Welcome Sophia Anne!

On April 25, our brother Chris and sister-in-law Shannon welcomed their first child, a beautiful girl named Sophia Anne. She was born at 7:17am weighing 7lbs 11oz, and measuring 20in. We went down to Austin to welcome her into the world and to help them get settled in at home. Sophie is such a sweet, precious baby, and Ben was fascinated with her immediately. I think it's probably the first baby he has seen, other than the "baby in the mirror" he is so enamored with ;) We had a great visit and were so happy to meet our niece and Ben's cousin Sophie!!! I know they will have lots of great times together, being able to grow up almost the same age and share holidays, weekends, vacations, etc together.

Back to Work

My maternity leave ended at the end of March, and I decided to give "work-work" (as I like to call it ... differentiating from the "work" I do all day every day as a full-time Momma :)  ) a shot on a part-time basis. Wasn't sure how I was going to feel about going back to work, and I still don't know how it's going to be, but I figured I will never know unless I try!

I have always wanted to be a Mom and have the ability to be at home with my child(ren), but then I had found a rewarding career in brand consulting and business development. Now I can see benefits to both these careers, and I think I may want to try and do both. But I hate doing things par or sub-par, so I want to be sure that I am not compromising anything by trying to manage both. We will give it some time and see how it goes.

For now, this is a typical scene:

UPDATE 5/10:
Being back at work part-time from the house is working out great! I really think each job actually helps me be better at the other one. Although it is challenging to manage my time and still get everything done that I would like on a daily basis, I do enjoy pushing myself to try and do more than I thought I could.

I will say though, I underestimated the dynamic of work deadlines versus personal deadlines. My new boss at home Benjamin doesn't tolerate being late for meetings or missing assignments, and he often doesn't give me a heads up about what is going to be expected of me on a given day - he's one of those bosses that decides he wants something and wants it 5 minutes ago - you know the type ;) Then work-work deadlines are hard and fast (i.e. we need this proposal done by the end of the day) and sometimes I don't have those hours to spare, depending on how my day job goes. So I have found myself doing work-work a lot in the evenings, and housework on the weekends to play catch up. Jeff has also been a huge help and support system, doing whatever he can to take care of Ben and the house when I am working against a deadline. I really think it's the right arrangement for us at this point in time, and feel very fortunate to have a great husband and company that are supportive and flexible for this arrangement.

New Noises!

Over the weekend, we went down to Austin to celebrate Grandpa L's birthday. Benjamin always LOVES Grandpa's animated faces, and he seems to especially like talk about trucks, cars, airplanes and anything that goes fast ;) Anyway, this video really captures Ben's range of vocal talents at 3 months, 3 weeks old. At this point, he makes some noise throughout the entire day, but seems to have just 1 or 2 times during the day where he really lets loose and explores his full repertoire of noises. His occasional fussiness and fist chewing is also on display, thanks to the little tooth that's making its way out ... Thank you Aunt Shannon for taking the video and uploading it for us!


Baby Ben from Lee Productions on Vimeo.

A Week of Firsts

Last week, Ben and I traveled to Hudson to visit my Mom, Dad and brother Patrick. It was a week of firsts for our little precious ... his first plane ride, his first LAUGH and his first TOOTH started cutting through! Wow ... we had so much fun, and it was neat to share these milestones with our family.

Ben did great on the plane - I nursed him on the way up and way down so the pressure in his ears would equalize. Then he slept or just hung out the rest of the time. Several people came up to me after the flight and said what a good baby he was - and I swear I could detect a sense of relief that they didn't have to listen to a screaming baby during the flight. Or maybe I just imagined that because that would have been me pre-baby.

The big belly laugh happened on Tuesday, and hasn't really happened again since then (5 days later). My mom had him on the changing table and started tickling him up his stomach to his neck. He was smiling and cooing and gooing, and all of a sudden, CHUCKLE CHUCKLE CHUCKLE! My mom and I freaked out and both started laughing and crying at the same time because it was the sweetest, most unexpected expression of happiness from Baby Ben. It was sooooo cute. I immediately grabbed the camera and tried to record it, but he only made half-chuckle sounds after that one big outburst.

The next day he was pretty fussy, and he had been drooling a lot, so we tried to get a good look at his lower gumline, and sure enough, there is the tiniest speck of a white tooth bud peeking through! We got some oragel and teethers at the store, and have continued to monitor its progress. I can't believe my little baby is already getting a tooth! It makes me think he is growing up too fast already! Once he has teeth in his smile he won't look like an infant anymore.

We had a full week of activities in Hudson ... we went for a hike, a run, lots of walks, out to a yummy pizza dinner, and my mom even had a bunch of friends over one night to meet the baby and have a party :) My Grammy made her first trip in a few years and came up to see the new baby. It was very special. I think Benjamin loved meeting his Great Grammy! One thing is for sure - this babe is very loved, and has several new admirers in the state of Ohio.

It was an awesome week and we miss them already! Can't wait to get back up there in June for Patrick's graduation from OSU!