It pains me...

I've been back to work now for just over 5 weeks now. It hurt to leave my baby at school. I cried my entire hour commute to work that day. I CAN say I don't cry the entire way in anymore. I do however well up every single time I have to leave him every morning. It physically pains me. I have found that I am angry when I drop him off. I find things at school to be angry about when I'm actually angry that in 5 seconds I have to walk out their front door and leave him there just to go sit in traffic so I can get to my desk in hell. And this place is hell. Trust me. But I do find things at school to be angry about, stupid things, you know like having to put on the stupid booties over my shoes/flip flops in the infant room. That angers me. Or the fact that I have to put those stupid booties on outside the door. Where the hell do they want me to put the baby while I'm putting on the booties? It's not like there's a bouncy seat in the hall way to place him in while I put the damn booties on. Anyway, I'm angry, I'm irrationally angry that I have to work where I work and do what I do every day. I don't mind working, but this place is hell and it's awful.

Differences

My 4YO girl was so different than my baby boy is. I know babies are different, kids are not the same no matter what, but I guess I didn't think they could really be so different. At the beginning of this year, I prepared my "bringing home a newborn" home life just as I had when I had my daughter 4 years ago. I brought the glider chair out of storage. I set up the crib. I put together the bassinet. I put the changing table top back on the kid's dresser. I took the swing out of storage and set it up smack dab in the middle of the living room.

I did all those things. I assumed I'd run the new baby ship the exact same way I did for my daughter. I was wrong. Let's see…I've sat in my glider ONCE...the first night I came home from the hospital. I've changed the baby's diaper on the changing table a handful of times. The baby has been in the swing less times than he's been on his changing table. All that preparation and work…for pretty much nothing.

I guess I learned different things toward the end of having my first infant around that I didn't know at the beginning. Tricks that make life easier. Tricks like…

Who the hell gets out of bed to nurse in the middle of the night when you can lay in bed and fall asleep while the baby sucks away and eventually drifts back to sleep?

And…why change the baby on the changing table when there's a huge bed in my bedroom that isn't as high as the changing table. A bed that is in the exact location we will be in when I finish putting on his jammies.

And…why put powder and lotion on a baby after EVERY bath when he's already so deliciously soft and squishy?

And…diaper ointment? Meh…not unless the kid's butt is actually red.

There are other differences too. Let's talk about eating, shall we? While I was on maternity leave my son ate and ate and ate and ate some more just when you thought he was DONE eating. My daughter did too. Boob rules according to my kids. At 3 months old, when it was time to go off to school when I went back to work, my daughter would POUND 5 oz bottles like she was going to the chair. For my son, this time around? I haven't put anything more than 3 ozs in any given bottle. My son is a boob man all the way. If he's hungry enough he'll take a bottle, but he'll suck down 1 oz and fall asleep on his care givers. He rarely finishes a whole bottle. I've tried every bottle. Believe me, I'm not exaggerating. I've tried, Evenflo, Tommee Tippee, First Years, Dr. Brown's, Mamm and Playtex drop ins. He wants no part of any of them except the Playtex drop ins but not with the normal nipple, they have to have the orthodontic nipple.

I've found that the nipples on pretty much every bottle are super long and he chokes on it when he tries to eat and that's when he gets pissed off and gives up or scream bloody murder. The orthodontic ones are slightly shorter and more natural to what a nipple is actually shaped like. Why do companies make these big round long nipple things on bottles? No wonder kids have nipple confusion, because some MAN (probably) designed a baby bottle nipple not taking into account what a baby would like. I've been around the block on baby bottles this time and it's frustrating. With my daughter 4 years ago, she took the Dr. Brown's and that was the end of it. Once we realized she was easy, we did away with those labor intensive Dr. Brown's bottle and switched to Playtex drop ins. I figured my son would like those right off the bat. Not so much. He takes them, but only because he won't take any other bottle type. And I'm hating those damn things. I don't know what the hell they did to these bottles or the drop in sleeves, but they LEAK…A LOT!!! The sleeve falls out the bottom of the bottle and dive bombs to the floor causing me to cry over spilled milk. It is didn't just happen once. It's been multiple times and they've leaked no matter how straight you keep them upright. I wish he'd take a different type of bottle. Anything but the Playtex Drop Ins.

Because he kept falling asleep and not finishing or not even starting a bottle his care giver recommended putting an extra hole or 2 in the end of the nipple. I tried that, but the holes don't really work, it would have to be drilled out. I am not about to buy the drop ins for the bigger Playtex drop in bottles because I absolutely despise the expandable sleeves they make for that bottle because you can't tell how much you've put in or how much the baby has eaten while you're giving him a bottle. And that seems to be the only sleeve they readily sell for the larger bottles. It's really hard to find the regular large sleeves. And why would I try those larger Playtex drop ins if he's not even eating an ounce or two at a time?

I hope in the next couple months his mouth gets bigger or something because he's gotta take something beside the Playtex drop ins. They are awful bottles. We never once had this problem when my daughter used the Playtex drop in bottle. I am so done with them. I am on the verge of writing Playtex a scathing letter. Putting that on my to do list. In the mean time I need to break this kid of taking the Playtex and move on to something else.

Loathing of a car seat and milestones

Time is flying by. I've already been back to work for 3 weeks. This week will be 4 weeks. I don't know where the time is going. I was just in the hospital like YESTERDAY giving birth wasn't I? I keep saying the baby is so big too fast. I blame my milk. What else is there to blame?

 

We've had a challenging time with him wanting to be in seats. His car seat? You would think there are pins in his seat and every time he sits in his car seat those pins are on fire, because he LOATHES his seat. He can be ok if he's sleeping in it, but to get to the point takes a ridiculous amount of screaming and crying and carrying on.

 

I wondered if it was only car seats or all seats? Is it the motion of the car seat? Is it seeing what's coming ahead of us in his mirror that he hates? Does he get dizzy watching his mirror? If he'll take the binky, he's ok, but it falls out and it's game over and I surely can't hold it in. Does he hate the pinned down-ness of being locked into place by the straps of his car seat? Does he hate the feeling of being alone? He can't really see his big sister across the car in her seat.

 

I decided I'd try him in the high chair to see if any of the above yielded the same result. Last night we sat down to dinner at the table and I put his chair together and he sat in it, quietly. We ate. He played with his jingly ball toy. He was content. He smiled. He cooed. He was fine. Strapped in, and even reclined as if it were a car seat too. Totally happy. Oh believe me, he had enough, just like any baby would for being in one setting with one view for too long, but it took a while. I'm not sure what this proves. Maybe that it's the backward motion in the car that freaks him out? Or the feeling of being alone? I don't know...there's something to be analyzed there to draw some conclusions, I'll have to think on that.

 

I took him out when I was done with my dinner and the table had been cleared. I decided to give him a little tummy time, and put him right in front of me on the dining room table, tummy down. He had his arms under him, his legs splayed out and he was scootching his bum up and out repetivitely. It didn't take very long, but he managed to gethis right leg underneath him, let his head weigh him to his left side and roll his shoulder underneath his body. Gravity worked and he rolled from his tummy to his back. His eyes got wide and he rotated his head back a little bit to focus on me. I gave him a look of "Don't you EVER do that again, do you hear me?" I shrieked and actually said something like "OMG" out loud and my husband came in to check what was wrong. I said it was probably just a fluke, he wouldn't do it again, but he just rolled over.

 

I flipped him back on his tummy to make sure I wasn't seeing things. It took a minute or so longer, but sure enough he rolled over again. And of course my husband got bored of watching a scootching baby on the table laying there like a Thanksgiving turkey and went back to doing the dishes (that's right ladies, be jealous...he cooked dinner then he did the dishes too) and missed the replay. I'm still denying it was real. The table must be slanted or something. There's no way at just over 3 months this kid is rolling over, right? How is this possible. His older sister didn't roll over until 4 months. There's gotta be a a loop hole here somewhere. He's getting so big, too fast. I can't believe my eyes when he does things like this. I'm going to hibernate so I don't have to admit my little guy is growing up and doing big boy things.

 

By the way? Have I mentioned how absolutely in love with having a little baby boy I am? God, he's the best boy ever. He's so snuggly, I just love him to pieces...but please STOP GROWING!!!

What my cat thinks of my HR department

While on maternity leave, about 3 business days from the end of my 12-week  leave actually, I was home with the baby enjoying the last days and the phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and saw it was someone from my company but not a number of someone I recognized. I answered it anyway.

Simultaneously, the cat was eating her breakfast. Because we have a dog who would eat anything and everything in sight we put the cat's dish up on a book shelf where I keep our cookbooks. She jumps up, it's safe from the dog, it's a win / lose situation. The cat has her sanctuary in which to eat, the dog gets nothing unless the cat drops a kibble to tease him. The bookshelf butts up against our living room pass thru from the kitchen, so she can choose to jump down onto the kitchen floor or she can drive my husband crazy and walk across the back of his chair into the living room. It's a special treat when my husband is sitting in his chair and the cat wafts her long furry tail against my husband's neck and ear. He LOVES that!

Anyway, I answered the phone, the cat was finishing her food. The person on the other end of the phone was HR telling me I wasn't approved for more than 6 weeks of leave and why was I still out? As I was listening to her tell me I was in violation of my leave, the cat had to come down from her food area to the living room side of the pass thru. Except apparently breakfast did not agree with her because she started doing that "thing" cats do when they're about to hurl their cookies. You know, when they stand wide, get low to the ground, whisk their tail back and forth and make that horrendous sound? Yeah, that one. And by that sound you know that regurgitated food mixed with fur ball is about to come back out onto your carpet. Only this time, the cat only made it as far as the back of my husband's chair before making that noise. And I was holding the phone in one hand with HR on the other end of the line and the baby in my other arm.

Unfortunately there is now an HR staff member who has way more of a glimpse into my personal life than I am completely comfortable with. My only chance to save my husband's chair from cat hork was to tell the HR person to hold, throw the phone down, grab the poor cat by the scruff of her neck and hurl her to the floor and hold onto the baby for dear life without squishing him. The cat was positioned to aim right into the crevices of the back cushion and the arm.  Luckily, hork catastrophe averted. I managed to remove the cat from the back of my husband's chair without so much as a speck of throw up getting on it. Go me! But now I was left to explain why I threw the HR person across the room and told her to hold on. And well, since she was about to ruin my day, I figured what did I have to lose by telling her I was juggling a baby, the phone and cat that was about to hork up a fur ball.

When I got back to work and was able to sit down with HR and get to the bottom of all their issues, they managed to lose an email I sent them with the forms I had to fill out before I left in FEBRUARY… AAAAAAAND they managed to screw up my vacation time they paid out to me. I had well over 100 hours saved up for maternity leave. I asked them to save me 5 days time so I wasn't left with nothing upon returning. They managed to completely deplete my time and then an additional 47 hours. The first email and phone call I came back to was another person from HR telling me they were going to short pay my next paycheck(s) until I had paid them back for the time they mistakenly deducted from me. Fortunately MOST…not all, but MOST of that 47 hours was a clerical error. They managed to take out an entire 80 hours of time from my paycheck on March 11^th, which would be the working time period from 2/19 thru 3/4. My last day of work was 2/28. That would make it only 4 days (32 hours worth) of vacation time I was taking in that pay period. Bottom line was they still screwed up by applying my vacation time to my leave like they did, but now I only owed them back less than 10 hours, instead of almost 50. Why can't competent people be hired into HR…just wondering?

I like to think the cat was just telling me what she thought of the HR folks. Throw up...yeah, that's about what i think of them too. I am VERY glad I managed to save my husband's chair form the cat's wrath though. It would not have been pretty. Our cat would've felt my husband's wrath for sure. I made sure HR felt my wrath and displeasure with their "mistakes". How can they do that to an employee and not understand the ramifications? It is truly maddening. Fortunately, it mostly worked out but not without giving me a heart attack.

The writing on the wall

Well, it was only a matter of time. My daughter is 4 years old. She loves coloring. Usually on paper. Sometimes on the iPad with a coloring app. We've been fortunate. Aside from a small marking she made with a crayon or pencil by accident on a wall here or there, it's been all coloring where coloring is supposed to go all the time. That is until this past weekend.

We visited my mom on Memorial Day for a little while. We were hoping the pool would be open but no such luck. We hung out anyway and I tried to make the best of the situation by bringing a small pool for my daughter to play in. She played in it and got bored. She desperately wants to show my mom how she jumps in the pool by herself and floats. While my mom and I visited while I nursed the baby, and my husband took on the leaky drain issue, my daughter watched tv in the den.

It wasn't until we were leaving that we realized why and how she was so quiet all that time. Should've suspected the quiet sooner. My husband went in to collect her and get her moving toward the door and noticed the smell of nail polish in the air. It only got stronger upon entering the den. It didn't take long before noticing a slightly different shade of light pink on the off white color on the wall next to my mom's new La-Z-Boy chair. A brush stroke this way and that way, up, down and diagonal. About 2 square feet worth of color strokes on the wall. Good thing for a much more forgiving grandma than parents. My mom took it in stride. My husband and I were less than amused. I? Was mortified and so upset for my mom. For the awful display of behavior my her granddaughter displayed.

While on the way home, I read her the riot act.

Me: Where do we use nail polish?
4YO: On our nails.
Me: And where did you put the nail polish?
4YO: (sheepishly) On the wall and the shelf.
Me: SHELF?!?!?! WHAT?
Me: (Dials my mom's number instantly)
Me: Mom, I was going over what happened with your granddaughter, she said something about the shelf next to your chair!
Mom: (Makes her way to the den) (Very calmly says) Yeah, it's on the cabinet, it's coming off mostly with my finger nail.
Me: (mortified) I'm so sorry mom.

It was not a good night. She's acting out and I don't know how to curb it. I can't make her stop doing bad things. My mom tells me to stop telling her she's bad or she'll grow up thinking she's bad and will only form a bad self image and think she IS bad. How do I raise her to do good things. To stop acting out. We are showing her love every day. We have since the day she was born. We snuggle with her every night before bed just as we have every night since birth. It's maddening, and now...NOW her actions have gone outside our family walls. Now she's doing things that affect others. I just don't know what to do with her anymore.