Sad

Just a quick post to try to get some thoughts out of my head so I can concentrate on the tasks at hand.

I am sad. Upon arriving home from the house tour yesterday, I found an email from the husband of a college friend letting me know that she passed away on Tuesday. He realized that I was unlikely to have heard it from anyone else and wanted to make sure we knew. She and I emailed on an infrequent basis but read each other's blogs. Hers had been silent for two months, and now I know why. I did not going to the visitations at the funeral home, but will be going to the funeral tomorrow morning.

I am tired. I have gotten two good nights of sleep this weekend, one uninterrupted and one interrupted. But I am still tired and trying not to get sick.

I am emotional. On top of the news of my friend, I am worried for my friends who are adopting, I am feeling blessed by all the things I have in my life and I am constantly trying to balance my time between my family, my friends, my activities and my job. Something is going to have to give soon.

I am in constant motion and yet feel bogged down. I am behind at work and the house is a mess. Yet I can't fix everything at once and when I am with Heather and R, I want to focus on them and forget all of the things on my "to do" list. There are too many things on that list that I never get to (thank you notes for the June shower, cards to friends who have lost loved ones this year, finishing projects for Heather's room, planning household renovations, etc). There are important things on that list that I never get to. Something is going to have to give soon.

Basically I am just keeping my head above water, but I know that I need to enjoy life, take care of myself and my family, and focus on those things that really matter. I will be trying very hard this week (after I grieve) to spend my work time being focused, so I can get caught up and let that particular weight off my shoulders. Then maybe with the upcoming 3-day weekend I can get back to those important things on the to-do list and not feel like such a "bad" friend anymore.

I apologize if this is a depressing post. Please don't worry about me. I will be fine. I know I will. I just need to use this moment to understand what is important and move forward the best way I can for myself and my family. I need to clear out the clutter (figuratively and literally) and figure out what is going to give.

Thanks for reading my ramblings. I promise we will return to a less emotionally-charged blog soon. :-)

Please

Please go read this and mark your calendar to call, fax and/or email the appropriate parties. We know three families that could be affected by this change if it happens.

http://becomingfamily.blogspot.com/2007/09/we-need-your-help.html

A List

1 - I'm tired. It turns out that Heather's recent funky sleep patterns and overnight wakings are probably due to teething. Last night she woke up for the second time at 12:30 and didn't seem interested in nursing. So I put my finger to her gums and voila - there was a little pokey bit of tooth. Baby tylenol got us through the night and she was her usual happy self by morning, so hopefully cutting teeth is just uncomfortable enough to cause night wakings and not turn her into a little miss cranky pants.

2 - I got some good news this week. I didn't have to report for jury duty this morning. I'm not opposed to serving. But things are very busy at work right now and it would be a rather unfortunate time to miss an unknown number of days. It's not like I have all kinds of free evening time to get extra done.

3 - I'm not sure what is kicking my butt more - the tiredness caused by traveling or the fact that each trip generates more meeting minutes that need to be written. I'm taking a break from the meeting minutes this week to work on a project going to bid on Monday...but we travel again on the 9th, so next week is going to have to be a marathon of meeting minute writing.

4 - I do have another Heather milestone to report. She is really crawling now and she is pulling up on anything that will hold her weight, including the side of her crib. Our only saving grace is that she is not very fast, so it has been pretty easy to keep her in safe places since the house isn't really baby-proofed yet. But there is no more leaving her alone "for just a minute" until the actual baby-proofing is done. In my opinion, the cutest thing she does right now happens after she sees me across the room. She crawls over to me (right over toys if they are in her path), pulls up on my legs to a stand (grabbing skin, clothes and whatever is necessary) and then slobbering on my knees. Can't beat it.

5 - The house tour is Saturday. I just have a little signage to finish for the ticket area and a couple of street signs. No biggie, but I'm ready for it to be over so the possibility of doing more can stop hanging over my head.

6 - One baby sweater needs blocking and a button, two need seams sewn, crochet edging, blocking and a button and one I haven't started yet. I have more accessories to make, too. I think I'd like to create a "stash" of burp cloths and wash cloths so I always have a couple to give with a big baby gift. (I've decided that it doesn't matter if the mothers and mothers-to-be read my ramblings about this stuff because they have no idea what any of it looks like or what applies to them. ;-)

7 - Once the knitting for other babies is done (or slows down), my next task will be some cold weather gear for Miss Heather. She has mittens but most of her hats are too big and she doesn't own a scarf yet. I might make a pair of socks or two for outdoor adventures in the winter.

Plus a photo

We really haven't taken many photos in September, but R did take this cell phone picture at the pool. He and Heather had a great time. :-)

Quickly

Sadly, I have meeting minutes to finish today, so I'm trying to get them done while Heather is napping. It's going to be another busy week (traveling for work again, didn't last week), so I'll do what I can quickly.

After learning to sit up on her own last weekend, Heather has continued to make more progress. Last week she started grabbing our hands in order to pull herself up to a stand and made her first efforts at crawling. This weekend, with Stewart as her motivation, she crawled from the living room to the foyer! The good news is that she still doesn't really know that she can crawl yet. I think she was so focused on Stewart that she didn't know what she was doing. For the most part, she just scoots and stretches forward for whatever she wants. It's also harder to crawl on a blanket than on the carpet, and we try to keep her on her big pooh blanket. :-)

This week also involved new foods. I told you that peas were soundly rejected. Bananas were less interesting initially, but on the third attempt she decided she loved them and on the fourth feeding I couldn't shovel them in her mouth fast enough. :-) Avocado's first introduction was luke warm, but I'm hoping that was because of the new texture and we'll try again this afternoon when she wakes from her (hopefully long) nap.

The baby gifts continue well, the house tour to-do list is getting pretty small and the house was vacuumed this week. There is finally only one small pile of bags to be unpacked and there is laundry in progress.

I'm still busy, but a little less overwhelmed. A little. Still too much to do at work - partly because each trip I take produces more meeting mintues that need to be written, and I'm getting pretty far behind pretty quickly. Even if I get caught up on the Bradford ones today, I still have St. Lawrence and we go back to Bradford on Tuesday. :-)

Ah well. At least the work days are going quickly and not dragging, right? ;-) Hope everyone is enjoying the cool, crisp fall weather. I know I am! Although it adds one more thing to my to-do list - all of Heather's hand knitted sweaters need iron-on labels so she can wear them to daycare.

I prefer wood

Oh, the temptation.

Must resist.

At least until the next credit card cycle...

Peas....No

We have our first denial of food. At first I thought she was just tired, so we took a break, and she ate oatmeal without a problem. So I tried the peas again. Same immediate negative reaction.

So we left the table. She nursed, she played and then we went back to the table. This time, she had a full serving of oatmeal and enjoyed clicking her lips together to imitate me. Near the end of the bowl, I added just a dab of peas to the oatmeal.

Another crying fit.

So, what shall we try tomorrow night instead? :-)

Squash, Formula and a lower mattress

There is no way to catch you all up on everything, but I think this will be a rambling post to do what I can.

First off, I'm in pretty good shape with the house tour stuff. It took every available minute last weekend to get everything ready that needed to go to the printer...but I made it. At 9pm on labor day night, I delivered a CD to my co-chair with the program, poster, ticket and postcard designs on it. Big, humongous CHECK. There are still a few other things on my to do list, but I think I can get most of them done before our next meeting on Tuesday.

The other highlights of last weekend is that Saturday night was R's high school reunion. For my benefit, I was thankful that there were two couples there that I had met before. Dave (who was in our wedding) and his wife, and Michelle (R's prom date) and her husband were in attendance, and as well as talking with them that night, we also saw them on Sunday so they could meet Heather and we could see their ever growing children again. (Dave and Reiko's youngest was still in the womb at our wedding!)

We actually stayed longer than we had originally planned, partially to see these friends, but mostly so that Heathe could have more time in the pool. The reunion started at 4pm and we left later than planned from Pittsburgh, so Saturday's dip was just too short. We had a great time on Sunday - Heather really enjoyed the water. We will have to go back more next summer. :-)

On to things about Heather. On the physical activity front, she's a dynamo. We heard from her teachers this week that she had sat up on her own. It seemed that she had pulled up on a toy. Well, maybe she did then, but today she sat up with no toys around! She figured out how to get from all fours to a sitting position. I saw her do it in the crib. Even before I saw it, we decided to lower her mattress in the crib...figuring that it would only be a matter of time until it was necessary. While I was at it, I installed her new crib mirror (thanks grandma and grandpa!) and finally made an adjustment to her mobile so it could be used on her crib.

On the food front, things have been moving slowly so far. In a month, she's had rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potato and squash. Given that we can try something new every three days, that's pretty slow. :-) Honestly, a big part of it is how busy I've been. I've traveled for work two weeks in a row and we only had sweet potato and squash in the freezer. Truly, since solids are just for practice at this point, it is pretty easy to put them off when there is a lot of other stuff going on. And we have to try new foods with Heather before they'll give them to her at daycare. But today I made peas, bananas and more squash (she really seemed to like it yesterday and today) and we bought apples, green beans, pears, carrots and avocados. I hope to make at least a couple of those tomorrow in between vacuuming and laundry.

On the milk front, the milk stash officially ran out while I was on my trip this past week. And just like the solids, it was necessary for Heather to have formula at home before they would give it to her there. So on Thursday morning, she had her first full bottle of formula. Since my last trip was longe than my next trip, I don't expect that we'll run out again until I go on one of the longer trips again.

It bothers me less than I thought it would and pumping during business trips truly stinks. Although I successfully squeezed the gallon or so of milk that I pumped into my checked suitcase. :-) I'm tempted to try to wean from the pumping and just BF when I'm with Heather, but I'm to scared that I'll have to stop all together, so I'm not willing to try it for a few more months at least.

Not much knitting to report on. The secret knitting continues (and I need to get on that) and I started a stole from Victorian Lace Knitting on my last trip. So far I like the pattern in the yarn I'm working with (Helen's Laces). Although I might not work on it again until my next business trip since the secret knitting is bulkier.

I'm tired and I've written quite a bit, so that will have to be my catching up for now. More soon.

Close

For my own sanity, I need to finish the tickets, poster, postcard and program for the house tour by the end of the day tomorrow. The tickets, poster and postcard are done. I'm working on the program. I'm traveling for work from Tuesday night through Thursday night...and it's really just better if I get "everything" passed off to the printer before I leave.

There will still be some stuff to do for the house tour after that, but these are the big obstacles.

I plan to take my laptop with me on this trip and I expect it will be more of a 9-5 type of trip than the Bradford trips are...so I will try to post this week and get "caught up" on everything.

Someday I'll have more time to relax...