All the cuteness you can stand

Ahoy! You will all be glad to know that I made it through the rest of the week without encountering anymore cookie peddling prostitutes, well, assuming I don't run into any on my way to the bus this afternoon, but I think I'm safe as they are generally not out working the streets at 3:00pm (We won't count the ones I see walking into the gentleman's club that is next to my bus stop).

This weekend we will be going to PA to visit my in-laws and give Sydney a chance to meet the rest of Doug's family. I'm pretty sure there will be lots of pictures to post upon our return. Until then, these will have to tide you over. Hold on to your hats because all the cuteness that is about to follow will blow you away :)

Here's Sydney after her bath last night looking like a pirate. ARRGH!



And Daddy feeding her the other weekend when we went out to dinner. This was post-poo all down the leg right as Mommy was passing her to Daddy across the table at the same time our young and somewhat punk waiter was setting our food down and trying not to puke and every other table around us staring until Mommy finally got her cleaned up enough to go to the bathroom without trailing said poo and getting her into a cozy new onesie. Whew.



The most beautiful eyes! Ever!

What goes better with hookers than peanut butter patties...

Oh how I love working in downtown DC. I can't tell you how heartwarming it is to get off the bus every morning and walk with my head down trying not to make eye contact with anyone. Meanwhile a homeless woman is coming towards me yelling "MA'AM! MA'AM! Can you help me? I'm hungry and I'm pregnant". Nevermind that she is obviously past her reproductive years. And it just filled my heart with joy to bond with the man in the business suit on the next corner when a prostitute walked by us and he wondered aloud about what she was selling. My internal response was "Thin Mints, of course! What? You mean you were too busy watching her buttcheeks peek out of her dress to notice her sash and badges?". Speaking of Girl Scout cookies, when do they start their campaign again? I am going through withdrawals and in serious need of some Tagalongs (they will forever be peanut butter patties to me, just like New York and Company will always be Lerners)...and in my quest to find out when they start selling them again (UGH, January to March) I stumbled upon a recipe for homemade Tagalongs! Anyone want to venture a guess at what I'll be baking really really soon?

Brownies. Teething. Rush. Blazing Heat. Yep, that about sums it up.

I would say this morning got off to a pretty good start. For one, I actually heard my alarm go off after I hit snooze unlike yesterday when I just happened to wake up 20 minutes later (oops!). I had one brownie for breakfast instead of the two I managed to sneak in yesterday (must have been the fear of missing my bus, although taking the time to unwrap a plate of brownies and scarfing down two of them and then wrapping them back up so they don’t get stale is not really conducive to saving any time). My regular bus driver was back for the first time in two weeks so I got a free ride! I’m pretty sure I heard collective sighs and congratulations from everyone who saw him on the bus this morning. And lastly, Sydney was awake this morning when I went to get her out of her crib to change and feed her (she’s usually knocked right out and all stretchy and sleepy when I pick her up – it’s so cute to see her chubby little arms go behind her head and the squint in her eyes from the light in her room so early in the morning). But not today, she was all squeals and smiles when I walked in the room. When she saw me I swear she almost pulled herself up on the bumper she was so excited! It was absolutely euphoric! You can’t get that feeling from anywhere else in the world. You just can’t. She is my drug. My addiction. My sweet baby girl…who is getting her first tooth as we speak…and likes to commandeer her spoon during supper…so she can chew on it…and proceed to smear said supper all over herself…and me…and the highchair…even the dog...making things infinitely more messy than they should be.



My other addiction? Food blogs. My enabler? Kate. Do I want to go to rehab for said food blog addiction? No. Should I? Probably. What’s so special about these blogs? I think it’s my desire, my aspiration to make something beautiful and delicious and since I am too clumsy to do much with knitting needles or a glue gun, food is my outlet. At least in my head since I no longer have time to spend more than 10-15 minutes at a time in the kitchen and my decorating skills are right up there with any kid gluing macaroni to a piece of construction paper only the macaroni picture is probably prettier and tastier. If it’s not processed and packaged, we’re unlikely to be eating it these days. I want to change that though. Hopefully with Doug changing commands I’ll have time to indulge in some culinary experiments real soon.

And completely unrelated, this past weekend we went with Dave to see Rush out at Nissan Pavillion. I thought we had pretty good seats.



So what are your theories on green shirt guy? Mine: it looks like he is trying to cast his web at Geddy Lee.

I’m actually surprised my camera caught this picture so clear. Most of the ones I took were fairly muddled. And it only looks like he was about to fall over backwards. He actually made it all the way to the other side of the stage…rock on old man, rock on. And dude with the hairy arm, you might want to look into electrolysis.



And did I mention it was a gazillion degrees outside? Yeah, it was a gazillion degrees outside.

6 months. 26 weeks. 182 days. 4,368 hours. 262,080 minutes. 15,724,800 seconds.

Whoa! Sydney is over 15 million seconds old today. It’s so strange. When I was pregnant, time passed so slowly that I honestly thought I would never give birth. Neither did my bus driver. Jack was so convinced that he would have to deliver her downtown at one of the stops and every day he saw me standing there waiting to get on the bus he would get a little more freaked out. Now that she is here, it’s just the opposite. I want so desperately to slow the world down and savor every last second I spend with her, even if those seconds include being pinched (it’s her new thing), scalped (in the same family as being pinched only I don’t get a scratched neck, only bald spots), spit up on (I am single-handedly keeping OxyClean in business!) and pooped on (diapering truly is an exact science). But it is so totally worth it because she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, right next to Doug of course. Although lately I’ve been a little hormonal and he probably wants to trade me in on a newer model. HA. Anyway, I thought I would share some of my favorite pictures from the last 6 months…

My very first time holding the most beautiful baby girl in the world!



Grandma Lucky was there the whole time waiting to meet her new granddaughter!



Grandpa Lucky decided to hang out in the waiting room until the excitement was over. Then he came in to meet Sydney.



Here she is napping in her swing.



And her first trip to Reagan National to meet Aunt Becky!



1 month old and sleeping through dinner! (I miss those days)



And her first really big smile caught on camera (around 10 weeks)



Sticking her tongue out at mommy (she must have known we were about to get shots!)



I hope she grows to love baseball as much as her mommy does!



I also hope she's a cute, normal, math nerd with good social skills. I mean, how can she not be with influences like mommy and Aunt Kate!



She loves Sarah! (Uncle Tim's girlfriend)



Not so much love for the chicken.



Counting counting counting is such fun
Count with me let's start with number one
Onetwo threefour fivesixseven eight nine ten
blah blah blah blah..count again!



All those toys yet her feet are more fun.



I'm telling you, buy OxyClean stock now!



Down for the count...or at least 9 hours!



Terry couldn't have said it better. Word.

Two blissful and refreshing days off and all I got was this fantastic half-decorated living room. That I LOVE!

So I’m back at work after two blissful days of leave. I got up to feed Sydney at 4:45 both mornings, we went back to sleep until 9, then were up again to eat and head off to daycare. After I dropped her off I went to HomeGoods, Pier 1, and Target to pick up a few things for the living room, which is in desperate need of brightening up.

Here is the before picture. Witness the catastrophic glory of our smoker teeth yellow walls, rust colored curtains, and matching plaid couches. Yes, they are comfy couches, but over the years have faded and are no longer bright and cheerful. Take notice to all the clutter and toys everywhere. Is it any wonder I came home everyday and wasn’t all cheery? Would this not drain your mental health too? Yes, I was taking pictures at 10:00 Monday night while watching South Park and getting inspired to clean.



So here is the after picture, really the mid-transition picture of our living room since we have not painted or hung curtains yet (I thought I would let Doug decide what color paint he likes, if any at all, since it apparently hurt his feelings that he was not included in the decision of the slipcovers and pillows). But the pillows are totally hot and I love them and it makes me happy knowing I am coming home to something bright and fun and not drab and depressing and mentally draining.





You'll have to excuse my very poor attempt at "tucking" as I am new to slipcovers. You have my word that the time will be taken to ensure a proper fit now that I know what I am doing. Well, kindof :)

Here are the curtains, which we will hang after we paint.



My plan is to brighten the walls with two of these colors (Top left – Morning Breeze, Top right – Bridal Blue, Bottom left – Sunbeam). One will go in the living room and hallway. The other color will be used in the dining room and kitchen as they complement each other fairly well. Or at least I think they do. Why can’t Vern Yip come to my house and do the decorating for me? Better yet, send me Neesy, Trish, Mark, and Matthew from Clean House! Lord knows we need to get rid of stuff that is “not essential”. I think if we ever did go on that show they would need to bring in security from Jerry Springer because Doug would probably pounce on them if they tried to get rid of anything (and no, I don’t mean your cars because I know you collect those and would never ask you to get rid of them). But I digress. What color do y’all like?



Oh, I also spent a good amount of time condensing our dvds into two tiny pretty silver cases that hold 200 movies a piece. So quaint. So unobtrusive. So compact. So uncluttered.



No, your eyes do not deceive you. There lies 400+ movie cases that were taking up cherished space all over our basement and slowly starting to take over our upstairs. I figured we could keep a few cases, you know like boxed sets and ones with sentimental value. Other than that, do we really need to hold onto them? Yeah, I don’t think so either. Sadly, we need a 3rd case.

Now for something completely random - the joys of public transportation. Let’s begin with Metro. I once sat on a train next to a guy carrying a rather large handsaw. I have had people not give up their seat when I was very noticeably pregnant. I have seen ginormous spiders crawling on the window right next to me on a crowded rush hour train where I was lucky to have a seat at all. I even once saw a kid lick the window on New Jersey Transit!!! I wonder if he’s still alive after contracting who knows what. Disgusting! A few months ago I started taking a local commuter bus and until this morning I have had a pretty uneventful ride to and from work (unless you count my regular morning driver honking and waving at the prostitutes leaving the park as they are presumably making their way home at 6:30 in the am). A woman got on at the stop after mine and sat down. She did not sit on top of me (as some people feel it is their God-given right to do), said good morning without scowling at me (as some people also feel is their God-given right), all was right with the world and then I fell asleep. Somewhere mid-commute I woke up and looked over to see this…



Um. Okay. It almost makes the handsaw guy look normal.

My roller coaster ride through mommyhood and some pictures from the 4th of July

Wow. I went to CVS this morning with the intent of buying fat-free milk for my cereal here at work and all they had was whole milk. I opted for a diet coke and three magazines instead. Weight Watchers, Fitness, and something called Abs that claims can give me a smaller waist in 28 days. Apparently it’s also going to tell me how to banish emotional eating. Where was this article yesterday when I was so irritable that I had pasta for lunch and half a giant bag of peanut m&ms? Better yet, when will I find the time to actually read said magazines because work has been insanely busy (I’m currently taking a break before I go blind making edits to a seemingly endless table), I nap on the bus home unless I am next to a chatty Kathy who sees my eyes are closed but talks to me anyway, I pick up Sydney from daycare and spend the rest of my evening playing with her and feeding her and changing her and playing with her some more until she goes to sleep (which I LOVE doing and would do without fail over and over again because seeing her smile means more to me than anything in the world. Nothing would make me happier than to be a stay-at-home mom and not have to leave her for 12 hours everyday, well, besides being a comfy size 8, but I'll save that post for another day). Then I wash dishes and fix her bottles for daycare and maybe wash and iron my clothes for work and the next thing I know it’s after 9 and I haven’t made anything for myself for supper so I grab a glass of water or some crackers and call it a meal. Occasionally I come up for air. It’s truly amazing that I’m not emaciated at this point, which would almost be welcome because then I could fit into my pre-baby clothes and not look like I’m about to spawn again! And those are the days I don’t have errands to run.

My solution: take a mental health day or two next week (work permitting). I want to drop Sydney off at daycare and sleep in a few hours on day 1, and on day 2, spend 8 glorious hours scrubbing my floors, cleaning my house, and weeding through all the clutter that we no longer need and possibly do some redecorating (nothing extravagant, maybe a slipcover for the sofas and hanging some pictures). That’s sure to make me feel better. Right? If not, I will just look at the most beautiful baby in the world. She’ll smile at me. Everything will be ok.

I actually wrote all of the above yesterday but didn’t have any pictures from our weekend in PA to post. You’ll be glad to know that I’m feeling somewhat better (not so much about my fatness and the horrible paint color on my walls upstairs, but about everything else – feeling less tired and somewhat overwhelmed in the afternoons). I expected to be on an emotional roller coaster after having a baby but I sure didn’t think I would feel every last bump and turn along the way. I’m pretty sure Doug didn’t expect to feel all of them either, or rather the wrath of them (I told you it wasn’t you, well not all the time anyway hah!). Oh well. Baby steps. One day at a time. Whatever cliché you wish to use. That’s how I’m getting through – oh, and it doesn’t hurt that I have this sweet face smiling back at me!



Here are some pictures we made in Potter County over the holiday. Enjoy!

Here we are taking a walk down the street (can you really call a dirt road a street?) Doug grew up on.



She liked looking at the flowers.



Apparently we all have ADD and can't look at the camera at the same time!



Sydney fell asleep before the fireworks started.



And woke up not long after they did. She never took her eyes off them!

Random question

If I did it correctly, you should no longer need to register to leave a comment on this blog. What I really mean is, I think I checked the right button in the Settings so you can tell me how wonderful you think all my pointless stories are and how adorable Sydney is. HA. And now, onto my pointless story/random question of the day.

What exactly is the etiquette for bringing an infant to a day spa, even if it’s just to get my eyebrows waxed and a pedicure? I am in desperate need of both and am faced with the choice of bringing Sydney with me or cultivating a unibrow and pornstache. If only they were socially acceptable on women, my life would be that much easier. Ew. Shudder the thought of voluntarily having facial hair! I should probably just go to a salon downtown during lunch, but then I get to explain to coworkers why I have puffy eyes and a red upper lip, and hair sticking to my face because no matter where I go or how much I pay, they can’t seem to ever get all the wax off my face and I walk around looking like I’ve been tarred and feathered. What is so hard about applying enough baby oil to more than one small cotton ball if need be and wiping my face?

And because I love The Soup so VERY VERY much and this makes me laugh over and over again (thank you officemate for sending this my way)...