Spring tulips

This year, the tulips have been amazing! Our front garden is wild with them, and they are enormous and gorgeous. It's really a shame that they bloom so quickly and then are gone for the rest of the year.

As I've written before on this blog, tulips are my favorite flower. I mention it pretty much every time Chris gets me a bouquet of tulips for a special occasion. Have I also mentioned that my engagement ring is a Tulipset mounting? He's a good guy, that Chris.

I have lots of pictures of our tulips (including our failed attempts at having Zachary tiptoe through them), but I don't have time to post them right now. Here's a teaser to whet your appetite:

Chris is a very happy man

Holy cow...

...pun intended.

At work, I've been frequenting one of the "New Mothers Rooms" (they used to be called "Lactation Rooms"...I wonder why they changed the name?). These rooms are great. They are set up with several lactation stations (is that like "Conjunction Junction"?) -- private areas equipped with a comfy chair, a small table, a pump, a timer/clock, and trashy magazines. The room itself has a sink, storage cabinets, and a refrigerator. It's a surprisingly popular place; there has only been one time that I've been in there alone.

To use the pumps, you bring in your own accessory set (tubing, bottles, etc.) and hook up. For the last two weeks, I've been using a set with a broken valve. It works, but not very well. Today I brought in the (unbroken) accessories from my pump at home...and WOW. These pumps rock. Talk about industrial-grade action! What would normally take me about 20-30 minutes (spread out over two sessions) took me less than 10 minutes!

Speaking of pumping (and who would've thought I'd ever spend an entire post talking about it), I saw a blog tagline that always makes me laugh. "I pump, therefore I am. Tired." Amen.

I'm concerned

Maybe I'm just a paranoid mama, but I'm a little concerned about the changes we are about to make. Zachary starts daycare on Monday, and my stomach is twisted up into a huge knot. I know I'm going to cry again. And here I thought I was already over that "back to work" hurdle.

Taking care, of my: organism;

My daily horoscope for today:

"If you're suffering from some sort of disorder, don't abuse sedative or soporific drugs: your organism could be completely upset; above all, avoid self-medication, which is always dangerous."

My thoughts on my daily horoscope:

• What is a soporific drug? How is it different from a sedative?
• If I'm not suffering from a disorder, does that mean I can abuse them?
• Is there a reason the word "abuse" is used? Does this mean that I can use soporific drugs (disorder notwithstanding) as long as I don't abuse them?
• Which organism specifically will be upset?
• By "upset", do you mean angry? Or unsettled? Off-balance? Tipped over?
• Do you get points for every punctuation mark you use?
• Double points for less popular punctuation like colons and semi-colons?

1 down, 54 to go

Today marks the first home game of a very very long baseball season.

I don't really have a problem with baseball itself, but the impact that the home games have on my non-baseball-game-attending weekdays (otherwise known as "work days") annoys me. My office is a couple blocks south of Safeco Field, and the only way to get home is to drive right past the stadium. There are 55 weekday home games this season (plus another 26 weekend games), so that means there are 55 times between now and the end of September that I will have to adjust my schedule so that I don't get caught in game day traffic.

55 weekday home games. I mean, c'mon. Isn't that a bit ridiculous? I didn't even count the away games. Once I got to 81 home games, I was too tired to think about the rest of them. I can't imagine how tiring it must be to be a fan -- to get all worked up over each game, 162 times. Or maybe getting "worked up" isn't part of baseball fandom?

Target Salad, maybe you can explain it to me.

We interrupt this blog for an important message

Note: The following message was copied directly from babyhill because I'm too lazy to type a new one.

I just wanted to let you know that I've updated the layout of this blog to remove the slide show that was displayed at the top of the page. It was too much of a hassle to maintain, so I decided to go with the simpler one-image slide show now displayed at the top of the left column. The new slide show will automatically show the most recent pictures posted to flickr.

I'll now return you to your regularly scheduled blog...

Crushingly cute

How in the world am I supposed to work when I know that this little guy is waiting at home for me??

Me vs Me

Going back to work has been very interesting for me. Granted, I've only been back for three half-days, so maybe it's a bit premature for me to be ruminating about it. But I'm gonna ruminate anyway.

The "Me" I used to know was quite well-defined. I behaved, listened to my parents, went to the right schools, got the right jobs. For the past decade, I've been living the life of a supposedly well-adjusted, upwardly-mobile, independent, self-reliant, and somewhat balanced and successful woman. I managed to build a fulfilling career while still finding a great guy to marry and with whom to settle down. I had the job, husband, dog, house, friends...all I needed to make it complete was a baby.

Now I have a baby, and I still have all of those other things. But they don't fit together quite as easily as I thought they might. I knew that my life would be different once Z was born, but I wasn't prepared for how dramatically my perspective (and my priorities) would change. At first it was really hard, because I was holding so tightly to that old Me. But once I relaxed and settled into the new Me, I found that I'm pretty happy with it.

So now I'm back at work, and I'm struggling between the old and new Me again. At one level, it's really strange how quickly I can fall back into my old role. But then I'm constantly pulled back into the awareness that I'm not that person anymore. All of a sudden, the urgency and energy of work doesn't feel that real to me anymore. What is real is loving, protecting, and raising my child.

As a woman who at one time could barely see herself having children, I'm now finding it hard to think that there is anything as important as being a mom. But I can also feel the pull of the old Me, the Me who facilitates meetings, presents to execs, challenges consultants. Right now, the old Me is just a wisp of a shadow, lurking around in the background. And I wonder if the shadow will grow or wane as time goes on.

It will be interesting to see how this all turns out.

Working mom

I am now officially a working mom. I survived my first day pretty well, I think. I only cried 4 times, and those were all before 10 AM. (I also cried twice this evening and once last night, but we won't talk about that.) I actually found that I was OK unless someone asked me if I was OK. I'd think, "Yeah" but I'd say, "Waaaaaa!"

I also found out today that we got a spot at the daycare at my work! This would have been AMAZING news four days ago, but today it's kind of bittersweet. Overall, it's the best thing for us because it will mean that Z will be downstairs and I can go visit/nurse/snuggle him whenever I want to. It also gives me a bit more flexibility with my schedule and it sets us up for if/when I go back to work full-time (yes, I cried that much today and I only worked a half day). But it's bittersweet because we love our nanny and we're really sorry to have to let her go. I will recommend her to anyone who is looking for a nanny, because she really is a gem.

Tonight was also the inaugural night of Wine, Dine & Opine (I just made up that name). Jen, Lara, Dawn, Margaret, Missy and I met at Cathy's to eat, drink and discuss immigration reform. We had a really enjoyable evening and I already feel smarter.

I'm having trouble writing tonight. I'm tired and a bit worn out from the stress of the last couple of weeks, so my writing is very fragmented. I can't think of a good closing sentence for this post, so this is going to have to do. Good night!