Jake, 3 & 4 months

Somehow I dropped the ball on posting Jake's 3 month picture. I also dropped the ball on his 4 month shot....woops! He'll be 5 months next week so I figured I better get on it.

At 3 months, Jake is smiling up a storm. He smiles the most at faces and will entertain himself for quite a while in the mirror. He loves his Discover and Grow Piano Gym and goes nuts hitting the keyboard and reaching for toys. He also rolled over from his tummy to his back! He did this several times in a row over the course of a few days and must have since decided it was no big deal because he didn't do it again for another 6 weeks. Go figure!

At 4 months, Jake continues to light up our lives with his smile. He smiles wide and also with his eyes, which is my favorite part. He is also belly laughing now. He will get into a laughing spell for over a minute and it is just about the best part of my day. He is definitely reaching for toys purposefully and he can hold toys with one or both hands for a few seconds at a time. He prefers to be sitting with support so that he can look around the room and continues to be so curious! He is getting close to rolling over from his back to belly but I think *ahem* his rolls might be getting in the way. And speaking of rolls....oh.my.goodness. I do love a chubby baby and my boy is a chunker! Jake sleeps through the night now from about 6:00 to 6:00. I am really thankful that we have such an excellent sleeper BUT that wide window of sleep only leaves me about 1.5 hours with him when I get home from work. I usually start bedtime routine which consists of a bath, nursing, a pumped bottle (he works hard for those rolls), then a few verses of Sweet Baby James and then crib. I love this routine.

 

If you ask our nanny if Jake is a great sleeper, she would tell you a different story. He an AWFUL napper. AWFUL. I guess we can't have it all!

I'm looking forward to all of the exciting milestones that lie ahead!

I've survived.

I'm seven weeks into returning to work post maternity leave. So, how's it going you might ask? Well, given that is has taken me a whole seven weeks to update my return to work on the blog, that might be a pretty good indicator that things are.....BUSY!

The first few weeks after I returned to work, I was in a groove. I really felt great. Jake started sleeping through the night around 3 1/2 months old and his nursing schedule seemed to be totally in sync. It was fun to see my colleagues at work and it was great to hear so many people "oooh" and "ahhhh" over pictures of Jake. I was finally using my brain to do something more than calculate how much frozen breast milk I had in my freezer stash. I remember thinking, "I got this. I can be a mom AND have my career."

Sure enough, those words were my Achilles heel. For some mothers, the first weeks back might be the most challenging. For me, it was most definitely weeks 4-6 that presented the biggest challenge. Call it a slump, call it baby blues, call it whatever you want but I was most definitely not calling it "great." All of a sudden my clinics picked up, my work responsibilities seemed to triple.  I never felt like I was accomplishing my list of things to do by the end of the day. I was rushing out of work at the end of the day, feeling totally unaccomplished as a psychologist/supervisor/colleague. And here is the kicker  - I was rushing home to my son who's entire day I had missed, feeling totally unaccomplished as a mother. I now understand the true meaning of "mother's guilt." It hit me hard.

So, how did I dig myself out of the baby blues abyss? Running. Just as with other times in my life, my sneakers and the open road are the exact therapy I needed to help me feel like myself again. The big difference now is that I have such limited time to myself to escape with a run. Convinced that finding time to run would be cheaper than therapy and healthier than a bottle of wine, I committed to running two days on the weekend and once during the week. I ran a 5 miler race while vacationing on Cape Cod and I could feel the life pulse again through my veins.

I'm seven weeks into returning to work post maternity leave and I'm happy to report that I've survived. I now know that I will have great days and days where nothing goes my way. I think I can work out a balance as long as I can still find time to wear my Asics.

The "b" word

Welcome to my blog. Where I get to talk about things like the 'b" word, which is breastfeeding by the way. I would have never in a million years written anything with the word "breast" in it on the internet before becoming a mother. Since Jake has arrived, all of my modest tendencies have flown out the window. I have nursed Jake in a restaurant, hotel bathroom, mall parking lot, gas station....you get the idea.

Newly pregnant friends have recently asked me, "what do you wish you knew about being a mother before Jake arrived? what do you wish someone would have told you?" My answer is always this: breastfeeding is hard. I had a vision of this amazing bonding experience that would provide nutrition for my son and feelings of euphoria for me. In reality, that's not what happened. The other thing I am always sure to mention is "babies eat a lot.....like, all the time." I remember hearing that babies ate often. In fact, I think I knew that my newborn would need to eat every 2 hours.  Someone failed to mention, however, that this time interval began when you STARTED feeding. Oh, and breastfeeding takes up to 45 minutes or longer when you first get started. So, you do the math. All of a sudden, 2 hours looks a lot more like there is a tiny human on your breast every hour of the day. One day I will share our breastfeeding story with the hope that it might help a new mother cope with a new and challenging situation. Until then, I will leave you with this great blog post on why breastfeeding totally sucks.

Tomorrow marks our three month anniversary with breastfeeding and as far as I ever thought I'd make it. I'm happy to say that we will surpass this three month goal. The next challenge is returning to work where I will become very friendly with my breast pump. Stay tuned, this is for sure going to create a whole new set of challenges!

Beginning of the end {of maternity leave}

Monday marked the beginning of the end of my maternity leave. Our nanny spent the morning with Jake and I to start to get a handle on our routine. It went really well. Better than I could have hoped for, in fact. So why did I cry alligator tears into Jake's whale tub later that night as he happily splashed around? Because the day marks the start to an important transition from full-time mommy to career mom. June 13th is the big day. Ready, set, go.

Jake, 2 months old!

Hi again! Just stopping by to share Jake's 2 month photo and stats. He has his visit with the pediatrician yesterday and weighed in at 12lbs, 4 oz and 23 inches long! We are now into month 3 of breastfeeding and I hope we can keep it up as I transition back to work.

Check out these cheeks!