Catching Up

I had the rare desire to blog this morning while Allie is still sleeping (I was actually up before her!).  I think this is the longest break I've taken from blogging at over two months since my last post.  I honestly don't know if I'm going to continue or not, but here's an update on life lately.

I ended up getting a new job promotion at work!  It's close to what I've been doing, but more technical, and with people I already love working with.  The only hitch is that my old job hasn't been filled yet, and even when it has been filled, I'll be training the new people taking over (they are hiring two people to replace me) so it's probably going to be a long transition from the old job to the new.  Even so, I am happy how it worked out and it's great to feel like I'm growing and learning new things at work.

In pilot wife life/news, Greg and I decided to buy a house in Houston since it seems that he'll be based there for the foreseeable future.  We still plan to stay in Charlotte, but figured it was worth the investment to own property in Houston rather than for him to continue renting.  It's something we've discussed for a long time and now that his pay is good, things are relatively stable, and (fingers crossed) it doesn't seem like much will change for a while, we thought it was time.  We bought a small ranch style house with a garage (Greg is super excited about that since his car is about 200 degrees sitting in the hot Houston sun).  I actually haven't been out to see the new house, but Greg just "moved in" a couple weeks ago and is still settling his stuff in.  This doesn't change how we do anything, because Greg still comes home to Charlotte on his days off, but for the 8ish nights a month he spends there, he now has place that feels more like home.  I hope that it will help him to feel a little less crappy about being a commuter pilot.

In case you are wondering, things are good with our marriage.  Things have been super busy, especially with the house purchase, which required a couple extra days/nights in Houston and away from home, but over all, things with us are good.  We could use more date nights and are probably due for a trip away alone together, but I think in general we are happy and things are good.

We haven't decided if we are having another child or not and it's something I think about and struggle with constantly.  I've actually sort of let me brain take a break from thinking about it in the last couple weeks because I just feel like I can't make a decision.  I kind of don't think there's a "wrong" answer.  Either way I could see a happy life and/or challenges if we do or don't have another baby.  We'll see.

Allie just turned 18 months old.  She is so much fun and so so cute!

She says mama, dada, Clyde, airplane (sounds like may main), car, moon, mouse, cat, woof, moo, milk, grapes, banana (nana), Bob (my dad), truck, cup, cracker, Parker (friend at school), cookie, bread, fish, bird, blueberry, turtle (curkle), candle, potty, duck, butterfly, fries, cloud, sky, ball, ice, no...  the list goes on.  It's getting a lot easier to communicate.

Allie loves looking at pictures.  She will go over to the wall and bang on it til you lift her up to see pictures of people and point to everyone and tell her who they are.
She is good at kicking a ball soccer style (she didn't get that from me, I suck at soccer!).
She loves rocking horses and those ride-on spring things at playgrounds.

She's very into stickers but can't stop peeling them and re-sticking them.  I made the mistake of introducing reusable stickers and regular stickers around the same time, and I think that's where the confusion lies.
She loves to climb on things, like the couches and our ottoman.  She's kind of a daredevil and will try to stand on things too, which freaks me out.
She's obsessed with airplanes, and if you are outside with her, she's constantly point at the sky and say "may main" pointing at airplanes or even at the sky if she hears a plane but can't see it behind clouds.  We've taken her to the airport lookout a couple times and she loves it.
She still loves water.  She completed Toddler One swim lessons and won the Starfish award in her class. We're signed up for Toddler Two swim this fall.  Anytime you ask if she wants to go to the pool, she always nods yes.  She also loves the beach and is fearless- she'll run to the water and would dive in if you let her.

She loves animals, especially cats.  We showed her the show Too Cute on Animal Planet (it's on Netflix too), and she will excitedly watch for a couple minutes before losing interest (she's not really into TV).  She pretty much loves any animal though.  We took her to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia when my in-laws were visiting and she LOVED it.  Loved the penguins, the flamingos, the elephants, the gorillas... you name it.  Future vet maybe?

I feel like Allie has a super sweet nature to her.  Knock on wood, but I'm not aware of any incidents of her hitting, biting, or doing anything to another kid at daycare, even though she's been the victim of a bite.  A lot of teachers, including the floaters comment on her sweet nature and one has even said she's her favorite kid :)  I hope that continues.  She does tend to be fussy sometimes, I think when she's tired or hungry.  She definitely breaks into a wail if she wants something NOW and you aren't getting it fast enough, like every single night when I walk into the house and try to get dinner on her tray!

She naps once a day from 12-2pm and usually goes to bed between 7:30-8pm and sleeps til about 6-6:45am.  She rarely wakes up at night unless she's teething or something.  I consider her a great sleeper, and I know I'm lucky.

I love spending time with my baby, but that downtime after she goes to bed at night is my me-time.  I've been cleaning out my closet, watching Orange is the New Black, cleaning, talking to Greg when he's away, giving myself pedicures, etc...  I'm usually too tired to do anything too crazy, but I look forward to those two hours I have in the evening each day.

I'm still mostly doing stroller walks as my workout.  I probably walk with Allie and Clyde about 4 times a week, which isn't too bad.  As usual, I'd love to get more running in, but it's just not happening as much as I'd like.  I sometimes think about racing again, but still can't commit to a training schedule.  It is what it is.

That about sums it up for now!

Holidays 2013

Since I haven't really been blogging much aside from monthly updates on Allie, I thought I would back up a little and give the overview of my holidays this year.  Obviously this was an important Christmas, since it was Allie's first!  As per usual, Christmas was celebrated multiple times because of family schedules.  Normally my brother picks a weekend in between Thanksgiving and Christmas to come visit, and this year, we actually picked the weekend before Thanksgiving to do sort of an early Christmas get together (Confused yet?  Yeah, me too).

Our visit was fun as usual, but two little ones in the mix made for a different visit than past years.  Much more planning around naps, and less time out exploring and doing other kinds of activities.  We did a bunch of lunches out, scheduled around naps, and had all our dinners and breakfasts in.

My mom had the idea to have the girls do a cooking class at The Liberty, so we did do that, while the guys watched the babies.  It was pretty awesome to be out enjoying food, wine, and good company.

The theme of the cooking class was Thanksgiving and everything was delicious!

Most of the weekend revolved around Allie and my niece.  They were pretty cute interacting.  At one point they were sharing Puffs!  We all can't wait to see what their relationship is like as they grow up.  They are exactly a year and a half apart in age, so we all think they could be close!

One of the highlights of the weekend was when my friend Lindsay took pictures of us.  She got some great shots of everyone, including the first in this post, plus this one of the girls...

A bunch of good ones of my little family...

Our Christmas card picture!

Also some cute ones of Allie and I...

I love that Lindsay got so many cute shots of everyone!

Next up was Thanksgiving, which I spent in Hilton Head, as usual.  Last year I didn't run the Turkey Trot because I was pregnant, but this year I decided to do it, even though my running could be described as pathetic at best this past year.

I actually surprised myself and pulled out a time of slightly over 28 minutes, which isn't too far off of my PR for a 5K (a little over 27 min).  I think I tend to run 5Ks when I'm really not trained to do any other distance, so my PR is not great.  Anyway, I was glad to keep the tradition alive, but I can't say that it was one of my better races.  I've resigned to the fact that I'm just not in a place where I have time to dedicate to my once beloved hobby.  I hope eventually I'll get back to it.

The rest of the Thanksgiving weekend in Hilton Head was spent doing the usual walks, shopping, and eating.

I thought Allie would be into some of the Thanksgiving foods, but most of them were not a hit.  She did have fun though.

Fast forward to Christmas.  In early December, I met Kelly at the mall for pictures with Santa!

This is a picture of a picture, but Allie did okay.  They took four pictures, and the first three were complete deer in headlights.  This was the fourth shot, which most resembled a smile.  She melted down and started to cry in the fifth shot!

We actually did a second attempt the following weekend with less professional pictures and a smaller setting.  She did much better, but I still kind of like the first picture better.

Greg was off from Saturday, December 21st til Monday, December 23rd.  I took the 23rd and 24th off to watch Allie since daycare was closed, so we ended doing our family of three Christmas on the morning of the 23rd.

This year we set up our tree in our "formal" living room instead of the family room, because it's an area less traveled by Allie and since we have a play yard set up for her in the living room where the tree normally goes.  It worked out pretty well having it there, although I probably did kind of miss seeing the tree from the kitchen and other parts of the house since the family room is more centrally located.

Allie wore a Christmas themed outfit for the occasion.

Then settled in to opening presents.  We didn't time things very well, as she had already been up a couple hours before we started.  She did well during the stocking opening portion though, and really loved the rubber ducks she found in there (she's very into ducks right now).

We ended up taking a break and putting her down for her morning nap and then resuming things later.

Clyde enjoyed his presents too.

That rubber chicken was a hit with both kids.  Allie keeps trying to steal it.

The lamb in this picture of us was a big hit.  It tells nursery rhymes and was sent to Allie by my in-laws.

Allie is pretty fascinated with it...  It was a low-key, but nice Christmas for our little family.  Greg was gone on Christmas Day, but my parents were here and we got to do the whole thing again.

Ok, I think this is officially the longest holiday recap ever.  Anyway, I think Allie enjoyed her first holiday season.  I'm sure every year it'll get more and more exciting as she starts to understand what's going on.  Even so, it was fun to watch her experience it and it definitely made the holidays more special for me and my family having her here with us this year.

Eleven Weeks

Hey there!  I've said before and I'll say it again, I have a hard time finding time to blog these days!  I really have to look for time to do it and when I do, I grab my IPhone and look to see what pictures I have on there that I can use.  Gone are the days of me being really conscious of taking pictures specifically for posts.  I've used the DSLR for pictures of Allie occasionally, but it's rare.  I can't remember the last time I actually used it for food or anything else.

Anyway, we passed eleven weeks yesterday and Allie is doing well!

Knock on wood, but she seems to have a great immune system like I do, and managed to not get Greg's horrendous cold that caused him to call in sick, come home, and pollute the house with his germs.  I think in the future we may have him stay at his Houston apartment if he gets that sick again because I was really worried Allie and I were going to get it.  Hopefully my breast milk is giving her great anti-bodies.

After some successful napping in the crib, we decided to give putting Allie in the crib at night a try this week and it didn't go that well.  The first night wasn't too terrible for the first half of the night, but after she woke up for her night feeding, I had a really hard time getting her back to sleep and I was really cranky about my disrupted sleep the next day.  The second night neither Allie or I slept much for the first three hours, so I gave up and put her back in the bassinet for the rest of the night, not wanting a repeat of the first night.  The third night I decided I wasn't ready for crib training yet and put her back in her bassinet.  As if to confirm that she isn't ready yet, she slept her longest stretch ever- from about 9pm til 5am in the bassinet.  So I think we are still a little ways out on crib sleeping.

We did our second Gymboree class on Monday and Allie did SO WELL!  She managed to stay awake, alert, and happy the entire class and impressed all the rest of the five month olds and their parents that were in our class.  I think she's really curious about sensory stuff, and seems to love music, physical touch, and all the interaction she gets in the class, so I'm glad we are doing it.

Allie is getting more and more funny and interactive with her smiles.  I think she's laughing sometimes, but it's hard to tell.  She definitely makes tons of cute sounds and coos and some sound like a laugh.  It's so cute.  It's also become obvious to me that she knows ME, and smiles specifically for me.  She's been doing that a lot while my parents are holding her and I walk over.  Heart melting :)

Greg has seven days in a row of work from going from April in to May, so we decided to head back down to Hilton Head and hang out with the grandparents for a couple days this week so I wouldn't be flying solo the whole time.

It was also my birthday on Tuesday, so it was great to celebrate with my family.  My mom made me steamed lobster and a huge strawberry shortcake.  It was awesome!!

We have been going for walks around the plantation, my favorite place for walks!

The weather hasn't been as good as it could be- kinda cooler and rainy at times, but we're still having a good time with my parents.

We went to the outlets (they have Janie and Jack, Gymboree, Carters, and Children's Place = dangerous!) and got Allie her first pair of sunglasses yesterday.

Too cute!  She also got a bathing suit and cover up to use later in the summer.  Couldn't resist!

Allie has been sleeping well in the Rock N Play while we're here, maintaining her up once a night schedule.  I'm also getting a lot of use out of our monitor, putting her to bed in the guest room and using it to track her from the living room on my IPad.  A lot of people have asked how I like our baby monitor (made by Withings), which was one of the items Greg picked out because it can be used remotely from the internet to view the baby.  The catch is that you have to use a computer, IPad, or IPhone, it doesn't have a separate handheld viewing device like say the Summer Infant one or others that many people use.  I wasn't sure how I'd like this, but after using it a bunch this week, I actually like it fine.  My only gripe is that it's hard to hear Allie because if you use the white noise on it, which we do, you can't hear much else besides the white noise.  For viewing it works really good though, and we really like that the white noise goes as long as you want.

We've been enjoying some lunches out and dinners in while here.  I always eat well when I'm down here!  Today we tried a new wine bar and I got a Cuban sandwich and black bean soup combo and split and Allagash White beer with my mom.  Delish!

Wow, a food picture!

Working out is going ok.  I didn't run or go to yoga while Greg was home sick last week because he didn't want me to leave Allie alone with him, so that was a bummer, but I did get in walks most days as usual.  I did go for a run here the other day (about 2-3 miles), but am primarily walking this week as well.  It's occurred to me that it is probably going to be a long time til I can race again.  I really can't count on consistent training and further more, I would have to line up someone to watch Allie during the actual race because I can't count on Greg being home on a race day, so it's hard to plan anything.  I'm a little bummed to be so far out of the running/racing loop, but it's worth it to be with Allie.  I've been lucky enough to loose pretty much all my baby weight walking and doing minimal running and yoga, so I really can't complain.  I mainly just miss the fun of training and running the race.  I hope eventually I'll be able to get back to it at a more intense level.

Anyway, it's been another fun week.  I can't believe Allie will be three months old in a matter of days!

Ten Weeks

Allie is now ten weeks old!

This was a big week of firsts for us.  We took our first road trip as a family- to Hilton Head!  The trip is about three and a half hours from home and we were curious to see how she'd do in the car that long.  I had a hunch that if we left late morning and got there early afternoon she'd do ok since I already know I have her out during the day a lot at that time and she usually sleeps through car rides, lunches, and even play dates, sometimes almost three hours.  Still, she's older now then when I first got away with those long stretches and sometimes she's not asleep for that long, so I wasn't sure she'd make it without some kind of meltdown on the way.

Aside from worrying how Allie would do on the ride there, I also wondered how I would go about feeding her.  I decided to just wing it instead of bringing a pumped bottle like I often do when I'm out with her for a while.  She slept til the halfway point when we stopped the car for lunch.  The stop had a good back area where we could park, so I breast-fed her in the car since she woke up when we pulled off the exit and I figured she was hungry.  That was my first time breastfeeding her in the car.  I've actually gotten more comfortable feeding her with no pillow now, so I just draped a blanket over us and she did great.  We didn't even make a big mess!  Feeding her halfway worked well and she slept the rest of the way after I fed her.  Success!  Later during the visit, I also took her out during lunch out to feed her in the car when she got cranky, and that also went well.  It's nice knowing I can do this now.

Allie got to meet her Aunt Ashley and cousin Avery for the first time this week.

Avery read a book to Allie :)

We took some really cute pictures of the girls in matching outfits that Ashley got them.  They are exactly a year and a half apart in age and I think someday they'll be good buddies.  We may have added major confusion to our family name situation though.  We were constantly calling Avery, Ashley, or Allie the wrong name all week.  Oops!

We also took Allie to the beach for the first time.  She spent most of the time in my lap or in the Ergo walking the beach.

Yes, we still have a dog...

I had worried about the trip disrupting what little sleep pattern we do have, but she was the same on the trip as she is at home- up about once a night.  We brought our Pack N Play so her sleep spot would be the same as usual, that probably helped.  I think also filling the day with stimulation from my family helped her to sleep well at night.

The trip was a pretty big success.  I would say Allie was happier and less fussy than usual.  I swear no one believes me when I say she can be fussy because she rarely is when she's around people.  It probably helped having her G-ma (my mom) around a lot to dote on her.

We only had two nights there because of Greg's schedule, but I definitely plan on going back down to spend longer now that we know she can handle the car trip and slept okay away from home, so I plan on going back in a couple weeks.  I want to take advantage of the extra Hilton Head time while I'm on maternity leave!

Allie also did her first Gymboree class this week.  Some of my friends mentioned Gymboree classes and I thought it was the perfect thing for me to do with Allie while I'm still on maternity leave since they have classes for babies Allie's age.

They have Play and Learn classes for babies 0-6 months and you can try the first class free.  We did some sensory things, sang, did tummy time, puppets, and other baby friendly activities.  Allie really seemed to like the first half then had kind of a meltdown during the second half.  I didn't time her feedings very well, so she may have been hungry.  I tried giving her a pumped bottle, but she wasn't really into it.  I think it will still work out though if I plan my morning feedings more strategically next time.  I thought the class was great for Allie and really enjoyed doing the activities with her.  I signed us up for a membership.  I am looking forward to seeing how she progresses with it.

I also discovered that Allie can grip and shake her rattle this week!  She loves getting her diaper changed now (oh how things have changed), and I handed her a rattle and she was holding and shaking it.  I was so excited I did Facetime with my parents to show them!

I think I only got one run in this week and no yoga because of the Hilton Head trip, but I did walk a lot including a long 4ish miler in Hilton Head, which was glorious.  I loved showing Allie my favorite place :)

One other thing- we have a jogging stroller now, but I need advice on when I can start using it.  It works with our car seat, so I was hoping I could click it in and go for a run with Allie sometime, but my pediatrician recommends waiting til she is NINE months old.  This seems like a long time to wait to me.  At that point I can probably have her in it without the car seat, which kind of defeats the purpose of the stroller we chose (since it's compatible with our car seat).  I was hoping to run with her while I'm still on maternity leave.  I obviously don't want to injure her in any way, but I don't see how it would be any worse for her than the car as long as I run on a flat surface and am careful.  It would greatly increase my ability to run more if I could use the jogging stroller with her, since right now I can only do it like once a week when Greg is home.  Thoughts/experiences?