Home Call

I must admit I'm a huge fan of "home call!"  For those that are not familiar it means that Gary is on call, ie needs to be available to answer questions, see patients etc. 24 hours a day, but he gets to do it from our house.  For most of the next 5 years when he is on call he will have to be "in-house" which means he sleeps & eats at the hospital and can't really leave.  Natalie and I plan on going and visiting him or taking him dinner when he is on call as much as we can (which unfortunately won't be very often with how busy he will be) in order to spend SOME time with him.  But with home call we don't have to do that- he can just come home when he is done to eat or hang out with us.  The one downside is that there is a pager in our bedroom that goes off whenever a trauma is brought into Hershey or whenever some has a questions or consult for his service.  Fortunately Natalie sleeps through the pager and I can fall back asleep very quickly.  Hence, we have gotten very spoiled in that Gary started with the ONE service that is all home call!   Too bad he is done with that rotation as of tomorrow, but while it lasted we enjoyed it.   Natalie LOVES to spend time with her Daddy and I must say that I think he is a huge fan of it as well.

Resting with Daddy this afternoon

She looks so sleepy, doesn't she!

Bath time with Daddy, both of their favorites!

Thank you plastic surgery for believing in "home call!"  Thank you Gary for helping out even when you are exhausted.

Pretty eyes

It is amazing how our children are little blendinis (Rita's shout-out) of their Mom & Dad.  Fortunately Natalie got the best (or so we think) of both our eyes; Gary's looooong eyelashes and my dark blue eyes!

Mommy & Natalie Mondays

Monday is my day off of work.  Perfect, right?  It gives me a nice long weekend so I can head to Mom and Dad's when Gary is on call all weekend.  But for most weeks, it gives Natalie and I a day to do whatever we want (with some housework thrown in there).  This past Monday Natalie and I went for a nice long walk.  We were fortunate enough to find a nice jogging stroller on Craigs List and got it for 1/7 of the cost (now grant it, it is a much older model but it is in great shape).  Gary cleaned it up, tightened everything etc and got it all ready to go.  On Sunday we took a trial walk with Gary and Sasha and it works great, so smooth and Natalie seems to love it.  She falls right asleep.  Can't wait till I can take her running in it.  For now here are pictures of my big girl on our walk.

One of my favorite new views

So precious...she loves her walks and hopefully soon her runs

Nat and the horses

Love our walking loop, love Hershey

A Tearful Thursday

The time had come.  How did 8 weeks go by so fast?  I guess that is what happens when you are loving every minute you have with your daughter!  It is amazing how your life changes in such a good way once you become a Mom!!

I, on multiple occasions, told Gary I was always going to work, that I went to school too long and worked too hard to be where I'm at to not work.  Even when we're older and I hopefully don't have to work, I always said I would.  Well, I'm not older and I do have to work to make ends meet but now I don't want too.  Don't get me wrong, I am fortunate.  I am one of the few people that can say I do love my job, but I LOVE spending time with Natalie more!!  My Mom told me before Natalie was born that this would happen, you would think after 27 years I would have learned to listen.

Why the rant about work you ask?  Well this past Tuesday was my first day back at work.  I am blessed  that I went back part time, dropping from around 50 hours a week to 28-30 hours which is certainly a plus.  But that is still 30 hours away from my little one.  This week my Mom came out to watch Natalie on Tuesday and Wednesday.  This really helped ease my transition back to work.  I was not worried about Natalie at all, I knew she was in great hands!  Mom tried very hard to keep Natalie on her regular schedule and she did a wonderful job!  Thanks mom!  Therefore, I survived Tuesday and Wednesday rather well.  The girls at work made me take a picture on my first day back to put in Natalie's baby book.  I wasn't allowed to smile, but it almost looks like I'm crying!

Thursday was when the tears came, and they came often!  Thursday morning I had to drop Natalie off at her first day of daycare.  I had been dreading this day before she was even born.  I have nothing against daycares, particularly the one we chose,  I think it is great for the kids to get out and socialize.  And U-Gro, where she is going is such a nice, clean daycare with very caring and friendly ladies working there.  It is still hard to drop off your daughter and hand her to a another woman who doesn't know what Natalie likes, doesn't know her routine and isn't able to provide her the one on one care that you can at home.  Plus it meant more time when I wasn't with her.  I bawled when I left daycare, I bawled when the first person at work asked me about her, and I bawled a few more times throughout the day.  Luckily I only worked till noon.  When I picked her up she had done fine- she had taken her bottle well, she took a nap and she wasn't crying, whew what a relief.  Lets just hope it gets easier on Mom.  For now I will enjoy my Monday off with her.  I may be biased but she is just the best thing in this world!

Sorry Daddy

Two days ago since Gary was post call he got out earlier and got to spend some more time with Natalie and I.  Natalie blessed Gary with a wonderful present, spitting two milk chunks into his eye (and the rest all over herself and me). He tends to get flustered or disturbed whenever she spits up at all, it becomes a clean-up emergency. One of these times she is going to spit up all over him, I can't wait to see what he does. He might just leave Nat covered in spit-up and get a shower himself. He is great at cleaning her up for me while I get cleaned up. He does it in a very interesting way as demonstrated below.  Does Nat look so proud though!

Poppop's Dress

I finally had somewhere to take Natalie where I really got to dress her up.  This past weekend was the first weekend she went to church and we had the perfect outfit- the dress Poppop bought her (Mommom too but apparently Dad picked it out).  She looked adorable.  Unfortunately we didn't get a close-up picture because we were running late (woops).  Here is one of Nat and I this past Sunday morning.

Please disregard my bra strap and the fact that I look like I'm 18 years old!  It also looks like I'm holding a doll, doesn't it?

She did great at church.  She was asleep when we got there but woke up and fussed a bit once the music stopped.  I took her out of her car seat and we held her the rest of the service and she was silent.  One nice thing about the church we attend is that they have a ton of children and a very active children's ministry so we hope that having Natalie will help connect us to our church a little more.

All Nighter

So sleeping habits are changing in the Updegrove household.  One of us is learning to function on minimal sleep.  You might at first think I was talking about myself since I have to get up to feed Natalie but you would be wrong (more on that later).  Gary is now having to take call which means some nights he doesn't get home to real late (if at all!!)  He is learning to catch a wink of sleep when ever he can!

Isn't he so cute!  This is after a night of getting home at 2 am and having to get back up at 4:30!  

Now on to the exciting change in our sleeping habits.  I had been waking Natalie up after 5.5 hours (which is 1.5 hours longer than out Pediatrician had last recommended- grant it, that was 5 weeks ago)(and yes I am a first time Mom if you can't tell, I woke my sleeping child).  Sometimes I had a hard time waking her so two nights ago I decided to see how long she would sleep.  I fed her at 10 pm and then put her right to bed.  I awoke at 6 am on my own, and she was still sleeping!!!  She slept straight through the night at 6 weeks, hallelujah!!  Lets just hope it continues.  I missed catching this milestone on camera but this morning she looked so cute during her nap I quickly snapped a shot.  Here is a pic of my wonderful sleeper!

  

New Dress

I just have to post a picture of Natalie in one of her new dresses.  Love it.  Doesn't she look much older than 5 weeks though?  She is just growing up too fast ;)

First trip to the pool

Since Gary had the day off today, we decided to take Natalie to the pool. Yes it was purely for her benefit that we went, not at all for Gary and I. We did get there prior to lunch and the 90 degree plus weather. I can say Natalie thoroughly enjoyed the pool, if by enjoyed I mean took her late morning nap there.   I did hold her and dip her feet in a little but that was the extent of her exposure. She spent the rest of the time in her car seat in the shade asleep. I do anticipate she will love the pool when she is a little older and the water is a bit warmer, for now she will enjoy it as a place to sleep outside when Mommy wants to relax. Here are some pictures of her first pool adventure.

Sitting with Mommy trying to wake up

Getting my little feet wet

Loving the shade

Happy Girl

Finally caught her smiling on camera- it was just my iphone camera not the "nice" camera but it still shows how happy she is!  Love her to pieces.  Oh and by the way, not to brag but last night was awesome.  Fed her at 9:45, then woke her up at 3:30 to feed her.  Then she woke up at 8:00, so yeah Mommy is smiling this much as well (and yes I know how lucky I am)!