Month One of Motherhood

Justice is one month old tomorrow.  This is both encouraging and discouraging.  I am encouraged by her progress and her growth.  I look forward to new milestones and increased interactions with our little girl.  At the same time, I find myself discouraged by the passing of time.  I have officially used half of my maternity leave.  From this day forward, I have been home more days than are left.  January 23rd hangs over my shoulder like a daunting ghost.  Anyway - here are a few random thoughts on one full month of motherhood.

 My two loves.

• Little tiny babies go through a TON of diapers.
• Baby girl has captured my heart... and every room of our home.
• Lack of sleep used to mean irritability and crankiness.  Lack of sleep is now the new norm.
• Extreme lack of sleep now leads to extreme emotional craziness.  There have been multiple times I've had to call Eric hours later and start the conversation with, "I've come to my senses and I'm sorry."  
• My love for our baby grows everyday.
• So does my love for my husband.  He is selfless and loving.  He serves us out of compassion.  I'm currently lacking sleep and can't seem to find the right words here... but he's amazing.  Except I need a word that means 10x more than "amazing."
• I don't know the words to many hymns I thought I knew the words to.  So I rock my baby with the lyrics to these hymns pulled up on my phone.  
• We need a CD of lullabies.  Except we don't own a CD player - so we need something different.
• If only she looked this peaceful all the time....

Postpartum Cravings

I made it through my entire 41 week and 2 day pregnancy without any real cravings.  Not only that, but I did a fairly decent job not eating a lot of sugary foods at all.  Today is postpartum day 7, and my sugar cravings are taking over my life!

Yesterday I developed a "need" for peanut butter rice krispie treats with chocolate on top.  I'm not sure what the real name for this magical piece of goodness is, but I wanted it.  I have never actually made them before, and only tasted them a time or two (perhaps college?) but the craving came... and so we have them :)

It wasn't until after they were made that I commented to Eric, "I guess we didn't really need a dessert, we have cookies in the freezer."

And then Eric reminded me of all the cookies in our freezer.

About a month ago, our midwife suggested we have a labor project in mind; something easy and enjoyable we could work on when I started early labor, to help pass the time.  She suggested baking cookies.  Sounded perfect to me.  I truly enjoy baking and we hadn't made cookies in a while.  Well, in true-to-my-character fashion, I didn't wait for labor to begin, and I made our cookies weeks ago.  Eric and I worked together on these gingerbread cookies and froze most of them.  The very next day I added a batch of sugar cookies to the mix and most of those are also in our freezer.

When labor actually began last weekend I was in need of a project.  Out came the baking supplies, which resulted in a half batch of chocolate chip cookies.  (Truth be told, the dough got made during labor, but the cookies never got baked.  Eric baked these a few days later).  And the rest of the chocolate chip dough is in our freezer.

Apparently sometime in the last few months I also made oatmeal raisin cookies.  I don't fully remember this, but Eric also found that dough in our freezer.  And I do remember snacking on the dough.

Last, but certainly not least, I also enjoyed the chocolate turtles within the first 24 hours of Justice's birth.  These were the turtles Eric bought me as an "after-the-baby-is-born" treat.

 We are certainly not lacking desserts in this household.

Our First Outing

Justice and I had our first outing yesterday.  Eric came too, but it doesn't count as his first outing since I send him to the store almost daily :)  Justice had her first doctor's appointment, which meant our first car ride.  I realize we could have done this much sooner - but we hadn't - so yesterday morning Eric spent time installing the car seat and making sure all of the settings were just right.  She's so tiny in her seat!

Here we are in the lobby of the Dr's office.  We had a great appointment, everything is looking good.

On our way home we stopped at Target to grab a few baby things.  I was carrying the baby, so Eric grabbed my purse.  Such a good guy :)  I just had to snag a picture!  

Overall, our first trip was successful!