Babies Make Four

Monday, July 15, 2013

First Day Back!

I survived! Even though Luke was still at home with Dillon (and Kenzie & Taylor) this morning. That made my return to work super easy. Tomorrow may not be quite so easy. First day of daycare. And why is it that everyone thinks that daycare is just awful. I'm sure it is when you've found a nasty daycare, but the ladies who watch the babies at the daycare Luke is going to are really sweet. And I know that they will just love on him all day. I know that it's not ideal... what would be ideal would be for Dillon and I to have so much money that we could stay home with him all the time. Who wouldn't want that? God has honestly blessed me with the job that I have now and I really feel like I can't give that up and make my family struggle to survive on one income. We probably could make it on one paycheck, but it would mean cutting back on a lot of things we enjoy and a lot of opportunities for Lucas. Soooo I'll go back to work. I actually enjoyed being at work today and being busy and challenging my mind. AND I didn't cry! (Ok, today. I cried last night. A lot. Whatever. But I didn't cry today!)

This past weekend was super awesome, too! Dillon's sister, Mackenzie and her husband, Taylor came down and stayed with us, giving them a good opportunity to hang out with Luke. Kenzie got a camera just like Dillon's for Christmas, so our weekend was spent with both cameras out catching the best pictures. We got to do lots of stuff that as residents of Asheville, we usually don't get to experience. We went on a trolley tour and tried new restaurants. We took in the sights of the Arboretum and we sat on the patio and talked all afternoon. I just want to say that I am so thankful for them. For purely selfish reasons, they made this weekend a lot easier for me than it could have been. If they wouldn't have come to visit, I probably would have sat on the couch and cried all weekend about returning to work. But we got out and saw some awesome things about our town! And I'm glad they got to spend a lot of time with Luke. It's hard having all of our family out of town so we really enjoy when we get together!

Here's some of my favorite photos from the weekend:

Taylor reenacts Kenzie falling

What Kenzie does best!

Taking care of Luke

I love these pictures of Dillon and Kenz... they always have a good time together

Kenzie's a good photographer

Family Photo!

Baby bath!

Sucking boogies out his nose

She was so sweet to get lots of pictures of the 3 of us

Smilin' Uncle T

Trolley tour!

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Thoughts on Maternity Leave

Welp, it's here. My last day alone with little Luke. I know that I don't go back to work until Monday, but Dillon will be home the rest of the week and my sister-in-law, Kenzie, and her husband, Taylor, are coming down to spend a long weekend with us. In a way, I'm grateful that Kenzie and Taylor will be here this weekend. It keeps my mind off of the fact that I'm returning to work. I'm hoping that we'll go to Shindig on the Green Saturday night and I've thought about hitting up Biltmore, even though it tends to be a little expensive. Could be a fun outing though.

All three of us (Myself, Dillon and the baby) have been fighting off a cold this week. I just returned from seeing our pediatrician making sure that what Luke has isn't anything more than a cold. Luckily, it's not. He's just got a stuffy nose and a little cough. Is it ridiculous to say that even his cough is cute?

Yesterday, we had some more visitors from Virginia! Dillon's mom, granny, aunt Libby, Cousin Deanna and her daughter Claudia all came down for the afternoon. We had such a good time getting together, taking turns holding the baby and eating pizza for dinner. I also got to listen to some really great stories from Granny about when she was little. Talking with her yesterday made my heart ache to listen to stories from my Grandpa and for him to meet Luke. I know that my grandparents are in heaven watching the baby grow and grow. There are some days that I really do miss living near our families.

Since today is my final day of all-alone maternity leave I thought I'd share some thoughts reflecting on my time off:

* Daytime t.v. rocks my socks: 5 hours of Dr. Phil, I believe I will. The same episode of Bridezillas for the umpteenth time, why, yes. What Not To Wear while I eat my lunch, can you believe they go out of the house that way? After Luke and I established a routine, I realized that there was a lot of "down time" with the baby. This isn't to say I wasn't busy, but when he takes 45 minutes to eat a bottle, I've got to figure out how to entertain myself someway. And that way was watching Dr. Phil work his magic one crazy person at a time. I'll miss you old buddy. I'm thinking of investing in a DVR just to keep up with him.

* Facebook sharing is caring: I always liked looking at pictures of my friends' kids on Facebook, but some people seem to get frustrated with the overabundant photos of babies and baby posts. That's one reason I made the blog, so that I didn't fill up my feed with baby stuff (and I know, I've failed miserably at that). I do understand that some people can get carried away with posting about their kids but now I totally understand why. I'm at the house all day. I've cleaned the floors, dusted, maybe cleaned the bathrooms (who am I kidding? I hate cleaning bathrooms. They probably didn't get clean) And now it's just me and the baby. And, look! He made a cute face... that I captured with my iPhone camera. Surely everyone wants to see it? People without kids (and I can say this because up until 3 months ago, I didn't get it either) don't understand. When you have this little person, it becomes your whole existence. And when you're home by yourself all day and your one major responsibility is taking care of the baby, that's really all you have to talk about. That and the crazy chick that was just on Dr. Phil.

* Baby cuddles are the best thing ever: Keeping a little baby is difficult. You're reward for keeping the wee one alive are the cuddles. Been awake all night with a screaming child? Pull them into bed with you at 5 AM and let them fall asleep on your chest and you'll forget all about it. Naps at 1:00 in the afternoon on the couch with the baby come in 2nd best to the morning cuddles. I will miss those naps.

* This has been the absolute best time of my life: Spending day in and day out with Luke has been awesome, probably the most precious time in my life. When he's grown up and out the door, I'll look back at these three months as our time. The time where it was just me and him and all we really had to worry about was learning about life. Realizing what your hands and feet are or that first smile. It's amazing how much he's grown in the last three months and I got to be there for pretty much every single moment. Starting next week, I'll miss some of his smiles in the few hours that I'm at work, but I know that it'll be the best feeling when I pick him up from daycare and he sees me and hopefully I'll get the biggest smile of the day.

We went shopping the other day. Dillon got to carry the baby around looking all cute!

Sock monkey from Grandma Janet! This was when the cold started... poor baby.

Deanna meets Luke for the first time! And gets some good baby smooches.

Granny Blanche hides her face!

Beautiful lady.

Luke LOVES his Granny... She would talk to him and he would talk back and smile really big.

Mom and daughter!

Trying to get the baby to nap

Enjoying the patio... and a sucker from Mast General Store! :)

Friday, July 5, 2013

Happy 4th of July... A Day Late

What a bust our 4th of July holiday was. A few weeks ago, my mom and dad had offered to come down and watch the baby for the day so we could take our canoe out on the river with some friends. At the beginning of the week they were calling for rain showers, but I tried to stay optimistic that it would just be thunder showers and we could still go. No such luck. It rained and rained and rained some more. So much so that I thought I may just pull my hair out from sitting here and watching the rain. Bleh. My mom and dad still came down and we tried to enjoy the day but it was so frustrating. We had bought a huge pork loin that we were going to grill and we ended up just cooking it in the oven. Stupid weather.

I'm coming upon my last full week of maternity leave. Wah. I don't even really want to talk about it, but I went and visited with the daycare on Wednesday. All the girls there are really nice, I'm just having some personal issues about leaving my baby.

Dillon's mom and dad got to come down and visit this week, too, so we've had a nice time with lots of visitors. We know that our little boy is going to grow up with lots of love surrounding him and what a wonderful thing that is.

I really don't have much of an update, but we have taken some really cute pictures this week so I just want to share those. My soul is sad about leaving Luke at daycare and returning to work. After I went to visit daycare, I stopped by the office I work at. One of our patients asked where he'd be when I returned and I told her daycare. She went on and on about how that's not the ideal situation. She was trying to be nice, I know, and really I agree with her, but I don't know any other options right at this moment. And her comments just pushed the knife in a little further. Oh well... here are some pictures to brighten your day!