My First Mother's Day

What a great weekend! Mark came home from work on Saturday with flowers and candy for me. He is so wonderful and knew exactly what to do to bring a smile to my face. I've kind of been a little down in the dumps lately, which is really not very normal for me. I'm by no means perfect (:)), but I try really hard to be positive as much as I can. Our lives have become so busy and with Mark's work schedule, our weekends are practically non-existent, so I've been struggling a lot with our lack of family time together. Life is going so quickly and it's getting to the point that we don't really feel like we have a break or anything to look forward to, as a family, since our weekends, and only time together during the week, have been depleted to only one day. I'm trying to accept what this is and pray that it is only temporary. It's amazing how much I took weekends for granted prior to this. I enjoy the day, just Mia and I, but I miss having Mark on Saturdays. I feel incomplete without him. We try to squeeze so much into our Sundays, that we have no down time together, it's is just chore, after chore, after chore it feels like sometimes. And by the end of the day Sunday, we are both exhausted and can't believe another weekend is gone and work week is upon us.

Saturdays are really busy days for me between the baby and all the errands and house cleaning that I try to get done before Mark gets home, so he knew I would be pretty spent by the time he got home. He knew exactly what I needed. A night of relaxation and time at home with my family!!!

So we spent the night on the couch, relaxing, carb and sugar loading while eating Cecil Whittaker's, watching baseball and the beginning of SNL (we are quite the party animals these days, we seldom make it through all of SNL before falling asleep...I know, pathetic!). Betty White was fun and of course, Kristen Wiig is always a good laugh.

Sunday was a day of beautiful weather and time with family! After a nice long, hot shower and about an extra hour of sleep, Mark gave me a beautiful card from he and Mia. It was very sweet and thoughtful and will make a beautiful addition to Mia's scrapbook. Mark cooked me pancakes and hash browns for breakfast and then we headed to Laumeier Sculpture Park for the annual Art Fair to meet up with my family. We had a great time looking at all of the things we could not afford, although Mark bought me a beautiful necklace with a glass pendant! Later that afternoon, we met up with his family for an early dinner at The Cheesecake Factory and then heading to his parents' for cake!! :)

It was a great weekend. Now we are back to Monday and another work week!

6 months

Wow! That was fast! Yesterday Mia turned 6 months old. I'm going to blink and she is going to be diving into her cake on her 1st birthday.

Weekend Craziness and Other Random Thoughts

Does anyone else feel like there is never enough time in the weekend? Each week I feel like this becomes more and more true! Seriously! Every Monday I think, what happened to the weekend and why doesn't the work week go that quickly?? :) A lot of my busy scheduling is of my own doing, but what can I say I like to spend time with family and friends. Between that and my motherly and wifely duties that keep me plenty busy, I just feel like the weekends are gone in a flash. Mark and I were discussing this in length last night. Where did the lazy Sundays go, when we had nothing planned and all the time in the world? I want just one of those days again soon! I cannot remember the last weekend day that we had nothing going on. I need to find the pause button! May I also mention that I am running a 5K in just a few weeks and I haven't ran (unless you count up and down the stairs at home) anywhere in almost three weeks. Pathetic! I've really fallen off the wagon the past few weeks. Once I got the green light from my OB to work out again I went at it and was feeling really good. We did the St. Patty's Day 5 mile race downtown and I felt awesome. Our schedule has become so crazy lately that there is no time to go to the gym unless I want to put Mia in the box they call child care at my gym. Mark just can't get home early enough for both of us to get to the gym. How do you work full time, take care of a baby and workout on a regular basis?? I never wanted to be the person that used the phrase, "There are just not enough hours in the day," but I am using it because there are not enough of them. If I would just win the freakin' lottery I could hire someone to bust my a**!! Until then, I need to reset my goals and get back out there. I cannot workout like I used to. I can't go to the gym for an hour anymore, so I need to do what I can. It's better than nothing! It's up to me and as much as I wish I could pass the buck onto someone else, I'm the only person that can make me get back to my routine. Plus I have to be in a swimsuit in 4 weeks - eeeeekkkksssss!!!! I'm not complainin,' I'm just sayin!'

From Baby to Carrots

I'm so disappointed in myself that I have yet to write one single post for 2010. So this is called catch-up!

Wow - what a whirlwind the past 4 months have been. We have been so busy, but I am loving every minute of it (mostly).

My maternity leave ended and I returned to work on January 18, so our life has been super crazy since then. With two full-time working parents time certainly does fly more than I ever thought it would. We are in our rhythm, but it's tough. I hate having to be away from her more than I am with her, but bills don't pay themselves so to work we must go. We have some positive opportunities that we are diving into this year, so I am optimistic that our schedules will become a little less chaotic by the end of the year.

Motherhood is amazing and I really am enjoying it. I never thought I would love a human being as much as I love that little girl, but she is transforming each and every week into a bigger and brighter energy that has brought so much joy to our lives.

I feel like just yesterday I was giving birth to her and now all of a sudden she is eating carrots.

She's beautiful and growing more and more each day. We love her so much! Happy 2 month birthday today little girl!!!

Looking Forward

My beautiful baby is 8 weeks old today and as this year comes to an end I cannot believe all that we have experienced these past 12 months. Beginning with selling our house, buying our new one and the birth of Mia, it's been an eventful year. Thanks to Ms. Mia we were finally blessed with something positive towards the end of the year. There is no sugar coating it, this has been a tough year on both Mark and I and I think we are both looking forward to settling in during 2010 and getting some normalcy back into our lives. I am greatly looking forward to Mia's next 12 months and all that is to come with watching her grow and learn. In just eight short weeks she has grown so much I just can't believe it. I am also thrilled that I followed through with my resolution of 2009 to start this blog. I was able to make a post a month, so in 2010 my resolution is to continue this blog but try to write more. To all that follow my posts - I wish you a prosperous and Happy New Year for you and your families.

She's Perfect!!!!

I am officially a mommy. Mia Jane Wolff was born yesterday, November 5, 2009, at 1:57 am. I thought while the baby is in the nursery and the husband is at home with our dogs I would take a time to write about the past 24 or so hours.

Wednesday morning I went in for my routine doctor's appointment, but as I prepared earlier that morning in the shower I just had a feeling that would be the last time I would be home for a while. And by home, I mean yes our home, not our in-laws basement. We moved this past Saturday, October 31.

As I waited for Shannon to come pick me up to chauffeur me to my appointment, I sat down and took my morning blood pressure as I had been instructed to do so since my appointment the previous week. This confirmed that I would most likely not be returning home that day.

As I met with my doctor (this, mind you, is the third doctor I have seen in three weeks as my doctor decided to go on a long vacation so very close to my due date, silly that she wouldn't plan her schedule around my due date) and discussed my high blood pressure for the third week in a row, she stated I think we'll just have you go over to Labor & Delivery now and check in. Like now, I believe were my exact words? Having tried to mentally prepare myself for this all the previous evening and that morning, I still wasn't sure I was so ready to really have this baby, just yet. Well that didn't really matter anymore, because I was being induced and asap!

As I proceeded to the waiting room, where my sister was patiently waiting (a mother times two herself, she had the same feeling I had had that morning) we left the doctor's office and proceeded directly to the hospital. After a small, hormonal, nervous, poop in my pants kind of cry, I called Mark and Shannon and I then proceeded to the blue elevators, went up to the 2nd floor and checked in. Within minutes I was in a room, hooked up to my IV and potocin. Within an hour, the doctor was there to break my water. I hung in there until I got to be about 3 cm with which came the mighty contractions. They were getting stronger by the minute and increasing their intensity each time, so with that came the epidural, my saving grace!! It was quite scary to deal with considering it was another unknown, but I felt great after it was over. The epidural hung in there and I breezed through the next several hours until I started getting a lot of pressure. My friend, my drug doctor, came back with some more fun cocktail for me and I then felt much better. By 1:15 am or so, after about 15 hours, I was pushing and 37 minutes later, Ms. Mia Jane was born. It was an amazing experience and the nurses and doctor were great. Mark was fantastic and was the exact support system I needed to push me through.

So here we are on day #2 and things are going well. One more day in the hospital and we get to go home tomorrow morning. Mia is absolutely beautiful and just gets cuter by the minute. As I sit here in my hospital room, by myself, it's feels different to think of myself now that I am a mother. When I think of a mother, I think of my mom, not me. If I have anyone to look up to it is definitely her. Having raised three great girls, there is no one I would rather turn to for advice. I have a lot of support from my family and friends and they have all been so great so far. There is nothing more special than seeing your parents hold your child for the first time or to see your sisters hold their niece and officially transform into "aunthood" or see your closest friends hold your daughterI am so blessed to have experienced such a journey with my pregnancy. My daughter is healthy and completely perfect. Within minutes, we went from a family of two to a family of three. Seeing Mark transform into a daddy is amazing. He is so in love with his little girl and I can't wait to experience all the adventures that we have in store for us.