I am running on reserve these days. I am completely exhausted, thanks to the fact that DH is in Seattle all week, leaving me to take care of the kids. Siddhant is super whiny, he wants to be just held everywhere - he's joined to me at the hip every minute after we come back from school. On top of the general tiredness, my knee is killing me and I've developed a sudden rash near my mouth as I had stopped paying attention to the fact that I am allergic to Lanolin products - I've been applying any chapstick that I can get my hands on, forgetting to check it's ingredients.
I feel I should quit work and stay at home for few months just to recover from post-pregnancy stress, moving stress and every other physical stress, but if I quit, then we can't quite afford to send kids to the day care, so then am I gaining anything if I had to watch them ? Everyone tells me, you'll get a vacation in India, but will I ?? I have big doubts! I think what I need is some person to come clean, cook and wait on me all day to get rid of the stress! But the reality of right now is that I need to get back to work so I put on my headphones, listen to some music that will make me forget that I have stress and focus on work at hand! After all they say, it's all in the mind, keep a positive focus.. lets see how many minutes my positive attitude lasts today!!
Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time! That's how I would describe our situation when we bought our Colorado home 6 years back and even now when we've put it up on the market. We started looking for a home at the peak of the housing market bubble - little did we know that we should have maybe waited for 2 years for that bubble to burst. It's not that I regretted buying a home! Most Indian's that I know are very calculating, waiting for years to buy a home either because they follow the market or wait to get more stabilized in this country like getting a green card! But we're more like mavericks, we do things when we want to. I love the way my husband lives his life - so spontaneous! He enjoys what he has, when he has them as opposed to me who whines most of the times about things :) So like everything, I am upset on the fact that we will take a loss on my first house when we take the company offered buyout offer next month!
Our house went on market in Mar 2011 and we have 4 months to market it before we can accept the buyout offer by the company. Granted that the buyout offer that came with our relocation package is kinda a saver in the sense that we don't have to own the liability of the house now that we moved to Texas but still it's very low compared to what we bought the house for, forget about the additions that we did! We've had so many showings but not a single valid offer - it makes me think if we were stupid to buy the house in that location ? or the house that we loved so much and were proud of, is it not really that great ? or we're just unlucky to not have many people come through who'd like to stay in that area! More importantly, I wonder if we made the same mistake when we bought our Texas home ? DH never thinks so much, he moves on and lives his life but unfortunately that doesn't come so easy to me :(
Now that we have moved to the corporate office in Plano, the attire is formal everyday with the exception of casual Fridays. So far, I'm not complaining as I was in rags for the last five years at the boulder office. I welcomed the casual attire and attitude of people in Boulder when I first joined Ericsson 6 years back - I was escaping from New York City where I looked pretty under dressed even though I wore formal pants, shirts and decent pair of comfortable walking shoes. Now at the head quaters, I was in a different group and it was time to create a different perception of me in their eyes! It also meant changing my entire wardrobe - which girl doesn't like that ?? I won't call my wardrobe change complete as a women can never be content with the clothes she has ;) but I would say that it's satisfactory! Now all I need are some good pair of shoes! I'm not very greedy, just need a black and a dark blue pair of high heels that will look for work and at the same time are very stylish. I've gone to many stores - DFW, Calvin Klien factory outlet, Marshalls, even Target but cannot find that pair that catches my eye :( My shoes have to be high heeled but not stilleto heels as I don't want to injure my angle and I hate the kitten heel (minute version of stilleto) At the same time, I don't want wedges anymore as I already have a couple of them.. so choices are limited and so is the budget.. I don't want to go overboard and buy a $100 shoe, I'm willing to spend half of it! After so many factors in consideration, choices are virtually none! Apart from the stores I could go shop online which could save me some time as I don't have the time to go to many stores in the first place but I'm the kind of person who cannot buy shoes and clothes online. I need to wear them to make sure it's comfortable and I like it!
So my search for the perfect shoe continues to this day.. I hope to find them eventually!
Today I turn 31. I think numbers don't matter to me anymore, I already
whined enough about getting old when I was 27. I remember, it was the most difficult birthday of my life, I wished how I would remain 26 forever and that my life is doomed from there on. So now when I turned 31, it didn't matter anymore. I always look at accomplishments when I turn a year old and this year my accomplishment will be my son. I will very soon have 2 kids who I can count as accomplishments in life :)
I feel guilty for both my kids ! I feel guilty for the unborn one because I feel, no one pays too much attention to him, I've never ever bought anything new - toys or clothes or other kind of equipment in preparation of the new born. I know I have time but same
time frame with my first born was very different ! I don't even have a name picked out, haven't even bothered to search one, I keep referring to it as baby #2 in front of others :)
On the other hand, when I went to see my friends new born, I held her in my arms, my first born was right next to me saying "baby, baby" in excitement but I kept a close watch on her as she might get excited and poke the baby ! I had to keep pushing her away, I felt so bad doing that. I felt as if I abandoned by baby girl just because there was another new born in sight. I know when our own son is born, we'll have to keep restraining her and maybe even get angry at her if she doesn't listen. I've never treated my dear daughter this way, so I don't know how I'll be able to do all this without feeling guilty all over again ! Everyone assures me that another kid doesn't mean you don't love him or her, your love doubles for both of them, I guess time will tell how things go, but I'm just a bit nervous sometimes !
GCT stands for glucose challenge test, it's the first test you take when you're pregnant between 24 to 28 weeks for detecting if you developed gestation diabetes. Last time I failed the 1 hour test and was then called to take the 3 hour glucose tolerance test (GTT) - in which 1 out of 4 of my readings was slightly higher. One needs 2/4 readings to be high to be classified as gestational diabetic. In my case, the doctor said that I should watch what I eat which didn't make enough sense to me as I had no idea what to watch ? I took an unofficial diabetes counselling class where they told me how to measure my carb intake and also set me up with a glucose meter where I had to poke my self several times a day. My night readings were always high, the rest of the day was just fine.
Anyways, after last time, I have been very skeptical about this time as they say that you have a 30-85% chance of developing it with the second baby if you've already had it before. And being myself, I always prepare myself for worse and worry weeks before the actual even so that I'm not so disappointed in the end. This is exactly what I'm doing now as I have my test on Friday. I have studied all the lunch places I normally eat at and have figured out what I can or can't eat. But with these preparations, I'm secretly hoping that I pass the test this time cause it's really frustrating not being able to eat what you want. Also what's frustrating is that I know a lot of people who just keep eating like crazy when they were pregnant but never had a sugar problem but me on the other hand who's had a very controlled diet will get into all sorts of sugar problems !! Why me ???
I'm tired of all the sickness in my house ! One of us is always sick ! My daughter is the culprit, bringing all the germs from day care and then we take turns passing these around. But what can the poor child do, it's not her fault that she goes to day care at such a young age and the fact that we live in a place that has 7 months of cold and flu season. I wish I could move to a much warmer place where we wouldn't be falling sick so much. I occassionally get a cold but it's over in a day or two but this time is different.. it's lasted for 3 days accompanied by fever, weakness and now some sort of an eye infection and being pregnant just makes the experience even worse as you not only fear for people around you but also the unborn life you're carrying. Hopefully all of this is not affecting the baby !