Summer is here!

This afternoon Ben took his first dip in our new pool - take a look!

A trip down memory lane...

So I was listening to soundbites of children's CDs online (thanks for the suggestions, Steve!), and came across the following. Do you remember this? It's one of my favorites, and I sing parts of it to Mark occasionally. But, he's never heard it, so it sounds especially strange to him.

http://www.jibjab.com/view/69273

Ha ha!

Request! Children's Music...

Okay, I think there are enough parents reading this blog, that perhaps you can help me with my latest quest. GOOD quality children's music. Stuff that would be fun for Ben to listen to, but that won't drive me crazy with off-key singing, lisping children, or the worst - very proper, falsetto-type woman singing...

Please post comments with music that you like!!

Our favorites include the following - although, truthfully, these are more adult-geared (or are wordless, instrumental lullabye music).

• Counting Sheep - Colin Raye. We love this cd - we've actually had it for years. It's not obviously for kids, but I think that singing the songs with Benjamin would be fun.
• Children's Songs - Chick Corea. I played one of these songs on vibraphone in high school, which is how I know this music. It's instrumental - the cd is mostly piano.
• Guitar lullabye cd - I'll have to update with this later - it's in Ben's room, and he's asleep right now (hallelujah!)...

Please help us find good music!!

March pictures are up!

Enjoy!

Nine month update

So Ben will actually be 10 months old on Monday - but 9 months seems to be a milestone, so I felt obliged to give an update on what Ben is up to - and thoughts about our nine month old son.

Ben had his 9-month appointment mid-March. Everything checked out fine - except he's dropped quite a bit in his percentile ranking for weight, and some for his height. That doesn't mean he's actually lost weight - he just hasn't gained very much since his 6-month appointment. He's had a couple of colds between those appointments (and actually is getting over a pretty bad cold now), so the doctor took note, but didn't seem alarmed. He said it was pretty common to have growth slow down when a baby's been sick a lot, and that he'll likely go through a growth spurt at some point and make it up. We'll just have to keep an eye on it. Of course, I've had to stop myself from becoming the overbearing mother always saying "eat, eat." in response. He has highs and lows in regards to his eating. Some days he does great, others we can hardly to get him to eat anything. I'm not so sure it's that he's a fussy eater (since we'll often try to feed him half a dozen things to figure out what he might like - usually to no avail if he wouldn't eat the first couple of things) versus not feeling well because of colds, teething, etc. It definitely is stressful, though, particularly because I'm concerned he's not gained enough weight. He started out as a pretty chubby baby, and he's definitely not skinny now - so I don't think you would look at him and say he's not big enough - at least everyone we know talks about how healthy he looks, but still... I'm just glad he's still nursing, because this boy is not one to turn down an offer for the boob. In fact, he just LOVES nursing. He'll fuss at me the minute I arrive home from work if I do not immediately pop him on. Although, he's decided in the last couple of days that biting is fun. We went through this a few months ago, but that was before he had teeth. Ouch.

Anyways, developmentally, he seems right on. He's crawling a lot, and can do it pretty quickly when there's something he really wants (still the "cripple crawl"), he pulls himself up on everything. He actually hasn't shown a lot of interest in walking - I've tried to help him a few times, but he doesn't seem to like it too much. It's faster to crawl, I suppose!

What else can I say about the B-dogg? His favorite sounds are still "Da" - he likes to say "Ah-da" and "Da-da." I've also heard him say "ma", "ba" and "na," but those are not nearly as frequent. He's completely fascinated with the rhymes The Itsy Bitsy Spider and Open Them Shut Them. These work wonders during fussy diaper and clothes changes. He loves bath time. We've switched him into a small inflatable baby tub that we put in our shower stall. Much easier than leaning over the side of the tub. He loves to watch the tub get filled with water, and today we put him in the tub while we filled it up (from a removable shower head), and seemed to think that was pretty fun too.

One thing we do, which I didn't think too much of until we visited my parents and they made endless fun about it, is we have after-bath naked rolling time (don't worry, Ben's the only one naked). We still call it this, although really, it's naked crawling time. I read somewhere that it's a good idea to let the baby go diaperless for a little while each day to air out the skin. Since he normally pees in the bathtub, I thought after bath would be a good time, since perhaps his bladder would be empty. We've been doing this since he was a few months old. It started out as Naked Belly Time, graduated to Naked Rolling Time (when he would roll naked on our bed with Mark and I acting as bumpers so he wouldn't fall off), and now it's, I suppose, naked crawling time. We've actually had to close the door in his room, as it became naked roaming the halls time. It's pretty funny, because our night time routine is exactly the same every night. Dinner. Bath. Naked Rolling Time (which includes hair & teeth brushing). Diaper & pajamas. Nursing. Two Stories. Lights out, while we sit in the rocker. One song. Prayers. Into bed with 3-4 pacis scattered around his crib. It seems to be working - as he goes to sleep wonderfully now, and sleep usually until 6-7 AM (although sometimes he goes on spurts where he thinks 5 AM is an appropriate time to get up). And nap times are an entirely different story.

Anyways, in Oregon, my parents gave him his bath, and innocently not knowing about naked rolling time, proceeded to try to put him in his pajamas. That boy screamed and howled. We went upstairs to find out what was wrong, and thought "maybe he knows this routine? Maybe he wants to roll around naked?" So we got him undressed and put him down on the carpet, and he proceeded to crawl around, climb on everyone and have a grand old time. I guess Ben likes this routine! I suppose we'll have to figure out how to phase out the naked part sometime. Probably inappropriate for a 12 year old to run around the house naked after his bath. :) Or maybe he's destined for a future nudist colony?

I know I'm rambling, but this is fun. And I haven't done a baby book, so this is the best I've got...

We're really looking into daycare programs now. We'd ideally like a Montessori-based program, 5 days per week, 1/2 days. There is one that looks just PERFECT. We've had to wait a month to get a tour - but finally will get one on Tuesday. It's only about 10 minutes from the house. It's deeply montessori. It runs 9-1, 5 days per week. And it's also heavily focused on parental involvement/parent education. I'm worried it's too good to be true, or that it will have a 10-year waiting list. Keep your fingers crossed, because while we've found a few good other ones, I really have my heart set on this one. All of the programs we've looked at so far can't get us in until at least September, so we still have a while to wait. If I were to do it again, I'd probably have started him on a reduced schedule (like 2 half days per week) around 6 months. But we couldn't have known that... We didn't think we'd be thinking about daycare until he was 2 or 3.

So I think that's all I can update about the B-dogg. Now on to me - and my 9-month milestone. So here's the thing. Every one says "9 months on, 9 months off" about losing the baby weight. Is it true? Nope. At least not for me!! I've still got a jiggly belly, and my chest is still bigger (but it HAS gone done some). I've got probably about 10 pounds still to lose -but I don't think it's the weight so much as how it's changed my body. My hips, I think, are bigger - so even pants that I can button look wrong on my new body type. My chest is still bigger, so my old shirts fit too snug. And the belly. I can't tell if I've just stored extra fat, or if there is some extra loose skin now. I think it's the later. I think even if I lose this last 10 pounds, I still won't look the same. Sigh. Sometimes it can be depressing - but it also motivates me to want to eat better & exercise more. At least some times. So I took a profile picture at nine months post-partum to see how I compared to my pre-pregnancy body (actually the picture taken at 1 month pregnant). Definitely not the same. I think it actually looks more like somewhere between 2 and 3-month pregnancy picture. Now you know. :)

Me now:

Me at 1, 2 & 3 months pregnant

Thoughts on being a working mom...

Okay, first off - the title does not intend to imply that only moms who work outside the house are working moms. I know that all moms work hard -whether in the house or in the workforce. But I trust that any of my blog readers are not super sensitive to these terms (are there correct PC terms for at-home moms versus "working" moms?) - so I'll just proceed.

I need to update on a few events that have happened over the last few weeks. First, Ben turned nine months (in the womb time = out of the womb time) and we also flew to Oregon for a visit with the Gelberg Grandparents. But for right now, I want to talk about me and work. Maybe a nice break for those of you who have been a bit tired of endless baby news/thoughts? :)

So, first, I have a new job!! I'm really quite excited about this. I'm still with EM, and actually still with my same project - constructing a pipeline network offshore Angola - but have moved to a new role. I'm a BS engineer. :) Actually, my position is a Business Services Engineer - but I had written myself a note to update my performance assessment with "BS job duties" and Mark read it and laughed thinking that I had intended to make-up duties for my assessment. Funny stuff. :)

So I've been with the co. for 3 years now, and this is my first job outside of safety. I'm thrilled. I was actually starting to like the job I was in before (I LOVE my project team) - but with travel limitations (particularly international travel), it would have been hard to continue to be effective in my role. Also, my background/training/interest isn't in the safety field, so while I was enjoying the work, I was actually enjoying more of the organizing/facilitating/teamwork piece of it rather than the content (safety) itself.

So what is my new role? Good question. It's in the business controls group - which includes things like cost, schedule, managing interfaces (with co venturing companies and the Angolan counterpart). This group is actually short two people right now, so it sounds like I'll just sort of be helping out with whatever is most urgent in the next few weeks until those positions get filled.

But I didn't actually sit down to blog about my new job - I wanted to focus on another thought - work related.

I've been really enjoying work over the last few months. Which is sort of a surprise, as I wasn't 100% sure I wanted to return to work after Ben was born, and when it was totally overwhelming at first, I thought a lot about just quitting to stay at home. On top of that, I think I'm enjoying work more than I ever have pre-baby. So I've been thinking a lot lately about why that is. Because it seems common sense would say that I would not enjoy work as much in this stage of my life.

I'm sure a big part of that is being able to get out of the house for a few hours every day. I'm actually pretty focused when I'm there and don't think about home/Ben a lot - which is a nice break. When I get home, I absolutely adore the squeal he lets out when he sees me, and when I pick him up, it's always a bit of a surprise that I actually have this baby - even though I've only been gone a few hours. I do think I appreciate and enjoy him more than I might if I didn't routinely get away. I feel refreshed when I return home.

I also think I enjoy my job more now, because I can't afford to be inefficient when I'm there - so I'm super-focused at work. My last job and my new job are both full-time positions, but management has agreed to assign me to the roles part-time. That does create quite a bit of pressure - but I've really learned to let the little things go, and just focus on what absolutely needs to be done. I think so much of my time used to be spent doing things because I was supposed to do them, but not really feeling like it made much of a difference. Now, almost every minute spent has a result, and at least I think, accomplishes something important. I've read a few articles that claim working mothers are actually better employees, because they are more efficient. That didn't make much sense to me in the past, but I totally believe it now. I feel like I definitely get more done in less time than I used to - and eventually when I return full-time, I hope I'll retain this efficiency. I am also much better at saying "no" (well, maybe not actually saying it, but at least not promising/agreeing to things immediately) and delegating and asking for help. I don't have time anymore to take on everything myself, and I've let go of the guilt of asking for help. If I have any chance of meeting objectives/deadlines, I've got to get support. I'm proud of that, and I think it's actually really built up my confidence. I feel "worthy" of help, since it's not just about whether I want to do it myself, but whether the task will have a chance of getting done.

Finally, I think the other thing that helps with all of this is that we still don't have daycare (although we are really looking hard right now). The time I spend at work is not just time away from Benjamin - it's also extra work for Mark. If I spend an extra hour at work, that's another hour that Mark has to look after Ben. That definitely helps me set boundaries, leave when I say I will leave, etc.

It's interesting, because some of these new found skills at work have carried over into my personal life as well (or maybe it's vice versa)? I've been talking about gardening forever, and I finally signed up for a course! I took a 4-hour herb gardening class about a month ago. I think it's finally starting to sink in that there's just not enough time to always keep all your ducks in a row. The house will always be dirty. There will always be laundry that needs to be done. It's not terribly fulfilling to try and keep the household running smoothly, so occasionally I need to get out and do something fun - even if there's no time for it. Or I need to decide what's more important - getting some exercise or folding the laundry. Of course, that doesn't always happen, and sometimes I'll take those free moments to try to catch up on the cleaning/laundry, etc. instead of doing something that is important or will actually be fulfilling. But I think I'm keeping my OCD in better check than I have in the past.

Okay, so that may have been rambling - and I hope it didn't sound boastful. But I'm really happy with the work-life balance now, and I wanted to at least get some of my thoughts down - particularly because I always read about the struggle for working moms. I realize that I'm incredibly fortunate to be in the situation that I'm in (employer willing to work with me and be flexible, Mark's job being limited daytime hours) and it's unfortunately not possible/practical for many mothers. But at least for one woman in one point of time it's working.

Look for 9-month & vacation pictures/updates in (hopefully) the next few days!