I just added Google Friend Connect, so you can sign in and add me to your list if you’re so inclined. —->
Don’t worry, you can sign in with no picture if you don’t want anyone seeing that you actually read and follow my blog. 😉
Perfect timing – tvp giveaway!
What a great coincidence. I just checked out The Vintage Pearl’s blog, and they’re having a giveaway today! You are some very lucky people that I found it, because you can enter too. 🙂 Just go to the post here: http://thevintagepearl.blogspot.com/2011/05/calligraphy-giveaway.html and follow their directions to leave a comment.
That calligraphy font would have been PERFECT for my D necklace. Drat! Oh well, if I win I could just get another one, or even better, maybe one of the dainty drops. Head on over to tvp – now!
My necklace arrived!
I ordered a necklace a few weeks ago to replace the one R gave me right after D was born. It was really cute – he actually got matching ones for me and D, so she can wear hers when she gets older. The one he gave me is a 4 leaf clover with a tiny little diamond in the middle, where the leaves of the clover are peridots, since that’s D’s birthstone. I absolutely love it, but the original chain broke months ago, and the one with which I replaced it has gotten all stretched out from daily wear and D tugging on it so that it’s now much longer than I like. Why not just get a new chain again? Because I found an awesome necklace that I’m very excited about and I have deemed as a suitable replacement. I told R I felt kind of guilty not wearing the one he got me when I first took it off, and he said I was being silly. He said it’s a good thing that I finally took it off to wear others since I have so many nicer necklaces than that one, and he liked the new one I ordered as well. Ok good; I definitely didn’t want him to think I didn’t like my original D one because it was the sweetest gesture ever from a new daddy and that little necklace will always be special to me. I’m just weird and sentimental like that.
Ok, ok, get on with it – the new necklace, please… I found it on The Vintage Pearl (button over there —->), and it is wonderful. They do amazing work, and I’ve seen their pieces showcased on other blogs and in the press. My sister-in-law actually ordered R’s mom a grandmother’s bracelet from them for Mother’s Day this year. It turned out beautifully – it has a charm with each of the grandkids’ names on it, all in different shapes, and a birthstone crystal for each. So I knew their products were high-quality. If you go to their site, I ordered a “dainty names” necklace, and then customized it to have the name stamped around the edge of the circle instead of across the middle. Et voila!
I just love it. I chose an 18″ sterling ball chain to go with it, but I think I may order a 16″ too to see which one I like better. I kind of like the shorter look and feel. But overall – it’s fantastic! D’s name looks like it was just meant to be on this perfect little charm around my neck. And I’m a big fan of the silver colors over golds. Almost all of my jewelry is white gold, so I much prefer that hue over yellow gold (this necklace is silver though, not gold).
Check out tvp – you won’t be disappointed!
Milkin’ mama no more (almost)
As you know, D decided to stop nursing a few weeks ago. And since then I’ve kind of been struggling with wanting to keep up my supply to get her to the 1 year mark on my milk vs. dreading pumping. I truly enjoyed nursing her, but I detest that pump. Not that it hurts or anything like that, but I’m just sick of doing it. I am now down to pumping once a day, in the morning before work, and I think even that may be phased out soon. So I’m only producing 2 bags of milk for her each day instead of the 4 I was making right after she stopped nursing, so we’ll see how long I feel like keeping that little bit up. I’m pretty confident that when I decide to stop now it won’t be as big an issue as I had originally feared. My body has learned to gradually produce less, so my nightmare of exploding boobs fortunately won’t be coming true. It’s pretty cool how nature just kind of takes over. Good thing, because you know I’ve been clueless throughout this whole pregnancy/birth/baby process. 🙂
At D’s 9 month appointment last week I tried to get her doctor to relent and say it was fine to switch to cow’s milk right now, but she just started laughing. 1 year is the steadfast guideline, but our pediatrician is so cool she wasn’t overly concerned about it (if anyone is looking for a fantastic ped, let me know. i highly recommend Dr. C). She said it’s definitely not her recommendation, but we can switch her now since she’s pretty close if that’s what works. I told her how I’m so sick of pumping, and she said well then stop. Ok, but I really don’t want to have to switch D to formula for only a month or two if I stop pumping and we use up the rest of the stockpile of frozen milk, and she said she honestly wouldn’t be surprised if D wouldn’t even take formula now. I never even thought about that, but her doctor said oh yeah, it tastes totally different. Ok, so what if I stop pumping and the frozen stash is gone AND D won’t take formula? Then what? Ok fine, then you can switch her to cow’s milk. But make sure you give her vitamins if you do switch, because the lack of iron in cow’s milk is the big reason babies shouldn’t drink it before age 1. Cool, that’s the answer I was looking for in the first place. 😉
She was right about the formula too. Sweet! So now I don’t have to lie to her at D’s 1 year appointment about when we switched to cow’s milk – D really didn’t take the formula. 🙂 She gave us a container of it to try so I didn’t have to buy one, I made D a bottle of it the next morning to test it out, and sure enough, she took one drink and then refused it. Maybe she wasn’t hungry, you say? No, I heated up a bottle of my milk for her right after that, which she promptly gobbled down.
Sooo, long story short, I may soon be a milkin’ mama no more, well before my goal of the 1 year mark. That’s ok. D’s happy and healthy, I will be very happy when I don’t have to pump anymore, and even her doctor said that it was very nice of me to keep pumping this long after she stopped nursing. She said 9 months so far is great, and it’s still continued past that. So I’m not worried. We’ll have about 1-2 weeks’ worth of frozen milk to use once I’m done for good, so D should be able to make it to at least 10 months on the Mommy nectar.
My other reason for writing this post was to guide you current or soon-to-be milkin’ mamas to a great post I found today on another blog I follow. Jenny from What the Blog? (over there —->) opened up a thread today for breastfeeding moms to leave comments with their suggestions/recommendations/tips for others based on their own experiences. I know every woman’s body is different, and one mom’s BFing must-haves may do nothing for someone else, but I thought it was a really good resource for anyone new to the milky boob game. She just has an excellent blog in general, too, so check it out: http://jennandtonica.com/2011/05/for-to-be-breastfeeding-mothers/
Take me out to the ball game
Last night was D’s first Brewers game, and she had a ball! We seriously could not have ordered a more well-behaved baby for the evening. I picked her up early from daycare so I could get home, bathe her, and get a quick jog** in before we went, and thankfully she cooperated and napped for an hour right before we left. We got to the stadium at 5:30 and didn’t leave until just before 10:30, which is a good 2-3 hours past her bedtime, but she was awake and happy the entire time. I figured her 6 teeth weren’t quite sufficient to handle a brat, so I fed her some delicious jars of turkey and mixed veggie dinner and peas and rice (both organic, kudos to Roundy’s) while R fired up the grill. She was all done and ready to soak in all the tailgating action by the time the adult food was ready, so that worked out perfectly.
We had ridiculous seats – 4th row, directly behind the Brewers on-deck circle, which made for some great viewing pleasure. R snagged a Fielder-foul-tipped ball that was tossed into our section by one of the bat boys, so he graciously gave that to D as a souvenir of her first game. And then I prevented her from putting it immediately into her mouth to try and lick off all that good diamond dirt. 🙂 Shockingly enough, I caught another one later in the game, which I gave to our friend S. No need to be greedy. It was cute, too – R took D over to the guest relations booth shortly after we got there, and they printed up a little “My First Brewers Game” certificate for her. It wasn’t anything fancy, we just fill in her name and date and stuff, but still a nice gesture for the littlest Brewers fans on their first appearances.
It was an awesome night all around. Good weather, the roof was open (which made for some chilly wind by the end of the night, but better than rain), great friends were able to join us, the Brewers won, and little D once more made us so proud with her smiley, happy, easy-going spirit. She had made friends with everyone in the seats around us by the time we left. R joked on the way home that maybe we should just stop at one – D is so good we have to have used up all our good fortune in this kid. Will all of the bad stuff we’ve so far avoided with her be channeled into the next one if we give her a sibling? Or is she just saving it all up for the teenage years? Oh please god, not option #2!
The only lowlight of the night came at the end of the game – we were hoping to get a picture of D with R’s cousin who plays for the Brewers on the field, but he didn’t come over our way after the team victory handshake. R was pretty bummed, because he thought his cuz for sure saw us a couple times during the game, so I felt bad for him – I knew how much he wanted that picture of little D on the field with a Brewer to cap off her first game. Hopefully sometime this season we’ll be able to get one to make up for it.
I had to snap a picture to document D’s first baseball game, but it was on my phone so it’s not the highest quality. R took many, many more on his good camera, so I’ll have to get some of those up here once they’re uploaded.
Go Brew Crew!
**run stats – 1.44 miles, 11:23, 7:55 pace. holy smokin’ fast! i’m not going to count that as my normal pace because it’s a really short route and i was in a hurry last night, knowing we had to leave shortly after i got done. i am encouraged, though. i’m going to try a 5k route later this week, so i’m sure that will be more along the lines of my 9:00+ pace.
I guess honesty really is the best policy
Last week I took a couple rings into a local jeweler to have them rhodium plated again, as the white gold was fading to yellow. Then I got an amazing ring for a combo anniversary/birthday present from R, so we took that in to the same jeweler to have appraised. He bought it online, so we just wanted to make sure it was genuine and he wasn’t getting ripped off with a piece of glass costume jewelry. I decided to have them appraise my wedding band while they were at it, since it was one of the rings I’d dropped off to have plated and we never did receive an appraisal from the store at which we originally bought it. So in all they had a nice little chunk of business from me – 3 rhodium platings and 2 appraisals.
When I picked them up at the end of last week they just gave me one lump sum total, which I assumed covered everything. I didn’t pay much attention in the store, because I was just more anxious to get the rings back and see if my new one was real or not. When I left, however, I started thinking that the amount they charged me was much lower than I was expecting. Like $225 lower. Hmm, did they forget something? I checked my receipt when I got home, and sure enough, it only had the 2 appraisals on it.
Now I’ll admit, usually when I get a bank error in my favor I run with it – how often do you get stuff for free? Um, never. But this one nagged at me. That was a lot of money for them to just not charge. R said maybe they threw in the platings since we were having the appraisals done too, but I said no way, that’s too much to just be gratis. By this time the jeweler was closed, so I would have to go back the next day if I was going to say something. What to do, what to do?
The following morning I almost forgot all about it. Funny how sleeping on something can really diminish the “severity”, if you will. But I still felt really guilty not fessing up about such a large error. So I went back to the jeweler that afternoon on my way to my pedicure (which was awesome, btw! complimentary mimosa and second glass of champagne has that effect on me) and told them that I didn’t think they had charged me for any of the rhodium plating for the rings I had in with them earlier in the week. The saleswoman actually remembered me and thanked me very much for my honesty. She then went into the back to discuss with her coworkers while I browsed through the cases and made a mental wish list. 🙂
When she came back out she had a new receipt with her, and my charge was another $100 (the first charge was only $100 – $50 for each of the 2 appraisals). Ok, still less than I was expecting originally, but I’ll take it this time. They knew I had 3 rings in to be plated, but this new receipt only showed a charge for one, so I chalked it up to them appreciating my honesty and giving me a break on the total amount this time around.
It’s funny, because the whole time I was debating what to do on this one in my head, I kept returning to the thought that if D were in this same scenario, what would I want her to do? Tell the truth. Then how could I possibly do anything but that? So you see my friends, the moral of the story is true – honesty is the best policy. And who knows, it may just get you out of $125 in jewelry charges. 😉
Oh, and that amazing ring mentioned above? It was real all right. Yahoo!! Here it is, and R ended up getting it for an absolute steal based on the appraised value. Please excuse my gross-looking hand. For some reason it appears to have missed the memo that I only turned 32 this week and decided to age to about 80 years old instead.
When I’m tired, personal hygiene is the first thing to go
Sounds gross, I know, but it’s true. And I don’t mean like I don’t put on deodorant or change my underwear for weeks at a time or anything like that, but when I’m really tired, simple toiletry tasks just annoy me.
Take, for example, today. I was bone tired and not feeling that great all day, so by the time I picked up D, had her first parent teacher conference (yes, in daycare! silly, but it was actually pretty cute. don’t worry, she’s never been sent to the principal’s office 😉 ), and got home after work, the last thing I really felt like doing was getting in the shower. However, I didn’t shower yesterday, so today I was due. Ever since D was born I’ve adopted a one-day-on, one-day-off showering routine. Sorry, I know some of you super cleanies are thinking, “Oh my god, she doesn’t bathe daily? That’s disgusting!” But when D was a newborn, getting a shower in every other day was a victory. And if I don’t workout and get all sweaty in a particular day, I really don’t get that dirty or stinky. And since my good heavy sweat-inducing workouts have been few and far between since that glorious day last August (i’m working on that, i promise!), I’ve just continued my every-other-day schedule. As far as I see it, why waste time and resources showering if I don’t really need to?
However, if I try to go more than a day in between showers, my hair starts to look like I’ve been working next to a deep fryer too long. I can sometimes stretch it to 2 days, but then I need to start getting creative with the hairdo so as not to look like a total greaser, and that’s the absolute most even I can stand. That usually happens when a weekend is involved, too. I try not to subject my coworkers to such atrocities.
Another one that I can get lazy about is brushing my teeth before bed. I’m really pretty good about oral care, so again, if this happens it’s usually on the weekend – we often watch movies on weekend nights, during which I have a tendency to fall asleep, so when I wake up to stumble into bed the last thing I feel like doing is waking up more to clean my teeth. It all depends on which I want less – to brush and floss, or wake up with little furry coats on my teeth. Honestly, sometimes my teeth just seem cold and get to wear the little coats. And hey, they haven’t fallen out yet.
Washing my face before bed? Another thing that starts to take on “chore” status for me sometimes. I never skip this entirely though, because my skin is oily so it needs to be cleansed in some fashion. If I haven’t worn makeup that day, I might just use a facial cleansing cloth or a cotton pad with toner instead of a full-on washing. And those also tend to be weekend days. Hmm… maybe it’s just weekends when I get hygienically lazy.
So now that I’ve revealed some more of my dirty little secrets (ha! get it? dirty? i’m hilarious), I totally won’t be offended if everyone goes running for the exits in horror. I promise, though, I’m really not that revolting – I did take a shower today, after all. 🙂