First day back in the office

Yesterday was my first day back in the office. Of course, Penelope was smiling and cooing at me, which made it so hard to leave. It is so nice to only be doing Tuesdays and Thursdays this month and to be able to leave her with Chris 4 times this month. I think it was much easier knowing she was home with daddy. Plus, I absolutely love my job. I feel like I'm part of something that is really making a difference. The people I work with are amazing and I continue to do different things so it is a challenge and not completly routine. I don't know that I could feel okay about daycare if my job wasn't like this.

Speaking of my job, yesterday I was going through some mailings we did last year and came across a picture of one of our child stories. He is a little boy who was born with a brain tumor. He is currently in remission and it is one of those success stories that touches everyone. Well, I've seen this picture a dozen times. The picture is of him as a baby during treatment. This time I started to cry. It made me think of Penelope and how much it would hurt to see her like this little boy and it made me think of his parents who are such wonderful people and how they were able to handle him being ill. I'm tied even more to our mission now then ever before, which brings me to my little soapbox. I know times are hard, but please continue to give to your favorite non-profits. I'm not going to promote only Children's Cancer Research Fund although we could certainly use donations right now. Kids are still getting sick, dogs still need to be adopted, food banks need food more than ever etc. Every non-profit I know will send a tribute letter or card to someone you want to honor. Of course, I personally think it is one of the best gifts you can give at the holidays, especially if you know the person's favorite charity. Well, anyways, I'll leave it at that...

As for Chris's day with Penny, I knew it would probably be rough since last week she pretty much went on a bottle boycott. We were giving her a bottle about every other day but then I also needed to freeze some milk so I wasn't giving it to her as often. Big mistake! I guess by the third bottle she wasn't as fussy but it took much longer to feed her because she cried most of the time. When I called Chris yesterday afternoon the first thing he said was "When are you coming home?" He sounded exactly like me those first few days when I was by myself. He also said that he'll never question why I'm exhuasted some evenings. And poor guy couldn't get Penny to sleep longer than 20 mins at a time. I forgot to tell him to swaddle her up and turn the radio static on before putting her in the crib. She usually takes a three hour nap during the day and a few half hour naps. She was as exhausted as he was when I got home. She actually fell asleep at 7 pm. I woke her up at midnight to eat and then she didn't wake up again until 5 am. I'll have to remember to bring her swaddleme to daycare for her naps. She is such a wiggle worm when she sleeps without the swaddle that she still flings her arms in her face and wakes herself up. Also, she has started to suck on her hands like crazy and it seems to keep her from falling asleep she is slurping so hard.

Well, I'm going to cuddle with Penny. I've gotten in the habit of holding her for part of her naps. No tv, books, blackberry or anything, just me listening to her breathing. As I read in one parenting book, the dishwasher is never going to get mad at me for not spending time with it and if we have laundry piling up it won't feel neglected. It may be way sappy but last week I was holding her as she fell asleep and thought "this will be the only time when she is 10 weeks and 4 days old. I better hold on to this moment."I'm trying not to look ahead and get anxious for her to reach all of those milestones but just enjoy the time at wherever she is at this point in life. It is pretty amazing. The days felt like the same day for so long and now all of a sudden she is such a little person and I got to see that happen. This morning she and I seemed to be holding a whole conversation in coos and smiles...okay, I could go on and on but I better go cuddle with her now!