It's now February. I sort of mourned the coming of February 1st because it is the start of the same month that I go back to work. I know that ultimately I will be fine, Adler will be fine, Tom will be fine--but it's so hard to imagine being gone from this little one!
What is amazing though is that Adler is now officially one month old. With this milestone she is now doing so many more things than she did before. She's starting to track our voices and faces. She even sometimes mimics our facial expressions (or we like to think she does).
Here she is mimicking dad's face (or id daddy mimicking hers?) while she's trying to poop!
Once again, she has so many incredibly cute faces.
She loves to suck on daddy's arm, but when he's away at work, and she's not breastfeeding, mommy's fingers suffice. This kid cracks me up!
We had big news at her 1 month doctor's visit. She's gaining weight like a champ! For a while there she was not exactly on par. Well, she's figured out how to eat shall we say because she went from 8lb8oz to 9lb6oz in less than a week! Almost pound, in one week! I hope she doesn't keep up this exponential growth because even in that moment when I heard her weight I thought to myself "where did my little baby go?" It's only beginning!
Tom and I are figuring out how to adjust to our new schedules with her and trying to anticipate our new schedule when I go back to work. We are trying hard to train her to go to sleep by herself, i.e. not having to nurse or be rocked to sleep. This way she's not dependent on us for falling asleep (as much as I just want to hold and rock her to sleep every night, I know that I will maintain more sanity and be a better doctor if she doesn't HAVE to be held by me before bed each night because sadly that just won't be possible with my hours and rotations sometimes.
Her bedtime often makes me a little jealous. We put her down somewhere between 7-7:30 and I can't help but think that I too will be off to bed at that hour (assuming I can actually physically be back home and walk in the door by that hour!), So far she doesn't like her crib too much, but we're trying to put her in it at least one time over night. And, to help ease the ever-present mom-anxiety complex that I've now developed, we have a great baby monitor that connects to an app on my phone so I can check in on her
I also had my first mommy-alone time the other day. Regrettably it wasn't for anything fun like a manicure or a lunch with friends or anything. It was none other than the dentist....ugh. Ironically though, maternity leave is one of the only times I've got availability during regular business hours to tend to my own teeth!
In other baby-news (you're gonna get sick of it, I'm sure) we tested out one other big thing recently--bottle feeding! She'll be getting bottles of breastmilk from daddy while I'm at work so we had to make sure she knows how to do it and is ok with it.
It turns out, she just loves to eat and had no troubles adjusting to the bottle. Daddy loved to have the experience too!
Look at that satisfied face!
I swear, she's like a little yoga master that has incredible zen:
Last weekend Tom competed in the Fight for Air climb in Boston to honor his mom and raise funds for the American Lung Association. Thank you to all the friends and family who supported Tom's efforts. He was supposed to race in Providence, but due to a last minute schedule change he ended up racing in Boston (a month earlier than originally planned and >10 floors higher than originally planned!). We bundled Adler up and headed up to Boston for our first day truly "out and about."
This is One Boston Place, the building that Tom climbed.
We picked up his bib number and anxiously awaited his start time in the freezing cold lobby of the building (it was single digits outside and the constantly open doors made it feel like a refrigerator in there!).
Here he is before the race!
When he went off to the starting line, Adler and I went to the coffee shop in the lobby to warm up. It was an adorable place that I never would have known about had it not been for the race and I actually would be tempted to go back just to go there because it was so cute!
Adler took to it nicely.
I sat and snuggled with Addie while enjoying a hot cup of tea while Tom raced (I felt pretty lazy, but then again, it was wonderful so I didn't feel that bad!).
Now, despite it being 41 floors, Addie and I didn't have much time to sit and snuggle because he finished in 8 min and 10 seconds!
You can't tell on her face, but I think Adler was proud :). Ok, mommy was, but you know...
We celebrated by going out to breakfast (he finished by 8:20 in the morning after all) at a placed called the Friendly Toast.
Suddenly it all felt more real that we're parents. Adler joined us at the table and we looked around at all the families with toddlers and other infants and we could see our future ahead of us
We then ventured to Costco (our favorite past time :) and while I didn't capture it on camera, Adler was awake and alert for most of the shopping trip! But here she looks more distressed than anything.
Whew, what a weekend for her!
Superbowl sunday arrived and we were so excited to cheer on the Eagles (well, not as excited as we would have been had it been the seahawks...but you know we just couldn't possibly cheer for the pats)
Adler did NOT like the football helmet hat. We thought she was pretty cute though :)
I didn't get a picture of the crew (failing at mom duties here) but we joined my classmates for the game. Look at this adorable chips and dip creation that Diana made!
Woohoo for an Eagles win!
Adler and I have been venturing out in the daytime for some walks here and there and I have to admit, she always looks incredibly cute snuggled up in her bear suit!
These days I eat, breathe and sleep thoughts about Adler. I am starting to wrap my head around going back to work and in fact i'm going to do a short (hopefully) shift on Saturday to kind of have a dry run of the real deal when I go back on 2/19. I don't want to do an early shift, but ultimately I think it's probably best for my sanity and reducing lingering anxiety. Let's be honest, I'm going to be anxious no matter what. But, if I can do a dry run, make sure I know how all of the logistics are going to work (trust me, I'll spare you the details on ALL of the many logistics of pumping breast milk while at work), I think I'll be better off come that final day.
That's all for now! Maybe one more post before I go back to work. Then I may be MIA for a while because I"ll be a bit busy doing other things. And then, who knows, Tom may become the primary author since he will be home with her one-on-one for (up to) 12 weeks (we haven't officially decided how long he's going to take for paternity leave).
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