Date Night

Oh what a drab day it has been. We went to sleep last night to the rain and woke up this morning to dreary, cold weather. I am not a fan of being cold, but I am less of a fan of being cold Mid-April. I am ready for the temps to start climbing back up in the 80s. I will be whining in July because I am sweating and begging for fall, but as for right now.... I want to be outside and warm! Anyway, Scott and I woke up when Suzy got up this morning at 8:00 (she went to sleep at 7:30 last night). We fixed her bottle and fruit cereal (bananas were on the menu this morning) then Scott prepared breakfast for the adults. It was delish. The three of us spent the day being lazy together. The weather was the perfect opportunity for us to stay cooped up in the house. It was quite nice though. I did get some of Suzy's pictures organized on Shutterfly and finished her "2 Month" picture book. I will admit, I am a slacker when it comes to pictures. I will take a million of them and then never get them printed out. If I am lucky enough to print them out they stay piled in my car above my visor. It is just not something that I am very good at. Suzy was a pretty happy little lady today. She played, cooed, and watched Scooby Doo with Scott and I. After her 1 o'clock feeding she laid down for a nap..... this nap lasted three and a half hours. It was lovely. While she was asleep I talked to Mimi who agreed to watch the little stinker while Scott and I went to dinner. It was an unplanned "Date Night" at the Smith Residence. Mimi had no objections to the idea since she has not seen her much due to having her little procedure earlier in the week.

While Scott finished getting dressed for our date, I had a photoshoot with SZ. She doesn't look too thrilled does she?

Suzy on her way to see Mimi this afternoon. She doesn't go far without her "baby". Mrs. Jeana Tabor from SMS gave her this sweet little monster at my school shower. She is obsessed with it. She is loving that it is easy to hold onto and that she can get it to her mouth successfully!

After we dropped Suzy off with Mimi we headed to Como to eat the Como Steakhouse. As we were pulling up I said, "Scott we are here just in time to eat with all the old folk". I should really quit referring to the elderly so often. I guess I think that I am 18 or something? We arrived to dinner at 5:30. We, of course, planned to eat at 5:30 so that it didn't interfere with Suzy's 7:30 bath/bedtime. We always like to sit at the bar when we go to Como. Not for the drinks, but because it is always way quicker to sit up there than at a table. We had a sausage and cheese  plate, salads, and I ate a few bites of Scott's steak. We had filled our bellies and were walking to the car at 6:30. For those of you that know about the Como Steakhouse know that getting a table, eating, and paying your ticket within an hour is unheard of! We planned our little journey quite nicely if I do say so myself. We then headed to pick up our sweet Suze. Mom had carried her over to her neighbors' house, Jon and Lakay. When we got out the car Lakay commented on how nice we looked (we werent' dressed up, I guess she is just used to seeing us looking like complete death or something?) and then insisted that they take a family photo of us. We agreed. I am glad that we did. We have no pictures of the three of us. The random iPhone photograph taken was actually pretty decent. Thanks J&L Photography for the lovely photo op. :)

Too bad Suzy wasn't looking at the camera. She is too busy examining my shiny shoes.

We got home just in time to put SZ in the tub and get her bedtime bottle prepared. While she was in the tub Gigi and Pops came by to see her. Gigi usually has SZ on Saturdays, but she played in a golf tournament today. She apparently missed her baby so much that they had to swing by our house on their way home. Suzy got to see them before she went to Sleepytown. Her chunky self sucked down the 6 oz bottle with 2 scoops of oatmeal in it and hasn't made a peep since. Oh I am so blessed to have a baby that likes to sleep as much as I do!! I think I too will take the opportunity of an early bedtime tonight.

The Simple Things

Usually one day per weekend I have some time “away” from my real life duties. On these off days I tend to do a bunch of very off the wall things. I should be inside cleaning house, doing laundry, reorganizing cabinets and such, but I cannot seem to do anything very productive or meaningful. I have come to love the days that I can do things for myself. I never knew how much I actually did for myself until Suzy came along. I used to just hop in the car at the drop of a hat just to go to town for a Diet Coke, but that has all changed….. for the better, of course. Scott and I were talking the other day about money (the root of all evil) and how it seemed like I hoard it these days. Hoarding is not the word for it. Not having time to go do random things like I used to do is the reasoning behind the change in finances I believe? Finances are neither here nor there, the point I am trying to make in a round about way is that I have come to appreciate the smaller things in life. Shopping, Diet Coke runs, pedicures, etc. are all things of the past and I couldn’t be more thrilled about that! Now, don’t get me wrong… I do love all those things listed above, but they just don’t come as often as they used to. Suzy’s Gigi gets her a good bit on the weekends, so that I can have a breather and so that she can spend some extra time spoiling her. Instead of our old weekend habits, we do random things like clean out flower beds?

Scott made my flower beds wider so that they were not so jumbled up! We took every single plant out of the beds and totally started over! It looks 100 times better!

A glimpse from another angle!

Cleaning flower beds is just one of the off the wall projects that we have come up with to do. Scott usually spends his time away doing things like fishing, cooking out, and socializing. Me on the other hand, I pick things to do like clean out the upstairs room to make Suzy and I a place to hang out and recover chairs? Really??..... What has happened to me?! I should be spending this time in Southaven shopping, shouldn’t I? I finally took one of the days off that I was granted and did something that was actually all for me last Saturday. Lauren and I went to Mimi’s house around 12:00 and laid out for three hours. Three hours of uninterrupted time was outstanding and being in the sun with an amazing friend was just a cherry on top! Today, Kendal picked Suzy up from Memaw’s house so I could take care of a few things that I needed to scratch off my “to do” list. I had a hair appointment at 5:00, which is one of my very favorite things to do. Instead of arriving right on time to my hair appointment I ended up showing up 45 minutes early just to catch up with everyone had have some nice “gossip time”. It was fantastic. Scott and I have also signed up to be members of Back Acres Country Club so that he can teach me how to play golf. I am so super excited about this! I have wanted to learn to play for years and he has finally agreed to teach me. When Suzy gets a bit older we will take full advantage of that lovely kiddie pool too! I am so fortunate to have family close by that will gladly ask for Suzy on the weekends. I do not know what I would do without them. I am also extremely thankful that I have (somewhat) realized that I should do simple things with my time instead of trying to things like redo my whole yard in a day. Manual labor days just make you even more tired the next day. My laid back, easy weekend and week have made me a much happier lady.

When Suzy got home Sunday her Daddy had to steal back some loving!!

Time Flies

I should be so ashamed of myself for not blogging like I should be. The past 3 months have been a whirlwind and I haven’t found the “extra” time to blog OR the computer/internet access that would have made this so much easier. We have had a Mifi and it took forever for the pictures and blogs to load so I got a little frustrated and just totally abandoned the whole thing. I am going to do much better now that we have Wifi I hope. I even went and bought a new desktop computer so that I could have my own personal little place to write posts, pay bills, upload/print pictures, etc. I am glad to finally have a little “Amy Space”!

Let me catch you up on Suzy!!! She has grown so much. It is hard to believe that that wee little baby that we brought home from the hospital has grown into such a chunky little thing. She is 14 weeks old, weighs 14 lbs, and has fat rolls all over her. Memaw still keeps Suzy while I am at work and it seems like Gigi (Scott’s mom, Linda) has her at least one night per weekend. My mom (Mimi) always has little projects going on or is going to the Lake House and cannot get her much on the weekends. I know that as soon as her schedule slows down that she will be fighting Gigi for a weekend! Mimi does get to see Suzy a lot during the week though. If 3 days have passed and she hasn’t seen her she tends to get a little whiney!

Mimi and Suzy at the Lake House over Spring Break.

Gigi and Suzy the same week!

Suzy is an absolute joy. She has been sleeping all night since I went back to work when she was 6 weeks old. Thanks to Jill Lamar I read the book Babywise and it changed our lives!! I was venting to Jill one day about how rough things were going with her crying, sleeping, feedings, etc. and Jill recommended the book. I went to her house one afternoon and picked it up. I read it in one night and started the Babywise method the next day. It was a life changing experience I assure you. The first couple days were pretty stressful and very emotional. For those of you that are not familiar with the book I will fill you in quickly (I could talk about it for days). The book just recommends that you put your baby on a schedule, stick to the schedule, and teach the baby how to “self sooth”. Well, in other words it tells you to put the baby on a schedule and let them cry the problems out themselves. Needless to say, I cried about as much as Suzy did for 3 days or so. Babywise says to feed the baby, have “awake time”, then “rest time”. Suzy picked up on everything so quickly that within a couple days she was thriving. I am now a firm believer that babies thrive on schedules. After a week of using the methods Suzy was a brand new baby. There wasn’t nearly as much crying going on, she would swing or sit in her bouncy chair, and I didn’t have to hold her constantly. It had gotten to the point that she was falling asleep on my chest and I would slowly move her to her baby bed, but the book taught me how to make that change. I feed her at night, kiss her, tell her I love her, walk out of the room and she never makes a fuss!! It is ahhhhhmazing!! She was going to sleep at 9:00 PM, but has moved her bedtime up herself to 7:30 and sleeps until I pick her up in the mornings to take her to Memaw’s house. One area that I cannot complain about is the “bedtime routine”. I recommend this book to every person that I know that has babies or is fixing to have a baby. Naptime has been a struggle because we didn’t know that she should have a scheduled naptime everyday. I guess I was too enthused about bedtime to remember what the book told me about naps. I picked up the book again and reread the chapter on naps and that is getting much better now that I have some knowledge on how to implement them.

This is Suzy’s schedule as of right now (when she starts teething things may become a bit different, so I don’t want to get too attached to it):

6:30 AM- I wake Suzy up to change her diaper and we head to Memaw’s

7:00- Feeding 1

10:00- Feeding 2, naptime

1:00- Feeding 3, then they go outside to “play”

3:30- I pick Suzy up from Memaw’s

4:00- We are back home, Feeding 4, naptime

6-6:30’ish- Suzy gets a juice bottle (2 oz)  to help hold her over until “bedtime”

7:00- bath time and preparations for bedtime (if she can hold off until 7:30)

7:30- Feeding 5 and off to Sleepytown she goes, she is usually dead asleep by 8:00 at the latest

For those of you that read my blog posts from the early days of Suzy’s life know that she had so many problems in the bowel movement department. We tried everything that we could try with her being so young. She finally reached a point where the doctor suggested giving her juice to help the situation. She is allowed 1-2 oz, 1-2 times per day. It has helped tremendously. We no longer have those problems, thank goodness. When she went for her last check up he told me that we could start implementing cereal by spoon to her diet, so we have started doing that as well. She gets spoon fed cereal with her morning bottle and she is loving it. She also gets 2 tablespoons of cereal in her “bedtime bottle”.

Going back to work and getting back in the swing of things helped Suzy and I out tremendously. I don’t know if I could ever be a stay at home mom. I went stir crazy and it drove me nuts not having a routine/schedule for myself. I believe that I also thrive on a schedule J It is extremely hard being away from her, but it makes 3:30 so rewarding when I get to see her.

My sweet friends Betsy and Jennifer sent me flowers on my first day back to work!

Happy Suzy was still wearing newborn or 0-3 month clothes at 6 weeks.....

In Suzy’s first 14 weeks she has done a lot of things! She has been to the lake house several times, attended her first crawfish party, been to a baby shower, ventured on shopping trips, strolled many a mile, spent the night away from home at least once a week, and been in an Easter Pageant. She is already a very busy girl. 

Suzy was getting prepared for the Lake House over Spring Break in her sweet blue stripes... I will never buy blue stripes again. Even with the flowers on the collar everyone we saw said, "What a sweet baby boy".....UGH!

Suzy with Monica at Pop's birthday party.

Now Suzy is filling up her 3 month outfits :)

Thank you Uncle Casey and Melissa for the sweet little outfit!

She's all dolled up for the Easter Pageant.