2010

If there's one thing that I learned in 2010, it's what a huge difference just one year can make. Just 365 days ago, my life was so incredibly different.

When we bid farewell to 2009, I was somewhat happy to see it go. A good portion of that year had been spent trying to get pregnant, and learning that my body was not going to get that accomplished as easily as we had hoped.

So when the year ended and I was not yet pregnant (or rather, didn't yet know that I was), it felt a bit like 2009 had failed us. There had been a lot of trying times emotionally, and all I could think was that 2010 just had to be better. And so, understandably, I was really looking forward to 2010.

Of course, when we rang in the new year, we didn't know how much longer we would be waiting to become parents. Amazingly, gratefully, fortunately... it was just twelve days later that we learned that our baby was on its way.

From then on, 2010 became a year of incredible joy. We were blessed with a healthy pregnancy, and reveled in the excitement that comes with expecting a baby.

It was in 2010 that we transformed from Michael and Heather into Daddy and Mommy.

It was in 2010 that we received the greatest gift of all time--a beautiful, healthy, happy baby. A girl whom we can no longer imagine living without, because she is now the center of our lives.

So it's weird to think that 365 days ago, we didn't know she existed. Now, we will celebrate 2010 for the rest of our lives, each year when we mark Nora's birthdays. 2010 was an amazing year--the best ever.

I mean, really... what a difference a year makes.

And while we still don't know exactly what the new year will bring us, we know we will cherish every day that we have with our blessing of a daughter, and that our lives will certainly be full in 2011--full of laughter, full of love, full of joy.

I wish the same for all of you.

Happy New Year.

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Chicken Ranch Pizza

When I'm in the mood for pizza, I'm usually in the mood for traditional pizza. You know, red sauce, mozzarella cheese, maybe some pepperoni and onions. Occasionally I'll want to go a little different with the toppings--add some broccoli, peppers--but even that is rare.

So to ask me to step completely out of the box and make an "alternative" style pizza? Well, I have to be in a special kind of mood.

Since we are celebrating this New Year's Eve with a quiet night at home, we decided to make some good "party-like" food, which included two mini specialty pizzas--taco pizza, which we've made a handful of times in the past, and then we decided to give this new one a try.

I was afraid that the ranch dressing would be really overwhelming, but to my surprise, it really wasn't. All of these ingredients come together to make a nice slice of pizza. Will I ever make this as a full-size pizza? Probably not, but it's perfect to cut up into small pieces for a party.

Since it's the dead of winter, we didn't grill chicken for this--we boiled it and shredded it instead. But you could do it either way, or even cook it up quickly in a pan on the stove.

Chicken Ranch Pizza
(Source: Annie's Eats)

Ingredients:
- 1 recipe your favorite pizza crust (we use 1/2 of this recipe and freeze the other half for another time!)
- 1/4 cup Ranch dressing
- 3/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 to 1 grilled chicken breast, chopped into bite-sized pieces
- 1 tomato, seeded and diced
- 2-3 green onions, chopped
- 3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven according to the directions associated with your pizza crust. Prepare the pizza crust by rolling it out.

2. Spread the ranch dressing in a thin layer evenly over the unbaked crust. Sprinkle with shredded mozzarella. Top with grilled chicken, tomato and green onions. Sprinkle with shredded cheddar.

3. Once assembled, put pizza into preheated oven. Bake according to the directions for your crust, or until the cheese is melted and browned.

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Just a Spoonful of Sugar

We're at the beginning of a 10-day, twice-a-day amoxicillin regimen in this house. As such, one of my goals today was to figure out an easier way to "make the medicine go down."

When we gave Nora her first dose last night, it didn't go too badly. Her little tongue kept thrusting out of her mouth, causing some of the medicine to come with it, but we pretty successfully administered the majority of the dose. It didn't happen without a bit of a mess, though.

Then, this morning, I worked from home for a bit to let Nora sleep in (after the crappy sleep she's had these last several days, we didn't have the heart to wake her!). When she did wake and it was time to get her ready for the day, Michael was already at work and I was on my own. Needless to say, her morning dose did not go as smoothly. When all was said and done, I felt like half of the dose was smeared on her face, down her neck, and on the changing table.

Does she not like the taste? It's possible, but unlikely, given that she used to take gas drops without too many issues, and she's been sucking down the Tylenol like it's going out of style. Maybe it's too cold? Amoxicillin needs to be refrigerated, and the little one is not accustomed to drinking anything that isn't close to room temperature or warmer. Regardless of the reasons, I went to work on a mission to figure out a solution on my lunch break.

I remembered hearing about a pacifier medicine dispenser, which--let's face it--is a pretty awesome invention. One of my "tricks" to getting Nora to take gas drops when she wasn't in the mood was to squirt them in her mouth and quickly put her pacifier in to get her to swallow it. So the pacifier dispenser seemed like the perfect solution. The only problem? I ran out on my lunch break and couldn't seem to find one at Target, except as part of a larger baby care kit that we don't need.

My lunch break was over, so I had to return to work without one. I figured I'd check a drug store or two on the way home. Late in the day, however, I was talking to one of my coworkers about how Nora has an ear infection and is on amoxicillin, and she semi-jokingly said, "Do you have a ReliaDose?"

The name sounded vaguely familiar to me, but still I said, "No, what's that?" She explained that it's a bottle with a syringe inside that allows you to administer medication while your baby drinks his/her milk, formula, juice, etc. I asked her where I could get one. As it turns out, my company used to work with the makers of ReliaDose. So, wouldn't you know--one of my other coworkers happened to have a box full of them under her desk. For free. That I could immediately take home with me. Score!

And let me tell you: It.is.BRILLIANT.
Image from ReliaDose.com. Still confused as to how it works? Check out this diagram.

Without ever having used the pacifier dispenser, I think that the ReliaDose is better for a couple of reasons: 1) It's easier to ensure that your baby gets ALL of the medicine, since the syringe is still technically the "dispenser." 2) Not all medications taste as good as amoxicillin. If you happen to have a nasty tasting liquid, this little gadget can help mask the flavor since you can administer the medication slowly, mixing it little by little with a better-tasting beverage, right in your baby's mouth.

Some might wonder why you wouldn't just mix the medicine in with the baby's milk or juice. Well, you usually can, but the advantage to using this is that the medication and the drink are kept separate until just before they are in the baby's mouth. That way, even if baby doesn't finish all of his/her drink, you know that he/she still got all of the medication. Pretty cool, huh?

Maybe I'm easily impressed, but I love this thing.

When I first prepared it to give Nora her nighttime dose tonight, I turned it upside down to make sure it wouldn't leak and milk came shooting out of the nipple. It concerned me that maybe the milk flow would be too fast for her to handle, but to my surprise, she took it like a champ and didn't mind it at all. In fact, the medicine itself was gone in less than 30 seconds and I had to wait several more minutes for her to finish the amount of milk I had put in the bottle part--tomorrow, we'll be using less milk!

Anyway, I've been meaning to write a post about my recommendations for "must-have" baby items--you know, the things we personally cannot live without--but it keeps falling to the wayside because I just don't feel like I have enough time! I'm still planning to get to it eventually, but I couldn't wait to tell you all about this gem. I think this might be on the list of little-known baby gadgets that I'll be giving as baby shower gifts from now on!

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All Ears

We had the night from hell last night. Seriously. It was worse than any other night we've ever had with Nora, including the early newborn days.

We were essentially awake from 1 a.m. until 7 a.m. straight. We would get settled back into bed and maybe start drifting off to sleep and then she'd be screaming again. She was up every hour or less. And she was clearly tired--she wanted to sleep, we could tell--but she wouldn't last long before she'd be up again. I thought I was going to lose my mind. At 7:00, out of complete desperation, I gave up on trying to comfort her in her crib and brought her into bed with us, hoping that we'd all get at least a little bit of sleep. It was still hard to settle her, but eventually Nora did drift off and we all got a couple hours of sleep.

At 10:00, I woke up feeling like a zombie. I told Michael that I wanted to call the pediatrician, mostly because I just needed to hear "There's nothing you can do differently. It's just a stage" from a medical professional. When I called, I never expected to hear anything else besides that.

The nurse listened to me explain what Nora had been doing, and asked questions about her eating habits, congestion, etc. To my surprise, when I told her that Nora has had nasal congestion for about 9 or 10 days, she said that she wanted us to bring her in to check her ears. I suspected that her ears were probably fine, but we went into the doctor's office anyway.

And, well, I guess it was a day for surprises, because as it turns out, Nora does have an ear infection. And maybe it makes me a horrible mother, but I have never been so happy to hear a diagnosis. I was practically giddy, in fact. Of course, I do not want my baby to be sick, but OH MY GOSH, it's quite possible that an ear infection--a TREATABLE ear infection--is the cause of our sleep hell.

Because of Nora's young age and the fact that her sleep is so interrupted (seemingly by the ear infection), the doctor wanted to start her on antibiotics right away instead of waiting a day or two to see if the ear improved on its own. So now we have Amoxicillin for the next 10 days, with the expectation that we should see an improvement in Nora within 2-3 days or so.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let this be our answer.

I asked the doctor if there is a chance that the sleep issues are a result of the four-month sleep regression, instead of the ear infection. She said that there's always a chance, but it would be pretty coincidental to have the sleep regression start at the same time as a cold + ear infection.

I am cautiously optimistic, but only time will tell.

In the meantime, we're trying to figure out how we're going to put Nora to bed tonight. Do we stick with the crib now that we moved her into it last night? Do we move her back into our room?

It's a good idea to let her sleep with her head higher than her feet, the doc said. For at least a couple of days, since her ear is likely painful. That's all well and good, of course, but now we're trying to figure this out, too.

Do we let her sleep in the bouncy seat IN the crib? If so, how are we going to strap her in while keeping her swaddled? To help her congestion, we tried propping up the mattress in the pack n play earlier this week, but Nora kept shimmying down to the bottom since she moves so much, so that wasn't very successful. We could try to put her to sleep flat, but we just did that for her nap and she woke up crying about 40 minutes into it, even though she was still clearly tired. After a couple of unsuccessful tries at getting her settled again, I decided to prop her up in her boppy and thanks to that, she's been sleeping soundly for more than another hour now. And while that's an OK daytime solution while I'm checking on her often, we don't feel comfortable doing that at night.

Oy. My head is going to explode. :)

Here's to hoping that Nora feels better very soon... and that we all sleep better soon, too!

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Wakeful.

Nora has been sleeping through the night--in some way, shape, or form--since she was less than two weeks old. She started off by surprising us with six or seven hour stretches, and gradually worked her way up to twelve or thirteen hours. At her "worst," she woke up twice a night to eat, but it was usually only one time, and then it was none. It appeared that we had hit the jackpot in terms of baby sleep behavior.

I have been so aware of and so thankful for this rare blessing that I have lived the last three months just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was always afraid to talk to people about what a good sleeper Nora was because I was scared of possibly jinxing ourselves. Whenever I would mention it, I would feel like "Oh, I probably shouldn't have said anything!" or I'd get the overwhelming urge to knock on wood.

But then, the last few weeks, I started to relax. I returned to work, and after a week of dealing with an overtired baby and not-so-great sleep during our transition, Nora fell back into her normal sleeping routine and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. And I figured, hey, if she can go through that and still come out a great sleeper, surely that's just her nature. So I felt a little better talking about her sleep habits with people. I felt a little surer that things would not really change--of course, we'd have a bad night or two here or there, but nothing too drastic.

Oh, I was so naive.

Hellooooo, four-month wakeful period. It's so NOT nice to meet you.

About 10 days ago, Nora started a pattern of restless sleep. On that first night, she woke up several times and I had to pop her binky back in repeatedly. We had experienced a handful of not-so-great nights before. I didn't think much of it, though, because those nights were the exception, not the rule. But then the next night was the same. The only difference was that Nora had developed some nasal congestion and was having trouble breathing through her nose. As a result, we chalked up the less-than-stellar sleep to her being sick (even though her first cold didn't interrupt her sleep at all).

But then on Wednesday night, something changed. Nora woke up in the middle of the night and refused to go back to sleep. All told, we were up for more than two hours with a WIDE.AWAKE.BABY trying to get her back down, and when we finally did, I was still up every hour putting her binky back in her mouth and shushing her back to sleep. After a few hours of that, I was desperate for some sleep, so I finally brought her into bed with us--and even THAT wouldn't settle her. I started to worry, but remained optimistic.

Unfortunately, it has now been several nights of the same type of thing. I've come to the conclusion that Nora's cold led right into the dreaded "four-month wakeful period." She has all of the "symptoms"--she's become highly alert and more aware of her surroundings, has shorter/more distracted daytime feedings, and, well, she's just a few weeks shy of four months. She wakes up in the middle of the night and cries, but she's cool as soon as we pick her up and hold her. But that doesn't mean she wants to SLEEP, though; no way. She wants us to talk to her and play. And as much as I love her and her wide open little eyes and her smiles... holy moly, this SUCKS.

I hear every move she makes in her pack 'n' play, since it's right next to the bed and I have developed the mommy hearing. So I'm awake before she even cries--I know it's coming when I hear her start to grunt and writhe around in her swaddle. I lie there in the dark and I find myself wrestling with what I will do when she finally breaks into a cry.

I can put her pacifier back in. But that'll MAYBE buy me 10 minutes (and it's not like I fall back to sleep anyway).

I can try to shush-pat her back to sleep, but that hasn't been very successful these days.

I can pick her up and try to rock/jiggle/pat/shush her back to sleep, and sometimes that'll work... until I attempt to put her down, that is. Those eyes fly open faster than you can even imagine.

I can nurse her. But then I find myself debating whether she's REALLY hungry, or whether I'll be feeding her just to feed her and perhaps creating a bad habit. And well, unfortunately, nursing her has not proven to put her back to sleep, either.

I can let her cry for a few minutes to see what happens. I can do a little bit of "modified" cry-it-out, and well, we actually did that after being awake for a couple of hours last night. To our surprise, it did work. She wasn't all-out wailing, but did cry, and we let her do so for about five minutes. At that point, I put her binky back in, shushed her, then got back into bed. She was quiet for a few minutes, then started crying again. We again waited a few minutes, repeated the binky and the shushing, then back into bed again. And she fell asleep, and stayed that way for over an hour. A small success, but a success nonetheless.

To his credit, Michael has been a real team player with these middle-of-the-night "episodes," so we have been alternating. But even when we're not handling the baby, we're all in the same room, so no one gets any sleep. It's a fun time, I assure you.

To top it all off, this is happening right as we have prepared to move Nora into her own room. And, we may be crazy, but tonight, we went ahead and did it anyway. We put her to bed in her crib. We figure that we're already getting crappy sleep anyway, we may as well transition her to the nursery while we're at it. Plus, I read that the four-month wakeful period is a good time to start sleep training (if you're going to do it), so we almost felt like we HAD to move her now--after all, we don't want to "train" her to sleep in our room.

I'm scared of how tonight will go, but at least we don't have to work tomorrow (we don't go back until Tuesday).

I've done some Googling and some accounts of the four-month wakeful period are encouraging. Some parents say their babies went back to normal after only a few weeks. And hey, we're already more than a week into it, so... fingers crossed! But other accounts are so terrifying that it makes me want to cry. Some parents say that after MONTHS of this, their babies STILL have not gone back to sleeping through the night. *shudder*

Heaven help us.

The worst thing is that I have gone from looking forward to bedtime to absolutely dreading it. I find that with each passing night of terrible sleep, the pit in my stomach grows larger and larger and I feel more and more discouraged. The nights are SO LONG now. Instead of waking up in the morning feeling refreshed and looking forward to the day, I wake up feeling like "well, at least we survived" and I automatically dread the next night.

It's a good thing she's cute. :)

Any parents out there have any experience with this four-month wakeful beast?? What did you do to get you through?

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Christmas Day in Photos

Santa came!

We opened presents from Santa and from each other at home. We went pretty low key on gifts this year, since we splurged on a few things for ourselves earlier this month, but still got some nice things. And Santa brought Nora a few toys for the coming months!

Tessa had a field day with the wrapping paper.

Then we picked up and went to my mom's for Christmas morning part 2, and breakfast. As always, Hunter was obsessed with Baby Nora.

Nora was so, so good during gift opening. She just chilled out in my lap and watched me open my stuff AND hers.

Hunter seemed to be quite interested in this new book.

...AND an activity table that we technically bought for Nora. But it's actually a "Grandma's House" toy, which means it's for ALL grandchildren--present and future!

Little Hercules thought that in order to access the alternate side of the table, he had to flip the whole thing over.

Grandma with her grandchildren

After breakfast, we all went our separate ways. Tyler and Trevor had festivities to go to with their in-laws, and we just headed home (we spent Christmas Eve with Michael's family). There was a bit of miscommunication about our plans for Christmas dinner, so we ended up having my mom over for takeout Chinese food! It was actually kind of nice, so who knows... maybe that will be a tradition that repeats itself in years to come. :)

During our quiet afternoon at home, Nora was quite enthralled with one of her new books--it had pop up illustrations and I'm pretty sure it blew her mind.

Finally, this pic is from Wednesday night after work, but it's so cute that I just had to share it:

I hope everyone had a happy and blessed holiday!

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Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, from our family to yours!

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Groovy

So I've been a little bit M.I.A. around these parts. Things are busy, and the truth is that aside from sharing pics of Nora, I don't feel like I have much to blog about these days. We are doing the normal Christmas season stuff--family gatherings, shopping, baking. The holidays are busy anyway, but add a baby into the mix and they seem even busier.

The last time I really updated you on how we're doing, we were in my first week back at work, which was rough on many levels. But during our second full week, I dare say we hit a groove.

First off, and most importantly, Nora started sleeping better at daycare. She has fallen into a routine there that seems to be working for us. It's still way different than the routine she was in at home, of course, but I suppose change is to be expected.

On a normal day, Nora takes a morning nap and an afternoon nap. The sitter says that these last around 1.5 hours each. In an ideal world, these naps would be a bit longer, but there's not much I can do about it. Our only "problem" with this situation is that by the time we pick her up, Nora is ready for a third nap. She almost always falls asleep on the car ride home, and then we let her nap for 30-45 minutes to "hold her over" until bed. I'll wake her up by about 6:15, then she'll hang out with us while we eat dinner, we'll play, then we do bath (if it's a bath night) and bedtime. She's usually in bed around 7:30 p.m.

The cons of this routine are kind of obvious... we get less time with her than I'd like. If I could change things, I'd love for her naps at daycare to be a little longer so that she could cut out the after-work nap and we could have a bit more awake time with her before she goes to bed.

I will admit, however, that this routine has its pros as well. Her little naptime allows us to unpack everything from the day, like dirty bottles, dirty diapers, pump parts, lunch dishes, etc. We can change our clothes and get comfortable for the evening. One of us starts dinner while the other washes bottles and pump parts, and straightens up a bit. Since we plan easy meals during the week these days, dinner is usually done by the time we wake Nora, at which point we all sit down together to eat and relax. Most of the time, the little nap refreshes Nora enough so that she's in a great mood, so although shorter than we might like, the time we have with her is fun and happy.

Then, later, once Nora's in bed, we finish whatever we didn't get done before dinner--diaper laundry, regular laundry, more straightening up. I prepare the next day's bottles and freeze the milk I pumped during the day.

See? The groove: we've got it.

By the time Friday rolls around, I'm SO.READY. for the weekend so I can spend more time with my baby girl. But aside from that, things really haven't been too bad. Being back at work has its pros, too. My vocabulary is working its way back up from being reduced to "How big is Nora? Soooo big!" and the lyrics to "The Wheels on the Bus" and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" while I was on my maternity leave. Of course, I would love to be at home with Nora, but this working mom gig, while challenging, hasn't been as horrible as I was expecting.

At daycare, the sitter says Nora is super happy and smiley all day. And although it makes me sad to hear that I'm missing all of those smiles, I'm just glad to know that she's happy. The other little girls who are at daycare with her LOVE Nora; they all come running to do the door exclaiming "BABY NORA!" when I come in each morning. Nora will smile at them, and apparently spends all day observing their play, fascinated by everything that they do. So, all in all, we have a great thing going.

A happy baby equals a happy mama. And that's really all there is to it.

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Beautiful Babies

This weekend, we had our extended family Christmas party with my mom's side of the family. It's always fun to get everyone together, though it proves to be more and more of a challenge each year, as our family keeps getting bigger and bigger.

But I must say... we have some BEAUTIFUL babies in our family. (And of course, I'm not biased at all. Not one bit.)

Naturally, we have to start off with my one and only baby girl, dressed in her party outfit:

And then there's Hunter, with those huge, gorgeous baby blues:

(Don't mind my brother's scary face in the background; he's a goofball.)

Then there are my cousins' babies, too:

I just love all of these babies in the family!

And just a few more random pics from the party:

Let the Christmas festivities begin, eh? :)

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Cheater White Chicken Chili

Remember when I posted about our favorite "cheater" chili?

Well, now I'd like to introduce you to cheater WHITE CHICKEN chili. It is oh-so-delicious.

Found right next to the original Carroll Shelby's kit, this is similarly EASY to make and was a nice change from regular ol' chili. In our supermarket, these are located in the section with the gravy packets/mixes.

We never follow the directions on the box, as it always says to cook the chili on the stove, and we like to put ours in the crockpot so we can "fix it and forget it." Plus, we add more ingredients (like beans and veggies). Sooo, I've included below our "recipe," if you can call it that.

This chili is perfect to cook up on a cold winter's night. Enjoy!

Cheater White Chicken Chili
(Source: Adapted from Carroll Shelby)

Ingredients:
- 1 Carroll Shelby's White Chicken Chili Kit
- 1 lb. raw chicken breasts
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 (14 oz.) can diced tomatoes, undrained
- 2 (15 oz.) cans white beans
- 2 cups water

Directions:
1. Cut raw chicken into strips.

2. Combine chicken + all other ingredients (excluding masa flour packet) in crockpot. Cook on low for 5-6 hours.

3. Remove chicken strips from crockpot and shred with two forks. Return shredded chicken to crockpot.

4. Add masa flour packet and allow chili to cook for an additional 30-60 minutes. Serve with shredded cheddar cheese on top.

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Christmas Card 2010

I've been holding out on sharing this here, as I wanted to make sure that everyone on our mailing list received them in the mail prior to seeing them on here. We sent them out on Monday, though, so I think it's safe.

Consider this a virtual mailing to all of you! :)

We did a Christmas card photo shoot several weeks back and these pics (among many others, of course!) were the result. Our little cutie was quite the model!

Happy Holidays!

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Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

I'll preface this by saying that until December 21, it is still technically fall. So, you know... pumpkin treats are still totally appropriate. And if I'm being totally honest, I wouldn't think twice about making pumpkin treats at any time of year. Because, c'mon! It's pumpkin!

I've been wanting to make some kind of oatmeal cookies for a while, so when I saw this recipe for pumpkin oatmeal cookies on Annie's Eats, it was just the thing to push me over the edge.

There are a bunch of ingredients, but most are just spices, so this dough comes together easily. I threw these together on Saturday afternoon and the only hard part about it was trying to keep them from making their way into my mouth as they came out of the oven.

I skipped the dried cranberries, and almost skipped the white chocolate chips, too (when it comes to pumpkin stuff, I'm kind of a purist), but oh my gosh, I'm so glad I didn't skip the white chocolate chips. They are the perfect mix-in for this cookie.

The finished cookies are chewy and spicy. Good for dessert, or, you know, for breakfast (not that I would know anything about that). After we enjoyed our share of these over the weekend, I brought the remainder of the batch into work this morning, at which point they were devoured by my coworkers in no time.

Hurry up and make these before fall is officially over! :)

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies
(Source: Annie's Eats)

Ingredients:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 3/4 tsp. ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp. grated nutmeg
- Dash of allspice
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 1 & 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
- 1 cup white chocolate chips (optional)
- 1 cup dried cranberries (optional) - I omitted

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.

2. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, spices and salt. Whisk to blend.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Blend in the egg and vanilla. Beat in the pumpkin puree until well incorporated.

4. With the mixer on low speed, mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Beat in the oats until combined.

5. With a rubber spatula, fold in the white chocolate chips and dried cranberries until evenly mixed.

6. Drop in small scoops (about 2 tablespoons) onto prepared baking sheets, spaced 2-3 inches apart. Bake 12-14 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly browned, rotating the sheets halfway through baking.

7. Allow to cool on the sheets about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Makes about 36 cookies

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Three Months Old

Dear Nora,

Three months old! You have officially graduated out of the “fourth trimester” and I think I can officially say that no one would consider you a “newborn” anymore. You have changed so much and it has been so amazing to witness.

You are growing like a weed. Most of the time, I don’t really realize how big you have become since I see you every day and the growth is so gradual to me. But then something will happen to put your size into perspective.

A few weeks ago, we were parked in the mother’s room at Babies ‘R’ Us so you could nurse, and another mother came in to nurse her baby, too. Her baby was only 10 days old and was around the same weight as you when you were born—I couldn’t believe how tiny she looked! Then, when I was preparing to take you to meet Santa, I thought I’d put you in the little red dress you wore for Uncle Tyler’s wedding. I thought it would probably be a bit short on you, but imagine my surprise when it was so small that I couldn’t even get your arms through it!

I’ve had to retire almost all of your newborn-sized clothes now. There are just a few pairs of pants that are still hanging around (you have short legs!), but those will be packed away soon, too. You’ve got the cutest little Buddha belly, you have a bit more chunk on your legs, and your little cheeks are getting fuller. I love watching you grow, knowing that you are happy and healthy.

The biggest thing that happened to us this month is that I went back to work. It has been hard, and we’re still adjusting, but you seem to be handling it like a star. Your sitter, Mary, tells us that you are all smiles during the days with her, and that you drain your bottles without issue. She says you love to observe the older girls playing. None of this surprises us at all! I miss you like crazy, though, and it’s really sad for me to have such limited time with you during the week. I race out of the office every day to get to you, so I can soak in every minute of you before we have to put you to bed.

Overall, you’ve continued to be a great sleeper—you still sleep through the night. Sometimes it is tough to get you down for the night, but once you’re out, you’re usually out until morning. You threw us for a loop the night before I went back to work when you decided to be wide awake between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m., but it seems that it was an anomaly. Silly girl! Right now, we’re working on transitioning you from sleeping in your Rock ‘N’ Play to a pack ‘n’ play, still in our room. In a few weeks, we’ll make the big transition to your own room, to your big crib!

You have the best disposition. You smile with your whole face—your eyes squint up into little slits. The sight of each smile makes my heart flutter, as it makes me so happy to see you happy. You have started to make more and more giggle noises, which are so awesome—I think you’ll be officially laughing by the time I write your next monthly letter.

Even though you have never cared for tummy time, and therefore have not spent that much time on your belly, you have somehow figured out how to roll from tummy to back. The first time you did it, we were at Aunt Melissa’s house, but I was sure you didn’t know what you had done. But then you did it again, and now there are times when I can’t get you to stay on your belly because you’ll continually roll over, again and again and again.

You can now focus on things that are a good distance away from you. We’ll catch you following Daddy’s movements in the kitchen from across the room. Your muscles are developing at a rapid rate, as you kick your legs and move your arms ALL OF THE TIME. When you’re in a good mood and interacting with us, your arms and legs just do not stop moving!

You blow tiny bubbles in your drool. When you want your pacifier, you love it, but there are other times when you could take it or leave it. You smile nearly every time I sing you “The Wheels on the Bus,” “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” or “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” You grip onto objects (like our fingers, my hair, or toys) so tightly that your fingertips turn white.

You love to clasp your hands together at your chest or up in front of your face. You’ve actually done this ever since you were born, but now that you have more control of your hands, you do it more and more. It looks like you’re praying, and it is absolutely adorable.

We are just a couple of weeks away from your very first Christmas, and Daddy and I are so excited to experience it with you. Even though you are too young to know what is going on, we are taking the opportunity to start holiday traditions with you. Christmas means so much more to Daddy and me now that you are here with us. And I know for a fact that the elves have already been shopping for you!

You are so much fun, and our lives with you just keep getting better and better. We love you more than we ever thought possible.

Happy 3 months, Sweetheart.

Love you forever and ever,
Mommy

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Giveaway Reminder

We got a new computer (finally a Mac, wheee!) a few weeks ago and it's been difficult to transfer photos from our DSLR, oddly enough. So until we score a card reader (probably this weekend), my posts have been pretty boring and photo-less. There are some of Nora from earlier this week that I would love to share!

Until we rectify that situation, I just wanted to quickly remind everyone that the Abby's Lane $10 gift certificate giveaway ends TONIGHT at 8:00 p.m., so get your entries in now! I will be determining a winner this weekend. Good luck!

Enjoy your weekends! We don't have much on the agenda, aside from a little Christmas shopping and LOTS of loving on our girl! :)

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Adjustment

Well, Monday sucked. There was no question that it would though, was there?

Nora, my perfect little sleeper, decided to throw a wrench in things on Sunday night and was wide awake between 3-5 a.m. Of course she would choose the night before I have to go back to work to do that, right? She must've known something was going on, the little stinker. Then the time came to get up and get it over with, and I cried all the way to daycare, dropped her off, then cried all the way to work. The waterworks continued a few times at work, too, but overall, I wasn't as big of a mess as I thought I'd be.

My coworkers kept me pretty busy and plus, I have to admit I felt a certain level of liberation. I'd find myself thinking, "Wow! I can pee by myself!" and "Nice! It doesn't take me three hours to write a simple e-mail!" But I did miss my girl like crazy.

On Tuesday and today, things were easier. Drop-off hasn't been nearly as painful, and I've only called our sitter once per day instead of the three times I called her on Monday. The only thing that has really been bothering me is the lack of time with Nora. When we get her up (or she wakes up) in the morning, we only really have a half an hour or so before we have to leave the house, and of course, we're running around doing everything we need to do to get out the door. Then, when I pick her up, we don't get home until 5:30, and then we've had to start bedtime routine at 6:45. So it's just NOT.ENOUGH.TIME. I miss her so much, and it's only been three days. The weekend cannot come fast enough.

Daycare itself has been going pretty well, I think. The sitter reports that Nora is happy, alert, and drains her bottles. She apparently loves watching the other kids and observing everything around her. And the kids (all girls, coincidentally) LOVE having Nora around and dote on her. So it's a good situation and I think it'll be great for her long-term.

My only complaint? Nora is not napping.

When she was home with me, Nora would usually only go an hour to an hour and a half of awake time before she would need to take a nap. I would recognize her "tired signs" early, and could typically get her down for a nap without issue. Recently, naps had become pretty short--maybe 45 minutes to an hour--but she was taking them pretty frequently throughout the day so she was still spending a good amount of the daytime hours napping.

Now, at daycare, Nora is apparently only sleeping for a couple of hours total. Today, our sitter said that she slept for an hour and a half this morning, then an hour in the afternoon. When I picked her up, it was clear she was totally exhausted. On Monday and Tuesday, she fell asleep on the car ride home, but tonight she screamed. That should've been my first indication that things were going to be rough.

Last night, I initially got her down for bed around her normal time (7:30), but then she spent an hour and a half waking up every five minutes and fighting going back to sleep. It was aggravating, but once she was finally down (at 9:00), she was down.

Tonight, she was so clearly exhausted that I started bedtime early, and I had her in her bed by a little after 7:00. Two and a half hours later, we were still battling with her to get her to go to sleep and stay that way. It's 10:00 now and it's been a bit since we've heard from her, but I'm not entirely convinced that we won't again. IT IS BRUTAL.

I think the issue is that with each passing day, she's missing out on more sleep, never catching up on what she missed the day before. So she's becoming more and more overtired as the week wears on. I did some quick Googling and found some advice that says to try to make up for their lack of naps at bedtime. In other words, I'm going to have to try to put her to bed as soon as we get home. :( That rips my heart out, because I feel like I already get so little time with her--now I have to put her to bed at 6:00??

I hope she will start to nap better at the sitter's ASAP! The hard part is I feel like I have no control over the situation because I'm not the one who is with her during the day. *sigh* But hopefully this is just a period of adjustment, and this too shall pass.

In the meantime, I am really, really missing my girl.

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I'm not ready.

Yesterday, life was all that you've ever known it to be.

Today, everything will change.

This morning, I will get you up earlier than you're used to. I will feed you, get you dressed, and pack you into your car seat. You love car rides, so you won't think anything of it. But then we're going to pull up to a house that is pretty unfamiliar to you. I'm going to take you inside, hug and kiss you goodbye, and hand you over to a stranger. Finally, I will turn around and walk out, because I have to go to work, and for the first time in your little life, you won't be able to come with me. And I will cry.

I'm not ready.

How is it that 12 weeks can go by so quickly? It seems like just yesterday, we were bringing you home from the hospital and this journey, our wonderful time together, was just beginning. I look back in awe, because I simply cannot believe that we've reached this point already. I feel like I don't know where the time went; it feels like it somehow slipped away.

But then, I remember. The time: it was full. It was filled with snuggling, kisses, laughter, smiles, and hugs. Feedings and diaper changes, baths and naps. Sleeping in together. Books and songs and trips out of the house. It was filled with love. Me loving you, you loving me--24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I will always remember it as one of the greatest times of my life. It was a gift.

That wonderful time of just you and me, all day, every day--that was yesterday.

Today, different hands will hold you. A different voice will sing. You will nuzzle into a different neck to drift off for your nap. Different fingers will stroke your hair, and different palms will pat your back. You will eat from a bottle, and burp over a new shoulder. Someone else will have the privilege of enjoying your smiles.

I will have to share you. And as much as that makes sense--as much as it is good for us--it makes me cry to know what I will miss. That while I sit at my desk for 8.5 hours today, you will grow 8.5 hours older without me there to witness it. The part of your life during which I live every minute of it with you--it's over, and...

I'm not ready.

For nine months, I carried you within my body, taking you with me wherever I went. We were connected in every way. You were mine--all mine. For the last 12 weeks, you have lived outside, on your own, but still so very attached to me in all of the ways that count. So, today--to leave you and go off on my own, while you go off on your own--it feels so very unnatural. You are a piece of me; you are my heart. And I am leaving you behind.

The transition: We will make it. Soon, this will be our new normal. Someday, it will not hurt as badly as it does now. We will do it, simply because we have to. But knowing where we will be does not make where we are any easier to deal with.

I'm just not ready.

But ready or not... it's here.

"No one else will ever know the strength of my love for you;
After all, you're the only one who knows what my heart sounds like from the inside."
- Unknown

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