Friday!

Hooray Friday! And tonight I think R and I are going out to dinner - a true date night! Awesome!

The babe is still pretty darn cute. I was reading to her this morning, both of us laying on our backs on the floor, and she was way more interested in playing with my face. She grabbed my lips a few times and I nibbled on her fingers, which totally shocked her. Adorable. (Although I swear if she drags her little razor-sharp baby fingernails down my chest one more time when I'm nursing her...)

Gym yesterday: 3 minutes on stair machine, 3 minutes on bike. Which is kind of embarrassing when the gym is fairly crowded and you feel like everyone's looking at you hop onto a machine, get all set up with your stuff and your headphones, hit start, go, "OMG this sucks!" and get off three minutes later. And then do it on another machine, again. But, I did weights for awhile afterwards so it wasn't a wasted trip. I need to pick up some goggles but I might try some lap swimming since that shouldn't hurt my foot but still give me good cardio. Of course, I'm still pretty out of shape so I'll just do that three-minute thing again, which will suck, so we'll see.

Alright I seem to be tired enough that I'm having trouble spelling words and stuff, so I'm just going to post my pics and call it a day.  :)

Right after this, she jammed that leg in her mouth and started to gag. Someone's not ready for solid foods yet!

She loves being in her blanket tent!

Hump day!

Again... not much to report! Julia is still raspberrying her way through the days. I finally got shamed into doing more tummy time with her, when I realized she is woefully behind in her arm and neck strength. She hates tummy time, but loves laying on her back playing with her toys, so guess which one I let her do more often. So far, we've done 3-4 minutes twice a day for the last few days, and already I can tell that she's getting stronger. My goal is to increase that to three times a day so that when my mom visits in a few weeks, Julia will be strong enough that my mom can stop harassing me about her arm and neck development.

My foot still really hurts. I'm going to make it to the gym tomorrow to do weights and try biking and see if I can't get some cardio in that way. Spinning scares me (the people seem so hardcore!) yet I'm also kind of disdainful - seriously how much of a workout can it be if you're sitting?? But, maybe I'll give it a shot.

Julia's going to her grandma's tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to it like nobody's business. Maybe it's because we've been stuck in the house these past few days because I've been trying to establish a nap schedule, but I'm really hankering for some time to myself. I don't even want to do anything exciting. I just want to go to the gym, the store, sterilize bottles, and weed out some clothes for Goodwill. (We're remodeling our closet (as much as one can remodel a ten-foot reach-in) and I'm totally excited for it - but that'll be another blog post.) (We also just ordered a whole set of cloth diapers for the baby, which I'm also really excited about but will - also - be another blog post.) But anyways, I'm psyched for the time alone tomorrow - usually Gaga takes Julia on Wednesdays so I guess I didn't realize how nice those couple hours are until I didn't get my mid-week break.

Here are the only pics I took of the baby today. I'm thinking I might try to do my own little photoshoot with her this weekend. I have a basket that I bet she'd look really stinking cute in.

Ttthhhhhbbbbbbbbbbt

Talking.

Give me that camera. Give it to me. (I have six other photos just like this one!)

Same old.

Haven't written in awhile - just haven't been in the mood and not much has been going on.

Julia has gotten a billion times better about napping (knock on wood), which has been great these past few days. She's not consistent enough yet that I can really bank on getting a set amount of time, but the morning nap is lengthening, the midday nap is still short but it's pretty consistent, and the afternoon nap is slowly emerging and getting a little longer. I've had to learn to let her cry a little. I set a timer, which makes all the difference in the world to me (and I'm not talking about screaming - she just moans pathetically). It saves my sanity to watch the timer - I know five minutes is not an unreasonable amount of time for her to cry, but it feels a lot longer, but at the very least, I have five minutes to throw in some laundry or get the mail. It's paying off though. She's definitely falling asleep more quickly than she did a week ago. Famous last words before the infamous 4-month sleep regression kicks in, huh?

I also appear to have hurt myself running. It's either tendonitis or a stress fracture in my foot, and it hurts like a $%*&#. I tried to work through it last night and made it ten billion times worse. I could barely walk today, and I skipped our daily outing just because I didn't think I could walk anywhere carrying the baby. I don't know if I'm out for the half-marathon or not (I'm not giving up yet!) but I need to get back to the point where I can walk around the house and take the dog for walks. And not make it worse as soon as it starts to feel a little better. Just when the working out was starting to get fun too. :(

Julia has also learned to raspberry. It's so adorable. Or at least it is to her mom. It's so cool to see that she finally knows that she has control over her mouth. She's been "talking" to me for awhile but she has just been all about the raspberrying lately. Mostly when I lay her down to sleep - she looks up at me and grins and goes, "Pbbbbttttttttttt" and it's the cutest thing in the world and it kills me to have to just leave her in her crib. She's already learned to manipulate me.

My friend Sara did an awesome photoshoot with Julia over the weekend. I hope to get those photos from her at some point and post them. For now, these are all I have:

Love the post-bath, wrapped-in-a-towel shots.

Chewing on Daddy.

Thoughtful baby.

It also looks like I've figured out how to take and upload video, so for all the people who read this blog just for the baby stuff, I ought to get some good stuff up in the next few days.

Bumbo seats and snow days!

Hmm...

Not feeling it.

Getting the hang of it.

But still pretty floppy.

Trying pretty hard here, Mom!

Snow dog!

Our backyard looks pretty with some snow and strategic cropping.

Play. With. Me.

That's what I'm talking about!

(Yes, I just now figured out how to make photos bigger lol.)

Not much to report. We're struggling along with the nighttime feeding, my decreasing milk production, some cabin fever, and napping (or lack thereof). But, the babe is still adorable:

Look at those eyes!

"Mom. Seriously. I hate things with hoods."

Daddy's girl.  :)

Fine I didn't like you that much anyways.

So there's this couple in our neighborhood and I have been on a supersecret mission to make them our friends. I don't know anything about them except they have a young baby (we have a young baby!), they have a dog (we have a dog!), they walk their dog twice a day (we walk our dog twice a day!), and they look supercute (we're supercute!). I've been kind of stalking them (not really) (well maybe) hoping to run into them on one of our walks and strike up a conversation and become BFFF's (best family friends forever). As part of my master plan, when I'm walking Scrappy and I see them in their front yard, I make sure to walk up and down their street. I hadn't ever actually talked to them though (creepy, huh?). Well today, the guy was shoveling his driveway, so I took Scraps down their street of course, and thought I'd toss out a friendly greeting. You know, being neighborly and all.

"Good luck!  It's brutal shoveling."  Or something like that.
"........."

He stared at me like I had just asked him to buy me tampons or something.

Now maybe I wasn't loud enough. Or I looked like a BlizzardMonster all bundled up. Or he lost his tongue in a terrible accident and he can't talk anymore.

But my master plan is off. Which is fine. I didn't want to be friends with them anyways.

Back to it!

Well, I was out of commission for a few days because I was sick, then I was out for another few days because I was in Vegas.  :P  Well, those overlapped a little, but I was in Vegas for a few days over this past weekend.  Julia stayed with Robert's parents.  It was really really nice to have a few days with just Robert and I, without the almost-constant caretaking that the baby requires.  I missed the baby terribly but we had a few nice, leisurely meals and napped a lot.  It sucked to be sick during the beginning part of the vacation, and I spent a LOT of time in our hotel room pumping to try to clear out the infection, but it was still nice to get away.  We gambled a little, drank a little wine, and mostly just hung out (perhaps the lamest trip to Vegas ever but still nice).  Nice to have some adult time.

Robert was in Vegas for work, but fortunately he was able to skip part of it and come back with me - a day earlier than we had originally planned - to beat the blizzard of the century.  It was really nice to have him home, especially since yesterday was a snow day and my birthday.  So, while it still drives me bonkers to stay holed up at home all day, I got several nice breaks when Robert took the baby and I could be off the clock for a little while.  Plus, how can you beat having all your family safe and snug at home when it's snowing outside?  (The blizzard itself was underwhelming - "12 inches of snow and blizzard conditions" turned into "2-3 inches of ice and snow, nbd.")

Unfortunately, I have no photos of our time in Vegas or the "blizzard."  I'll try to get back on the photo wagon soon.  I've also taken an unexpectedly long hiatus from half-marathon training.  I'm itching to get back on that wagon too but I may not make it out to the gym until tomorrow.

And.... my birthday brings a lot more introspection for me than the new year or any other annual anniversary.  This time last year, I was about a week away from finding out I was pregnant.  I had just started my research job, and I had just gotten Scrappy.  Since then, Scrappy has stayed the same, I got huge and pushed out a baby, the baby went from Emma Lightning to Julia Maslen and is now so big, I quit the working world altogether, Robert finished up his MBA, and I've gotten healthier and kicked some habits.  While I won't list my past vices since the internet doesn't need to know everything, I'm physically in much better shape than before.  I'm growing up, I guess.