Month 2 (weeks 5-8)

During Jake's second month we started to get used to having the little guy around. I was still on maternity leave and Alex was still working from home. It was nice for me to be able to occassionally leave Jake with Alex during the day to run errands and nice for Alex to be able to have lunch with us and visits throughout the day.

After dropping our old camera I promptly got a new one and quickly discovered the video function.





Jake also attended his first party and Greg and Shana's. It was a little touch and go there at first because but once we let him just be with all the people he was fine. Greg's co-worker Beth whisked him away and all way fine. Jake is looking forward to the day he can eat all of the great food that Auntie Shana makes!

At Christmas Zayde and Grandma Dorry came to visit and Alex and I took advantage of having babysitters and actually went to a movie. Ashley came over and we did what Jews do on Christmas and ordered Chinese food! We also celebrated Jake's first New Year's at our friends Brad and Courtney's house. Brad, Courtney, and their adorable 1-year old Cailyn also live in Cameron Station so we were able to happily just walk over. I think that Jake was the only baby who was up when the ball dropped--not necesarily a good thing but we're going to start working on the whole sleep thing soon.

I wanted to take advantage of being on maternity leave and figured that since I'd probably never have this much time off again that Jake and I should consider a trip to Oregon. We had planned to go with Alex and then stay after when he had to go back to work. But when he had to go to Florida for a conference we thought that would be the perfect way to minimize his time away from the baby. So I booked my ticket and started worrying about flying across the country, alone, with an infant. Unfortunately, the conference was canceled, so poor Alex was stuck in the cold with no wife or baby for five days.

Right before we went to Oregon I joined a mom's group through PACE. I'm not sure what it stands for but my friends Alison and Amy had both done it and loved it. The first 8 sessions are facilitated by a social worker and cover different topics like relationships, sleeping (I missed that one), feeding etc. There are 9 of us and it is so fun to see the babies together. I really like all the mom's and think it is probably the best thing that I could have done.

Jake was a great traveler. I couldn't believe how nice the TSA agents were at Dulles, the fact that they helped me fold up the stroller alone shocked me. I'm used to them just taking away my toothpaste! We had a whole row to ourselves and I was able to bring his carseat so Jake ended up sleeping on much of the flight. We changed planes in San Francisco and despite being delayed an extra hour Jake was great and people kept stopping us to say how cute he was, what parent doesn't like that!

We finally got to Eugene and Grammy was waiting for us, well I should actually say she was waiting for Jake, as he's who she went to first. It was so great to be in Eugene and to just relax and hang out. Auntie Rachel came up from San Francisco to see Jake for the weekend which was really fun. Jake and Auntie Rachel definitley bonded!



We got to spend some nice time with my Aunt Lois, Jake's great-aunt, and it was pretty cool hanging with four generations!



While in Eugene I got to introduce Jake to my friend Jan Kelly, Congressman DeFazio and his district staff. In college I interned in Eugene for Peter and then came to DC to work for him. I was especially close to Jan, we worked on DC tours together, and we got to sneak out for coffee and catch up. We also went to my mom's preschool where Grammy enjoyed showing off Jake. She even tried to run a school-wide parent meeting while holding him. While Grammy worked Jake and I hung out with the kids and tried to help out. All the little girls wanted to see Jake as they showed off their own baby dolls. If I had Jake in my arms or on my shoulder they had their dolls the same way, it was so cute. Then I turned my head and saw a bunch boys being well boys! I looked down at the sweet baby in my arms and realized that one day he'd be one of those boys running around crazy too. It's scary but as the mom's of girls in my PACE group pointed out when I shared this story, they'll have to deal with having teenage girls!

On Sunday my mom had a brunch for us and invited all of our Eugene family and friends including special guest Rachael Dollinger. It was so nice to see everyone and especially to watch my mom's friends go crazy over Jake. At the brunch we were very honored to receive a gift of a quilt from Jan Lichtenstein. It is beautiful and I'm in awe that she was able to make something like that.






Our trip to Oregon was great but we were happy to get home to Daddy and to celebrate Jake's two month birthday.