End of week 1

Today marks the first week in my new job. I've been busy all week and my email inbox is extremely active. I've got about 10 pages of handwritten notes and a todo list as far as the eye can see. And aside from the fact that I have a burning knot in my left shoulder, I'm actually not stressed. Or maybe I am and I'm in denial.

I hope the pace of this week isn't an indication of how life will be from now on. I'm hoping it's a learning curve and a matter of getting processes in place, and then thing will slow down. I've managed to get to the gym only once this week and haven't had time to even go for a run. Not good. The silver lining, if you can call it that, is that I'm far too busy to eat. Every day this week I've sent the boys off and got straight the laptop, and around 10:30 my stomach has complained that it's hungry and I've fed it something to shut it up, like a banana, or a small bowl of cereal. Then by 3pm I've realized that I've missed lunch, so I grab a large handfull of peanut M&Ms (curse you Costco for having a 5lb bag of them!). Then, realizing it's too late to eat otherwise I'll mess up everyone else's dinner schedule, I suffer through till dinner time.

Hopefully when things settle down I'll be able to get back into a healthy routine. Hey, at least I'm not bored at work!

Trent "Awesome" Bauman

The "A" is for "Awesome".
Today I'm going to bore you by bragging about my kid. I always got so annoyed by those parents who felt it necessary to share every little detail of their kid's development with me. Like "little Jimmy drank out of a big boy cup today!". I never quite got the significance of those tiny accomplishments, passing them off as "big fricking deal, my cat can do that". Having lived with Trent now for almost 16 months, I can really appreciate this type of cheer leading for your kid. Aside from the wailing episode from the recent haircut, Trent is the most amazing, sweet kid I've ever met. Ok, granted, I'm biased, but every day I'm just blown away by something he does.

Recently he has been so cooperative when he's getting dressed/undressed. He used to struggle and fight but now he actually assists.
He is now really good at eating with a fork/spoon. Almost always gets the food into his mouth. When he comes home from school, he immediately goes over to his chair and indicates that he'd like you to help him get in it.
He can drink from a regular cup now without spilling it all down the front of him, and he will put the cup down without knocking it over. While I always thought this was no big deal, it actually is because so many times he's tipped the cup too far and ended up wearing the contents. They also go through a throwing phase with cups, where when they're done, they just let go or toss it. You can't do that with a regular cup.
Then there's all the words he's saying - he's repeating a lot of the things we say. He's using his sign language consistently, and he's sounding out the letters of the alphabet when I use the flash cards with him. It's so cute when he hears Brian in a different room, and he says "dada!" and does the sign, then goes to find him.
Over the weekend he actually took a nap without fighting me, largely thanks to Grandma, who simply put him in his crib and walked away. He doesn't try to push Grandma's buttons like he does me. But following her lead the next day I put him down for his nap and walked away. Presto! the kid rolled over and slept!
The last several nights he's signed that he's tired and gestured to get into his crib! Usually, when we put him in his crib, he'd have a little fuss for a few seconds, but now he's just rolling over, hugging his night-night bear, and going to sleep.

Every day I'm so impressed by how smart he is. Lately he's been learning to put the shapes into the shape sorter. He consistently goes for the circle or square and knows which holes they go through. The other shapes he's working on, and with just a little pointing from me, he wrestles them into the right holes. He's also doing really well with the stacking cups. He now builds towers all on his own using the cups in the right size order, and then he nests them, experimenting with the different sizes till the right one fits. He seems to have a very logical mind, which I think he must get from Brian. For that I'm very thankful.

Every evening after dinner, we go up to his play room and spend an hour playing before bed. And every evening he does something that makes me so proud of him, whether it's sorting blocks, building towers, gathering toys and putting them away in their bins, or simply curling up on my lap for a story. I sure do love my little guy. He's so cool right now that I want to freeze time and keep him like this forever. But I know even cooler times are ahead.

Brian and I can totally see now why people have more than one kid. Not that we have any plans for more right now, so you can all let out that breath you just sucked in and held for a split second longer than normal breathing ;-) I'm just saying that with how awesome Trent is these days, we wouldn't be opposed to having another one just like him. And the liklihood of having another one just like him is quite remote... so that's just a silly pipe dream.

Sweeny Todd

This morning, as I sent my boys off to school and work, I couldn't help taking a time out to snap a few quick shots of Trent.
Last night he went through the trauma of a haircut. He hates having his hair cut and it takes two of us to hold him down as he wriggles and struggles, screaming like we're trying to actually cut his head off or something.
I use clippers, which is part of the problem. He doesn't like the sound of them. Grandma had a good suggestion - she said maybe I should let him hold them for a while and get used to the sound. But, alas!, it didn't work out so well. He immediately cried as soon as I turned them on. Even when I stopped using them, and set about him with the scissors he freaked out because he was being held against his will. Tossing his head around. You have to be really careful with a pair of scissors around a writhing 15 month old, it's kind of like trying to shave a cat.
I've tried other methods of cutting his hair, such as waiting for him to fall asleep in his buggy, and then giving him a stealth haircut. But it's hard to do and I can never get the back properly. Again, the though of duct taping him to a chair crossed my mind, but that'd make me a bad mother and CPS would be knocking on my door if they caught wind of it.

But the end result is always worth the agony. Just take a look a this handsome fella I woke up to this morning!

1st day on the new job

Monday was my first day on my new job. My day flew by but I couldn't tell you what I did with the time, really. I've spent the past 7 years working, for the most part, with the same set of developers, and essentially on the same product, although the product (well just call it XPD) has morphed and changed over the years. So I've had a very narrow view of the world for a long time. Living and breathing XPD, not having the time to raise my head up and take a look around me to see what else goes on. And now suddenly I find myself up in the clouds looking down at the bigger picture. It's still not the big picture in the grand scheme of things, but it's definitely a bigger picture than I'm used to.
I found it interesting, refreshing, actually, to think of something other than XPD. It's not without it's bad points, though. As with all change, with it comes the feeling like big dumb ass because I don't know anything yet, and I don't even know what it is I don't know so I can't ask good questions. But I know this is temporary and I am going to rock this job. I just have to figure out how to divide that bigger picture into manageable chunks.

Weekend fun

Trent and I ran 8 miles with Uncle Mike on Saturday. That was my first time to run 8 miles since my last marathon, I think... We both felt great, though (Mike and I). Trent seemed to enjoy the scenery around Brushy Creek Park as well. When we arrived home, Grandma and Grandpapparazi were here! Brian and Grandpa spent the entire weekend trying to fix a broken sprinkler in our back yard, meanwhile Grandma and I entertained Trent.
Trent is learning so fast these days, it's amazing to watch. Some of the things he does leads me to believe he's got a very logical and analytical mind. We spent a lot of time building towers, sorting shapes, climbing up and down stairs, etc.
On Saturday night I got a reprieve from the routine to go shake my bum at Cool River with my favourite band, spending the majority of the evening dancing up front with my "partner in crime", Michelle. I've mentioned this before that the people watching at Cool River is stellar. This night was no exception. I hate the place, but I love it, and for the same reason. Weird!
On Sunday I got a hankerin' (that's the Texan in me coming out) for ribs and in the interest of time, we opted to satisfy my hankerin' with a trip to Rudy's. Not the best place for ribs (y'all remember the Salt Lick, right?), but good enough.
Normally I wouldn't bore people with the details of Trent's nightly routine, but this warrants a mention. Last night after his bath, Trent actually asked to be put in his crib. He signed that he was tired, then he walked up to the crib, put both hands on the bars and tried to climb up. When I picked him up and put him in he rolled right over with this night-night bear, and went to sleep. What a good boy! Brian and I came down stairs and were like "did that just happen?".

Random post

This week's been pretty fun. On Thursday night I finally introduced a new set of my girl friends to Suede at Cedar Street. Renee was skeptical because she's not a fan of cover bands, but it was so much fun for me to see the look on her face as they rocked out. I think she was sold by the time they got to Van Halen. The other two, Veronica and Mara, joined us up front for the obligatory booty shaking.
On Friday evening Brian, Trent and I were planning a family dinner at County Line, but Aunt Tara offered to take Trent for the evening so Brian and I could have a date. Of course we took her up on the offer and went out for dinner, just the two of us. We had such a great time talking and being just us. It's surprising how you don't realize how little time you're making for one another when you are so busy raising a kid. It's also surprising to realize how relaxing it is to have dinner sans kid.

So far this weekend, Trent and I have ran 14 miles over 2 days. We thought about doing the IBM 10K but it was too early in the morning and I was feeling slightly lazy. Several of our friends ran it, though, and I can't wait to hear how it went for them.

One more week till new job starts. I'm sooooo ready for the change. I will miss working with my old team, though. I've been working with this group of developers for 7 years. I guess you could say I have a 7 year itch. I'm struggling to come to terms with the fact that I'll be giving up my technical skills to do my new job. It doesn't take long to get rusty in this industry, so I need to be ok with that. Part of me thinks I could still keep up with the technology. Maybe I can. Or maybe I just need to deal with the fact that I'll be aquiring new skills and focusing on my soft skills. Anyway, it's a good, scary change. I needed to shake things up a bit.

New Job

OK. Now that it's been announced, I can share a limited amount of details on what my new job is. Of course, I never reveal which company I work with, or mention any co-workers or manager names in my blog, so if you want more details than this, you can contact me directly.

I'm staying with my current company, and I am even staying within my current division. I'm going to be a Program Manager. I'll be reporting to a 2nd line manager in my organization now, and will be managing a program that identifies the need for technical articles, finds writers willing to write the content, and connect them with the appropriate delivery formats and vehicles for that type of documentation. That's an over simplified version.

I have a mixture of feelings about the new role. I'm ready for a change and I feel like it's long overdue, but of course I've been in my comfort zone for so long now that it's a scary change. It's also a very visible role, and being an introvert (gasp! it's true), this is the part I'm struggling with the most. I can't let fear keep me in my comfort zone, though, so here we are.

BFF weekend

This weekend was filled with the company of many of my BFFs (Best Friend Forever). I'm so lucky to have so many people in my life who qualify for that title. And I'm not sure if I've shared this news... my oldest BFFs (as in those I've known the longest, not that they're necessarily old) are working on moving to the USA! How fricking exciting is that? Mel has accepted a job in California and is working on passing all the tests now. It could be less than 2 years!
So this weekend was a long weekend for us. I took off Monday to hang with my sweet Trent. On Saturday we all went over to Mike & Tara's for the Texas / OU game. I actually wore burnt orange --not because I like football. Let's get that right out of the way-- but because I feel a sense of loyalty to my home town's team. Yeah, you read it right. My home town. Austin. I can be considered a Texan, even an Austinite. And because I feel a sense of loyalty to the school and team that my husband loves. Anyway, needless to say I couldn't tell you what happened in the game, nor could I tell you the score. But I did enjoy hanging out with great friends. Trent got to hang out with his best buddy, Maverick. They just love each other. He would throw the ball over the upstairs balcony and Mav would run down the stairs to fetch it. I bet Maverick was sooo tired that evening.

On Sunday Trent and I got to go running with Aunt RockStar (Andrea) around Brushy Creek trail, where we discovered a really cool sand pit that Trent and I will re-visit when we have more time. It was covered with a big canopy and there were tons of buckets and spades strewn about for kids to play with. We did a respectable 5.5 miles. On Sunday afternoon we went over to Aunt Barbie and Uncle Scott's to hang out with Cousin Jett, where Aunt and Uncle Bebe and Cousin Aria met us. It was our first time to all hang out with the kids. Trent was a perfect little boy, playing with his buddy, Radar, and trying to be gentle (but not succeeding) at petting Jett. Uncle Bebe entertained us a little with Uncle Scott's guitar, and Trent sat mesmorized on the floor with me.

On Monday, Trent and I spent the day together for the most part. We walked on Town Lake with Aunt Barbie and Jett, then had lunch at Magnolia Cafe. Then we played all day, and Trent went for a run with Daddy some time before dinner. He's such a cool kid, these days. I wish I could just stop time and keep him like this forever!

15 month milestones

I can't recall if I mentioned that Trent has "graduated" to the toddler class at daycare. He's fitting in really well and seems to be having a blast. Unlike the infant class, in the toddler class their days are more structured. We really like his teacher, Ms. Mandy, and feel confident that Trent's getting the best care possible.

Lately, though, he's been coming home and running to me wanting to be picked up. Which I do, because I miss him during the day and I'm so happy to see his smiling face come through the door. However, as soon as I put him down he throws a massive tantrum! Twice now I've had to give him a time out. I've found that time outs are effective if combined with a stern voice and some finger wagging, but it's so heart breaking to have to do that and see his little face looking up at me sniffling and trying to be a good boy and stop throwing a fit. I think he's testing boundaries right now and once he discovers how far he can push us he'll move on to other tactics of manipulating us. I'm sure he doesn't understand me when I say "Mummy does not respond to screaming, so you'll have to figure out how to communicate in another way". But it makes me feel better that I said it.

We had our 15 month Dr. visit yesterday. He's doing very well on all his milestones and has grown to 31 inches tall and 23lbs. That puts him right around the 50th percentile. The snotty nose and congestion he's been suffering lately is viral, which is actually good news because it's not allergies, and it's helping him build his immunity. He had 3 shots yesterday, including a flu shot, and was such a big boy about it!

Mail Goggles

Oh man! I've needed this in the past, and I know some people who need it now if they could adapt it to work on text messages from your phone :-)

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-in-labs-stop-sending-mail-you-later.html

Fun with cousin Aria

eeeeeeeeee!

I have a new job :-)

A girly weekend

It's been a weekend packed with girly fun. Brian and Trent spent the weekend in Houston, which gave me a much needed break. A big thanks to Grandma for taking care of Trent all weekend :-)

My weekend consisted of shopping, sleeping late and taking up the entire bed (aah! such a luxury), cuddling on the couch with the cats and the remote control, a clean house, slumber party at Renee's complete with pedicures, tie dye, pole dancing, playing on the playscape and swings, and my favourite thing... Tequila!, downtown, Suede, shaking my arse, best friends, and Katz's.

And to round off my blissful weekend of freedom, I'm going to enjoy this great weather, put my iPod on, and go for a long run.