Thoughts on Spring

Spring has sprung and I have a few thoughts to share.

1. It's better than Winter (especially this Winter)
2. One step closer to Summer
3. Suddenly, I have allergies
4. Allergies suck (my poor eyes)
5. Stupid Spring

C'mon Summer!

On the upside, we were able to enjoy the nice weather this past weekend with Stella in her jumper. See for yourself.

Chicken Pot Pie

You've got to love the man that spells his daughter's name in dinner.

Then again, I see this crazy sweetness all the time.

Extra Love

My Mother is an artist. She makes beautiful things. By things, I mean quilts, baby stuff, my wedding dress. In fact, she can make anything she wants and I frequently ask her to make things for Stella so that I don't have to buy it. Crib sheets, receiving blankets, sleep sacks - it doesn't matter, she can make it. She's literally saved us hundreds of dollars. Maybe even a thousand or two.

When Stella was born, my Mom showed up with a car full of boxes of things she made for Stella. One of these things was a youngster size quilt. Stella loves it. She loves the colors in it and often stares at it hanging on the back of my chair. I've told Stella that anything from any Grandma comes with extra love; so Grandma's quilts will always keep her warm and make her feel better by wrapping her with love.

Right now, my girl is cutting her first tooth and has a runny nose that is upsetting her tummy. She's just uncomfortable. Nothing Matt and I have tried has helped her settle into sleep. We've rocked and sang; walked and talked. I finally brought her back downstairs, wrapped her in Grandma's quilt, rocked her and sang a song about how teething sucks. Apparently, Grandma's quilt was exactly what she needed because she finally drifted off to sleep in my arms and is now snoozing away in her crib.

(These pictures are from a particularly chilly day last month however they show a very similar scene - cranky baby, nap needed, Grandma's quilt was the only thing that did the trick).

Thanks Mom. You're the best.

Tastes Like Chicken

Holy! Could it be? I caught it? I caught it! Mama! Look! I caught the elusive foot!I should promptly give it a proper chewing.What?
It tastes like chicken.

Mama Drama

I am having the first of what I assume will be many "Mama Dramas". Not guilt mind you, just a moment when things are changing and as a Mom, you are not quite ready. It wouldn't be so bad if it was just one "drama", but in the span of just two weeks, I am experiencing two.

Drama 1: I have decided to stop nursing my daughter. Let me rephrase this, my body decided to stop nursing my daughter. Despite my best efforts to keep it up, my production has been decreasing steadily over the past month. It finally became clear that there was nothing I could do to stop it. I held out to the very end but, last week, there was nothing left. Even though it was obvious that this was coming. I was SO not ready. It's been a week now and as liberating as it is to not have to drag my pump around to work and such, it bugs me that somewhere deep in my subconcious, I thought this was the right decision. Obviously, the subconcious and the concious me are not on speaking terms. I miss the closeness and quiet time with my baby.

Drama 2: Matt has a few editing jobs coming his way over the course of the next few months. The money these will bring will be a big help and I'm sure, after 2 months of playing Mr. Mom full-time, he is ready for a change of pace. So on Tuesday, I will be dropping Stella off at daycare for the first tme. Daycare. Strangers taking care of my girl. Strangers! AAAaaahhhhhhhhh.

I've visited this place and met/talked with the owner several times. She has come highly recommended and is willing to be very flexible when it come to our sporatic scheduling needs. I have been perfectly fine with this decision until now.

Stella is at the age where separation anxiety is just beginning. It will absolutely break my heart to walk away from her while she is crying because a stranger has her. I plan on melting into a puddle of tears the second I get in my car.

Strangers. Watching my girl. Nope. I'm not ready for this. Not ready at all.

No Need to Buy Toys

I'll entertain myself with this empty milk jug.
Just because the parents and Grandparents have bought me plenty of toys doesn't mean they are nearly as fun as as empty jug. Even better is to throw it on the ground then look up at Daddy with my sweet eyes and watch him pick it up for me. Every. Single. Time.

Bend to my will old man! (bwahahahah...oh...ahem)

Just wait until I learn to pull the cats tail!

I Love the Weekends

Five days of the week, I'm up and out of the house before Matt and Stella wake. I kiss Matt on the forehead and sneak into Stella's room before I leave to look at that little sleeping angelic face. I always want to hug and kiss on her, but I resist so I don't wake her. I miss her instantly when I walk out the front door.


We like to sleep in on the weekends, however Stella likes to start her day around 7 am. She usually wakes up happy, chatting away and we let her do so until she gets upset. I then happily scoop her out of her crib and scurry back to our room to lay her on her pillow between Matt and I.

We lay there and talk to her. We tell her how much we love her, how cute she is, smile and giggle with her. It's our time to laze around in bed and snuggle on our baby before we start the errands and chores that come with the weekend. It's just 2 mornings out of the 7 that I get to see that beautiful face wake up and smile at me. It's what I want to see those other 5 mornings.

AAahhhhhh, I love the weekends.

Engineer Speak

An overpressure event resulting in down time for decontamination and discarding or destruction of hazardous materials.

also known as

A diaper blowout resulting in the need for a bath and trashing of clothing.

The top sentence could be applied in its entirety to many tasks I deal with at work.

Yeh, it was that bad. Matt emailed me a picture of her outfit and I'm really glad she saved that for her Daddy. I'll spare you the visual and instead leave you with this cuteness.

A Star is Born!

3-month-old Stella likes to sing along with me to our favorite song, "Dream a Little Dream of Me".

I love my precious petunia. :)

For Your Viewing Pleasure

The cuteness in chronological order.



Minutes old

Still in the hospital

Gummy grin, finally home

Bee suit cuteyHanging with Mama in Savannah, Ga.

Watching TV with Dad

Singing with Mama

Chillin...

Talkin' to Grandma

Red Ring of Death

We have an Xbox 360, or I should say we had an Xbox 360. Matt played the thing constantly and we watched the occasional movie on it. Recently, its begun to give us trouble - locking up, screeching noises when the tray opened, it wouldn't read the disks, etc. Last night, it gave us the red ring of death. The end had come.

I was hoping it would give us a few more months before giving up the ghost but it just couldn't hold out with the constant use. I can't complain. We've more than gotten our moneys worth out of that box. It had been lovingly abused for 4 years. I was just hoping we could recoup from having a child and me taking 2 months off before we dished out any money on anything other than necessities. And no, I don't think we need a gaming system. We could surely live with out it however, Matt is home all day with Stella*, keeps the house clean, makes dinner and keeps me straight. That system was his hobby. His break. His "get away from it all" distractor. I couldn't say no.

So now we are the proud owners of a PlayStation 3. And I am enjoying watching my man and our little girl play video games together.

*By the way, he's doing a fan-tab-ulous job as a stay at home Dad - just like I knew he would.

Sleep and Other Quick Updates

Sweeeeeeet! Our 7 week old daughter has begun to sleep through the night.

Oh! Sweet, precious baby, either I am the best Mother or you are taking pity on me.

I'm thinking she is taking pity on me. I'm grateful. I've deemed this a success as it has happened several nights in a row. Either that or she's resting up for an all night cry fest. Keep your fingers crossed this continues.

We'll be back next weekend and I promise to tell you all about it, our new car and plenty of pictures will be posted. Right now, I'm drinkiing beer and eating good food at a tailgate with good friends --- before we head to the stadium to watch the Saints spank my beloved Bucs. I hope for the best.

Until next weekend, my friends.

Weed

Our almost 6 week old infant is now officially wearing 3-6 month clothing. We still have some 0-3 month clothing that fits but not for long. Apparently I have given birth to a fast growing weed.

Enamored

Many years ago, when Matt and I began to date exclusively, I decided to introduce him to my closest friend. This was important to me only because I tended to pick boyfriends on extreme opposite ends of the spectrum. They were either too good or really bad. You know the types, so good you lose interest the next day - borrring - or the type of bad that made you cling to them hopelessly, knowing it was never going anywhere. I figured Matt had to be one or the other and I was too enamored to see it. Sarah was always good at telling me what I didn't want to hear or pointing out what I didn't want to see.

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Like the time we went shopping and when I came out of the dressing room sporting this dress that I just loved, she told me to take it off. It looked better on the hanger. You got to love that type of honesty.

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Anyway.

I asked Sarah and Gabe over for dinner. I believe, at this point, they had already met Matt at our favorite pub but who can really get to know someone screaming over loud music. I figured a quiet evening at home would open the conversation up a bit. I remember the four of us sitting in my apartment eating dinner around the coffee table - because we were young and poor back then, a dining room table was well beyond our means - hoping they didn't notice any serial killer tendancies or anything else that would make me scurry in the opposite direction. Towards the end of the evening, I quietly asked Gabe what he thought. He liked him. I then asked Sarah what she thought and her exact words were (I'll never forget them because it so wasn't what I was looking for at the time) "You'd make beautiful babies together."

(Choke. Cough. Ahem. Ooooo-kay.)

Moving forward nine years, Matt and I have made a baby together. I'm completely enamored with her. I stare at her all the time. I squeeze her and kiss her and smell her little head. I'm completely amazed that we made something so adorable. So beautiful.

I am in love.

Thanks for the warning Sarah, although it wasn't exactly what I was looking for at the time, you were so right. And no, I'm not biased at all.

In other news, our daughter is growing like a weed. At her 2 week appointment, she's gained 1 full pound and grown almost an entire inch in length when compared to her 1 week appointment. After double checking the measurements, the doctor stated the obvious. "Yep, she's going to be a big girl."

I Did This

As you know, I was supposed to be induced on the 30th of September.

Supposed to be.

Matt and I got up early and all ready to go, called the hospital as instructed and was told we were being rescheduled to the 3rd of October due to too many emergencies. The doctor had warned us that though its rare, it happens sometimes. Matt was mad, I was disappointed but ok.

October 3rd, we started all over again. I entered the hospital at 7:30am and was hooked up via IV to Pitocin by 8:00am. This is where the torturous part begins. Waiting. Waiting. Waaaaaaiting. Not a whole lot happened until noon when the doctor decided to break my water. Then, guess what we did - we waited. I didn't expect this to happen quickly but from the time we got started to about 6pm, nothing was happening. I wasn't progressing at all. At 6pm, I finally began to feel some discomfort and asked for an Epidural, thinking this was it.

Nope.

By 7pm the doctor decided to stop the Pitocin drip for half an hour in hopes that the break then restart would trick my body into getting serious about this birth thing. (HA!) He also mentioned "plan B", which Matt and I figured was doctor-speak for C-Section. (We're smart that way, you know).

7:30pm, we were restarted and hopeful this show would start kicking into high gear. (HA!) Yep, a whole lot of nothing was happening at my 9pm check and the doctor threw out the "plan B" option again.

At 10pm, the doctor checked the readings from my contraction monitor, our other vitals and sat down with us to seriously discuss "plan B". Basically, and obviously, the attempt to push me into labor was going nowhere. I was not responding to the Pitocin and "failing to progress" into active labor. My contractions were spaced about 2 minutes apart, but they were not becoming consistently stronger, and my cervix was showing little progression. Finally, he said my body and the baby was telling him to call it quits. My temperature was rising, her heart rate was rising and the Pitocin levels in my system were too high. We were having a C-Section.

Fine.

He had to take care of a couple of emergencies first then I would be moved into the operating room. In the meantime, Matt was gowned up and I was prepped. At 12:45am, October 4th, I was wheeled into the O.R. and the final prep went into full swing. Shortly after, with Matt at my head, it began. At 1:08am, almost 18 hours after this adventure began, a beautiful baby girl was pulled into this world. I didn't hear the typical screaming baby, I heard a whimper, then a small cry and more whimpering. She was here. I was happy - exhausted and doped up - but happy.

(Stella, 10/4/2009, 1:08am, 21.5" long, 9.0 lbs)

Matt was the first to hold her while I was still being tended to and one of the very first things I remember him saying to her is "You may not remember this, but I will never forget it." It didn't hit me at the time exactly how sweet that was - I was kind of out of it - but I hope I remember to tell her about it when she is older.

The hospital stay was a looooooooong 4 nights, and we were ready to go home. Very ready. Looking back, I find it funny now - not so much at the time - that there were 800+ nurses coming and going constantly - all saying "get some rest" as they walked out. About 2 minutes before the next person walked in.

We are now home, happy, healthy and settling in - we even have a semblance of a schedule. Here is a picture of Miss Stella just a few moments before leaving the hospital. I leave you with this beautiful face.

(Stella, 3 days old, leaving the hospital)