Microblog Mondays

I'm back from vacation and I wish that I could say that I was well rested, but alas I cannot. CP left for Thailand yesterday and in addition to a random 11:30pm wakeup from Izzy last night (thankfully it only lasted 10 minutes or so before I was able to get her back to sleep), I had a dream about ants invading our house that kept me up until almost 1am (shudder). But back at work I am with a lovely cold.

I will have a longer post about our trip to the Smoky Mountains, but for Microblog Mondays, I wanted to focus on Izzy's new nickname. After gaining 3 inches in 3 months and 5 pounds in 3 months, Izzy has more of a Buddha belly these days. In fact, it was on display for a lot of vacation and she now has a new nickname- Jelly Belly. Her belly is just so darn cute!

Izzy's new tshirt from the "Aquarium of the Smokies"- Jelly Belly!

CP held Izzy up for this picture. I was giggling the entire time as I took the picture, as were all of the strangers that watched us take this picture.

This is really not Izzy's fault. I forgot to pack her bathing suit and instead of just having her swim in her swim diaper, our friends let us borrow their daughter's 6 mo bathing suit.  Needless to say it was a bit small because Izzy is mostly in 12 mo clothes now!

Swings!

Tonight we leave for our Great Smoky Mountains National Park (TN) vacation with friends and their kids. It's my first vacation since I came back to work from maternity leave and I'm excited to be off of work for tomorrow and all next week. I'm also excited to have this entire week to spend with Izzy, CP, and friends. (CP leaves for Thailand the day after we get back.)

The past few weekends we introduced Izzy to the swings at our local park. Spoiler alert: she LOVED them.

Also, this past weekend she started making a new sound. She had been focusing a lot on dadadadada, now she can't stop saying mom mom mom mom mom. I know that it is just babbling, but it makes my heart so happy!

Microblog Mondays

On Saturday I set out to do a 4 mile run; the first half to be done with Buster. It was perfect running weather- 55, crisp, with no sun. Buster obviously enjoyed the cooler weather- so much that he ended up running .6 miles more than usual with me.

I dropped Buster at home and continued with my run. I was feeling so great and strong that I decided that I was going to run 5 miles instead of 4. I felt fantastic afterwards and was really proud of myself.

Last week I signed up for the Chicago Hot Chocolate 15K on November 9. My 5 mile run this weekend made me more confident that the 15K will go well. Here's hoping that I can continue my long runs even when CP starts traveling again at the end of this month....

Microblog Mondays

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 So unfortunately Izzy was subjected to this outfit yesterday.

She clearly looks better in green.

Unfortunately the Eagles onesie above no longer fits her so in order to make the world right again, guess who will be ordering Eagles attire for her daughter today?  :-)

Friday Non Sequitur thoughts

*Can someone please figure out how to grow asparagus that doesn't make your pee smell?

*It is wayyyyy too humid in Chicago right now. Last night I ran a 5K in the city with some co-workers and I was drenched and very stinky by the end.  My legs felt like lead for the last mile.  Ugh.

*This morning I speed-walked to a presentation I had to give a mile away from my office (my train into the city ran late). Thank goodness I was the second presenter because when I entered the room it gave my body a chance to cool down and stop sweating. I felt super-professional.  HA.

*Speaking of work, my boss gave me rave reviews yesterday which is always nice to hear even if it was sort of expected.  He encouraged me to apply for a supervisor position if it ever comes up.

*Speaking of my boss, it's sort of nice to have a male boss simply because I will never run into him in the bathroom. My last couple of bosses were women and while I loved that, it was sort of awkward when you saw them in the bathroom. Do you make small talk? Do you just do your business in silence? Am I the only one that finds that situation awkward?

*I'm part of a moms group on Facebook and honestly, some of the posts that I see scare me. A few weeks ago there was a question from a mother of a 4 year old boy and when other moms would let their sons go into the boys bathroom by themselves (I guess he was asking to do so). While I obviously have a daughter and don't have to worry about that, some of the moms were posting about strangers molesting their kids and other crazy, rare occurrences (btw, 90% of molestations are by people your kid knows- family, priest, coach, etc) and saying that the kids would have to be at least 8 or 10 years old before they allowed them in the mens bathroom. Seriously? As a mother, of course the thought goes through your mind of all of the bad things that could happen to your kid, but the chances of that actually happening are slim to none. What are the chances that a child molester is going to happen to be in the bathroom with your child at the same time? And even if that did happen, there is a strong chance that there would be another male adult that could intervene if need be. It's similar to people that get so scared about getting blown up in a terrorist attack on a plane or getting eaten by a shark. What a crappy life to constantly be worried. Our culture is truly fearful of some of the silliest things and no wonder why kids grow up not knowing how to do things with all of these helicopter parents! Hmmm....maybe this should have been a post on its own!

Family issues

My sister and I have almost always had a weird relationship. We were very close growing up as we were only 20 months apart (I am older) but at some point became too competitive with each other with grades, our parents' affection, sports, you name it. For a long number of years we were simply not close and we both really had no idea what was going on in each other's lives. When I got engaged, I decided that although I didn't want my sister to be the maid of honor, I did want her to be a bridesmaid so that we could hopefully become closer again. It worked and we have a much better relationship.

Once CP and I moved to Chicago I was open with my family about needing IVF to have a child. I told them everything that it would entail, but I'm not sure they they fully "got" it. Part of it is if you are anywhere with my sister, she wants all of the attention on her and is talking for most of the time. That means that it is hard to have a long conversation about a single topic because you get interrupted so many times and off track. It's often exhausting so CP and I sometimes give up on being part of conversations because she monopolizes them so much. (My parents have said that sometimes they just stop listening to everything that she is saying because she talks so much!)

Fast forward to being lucky in our first IVF cycle, obviously resulting in Izzy. My parents have been wonderful, exactly how grandparents should be. Wanting to see her, asking for pictures, excited to babysit, etc. (CP's parents are the same way but it's a bit harder for them to see her since they are both retired and living in on the East Coast). My sister on the other hand? Sometimes I feel like she could care less about Izzy, her only niece. Coupled with the fact that she at least has some idea of what it took to get Izzy here, it is super frustrating.

There are a lot of questions as to why this may be the case. I wasn't especially excited about little kids when I didn't have one because what do you do/say to them when they can't talk back to you? Maybe my sister is the same way and will be more engaged and interested when Izzy gets a little bigger? My sister and her now-fiance are on the fence about having kids...maybe it is a defense mechanism? 

I get that my sister is a busy woman. But even when we are able to get together she uses the opportunity to take pictures of Izzy, sometimes take 5 minutes to interact with her, and that's it. Last month we went out to brunch for her birthday and yes, she was a little hungover, but her fiance was as well and grabbed Izzy as soon as I walked in the door to snuggle with her.  What did my sister do?  Took a picture of her to put on Instagram. That's it. Otherwise she was off in her own world, talking about her upcoming trip and other things going on in her life.

I don't know why this bothers me so much, but it does.  She seems to use Izzy as a cute kid to sometimes take pictures of/with to post on Facebook/Instagram to make it look like she is a good aunt....but that is the extent. CP's sister is also very self-involved but if she lived closer (we will be seeing them in December), she would absolutely make more of an effort (one difference- she has kids).

I already know that I can't talk to my sister directly about this. That would be a poor, poor idea. But I don't know how to either stop caring that my sister doesn't make an effort with her own flesh and blood or change the situation so that Izzy actually has an engaged aunt. I don't expect her to babysit and I don't need her to come see Izzy just to see her. I just need more than a superficial relationship.

9 months old!

(Posting this a few days late.  Izzy turned 9 months old last Friday)

Height: 29.1 inches (91%) at her 9 month appointment on 9/10. She SHOT up in the past three months!

Weight: 21 lbs, 10 oz at her 9 month appointment (91%).

Milestones: Only a few days after her 8 month birthday Izzy decided to crawl.  She has been getting faster every day. We have also seen her wave bye and clap although she doesn't do these with any consistency.  She loves to knock down blocks after you build a tower for her and she loves throwing things on the ground from high places and then looking down to see them on the floor. She also loves hitting two blocks together. More recently she pulled herself up on a step and did it again at daycare a few days ago

She pulls up but ends up on her ankles which looks terribly painful (our PT friend said this is normal).

Looks like we will need to drop her crib height again!

Chair surfing

Bouncing around

Language: She is still using the "milk" sign and I have seen her do "more" once.  But other than that, we are still working on "all done", "eat", and "more."  She understands Izzy, milk, more, Buster, Daddy, and Mommy when we say them. Recently she has been doing what I called her "Walking Dead" zombie impression where she makes a raspy rawr sound while smiling (I tried to upload the video but it's not working).

Teeth: She still has 6 teeth- four up top and two below.  She has been drooling a lot recently which makes me think that she will have another pair come in soon.

Favorite Toy: Surprisingly enough, she always heads for the Ecodu toy that I talked about here (I swear I am not getting compensated to talk about this toy). She loves to spill all of the pieces out and bang them together. Money well spent!

Izzy also loves to bounce around on her Exersaucer

Sleeping Habits: Still a rockstar sleeper. These days she passes out a whole lot before I even start singing to her- I think it's because she is so active during the day with crawling/trying to pull up/etc. She is usually down by 7:30 and every weekday morning we have to wake her up (usually around 6:15-6:30).  On the weekends she usually sleeps past 7am.  Seriously, she is an amazing sleeper.

How is this comfortable?

Eating: Izzy has a 4 oz bottle of formula when she wakes up and then a 6 oz bottle around 10, 1, 4, and 7. She also eats about 2 oz of solid food- usually purees but sometimes it is something chunkier- three times a day.  So far she will eat everything we put in front of her!  At dinner I try to work on her hand/eye coordination so she gets puffs or sometimes her meal (last night was small pieces of cooked zucchini) on her tray for her to pick up and eat herself.  She is definitely getting better about getting them in her mouth,  but ends up pulling the bib up to try to get whatever fell in the pouch towards the end of the meal.

Diapers: She went to the next size up in cloth diapers late this month- Rear-Z size 2. We use Pampers Baby Dry Size 3 for her overnight diaper every night.

Clothes:  Izzy wears a mixture of 9 month and 12 month clothing.  I think that she may have a long torso because the onesies that I have been putting on her that are 12 month onesies don't have that much room.  Maybe it's her belly?

Tentative ball sharing between Izzy and Buster

Illness: Izzy was pretty healthy until the last half of the month.  She had a never-ending cold which resulted in lots of snot constantly dripping down her nose. Two days ago we took her to the doctor because she had red dots on her butt and I was worried that she had something contagious. Thankfully it's just bad diaper rash with a bit of a staph infection so we have to put an ointment on it for the next week.

Other highlights: First night alone with a babysitter that wasn't grandpa and grandma.

Izzy continues to LOVE bath time and especially her toys (a rubber duckie, a rubber elephant, and three rubber dogs that squirt water).  I love this picture because for baths I sit on the edge of the tub, put her small tub in the bathtub and start to fill it with water.  She gets all excited and peers around my body to watch the water spill into the tub and to check out her toys.  It's so adorable!