Well, it’s been a very active holiday season! In the last week we’ve put 1k miles on our little car and logged about 20 hours to road time!
To start – Charlotte is now over 7 months old!!
We didn’t get around to weighing and measuring her before the traveling, but we think she’s about 14.5 to 15lbs and must be a little taller as some of her footed onsies seem to be getting short – so we’ll estimate about 24.5 inches.
Just before the big holiday travel extravaganza, we went to a little bowling event sponsored by Andrew’s work. We brought Charlotte along and she had a fabulous time.
Making sure the air vent is working…
Helping dad enter names…
Getting ready to roll her very first ball….it didn’t go very far…but technically she has “bowled!”
Christmas didn’t really make it to our house this year. It sort of snuck up on us, so we managed to get a single string of lights on the stair rail outside and a garland and our stocking up on the banister inside. That was it.
So, we spent the holidays (munchkin and puppy too) in five locations! We are exhausted and are now going back to work and daycare to recover.
Christmas Eve was spent with the Millers and Charlotte’s Aunt Nicole. We had our traditional chinese dinner at the ancestoral location and finished the evening opening presents (round 1)!
Needless to say the new toys were a big hit.
Next we drove up to Staten Island to Grandma Annie and Grandpa Mike’s. The Del Priore celebrations were actually on Long Island, so after a brief rest, we made our way the additional hour to the festivites, which were excellent!
Enjoying a nom on the legendary gold ribbon (known as the never ending roll of ribbon – someday it may very well be passed down to Charlotte so that she may carry on the tradition).
Up on Long Island Charlotte got a wonderful sit and stand toy from Joe and Diane. The only piece that Charlotte could really grab was a little flip book in the middle, she spent much of the evening trying to eat it.
The big blizzard swept in the following day and our little honda civic had quite the ordeal! Poor thing had never seen so much snow before! Staten Island got about 2 feet and the gusting winds created impressive snow berms around the cars. That’s the itty-bity civic’s windows you see – and luckily, not US you see shoveling. Some enterprising locals were making extra money shoveling out cars and sidewalks.
With the car dug out and the roads reasonably plowed, we bid farewell to Staten Island and meandered through PA to the Albosta homebase in Ashley, PA. More wonderful food and family visits! Charlotte got to meet her Great-Grandma Albosta and she got to hang out with Madison and Mackenzie (her first counsins once removed). Charlotte is SUCH a peanut, Mackenzie (the one on Great-Grandma Albosta’s lap) is only 10 weeks old and ALMOST as big as our peanut – and Mackenzie is not an expectionally big baby.
After a sleepless night in a hotel (thanks Austin for warning us about EVERY noise you heard all night – thankfully Charlotte slept through it all) we headed back to Northern VA for a regrouping (and restocking of diapers).
Finally, after a couple of nights in our own bed, we headed up to our friends’ home in southern New Jersey for New Year’s Eve. They just moved from Connecticut to the lovely shore (the nice part – don’t think “Jersey Shore”). It was wonderful to see everyone! Charlotte got to meet a lot of new people – and dogs too!
We had 24 hours to unpack, do laundry, pick up the house, and breathe before we returned to work on Monday. We opted to skip a few things and decided to just take a moment to relax. The house can be cleaned later, the laundry will hold for a few more days, and there are only a few things we need from our travel bags.
It was wonderful to see all the family and friends and we ate a ridiculous amount of good food. Helllooooo New Years diet!
The final goodbye of 2010 was to my breastpump and nursing.
I’m still nursing a little in the early morning and right before Charlotte goes to bed, but I suspect that will disappear soon too.
I have a great pump, I’ll definitely use it again when the next munchkin comes along, but I will not pretend to be sad to see it packed up and put under the stairs. Being tethered to it at work was becoming unmanageable. The constant stress of planning in the needed time to pump between meetings (which usually resulted in missing lunch, bathroom breaks, and other expendable minutes) was making me frazzled. Now that I work in three locations (sometimes all three in one day) the stress was becoming unreasonable. There have been a few (thankfully only a handful of times) that I’ve actually pumped WHILE driving. It was the only time I had, thank goodness for nursing covers and oblivious DC drivers. Charlotte has done well with the weaning. She’s been getting a little formula at daycare for a while and she hasn’t skipped a beat with the transition (although we expected no less from our easy going happy baby).
I’ve given Charlotte a great start of almost exclusive nursing for 7 months. She’s a strong, healthy baby and I’d rather come home from work and focus on her and Andrew than feel like I’ve run a marathon (and come in last) each day. Life’s far too short.
So with the new year is a new routine. 1) I don’t have to lug my pump to work every day and cram in the time between meetings; 2) Andrew gets to be more involved in Charlotte’s feeding; and 3)She’s now eating two solids a day so we’re on our way to a whole new adventure! So far her favorite is broccoli and apple pureed together – doesn’t look that appetizing, but she lunges for the spoon!
Happy New Year!!!! Can’t wait to see what 2011 brings!!!
No tags
No comments yet.
Leave a Reply
<< 8 months!!
