12 Weeks: It's over!!! (maternity leave) :(

Right now, it's Sunday around 7:30am. I woke up around 6 and couldn't get back to sleep! I guess my body is used to getting up around this time. Liam is not with us here in Florida (we are here in Coral Springs for my friend Stacie's wedding). He's with his Aunt Katie and grandma and grandpa this weekend! Aunt Katie has been keeping me updated... he's been great so far! Katie works in a daycare with non-mobile infants, which is the category Liam would fall into, so he is in excellent hands. I'm so glad she is there to help out, she's got more experience with babies than us!!

Yesterday morning we packed up the whole house (pretty much) to send over to Joel's parent's house for Liam. It's like he was moving in! Man! Babies are SO high-maintenance! haha We just wanted to make sure they had everything he needed.

So my maternity leave is over. :( It's sad, but I think the daycare we are sending him to will be great. The ladies there are very nice and answered all my questions. I'm sure they have dealt with a first time mom's over-paranoia and nervousness many times! They know what they are doing, they've been in business for over 10 years. I just hope he will enjoy being around new people and other babies. I bet it will be more interesting than playing with one boring mom all day! haha

The photo above was taken from my view from his stroller. We were walking to Laura's house down the street and he took a short nap on the way. He likes those fists! It's so cute. He passed out the other morning like that too when I placed him in his crib. I was busy packing up all his stuff for this weekend and he put himself to sleep by sucking on his fist! Unswaddled! Of course it wasn't a long nap or anything, but I thought it was cute.

The napping is still all over the place. Last week I experimented with a bunch of different things to get him to sleep/stay asleep. One afternoon, I tried swaddling him with one arm out (so he could have access to his fist in case he wanted to suck it) and he slept for almost 2 hours!! And afternoon naps are usually the hardest to achieve! Well, he did wake a little after an hour, but at that point I tried "mattress CPR" to put him back to sleep. Mattress CPR is something I read about on a forum... it's pretty much taking your fist and gently bouncing the mattress. It worked! But like most things that I try that work once... it doesn't necessarily work other times.

So as much stress and frustration this little guy has put me though in the past 12 weeks, I am glad I went through it. It's like the same feeling I had after I gave birth: It was a terrible, physically traumatic experience, but I feel like the effect it's had on my life was profound and is something I will remember in a good way (but not so good that I would do it again! haha). My life before Liam (B.L.) was so boring! Now everyday seems like a challenge, but that's what my life was missing. Liam is here to mix things up a bit and finally make my life more interesting!

Sigh... it's almost 8 o'clock. I'm hungry! But I don't want to wake up Joel.... I know he's been looking forward to sleeping in! What's that they say... "Never wake a sleeping baby!" haha!