Today is a BIG DAY for our little family — it’s Emma’s first day at daycare. Jose and I drove to work together this morning, so we dropped her off around 8:30. We left her sitting in a bouncy chair, awake and looking a little confused but generally content. As we drove away, I only cried a little bit so I’ll consider the day a success. I hadn’t expected to cry at all, actually — I mean, I’ve never had any intention of staying at home with her, so it’s been a given all along that she would go to daycare. But something about leaving her with strangers for the first time ever made me teary, even though I know they’ll take excellent care of her. At lunchtime, they even emailed me this photo of Emma and Miss Jasmine. So nice of them! My login for the video viewing takes up to 24 hours to get approved so I haven’t been able to cyberstalk my baby today. Woe.
(Emma and Grandma; smiley in the morning; fashionable sunglasses; limbs everywhere)
Jose’s mom did a wonderful job taking care of Emma last week. (Not that there was ever any doubt that she would.) It’s funny, but it wasn’t until we actually had a baby in our arms that I fully realized the advantages of living near your extended family — and bemoaned the fact that even our nearest family members are still a 4-hour drive away. When my mom was here, and when Katie and Joel were here, and the few times that Jose’s mom has been here… I mean, WOW, it’s just incredible what a difference an extra set of hands makes, especially when that extra set of hands belongs to a doting grandparent or aunt or uncle. It’s not really in the cards for us to move to Charlotte or Corpus Christi, or for our parents or siblings to move to Houston, but I’m thankful for the visits we’ve already had and definitely look forward to more.
When Jose’s mom is here, she insists that we go on a date night. Who are we to argue with that?? When we realized that her visit would coincide with the Houston Zoo’s annual Feast with the Beasts on Friday night, we snapped up a pair of tickets and had a lovely evening of eating, watching animals, and riding the carousel (see crappy photo above). This event always provides a healthy dose of nostalgia, since they seem to be working their way through bands I remember from the 90s. In the four years we’ve attended, we’ve seen Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Spin Doctors, B-52s, and — this year — Blues Traveler. We stayed long enough to hear them play “Run Around” and then headed for the car. It was only 10:30 but we were both totally exhausted! Still, it was a fun night and I’m glad we got to go out. Emma’s 3 months old and we’ve been on 3 date nights, so I think we’re doing pretty well.
(New office decor; the beginnings of a Christmas stocking; DIY Kindle cover)
Over the weekend, I had time for some crafty pursuits. Jose borrowed my old Kindle to use to read during lunch while I was on maternity leave, and he liked it so much that he wanted to keep it — so I recently got a new Kindle Paperwhite! It needed a case, of course, so I made one on Saturday night using some fabric I bought a while ago and hadn’t used for anything yet. I based it on this Dixie Mango tutorial, but made a few minor changes to the inner structure of the case to stiffen it. Yesterday, I started working on a cross stitch Christmas stocking I got for Emma. There’s a lot of stitching involved so the chances of me actually finishing it by Christmas 2012 are slim-to-none, but it can’t hurt to at least get started!
(The other random photo is my new piece of office decor, courtesy of Cari, who brought back a pack of vintage space-themed posters from her trip to Russia a couple months ago. Покорим космос = Let us conquer space!)