A Special Anniversary

Yesterday, I rejoiced in an anniversary that is very special to me (and I'm posting about it one day late, oh well) - one year ago yesterday, I learned I was going to be a mommy. Even as I sit here today, all of those thoughts and feelings I had that night as I looked at the faint blue plus sign on the EPT stick come rushing back. Really, what a difference a year makes. Almost everything that occurred before August 27, 2007 seems dull and meaningless compared to the events of the past year, more specifically, the past 16 weeks (well, not everything - obviously our wedding and a few other events are major standouts!). I'd always heard it before, but becoming a mother is THE toughest but most rewarding experience a woman can ever have. As I sat in the comfy pink glider in Alexandra's room last night, rocking back and forth with a sleeping little angel in my arms and the late afternoon/early evening sunlight trickling in between the window blinds, it hit me that this is what life is really all about. There have been moments that have greatly tested me over the past several weeks, like Alexandra's colic and her lack of sleep, but I would go through those moments for hours on end just to witness one of her infectious smiles. Over the past couple of weeks, Alexandra's favorite thing to do has been to take a break from nursing to throw her head back, study my face with those big blue eyes, and then give me an adoring dopey grin that tells me she recognizes me as her mom - every time my heart melts.

Finally....A Series of the "Bachelor" I am Interested In

I used to be a big fan of the Bachelor series - I didn't watch the first season, but watched the show religiously for the next several guys. Andrew Firestone was my favorite, I think. However, the past few guys they have had were major duds....that's why I'm so excited to see that Jason from the last run of the Bachelorette is the new Bachelor!! I rooted for him from the very first episode, and could not believe it when Deanna chose Jesse over Jason - oh well, her loss, some other lucky girl's gain. Can't wait to see this latest installment of The Bachelor!

Harvard Bound Baby

Couldn't forget to post a picture of Alexandra in her Harvard onesie that her Aunt Rachel brought down last weekend (Rachel is in the second year of her residency at Harvard)....the joke is that she is not a fan of Harvard since she keeps spitting up on it. Just as well, I don't think we could afford the tuition!!

Also, had to post a picture of the infamous socks I've posted about previously.....

Aunt Rachel Comes For a Visit

So....I am afraid I spoke way too soon about the sleeping through the night. We seem to have taken about 5 giant steps back from the progress we made over the past 2 weeks. Then again, her sleep always seems to be kind of poor just after a weekend, so maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel (I'm yawning from lack of sleep as I type this).

On to a more uplifting note...my sister Rachel came from Boston this weekend for a visit with her little "punkin", her nickname for Alexandra. We gave her the true experience...she fed Alexandra, gave her a bath, put on her jammies....I think she did everything but change a poopy diaper! We had a really good time, and you can tell from the expression on A's face that she wishes her Aunt Rachel came to visit more often!!

Knock My Socks Off

As you are well aware by now, I am a WEE bit obsessed with outfitting my little baby girl in too cute clothing. I can walk out the door looking like a tired mess (and usually do, by the way), but as long as Alexandra has a cute outfit on for pre-school with matching bib, I am content. Please do not interpret this to mean I stick Alexandra in crinoline-puffed dresses with gigantic bows on her head (lest anyone think she is a little boy, instead). Most days, Alexandra is in a onesie, albeit a cute onesie - any new Mom will tell you that it is not worth struggling to get anything fancier than a onesie over a baby's little tender head!

With that being said, Alexandra outgrew a lot of teeny, tiny newborn socks that were gifted to us prior to her birth, as I really didn't see a need to stick socks on my daughter during the middle of July. However, now that it has cooled off a little bit (at least in the mornings, the afternoons are still humid as hell), I noticed that A's little feet tend to get cool. Add to that the fact that her daycare "teacher" made several indirect hints that Alexandra's feet seem to be cool during the day, I knew I needed to break out THE socks.

We received two different sets of Trumpette socks at baby showers and I have to say they are just about the cutest baby accessories I have ever seen. Really, these set the cuteness factor at a whole new level. From a practical standpoint, they are made a little bit bigger than most baby socks and can be worn (according to the box) up to 12 months of age. Plus - and this is the big selling point - they actually stay on her feet despite all of the kicking she loves to do!

We already have the bright Mary Jane socks and the Pixie socks (in the first two pictures below), but one day I'd love to add to her collection the ballerina socks and, in honor of her Daddy's favorite hobby, the golf socks. Check these out and tell me they are not eat-you-with-a-spoon adorable???

Our String of Good Night Sleep Continues!

Alexandra slept 10 hours last night, from 8:30 pm to 6:30 pm - I'm waiting with bated breath to see what tonight holds for us!

On another note, I just found that one of my favorite blogs, I Pick Pretty, has bestowed upon me a Diamond Award - not really sure what this award is for, but I graciously accept it! It appears that the award rules state that one who accepts the award must acknowledge on their own blog that they have received the award and then tag seven others with the Diamond Award, including a link to their blogs. With that being said, I want to pass along the Diamond Award to these wonderful bloggers whose blogs continue to provide me with daily reading entertainment:

Le Petite Blog
A Day in the Life
The Shooting Allens
Cool Mom Picks
Melanie Mauer Photography
Magnolias, Marriage & Manhattan
Home Away From Home

Need Hair Inspiration!!

Those that know me personally are fully aware of the various colors and styles my hair has gone through over the years - I am nothing short of a chameleon, my pictures are always different! While I have been quite adventurous with different hair colors (though I'm usually some shade of blonde), the same cannot be said for the length of my hair. I have always kept it relatively long, and right now I'd say it hits around 5 inches past my shoulders. In a couple of weeks, however, my long hair will no longer exist as I have decided to chop it all off! It's a scary thought, since I've always had long hair and it does not grow quickly, but I have decided I need a change. I have gone so far as to book the appointment so I am committed to the act. I made sure to schedule the appointment after Labor Day weekend - some dear friends of ours, Andy and Amanda, are getting married and Ryan and I are both in the wedding, so I am considering the wedding to be the last hurrah for my long hair and hope to have it in some fabulous updo before it's too short to even put it in a ponytail.

Despite my fear, I am also excited to have a new style, since I feel like I have had the same boring long-layered cut for several years. Also, it will be nice to not have to pull my hair out of the tight grasp of Alexandra's little hands - plus, I am cautiously optimistic that it won't require as much time to style my hair in the mornings.

Here's some pics I have pulled off the internet of the general look I am going for, but I would love to have some other pics to take with me to my stylist. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

I really like Jenny McCarthy's style:


These pictures are from an In Style magazine photo shoot Katie Holmes did several months ago, at which time I loved her hair cut - I hate her current cut, it looks like a mop and is SO frumpy:



I also liked Ellen Barkin's hairstyle from when she was in Ocean's Thirteen:

Hallelujah - she sleeps!!

I am really sailing along today on top of Cloud Nine - huh, funny that it is called Cloud Nine, since that is how many hours Alexandra slept in her crib last night. Yes, you heard me, she slept NINE hours in her crib!!!!

I've had the best sleep I've had since Alexandra was born the past two nights. With that being said, Monday night started out really rough. Alexandra fought going to sleep for a long time - after rocking her for an hour, I was able to get her to fall asleep and placed her down in her crib, only to hear her awaken 5 minutes later, fully raring to go. Ryan rocked her for awhile so I could fit in a shower (isn't it wild that you totally take a shower for granted until you become a new mom and find it near impossible to find time to take one?!?!), but Alexandra was overtired by this point and cried quite a bit. After I had worked on getting her to sleep for 3 some hours, I was in tears (though thankfully, the baby was not by this time) from frustration and sheer exhaustion. I spoke with my Mom on the phone about something else and she insisted on coming up to relieve me so I could get some much-needed sleep. My attempts to argue that it wasn't necessary weren't successful - and boy and I glad that she won that fight! Before my Mom arrived, I managed to get Alexandra down to sleep at around 10:30 pm, and she slept till about 3:00am or so, I think, at which point Mom fed her a bottle so I could get a break.

Last night, I was cautiously optimistic that the night would be better than the previous evening's sleep. We gave Alexandra her bath, put on her jammies, and then I took her upstairs to her room to nurse her, where she promptly fell asleep in my arms. I rocked her for about 20 minutes or so just to make sure she was good and knocked out, and then I placed her in her crib a little bit after 8pm. My sweet girl stayed asleep and I didn't hear a peep out of her until 5:15 this morning - Ryan and I couldn't believe it!! I was so confused by this, I even went into her room at 3:00 in the morning and placed my hand on her chest to assure myself that she was in fact still breathing (I am sure I am not the first or last first-time mom to do this!). The little angel nursed when she woke up and then went back to sleep until 7:30 am (our usual wake up time is around 7am, but I figured I would let her get all the sleep she could).

I'm hoping that when I get to daycare today that she will have taken at least a few naps in her crib, totalling over 2 1/2 hours (which seems to be the cumulative amount of her naptime - not much, but we take what we can get). Keep your fingers crossed for us that she has another good night and this wasn't just a fluke!!

The Women

Has anyone seen the previews for the movie "The Women," which I think opens in early September?? If so, doesn't it look awesome?!?! Look at that fabulous cast of strong women - Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Candice Bergen, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith, Bette Midler, Cloris Leachman, Carrie Fisher and Anna Gasteyer. Check out the trailer, I CANNOT WAIT to see this!

Alexandra Update for the Fam

I realized that as much time that I have devoted to posting pictures of sweet Alexandra, I really haven't done that much by way of posting how she is developing from a teeny newborn into a sweet-hearted little girl.

My girl started day care last week....boy, was that ever an adjustment!! I've been back to work now about 5 weeks or so. Day care couldn't get Alexandra in till the first full week of August, so Mom, Dad and Jackie stepped up to the plate and really helped us out by watching Alexandra while I was at work until a spot opened up at daycare. We are taking Alexandra to St. Joseph Child Development Center, a lovely daycare facility in Louisville that came highly recommended to us. Alexandra is in the "Nemo" room, I guess a reference to the kid's flick "Finding Nemo." Alexandra's teachers are Miss Nita and Miss Dorothy, who I think have a combined 40 years of experience in taking care of babies! They are both very sweet and have a genuine interest in the welfare of their wards, including Alexandra.

So.....I took Alexandra by for a couple of hours last Monday, just so we could meet her "teachers." No surprise here, but I cried. Fast forward to last Tuesday, when I took her to daycare for a 1/2 day - I cried like a baby again! Her first full day was last Wednesday, and I consider it a small miracle that I have not cried since and have not been calling up during the middle of the day to check on her! It is true what they say - it is SO much harder on the Mom than it is on the baby to drop the baby off at daycare.

Alexandra is doing great in class, except she refuses to nap in her crib! The first week they let her sleep where ever she chose (bouncy seat, in their arms, etc.) because she was still transitioning. Yesterday, Miss Nita and Miss Dorothy decided they were going to up the ante and that Alexandra would sleep only in her crib. When I was told this, I thought "good luck, ladies, because you're going to need it." In case I haven't regaled you with stories of my daughter's sleep patterns (or lack thereof), let me just narrow it down to state that Alexandra is the queen of cat naps, and is one of the lightest sleepers I have ever met. Plus, she doesn't really like to sleep in her crib yet - I imagine this is a hold out from our days battling colic, as the only thing that seemed to soothe her was to cuddle her and carry her around. With that in mind, I walked into daycare yesterday with my breath held, wondering what the day had been like. I was told that Alexandra had taken two naps in her crib, the longest of which was 30 minutes!!! Yes, my daughter slept about an hour ALL DAY yesterday - she cried non stop on the way home, which is not a shock since she was so damn tired!! I think that a new environment, with noise, other crying babies, and different care providers have combined to take a toll on my daughter's daytime sleep.

There is a silver lining in all of this though, thankfully. Since we started daycare, Alexandra is doing much, much better with sleeping in her crib at night. In just a week, Alexandra went from not sleeping in her crib at all to sleeping for 4 hours last night, waking up to eat, and then sleeping another 2 hours in her crib - yeah!! Of course, this was probably because she was exhausted from the complete absence of sleep during the day, but beggars can't be choosers and this exhausted mom is just going to look at this as a positive thing.

Other than sleep issues, our little girl is doing great! She smiles all the time and lets out little shrieks of laughter which entertain us to no end and warm our hearts. She is able to roll from her back onto her side pretty easily - in fact, she is quite the little mover and shaker. Last night, when she finally awoke from her 4 hour rest in her crib, I walked in to find her facing the completely opposite direction in her crib from where I had initially placed her, and she was at the foot of the crib! When she is on her tummy, she can do baby push-ups and push her head and upper chest up off the ground with her hands. Alexandra also tracks us with her eyes as we walk around the room, and seems delighted by bubbles being blown in front of her at daycare by Miss Nita. She has started enjoying bath time, as well, and likes admiring her image in the mirror of her activity mat.

It's amazing to witness how much she has grown in the past 3 months, and we cannot wait to see what the next 3 months will bring!

Happy Birthday!!

I'd like to wish a wonderful 33rd Birthday to my sweet husband Ryan. Unfortunately, he has to spend the day working in Owensboro, but I think we'll get a chance to celebrate by getting some ice cream tonight at Homemade Pie Kitchen (yum!!). I love you very much, Ryan, and hope you have a wonderful birthday - we certainly have a lot to celebrate. I asked him yesterday if he had a hard time remembering what life was like before Alexandra was born, to which he replied no, but I think it is hard to remember a time she wasn't in our lives! To refresh my memory, and also in celebration of Ryan's birthday, I thought I would post a few pictures of us from what I like to call B.B. (Before Baby).

Alexandra Makes a Friend

Up until the past week, Alexandra's interaction with other little children has been pretty limited. That has changed drastically with her starting daycare at St. Joe's today! She also made friends with Charlotte, the darling little daughter of our good friends Nick and Amy. Nick, Amy and Charlotte came over last Friday night to just hang out and eat some pizza - Charlotte loved Alexandra and just kept saying "baby" over and over. She was so gentle with Alexandra and kept stroking Alexandra's little hand and her head. I just love the picture of the two of them smiling at one another!

True Blue Baby

In honor of the upcoming football season, we had to get some pictures of the newest little UK Wildcat fan (thanks for the too cute outfits, Christa!). Note how she is doing her "baby push-ups" on the bed!!

I also included a picture of her following her bath last night, wrapped up in her bunny towel - if you look close, you can see tears underneath her eyes (while she really enjoys her bath, she hates to be cold afterwards!). I hate the fact that her tears have come in, it breaks my heart!!