Home Sweet Home

Last summer Dillon and I had big plans that at the time did not involve babies. We had decided to move to Raleigh for Dillon to return to school and the opportunity for better careers. We had our house on the market and were actively looking for work and a house in Raleigh. 

Then one Monday night in August, after being in Virginia for the weekend, we came home and I randomly took a pregnancy test. I had felt kind of funny but I fully didn't expect to have a positive result. I cleaned up our room a little and checked my email, returning back to the test only to find a faint light line announcing that I was pregnant. I walked downstairs and said "Uh, Dillon, you might want to come and look at this." Over the next three days, I took probably 5 more tests  just to confirm what that first one had told me. 

Now we were scared and excited at the same time. What did this mean for our move to Raleigh? We would be away from our group of friends who would provide support to us and 2  more hours away from family who would want to see the baby often. Dillon worried that our "plan" wouldn't work out and I explained that there was a plan for us even if it wasn't OUR plan. 

So we decided to stay in Asheville. We left the house on the market for awhile after, but as my belly expanded and the nesting instinct kicked in, I really wanted to stay put for just a little longer. I needed a nursery for the baby and I wouldn't be much help waddling around trying to pack boxes. The house was taken off the market.

Jump to now. A little baby sure does come with lots of things, even before they have toys and our little house that accommodated Dillon and I perfectly is starting to feel cramped with baby stuff, brewing stuff, our regular stuff... 

We've decided to put our little house back on the market, only this time we'll be staying in Asheville. Once again, I feel excited and sad at the same time. Lots of memories in the past 5 years from this house. But I'm so excited to find the home that our little boy will grow up in. We're hoping to find a neighborhood with lots of kids so he'll have playmates and a home with a good school district. It's very stressful searching for that house and having our home on the market but we're looking forward to the big move! 

The following pictures are waaaay out of order.

Celebrating my 25th birthday

Dillon enjoying the yard

Our kitchen when we re-did the floors...

Dillon carrying me over the threshold when we returned from our honeymoon

Our first garden

The house being built

The house after I had moved in.

Looks a lot different.

Pretending to wash dishes in our new house under construction...

Our baby boy's nursery.

Our first Christmas...

woo! pregnant!

First day at home with Luke.

Our engagement party with friends!

6 Weeks!

We've made it six weeks! Luke seems to be growing like a weed and has started smiling and "talking" to us even more. He spends more time awake and he's started to notice the ceiling fans and the mobile in his crib. I tried to have him nap in his crib this week, only to realize that when I wanted to check on him I had to leap up the stairs every 10 minutes. I'm in need of a video baby monitor although going up the stairs is probably good exercise. He's sleeping most nights until 5 or 6 AM and when he does wake up it's only for about 30 minutes and it's straight back to sleep. And... he's no longer wearing newborn clothing :( He's in 0-3 months and 3 month clothing is fitting pretty well. Yikes! I may have over-estimated his need for 3 month clothing and under-estimated the need for 6 month clothes. He has so many 3 month outfits, I change him a couple of times a day, even if he hasn't messed up the outfit. 

I've got 6 week left of maternity leave and my heart hurts a little when I think about dropping him off at daycare for the day. I know that he'll be ok and I've even heard great things about the daycare I'm using. I'm just having a hard time letting someone else have the responsibility of taking care of him. I guess there's no reason to think about it right now as I still have 6 weeks left.

June is a super busy month for us, so I'll hopefully have lots of posts with pictures. Dillon's sister and mom are coming next weekend and it'll be the first time Kenzie gets to meet little Luke! Then our friends Eric & Laurie are getting married in October and this month starts some of their celebrations with a shower next weekend and the bachelor party at the end of the month (Dillon will be attending the bachelor party solo - Luke and I will be chilling at home :) ) Then we have doctor's & dentist appointments and Father's Day and Dillon's birthday - sheesh. This last month I have off will be crazy and I'm sure go by super fast. I'm so excited for summer and everything that goes with it! 

Last weekend we decided to see how much Luke weighs... using Dillon's work scales! 

9.32 lbs.! 

Dillon cuts corn on Memorial Day

Our Memorial Day Feast

I don't know what I was doing, anywho...

As you can see, we're getting a lot of patio time in

Luke likes his dinner! 

Lola sits in front of the dryer vent to get the warm air blown over her

I've been going to the park a lot to walk... Dillon went with me yesterday and we saw these old hippies playing hackey sack. 

Walking the dog

Luke likes the park 

Dog park! 

This dog is named Buster and is Lola's new boyfriend as they look just alike except he's darker

Sleeping...

Emma's antisocial and stays with us most of the time.

This was too cute, this little boy was at the park with his grandparents. His grandpa would throw the ball and he'd hit it far, far away to make the grandpa go get it. They were trash talking each other the whole time!  

Tuckered... 

White Squirrels

Dillon has the elusive three day weekend for Memorial Day and actually has the entire three days off which is very rare for him. When construction has a good weather day, they're usually working, but for some reason he has off this weekend which makes us all super happy. This morning we woke up with nothing on our agenda, so our day went a little like this:

* For a few years now, Dillon has had a small freezer chest in our dining room which has been an unfinished beer tap chest. We either didn't have the funding or the money needed to go to other things, but for Father's Day and Dillon's birthday I promised him that he could get what he needed to finish it. This morning he made a quick Lowe's run and worked on his fridge. Whenever he has a spare moment he's working on finishing that up. Once it's done, and he brews a batch of beer, we will have beer on tap in our own house. Very exciting, I know!

* During breakfast, I was looking at our local paper and saw that there was a festival in Brevard, NC called the White Squirrel Festival. They actually have white squirrels running around this town and every year they celebrate it! So we packed up a few bottles and diapers along with the baby and headed out to Brevard after Dillon worked on his beer fridge. What an awesome little town! I think that I could probably live out there if we ever found a piece of property we liked. We walked around looking at crafts and the stores on the street and listened to the live music. Luke then had a little meltdown because he was hungry, so we ducked into the local brewery and sampled their beer while the baby ate. Then we ambled back to our car and the baby slept the whole way home. Once we returned I napped with Luke while Dillon worked some more on his fridge. :) Such an awesome day with our family. Dillon said he felt like he was on vacation today it was so nice!

Some random notes about Luke: 1. He no longer fits in his newborn sleepers which makes me really sad. He's just grown so long that I can barely pull them up over his shoulders. I think he may have all of his daddy's genes because I have a feeling he's going to be tall (My OB, Dr. Moore, said she thinks he'll be big because he has HUGE hands and feet!) 2. He's starting to "talk" right before he goes to sleep. Every night, after his 3 AM feeding, I try to get him to sleep. His eyes close and then he starts talking to me, groaning and grunting about how good he feels. Then about 10 minutes later he's sleeping. It's super cute. 3. He's starting to get where he sleeps almost through the whole night. We get him to sleep around 9:00 or 10:00 and he'll sleep until about 4:30. I can totally run on that amount of sleep and I am NOT sad about him making it through the night!

My peonies bloomed for the 1st time this year. I've had them planted for 3 years and am so excited to have 5 blooms this year! 

The beer fridge in progress...

At the White Squirrel Festival! 

Hate to tell them... but my baby's already cool. 

Dillon swoons over a guitar

The elusive white squirrel. Unfortunately, we didn't see a real white squirrel. 

MMMM....

Baby, Daddy, Mommy

Luke learns how to brew...

Rough Day

When you read the title, you're probably thinking "Oh, poor baby Luke, he must have had a fussy day." When in fact the baby has been excellent this week, it's been myself that I've struggled with a bit. So, I'm forewarning you now... If you don't want to listen to my little,  pity party, scroll to the bottom  and look at the cute baby pictures because this post is going to include my dirty house, the fact that I no longer fit into any of my B.P. (before pregnant) clothes and my inability to breastfeed. And in all reality, this day was really, really good. Honest, it was. 

1. Dirty House - remember when I said that I was really sad to see my mom go? Part of it was because I loved having her here. She provided company and someone to tell me that I'm doing this mom thing right. The other part was because she keeps a super clean house, and that doesn't matter if it's her house or mine. She straightened things up, cleaned floors, did laundry all while I tried to keep the baby happy. When she left, it was up to me to do these things all at the same time and honestly, there have been days where it's 11:30 in the morning and I'm still in my pajamas trying to get everything done and I just haven't had time to put on clothes. I've cleaned some, but just in my jammies and I still haven't cleaned near the amount she was able to. I try to start cleaning the floors and the baby cries. He needs to be changed or fed and it takes time and then I have to hold him for awhile. By that time it's lunchtime for me and I try to eat in between holding the baby. By the afternoon, I'm exhausted and I fall asleep and then after that Dillon gets home. I get some cleaning done but for the most, I'm lucky if it's anything. I guess this morning I looked around and just saw all the clutter and it drove me crazy. I got most of it up, but it's still a work in progress. Hopefully, tomorrow I can get more clean. It just kind of added up on me this morning and put me in a bummer mood. 

2. B.P. Clothing - I think all women who have just had a baby are super excited to make it back into their clothing. When I was first pregnant, I was soooo excited about maternity clothes. New wardrobe, cute little baby bump to show off! You make it into your 7th month, you've worn every piece of maternity clothing that you own that week, and now those stretchy pants aren't fitting so well. Then the baby comes and no one really tells you what it's going to be like after. You go home still looking 8 months pregnant and then a month later you're still in those yoga pants sporting an extra 20 pounds from your B.P. weight. My shirts fit just fine, but it's the bottoms... oh that lovely behind. Somehow my pants are just a bit too snug in the hips and butt area it doesn't seem to be disappearing. Which brings us to today... Dillon got off work today early, it rained on his site so he came to the house and told me that I should go off and do some things on my own today. Shop a little bit without having to take the baby. There's a store here in town where they have nice, gently worn 2nd hand clothes. It's geared towards the younger crowd, high school-college age, but a lot of times I can find jeans and shirts that are a little more my age but still cute. I head out that way today in search of some pants that fit and maybe a few other things since I haven't been there in 10 months. I step into the store and I feel so out of place. I looked at the jeans and even the size up from what I usually wore looked way too tight. I picked out several things a little bigger to try and on and half didn't fit. I felt OLD shopping in there and I suddenly just felt like crying. I did find clothes, some pants and a dress for a good price, but it just was not a good feeling. I try not to be upset about silly things like this. In reality it doesn't matter because my body did an amazing thing but I still feel sad about it. 

3. Breastfeeding - This is a super touchy subject with me. You've probably noticed in pictures of us with Luke that he's taking a bottle. You see, breastfeeding and I don't really get along. When we were taking our childbirth classes, the class on breastfeeding made me feel super anxious. There were all these things that you had to do and then in the end it may not even work out. I panicked a little, but told myself that I'm sure it would work out and not to worry. Women do it all the time so why couldn't I? So, the time came, the baby was born and I attempted to breastfeed. The lactation consultant came in at the hospital, and said I was doing just fine. They set me up with a pump to come home with and sent me on my merry way. When you research breastfeeding, you read about it hurting but, holy crap, I thought it was worst than birthing the baby. I came home and struggled with it. The baby had lost almost a pound which freaked me out that he wasn't eating enough. The combination  of hormones, pain, and not knowing how much he was eating, had me on the brink. I sat on the couch, dreading the next feeding and sobbing when Dillon and my mom said "Maybe you should just consider formula." I tried using the pump from the hospital and it didn't work. One side pumped, the other didn't. I sat there, taking twice the time, getting little results.  The next day I started bottle feeding and didn't go back. The baby was happy, he gained weight and the stress level went waaayy down. The only thing is, I'm reminded of my inability a lot. I don't mind friends and family asking about it, it's just curiosity, but when strangers ask it really bothers me. Most of the time I don't go into detail about why it didn't work, but with strangers I feel like I need some excuse. We went to the farmer's market in our little neighborhood today and a woman came up to me asking about the baby. How old he was, we shared stories about our babies and then the random question came up "Are you nursing?" I awkwardly said "No, it just didn't work for me" and it felt like her face fell when she heard that. I felt like she passed judgement on my choice even though I don't think she meant to, but the conversation turned awkward. I felt like the worst mother ever for not being able to explain why I didn't try harder. I didn't go to a lactation consultant, I didn't hang on for months (at least until returning to work), I just didn't "woman up" to do what's needed. Honestly, I felt like the stress far outweighed everything else. I just kept thinking that he's only this little once and I didn't want to waste precious moments stressing about it. I just wanted to enjoy HIM and not worry about if he was eating enough. So, after today, I've just decided to own it. I won't offer excuses for why I ended up not breastfeeding. My baby is growing and I'm pretty sure he's happy because I got two non-gas related smiles out of him today. 

All I can say is tomorrow's another day. I've enjoyed time with my little family today and life couldn't be much better even if I can't fit into my old pants, my house is messy and I stumble along with being a new mother. 

Luke's first baseball game!

Dillon enjoys an iced chai at the farmer's market

Farmer's market! You can see Luke in the little space

Some photos from my phone, Luke dancing!

Daddy and baby sleeping