All Good Things

All good things must come to an end.  Today my good thing ended.  I started back to work after being on maternity leave for nearly seven months.  It was surreal to walk back through those doors but I made it through the day.  Of course my mind kept going back to my babies throughout the day.

How could I not think about this sweet little face ALL day?

They both made it through the day perfectly fine.  They are so cute!

It will definitely take some adjusting but I know things will get easier as each day passes.  Thank you to everybody who sent me encouraging words today!

On another note, James had oatmeal for the first time yesterday and he loved it.  And to prove that it is moving through his system just marvelously, I had a bag of dirty clothes waiting for me his daycare as a result of a big blowout.

Trouble

I thought it would be no big deal for James to start taking a bottle even though I've been nursing him for 5 1/2 months.  Wow - I was so wrong!!  It took 5 days of me trying, Josh trying, and even neighbors trying to give him a bottle before he gave in.

Josh finally got him to take the bottle.  Success!!  Can you see how proud Emma is of her little brother?

It turns out that I can't pump milk.  It's not that uncommon but I had never heard of it before.  So if this has happened to you, you are not alone!  I was especially baffled by the whole situation since I did pump for the first week while he was in the NICU.  Apparently I was able to pump then because my body/mind knew my baby needed it.  Now that it has been so long, my body won't let the milk out for anything but my baby.  Who knew?!  It's called "not bonding with your pump."  I know it sounds ridiculous.  I tried and tried for about a week but I finally accepted that it isn't happening for me.  I still nurse him in the morning and before he goes to bed but I have had to slowly wean him during the day.  He has zero problem taking the bottle now and thankfully will still switch back to nursing in the morning and at night.

Trouble number 2:  Separation anxiety!  

Since I'm paying for daycare anyway this whole month I decided to take James for a couple of hours on February 11.  Here is a picture of Emma and James before his first day of school.

He was fine the first day because I only left him for two hours.  But on February 12, I was going to try for three hours.  He was fine for about two hours and then I got the call saying he had been really fussy and upset.  I hightailed it over there and picked him up.  As soon as I had him in my arms he was totally fine.  I'm not going to lie and say it didn't make me a little bit happy that he missed me.  But then reality kicked in and I didn't know how I was going to fix this.  Since I had been nursing him exclusively for so long, the absolute longest I had been away from him during his whole life was 2 hours.  I guess I can't be surprised that he was upset when he couldn't find me.  Bless his little heart! 

I am so thankful that I did take him that day to see how he would do because we were able to use these past two weeks to work our way up to his first full day at school yesterday.  He did so good.  His teachers say that he is very happy and watches all of the other kids intently.  They take them on a stroller ride each day and they go by Emma's classroom so she can say hello to her little brother.  I don't have to tell you thrilled she is with that new development!

I don't want to go back to work next week but at least now I can go back knowing that James will be perfectly fine.  All those working moms out there know how important that is!

Kaboom

Earlier this month our cute little Godson, Christian, turned ONE!  I can't believe a whole year has already gone bye.

Me and the birthday boy.

Emma was being silly and falling backwards onto the big stuffed animals.  Christian decided that it looked really fun and he kept trying to do it throughout out the party...

Ready...

Here I go...

Kaboom!

Don't worry - he never hurt himself the whole time. There was always somebody right behind him to catch him.  I hope he doesn't try to do that anymore.  Sorry, Jaime!

Christian eating his cake.

Emma enjoying the festivities.

Happy Birthday, Christian!  We love you!!

Ant

While we were visiting my parents, one of their neighbors let Emma ride one of their horses.  She really enjoyed it and still talks about riding Ant the horse all the time.

 She's off

Doing her first lap around

Getting her first lesson on how to pull the reigns and control the horse.

Within minutes she was riding all by herself.

Big girl!

Giving Ant a carrot for being such a good ride.

And a cookie...because who doesn't want a cookie after a job well done?

Cousins!

I had so many pictures of Emma and her cousin, Jay, from our visit that I needed to devote an entire post to them!

Buddies

This is probably one of my favorites of the two of them.  They both look so grown up.

Taking a little rest together as they watch Winnie the Pooh.

At the park

At the aquarium.  One of the only ones of all three of them that we got!

Silly Faces

Saying hello to the lemurs

At the touch tank

She touched the starfish...but wasn't willing to touch anything else at that time.

Johanthan was the biggest kid of all...we couldn't drag him away from the exhibit!  We had to just leave him and let him catch up to us.

Watching the diver in the tank

They both loved this albino alligator.

 

FISH

Touching the alligator

Captain Jay.  He requested that we all refer to him as that and Emma did.  She would start to say just Jay and then back track and start over with, "Captain Jay, let's go over here and do this."  So cute.

Shipwrecked on the turtle she said.  She is all about turtles these days.

Jellyfish

These two intently put this puzzle together for quite a while one night.  It was so quiet that we thought they were up to something.

Last group cousins shot.  Aren't they adorable?!