Old Friends and New Lessons

This last week has been crazy. I went back to work on Tuesday after almost 9 weeks off. When I saw that I didn't have my old desk and wasn't going to be sitting with my team I started to cry. I knew it would be hard to go back, but I definitely didn't think that I would actually cry when I got there. Anyway I took it slow and worked less than 20 hours last week to sort of ease myself back in. People keep saying that it will get easier once I'm in more of a routine, but right now it definitely doesn't seem that way. On a lighter note Noah is getting more fun to play with every day. Here he is trying to suck on his Ugly Doll. So far Matt and I have given all Noah's toys alliterative names..."Buster the Beagle" "Patty the Peacock" and "Emma the Elephant" to name a few. We have come up blank on the ugly doll...I think Matt's been referring to it as "Scooter".

A bright note in the midst of my gloomy first days back at work was that I was able to see Donna on Thursday. Donna and Drew were up in Leesburg for part of last week for a big family event so Noah and I drove up to visit with her. We did lunch and then hit the outlets. I actually did very well resisting all the cute baby things (Gymboree, Carters and an Osh Kosh outlet are all there). It was great fun getting to spend time with Donna and I loved that both she and Drew got to meet Noah.

Noah was of course wonderful all day (slept the entire drive up) so I assumed that he would sleep the entire way back as well. He may have, if I hadn't decided to leave at 5pm. In retrospect I should have either left at 3:30 or not till 7:30 - I definitely learned my lesson. Noah did sleep for the first 40 minutes or so, but then he was up and he was not a happy camper to be in the car. He wanted his evening ritual (which currently consists of a little play or bath and then nursing for a LONG time until bed - and yes I know that we need to break him of that, but give us a break, we've got a lot of adjusting to do without tackling his bedtime routine) So then I ended up stopping at 2 different gas stations and feeding him in my lap in the front seat. The picture below is of him in my lap, he finally got his thumb in his mouth (he had been sucking on his knuckle or his whole hand)! Needless to say we made it home safe and sound...at 8.

So the one thing that I did get for Noah at the outlets is this hat from Gymboree (that's a monkey in case you can't tell - we've been calling Noah "little monkey" since he got the adorable pjs (thank you Sara!) with the monkey on them - so now we love all baby things with monkeys). Adorable isn't it? Matt was worried that it wouldn't fit his head, but it does, and he's quite the little stud in it.