New Do

Oh, what a week! I survived my first week back to work... barely. I am not one of those people who were designed to operate on less than 8 hours of sleep, but I was forced to. Thankfully, the day I went back to work Keira started going to sleep between 11:00 and 11:30 which is a huge improvement upon her norm of staying up until 2:00 AM. God heard my prayers and helped me out with her bedtime, but she decided to wake up at 5:00 AM for some reason beyond my comprehension. It is hard to keep her asleep because she is very pacifier-dependent but can't keep it in her mouth very well. So my nights are spent periodically popping the pacifier back in her mouth because she needs to suck on something all night and isn't quite skilled enough to effectively make use of her thumb yet. I am trying to remember how lucky I am that I have a baby who has slept through the night (or early morning) since about 8 weeks old. Last night she was asleep by 10:00 so I was very happy. Art and I learned that the trick to getting her to go to sleep faster and earlier is to cover her face. Art had started doing it and I yelled at him for trying to suffocate her, then I realized that she likes having her face buried in something so she can sleep. If you cover at least half of her face with a blanket, she goes out like a light. It makes a lot of sense now that when I went to have 3D pictures done when I was pregnant, she had her face burrowed in the placenta. She was trying to sleep! If I had made that connection earlier, perhaps I would have spent much fewer nights awake with her until 3 in the morning!

I keep forgetting to tell you about Keira's "intentional coughing" as I call it. On Christmas Eve I came down with a cold that irritated my lungs just enough for me to cough about twice then feel better. By the time I started getting better I noticed the baby started doing a little cough, but she didn't seem sick. In fact, she was smiling when she did it. Every time she would be happy, smiling, and talking, she would incorporate her "intentional coughing" with a big grin on her face going Cough! Cough! I am pretty sure she learned it from me when I was sick. It is so funny! She is such a happy girl. She even wakes up smiling.

Art has been working at WinCo for the better part of 4 years, and I have been nagging him for quite some time to talk to his boss about moving up in the company. They are paid on a schedule based on hours worked and what position you are and he is maxed out on the freight crew. He can't get any more raises until he makes PIC (Person in Charge) although his hours worked still accumulate toward his next raises once he does get PIC. He finally talked to his boss and their response was pretty much, "What took you so long!?" They had just been waiting for him to ask. They said that there would be some openings coming up early this year and that they want him to apply for it. He brought home his application of interest this weekend and was sitting at the table filling it out with a pencil in his scribbly handwriting and I said, "You aren't turning it in like that are you?" I have a special talent for preparing resumes and using particular wording to make yourself sound desirable. I confiscated his applicated and scanned it in the computer and typed in text boxes on the form. He didn't think it was worth all the effort, but I told him just trust me. I'm sure they don't get that many typed applications and will be impressed when they see this. He turned it in that night and when he got home in the morning, he admitted that his boss was totally impressed and said he was going to put his application in the preferred applicants stack. What would he do without me? It will be so good to see Art moving up from a physically demanding position and start using his brain in a management position. He is a smart guy and his body can't take that kind of abuse forever!

I would like to take this opportunity to stake my claim on the term "blog-booking". I enjoy blogging more than I enjoy scrapbooking, and I enjoy scrapbooking more than I enjoy journaling, so I came up with the idea of incorporating my stories into my scrapbooking as encouragement to do scrapbook pages and as a means to keep somewhat of a journal while I'm at it. I also like the idea of having the story behind the pictures, if there is one. I started blog-booking my pregnancy pictures and I am really glad that I have the stories to go along with the ultrasounds and pictures because it's already a blur to me. Now, every time I invent something I usually find my invention within a week, but I googled "blog-booking" and from what I can find, no one has coined that term in scrapbooking context before me. Have it be known throughout the land, that...

I, Krysta Martinez, am the inventor

of blog-booking.

Plain old scrapbooking is going to go by the wayside and blog-booking is going to take over all because of me, I just know it. Feel free to jump on the blog-booking band wagon, but always give credit to it's creator. =)

Lately I have been ranting about my hair, how it has been falling out in handfuls and how it's way too thin to be so long. I often make threats to chop off my hair, but I generally restrain myself based on the fact that Art cherishes my long, straight, hair. It is hard to convince him to even let me trim it without tears forming in his big, brown eyes. He even has a small lock of my hair preserved somewhere in a plastic baggy from a previous trim. I announced to him Friday night that I was getting my hair cut and he said, "Fine! Do what you want- you don't listen to me anyway!" I had my mom cut it for me on Saturday and I am quite pleased with the results. When she got done and swept up the hair, it looked like a blonde wig on the kitchen floor. I haven't had my hair short since high school, because it seems like everyone I have ever dated has wanted me hair LONG and STRAIGHT. I figured I deserved a new do after all these years of repression. Besides, it will always grow back. I got home that night and showed Art my haircut and he didn't make any negative remarks. Even though he won't admit it, I think he actually likes it.

My little girl is 3 months old!