Sleepless in Atlanta

Please say a prayer that we can all get some sleep. For the past week Nate has been waking up several times a night again and I was hoping that it was just a phase but last night he woke up about 6 times and we were up on the hour every hour towards the end of the night so needless to say we all need some sleep. Nate has also begun to fight sleep. He starts screaming if I take him into his room and attempt to sit in the the rocking chair. He will do anything to avoid naps. He is getting smart to know what is coming but he needs to get some shut eye. We have lots of visitors coming the next few weeks and both Rob and I have really busy work schedules so we are praying for rest and a little bit of energy to get us through.

4 Months old!!!

Nate was squirmy for his 4 month Kermit picture. He decided to eat kermit when I attempted a picture. He loves to put everything in his mouth.

Nate is 4 months old! Today a three year old asked me if Nate was about to grow up. It was so cute but I realized that he already is growing up right before my eyes. He can already roll over and he loves to "stand" so that he can be tall. He is also getting close to sitting up. It seems like every day he learns something new. As you can see in the videos he is ready for action!Lots of energy. Nate loved his first pool adventure!

Nate's first plane trip

Last week Nate went on his first airplane trip. He did great! He go to meet some new friends!

Nate in Action

When Nate gets out of the Bath he loves to hang out in his diaper and chat us up. He loves the Naked time. and his new favorite thing is standing up

The Big Roll.

Stayed tuned for photos from Nate's first plane trip!

The big fat greek Baptism

This past weekend we were invited to Lucas Tiliakos's baptism. Lucas is Nate's buddy. His dad works with Rob and I have become good friends with his mom. Lucas is Greek Orthodox and his baptism was quite an event. The ceremony was very beautiful and very long. Nate was so well behaved. He loved the murals and the beautiful icons in the Greek Church. After the ceremony there was a fabulous party. It was like a scene from my big fat greek wedding. Everyone was so sweet and kissing each other and there were lots of people named Nikos. We loved the party and we felt so honored to be invited! I had to put a picture of Nate's cute outfit before he drooled all over it.

The Other Woman

Blogs are online journals but I primarly use our blog to share photos and videos so that people can keep up with Nate and his daily happenings from across the miles. However, today I am going to blog in the traditional sense.
Reader Beware: I have had very little sleep this week and I am fighting a sinus cold so I cannot promise anything about the quality of this post.

As a previous blog post indicated I am working again. Now let me get this straight; every mother is a working woman but some also work outside the home. My mother did not "work" when I grew up, but she worked and she worked hard! To any man who might read this: Never ask a mother if she works, ask her if she also works outside the home.
For the past month or so I have been leaning on family and friends to help take care of Nate while I would work from home or go into the office. I did not really have a childcare plan worked out. I am usually a planner but I just did not have a plan all set up and ready to go. So after a agonizing about what to do we decided to hire a nanny to come a few days a week. Elvia is Nate's new Nanny. She is great and she really seems to love Nate, which is the most important thing to me. When she first came I was working at home and then came the day that I had to leave and go into the office. I just assumed that it would be like the other days that I left Nate to go into work. However, it was completely different. When I left before I was handing Nate to my mother, Rob's mother, my sister, or a really close friend from church. These are my women, these are my people. I know that they love Nate and they would choose to spend time with him even if I did not have to leave. Elvia is someone I am hiring to love Nate in my absense. Somehow it made leaving him a little more real. That first day I went into the office I handed Nate over to her and got into my car. I was not expecting the tears that followed. I was not prepared, but I guess that are so many parts of motherhood that you can never prepare for. I came home to a happy baby and I knew that I was doing the right thing. This week I had to go into the office several days in a row and when Elvia came through the door one morning and I was happy to have some help since it was a very tiring week for me. Nate's face lit up with a huge smile when she spoke to him. Part of me felt so happy that he was connecting with her and a part of my heart sank because I realized that she is the other woman in his life.

3 months Old!!!

Wow. Nate is 3 months old. You can see his 3 month Kermit the frog picture and I was actually able to capture him mid smile. He is very smiley but my camera is not quick enough to catch his smiles. He always looks like a deer in headlights but I promist he smiles- a lot. He was on a playdate with his budy Lucas and you may have to crook you head to see the picture. Nate also went on a girls night with me. He was such a good boy to sleep in his pack-n-play so mommy could have some girl talk and fondue.

This last picture makes me laugh. Nate is wondering why his wardrobe is a post card for the places his grandparents visited this summer.