Back to work... kind of.

So I had lunch with my boss last week. Sean and I had pretty much decided I shouldn't go back to this particular job, but there was one problem in my eyes: I have already been out of work for over three months (including bed rest) and I really should have let them know sooner that I wasn't coming back. Part of why I didn't was because I wanted to collect the extended medical leave pay (only fair given they don't offer maternity leave), but I also thought I might not have much of a choice in going back as far as finances.

Anyway, I didn't want to screw over my boss (who is a great lady) nor did I want to burn bridges and ruin what would otherwise be a stellar reference from a job I have held for a couple years. So we decided I will go back part time for about six weeks in order to help them catch up with encountering and cases and to help train someone new. They are already in the hiring process because another worker moved out of state to go back to school, but I don't think they have found anyone yet. 

I start back in two weeks, Oct 5. I will work three days a week: Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. I was fortunate enough to get to choose the days, because these are the days that our family members can watch Ari. He will be with my mom on Mondays and with his aunt Mandy on Tuesdays and Fridays. I don't want to go back to work, even part time and temporarily, but I feel so much better that he will be left with family. Aside from my natural tendency toward anxiety and paranoia, working for daycares and CPS really left me with a fear of leaving my own child with strangers. :p

My boss thinks that once I go back I will want to keep working. She said she thinks I'll enjoy being out of the house and "baby-free" etc. Yeah, right. First, that job is super stressful and busy and crisis-driven and I'm worried about this affecting my milk supply in various ways. But also when the cost of going back to work is calculated out, I would only be bringing home anywhere from $3.75 to maybe $5 an hour.... LOL. Yeah, I don't think I'll want to stick with that kind of paycheck for that kind of stress.

Two weeks left of staying home everyday with my baby... I am going to try to enjoy it, even when he is fussy and waking up every two hours at night! ;-)

Two Months

Ari is two months old today. He had his two month check up; he is a healthy boy. :) He is 10lb 1oz and 22.5" long - 25th percentile for both. At his two week check up he was around the 3rd percentile, so this was a good jump for him. The doctor said his umbilical hernia was very small and minor, nothing to worry about and it will most likely correct on its own within a few months (about what we figured). He had to get immunizations today, which was tough, but he did pretty well. We gave him tylenol beforehand and he screamed pretty good when the first shot went in but stopped crying within a couple minutes, and then I fed him and he was fine.

Ari can hold his head up for long periods of time, roll over from his tummy to his back, push up with his legs and hold all his weight while "standing," smile, track objects with his eyes... and he can (and often does) sleep for 5-6 hours straight at night! He also loves it when mama sings him lullabies and Mockingbird is his favorite - it can calm down a screaming fit faster than most anything else. ;)  He likes to be rocked, he likes to sit up and look around, and he loves to go outside. He continues to be fascinated with the ceiling fan as well.

Here he is this evening, all tired out from his doctor appt, bandaids and all.

I tried to take some two month pics earlier today, but he was kind of fussy as you can see from that pouty lip in the second one.

Somehow when he sleeps on dad, his head starts up by dad's chin and he is vertical, but he always ends up like this.

And some smiles from earlier this week, just because. :)

an update on sleep

Ari finally decided it is ok to sleep in his bassinet at night (knock on wood!). However he is now deciding to wake up between 6:30 and 7:30am, and refusing to take a nap despite total exhaustion until late afternoon. He will fall asleep for a few minutes, and as soon as I move (literally, like shift my legs or anything) he wakes up. Which means from 10 or 11 until he finally falls asleep around 3, he is super fussy. Fun! Then I let him sleep until 6 or 7 and wake him up. After he eats he wants to go right back to sleep, but we have been keeping him up until 9 or 10 so that he will sleep the longest (i.e. 4-5 hrs) at night. Mama is tired of him taking his one or two long naps during the day/evening and then wanting to wake up every two hours at night. So far it seems to be working, we'll see. He has started smiling tons in the past few days but I still haven't caught it on camera, I will post a pic soon hopefully. :)

I am meeting with my boss in a couple weeks to talk about my return to work. They are willing to let me come back part time, three days a week. I'm still reluctant to return to this particular job for various reasons, but I'm not sure what else I can find for part time work that pays anything... I will have to make a decision soon. I -hate- the thought of dropping him at a babysitter's all day, even for only three days a week... it's killing me to think about it.

busy weekend!

Aunt Renee, Uncle Cory, and cousins Ian and Everett visited this weekend and stayed with us. Aunt Piper and cousin Mikaela were also in town staying with Nana. This was Ari's first time meeting his two Flagstaff cousins and their 'rents. On Sunday we had everyone over to go swimming and have lunch. And take pictures, of course! :)

A smile from Everett. :)

Miks showing off her mad back-floating skills.

Ian with Nana.

Ian with Uncle Cory.

I think he had a good time in the pool. ;)

Kaitlin

Camden

The two youngest members of the family hanging out together.

Camden with Ari. Ari fell asleep in Camden's arms after fighting a nap all morning, good job Cam!

The cousins all together. Ian is holding Papa's hand - he wasn't very into the picture taking that morning.

All the kids with one proud Papa.

Kaitlin with Ari.

sleep issues

Ari is what they call an "active baby." He is active even in his sleep: he wiggles out of his swaddle in minutes, makes tons of noise and generally is good at waking himself up. This is most especially true when we try to put him down to sleep in his bassinet... or pack and play... or crib. He wants to sleep with mom or dad, or the one place we can't leave him unsupervised: on a pillow on the cuddler. He will sleep in his bed maybe one in four times, basically when he is super exhausted and totally knocked out. On one hand I think it is cute that he is so snuggly. On the other hand I am getting very frustrated with hardly ever being able to put him down and not getting to sleep in -my- bed at night. We have tried the following to try to remedy this issue:

- we have tried all three of his potential beds

- we swaddle him (have tried tighter and looser swaddling, as well as various types of blankets)

- keeping his lullaby music on after putting him down

- holding him for awhile after he falls asleep so that he is fully asleep before we try to put him down

- propping up one end of his bassinet a couple inches so he's not laying totally flat

Of course this would not be an issue if we wanted to co-sleep for the next few months or years, but we really don't. I don't know what else to try. He is way too little to try 'crying it out,' and I'd like to avoid that if possible anyway. 

He is six weeks old today. I don't have any new pics b/c it is hard to take them during the day when I hardly set him down between all the nursing and naps, and by the evening when Sean is helping I am just not motivated to get the camera out. Doh! I'm tired of typing one-handed so this is all for now....

mini update

Just a few pics... the first is Ari hanging with my friend and coworker Katie who came out for a visit on Sunday. Sunday was a very rough, troubled tummy kind of day, by the end of which he was totally exhausted, as exhibited in the second photo. The third pic is just a cute face that I can't resist kissing, and the last of course is perfect little feet and toes! Also, as far as growth, he weighs at least 8 lbs now. That means he's gaining about 3/4 of a pound per week on average. His aunt Renee tells me that the 12 lb mark might be the magic number for sleeping through the night, so we are going to do lots of nursing in these next few weeks!

one month

Ari is a month old. Crazy how time flies. He is about 22" long (which means he grew 4.5 inches in 4.5 weeks!) and is somewhere in the 7.5-8lb range. He has been eating a lot. His eating/sleeping schedule isn't consistent so far, although his nighttime feedings are starting to form more of a reliable schedule than during the day. He likes ceiling fans as well as the mobile on his changing table. He also likes his bath and being outside (even when it is 100+ degrees!). He seems to be enjoying the swing as well, although of course his favorite place to be is on mom or dad. He is the wiggliest and noisiest baby I've ever been around - not noisy as in crying necessarily (although he does that very well too), he just squeaks, grunts, coos, stretches etc etc all the time, especially when he is sleeping. I'm going to try to get video of him one night, no one believes me about how he's so noisy when he sleeps that he keeps me up a lot of the time. ;p

I'm not sure why these pics look a little blurry, they didn't seem to be when I uploaded them from my camera... blogger probably didn't like the file sizes or something. By the way, his onsie says "ferociously cute" which I think is totally accurate! ;)

4 weeks

I had an OB appointment today. My c-section incision has healed up nicely. I've lost all but about 3lbs of the weight I gained during pregnancy, so that's good. And I got prescriptions, including for birth control, because I'm not going through all this again any time soon! ;p The good news of the day is that the acne medications that I could not take while pregnant, I can take while nursing. Woohoo!

Ari has been more fussy the past few days, a couple days in particular were pretty tough. He seems like he's got tummy troubles; I think the gas drops help some but I'm not really sure. It's kind of a toss up at this point: when he is fussy and won't sleep all day it drives me crazy, but then he will sleep great that night, and when he is less fussy during the day and takes his regular naps, he doesn't want to sleep in his bassinet nor for more than a couple hours at a time that night. Other than that he is doing great, eating lots and definitely growing lots. I wish we had a scale at home that we could get an accurate weight with since his next appt isn't until Sept; at any rate, he's definitely well over 7 lbs now if not close to 8. He is growing length wise too, which is easier to tell because the onsies that were way too big a couple weeks ago fit him perfectly now.

He had a nice time in the swing this morning (don't let his serious old man expression fool you), allowing me to get ready to go to the doctor.

Now he is having a nice long afternoon nap!

3 weeks old

We survived the first week of Sean going back to work... even though Ari has been wanting to eat every 30 min to 2 hrs the past couple days! Our scale says he weighs 7 lbs now!

On Monday Ari and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie with Nana Alexis. Ari slept the whole time and I enjoyed the movie thoroughly! :)

Our week also included just chilling with mom and dad...

... getting all cutified for our first night out on the town to meet my coworkers at happy hour ...

... and trying out the swing for the first time that Aunt Piper is lending us. He was only happy in it for a few minutes, but we must keep in mind that at the time he was pretty fussy in general and it probably didn't help that it was about 88 degrees in the house because the a/c was broken.

First Bath

Ari had his first bath yesterday. We had to give his circumcision a week to heal to Saturday was the first day we were able to bathe him. I was surprised - I was expecting lots of fussing if not outright screaming. But he just sat back and hung out; he did look a little bewildered but not upset. Look how chubby those cheeks are getting! I bet he weighs 6lbs now.