Hola Lola

So, when I had baby Lola, I wanted to start a blog to document her life and our life as new parents. Well almost 12 weeks have past and I never started the blog and I thought it’s too late. Then my sister-in-law, Molly, gave me some words of wisdom which were “it’s never too late to start a blog”. Of course, I still had some initial concerns which were 1) I don’t have enough going on in my life to keep a blog interesting and/or 2) I don’t have enough to say to keep a blog going . Then I thought about these two points a little further and realize that I’m constantly talking and seem to be telling little stories that have happened over the past day or week or month. I’ve most likely been putting those who have to listen to my constant babble through hell and back so I’ve decided to bite the bullet and start a blog.

The blog name – Hola Lola – My brother-in-law, Ben, is bilingual and started saying Hola Lola. We thought it would be fun to put this little term on a onsie, and then we just started saying it to Lola all the time….it’s fun!!! Say it out loud….Hola Lola….it rolls off your tongue.

This blog will most likely be read by only three people. One being me, Molly (my sister-in-law) and Ashleigh (good college friend) who recently admitted to me she is a blog junky (Ashleigh, now that you have confessed, you best read my blog). But, that’s ok, I’ll deal with the limited group of people that will check in daily because here is what I figure:

I can give those that listen to me on a daily basis a break
I can vent and maybe avoid going to a psychologist
I can keep friends updated on baby Lola’s development and our life as new parents

All those things alone are good enough reasons to start a blog….right???? Plus, I actually have a lot to say so there seems to be no better way. And, I also thought that this is a great opportunity to ask some of those questions we all ask in our minds and hope to get some answers/insight.

Today, I think I’ll talk about my first week back to work. I’m now “officially” a working mom. That sounds so cool huh. It’s going good so far, however, Lola is at home with my in-laws (Dinks and Daddy O) so the transition as been pretty easy considering she is with people that she knows and they know her cries, coos, etc. Of course, I’m a little concerned about the diaper supply because Dinks tends to change every 20 – 30 minutes when we only change every 2 – 3 hours (First question to pose….Is that wrong that we change Lola’s diaper so infrequently….we’ll get to some of these questions another day). Back to first week at work….well, it’s different. I’ve spent most of my days catching up with email and saying hello to everyone. I’ve found a definite trend in the conversations. Everyone will ask “How is life as a mother?” or “How is Lola?” and I answer same way EVERY time “I love it” and then go into a little more detail but it always seems to be the same speech over and over and over. The next statement everyone will make is “You look good”. When people say this, I always want to give a little squinty eyed stare (like the one that Larry David does on Curb your Enthusiasm) and say “Do you really mean that or do you feel like that is what you are suppose to say?” So, as I was leaving work yesterday afternoon exhausted from answering the same questions and saying the same thing for two days straight, I thought to myself "Do these people really care about how I’m doing as a mother and how Lola is doing or is it just courtesy". If it’s just courtesy, am I boring them to death? The answer is probably. But, if that's the case, then have I just wasted 8 hours for two days? Wow. Then the whole “you look good” comment that people make….How do you answer that? Do you just say “Thanks” and then they may be thinking in their heads “Wow, she still has some weight to pull off or needs to get toned up ” (we’ll talk about post-baby body in a future blogs) or do you say “Thanks, I still need to lose another 10 lbs or so”. This way, you are kind of covering yourself so they know that you know that there is still work to be done. I still can’t decide the best way to answer this appropriately so I alternate answers depending on the mood I’m in during the particular conversation.

Ok, here I go…babbling again… I’ll go into more “working mom” stories and adjustment to work life in future blogs. This actually should be interesting. And, they won’t all be this long (I’m sure yall are all saying “thank goodness for that!!!!”). For today, I’ll leave yall with a picture of baby Lola. I don’t have any updated pictures on this computer but I’ll get some up on the blog next week. For now, I hope everyone comes back tomorrow….who knows what we’ll have in store!!!