I went back to work just a week ago. I started back on a Thursday so it helped that I only had two days to deal with before a weekend. It was a tough transition. I missed Ellie so much! It was so hard knowing someone else was feeding her, changing her and playing with her throughout the day. That's my job and I wished I was home with her. Now that I've been through a full work week, I can say that things have gotten a little easier. I still miss her like crazy and I look at her picture (I have about 30 up at my desk at work) throughout the day but it doesn't hurt as much when I leave her in the morning. I just cherish the time we get with her in the mornings before work and at night even more.
I'm adoring this stage she's in right now. She smiles at Matt and I all the time. When we come home from work, if she's sleeping she'll hear our voices and wake up. If she's awake, as soon as she sees our faces she lights up with the biggest smile! It's so sweet! Her smile is the cutest thing I've ever seen. She squints her eyes and wrinkles her nose. It just makes me grin when I think about it. She laughs and coos a lot too. She loves the ceiling fan in our bedroom and can lay there and just laugh at it. One of my favorite things is she puckers her lips and goes "ooooo". It's so adorable!
The first time she slept through the night, I woke up the next morning (without realizing I slept through the night) and quickly woke Matt to make sure she was still alive (she slept in the Rock N' Play on his side of the bed). That was when she was about a month old! Now she sleeps through the night every night!!
We transitioned her to her crib at the beginning of this week. I wasn't sure when to do it but I thought why not give it a try. On the weekend we put her in her crib for naps and she did just fine so we put her in it at night. The first night we kept her unswaddled. She wriggled and squirmed the whole night (at one point, she was sideways in the crib!). The next night we swaddled her and she does just fine now. Once in a while she'll wake up in the middle of the night and just grunt or groan. All we have to do is just go in and touch her for a little reassurance and she'll go right back to sleep.
I can't say enough how amazing she is. She really is the BEST baby we could have ever asked for and we're so desperately in love with her!
We took our first trip to our house at the beach a couple of weekends ago. I was still of work at the time so Matt took a half day off work on Thursday and we went down right after he came home and stayed through Sunday. On Friday morning, we got up extra early to go the beach. Its was the middle of July and we knew it would get hot FAST (plus we were in the middle of a 95+ degree heat wave) and busy fast so we wanted to get there while it was nearly empty (and parking spaces) and not too hot. We got there around 9:00. We went right to the beach. We weren't planning on staying long, just long enough to get some pics of Ellie her first time there. She was fast asleep when Matt held her and put her toes in the sand. She moved her toes to feel the sand but didn't wake up. Then the cold ocean water came around her ankles... and she STILL didn't wake up! She never once cared about the cold water! We got some adorable pictures of her in her sunglasses and hat (see below). After a bit on the beach we headed back to the boardwalk to walk around a bit. We strolled through some of the shops a bit and then headed home.
The next day we went shopping at the outlets (those are dangerous... especially with a baby, a carters store, great sales, no sales tax AND coupons!). In the afternoon before dinner we took her to the pool for her first time swimming. She had the CUTEST bathing suit ever. I took her in the pool (once again she was fast asleep) and slowly lowered her into the pool. At first she didn't stir. Then once the water hit her around the chest she woke up a bit. I think she thought "wait... this is way more water than there ever is in my bath, what IS this???" Then, a few seconds later, she fell asleep again. See what I'm saying? Best. Baby. EVER!!! We really had a great first trip with her! We can't wait to bring her back down again!
We've emailed with E. & S. a couple of times. They sent Matt a very nice email for his first Father's Day. We hadn't heard from them in a while and then we got one the other day. S. said that they've been trying to keep their distance because they don't want to crowd us. But they wanted to reassure us that they are here for us should we need anything from them and that we're in this ride together for the rest of our lives. They are so amazing and strong! I admire them! I'm not sure I would be handling everything as well as they are if I were in their shoes.
Well that's about it. Hopefully I'll be updating this a little more often but I can't promise anything.
I now leave you with a few adorable pictures from the last two months.
