Leslie Lee’s Weblog

So I guess I jinxed myself by writing about how good I’ve been doing at keeping up with the blog. Well let’s see, that was 10 days ago…. so I guess I’m not doing too well.

It’s been a busy week – not really – but Olivia has been very active, and I’ve been very exhausted. My belly is growing by leaps and bounds and I feel gigantic. I should really get over it because it’s only going to get bigger, and I still have like 12 weeks to go. (Holy Shizznit! That’s a longass time!)

I had my bi-weekly cervix check on Thursday. I was a little nervous about going in because Wednesday night I had had a lot of contractions and I didn’t call Labor & Delivery because I didn’t want them to tell me to come into the hospital. I know probably stupid, but it was kind of late, Olivia was sleeping and John was working so I was home alone. I was, though, on the verge of freaking out, but I pulled out okay and at my check up I wasn’t dilated. But I did get in trouble for 1.) Not calling L&D and 2.) For being too fat. I have NO idea how a person can gain 10lbs in less then 2 weeks, but somehow I have managed. Yeah, 10 – TEN – freaking pounds! I mean, don’t you think that if I had gained that much weight in 13 days, that I would have mad stretch marks and my clothes would be tighter?? I have no (new) stretch marks and my jeans fit exactly the same. Do you think that it’s all in my belly? It must be, right? My belly and my ridiculously ginormous, saggy boobs. Seriously, I don’t know what to do about the boobs. They are HUGE. I hate them! I don’t know if I just need a better bra, or what, but I feel like I have no control over them. You’ll see from the pictures of Olivia’s Korean bday party, they’re parted like the Red Sea, and they just lay there - like two big globs of that slime stuff that you get out of the quarter machines – resting on this swollen belly of mine. I don’t know how people handle these so-called fun bags like this. I miss my perky B’s.

Anyways, enough about my depressing body issues! On to the good stuff!

Today was Olivia’s first of three first birthday parties. It was her Korean bday party so she got dressed up in the traditional Korean outfit – a hanbok – and looked ridiculously adorable in it. She was a really good girl too. She let everybody hold her and she was very pleasant, it took some warming up to, but she did really good. The Korean tradition is to place the baby at a fancy decorated table and have these things laid out in front of her, each of them have some meaning and see which one she picks first. It’s supposed to, not tell her future, but tell a little bit about who she will become – this is John’s explanation, so who knows if it’s accurate. The point is, she picked the $100 bill first. I’m taking one of two ways, either she’ll be rich or a gold digger.

I thought that the lunch (the “party” was lunch at a Chinese restaurant) would be a lot more painful than it turned out to be. My immediate family was there and Johns younger cousins were there, so it wasn’t so bad. I have a hard time because everybody in his family, immediate and extended, speak Korean. So I don’t always have a lot of people to converse with. But today I had a good time.

Here are some of the pictures, John’s brother has better ones that I’ll have to get from him.

Have you noticed? How often I’ve been updating the blog?

That’s pretty much because we haven’t been leaving the house much in the past few days. John was “sick” last week (I think he was being a baby) and now I have a cold, which is so annoying. I almost think that it’s allergies. But John keeps asking, isn’t it bad? Isn’t it BAD? Uh, NO! So because I’m still able to function (not without kleenex, though), I must have something different from what he had, which was so debilitating he didn’t get out of bed for 2 days. Yeah, that must be it. (roll my eyes)

So on that bitchy note…I guess in the new In Touch magazine there’s a whole spread about how John & Kate (from John and Kate + 8 ) are having marital problems. Is that really surprising? She has gotten absolutely awful lately. I don’t know how anyone can stand it. I used to watch the show more often, but haven’t lately; but I do watch The Soup religiously, and they show clips from J&K+8, and man, she is bad! I mean, I’m all for a strong, even bossy woman – I think I’ve been called bossy a few times – and I totally understand that some men (I don’t want to sound emasculating or anything) but some men need direction. Kate takes it to an entirely other level though, she is just humiliating. During some of those interviews down in the basement, in the chair, I’m embarrassed for him. Anyways, here’s a YouTube clip I found…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IATr2I2VgSY

Nothing much else to report…oh wait, some exciting news. Last night was my monthly Pampered Chef sales meeting, which I ditched and Lisa and I went and got pedicures instead, but then I found out that last month I was #3 in sales (out of 40+ people!) and I had a reserved parking spot and earned ribbons and my “official Pampered Chef consultant” pin! Had I known that, I totally would have gone! Oh well!

First off, these were taken before I washed the sliding glass door today….

And second, that’s her giving him a hug, yes, it is awfully close to his butt…

And third, no, she’s not touching anything inappropriate, she’s a baby, he’s a dog, it’s perfectly innocent…you perv.

And don’t forget to change your clocks…isn’t this year’s daylight savings early? Doesn’t it usually happen at the end of March?

Pictures from yesterday, or was it the day before? I don’t remember…but they’re cute. They’re from Olivia’s “Birthday Photo Shoot”. Yes, that’s right, she’s almost a year old already! Holy cow, I know. Less than 3 weeks. Of course I’m making her party invitations, I’ll post the final product some other time. After hours and hours (weeks & weeks, really) of agonizing over them, they have actually turned out  really cute. But would you expect anything less? Ha, not from me! (sarcasm)

Isn’t it funny how her whole face changes when she smiles? It’s almost like she’s not even the same person…

Yes, she’s in the dog bed…

Giving Daddy a kiss…just for the camera

Last night sucked. I’m exhausted, but need to wind down, so I thought I’d sit here on the couch, watch The Soup and explain why I’m feeling guilty.

Well, so John has a new part time job. Actually it’s pretty full time, he’s been working five nights a week as a bartender at a dive bar. It’s taken a little getting used to, being home alone at night (he gets off work at 2am), but you gotta do what you gotta do, right?

So anyways, back to last night…

I stayed up til about midnight (super late for me), then John got home a little after two, which (always) wakes me up, then Olivia woke up shortly after that. Since John was still wide awake, he volunteered to go rock her back to sleep. Didn’t work. I tried. Nope, not working. Long and exhausting story short - she stayed up until 5:30am! Omg. She screamed, she cried, she got herself so worked up that she pooped. I finally gave up around 4am, after the poop, and she played with her toys while I tried desperately not to fall asleep in the rocker. Around 5:30 she opened her bedroom door and crawled down the hall to our bedroom, so I took that as she wants to sleep in our bed. So I scooped her up, held her tight, and after 10 minutes of screaming, she finally fell asleep for an hour and a half. Wow. That was NOT enough sleep at all. But it’s almost 9 o’clock now, and I’ve made it without a nap. Dang, I’m good.

So, why am I feeling guilty? This poop thing. I can’t decide if she is throwing a tantrum because she has to poop, or if she throws a tantrum, and gets herself so upset that she poops. Part (the bigger part) of me thinks it’s the latter. And especially when I’m exhausted, her bedtime tantrums are so frustrating.

So tonight, I put her to bed, and she is having a major fit. She throws her binky, & her stuffed animals, she stands in her crib and shakes the bars. And the 4th time I go in there to lay her back down, all pissed off that this has been going on for a half hour & thinking four times is waaaay too many time to be putting her down, there it is. A big stinky poop (in her diaper of course). I pick her up, turn on the light, & change her on the changing table. She lied there quietly, and when I zipped her jammies back up, she took out her binky, smiled and put it in my mouth (that’s her new sweet sharing move), and when I pick her up she gives me a big kiss. Gawd, she’s good. She knows exactly how to melt my heart. Then she went right to sleep. Ugh. Now I feel bad for not being more sympathetic to her possible tummy trouble.

Hopefully that was it, and she’ll get a good night’s sleep….

Str-eeeetch! 

Only Elmo singing the alphabet could make her smile this big…

“Aw, sleepy baby”

“EW! Don’t do THAT!”

Yesterday we trekked out in the POURING rain all the way to Monterey to go to the Aquarium. John and I had been talking about it lately, and Lisa & Rod had the day off so we all decided go.

Omg, the drive was sort of insane. On 101 in Gilroy it started really coming down, to the point where you couldn’t see anything in front you. Thank gawd John drove and I didn’t, I probably would have freaked out. But we got there safe and sound.

Olivia had so much fun, she was such a good girl too. She loved the fish, although she kept calling them “DUCK!” Daddy was really into showing her around, it was pretty cute.

We went through the “petting zoo” part, where they had little ponds and you can pet the bat rays and other tide pool creatures. It was hilarious! Olivia made quite a little spectacle of herself. She was like Mission Impossible. John held her over the water so that she could stick her hands in it, but she wasn’t havin any of it! The closer she would get to the water the farther her hands went up. Everybody else around noticed too, and was laughing. She got a kick out all the attention.

They also had a little section for babies & toddlers, it was pretty cool. There was this little cove that had a round water bed, she was apprehensive at first, but got used to it once we started laying around on it. I didn’t want to leave that section.

It was a long day, and we had a ton of fun. She even napped in her stroller without any fuss, the dark, watery rooms helped.

In pregnancy news…I’m at 26 weeks now. I have to go to the stupid dr’s every other week to get checked out. Apparently if you had preterm labor signs in a previous pregnancy, the chances of having preterm labor again are higher. With Olivia, I started dilating and having contractions at 31 weeks, and went on “bedrest” until 36 weeks – then she was born. (Full term is 40 weeks) My cervix is also pretty soft – sounds gross, and I’m not even sure what that means – but I guess it’s sort of common with the second too. But so anyways, I was referred to the preterm labor department, and I had to go to this lame-ass class – which was really just me (and Olivia) sitting in a lady’s office and her going over the signs of preterm labor, which I think, are pretty retardedly obvious. (Uh, yeah, if I’m having pain and I feel like something is going to fall out of my vagina, I’m gonna assume that that’s the baby, and probably call someone!) What a waste of time!

But I guess I’ve also been put on “Activity Limitation: Stage 1″ – which I’m not that happy about. I’m not supposed to do too much walking – yeah, I know, I walked around the Aquarium all day yesterday, but that was more of a stroll than a walk. If nobody is home to carry in the groceries, I’m supposed to go in the house (after grocery shopping) and rest for 30-60 minutes before bringing them in myself. (roll my eyes!) I’m not supposed to lift anything more than 10-15lbs – uh? Olivia weighs close to 20lbs! Hello!? The ridiculous list goes on. The only do-able thing is NO HOUSEWORK! But even that is sort of hard, Olivia is a crawler, we have a dog and I just bought the new Shark Deluxe Steam Mop – which, btw, I LOVE!! Anyways, the point is that this sucks, and there’s no way.  So be prepared to welcome baby #2 in May, I don’t think she’s gonna hold out til June.

So speaking of my new mop… this is sort of boring for you, I’m sure. But, it’s my blog, and I’m gonna write about it! I’ve gotten a bunch of new “toys” lately, and I’m really excited about all of them, so I’m gonna share my excitement with you! Most of it is Pampered Chef stuff, because I got all this free money to spend with them, but I’m genuinely excited about this stuff, I’m not trying to sell you on it. Actually I think it’s kind of sad how into this stuff I am, remember the good old days when I used to get excited about cool stuff, like clothes and music? Gawd. Now it’s cooking and cleaning tools.

So, my big purchase – new cookware! I got the 5-piece nonstick set. It’s awesome! It’s super easy to clean. Last night I made Peasant Soup in my new 4-qt pot (what a cute size, too!), mmmm! So good, especially in this rain, and it was super easy. In fact you want the recipe? Here…I added egg noodles which made it a little heartier:

PEASANT SOUP

8oz fully cooked smoked turkey sausage

2 med carrots, peeled

1/2 cup chopped onion

2 garlic cloves, pressed

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

3 cans (14oz each) reduced-sodium chicken broth

2 cans (15.5oz each) cannellini beans, drained & rinsed

1 pkg (6oz) fresh baby spinach leaves

1. Slice sausage into bite size pieces (I sliced into rounds, and then quartered the rounds). Slice carrots into bite size rounds, chop onions.

2. Heat pot over medium-high heat until hot. Add sausage, carrots, onion, garlic and black pepper; cook and stir 5-6 minutes or until vegetables are crisp-tender. Add chicken broth; cover and bring to a boil. Remove from heat; stir in beans and spinach. Cover soup and let stand 3 minutes before serving.

Doesn’t that sound easy? It was, and really good. And like I said, I added egg noodles cuz I thought it was a little thin, the noodles made the soup a little thicker.

Anyways, so this is the first nice set of cookware that can go in the oven! I got a 4-qt pot, a saucepan and a 12″ frying pan, which came with glass lids and they all have silicone handles, which are really nice. But I have to say that my most favoritest thing that I got lately is my stoneware large bar pan. It’s like a baking pan, you know with the little sides. Anyways, I never knew about stoneware before, and seriously, it’s the best thing ever. I’m getting rid of all my other baking sheets for this one pan. It totally makes thing cook so much better – crispier, juicier and faster. Have you ever made onion roasted potatoes (potatoes smothered with a package of onion soup mix)? I used to make it all the time, and cover my stainless steel baking pan in foil which there really was no point to because the potatoes would stick to the foil and it would rip and the pan would get all dirty anyways. Well, I made the potatoes in the stoneware last week and OMg. Lisa will vouch for me – it turned out waaay better than I have ever made it before and in less than half the time. I also made chicken – the chicken recipe on the back of the mayonnaise jar – that’s really good, did that in the stoneware, turned out DELISH. Then cleaned up and made cinnamon buns in the same pan. Oooo, I used the PC Sweet Cinnamon Sprinkle which I got for free last month for spending something like $60, anyways, it comes with a recipe for easy cinnamon buns that are really good. I think if you buy the sprinkle it’s like $4. But you use Crescent Roll dough, roll it out in one piece, spread butter over it, sprinkle the sprinkle, roll it up, cut it, bake it for 10 minutes, and you have theeeee best cinnamon rolls ever. I also whipped up a little glaze with powdered sugar, milk and vanilla and VOILA! I gained 7lbs! But it was worth it.

So this mop that I got…the Shark Deluxe Steam Mop. Totally works, with little effort! I’ve been getting disgusted at how Olivia’s socks have been turning grey from our floors, even though I mop the hardwood sometimes twice a week, which is a big hassle. And I don’t know about you, but I’m a huge sucker for info-mercials. So there I was, exchanging something at bed bath and beyond, and they had this infomercial playing next the the display of mops, so in the cart it went. It claimed to clean AND sanitize! And if you got the DELUXE for $20 more, you got 5 microfiber pads and a carpet glider! A carpet glider?!? I don’t even know what that is, but I’m SOLD! Supposedly it “freshens & deodorizes” your carpet using steam, I tried it, and I’m not sure that it worked, but whatever, it made me feel a little better. But the hardwood and the linoleum are beautifully clean! And I didn’t even get all hot and sweaty like I did before with my old dirty mop. Olivia’s socks have been noticeably cleaner too. Yay!

So Olivia is now 11 months old! Can you believe it?? Her birthday is in like 3 weeks! Holy cow! Since I’m not that great of a mom, and I’m not keeping a baby book (what am I talking about, this is her baby book!) I thought I’d make a list of her “tricks”…

Plays peek-a-boo with her hands (which she learned from some random little girl at Costco) as well as with clothes, blankets, etc.

Brushes her hair with a brush, her hand or with her bow when you tell her to and when she hears “soooo pretty” (also happens when we’re watching The Soup and the Chat Stew segment comes on and they say, “sooooo meaty!”, never fails, she starts brushing her hair)

Crawls

Can stand without holding on, longest time: about 30 seconds. I don’t think it’s intentional though.

Very high pitch, “hello?” She does this when she hears a knock at the door, someone comes in the front door (open or close), when the phone rings & when she’s looking for someone (Cash included) This is by far, my favorite “trick”

Closing doors, definitely not my favorite. She’s closed herself in the bathroom a couple of times and then sits behind the door making it very hard to get her out.

She can walk pushing the dining room chairs, among other various pieces of furniture.

She knows 90% of her stuft animals by name. And will give them (open mouth) kisses and hugs on command. She also has a baby doll that has a magnetic binky, she gives her baby a binky on command too.

Clap, wave, rock, shake, “str-eeeeetch”, “hoo-ray!” and the sign for “more” (which always refers to food, surprise, surprise)

Knows Daddy by name. If he asks for a kiss she refuses until mommy tells her, “give daddy a kiss”, then mouth opens wide and she goes in for a wet one.

She knows her binky. Ask her, “where’s your binky?” And she gets the most concerned face and looks around. Pretty funny.

Nice-nice apparently means to get excited and hit who/whatever your referring too, especially the dog who does a good job of putting up with it. We are now working on “gentle” with little success.

She holds her own snacks to eat – like crackers and fruit bars. Ew, the other day we were at IKEA (we go just for the hot dogs – they’re soooo good – it may be a pregnancy thing) but to keep her occupied while shopping I was gave her a few Ritz crackers, she had like 4 and then she gagged herself and for the first time ever, actually barfed! It was disgusting. Thank gawd nobody else was in line & John cleaned it up.

She doesn’t have this one down pat yet, but we’re almost there. “How old are you?” and she holds up one finger.

She calls out “maaaaa-meeeeeeeeee”, but only when crying in her crib. I don’t know if she knows what she’s saying.

And I think that that’s it….I’m hoping that by her birthday she can walk, it’ll be fun to go (to kid-friendly) places and let her run around and not be so confined to her stroller. I’ll probably regret that statement….