Back to Work!

It's Day 4 of the longest work week of my life. I now understand why "they" recommend you go back to work mid-week. It's extremely tiring stuff, even though I'm only doing half a day in the office and half a day working from home. There's so many extra layers of logistics to deal with - schlepping the pump and new bottles to work every day (so far I have not managed to make it there with a complete set of what I need), having to be home at an exact time to relieve the sitter (thank you Granddad!), making sure the Peanut eats well before I leave in the morning...the list goes on. I appeared on a panel at 9am this morning at George Washington University, and so Murphy's Law of course means that the Peanut literally cried from the time I crawled into bed at 10pm last night until 5am this morning. It was a war of attrition, and I did not win. An obscenely large coffee and a bag full of nerves got me through, but I've got new respect for my working mother sisterhood. Sheesh.

Must. Lose. Belly.

Just gone to buy new make up and 3 people asked me when I was due. Enough said. Redoubling Weight Watchers efforts tomorrow.

Moment of the Day

I'm trying to follow the 90 minute sleep solution (distillation: newborns have sleep cycles of 90 minutes, and are more like to go down to sleep if you try putting them down after every 90 minutes of wakefulness). Well, the Peanut and I accidentally blew through her morning cycle, and I had a very cranky little creature on my hands while trying to put her to sleep. Finally after 15 minutes of fussing, she drifted off into a blissful sleep, that is, until she passed gas so loud it could compete with beer swilling Delta Sigs and woke herself up again. I had to giggle.

Cesar the Child Whisperer?

So I've been watching a lot of daytime TV during my maternity leave. A LOT of TV. In fact, the one silver lining about going back to work next week is that it will save me from my all engrossing television. I knew I was in trouble when I knew all of the gossip about every cast member from the Vampire Diaries despite having never heard of the show six weeks ago. But I digress. One show that has been useful is the Dog Whisperer. I'd always watched Cesar Millan with fascination and sworn to myself that I'd apply his techniques when we become dog parents, but now I'm thinking that his technique - the whole calm/assertive energy thing - works pretty well on babies too. Treating the Peanut like an unruly puppy kinda works! She seems to feed off the calm energy (most of the time), and I get to feel good about being in control of the situation even when she's kicking off. I thought I was the first person to see our friend Cesar as a baby whisperer, but apparently not - even the NYT is writing about it now.

Baby as Friend Magnet

Ever since R and I produced the Peanut, we've made new friends left and right. We've moved around the world a lot in the last six years, from Hong Kong to London and now Washington DC. We absolutely love it here, but we've had a hard time meeting people...it can be kinda tough for a married couple in their 30s to pick up friends, especially when you're pregnant (people in bars look at you like you're a baby killer for even setting foot in the door). "So, come here often?" Yikes. But wheel a cute baby in an UppaBaby around the neighborhood for an hour and those people who wouldn't give you the time of day before will actually smile and....gasp!....stop for a chat. They must assume that if your infant appears fed and clothed, you must be decent enough for them to fork over their phone number and email. We've met more people in the last six weeks than we have all year, and the Peanut is the proud owner of a pretty packed social calendar. Now if only we could get her to acknowledge the presence of her new-found baby friends, we'd be in business!

Welcome to the Monkey House

Call it venting. Call it commiserating. I'm a working mom living in Washington DC (though, technically I'm not a "working" mom until my crazy short maternity leave ends next week). A peek into the state of my existence at the moment: I've started and stopped this very first post about 20 times today. Such is life with a newborn. I suspect I'm not the only one...