Leaving on a jet plane

People seriously think I am out of my mind for letting my baby go visit Mimi & Papa in Nebraska for a week. So, for all of you who think I'm crazy, here's my side... And in case you wondered, I'm OK with you thinking I'm out of my mind :)

Before there was Chloe Jane, it was just me and this handsome dude.

Met June 2006

Married July 2007

Bought our house May 2009

And had all sorts of fun in between.....

But in January 2013, the best thing happened. We welcomed our little girl home.

Neither of us would trade that for the world. With that being said, a baby in the house makes time together a little more tricky. Soooooo, while our baby girl is gone for the week, we are planning to make the best of the time together. Baseball game, sushi, Iron Man 3, Texas Roadhouse and whatever else we decide to add. We are going to miss her to death but I texted our week's motto to Luke:

"CARPE DIEM" 

In other news, Chloe hit a few of her milestones this week!!

Rolled allllll the way over - May 25

First tooth popped through - May 29

First sleepover (that happens to be a week long!) - May 30

 

 

 I'm guessing I will cry a few times. I will probably ask to Skype every other day but I'm excited that everything worked out so last minute (oh, did I mention this plan came together in less than 24 hours?!). I'll ask for lots of updates and pictures. But, before we had her, we had each other and this week, we are celebrating that!

Getting big

 19 weeks!

Working full time has definitely made me enjoy every possible minute with my baby girl. Mornings she spends kicking on the counter in our bathroom, evenings are enveloped with kisses, raspberries, and talking about our day. I love it.

Things you might like to know:

Chloe no longer uses her pacifier. Ever. It's stuck somewhere at the bottom of her diaper bag and hasn't been used in over 2 weeks. Before that, well, who knows how long it's been. It's so nice to not going on a paci-hunt every nap time... which leads me to #2.

She now hums herself to sleep. She sleeps solely on her stomach so once we put her down for nap time, she will roll over, lay her head down, close her eyes, and start softly humming to herself. Makes me smile every time.

When Luke met little Chloe Bennett a little over a year ago, she was running around the Spychers house blowing raspberries. We were only a couple weeks pregnant and hadn't announced the news yet but he leaned over to me and said, "I want to teach our girl to make raspberries". At that point we obviously didn't know it was a girl but it turned out perfectly. And now, our little girl makes raspberries: in the changing table, during bath time, in the stroller, while changing... anytime, every day. It's so cute.

Giggling is starting to happen a little more often.

A few times we have given her rice cereal mixed with water and she seems to be completely surprised by it. The first couple times she literally just sat in her Bumbo with her tongue out just looking around the room while the rice cereal just clung to her tongue. I kept laughing & laughing and she just stared at me with her big round eyes. Since then she has successfully eaten a few teaspoons of it but no solids for at least another month. The pediatrician says to hold out longer to avoid food allergies later in life.

That being said, bottle feeding is getting tough. She is far too curious to want to stop her day to eat. She jerks her head back and forth looking at all the different things in the room and pretty soon, she will try to sit up while you are feeding her!!! I've learned if I lay her down on my legs with her head near my knees and swing my legs back and forth, the movement keeps her attention while she takes a few gulps.

This girl is a QUICK mover! She rolls back to front in a split second but hasn't mastered rolling the rest of the way over yet. Before I know it, she will have it down though.

Her teeth have been bothering her soooooo much. She drools constantly, reaches for anything and everything to put in her mouth, and has quite a few cranky evenings when they are bothering her. I keep thinking that "today is the day they are going to push through" but.... not yet.

Her 0-3 month jeggings have now been classified as capris and a pair of her 0-3mon pants are so tight on her legs that they leave marks on her skin where the seams are. That being said, some sleeves pm tje 0-3 shirts are too long that she can't find her hands. No longer can she stretch out her toes in her 3 month sleepers so last night, we zipped up the 6 month one. She's growing so fast!!!

We are almost to 5 months :)

Big Girl Panties

**This week, I was required to put on my big girl panties.
1) After a week at home with Chloe, Luke was called in to work in the delivery dept at Woods. He enjoyed the work and got along great. However, with two working parents, there is a lot more work involved. Getting a baby up, dressed, fed, burped, and into the car by a certain time is no easy task. For those of you moms that work at 8, whoa! More power to you, I have a hard time getting there by 10  :)  Secondly, since he was asked so last minute, finding someone to watch our little munchkin hasn't been easy. Jill & Jacy have been sooooooo helpful with her and have shouldered the babysitting every day except when she spent the day with Lindy & Cohen. Thank you so much for your help these past 2 weeks!!
2) Chloe's sleeping digressed for about 5 days where she would wake up twice a night again. How quickly I forgot how miserable that was once Chloe has been sleeping 8-10 hours straight and went back to 4 hours. Whew! Anyway, getting up twice a night then getting up for work was quite the chore but thankfully, I hope, we are back to her old sleeping habits!

**This past Monday when Luke was asked to work the following day, I had a little meltdown when I couldn't find anyone to watch Chloe. I texted my mom that I wished she lived here because I really needed a babysitter. Welp, doesn't take much to convince her! She's on a plane headed out tomorrow to help out while we try to get some order in our lives. The job is only temporary and they aren't offering him a position but it's helping us out while Luke helps them in this busy time.

**We went to the Dr last week and found out that Chloe is now 12lb, 5oz. She is 24" long and endured 3 more shots. Poor thing!

Photos from the week:

 

Four Months

Four months ago at this time, I was thinking, hoping, wishing, and praying that my baby would come "tomorrow". Now, we've hit May 8 and it seems like just yesterday that we were straining to get our first peek at our girl.

 

 

Thank you all for your calls, texts, and messages of encouragement this week as I headed back to work. I can't say it was easy and each day was a challenge to fight off the tears but in some ways, it was easier than I expected. Since I've been at Woods for 5 years now, I've built up some relationships with our reps and repair techs. It's been fun to show off Chloe's picture to them and have them welcome me back. Plus, we've had a busy week so I haven't had too much time to sit & think.

Meanwhile, Luke has extremely exceeded my expectations while being home with Chloe. He has kept the dishes clean, house in order, and even paid some bills today. I know having a baby is a handful so I've been so impressed with him. It's so cute to come home to her sitting in her Bumbo on the counter while he's doing dishes. Gotta say, they are quite the pair!

We have been having a little battle of the wills at our house. Chloe is now rolling over, hating it, and professing her unhappiness by screaming. We will run into the room, roll her over, and within a couple minutes -- the process starts over! It's fun to see her growing up and showing a little of her (stubborn) attitude but rolling her over at 2am isn't too exciting.

Her sample schedule:
8:30am Wake up for the day
10am Nap
11am Up to Play!
12:30 Nap
2pm Awake and happy
5pm Nap
6pm Enjoying the evening
8 Asleep for the night. Bedtime doesn't ever change unless it moves up to 7:30 because she is too tired.
5am Eat -- Immediately back to sleep
She is such a good sleeper. Some days she will sleep 8pm to 10am (eating once) and she has officially gone 2 nights of sleeping 12 hours withOUT getting up to eat.

Check out all her adorable noises that she's making these days!!!

Nothing more for now!! We are going in for her 4 month appointment on Friday so we will report her progress at that time.

Loves,

Crystal

I never....

Although "I never" is a silly game we all played in high school, it's also what's been on my heart lately.

Here's my grown-up version of "I never" expected:

• To be OK with spit up running down my arm and onto my clothing... in public.
• To feel soooooo much sympathy when looking into Chloe's tear-filled eyes. (After all, you don't get tough by being babied!)
• To be willing to get up in the middle of my deeeeeepest sleep to take care of my baby
• To smile every time I see her sweet smile
• To giggle with each vibrating toot in her diaper
• To gladly spend my days wiping slobber, sucking out boogies, and cleaning up poo

Truth is, I never anticipated that I'd love Chloe this much, this soon. It may sound horrible to say but I never expected to be so crazy in love with this girl before she can laugh, talk, hug, or utter a word. I never expected this. I'm in love with her.

As long as I can remember, when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always said a mommy. I never aspired to be a teacher, astronaut, or even the first woman president. I wanted to love on my babies at home, all day long. Then I got my job at Woods Furniture. I like my job, a lot. Without wanting to come across vain or conceited, I'm also very good at my job. I'm knowledgeable, quick, and most days, I can get through the day without making anyone angry at me!! When I left my job on Jan 4th for maternity leave, I had it in my head that I could see myself working 3-4 days a week and being ok with it. I knew I would love my child but I liked being appreciated for my hard work. I was afraid I might get bored at home. But then, this happened:

I gave birth to the most amazing, sweet girl and I fell so in love with her the moment I held her. There are a million secretaries in the world but one mom to Chloe Jane Gustafson. That's me. Only me. Wow. That's pretty special.

Welp, it's 4 months later and my maternity leave is up. I will be returning to work on Saturday. My eyes are filled to the brim with tears and even streaming down my face even as I write those words. I can look over and see my daughter viciously trying to fit both fists in her mouth at once while grunting profusely. I can kiss her warm forehead and bring a smile to her face at any given second. I can make faces, noises, and raspberries on her chubby legs just because I want to... but only for 2 more days. At that point, I will go back to being a secretary. I will answer the phone, enter data, and check acknowledgements to the best of my ability. I will put my best foot forward and work my butt off. I will miss her. I will call home. I will look at pictures on my lunch break. And at 6:00, I will race home to see her. Because, I never expected to love this little pooing bundle quite so much :)

If you are of the praying persuasion, I'd love your prayers for strength these next few days and weeks. It's going to be tough. There will be many more tears, more sleepless nights, and more snuggles than this little girl will know what to do with. Get ready, sweet girl. You are about to be smothered!

Anyway, I'll put my emotions back in my "crazy box" and move on to week 16 pictures!! I've taken lots this week so... hope you enjoy.

Quite the chatterbox these days:

We spent about 2 hours outside one afternoon and she loooooooved it!

Had a girls night on Friday to celebrate my dear friend Charlotte. She turned 26 and her hubby was working so us girls went out on the town. Ok, so we drank water and went to Johnny Carino's for some good ol' Italian food but it was a pretty big night out for us!!

My Pinteresting Week:

Before my Pinterest organizing ideas....

After :)

Drawers before....

And after :)

And finally, Pinterest inspired me.....

Before.

After!

 That's it folks! I've got a growing baby, lots of things to be thankful for, and 2 more full days with my baby girl. The prayer of my heart: that I will make the most of my time, keep a positive attitude, and be thankful for my job yet also the time I get to spend with this girl because: she's plain awesome.