I meant to update the blog right after the new year but as you can tell that just didn't happen. The last month and a half has been filled with a lot of fun times and changes. Here are some of the highlights....
- We had a great holiday dinner with the Steins. We haven't laughed so hard in a long time. Who knew Surprise, Arizona could be so funny.
- We spent a great week up North for the holidays. We managed to have time to go to Santa Rosa to visit Ben's mom, Stockton to see Dre, Suzy, and Zen, see all of my family on Christmas, visit with Leah, Dan, Gabe, Michelle, Jethro, Joyce, and Whit (we missed seeing the Tuan family during this get together). Riley got beyond spoiled for his first Christmas. Here is a link to some of the pictures we took during that week.
- We had a relaxing New Years. We went to hotpot and then came home and watched the countdown. Amazingly we made it to midnight this year without falling asleep.
- The New Year brought a big change.....my maternity leave was officially over. I couldn't believe that 6 months had come and gone that fast. I started back to work on the 2nd and we have been adjusting since. Since we felt Riley was still a little too young for daycare (not to mention the fact that we hadn't found a daycare we liked) we were lucky that my sister and mom were available to watch Riley for us when I had to go back to work. Cindy came for the first 2 weeks of January and watched "chubs" which is her new nickname for him and my mom has been here since. I've switched my work schedule around and now try to get into work by 6 am so that I can leave by 3:30 or 4:00. As many of you know, I am definately not a morning person and I was so used to getting at least 8 hours of sleep. This new adjustment has been really tough getting used to but getting home early to play with Riley is worth it.
- Riley went to his 6 month check up in mid January and he weighed in at 13 1/2 pounds and 24 inches. He's getting really close to reaching the height/weight curve for his actual age.
- Riley is finally done with his apnea monitor!!! We did one final pneumogram......which was awful by the way.....and he passed with flying colors so we are finally done with that awful machine. Yeah, no more false alarms constantly going off in the middle of the night.
- We've had a setback with getting Riley to sleep through the night in his own bed. A few nights before Riley was taken off his apnea machine the thing went crazy so we weren't able to use it. Since we couldn't use the monitor and I needed a way to be able to check up on him constantly through the night we put him in bed with us. However, getting him back to sleeping on his own through the night in his own crib has not been going so well. We're hoping that he'll get back to his normal sleeping habits soon!
- Riley has started eating solid foods. We started off with some rice cereal and for the first two days he was definately not happy. However, once he got the hang of mushing it around in his mouth and swallowing it he started eating like a champ. He's had rice cereal, sweet potatoes, and bananas so far. We're on to green beans next week!!
- We went to our first kids' birthday party with Riley at Chuck E. Cheese. My co-worker's daughter, Katie, was turning two and we wanted to be there to celebrate. Ben and I have not been to a Chuck E. Cheese in a long long time and it has definately changed from the one we both remember in Stockton. The placed was so packed. It was a lot smaller than what we remembered and there were no more Chuck E Cheese and Friends on the main stage........just one giant Chuck E. Cheese and a whole bunch of tv screens. We had a great time though and Riley got to meet Chuck E. Cheese!!
- We went to Riley's first neonatal followup clinic appointment and he weighed in at 14 lbs 2 ounces. He gained over 1/2 pound in less than 3 weeks. Even though we know he is doing great it was nice to get confirmation that he is exactly where he should be developmentally.
Here are some more pictures from the past couple of months.........
