Four months old?!?!

I can't believe four months has really gone by already but here is my beautiful little chunky monkey =)  Happy birthday sweetie!

One year ago...

One year ago, on September 25th, I was just finding out I was pregnant.  I cannot believe it's been a year!  In some ways it seems like yesterday and in others it seems like a life time ago.  In no way have I forgotten the TTC struggle but the pain and bitterness are all gone now.  I never, ever thought I'd be able to say that but looking into Kylie's face I say it and know that it's 100% true.  She has healed me and I am so, so thankful.  Tomorrow is the year anniversary of beta #2 when we knew it was for real and then on Wednesday she turns 4 months old.  SO surreal!   Here she is on the 25th after M and I explained what she was "doing" last year at this time =)

She's giving us the "yeah, whatever" look which I'm sure we'll get a million more times when we tell her stories.   In other Kylie news, she continues to be a great eater and by my not-so-scientific account (weighing her on the scale with me at home) she is 16.5 lbs now.   What a little chunky monkey!  She's starting to hold her head up more all the time and spent a few minutes in her exersaucer last night.  Her night time sleep continues to be great, she sleeps between 8 and 11 hours every night...we're SO lucky.  Her bath time is one of her favs and she is learning how to splash.  M thinks its fantastic and my attempts to have him not encourage her seem to be met with resistance.  Oh well!

Apparently we've become those lame, boring people with only news about our kid.  Not one thing seems to be happening in my life that's worth reporting on...it's only Monday though so I'm sure something will spring up.  I'll leave with a parting picture of K-shizzle kicking away on her changing table, or as a friend calls it "battle station". 

Maybe I'm coming out of the funk?

Well, I'm still sick as a dog and not feeling the best but my emotions about being away from Kylie seem to be settling down a bit.  Don't get me wrong, I still hate every moment I'm away from her!  But on my forth week at work I seem to be a little less emotional about it and don't feel like quiting every single day. 

We're still not sure what the ideal mix of care is between daycare and my folks but I'm sure we'll figure it out.  I'm trying to concentrate on the fact that she will get a few good things from daycare and while she's doing that I can bring home some bacon =)  That way we can save up for trips, college, etc. and not feel like the wheels will fall off our financial cart if anything needs to be done to our cars or house. 

Kylie's picked up some new skills, she's now holding her own toys and bringing them to her little mouth...well, when she can figure out how to.  Most of the time she ends up with her hand in her mouth still instead of the toy.  Here's a picture of her this last weekend showing off her new skills with M in the background:

I'm finding very little time for the gym still which isn't helping get those last six pregnancy pounds off...but what can ya do.  I'm going at least once on the weekends and my plan is to build up a DVD library of work out videos that I can do a couple times during the week.  If anyone has any suggestions of good DVD workouts let me know.  Here's Kylie and I before my Sunday workout - she's sporting her "Does this diaper make my butt look big" onsie which always gives me a chuckle =)

Not much else up in my world...hoping the last couple days of this week find a way to speed by!

Ramblings...

I feel I have been such a wet blanket lately!  When I was TTC and people with little ones posted about having a hard time I always thought "whatever, just enjoy what you have".  For those of you who read my blog and are still in the TTC trenches please feel free to tell me to shut my pie hole.

Now that I have Kylie I do feel SUPER lucky every single minute of the day...and I also feel guilty, unprepared and like I can't make a decision to save my flippen life.  The guilt is for not knowing what is best for her.  Do I send her to daycare when she has a cold with no fever or is it better to keep her home all week and miss work?  Should I be the one to stay home or does M who just started a new job need to stay home part of the time instead?  When is she sick enough to go to the doctor?  These also make me feel utterly unprepared to be a mother, which I know is silly because every mom needs to learn these things...but the guilt still runs rampent.

Then comes the decisions, I'm a rather type-A person that likes to be prepared for anything and everything.  So I did a lot of preparing for our little girls arrival and thought I had everything figured out.  I would work a 40 hour week with one day being from home, my Dad would watch Kylie three days a week and everything would be perfect.  Now I don't know if I feel more secure with her being with my Dad or at daycare when M and I aren't able to be with her...daycare has it's pros and cons but so does leaving her with my Dad who gets befuddled when the normal pacifier, swing, and floor time routine don't seem to be working.  I've been wracking my brain with 1/2 day, full day, etc. scenarios trying to come up with the perfect solution.  So far...nada!

I guess the biggest thing I was unprepared for when having Kylie was that there are no "right" answers....it's all a matter of what you think is the right way for you.  And I thought I would know what that is...but the frustrating fact is that I have NO idea what I want to do or what I think we should do.  I'm not use to this place where I don't seem to know what the f*** I'm doing with these decision that seem big.  I guess I need to back off and realize that each little decision won't mark Kylie for the rest of her life.  After infertility I think we put extra pressure on ourselves to be the perfect parent, after all we promised that to ourselves through our struggle, right?  I know I did...if I was only able to have a child I promised I would be the best mom around...now I just don't know how to be that. 

I have to end on a smile and post this picture of M and Kylie last Sunday =)  They make my heart melt...

A first...

Not a first I was looking forward to but Kylie has her 1st cold =(  She has a super stuffy nose and a pitiful cough.  Have I said lately how much I love having her in daycare?!?!  Poor little thing, I feel so sorry for her.  At least she's sleeping a lot and surprisingly her mood isn't really effected so far.  The transition to daycare hasn't been easy that's for sure.  I really hope it gets better!

I happened to also get the cold so we'll be laying low this weekend.  M moved a stacker load (160 bales) of hay into our barn this morning.  It's a years worth of hay for our two horses.  Nice to have it in the barn and not have to worry about it for a while.  I have been working on one of these printed books that you can include photos and text in.  It's for my Dad's 70th birthday (Oct 1st) present.  It's now off to the printer =)

Since I started this post with a first that is lame I'll end with one that is super cute, Kylie is starting to help hold her bottle.  This also means she's starting to hold my boob like that too...but we don't take many pictures of that *lol*

Deep breaths...

Thanks for all your support through our first week at daycare girls!  I am still hating every minute I'm away from my baby girl but at least I don't feel like I'm going to throw up and cry all the time I'm away from her so I'll consider that progress =)  I took in some fuzzy crib gear (she has her own designated crib at daycare) this morning so hopefully it makes her naps cozy. 

Our weekend was good, we spent a lot of time together as a family...taking walks around the neighborhood and just hanging out at home.  My alma mater got the snot kicked out of them on Saturday by a big in state rival so I'll get to hear about that from my boss today *boo*  Sunday we went to meet a fellow IVF'ers new baby.  She is a total cutie!  I could see they are in the throws of that exhausting first month of no sleep though.  Yesterday we went to see my in-laws and then to see some more friends and return borrowed maternity clothes.  Nice to be able to return those bad boys =)

A couple different things seem to be going on with Kylie this weekend. 

1. She is sleeping in her big girl crib as of Saturday night =)  The transfer went smoothly and she's sleeping 8-10 hours a night still.  We are so flippen lucky to have her be such a good sleeper!
2. Kylie is rubbing her upper gum with her hand and also sucking on her lower lip...like she is teething.  Plus we see a couple white teeth through the gum.  WTF?  Could my 3 month old already be teething?  It scares me to death since I'm breast feeding.  For you BTDT mom's, what happens during feeding when they get teeth?!?! 
3. This is probably TMI but her poop seem to be changing.  It's gone from the runny infant poop that doesn't stink to the once a day soft peanut butter (I know...gross!) stinky poop.  What the heck?  I didn't expect that to happen until we gave her solids.  She's been on rice cereal in her bottle for well over a month and was still having runny poop so I don't think that's the difference.  Is this all normal?  The questions never end I tell ya...just when you have a pattern figured out it changes.

We haven't uploaded pictures recently so this is from 8/30 but this onsie is too cute not to show off...plus I love the "put the camera down" look =)

First full day...

Today is my first full day back at work and Kylie's first full day at day care.  Yesterday we had our first half day and the daycare fed her rice cereal from a spoon instead of thickening her bottle with it like we had asked for them to do.  Apparently it's pretty unusual for people to want it added to the bottle.  So I guess that's a 1st taken away by day care already =(  They apologized but it's not something that can be undone.  This morning when I dropped her off the lady in the infant room was saying to a co-worker that they needed to call a boys mom and get him picked up because he's too sick to be there...as soon as I put Kylie down he was over there messing with her.  UGH!  This is so f'ing hard.  I just want to sit at my desk and cry....

We decided to feed her rice cereal last night and then breast feed instead of doing a bottle feed with rice cereal in it like we had been doing.  So at least we got to share in her first day of eating from a spoon.  Here she is showing off her new skill =)