Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Going back to work

Well it appears that my time as a stay at home Mom has come to an end. I'm going back to work starting tomorrow. Things worked out really well, I get to go back to my old job!! (I had to quit after I had Amelia because I just wasn't ready to go back at 4 weeks as we'd planned. The c-section and nursing and her not sleeping was a lot harder on me than I thought it would be.) So anyway, I got to stay home with her for 7 months, but now I get to go back to work. It's great because I already know the family, I'm totally comfortable with them and know they are awesome to work for. The extra money will be nice as well, I'm hoping we'll get our savings back on track. And we've already discussed that I get to get a new car pretty soon. Wahoo. I love the Honda, but Jeff drives it now for work and I get his truck. The truck wasn't bad when I was staying home, but with gas prices so high driving it back and forth to work would probably cancel out any money I'd make working. LOL


I've had a succesful two weeks with weightwatchers now. I lost 1 lb this week. Of course I'd like more, but I get a lot of extra points because I'm nursing, and losing more than a lb a week can affect milk supply. The first week I lost 3 lbs, so I guess overall it's not too bad. Jeff keeps asking me if I can have certain stuff on my diet. Thats the beauty of it, I can have whatever I want, just in moderation. And I have to decide if it's worth it to use my points up for something. I'm doing pretty good with the veggies and water, just need an extra glass or two of water and still need one or two more servings of fruit and veggies each day.

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Weight watchers

So I finally did it, I joined weight watchers! Just the online version for now, but it's still really great. There are a lot of useful tools, meal planners, calculators etc. It helps me to write down everything I eat, and I'm seeing how many "points" I can save by just using the lower fat version of something, and I actually don't mind the difference. I'm also incorporating a lot more veggies into what I'm eating. I'm actually eating a lot more food than I was before, and I can tell that I feel more stable throughout the day, not so much of the ups and downs. Another positive is my milk supply seems to be positively affected, yesterday she only had one bottle and that was more so daddy could feed her than anything. :-)

Monday, August 22, 2005

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Today we drove up to Long Beach to look at some condos, one was $225k and the other was $250k. They were both 2 bedroom 1 bath. We didn't like either one, they were both pretty ghetto. The areas weren't that nice, and the buildings looked pretty poorly taken care of. So far anything we could afford is smaller than our apartment and is just not somewhere we'd like to live. Oh well we'll keep looking, if we find something, great, if not thats okay too. We had lunch while we were in LB and drove around looking at some different areas. Of course the areas we like are out of our price range to buy in. We stopped at a park so I could go to the bathroom, it was a nice park, with access to the beach, I think we'll have to go back when Amelias not asleep.

Not much else going on, I finished the scarf I was knitting my sister, I'll post pictures of it later. I'm going to start a hat for one of the kids next.

Friday, August 19, 2005

I found a great forum to help with my weight loss stuff. It seems really supportive, and I think it will be great to be accountable to other people who are in a similar situation. My goals right now are
1. Write down everything I eat.
2. Start walking of swimming every day. Goal is 5x a week.
3. 64 oz of water a day.

That's it for now, I have to do things slowly and commit to them so I don't burn out. It's hard because Jeff and I are a bad combination with the junkfood, I'll not buy stuff and then he will, and vice versa. I am hoping that if I start doing better maybe he'll follow along. :-)

Thursday, August 18, 2005




These are old pictures from Disneyland, the first two are when Amelia was 8 weeks old, she was bout 5 months in the next ones. I can't believe how quickly she is growing up.

Monday, August 15, 2005

Letters



Okay I have about a million other things I should be working on, but instead I made these today while Amelia was sleeping. They actually turned out pretty cute. I'd love to hear comments, I was thinking about making some others for other people and input would be great.

More breastfeeding stuff....and knitting

I don't know what happened, but my milk supply has gone up again. I was actually able to nurse her a few times last night and for almost a whole feeding this morning. Maybe it has to do with me not worrying about it all the time. I know stress can affect that stuff. So maybe we will make it to 12 months with her at least nursing part time. I'd love to be able to get back to only breastmilk, but if not thats okay too, some is better than none.

On another topic, I am getting all into crafty stuff again lately, I bought a bunch of wooden letters last night so I can paint them with Amelias name and put them up in her room, I'll take a picture of them when I'm done. They sell them all done up and pretty kind of like this but cuter.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Knitting



So I've been getting crafty again lately, not sure if thats a good thing or a bad thing, but I finally started knitting and finished something. I made a little hat. It's too big for Amelia, it was supposed to be for my niece Dorothy, but it might be too small. Oh well at least I finished something!!! And it didn't take me that long either. Now I have to find out if anyone will actually wear it! :-)

Friday, August 12, 2005

Bathtub

Amelias new thing today is trying to climb out of the bathtub! The whole time I was trying to wash her hair she kept standing up. I put her in her ducky tub inside the big tub. So at least she has some cushion around her but it still worries me. I'm not sure how to keep her sitting down, it's hard to wash her and hold her down at the same time!

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Breastfeeding and weightloss

Well it seems my time breastfeeding Amelia is coming to a close. I have been having supply issues for a while but it's gotten a lot worse. Even in the morning I don't have much milk for her and that used to be the best time. Over the last few weeks I've tried all sorts of stuff, pumping after feedings to increase my supply, drinking lots of water, adding oatmeal, more fatty dairy and other things into my diet. I have been drinking mother's milk tea as well. So far nothing has worked. I will nurse her long enough to empty both sides, and then she just screams because she is hungry. Rather than continuing to feel like a constant failure I think I'm just going to accept it. I'll continue offering her my milk first then when it's gone move on to only the bottles. I have some frozen milk as well so she will continue to get BM for a while. My original goal was to try it for a month. Once I reached a month it became 6 months. She is now 6.5 months old so at least I did make it that far. She is also to the point where she can handle formula, not like when she was born. So I guess the decision has been made for me.

Weight loss. Another decision I have made is to get serious about losing my extra weight. Especially now that I'm not breastfeeding, I don't have to worry so much about cutting calories and exercising. So far I have lost 30 lbs, (which was my original goal) but thats just the tip of the iceburg, so I have to make my next goal. I have a lot of weight to lose and setting it in small increments seems to make it easier and not so overwhelming.

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Amelia and the laundry

I came back from the bathroom yesterday to find my little one throwing all of her clean laundry on the floor. I got a little clip of her , she was so proud of herself! She also stood alone for just a second, she let go of the laundry basket with both hands and then promptly sat down. That is also in the clip.



Video sharing at JussPress.com

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Boat ride

Grandma's here!

My mom has a conference this week that happened to be here in Huntington Beach. So she got here Saturday to spend a few days visiting before it started. Luckily Amelia remembered her from our visit in June, and was excited to see her Grandma! Sunday we went to Long Beach to go to the aquarium. The line was crazy long though so we decided to just walk around. We went on a boat ride around the harbor, that was a lot of fun! It was also Amelias first boat ride! It was a little bit windy for her, and we didn't have a jacket since we hadn't planned on the boat ride, but she did well with it, and actually fell asleep before it was over. After the boat ride we had dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. They had trivia questions about Forrest Gump while we waited to be seated. Of course Jeff knew most of them.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Today we had to take Amelia to the doctor. We went a month ago for her shots, and Dr. Tandon was concerned about her weight. So, she wanted to check again today to make sure she was gaining okay. Our appointment was at 10, so we left the house at 9:15, with plenty of time to spare. Got to the hospital at 9:30, (her office is in a medical building next to the hospital.) We had to park so far away that we didn't get into the office until 9:55! And of course I left the stroller at home and carrier at home, so had to lug her in her car seat ( sound asleep) across the parking lot.

Apparently the normal receptionist/nurse was gone today, so we had another lady. It was so slow going. Amelia was having fun in the waiting room playing with other children though! We didn't get into a room until 10:35. Then the nurse asked what was wrong with her. I guess I looked confused because she said well she's here because she's sick right? I told her no, we were there to get her weight checked. So the nurse checked her height and weight, of course Amelia screamed bloody murder. She is 13 lbs 14 oz and 24 1/2 inches long.

Dr. Tandon was gone today so we saw another lady,(it was 10:50 before she made it to the room to see us!) she was really nice and helped me feel a lot better about my "little" baby. I told her about how all the kids in our family are small, my aunts were only 4'11". She said that Amelia is doing just fine then, and some families just have smaller kids. In fact they went through that with her daughter. So anyway, I'm feeling a lot better about her being so little. It's hard because people just assume she is younger than she is. Then if you watch her for a minute she is all over the place, crawling, pulling up on things, I think she is going to be an early walker. Oh we're going to be in trouble once she is walking.