Ladies' night

What a fun night! Brian and Trent had a boys' night in while the girls and I unleashed ourselves on downtown Austin. We started off the evening at Donn's Depot, our usual starting point, where we ran into our friend and cantankerous old fart, George. I hadn't seen George in over a year so it was a real treat to see him. Next we headed to Cuba Libre for some Mojitos and appetizers and discussed our next move. We were almost convinced to go to the Yellow Rose, but we thought we'd save it for another night when Barbie could hook us up with free admission. Next we took a pedicab (which is one of those chariots attached to a bicycle). We squeezed all four of us into one and heckled the drivers as we went from the Warehouse District over to 6th street where we visited the Ivory Cat. Kenny and Matt were playing and Andi and I shook our asses on the bleachers to some Bon Jovi, which interestingly, sounds pretty good played on a piano.
Next we walked down 6th and popped into some weird bar just off of 6th and San Jacinto and it turns out we knew the bass player in the band there. Somehow we got free drinks, I think the doorman hooked us up, but they were not very good, and we soon left. We took a spin through BD Riley's and then took a stroll eastward on 6th to see if anything grabbed our attention. We eventually ended up at Coyote Ugly, where Barbie dared me and Andi to dance on the bar. Never to turn down a dare we picked out a song and up we got. It's good to get this stuff out of your system every once in a while. We ended our evening Back at Donn's Depot, of course, no evening would be complete without some T and A, so we hollered out of the car at Brian Lee who was playing at Mother Egan's. Sadly he missed the show ;-). Murphy's Inlaws were playing at Donn's. Fortunately, we arrived right when they went on break so we got some good hugs and a quick chat in with them. I hadn't seen the Inlaws since before I was pregnant so we had some catching up to do! And finally, the cherry on top of the cake... Casey Yager! What an awesome night.
On a slightly mushy note, I just wanna say I absolutely love you girls and can't imagine my life without you. You're truly better than sisters to me (though that isn't hard given the competition ;-)).

Look alike?

There are very few pictures of me from when I was a baby. Most likely my father kept them all when he and mum split up when I was 3, and now that he's gone, nobody knows where they went. Below is one of the surviving pictures of me, I was around 4 or 5 years old, I'd guess, because it's a school photo. I see so much of Brian in Trent, but I also see so much of me, too. Take a look at the pictures below and judge for yourself:

3 months of parenthood in review

Trent will be 3 months old next week. In some respects, time seems to have flown by. But it also seems like a lifetime ago that Brian and I had a "normal" life. A time when we could go out whenever we wanted and wherever, were bound by nobody's schedule but our own. When we could start a home improvement project together and finish it in one weekend. When we could drop everything and take a weekend trip. When I could eat whatever I want. That last one sounds weird, right? you'd think that having had the baby, no longer responsible for creating life, no longer affecting another human being with every bite of food, would free me of the massive responsibility of eating the right things and avoiding potentially harmful things. But that would be wrong. It's been 2 months since I've had ice cream, cheese, milk, and tomato-based foods. At first it was difficult because it seemed that everything we ate for dinner on a regular basis contained either dairy or tomato products. I've had to learn a whole new repertoire of cooking to accommodate this shift. 2 months in, and I've adjusted. I have rice milk on my cereal, and I actually prefer it to regular milk. I've discovered Tofutti, which is a tofu-based frozen dessert with a similar texture to ice cream, and Rice Dream, another frozen ice cream type dessert. Both are exellent substitutes, but obviously the variety is rather lacking. I've created new, dairy and tomato free dishes, such as lemon chicken with capers over angel hair, ginger chicken over jasmine rice, and rosemary/thyme pork chops with garlic buttered noodles. These have become regular favorites in our household now.

I think back to a time when I used to have a sleeping disorder. Where I'd spend hours at night frustrated and staring at the ceiling fan wishing for sleep. I think the sleeping disorder has actually helped me to survive these early months of parenthood because I was used to functioning on 5 hours of sleep. Since having Trent my sleeping disorder seems to have disappeared and has been replaced by a different type of "problem". Now, rather than lying awake fidgeting and enduring the random movements of my legs, I pass out at night, completely exhausted, and my mummy senses are acutely tuned in to the baby monitor on my night stand. At the slightest whimper I am yanked out of a deep REM cycle and into complete wakefulness as either I or Brian head to the nursery to retrieve our little bundle of love. This happens between 2 and 5 times a night.

Our Friday happy hours with friends have been replaced with an occasional glass of wine sipped very slowly over a 2 hour period so as to not cause Trent any adverse affects from alcohol. And instead of going out to bars, we invite our friends to come hang out at our house for dinner and a movie. It's not all bad, though. We enjoy our time spent with friends and we love how all of our friends have welcomed Trent into their lives and genuinely want to be around him.

Home improvement projects are now lone endeavors as one of us has to hang out with Trent while the other gets the job done. Over the past 2 weekends I've redecorated our master bathroom. Stripping off wallpaper, texturizing the walls, and painting it a delicious shade of blue with chocolate accessories. Meanwhile Brian has spent the past 2 weekends hanging out with The Kid, and was visibly frazzled by Sunday evening.

What used to be a fairly regular work out schedule for me has been replaced by a work out when you can schedule. If time permits, and Trent is calm, I can go for a run with the jogging stroller, or go to the gym and put him in the kids' room there for an hour. My favourite times are when Brian and I go for a run together with Trent. We run and talk about our day, our situation, our hopes for the future, our parenting philosophies, our plans for future vacations, and have fun hypothesizing about what Trent will do when he grows up.

Shopping trips where I would spend hours perusing the stores for cute outfits for me have turned into shorter trips where I spend most of my time looking at cute little outfits for Trent. I no longer get excited about shoes. The needs of my own feet have taken a back seat to the needs of my little man. I get excited when I get a Carters coupon in the mail rather than one from DSW.

Taking a shower, drying my hair, and putting on make-up, once taken for granted, are now luxuries. There used to be a time when I wouldn't dream of leaving the house without drying my hair. Now I leave the house without even looking in the mirror. I now understand why women get the "mommy hair cut". 2 reasons: it needs to be wash and wear because a morning shower isn't always possible. It might be 10 pm by the time you shower, and what's the point of doing your hair then?? ; it needs to be either short, or long enough to tie up because little fingers don't care that your hair is attached to your head, and they will grab on to it and hold on like their life depended on it.

One of the more fundamental changes that I've seen in myself recently, is that my aversion to children, while still there, isn't as strong. I noticed this yesterday when I dropped Trent off at the kids' room at my gym. A little girl came over as I was unstrapping Trent from his car seat. Ordinarily, I would have tried to ignore her, or had minimal contact. Yesterday I actually held a conversation with this 4 year old girl, showed her what to do if Trent cries, and trusted her to sit next to him. This might seem rather insignificant to anyone who doesn't know me. But those of you who do know me must realize that this is quite monumental. I actually took the time to talk to a child, and I smiled while doing so. I know this could be cause for concern from some people. I imagine Barbie is calling the FBI as we speak and reporting an alien abduction, and who could blame her, given my past history as kid-hater.

And finally, the thing I'm really enjoying, and I guess this isn't really about motherhood, but it's somewhat related. Body image. I have a whole new respect for it now. I no longer look in the mirror and see that little poochy tummy that just won't go away, or feel the fat roll lapping over the top of my jeans in the car. Sure those things might be still there, but now what I see is a body that's taken some major trauma and survived. A body that went from reasonably sized to the size of a small planet, and then back to normal again with no visible signs of wear and tear, except for a dark pink scar that is fading by the day. That not only amazes me, but makes me feel incredibly lucky because most women don't fare so well. Even my dolphin tattoo that I jokingly referred to as an anaconda because it got so stretched out during pregnancy, has gone back to normal. My belly ring looks exactly as it did before. And I've even lost a few extra pounds, mostly in the rear, which is never a bad thing.

So in all, there have been some surface changes, such as how we socialize now, and how we sleep, but most importantly, fundamental shifts in thinking. And in case you're wondering if I'd do this all over again... not on your life, mate. Ask me again in a few years when I've forgotten what a royal pain in the ass he is ;-)

Home improvement and weekend fun

This weekend was packed full of fun, hard work, and a little drama. On the fun side, Trent got to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa. They popped up from Houston for an overnight visit. Brian and Gramps went out to Pluckers to watch the second half of the game while Gramma stayed home and watched Trent. And I set about stripping wallpaper from our ugly master bathroom. It was covered in hunter green faux marble wallpaper. Seriously, who's bright idea is it to put walpaper in the most damp room in the house? Not only is this wallpaper ugly, but it's also starting to peel on the edges. I had started to peel off the paper the previous weekend and was able to finish it off. It's a labour-intensive task but I hope the results will be worth it.

That evening Trent hung out with his grandparents while Brian and I went to dinner with friends, followed by drinks and Karaoke at The Water Tank. It's funny how much you appreciate a few hours of freedom from being parents. Though we do miss the little guy when we're away from him.

On Sunday, Barbie and Scott came over for a visit and while they were here we discovered that our ceiling in the upstairs game room was leaking water! ACK! Not only was it leaking, but it was leaking right onto an expensive piece of equipment! Fortunately it had only just happened and we were able to move everything before it got damaged. Then Brian and I spent most of Sunday trying to get the home warranty people to send someone out urgently. We played the "I have a newborn in the house" card, which, incidentally, comes in really handy and you get upgraded from regular service to urgent :-). Sadly, though, even their "urgent" status left us waiting until today for someone to come out. The problem was with our A/C unit in the attic. We have 2 units, one for upstairs and one for downstairs, both located in our attic. It turns out the one for upstairs had a clogged drain and it was causing it to leak onto our ceiling. We weren't able to run the A/C last night so it got a bit toasty. We had to close off all the vents in the house, close all the blinds to keep the sun from heating up our rooms, and Trent had to sleep in our room last night because it was the coolest room in the house.

Today a nice repairman from Shelton's Pride came over and fixed our problem for very little money (and it wasn't covered under our warranty after all). So we no longer have water dripping out of our ceiling, but we do have a damaged ceiling that we now need to figure out how to fix. Meanwhile, due to the drama of having our A/C out of commission for a day, I wasn't able to make much progress on my bathroom project.

My old friend, Town Lake

On Sunday morning I got up early (though every morning I get up early these days), and ran on Town Lake with Andrea. I was both dreading it and looking forward to it. Dreading it because I haven't really ran since late November last year, about the time that my boobs started to hurt too bad to actually run. (Though there was that time when I was 8 months pregnant that Barbie and I ran, but we mostly walked. I probably made it a whole mile that time.) And I figured that I'd lost my running mojo. Looking forward to it because I really miss my "girl time" with Andi. We have such great conversations during our runs and it's so therapeutic.
So we started out on the north side of the river under the Mopac bridge, and we did the 1st street bridge loop. We walked only once - across the 1st street bridge. That was our reward for kicking ass for almost 2 miles prior to reaching it.
The run was by no means easy. In fact, if Andi hadn't been there, I might have walked a whole lot more. Actually, scratch that. I probably wouldn't have made it down there in the first place. But it was enjoyable, and it felt great to push myself and know that I wasn't responsible for another life form. I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to make it all the way around. I think that's a 4 mile loop. I can't wait until Trent is old enough (and predictable enough) to go with me in his Jogger on town lake.
Now I'm thinking about training for a half marathon.

Flashback

Courtesy of Barbie, I was reminded of just how huge I got at the end of pregnancy. This is a picture of me about 2 weeks before Trent was born, taken at NXNW at a Cameron Road gig:


I can't quite believe it!

Return to sanity?

Tuesday was my first day back to work after 2 months of maternity leave. In England you get 9 months paid maternity leave. Here in the US, you get 6 weeks (if you're lucky) and 8 weeks if you had a c-section. I remember before Trent was born and I was contemplating my 6 weeks of leave. I thought I'd go crazy in the 6 weeks of not working, and perhaps be bored. I couldn't have been more wrong. People tried to tell me. But you can't quite grasp the intensity of having a new baby until it is upon you. During my 8 weeks off I barely checked in with my team and I barely checked e-mail. I mostly deleted the ones I knew wouldn't pertain to me, and ignored the rest that did pertain to me, but I have more important things to do.

A typical day was spent feeding Trent, burping him to make sure he didn't get painful gas later in the day, changing diapers, cuddling him, rocking him, trying to figure out why he's crying. Let me tell you, 8 weeks of that day in and day out will leave you actually looking forward to going back to work so you can have a break. I've been pushed to my absolute limit on patience, I've cried, I've thrown my hands up and said "I'm out!" and walked away leaving Brian to deal with him, I've sat up at 5am feeling guilty because I can't figure out why he's upset and lost my tempter with him, and now, after 8 weeks of being with him constantly, I miss the little bugger.

Trent went to daycare for the first time on Tuesday. We arrived around 9:45 and got him settled in with his teachers: Ms. Ashely, Ms. Carrye, and Ms. Michelle. You can tell they just adore him already. When I put Trent down next to Ms. Michelle, he busted out a massive smile and the girls practically fell over themselves to get the camera out! After we got him settled in, we left the daycare, and no, I did not cry. I guess people do, but I was actually relieved. I have absolute confidence in his team of teachers and I welcome the break. Brian and I had lunch together at Par's Deli that day, then headed to daycare to check on our little man. He had just started fussing when we got there so I rocked him to sleep and put him down in his crib. Then we stood and stared at him for 5 minutes while he slept, then we headed back to the office.

Getting back into the swing of things at work is a bit of a challenge. My head isn't where it needs to be, yet. Likely due to lack of sleep and the nagging feeling that all of this is unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Though what IS important is keeping the lifestyle that we have, so I must get my head back in the game. While I was gone my team got cut by 2 (contractors), leaving now only 3 people (including me) to do the work of 6. My remaining team mates did an amazing job of managing all our deliverables, though I know they didn't have an easy time of it. I chose the wrong time to leave (or the right time depending on who you ask). But now that's all behind us and we're focusing on our new deliverables.

At 5:15 Brian and I headed off to pick up our little man from daycare. When we got there he was passed out on Ms. Ashley's lap face down and looked so cute! I really missed him. They reported that he had a pretty good day, didn't cry much, napped really well, and smiled a lot. It sounds like he had a great day.

British Invasion

This past weekend was wonderful! My "adopted" family, Daz, Mel, and Louise came to visit us for a few days, then headed off to Disney World. What a lucky girl Louise is. This was Mel's (and Louise's) first time to come to America and after only one day, I have Mel convinced to move here. Their visit was packed full of fun and included quite a lot of retail therapy for me and Mel, and some much needed pool time. We hit some of Austin's best cuisine, which includes Papasitos for some Fajitas and awesome Margaritas, Salt Lick for some of the best BBQ you'll find anywhere, and The Oasis, but this one was primarily for the view, not the food, obviously. Now they're at Disney and I imagine Mel's realized her life long dream of swimming with the dolphins and Louise got to see Mickey Mouse.
I'm sad that their stay was so short, but the time we got to spend was wonderful. I'm exhausted, though. It's hard work having a 2 month old baby and trying to entertain guests.