Motherhood
Little man is nearly 13 wks old which means I can move from counting in weeks to just saying “He’s 3 months.” It also means I’m down to my last 3 weeks of maternity leave.
I pulled Viv out of school Mondays and Fridays and it has been mostly delightful. We go to the library and the Children’s Museum (both skyway connected), then lunch, nap (hopefully), and she’ll independently play while I get dinner ready (or stand at my feet and say “uppy, uppy!” until I either hold her or put on an episode of Daniel Tiger. Listen, we are not zen and perfect over on the east side). We also do a lot of yoga (“Goga, Mommy. Goga!!!”) which is code for mommy getting on the ground, mimicking each other’s movements, and doing twinkle hands for Leroy. She has never showed an ounce of jealousy towards Leroy until the past three days where she went from loving him to well… not loving him. Hopefully that passes quickly.
Leroy and I do good, but I am nervous about returning to work. He still sleeps like crap. We normally get a good window from 8-12 (but it’s hard for me to force myself to sleep at 8… plus I have to get Viv down often). He’s then up to feed around midnight. He’ll eat a big meal but still ends up waking every 60-90 min until about 6am where he’ll feast again and zonk until about 9am. The sleep from 12-6 is so shitty for me that I’ve come to rely on the 6-9am morning sleep to get myself through the day. That goes away when I return to work, so I’ll need to figure something else out.
The last three weeks of maternity leave + one extra of PTO will be spent on a lot of house things (more below) and a trip to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. Dave will be on a work trip for a big chunk of March… which should be interesting. I also got a hot tip from a friend to put the kiddos in daycare a few days early and hit the spa. So yes. I will be doing that.
Returning to work
After Viv I was not ready at all. Now I am. I don’t know if it’s because Leroy is the 2nd kid, or because I’m returning to a new job. Who knows, but I’m ready for it. I know my team has been a bit overworked in my absence and I want to help pull some heat off of them and thank them for allowing me this time with Leroy (They are truly the most supportive group of people I know).
The Home Update
I think the last time I wrote, I said I was keeping home stuff to less than two hours a week. That feels comical now. I’ve been very active and, big surprise here, mostly enjoying it. The framing is done, windows installed, electric/low voltage roughed in, HVAC supplies and returns installed, manifolds installed for our in-floor heat. Tub, shower, and the stand for the washing machine – all there.
Plumbing, heating, electrical, and framing inspections all happened today. Check, check, check, and check.
We met with all the finishing sub contractors this week to get them going – examples: tile guy, trim man, painter, cabinet dude, siding lad. Sidebar: It is amazing to me how male dominated this industry is. I digress…
Next, they “rock the lid.” As in they sheetrock the ceiling on the 2nd floor so they can spray foam the attic and start retaining some heat.
Then spray foam the rest of the house. City inspections and LEED energy inspections are in a week. Then the rest of the sheet rock goes up.
We got a schedule that shows we are a month late already (first the builder said we’d be in by Memorial Day – now he is saying June 27th 🙁). But we are on the other side of winter and hopefully that helps…
A few more hiccups, but I feel like being positive today, so we’ll leave those for a negative day. Things should start moving fast now.
Up North Urbanite 