30-Something

Tilley's First Solid Food

Wow, I can't believe it, but the time has come to start Tilley on solid foods! She wasn't really too thrilled with the rice cereal. So I plan on making her some butternut squash this weekend. I have a feeling she'll like that a little more. She's loving the high chair. She's giving it a practice run. Not really sure what to think. Maybe it'll taste better if Dad makes her laugh. Nope, still pretty gross. Not lovin the rice cereal. YAY! you can say "YAY!" to pretty much anything, and she'll smile. ALL DONE!

Tilley's almost 6 months old!

Tilley will be 6 months tomorrow, and it's so hard to believe. I know people say they grow up fast, but you really don't get it until it's happening. She's getting so big and she's so smart! She's sitting up by herself, rolling over, babbling "da da" (even if she doesn't know what it means). And tonight, we plan to give Tilley her first taste of solids!! I know I've been bad about keeping my blog up (I've been keeping up on Facebook and my photography blog) But not here. So here we go. I really am going to try to keep this going. Here's a picture of Tilley from Sunday at her grandmother's house:

Tilley Kennedy Newman

Well, MY GOODNESS!  What a BAD blogger I am.  No posts since Tilley was born?  Really, that's pretty bad I know.  Although, I do know that those of you who read my blog knew anyway, so it's okay I guess.

Tilley was born April 23, 2008 at 8:01 pm.  She was 7 pounds, 13 ounces and 20 inches long.

It has been a wonderful experience and I can't even put any of it into words.  But the fact that I have not been posting is some glimpse of how busy motherhood is.  For the first 6-8 weeks, breastfeeding took up most of my days.  It was tough for a while, but prooved to be worth the hard work.  Now it's easy and quick and rewarding.

Tilley is getting so big.  Last week she weighed in at a healthy 12 pounds, 6 ounces.  She's laughing up a storm and is showing signs of rolling over.  She's rolled onto her side quite a bit, but hasn't quite made it all the way.

I'll be back to fill you all in and post about our recent trip home to see the family.

Thanks for checking in!

Nursery Picture

This was a couple weeks ago and we have done more since then, but here's a photo of the nursery.

Maternity Photos

A great friend, collegue and fellow NESOP (New England School of Photography) classmate Alyse Gause was so kind to agree to take some maternity photos for us.

I was in pretty bad shape when I got pregnant, and so I wasn't too thrilled to get lots of pictures of myself, but at the same time, i really wanted some nice, professional photographs to commemorate the pregnancy.

She did a FABULOUS job and I can't thank her enough!!!

We finished the basement

We had a scary basement, and recently finished part of it to use as an office / craft room. Since the office now is off the baby's room, we needed to relocate it.

Here's a pic (sorry for the quality, it's from DH's iPhone)

More pictures

Here are the latest u/s pictures. She's still a girl! And everything is looking good. I'm feeling relatively well also - which is nice.

Chilly Tilley

Here's the latest picture of "LARGE" me... it's not great, taken with Brian's iPhone... but you can almost make out my baby bump.

We just got about 10 inches of snow on Monday. Believe it or not, after living in Boston for 14 years, this was only my third snowman!!! But we made a baby version for Tilley.

Fat Ankles

So, most of the time I really love being pregnant. It's really more unbelievable than I imagined and feeling her move around and kick is the most amazing thing.

But then, there's my ankles. It's not everyday, in fact it's only happened three times - but it's one of the most disgusting things I've seen.

Rewind to the holidays. Brian and I flew home for Christmas and Kaitlyn's debutante ball. I was on an airplane for more than five hours. Sitting. Then in the rental car driving from New Orleans, normally an hour, but with rush hour traffic it was more like two hours.

Then going straight to Kaitlyn's debutante ball, wearing the slightest heal, standing and dancing much of the night.

We got home, and while getting ready for bed I saw something i had never seen before. Gigantic HUGE swollen ankles!!!!!! Like nothing I could have ever imagined. I've heard of swollen ankles, but had no idea it was like THIS! Add being emotional to all this and I started sobbing. Uncontrollable sobbing. Brian didn't know what to do or say. I was crying so bad that Kaitlyn came to make sure everything was okay. She thought something awful had happened and then I told her it was my ankles. My dad thought it was funny and he laughed... but let me just tell you. You wait until you have ankles that look like water balloons and tell me if you laugh.

it was gone by the next day, which was good - but I'll never forget the horror!!!

Fast forward a couple weeks. I'm in Tampa. The flight down was fine and my ankles did not swell. Good, right... then, yesterday I was sitting most of the morning. Doing a photo shoot in the afternoon and at night went to a dinner reception at the aquarium. I had left my black flats at home, and had to borrow some black shoes. Unfortunaly all my friend had was a pair with heals. I wore them. BIG MISTAKE. Halfway through the event I lift my pant leg to see the awful site AGAIN! They were back.

I got back to the hotel, elevated my feet and drank lots of water. They were fine in the morning, but here I am again, with the most gigantic ankles ever. I will not take a picture, because I hope to repress the memory once the baby's born and I don't want any evidence to evoke flashbacks.

But I thought I'd tell the story of the swelling ankles.

The Commute from the depths of Hel!

So, many of you who read my blog used to live in Boston. You have sinced moved away and miss it. Well, let me help rid you of these ridiculous thoughts.

A medium sized snow storm was predicted for yesterday. 6-10 inches. We get this every year - no big deal. It was forcasted that the worst part of the storm would be between 2:00-4:00pm. Okay. Work was being reasonable and allowed us to leave early. I tried to leave aroun 12:30-1:00 but had to finish up a few things. So i didn't get to leave until 1:30pm. Still good. I figured my usual 21 mile drive home which usually takes about 30-45 minutes may take closer to an hour and half. I wasn't looking forward to it.

I had NO IDEA what I was in for. NO IDEA. It was the worst traffic I have ever seen in my entire life. I've seen bad traffic in Boston, even New York city. This put them all to shame.

I left work at 1:30. My ride from the office to the Mass Pike was slow but steady. The 4 miles to the Mass Pike entrance took me 30 minutes. Okay. There were no plows or salt trucks to be seen. Anywhere. The Mass Pike, snow was everywhere, we were driving in it... slush, snow, ice. My average speed on the Mass Pike was 15 miles per hour.... but at least we were moving. That wasn't the problem.

The exit off the Pike was backed up for miles. And I had to pee. I got to the exit at 3:00 - not bad. An hour and a hald as I predicted. But cars were sliding up and down and getting stuck. Becuse we weren't moving snow was accumulating on my windshield and got so heavy that my wipers stopped moving. Poeple, inlcuding me, were getting out of their cars in the middle of the interstate to clean off their wipers. Don't worry - it wasn't the least bit dangerous as cars weren't moving at all. It was more like cleaning off your car in a parking lot.

It took me another hour and half to get off the Mass Pike exit ramp. It's now 4:30pm. Don't forget, I left work at 1:30.

So I'm off the exit, great right - wrong. The local roads were a parking lot. People weren't moving. At all. My home is about 3 miles from this exit. Usually take me about 5 minutes. But when you aren't moving... this was the worst part. Don't forget I had to pee.

I've been crying off and on. Screaming in the car... at no one, just to get out the frustration. I called Brian and was yelling at him too.

Cars were getting stuck on the slightest of inclines. My new Fusion with its All Wheel Drive was a real life saver. To bad it could't levitate and fly home.

To end this story before you start to cry too (because I could go into detail how going 1/6 of a mile took an hour), I got home at 6:30. I left work at 1:30. That's all I have to say.

Here are some pictures from Boston.com but they look like they came from my car because this is what I saw all day yesterday.