Saying Good-Bye is Hard to Do!

After 9 months in Abu Dhabi, it's time to start saying goodbye to the few friends we've made here! While G and I are super excited to move to Dubai (we track the sea freighter that has our furniture shipment daily), I am a bit nostalgic about leaving Abu Dhabi. Obviously, it will always hold a special place in my heart since my precious Baby L was born here. I mentioned in previous posts that Abu Dhabi has been a bit of a lonely assignment for me because it was hard to meet people while pregnant, but we did make a couple really good friends that we wanted to have lunch with before we moved.

First we had lunch with my coworker's wife, who helped us witness documents at the Embassy for Baby L. I wanted to give Jeanne a little thank you gift for helping us with our embassy documents and I knew she loved pho, so I put together a little care package of spices including my dad's recipe.  We had a fun little lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant out on Al Raha Island with her oldest and youngest kiddos and Baby L. The pho was just ok - it was a bit greasy and there was under-cooked garlic in my bowl, but when the options are limited, you take what you can get! I told Jeanne she is welcome to visit us in Dubai any time!

Jeanne loving on Baby L!

Later this week, we had lunch with Lacey, our photographer here in Abu Dhabi. We've done three photo sessions with Lacey, and I love working with her. She also loves on Baby L like crazy, and I wanted to get a photo of them together so Baby L would know who took all her beautiful baby photos! Sadly, Lacey is moving back to the USA early next year, and we will miss her dearly!

Cuddles with L & L!

Other than that, things have been pretty low key around here. I've been trying to build up my milk supply for when I go back to work, which has taken up a bunch of room in the freezer.  Since our tiny freezer does not auto-defrost, the drawer that I store milk in finally froze shut this week and G had to manually defrost it. We are looking forward to a freezer with auto-defrost...neither of us had seen a freezer without it since the 1980's. When he took the drawer out the frost on the coils was taking up over half the drawer! I know he was hoping to not have to defrost it before we left, but it was really getting out of hand.

G defrosting our tiny freezer so I can keep pumping and storing milk

We're also still trying to bottle train Baby L. It is honestly the worst part of my day because she cries and cries and looks at me with such frustration. G has the same experience when he tries. If I did it over again, I would have put her on a bottle more regularly early on, because now it's a struggle. I wish G good luck when I leave for work because it's not going to be fun for him. :-(

We've started nap training Baby L to get her onto a rough schedule. So far, we've got her regularly going down for a morning nap about two hours after she wakes up...we're still working on the rest of the day. I'm sure as soon as we've figured out a routine for her, she'll have a growth spurt and change...since that's what babies do!

I still can't believe how much she's changed in only two months. The bedtime swaddle went from too big to too small in such a short period of time! Same thing for the two hats that G's mom made for her - too big to snug so quickly! I feel less anxiety about how fast she's growing now that she smiles and coos at us because it's easier to enjoy the new changes and developments. I still miss my super sleepy cuddly newborn, and I'm in love and excited to keep watching my little baby grow.

Baby L - on Day 2 on the left, at 10 weeks on the right.