We Survived

My first day back at work...and Reese and i are still in one piece.

She actually did much better then i did. I cried all morning. According to Kathi, Reese was "perfect" today. She must have known that today was going to be hard enough on me already so she decided to be a good girl.

Now i can only hope that continues - and that she doesn't have multiple repeats of her trip to Kathi's on Monday.

To top off my bad-turned-pretty-good day i ate McDonald's :reaches for barf bag:

Yup...my first day back and wouldn't you know I'm already thinking to myself "thank God tomorrow is Thursday!"

Amen.

Talent

I have zero.

Seriously, it has to be one of the most pathetic things to be a person who wants so desperately to be artistic and creative - and yet have zero capability of doing so.

Since I can't be one of the lucky ones who has an artistic eye, hand or anything else for the matter, i like to give props to those who do.

Most of these people won't even know I'm doing this...and now that i think about it I hope they don't mind. If you check out the blogs that I'm following you will see a couple of the people I love to check in on. It's so fun to see what projects they are working on or fun ideas they came up with. Mostly, i just read their blogs in envy wishing i could learn to "do that."

The first one is a blog i came across when i was still pregnant. I must have found her on one of the message boards from http://www.thebump.com/ or something like that. Her name is Natalie Malan and she also had a baby girl a few months ago. Anyway...she makes so many beautiful things and also has a sister blog/site off of her personal blog that's called See Jane Scrapbook. I think about emailing her from time to time just to tell her how much i love to see the things she makes, but then i think of how creepy and stalker-ish that makes me, and i decide against it.

The next one is Hillary Duarte Photography. I know i can talk about Hillary because she's like a big sister to me...and even if she gets embarrased...well...I don't care :) Hillary has a great love for taking pictures and it turns out she has a great eye for it as well! Now I'm so proud of her because things have seemed to take off and she's become a hot commodity for families, engaged couples and even businesses. I can't wait to be home in CA for Thanksgiving so we can finally get a family portrait done! Anyway - check out Hillary's blog for recent photography shoots she's done and to hear about what she has coming up. I see great things in her future ;)

Lastly, i came across this site by reading a blog that i enjoy following - http://www.theblogfairy.com/. According to her blog she is a self taught at Photoshop...which inspires me even more so to get a copy and start playing around! Anyway, i thought her site was cute and was such a great way to put her creative juices to work and make other people's blogs pretty.

So off i go to bed soon, not having done anything creative or hobby-like for the day.

Oh well. Better luck in my next life ;)

Back

Ok...I'm back for a while. Apparently Reese cried herself to sleep at Kathi's so I'm not going to get her quite yet. I won't type more on how crappy it makes me feel that she's so upset today.

Instead I will post some recent pictures from this past weekend.

On Friday we went back to the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange. It's so cute there, easy to cover in a couple of hours, and very family friendly. You can even pack your own coolers with food and drinks! This was our second time there but it's amazing what a difference a month will make. Reese actually sat in her stroller and looked at the animals this time. SO fun!

We also had Bailey's 1st birthday party this weekend. Since Nathan was out of town, and my friend Wendy's husband couldn't go either, Wendy drove to our house and we rode together...just us 3 girls! It's so funny to go to parties now and arrive to a house full of children! As soon as we walked through the door there were babies everywhere. Really cute ones! All of us adults decided that it's ok to attend parties that involved chasing little ones around...as long as there is still liquor present. There was at this party so it was cool.

And not to be left out....Daddy did bath time the night before he left (which he usually does while I'm cleaning up dinner). Reese LOVES the bathtub and gives a new meaning to the warning: Splash Zone!

One more....the whole clan waiting for Daddy to get home:

Ok...maybe not

So today is Monday, September 28th. The date really has no significance other then it's two days before I'm officially back to work.

I brought Reese to Kathi's house today thinking it would be good for her since come Wednesday she'll be going "for real." I took the time to re-organize our home office (where I'll be working most of the time) and get some things done that i know i won't have time to focus on soon.

After day two of totally switching up her schedule on me, and being VERY cranky this morning, i dropped her off. I had a feeling she would freak but she did fine as soon as i handed her over to Kathy.

So off i went to climb up in the attic to sift through some crap, and tackle the office. I felt so good thinking "Great! Haven't heard from Kathi so things must being going really well." Fail.

I text Kathi about 2 hours after i left just to check in - apparently she had been crying a lot and wanted nothing to do with eating. Poor baby. I feel so bad. Now i have no idea if she's acting this way because something is bothering her or if it's because she's upset to be at Kathi's house.

I'm assuming since she was cranky for me this morning that it has nothing to do with being at Kathi's but mother's guilt sure does make me wonder if I'm doing something wrong to her by not being with her during the day.

In other news - our weekend went by very quickly, especially with Nathan out of town until Saturday evening. Sunday was a rainy fall day filled with grocery shopping, cleaning, and Reese spending time at her Grammy's house.

I have some new pictures to load - and will post them once i do!

I'm off to get the Peanut in a half hour.

Progress

This one will be short as I'm off to bed. It's only 9:30 but my little "rooster" as i like to call her will be cock-a-doodle-dooing at 6:30 a.m.

Reese went to Kathi's house again today and actually got a pretty good report. She did really well: ate all her breakfast, played on the floor, fussed for her bottle then drank it, then went for a walk and fell asleep in her stroller. I showed up to get her 40 minutes later for Gymboree.

Of course her schedule for the rest of the day was shot, but we'll have to work on that since next week is approaching fast. I felt SO bad that i had to wake her just to take her to Kathi's this morning. I'm pretty sure waking her up was all she needed to throw her off for the rest of the day.

The weekend is almost here again already which makes me sad since Nate is out of town yet again, and it's my last weekend before going back to work.

Life is about to change. Big time.

Sitting Pretty

It has to be one of the funniest things in the world to see something (I should say "someone") who only weighs 15 pounds to sit up on her own. It's like watching a super miniature adult sit on the floor and play with toys.

Reese decided pretty early on that she liked to sit. Of course she was far too small at the time to do it on her own, but she always insisted on being in a seated position when someone would hold her. I would always just laugh and think "how strange that she knows she wants to be in that position."

Anyway...apparently most babies start off sitting by propping themselves up with their arms - literally like a gorilla would. Around 4 months or so i would sit Reese on the floor at Gymboree to play and she would just fold in half with her upper body completely flat to the floor. Errr...that wasn't the best thing to keep doing with her as she clearly wasn't ready. So each week at Gymboree, and at home sometimes too, I would let her have some practice at the skill and assumed that one day she would actually start posing like a little gorilla.

Well that day never came. All the sudden, one day, Reese just decided it was time to sit - and sit all the way up. Nice and straight, look-ma-no-hands style sit. It happened almost exactly on her 5 month birthday:

Here she is surrounded by pillow just in case...but you can even see it in her face - she's shocked at her new skill.

Now, almost one month later, this trick is old hat for her. Her new "skill" is twisting onto her belly and knees into the crawling position. She doesn't go anywhere, but i do get visions of my daughter doing a pretty mean worm on the dance floor one day.

In other news, while Daddy was away, Reese and I went to the boardwalk for lunch with Aunt Kristen, Uncle John, Grammy and Grampy. She LOVED being outside and even sat in a restaurant highchair for the first time (hey - it's the small things in life, ok?).


This is my favorite one:

There are so many things that she's started doing recently that make me wish i would have started blogging sooner. Instead, I'll make a quick list for your viewing pleasure:

• Rolls all over the floor



• Eat her own feet - with or without socks and shoes, she's not picky!



• Makes owl sounds all day



• Laughs hysterically at her Daddy and puppies


• Enjoys looking at herself in the mirror - multiple times a day



• Eats solids!!!

Solids has been quite the adventure to say the least. We can only try one new thing every 4 days in case she has a reaction to anything. I've been making all of her food for her. So far i think her favorite is bananas, but the pears we just started over the weekend may be a close second.


Here's a picture of her very first time ever having solids, which just happened to be bananas:

Let's see....oh yeah...anytime I get out the camera (or my cell phone now) she instantly starts to smile and laugh as if she knows exactly what to do already! It's really very funny. The other morning she was playing on the floor so i grabbed my camera and Reese, who was awake for all of 10 minutes, did this:







Ok...enough for now. Reese is currently on another practice run at Kathi's (the babysitter) house. We're not off to a good start so I'm hoping that changes since I'm back to work next Wednesday. Yuck.

More about that in my next blog!

Makin' a comeback

Shame on me for not blogging in what seems like years. Although i do feel bad for not updating our "old" blog http://alittlebabyalbano.blogspot.com/ - I can assure anyone who reads this that it's with good reason.

Reese Elizabeth Albano was born on March 31, 2009 - and time since that very day has flown by quicker then i could have ever imagined. Now, here we are 5 1/2 months later, and I just felt i would be cheating ourselves, our family & friends, as well as Reese if i didn't document it somehow.

I'll bring everyone up to speed with some recent pictures of our little Peanut. She's just so much fun now! She's sitting up on her very own, and eating solids. We're trying one new food every four days so it's a sloooooow process but she's a really good eater and it's so fun to see her face when she tries something new!

I'm headed back to work in a week and a half :( No words can express how hard it's going to be, but we feel it's what we need to do in order to provide Reese with the life she deserves - and being able to give her the things she wants and needs motivates me to work even harder at everything i do now.

She's just started getting her feet wet at the babysitters which hasn't gone too well yet but we'll get there. More on that later this week.

Here's a couple of pictures for now. Plenty more to come!

Her first time swinging in a big girl swing - Tully Park.

With her Daddy on Labor Day weekend at Aunt Jen and Uncle Mike's house!

Lot's more to blog about i promise. I'm off to bed now. Nathan comes home from Quincy & Tierney's wedding weekend trip to California tomorrow :) We missed him SO much.