Life With Riley

It’s a real learning experience to see just where free time goes when there’s a cute little 2 month old sharing your life. I think about posting an update quite regularly, but as you can see – the actual posting happens a bit less frequently than the thinking. So, for your reading pleasure – the first of the October Riley updates:
*Riley had her first ‘I am a big girl and can sleep (probably closer to mostly sleeping and not crying or making loud enough noises to wake up mom and dad!) through the entire night!!! Granted it was a relatively short night with her going to bed after 11 and getting up a bit after 6, but Mom and Dad are both proud and grateful for this new development. I’m sure that I have jinxed things now by mentioning it – but hopefully there are a few more extended sleep breaks for Baby Boo in the coming months.
*Day care is turning out to be a good experience for Riley – she has 6, soon to be 7, new baby buddies in her room; Ms. Amber & Ms. Nikki are great with her and give Mom and Dad regular reports on what’s happening during the day. Riley has got to do all sorts of fun things like taking a wagon ride around the playground (I wish I could have been there to video that – 8 babies in a couple of wagons is just too much cuteness to imagine!) and spend time in her new swings, bouncy seats, and crib (she’s still getting used to being in a crib during the day but she’s improving as time goes on).
*Riley is getting good at cheering the Maize and Blue on to victory on Saturdays. Dad is still working on getting her to give the ‘Touchdown’ signal when they score, say ‘Go Blue’ on a fairly regular basis during the game, and sing The Victors when Meeechigan scores. It’s a work in progress, and luckily there are still plenty of football games left to continue the fun.
*There are some new pictures, right now they only exist on the camera’s Memory Stick – hopefully soon they will make their way online…as soon as that happens there will be a new announcement and link to the update. Let us know if you like the little box of pictures on the right-hand side of the screen – that’s something that we’re experimenting with for the time being. Also, feel free to leave any suggestions for other things that you’d like to see (other than more regular and frequent updates, we’re already working on that 😉 That’s all for now – post a comment and let us know what you’re thinking and what else you’d like to see!

Hello all!
Welcome to Riley’s new website! We’re excited about the changes and hope everyone likes it too. We’re still working out the details, but for your Riley-fix and any other family news, head over here!
This has been an exciting week for us– Riley and I have had lunch with dad twice and this morning he met us at the pediatrician’s office for her one-month well baby checkup.
The news is Ms. Riley is doing absolutely wonderful! She is up to around 9 lb 14 oz (though a good couple of ounces there was a super-wet diaper!) and has grown to 21 1/2 inches long! The doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with her and was very pleased with her progress. He even remarked on how strong she is! Riley has developed a LOT of control over her head/neck muscles recently. We’re very proud of our little girl and we think she’s proud of the job we’re doing, that is until we let them give her a shot! She had her second Hepatitis B shot today, the first shot that I’ve seen her get! She was NOT thrilled by this course of events, but handled it really well. She cried just for a minute and I was able to keep from crying which I’m sure helped her calm down afterwards too. Dad was a trooper for both of us. 🙂 I hope he can make it to her next appointment where she gets FOUR shots. FOUR! At once! Different needles! I wish they could just fill up one syringe and get it over with but I’m sure that would probably hurt even longer and not be as effective.
In other Riley news- she is now fitting into 3-month size clothes and almost out of her newborn size bottles. We’ve already moved up to the #2 nipples. Mark and I just look at her in wonder at how fast she’s growing and how much she’s changed in just one short month. I’ve been so blessed to have this time at home with her while recovering, going back to work will be hard but we’ll get through it. Riley has a spot at a terrific day care which came highly recommended by friends and impressed both Mark and I during a visit. It is not very far from my office so I can pop over and see her at lunch. The center has an open door policy- they only ask that you refrain from lunch visits if it appears to be negatively impacting the child (when they start getting seperation anxiety for example). Even then, we can still stop by and check her out via the video cameras they have set up in the rooms without her knowing we were there.
Time for 2nd lunch, so off I go. I’m sure you’ll be seeing many more updates from us now on- from news about Riley to our thoughts on being new parents and such. Please feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you’d like to hear about or your thoughts on the new format!