Andrew’s Sleep – Hallelujah! This is probably the best update for this year.  The beginning of the year started off awful—the jet lag from Hong Kong combined with Andrew’s general terrible sleep patterns made for a really rough early January.  Matt and I were taking turns watching him.  One would watch him til 2am and then the other would take over.  He’d be so spastic that I just set myself up in the living room with HBO Go set up on the TV and sit there with him on the boob whenever he fussed.  I even dragged the Rock N Play next to me to attempt to get him out…

I’ve been so focused on Andrew lately that I haven’t had a chance to update how Natalie is doing. loves singing songs from school, such as Days of the Week or the Stone Soup song is a total sponge and is really building up her vocabulary.  She surprises us often with things she says, like: “that’s not fair!”, “that would be lovely”, “Oh, I would love to..”, “are you kidding me?” usually eats cereal, oatmeal or “fig bars” (i.e. cereal bars) for breakfast loves deconstructing her sandwiches.  For example, with a PB+J, she’ll lick out the jam first, then the peanut butter, then eat the bread (leaving the crusts of…

I returned back to work last week.  Now that I have more (baby-free) time, I can hopefully (procrastinate) contribute to this blog more.  Andrew is such a clingy baby that it was hard during my maternity leave to really put him down to do much. Work has been fine.  Transitioning is easy as I’ve come back at the end of a milestone so there’s just lots of minor things to keep track of.  Plus, I have an awesome manager that is sensitive to returning to work.  Pumping is no fun but is the reality of being a working mom.  Similar to my return with Natalie, I am not pumping anywhere…

I’ve had a surprising weight loss from this pregnancy.  I only gained 12 lbs (compared to the 25-30 lbs I gained with Natalie).  My whole third trimester was on a diet to lower my blood sugar levels due to the gestational diabetes. I’m now about 15 lbs below my prepregnancy weight.  I’m only about 5 lbs heavier than when I got married which is just insane to me.  I’m even below my pre-Natalie-pregnancy weight.  After having Natalie, I couldn’t get lower than 5 lbs above my prepregnancy weight. Yes, in the last few weeks, I’ve lost 27 lbs.  Call it the “have gestational diabetes while pregnant” diet. I have to…

We took a family trip to Maui in the beginning of April as a sort of babymoon/last-trip-as-a-family-of-three vacation.  After some quick research, I chose for us to stay at a pretty new condo complex called Honua Kai on the west side of Maui.  I had a number of friends with toddlers recently vacation there (3 families all with 3 year olds) so it just seemed destined to go there.  This place was awesome, super convenient, very family friendly, and just what we wanted which was just a chill vacation.  The resort is pretty new so amenities are very modern (i.e granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, gorgeous huge lanais, modern furniture)…

This has been a miserable 2 weeks of illness in the family, particularly for me.  First, I got food poisoning.  Had a weekend to recover.  Then Matt was sick for a day, and then Natalie ended up missing 4 days of school due to a fever.  Turned out to be just a cold.  Well, my 2 days of staying home to watch her resulted in me, in turn, catching her cold.  I went back to work briefly on Thursday but by Thursday evening, I was starting to feel congested. I didn’t go to work on Friday, Monday or today (Tuesday) and I highly doubt I will go in tomorrow.  I…

Thought I’d give an update on wearing Invisalign now that it’s been two weeks.  The first few days my mouth was sore as it adjusted but now it’s pretty pain free.  The biggest adjustment for me is snacking.  Basically, you can’t eat or drink any non-clear liquids when you have the trays in.  It’s not a pain to remove them but in general, it’s a good rule of thumb to brush your teeth and the trays before you put them back in so you don’t trap any food in your mouth.  That in itself makes snacking a pain. I’ve also noticed—bye bye to manicures for the next 2 years (or…

Yes, I’m getting braces.  It’s not obvious I need braces as my top teeth are pretty good and when I smile that’s all you see.  What you don’t know is that my bottom teeth hurt.  Like every junior high kid who got their braces off, I was terrible at remembering to wear my retainer, and over time of course, my teeth shifted….to the point where my lower teeth crowd the very middle tooth.  And I feel the pressure.  Have been for a few years now.  I’ve been talking to a dentist about it for awhile and now I’m finally ready.  A few weeks ago, I went in and got the molds…

I was thinking about the domino effect of cloth diapering and how it’s changed some of our habits.  It’s not a lot but they are all little things that I’ve been happy we’ve changed to. 1. Cloth wipes I started off using disposable wipes.  It was a no brainer for me to continue using disposable wipes (and I still do to some extent)….but there were a couple of things that made me change.  First was the inconvenience of it when out.  I know, inconvenient?  Well,  l learned that the changing table isn’t always near a trashcan…which was annoying when the only thing I needed to put in the trash were…