This was probably the best Christmas that I have had in a long time. It was the Christmas that I have been waiting on; my first Christmas as a mommy, our first Christmas as a family of three. Mason was not quite 5 months old so he didn’t know what Christmas was really about but I did and I wanted it to be a special one. We put up a modified version of our Christmas decorations. By modified, I mean we had to leave a few things in the attic since there wasn’t much room with all of Mason’s baby things; his swing, play mat, bouncy seat and basket of toys have occupied a large portion of our den. We usually decorate the outside of our house as well but couldn’t find the time to do all of that this year. It was ok though because just having our tree up and most of our snowmen decorations out were good enough for me. We bought Mason a stocking for the mantle and an ornament for the tree both of which had snow men on them. We love snow men. Mason will probably grow up to hate snow men since we have soooo many.

Dawn had to remind me many times to not go overboard with my gift buying for Mason. She kept telling me that he wouldn’t know what he got and would probably care more about the boxes and paper than anything else. While I knew these things to be true, I still managed to buy him more than I should have. I couldn’t help myself. He may not know but I would know and I wanted his 1st Christmas to be a special one. Dawn and I bought several things for Mason together and then decided that we would buy gifts and they would be a surprise to each of us. That was fun.

Since we travel to SC to spend Christmas with my family, we have always done out gift exchanging on Christmas Eve eve. That also meant that Santa would have to visit our house early as well. Santa was good to Mason. He left him lots of clothes, Scout, bongo drums, books and some teething rings. Mason wasn’t sure what to play with first. I must say it was a bit overwhelming for him and wore him out. To show you just how tired he was, look at the picture to the right and see him passed out in front of the tree. Might I also add this is the FIRST time he has ever fallen asleep in his bouncy seat!

On Christmas Eve, we went to Dawn’s dad’s house to have Christmas with her family. It was the beginning of our whirlwind tour during the holidays. We left for my parents that afternoon and spent a couple days with them. We returned to our house for a couple days before heading to my sister, Stacey’s house to take them their Christmas stuff. Stacey and her family were not able to travel this year since she was very pregnant and couldn’t go too far from home. On the morning that we were to leave for Stacey’s she called us to tell us we may want to pack a bag as she was pretty sure she was in labor. More on than in another post. Back to our holiday travels. We spent a couple days at Stacey’s then left to go spend New Years with Dawn’s mom. Then finally back home and that brings an end to Mason’s first Christmas and New Years. Whew!!

Thanks to everyone that made it wonderful for all of us. We love you!

A few things I love about being Mason’s mommy!

His smile – He is such a happy baby. He is always smiling and has even laughed out loud a couple of times. My favorite smiling faces are first thing in the morning when I get him up for the morning. I go in to his room or to his swing (which is where he has been most mornings thus far) and I say good morning sunshine and his face lights up with the biggest smile you can imagine. Oh how that makes my heart melt! It’s just as powerful every morning as it was the morning before! Another favorite of mine is when I first get home and see him for the first time after being gone all day. I walk in the door and go straight to him and say hello mommy’s honey bunches. His face lights up and again his face is one big smile. I love him so much.

His “conversations” – Mason has become quite the chatterbox lately. He wakes up “talking” and goes to bed “talking”. I think he recently discovered his own voice. He has been making all sorts of sounds lately but it seems that his favorite right now sounds like uh oh, uh oh, uh oh! He likes to say that a lot especially at 3:00am when he is fighting going back to sleep. I can’t help but crack up laughing at him even if it in the middle of the night. He also talks a lot on the way to daycare. He has also been spending lots of time on SKYPE chatting with his GiGi and Nana. I am amazed at how much you talk to someone that can’t really even “talk” back.

His smell – I have always loved the smell of a baby and now that I have one of my own, that smell is even sweeter. I slather him down in baby lotion in the morning and at night so he always smells so good. Well not always. He has the worst gas and poopy diapers of any baby I have ever been around but that is for another post.

Snuggling with him – Mason has always liked to be held really close and really tight. I love that. Having him close to me and being able to look at his cute face and big blue eyes is something that I will never get tired of. Mason is also very attached to being swaddled. We tried a few weeks ago to start putting him down without being swaddled and let’s just say he wasn’t having it. He woke up every hour or so until we swaddled him up and then he slept for 6 hours straight. So for now, he will continue to be swaddled. Hopefully by the time he is rolling over from his back to his tummy, he will be ready to be free of the swaddle!

Oh there is so much more that I love about being a mommy but only have time to list a few for now. So until next time…..

Kim

Anyone want 25 pounds??

Me either but I have it and I can’t seem to get motivated to lose it. I was very happy that I only gained 27 pounds while I was pregnant with Mason and that I have successfully lost that weight BUT had 25 pounds that I needed to lose before I got pregnant. Losing my pregnancy weight was a breeze. I really didn’t even try, it just came off which was awesome. I hoped that the rest would just fall off as well but no such luck. I thought I was ready and had the motivation to get rid of it. I joined Weight Watchers a few weeks ago and started out very well. I lost 4 pounds the first two weeks. Then Thanksgiving came and well I ate everything I could think of which caused me to exceed my maximum number of points each day and successfully gained back 3 of the 4. Uggghhh! Why is it so easy to put it on but is harder than hell to take it off. So, if anyone out there can send some motivation my way, please do so soon. I don’t want to find myself having to lose more than 25!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my 39th birthday! While some people wouldn't be excited to tell everyone about their 39th birthday, I am. The reason for that is this birthday is the first one that I can celebrate as a mommy! For the past 5 years, I have been very sad on my birthday as it was just another birthday without a child in my life. It was just another year that has passed me by still leaving a huge void in my life. I thank God that I didn't have to say that this morning. He has blessed me with a handsome baby boy. While Dawn has always made my birthdays special, today was even more special to be sharing my day with her and our beautiful son. She and Mason hid birthday surprises throughout the house for me to find. Mason was so excited about the presents that he couldn’t keep from waking up several times during the night to tell me about them. He finally won at 5:20am. I went upstairs to get him. I put him in his swing thinking he may go back to sleep for a little bit while I showered but he was too excited. He was “talking” up a storm. He was trying to tell me about all of the cool gifts that I needed to search for. When I went to get him out of the swing, he gave me his usual huge grin and of course I just melted. It was then that I knew that today was going to be the best birthday yet.

Daycare, Returning to Work and Rolling Over

Well last week was probably one of the most difficult weeks I have had in a LONG time. There are a couple reasons for this. (1) Having to leave Mason in daycare for 9 hours each and only getting to spend a couple hours each day with him. (2) Returning to work full time and being given a 5 million dollar budget to decipher with a brand new accounting system that I have never used! My heart and head hurt so badly all week. I really struggled with Mason being in daycare. So much so, I tried to find everything possible wrong with the place that we have him; when in fact, it isn’t a bad place at all. It has many advantages compared to some of the larger centers that we looked at. It is smaller and has less children so Mason really is getting more attention than he would be getting at a larger place. He has done much better than I have with the exception that he hasn’t slept longer than an hour and a half each day which makes for a VERY cranky, sleepy baby in the evenings. Even though he is pitiful in the evenings without much sleep it has had its advantages. He is starting to sleep better at night now! We have even had a couple of 5 – 6 hour stretches the first part of the night! The second half of the night is still a bit inconsistent but things are getting better. Dawn and I have worked out a sleeping / feeding pattern that is working much better for us. She stays up for the first of the night feedings and I take the second. That gives us both 4 – 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep a night. While this doesn’t sound ideal, it is MUCH better than our 1 – 3 hour stretches! Oh how I look forward to the nights when he sleeps ALL night. We really shouldn’t complain. He goes to bed between 7:30 and 8:00 wakes up 2 times to eat which consists of about an hour combined and has been sleeping until 7:00ish so out of 12 hours he is only up an hour! If I wasn’t such a freak-a-zoid , I could be getting more sleep but more on that later!

Now on to the second reason why last week was such a tough week. Returning to work was more difficult than I anticipated. I guess I didn’t prepare myself for things “feeling” so different. I told several people that I just felt like a fish out of water; like a stranger in a place that I have been for 14 years. It is hard to explain. Anyway, I know it is just me so things will get better soon. Everyone was glad to have me back and I guess I feel a little guilty that I wasn’t glad to be back! I also quickly realized that it was so much easier functioning on 4-5 hours of sleep when I was home all day than it is trying to work and actually having to “think”. Not that I didn’t have to think while I was at home. It was a different type of thought process. Entertaining an infant takes much less brain cells than does trying to figure out our association’s budget. I thanked my boss daily for dumping everything in my lap on my first day back. Nothing like hitting the ground running.

Now on to one of the positive things from last week, Mason has started to roll over. On Tuesday, I laid him on his activity mat while I was getting his bottle ready and when I went to walk away he flipped right over from his tummy to his back. I thought it was an accident so I flipped him back over and he did it again. Of course, I was so excited and couldn’t wait to tell someone. The first people I saw that morning was his daycare teachers and when I told her she said yeah, he did that yesterday for us too. Can you say my balloon was a little bit deflated! Over the weekend, we watched him try really hard to flip from his back to his tummy and he couldn’t ever quite get it. This morning when I took him to daycare, his teacher proceeds to tell me that he flipped from his back to his tummy for them on Friday. Ugggh! Another reason why I miss being away from him so much. Someone else is going to see many of his “first” milestones before we get to see them. Yes, I am selfish like that!

Thanks to everyone that sent me well wishes on my return to work. They made my return a bit more pleasurable. I know it will get easier and better so until then I will pout and whine about it for as long as I can.

Until next time…..

Kim

The end is near :-(

I am sad to say that my maternity leave is quickly coming to an end. I return to work on November 2. That will most likely be the saddest day that I have had in a long time. That day means that I will no longer be at home all day every day with my little man. That day means there is an end to lying around all day in my pajamas. That day means that I will have to do more to my hair than let it air dry. That day means that there is an end to watching Dr. Oz, Rachel Ray, The Price is Right, Ellen and Oprah. That day means I will return to the real world of working parents. That day means that I will actually have to “work”. Now don’t get me wrong, I have “worked” for the past 12 weeks but it has been mommy work. That day I will hopefully have had at least 4 hours of sleep so I can hit the ground running. That day means that I will have to leave Mason in the care of someone that is practically a stranger to me. Oh that is the one that hurts the most. That day I will have to let go of some of my fears and anxiety and will have to trust that everything will be OK. That day is coming all too soon. Oh, how sad that makes me. For those of you few people that happen to be following this blog, feel free to call me and offer me your ear as I whine loudly about having to return to work and leave my precious baby. I will need your support.

Dear Mason,

Today while you were sleeping, I spent some time reflecting upon the past two and a half months that we have spent together. I thought about the moment that Dr. Gunter laid you on my chest and I saw you for the first time. I began to cry. Not because I was sad but because my dream of becoming a mommy had finally come true. They were tears of happiness. As I looked into your big blue eyes, I just melted. You were absolutely beautiful; perfect in every way. I also thought about how excited Mi Mi and Gi Gi were to see you for the first time. They helped mommy bring you in to this world. You put up such a fight getting here. We were all exhausted.

I thought about the very first time that I got to feed you. Learning how to eat was new for you and learning how to breast feed you was new to me. Your first night in this world went pretty smooth. It was the second night that you gave us such a fit. I remember being scared because you were crying so much. Mommy and the nurse tried to get you calmed down but nothing would work. Mi Mi got you and held you close and you immediately calmed down. I guess you were just wanting some bonding time with your Mi Mi.

I remember leaving the hospital with you. You were so tiny in your large car seat. We had to put blankets in the seat so your little head wouldn’t flop around. I thought about what I said to MiMi as we were leaving the hospital with you. I said this is finally real. Our dream of becoming mommies has finally come true. I cried again. Yes, mommy is a cryer.

I thought about bringing you in to your house for the first time. Gi Gi, Aunt Stacey, Uncle Eric and your cousin, Joshua were at our house to welcome you home. I remember how excited Joshua was to see you and hold you again. Your first night at home went well. You ate, pooped, slept, ate, pooped, slept for the first couple of weeks. Somewhere in there you decided that sleeping wasn’t fun so you decided that you would skip out on that as much as possible. Even at almost 3 months old, you STILL do not like to sleep very much. We have been lucky to get one, yes you read that correctly, one, four hour stretch out of you.

As I sit and think about returning to work next week and sending you to daycare, it makes me sad. Yes, I have even cried. I am so sad that my maternity leave is almost over and sad that I will have very little time with you during the week.

Being able to spend all day, every day with you has been the most incredible time that I have ever spent with anyone. I have really enjoyed watching you grow and change right before my very eyes. Seeing you smile for the first time, listening to you coo and try to “talk” to me has touched me in ways that you will not understand until you have your very own child. We have spent time reading books, playing on your play mat, doing exercises on the bed, having tummy time on the floor, taking walks around the neighborhood and just cuddling in the recliner. It has been AMAZING! You have brought me so much joy and happiness and I love you more and more every day. I am in awe at how someone so small can make such an impact on someone.
While we will not have the opportunity to be together 24 hours a day, 7 days a week like we have for the past 12 weeks, I promise you that I will spend as much time as possible with you. I can assure you that Mommy and Mi Mi will always be there for you no matter what.

You are starting to wake up now so I guess mommy will end this letter to you now. I love you Mason now and forever.

Love,
Mommy