Thermalgal’s Temperate Mumblings

Baby Budda Belly

Well, it looks like rubbing the baby (and daddy) budda belly for the past week helped.  The maybe I was waiting for turned into a yes and I’m really excited.  It is a home pre-school that has an infant room and the lady sounds really nice and organized.  The price is good (not too cheap and not too expensive) and the hours are doable.  Since it is mainly a pre-school the hours are 7:30 to 4.  Those are exactly the hours Scott works, so since I’ll be dropping off, he’ll just shift his hours to make the 4 o’clock pickup.  We are going to stop by on Friday to tour the place.  I need to get all my questions figured out before then.

And a small baby related funny…  I put one of the “many faces of Henry” as the background on Scott’s laptop.  And about the same time he changed the sounds so now when you log in, you see a huge closeup of Henry and the sound is from Alladin “Who disturbs my slumber?”  It is quite funny.

Another funny (which would make some people cry)… I got my hair done on Saturday.  When Lisa was finishing up she decided to thin some in front.  So, she grabbed the yellow scissors and accidentally chopped off some hair.  She mean to get the yellow scissors that look like it has teeth but instead grabbed yellow regular scissors.  She felt like crying.  Me, I just started laughing.  Luckily it was in the front and the accident just gave me some swoop bangs.  She felt really really bad and said she hasn’t done anything like that in the sixteen years she has been doing hair.  It wasn’t horrible and it turned out okay in the end, so I’m not upset.  I got a free haircut and some free products out of it.  I really like Lisa (and she is my friend’s sister), so I’ll keep going back.  She was just having a bad day and boy I bet that didn’t help.

Smiling Henry

Our little guy is starting to become fun to play with.  After his bath last night, I brought out the singing dog puppet (it “barks” three different songs) and we got smiles!  And then later we sang him “Your Personal Penguin” and he smiled for that too.  That is so much better than the crying he used to do.  Our singing isn’t that bad, honest!  He also seems to prefer the Boyton books to Good Night Moon.

Progress

Well, there is some progress on multiple front here.  First up is the den.  A while back, Scott had ordered some custom shutters for the room.  They were to be delivered and installed before the little guy arrived.  But the manufacturer was behind and the installation was a month late.  But boy does it look good (click on the picture to see a before).

Since the shutters have been installed, Scott has been really wanting to get this room done.  So, he scraped, sealed, primed, and patched the two last walls so far (I did the first two walls).  Some sanding and may another coat of primer (nasty black stripes were on the wall behind the paneling) and the last two walls can be painted and the final moulding installed.

Also under progress… of the eight people I called today, I got two no’s, 4 no answers (only left one message since people haven’t been calling me back)… and one maybe and one yes.  I don’t really like the one yes place.  Just a feeling and not to be snobby, but I think it is a different socioeconomic group.  The maybe sounds very promising and I’m waiting for a call back to see if it turns into a yes (one of the babies is leaving because of health issues).  They have kind of strange hours (okay, exactly the same hours as Scott so he will have to shift his hours a bit to make the pickup).

I love you, Henry…

Even if no one wants to take care of you when I go back to work.

I thought I had daycare all arranged before Henry was born.  But I found out about two weeks ago that I was mistaken.  So, now I’m scrambling to try and find something.  I’ve called at least eight different places (home day cares) so far with no luck.  Two places haven’t called me back, one place is no longer is business and the rest don’t have openings or don’t take infants/newborns.  I have a long list that I got online from the state for the licensed providers in the area.  I guess if that doesn’t work out, I’ll have to call day care centers.  Worst case he will go visit with Aunt Traci until I can find something.  But Aunt Traci lives 45 minutes north of me and work is 35 minutes south.  Another option that Scott might look into is for him to take off three months from work to care for the little guy.  We’ll see what happens.  Hopefully it will all work out.

My bump relocated

I finally found a position that Henry likes in his Maya wrap.  I had tried the newborn carry, but he didn’t like that.  But he likes the vertical hold.  Of course he has slipped a bit and is now in a cross between the two but he seems to still be happy.  This is a good thing!  It means that I can get to my computer more often and I can type with two hands (wow…).  I  bet I can even knit while holding him now too.  I restarted the baby blanket.  While the fancy patterns were cool, they were hurting my hands.  That combined with gauge issues means I didn’t want to work on it.  So, I ditched the fancy patterns and I’m going with just garter stitch as written.  It is also good brainless knitting for the wee hours of morning which Henry decides is play time.  Can you believe that he is going to be a month old tomorrow and that I still (only?) have 6 weeks of maternity leave left.

And just a quick comment about the weight thing.  I can’t really start to exercise or diet until after my postpartum checkup which is in three weeks.  But I am happy to say that I’m only 6 pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight right now.  I’m very surprised by this.  I figured since I gained *cough* more than 35 pounds that it would take a while to come off.  I came home from the hospital only 10 pounds lighter than when I arrived (with 25+ still to go), but by Christmas I was down another fifteen.  Of course that is just pure weight and doesn’t even address the condition of my abs (very sad…).  I’ll start to work on that after my doctor’s appointment.  In college I did some Callanetics and it worked really well.  I might have to see what kind of condition that old tape is in or if I need to upgrade to a DVD.