Woznation

Evie is nearly 20 weeks.  Which is too old to be tracking time in weeks.  She is over 4 months now and 17 lbs!!  She’s about 90th percentile for everything, meaning shes proportional, just BIG.  I cant find Wil’s exact stats, but I remember him always being about 50th percentile, which is around 14 lbs (?).

We had her 4-month appointment last week, and my normally very-independent baby was all snuggles:

Seriously – she has never cared for a wrap, carrier, or nap on my chest.  She much prefers to watch things from her back or bouncer.  It was quite a change last Thursday when she insisted on being held and slept on my chest for over 2 hours.  It was bitter sweet. She must have really felt awful, but it was nice to have a snuggly baby again.  Wilek was the biggest snuggler, which never allowed me to get any work done.  But now i look back and think how great it was.

On Friday, she was back to her old, happy self.  Even waking up at 4:00am ready to play!!  With Wil – he would wake up in the middle of the night crying, and I would rush right in to get him – his cries were so sad – he’d always be so upset until you got to him.  But once you fixed the problem, he’d promptly go back to sleep and all was quiet again.  With Evie though, she doesnt really fuss about anything  – she just wakes up talking your ear off, ready to play and hang out with you.  No cuddling, singing, nursing, or bottle really mitigates the problem. Its almost worse than a crying baby.  Because you cant make it stop!!  its 4am child – go back to sleep!  She doesnt seem to get it.

Nonetheless – shes doing great.  The main thing I was worried about was her flat head – I couldnt tell if it was really that flat – or just looked flat due to her mullet. Like I mentioned, she spends a lot of time on her back – since thats how shes happiest! Phil had to talk me down from taking her in for a same day appointment a few times.  But when I brought it up to the doctor, she wasnt concerned at all!  She passed with flying colors.

Here are her most recent bunny pictures:

8 weeks old!

13 weeks old!

16 weeks or 3.5 months

4 months old!

Same outfit – a 6-month sleeper – already getting snug!  Time to break out the 9-month clothes!

4.5 months old!

19 weeks earlier:

1 week old!

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We’re coming out of a very hectic September.  We’ve been working very hard at getting into and staying in a routine around here.  I’m still getting use to the nanny/work arrangement, things like: getting all the bottles ready for her, getting my pumping supplies ready for work, getting dinner made a day in advance on work days, doing all laundry and errands on non-work days, etc.  We still have not mastered it, but are slowly getting more efficient. It can only get easier (right?).

It didnt help that in the middle of September our basement flooded.  So for 2 weeks we had a constant parade of workers in the house figuring out and fixing the problem.  Which ended up being our neighbors water heater leaking into our basement through a hole for over 24 hours, resulting in a few inches of water and completely ruining the finished guest-room carpet.  Phil went down to the basement to grab some paper towels on Friday evening and stepped on the carpet and it was saturated.  He went further into the basement and found much more water!  Luckily, most of our things were either up on shelves or stored in plastic containers (you know, just in case our basement every flooded).   We spent hours that night pumping water and surveying the damage.  Some old books were ruined, but we didnt really lose anything critical.  (Side note: thankfully we discovered the issue after happy hour with some friends. A few beers made this problem not quite as bad as it might have been otherwise!) Anyway – its really not a sob story, just a pain in the ass.  I only wrote it all out so that Phil and I can look back in 50 years and say…remember that time our basement flooded?

almost pumped out

I’m happy to report everything is now fixed and the guest-room is back to normal.  Just in time for Phil and Maggie to visit in a few weeks!  WOohoo.  I’m counting on October to be fun and smooth-sailing!

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September 2nd marked the first day of the quarter and my first day back to work.  The timing was great in that I was back in the office to help teach again (which I really love).  And I had 2 weeks to catch-up on research projects at home.  So when I actually sat down at my desk, I felt that I could hit the ground running.

One big change that we made was taking Wil out of daycare and hiring a nanny to come 3 days a week.  We were so fortunate to find an awesome nanny who was looking for part-time work on M/W/F to work around her T/Thurs class schedule.  After we met her, I talked to my advisors and worked my schedule around the nanny’s hours and then would catch-up on extra work at night and on weekends.  Its been an adjustment, but everything seems to be working out great.  Our nanny is Liz, who is cool, calm and collected….many of the things I am not, haha.  She’s a perfect balance for the kids.  She loves to take them out and even has a network of other nannies who she gets together with so all the kids can play.  Wil has already met a new friend, Addy, who is 2.  And when I was at the zoo a few weeks ago, Addy and her nanny spotted us and introduced themselves!  Baltimore is such a small world.

Its nice to be back at work. I really love what I do and am lucky that I still have 2 days a week (well 4 if you count the weekends) with the munchkins. I’m still getting the hang of balancing everything, but we’re starting to figure it out!  Thanks to Wil and Evie for being super awesome during my transition back to work.  You’re such happy kids and having been taking things in stride. Here are some recent pics —

Evie has been growing like a weed:

First time in the tub!

Cheeks keep getting bigger:

Barney is still not impressed:

Barney love

passed out

We try to stay busy on the weekends – always finding time for the park or the zoo:

at the park with daddy

Selfies

that hair.

zoo train

And one more bonus picture from Indiana that I forgot to include.  Bels came down to meet Evie and chat about her recent engagement 🙂 🙂 🙂 Soooo wonderful:

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