The Working Mother

Well, I have officially gone back to work, and completed my first two days without any sort of breakdown. I have to say that while it was hard to leave Katie, at least I knew she was at home with her Grandmother and I did not have to deal with the trauma of taking her to daycare. For the next two weeks, she will remain at home and starting in two weeks from Monday, she will make the trek North with me.

While I can't say I was ready to actually "work", it was wonderful to be back in my office, visiting with my colleagues and talking about "adult" stuff. I told a couple people that I was really nervous that I was going to all of a sudden start talking in third person and say, "Mommy has to go to the bathroom! I'll be right back!" or something along those lines. Thankfully, I spared myself the humiliation.

I'm still in shock that 3.5 months has passed so quickly. It just doesn't seem possible that I am actually back - I feel like any day now I will wake up from a dream.

The Final Night

Tonight marks the end of quite an adventure - 3 months - actually 14 weeks of maternity leave. It's amazing that the last time I exited my office in November, I was pregnant, and tomorrow when I walk through that door, I will be entering in as a new working mother.

The past 3 months have been wonderful. I have had a chance to start to know an amazing baby girl and share in so many adventures with her and Brad.

I'm trying not to get sad, although when I told Katie the story of her first 3 months of life just before bed, I started to cry. It's hard. Tomorrow is going to stink in so many ways, but I am excited to start the next phase/adventure. And, most importantly, I am grateful I have had 3 months off to spend with her.

Daycare Visit

I took the plunge and visited Katie's future daycare this morning. Wow. Talk about a slap in the face in terms of facing reality. While she won't start there for a couple of weeks, I wanted to go ahead and get a feel for the lay of the land, get familiar with the teachers, how they run the facility, etc. Given that I already had received excellent testimonials from two friends, I already knew pretty much what to expect, but it was still incredibly hard to visit and picture Katie being there 8 hours/day.

In many ways, I keep thinking that this isn't really going to happen. I guess I have another thing coming because the countdown is officially on. She starts March 11th.

A very bittersweet day.

Setting New Records!

Well, I think Katie has finally gotten out of her post-traveling funk and is sleeping like a champ! We've had 2 nights in a row of 10 straight hours and another night of 9.5 straight hours! The only downfall to the first couple nights was that when she woke up at 7:15ish, I decided to keep her up instead of putting her back down (after eating) like I normally do. Well, that created a rather irritable baby for two solid days. So, this morning I got smart...I fed her at 6:30 when she woke up and put her back down starting at 7. She slept until 9:30 and woke up a VERY happy baby.

Happy Baby = Happy Mama = Happy Daddy = Happy Marriage.

Grabbing

We've noticed more and more in the past couple weeks that Katie is starting to grab onto things and hold them. Everything from her pacifier to her toys hanging from her activity mat to my hair (or even Brad's arm hair!). It's amazing how it seems like these things happen overnight, although looking back I can see gradually how it has happened.

I've started putting my cup of tea into an enclosed mug with a lid just to err on the safe side! It's crazy to think that before we know it, she is going to be crawling and grabbing at everything in sight!

1500+ miles later...

We are back from our journey up the East Coast to Pennsylvania. After logging over 1500 miles, driving through icy and snowy conditions and trying to entertain a baby for 11.5 hours in the car, we are back safe and sound.

Katie is becoming quite the traveler these days. She has already been to/through 7 states (stopped in each one even if it was briefly), which is quite a bit for a 3-month old. We figured out on the way up North that Katie has already spent 10% of her life in the car on the road - WOW! She visited with a total of 20 people plus 2 babies and even saw snow for the first time - close to 40 inches worth!

We hit one HUGE milestone while we were away - Katie rolled over for the first time (from back to stomach)! If only she could figure out how to get her one arm out from under her, she would've been completely on her belly. Everything we have read states that babies will typically roll from stomach to back first, but go figure our little munchkin did the opposite!

As always, she was a joy to travel with. We are looking forward to the next trip...wherever that may be!

Attempting a Laugh

Over the weekend, Katie really discovered her voice. Now, at random times, she will just open her mouth and start to either yell or laugh, or even do a sing-song type sound. The past two mornings, after she has eaten at 4:45 am, I put her back down in her crib and she just talks and talks to herself. Eventually, she will talk herself to sleep (I hope), but for now I stay in the room just until she drifts off.

Here is a video of me trying to get her to laugh yesterday (excuse my "fake" laugh - it's awful!).

First Family Trip

We took our little monkey down to Florida this past weekend to visit/meet all of her extended family on my side, and what a great experience all around. Katie was amazing in the car, in the hotel and during all of her visits. Given the amount of time that she was out of her element and probably way-overstimulated, we were so proud.

It was such a treat for the both of us to see our family with her and to be able to share in the joy that we have been experiencing for the past 12 weeks. One of the biggest highlights was surprising my best friend from college at her baby shower - we had this surprise planned for weeks and pulled it off with no problems!

Traveling with an infant is definitely challenging, but so much fun at the same time.

Here is a funny picture of her in the hotel room:

Sweet Moment

Friday night was my first night on the town without either Smyrna Dad or Smyrna Baby. After a stressful afternoon with the baby, going out to be with work friends was the only thing I could think of (that and a nice glass of wine!). Of course, after being out for only a couple hours, I began to think about what was going on at home and truly missed my family. In fact, I started counting down the minutes until I could get home to see them!

When I pulled into the driveway at 10:45 that night, I saw her bathroom light on, which meant that she was awake and Smyrna Dad was tending to her. I should have known better than to enter into her nursery, but I couldn't help myself. I had to know what had happened that caused her to be awake at this hour (especially since her new bedtime is 9:30).

As soon as I walked in, she looked up at me from Brad's arms and started to smile ear-to-ear! Smyrna Baby was so genuinely happy to see me - it absolutely melted my heart! The couple smiles I received were worth the headache of her being wide awake until midnight. I honestly don't think I will ever forget that moment.