To be so lucky.

It is SUCH a good feeling to lay around with no work the next day! 

We're home, safe and happy, watching a storm do its thing outside our windows. The baby got tired out after a morning at the pool with our friends earlier, then we drove the two point five hours home.

Wouldn't it be great to have someone cart you around like this? And hold you all the time? And make all your food for you?!

Yippee skippee for one extra weekend day!
xoxo, natty ♥

I needed that.

Today we had a great time with out friends and then we got home and I passed off our baby and promptly took a long nap. After two weeks of back-to-work I was one tired teacher...and one lucky mama to have hands to hold that baby!!!

Is the weekend going this quickly? We drive back tomorrow to enjoy a night at home without an early wake-up looming over our heads and to get ready for the week.
xoxo, natty ♥

The Sweetest Place on Earth.

Tonight, after not-too-bad traffic, we rolled into Hershey, PA, for a weekend with friends...and a sayonara to summer. We're so happy to be here and ready for a fun few days!
xoxo, natty ♥

Cuz you had a long day.

Tonight, after three days of class, we had our first back-to-school-night and I realized that I hadn't worked full-time for over five months...like, woah.

And, with that, I'm POOPED and ready for bed and a great weekend ahead...after some sleep and a few hours of school tomorrow.
xoxo, natty ♥

Earlier and earlier each year.

23 weeks.

It was a big week for our little girl...let's look at the deets:

• An impromptu visit with Grandma and Zaide! They got to do the bedtime routine for two nights and Hanna Lu was very happy in their company; very vocal too with lots of shrieking!
• The baby experienced her first Maryland crab feed, though vicariously, obviously.
• Baby tried rice cereal for the first time; though not all of it stayed in our daughter seemed QUITE the fan. I made it thicker yesterday than the day before and thicker tonight than yesterday. Tonight Ms. Lu even ate way more than the first two times.
• Our child kind of crawled; she pulled herself forward on her tummy and it was ever-so-deliberate. This was yesterday and the little stinker would not perform for us today but my goodness what a thrill! Her poor little knees get red when this happens and I guess I could put her in pants every day or start using those cute baby leg warmers we got. Today's activity was that HL would roll over to one side instead of inching forward and then not roll back. 
• Has shown a renewed interest in her feet...especially while in the bath!
• Hanna Lu had a new babysitter, a friend of ours, while we were out and about.
• We're still going to daycare each day. She hasn't gotten sick yet but I feel a tickle in my throat and imagine there's something around the corner for either or both of us.
• I have a work obligation one night this week so Daddy will do bedtime on his own for the first time and we're also looking forward to a weekend with friends.

It's seriously Monday???

What a truly lovely weekend we had...a bit more about what's going on:

1. Our little sweet thing started to snack on some rice cereal yesterday. I'm a big fan of the idea of babies getting to feed themselves food {as opposed to being spoon-fed}but grandparents were in town, we're not quite ready for the real food yet, and the pediatrician mentioned rice cereal as an option to start. Yesterday she let it all fall out of her mouth because I made it very watery.

Today we mixed it a bit thicker and some more stayed in. But the real joy was how INTO it she was...the babe kept asking for more, in her own little way. 

2. This afternoon I got to shake the president's hand in his Oval Office. No details as to why, just an opportunity that opened up. It was pretty amazing and all politics aside, I think it's an honor to shake a leader's hand. Baby Lu, unfortunately, was not invited. I'm sure she'll love that fact when she's older.

3. Mikey's parents were here through tomorrow morning for said presidential hand-shaking. I was really happy to see them spend time with baby Melamed and wish my family were able to sneak in a quick visit sometime soon...can anyone come out here?!?!?!

4. This morning afforded us a bit of a sleep-in since I took off the day to go to 1600 Pennsylvania...OH GOSH oh quickly things change when returning to work.

5. That small child I keep referencing crawled today. It wasn't the traditional baby crawl, more of an army/inch-worm movement but oh my goodness I daresay it's a bit early for this? Her little knees were so red but we were all so proud.

I hope that you're having a good week Reader. I'm looking forward to feeling better than I did last week as well as having a fun weekend trip planned.
xoxo, natty ♥

Leisurely caffeine.

Baby, grandma, and I spent the morning at a coffee shop in DC. It was leisurely, delicious {black forest ham and cheddar croissant for the win}, and relaxing; exactly what I look for in a weekend when I'm back at work {yes, a bit early for it, but it's glorious to have summers to look forward to}.

We ♥ Tryst's animal crackers.

Then we had a nice afternoon visiting, trying rice cereal for the first time, and ordering pizza for dinner {PETE'S!!}.
Have a great week ahead folks!
xoxo, natty ♥

New baby.

I was privileged to meet a new baby this morning; Baby Jack is two weeks old and cute as a button. His parents also seem to be faring much better than we were at that point; ha! Live and learn, right?

We're spending the day hanging out with Grandma and Zaide and happy to have a lovely weekend to enjoy.
xoxo, natty ♥

And football.

I live and work in Maryland which is a crab state so to ring in the new school year a Crab Feast is held.

This kind of crab is not what I'm used to, hailing from the Bay Area of California {not the Chesapeake}. Back home we eat steamed Dungeness {perhaps with a bit of seasoning in the water and maybe butter for dipping} crab meat which provides lots of meat per crab - one person might be fat and happy from two crabs. Perhaps three or four. These guys out here are steamed in Old Bay seasoning in bushels. There's not a whole lot of meat per crab but there is a ton of flavor and work involved in extricating that meat {we use crackers to get to the Dungeness pinchers and legs and the big meaty center part easily forfeits its goods}...the shells are soft enough to use little wooden mallets to get at it and the legs can just be cracked with one's hands. One person can easily go through five to ten.

And oh my that Old Bay is salty; I always needs gallons of water after one of these meals. Not to mention something else to eat because after much time spent working for the meat, there's not a whole lot to show for the work put forth and that leaves some appetite. 

Baby Hanna was very amenable even though it was way past her bedtime and we're super excited for the weekend ahead; Grandma and Zaide are coming to town!!!
xoxo, natty ♥

Getting there.

I think this gets better {leaving my child in the care of someone who isn't me or her father} each day. 

I'm not dwelling on it too much because then I go back on the thought of "I think this gets better?". Today I felt some glimmers of hope, throughout intermittent tearing up, that these feeling of despair will improve. I was just SO happy to be at home with her. SO SO happy. And now I get a few hours a day when she's not sleeping.

In other happier news, I love that baby of mine SO much and I'm extremely lucky that I had such a great time at home with her. It's interesting, the first six weeks of our baby's life were extremely challenging for me {health issues, normal baby fussiness, etc.} and I was experiencing feelings of fear {that she wouldn't sleep? That I would be SO SO tired? - so odd these fears were always in vain...baby never screamed for an entire night...as tired as I was I was alwas able to muddle through [something I'm revisiting as I go back to my job]} but there was a point in May where I stopped being afraid and things started to go on the up and up; they're still going up and it's amazing just how much we all progressed.

This week has been TOUGH on me. Our baby seems alright, though we've had some disruption to our sleeping pattern and I think that's normal when her whole routine is now different. Having less of a commute is wonderful. And, again, I had more time at home with our kiddo than many women do and for that I'm beyond grateful. Plus, I get a week at Thanksgiving, two at Christmas, one at Easter {would I exchange this all for going back to work a month later? Or having summer break start a month earlier?}, and the entirety of next summer to look forward to...also much more than most folks. Lucky me ♥.

Here's to Friday and an impromptu visit from my in-laws...no easy feat when they live across our large country!
xoxo, natty ♥

Lonche.

22 weeks.

I made a lot of updates in yesterday's post but let's still think about being 22 weeks old, after all, it only happens once.

Kiddo tucks in her chin making it look like she has no neck; Uncle Fester Baby Hanna! {Any Addams Family fans out there?!} Also...I think it's safe to say that baby Lu will not have long dancer's legs? Maybe shorter soccer player legs? Long or short, I love every inch of them.

• Making wonderful screeching, gooing, cooing sounds.
• Goes to daycare from about 7 to 4 each day; I'm trying to remain positive about this but I miss her SO much during the day.
• Is still into her binkies.
• Still loves her playmat friends.
• Is a rolling over MACHINE...she usually sleeps on her tummy {rolls over almost immediately after being placed on her back}.
• Was taking mostly bottles during the day last week...now that's all she has during the day and gets to nurse right before bed some days and always in the middle of the night.
• Is exploring with some new sounds, especially this hilarious hissing sort of sound. There's a bit of a consonant in there {"g"?}. I love it.
• Thinks her "brother" is hilarious and loves the feel of his scratchy fur.

         She really does enjoy looking at this pooch and even laughs at him.

         He loves to lick her face and she winces now even if he just walks towards her...

That whorl of hair kills me.

         and though the hound is quite fond of the little one, he's still is own man and
         can walk away if and when he wants.

• Took some GREAT naps last week; I'm not sure how well that's going at daycare now but she gets a little "report" card each day and yesterday {her first day} said she took a couple of good ones.
• Got to lick a piece of a cucumber {thank you daddy} and really showed no reaction.
• Sits happily in her little highchair; it clips on to the edge of our island counter {which we use as our "table"}.
• Is more and more interested in what we're drinking or eating.
• Really enjoys the little crab toy on her exersaucer; she sucks on his ribbon legs.
• Adores Dolly Baby.
• Likes to scratch/feel things. I always think she might want something to hold onto because her hand opens and shuts but she never holds onto something for very long, I think she just likes the feeling of things.
• Is getting pretty good at sitting up for a few seconds on her own...as seen below:

         right before I let her topple over and hit her head on the hard floor. Baby and I
         cried together; it was awful.

• Is our light and joy - we LOVE this kid so much.

xoxo, natty ♥

Five months.

Today was a big day; Hanna Lu is five months old, I went back to work, and babe started day care. I’m surprised we’re gearing up to do it all over again tomorrow; we were pooped! What a FUN month it has been. I’m so super grateful to have had time with our baby as a baby baby, not just a glorified newborn. She has been so interactive and fun to do things with and I’ve been soaking it all in and am already looking forward to next summer when the weeks lay ahead of us.

Let’s think about some details, shall we?

How old: five months

Weight: somewhere around 15 pounds is my guess. I’ve been trying to get the child used to bottles during the day and so I can really {somewhat} control how much she takes in and I think it’s helped her pack on a few more ounces than she usually does in a month. Though I could be wrong, who knows, our scale can be inaccurate, etc. But, around 15 pounds!

Likes:

• Dolly Baby! HL loves to gnaw on Dolly’s satin ballet slipper clad feet. It grosses me out that she gets so soggy so I wash this thing several times a week.
• Frozen milk in a mesh/silicone feeder; this was a big hit!
• Watching mom and dad do anything, especially drink anything…child is so curious!
• Sitting in her new “highchair”; it’s a clamp on for our counter/table and the new vantage point is pleasant for Hanna Lu.
• Her binkies; some days more so than other but little bit is enjoying the paci. I put her down to sleep with one and while most nights it gets spat out soon after, sometimes it’s in there for quite a while. This is also handy in the car whereas she used to shriek, she’s pretty chill now, though we haven’t done much driving recently.
• Babbling and smiling and cooing and making her parents and dog fall in love with her.
• Being outside and seeing trees.
• Sleeping on her tummy; this was a scary one for us the first few nights. Now we know she’s “ok” with it but even though she can easily roll in both directions now, she doesn’t know it when she wakes up and isn’t thrilled to be “stuck” on her stomach.
• Her bath; this baby kicks and splashes each night…we soap her up only every other night since it’s not like she’s really rolling around in the dirt each day, we just really like the whole bath time routine.
• Scratching/feeling things; the couch, the mesh sides of her pack n’play, and our dog Guinness are the faves.
• “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” by Eric Carle…the kid goes nuts when we read her this book and it’s hilarious.
• Library story/song time…especially Miss Gillian at our local library.
• The crab on her “Neptune” themed exersaucer. He has little ribbon legs that she obsessively sucks on. Again, like with Miss Dolly, this grosses me out to no end but we can’t stop her, she loves it, and I can’t even throw this thing in the washer.
• Facetime on the phone; this baby goes NUTS on facetime…she loves her grandparents and great-grandmother and really lets them know it!

Dislikes:

• Eating, if she’s really tired. It’s like all she wants to do is sleep but her mama insists she have a good meal before going down.
• Being left for too long…sometimes we get absorbed in getting things done around the apartment and Hanna just wants some mama/daddy attention but we try to leave her on her playmat or in her exersaucer {thank you Craigslist!}…she loves these things but not if she’s ready for some people-time.

Milestones:

• Meeting some of our nearest and dearest friends at a wedding in Milwaukee.
• Starting daycare!
• This is a prediction of a milestone considering she just started daycare – baby will probably have her first little cold/bug soon…fun times ahead.
• Taking more bottles during the day.
• SLEEPING – we let Hanna Lu teach herself to self-soothe and fall asleep alone and she went from sleeping maybe two hours at a time to 10 to 12, with a snack or two thrown in. It took a few nights for this and then a few more after our trip to Wisconsin. Naps were much harder but just this past three or four days naps were the same deal…baby can go into her little “room” with her binky and her sound machine on {falling rain} awake and {as of a week ago or so} rolls right over to sleep. Sometimes she may fuss a bit if she’s overly tired or something but this is it. Some naps are short, but she’s guiding it and I’m OK with that as long as she goes down…though we had several days of three-hour-ers this past week – AMAZING. With the starting of daycare I’m predicting some regression with her sleeping but it is what it is and our daughter has impressed us so very much with her progress.

Sleep and eat:

• For sleep, see above!
• Hanna Lu can take a seven ounce bottle every three hours, though six ounces really seems to be her jam…mama pushes those last 30 mL. Up to today, I had been nursing in the middle of the night and in the morning, and maybe right before bed, with about three of those five-to-seven ounce bottles during the day. Now with daycare, daddy will probably give a bottle when baby wakes up while I pump/get ready for the day…and then I’d like to keep nursing her at bedtime and during the night.

Miscellaneous:

• We’re still loving our cloth diapers and I hope that with the busy-ness and craziness of school/work/life balance we can continue to do so. Daycare today seemed OK with them and had her little wet/dry bag full for us when we picked up baby so I’m grateful for that.
• Hanna Lu is wearing mostly three-to-six month clothes; she can fit in six month clothes. I can get her into some 0-three month clothes but they really look like capris and quarter-length sleeved outfits on her so, yeah, maybe those can be retired.
• Baby is wearing size two or three in disposable diapers; she’s not in the weight suggestions for size three diapers but in the size twos while we were traveling we had a “blow out” each and every day, sometimes several times a day, and I’ve read that a high occurrence of “incidents” indicates too-small diapers. In her cloth diapers, Hanna Lu has only one column of snaps exposed and they’re on the smallest “length”; this might make no sense at all to those who aren’t familiar with the “Bumgenius” brand of cloth diapers but at least I’ll remember!
• We’re looking forward to some rice cereal later this month followed by “baby-led-weaning” beginning in earnest at around six months…more on that later!
• Also, we are excited to meet a dear friend in the next month and have an impromptu visit with grandma and Zaide just this upcoming weekend!

Just for fun: these may not be the ones I've used for each monthly post but same difference...she doesn't look too much different from month two until now but oh my goodness how she has changed since then. I also love how in her first picture those legs were tucked in tight - they're constantly kicking now!

xoxo, natty ♥

There goes the adrenaline.

Today marked a few things; I returned to work after a five and half month long maternity leave, I had to use my brain for non-baby related things, and our baby went to daycare for the first time. It was all OK and whatever until I put said baby to bed and things settled a bit and, to be honest, I started to rage at the world about my perceived personal injustices...why families are separated, why there isn't a year-long maternity/paternity leave situation in our country, why we haven't won the lottery several times over, why my job is so exhausting, etc. I had been fighting those negative feelings all afternoon and had been doing alright but I gave in and really felt awful. Michael left to play soccer and I wallowed for a bit. Then I had to get into action to start the tedious process of getting ready for the next day. Which, when I think about it, is actually a privilege. It all is, truly.

Today's Costco pick-up...girl really needs legs on her jammies since she tends to hold onto/scratch her legs while falling asleep? Plus...KITTY CAT FOOTIE FLEECE JAMMIES.

So...

1. We have a beautiful and growing daughter. She's currently wearing footie pajamas and in the next room over and our love for her is so overwhelming it's painful. And she can frustrate the heck out of us at times...still a privilege.

2. I have a job at a good school with good coworkers and students and really good health insurance.

3. We have amazing family and friends.

4. We live in a vibrant and diverse area of the country.

5. Education and the pursuit of knowledge {& trashy celebrity gossip...#balance} is valuable in our little home...as is freedom to pursue whatever piques our interest.

6. Let's continue...

7. I had an amazing time "at-home" with our daughter...we got to spend really quality time with family in California and Arizona, we got to know each other and grow together, and we learned so much.

8. Free lunch at work! Yippee! 

9. Said lunch includes dessert.

Are you ever able to overcome or overpower those doldrums Reader? Do you give in for a bit before you can stomp all over them? And do you LOVE being buoyed by the positive thoughts and joy there is in life?
xoxo, natty ♥

Here we go.

Its been an amazing five months {plus if you count the time I was off before this child came into our lives} and I'm grateful for each and every minute of it as it comes to an end - I return to work tomorrow.

I'm enjoying a night cap on our balcony with the pooch; downtown Silver Spring and our baby's drying diapers are my view and it's very mild out - quite nice.

I could have much to say about this new chapter of our lives and I think it will be good for me to do so but for now I'm enjoying the love I have for a little nugget asleep in her Halloween pajamas {hey, it's Target's fault for pushing that ish this early} and the warm evening around me.

Wish us luck.

xoxo, natty

Little day at the pool.

Today we enjoyed one of the last open weekends at our rooftop pool with friends.

Hanna Lu and I got in the water even though it wasn't that warm. The baby also thoroughly enjoyed the company of friends who took turns holding her.

It was a lovely little last Saturday before school/work starts.
xoxo, natty ♥

Even the weather's acting the part.

We're in the midst of some unseasonably cool weather in our parts {think high 70s, low humidity}. And I'm sad because today is our official last weekday of maternity leave together. I had planned to take baby to story time at our old library in DC but she apparently had planned to take a serious nap {not one of her usual kitty cat naps} and is still snoozing strong, which, don't get me wrong, is  GREAT thing. It'll be fine since there's a Saturday morning story time at our local library so it's not that big of a bummer to miss out on this one.

I had also planned to be around later in the afternoon because someone was going to come by and pick up some things I'm selling on Craiggy's list but that person flaked out inciting some true IRE in me; why do people do that?!

What I'm getting at via the title in this oh-so-random blog post is that it feels like autumn outside and as much as I enjoy that season {more and more each year}, it portends returning to work.

But we still have the rest of today; here's to Friday!
xoxo, natty ♥

Phantom babies.

Since we live in such a small space and when the baby is sleeping she's never further than the next room, we don't use a baby monitor - though we have one from our travels this summer {our family homes are just that, houses, not apartments} that we should've just left there. Anyway...

Because I'm always straining to hear if our child is crying awake from a nap or sleeping, I think I've developed an unfortunate parental syndrome - I'm always hearing her scream.

I'm sure I'm sure I'm not the only one but ugh, this isn't fun! I'm constantly debating if I should get up to go listen for her cries or just wait until/for if she's genuinely awake.

Maybe we should be using that baby monitor anyway?
xoxo, natty ♥

The view from up here.