Back to Work

blouse: Buffalo Exchange

sweater: Target

skirt: Walmart

tights: Walgreens

boots: Target

It's pretty bad that I'm now in my third week back to work and just now posting about it! But just about the only thing I was looking forward to about going back to work was having a reason to really put an outfit together again and for my first day back to work I embraced the whole look good, feel good concept. For me, this included an old favorite (my favorite blouse I bought a few years ago), comfort (hello elastic waistband and flat boots), and something a little unexpected (stripes with leopard print). Now my outfit didn't make or break my day by any means, but it made a slight difference. Either way, we're all surviving my return to work! It's been exhausting and required a level of organization I'm worried I'll be unable to maintain, but we're adjusting.

Dress Challenge

dress as a tunic: Target

sweater: Old Navy

gray pants: Target

shoes: Target

As usual I'm oh so late to a link up, but although I didn't have the energy to document it last week I did use Audrey's style challenge as an inspiration for one of my outfits. The challenge last week was to wear a dress. As I talked about in my winter "capsule" post, dresses are going to be challenging this year. Add to that the winter temperatures and I thought I was going to just sit this week out of the challenge.

But then I decided to put a little spin on it and wear this dress as a tunic, a little trick I appreciated  during my pregnancy. Now this dress was short on me, but a laundry mishap led to it shrinking to the point where there was no way it could work as a dress anymore. It was the dress I wore for our rehearsal dinner and I get a little emotionally attached to items so I couldn't stand to get rid of it. I'm glad I didn't, because it's a fit that has been forgiving in all the places I've needed forgiveness in lately! 

A Day in the Life...

I've always found these "day in the life" posts entertaining...maybe because deep down we're all a little bit nosy, aren't we? :) Anyway, this is how we spent the very last day of my maternity leave. In the interest of being honest, the majority of my leave looked incredibly different than this. It took me until about week 5 or 6 to consistently get dressed for the day and remember to brush my teeth before 4pm so I doubt anyone was really interested in those details! I'm now done with my first week back to work so things already look much different and I'm sure you'll hear all about that in a future post!

5:45am 

Wake up call! Back to sleep pretty easily after a quick feeding and little bit longer snuggle. (Psst...we did this same thing at 2am too!) No photo right now...it's still dark and I am not waking baby up with a flash. I'm now up for the day, but enjoying laying in bed watching some ESPN shows with my husband. Pardon the Interruption and Mike and Mike are both on and I actually enjoy those guys. 

7:15am

I get up, make myself breakfast and coffee to enjoy while pumping and watching some HGTV. Mornings with no work (so weekends before maternity leave) are always what I consider "me time". Today I eventually do a few sit-ups and walk in place for my really light version of a workout. This is a recent development for sure...I got a Jawbone Up24 for Christmas and it's made me a lot more aware of my activity level. I do my hair, practicing this easy technique on my day 2 hair. It looks better on freshly shampooed hair, but that's just not happening many days. :) I actually paint my toes too, something that hasn't happened in almost 3 months!

8:45am

Jacob wakes up so we talk a little bit, walk around the house a little bit, then he gets fed, a diaper change, and in his clothes for the day. Then we play!

9:50am

Fussiness kicks in, a sign it's already naptime. We head upstairs to cuddle and rock a bit and sure enough his eyelids start to droop. He fights it a bit so I quietly read him a book, then we turn on the white noise and just slowly rock some more.

10:30am

I put Jacob down in his rock n play and he stays asleep. I head downstairs with the baby monitor and make myself a smoothie...I'm starving! I'm currently hooked on one with a banana, a clementine, frozen raspberries, Greek yogurt with honey, and pomegranate juice. I decide to be responsible and take care of some bills before propping up my feet and catching up on some of my favorite blogs.

11:10am

Jacob is awake so I down what's left of my smoothie and go get him.  He's hungry again, then we play some more. Daddy comes home for lunch in the middle of tummy time and we hang out with him for awhile. He's extra attentive today...maybe he's feeling a tad bit sentimental that today is the end of getting to see his son every day at lunch? 

1:10pm

After nursing and some snuggling Jacob is back to sleep. I desperately want to just hold him while he sleeps, but I know that sleeping in his crib is good for him to get used to and is better sleep for him. Hoping I'll reap the rewards by having a happy baby to hang out with tonight. Plus I'm starving again! :) Lunchtime for me and I'm trying this smoked salmon sandwich from the Runner's World cookbook he ordered. Pretty good!

2:00pm

Jacob's awake and the hiccups I hear tell me that he's not putting himself back to sleep. I use that as an excuse to bring him downstairs and hold him the rest of the afternoon while I get hooked on a show about couples who agreed to participate in an experiment in which they were matched with someone based on compatibility and they get married at first sight. Crazy interesting to me and I am hooked!

6:50pm

After my husband gets done with his workout it's time for me to give up Jacob to let daddy take a turn at baby duty so I can make dinner. Friday night is pizza night - that's my specialty and I am long overdue on a turn to make dinner!

7:25pm

Time to start the going to bed process for Jacob. Lots of up and downstairs, an extra diaper change, and what feels like a lot of time feeding him but he finally falls soundly asleep at about 8:45.

9:15pm

I'm tired enough that I could go to sleep too but I think I earned myself a small glass of wine tonight. My husband and I talk about what we want to do this weekend - mostly stuff on our "to do" list, but we talk about what we want to cook and maybe venturing to our favorite bar tomorrow to watch a basketball game at noon. I get some stuff done for the blog, then the internet stops working. After two trips upstairs to try to reset I give up because I'm tired and just decide to focus on that glass of wine. :)

10:25pm

Time to crash. Baby boy doesn't care that it's the weekend so I'll be ready for the wake up call tomorrow morning!

Jacob: 2 Months

Jacob was 2 months last weekend so it's time for the next update!

Nicknames: He still gets called buddy and sweet pea a lot!

Weight/Height: 14 pounds 11 ounces and 24 inches in length. Still holding strong at 90-95th percentile for both! I'll be curious to see if that trend continues or if it slows down over the next few months. Since Christmas I've held two other babies, one very close in age and one 7 weeks younger than him and it already feels so strange to hold babies much smaller than him! 

Things we can't live without:  Pacifiers and white noise. He has his fussy times especially when he's fighting sleep, although thankfully nothing too intense, and those two things have helped calm him down.

Things he likes:  Eating, clearly. :) Being held facing out, kicking and waving his legs and arms around like crazy. It's pretty entertaining to watch those jerky movements!

Things he dislikes:  Baths still aren't his favorite, but at least now we don't get the freak out until he's out and getting dressed because I'm sure that's when the cold hits him. 

Favorite characteristics:  He really is a happy baby most of the time and the smiles he gives are my absolute favorite thing! I can't wait until we get the laughs to go along with them. He also still has blue eyes like his dad still and I'm hoping those stick around!

Currently I Am...

Linking up with Anne and Jenna... 

Planning

Outfits for my next capsule and for my return to work next week. I talked about that yesterday in case you missed it! It's a welcome distraction from thinking about what it's going to be like to leave my baby at daycare everyday and function again in the working world after being gone for 10 weeks.

Hoping

My mind is on all things baby right now and I'm having a very emotional and reflective week as my maternity leave comes to an end so I'll have to say that I'm hoping that I kick ass in this next season of life. That I manage to continue to have the same care and dedication I had been giving professionally all while giving everything I've got both physically and emotionally to providing for our son. Deep stuff around here today. :)

Baking

Nothing and that's for the best because I'm a horrible baker. I tried making chocolate covered peanuts in the crockpot and even screwed that up. They looked awful but tasted good so instead of giving them away like I planned   I kept them all for myself. So maybe that's a win? 

Wearing

These slippers from my mother-in-law all the time lately. Slippers are one of those things I can never talk myself into buying because I'd rather spend the money on footwear that can be worn outside of my house so they're always a perfect gift for me. Loving this pair with the fur!

Resolving 

Have I ever mentioned how bad of a goal setter I am? It's pretty bad, which is probably why I've never gotten into the whole new year's resolution thing. Maybe I should work on that this year!

Winter Capsule

Life got a little crazy for awhile! We had new flooring installed all throughout our downstairs and that project and Christmas really snuck up on me! Preparing for both all happened at a time when all I wanted to do was sit at home and snuggle our baby, which didn't make it any easier. I felt a little bit like I was being dragged back into responsibilities outside of caring for an infant a little too soon and all I wanted to do was dig in my heels and resist it. That definitely didn't make the stress level lower any in our household! But we survived, and we have beautiful new bamboo flooring now and a perfect first holiday with baby boy in the books. I hope yours was just as fulfilling and wonderful!

But now the real world is calling even more...it's back to work for me on Monday. I feel a little better mentally about handling it, but ask me next week how many times I've cried. :) Back to work means back to more than the few items I've been rotating through for the past 2 months. I pulled everything back out to try on and see what options I even have available for my next closet "capsule" (I still refer to it as a capsule even though I don't limit my number of items included!). The not fun part of that process is that there are still many many things in my closet I'm not comfortable wearing until I get a little more toned! But on a positive note, it was a little fun shopping my own closet and being reunited with some old favorites that pregnancy prevented me from wearing.

So what made the cut? Anything that doesn't cling to my stomach, lots of layering options that I intend to use this time around (because even hormones that make you feel like your internal temperature is higher than normal can't win against winter temps, right? Please tell me I'm right...), button up tops, and skirts. During my pregnancy I had a bit of a skirt aversion and relied on dresses. Nursing and then pumping while at work each day definitely had to be considered and I have to say that I'll really miss my dresses since most of them aren't too conducive to meeting the demands of breastfeeding. These options will be what I currently plan to rely on through the end of February. I plan to link up with Anne and Jacqueline throughout that time to talk about how the capsule is going even though this capsule will take them all the way through March. My hope is that by March my body will be healthier and had more of a chance to recover from pregnancy and that I'll be ready to embrace some new options. 

Because I typically move slowly in the mornings and that will no longer be an option, I've already put together some outfit ideas for my first week and have hung them together in my closet with the hope that organization will keep things moving in the morning! Here's a little sneak peak about the types of looks I'm thinking will work best...

thanks to Sam's post for the tips and inspiration for setting up these pictures!