January 28th/29th, 2013: Time for Change

January 28th/29th, 2013:

                                                        

My room after

My room before

Busy couple of days for sure! We'll start at the night before last- Lyra slept decently well, I managed to keep her in her crib all night, so that was a plus. She still wakes up a lot during the first two hours and about 8-10 times during the night either wanting her soother or her bottle. In the morning, I got her ready for the day home and she was off by 7:15 am. I went back to sleep until about 930, then got out of bed and got ready for my day with my old friend. He picked me up by 10:40 and we went to Brewsters! It was easy to get back into the groove, nothing is ever awkward between us. He is still pissed that i'm still hanging around with Kalten (but which one of my friends isn't?) After that we drove to the movie theatre, almost an hour early. So, I wanted to go to Warehouse 1 to pick up a scarf I spotted online a few days ago- well of course they didn't have it in stock.. So I settled for some fuzzy socks. Then we headed to "Django Unchained". It was actually really good- some unnecessarily gory parts, but the story was pretty solid. I wonder it's based off of a book, if so, I definitely would love to read it! Once I was home, I cleaned in preparation for the painter and my dad that came today. Lyra went to bed alright again, and pretty much repeated the night before! 

This morning, Lyra was up and gone by 7:15 again. It is getting easier being apart from her, but I still hate it. I went back to bed until about 9 and my dad and his painter friend were here by 9:45. It's always nice to see my dad because he was pretty absent throughout my childhood. We moved the furniture out of the rooms and they were done by 11 and look amazing!! My dad had to patch the hole from that stupid Ikea decal, and he left the white powder stuff in a plastic bag in the basement incase we had to patch anything else. Well, he said "if your mother asks why theres white powder in the basement, just remind her I was here". LOL. Coming from a recovering cocaine addict, I thought this was absolutely hilarious! He is 3 weeks sober, but he has been in and out of rehab for years. You just get used to the situation and can only stay positive. No use dreading on something that is out of your reach, right? ..As I said the other day, I've been having troubles finding letters for Lyra's wall, well he said he'll make them for me and I just have to paint them white! So thats good! I'm sure they'll turn out fantastic. I spent the rest of the afternoon putting back my furniture and putting together my DVD stands that have been sitting in their packages for the past 4 months. In this process, my Shaw cable box isn't working in my room anymore. The sensor is shot or something. I spent almost 2 hours on the phone trying to figure out the problem. They can only send people during the day starting 2 weeks from now, which I'll be in school by then.. So I have no clue what I'm going to do with that situation :/ My mom's car is broken and she has to get a new one. Great. It's not even 5 years old- what a piece of crap! Lyra got home and we spent the night playing and cuddling. I also made a pie in that time lol. She went to bed at about 7:40- so that's pretty good! She's only been up once since then also.

Tomorrow, some garage door repair guys are coming.. My house is less than 8 months old, I can't believe how much is going wrong with it already! Other than that, I don't have a lot of plans. I'm sure my post will be quite interesting.. lol. 

Thursday is grad photos and have no clue how Lyra and myself are getting to the school.. It's supposed to be -23C so it'd be pretty hard to bus with her.. I'll probably end up spending $80 on a cab (oh yay..). On the bright side, when I do have to bus to school on Friday it's supposed to be +3C! Yeah, Edmonton has totally bipolar weather. I also might be going out with some friends that night, so it'd be nice to have the temperature on our side!

Tuesday, January 29th, 2013 8:57PM

January 27th, 2013: Regressing.. Again.

January 27th, 2013: Regressing.. Again

Oh. My. God. Last night was beyond horrible. Lyra woke up as expected, but then she woke up again and again and again. At about 10, she stopped going back to sleep and did the crying fit thing again aaaaall the way until 2:50am.. She woke up every 20-30 minutes until 6 when she wouldn't go back to sleep. Luckily my mom heard her up around 7 and she let me sleep until 8:30! She said I could've slept longer, but I don't think it's really fair considering Lyra is my responsibility, not hers! 

Around 11, we went to Carters and got some really cute clothes for Lyra, so now she has an outfit for my grad photos on Thursday. I love the selection at that particular store. I can never walk out empty handed, but it is also very reasonably priced. After that we headed over to Walmart for some fruit and baby food. I got some new kinds, so hopefully she likes them! My ex picked us both up from there and we went out for lunch at Boston Pizza. It was pretty good, not as awkward as last weekend! Everyone in the restaurant was astounded that Lyra was only 6 months old. She is a really big baby! She is in 12 month sized clothes, and I even got her an 18 month size pair of pants that look like they'll fit right now. After some really good food, he took me home then took Lyra back to his parents house for a visit. The last trip of the day was to the dollar store. I was hoping to find some wooden letters for Lyra's bedroom wall, but had no luck! They're like $5 a letter at Michael's- which is pretty expensive, but I think i'll end up paying that. While in the dollar store, there was seriously the brattiest kid EVER. He ran into my mom with a shopping cart and 15 minutes later he knocked a whole shelf over- with his parents nowhere to be found. Then another 10 minutes later his parents were called to the till, took them like 5 minutes to get there, then they didn't even care to address his behaviour! Some peoples parenting skills amaze me :/ Then, I came home, ate dinner, had a bath and am now just relaxing on the couch waiting for Lyra to get home! 

Tomorrow, an old friend and myself are getting together. Not too sure what we're doing yet, but he's sick of shopping lol. So, I'm thinking Galaxyland in West Edmonton Mall- I'm not a fan of rides, but I want to do something different for a change! 

Well, I'm hoping that Lyra actually sleeps tonight, but that's probably wishful thinking... 

Sunday, January 27th, 2013 7:11

January 26th, 2013: Real Progress

January 26th, 2013: Real Progress

Some MAJOR Bed Head!

As you know, Lyra went to bed really well last night. She also had 2 good naps today, and went to bed at 7pm- all without a fuss! Clearly she has had a major turn over compared to the past week!! She does wake up exactly 39 minutes from the time she falls asleep, then 7 minutes, then 13 minutes, want a bit of her bottle and she'll sleep for about 2-3 hours. I just need to get that first hour under control so she can self-soothe herself through those transitions.

Today, Lyra woke up at 7. We played in

bed and watched some Bubble Guppies until about 9. In the next few hours we went to Shoppers to get formula and some skittles, then my daily Starbuck fix. She had about a 40 minute nap in the car. When we got home we played some more until about 1 when she laid for a good 2 hour nap! As planned, we went shopping and I got the white tank top I needed, along with a t-shirt, another shirt and some new headphones! Still needing a bag that can hold my macbook though.. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful.

Tomorrow, my ex is supposed to take Lyra in the morning. His definition of "morning" is more around noon though lol. I'm hoping to get some laundry done and paint my nails, then probably sleep and relax. 

Next weekend or the following I'm actually going to plan a night out to celebrate my going back to school :) So that should be a good change from my usually boring weekends! 

Saturday, January 26th, 2013 8:28PM

January 25th, 2013: I Must've Died and Gone to Heaven..

January 25th, 2013: I Must've Died and Gone to Heaven..

Yay!!!! For the first time this week Lyra has gone to bed without a series of screaming fits! It's still much later than a baby should be falling asleep at (8:45) but at least its a start. Instead of keeping her in one spot, I got her out of her crib and we did something else until she showed more signs of tiredness. She was sleeping in a half-made crib, so I took everything out (with her playing on the floor, I dropped her soft toys on her and she just thought that was the funniest thing ever!) and reorganized it, put fresh bedding on, put all of her stuffed toys at the foot of the crib and then we went down stairs to try some new baby food. This was the first veggies she's actually liked! I think they were squash, mango and carrots or something like that. She had half a bottle then I put her in her crib, 5 minutes later she was out cold!

Lyra was at the day home today in anticipation that our rooms would be painted. I ripped off a wall decal right before my dad came over and it took some of the dry wall with it, so we couldn't paint :( On the plus side, he's hiring a professional to come in to do it. This is the first time in like 5 years that he's put any of his own money into anything for me lol. So thats a start. He's 3 weeks sober too, so thats pretty good, it never lasts long though. Anyways, I got my CALM final exam done online today and it was actually pretty hard. The subject itself is full of common sense and really stupid questions, so I didn't read the booklets because none of the questions in the modules required answers from there. WELL, the exam starts whipping out all these crazy terms and such, so I did some guessing. Of course there were some stupid questions too, including "Your best friends mother has died. Write a paragraph of what you would do"... Like seriously?! 

Tomorrow I don't have anything planned except my dad is coming to visit Lyra and patch that hole that the decal made. I called my old work today to give them my new address to send my T4 to, my old best friend answered. Not that we had a falling out or anything, it's just that we've sort of drifted over the past few months. He came over and saw Lyra the day she was born and hung out, then I brought her to work (it's Let's Play, so it's a gigantic children's play place, clearly Lyra-friendly) to visit the old co-workers, but other than that we haven't hung out much. He is 6 years older than me so he has lot's to do, and has a girlfriend with crazy hours. I think we're gonna hang out on Monday since Lyra has to be at the day home. Not a clue what we'll do yet, he's usually my shopping buddy though haha. But I was hoping to go shopping with my mom sometime this weekend to get out of the house. I still need a white tank top and a bigger bag that can hold more school stuff. 

I swear I had something to do on Monday other than hang out with my old friend... hmm.. Maybe I wrote about it, I'll have to scan through some recents once I'm done with this! On Tuesday the painter is coming, Thursday is grad photos, not sure how I'm getting there yet.. Maybe I'll ask Ashley and we'll go for a late lunch before or something. Then Friday is my first day at school. OH! I also found out that my friend Anna's field placement for university is at my new school, so I'll get to go visit her everyday :) Hopefully I can make some more plans since Lyra has to be at the day home more next week.. It is really nice to be able to catch up on sleep during the day, it makes it soooo much easier to take care of her in the evening when I'm well rested. 

Friday, January 25th, 2013 9:23PM

January 23rd/24th: Having Troubles..

January 23rd/24th, 2013: Having Troubles..

I didn't write last night because Lyra had troubles sleeping.. AGAIN. She finally ended up falling asleep at 11:30pm, then was up every 30 minutes-1 hour. On top of that, I have the flu, so I haven't even gotten a wink of sleep. It took me an hour to put her to bed tonight, and in the past 30 minutes she has woken up 3 4 5 times. I just don't know what to do, it's making me feel like a failure as a mother because I can't make my own daughter sleep. It's been really tough the past week or so especially. 

Yesterday I registered for school, and I'm on track to graduate this term! Yay! I have my graduation photos booked for next thursday, then I start school friday morning. The registration went pretty well, its weird being in a school thats hallways are filled with parked strollers and crying babies lol. I'm hoping I'm eligible for full funding. It'd really take off some financial stress. 

Today, Lyra woke up really early this morning, I kept her in bed as long as I could. We got through half an episode of Bubble Guppies. Her face always lights up as soon as it comes on! After that we played a bit, and she sat without assistance on my bed for a whole 20 minutes while I got ready! Ashley came and grabbed us to go shopping, we dropped Lyra off at day home on the way to West Edmonton Mall. It's always nice getting out of the house. I was hoping to get more back to school clothes, but all I bought was jeans, lip gloss and a blazer. We picked up Lyra on the way home and she was pretty much fussy the whole time. 

Tomorrow, my dad is supposed to come paint mine and Lyra's rooms, so she'll probably spend the day at the day home while I help and do my CALM exam. I don't really have anything planned for the weekend, hopefully me and my mom can do some more shopping. Kalten might take Lyra overnight Saturday, not too sure if i'll go out or just stay home and sleep. Not too sure who i'd go out with considering that i've been pretty distant with most of my friends lately. Hopefully things start looking up soon.

January 24th, 2013 8:35PM 

January 22nd, 2013: Six Months Ago Today..

January 22nd, 2013: Six Months Ago Today...

5 minute old Lyra, photo
taken by her daddy.

6 month old Lyra

... my contractions were a steady 10 minutes apart for the past night, I woke up still thinking they were braxton hicks. I continued my regular Sunday since my ex had moved out a few months prior (we were still "dating" at the time)- wake up, eat some breakfast then go back to bed and watch t.v. (I had the most interesting life) I continued to time my contractions on my iPhone app. They were getting longer and closer together. I still hadn't told anyone that I was even in labor, other than my boyfriend at the time. He lived close to the hospital, but insisted to take the 2 hour bus ride from downtown to my south side apartment.  I told my mom around 3 that my contractions were 5 minutes apart, she looked at me wide-eyed and said "seriously?! why didn't you say anything?!". I was for some reason convinced that this wasn't the real thing. My braxton hicks were WAY more painful, they left me immobile and usually crying. I packed my hospital bag, still telling my mom that they'll probably send me home anyways. Well, Kalten (the ex) arrived around 6, and we went straight to the hospital, my contractions were now 2-3 minutes apart. We got to the Lois Hole Hospital for Women just after 7 pm. I told the L&D nurse that I thought I was having contractions that were 2minutes apart. She brushed me off saying they were probably braxton hicks and to sit down. I continued to tell her that was 41 weeks pregnant, and she finally agreed to get me checked. The doctor came into the room, and let the intern check me first. He said I was 8cm dilated. She looked at him like he was on something, then checked again.. but he was right. The room was staring at me like I was crazy for waiting this long to come in. They went into mini-panic mode and hooked me up to everything, confirming my contractions were now 1 minute apart. Within the next hour people came into visit, but all left before I had her. My mom, Kalten and his mom were the only ones designated to be in the room with me.The doctor came in to break my water, but it broke within the 10 seconds that she was walking towards me! It was now 9:30, I had just gotten the epidural (which I wish I wouldn't have) and almost time to push. It didn't sit right with me, and wore off by about 10. I started pushing at 10:10 and 43 minutes later my perfect 8lb 3oz, 22 inch long bundle of joy. When she came out, the doctor put her on my chest. The first thing I said was "Oh my god, I'm so glad she's not ugly!" The entire room started laughing. Then it really hit me. Lyra. This little girl is all mine. I made this. I started tearing up, "she is perfect." And that was 6 months ago today. 

First nap, passed out
while playing with the
remote.

Part II of the second nap!

Lyra woke up with the flu this morning :( but got better throughout the day. We played until 10, but she was already so tired that she fell asleep playing with the remote, so I put her down for a nap. She slept a whole hour and a half!! I got both our laundry folded, and mine put away. I also prepped for the steak skewers for supper. Once she woke up, we played some more and she was tired again by 2, she slept 40 minutes, I brought her down and within 5 minutes she was grumpy and passed out within the 2 minutes I went pee! She slept all the way until 4!! She NEVER naps, let alone two good ones in one day! I finished making dinner, gave her a bath while watching a crazy intense episode of Pretty Little Liars, ate some pears and a bottle and by 7 she went to bed without a fight. So far she's only woken up once, maybe she's finally taken a turn for the better! Or not, just rocked her back to sleep from a 25 minute crying fit... And just woke up AGAIN as I'm typing..And another 15 minute crying fit:/

Tomorrow Lyra is spending the day at her day home tomorrow while I go register for school and return my books to my old school! I'm so excited to graduate and get everything over with :)

Gonna try to get in a shower before she wakes up again.. Wish me luck!

January 21st, 2013: It'll Get Easier...

January 21st, 2013: It'll Get Easier... 

Today was Lyra's first day at the day home. I can honestly say I cried when she left. The whole morning I couldn't help but feel guilty for sending her off with a strange lady she's only met a few times. I went back to sleep around 8 until 9:30, then went straight to work on my CALM course, which I surprisingly finished in just 5 hours. Unfortunately, I can't do the final exam until Thursday, but I was hoping to have it finished by Wednesday.. Oh well. Still feeling guilty and upset about Lyra, my door bell rang, I slowly went downstairs expecting a solicitor to be standing at the door. To my surprise, it was my best friend Ashley who decided to stop by after her shift at the pool with my favourite Starbucks drink! We hadn't talked since Saturday, but she knew Lyra started at the day home and I'd be having a rough day without her. I invited her to stay a bit, so we painted our nails, watched a few episodes of "Ridiculousness" and ordered some Boston Pizza. She ended up staying until my mom came home with Lyra. We both really wanted to see her, but she was passed right out :( After a half hour of waiting for her to wake up, I got her bath and a bottle ready and finally woke her up. I seriously missed my little Munchkin, but everyones telling me it gets easier. I had a boring dinner while Lyra was playing in her walker- chicken strips and apples with caramel sauce. What a combo, hey? lol . Well, she had a long, rowdy bath with lots of splashing, then we played and cuddled until 8 when she had a bottle and went to bed (WITHOUT a fight!). Just in time for Hawaii 5-O! I will be keeping her home tomorrow just to ease her into the full time care, PLUS she turns 6 months old tomorrow :) 

On that note, tomorrow should be pretty relaxing. I'll hopefully get both mine and Lyra's laundry folded and I have a pretty good dinner planned for tomorrow night (I'll be sure to post pics and the recipe). Also hoping that Lyra has a good nights rest tonight! On Wednesday, she'll be going to the day home a little later than usual because I have registration at the school at 10:30, then and appointment with the financial department at 11:00. After that I'm going to drop off my textbooks at my correspondence school. Thursday, my dad is coming to paint mine and Lyra's room at 9am then Ashley and I are going shopping at West Edmonton Mall. Other than that, I have nothing else planned for the rest of the week or the weekend. 

I found this insanely cute stretch-mark friendly bathing suit on Instagram today and fell in love. It's on ShopJeen.com ... For nearly $250.00!!! Like seriously?! I can barely justify spending $75 on a swim suit, let alone 3 times that! I love the bandeau style top because its generally flattering for flat-chested women like myself. The high-waisted hipster bottoms would hide the stretch marks on my hips, but also helps create that "hour glass" shape we all want! Over the next little while I'll be trying to find a cheaper alternative for this super cute swim suit, so I can be comfortable swimming this summer with my little Bug <3 

Monday, January 21st, 2013 9:04PM