Hanging out with Dad

I took my mom to the airport last night for her flight to Korea. She is headed there for my cousin's wedding and also as a religious ambassador for my aunt who is fighting colon cancer. She will be there on a 10-day trip. I'm hoping that everything goes smoothly and she has a great time and returns home safely. So today is day one of a mom-less world. I woke up at 7 in the morning and usually I would saunter over to the living room to see what my dad was cooking up for breakfast...but today...no one... I figured that without mom to relieve me of my baby caring duties, I would probably not be able to shower unless I did it before Rhys woke up. So I took my tablet and turned on the baby monitor and went into the shower with my door open a crack so I could check up on Rhys. He luckily stayed asleep the whole time I showered and got ready. He slept for a good hour after I got out of the shower. I had time to clean my mom's makeup counter and start heating up water so I could have a little oatmeal. Rhys and I played and then napped around 11 am. I was a lot more tired because it was just me taking care of him, so I decided to take a mid-morning nap with Rhys as well. We slept for about 2 hours and then headed over to dad's store to eat lunch with him and hang out with him. Rhys played really well with the customers, especially this big black lady who called Rhys a "healer". She had ginormous boobs and Rhys was patting them...probably thinking about all the milk that could be in this set compared to mine.

The next day...

I woke up again to an empty house...well Rhys was with me of course. I really started to miss mom today. I didn't realize how lonely it is without her. Well Rhys was a bit cranky this morning cuz he decided he wanted to wake up EVERY HOUR last night. Sigh... I punched the bed because I was so tired of waking up and putting Rhys back to sleep. Anyways...since he was cranky and needy in the morning, I just ate some eggs that I hard-boiled the day before. To sum up my morning...Rhys slept for only 30 minutes and wanted to be held by me the whole time. I decided that I couldn't spend the whole day with him in a cruddy mood, so I made some omrice and headed to dad's store. Dad gobbled up my lunch that I made for him and I saved him $10! Rhys is quite the socializer. He was happy as clam once we were out and about. We took a stroll around the block and I got some coffee from Tom Tom's or whatever. I had him in the front carrier and walked around the store and next door to the cafe where dad tried to get us some free drinks...fail...haha.

I got Rhys to sleep another 20 minutes around 4 ish when I took a stroll, but that was it...no more naps until 6:30 pm when we went home. That's when he decided he was gonna go to bed for the night. That gave me and my dad time to enjoy a nice and quiet dinner. We had an el pollo loco-like dinner...but this place is Korean so they gave us the sweet pickled radishes! Yay! (....Rhys is fidgeting.....please go back to sleeeeeeeep....)

I think I will stay in LA until Saturday morning if Dad doesn't have any plans for dinner without me. I should keep the man company since he will be alone for a week without anyone at home. Poor daddy. He fell asleep earlier this evening with hair dye still in his hair. I had to wake him up twice before he got up and showered. Love my dad. He sleeps so early...hehe.

Busy Monday Morning

I woke up today at 4:30 am to pump and leave for SD. I dropped Rhys off at his Grandparent's in Camarillo for the week. I'll be seeing him this Thursday. Good thing he's not with me right now because I came down with a cold today. I was feeling quite stuffy in the nose yesterday afternoon and kinda had a feeling that my body wasn't 100%. I think I may have overdone it with a hike at Griffith Park and a trip to Costco...all while carrying Rhys on my back and on my front, respectively. I think I hiked for a good hour. I was feeling actually quite accomplished that I did so much with a baby on my back...but around 4 in the afternoon that day, I realized that I lost my driver's license. I put it in the zipper pocket of my Ergobaby carrier on Friday when I went for my 1st hike with Rhys...but on Sunday, I also put my phone in there and when I went from behind to grab my phone out of the pocket, I imagine that's when the license fell out without me knowing. I looked high and low for it, but it was nowhere to be found. I think that was a bummer and all that searching probably stressed me out a bit too. What was worse was that I had to drive an hour in LA traffic (come on...traffic on a Sunday?!?) to drop Rhys off in Camarillo. Luckily Rhys fell asleep and stayed asleep throughout the whole trip. So around 7:45 pm, I drive back down to LA, pump and begin to pack my belongings to head back to SD. I was going to take a short nap and then just decided that I would wake up early on Monday morning. So I get in bed around 10:45 and ask my mom to wake me up at 11:30 so I can pump again and then went right back to sleep. Luckily the drive back down to SD was fairly easy. I arrive in SD around 7 am and frantically look for my passport thinking that I would need some form of alternative identification...but darn it...I can't find it. So I head over to the Poway DMV, ready to be sent back home without proper alt id, but apparently a fingerprint is more proof of identification than a picture! That makes sense. So around 8:30, I get outta there and decide to deposit some money at the bank. But poo...the bank doesn't open til 9 am. So I sit in my car for 30 mins until it opens and then deposit money. Then I was off to Trader Joe's to hopefully buy some veggies and fruit to make food for Rhys, but there isn't that much of a selection there today. I come home, PUMP, eat lunch, and decide to take a nap. I think this is where my cold really decided to kick itself in. I couldn't sleep for the first half hour because I couldn't stop this throat-itching cough. My feet were also unusually cold. I just couldn't warm them up. Woke up at 3 pm to feed the dogs a little early cuz I couldn't stand Julian whining at me...and then pumped again. So here I am...settling back down in bed to start studying before Brian gets home at 7 pm. Sometimes I feel like I don't do anything because I'm not working...but sometimes I think I'm pretty darn busy. I often think if I'm making more work for myself by insisting on continuing to breastfeed until a year, but at the same time, since Rhys was a preemie, I feel like he should get the best nutrition that he can get from me. I'm religiously taking my prenatals still and trying to eat healthy. I just wish this weight would come off!!! 7 months and I've still lost none of my pregnancy weight besides what I lost in the 1st month after delivering. I saw myself on video that my mom took of me changing Rhys' diaper and I was like..."Woah! Who is that chubby lady that sounds like me?!" Camera adds 10 lbs and I can't afford to look another 10 lbs heavier. I also found myself fibbing a little on my driver's license renewal form. I said that I was about 8 lbs lighter than I really am cuz I just couldn't bring myself to putting down my actual weight. Hopefully in the future I'll look at my license and go, "wow...I can't believe I weighed that much back then!". For now, I'm just gonna sit in bed and try to get some studying down.

Rhys with Big Gomo.