Girls' Day Out

I promise that this is my last cop out post! :-) My computer just got fixed so I FINALLY have access to all my stuff again. Turned out my memory was fried but since it was under warranty Dell replaced it for free and even had the technician come out to my house to fix it! Whew . . close call!

But for now I thought I'd post a pic from Katie's first girls day out. One of my girlfriends just got married last weekend (YAY!) and had her bridal shower at the end of January. Since Katie wasn't even a month old and is a breastfeeder, I wasn't excited about leaving her at home all afternoon for the first time. So I got up the nerve to ask my girlfriend if she would mind if I brought her to the shower and she was super sweet and said of course not.

So, being the slacker that I am, up to that point I had not dressed her in a "real outfit." We would just put her in a cute onesie and maybe add some socks. I couldn't figure out why we should go to all that trouble when we were just chilling out at home. So instead I chose easy access (snap at the crotch onesies are the best, btw), comfortable no-muss, no-fuss outfits.

BUT this was her first party! And that was a different story. So of course I had to dress her up! And I was so excited. I knew exactly what I wanted her to wear. It was an adorable outfit I saw pretty early on in my pregnancy. Right away it stood out to me and I loved it. The thing I loved so much was that it was a cute, girly dress without being overrun with pink. I don't have a problem with pink but it seems like there is a rule somewhere that baby girl clothing must contain pink somewhere!?!? WTF? So I mentioned it to my mom and, of course, she ran out and bought it. I'm SO GLAD that we had it and got a chance to show Katie off in it. And being the obsessive picture-taking fool that I am, I made sure to document this adorable outfit for posterity!

Adorable! And one of the best parts? Her matching blue "Mary Jane" socks!! I have a set of these in six (!?!) colors. They are also a gift from Nana (my mom) and I love them. They are always a hit with everyone who sees them.

FYI: Yes, this is a picture from January and no, we are not crazy-cruel parents allowing our daughter out in the cold with bare legs. We live in Florida and it was in the high 70s that day so she got to wear her dress sans leggings.

Please, excuse my husband, her modeling "coach." She had just been bathed, fed and dressed and, as a result, was a little bit of a limp noodle. ;-)

Hallelujah!

I seriously hope this doesn't put a hex on the whole damn thing but here goes. . .

I just couldn't help it. I had to brag that my girl Katie has discovered how to go 6 hours in between feedings overnight! And this habit has stuck THREE nights in a row! And this morning, which would have been the fourth night, she went over 8 1/2 hours!

So, here's the story: Last night when she woke up, Brad went to grab her from her crib and change her while I tested my blood sugar (our normal routine, see below). I looked at the clock and I just about fell outta bed! It was 6:33am?!?! I grabbed her timer and, sure enough, it had been 8 hours and 49 minutes since her last feeding.

Naturally, the first thing I did was panic. Why is it that just when you get what you are wishing for as a parent (the baby to mellow out, the baby to sleep more, etc) the first thing you do is worry?? I even considered testing her bloodsugar to make sure she hadn't gone low. (Which I did, by the way, within the first week or so after bringing her home when she slept 6 1/2 hours in between feedings out of the blue! Of course her sugar was fine (94) and I felt stupid. Although it made me feel slightly better that she didn't even blink when I pricked her little heel.) Anyway I quickly reminded myself that if she was hungry she would have let us know and one look at her big grin confirmed that she was fine. The only down side was that she wasn't really interested in going back to sleep this morning after she was fed. But after getting 7 hours of sleep in a row, who am I to complain??

So proud of my girl . . lets just hope it sticks!!

Taking a nap on daddy is so comfy!

My sleeping beauty!

FYI: You may notice that I'm going out of my say how long she went "in between feeds" rather than how long she slept. I'm doing that because technically, she doesn't sleep this whole time. I start the timer at the beginning of her last feeding of the night but she usually doesn't go down for the night for another hour or two after that. For example, I usually feed her for the last time of the night around 9 or 10pm. At this point, I hand her over to Brad who takes over for the rest of the night until she goes to sleep.

I'm usually up for a little bit winding down before I go to bed. Katie is also up for a little bit before she's goes to bed and then Brad joins me. (This routine usually allows me to get a couple hours of uninterrupted sleep during the night, since I'm SUCH a light sleeper otherwise and Katie takes a while stirring and sleeping off and on until she's down for the night.) Overnight, I take over so that Brad can sleep since he has to work. When Katie wakes up his only job is to grab her from her crib and change her while I test my blood sugar and grab a drink. (When you're breastfeeding you gotta stay hydrated!) Then he hands her over and goes back to bed, while I feed her and get her back to sleep. This process can take anywhere from 20 minutes to over an hour.

Anyway, my point is just because she goes 6-8 hours between feedings doesn't mean I sleep that whole time. Usually if you shave an hour or two off that you'll be close to how long I got to sleep! ;-)

Derailed

So even with all my good intentions unfortunately there won't be a real post for a while. Why? Because just recently my laptop decided to die. I'm going to contact Dell since we just got it last summer and it's still under warranty. Hopefully it's fixable because all of Katie's pics are on there! Worst case scenario, we'll have to ghost the hard drive to get all our info off it. But what a PAIN!!!

In the mean time, without my laptop it feels like I'm missing a limb. All my documents are on there . . . my budget spreadsheet (don't laugh, I know I'm a nerd), our pictures, my documents for work, my mock-ups for her birth announcements (again, don't laugh), etc. I feel like all my "to do's" are on hold. Including blogging . . . since what self-respecting new-mom blogger with a 10-week-old could stand to write a real post without pictures (especially her monthly milestones posts)?!?

So it may be longer than expected before the next post. Sorry! So to hold you over, here are a couple of pics of Katie that are stored on Brad's computer.

Enjoy!

Katie, about 5 days old, after her first bath at home . . a little dazed. ;-D

Skip to 3 weeks old and a pic of our girl sleeping. ::sigh::
I had just gotten my new camera and we spent some time playing with it!
It took a couple more weeks to get the hang of it but the pics were still great from day one.

And finally two of the professional pics we had taken of Katie as a "newborn."
She was actually 3 weeks old.

A whole new life

I know, I know . . . long time, no blog. In case you haven't heard, I've kinda had some stuff going on. :-) I hate that I've spent the last 2 months not blogging. Not because I'm one of those folks who just-has-to-post!! (I'm not but you know there are folks like that out there.) I hate it partly because I feel like I've grown close to the blogging community as they journeyed through my pregnancy (and as I've journeyed with them). So I hate that that connection has been temporarily severed. When I got home from the hospital I had 200+ unread posts in my Google Reader and they continued to pile up. It took me forever to get back to reading and it was slow going through them all but eventually I did catch up. And it's made me feel better to be up-to-date on how my peeps in the blogosphere are doing. I missed you folks! And I really want to get back in the game! I want to share all the new, wonderful, crazy, funny, scary things that have happened in my life.

But really, there's more to it than that. As much as I blog to be part of a community, I also blog to document my life for me. I love how my whole pregnancy is documented. How I looked and felt is all written down. All my thoughts and fears and hopes and daydreams. The pregnancy is quickly fading from my memory which is crazy because at the time I felt like it was going so slowly! So now I'm loving having my experience written down somewhere.

But now that Katie is here, and I have precious little time to blog, I feel like her little life is flying by and I so desperately want to document it. Now, mind you, I've taken NO SHORTAGE of pictures with my beloved new camera that I got with Christmas money. (Sidenote: Best. Idea. Ever. If you are about to become a parent, invest in a nice camera. Mine is really nice but idiot-proof. I'm setting it to "Auto" and every pic I take of her is beautiful and frame-worthy. But it's also the kind of camera that as I learn more about it I can actually do more with it to get even better pics. I'm so glad I invested in this. The memories it has documented are priceless and I would recommend it to every new parent I see!) But most of the pictures have remained on the camera's memory card. Much like all of our life experiences and Katie's milestones over the last 9 weeks have remained in my memory banks.

I want to cherish this time. But it's going so fast despite me trying to savor it. Today is my first day back at work and I left most of my heart (and my brain) at home with my little girl and her dad. But as I think about them I realize, I actually have time to blog at work! Because at work I actually have both hands free! And as I sit here and think of Katie and catch up on some posts in my Reader, I've decided to dive back it to blogging. I'm sure it won't happen as much as I want it to (and probably mostly on days that I'm at work) but I'm going to do my best. My first posts will be Katie's monthly milestones. The first month is long past (::sniff::sniff::) and the second month just ended a few days ago. But I'm going to go ahead and blog about them (and other things that have past) because not only do I want to catch you up, but also because I want some things written down for myself and my family.

So, hello again! I missed you all!
~Layne

PS: Since I just have to share a picture I'll share one of the few that I have with me at work. I took this with my phone yesterday so the quality is crap. But she was so happy and smiley that I had to document it. Plus I knew that I wanted to have pics of her to gaze at while I was at work. Enjoy!