Maybe Dr. Brown has something....

So over the past several weeks, I've been giving careful consideration to changing bottles just from the sheer volume of stuff to wash off of these Dr. Brown bottles. So in a "threat" of sorts, I decided that we needed some Avent bottles to try out. First thing....they are super expensive ($19 for 2 bottles) and second....there are only three pieces. THAT fact alone makes the price semi-worth it.

So for lunch time feeding, I used one while Kim went grocery shopping. Everything went fine and while Papa and Grandma visited Reese did reasonably well. She fussed a little more than usual and I could attribute that to several things....her schedule of 6,9,12....was off by one hour and was more like 7,10,1....maybe that was it...but this evening we had a little fussy butt. She could have been tired, she could have been hungry, but it also could have been the dreaded GAS because I didn't use a Dr. Brown bottle. It almost seems like Dr. Brown has field representatives that dupe you into believing their bottle is better all in an attempt to keep Mom or Dad chained to the sink station doing wash. I felt like Ben-Hur tied to my oar the other morning because the bottles just kept coming in. "I live to wash bottles and serve this sink....wash well and live!".....apologies to Charleston Heston....speaking of which....bad week to be a 50+ year old celeb huh? The Oxi-clean guy upset me the most because I like his show "Pitchmen", eh well....

Veering back onto subject, you're presently looking at Reese's favorite thing to do now.....Stand.

We have to straighten her right foot because of her ankle being bent so badly while she was residing inside of Kimmy's belly but this is the preferred mode of observation now. Standing leads very nicely into the list of things that Reese is doing now at age three months:

• just for repeatings sake...she wants to stand whenever possible. I swear this kid will walk before she crawls because she doesn't seem to prefer her belly for long.
• Her right leg is becoming strong enough to roll her. If you sit her up on the couch, she does this push off thing and slides down. And promptly gets pissed because she slid down.
• She LOVES her jungle mat and will lay there looking at everything for far longer than any other toy.
  
• She is grabbing so much more including Kim's hair and earrings. She'll hold onto to pretty much all of her toys and is grabbing items on her jungle mat now.
  
• Hands MUST go in the mouth for nearly every occasion. She isn't quite making the leap from teethers in HER hand to the mouth....but if you hold it for her...she'll gladly gnaw on any of her teething rings.
  
• No teeth quite yet....but we can't get a clear look because of her crazy tongue getting in the way.
• Slobber is thick and stringy.....and very common. So are rasberries. (spit bubbles)
• She recognizes her bottle and will stop to watch you mix her formula.
• She smiles SO big when she fixes her eyes on you first thing in the morning or when you get home.
• She is on the verge of laughing. She has done freak laughs with Kim while she was tickling or playing but its super hard to get consistently.
• She is eating 6oz every three hours 6,9,12,3,6,9....and then she'll sleep through the night to the 6am feeding. Now watch, since I've said this, she'll make a liar of me tonight but she has been super consistent sleeping through the night every since her first growth spurt.
• She is starting to take to her doorway jumpy and will consistently hit something to make it play music.
• The exersaucer is still a little strange for her. I don't know if it's sensory overload but she doesn't seem to like it just yet....time will change that I'm sure.
• She is kicking like crazy in the bath tub seemingly on command....probably just a fluke.

Folks...that's it for a Sunday evening. Week 2 back to work commences but it's a short one because of the 4th so that's awesome. Enjoy going to work on Monday and it really being Tuesday.

Bath time baby....

Reese has really taken to bath time by kicking and talking the whole time. This is just a sample of our little munchkin in action. Have a good Sunday!

Happy Three Months sweetie!!

Our little pumpkin turned 3 months today and she's changing right before our very eyes. What a sweet little girl and we love her so much! Happy three months squirt!

One step at a time....

Thank God it's ALMOST Friday....The first brutal week is almost over and we're so happy. I hate to say that Kim is doing great but between a few tears here and there, I think she is doing better than I had envisioned. Kim is an incredibly strong woman and sometimes she refuses to accept that. We're both pretty emotional but I probably open up easier in most cases than Kim...those that know me will attest that I'll tell you just about anything that you don't really need to know.

Kim....eh, she might hold back a little more. So I've been staying on her about this week and I'm satisfied that she's doing ok. Time will heal the hurt of being away from Reese during the day but I'm pretty sure Kim will have these feelings until Reese is grown....just maybe not as intense as this week.

We're very appreciative of all the thoughts and prayers that have been sent our way this week and could use some next week as well since that will only be the second week of a tough return.

This afternoon Reesie-Pie tried a little Tummy time and played with Mommy for a bit. Then she slung a rod on Daddy while Kim went to town for a minute.....one of those tired fits but she narked out pretty quickly.

How stinking precious!!

Uh oh....she's pissed.

Work week update...

We made it to hump day and our sanity is still intact....imagine that!

This week has sort of worked in stages -
UNREST --Monday, that morning was horrible. Kim worked from the home office and was sort of able to do so without alot of fanfare and we spent good time with our Reesie-Pie that night.
EASING BACK IN --Tuesday, she went to her regional office and now folks realize that "Oh....Kimmy is back!" so things sort of set in more.
A LITTLE LESS UNREST --Wednesday, yeah this was a hard one too because she's now back at work...folks realize it and Reese is within minutes of the home office. I'm hoping that Thursday and Friday get a little easier for Kim just from the standpoint of that overwhelming feeling with everything changing so fast this week.

Why can't we be independently wealthy? I guess our neighbors are because Kim and I seem like the only dummies leaving the house or staying in a home office to work from 8 to 5. Oh well....

In the meantime, check out the new bibs that we got from Tara Nicole. Her blog has some awesome bibs and we decided to order a few for Pumpkin-Doolittle.

And here is a closing pic of Reese!

What a tough morning....

So today was the day. And um.....Daddy took it pretty hard too. It all started last night when I took the trash out (what a way to tell a story, huh?) I had about five minutes by myself getting things together and just like the day we left the hospital, the emotions came rushing in and my eyes just filled with tears. My little girl was going to somebody else for care during the day. Then the questions and doubt came rushing in....So if I can't provide enough for my family...what kind of father am I? What kind of husband am I that Kim needs to work to make this whole thing float? Talk about a reality check of the worst kind and on Father's day no less.

I came back in and Kim was preparing the day pack for Reese. She packed the bottles and asked me a simple question and I couldn't hide it from her....I broke down. Kim and I cried together and held each other. I apologized for things that she didn't expect an apology for and would never ask for. We put Reese to bed and held each other as we fell asleep. This morning, I woke up and Kim was in a reasonable mood considering the days upcoming events. We got ready and just like prepping for a new job we were both up and done in plenty of time so we waited.....we waited for 8:00am and sort of kicked around until it was time. Kim was heartbroken and so was I....we walked Reese to Krissy's house and they met us at the door. Krissy was gang busters and had such a light and fantastic mood but it just didn't cut through the sadness for us. Kim cried and I started again (I feel like such a boob but Kim says she loves that I'm emotional...I don't know who to thank for that trait.) But Kim and I were observing through the tears that Krissy's kids were being so good to Reese, they've obviously raised three kids and didn't break any of them so why would they break Reese, and there was just a great vibe in the house this morning. It helped...tremendously.

Pics before we took her to "daycare"









You would have thought that Kim and I were giving her up for adoption the way we were carrying on this morning but one my co-workers assured me this morning that this is just the first for many sucky but potentially exciting days for Mommy and Daddy in the life of Reese. 1st day of some kind of different daycare...if Krissy decides this is too much...the 1st day of pre-k, 1st day of school, 1st night at a friend's house, and so on. Her life is filled with 1st's that will challenge us at every angle and we'd might as well embrace them rather than run from them.

BUT ON TOP OF THAT...Kim went back to work too. Talk about a double whammy. She did fine and the world didn't cave in but it almost did. Not really...but this was a good first step and hopefully it will get a little easier day after day.

We pretty much loved on Reese all of this evening and this was one of my favorite nights with my baby girl so far. I guess they are all my favorite nights but this one was so special. Reese's Mommy and Daddy climbed a big mountain this morning and we shared a simple evening with our little Pumpkin-doolittle.

A great day....

But the 800lb elephant sat ever present in the house all weekend long. This is it, the Sunday that we've both dreaded since we found out Kim was pregnant 11 months ago (July 21st). The last day on maternity leave. So here is the conversation that we/I have with ourselves....we are NOT the only parents to do this. We are in fact very normal and very average - nothing special outside of our own lives and this "drama" is very, very normal. We have a fantastic situation with Krissy watching Reese just right down the street....In fact we're walking her to Krissy's house in the morning. We have a great situation with Kim's work with her being home based largely and even when she does go in the office, she has a very flexible schedule...unlike mine. We have a beautiful healthy little girl and she will be fine. She'll be leaving home for years and years and coming back home each and every time.

Today was indeed a great day. My first Father's day...the whole crew down for dinner...and my two girls. I love them both so much.

Happy 1st Father's Day!

Reese is an extremely lucky girl to have such an amazing, caring, and loving daddy as you. I love to sit back and just watch you care for Reese...the love just fills the room. Even though we waited 13 years to become parents it was SO worth the wait. I love you so much and hope you had a great 1st Father's Day!

Today, we had both of our families down for a cookout to celebrate Father's Day.
We made Fajitas and enjoyed hanging out with the family.

Happy Father's Day to our dads (Papa & PawPaw). We love you both!

I'm missing you Daddy!

Can't wait to see you tomorrow....We love you!

Sunday Summary

Before I dig into the details of Reese and our weekend I want to update the progress....if for no one but myself for retrospect...of my Enbrel shots and psoriasis treatment. I hate, I mean I freaking HATE needles/shots yet today was the second shot that I've given myself and I wouldn't do this if I didn't see pretty much immediate results. (Kim will attest that the process leading up to the shot is a good dose of me seriously stressing and nearly getting sick.) Guess what....I see pretty much immediate results. I've not taken one Soriatane pill all week since the first shot and have used very little Taclonex ointment to knock things back from a topical standpoint. I do a decent job keeping my skin from being a nightmare for me and for any one else - not the most beautiful thing to see - but behind the scenes its a drag to deal with. Soriatane knocked things back for a while but side effects and waning effectiveness pushed my Derm to consider Enbrel but the drug is a user administered shot. Ugh..... Anyway....my skin is visibly clearing up and QUICKLY. Thank you Lord! My arms are immediately better, my ankles look so much better and some other random spots have literally smoothed out over night seemingly. Anything that works is the miracle drug for the period of time that it is effective and right now, while I hate shots...I love Enbrel.

Anyway.....the weekend went by too fast as usual. We ate out Friday night with Lance/Celeste and Ryan/Jenni at Taco Mac and Reese did fantastic! She slept most of the meal and then just sat in her car seat while we finished which is amazing. We came home and chilled out for a while and she slept great that night. Saturday was date night.....er, day for Kim and I. Wanna know what we did? We went to the tile store! Oh yeah....hot date at Floor and Decor. Nanna and Grams came down to spend time with Reese and they watched her while Stud Daddy took Mamma Bear out on this most salacious date. Yeah, not a good first date but you do what you have to because we're studying on a bathroom remodel and the tile doesn't seem to hold Reese's attention long enough to allow Mommy and Daddy to shop. After that, I had words with our neighbor.....no, no, not bad words...he showed off his garden for about an hour. The guy is super into his plants and I'll have to say, I'm no Victory Garden conissieur but I was mildly impressed. And for my troubles/time, he gave me a beer. After that, I finally got some stuff done around the house. Sunday was a slow, easy day. We didn't do much at all and Reese chilled too. All in all...it was a perfect weekend but there is still this cloud of the last week of maternity leave lingering over everything.

I know I promised more upbeat posts but it'll take these next couple weeks passing before this fog lifts. Besides, this is a big deal and I don't want Kim to feel like I'm trivializing her feelings. I have the same ones so lets just keep it short and sweet and say that this last week is going to be super emotional...super great...and super sad because I won't be here to share it until Friday. Wouldn't you know that I have to travel this week so I'll be supporting Kim from the road three nights this week.....what a drag.

Why we don't facebook....REVISED

My better half read this post and thought I should clarify a little better as I could be perceived as being a jerk......Take II.

If you come to our blog....you're obviously wanting to check in on the goings on at the Hall house. Wouldn't that be a safe assumption? Maybe it's blogger "stalking"( a blogger term for checking other peoples blogs), maybe its just being addicted to blogger ( we are), maybe its because you care about our members of our new little family....and yes....its ok to be interested or.....even nosey as well without having any ties to us whatsoever. I mean we put it out there for all to see so why not check it out, right? But folks....we don't facebook.

I mean, we really don't care that some "Roy" from our past or present ate some bad sushi last night and is about to scream at his toilet. Call it insensitive....that's ok, we don't mind. The thing that I dislike about Facebook is that I have to see all this mess on my mainpage that my friends on facebook have to say and if I remove it and opt not to see the comments about life's indecisions that don't pertain to me....then everyone knows it. You can't silently blackball anyone without hurting their feelings. Once you've accepted them...you see every time they choose to update you. Maybe weekly updates are fine but your Walmart run is a little less exciting then it may seem at the time. I think I would like facebook better if I could choose to check out other posts on my own time versus seeing it on my main page each time I log in. Does that make sense? Here....you come to our page at your leisure. I check on other pages but I don't have to see it right front and center but it might just be that I want to know about your Walmart run so I check out the post.

I was shamed into signing on to facebook to see a friends photo's and now it's like wearing the "rrrrribbon" supporting AIDs ala Jerry Seinfeld epidsode "The Sponge". I'm afraid that Bob and Cedric are about to jump out of my screen and ask why I will not post on facebook. "Heeee posts on de Facebook......iiiiiii post on de facebook......so how come YOU will not POSTS on de facebook?!?!?!"

Look, this blog is a handful. It's our life story versus "Deep Thoughts via facebook". In fact we've published this blog to a book and plan on continuing because this is better than any scrapbook could ever be. Of course we can't put little treasures in hot glue to keep for all time but we make sacrifices in life don't we.









I know....I know...this is an antisocial stance on facebook because there are wonderful things that come from this site. Old friends reunite, people probably find love, and families keep in touch....that is indeed a wonderful thing. Keep in mind...myspace was the same way for about three days too. Who knows...maybe blogger is becoming the myspace/facebook trump card and we're on the cutting edge of societal change.

Nah...we just post pics of our baby, talk about our life, and look at all the drama on facebook because "it's a blue sky Saturday and Kim is getting her toes done." There.....I posted.

Coming into the home stretch....

I've sort of been avoiding the subject of Kim going back to work for several reasons...

• She/me/we....are super thankful that she even has a job in this recession. Her company and mine have both reorganized and we've both been able to weather the reductions - Thank you Lord.
• I don't like to think about some level of inadequacy that I place on myself by not holding a position or salary that would allow us to accomplish life on one income. (totally self induced)
• Kim is super emotional anyway and thinking about the past nearly three months with Reese and now turning back to a world of deadlines and stress is not a savory thought right now.
• It makes us both sad....duh.
• Its finally summertime....kids are out, teachers are jogging every morning...going to play tennis....or clogging up my midday run to Publix. It just sucks to think about going back - even for me and I've only had off one full week and part of another thanks to sorry rules for Dads in the workplace that don't seem to think dear old Pop needs anytime with his young family.
• And I/we don't want to complain too much because we're no different that every other working family out there....though we do seem to be the minority in our neighborhood. Damn retirees and stay at home Moms.
  

So you see this subject is filled with emotions from thankful, to stressful, to sadness, to some amount of resentment, all mixed together with humor and worry about the unknown. Nice little cocktail of emotions, huh.

I'll be honest in that I didn't see this coming....my stance was if and when we had a child....he/she HAD to go to daycare. Bar none....unless Nan was coming to live with us. (offer would stand if need be). But now with Kim one week from returning to work, I wish I could sweep away all our debt and that we could make it on one income so she could stay home. Not that we're slammed with debt...thank you sweetie. Kim is conservative and I'm a little more liberal with our income. And not that Kim could stay at home full time....she's a workaholic. She likes to work and prides herself on being a good employee and doing a better than expected job....I tell her all the time that she's good enough but I think she likes to prove it.

So what's our plan?

She's working. Hard. We split the chores around here so the house would function once she went back.....NOTE....we've always split them but now my split got a little bigger - no complaints. I won't say who is doing what because it will make for a pretty good series of posts one day. I'll bet you can't wait to read the one when Adam washed the new red shirt with Kim's white one. But it won't happen folks because I'm halfway indoctrinated to wash anyway...blah!

We're saving money. Just because we need to.

We're working on our house. Because it needs some TLC.

We may eventually try to sell once the market recovers and look for that final house to live in here in Towne Lake.....hahahahaha. HOHOHOHOHO. HEHEHEHEHEHE. But no, seriously...we might. Maybe? Because if we're having another one.......we're going to need a bigger house.

JUST CALM DOWN GRANDPARENTS!!!! This is a minimum of two years out but I can't see us raising just Reese...i don't think. What about a little brother named Reed? Carter? My fav Dayton? Come on...she needs a little brother to pick on, right? (Dear God I hope I can take this back if need be.)

So with that thought in mind, we can't stay too depressed about work because we gotta save up some funds for round two of this deal. In all seriousness though....Kim is my hero. She has literally turned into a mother over night and she's excellent at it. She has a new patience and a new love that I've never seen. She is calming for Reese and this baby girl just loves her Mommy to death. She is stronger than she knows and she is more capable than anyone that I know to balance this work/life/baby house of cards. I love everything about her and I'm glad she's my wife. It is going to be SOOOOOOO ok sweetie......Love, me.

Have you ever seen anything so cute?

Damn - let's laugh a little for a change on these posts for a while!?!?! I promise to lighten it up a little once next week passes. Really....I'm ready to cut up again.

This is everything....

The very first pic is probably my favorite of this set....but who wouldn't love them all? Especially the last one.

All of this...

Yep. This is my new world and man do I love it.

Sunday Summary...

It has been a good weekend. We didn't knock half of a "To Do List" off the charts...we didn't take a special trip anywhere...we didn't do anything all that spectacular...we just hung out with our little girl and loved her. We just want to be with her all the time and even putting her to bed this evening was a little bitter sweet. Kim and I have been trying to make sure that we do everything so that Reese is sleeping well and one of those things is finally putting her to bed in the evenings rather than letting her swing or sleep in the bouncy seat. I don't like it. I like her being right here with us but I guess Daddy needs to get beyond it and just know that she's right upstairs.

Mommy is taking it just as hard but she's also seeing the end of maternity leave and that is weighing VERY heavily on her mind of late. I can only imagine her sadness and anticipation by being away from Reese and whether she's had "enough" time off or not doesn't matter.....she's dreading two weeks from Monday and I don't blame her. I probably wasn't the ideal husband a couple times this weekend but I love her immeasurably and I can't begin to explain the way I feel about her since Reese was born. It's very true that you see your wife in an entirely new light after the birth of a child and Kim is not only my partner but she gave me Reese....I love you sweetie. Everything will be ok.

Ok...back to the summary....I mowed, sprayed for weeds, Kim cleaned inside, we washed clothes, went to Babies R Us, ate out, went to the tile store, Reese threw a fit, Reese threw a fit all the way home, she got a bath and we all went to bed. That was Saturday.

Sunday....we slept in, Kim cooked breakfast, she went grocery shopping, I rode my bike, got a flat, walked home, Papa and Grandma came to visit, we ate Mellow Mushroom and I gave MYSELF a shot. Holy Sh*t that hurt. (I'm finally starting my Enbrel for psoriasis versus the devil drug Soriatane). I guess this is notable for me because I want to remember when I took the first shot and can gauge the success or lack thereof.

Anyway...Monday comes too quickly.

Sweet Pics....

Happy Baby!

Really?? You want me to smile again?

What's up Mom? I'll just hang here while you wash my bottles. :)