I'm back!

It's hard to believe that has been 7 months since I've written a post to my blog. I had full intentions on documenting my pregnancy through this blog and we see how that turned out. I have no idea where the past 7 months went, better yet the past 2!

On June 24th at 2:03a.m. we welcomed our first born, Carter Alan Wall, into the world. It was the best day of my life and I will have to write a separate post dedicated to his arrival, because it is quite the story! I've decided that I'm going to use my blog to document daily life with our newest little addition. There are so many things that happen on a day to day basis and I always mean to write them down but I never do! I have a lot of family and friends that always want to see pictures of Carter and want to know what he's doing so I thought that it would be best to try and keep track of it all through my blog. I don't know how often I will be able to write but I'm going to do my best to keep you up to speed on the Wall household.

Just minutes old!

One of the first photos we captured with Carter's eyes open. This was right after he fed.

Carter was 9 weeks old yesterday! I'm having hard time coming to terms with it. The time has flown by and I've enjoyed every second I've had home with him over the past 9 weeks. I will have to go backwards to bring you up to speed on what happened over the past 9 weeks. It's been quite the roller coaster ride but worth every penny.

This past week was fairly low key around our house. Last week we went on our first family vacation to the beach (separate blog post on that one) so we took it easy this week unpacking and doing laundry. When people ask me what we do all day I actually have to stop and think about it for a few seconds. When I repeat our day out loud it certainly doesn't sound like much, but it sure does fly by!

On Monday we went to one of Chris's co-worker's home on the Eastern Shore for the day. It was a beautiful day and we even enjoyed some tasty BBQ. It wasn't NC BBQ but it did the trick for the time being.

Visiting dad in his office before heading to the shore

Just this past week Carter started sleeping from 10:30p.m. to 7:00/7:30a.m. and it's been heavenly! I nurse him when he wakes up and then we have wake time for about 30 minutes and then he's down for his morning nap! This is typically when he naps the best. He'll usually sleep for around an hour and a half to two and half hours. This is my opportunity to pick up around the house, have some coffee and breakfast while watching The Today Show and pumping. By the time all of that is accomplished it's usually time to feed again. In all honestly I really feel like all I do is feed Carter and pump the entire day. Chris calls me Essie the cow and that's pretty much what I feel like, ha-ha.

The past few mornings I've woken up to this sweet, peaceful little face. This is what I was greeted to on Tuesday morning.

One of the many great things about our neighborhood is the mom's club. I joined this group when I was pregnant and it has been a wonderful resource. There is a listserv that is used to organize playgroups, make or receive recommendations from restaurants to doctors, to buy, sell and give away items....you name it! The non-mobile playgroup meets every Thursday morning. We haven't been able to make it the past few weeks because of doctor's appointments and vacation so we were glad to make it this week. At this point the group is more for the mom's to get together and talk but the little babies are cute to watch on the floor. Basically they stare at each other the entire time or cry, ha-ha! We will host the playgroup at our house in late September.

On Friday we celebrated Carter's 2 month birthday; although, he was closer to 9 weeks old at that point.

Carter loves his changing table! He just stares at things around his room.

Once we have our mid morning feeding Carter and I usually set out on a walk around the neighborhood. Over the past few weeks he has become accustomed to riding in his stroller and the car seat. It used to be quite the challenge in those first few weeks because he would cry non-stop as soon as he was placed in either. Every now and then he'll fall asleep but as soon as the car or I come to a stop those big blue eyes pop wide open.

The afternoons are usually a blur. For the past few weeks I've been spending a lot of my time searching for a nanny. I have to go back to work at the end of September and fortunately we've found another family to do a nanny share. They have a baby boy named Gavin who was born 2 weeks after Carter and they live in the neighborhood across the street from us. They are going to bring Gavin to our home each day and we'll share the expense of a nanny. A lot of families in the area do this because the cost of a nanny is so high. The wait lists for daycare's are also extremely long. We joined wait lists for 4 daycare's in January and we haven't been accepted into a single one. I wasn't a fan of any of them to be honest with you so we would be taking the nanny route regardless. The thoughts of leaving Carter in a daycare at his age broke my heart. There are typically 4-5 kids per caregiver at these daycare's so as you can imagine one-on-one interaction is limited. When Carter gets a little older and can interact with other children I am more than fine with daycare; however, at this point I want to him to be at home in his environment with someone who will give him attention and love all day long.

The process to find the right nanny hasn't been an easy one. First of all, I wanted to get this in place months ago but I quickly learned that wasn't going to happen. Most people who are nannies are looking for immediate employment so making arrangements for something months down the road was impossible. Fortunately there are several reliable websites that you can use to find potential nannies. Gavin's mom and I posted our ad on several websites and have been spending weeks sorting through them all. We conducted our first round of interviews last Tuesday and we have a few more this Tuesday. We hope to make our final decision by the end of the week and feel that we have some great ladies to choose from.

As far as Carter's development this week he has become very alert. He will follow me around the room and follows objects that are placed in front of him. While he's nursing he'll usually grab hold of my shirt and he also likes to hold your finger. I believe we're getting closer and closer to a big smile. He does smile from time to time but I still believe that it's more or less random rather than in response to Chris or me. He has become fully aware of his hands and likes to place them up to his mouth. We've even caught him sucking on his thumb a few times but he doesn't seem to have the coordination to keep it in his mouth. He coo's a lot throughout the day and gets excited when you talk to him because he'll start kicking his legs and swinging his arms. He's doing a little better with tummy time, but still not a huge fan.

We enjoyed a very low key weekend at home. It was dreary and rainy Saturday so we stayed home most of the day. We did go out to run errands late in the day and Carter was a champion. He didn't fuss at all for the 2 hours we were out and about. He did make his debut at Best Buy with Chris! If he takes after his daddy with his love for electronics we're in some serious trouble!

That wraps up life as an 8 week old. More to come!