My baby and I project - Week 7

Andrew and I spend some time at the King of Prussia mall on Monday, President's day since I was off of work and his school was closed. Here are some shots from my point and shoot camera, one from in the mall while he was snoozing, one from in Nordstrom's mother's room after he just had lunch.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!! (a day late)

Love,
Andrew

My Baby and I project - Week 6

On February 11, 2009 I officially became a working mom. Armed with more bags than hands I went back for two days carrying my pump bag, laptop bag, lunch bag, and purse! Despite the smile in the picture I wasn't happy about it! My first day back was Andrew's third day at school. Duane took off my last two days of maternity leave so that we could do two practice runs of our morning routine. It went pretty well and much to our delight, Andrew did great at school! He played, ate bottles and even took some long naps, something that he doesn't like to do at home! His first two full days were much like his half days and we are relieved to say it seems like the extreme fussiness has gone away! We have our happy boy back again!

I'm transitioning back slowly - I won't be there a full week until the end of March. I'll work 3 days for three weeks then 4 days for the 3 weeks after that and enjoy my days off with the little guy. We seem to have a morning routine that works so as soon as Andrew lets mommy get more than 5 hours of sleep in small increments we'll be good! That and avoiding spitting up on mommy's work clothes - I went to work on day #2 with spit up in my hair and on my tank top. Lovely!

Two years ago...

...we were in Mexico hoping the rain showers would pass quickly. Me, the girls and the cabana guy even did a "sun dance" to chase away those rain clouds. The rain did come but by 4 PM as our wedding ceremony started in it's alternate location, it was one of the happiest days of my life! I love how every detail of our wedding turned out, it was such an amazing day. Two years later we aren't basking in the sun, drinking pina coladas or eating all the delicious food at Azul, we're hanging out together while our baby boy is getting used to being at school. We'll pick him up in a few hours and hang out as a family and I couldn't be more happy about it!

If you want to go back to that day, our slideshow is still active at: http://kim-duane.lifemosaics.net

Upate and My Baby and I project - Week 5

This has been a tough week for Andrew (and Mommy and Daddy too). Poor little man has been really fussy for the past couple of weeks and we're not entirely positive why. He showed signs of a cows milk protein intolerance around 8 weeks. At that point I stopped drinking milk but still ate other diary products. Before this happened we discovered he'd get super fussy after I had eaten any chocolate or had anything with red pasta sauce. Those are foods that commonly cause fussiness in breastfed babies. Then last Thursday I gave him a bottle of milk which I had frozen back when I wasn't watching my diet at all. A couple hours after he ate it and until the next day he screamed like we'd never heard before. I finally got so worried I took him to the pediatrician. Of course as soon as we pulled into the doctors office parking lot he fell asleep, slept through the long wait then was just all happy smiles while the doctor checked him out! She did find that his belly seemed to be super gassy and we figure it was due to something in the milk. That Saturday I had cheese a couple of times and his fussiness returned full force. At that point I decided, as hard as it would be for me to do, I'd go diary free. No milk, no cheese, no butter and no foods with any milk products as a major ingredient. Oh and no chocolate, no red sauce and nothing that is acidic like red sauce either. It's only been a few days but has proven to be really difficult but if it makes him happier I'll continue without one complaint. Everything documented about cows milk protein intolerances says it can take up to 2 weeks to get out of my system and another 2 weeks to get out of his system. We're hoping things clear out much faster than that, it's so hard to see him get so upset and not be able to calm down. It's also entirely possible that the milk isn't the only thing making him upset and that he's just going through a super fussy phase. We're hoping for the best, when he's happy, he's so happy and smiley and we just can't get enough of him! (We also still love him when he's screaming!) Here are some recent pictures and our weekly project photo. I love his little bear jacket so we did a "Hoods up" shot for the week. He's been eating his hands a lot so this is the best I got!