The exciting days of our lives

Boy, we're not even through January and I'm already slacking on keeping up this blog! Oh well, sorry to the two people that read this : ) By the way, thanks for reading! I guess part of my slacking is due to my days mostly being pretty repetitive and not exciting: nurse the baby, make sure she naps, nurse her more, feed her rice cereal, play with her, get her to nap some more, you get the picture. A good day is when I also do a load of laundry, clean the kitchen (which isn't too hard when you hardly cook anything), remember to take my multivitamin and DHA pill (the DHA is to promote brain and eye development in Ella, since I'm nursing), and getting and sorting through the mail. Yep, that's it. I'll do other random stuff too, but that's my basic checklist. And I'm not doing very good at keeping up with the mail - I have a dump bucket for the mail that doesn't seem important but I'm not sure if I want to toss it before reading it... So, no wonder I can't even keep up this blog, huh? Oh and you may have noticed making dinner was not on that list... Let's not even go there!

So when I try to think of what blogworthy news I have, it's hard to come up with all that much... Seriously, last week while I was walking into work someone rolled down the window and whistled at me - and I was like, oh yeah- that's the highlight of my day! He wasn't even remotely good looking - he was actually gross, but hey I can still appreciate it! (It's funny though, that kind of thing used to irritate me - everything DOES change after having a baby!) Yesterday Ryan told me that I looked thin, and that made me feel pretty good...

Alright, that's not the only 2 things that have happened in the past 2 weeks, but now Ella is getting fussy for me to give her some attention... I really do enjoy taking care of her, and I LOVE it when she laughs or smiles... It just melts you : ) Okay she's actually sucking really hard on my arm right now, so I'm thinking she's a little hungry : ) I better go!

Jessica took this picture almost 2 weeks ago - cute, huh? She made the jacket she's wearing...

A good day after all...

So I went in to work today. And actually, it felt pretty good. I like seeing all my coworkers, and it's nice to feel like I'm still capable of doing my job (sometimes I feel like I have that mommy mush brain thing.) Eventually I will be working more so I don't want to get too rusty. And I didn't feel *too* guilty about not spending the day with Ella- I dropped her off at Uncle Rob and Aunt Jess' house. They took good care of her : ) And they have a 4 year-old son, Aidan and a 1 year-old daughter, Mia - playmates!!! Our plan is to swap off babysitting, which makes it possible for me to work on a regular basis. I have a friend with a baby right around Ella's age, and we're swapping off babysitting too. Also Ryan's mom, aunt and grandma all volunteered to help out, so it looks like I can definitely put some time in here and there. I'm VERY thankful for that : ) At this point, I'm feeling pretty good about working - since today turned out to be a good day after all.

Ella had her 4 month check up yesterday. Guess what her percentile was for length? She is in the 97th percentile! If you know my height, that's surprising! And for weight, she's in the 90th percentile! (If you knew my weight, that's not so surprising...) She was 26 1/2 inches, and 15# 3 oz. The doctor said she's doing great! He did say that her growth would probably slow soon, so not to be too eager about how tall she'll be. If you can't tell, I wish I were taller.

Well, thanks for keeping up with us! In these pictures Ella is wearing a dress from her grandma & grandpa and Mia Joie shoes, made by Jess. So cute!!!!!!!!!!! The one below was right before going off to the doctor's... before she got her vaccine shots, poor thing... The picture up top is post vaccine shots....

To work or not to work?

Isn't she darling? It's so much fun to dress her up! Funny thing is, she's always dressed better than me! Always! I think instead of buying myself clothes I bought her a ton-back when I was working full-time and had the extra money!

Before my 12-week leave was up, I knew I wouldn't be ready to go back to my full-time position, so I switched to working PRN (as needed). It's worked out alright so far, friends/family have been able to babysit her for those few instances. But it seems like everytime I go in, I dread it. Normally Ella and I sleep til about 9am, so on those days I go to work, we both have to wake up early and that's no fun! Then it takes forever to get ready because I need to feed her, change her, get myself ready, pump, pack a million different things to take with just in case she needs it.... Then dropping her off and driving to work takes over an hour.... I'm not sure if my small paycheck is worth it! Almost every day I wonder should I find another job closer to home, or something with a more regular schedule and look into daycare, or should I just take an indefinite break from work? But considering that my parents spent a lot of money sending me to college for my BS, and now my husband is stuck paying my student loan for my MS - how can I justify not working at all?

Here's the other thing that I'm on the fence about: when do you have another baby? My sister is 15 months older than me, and I'm so glad that we are close in age that I sort of want to have another baby soon so that Ella can have that same sort of relationship with her sister (or brother). But adjusting to having one baby was a lot for me, I can't even imagine having 2 little ones! Plus poor Ryan is somewhat neglected...

All I can say, is that I don't know how a mom is supposed to juggle everything! Maybe I just never had an appreciation for everything the role entails... And I'm not even doing all that much, compared to other supermoms, like my sister-in-law, Jessica... www.miajoie.blogspot.com I remember when I was younger I thought I'd be a "supermom"... I guess I can still earn that title one day!