Pumpkin Patch Emma

I figured out how Emma poked her eyeball out- she is working diligently on perfecting her thumb-sucking skills. However, she's still not quite there yet and hasn't realized that it's much more effective to curl the rest of her fingers into a fist. Instead, she elects to have her fingers straight and can't fully keep her hand steady yet, so she ends up looking like a hot mess trying to suck on her thumb. And in the process of doing so, her little fingers go here, there, and everywhere and eventually end up in her eye. I watched her do it today on her changing pad... crying and eye watering ensued, but not as bad as the first time. Her right eye will be lucky if it survives to see (pun intended) her first birthday.

We downgraded her to gowns with fold-down sleeves (dubbed the "Mitt Romneys." Not that I like Mitt Romney. But I figured it was an appropriate name during election time), as she still somehow fits into her 0-3 month size gowns, so that we could cover that mischievous right hand to prevent further corneal abrasions. I think she's going to be right-handed. That hand is seriously out of control, and her left hand is pretty docile these days. She also seems to kick more wildly with her right leg when she's excited.

I'm starting to see bits of her little personality starting to show through. She seems to be a little goofball, just like her mommy and daddy. I put her eye drops in her eye this morning which prompted her to immediately shut her eyes. She started blinking with all of her might, then smiled as a mixture of eye drops and tears streamed from her right eye. I don't know how she was so amused by it, but apparently she was. What a weirdo.

Within the last few days, she has discovered that she can splash in her bath. It started with some kicks, and the other night (the night before last) it escalated to an all-out splash fest. It's quite hilarious- she starts kicking her legs and getting the water to really get moving, then she gets so tickled by the fact that she's splashing that she starts flailing her little arms and eventually her whole body starts wiggling and bouncing from kicking so hard. She then stops and rests for a bit, then does it all over again. I need to start wearing a rain poncho during bath time.

Today was the first of our holiday fun times. We took her to the pumpkin patch and picked out an Emma pumpkin and a mommy and daddy pumpkin. In fact, this was the first time hubby and I have been to a pumpkin patch together... so it was a pretty special day. It was surprisingly chilly (ok, chilly for Florida. It was probably about 75 degrees) and windy so Emma got to wear her special pumpkin hat made by her Great Aunt Linda. We got a few pictures of our sleepy little girl then picked our gourds and headed home. Mission accomplished- pick pumpkins, take pictures of her in ridiculously cute hat. There was another little kid there with a pumpkin hat but... well... Emma's was way cuter! ;)

I'm trying to get as much life out of her three month sized clothes as possible, but I think I need to start putting them away and replacing them with her 3-6 and 6 month sized clothes. Yep. My 4lb 5oz preemie is just about ready for her 6 month sized clothes and she's only 3 1/2 months old. Actual age. My God.

PUMPKIN PICTURES! But first, some non-pumpkin pictures of my pumpkin. Then pumpkin pumpkin pictures.

 Holding up her head like a champ!

 Sucking her thumb while pondering the universe.

PUMPKIN HAT.

Wearing her new sweater from Grammy! 

"Listen up. This here pumpkin is mine. Mess with my pumpkin and you'll regret it."

 Sitting on the pumpkin confused her.

 She was quite drawn to the bright orange around her.

 Hilarious.

 LOVE HER.

 I don't know why she kept making mob boss faces.

 "I'm too fabulous for this."

 We took Miss Stephanie's advice about the yellow shirt :)

Mommy and her lil pumpkin.

Popeye

I joked around with the NICU nurses that Emma would eventually be blind in her right eye because she was constantly grabbing her right cheek and would occasionally grab her eye along with it. Maybe I'm psychic.

So today started off somewhat normal: Emma woke me up at 6:30am for a bottle and I quickly realized that I wasn't feeling so hot- my head hurt, my neck was stiff, and I was exhausted. Hubby tried to convince me to stay home for the day, but I told him I had too much to do at work. I had myself a cup of coffee and played with the Emma monster for a little bit until she started to get bored of her playmat, at which point I brought her into my bedroom and laid her on my bed so she could stare at the window while I got ready for work. Just as I put my toothbrush in my mouth, the monster started screaming. I instantly knew that she had hurt herself in some capacity, but the screaming escalated to a level I've never heard from this child before. I swallowed the toothpaste in my mouth, put down my toothbrush, and ran to her as she continued to scream like a banshee. I noticed that her right hand was next to her face as I scooped her up and held her up against my chest. She continued to scream for a bit and started to calm down, so I pulled her away from my chest to look at her eye. Now, she's poked herself in the eye repeatedly in her short three months of existence but it didn't take long for me to come to the conclusion that this time was different and much worse- her little eye was swollen, red, and watering like crazy. She kept trying to open her eyes, but would start screaming all over again until I comforted her and she'd calm down.

Dr. Google suggested I call her pediatrician if her eye was red (check), swollen (check), watering excessively (check) or if she was sensitive to light. When all of this was still true after a few minutes, I called and made an appointment for Popeye. Better safe than sorry, I thought. I held her until she calmed down completely and fell asleep, then put her in her crib. She started to fuss a bit, but seemed alright until I walked back into her room, at which point she apparently poked the same eyeball for the second time. Ugh. More screaming ensued, but not quite as bad or as long. I got her ready, gave her a bottle, and carted her off to the doctor.

My once colicky baby who was bothered by everything was lying on an exam table looking around the room and smiling, while her poor right eye was red and swollen with tears streaming from it. The ARNP looked at her eye and said he didn't see a scratch and she wasn't sensitive to light, but the fact that it kept watering so much made him concerned that there was, in fact, a scratch. So he dyed her eye... Emma happened to be wearing her "my first Halloween" onesie, which was appropriate. The dye in her eyeball gave her an instant Halloween eye as the whites of her eye quickly turned bright yellow and the upper and lower lids were stained red where he put the dye in. Anyways, he turned off the lights and shone a black light in her eye and as soon as she moved her eye a little, you could clearly see a gigantic scratch highlighted by the dye.

There was no mistaking it- she jammed her little finger into her eye and scratched the living daylights out of her cornea. Awesome. So we headed to the pharmacy and picked up some antibiotic eye drops to prevent an infection, which could be very serious. We'll follow up with the ARNP next week to make sure it's healing properly.

When we got to the doctor's office and signed in, I realized I left my wallet in the car downstairs. The office assistant offered for me to bring the baby behind their desks and they could keep an eye on her so I didn't have to lug her downstairs and back again. When I came back upstairs, there was a proper crowd of people  standing around her carseat oohing and aahing at her. They couldn't believe she was a preemie... they also said I could leave her with them. I told them it might be a good idea for today- she could really benefit from having a doctor nearby at all times since she was apparently on a roll with injuring herself. But then I took her back because, well, she's so cute and she's mine.

I ended up staying home from work to be with Popeye today. I guess she had other plans for my day. I felt like a real mommy for once, although I wish it was under different circumstances. I don't like it when she's hurt or uncomfortable, but I'm glad I was there to hold her and comfort her and make her feel better. I snuggled her after I fed her when we got home, then we both took a nice, long nap. In fact, she's still sleeping and it's been almost three hours since I laid her down in her swing (she still doesn't like sleeping in her crib during the day *sigh*).

Pictures. Now.

 She now rolls on her side in her crib

 Back to normal!

 Just before the eye incident occurred. Happy baby!

 Trying to hide her Halloween eye, and being fabulous in the process.

She can't poke her eye anymore!

Three Month Weigh In

I think there's a natural mommy instinct that makes it sincerely impossible to resist picking at your child, even at the most inopportune moments. Baby just fell asleep after fussing for an hour, but has an eye booger? Certainly that eye booger has to come off immediately. Fuzz? Dry skin? Ear cheese? Neck cheese? Pick pick pick. Poor kid... I'm constantly messing with her.

Emma went to the doctor on 10/19 and weighed in at a whopping 12 pounds. After her two month well child visit in September, I realized that if she weighed 13 pounds at three months, she'd be in the 50th percentile for weight for a three month old baby. At 12 pounds, she's in the 32nd percentile, which is amazing beyond words for a preemie. Other than her (now only slightly) herniated bellybutton and the flat spot on her head, you'd really never know she's a preemie. She's also up to 23" in length, which is the 24th percentile. Not bad for a kid who was born weighing 4lb 5oz and 17 1/4" long at 32 weeks!

She's such a miracle for sure. Developmentally, she's really on track for her actual age. We need to give her more tummy time, though, so she can start to learn how to roll from her tummy to her back. When she does have tummy time (which we don't do as often as we should because she generally doesn't like it too much), she is able to lift up her head and chest very well and hold herself steady. Yesterday, I put her in her crib for a nap and she settled down and fell asleep. When I came back into her room a few minutes later to fold and put away her laundry, she was lying on her side- almost on her tummy, in fact- and was not happy about it. It was quite funny, though, because her little legs were kicking as she was trying to figure out how to correct her predicament. So I rolled her onto her back and gave her the pacifier so she could calm herself to sleep. She started to calm down, but then started fussing and getting progressively upset until she rolled herself onto her side and almost on her belly again. At that point, she was done trying to nap in her crib. Daddy put her into her swing and I went for a nap myself... she's been getting finicky about napping in her crib in the afternoon. She does alright if she naps in the morning, but by afternoon time, she doesn't want to sleep in there. I think we'll have to invest in blackout shades- maybe it's just too bright in there for her to be comfy. She sleeps in her crib like a champ at night still. Although lately she's been waking up every two hours after an initial long stretch of sleep. The more I'm reading, the more I'm realizing that she may not be hungry like we think. There have been a few times when I've given her the pacifier to help her calm down while I prepare her bottle, only to return to her room and find her back to sleep. So I think I'm going to try getting her back to sleep first and if she doesn't go back to sleep, then I'll assume she's hungry and feed her. She's only been eating about 2oz at a time during her nighttime feeds, which kind of screws up her feeding schedule during the day. It starts this domino effect where she eats 2oz at a time every two hours almost all day long, instead of 4oz every three hours. She should actually be eating 5-6oz at time by now, but maybe that's one of the few lingering signs of her being a preemie.

I was treated to a "mommy's day out" yesterday by my ever-so-amazing husband. God bless him... I haven't been myself at home since Emma was born. It's a combination of stress, sheer exhaustion, and anxiety about Emma's health (the latter has since diminished). Add to that the fact that I use up all of my happy faces, positive attitude, and energy reserves while at work, and I haven't necessarily been the sweetest and most upbeat person around here. At times, I've been downright grumpy and whiny. He really had every reason in the world for him to get out of the house and have some time for himself, but instead he decided to treat me to a 90 minute massage and some shopping. The massage was nothing short of amazing... the massage therapist commented on the fact that I had very few knots in my back, especially for someone with children.* Once that was finished, I drove up to the Grove shopping center (the massage was in Wesley Chapel so I was close to some good shopping) and proceeded to attempt to find some new clothes. It didn't really work out very well for me- I just couldn't find anything I liked in my size. I tried TJ Maxx and Old Navy and ended up with two shirts and a tank top. I did, however, find a cute long sleeved onesie at Old Navy that I couldn't resist buying for Emma. And then it spiraled from there- I had to go to Babies R Us to get some medium flow nipples and I am apparently completely incapable of just buying nipples. I left with much more than I intended on purchasing, but it was all stuff that I could somewhat justify buying. Including some super-cute long sleeved onesies. In six month size! Yep- based on Carter's sizing, she's 1/2lb and 1" away from the six month sized clothes. She's growing up so fast!

*I still haven't wrapped my head around the fact that I'm a mom. It's a very strange transition to suddenly have people ask about my child or to say that I do, in fact, have a child. Especially since most people think I'm barely 20 years old.

Things I know to be true about Emma: she loves staring at lights. She yells repeatedly (instead of crying) when she's hungry sometimes. She likes to try to swallow her own fist. Her reflection is one of the funniest and most entertaining things around. She can somehow launch her pacifier into the center of her room from her crib. She farts a lot.

And about the farts- it's funny to me that most people (especially those who haven't had young children in a while) attribute every red face, grunt, cry, or whine to gas. It's like there's nothing else that could possibly upset her- she must be gassy if she's not happy. lol ;)

The doctor told us we could give Emma 2-4 ounces of apple juice per day if she's constipated, which she has been. Needless to say, she loved it (great. If the constipation continues, we'll have to switch to karo syrup because I was hoping we wouldn't be giving her juice until she's much older. I don't want her to be a juice addict as a toddler...) and it worked its magic this morning. Now she's a pooping machine. Yay.

Not much else is new. Aside from the fact that mama bear came out on Friday on my way back from my parents' house with Emma. Some douchebag decided to tailgate me for no reason. Clearly I have a baby in the back- you can easily see the top of her carseat from behind my car. Put my life in danger, and I'll be pretty pissed. Put my child's life in danger... and your life may now be in danger.

No pictures again this time. It's already 9:01pm and time for an Emma bath. Maybe we'll get some bathtime pictures- she loves bath time. Bath time is the best part of her whole day. And immediately after bath time is the worst part of her day. As soon as I get her into her hooded towel, she starts screaming. She goes from happy and warm to cold and hungry in a split second. That kid...

The Real Story

This blog is the story of motherhood. Real, unfiltered, non-candy-coated motherhood. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the stinky.

I was reading these "sample baby schedules" on a website yesterday and found the "working formula-feeding mom of a four month old" schedule and thought hmmmm... maybe this will be valuable to me. The schedule was basically this: "I wake up at 6:00am, wake up the baby at 7:00am. He smiles when he wakes up. I take him to daycare at 8:00am, and he smiles the whole way. He smiles all day, then all night. We play, and he smiles. He doesn't poop. His diapers are only filled with sunshine, rainbows, and the occasional unicorn. He smiles himself to sleep and sleeps for ten hours straight every night, with a smile on his face." I wanted to vomit. Come on, lady. We all know the real story...

After reading that, I realized that there is sometimes a sincere lack of honesty when it comes to parenting a young baby, as if your baby's habits and demeanor have anything to do with his/her parents' value as human beings. Fussy baby= bad parents? Not typically. Fussy baby is just a fussy baby. Baby not sleeping through the night the day they turn 3 months of age= unsuccessful parents who know nothing about parenting? Hardly.

Maybe this lady really does have this amazing baby who never cries (beyond the "he's always smiling" part, I exaggerated that stupid baby schedule), but I don't feel unlucky to have a baby who fusses, cries, and wakes me up in the middle of the night for a bottle. Why? Because she also laughs, smiles, coos, gurgles, and those late-night feedings have contributed to her tremendous growth. On top of that, I'll take her screaming and yelling any day, simply because she's my miracle baby and I appreciate every ounce of her.

So while I'm pretty candid on this blog about the everyday happenings of parenting an infant, I think we could all use a little realism and honesty. And it makes for a pretty good story too, am I right?

What's new with amazing baby? Just within the last week, she's discovered her hands. She now knows she can hit things and make them move, and that this whole thing is pretty freaking entertaining. She goes nuts on her playmat- in fact, I put her on her playmat tonight and she instantly, and I mean instantly, smiled, cooed, and started punching away. Except, she punched her own face at one point. She'll learn. Along with that, though, comes the fact that she's constantly putting her hands to her face and in her mouth... I'm guessing the sensation is pretty interesting to her. But at night, it becomes a problem as she's constantly rubbing her face with her hands, which prevents her from falling asleep. It also causes a major disruption in her pacifier sucking as she generally knocks it right out of her mouth. I know this phase will end, and hopefully soon, but the poor thing just has so little control over these new toys attached to the end of her arms. Luckily, the crib-sleeping issues are a thing of the past, at least at night. She still doesn't always want to nap in her crib, but I think we need to darken her room during the day to help her nap in there. At least that's the next thing to try. Regardless, the bedtime routine has been going pretty well and she seems to be catching on to the fact that it's bedtime after her bath and bottle. We took down the pack n play about two weeks ago so we've reclaimed a portion of our living room, which is no longer Emma's nursery. Her nursery is finally... well... her nursery. Yay!

We're dealing with an overtired baby tonight. She barely slept today, so she's been screaming all night in between brief periods of being content. It's painfully obvious that she needs to sleep, but she's so overtired that she's just angry. I can't help but laugh sometimes when she gets angry because she's cute even when she's pretty peeved, and if she's sucking on her pacifier while being peeved, it's even cuter. I guess sometimes I have no choice but to laugh, or else I'd be completely miserable and cry all day. Hubby finally got her down in her crib and she fussed and started to cry after a few minutes, so we had to do the baby soothing song-and-dance (which, ironically, involves no singing or dancing): put the pacifier in the baby's mouth. Try to shield baby's face from her crazy hands. Wait for the pacifier to pop out, put pacifier back in. Protect face from baby's hands. Pat baby's bottom if accessible. Stare at baby, trying to telepathically make her eyes shut (not sure if hubby does this part, but I sure do). Put the pacifier back in her mouth. Repeat until baby finally falls asleep. Very quietly creep away on tip-toes, cartoon burglar style.

Here's where I do get to brag about her- developmentally, she's a whiz kid. She's mastered most of her three-month-old milestones and is working on some more advanced things, according to the Baby Center website. Yep, she's a genius kid. She'll be graduating college at age 18 just like her mama! (that's a joke that no one except my boss would get. A caregiver at work is convinced that I'm 23 years old, which means I got my 4 year degree when I was 18. So I guess Emma's following in mommy's (tiny) footsteps)

But does her certifiable genius-preemie status make me a better mom? No... just a regular mom to an amazing child.

She has another doctor's appointment the day after tomorrow for a weight check and probably the first of her RSV vaccines, provided that insurance covers the shots since they're $1000 each. You read that right- one thousand dollars per shot. Apparently they are difficult to manufacture or the stuff (that's the technical term) needed to make them is scarce... but they don't make a whole lot of them, so there are eligibility requirements for a baby to receive them. One of the requirements is being a preemie, so Emma is able to get them. Thank God, because she would be in serious trouble if she were to get RSV because of the issues she had with her lungs being so immature at birth. For those of you who aren't aware, RSV is a common respiratory virus that basically manifests itself as a somewhat typical cold in adults. In babies, it can be dangerous. In preemies and babies with other medical issues, it can be deadly. It can also be deadly in healthy, full-term babies, but the mortality rate among sick or premature babies is much higher. Let's hope insurance covers these shots!

I'm very curious to see how much she weighs now- it's difficult for me to tell how much she's grown day to day. But when I look at the pictures of how tiny she was during her carseat test at the hospital compared to how gigantic she is in her carseat now, the difference is stark. My back is also well aware of how big she's getting, as climbing halfway into the car and lifting the carseat out of the base and subsequently out of the car is no small feat. I'm certain I'll be throwing my back out at some point in the near future. 90210 has not been blessed with a good back... although I can't blame that on genetics. I blame that on two car accidents and lifting a ceramic pot the exact way they tell you not to. As in, lift with your back and twist at the same time. So, yea. Emma is huge.

On an emotional note, I still miss being pregnant. I never made it to that stage of "ohmygod I'm so miserable and huge and uncomfortable that I just want to not be pregnant anymore!" Instead, I ended my pregnancy while still wanting to be pregnant. I had two whole months left! I've also seen a lot of pictures on facebook lately of friends and friends of friends who have recently had babies. Their families all piled in the hospital room, smiling and taking pictures with the baby. Mom holding the baby in the hospital bed. Everyone so joyful at the safe arrival of their precious new family member. I do feel some grief and loss surrounding that part of my experience... it makes me sad that my family came to see me in a room all by myself, just me and hubby. No baby to hold and marvel at. That I couldn't hold Emma until a few days after she was born. That she was whisked away so quickly. But that baby that was whisked away at birth is now the center of my world. My little snuggle bunny. And certainly the only reason I'll wake up at 3am night after night ;)

Look What I can Do!

OMGPICTURESOMG!

 Meeting her "future husband" for the first time

 We were working out the details of the arranged marriage

 Trying to get a sneak peek of her rockin' six pack ;)

 This was back before she was a giant.

 Meeting her beautiful and sweet cousin Gracie!!!!!

 Meeting cousin Aimee

 My God, this is one gorgeous six year old.

 So cute :)

 Meeting cousin Chelsea!

I was fighting back tears while watching my amazing nieces hold my daughter.

 Look what I can do!

 Riley had difficulty licking a moving target. Solution? Pin down the baby's arm.

 My baby girls!!!

 Just hanging out, being fat.

You don't say, Grandma!

I sometimes look back at my hospital pictures and Emma's NICU pictures. It feels like all of that was forever ago, but she's only three months old. It's quite a story... the battle with infertility, having her burrow in as a little embryo on such an important day, finding out about the pregnancy five days before Christmas, going into the hospital while only 6 1/2 months pregnant, having her at 32 weeks, the NICU, the heart monitor, the bradys. And now she's just a happy, gassy fat kid.

She's been asleep ALL DAY. She was up from about 8:45 until 11ish, and I woke her up at 2:30 for a bottle. I held her for almost two hours (just because I wanted to) and finally put her down so I could fold some laundry. She's going to be up all night, I bet. At least it's Saturday.

I'm hoping for some positive changes coming my way... I know everything will work out the way it's supposed to, but I can't help but get excited about the prospect of losing some stress (technically I'll be trading stress for stress, but it's different stress. Stress stress stress) and hopefully making my way out of a toxic situation.

Remember that 17 year old that I mentioned in a previous post? She was a notorious runaway and didn't give a crap about anything, even herself. And suddenly she's made quite the turnaround and seems to be a really great mom to her newborn... well, she's done it again. Darn kid almost made me cry... without getting into details (HIPAA!!!!!), I told her I'm concerned about her for certain reasons while driving her back to her group home after a long day spent talking to her. She was on the phone with her boyfriend in the back seat after we talked, and I heard her say "she cares about me. Is it so hard to believe that someone actually cares about me?!" *sigh* I do care about her. I'm just glad she finally sees it. In the unwritten manual of social work, this is considered a huge success...

The advantage of the baby sleeping all day is that I've gotten laundry, dusting, organizing baby clothes, and picture blogging done. If she continues to sleep, I really don't know what I'm going to do with myself. Actually, I think a victory lap is way overdue. And I really need to get started on her baby book. Victory lap first.

Zebra Abuse

I am not ashamed of the fact that it's 9:51pm on a Friday night and I'm seriously contemplating going to bed. Oh, but wait... Emma is unhappy. In fact, she's yelling and squealing. No bedtime for me yet.

What a week it has been, though, as Emma has really continued her trend of making big strides with her development. On Monday (10/8), she apparently laughed for the first time and it just so happened to occur in the presence of my father-in-law ("pop"). She was apparently looking at him and smiling and let out a laugh :) And today, 10/12, she discovered that she can hit her toys with her hands and make them move and make noise. She beat the crap out of her zebra rattle that was hanging from her playmat by punching it repeatedly. Poor zebra... and Emma just sat there smiling like the greatest thing in the world had just occurred, arms flailing and legs kicking.

She's such a happy baby now, although the happiness is still mixed in with some bouts of serious anger/fussiness/crying that is seemingly for no reason. She smiles a lot and just loves to look around at everything that surrounds her. She learns and sees something new every day and you can tell that she's getting smarter by the minute. Gosh... to think back to her being a tiny little baby sleeping all day in an isolette in the NICU, to the still tiny baby that came home and stared blankly at the ceiling. And now she's this responsive, cooing, smiling, squealing little bundle of joy. And gas.

She's been strictly formula fed for a while now... up until a few days ago, I was still breastfeeding two-ish times a day but she wasn't getting much of anything out. She started fighting it more and more and it was getting to the point where it would interfere with her ability to take a full bottle. I decided we were done, and it made me very sad. I have a lot of regrets about it- looking back, I know I could have tried harder and should have tried nursing her more when she came home. But back then, I was so scared from the bradys and so overwhelmed by the whirlwind of the prior seven weeks of my life. But without revisiting every last reason why it didn't work out for us, I do know that we did what we could given the circumstances and I'm not beating myself up over it.

And despite eating the same food day after day, she still has random days of being extremely gassy and uncomfortable. It doesn't make any sense- it's clearly not what she's eating since most days she's just fine. I guess it really is a case of a growing and maturing digestive system and some days just aren't so good for her. And on those days, it sounds like a war is going on in those size one Pampers.

Bedtime has been going mostly well... the first week of the bedtime routine was surprisingly great. We gave her a bath around 8:30 or 9:00, depending on when she would start to get hungry. Then dress her, swaddle her (usually in her SwaddleMe), turn the light off in her nursery and give her a bottle/rock her with her night light on. Some nights, she wanted to be held and rocked and on other nights she wanted to be put down so she could hang out in her crib. But typically, I could put her down and she would wiggle and grunt until she was comfortable and then she'd fall asleep. Easy peasy. Then she'd wake up around 2:30am for a bottle and sleep again until 5 or 6am. Sometimes she wouldn't want to go back to sleep after that, but typically she would.

This week? Hmph. She started acting funny over the weekend, when she started eating small amounts of formula frequently. Great for reflux. Awful for sleep. And then on Sunday night, she wouldn't go to bed without a fight. I ended up staying up until midnight with her, constantly going in and giving her the pacifier, which would calm her down until she spit it out and got all pissed off again. She finally fell asleep around 11:30pm and as I drifted off to sleep I suddenly heard a hungry cry come from down the hallway. She was ready to eat. Bah! I gave her a bottle and she finally started to get drowsy and went to bed. We slept until 4am, when it was time for another bottle. She went to bed just fine on Monday night, and had another party on Tuesday- this time until 1:30am. Mommy was not really in the partying mood, either. Especially since I knew I'd be doing a ton of driving the next day. Wednesday night was alright. Last night was fine at first, but then she decided to be up every two hours to eat one ounce of formula at a time. *sigh*

She's been needing a pacifier to help her get to sleep most nights. It really sucks that she did so well for the first week and suddenly has no recollection of the wonderful schedule we had gotten on. But, such is parenthood. I really can't wait until she can sleep through the night. I know that a lot of parents feel that it's a race to get to that point, and that the earlier a child sleeps through the night, the more successful they feel as a parent. But that doesn't make sense to me at all- Emma's need for a bottle at 2:30am doesn't make me a bad parent. It makes her a hungry fat kid. And I'm ok with that.

I've come so far; truly I have. I was so terrified of everything in the beginning and I'm finally starting to relax a lot more. I still have an incredible fear of SIDS but I don't feel as if she's going to automatically die if I let her nap without her motion sensing diaper clip on. But that clip is a serious relief. I would worry so much more without it. Anyways, I'm making my way down this crazy and sleepless path of parenthood and learning the old-fashioned way about a lot of things. But that's the point, right? If someone were constantly telling me what to do at every moment, then it wouldn't be as fulfilling. It's such a feeling of accomplishment when I learn something new about her on my own and without someone instructing me every step of the way. She's my child. My only child. I want to find my own way in my own time and enjoy this whole experience as it shapes me into a new person. Yet, I still haven't completely grasped the fact that I'm a mother now. Especially after all we've gone through to get here.

So, this poor kid has a bunch of people trying to monopolize her time and attention... me, her daddy, Grammy, Pop, Grandma, Grandpa... she's quite the celebrity.

At this point, I'd normally post pictures of my little crabby patty. But I'm having USB cable issues right now and I don't feel like fussing with it. Maybe this weekend I'll upload the pictures from the Nikon that I've been meaning to put on my computer for ages. Maybe.

Mini Mensa

Emma's head is officially fuzzy. She was born with this hilarious looking old-man hair... her hair basically grew in the back and a little on the sides, but not much of anything on the top. But finally, she's getting some fuzz growing on the top of her head. In fact, it's growing pretty fast and soon she'll be looking a little reminiscent of a Chia Pet and I can't wait for that.

I'm back in the office full time now and my god do I miss Emma during the day. I look at her pictures every so often and think about her every second. But I had to go back, and in some ways I'm really glad I did. Mostly because I have to have an income and I take pride in my work- working from home was getting to be nearly impossible to maintain because I was getting new cases and had lots of staffings, meetings, etc. that required my attendance. I felt like I was treading water but about to fall behind and that is certainly not my style. So now I'm back and luckily I was able to get a whole bunch of work done in a short amount of time so I'm well on track and not feeling on the verge of falling behind any longer. Whew. I did realize something though- no matter how much I want to deny it, I'm kind of cut out for dependency/child welfare. So I guess I'd better settle in and make myself comfy... there's no point in trying to find anywhere else to go. I've put in three years and haven't died. Yet.

The issue with being back to the office full time is with child care. Sure, we have relatives that can help out... but I've always had an issue asking for and receiving help from others. Especially if I have any inkling that the person doing the helping would be inconvenienced in any way. So needless to say, it's been a little difficult for me to accept help with watching the baby without feeling anxious and horrible about leaving her with someone knowing that there's no way they're going to get much of anything done that day. I need to relax about it. I'll get there one day... the biggest stressor of the whole thing is that the people who watch the baby live in the exact opposite direction from my office, which happens to be a 23 mile drive from my house in the first place. This is going to be a major adjustment... kind of like everything else I've experienced over the last 16 weeks of my life.

Yep. 16 weeks ago was when I was admitted to the hospital. My darling little pumpkin will be 13 weeks this coming Monday! My how time flies.

The sleep issues are getting better, I think. It helps that I dont' turn on the monitor at night so I only hear her when she's actually upset and needs me, not when she's just being fussy or noisy. We've done a 9pm bath/swaddle/bottle/bed routine for almost a week now and she's been doing alright. She was a little overtired the other night so she screamed for a little while before finally falling asleep and staying that way for quite a while. She has definitely fallen into somewhat of a schedule now: we do our bedtime routine at 9pm and she's usually in bed around 10 or 10:30. She falls asleep at some point, but I'm not sure when because I don't sit with her until she does so- I let her stay in her crib as long as she's not crying or overly fussy. We put some stuffed animals up along the crib rails and she usually looks at those while she slowly gets groggy and eventually drifts off to sleep. She then wakes up at 2:30am for a bottle, although last night she was up at 2am. I'm not considering a 1/2 hour difference to be enough of a deviation to consider it a change in her pattern. And definitely not after one night. Anyways, she gets up again sometime between 5am and 6am, depending on how much she ate at 2:30. Lately she's been wanting to stay up to play for a little bit, usually about an hour or so, after her 5am/6am bottle. And then she'll go back to sleep for a little while. In fact, she slept for quite a long stretch yesterday morning. She took 1/2 of a bottle around 6am, played just a little, then  slept until 11am. I'm not sure how consistent her daytime schedule is because I'm not with her during the days now :(

After much internet research, I'm completely against sleep training. If you've done it yourself, please don't be offended. I much prefer using a little structure to help a baby learn to go to sleep at night- that's the purpose of our bedtime routine with Emma. She's learning that 9pm starts the routine and she will eventually know what comes next and what to expect. But we aren't forcing anything else on her... and we certainly aren't going to let her cry it out. She is falling into her own schedule and we're helping modify it just a bit and that's as far as we're going to go with her. I just don't see how it's healthy to force a child into a schedule... given time, they'll sink into a good schedule and routine. I'll be patient until then, and we'll all be a lot happier in the end. And much better bonded, at that.

I believe my nursing days are over. It's a tough call, especially as we're entering flu season and she would really benefit from the antibodies in the breast milk. But she doesn't really want to nurse much anymore, to the point where I think she's only getting a few drops before she gets super angry and has a fit. She latches on and I think we both enjoy the bonding and the closeness, but I timed it the other day and she stayed on for a whopping 2 minutes. And that was one of her better attempts recently. She just gets hungry and wants food now. She's an instant gratification kinda gal, I guess. So I've followed through with what I set out to do a few weeks back when I was really struggling to figure out how to proceed- I let her wean herself and set the pace for our nursing experience. Well, to an extent, as I elected not to nurse her throughout the night because I didn't want her to fall asleep while nursing and not end up getting anything to eat, causing her and I to be up all night doing frequent feeds. And now that I'm back at work in the office, I can only nurse her first thing in the morning and in the late evening. My supply has dwindled too much and she gets too angry. So I guess we're done, and I'm really more sad about it than I thought I'd be. It really is an amazing experience and I'll never ever get to do it again...

She's growing so fast and I often find myself feeling a little sad about each passing phase. I sometimes try to cling to every little behavior and experience as I know that she's changing so rapidly and she'll never again be as she is today.

My precious baby girl is absolutely amazing- she's starting to hold up her head much better and likes to pull back away from us while we're holding her upright so that she can look around. She's also really good at baby push ups and has started cooing and smiling like crazy. She absolutely loves to be laid on a blanket on a random spot in the house so she can look around the room and study her surroundings. I'll also occasionally have a smile flashed at me while changing her diaper, provided she's not so ravenously hungry that she's screaming her head off and could care less if I'm making funny faces at her. I put her on her playmat this morning and you would have thought she was drugged- I turned on the toy that flashes different colored lights and makes nature sounds or music (I chose nature sounds this morning) and she just stared with her mouth open. Then she got excited and started to stick out her tongue and move her mouth like she was trying so hard to make noise. Her arms started flailing and she hit some of the other toys hanging from the playmat, which made her smile and caused her to keep flailing her arms so she could keep hitting the toys. I like to think she's a genius... she's technically less than five weeks old ;)

No pictures this time- I'm far too exhausted to mess with it. My apologies!