Free Download: “Little Red Apples”

This picture is a quintessential portrayal of Parker at this stage of his life: the boy is OBSESSED with his feet. He discovered them a few weeks ago, and now all he wants to do is play with them and get them into his mouth. Yum!

To be honest, this week has been a little rocky. I’ve had a bad cold for the last few days…my first experience of being sick with a baby. Not fun at all. When I was sick with the same thing last winter, I laid in bed for 3 days taking cold medicine and complaining how awful it was to be sick while pregnant. If only I’d known how good I had it! This time around, I didn’t take any meds (since they can have a negative effect on milk supply) and definitely didn’t have the option to stay in bed all day.

As gross as I felt, it really is hard to have a bad day with this cutie around. We broke in a bunch of new fall clothes, played in the exersaucer, and cuddled on the couch lots this week. I think he could tell that I wasn’t feeling well, because he was such an angel baby and much lower maintenance than he usually is.

I started feeling better on Friday afternoon, so we took advantage of the Indian summer weather and went to the park. Then last night we went out to our first dinner as a family of 3 at a new restaurant, Engrained. The food was great, and it was a perfect night to sit outside.

On Saturday morning, Zach and Parker scooted out of the house bright and early so that I could record my music therapy podcast without the usual background noise. They met up with our friend Jose Carlos and his twin boys, who are turning one in a few days!

Parker is going to be 4 months old on Tuesday, and on Wednesday we are heading back to the pediatrician for his 4-month appointment. Then we’re going to the DMV to pick up his driver’s license after which he’ll head off to college. Just kidding…but seriously, time needs to stop flying.

I have fallen behind in my blogging efforts, but this is my attempt to catch up and remember what happened two weeks ago. The days seem to whiz by in a total blur as I try to balance quality time with Parker, progress on work-related projects, laundry and keeping the house clean…all before I go to work at 3 pm.

I have always had lots of respect for stay-at-home moms, but now I can relate to how busy and stressful a job it can be. Same goes for working moms, since I feel like I fall into both categories. It’s a good place to be, but it definitely has its challenges!

As usual, I only have wonderful things to say about Parker. He is such an angel baby, and makes me smile SO much. He has been laughing a lot all of the sudden this week, so my new favorite thing is figuring out ways to make him giggle. A few things that never fail are patty-cake, tickling his face with my ponytail, kissing his ears, and giving him rides up and down on my knees.

Parker and I survived our first solo weekend when Zach went out of town for a few days, and it went very smoothly! Sadie rarely left our side, and especially enjoyed supervising Parker’s playtime :)

We definitely missed having Zach here (especially at 3 am when he usually handles diaper duty), but it was good practice for when he goes to Brazil for 10 days next summer. Again, I am very very lucky to have all of Parker’s grandparents here in town!

Our cousin Kim sent this adorable turtle hat for Parker. Clearly he loves it! I don’t think taking photos of this baby in cute outfits and accessories will EVER get old.

And here is the biggest event of week 15: Parker transitioned from the rock ‘n play next to our bed to the crib in his nursery. I wasn’t 100% ready, but Zach had been encouraging the move so we went for it. Night 1 was rough…he was much more interested with finding his toes than actually sleeping.

But we had a complete 180 on night 2, and ever since he has been sleeping like a lamb! He usually wakes up once a night to nurse, which is just fine with me. Eventually he will get around to sleeping through the night again.

It’s finally starting to feel like fall, and we took advantage of the nice weather this past weekend. Zach had a soccer tournament on Saturday, so Parker and I cheered him on from the sidelines. Then of course we had to take a photo to commemorate Parker’s first soccer game:

Overall, it was a pretty laid back week around here. I’ve been pretty tired since going back to work, so most days we just hung around the house. We weren’t total homebodies, though: we did venture out to meet my friend Crystal for coffee on Wednesday morning, followed by mom-baby group at the hospital (we’ve been going since Parker was just a week old).

Zach left on Thursday for a bachelor trip in Las Vegas, so it’s been just the three of us — Sadie, baby, and me. Poor Sadie is such a good sport. She doesn’t get nearly the attention she did back in the old days of having “only child” status, so I have been making a conscious effort to spend more quality time with her when Parker is asleep. She makes a good snuggle buddy while Zach is away!

In other news, we did well with weight gain this week. Parker is creeping closer and closer to 12 pounds, which is still small for his age and height, but it’s progress. He’s been eating pretty frequently this week, which is definitely a good thing (albeit exhausting for me). I am loving the extra pudge on his cute little thighs…no more chicken legs for this guy!

All good things must come to an end, and in this case, it was my maternity leave. I feel so lucky to have spent the past 12 weeks at home with Parker, even if it meant an entire summer without my main source of income (one of the very few downsides of self-employment). But on Tuesday, I kissed him goodbye at 3 pm and was off to my studio for my first full afternoon/evening of work since May.

To be honest, I really loved it. Seeing all of my students again was so wonderful — they were excited to be back, and wanted to know all about baby Parker — and I remembered how much I enjoy the work I do. Knowing that Parker is only a few rooms away from me, and that he is in the care of his grandmas and our awesome sitter Greta, is what has made this transition manageable.

There were definitely times throughout the summer that I thought I would enjoy being a stay-at-home mom, but heading back to work has confirmed that this is what is best for our whole family. I get to spend the entire day with my baby, and then do a job I love from the comfort of home. Financially, it allows us to save more, pay off our mortgage quicker (we’re shooting for 40 — that’s less than ten years away!), and still have plenty of money after expenses to do the things we love, especially travel.

Anyway, enough about me. Let’s get to my favorite topic in the whole wide world: my beautiful baby boy! Unbelievably, he is turning 3 months old tomorrow. Each week, he seems to become a little bit more chill and is smiling so much!

He was so cute this morning when Zach brought him to me after changing his diaper at 6 am; I said “hi” and he had the hugest grin on his face. It was almost like he woke us up on purpose just so that he could see us! Luckily after I fed him, he went right back to sleep so that I could begin my 6 am routine of coffee, breakfast, pumping, and getting things done around the house.

Parker is getting much better at taking the pacifier, which is a big plus since he’s spending so much time away from me now. It comes in super handy when we’re out in public, like yesterday when I took him to Target and he started getting a little fussy. It made me cringe thinking back to a few weeks ago (before he got the hang of the paci) when we were at Kohl’s, and he had a complete meltdown in the Ergo carrier. Hopefully we won’t relive that traumatic experience again.

The one bummer about this week is that Parker still isn’t gaining as much weight as he was up until now. He is right under the 10% mark for weight, even though he is a good eater, and seems happy and satisfied after his feedings. He continues to grow in length like a week, so I’m just hoping that during his 3-month growth spurt, his weight catches up.

This blog post is getting ridiculously long, so I’m going to end with a video of Parker’s first dip in grandma’s pool last weekend. He loved it!

This week brings lots of mixed emotions, because it is my LAST week of maternity leave. On one hand, I am totally excited about seeing all of my students and their families again, but on the other, I am sad that I won’t be with my baby 24/7 anymore. I am going to miss him so much! But then I remember that I get to spend the entire morning and early afternoon with him, and I feel a little better.

Mornings are my favorite, because Parker is almost always in a good mood when he wakes up. I absolutely LOVE unwrapping him from his swaddle and watching his arms go up to stretch, not to mention the adorable smiles he gives me:

The weather was super hot this week, so we didn’t get out of the house too much. We spent a lot of time in Parker’s two favorite spots: the kick ‘n play piano mat and bumbo chair. So much time, in fact, that I made a little video. How cute is this:

I’ve also been putting Parker on his tummy a lot more lately, and he seems to hate it less and less. He’s getting so much better at pushing up and holding up his head, as you can see:

As you can see, I went a little video crazy this week. Of course it would figure that the one time I didn’t have my iPhone in hand, Parker rolled over from his belly to his back for the first time! He had just taken his bath on Friday night, and we had him on a blanket in his nursery. Grandpa Steve was here taking some pictures, and asked Zach to put Parker on his belly for a few shots. As he was checking out the photos on his camera, Zach, Grandma Libby and I watched him roll over all by himself. I couldn’t believe it, but Parker didn’t seem the least bit fazed! So cool that we got to witness this first big milestone.

That was an awesome start to Labor Day weekend. We’re spending the rest of it just hanging out and relaxing before my first big day of work on Tuesday. I get butterflies just thinking about it!