Baby Sperry's

This weekend we were able to get outside and enjoy the beautiful early Spring weather! I guess you could say that this is one of the perks of living way down South. It has been in the 70's and breezy for the past week or so and has been absolutely gorgeous out. I'm not sure how much longer we will have until the humidity gets wayyyy up there and the mosquitos start trying to sneak in the house every time there is an open door. How crazy is this- our community pool opens up on March 15th! So early, right?! We can't wait to get Gracie in a ruffle-butted bathing suit and try out the water, but for now we'll settle for some playtime/make shift photo sessions outside:

Warning: The following picture contains shoes so precious, they may cause you to spontaneously decide to procreate

I warned you!

I am still loving the new camera. Outside I don't have to do much of anything to make our pictures look pretty darn good (if I do say so myself)!

Aside from our outdoor adventures we had a pretty laid back little weekend. We took a couple long walks, rented a movie, indulged in a yummy margaritas, and I snuck out for a few hours to go to a baby shower this afternoon. All in all it was a nice break from the work week and such a great few days with the family. Gotta soak it all in as much as I can on Saturday and Sunday. :)

As for the Shred and that whole game plan- it's going really well! I'll do a more thorough update in a day or two. The weekends always tend to de-rail me when it comes to healthy eating, but I wasn't too bad and I did keep up with working out. I'm not going to weigh myself until Tuesday, when it will have been a full week...but I will say that I officially fit back into a pair of pre-prego Gap size 6's yesterday and felt pretty damn good about it! Yay progress!

Hope everyone else had a great couple of days! Now onto Monday...(womp, womp.)

xo,

H

Ch-ch-ch-changesss

It's inevitable. You have a child and things change. Your schedule changes, your body changes (ohhh how it changes...), and your heart grows to hold more love than you could ever imagine you were capable of having.

Also among those things that change are your priorities and what you want out of life, particularly in regards to your family.

Not too long ago I answered some survey questions on how I found out I was knocked up and one in particular that inquired as to how many prospective babes the hubs and I wanted.

Don't remember? Click here.

"3 or 4...ask me again in October! :)", I answered giddily.

Ready? Ask me again.

New Answer: 2 might be just fine. 4? Umm... ::insert hysterical laughter::

Not because having a baby is difficult - though it can absolutely prove to be tough at times- but now that our girl is here and is the greatest part of our lives I want to make sure we can be the greatest parents for her. I know that no matter how many children we have, we will love them all to pieces and life will be awesome, but I already worry about being able to be there for things as they grow. I want to be at all of her ballet classes and be the parent who can chaperone Girl Scout camping trips and watch all of her soccer games or be at every swim meet.

Since I work full-time, I already have started to feel like my time with Grace has been compromised. Seriously- what daycare class for infants/toddlers sends your kid home with a calendar that includes "Parents Come in and Read Day!!!". Umm...my 5 month old is in your care all day because I can't be home with her....annnddd now I feel like a jerk because she hasn't even been on this earth for half a year and I'm already missing things. I know this is a silly example- but see- its already starting!

And if you read my last post, obviously if someone can't remember that the one child we have now is sitting in the back of the car, we should probably not be trusted with too many more...!

(Can you tell I'm not ever going to let that one go?)

What are your thoughts on the size of your families (or potential families)? Any reasoning behind it? I'd love to hear what other people think! Don't be shy, comments are fun...even if I know you in real life and talk to you on the phone about things that are posted. ;)

True Story

This is word for word the email I received from the hubs this morning:

"I pulled up in front of company about to get out of the car and totally forgot Grace was still in the back. Looked up and she was just staring at me in the mirror. Woops."

Clearly we are out of the running for Parents of the Year.

Coming to a city near you! (Maybe.)

I have a work trip coming up...pending a few major decisions that are out of my control. I thought about trying to not travel for the next oh, 18 years, but I realized that counting myself out of things like this would be potentially detrimental to the success of my career. With that in mind I pushed to get my travel approved and all of the details in order. I guess essentially, I made it happen for myself. I don't want to be the girl that can't be counted on for future positions or opportunities, so I did what I could to show that I would be willing to go.

This trip would bring me back to my old stomping grounds, allow me to stay with a couple of my best girls for a few days, and most importantly, allow me to sleep through the night without interruption (I kid).

Problem?

I want to vomit every time I think about the possibility of having to leave the baby for four days.

I'm pretty sure that is normal, but seriously, the nausea is killing me. D is actually not in the field for the week, so it would be a nice role reversal for him to experience what I do while he is gone each month. I don't worry about his ability to handle it all. He's awesome. I just worry about everything else. What if my plane goes down? What if I Grace crawls while I'm gone? What if she forgets me and starts to like D more? (Petty, I know.) What if something happens to her and I'm not here? I could go on and on...

The worst part is thinking that if something did happen, it would be my fault for pushing to go on this trip.

I think I need to just take the plunge and do something like this independently. I can't even tell you how it makes me feel to think about leaving Grace in the care of someone other than D or myself if we were to possibly ever take a trip together (maybe make up for that honeymoon we missed out on eventually). I know I can't wait forever to trust her care to someone else...and we have had our parents babysit before- but I was 30 minutes away- not a plane ride. Maybe this would be a step in the right direction?

Any thoughts out there? Anyone take a trip or have some sort of experience leaving their child for the first time? I could use some encouragement.

xo,
H

3 and 4 and 5 months!

Being the bad blog mom that I am, clearly we've missed a couple months worth of G updates...so lets just throw out all of her current baby-dos or "skills" if you are my two younger brothers who inquired as to what skills my baby had when they first met her at 3 weeks old. ("Umm, she has pooing skills, puking skills, nun chuck skills...")

At 5 months here are a few tid bits about our babe:

• Has been rolling over both ways since about 3.5 months. The girl loves to roll and tummy time has gotten to be less of something we dread and more like a way of life around here. We don't really have it, it just happens.
• Hasn't used a pacifier really ever. She did sporadically until about 2 months and not since. (Well...unless you count over Christmas break when I had a conversation with my in-laws about how she hadn't been using one in for-ev-er and then came back from a gym date with the hubby to find one mysteriously located from the depths of our diaper bag...) I digress.
• Is in a size 1-2 diaper. Next diap purchase will definitely be in size 2.
• Wears some 3-6 month clothes, but now leans more towards 6 or 6-9 depending on the brand. Homegirl is longggg.
• Found her toes/feet around month four. Now tries to eat them whenever possible. This makes diaper changes a little more challenging...
• Started solids after her 4 month check-up. She has tried rice cereal, sweet potatoes, sweet peas, and bananas. This has not caused her to take any less formula. We are up to 5-6 bottles a day at about 6-8 ounces a piece. This seems like a ton to me, but who I am to deprive a hungry baby?
• At her last check-up, a month ago, weighed 14 lbs, 13 ozs and was 26 inches long. This puts her at about the 55th percentile for weight and about the 90th for height. Has definitely grown since those measurements were taken.
• Loves to touch everything. Daddy's facial hair is a favorite. Pulling mommy's hair and earrings is great fun as well.
• Sleeps through the night and has since about 3 months. We still occasionally have a 3am wake up if she was super sleepy during her bedtime bottle and didn't drink it all.
• Goes down around 7pm and on daycare days is up between 5 and 6am. If she wakes up closer to the 5am end of the spectrum we have a breakfast bottle and she will go back to bed until we head out the door. On the weekends she will go back down until closer to 8am and then take a morning nap around 9:30am- God bless her. It's wonderful.
• Enjoys watching "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse"...or ESPN. The second is not my doing, nor do we encourage a ton of TV watching, but sometimes ya gotta do what you can to get coffee made and chugged. It's called survival, people.

• Had her first sick day (other than being congested occasionally) a few weeks ago. Our family got the stomach flu, starting with Grace. Lucky for us, it was a 24 hour bug that some pedialite and a long sleep from about 3pm-6am the next day seemed to fix. Yelling at dogs trying to lick up your baby's projectile puke...not so much fun.
• Laughs at everything. I am the funniest woman on Earth and have several videos to prove it. :) I'll try to get those posted eventually.

This was the pic we used on our Valentine cards.


Snuggles. I melt every time that little head rubs into my shoulder when she's tired. Be still my heart!
Finally likes taking a bath. This took a lot of practice, but bath time now consists of kicking to our hearts content...as opposed to trying to break glass with her screams.
Babbles, gurgles, "clicks" her tongue, LOVES making noise. No "mama" or "dada" yet.
Likes to be told that she is a "big girl" and loves being held so that she can practice standing.
Loves her Sophie. This little giraffe is your basic over-priced rubber dog toy, but it is the best thing since sliced bread.

• May have started to teethe. I don't know. She is a little more drooly and everything is going into her mouth, but she doesn't seem to be overly fussy...so not sure. More to come on this.
• Still looks just like her daddy. (As I'm sure you can see from the above pics!)

I'm know there is so much that I am missing. Every day is an adventure and it has been such a thrill watching Grace grow these past couple of months. It seems like she is figuring things out so quickly and growing even faster. I can literally feel myself swell with love and pride when I talk about her...in fact, I can tell I'm turning into one of those people that gushes about their kid all the time, so I try to tone it down. Ha! I've probably said this before, but I completely understand why people think their kids are genius' because when you watch someone so little figure out how to do something for the first time you can't help but want to scream, "I have the smartest child EVER!"

and I do. ;)

xo,

H

Weighty Issues

I'm doing it.

I'm throwing it out there so you can hold me accountable and I'm going to follow through.

I'm going to make the last of this "baby weight" (can I even call it that anymore?) my beyotch and get in even better shape than I was before hauling a child around in my womb for 9+ months.

Starrrtttinnggggg: NOW.

Stats:
Arm- 12''
Bust- 36''
Waist- 30.5''
Hips- 39''
Thigh- 24.5''
Weight- 153
(::Queue vomming noise::)
Goal: -15 lbs

How you gonna do that, you ask?

Well for starters I'm going to take a page from this mama and actually do the Shred for 30 days. She's been doing it for almost a month and has had some seriously great results. Motivation! I can't tell you how many times I've started and stopped, skipped levels, and just plain was "over" this program. It is challenging- I just get into a rut after day 5 when I know exactly what is coming next. It's not that it is too long or difficult, it's just that I seriously stare at the clock on the television and feel like it dragggsss while I'm doing it.

Oh Jillian Michael's, you she-devil. I will conquer your boring video.

Along with shredding, I'm going try to get in some cardio 4x a week. I figure that should be a realistic goal. If I can find the time for more, excellent. To wrap up Operation: Lose the Chub, I figure I might as well start eating better. For now I'm going to just stick to packing healthy lunches, cutting out soda, and making good dinners. I won't be giving up coffee (sweet nectar of the Gods...) or the occasional glass of wine. We'll see where this goes in 30 days and re-evaluate.

Wish me luck. I'll check in on this topic weekly- so hold me accountable. I figure this way I'll at least be guilted into doing something rather than "forget" about it. How embarrassing. But not as embarrassing as work pants that are still too tight 5 months after giving birth or considering "mom jeans" to house your fupa...

Anyone else out there want to chime in? Post baby or not, we all have about 3 months until Summer. Feel free to join in with your own health and exercise goals and comment each week so we can all do this together!

In a rut.

Not with life, or the baby, or really anything except for maintaining this blog. I know...I'm the worst. I haven't done a 3 or 4 month update and now here we are halfway to 5.

Things are going really well for us and we've settled into a great family routine. I've finally found time for myself outside of work and other obligations, but honestly, it's not much time and the last thing I have on my priority list is this blog. Don't get me wrong...I come up with things I want to write about all day long and I read other people's also. In fact, that is part of my daily routine. One of my favorite guilty pleasures.

So as an apology, here is a picture dump. I don't know when I'll get back into the bloggy world, but for now...this will have to suffice:

This Friday hell Louisiana froze over and we got an extra day added onto our weekend. We (I) spent most of the morning forcing our little one into a photo shoot to be used on some V-day cards, which I will share after they are sent. I think the cards turned out pretty cute and this will hopefully begin to make up for the fact that we didn't do birth announcements, Christmas, or New Years cards...pretty sad that it has taken us this long. Today we finished taxes this morning (thank you Miss G for our tax credit) and are going to head to Alexandria for dinner and some errands later this afternoon. We will wrap up our weekend doing something for the Super Bowl tomorrow, I'm sure. There has been literally no effort put into coming up with plans. Who would have thought? This time last year I was wondering if I was pregnant, but put off taking a pregnancy test until Monday...I was so sure that I was making a big deal out of nothing! Haha...little did I know, right?!

Hope everyone has wonderful weekend's and I hope to be back with more soon!

xo,

H