week in the life| MONDAY

6:43 AM: Wake up to the sounds of Baylee "talking" to herself. I go and get her at 7:00 and bring her upstairs. She relaxes on my bed while I feed her and enjoy my coffee. We relax and watch the morning news until 8.

Head downstairs at 8:00. The stairs are in the kitchen and the window above the sink is one of the first things I see. A spider has made a web on our windowsill overnight. I unload the dishwasher and start a load of laundry. The boys are here and are working with Mike this week. They are getting ready to leave while Baylie and I play on the living room floor.

Our front porch has been looking pretty sad these days. There are spider webs all over our mailbox and old leaves on our welcome mat. I drag out the hose, grab a rag with some pine sol and start wiping everything down. While doing that, I get distracted by the weeds in our flowerbed and start pulling. UGH! I hate that job. Can we just asphalt the front yard?

Feeding Baylee and reading my book.

A very common sight these days.

Exersaucer Time!

I just started reading The Hunger Games series and I can't seem to put it down. Most of Monday is spent with Kindle in hand and every spare moment I have I use to read. Not much of anything else gets done today.

Boxes full of things that I brought home from work. Not sure where I'm going to put them so here they sit: in the walkway bet ween the living room and kitchen

Before bed snack: Strawberries and Marketside Vanilla Fruit Dip from WalMart. Yummm!

Diapers changed: 6
Loads of laundry: 2



Well thats it. That was my Monday. There are a few more pictures on my phone but I will wait and upload them at the end of the week. I'm not sure how I am going to put it all together yet. Right now I'm just focusing on taking pictures and journaling about the day. I'm keeping a notebook close and writing down my thoughts throughout the day. I will share those sometime next week when I show the completed project.

catching up

I need to play catch up. I didn't mean to take that long of a break. I really didn't mean to take a break at all, but life got in the way. So, I will offer a short synopsis of the past month and a half and promise not to be gone so long again.

Baylee and I traveled to Nashville at the end of May. I do not recommend taking a 5 1/2 hour car trip with a 11 week old by yourself. It was difficult. And long. It ended up taking us over 7 hours to get there because I had to stop twice to feed Baylee. It was all worth it when I walked into my mom and dad's house and saw this:

A welcome sign from Hannah and Luke! Evidentally it just said "Welcome Baylee" at first and then they decided to add my name. Ha! I guess I need to get used to being an afterthought.
My mom stayed with us during the month I went back to work so we were there to pick her up. It was a nice coincidence that my niece, Hannah, had her dance recital while I was in town. She is very talented and works so hard all year long, practically living at the dance studio. It was nice to see her perform and enjoy the results of all her practice.

 

Then in June I went back to work. It wasn't too hard to leave the baby knowing I was only going to be working until the end of my contract. It also helped tremendously that my mom  was here with her. I'm so grateful that my mom was willing to leave her life and her home and come stay with us for 5 weeks. Here are some highlights from June & July:

*Baylee and her Nonna, Baylee and her brother

*Baylee discovered the bumbo and all she wants to do now is sit up!

*Her first cowboy hat, first concert (in the park) and her first bite of rice cereal.

*playing in her pool

*watching the 4th of July Parade

The picture of Baylee in her swaddle makes me laugh. She looks like she is camofluaged! I grab at those ladybugs all the time in the dark thinking they are her binky.

Well that is it. June and half of July in a nutshell. The next few days I will be posting about the Week in the Life project that I participate in each year. It starts on Monday and I am so excited!

Daddies & Diapers

I love a dad who changes diapers! Before I started my maternity leave, the ladies I work with were telling me stories of how hard it is to have a baby and that husbands don't really help much. Every afternoon I would hear tales of how their husbands would only hold their babies when they were quiet and the minute they started crying or had a dirty diaper, they would hand them back over to mom. Even if mom was cooking dinner. Or doing laundry. Or cooking dinner AND doing laundry at the same time. I kept telling them that no, my husband isn't like that. I was sure he would be a very hands on dad and would help as much as possible.

Although, I have to admit, they got to me.

Doubt started to creep in and I worried that I would have to do everything myself and I would fail miserably. It was a waste of time. Worrying, that is. Mike is a wonderful dad and helps more than I could have imagined. I could give you a list of the things he does to help (diapers, middle of night feedings, grocery shopping when I don't feel like it) but I think one word could sum it all up:  Initiative. That is what sets him apart from a lot of dads I've seen. He doesn't wait for me to ask him to do something, he just does it.
He is truly my partner in this baby crying, pooping, burping, cooing, phase of life.

2 Months

Baylee, at two months you:

• weigh 9 pounds 6 1/2 ounces and are 21 3/4 inches long
• are sleeping 7-8 hours through the night
• are eating 4-5 ounces of Enfamil Prosobee Formula
• just graduated out of newborn diapers to size 1 but are still in newborn sized clothes
• can hold your head up for brief periods
• are rolling over from back to front but not front to back
• fall asleep in your crib listening to rainforest sounds and staring at the "B"s on your wall most of the time, but your favorite place to fall asleep is in your daddy's arms.
• prefer to be moving and get mad when you are sitting still. You love being in your swing for this very reason!
• have discovered your voice and are full of squeaks and squeals
• suck on your hands and fingers. You will even pull your out your pacifier so that you can suck on your fingers
• are very special and we love you more and more each day!