Scarlett at 12 Weeks / Side-Yard Renovation / Return to Work / Selling Nicole's Truck
A little late on this entry but it's all good. Let's talk about May!
Our daughter, Scarlett, will be 12 weeks old this Sunday the 11th. In late May, we had our two-month check-up at the pediatrician and it went swimmingly. Our girl got her vaccines and although that was somewhat traumatic, she came out fine. In fact, this has been a month of fantastic advancements. The girl is already rolling over when laying down, and she's gotten incredibly good at recognizing things and talking to them. By "talking", I mean that she coos and giggles and smiles at things. A few weeks back, I gave her a special Peter Rabbit plush and she fawns over the thing like it's her boyfriend. It's beyond adorable. She's getting more and more talkative and it's wonderful to see her recognize us and react to our silly faces and noises. Some of these things are happening months faster than other babies, so we've got a smart girl on our hands. She's going places.
Our sleep situation has gotten better. After buying the king-size bed back in April and co-sleeping with Scarlett, she has fallen into a pattern where she only wakes us to nurse once during the night. It used to be once every hour or two but now, thankfully, she lets us sleep. I know it'll only get better as time goes on, but any progress is welcome. We've learned she doesn't like to be on flat, hard surfaces which is a problem because our crib and portable cribs are flat, hard surfaces. We're sort of forcing it a bit and trying to calm her with a pacifier but we'll see if things improve.
As my first eight weeks of paternity leave came to an end, I figured I'd try to do something crazy and accomplish the big home improvement project I've given myself for the summer. On one side of our house, the thin strip of property between the house and the neighbor's fence is a mud pit year round. That's also where we put our garbage cans so wheeling that through the puddles is always a dirty chore. My big project for this summer was to dig out roughly six-inches of topsoil all the way down the side of the house and replace it all with pebble-rock and stone pavers to create a path. It took me pretty much the entirety of my final two weeks of paternity leave to both dig everything out, lay down landscape fabric, set in plastic edging, haul in all the rock and stones, and set everything up. It was a huge project and I'm thankful that we still had Nicole's Toyota Tacoma to haul the full yards of rock and brick that I needed. Couldn't have done it without a truck.
Anyway, once it was done, I realized that the path I made was only 19 inches wide while the wheelbase of the garbage cans was like 21 inches. So half of the wheels would always be in the pebbles, making it difficult to move. After some contemplation, I decided to redo the entire thing. I pulled up and returned a bunch of the bricks before buying a whole bunch more. The idea was to make a much wider path using additional smaller stones and it worked. Yeaaaa I had to work around all the rock I'd already put down, but it was worth it. Now the cans glide across the path and hopefully our days of dealing with mud and puddles on that side of the house are over. I even put in a pad for a future 8x4-foot shed that I'll build later this summer. Big project over! Here's a before and after photo!
So yea, like I said, my first eight weeks of paternity ended in May and I returned to my remote-work programming job for a California multi-national corporation. It was funny to me just how little had changed and how little had gotten done. I slid right back into my role without really any struggle. The job since getting back has been a tiny bit frustrating. We're having to terminate one of my coworkers who keeps us all organized and they're dumping all this person's work onto me. I'm good with paperwork so it's fine for now but we'll see how it goes when things really get going in the coming months. There was also another round of layoffs but we're all still standing. At the end of June is a forced-shutdown, so Im looking forward to having that week off.
One of the big reasons I needed to get that side-yard renovation done was because we decided to sell off Nicole's Toyota Tacoma now that we have the Highlander. One of my coworkers wanted to scoop it up and the timing was just right. I was using the truck right up until the very last day we had it and WHEW it was a close one. Nicole has had this truck for around a decade so it was rough to finally drive away from it the day we delivered it. She took it a bit hard but everyone wins in the situation. We're no longer paying for a truck we don't use or need, and we helped out the family we sold it to.
Our daughter, Scarlett, will be 12 weeks old this Sunday the 11th. In late May, we had our two-month check-up at the pediatrician and it went swimmingly. Our girl got her vaccines and although that was somewhat traumatic, she came out fine. In fact, this has been a month of fantastic advancements. The girl is already rolling over when laying down, and she's gotten incredibly good at recognizing things and talking to them. By "talking", I mean that she coos and giggles and smiles at things. A few weeks back, I gave her a special Peter Rabbit plush and she fawns over the thing like it's her boyfriend. It's beyond adorable. She's getting more and more talkative and it's wonderful to see her recognize us and react to our silly faces and noises. Some of these things are happening months faster than other babies, so we've got a smart girl on our hands. She's going places.
Our sleep situation has gotten better. After buying the king-size bed back in April and co-sleeping with Scarlett, she has fallen into a pattern where she only wakes us to nurse once during the night. It used to be once every hour or two but now, thankfully, she lets us sleep. I know it'll only get better as time goes on, but any progress is welcome. We've learned she doesn't like to be on flat, hard surfaces which is a problem because our crib and portable cribs are flat, hard surfaces. We're sort of forcing it a bit and trying to calm her with a pacifier but we'll see if things improve.
As my first eight weeks of paternity leave came to an end, I figured I'd try to do something crazy and accomplish the big home improvement project I've given myself for the summer. On one side of our house, the thin strip of property between the house and the neighbor's fence is a mud pit year round. That's also where we put our garbage cans so wheeling that through the puddles is always a dirty chore. My big project for this summer was to dig out roughly six-inches of topsoil all the way down the side of the house and replace it all with pebble-rock and stone pavers to create a path. It took me pretty much the entirety of my final two weeks of paternity leave to both dig everything out, lay down landscape fabric, set in plastic edging, haul in all the rock and stones, and set everything up. It was a huge project and I'm thankful that we still had Nicole's Toyota Tacoma to haul the full yards of rock and brick that I needed. Couldn't have done it without a truck.
Anyway, once it was done, I realized that the path I made was only 19 inches wide while the wheelbase of the garbage cans was like 21 inches. So half of the wheels would always be in the pebbles, making it difficult to move. After some contemplation, I decided to redo the entire thing. I pulled up and returned a bunch of the bricks before buying a whole bunch more. The idea was to make a much wider path using additional smaller stones and it worked. Yeaaaa I had to work around all the rock I'd already put down, but it was worth it. Now the cans glide across the path and hopefully our days of dealing with mud and puddles on that side of the house are over. I even put in a pad for a future 8x4-foot shed that I'll build later this summer. Big project over! Here's a before and after photo!
So yea, like I said, my first eight weeks of paternity ended in May and I returned to my remote-work programming job for a California multi-national corporation. It was funny to me just how little had changed and how little had gotten done. I slid right back into my role without really any struggle. The job since getting back has been a tiny bit frustrating. We're having to terminate one of my coworkers who keeps us all organized and they're dumping all this person's work onto me. I'm good with paperwork so it's fine for now but we'll see how it goes when things really get going in the coming months. There was also another round of layoffs but we're all still standing. At the end of June is a forced-shutdown, so Im looking forward to having that week off.
One of the big reasons I needed to get that side-yard renovation done was because we decided to sell off Nicole's Toyota Tacoma now that we have the Highlander. One of my coworkers wanted to scoop it up and the timing was just right. I was using the truck right up until the very last day we had it and WHEW it was a close one. Nicole has had this truck for around a decade so it was rough to finally drive away from it the day we delivered it. She took it a bit hard but everyone wins in the situation. We're no longer paying for a truck we don't use or need, and we helped out the family we sold it to.