Frustrated and Tired
I am in a constant state of flux on what to do about this site. This May, I will have been writing on and off for six years. For the first three or four years, I did write consistently and I looked forward to coming home and writing down my thoughts and feelings. Some days it was an effort but most days it really wasn't. I still regularly go back to those posts and reread them so I am really glad they're there. Not to mention all the photos I've accumulated over the years. They are all fantastic records of those years. Since I stopped working at the investment bank, it seems I haven't really written consistently. I had a bout of consistent photo posting but even that came to an end with David's birth.

The times when I've taken an "official" break, I've felt like a weight has been lifted off of me. At least once a day, I think of the site and how I should be updating and writing more. I think of taking photos and get depressed at the state of my life. But then when the time comes to write, I look at my to-do list and look at the things I have to give up. I have a full-time job and a part-time job. I have a little boy who's getting more demanding each day. I take photos of him every day and post them weekly for my family to see. I am making a scrapbook for his first year which does seem to take countless hours of my crazy time. I still try to read a book a week (or two weeks) since it's one of the few things that makes me feel peaceful and sane. I get around 50 emails a day that I have to respond to which are besides the over 100 I get for work. Not to mention the daily things like preparing 3 meals a day for the little boy and feeding them to him. We go to music class once a week, two different mom's groups once a week each, a baby book club once every two weeks, and a ton of random crap that just comes up.

The only peaceful and uninterrupted times I have in the day are from 6:30pm to bedtime. Lately, thanks to my sinuses, I have been going to bed as early as 8pm which means I have 1.5 hours to eat dinner, catch up with my husband and go through my entire to-do list. So, I've been feeling slightly overwhelmed lately and giving this site (which hasn't been updated with any regularity for months now) seems so enticing.

But then I can't get myself to do it. This feels like a part of me. Something I poured so much of myself into. Something I can't seem to let go. So I sit here, frustrated and unsure and tired of going back an forth. I most likely will make yet another set of changes to see if I can make it more enticing, easier for me to update more regularly. And if that doesn't work either, well we';; get there when we get there I guess.

Apologies for all the whining, it's been a weird few weeks.

Major Milestones
It's been so long since I've written that David's taken huge leaps forward. The previous Friday (Jan 27), he took his first steps. When we are both in the living room, David feels comfortable roaming all around and even going into the bedroom where he can't see me. But for some reason, when I'm at my desk he will not leave the tiny radius of my desk. Which means everything in that radius gets prodded, played with, chewed, and destroyed in some form. I used to have a lot of office supplies near my desk, which meant that David regularly found staples and paper clips and all sort of other sharp objects that he's not supposed to be near. I have since found a way to keep him away from that stuff, but the frustration (his and mine) is always at maximum when I'm at my desk, working. So on that particular Friday, I was frustrated with David destroying everything in sight and still complaining loudly, so I walked over to the living room to pull some of his toys close to my desk and when I turned around, he was walking towards me, grinning. Let me tell you, I didn't see it coming at all. I yelled for Jake to come look and David did it several more times for him. This is EXACTLY why I quit my job at the investment bank and chose to work from home. To me, those seconds when he took his first steps were worth everything I gave up.

Now that he's walking, he seems to be quite opinionated. He feels no qualms about expressing them either. If he wants to get somewhere and something is standing on his way, he will wedge himself into it and start screaming until he can get to his destination by either my help or the force of his strong will.

He will walk around and come back and laugh at me, when I laugh back, he will laugh louder, and we keep getting louder and louder until we're screaming from laughter.

He absolutely hates lying on his back for diaper changes or any other reason. While we've mastered changing him while he's standing for normal diaper changes, we still haven't figured out how to manage it when he has a poopy diaper.

He loves doing raspberries and does them all day long to entertain himself but especially when I feed him something he doesn't want to eat. He's figured out that it's an excellent way to spit the food back out.

String cheese is like crack to him.

He's figured out how to turn off/on the TV and the XBox and does so continuously with much laughter. He loves going up to the bird's cage and banging at it loudly. I am sure the bird is delighted that we have a son.