I little time out.

My sister, Jessica, has come for her annual visit.  So we've been doing a lot of day trips with dad.  We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium last week.  Today we went to the San Francisco Zoo.  Thursday we're going back to the city to go to the California Academy of Sciences, and Sutro Baths.  It's been a lot of fun.  Bertie's come with us, of course, but he's too young to notice any of it.  I keep hoping something will catch his eye.  Mostly it's my dad and me hanging out, since Jess ventures out on her own.  I've been enjoying the one-on-one time, since we don't hang out a lot, for whatever reason.

I've been trying to work harder at trying to get back into shape.  Counting calories, exercising and getting all my steps in.  I'm still eating over 2000 calories a day, but I'm burning more than I'm taking in.  I started the Bikini Body Mommy Challenge this week.  It's a HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) workout.  It's hard, but it's good, since it's only 20 minutes a day.  It alternates cardio days and strength days.  And I'm making sure I'm getting in 10k+ steps every day (except Sundays, I usually don't get all the steps).  Most days I get 12k-ish.

Julius has become a bad cat as of late.  He's been spraying/peeing in the house.  So he's going to be a mostly outside cat.  We're tried all sorts of other solutions.  But the final straw was him peeing in Bertie's crib.  He seems to like being outside.  And Aaron talked to the vet about it, as long as we keep up his shots and flea meds, he should be ok.

Bertie has been doing well lately.  He's been doing well at sleeping, and even slept through the night one night last week. He hasn't done it since, but he usually will sleep in two sets of 5 hours each.  He's still great at nursing.  He's started smiling a little bit more, which is really fun.  And some cooing sounds are starting.  Aaron and I take turns bathing with him.  Bertram loves baths, and he's surprisingly buoyant.   We're still cloth diapering, but at night he wears paper.  He was starting to get rashy from being wet for so long.

I really love staying at home (which I knew I would).  It's a great balance of work and fun, routine and free time.  The house is pretty clean (most days), I stay on top of the laundry, and there is less stress.  I don't need to be in bed by any specific time, if I'm up more in the night (which hasn't been an issue lately) it's not a big deal.  If he's having a fussy day we can snuggle.  (Though, those days are stressful, because having a baby cry non-stop is so hard).

Bertie and I (and Aaron) have our plane tickets to go to Virginia.  Bertie and I are flying out by ourselves, Aaron comes part way through the trip, and we all fly home together.  I made sure we had very long layovers, and we're sitting in the late row on every flight.  Plus my mom is borrowing a car seat, so we don't need to lug one through the airport.  I'm excited, and a little nervous about how he'll handle the flights.

I need to pump and go to bed.