Abs of Flab

Tell me the truth, should I be embarrassed by the fact that my almost 4.5 month old daughter can do a better stomach crunch than I? Sigh.

Good luck baby

Last weekend when we were in Green Bay for a wedding, I got a kick out of how people responded to the baby. There were so many people who would shake her feet on their way out of the church. Instead of rubbing Budda's belly, just shake our little baby's feet and you'll have a long and prosperous life.

I decided to include a picture of the wedding cake just because it might be the only thing I've taken a picture of other than my daughter, so it must be worthy of comment. Is this not the perfect image of a wedding cake that every little girl dreams about having, but no bride really ends up wanting??? It must have cost a fortune!

PS On a related note... Happy anniversary to Ellie's parents! It's hard to believe that it's been 3 years since we had a much much much less extravagant cake of our own!

Too Small

Last week when I was packing for Green Bay I came across the first outfit that Ellie never wore. It was a super cute purple onesie that was size 0-3 months. It tugged at my heart strings because she would have been so cute in it and I thought for sure that I'd never allow an outfit to go unworn.

In my defense, it's not my fault. I have a system. I put all the clothes away in piles according to sizes, and somehow, someone (it could have been me, but I'll blame everyone else instead) put the onesie into the 6 month pile. And because of their mistake, I was left to realize how big my baby is getting. I hate it when I have to put more clothes into the "Too Small" box.

Big News!

I officially got down to my pre-pregnancy weight this morning, which is sadly still 7 pounds above what I want to be. That's not to say that my body looks the same as it did, because it doesn't. That seems strange to me. However, I did manage to take off the weight. So yay! Please, no applause. Just throw money. =)

August Pictures

You would not believe how hard it is for me to cut down the number of pictures we take of Ellie to 255 per month. That's my goal, but the older she gets, the cuter she gets. I think I deserve a cookie for being able to limit myself like this, and to think... I only included 62 of them for your viewing pleasure.

You used to be that small

I remember our first pediatrician appointment. Ellie was only 4 days old (we had to go in daily because of her jaundice). There was a mother there who had a 5 month old little girl and she quietly told the girl "you used to be that small". I remember thinking proudly "yes, look at how perfectly cute and small my girl is."

Earlier this week I stopped by the doctor's office to pick up some paperwork for daycare. I saw a newborn girl, only 6 days old, who was born at 6 lbs 3 oz. I quietly told Ellie "you used to be that small" and I saw the new mother smile. Sigh. I'm now the mother of a big baby. Still perfectly cute, but no longer small.

White Gold down the drain

We have over 100 oz of breast milk frozen in the freezer. I've been proud of my stock and we planned to use it to help feed Ellie when she started daycare since I will most likely produce less as I pump.

The thing that sucks most about parenting must be all the books. Every book says something different and the book we went by said that freshly pumped milk was good for 5 days in the fridge. So I happily pump my way along and when I got to 10 oz or 5 days, I would freeze a new bag of milk.

Bad milk. I now know that. The book that my sister is learning from says that freshly pumped milk should be frozen if not used in 48 hours. UGH!

I have no idea how much of my milk stock is bad but I do know the oldest bag was. I am hoping that not all of it is and I know that at some point I started freezing it sooner than 5 days. But it's so damn frustrating!

Instead of giving the daycare frozen milk, I now need to thaw it myself to make sure it's not bad. What would the daycare think if I gave them bad milk to feed my precious little bundle???

UGH. It just kills me to think of how much wasted milk it might end up being.

How are you?

Some questions should just be banned.

No, seriously. When is that question a good one to ask? If things are going well, you always get the "Fine" answer. If things aren't going well, you get the "Fine" answer.

For me, you get the "Fine" accomanied by tears.

I've never been good at holding back the tears, especially if someone shows any ounce of sympathy.

I have been back at work now for 2 hours and 2 minutes and it's going to be a long long day...

Traveling with Baby

As I mentioned yesterday, we all went to Green Bay for the weekend. Traveling with Michael was significantly nicer than traveling alone, as it always was even before Ellie came into our lives. Really, he just had an amazing ability to get her to calm down or sleep during the flights. Oh, don't get me wrong... she still cried. And still cried a lot, but it would have been so much worse if he wasn't so great with her.

I have a great family. Really. You should be jealous. =)

Today's Deep Thought

We went to Green Bay this weekend for Michael's cousin's wedding. It provided us a nice excuse to go see all of his grandparents so that they could meet their great-grand-daughter. More about the trip later, when I have more energy to type, but for now, I bring you today's deep thought...

How can Michael's grandma, at the age of 95 years old, be the youngest in her family, yet Ellie, at the age of 4.5 months old, is the oldest. Deep.

* This deep thought was brought to you by Michael and the letter T.