11 years and 6 months

Respectively. 11 years ago (on the 25th) my hubby and I said 'I do.' 6 months ago (on the 18th) Calli was born. October is a super busy month. I LOVE IT! The trees are colorful, the air is brisk.
On our wedding day the sky was bright blue with big white puffy clouds and the air was cool and crisp. My favorite. It was a gorgeous day and we had such a great time. We wanted to go out to eat to celebrate the other night but hubby wasn't feeling well so we postponed a week. So looking forward to a night out. We will leave Calli with her aunt and cousins and they are really looking forward to baby-sitting. 11 years have gone by in a blink. Makes me worry that the next 11 will fly too.
Hubby- thank you for our beautiful daughter. I remember the day that we decided that we wanted to try again to expand our family and I know that it wasn't an easy decision for us (a lot of people in that gallery know that it wasn't an easy decision for us! wink wink). I can't for a millisecond imagine our lives without Calli. I know that she is heaven sent expressly to us. I love our family and I love you. Watching you be a father is the most amazing thing... I thought I knew you, and Calli brings out a whole new side to you and it is amazing. You are a great father and husband.
I brought Calli for her 6 month appointment the other day and all is well. She weighs 18 lbs 3 oz and is 26 and something inches long. I can't remember... but both are 75-90 percentiles for her age. She is doing so great. She is really so much fun right now. Big smiles and giggles now and then. Most of the time she is very contemplative and will only give you a smile if it is really deserving. She love love loves the jumper and her activity center thingy. She also loves to jump in your lap while you hold her. She notices everything and everyone and is distracted very easily. She likes to sing (the only way I can describe her constant noise) and practices using her voice. She loves to chew on her hands, toys, clothes and toes. She has two teeth coming in on the bottom. She seems like she is getting ready to crawl... she gets on her hands a knees and then get on her tippy toes... like a modified downward dog. So funny. She is still a pretty chill gal and doesn't give us too much trouble. I think she is saving it for her tween and teen years!
There is so much going on these days but not really much else to report.
Ciao for now!
xo
S

Neglect

Wow, this is shaping up to be my worst year of posting yet on this blog. I really truly can't imagine why?
HaHa
Stuff that is happening and on my mind:
- This weekend my friend from grade-school came for a visit for a few days. I haven't seen her in 23 years... can you believe that? We lost track of one another in our mid teen years and didn't reconnect until FaceBook a few years ago. It really was so very exciting to get the opportunity to get to know one another again.
- Of course this happens during my two most very busy weeks at work. Oh well. Such is life.
- I find myself very tired at the end of the day but not always sleepy. Weird phenomenon for me.
- I am definitely going back to real life classes next semester. I can't get into this online stuff. It is hard enough for me to find time to sit and read and get all the work done and now I have to monitor the website and the discussion boards and write meaningful comments... AUGH!!!
- I am in a crappy mood as of late and can't really figure out what the dealio is!?! Must be the stress of work and every weekend being busy and feeling like nothing ever really gets done. Not sure how other mothers deal with that feeling... I swear the dust bunnies are gonna get together and protest for better benefits or something.   :)
- We baptized Calli this weekend. She was a rock-star and I was a mess. I got us to the church late and then spent too much time freaking out over where people were sitting and forgot to just sit and have a good time. Once I did that it was awesome; too bad that was the last 20 minutes or so.
- These days have been so darn beautiful out. The sun shines and the leaves are just breathtaking. It always amazes me how quickly it all happens. One day you look out and there are a few red and orange leaves here and there. The next time you look it is just gorgeous and all kinds of colors are out there and every tree is just majestic. Then the next time you remember to look everything is brown and falling... then bare. Ugh. The only reason I am looking forward to the winter is so that Calli and I can snuggle.
- On top of some crazy days at work I have an exam to write this week. Yup. And honestly it is what I need to be working on right now.
Ciao
S

Thursday is my FAVORITE day of the week

Thursday is the day that I pick Calliope up from daycare. Seeing her face as I walk through the door makes me so ridiculously happy, I can't stand it. It isn't the same look she gets when I walk in the house and she has already been home with my mom or hubby. I count the minutes on Thursdays; especially because I do the dreaded drop off every day. I take that back, it isn't totally dreaded but some days I swear I could sit there and play all day because the kids are so happy. The daycare provider tells me all kinds of stories about what Calli did all day and how the kids played and she watched or she talked and discovered something new. I think she is a different person when she is there than when she is home with me.

The new Calli news is that she cut her first tooth today. After I fed her this morning I put my finger in her mouth out of curiosity... sure enough there was the beginnings of a tooth there. I'm glad I discovered it with my finger first! She is growing up so fast I am already forgetting what is was like when she was a newborn. I know, I know... blah blah blah... sentimental crap... I've been sentimental a lot lately. Oh well.

Happy Thursday to you!!
Ciao for now!
xo
S

ME time

Things are really crazy at work right now and things in my life are pretty crazy. I started an online class, we are christening Calli, I am in a wedding, my friends are having babies... not to mention I have a house and a marriage to tend to.
This weekend I had two bridal showers, one on each day. I have neglected my home, my homework and my husband. Thankfully there is football to entice my hubby so he barely noticed I was gone. Just kidding; he helped out by grocery shopping and doing laundry and trying not to let his crap pile up too.

Pretty baby.

I mention all of this because on top of not getting to do everything else, I've also forgotten to pay attention to me. And now that I really think about it I don't remember the last time I paid attention to me and I don't even really know how to do that anymore. Don't get me wrong... I TOTALLY (totes magoates) LOVE MY LIFE; I have a great job with a great boss and amazing colleagues, have a hubby that love love loves me, a daughter that melts my heart with her every inch right down to her stinky toes, a family that wants to go to the ends of the earth for me, and friends that are the bees knees. I just don't know how to be me anymore. I know that it is probably normal and that this is stage of life and blah blah blah... I just don't know the new me very well yet and I don't know how to go about getting to know her/me. What I do know, is that I can't start if there isn't any time to so that means that I need to start saying no again... and that isn't bad news. Doesn't mean I love my peeps any less just that I need to love on me for a bit right now. The hardest part of that is the baby part. Does she factor into this or not? I think popular opinion would be that I need to do this alone and spend some time with me and all that, but honestly folks I REALLY love spending time with baby girl too. This is the conundrum. Oh well, this is not getting answered at 9:48pm on a Sunday night when I REALLY should have been doing homework.

Ciao
xo
S

5 months

Calli is growing so fast I can barely keep up with her. I think she has literally been growing overnight because every morning she looks like a new baby. She is starting to really fill out the 3-6 months clothes, so I've been checking out the stock of 6-9 months stuff and getting ready for the change-over. I found a whole other stock of 6month stuff and very little of the 9month stuff so a shopping I will go. I bought her some jeggings the other day and can't wait until she fits into them. This time of year also brings about the question what to wear... sweater? short sleeves? socks or none? I have a hard enough time dressing myself much less my darling daughter. Especially because she can't tell me if she is uncomfortable. We are all about the layers and lots of options in the diaper bag.
Calli continues to be the happiest baby on the block. Her new favorite thing is making raspberries with her mouth. She loves to do it and loves when you notice that she is doing it. She managed to keep the whole section of church amused this past weekend with her new trick. She loves her jump and go and exer-saucer, but not for long periods of time. She sleeps for about 9 hours a night. Still no rice cereal but she is pretty hungry lately so we will try that in a couple of weeks. I'm excited to see what she thinks of it!
She loves to play and put everything in her drooly mouth. These days I have to change her shirt because she has drooled too much instead of having spit up on it. Nice change of pace, I must say.
I don't have any stats because we don't go back to the doctor until next month.

Ciao
xxoo
S

September

The first two weeks of daycare were great. Calli thrived and I didn't cry...that often. :) Our daycare provider is a wonderful woman that really loves Calli. It is a small group of kids and they are all great. Lots of smiles and high fives and they all love when Calli gets there.
We had a great weekend enjoying the weather and outdoor activities as much as possible. We went peach/ pear/ plum picking; we walked around Franklin Avenue enjoying a small exposition of Italian cars seeing lots of old friends and spending time with my niece, nephews and of course Nonna. We had brunch with a good friend and did some laundry, cooking and cleaning for good measure.
I tried to relax a little in the afternoon and get some homework done before the craziness of the week began. I wrote that earlier this week...
Now we are ready for the weekend to come. Trying not to make serious plans. Only fun stuff this weekend. And homework, and clean the bathroom, and grocery shopping and homework.... oh well. At least I wish I could not do anything all weekend. :)
Today is my day to pick up baby girl and I couldn't be more excited. It will be our time. :) yay.
Ciao for now.
xo
S

This the wave of the future... crashing. :)

Reality check

Calli's 1st day of daycare!

We've been living in the bubble of having the baby at home during the day. What a wonderful bubble it was. She was happy, I could call at any time to check on my family and hear her gurgling in the background. I could get a detailed minute by minute replay of what she did that day. All was great.
Yesterday the bubble burst and I brought baby girl to daycare. Ugh. I have to be honest, it wasn't terrible. I think it helped that I was back at work while she was home with hubby for a bit. She is at a home daycare in my neighborhood and that is nice too. I called (she said I could call as much as I want) around lunchtime and she was napping. I picked her up around 3pm (I could barely wait) and she was her usual happy-go-lucky self. I swear she looked different and seemed more grown up!
We celebrated by going out to dinner with Nonna at a new restaurant BonefishGrill. It was good. It's only been open a week.
The best part... baby girl slept a full 9 hours!!! She was doing that a month or so ago and then started waking up in the middle of the night and then reverted back to 6 or 7 hours a night. If the 9 hours is a side effect of the daycare, I am all for it!!! She was super happy this morning and feel asleep as I was dropping her off. I can only hope that this continues.
Tomorrow, hubby's students come back and I go back to the office and baby girl goes to daycare... that will be the real true test.
Have a great day!
ciao
S