First Week Back

We did it! We survived our first week apart and my first week at work. It was a really great week. I'm surprised I said that. I did miss her terribly, but there were 2 things that made it good. #1 - she is in such wonderful care! Mrs. Matthews takes great care of her and the other kids she watches. She is really good about taking pictures when they are doing something neat. If you check out her website, you will see all the wonderful pictures she takes of the kids doing fun things.

This is my absolute FAVORITE picture right now.
I have this as my screen background at work and at home!

She is such a happy baby!

We also had a barbecue this past Saturday and Sophia got
her first experience in the water (besides bath time!).
We got the smallest swim diaper, which is still 4 lbs
too big for her, but it worked well.

This is most of the group and some extras like family members.
Really great group of people and everyone loves Mrs. Matthews like we do.

And reason #2 is that I have a really supportive group of people at work. They are super accommodating for me. I am able to go over to Mrs. Matthews' at lunch to nurse Sophia. This way she only gets 2 bottles/day. My boss made sure I had enough time, telling me to adjust my schedule as needed. She knows how important this is to me, and my happiness at work is also beneficial to them. I'm also able to close my office door and pump twice a day. Again, she told me to adjust my schedule as needed. I am really fortunate that I have a wonderful job with a great boss. I know this is not the norm, so I'm going to enjoy it every chance I get! And I tell my co-workers that they have it really good here in Uvalde!

Speaking of work, it has begun to pick up. I've got mostly pediatric patients that come in for outpatient therapy. This has been an adjustment coming from Spohn Shoreline, both in sheer size/# of patients and in the age of the patients. I've always been a little nervous with kids, but since having Sophia, that's changed a bit. Don't know what it is, but I feel more confident and I enjoy the kids more. Hopefully that will continue!

And in other news, Sophia has started smiling and cooing much more! Tonight we "talked" for about 30 minutes in one session and 15 in another. She's so much fun! We got a new overhead
gym like she has at her "home care". She really seems to like the singing bear whose nose lights!

I really love this look!

Happy girl!

And, finally, I'm making my pilgrimage to Waco to get the best peaches in the world. I don't know how long we've been getting peaches at Cooper Farms, but it's been a while! I sure do love the east Texas Freestones! And I may need some plums, tomatoes, purple hull peas.... :) I hope there's enough for me when I get there! Gotta freeze 'em for the winter. This is my reward for starting Weight Watchers.....AGAIN! I don't know why I torture myself by starting this in the summer when it's too hot to be outside for physical activity. I sure do miss the pool. Anyway, if I don't mention how WW is going...don't ask :) haha.

Thanks for keeping up with us!

First Day of Home Care

Well, we survived our first day of home care. I like "home care" better because she's in a home environment rather than a regular day care. It was a really good day. Originally, my plan was to go nurse her at lunch, then take her home with me. Well, she stayed all day if that tells you how comfortable I felt with her surroundings. I got a little teary-eyed as I was leaving. It was a blessing however, that my dentist was dropping her daughter off at the same time. (My dentist is married to my co-worker physical therapist and is one of the ways I found out about the home care). I left before she did and headed over to her office for my cleaning and cavity fillings. When I was sitting in the cleaning chair, she came in and told me how happy Sophia looked when she left and that she was looking all around enjoying her surroundings. This made me feel so much better! Just as a plug, I really like my dentist, she's very gentle and kind. This was a good thing, since I spent most of the morning there!

I went back over at noon to nurse her and she was so content that I decided to let her stay the whole day. She was scheduled (my provided schedule) to nap for a couple of hours in the afternoon, then have a bottle around 3, so I went back to get her at 4. When I got there, she was sitting so content in Carolyn's lap in the play room while the 2 other toddlers were playing well. It's a really peaceful setting. The kids have been playing structured play activities or napping or snacking when I've shown up, and I haven't seen any tantrums or anything. I think that's easier with the small environment. In a way, I really hope she doesn't take anymore kids in because I like the individual attention. At the end of the day, we got the sheet of how she did and the activities of the day. She did some smiling/talking, rolling from side to side, reading, etc.

Last night was not her best sleep though. She was up basically from 3:00 until 8:00. She kept fighting sleep. This is usually a sign of a restless night. Sure enough, up at midnight. Hubby gave her a bottle and tried to get her back to sleep for me so I could rest. But after 2 hours of not being able to get her to sleep, he called for reinforcements! :) I thought it was still midnight, so I was happy to know I had gotten 2 more hours of sleep! I think she just needed my soft chest because she was asleep in about 10 minutes. But...not for long. She was up at 4 am hungry. So we nursed and fell asleep in the chair. I woke up about 7:20 which kinda ruined our last "practice run" before going back to work. When I return to work, I need to be out of the house by 7:30 and that was not going to happen this morning. Daddy to the rescue again. I nursed her and he took her over there by 8:15 since he doesn't have to be at work until 4. We are going to try to get back on our schedule!

This morning I'm off to a massage before I go nurse her. Then this afternoon I think it's time for a manicure. Yesterday was haircut day. Not sure what else I need to do before going back to work, but I'm sure it will come to me on Monday!

This is me with only a small sign of teary eyes. :)

This was about 30 minutes after I left. Perfectly happy to be swinging.

She's happy in the bouncy seat.

In her "bed" happy to smile for the camera.

Thanks for keeping up with us!

4th of July!

Whew! What a whirlwind of a weekend! These pictures are in reverse order of the weekend, but it takes too much thought to reverse them! Darn blogspot :) making me think on this thoughtless kind of day...

We did quite a bit of traveling and didn't stay in one spot too terribly long. One of the main reasons for heading out was to introduce my sweet little Sophia to the people of my home church. I was pretty much born into the church and my parents have been attending there since the mid-70's. These folks have seen me and my sister grow up and now that we have kids of our own, it's like their grandkids too in a way. We had an ice cream social after the evening service where we got to socialize with everyone. There's nothing better than home made ice cream!


This is Paul and Debbie Thompson. Paul was the minister at our wedding nearly 9 years ago (wow! can't believe it's been that long!). He was also at one time the pastor of earlier mentioned little church and amazingly, we found out that we are very, very distant cousins. Kinda cool.


Nana and Pawpaw got to have all 3 grandkids together for a few days. After we left, I think it looked like Katrina's cousin hit. I think they may be recovering by now! 3 kids can be a handful, but honestly, they were really good 95% of the time...One night we did have a fussy 2 1/2 month old and a 2 year old at the same time...fun times :) I brought my sister's boys to their grandparents' house in San Antonio on our way back home. It was on the way and I thought it would be a good indicator to whether we need 3 kids or not...um, not! They were good, but it's hard for kids to be occupied for over 2 hours, and you really need 2 people when traveling with that many!







The 4th of July parade was a lot of fun and pretty hot. We were blessed this year because a family friend moved along the parade route, so we had a place to go inside, sit on the porch, use the bathroom, get some water, and nurse during the 2+ hours the parade lasted. It was a great time and the boys loved it. Sophia will appreciate it more when she gets older!



One day, Sophia and I got to meet up with a Facebook friend. She and I were due on the same day (April 23rd) and she hit the mark, while Sophia made me wait til the 28th! He weighed 1 oz more than her and lost the same amount of weight initially. I think he's a stronger eater than Sophia though! :) He was so soft and cuddle-icious! Exactly my image of a baby. Sophia has modified some of my expectations though. Anyway, she lives in Florida but was visiting her family in Texas, so we made it a point to introduce our little ones. And it was a perfect meeting at Chick-Fil-A with peach shakes! Yum yum!









Our 4th of July began in Concan, Texas where our dear friends, the Lowke's were having their annual family gathering at Neal's Lodge. This was their 30th year to come to Neal's! This family was so wonderful to us while we were in Corpus - they basically adopted us into their family as one of their own. The last lady is Christie who we also knew from Corpus. She was up at the Frio river with her family for vacation too. What a great Corpus reunion! Especially since my Corpus trip was cancelled due to severe mommy illness :(



This is Sophia at 2 months on June 28th. We did have some pictures made at JC Penney which should come in soon. Then, over the 4th, we took the 3 grandkids to Olan Mills and got some great pics!


Finally, my best friend from Baylor came to visit on June 25th. I think she looks like a natural with baby girl on her! She was so wonderful and helped me so much around the house. I'm still in "don't worry about how dirty the house looks" mode....she helped me out of that by cleaning and cooking for us. Yeah, I got a little spoiled during her visit.

So, that catches us up to today. It is my last day at home with Sophia before she starts day care. She is going to be with a lady who keeps some kids in her home. Two of my work colleagues use her and that's where I got the referral. I think it's going to be good. We were originally going to take her to the Methodist church, but we received notice that if they didn't have at least 4 infants in the infant room, then they could not justify having a teacher and they would definitely have enough by August 17th. Well, this doesn't work out so well for me because I go back to work on July 13th! Ugh. So, we began looking around. I like the home environment. I'm a little nervous that she watches 3 toddlers and Sophia, but she seems very "type A" and organized which I like. Sophia will go see her tomorrow morning for the first time, since I have a dentist appointment all morning. We'll see if she stays all day or only a half day. Depending on what momma can take.

I'll have to update more, but need to go feed the baby. We're trying out this schedule today like she's at day care, so hubby is basically watching her and I'm only doing the noon feeding which I will be able to go do at lunch once I return to work.

Thanks for keeping up with us!