As I look at the calendar, I wonder where the last 11 weeks have gone. It seemed like 12 weeks of maternity leave was SO long…and here I am in my last week of being a stay-at-home mommy. I have mixed feelings about going back to work. I couldn’t wait to go back to work 5 weeks ago. I almost considered going back early. I’m not ashamed to admit that I had a hard time adjusting to my new role in life. But the last few weeks with William have been so great that I get sad thinking about leaving him…even if it is just for 3 days. He is so much fun to be around now. In the last few weeks, he has changed tremendously and I have figured out a lot about being a mom.

Here are some of the things William is doing…

• SMILING!!! I absolutely love his smile! He even has smiley eyes! (check out our Flickr site to see pictures) Most of my day is spent coming up with ways to get him to smile, which is pretty easy to do! He especially likes smiling at the ceiling fan in our bedroom every morning
• Making eye contact and following us with his eyes.
• Sucking on his hands. This is his newest trick and he goes to town making all sorts of slurping noises. It sure keeps him occupied!
• Kicking-he has strong little legs that are constantly in motion. I think it means he is going to be a runner or cyclist (or both) just like his Daddy.
• Sleeping a little more. We have now established a 7pm(ish) bedtime, which has made things so much better. He had been so cranky in the evenings and so hard to get to sleep, but since we have been putting him to bed earlier, he is a much happier boy. And we are much happier parents! Most nights he will sleep between 5 and 7 hours before waking up to eat and then will go back to sleep for 2-5 hours. Unfortunately, about once a week he decides that he wants to see us every 2 hours!

Since he is changing so much on almost a daily basis, I will try to write updates weekly to keep everyone up-to-date.