Back to reality around the corner

It's been over four months since I've been to my office.  I walked out, or rather waddled out, of the office on August 20th filled with anticipation of the pending birth of my daughter.  A little over two weeks later, she was here and I have loved every moment of getting to be with her all day long over the last 3+ months.  However, our continual time together is almost over as I am about to assume a new title - Working Mother - in less than two weeks. 

When I found out I was pregnant last January, I struggled with deciding what I should do for work when the baby was born.  Not only was I exhausted from being in my first trimester, but also from what CPA's know at "busy season" - the stretch of several months where you basically work seven days a week for long hours under stressful, time constrained conditions.  Sounds great, huh?  I don't really know why we torture ourselves, but we do.  Last year was one of my worst busy seasons I've had since I started working in terms of drama, stress and sheer exhaustion.  Needless to say, the idea of staying at home had its appeal back then.  However, never having had a child before, it was hard for me to predict back in the spring if I would really enjoy being out of the workforce to become a stay at home mom after knowing only the work ritual for seven years.

I enjoy being with other adults and I work with a group of really great people, so I knew I would miss the daily interaction too much.  I know about mommy groups and have been able to participate in various play dates with other moms while on my leave.  While those have been great, I have observed that the conversation topics with stay at home moms tend to be approximately 90% about their children.  I'm definitely not saying there is anything wrong with this and, of course, it makes sense.  But for me, I want something else that I can discuss with Geoff at the dinner table beyond how many poopy diapers Olivia had for the day.  So, after much prayer, I became at peace with the decision to continue working after the baby was born.

I also decided to continue to work at PwC instead of searching for another job with more normalized hours for several reasons: 1) PwC maternity leave is really good.  When I return to work, I will have had 4 1/2 months off, fulling paid for;  and 2) PwC offers me the opportunity for a part time, flexible working schedule outside of busy season, which is not something most other jobs out there can offer me.  So my hope is to only be working three days a week by the beginning of May if not sooner.

As for childcare for Olivia, it has been a point of much frustration over the last few months and I will spare you all the gory details.  The main news is that we have hired a sweet lady named Romelia to be our nanny.  I think she will be an excellent caregiver for Olivia.  At the previous family she was employed by, she was the caregiver of a girl from 6 weeks old until she was 3.  From the reports given by both Romelia and the other family, Romelia and the girl became very attached and the little girl was upset when the family had to move overseas and couldn't take Romelia with them.  I hope Olivia is able to form a similar bond with her as well. 

I'll give a blog update in a few weeks regarding the transition.  I know it will be hard and hopefully I won't cry too much! :) 

No wonder she's getting so big!

Olivia @ 3 months

Here are Olivia's three month pictures thanks to our good friends Jonathan and Blakely with Framed by Fletcher (framedbyfletcher.com).  We had so much fun taking them and love how they capture Olivia's sweetness.

What Olivia is up to these days:
- We've heard a few giggles and laughs come out her the past 10 days - so cute!
- In the last week or so, she has discovered her hands and thinks they must taste really good because she loves to gnaw and suck on them.
- She has also discovered her feet and likes to grab on to them and pull them up towards her head.  She hasn't yet connected her toes into her mouth, but she comes pretty close.
- Her grasp is getting much stronger and she is able to clasp things in her hands.  This includes mommy's hair which she got a good grip on last night and didn't want to let go.
- Her sleep at night has regressed some in the last week.  She has been waking up during the night, typically sometime between 1:30 - 3:00 am, before it is time to eat.  She's not hungry, but just needs to be rocked back to sleep.  Hopefully this is a short term issue and we can get it resolved soon.
- She is enjoying the church nursery so far.  The workers there always say how sweet and smiley she is for them.

Date Night

Good news...life as parents is progressing!  Several weeks back, Geoff and I decided it was time for us to get out of the house minus Baby and figured my birthday was a good reason to do it.  We made reservations at a restaurant here in Houston called Mark's.  We had never been there before, but had heard good things about it from friends for a long time. The restaurant is in an old church building, so it has a very romantic and intimate ambience.  Choosing the restaurant and making the reservation was the easy part.  Next came finding a babysitter.  Fortunately, our good friends Jonathan and Blakely had volunteered to babysit whenever we needed them, so we took them up on their offer for the evening. 

Olivia did great with her first babysitters.  I think her parents did pretty good too.  We didn't call or text Jonathan and Blakely to check on her.  Plus, I don't think we really talked about her that much either, which is a good thing.  It almost felt like our pre-baby days except now we have the extra bonus of having a super cute baby and her sweet smiles waiting at home for us.  :)

After our successful first night out, we decided to leave Olivia behind for a more extended period of time while we went to our work Christmas parties this past Saturday.  The parties both happened to fall on the same night, so we were going to double dip.  We didn't want to take up another evening of Jonathan and Blakely's so we needed to find another sitter.  Geoff's running coach had referred a college girl to us as a potential nanny.  After meeting Nora, we weren't ready to hire her as our nanny, but she seemed like she would be a good babysitter.  Saturday had been a very busy day for us and Olivia was a little off her routine, so when Nora got here, Olivia was abnormally fussy and not her usual self.  Not a good start, but we were able to get her calmed down before we left and the evening seemed to be another success.  I think Nora will be a good babysitter for Olivia going forward.

Geoff and I had a great time at our parties.  I enjoyed getting dressed up after spending much of my time these days with spit up or worse on my clothes.  Plus, it was really fun to see a lot of my co-workers I haven't seen in months.  We were gone almost seven hours which is the longest that I've been away from my baby.  It was hard.  I missed her a lot and tried not to worry that she was taking her bottles, going down to sleep, etc.  I kept telling myself that it was good practice for when I go back to work (Only four more weeks....ahhhhh! More on that to come soon in a future post.) and am away from her for much, much longer periods.  I'm sure I will get used to it and it will get easier over time.  At least that's what I'm hoping for anyways.  We'll see....

Thanksgiving happenings

We headed north to the Cincinnati area to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with my family.  All of my siblings were there which is always special since we don't get to see each other very often.  Of course, it was extra special this year because of the newest member of our family getting to finally meet her Paw-Paw, aunts and uncles and to see Grandma again.  It was also her first plane ride.  I was slightly anxious about the flight.  I really didn't want to be that parent with the crying baby and get all the dirty looks.  She's such a good baby that I wasn't too worried.  I was mainly concerned if her ears would be bothered by the changing air pressure.  If her ears did hurt, she didn't let us know.  She was super good and spent the flight doing her normal thing: sleeping, eating and just looking around.  The only time she let out a cry was when Geoff lifted her up to smell if she had a dirty diaper and accidentally bonked her head on the overhead compartment.  Oops!  

Chillin' on the plane

It's funny how a baby brings conversation out of people.  We had multiple nice people stop to talk to us in the airport and on the plane about Olivia and/or tell us about their own children.  There is just something so sweet and innocent about a baby that makes people stop and talk to people they probably wouldn't talk to otherwise.  

We arrived at my parents' house and my family anxiously gathered around waiting for us to take Olivia out of her car seat so that they could all hold her.  We pulled back the blankets around her and discovered an unpleasant surprise... a diaper blow out!  We had heard a few small toots on the drive from the airport to my parents' house, but did not realize how bad it was.

Not quite the greeting everyone was expecting

So we had to go give her a bath right away before anyone could start holding.  Funny how none of her "favorite uncles" wanted to come help us.  :)  It was pretty nasty and had to be one of the worst smelling diapers she's had yet.  We're just glad that the explosion didn't happen on the plane.  That would have been really bad.  She had a great time hanging out and getting loved on for the weekend.

Hanging with Uncle Doug

Uncle Brian and Aunt-to-be Jessica

Uncle Jason

Uncle Scott - Olivia is fed up with all the pictures at this point!

Uncle Stevie

Aunt Emily and Olivia

With Grandma

Getting love from Paw-Paw

It's hard being so far from my family and it makes me sad to think that they won't get to see Olivia again until Brian and Jessica's wedding in May.  She's going to be so different six months from now.  But we are thankful that everyone got to see her and spend plenty of time with her over the last several days.

Being silly

70 days and counting

Olivia is ten weeks old today.  I can't believe how fast it is flying by.  Can someone please tell my little girl to stop growing so fast?  When I was pregnant, plenty of people told me how quickly children grow up and now I'm experiencing it for myself.  We had her two month appointment last week.  Here are her stats: weight - 11 lbs, 10 oz (90th percentile) and height - 23 inches (75th percentile). 

Showing off her big belly, or as we like to call it, her "milk gut".

She got her first major round of vaccinations at the doctor last week too.  I was a nervous about how she would handle it and even more anxious as I heard another little baby wailing from his shots while we waited our turn in the doctor's waiting room.  She handled it like a champ though.  She made a little whimper on the first shot in her right leg.  The second shot they gave her in her left leg is apparently the more painful of the two.  She cried for about five seconds and then calmed right down.  More good news....mommy didn't cry either! :)  Later in the afternoon, she slept more than usual and I could tell she didn't feel very well.  We gave her some baby Tylenol and by morning she was back to her usual cheery self.

Here are some updates on her development:
- I know I've said it before, but Olivia is such a happy baby.  She loves to smile all the time.  We can never get enough of them.
- She loves to look and smile at herself in the mirror.  Hopefully we aren't raising a vain daughter!
- Olivia has outgrown her newborn clothes.  She's now wearing size 3-6 months.
- Her neck is getting much stronger and she's getting good at holding her head up.  She's able to sit in her bumbo seat for longer periods of time each day before she slumps over.
- She is beginning to grab at things and clasp on to them.  She likes to grab at the little birds and monkeys that hang down from her bouncer and floor gym.
- She has been consistently going at least 7-8 hours, sometimes longer, between feedings at night for a few weeks now.  So depending on when she last eats for the day, I have been getting some pretty good sleep!
- Her saliva glands are working.  The girl is a drooler.  We keep a bib on her to catch it and the bib is usually pretty damp by the end of the day.  Wow...I wonder what it's going to be like when she starts teething. 

The last twelve months have been very difficult and painful for many of our friends and family when it comes to babies:

- Friend Jaime went into pre-term and delivered son Peyton at 24 weeks gestation.  It was a daily fight for survival for a long period of time.

- My cousin Shelly and her family lost their sweet little boy Graham at three months old when he unexplainably passed away in his sleep.

- Friend Kristen had a great pregnancy and smooth labor and delivery.  However, when Cooper was two days old, some complications developed that required him to have multiple surgeries over several months and be in the hospital for an extended period of time.

-  Friends John and Tiffany lost their twin boys, Michael & Jake, at 22 weeks gestation on September 7, the day Olivia was born.  It seems so unfair that our day of celebration will always be their day of sorrow.

- Other friends and acquaintances have struggles with infertility and miscarriages.

All of these hardships remind me that life is fleeting and to cherish each moment.  I can't take anything for granted.  I also have an overwhelming feeling of gratitude that I can hold my baby and that she is healthy.  I know there are so many who would give anything for those two things.

The Big 3-0

Well, I'm now 30.  I'm still getting used to it.  It feels strange to write and weirder to say.  It seems like my 20th birthday was not that long ago and now here I am, celebrating another decade of life.  I had a wonderful weekend celebrating.  On Saturday evening, we had a birthday party for me at our house.  I think the last time I had a big birthday party with more than family and/or a few friends was my Sweet 16, so I was definitely overdue a party.  Plus, with spending a lot of my time at home these days with Olivia, I was ready to socialize and see friends, coworkers and family that I hadn't seen in awhile.  We had about 25 people come over and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening.  I felt very blessed to have such great friends who came to celebrate with me. 

I'm pretty certain most of my friends who came to the party were coming to see Olivia as much as they were coming to celebrate my birthday and it was nice to have plenty of extra hands to hold her throughout the evening.  I was a little unsure how she would handle all the activity since this was the most people she's been around yet.  But, as we are discovering with most things, it didn't seem to phase her.

The birthday girls: Suzanne - 30 years and Olivia - 2 months

In celebration of 30 years of life and an early Thanksgiving reflection, here are 30 things I'm thankful for:

1.  Abundant and eternal life through a relationship with Jesus
2.  Geoff - my best friend.  He continually lets me know he loves me, despite all my imperfections, and he always has kind words to say
3.  Olivia - it's amazing how instantly you can love someone so much despite how she gives nothing in return.  I love, love, love my daughter
4.  My parents - I'm honored to call them my parents.  They did a great job of raising me and I appreciate all the sacrifices they made to do it
5.  My siblings - Doug, Brian, Jason, Scott, Stephen and Emily.  I'm so proud of each of them and they give me an endless supply of laughter
6.  The other side of my family - mother-in-law, father-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law and two nieces.  I couldn't ask for better in-laws
7.  Living in the greatest country in the world, the United States of America
8.  My extended family - I don't get to see my aunts, uncles and cousins very often, but when I do, it's always a good time
9.  My health and the good health of my family
10.  Friends - I am so thankful for friends as they greatly enrich my life
11.  The opportunities I've had to travel inside and outside the US and experience God's creation
12.  Hot showers on cold mornings
13.  Modern technology - I can't imagine living in a world without electricity, computers, refrigerators, cell phones, etc.
14.  My house - it's continues to be just perfect for our family
15.  Memorial Park - our convenient location to it (just a few blocks away) and the three mile running trail there
16.  My church and the Truth that they teach
17.  Shoes - Seems basic, but I know there are many people around the world that don't have shoes and I have a closet full
18.  Naps - when I can take them, even just 10 minutes, they make such a difference in my day
19.  Blue Bell ice cream - I hope there is Blue Bell in Heaven
20.  Air conditioning in my car during the scorching Houston summers
21.  Cameras/photography that allow us to capture memories
22.  Laughter - what a gift from God that brings so much enjoyment to life
23.  My job - it certainly has its frustrating moments, but it's a very secure job and the people I work with care about me both professionally and personally
24.  The smell of Christmas trees - love this smell
25.  The ability to read and enjoy books
26.  Flowers and the beauty they bring
27.  Concealer makeup - must have for a new mother to cover up dark under eye circles and puffiness
28.  Down pillows - they make such a difference in how I sleep
29.  Toilet paper and toilets that flush it
30.  The internet - love instant information and appreciate the communication tools it provides

Puppies and Aliens

We decided to get a puppy.  For a few hours.  On Halloween night.  Before Olivia was even born, I found a good deal on a puppy costume and couldn't wait for the night to arrive to put her in it.  It even had a little button on the paw that woofed when you pressed it.  We debated whether we should take her trick-or-treating, but figured it might look a little suspicious given she doesn't even have teeth yet.  So the costume was really for us.  Or maybe just me.  I'm not sure Geoff would have cared one way or another if we dressed her up this year.  I did take her to the door with me to pass out candy whenever we had trick-or-treaters arrive at our house.  The kids and their parents just loved seeing a baby dressed up.  Some of them thought she was a boy and a few the parents started touching her hands and face, which wasn't so cool, but all in all it was fun.

Woof woof

Passed out from all the candy.  Or maybe just from working hard to look cute.

I think she liked sleeping in her costume because it was so warm and cozy.

Separately, but still loosely sticking with the Halloween theme, our family of three ventured out to dinner a week or so ago for the first time.  We went to a nearby casual dining Italian restaurant that was perfect in case Olivia got fussy and we needed to cut our dinner a little short.  No worries though.  We actually stayed awhile longer (which I especially appreciated) because she was happy to just sit in her seat taking in the world outside of our house and then taking a little snooze.  After we finished eating, we started taking pictures with Geoff's iPhone.  We thought her glowing eyes from the flash were hilarious!  Maybe she has some secret alien superpower to zap things with her eyes that we are just discovering.  Stayed tuned!

Say Cheese

In the last 10 days to two weeks, Olivia has really discovered her smile.  We're not talking gassy smiles here, but REAL smiles and we love them!  Typically we get the most right after she's finished eating, when she's fat and happy.  If we get right in her face and talk/smile at her, we are rewarded with big grins.  It's so fun to have her begin to interact with us.  We continued to be amazed and very, very thankful at what a good baby she is.  She hardly ever cries except when she's overdue for a feeding or extra sleepy and needs to be snuggled.  I've had several people tell me that their babies were little angels until they turned 6 weeks and then they turned into crying monsters.  Well, she's 7+ weeks now and no sign of turning into a monster.  We pray that she continues to have a sweet and happy nature.