A Special Announcement

I am pleased and delighted to announce the birth of my beautiful baby girl!!! Hannah Ilyssa was born Friday, 31 July at 3:46 p.m. She weighed 7 lbs., 11 ozs. and was 19.5" long. And did I mention she's beautiful? Her daddy, big sister and I are all thrilled with her. She's a good baby [I hate that expression, like there's such a thing as a "bad" baby?] and is beautiful, just like her big sis is.

There was a bit of an adjustment at first, but we're settled into a routine now. Mary, our oldest, has been a tremendous help. In fact, her major trauma of the week was not being allowed to change or feed Hannah while Mary got over a little case of the sniffles. When we gave her the "all clear," she beamed. Even dirty diapers are no match for a devoted, loving, helpful older sister.

I discovered several things along this birth and recovery journey. I'll spare you the birth story; I don't feel this is an appropriate forum for that. Among everything else, though, I learned that you only get 6 weeks of maternity leave when someone else is the boss. Being the owner of my own business hasn't left me a lot of time for just sitting with my feet up. If I time it right, however, I have pockets of time throughout the day which are perfectly designed for getting business stuff done.

Another aspect of new motherhood is bone-deep fatigue. Given that, I'm going to stop talking and bid you "g'night, dear readers." In future blog entries, I have exciting news to share with you about the beer soap I've been making, my first wholesale account (woot!), Peter's first start-to-finish soap and whatever other great topics come to mind.