11/05/2012

well, obviously i’m not going to be writing an entry a day for november.   but whatcanyado.

hopefully joaquin will sleep long enough for me to empty a bit of my brain today.   *crosses fingers*

so…

while i absolutely love that i have this time with joaquin (it’s been just over 2 months since he was born and i "officially" stopped working), i’m starting to get a bit antsy to get back to work so i can start earning money again.   we are good through january of 2013, and have money in savings, but i still don’t feel anywhere near comfortable to stay "at home" past the end of this month.   so i’m starting to ease back in little by little, and i’m trying to figure out what we might do for "daycare" when i do start working again.    the projects we have in the potential pipeline for december would like involve minimal travel – it’s possible i would have an opportunity to go to miami if we book one project, but on the flip of that, i could hire aaron to go instead (although, it would ultimately mean less $$ overall, it would still allow us to earn some money and save me from pumping a stockpile of milk!).   another project would likely keep me on the left coast, and would likely involve some SF travel, which would be much more ideal from both a pumping and time in the air perspective.

anyway, i will be working from home starting december 1st, but travel commitments are still in limbo.   the big question is:  what do we do with joaquin while i work?    there’s no way i can get anything done if i’m in charge of him during the day, but if aaron’s not traveling he can easily watch him.   but if we’re both home, i still feel like i will be tempted to attend to the baby in 2-3 hour intervals and won’t get much done.  the other option is to have aaron’s mom watch him, but i’m not sure how many hours per week we can realistically expect her to do it yet.  so we definitely need to start having that conversation…soon.

until then, i’m trying to be as present as possible while the weeks fly by.  i can’t believe it will be 10 weeks on wednesday!   i love watching him grow and evolve- sometimes by the day.  it’s really amazing.   he’s super social (the doctor was "impressed" with his social skills last week) and is so much more engaged with us.  he’s starting to imitate facial expressions and noises, which is so rewarding.   he’s getting really strong too — his neck muscles are so much stronger and he can lift his head and turn it when he’s on his tummy.  he can also "stand" with assistance – he loves it when we hold his torso and let him go from a squatting position to a standing position.  

one of the best things about his development right now is his sense of "routine."   each night, he gets a bath around 7:30p / 8ish.   he LOVES bath time and we’ve been extending it from 5+ minutes to 10+ minutes.   his little digits get wrinkly like mini-raisins .  too cute!  we put him in a nighttime sleeper after we socialize with him for a bit.  then, i feed him and he (usually)  takes a short nap while we watch our prime time shows.   then we bring him up to our bedroom to change him around 10:30p or so.   aaron swaddles him and then hands him off to me for a short feeding.   he will then sleep for anywhere between 3.5 – 5 hours!   then he’ll usually wake up one more time 3-4 hours later.  after that, he’s usually up for the day and we’ll change him into his daytime outfit and do a little photo shoot in the "big boy" chair – which is actually my glider.    aaron will then head to the gym for a couple hours.  after that, the day is really unpredictable– sometimes he naps long enough for me to get a 30-minute workout in, and some days he doesn’t nap for more than 5 minutes at a time.    sometimes he will only sleep on me or in a wrap.  some days he naps for longer in his swing or in his boppy (like today)  and i respond to this by running around feverishly trying to get things done.  the rest of the day depends on what we have going on and how he was in the morning.  so far we don’t have any real daytime routines, but we’ll start working on that soon.

in other news… it’s our 12-year anniversary on sunday and it’s my mom’s 60th birthday on the 15th.    i have no idea what gifts to buy, so i better get cracking on some online shopping ASAP.

off i go!