Post Prego Aftermath

So the dust has settled and it has been 7 months since baby Ian made his arrival. Hard. To. Believe. So I'm now reflecting back on all that my body has been through in the past year. Anyway, I still can't complain about the actual birth... in fact I'd go so far as to say I'd do it again. (yep, this is why people have more than one child, they forget how horrible it is). However, I can't say pregnancy didn't take it's toll. One of the most notable things is my hair. Prior to pregnancy I was a typical greasy Italian; meaning I had to wash my hair EVERY day or you could literally do a slip and slide off of it. Whenever people would say "you know you're not supposed to wash your hair everyday" I couldn't even fathom it. Once I was pregnant I could go one, two, even three days without shampoo... it was ah-maze-ing. I was able to embrace this whole "don't wash daily" concept I had heard about. Then things got a little funky. The hair by my ears started getting wavy the further along my pregnancy progressed. It seriously had a mind of it's own. So I did what any girl would do and bought products to try to tame it. Honestly though nothing helped. Now that I'm a several months post delivery my hair is taking on a new life... it's Italian grease is slowly but surely coming back...shampooing is once again required much more frequently. I can go a day now, but 2 would be pushing it. The worst is that I am shedding like a St. Bernard on a summer day. It's out of control and frankly concerning that I might be legitimately balding. I've read that this is totally normal but I'm over it. The wad of hair I have to pull from the drain after showering is just absurd. Then, equally annoying the right side of my hair by my ears (where things got wavy during pregnancy) is frizzy and super dry. I can't even explain it, but my hair is not the same texture there. I have again purchased lots of pricey shampoos, deep conditioners, and products with little improvement. I'm crossing my fingers that it will continue to go back to normal. All I know is that my hair is not the same as it was 2 years ago.

The other big "well this sucks" happened after giving birth... Stretch marks. Frankly I thought I was in the clear when up until giving birth I didn't have any. Well instantly after giving birth when my stomach started to go back down stretch marks came out of no where. I guess from the "rapid" decrease?  Yeah, right. Or maybe the freaking DRY air here didn't help my cause. I don't know... all I know is that once I realized this was an issue I bought this mederma cream specifically for stretch marks and I have not been that impressed, or maybe I had too high of expectations (hello, if I buy an expensive cream I was expensive results). I've followed the directions to a T and I have seen very little fading. I am trying not to complain, because really what is a couple of stretch marks below my belly button? It isn't like I need that region to look pretty for a living or anything.  I'm fine with rocking a bathing suit that covers it (in fact I'd prefer to wear one of those dress things the Mormons wears). And if I had a c-section (which thankfully I didn't)...I'd have a scar there instead. So whatever, it is what it is. It's my marks from "war."

The other notable aftermath (no, I am not going to talk about my boobs this time, but that could be a post unto itself...they will never be the same and I'm convinced my nips will forever be sore, ah I digress...)  is the return of Aunt Flow. She goes away during pregnancy and supposedly while you're breast feeding. Lies, lies, lies. Obviously this is different for everyone, but I was shocked when she returned at 4 months postpartum.  I'm pretty sure I got the short straw on this (I'd like to think it's my dominate alpha female hormones just taking charge). I tell you this not to enter the world of TMI, but because it was something I was always curious about and I just want to give a head's up to my friends who haven't had kids yet but will someday. This is also why so many idiots out there get pregnant and say "but I was breastfeeding, so it shouldn't of happened." Yes. It. Can.

Long story short... I'm going bald, I have stretch marks, sore nips and a period. How hot am I? Don't answer that.This is what they call motherhood. Cheers.

6 month wrap up

Well , true to form I am a month behind. Ian is officially 7 months (booohooo! How is he getting so old?!)... 

So here's where little man was at 6 months:

Weight: 16 lbs 1oz -- 27th percentile

Height/Length: 27 3/4" -- 89th percentile

Head circumference:  17 1/4"  -- 60th percentile

He still remains by long and lean little man. This makes me a bit nervous for the upcoming cooler months because long pants are hard to come by. I'm thinking I'll have to buy them big and then "alter" them.  We shall see. 

Other notable things....

- He now gibber gabbers constantly

- He is rolling machine.  At night in his crib he will start at one side and before long I'll see on the video monitor that he is completely upside down and at the other end of the crib. What this means is that he cannot be left unattended on a bed/sofa/etc...and forget that whole "put baby on his back" thing because you can put him there but he won't stay for long. 

- He has a blankie and he is in love with it. I got a pack of them for a gift and have since bought more. When he sees the blankie it's thumb in mouth immediately. 

- Sucks his thumb... almost exclusively his left thumb.

- Still has that damn blocked tear duct. MAKES ME CRAZY. The doctor told me to just keep on waiting for him to out grow it, but ugh.  

- His eyes are STILL blue! And his hair is BLONDE. I swear he's our child.

- Has started eating some solid foods... his favorites are Mum Mums, and pieces of avocado or bananas.  He is not interested in "mush" or things requiring a spoon.

- Sleeps through the night about 50% of the time. 

My friend Bonnie happened to be in town  from DC right at Ian's 6 month mile marker. She is an architect by day and a photographer by night, and she offered to do some photos of little buddy while she was visiting. I was so excited to have her take his pictures, and clearly you can see she's amazing at it (she took the photo above). You can check out her blog and more of Ian's photo shoot here. And she uploaded the entire shoot here.  Thank you BonBon, you captured him perfectly! 

VAAAAY CAAYYY - Part 1

I can't complain that we don't go on a lot of trips and luckily for us we live in a vacation spot and within an hour or so a dozen of additional vacation destinations. However, it is a rarity that we take a whole week off. Typically, we are the "long weekend trippers" but this time we took a whole week off over the 4th of July holiday and vacationed in Cape Cod.  And boy was that wonderful.  Since returning to work in April I had been essentially saving every newly accrued PTO day for this trip (and I used them all but .08 hours... big spender). We are really lucky that John has family (Aunt Kathy, Uncle David, and Cousin Katie, her kiddos JD & Evangeline, and husband, Gary) who live at the Cape which is just perfect because we get to visit with family and enjoy such a wonderful place.

So here's our trip deets PART 1...  

July 3rd: 

Only downside, it takes a really long time to get from Denver to the Cape... especially if you don't fly direct, but Ian was a total trooper on the plane there we never had a moment of being "those people." Ian pretty much slept or just sat up and played with his toys the whole way.

Angel baby sleeping on the plane

After an entire day of traveling on July 3rd we finally made it to John's Aunt and Uncle's beautiful house at like 10pm. Travelling east is the pits because you lose so many hours, but the vacation was well worth the long trip.

July 4th: 

First things first, Ian met Evangeline (John's cousin Katie's baby girl who was born 2 months before Ian).  And I'm sorry but could they be any cuter playing with the toys?! 

Good morning to my new cousin! Ian also started sitting up on his own this trip!!
Still a little wobbly but cousin E showed him how it is done. 

Evangeline "Easy-E" is all smiles!

Happy 4th from Chatham

Little buddy played on the porch with toys and enjoyed himself a  happy 4th!

Ian discovered Mum Mum's!! When Katie was feeding Miss E,  Ian grabbed
one of the Mum Mum's out of her hand and the rest is history... he is a Mum Mum addict.
Major progress in the foodies world.

More playing after dinner

Ian hanging with "Gaga and Papa"

I don't think there is a more patriotic looking place to be on the 4th of July.  I mean seriously the town is covered american flags, stars and stripes, and red, white, and blue.  Such a great day! At the end of the night after getting the kids down we sat on the porch and watched the fire work shows up and down the ocean. We could even see shows across the water in Nantucket - picturesque! 

July 5th: 

BEACH DAY. 

This story was on the cover of the news paper while we were there... clearly we are hard core for braving it. We had to get Ian some beach time though...

Beach Babies... Ian's first dip in the ocean

Not Convinced.

REALLY  not convinced.

Dad taking little man on a beach stroll

Dinner for the little ones... Ian eating ANOTHER Mum Mum.

Starting to sample some of the "good stuff"!! YAY!

John maning the grill for dinner... Yes that is the ocean RIGHT there. Pretty amazing.

I had to document our dinner... because JOHN ATE FISH! Yum!

Yet another wonderful day at the Cape and equally important both my boys hit some milestones with their eating. Life. Is. Good.

July 6:

Today we did a stroll through down town, lunch at the Squire and Cape Cod Brewery Tour. Katie texted John a few weeks before we came to town to let him know that her and Gary had won a private tour at the Cape Cod Brewery and wanted to know if we'd be interested in doing that. Of course to John this was NOT a question, but wonderful news.

Ian hanging out at the Squire

Being a silly guy sticking out his tongue!

FISH AGAIN! Both John and I got the Cod... sure it's fried but hey, John ate it.

Shop in Chatham... questionable name.

Ahhh....dorable.

Amazing. And they are all over. 

Our personal tour... yes we bought our babies. Judge all you want, they enjoyed it.
A couple owns this brewery and  the wife is in the floral dress leading the tour. 

Great tour and the owner personally spent at least an hour and half with us.

Evangeline is very curious. 

Ian is starting to nod off with all this beer talk.
(Note: moments later he passed out in his car seat for the rest of the tour)

"A vacation in every pint" Cheers to that.

No blanket for Evangeline to crawl on? No worries, this box will do.

No caption needed :)

.... More to come.... Stay tuned...

Time for foodies...errr...not.

Great.... Ian is going to be picky, and I cannot stand picky people... they irritate me so much. You know the type, you have them over for dinner and you have to worry and worry about them not liking anything, then you cater the meal to their limited tastes much to your demise. And then as you are clearing plates after eating you notice that despite your efforts to make the most bland meal they have still picked around half of it and you see a pile of things on the side of the plate they clearly don't want/like. ANNOYING. honestly I just never want to be a burden or nuisance to someone especially when they are making me food so I will truly eat just about anything you put in front of me, and I expect my child to do the same. To try to avoid my kid being picky I ate anything and everything I typically would when prego and continue to do so while breast-feeding... I do spicy, I do ethnic, I do fish, I do steak, I do veggies, I do fruit, I do more sweets than I should... I do it all. I swear there isn't a thing out there I won't touch. And Ian (inadvertently consuming it) hasn't seem to be phased by it - I never noticed him kicking extra  after a spicy meal when pregnant, and he sucks down the milk regardless of what I may have eaten prior to pumping. So you can imagine my shock and horror when at 4-5 months the pediatrician told me to start trying some solids with Ian and he was less than impressed.

Case in point...

Looks like this will be a long road, but (mark my words) we will NOT be serving a bottle until he is 20, nor will hot-dogs, chicken fingers and mac-n-cheese be the staple dinner served in my house despite the fact that dad would love it. Not on my watch.  I keep on trying a little bit with him everyday; I can't say we have had success yet, but they say you have to just keep on trying. I have the fancy baby food maker and I am all excited to actually use it. Ugh. Oh well, I'm sure he will be downing my nice mixed green salad with pine nuts, goat cheese and cranberries in no time (note the salad behind him on the counter).

Happy Baby

Little serious man likes to laugh now too... I could totally watch these videos all day.  I wish he wasn't wearing his "my daddy is an arrogant bastard" onsie (he actually go two of these onsies as a gift (shocking, right?...it's a beer for those who don't know) while being so cute, but whatever. The camera work is pretty shotty but it's hard to make him laugh and video at the same time.

Mom goes to Chi-town

For the first time I left my little man behind with dad for 5 days. I had a "quick" work related trip to Chicago. Frankly, I was freaking out at the idea that I was trusting John to rock the baby to sleep, get up in the middle of the night, and keep him happy during the day.  Typically John does really well with the baby until he starts to fuss, then he hands him back over to me. And up until leaving for Chicago I was the only one (except for my mom) to put him to bed or given him a bath. So I was terrified I was going to return to a child that hadn't slept or been bathed in 5 days. I left lists of what to do all over the counter, on the bottles in the frig, etc. I had also mentioned to lots of friends in town that John would be alone with Ian for the weekend, just in case they wanted to stop by (wink, wink).  Thankfully, after 5 days in the windy city I returned to my adorbable baby who didn't totally smell like spoiled milk.

Speaking of milk.... that was a bit of a stress... I had a good stock pile in the freezer but you just never know if you are going to have enough. I had talked to some work collegues who had travelled for work and actually over-nighted their milk on dry-ice. Seriously?! What a hassle.  I had tried pumping double time the week leading up to me leaving but there is only so much prep you can do when working full time.  I mean, I am not going to sit at my desk in my open office pumping to increase my stockpile... I do draw the line somewhere. I was a bit concerned on Saturday (after I had only been gone 2 days) John posted this picture on my facebook page with the note: "Ian is going through bottles like happy hour is about end."

I mean worst case scenario I was going to have to send John out to get formula to supplement and give it to him for the first time. But we made it through! There was a little to spare when I got back. And because everyone cares (this is the stuff prior to having a kid I never thought about) I still had to make time to pump while I was in Chicago. When I was at NeoCon, this meant I'd sneak into a restroom with the battery pack and pump in the handicap stall (I swear I never thought I'd do this) in the Merchandise Mart. Thankfully due to my ties with IIDA HQ I was able to store my stash in their staff freezer (amongst their lean cuisines). However I did have a moment of "who in the hell am I?!" when pumping in the handicap stall....


Pump: (Sarah in stall pumping) swoosha...sosoo...swoosha...sosoo...  swoosha...sosoo...  
Random lady #1 in restroom: (talking to another woman at the sink) That battery charger is sorta freaking me out. It's sooooo noisy. 

Random lady #2: Shhh. (quieting her own voice) I think it's a breast pump.
Random lady #1: Oh yeah, that's what it is... ha ha ha (laughs).... I remember back when I was breast feeding people didn't even recognize it and now code requires a room for it but I guess the Mart is so old there isn't a nursing mother's room. 


As though she suddenly realized that 1. it was actually a pump and not a battery charger, and 2. she was an a-hole who recognized that I had no where to go but the handicap stall.  Believe me, I wanted to yell out... yes it's a freaking breast pump thankyouverymuch... now wash your hands and get the hell out of here. Anyway, at the end of the trip I collected all my liquid gold from the IIDA freezer (thank god IIDA is full of understanding moms too) and put it in a cooler to come home. It's not that hard to get through security... you just utter the words breast milk to TSA and they lose their edge. Aside from a quick "open your cooler and we are going to look at it" I was easily on my way home with my frozen milk to replenish the stash.


Oh but before I wrap this up, I must mention that I'm convinced John made it through the long weekend of me being away because of all the great friends that we have. THANK YOU. They were all over baby duty... On Friday night our dear friends Auntie Jess and Krystal watched Ian and allowed dad to go to the Rockies game (yeah, he has it EASY.... BS, right?). They even took babe on a walk (and texting mama a pic to know all was well)...

Auntie Jess & Ian

Then on Saturday night "the boys" came over to hang out with John and Ian.... And our friend, Sara Nakon, came with her husband Dave to check out the scene. I was pleseantly surprised when she texted me on Saturday that all was going well! On Sunday Ian and dad went to City Park Jazz with all our friends. Ian learned how to drink out of a Koozie (he's really cool)....

look at John's face... as though he is horrified

So, it is doable to be a working mama who travels. Not going to lie that it doesn't come without some stress, but YOU CAN DO IT.

4 month wrap up

Well Ian is offically 5 months (as of yesterday)... clearly I am behind. So without further ado here are his 4 month stats...

Weight: 14 lbs 0.5oz -- 30th percentile
Height/Length: 27 1/4" -- 99th percentile
Head circumference:  16 5/8"  -- 47th percentile

Yep, he's long and lean. He currently wears 3-6 month clothes, but if it's pants then it must be 6 months or they are way too short.

Other notable things....
- He coos and gabbers a lot
- Is all around much more responsive... grabbing at toys, sticking everything in his mouth.
- Lots of smiles, especially in the morning (not sure where he got that from)
- Rolls onto his side (I wouldn't call it a full roll over...see above).
- Enjoys eating his feet.
- Still has watery eyes/blocked tear ducts (I am hoping that changes soon).
- His eyes are STILL blue!
- drools like a mofo. It's insane really.
- Really good at doing tummy time.
- Has slept though the night before, but it doesn't happen every night.
- Has been to 4 Rockies games