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| See? She does cry |
Well, it's been a while since I last posted. I won't even try to offer an apology for this. We have been too busy having lots of adventures and living up the last few months of my maternity leave (aka summer). But, all good things come to an end. On Monday, I head back to work. Today is my last day of maternity leave and now, at 4:15 PM, it is just the weekend. I can't believe how quick 10 and a half months went, even with a horrendous winter stuck inside with a brand new baby. It was such a wonderful 10 months. I loved being home. I am so grateful I was able to be home with her for so long. I am sad to see it end, but I do look forward to getting back to what I love. The past few weeks have been filled with anxiety for me, but as it has gotten closer, I am starting to feel excitement and the back to school itch. I am ready and I am confident this is the right decision, even if it feels so very bittersweet now.
There are things I will miss most:
- Relaxed mornings without an alarm. I've only had to set an alarm a handful of times. Mostly, I've relied on my body or Hope to wake me up. This doesn't mean I've been sleeping in, quite the contrary! Usually I'm up before 7. I like to get my run in before Hope wakes up, and since it takes me at least 30 min to get out of the house, that means I'm often up by 6. The light of summer has made this easy and it is getting harder and harder as the sun rises later and later. But I will miss the easy pace of our mornings, where we didn't have to be anywhere if we didn't feel like it.
- Being with Hope all of the time and having her smile continuously brightening my day.
- Not grading papers on nights and weekends. I love my job and I love my students, but hate that my work comes home with me on weekends
- The flexibility of not working. Things are about to get a lot more scheduled.
There are things I look forward to:
- Hope getting to hang out with the same kids every day, and watching her begin to build relationships outside of our family, with kids and adults
- getting back to me and having some of my own time, where I am doing what I love
- seeing my coworkers every day
- seeing my students and being present in their lives again
- having something to get dressed up for every day
Things I fear:
- the laundry / housework - how am I going to get it all done?
- not having the time to exercise
- not having the time to grocery shop / cook healthy meals
- finding time for everything
- not having enough alone time with Hope. I've been spoiled and had Hope to myself a lot. Between infertility and Hope's heart defect, after every thing we went through, I really need that alone time. I'm not very good at sharing her, not because I don't want to but because it is physically and emotionally hard for me to hand her over to someone else. I know I can't hold her forever, and I don't know if there will be another one to hold, so I cherish all the baby snuggles I can get. I think I take a picture every time she falls asleep on me (which is not very often). She has been a little extra snuggly the last week or so. It is as if she knows. Today, she fell asleep while we were out at lunch with a bunch of other moms.
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| Sleeping at lunch on the last day of maternity |
Anyway, enough about me. Like I said, there were a lot of adventures this month. I am going to run this entry as a photo journal. I've taken a lot of photos over the last three months and it is the easiest way to remember what happened. I apologize in advance for the sheer number of photos!
Hope has grown, both physically and as a little person. I spent some time this week organizing her clothes and had to put a few things away. While I was doing this, I ran across her newborn clothes and I was completely blown away by how small she was. In particular, I found the little PJs she wore on Thanksgiving, 2 days after she came home. She was close to her smallest at this point, and she swam in these PJs. She has more than doubled her size. Her little personality is really beginning to shine. She manages to light up any room she enters. It delights me to see the smiles she inspires in friends, family, and perfect strangers no matter where she goes. She makes friends with everyone and if this continues, she is going to be quite outgoing! At least once a day someone asks me if she is always that happy. The answer is yes. She is always happy, always smiling, always happy to do whatever it is we're doing. I hope she stays this delightful. She is a blessing and a joy to be around.
Since I last blogged, Hope has been improving her sitting skills. Here she is sitting in a grocery cart for the first time back in May. This may be one of her favorite activities. The first time she did it, she looked around in wonder and smiled at everyone. Now she puts on a show. She will stare people down until they look at her, at which point she has already begun waving like crazy. When they smile at her, she claps. It's hilarious and embarrassing at the same time. She also gets excited by all the food around her.
In mid-May, we went on our first solo mom-daughter road trip to NJ. We hadn't taken Hope on a long road trip since Christmas. Obviously, there is a big difference between a 2.5 month old and a 7 month old! One less adult also makes a big difference. But I planned well and it all went down smoothly. We left right after her breakfast and right before nap time. She fell asleep pretty quickly and woke up after about 2 hours, just in time for us to stop at Georgie's diner in West Haven CT. It was a beautiful day, so we sat on the patio. This place is very kid friendly and offers an extensive gluten free menu. They also were very friendly to Sanders and allowed him to join us on the patio. They even brought him a bowl of water. I felt like I was on vacation. After we ate, went to the bathroom and changed Hope's diaper, we got back on the road. She did great and slept most of the rest of the way. Unfortunately, we hit a little traffic in NYC and the last half hour was pretty rough. We were all tired of being in the car and Hope was hungry.
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| Sanders enjoying the patio at Georgie's |
We had fun with Grammy and Granddaddy (the names my parents have chosen to be called, at least until Hope decides otherwise) showing Hope all of our favorite Ocean City places and introducing her to the neighbors. It was a little cold for the beach, but we went for a couple of walks anyway and posed in the sand.
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Hope enjoying her first lunch at our favorite place, Kessel's Korner, in Ocean City
First time enjoying the beach in Ocean City
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| First trip to the boardwalk |
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| Bonding with my cousin Ashley |
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| Hope and her granddaddy |
Hope loves eating. When I last wrote, she had just started to try solid foods. Now, she is totally into them and turning into quite the little gourmand. We give her everything we are eating. I rarely prepare special meals. We like to offer lots of different flavors, including spices, so that she develops a broad palate. Today she tried wasabi. She made a little bit of a funny face, but was relatively unfazed. One of her favorite early foods was broccoli. Currently, I'd say bananas, chicken, and cheese are at the top of her list. Oh, and ice cream. If she sees it, she goes nuts. She comes from a long line of ice cream lovers, so this isn't surprising. I don't really think it is good for her to have a lot of ice cream this young, so we try to not to eat ice cream around her. She now has two teeth, with a few more on the way, and she is getting good at using them. She usually eats very eagerly when food is offered and makes the cutest little yum yum noises.
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Broccoli!
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| Enjoying Mommy's cone |
Enjoying a taste of Mommy's birthday donut at Brown's on the boardwalk |
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| Feeding herself mashed potatoes |
7 Months Old!!
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| Look who is 7 months! |
Right around when she turned 7 months, we took her on her first hike. She did pretty good in the carrier I had, and fell asleep on the way back down. Sanders was really happy to get out and do something fun. Here we all are on Mt Watatic, a mountain in North Central MA.
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| Daddy's girl |
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| Family selfie (minus Sanders) |
Speaking of Sanders, he still isn't completely sold on Hope. I think he'd like us to return her, but with the addition of solid foods, I think she is growing on him. I find him sitting near her more often and he never misses a meal. Today he spent most of the day lying by her side while she happily played next to him. She even hugged him a few times. Hope just adores him and as much as he wishes she would disappear, he is really good with her. He lets her poke him, bang on him, pull his ears, stick her fingers in his eyes, nose, mouth, etc. He's very patient. She seems to love all animals. She goes nuts at the shore when we bring her near Gabby, and she gets excited when she sees Pablo. Her most recent trick is to bounce (she isn't crawling, so this is how she moves) over to Pablo's cage and stick her fingers inside. When we're out walking, she grunts at all the dogs we see.
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A girl and her dog
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| Checking out Pablo |
From the time we brought her home, we have been excited to show her the world. This summer we've really had the opportunity to do that. We try to do one fun activity every weekend. Sometimes we sail, sometimes we fly, sometimes we hike. In early June, we took a day trip up to Cape Ann to have some lunch. She has been on both sets of grandparents boats and is a regular passenger on her daddy's plane. She was less than impressed with the boats. I don't think the restrictive life jacket was her favorite thing in the world. The plane is fine. She usually falls asleep. We've only had one flight where she didn't do well, so I pulled her out of her car seat and all was well until she got squirmy and I had to put her back in, which did not make her very happy.
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Sailing
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| Not so sure of granddaddy's boat |
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| Exploring Cape Ann. Early summer lunch in Gloucester |
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| Relaxing in the plane in the backseat with Hope |
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| Yes, mommy, I'm awake back here |
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| Airplane baby |
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| Riding the carousel at Wonderland. Hope was unimpressed |
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Playing in the water
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| Sitting in the chair like a pro |
In July, she got to know most of my extended family on my Dad's side. My 3 cousins come up for a week every summer with their kids. This year, it was 8 kids 13 and under. It has been so fun to watch them all grow and now they will watch Hope grow. The kids had a blast entertaining Hope. She thought they were just great. This year we got to all celebrate the fourth together
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| Happy 4th of July! |
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| Beach baby |
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Holding court
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Cousin Sara and Hope
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| Can you see her personality in this picture? |
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| The whole gang |
In addition to my cousins, July brought another set of really special visitors. My Spanish sister, Bea, was here with her husband, Alvaro, and their baby. She lived with my family 20 years ago. This was her first trip back to the USA, though we have seen her many times in Spain, including at their wedding. Her whole family is very special to us. Her 3 brothers also spent time with our family, either living with us or living in the same town and spending time with us. Her daughter, Julia, is just a few months older than Hope, so it was fun to see them together. This is just another example of how the exchange student program makes the world a smaller place.
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| Sisters / Cousins |
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Hopefully there will be more pictures like this as they grow
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Enjoying their first of many coffees together
Matching dresses |
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| Bea had the magic touch |
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| Pretty blond baby |
9 Months!!
As she has gotten older and become more independent, she has different ideas on what she'd like to do with her monthly sign. At 9 months, she really just wanted to wave it around and eat it. I tried to take it so that I could get a picture where you could actually see the sign. Instead I got this. She definitely has opinions these days!
The beginning of this month, we took a trip up to Bar Harbor to visit some family friends. It was a picture perfect day and I have to say one of the most beautiful places we have ever landed. We left late morning and were there in time for a late lunch. We walked around town and saw some of Acadia National Park. It was a big enough taste that we'd like to go back and spend more time there. Chris had never been. I was there 6 years ago to run the Mount Desert Island Marathon. Hope enjoyed the day, and as always, charmed everyone with her sunny disposition.
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Coming in for a landing
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Ready for lunch
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Mmmmm.....Lobster bisque
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Is that for me?
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Yep, she's got another cone
Look what Dad caught
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Pretty baby on top of Cadillac Mountain
With our family friends Sam and Maxine
Mommy and Hope in Bar Harbor
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10 Months old!!
On August 17th, Hope turned 10 months old. As each stage goes by, I keep thinking it is my favorite stage. Then I get to the next one. This is truly my favorite stage. She's constantly waving hi and bye at people, and clapping her hands. She does both of these things on command. She bounces up and down to get places. She talks...a lot. Some words we think we have identified: "mama", "dada", "daw" (dog), "Hi", "Bye." She is playful. She is easy going. She eats well and sleeps well. We are really lucky, but I guess in a way, we paid up front. Hope can do so much and she may be the coolest little person I have ever met. I am in awe of her and keep wondering what I did to deserve to be her mom. She is captivating, joyful, smart, and just really awesome. But I'm not biased or anything....
She's always had quite the personality. The nurses in the hospital used to laugh at her famous stink eye. The feeding team got it the most frequently. The stink eye is still alive and well. Last week I went to have blood drawn to check on her thyroid levels, which we are continuously monitoring because her thyroid had shut down when she was so sick. She was not happy about it. She complained the whole way out of the lab and into her carseat. As I sat at a red light, this is what I saw in the rearview mirror. Lol. One pissed off baby.
We spend a lot of time around my running club. It's what I do when I'm not being Hope's mom and more often than not, she joins me on my runs. Just last week I bought these for her to wear to my running club's August race. She wore them proudly. I can't wait until she is running on her own and can run alongside me.
Two weeks ago, we took our last summer trip to Ocean City. I got to do one last swim in the Ocean and witness this beautiful sunrise:
Chris' parents joined us down there, so Hope got to have all her grandparents in the same place. It was a nice trip. We will go back one more time in September.
We have spent this past week getting ready to go back to work and transitioning Hope to daycare. She will be going to the daycare at Malden High School, and will be in the building with me. We went for two half days this week. The first day, I went with her and observed. I was impressed and happy with what I saw. The second day, she went by herself and I went up to my classroom to get some stuff done. Hope did great both days and seemed happy. It definitely wore her out, and there will be some schedule / feeding adjustments to make, but overall, she's going to be just fine. It was clear that she will be loved and cared for while she is there and that is what matters most.
Here are a couple more pictures from this month:
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| lunch with her future girlfriend Saoirse |
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| Starting her young |
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| I have no idea how she got under here, but apparently, this is where you play the xylophone |
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| Petting Sanders |
The only thing I didn't really touch on is her health. Funny how that used to be a focus for me, but given how well she is doing, sometimes I forget how sick she was. We've only had two doctor appointments since my last blog and one was just her 9 month well visit. The other was with the endocrinologist. At both appointments, her doctors were pleased. She has moved up to the 4th percentile for weight. She wasn't even on the chart when we came home, so this is huge and the pediatrician was practically doing a happy dance after she got weighed. She's hitting all her milestones, but she is still a little behind on gross motor, which really isn't surprising. This basically means she's not crawling yet and if she were a normal baby, we may not even really be concerned yet. The endocrinologist and I discussed potentially getting her off the thyroid meds by her first birthday, which would make me really happy. It's a real hassle to have to crush up a pill every day and give it to her, but we'll keep doing it if she needs it. What's really amazing is that that is all she is on. We have not seen her cardiologist since May, when he sent us home and told us not to come back for 6 months, that she was too healthy. We have a slew of appointments in the next few months, which has added a lot to my anxiety of going back to work. It is really hard to schedule appointments around work. Some of the appointments we have coming up should be pretty interesting. First, we have endocrinology, where they may tell us we can stop the meds. Then we have genetics in Oct. Back in May, we had a micro array (blood test) done to check her genetic make-up. Specifically, we were looking for 22q11 deletion, also known as DiGeorge syndrome. Its a deletion on the 22 chromosome that is as common, if not more common, than Downs syndrome, but is not always as easy to identify. Some babies you can look at and know, others you can't. There are people that live their whole lives and don't know they have DiGeorge. It is commonly associated with Hope's particular heart defect, so she is high risk. The general opinion is that she doesn't have it, and if she does, it is mild. The biggest concern for Hope with 22q would be learning delays. The other interesting appointment we have is with the Cardiac Neurodevelopmental Program to see how she is progressing. And then at the end of November, we go back to her cardiologist, So all is well.
This was definitely a long blog. Thanks for reading. It has been a really amazing 10 and a half months and a great summer. I hope to have some time to update the blog again after my first week at work :)
