going back to the start //

This past year has been the most eventful year of my life. 

A few highlights:

• I birthed a new little life into the world. He arrived two weeks earlier than expected, and has stolen my heart since his arrival. 
• I celebrated my first Mother's Day, Hubby celebrated his first Father's Day. 
• I turned 30. Hubby turned 30 {5 months before I did. Booyah.}Though it was rather uneventful, superseded by the birth of my son, I have enjoyed being 30.
• Hubby finished graduate school.
• Our little family moved to new apartment. We moved out of my family's home and into our own apartment again. 
• I learned to accept the balance of working motherhood. I can't have it all, but I can have quality time with my family and an engaging career.
• I updated my professional license, and will hopefully never have to take a standardized licensing exam. Ever. Again.

Goals for 2014:

• Blogging: I miss this part of my life. Where I share the things that are going on in my life with the cyber world. It was such a fun part of my life in years past, and I miss it. 
• Working out: like many things in my life, this has been on the back burner for most of 2013. I'd like to change that for 2014 and get back into my old, good habits of running and exercising regularly.
• Photography: Something else I miss from my "former" life -- taking photographs. Though I have thousands of my adorable child, I'd like to take another class and get some photo editing software to further develop this skill. 
• Being kind to myself. 
• Re-engaging myself and my family into our faith community.

give thanks.

it's been months since my last post. i suppose it means something along the lines of "i've been so busy doing life that i haven't had time to blog". we're now in to the holiday season, and our charming little boy is now 9 months old! nine! months! old! i can't believe it. these have been some of the most challenging and rewarding months of my life. it's difficult to remember what life was like before this little one joined our family.

i'm thankful for  many things this year. among them: family, friends, health, and faith. 

xoxo,

pj

weeks 14 & 15 // father's day!

These past weeks have been really busy for our little family. Hubby has started his final quarter in grad school, which includes a clinical immersion component at a suburban hospital. We have been juggling our schedules so that we're each home with L 1-2 days per week, and then a family friend has been babysitting him for us 2 days / week. So far, it's been working out just fine. It's all going to change again when Hubby graduates in August -- when we will look for a more permanent childcare provider and have a more predictable schedule. I've been enjoying my days with the little guy, though some are better than others, depending on whether or not he complies with napping. He still fusses just before falling asleep, and sometimes he skips the naps altogether, but we just try to take it as it is. He's been sleeping well through the night, though occasionally waking between 12a-2a, 3a-4a, and then around 6a.

He has been spending more time in the Bumbo seat, and playing with his friends on the floor gym. He's started trying to put everything he can get his hands on into his mouth. He also has been drooling like a fool, which causes him a little rash around his chin. Overall, he's a happy little guy. Papa started doing a new move with him "chest bumps" which he loves - he squeals and smiles.

We celebrated Hubby's first father's day with Chicago-style dogs and I got the boys matching Darth Vader bicycle t-shirts. It was a good day. I just love watching the two of them interact. And the way that L smiles when papa talks to him and smiles at him? It's the sweetest thing.



 



Things I've learned in the past two weeks:

• Levi does not {I repeat ... does NOT} like the pacifier. I've tried, Hubby has tried, Grandma and Grandpa have tried. He just doesn't want it. I know that this will save us the difficulty of "taking the paci away day" when he's six months old, but sometimes I think it would be nice if he would just take it. Instead, he loves shoving his fingers and tiny little hands into his mouth.


• Cloth diapering may not be for us {gasp!}. I {we} simply cannot keep up with the laundry as-needed for cloth diapering. There are days when we do better than others, but I've resigned myself to the fact that it's okay. I'm holding on to all of our diapers that I have in the stash to hopefully resume when we have a better handle on our schedule. For now, we are using Seventh Generation disposables {which I love}, and have tested out The Honest Company disposables as well {which we will likely purchase in the future}.


• Breastfeeding, pumping, etc. is a lot of work! Not only is it difficult to figure out timing for pumping at work, I spend more time washing and sanitizing breast pump parts than I even imagined possible. Before I went back to work, I pumped consistently before bedtime, but that was it. Now, I pump about 3 times per day if I'm gone the entire day, plus once before bed. This week, I pumped twice in the car ... which is just awkward. Although it's challenging {again, some days better than others}, I am so grateful to have this experience. Breastfeeding is very important to me, and I'm hopeful that we'll make it to a year {or maybe longer}.

More updates to come!

xoxo,

PJ

weeks 12 & 13

These last few weeks L seems to be changing every day. Whether it's a new noise, movement, or simply the fact that he looks exponentially bigger to us. It's just amazing! On the day that L turned 3 months, I officially returned to work. Although my schedule was a bit sporadic for the first two weeks because of coordinating child care, so it was really like I returned to work part-time. It was nice to ease into it a bit.

L is really starting to show more of his personality - he loves being entertained by mama and papa. We make silly faces, noises, and perform anything we can think of that might make him smile, giggle, or coo. It's hilarious. Yes, we are THOSE people.



 

L rolled over from front to back a few times at 13 weeks. It's hilarious how exciting this little milestone is! I caught part of one of the roll overs on vine. He just rolled over and then smiled. It was the cutest little thing. He's still been sleeping pretty well through the night. We had a few rough nights around 12 weeks when he started waking up 2-3 times / night again. But it didn't last long, and we're back to our little routine of nighttime sleep from 8pm - 5/6am. Sometimes he wakes around 3/4 am for a feed, but then goes back to sleep until 6:30a. I don't mind this, since it's keeping my breastmilk supply up, and then it stretches the morning sleep a little longer. He's still nursing like a champ and doing well with the bottle during the days when I'm at work. I really treasure the times when I'm nursing him, especially now since I'm back to work.

xoxo,

PJ

11 weeks

 



L is 11 weeks old and seems to be changing each day. He really responds to voices, especially his papa's voice. He loves bath time and flails his little arms and legs as if to be saying to us "see, mama & papa, look what I can do". I adore it. He still has not been taking good naps during the day, so my hunch is that we will need to start working on this. We take daily walks and notice that he can see further now and respond to our faces from further distances. L loves talking with Grandma and Grandpa. It's such a blessing that he's able to bond with them in this special way. I'm excited to see what type of relationship he has with them as he gets older. Lennon has been more interested in the baby, and we now let him lick L's toes -- and then he just doesn't want to stop. I hope that these two are going to be best buds.

This week we switched cloth diaper brands, and are having a much better time with the new brand. I'll have a post about  diapering in the future as we figure out what works best for us -- and what disposables we use when we travel and are out and about. I'm also feeling more confident about heading back to work after reaching out to a few working mamas and reading some uplifting articles about working motherhood.

xoxo,

PJ