Nine Weeks

Dear Lorelei,

Just a few hours ago, you officially became nine weeks old. Congratulations! I cannot believe it has already been two months since you were born, it feels like just yesterday I was lying in labor and delivery with my feet up in the air...wait, too gross. Moving on.

Little girl. Little peanut. Little bit. You awe me. Every single day. You are so curious about the world around you, always looking about. Right now you are attempting to knock over the toy bar on your Merry Monkey Gym. So cute. It feels weird to take you out places and it feels like people are always giving me weird looks, but you like it. Remember in the Climatron you made that weird cross-eyed face when we first got there. It was as if you were saying, "What is this shit?" Although, perhaps with slightly less vulgar language.

So. What has happened in the last two months. You met the majority of your relatives. Grandma and Grandpa Lewis were here just after you were born. They cooked and cleaned and helped mommy and daddy through those first few rough days when you were hungry all the time and refused to be put down. Then Mam-Ma and Pap-Pa were here for two and a half weeks. They cooked and cleaned too. And Pap-Pa held you a lot. He loved snuggling with his grandbaby. Then before Christmas we went to Toledo and you met your great aunts and great-grandma. You were such a good baby on the drive there, but the hotel really freaked you out. That first night you didn't want to sleep because you were too busy crying.

You went to two - count 'em: two - Christmas parties. You were so well behaved and even let others hold you and play with you. Then you had your first Christmas. Although you slept through all of the gift opening, including the traditional one gift on Christmas Eve, at least you got snow on your first Christmas. And although mommy and daddy were both kind of sick we still had a good time. We even went to the Botanical Gardens the next day and daddy got to share his love of model trains with you.

What else? You've started to smile. All the time. It makes me so happy when you smile at me. This cute little grin. And you make the cutest little happy noises.

Time seems to be flying by. Fast forwarding. I can't wait for you to start crawling and walking and talking and all that, but I'm really going to miss these first few months when you were so tiny and everything was new.

I love you so much,

Your Mother

A Perfect Moment

Lorelei has started to smile now. Like real smiles. This afternoon, because I was tired and she was a bit fussy, we cuddled in bed together. She would smile and reach out to me. It was a perfect moment. And then she pooped.

The Good List

I've been a bit of a Debbie Downer lately and for that I do apologize to you, dear readers. So today, despite my heartburn, back pain and sleep deprivation, I'm going to focus on the good things. My list of happy

1. I'm 35 weeks today! That means that I only have about a month left until my due date. We went for my (hopefully) last ultrasound this morning. Everything looks great. She's growing exactly the way she should be and currently weighs a little more than 5 pounds. Also, they did a 3D Ultrasound for the first time. She looks like an actual baby and not just a blob!

2. Tiny baby clothes. So I admit to going a little crazy at Gymboree the other morning and then suffered from extreme guilt and buyer's remorse. However, I took back all but one thing and now I feel a lot better. Look at how cute this jacket is though:

3. The movie Stardust. I know I've mentioned it before, but right now this is my favorite movie. People always say that if a movie (or music, book, etc) puts you to sleep, you must not like it very much. I beg to differ. There is something very comforting about this movie. It's like a warm blanket of happy and, if I'm having trouble sleeping, all I have to do is turn it on and I'm asleep within five minutes. Now, if only I could figure out a way to set my DVD player to repeat so it would stay on all night and the menu music wouldn't wake me up.

4. I finished my first knitting project in about two years. Granted I haven't actually worked on anything in a very long time, but it's still nice to have something completed and I can say, "Look what I made! Aren't I cool?" In addition, I have plans for future projects. I'm going to make a matching hat to go with this scarf (eventually) and currently I'm working on a tiny purple baby scarf which will also have a matching hat. My friend Cecily lent me a book of Harry Potter themed projects for an easy hat pattern and I want to make Hermione's knitting bag too!

5. Del Monte Fruit Chillers. I could eat an entire box of these in one day, they are so delicious. Plus, it's made with real fruit so bonus nutritional value!

6. Grilled cheese sandwiches and alphabet soup. I feel like such a kid when I eat this, but it's so tasty! Unfortunately, I don't make very good grilled cheese sandwiches. I know what you are all thinking: How hard is it to make a grilled cheese? Not very hard, but my dear husband makes them much better than I do so I only get to eat them when he's home for lunch.

7. I got a random refund from my old student health insurance (seriously, the charges were from 2002). WTF? Awesome though!

8. Borders' Iced Hazelnut Toffee Mocha. Do I need to say more? Even substituting decaf espresso for the cold-brewed coffee, it is still one of the tastiest beverages on the face of the planet.

Well. That completes my list of happy. I leave you all with my weekly (sorta) picture. Here I am at 35 weeks.

Also note, that sweater is not a maternity sweater. It is one I bought from H&M about two years ago, but it is so long and big and schlumpy that it still fits over my eight month pregnant belly. Awesome.

Two Years

Two years ago today Brian and I finally made it legal after almost six years of dating. I remember waking up at my friends house and being picked up by my sister to get my hair done. I remember that it was 95 degrees outside. I remember thinking that I had brought this on myself because I had been hoping so much for a warm day so we could get married outside. I remember shaking while my dad and I sat in the carriage before the ceremony. I remember good friends and good times. I remember walking through the hotel lobby in my wedding dress and people giving us knowing looks. I remember soaking in the giant bathtub in an attempt to get all the hairspray and makeup off of me. I remember being so tired that we both fell asleep long before midnight. It was the best day of my life. In two years we...

1) Went to Antigua for our honeymoon where I managed to avoid getting a sunburn for four whole days

3) I started a two new jobs. Neither of them provided less stress than working for CPK but for awhile at least the schedule was better. (Until I was opening 5 days a week that is)

2) Went to Las Vegas for cousin Steve's graduation from culinary school. I smashed the viewfinder on my digital camera the first day. It turns out disposable cameras are not that bad.

4) Went to New York for Jeff and Helen's wedding

5) Had a six month string of really crappy things happening. Our basement flooded, our roof had to be replaced, our house got robbed, I got sciatica and an intestinal parasite and I got into a car accident and totaled my car.

6) I went back to school.

7) I got pregnant. This is what I looked like just a few months ago:

8) Went to Florida for Karen and Adam's wedding.

Happy two years to my silly husband!