Every End Brings a New Beginning

Tonight, I locked eyes with my baby girl in the darkened room as I rocked her to sleep for the first time since she was a tiny infant. I sang sweet, soft lullabies to her as she played with my finger. I patted her back and nuzzled her neck as I kept my nose pressed right up against her sweet smelling hair.

Tonight, I realized I am one lucky momma. Even though I don't feel lucky right now. I feel heart broken. Tomorrow, I return to work after a summer spent at home with my baby girl. I am lucky because I was able to spend 2 months with my little lady, but that does not make the pit in my stomach disappear.

As summer ends, I don't have a fabulous tan to show for it. I am not flipping through pictures of an extravagant vacation. I do not have stories from wild, spontaneous nights out with girlfriends. The bags under my eyes have not disappeared, and I am far from well rested...but none of that matters. As summer ends, I have the most important thing to any momma...memories with my daughter. I was able to watch her as she grew, learned, and changed in front of my eyes for the past two months.

She talks, yells, and babbles all day long. This is a far journey from two months ago when I was worried about her communication. She waves to everyone! Hello, Goodbye. Her sweet little wave with her outstretched arm is one of the brightest spots of my day. She stands on everything and walks around the furniture all day. I feel so thankful and beyond grateful to have had the summer with Kay. The days were the the most fulfilled days of my life. Spending time with Kay...getting her up in the morning, feeding her, dressing her, playing with her, introducing her to new things, just sitting with her ... these are all things that I feel blessed to have been given for the past two months.

With the heartache I feel, I also feel truly lucky to have a job that I love. A job that I believe is meaningful. Not only is the teaching and instruction meaningful, but the role I play in these lives is meaningful. A very close, amazing friend of mine is putting on a brave face as she heads to work while her daughter heads to her first day of school. All I can think is...there may be a parent that can't be there the first day to see their child off, but I am there. I am that child's teacher. I have 21 sons and daughters, and I want to give these kids the most amazing first day of 1st grade and a loving, caring teacher.

I want to wish all of my friends a happy and successful school year. Here's to a year full of accomplishments and learning and hours passing quickly so we can rush home to be with our own families!

Lacrosse Season

There was time in the not so distant past that I would have been eating, breathing, and sleeping lacrosse right now, but I am not. For that, I am thankful and a little sad. Lacrosse was my life for so long. It was how I defined myself. In college, I was a lacrosse player. Out of college, I was a lacrosse coach. Yes, full time. It always frustrated me when people would say "oh, what else do you do?" Ummmm HELLO. I coach a division 1 team. What do you mean what else do I do? I coach, recruit, scout and drive all over the East Coast. People can be so ignorant. But ...this is all in the past. I met my hubby, and I was ready for something more permanent, something closer to home, and something where I didn't have to work every day & weekend for weeks on end at all hours of the day.  Nowadays, I just constantly check scores and laugh over the forums on laxpower.

Not my best friend, Cristina. She is still busting her hump everyday as she deals with the shenanigans of college kids. And if they are anything like we were, then she better put them on lockdown. She is the Head Coach at Wagner College. Anyway, Friday night we traveled to Villanova for Baby Kay's first lacrosse game. I HOPE she liked it. She is going to be a laxer one way or another!

The game started off good, but Villanova pulled ahead and the Seahawks lost. Sorry Cris! We sat with Kate who was loving Baby Kay up the whole time! I won't even tell Cristina how she didn't watch the game because she couldn't take her eyes off of this binky smile.

This game made me miss lax. It made me miss being part of a team. I have so many memories, stories, friendships, and accomplishments all from being part of a team. I hope one day Baby Kay gets the enjoyment, confidence, and competitiveness from sports that I did. I know whatever it is that she does, she will be the best that she can be.

Happy 5 Months!

Are you wondering why this little girl is so happy? It is because she turns 5 months old today! Yup, that's right...Kailyn Rose is 5 months old today! I know, I know I can't believe it either!

At 5 months old, I am noticing so many changes in this little one. It seems like after I have been away from her all week, I spend time with her on the weekend and she is doing something new every day.

This 5 month old cutie...

* has started eating rice cereal. She gets an early morning bottle followed by a breakfast and lunch of rice cereal then a dinner and bedtime bottle. She is really taking a liking to eating. She takes 7 ounces at her bottle feedings, but I am still not sure about after she eats her cereal. This week, she is going to try some oatmeal for the first time.

* wears 3-6 month clothing and size 2 diapers.

* is giving us some trouble sleeping. She is wearing a sleep sack and she is getting used to it. She is binkie obsessed and she wants us to give her back the binkie through the night. We are going to start letting her cry it out. So you will have to check back with us about that one.

* takes two naps a day in her crib or playpen usually between 1-2 hours. She goes to bed around 7:45 and wakes up around 5, eats then sleeps until about 7 or 7:30.

* weighs 12 pounds 14 ounces! At her 4 month visit, she was in the 20th percentile for height and weight, but I think she will catch up. She is doing so well and she is growing like a weed! I can't believe how big she is getting. See for yourself.

* can reach out and grab objects and hold things in her hand. She loves her little monkey blanket and she squeezes it, holds it up to her face, rubs it. She loves reaching out for her feet. She hangs on to her pant legs to keep her legs up in the air. She is turning into a little gymnast.

* can roll over from front to back and she is trying so hard to roll from back to front. Look how hard she is trying!

* LOVES to talk to everyone. Her new thing is squeaking and making a sound like "aaahhhhh." It is so sweet. She can blow raspberries and bubbles with her little lips. The best is when she talks to you in her soft voice and makes a cooing sound. Her little lips go into an "o" shape and she look like a little angel.

* puts everything in her mouth especially her hands! 

This sweet little girl has made us the happiest two people on the planet for 5 months. I am so excited to see what the next 5 months will hold. 

A Week Later

A week of practice makes ALL the difference! Look at the big girl! 

She is doing great eating her cereal! Look at the happy girl. With a full belly, how could she not be happy? It seems like she will like food as much as her mommy. She was leaning her head into the bowl and opening her mouth! Mommy's little piggy! 

It felt better than amazing to finally get to feed her this weekend. We are going to stick to the rice cereal for another week and feed her breakfast and lunch before she gets her first taste of veggies! Stay tuned for yummy carrots! 

Breakfast of Champions

Saturday was the day I waited for all week! We were planning on giving Kay her first taste of rice cereal, and I was ready. It was a LONG week with very little sleep due to an unswaddled, over tired, binkie obsessed baby. I had all of the things I needed...cute little spoons, cute little bowls, and our bumbo chair.

Before I could feed this little sweetpea, I needed some food and coffee myself. Daddy ran to get us some breakfast.

Breakfast of Champions?

or Breakfast of Champions?

Oh, it is not what you think. I had the new delicious fruit and nut oatmeal. Even though, I really wanted a greasy breakfast sandwich. I was good. The oatmeal was good too. It tasted like caramel apples. LOVE minus the raisins, but you can't win 'em all.

Ok, now that I was fueled up, I was ready to fuel up my little bambino. I had this nice little picture in my mind of how lovely this would all go. She would spit a little out and smile and like it. Little did I know. Kay was not feeling the rice cereal love today. She HATED it. All she wanted was her bottle. She could not figure out why I was torturing her. It seemed like the only time she actually opened her mouth was when she was crying! Otherwise, her lips were sealed!

I did manage to get some in her mouth. She was so confused, and she made the biggest mess with just a little bit of cereal. She looked awfully cute as a messy baby. Don't you think? 

So, our first taste of rice cereal was not exactly a huge success, but we had a few good laughs! She did take some good naps after eating. Good job little Kay!

Wordless Wednesday

This wordless Wednesday post is for my friend Angela. She gave us the jumpy/exersaucer thingy, and she has beautiful pics of her girls on Wednesday on her blog. Enjoy!

4 Month Wellness

We got our jackets on and we were ready to head out the door. Tonight was a big night in our household. We had our 4 month wellness visit. After an almost sleepless night and a long day at work, I was extremely exhausted, but my excitement for this appointment kept me going through the day. We were seeing our favorite pediatrician, the world's greatest. I LOVE her to death, and I would travel to the end of the earth and back to have our appointments with her.

Drum Roll please.......

My little peanut is 12 pounds 11 ounces and she is 23 3/4 inches long! What a big girl! She is in the 20th percentile in both categories. I was thinking 13 pounds, but hey we will take it. I am so excited because I can start her on rice cereal. Daddy and I are going to wait until the weekend to give it to her.  I already bought the cute little baby spoons and bowls... so get here fast weekend! How exciting! 

We got so much info at this appointment, some we didn't know, some we did, and some we knew but needed a little confirmation/kick in the rear to do.... ahem... let her cry.... ahem. 

Oh my sweet baby girl! I am so madly in love with this baby. Once again, she took her shots like a champ. Yes she wailed, but once it was over, it was over. No sleeping, no crankiness. I had my precious happy little baby with four of the tiniest band aids you can imagine. 

We do have to keep working with her little neck because she is still favoring one side. Her head is F-L-A-T in the back, and we have to watch it closely. If it doesn't get better, Kay may have a blinged out helmet in her future. It is not likely, but it is still a possibility.

Tonight, we are trying a few new things. No more swaddle...she is growing out of it anyway. I put her in a sleep sack. Can someone say coffee overload tomorrow morning? We are putting her to bed earlier tonight too. It is so hard keeping her up at night. We packed up the Pack-n-Play and it is ready for my mom's house. Operation nap is starting at Grams' house. All of these changes, but it will be worth it in a week or two (it better not take longer than that). I think we have a well rested baby, mommy, and daddy.  So keep your fingers crossed for us. We were sleeping through the night and we want that plus a good day time nap schedule.

TGIF!

Perseverance

Strike One

Get back here!

I'm SO close

Steady, Steady, Steady

Success!

Go Me!

Setback

This week we had a small setback in sleeping through the night. Three nights this week, Kay woke up at 4am! Go back to sleep baby girl!

Waking up at 4am for work is not something I am interested in doing. I had to figure out what the problem was. I was worried that this new trend was going to stick. So, I spent those three days writing down feeding schedules, counting out ounces in a day, talking to my friends, anything I could think of! I was wondering if it was just a growth spurt. She would wake up screaming and starving so I don't think she was just playing me for a fool. She was really hungry.

Then, I started noticing she still wasn't consistently finishing all of her bottles. So, I decided it was time for a Level 2 nipple. I thought this would help her so she could eat more easily and more quickly so she would finish her bottles. Operation Level 2 nipple was a huge success!

So, I upped her feedings to 5 and a half ounces and I am going to spread them out a little more. It seems like this has helped because we are back on track. Thank goodness!

My friend S had her 4 month check up with her daughter. I heard the dreaded advice to let her cry it out for 15 minutes ... so let's hope she doesn't fall back into this waking up early stuff...I have no interest in letting her cry it out. I hope she stays asleep and we skip that part of sleep training.

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

This year, I have two very special Valentines. We will be spending the night just like any other work night in our house, and I wouldn't want it any other way. Daddy and Mommy passing the baby around, playing with her, laying her on the Ottoman, eating cold meals, watching The Bachelor. As long as we are together, I am happy.

This is my sweet Baby Kay's first Valentine's Day. This is a day to celebrate her and the overwhelming amount of love I feel for her each and every day. I never knew that I was capable of feeling a love so strong, a love so perfect, a love so immense. The love I have for our child has changed me permanently and for the better.

So here's to love. Here's to my family. Happy Valentine's Day!