Away From My Bug

Image via Wikipedia With the way this blog has been going, it makes perfect sense to whine and complain about something on the last day that it will be an issue. I could have whined about it before hand or from the get go, but I wouldn't want to disappoint my millions of readers. *snicker*

Down to the good stuff.

A while ago, I'd say a little over a month ago, I was given the opportunity to register for the FDA Pacific Region Retail Food Safety Seminar. Of course I jumped at the chance, having had such a wonderful time at the last Farm to Table conference I went to. My request was approved, travel arrangements and hotel stay made and I was on my way! It wasn't until a few days before the conference that I realized the gravity of the situation I had put myself in.

Lily isn't so much a Momma's girl, but Momma is definitely a Lily's girl. We only nurse a few times a day now and I don't always have to nurse her to sleep. Just as often as I do nurse her to sleep, Dadda rocks her to sleep. He's been a dear and since we started crib training has been getting up to stick her pacifier back in in the middle of the night. Sometimes around 2 am she will just not have it anymore and needs Momma to come and nurse her back to sleep. It's really the only time that I can appease her and Dadda can't. Doesn't happen all the time, but often enough for me to say, well crap, what was I thinking? You see, I've never spent a night away from my baby and now all of a sudden I will be spending 4 nights away from her!

After much pondering of where my brain went coupled with much worry and trying to figure out who would come with me to watch Lily in the hotel while I was in the conference, I finally decided that I had to just go for it. I really didn't want to but was extremely excited for the conference so I was hoping that the excitement would help me with the pain of leaving her. It helped that I was able to shave a night off my absence so that I was only leaving her for three nights. Eventually, it sank in that it would be harder on me than on my little bug. At least at home she would be able to stay in her normal routine, play at daycare and play with Dadda.

I dropped my bug off at daycare by myself the morning that I left and gave her much loves and kisses. It was hard not to cry as I left, but I didn't want to worry my little girl so I toughed up. Dadda was a great help because anytime in the evening that I wanted to visit my baby girl, we hooked up the video chat from our computers and I got to see her. We played, sang, clapped together and even ate together. I ate a bagel, she had cheerios and kept staring at the magic silver box, wondering why her momma was talking to her from there instead of at the table. Okay, well I guess I don't really know what she was wondering, but her look made it seem like she was wondering at my sanity.

She seems to be doing fine without me there. She has slept through the night the first two nights (I haven't spoken to them yet today so I'm unsure about last night) and has been eating well. I only have half a day here today and then will be heading home. I am SO excited to see my baby tonight.

In conference news, it has been a blast. The first evening I was here I went cruising around Seattle looking for food. I really only went 3 blocks away but it seemed so far because I was so terrified. I was scared of the people, scared that I would be pick pocketed or mugged even though I was out in full daylight along with many other travelers. I was scared that I would get lost as well. I never considered myself a country girl, but I'm starting to think that I now am. I can't see the sky here for the tall skyscrapers and it is very disconcerting. Since I can't see the sky, I have no sense of direction and have no idea where I am going. I refused to carry a map around because I felt it would make me more vulnerable. Eventually in my wanderings I came across the Westlake Center Mall and grabbed some Chinese at the food court.

Tuesday lunch went better. I tagged along with one person that I sort of know and more people that she knows. We went to the Tap House, which wasn't even a block away. The only picture frmo the trip I have is from here and when I get home I will post it. There has to be like 60 beers on tap right behind the bar. It was awesome! The food was decently priced and quite tasty.

That night I yet again had nobody to go eat with so I came back to my room, ate the rest of my bagel while video chatting with my baby and then went to see The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2. It was a very cute story although I felt kind of lame for going to a movie by myself. I never had before but I think I could do it again if I needed to.

Wednesday afternoon I tagged along with a group of State food safety people (talk about intimidating) and again had food court food. That is just about enough food court food for a while. Bleh. For Dinner I drove out to Renton and had dinner at Yankie's with my Mother-In-Law and then joined her at the movie theater to see WALL-E. Oh my lord that was stinking cute! Definitely a must have!

*I just about cried. My browser crashed in the middle of this blog and I thought I had lost the whole thing. Thank goodness for blogger and autosave!*

So that's what I've been doing with all of my free time. I could have visited Pike Place Market or the Space Needle, but without anyone to spend my time with I was afraid of coming back alone after dark. I think I had fun with my time though, so I won't worry too much.

Okay, I really need to start packing up and heading down to the rest of the conference. I'll update on the actual conference as soon as I can.

Teeth, Swimming, Sunburns and More!

Wow has it been a while! I'm not sure that I can even remember everything that has happened since the 26th (our 4th anniversary by the way). I do know one thing that hasn't happened, however. We have not yet sent in our package to get our voucher for our new crib. Don't get me wrong, we want to participate in the recall, but with moving in two weeks and everything else going on we just haven't got there yet.

What else, what else. Right after my last post (well, that Saturday morning anyway) we left to go visit some friends that had moved away and abandoned us. It was their daughter's birthday party and seeing as how we hadn't missed one in years, we saw no reason why we should start. It was a wonderful surprise to my dear friend and her daughter - who also happened to be the only two people that didn't know we were coming. We had a wonderful weekend catching up and visiting.

A little later, Grandma and Grandpa came up for the Fourth of July for a visit. That was really nice. We hung out at the park, watched Lily eat some watermelon and marveled at the fact that she slept through the very loud band and fell asleep near the end of the fireworks. No joke, we were like RIGHT THERE in respect to the fireworks and the poor bug fell asleep. Silly girl.

That weekend was also a certain husband's birthday. While we hung out on Saturday watching movies I attempted to make a cake. Usually easy enough - rainbow chip cake with funfetti frosting. I decided to get fancy and attempted to make a raspberry preserve and jello filling for the two round layers. It was very messy and wasn't as easy as it should have been but the end product was still pretty and very very tasty. It was nice having family here because we did candles and had a little party. Yay parties!

During this whole time Lily had been cutting two top teeth. Her left front tooth and the little canine right to the left of it. Not too much after however, she cut her other front tooth and is now currently working on the right canine. She's such a toothy little girl! Be careful though, she loves to munch and anything that gets in that mouth is just something for her to gnaw on. Small teeth are sharp too!

As far as life around here, things have been...okay. It's kind of nice having a home routine where most nights we come home, play, make and eat dinner, play, change into jammies, play, nurse or rock to sleep and then sleep in our crib. Before, when that one set of friends was still here (and I wish they still were) we were over there ALL the time. Now that they aren't here, we've been forced to stay home more often. I think it's actually helped our little family. Lily is crib training much easier and the routine means that I actually get some time in the evenings to do things that I need to get done. Crib training itself is going okay. She's usually up 3 times during the night. Usually hubby gets up, shoves the binky back in and the bug goes to sleep. Sometimes, however, she needs me to get up (usually around 2 am) and nurse her back to sleep. I haven't had to do that in the last couple days though. It's crazy actually getting to stay in bed all night. I love it.

Before I get too far ahead of myself into present day, I have one more past thing to talk about. This past weekend we again went to visit our friends and accompanied them to the water park. It worked out fairly well because we were able to stagger it to where someone was always watching the kids while others got to ride the water slides. Admittedly some (*cough cough*) got to ride more than others and some hardly got to ride at all, but all in all it was fun. Playing with Lily in the water was fun too. She had an adorable fishy swimsuit and we got her a little green rain forest floaty. You can see from the pictures that she really liked it. We floated with her in the lazy river and then found another small pool with a waterfall and a fountain in the middle that we floated around for a while. I think she really had fun as did I. The only downer was that hubby and I tried an aerosol based sunscreen on ourselves - spf 50 - while she kept her regular waterbabies sunscreen. She didn't color, which is good, and we completely fried. Like, I'm still in pain as I type this.

So that's family life. Work life has been okay. A fair amount of drama and other inevitable things, but like I say, they are inevitable. Inspections have sort of lost their magic for me as I get more and more people that are upset and fairly rude to me. I'm also starting to learn just how the farmers around here view regulatory officials - even some from my own department - so that is hard. It really is not something that motivates you. *shrug*

In other workish news, I start my Masters of Education in English as a Second Language / Bilingual Education. I'm unsure if I ever want to go back into teaching kids, but I still love teaching and whatever I teach this will definitely help me. If I ever have to move and look for a new job I would LOVE to find something in Public Health Education. If not that then some other adult education. I'm nervous about starting classes but I'm only taking a half-time load so it shouldn't be horrible.

Current news involves Lily having a fever. Her daycare called today and said that she had a fever of 102.7. She had no other symptoms so they said she could stay there, but still, it's upsetting. When we got her home it was still 102.7. We gave her tylenol but only after an hour or so did she start to feel any cooler. We did our normal night-night routine but this time, instead of sleeping 2-3 hours she woke up after an hour and then again shortly thereafter. We gave her some more tylenol and she is now sleeping again. It could go two ways - she could sleep because she is sick or she could be awake since she has been sleeping all day apparently. We'll see which it is as the hours go by.

This weekend there is a huge event going on in one of the neighboring towns. Hubby is reserving Friday and Saturday night so that means I'm on my own for those two nights. I know I'll survive, but the thought is still hard. More power to you single moms. I am so spoiled by having hte help that I do. Also, tomorrow I have to go to the event and inspect the food vendors that are there. Sometimes they can be less than honest so with me luck. I wish everyone just realized the importance of food safety and made a concerted effort to keep their establishments safe.

Well, I think that's about it for now. It's past my bedtime and since sleep is a precious commodity around here I really want to take advantage of it.

Have a peachy day!!!

Sleep Issues

Image via WikipediaYou may have noticed that I haven't written anything in the last couple days. That's basically because there hasn't been much to write about. For the most part, Lily and I have been hanging around the house, occasionally going out to meet Dadda for lunch. Today we're on our own though because he's taking half a day to do the reserves, hoping to get enough hours and cases to bump up to the next level.

Well, one interesting thing that's been going on is Lily's disinterest in sleep. She sleeps fine at night with it only taking her 10-15 minutes to fall asleep, but nap time is a whole other story. Both yesterday and today I nursed her to sleep and then went to go lay her in her crib. This has worked a number of times before but for some reason, yesterday and today she woke up when I laid her down and absolutely refused to go back to sleep. Eventually I got her out, tried to nurse her again and of course she would have none of it. Now (like yesterday) she's playing on the floor. When she did this yesterday it took her another hour and a half to get sleepy again. I'm wondering if that will be the case today. It was okay yesterday because Mike came home at 5:30 but he won't be home until 8ish tonight. Bah!

Oh well, her being awake gives me the opportunity to take future blackmail photos. Take exhibit A - Super Baby! Even superheroes need their vegetables so I should you exhibit B - Carrot Face!

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Talking about cribs

So I know that I posted already today and I'd really like to keep that post near the top so that it gets read - it's that important to me - but I just had to share.

We cosleep with out daughter and usually I wouldn't have it any other way. When she was first born, she took naps in her swing. That lasted until she was about 2.5 months old and then we got her to start taking naps in her bassinet. Well, she's been outgrowing it...and our bed. She kicks me at night while she's falling asleep and I have bruises from those increasingly strong little legs of hers. Also, when I'm sick or have a headache, I just cannot get comfortable sleeping on my side like I need to.

All of these things combined made us start to realize that we need to teach her how to sleep in her crib. She needs to take naps there and it'd be nice to get her to sleep in there at least part of the night. I'm guessing that by the time she's one she'll just be too big to sleep next to me. We'll see. I do love having my cuddle bug with me. ;D

So anyway, on to the point. The other night she fell asleep so I laid her in her crib and she slept for 2.5 hours before she woke up and Mike brought her to bed. Today she went to sleep around 1:30 and I put her in her crib. She woke up, but I laid her down and put my hand on her until she fell asleep. It's after 2:30 and she's still asleep! Way to go girl! :D I'm so proud of my bug!

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