Neglect and Deprivation

It's now been one month since I pushed my baby out and I am TIRED. I'm still trying to convince Keira that we don't need to be up all night like Daddy but she still gets up to eat every 3 hours, which means I get to sleep for about 2 hours at a time if I'm lucky. She loves to be awake, especially at night.

My sleep deprivation was accentuated by the fact that I had to finish my real estate finance course and have the certificate of completion at the Department of Real Estate by this Wednesday or else everything I worked so hard for would have gone down the drain. So I spent all last week studying and took the final exam last night, which I proudly passed with a 97%. I will shortly have my unconditional real estate sales license although I'm not sure when I will utilize it.

I have learned that motherhood requires a skill for prioritizing that I have not yet mastered. With only 2 free hours at a time, you must carefully choose what you wish to accomplish in that window. The list usually consists of bathing and other personal hygiene, eating, pumping, house cleaning, errands, and laundry. It seems like eating keeps getting pushed farther and farther down the list. Sometimes I get to the end of the day and realized I haven't even brushed my teeth, or that I haven't eaten all day. You might call it self-neglect. I have also sworn off cooking until further notice, so feel free to take pity on me and bring me a nutritious meal any time.

Even lower on the list of priorities is my poor Bunny. He has not seen much time outside of his cage in the past 4 weeks. To top it off, he was out of hay and banana chips for a couple weeks. This has resulted in very low Bunny morale, so much so that a few days ago when I lowered his dinner into his cage he angrily bit my hand! Yes, he bit the hand that feeds him. I think Bunny's isolation is pushing him toward insanity, as he has begun hurling himself against the cage walls like some kind of crazed wall kick or body slam. Hopefully I can get him to forgive me.

One thing I am happy about though is how surprisingly resilient my body is, with the exception of my bad butt skin. My belly got really flat really fast. By the end of week 2 or so, I had dropped 20 lbs. and I thought I looked pretty dang good. I would be completely content at my present weight but I would still like to get in the habit of exercising. Every time I go into public, people tell me I don't even look like I had a baby. Art says not to let it go to my head, but I think he is impressed too.

I totally meant to take pictures of the baby yesterday to commemorate her 4 week birthday but that fell too low on the priority list and didn't happen. We are planning on taking a family picture to give to everyone for Christmas but I contracted a gnarly eye infection in both eyes and have to wait until that clears up. That will give me some time to decide where I want to have them taken and figure out something to wear. I have a dress that's ok but I wore it while I was pregnant and although it isn't a maternity dress it has maternity karma. Also, I am quite nervous about timing it so that she isn't starving to death or asleep upon our arrival. Anyways, here are a couple pictures from Week 3. Nothing fancy...

Her birthmark looks like a tattoo to me.

I want to know what color her eyes are going to be!

She likes playing with her ladybug toy.

Cuddling with Daddy.