I'm baaaaack! Kind of.

Now that Zachary is over six weeks old, I am slowly reintegrating into society -- albeit with a newborn infant attached to me at all times. It's still a little intimidating, but we're taking it one day and one event at a time. It's going well so far!

Last week, we had a full calendar (at least, compared to the last six weeks)! We went shopping at U Village with Margaret, as well as at Northgate Mall and downtown with Chris. We also went to dinner at Ben and Carrie's, attended my team holiday gathering (I know, I know...I'm supposed to be on maternity leave) and the neighborhood block holiday potluck. I've also been taking walks with Zachary in the Ergo and Cowboy tied around my waist. When I do that, I feel like I just need to carry a cup of Starbucks coffee to complete the "Seattle mom" picture...

All of our trips have gone relatively smoothly -- even the nursing! At U Village, Margaret and I found a secluded chair at Barnes & Noble. I admit I felt a bit awkward, but it worked. While shopping with Chris, I stopped at the Nordstrom lounge to nurse, which was really nice. Not only was it private, but there were several other nursing mothers there as well.

I had no idea that it was going to be this intimidating to get out and about with a baby! It's one of those things I never thought about before, and I know it will get easier. But I do keep having little "ah-hah" moments...like the fact that babies aren't allowed in bars and aren't welcome at fancy restaurants. I guess that should be obvious, but I tend to think that as long as he's in my carrier, I can go anywhere with him!

I've added some pictures from this past week's excursions to flickr (and the slide show above).

Pictures: December 2007

Pick-up artist

Yesterday Chris took Cowboy for a walk. It was a "two bag" day for Cowboy, but alas, Chris discovered that the bag carrier was empty! So he made a note of where each deposit was made, brought Cowboy home, packed Zachary and me into the car (we were heading to Starbucks for my team holiday party), and then drove back to each location with a bag to pick up after Cowboy. Maybe it's my sleep deprivation, but I thought it was hilariously funny to watch Chris pull up next to a lawn, jump out of the car with a blue bag, pick up a pile of dog poo and hop back into the car. He's such a good dog owner.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

OK, I stole that blog title from Margaret. But I feel justified in doing so, because she stole one from me earlier ("What a difference one day makes"). Ha! Plus, I need to get her back for introducing me to that sinful (and addictive) delight called the peanut butter banana smoothie.

We're getting ready for the holidays! We have a tree and lights up, I stuck my little one-piece nativity scene on the mantel, and I'm single-handedly eating the chocolates out of all three Advent calendars (the sacrifices I make just to keep us up-to-date). Chris' family is coming out for the holidays (and to see a certain little guy, of course), and we're looking forward to our first Christmas with Zachary!

It's also kind of neat to realize that this is home...that we no longer "go home" for Christmas. We are a family and have created our own home that Zachary will one day "come home" to for holidays. Crazy! But really great too. I guess we're finally growing up?

In addition to putting up decorations, we took Zachary out for his first social event this weekend! We couldn't miss Jen and Eric's annual Christmas party, so we bundled up the baby and headed on over. As always, the house looked amazing and Jen and Eric did a fantastic job of hosting. It was really nice to see everyone after being on house arrest for so long, and people were excited to finally meet our little guy. There was also a lot of other happy news to celebrate -- two pregnancies and one engagement! We're very excited for everyone and looking forward to Zachary having a couple more friends next summer!

I've posted two new sets of pictures on flickr: Christmas decorations and Christmas party.

Parole day

On Sunday, I finally left the house for the first time since Zachary was born (other than for quick trips to the doctor). It was pretty exciting! Kelly watched Zachary for a bit while Chris and I took Cowboy for a walk to the Greenlake Starbucks, so I got two treats -- a walk outside and a decaf soy gingerbread latte! 'Twas a big day for me.

It was so nice to put on some real clothes and get outside for some fresh air. It's amazing how time just seems to disappear when you are living on a schedule of feedings every three hours! It takes an hour to do the whole feeding, so you end up with less than two hours between each session, and that time is filled with trying to get basic things done like food, laundry, dishes, etc. So it was really nice to have an hour and a half to just relax and walk with Cowboy and Chris.

I was also excited to find out that my wedding ring fits again! I took it off at about 6 months and started wearing my honeymoon ring instead because it's bigger. I love that ring and was happy to have a chance to wear it so much, but I was missing my wedding and engagement rings.

Things that are not fitting so well right now are my clothes. I can't figure out what to wear because I'm an in-between size now. My maternity pants are too big for me, but I'm afraid to wear normal pants because of the whole "waistband meet c-section incision" thing. So I've been sticking to either my maternity pants (which I have to hitch up every couple steps) or my sweats. Needless to say, I'm looking pretty classy nowadays. However, one small victory is the fact that I can wear my coats again! Towards the end of my pregnancy, I had to wear Chris' raincoat because none of my coats would close over my belly.

Anyway, I just wanted to celebrate my field trip. Hopefully I'll be able to take Zachary out soon and will thus be able to get outside more often! In the meantime, here are a couple pictures from my excursion:

hiatus

Taking a hiatus from this blog for a bit as I will be focused on b a b y h i l l for awhile...

(check over there for updates!)

big news!

...and zachary makes three!

Happy Halloween!

...from the Cownt



(a few more pictures on flickr)

Momma Mia

Last night, we celebrated Vicki (Momma) and Carrie's (Mia) birthdays with an Italian dinner at Ben & Carrie's place. There was a good crowd there and it was really nice to see people that we haven't seen in awhile. Ben's parents are also visiting from England, and it's always nice to see Jane and Doug when they are in town. The food was delicious, and of course I grabbed some cake to take home and freeze for after the baby comes (our freezer is getting filled up with the various goodies I'm saving for my post-partum-no-gestational-diabetes celebration).

One of the highlights of the evening was when Ben & Carrie gave Vicki her birthday present -- a long-haired dachshund puppy. They weren't sure how to keep the puppy hidden during the party, so they are going to go pick her up today. Vicki has been wanting a dog for a long time, so this was a wonderful gift for her! She already knew that she'd name the pup Ella, and she's excited to get her.

As people were leaving, it was really odd to hear "Next time I see you, you'll have a baby". What?!? Oh yeah...you're right. Wow.

At least I'm cool...

Errr...I suppose I should be proud of this? And not just about the fact that I changed the wording where I could so that "Über" is spelled correctly (with the umlauts)?




I'm an Über Cool Nerd Queen. What are you?

A weekend with Trisha

This past weekend, Trish came to visit for our baby shower (see babyhill for the post and pictures from the shower). It happened to be a gorgeous weekend, so we spent our time wandering around the various scenic spots in Seattle.

After a tasty Saturday brunch at the 5-Spot on Queen Anne, we headed down to Kerry Park to watch the fog roll over the waterfront. When it looked like the fog might actually lift, we drove over to West Seattle to show Trish our version of the beach. Then we stopped off at the Arboretum for a nice walk to Lake Washington before heading home to get ready for the shower.

On Sunday, we got a pretty slow start to the day. We eventually made it out of the house and walked down to Tangletown for some food. We were pretty slow at Tangletown as well, and spent a large portion of the late morning/early afternoon sitting there chatting. Eventually we made our way downtown, where we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through the SAM Olympic Sculpture Park. We watched a little bit of fire fighting drama (lots of fire fighters, even though we didn't see any fire), relaxed by the fountain, and took a lot of pictures of the sculptures.

It was really nice to see Trish. I am so happy that she was able to come for the baby shower!

Hard to believe that the next time I see her, I'll be a mama...