You Are My Sunshine!

My Mom bought Avery a blow up pool probably a month ago or so.

The problem?

Avery is in a waterphobic stage now. She hates her baths and hates anything water related. We tried taking her swimming at our gym and she was not thrilled with it.

So, her blow up pool has been blown up in our living room for the past month. At first she was unsure of it (I think she knew it was supposed to have water in it!) but after a few days, she was in and out of it like a champ! Today I decided to take a leap and drag it outside and actually put some water in it. When she woke up from her nap, I got her all suited up (and so freakin' cute!) and we went outside. I have to take shots like these to remind me of how small she is! Love it!

Avery of course spent most of the time next to the pool. She would point at it and grunt, but that was about it. I had a bunch of her favorite toys floating in the inch of water, but that really didn't motivate her to get in it. After a bunch of prodding, I got her to splash....

That was the extent of her getting wet! I'm sure by the end of the summer she'll be ready to dive in just because it'll be time to not go swimming any longer this year!

One Year Ago Today....

....this was how I looked:

(holy huge belly batman!)

Right at this moment in time I was at work and my water broke. It's hard to believe!

Here's my post from a year ago.

If only I knew what was ahead...30 hours of labor, 3 hours of pushing, and a c-section. It's exhausting just thinking about it.

But in the end? I'd do it all over in a heartbeat!

I Think I'm Done!

If all goes according to plan, today was my last day pumping at work!

When I first went back and for a long time, I was pumping three times a day! Probably 2-3 months ago, Avery dropped a late afternoon feeding so I dropped down to pumping twice a day. Last weekend I decided to try something...

She was down to nursing 4 times a day-first thing when she woke up, first nap, second nap, and bedtime. I was getting worried that she was associating nursing with sleep, so I decided to put an end to that. Last weekend I decided to put her down for both naps without nursing...instead she would get a sippy cup of breastmilk at lunch and dinner. This plan would allow me to cut out pumping at work. I wanted to finish pumping so that I could start using up my freezer stash of milk and get her on whole milk relatively soon. Plus, pumping sucks (literally!)!

She did pretty well with the transition. The first day she cried a bit when she didn't get her nursing time and at lunch she wouldn't drink any milk. At dinner she drank maybe an ounce. Sunday, day 2, she drank a little more at lunch and dinner. She's still touch and go with drinking milk in general-she hasn't been taking the bottle well at daycare for awhile now. I'd say in the past week she's gotten used to the new routine and drinks pretty well at meal time now.

So this week at work I pumped once a day at lunch and that was it. The only reason I had to was to let my body adjust to less nursing during the day. So if all goes according to plan, next week I'll be going to work with one less bag and more time to do something else at lunch....like take walks like I used to!

Don't get me wrong, I love nursing and have no problems with it. But pumping gets old really fast. After 9 months of pumping every day that I work, I'm ready to be done with that.

Happy Birthday Papa Joe!

My Grandfather is in town for a few weeks (he's from Vegas). He's staying with my Dad for a week then my Uncle for 2 weeks. Since they're in Buffalo, I don't get to see him very much when he's in town. Today is my day off so my Dad and Grandfather came for a visit. And as an added bonus, today was also my Grandfather's birthday. He hasn't seen Avery since the week after she was born so I couldn't wait for him to see her!

I think he was impressed-he loved how she fed herself and how she crawls around like a maniac. She of course was shy at first when they got here, but she warmed up to them pretty fast.

Gabe put Avery in this huge bowl that I'm using for her salad for her birthday party. She was loving sitting in it-it was too funny!

Photo with Grandpa (everyone says she looks like him!):

And a shot with Great-Grandpa!

Four generations...doesn't happen too often!

Happy Birthday Grandpa! We'll see him in a few days at another birthday bash...my little girl's!

Father's Day Weekend

We had a very nice Father's Day weekend.

Yesterday I went to the gym in the morning. Gabe had to go into work and get a haircut in the afternoon so I hung out with Avery. She's cutting tooth #6 and I think it was bothering her yesterday. I gave her a few teething tablets and she wanted to carry the bottle around with her and chew on it!

Gabe grabbed us some dinner on the way home, then we took Avery to Lugia's for our first ice cream outing of the summer! Of course it was delicious and Avery enjoyed it as well! I finished off the evening grocery shopping-woo hoo!

Today we ran to Sam's club to pick up a few things we need for Avery's party next weekend. We went over Gabe's parents' house for dinner. It was such a nice evening so we all sat outside and enjoyed the weather (and the flies!). We had a nice cookout with lots of yummy food! Avery tried cherries for the first time and loved them-she really loves fruit!

She also had fun playing with Owen:

and she had a taste of Daddy's lemonade:

Happy Father's Day!!

Dizzy

So something odd is going on. When we got to New Orleans, I was dizzy most of the week we were there. I chalked it up to the heat and humidity and me not keeping hydrated enough. I also get motion sickness pretty easily so I thought maybe the plane ride did something to throw me off.

But, now I'm home and I'm still dizzy! I'm back to eating normally and we haven't been on the plane since the weekend, but I'm still not feeling right. The best way to describe it is like I've had too much to drink. I feel off-kilter and clumsy at times and like I was on a spinny ride earlier in the day or something. It's not fun! And since I get motion sickness, the dizziness is making me feel nauseous too! Ugh...I hope it goes away soon!

New Orleans Recap

So we are finally home and settled from our trip.

Yesterday was a long day. Our flight out of NO was at 7am so Gabe and I were up at 4:30 to get dressed and finish packing a few things. We woke up Avery around 5am (which I hated doing!) to get our cab and head to the airport. Everything went very smoothly (thank God). We flew to JFK which was about a 3 hour flight. I fully expected Avery to pass out from exhaustion, but she only slept about a half hour! Our layover was about 2 hours so we let Avery crawl around a bit and we all ate lunch. Then it was a quick hour flight home. We got in around 3:30 and Avery was home and napping by 4!

Overall the trip was very good. I was ready to come home though near the end. It was exhausting having the baby in a city you've never been to and trying to keep her entertained when it's 90+ degrees outside. Like I said numerous times, she was a trooper!

New Orleans wasn't what I expected at all. All of these years I've heard about Bourbon Street and Mardi Gras, I pictured a glamorous city....kind of like Vegas, but not to that scale. And the truth is...it's nothing like that. Bourbon Street was actually kind of sketchy. It's safe and all of that and there are a lot of people, but I think if it wasn't crowded you would be afraid to walk around just because of the way it looks. Most of the buildings are from the 1800s and yes it's cool to see that and I understand that's the "charm" of New Orleans, but you'd think they'd at least clean it up a bit. I'm just talking a new coat of paint or something....a lot of it looked very run down. It just wasn't what I expected at all.

I also think it's a city that you would enjoy if you're really into music and/or drinking. We obviously didn't experience Bourbon St at night since Avery was in bed early but pretty much everything there was a bar or strip club. I think it would be fun to see Mardi Gras (and maybe scary too!) but I don't really think it's a family vacation type of place. Gabe and I aren't the drinkers/partiers so I don't know that we would fully enjoy the experience there (although Gabe did go a few years ago for a bachelor party so he had his fill!).

Overall it was a good trip! I'm glad I got to see a new city, but glad to be home in my own bed too!