Daycare take six (as in sixth week) for the baby and she DID NOT CRY when Caitlin and I walked out of her room this morning. The stars are aligned. The sun is breaking through the clouds. If our life was a Disney movie, Elton John would be singing…something. My baby girl is growing up. All this on a Monday, International OhGodPlease Don’tLeaveMeMama Day.

Daycare has been a tougher adjustment for Amelia than Caitlin, who started when she was only 13 weeks old. When you’re 3 months old anyone with a full set of teeth and nice lap to sit on is A-OK. When you’re 10 months old, you want mama 24/7. No one is as good as mama. No one knows your little idiosyncracies like mama. No one knows when you are really upset or just faking it like mama. Amelia is bar none a mama’s girl, while Caitlin is a daddy’s girl.

The hubby and I took Amelia to the pediatrician this afternoon. She didn’t eat like her usual Miss Piggy self at school and her teacher called to alert me because I told her Amelia had had a stomach bug this weekend. When I called the pediatrician’s office to see if I should bring her in, the nurse said she wanted to make sure Amelia wasn’t dehydrated. Turns out the stomach bug is so yesterday that they didn’t even suggest Pedialyte (Did you know that March is vomiting and diarrhea month, according to our pediatrican? We got it early.) But her ears are still infected. She got a shot, a prescription for a FOURTH antibiotic, and ear drops. I would be bald in patches now from ripping my hair out but Caitlin did the same thing her first winter and magically outgrew ear infections at age one. So, we’re crossing our fingers Amelia inherits that trait from her sister.

Amelia is moving to the big wide frontier of the one-year-olds’ classroom at daycare March 13. I know she’ll be ready. Now will mama be ready? Probaby not.

The girls and I spent a lot of time outdoors yesterday. Even though it was a little cool and overcast it was nice for late February. One of the selling points for our subdivision was the neighborhood park, which is walking distance from our house. Caitlin climbed on the playground equipment over and over again and helped push baby sister in her stroller for a mile walk! Most days we like our neighborhood, except for the evenings when our neighbor’s dogs go insane and it sounds like we’re living next to the dog pound, but the hubby and I talk (and dream) about eventually moving out of suburbia. But we’re zoned for a very good elementary school, so we don’t feel the need to uproot any time soon as Caitlin starts kindergarten in fall 2007. That is another topic entirely. I can’t BELIEVE my baby is going to be starting real school next year!
(Read on …)

Last night Caitlin was asleep by 9:15, the baby by 7:30, and the hubby was passed out in the recliner on a heating pad by 10. Yessirreee. It was just me and a bottle of Australian merlot. I caught up on blogland and my e-mail, threw back a few loads of laundry, and enjoyed not one, but nearly three glasses of wine, as well as a few Girl Scouts Thin Mint cookies. Woo hoo! Party time for mama. Normally I’m in bed by 10, but since today is my day off I decided to live on the edge and I didn’t crawl into bed until 12:30 a.m.

Big. Freaking. Mistake.

I woke to Amelia crying at 4 a.m. At first it was one of those “be vewy, vewy quiet and the baby will find her thumb and soothe herself back to sleep” wakings. But she continued to cry and I could tell something was wrong. I went in to her room and poor baby had thrown up unchewed pieces of red grape (she ate probably a dozen grapes for dinner that I had cut into teeny pieces) and was curled up in the farthest corner of her crib away from her little digestive mishap. Then Caitlin woke up and then the hubby woke up and the dogs were up and I found myself giving the girls a bubble bath at 5 a.m.

Usually at our house sleep deprivation falls into the following scenarios:
Mama and Daddy go to bed by 10. Both girls sleep soundly all night.
Mama goes to bed by 10 and Daddy stays up late working until midnight. The 3-year-old wakes up at 5:30 demanding Dora, French Toast sticks, and apple juice shaken, not stirred.
Mama and Daddy both stay up until midnight. Ditto on above for the 3-year-old, plus the baby wakes up just because at 1 a.m., just as mama and daddy have slipped into a deep sleep.
Mama and Daddy have client meetings the next day. Ditto on all of the above, plus the baby’s diaper leaks at 3 a.m.
Mama and Daddy have a few glasses of wine and stay up until at least midnight. Ditto on all of the above, a thunderstorm rolls through at 4 a.m., the neurotic dog 40-pound-dog whose nails haven’t been clipped in two years insists on getting in our queen-size bed between the two of us, the electricity goes off, and the 70-pound-dog feels left out and cold noses me at 5 a.m. with his dog treat breath.

I’ve had pain lately in my tailbone area and I haven’t been ice skating or log rolling or bouncing up and down on a trampoline (minds out of gutters, please). Early this week I could barely stand up from my generic black office chair on wheels without feeling this crushing pain in the tailbone region. Of course being the Internet savvy hypochondriac that I am I fervently Googled “tailbone pain childbirth women” and every variant of that phrase and self-diagnosed my problem as weakened pelvic floor muscles. Figures it would have something to do with childbirth and two c-sections and having my innards tugged like Silly Putty in order for the doc to pull two nearly 8 pound babes out of a teeny ole incision. Here’s a handy dandy link to a site with information. Loverly name, eh? Our receptionist brought a back support pillow for me to use Tuesday but it didn’t help much. But toning exercises (as we speak!), such as Kegels, seem to be helping. My cool yoga knowledgeable brother is going to show me some helpful stretches, but if you have any other suggestions, do share. Maybe one of these would come in handy? Too bad I’m not a Packers fan, or I could order one of these. It was actually very painful Monday and Tuesday, all kidding aside. And of course people are just so anxious to hear about your tailbone pain. Today I switched to a non-rolling chair at the office and that has helped somewhat. Things could always be worse, though, as in the case for this mama. Ouch.

Now the hubby has thrown out his back and is laid up on a heating pad. If it gets any more geriatric over here we’ll have to pull out the bingo cards and hop on the casino bus to Tunica.

We bundled up Sunday afternoon for a drive in the country, which is somewhat of a family tradition. Although we didn’t get much accumulation, the snow highlighting the trees was beautiful. The girls had been cooped up a wee bit much (myself included) and Caitlin was excited about the hubby’s promises that we would see horses. Amelia started to cry about 10 minutes into the drive. I think she finds wearing her winter coat while buckled in her car seat about as comfortable as a diaper wedgie, although she looked like an adorable purple Eskimo peeking out from the backseat. As the hubby drove, I fumbled through my pathetic CD collection as at one point I had the radio tuned to an Eminem song (not so comforting music for an 11-month-old!) I found this CD and knew it would do the trick. It’s a wonderful compilation of mostly classical music and it really is the proverbial soundtrack for my entire pregnancy with Caitlin. I listened to it daily while pregnant with her and we even listened to the opening song, Reverie by Debussy, en route to the hospital at 3 a.m. when I was in full swing labor and about to break the hubby’s fingers with my death grip. We listened to it while we watched Caitlin’s ultrasound video for the first time. We listened to it at Caitlin’s first birthday. To this day I can’t hear Reverie without remembering that special time when Caitlin was someone I had yet to meet in person, yet someone I felt like I’d known for an eternity. I popped the CD in Sunday afternoon while we drove through the countryside and as Reverie began to play Caitlin proclaimed from the back seat, “That’s Caitlin’s song!”

Is wearing khaki shorts to the office in February carrying the casual dress code a bit too far?

Was Tivo trying to tell me something this morning by taping a Denise Austin exercise show focusing on “buns?”

How lucky am I to have my alma mater associated with a frat prank/goat sex scandal? I suppose that’s a bit more appropriate for the News of the Weird than the hometown funeral home director scandal or the torched trailer adjacent to my mother’s farm scandal.

Co-workers who reveal they were born the year you started high school should stay 10 feet away from you at all times (just kidding…she’s very nice, but this reminded me that I am no longer in the young recent graduates club.)

Job applicants should change their personal e-mail addresses listed in their contact information if they include the words party, hot, or slacker.

Courtesy of Spell with Flickr (found via Amber Bamber Boo’s blog.) I knew this nifty program would come in handy one day! Unfortunately I can’t figure out how to make the letters “break,” but he’ll get the drift of my message.