I Am Woman

I've had a very busy week and truly have not needed a weekend this badly in quite a long time. Carl left for San Diego on Saturday morning which left me, the baby and the other baby to fend for ourselves for 4 days and 4 nights while Carl attended The Gamma Delta T-Cell Conference. (Sounds like a rockin' good time, doesn't it?) The 4 days were fine; it was the 4 nights that were a little rough. I did cheat a little by sending Terra to daycare/boarding on Monday and Tuesday. We decided that it was probably best not find out the hard way that taking care of Terra, feeding and getting Lily ready for school, and getting myself ready for work was more than I could handle. Overall, I would say that we did fairly well for our first time without the pater familia.

Really, the easy stuff while Carl was gone was doing the dishes, the laundry, taking out the trash, cooking, straightening up - basically all the household chores. These things could be done when Lily went to sleep at around 8:00 pm - no problem. The biggest challenge was the middle-of-the-night stuff. It was very hard knowing that no one else was available to tend to the baby at 12:30 and 4:30 am. I was on with no one else on deck. I had to get her, change her, feed her, rock her, lay her down, rock her, lay her down... which usually takes a minimum of an hour each time she wakes up. I managed for 4 nights, but I certainly do not envy the life of a single parent. Saints!!!

While Carl was in San Diego, living it up with the other science-maniacs in his lab, the Director was also out for most of the week at work. This was double the fun for me. I guess that you get through it and know you're better for just having survived.

We are currently preparing to start Lily on solids. I knew when I got pregnant that I wanted to make my own baby food, so I actually bought the book "Super Baby Foods" when I was about 2 months pregnant. We probably won't start her on solids for about another month, but since you can freeze the food for about 2 months, I figure it won't hurt to get a jump-start on it.

It seems to be a growing trend among moms to make your own food; 3 out of the 5 babies in Lily's class so far are fed (or are going to be fed) homemade food. It seems fairly easy - basically cook and puree. And I think that the benefits (cost, nutritional value) outweigh the negative (time). I didn't intend to be such an "Earthy-type" mom. I just figure that I can do it, so why not? It will be a fun, new adventure for us all. I'm just not looking forward the change in her diaper content/odor after beginning solids. I hear that it's not pleasant.