Random thoughts

I've had these random thoughts floating through as a post for a while: clothing sizes, sleep, and dairy...
My mom hates to shop. Yet for someone who hates to shop, she contributes quite a bit to our economy. Whenever I go back to Ohio, we go shopping at some of my favorite stores. This one location of Ann Taylor has the largest (and best) petite section I've come across. I nearly always find something. This last visit was no exception. I wanted some fresh clothes for my post-pregnancy, nursing figure.

One of the many things I didn't think about when I had Eddie was that just as there was a gradual ladder up in clothing sizes, there would be a ladder down. No one knows how big you'll get until you get there and for the most part, there is no way to predict when (or if) you'll ever fit into your pre-pregnancy clothes. With Eddie I took quite a while to shrink back down and was just getting into my size 4s when I got pregnant with J. This time around, I've gotten smaller much faster (I swear it's genetics, because it sure doesn't have anything to do with the 1/2 cup of chocolate chips I've eaten tonight, or the near daily over indulgence of sugary, bad-for-you-foods).

All this aside, I was not prepared for what I found at Ann Taylor. I was a size 0, as in zero, and double 00, depending on the article of clothing. How did this happen? Yet in my pre-pregnancy clothes, I can just barely fit into most of my size 4s and a handful of size 2s that are newer. At this rate I'm going to be sized out of clothes. I already can't shop at Talbot's because their smallest size is way too large on me. I think it's fairly well known that the fashion industry has changed their sizing policies to better reflect current sizing trends, but really, this is too much!

Nevermind that I can't reliably pick the same size in the same store, but even Dennis has found variation in sizing of mens clothes--the last unmarred area of fashion. I do buy kids shoes, as I'm border-line there too and have on ocassion bought children's clothing--at least it's less expensive.

Sleep Habits--Josie is at that point (and I will get her 5 month birthday update posted) where she is really only waking once/night (when she feels well) and even then if we were hard-asses, I think we could get her sleeping through the night. When she is napping during the day and at night when she's called out or cried, we try to wait a little bit before going to her, so as not to rush right in. Well, I've gone in the last couple nights and she's been out cold.

I laugh to myself as I slowly back out of her room, trying to remember the places in the floor that creak, so as not to disturb her. I feel like I'm sneaking out, trying not to wake the lion, when it's just a baby. But, a baby who could keep you chained to her crib, if you're not careful.

Den and I are trying to remember back to what we did when Eddie was this age, or when Ed had finally progressed to sleeping this well. We can't remember. Either it was too traumatic, or we were too sleep deprived, but neither of us has recolection of when or how he finally got to the point where he put himself to sleep. I do remember lots of nights standing over the crib, so he could hold our hand, or touch a part of us. You would slowly slide your hand out, bit by bit, judging as you went if you thought he was asleep enough to leave. If you left too soon, he'd shoot up in bed--like you had betrayed him and you'd have to go back and do it all over again.

Fortunately he's very easy to put to bed now. Josie is much easier. Although she still hasn't perfected a nice long nap, you can set her down in her crib and generally walk away.

The third thing (if you're still with me), I've been ruminating over lately is what I will eat in exactly 7 months, when Josie is drinking regular (we hope) milk. As you may recall, I'm living a dairy-free existance at the moment. It's really not that bad, but can make meals somewhat challenging. I hope I don't make anyone too hungry, but I can't wait to have a McDonald's chocolate milkshake. I can't wait to have a piece of real cheese, not soy (or the better tasting 'rice' cheese). I'll be able to have cottage cheese, sour cream, cream cheese, Den's cheesy hash browns that will clog all your arteries, grilled cheese sandwhich, lasgna, french onion soup with gooey cheese melted on top, and I could go on.

I do eat some dairy like butter and often have to be reminded that sour cream and cream cheese do in fact have dairy, so it's not as strict as if I were eating kosher.

One thing I think I'll keep is the soy milk. It tastes perfectly fine to me and seems to be so much healthier than regular milk--and I drink a lot of the stuff. I do hope Josie is able to eat dairy, but if not, we'll at least have a year's worth of experience of foods that don't have dairy.

I've got a couple great pictures from the weekend coming up soon.