General Updates (because I can't think of a more clever title)

I realized I haven't actually done a post for about a month now, so I figured I'd take advantage of Nettie's vaccine induced exhaustion and write a quick little update for those of you that read this.

I'll start with Nettie since she's the cutest and most interesting of our little Smith clan.  She's 9 weeks old now, which is kind of insane when I stop to think about it.  At the risk of sounding cliche, it feels like we've already had her.  But what a little blessing she is!  She's started "talking" to me sometimes when I talk to her, and she's also smiling on a more consistent basis; though, if she doesn't feel like it, she won't, no matter how long I make ridiculous faces at her.  She also can hold her head up pretty good... well, pretty good in comparison to not at all.  There's still a fair amount of bobble-headedness going on, but she likes to be held up right so she can look around at stuff.

The stats from her appointment yesterday are:
Height: 22"
Weight: Right under 12lbs
Head Circumference: Hmm... I don't actually remember.  We think her head looks huge, but apparently it's right in the same percentile as her height and weight.

And speaking of percentiles, she's basically between the 50th and 75th percentile on everything.  A fairly average baby I guess.  She got three shots and one oral vaccine at the appointment.  Needless to say, she did not like getting jabbed in her thighs, and I don't blame her.  The cute little tears were streaming down her face even before I had a chance to pick her up.  And when Tucker and I took off the bandaids at home later, the painful scream and tears started again, which made me cry (something that I've never done in relation to her).  I just felt so bad that I couldn't make her feel better.  But for the most part, she slept all day yesterday and is now asleep (with a small fever) again this morning.  Poor baby :(  I just kept telling her it was for her own good; hopefully she understands.

I've been cleared to start exercising, which I am itching to start doing.  Why haven't I started already?  Last week was crazy busy, and so far this week, I've felt too bad leaving Nettie alone cause she's feeling pretty crummy from her shots.  Hopefully tomorrow she'll be doing well enough that I can head down to the gym and sign up, cause let's face it, I look pretty gross.  Haven't exactly been the most disciplined person when it comes to eating or exercising since we got married, and it definitely shows.  I want to try to get back to what I weighed in high school... or at least my first year of college.

Also, I started taking birth control pills about a month ago (because that's when I was told to start taking them back while we were still in the hospital), and since that first week, my milk production has gone down.  So far down that we have had to feed Nettie a bottle of formula a couple times a day because I simply don't have anything to give her.  While I'm not opposed to formula, it's kind of frustrating that I'm not able to satisfy my baby's hunger.  I asked her pediatrician about it yesterday, and she said that my pills probably have the wrong mix of hormones in them for a nursing mother.  More than likely I'm going to stop taking them and opt for a more... uh... direct form of birth control and see if that helps with milk production.

Tucker has pretty much finished up his lit review (which is basically 30ish pages of him summarizing stuff that other people have written about similar stuff that he did his research on) and should be starting his thesis soon.  He also needs to get his resume updated so he can start sending it out to companies.  Kind of crazy to think that we're less than five months (potentially) away from having a real job.  Dr. Drake keeps telling Tucker that he should take a job with Glambia, a company in Twin Falls, Idaho........................................................................................ yeah.  Not exactly thrilled with the location, but apparently she thinks they would be a great company to work for and thinks that Tucker would fit into the lab there really well.  Also, the guy that runs the lab is a Bishop, and I'm sure many of the other workers there are Mormon as well, so maybe she just thinks that we need to be surrounded by Mormons, haha, I don't know.  We're not ruling it out as a possibility, but we'd really like to stay on the east coast (could always go work for Campbell's soup in Camden(?), New Jersey: worst city in America 2008!)

I can't think of anything else off the top of my head that I'd need to include in this.  It's probably already way longer than most of you will want to read.  My bad.  Oh!  At the beginning of next month I'm going to be flying out to Phoenix for a week long visit which I'm pretty excited about.  Flying with Nettie will be a bit interesting I'm sure, but we'll survive.  Lots of people do it.

And to Lindsey: One way or another I'll be in Phoenix for Christmas this year.  You can count on it.