Lessons Learned

First off... Emma rolled over for the first time all by herself! We've been diligently working on getting this kid to roll over for about a month-ish now and she finally decided to do it on her own. She did it for the first time last night (2/16) but only once, and it was mostly an accident. Hubby woke up when she got up this morning and I laid in bed for another hour, and when I got up, he happily announced that she rolled over all by herself not once, but twice. Twice! And then she proceeded to do it all day long like she's been doing it for weeks now. That's the thing about babies- once they learn something, they master it quickly. She still hasn't rolled from back to tummy by herself, but I think that's mostly because she has zero desire to do so. At least when she's on her tummy, she's motivated to flip onto her back (she still hates being on her tummy). She can roll herself onto her side from her back with no problem, but she's way too smart to keep going.

The funny thing is, she extends one arm up and behind her to start the rolling motion, but she thinks that same motion can get her out of any position she's in- she was sitting on hubby's lap tonight and she kept trying to reach back with her arm as if she could roll herself into a different position from sitting. Silly baby. She at least thinks it's fun to flip over onto her back. Let's hope she doesn't think it's even more fun to flip from back to tummy, or else diaper changes will be pretty dramatic.

Speaking of dramatic diaper changes...

(If baby poop grosses you out, skip to the next topic. And make sure you have good birth control, because babies= lots of baby poop)

So hubby and I are buying another house in three weeks and it's looking like the loan will go through. So we decided to take advantage of the fact that President's Day somehow correlates with appliance sales. Yep... George Washington, washer/dryer deals, it all makes sense. Anyways. We went to our local HH Gregg and shortly after getting there, I realized Baby Bird smelled like a dumpster but I thought we wouldn't be long and I could change her in the car. But when we found ourselves about to purchase three major appliances, I decided to brave the store bathroom and change her in there. It was pretty much a closet with two stalls and a sink. I got everything set up, put the baby on the changing table, popped open the diaper and said "that's not too bad!" Then I realized... it was a blow out. Straight up and out the top of her diaper in the back... the worst kind of blowout. Oh, and did I mention that before I even opened up her diaper, she kicked the travel wipes container off the changing table, causing two wipes to land directly on the floor? Yea, that happened. So I threw those two wipes away. Now, back to the blowout... it took me about 0.1634 seconds to realize that an out-the-back-of-the-diaper blowout means a poopy onesie and I tried to remain as calm as I could. That is, until I realized that I had two remaining wipes in the container. Two. Wipes. And a poopy onesie. In a closet-sized bathroom that now had both stalls occupied- one with a little old lady, and one with a preschooler and her mother. And here I was, with a now-crying baby, no wipes, a poopy onesie, and a poopy changing pad. Oh, and poop on my hands. Poop poop poop. I somehow made it work and tried to get her as clean as I could with what I had available, although I made a horrible judgment call and pulled the poopy onesie over her head instead of pulling it down. And trust me, there were flashes of temptation of just putting my poop-covered infant in the sink and rinsing her off in it. But there were too many reasons not to do so. We both made it out alive and she got a very soapy bath at home... she's definitely clean now.

My next mistake (more poop talk... skip to the next paragraph if you must) was trying to wash said onesie in the sink at home. I sprayed the hell out of it with some Spray-n-Wash and did my best to get as much poop off of it before tossing it in the washer. So that was my first poopy onesie wash- the others have just been thrown away in the past or tossed into the washer because sometimes I'm an awesome mom like that. Now I really can't wait for my fancy-shmancy new washer with a sanitize feature and my steam dryer that kills 99.9% of germs. And I'm certainly no germophobe... but poop is seriously gross.

So if that wasn't enough, my dear little Baby Bird had to vomit sweet potatoes on me before her bath. And all over her white Pottery Barn towel that has her name embroidered on it. So now both of those towels are stained :( And then she pooped again. Emma- 8982745098136 Mommy- 0

We're horribly understaffed at work right now and I ended up working 46.5 hours last week... add in the travel time for dropping off/picking up the baby and it's amazing I had time to breathe at all. I assume that this coming week will be just as nuts. And we're moving.

My saving grace has been that Emma has slept for twelve consecutive hours for the past few nights. She's been in bed at 8, which seems to be her new preferred bed time, and wakes up at 8 the next morning. I couldn't ask for anything more. Well... it would be nice if bedtime didn't usually involve a whole lot of fussing and kicking with some crying peppered in. She kind of hates bed time now and I don't know why. Tonight was the exception- she drifted off to sleep in my arms and I plopped her in her crib and she fell right back to sleep. But I assume that means she'll be up in the middle of the night for a bottle- I'm a mom. I can't have my cake and eat it too when it comes to a seven-month-old baby.

Here are some of the rookie-mom things I've learned in the last seven months, in list format: (experienced moms will be nodding their heads and laughing at this. New moms and moms-to-be: take notes!)

1. Don't assume you have enough wipes when you leave the house.
2. Don't assume you won't need a change of clothes for the baby when you leave the house (I neglected to put a long-sleeved onesie in the diaper bag today because I didn't think I'd need to change her outfit. So I had to put her in a short-sleeved onesie on the coldest day of the season so far. Yep, Mom-of-the-year. Right here.)
3. Don't compare your child to other children. Just don't. Emma is delayed on milestones for her actual age, and sometimes I forget that she's a preemie and it's totally normal for her to be meeting her milestones the way she is. As long as your kid is making progress and moving forward, who cares when he/she rolls for the first time or starts babbling? Enjoy that baby. Forget everyone else.
4. Take lots of pictures and videos. And darnit, post them on Facebook- just don't post eighteen pictures of your child eating crackers.
5. Spend money on good wipes. I just bought a pack of more than 200 Huggies wipes that are the equivalent of wiping my child's bottom with a slightly-damp piece of printer paper.
6. When buying baby clothes as a gift for a friend, consider the size and season. Emma has a LOT of summer clothes in a 9 month size that she'll never wear because she'll be too big for them by the time it's warm enough. She also has a good amount of winter clothes in a 12 month size that she'll never wear for the opposite reason- it'll be too warm by the time she's big enough to wear them.
7. Bath poop is inevitable. Prepare yourself.
8. Don't listen to every single person who wants to tell you in a condescending fashion how to be a mom or what to do in every little situation. Feel free to figure stuff out on your own... the mistakes make for good stories sometimes (like today's fiasco), provided that everyone makes it out alive.
9. Make an effort to use carpet cleaner when the baby projectile vomits and soaks the carpet at 3am. Just soaking it up with a towel doesn't always suffice, and it's never a good feeling to find a crusty stain on the carpet the next morning. Formula vomit isn't always white.
10. Skip the doorway jumper.

I really do think my blog entries are going to dwindle for a bit due to this move. But we'll see- I tend to procrastinate and find lots of other things to do when there's a big task at hand that I'd like to avoid. Like packing up my whole house. Bleh. And once we settle in, I'm going to try to start crafting and sewing because I'll finally have a reason to- I have an additional 1000 square feet of house to decorate. Holy moly. So, I'm crazy busy at work, moving, and juggling new parenthood. If I make it through these next few months without having a nervous breakdown, I'm pretty sure I can take on the world ;)

Grump Grump Grump

The reason I'm blogging tonight? Because I should be cleaning and purging my house. After all, we're probably moving in a month. A MONTH. Yikes. So... commence procrastination blogging!

About that move... I tried desperately to prevent myself from getting attached to this new house just in case the loan doesn't get approved. The loan officer says everything looks great and our credit ratings were phenomenal (I'm so grateful that my parents were indoctrinating me on credit ratings beginning when I was too young to have a clue what they were talking about) so the loan should get approved, but I'm still not busting out a box or packing a thing until we know this is going to happen. But until then, it doesn't hurt to throw out some stuff that we should get rid of anyways. We also need to make this place sparkle because a lady is coming over on Tuesday morning to take marketing pictures so they can rent this place out. *sigh* so much to do.

Emma= Crazy Baby= Baby Bird= Baby Bean= My Little Sweet Potato. Just so you're aware that those terms are interchangeable. I think I call her Baby Bird and Sweet Potato more than anything, but I've made it a point to use her actual name here and there so hopefully she isn't too confused on what her real name is. Although I do worry that she'll be two years old and will be insistent that her name is Sweet Potato.

So my Baby Bird is officially 7 months old today. My, how time flies. When I was pregnant, everyone said to enjoy the baby stage because it just goes by so fast. Cliche as it is, it's true. Seven months isn't that long in the scheme of things, but when we're talkin' baby... seven months is practically a century. In seven months' time, Baby Bird has gone from a bump-on-a-log of a baby that would stare blankly at the blurry shapes comprising her world, suck on her hands when she was hungry, and sleep all day night to an interactive, silly, smart little girl who squeals so loud she sometimes startles herself. 

So what has she been up to lately?

Teething. A whole lot of teething. And a whole lot of no teeth. UGH. The drama climaxed yesterday and the night before and I swore we wouldn't make it out alive, yet here we are. Still alive. She seemed to be feeling much better today but still. no. teeth. Her bottom gums are turning whiter, but I think we've still got plenty of miserable teething days ahead of us before those darn things decide to grace us with their pearly presence. In the meantime, I'm armed with Tylenol, Motrin, Hyland's Teething Tablets (read: baby crack), Baby Orajel Naturals*, chamomile tea, wet washcloths, chilled teething rings, Sofie the Giraffe, etc etc etc. 

*I innocently purchased regular Baby Orajel. Actually, no. Not regular Baby Orajel. Super Baby Orajel... the overnight stuff with extra benzocaine, which is apparently baby poison. I didn't realize the FDA put out a warning about the use of benzocaine on infants until after I bought it and used it. So that went to waste and now I have Baby Orajel Naturals, which is a horrible tasting gel that maybe helps but mostly makes Emma scrunch up her little face, turn red, and start grumping at me for putting something so volatile in her mouth. Sorry, kiddo.

Rolling Over. Or not. Baby Bird is SO CLOSE to rolling over, she just doesn't want to. Still. 

Babbling. Kind of. She mostly prefers squealing really reallllllllyyyyy loud over and over. And just today she discovered how to blow raspberries all on her own. It started at lunch, when she thought it was just hysterical to sputter her bananas and oatmeal (with cinnamon! Recipe by Chef Mommy) all over me and her highchair. Then tonight, I stuck a spoon full of green beans in her mouth and she instantly sputtered green beans everywhere... gross. I laughed. She laughed. Then the lightbulb went on and she realized that she could make this hilarious sound with her mouth. And so, for the rest of the night, she was blowing raspberries and cracking us up. I'm telling you... there are few things in life that are funnier than holding an already goofy baby that blows raspberries out of the blue while you're putting away blankets. I guess she's like me in a lot of ways: she likes to entertain herself during mundane tasks. I think my coworkers think I'm completely off my rocker because of that exact trait.

Sitting up. Alllllllllmost. The interesting thing on this one: she prefers throwing herself backwards. This stemmed from my attempt to help her learn to sit up without supporting her weight with her arms/hands. I thought it was a brilliant idea to sit her up on my bed because, if she fell backwards, she wouldn't hit her head and get hurt. Well, that backfired. She apparently thinks it's fun to launch herself backwards onto the bed from a sitting position. *smacks hand to forehead* Emma- 8763254876, Mommy- 0. 

Pincer grasp. Achieved. I think we have an artist in the making because this kid is crazy good with her hands and fine motor skills. She reaches for everything in sight... especially faces. She loves faces, and she really loves trying to rip the skin off of your face. And trying to rip out your carotid artery. I think she's trying to kill me... anyways, it's difficult not to laugh when her little arm reaches up and she pats you on the face or grabs onto your chin. But the laughing typically ends once you realize that that little hand is slimy and has very sharp little raptor nails attached to the fingers. Not a pleasant experience.

Food. This fat kid eats like a fat kid some days, and other days you'd swear she was on a crash diet. I think most of that has to do with teething, but I could be wrong. She doesn't like to eat anything first thing in the morning... not a bottle, nor solid foods. But when she does want to eat, she really loves food as long as it's not peas that you're shoveling into her mouth. She's liked everything else so far, even green beans. The only thing I'm struggling with is how much to give her. She isn't a big formula eater as it is... before solids, she had been drinking about 32oz of formula a day, but that suddenly decreased to about 24-27. I want to make sure she's getting enough formula during the day so I don't want her to fill up on solids, but I also want to make sure she's eating enough solids too. And each website has varying serving sizes per age for solid foods. Doh! Advice? Resources? I've been trying to feed her three times per day, but it gets more difficult during the week when she's babysat and those days she ends up being fed solids once or maybe twice.

She's been pretty grumpy with the teething thing going on, but we're managing. I guess I much prefer grumping to screaming any day, but it still breaks my heart that my little booger is so uncomfortable. The funny thing is, you can definitely see the generation gaps when you have a child. It seems older generations attribute everything to gas. Gas gas gas. Like there's nothing else that could possibly bother a baby other than gas. Emma rarely has bothersome gas, and when she does have it, it's obvious because her belly gets distended and you can hear it rumbling around. But that hasn't happened in a long time. It still amazes me, though, when Emma is around someone and starts grumping because she's tired, overstimulated, or uncomfortable and someone immediately tells me that my child has gas. Or when she toots, and I'm told that the poor thing has gas and must be in pain. She's a baby. She farts. It's usually not a bad thing. So now I get this picture of all of these babies in the 70's and 80's that were teething, cold/hot, bored, overstimulated, tired, etc. having their legs bicycled and whatnot because parents at that time thought that the issue was always gas. And I'm not convinced that colic is gas. Not one bit. Because gas eventually has to come out, right? And during Emma's colic days, she didn't fart any more than she usually does and I couldn't hear the rumblies in her tumbly. What I could hear, though, was a crying, unsettled baby. And I also don't buy that colic has anything to do with dairy or cow's milk proteins. Why? Because it didn't bother her initially. And it doesn't bother her now. She's never had real diaper rash for even a day (knock on wood) and her reflux symptoms have been non-existent for quite some time. So, no... I don't think her colic had anything to do with milk or formula and it wasn't anything I was/wasn't eating because she was mostly formula-fed by that point. My theory? Nervous system and/or developing brain. 

I've discovered a few things along the way... like, chamomile is a God-send. I realized that the teething tablets calm her, as does her Colic Calm gripe water. Both have chamomile in them, so I decided to give just chamomile a try and, shocker, it worked. And trust me, I'm not a "crunchy mom" and I typically don't subscribe to the whole natural remedies way of life. If I have a headache, I reach straight for the Tylenol. Things are a little different with a baby so I'm more apt to try natural and homeopathic remedies first and move on to the pharmaceuticals later. But chamomile is tried and true- I've found myself in a nice, foggy chamomile stupor after having some chamomile tea before bed many times in my life, so obviously this stuff works. So I steeped a tea bag, cooled it off, and poured about two ounces into a bottle. Then I added four more ounces of water and three scoops of formula, mixed it all up, fed it to the baby, and watched her eyes glaze over and she fell into a sound sleep in my arms. This was a few weeks ago, at which point having a sleeping baby in my arms was a rare occurrence. She went through a phase of terrible bedtimes when I had to stand up and bounce/rock her until she got groggy, then plop her into the crib and pray that she fell asleep and didn't start crying immediately. She's still having some rough bedtimes, but at least if she's had a bad day and is grumpy from being overtired or teething (or both! the worst!), I can add some voodoo magic to her bottle and help her find her happy place a little quicker.

I'm STILL trying to figure out a way to post more pictures without forking over some moolah to Google for "storage." Once I get that figured out, I'll be posting pictures. I PROMISE. I went through the Christmas pictures earlier and was smiling at the silly little faces and extremely surprised eyes in all of Emma's pictures. I sat there clicking away, looking at all of these sweet pictures of my fat baby girl and then... BAM. Four-pound Emma in an isolette with a CPAP mask, with my bruised arm reaching in, hand grasping onto the baby I had just delivered far too early. I've looked at her NICU pictures so many times and the ordeal is somewhat fresh in my mind, albeit mostly shoved to the back of my mind because I'm far too busy keeping up with this "preemie" to dwell on it. But it really caught me off guard tonight. She's over 17 pounds now... fat, healthy, a little delayed on her milestones for her actual age but right on target for her adjusted age, happy, silly. But there she was: skinny, red-skinned, scrunched up, with wires and tubes all over her. If she wasn't sound asleep in her crib, I would have run to her and cuddled her.

On a lighter note, one of my bestest friends in the whole wide world had her precious little bundle of joy yesterday! I briefly talked to her on the phone today and, dear God, did she ever deliver that boy like a total superwoman. She's my size (tiny) and delivered a 7lb 6oz (I think that's right, I'm too lazy to Facebook fact-check right now) perfect baby boy about 12 hours after being given Cervadil. She said she pushed for 40 minutes, but that was only because her contractions slowed. She's a champion child-birther and it sounds like everything went perfectly. I did an internal happy dance for her :) And another dear friend had her baby earlier this week! So many babies. So many cute babies. I need to cuddle them at some point *hint hint*

Roll, Baby, Roll!

When I started this blog, I made an entry every night. That's what happens when you're stuck in a hospital room with not much else to do other than watch live basic cable and try to figure out a pocket loom with terrible instructions. And now, I'm trying to squeeze in an entry every other week because, well, I'm tired. And busy.

And certifiably insane.

Because, you know... when you can't even find enough time to make a stinking blog post, it's a brilliant idea to pack up your entire house and move. 

So, yea- I think we're moving. I say think because we have to find out if the loan company is crazy enough to approve us for a second mortgage. It's a strong possibility, but I'm not going to start packing until we know this deal is going through. But it's tough not to daydream about the new house all day... it solves almost every issue with have with this current house. Now, before I start complaining about my current home, know this: I'm grateful for what I have. Sincerely grateful. So please don't think otherwise... but we were kind of screwed over when we bought this house and it was a bad choice. An opportunity has presented itself, and we're taking it. I'm typically not a risk-taker, at least in the conventional sense. I'm very vanilla and not much of a skydiver.
My biggest gripe is that crazy baby's bedroom is bordered by the garage (where hubby works out and makes a ton of noise, in addition to the noisy garage door), the kitchen (and it happens to be the one wall of the kitchen that has all of the cabinets AND the microwave and stove. So. Noisy.), and the guest bath. So forget about doing dishes, cooking, or doing anything in the garage (which includes going anywhere because opening the garage door is noisy too) during nap time or after bedtime. And about that kitchen- there's zero storage. To the point that we had to buy the world's most hideous monster of a cabinet from Ikea and put it in the "dining room" so we could have a place to store some things. We also only have one great room (living/dining combo) that is so crammed with basic furniture that Emma has no room to play when she gets older. Anyways, I'll stop there. But the list of reasons why this house really bothers me goes on and on.
But just know that if the loan gets approved, my already-lacking blog updates will likely cease for a bit while we purge, pack, and unpack. And then try not to spend the rest of our savings on things for the new house. We're adding just shy of 1000 square feet of house by moving to the new one. So we'll have some space to fill... hellllloooooooo Pinterest pins. :)

Alright. Anyways. Onto the good stuff, as they say.

Crazy baby is still crazy. That was quite expected. And as the days are going on, her little personality is really shining through... she is a spunky, happy, giggly, goofy little girl who makes monster noises and squeals so loud she startles even herself. She loves carrots and sweet potatoes and isn't a huge fan of peas. Regardless of what she eats, she likes to sputter while food is in her mouth, essentially spraying bits of oatmeal and fruit/veggies all over the place (yet another awesome feature of the new house- tile in the dining room instead of carpet. Who was the genius that decided to put carpet in a dining room? Sheesh). For some reason, the string of links that I let her play with in the bath sometimes makes her laugh hysterically. And she loves her Sophie the Giraffe teether... it makes her smile when she sees it. Her daddy is her favorite person in the whole world. And she loves to grab faces. And then pull your skin off...

On the development side, I'm not sure what to make of her. She was making huge strides for a bit, but now she has kind of plateaued with her gross motor skills. She still doesn't roll unless she's assisted and doesn't sit up on her own. She can "tripod" where she leans forward and supports herself with her hands on the ground. But no independent sitting yet. She's also working on babbling but isn't quite there yet either. She's still really good with her hands, though, and started perfecting her pincer grasp today. Maybe we have an artist in the making... probably not an athlete though. Lol.

But I'm officially done focusing so much on what she can and cannot do... it's easy to compare babies when so many of your friends have children around the same age. And it's also difficult for me to remember that she was two months early. But she's just fine... she's doing things at her own pace and is definitely learning new things every day, so I'm not worried at all that something is wrong.

Oh, and she's really fat now. Probably a little over 17 pounds and she's about 26" long. She's in her 9month Carter's clothes now, which is sad because she got a lot of cute stuff in a 6 month size for Christmas that she wore once. And she has a good amount of summer clothes in 9 month size that she'll probably never wear. Oh, well.

She had her cardiology appointment earlier in the week and the hole in her heart is either closed up completely or so small that they can't see it by ultrasound anymore. She still has a murmur, but the doctor wasn't at all worried about it and told us that Emma's heart is completely normal for a baby of her age. I don't know what it was about that doctor, but Emma just adored her to the point that the doctor couldn't get a good pulse in Emma's feet because she was kicking so much from being so darned happy and excited.

Sleep... ah, yes. Glorious, wonderful sleep. She actually had a few weeks in which she was sleeping for about 12-13 hours straight many nights. Now she's back to waking up once per night, usually around 4am. And you know what? It doesn't bother me at all. I actually kind of enjoy those times. Just me and Emma, rocking quietly in her nursery in the dim night light, with the house completely silent and still. Just snuggling in silence. It's not a half-bad experience if you ask me. Some parents are in such a rush to have their little one marathon-sleep every night that they forget to cherish those bonding moments in the quiet with their sweet little baby. I'll sleep all night again one day, but I'll never again be able to have these moments with Emma once she grows out of this stage. She knows that I'll peer over the edge of her crib at 4am armed with a bottle and that she'll drift back to sleep all comfy and warm in my arms. And I know that I'll crawl back into my still-warm bed after I put her back in her crib, smelling of her and falling asleep thinking about her sweet little face. I absolutely love being a mommy. Her mommy.

BUT. This mommy isn't feeling well. Sorry for any slurring of my text here... I'm on a new medication that's making me a little foggy. Hopefully we can figure out what's going on... in true 90210 fashion, it's a mystery. It started with losing an insane amount of weight without trying. I can't even begin to count the number of times people say "you don't look like you have a six month old!" when they find out I have a baby. My automated response is "I missed the last two months of pregnancy, so I didn't gain that much weight." I believed that for a while, until the scale told me otherwise. Then my response shifted to "yea, they're testing my thyroid function." Well, my thyroid is fine. As are the rest of my vital systems... which is good. But now I guess I just have to say "thank you" when someone makes the weight comment to me. Anyways, I also started bruising easily. But I'm not anemic and my white blood cell count is fine, but the bruising has since gone away. Then the dizzy spells and shaky hands started and I've been dealing with that for a week now. *sigh* So I'm taking Antivert for the dizziness. It's not really helping with that, but I'm definitely feeling quite sleepy now.

So that's the update- I'm not feeling well, I have an almost-seven-month-old baby, and I'm planning on moving in a month. Because I'm a genius like that.