Routine, Schmroutine

Going back to work wasn't nearly the hellishly dramatic disaster I feared it would be. My assistant and I have officially switched roles, and she'll be training me on how to do my job this week, now that I have my bearings again. We'll probably switch back to our normal selves, a la Freaky Friday, on, well, Friday.

We've established that it is critically important to have a routine in the mornings in order for everyone to get out the door fully dressed and fully fed. So I get up around 6:30 and eat and get ready immediately. Rob's morning depends on when Ava wakes up. If she wakes up before 7, he feeds her until 7 and then I take over so he can get ready for work. It is very, very important for her to start her bottle no later than 7:30 so I can get us out the door by 8:15. Anything that can be done the night before (make lunches, fix bottles for daycare, etc.) is done the night before.

Ava is in the Twinkle Star room at daycare, which is entirely appropriate. She is after all our twinkly little star, as evidenced in her first school picture:


I KNOW!

We really do like Ava's daycare. They are wonderful and they treat her, and us, like old friends. They take excellent care of her, and I know this because I have visited her every day thus far on my lunch hour, which they don't mind a bit. I know there will come a time when I won't be able to go every day, and maybe sometime I won't feel like I need to. But right now I can and I do and my schedule and location allows it so there we are. Some days she is awake and I get to feed her, some days I catch nap time and we sit in the rocker and just have a cuddle.

It's hard to leave her. It's hard to walk away from her in the mornings. She usually falls asleep in the car and so it's easier on me to let her stay asleep in the carseat when I drop her off. The worst day was Tuesday when she was awake and hungry and crying and I handed her to Miss Nina and I could hear her all the way down the hall. Oof. But our aforementioned routine means that she eats before we leave and that problem shouldn't arise again.

So here's a video from this morning. Ava has the requisite playmat where soft friendly bugs hang down from above her and she giggles and smiles at them. And sometimes she falls asleep with her binky somehow ending up on her forehead.



So that's where we are. It was a good week. It's good to be back at work and we are pleasantly surprised with how happy we are with the daycare. Yes, there's a significant amount of mommy guilt every time I walk away from her, but it gets cancelled out by the big smile I see when I walk in to the Twinkle Star room to pick her up at the end of the day.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

I go back to work tomorrow.

The last three months have been amazing, full of moments that I never could have anticipated. We feel so lucky that I was able to take so much time off. When we sat down last summer and figured out how much time I'd be taking, three months seem like a huge amount of time. But it has flown by. I'd heard of the Baby Time Warp, when you glance up at the clock and it's 2:30 AM and then you look again a moment later and it's after 5. Actually experiencing it was overwhelming. After the three weeks we spent waiting for her to get here after I stopped working, time just seemed a blur. We look at pictures from those first few days when we just hoped to get to the next feeding and the next nap and we're amazed by how much she has changed already. The advice we received from the nurse as we checked out of the hospital was invaluable: newborns cry for three reasons only--pain, dirty diaper, and hunger. Rule them out in order, and you'll be fine. She was right.

Ava's outgrown that advice. She's less id (for you Freudians) and is more aware of what she likes and dislikes. She doesn't hesitate to tell us when she's not happy, either. Right now, when she won't calm down, it generally means that she wants to be held, and then we have to guess if she wants to be up in the traditional burping position, or down like when she's being fed. A wrong guess has disastrous results!

Her 2-month (OMG TWO MONTHS!) check up was on the 11th. She weighed 11 pounds 5 ounces and was almost 21 inches long, both of which are "excellent" according to the wise doctor. She's getting those supercute chubby wrinkly thighs that you just want to take a bite out of. She has found her hands, and she'll suck on them if we don't get to her quickly enough with a binky. She loves to watch things that are above her and move--mobiles, the dog, us, ceiling fans. Ceiling fans are the best inventions ever. I'm going to tie some scarves to ours to give her some color to watch. The best thing she does, however, are the big gummy open-mouth smiles that she gives when we smile at her. Really, nothing prepares you for that cuteness.

So about a month ago I realized I was looking forward to being back at work. And I still am, for the most part. I went shopping today and got some clothes because none of my pre-pregnancy stuff fits and I refuse to wear maternity clothes! They fit and are super comfortable, but they really do look terrible on you when you're not pregnant. So I'm going out into the world a couple of sizes larger but no worse for the wear.

I think the worst part of tomorrow, the part that I'm dreading, the part that is making me tear up even as I type, will be leaving her at the daycare. Oh good lord. Be right back...

OK OK OK I'm fine. Really. We did a trial run at the daycare on Friday. Rob took the day off and we dropped Ava off at about 10 and took care of some business and had a leisurely brunch and it was fine. We also played Megabucks just in case, but didn't win so we're still on track for this work/daycare thing. She was there for about 4 hours. We all survived. The infant room has 8 babies for 3 fulltime teachers. They're all very nice (the teachers, not the babies. Not that the babies aren't nice, but we weren't really focused on them...) and it's obvious that they love what they do. The babies (who are probably really nice in their own ways...) have their own cribs with pictures of their families (oh shoot I need to get some pictures of us...) on the rails. My office is 5 minutes away, and I'll probably visit on my lunch most days. And it will be fine. She will be fine. We will be fine.

Be right back...

I'm OK as long as nobody asks if I'm OK, because they get this look in their eyes when they ask like they're expecting me to break down into tears, which I inevitably do as soon as they're not looking. So for Christ's sake don't ask if I'm OK. Just know that I am. And I know that Rob is too, even though walking out of the daycare while she cried for her regularly scheduled bottle about killed us both.

Be right back...

I blame the hormones.

Generations

This is our family Bible.


And it has been in our family for four generations, beginning with my great-grandmother, and it has been passed down through the daughters. I've had it for about 10 years, and one day a few years back I opened it for the first time ever. It's kind of fragile--the front cover is no longer actually attached--so it's always been a "look but don't touch" relic. But I'm a grown-up, and so I figured nobody was going to ground me for opening it. Inside, I found a family history. My great-grandmother started it:

"This Bible was given to Lura, daughter of Abigail, daughter of Philura. At the death of Philura, who is Lura's grandmother, this book will belong to Emily, Lura's daughter."

And then, in my grandmother's writing:

"Emily's daughter Carolyn will receive it at Emily's death."

We actually received it years before Emily died, and it was on the same plant-stand it sits on now in the house in which I grew up for as long as I can remember.

On subsequent pages, my great-grandmother (the aforementioned Lura) wrote down the dates of births, deaths, and marriages of her family, and again, the daughters wrote their own updates and additions. And when I married Rob, I added us to the long list. Today, on the page for births, I wrote in Ava's name and birth date. Someday, this big beautiful book will be hers. She is its fifth generation.

There are probably half a dozen pressed flowers in this Bible. I don't know most of their origins; whomever placed them inside didn't leave a note. I imagine many of the flowers are from weddings or christenings. One is from my mom's funeral; another is from my own wedding. These are all part of our story, and someday Ava will add her own.

To clarify...

The music in that video was added during the editing process. No other special effects were used, however.

:)

A Typical Evening.

When I was pregnant, Ava had a definite schedule of activity from the moment I first became aware of her. For most of the day, I'd feel little movements here and there and not much at all in the afternoons. Then at night, right when I'd be ready to go to bed, she would come to life.

Ava has maintained that schedule. Observe.



I know it's long, but it's worth watching until the end, isn't it?

This is essentially what happens every night. This was filmed between 10 and 11PM last night. As you can see, she finally wore herself out and we all got about 3 hours of sleep after that. Rob and I frequently discuss how wonderful it will be when she gets over that subsequent feeding, which generally comes around 1:30AM. Oof. It's a tough one, because it's probably half an hour of actual food consumption and then an hour or more of Ava wide awake and wanting to play. The graveyard shift makes for a long night and an even longer next day.

Fortunately for her, she's super cute.



Seriously.

Oh no! It's March!

I go back to work 3 weeks from today. Here are my current anxieties on this topic:

1. Ava. Daycare. Nuff said.
2. Dragging myself out of bed at 6AM, getting myself ready, getting Ava ready (with lots of help from Rob) and getting through the day without falling asleep at my desk. That's actually 4 anxieties in one. Awesome.
3. Remembering how to do my job.
4. I'm too small for maternity clothes (except for the low-rise early pregnancy pants with the handy waistband and generous cut through the butt...) and too big for regular clothes, and am unsure of how much to invest in this transitional non-size that I am right now.
5. Getting anything done around the house.
   

That's all I can think of right now, and quite frankly I'm relieved because I figured there would be more of them. So, how are we going to deal with these concerns? Let's address them in order.

1. We are waitlisted at the first-choice daycare, so we're focusing on choice #2, which is actually a very very close second. I'll be meeting with them this week or next to have our "transition meeting". This is where they meet with me to give me a list of what to bring for Ava (diapers, meds, clothes, food, life-size replicas of me and Rob...) and probably to ascertain just how crazy I am. I'll be on my best behavior so as to fool them completely.
2. This week begins a regular schedule for me. I'll be getting up at 6:30 and getting dressed and getting Ava ready. Naturally, as soon as Rob heads out the door I'll go back to bed. Baby steps.
3. Oh, I'm sure it will come back to me. Piece of cake. There are actually a few things that we've been meaning to change up a bit, so this might be a good time to take a step back and rethink how we do them. The idea of a blank slate is appealing.
4. Ugh. Before our wedding, I was on Weight Watchers and I lost almost 50 pounds. Yeah. So I'm back on that wagon. I had to wait 6 weeks after Ava was born to start any diet or exercise program, and we're at week 7 now. It's time. So I'm keeping track of what I eat, and having more meals at home makes this easier. Exercise is tricky because I have no endurance. None. After a day of not leaving the house I'm exhausted. If I run 2 errands I need the following day to recover. I'm starting small. We have a Wii Fit, and I try to ignore how it made my little avatar girl a Fattie. I've dusted off the elliptical trainer that lives behind our sofa. And taking Ava for walks is nice for both of us. This anxiety goes beyond getting back into my clothes. Suddenly I have to be a Good Example for someone, and she is going to learn how to eat and take care of herself by watching us. Besides, I'm already going to be the Old Mom. I don't want to also be the Fat Mom.
5. There has been an alarming amount of time available to get stuff done around the house, and we have been busy. The garage has shelving on 2 walls now. The pantry is cleaned out and organized. The kitchen cupboards have stuff in them that we use and not so much stuff that we don't. Closets and drawers are next. By the time I go back to work, this place will be a well-oiled machine, and the big issue will be maintaining it. We don't have a lot of space, so while it piles up quickly it also cleans up quickly. I like to do a little bit every day--one load of laundry, 10 minutes of cleaning something, stuff like that. We should be able to keep that going.

Ava is wonderful. Her world gets bigger every day. Yesterday, she noticed her hands. They didn't hold her attention for very long, but I bet they will soon. She's out of newborn sizes and into the 0-3 month clothes, which means that the newborn stuff is now in a box in the garage. We have no comment as to whether those will be used again at any time in the future.

We'll have new pics and video to gush over this week ;).