February 26th, 2025

On By looogaaaaaanwritesIn 2026Leave a comment

This week was my first week back at work. I’m part time for the first two weeks to ease myself in from motherhood back into my normal flow of work.

Monday was my first day, it was hard. I cried all the way to work and then I took a break in the middle of the day and cried in the bathroom because I couldn’t stop thinking about my daughter.

Then at 4:45pm, an emergency walked through the door and it’s like old me took over. I grabbed the bleeding dog from the woman’s arms, ran them to the back, and started triaging them with one of my technicians. As we were working with the emergency, it felt just like before I left. I started late, helped stabilize the patient, and discharged them to go to the ER overnight for hospitalization.

It wouldn’t be a first day without something crazy happening. (Happens to all of the new moms at work, it’s crazy!)

Then Wednesday, I was able to stay focused until the later afternoon… my mom brain was kicking in with lack of sleep. But I was able to do a cysto on a cat’s bladder , which is a Technician skill they let me do since I am in school. It got me excited for learning new skills, but that will happen when I am ready. I still need to gain my footing at work still.

Overall, I think that for a new mom I am doing pretty well. But the updates from the mom’s throughout the day help with my anxiety.

I hope I get settled in with a new routine soon. Being a new mom working full time and being in school is a lot…but I cannot imagine my life being any other way right now.

I’m so happy.

February 17th, 2026

On By looogaaaaaanwritesIn 20262 Comments

This week I started my going back to work routine since I go back next week on Monday. Which means that bedtime starts at 8pm, and at her 6am feeding, I am up for the day, while she will fall back asleep on her own until 7:30am. That gives me an hour and a half to myself in the morning.

So far everything has gone well with the routine, however, it is like she is feeling a shift in the dynamic (or possibly going through a growth spurt or “leaping”) since she has been cluster feeding and extra fussy the past two days.

She refuses to be set down, so lots of contact napping and not much schoolwork – which is okay, I am soaking in these last few days together.

It feels so strange that almost twelve weeks ago, she was brought into this world and now I am going to be thrown right back into work and expected to be normal.

I am nervous about returning to work, I do miss work, but I know I am going to miss her company more. It helps that she will be with family and not some stranger or daycare facility.

I am just feeling new mother’s guilt on leaving her.

On the other hand, the weekends and week nights will be extra special snuggling her and spending her wake windows. During my leave, we decided to turn our untouched sunroom into a playroom for her.

For three weeks, I have been painting this plant mural on the largest wall, and today, with my mom’s help, I finished it. My goal was to have it done before the end of my maternity leave so that we can use it for tummy time and we did it.

Tomorrow, I just need to lift the books that are flattening the carpet up and lay out a tummy time mat. Maybe one of these days she will let me set her down long enough to put the shelving unit I got for her toys together, too. My sister-in-law is also gifting us a play kitchen set, which she cannot use now, but my niece can.

I’m so excited for all of those things…is it possible I love her too much?

Here is the mural with the ladder obstructing my picture:

Frida Products

On By looogaaaaaanwritesIn Things I believe inLeave a comment

I had to write about this, since as a new mom I never knew how mindlessly I bought things without fully reading the packages. If you are a mom, I’m sure you have heard, but the packaging and advertisement of the Frida brand products have recently come out as inappropriate.

This is not a new development. This is something that has been happening for YEARS, and it makes me wonder how it could have gone on so long without anyone noticing.

There are statements on the boxes like: tap that gas, how about a quickie, and I’m a power sucker.

Some people even dove deeper into their social media market and found more disturbing things.

(Now do not quote me on anything because I am not claiming these are exact quotes – except the tap that gas one, I actually have a box that says it).

As a new mom, I am appalled at the thought that something that is marketed for babies has such sexual innuendos attached to it. As a person, I am shaking my head that I never read the damn box.

I understand that the owner of the company came forward to try to clear the air and say that she wanted to bring humor to parenthood where it maybe lacking – but that is definitely not the way to do it.

Where do I stand on it? I’m going to allow my money to go elsewhere in the future, but I am not going to go out of my way to find each Frida baby product and throw it away. Especially when the eight windi’s I have left are sitting in the box waiting to be used. (Honestly, I think that’s the only product we even have of theirs in the house…so it could be worse.)

I’m curious, if you are a parent, where do you stand on this subject?

Target, I’m sorry

On By looogaaaaaanwritesIn Personal writingLeave a comment

Have you ever unintentionally broken the law?

On two separate occasions we have stolen from Target. My brother, husband and I have this running joke that every time we go to Target together, one of us accidentally steals something. Two instances c one to mind.

One: When my brother first moved to Ohio, he was living in our basement with his dog. I love my puppy niece but she had to be contained because she was rather destructive. So, we took a trip to Target to get doggie gates.

We found what we were looking for in the baby aisle. It was one brown box labeled for the gate we were looking for. We needed another one to cover both sides of the basement where she would be contained to, but there was no more on the shelf. However, it said there was more in stock.

We flagged down an associate, who tried to scan the box (was unsuccessful), they looked it up on the store and checked in the back – came back empty handed. We decided to just pick another random gate and head to the checkout.

At the check out, we scanned every single barcode on the box – nothing would pop up for their inventory. Two different employees helped us. One eventually just overrode it and searched it to bring up the right item.

Once we got home, we begun to open the box and start assembling the gates so she could be left when we all went to work.

Then we found out that one brown box, had two baby gates inside. Whoever stocked it on the shelf, never took it out of the original shipping box.

We got two for the price of one.

Two: Maybe two weeks later, we all went to Target again. This time, My brother was looking for shelves for his books to do some unpacking.

We wandered around for forever in every possible aisle before marching to the furniture section. My brother had picked up this fancy forty-dollar candle that he threw at the bottom of his cart.

At the check out, he scanned everything from his cart after pulling it out – except for the shelves…that hide the candle out of sight.

So we started loading the car, there was the candle at the bottom of his cart. Unpaid for. Again.

We haven’t gone back to Target as a trio in a while, but those stories always give me a good laugh.

February 15th, 2026

On By looogaaaaaanwritesIn 2026Leave a comment

Tomorrow will begin my last week on maternity leave. All I am left with is this bittersweet feeling. It felt like just yesterday I was forty weeks, throwing in the towel, hoping she would come before the scheduled induction date.

Every contact nap, every morning smile over coffee, every sleepy milk drunk look, and every dirty diaper is heavier than what it use to be.

I would be lying if I said part of me didn’t miss being at work – helping the sick and injured animals is what I am passionate about, the reason I’m finishing school.

But a huge part of me will always wish I was at home with her. Even if that meant all the blowout diapers, spit up down your shirt, and hard nights where no one got any sleep. It makes me feel nostalgic for those early days when it was just the three of us at home learning how to communicate.

My head is filled with those new mom guilt driven questions – did I spend enough time with her? Did I hold her enough when she slept? Should I have sat down more, cleaned less? Will she miss me? Will she even know that I am gone?

I am more relieved that instead of dropping her off at a day care, we will be leaving her with her grandparents. Plus, my first two weeks back at work will be part-time, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

I’m beyond grateful for this new chapter in my life: Parenthood.

I think I need a glass of wine.

February 14th, 2026

On By looogaaaaaanwritesIn 2026Leave a comment

I just have to say this: I am a spoiled wife.

My husband, loves Valentine’s day. Every single year, he out does me when it comes to gifts. That is his love language, and he is never shy about it – nor does he listen to me when I tell him the following: No, it’s too much, $$ is the price limit, etc.

This Valentine’s day’s gift was a brand new MacBook Air.

This was something that I was saving up for but would never commit or pull the trigger. I have a hard time spending money on myself, I never feel as though I deserve it and I would always say my old MacBook was still kicking around….even if it was shutting down on me frequently in the middle of school work.

The truth is, my old laptop was becoming more and more unreliable. But me, being who I am, I dislike change. It’s a strong autistic trait of mine. I’m also stubborn, but that’s besides the point – I refused to commit to another laptop (perhaps, a cheaper one?) simply because every other laptop is different.

Whereas, every MacBook is the same. They are all synced up with the rest of my devices, I am familiar with their setup and I wouldn’t have to learn a whole new layout. Also, my last MacBook lasted ten years before it started having problems…why would I go back to previous brands that I struggled with before?

This afternoon, I was told to get in the car and shortly after we arrived at Best Buy, where they -surprise- were having a sale on the MacBook I was looking at. Twenty minutes later, we were walking out with it in hand.

Honestly, I do not understand how I deserve him most days.

January 28th

On By looogaaaaaanwritesIn 2026, Personal writingLeave a comment

It’s been a while, a lot has changed in the last eight months. I had a scare, that haunted me for the remainder of my pregnancy. I have a tendency to step away from things I love and place myself on “survival mode”. Hence, my absence. (To, you know, three of you that consistently read my blog). I’ll do a brief update, one of these days I’ll get into the deeper stories.

I’m happy to say that early December, we welcomed our beautiful baby girl into the world. She is perfect in every single way and I cannot believe how lucky I am everyday to be her mother.

I finally enrolled in the Penn Foster Program to further my career as a Veterinary Technician. I cannot imagine doing anything else with my life and I’m excited for that next chapter.

I’m an aunt. Not only to my brother’s future step children (come June of this year, they got engaged in October) but to my sister in laws baby boy, born just four days after our little girl. I cannot wait to watch them grow up to be the best of friends.

We committed to allergy injections for Nyx and I’m hoping for improvement this coming allergy season. Luna, my senior pit just got diagnosed with a heart murmur which we will work up once I’ve returned from maternity leave.

I said goodbye to my brother’s dog, Baja. We loved her so much and I wish there was more that could have been done for her.

I’m so grateful for everything that we have and everyone in our village because we wouldn’t be here today without them. I’m doing as well as a new mom can at this stage, less than four weeks left until I return to work.

See you soon.

May 11th

On By looogaaaaaanwritesIn 2025Leave a comment

Happy Mother’s Day!

I got to celebrate my first as an expecting mother and it was such a fun day. We went out to Olive Garden for lunch, then went to a painting pottery place for the afternoon. My mom painted a ring dish, my mother in law painted a duck for her bathroom, my brother painted a mug to look like Kirby, my husband painted a truck, and I painted a planter with lavender on it.

Afterwards, we had a cook out at my parents house with my brother, his girlfriend, and her kids. It was so adorable watching my husband run after her two year old girl in the yard. (He’s just getting himself ready to be a girl dad!)

Yesterday was a day full of fun as well. It was Luna’s 10th birthday and we spent all day doing what she wanted to do. (We did a video where she picks one hand or the other and it had two options on it).

We started off with a Dunkin pup cup. Then we went to Petco, where she picked out two things (a busy treat for her toy and rawhides, of course). We also got them new life jackets (yes, I’m that dog parent). Luna’s is a coral color and has a mermaid tail fin. Nyx’s has a shark fin to continue her theme.

After Petco, we took her to my parents since they have a large back yard and threw her fetch ball for her for an hour. Then we went to Warped Wing for food and they could sit on the patio. I was worried with the oncoming dogs and people about Nyx, but she had a rawhide bone and she only grumbled…I’m proud of her. Luna had a blast sun bathing and begging for more fries.

When we got home, Brandon decided that she deserved ice cream too and we finished our night with Dexter: New Blood and snuggling on the couch.

All in all – a great weekend! I can’t believe my first baby is ten.

May 7th

On By looogaaaaaanwritesIn 2025Leave a comment

This morning had a rough start for me since I had bad insomnia last night. But, the afternoon picked up.

I got to leave work early because we were slow. So I went to the gym to work out, came home and felt good, so I cleaned the house. It was so refreshing to have that little bit back of myself. The first trimester is hard so these rare good days are worth it…especially at 10 weeks, my symptoms definitely peaked.

I agreed to let myself have a rest day from the gym tomorrow, since we have been lifting heavy (obviously within reason for me). I’m sore, but it feels good.

My mental health smiled today in a clean house, with old favorite music playing, me singing badly, and my husband making dinner for the both of us.

I’m glad tomorrow is Thursday.

May 6th

On By looogaaaaaanwritesIn 20252 Comments

I’ve been MIA because I have been so sick to my stomach. I’ve been battling morning sickness, can’t keep anything down, fought with my OB’s office for my anti-nausea medication and won.

Today was a better day. I vomited in the morning but felt well enough later to go to the gym. After the gym I felt really good. Cleaned the house a little bit before I relaxed.

I’ve been focusing on giving myself more grace. I am in first trimester survival mode. I deserve to take it easy. And ignore the laundry for a few more days…haha.