It's the Final Countdown (Again)

One week left. That's all that remains of my 12 weeks of maternity leave. I can't believe Greyden will be 11 weeks on Monday! It feels like it flew by, but when I stop to think about the first few weeks of living with a newborn it also feels like it was so long ago. He's changed so much in the last few weeks. He's slept 8 1/2 - 9 hours every night for the last week. He's also started rolling from his tummy to his back. And he loves to stand up. I'll pull him up by his hands from his back into a sitting position and he'll tuck his legs under him and push up the rest of the way. For being such a small little peanut (10 lbs, 8.5 ounces last Monday) he's crazy strong. He's going to be walking before we know it which is highly scary. I have no idea how to baby-proof a house. I can barely keep it dog-proofed. The only reason I know to keep candles off the coffee table is because Harley has a habit of lighting up his tail whenever he walks by. I am the kind of person that learns by experience. Once something bad happens, I know to change it so it doesn't happen again. Although it's probably not the greatest idea to use Junior as my baby-proofing Guinea Pig and learn by trial and error.

With my maternity leave coming to a close the start of daycare is right around the corner. I feel like such a horrible mother because although I dread leaving him, I am actually looking forward to going back to work. (Margarita lunches here I come! Damn. Is my boss reading this? I meant iced tea lunches.) It's SO hard to be home with him all the time. Most of the time I spend wondering what to do with him. He's only just becoming interested in toys so you can only do so much playing with him. Plus, there is always laundry to be done or dinner to be cooked. Of course I feel guilty for doing those things instead of interacting with him, even though they have to be done. Although I do try to entertain him while I work. The poor kid has had everything waved in his face from Daddy's underwear while I'm folding laundry to bags of shredded cheese and frying pans when I'm cooking. And god forbid mommy starts dancing with the green peppers again. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the daycare staff have 100% of their time and energy to him every day and that makes me at least feel a little better about the whole situation.

Another thing that is helping me feel better about daycare is getting a housekeeper. We're only going to have about 2 hours to spend with Greyden each night between me picking him up from daycare and us getting him ready for bed, so the last thing I want to do is spend it cleaning. Ever since my old housekeeper (Kevin) up and quit on me without notice, the house has been a wreck. Apparently he felt that I should be helping with the cleaning or something since I was home all day anyway. Ha! Like I have time to dust or vacuum while I'm trying to feed and entertain a baby. Not to mention I'd feel guilty doing it when Greyden is awake because of course I should be playing with him. So I put in a few calls last week, found one who speaks really good English (which is essential to me, since I can hardly understand Southern accents, let alone a whole different language), and had her start yesterday. It's already a godsend. She did more in 3 hours than Kevin and I both can do in a day. Now I'll be able to spend those 2 hours with Junior in the evenings instead of trying to clean the house. Not that I spent those hours cleaning the house before either, but that's obviously not the point.


Checking In!

Weeks Post Partum: 10.5 Weeks!

Total weight gain/loss: 10 more pounds lost! Which is a miracle being as the pounds came off somewhere between Christmas and New Year's while we were in Michigan. And anyone who knows my family knows that we don't skimp on the food. We did nothing but eat and drink the entire time. I fully expected to come back at least 5 pounds heavier. (Yes, I was still using the "this is the one time in my life that I can do this without guilt" line.) That being said I am still 8 pounds over where I started when I got pregnant. Both Kevin and I have been getting back at the gym for the last couple of weeks (Kevin for the first time since last April - yes I checked at the front desk) so hopefully the pounds will come off soon. Like, next week.
Maternity Clothes: Yes, I'm still in them. I can fit into a couple of pairs of my pre-pregnancy jeans but have a mega-muffin top when I button them up. It's not pretty. Elastic-waist pants are still my friends for now. Although I desperately need to try on my work clothes, being as I start work again in a week. It would probably be helpful to know if I am going to have clothes to wear come Monday morning, right? I'm thinking I will do it this evening (just like I thought I'd do it last weekend.)
Sleep: Yup! As I said above, Grey is sleeping 8 1/2 to 9 hours a night. He usually wakes up around 4 or 5 am, eats, and is back down for another 3 - 4 hours. It's been heavenly. But I'm not counting my chickens just yet. I've heard the horror stories about how you'll just start to think that the baby is sleeping through the night and then BAM! They're back to waking every few hours. I'm sure that me waking him up in the morning to take him to daycare won't help the situation either. So I'm enjoying it while it lasts. Especially since it means that mommy can have a glass of wine in the evening after he goes to bed and it will be well out of my system by the time he wakes up.
Best moment this week: Greyden rolling over! The first time I figured it was just a fluke. Mostly because he's so young, but also because he looked so shocked when he ended up on his back that it was obvious he had no intention of doing it. (The second time he cried. It was hilarious.) But he's done it quite a few times since then. He even did it once for Grandma and Grandpa Shagene via Skype. Show off.
What I miss: Stress free visits to restaurants. Greyden did really well for a while. The loud noise of the restaurants knocked him out just about as soon as we walked through the door so we could just hang out for a couple of hours and relax. Now that he's starting to see more things, he is preferring to stay awake instead. And of course that means he gets bored sitting in his car seat the entire time and starts to get fussy and cry. The last few times we've ended up having to pound our beers ask for our dinner to go so that we could get out before the total meltdown. He's fine by the time we get to the car of course.
What I am looking forward to: Going back to work (sort of) although I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune by the time the day actually comes.

Milestones: Rolling from his tummy to his back and pushing himself into a standing position. He's started to smile in reaction to mommy and daddy (I'm sure dancing with vegetables had nothing to do with that) and likes to talk non-stop. And I use the term talk very loosely. But when you have a baby that can suddenly make more noises than just high-pitched wails to make his point, you'll take what you can get. Oh, and he's discovered his fist. As you can see in the first minute or so of the video below.





Greyden also took his first trip to the Houston Boat Show this past weekend. Daddy got him dressed (and I'd be crying too if Daddy put me in this outfit - just because it's all camouflage doesn't mean that it matches, Daddy):



Greyden and Daddy at the Boat Show:



A couple random pictures:

Find Me a Baby! Any Baby!

We finally had a breakthrough in the Hockenberry Household last night. Junior slept for 8 1/2 hours straight! (This may or may not have had something to do with Mommy's teeny, little glass of wine that evening.) Regardless, anything over 8 hours is a breakthrough. He's been pretty consistent in terms of sleeping 5-6 hours for the first shift, and I think we had one 7 hour night. But 8 hours was unheard of until this point. But like all things in life, this wonderful phenomenon came at a small cost. Mainly the fact that it meant that while Greyden got a good night's sleep, I didn't. Why? Because I woke up to the most excruciating pain of my life. I thought I was going to die. Actually, I thought I was going to explode.

No one tells you the downfalls of breastfeeding before you have the baby. You might hear come random, casual comments, but over all you really don't hear about the horrors: the latch problems, the cracked and bleeding nipples (or "hamburger" nipples as my friend called them last weekend), or random leaking in public. You do however hear a lot about how it's best for the baby and is an amazing form of bonding between mom and baby (and since I still refuse to lick him, this is how we get our bonding time in.) Lucky for me, I have never had any issues besides the sensitivity for the first few weeks. Junior took off like a pro from the beginning. But last night I discovered another downfall of breastfeeding. For Greyden to sleep for 8 1/2 hours meant that Mommy had a full (no pun intended) 8 1/2 hours worth of PORN BOOBS. I could easily have been Pamela Anderson's twin sister (minus the blond hair, the career born from Playboy, and the love affair with Kid Rock. So mostly it was just the boobs.) I would even be willing to bet that when she got her's they didn't hurt nearly as bad as mine did last night.

It wasn't too bad at first. I woke up at 4 am when I heard some chirping noises coming from Greyden's Pack and Play (which is still in our room from Thanksgiving when we gave our guests the nursery. We will find the motivation to put the nursery back together at some point I'm sure.) My first thought was "Thank God. I am SO ready to feed him." But pretty soon, there was nothing but silence. 15 minutes later the sounds started again. "THANK GOD. Let's get this party started." Nope, silence again. This went on from 4 am until 5:30 am. Every 15 minutes or so I'd hear him start moving around like he was about to get up, then pretty soon he'd be snoring again. Needless to say, if I thought I was ready to explode at 4, by 5:30 I thought I was going to turn into an Austin Power's Fembot and begin shooting everything in sight. Every time he made a sound, my poor, confused body took it as a cue to produce more milk. I seriously thought I was going to wake Kevin up by screaming "FIND ME A FREAKING BABY ALREADY!!!" By the time Grey finally (THANKFULLY) woke up to eat at 5:36, I was half afraid of drowning the poor kid. Luckily we both managed to survive the ordeal, although I'm pretty sure mom got the raw end of the deal as usual. I am told by the Breastfeeding Nazis Lactation Consultants that my body will soon regulate itself to produce the correct amount of milk at night based on how long he's sleeping, although I'm pretty sure they're just screwing with me so that I don't quit. So until that actually happens, I am putting an ad on Craig's List for donations of hungry babies to get me through. As people have told me since Day 1, when you have a baby, you do what you need to in order to survive.

Shitters Full!

"That there's an RV, Clark. Now don't go fallin in love with it, cause we're taking it with us when we leave next month." Cousin Eddie – National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

Oh, and we will be taking it with us. Because we own it. Yes, you read that right. Now you're probably wondering how we came into owning our very own RV at the ripe old age of 30 (which is coincidentally 30 years younger than any other diesel-pusher RV owner out there.) Actually, I am wondering the same thing. Because yesterday at this time, we didn't own one. Yesterday at this time we had first class plane tickets to Michigan, leaving a week from tomorrow. Today, however, I am barreling down Highway 59 at 70 miles an hour in a 36 foot beast that feels as big as my house, with two smelly dogs lying on the floor next to me (who am I kidding, Bella is on the couch), and Cousin Eddie at the wheel.....

Yesterday started out ordinary enough. I was making my morning coffee when Kevin asked if I wanted to ride to Seguin with him. It's a 2.5 hour drive, so I don't know why he even bothered to ask. Sit in a car with a screaming infant for 5 hours or hang out on the couch and watch Ellen? The answer was obvious, have a great trip though. Then he told me he was going over there to look at and most likely buy an RV that he had found online that morning, when he got up at 5 am because he couldn’t sleep (note to self: buy Kevin Ambien.) Well, crap. Do I stay home and let him make the call as to how much we HAVE to have it? Or do I suck it up and go along for the ride so that I have 2.5 hours to talk him out of it? Then he pointed out that I couldn't complain about it if I didn't go along to voice my opinion. An hour later, Greyden and I are loaded up and barreling down the highway at 80 miles an hour in my husband's company roller skate car.

Two and a half hours later we were pulling into the dealership, and casting our eyes upon the most amazing RV ever. At least that's what it was if you talked to Kevin. My reaction was more along the lines of "that's it?" Although I have to admit, it's pretty nice. I told him that if he wanted it to go ahead and buy it. Had I known how much that simple phrase would turn my life upside down, I would have kept my mouth shut. Next thing I knew, not only did we own it, Kevin was planning our first road trip in it. For the following day. Because now that we had an RV, we could take the dogs to Michigan with us for the holidays and save ourselves over $600 in pet sitting costs. In theory? Great. In real life? Not so much. For one thing, after we bought it we wouldn’t be getting home from Seguin until 8 at night. And I know Kevin. He would be up at the crack of dawn and trying to get on the road, which would involve a lot of yelling at me to hurry up and get packed. For another, the trip was supposed to still be a week out. Meaning I had done nothing tangible for it so far, since I had what I thought was plenty of time. Once we got home, I would have about 10 loads of laundry to do, an RV to clean, and a suitcase to pack. Oh, and a baby to take care of. And worse, a baby to pack for as well. I could already feel my stress level rising.

I was ready for the plane ride. My Type A personality had the entire thing choreographed, from what to pack for use on the plane to what to designate to our hosts in Michigan to have on hand for us. I’d been thinking about it for weeks so that we didn’t have to take along our entire nursery and cram it into the overhead compartment. I wanted to make sure we weren’t those parents on the plane. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones that practically show up with a crib for the ride. Also known as the ones that have the infant that SCREAMS for the entire flight. Or as the parents sitting next to me. (But never behind me. Those parents have the toddler whose legs are just long enough to connect with the back of my seat. Over and over and over.) Regardless, I was prepared.

Now as I sit here writing this, I find myself with the wide open road ahead of me and the entire nursery behind me. Honestly, I tried to pack lightly. But my nice, streamlined packing plans went straight out the window when I discovered I had 36 feet of storage and an infant with NEEDS. Diapers, wipes, extra pacifiers, a pack and play (with extra sheets of course), baby monitors, the bouncer seat, burp clothes, a baby carrier, stroller, and every item of clothing in his closet. Because you never know what the weather will do. And what if my parent’s washing machine breaks? I HAVE to have enough clothes for him.

Such is the life of the Hockenberrys. This isn’t the first time we randomly jumped in the car and headed up to Michigan. One time we were sitting on the couch at 11:30 am after I had just gotten laid off from my job. It was July 3rd and I suddenly had a lot of free time on my hands. In an effort to distract me and get my mind off my job loss, Kevin decided that we should drive to Michigan. We were on the road within an hour (although we soon realized that having 20+ hours to stare blankly out the window while thinking about how I have no job is not much of a distraction.) Another random moment was our move to Houston. We decided that it sounded like fun (and it sounded warmer than Michigan in December), even though neither of us had ever been there. We jumped on a plane, flew down for a long weekend over New Year’s Eve and bought a house. So we never actually do anything according to plan. Which means I shouldn’t be surprised that my first class ticket will go unused. Because now that we have an AAWWRRRR-VEEEEE (as the redneck salesman called it), the road is calling our names. Guard your driveways.