Thank you note etiquette

Before I begin please let me say that I am sincerely grateful for every gift that I and my family have ever received!

I understand that after a graduation party you should certainly send out thank you notes, especially to those who gave the gift you really wanted... money. I think of this as a right of passage into adulthood and a way to show respect to your elders (because let's face it, your friends who graduate with you aren't buying you a gift). I equally understand that after your wedding you must send thank you notes for all gifts received. I consider this a test of the husband and wife's ability to handle the tense situation of who will actually write the notes.

However, I must argue that once a child is brought into this world all bets should be off! I typically enjoy writing thank you notes and do my best to make them as personal as possible. For the gifts we received before Mattingly was born I was on the ball. I had written all thank yous, addressed them and stamped them. The day we got home from the hospital with our little girl, they were in the mail. Once the news that she was born circulated the cococnut telegraph, additional gifts began pouring in and of course I LOVED it. I loved opening little tiny dress shoes and cute outfits and toys, etc... but then I realized that I needed to write thank you notes, WHAT! When I go all day without going to the bathroom because she is a baby and needs to be taken care of, when exactly am I to write thank you notes? How am I suppose to personalize thank you notes to people I have never met, who just happen to be friends of our relatives. Of course I appreciate the thoughtfulness and I understand the fun of buying baby presents, even for someone you don't know but really? We even received a few presents without a card or a name and we had to track down who they were from. I have done my best to get them all out and I feel caught up but today, when I was going through our address list to make sure it is up to date for Christmas, it hit me like a mack truck that I sent thank you cards to one person twice, once for the gift they gave us and once for the gift someone else gave us. Yes, that means I missed one and I know it. When I thought it, but could not confirm I could sleep at night. Now I know that there is still one more to write and it is weighing on me.

Of course you may think... hey lazy idiot, you could be writing it now... yeah, I thought of that too!

I think I am just getting fed up with it. I still have hostile feelings from the wedding thank yous. We had them all out within the first two months, but we still had to hear "Aunt/Uncle so and so hasn't received a thank you note, of course she/he just wanted to make sure you got the gift, but you should probably send one soon" from our parents. Really, I mean really. Can we have a moment? It makes me wonder if that person gave us a gift just for the thank you note. Well guess what (no I won't go there).

Is this generational? I don't expect a thank you note for the gifts that I send. I send them because I want to send them. I have started to write "no thank you note necessary" on the message because I do not want to cause anyone any stress, especially those people I care enough about to give a gift to. Maybe I just need to start giving anonomously... well let's be real, I still want some recognition, I am not a saint! Maybe Mattingly's generation will be the ones who send everything anonomously, now wouldn't that be the true meaning of selfless giving.

Seven Minutes in Heaven

I am not talking about what all of you (not me of course) did in high school... I am talking about taking a shower! With a baby in the house and daddy at work most of the day, I try to squeeze in a quick shower in the morning before Mattingly wakes up. I put the monitor on the sink so I can see if the little dots go up, meaning she is crying, and turn the heat up. This is probably the most relaxing time of my day. Sometimes I try to extend my time and just stand in the hot steaming shower and stare at the monitor praying that those little dots don't move. So, when daddy is home and can watch baby girl for me to take a shower in the evening, I am of course going to take my time and enjoy my shower. The other day however Paul decided that if Mattingly was crying, I should know about it. He brought her into the bathroom and proceeded to stand there, waiting for me to get out. I guess he thought that I would jump out and wrap a towel around myself and perform the miracle of making her calm down. Well... I did not jump out. I am in heaven for goodness sakes! But the crying, which echoed in the bathroom, did not make the experience very heavenly. I had to tell Paul to get the hell out of my heaven! Of course I did not use those words and tried to be as polite as possible, but that is what I wanted to yell. He apologized and left, but knowing that she was crying and that it was almost time to eat put a damper on my relaxation. So I got out, not as refreshed as possible, but at least I was clean - which is more than I can say for myself those first few weeks.

Poop - the lesser of the evils?

Yes, poop, if I have to choose I choose poop!!! Let me give the scenario and your options...

It is 3:00am and you just finished a feeding, the burping went well and of course the little one has received their dose of Mylecon. You begin to sway the baby on their side, while swaddled and you continously shhh baby (yes 4/5 of the 5 Ss). Baby goes to sleep, limp in your arms in fact, so you slowly place baby into the bassinet/crib. Fingers always crossed that she will stay asleep, but knowing full well that as soon as your head hits the pillow one of three things will happen:

1. Eyes open and are as alert as ever

2. Hiccups begin

3. She poops

Well, I have to say that the eyes opening is the worst. I am tired at 3:00am and my patience is shot. Eyes opening has the potential of causes hours of further swaying and shhhing. Mattingly loves to be swaddled when she is asleep but absolutely HATES it if she is awake. I tried to lay on my pillow in the hopes that she will fall asleep on her own, but my little Hercules will kick and pull at her arms. I hear groans from the bassinet as if she is an olympic weightlifter and than the inevitable, the velcro on the swaddle begins to tear. I can't help but laugh at how ridiculous this is. Just go to sleep! But no, she either burts through the swaddle or realizes that she can't and begins to scream. I then must remove her from the swaddle and begin the Ss until she is asleep enough for a re-swaddle. This process can take hours so I would certainly say that eyes opening is the worst.

Hiccups frustrated me at first. They begin about 5 minutes after Mattingly is snug as a bug in her bassinet. They cause her to spit up a bit and of course they wake her up. The good news is that I have a 50% chance that she will fall back asleep on her own after the hiccups have run their course. But, I also have a 50% chance that these hiccups wake her up for good and I am back to square 1. So I lay in bed, listening to the hiccups and trying not to get to comfortable since I know full well that I may need to jump out of bed to avoid her screaming for too long and waking my husband who has to work in the morning. What I like about the hiccups is that 50% chance!

The last scenario is a big stinky poop. I was not sure what to do about this at first. Changing the diaper seems like the 'good parent' thing to do, but this involves unswaddling and a diaper change often wakes her up. Not changing her diaper seems like the 'bad parent' thing to do. Leaving your child sleep in their own poop and of course she could wake up screaming about the poop any minute did not seem like a good option. So, at first I changed her everytime, and then one night I was just too tired to deal with it. I think I sort of hoped that she would start screaming about the dirty diaper and wake up her dad and he could change her. Yes, this sounded like a good plan to me! Miraculously though she seems quite content to have a poopy diaper and did not wake up again for several hours, which was on schedule with her feeding time anyway. So now I leave her alone and have found that the pooping itself helps her tummy and helps her to sleep more soundly.

So I choose poop and I choose to leave my precious little girl with a poopy diaper until she directs me otherwise.

Feeding Fun

The initial challenges of breastfeeding included the 'latching' concept and how to hold her for the best digestive angle. The we move onto keeping her latched and keeping her awake during each feeding. We finally got this all under control and thought we were down to just figuring out a schedule. Until yesterday... Miss fussy decided she wanted nothing to do with traditional feeding methods and instead she wanted to throw herself off of me and as the milk continued to flow from my body she would put her hands all through it so that her hands were covered in milk. She would then put her hands in her mouth as the way to get the milk. Well, this did not work very well and made quite a mess. It has been a challenge getting her back on track but today has gone well so far. Hopefully she does not get any new fun feeding ideas!

Stinky Diapers

To breastfeed or not to breatfeed... that is the question asked by many expecting mothers and unless the decision is made for you due to medical reasons, most mothers begin by weighing the pros and cons. One of the many pros that everyone tells you is that the poop doesn't smell if you breastfeed. Well, I would like for everyone to clarify the word "smell". I am breastfeeding and I must say that those diapers are stinky! When I brought this up to someone who continued to mention how great it was that they don't smell her response scared me... just wait until she starts eating regular food!!! WHAT - apparantly the diaper is going to be 10 times as stinky as it is now and I am suppose to enjoy this 'mild smell' while it lasts. Jeez.

A Baby Story - The Birth of Mattingly

In general my pregnancy was fantastic. In fact, a few weeks before my due date our doctor thought everything was going so well that they did not think I needed to come in for two more weeks (appointments were typically every week at that point). So we were off to the outerbanks for some sun and beach. Upon return, we had a follow up appointment and one of our midwifes told us that after 'feeling' the baby, that she was head down and ready to go. This was great news and we proceeded to believe that everything was going great all the way through the next appointment as well. At our 39 week appointment our favorite mid-wife performed the exam and disagreed with the previous exams and did not think that the head was down. After an ultrasound, she was able to confirm that our baby's head was up and she was in fact 'Frank Breech'.

The options were (1) try 'version' which is an attempt to turn the baby into the head down position which would be automatically followed by inducing labor to prevent the baby from turning back or getting caught in the umbilical cord; or (2) scheduling a C-Section asap to prevent me from going into labor with a breech baby, which could have all sorts of problems. We decided to try for a natural birth and scheduled the version for 9:30 on Saturday morning. We packed all of our bags and were prepared to have our baby on Saturday!

Upon arriving at the hospital, we were shown to our room and the prep work began. They attached the monitors which kept track of my heartbeat and any contractions, and the baby's heart rate. I was also hooked up to a blood pressure monitor, and probably several other contraptions which I have since forgotten. They then proceeded to insert the IV to which I had a terrible reaction. They called it a 'vagel' reaction (we called it a 'bagel' reaction), and it basically consisted of me getting very light headed and feeling like I was going to pass out, even though I was laying in bed. This reaction caused my blood pressure to plummet and in turn the baby's heart rate dropped. The nurse quickly rolled me on my side and everyone jumped in to get my blood pressure up to help the baby. Paul waved me with the vomit bowl that I had asked for, but did not use, and the extra air really helped. I pulled out of it, but it was extremely scary.

I rested for awhile as they confirmed that everything was ok with the baby and then the doctor and our mid-wife came in to begin the version. They made two attempts which lasted about 1 minute each and Paul coached me through the pain as if I was having contractions.... breathe 1...2...3... They had a game plan and pushed with all their might, but baby would not budge. We then had to begin to accept the fact that we would be having a C-Section. We were asked if we wanted to do it that day, or comes back at the beginning of the week. We decided that with my weak stomach for such procedures it would be best to just do it that day and prevent me from having too much time to think about everything. Also, we had gotten pretty excited to meet our little girl and really did not want to push it off if we didn't have too.

The doctor's then talked to the hospital about scheduling the C-Section, but they were not thrilled about scheduling an 'elective' operation for a weekend. She talked to the anesthesiologist and he agreed to allow the surgery, but it would have to wait until after his more urgent procedures. We were scheduled for 1 pm, but were then pushed back until after 4 pm due to a few other surgeries. However, when one of the nurses checked my monitors she informed me that I was having contractions! She then checked and sure enough I was 2 cm dilated and natural labor had begun. This moved us up in the priority line for the OR and off we went. Things were just happening too fast for me to get scared and I can’t imagine how Paul felt as he starred through the window as I was being prepped. I was told I had a sympathetic response to the epidural. I am not sure what that means, but I was still feeling most of the prick tests, which concerned me until I was unable to move either of my legs and then I knew it was only a matter of time before that feeling moved north. Paul was able to come in and be with me throughout the whole procedure and he actually watched our doctor pull her out by her foot.

We were both pretty excited to know that Mattingly Olivia had entered the world, but she still had a lot of amniotic fluid in her lungs and they had to use a respirator for about a half an hour. I was able to see her for a second, but then they whisked her away. Her APGAR score was 1 out of 10 initially but after they were able to suction some of the fluids she quickly jumped to an 8. They originally wanted to keep her in the nursery for 4 hours, but her condition improved so much that I was able to see her and hold her in my arms after only the minimum nursery time. The nurses were all wonderful and we had a great hospital stay. Mattie is doing fantastic and even more precious than we could ever imagine!!!

Off the Coast of Carolina...

Paul and I were at Kill Devil Hills in OBX for a little rest and relaxation before our lives change forever. It was an interesting experience spending the week with five other families and several toddlers. The kids are very cute yet so destuctive! One minute they are cuddly and wanting to read a book, the next they are running, screaming and jumping on the furniture. We are certainly in for a shock to our lives. The beach was fantastic though. A little more crowded than ideal, but we could walk a very short distance to the beach (beachfront, just had to make it over the dunes), we had a pool and it was not even close to the crowds in OC Maryland. There was a wind that was disruptive to everyone's beach time, but to me it was a nice break from the hot weather... until the new beach umbrella died in true OBX fashion, completely broke apart! The ocean water was a bit chilly, but refreshing nonetheless. The pool water was perfect. Being in the pool also helped take the weight off my poor feet. When I got out of the pool though I feel just like when I get out of the ocean with diving gear on. The weight hits you all at once.

It was certainly nice to be away from the house. There always seems to be something more at home that we can do to prepare for the baby or just fixes to the house in general. Since we weren't able to do anything away we were actually able to relax and enjoy ourselves. The car ride there in the new car was great as well. It is such a smooth ride and the navigation system worked great. Now it is back to cleaning... painting... cleaning... and more prep for Baby A.

Cucumber Water

With the pregnancy and the heat my poor feet have become increasingly swollen. At a recent doctor's appointment our mid-wife suggested drinking cucumber water to help with the swelling. I tried it... and love it! It does not completely reduce the swelling but it helps and it is very refreshing! I add 3-4 slices of cucumbers to my water each day and have 3-4 glasses and I feel great. In general cucumbers include many nutrients such as vitamin C and A (anti-oxidants), folate, manganese, molybdenum, potassium, silica, sulfur, and lesser amounts of vitamin B complex, sodium, calcium, phosphorus and chlorine. The nutrients in cucumbers provide the necessary electrolytes and restores hydration of the body cells, which reduces water retention.*

Paul has been drinking cucumber water as well. If you like cucumbers, the drink is quite tasty. Everywhere I go people ask me why I have cucumbers in my water and I enthusiastically explain the reasoning. I like it so much that I plan to continue to drink it after Baby A is born (and hopefully the swelling goes down anyway) and I wanted to share this little tidbit with whoever reads my tales. If you try it, let me know what you think.

* http://www.juicing-for-health.com/cucumber-benefits.html

Going Back to Work After Maternity Leave

I can certainly understand why many new mothers do not go back to work following maternity leave. I keep having to tell myself, I like my job, I like my job... The problem is that it is hard to remember those times that I actually did like my job. With hormones raging, being uncomfortable ALL the time and being just plain irritable in general, I hate everything about my job! From the phone calls that I deem 'stupid', the big tasks that seem to take forever and the small tasks that seem meanlingless to the hateful paperclips that keep getting stuck together, it is becoming hard to understand why I like what I do. Who invented those idiotic paper clips anyway?!? If this bad taste is what I am left with when I head into maternity leave I will need a real push to come back. I am sure this will all pass and I will return as happy as ever, but I just cannot imagine that right now. Well, here's to hoping the computer does not go out the window before my leave begins!

"Oldies" but Goodies - Where did they go?

It seems to be that everytime I fall in love with a particular food product it is removed from the shelves never to be sold again. First were my favorite pop tarts. At first I could not remember the name, but after searching the web... Chocolate Vanilla Cream! They had a chocolaty crust with creamy vanilla inside, with a vanilla frosting and choclate sprinkles to top it off. A couple of years ago I was able to find these pop tarts in Florida, and I think they had them in Belize when we were there, but I just can not find them anymore. I think that the 'Cookies and Cream' flavor is suppose to serve as a substitute, but you can NEVER substitute for the original goodness! According to Wikipedia, Kellogs discontinued this wonderful pop tart in January of 2009. Maybe I can find them somewhere and buy many many boxes to last me awhile! Then there is S'mores Crunch Cereal, made by General Mills; this was taken out of production several years ago. I have signed an online petition to bring this oh so good cereal back into my life but I do not think anyone is listening. If you desire the most perfect cereal ever made please sign the petition as well (maybe your signature will just push General Mills over the edge). I am signature 163 out of 569 so far. Kellogs tried to re create this cereal in Smorz Cereal, but they could not get the graham cracker just right and I think this has also been removed from the market. Most recently I have found that Rice Krispies Treat Cereal is no longer on my grocer's shelf. Oh and we musn't forget Klondike's Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches... where are you!?!?!? Now... I am beginning to see Chocolate Chex disapper from the stores. Lowes (yes a grocery store in NC), Harris Teater and Krogers no longer seem to carry this fantastic cereal. I have done a web search and although I could (but won't) purchase the cereal from Ebay, it looks like Walmart may still carry it. Shhhh, I plan to go tonight and buy the whole crate ala Elaine and the sponge. Wish me luck!

What am I suppose to wear?!?

My house is eating my stuff... My favorite pair of flip flops disappeared several months ago. I have looked high and low and the only explanation was that the underwear gnomes of yesteryear had moved on to flip flops. They are excalating again and apparantly desired the only skirt that fits me and the sweater that covers my sagging arms. I am going to my sister-in-laws' bridal shower this weekend in New York and have nothing to wear!!

Although I love Paul, he is not helping. He is 'entertaining' me with a fashion show of all the nice clothes that he intends to wear which fit him perfectly. So, we will be walking through Manhattan with Paul in his nice jeans and 'going out' jacket, and me in sweat shorts and a T-shirt.

I guess this is what I get for refusing to buy maternity clothes!

7 Months? Shopping... and of course some softball!

So, the bump.com tells me I am 28 weeks pregnant with 84 days left to go... but the book we are reading says that at 28 weeks I should only have about 60 days to go. This is a significant difference, but since I got my shot this week in the place where the sun don't shine I am confident that we are at 28 weeks which, after my not so reliable math work, should put us at 7 months! Things are becoming a bit painful and poor Paul is not getting much sleep. I am waking up in the middle of the night with leg pains and calf and foot cramps, right about the time the Tylenol I take before bed to prevent this wears off. This causes me to twitch and kick and on the guest bed we are sleeping in he feels everything. I am going to try to stretch a bit more before bed and do some of those fancy yoga positions I learned in my prenatal yoga class and see if that helps.

Shopping for baby stuff is becoming increasingly fun! Especially since yesterday's adventures included a new car. We just began the search and hope to narrow it down in the next few weeks, but new cars are always fun and I can't wait to name the new nav system. I also purchased a diaper bag last night. After browsing at a boutique in town and falling in love with a diaper bag, which was expensive enough to make me think Paul would leave me even 7 months pregnant if I bought it, I went online and found a great bag! I ended up buying somewhat matching accessories by the desinger from the boutique to match the less expensive yet still classy looking bag. I can't wait for it to be delivered, but will be disappointed if at least 1 person does not comment about how amazing it is on a daily basis. Although my guess is that they will focus on Baby Girl Amisano and NOT my accessories, my hopes are still high! A good friend is also taking me to a local consignment shop today to browse around. I am told this is a very nice little shop that does not smell musty like my grandfather's basement, so I am excited to see what deals I can find. Oh yeah, we are having breakfast at La Farm first so this day should be just fabulous!

On the softball field... after months of conditioning and running the girls hard, we re-timed the girls sprints from home to first yesterday with drastic improvement. I am so proud! It was great to see how excited they were with their improvement too! I could see the changes over time, but to have the numbers in front of them really proved that they had improved. One player went from 4.3 secs to 3.55 secs. This is a huge deal because she wants to be a slapper and you can't do that without speed. If I can get her under 3 secs and work on the slap in the off season, we will have a real contender on our hands. I am looking forward to conditioning with the girls post baby belly and getting back into shape. It was 'funny' trying to do a push up at yesterday's practice. I was able to bend the arms down, but got stuck and could not get myself back up. It was like someone was sitting on my back (or in my belly :) ). Quite frustrating but I could not help but laugh. There is not much I can do with a 20lb weight lifting limit.

Blogging

I have never been a blogger and I am still trying to get used to this site and its features. Some things seem easy and the next day I can't remember how I did something. It is frustrating, but I am sure I will get the hang of it before people actually start reading this, if they ever do. In general I hate new technology and rarely even use my cell phone. This blogging thing is really to get information to friends and family about our growing family. Check out the Amisano Family Blog for information on Baby Girl Amisano. I did however want to make sure I kept some remnant of my individuality as 'Angie' rather than just baby talk all the time (which is pretty much all anyone wants to talk about).

So... I am currently loving the College World Series for Softball. It is such an exciting game and I continue to learn and I hope I can pass everything on to the Storm (14- team I am helping to coach). I find myself tearing up when big plays happen. This is probably half hormones which cause me to cry about anything, half nostalgia wishing I was there and half jealousy wishing it were me. I know that is more than a full amount... those who know me know I am not good at math :/. The Storm had a tournament this weekend and overall did very well, 2 wins/2 losses. They are improving with each game I just wish I could teach them some intensity. Hopefully that will come with age. It was a hot weekend, but Paul came out on Saturday and manned the grill for everyone. I am glad he was able to watch the 2 games that they won. I should probably make him come more often.

Other than softball, our house is a disaster! We are in the middle of renovating our bathroom so we are currently living in our guest room and using the guest bathroom. For two days we suffered through NO water pressure in the shower. I asked our contractor about it and he gave a simple solution of removing the water saver. Such a difference!!! We have however had many guests stay with us over the last year and a half and no one has said anything. Even those that have stayed for a week said nothing. When I asked my mom she just laughed and said she would not say anything since she was a guest. We try so hard to make our guests comfortable and we just had no idea. So for anyone who had to use the low pressure shower, we apologize. It is fixed now, so feel free to visit again. Paul worked hard all weekend to stain the deck. I helped out when I got home today but he really is the hero of the weekend (well lets just say year because he does sooooo much). It looks great and all he has left is the railings. Hopefully in a few weeks we can sit back, relax and enjoy all the improvements around the house.

Off to toss and turn all night!