Wednesday, March 26, 2014

In the Scuppers With a Hosepipe

We have really loved our neighborhood here. We love the friends we've made and the Webelos we've had the opportunity to lead/teach. But, I'm sad/happy to say, we are moving. Soon. Like this week. I feel like even though we haven't been in this place long, it's where we needed to be for the time we were here, and now it's ok to move on.

This house hasn't been my favorite place. We've had some trouble with it. And I need to be closer to people so I can have more readily available help with the baby.  For that and a few other reasons, we will be moving in with my parents in Springville for a few months. It's not ideal, but we need to save up money because...

Sam is going to grad school! Well, not officially. But we are pretty confident he will get positive responses (meaning "come to our school please") from at least one school. So we're banking on it. We will hopefully hear the results in July, and then we will reevaluate the living sitch.

In the mean time, also exciting news, Sam also got new jobs! He quit Vivint (finally) and has started working as a substitute teacher at Heritage School in Provo. It's kind of awesome because this is basically what he wants to be doing (teaching special needs kids). And they were pretty excited to have him. He will be filling in gaps by subbing at other schools in the valley through Kelly services. He will still be working Domino's some evenings for a little while, but down in Springville instead.

I am very very excited that Sam is going to be able to start teaching, because he loves it, and it will give him good experience before he starts grad school (which is for Special Education). 

My life is not quite so interesting I suppose. I still work my various jobs here and there, but I'm focusing on learning how to take care of the baby and myself full time. I'm bad at doing both.

I'm planning on taking some kind of community center exercise class soon... This is a HUGE deal for me guys. I'm so awkward and unathletic. And the choices available are really random...Tahitian Dance anyone? This could make for a hilarious future post, so stay tuned, folks!

Ps...I have no idea what I'm doing with the titles for these posts most of the time...

And Pepper When He Pleases

I've rather avoided posting lately because not much happens around here, and most of the people who care about how Rosalind is progressing (ie grandparents) live nearby. Also, I'm lazy. But some things are actually happening now! So I'll get the baby stuff out of the way and then bore you with updates.

Bonus: this post contains many NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN BABYPIX (TM)!!!

Alors. Ros will be 3 months old in a couple of weeks (can you believe it? I hardly can). I'm finally getting used to waking up in the middle of the night. Not that it makes me happy, but at least I no longer want to punch sleeping Sam in the face every time the baby wakes up.

Ros had her 2 month immunizations last week. I was naturally more nervous than I ought to have been (I was shaky after it was all over). When the time came, the nurse had me hold her legs still, and I focused on The Democratic Republic of the Congo on a map on the wall. Ros obviously didn't like the actual shots, but she calmed down pretty quickly, and was pretty happy until a few hours later when her world ended. She had been sleeping in the car, and when I went to take her out she was sporting the most tragic baby frown and had tears in her eyes. I felt so bad for her. The poor baby developed a reaction to the oral rotavirus vaccine (this is quite common actually, but having the full-blown virus is much worse). So she spent many hours screaming (not fussing, screaming), and generally felt sick to her stomach until Monday morning. Poor chicky.

Other than the past few days, Ros has sort of developed a nighttime schedule FINALLY. She usually only wakes up to eat once at night, between 4am and 6am. We're still working on getting her to bed at a decent hour-- being sick sort of caused a setback on that. She was actually on kind of an awesome schedule for a while where she would wake up at 3:41 (exactly) to poop and then went right back to sleep, and then woke up at 5:05 to eat. It was wonderfully predictable, and I only had to actually get up once! Don't judge me for letting my baby sleep in a dirty diaper for an hour. She doesn't care. Alas, thanks to sicky babe, no more schedule.

Anyway, otherwise she's doing pretty stellar. I finally just started her on the cloth diapers because she grew out of her size 1 sposies (don't make fun of me, that's what people call them and I think it's funny). I also really like them, which is the important part, really. Washing them is super easy since we have a standard washer. The 12 diapers I got cost as much as 2.5 boxes of regulars, so they have basically almost paid for themselves. And contrary to popular belief, they are not much more difficult to put on, I only do one extra load of laundry every other day, and I'm not constantly covered from head to toe in baby poop. I don't even really touch it more than usual (and anyway if you are afraid to touch gross things every now and then, you probably shouldn't have children...or pets...or plants). And we almost never have leaks (when we do it's usually "user error").  So I'm pretty pleased. Although it did take a few days to get used to her new gigantobum.

Ros never really did learn to nurse well. I'm still able to nurse her at night & early in the AM because she's too sleepy to be uncooperative, but I've been pumping as much as I can to feed her during the day. She's kind of a ravenous wolf, so I had to start supplementing with formula since I couldn't produce enough for her. So she gets formula for her last bottle of the day, and right now, while I'm focusing on building a supply in the freezer and in myself, she gets about half and half via bottle during the day. Hopefully soon I will be able to pump enough to nurse the first 2 feedings like I'm doing, give all breastmilk via bottle in the day, then a formula bottle right before bed. I have such lofty goals! Things may yet change, but for now I'm doing my best.

Anywho, she can also support her weight for a while on her legs and she can sit assisted (we're trying to get her used to the Bumbo we borrowed from my aunt, but she still lists to starboard). She also has the neck strength of a wildebeast (guys I'm trying to make this interesting) and loves to coo all. the. time. It's my favorite.

She thinks it's hilarious when I try to dance to entertain her, and she loves it when I sing. Her favorite song is "Skye Boat Song," possibly because I used to sing it a lot while I was pregnant. 

Also, this baby is seriously a chunk. She's so heavy (I don't know exactly how much, but I would guess 14-15lbs). And she has rolls like a sumo wrestler.

She's slower at grabbing things and bringing things to her mouth deliberately, but she's working on it. She likes to hold her Oball and her toothbrush for short periods of time. I think we are going to make her a little bell rattle soon, because how on earth is she going to learn cause and effect without a rattle?? Seriously.

And she's still cute. I'd venture to say she gets cuter every day. I can't wait to see her get really interesting.

Ok that was really long. At risk of boring you all to death, I'm going to put our life updates into a separate post. Rah!