Confessions of a Suburban Housewife

It occurred to me today as I was standing at the sink washing dishes while my child slept peacefully in her crib and my dogs lay passed out on the tile floor: I am a stay-at-home mom. You may think to respond with the obligatory "DUH" but really this had not occurred to me until today. Basically every time I've stayed at home without a job has been for a specific reason relating to waiting for or working towards obtaining professional employment. But today I realized that I'm not really waiting for employment at the moment. My job is full-time (though I will not qualify myself as "professional" because I have no clue what I'm doing) momma. And housewife. So I am going to try to embrace this new job of mine, which will be semi-difficult because I have always attributed part of my identity with being employed. And though I am not employed, per se, I do have a job (for which I am on duty 24/7 but at least they do allow naps on site occasionally and an optional uniform is pajamas - can't beat that). So from time to time I may offer some musings on my attempts to reconcile the roles of Momma and Housewife into the slot next to "Occupation." It may be pleasant, it may be ugly, and it'll always be honest.
This week's goals: take Eden's 3-month-birthday photos, organize my closet (includes trying on all clothes to see if any pre-pregnancy clothes fit), finish decorating my craft room, go grocery shopping, run the never-ending errands, accomplish other daily menial tasks, and above all, get dressed complete with jewelry and make-up post shower EVERY SINGLE WEEK DAY. This last goal is harder than it sounds. Don't laugh.
It's Tuesday and I've taken Eden's photos (please see below if so desired), organized my closet (about half my stuff fits which is encouraging - no unnecessary shopping needed for larger pants), cleaned out the refrigerator, and yes indeed I've gotten fully dressed - in the morning, no less!! - with jewelry and make-up yesterday and today! So far, so good. I'm giving myself a "satisfactory" on my performance report so far with extra kudos for cleaning the frige. :)
Here are the fruits of my photography labors today (warning, there are a lot):








(Does anyone else think she looks like an Oompa Loompa in this last photo?)
If you want to see even more, click HERE.

Accomplishments

The crying stopped. Thankfully. I think it was a growth spurt and she was tired of traveling. She's better now. Whew!

So I was running errands today with Eden while Kevin was at work. I had six places to go (you know, Target, post office, return a movie, those kinds of things). I organized myself, Eden, Eden's baby bag, my purse, and all the stuff needed to accomplish my errands (a movie to return, boxes to mail, things to return to stores, etc.). After I came home from doing everything, I felt so proud of myself for not getting overwhelmed and for timing the errands so Eden didn't get hungry or have a poo explosion while I was out and about. This was a major accomplishment for me, and I was quite excited to achieve it.

Funny that running errands successfully is now what I consider to be an accomplishment. I used to think that getting a job, graduating college, writing a term paper, things like that, those things were accomplishments. Now, going to the post office is an accomplishment. Funny how parenthood changes your perspective of things.

And now for photos. Again, these are just some of my favorites. If you want to see the newest photos I've uploaded, go to my flickr account HERE.

Eden's 12-week-old photos. I love overalls!


Eden's legs are getting stronger every day. She's already standing with help.


I know it's blurry, but I don't care. Her smile is so bright and happy.


She recently discovered her hands and it was so funny to see her stare cross-eyed at them.


Here's Eden's room. I couldn't help it - I had to have a pink room. I love it! I found the neatest fabric and decided to sew my own curtains and crib skirt. I also made the bumper pads and table skirt. And all the bows hanging on the wall (it's like having a baby doll that I get to accessorize every day).

?

What does one do when one's baby cries all day long, doesn't want to be put down, doesn't eat very much but wants to be attached to your booby constantly, and won't sleep?

And does this for 4 days?

??

?

Anyone?

More Eden photos

Let me preface this email with the following: I know I promised not to write posts that are nothing but my child my child my child. HOWEVER, I have realized that I'm already guilty of this BUT I have two good reasons: 1. Nothing else is happening in my life right now. 2. She's just so darn cute!! How could I not talk about her and show her off?! (This, of course, is just my humble Mommy-biased opinion.)

So here are some more photos of Eden for those of you who are interested. And a quick recap of life lately: She's sleeping about 5-7 hours a night now but still waking up at 3ish so I'm still not sleeping the greatest. She just had her 2-month well-baby check-up today and she's in the 88th percentile for height but 31st percentile for head size. She's a lanky baby with a mini head! :)~ We've almost finished rearranging everything in the house so that it's where I want it. I finished decorating Eden's room and our living/eating nook/kitchen. I haven't hung pictures or wall art yet but I'm getting there. I finally have a pink room. Hurray! I'll post photos of our house in a few days (hopefully) after I take some. Kevin and I went to Ikea in Atlanta on Saturday, and we got a new flat screen TV so I finally feel like we have a grown-up-looking living room. Yay!

Okay, now for Eden photos. Here are a few of my favorites. And click HERE (for 5-week-old photos) and HERE (6-week-old photos) if you want to see even more! (It's sad, but when I edited this I clicked on the linked and looked through all the photos again even though I've seen them a bunch already. I just can't help it; Eden's so cute (even when she looks like a grumpy old man)!!!)