Impatience, confusion, and sleep deprivation

The house. As you can see by the ticker at the very bottom of this page, which I'm sure you have been monitoring as obsessively as I have, we are almost ready to close on the house. Washington has this ridiculous process by which escrow closes several days after you sign the papers, when the title transfer gets recorded by the state. How annoying, I want to get in NOW! (We are used to anticlimactic closings, though. When we signed the closing documents in Missouri, the realtor handed us our new keys and we drove the 20 minutes to our first house. All the way there, we were giddily squeaking observations like "this is the last time we will drive across this bridge before we have our house" and "next time we drive into this sub, we'll have a house in it!" Well, after about 25 minutes of trying every key and door combination multiple times, we realized they gave us the wrong set of keys. We had to drive all the way back to the realtor's office to get the right ones. We were silent on that trip.) Anyway, because of this absurd delay period imposed by the Evergreen State, I thought we would have signed by now, seeing as closing is supposed to be Monday... but NOPE! These people feel that I need yet another lesson in waiting. Fingers crossed they call us into the office very soon. I am purposely not doing my hair and make-up this morning to dare them to call and want us in immediately. I'm a punk that way.

The job. For the past two weeks, I've had the babysitter come over to watch Bean while I work from home 20 hours a week. I'd say it's been going pretty well so far. It's definitely much better for us than group day care; I love being able to interact with him whenever I feel like it, and so far, no eruptions of screaming while I'm on the phone with a client. But I still really struggle with whether or not I should continue working, or stay home full time. My mom had a good way of phrasing the question in my head: "Am I a better mother because I work?" While I think I'm generally the best person to be caring for my son during the day, there's a part of me that thinks I have been a better mom since going back to work. My job gives me personal satisfaction and time to be myself -- so I am more prepared to give Bean the quality of attention he deserves on my days off. But then again, as he gets older, I'm feeling less drained and more satisfied when spending the entire day alone with him. (Seeing the surprised and delighted looks on his face when he explores the world is priceless!) My inner counselor asks: "Are you considering staying home with him because you feel like you should want to, or because you really want to?" Then my inner client sticks her tongue out and storms off. As you can see, I've still got a bit of thinking to do.

The Bean. Many people told me that after three months, it would start getting easier to care for the baby. Thank goodness for all of us (including any potential future children, God willing), they were right. Bean is much more agreeable and smiley these days, drawing admirers when he and I are out on the town running errands. He talks to the baby in the mirror, grabs the zebra on his swing, watches the dog with amusement, and knocks us over daily with his overwhelming sweetness. His sleeping habits aren't the best, which I will tackle as soon as we get back from our trip to Michigan. I can't figure out why he can take a 3-4 hour nap during the day, but only sleep in 2 hour increments at night before he's starving again. And unfortunately, our first foray into 100% shieldless breastfeeding was a failure. His awkward latch meant less milk for him and decreased supply for me over the course of about 5 days. We are back on the shield, but I am working with the lactation specialist at our birthing center to try a more gradual process of weaning off of it. And of course, I can always consult with the dog.

A few smiles to carry you into the weekend...