I will miss seeing on a daily basis, but that's what e-mail and phones are for.


I like my new boss a lot better.

She's demanding. Sometimes a little bossy.

Never is she afraid to let you know that she is unhappy with your work.

But she encourages nap time, story hours and grazing throughout the day.
And she's open to suggestions, like if I think we should watch Clean House while nursing instead of Oprah or maybe we should try out Huggies diapers instead of Pampers.
She's game for trying new things.

The best thing about my new boss is that she keeps thing fresh. Never is there a dull day. Just the other day, she smiled at me for the first time, and although I can't recall where we were at the time or what we were doing, I cannot escape the amazing feeling I felt when she looked me in the eye and offered me her little Elvis-lip.

Despite my claims that no two moments are alike, Greta seems to enjoy sticking to a set routine. She eats, changes clothes, and then she is up for a bit for playtime, reading or singing, and then she fusses momentarily to voice that she's tired, and then she snoozes. And then we do it all over again, multiple times a day.
I guess some might be bored by such a schedule, but I must admit that I really enjoy it. She is a very good baby. She really only cries when something is wrong, and she stops as soon as the problem is remedied. She sleeps well throughout the night, only waking up every 3-4 hours to eat.
And when she does wake up, she doesn't screw around. It's eat, burp, go back to sleep. I especially appreciate that no-nonsense, let's-get-down-to-business attitude at 4 a.m. A little wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am gets me every time.

9.25.2008

Poppy Love


9.19.2008

Thank You, Matt Damon

Not only are you handsome as hell, but you are intelligent and insightful, too. Thanks for hitting the nail on the head.

9.16.2008

Stop the Pedophiles

The other day, Oprah did a show on pedophiles. Did you see it? I didn't. The previews looked too disturbing to watch. Yes, call me chicken. I'll call myself chicken. I'm embarassed to admit that I turned my head.

Shortly after the show aired, I received an e-mail from an old friend, urging her friends to write their senators to do something about the lack of funding to lock up these awful nutjobs. I figured I turned my head once by choosing not to watch the show, all in the name of trying to save my own anxiety, but I felt bad for that and realized I need to be a big girl and not ignore an issue. An extremely important issue. Especially now that I have a child to watch out for. I can turn away from things that effect me, fine, but to ignore things for Greta... I just feel like I owe it to her, as her mother, to try to play my small part in doing what I can.

So, here's the scoop: go to http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20080911_tows_predators and write your sentator. Oprah's web site provides a sample letter that you can use, so it's basically all done for you. A few copies and pastes, and voila, you'll be done.

Bright-eyed & Bushy-tailed

Until I find a few moments to give a more detailed update...


9.12.2008

Hot Mama

I just checked my answering machine, and there was a message from some dude I didn't know. But he knew my name, and he was all, "Hey, do you wanna meet up? ... I was just calling to check in to see how you're doing."

Then the next message was the same dude saying he'd accidentally called the wrong Andrea Walter.

9.11.2008

Payton Update


For those of you wondering about our "first baby," Miss Payton... She is doing well. She is no longer wearing a lampshade collar, and she had her staples removed from her leg two days ago.

Over the weekend, she somehow wriggled her way back into the Walter mix; with no invitation from Eric or me, she was laying in the great room next to our feet, like she never missed a beat.

I'm not sure if she is feeling better because her wound has healed or if because she no longer feels so isolated from confinement to the basement and laundry room. I suppose it is a combination of the two.

She now follows me around everywhere, which is funny in comparison to when I was pregnant, and she really felt no need to listen to me. I think she knows now that I'm the one who is home all day with her and her fate of being fed and let out to potty is all in my hands. She's learned that beggers can't be choosers because being pet on the tummy with my foot is better than not being pet at all.

Feeling Guilty

... for eating chocolate and peanut butter cup ice cream while nursing the baby.

Scratch that.

Feeling guilty for getting chocolate and peanut butter cup ice cream ON the baby while nursing the baby.

Oops.

9.04.2008




Happy First Birthday, Ella Grace!


Hard to believe, my little niece is one-year old today! Here's a photo from a year ago.


And here's a photo of the little cutie pie now!

All's Well That Ends Well

Or something like that.

Wow, this past week and half has been the week from hell. It's been like final exam week. Or sorority rush. Initiation week. Or let's-see-how much-Dre-can-handle-before-she-calls-the-shrink-begging-for-a-sedative. Seriously. When I was at the vet today, I asked if they had any meds I could take. The workers at the front desk did not think I was funny. I was not joking, kids. Hand over the doggie painkillers pronto.

So, for a little over a week, we've been working on exclusively breastfeeding. We as in me and Greta. Eric, God bless him, has been plugging away at the office working on a project that is due tomorrow. For the past two weeks, he has been working until past midnight. Our only in-person conversations have been in the middle of the night when I've gotten up to feed Greta. The majority of those conversations go something like this, "Roll over on your tummy. NOW." And then Eric grumbles, and then I have to tell him that he is snoring like a bear and he must roll onto his tummy.

Back to the topic of breastfeeding... When I was pregnant, I wasn't sure if I would breastfeed. I'll be honest; I didn't know how I'd feel about it, if I would be comfortable or uncomfortable with it. I was afraid I'd see it as weird, as in another living being sucking on my boob. It's not like that at all. But since I didn't really think I'd end up breastfeeding, I never really learned much about it, so I'm going about this with no clue. I freak out every other day about whether Greta is getting enough nourishment, if she's gaining enough weight, if I'm starving her, if she is dehydrated. You'd think that I secretly like to torture myself by stressing myself out.

So, breastfeeding -- stressor numero uno.

And then the hubby is MIA. Off makin' the bacon but MIA.

And then to top it off, we've got the dog situation. And, boy was it a SITUATION. Egh. Payton had a lump on her hind leg that we had removed last week. I guess we never gave it much thought as to how bad it would be. Dog ended up having a huge chunk taken out of her hind leg, eight staples holding the suture together and two rubber drains dangling from her leg. And the blood, oh the blood! We had to put her in the basement because the bloody mess was out of control. The first night Eric brought her home from the vet, she cried in pain. It broke my heart. For anyone who knows me, they know that I love that dog like a person. I felt so helpless, especially because in the past, pre-child, I could go down and devote all my time and attention to her and her situation.

Not this time. There I was, kid eating from the boob, husband at work, dog intermittently crying and banging her lampshade Elizabethan collar against the basement support beams and dripping blood all over the place.

There's no point to this entry. I think I'm too exhausted to mesh all these thoughts together. The long and short of it is that I took Payton to the vet this afternoon to have her drains removed. She busted out of her lampshade collar on the way there, and thank God the vet said she could do without the collar. Payton has now graduated to the laundry room where we've moved her cozy dog corduroy dog bed and food and water accommodations. I can now get to her more easily and don't feel like I'm keeping a prisoner in my basement. And Eric is now finished with his work stuff, and we had dinner together at 8 o'clock.

And Greta and me? We're still working on this breastfeeding concept, but we don't have a crying dog to deal with, and we've got Eric by our side. THAT, my friends, is Xanax in the most natural form. Ahhhh.