Thursday, April 4, 2013

9 months and new job!

It's been a while, hasn't it?  Lots has happened.  I mean LOTS.  So, let's see...

Tooth #2 is finally on its way through.  It's been a couple of months since the first one came in, so at this rate she might have all her teeth by the time she's 13. :P  She's finally rolling both ways and just in the last few days has started crawling forward instead of just scooting backward.  She doesn't have a whole lot of control over it yet but at least she's moving in the right direction.  She's good at going from sitting to all fours, and can get herself out of her bouncy chair by rolling to the side and sliding down on her belly.  Not ideal, but she really likes being able to sit in it still, so we're not getting rid of it yet since I can't find any chairs to replace it.  The exersaucer is still an important part of the day so I can get to the bathroom without worrying about where she's crawling.  She sits in the one down at Grandma's when they listen to music in the office in the afternoons.

We have baba, dada, mama, and nana, along with her typical noises and we're pretty sure she tries to sing along sometimes.  She's getting really good with her pincer grasp with teddy grahams and bunny grahams.  Smaller stuff like cheerios don't work very well yet, but we're getting there.  She's really good with food in general.  I've started giving her some of her meals in Squooshi pouches and she loves that.   Her hair started filling in around 4 months and she has lots of it now.  Luckily it's still the pretty strawberry blond, so hopefully it'll stay that way.  She can wear reds/oranges/yellows amazingly well, considering how badly my coloring works for that.  That makes things a little easier, since grandma always picks red things first when clothes shopping lol.  It drives me nuts, but it'll work for Amy.

We've had several accidents that landed various cars in body shops.  Everyone's okay, and none of it was me, but I'm getting nervous that it's my turn next.  Mom's dings weren't bad, but B hit another tree and Dad hit a deer.  When we finally got the Sentra back from the shop, I started working for the post office as a city carrier assistant!  That means I cover both city routes when the regular carriers have days off, vacations, sick days, whatever.  It was supposed to be part time, but as soon as I was trained on one route the regular carrier took a week off, so I just finished covering for him.  It's been pretty much full time so far, which is totally overwhelming and the transition has been really hard on everybody.  When I started being gone every day, Amy went gung-ho on meeting her milestones.  That's when she started rolling belly to back, babbling, scooting, all of it.  I only have today and Sunday off until next week.  I can't complain too much about the paychecks though, it's made me the breadwinner suddenly because B's hours have still been short.  I don't remember the last time he had a 40 hour week, much less an 80 hour paycheck.  At least this takes some of that pressure off and he gets to be at home with Amy more. He's better at getting the house cleaned up than I am, so it works out.  Even if I feel awful about not being able to do much in comparison.

Unfortunately, pumping at work isn't an option.  Even if I did, it wouldn't be enough to feed her while I'm gone since I can only get a couple of ounces at a time.  As a result, she's half-weaned to formula now.  She gets a good amount of solid foods too, but nursing is reserved for mornings and nights.  It makes me sad, but I'm glad I can still give her some and that we did so well for so long.  As I get better at my job, I might get some time to pump at lunch or something so I can bump my production back up. The stress level of trying to pump all day in the mail truck would be horrible anyway.  The adjustment has been really hard on everyone.  The sudden switch to working practically full time at a very demanding job means that I can't get as much done at home.  I'm feeling better now, but for a while I was feeling awful because I couldn't clean everything, keep up with the laundry, cook, and nurse.  B's been a huge help but I felt like I should be able to keep up.  I was totally overwhelmed with learning the job and trying to do as much as I could at home while still feeding us well.  We're slowly getting the balance better.

And, we have pincer grasp!