ste_noni

I see haven't posted in a week! It's weird - being home with Frisco I spend a fair amount of time reading stuff online but I rarely seem to have time to actually type. This has been such a great week.

1. Tuesday was our 8th anniversary. These last few months have been a bit rough between Joe and I. Nothing major but the stress of his job and a new baby have sort of been taken out on each other, I think. Anyway, for our anniversary, Joe left his phones in the car (huge!) and we spent the day together. We had Frisco with us, but he's pretty easy going. We started out the day by dropping Ellie off at school and heading to the Caribe Hilton for breakfast. It's my favorite hotel here in San Juan and has really beautiful grounds. So, we had a great breakfast of fruit, pastries, and an omelette. I had fresh OJ, a mimosa, and awesome hot chocolate.

From there, we walked around a bit. We discovered a point over the water where you can see tons of tropical fish. Absolutely gorgeous blue, black, and yellow fish of all sizes just swimming in the surf. We watched them for a while and then went and hung out in a giant hammock under the palm trees. We talked for a while and then I nursed Frisco and we all napped. I think we sat there for maybe an hour. Then it looked like rain so we headed to the big mall here.

While we were there, I did some shopping. Ellie needed a new swimsuit and Frisco needed some pants and I got great deals. Then I went to Old Navy and got a few things for me. (I'm in that awkward post-pregnancy stage where my boobs are huge and my hips are plenty big too, but not big enough to still wear maternity stuff.) We then sat in the mall's nursing room for a bit while Frisco had his lunch. This room was really nice (two rockers and really cute) and pretty unusual here in PR. I wanted to be sure to use the room so the people who created it know it is appreciated. We then got Chinese for lunch and went to see Ironman. After the movie, we picked up Ellie, ran a few errands (I found a cute bike for Ellie's birthday. It does have characters (Dora) but it's not annoyingly pink. I've been looking for a bike for a while so I was really happy to find it.)

The really great thing about the day was that it served to remind me that I do really like who my husband is. He works really hard and sometimes I get frustrated that he doesn't have more time for me. But when he is away from his phone nad his computer, he's still the guy that I've been missing. So, being reminded that he still exists makes it easier to continue to put up with all the work stuff. One more year!

2. Speaking of Joe's job, it was confirmed yesterday that he will be promoted June 1st. Besides being super proud of him, I'm still sort of chuckling internally at how we ever got old enough for him to be a LTC. That's a rank for old people! Still, he has worked hard for it and deserves it. The rank also means a decent sized pay increase which will help me relax a bit on money issues. Things have been a bit tight since I quit working but shouldn't be so tight now.

3. My closest friend here, C, is pregnant. She had an ectopic pregnancy that landed her in the hospital last December. She hasn't confirmed yet that this pregnancy is okay (it's still too early) but I'm very hopeful for her.

4. I have sort of made a new friend. She and her husband are here in PR with the Army. She's a few years younger than me, but not by much. She is expecting a baby boy at the end of June. So, when she quits her job and has the baby, I'll have another friend to hang out with. This is good because while C is an awesome friend, she is really my only friend left here and I sometimes feel like I depend on her too much to meet my friend needs.

5. Frisco and Ellie have both been so cute lately in their own ways. Frisco can now laugh which is awesome. He has crossed that line from newborn to baby. It hit me this week that we are over half way through the nursing only phase of his life. I can't believe that. I think of him as so new but he's already 3.5 months old. I just remember feeling like Ellie and I had such a long time of just nursing. It's just one way of measuring time but the point is that time is going by quickly.

Last night in the tub, Ellie had all her ducks out and showed me the mommy duck, daddy duck (he has a surfboard), Ellie duck (this duck flashes and is from e_juliana), and the Frisco duck. She then puts the Ellie duck up to the Frisco duck and says, "Don't cry baby Frisco duck. Mommy's here," and then brings over the mommy duck. It was very cute.

6. Joe and Ellie are off this morning to buy me a "surprise." Ellie took her little purse and Joe gave her two dollars and she found a dime to put in there.

7. Yesterday, I went to a "lunch" at Ellie's school. Basically, I sat with her and the other kids in her room and some of the other moms. I was so impressed - Ellie can serve herself. They have scoops and deep spoons but I was genuinely surprised to see that she can do so much herself. And, she ate a ton of food. Two servings of rice and chicken and fruit. She skipped the cabbage and beans, but she did take some on her plate. When she was done, she got up, scraped off her plate, stacked her plate, washed her hands, brushed her teeth, got her mat and blanket and laid down for her nap. She really can do so much when Joe and I aren't around. Frisco laid down with her for a few minutes and then we left - with no crying. Very impressive! Anyway, the lunch was really nice and I truly enjoyed visiting with her.

8. Oh - I officially am no longer employed by the US Government! I turned in my credentials and access badges on Thursday. And my generator (so funny - it was in case of hurricanes). The thing I will miss the most is my airport pass since it let me get to any gate at any time and I could escort people too. But, I'm happy to be done with that place.

Well, it's not as dull as I remembered it being. I think this is mainly because Frisco is so little that he can really be bent to my schedule. I mean, yeah, it's not all cake, and he does have his moments, but mostly, he's easy. The hardest thing, I think, is that he's never happy at dinnertime so I'm either eating standing or eating sideways, trying not to spill food on him while he's in the Bjorn.

Still, there's not as much time as I remember either. 5:30 to 8:00 is taken up with getting me, Frisco, and Ellie dressed and dropping Ellie off at school. I try to leave the house no later than 3:30 to pick her up. So, I actually only have 7.5 hours - which still sounds like a ton but I bet I spend half of it nursing Frisco or holding him while he sleeps and getting him to sleep.

Speaking of sleep, this week he doesn't like the swing so much and seems to prefer the little bassinet I have. At night, we are doing much better - we are co-sleeping most of the night, although I still get up at least once to nurse him. We can only nurse lying down on my left side so I try to remember to have the right side coincide with a diaper change.

I think Frisco probably weighs over 10 lbs now. He's maybe about the size Ellie was at 2-3 month, although I should go back and check that. Speaking of Ellie, she's been having a hard time. Joe was gone Tuesday to Saturday and left again yesterday afternoon. I think he will be home on Friday. I've been trying to give her lots of extra attention and hugs, but it's hard to do when she's so whiny. The tiniest little thing sets her off and she's so touchy. Not exactly disobedient, but she doesn't respond to correction nearly as well as normal. Of course, she's had to share me 24/7 with Joe being gone and I know that makes it all worse. Her teachers tell me she's been the same way at school.

Then, last night, she went to sleep in her own bed and I woke up around 10:30 with her standing in the closet. I think she might have been looking for the bathroom. I tried to get her into her bed (no luck) and then my bed (no luck) so I actually fell asleep with her slouched against the edge of my bed with her head on my stomach. When I woke up over an hour later, she was still there and when I went to lift her into bed, she was soaked form the waist down and her skin was freezing form the air conditioner. (I assume she was going to the bathroom, got confused, fell asleep, and then had the accident.) I stripped her down and rolled her into bed and covered her up so she got warm. This morning, she woke up happy but started whining pretty quickly. I think we are doing all the right things and I know it will be easier when Joe is here. I just hope all the right things start helping quickly.

Recent talk of children not sleeping made me want to share my night last night:

Everything was great until about 2:20 when Frisco woke up.  I got up and nursed him and apparently Joe was awake because he got up to keep me company.  Unfortunately, this woke up Ellie who spent 20 minutes sitting next to me on the couch screaming, "Mommy!" while I nursed Frisco.  With Frisco now asleep, I headed off to bed with Ellie around 3:00 and laid there and cuddled with her until she fell asleep. Of course, as soon as I handed Frisco to Joe, he woke up and started crying his pitiful little newborn cry.  As I lay there with Ellie, I could tell Joe was trying everything to no avail.  Finally, around 3:20, Ellie fell asleep so I got up to tend to Frisco.  As I was getting him settled, Ellie woke up again (she was probably not totally asleep when I left the first time, feeling stressed about getting to Frisco), so to make everyone happy, I just took Frisco to bed and all four of us tried to get some sleep.

Except that Frisco is not big enough yet for us to nurse successfully in the dark so I kept turning the light on to check his latch and so on.  This would prompt Ellie to sit up and see what was going on.  Finally, around 4:00, Ellie was truly asleep and Frisco was fussing/crying, so I got up, changed his diaper, and laid down with him on the couch.  At 4:30, he needed another diaper change so I just gave up and sat out on the couch with him.  I slept there until about 7:30 when Ellie woke up.  Thankfully, my mom got up at the same time and basically ordered me back to bed when I told her about our night.  I rested/slept in bed until around 9:00, when I was awoken by Ellie putting a quarter on my face.  By that time, I felt human again.

 1.  Had my ultrasound yesterday.  Baby is big, head down, and looks healthy.  Of, and still a boy.  We got to see his face (he has hair! somehow that makes him seem cuter to me) and see him sucking.  I was able to identify which body parts are kicking me where.  Joe got to come - his first ultrasound that wasn't for a miscarriage.  I know he went because I wanted him to but it still meant a lot that he came.

2.  Made the dogs flight arrangements today.  I'm very happy to have that done and relieved to find out that they get to stay at Continental's dog kennel for a few hours.  The nice thing is that they will get to pee and stretch a bit before the second flight.  It's a longish layover but I feel good about the whole thing.  $638 one way but that's way less than if we left them with someone here while I'm gone. 

3.  Can you get carpal tunnel in your knuckles?  I've been waking up with really sore knuckles this week.  I know it's pregnancy related, and I've read more about carpal tunnel in your wrists, but my knuckles are starting to hurt so much that it's uncomfortable to drive or type.  Thankfully, only a few more weeks, I guess.

4.  Ellie was happy to go back to preschool today.  This made me happy both for her, because I think she missed her friends, and because I've decided to just come back here after the baby comes.  I had to take a turn to the ATM before daycare and when I turned the wrong way, Ellie started saying, "See friends! See friends!" and pointing back towards the daycare. 

I wrote more details about this over at Ellie's blog,  but Ellie came home last night.  It was really great to have her back.  I could not get over how much she seems to have gotten older in just a week.  I'm not exactly sure what it is - partly vocabulary, partly how she's using words she already knows, and partly because she just seems more independant.

 So, I'm back to that point in life where I think about posting stuff but never have time to actually do it.  Here's a bullet list of stuff on my mind:

1.  Our house was invaded by ants last night - maybe thousands of them.  They were attracted to the dog food, but there were so many of them that I had to spray them.  I hate exposing Ellie, the dogs, the baby, and myself to that stuff, but these ants bite and Ellie reacts badly to them.  Anyway, trying to yank her up out of the ants, I banged her toes on the doorjam.  I know it really hurt and I felt really bad about it.

2.  I had such a great vision of having roast chicken for dinner and then eating leftovers for the rest of the week.  The roast chicken, however, took forever last night and Ellie and I were both hungry and tired by the time it was done.  And, the chicken turned out to be scrawny so it was a lot of work for not much meat.

3.  I rearranged my week to do something with my coworkers tonight.  Not something fun, but they all want to get together and file some sort of complaint against our supervisor.  While I agree she's difficult at times, none of what they are bitching about qualifies as an EO complaint (their first idea) or a union grievance (their second).  I agreed to go out of solidarity, but I'd already decided not to sign anything.  Then, today, they cancel because someone is too busy.  

4.  Literally as we were standing next to the car this morning, getting ready to leave, Ellie had an accident.  She had wanted to wear panties and wanted to put on two pair, so I let her.  I feel bad that she didn't even make it to school, although I wasn't upset or anything.  I didn't mind, but I had to take her in, rinse her off, and change her shorts, socks, and shoes.  I felt bad for her and I know she felt bad but it all made me late for work.  Plus, I couldn't make her hair look as cute as I normally would which always makes me a bit sad.  

5.  Finally, being pregnant in PR is stressing me out.  My first doctor misled me (intentionally, I don't know) into believing that there were no natural childbirth options in a hospital here in PR.  I picked a midwife, and I liked her, but Joe wasn't totally behind the idea yet so I never finalized anything with her.  I ended up picking this midwife practice for my routine prenatal care and I realy really like them a lot.  But the hospital is 3rd world, they don't support breastfeeding, and I don't think they have sufficient facilities for any sort of NICU problem.  

I think the homebirth midwife was pushing me to see if this was what I really wanted, but it sort of makes me feel like she doesn't want me as a patient.  I called another very highly recommended midwife, but she is already full for February.  Then I found out there is a very pro-breastfeeding hospital that does waterbirths, but only with one doctor.  And...he won't take me because I'm too far along (he says it's too high risk.  I don't get that.  I understand he doesn't want to add patients but I don't see how it's high risk.  Anyway...)  I finally got ahold of the original midwife, Vanessa.  Joe and I are totally agreed we want a homebirth now, but she still keeps mentioning other options.  I don't get it.  She said, again, that she just wants to make sure I feel that I have choices, but it really feels like she doesn't want me as a patient.  Now, I've been calling her to confirm our Thursday appointment and she's never home and never returns my calls.  I'm starting to feel really stuck and at 19 weeks, while I have plenty of time for baby, I don't have pletny of time for finding care.  And the fact that I'm still not feeling the baby kick is really stressing me out.  If I do go with this midwife, I think I'm going to have to be very open with her and ask her if she doesn't want me for some reason and why she's so hard to reach.  :(  Who would have thought my husband-less first birth would be the easy one.  

No real point to this post, except that this morning was such an example of TWO:

Ellie wanted to feed the dogs, and I let her.  Then, to be bad, she scooped the water into the food bowl.  When I, from across the room, told her to stop, she did it again.  I grabbed the scoop from her, told her that it was bad to pour water in the dog's food and picked up the food and water to avoid future problems.  Three minutes later, when it was time to leave and the dogs had eaten their food, she wanted to take the food bowls outside, except that the bowls were empty now, so she wanted "mas" dog food.  I told her no, they had eaten enough and after a few back and forths ("mas!" "no, Ellie, they already ate" x about 15) I picked up the bowls and put them on the table.  In protest, Ellie threw herself on the floor which lasted while I loaded up the car.  I came back in and asked her if she wanted to turn off the light (she likes that a lot).  While she was getting up, her shoe came off and when I tried to help her, she collapsed on the floor again, over the shoe.  Now, it was time to go so I turned off the light, grabbed her and the shoe and put her in the carseat to screams of "Ellie turn off light!  

It wasn't a particularly bad morning.  I know that part of two is being stubborn and I don't mind the occasional fit over not getting what she wants.  That's also part of two, learning limits.  But part of me feels just a tiny bit bad for her that she's so sad over her missed light opportunity and the other part of me wishes I could help her see that if she would just get up off the floor, then she would have a chance to turn off the light.

There's probably a life lesson in here, but I don't see it right now.  I just felt like sharing our morning.

(There was also the part where she insisted she did not have to use the potty, insisted I put a diaper on her instead of a pull-up, promptly peed in the diaper, then took it off and handed it to me.  "Mommy, diaper wet!")  Does it get easier at 3?  

(Stupid me, I *know* that's dumb question)

Our internet has been down at home so I've been using my iPhone to read, but not post.  Here's the summary version of my life:

1.  Ellie fell out of bed last night and hit her head.  I felt so bad and that thud is just sickening.  She seemed okay and I dind't see a lump, but I still feel like a Bad Mommy.  Other than that, Ellie seems to be doing fine - saying all sorts of funny things and generally impressing her parents.

2.  I have my ultrasound tomorrow.  (I think.) Hopefully, the baby will cooperate and we can see the gender.

3.  Work has been...weird.  The people in my office have been mean and vicious, but the new boss (old boss left last week) and our Big!Boss in Miami have been very supportive.  Hopefully, the idea of training is put on hold until after the baby comes.  Oh, and the me-switching-to-my-old-position isn't going to happen because apparently even if I"m not valued here, I am at our headquarters.

4.  I got an email from a contact about possibly working with a pro bono immigrant advocacy thing in some capactiy.  We have to talk on the phone and I won't know more until then.  It's possible that this could lead to something like the non-profit I mentioned here a few months ago, but it's a long shot.

5.  I'm more and more leaning towards not coming back here when the baby is born.  I think I've learned what I can and the money isn't worht the stress.  Plus, child care for two is very expensive and leaves me with about $400 a month after childcare and loan payments.  So, we will see.