Merry Christmas!

Tommy did so well this Christmas! I was very worried that the change in his schedule would throw him off but he really did great! Saturday morning we went and saw Santa since he had been sick the previous two weekends. We actually got a great picture too! The guy taking the pictures kept trying to get a better picture because Tommy wasn't looking straight on but I loved this one!Then we went home and wrapped presents and spent time, just the three of us. After that we went to 4:30 mass with my family. It's a mass that's geared toward kids so there's lots of music and it's not super long. Tommy was awake the whole time but did really well.

After mass, we went to my uncle's house for dinner with my dad's side of the family. Tommy had a slight melt down at 7 but after some soothing, he was wide awake and happy to be passed around to my family members. Around 8:30, he was exhausted and went to sleep. We decided to go home at that point and Tommy slept pretty well that night.

Sunday morning, we opened presents at our house and Tommy had a ball ripping the wrapping paper off of the presents! Then we got dressed and went up to my parents' house and opened presents there with my sister and Granma. From there, we went up to my Granma's house to spend time with my mom's side of the family.

Then we went to Bill's mom's house where we spend a few hours with Bill's mom and her husband, Bill's dad, brother, his girlfriend, and sister. Tommy only took a few catnaps and was a little fussy at this stop but nothing too terrible.

We left Bill's moms at 5:30 and Bill went home to go to bed since he had to work at 4am on Monday and off Tommy and I went to another one of my uncles' house to spend time with my dad's side of the family again. We only stayed there until about 7:30 and brought Tommy home to get him to bed close to his normal bedtime. He went to bed very easily and slept through the night! He must have been exhausted.

Overall, the two days were wonderful. It was so nice to spend so much time with all of our family and to celebrate Tommy's first Christmas.

I hope your Christmas was wonderful as well!

5 things

What I have learned in the 2 weeks that Tommy has been alive:

1) The baby blues are really rough on me. The changes that have taken place as well as the hormonal imbalance have been enough to really throw me. It's getting better but the cloud I was living in was a very scary place.

2) I have the best husband ever. If it wasn't for him, I don't know where I'd be.

3) A close second place tie goes to my parents and grandmother. They have been here every day whenever I need them.

4) Newborns have no schedule. Some nights Tommy will sleep and some nights he won't. We had two sleepless nights in a row this weekend and he was awake pretty much all day yesterday. Luckily, last night was a great night. He only woke up long enough to eat every 3 hours from 8-5. I'm working on keeping him awake as much as possible today to hopefully recreate that tonight.

5) My whole life is different now but that's ok. I'll get used to it. Change is very hard for me but I will be okay. This will be the most amazing thing to ever happen to me, once I get my hormones under control and can start to live my life a little bit more. I look forward to being able to take him more places. We've gone out to eat and to the grocery store, the three of us, but I haven't taken him anywhere myself yet. Of course, I haven't been able to drive until today so that's part of it. I go back to the doctor on Wednesday so I will definitely be taking him somewhere myself by then. I'm thinking about attempting a trip to Target or something tomorrow though, just to give it a try.

Feeling down

I should be in a great mood. It's not swelteringly hot today. Bill is off of work. We got to go out to lunch and spend some time together. I got a manicure and a pedicure. I went to the doctor for my 37 week check-up and everything looks great (BP was down to 108/76 where it should be!!!). So why am I in such a crappy mood?

Weekend

Today is Bill's first Saturday off for which he did not have to use vacation time in over 7 years! He started his new job on Thursday and it seems to be going well. He has to get up super early (like 2:30 or 3:00 am) and works long days, 12-14 hours but he's only working 4 days a week and has weekends off! This makes both of us happy. So how are we spending our Saturday? We're going to the mall to buy him a suit...ugh. It will be like pulling teeth but he needs an all black suit to wear for his mom's wedding on July 30th.

The problem with buying Bill clothes is that he hates to try anything on. He prefers to buy things off the internet and rips the tags off before he puts it on to wear for the day. If it doesn't fit right he'll either wear it anyway or just donate it. It makes me CRAZY! Suits really need to be tried on and he's been made aware of this. He also hates bargain shopping. He'll find a suit that fits and he likes and will just buy it, not even looking to see if there are others that he likes that are cheaper. Basically, I go with him to keep him in line. Wish me luck with that!

Then this afternoon, he's working the Valley Field Days which is a small carnival in our neighborhood that the Valley Men's Club (of which Bill is a member) puts on every year. It's pretty cool, they have food and rides and carnival games. They bring in a couple of local bands and will have fireworks tonight. Bill and a few of his friends joined the club last year and my dad and uncles are also members. My grandfather (whom we lost last September) was a long time member and had such pride in the club.

Me? I'm going to hide my my parents' air conditioning and my mom is going to paint my toes for me since I get out of breath after just one toe!

Tomorrow is my family baby shower!!!!!!! So excited!!!!! I can't wait to see everyone, eat good food, and of course, open presents. I've been getting very anxious lately wondering what we will still need to purchase ourselves. I appreciate any gift that we are given but my nesting instincts are starting to kick in big time. I need to know what we have and what we need to buy so we can get this place baby ready. After tomorrow, I'll be a happy girl!

Enjoy your weekend!

Tomorrow's a big day

Bill starts his new job tomorrow! It's currently 10:00 and he's sleeping away next to me which is good because his alarm is going off at 3am! Yikes! It's a good thing he doesn't really require a ton of sleep! I'm probably more nervous about him starting than he is. I don't know how he manages to stay so calm and even keeled all the time, I'd be a little ball of nerves. I hope our baby is as laid back as he is!

Schools out for summer!

Yesterday was a pretty big day for our family. It was my last day of work before summer vacation! As of 2:30pm yesterday, I'm free! Well, kinda. I have to prepare 2-3 weeks of lesson plans for the beginning of the school year for my long-term substitute and I have to go into school in a week or two and let the custodians know how I would like my classroom to be set up. I'm hoping that my principal will let me know who my substitute will be so I can connect with them and discuss rules and procedures that will work for both of us.

In bigger news, Bill put in his two week notice yesterday with his current employer. We decided that this opportunity is too good to pass up. One great thing that happened, is that they told Bill they would be hiring another driver in November at which time he'd be able to go down to working 4 days a week. When he was speaking with the hiring director, they told him they decided to hire someone else now instead of waiting until November and he would have the option of working 4 or 5 days right off the bat. Bill told them that if they want him to work 5 days he would but would prefer to work 4 days. They agreed that it would be best for him to start at 4 and if he wanted to move to 5 days, he could.

He also spoke with them about me being pregnant and they told him not to worry about it. They would work something out even though he doesn't have any paid time off yet, which made me feel better.

Now some more fun news, Monday was my 27th birthday! Bill got me an iPhone earlier this month and I'm so happy with it. He also surprised me on my birthday with a promise to go shopping this weekend for baby clothes. We really haven't bought much for the baby because we're waiting to see what we get as gifts for the showers but he knows that I'm itching to get some things. We're going to go and pick out some fun stuff just from us :) My parents took us out to dinner to one of my favorite restaurants, The Coppertop Tavern (if you're ever in Syracuse, their Avocado Eggrolls are to die for!) and we had birthday cake back at their house. My Granma, parents, and sister went in on a video camera for me! I got the Canon Vixia HF R200 and I'm so excited to document our little boy's firsts!
So here we are. I'm home today and being very lazy, I feel like I can do that since it's my first day of vacation! Big changes are coming our way. Time to hold on tight!

Ch-ch-changes

This past week was extremely eventful. Tuesday was my work baby shower and I was overwhelmed by the amount of extremely generous gifts we received. My coworkers are amazing.

Besides the shower, I also had tons of end of the year paperwork to do and I also had to completely pack my classroom. I had to literally go through everything and put it all into two piles, one of things that stay with the classroom and one of things that belong to me and need to be moved to my new room. It was very time consuming and hard to do. I didn't want to pick up anything too heavy and hurt myself so once I got boxes packed, I'd basically shove them to the correct side of the room. It took much longer than it would have if I wasn't pregnant but it all was accomplished, whew!

Then, Thursday was our last birthing class. We talked about what to expect after giving birth and went on the tour of Labor and Delivery. It was very helpful to see everything and to be prepared for what our stay will be like in just a few weeks but it was also a bit scary knowing that sometime in the next 9 weeks, I'll be giving birth there (my doctor doesn't really go much longer than 41 weeks).

On top of the stress of packing up my room and finishing birthing classes, Bill got a call Thursday evening that may change a lot of things for us. Last year around this time, he applied for a driving position with another company. Neither of us have been all that happy with his current employer and when the opening was posted at this other company, Bill applied immediately. We have a friend who drives for this company and he put in a good word for Bill. He ended up interviewing and it came down to being between him and another guy and they offered the position to this other guy because he had slightly more experience but promised Bill that if they had any other openings, they would be calling him back.

Well, the guy they hired last year put in his two week notice this week and the supervisor who is in charge of hiring called our friend to see if Bill would still be interested. He said to have Bill update his application on their website and they would call him early next week.

It's a huge decision, one that we basically discussed from the moment Bill got the call on Thursday until we went to bed last night. Currently, Bill works five days a week with Sundays and Tuesdays off. He goes in at around 6am and is usually home between 5:30-6:30pm depending on the day. He works a lot of hours but does get paid pretty well for it. He gets no sick time (which drives me nuts) and 2 weeks of vacation time. This new job would be 5 days a week but with weekends off (would be amazing). He'd go in around 3am and work between 12 and 14 hours a day. He would get sick time and 2 weeks of vacation. At first, he'd be training and not making as much as he makes now but once training was over, he'd be making significantly more than his current salary. They also said that in November, they are hoping to hire another driver and everyone would go down to 4 days a week. Even at 4 days a week, Bill would be making more than he makes now.

Sounds pretty good huh? Here are my concerns. We are having a baby (in case you didn't know that by now) and the thought of another big change at the same time is scary. Also, if Bill is working until about 4 or 5 then needing to get up at 2am, he's going to be getting home and going to bed pretty quickly. He won't be able to help out with the baby at all on the days he works. It will be all me. We're really fortunate in that our families are here and I know I can rely on them for help but I worry about Bill being able to bond with our son.

Another concern I have is that this is a far more physical job than the one he has now. He now has between 2 and 4 stops a day where he pulls his pallets of merchandise straight off of his trailer onto the dock, this new position would mean running ramps at around 15-20 stops per day. He's in pretty good shape now but I worry about how long his body will be able to do this job. He turns 30 this year and while that certainly isn't old, his body will begin to slow down at some point.

We really discussed everything and he's going to talk with his dad (who is in the same industry) about the opportunity but I think the pros out weight the cons. The only major con is that I'll be taking care of the baby on my own. I'm pretty positive that Bill bonding with our child isn't going to be a problem, even if he only sees the baby for a couple of hours a day at first. He is so excited that I'm sure as soon as he walks through the door, he'll be making a bee-line for our son.

I don't know, I'm very emotional about the whole thing and a big part of me really wishes that we didn't have to think about this right now. I wish that the offer would come after we had the baby but there must be a reason for it to be happening now. Maybe it will be easier if Bill takes it now and gets through training before the baby is here. I'm sure it's going to be a huge adjustment for him and it will probably be easier to do now when he can go to sleep whenever he needs to and not be interrupted at all. It's probably for the best.

Last night I went to sleep around 10:30 and slept until 10:30 this morning. I don't know if it was just making up for all that has gone on this week or if I'm starting to slow down. I've been far less comfortable this week. I feel really big and it's really getting difficult to get out of bed and off the couch. There is so much left to be done that I can't really afford to slow down this soon. Luckily, I only have 2 days of work left (Mon and Tues are workshop days) then I'm off for the summer. I'll be able to get it all done once I'm home all day.

My Husband

I just wanted to put this up so I don't ever forget.

I'm currently battling a cold which is annoying but bearable although I woke up a lot last night to blow my nose and to get comfortable. When I was moving around, twice Bill rolled over too, rubbed my belly and went back to sleep. I don't think he was ever really awake when he did it and I can't wait to mention it to him when he gets home from work tonight!

Damn Hormones!

Yesterday was a glorious Saturday. Glorious because I had absolutely no plans! My sister, Joelle, came over to watch the SU basketball game with me and to just hang out. We ended up watching the game, this week's Jersey Shore, and Sweet Home Alabama. A great way to spend a snowy afternoon. When Bill got home from work, we decided to go grab some dinner together. Joelle ended up deciding not to go as we walked to the car. I'm not quite sure why but I was kind of miffed about it because I had to change out of my sweat pants and 13 year old rugby shirt and get off the couch (the horror)!

She went home and Bill and I started driving toward the restaurant. As we got close we realized that the parking lot was overly full and I didn't want to sit and wait too long for a table. Right next to the restaurant is a Wendy's. Hour wait at a restaurant or delicious fast food? Not really a question is it? We got our Wendy's and went home to gorge. I got a side ceasar salad, 5 piece chicken nuggets (to put in the salad), and a frosty. I couldn't wait to get home! That's when the hormones set in.

I opened my ceasar salad to find copious amounts of cheese. I HATE unmelted cheese. I figured there would be a bit of parmesan (I can handle that) but this was some unknown kind and a lot of it. I started to pick it off and got more and more angry as I realized that there was just ridiculous amounts of it. Bill asked me what was wrong and I could hardly get out the words, "there's too much cheese on my salad" before the flood gates opened up. I began to bawl. Like hysterically crying. Over cheese. Damn hormones.

The Luckiest

I have to take a moment to brag about my husband. My husband is a guy's guy, through and through. He doesn't always think to do things just because they need to be done. A sink full of dishes can easily be ignored. I don't think he's cleaned the bathroom once since we've moved in together. That being said, he has turned into the most amazing husband and future father.

He decided that we need daily belly rubbing time (ok this creeps me out a little) so he can talk to our baby. I'm on pelvic rest so I'm not allowed to lift anything too heavy and he literally won't let me pick up anything heavier than a couple pounds. He took over cleaning the litter box as soon as I found out I was pregnant without even reminding him. He put away a whole bunch of Christmas presents while I napped today, and the only reason he didn't put them all away is because he didn't want to wake me up to put things away in the bedroom.

The kicker? He's voluntarily reading baby books. Anyone who has seen Knocked Up knows how important that is! We were laying in bed the other night and we each had a book, him: Hands Off My Belly, me: The Girlfriends' Guide to Pregnancy. We stopped every now and then to read each other interesting parts.

He keeps telling me how beautiful I look, how much he loves me, and how excited he is for us to have our baby. I knew I married the right guy!

"And where was I before the day that I first saw your lovely face? Now I see it everyday and I know that I am, I am, I am the luckiest" - Ben Folds