Friday, May 29, 2009

Summer Week 1 (May 28 - 30)

Summer officially started for me on Thursday, May 28th. But in reality, it started a little earlier because I took LL to post-planning with me on Tuesday and Wednesday and the Monday prior was a holiday. I've really been on summer vacation almost all week. My goal is to keep track of our ENTIRE summer since I'm able to spend all two months with her. I am SO excited about that! My baby will be almost 6 months old by the time I have to go back to work. How awesome is that?


Thursday
Matt was home because he was not feeling well. He quarantined himself in our bedroom just in case he had an actual stomach bug. We did not want a 3 month old with a stomach bug. That would be absolutely NO FUN at all. It basically was like LL and I were home by ourselves. I realized yesterday how terribly off of her schedule she is. While I am so extremely grateful for all of the people that kept her for the remainder of my school year and I am so appreciative of the fact that she did not have to go to daycare, in moving back and forth between person and person, her schedule is almost non-existent. I spent all day Thursday and Friday trying to get her back on that schedule. When I went back to school, she was on a 3 1/2 - 4 hour cycle (just like she should have been), well, now it is a struggle to keep her on a 3 hour schedule. On Thursday she would go 3 1/2 hours, then 2 1/2, then 4. It was crazy. I decided that I needed to just start simply and put her back on a 3 hour schedule. This is not ideal, but I have to start somewhere. LL and I ran a few errands in town since Matt wasn't feeling good. We went to the bank (yay! money!) and Wal-Mart. Since I'm trying to keep her on her schedule, I fed her, played for an hour, and then left for our errands. That put her napping the entire time we were gone. This worked PERFECTLY and kept her on a semi-schedule. Thursday night I also had the opportunity to go to the church for a scrapbooking night with a few of the ladies. Everyone who knows that I love scrapbooking knows that I have a book for every year that we've been married. It is just the only way that I can organize a scrapbook in my head. Well, as of Thursday morning, I was on March of LAST YEAR. I was over a year behind! The night was supposed to last from 6-9, so Matt called his mom and she came over to help him with LL for the evening. I didn't get as much done as I would have liked to, but I am up to June 2008. That puts me right at a year behind and right at the start of my pregnancy. We're going to try to do this twice a month during the summer, so hopefully I'll be caught up by the time I go back to school.




Our new trick: legs up!



Friday

Matt had a wedding that he had to run sound for on Saturday, so he had to go to the rehearsal on Friday night. I had decided the week before that I would just go to my mom's house for the time frame that he was gone to the church. Other than that, I wanted to lock myself in the house all day and work on getting Lorelai back on her schedule. Since the night before was Thursday night, that meant Matt had to get up with her on Friday morning to let me sleep in. We started this when I went back to work. I have to take care of her all night on Saturday night because Sunday is such a big day for Matt. It wears me completely out! To balance it out and make it fair, since Matt has Fridays off, he would do the same thing for me on Thursday night. Friday started for me by sleeping in! Sleeping in is something that I have not been able to do a lot of since she's been born, so it was wonderful to do that this morning! We all just stayed at home on Friday and hung around the house. LL did GREAT on her schedule, so I'm hoping by this time next week she'll be all settled back into her routine.


Today I also worked on moving the clothes around in her closet. I took the tags off of everything that was 3-6 months and put them in the hamper to be washed. She has been wearing stuff that is strictly just 3 months, but since she's almost 4 now, I decided it was time to wash everything and put it in the "can be worn" section of her closet. Matt hung out with her on the floor of her room while I worked on the closet.
We also put her in her swing today for the first time in probably almost 2 months. She used to hate it (unless she was asleep), but now she loves it!

I went to my mom's for dinner because Matt had to go to a wedding rehearsal. While in Atlanta last week, my mom actually found a bathing suit that was 3-6 months. The smallest that I had found here in town was a 6 month and that was WAY too big for her. I love the bathing suit that mom picked out and it looks so cute on her! LL did wonderful and was so tired when we got home that I put her straight to bed without a bath.




Saturday
I got up and had to start getting everything ready for the day because LL and I were headed to my mom's for the day to go shopping for Meatball. My sister is pregnant and is not telling anyone the name of her little boy, so we all call him Meatball. I'm throwing a shower for her on Just 20th, so we decided to do a little early shopping. While shopping, I got LL some sunglasses! I was nervous that she would hate them and wouldn't keep them on, but so far she hasn't minded them at all! Matt met me at Mom's in the afternoon, and we headed to his mom's house for dinner. About the time that we finally arrived home, Matt got a call that a church member had a family member in the hospital, so he needed to head up there. That left me to take care of bath and bed time for Lorelai all by myself. I usually don't like to do bath time by myself, but it really calms her down and gets her ready for bed.







Saturday, May 16, 2009

1st Mother's Day!

This year was (obviously) my first Mother's Day. I was super excited because I felt like this was a pretty big deal! Last year we found out that I was pregnant about 2 weeks before Father's Day. Father's Day was actually the day that we announced to the church that we were pregnant. Even though I was only just pregnant last Father's Day, in a way Matt got to celebrate it, anyway.

Sunday morning I woke up, fed LL and then she and I laid in the bed to take a nap before church. We NEVER let her sleep in our bed, but I do occasionally take "special" naps in there with her. I do not just let her sleep on the matress. I put her on my chest and surround myself with pillows so that if she rolls off, she really doesn't go anywhere. Even though I call them naps, it is more of a nap for her. I might doze a little, but I really never "sleep". I am constantly aware of every noise and move that she makes. Like I said before, I do NOT do this often. It has only happened 3 times so far, so we're averaging once a month.

Anyway, LL and I took a nap and Matt left for church. When I woke up, I found two cards on the bed. One from Matt and one from LL. They both were SUPER sweet and made me feel so special. Matt had also gotten me a corsage to wear to church to honor it as my first mother's day. It made me feel so good that Matt thought, planned, and went out of his way to go and get me a corsage. It was just so thoughtful. I got LL all dressed up for church and we got there about 10:45.


She did really good in church except for the fact that I forgot burp cloths! I have never done that before! I had to go and get some tissues and of course she spit up huge as soon as I sat down in the pew. Also highly unusual. I don't know where my brain was that day! I was pretty shocked because I won the "youngest mother". I thought for sure that there would be someone there younger than me. I got a cute little note pad that has a magnet on it so that it can stick to the refidgerator. Definitely something we can use.


After church, we went home, changed, fed LL, and headed to Matt's brother's house for lunch. We hung out there for a little while and then came home and napped. All in all, it was a great first mother's day!

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

3 Months Old

Last Tuesday, LL officially turned 3 months old. Woo hoo! This is the age of baby smiles and coos and a lot of the fear that "Oh-my-God-I'm-Going-To-Break-My-Baby" is gone.

Last month I listed all the things from these first two months that I don't want to forget. This month I'll do the same:

1- Finding her hands! This month she discovered that she can manipulate her hands to her advantage. She chooses to hold things now (rather than just having a "grasp" reflex). One thing she loves to hold: her rings! It's so cute because she'll hold them as hard as she can so that her knuckles turn white. She actually has also discovered that she can put stuff in her mouth. That means lots of sucking on our hands, and, occasionally, sucking on her rings. We don't let her suck on her hands, but we let her go to town on her rings.



2- Toys. She's just starting to get really interested in playing with toys. We love that now she's alert enough to actually enjoy her surroundings. One toy that we love - Priscilla the Pig! LL loves her, too, and thinks that she is a good snuggle buddy.



3- Her waking up. Lately, LL has taken to giving you the BIGGEST smile when you go into her room to wake her up. Or to get her if she's already woken up. Now, this smile might come about 1/4 of a second before she screams, but at least you get that to start with. :)



4 - Her jungle. LL LOVES to play in her jungle. She will kick and hit and stare and talk for what seems like hours. She absolutely LOVES it!



5- Going for walks. We discovered that LL likes her carrier if she is facing OUT instead of IN. When we would put her in it before, she would just cry and cry. Once we turned her around, she'll be content for as long as you have her in there. Matt and I have taken to having a daily walk around our yard with her. I wish we really had something to walk TO, but that is the down side of living in the country - there is nothing around! We usually go two times around the house and she seems satisfied with that. She LOVES to stare at the few little trees that we have - they completely fascinate her.



6- Holding her head up. She is getting SO good at this! In her carrier, she'll keep her head up the entire time with minimal wobbling. In her Bumbo, she can last about a minutes before the drooping/wobbling begins. On the floor for tummy time (when she's not screaming), she can hold her head up to a 90 degree angle when the mood hits her. She doesn't do this on the floor often because she HATES tummy time, but she has the ability. Now we just need the motivation. She is SO CLOSE to rolling over that it's semi-frustrating, but I know she'll get there in her own time.



7- Her laugh. She has only done this three times (and I've only heard it once), but I'm excited that she's starting it. It is so cute and I love laughing babies. We have such a happy baby and I'm excited that she's starting to express herself.



8-Naked time! This little girls has come to LOVE being naked! She used to hate it when she was really little, but it has changed. She gets so happy when you change her diaper and strip her down. I have a feeling that we're going to just live in a diaper and bloomers ("boomers" as Matt calls them) this summer. Fine by me! I love naked babies!



9-Sleeping on her side. We still swaddle her and put her on her back at night, but occasionally we'll let her take a nap on the couch on her side. It's mega-cute and she loves it!

Saturday, May 9, 2009

3 Month Pictures

**WARNING: PICTURE HEAVY**

I've not been doing a great job at updating this recently, but there are only two weeks until school is out, so I'll have more time to update ALL the time then.

Today I spent the day with Mrs. Becky, Mrs. Connie, and LL as our mothers' day day. We went to lunch and then to Portrait Innovations to get LL's 3 month pictures taken. It went so well! We fed her right before it was her time to go, and she had been napping ALL day, so she was so happy! The baby that went right before her was pretty fussy, so I was happy that LL did not follow in her footsteps. Our plan is to get her pictures done professionally at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months old. I feel like Portrait Innovations did a GREAT job, so we will definitely be using them again!

We got a CD of the pics and, while they're good, they are the un-edited versions of them. The printed ones that we got were better than these, but at least we have some digital form of them. Here are a few of my favorites: