smacked in the face with pretty things and color

You know I love me a pretty office space and this one is right up my alley. The girl is into bright white, color, gold, stationery, flamingos, and donuts. AKA: girl has good taste. Check out her studio:

A pink couch in the most perfect shade of pink.

I love pretty little things so it's no wonder where most of my money is spent. 

Have a wonderful end of summer weekend everybody. Where did my summer go?! Yikes.

write that down in the baby book

On Tuesday it was a landmark day. A landmark day indeed.

Thanks to this lovely lady...
...Matt & I were able to pry ourselves away from this face...
...and have a meal just the two of us. Something that is known as a "date".
My in-laws watched our girl and we were able to enjoy each other as grown ups. It was short enough that I wasn't a neurotic new mom and actually enjoyed the break. I knew she was in good hands.

Thanks ma in-law, you're hired next month somewhere around the 22nd of September.

- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

newborn motherhood: a life lived in 2-3 hour increments

I feel as if I should be better adjusted or falling into more of a groove or routine or something now that Alice has been ours for a month. But it's pretty hard to do any of that because my life is lived in 2-3 hour increments and its hard to get a groove on anything working with that.

What do I mean?

My entire purpose in life since oh, around October of last year has been: keep a human alive. Okay and me, so keep two humans alive. I've remarked to Matt how INCREDIBLE it is that all of her little bits, her human body parts used to be nothing, they did not exist, and inside of my belly they became something useful. She was once a gelatinous blob and out of that little blob grew skin, nails, feet, toes, eyes, nose, mouth, tongue, it's amazing! And after she spent all of that time on the inside growing, now she's out and I'm still responsible for everything that I eat going into her and helping her grow. The extra weight she has, the extra inch she is, that's me. I grew her in my tummy, now I grow her with my booby. Crazy right?

So she eats and eats. Every 2-3 hours, sometimes 4 if it's at night, I sit somewhere and feed her. Sometimes I can do nothing but hold and feed. Sometimes I watch something with Matt while holding and feeding. Sometimes I can wiggle a hand out to grab my phone to see what's new on Facebook (everybody but me was at the Paul McCartney concert). Most of the time after she eats and after some persuasion aka rocking and swaddling, she will fall asleep and that's when I get to live. Pee. Shower. Sleep. Eat. Poop. House Stuff. Blog Stuff. Walk to get food. How much living can one squeeze into those blocks of time before it's time to reset the clock and do it over again because that's my life.

As I was writing this post of course, Alice decided to screw 2-3 hour increments and just be fussy all day. She would nap for minutes at a time during the day and want to eat around the clock or be held. Sure she'd have some glorious smiling and laughter moments but she was not satisfied for long. We would work hard to get her to lay down for awhile singing, rocking, swaddling, and after much persuasion she would snooze for a few minutes and then be wide awake leading to a very tired baby and a very tired momma. I started to think of those 2-3 hour increments as the glory days. I should have been thankful for what I had! I'm not sure what's going on, hopefully just a growth spurt.

And the reality that makes me sad is knowing that I will go back to work and I will be leaving her for many hours a day so even those days when nothing gets done and she's nursing ALL day and I get no hours to rest will seem like such fond memories. I'm telling myself over and over that this is temporary and she won't be this little forever and time goes by so quickly and it's gonna get easier. But that doesn't make those times where I only get 10 minutes to scarf down some toast before I have to rush over to our friend with recently developed lungs and vocal cords that are SCREAMING for food any less frustrating. But that's motherhood I suppose. Sometimes, there are no breaks.

i still think about decorating most of the time

I spend my in-between times nursing Alice on the internets browsing pretty things on my usual blogs and pinterest. I don't spend time looking at baby things, I spend time thinking about remodeling my bathroom. And other bathroom. And closet. And kitchen.

It's easy to look at prettier kitchens than mine and feed depressed or inspired to do something about ours. Sometimes I want to get proactive and bust out the measuring tape and play around with the online kitchen designing Ikea tool and plan out what I would do if I were to remodel our kitchen.

And then I think, "Dude, we're fine. We're blessed. If I didn't do a single thing to this house for the next 10 years, we'd be perfectly okay." You know why? 'Cause we OWN A HOUSE IN AMERICA! How many people can say that?! We have TWO bathrooms. We have central air conditioning. We have a room where our tiny child can have her own room and another EXTRA room where there's another TV and another couch and another coffee table where if we had friends or family visit, they could sleep there on a bed and not the couch in the living room. THAT'S AMAZING!!

Sometimes I take showers and I think about how nice it is that we have running water. That we can just turn on some knobs and have warm, clean water fall on our bodies to clean ourselves. It's a strange thought but there it is. We really are better off than the majority of the world and often better than a lot of the country. Roof over our heads. Food in our tummies. Love in our hearts.

It's easy, seeing as how I spend a lot of time at home walking from room to room and staring at walls, to think about what I could change to improve the place. It's easy to complain. It's easy to wish. But it's hard to just be happy where you are and be grateful for what you have. And man oh man, I am a very grateful human being. My family has had tough times with money and making end's meet so what right have I to complain about anything? Our life is good. Real good.

Someday we might redo the kitchen. Someday we might redo the guest bath. Heck, someday I might even get different nigh stands for the master bedroom. Today: I'm perfectly content.

new coffee table for the office

Check it out! I finally got a coffee table for the office!

If you're wondering why it looks so familiar its because it's the coffee table from the living room. I've been making mock ups of potential coffee tables for years and this coffee table has remained the one I've wanted for this room. So after knocking my head trying to find a different one for this room I went ahead and just took it from the living room and got a different one for that area.

I kept thinking I needed a coffee table that was a neutral color since it would be in a room with so many different colors, what's more neutral than clear? Now I have all the magazines I need to read on display and I still have a big surface to eat or drink a pot of tea. 

The office unfortunately suffers from the too much furniture syndrome. Other than the side table to the left of the coffee table, most everything is pretty necessary in this room since it has to do so much and it has to store so much stuff. 

Maybe I should try to do a big cleanse of things and therefore not need so much furniture in this room. I think about that weekly. Unfortunately I suffer from the boy scout syndrome of always wanting to be prepared. Sure, I may not have a use for 10 different tiny boxes now… but someday… 

The coffee table for the living room is a simple white Ikea one.

It didn't cost much, it's sturdy and made of metal and is on casters so we can roll it away once our little friend becomes mobile.

It's also cool that it's white in case I wanna switch it up with the one in the office and it's also two tiered for book display and still allowing an eating surface. Currently on display at the top is Alice's pacifier clip and some pistachios.

I would have cleaned it up but I had to take the pictures fast since I was holding someone that is refusing to nap again.

she just wants mom

The past two days Alice has been nursing pretty much nonstop. Eating and eating and not sleeping longer than 10 minutes at a time. It's been incredibly frustrating for me since all I can do is sit there and feed her. No precious nap for a tired mommy.

Matt was at work yesterday and I spent the day alone with her trying everything to get her relaxed enough to sleep. She'd zonk out while eating and then I'd rock her and lay her somewhere and BOOP her eyes were suddenly wide open. She'd smile at me or just stare at me and I was going madder than a hatter. I couldn't wait for Matt to come home so he could help. As I finally got the miraculous text that he was packing up I was laying on the bed with Alice laying wide awake next to me fussing and moving. I got her and pulled her onto my chest and after an all day fight, within a minute, she was out.
And so I slept finally with my daughter on my chest. Matt came home and still we slept. It wasn't just food she wanted, it was me. She just wanted to be near her mom.

I'm typing this sitting up in bed. Alice wouldn't sleep much last night once again though she gave us a few hour or two stretches. Matt brought her in for her 2nd morning feeding and laid her on the pillow in front of me and as I prepared to feed her again she was out. She's asleep on a breastfeeding pillow that's in front of me and I'm sleeping sitting up in bed because my baby just wants me. And that just... kills me.

- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

how do single moms do it?

I've been writing a lot about my life as a mom 'cause duh, my blog but before you think I'm some sort of hero, which I totally am (and totally kidding), I'm gonna remind you that it takes two to hero and my other half is often my hero. 

When I can confidently leave to take a shower and say "she's all yours" and not worry about her being okay, he's my hero. When it's 6am and I've tried for two hours to get her to sleep and I am losing my ish and he takes her to the living room with pacifier and swaddle and just tries to get her to sleep so I can get some sleep, he's my hero. When he wakes up from a nap and first thing he does is look for us and offers food, water, or to help, he's my hero. When he takes it upon himself to do the dishes every single day without question and mow the lawn and vacuum the house and do the grocery shopping, he's my hero. When he has a day of work and still wakes up with me at night even though I told him I'd take the night shift so he could sleep, he's my hero.

And now I have a serious appreciation for dads and especially single mothers. 'Cause holy crap, you need two people to make it and how do these women do it?!

weekend

This is my weekend. This is my life. I'm a fan most of the time.





The other times, we just hang on for dear life.

- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

breastfeeding sucks butt

I haven't quit but man, this crap is hard and I am so so tired.

I can't articulate it but for now, this girl kinda says it well:
http://www.chillmamachill.com/sometimes-breastfeeding-sucks/

- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

our queen of hearts: month 1

Well, we've survived the first four weeks and now we have a month old little lady.

I was gonna try to do those weekly progress things and I have taken PLENTY of pictures of the girl and honestly getting it together to stage her for a weekly photograph seemed like way too much work so instead I'll do monthlies. I got the idea to make a playing card template with whatever month she is on the card. Ce cute no?

oh and here's some alice

'Cause the last post lacked some A-ness:
It's cute when she's cute but its cute when she looks ridiculous too.

- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.

these dumb things

For some reason every Target in mine or my in-laws vicinity had run out of these guys:
I dunno why I feel the need to tell you about the triumph in the fact that my Target finally got some in stock and I bought 4 packs. And since I didn't know what Target officially called them I couldn't find them online to order them. Now that I know, I'm set.

See... I had received as gifts a few outfit type things that fit best in the nursery closet with these type of hangers that come with clips to keep the tops and bottoms together. I had a few already but they got used up quick and I needed more and could not find them anywhere!

Its one of those baby gifts no one ever gives a new mom that would be so appreciated. So as a hot tip, next baby shower you go to, gift a woman these and she will be so thankful. It may not be cutesy and fun but trust me, so practical.

This post may be the 4am delirium talking...

- mobile blog post. spelling irrelevant.