Happy Mother's Day

It's been a while since I wrote last! Time seems to escape me a little over the past two weeks. On the one hand I look back and think: "Evie and I do the same basic things every day...where did all the time go?" Then again, a little baby is a lot to take care of and the time slips right past and the next thing I know it's time for bed each day! Lots of visitors in the last few weeks- from school and from family. The first week without Chris home went pretty well, but I also had one visitor nearly each day for a couple hours, which was nice. Last Saturday night Sylvia (Grandma) came into town for a few days. We had a great time with her! Monday of last week Grandma, Evie, and I drove in to meet Chris for lunch. Afterward, we followed him to work and he paraded Evelyn around like a true proud papa. There is something about a daddy who is that in love with his little girl that makes me smile. On Tuesday afternoon my brother and sister-in-law came through Raleigh for a few hours before heading to Virginia to pick up my nephew from college. Although the visit was way too short, it was really great to see them and be able to introduce Evelyn to her aunt and uncle. My brother was talking to Evie right away and we snapped some pictures of him holding her. Tuesday night we took Sylvia out for an early Mother's Day dinner and Evelyn continued to prove she is a laid back baby. She slept through the entire dinner!

Wednesday we took Sylvia back to the airport and said our goodbyes. Christmas is the next time she'll be out here and I know it will be unbelievable how much Evie will have grown! The rest of the week I spent trying to catch up on some laundry and rest up for the next round of family. Last night it was Lockhart Family Central over here. Great-Grandma, Uncle Joe, Aunt Janet, Cousin Doris, and Aunt Patti all were in town. Joe and Janet are here until later this afternoon and Patti leaves this afternoon as well. But Great Grandma and Doris are in Raleigh for the week and Bill (Grandpa) arrived late last night and will also be here for a week. Today, for Mother's Day, everyone is coming back over to grill out and hang out with the baby. My mom is coming over too. The weather is supposed to be pleasant (only 80 degrees!) and it should make for a nice day.

It's hard to believe, but Evelyn is one month old today! Looking at the pictures from her first days to now boggles the mind! She already seems like she has gotten so big! Friday is her one month appointment at the doctor and I am sure I will update again then. In the mean time, here are some more recent pictures:

Better Late Than Never

I had completely intended on getting this written yesterday, on Day 17, but somehow I ran out of time and then I was putting the baby down for the night and I needed to go to bed. Our first day of having air conditioning again was so very nice! It even felt too cool at times! Still, you don't know what you're missing until it's gone and we sure did miss the AC for those two days. I noticed immediately that Evie has taken better daytime naps yesterday and today, which is always nice.

Yesterday Jeannie came out to visit us. For those who don't know who Jeannie is, she is one of my mom's best friends. Jeannie and my mom met when my mom was pregnant with me and we lived next door to her for the first big chunk of my life as a kid. Jeannie is also (confirmed by yesterday's conversation) the wonderful person who will be taking care of Evie when I go back to work. So it was nice to be able to introduce them to each other. Evelyn slept through the whole hour we visited, but it was nice to have a visitor for me. I actually took the opportunity to take a nap yesterday afternoon as well, which was very nice. I repeated the nap thing today- only for about an hour though. Still, any sleep is good sleep! I also had a visitor today. My long term sub, Becky, brought me lunch and we had a nice time just chit chatting about this and that. We talked a little bit about my students, but for the most part we just had a nice little lunch. It breaks up the day nicely to have people come out and visit around 10 or 11...by the time they leave it's time for Evelyn's longer nap in the afternoon and I get to lay down for a bit too.

Tomorrow my friend Katie and her daughter are coming out. And we may have the owner of the AC company out here to give us a quote on the cost to replace the compressor under the house and the unit outside of the house. He'll probably give us an estimate for replacing the duct work too (which will need to be done at some point), but we're mainly worried about the actual unit working well throughout the summer time and not breaking again. It will be expensive, but in the long run a good investment. Besides, we can't have this gorgeous new baby and have the AC break again in the middle of a NC summer when it gets hotter than Hades and humidity reaches 98%. So, fingers crossed it won't be crazy expensive!

Here is a picture from yesterday:

Day 17


And two from today:

Day 18

Heat Wave, part 2

The good news is that the AC is working again. The bad news is that I spent all day in the house with no AC until after 5pm today. It wasn't the most fun Evie and I have ever had, but it could have been far worse! The AC guy came out and charged up the unit again, but found bigger problems, unfortunately. It looks like we will be saving up some money and investing in a new AC unit sooner as opposed to later. It amazes me the dumb things people do to save money. Case in point: the previous owner of the house replaced the old heat pump with a new one that does not match the compressor that is contained in the crawl space. It doesn't make sense and yet he did it. So, in the long run the whole situation could have been far worse I suppose. Two yucky days of being very warm in the house...

In Evelyn news she seems to have a crazy appetite! Today was a weird day and I can't decide if it's a growth spurt or the heat. Evie ate TONS today and took practically no real naps after about 12:30pm. That has not happened in her two weeks of life. She was sucking down 3 to 3.5 ounces of milk every two hours like clock work and then by this evening she was eating that about once an hour. Plus she was just really fidgety and demanding and would not fall asleep. I got her to nap from about 3:45 to 5:00 and then she was awake until nearly 8:45! I finally was tapped out as far as milk I had pumped and resorted to trying a little bit of formula. She sucked in a good half ounce of that and conked out on me and has been sleeping ever since! So, my new plan for tonight is to feed her the rest of the formula that I have sitting in the fridge (about 3.5 ounces) around 11pm and see how much sleep I can grab before she wakes up ready to nurse again. I love that Evie doesn't seem to be picky about breast milk vs. formula AND she really seems to not care about temperature of something. Obviously I don't make it too hot, but at best she just wants her food to be luke warmish. Let's hope she keeps being so easy going about food!

Here are two pictures from today...
Day 16

Heat Wave!

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly we go from Springtime weather in NC to all out Summer temperatures. Last week the weather started creeping into the 80 degree territory and then, this weekend, we hit 90. Even right now, at 8pm, it's still 86 degrees outside. It makes for a very warm house inside and particularly when the AC isn't quite working the right way! We noticed back on Wednesday and Thursday that the house was warmer, but figured it was just because it was way hotter outside and it cooled down nicely at night. By yesterday it hit 77 inside and we realized (too late in the evening) that something HAD to be wrong with the heat pump. So, we had every ceiling fan in the house working and turned on the box fan in Evie's room. By the time we went to bed it was still in the high 70s in the house, but it was tolerable. Evelyn didn't seem too phased by it, though. I simply stripped her down to her diaper and swaddled her for the night in a light-weight blanket and she did fine. By this morning the temperature in the house had come down to 74, but we called a service guy anyway because today's high was 92.

Sure enough the temperature inside right now is 80 and we have changed the filters on in the house. I talked to the AC guy again tonight (we opted to see if just changing the filters would work as opposed to having to pay the "weekend" fee to have the guy come out today) and it appears that we have a refrigeration issue. So, knowing we have an infant in the house the owner/technician will be calling first thing tomorrow morning to fit us in before it gets too hot outside. At least we still have cold air coming through the vents and the AC works a little bit. Otherwise I think we would be packing it in and going to stay at some one's house! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Evelyn still sleeps decently tonight (at least two hours between feedings) and that tomorrow fixing the AC doesn't cost too much money. It's a good thing that I have the paperwork that shows the whole heat pump was just replaced in 2003 and there shouldn't be huge issues with it.

In the mean time, I am working on getting my mom to upload some photos she took of Evie yesterday so that I can go back in and add a picture for Day 14. Today's picture is of Daddy and Evelyn. She has been getting really fussy at the end of the day and just wants some cuddle time. Last night it was all my turn (Chris took a late nap because of a headache) and tonight it was Daddy's turn. Here's a look at cuddle time for Day 15:

Day 14

I'm sorry to say that there is no picture today! Chris was busy today with taking the dog to Petco to be groomed and then cutting the grass and working in the yard. It totally went right past us both when it came to the picture taking! It was bound to happen sooner or later that we missed one day, though. Today was a day of trying to get some things done. I was busy trying to get some laundry done for us while Chris worked in the yard. Evelyn was very alert for most of today until the late afternoon. She took one lovely nap about 3 and a half hours long. Had I been thinking straight I would have also taken a nap, but I got caught up writing thank you notes. She's also been eating a lot today which gives me hope that I might get more than an hour and a half to two hours of sleep in between feedings tonight. I am trying a new tactic with the bottle she gets each day: give it to her at night around 9 or 10pm and see if she sleeps a longer amount of time after the bottle. Wish me luck on that one!

Tomorrow my friend, Clare, is coming over with her husband and twin girls to have lunch and meet Evie. The twins are nearly 5 already, which is hard to believe! Clare and I taught together my first year down here and she had just found out she was pregnant around the time when I decided to switch schools. Clare tells me her girls are excited to meet the new baby and it should be a nice visit. I'm also trying to line up some visitors here and there during the next week so I am not too lonely when Chris goes back to work. Then, next weekend Sylvia comes into town to meet her granddaughter and that will be a lot of fun! Besides my mom, no one from either family lives close so it's all the more special that family members are coming into town over the next month or so.

I promise to remember to take a picture tomorrow for Day 15! I can barely believe it's already been two weeks!

Another Outing...

Today we had an impromptu outing around mid-day. The unfortunate part was that the main reason for going out was to take me into my doctor because of a suspected UTI (darn that catheter when I had the c-section!). I now have 7 days of antibiotics to take although they didn't do a full culture on my sample. The doctor figured I had three strikes: some protein in the urine, some blood, and it was Friday. So, as he put it: "I'd hate to see you land in the ER over the weekend because we weren't proactive." So, rather than waste a perfectly good day where it was almost 90 degrees, we stopped at Target on the way home to drop off my prescription and see about baby monitors.

It's funny walking around with this little tiny girl. I look back at all the years Chris and I have been together (10 grand total!) and marvel at the thought that this little thing is ours. She is so precious and beautiful. I love watching Chris with her and listening to him talk to her too. I think both he and I knew relatively early on when we started dating that we would stay together and eventually get married. Having kids was always in the equation, but now it's for real and Evelyn is almost two weeks old. It really boggles the mind that we are a family with a baby now! We were a family before, but now it feels different somehow. I already look at the world and wonder how Evie will fit into it or what she will be like a year from now. I can't wait to hear her talk and see what color her hair and eyes will end up being. And even though I know that we now have to find babysitters and plan further ahead if we want to go out, it doesn't seem to be that big a deal. I have completely enjoyed hanging out with our daughter and my husband over the last week and getting to know life with Evelyn. It hasn't always been easy, but it's been wonderful none the less. Only two more days with Chris home with us and then I am on my own during the days. I have several visitors lined up next week, though, to keep me from going crazy. :)

So, here is a picture from today taken shortly after feeding time. She was so completely out cold:
Day 13

Day 12...a little late

I had intentions to write this yesterday, but then life sort of got in the way. It was a somewhat busy day. Evie was fussy from about 4am until nearly 10:30am and we also had to get up so Chris could take Sara to the airport. By the time the baby decided she wanted to sleep I was, of course, wide awake. Isn't that always the way of things? I think the worst thing about having just delivered a baby is the crazy hormonal shift you go through. Everyone tells you that you go through it and that you will have moments where you come unglued, but really- nothing ever prepares you for it until you go through it. Thankfully, Chris just sort of listens to the rants of his hormone crazed wife and then we usually just all turn in for the night. This is what happened last night. So, Day 12 is a little late, but here is the lovely girl of our dreams: