The Adventures of Grant, Lindsey, & Claire...: New Year Update!

So once again I have failed at being a good blogger! here is my attempt to get started again and give an update of the happenings in our life for the past 7 months!

FIRST and foremost - the biggest happening in our life has been the birth of our little girl - Claire Marie Ledyard! She is absolutely perfect and I love her more everyday. She was born June 26, 2010 at 1:10 am after 14 hours of labor. I'll share more of my labor story in a different post.

She has had some rough times - i.e. the first 3 months of crying for at least 3-4 hours every night. I suppose that is the definition of colic and I was reminded often by my mom that I just don't have a "happy baby" but she's all I know and I love her all the same. The incessant crying never seemed to bother me that much and I managed to cope with it pretty well. Around 3 months of age, it slowly started getting better and she rarely has evening meltdowns anymore. She has been a good baby when it comes to sleeping from the start. The first night home from the hospital she slept 4 hours! By 6 weeks old and through following the sage advice of our pedatrician, Courtney Dudley, she has been sleeping through the night (8+ hours). I know every baby is different but we were told by friends who had a baby before us that also see Courtney, to "just follow the steps" and she'll sleep through the night. So follow the steps we did and they have paid off! From 10 weeks on, she has slept over 10 hours a night!

Another HUGE blessing for us has been the re-employment of Grant. About 4 weeks after Claire was born, Grant got a call from Samsung asking whether he would ever want to come back to work there after being laid off. After many discussions and a very nervous phone call by Grant saying he would only come back if they could guarantee days, he accepted a position. Immediately after accepting, I made a call to a woman that I was referred to that has an in home child care and she had an opening for a part time baby. She even worked with us since our schedule is so strange. Claire goes to Ms. Julie's house 2 days one week and 3 days the next since Grant works 3 day and 4 day work weeks. Finding Julie has been SUCH a blessing. She has been taking care of babies for 17 years and Claire loves her. Every morning when she sees her, she has such a BIG smile which makes dropping her off so much easier than if she cried every day. Grant keeps her on his days off and I know he enjoys having his daddy time with her. I'm not going to lie - I'm a little jealous of it.

It was definitely an adjustment going back to work. I continue to have a "guilt-complex" to a certain extent - feeling like I should be spending more time with her/that I'm not being enough of a mom. That being said - I find it hard to want to take time for myself since I'm away from her all day everyday. Just going to the grocery store after work makes me feel guilty - what is wrong with me?! My days are long (they start at 5:15 before she wakes) starting with my morning pump and ending late after she goes down with my night time pumping. My mom has reminded me that I've already given her 7 months of breastmilk so if I want to stop, it's okay - but I truly don't mind. I strictly pump and bottle feed now and it has been pretty easy. I pump once a day at work and I've never had a problem with proudction - in fact I overproduce! I'm glad I'm able to do it for Claire - but I do have to admit that I'm looking forward to 5 months from now when she is 1 year old and I have 3 hours of my day back!

At 3 days shy of 5 months old, Claire got her first tooth and now has her bottom two middle ones. It's so cute seeing her smile with those little teeth! At 2 days shy of 6 months, right before Christmas, after a bad week of being sick with 104+ temperatures - she started crawling!! Yes crawling!! She goes everywhere now and loves to terrorize our cat, Lacy. :-)

Claire spent her first Christmas still recovering from being sick and I know she wasn't feeling 100%, but she did well with the trip up to Fort Worth to see Grant's family. She did have a bit of an adjustment to sleeping in the pack and play, but by the last night she figured it out - just in time to go home! :-)

Claire is now 5 days away from being 7 months old and it is amazing how fast the time has gone by. She has been such a blessing to our lives and it's hard to imagine life any other way now. I will try to keep this blog updated, but to be honest, there's no guarantee. I will do a birth blog next so I manage to get everything written down before I forget it all.

Here is a group of pictures showing her stages over the past 7 months -