Concerning Motherhood

As of today it's officially been a year that I've been a mother.  Of course that's in the sense of having a baby outside of my body.  If you want to get technical about it than I've been a mother since December of 2009.  Either way, it's been a fun ride so far.

Okay, let's back up.  Today is Anna's birthday.  Seriously, she's one?!  That's insane.

It's funny to see her with her head back and her hands together crying like that...only because when she's really upset she still does that.  Ohh, my baby!

This picture was taken four minutes short of two hours after she was born.  I wish I had a picture of the first time I held her, but this is the closest I have.  Granted, it was still almost an hour after she was born that I actually got to hold her.  If I had another baby I'd definitely try to shorten that time somehow.  I remember when they finally brought her into the room and handed her to me I had no idea what to do.  She was crying and boy was I fumbling for answers.  The nurse that was checking me out after the C-section was standing and staring at Miles and me.  Not staring in a weird or mean way, but just watching, which made it more awkward. 

I was definitely nervous of how I would take to being a mother.  I've never been the one to take care of people.  Instead I was always the one being taken care of.  Maybe it's because I'm the youngest?  I'm not sure but I bet that's part of it.

I'd like to think that I'm a nice fit for Anna.  My goal is to always do right by her, you know?  I like to think I'm good at separating myself from my current upset baby to take care of the task at hand...does that make sense?  Not that she's upset now, but when she is.  For example, cleaning out her nose, getting shots, bathing (seriously, what happened to my bath time loving girl?), etc.  Let's just say I'm not the mother than cries when my baby gets a shot.  Maybe that sounds mean.
This has gone downhill quick.

Anyway, the point is that I love my babesies.  Yes, I call her that.  And Anna Girl, Sweets, Babes, Darling Girl, Bubby...  Miles calls her Anna Baby and Miriam Girl. 

Her birthday party was supposed to be today, but Miles came down with a pretty severe case of mono on Tuesday night so we've rescheduled it for next Saturday.  He's with his parents right now to lessen Anna's exposure to it and because they can take better care of him that I can with Anna demanding my attention.  We're going to visit him today after we take a trip to IHOP and Target with my momma, sister, brother-in-law and nephew.  I'm excited to get out for the day and excited to see Miles.  I do like him, you know.

Toxic

I think I may be toxic.  Tonight Miles and I were supposed to go on a date night.  I'm not sure what we were going to do, but I assume getting dinner was part of it.  Last night he started to feel not so great and woke up today feeling horrible.  He hasn't gotten any better, and really seems to have gotten worse.  I say that I think I'm toxic because we were supposed to go to Kansas City for Valentine's Day and he had the same kind of sickness.  Apparently spending time with me makes him ill.  That's sad.  Hopefully he gets better soon.

Saturday is Anna's birthday!  I'm stoked, but I have soon very much to do.  I bought some things yesterday and today for the party.  Hopefully I have almost everything I need...other than the ice cream.  We don't have a very big freezer, so I'm going to buy it either Friday or Saturday.  Actually, I still need to get her a present.  I want to get her a play kitchen so she can stand at it and play, but I'm not sure if that'll happen or not.  We'll see, I guess.

Today I got her some cute clearance clothes from Target.  They were all $3 or under, so it was a pretty good deal.  There was actually a dress thing that says "I love sprinkles and cake" or something like that on it.  I thought it might be cute enough for her party, but I guess we'll see.

Oy vey.  Maybe I should be doing some laundry while Anna sleeps.  Yeah, I probably should.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

It is cold outside!  It went from being super hot to pretty chilly.  I guess it's not really cold as much as it is just 'pretty chilly.'  I just don't like how cold it makes it in here.

Anyway.  That title has a double meaning, I guess.  For one, it is cold.  But, for two, I've been watching a this video:

A lot.  Lots and lots.  Seriously, Anna loves videos from The Glee Project.  For the majority of the day she sits on my lap and we watch them singing.  It's ridiculous.  I don't know why she loves it so much, but she definitely does. 

In other news, I am excited for this coming week.  I think I'll be doing another round of newborn pictures of Nehemiah.  We tried Wednesday, but it wasn't hugely successful.  Let's say I felt super prepared until I started trying to pose him.  Then, I realized that I am so out of practice on simply handling a newborn that trying to actually get him to do what I want while staying asleep wasn't going to happen smoothly.  So, I've watched a few videos on posing babies, and I'm going to watch a few more, and we're going to try again.  Hopefully we'll get the pictures and poses we want! 

Also, this week will be basically dedicated to Anna's birthday party.  I have tons to do to get ready, so I'll have to focus on that quite a bit.  In between the party planning I am going to be redecorating the bathroom.  Woot!  I have money from my birthday that I was planning on using for things for the house that I wanted to get.  But, I've realized that $70 or so won't go far in four or five rooms, so I'm just going to focus on the one instead.  I'm going to figure out some kind of wall art for behind the door, make a simple curtain panel for the window, change the shower curtain, rug and trash can and make a candle holder thing from blue mason jars!  Yay!  I'm excited.  Maybe after that I'll get to do something to Anna's room and actually make it look cute.

Okay, I should really stop writing.  I have pictures to edit then I need to sleep.  Tomorrow will be slightly hectic, but that'll be good.  It's nice to get out of the house every once in a while.

It's the day of updates!

(That means I've updated my photography blog, also.)

Let's see.  I haven't lost that pesky 8 pounds.  WHAT?!  But, I've worked SO hard!  No, that's a lie.  I haven't done anything yet.  I still drink my coffee with a pound of sugar in each cup and snack on cheese puffs all day.  But, -GASP- I'm out of cheese puffs as of yesterday, so maybe the pounds will start melting off...?  I don't think so.

Anyway, Anna was sick?  She either had a cold or was just having some teething complications over the last couple of days.  She was clingy, whiny, had a slight stuffy/runny nose, and didn't want to take naps without someone to lay on.  There were a few nights where she slept horribly, therefore I slept horribly.  But, the night before last she slept a little better and last night she only woke up once and went right back to sleep.  Awesome.  She's acting like she's feeling better today, and I'm a big fan of that.

I was planning on uploading some pictures, but they were just going to be the same ones I put on my photography blog, so I think I'll hold out.  Soon, though, I'll try to have an interesting update.  Dare to dream.

8

I think I want to lose 8 pounds. Currently I'm weighing in around 133 (usually my scale says 131.5 but I think our floor isn't level and I know it's more than that). Sure, 133 isn't too bad, and it was my pre-pregnancy weight, so I guess I should just be happy that I got back to it by doing nothing other than sitting. But, I feel like a blob of blobby blobberness. Like the sound that would be used to describe me would be "bleaahh." Yes, that's how I feel. And that's how I feel about 80% of the time. Anyway, my goal is 8 pounds because I feel like 125 is a good, healthy weight for me. Yes, it is.

So, now the hard part. How am I going to lose weight? I don't know. Exercise, I guess. Diet? Not really, but I could stand to cut out a majority of the junk I eat. Really, all I eat is junk. I only cook about once or twice a week. Miles works in the evening and he's not hungry when he wakes up. I rarely have the desire to cook a real meal when it's just for me at the time and Miles would have to heat it up. And, it's hard to cook with Anna crawling around everywhere. She'll keep herself entertained for a bit, but he's a little adventurer. Also, you can pretty much forget about cooking with raw meat when she's on the move. Rescue Anna with raw chicken juice on my hands? I don't think so.

Anyway, I've always felt like it wouldn't take me all that much time/work to lose weight if I actually tried. That's only because I am one of the laziest people ever and I gain weight super slowly. I mean, really, 8 pounds isn't very much. Really it's not about the number, it's about getting the flab of my tummy and legs and having more energy. And maybe fitting into more of my clothes comfortably wouldn't be too bad.

Yes, I need to do this. Realistically the only way I'll do it is if I get Miles in on it. Not that he has to lose weight, he's going to have to keep after me to make sure I exercise and quit eating junk...and cook. Even cooking not-so-nutritious meals would be better than what we eat now.

Yes.

Also, I want a Nikon D7000. It's about $1,200 so it's naturally not in the budget, but ohhh if it was. It's 16.2MP and it takes super clear photos when set to high ISOs. That'd be amazing for wedding photography. High ISO = Faster Shutter Speed. I look at the pictures people upload to Amazon and the more pictures I see the more angry I get at my D80. So, long story short, if you want to go ahead and buy it for me that'd be cool.

Now I should work on editing some pictures so I can go to sleep around midnight. I like to go to sleep before 2am. I also like to wake up a little bit before Anna. Let's try to keep that going.