One more day with my baby

Well, tomorrow is the last day I have left of maternity leave. I cannot believe it has been 12 weeks already. It feels like just yesterday I was coming home with my newborn baby. I know that time will go even faster once I start back at work. I still have lots of anxiety about going back. It will be hard to be away from Claire and hard to get back into the swing of things. I do worry about how my knee will hold out. I still have stiffness in my right knee which gets more uncomfortable as the day goes on. Being on my feet walking lots for 12 hours might prove to be quite a challenge. I will have to see how it goes. I know Jeff is looking forward to me going back...he is hoping that once I am required to start thinking again, my memory will improve! I hope that is the case too.

Claire is just so amazing. I could spend 24 hours a day holding her and cuddling with her and I am going to miss her so much when I am gone at work. It is going to take all that I have in me to not call Jeff every hour to check on her! He will have to expect a few phone calls though during the day. I am praying that the anxiety about going back to work will be worse than actually going back. I do miss my co-workers and my job, just not as much as I will miss my baby girl.

We are planning to close on the house we found the end of this month. We are very excited to start this next chapter in our lives and to be able to finally settle in down here. I know lots of people said they didn't think we would stay down here once Claire was born. I guess us buying a house in TX shows everyone just how much we love living down here. The nice part is that we have an extra bedroom just for Nanny and Papa to come stay every winter. I am hoping they come visit often so Claire will grow up knowing her grandparents and because I get lonely without seeing them too. We will keep you updated on how our move goes and once we are settled in, we can post some pictures of our new home. Until then, you get to see more pictures of Claire!

The Claire Bear

The past two days I have been preparing for Sheila to go back to work. I have been watching Claire by myself and it has been interesting to say the least. On Tuesday, Sheila went to a movie with one of her friends and I began babysitting at 7:00. The first forty-five minutes went pretty good but then Claire started screaming. I think what set her off was we were watching re-runs of the NHL playoffs from last fall. Clearly she remembered that we wanted Chicago to beat Detroit. When Detroit scored an overtime goal, she began to express her displeasure by screaming for the next hour and a half. I tried every trick I have in the book but nothing was working. So I just practiced my "let the baby cry" maneuver. I think after pulling that one out of the playbook, we will have plenty of help moving into our new house from our current neighbors in the apartment.

Today went much better. It was Sheila's birthday and she was very excited because she turned 33 on 09-09-09. So to stay with the theme, I got her a 99 minute massage which she took advantage of right away. While she was gone, I was able to feed Claire two bottles and we even took a nap. Today let me know that I will be fine when Sheila goes back to work. I think Claire and I will have many days of fun ahead of us. I am looking forward to it.

Just some fun pics of our baby girl!

Claire had her first day with her new nanny, Alison, last Friday. Jeff and I stayed in the apartment for the first two hours and then left Claire and Alison for about two hours. Things went well and Claire even smiled for Alison when she first saw her. It was much harder on mommy...I started to get tears in my eyes once we reached the car. This was the first time I left my baby with a stranger. I stopped myself before I started to cry though! It will still be hard to leave my baby when I go back to work but I feel much better knowing Claire did okay for Alison.

We are still working on getting Claire to take the bottle during the day. She does pretty well for me, Jeff is having a harder time getting her to take it. I am planning on leaving to go shopping tomorrow morning for a few hours and we will see how she does for Jeff while I am out. I have a feeling if she doesn't see me in the morning, she will do just fine. We will see. Either she does good, or she will loose a few pounds not eating on the days I work!

We are waiting to close on a new home the end of this month also. So with me going back to work and us probably moving, we have been keeping super busy. I have lots of anxiety about going back to work and leaving my baby. I believe that once I get back into it, work will be just fine and it is the waiting and counting the days that is making me most anxious. I will keep you posted on how everything goes. Claire is calling...time to eat!

I have found my thumb

Well, today Claire has for sure found her thumb. I have noticed a few times in the past couple days where she would be sucking on her hand, but today she has gone for her thumb every time. I have tried to get her to take the pacifier instead, but she has other plans! I will have to keep working on this one!

I went to work today to turn in my release so I can start working again. It is so hard for me knowing I only have one and a half weeks left and then my 12 week maternity leave will be done. I do have to keep in mind that I only have to be gone from my baby 3 days a week. It will still be very tough though. The saving grace is that Jeff will be watching Claire two of the three days. We have found a nanny to come to our home to watch Claire on the one day a week when Jeff and I both have to work. We are doing a trial run with the nanny tomorrow...wish us all luck! I am not as creative as Jeff on this site but at least you have constant updates on what is happening in TX! Enjoy!

Squeaky