Back to work

As my maternity leave comes to an end and I prepare to go back to work next Monday it's inevitable not to spend some time reflecting on these past several amazing months of motherhood. As people warned it me, it went by very quickly and I'm amazed how Maya has changed during that time. Babies literally change everyday - their physical appearance, their awareness and their ability to interact and manipulate their environment develops overnight. Imagine how smart the human race would be if we all continued on this steep learning curve! Their brain is a sponge ready to absorb whatever you throw at it. Her latest trick which brings her a lot of joy is banging her fists Bam Bam style- against the table, on her toys, in the water during a bath (hilarious - she looks so serious and startled when she splashes herself in the face). She did it yesterday and now she's obsessed. Just like the first time she figured out how to roll over and now can't stop doing it. Other skills still under construction - she can sit unsupported for short periods of time and is trying desperately to creep along the floor and has been known to cover some distance like an inch worm - butt up in the air, digs her feet in and drags her face across the floor before stopping and looking up at you. She's also very aware of food and eating and stares with her mouth open when people are eating around her as if hoping someone will remember she has a mouth too (and puts everything in it). She's hitting the 5 month mark tomorrow (insane I know) and I think we may try some mashed up carrots this weekend. It's obvious she wants to eat and the booster seat I ordered arrived so it must be a sign. Yellow vegetables here we come!

I'm looking forward to going back to work although I am also not surprisingly somewhat nervous leaving Maya for so many hours during so many consecutive days. It know it will get easier with time and we'll fall into a routine. One of many growing pains to look forward to. So here we go - going to spend the weekend car shopping (yes the car was totaled sadly) and then it's back to work.

Near miss.

The near misses seem to keep coming, including one of our own - we crashed our car but only the car got hurt. A plane with 150 + passengers goes down into the Hudson River with both engines on fire and then taking on water and somehow everyone gets off alive and with only some minor injuries reported. A mutant flu virus this year is resistant to Tamiflu but the flu season has been very mild. A girl at Stuyvesant high school unfortunately died from bacterial menengitis but two other exposed students tested negative and an outbreak was averted. One of the Jena 6 teens attempts suicide shooting himself in the chest but lives to tell his tale. Then there's the guy with money troubles who tries to fake his own death parachuting out of the plane he was piloting and leaving his plane to crash into whatever, coming within meters of peoples houses!!. Some real nice guy even left his mini poodle in his parked van at a Vermont airport in freezing cold weather and the dog was rescued after 20 days!! Maybe this will be a year of near misses, forcing us to refocus on what's really important when the economy is going south and people are stressed about jobs and paying the bills. And maybe we should bone up on all sorts of insurance.

I for one could do without that kind of excitement - after a year of life changing experiences and a month of travel I was kinda hoping to hit the cruise control button until we crossed the finish line into 2010. Get cozy in our apartment, work on a sleeping schedule with Maya (still failing grades in the sleep category), soak up parenthood and maybe even learn a little about football (Brian and I really did try to watch the game on Sunday and lost interest within 20 mins. WHY do they stop the clock every 5 seconds? The turkey chili was good though.) Nonetheless these experiences serve as a stark reminder of the only things that really matter ... and to listen to your mother when she reminds you to wear a hat and look both ways before crossing the street.

NOT how this year was supposed to start

So this past Saturday we took a little road trip to drop my brother off at Lehigh University where he is resuming his undergraduate degree after taking a few years off to work. It had started to snow so after we made the rounds and took him to a supermarket and to lunch we were leaving campus and heading down one of Lehigh's infamous hills when we started sliding like we were on skiis. We ended up hitting the corner of a brick building head on. Thankfully none of us was hurt, Maya was pretty startled when her car seat jumped at impact but that was it. Witnesses called police and an ambulance and by the time paramedics arrived she calmed down and she was smiling at them. Brian and I were wearing seat belts and aside from some minor whiplash we were fine.

The car however is another story. Of course of course of course we JUST traded in our Corolla for Subaru Forrester in Decemeber, which is now sporting a huge V shaped dent (not sure you can really call it a dent actually - the front of the car was destroyed). We cracked the bumper in two, grill fell off, hood, fenders and lights all smashed. We hope the car is not totaled but we were leaking antifreeze and the car wouldn't start so it had to be towed and we got a rental car to make the 1 1/2 hour trip back home. Just our luck. We're hoping to get a repair estimate today or tomorrow and if the repair is 75% or greater the value of the car it's totaled and we are sans pretty Forrester. Sad, we really liked our new ride but cars are replaceable and thankfully we are all fine. Not an experience I care to repeat. Let's hope this is not an indicator of how the rest of the year will go.

Home! and a new year

We made it back to the cold yesterday morning after what seemed to be an eternal day of traveling, almost 24 hours total of travel time from door to door. Maya handled air travel like a champ - she was great on the way down to Uruguay when it was just the two of us, her eyes opened wide when the plane took off (what the heck is that!?!) and slept in her bassinet for most of the trip. We had to make a bit of a stink on the way back because the told us we had the bulkhead seat and we boarded the plane to discover we did not. Luckily one man was willing to switch seats with me so that Maya could have the bassinet again which really makes all the difference, the slept most of the flight and spent the remaining time looking for people to flirt with across the aisle. We've discovered that Maya is quite the little social butterfly and loves new people, especially if they're willing to make lots of funny faces and smiles at her which is usually the case when a baby is staring at you waiting for your reaction, she returns the smiles right back.

Our trip was a success and minor catastrophes (like my brother missing his flight on Christmas eve) worked out in the end (boy genius made it down only because a flight with mechanical problems was rescheduled for the next day and several passengers decided to bail). The weather was spectacular, we maybe had 3 days of clouds. It was beautiful beach weather and we divided our time in Punta del Este between the beach, the pool, walks in the neighborhood, lots of big family meals and seeing friends and family. Brian and his parents had a good side trip to Buenos Aires to see the city and catch up with a foreign exchange student that lived with Gib's family when they were in high school and haven't seen since. Prior to their arrival we were in Montevideo making the rounds and doing some shopping. Poor Maya was the recipient of typical Uruguayan baby tortures - she got her ears pierced and her head shaved her first week there. The head shaving because her long black strands were falling out in pieces and she looked a little funny. The earrings because it's pretty customary to do and they really look very nice on her. It only took her a few minutes to recover from each ear, she complained a little more with the second and let us know she wasn't happy about it, but thankfully didn't have any other issues with the piercings afterwards, they healed nicely and she's now sporting gold studs. Her major milestone was learning how to flip over and now she's a little obsessed. She'll swing her leg over her side to turn whenever you put her down on her back which makes diaper changes a little more challenging. She loves her new freedom and tries to crawl - pushing her legs back and forth against the ground but can't quite hold her front end up at the same time as all the butt wiggles so she usually ends up dragging her face across the floor and eventually getting frustrated and cries out to be rescued.

Maya met her cousins, great uncles and aunts and long time friends of my parents. It was great fun to introduce her to everyone and she was showered with gifts everywhere we went. I was on a mission to get baby books in spanish so she can get on the right foot learning the language. We hired a Colombian nanny which will be a big part in teaching Maya spanish. In the meantime I have 3 weeks to get my act together before I have to go back to work Feb 2nd and hopefully get Maya on a reliable sleep schedule (she is not a good sleeper and still gets up a couple times a night to nurse). She appears to be in the early stages of teething and puts anything and everything in her mouth to chomp on with gusto including your hands, she seems to like the pressure against her gums, poor kid. I can't believe my maternity leave is coming to an end and I have to spent the bulk of my day in an office and not with Maya - I'm going to miss her! We've never spent more than a couple of hours apart, the week I expect will seem to last forever. But what can you do - growing pains. A lot happened in 2008 and were looking forward to making the most of it in 2009.