January 29th - The saga continues

Well, well, well, lets' see how far I get this time without getting distracted by IM's, November board postings, or other online distractions. Or a baby. Those can be a tad distracting too.

How've we all been? Of the half dozen or so people who I know actually read this once in a while, I've spoken to 2 or 3 recently and I'm happy to hear they're doing decently well. The rest of you better buck up and do at least decently :-) I'm just pleased with myself for actually keeping moderately in touch with a few people I knew B. B. (before baby), B. C. (before career), and B. C. (before college). Love all around.

Can you tell I'm in a good mood?

Reason being that Bob's "sick" today and we're spending the day hunkered down in our toasty house in our toasty robes, PJ's and slippers (Bob would probably like me to interject on his behalf here and inform you that he does NOT wear slippers. And I would interject that that's because they don't make slippers for flippers that big.) Bob finished his school work around 3, and then we ate lunch - leftover grilled salmon and quesadillas, the lunch of champions! And now he's on 'baby duty' which right now involves laying on the floor and dangling toys, marching a stuffed horse up and down Maddie's body, and attempting to convince Her Sensitiveness to sit in the Bumbo seat. I'm doing laundry and for-the-love-of-God-I'm-actually-going-to-sit-down-and-Blog-so-I-can-stop-saying-"GeeIwishIhadmoretimetoBlog". With a cup of Red Rose tea in my A+ Teacher mug. Life is good.

Let's see, what have we been up to? Well, I finally took Maddie in to meet the school crew; both students and colleagues. So enjoyable. The big fat hugs and snotty-nosed inquiries as to when in the world I'd finally come back to them (March 28th) were good for the self-esteem, for sure. Those were from the kidlets, by the way. :-) The teachers fawned of my kid - which is also good the aforementioned self image - and dished the dirt...including that they think my sub is "competent but snobby and anti-social. "Has a 2X4 up her ass" was the exact wording from a closer friend, but you get the drift. My program is being maintained but I'm in no danger of being replaced...and she's in no danger of being missed when I'm back. How bad am I that I think I couldn't have asked for more from a long-term sub?

I finally have to get my blood sugar tested this week (or next, if my in-laws don't stop bringing junk food over here and leaving it!). I'll find out if I'm officially diabetic at present or not. The Gestational Diabetes can leave you diabetic permanently, or cause you to develop it in 5 to 10 years...or you could be fine. We'll see. So far, so good, though. My morning checks have been good: all under 126, the apparent magic number.

I'm still running all around town and finding excuses for socialization here and there. Mom's Club, which is actually an International thing, I found out, has been fun. Now that my baby's past the 2-month mark where it's socially and motheringly acceptable to take her out and have her around other kids (oops, broke that rule) it's not so, well, awkward to be out w/ other mommies doing our thang. I highly recommend the playroom at Burger King in Stratford, NJ, btw. They have big comfy seats for parents to see their kids from and an Internet Cafe...and decent coffee.

Ah, coffee, my old friend, how I've missed you. That's right, I readily fell off the wagon and onto Juan Valdez when I stopped giving Maddie breast milk. Although she's probably predisposed to caffeine addiction anyway.

We're getting a bit of a routine down at home - sort of. I'm not ever going to be one of those parents who schedule their baby to eat at exact 4-hour increments with 1 1/2 naps and highly structured playtime. Please, I can't keep myself on a schedule like that, I'm going to do that to my kid? Whatever. But we follow a pretty predictable pattern of eat/play/downtime (swing, bouncy seat & 'Baby Mozart', hanging out in crib talkin' to the whatever-those-things-are on her mobile)/naptime, repeat. Gives me time to do things like shower, dress, keep the house in some semblance or order and clean enough not to attract the attention of the Division of Youth & Family Services, etc. And I actually get to touch the laptop during the day, too. For instance, right now Maddie's really grooving on the up-close shot of one of those "tornado in a jar" things you buy at science stores in the mall.

Speaking of the mall, I gotta go pick up her first 'formal' portraits tomorrow at Sears, and then get frames for the ones we're giving to Bob's mom for her 50th birthday...and then I want to hit Babies-R-Us next door, for a shower gift for his cousin and hopefully a mommy-baby exercise DVD. I'd been pretty faithful about taking Maddie for longer and longer walks in the stroller until the weather decided to take a nose dive. You're not supposed to have a baby outside for extended periods when the wind chill's under freezing. Stupid weather. Messing up the one form of exercise I was actually enjoying. Poop.

Holy crap it's already 5;21! Well, we decided that we're going NOWHERE today, so that prolongs the evening nicely. Usually on Monday nights we have Handbell rehearsal, but we just had a performance yesterday so the director - that would be Bob - gave us the night off. B-e-a-utiful.

Ok, how sad is it that I actually just sat and watched a whole segment of the Baby Mozart video by myself and was actually quite entertained? (Maddie spit up and Bob took her upstairs to change her clothes.) She's spitting up a lot lately...hmmm. She cries when she eats sometimes, and you have to play the white noise really loud for her - then she'll eat happy as a clam. Weird kid.

Well, the dryer buzzer has, uh, buzzed. Actually it beeped, we have a beeping dryer now. So it's that time. Time to spell check and hope it picks up the worst of my typos, and do the laundry. And live to blog another day.