3 Months Old

Well, we have all survived me going back to work. Aubrey is still alive and I didn't have a mental breakdown (although I came close). Mom and Dad came and stayed Saturday through Tuesday so that Aubrey would be with them on my first couple of days back. That was such a blessing! It was much easier to leave her knowing that she was at home with them. Also, mom made a TON of meals and put them in my freezer so that I won't have to worry about coming home to cook dinner. Such a lifesaver! Paulina, the babysitter, started on Wednesday. I seriously thank God everyday for sending her my way. She is amazing. I feel so comfortable leaving Aubrey with her. She is sweet and personable and loving and nurturing and honest and so much more. She does a great job of doing what I ask her to do but is also assertive enough to make decisions about what is best for Aubrey without needing to check with me on every little thing. She is a mom and has a mother's intuition. I know that she really loves Aubrey too which means so much to me. As for me, it is SO hard to be away from Aubrey but in a way it is good to be back in the swing of things. I only teared up at work a couple of times the first day when people would ask about her. But I cried all the way to work on Wednesday when I left her with Paulina for the first time. But after seeing how good Paulina was with her, I haven't had any more breakdowns.  I am so ready for summer though!!

I just took Aubrey's 3 month pictures because she had this terrible eye infection and I didn't want her eye to be all yucky in the pictures. Oh yeah... that was another thing. She has been the perfect picture of health for her whole little life and then got this eye infection the weekend before I had to go back to work! Again, thank God for Mom and Dad. They took her to the doctor on Monday which was my first day back. She also stopped sleeping through the night that week. I don't know if it was the eye or the change with me being gone but she decided to start waking up in the middle of the night for the first time in weeks! But now that her eye is better, we are back on track with that now. Thank goodness!

She has started giggling and making all kinds of new sounds. She smiles all the time. She found her hands and loves to stare at them and suck on them. She has started "playing" with her little toys that hang down from her playmat. She will reach up for them and grab them. This makes Ava and Macy so happy. All they have ever wanted was for her to play with toys, so now they are getting their wish. I walked in the other day and found Ava holding Aubrey's little hand and making her push buttons on my iPhone to play a game. Aubrey was just going along with it. Letting Ava move her hand around to find the different rhyming words. : ) She is taking bottles really well and we have moved to about half formula feeding and half nursing but we are slowly moving to more formula. I'm doing the best I can with nursing while being back at work but it is really hard. At night, I put her to bed about 8:30 and then go in and feed her around 9:30 then put her back down and she will usually sleep until around 7:00 or 7:30. She is such a good baby and such a blessing to our family. Here are some 3 month pics!

This was her eye the day before we took her to the doctor. Poor baby!



This was the worst day. The first medicine they prescribed didn't work so it kept getting worse. Finally got some drops that cleared it up.

 

Sitting on the couch and watching TV.

 



Catching Up

Tomorrow it is back to the real world! Aubrey is 3 months old and it is back to work for me. It is going to be so hard for me to leave this little one. I really enjoy my job and look forward to seeing my co-workers and all my little students at school, but I will miss this sweet face! Let the countdown to summer begin.

 

We have stayed busy over the last month. My neighborhood friends threw Aubrey and I a "sip and see" shower. It was actually for us and for another friend and her baby that is about a month younger than Aubrey. It was so sweet of them to do that for us. We had fun showing off the babies, visiting with each other, and opening presents. Two of my good friends in the neighborhood just had their third girl also. It will be so fun to have our NINE GIRLS grow up together. (What is really funny is that Ava and Macy are the oldest of the 9! Talk about crazy times when we are all together!).

 





We also spent some time in Arkansas visiting family. We got to show Aubrey off to my grandparents and a few others that had not met her yet. While we were there, I got to spend some time with my girlfriends. My friend, Stephanie, got married so we threw her a shower/bachelorette party in Little Rock. We also had lots of time with Grammy, Pawpaw, Aunt Em, Uncle Jon, Presley, Landon, Gigi, and Papa. Ava and Macy got to go to Presley's 4th birthday party which was the highlight of their trip. She had a princess party and "the REAL Rapunzel" was there! So much fun for them.

Digging in the dirt at the park

Yucky Hands!

Little sister slept through most of the park

 

Snow White (aka Ava) and Rapunzel

Cinderella (aka Macy) and Rapunzel

Ava, Macy, and Presley have a "team cousins" cheer that they did over and over while we were there. They were lucky enough to have Rapunzel join in and do "Team Cousins" with them. It doesn't get much better than that.

Wyatt girls with Rapunzel

Meme and Papaw Bob with their 6th great-granddaughter. No great-grandsons yet!!

 

I have tried to make the most out of my time off of work. One way I did this was by taking Ava and Macy out to lunch separately on two different days. When it was their special lunch day, I picked them up from school and took them to the restaurant of their choice. It was SO special for each of them to be able to leave school and have lunch with just me (and Aubrey).  I was able to give them my full attention and there was no fighting over where to eat and who gets to sit where. I can truly see their different personalities when they are not together. For example, Ava picked Arby's for her restaurant. That girl loves a roast beef sandwich! : )  She sat in her seat, ate all of her lunch without me having to beg her, told me about the science project at school and what sight words they were learning this week. Then she cried when I dropped her back off (I didn't actually see her cry but she told me later that she did). Macy picked "Old McDonalds." She ran back and forth between the play area and her nuggets the whole time. She talked non-stop but I can't even tell you what she talked about. She just makes noise constantly. : ) I had to beg her to stop talking (or singing) for just a second so she could eat. Then she attempted to lock me out of the car as I was loading her back in after lunch. Luckily, her attempt was not successful!  It was really fun for me to give them that individual attention that I know they need but so rarely get.

Ava's special lunch day!

More interested in talking to Aubrey than me!

Every special lunch deserves a messy chocolate dessert

Macy's special lunch day!



Stay tuned for Aubrey's 3 month update and a report on my first week back!!