friday, january 31 entry well - keith is gainfully employed. he had a second interview at the renaissance today, and they called him back about an hour after he got home and offered him the job. he has a drug screening on monday (keep your fingers crossed) and an orientation on friday. both days i'm going to have to take some personal time to watch owen. that's the part we haven't figured out yet. i'm going to pitch the idea to my boss to let me work peak time, 30 hours a week, so that i can be home around noon or 1PM. keith's hours will vary, but most of the time he will start at 2PM. that way we can keep him home with us. if that doesn't work, i will probably have to quit. i'm not ready or willing to put owen in daycare. i wish we knew someone around here that wanted to baby-sit for us, because if keith started work at 2PM, and i get off at 330PM, there's only that small time in there where we have no one to watch the boy. but if i have to make the sacrifice and stay home with him, then i will!! the job he got sounds pretty cool. he will be setting up and running AV equipment for the biggest hotel in downtown nashville, and for the neighboring convention center. for instance, the away teams that come in to play the titans all stay there, and the hotel sends the av guys to set up the visiting locker room with stereos and speakers and games, etc. we hear that the av guys usually get to go out onto the field at the stadium and mess around with the team. also, things like the dove awards that are held here in nashville, he'll be setting up and helping run sound for that. sounds pretty cool, huh? i think he will really enjoy it. some pretty big gigs in there! he will probably still finish his bachelor's degree, since he can do it online. so that's the plan for now! we took owen with us wednesday night to a mixer at church where we sat in circles and met people. we would rotate circles every few minutes. i took owen's blanket and would lay him in the center of the circle. he would laugh and talk and smile and play and we couldn't get anything done in our circles, because everybody wanted to play with the baby. he was putting on quite a show - he's really a ham. he loves the ladies, like his cousin ryan. he definitely upstages his parents! and today, friday, brings us to the end of another week. owen will be 16 weeks old tomorrow. i am over the moon with that boy!
wednesday, january 29 entry for future reference, just in case it ever comes up, if you get the chance to grant me one wish, please do not wish that i could see the way i kiss. i would much rather have money or a killer bod. there’s a new ad campaign for the restaurant o’charley’s. the commercial features a song that goes something like this: ‘grab the o’girls and bring the o’boys, grab an o’plate and make some o’noise . . . hey there baby, come on let’s go, good food and good times start with o!’ we sing that to owen. it’s like his own personal theme song. and speaking of the babe, we had a pretty good night last night. he went to bed around 11PM, and slept straight through until 6AM. and once he ate, he went back to sleep for another 2.5 hours. i wish he would go to bed earlier, but it’s really hard to put the boy to sleep when he isn’t ready. regardless, that uninterrupted stretch was grand. and keith got up at 530 this morning to make me breakfast – a cheese omelet, toast, and juice. what a fine man. last night was some good television. i laughed until i cried at the bizarre talent of keith from atlanta. oh american idol, what was life before you? tonight we’ve signed up for a mixer at church. all the small group leaders will be presenting their classes, and we thought this would be a good way to find a class with people our age. it will be nice to meet some young couples with children. the only bump in the road is that american idol is on tonight. keith is under orders to figure out a way to tape it while we’re gone, or i might have to stay home. i thought about inserting a little smiley face after that last sentence to appear light-hearted, but i’m actually pretty serious. heh. tuesday, january 28 entry i am so frustrated with our computer. i thought we had fixed our digital camera problems with a new copy of adobe premiere – but i still can’t get my pictures off the camera and onto our computer. it really upsets me because my pictures of owen for the beautiful baby contest are stuck on our camera! and the deadline is next week. i hope we can get it figured out by then. and speaking of being frustrated, what was i thinking when i decided to buy a domain and create a webpage from scratch?! when in the world am i going to have time to do that? argh, another thing on my list of "stuff i’d sure like to get to when owen turns 16." right up there with shaving my legs, reading a book, and – you guessed it – a decent night of sleep. on a different note, i think keith has decided to finish up his bachelor’s degree. he has two years left, and he can finish it online with indiana state university. online is good, because it means he can either work here with his music degree, or if he can’t find a job, he can stay home with owen while i work, and we don’t have to move. i actually like this area, and i love our house, and i don’t want to move anytime soon. if he goes back to school, he’s going to get his bachelor’s in risk management. it’s a relatively new degree program, and it’s the beginning of a brokerage job in insurance. there’s good money in brokering if you can get on with a decent company. nashville may be music city, but there is a lot of insurance headquartered here, too – aig, state farm, fireman’s fund, monitor, and direct general from the company side, and marsh, crump, and willis all have agencies/brokerage houses here - none of which are bad choices. the ultimate goal is for him to stay in music – but until the day comes when we can live off the music, we still have to eat and pay bills and diaper the babe. so this would be the way. right now, it’s all still up in the air. and, we have a winner for the "theme of my life" contest... it’s all still up in the air. poor owen, he has had a rough couple of days. his sleeping pattern is all thrown off, thanks to those sadistic kroger diapers. he was soaking through his sleeper after an hour or so, and he was waking up several times a night, until we finally went and bought luvs. but those two nights of waking up every two hours totally threw him off. and besides that, his top gums are really swollen and he is teething like a madman. sunday was particularly bad. after a relatively calm church service, most of which he spent entertaining the people behind us, he had a melt-down of sorts, and was so clingy and fussy. he wouldn't be put down, not even for sleeping, and he was running a bit of a fever. oh, the dreaded teething. he drools and chews on stuff, especially my finger. poor little guy. yesterday was a little better, and he slept an actual 5-hour stretch last night, so hopefully we are on the road back to normalcy. tonight – american idol. oh yeah, and president bush, too. that’s okay, as long as they don’t pre-empt american idol. priorities, people, priorities. saturday, january 25 entry this is hilarious (idea snagged from mar). we put owen in the floor thursday night, in front of the entertainment center. and entertain he did, that's for sure! he found his reflection in the glass door, and he laughed and talked to himself for so long. then i rolled him onto his back, and he tilted his head backwards so that he could see his reflection upside down in the glass. and he just laughed and squealed and talked to himself all night long. funny, the only ones who i've seen do that before is the dogs. owen's been through five - yes, five - changes of clothes today. i stopped on the way home yesterday at kroger to pick up some diapers, and they were out of our usual luvs. so i bought a small bag of the kroger brand to hold us over until we got to wal-mart. what a mistake. kroger diapers are the enemy. every time owen wets his diaper, it leaks all over his clothes. luvs never leak, unless he sleeps in the same diaper for five hours or more at night, and then occassionally they will leak a little. but what a nightmare! i have learned my lesson about kroger diapers. kroger, if you're reading this, you owe me $5.39, plus 9.75% Tennessee sales tax. today i filled an entire box with owen's clothes that are too small for him. the box is on it's way to storage until we have another tiny one. where, oh where, has my newborn gone? and finally, three things, snagged from zannie... wednesday, january 22 entry
nightmares, being home alone, driving on ice
three people who make me laugh:
Kyle, Owen, Keith
three things i love:
chocolate, pedicures, karaoke
three things i hate:
headaches, sad stories, blurry photographs
three things i understand:
card games, childbirth, Betsy
three things on my desk:
digital camera, baby pictures of Owen, address book
three things i'm doing right now:
playing Spider solitaire, watching the dogs play, conversing with the husband
three things i want to do before i die:
live in a foreign country, have more children, shake John Travolta's hand
three things i can do:
spell, read a map, html
three ways to describe my personality:
impatient, outgoing, spontaneous
three ways to describe my looks:
brunette, weight-challenged (to put it kindly), short
three things i can't do:
cartwheels, read music, speak Spanish
three things i think you should listen to:
the Elms, your husband, the Bible
three things i don't think you should listen to:
screaming preachers, jealous people, Britney Spears
three things i say the most:
whatever, down! (to the dogs), i love you
three of your absolute favorite foods:
Rotel cheese dip, green beans, cheesecake
three things you'd like to learn:
crochet, to play piano, patience
three beverages you drink regularly:
tea, coffee, water
three shows you watched as a kid:
Mickey Mouse Club, Transformers, Care Bears
read the story of these sweet twin girls here. this is what adoption looks like. beautiful babies, toddlers, and older children with every imaginable skin color, eye color, hair color, ethnicity. i read in our adoption packet a story of a lady who had 10 miscarriages before she decided to adopt. her friend asked her, "do you want to be pregnant, or do you want to be parents?" and her desire to be a parent outweighed her desire to be pregnant. something about adoption strikes me as being so special. what a good idea.
i have decided to enter owen in the "beautiful baby" contest on regis & kelly live. he certainly is beautiful. we will see if he wins. i took some super cute pictures of him at the mall yesterday with our digital camera. maybe i will send one of those pictures.
i spent my two hours in front of the television last night watching american idol. and it's on again tonight. i think my obsession with that show comes from my inner rock star - buried deep, deep within.
monday, january 20
entry
let’s not even talk about the game, and the you-know-whos losing to the you-know-whos. crying shame, that.
i bought a domain this weekend, so the webpage will be moving soon. well, i say soon, but who knows how long it will take me to redesign and get the new page set up. i’ll link directly from this page for a while so that nobody gets lost in the move. i’m excited, though – and you should be, too – no more pop-up boxes for advertising! and only $8.65 per year. i purchased it through domainvan.com. i’ve already started working on graphics in stinking photoshop. in my ignorance, i hate photoshop. i need to buy a book or something.
we braved the snow on saturday and attended the much-anticipated adoption seminar. i enjoyed it. there were several families there with beautiful adopted children. the agency that held the seminar, european adoption consultants, works with several countries, but the two that interest me the most are vietnam and guatemala. program fees range from $12,000 up to $19,000, but adoptive families get a $10,000 tax credit as an incentive to adopt. and not only that, but the company that i currently work for gives a $5,000 cash gift to families adopting internationally. so it would pay for itself, making cost a non-issue (cost of the adoption, not cost of raising the child, which is why we’re waiting). right after owen was born, i was convinced i didn’t want any more children! but that was crazy post-partum babbling. i’ve gone back to my original plan of a big family, some biological children, and some adopted. sounds like fun to me! one funny thing that happened at the seminar was that everyone kept asking us where owen was from, because he has “such beautiful blue eyes!” i had to explain numerous times that he was homegrown. everyone wanted an owen of their own. who can blame them?!
other than that, it was a slow weekend. we stayed in most of the time because of the snow, only venturing out for the seminar and church. and since i was off friday, i am at work today, even though it’s a holiday. so far i am the only one here, but i know a few others will be in later. i think we’re pretty much working with a skeleton staff today. after all, the insurance business never takes a holiday. heh.
thursday, january 16
entry
wow, the little bumblebee is entertaining himself in his crib. and he has been for about 20 minutes. a much needed respite! what a good baby. and as i type the words, i hear him in there starting to fuss. go figure.
so nashville pretty much shut down today. i got to work around 700AM (late, terribly), and it started to snow around 900AM. and it snowed, and snowed, and snowed. schools closed early in the morning, and all the other offices in our building cleared out. and there we sat. around lunchtime the building manager came in and took a headcount so that he could get cots up there for us to sleep on. ha. the interstates were virtually shut down - they looked like parking lots. people were sitting in traffic up to 6 hours to travel one mile. unreal. i had no way to get home, because both interstates i take home were closed down. i thought i would be spending the night at work - a very sad thought indeed. finally at 330PM i braved the roads and headed home. a trip that takes 30 minutes on a regular day took me about 2 hours. it took me 30 minutes just to get 2 blocks down and get gas in my car! then 45 minutes to travel the 3 or 4 miles up the road, onto the entrance ramp. once i got onto the interstate, i was home in 20 minutes. but it was a nightmare. the city looks like a car graveyard - everyone runs their car off the road, then just gets out and leaves it! now the snow has melted, and everything is one big sheet of ice. that's a trip i'm not making again tomorrow. we were supposed to have monday off for martin luther king junior day, but most of us will stay home tomorrow instead. such is life in the big city.
so i'm just glad to be home in my own bed tonight. some of my co-workers had to get hotel rooms near the office, because it was treacherous. not me, i'm a regular little snow warrior. i had to get home to my boy! what a day, and now it's over.
wednesday, january 15
entry
owen was weighed today - he weighs an even 16 pounds. he is 24 inches long, which is 4 inches longer than at birth. he is a big boy, that's for sure. the nutritionist that we talked to today said that because he is big, he will really want that cereal that we've been testing on him. she said formula probably isn't cutting it for him. i wondered about that, because he still seems to wake up in a starved panic in the middle of the night, when at his age, he really should be sleeping longer. i know, every baby is different, but he's slept the whole night through before, he can do it again (please, oh please do it again!).
keith and i have signed up to attend a seminar on saturday held by the european adoption agency. it is a 2-hour presentation about different countries, fees, laws, etc., and then another hour of mingling with adoptive parents who will be bringing their children. i think it sounds like fun. we wanted to attend one when we lived in florida, but it didn't work out. we definitely plan on adopting - i'm not sure when, but it will be a few years, because americans can't legally adopt until the age of 25. so it will be at least 2 years. but what an awesome experience it will be! i'm looking forward to the seminar.
my office is going through a huge renovation project right now. we are doubling the space we have. i think the new office will be nice - right now we have several people who have no cubicle or desk or computer. we also hired a new manager over my department, so i will be meeting her tomorrow. a lot is going on at work right now, which is nice. i like to stay busy, which makes the time pass more quickly. if only i didn't have to get up at 500AM! sheer torture.
guess what happens next week... american idol starts season two! i think we all remember my former obsession with the show, and now, here we go again! me and my reality television. how about the surreal life on wb, with all those "washed-up" movie/music stars living together? hilarious. and joe millionaire, another intriguing show. i don't watch that much tv, i swear, but when it comes to reality television, i am all over that.
and now i am off to rescue owen, who has once again fallen asleep in his highchair. what a cutie.
tuesday, january 14
entry
go titans!
what a game! the titans won, but just barely. it was embarrassing, really. they should have stomped the steelers. keith didn't end up going, but we watched it together at home. it was an exciting game. actually, the most exciting part happened at our house – owen took a little fall off the bed. the classic baby move! he was taking a nap in the center of our bed, and he was waking up. we could hear him fussing a little from the living room. just as i was getting up to go get him, we heard a crash. keith and i looked at each other, and i swear time started moving in slow motion. we ran in the bedroom, and he was laying kind of halfway under our bed. the crash we heard was him hitting his bassinet, which we keep pushed right up against the edge of the bed. i picked him up and we looked him over, and he was just fine. he stopped crying right away – i think it scared him, but he wasn’t hurt. the weird thing is, he doesn’t roll yet, so he must have wiggled all the way over to the edge. anyway, his days of napping in the big bed are over.
so this weekend is the big game in oakland. i’m a little stressed that the jets lost, because i’d rather we had home field advantage, but what can you do? i’d be surprised if the titans pulled off a win against the raiders, but i’ll take a win. i don’t know when i morphed into a football fan, but i did, and i am, so lucky for me we have our very own nfl team right here in nashville.
on a different note, i’ve decided to start a food journal. i keep track of everything i eat, and eventually i will keep track of my exercises. my boss lent me a fantastic cookbook called cooking light, and the recipes are amazing. i’ve got to lose this baby weight, and a little more while i’m at it. hopefully i will get super motivated here pretty quickly. the hard part is finding time to exercise. i already get up at 500AM, so i can’t get up any earlier to exercise. i get home at 400PM, but it is so hard to leave again when i get there, since i only get a few hours with owen in the evening. i’ll have to figure something out, though, before i outgrow the doorways of our house. so stay tuned for developments on the weight issue.
owen had his second little bowl of baby cereal last night. the doctor said once he got to be 3 months old, he could have it in a very liquidy form. he loves it. the whole time i'm feeding him, he laughs and smiles and chatters with it running all over his face. he also sticks his hands in the bowl and squeezes it all in his fingers. it is so neat to watch him. he has so much fun with cereal.
i have a doctor’s appointment today, and a WIC appointment tomorrow, so i am only working half days both days. so this week should be an easy one. then we are off next monday for martin luther king junior day. a three-day weekend!
sunday, january 12
entry
happy 3-month day, owen!
three months old! what a milestone. i can't believe how big owen is - he seems much older to me than three months. maybe because it seems like he has been with us forever, and i can't remember life before him! he is learning so much, and changing a little every day. at three months, he:
we've come a long way, baby! and loving every minute of it. he's fantastic, and absolutely the prince of our family. what did i do before the little bumblebee graced our lives? oh yeah, i slept.
and finally, here are some pictures from our trip home in november. there are some super cute ones of owen and his cousin brooklyn, who is just three weeks younger than he is. they met for the first time in november. we're still having problems with our computer, so i'm not able to download pictures from our digital camera yet, but it'll be fixed soon.
friday, january 10
entry
so cold here! yesterday was a beautiful 60 degrees, and we took a nice long walk with owen and the dogs when i got home from work. but today the high was supposed to be in the 20's, and the wind is killer. too cold to take the boy out today. and it looks like we're going to have cold weather for the big game tomorrow. yes, the titans made the playoffs. they'll be playing pittsburgh, who they've already beaten once. they didn't play last week, so they may be a little rusty - but i think they will be able to capitalize off of tommy maddox, and his inane way of throwing the ball into tight spots. we'll see if they choke. i'm waiting to hear from a girl i work with whose husband has an extra ticket to the game. if he can't find someone to go with, he's going to give the extra ticket to keith. wouldn't that be something.
well - one week of work down. i'm starting to get a little more back in the groove of things, but i still hate leaving owen every morning. he looks so cute in the morning, sleeping in his (too small) bassinet, snoring and spitting, all quiet and sweet. i can't wait for the weekend, when i get two entire days of babytime.
we got his first set of books in the mail yesterday. i signed him up for a scholastic book club. he got everything from dr. seuss to berenstain bears to sesame street to thomas the train. so far he has 10 books from the club, and a slew of others that we have been collecting for him. if there's one thing i want him to really love, it is reading. so it will be up to me to introduce him to books. we read to him already, but he just kind of sits there - i forsee it becoming more interesting when he understands words and doesn't just drool on the books.
thursday, january 09
entry
fever burning... stomach churning... head pounding... body aching... systems failing. not feeling so good since tuesday night. i started feeling queasy at work on tuesday, and by the time i got home, i hit the couch and couldn’t move. poor keith, he was taking care of two babies! i stayed home from work yesterday, but am back today – i feel better, but not 100%. i should be fine, but i can’t remember the last time i felt so awful. i don’t know where it came from. the more i think about it, the more i wonder if it isn’t what owen had on sunday and monday. i chalked up his fever/fussiness/upset tummy to teething, but maybe he had this little bug that attacked me on tuesday. either way, he is doing much better. he is back to his normal, most-of-the-time happy self. now that we are home, he is getting into a sort of schedule. he naps pretty regularly at 200PM, and is going to bed between 930PM and 1000PM. i hope we can move his nap and his bedtime up just a little bit, so that we can all go to bed together. as it is, i am having to get up at 500AM for work. so i need to be in bed before 1000PM! i’ve been going to bed earlier, and then keith and owen come later. hopefully we can adjust his bedtime a little in the next week or so.
keith went yesterday to fill out an application at the renaissance hotel. it is the largest hotel downtown, and they are hiring an av guy to set up equipment and run all of their conferences and banquets. that sounds right up his alley. the pay is okay, but mainly the experience would be invaluable. we’ll see if he gets a call. if it were me, i’d hold out for something that pays better, but he is itching to get to work on something sound-related. i’ve also handed his resume to a few ladies that i work with who know someone or have friends in “the business,” hoping they can get him some connections. at this point, i’ve stopped getting my hopes up when new opportunities come along. we’ll all just wait and see together.
i’m thinking of reverting back to my high school editorial days and writing a letter to the editor about the smyrna post office. i know i can’t really do anything about their poor service and horrible customer relations, since the u.s. post office has no competition. but maybe i can embarrass them a little bit. they truly are the worst business i've ever had to deal with. oh, except juno. juno is a nightmare. if i get the time and energy, i just may write that letter.
tuesday, january 07
entry
*to clarify the below, let me say that i'm not judging any mother who chooses to work. every mother knows best what is right for her and her child. i can only say what i feel is right for me, which is staying at home with my boy.*
today is my second day back to work. i feel awful being here, saying goodbye to my baby in the morning and leaving him all day. but what can i do? at least he is home with keith. i can handle that. i tell myself that i’m a bad mommy for leaving him and coming to work, but i guess truthfully i’d be a worse mommy if i didn’t work and he didn’t have anything to eat or diapers to wear. so i’m doing what has to be done. i never thought i’d be a working mother. we’ll see how long i can last. i have adjusted my hours to 630AM to 330PM, so i am home by 400PM. that way i still feel like i have part of the day with owen. i have requested a half hour lunch, so that i can leave at 300PM, but i haven’t heard back from corporate on that one. anyway, so that’s how it’s going - it’s just going. i haven’t made it out of the house without crying yet, but i’m sure that will come.
keith is doing great with owen. he has been getting up with him at night, playing with him during the day, and keeping the house picked up. what a man! and it’s not easy, let me tell you. the last couple of days owen has been so fussy and irritable. i think his teeth coming in is really bothering him. he pretty much screams then sleeps, then screams, then sleeps. i feel so bad for him – i know he doesn’t feel well, but he is a monster to deal with. he didn’t nap all day yesterday, so when i got home, i rocked him and he pretty much crashed. but when i laid him down, he only slept for about 30 minutes before he woke up screaming. he did that twice. finally about 830PM i dosed him with some baby tylenol, and we rocked and rocked until he settled down. he finally conked out, and his head felt much cooler. he got into a really good sleep then, and slept until about 2AM. i think he may have had a touch of fever. he just isn’t feeling good, which is really hard on us. it was so bad sunday that we finally bundled him up and took him for a walk outside in his stroller. we let him face forward and sit up like a big boy, and he loved that. he enjoyed the walk so much! i have the cutest pictures of him all bundled up, but something’s wrong with our computer, so i can’t upload them just yet. he loved the walk – we may have to try that more often.
saturday, january 04
entry
oi! we're back! after three weeks home in arkansas for the holidays, we made it home yesterday around 330PM. we had a great visit. the holidays were fun, and special, because it was owen's first. we took lots of video footage, and he got heaps of clothes and toys. he had no clue what was going on, but it was like a double christmas for me, because i got to open all of my presents, and all of his! we also had a huge snowstorm, and it was just beautiful. i wasn't able to access the webpage while i was home, so i didn't update, but it was a nice break. we spent lots of time with the family, and i savored my days with owen, because i'm back to work on monday. i am pretty down about it, but keith will be home with him, so that makes me feel better. i didn't want him in daycare, and he's not going to be, so i can handle working for a little while.
owen is still growing like crazy. he is easily over 15 pounds now, and is wearing almost solely 3-6 month clothes. he is growing new hair in, after losing almost all of his baby hair. his eyes are still bright blue, and so many people comment on how bright and pretty they are. i don't know where he got them, but they definitely are pretty. they still may change, though, since he's only 12 weeks. in fact, he turned 12 weeks old today. i can't believe how quickly my maternity leave flew by. i'm just over the moon with owen, though - he is so amazing. he is getting so strong. if we hold his hands, he can pull into a sitting position, then pushes himself into a standing position with those chunky little legs. he grunts and groans the whole time so that we know how much hard work it is. he spends much more time in his bouncy seat now, entertaining himself with a toy gym or music. he also likes to watch baby einstein videos that he received for christmas, or sesame street, but only for 15 - 20 minutes. but that's pretty good for a baby his age! he is no longer happy to be held over one's shoulder; he insists on facing forward so that he can look around. he recognizes faces very well, and now recognizes his bottles. it is funny to see his face when his eyes land on a bottle. he goes right after it. he is doing a little better with sleeping, most nights giving us at least a 5 hour stretch, sometimes 6 or even 7. and he babbles all the time. that is my favorite milestone so far, hearing him chatter at us. it is just adorable.also, a few days before christmas, i was checking out his gums and i found a little tooth poking through. i couldn't believe it, since he was so young - about 10 weeks at the time. but he had been showing signs of teething (gnawing on his fist, drooling, eating more) for a few weeks before. i just never dreamed he would cut a tooth so early. he hasn't been fussy or feverish though, so it's been relatively easy.
so we are back in nashville, having survived the holidays and traveling with our new baby. i'm back to work monday, and keith becomes mister mom. so far, so good! here are a couple of holiday pictures of owen:
owen and his great-grandparents on christmas eve just couldn't stay awake for the festivities!
||| home |||
