Best. Husband. Ever.

This last weeked has been really crazy with work. I have technically only worked 6 work days, the first three of which I had almost nothing to do, but have now billed over 60 hours in a very short period of time.

This meant that Jay had to step up to the plate big time with Joaquin and other household duties, all while balancing his own work and other obligations. Jay has gone above and beyond, all without complaining or making me feel guilty for being so absent.

I am so incredibly lucky to be married to such a wonderful man.

Jay, you are the love of my life and you are my "partner" in every sense of the word. I am incredibly grateful to have you in my life.

I can't wait until work calms down a bit so I can spend more time with my boys.

Quick Note on Sleep Training

After focusing on all of the negatives of our sleep training experience in my previous posts, I wanted to quickly update anyone following that saga with our results so far.

In the last week, with only a few minor hiccups, Joaquin has successfully gone to bed with little or no crying on time, and woken up only once or twice during the night for a quick meal and easily settled back down to sleep.

On Saturday, he went to bed at 4:45, woke twice for meals, and slept in until 7:30!! Wow. I could not believe it. I was a little upset though because I wanted to hang out with him a bit more over the weekend. But, I was happy that he got his rest if he needed it.

So, in the end, we now feel very satisfied with the results of sleep training. Joaquin is well rested and happier when he is up. And Jay and I have been enjoying a more predictable schedule and better rest at night. I understand why other people would not want to go through this process, as I definitely had a very hard time with it, but ultimately it was the right decision for Joaquin and for us.

For now, we are happy with the two night wakings routine. If it continues for several more months, we may revisit sleep training to reduce to one meal at night and then again to get to sleeping through the night. I still have not gotten 8 consecutive hours of sleep for almost six months now...but I think I can survive for a bit longer.

Project Time!

Well, after my first full week back at work, I realize that I am going to have to embrace working from home. Before Joaquin was around, I very rarely worked from home. We don't have a lot of space and I never felt productive working on a tiny laptop in the living room. So, when there was a lot of work to do, I stayed at the office late or drove to work on the weekends.

But, this week has really shown me that I need to come up with a way to be home more. I came home after Joaquin was sleeping on Wednesday and Thursday and the other nights I only saw him for thirty minutes or so before bedtime. Plus, I had to go into the office today for a half day. This is just not sustainable.

So, I have a project on my hands. In the next week I plan to convert our guest room into a home office. If I'm feeling really motivated, I will try to take before and after pics to share.

Once completed, I think I will be able to make a habit of leaving work early so I can see Joaquin before bed time and I can get more work done after he is in bed. Not perfect, but definitely an improvement.

Revisiting the House Buying Issue...

As some of you might remember, Jay and I have been going back and forth on whether we want to buy a home or not. Recent events have forced us to think very critically about this decision.

We currently live in a very cute 3 bedroom duplex near the ocean. In many ways, it is a great place to live. We take lovely walks on the beach with the dogs and Joaquin and enjoy the fresh air and beautiful weather of a coastal neighborhood. In other ways, it is not so great. Many of our neighbors are young guys who listen to loud music, play electric guitar and drink during the day. Our place is cramped and although we have a guest room, it really isn't suitable for guests because Jay's entire wardrobe is kept in the guest closet. There is no room for a desk of any kind, which is quickly going to make my life a little more difficult. In short, we have sort of outgrown our current living situation.

We were hoping to score a great deal on a rental around the corner. It was a 4 bedroom house in a quiet part of the neighborhood. Unfortunately, the owners raised their expected rent by $500 per month and that was that. Ugh.

One of the reasons we were attracted to our current place when we first visited it was the option in the lease to break the lease upon the purchase of a home with 60 days' notice (once we had lived in the unit for at least a year).

So, when we found out we weren't getting the place around the corner, we faced a decision: (1) find a new rental by the end of May or (2) stay in our current place but commit to buying a house in the next year. Decisions, decisions.

After frantic visits to craigslist and redfin, we felt like we were really between a rock and a hard place. We did not want to keep throwing away absurb amounts of money on rent AND have to pay to move and put down a new security deposit. At the same time, we are still underwhelmed with our purchase options and overwhelmed by the idea of making a commitment to a massive mortgage.

Ultimately, we decided we were done moving to new rentals and we are (almost) ready to take the real estate plunge. So, the frantic scrimping and saving has commenced (well, it will commence once I start getting paychecks again) and we are hopeful we will find something we love that we can afford. Plus, we think it will be great to settle into a neighborhood and give Joaquin a chance to start making the kinds of friends that Jay was lucky enough to grow up with in Irvine.

Donations are welcome ;-)

Back at Work

I'm back at work. Today is my second day and my first Monday. I thought I would be all kinds of upset right about now, but I'm surprisingly okay with everything.

Maybe it is because I still have almost zero work to accomplish.

I really hope my good attitude continues into the coming weeks and months and fights through the inevitable deadlines to come.

But for now, I am enjoying some quiet time in my office to myself. Aaaahh....

8 More Days...

I have 8 more day of maternity leave.

I am extremely lucky to have had this time with Joaquin. Most people get between 6 and 12 weeks of leave, of which most is unpaid. So, five months leave is very generous. I know that.

But.... sigh. It is going to be very hard.

It's not that I don't want to work. I thought I might dread the working part a lot more than I actually do. It's that I don't want to leave Joaquin. I am actually looking forward to certain aspects of returning to work. I'll be honest - I'm mostly looking forward to my paychecks. But, I am also looking forward to being around adults during the day and feeling like I have a life outside the house. Plus, two of the most incredible women I have ever met and had the fortune to become friends with will be at work.

But, in my perfect world (you know, the one that WILL NEVER exist except in my wildest, craziest fantasies), I would go back to work for about 25 hours a week, rather than double that (and sometimes more). Unfortunately, I have chosen a career that really doesn't allow that sort of schedule, even in the most flexible of circumstances. It's sort of all-or-nothing when it comes to corporate law. After all, I can't really imagine a client being thrilled to post-pone a multi-million dollar merger because I only want to work five hours a day.

So, here I am, near the end of what my friend's husband has dubbed "the vacation of a lifetime", about to go from 0 to 60 in about 10 seconds.

Mixed feelings abound.

One the one hand, my mom worked full time when I was a baby and still does today and I turned out pretty well (if I do say so myself). I am independent, self-motivated and have never once doubted that I could do anything I wanted. I have never worried about my ability to shatter any glass ceiling that came my way. I admire my mom for being successful both inside and outside the home and have always thought she set a great example for me. I want to teach Joaquin (and his future sibling(s), if all goes as planned) that women are just as capable as men at achieving in the workplace. Plus, I think working will keep my brain sharp. I never want to be one of those women who cannot go twenty minutes without talking about their kids and I am definitely headed down that path.

On the other hand, it makes me so sad to think that there will be days (and I'm sure they will be more frequent than I would like to imagine right now) when I only get to see Joaquin for a brief period in the morning and I get home after he is asleep for the night. And that will kill me.

But, no matter how I feel about it all, I will be back at work next Friday. And I am sure everything will be fine. At least, that is what I have to believe.

Sleep Training, Take Two

Sorry for the long break in posts. It's been hectic around here lately.

So, to catch you up, we decided to put sleep training on hold for a little bit after my last post. We were stressed out and it was emotionally draining. Plus, we were about to go on a trip to Jackson Hole and knew that any progress we made before the trip would almost assuredly be reversed by the change in routine.

About a week ago, we decided we were ready to try again. But this time, we started with just working on spacing out the time between middle of the night meals. I read the infamous book by Dr. Ferber and he suggested that we start with try to get the meals at least 2 hours apart and increase the time from there.

The plan was that if Joaquin woke up before 2 hours had passed since his last meal, only Jay would go in his room and soothe him back to sleep. If he woke up after 2 hours had passed, I would go in, feed him and put him back to bed.

The book suggested increasing the time between meals by one hour every night. We thought that was too harsh and decided we would increase in half hour increments each time Joaquin had successfully slept the allotted time between feedings.

We are now up to 4 hour increments and have been here for two nights. We were not successful last night (but very close). So, tonight we are still trying for four hours.

We also layered in the traditional Ferber method a few days ago (aka, crying). Unlike our first round of trying, we have been much more successful this time around. The first night he protested for almost 2 hours but on other nights it has been as short as ten or fifteen minutes. And, most importantly, he has been going right back to sleep without protest after his midnight meals. What a relief!

So, we are continuing with the training. We are happy we are doing it but it is definitely not easy on us.