Baby Doll

She is just so adorable. I can't tell you all how much fun she is right now. We were just cracking up laughing at her last night. She was making all these silly faces and sounds and playing with her toys. So sweet. Oh my. It's so hard to believe she's nearly a year old already!

Friday couldn't get here fast enough

My what a week it has been. I've been on some weird emotional/hormonal roller coaster, and I am attributing it to PMS the week before my period is due. That's the only explanation I can come up with for the random tears, the instant changes from happy to full raging bitch, and the never-ending "tired" feeling. Bagh.

At any rate, it's Friday! And, I am happy to report that we have a couple coming to check out the house tonight! Woo-hoo!!!! We're having an open house on Sunday, as well, and we are really hoping to get some interest.

New house update: the lumber has arrived. They may've started framing yesterday or today.

Oh yeah, I have recruited my grandparents to watch for a little while tonight while I attempt to get some scrapbooking done. My goal is to be totally caught up in time for Maddy's first birthday, so I have a lot of work to do! The thought of actually executing the creative ideas I've been storing in my brain is what will get me through this day.

I don't want to be at work today. I am so tired and I am just not motivated. Thank God I don't have any crews coming today - I don't think I could effectively turn on the happy PR smile if my life depended on it. I will tell you that I had a great meeting with my boss yesterday, and they may even be hiring me some help! Wouldn't that be great? I'm not holding my breath though.

OH, so here's a great Maddy update: Last night Jer's school had a fundraiser at Chuck E. Cheese. So, we took the baby and went for a little while. She absolutely loved it. You know those robot-looking animal things that sing on stage? She thought they were the coolest thing EVER. And, she is all about dancing now, so the whole time she was bouncing all around and jumping up and down. It was adorable. She waved hi and bye to everyone she saw, and she laughed hysterically at all the kids. I sat her on a couple of rides and she went down this little slide. She was in her glory. Her dad played some games and won tickets. He turned them in for this little light-up ball for her. What a night for a 10-month old, hah?

Oh well, I'm off to attempt to do some work. Maybe some coffee will help.... Have a good weekend y'all.

What's new with me...

Kalahari was really fun. My family had a blast. Madeline really didn't know what to think about all the excitement and having everyone all together. She was really excited and happy most of the time. She liked being in the water with us, and floated around with us on tubes. She actually fell asleep on Jerry in one of those tubes! She was too precious in her little bikinis!

Saturday night, after we got back from the waterpark, we had dinner for my brother-in-law's birthday at Outback, and then we came home and had another couple over for drinks and hot-tubbing. (Maddy spent the night with my parents.) I had way. too. much. to. drink. We were up until like 2 a.m.! Lots of fun though. Then, on Sunday, Jer's family came over to watch the football games and have chili, hot dogs and pizza. It was a totally action-packed weekend and came into work on Monday utterly exhausted.

Had a crappy day on Monday. I was really tired and crabby, and I got upset about some things at work and actually cried a little. Yuck. Yesterday was a little better, but I was still pretty crabby and annoyed.

I got a Blackberry, and it's all hooked up and working. I'm not so sure I like being this "available" for work. Bah. It's addicting to be able to check your email at any given moment, and the damn thing alerts me every time I get a message. I'm still learning how to use it, and on my ride home yesterday I damn near threw the thing out the window because I did something that made the email icon disappear and I couldn't get it back. But, I'll get the hang of it.

The new house has a basement with windows. The lumber package was delivered yesterday, and they should start framing today. We are going to stop by and check it out tonight. We're having an open house on Sunday, in hopes of at least getting someone to come and look at the old house! I can't tell you how much I've been praying that we sell this house before the new one is ready! Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh. Stress.

Oh well, I've gotta run. I have a ton of shit to do, which of course means my phone will start ringing any second now and won't stop until I'm walking out the door tonight. Better get crackin'.

Have a good day.

Kalahari

So, tomorrow I will be out of the office and on a little overnight vacation at Kalahari indoor water park in Sandusky (http://www.kalahariresort.com/OH/Main.aspx).

My entire family is going (grandparents, parents, brother, aunts, uncles, cousins). My grandparents are paying for the whole thing as our Christmas gift. They even gave us gas cards to pay for the fuel to get there! Crazy.

Anyhow, I think it is going to be really fun. We have a suite for the night tomorrow, and everyone is packing coolers full of fun beverages and I think we will have a blast. Madeline absolutely loves the water, so I think she is really going to enjoy it.

Because of this excitement, today is DRAGGING ON FOREVER. Two more hours to go... Blah.

Just the littlest things...

So as you know, I spend a lot of posting space bitching about my husband and all the stupid shit he does or doesn't do, but I really need to share something really nice that he did yesterday...

He had MLK day off, I didn't. He was home all day with the baby, and he went grocery shopping. That was great in itself, but the sweetest part is that when I got home, he had to show me all the things that he bought especially for me and he even bought me flowers. He bought me things he thought would be good to take to work for lunch, and he bought my favorite kind of cereal and he bought a few special snacks for Madeline. I was really impressed that he took so much time and put so much thought into shopping, especially since he had Maddy with him.

When I got home yesterday, Madeline was in a great mood and so was he. He said, "We had a really nice day together." And the best part, they did NOT go over his mother's!

I was really impressed. We went to Chipotle for dinner (that's his favorite place in the whole world), and then we had a nice night playing with Maddy and snuggling.

You know, it wasn't anything fancy, but it was honestly one of the best days/nights I've spent with my husband in a long time.

Just a few things

We had a really productive weekend - got a lot of cleaning done around the house, gearing up for some open houses after the Super Bowl. My parents spent the night on Saturday, and my dad watched Maddy and my mom REALLY helped us clean and do laundry. It was so great!

We had my work "post-holiday" party yesterday. It was really nice. My boss's husband owns a wine distributing company, and we went there for a wine tasting and dinner. The building is amazing and dinner was so nice. I can't even begin to describe what a pleasant atmosphere it was, and I will tell you that the best part about the evening was the way Jerry behaved and treated me. He was so sweet, and I caught him a few times saying some really nice things about me. I left there really knowing how proud he is of me and especially of Maddy. It just really was such a nice night, and I can't tell you how much we needed that - time out without the baby.

On a serious note, my brother lost his job last week. I don't really know too much of the details, but if you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that this is not good. He's been so depressed about the whole marriage fiasco, that this was not what he needed at all, but he's handled it surprisingly well. I helped him update his resume and send it out. He's going on a second interview today with a company that he really likes and would love to work for, and he's really approaching the whole thing as a way to make a completely fresh start. Keep him in your prayers, because truly, we are all very worried about his well-being and hope that he really is "making a fresh start." I'll keep you posted on his progress. FYI - in case I didn't mention it before, the dissolution papers have officially been filed and they will eventually have to go to court and get it all finalized, but for now, they are legally separated.

Madeline is feeling soooo much better. She's pretty much back to her old self. She had a good weekend, and played so hard. She is really into her toys, and will entertain herself for long periods of time. Her new thing is "dancin' dancin'" whenever she hears music. It's so adorable. My dad had such a good time with her yesterday - I think he took every toy out of her toy box and played with her. He got her dressed and took a nap with her. It was so cute.

I had a really stressful mommy moment on Saturday afternoon. You see, I have been dying to go to this really awesome scrapbooking/stamping store, and Jerry and I were all set to go out shopping and to lunch, but when Jer was snowblowing the driveway he hit some wire for the sensor on our garage door and it wouldn't close. So, he decided to stay home and fix it, while I took the baby with me by myself. Well, let me just tell you that this store is not a baby-friendly store at all, and I had Madeline in the stroller and she could grab way too many things too easily. Then, she got mad and wanted me to hold her, so I'm holding her and pushing the stroller around the store (which is not designed for said stroller pushing), and so I put all of the stuff I wanted to buy into the stroller. When, she wasn't really happy still. Then it dawned on me that she was probably hungry, so I took all the stuff back out of the stroller and put her in it again and gave her some of those wonderful Gerber fruit puff things. She was fine the rest of the time, but I will tell you that I was sweating in that store and I was so aggravated. Next time, no Maddy when mommy goes to Archivers. I spent way too much $$, because I really was so distracted that I wasn't paying much attention to what I was piling onto the stroller. Oh well. Such is life I guess.

So Sleepy...

I am so sleepy today. I had one of those rides into work this morning where I was truly afraid of dozing off. Jerry and I take turns every other night for who's "on duty" if Maddy wakes up. Well, last night was my night, and she woke up at 12:30 and at 4:30. At 4:30, she wanted no part of going back to sleep, so I brought her in our bed but with no luck still. I woke myself up enough to give her a breathing treatment and a bottle, and she finally fell asleep, but I only had like 20 minutes until my alarm was set to go off. Ugh. I think I'm going to go down to the cafeteria and gets some coffee or something to try to wake me up.

Will it ever end?

So, the sickness cycle continues... I missed work on Friday, because Madeline is really sick. I spent 3 hours with the pediatrician and then another 2 hours at the children's hospital. She has "bronchilitis," but they tested her for RSV and pneumonia. She had to have chest x-rays, they tested her oxygen levels, gave her a breathing treatment, tested her again. Ugh. It was terrible. She had a fever of 103.8! I was so scared. Now, she gets these breathing treatments every four hours, and she's doing SO MUCH BETTER.

On top of the scariness of that on Friday, while at the hospital with Maddy I noticed this funny little rash all over me... Hmmm.... Oh yeah, I am totally allergic to the antibiotics they put me on last week. By Saturday night, I was a flaming red, itchy mess. They called me in a new antibiotic yesterday. Nice.

Jerry went to the dr. again yesterday to get a cortizone shot because he's having a gout flare up.

I tell you, 2006 is not starting off so well.... This sickness streak has got to end! Ugh.

New Work Expectations

I'm posting this because it has been on my mind a lot lately, and I'd love some feedback from others...

My new job requires me to be pretty much accessible/available at any given moment - most of the time just by phone, but it still means that I carry a pager and a cell phone and that I also rotate another "on-call" pager every 3-4 weeks. Pretty soon I'll be getting a Blackberry to be available by email as well...

OK, so you all know I'm a working mom. Well, I have to tell you that I really really love my job. Really, I do. The experience is great, and I honestly don't mind taking the calls at home and all that...

However, what I'm wondering is how long I'm going to be able to survive this way. I used to go home and mentally "turn off" the career mind and "turn on" the mommy brain. Well, now the work brain never stops. And it isn't that I'm not paying attention to Maddy, I am. The mommy brain still comes on, but I'll tell you what's flying out the window... the wife brain. I don't have time to do things around the house, and it's showing. Jerry is getting really annoyed by all the calls and the constant way I talk about work. I know he supports my career, and he would never say anything to me, but I can see it in his face. I forget stupid little things at home A LOT, and in my head I know I'm trying to do too much... the job, the baby, Jerry, stamping, spending time with the rest of our family, trying to clean/maintain our house and laundry and all that stuff. I feel myself getting spread too thin. The problem is, I don't know if or what I could possibly give up... I love every part of my life, and I know I need to make some adjustments, but I'm having a really hard time with it all.

When I have a free moment, I want to stamp, scrapbook and read. I never do though. I ended up going to bed because I'm exhausted. Jerry and I haven't really done anything alone in quite a while...

I think instead of trying to give up something, I am going to try to find a way to take some of the burden off of me. I think I am going to hire my cousin (she's 17 and very responsible) to baby-sit for me on a regular basis, so I get some me-time and can re-charge my batteries. Maybe something like every other week on Saturday afternoon or something... Hmmm... I am really liking this plan. You see, I know that when we move into our new house, we're hiring a cleaning lady, so that won't really be a problem anymore. But I'm becoming resentful that I don't have time for myself to do the things I really enjoy, and thus I'm not really focused on Jerry when we're at home together. I think if I'm a happier woman, I'll be a better wife. Does that make sense or am I just trying to rationalize all of this in my head? I'm going to make a proposal to Jerry about the whole baby-sitter thing... I think he'll be up for it.

What do you all think? How do you keep your sanity??

Missing my Maddy

I am missing my baby this morning. She's so sweet and lovable and I just want to see her smiling face and her babble "mamamamamom" a little bit. I could cry just thinking about the fact that I have to wait like another 8 hours to see her.

She is at the sweetest stage right now - she gives hugs and kisses and just loves to play. My parents came over to visit last night, and you should have heard her belly laughing. It was so cute. She has learned how to do the whole "so big" thing where she lifts up her arms. Well, now that she knows she gets a reaction when she does that, she will do it every time you ask her a question or something that she doesn't know. So, I'll ask her, "Maddy, how was your day today?" So big. "How are you feeling this morning?" So big. "Maddy, do you want to take a bath?" So big. It's so silly, and she just lights up every time with this huge smile. "Maddy, how big is daddy?" So big. :)

She's learning how to blow kisses now. She hasn't quite mastered this yet, but it's getting there.

I am going to have to call her today. When she hears my voice on the phone, she smiles and kisses the phone. On occasion, she'll say "mamama." Most of the time, she's too excited and just smiles though.

Oh well, gotta run. Just had to share my mommy thoughts this morning.

Trying to Recover

I seriously could write a book this morning, I have so many things I could post about. But, here are just the snip-its:

• Maddy's 1st Christmas was amazing. She was too cute for words and is really enjoying all of her new toys.
• The entire week after Christmas, Jerry, Maddy and myself endured seven days worth of torture in the form of snot, coughing, eye infections, strep throat, multiple doctor visits and a giant stash of antibiotics.
• I saw the movie, Memoirs of a Geisha, while enduring a round of orange diarrhea from the mega-dose of antibiotics I am now taking.
• Spent New Year's Eve at home with Maddy, by myself. We were both asleep at midnight. Jerry was out partying it up.
• Yes, we had a HUGE fight because of that. Still not really sure it's over...
• Jerry is now 27 - Happy Birthday to him on New Year's Day. I didn't even give him a card or anything, as a result of said fight.
• I am now feeling a little guilty, but still really mad, about said fight.
• Madeline has her 9 month check-up today at 9:30. This will be her 4th doctor visit in one week!
• I was supposed to be off today to go with her for the shots, poor baby, but I had to miss 3 days last week due to the horrible illness we were all experiencing, so I'm back in the office today.
• While I was out sick, a woman was attacked and raped on the hospital campus, along the walkway from the parking garage to the hospital - where I walk everyday!!
• They caught the guy.
• My brother has officially filed the dissolution papers - almost 3 months to the day of the dreaded MBNA phone call.
• They are breaking ground on our new house this week.
• Aaaaah! We have a little more than 90 days to sell our house before we will be paying 2 mortgages!
• Praying really hard we sell our house soon.
• Have a ton of work to catch up on.

Hope you are all off to a great 2006!