BFF's

Last night, Alici and Igot to watch Shay while Amy, Ben and Bryn went to a play at University. Both "babies" had fun and we got to preview life with 2 kids. (I loved it....Alicia not so sure.) :) Anyway, here are couple of cute pics. Please note the minimal size difference between Amy's petite little Shay (14 months) and my amazon Parker (4 months).

Growing!

I feel like in the last week, Parker has started doing so many things (or rather, showed signs of starting to do things.) So, I thought I would compile a list.

* teething - I know it's early, but you can feel and sort of see two little teeth on the bottom. She has been drooling like mad, being fussy, chewing on her hands and seems to love it when Aunt Lauren freezes some water in a nipple. Additionally, she has not been sleeping like her usual self - which is killing her Moms.

*discovered her feet - I'm not sure she quite knows what to do with them yet, but she keeps sticking her legs in the air and grabbing for them. Most of the time she just grabs onto her pant legs, but occasionally she will get a foot to her mouth.

*sitting - she is very close to sitting. If she leans forward for a toy or her feet, she can balance just fine. Her main balance problem is front to back as she leans back too much and then falls over!

*rolling - Okay, let's be real, the kid is not motivated to roll. However, she has started rolling from her back to her side and just hanging out there. She can even flip her top leg over and has made an attempt to try to get to her stomach from this position. I think the possibility of her going from stomach to back is slim.

*tummy time - Still not her favorite activity. However, she will lift her head and look around. Then she just lays it on the ground and chews on her fingers. She is much more content like that than she used to be though. She will even smile at you a little and then go back to chewing her hand. I feel like it's progress.

*playing by herself - For awhile, Parker was a kid who needed to be entertained. For the first month or so, she did fine playing by herself. Then, suddenly, she needed someone to play with. Now, she is getting much better. This morning, I was able to lay her on her blanket with her Brightlings Leap Frog Toy (thanks Aunt Stacy) and finish getting ready, load and unload the dishwasher as well as load the car. She was completely content! YEA!

Catching up in pics

I haven't been very good about posting pictures of Parker's cuteness lately. This is mostly because I am working now and don't have much time to post them or even take them. But, today was a snow day (yea!) so here ya go. Cuteness abounds.

pics 2

Okay so, thing got messed up with the last post....more pictures for you, my loyal readers!

She was fascinated by the fire!

16+9 Things

I was tagged on Facebook by Carter to post 16 random things about myself. I started, but never finished. Then, I was tagged by Cathy to post 25 things random things about myself....yeah didn't get to start that one seeing as I never finished the 16. So, I decided to do it here and then just post it on Facebook later tonight. (Can't get on Facebook at work)

16+9 Things about me...

1. I miss being pregnant. I'm crazy. I don't even know why I miss it. Aside from the fact that I was making my baby, I was pretty miserable the entire time. I puked for 40 weeks and had serious back pain for the last monthish. I just wanted her OUT! But now that it is said and I done....I miss it. Will someone please remind me of this next time around when I am sitting on the floor of a public restroom tossing my cookies?

2. I am a horribly jealous person. It's probably my worst character flaw. I'm jealous of Alicia's exes, people who love their jobs, people who don't have jobs other than raising their kids, people with a bigger house than me, people thinner than me, people with more money than me, people with less money than me but who make it work anyway, people younger than me, people older than me....Well, you get the picture. I hate this about myself and I am constantly trying to come to peace with all the blessings I have (for which I am grateful, don't get me wrong), but then I start dreaming of being a stay-at-home mom in a house with a basement and I get jealous. Sigh.

3. I have a love/hate relationship with marching band. In high school and college, I loved it. I looked forward to rehearsals, games, trips everything. My entire social network stemmed from marching band. Heck, it's where I met Alicia. As an adult, I despise it. I don't feel like there is much musical value in it. (It has tons of value, just not in terms of musical education.) I dread every rehearsal, game, parade and performance. I think this has two main causes: 1) I am an adult and my social/personal life lies outside marching band and I hate it when I have to leave my family for a football game. 2) I have never taught students who really enjoyed marching band. So, we are all just sitting there doing something we don't want to do. As much as I fake cheerlead, I'm sure that they know I'm not having a good time either.

4. One of my favorite childhood memories comes from when my family lived in Alabama. We had this gigantic house with 2 rooms on either end of the 2nd floor. They were literally the size of the garage. One of these was my bedroom. My brothers and sister and I would line our dressers up in a row, run across the top and "fly" across to the bed we had strategically placed at the end. I have pictures of each of my siblings horizontal in the air. It makes me laugh every time. I have no idea what my mom was doing while we moved all that furniture! :)

5. I love Christmas socks. Silly, yes, but I just find them so festive. I was very sad this year to discover that several pairs had holes in them. Luckily, I told Santa and he brought me more!

6. I have an additicion to sweets. I know that many people say this, but I really think it's true for me. Alicia brought me a bag of chocolate home from NY. I ate it all in one sitting. I just couldn't stop. I knew I would get sick - I could even feel it coming on, but I just couldn't stop. I just shouldn't start. Which leads me to.......

7. I'm currently mad at myself regarding my weight loss. I have been a fat girl my entire life (well, not so much the toddler years, but I don't remember those.) I have always struggled to lose weight. The only time I was successful was my freshmen year in college. I wasn't even trying then. I think it waas just that I was walking a lot, was too shy to make friends early on and refused to go to dinner by myself. Then, when I finally did make a couple friends, I didn't want to eat like the fat girl in front of everyone, so I ate Capn Crunch and cookies my entire Freshmen year. (Not really sure how that's not eating like the fat girl, but my 18 year old logic escapes me now....) Not a great diet, but only 1 bowl of cereal and 1 cookie for breakfast and lunch does not add up to lots of calories. Anyway, since leaving college, I got fat again. I am now trying to lose weight for real. I have lost 20lbs, which is good, but my motivation is waning. I haven't really exercised in 3 weeks and I'm not as careful about what I eat. I have tons more poundage to shed so I need to really kick it in to gear and get myself together again.

8. I am going to, once again, try playing in BGB. (That's Big Gay Band for all y'all who don't know.) Alicia and I stopped going once we had Parker, partly because community band and a newborn don't mix well and partly because we were frustrated with the state of the band. However, after some amount of begging and deciding that I missed playing, we are going to try returning. I hope that I am not disappointed. I don't need anything else to frustrate me right now.

9. I miss being a really good musician. I worked my butt off in college to become the best flute player I could be and I think that I was actually pretty good for awhile. Now, I'll look at something and think "That's easy," but my fingers or tongue won't be able to hack it. I also miss my breath support and tone. I'm not sure where they went, (I must have left them at Butler)but I certainly don't have them anymore. I wish I had the time, energy and resources to get good again.

10. Secretly, I really like musicals. I know they are hokey and not "good" but I really like playing for them and directing them. I'm pretty excited/nervous to do the University Musical this spring. Oh - and if by chance any of the "regulars" for that pit are reading this, I need you to play. I'm not exactly sure on the details yet, but I believe the performance dates are 4/30-5/2. I'll be contacting you as soon as I get the stuff from Damien.

11. My idea of an awesome Saturday is sitting on the couch with Alicia eating too much fatty food and watching movies or entire seasons of bad tv shows. It's pretty hard to get that right now with Parker.

12. I can't seem to reconcile my life as a mom and my other life. For example, we are invited to a friend's house Saturday night for her birthday. I really want to go, but part of me feels horrible because we would have to leave P at home and I leave her at home all week. I'm returning to the BGB, which means that on every other Tuesday, I will only see her for 2 hours. It makes me feel like a bad mom. I feel even worse, when I do finally get home and I want to spend time with her, but I also want to check my e-mail, work out, load the pictures, read a book etc. I feel like I should WANT to spend every waking second with her since I no longer see her during the day. I just haven't worked this out internally yet.

13. I feel burnt out as a band director. There are lots of things about music education that get me excited, but my current position is not one of them. I never really wanted to be a high school band director. Originally, I wanted to do middle school band. My first job was at a jr/sr high, so that wasn't too bad. Then we moved to NH and I had to take what I could get....HS band. We moved back and I got a middle and high school job. I thought it was what I wanted - all band all the time..... 3 years later, I realized that this was not what I wanted. I missed the Music Appreciation, the middle school general music. There were so many things I wanted to do with my bands, but I felt so much pressure to perform that there wasn't enough time. I guess this is one of the main things I don't really like about HS band - you have so many performance expectations that there seems to be very little time for creative projects or learning about music outside of how to play the saxophone. There is a possibility that I may get to teach K-8 general music (excuse me "Exploring Music") next year. I'm pretty psyched that I may get to focus on teaching kids about music instead of how to play "Smoke on the Water" so that we can survive the next football game. I feel like such a hypocrit because I never wanted to be that person, but I feel like my entire worth as a teacher is currently based on what the band sounds like at the sporting events, so instead of learning the things that we are supposed to be learning, we learn to do what we have to to get by. I hate it.

14. I am a recovering slob. I'm never going to be a neat and tidy person, but I am getting much better. In my last college apartment, you couldn't even walk into the closet because there was a mound of dirty clothes on the floor that was so huge, I thought it might be growing things. Now, I actually load and run the dishwasher AND pick up Parker's toys every night. My dirty clothes are still on the floor though. At least Alicia makes us do laundry every weekend.

15. Sometimes at work (like today) I eat my lunch at 9am. I'm not sure what makes a turkey sandwich sound so yummy at 9am, but it just sounds good and I'm a little bored, so I eat it. Then I'm really hungry by dinner!

16. I have worn a toga and a headress at the same time. High School was such a stupid time!

17. I really want a new house, but I'm also sad about moving. We just did the floors and put up the fence....yeah....I'm just conflicted.

18. Parker spit up on my shirt this morning and I was running late so I didn't even bother to change it. I don't think you can see it, but I smell like sour milk....kinda reminds me of her.... :(

19. I need instant gratification. I like dusting because you can instantly see that things are cleaner. I just don't have a lot of patience for some things (cleaning being one of them) and seeing instant results helps!

20. I used to LOVE beets. I liked them so much that I would tuck them in my cheeks so that I could eat them later. GROSS!!!! I loathe beets now.

21. Speaking of food, I won't eat anything that has lived in the water. I do make an exception for tuna in a can, but that doesn't taste anything like real tuna so I don't think that it counts. I hate seafood. YUK!

22. Sometimes I can't really believe that I am an adult. I have a job, a house, a partner, a kid. That's pretty grown-up, but I still feel like I'm 16. (Well, except for my knees.....they feel pretty old!) Alicia and I were talking last night about what Parker will be like when she's 10 and then I thought "Holy Crap! I'll be 40!" Yikes.

23. I'm paranoid that Parker is never going to move. She hates laying on her stomach and when she is on her back, she doesn't really have a need to go anywhere. I'm pretty convinced that I'm going to be carrying her around when she is 3. She is pretty close to sitting up though. She can go for about 5 or so seconds before falling over.

24. I'm a major procrastinator. Take right now for example. I have to copy some things before my class comes. Instead of doing it right now, I am writing this. I will wait until 10 minutes before class to do it. Luckily, there is a machine in my room. Phew.

25. I have no inner monologue. I am much better than I used to be, but pretty much everything I think comes out my mouth. I have to work really hard at school because I often think some things that I definitely should not say. When I'm not at school though....I get myself in trouble alot.

Stats update

Okay, so this has gotta be quick because I am tired (yes, it's 9:05 - I'm not ashamed!)

Parker had her 4 month appointment today. She weighed in at 16lbs, 12 oz - Sadie, you have us beat there - and a whopping 26 3/4 inched long! Yowza! At this point, I'm not convinced they sent me the right sperm! I'm not uber tall and neither was the donor (supposedly....hmmmm.)

That's it. No picture. Gotta load new ones on the computer. It's harder to get super cute shots now that I'm working. :(

Tomorrow's Friday! YEA!!!!!!!

A Serious Lack of Motivation

I have a Serious Lack of Motivation. I'm not sure how to cure it. There are 10,000 things that I could/should be doing at work, but I can't motivate myself to do them. I think it's probably because I am not invested in this job at all. It never has been my favorite thing, but I would do it. I would worry, stress, plan and at least put up a good front. It has just been ridiculously hard since having the baby. I don't really care what happens here; there is an extreme amount of work that needs done and I feel like everything I worked to do here in the last 2 years has come completely unraveled in the semester I was gone. I know that no matter what I will not return here in the fall, so I just don't care if things get done or not. That's horrible. It makes me a bad person and a bad teacher, but I just can't seem to get going. I'm an experienced enough teacher that I can do my band classes without a detailed lesson plan, although- if I'm being real - I need to do better with the advanced band. However, we have been hovering at around 50% attendance in there, so why should I care if they don't? (Again, that's the bad teacher in me.) My beginning classes have between 2 and 4 kids in them, so that's easy enough. Individualized assignments, float around, help.....blah, blah. I have taught Music Appreciation for 3 years now so I can just look back at what I did last year and everything else is cleaning up someone else's mess that I already cleaned up ONCE. I'm not up for doing it again. So, if anyone has some spare motivation or finds some in the street, pass it my direction. I've got some stuff that needs done.

Happy Birthday P!

Today my baby is 4 months old. That's crazy. Time is flying by. So, in honor of her birthday, I thought I would post a couple then and now photos.
Below: Parker gets her first bath. Please note how much hair she has. This is Parker in the bath 3 days ago. Significantly less hair! :(

My favorite thing about Parker lately is that she is grabbing at her toys. You can hold them above her head and she will reach up, grab then and pull them to her. With her doll, this takes on a different twist (and the pictures don't even BEGIN to tell the story!) She will reach for the doll with two hands, grab it as if she is going to pull it to her chest and give it a sweet little hug....

Then......."Rarrrrrrr," She starts gnawing on the doll's face! It makes me laugh every time!

So, that's it. Happy Birthday Baby. (And please sleep through the night like a good girl because Mommy is tired and has to get up in the morning!)

10 reasons Being a Working Mommy Bites (and a cute pic)

Cute pic first:  Parker got an Exersaucer from her Grandma and Grandpa Sharp for Christmas.  She loves it.  When we finally got it together she was being a super-fuss, but we decided to try it anyway.  There weren't even any toys on it yet, but we set her in it and her face literally went instantly from crying to confusion to happiness!  Below she stares intently at the flower.  (She really likes things with good eyes - the flower has eyes!)

Okay now for the poor me session......

Things I don't like about working:

1) I have to leave Parker. There is extreme guilt, paranoia and sadness that comes with this daily.

2) I don't really know what she does during the day. I do talk to Lauren, but I don't know EXACTLY what she did and I hate that.

3) We have all these awesome toys and she doesn't get to play with them during the day.

4) I only get to spend a few hours a day with her.

5) I can't get anything done around the house because I come home, spend time with Parker, put her to bed and by then it's like 8:15 and I still have to work out (which hasn't been going so well this week - see number 7) and get all her stuff ready for tomorrow. So at around 9pm, I just don't feel like putting the rest of the Christmas decorations away. I feel like my mother!

6) She is growing and changing so fast - I hate to think that Lauren will get to see her do things for the first time instead of me.

7) It makes it so much harder to lose weight. I have been involved in a weight loss challenge with my family. I won the first "round" having lost 14 lbs between the beginning of November and Christmas ( I have since gained back 2 of those I think) and I was excited to start up again and hopefully soon hit the 20lbs mark. It has not been easy trying to do this while working with a baby. When I get home, I want to spend time with Parker, not work out. After all, I only get like 3 hours a day with her some days. So, I have been trying to do it after I put her to bed. Who feels like working out at 8:15 at night? Not me. So, this week has been kind of pathetic with the work-outs. I'm not sure that I will do so well with the weight loss this time around.

8) I am super paranoid that she is going to forget who her mommy is. I know that doesn't make any sense. She knows Alicia and she has been working almost the entire time.

9)I miss spending the whole day with her. I miss sitting her on the counter in her seat and singing silly songs while I unload the dishwasher. I miss reading to her. I miss her waking up from a nap, seeing me and breaking out in a huge grin. I even miss forcing her to do tummy time. (I swear the kid is never going to move since she refuses to lay on her stomach without wailing.)

10) Oh - right - my job. I hate my job. That just makes everything a little bit worse. I feel like it's a waste of time. As a result of our stupid schedule, I literally teach a dozen or so kids a day. For example, today I will start (at 10:30) with a class of 7, break until 1:00 when I will have a class of 3. I should then have my afterschool class of 11, but it's Friday and they don't come on regular days let alone a Friday, so we cancelled Friday practices. Seriously - a big waste of time. I know I shouldn't complain because I get paid to do this non-job, but for every minute I sit here not doing much of anything (trying to motivate myself to really actually prep for teaching 2 kids) I think that I could be with my baby.

On the bright side - it's Friday. I get to go home at 2:30 and I don't have to come back and leave Parker for 2 whole days.

And since my stupid school computer won't post blogs - I'm just now posting this - at 8:30pm.  Sigh.

Back to work and Pics

I am typing this from my "office." BOO!!!! I hate working and having a baby. Hopefully, this will get easier, but I despise it right now. I think a good deal of it has to do with the fact that I don't feel like I am doing anything. For example.....Since school began today, I have taught 7 kids. I have another 12 or so coming in 5 minutes. I have had 2.5 hours completely open in my day. Before, this would have been a great - a non-job, that pays pretty well. Now, I am just frustrated because I am sitting at school, mostly doing nothing (for now anyway since I am completely overwhelemed and have no idea where to begin) thinking that this is time I should be spending with Parker. ARGH.

So, since I have made it clear that I am not doing much of anything, here are some pics that I loaded the other night. They are in reverse order because I always forget that blogger loads them backward and I never feel like changing it.

Parker and Mommy opening presents and Grandma and Grandpa LaMagdeleine's

Parker tries out her new piano (coolest toy ever) Mom's help.
Parker helps Alicia bake cookies. The burp cloth is there because she kept drooling (so gross!) We did our best to keep it out of the dough though!
Parker listening to her nightly story. I can't wait until her hair gets longer to see if those little curls stay!
Parker attempting her new trick - putting everything in her mouth. She has not yet figured out that she can use her hands to bring things to her mouth. Instead, she dives, open-mouthed, at the object. It's pretty hilarious