Putting a Positive Spin on This Week's Events

You have good weeks and not-so-good weeks. This has been one of the latter...It seemed like one thing after another all hit at the same time. I was pretty down and then realized that I can be Negative Nancy or I can be Positive Polly and look at things from a different perspective. I am choosing to be Polly. :-)

1. Madi has been having some stomach/digestion problems. We took her to the chiropractor twice this week, but unfortunately she hasn't improved much. The next step is for me to try cutting out dairy and see if that helps her digestion and fussiness.

• We are blessed to have a chiropractor that I already knew who specializes in babies.
• If cutting dairy helps little Madi digest and feel better, then it's a small price for me to pay.
• She's still been doing good going straight to bed during the night feedings and letting us go almost three hours between feedings meaning I get to sleep an hour to an hour and a half in between each.
• Her weight is still increasing and she's between the 50th and 85th percentile weighing 4100 grams on Friday when we took her to the health station. We also weighed her before and after a feeding and she got 115 grams so she's eating well and I have enough milk for her.

2. The automatic litter box broke and Jason couldn't figure out if it was the sensor or the motherboard that was broken. We've had to manually clean out the litter box this week.

• The fact that we have an automatic litter box is a huge positive and has been during my pregnancy. And having to clean it out isn't a huge deal since I've been off litter duty the past 10 months while I was preggers.
• Jason already found a European website for the litter box and ordered both a new sensor and motherboard so that we can fix it when the parts arrive.

3. The dryer handle broke off in the middle of a load this week. We had to do a load a couple load of clothes that then had to be line dried.

• We have a dryer. This is a luxury that I think we take for granted. Also, we have a clothing line and clothespins so it's easy for us to hang dry a couple loads.
• Jason emailed the landlord the replacement part and he already got it ordered and delivered to us. Surprisingly efficient.
• A huge shout out to our friend Thad who came and installed the dryer handle. And even better it turned out that I did not have the right tools so it wasn't that I am completely incompetent without a man this weekend. 

4. Apparently we are fantastic at picking names... so fantastic that we picked one of a handful of protected Norwegian names which resulted in us receiving this letter on Thursday...

• We can give Madison a second first name using Rose and leaving out a middle name on her Norwegian birth certificate. We should be able to still report her name as Madison (first name) Rose (middle name) Stingerie (last name) at the US consulate when we report her birth and then apply for a name change on her Norwegian papers and birth certificate. Phew. Better than receiving approval from all the people names Rose in the country... ;-)

5. Where was my man? Jason found out on Tuesday that he had to go on a last minute business trip this weekend to Gran Canaria. It also hit me that I couldn't go and I felt a little bit left out. Maybe that's something a lot of working-outside-the-home moms have experienced while they were on maternity?

• Jason has a great job that supports us and normally doesn't require any travel so this was a unique situation.
• My mom is here and has been an amazing help so I wasn't alone this weekend.
• Um... International flight = duty free which means cheap(er) booze. Score. 
• I have the opportunity to stay home and spend time with this (slightly awkward) little cutie. I mean, how is that a comfortable position?!

• We got to pick Daddy up from the airport today and wear our super cute Daddy's Little Madi Bug onesie we made for Father's Day.