Time is Flying

last friday marked 3 months since caylin was born. oh my lord. somehow it feels SO much longer, but it still feels like it was yesterday. how is that possible? how is it that such huge life events feel so close yet so far away? i don’t understand.

girl is still growing like a weed. pretty soon she’s going to throw my back out, or damage it more than it already is. bending over that pack and play to change her, coupled with leaning over to play with her for 20 minutes at a time is killing me. i told brett that all i want for christmas is a massage. for one reason, i need it. another reason–seriously–the last thing we need is more CRAP in this house. i don’t want anything that takes up space. i am actively hunting for excuses to eliminate the STUFF in our house as it is. all i want is for my back to be okay again. ever since i got pregnant, my back has been a source of constant pain. i can’t even give my husband a hug without wincing.

i haven’t weighed her in a while, but i’m guessing she’s in the 13-14 pound range. maybe more. i can never remember to weigh her. at least i’ve done one thing right this month and that was getting her little bitty handprint for her first christmas ornament. she had no clue slash didn’t care what was going on, but it’s pretty darn cute.

at 3 months, caylin is…

  • downing like 4 ounces at a time, going through about 40 ounces a day. i don’t know how that relates to what other 3 month olds eat, but it pretty much feels like it never stops.
  • still sleeping through the night, but sleeping from 9-5:30 instead of 10-7 for some reason. i think my mom is wearing her out during the day! :)
  • still smiling all the time. and it’s awesome.
  • in this phase where she doesn’t like brett about 75% of the time. it will pass, but it kills him. so this week i’ve been going non-stop. so. exhausted. she’s good now. only lasted like 4 days. hallelujah.
  • blowing bubbles like it’s her job. i think she either likes the sound or likes the weird vibrations. so much slobber!
  • making SO many squeals and new sounds. i can’t get over how awesome it is. she talks constantly.
  • enjoying her first bouncer/play thing. doesn’t quite know what to do with it but she gets excited when we put her in it!
  • growing out of everything she owns.
  • able to sit in her bumbo chair for 10+ minutes at a time… getting there!
  • smiling at her own reflection in the mirror and babbling… it is pretty much the cutest thing i’ve ever seen.

she is definitely growing her personality. i let her “open” one of her christmas presents early because i figured she needed another toy. she really only has one (that isn’t just a stuffed animal, which are evidently no-no’s still)–her wubbanub. as it turns out, babies don’t get sick of toys at this age. or at least not caylin. she is very much in favor of this wubbanub, and couldn’t care less about her new giraffe. maybe when she starts teething it will serve more of a purpose.

i’ve been debating how i’m going to wrap the rest of her presents. should i just stick a bow on them? should i wrap them? i got mixed responses on twitter. i mean, she still can’t even sit up. i don’t know how much will change in a month, but she is absolutely not interested in tearing into anything right now. it might just be bows this year. i guess we’ll see in a few weeks.

now that our christmas tree is up, she loves to stare at the shiny lights. somewhere along the way, 2 of the strands of lights crapped out so the top of the tree isn’t lit and there is a splotch in the middle that is unlit. kind of ghetto. it’s my very first christmas tree that i bought when i lived alone 3 years ago. i was so proud of it. but i guess after 3 years of being shoved back in its box, and thrown around, it’s finally meeting its end. i also got it at wal-mart–you get what you pay for.

in non-baby news, we had our annual reviews at work last week. i’m not sure why i was so nervous about it. easy to say after the fact, sure, but i have never stayed with a company long enough to HAVE an annual review. i’ve never had to think about it before. i was at honeywell for 13 months, spawar for 16-ish months, and now i’ve been at sparc for 16 months. it is the first time i’ve been with a company and not had thoughts of finding a way to leave. can i say what a huge relief that is? i love my job and my team and my coworkers. it is a pleasure going to work every day, and i wish everyone else had that privilege.

as for me, i’m still going strong with zumba! this is 3 weeks and i haven’t quit yet. i’m down to 117 pounds (122 after i gave birth), and that’s all thanks to counting calories and “partying my abs off” every night for an hour. it’s not about losing weight for me, though. i don’t care about the number nearly as much as i care about feeling the way i’ve been feeling lately and actually being able to look in the mirror and be happy with what i see. that hasn’t happened in… well, ever. i can’t speak for every woman but i know that a lot of us are like that no matter what we look like. next summer, i want to go to the beach and enjoy myself, without the boatload of self-consciousness. i know it will never be gone 100%, but i feel like i’m on the right track. i guess we’ll see.

so–christmas. this will be the first christmas i haven’t been in NC, which makes me really sad. i think a big part of it is because my mom finally sold her house. when i think christmas, i think of her house. and home. and winston-salem. and going out with my friends back home on breaks. and we don’t have that anymore. i should’ve known it would hit me sooner or later, but i didn’t really think about it until the holidays came up. i get my nostalgia from her, for sure. we decided to do christmas here this year because thanksgiving was so tiring for us, mostly caylin. it was just hard. moving all of her stuff. trying to keep her on somewhat of a routine, if you could even call it that. it was a 5 day “break”, but i was more exhausted after those 5 days than i am after 5 days of work.

none of this flows, but i’m trying to make up for 3 weeks of not blogging about caylin. you’d think i would be better at talking about the biggest thing to ever happen to me. one day i’ll get the hang of it.