Working: I'm back at work full time, which means Hugbug is in daycare full time. It's HARD. Sunday nights and Monday mornings are typically the worst part of my week, but they get a bit better each week. The office has been fairly busy, so that's helpful with keeping me occupied. Two of my big projects closed out (or are closing out) which means a bit of downtime, but it also is a nice accomplished feeling. And it means no more worrying about when I will have to travel down to NJ to oversee things on site (I'm a wimp and hate traveling to site in the winter!). I'm now spending time working with both of our Project Architects, which I think tends to help me in my path to licensure because I see different methods for design and documentation.
I'm hoping to begin taking the exams in the Spring, because by then I'm hoping we will be settled a bit more into life as parents and homeowners. Oh, and have that lovely spare cash required to actually apply and take the exams. If you're interested in what that means, check out this blog.
Home: So we bought a house. It's thrilling and terrifying all at once. I love coming home to our little home, even if it currently is a disastrous mess. We need to fully renovate the kitchen and bath in the next few years. They are basics functional at this point, so we can live with it. But the bath is ugly (picture pink marbleized panel walls with yellow-off-white commercial housing base). The kitchen has 12" of total counterspace. The cabinets are sturdy and economy quality, so we are looking into refacing and adding additional cabinets and counters as a renovation option. We'll see. We're about 50% unpacked, and Hugbug's room is coming along great- it's painted (except the trim) and the chair rail is almost done. Her furniture is built, and we have all the pieces and parts we want for now. Hubs is hoping to finish up this weekend, which means Momma and Baby will be making themselves occupied elsewhere. Our room is set up, primed for paint. The living room is set up. That's about it there.
Baby: Hugbug is growing in leaps and bounds, she's 4-1/2 months old (20 weeks yesterday) At her last well-check she was 16 lbs, 11.5 oz (95% percentile) and 27" (off the charts!). I'm feeling great with the parenting thing when we have great checkups like that. I'm so grateful that breastfeeding is working out so well for us. My mom has also gotten a lot more understanding about it for the most part. She was a formula mom, which is awesome, because my sister and I are super healthy and happy and we were fed, which is what's really important. But she is learning from us what it means to breastfeed, and what differences there are (eating times, sleeping times, pumping when away, etc).
Hugbug has also hit several milestones lately: she SAT UP (from an incline, I'll be fully honest) all by herself the other night and was so proud of herself. Now whenever she's laid down, she's trying so hard to sit up. It looks like she's doing crunches (I know, babies don't do crunches!). She's only rolled belly to back, and even then, only twice. She just doesn't seem interested. She's still only sort of laughing. She prefers to squeal. She loves to practice standing. And she saw her first snowflakes on 11/12/13 (fun!). She wasn't impressed, just confused. But it was cute.
All in all, things are going well. Now if I can just keep up with the meal planning, meal prepping, house unpacking, baby raising, working life and remember to post once in a while, that'd be great!I'll leave you with a cute baby picture!
