It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Right now, it is 5:20 a.m. on Sunday. I am having my coffee and waiting for the Girl to wake up. Her waking up, is my favorite part of most days. She will be all whiney in her crib and will be pushing up to see better. She always seems confused about where she is and why no one else is there. But as soon as she sees me she completely stops all of that and lets out a huge grin. My heart melts!! 

To keep the balance, I will also share my least favorite daily activity with her. Changing her. Whether we are changing outfits or diapers or... Anytime that involves me taking something off of her and trying to put something back on her. When I was pregnant I read a new parent training guide, and it suggested that to prepare for dressing a baby an expectant parent should find a live baby octopus and practice dressing it. This goes through my head daily. SHE WILL NOT LAY STILL!! She is constantly trying to role over or reach something on the side of the table or crawl away or suck her toes or grab her dirty diaper. It is a real adventure and a test of my patience. I can't help but laugh at her, but I also just want her to lay still so I can diaper her before she pees all over everything.

Hope everyone has a great Sunday!!

Well... long time no talk! I am a working mother of a six month old (still wrapping my head around that). This means my free time consist of the thirty minutes I spend drinking my coffee in the mornings between 4:00 and 4:30 a.m. I am not willing to give this time up! If I did, when would I make Michael's to-do list?

Today, I am home with the sick baby. She has pink eye. You may be saying to yourself, "Poor thing". Don't. Let me assure you that she is fine. She is home today because she is contagious, not because she is sick. There has been much play and little napping. Below you can see this for yourself.

You should instead be saying, "Poor Emily and Michael!" After all, we are the ones that have to put eye drops in her eyes twice a day.

I enjoy these days that I get to spend with her. I get to see her when she is at her best, and she is not tired after a day of playing at daycare and getting cranky because she is ready for bed. Lucky for us (me and her), she averages a sick day every two weeks. Unlucky for us (Michael and I), my boss is eventually probably going to lose patience with all of these absences! Gulp. Lets not think about that.

Hope everyone is having a great Wednesday!!

One Week Down

Frances Harper has been home for one week now. She is doing great, and my sanity is still holding on by a thread. By anyone's standards, we can mark the week up to a success.

As a new mother, I have already learned several important things...

1. I enjoy leaving her with other people. Michael and I left her with my parents for twenty minutes while we went and picked up pizza last night. This time apart helped me decompress and have an enjoyable evening.  My sanity would probably stand a better chance of survival if I was able to relax when me and her are in the same location.

2. The possibility of a fretful baby in the afternoon is worth a cup of coffee in the morning.  Lets face it, even without the coffee there is a 50/50 chance she will be fussy. So, I might as well be well caffeinated.

3. A good night's sleep consist of getting a solid fuss-free-hour-and-a-half between EVERY feeding.

4. Sleeping in the crib is over rated. Also, I will do anything to accomplish number 3. We will worry about attachment issues later.

5. An outfit change is only necessary if a diaper has malfunctioned. I think this one pretty much explain's itself.

6. And most importantly... sometimes, you are just shooting for survival.

Welcome to the World Baby Girl!!

As many of you know, Frances Harper came screaming into the world last Friday.  Luckily, she has not spent too much of her time since screaming (Well, except for a brief period Monday... but I won't get ahead of myself). 

We are all home now and settling in nicely. She is an extremely good baby. With three nights under our belts, we are all starting to feel more confident that 1) we will not break her and 2) we actually know enough to usually figure out what is upsetting her. The only real question is whether or not we are able to fix whatever that is. 

(This is all a lead up to me telling you about her first doctor's appointment.)

On Monday, Frances Harper had her first doctor's appointment. Auntie Frantie and I got her looking all cute and she was pretty content when we got to the pediatrician's office and we were shown into our room. They asked that we undress her down to her diaper and change her if she was dirty. We got her clothes off and checked her diaper. It was clean. And then, just as I thought, "Wow, this taking a baby out isn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be" she did her poopie squirm. Yep, things had gotten messy. 

No biggie though, we had come prepared. We got her cleaned up with only a little fussing, and she was calming back down. Things were going to be okay!... this was the last positive moment. Next came weighing her-- naked on a cold scale. She screamed. I fretted. Then she was laid down, still naked, and manually stretched out to measure her length. She screamed some more. I fretted some more. Then her joints and reflexes were tested... and she really SCREAMED. By this point I was ready to cry too. I just wanted my baby to stop crying.

Then she peed all on the doctor (who handled it all in stride).

Finally, after declaring her in the best of health, we quickly dressed Frances Harper and Frantie took her to the car to cry in peace. She slept the whole way home without so much as a peep. 

We have all mostly recovered. The good news is... we get to go back on Friday!!

Hope everyone is having a great Tuesday!!!

Cooper Salad

As I have written about before, Cooper has an itching problem. You may remember the Cooper Cone Head post? His itching is an ongoing battle.

Last weekend, my parents bathed Cooper with some new shampoo, soothing oatmeal with a Green Apple scent. Yum. He has been itching all week as a consequence of this. So, this morning he got another bath with unscented Aveeno body wash that 'gently cleanses and moisturizes to soothe itchy, dry skin'. No yum factor there, but that is okay. Then things got interesting, and the bath was followed with an apple cider vinegar dousing.  You may be thinking, "Apple cider vinegar's pretty mild. That doesn't sound that bad." My response to this would be, "Do you know how much vinegar it takes to douse a German shepherd?"

The long and the short of it is, Cooper smells similar to a salad. Not a scent you usually associate with a dog. I am not sure this is an improvement over dog smell or not because it keeps you guessing, "What is that smell. Oh, yeah. It's Cooper."

And lest you think this treatment was something we dreamed up, it's on the internet. So, it has to be true.

Happy Wednesday!

Our New Home

We are finally in the house, and I have some pictures for your viewing pleasure (sorry for the poor quality... as evidenced, I am not a professional photographer).

First off...

We have our living room. Our previous house was about 800 square feet. Our new living room feels about that same size. Well, it may not be that big, but the room is about 17 feet long. We brought some outdoor chairs in to fill in some of the space. Those are below. You can see that Macy has acclimated pretty well, or at least she is keeping an eye on her couch.

As this picture shows, we still do not have interior doors up. Well, we do have an old one on the bathroom. We are not a couple who feels the need to share EVERYTHING.

Besides lots of space, another thing we did not have at our old house was a fire place. And while this one does not work properly yet, decorating its mantel made the whole room feel much homier. 

Next to the living room, we have the dinning room...

We have eaten at the table every day since moving in. It all feels very domestic. And last, and most certainly least, we have our kitchen. 

Our new stove arrives on Friday so that big hole next to the refrigerator will be filled in then. The ugly floors and cabinets will take more time to fix, but I can be patient. Maybe. 

So, with three weeks to spare, we are now somewhat ready for Frances Harper's arrival. Whew, just thinking about all the work that went into making this happen makes me tired. Is 8:30 am too early for a nap?

*Full disclosure, I am not sharing pictures of the office or the master bedroom because they are complete disaster zones with lots of miscellaneous items that I don't know where to put. We hope to have all of that cleaned up before we move to our next house.

Have a great Tuesday!!!

Family Fun Day

I know I have written about how great my family is, but... I am going to talk about it again. So brace yourselves for some family envy…

We have finally wrapped up the painting in the living spaces (Thank you, Mama) and are getting some final touches done for Saturday to be the big moving day (Thank you, Daddy -- more on what he is up to further down).

Yesterday, we tackled a good scrubbing of the kitchen. I say 'we', but I really mean my mom and grandmother spent six hours cleaning brown gunk out of there. I had never seen cabinets so dirty that after wiping them several times your rag would still come away brown. It was all very educational. This was also true of the pantry shelves. Which I had been very nervous to put my packaged food on, but now could probably eat directly off them (Thanks Granny!!). Here is a shot of her in action…

While they were both hard at work inside, my grandfather pressure washed the outside.

They were both super helpful, and it was nice that I got to spend the day with them. They probably would just as soon have me come over to there house and spend the day with them :).

But wait… THERE'S MORE!!

Let there be light! The foyer no longer feels dark and closed off, and now it has a pretty view of the trees outside. 

Yesterday, was a very productive day at the house. Prior to now, the house has mostly stressed me out because of the work that needed to be done before we moved with time ticking away towards Frances Harper's arrival. Now though, thanks in large part to my family and the work they have put in, I am excited. The house is looking more complete, and we are going to be in it on Saturday!! Tune in for pictures of a sparsely furnished home on Monday.