Oh, There You Are....

**This was originally from April 26!! Enjoy!***

Wow! Time flies! So lil man is almost 5 months old (using his birthdate, not the weeks- more on that later lol) and he is just the best!!! I have been meaning to update the blog, but literally it is like number 52 on the priority list lately. He is fast asleep napping now and so I steal away to try and update this amazingness.

I was SO fortunate to have my mom here for over 4 months to help me! I don't know what I did in a past life to deserve the unbelievable parents that I have, but it must've been something really special! I am lucky :) I was trying to figure out how to do this post since so much has happened so I decided to do a sort of hilights reel haha! Here we gooooo.....

The New Year:

Christmas was beautiful. Mom and dad were here and friends came over and Aiden was...asleep for most of it, but super excited on the inside! I just know it. I was still dealing with some very serious tenderness off and on with the hematoma in my abdomen and was wearing a neoprene belt pretty much all the time. The actual scar/incision area wasn't too bad, but the internal "blood mass" was not so cooperative, however, healing slowly. I knew I was going back to work sometime in late Jan/ early Feb so I began going to the gym to try and walk and get acclimated to the stairs again. Walking would also increase the circulation in my body, therefore healing the hematoma faster. And it felt good to get to the gym. It was a slow process. I would start out doing 25 minutes on a 0 incline at like a 3.5. That was plenty. Then I would slowly increase the speed and time. I wasn't on a "I've got to look like a supermodel" mission, I was on a "I have to climb 4 flights of stairs twice a night after not doing that for like 4 months and don't wanna die" mission. I am happy to say that it worked! I didn't really die when I did go back into shows and running my track.

Having mom here really helped with a lot of the transitions. I joke that maybe I did do this the right way because a) I super get along with her (and dad) b)this is seriously hard enough without trying to maintain a romantic relationship in the middle of it c)she's done this before (with TWINS) and was so helpful. AND I have all those amazing Aunts that are nurses that definitely got texts with questions about everything. There was no resentfulness about I did XYZ, therefore you have to do ABC, and there was a lot of laughter and a lot of no sleep. LOL

One of the major transitions that could have been realllllly hard was going back to work. To my "day job" work anyway. I think I actually on didn't work on anything for probably only 3 weeks maybe. Owning a business and running that doesn't have time off. So that was happening long before I went back to my full time regular job. But when I did, mom was there to watch him, so the anxiety that would come with leaving him at daycare could have its own special day- not lumped in with ALSO returning to work. Going back was really smooth, and actually really welcome. I don't do so well staying home all day. And in cold and flu season with a newborn, there was very limited running around. I was back in my element and I enjoyed it. I missed him a lot and was so happy to see him in the morning!!!

This transition of me going back to work also cemented the implementation of him sleeping in his crib. We had begun doing naps off and on in his crib at about 8 weeks old. They lasted from 10 minutes to about 30 minutes. But he did so well! So we kept increasing the frequency of them but at night during sleep time he was in the room with me in the bassinet. I have never slept with him in the bed but for no other reason than I had a really awesome bassinet and he did well in it. You do you if y'all do that. Whatever works!!!

Well, when I went back to work, I work nights so mom would have to put him down, but I would be the one doing the feedings in the early hours (2 or 3 am usually) and then go back to bed. My bed. She was in the guest room. Sooooo the only way it would all work was to have him sleep in his room and her take the monitor to her room which I would swipe when I got home after midnight, go to bed, wake up to feed him, repeat one more time usually, and then she would wake up and tend to him from about 6:30/7am onwards so I could sleep and not die for work the next day. I usually got up around 9 at the latest. This tagging out is what is the hardest NOT to have now that she's gone home. oooof. But he's sleeping longer so I am not AS dead.

I have lots to catch up on on here, so bear with me and I will send you an update ASAP!!!