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!