Five Months Old

First Day of Daycare

I snapped the "first day of daycare" photo as we were headed out the door this morning at 6:30. Emerson looks surprisingly chipper for having been up from 8:30 pm until 2:00 am crying and screaming on the two previous nights. Monday night she developed a stuffy nose out of nowhere that still continues. She has since screamed herself nearly hoarse and sounds terrible. She is okay for most of the day until evening hits and then she is completely inconsolable. Considering we are new at parenting, we guessed that Emerson may be teething because the drooling has dramatically increased and she always needs to be chewing on something and gave her infant Tylenol when she needed it (as well as a drive around town last night at 1:30 am). So, given the situation, we inquired with Karie (our daycare lady) as to whether we should bring her or not, and she thought it would be fine. So, this is my first real day away from Emerson for an extended period of time and I have to leave her not feeling well, so it was actually harder than I thought to leave her today...I spoke with Karie three times about Emerson and she assured me that she was doing well and napping, however, she didn't take her 10:00 bottle because she couldn't breathe through her nose. Great. So, we made an appointment with our pediatrician for this afternoon only to find out that she has a bit of redness in each one of her ears - her first ear infection. She seems to be doing better this evening with the help of the anitbiotic and numbing drops, she just sounds so pitiful. So, hopefully she is on the track to a speedy recovery and will soon be the high pitched cheerful baby we love so much. And hopefully, Ryan & I will be able to get more than three hours of sleep.

So tired, she cannot even play.

She's enjoyed the four days of squash; tomorrow we're on to sweet peas. Yum!

We had a fabulous time in Petoskey last weekend. We went up on Thursday and left Sunday afternoon. We spent some time with Ryan's family, who also met us up there, spent an evening at the beach, and Ryan & I had an excellent adventure at Avalance Bay Waterpark with our friends Brian & Shannon. I bit the bullet and went into work today to take care of some things (fish, paperwork, etc.), so for the first time in six months, I went to work and Ryan stayed home with the baby.

Dennis displaying his mustard.

Emerson dined on actual foods tonight - squash. She seemed to like it; I'm assuming because she actually ate it.

Who knew great aunt Carol and a rattle would be so funny??

The Last Week

The title covers events of this last week and is fitting for this week - my last full week of vacation. I have to report back to work next Thursday, so this is my final full week of my six month vacation. I feel as though I've only been off of work for a few months, but I think I'm feeling ready to begin the juggling act of work and family. We've got a strenuous week planned - we've got some lunch dates at the beginning of the week, Emerson is doing a trial run at day care for a few hours on Wednesday, and Thursday we are leaving for our one and only family vacation this year - we're going to Petoskey for some fun and R & R (and to celebrate Ryan's 31st birthday).

We spent this past weekend with Ryan's family for 'Baptism Sunday', but were able to squeeze in a few other activites (like a date to the Tigers game).

Emerson's Godmother- aka Aunt Kelly.

The two batismal babes - Emerson & Paige.

The cousins plus spouses squinting into the sun (L to R: Kelly, cousin Allison, her husband Eric, & cousin Amanda)

And finally..more pictures of wee Emerson (and these are the only pictures from the last few weeks where she doesn't have something in her mouth).

One more thing: Happy Birthday Dad!!

A day (or two) at the lake(s)

We spent two days this last week at the beach. On Saturday, we were at Brian & Shannon's in Allegan and on Wednesday, we went to South Haven to enjoy Lake Michigan. Other than that, there is nothing out of the ordinary or exciting to report.

Photos from Saturday:

Photos from Wednesday:

And finally, some miscellaneous pictures from the past few days.