first shots, playing with her tongue

Well, I went the other day to write a blog entry and got a BIG message saying that they no longer offer free blogging accounts and that your blog will expire at the end of the year. :( So, I asked other message boards I'm on for opinions as to what would be a good site to blog on. This site won, hands down. :) I spent the last several days moving two years' worth of blog entries to this new spot. Finally finished this morning. It was actually a good thing, overall, because I got kindof tired of the way the old one looked and acted. :P I hope to be able to put more links and pictures in there now.

Lydia's doing fine. She was 3 months and 1 week at her appointment, and weighed a whopping 11 lbs 2 oz and was 22.5" long and had a 15.5" head. Shots were NOT fun. The rotavirus one wasn't too bad since it was oral, but while I was giving it to her she had a look on her face like "ew gross, mom, WHAT are you trying to feed me? This isn't milk!" Then came the regular shots. She screamed from the pain of the first poke, and before she could recover from that wound, she screamed even harder (I didn't know that was even possible) at the second and third pokes in the other leg. But then 20 seconds later she was fine. I didn't even nurse her, just rocked her a tiny bit and she was quiet and looking around. I took her home and she ate and went down calmly for a nap. She seemed to be doing OK so I hadn't given her any tylenol yet. But then she woke up 2 hours later SCREAMING. I gave her tylenol then even though she didn't have a fever since she was obviously in pain, but even after the dose, she still screamed for an hour before she was halfway calm enough to nurse. She didn't scream like that again, but 5 hours after the first dose I gave her another dose, and took her temp right before that second dose, and it was 101.5. The office had asked me to call if her temp got over 102. It was bedtime by then, so I took her into bed with us and she nursed and slept all night. In the morning, her temp was down to 99.5 and she was in much better spirits (started smiling and cooing again) so I didn't give her any more tylenol after that 2nd dose. And now that it's been several days, she's acting like she's never had any shots at all, but I didn't know she'd wake up screaming in pain like that. Most everyone else on here who mentioned baby's shots say that "they did fine" or "they only cried a little bit" so I'll probably mention DD's reaction at her next appointment.

But otherwise she really is doing so well. :) Here's a picture of her:



You can see her sticking out her tongue. One of her favorite things to do is "talk" (mostly just an aaaaah sound so far), and when she does this she will stick out her tongue ALL the way, and turn her volume ALL the way up. I am amazed that such loud talking can come out of such a teeny baby. She's so funny, too, because she will just be playing along with her tongue, and then ALL OF A SUDDEN she's at full volume. It's so cute. :) Here's a video:



She finally seems to be grabbing things "on purpose." Her play gym has fishes that dangle from it, and the tails of them are crinkly. She will play on it and "talk" to them, and I'll be over doing something, and then I'll hear the crinkle and look over and she has found a tail and is squeezing on it. :) Her gym is also rectangle-shaped, and I'll lay her down, and several minutes later I'll have to go adjust her, b/c she will have rotated herself 90 degrees around. On her tummy, she can hold her head up decently, and usually does an "airplane" thing where she'll hold up her head, arms, AND legs. But she still doesn't roll over either way yet. OH and yesterday morning I gave her her first shower. :) I got in first and had DH give her to me and washed her, then he took her and dried her off and dressed her. :) She loved it, and it was so much easier than a bath.

on a big sewing kick

I'm still working on my big list of organizing, but I did manage to get my fabric sorted and inventoried, so now I am on a sewing kick before I tackle the rest of my "other" organizing. A few weeks ago I did sew a nursing dress b/c I was tired of wearing two-piece outfits to church. But lately, I have sewn another nursing dress and a matching little baby outfit (complete w/ dress, hat, and little bloomers). Tonight I am also starting a project that may be interesting. I'm making a "twist top" w/ nursing access. I'm on a sewing list and one of the listmembers has instructions for taking a regular pattern and modifying it both for twistiness and for nursing access. I didn't have a suitable plain shirt pattern so I'm using a maternity pattern. If it comes out OK, then I may make a couple more... I had 3 choices of fabric to do it up in and had a hard time deciding.

Baby L is growing. I missed her 2-month appointment due to a clerical error on my dr's office's part, but I was able to take her in and get her weighed and measured. She's now 10 lbs 9 oz and 22" long. She continues to delight me every day.

I'll get to visit family next week. I've been sending my parents weekly pictures of how she is growing, but I've held off the past couple of weeks so they can be "surprised" when I show up in person (by how she looks, not by my showing up... they ARE expecting me. lol). I can't wait. :)

baby girl learns some new tricks

Ahh, I just love my baby more and more each day. She is so wonderful. She's learned a few more "tricks" lately. First one is that she found her thumb and sucks it on rare occasions. But she does so with an open hand instead of a fist, and it looks so cute. I'm used to older children sucking it w/ a fist and the open hand was strange to me.

Another trick she learned is to finally start cooing regularly. She does it w/ a "gargly" sound and is so adorable. And she is also smiling several times a day now, both to me and to hubby. She is such a joy to us and we love her so much. It's almost like she changes day to day at this point. I have to remember to take more pictures before she changes.

I am still active in my work at home thing. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow I'm supposed to take 12 hours' worth of calls for Valentine's day gifts... I'm not sure if I'll make it. There were system issues yesterday and I could only get an hour in, so I need to average 5.5 hours each day. I hope I can make it, but if not I'm not going to worry terribly about it. Hubby and I are going to celebrate V-day on Thursday since Wednesday is church. We ARE taking the baby with us. It's her first Valentine's day so she should get to celebrate too. :)

never thought about "this" part of nip-ing

First off, for those who don't know, NIP-ing is "nursing in public." lol.
So since it's winter and I have a big organization list to do at home (plus I'm addicted to ovusoft and other message boards [l]), I haven't gotten out much. But there is a small local AP group and we try to get together every so often. When the weather's warm we let our kids play at a park and the moms sit and chat. But yesterday it was in the 30's so we went to the mall instead. I brought both a sling and a mei tai since the MT is easier to carry her in, but the sling is easier if she needs to nurse.

So for the first part of the outing she slept. Then a bit later she woke up and I changed her to the sling and got her all situated and we walked and nursed. One of the other laides said "that is so awesome, you can't see ANYthing, it just looks like she's sleeping." This lady has two nurslings and said that she hasn't been able to be that discreet yet.

But the funny part of the story came at the end, when DD was done eating and I was getting put back together. I was trying (in vain) to slip my breast pad back into my bra and since DD was still right there in the sling, I didn't really have enough room. It ended up technically being in the bra, but being waaaay off-center. I didn't worry about it and would fix it later. But one of my other friends saw me struggling to get it in there, and teased me and said "Ma'am what are you concealing there?" pretending to be like a store security or something. :P So I teased back and said "Would you like me to SHOW you?" lol

Not a whole lot else is going on. Our washer needed a minor repair and even though it was out of warranty, they still were able to do a one-time courtesy coverage of it. Hubby's car is in the shop again, hopefully we'll be able to get it back early next week. Lydia is growing well. I made a montage of our wedding/my pregnancy/her birth/her first 9 weeks. http://tinyurl.com/2cpt3y is the link and it is SO cute.

i thought the postpartum hormones would be lessened by now

Well, a couple of weeks after Lydia arrived, I was having STRONG postpartum hormones. WAY stronger than in pregnancy. I would be crying happy tears at the silliest little things. The strong feelings gradually subsided, though, and I thought everything was semi-back to normal.

Well, this morning I threw a load of clothes into the washer. The machine filled up with water and then... nothing. I fiddled with the knobs, I moved the clothes around, I even flipped the circuit breaker even though it hadn't been tripped. Nothing. This is a bummer, because later today I was definitely going to have to wash a load of diapers. Not to mention the fact that the load IN the washer was now soaked. I sure didn't fancy toting a load of wet clothes and a baby to the laundromat and then making daily trips out there b/c of all the other things that need washing when you have a baby. I had just done a ton of laundry the previous week, too. It seemed that the machine wasn't recognizing that the lid was closed. The worst part about this is that our washer is 13 months old... and the warranty is for 12 months.

I called hubby at work and cried when I told him what happened. Then I called Lowe's and cried when I told the appliance salesman what had happened. Then I called the repair company that they recommended and cried when I gave her my address and phone number. She said that if we hadn't sent in our registration card then she could have "adjusted" the purchase date a little so that the visit would be covered under warranty, to help us out, but since Whirlpool already has our purchase date then there's nothing she can do. I got off the phone with her and called hubby again to give him the update and cried b/c we were so responsible in sending in our card on time.

The repair person is coming out in a week, but in the meantime the lady did help me out. She suggested slamming the lid, and that tripped the switch and the washer proceded with its cycle. So at least I can do laundry between now and Tuesday and not have to tote things out to the laundromat. But the repair person is coming out anyway to fix the switch. Which I guess is a good thing. I really can only slam the lid so many times before something else is likely to break. Hopefully this will be the only service call for our machine for a VERY long time.

how to melt a new mother's heart

On 16 January 2007, Lydia smiled. She has been smiling in her sleep since birth, but this smile was when she was awake. She did it a couple of times right then, but then the last 10 days or so passed and she seemed to "forget" how to smile. I even spent the last 3-4 days smiling at her pretty much the whole time she was awake, in hopes that she would imitate me, but nothing happened. Until today. I was holding her in my arms and smiling at her like usual, and she smiled back! And it was an even bigger smile than on the 16th. Then she did it a few more times right in a row. I was so excited and happy that I almost cried. :D But then shortly after that she got tired and I had to lay her down for her nap. lol :P

We've just yesterday started using cloth diapers. We are using Fuzzi Bunz and so far we like them. I can hardly tell that they are wet until I take out the (sopping wet) insert... the inside of the diaper just feels warm and very slightly damp. I haven't yet washed a load of them, I'll probably do that first thing in the morning... hopefully I will still like them after they come out of the dryer. :p

I got on a small sewing kick the past few weeks in between our travels (a local trip while the power was out for days and an out of state trip for a funeral), and sewed up a coat with a zip-in panel so that when I wear Lydia in a carrier, the coat will fit around both of us. I also sewed a baby carrier, and a nursing dress. I was getting SO tired of wearing two-piece outfits and I love the dress. Next I need to hopefully finally finish the last two sheets for Lydia's crib, sew up some cloth wipes, and then I'll probably inventory the rest of my fabric before starting more projects (baby clothes and nursing clothes).

Hubby's job is still going fine. He has a new district manager now who is MUCH better than the last one. The last one gave him a very unfavorable annual review but it means very little, b/c the new DM has seen what hubby does and how he works. Sometime this year we're probably moving with his job again, but as to where we don't quite know yet. I also am still working at home intermittently at LiveOps. Opportunities within that venture keep coming my way and I am glad that I didn't give up on it a while back when I was feeling burned out. I haven't worked a lot lately b/c of the travelling and power outages, but will probably start up again this weekend. Lydia's starting to get into a little routine so I can somewhat plan when to work.

Not a whole lot else is going on. I'm just waiting on 1 more W2 and then we can do our taxes. With Lydia's birth last month, we should be able to get an even bigger refund than normal. Like hubby's bonus a few months ago, we have plans for some of the money, but most of it will go into savings.

Otherwise everything is going fine. I'm still loving motherhood. :) I had my postpartum checkup on Monday and my tear healed well. We also weighed Lydia there too and she is 9 lbs 7 oz. Growing slowly, but growing. :)

time for another big purge

Shortly before our baby arrived, we did a giant purge of the apartment and sent all the things over to a friend's house for their garage sale/auction. Hubby's district manager said that for sure we would be moving sometime this year, so on our road trip we discussed purging. I used the words "getting organized" also... but did use the word "purging" multiple times as well, clearly (or so I thought) implying that we would be getting rid of some things.

Well, hubby is on this kick of getting up at 6:30 and wanting ME to get up with him at that time, no matter how late I'd been up trying to get baby to sleep the night before or how often I was awake with her. He doesn't have to leave for work until 9:30 or so. This morning he did get up at 6:30 and I got up at just after 9, and he hadn't gotten anything ready for work yet. During the morning, he had been "organizing" some of the cabinets and the refrigerator... but nothing was purged. The cabinets all have their stuff right at the beginning now and nothing towards the back (like the spices and baking things, mostly). The items that were in the cabinet are now in stacks out on the countertop.

What I meant by organizing is more of a purge, of random papers and things that we haven't used since we've been here, and going through our box of miscellaneous electronic items and sorting those out, and matching up the CD's with their cases and getting rid of duplicates, etc. I really didn't mean for our organization to be just a big moving-around of the same stuff we already have. I'm still sortof unpacking from our trip today but will start the purge today and have a stack for hubby to go through tonight.

He does mean well, though, and definitely has good intentions, and he is totally convinced that he did a good thing. And he did say that I could put it back if I wanted to, so that's something I'll be doing today too. So much to do before church tonight.

new year so different from last year

Wow, I can't believe I've had this blog for a whole year already! I haven't written in it as regularly as I would have liked to, but maybe that'll change this year. :)

Lydia is doing well. It's FINALLY starting to sink in that I'm a mommy. She is a month old today and still tiny. She still fits in newborn diapers and newborn clothes, and the 0-3 month clothes are still so big on her. We had a nice visit last week with my family. Mom kept wanting me to give her a pacifyer all week though saying that I would regret it if I didn't ever give her one. But so far Lydia is quite content chewing on her hands occasionally and her frequent spitups seem to have lessened in quantity and frequency, so I'm not giving her a pacifyer yet. Our nursing relationship is going too well for me to potentially mess it up by giving her one of those.

The visit with my family went well too. All of my mom's side (her sis and bro and her parents) were there at some point during the week, so they all got to meet Lydia. Two of my dad's aunts were also in town so they got to see her too... although one of them mentioned that some peanut butter would make her fists taste better while she chewed on them. My grandmother also had pics of my own birth 28 years ago, and my parents drove home from the hospital just holding me in their arms. I'm not sure that I ever had a carseat b/c of some other early memories I have. It's always interesting how things change from generation to generation.

The first night we were at my parents, Lydia would NOT go to sleep. Turns out that she was cold, so hubby and I took her into bed with us, and she went right to sleep. :) Later in the week, I was taking a nap and co-sleeping again since I had just fed her and didn't really want to get ALL the way up to do that, and my mom came into the room and tried to steal her from me for some more guests that had come over. Since Lydia was right there, I was able to keep my arm protectively over her and reassure my mom that I would bring Lydia out in a little bit.

Right now we still haven't quite made it home yet. Father in law had to have some unexpected surgery so we are staying with his parents for a few more days and hope to be back home on Monday. While we're in town, hubby is working at a store that's about 2 hours away from here. The current manager at THAT store is not doing well at all, and has 6 weeks to get the store in shape or he's gone. Hubby is working there today and tomorrow to help that store arrange the products the way they're supposed to be arranged, and try to help the manager stay there... but in the meantime he and I both are possibly hoping to move there and hubby can manage that store. Then we will be only 4 hours from my family and 2 hours from hubby's instead of 10 and 6, respectively. So anyone reading out there, keep your fingers crossed for us. In May we will have been where we're at for 2 years, and that is the timeframe that the previous district manager had expected us to stay here. The store that hubby is at is in a small-ish town, there's a wonderful church there, and the housing cost is nice and low, so it would definitely be a place we wouldn't mind settling permanently. We would very much miss where we're at, though.

my first truly sleep deprived night

Our baby is HERE!!!! Cliff Notes version: Baby girl Lydia Celeste born Tuesday night, December 5th. 12 hours of labor, entirely unmedicated. We had her 3 hours after we got to the hospital. Weighed 7 lbs 3 oz and was about 21 inches long. :)
Here is the full version of my birth story, with a link to pictures.

Lydia is 18 days old today and I wonder if she may be starting her 3-week growth spurt early. From about noon yesterday all the way through 5:00 this morning, she was wanting to eat every hour to hour and a half. I really wanted to bring her into bed with us so I could sleep and nurse at the same time, but I haven't quite learned how to feed her while lying down yet. I barely had time to eat, and could only take a few bites in between nursing sessions. I was able to get her to nap in the sling and I was excited about that, because previously whenever I'd put her in the sling while she was awake, she would get mad. She did get mad yesterday too, but I was standing with her and swayed back and forth about twice, and then all of a sudden she was asleep. That didn't help MY sleep situation any, but at least Lydia was able to take a nap.

After 5 am, she did let me sleep all the way to 10, so that was my sleep for the night. Now I'm up for the day and we'll do it all again. I had wanted to do some of my work at home stuff today but don't know if I'll be able to or not. We'll have to wait and see if Lydia will sleep later, and also if there happens to be work available while she is sleeping. I am going to put her swing together and see how she likes that. I haven't "needed" it yet and was wondering if we would. I hope she finds it calming.

already missing work a little, and "crazy" mom to be

Yesterday and today are my first two days REALLY off work. Today is of course Saturday but yesterday felt like Saturday too. I have been working for about 12.5 years, with a brief break to "try" college (but that's a story for another blog lol). I pretty much always knew that when the time came I would be a stay at home mom, but now that the time is nigh, I actually really miss working. I miss my coworkers from all 3 of the jobs I've had while here in Missouri, I miss the work, and I'll definitely be missing the pay. LOL. We are going to easily be able to live just on hubby's income, but I'll still do my LiveOps (my work at home gig) thing here and there for some extra money. I'll have a shower sometime this week (possibly tomorrow) and have asked friends who have children already what I still need, and my hostesses have asked for that list. I have registered also but most of my registry items are non-essential. I purposely left off things like socks, clothes, blankets, etc b/c in my limited experience, people will get those things for you anyway. But anyway about work. I left so far before my due date so I could have some time to "nest" and finish things up around the house before the baby comes, but for some reason even having all this time off isn't motivating me to do that. I have sewing to do and sewing supplies to organize, and a hospital bag to pack (especially with the roads still frozen... I don't want to have to send hubby home 5 times for this and that). But so far I've only been motivated to take a nap. :P I think later tonight and tomorrow and so forth I'll be a little more motivated... this afternoon I have an hour and a half shift for LiveOps and recently even the half-hour shifts tired me out, but hopefully I'll feel energized and motivated afterwards and can do some sewing after dinner tonight. Or tomorrow. :P

My mom has been calling every day wanting news... makes me wish that I had stuck to my original plan of telling people I was 2 weeks less along than I actually was. It would have been a good plan, too, if they didn't wrangle the fact that I was pregnant out of me when I was home at 5w4d for my grandfather's funeral. If they're already calling me every day now, they'll probably up it to twice a day as my due date approaches, and I just feel certain that I'll go overdue. I may just have to turn my phone off and change my outgoing message to "No, we haven't had the baby yet. We will call you back when there's news. Feel free to leave a message." But anyway Mom is asking about names, etc., and we really don't have those picked out yet. We feel this baby is a girl so we sortof have a girl's name picked, but that may change when it's born... and as for a boy's name, we haven't even talked about it for several months so we'll definitely have to have a big discussion if this baby is a boy. :P But Mom is sad that we're not sharing our names choices. She says that I'm crazy, and says it with a tone that she uses when she is really mad at me like I'm doing something wrong. Well guess what, Mom, you have no idea just how "crazy" I'm going to end up being. (with cloth diapering and planning to nurse our baby for at least a year or so). I'm sure she will have lots of words to say about that. Maybe she won't find out about the cloth diapers right off though since we'll start off using 'sposies and I have to take the baby go to see her since she won't be able to come see me. Even if we've started using cloth by then I'll probably switch back to sposies for the trip since it won't be very convenient to try and find a washing machine once a day for 10+ straight days. :P