I'm learning

In the last few weeks:

• I have learned to drive a manual transmission car. Out of necessity. I had been avoiding that like the plague for 6 years.
• I have become a preschool-8th grade teacher. I have never worked with preschool aged children, save babysitting in junior high/high school and hanging out with my own nieces and nephews. Now I teach art to them twice a week. 
• I have taught myself how to use GIMP (the poor man's Photoshop)
• I am being trained as a reading tutor. 
• I am realizing that I can't do it all. Lunches haven't been packed for my husband or myself for over a week. I haven't grocery shopped for almost 2 weeks. Laundry is done on a "as needed" basis. 

I am dead tired most evenings and so confused about the future that my school holds for me. There will be cuts next year, we've already been told. Do I plan on trying to stay? Do I quit no matter what they offer me and look for part-time work in a public school? Do I stay home for a few years? 

I figure all of the new things I am learning are protecting my brain from Alzheimer's (which affects people on my dad's side of the family). 

Thanksgiving break cannot come soon enough, though!

The witch is back.

Possibly TMI...

After almost 4 months of on and off cramps (thanks, endometriosis), she's made her comeback. I shouldn't complain, I haven't had a period since April 2012. I am kind of sad, though, because I have a feeling this came to be due to only having time to pump once a day at work (and likely the babe eating more and more solids). After daycare pick-up we'll be stopping at Target for supplies. I only have those huge, overnight pads left over from the days of bleeding after delivery (so fun to wear that to work today, ha! Although with how heavy it is I feel confident that my limited bathroom breaks won't be an issue...the joys of teaching).

On the positive side, maybe now NFP will be a little easier?

On returning to work....

I've been officially back to work for 3 weeks as of tomorrow, which also happens to be the day Felicia turns 8 months old! I was very lucky to have about 7.5 months to be home with her before returning to my job as a K-8 Visuals Arts teacher. So far, I think it mostly sucks to be back at work. I say 'mostly' because my students are generally pretty sweet kids who make me smile throughout the day and my coworkers are good to work with, but I feel sad about missing time with my daughter. She's been having a hard time with the transition and refuses to eat or nap most days Monday-Friday until I pick her up. Thank goodness she is with my sister and mom who have extra patience for her! And she wakes more frequently during the night than she was before I started teaching again. I'm talking like every 3 hours. Monday night she woke at 3:30am and would not stop crying "Mama mama mamamamamamamama..." until I let her sleep ON me.

Pumping at work? Blech. Two days a week I have 25 minutes to eat lunch AND pump. It. is. ridiculous. Somehow I am making it work for now, but it is not easy. It feels like a lot more to balance than I have ever experienced before. There is never enough time.

That being said, while I loved my short stint as a stay-at-home mom, that wasn't easy, either. Being a mom is just hard.

THAT being said...wanting to be a mom and not having it happen was much, much harder than being a SAHM or working mom (in my opinion anyway). And the hard parts of motherhood are bearable because of all the great parts. The best part of my day? Picking Felicia up after school, hands down.

Some highlights from my first weeks back in the classroom:

* I accidentally called a kid "Farter" in front of a whole class. Have you ever mixed up the first letters of 2 words? I did that to poor Carter. I don't even remember what I was trying to say...something like, "Carter, find your seat," and it came out "Farter." Surprisingly no one said anything about it. And this was one of my 7th grade classes! Either they didn't notice or they are just used to me saying weird things. I may never know.

* I got a compliment from a 5th grader yesterday on the dress I wore. She said it was beautiful and her favorite color, "Tardis blue." Doctor Who reference for you, there.

*Several of my classes cheered and clapped when I told them that Felicia learned to crawl! She was officially on the move the day before school started!

*During a greeting activity in Kindergarten, my Kinders insisted on greeting ME, too. It was just too cute to hear them say, 2-4-6-8 Who do we appreciate? Mrs. Bird, Mrs. Bird...YEAAAAAAAAH...Mrs. Bird! in their little 5-year-old voices.

*I got to lead a game of Simon Says in front of 85 Kinder-2nd grade students when we had to move recess indoors due to a downpour. 85 kids and no toys at indoor recess? Thankfully I had Super Speedy Simon Says up my sleeve! That could have been chaos.

*I sent my first student ever to the principal's office! It had to be done.

So, for now we are surviving. People tell me it will take about 6 weeks to feel like we have any sort of routine. We are already halfway there!

New endeavor: Own Less, Live More

I started another blog. I'll still be here, but this is another part of our lives. My husband and I both come from families that have trouble getting rid of things (i.e. my dad was the guy with 20 years' worth of National Geographic magazines stowed in cabinets in the garage when my family moved in 2000 and, yes, we boxed those suckers up and moved them to our new residence. Cray cray!) and we are getting really bogged down by our constant state of disarray. Take 2 people with too much stuff living in a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom urban apartment and add in a sweet bundle of joy who, now at six months, may start crawling at any moment and what do you get? Chaos. Anxiety. The want and need to simplify our living space so we can live and enjoy our time at home. I am hoping that when the time comes and we move into a house, we won't have any junk! A girl can dream, right?


So, my friends, I present to you Own Less, Live More.

5 Months!

Felicia at 5 months:

At 5 months, Felicia:
* has 2 teeth!
* is learning to drink from a cup
* has the biggest smiles for her Papa
* likes to feel the grass with her feet
* loves to chew on her toes
* laughs when put in the kangaroo hold in Mom's ring sling
* picks up anything and everything within her reach (notice the block arc looking funny? Silly girl kept reaching up and grabbing them!)
* WILL bite you! We are working on this, but watch out!
* has been asked to be a flower girl next May! (Mom may be more excited about that one!)

Family Planning after Infertility and Pregnancy

At my 6 week postpartum check-up, my doctor asked about birth control. She prefaced her question with, "I know birth control can be hard to stomach after all of the trouble you went through to get pregnant..." After a little chat about my endometriosis, my concerns about hormonal birth control (which I have never used), condoms (which we have also never used), and Natural Family Planning (NFP), she suggested condoms until we are open to expanding our family. I continued the discussion with The Bee later that evening and we decided to stick with NFP as we have all along. Unfortunately with breastfeeding, signs have been very hard to read so there hasn't been much romance around here (that, and the fact that my husband is rarely home).  The chance of my fertility (which is subpar to begin with) returning this early is slim to none, given that I am currently ecological breastfeeding and co-sleeping, and of course I have endometriosis, a disease that is the cause of my infertility.

In the days of our infertility before our daughter came along, I thought I would be open to as many babies as close together as they happened to come. I have always wanted 3-4 kids and we got a later start than we planned to. I mean, if we had a baby when we originally thought we would, we'd be trying for #2 right about now. After a couple of years of infertility and currently having a five-month-old babe, I am faced with a reality that I never really considered before. I have lots of questions and concerns swimming in my head almost constantly:

• How would F handle having a sibling at various ages (specifically before age 2.5 or so)?
• How would my body handle another pregnancy so soon after F?
• Does it even make sense to "worry" about getting pregnant again with all of the trouble we had the first time around?
• What would it mean for my career? I don't have any leave saved anymore and I don't make enough for it to be worth working as many hours as I do while paying for 2 young children to be in daycare. Our plan (as if we have any control/choice in things, we know planning is really a joke in the world of infertility) is for F to be enrolled in the preschool at my school before we'd have another babe to find care for. 
• If we avoid pregnancy using NFP or other means, is it wasting the only time we may potentially have to become pregnant again?
• Would a second child, if conceived sooner than expected, have poorer health than our first born because my nutrient stores haven't been replenished yet? I read an article about this and it said that 2-3 years between pregnancies is ideal for maximum baby health, lower risk of allergies, higher IQ, etc.
• Will I forgive myself if we wait 1.5-2 years before trying again and it never happens? We already know we will likely have trouble given my endometriosis. 
• How long will we try before giving up the dream of a sibling or 2 for F? 
• Will adoption be a feasible option? We have talked about it and have been open to it, but we know it is a time consuming, expensive endeavor that may not work out even if we do everything 'right'. (Does it make any of your blood boil when people say, "Why don't you just adopt?" as if it is as easy as going to the pet store for a goldfish? It makes me crazy!)

I know for those of you still waiting for your baby these may seem like ridiculous or even shallow concerns. Let me tell you, I wasn't worried about these things until about 6 months ago! How do you feel now about how close you would like children?

For those of you who have a child/children after struggling with infertility, what are your family planning ideas/concerns? 

Facebook faux pas

I started this post and it got really (really!!) long so I am going to break it down and just focus on one faux pas for now!

When I was in my darkest days waiting (and waiting, and waiting) in the uncertainty and sadness of our infertility I started unsubscribing from certain facebook "friends." I didn't unfriend them for 2 reasons:

1. I was afraid they would notice and confront me (this goes for friends that I still see IRL)

2. I am nosey and like the ability to look at pictures on my own terms

The people that I unsubscribed from had certain commonalities, such as:

1. They were pregnant or already had children

2. They posted things about how much they loved being part of the "mommy club" (*barf* I will NEVER say that!) or how being a mom is the hardest, or most rewarding job they have ever had, or how their life had no meaning before having babies (ummmm...maybe you need to GET A LIFE then, people! Having kids changes things, for sure, but I HAD A LIFE before and many parts of it were darn amazing!)

3. They posted things about being "proud" of being pregnant

4. They complained about their children in non-funny ways

5. They used certain adjectives to describe their own children 

Now that I am a mom, I thought I would be less sensitive. While I no longer cry, I still get very annoyed by certain types of talk. Here is the first on my list of facebook faux pas. 

1. Saying "awwww" about your own kids/what your own kids did. "Awwww" is an acceptable response to what other people's kids have done (always acceptable for pets, as well). If you "awww" about your own kids, plan on making me throw up in my mouth a little bit.

Do any of you have certain types of talk that annoy you on facebook? I hope that I don't annoy people when I post about my family or daughter, but I do wonder sometimes if I am committing a facebook faux pas in the opinion of some of my friends!