Black Friday

If you're anything like me, you don't procrastinate.  It's a sickness, I swear.  I am obsessed with taking care of things in advance.  I hate having to do things last-minute, so I plan and plan and plan.  Sometimes I think that my need to do things early actually creates more work for me because I find myself getting something done and cross it off my to-do list, only to revisit the decision about 15 times.  For example, James' first birthday party is this weekend.  In preparation, I started getting ready about 3 months ago.  As a result, I have worried about this party for three whole months.  I'm pretty sure I could've ignored the whole thing until about a month ago and still planned an awesome shindig (and spared myself from three months of prep/anxiety/worrying).

Usually, I do all my Christmas shopping in October and have all the gifts purchased and wrapped by Thanksgiving.  By the time my family members are finally telling me what's on their wish list, my shopping is done.  I decided to be a little less anal and do my shopping on Black Friday.  Now, I'm sure you're imagining crazies trampling one another in a Wal-Mart parking lot for a shot at a 19" LCD TV, but this was different.  We bought a newspaper Thanksgiving morning, decided what to buy, and made a list of stores to visit.

We made a day out of it and, dare I admit this, it was really fun.  We woke up around 5:30 am on Friday, treated ourselves to a McDonald's breakfast and coffee, then headed to the stores.  Within 6 hours, I had completed all of my Christmas shopping (except gifts for my mom because she was with me).  That night, we spent about an hour gift wrapping and now I am done.  So much easier than going nuts trying to get everything done early.

The best part of the Christmas shopping was James' doll.  I got him a gender-neutral doll.  Yes, I know he's a boy, but I think the "dolls are for girls" rule perpetuates this silly idea that only women can care for children.  My mom was very negative about the idea, suggesting that it would make him a sissy.  On Friday night when we were wrapping, James saw his doll in the pile of stuff.  He walked over, held its, hand, touched its nose, and leaned in to give it a kiss.  My heart melted and my mom saw the light.  I can't wait for him to unwrap it on Christmas morning.

What are your kids getting for the holidays?

Sick Baby

About two weeks ago, James came down with a stomach bug.  It was pretty much his first time being sick and it pained me.

The worst part was that he was sick on a day when I absolutely had to be at work.  My husband works from home and has decent flexibility, so luckily he was able to take care of James.  But, I wanted to be the one taking care of him.  He needed and wanted his mama.  I had to leave right after he threw up and he was clinging to me with al his might.

That's the struggle of the working mom.  It's hard enough to see your baby sick and know that there's nothing you can do aside from be a source of comfort.  It's even worse when your work obligations force you to rely on someone else to care for your sick babe.

Here we are, exactly two weeks later, and James is sick again with the same exact bug.  I think that he gave it to our babysitter's son who gave it back to James.  Unfortunately, my husband left early this morning on work-related travel, so I was on my own to manage the day.  It came at a bad time.

I took last Friday off to spend some time with James, then I was out of the office on work-related travel on both Monday and Tuesday.  I had lots to take care of at work today, so I brought James along for a bit.  About an hour into the morning it became clear that he was tired and in desperate need of a nap.  I was lucky that our sitter lives nearby and said she'd watch him for a bit.  I figured that if he was sleeping, it would be hard for him to get anyone else sick.  He took a two hour nap, which gave me a great chance to get some work done.

As soon as he woke up, I picked him back up and took him home.  My mom drove up tonight and is going to watch him tomorrow.  It's a 3-hour drive, so I very much appreciate her willingness to help.

For all the working moms out there, what's your backup plan when your kid(s) are too sick for child care?

Crockpot Turkey Breast

Does anyone else find it absolutely exhausting to cook for your family? I get home each night after a loooong day of work, stare into my fridge and think, "Shit, these people need to eat." My hubby? He's a meat guy. If I even think of serving up a vegetarian dish, he will semi-politely chow down, excuse himself from the table, and heat up a frozen pizza. He must meet his daily quotient of meat!

Baby J, on the other hand, needs his veggies. Did he tell me this? No. Would he even agree with it if he could talk? Probably not. But, mama bear has decided that J absolutely must be a veggie lover. I try to very hard to make sure we have a veggie, preferably green in color, with every single meal.

Me? If I had my way I'd eat a frozen meal or bowl of cereal for dinner. I suppose I should want to eat yummy, nutritious food. I guess I do, but I don't care about it enough to actually cook. When hubby is out of town for work, my staple is a bean burrito. It takes about 2 minutes to prepare and leaves me satisfied.

So, I'm always looking for ways to have scrumptious food around that will satisfy my boys without sucking all my time and energy. Here's a great, easy meal that we had last week...

Crockpot Turkey Breast

Ingredients:
Turkey Breast
Stick of butter
Packet of french onion soup mix
Salt

Directions:
Defrost the turkey breast. This is probably the most time-consuming part of the whole thing. Plan a day or two in advance and set the turkey in your sink to defrost for a few hours before sticking it in the fridge to finish the process. Technically, I think it's only supposed to defrost in the fridge, but I broke the rule and we all survived, so give it a shot.

Unpack the turkey, throw away the gizzard packet, and run some cold water over the turkey breast. Pat it dry with a paper towel, then coat it in salt. I used kosher salt, but any ol' salt would do.

Place the turkey in your crockpot. Turn the crockpot to low.

Melt a stick of butter in the microwave. (Sidenote: We have the most awesome microwave. It came with our house and I love it. Why? It has a single button you push to melt butter. I know, I know, that saves me all of 1.2 seconds, but it makes life feel easier.)

Pour the butter over the turkey. Empty the French Onion soup packet into the crockpot. Mix it into the butter as best as you can.

Put the lid on the crockpot and let it cook for about 8 hours on low. If you are home, you can occasionally use a basting brush to coat the turkey with the dressing, but it's not necessary.

Side Dish: Fall Veggies

I'd like to tell you that this started with a recipe, but it didn't. It started with me trying to cut corners and make a meal out of a hodgepodge of stuff that had been hanging out in my fridge too long. Have I mentioned I get produce delivered every two weeks? Yeah, I'll have to post on that soon.

Ingredients:
Fall veggies
Turkey drippings

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Cut your veggies into fairly small cubes (about 1" at the thickest). I used turnips, sweet potatoes, new potatoes, and onion.

Place cut veggies into a roasting pan.

Use one of those basting bulb/sucky things to transfer liquid from your turkey breast crockpot into the roasting pan. I transferred almost all of it. You pretty much just want to be sure that there's at least a 1/8 inch of liquid standing in your pan.

Put the roasting pan in your oven. Now, go do something else. Me? Hubby and I are training for a 5k. It sucks and I hate it. So, we went for a run while the veggies cooked.

We came back and ate up the super scrumptiousness. Hubby liked it, but J? He loved it. He could not get enough of the roasted veggies.

The best part? This meal produced so much food that we had leftovers for lunch and dinner the next day.

Geez, I'm bad at this...

I'm sorry, but not too sorry. I started this blog as a place to record my journey, to write when I need to. I didn't start it to make a name or a business for myself. So, I don't update all the time, or even often. I hope you understand that sometimes just living my life takes up all the time I have to offer.

Despite feeling immensely busy over the past couple of months, there's nothing terribly newsworthy. James is growing up right on track. He's crawling like a maniac and even took a couple steps last night. I'm not 100% sure it counts as walking though, because it was really just a gradual fall with a few steps included on the way down.

He's really starting to develop some personality. I think that he's going to be sensitive like his mama. Over the past few weeks, we have started telling him, "No." when he does something unsafe like playing with the bulb of his nightlight or trying to eat the dog's food. When we say no, he automatically stops and looks back at us. And then moves onto something else. Last week, he bit my arm. I think it was a teething thing, not an anger thing because we were just snuggling at the time. I yelled, "OOOOwwww" and then pretended to cry, because I'd read online that this helps babies understand that they've hurt you. James got a very concerned look on his face and proceeded to cry himself.

He's also started making a hilarious face when he eats. It's a little squinty-eyed mean face. When he makes it, he snorts in and out through his nose. It's really funny, especially since I have no clue where he learned it from.

He's sleeping better now, too. We let him cry it out, which really only involved him crying through night wakings for two nights. All in all, he probably cried an hour each night before he started sleeping through the night. He'll go to bed around 8:30, then I'll dreamfeed him around 11:00 pm. He gets up around 6:30 and then will go back down until 8 if I let him,

He's still breastfed and I'm so happy about that. One of my favorite moments of the day is snatching him out of his crib every night before I go to bed. He stays asleep, but instinctively cuddles up and latches on. He doesn't nurse well during the day because there's too much distraction, but his dreamfeed and early morning feeding are huge! I feel like he guzzles so much milk.

My work is going well. I love having the flexibility to take off a day here and there. I've done it a couple of times so far. I usually spend the day hanging with James, going to the store, the park, etc. I think it's all standard stuff, but it's so precious to me.

He's absolutely amazing to me.

Here's one of his 9-month photos.

Exhale

My work-life balance is finally getting to a place that I can handle. I met with my boss a few weeks ago and, with tears in my eyes, pleaded for some flexibility. I felt like I was missing out on so much. It wasn't that I worried that the separation was bad for James. It was that I knew it was bad for me.

At the end of a long week, I just felt like I hadn't had my fill of my little boy.

My boss said that he understood where I was coming from, but couldn't give preferential treatment to people with kids. I responded like a professional, noting that I understood his concern and would try to come up with a flex option that wasn't necessarily preferential treatment. Then, as any professional mother would, I went and cried in my office.

I decided to let the issue lie since he seemed reluctant to grant me flexibility. Just in case, tough, I came up with three flex options that involved some sort of pay cut. I thought this would make it clear that it wasn't preferential.

He brought the issue up at our weekly check-in on Thursday and I had three ideas ready to go. The final decision is that I will be able to take an additional 20 days off each year as leave without pay. This is in addition to my 15 vacation days, 3 personal days, and 6 sick days. I'm so thrilled to have the option to take days off occasionally when I just feel like I need to be at home for my own sanity.

Sure, there's a pay cut involved, but my boss also told me the good news that they are realigning salary schedules for certain positions that have been underpaid and mine is one of them. Even with the additional days off, he expects my take-home pay to remain the same as it is now or increase. Woohoo!

It makes me love my job again. Plus, I feel like I can exhale. I don't have to fight and claw to each moment with my son because I can choose to spend a random day at home with James.

Fun While It Lasted

James,

I know how much fun it is to wake up and play with mommy in the middle of the night. You get to drink milk from your favorite place, hear mommy sing you songs, get rocked, and sometimes you get a fresh diaper too. However, mommy is getting pretty darn sick of getting up with you twice a night, so I'm afraid these days are coming to an end.

You are so good about going to sleep easily and at a consistent time each night, but you are also good at waking up to nurse every three to four hours during the night. Why?

Jess

Anyone out there had experience with frequent night wakings? My pedi says that it's all just a habit and we need to pick a night and let him cry through the night. The problem is that he is genuinely hungry when I go in and nurse him -- he drinks like a madman, which he hardly does anymore during the day since he's too busy playing. I worry that I'll be depriving him of much-needed nutrition if I don't nurse him at night.

Love, Love, Love

Sometimes I just can't believe how much of it I have. When I look at that little boy, cuddled up beside me on the bed or crawling like a wild man across the kitchen floor, my heart nearly explodes.

Remember those first days and months with a new boyfriend? That feeling that your relationship was full of *new.* You fell asleep thinking of him, slept dreaming of him, and woke up counting the minutes or days until you could see him.

As Brett and I near 12 years together and six years of marriage, that adrenaline rush is, for the most part, gone. Rather than being the relationship equivalent of a new pair of heels or a flashy leather jacket, Brett's my sensible yet cute flats or my cozy cable knit cardigan. My heart may not skip a beat at the sight of him, but I swoon in a different way when I crawl into bed with him and gently drape my foot over his.

I'm just fine with that.

But, James, he's my exclamation point in life. He's the one who consumes my thoughts, whose birthday I've been planning since the day he was born. He's the one whose room I creep into to stare at before bed. I think that's exactly how it's supposed to be.