Jessica Writes

This weekend, Reed had a world tour of sorts in Alabama. On Saturday, we went to visit my dear friend Courtney in Birmingham. Read all about it here and see some great pictures Courtney took of Reed! We also got to see my friend Kristina, which was great.

On Sunday, we headed to Montgomery to see Chris’ grandmother. First, we stopped in Helena so Chris’ friend, Mandy, could see Reed. Then it was on to grandmother’s house where Reed met his great-grandmother for the very first time! She was thrilled to spend some time with him.

Today, we made a stop back in Birmingham to see my first boss, Verna, so she too could meet Reed for the first time. Then, we headed home - finally! Now, we are just going to try to rest a bit before going back to work tomorrow!

Also, on Saturday before we left home, Reed learned to shriek. It was adorable and he practiced all weekend!

Reed has had a sporadic cough for going on three weeks. Last weekend, it was a little more prevalant and one eye was goopy (matted), so I took him to our pediatrician’s walk in clinic on Sunday praying he wasn’t sick with pinkeye. It was nothing, just a cold.

His goopy eye went away immediately, but his cough has gotten more frequent this week. At night, he was hacking like crazy and a humidifer was not helping. I even kicked Chris out of the bed so I could mointor him all night. Today, I bundled him up and we took him back to the Sunday walk in this afternoon to ask the doctor. Everything checks out fine, he has never even had a fever since the coughing started weeks ago. They think its just some drainage ticking his throat.

I hope I am not going to be running him to the doctor over every little thing, but working at a children’s hospital – albeit not in any medical capacity– I hear about all the nasty germs kids are getting. I’m practically having night terrors about RSV. That is some nasty stuff! My friend’s little 6 month old spent several hours in our ED to get his breathing under control because he had RSV and his been very sick for a while now.

I just need to find a healthy balance between nonchalance and panic. I don’t know if that is possible if you are a mom (or at least a new mom, anyway)!

We survived our first week of daycare, barely. I am still having have a hard time with being away from him all day every day - especially when he comes home and immediately falls asleep!

He’s just not napping very much at daycare, so he gets all his sleep when he is home with us! As a matter of fact, I’m looking at him while he dozes right now.

A note about daycare: His teachers seem really sweet and said Reed has made a really good, flawless, transition so I feel great about that. I have made the walk to and from daycare a couple times now and plan to go see him during lunch as much as a possible.

Fellow mommyblogger Joan of Blog of Joan has some great tips about starting daycare on her blog. Her sweet little Jack Henry had the same teachers Reed does now when he was an infant.

So why am I such a mess? I never thought it would be this hard to leave him. My heart aches all day long. I went to see him during lunch today. It’s about a 12 minute walk each way. I have a feeling I’ll be burning a little dirt path between the daycare and my office.
I know people say it gets easier, but does it? My friends in Europe get many months, if not a year or more off for maternity leave. In the nine hours I’m away from him each day, he’s changing and learning so much. And I’m missing it.
He fell asleep in the car on the way home. After he woke up, he ate and was awake for maybe an hour before falling asleep again. One or two hours a day of interaction with him is just not enough. I know he is going to be fine, but at the moment I don’t know if I will be.

Reed did great during his first day at daycare. His teacher Joyce said he couldn’t have had a better first day. He met me with smiles when I arrived to pick him up. He only took two short naps, though, and went straight to sleep when he got home. I hope I will get to have a little bit of fun time with him in the evenings and he’ll take more naps during the day.

That is what makes everything worth it!

Reed slept all night last night! Need I say more?

I started back to work on Monday, and wouldn’t you know my sweet, all night sleeper was replaced with some strange little baby that woke up at 2:15 a.m. and 4:45 a.m. It’s Wednesday and he is still waking up a couple times during the night. It’s making for a very sleepy mommy. So far it’s not affecting my job performance but I am wondering if no sleep is going to mean a bad editor. Probably, I just fixed a typo in this previous sentence - I wrote “going to EAT a bad editor.”

Oh, the next 21 years (or 40) are going to be exhausting - but worth it!

Seriously, I think Reed needs to have this …