5 months

Can you believe how quickly time has flown by? She is five months old now!
We introduced Rice cereal on her 5 month birthday - it was a hit. For right now we're only eating it at her 5:00 meal. Next week I'll add another cereal feeding to her 11:00 meal. I'm excited to introduce other foods, but I'll wait until after talking to the doctor at her 6 month check up next month.
Isn't it weird that next month is November already? Where has the time gone!?
Yesterday it became official that Macie is a 'sitter-upper'. She has been balancing for a few weeks now, but yesterday I put her in the pack and play while I made dinner (Shepard's pie, yum!) and she stayed in a sitting position for about 15 minutes! So I'm putting that as officially when she started sitting up. Fun!
There is so much else to write, but I'm posting this while on a break at work, so I don't want to infringe on class time.
Take care ladies!

AF - Permission to land?

PERMISSION GRANTED!
Yes, I write you a much happier woman, on the other side of AF. So for the record, the day after my last post I got a strange and wonderful visitor. I told my husband it was weird to see red and not have a panic attack over it. Isn't it strange? My last menstral cycle had been July of 2009.
I am happy for many reasons. I would of course love to have more children, but I am so happy right now with an overflowing cup, that the thought of having another right away scares me.
That being said, I am happy to take whatever God feels I can handle, and if it means another little one right away, then sign me up.
But if I had to choose (God is laughing at that statment), it would be to wait another 6-8 months before getting pregnant. So...all that to say, I have conquored AF and will see if it is another 26-28 days before we meet again.
In the meantime, my little one is 5 months today! Yikes! Tonight for dinner she will be having her very first rice cereal. Yum. I hope she takes to it well. She has one tooth that broke out about 2 weeks ago, so I'm thinking that is all the more reasons she is ready for food. Her pediatrician said 5 months, so I am taking her literally.

I love all the blogs and am enjoying reading everything that you guys write, even if my comments are to a minimum.
Enjoy Thursday all!

How I met your m.other and WHEN?

First, how I met your m.other. The TV show. Anyone watch it? I find it amusing so I DVR it and watch it at a later point during the week.
This season, Marshall and Lily are going to try to have a baby. There was a really sensitive moment that they had when Lily admitted that she was scared she would be infertile. It really made me well up with tears. THis show is not known for it's poignency, but I found it worth mentioning.
Secondly: New moms...when did you get your period after the baby was born? Macie is 4 1/2 months old and I have no period. I am not exclusively breastfeeding, but I am still BF 3 times a day. I'm desperate to compare. I really would like to get back to 100% normal, but I don't feel 100% quite yet. 95 % maybe. Just waiting for AF.

Small Group

Monday nights are our small group. Today will be the second week that we are meeting. I have some dilemmas that I'm hoping you guys can help me with. Small group/Bible study lasts from 7-8:30. Macie's bedtime is 8:00. The couple's house we're meeting at is about 25 minutes away. We are committed to going and I'm always glad to have gone. But I don't exactly know what to do with Macie.
There is a babysitter there, and there are 3 other children. My problem is that Macie pretty much still requires one on one attention. I can keep her in the group with me, but you guys know how it is when other people have their babies...you just can't quite focus on the discussion because the baby is either super cute or being fussy and distracting. So I'm thinking about bring the pack and play or the swing or something like that and then kind of watching her myself. What would you guys do if you were in my situation?

4 months!

(I know I look awful, this was right after being in the pool - no makeup!)

Labor day weekend is wonderful for teachers. It's a little touch of summer wrapped up in a few weeks of school. I will admit that I don't hate working. Don't get me wrong, I HATE being away from Macie. But I was actually very suprised to find that working isn't awful. I am teaching all senior economics this year and while seniors are not my favorite age to work with, I have five groups of really good kids and I think this was pre-arranged by God, because that's not normal. I'm sure I'll have some hard kids and hard days, but of the first two weeks, things are going well. I am however going to ask my boss if I can work 60% next year. In high school that means that I need to teach every day, but I would either be finished by 11:00AM or start at 11:00AM. I don't know what would work best, but I'm open. The school does have the right to deny me 60%, but I'm hoping they'll think I'm a good enough teacher to keep around.

As far as Macie...

She's 4 months old tomorrow! Where has the time gone!?

She is cooing and giggling, and I swear she laughed at me on Tuesday but she hasn't repeated it when people are around! She loves to grab her feet and can roll over but doesn't do it very often. This morning I found her in her crib rotated 180 degrees from where she started, but still on her back. It's like she made a half circle with her feet. Baby breakdancing maybe?

Her 4 month well baby appointment is on Friday, and I am so ready to know what she weighs and how long she is. Still in the 97%? We'll see.

I hope you all had lovely Labor day weekends and I'll look forward to updates from all of you!

Oh, and one last praise, a dear friend of mine IRL is pregnant! She is 37 and has been trying for four years. She had a failed fresh IVF this June and just got her BFP! So we're praying for good news and a lovely healthy baby in 9 months! Let me leave you with a picture from this morning before we went shopping on Labor day. Four months tomorrow!

Going back

Tomorrow I will become a 'working mom'.

Now this post isn't to debate whether or not I should be working with a little one, I know it's a hot button issue, but to talk about the facts, and the fact is, tomorrow I'm going back to work.

I don't want to, I want to stay home and be with Macie and raise her myself. But that's not where we're at in life, and I have completely accepted that, and I'm still gra

teful to have a job as a teacher. I don't know about other states, but CA is a mess right now and we have no state money, so getting my job back is a blessing.

But let's instead focus on how awesome my daughter is! She's 3 1/2 months. She's in the 97th percentile for weight/height/head circum. She loves to try to stand up, she loves to be held above your head and smile down (and droll) on you! She coos and smiles and is a pretty happy baby for sure.

It's hard to update much as I have just wanted to spend every moment with her. Right now DH is explaining football to her, so I was able to grab a few moments here. So just know that even though I'm not updating as much, I'm reading all of your blogs (except the Chinese weirdness that keeps showing up in the comments, what's that about?!) and love getting updates.

Until later!

Lake Tahoe, 4 generations, home again

It was a crazy 2 weeks! We took an official vacation (as opposed to traveling which is great, but not always relaxing. This trip was about relaxing!) to Lake Tahoe and then stopped by my grandparents for a few days. It was great, and my advice to anyone considering traveling with an almost 3 month old...take a grandparent or sitter. It made all the difference! My mom turned 60 this summer, so we told her this trip was part of her birthday celebration, and then her sister was able to come and stay with us as well, so we had 'two' grandparents who were excited to take care of Macie while DH and I went rafting and swam in the lake. Don't get me wrong, I did most of the baby work, and I wouldn't have it any other way, but there were definate advantages to being able to eat a meal with both hands while our little one was loved on and passed around by our friends and my mom.
Genious.
The car trip getting there was a little adventurous. I grew up driving up the 5 fwy 7 or 8 hours at a time, but taking a baby makes that a whole different experience. Then adding a few extra hours to the front end of the trip (about 9 hours of driving time, 11 of traveling time), and we were ready to relax even more. Macie was an amazing traveler, sleeping most of the time she was in her car seat. And thankfully, that didn't mess with her bed time schedule too much.

I'll post pictures soon, but I wanted to check in and update. I'm still reading many blogs and anxious to find time to comment soon! It's already August. I can't believe how quickly time is passing!