Wordless{ish} Wednesday: Back To Work

Well I did it. Today I returned back to work. I saw this in the break room and thought "Welcome back Meghan. Welcome back indeed."  They were all old and stale. So. That's what going back to work is like.

Linking up with The Paper Mama

Photo a Day Challenge Update

So I sucked on this one. I tried, really. But I'm not very good at taking pictures, nor am I very creative. So when I'm supposed to take a picture of water? I kinda look around in bewilderment and then give up. Whoops. Still, I did do a lot of them, so here are the ones I managed.

Day 9: Daily Routine. This guy waits while we get all his things ready for bed (Baby dolls, binkie, sound machine, pillow, blankies, etc etc.) And yes that is a crib sheet wrapped around our ikea chair. Don't ask.

Day 10: Childhood. I had no idea what this meant. I did happen to take this picture on the 10th tho, which is me embarrassing my kid. Nothing says childhood like parental embarrassements, right? 

Day 11: Where you sleep. Um. Yeah, my room is sad. Also I took this a couple days ago because I'd never gotten one on the 11th.

Day 12: Close Up. CAKE!

Day 13: Inside your Bag. Tried but never got it

Day 14: Something you're reading. Sadly, only the occasional magazine article.

Day 15: Happiness- My little guy playing

Day 16: Morning. Missed

Day 17: Water. What? That's Dr. Pepper you say?  ICE CUBES ARE WATER STUPID

Day 18: Something you bought. Nope

Day 19: Sweet. Nope

Day 20: Someone you love. So not hard, but I missed this one too.

Day 21: Reflection. Nope

Day 22: Your Shoes. Nope

Day 23: Something old. Nope

Day 24: Guilty Pleasure. Nope

Day 25: Something you made. Nope

Day 26: Color. Courtesy of Q

Day 27: Lunch. Well Archer had lunch anyway.

Day 28: Light. Nope

Day 29: Inside your fridge. It was too gross, lol

Day 30: Nature. Nope

Day 31: You, again. Meh. Blurry, but it's the only one I got.

I think I'm going to attempt it again this month. Fat Mum Slim posted a February challenge so lets see how I do this time.

Snow Days

Okay, so I'm a little late with this, but what else is new? Guess what? IT SNOWED! Yeah. And let me just say there was a shit ton of snow. Well, for the Pacific Northwest. I get it, we can't deal with snow here. But the thing is? We don't really need to most of the time. I'm just SO glad I didn't have to get to work. I missed a couple days last year because I couldn't get into work, and it was a nightmare. (Let me just say that one day I made it out to the bus stop, and a bus came. At the time I lived on one the WORST streets in the area for snow, so it was amazing the bus made it. But it didn't get far. So I got off the stuck bus and walked the rest of the way to the main Park & Ride and waited for a bus there. And waited. But no buses did come. So then I trecked all the way back to my apartment in seriously the worst windy snowy weather. It sucked. Also? people's weather stories are kinda boring, aren't they? Sorry about that).
Anyway, this time I got to stay in the nice warm house with my boys. I never did get to play in the snow, being inside with the littlest one. But Shawn and Q played it up.

Our neighborhood. The trees everywhere looked so cool

Another view of our neighborhood. This is from my front window. Notice the backyard to the side of us. There are about 20-30 bikes and scooters lined up against the fence. We don't know why. And see the trampoline? I'd like to sneak over there in the middle of the night and destroy it. Kids are loud on trampolines.

A little peak at how much we got

From our back deck

No I will not wear pants

Mittens you say?

Huh. We'll see about this. (yes I hadn't removed the jacked xmas banner yet. It's fixed and put away now, promise)

Pretty Cool I guess

Scoopin up the snow like dad

Going for a walk with dad

Brothers

Okay, I kid you not, seeing my two little boys together is THE CUTEST THING THAT THERE EVER WAS. EVER. IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.  Sorry about that.

Q still isn't saying much these days. But one thing he can say? Archie. Yeah, I know. So he just walks around the house saying 'Mama, dada, Archie'. DYING. As his daycare lady says about having Archie join him next week, "He's going to be so happy to have his brother during the days- it's all he talks about."  I've tried to get pictures of them together, but it's a little hard. The other day I finally let Q "hold" Archie, but only got one crappy picture before I had to rescue the baby from being squeezed to death. Q loves to give him smooches, touch his hands and head and say "soft", and put his arms out to hold him. I can only hope that when they're older, among the fighting and bickering and ruckus, there's still little glimmers of this sweet sibling affection.

Hugs!

 Hey brother.(10 points if you know what that's from) Want a cracker?

 We put Archer's seat out of the way, but Q found a way to get close

 Excuse my while I take this important business call. On the kitchen timer. 

Peeking

Just checking things out. 

 This one just because, oh my gosh that belly!

And my attempt to get a picture of Q holding Archer. In their brother shirts. This was the only picture I got before I had to pick Archer back up. Q was super happy, I promise. 

Archer, 1 Month Old

My tiny baby Archer is already 7 weeks old. How does that happen?! Damn you time! Damn yous all to hell!
Annnyyyway.
I actually took his 1 month pictures on time. They pretty much all looked the same. You know, TOTALLY adorable and precious.

We just had his 6 week checkup, well 7 week it turned out to be. He's doing great, a little cold coming on so he got out of his vaccinations for a week or so. We found out the ultrasound on his hips showed no problems at all, whew. (He was breech which puts babies at an increased risk for Hip Dysplasia.)  He's 12.5 lbs, 24ish inches long. Our tall boy! Next up is a visit to the Pediatric Cardiologist to check out a few little holes in his heart. All expectations are that they'll have closed up by now, so FINGERS CROSSED!

I have to say that Archer is just the sweetest, loveliest little boy. He smiles like nobody's business. I swear I've never seen a baby this young smile so much! For weeks now! I just sit and stare at him while he smiles and coos. He's a champion sleeper too. While Q needed to be held ALL OF THE TIME, Archer is just fine in the bassinet & falls asleep in his swing. I'm actually able to use the bathroom during the day! And write this blog post! I will say he has total "mom's about to eat, time to cry" radar. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.  Also he pooped on my beautiful couch yesterday. I suppose it's my fault for laying him down directly on the couch and not on a blanket. Still. Grounded. Q's doing so great with him. I have noticed an increase of him trying to get us to play with him in his room. You know, away from the baby. But otherwise we've had no issues thus far. Basically it's all just sunshine and rainbows around here!

Here are some other pictures from the last few weeks.

My sweet husband and new little baby, in the Hospital

Ok, so I don't look great. But look! Mutitasking! Breastfeeding and reading to Q. This was my spot for the first week I was home. Notice my phone, water bottle, baby snot sucker and bag of snickers. You know, the staples. I can't explain the Ove Glove. 

Awww, look how sweet that baby is! I pretty much just love when they lay like that.

Tired but happy mama

First smiles on camera! 2 weeks old

Try not to die from the cuteness

Funny sleeper

Okay, who wouldn't want to wake up to this face! (Actually he looked much more smiley before I enlarged it...)

Tiny baby ear! Squeeee!

Tiny baby hand! 

Mom! The sun is burning my head! Cut it the hell out!

Flashback Friday

I mentioned I've been going through pictures to get things framed. And looking at all the older pictures of Q got me all emotional. Wah! My baby is growing up too fast!
Ahem.
Anyway, here's my little guy 1 year ago, at 9 months old.

PS mom, I'm gonna start walking in a couple days. And by walking I mean running.

Friday Five

Okay, so I skipped a couple of weeks. It seems every time I have a moment to myself I have to decide what to do with my time, and blogging is just so the bottom of the list. Anyway, here we go.

1. My maternity leave is coming to an end. I go back to work on Tuesday, which means I have 2 whole days left home alone with little Archer. As expected, and as it was with Q, I'm ready to go back and also please don't make me go back! Generally speaking, work isn't especially stressful. It provides me with actual breaks to eat meals. I can go shopping and run errands (I work in downtown Seattle, so that can be pretty nice.) I get back to a routine. You know, showering every day and all that. But.... I have to leave my baby! Well, now it's babies. Plural. Trippy. 

2.  So remember how I was doing that whole Photo a Day challenge this month? Yeah, I kinda sucked at it. I found it hard to take any interesting pictures being that I don't leave the house all that much right now (Another benefit of going back to work- Getting out of the house every day.) Still I did some, so I'll try and get those pictures up next week.

3.  I've finally ordered copies of pictures to get framed. We have nothing on the walls and it's just not bueno. I have one big collage frame my mom bought us TWO years ago for Christmas that I'm finally going to fill up. Except now I have so many cute pictures of the boys I have no idea how to choose! I've also got some larger prints ordered to fill up frames I got this year for Christmas. I'm so excited! I just feel a home isn't quite a home until family pictures have been barfed up all over the walls. Lovely visual, no? Watch out hallway, I'ma comin for you.

4.  I've been trying harder the last few weeks to actually comment on blogs I read. I've spent all these years reading various blogs, but always felt to geeky to comment. Well not anymore! I'm gonna blabber on whenever the mood strikes. I don't care if someone else said exactly what I want to say. I'm gonna chime in. Why not? I think your new kitchen looks good? I'll say so. Cute kid? Why not tell you! This might be spurred on by the fact that I spend a lot of time breastfeeding, and thus catching up on blogs thanks to my lovely fancy phone.

5. Speaking of breastfeeding, it's been going very well. So well in fact that I have an actual supply in the freezer! Wahoo! With Q I pretty much had to start supplementing with formula as soon as I went back to work. Which is totally fine, but I like the whole not spending money on formula thing. So this is excellent. On the downside I am getting up at 1am every night to pump. Boooo Hisssss. Also, when I say every night I mean I've been really good the last two nights, and before that was too tired to care. But I'm really going to try and keep it up. Or not.

Okay, I can't believe I made it through this without a baby crying. Yessss! Now I must go get my first 2 hours of sleep for the night. You all just have a really excellent weekend now.


PS- Another benefit of going back to work (Can you tell I'm trying really hard to just focus on the Positive? Which PS is so unlike me)  I get to talk to actual people every day and then maybe I won't feel the need to write wordy posts that seem funny in my head but probably don't really translate at all. Also less talking to the TV. Also less trying to find myself a guilty pleasure reality show to watch. I keep trying, but holy shitsnacks is reality tv seriously shitty. That toddlers and tiaras business? What. The. Frack?  And the Kardashian stuff? I just sort of stare confused at the tv. Also? This post was supposed to be finished way up there. So. Yeah.