Welcome Baby A

I haven't been posting much lately, but in all reality, I haven't been ready to talk about everything that has happened over the last 6 weeks on such a public forum.

Baby A arrived in a beautiful and super fast home birth. We welcomed her into our home and everything looked great. She nursed within minutes of being born and then again before the midwives left.

Baby A then proceeded to give us a scare. She was admitted to Children's hospital about 3 days after she was born. After talking to her pediatrician, this was something so unexpected that no matter where she was born, she would have been home when everything got worse for her. We are happy to have had some time with her at home and look forward to having her home, again, when she is ready.

I've posted some information on a caring bridge site. I think I needed to be a little more private while I processed what she was going through.

The site is here:Baby A's caring bridge site.

Big N's Forceful Valentine's Day cards

Big N has a deep love for everything involving the combination of Lego and Star Wars. To be honest, it's a pretty cool combination.

This year he wanted to use Lego Star Wars and his Valentine's day theme. I wanted to avoid sending more candy to school. I came across someone else's neat idea and decided to change it just a little bit to tailor it towards Big N's tastes. Big N wanted to use a different character and I wanted it to fit to the photo paper we had on hand.

We used a plain sheet of paper as our back drop and I had big N arrange Obi Won how he wanted him to stand. We then took a photo using my close-up set where I made sure his face and light saber remained in focus. After adding some basic text, this was the card, text, and color combination, that Big N approved of.

With a little creative cutting of the cards, we had Big N write everyone's names on the cards and added our dollar store light sabers.

We have one very happy little boy and it was fun to spend some time crafting his Valentine's day cards together.

Pediatricians

Why is it that well child visits are only available on the pediatrician schedule during school hours? Why would a pediatrician schedule a flu shot clinic during school hours? It makes no sense.

We have found that the last non-emergency appointment of the day at our current pediatrician's office is at 3:10, which coincides with the exact time that school lets out. In order to make this appointment, I must take my healthy child out of school. However, the office is always running late and we never see the doctor until at least 20 minutes after the start time.

On a whim, I scheduled one of the well child check-ups for the first appointment in the morning. My assumption was that the first appointment should start on time and we should get out of there faster. My assumption was proven wrong.

We arrived for our early morning appointment 20 minutes early, were ushered to the exam room and patiently waited for the doctor. About 15 minutes after the scheduled start time, well over 30 minutes into our wait time, I popped my head out of the door to see what the hold-up was. The nurse informed me that the doctor had not even arrived at the office, yet. In fact, the doctor wasn't even scheduled to be in the office until 20 minutes after the start time. It was a bit of a reality check on how valuable my time or my child's time away from school was to this office.

Now that I've figured out their scheme, I've started asking for that last appointment at 3:10. I don't rush to get there early, they have added that buffer for me. I do not take the kids out of school early. I pick my kids up when they are officially done with school, at 3:10. This means we are late to the appointment.

We are late. Every. Single. Time.

However, we always see the doctor 20 minutes after the actual scheduled start time.

Home sick from school and feeling better activity

Little N has had a tough week. She caught the flu bug going around town just in time for the second day back to school from winter break. She was getting up for school on Thursday morning when the flu bug hit her hard and fast. She still had a fever on Friday morning, so we thought better of sending her to school and kept her home one more day. Little N started to act more like herself Friday afternoon and I needed to find an inside activity to curb her cabin fever. Taking my inspiration from a Valentine Heart barrette I'd seen online, we tried to make a version that was little girl friendly and used supplies we had on hand. She was very focused and serious as she cut out the hearts and then the felt. Instead of sewing the heart to the barrette as described in the blog post, I had her stitch two different sized hearts together and ignored the barrette for a bit. She sewed the two different sized hearts together using a large craft needle. We used crochet cotton instead of embroidery thread. This was fine with little N because, really, it was all about the color of the thread more than anything else. Once Little N was happy with the stitching, we simply used a hot glue gun to attach her hearts to the barrettes. After that, it was time to test them out.

The dreaded question...

There are many articles that talk about the lack of support women in this country have when it comes to the decision to work or not to work. On some level, we self-perpetuate the myth that women should be able to have a career and a family. Companies don't have day care onsite, which they should. Companies don't push to offer more time off for a mom and a new baby, which they should. You have to fight to pump your milk someplace other than the bathroom because companies want to ignore that some of the employees will lactate.

I got the question today or perhaps it was a statement on my current life choice, "SO, does this mean you'll finally quit and stay home with the kids?"

Why is it a question only for woman? I have a Masters in Electrical Engineering and a career in semiconductors spanning twelve years. Just because I have breasts it is assumed that I will give it all up. Why do we as a country not find a way to better support women and families in the work place instead of assuming that half of our workforce should be at home. And, why can't daddy be at home?

Why wasn't the question, "So, will your husband finally quit and stay home with the kids?"

We don't know how to handle professional women. Period. Let's look at the latest CEO of Yahoo. She started the job six months pregnant. Should this be a major issue? At six months pregnant there was no way she was trying to hide it. However, investors panicked. Pregnancy should be viewed as good thing. It shows that this woman is healthy and young with lots of time to invest in the company. And let's be realistic, as a CEO day care costs will not be an issue. It's a little different for those of us lower down in a company, but somehow her pregnancy upset the business world.

As a professional woman, it is hard. Sometimes I wonder where the question comes from and why it is being asked. Whatever the intent, this question can feel judgmental. Especially when the response to my, "No," is, "OH, that's too bad."

Going back to work with a newborn is hard. There is no ifs ands or buts about it. You don't want to leave your baby with someone else, but your do. Not to mention, if you do not have a good day care situation (another story for another day) it goes from hard to horrible. Maybe my job situation will change, there aren't any job options for me in a small town and my boss could tire of my working remote. Until that happens, I will continue to work.

I returned to work 18 weeks after my daughter was born and 12 weeks after my son was born. I wish it had been a year, but that isn't possible in the US. My daughter is now going on seven and she loves her friends at school and her after school program. Even better, both of my kids see me as a strong individual, someone who is trying to leave her mark on the world, even if that world wishes I didn't have children to get in my way.

I hope that someday their world will be a world that doesn't assume girls will only want to play house or that LEGOS must come in the color pink in order for girls to want to play with them. A world that doesn't assume our little girls want to look like and dress like a Barbie doll before they start the third grade. However, this is the world we live in.

Polka Dots!

Little N was helping me go through some hand-me-down maternity clothes the other day and came across a great little polka-dot sleeveless shirt. The shirt had gigantic black polka dots sprinkled across it. She immediately squealed in delight. Little N ran to her closet and produced her Easter dress from last spring. Wouldn't you know it, her Easter dress also has gigantic black polka dots sprinkled across it.

Little N informed me that I was to wear this polka dot shirt to church and she would wear her polka dot sundress. However, it was December and not exactly sundress weather. We dug around to find sweaters for both of us to wear during this non-sundress weather.

I had a lovely day being a polka dot twin with my little girl.

scrappy Fabric box

After digging through the scrap bin last weekend, I opted to make something fast for myself. My cats like to clear my sewing table and hopefully this little fabric box will contain the spools of thread I am working with. I have high hopes of not finding the spool completely unwound all over the house. I try to tuck things away when I stop working on a project, but the cats have the uncanny ability to find whatever it is I am trying to hide from them. This then becomes a kitty toy. I used the tutorial described on another blog and I was happy with the results. Definitely a great short attention span project for when you want to complete something fast.