Working Moms, Inc.

I've always dreamed of being a stay-at-home-mom.  I think its a combination of the fact that I didn't study to be a doctor or scientist or whatever, mixed with my feelings that the most important job you can do is raise your children.  As I get closer to May, my reality sets in that at this point, its not financially feasible for me to stay at home full-time.  We are comfortable, but with Mike being technically self-employed, we rely on my job for health insurance.  I can't even begin to reason with myself that a little bit of smart budgeting would allow me to stay home.  Its. Just. Not. Possible.  So as I deal with this reality, I know that I need to start to find encouragement through other working moms, and focus less on the stay-at-home moms that I find myself surrounded by (blogs, family, friends...you lucky, lucky ladies!!!!)

This afternoon, I did a search for "working mom blogs".  I've done this before, but the results were bo-ring, and today, it was more of the same.  No cutesy stories, no silliness.  The blogs I have found are almost all written in defense-mode, and from a point of exhaustion.  These working moms feel attacked and criticized for working, and they seem to be constantly saying, I CHOOSE this life and even though I am run ragged and never have enough time, I'm satisfied.  Well, no one says what I am thinking - I don't actually WANT to work.  I HAVE to work.  And I am already so aware of how painful it will be those first few months.  While I am so incredibly grateful for my job and I really do enjoy it, if given the choice, you best believe I would choose to be employed by Baby A, Inc.

I want to travel back in time and throw a tantrum to the women who fought to be in the workplace.  Sure, women can be corporate superstars and they absolutely should share their talents in that capacity.  But me?  I don't feel that drive or that calling.  I don't feel like I am compromising myself or my rights as a human if I stay at home and oh, I don't know, RAISE A HUMAN BEING.  I think that is a pretty significant role, and it seems that the importance of a parent's job is often overlooked and undermined when compared to the importance of corporate success.

So, I'll keep throwing my little tantrum in my mind and pray for the day I can raise my children for a living.  Until then, if you see a working mom, don't assume she is in that role because her career is that captivating.  She might just be a slave to the paycheck.

Oh and when you meet that woman, tell her I am looking for her and her funky blog.

Noises

As you know I have been diagnosed with a very serious condition known as "misophonia".

I can picture myself in the hospital about to give birth, and in my worst nightmare, I have a nurse who is chewing gum or clearing her throat incessantly, and I will have to kick her out because she is ruining the miracle I am about to perform.

So, not only does this condition affect my personal life (ever had a tantrum on public transportation while on family vacation because all of your family is chomping on their gum like their lives depend on it??), but it severely affects my work life.  Inevitably, in an office environment, there is going to be at least one perpetrator who is a noisemaker and, it will get me...get me good.

Every time I have left a job, literally one of my first triumphant thoughts has been, "THANK GOD.  No more listening to <insert name> <insert annoying noise>."

My last job had lots of annoying noises...one of them being a date stamper that clunked every minute.  Literally, every minute.  I moved it to a back conference room out of severe anger one day, but it always threatened to creep back into my life.  There was also the woman who sat near me who, without fail, would chomp chomp chomp her gum after lunch every day.  Then of course the other woman who made every food a noisy monster.  Peanuts.  Burritos.  Chips.  You name it, you could hear every morsel being destroyed in her mouth.  When I gave my 2 weeks notice, I breathed a sigh of relief.  No more of THOSE noises.

My last, last job had two women in particular who cracked their gum.  And it wasn't just like, oh I had garlic for lunch so I better chew some gum for a second.  Nope.  This was an all-day affair, gum from 8am til 5pm.  That was almost enough to make me throw myself in front of a train.  When I accepted a new job, my very first thought was, see ya later gum crackers!!!

Now, I'm in a new job.  It started good, as they all do.  But, inevitably, a noisemaker has emerged.  Looks like my only hope is ear drum removal or intense therapy.  I'll let you know which route I go.

I ate sopapillas twice this weekend and I'm not sad about that

February starts the steady stream of family birthdays that carries on until the summer.  Coordinating to get everyone together to celebrate can be tricky, but so far it has worked out pretty easily.  We planned to have lunch with my mom for her and Tyson's birthday, then dinner at my dad's for Britt and Tyson (again) birthday.  Tyson called me at 7am on Saturday morning with one request: "Casa Bonita".  I love Mexican food of all kinds, and I'm not scared of Casa Bonita food, so of course I was interested in revisiting this magical place.  Mike and I laughed when we thought about how long it had been since we had both been there (the last time he was there, Tyson wasn't even born yet).  We also talked about how you think its this amazing place when you're little, with nooks and crannys and caves and so much to explore...then when you go again as an adult, you realize its a creepy building in a strip mall that you wouldn't want to be in when a fire started (they really try to manage the flow of people: Get in line to order here.  Walk this way to sit. Up these stairs and around the bend to the arcade.  Where is the exit?!?!)

Soon after talking to Tyson, my mom texts me..."Where should we go for birthday lunch...Capital Grille?  Ale House?  Four Season?"  I laughed so hard.  She was going to be pretty sad when she realized we would be eating velveeta cheese and cheap sopapillas for lunch.

A few enchiladas, sopapillas, and gorilla/diver shows later, we headed up to birthday celebration #2 (also a mexican food feast...don't mind if I do!) and decided to swing by Babies R Us to register.  Registering for gifts feels like a chore.  I know we need things, but how do you choose?  So you need a hooded towel...well here are 6 different hooded towels, all with weird patterns and characters on them, each a teensy bit different.  It stresses me out.  Mike was in charge of the registry gun and he really went to town.  Especially towards the end, I think he may have gunned a few preemie outfits with ridiculous sayings on them out of delirium.   The list of things we still need to pick out is growing by the day, and I think I am going to accept the challenge of making the curtains because I just can't find what I want.  Either way, if our little guy was to arrive tomorrow, I'm sure we'd be fine.  All you need is love, right?  RIGHT??

Tomorrow starts my 3rd trimester!  Pretty sure the honeymoon of being comfortable and carefree ends meow.  Bring it on, baby boy!!!

Sugar addict

Oh hi baby A!  You are moving around so much right now, and as I'm working away, I realize that I have gotten used to feeling you move and I have come to expect it.  Before I was pregnant, I always pictured myself being creeped out by feeling a tiny human inside my body move around.  But, I am surprisingly calm about it - and I know that come June, I will miss feeling you kick and flutter and punch and whatever else it is that you do in there.

I have been eating a LOT of sugar lately.  I can blame it on being pregnant all I want, but it's really just because I'm a sugar addict and I'm also a grown-up who gets to buy whatever they want at the grocery store.  Girl scout cookies...Valentines Day truffles...stuffed twizzlers (oh yes they do exist!)...grocery store donuts... So, little guy, I'm really going to try to not do that as much anymore...but I do hope that I am somehow influencing you to like sweets, because your dad has no interest in sweets (except for a few ice cream treats, thank goodness).

I've also been eating a lot of grapefruit, mainly because I love it, but I also hope that you will be born with a taste for it and we can make grapefruit popsicles in the summertime to eat in the hot sun in the backyard.

I am getting extremely anxious to meet you.  I imagine that anxious feeling will only grow as we get closer to May. I just keep picturing what life with you will be like, and I know it won't all be snuggles and naps, but I just can't wait to see your little face.  I saw a baby with a really big forehead (fivehead) that other day.  I wonder if you will have a five-head too?

I hope you like the color blue...your room is coming together nicely =)

Keep growing.  Say hello to my internal organs!

xo

Clarity

I think it took finding Mike for me to have clarity on a lot of things, one of them being Valentines Day.  It was so easy, as a single gal, to get swept up in the pity party that Valentines Day becomes - how many 'valentinis' can you drink in college before you get sloppy and sad and wallow in pity that you aren't madly in love with someone. (As I write this, I got a text from one of my favorite college friends who reminded me that 7 years ago on this day, we drank so much pink Franzia that she threw up everywhere, but then later met up with her future-husband...good times.)

Now, experiencing Valentines Day as a wife (I hesitate to even write that word because I think it makes me sound braggy and pretentious), I'm finally able to gain this clarity that this day isn't just about celebrating romantic love - its about celebrating relationships and people.  I wish I could have gained this clear brain on my own, but add it to the list of ways that Mike makes be a better person.  Yes, it will be sweet to cook a delish dinner tonight, but its also so heart-warming to talk to my dear nieces this morning and hear them try to pronounce 'valentines', or to see the cute cookies that my aunt makes for her staff, or to read a very inspiring blog post about finding love in unexpected places, or to feel a little extra lovey today just because (maybe its the snow that's rolling in over the mountains and the fact that I brought TWO mugs of coffee to work today?!?)

Either way, by 9am this morning I had already brought myself to almost-tears as I pictured dancing cheek-to-cheek in my living room with my baby boy in a few months.  I can't wait to feel my heart transform as I take on this new role of being a mom.  I can't wait to raise him to be so aware of the love that created him and to never hesitate to express his heart to the people around him - on Valentines Day, on Columbus Day, on Wednesdays, or any and every other day of the year!!  A lesson I should have learned a long, long time ago =)

The "Pre-Mike" Ashley

We had a laaaaazy weekend.  I was hoping for tons of snow and tons of hibernation.  So we succeeded on the last part I guess.  We watched dumb movies and slept and ate.  I ate a lot.

On Saturday, Mike fell asleep on me, and when he sleeps, I try reallllllly hard not to wake him since he doesn't get the same newborn-quality sleep that I get.  However, I wasn't expecting him to fall asleep, and we had just been talking about lunch or some type of next meal.  So then all of the sudden he's snoring, and all I can think is, ohmygosh I am so hungry if I don't eat now I'll die....and then my mind thought, the "pre-Mike" Ashley would be so annoyed at you.  Here you are, snuggled up with your husband, and all you can think of is your exit strategy to get to your next snack. Shame on you!!  You used to take naps by yourself and spend your lazy weekends by yourself!  This situation is a blessing, silly Ashley.

Soon after, he luckily (luckily?) had a terribly scary dream and he woke himself up.  Then I made nachos.

In other news, I am going to try to not buy coffee every morning.  I bought myself a little espresso machine to attempt to make my own americanos (decaf...for now...) at home.  I think its going to require a little bit of research before I hop right into the role of barista-of-the-year, so in the meantime, I'm looking for ways to make my home-brewed coffee more appealing without going the route of super sugary coffee creamers.  This morning, I poured the leftover milk from my cinnamon chex cereal into my coffee instead of drinking it black, and lets just say, I think I'm onto something...stay tuned.

Sorry about the tight pants, Baby A

A few weeks ago I freaked out that I didn't have any clothes to wear (I'm finding it hard to justify wearing leggings and boots every single day of the week), so off to Gap Maternity we went.  I really have never gone clothes shopping with Mike...its not that I avoid it, but I don't need him to accompany me to select new clothes, so this was probably the first time we'd ever done this.  Is that weird?  Either way, Gap was having a sweet sale so I hooked myself up.  I found some weird capri dress pants that, if worn juuuust riiight, they were more like cropped on me, which made me feel like I could winterize them.  With a price tag of $12.99, I compromised on the size a wee bit, thinking they would fit for longer than a week.  Nope!  So now, here I sit in said pants, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that my stomach has gone numb from how tight they are.  I have had to make it a point today to get up and walk around just to give my stomach a break.  All I can think about right now is the joy I will feel when I get home and take these suckers off.  Remind me to not put them back into the rotation of wearable clothes.  And on that note, I'm on the verge of another, I DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO WEAR!!!! shopping trip.

So now here I sit at 4:15...its been 8 hours since I sat down at my desk, looked at the clock that said 8:05, and I was thinking...how in the world am I going to make it EIGHT HOURS in these PANTS?!?!  Good news friends.  I think I made it!

A Great Spring

Two summers ago, we bought a make-your-own wine living social deal from a little place in old town Fort Collins called Vintages. We had heard fun things about it, and I saw their building all the time and was constantly intrigued by it.

We kinda forgot we had the vouchers until about a month before they expired, so we hurried in to make our wine last summer. Britt was pregnant, but that sure didn't stop us from having a grand evening tasting practically ALL of their varietals and eating a crap ton of delicious cheeses before deciding on what wine we would bottle. The Atkinsons chose a New Zealand sauvignon blanc, and the Saters went with an amarone. Still not sure what that blend is but I do know it is a crowd pleaser.

After that, we kinda forgot about the wine. It takes Vintages about 6 months to do what they do, so we went about our lives...and then we got an email saying our wine was ready to bottle. Hooray! The hard part would be making the custom labels for the bottles. Mike and I wanted it to be something about our little fella, and he had just discovered that the name we are considering means "a great spring", so we went to town on designing a label dedicated to our babe.  I suppose putting a name on a wine label makes our decision official?  But still, stay tuned... And Britt and Adam wanted to play into the extremely uneven gender balance of the Sater family (4 girls, one guy....he is a good sport!!)

Once our labels were emailed to Vintages, the "hard" part was done! We showed up on Saturday to more wine tasting (this time, I was the pregnant one...) more delicious cheese, and a super easy and super cool DIY process of bottling your wine, corking it, and labeling. It only took about 45 minutes for us to do 2 cases and we only jacked up maybe 2 labels each :)

"Oh, put a cork in it, Mike." (badump ching!!)

If anyone is considering doing this, I would highly recommend! Now we have a case of custom wine that I can't wait to dive into...only 14 more weeks ;)

Reese got to come help mama while the big girls stayed home with dad