This Is How I MomSolving the puzzle of motherhood one piece at a time

At this point, I have completely accepted my new life as normal. Some things would be nice, like more sunny days (like today!), but things are pretty amazing all in all. I now regard my physical and emotional recovery as complete. Sure, I still have 15lbs to drop, but hey, I’ve got time and I feel pretty good in my body as is.

In fact, I almost want to say I feel STRONGER now than I did before pregnancy. Not just because of the life experience, but also physically. Now that most of the aches are gone or almost gone, I’ve dropped most of my baby weight and I lug around an 18-pound baby all day, I have energy again and I’m developing some hefty arm muscles! I still go for walks with the bean when weather permits, and I do about 250 situps and 10 pushups every day. It’s not much, and I do miss how accomplished the gym made me feel, but my body is still happy with me.

Speaking of the gym – we did some inquiries when we went in the other day. We iced our membership for 3 months since we don’t really have much of a chance to go with our sleep schedules still not aligned (hopefully we’ll do this very soon!) and still stabilizing our income. But we figure in 3 months we’ll start it up again and feel a lot more comfortable leaving Logan at the gym daycare too. Since he’s not sitting up by himself yet, he’d basically need to be attached to someone that’s not me for the entire time we’re there, and that thought kinda creeps me out. I have no problem with my husband, family and friends holding my baby, but strangers are a different story.

I know I’m being paranoid.

Anyway, the older he gets, the more comfortable and less overprotective I am. It’s actually kinda nice. It’s like the little guy is figuring out he’s his own person, and mommy is figuring out she’s still herself, after all.

Today is one of those rare, stunning days. It was supposed to rain all week, but when I woke up this morning, I was greeted by the most beautiful sunshine – and it’s still there! *knock on wood* Logan and I went outside for a few minutes, since it was warm enough with the sun shining down on us. That was literally the first time I just decided to go outside without putting a billion layers on both of us since Logan has been born, and I think I’m going to LOVE this summer! Not only can we have much fun outside, I get to watch Logan discover the world too! Maybe/possibly/probably he’ll crawl by July, too.

My mother is completely spoiling me for Easter and I got to indulge in this:

Jersey Rouche Dress

I die. It’s so pretty.

The 50mm f1.4 USM lens arrived yesterday, and I couldn’t be happier! Our weather has been very gloomy & dark, so I didn’t get to give it the test run it deserves, but I still managed to play around with it for a little. The lighting was so bad that I had to set a +1.0 exposure override AND let the little guy sit in the doorway outside to get some decent pictures, but hey.. at least it worked.

A lot of my first pictures came out pretty blurry and less than stellar. I’ve never owned a fixed focal length lens and I found out pretty quickly that it’s not the best for self-portraits… at least not the on-the-go shot kind where you hold the camera.

I also learned that f1.4 is an extremely narrow depth of field. EXTREMELY. Note how the sides and top of the hairband are already going out of focus. I’m sure I’ll find a good use for it (like beautiful bokeh shots!), but it’s definitely too narrow for shots of the little bean.

These shots were taken at f2.5, which still resulted in too narrow a depth of field. I’m thinking 4 might be better in the future. Still; they came out pretty cute.

What I especially love is how SHARP the lens is. Check out the reflection in his eyes here:

Yep, that’s clearly me, holding a camera, standing in the doorway. Hahaha. Nuts. So far, I love it! I can’t wait for better weather so I can give it a test run outside with the little bean, though. And get a better feel for, y’know, the apertures and when to use which one.

Western Washington isn’t really good at the whole snow thing. It also doesn’t grace us much with the whole sunny thing. What Washington is really good at is clouds, rain and cold. However, the last few days it’s been unusually sunny, especially for January/February. Munchkin and I made good use of the weather and actually – gasp – went outside for a few walks, and low and behold, he liked it! He doesn’t like when the sun shines straight on his face, so I might invest in baby sunglasses. But he didn’t cry or fuss, which is what he did when I took him outside in the cold. The sun also really helped bring out his pretty eyes (not like I’m waiting on a really expensive lens to showcase them better or anything…). Here’s the reason I marvel at them all day every day:

Holy blue. If they actually stay like that, I’m going to have armies of girls kick my door in in 15 years.

Something less pleasant is also happening, though. I read over on Daily Garnish that she’s going through a sleep regression with her son, and since her son was born on my son’s due date, I’ve been kind of worried about the same thing happening over here. Two days ago, Logan started being a lot crankier than is usual for him – yesterday being terrible. He had a stretch in mid-day where he just cranked/cried for 50 mins straight and refused to take his long overdue nap. Last night, after sleeping 8-9 hours for 6 weeks straight, he woke up at 4am (5 1/2h).

Since my husband and I are still on night/day shift sleep patterns, this isn’t a big deal. He simply took care of the little guy. Mommy slept. However, dealing with cranky baby all day is quite exhausting, and I really hope his mood will lift soon… or within a few weeks, if it’s really the 4-month sleep regression. It breaks my heart to see him cry and none of the usual things cheer him up. On the upside, he’s still an adorable little bugger even when cranky.