Thursday, December 26, 2013

Pregnant Pictures




Back in July, I had a little photo session with Josh on the camera and our dear friend Shelley on hair and make-up. We took about 500 pictures and out of those 500 i only liked about 15.  Posing for the camera is not as easy as it seems.  I am super uncomfortable doing it. We would take like 20 pictures and I would stop and look through them and say things like "Oh man, those are awful, I thought i was smiling the whole time" but in reality i looked dead or furious. Josh would say things like, "relax, just add some movement" and i would end up doing the robot (a very poorly done robot). I love these though. maternity photo shoots can be weird, there is a fine line between nice, cheesy and silly. i wanted to look back and feel beautiful, elegant and maternal. These are perfect for me. i'm When I was pregnant with JHM we took these.Looking back on both of the shoots, it's surprising how big my belly was.

It's fun to clean up, play dress up and feel beautiful every now and then.















Monday, November 4, 2013

Mind Vomit

You know what's hard?  A lot of things.  Right now in my life, balance is hard.  Sleep is hard. And not because I have a 3 month old and she wakes up all night.  She is a saint when it comes to sleeping at night.

Have I really not blogged at all in three months???  See, you know why? It's because it's hard for me to do it. Hard to have time to do it. Hard to have time to sit long enough to gather my thoughts.  Hard to have time to sit. period.

I don't have time now either.  I am sitting in my living room, listening to late night traffic on Broadway with my left ear and a mouse scurrying around the kitchen- that I just spent 30 minutes cleaning and disinfecting- with my right ear.  i'm not going to do anything about that mouse either. Not tonight anyway.

You know what I am doing tonight instead?  Work. Catching up on emails. AND eating a lot of chocolate chips. I had to put the bag away because I was getting out of control. I'm not eating dairy or gluten anymore (baby gets sick). So chocolate chips are all I can really indulge in.

So yeah, these three months have been filled with many cool things to write about. We've been to Florida, NC - TWICE. Celebrated JHM's 3rd birthday. THIRD!  He might as well be a million. Cat Squirrel is 3 months old. AND wonderful.

One of these days I will get my sh*t together and put pictures and blurbs of these months up.  I hope to anyway, but I'm really not going to commit to it.

Plus, I feel a giant void in my blog life with Google Reader being gone. yes, I use Feedly, but it's not the same. Instagram is a good way to blog for me.


Here are a few pictures.

free birthday ice-cream at the soda fountain/pharmacy

it's rare if he isn't doing this on the subway


Never stops climbing

see?

I cut my hair.  Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I am still surprised at how curly my hair actually is.

We have a new pet. Cha-cha-cha Chia
Post Halloween Dessert
He is madly in love with her
This was today
This was a few weeks back.
I am blessed to have some super good people in my life.

Emergency Room Shenanigans


 I think I should be done for the night and stop procrastinating.  Things I need to remember to blog about: Halloween, Working - Transition to work again, being a working mom, balance, guilt, weight, birthdays, baby, food.
 
See ya.

 

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Birth Story - Cat Squirrel

I have kids. With an S.

Thursday morning my midwife came over.  Although I was only 4 days over the due date, I was over being pregnant. Nights were uncomfortable, my hips were sore and I would get random weird numbness.  Not to mention the heat was out of control, but it was getting cooler and there was relief from the heat wave that swept across the City. And not being at work doing my daily routine was driving me bananas. When she came over I asked her to sweep my membranes in hope of getting things going.  She checked me out, made the sweep said that my cervix was pretty far back the chances that I would have gone in to labor that weekend were unlikely, all we could do was wait and see if it worked.  I was also lining up acupuncture for Friday.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful, went grocery shopping, made and ate dinner, cleaned more in the bathroom. After all that I headed to bed and thought, well maybe tonight will be the night.
Around 5:45am I started to feel contractions.  I stayed in bed until I felt at least two and then got up to get my phone to start timing them.  My first recorded entry of the contractions was at 6am with 43 second contractions 4 min apart.  Immediately they went up to 1 minute 5 seconds long with 3-5 minutes apart.  This is how it hits me.  No gradual increase no "Hey I'm starting labor, lets take this nice and easy and relax to save my energy for later." Instead it's like "BAM!!!!! Go have this baby now!"  I woke josh up at 6, I wanted to wait longer and give him more sleep, but I couldn't.  I needed him to get started on the birthing pool.

Because I was only in labor with JHM for a little over 5 hours, my midwife, Karen, was really worried she would not make it in time this time and made me promise I would call her as soon as I felt anything.  I called her at 6:14am and she said she would be right over. I then called my doula, Colleen, at 6:22am and she also said she would head right over.  Called the photographer, Kylie, at 7:09am and left a message!

By this time I was in the bathtub and josh was making sure everything was getting set-up in the living room - the pool, the time-lapse camera and his camera.

I sat in the bath tub and tried to work through each contraction with concentration and breathing.  Josh brought me some toast with honey and after a few bites I wanted nothing to do with food. After every contraction I felt like I was going to throw up.

Once Karen and her assistant Jill, arrived, I left the comfort of the tub so they could check my vitals on dry land.  Big mistake, the contractions were way worse sitting on sofa rather in the water.  As soon as I got the green light i headed back to the comfort of my bathtub.  Colleen arrived and as she was putting a cool cloth on my neck and holding my hand I told her all I wanted was an epidural. She said I had every right to say that because labor was hard and painful. Even though I really would not have gotten the epidural if possible, I felt better saying it out loud and having that feeling validated by a woman I have great birthing respect for.




She went to check on the pool and said that although it wasn't full, it was full enough for me to get in if I wanted more room to stretch out in.  She helped me make the transition.  Once I got to the pool, it was ON!  The breaks of reality and painlessness were few and far in between.  I remember just praying for a break long enough to look up, catch my breath and have a chance to talk if I needed to.  It was then that I was able to first say hi to Kylie.  She arrived a few minutes before and jumped right in taking pictures.  It was her first live birth and I felt so bad that she came in during such a HARD part.  I introduced myself between vocalizations.






My water still hadn't broken and when I asked Karen to check me out, she said the bag was still strong and keeping the baby from coming down.  She asked me to change positions and be ready for the next contraction to push extra long and hard and down to break the water.  I hated being in that position and only wanted to be back on my hands and knees.  I knew it was important though and would bring me closer to the end, so I took a deep breath when I felt it coming and PUSHED.  The water broke and I immediately went back to where I was..er... comfortable?   By this point, I just wanted the end to come.  I asked if I had 30 min or 5 min left and was told maybe less.  I was hating child birth by this point.  The next push was HARD and long and almost got the baby out.  Head and ears were out and I only needed to do it one more time. JUST ONE MORE TIME AND I WOULD BE DONE.  That is a lot of motivation.  I gathered up all I had, I knew I could do it and it had to be done, I had no choice.  I went for it and then she was out. Such a weird feeling when the baby actually goes down and out. It was 9:08am. Did you do the math? Just three hours!?!?  Three hours of intense, intense labor.






They pulled her out of the water placed her on my chest and put a towel on her.  I asked girl or boy?  Karen said she wasn't going to look or tell me so we all peaked and GIRL.

Then it was time to get out of the water and check me and baby.  Baby was great.  I fared ok too.  Just a slight tear requiring just a few stitches.

You might be wondering where JHM was during all this.  Well, he was in his room. Sleeping.  We has planned for our friends to come pick him up when needed.  When labor started josh carried him from our room to his, turned on the fan, closed the door and left.  We tried our friends - multiple people and no one was answering.  We prayed he would just sleep till the end, and you know what time he woke up? 9:15am. Yep, just in time.  He came out and was so happy to see his new sister.  He kissed her and told her "Thank you for coming".









Colleen sent me her version of the birth and it is a lot more beautiful.  I suppose when you are on the outside looking in and appreciating what is really happening it is very beautiful and special and even somewhat magical.  JHM met her for the first time in the very place he was born almost three years earlier.  Our family was happy that day and the room was filled with love for each other, for her and for all the people that got to witness and help our family transition from 3 to 4.



Welcome to the world and our family 7lb 10oz. 19 1/3" tall Cat Squirrel.
Josh set up a gopro in the living room and created a really cool time lapse video of the whole thing.  Don't worry, there are no crotch shots.  Check it out:



Thursday, June 20, 2013

Slow Poke

My caption from Instagram last night: "Oh look, someone took a picture of JHM and made it into a sticker"


JHM has two speeds. Warp Fast and Super Slow. That's it. Nothing in between.

And he uses them both at the wrong time mostly.  Say you are running late somewhere, he couldn't care less.  Say it's raining, buckets, he couldn't care less.  Say you have to pee so bad and want to get home, he couldn't care less. Say you had a long day at work, amlost 8 months pregnant, pick him up from his babysitter and want to take a bus the 10 blocks rather than walk, and a bus is just behind you, but you're not at the stop yet - he couldn't care less.

BUT say you want to take a nice stroll or just want to sit down on a bench and watch people - well here comes Mr. Fast Guy. He wants to run all over, swing on every post or poll, run up and down ramps and stairs.

My sister-in-law gave him a book called How do I Love You and one page says "I love how you take each day in your own unhurried style".  That is my least favorite page. It makes me laugh now, cause this is just him. I love him dearly even at his slowest.

I do appreciate his lack of the concept of time.  And perhaps I am a little jealous of it.  I usually just go with it, or pick him up.  I enjoy this time with him, he won't be 2 1/2 for ever. Sigh.

Here is a video of him "hurrying".  We (I) had a million errands to run we hadn't eaten breakfast and it was almost noon (Saturday's we all sleep in late).  This is actually pretty fast. Acceptable even.



Monday, June 3, 2013

Maybe it's the Heat?


People are out to get me.  In my seven years of living in NYC I have never really had a confrontation with other NY'ers. That changed on Satruday night and again today.  Things come in threes, so I'm ready.  I'm ready NY, I might cry, but I'll take it.

I am in no means asking for reassurance that I am not a devil person by posting these situations, i'm just venting and commiserating with all the other people i know who have had similar encounters.


1) Saturday night we were hanging out in the West Village ate some pizza at our favorite dollar slice place, Percy's, and had our favorite gelato from GROM. While running around JHM said he had to use the bathroom.  It wasn't the type that he could just do on a tree either.  I went to the IFC center and asked to use their bathroom, they said sure it's right down stairs.  As we were at the bottom of the stairs this women (early 50's?) tells - not asks, me to move so she can get to the bathroom, I tell her no.  I said we are on the way to the bathroom too and I am not going to let her cut me off because I don't want my son to have an accident.  She starts going off.  She is a grown women and can walk fast than a 2 year old so she should go first.  I said, I'm sorry but no we are going first b/c what if there is only one stall open and she goes and we have to wait. "WHAT?!?!  Have you even been to a theatre before?? Have you ever just seen one stall???"  By this time we are already in the bathroom each in a stall.  Then she says (again while we are in the bathroom stalls) that I am a bad mom. She said that I have a long road ahead with that boy and I better change my ways b/c I am not doing a good job as a mom right now. BECAUSE I DIDN'T WANT JHM TO CRAP HIS PANTS!!!!

The whole time JHM was asking questions like, "what is she talking about", "why is she so loud", "what's going on?"  Poor guy. I just smiled and said she was having a nice night at the movies and just needed to pee really bad.  Whatever lady.

2) This morning I am sitting on the train on the way to work.  A women and a 3 year old get on and there is no where to sit. I wait a while and see that he is kinda antcy and I offer my seat.  The mom accepts gratefully and I stand up.  She says "Oh, you're pregnant, don't worry about it, I didn't realize". I say it's not a big deal, I don't mind standing and no one else is offering, so I really don't mind.  A man near by (knee to knee seat) gets up and offers his seat to the kid and tells me i can have my seat back, I say Ok thank you and sit back down.  Fine. The end. NO.  Twenty minutes later as I am getting off ar my stop the man starts in on me like this:
"Just so you know, I have a bad back. I gave up my seat for you and I have a bad back.  Don't go around judging all men thinking they are lazy and won't get up for a kid or pregnant lady"  He was not being quiet either. Not yelling, but people were looking.  I was trying to get all my things from under my seat and not get stuck inside the train so I didn't really have time to go back at him.  I told him he had me all wrong and I am far from judging all men.  He offered his seat, I did not ask for it.  He kept at it as I was walking out the train doors, repeating that I shouldn't make judgements and to think before I act.  
In my mind all I did was offer a kid my seat and point out the obvious that no one else was moving.  Maybe that was wrong?  Sigh. 

Anyone have similar UGH! stories?

Friday, May 24, 2013

Random Things I Suppose

Josh's Birthday Dinner

Central Park Picnic

 


Things to Remember

Fire Eskate = Fire Escape
Sniber Snap Peas = Sugar Snap Peas
I don't Guess = I don't Care

The other night we were all in the living room, and neither josh or myself wanted to make dinner, so I asked JHM to please go to the kitchen and make us dinner.  He dragged himself up, sighed and said ok.  He walked to the kitchen, opened the fridge and asked if we wanted white eggs (what we call hard boiled, since he hates the yellow part).  We sat on the sofa laughing, and said sure.  He took the two hard boiled eggs off the shelf, closed the fridge and explained that he would crack them, and cut out the yellow part with his own knife.  He moved the stool to the counter and we heard the first egg crack on the counter.  This is when we got up to help him. Sure enough he was standing on his stool, over the sink trying to take the shell off.  We helped him, gave him a butter knife and he cut the egg so we could take out the yolk. We ate the eggs together and then proceeded to make a real dinner.

It was one of my favorite growing up moments so far.  He was so willing to stop playing to go make us dinner and he put a lot of thought and effort into it. Did I mention he is only 2 1/2???  Everyday he impresses me more and more.

New York in the Spring is filled with beautiful flowers (and many other things)





We went to Florida for Mother's Day and had a nice time.  We hung out at the beach and the pool, went strawberry picking, ate a lot and spent time with family. Josh says I judge the success of a vacation by my tan lines, that being said - it was a success!



Beach Hair



"Whoa, look this one is perfect"

 

Grandma telling stories

Guess it was funny