Things I said I'd never do as a mother

1. Give things a baby name. We now have a baba instead of a bottle and Daddy is Dada. I'm going gaga!
2. Play music made for kids instead of regular people music. Blame Baby Einstein's World Music CD and Putumayo Kids for my transgression here. However, in my defense, we do like to go on walks around the neighborhood to Bob Marley's Greatest Hits. If you happen to hear "Don't worry... about a ting..." passing by your front door, it's probably us.
3. Wake a baby from it's nap to eat. Again, in my defense, we do sleep through the night and so we like to make sure we get lots of good feeds in through the day. Can't mess with that delicate balance!
4. Wish I could come home from being out and about alone just to get a cuddle. Turns out, being wild and free is no longer quite so appealing any more. Took Mum for a haircut the other day while the nanny watched her and spent most of the downtime looking at pics of her on Flickr via my mobile phone.
5. Bother people 24/7 with stories and pictures of my kid. Sorry Facebookers, I can't resist posting pics almost every day. As for the hilarious (to me at least) poop stories, this is what happens when your daily reality does not consist of anything else other than tummy time, binkies, diapers, and... yes... poop!
6. Cry when she got her first shots. Yep, I started before the first needle even went in and didn't stop until she was safely in my arms and calming down.

And so we're at 2 months... I can't believe it! It's gone so fast. One minute I'm sitting in a hospital room with the skin on my stomach feeling like it was about to stretch right off, the next I'm the working mommy of a happy, healthy 2 month-old with a nanny and a penchant for kissing monkey toes!

Going back to work is a mixed feeling, quite honestly. They always say you don't know what you got 'til it's gone and that's so true. Each day for the last week or so, I've been paying more attention to the time I spend with Daisy, acutely aware that those carefree, responsibility-free moments were becoming fewer and fewer, and feeling just a little sad because of that. At the same time, I'm excited about the prospect of having something else to do, something adult and challenging to occupy my intellect. I also know that I'm extremely fortunate to be able to work from home and have Daisy cared for by a combination of family and an in-house care-giver. Knowing that I will be able to walk down the stairs for a kiss and cuddle makes the transition easier, although I'm sure this arrangement will have, as yet unknown, challenges of its own.

I'm also looking forward to getting back to the gym and losing the baby weight, which I plan to do on Monday and Wednesday mornings at 5am, with Mum in tow. Hubby has very graciously agreed to take Daisy if she wakes up thereafter, and until I get home probably around 6:30. I'm hoping I can dress and leave the house without waking her. I guess we'll see! In addition, I'm going to try and get up on two other days and do a yoga workout, which I've really missed. My goal is to be back into my old clothes by the end of August when I have a wedding down in Southern California. Before Daisy was born I weighed-in at 179lbs. At my last OB check-up, I weighed 161lbs. My goal is around 145 - 150lbs by August 29th. There, now I've said it I'm going to have to be accountable to you fine folks for getting it done!

A report on Daisy's development at the two month mark:

God, I just can't resist that goofy smile. I want to eat her up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

• Weight: 10lbs 10ozs. 50th percentile.
• Height: 21.5”. 25th percentile. Guess she's not as long as we thought she was.
  
• Acid Reflux: We still have it, unfortunately, and it’s likely to last through the 6-month mark. Sadly, it has also spelled the end of my morning and evening breast-feeding sessions. After some experimentation, I found that she was more fussy when she was breast vs. bottle fed at those times and, I’m guessing, that it has something to do with the difference in position. Although I personally would like to continue breast feeding her twice a day, if it’s not working for her, then it’s not working. I’m continuing to pump, although her increasing appetite often leaves me behind the 8-ball and supplementing with formula. I don’t have anything against formula, per se, but it does make for smellier poops and farts. Some days her butt smells like rotten cabbage. Pooo! Bottom line, she’s eating, she’s healthy, she’s gaining weight… have to focus on what’s best for her.
• TMJ: We continue to successfully avoid making her jaw click but the same positions still make it clunk around. Still waiting for a change here.
• Cradle Cap: Yes. Gone mostly from our cheeks now and is mostly on head and forehead. Doctor advised T-Gel 3x per week. We’ll see how that goes.
• Playtime: Smiles and giggles - we have lots of them! This is my favorite part so far of being a mom. I just love it when she coos and goos and flashes me a big, sometimes shy smile, slightly turning her head away and squeezing her eyes shut. We call this giving us the “Goo” because, well, there’s lots of goo in her vocab right now. Other sounds include ahhh, naaah, and ooo,.When she gets over-excited she lets out a little yelp almost involuntarily and it's absolutely hilarious. Kicks and punches - lots of these too. She's just beginning to lift her feet up high enough so that she can see them, which is prompting her to reach out for them, although she can't get to them quite yet. Also in the reaching department, she can now reach out to her dangling toys from her tummy-time mat and bat them around so they jingle and crinkle, which she finds highly hilarious. She loves her swing and the mirrored mobile above, can lift her head and look around for tummy-time, is an absolute doll at bathtime, and enjoys stroller-rides to the dolcet sounds of Bob Marley playing from our iPod.
• Shots: She did remarkably well with our first shots yesterday, although the same could not be said for mommy. I started to cry before they even put the first of the 3 needles in, as I said before. She was calm and in my arms within a jiffy however and slept in her car seat all the way home. She also didn't wake up in the night, as we were fully anticipating, even though there was thunder and lightening and the dogs were barking at 1am! In fact, she was the ONLY one still asleep at 1am! When I saw that storm come in right as we were gearing down for bed, man I was convinced we were in for a loooong night. I count my blessings every day that we are fortunate in the sleep department. We never know when the other shoe will drop and teething or a cold plonks us right back into screaming, sleepless nights.

So, that's our 2-month report. I'm sure there's a lot more I've missed but if I waited to get everything in, I'd probably be writing this at 3 months! All I can say is that I'm completely in love with my little munchkin. She is absolutely adorable and I'm enjoying every minute of her right now.

Here are some pics from weeks 7 and 8.

Tomorrow I'll try to post on how my first day back at work went...