NonBaby Related

Time for a ME topic.  An UN-fun one. But looking for answers.

Ever since High School I have had terrible stomach issues.  My friends thought I was bulimic because I'd rush off to the bathroom in the restaurants after every meal.  Well...it's like 15 years later and I'm STILL doing it.  Irritable Bowel Syndrome as it's called (IBS).

I've tried it all... gluten free diet, no dairy, medications...nothing seems to work but simply NOT eating anything from a restaurant or anything heavy.  OH and don't be stressed. Those are the triggers.

For heaven's sake, I missed nearly ALL of my friend Liz's wedding because I was so SICK from all her delicious food.  But how can I not eat out?? Josh says if we have girl's night out, to eat before then just have a few drinks and hang out with them.  I get his point, but eating out with friends is fun to me and I NEVER get to do it anymore, or have date night for that matter.  But he's right, I spend so many fun nights out tearing up in the bathroom in cramps, pain, and uuughhhhhh.  It happens RIGHT away.

Especially after having a baby, my stomach is even MORE not used to eating out, so when we do, I end up sick everytime, then Josh is mad that we waste money going out to eat.

I don't have an answer, I've had 2 endoscopies and 1 colonoscopy, nothing.  I know that it's very much stress induced as well, but I am really sick and tired of this digestive track.  I hate it. I hate IBS.  My friend Melissa is going to look into stomach transplants.

This post was set off by spending 3 hours last night sick after Josh brought home some food from his work dinner, my favorite place, Taste of Texas.

I guess turkey sandwiches at home are going to be my life now, and that just makes me depressed.  At least we'll save money.

Ok rant over.

Baby Antics

It's kinda hard to figure out things to keep baby busy and engaged until the next nap.  I love going to Baby Boot Camp class every morning, but that's over at 10:30.... Josh gets home at 6:15.  That's a lot of baby time!

TuTu Day at Baby Boot Camp

Sometimes we go to the store, the Children's Museum, or play dates at other mom's houses, but those are usually once a week type things.  Normally I have to figure out what the heck to do around the house when I'm not feeding/diapering, and she's not into watching video/tv yet, believe me I've tried.

Baby workout/crawling:

Reading and playing:

New game:  What's in that bowl?

  This worked for only 15 minutes. 

Other game, run around the house grabbing diapers and chasing Shelby dog.  What a sneak! That is probably like 30 minutes. It's so funny that she throws them everywhere, then looks so guilty.

Did I do thhhaaaaat?

I do love being with Claire all day, but it's really hard. I've had the itch to earn money again.  Josh shot down my dog walking idea last night.  Rude. 

Run Shelby!

Then my friend Shannon said that her company will be hiring in a few months... it's really temping to go back to pharma sales.  It's so hard to know what to do and if it'd be worth it, money wise and time away from her. MEH.

But I feel kinda silly sometimes... still paying those student loans and not even working. It sucks, wish those payments would disappear. Ha. Hey Obama get on that.

It's just been weighing on my mind.  When or If I will go back to work.  What I will do.  Full time/part time?  I wish I could find something worthwhile to do from home..not a pyramid scam, a legit job.

But anyways, love when my parents, Grammie and Papa come to visit!

And in case you would like to help little Claire be the Gerber baby, voting will start Sept 4th! 

She's under "Sitters"  even though she's a crawler, she wasn't quite crawling when I entered her. ooooops!

Here's some videos of her new skillz.

Clapping
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tUY5ZEHGXM&feature=plcp
Waving
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWhIyTnhs7M&feature=plcp

It's already August, crazy!  Hope you had a great July!

Red , White and Baby!

The 4th of July was funny because it was in middle of the week, but I love it like that!  I got to have Josh home on a Wednesday and it broke the week up, yay!

We had a fun little pool day at my friend Karen's.  She lives in a highrise downtown, so the pool is on top of the building, and you're surrounded by the skyscrapers, very cool view.

Reading is reading!  And it says "Baby Time" on the cover.

She really does like Mel

After pool we came home to cook out and snap some festive photos!

 I swear she's getting thinner just from all the walking and rolling she's been doing lately.  Those arm rolls are getting smaller...noooo!!  But to make up for it, her hair is getting bigger.

 Her 7 month photo shoot was harder than all the others, she would NOT smile big.  Usually I can get her to do it, but man she's making me work hard these days.  She's a little person now.

I will chunk this in your face!

   There's your smile, hehe, that's all u get.

Claire is eating all sorts of things, rolling, rocking on all fours, even kicking in the pool (fake swimming).  I think in a month or so she may be crawling, how crazy!!

She has no teeth yet and is an estimated 21.5lbs.  There's no check up til 9 months, so I guess we'll be surprised then by her height!

I really may have to consider a haircut soon LOL no lie!  It's all crazy and I love it.  I'll probably just scrunch it with water, it's SO LONG now, all the babies want to pull it.

It's been a great week and I'm looking forward to more fun things this weekend!

Baby free vacay

Josh wears sunglasses on vacation. What what.

Off we went with out the baby to Fredericksberg, TX!  We went last year too...lots of fun.

Wineries!

It was so hard leaving baby Claire at Grammies, but we sucked it up and followed this truck around...

Ha Ha.  But seriously, there's a secret Shiner in a lot of these pics.

Went hiking at Shreiner State Park in Kerrville

Purple flowers!  Reminded me of my beeebeee

Cooled off in the Guadelupe River

 Get away!

Went to have a nice dinner at Alamo Springs Cafe on a cliff...

 Great views!  The place was closed on Tuesdays.  Whomp whomp.

 This was actually a little BAT sanctuary.  People come to watch the bats come out to feed...eek!

Bat Man!

Our Bed and Breakfast porch... it was called Queen Anne - Aspen room.

I liked last year's place better, the food was better and we had a private cottage as opposed to a wing of a house.  We could hear them cooking, so less sleeping in! The jacuzzi tub and robes were my fave.

After our 3 days of adult fun we couldn't wait to see our little bear back in San Antonio!

"OHi, miss me?"

My friend Janine brought Brooklyn to visit.  I love that she's a big girl too.  One month younger than Claire, and so cute!

My mom busted out this little gem of me at 6 months.  Claire thought she was looking at a mirror...well, a skinny mirror.

Claire is like 20lbs and my baby book said I hit 20 at 15 months.  Ooopsy!  Little bear loves her solids what can I say!?

I was SO happy to have Josh for a whole week!  Now back to the real world.

City Cave

This kinda goes along with the last post.  Claire found a cave!  I'm laughing because she did this all on her own, and I recreated it for the photos...

"Hmm...looks like a fun tunnel"

 "Lemme back up and see what we find..."

 "No lions, tigers or bears here!"

 "I found a sheepdog though! Yay!"

This is one of the best baby present we got! It would have made more sense to take a video haha, oops, just thought of that.  I need to thank Amazon and post a customer pics. This is a Chicco Baby DJ Walker.  Think of this if you have a friend having a baby, endless entertainment/excercize and gives my back a break.

Not the 'burbs

Nooo, we don't have a backyard, or grass, or a driveway to ourselves...We may live walking distance to Sunshine Market and a Washateria... We also may live next to a Metro bus stop and a train that runs by us.  We may be city livin' in townhouse land, but we can still create a community pool/pet oasis.  Just what the summer heat ordered

Splish splash little Claire!

 Who needs a fancy community pool with a slide?

 Why yes, creature of the wild, quench your thirst here.

 Scoot around us neighbor of our shared drive, if there's room, we're having a pool day!

At least the 3-story buildings hide us from the sun!  Score.

I have been pondering a lot lately on our living situation, wondering what our next move will be, maybe next year.  Isn' it such the dilemma?  Stay in town where you love and all your friends are, OR move to the 'burbs, have a yard and sidewalks, good schools and call it a day.

Yes, there are plenty of houses in town, that cost plenty of money or are old, small and need work.  Unfortunately, we're not growing a money tree and I don't like fixing up old things.  I like things ready to be moved it.

So we're just kinda waiting it out, looking into different neighborhoods, some far, some closer, trying to decide what's best for Claire.  The only thing I don't want is Josh spending over 2 hours a day communting everyday and missing out on her seeing her at night.

So, until we decide either way, driveway parties will be all the rage!

BUGS!

Claire woke up Saturday with this huge bite/burn/hickey thing on her arm...

At first I thought she had self-soothed herself to sleep and given herself a hickey.  But it was SO rough, raised and hard!  Then I thought spider bite maybe...because it was just so big.

Anyways, by 6pm it was still really bad and many mommy friends and my own mom said they'd get it checked, so we searched for an Urgent Care and found one out in Cypress for kids only.

The doctor said that it was just a bad allergic reaction to a mosquito bite and gave us a Rx for antibiotic cream and to get some 1% hydrocortisone.  Luckily, this thing never even bothered Claire, we're just crazy first time parents!

What sort of things do y'all do to help prevent mosquito bites?  We have a bug net for the stroller, that's it so far, they freaking attack her at night in her crib I think!!


and, in other news,  LOOK who's just a sittin' fool these days...