Two Months!

Two months plus a week...and a few days. Like most everything I do these days, this two month post is a bit late. But it's happening, and that's an accomplishment.

Harper had her two month appointment with the doctor on Monday, where we learned she is now 11 lbs 12 oz and 23 inches plus a bit long (hey, it's impossible to remember all these details when the doctor is rattling them off and your kid is crying because she's lying naked on the chilly exam table). The doctor checked to make sure she could look at him when he talked, and that she could smile in response to his smile. Harper almost failed on that test, because she only started smiling back about three days before the appointment. Or at least, that's when she started smiling back at me. She'd been smiling at Joe and things like the ceiling fan and the window for about a week. I guess we know how I rate. Harper's smiles are still fleeting, though, so here's the best pictures I could get.



I'd been dreading the appointment because Harper had to get four vaccines, and I wasn't looking forward to having to hold her down while they gave her the shots. She did pretty well though, and I managed to escape tear-free. Since the appointment she's been sleeping quite a bit, and I can't complain.

Getting to the appointment turned out to be an adventure...or it would have been considered an adventure if it wasn't representative of how things pretty much always go these days. I had a tight schedule of meetings interspersed with quick trips home to pump. In the last two weeks back at work I make an average of five round trips between the hours of 8 and 5, going to the day care, the office, other meetings, and every once in a blue moon, the gym. My neighbors must think I'm nuts, because I generally have a wardrobe change in between most of these trips, sometimes dashing in to the house wearing one set of clothes (like sweaty gym clothes) only to emerge 15 minutes later wearing another set (a skirt and dress shoes for work).

Anyway, the day of the doctor appointment was a typical day of dashing and clothes-changing, made worse because I kept forgetting essential items and having to return mid-trip to pick up whatever I forgot. For example, I remembered my briefcase and notebook for my meeting, but forgot the Boppy pillow I needed to feed Harper at the day care after the meeting (I try to make it to the center to nurse her at noon each day).

I came home after my last meeting for the day, pumped in record time, gathered the various pieces of paperwork I needed for the doctor, got in the car, went back inside to get the list of questions for the doctor I'd written the night before, got back in the car, drove to the day care, realized I needed gas, picked up Harper, realized I had no diaper bag, got gas, called the doctor to say we'd be 5 minutes late, contemplated making the trip without the diaper bag, went back to the house again for the diaper bag, called the doctor to say we'd be 10 minutes late, got on the interstate toward the doctor's office, got stuck in traffic, finally got to the office, realized Harper had soaked her front in puke, signed into the doctor's office, realized I'd left the burp cloth to clean up the puke in the car, sat down in the waiting room, opened the diaper bag to try to find another outfit and burp cloth, got called into the exam room, finally found a burp rag, stripped Harper for the weighing, put on a new diaper, heard her poop in the new diaper, changed her, held her while we waited for the doctor, realized she'd peed and leaked through the diaper, changed her again (thank God I'd gone back for the diaper bag), put on outfit number three, and finally sat down. And then they arrived to give her four shots.

As the doctor was leaving the room after the exam, he said, "You look great, Jenny. Really, you do. You must have been meant to be a mom, because you just have this glow." Yeah, I thought, that's called sweat. Apparently the secret to looking great is frazzled exhaustion.