And resume!

The blog has been silent for a while now, mostly because I've been busy with all the change of working again. It's a completely different world working and being a Mom. I had great fears about leaving Maddie all day, but luckily my new position has such time flexibility that I'm usually home before her afternoon nap. And while I imagined her looking around like this:

saying, "Mom? Where are you, Mom?" In actuality she seems to have not even noticed that I was gone.

My new job is awesome. I love being at the Mount and feeling a part of things. Plus I get to be creative a define a path for my jobs development, which we all know I love to do. I do have this nagging thought though about how much I should and shouldn't say online -- not that I would ever say anything bad! I've never really blogged about work to begin with, but I'm just so excited about my new job that I actually want to -- and thus have to hold back a little bit.

Sleeping Soundly

Maddie is sleeping a bit more soundly lately. See?

Going Back to School!

So I have really good news! I've accepted a position at my alma mater -- Mount Saint Mary's high school! I'll be doing Public and Alumni relations. The whole thing came about rather out of the blue. As you'll remember I was particularly into Back to School stuff this year. And yes, I admit I was checking out MSM's website for a certain Class of 2027-er. Next thing I knew a friend notified me that the Mount was looking for someone for a PR position. Everything just seemed meant to be.

The best part is that the position has some flexibility in scheduling. I'll be working some of my time from home which allows me to be here for Maddie, my biggest concern in any job search. My Mom is going to be watching Maddie while I'm at work so I know she'll be well taken care of (though admittedly I've shed a few tears about leaving her even for a moment!) I just keep reminding myself, I'm getting her school all ready for her -- 18 years from now.

Adventure of the Day: Meet the Baby-Sitter

Yeah, so as previously mentioned, Maddie is not napping so well. Don't feel too bad for her though because it is of her own choosing. Why sleep, when you can stay up all day and play? Plus there are these things called feet and boy are they fun to kick around. I swear her eyelids are attached to her feet by rubberbands -- peepers close, feet pop-up in the air!

Well, this afternoon we were doing really well so I decided to put Maddie down in her crib. I turned on her sound machine and watched for a bit as she started drifting off. I snuck out unnoticed leaving the door open for easy check-ins and listened to her chat to herself for a while on the monitor. After a few minutes she quieted down, so I tiptoed back to check on her and peeked in to see...

Black Cat in the crib sitting right next to Baby's face, and Maddie happily smiling up at him. No picture was taken though it is an image forever seared into my brain. After I quickly removed Black Cat, Maddie just smiled and laughed at me -- despite the cat hair on her face.

Does anyone want a cat? Real cute to look at, eats a lot.

Maddie has a Little Lamb...

... and she likes to talk to it, like a co-worker spilling all the gossip. Here you can hear her dishing.


Oh, she is so like her Mama.

Things that I just don't get: The Parenthood Edition

1) Car seats: So I use the infant seat until 25 lbs, and then a convertible one until 40lbs? Which will be approximately 20 minutes and then a booster seat from 1 yr+? Why is this not consistent or straight forward?

2) Night Terrors

3) Pacifiers: How are soothers for newborn - 3 mo. and actual pacifiers for 3 mo. + and does it really matter?

4) How on Earth is this comfortable??


And since I had to take this with my laptop and therefore couldn't get the full pic, here's a different angle of the same ridiculously contorted pose:

Give Yourself a Reason To Support the Public Option: Justifiable Cost

With 46.3 million uninsured Americans and 25 million under-insured Americans in 2008, the reasons to support a public health care option is to my mind obvious. We can say "Leave no man behind" when it comes to our military and "Leave no child behind" when it comes to our education, but when it comes to our lives on our own soil we look for excuses to leave 23% of our population behind. Although I think most of my readers support health care reform, this is my place to voice opinion. So here it is: Too many people are looking to give themselves an excuse that allows them to avoid supporting a solution. The most common excuse of late is: It's expensive. Even President Obama has stated he won't sign a bill that adds to the deficit.

Here's a reason that the cost is justified: A Public Option is required in order to boost our economy.

*58% of small business did not give raises in the last year because of rising health care costs;
*30% of large companies will lay people off this year to pay for health care;
*49% of American foreclosures are due to personal health care debt (here's a personal account of one such case).

If individuals need to choose between wracking up personal debt and survival, than our economy will continue to tank. If the US government takes the risk and increases the deficit for the sake of public health they free the publics ability to spend, thus increasing their own revenue. Had the government done so years ago -- there may have been no bail-out of the banks, a more sustainable housing market, a higher average income, a lower unemployment rate -- a stronger economy. How much worse can it get?

And I Thought I Was Bad...

I'm uploading photos to my Flickr account (Thanks again Kat! Best gift for a new mom ever -- well that and homemade onesies, and booties and blankets. Damn you're awesome.) I accidently chose the wrong album, and started uploading. After the first 15 minutes of uploading I decided to look at the pics and found out I was uploading the pictures Rob took with his iPhone. All 238 of them. From this weekend. Actually from Sunday and Monday because it turns out there's another album from Friday and Saturday (because it was oh so necessary to document me giving Maddie a bottle in the back of a VWBug. Actually it was pretty funny what with the cramped space and me hitting my head every 5 minutes. Damn that car sucks.)

So anyway, yeah 238 pictures. I've been trying to tone down my picture taking after the massive picture developing of last month, when I developed 400 pics from Maddie's first 2 months of living. But hey, I don't mind because sometimes Rob takes really good pictures. And sometimes he takes really great pictures.

A Crying Update

My Mom just saw a health segment on the news about night terrors -- and it seems like maybe that's why Maddie is crying in her sleep. Night terrors don't always happen at night but do happen in infants when they get caught between deep and REM sleep. Since 3-month olds are just beginning deep sleep it seems a likely time for terrors to happen.

I also learned that terrors can be caused by lack of sleep. I've been recently reading about how infants need 15+ hours of sleep each day, but most only get 12. While previously Maddie was sleeping quite well and routinely, lately she just hasn't been. Her napping during the day has been more sporadic and I think maybe she gets thrown off schedule when we run errands or such. So maybe going to the cottage this weekend just knocked her off track. Alas, we're done with the cottage for the season anyway -- so maybe we'll stay close to home and sleep a bit.

Oh, and it turns out that infants can even have nightmares about feeling hungry. That sounds pretty much like Maddie!

Anyone like to chip in to the Psychiatrist Fund?

Congratulate me -- I've given my daughter her first reason to go to a shrink. This weekend we went to the cottage and ever since she has been crying in her sleep. Absolutely heart-breaking sobs. And when I pick her up, she keeps crying with her eyes closed, then opens her eyes, sees me, gives a moments pause as though to say "Who is making that awful racket?" and then shrugs her shoulders and goes with it.

We're pretty sure this is the reason, right here...

You can tell something big is going to happen here...

So far so good...

Bad, very bad, very very bad.

Apparently the lake is like a very large bath in her estimation and that is a not good thing. But we have hopes that she may someday forgive us.

Thanks for the memories

I'd like to take this moment to thank Knight Studio for making my dream come true. Not only did they provide me with beautiful, amazing, awesome photographs of our wedding. But also after three years, they have now put our pictures on their website as a sample of their truly fabulous work. You can see some of our pictures in their Details, Journalism, and 2007 albums (yes, I know chronologically a little off, but I'm not complaining!) You can see our whole wedding album, starting here. Love it!

Here are a few of my favorite wedding pictures, all thanks to the genius Robert Knight (Oh, but these are scans of the original, so you'll just have to take my word that the originals are breathtaking! Any cropping, or discoloration would be my fault!):











Three years later... Where are we now? Well we still love our pictures...

Interestingly, since the day she came home from the hospital, Maddie has been FASCINATED by our wedding pictures. She stares at them constantly.

Unless Dad's home. Then she stares at him.

Still happily ever after. Just less hair -- for one of us anyway.

Fish Nuts: The Grossest Vulgarity There Is

This must be one of those things you can only enjoy if you have at some point in your life have lived in a trailer.

Boiled Peanuts... but in actuality they taste like some sort of soy nut that has been soaked in fish until they rotted.
Here's a close up of Rob's fish nuts.
At first Maddie was excited about sharing this part of her Dad's culture.
Then she got a whiff and changed her mind.

Gotcha!

Apparently the way to capture a smile is with an iPhone! Sadly it also requires having the camera always trained on Maddie just in case a smile occurs and not moving the teeny-tiniest bit.