Babies, Babies, Everywhere

Both of my former neighbors had their babies this week. Bella, my husband and I will be heading to Atlanta on Friday night for a Valentines dinner at the Melting Pot (we go Friday so we don't have to buy the $200 valentines meal) and drop off baby gifts quickly. I say quickly because I remember how much I resented anyone entering my space for any length of time during my first two weeks with my daughter. It was very confusing because I was also grateful, so we're just avoiding that altogether by taking a quick peek at the baby, congratulating the parents and moving on.

Bella will be with us, but I think she's going to stay strapped in her seat to avoid giving the new baby germs. Though is she old enough for that to be a concern yet? She played with some babies at the library this week and had a blast (well until an adorable six month old stole her rattle, and now she's super possessive of everything she owns) In any case, Bella will me meeting her future best friend, and future boyfriend ;) fun times

Leap Year

I saw Leap Year this weekend with my Mil, and let me tell you how happy I am that I waited until it was in the dollar theater. It was terrible! I love chick-flicks, but this was the slowest moving, frustratingly pointless movie I've seen in a long time. Amy Adams was in it, so I know it wasn't the fault of the actors. I think it was just poor writing. Pretty scenery though.

The whole premise is this uptight girl who plans everything through wants to marry her fiance so she goes to Dublin to propose to him on leap day. Warning, spoilers abound.

Her trip to Dublin is cursed from the get-go, bad weather makes her plane touch down in England, and she gets to Ireland eventually, but is a good days drive away from her destination. She finds someone to drive her, a bar/hotel owner/cabbie, who hates her right off the bat for no apparent reason. He gets plenty of reasons soon enough, but the hate at first sight was a little off-putting. They run into all sorts of obstacles prior to making it to Dublin, the largest being that his car went off the road making him useless for the duration of the trip.

Seriously, she's paying him $500 euros to take her to Dublin, and she walks halfway, and gets a bus the rest of it. Why is he being paid?

Apparently to follow her around and make snide comments about her fiance. But everything changes when they're mistaken for a married couple, and all of the sudden theres this romantic tension. Why? I have no idea! He's been mean, she's been atrocious, and they have zero common ground, but apparently this is enough to make her question her stable relationship of FOUR YEARS. Granted, the guy is kind of a jerk, but no worse than her, and certainly no worse They had no chemistry, and every line of dialogue was followed by long pauses to infuse some sort of meaning I guess, but mostly just made it sound clunky and unnatural.

Blech, Thumbs up for the scenery, but since I can get a post card with the pretty pictures of Ireland, I give this movie a star.

So much to do

I've been busy lately, and its been awesome. I think I crave time where I have nothing to do. "If I had more time I'd... paint, write, whatever," I wouldn't. I would sit and do nothing and sleep all hours of the day, sad but true. It may be different if I had the car all day, but I don't, so... sitting and doing nothing for me.

I'm so glad I'm taking these classes in school, I dreaded it, but they force me out of the house twice a week, and better yet force me to use my brain and think and write. I've also been working hard to stay on top of the housework, and lately been working on my business taxes with Turbo Tax... I should be done with that tommorow. Then I can do personal taxes.

I've been doing a lot with the mommies group, and that's been a blast. Having people to talk to is great, and getting out of the house for some "me" time is just what I needed.

I've also been drinking three bottles of water a day, which almost gives me the 8 glasses of water I need. I'm thinking of upping it to four bottles, since you're supposed to get an extra 8 ounces for every 25 pounds you're over weight, plus extra if you're exercising, which I have been lately... so maybe. I'm trying to take it slow, because I've made efforts to drink more water in the past, and I always start out strong and then just... dwindle.

I'm not seeing much of a difference though. My skin is still dried out, which is new for me, I typically have normal to oily skin, but since I've had Bella I've been getting dried patches. I'm not dropping any weight, and my lips are still dry. Maybe I should add that other water?

It is my goal to exercise 30 minutes every day, and eventually do a yoga routine when I wake and before bed. Right now I'm adding the 30 minutes, and that goes all right most weekdays. Weekends I'm lazy with my husband. I can do my thirty minutes on the exercise bike while watching grays anatomy on the computer :) It makes me happy.

I've also been making healthier choices food wise.... well snack wise at least. Apple bars, fruits, wheat thins, and fig newtons (which are not the cookie I remember... there's another cookie out there that looks like them...) No change yet, but its early yet.

I've been spending lots of time with the baby and been doing more listening to my husband, its been going great.

I do spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about things I can't change. I play this game in my head where Im granted 3 wishes and I go back and rewrite my life. I'm happy with my life, its just nitpicky details, I end up in the same place (well, ok, in a house in atlanta, but close enough) with my husband and my baby. Nothing actually changes, but I would have graduated sooner, not had debt... ect. Then it gets bigger, well if I could change anything would't I be rich? And all the things I would do with the money, but nothing major changes. I used to do this same game when I was younger, I'd take these classes in school rather than those, and then I'd graduate early, I'd make this grade.. ect. It's not healthy and I need to stop

Introducing Solids

I'm not a patient person, so when the doctor told us at the last check up that she could start solids between her fourth and fifth month, I bought a high chair, and Bella sat in said high chair every time my husband and I sat down for a meal.

Then I let her play with her baby spoons and bowls, and bottle that she wont drink from, to get her used to having her own eating utensils.

This bought me about a week and a half before I decided to buy her baby food... just to have on hand.

Well last night I cracked, five days before she turns four months old we tried solid foods. I think it went well, I have two videos below, one from her first attempt, and one from her second the following day.

Check it out. anodynes are the answer!

The Man Flue

This article posted today on MSNBC states that the "man flue" is a myth.

"While the stereotype that men moan and groan more loudly about their symptoms than women persists, at least one recent survey, however, exposes “man flu” as a myth. In a 2008 poll of more than 2,000 British adults, 85 percent of female respondents admitted they exaggerated their flu symptoms to gain extra compassion compared to just 76 percent of the men surveyed. About one third of the women also acknowledged feeling “more emotional” when battling winter sniffles as compared to just one in 10 men."

Having just suffered through a stomach bug only to have my husband catch it two days later can I beg to differ here? They asked the question wrong. Actually asking the question at all is useless.

Men don't think they are exaggerating. In my experience men truly believe their cough or cold or fever or stomach ache is that bad. Bad enough to where if I was feeling as bad as they claimed I'd be in a hospital or unconscious. Is that enough to get them to take a Tylenol when they have a headache? No, its apparently not that bad.

Men just seem to have no concept of pain. As a woman who has gone through labor (yay! I can use that now... yes I was drugged, but that still puts me ahead of any man on the pain scale) I can honestly say I have never complained or felt "as bad" as my husband when he gets a headache.

He was in fact shocked that labor didn't seem "that bad." (This earns him a glare, because while it wasn't as bad as I though it would be, it was easily the most difficult and painful thing I have ever done. I just handled it well.)

The frustrating thing, if he was to answer this survey he would say "Ah, I don't get sick much, but when I do it's no big deal." And answer no to the do you ever exaggerate question. I love how he is exponentially sicker depending on who is in the room.

He had pneumonia last year while attending school and fraternity events out of town. No one even knew he was sick. Later while home for vacation, he had a standard cold, no fever, just the sniffles and a headache, not even a cough and spent the whole time telling me he felt like death. If his mother happens to be up for a visit, heaven help us all, because he won't just feel like death, he will be having death throws.

If I mention it to him later, "ah, I wasn't that sick, what are you talking about."

Let me be clear, my husband is not exaggerating, or trying to get attention that he knows of on a conscious level. He really thinks its that bad. And later he really believes it wasn't. This is why the survey failed.

Are your husbands the same way

My new haircut

I've been spending frivolously the last few days and loving it. I've gotten my hair cut, ordered contacts, and bought a few new clothes. The spending must stop... tommorow, but in the meantime I'm feeling a lot more human. I forget how much I don't like wearing glasses until I have contacts. They make my face feel oily where the little nose holder things are.

As for my hair, I didn't actually want to cut it. It was down past my bra, and looking pretty long, but the ends felt like straw, so it had to be trimmed. The trimming took it to three or four inches past shoulder length... upper mid back I guess, but it looks so much healthier!

The eye doctor let me try on all the colored contacts. I'm really considering ordering a box of blue contacts, but its so much more expensive for such a small cosmetic effect. Contacts I can order without feeling too bad, but colored contacts... meh

The biggest spending I did was the most needed. I got mirena. I needed to before I switched insurance, and since my deductible has been met with Kaiser we are all cramming as much medicine as we can get until the first. My husband and I both had our physicals, the baby is scheduled for her checkup, and there will be no more babies for at least five years. We also have dental cleanings and eye exams (hence the contacts) and everything else our insurance offers us a discount on.

I feel so old, getting excited about eye exams and physicals.

If it's not raining Bella and I will be going to infant playtime at the library tommorow :D

Insurance

Well we are not renewing out insurance with Kaiser. We are having to seek another company. The rates just rose too much and we can't keep up. I'm surprisingly sad about this. I mean I knew I loved that insurance, and the doctor and everything about it really, but still, it's not like we're going without.

Kaiser has been good to me, but it hasn't been exactly honest. I said nothing when their 100% maternity coverage charged me one-thousand-five-hundred dollars for the hospital room, delivery, doctor, and anesthesia, because I was so impressed with the whole experience. Between different family emergencies I've spent a lot of time in hospitals visiting over the last few years, and I've never seen a more positive and responsive staff as I had. It was worth it.

I do take issue with their "free coverage for children under age 2." It says on my plan my daughters well baby visits are free and her regular checkups are $25. What they don't tell you is that it's "free" after you add your child to the plan, boosting your premium up $150 a month.

With that added charge, and the $100 rise in the premium for this year, we couldn't renew.

The facilities and staff are wonderful, the language is a little tricky, but I should have known better than to take what was written at face value, and read deeper into the plan. It's actually worth the money, we just don't have it.

I wish we did. Now to hunt for another doctor for my baby.