What a week this has been

What a week this has been, my first week back to work and adjusting to leaving Jackson and also a death in the family, Jon's wonderful Grandpa Bob and Jackson's Great Grandpa Bob passed away in the care of hospice early this morning. Please keep our family in your thoughts right now, Bob was a wonderful, caring and generous man and one of the best attorneys I know.

Bob's generosity and patience is what I think Jon and I will remember the most. We were always welcome in his home, whether it was his Florida home in Sarasota and we were on spring break from Miami for a week, or his home in Perrysburg and we were coming to stay for Christmas!

Bob also touched me with his generosity when he decided to sell his red Sebring Convertible to me for my law school years, the price was the humble salary that I made as an RA my senior year and not a penny more, despite the blue book value on the car that was more than 2X my RA salary. I said I would get a loan from my parents for the rest of the cost of the car over my RA money I had saved, he would not take one penny more. I really needed a car then and what Bob did for me was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. Bob also showed his generosity and caring ways by always being sure to save legal and local Bar journals for me to read whenever I visited. He always liked to hear about the attorneys I was working with, the cases I was working on and the law in general as it pertained to my practice. Finally, this is a simple one, but he always thought to make a few extra cups of coffee for me when I was visiting, and boy could he make a great cup of coffee, freshly ground. Bob was a wonderful man and touched so many people in so many different ways, both Jon and I feel blessed to have had him in our lives and to have known him in the different ways that each of us did. He will be missed, but we are glad he is out of pain now.

First day back to work

Today was my first day back to work. Thankfully, my mom is here to help this week and also Jackson slept the best he has slept in a week last night so at least I started the day off with excellent childcare and a relatively decent night of sleep. It was really hard to leave him though. I was pretty upset this morning and on the drive to work. I never thought I would feel like this but it is just so hard to look at his innocent little face and walk away......hopefully this gets easier as the days go by, I can barely stand it. I think I am going to have to make Jon drop him off at daycare the first day, I do not think I will be able to handle that one if I could not even stand leaving him with my own mom! I was not worried about his care at all today, it was just hard to leave him in general. One day at a time.....

Once I actually got to the office and got situated in my office, things were fine and I did remember how to be an attorney fairly well! This is going to be a wild year but we will all survive.

2 month check up

Today was jackson's 2 month check up. He got his 1st round of the big bad immunizations, painful, but necessary to go through life healthy! Besides getting three shots in the legs and one squirt of something in the mouth to protect him from the rota virus (sp?) he got weighed and measured. He weighed in at 12.1 pounds, and was 22.5 inches. So, in two months he has grown two inches and gained almost 5 pounds, not bad! He is measuring at both the 50th percentile for height, weight and head circumference and the doctor was pleased with his growth overall. You can see the evidence of his immunizations from the bandaids on his two chubby little thighs, poor little guy. He slept more than normal this afternoon but woke up from his second nap in a wonderful mood so he must not be feeling that bad. The doctor told me to give him infant tylenol every 4-6 hours (a very small dose) to take the edge of so we have been doing that.

Besides visiting the doctor this week, we also visited his daycare yesterday to drop off supplies and re-meet his teachers and the director. I think it will be a great place for him and it is only 10 minutes from my office so I can visit during my lunch hours to nurse anytime I want and also if he is particularly fussy, they will call me to come by. Hopefully the transition goes well for all of us......I think it will be worse on me than on him. I am NOT looking forward to that first time I have to actually leave him there. He will be completely fine, but it is still a hard pill for me to swallow right now. I am anxious about returning to work on Monday and handling all of the same responsibilities I have been handling these past 8 weeks along with work, and pumping at work, etc. but one thing at a time. I am thankful to have had these past 8 weeks of maternity leave but they have gone by much too fast! Thankfully Grandma D. is coming down for a visit all next week to help us through this transition:) Jackson is so lucky!!

Jon has been very busy these past two weeks working with our neighbor to complete the built in bookcase project in our family room.......it is ALMOST finished and boy am I glad. It is going to be really nice, buys us a lot of space and storage but our house has really been turned upside down and things are all out of place which is hard for a neat freak like myself to deal with. Everything should be back in place by this weekend, and then we'll post pictures..........

Jackson loves the summer heat!

Jackson certainly loves the summer heat. He loves every minute he can get in the warm humid air in the shade by the pool or on our screened in porch. We had a play date with our neighbor and her daughter yesterday morning and after a brief dip in the pool, he decided to nap and lounge poolside in the shade in his comfy little travel bed I recently bought at a garage sale! He had one just like this at Mimi's house in Ohio and on our way to the gym last week we passed a garage sale and I saw baby stuff (rare in Florida) and turned the car right around. Just my lucky, they had the exact same thing Mimi had only in blue and white. I got it home, laundered what could go through the wash and lysoled the rest and that is the story of Jackson's portable poolside/porchside bed. The other pictures posted are of him one morning this past week in his room just hanging out after I got him dressed. He seemed particularly happy and alert so I snapped a few shots of him in his snazzy plaid overalls:) We hope everyone is having a good weekend........we are...we have gone 4 nights now with him sleeping 7 hours at a time...whoo hoo!!!

A smiling baby!

Where does the time go, it is already the middle of the week! Things have been crazy at our house since we started the project of having a built in set of bookcases/entertainment center built into our family room so our whole house has furniture moved all around and there is a mess to boot! It will be nice when it is done though, we'll post pictures. Our neighbor does custom cabinetry so he is the one doing the work. Jackson and I have been getting out and about more and more. Yesterday we had to stop by my office so I could sign some probate pleadings for a file so the checks could be disbursed to the heirs and the court can close the matter. Then we had lunch with one of my attorney friends, Holly. Jackson was good the whole time while we enjoyed our sushi and caught up on all that I have missed in the young lawyer world in Vero Beach these past 7 weeks. I can hardly believe next week is my last week of maternity leave. It has gone by so fast! I can beleive it though when I look at Jackson and we see the many changes in him almost on a daily basis. It is amazing to watch a person develop. When we returned home from Ohio it was like all the sudden he had discovered his hands and that he could see all kinds of neat things all around him. He loves any toy now that he can sit in with something hanging in front or off to the side of him. His bouncy seat with the elephants and hanging giraffe is the favorite place to be right now which is great as we put him in that during dinner and he plays and we can eat together:)

We have also figured out the bath thanks to the helpful hints from Andrea! He loves the bath now, I put the tub in the big bathtub and have a chair in there me to sit along side the tub. I close the bathroom door and let the whole room steam up, then bring him in and the best trick Andrea advised to do was to cover his belly and body with warm wet washcloths. He LOVES that and just sits back and relaxs which is nice before bed time.

We may try to let Jackson attempt to sleep a night in his room this weekend or early next week. He has slept TWO WHOLE NIGHTS NOW through the night, going down at 9:40 or so (we try to push him until 10 but so far 9:40 is the best we have done) and he does not wake up for a feeding until 5 am! This is great and I hope it continues with me going back to work so soon. The first night he did that, when he was ready to go back down at 5:30am, I was WIDE awake and could not understand why because it was still really dark outside, etc. Then I realized, I have NOT had that much consecutive sleep since before he was born. I felt like a new person yesterday! Of course I went back to sleep and got a few more hours in, but still, that was so great to realize that I could have gotten up then as I will be waking no later than 6:00 once I start back to work and have to do his whole routine along with mine and be at work by 8:30.

Enjoy some pictures I was able to catch of Jackson's elusive smile.....this is in response to me talking to him in a very silly voice that I would NEVER do in public...he just cracks up though so it is worth it to sound so silly!!

First Swim

With the all clear from my OB this past Wednesday, we were finally all able to get into the pool together, even our dog Bella joined in! Of course we had to wait until early evening so the pool would have some shade for Jackson, but we all had fun. Jackson slept right through his entire first swim!

Other than swimming in the pool and taking care of Jackson, we have been busy working on our diet and going to the gym. That was another thing the doctor cleared me to be able to do at my 6 week check up. This morning I tackled a class at the gym called "step, kick & sculpt".........I should have paid better attention to the word "step" in the name of the class and remembered back when I tried a step class in college and I was HORRIBLE at it. I am NOT a dancer, I have no rythym so this was pretty funny indeed. I did get the hang of it eventually, but not before I thougth about running out of there about 10 times and the class was not for the meek, it was no 30 minute workout, oh no, it was a full 60 minutes!!! What a way to ease myself back into working out but I am telling you, if I do a class like this even just 3 times a week, there is no way I could not lose weight. I will be lucky to be able to walk tonight. We did the horrendous step cardio workout for a full 30 minutes, I drank an entire water bottle after the first break, too bad that was the ONLY one I brought, usually I don't even go through that in my regular workout on the eliptical machine. Then, the next thirty minutes was filled with all kinds of aerobic type kicks and slides all over the floor (again, I am NOT coordinated so this was interesting and just about everyone in the class looked like they were fit to run a marathon or were at least 10 years younger than me) and then we did kicks, etc. with hand weights and eventualy we got mats out (I thought this was a sign things were slowing down and at least we got to lay down) but oh no, we did massive glute, thigh and ab workouts with this crazy thing called a body bar that ads to the intensity of the workout.......we'll see if I make it back to this class next Saturday at 10:00am!!! That's all for now...hope everyone is having a good weekend

First bath with the baby bath tub, etc.

Tonight we started trying to establish a "bedtime" routine with Jackson. We'll give him a bath every night around 8:30 or so after a stroller walk if the weather permits. We did a pretty good job, next time we'll try things a bit differently with the infant sling that supposedly makes life easier for bathing an infant (it was more work this way and he was cold half the time due to the dumb sling). He did not like the bath too much as a result of the sling, next time we'll use his bear sponge and that should work better. He really liked the bedtime lotion and being wrapped in his soft and fleecy hooded towel post bath.......now he is sleeping peacefully...yes, still in the dumb swing but we're making progress on that one slowly.

More photos from Ohio...

Here are some more photos, I was afraid it would error out before if I uploaded too many at once!!

Jackson's first trip to Ohio

We have had a busy past couple of days. Jackson experienced his first plane ride and trip home to Ohio to meet extended family and friends. He also experienced his first round of 4th of July Fireworks which he slept right through (I am not kidding about this, he was sound asleep through major city fireworks) and he is the newest Catholic in the family as he was baptised where Jon and I were married. It was a very special visit for us, Jackson could not have cooperated better with all of the traveling, he slept both ways on the airplane...we could not have been luckier! He is a trooper, that is for sure. He also slept like an angel right through most of his first Mass and his Baptism following mass. Thanks to everyone who helped us out while we were home and welcomed us into their homes for a visit. We miss you all already and we will be posting photos as Jackson continues to grow.

I had my 6 week OB appointment today and the doctor gave me the green light to resume life as normal including hitting the gym to work off the remaining baby weight:) I am excited about this as this means my body is returning to pre-baby "normal" and we are moving on with life which now includes Jackson:)