The Kennedy Chronicles: Happy Easter!

As I drifted off to sleep last night, I found myself thinking back to last Easter, and am amazed at how much has happened in the last year. Obviously, I was pregnant at this time last year. I posted a video of the baby dancing in my belly. Remember? If not, check it out here. So, we have gone from that, to this:

Evelyn's daycare had an Easter egg hunt on Friday. Both Mike & I were curious to see how interested Evelyn would be in the eggs. As you can see, she loved shaking them! She scooted on her little belly to get to them and once she had them she would just shake away! We were both tickled to see how she got such a kick out of them.

She has been at the daycare for three weeks and is adjusting quite well. I still carry guilt about putting her in daycare and of course I worry about her mental health in terms of attachment and bonding, but I think that those things just come with the territory of having your child in someone else's care.

After a bit of a rough first week (more for me than Evelyn), we are very pleased with our choice of childcare providers. We decided to go with a larger center for a couple of reasons.

It is close to my work, so I often visit at lunch and offer to nurse Evie.
I get a discount as a county employee.
bigger center = lots of eyes all the time
no TV!
referral from a family with years of experience with the center.

With each week that passes, I am more impressed with the center. Her primary teacher is gentle and loving, and very attentive. The secondary teacher is a bit more energetic and sings and dances a lot with the kids. They balance each other out very nicely. They call me if she isn't taking her bottle, just to check and see if that is okay. The staff is very responsive and I love that we get a daily report of not only her eating, sleeping, and diapering, but also of the fun stuff she did. They have daily art projects that are displayed throughout the room. These are activities that the babies participate in, like little handprints or smashing bits of paper onto a pre-cut shape. It is pretty cute.

She has already had her first daycare-related cold. Thankfully it wasn't too severe. More than anything it was a pain to be up multiple times a night dealing with a stuffy nose. The plus side of that is that I got more cuddle time in with Evie. I miss her quite a bit during the day, and continue to grieve not being able to stay home with her. We are still nursing, even when she is away she gets Momma's milk! Pumping is going well so far, and we are four months away from our goal of one year of breastfeeding.

Here are a few of the latest pics of Evelyn, who just turned 8 months on March 31: