Well, as is obvious by the lack of postings, mommy has returned to work. I went back to work on April 14th and we've all been adjusting since. Weekends are too short and we're so tired weeknights that posting a blog entry is the last thing we think to do.
Returning to work has been difficult, but mostly on me. Sara has seemed to have no problem going to daycare and the teachers in her room are really great with her. Once she got over her bottle aversion, which only took a couple weeks, she's really done well there. All the teachers and the front door staff just love her and she seems very happy there. This makes it so much easier for me to continue working, but it doesn't make me miss her any less. I still plan to continue to evaluate work as she gets older, but so far it does seem to be working ok.
One down side of Sara in daycare is that she doesn't seem to nap as well there. I guess there is too much fun and excitement going on as she gets to play with bubbles, listen to music, and even fingerpaint! She is having all kinds of neat experiences and doesn't want to sleep very much there. This sometimes means that we don't get to see her very much during the evening when we get home. Often, she is pooped out and just wants to nurse and go to bed when she gets home. These days are hard for Andy and I since we want to spend time with her when we get home and she just wants to sleep. It's definitely not everyday, but sometimes she goes several days in a row like this and we just miss her.
I've also been playing around with when to take her to daycare, how much she needs in bottles, and other such fun. I started out trying to nurse her in the mornings before we left, but I was actually trying to artificially add a feeding at that point since she normally didn't want to eat until around 8am and I was trying to feed her between 6-7am. I did this for about a month, but she was mostly just playing around and taking up a lot of time. It was taking me three hours from the time I got up to the time I got to work and I wasn't getting home with her until 5:30 or 6:00. The last couple weeks I've been sending her to school with a bottle for the morning. This means that she now has to have three bottles at school instead of two, but the last one is only a couple of ounces to tide her over until I can pick her up and feed her at home. It has saved a lot of time since now I can just get her up and dressed and out the door. I've started working nine hour days Monday through Thursday so that I can take half days on Fridays and have more time with her for the weekend. So far I think that is worth it versus picking her up an hour earlier each day, but this whole thing is a constant trial and error!
We've also been playing the guessing game as to how much milk she needs in her bottles since I don't know how much she's taking when she nurses. We started with four ounces and she was finishing all of it. We then went to 4.5-5 ounces and she was finishing all of that too. So, the last couple weeks she has been getting two 6 ounce bottles during the day and a small snack before I pick her up. This seems to be satisfying her for now, and I have been lucky to be able to pump a ton of milk while at work to keep up with her demand.
In other news, the whole family has been passing around different colds for over a month now. Sadly, Sara got her first cold from mommy and daddy and not the other kids at school. The poor kid had snot out the wazzoo for four weeks solid and didn't feel too great for the first couple weeks either. Andy and I spent a lot of time cleaning out her nose with the Nose Frida, a disgusting but highly effective contraption that allows us to actually suck the snot out of her nose (
http://www.nosefrida.com/). Of course Sara hated having her nose suctioned out with this thing, but we did get all kinds of nasty stuff out that had to help her breathe better. During the same time, Andy and I got about three different rounds of a cold too. We're still not sure if it's the same cold being passed around or if we just keep catching different ones and giving them to each other. It's really sad for Sara though because there's nothing we can give her to help her with the sinus trouble because she is so little. All we can do is put saline drops in her nose to help break up the mucus and suction it out for her. I can't imagine not being able to blow my nose - it must feel so aweful for her! The worst thing now is that after about a week of no snot, she has a runny nose again today. I'm hoping it won't be as long and drawn out as this first cold was - we really need to get everyone in the house over this thing!
We've been trying to do lots of fun things with Sara on the weekends to expose her to new things as she grows. She's been to the zoo, had her first picnic, and been to her first birthday party for her friend Sophia. So far, she loves to go new places and look around. She has gotten a lot better about traveling in the car too and doesn't scream when the car comes to a stop (mostly she just snoozes in the car now). We plan to take her to the children's museum soon and let her check out the infant room that we hear is a lot of fun.
Sara was very sweet to mommy for Mother's Day and asked daddy to get some flowers and a gift certificate to the spa. We also went out for a nice dinner at our local steak house, Killens, where they were giving out roses for moms. I took some pictures with her that day too and got a few cute ones. Mother's Day was particularly neat since I found out that I was pregnant last year on Mother's Day and now have my daughter to hold for this one! Now we'll have to see if Sara is as sweet to her daddy for Father's Day next month :)
Just like all babies, Sara is growing and changing so fast! We just took her in for her fourth month appointment this past Friday and she is doing very good. She weighed in at 14lbs 13oz and 25.5 inches long. She's in the 75th percentile for weight and the 90th percentile for height! Wow. She is growing so fast at this point and getting quite a lot of baby chub on her. She is now mostly in six month size clothing and needs the 6-9 month size for onsies and sleepers! So far, she's only lasted about two months in each size group. I'm sure she'll slow down at some point, but she's still growing like a weed right now. Sara had another round of immunizations this time too, which is always no fun. She had another four shots in her legs the poor kid and then was just a bit fussy for the next two days. She didn't seem to run a fever at all this time though, so that is at least a bit better than the first round. I still gave her Tylenol to help with the pain and crankiness, but she did seem a bit better this time.
As for new things, Sara now loves to "talk" and will chat you up with lots of different sounds and squeals. She discovered that she could squeal a few weeks ago and it was the only noise she made for two weeks straight. The higher pitched the sound, the more proud she was of herself! She loves it when you sing to her now and smiles a lot. She's getting into peek-a-boo now as well and laughs when you play it with her. She still mostly does a big open mouth smile when she's having fun, but is starting to actually laugh now and then too. She almost doesn't know what to think when the laugh comes out, but we keep trying to encourage her to do it. It's probably the best sound I've ever heard when she has a real belly laugh and I can't wait for her to start doing it on a regular basis!
Sara still likes to play with her activity mat, but she's much more mobile now. We change out the toys on it frequently to keep her interest and she can pull and grab all sorts of toys now. She also wiggles around a lot on the mat and ends up completely sideways at times. She is getting very wiggly on the ground and can roll over from back to front and front to back if she wants to. She also wiggles in her sleep and we often find her in a completely different place in her crib than where we put her down. If she follows her daddy's footsteps, she'll be walking by nine months! For now, she's working on sitting up on her own. She can now sit on her own for a few minutes at a time if she's leaning forward and can use her hands for balance. She can't quite sit straight up yet though because she doesn't have the side to side balance down. I think she's probably going to figure things out within this month though - she's been a very quick learner so far with all the physical milestone type things.
Sara's big new toy is her Exersaucer. We got it for her when she turned three months since she could hold her head steady, but we still have to stick a towel in the seat with her for support. She loves all the toys on it and is good at spinning herself around when she wants to play with something new. She hasn't quite figured out all the capabilities of the toys as many of the things have batteries to play songs or make noise or light up, but she's still really enjoying it at this point. I'm sure she'll really get to like the thing as she gets a bit bigger and can really get all the bells and whistles going on it!
As much fun as we've been having watching Sara figure out all these new things, she's also started a bit of the drama as we like to call it. Her cry is definitely more dramatic when she's not really in pain but just cranky. She's also starting to cry over little things just to get attention. She rolled over the other morning while playing with daddy on the floor and just started a blood curdling scream. I'm not sure if she scared herself or what, but it bolted me from bed to see what horrible thing had just happened to her only to find her just fine but dramatically crying over nothing. It took fifteen minutes to get her to calm down and we still couldn't figure out what had scared her so bad in the first place. She didn't even cry nearly that much when she got her shots! Andy and I both get the feeling that she's starting to figure out some things and how to play mommy and daddy is one of them. She's still not old enough to understand that this might be wrong, so we just have to laugh at her sometimes even though the crying is a bit much. I'm sure this is just the beginning of her trying to figure out just what she can get away with - oh the toddler years will be fun!
Well, I hope this gets everyone caught up on the Athon family for now. Hopefully things will get a bit easier as we get over the colds and I can be better about making new posts. I hope everyone is doing great - we're ready for visitors again soon!
As Sara gets older, she continues to show more and more interest in toys, people, and playing in general. Last weekend Sara found her feet. All of a sudden her feet were constantly in her hands and she has been quite rolly polly as she curves her legs up to grab them. On Thursday she figured out that she could put her feet into her mouth (it was only a matter of time!) and that has been quite exciting for her as well.
Once she was on her tummy, I placed a mirror in front of her as she loves to look at that baby in there. She smiled and laughed and cooed at that baby and tried to reach out to touch her. She really likes mirrors in general and loves to make faces at herself and watch other people make faces at her. It will be neat when she finally figures out that she is that baby in the mirror!
Sara has also began to take notice of Bridgette and Bruno. She has watched them for a long time, but just recently started to reach for them and show interest in "petting" the puppies. Luckily the dogs have been great with her and put up with her grabbing at them. She can really get a grip on their ears or the side of their face, but they are patient with her when she does. They are learning to flinch when she reaches for their face, which is where she always goes for. I think they have an agreement that she can pull at their ears as long as they get to lick her and eat the spit up that they find on her. I think the dogs will really like her as she gets older and can really play with them and understand what nice petting is.
