New Job and Working Parents

This past Monday I started my new job as a cardiovascular clinical nurse specialist at St. Joseph's hospital in St. Paul. Technically, I am called a clinical practice lead right now since I haven't passed my boards and I can't legally call myself a CNS just yet. The week was spent in orientation, both at the healthcare system's level and at the hospital site level. I met many, many people all of whom I can't remember their names now. I am sure I will learn as I interact with them more. I have also been setting up zillons of meetings and put on committees to be a part of. I think I am really going to enjoy the job. It is a brand new position for the hospital, so I am the first and can make it basically what I want it to be. There is a lot of autonomy in the job, which I really like, but I still have a lot of support from other CNSs within the hospital and in the healthcare system in which the hospital operates (called HealthEast). It is going to be a challenge, which I am excited about.

Mike is still loving his job at Best Buy, HQ. Of course, with Circuit City going out of business that eliminates some competition for Best Buy. Mike's job is very safe though and he continues to do very well as an auditor there.

Julia is continuing to grow. We weighed her last week and she is up to 15 pounds! We don't know how long she is. Her next doctor appointment isn't until mid-February. She is doing extremely well. She can hold her head up and she is cooing and making lots of noises. We love to listen to her and have a conversation with her even though we have no idea what she is trying to say. She does "talk" back when we talk to her. She is very smiley and is quite smiley when mommy is nearby. Daddy does solicit some smiles, but I think she favors mommy (as she should!) :) Day care just loves her, probably because she loves to sleep in the morning. She usually naps from about 9:30 to 12 or 1pm, but doesn't sleep much after that until night. They love to hold her and interact with her and her constant smiles and cooing are very entertaining for all of them. Julia has started to really enjoy being in the exersaucer at daycare and her Baby Einstein jumper at home. Now that she can hold her head up pretty well, this is yet another toy she can enjoy. She also really enjoys a musical toy that lights up that Grandma and Grandpa Mock gave her for Christmas. We use it a lot to entice her to hold her head up longer during tummy time.

Julia in her Baby Einstein jumper

One of Julia's favorite toys

Julia doesn't sleep through the night yet. She did it once last week, but unfortunately that wasn't permanent. I of course freaked and checked on her a few times just to make sure she was breathing, but I did enjoy the full nights sleep with no crying or fussing! She still gets up once at night around 1 or 2am to eat, but goes back to sleep. Mike is usually the lucky one to get up with her since I put her to bed and wake up early (4:45am) to get ready myself and then get her ready for the day. For the past few days she had been getting up more and not sleeping as well and we were afraid she was getting sick because I had a cold last week. Fortunately, she didn't get sick and went back to her regular sleep patterns last night. I am sure Mike will be excited when she finally sleeps through the night permanently. We have adjusted pretty well to being working parents. We have the morning routine down pat as well as the nighttime routines. Julia does love to throw us off sometimes by waking up early as she did yesterday at 4am, or wanting to go to bed a little later than usual. We, of course, accommodate her, but she has a pretty regular routine of napping for about 3-4 hours in the morning/early afternoon, going to bed around 7:30-8pm, waking at 1 or 2am and then I have to wake her up at 5:45am to get her ready for day care. I am sure she will break this routine eventually as they all do when they are growing.

Julia has now eaten her way through about 2/3 of the breastmilk in our chest freezer. She eats about 5 ounces every 2 to 2 1/2 hours. She is starting to demand a little more and I am sure that remaining milk will be gone in no time!

We really wanted to post a cute video of Julia "talking" to the t.v. She was sitting on the floor with me watching the Ravens vs Steelers game and was just chatting away. I think she was cheering for the Steelers. She is just like her great-grandpa Stephany who always used to love to yell at the t.v. during Packer games! Unfortunately, we haven't been able to get the video to load to this blog. We will keep trying, but are worried that the HD quality of our video camera may be to blame and the file might be too large to post. We may just have to post it in a private area of You-Tube or something. We will let you know if we figure it out!

Bored at home?

Nothing too exciting to report. Julia seemed very bored at home this weekend with us after her first week at daycare. She loves daycare and they all love here there too. Since I will have off on Fridays at my new job, she stayed home with Mike this past Friday and the staff at daycare said they missed her. By Sunday afternoon, Julia seemed a little crabby, ready to head back to day care. We also threw off her sleeping routine by sleeping in on Saturday and Sunday, so I don't think that helped the crabbiness! We are realizing that even though she is only 3 months old, she loves to be doing things and be stimulated at all times (she is WAY too much like her mother). We play with her a lot at home, but you know there are just times when mom and dad want to chill out and we put her in her swing or bouncy seat. This only subdues her for a short time now. She gets bored with us and her toys pretty quick! I am now searching local kids hot spots to take Julia on the weekends and on the Fridays I am off. I hope that I can hook up with some local moms to get some Friday play dates also. The local libraries have story time for infants and there are many local museums we can check out. We are also close to the Minnesota zoo and they also have a lot of kid events even in the winter. The Mall of America is very close to our new home too, so I will have to take Julia on her first shopping trip soon!

Rolling over too...

One thing I forgot to add to the previous post about Julia's new happenings is that she is also rolling over. On New Years day, Julia decided it was time to roll over. Of course she did it for Mike while I was in the shower despite the fact that I had been home with her all the time, giving her tummy time and she never rolled over for me! She had reached the sideways position a few times, but never did a full rollover. She rolled over 3 times on New Years Day, but we haven't been able to get her to do it since. We wanted to capture it with our video camera, but of course she won't do it when we are filming her! Since then, she has rolled over on her side and gotten her arms in the right positions, but stops and starts crying as if she forgot the next steps! She seems like she gets frustrated because she remembers doing the full rollover before, but can't remember how she did it! It is so cute though and we just have to laugh sometimes. I am sure she will figure it out again soon. :)

Back to Work and Daycare

Yesterday was my first day back at work since Julia was born. I was glad to get back into the working, adult world, but missed Julia terribly. It was very weird to be back at work, but I quickly got back into the swing of things. I will only be back at my job for 2 weeks because I have resigned and will be starting a new job as a cardiovascular clinical nurse specialist (CNS) at another hospital on January 19th. I went to graduate school to become a CNS and luckily I was able to find this job during my maternity leave and interview for it. I will definitely miss my job at the U of MN and especially miss my coworkers.

Julia has been going to daycare during the day while Mike and I are at work. The daycare is only about 8-10 minutes from our house, so it is very convienent. She has done great there so far. She loves to sleep in the mornings and eat and play all afternoon. Mike drops her off and I pick her up. Once we get her home, she is so exhausted from daycare that she has been falling asleep around 6pm. We let her snooze for a while before waking her again around 7-7:30 to eat and then go to bed. We are not sure what they do there with her, but she seems very happy and content and tired when she gets home. Julia will be at daycare 4 days a week and then at home on Fridays with me. I was able to get one day off a week for my new job which is great. This way I can spend more time with her. I am looking foward to the warmer months when I can take her for walks and to the park on my days off.

We are all doing well. It is great to have life back to normal again after the previous 3 month fiasco with Julia's health issues and my own. Mike and I are adjusting to a morning routine and after work routine with Julia.

Julia is 3 months old today! She is starting to do all sorts of things. She holds her head up very well and most of time can sit up with back support and hold her head up by herself. She is also becoming very vocal with a lot of cooing and other noises and sounds. She also smiles a lot and we think she had a good idea now who her parents are and she recognizes us almost immediately. She has also recently discovered her hands and loves to put them in her mouth all the time. She used to put her hands in her mouth when she was hungry, but now she has them in there all the time which makes decifering her hunger code a little more difficult! We also catch her inspecting and starring at her hands sometime. It would be so interesting to know what she is thinking. She has a look on her face when she is looking at her hands of "wow, these things are cool, but what are they for? Are they attached to me? I don't know, but I think I will stick them in my mouth." It is so fun watching her grow and take in the environment around her.

The Mock Family Blog begins...

Here is our blog! It took me a while to finally get some time to set it up. There isn't much on the site yet, but I will try to update it when I can. It definitely won't be a daily update thing; maybe weekly depending on time. We will update it with what is going on with all of us. I like posting on this better than the caringbridge.come site (just because that site was stictly for when Julia was in the hospital etc...). There will be much more happy happenings on this blog!

Just a brief update....Julia is doing great. She had a chest x-ray on 12/30/08 just for follow-up after being on breast milk for over 2 weeks. The x-ray looked great; no fluid or signs of problems. She is doing well. Our holidays were great. Julia didn't like the 5 1/2 hour drive back to Wisconsin, but the trip back to MN was better (she slept the whole way back as opposed to the trip to WI where she fussed and cried most of the way!).

Stay tuned for more postings, pictures and videos!!