Fifth week

Another good week for us here... Naomi continues to grow and change daily. It happens slowly, but when I look back at the photos from her first week, we can see just how big she has become. By our bathroom scale she's nearly ten pounds now, which is almost my birth weight (you're amazing, Mom)... She pays a lot more attention to our faces and seems to imitate some of them. We've even convinced ourselves that we've made her smile a couple times.

This week we celebrated Naomi's first birthday. One month old, and we haven't managed to kill her yet. It's the little things really...

My arthritis is only getting worse as time progresses, which has pushed the issue of how much longer I can keep nursing Naomi. I will probably stop in the next couple weeks so we can get on a routine with the bottle and formula and have that well established before I go back to work and she starts in daycare. It's been an emotional decision, but I think it is the right one.

I spoke with my boss this week to come up with the plan of when I will go back to work (the week of June 9). When my friend Suzi moves here, we will each work three days a week to cover all the patients I have acquired. Suzi will start mid-August which leaves about eight weeks when I will be back to work but before she gets here. Initially my boss had said I could just work three days a week when I came back even before Suzi gets here. It's been so crazy at the office with multiple maternity leaves and sabbaticals, that now he says that if I *want* to work four days a week, I could. We'll see how it goes. They have been very generous with me, and I'd like to help out how I can.

The highlight of our week was a visit from Uncle Jerry and Aunt Lori who flew up from Dallas on Friday night. We had a great weekend with them, exploring Boulder, Naomi's first trip into the mountains, and her first trip to a sports bar. It's so good to be with family. Luckily we'll get to see them again in May when we all meet up in Oklahoma for Memorial day.