First Road Trip

Call us crazy, but Chad and I decided to take Dylan (at 3 weeks old) on a road trip to North Carolina for our niece's 6th birthday. I'm pretty sure that everyone in our family thought we had lost our minds, but they kindly kept their thoughts to themselves. The plan was to get up and go at 3am, but with an infant, it always takes about an hour longer than you expect to actually get out the door. We got on the road at about 4am and silently wished that we would make it past DC and Richmond before the morning commuter traffic. That little angel stayed asleep until we passed Richmond, and we missed the inevitable "stop and go".

Once we got there, Kylie was completely enamored with "Dilly" (as she likes to call him) and wanted to hold and feed him every chance she had.

Kiersten liked "Baby Dylan" until Nama was holding him instead of her. Then the jealousy tantrum started. :)

The night before the party, everyone went swimming and then camped out at Heather's park. Dylan and I hung out poolside, and then we all went back to the campsite to grill some burgers and hot dogs and make s'mores.

At Kylie's birthday party, Dylan was amazing. He let anyone hold him without any protest, and he slept for quite a while on Mom Mom's shoulder. That gave me time to spend outside with the birthday girl watching her and the other kids play on the blow up water slide. I just wish I could have gotten on that water slide - Kylie's birthday parties are always on the hottest day of the year!

Maybe we were crazy for thinking about this trip. A 3 week old baby... eight hours in the car... recovering from a c-section... Not exactly the most thrilling prospect. But Dylan handled it as if nothing were any different from his normal routine and it was definitely a weekend that I will remember fondly.

Savor Each Moment

I never thought I would be one to start a blog. But after watching my first month with my first child fly by, I decided I needed some way to record my time with him. Whether anyone else will read this, I don't know. But for me, life has suddenly picked up speed and I can't find a way to slow it down. So this is my way of taking a moment every now and then and realizing what an amazing and wonderful life I am living. Maybe that's a little sappy, but aren't new moms entitled to a little sappiness?

In my last month of pregnancy I found myself worrying about my ability to meet the demands of a newborn baby. But since Dylan has been born, I found it came pretty naturally. They really don't need much more than food, clean diapers and love. I feel like I'm getting this mothering thing down, at least until he starts crawling. Then we have an array of new obstacles to overcome. But I must say that becoming a mom is, by far, the best thing I've ever done in my entire life. I love the little family that my husband and I have created - starting with the coolest dachshund in the world, Dre, and then bringing our son, Dylan, into the world.