Day 109: Mar 14 - What'll ya have, Paddy O'Furniture?

It's Saturday!!!! I survived my first week at work! Katie survived her first week at daycare!! I get to spend the entire day with my baby and not have to go 10 long hours without her!!!!!!

Daddy had fun doing self-portraits in the morning. Any wonder whose baby she is after looking at the second picture? Notice any physical resemblance? ;-)

After enjoying a nice supper that Katie helped Daddy make, we headed across the street to a party at the neighbor's house. It was a pre-St. Patrick's Day party, and everyone got to make up fun Irish names for their nametags. I was "Erin Go Braless". Appropriate for a breastfeeding mommy, I'd say!

Katie was pretty excited for the opportunity to wear her new green Robeez shoes [what child nowadays is complete without a pair of Robeez shoes?!?!] She also enjoyed playing with Baby Cameron's swing.

Day 108: Mar 13 - Do not answer, it's Derek Smeath!

I've noticed that when I leave in the morning, I give Katie a big old smooch on the face, which leaves her with an adorable lip print on her head. Daddy isn't as amused by this print because he's the one that has to scrub it off before taking her in to school. Eh, whadda ya gonna do?!

The movie "Confessions of a Shopaholic" came out not too long ago, and I saw it when I was visiting my sister. In the movie, the main character is trying to avoid Derek Smeath from the collection agency. She even changes her ringtone to say, "Do not answer, it's Derek Smeath, Do not answer, it's Derek Smeak: I'm now living the same life as the main character where I am doing my best to hide from Derek Smeath!!!! I got a VM on my cellphone today from "Michelle at the hospital". I'm sure we must still owe money from Katie's delivery. I work right across the hall from the hospital's patient billing department. They're my group's customer. We share a lunchroom with them. I am sure hoping I don't run into Michelle during my lunch break one day! haha

As hard as it is for me to leave in the morning, I think it's equally hard on Daddy to do the official drop off. We're both also antsy to see her again at the end of the day. This afternoon I got this text from Daddy: "Roger. Pick up of precous cargo in progress. ETA on delivery to EaglesLair?" No sooner do we pull into the garage each day but he is rushing out to grab her from the car and smother her in kisses.

Since this is Dinosaur month at daycare, I sent Katie in with her dinosaur book to share with her class. Daddy rails against traditional stereotypes for boys and girls, so when I saw a Veloceraptor book, I snatched it up. I figured he'd enjoy reading that to his baby girl as she got older. I didn't know at the time that I bought it that the story line was pretty graphic and violent. LOL! Katie's sheet today said that she did in fact look at her dino book and shared it with her friends. She also did some Tummy Time and played with bubbles. Their fingerplay for the day was "Five Little Dinosaurs".

DaddyCam:

MommyCam:

Day 107: Mar 12 - Infant sign language

Today's pictures were of two of Katie's teachers. I don't know the first one, because she's only there in the mornings when Daddy does drop off. The one in the second picture is Miss Lisa.

Not sure which of Katie's teachers was in charge of teaching the babies sign language today, but man that would have been fun to see. The kids learned the word "more" in sign language but Katie's being shy and not showing me how well she learned it. Katie also watched them blow bubbles today and Miss Lisa said that's one of Katie's favorite activities. Wow, there's so much I don't know about my little girl anymore. Maybe this daycare gig was a good decision after all. Today's song choice was "I love you".

Day 106: Mar 11 - Dinosaur eggs??

I got this text from Daddy in the morning:
Finally got to day care around 9:20am. She was sleeping so she was sooooooooooooooooooooo tired. You have Precious Cargo pick up tonight. I left the car seat in the Kindergarten room.

This month is dinosaur month at Daycare, so on Katie's sheet, it said they spent the day hanging dinosaur eggs over the changing table. Apparently her teachers took plastic eggs and stuck dinosaur stickers to them and then dangled them from ribbon above the changing table to give the babies something to look at. Considering Katie's distaste for a wet diaper, I'm sure she's going to be seeing those eggs a lot. Another perk I'm learning about sending Katie to daycare is that she must be getting so worn out playing with her new friends that she is sleeping through the night. Her first day of daycare was followed by her best night of sleep so far! I could get used to getting more than 3 hours of sleep at a time! Of course, just because she's not waking up doesn't mean I'm not. I think my internal alarm clock is still set to a three hour snooze.

The first two pictures are from first thing in the morning. After I fed her, she was in such a good mood and so freakin' adorable. I can't get over how adorable her grin is! Her onesie said, "Perfect, just like Mom". Or at least, the onesie she went to school with said that. Apparently there was an accident involving pee at school, so she came home with one that said "Mommy and Daddy love me".

After school, we all went on a walk around the neighborhood, and Katie got to ride in style in her big girl stroller. It's wierd to see my little baby in such a big contraption. It's also wierd to have her facing out towards the world and not up towards me. Blah! I'm not ready for my baby to keep growing up like this!

Naturally she waited until we got to the other side of the subdivision to let us know she was STARVING. Is that face pitiful or what!?!?!

Day 105: Mar 10 - You mean I've gotta do this again?

DaddyCam strikes again. Looks like someone could use a better cell phone camera. One that doesn't make Katie blurry. ;-)

I used to tell my clients that day two of a Go Live is actually much harder than day one. You spend so much energy leading up to that day mentally preparing yourself for day one of Go Live, and when the day ends, you blow a big sigh of relief and release. Then when day two rolls around, you realize, "crap, I've gotta do this again" and you have to quickly try and muster up that energy and enthusiasm again. That's kinda how today was for me. I had a little over a week to ramp up for day one so that I could survive it and live to tell about it. This morning, however, I realized that the cycle starts fresh again. This is going to be my new life and my new schedule. I was mentally prepared for day one, but I kinda forgot about day two and day three and so on.

I was struggling to stay awake during the day, partially because Katie still wakes up throughout the night and partially because new jobs always overwhelm me and make me tired. I'm also NOT a morning person, so the fact that I can get up, get myself ready and get Katie fed and ready and be at my desk by 8am is nothing short of a miracle!

I'm already seeing that spending so many hours away from Katie is making me cherish the precious time I do get with her even more. As soon as we get home from school, Daddy and I flop down on the floor next to her and play and smile and just absorb as much of her cuteness as we can.

Today at school, "Katie had another good day exploring new toys". She also sang Old MacDonald. Man, I'm starting to get jealous of her schedule!

Day 104: Mar 9 - It's D Day

D as in Daycare. All in all, I think I handled the day pretty well. I think it helped that it was wicked early when I left the house, so I was still half asleep and not realizing what was going on. I headed off to work while Daddy got Katie dressed and off to daycare. I'm not sure I could have been the one to take her there myself. It was hard enough leaving her in Daddy's arms, forget leaving her with strangers.

I'm sensing that I'm going to need a routine to get through all of this. I started by getting both of our clothes ready and laid out for the week. To commemorate Katie's first week at daycare and Mommy's first week without her baby 24/7, I made sure all of Katie's outfits this week carried the same theme.....I love Mommy!

Since I was learning and absorbing so many new things at my new job, the day went relatively quickly. 4:30 could NOT come fast enough though and as soon as it arrived, I darted for my car and rushed to daycare to pick up my precious baby. I was worried about whether putting her in daycare was the right decision or not all day long, but when I showed up and girl was ZONKED in a glider chair, looking like she had spent the day at the spa, I knew she would be fine.

After she woke up, I picked her up and snuggled her as hard as I could. I stayed for a little bit and met her teachers, the whole time clinging tightly to my baby. It was even hard to let her go to put her in her carseat. Man did I miss that little bugger! I did, however, feel great elation at work that I could finally type two handed again. I forgot how much I missed that. ;-)

Daddy's assignment from now on is to send me a picture every day before taking her to school. I figured I was going to need something to cheer me up to get me through the day, and I knew that'd be the perfect remedy. The first two shots were from DaddyCam.

Katie will also be coming home each day with a sheet from daycare indicating when she ate, napped, pooed and what she spent her day doing. Today's sheet said, "Katie had a good first day. She finished her first bottle and wanted more". Umm, yeah, she is her mother's girl so no big surprise there. She also got to play with bubbles and sing the Dinosaur, Dinosaur song.

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Day 103: Mar 8 - The lull before the storm

Oh the many moods of Katie! The video is what I woke up to at 6am. Then later in the day, some crying ensued. Crying is usually followed by a nap, but she cracks me up with the way she had her arm sticking out. One nap is never quite enough though, so a second one was necessary while Mommy worked on the laundry.

Today was our last full day of quality snuggle time before I head back to work tomorrow. I'm was surprisingly peaceful today, and more impressively, I didn't cry once! We shall see what tomorrow brings!

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