First Week Back

The best part of blogging is writing a post and having others respond with comments like the ones I got a few days ago, that make me feel a little less crazy and a lot less alone in my feelings.  So thank you, both frequent commenters and those who only rarely comment, for taking the time to reply to my posts. I truly appreciate every single one.

This week has been exhausting, crazy and even a little fun.  It's been nice to get back to seeing patients, and one week in I'm managing to stay caught up with paperwork, which makes the days so much better.  I've had a relatively light schedule, and all my patients want to talk about my boys, so that helps.  I've managed to have all my clothes picked out for the week, and I planned all my meals as well, so mornings have been less stressful, and Finn and I have had healthy dinners together every night.  I really hope I can keep this up! I started using Google calendar for meal planning, and it's working very well - thanks to those who suggested it.

Zachary has adapted well to me being gone.  Unlike Finn, he took to the bottle immediately (his first bottle was just a few weeks ago), and is eating about 15-17 ounces a day!  At most, Finn took maybe 8 ounces in a whole day, and frequently did only 6.  I pump about 20 ounces, so I'm just barely making enough to be able to start to stockpile milk.  He's in a phase of sleeping almost all the time, but when he's awake he's full of smiles and coos and is just a cuddly, pudgy little guy.

Finn has had a harder time adjusting to me going to work. The first morning he told me he was going to go to work with me, "I can help you pay the bills, and be with you all day so you don't have to cry." The second morning, I was in the bathroom already when he woke up.  He came in and looked at me accusingly, "Why are you out of bed, Mommy?" He hit me on the arm when I told him I had to go to work, "No you don't, you have to stay with me all day."  Yesterday morning I started singing, "Goodnight sweetheart, well it's time to go," and he burst into tears, "I don't want you to go!" But he has fun all day with his Nanny M, so I don't feel as awful about leaving him.

I even managed to break out the SLR a couple of times this week.  I'm going to get back in the habit of leaving it out, so I can get at least a few shots a week with it, instead of my phone.  I may even try to use my camera remote and tripod to get a family shot this weekend.  Maybe.

4/30/14: sleeping on my lap

5/1/14: my boys together on my first morning back to work

5/2/14: sleeping close up

5/3/14: so full of smiles!

5/4/14: hanging out on big brother's bed

5/5/14: Monday morning - I was sleeping in between these two (yes, in that little space...my neck hurts)

5/6/14: A tummy without you just wouldn't be right, belly belly button you're a beautiful sight!

Living the Dream

There's a bedtime story I like to tell Finn that starts like this: "Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Shannon.  Shannon liked to read books, ride her bike, to take pictures, and play with her friends.  And she had two big dreams - to be a doctor and to be a mommy."

Driving to work on Friday it suddenly occurred to me that I have finally accomplished both of my big dreams.  As of July, I'll have been in my practice for 10 years.  As as of this February, I'm finally the mom to two kids. My entire adult life has been spent working towards being a doctor and being a mom, and even after Finn was born I was still thinking of efforts to conceive my second child.  While I'd be happy having even more children, I don't think it's a realistic possibility as long as I remain single.  And for the first time in my life, I really have absolutely no interest in meeting a man.

Which means that I find myself in the very foreign situation of just living for now. Of course I think of what the boys and I will do as they get older, both the mundane daily activities and the fun adventures, but I know those are going to come with time.  I don't have to work for them.  My focus is finally where it should be: living for today.

Is it weird that it kinda scares me? There's a part of me that feels like I need to be absolutely perfect.  I have the life I've dreamed of for years, complete with the wonderful house, and it seems like I should be the model mom, never losing my temper and always finding joy in every second of parenting. And so I feel guilty when I yell at Finn, or don't do enough to nurture him through something that upsets him, or let Zachary cry for a few minutes because my shoulders hurt from carrying his massive weight around, and I just need a rest. I feel guilty even though I know I'm going to mess up, I'm going to make mistakes, and we're going to have bad days and nights (last night Finn woke up with a stuffed up nose, crying, "I can't smell!" - funny and miserable all at the same time). Somehow I need to learn to allow myself to be ok with the reality that I'm not the perfect mom.  I suspect that feeling guilty and being fixated on the unobtainable quest for perfection will actually keep me from being as good a mom as I could be.  My kids don't need perfection.  They just need a mom who makes them feel loved, laughs at their jokes, and is fairly consistent with setting rules and boundaries.  It's just not as easy and straight forward as I somehow thought it would be, back when I imagined my life with children.

This sounds a little like I'm complaining, but I'm not. I know how incredibly lucky I am and I honestly don't quite believe it.  I keep expecting to wake up and find it's been a dream, or to have someone show up at my front door and say, "Just kidding! None of this is yours, take your cat and go back to your little apartment, all alone, where you belong."

Does this feeling of unreality ever go away?  Maybe after a few months of the daily grind of work and little sleep, I'll finally believe it's true.  Or maybe I'll never quite get over the sense of shock and wonder that comes when I suddenly realize I have two little boys in my life who call me mommy.

I'm going to try to enjoy it all - but also not beat myself up for the times I just want to lock myself in my bathroom to get a few minutes of peace and quiet.

Last Day

I go back to work tomorrow.  And this past week has been rough - lots of last minute errands and tasks,  charts from 3 months ago to finish, a migraine, and mastitis - really a crappy last week at home with my boys.  I haven't had a chance to comment on a single blog this past week, I think, and I feel awful that I've barely even read any, either.  I hope to catch up this weekend!

I've still got a few things to get together for my first day tomorrow (besides cry, that is), so I'm going to keep today's post short, and just post my pictures for the week.  I missed a day (first day I was sick with mastitis) but I realized it the next morning, so I took an early morning shot to try to make up for the miss the night before.  And my apologies to Zachary, as this is the most uninspired week of photography yet.  I hope this next week isn't worse, with being back at work!

4/23/14: enjoying the wonderful weather

4/24/14: Hi everybody!

4/25/14: horribly blurry shot of the boys before we picked up our groceries for the week

4/26/14 (technically the 27th) - sleeping in

4/27/14: wide awake

4/28/14: Mom, I'm sliding out of my swing.  Help.

4/29/14: he's so snuggly when he's sleeping

Getting Organized

There were all sorts of great suggestions for ways to make dinner on my post about trying to cook more at home a few weeks ago (and Obernon shared what sounds like a yummy recipe on her blog last week).  I'm starting to believe I can make family dinner a priority and get some healthy meals on the table most nights. I've already got a few recipes in mind to share in the next few weeks (though I could always use more!) I'm really looking forward to putting those posts together.

I'm trying to come up with a way that works for me to plan meals ahead of time and to stay organized with groceries.  I can order my groceries online and pick them up at my local grocery store, but I need to pick a day to do that routinely, and then have the next week's menu planned in advance so I can do just one grocery run a week.

This has led me to realize that this is going to be a central theme for my life over the next few years: being organized.  It's not something I'm naturally good at, but I'm going to have to do it.  This past year was just crazy and stressful and often miserable, and while I won't have the perfect storm of events piling up together all at once like I did this year, I will have two kids to deal with instead of one.  And I want to be sure I enjoy them.  The only way I can see that happening is if I schedule my days of the week - laundry days, blog days, catch up on work days, meal planning days and grocery days are going to become a necessity.  As is picking out my clothes for the week ahead of time (I waste so much time in the morning picking out clothes, because invariably something I thought was clean isn't).

I've tried to do this before, with variable success at sticking to it.  But it's pretty clear I don't have a choice now, not if I want to find a way to enjoy myself while juggling the roles of mommy and doctor. The problem is, I have yet to find an organizing method that works for me - I need something simple that is easy to reference.  Should I go the old fashioned route and use a daily planner?  Is there an app you use that you find works well?  Suggestions are welcome!
 

*****

Here are the week's pictures - you'll notice there are less sleeping pictures this time!  I'd like to also mention that in the past week, while being more awake during the day, Zachary has also given me several nights of 4 straight hours of sleep, and even one night of 5 hours.  Unfortunately, that was followed by a night of every 2 hour feedings, but at least there's progress!

Almost forgot! We saw the GI doctor last week, and he's not too worried about Zachary's liver.  He did want to draw some labs, but the lab couldn't get any blood from him.  It's on my list of things to do this week, to call the doctor back and find out if he really wants those labs, or if we can just let it go.

4/16/14: all smiles at his GI appointment

4/17/14: this picture just melts my heart.  I hope they still like each other this much in a few years!

4/18/14: "I have more aunts than you!"

4/19/14: happy baby, just hanging out

4/20/14: Happy Easter!  His big brother wore this bib for his first Easter, too.

4/21/14: imagine world peeps (big brother and I have matching shirts)

4/22/14: second time this month I've taken a picture of him asleep on my bed in these pjs.  

Terrible 3s

Wow.  Finn has been a holy terror lately.  He is still wonderful with Zachary, aside from occasionally being a little too rough, but he is really testing his boundaries with me. He does a lot of selective hearing and enjoys being defiant whenever he can.  Threatening to take away his favorite snack or bedtime stories are good bribes, but it's almost to the point where he has to be threatened to do anything.  So I have cut down to just one warning after asking him to do something, and tonight he got no warning at all.  He was in the bath and I told him it was time to wash the shampoo out of his hair.  He started yelling "No!" and splashing water all out of the tub.  So I picked up the rinse cup and poured it straight over his head.  He got water in his face, which he hates, but wasn't hurt.  There was a lot of crying, but then he was over it.  And the rest of the night he did exactly what I asked him to, when I asked it, and was extra sweet and loving at bedtime.  I'm sure that's short lived, but it was nice tonight!

Sometimes he's incredibly funny while also being infuriating.  A couple of days ago I put him in time out; he sat where he was told, but the entire time sang all the words he could remember from "Mean."  Including, "Someday, I'll be big enough so you can't hit me," and "Why you gotta be so mean?"  Yesterday I asked him to put his bowl in the sink after breakfast: "No ma'am, I will not."  So polite!

I'm working on being consistent and being patient, and hope that eventually we'll get through this.  He does respond (most of the time) to "1, 2, 3" which is amazing, but after the 10th time of using it in one night I'm really done with counting.  It's just exhausting, and not how I want to spend my last couple of weeks on maternity leave.

Zachary continues to thrive.  He has had several nights where he got a solid 4 hours of sleep, and two of those nights, I got 4 straight hours of sleep, too.  I'm still sleep deprived, but those few extra hours really made a difference.  I'm not feeling on the edge of tears constantly, so I really hope this sleep trend continues.  Thanks for all the encouraging comments from last week's post - I hope that my baby blues are on the way out, but it's nice to know I'm not alone.

This week's pictures - it has gotten a little easier to get pictures of him awake, but still a challenge!

4/9/14: sleeping snuggled with me before I headed to bed

4/10/14: huge yawn!

4/11/14: alert and snuggle ready 

4/12/14: asleep again!

4/13/14: smiley during tummy time (though the smiles were short lived!)

4/14/14: this happened just minutes after a bath and changing into clean pjs

4/15/14: charming the ladies already

On Our Own

Finn is out on an excursion with Nanny M, Zachary is asleep in his swing, my latest version of crock-pot Mexican chicken is cooking (will blog about it when it's finally how I want it), Dave Matthews is playing, and I'm sitting alone in the living room, texting Jennie (she left yesterday).

It sounds lovely, and in some ways it is, but it's also reminding me even more of how little leave I have left.  My to-do list has become a list of things to do before going back to work, which is depressing.  I've also been hit with a mild case of postpartum blues.  I thought they might be coming, and was doing a pretty good job of ignoring them, but then being sad about Jennie leaving and the end of maternity leave has made it impossible to ignore.  It was actually much worse with Finn, but I think that's because I was alone more and because he cried half the night.  I may have even felt worse when I was weaning Finn, come to think of it...at any rate, I'm feeling a little bit blue, but I'm hopeful it will pass quickly.  If I can get myself moving more with walking and yoga, it should.  And maybe less sugar intake.  (Not quite ready to give up the sugar, though I did stop buying poptarts last week. Small victories.)

It's going to be a challenge, finding our new routine now that it's just me and the boys (well, and Nanny M, who is going to be coming half days for the rest of my leave). As I mentioned before, I could have managed without all the extra help, but I am so thankful I was able to enjoy the past few months some, instead of just survive.  It's only been the past few weeks that I'm feeling physically recovered from delivery; I can't imagine doing all this on my own while feeling so bad, especially with the added stress of settling into a new home.  And as an added bonus, Finn was able to bond with Heidi and Jennie, and now regularly includes them in conversation (along with several other friends who came for weekend visits recently) and will remember them for future visits. This makes me incredibly happy.

In other news, last week Zachary had another ultrasound to follow up on those calcified areas in the liver that we followed while I was pregnant.  They haven't changed since his ultrasound when he was born, but to be on the safe side he's still going to see a GI doctor. It's probably overkill, but I'm ok with an overabundance of caution.

This past week's pictures - still more sleeping, but at least the venue has changed for a few of them!

4/2/14: getting his ultrasound (this was before he woke up and realized what was going on)

4/3/14: a visit to the aquarium 

4/4/14: snuggle time with Aunt Jennie - note the bib and burp cloth. This kid is a champion spitter-upper

4/5/14: Tummy time with big brother

4/6/14: sleeping baby

4/7/14: two month check up - 15lb15oz and 24.5inches of chunky love

4/8/14: Mommy's two monsters

Cooking at Home

Helping prepare dinner (using his play hammer to crush crackers)

Eating healthier and spending more time with my boys are two things I can't stop thinking about as I prepare to rejoin the real world and go back to work in 4 short weeks.

There's not a lot I can do to spend more time at home, but I have made one small step - in July I'll start seeing patients 20 minutes earlier in the morning and finish 20 minutes later in the afternoon (I did this once already last year, so this will put me leaving work 40 minutes earlier than I did a year ago, which translates into getting home 50 minutes earlier, as I'll miss the worst of rush hour traffic). Next year, when I quit pumping, I'm thinking about shortening my lunch time as well, so I can leave even earlier.
Getting home earlier will make it possible for us to eat dinner together as a family.  But I don't want to wait for July to be able to do that.  And when July gets here, I don't want to spend all my time in the kitchen every evening, and I really don't want to do carry out or prepackaged foods every night, either.

So I've started working on my cooking skills.  While Jennie has been here, we've cooked most nights, trying out new recipes and freezing quite a few meals, as well.  Not all of them are the healthiest, but they're good and made with fresh ingredients, so they've got to be healthier than what I've been doing in the past. Over the past few years, I've become convinced that portion sizes play a huge role in how healthy something is, and that a high fat main dish can be made much healthier by serving a smaller portion with a lot of fruits and veggies on the side. That's always the hardest for me - making sure I get my fruits and veggies.  In a typical day my son will eat more fruits and veggies than I eat in an entire week.  (And after reading this recent study that suggests a diet high in fruits and vegetables decreases your risk dying, I'm even more motivated to work on this!)

Finn absolutely adores cooking. He loves to help whenever he can, and then when we eat the finished product, he likes to say something like, "This is really tasty. Who made this? Mommy and I did!" He's such a great eater (most of the time) and already recognizes things like garlic and onions and freshly grated parmesan cheese, so I'd like to encourage his love of food and cooking by involving him in making meals as much as possible, too.  My mom is a great cook, but never liked having us in the kitchen, so my sister and I never really learned anything about cooking from her at all. I do understand why she never had us join her.  It is distracting, and sometimes frustrating, to have a toddler working in the kitchen with me, but seeing the joy he gets out of it makes it worth it for me. And I think he's more likely to try new foods if he was involved in cooking them.

We need to work on hand cleanliness while cooking

I don't really know what I'm doing in the kitchen most of the time, but I'm learning.  And I've decided that there are three different types of meals I'm looking to learn to cook: 1) fast and easy weeknight dinners, 2) crock pot meals to make during the week, and 3) more complicated recipes to make on the weekend that will give me at least a night's leftovers or make enough to freeze.

The only fast and easy meals I can think of now involve using already prepared ingredients (like make your own pizza with store bought pizza dough), but I figure if I do something like that just once a week, then I should be able to come up with some good choices for other nights of the week.  And I've found what may be a great recipe for shredded chicken that will allow me to freeze chicken for use in recipes during the week, cutting down the prep time significantly.

It's unlikely that this blog would ever become a cooking blog, but I'm thinking of sharing some of my recipe finds here, including how I involved my boys in the cooking.  And I'd really love if you'd share some of your go-to meals in the comments or on your own blogs, whichever category they might fall into (though quick weeknight meal ideas would be especially welcome!)

Piano Guys

Shortly after Zachary was born, I was browsing on FB while he stirred restlessly on my lap.  I saw a link to yet another version of "Let it Go" from Frozen, but this time the image along with the link made me click over for a listen. Within 30 seconds, Z had calmed down, and was resting quietly, yet as soon as the song stopped, he got fussy again. The song is a mash up of Let it Go and Vivaldi's Winter, by two guys known as The Piano Guys (though one plays the piano and the other the cello).  It's not soothing in the slightest, yet it continues to magically calm Zachary down on a regular (but not consistent) basis. That night I played it over and over again, and have had to play it on repeat several nights over the past week as Z had some rough nights, probably coinciding with a growth spurt.

After finding that first song, I started listening to some of their other songs, and was hooked.  I downloaded one of their albums, and the next day showed Finn some of the videos. He now asks to watch or listen to the Piano Guys on a regular basis, and yesterday said he wanted to get his cello out to play along. I love that this random find has been so much fun for our family - and especially that it's adding to Finn's growing interest in music.

They released a new video and song today - this time a mashup of The Mission (already one of my all time favorites) and How Great Thou Art.  It's just beautiful, and so is the video, which was filmed in Iguazu Falls, which makes me love it even more, as one of my best vacations ever included a visit to the falls.  I'm not sure the song appeals to Finn all that much, but Zachary sure seems to enjoy it.

This weeks pictures...funny that almost all these are when he was sleeping, though sleep was actually hard to come by for a huge part of the week. As I take pictures every day of a baby who pretty much doesn't really do much of anything, I can't help but think how different this pictures will be in just a few months, and especially once he gets mobile.  It's so amazing how much change happens in this first year.  It goes so fast, even when the first weeks seem like an eternity.

3/26/14: pudgy hands

3/27/14: sleeping baby

3/28/14: Bunnies?  Really mom?  

3/29/14: spit up face (while being held by Aunt Lisa)

3/30/14: sleeping with his new sea horse - a gift from Anabel (whose mom was with me on that wonderful vacation I mentioned above)

3/31/14: snoozing at the children's museum while big brother plays

4/1/14: snuggly sleeping baby