This girl is just too cute. This Pic was taken maybe 1 1/2 months ago. You can really see her personality though. She is a little mischievous and she has an amazing sense of humor. It is an amazing feeling to wake up each day and have that smile greet you from her crib when you walk in her room. She really has the ability to bring a smile to anyone’s face.

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Our little “Bean,” as she is affectionately called, is growing and changing like crazy. It’s amazing how fast a person can change in just a few months. Haleigh is now 4 months old, a whopping 13lbs, 13 oz and 25.5 inches long (as of September 11th). If I had a nickel for everytime I heard someone (friends and strangers) say, “Look at her smile!” I’d never have to work again!

I started back to work August 12th, and Haleigh began her busy weeks at daycare on Mondays and Tuesdays, with Grammie on Wednesdays, and with Auntie Kristina on Fridays. I have been fortunate enough to have a 4-day work week so I can be home with her on Thursdays. She is already well loved at daycare, and known as the baby who smiles all the time. She’s also teased us with a belly-laugh or two, but seems to have forgotten how to do it….I don’t know how, maybe just because she’s so awesome (I’m no biased or anything), but she’s adjusted perfectly to the abrupt change from our maternity-leave routine. She has been sleeping through the night since she was about 3 weeks old, with the exception of one early morning feeding. Hopefully she’ll continue this pattern!

Most recently, she’s learned how to roll over, which has made our nice, easy bedtime routine into an anxiety provoking adventure. She has had to adjust to no longer being swaddled to go to sleep. And has had to adjust to being comfortable on her belly in order to not keep herself awake at night. It’s a work in progress.

We’re seeing the beginnings of teething….the drool, chomping on whatever she can get her hands on (or just her hands). She’s responding to her surroundings by turning her head toward noises (especially our voices), reaching for toys, and she LOVES her jungle jumperoo. Also TV. We’re starting her off with some great habits Of particular preference is her daddy. You should see her light up when she sees him walk in the room!

Kevin started school last week, in addition to working. Juggling everything for the next 3 years will be a challenge, but worth it in the end.

We’re still battling the reflux. Zantac to Prilosec to Prevacid. I think she’s just meant to be a fussy eater. We’ve also had fun starting solids! Haleigh had her first taste of rice cereal (yum) the last weekend in August. She wasn’t really a fan of it, and spent most of the event gagging and trying to escape. Since then, she’s grown to tolerate it, and is working on perfecting her swallowing reflex.

Somehow, we’ve successfully adapted to life as full-time working parents, and Haleigh has grown into a perfect, plump, happy 4-month old. Next stop–fruits and veggies, crawling, sitting….

We were scheduled to be discharged from the hospital at 11:00 AM today but things have been pushed back for a few hours. Due to the fact that Allison had a fever during the delivery and Haleigh had one for a brief period following, the pediatrician at the hospital wanted us to stick around until 5:00 PM just to make sure nothing came up. Apparently, after 48 hours, she should be in the clear from any related infection or illness. The doctor assured as that all is well and that she looks great. The extra few hours of observation are only a precaution. Have no fear, we’ll all be home soon and more pictures (including ones of Haleigh in her “homecoming” dress) will be posted soon.

No, we’re not back with the baby. We’re not even back after hours of false labor. We got to the hospital at around 8:45 last evening to have the prostin gel put in (they forgot to call us earlier in the evening) and were eventually brought up to a labor room because all of the triage rooms were full. After the gel was put in, it looked promising. Contractions were coming regularly, about every 3 minutes, but were not very strong. Finally, at 12:15 AM, they decided to send us home with explicit instructions to return if the contractions got so bad that Allison coldn’t walk, lots of bleeding occurred, the baby stopped acting in its typical manner or Allison’s water broke. Needless to say, none of that happened and we are now awaiting a call to return to the hospital to begin the induction process. I think we are in for another long night but at least this time, we will be prepared. The television in the labor room gets 12 channels, 13 if you count the tv guide channel. Due to this fact, we will be bringing a laptop and a bag full of DVDs into the labor room with us this evening. Below is a brief list of what we may be watching this evening:

1. The Office Season 1
2. The Office season 3
4. Gone in 60 seconds
5. Family Guy Volume 3
6. Family Guy Volume 5
7. Pirates of the Caribbean 1 & 2

I think those will keep us busy for a while. Anyhow, that’s all I got for now.

I love the idea of writing this blog but it amazes me how much time passes between posts. So…..here’s where we are. Still no baby. Still no boy’s name (although many have been offering suggestions – which I am thankful for). However, we may be breaking some ground in that area. Allison has liked the name Caleb for a while. Although I am not completely sold on the name, I am considering the name but spelled Kaleb. It’s a little different but it would share my initials which would be pretty cool. Nathaniel was another name we were considering for a boy. Thank god the girl’s names have been picked out for years. I couldn’t handle trying to think up those too.
As I am writing this, and studying for a chem test, Allison is packing her bag for the hospital (its probably about time). We made a test run to the hospital yesterday just to make sure that we know the way, when the time comes and my brother brought over the cradle, that was built by our uncle. Unfortunately, we have not heard any news on the status of the crib and dresser for the nursery, but the house is a mess and we’re really not ready for them anyway.
So that’s where things are now. Not a lot has changed. It seems as if not a lot has been accomplished but I guess we’ll get there eventually. I’ll keep you all posted (pardon the pun) as things progress.

Although I haven’t done any more work in the nursery itself, the preparations I’ve been working on do directly affect the nursery. As you may remember from an earlier post, we’ve ordered new furniture and are planning on having the floors done. As a result, I’ve been working on moving all of my worldly possessions down into the basement. I finally moved alll of the old furniture out of the living room about a week after the new sectional arrived. Our bedroom set has not yet arrived but I through Allison’s bureau out in the trash (yes….they took it). The weight bench finally left the baby’s room and made it’s way to the basement as did all of the weights (plates and dumbells) from the computer room. I’ve cleaned many, various items out of the computer room closet but still have the bedroom closet. The biggest things I need to move to the basement now are the futon, treadmill and a 32″ television. Not sure how that’s gonna work out. Once I have the rooms completely empty, or able to be emptied the night before the floors are put in, I can call the installers and set a date. Oh yeah, I have to tear up the existing carpets as well. So, as you can see, although there is somewhat of a time crunch in completing the nursery, there are many other tasks that must be completed within the same time frame.

So that’s my update. Now back to work.

I think the title of this post says it all. Although I have made a decent sized dent on the nursery, it is not done. I still need to put a second coat of paint on the walls, paint the trim and ceiling and empty the closet. We don’t have the crib, dresser/changing table, rocker or cradle yet and the house is an absolute pit. We just had a new sofa delivered on Friday. Now, we have all of our old furniture stacked up on the other side of the living room until I can get some help bringing it to the basement. All the furniture and misc. objects (treadmill, weights, baby supplies, television, high chair, beer making kit) that were once in the baby’s room are now piled high in the computer room. Within a month, we hope to have all new floors installed in the house, ideally before the baby arrives (who am I kidding), which requires cleaning each room and moving out all non-essential items (see list of misc. items for baby’s room for an idea). On top of that, we are both still working full time and I ‘m also on campus, at school, for 10 hours a week, not to mention homework and studying. And just think, according to Allison’s counter on this blog, we only have 32 more days to go. So, with that being said……(see post title)!!!!

Love this article. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Here’s the original link:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/femail/article.html?in_article_id=540951&in_page_id=1879

From breastfeeding to taming tantrums: Why a mother’s place is always in the wrong
By PENNY VINCENZI – More by this author »

Last updated at 01:33am on 21st March 2008

Comments (8)

A mother’s place is in the wrong. This is the very first thing to learn when you very first get pregnant; that it is absolutely impossible – in theory – to do the right thing.

The sooner you grasp this the better; it saves a lot of angst. From the cradle (theirs) to the grave (yours) you are going to find yourself desperately struggling to work out the right thing to do.

Forget all those Boden fantasies, with you laughing adoringly at your (perfectly dressed) children while they smile adoringly at you; it ain’t going to happen. Well, not very often anyway.

Motherhood is a minefield without a map; and however hopefully you set out, there are bound to be some disagreeable explosions along the way.

Whatever you do, whatever road you go down, someone – in fact, quite a lot of people – will tell you you chose wrong.

And I think it’s getting worse, as theories abound, knowledge increases and everyone is an expert.

The trick, as far as is humanly possible, is to ignore them. But it ain’t easy.

Take it from very beginning; I mean there you are, happily pregnant, hopefully blooming but my goodness, don’t even think about eating soft cheese, ice cream, chocolate, liver (although you do need iron), fish (but not swordfish, shark or marlin), alcohol or coffee.

So you embark on all this abstinence and turn away the wine bottle and the cheese board whenever you’re out to dinner, or even lunch; and do you know what?

A whole lot of people (usually from the next generation up) will tell you that they all drank a bottle of wine nightly and ate a whole brie and went on to have 17 healthy children.

I remember reading with some joy the advice given to one French pregnant lady. She was told to cut down on alcohol.

Her doctor said that wine was OK, an aperitif was fine, but that maybe she should cut out the Cognac after dinner.

Anyway, that’s the food and drink, and you can make up your own mind about that.

No one will know if you want to sneak in a small spoonful of Ben&Jerry’s in the privacy of your own home.

Where it really starts getting difficult is The Birth, with the options ever multiplying.

I tell you, the passion engendered by politics, climate change or whether Diana really wanted to marry Dodi fades into absolute insignificance, compared with home versus hospital, water versus dry land, epidural versus natural (childbirth is seldom unnatural I’d have thought, but never mind).

Whichever you settle on, someone will tell you you’re wrong. Home, in a birthing pool? What if something goes wrong?

Hospital? So clinical and what about the risk of infection?

Epidural? You won’t be able to push. Caesarean? So you’re too posh to push. Natural (otherwise known as bloody agony) is just plain silly.

And you sit there, cradling your bump, listening to all this, and wondering if sticking to keeping kittens might not have been a better idea.

But your baby will be born, by whatever method you or the doctors finally choose, after a lot of effort and what the medical profession call “discomfort”, followed by triumph and teary wonder, and you’ll settle down to live with him or her, and you know what?

After a week or so, you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.

He’s here and you love him and it’s over and all you’ve got to do now is care for him and feed him and watch him grow.

Whether his arrival took place in a brilliantly lit delivery room with a crowd of medics in attendance (I had four medical students when my first daughter was born and it could have been 40 for all I cared), or in your own candlelit bedroom with music playing and scented candles, won’t actually matter very much at this stage.

Anyway, you’ll be far too busy worrying about other things. There’s the sleeping and feeding furore for a start.

If you let the baby sleep in your bed, it’s wrong (storing up trouble for later and what about your sex life – if you can imagine ever having such a thing again).

If you don’t, you’re harsh and heartless (and still storing up trouble for later).

His bed beside yours? You’ll just spend every moment listening for him to start crying/stop crying/start crying again.

His room? He’ll grow up anxious and unable to form relationships.

Feeding on demand? He’ll never develop a routine. By the clock? He’ll grow up insecure and and will probably develop eating disorders.

Now you may be very lucky, find breastfeeding straight-forward and have gallons of milk, as well as a baby who needs loads of sleep, in which case you should just be grateful and shut up about it.

Most new mums are floundering about, exhausted, panicked about whether they can start bottle feeding yet, and are adopting that best-known of all child care methods: Desperately Trying Everything.

They won’t thank you for any suggestions; they’ll have tried them all. (It is around this time, incidentally, that the baby starts telling you you’ve got it wrong, too: complaining loudly whatever you do. You’d better get used to it.)

There used to be a lot of argument about potty training. My mother, along with most of her generation, spent many hours grimly “holding me out” (what a quaint term) which, apparently, ensured I was clean and dry at six months. Hmmm.

We were the first lot to leave the child to train itself.

A generation of incontinent teenagers was doomily envisaged by our mothers, moving straight from nappies to Tampax. Funnily enough, that didn’t happen.

But it is hard to stay calm and think you’re doing the right thing when your child is still in nappies at two and three-quarters.

And there’s always the smug few (or many, as I recall) whose children are in nappies only at night at a year and a bit. How did they do that?

I love a story told by a friend of mine who despairingly asked her three-year-old why he wouldn’t use the potty: it would be so much nicer for him, apart from anything else, she said.

“But Mummy,” he replied, “I like my nappies.”

He’s 20-something now and I think he got there in the end. And so it goes on. If you vaccinate (triple variety), you’re wrong, risking autism, bowel disease and God knows what; if you don’t, you’re wrong, and risk measles which is dangerous and can be passed on to all the other unvaccinated children at playgroup.

Discipline at this stage is very dodgy: the gentle, patient “let’s talk about why you just bit Jemima at school” looks askance at the brisk banishment to the naughty step or even, the occasional brisk slap.

The brisk, for their part, feel that life is too short for gentle discussion at the end of which, in my experience, the child usually bites Jemima again.

And then, oh dear, it’s to work or not to work. If you do, the Dom Moms (ones that stay at home) make you feel you’ve abandoned your baby entirely in pursuit of your own self-obsessed ambitions, dismissing the expensive nanny/nursery and the need to earn half the mortgage as some kind of crazed personal delusion.

If you don’t, then there’s an equally large body of opinion out there to imply you’re wasting your talents and your education, and to offer dire warnings about losing your foothold on the professional ladder which you’ll be very sorry indeed about when the children have grown up and left you without a backward glance.

And then there’s education. If you go private, it’s wrong (elitist, and over-competitive); if you stay with the state, it’s wrong (not doing your best for your children and subjecting them to the lottery of secondary school selection).

If you go in for lots of extra lessons (violin, judo, ballet, creative writing), you’re not allowing them to develop their own interests and imagination in their free time; if you leave them lolling around after school playing with their Nintendos and watching Neighbours, you’re clearly not allowing them to develop any potential for anything.

Pocket money? Is it a right, or should it be earned? Clothes? Do you let them wear what they want, however unsuitable, do you allow your beloved small daughter to dress like a cross between Paris Hilton and Britney at the age of seven, thereby risking the disapproval of your peers?

Or do you preserve her childhood in smocked dresses and coats with velvet collars, risking the disapproval of theirs?

And so to adolescence: just try to get that one right. As the charming, affectionate children who used to cuddle up to you on the sofa and say “I love you Mummy” become monosyllabic monsters grunting their way from breakfast to bedtime, how are you supposed to handle them?

What you’re supposed to do, of course, is deal with the whole thing with relaxed good humour; and not worry too much about it. Easier (for more than a minute) said than done.

All those articles telling you to stay friends with your adolescent children (they don’t want to be friends with you), to listen to what they say (they don’t say anything except “Can I have?” and “Mu-u-m”, somehow turning it into a three syllable word) and simply lay down a few firm ground rules (you can lay them down if you like) must have been written by people who have never had any children of their own.

It’s a bit like the early days – and in some ways the adolescent is rather like a baby: sleeping at unsuitable times and eating on demand, rather than fitting in with the family.

You try everything – being easy-going, being strict, letting their girl/boyfriends stay overnight, not letting their girl/boyfriends stay overnight.

You nag them to tidy their rooms, you leave them to turn their rooms into spaces that health and safety would close down for fumigation; you tell them the house is not a hotel, you let them treat the house like a hotel.

On and on it goes and you know what? Everything is wrong.

Or so they’ll tell you. Other mothers are kinder, more generous, more understanding, they welcome their friends, they let them have parties, they drive them around at two in the morning without complaining, they give them loads of dosh.

All you can do is hang on in there and try not to get too worked up about it. It passes.

And there you have the secret of successful motherhood at every stage. I honestly believe it doesn’t matter what you do so very much, as long as you – and they – enjoy it.

Children tend to grow up more or less OK as long as they know they’re loved and valued – very important that, in my view – and life is more or less fun.

Listen to advice by all means (it’s difficult not to), but at the end of the day trust your instincts and it’ll be all right; trust someone else’s, go against your own and it just might not be.

If you want to give birth to your baby in the garden shed (well, you know what I mean!), if you feel you have to go to work to preserve your sanity, if you want to shout at your daughter and tell her not to be so bloody rude, just do it.

And don’t let anyone tell you you’re doing it wrong. If it feels right to you, then it is right. Promise.

• An Absolute Scandal by Penny Vincenzi is published by Headline Review and is out now in paperback at £7.99.

First thing’s first: Everyone can rest assured that our child will not be named “Snively.” (Sorry Kev). We’re working on that…

Anyway, I had my 34-week Dr. appointment yesterday, and everything looks good. After an hour and a half wait, I got to learn that everything looks fine, and apparently baby hiccups 3 times a day are a “good sign.” Who knew? I have no idea what exactly makes this a “good sign,” but I’ll take it! I have another appointment in 2 weeks, and after that begins weekly appointments! Woohoo!

People at work are continuing to take bets as to the sex of the baby (about 90% of votes so far say boy;though there are those absolutely sure it’s a girl…). And, a coworker is convinced that I will have this baby by April 15th (tax day!) That coworker is my new best friend

Finally, I got to practice my modeling skills the other day during a maternity “photo shoot” with the wonderful Olivia Wilcox (check out our blogroll). It was both fun and awkward at the same time, if that’s possible (I am by no means a model!) I’ll post a few of these in the near future.

So I think it is appropriate to comment here with regards to our preparedness for the arrival of the baby. The room is almost fully operational (a little joke for you star wars geeks). Seriously though, one more coat of paint on the walls and painting the ceiling and trim is all that is needed. Oh, plus the installation of new flooring. After that, it’s done. Ok, so it isn’t almost full operational but we are on our way. We have some gender neutral clothing because we don’t know the gender of the baby. Of course, all the situations surrounding knowing and/or not knowing is a post in itself. We have ordered the crib and dresser from Rooms to Grow and Allison is going shopping with her mother for a rocker (not the guitar playing type). Finally, we are still not settled on names. We have two great choices if the baby is a girl, Hayley or Isabelle, but nothing yet if it is a boy, I’m leaning towards Snively. Please feel free to comment with and suggest boys name that you like. Maybe we’ll honor you and use your suggestion. I’d like to stay away from the standard, every day names like Kevin, Michael, etc. but don’t want something so outrageous that the kid will resent us for the rest of his life. Well…..that’s about where we are right now.

Oh yeah, thanks in advance for your contributions to our naming dilemma