Texas Travel...with a Newborn

Sorry for my hiatus.  I've been unavailable for the last few days because we have been SO busy.  While studying for the bar exam, the posts were plentiful because I sat in front of my computer all day every day.  When I would take a break, I would write a quick post if Liliana was napping at the same time and I didn't want to wake her.  Now though, we're up and moving around and writing on my blog hasn't been as easy as planned.  That being said, I've missed it even though it's been less than a week!  It's so nice getting your thoughts out on paper (or shall I say screen).

In the last week, we have spent a majority of the time in the car driving around the state of Texas.  We live in Lubbock, Evan's dad lives outside of Dallas, and my family and Evan's mom live in San Antonio.  As you can imagine, this usually accounts for many many hours in the car. Before, it was just a pain in the butt to drive that much but now, with a kid, it's a whole new world.  To make matters worse, we had to take separate cars.  Oy.  Driving from Lubbock to Dallas last Tuesday wasn't so bad.  Liliana stayed in my car for 4 straight hours and slept or kept herself entertained by looking outside the window, but barely cried.  For the remaining hour, Evan took her and she did pretty well but by then was getting sick of being in a car...who can blame her?  Then fast forward to Friday.  I got Liliana for 3 hours and then Evan took her.  The trip from Dallas to San Antonio is normally 5 hours but was 6.5 hours in SO much traffic.  Poor Evan had to endure quite a lot of screaming and crying from the baby.  We have essentially decided that people come to us now.  We have the baby, you wanna see her, come on over!  This traveling thing sucked pretty bad.  Fortunately we won't be driving around for a while because we'll be in San Antonio for an entire month!  Evan is here doing an away rotation with a private practice Urology group and already started this morning.  He's really excited for it all.  He will do clinic a few days a week  and be in surgery a few days a week as well.  He's been practicing his suturing on sponges around the house for the last two weeks...ahh the life of being married to a medical student.

In Dallas, I think I saw my husband fall 20 times more in love with Liliana.  Now, let me make it clear, even before Dallas, Evan was crazy about this little girl.  I know a lot of people say that about their husbands and kids, but really...Evan is obsessed with her.  My husband is a pretty quiet guy when it comes to speaking about his emotions.  He definitely has his opinions on many things in life, but he just is a typical guy...they don't usually say how they feel.  With Liliana that has changed SO much.  He tells me multiple times a day that she's the best baby ever, the most beautiful baby he has ever seen, that he can't believe just how much he loves her, that he doesn't know how he lived before she came along, etc. etc. And even if he's not saying it, I see the love.  He looks at her and smiles while his eyes are filled with love for her.  I love seeing it.  What a fabulous husband and father.  He has been so utterly perfect with her: changes diapers all the time, feeds her, washes anything, it really is a 50/50 system and we have so much fun being a team through it all.

So...back to Dallas.  Evan, for those of you that don't know, was/ is a swimmer and swam competitively for a few years.  He still goes a few times a week and it's by far his favorite hobby.  Naturally, he wanted to get Liliana in the pool as soon as possible.  And the girl LOVES it.  He has put her completely underwater at least 10 times already and she has never even let out half a cry.  She completely relaxes and practices her head control the whole time.  He gets this look of complete pride and happiness when we're in the pool with her.  It is the sweetest thing you've ever seen.

Now that we're in San Antonio we've been driving around the city like crazy because everyone wants to see Liliana.  Everyone has fallen in love with her.   She got to meet her godmother for the first time and Joanna is obsessed with her.  She doesn't really care if we're there...just Liliana.  My aunt, godmother, some of our great family friends, one of my uncles (the Urologist that Evan's working with this month), and some of Evan's family met her for the first time too.  Everybody thinks she's just beautiful and that she resembles her Daddy a lot.  Lately, we've had a couple people say that she resembles my father a little and I can see that.  She has started getting some more features from her Mama.  Her face shape and skin color are definitely Ramirez. 

So that's what we have been up to here.  Evan's starting work, Liliana is going through a growth spurt so wanting to eat even more than usual, and sleeping AMAZINGLY well.  In fact, last night she went 8 hours straight.  Have I mentioned how much I love this little girl? Ha. 

As for me, I already ordered my books to study for my certification and they're on their way.  I'll write about that soon.  Let's just say I'm surprised at how little I know.  I have forgotten EVERYTHING I learned in middle school and high school and it's now my goal to relearn it all.  Let the studying commence!