Wagon Talk

Remember all that wagon talk from a couple of weeks ago? Well, I joined Weight Watchers. My mom and I have been going for almost two weeks now, and it's going pretty well.
I've done it in the past (about 4 years ago) and was successful. I always figured I could just do it on my own, but it never works for me. It's the accountability that I need. Knowing that I have to weigh in each week is huge motivation. My mom and I exchange delicious and healthy recipes and it's actually pretty fun to plan a meal. I do love to cook, and it's odd because I find I cook the "best" food while I'm watching my pudge.
My jeans are already fitting a little bit better and with my 10 year class reunion coming up, that's even more motivation.
My goal is to lose about 15 lbs. That would put me a bit lighter than I was before being pregnant, but I was working out like crazy then and was made of muscle. It's nuts to me that when I went back to work in April, I was smaller than I am now. Breastfeeding was good to me...stopping was not.  But no more excuses!!
Last time I did weight watchers, I had a little food blog that had about 4 views and 3 posts, but I am considering trying it out again and sharing my scale-friendly recipes. Would you check it out?

In other news, Charlotte is still giving me naptime grief, but does great for her grandmas. Whaa? Today she did go to sleep without a peep though, so hopefully we're getting over that stage. Sometimes I feel like she's not a little baby anymore. She's definitely not a toddler to me either, but she's like a baby tween. A boddler, maybe. I might have to come up with another tag other than sweet little munchkin baby. Maybe after her 1st birthday, I'll categorize it differently. I love how much fun she is lately, but when I hear and see news of friends becoming pregnant or delivering their baby...I get all misty and miss those newborn days ( a little ).
But no, it's not time for another one around these parts. Nosiree. I've been saying it out loud a little more often these days just to really reinforce it. For now. Baby fever is a virus that doesn't go away. My immunity is high at the moment. But as time goes by, I may get weaker. Oh! Perfect timing! Charlotte is shouting in her crib. Naptime over! Can't talk about little newborns! Gotta go! :)

O.M.Naps.

What in the WORLD happened to my good little sleeper? After all of tose sleep troubles, we finally got such a great sleeping baby. 2 (usually) long naps in the day and 12-13 hours at night without a peep.
This week, Charlotte has decided to cry for a good hour before napping. I've tried keeping her up a little bit longer thinking she might not be as tired, but then she cries and fusses when she's up. I've tried rocking her, and she throws herself out of my arms. The most she'd ever fuss would be maybe 5 minutes before falling asleep, but this 45-60 minute business is wearing me down!

We lowered her crib this week and I do wonder if that has anything to do with it. She's always sitting up and playing in her baby jail. She's always been just fine sleeping in her crib or pack n play. It's where she prefers to sleep. But now? Who knows.

Anyone else have sleep issues around 9 months with their kiddo?

My Sweet Little Charlotte

This little girl has been been making my heart melt into a big goopy puddle on a daily basis.



She is 9 months old and the most fun she's ever been.
She's crawling all over and experimenting with the steps. She wants to pull herself up but can't always make it all the way to her feet, so she "cruises" on her knees. It's adorable. (Well...I feel like everything she does is adorable at this point.)
Charlotte smiles at just about everyone and everything. She loves animals, especially Darby. And she finds it just as exciting to watch me play with Darby or other kids as it would be for me to play with her.
She loves every single food she's tried.
And lately she really likes to do eskimo kisses.
So since I have blogger's block, I will just share a few photos.

I've Fallen Off The Wagon

And I can't get up.

I feel like my life is in a state of chaos at the moment. I'm not talking about that "beautiful chaos" crap that having a child brings. I'm talking about "I just can't get my shit together" chaos.

Ive fallen off the eating right/fitness wagon that I was only on for a few weeks here and there. I have a random good day, but they're mostly filled with a donut hole, some cheez its, wine, and angry birds. It should be that I only have a random bad day. Time to switch it around.

I've fallen off "at least I'm attempting to stay on top of laundry and cleaning and cooking" wagon. I was never on that martha stewart freakishly tidy cute wagon. It's filled with a bunch of bitches and I want nothing to do with it.

I always brag about how I rarely get sick and should remember to stop myself from finishing the sentence because EVERY time within a week or so, I get a cold. So yes...I am getting a cold. It makes me crabby.

We joined our church almost 2 years ago, but haven't had a chance to get more involved, into a small group, etc...because I use my baby as an excuse. Even going to church on sunday has become so difficult because nearly every time we drop Charlotte off in nursery, I get paged at some point because she's so exhausted and doesn't have a place to sleep. (or the one time where they gave all the kids with teeth animal crackers and she didn't get one so she freaked the freak out!) Our services are at 8:30, 10 & 11:30. SURELY one of those times should work, right?! 8:30 would work if she slept until after 7:30, which does happen once in a while. By 9 am, this chick is ready for some zzz's. The nursery does have a pack in play, but it's in the area dividing the toddler room and the baby room. You think that's anywhere close to being a peaceful place to sleep? And on top of that, there are always 2-3 other kids that need a nap at the same time.
We've gone to 11:30 church, but since there is no service following, it goes reaaaalllly long and then we don't get home until ONE THIRTY. There goes Sunday!
My solution? Get a sitter on sunday morning to come to our house until she can stay awake a little longer in the morning. The hubs does not think this is the greatest solution, and thinks that we just need to keep experimenting. I'm all for testing the waters every few weeks or so to see what she can handle, but I just want some sort of routine on sundays and it simply doesn't exist.

In other non-whiney news, Charlotte is AWESOME. She had about 2 weeks of on and off crabby while a tooth was ready to break through, but now that it's through, she's SO happy. She's a fun little girl.

Okay. I'm not sure I'll have my crap together by my next post, but I'll work on it.
Adios for now!

Eurotrip

It's probably about time I get back to business on the blog. Well, as business-y as a casual blog can be.
Marcus and I returned safely from our Eurotrip late Thursday and it feels good to be back in the comforts of our own home. Leaving Charlotte was not easy, but after we were gone, it honestly was great. Since the trip was so far outside our regular routine, it didn't feel wrong that she wasn't there. I think if I were at home carrying on like normal and she were gone (for whatever reason) it would have been much, much tougher.
We had such a good time visiting our friends, Kris and Tiffany. Marcus grew up with Kris and now he is an Air Force pilot stationed in Italy.
I'll give a quick run down of the places we visited, and follow up with some more photos and stories in the near future. To attempt to create one big post would take too long...

We flew from Chicago to London where we had a 5 hour layover before our destination to Milan. Kris and Tiffany were kind enough to pick us up from the airport and drive us all the way back to their place (about 3 hours).
We spent time some time exploring the area and taking in the views:


We were greeted by these mountainous beauties at every turn




Lake Barcis



Lake Barcis again

 Marcus and I took the train to Venice for a Day:

We went to the opening day of Oktoberfest in Munich!!

A big highlight of our trip

And ended our trip with a few days at the breathtaking Lake Como :

A view from the hotel where we (sort of) stayed

It was an amazing trip, I'll be sure to share some more photos and details in the near future. We missed the conveniences of modern day life here in the states, and it took a few days to get used to not checking my phone every 30 minutes (or more!). But the experiences we had were priceless.
More to come...

The Ol' Pharmacy Switcheroo

Over Labor Day weekend, we headed up north to one of our favorite places : "the condo" in Suttons Bay. My in-laws have a place up there and we're fortunate enough that they love to share it with us.
After the whole doggie debacle that I mentioned here, we were happy to have Darby pretty much back to her old self for our weekend away.
Even though the weather was mostly crappy, we had a great time. On Saturday, my MIL, SIL and I spent much of the day together doing a little shopping, movie watching, and LOTS of wine tasting. oy!
We found out that there was going to be a fireworks show that evening and decided that it might be a good idea to get a sedative for our dog since she's been easily worked up in the last few months. I called our vet and requested that she call in an order to the local pharmacy and she said it would be no problem. So while we were out and about I stopped at the pharmacy to pick it up.
I walked in with my sister in law and told them that I had an order called in, and they asked my name. Here is how it all went down:
We walk in and there's a small line, so we're shopping around. I had to get some baby wipes and we were talking about childbirth. ya know, girl talk. It's now my turn in line.
Me: Hi! I have a prescription that was called in this morning.
Pharmacist: Okay, what is your name?
Me: Emily
P: Okay, great. Do you have insurance that you'd like us to bill?
Me: Um...? Well, it's for my....(about to say DOG)
P: Well we can see if it's covered for you! It should be!
Me: Uhh....okay??
At this point, I'm whispering to Megan about how it's for my dog...what do I do? Maybe it's under my name and I could get it covered by insurance? Is this insurance fraud? OMG what is going on?
So she runs my card after I handed it to her with trepidation. And now she's laughing. Oh crap! My face is turning red because I knew I should have just told her it was for my dog. But I can see that the pharmacist is equally embarrassed.
P: Oh my! I got very mixed up here. This is for your DOG, isn't it?!
Me: Yes! I was sort of confused when you asked for my insurance card but I thought I'd try (and I'm rambling and going on and on like an idiot)

She then explained that she got my prescription and another woman's mixed up. Perhaps she figured because I wasn't a Rhodesian Ridgeback trotting into the pharmacy, I wouldn't need the sedative that was ordered.
But the real reason she got them mixed up is because the other order was for nipple cream. Yes, she assumed it was I who needed nipple cream. She was getting more embarrassed as she told the story because she had no idea why she assumed it was for me, but I must have looked like I needed it??

Moral of the story: Next time you think it's a good idea bill your dog's medicine to your own health insurance, just remember that you'll end up needing nipple cream.
Wait, I guess there is no moral to this story.

CRAZY NIGHT

*Sigh*
Today was kind of an interesting day. Work was normal (well, if listening to a person talk on the phone 15 minutes straight, two of those minutes being only about the color pink is normal...) But it was after work that got pretty nuts.
After work, I drove to my mom's house to pick up Charlotte (who got her first tooth yesterday, and her second one any day now!) and chatted for a moment. I left by 5:40, and made it home at 6. It's usually quite a whirlwind after work between getting Charlotte home, fed, bathed, bottled (you know what I mean), and put to bed. It was going to be slightly busier today as I had a couple coming over at 7 to check out some furniture I have listed on Craigslist.
When I walked in the door I was greeted with a bitter, shit awful smell. It smelled as if Darby the dog must have had an accident...all over the house. The thing is, she's kept in her crate while we're at work. I got Charlotte out of her carseat and headed upstairs to let Darby out and the smell was getting unbearable.
I knew I was going to have quite the mess to clean up and didn't know when I was going to do it before our visitors showed up to buy check out our furniture.
Oh my word, I was right.
(If you're not interested in hearing about canine gastrointestinal adventures, you may want to stop here. If you're into it, enjoy!)
I put Charlotte down and gave her a graham cracker in hopes that it would keep her busy for a while.
Darby obviously got very ill during the day and absolutely couldn't hold it any longer. She went outside immediately and pooped non stop for over a minute. Then I noticed she was bleeding. Then she started throwing up. Then I thought she wasn't going to survive. Oh, my heart. I kept it all together and managed to get some things cleaned up while Sweet Charlotte chomped on her cracker. Marcus was on his way home and he told me I should call the vet.
With Darby's health history, I was very concerned that this could be something very serious. I was able to set up an appointment for about an hour later.
Between doing our crazy Charlotte routine, cleaning up for visitors, letting Darby in and out of the house to go to the ladies and barf...it was NUTS!
By some small miracle, I had fed Charlotte her pumpkin and bananas (yum!) gotten her bathed, and started her bottle when the people arrived to look at our stuff. Marcus had been home for about 10 minutes and was able to help me out.
The helpful news is that the couple is buying our furniture! Hooray! The not so helpful news is that I knew I'd be spending it on the vet visit.
We had a friend that was kind enough to come over and stay at our place with our sleeping baby while we went to the vet with Darby. She seemed to be perking up a bit, but we were still nervous.
After a delightful exam, it was determined that it was likely she just had a bug of sorts. I asked about the chances of her "outburst" being related to the mast cell tumors, and she said it was unlikely. Part of me is still not convinced, but hopefully we see her get back to her old self in a few days.
Clean up duty has just ended, Darby is resting, Charlotte is peacefully sleeping, and I'm having a little wine.





Darby got herself so worked up, she scraped her nose up in her crate

 I'm crossing my fingers for a good weekend up north with no incidents from the dog or baby! :)