That lady

You know that vision you have of an airplane flight- petrified mother clutching her baby who is screaming at the top of her lungs. This baby screams so loud it sounds like someone is performing Chinese torture by pulling her fingernails out with pliers. And the mother pale with fear is just rocking her baby back and forth as if she is in a trance trying to figure out what is wrong with the baby and also trying to avoid the fact that everyone is staring at her.

Turns out, I was that lady.

There we were on the plane coming home from a wonderful visit with Mike's family in Arizona and Lucy started getting fussy. Moments later, she made the face that every mother knows is THE face and I curse like a sailor silently as a mouth to Mike, "Oh no! She is pooping!" I weighted the options. We were sitting in the window seat, about 1 hour into our 1 1/2 hour flight and basicly stuck. I mean how does one do this, really? Do you just strip your baby in the seat and change her diaper while carefully balancing her on your knees? Do you take your precious baby to the germ infesting airplane bathroom designed for little people and try to change her there? Or do you wait it out? I, much to my demise decided to wait it out and change her once we landed. Mistake #1.

So, Lucy is cutting her first tooth so I figured maybe she is fussy because her tooth is aching so I give her some tylenol, then I feed her, then I bounce her, rock her, and basically do anything that she likes until the shrill screams start. And of course we are trying to land now so there is no getting up for us. We are stuck. She is screaming so loud it hurts my ear. I am clutching her and at this point have tried to feed her with each boob but she won't even close her mouth onto my boob because she is screaming so much. Mike takes her for a bit and reports to me that she is leaking poop through her clothes. Great. I wrap her in a blanket to enclose my poopy girl. Then I hit bottom. I feel stuck and I feel like I am the worst parent EVER. I start freaking out thinking, "Why won't she stop crying? Maybe something is wrong with her, I should have changed her earlier when I could have gotten up!" Then, of course, I start to cry. Mike is doing a good job trying to keep Lucy calm and now me calm. But frankly we are a complete mess. By the time I have started crying, the plane has landed and of course they announce that our gate is not available and we will have to taxi a little longer. Seriously? Can't the control tower hear my baby girl and speed this process along?

So, the plane finally makes its way to the gate and we are able to get up. Everyone just stares at me as Mike and I push out of our aisle and to the back of the plane before anyone gets up. We place my red cheeked daughter covered in spit and tears onto the toilet seat (barf) and change her. Oh yeah- the best part is that our flight per Southwest was a direct flight which turns out means you stop in a city (LA) and other people board then you continue on to your destination- so we still have another flight to take until we arrive in Oakland. Mike is now interviewing the flight crew to find out how difficult it is to get out luggage off the flight because we are going to drive back to SF instead of the 1 hr flight. I change our little lady and she finally stops crying. We decided to stay on the next flight and we apologize to all the other passengers and we decide to move to the last row of the plane. We take off and Lucy sleeps the whole flight. Next time I fly and a woman's baby is crying I will feel so sorry for 'that lady' and also so thankful it isn't me.

HI HO HI HO and back to work I go!

Well, this whole maternity leave thing has been fun, but it is that time for me to go out in the world and bring home the bacon. Yes, December 20th is the dreaded date of return to work. I can't believe this time has gone by SO fast. I thought I would have done so many things around the house like make photo albums and be baking up a storm daily. But, I didn't. I just sat on my arse and savored the time I had with my little blue eyed, rosy cheeked lady. I can't believe that she is almost 6 months old. It does not seem like she has been with us for half a year. Now I know why old people always say, "I remember when you were THIS big!"

The myth

I almost lied on several occasions when people ask... "is she sleeping through the night?" It seems that after "What is her name?", "Is she sleeping through the night?" is the next most popular questions from strangers, relatives and friends of a new mother. And truth be told if your baby isn't sleeping through the night, you kind of want to murder the questioner. Because, you think NO she isn't sleeping through the night!! Do I look like someone who has had 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep in the past 4 months!

The myth of sleeping through the night is something that every parent dreams of from the day your precious babe is born. You really start to believe that it will never happen. People always told me, "One day she will just sleep through the night." So every night before bed I would tell Mike- Lucy is going to sleep nine hours tonight! And she didn't. It took us a while to trouble shoot her sleeping better at night. A combination of things really helped. The main culprit was the night time diaper. We are cloth diapering (Bum Genius brand) and Lucy kept waking up wet around 2 or 3am-and rightfully so, when Lucy woke up wet, she was so angry from being cold and wet she also wanted a little snack from Momma.
I bought the Huggies overnight brand which helped but she was still waking up wet around 4 or 5- our girl has some awesome kidneys! Then my friend suggested the hemp inserts that fit into a cloth diaper. I used 2 inserts for Lucy and that was the trick! I didn't feel comfortable having Lucy cry it out before when I wasn't sure if she was dry but now with these magical hemp inserts, I let her cry for two nights (not longer than 10 or so minutes) and she did it!!!! Pure magic.

Now onto the next hurdle!

I'm back!

Okay so I have been a little busy for the past say 4.5 months. Our little overcooked bun finally came out 18 hours before her scheduled induction (a procrastinator like her Dada). Lucy Carolina Kessler was born June 23, 2011 at 3:13pm. She has taken our breath away along with most of our sleep and spare time! Kidding... kind of. Well, being a parent is definitely an adjustment. The first few weeks every night Mike and I would say to eachother before going to bed to "get your minute" of sleep. In the morning we would report to each other just how many minutes we got. Usually it was somewhere around 15. Luckily those days are behind us and Lucy is sleeping more. She takes three naps a day and sleeps a 6 or 7 hour chunk most nights. Mike was lucky enough to stay home with us until his NEW!!!! job started the beginning of September. It was such a blessing to have him home during this transition- I really couldn't imagine doing it by myself.

As the long summer days have turned to crisp fall days, the looming day that I go back to work is on my mind. I am so thankful to be able to take 6 months off and I know that I am SO lucky. But it is definitely going to be a transition for us. I started school in September- although it is only one day a week, each Thursday I come home from school and say, " Yay! I don't have to go for another week!!!"

This November, I feel I have so many things to be thankful for. I am truly one blessed woman.

Our overcooked bun

Well, we are three days past my due date and still pregnant. We have been giving our little baby daily pep talks about how many cool gadgets we have for him/her to play with and how much fun it is going to be when he/she gets out. I have eaten spicy food, drank a glass of wine, gone for long walks, but our baby loves me SO much he/she doesn't want to come out! We are hoping that the baby will make a move soon so we don't have to be induced.

In between going to matinee movies, taking walks for frozen yogurt, and daily naps, we have been able to do lots of projects around the house. Mike has been perfecting our lawn. We just had dirt in our back yard until May when Mike tilled the soil and planted grass seed and now the grass looks fantastic. We just bought a lawn mower and we are both enjoying the green yard. We also power washed the shed in the back--- Aunt Barb and Uncle Wendell you will like to know that my power washing skills are still current from my summers of cleaning the tractors! (The picture of me is at 40 weeks)

These Days

On my third day of maternity leave and still pregnant I'm realizing how wonderful these days are. Waking up next to my cutie pie husband and just lying in bed talking, leisurely fantastically delicious breakfasts, long walks together hand in hand and trips to the gym, lazy couch naps in the afternoon,reading a book for FUN and dancing around the kitchen to our country favorites. These are the days where we talk about our baby coming and what he or she will look like and how fun it will be when our little "chick" arrives.
With the whirlwind of the past nine months including starting and ending my first year of masters program at UC and working, I had big plans for this maternity time. The June weather I pictured when I started maternity leave included sunscreen, beach weather with trips to the beach and wine country. But here, it is January in June complete with thunderstorms and downpours resulting in two ultimate couch potatoes!
The things that people complain about during pregnancy like getting up to pee every hour and a half and excruciating heart burn have fantastic perks like the afternoon nap and eating ice cream for its calcium! Ha. We are so happy and enjoying every second together awaiting our little bundle of joy.
Big plans today: prenatal work out class, a little lunch, pedicure and hoping to fit in a movie. Don't know if we'll have time!

Griddle

After our chocolate chip pancake making extravaganza, we decided we need a griddle. My parents had one that they never use so we stole it and it is fantastic!!! We have been making lots of griddled things like: grilled cheeses, panninis, eggs and toast, french toast. Mike and I are enjoying this new way to cook it is really fun.

Indian Cooking Class!

Everyone has been telling Mike and I that we need to get out as much as possible because things are going to change once the baby arrives. So, we decided to do something we normally wouldn't do and take an Indian Cooking class- we love Indian food and it is not something that we would typically make. It pretty much sounds like we won't be leaving our house for for the remainder of 2011 and most of 2112 so we are getting out!
We made the trip into Sur la Table in the city for a fantastic night of cooking.








We made: Coconut-Spring Curry with Cashews, Grilled Chicken Masala with Mango-Mint Chutney, Lemon-Cucumber Raita, Cumin-Scented Basmati Rice, and Cardamom-Vanilla Custard with Ginger-Grilled Pineapple. Mike and I were in charge of the Raita and we managed to mess it up-- turns out you are supposed to READ the directions. Oooops! Pregnancy brain, right???
We managed to fix our errors without getting kicked out of class! Everything we made was delicious. Looks like I'm having fun, huh!!

Family Weekend

The first weekend in April was a fun weekend. AG (my brother) and his family came out to celebrate my Aunt's birthday and my baby shower. As well as my Aunt and Uncle from Oregon. We had a great time celebrating with family- Some highlights were a walk to the the frozen yogurt shop and cooking breakfast with Nephew, Arnold. We made chocolate chip pancakes. They were fantastic! (I think I'm 30 weeks pregnant in these pics.)

















Here are some pics of Mike, Arnold and me making chocolate chip pancakes. Arnold loved the pancakes but I think he liked putting whip cream on the pancakes the best!











Whip Cream deliciousness!!!!

The bun in my oven

We are super excited to announce that we are expecting. Baby Kessler is expected to arrive around June 15th and currently I am 26 weeks or 6 1/2 months pregnant. Here is a pic of me at 24 weeks.

Police Academy Graduate!!!

For those of you who don't know, Mike has been in the police academy for the past six months at Napa Valley Junior College. He started in July and graduated on December 11th. He would say that it was one of the most challenging but rewarding things he has done. His six months of school included lots of shoe shining, thousands or maybe millions of push ups, sit ups and pull ups, shooting guns, driving vehicles, and lots of exams. Mike did great. Mike's parents came out for his graduation- we had a wonderful weekend. The best part of the whole weekend was when we were sitting in Mike's cheering section of the auditorium during graduation and he was called up numerous times for awards-- then he was called up for the valedictorian. We were all so surprised and excited. We are so proud of him. Again need to post some photos-- soon :)

We Moved... in November.

This post is very late, but I hope you understand that life has been busy. We did finish our house in October and had our first night in the house on Halloween! It is actually a sweet story because I worked all day (7am-7pm) Saturday and Sunday and Mike and I thought he would move a few of the things into the house that weekend and we would move in the following weekend. I guess Mike had different plans because when he asked me to stop by the "new house" to see something on my way home from work on Sunday night, I found that we were moved in and he had a candle light dinner set up for us in our new home. It was fantastic!

Guys are so funny because I asked Mike before we got ready for bed if he packed my toiletries and morning stuff. He felt very confident in his ability to bring all my stuff. So I checked and yep- my deodorant and toothbrush had arrived. I am a pretty low maintenence lady but I do use more toiletries than a toothbrush and deodorant! I am not complaining because he did move all of our stuff in and had cocktails on ice for my arrival- I just thought he was so funny!

I am so late with the post I will just post it without pictures for now.