Roly Poly

I'm not sure how this is even possible since last time I blinked my baby was just a few days old, but apparently he's 7 weeks old now! and he can ROLL OVER! Sort of. With just a little help. But check it out...



He will do anything and I mean anything to not be on his tummy! Isn't that just crazy??

When not on his tummy, he loves that play mat. He can really focus on things now and will bat at those animals and is completely captivated staring up at them. Plus this means he can really focus on mom and dad too now! That's the best. Maybe tied with the milk smirk for the best actually :) LOVE the milk smirk!

Baby shower!

I bet you thought I'd never do this post! I was starting to think that too :) But here it is. yay!

It seems like my shower was ages ago! I mean, it was a quite a while ago, but so much has happened since then it seems even longer (and um, have I done my thank you cards? No. No, I haven't. Argh! Stop judging me! The cards are staring at me right now...). But it was such a wonderful day and such a wonderful weekend, it really deserves a blog entry.

First, let me say. It was HOT that weekend. Of course, since I had so many friends and family coming into town it had to be completely unbearable to be in DC. You really have to love DC in the summer :) But that's been the story of this entire summer. My mom, brother, sister in law, best friend and her fiance all came to stay with us and it was quite the full house! But the more the merrier. We had such a great weekend and ate like royalty. That's just how we do it around here!

(sidenote, if you have a crowd for breakfast and really want to splurge...you MUST try this!
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/05/cinnamon-baked-french-toast/)



Saturday was the baby shower and it was just wonderful! So many people came into town. It was so much fun to see everyone and I'm so thankful people took the time out of their busy schedules to celebrate with me. My mother in law and sister in law (ok, brother in law's wife, but we just stick with sister in law, right april?!? hehe) put together the cutest shower. I loved it! It had a beatles theme, just like the nursery. You can see the diaper cake in the picture above and below is the close up of the favor. Is that just the cutest damn thing? I love it! We had Beatles trivia and I got some great Beatles themed presents! I'm assuming most babies aren't rolling around with a Bealtes diaper bag, but JJ is :) BTW those great little Beatles pins on the diaper cake will make a reappearance in the nursery. If/when I ever get that blog post up, you'll see how I worked those into the nursery too!



I got oodles and oodles of cute baby clothes and a ton of gear. We were officially ready for baby after the shower. Which is a good thing since he came 2 weeks later!

Last thing is a quick shot of me with my mom (aka, Granny Franny). It's so funny to see pictures of when I was pregnant now that I'm not. Damn, I was BIG! I didn't think I was that big...but wow. I'm so glad I took lots of belly pictures during the pregnancy or I'd never remember exactly how big I got :)

1 month!!

Can it really be possible that JJ is already one month old? It seems so crazy to me. But the calendar does not lie. I'm sure part of the problem is I've lost all sense of time. Day, night...these things mean nothing to someone who only sleeps 3 hours at a time! I see 3:00 am as often as I see 3:00 pm. *sigh*

What a month it's been, too. As much as I thought I was prepared for all of this, I wasn't even close! There is no way to be prepared really. I mean, you can have the nursery set up, the car seat installed...all that good stuff. But that's just a small fraction of it. What I was really unprepared for was how emotional the whole month has been. It seemed so cliche to say your whole life changes, but it's SO true! My life is so wonderfully different now and I wouldn't want it any other way. He's made us so happy. And I'm saying that after he kept me up from 4:45 am - 8:30 am last night :) The hours seem to fly by and all I do sometimes is hold him in my arms and stare at that beautiful face!



There were a few things that really took me by surprise. The first is how conflicted I feel about returning to work. Don't get me wrong, I'm going back to work. Sadly, we're a two income house and there is no way around that! But almost every day I have this crazy internal debate. I really never imagined that I'd even question the idea of wanting to go back. But what I wouldn't give for some flexibility. It's strange because I really do want to work. I really enjoy what I do and have a lot of ambition in terms of having a successful career. I have a lot of opportunities in front of me right now, not to mention a boatload of responsibilities to return to. But the "want this more than anything" phrase isn't included in this right now. The idea of leaving JJ for 40+ hours a week seems like the very worst form of torture. I know it will all work out and what helps is I have a really supportive boss. But can't I just keep JJ next to my desk for lots of cuddle time during the day? That would be great!!

The second thing is my desire for time to slow down, yet at the same time speed up. Does that make sense?!? My leave is FLYING by. Every day goes so fast. I love every minute with JJ and wish the day was twice as long so there were twice as many minutes! But at the same time, I'm so anxious to see him grow. I can't wait for all the big milestones. It's amazing that he can already hold his head up so much more than he could just a few weeks ago. Before when we put him in the car seat, his little head would slump right over. Now he can hold his head up straight. He's so alert! It's amazing. So I need JJ to stay a tiny little baby but also grow and change :)

The last thing is how happy I am v. the horror film that plays in my head. I know I'm a broken record, but this little bugger makes me so happy! He's so cute! Such a little stinker. hehe. (is it awful that most of my nicknames with him involve the word "stinker"?) But, OMG, I am constantly worrying about all the things that could go wrong! So he's been home for a little over a month...and between me and Scott we probably check that he's breathing 100 times a day, so give or take 3000 times total since he's been born! Luckily, I can say with complete confidence that he's still breathing :) PHEW! Of course, what doesn't help with the horror film is that I nearly killed the baby last night. We had him on his play mat, which I promptly tripped on (the slowest, most drawn out trip EVER) and he flipped right over. Within 30 seconds, he was totally fine. Me? Not so much. I'm sure it's normal to cry on and off for like 2 hours after nearly killing your baby. Right? UGH.

I'm so ready for month 2! Can't wait to see what this little guy has in store for us :)

Welcome to the world, JJ!

Well, I've decided to work backwards here. I totally intend on posting about my wonderful baby shower and showing off the beatles themed nursery we put together. But first things first...it's time to say welcome to our beautiful son, JJ! He came a bit earlier than expected, but we couldn't be happier to have our healthy, happy boy home with us now.

Magnessium SUCKS

I'll try to keep the story short and sweet. I got the call from my doctor's office on Monday, July 12, to go in to Sibley for observation after getting some strange test results back the week before. My totally uneventful pregnancy took quite a strange turn at the very end. We truly never imagined they would decide to keep me! But they decided I was having an "atypical" presentation of preeclampsia and needed to be induced immediately (and later on Tuesday, was also diagnosed with Cholestasis, so strange). Luckily, we were prepared at home, but at work...hmmm, not so much :) oh well. I had to go on magnessium, which is some really crazy stuff and put me totally out of commission for over 2 days. I was induced monday night and started pitocin on Tuesday morning. I labored. and labored. and LABORED. All I can say is thank god for epidurals :) After not progressing much over 14 hours, we all decided that a c-section was the only way to go. So at 9:17 pm on Tuesday, July 13, our beautiful boy was born! I was so out of it from that magnessium, but even through the haze I know it was the most emotional, wonderful moment of my life. He was so tiny and perfect. Talk about love at first sight!

Happy Birthday, JJ!

Because he was born early and was very lethargic from the magnessium, he was whisked off very quickly to the special care nursery. Scott got to hold him and I got to give him a quick kiss. That was the last I got to see of him for 26 LONG HOURS. Never has a day moved so slowly before. I had to be kept on the magnessium and epidural for the entire next day, so I was stuck in bed. He needed constant care, so he couldn't be taken from the nursery. So there was no way I could see him. Ugh, it was awful. Luckily, Scott could! He took lots and lots of pictures for me.

Finally :)

JJ stayed in the special care nursery for 8 days. That sucked. No other way to say it. I got sent home on Saturday and was told to go home and "rest". Yet had to be at the hopsital all day for feedings. Not to mention, being away from him was pretty much out of the question for me. However, the silver lining was the incredible level of care he received from the nurses. In fact, all I can do is rave about all the the nurses we had at Sibley. One was more amazing than the next. The special care nurses spent a lot of time with us giving tons of advice and pep talks. Trust me, I needed some pep talks in order to leave that hospital without my son. *sigh*

Proud Daddy

But on Tuesday, July 20, we got to take JJ home! And here we are, 12 days after he was born happy at home with our son. Tired? Yes, oh god yes. But insanely happy. I now understand what people mean by your whole life changes. I could stare at him for hours on end! We made this handsome boy? Is that really possible!?! Apparently it is :) Welcome to the world, JJ! We can't wait to see you grow from our little baby to a big boy. Just not too fast, ok?

Our beautiful boy

JJ's first concert!

I'm so behind. SO behind. I'm sorry! The last few weeks have been total madness. Lots of cleaning, cooking and hosting all sorts of company. It's been tons of fun (which I also feel could be my nickname at the moment), but left very little time for fun things like posting pictures. I figure I might as well go back to the begining of June and work forward from there. I have a post coming about my amazing Beatles themed baby shower and nursery pictures are on the way! Need to get the crib up this weekend...but we're making really good progress in there and I can't wait to show everyone!



I figured I would do a quick post on JJ's very first concert. We went to see Jeff Beck at Wolftrap on June 7. What an AMAZING concert. If you ever get a chance to see him live, do it. He's a legend for a reason. I have to admit, I was initially a little nervous that I would get bored. He doesn't have anyone on vocals. This concert was 90% instrumental (his bass player sang maybe 3 songs in the 2.5 hour concert). But the man is insanely good and his entire band was fantastic. As we walked out I heard a woman say "he doesn't need a singer, his guitar does the singing". Such a cheesy thing to say. But 100% true.

His bass player is someone you need to check out. I linked her website and a youtube video below. She's maybe 24. According to Scott, super hot...and simply ROCKS OUT. I can't say enough about her.

http://www.talwilkenfeld.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdX6ly6ftUM&feature=fvw

On top of all of this...Wolftrap is such a great place for a concert. I'm not sure why this is only the second time we've been. It's small, cheap, the lawn was fantastic and you can bring your own food/drink in. You really can't beat that. As you can see, Scott enjoyed tailgating before the show :) It was a beautiful night...probably 80s during the day and 60s at night. In June. In DC. who knew!



Last but not least...here's a picture of JJ enjoying his first concert! I was about 31 weeks when this was taken (35 weeks tomorrow - holy!). Please don't judge me for the brownie. I'm pregnant, ok? lay off! hehe.

The great freezer cook down

I've gotten into the habit over the last year or so of really taking advantage of the freezer. Stocking up when things were on sale, chopping up my own fruits and veggies and having a great stash of chicken stock in there. Oh, and probably some kind of ice cream at all times. But that's unrelated to this :) We officially reached maximum capicity last weekend and began clearing the freezer out. You know, to make room for my next round of hoarding. We cooked and cooked all weekend (inspired by our recent trip to a cooking class!).

Scott had been stashing lobster and shrimp shells in there and have accumulated enough to make (a TON of) seafood stock. No picture of this since, well, its a big bowl of brown liquid. But it did stink the apartment up something fierce, I'll tell you that much.

Next step? Cooking the chicken I had stashed in there. See picture above. It was deeeeelicious. We made a quick herb butter to put under the skin and baked it in the oven (finished it off on our indoor grill - which had been used earlier for grilled corn, mmmm). The best part though? The potatoes! (see below) Want to make some seriously amazing potatoes? I know you do. I saw this trick on America's Test Kitchen and all I can say is YUM. See how're they're all brown and glistening? Yeah, that's because we cooked them on a tray with the chicken baking on a rack above it. So they cooked in the fat and juices coming off the chicken. Please do yourself a favor and try this! The flavor was seriously outrageous. Note I didn't say healthy. I said outrageous ;)



I was then able to make a big batch of chicken stock from the leftovers. I hate buying the boxed/canned stuff. There is no comparison. Plus making your own stock is beyond cheap and easy.

Next! The bag of previously fresh, now frozen blueberries I had. We made a blueberry buckle. I used this recipe:

http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/blueberry_buckle/

It's really just a blueberry coffee cake. Oh, it's so good...for breakfast, dessert, a midnight snack perhaps. Anytime!



I also grabbed a bag of homemade white beans, that combined with the chicken stock will become pasta e fagioli. One of my all time favorite soups (a favorite because Scott makes it, not me!). Also, a pound of ground beef and a bag homemade black beans that turned into beef tacos. MMMMMM. After was all was said and done, I had one tiny trip to the grocery store and an entire week of delicious food from one weekend of cooking. You really can't beat that. Sadly, this only put a tiny dent in the freezer and now that there is a ridiculous amount of stock in there now, we're pretty much back to maximum capacity again. Oh well!

Just for fun...I thought I'd end this with a super cute picture of the big brother to be (aka, marley dog!)

Oh no he didn't...

So I'm not sure if this story should be filed under "I should give him the benefit of the doubt, I'm sure he meant this in a nice way" or under "men are IDIOTS". I'll let you be the judge :)

I'm leaving work last week. It had been a VERY long day and I was specifically told to go home at 4:00 because I "looked tired". (sidenote, I know I'm being totally hormonal, but that alone took all the wind out of my sails. ugh. I'm working so hard, please don't call me out for being tired!) So I figure, who am I to say no and I take off. On my way out of the building, I run into a broker I work with. He stops me and asks how far along I am? I tell him 28 weeks. He says, no joke..."oh, you're BIG". He then asks, is this my first? I say yes. He repeats himself! "oh, you're definitely big". Oh, no you didn't just call a pregnant woman BIG! are you NUTS? A) yes, i'm "big", i'm pregnant, you jerk! and B) frankly, I would expect this from someone who say, didn't have a whole litter of kids at home. But he does! It took every shred of self control not to hit him. It really did. It truly amazes me the things people will say. I had another male coworker say "oh, no cankles yet!". Ugh, shoot me.

So, anyways, I figured this was a good time for another belly picture! This is 29 weeks along. See, how BIG I am? :) Of course, because that made me totally paranoid, my first question at the doctor the next day was "am i big?". So glad to say the answer was no! hehe.

I'm working up to a few other posts this week, I've been slacking pretty bad. I'm still trying to compose my thoughts on the Lost finale. We've also been cooking up a storm lately - doing a sort of cook through the freezer theme. So I have some delicious recipes to share! But first, thank you cards must be finished. Then I can get back to the fun stuff!