A day in the life

I want to capture what my life looks like right now as a new mommy, full time nurse, and part time student. I've seen this type of post on several blogs before and I thought it would be neat to write one, especially to be able to look back at it one day. To do "A day in the life" properly, I need 2 seperate days. One of what a day looks like when I am home, and one when I am working.

A day I am working (every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday):

6am- Kyle's alarm goes off, I am typically annoyed and keep my eyes closed pretending to be sleeping. He"quietly" gets up and gets dressed and heads off to the gym/work.

6:45am- My alarm goes off. Wasn't it just 6am? I quickly get dressed in scrubs (so glad I don't have to pick out an outfit) and do my hair/makeup. At this time I usually hear Kim, our sitter, let herself in and get settled downstairs.

7am- Macy starts to stir and I go in her room to wake her up/ feed her. I quickly nurse her then Kim comes upstairs to burp her and get her dressed for the day.

7:30am- I grab a bite to eat (usually peanut butter on a slice of bread) and head out the door for work. I only have a 10 minute commute which I love! I have to get there a little early so I change in to OR scrubs.

8:00am- Clock in and take care of patients for the next 10-12 hours.

8:30pm- Get home. Macy may or may not already be down for the night. I eat a small dinner and cuddle with the hubby on the couch watching TV.

10:30pm- Get Macy from her crib and do a quick "dream feed". (Hoping to drop these soon!)

10:45-11pm- Pass out in bed! Say our prayers, kiss each other, and never look back.

A day at home with the babe:

6am- Once again, Kyle's alarm goes off and I am wishing it wasn't. I need to sleep!

7am-ish-Macy starts making noises in her crib that wake me up. I usually let her lay awake for at least 10 minutes in the morning so she can get used to entertaining herself in her crib. I am still drifting in and out of sleep at this pont.

7:30am- Go get her up, change her diaper, and bring her in to my bed to play for a little bit, while mommy struggles to keep her eyes open. She usually just lays there and talks to herself for awhile.

8am- Feed the babe. Get her dressed for the day, get myself dressed as well. Typically yoga pants and a tshirt. Who have I got to impress?

8-10am- Bring Macy downstairs and put her on her playmat. Give her tons of toy options and make myself some breakfast. (Usually a bowl of cereal) Once she gets bored on her playmat I get on the floor with her and we work on her rolling and sitting up skills. Once she starts to get fussy I know play time is over.

10-10:30am- Lay Macy in her crib for her morning nap.

10:30-12p- I try to catch up on homework and housework while Macy sleeps. Lately I've been avoiding my treadmill workouts that I used to do at this time. Once everything is cleaned and accomplished I usually veg out on the couch watching TV until Little Miss wakes up.

12p- Macy wakes up from her nap and I feed her again. If we have errands to run this is usually when we do. Or we go on a walk, or we just do some of the same things we did earlier this morning. Play on the floor and work on our exercies.

3p- Macy finally is worn out and goes back down in her crib for a nap. This nap is usually shorter.

4p- She is back up and ready to eat. I feed the babe and Daddy usually gets home around 5. We all hang out, talk about what we want to do for dinner and lounge around, catching up on each other's day.

6ish- Macy lays down for another shorter nap. Kyle and I make a final decision on dinner, which usually requires him going out to pick something up (like Qdoba or Subway)

7p- Like clockwork she's back up and ready to eat. I feed Macy cereal and nurse her, give her a bath and put her in her jammies. Then more play time to wear her out.

8:30ish- Macy starts to get fussy so we lay her down in her crib and then watch some TV and relax. I will make lunch for the next work day and clean bottles/breast pump stuff, pick up all her toys, and any other sutff laying around the house.

10pm- Go upstairs and get ready for bed. Teeth brushed, jams on, lay in bed for a little bit struggling to keep to my eyes open. Like I mentioned before, hopefully we can wean the dream feed soon.

10:30- Get Macy and bring her in our room for a dream feed. Kyle is most likely asleep by now so that doesn't help. Lay her down right away afterwards.

11ish-pm- Crawl back in bed, wake up Kyle for our nightly prayer and quickly fall asleep! Zzzzzzz!

There it is. A day in the life.

After going over our typical day when I am home, I realize there is definitely room for improvement! My two biggest imporvements would be to work out while Macy takes her long morning nap. And to make dinner while she takes her evening nap. I never know what to make, therefor to don't know what to buy at the grocery, therefor don't have anything in the house when it comes time to fix something. Looks like I'll be going to the grocery this weekend!

4 Months of Macy

After reading over Macy's 3 month stats I can't believe how much has changed! Likes, dislikes,  and feedings have all evolved so much even in one month. This month has FLOWN BY, probably because I am back at work, but man - I would like time to slow down a little bit!

Happy Girl. September 24, 2012

4 Month Stats

Weight: 15lbs 7oz (50-75th percentile)

Height: 26 inches (95th percentile)

Clothing size: Some 3-6 month clothing, depending on the brand... But mostly 6 months (definitely in Carters) She is a long baby!

Diaper size: 1

Feeding: We have officially started on cereal! Macy's pediatrician told me that the new guidelines are to wait and start babies on cereal at 6 months. I contemplated this for a couple days, then decided that I am the mommy and I think my baby is ready for cereal- for a couple of reasons. A- She is taking an 8 ounce bottle for my sitter every 4 hours when I am working... 8 ounces! B- She had been sleeping through the night like an angel (10p-7 or 8a) then BAM out of nowhere she was waking up several times through the night. Also, the reason the new suggestion is 6 months is to promote breastfeeding... And Macy is a great nurser. She has zero issues with it and I just didn't feel like adding cereal was going to change that. And furthermore I had heard that if they weren't ready they wouldn't eat it. So last week we tried it.. AND SHE LOVED IT. She couldn't get enough. She was literally grabbing the spoon and shoving it in her mouth to the point of gagging herself. That night (and every night since) she has gone back to sleeping through the night. At this point we are still only doing cereal at night, around 7, and nursing/bottle feeding her every 3-4 hours during the day while she is awake.

First time trying cereal -YUM YUM!

Milestones:  Sleep! Sleep! Sleep! Besides a brief couple days last week (before cereal) Macy has been sleeping like a champ at night. We have also found out that she is a belly sleeper. Our sitter discovered this when Macy wasn' taking good naps for her while I was at work (even in her swing). So one day she just laid her on her tummy and she took a 2 and half hour nap. So now, all of her naps are in her crib on her tummy. She takes two to three 1.5-2.5hr naps each day. She hasn't slept in her swing at all. It is so nice to be able to lay her down in her crib, usually awake, and she can drift off to sleep and stay alseep. It has really freed me up during the days to get a lot more accomplished! Just this week we decided to go ahead and lay her on her tummy at night too since she is so strong- and she slept like a little angel as well.


Sometimes sleeping on her stomach leads to weird positions like this one.  

Loves: Toys! She loves exploring things with her little fingers and mouth of course. She sucks on her paci clip holder all the time. She also loves looking at herself in the mirror. It is probably the cutest thing ever. Every time I hold her in front of the mirror the moment she notices herself she gasps and then starts laughing and flirting with herself. I die.

One of her faves

Dislikes: Believe it or not, we can (almost) remove tummy time off of the dislike list! She has become a master roller from tummy to back, so that helps alleviate her hatred towards it.

Adventures: Mom and dad had our first overnight adventure away from baby. Macy did great and because she sleeps through the night now I was a lot less worried about her.

Mom and dad's first night away!

What we couldn't live with out: Toys, her play mat, and cute jammies! Now that we are out of the swaddle jammies have become an official part of the wardrobe now, and oh my goodness- jams are so stinking cute!

No more swaddle for me! I love my jams!

Growing Growing Girl!

3 Months of Macy and Mama is back to work!

12 weeks came with more than one milestone. For one, I have a 3 month old! Who plays, interacts, sleeps longer at night, the list goes on! And secondly... it meant that it was time to stop pretending I was a stay at home mom and get my booty back to work. More on that in a little bit... Now let's get to Macy's 3 Month Stats

August 24, 2012

Getting bigger and bigger!

3 Month Stats

Weight: 14.2 whopping lbs! (according to our home scale)

Height: Not sure...But I know she has grown! She will get measured next month at her 4 month check up.

Clothing size: 3 months, actually some 3-6 month clothes ;( She is a long baby!

Diaper size: 1

Feeding: Still eating (nursing or bottle) every 3-4 hours during the day, with her last feeding around 10pm. She is able to make it through most of the night with out a feeding. The earliest I will feed her is 5:30ish, but I am still trying to break her of that. The latest she has slept so far is 7:30. It has been a slow process to get this little chica to sleep all night! The good thing is, when she does wake up around 5ish or even 7, I can feed her and lay her right back down to sleep -and then sleeps until 8 or 9. (or 10!) Our goal is to drop that 5am feeding permanently!

Milestones: So many!I don't even know where to begin. She is really starting to communicate and gets so excited when she sees us. When we lay her on her play mat she intentionally grabs at things (whereas last month she just batted at the toys). She does a really good job sitting up with little support. And of course, one milestone is that mommy went back to work!

Loves: Being talked to, laying on her back playing with rings and is the most happy when she wakes up in the morning.

A picture of Macy on our monitor- giggling to herself first thing in the morning

Dislikes: Still hating tummy time. She can tolerate it better on some days over others. But for the most part she pretty much hates being placed on her stomach.

Tolerating tummy time with a little help from a pillow

Adventures: We had two different spend-the-night adventures. Both of which she handled pretty well. The first one was at the beginning of the month- we went to visit Grampy Shmev in South Bend. She got to go on her first boat ride and go swimming. The next one was a trip up to Valparaiso where she got to see mommy and daddy's college friends and have a sleepover with everybody.

Macy lovin her first boat ride with Teresa!

What we couldn't live with out: Still going to have to say her swing. We are trying one nap a day in her crib, but her best naps are still in her swing. We also took it with us on both out of town adventures and couldn't have made it with out it! She also loves rings... The little plastic rings that link together. They are the perfect size for her little tiny hands right now.

Took her rings with her for nap time

I started back to work this past week, and it has gone better than expected. We are so very blessed to have a nanny that comes to our house the 3 days a week while I am at work. So Macy gets one on one time and gets to stay home, sleep in in her bed, and be in her own surroundings every day. I have actually enjoyed my time away -I love being a nurse, and it is good for me to have some "me time". I have the ideal schedule - Monday, Wednesday and Thursdays (12 hour shifts). I have a 3 day weekend every week and a mid-week break as well. It has been great! I have also started my semester at school (going for my Nurse Practitioner) too so I am learning how to balance being a full time working mom AND student! Those naps of hers are more important now than ever!

I am looking forward to the next month -at 4 months she will get to start eating cereal and will be moving around and playing even more. It has been so much fun these past 3 months... I could lay on the floor talking and playing with sweet Macy Jane for hours on end. Being a mom has been so fulfilling and has definitely made me a better person!