Wednesday, October 24, 2012

I have developed an eye twitch.

Dudes, I'm pregnant again. Today I'm all of six weeks and one day, which is exactly the age at which the previous pregnancy stopped developing. I've been anxious as hell all day, as you might guess. I have an ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow afternoon to make sure things are going okay. The only people we've told are my sister and brother and parents (we haven't seen Andy's side since we found out) and it's killing me, as an extrovert, to not be able to process this all externally, like I always do. It's also been a very different experience physically so far - I haven't gotten sick, but the other night lying in bed I got the spins, as if I was hammered, and it repeated itself any time I turned my head too fast. On and off all day I feel kind of woozy, like that stage in getting drunk where you suddenly realize you won't be driving anywhere any time soon. Very disorienting.

The baby girl has woken up extra early the last few mornings and laid in bed, happily talking to herself, until one of us comes to get her. This is a problem for me, because she's waking up about 45 minutes before I need to be awake, and I can't fall back asleep with her making noise. I can't just turn off the monitor because she does occasionally actually start crying and need reassurance, so I've also been lying there awake, wishing desperately that I was sleeping. The early wake up, plus the getting up in the night to pee, is probably a big factor in the eye twitch.

We had a home visit today, and the worker brought a trainee (a new worker who was shadowing her) so we didn't get the usual chat with a total review of new developments in the case. We DID find out recently that the baby's dad's new girlfriend is expecting, likely twins, and that the baby's mom might be expecting as well. This baby's getting a whole bunch of new siblings coming along here. Oh, in better news, the baby's mom has been sober for a few weeks, which is better than the worker has seen since getting involved in the baby's brother's case four years ago. So that's a cool positive development. No more news on the whatever-it-is in the dad's case.

The last fun new thing in our life is that we got the dogs groomed and poor Rooster got razor burn on his wiener, and then licked it so much he developed a sore. And when we started applying cream and put him in a Cone of Shame, he discovered that he could still reach his butthole, so he gave himself a sore there too. So my week has included repeated application of cream to my dog's wiener and butthole. I sincerely wish that none of you have had to do the same.

It's 8:21, and I'm going to go take a warm bath and go to bed. It's going to be awesome.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Is it naptime yet?

Today is a day for Getting Things Done.

After some delightful snuggle time in bed with the baby girl, we got up and got busy. So far today, I have:

- Started two quarts of honey infusing with vanilla beans.
- Loaded and ran the dishwasher.
- Made a double batch of whole-wheat pumpkin pancakes and some bacon for breakfast. (The extra pancakes will be quick breakfasts to send to daycare, so that counts as extra productive.)
- Washed, dried, folded, and put away all of the baby's clothes, including the huge bag of new-to-us stuff we got from my sister. It's official: The baby owns more clothes than I do. (This is probably actually not true.)
- Washed and dried the towels and am in the middle of washing a load of undies so I can stop wearing those awful backup laundry-week pairs I found shoved in the back of my drawer.
- Cleaned up the kitchen from breakfast, including unloading the clean dishes and reloading the dishwasher.
- Cut up and cooked a buttercup squash for the baby's lunches this week. (Note to self for next time: Jesus, this was a pain to try to peel, so next time cook it with the skin on and cut that shit off afterwards.)

I'm waiting for the hot water heater to recover from the laundry, then I'm going to hop in the shower. After that, we're meeting my folks and my brother and his wife and daughter at a local pumpkin farm to pick out pumpkins and pet some goats and be autumnal. The baby's wearing her new sweater and it will be perfect. Might even make some spiced cider to bring with us. Damn, today's cool, but it's only 12:30 and I'm already beat!

The worker called me yesterday to tell me two interesting things:
1. The baby's mom has expressed an interest in starting visits again, for the first time since March. The worker is not confident in the mom's ability to treat herself effectively from the disgusting skin condition (her living situation makes it especially challenging right now) so visits won't happen until the worker is satisfied on that count, but she wanted us to be prepared.
2. The worker couldn't give me any details at all, but there is something going on with the dad that might preclude our baby going to him. Like maybe ever. But whatever it is, it's the early stages of being looked into, so it might turn out to be nothing. Oh, you know, because this isn't a huge deal that made me immediately jump to OH MY GOD WE MIGHT ACTUALLY GET TO KEEP HER. Trying really hard to be patient and to not ask the worker questions she's not allowed to answer. I'm still telling myself it's most likely she won't stay with us long-term, because that is easier on my psyche.

I hope your autumn weekends are as delightful as ours!

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Hooray, long weekend!

Andy and I are heading out* in the morning to go visit my sister and her husband and my perfect niece! They are in a new house and we get to see it and them and probably the National Zoo all in one jam-packed delightful weekend.

We haven't taken the baby on a car ride this long since she was four months old, so it will be interesting to see how she does. She doesn't nap well at daycare at all and makes up for it by taking mega-naps on the weekend so it's entirely possible that she'll sleep in the car and still sleep at night.

I'm super excited to see my sister and to squeeze my niece and to eat my brother-in-law's homemade pizza and wings. It's going to rock.

Also, totally unexpected and totally awesome: I got a text message out of the blue yesterday from a friend with whom I'd lost touch. We chatted about our respective awesome lives and I asked where he's living now - still on the other side of the country? Answer: Forty minutes from where we'll be this weekend! How awesome is that? So we're going to try to meet up for coffee so we can meet each others' respective babies and do some more catching up.

Any fun for you on this Columbus Day weekend?

*We have a house sitter, duh, so don't try any funny business.