We are already seeing mornings in the 60's and highs in the lower 80's. These are the days that I relish. Emily and I try to get out for a morning stroll if I am awake enough to manage it. The fresh air usually helps to pull off those sleepless night cobwebs and gets me going for the day.
I am looking forward to apple cider, football games (albeit from the tv set this year instead of in the stands), sweatshirts, hot chocolate, pumpkin patch pictures with Emily, and in general going through this beloved season in a whole new season of my life.
Greg starts back to school full swing tomorrow. A new semester, new classes, new students. We'll see what this one holds for him. Thank goodness he's had these last 6 weeks to work on the class preps here and there. If Emily had been born full term, I kind of doubt that he would be "ready" to walk into the classroom by now!
We had a fun week last week trying to get out and see more of the world and see more people! On Wednesday, we made the drive to Hummelstown (about an hour away) to see Ryan and Ashley, a couple who took the Bradley classes with us. We had a great time getting to meet each other's kiddos and scarfing down burgers in between nursing, photo shoots, and tears :-) Oh, welcome to parenthood! Ryan and Ashley have an adorable little boy named Connor, who was born 2 1/2 weeks before miss Em arrived. Connor was right on time, so he is much bigger than Emily by now. He had some precious smiles for us, and he warmed right up to Emily (as you can see by the "love pats" he gave her!
On Thursday, we had our last big small group party. Our group is birthing into 2 smaller groups now, and I am really sad about losing my bi-weekly time with half of these sweet friends. Greg and I have never been a part of a small group birthing experience. I guess that the groups at Grace Bible in College Station always "birthed" by half of the people either moving out of town or moving to the first-time parents class. We were always saying goodbye to people each semester there. At least as this group births, it is not a goodbye. We will still see the other group at church on Sundays and hopefully still keep up in other ways like game nights or dinner together. I do look forward to having a smaller size (11 instead of 20). It will allow for more intimacy, more participation in the study by everyone, and for a more welcoming environment for new people to join the group. That's what the birthing process is meant to do. And I anticipate that much fruit will come from this.
On Friday, Greg and I committed to having a date night, and we went half way with it. I fed Emily and then dashed out on my own to pick up pizza and a red box movie. We enjoyed our Papa John's on the couch and watched the movie Invictus, which was amazing. I would highly recommend it!! It is about South Africa's struggle to transition during the end of apartheid and how the national rugby team's world cup win actually helped to foster that transition. It is based on the true story, and I thought it really captured a lot of what Mandela and others faced during that time. Emily kindly slept through our date night, so we did end up having a good time trying to have an old "typical" Friday.
Last night we tried out the bottle feeding for the first time in a long time. Emily has had maybe 5 bottles total since she was born. It has been at least 2 weeks since the last time that she had one (a third of her life!) Greg tried to give her one at 4am, and she was having none of it. I am frustrated that all 4 bottle nipples that we have seem like they have a fast flow even though they are labeled slow flow. We have 2 from the hospital, 1 Medela brand, and a Born Free brand. I think I might try Avent next. It's been hard to discern when to introduce a bottle. We haven't needed to so far. I have been around, my milk came in enough eventually, and I just haven't wanted to risk nipple confusion. But now I wonder if we have waited too long and if she'll always reject it. We'll just have to keep trying.
This is already super long, so I'll leave the update at that for now! Emily is starting to rouse from her nap, too, so my time is running out. :-) I'll be praying for all the teachers and students out there as y'all begin classes tomorrow.
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