the time has come

Oh dear.  I knew this time would come, I knew it would come too soon.  At some point, every working mother needs to accept that her duty as a mother also includes contributions to the whole family and not just the baby; I am returning to work this coming Monday, and I am already sick to my stomach about it. 

Don't get me wrong, I love my jobs {for those wondering, I have a big girl job in the corporate world AND I print...}, but I have begun to love my job as a mother even more than I could have ever imaged.  Watching my baby girl grow before my eyes has been an incredible privilege.  So much so, that I feel like writing a thank you note to my Leaves Administration group at work for allowing me enough Maternity Leave to enjoy this time- even though I wish they could continue to pay me for being a mama.  Wouldn't that be nice? :)

Bella {Isabella when she's in trouble or ridiculously fussy, Bells when she's super playful, Bella when ever else...} is 7 weeks old this week.  How incredible is that? I mean... 7 weeks ago, we had a BABY.  I'll never forget looking at my husband at the hospital and thinking, 'this is it, are we ready?'  His reply, for those wondering, was simply, 'we better be.'  Since that day, I've been trying to mentally record every milestone, every change, and every image into my memory so I can never forget what our little girl means to us.  It's why I started an online journal for her; essentially, it's just an eMail address*, but once she's old enough to appreciate it, she can read the many eMails her Mama and Daddy are sending to her. We attach pictures when we can, and in the age of Blackberries and IPhones, impromptu photo shoots with our little girl are even more special when we know we're recording history a little bit at a time. 

Right now, she has just woken from a nap.  She's been a little bit fussy the last few nights, but I'm assured that's perfectly normal.  We hope so...with work for me coming up in less than a week, we'll all need our composure to survive this difficult transition. 

I'll try to do this every time I do a baby post, but right now, Bella is:

Cooing- dear lord, I can't tell you how adorable this is.  She coo's people.  Sometimes is just hard consonants like 'goo' and sometimes is soft vowels like, 'ooo,' and I assure you they are each as adorable as the next.  When she first did this, I nearly fainted with pride.  Over a goo.  You read that...

Smiling- she's full of them!  She smiles at everything.  In her sleep, her Mama and Daddy, her Obachan {Japanese Grandmother}, Big-Bro-Atticus...everything.  Melts my heart every time.

Full figured- we knew she was going to be a tall baby, but she is already in 3mo clothes.  We can't even keep up with this girl!  She outgrew any newborn clothes she had by 5-6 weeks.  I can't imagine where we'll be in a few more weeks...

Okay... that's probably enough baby and big girl job discussion.  I know some of you are only here to discuss letterpress goodies and I want you to know that I'm back as of Monday too.  I will only be taking a handful of wedding orders to start {weddings taking place in 2012, that is}, but anything else goes.  I'm actually printing some save-the-dates this afternoon as soon as the plates arrive--and I can't WAIT to show them to you all! 

Alright, the moment many of you have been waiting for, pictures of our beautiful little girl:

*I haven't decided if I want to open up the eMailing/journaling to friends and family yet, but if you're interested in writing to Bella, let me know.  Enough requests for it, and it may sway the decision.  I think it would be neat to have friends and family eMailing our little girl, but I certainly don't want to have to monitor the eMail account for spammers or inappropriate stuff being passed along...