My Growing Baby

I put this cloth diaper on her today and realized how big she's gotten.... here's a comparison!

At 9 days old...



At 9 weeks, 6 days old!


I just noticed that we put the diaper on her BACKWARDS in the first photo-- OOPS! No wonder it didn't fit well, LOL. :)

Super-Mom?

This morning I feel like Super Mom. Emma had a terrible night last night (she didn't get a good afternoon nap, so she was amazingly fussy and was quite gassy -- so apparently Mommy's experiment with dairy didn't work and I get to go off of dairy again), but after she got to bed, she did ok. She got up at 5:30am with a large poo that Daddy changed, and then was WIDE awake. So I stayed awake with her, fed her around 6:30, and then rocked her back to sleep. I put her down in her crib so we wouldn't bother Joe and he could sleep (usually I wake him up to watch her when I'm pumping), and she stayed asleep with the help of Mr. Bear. So I pumped and now am getting ready to grade papers for my online class.

Not to mention that I pumped almost 12 oz between the two today, and since I started pumping on Feb 16th, I have frozen 93 ounces of breastmilk! I don't think I'm really going to have problems with getting enough milk for the first day of work (knock on wood).

Strange feeling, being the only one awake in the house -- and the one who got the least amount of sleep! :)

Emma "Dancing"

Joe had a friend who brought back a CD from Dubai for him of a musician in the Middle East. Georges Wassouf is a Syrian singer, and apparently his music is quite popular with the teenagers in Syria! The family that Joe stayed with in Damascus had a teenage son that would blast this music at all times day and night.

The song she is "dancing" to (e.g., just randomly swinging her arms around, but I swear it looks like she's in time with the music) is called "Patience is A Virtue" (roughly translated... also could be "Endurance is Good").

Our "One Thing" for This Weekend

This weekend we're going to work on (1) getting her to nap in her crib, instead of on Mommy, and (2) drink from a bottle of breastmilk. I've already pumped for the morning (10oz!) and saved one back to experiment with today. We tried it but she wasn't very interested -- is it wrong for me to be proud of her for spitting out the bottle nipple?! :) At the moment she is napping in her crib and has been long enough that I could shower, download some pictures, and do this post. We'll see how long it lasts.

Today's pictures!

Emma's outfit today! T-shirt is courtesy of Grandma Snoopingmother, and pants courtesy of Ms. Beth.



Emma's snuggle blanket, thank you Mary from Cincy! It's absolutely gorgeous and adorable.



Oh -- and she's slowing down on the poo. Yesterday she had two big ones in the morning and a small one mid-morning, and nothing else the rest of the day. So far today she had a BIG one at 6:30 this morning and that's it. Hopefully this is an indication of a maturing GI tract and not an indication of the vaccinations moving through her system and then she goes back to 5-6 poos a day later.

Emma's Discovery

We have found our fist!

As an aside, Joe and I went and toured two more daycares today, because we really want a place that will take our cloth diapers. We found one we *absolutely* love. It is head and shoulders above the other places. Unfortunately, they won't have an opening until summer. So for the short term, we'll stay at the first place part-time (Monday - Wednesday) and suffer with the disposables, and then as soon as an opening occurs, we'll transfer full-time to the place we love. The first place is very near our house, which is convenient -- the place we love is about 20 minutes away, but totally worth the drive.

Video Time!

This morning Emma & I were playing, and she was giving me these adorable open-mouth "kisses." But as soon as I pulled out the camera, she got shy again! The best I got was her sticking out her tongue. :) Eventually I'll get the cuteness on video!

2 Month Appointment

It went as well as could be expected. My little girl is up to 10 lb 10 1/2 oz!! I'm so thrilled, she gained 9 oz from last Thursday. She's 22 1/2 inches long, and head circumference is 15 inches. She's at the 50th percentile for height, weight and head circumference -- the pediatrician said that's unusual to be at the same percentile for everything. :) My little over-achiever!

The two shots went... well, as well as possible. She cried, Mommy's heart broke, but then I nursed her and everything was right in the world again. She's asleep on my chest again, and I promised her that we would just cuddle all evening. She's also going to get a warm bath as a way to help her little thighs feel better.

We don't have to go back until 4 months, which is lovely! I'm going to just relax and not weigh her again until we get to 3 months (and maybe not even then).

Once I can reach the camera, I'll download the video for today. :)

Big Day!

This is going to be a big day for Emma. We go for our 2-month appointment at 1:45 this afternoon, and she's getting her first set of vaccinations. I'm already sad, thinking about that big needle going into her (twice), but hopefully it will protect her in the long run.

We've had a couple of new things that I haven't blogged about yet. We started using sign language with Emma this week. We've shown her "kiss," "milk," "pee," "poop," "diaper," and "thank you." I think she recognizes "kiss" with the word and the action, but not the rest yet.

Also, today Mommy showered without Daddy home! Yup -- I rocked her to sleep, then sloooooowly transferred her to the bouncer in the bathroom, and had our little bear set to the "rain" sound. Then I turned on the shower and watched to make sure she stayed asleep, and got to shower. I made it all the way through the shower, clean clothes on, and even brushed my teeth before she got restless and woke up. Yay! That's a BIG move, to sleep somewhere other than on Mommy or Daddy for more than a few minutes at a time.

Depending on how upset she is when we get home, I'll update about the pediatrician appointment and try to get a video uploaded that I took this morning.

Poop (Not Again?!)

Well, actually all I want to post about poop is that since I re-introduced some dairy into my diet (pizza the one night, cheese tortellini the next night and sour cream yesterday), Emma's poo has actually been starting to look more like "normal" beastfed baby poo. Intriguing, yes? It's definitely got a LOT more curds in it than before, and although it is still green, it is a lighter shade of green. She's not having as much as as she was initially, so I think as long as I don't over-do it, I can have the occasional glass of milk or cheese. We'll see -- we're still giving it a trial run.

And so this isn't just a post about poop, here are the pictures I took yesterday and one from this morning.

On our way out yesterday! This was after she fell asleep in the car seat... what a peaceful face.



With Ms. Jeannie at the office -- what a big smile!



And with Ms. Sally, looking around and getting the scoop on things at the office.



This morning's outfit! T-shirt courtesy of Grandma Maurine and pants courtesy of Ms. Beth, who generously gave us her daughter's outgrown clothing -- 2+ years' worth!

Busy Day!

No pictures today since she's sleeping on my lap and I can't download pictures at the moment; however, there's time to post! We had a very busy day after a fair night. It took her a long time to get to sleep last night (until 9pm) and once we got her in bed, she slept until 3:15am, and then after a feeding and diaper change, she slept until 6 (although she was fussy/fidgeting from 5am on, so Mommy's been awake since then).

Unfortunately, she didn't take her normal 2-hour nap this morning, just had two cat-naps about 45 minutes apiece. Then around 11am we left the house to go down to campus and have lunch with Daddy! Chipotle was giving away free food to NAMI walk volunteers, so we went there and had a lovely lunch. Luckily, Emma slept the entire time, so she did get about a 2-hour nap from 11:15 until around 1:30 when we went to the new mommy's group. She woke up and played with Mommy during the group, and looked at all the other babies, and she even was smiling and laughing! Then we went and visited everyone at Mommy's work from about 3-4:30pm... unfortunately, this was during what is usually her 3rd nap time.

She's been overly tired this evening and took over an hour of soothing to calm down and finally sleep. Poor gal... she just was worn out. It's amazing how NOT getting her nap makes it harder for her to sleep at night!

So... speaking of consistency and schedules, Mommy's been doing a lot of thinking about work, daycare, pumping, etc. I've been looking at ways to figure out how to make my schedule more consistent and make it work with all my new responsibilities as a parent. What that likely means is finding a new and/or different job that may or may not fit with my career vision, but at the moment, taking care of Emma is much more important. Whether that means less pay, or something not exactly in my ideal career path, that's ok. Joe and I talked it over and I'm looking into some options, so we'll see how it all works out.

Pictures & hopefully a video tomorrow!

Trial and Error

This weekend, I decided that I would try and re-introduce some dairy into my diet and see how it affects Emma. In support of my efforts, Daddy talked me into ordering "good" pizza last night (instead of just heating up what we had in the freezer) and adding extra cheese. We figured that we might as well make it worth it!

Well, so far so good. She hasn't been extra gassy or extra fussy today, and her bottom looks ok. I'm sure that one meal of dairy isn't going to give us a long-term understanding of how it affects her, so we'll do something with cheese or milk again today and see how that goes.

We did have somewhat of a rough night, only because our Kawaii Baby One-Size diapers leaked. Emma likes to sleep on her side against Mommy, and either we're not putting them on correctly or her thighs aren't big enough, because while nursing, she peed and got her nightie, the bed, and Mommy wet. And that happened twice. We double-stuff the diapers because single stuffing seemed like there was too much room around the leg gussets, and still it did this. I'm not sure what we're doing wrong but we love those diapers otherwise.

In any case, she had to have a clothing change TWICE, and that woke her up and it took a bit for her to get to sleep. Then this morning, instead of her normal 2-hour nap, she had two mini-naps of 45 minutes each... just not enough. We were a bit cranky! After some nursing and rocking, and our bear that makes noise, she finally went down for a good nap -- in fact, she was so tired, she let me put her down in the pack-n-play! That's where she is right now, going on 45 minutes of sleep and appears to be still quite out.

Uh-oh.... the bear turned off and we woke up! Better post these quickly...

Playing with Daddy last night


Hanging out this morning! Love the outfit...

2 months old!

Today Emma is 2 months old! Some milestones...

* In double-digits for weight
* Can hold her head up by herself
* Can lift her torso when on her belly (although not for long)
* Has a sleep routine
* Smiling and laughing in response to Mommy & Daddy
* Tracks moving objects with eyes
* Recognizes her name and the word "kiss"
* Rolls onto her side from her back

Contemplating Mommy taking a picture.



The camera bores me!

Conversation with Daddy

I've encouraged Joe to speak in both Arabic and French to Emma because I want her to be exposed to different languages from birth, but also because I'd like her to retain as many phonemes as she can (children lose the ability to speak certain phonemes that are not part of their native language unless they are exposed to them in the first year). So here is a video of Daddy talking to Emma in Arabic (conversation translated below).



Daddy: "Good Morning, my daughter."
Emma: "Good Morning, my father. How are you?"
Daddy: "Good, thank God. And you?"
Emma: "Good, thank God."
Daddy: "What are you doing today?"
Emma: "Nothing."

The Grouchy Ladybug

As part of our bedtime routine, I'm reading Emma a story. We've tried a few different ones, but so far, "The Grouchy Ladybug," by Eric Carle, has been the one that works to put her to sleep.



Poor Grouchy Ladybug.... wants to fight everyone, but they're just not big enough. :) By the time we get to the last page, she's out like a light. HUGE thanks to snoopingmother, who sent us this book!

Another Growth Spurt?

Probably... she's been nursing like a fiend and is on her 3rd nap of the day (napped for 1 1/2 hours with Daddy and then another 1 1/2 hours with Mommy, and is now napping on my chest ... and it's only 4:30). Maybe we'll get up to 10 1/2 pounds before our pediatrician appointment on Thursday.

Since it's been a few days, here's some pictures of my growing girl!

With Ms. Tracy during Thursday's visit! She enjoyed that visit so much. :) (so did Mommy!)


In her carseat, hanging out after we got back from the hospital when we weighed her on Friday.



Today's outfit!



And the d.iaper that she's wearing right now.... too cute!

Ten Pounds!

Yes, my daughter is "officially" in the double-digit weight category. After much fretting about the color of her poo, her weight, her eating, etc., I decided to take her to the hospital to get her weighed. They have a great free infant scale in the back of the mother's clinic there. I also thought this was a good opportunity to do a pre- and post-feeding weight.

Pre-feeding, she was 10 lb, 1.4oz; post-feeding she was 10lb, 3.3oz. So she is definitely getting a good amount of milk when eating! That made me feel happy, especially since this was only the second time she's nursed out in public.

We've gotten into somewhat of a routine now that we're almost 2 months old. We get up between 6:30 and 7am usually (although this morning it was closer to 7:30am; Mommy had been up since 4am, sadly enough... but that's for another post). We eat, and then Mommy pumps an hour later. Today I got 5oz out of my right breast, and 2.5 out of the left (which is the one she had eaten from an hour earlier). That 5oz amazed and scared me! Anyway, so then there's a mid-morning nap, then an early-afternoon nap (which is going on right now on my chest), and a late-afternoon/early evening nap. We start getting her ready for bed around 7pm, and between a bath/reading/rocking ritual, she's bypassed much of her evening fussiness.

I took half of that 5oz and put it in the freezer, and then put the other in the fridge. I want to get an idea of how much fat/cream is in that milk and how much appears to just be thin, watery milk -- some of my frozen milk looks very watery, and some looks creamy. I know the milk consistency changes over the day, but again, just something I can do to reassure myself that the milk has some good cream. I have been wondering about my own diet and how it affects the breast milk -- since I've gone off dairy, I've essentially been on a low-fat, high-fiber diet and maybe lower fat in my diet means less fat in the milk? Who knows.

In any case, I feel happier that since last week's appointment with the pediatrician, she's gained a fair amount and now that she's over 10 pounds, I feel I can relax somewhat. Our next appointment is next Thursday for her 2 month appointment and it's also her first vaccination.

We had a great visit with Ms. Tracy yesterday and I have some pictures to upload, when I get a chance. Right now I'm just going to snuggle with Emma and maybe close my eyes.... 3 hours of broken sleep is just not enough. It does lend itself to a LOT of night time thinking about life, however!

Playing with Mommy

Lengthy video (2 minutes) for those of you with dialup, but again, totally worth it! (in my opinion)

8 weeks, 3 days

That's how old my little girl is! How time is flying by, and I'm not ready for her to be growing up this fast. But the bigger she gets, the more adorable things she does. Just a few updates.

* Last night went pretty well! She fell asleep on her OWN at 7pm, and Mommy ended up waking her up a little later to change a diaper, feed her and put her in her nightgown. Then once she was in bed with Mommy (around 10:30), we woke up only twice to eat and change very, very, very wet diapers. Well, I woke up -- she slept through both! She's been sleep nursing and will stay mostly asleep through a diaper change (although she is crying/fussing, I know she's still asleep). Now, we've been up since about 5:30am because she had a poo that needed to come out and was bothering her (and poor thing, it didn't come out until 8am and it was HUGE -- and yes, still green), so that's tiring but ok. She's in the middle of her mid-morning nap here on my chest.

* Mommy pumped both breasts again this morning in between her feedings, and got 2.5 oz from one and 3.0 oz from the other. There's officially over 13 oz of breast milk in the freezer, yay! I'm not sure how big of a freezer stash I really need or want, but I just feel good that my body is easily responding to the pumping and still producing enough an hour later for her next feeding. Now, the big thing is ordering a hand's-free bra because trying to manage pumping and pushing buttons and such is a pain in the behind. :)

* A good friend is coming over to visit this morning, and I am so excited. She's been amazing and so supportive through my whole ttc and pregnancy frustrations, even while she was dealing with her own struggles. AND I got a wonderful couple of packages in the mail on Tuesday from Maurine, which had the most adorable t-shirts for Emma and some delicious chocolate for Mommy (and I'm not sharing with Joe!! Heheheh). I'm blessed to have such good people in my life!

Emma & Her Mirror

Smiles & Giggles

Emma is smiling and laughing quite frequently now, and she'll smile to get a response out of us. Some of the things she'll respond to is when Daddy or Mommy ask if she "wants kisses," and she knows the word "kiss" means she's going to get a big kiss on the cheek, lips or chin. Sometimes she'll even turn her head when we're going for a cheek so she can give us kisses too.

Today I learned that she likes Mommy's impressions! I did a (very bad) French accent, and she was giggling at me, and then I did a Fargo-esque Minnesota accent, and she liked that too! I guess I'm going to have to figure out a few more for her.

She's still got a little snot and when she's crying hard, she'll cough, but generally she's a lot better. Her poo is still green, but there's more yellow-ish stuff mixed in, and I think I'm just going to relax as long as she's pooing ok. We're still getting a LOT of very wet diapers, so she's definitely eating enough.

I'm starting my work morning routine, so today we got up at 6:30, and got ready for our day and ate, and the Mommy pumped about an hour after she ate. I got just about 2.5 oz from each breast, so that's 5 more oz for the freezer. I'm hoping to get a little freezer stash, just enough that if Joe and I want to go out to eat or to a movie, or if I ever need to go to a workshop and can''t pump, she's covered.

And now for your viewing pleasure, today's outfit!


The onsie says "I Love Hugs", and she did have matching blue pants that she was wearing. We haven't had any spitup today so far, so we're still on Outfit #1! :)

Daddy's Princess

We had an outfit change mid-morning because of some lovely spitup, so here's Daddy's Little Princess!


I have chosen NOT to post the poop pictures here, out of sensitivity to those of you who might really not want to see poop pictures! :) But for those of you who are curious, you can go to my LJ blog post and look behind the cut.

Tummy Time

This is from a few days ago... about 1 minute, 38 seconds (for those of you with dialup, it'll take a while to load) long but just cute! I have another video from today that is adorable that'll take a while to upload.

I love the little snuffle/snort she does. :)

Poop (Part 2)

Bear with me, but I need to blog about Emma's poop again. So three weeks ago (or so) I decided to go off of all dairy products, thinking Emma had a sensitivity to it because she was so gassy and was having some diaper rash. I also changed detergents from Tide Free & Clear to Charlie's Soap, thinking that might be making the diaper rash worse. (Note: The diaper rash was VERY minor, just some redness on her bum, but I wanted to nip it in the bud) At the time I went off dairy, she was still having lovely breastfed baby poos -- yellow & curdy.

Two weeks ago, her poo started turning green. It ranged from light green initially, then to a darker green. She was having some foamy green poos, which is a "classic" sign of a foremilk/hindmilk imbalance, but I was already doing block feeding (one breast at a time) and didn't know what to do. I started feeding from one breast exclusively for a 3-hour block (instead of two) and that seemed to help the foamy green poos; however, we're still having green poop.

So then I thought it was the virus that she has. She started getting congested about two weeks ago, so the timing fits, and her cold has gotten worse this past week. In fact, she has been coughing for 5 days now, but is finally getting better. Yesterday was a good day regarding her cold symptoms. But the poo is still green.

So now I'm wondering if she's got a soy sensitivity, since I was drinking soy milk as a replacement for cow's milk. Not every day, mind you, but probably every-other day. I ran out of soy milk yesterday, so I'm just not going to buy any more and see how that goes.

The poo is still curdy and soft, but it's just... well, green! Not that pretty healthy breastfed baby poo that we initially had for the first month of her life. I'm frustrated, because for the first month of her life she wasn't sensitive to dairy. So was the diaper rash stuff just from the soap? Maybe the gas was from something else? If I go back on dairy, will that help her poo? Ugh. As an aside, she also has gained weight *very* slowly the last two weeks. From two weeks ago when she was 9lb, 8 1/2 oz, then at the doctor's office six days later she was only 9lb, 10 oz, and then last night when we weighed her on our scale, she was only 9lb, 15 1/2 oz. So I don't know if the poor weight gain is because she's sick, because I'm not feeding her correctly, or just a slow growth time for her.

Mommy is frustrated.

I was going to take a picture, but I needed to wash diapers ASAP this morning so I will later. So, my dear readers, be prepared to see a poo picture later on today at some point. :) And again, if any of my experienced Mommy readers have some thoughts, I would be very grateful! Going on three weeks of green poo is just something I'm worried about.

And so this isn't just a text post, a few pictures:

Wearing one of my childhood sweaters (thank you for sending it Grandma Miller!) yesterday because it was too cold for a short-sleeved shirt.



Snowfall on the table from this morning (this is after we did have some melt last week, and then the 7-8 inches we got in the last 24 hours).



Our outfit this morning! Hello everyone!

Daddy's Lap

Apparently is the *best* place to be in the house. :)


We're finally feeling better this morning, thank goodness! Here she is (with an awesome outfit!) -- Happy 8 weeks old!

Mommy's Thoughts

While Daddy is upstairs, getting Emma to sleep, I thought I would pop back on and just put a few of my rambling thoughts here tonight. As much as I enjoy posting the pictures, I do want to share some more meaningful (or not) things.

Tomorrow my daughter will be 8 weeks old. It does not seem possible that she is already this old, yet she is still so little and needs us so much. She's got so much personality already, and I cannot believe how much I love her. Every day she does something that amazes me, or makes my heart swell with joy. With that also comes the intense worry and frustration when she is upset and Mommy can't "fix" what is wrong. Today, for example, she was coughing so hard and it just hurt her *so* much, and all I can do is hold her and rock her. What a helpless feeling, knowing I can't make the hurt go away, but at least I can be there for her.

I'm so proud of Joe and I for some of the small things we're doing for her. We're going on almost a month of exclusive cloth diapering, and he's as proficient at it, if not more, than I am! Today we had gone 48 hours without doing a load of diapers, which is wonderful for us and tells me that she's getting better at pottying too. He's so good at soothing her, and is reading in both Arabic and French to her. I'm happy to know that she's grown so much on just my breastmilk, and that breastfeeding is very soothing to her too. We've even started to master sleep/dream nursing.

Every time we dress her, or look at things in her room or around the house, I'm just amazed at the generosity of friends and our family. Emma is so loved, and cared for by so many people, and my heart is so full. I hope and pray that someday we can give her a sibling, but even if we cannot, she will have a huge number of people in her life to play with and enjoy. What a great blessing!

Emma & Valentine

One last picture post for today.... Emma with her Bunny Valentine from Cousin Debbie! :)

Emma & Valentine

One last picture post for today.... Emma with her Bunny Valentine from Cousin Debbie! :)

Happy Valentine's Day

Our Valentine's Day outfit...



How cute are these socks?! These are from Cousin Debbie, thank you!

Bibs Galore

While Emma was being entertained by the mobile, Mommy decided we needed a bib fashion show. We've got so many! This is all we were able to photograph before she got tired of Mommy's antics. :)

These two are from Cousin Debbie.





This one was from Grandma & Grandpa Lewis.



This one was from our friend Mike in Florida.


Can't remember who got her this one.


And last, but not least, one from Dean in MD.

Bedtime Last Night

And One More...

The video that took so long to upload is finally ready! I'll have another one for tomorrow, but don't want to take the time to upload it tonight.

Bedtime Ritual

So for the last two nights, we've done a similar routine and (crossing my fingers here) it has worked! Goes something like this...

* Bath (or washing her face and hands with warm water)
* Changing into bedtime clothes
* Storytime with Mommy or Daddy
* Rocking in the big chair
* Nursing (somewhere in the mix)

Last night she fell asleep on my chest, and I watched the Olympic Opening Ceremony with her there, and when I transferred her to the bed around 11, she didn't wake up. We even did dream nursing and it totally worked, yay!

Right now she's sleeping on my chest again and has been for about 45 minutes, and my hope is that she'll keep sleeping for another hour and then I can again transfer her to bed, get myself ready for bed and then join her. Of course, if I keep sneezing, she's going to wake up!

We've learned that she sleeps best when warmer, rather than cooler (which is against what most of the books say but whatever), and she, of course, sleeps better with Mommy. She also sleeps better when she's had good naps during the day. Her preference is to sleep on her tummy or side, but at night once she's deep asleep, we roll her on her back.

Our routine over the last few days has been pretty good, even with her being sick. We get up between 7-8am, get a nap around 10am, another nap around 1 or so, and then another nap late afternoon. She's a MUCH happier baby when she gets several very good, long naps. We've even started getting smiles and laughs in the late afternoon, which is new for her. Let's hope the routine continues to work.

And, because an all-text post about Trouble is boring without a picture, here's another one! This is from yesterday, when she was watching her mobile. :)



Have I mentioned how much I love being a mother?!

PS... tonight's book was "Love You Forever" recommended by leftygirl02 and snoopingmother. I will say I didn't get through it without crying, but I don't think Emma noticed.

Still Sniffly

Mommy & Emma still have our colds. Yesterday she had a hacking cough that just broke my heart every time I heard it. We put her upright in her bouncer in our bathroom and both of us took showers, and then later on that day she got a warm bath. We've also been running the vaporizer at night to help her breathing. She seems a little better today, but I seem worse. Hopefully our colds run their course and are done in a few days!

Some pictures for fun!

Emma yesterday asleep during Daddy's shower.



Emma in her carseat before we ran a few errands yesterday, wearing the coat that Mims got her. She loves having a hood MUCH better than wearing a hat! LOL.



Daddy got another new camera lens that takes super-close pictures, so here's one that he took.



And from today, our Jolly Baby!



Compare this to a little over five weeks ago. :)

Picture Post

I feel like I'm posting too many pictures, but there are so many good ones!

Mommy's second, "fancy" wrap (just a nice patterned cloth).



Remember this soaker Mommy made?



Here it is, in use!




And Emma wearing an adorable shirt! I believe this is one that Aunt Ann and Cousin Abby got her.

Crying

I meant to post this last week, and never did. When I teach about crying and infant communication in my Human Development class, I show this graph of infant crying. Luckily for MOST infants, it peaks at 6 weeks of age. I think if Emma wasn't sick, she would be on the downslide too. :)

"Bink"

Daddy was having more fun than she was, I think. :)

First Cold

Well, Emma has her first BAD cold. She's been congested and stuffy for about a week, but last night it got worse and it's turned into a cough and terrible congestion. She's having problems breathing while nursing, but we've figured out a way to manage it. She's not running a fever and isn't any more fussy than normal, but Mommy is worried -- unfortunately, Mommy isn't feeling great either (sore throat and stuffy nose). We're running the vaporizer at night and brought it down here for the day, and am just going to give her loads of fluids (at least, as much breastmilk and she will drink!), and watch her for a day.

I do have a super-cute video that we took this morning to share, as soon as I upload it. Then it's back to cuddling my sick little one and Momma needs to drink her orange juice!

Snowstorm Part 2

We had a second round of the snow today, I think we got maybe another 5 inches today and are predicted for another 5-10 through the next 24 hours.

Emma had a *terrible* night last night. I started to get her ready for bed around 7pm and she essentially cried from 7pm until 11pm, when she finally fell asleep from exhaustion. I'm not ashamed to admit that from 10pm on I cried with her, and essentially cried all night long, and most of the morning. I feel completely overwhelmed. This parenting thing comes in waves... sometimes I feel completely competent and able to take care of her, and other times I feel like I just have no clue what I'm doing. I think I got 2 hours of sleep last night, she got more but was restless. She got a 2-hour nap this morning but has only catnapped since then, so who knows what tonight will be like.

It's times like these where I want MY Mommy. :(

During one of her mini-naps, Daddy & I put on the monitor and ran outside to try and shovel out the driveway. The snow was PERFECT for a snowman, so we made one and then when Emma woke up, I bundled her up and we went out for a few minutes (literally, we were out there for 5 minutes). Here are the pictures....

Compare this with the pictures from a few days ago... old snow plus new snow on the table.



Mommy, Emma and the snowman!



Daddy, Emma and the snowman! (you notice she's screaming in all of the pictures -- she was not a fan of the snowsuit OR the snow!)

The Smile

"Long" video (for those of you with dialup!) but totally worth it. :)

Rashes and Excuses

Mommy thinks she was looking for an excuse to go to the pediatrician anyway, just to make sure we are still doing OK!

So Emma's had this little rash on her head, and now it's all over her head, neck, shoulders, and upper torso. That was enough for Mommy! Considering we're supposed to get another 6-8 inches of snow on Tuesday and Wednesday, I called and go in for a "sick baby" appointment. The pediatrician reassured me that it's completely normal, checked out Emma anyway because I mentioned she's had a little bit of a cold over the last week, and told us that we were doing a great job. In fact, said that she's doing great because she lifted her head up while on her belly, and smiled at the doctor.

The only thing that worried me was when they weighed her, she was only 9lb, 10oz.... last Tuesday she was 9lb 8 1/2 oz. :( So only 1 1/2 oz gain in the last 6 days? Now, she has been sick and not nursing great. Plus, she hadn't eaten for almost 3 hours when she got weighed AND had made a massive poo before we left, but still! Mommy was sad. I tried to reassure myself that it was a different scale (manual scale at their office -- I'd been using a digital scale at the hospital to do her weekly weights), and that probably was something too.

So we'll go to the hospital tomorrow and do our normal weekly weight. In the meantime, she seems to eat better doing side-lying, and we'll do that from here on out until she can breathe a little better. We'll keep up the humidifier at night, which has also helped. I know it's a little obsessive, but I'm not going to stop weighing her weekly until she gets over 10 pounds. Just something to help me relax. :)

Will try to do some more pictures and/or video later -- we've had a busy morning!

Our "One" Thing

Today our "one" thing was to nap in the crib for longer than half an hour -- and we did it, TWICE! We have definitely learned that Emma needs 3 naps during the day to be a happy baby.... one around 9-10 in the morning, then one around 12-1, and then another one between 4-5pm. Then the goal is to get her to bed around 7-8pm and keep her there until 7am the next morning.

We got the naps down today, yay! And she's been a much happier baby. We've been happier too! Here she is, napping in her crib in an outfit she has not worn before because it was too big! Oh -- AND we took a bath today. It's been a busy, busy day for all of us (including Daddy, who shoveled the foot of snow we got off the driveway and sidewalk, and Mommy, who did a load of diapers, Emma's clothing, and 5 loads of Mommy & Daddy laundry, plus cooked dinner and made brownies).

New Video Format

Done with our webcam... let's see how this looks.

Today's Videos

We're working on a way to get the same high quality videos that are a smaller file size and therefore a faster upload and download... these took 1 1/2 hours to upload! Daddy has a solution figured out, we'll try it tomorrow.

Early this morning....




Playing with Daddy!

Snowy Fun!

Daddy is outside shoveling, and Mommy is inside doing laundry while the little one is sleeping. It was a rough night last night -- we lost electricity for 2 hours, and that threw off Emma's schedule. Plus, there was a lot of worry about "what if" (e.g., what if the electric doesn't come back on, how do we keep Emma warm, what do we do if we run out of diapers, etc). Luckily, we all just snuggled in bed together and didn't have to worry about the rest.

Here's what it looked like at 6pm after about 8 hours of snowing...



And at 8am this morning!


Videos are forthcoming of our morning fun with Emma... still trying hard to capture that smile and giggle of hers!