Happy Halloween

countdown

Only a few more hours of work before I can escape back home and see my little peanut! Even though I'm only working 3 days a week right now, every day I'm in the office is so hard, I find myself staring a pictures of Naomi all day long just to get me through the day. For the first time in a long while I've started wishing we lived in the city again. Yesterday by the time I got home, it was 6:30. Austin and Naomi were waiting outside for me (Austin caught Naomi's bug and was home sick for the day). It was such a treat to have them waiting for me outside, especially cause Austin dressed Naomi in her little tutu I just picked up for her. But it's so disappointing to get home and only have an hour and a half before we put the little girl to bed. And not that I'm complaining, but now that Naomi sleeps from 8pm - 7am, I don't even see her in the middle of the night anymore!
Anyway, here's one of the pictures I've been staring at today. It's of Naomi playing in her crib, instead of napping.

A Gymboree Halloween

Yesterday was Naomi's last class at Gymboree. It was fitting that we got to have it be a special day and play dress up. Naomi wore her ladybug costume (thank you ben and julie) and was definitely the cutest little critter I've seen. I decided to cancel our Gymboree classes since I'd be going back to work full time in a few weeks, plus, being around all these stay at home mom's just made me too depressed and jealous. Anyway, here's my baby ladybug.

Notice how Naomi's trying to roll on top of the poor baby sleeping blissfully next to her.

Roll Over!

Naomi has been rolling over from her back to front now for over a month.  Today she finally started trying to roll over from her stomach to her back.  I didn't get a picture of her in the act...it actually looks pretty uncomfortable, but then again babies are crazy flexible, I mean, they can eat their own toes...Anyway stay tuned for an update with pictures.  Maybe she'll learn her new trick while I'm home!

My Boo is sick

Naomi woke up this morning with really bad congestion and snot coming down her nose. Poor kid sounded so raspy. She still seemed happy, although she cried a bit when we were trying to wipe her nose and use Little Nose saline drops. After she ate she cuddled up on my shoulder and then just fell right asleep. She used to do this all the time when she was little, but now that she's more alert, if I'm holding her she always wants to look around. Poor boo must have been totally tuckered out from her cold. So we put a hat on her, put her in her sleep sack and bundled her up so she could take a morning nap. We cancelled all of our plans for this afternoon too. Today was supposed to be my first outing without Naomi! I was going to meet some girlfriends for lunch in the city. But I know I'd be sitting there the whole time wondering how Naomi was doing, so I decided to cancel. I'm sure in a couple of months when Naomi has a little cold it won't even phase me, but it definitely made me sad to see her so uncomfortable.

Edit - so the little girl has a mild fever.  But she's still hanging in there like a champ, she's hardly fussed at all and still smiles and laughs, but she's definitely a lot more mellow, and wants to be held more.  Poor kid.  

  

Cha Cha Cha Chia!!!

Naomi's hair is growing in.  It sticks straight up right now...resembeling a porcupine..or maybe a chia pet.  

Good Morning Mommy!!

Quick blog here since I'm at work.
I've decided the hardest part about being back at work is leaving in the morning. Every morning I sneak into Naomi's room to say bye. Even though she's always fast asleep, I always just give her a quick kiss and run out. It's so hard not getting to see her when she wakes up. But the best part of my day is always when Austin sends me a photo of her from his iPhone in the morning.
Here are the 3 he's sent for the 3 days I've been back at work so far:

4 months

Naomi turned 4 mths yesterday!  Here are the stats from her 4mth checkup.

Weight: 13 lbs (40%)

Height: 24 1/4 " (55%)

Head: 41.5cm (68%)

Juggling Act

This week I went back to work after almost 4 months off for maternity leave. I started on Wednesday so that I'd have a short week. On Wednesday morning, I woke up at 2:30am and wasn't able to fall back asleep. At 4:30 when my alarm was supposed to go off, I finally dragged myself out of bed. My morning routine prior to Naomi used to be quick and easy, checking emails, shooting off quick responses while brushing my teeth (this method has caused me to require getting several new blackberries over the year due to water damage), shower, change and out the door all in under 30 minutes. The new routine includes an additional 15 minutes to pump and then another 10 minutes to get bottles ready for Austin to feed Naomi breakfast, and refrigerate any other milk for later on in the day. Now you may say what's an extra 15-30 minutes in the morning? But at 4:00am in the morning, every minute seriously counts. I used to also have my work driver pick me up at my door step, another luxury since I could pretty much crawl half asleep into the car, and take a blissful 30 minute nap on my ride in. Post Naomi, I drive to the train station so that I can have my car in the closest spot to where the train gets out. This saves me an extra 10-15 minutes on my commute home since I don't have to walk to wherever Austin parks his car. 10-15 minutes, again, precious time that will allow me to have more time with Naomi when I get home from work, precious because once I do get home, she's only awake for a few hours before we put her down to bed. Driving to the train station forces me to be really awake when I walk out the door. All in all my day post Naomi deifnitely has gotten more stretched out. And changes aren't only prevalent at the front and tail end of my day. Once I get to work, I still have to find time to pump every 3-4 hours, which makes it nearly impossible to get completely settled down into work mode during the day. (at least it has so far!!)

So how'd I do on my first 3 day week? If I had to grade myself, I'd give myself a D-. A D-because somehow I managed to survive without having a complete nervous breakdown. Why such a low grade you ask? Becuase of the 3 days I only worked 2. I called out sick on thursday, my SECOND day back to work! Pathetic, yes I know. But so so necessary since on Wednesday night I was plagued with another sleepless night. Also, if you had to ask me how much work I did in my first week (ok 2 days) , I could honestly count the number of work related tasks I did on one hand. I spent most of my time catching up with co-workers, clearing out 73k emails (literally), having an actual lunch break (a real treat since pre-Naomi I never did this) and running upstairs to the lactation room to pump. So yes, i give myself a D- and honestly have to ask myself if there's anyway that I can improve this grade, because lets face it, do I really WANT to improve this grade? I'd so much rather be at home spending my time with my kid. How on earth do women around the world manage to juggle being a mom, wife, employee? Trying to play a million different roles and juggling all the responsibilities is tough work.
Men don't even know HALF the amount of stress and work that it takes to be all to everyone.

Apple picking...

On Saturday, we enjoyed the beautiful warm weather by going apple picking in Morristown. Even though Naomi is still too little to really understand what we're doing, I like to think she enjoys our little outings. She definitely liked being outdoors, she spent the day riding in her baby bjorn, laughing and climbing pumpkins...or at least getting posed in front of pumpkins.
We ended up taking home way too many apples, at the time Austin and I told ourselves we'd bake an apple pie..but we all know that's a lie. Anyone want apples? It'd be a shame for them to go to waste. Here are a couple of pics from our day.

She looks like.....