Progress?

Wednesday was sort of a rotten day, my husband and I went out to eat, and Bella decided to be fussy for the first time while we were out. I took her in the bathroom to feed her :S, and my food was cold by the end of that unpleasent experience. What a waste of money, we should have just ordered in, or gotten fast food. Then we went grocery shopping, came home, tended to the baby, and went to sleep.

My husband woke me up the next morning angry that I hadn't answered my phone because the apartment manager wanted to inspect our apartment for mold. I had a bit of a breakdown, and yelled at him about the dangers of waking up a nursing mother who got roughly five hours of sleep intermitently throughout the night not only to talk to her about the yucky apartment she already hates, but with anything other than a very pleasant voice and some form of a gift.

Seriously, make me breakfast, apologize profusely for waking me while thanking me for being such a great wife and mother, and slowly broach the potential deadly mold topic (all clear btw) with even more apologies about how we live here now instead of in our nice apartment in Atlanta so you don't have to commute anymore. Or better yet, pick up the damn phone yourself and make the arrangements.

I have to give the man credit. It only took a moment of me yelling near tears about how I was woken up every hour last night, and having just gotten back to sleep half an hour ago, and a lot of incoherent nonsense about apartment people calling after noon before he realized I either A. had a point, or B. he'd better pretend I had a point if he valued his life.

Then I enjoyed a day off of sorts. I watched chickflicks, and played with the baby while my husband cooked and cleaned. Then I got to work on my resolutions. I played with Bella most of the last two days. She's getting to the point where she tries to make conversation. It's not really baby talk yet, more like "aahs" of different lengths, but she smiles, and sticks her tongue out, and tries to pull off my glasses. It's adorable.

I also found a way to help her enjoy tummy time while curing diaper rash. Naked Tummy Time. She loves it. Everytime I change her diaper, I put her down on her tummy time mat before I put her new one on. She scoots along the mat, and then holds her head up looking into the mirror, and promptly rolls over and coos at the mirror as she kicks her little feet in the air.

She has no interest in toys still, but that's just fine. She's outgrown newborn clothing, which makes me a little sad, but I packed away a few sentimental outfits and put all the gender neutral clothing in a bag for my friends expecting a boy, and the girl clothes in a bag for my friends expecting a baby girl.

I fixed my husbands DVD player. It's one of those ginormous 400 disk changers, but it lost its memory of the dvd names on the move, so I sorted those while listening to my husband talk about drugs.

Did you know that antihistemines are related to allergy medications? It has something to do with beta blockers and h1 and 2 inhibitors, and there were words about the fight or flight reflex. I could be getting it all garbled, but the important thing is I did listen :)

Didn't do anything on the diet front yet. I'm keeping track of calories and logging what I eat so I'll know what a realistic goal is and what to cut. I'm drinking a lot of milk, 2% which still has lots of calories, but thats not something I want to cut back on while I'm still feeding the baby. I may be able to lose more weight by switching to say diet soda for all of my meals, instead of a cup a day, but the milk is better for me... so I'm going to have to figure out another place to cut. I'm thinking my first dieting step may be to reintroduce myself to water. *Hangs head* I hate water, but juice and milk and soda aren't as good for me... I got used to it while pregnant, I can do it again.

I've been trying to do a yoga routine every morning or night depending, just to try to get a little exercise it, but so far it's not turning out so well. I'll get started, and then Bella will cry. When it gets warmer I can go on walks with her, and incorporate her into my exercise program, but for now, I'm at least trying, and I get my baby lifts in :), so my arms should get stronger at least.

Appearence wise at the moment I'm making a point to shower and dress everyday. Not doing much with my hair other than pulling it back in a baby friendly braid, and not so much with the makeup. I'm working on it though. I will try to discover new baby friendly hair styles, and at least wear lipgloss or something.

I remember why I stopped cooking. I would cook, and sit down to eat, and then Bella would smell the food and get hungry (nevermind that I just fed her) so I would take care of her while my husband ate and then I would get a turn. So I'm not worrying about cooking until she gets the same meals. I make a crockpot meal everynow and then, maybe I should get more crockpot recipies and caserole recipies. Those can bake or sit for awhile. As for cleaning the house, dumping bleach on everything makes it sanitary, but I have googled additional cleaning techniques and will be trying those out one room at a time in the coming weeks. Coming next Week... how to clean a bathroom...

As for education I have submitted three applications for different graduate programs. A masters of creative writing program with an optional Phd program attatched once you finish the masters , an English education masters, and a computer programming masters.

The creative writing program is super competitive. I need to write a 15 page literary criticism, and submit 25 pages of creative work, and write a letter of intnent, with three letters of recomendation, have a 3.6 gpa, and a 1200 on my gre score with a 90th percentile in verbal. I am working on a paper about Peter Pan (more on that later) proofing my old creative stuff, and I have written a letter of intent. I made a 910 on my gre, and have a 3.4 gpa... so its sort of a long shot anyhow, but hey, may as well try.

The English Education program is promising, but I'd have to student teach in my second year, and I don't have anyone to watch Bella, plus I don't want to teach High School, so it's sort of a back up. But it's pretty competitive as well, though it only requires a 900 on the gre, and a 3.0, and a letter of intent with three letters of recomendation, so I may get in.

The computer programming is my safe bet. I don't have an undergrad in it, but the guy I spoke to said half the students don't, it just means an extra semester of computer classes to master some basics. It's all online, which is awesome, and would lend itself well to my future at home work, and leads right into goal nine, finding better work. I only need a 2.6 gpa, and a 900 on the gre.

I haven't decided what activity to pursue for my me time (must get to a point where I can exercise everyday first) but I'll keep you posted.

So I'm making progress. I'm proud of myself, and I'm excited about these new developments in Bella. I'm worried that she doesn't care about toys though, how old were your kids when they noticed toys?

Picture of the day, Bella's newborn photo, see how far she's come?