Happy Birthday, Opa!

Today is football draft day, a day which holds a special place in Kyle's heart. In honor of the occasion, he dressed Isabel up in Browns colors. He has never been more proud. She has started on a path towards becoming a Browns fan... I'll have to buy her a Vanderbilt onesie to even the score.

Back to Work

Today was my first day back at work since I went on maternity leave. The morning went off without a hitch: I fed Isabel at 4:30 AM and went back to bed at 5:30 AM for another hour. Kyle took Isabel to daycare around 7:15 and I was at work by 8:30 AM. I hope every morning goes that smoothly!

I was amazed to discover that I still remembered my access code to get in the door. My cube looked like a cold, barren wasteland because I'd taken down all the decorations before I left in case someone needed to move my stuff. It was a little intimidating to start up my computer for the first time in three months... would I remember where everything was? Would I be able to jump right back into work? Would my brain be able to deal with anything besides diapers and bottles?

Things slowly began looking more and more familiar, and by lunchtime I had managed to install the latest version of our development software and compile the source code. Our group went to lunch together, and it was wonderful to be out in nice clothes and heels, eating and talking with adults and not having to rush through my meal. The afternoon flew by and before I knew it, it was time to pick Isabel up from daycare.

When I got there, she was laying in a play gym, smiling at the toys above her. Ten hours... ten whole hours - that's the longest I've been apart from her in her whole life. She doesn't seem to mind for the time being; she's too young to know the difference yet. It's hard for me though. I'm used to playing with her, holding her, feeding her, or just staring into her eyes all day. I'm happy to be back at work, glad to be exercising my brain again, and I want to set an example for her, to show her that she can do anything she wants to do. I guess every working parent feels torn like this, and I keep wishing I could unite these two lives of mine.

First Week at Daycare

This is my last week of maternity leave, so we decided to start Isabel in daycare this week. To ease the transition, we only did half-days this week. Our goals were to get her used to her new environment, get the new morning routine down pat, and give me an opportunity to get fixed up (haircut, oil change, new clothes, etc.) before returning to work.

So on Monday, Kyle scheduled a half day of vacation and we leisurely took our time getting her ready for daycare. When we arrived, they walked us through the checking in and out procedures and showed us where her crib and cubby were. We laid her down in one of the play gyms... and I started crying. We left and then sat in the car in the parking lot for a while. We were so depressed. We finally drove home, where we sat around some more, getting even more depressed. It was so hard to leave her with complete strangers. We missed her so much that Kyle called into work to tell them he would be taking the whole day off so he could spend the afternoon with Isabel. It was like we didn't know what to do without her!

After lunch, we went back to pick her up. She was totally fine (of course)! She gave us some big smiles, and when we got her home, we covered her with kisses and played with her all afternoon.

For some reason, it's been a lot easier since that first day. Maybe it's because we could tell that she seemed content every day when we pick her up. The staff at the daycare seem very competent and sweet, and Kyle and I enjoy reading the little progress reports they write up about her every day. Nevertheless, I wish we didn't have to choose between working and caring for our daughter. We often talk about starting our own home business so we could do both. If only we could decide what this home business would be!

Easter

Here's a picture of Isabel looking adorable in her very first Easter dress. We spent the holiday weekend in Cleveland, and for the most part she did great on her first road trip. She got to meet her cousins and extended family on Kyle's side, and they spoiled her rotten! She loved every minute of it.

Here are more Easter pictures.

Typical Day, Revisited

Early in February, I had a post titled "Typical Day" in which I described a usual day as a mother of a 3 week old. I thought I'd describe the typical day as the mother of an 11 week old, which is radically different. My day starts out around 4:30 - 5:30 AM when Isabel wakes up to eat. I stumble downstairs, make her bottle, and try to keep my eyes open while she eats. After burping and changing her, I put her back to bed and hope for a few more hours of sleep.

The bulk of my day is divided into three hour segments. During the first hour, I feed and change her. In the second hour, we play together. This is the best part of the day, when she is all smiles and seems interested in the things she sees around her. Somewhere during this hour she falls asleep, and then I can get things done: working out on the treadmill, washing bottles, or writing blog posts for my adoring fans. In the third hour she wakes up and generally turns into a fussy little monster. Then the next three hour time slot begins. Usually in the afternoons I take her for a walk, an errand, or work in the yard with her in her stroller. By 9:30 PM, I'm in bed and Kyle handles the last feeding of the night and puts Isabel down for the evening.

Of course now that we have a nice little routine down, everything will change next week when she starts daycare. She'll be there half-days that first week, and then I start work full time the week after that. I hope it won't take long for all three of us to adjust to the new "normal".

Laugh!

Yesterday, Kyle was playing with Isabel when he suddenly had a coughing fit so bad that it sounded like he was choking. I was about to ask him if he was ok when suddenly we heard a sound we'd never heard before... Isabel laughing! Yes, that's right, my sweet little angel laughed at the sound of her dad coughing to death. She's a rotten little stinker with a twisted sense of humor... just like her mom. Anyway, it was a joyful, tinkling little laugh, but so far we've been unable to get her to reproduce it.

Speaking of rotten little stinkers, a few days ago she produced so much shit that I literally stared at her for five minutes wondering how I was going to extricate her from it all. The poop had escaped the bounds of her diaper and exploded halfway up her back. While I was planning the logistics of how to deal with so much foulness, she proceeded to pee everywhere, just to make sure her point had been made. There was no way to get her onesie off without getting that nastiness all over her, so I settled for quickly pulling her clothes off, wiping off as much poop as possible, and dunking her in a bath.

Spring has arrived!

This past Thursday, we had our first nice day of spring. To celebrate, I took Isabel to the Westerville Sports Complex, which has a nice paved path on which to jog or push strollers. Turns out every other suburban yuppie soccer mom (and I must face the dreadful truth that I fall into that category now) had the same idea.

As we were out, I rediscovered... well, I was about to say a shadowy underworld, but sunshine happyland is much more accurate. Anyway, I rediscovered a sunshine happyland where people get to enjoy warm spring days instead of working. I saw stay-at-home moms with their kids, seniors walking their dogs, some punks playing an impromptu soccer game, and college students frolicking on the lawn of Otterbein College. The workday grind had nearly sucked away my memories of these happy activities. Now that I remember, I've just GOT to win the lottery so I can do this permanently.