There Can be Miracles: Milestones

I just realized I have a six pack of Woodchuck Granny Smith Hard Cider in the fridge. Commence enjoyment.

Tomorrow is World Prematurity Day! AND- the March of Dimes petition to light the White House with purple lights for preemies on 1/3/13 has all of the signatures it needed. Woohoo! I've put more thought into gathering a team to do a prematurity walk and I'm definitely going to do it. There are plenty of people who have expressed interest and I would love to give back to the organizations that helped save my daughter's life.

Onto the Emma stuff:

She amazes me every day. I watch her in awe as she learns new (and usually major) things and it's clear that she's really picking up on her surroundings. We had our first "conversation" the other night while she was taking a bath- she looked up at me and smiled, so I smiled back and made a little noise at her. She grinned from ear to ear, raised up her head a little, and made a noise back. We went back and forth like this about five times and she was so tickled by the whole thing. And last night, the little goofball started splashing like a crazy fool in her bath, then looked up at me and noticed that I was smiling and laughing. So she smiled and laughed, then splashed some more. She paused, saw me laughing again, and splashed again. I do believe that my little Emma intentionally made me laugh for the first time ever! She's also rapidly learning how to grasp onto things. If you put something in or near her hand, she'll grab onto it and bring it to her mouth. She loves trying to catch her toys on her playmat as they swing or try to slowly raise her hand to grab onto them. The problem is that she still doesn't have complete control over her movements, so she sometimes ends up throwing things unintentionally or punching her toys when she's trying to grab them. Case in point: this morning, my mom put a little plush rattle in Emma's hand and she grasped it. Her arm jerked and her fingers let go, and she ended up throwing the rattle directly into her face. Her poor face.

Seriously. Her poor face. In addition to poking out her eyeballs constantly, she still scratches herself and sometimes draws blood in doing so. And because of how handsy she is now, she also has a tendency to punch herself and now apparently throw things at her face. Never her chest. Always her face.

Emma's 4 month well-child visit was on 11-13 and it went so well. She weighed 13 pounds 4oz- her growth has slowed but she's still catching up to her actual age standards and is now in the 39th percentile for weight! She's still short and fat though ;) She is meeting all of her milestones too and the doctor and nurse were so happy with her progress. She got her shots, and the poor thing tensed up right when she got the first one and started bleeding from it. The second shot was the worst, and she started wailing. That nurse is so quick on the draw, though, and had her all cleaned up with band-aids on in a flash, so that mommy could pick up the baby and cuddle her until she stopped crying. It didn't take long. I asked her what was up with the dramatics coming from the baby that didn't make a peep when her PICC line was removed in the NICU. lol. I hate when she cries like that though, but I'm glad I can soothe her. She's starting to really snuggle into my chest when she's looking for comfort and it's so cute. Sad, but cute.

This morning went down in the record books for most vomit at the worst time. Hubby fed her around 3:00am so I could finally get some sleep. The night before, I was up every hour putting a pacifier in Emma's mouth and patting her until she calmed down because, for some reason, she wasn't able to soothe herself back to sleep when she would awaken between sleep cycles. She usually does that once or twice per night, but the other night was awful. Anyways, hubby came back to bed but heard the little one fussing, so he attempted to give her a pacifier. In the process, Emma was moving all around and ended up gagging on her pacifier (which isn't uncommon for her) and projectile vomited everywhere. And I truly mean everywhere. The carpet in front of her crib was soaked, her sheet was soaked, she was soaked, her crib had vomit all over it. It was a complete mess. I got up to help with the clean up effort and, of course, Emma was just as happy as can be. In fact, she was pretty darned excited and ready to play. I fed her a little more to replace what she had lost, but she was in no way ready for bed. Actually, she wasn't ready for bed when I put her to bed earlier in the night, but she was able to entertain herself to sleep. Hubby went back to bed while I re-fed her, but because she was so rowdy and restless, I ended up setting up camp on the couch so I could shut the bedroom door so hubby could sleep and I could still hear her if she got upset. Wouldn't you figure, I finally get comfy on the couch and she quiets down and goes right to sleep. And by that point, I was so comfy and warm that I didn't feel like getting up and getting into my cold bed, so I just stayed on the couch. I did discover that one of our couch blankets is seriously the most warm and comfy thing I've ever experienced. I'm really contemplating bringing this thing to bed with me every night. If it was so awesome that I chose to stay on the couch vs. sinking back into the Tempurpedic foam, then it's obviously amazing. I'm actually cuddled with it right now ;)

Things are pretty status quo around here. I've sunken into my role as a mommy and feel mostly in control of things again. But I have to say- I am so glad we have our Snuza Halo. It's the breathing/movement monitor that clips onto her diaper while she sleeps. I never worry about her at night because I know that if something happened, the alarm would go off. So if I happen to wake up at 5am and realize she hasn't woken up yet, it's no big deal. I know she's fine! It's priceless peace of mind for someone who's so nutso about SIDS.

Ok, fine. Now for the part you care about most. Pictures.

I put her in her jumper on 11-11 for the first time ever and the result was serious cuteness. I imagine one of these will be grandpa's new computer background ;)