1 month!!

I can't believe tomorrow will be 1 month!! Time really does fly by so fast. You would think with less sleep your days would seem longer but not at all! I can't believe I have to start working again the first week of August :( Too soon! Not that I didn't have it before, but I have developed a whole new level of respect for stay-at-home moms! It's hard work!!! I've managed to get in to enough of a routine this week where I can accomplish taking care of her, getting a little exercise in, maybe run 1 quick errand, dishes, laundry, and cook dinner; however, I have yet to find time to really clean the house. With the animals, it was hard to keep up with it before...

So, that being said, I have NO IDEA how I'm going to work from home and take care of her!!! I know I will figure out a system (it's not like I have to work strict 8-5. I can work round the clock in her down time if necessary) but I'm stressing about it a bit! Especially now that she's been a bit more active during the day. Figuring out how to entertain her can be challenging. I've begun actively seeking out potential part-time care options and right now, there aren't many. I can't find any actual day care places that do part-time infant care. I really don't want to put her in full-time care because part of the perks of working from home were supposed to be that I could a) save money on her care and b) spend more time with her and be able to witness those milestones for myself! As it is, Danny only gets a few hours with her at night during the week, which has been hard for him. I can't imagine it being that way for both of us - and for her to only see us for a few hours at night. When I was calling these places I started to get kind of sad already thinking about sending her away for some stranger to take care of her, even for a day :( I do have a few home-based care people I'm checking out. But I think I'm going to look more in to hiring someone to come to OUR house for a few hours at a time. I can always stop what I'm doing momentarily if she does something cute :) Best case scenario - I'm able to keep her here full-time AND manage to get work done!! Cross my fingers...

So, as we approach the end of this 1-week soy formula trial, I've seen that the feeding/sleeping has improved! She has not vomited once with this formula and seems to be sleeping a bit better (most nights) so I guess we're sticking with it! She still loves to sleep on my chest and fusses when I put her down (whether it's night or day), but we've developed a system that seems to work. She's most awake in the mornings, so it's difficult to make/eat breakfast, take a shower; etc. I've found that if I put her in her car seat in the stroller, she'll fuss for a minute, but falls asleep as soon as we venture out on a 30 minute walk through the neighborhood. So, it's a win-win, well mostly a win for me! I get exercise and a sleeping baby! When we get back from the walk she will usually stay asleep in the seat long enough for me to grab a shower and sometimes long enough for me to eat lunch :) In addition to the walk we also managed to get a grocery trip in this morning! Her first, official grocery trip with just Mom! She did really well...

Well, that's about it for this post. But I do want to post this latest pic that shows her growth physically and socially over the past few weeks. The first one is at 2 weeks and the second a few days ago. It's hard to tell if she's grown in length much since she refused to straighten her legs in the first pic but you can see that she's much more alert now!!! :) And I got on the scale with her today and she weighs 8.2lbs based on our scale - not sure how many oz that equates too. Not awake enough for math right now!