Mommyhood

As Marshall approaches his 4 month old birthday next week, I've been thinking lately about everything that I do differently now that I'm a mommy.

1. First and foremost I get up much earlier than I ever did before. I've never been a morning person so when I have to drag my behind out of bed at 7:00am on a Saturday morning it is not easy.

2. I've always been a researcher, but now I spend just about every minute of free time that I have online reading about different types of baby supplies and which ones have the best reviews.

3. I've never been much of a napper, but now I take any kind of nap I can get.

4. Screaming kids in public places no longer bother me. As a matter of fact, half the time I don't even notice it anymore.

5. I can change a poopy diaper in no time flat!

6. I don't feel rediculous acting rediculous for my baby in public.

7. Oh the things I can do one handed!

8. I haven't seen a full television program in 4 months and don't even really have much of an interest in watching TV.

9. I feel the need to keep our apartment clean all the time, even though we can't seem to keep it that way :)

10. I tend to look at everyone's babies while I'm passing by and smile.

I love my little bubby...





~AKO

Ouch!

Holy crap am I sore :( I calculated the numbers and I'm now walking almost 80 minutes per day since I started going back into the office on Tuesday. Wake up time is now 5:30am so I can shower and get everything together before Marshall wakes up around 6:30. We have to leave the house by 7:00 so I can have him at daycare by 7:20 so I can catch the 7:33 train into Hoboken so I can catch the 7:50 PATH train into NYC so I can get to the office by 8:30. How'd you like that sentence :) This is all so I can leave the office by 4:45 in order to pick Marshall up by 5:45ish. Anything after 6:00 and they start charging you for every 5 minutes you're late.

Anyway... back to the walking. Since there is no parking near the daycare, I've opted to walk Marshall over there, which is about a 15 minute walk. I should add that I have to walk up and down a pretty decent hill to get there. Then another 5 minutes from the daycare to the Light Rail station. Then another 5 minutes from the Light Rail station to the PATH train platform. Then another 10 - 15 from the PATH train at World Trade Center to the other side of the island to my office by the Brooklyn Bridge. That's not takin into account the stairs that I have to walk up and down to get in and out of the PATH stations. We are now on day 4 and my legs and ankles are on FIRE!

The positive is that it earns me 2 activity points every day :)

My recent absence from cyberland can be attributed to the fact that I've been alseep by 9:00pm every night. I hope I get used to getting up at 5:30 soon.

Here's Marshall waiting patiently in his swing while mom gets her crap together so we can leave the house on time the other morning.





~AKO

Growing Up

"Growing Up" now has new meaning to me now that I'm a mother. My mother came out to visit for the weekend... well, she really came out to visit her grandbaby... and all she could say was how much Marshall had grown since the last time she saw him. Now I'm thinking, it has only been a month since she saw him last, but then I started looking at photos I had taken of him in early January. My baby is growing up too fast! I looked at a calendar and realized he will be 4 months old next week.


Hugs from Grandma!




What I have vowed to do is to have professional photos taken of our family often to make sure we document how quickly our family is growing. For Marshall's first year we are going to try to do it every 3 months. I've already scheduled his 6 month session for early May :) Here are his professional 3 month photos.






~AKO

Back to Reality

Has it been a week since I've been online? This week really got away from me. First and foremost, Marshall started day care on Monday.





He is such a little flirt that it did not take long to win the heart of his attendants. Ms. Ana and Ms. Becky have been so attentive with him and take the time to talk with all the parents when they pick up and drop off that it has really put my mind at ease that we made the right decision with the center we chose.

When we picked him up on his first day, this is how we found him. Snug as a little bug without a care in the world.





He even has his own crib and cubby hole.





In other, not so excitng news... I went back to work on Wednesday. I've been getting up around 6:00am everyday, which has been a hard adjustment. Especially when Marshall doesn't sleep through the night. I've been working from home, but when I have to start going into the office next week, 5:00am will be our wake up time, with Marshall getting up around 6:30am. It took 2 full days to get through all of my emails. My boss can't wait to send new projects my way. But he was considerate enough to wait until Tuesday to schedule a catch up meeting with me.

My mom is also in town this weekend since she can't go more than a month without seeing her grandbaby. She's been here since 9:00pm and hasn't let him out of her arms :)

~AKO

So Unfair...

Why is it that when you've established yourself in your career and are making a salary that allows you to live comfortably, but not necessarily above your means, you still get screwed? I just finished up our taxes and, not only did we get screwed by New York State because of Freddy's unemployment and my short term disability payments, but we couldn't claim a child credit for Marshall because we make too much money. WHAT??? I hate to break it to Washington but no matter what your income babies are EXPENSIVE. We're at that annoying level, along with hundreds of other Americans, where we make too much money to qualify for various credits and discounts but we don't make enough money to not have to rely on credit for large purchases. Not to mention my insurance company didn't even give me the option to have state taxes withheld from my STD payments while I'm out on maternity leave. And since my job is still in NYC, I'm stuck paying NY taxes :(

Speaking of Marshall... he is still tying his hardest to roll from his back to his stomach. He gets so frustrated because he can't figure out how to do it.




This is how I felt while I was doing taxes :)




After he tried for almost 10 minutes and had himself in hysterics, I finally flipped him over. He quickly calmed down and watched TV for a few minutes before taking a little nap. Trying to roll over can really wear a guy out!






~AKO

Wordless Wednesday

I guess it's time for bibs :)





~AKO

Baby's First Outing

Today we had some professional portraits done, which I'll share once we receive the CD. I may be biased but I believe I have the cutest baby on the planet :) I was actually impressed with how well Marshall did since he never got his early afternoon nap and was acting a bit cranky before we left the house. He even smiled in a lot of his shots. I know that being good with kids is part of their job, but the people taking the pictures were great with him.

Marshall has been outside of the house, but they were normally for a specific purpose, i.e. doctor's appointment, family gathering, etc. I don't really consider those situations to be an outing.

We had our portraits done at JC Penney, which was inside the Newport Mall in Jersey City. Once we were done, I had a few things to pick up so Marshall had his first outing at the mall.

This was how impressed he was with the mall in general. Once we were done with pictures, Marshall slept through the rest of the trip.





I think by the time we were done Freddy was wishing he could take a nap and be pushed around in the stroller.

~AKO

Scentsy Giveaway

Julie over at Julie the Army Wife is giving away a couple of items from her Scentsy inventory. She is giving away 1 bar and 1 room spray in the February Scent of the Month which is call Shades of Green. She describes the scent as "The quintessential scent of grass and clover-green, sunny, and happy."





It sounds like something to remind you of Spring during these cold days we've all been having. I was browsing around her Scentsy site and there are quite a few things that I've added to my wish list.

If you're interested in checking it out, head on over to her site at Julie the Army Wife.

~AKO

It's Official

Marshall is definitely rolling from his stomach to his back. The problem we have now is that he is doing it in his sleep.

I actually put him down so that his head was in the direction of the head of the crib. When I went in to check on him, he was sideways. One morning he was all the way in the front corner of the crib.





His cries prompted me to check in on him again to find that all he needed was his pacifier put back in his mouth. While I stood there for my standard 3 - 5 minutes to make sure he was officially back to sleep, he lifted his head and shoulders and rolled over on his back. All while sound aleep.





The problem that we have is that he can't roll back onto his stomach and he's always hated being put down on his back. So, about 10 minutes later, he started crying again. His paci had fallen out of his mouth, which semi woke him up. It was then he realized he was on his back which put him in a full scream. When I got to his crib he was frantically trying to roll back onto his stomach. Once I rolled him back over he was fine and went back to sleep.

I'm really hoping he learns to roll back onto his stomach soon because I envision many overnight wake-up calls because he can't get back on his stomach.

And I'm hoping C-Lo will soon stop glaring at me from above everytime I attend to the baby :)





~AKO

New Toy and Some Firsts

We finally received and put together my glider and ottoman. It was one of those things that I thought we wouldn't need with the baby, not to mention we didn't have anywhere to put it. As I started having some soreness in my ankles, hips and back from rocking Marshall to sleep on my feet, we decided to give the glider a go. We spent Sunday rearraging our bedroom to make a space for it next to Marshall's crib. It now looks like Marshall actually has a little nursery to himself in the corner of our bedroom. It will be nice when we finally have our own house for him to have his own room.

Hadley, of course, felt he needed to try it out for approval.





Does it work, you ask? Well, Marshall and I did take a 3 hour nap in it this afternoon. I think it will make feedings a lot easier than trying to do them on the bed or couch.

Now for some Baby Firsts...

Monday evening, Marshall lifted his head and shoulders up an then rolled from his stomach onto his back. This was after he grabbed is pacifier and held onto it for a few minutes. After he was on his back he tried very hard to get back over on his stomach but it was not in the cards that night.







I've been thinking about putting his exersaucer together to see if he's ready for it since he's been moving his arms and legs a lot lately. That might be a project for this weekend :)

~AKO