84th in What?!

Emma can be a real jerk sometimes. I'll be holding her and she'll be looking all sweet and adorable, then suddenly she's trying to rip my throat out. Or squeeze my cheek off. Or she'll start punching or slapping me in the chest. Sometimes she'll even grab my chest with one hand, the side of my upper arm with her other hand, and proceed to bite my shoulder. For no apparent reason. 

*sigh* but this evil baby is certainly something else. She had her nine-month well-child exam on 4/9... I had noticed recently (maybe I mentioned it in my last blog post? Can't remember) that she seemed to be a lot taller all of the sudden. And yep, I was right- she was in the 84th percentile for height. Eighty fourth. For those of you who know me in real life, you know that height is not something I ever excelled at. Spelling, yes. Being tall, no. And hubby is average height for a dude... I won't go into detail because my dad will pretend he's mad at me for saying my family is short... but my family is short. Now, clearly this doesn't mean that Emma will be a behemoth when she's an adult because I was reasonably tall for my age as a young child. I just stopped growing around... eighth grade? Ya.

She weighed in at 19.6 pounds (the .6 I believe is 6/10 of a pound, not six ounces) which is in the 61st percentile. So my short fat baby is now a tall kind-of-fat baby. I still have to take extra care to wash in between her folds and rolls in the bath so that they don't get cheesy, so I'm pretty sure she's still really fat, 61st percentile or not. And her head was in the 31st percentile, but it's still too big for her little body, as is typical for infants. Her head has always been on the small side, though, and I guess that's not a bad thing. As long as there's enough room for a big enough brain so she can be a doctor when she grows up...

I am so grateful that she has fallen into a fabulous schedule lately, especially with how (literally) insane my job has been over the last few months. My saving grace has been that Baby Bird has been sleeping entirely through the night for a while now. If I was still having to get up in the middle of the night, fix a bottle, change the baby, feed the baby, rock the baby, and put the baby back in bed again, I think someone would have had to Baker Act me by now. But her scheduled, which is subject to change with no notice, has been: wake up sometime between 7 and 8am, feed herself an 8oz bottle, playtime/ride to meet grandma or to Grammy and Pop's house, breakfast at about 9:30, 10:30- 4oz bottle and naptime. She usually wakes up around 12, then has lunch, plays, has a 4oz bottle and nap around 2:30. She sleeps until about 4:30 or 5, then another bottle and playtime. Dinner at 6:30 (if I'm home by then, which I rarely am these days), bath at 7:30, bed at 8. Repeat.

So mixed into that nice little schedule is a lot of shrieking, grumping, and babbling. I can't get over how crazy she is... she decided to try to see how loud she could scream today. I'm not even kidding- I watched her holding a plastic ring (from one of those stacking ring toys) in her Pack n Play and she started screaming at it like it had insulted her mother (which, it didn't). Then she started screaming louder. Then louder. And just when I thought she couldn't scream louder, she did. And then screamed even louder again. All at this poor red ring which I'm fairly certain did nothing to deserve that kind of verbal abuse. 

I think my neighbors think we're abusing this poor child. We're not. But it probably sounds like we are.

For some reason, she still hates eating lunch and dinner. And I'm being completely serious and somewhat facetious at the same time when I say that trying to figure out how to properly feed my kid solid foods has been more difficult than when I took pre-calc in high school. There's no consistency in information on the web- some sights say to feed her 4tbsp of cereal AND a jar/tub of baby fruit/veggies per meal. Others say 1-2tbsp of each. Emma will gladly eat a whole container of yogurt or about 2tbsp of cereal and 1/2- 3/4 of a jar of fruit in the morning. Lunch time is a struggle and sometimes she doesn't want to eat anything you put in front of her. Same with dinner. Although this weekend, she did a little better and actually gobbled down her veal (I call it veal, but it's not. It's jarred beef baby food. Which equals baby beef. Which equals veal. The end.) and green beans for dinner two nights in a row. I couldn't get her to eat her green beans for lunch today, though. Hmph. For dessert tonight (she actually never gets dessert. That's not why she's fat. She's just fat because she's fat, and she's a baby) she had some apple cinnamon flavored baby puffs. I was worried that they were too big and she'd choke on them so I broke them into pieces and let her play with them. When the pieces are so small, she doesn't quite get the fact that she can put them in her mouth and eat them. Instead, she usually just picks them up and plays with them. But tonight, she figured it out and ate a piece all by herself. I gave her progressively larger pieces until I gave her a full sized puff, then held my breath in anticipation of her swallowing it whole and choking to death. But alas, she chewed the darned thing like a big girl and eagerly awaited the next one. So it would appear that my little crazy animal can start moving on to some big-kid food and table food instead of all of this pureed baby food nonsense. Of course, she'll still have plenty of that too. I have a pantry full of baby food now :)

I've been feeling very grateful this weekend. Aside from being exhausted, that is. We had a busy weekend of shopping... can I just say that I'm tired of spending money? I'm serious. After the down payment on the new house, we still had to buy a new washer, dryer, refrigerator, garage door opener, breakfast nook table/chairs, end table, rugs, shower curtains, door mats, ceiling fans, mini fence for the backyard for the dog, security system, and various bits and pieces of things here and there. Oh, and Emma is transitioning into her 12-month clothes, of which she doesn't have much. So I bought her a whole new wardrobe this weekend, and that was actually the fun part. Now she has a few drawers full of new clothes and I cannot wait until she wears each new outfit. Since we're only having one child, I'm so glad to have my girl. Shopping for girl clothes is insanely fun. It is a little bittersweet to start shopping in the toddler section of the stores now and to see that she can wear two-piece jammies at night now, because they sell those in 12m size. And that I can't find too many onesies in her size either, because most of the 12m stuff is separates, just like big-kid clothing. 

So while I'm trying not to be broke, I'm soaking in my surroundings and being grateful for what I have. And whom I have. Specifically, a husband who cooks and does dishes every night. ;)

I've been reading over my old blog posts lately and it's an amazing reminder of how much things change in just a few months. Every time I find myself getting frustrated, I remember the days when Emma refused to nap in her crib or would be up every couple of hours every night and I think darnit, 90210. This really isn't that bad! Stop whining! I mean, jeez. I used to rock her and bounce her in my arms for what seemed like an eternity while she calmed down enough to sleep. Every. Night. Now, I feed her, rock her for a few minutes (depending on how drowsy she is and how difficult it is for me to let her go for the night), put her in her crib, and let her babble/kick/wiggle/clap herself to sleep. 

My last saving grace- no teeth. I can't even begin to describe the stress I've been enduring at work lately. So add to my ever-growing list of things that would cause me to have a psychotic break: teething. Thank you, Emma, for not having any teeth yet. They can wait for a few more months, right? Please?!

Well, Look at Those Big Blue Eyes

I can't come up with the words to adequately describe the last few weeks of my life. Hectic? Doesn't even begin to cover it. Stressful? Close, but no cigar. The week before Easter will live in infamy in my life for a long, long time. It'll be the litmus test of any horrible week I may experience during the rest of my career- "this week sucks so bad... oh, but wait. It's still not as bad as that week." I'll leave it at that. Just know that my job has been beyond anything I've ever experienced and my confidence is shaken. Not a comfortable feeling for this gal.

It's absolutely absurd how much changes in such a short period of time with a baby. Emma's development kind of plateaued for a while, with her managing to learn to roll from tummy to back (out of pure necessity and her incredible hatred of being on her tummy. She still has yet to roll from back to tummy because she has no desire to do so) and then being content with her life from that point forward. Until the worst week of my life came around, when she decided that mommy at least needed something good to happen. She started clapping on 3/26 and babbling on 3/29. And, of course, both of these things happened while daddy was home with the baby and mommy was at work :( but luckily daddy was kind enough to video tape her clapping and I got to hear her babbling while on the phone with hubby. This weekend, she learned how to make kissy sounds with her mouth. Next up: cartwheels.

So let me just say that there is nothing more adorable than a fat little baby blowing raspberries, clapping her fat little hands, saying "dadadadada" and making kissy sounds with her mouth all in the span of about two minutes. Seriously- there's nothing more adorable. I assure you. She keeps me entertained, that's for certain, and the really big new development is that she actually wants to entertain us and tries to interact with us as much as she can. Blow a raspberry at her, and she'll blow one right back at you. Make kissy sounds, get kissy sounds in return. She also tries to interact with her toys and the dog. She'll sit in the bathtub and babble at her rubber duckies, or lecture the dog as she walks by.

And she still squeals. Loudly. Usually with a toy in her mouth, and mostly just for the hell of it. It's just as cute as almost everything else she does, except for when you're sitting in a restaurant and you clearly cannot communicate to Emma that she needs to be quiet. Because she's a baby. She doesn't understand. Luckily said restaurant was just Steak n Shake, so there were children everywhere and the only person who seemed to care about my screaming baby was some lady at the table next to us who seemed to just be miserable with her life in general. Yep. I had my first "I don't care if you're bothered by my child. If you wanted a quiet meal, you should have gone to Olive Garden, lady" moment. I mean, really. Emma wasn't that loud, and she wasn't upset either. She was just so excited to be sitting up like a big girl at the table while surrounded by a whole bunch of people and noise. It was her contribution to the ambiance.

I bought one of those fancy shmancy shopping cart covers so we could start taking Emma shopping sans stroller. I picked out the fanciest shmanciest one I could find, with little pillows on either side of her for maximum support and comfort. Our first trip with the cart cover was to Big Lots (yay.) and I couldn't stop smiling at how excited Emma was to be able to look around the store and see everything. She was the same way at JoAnn Fabrics. And today, she and I went shopping with her Grammy (my stepmother-in-law) and I was so proud of my sweet little Baby Bird and how good she was. I think we spent about an hour and a half to two hours in the store today and she didn't grump a single time. She just played with her toys, ate my hands, and watched everything around her. She just loves being in a shopping cart. I just happen to love shopping. Except for clothes shopping. Bleh. (because I can never find anything that actually fits me)

So now that she's been making appearances in public more often lately, I've noticed that everyone says something about her eyes. I don't need to point out that she has big eyes. It's obvious from her pictures. But in real life, her eyes twinkle with curiosity and happiness and draw you right in. The first thing that people say is along the lines of "look at those big blue eyes!" or "you have such pretty eyes!" It's always the eyes. People did that to me as a kid- I had bright blue eyes when I was little that slowly turned to green (fun fact! Green is the most rare of the common eye colors) so everyone was constantly commenting on my eyes when I was young and occasionally as an adult. But Emma's eyes are not only a pretty color, but they're huge. And huge eyes on a baby is the darned cutest thing ever. Google Kewpie Dolls. That's my girl.

Sleep: ah, sleep. She's been sleeping for 11-12.5 hour stretches every night for about a month-ish now. Maybe longer? I can't remember exactly when it started because I was in denial for the first few weeks and thought she'd revert to night wakings on any given day, so I wasn't counting on it continuing. But it has... and I'm so grateful, especially with the kind of weeks I've had recently (I don't think I've worked less than 45 hours per week in the last month and a half). So at an actual age of about 7 months and an adjusted age of about 5 months, I think that's a pretty good routine to have. With no parent-led scheduling! Well... mostly. We've tried to have a somewhat consistent bedtime for her since she was about three months of age, but that never actually stayed too consistent. My schedule is pretty erratic and she spends time with two different sets of grandparents during the week... and there was also a time change thrown in there. So she's been going to bed anywhere between 7:30 and 9:30 over the last month or so. But her own little schedule has emerged, with a wake up time of 7:30am, nap around 10:30 or 11 (if she spends the day with grandparents because she'll nap in the car on the way so her morning nap is a little later than normal) and another nap at about 2:30. She's a champ now.

The thing that hasn't stayed very consistent is the method of getting her to sleep. For a few weeks, she was finally letting me rock her to sleep in her rocker, then I could gently put her in her crib and sneak away while she continued to sleep. Then, suddenly, she wouldn't let me rock her to sleep and I had to put her in her crib and let her kick/fuss/grunt/babble/clap/break dance herself to sleep for her naps and at bedtime. I usually like to sit in her nursery until she's asleep but she kept turning herself in her crib so she could look at me, then she'd try to entice me to pick her up by clapping her hands ("see mommy, I'm cute! Come play with me!"). When that didn't work, she'd squeal a few times, When that didn't work, she'd start to get angry and cry and yell at me. Solution? Put a blanket up on the end of the crib to block her view of me. That worked like a charm... until this afternoon, that is. There I sat, getting my Pinterest fix for the afternoon while sitting in the glider listening to Emma entertain herself in her crib. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement, and looked at her crib in time to see the blanket slowly being pulled into the crib by none other than Emma. I tugged back so the blanket didn't actually fall into the crib, and she tugged harder. Fine. No more blanket. I pulled it all the way off and put it on the floor, at which point Emma saw me and smiled and squealed. So I left the room so she could calm down and sleep... after some anger and fussing, she finally calmed down and took a nap. Sheesh! But tonight, she let me rock her to sleep again :)

So the only thing that's predictable about having a baby is that everything is unpredictable. Every. Single. Thing.

Food: Of course, my fat kid is a finicky eater. She'll gladly have a full bottle of formula, but she isn't always the biggest fan of eating solids. Breakfast is usually better than lunch and dinner, so I guess she takes after me in that way. I love breakfast. Anyways, sometimes she'll eat like she's starving, and other times she purses her lips from the first bite and refuses to eat anything. We had some jars of stage 2 1/2 carrots that were a little more lumpy than stage 2 carrots, but she gagged every time I tried to give her some, so she has remained on the stage 2 foods. Tonight, I decided to break up a rice rusk death cookie* into small pieces to see if she'd eat it. She preferred to just pick up the little pieces with her fingers and examine them (I can't get over how good she is with her hands. When her Grammy picks her up, she zeros in on Grammy's thin white gold necklace and grabs it with a pincer grasp like it's no big deal) and then drop them on the floor. I put a piece in her mouth, expecting her to immediately gag, but nope. She chewed it like it was a piece of bubble gum and smiled at me. I gave her more, and she gagged a little on the bigger pieces, but she chewed and ate them with few issues. I then mashed up some of the sweet potato I had on my plate for dinner and gave her that to play with and eat. Again- much different texture than pureed baby sweet potatoes, which is one of her favorite foods. She ate that like a champ, too. She gagged a few times on them also, but overall she did a fabulous job with her first introduction to non-pureed foods. Hooray fat kid!

*rice rusk death cookies. Ugh. Someone at work showed me some rice rusks that her granddaughter was eating. They're basically a crunchy wafer-like cookie (? biscuit? apparently that's why they're called a 'rusk'- they're not really a cookie, but not really a biscuit. Just a rusk.) for babies that dissolve relatively quickly in a baby's mouth. I remembered a friend giving them to their child in the past, so I thought, what the heck, she'll probably love them. And she did. Until I ripped the rusk from her little baby hands after she bit off a piece and almost choked on it. Like a good mom, I decided to give her the death cookie back one more time because certainly that was a fluke. And she bit off another chunk, causing my hand to go flying into her mouth to wrestle the rusk away from her esophagus before she died.
Ok, that was a bit of hyperbole there. But she did bite the rusk a couple of times and I had to get it all out of her mouth before she swallowed and choked and she did gag once or twice too, which is nothing new.

Things Emma likes:
blowing raspberries
bubbles
red Solo cups
standing up
TV
tags
pulling grass out of the ground
ripping paper towels
slapping mommy
clapping

Things Emma does not like:
diaper changes (it's like changing a baby kangaroo)
having a onesie pulled over her head
being put in her pack n play when she's tired
having her head washed in the bath
having her mouth wiped after eating
having anything on her head- a hat, headband. etc.
sippy cups

The End.

Everyone is Still Breathing

The last time I checked, I'm still breathing. Whew. I really thought I wouldn't make it to see the other side of these last few weeks... this bumpy road is far from over but at least I'm moving forward. And there does seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel, but I'm not completely certain that it's not a train.

And it's not Emma causing all of this madness. No, no. That kid has been great lately (and THERE we go! Jinxed it. YES.) up until today, when she turned into a grump again. She's been sleeping through the night (11-12.5 hours straight) for a few weeks now. Jinxed that too. And she's fallen into a pretty decent routine during the day of naps and feeding, even at the in-laws' house.

The madness is from work and moving. UGH, God. Why in the world did I decide to move while I have an eight-month-old goober and a recent promotion? The good news is that eventually I'll be all unpacked and settled into this house and I'll have more than one worker on my team, so I can get rid of my ever-growing caseload and be a real supervisor. Eventually.

One year ago, I was pregnant, living in H-town, and working in B-ville as an adoptions case manager. Now, I'm a mommy, living in the S-to-the-H-town, and an adoptions supervisor in the West Pizzle. Crazy how things change so quickly...

I did realize that we had close to 2300 square feet worth of crap in a 1350ish square foot house. When we were in the process of moving, I envisioned this new house being really empty and bare and that we'd have lots of unused space and room to fill the house with more crap. Nope. Wrong. The new house is surprisingly full-ish and I can't figure out how we fit everything in the old house. The difference is that now, I can do cartwheels in my living room (and my closet too!) without destroying things and breaking bones. And Emma will have plenty of room to run around and cause a ruckus, when the time comes for her to run.

Ok, ok. Emma stuff:

TEMPER TANTRUMS. Omg, it has begun- this kid can go from happy to super angry in a flash if we walk away from her, put her down, or take away something she wants. Hooray. Yippee. The fun part of parenting... sometimes it's kind of cute, but you can't reason with an eight-month-old so it's mostly frustrating. What the heck do you do? I calmly tell her no and then smile to reassure her that everything is ok, but she doesn't understand and just continues to grump at me. Because she doesn't understand. Sometimes I just pick her up, but that's a bad habit I don't want to start. Ah, delicate balances. The other day, I tried to give her the sippy cup after her nap instead of her bottle, but she chewed on it a few times and decided that it was no bueno and began swatting it away with her hands and throwing a fit. I replaced the sippy spout with a bottle nipple and tried giving it to her again, but she was convinced it was a trick and that it was a sippy cup in disguise, because she swatted it away again, all the while grumping, yelling, crying, kicking, and flailing. It was really extreme. I finally managed to get the darned thing in her mouth and once she realized it was a nipple, everything in her little world turned to sunshine and rainbows and she happily took the bottle. Silly baby.

She can feed herself now :( That makes me sad because I enjoy sitting down and holding her while she makes those sweet little noises as she eats. But it's also great for the mornings when I'm trying to get ready to fly out the door (I'm becoming chronically late in the morning, more on that in a moment) because she can feed herself in her bouncy seat while I load up the car and attempt to guzzle some coffee so I don't crash my car on the way to work.

There are definitely some Murphy's Laws of parenting. Like, if I need to be somewhere to meet with my mom so she can watch the baby, or I need to be at a meeting/court/etc., the baby will poop just as I'm about to leave the house. And I can't leave her in a poopy diaper in the car, especially now that my drive to the in-laws' house is about 30 minutes and the drive to meet my mom is about 45, because the poor kid shouldn't be sitting in poo in a car seat for that long. Oh, and I also don't want my car to smell like a dumpster the whole way, either. But regardless, something will happen that will make me rush out the door at the last minute. And that something is usually some kind of bodily function (from the baby, of course).

SITTING. Finally! Hooray baby girl! She mastered rolling from tummy to back about a month ago and now has gone on to bigger and better things. It really didn't take her long to go from needing some support while sitting to needing no support at all. Just a pillow behind her in case she falls (thanks to Sherb, the genius who clearly has more parenting experience than I do. Because I figured she was doing fine sitting on her own and stood up from sitting behind her, only for her to fling herself backward and slam her head on the carpeted floor. Many tears ensued and I felt like a horrible mommy!). Today, she spent some quality time in her pack-n-play with some toys and sat all by herself and played like a big girl.

I realized something. I used to watch videos of people's kids that they posted on Facebook and I used to think that's cute and all, but it's just your kid sitting in a pack-n-play with some toys. Now I get it. Just a few short months ago, she was literally a blob of burping, farting, pooping, eating, crying baby that would stare at the ceiling and go cross-eyed at random times. Now, she's sitting. In a pack-n-play. Playing with toys. In my mind, this kid is Leonardo Da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa. In reality, she's a shreiking, smiling, wobbling little goober chewing on the hand of her Cat in the Hat stuffed animal. I love that little goober. And her big open-mouthed kisses.

Oh, and she can give high-fives. Without even looking. She's still a pro with her hands... so maybe she'll be the next Leonardo Da Vinci. I just hope she doesn't end up with a beard...

Pictures. Small Pictures. But Pictures.

By the way I'm living my life right now, you'd think I'm a glutton for punishment or something. Teething baby. Moving. Promotion at work. *sigh*

At least the teething let up for about a week or two. Or maybe it's been longer than that? Time means nothing to me right now... but we have had a reprieve from the angry teething baby until today, when she decided to start grumping again and was chewing on anything she could get her slimy little hands on. And her slimy little mouth, which gave mommy and daddy some slimy little kisses today. I don't even care if she only gives open-mouth, baby-bird, super-drooly kisses... it's the cutest darned thing in the world.

So, all this teething and... not a tooth in sight. Her gums look maybe a little different now than they did a few months ago, but that's really grasping at straws. I seriously think her first tooth won't be making its appearance any time soon. Bah!

I've been reading some of my old blog posts and reminiscing on times past, which has greatly helped to put things in perspective for me this week. She's actually been doing very well lately, despite her ongoing issues with sleeping at her grandma and grandpa's house, which in turn causes a domino effect of bad bedtime, bad sleep, and early wakeup time. But other than that, she does great- she's usually in bed by 7:30 or 8, sound asleep in her crib with hardly a peep. And most nights she sleeps for a good 12 hours straight without waking for a bottle, which is, of course, always subject to change. She doesn't need a nighttime bottle anymore, but sometimes she wakes up and just can't get herself back to sleep without some help.

The few times she has woken up for a middle-of-the-night bottle recently have been because of Pampers Cruisers. Yep. Add that to the list of diapers that Emma can't wear. UGH. My mother-in-law bought a box of them when a local grocery store was going out of business and had everything on sale. They don't sell size 3 Swaddlers in the grocery stores around these parts, so the Cruisers were the next best thing. Well, apparently for my Baby Bird, Cruisers= nighttime pee pants. The Swaddlers can hold the biggest of all of the Emma pees without a problem. Ever. In fact, I don't think Emma has ever had a leak with her Swaddlers that I can recall... even when they've been poorly fastened. The Cruisers have a "three-way fit" and apparently none of those three ways actually fit Emma's little bottom. So she pees out the top back of the diaper in the middle of the night, which is a really exciting discovery (not) at 4:30am when I go to lift her out of her crib and am greeted by soaking wet pajamas and crib sheets. Because what I really want to do more than anything at 4:30am is change the crib sheet and give the baby a baby wipe bath (AKA a Hudson baby bath). Then feed her and beg her to go to sleep, because by that point she was completely wide awake and ready to party. Thank God for her swing. So her Cruisers are used during the day, and her Swaddlers at night because, well, if she wasn't spoiled enough already, she now has her day diapers and her night diapers. Next up, is her weekday Power Wheels and her weekend Power Wheels.

Speaking of Power Wheels. We're closing on our new home in 9 days... holy mother of God. There's so much left to do... pack, pack, pack, paint, pack, clean, paint, clean, unpack, unpack, unpack, reorganize, clean, unpack, pass out and die. We'll finally have a big garage (our current garage is more like a 1 1/2 car garage because we really wouldn't be able to comfortably fit both cars in it) so we can park both cars in it, PLUS the third garage bay, which is perfect for a little pink Barbie Power Wheels Cadillac. Duh.

As I was sitting here typing up this blog entry, Baby Bird start screaming bloody murder out of a nice, calm sleep. I jumped up and almost dropped my laptop on the ground in the process because this kid rarely cries. And when I say rarely, I mean I-can't-remember-the-last-time-she-really-cried kind of rarely. Actually, no. I do remember the last time she cried- it was when she had her shots at her six-month well-child appointment. She had a booster shot a couple of weeks ago but hubby took her to that appointment, but she obviously cried at that too. But otherwise, she'll grump when she's in pain or overtired, yell and fuss and scream (not cry though) when she's way overtired and doesn't want to sleep, grump/yell when she's hungry, or whine when she doesn't want to be put down or wants out of her crib when she's done napping. But she doesn't truly cry. So, yea. That startled me and I ran into her nursery and picked her up out of her crib. The poor thing looked at me and cried harder as I pulled her head onto my shoulder and calmed her down... sheesh. Usually she sees me and laughs, squeals, and smiles. So something was definitely amiss with my little miss. I'm still not certain what it was... she continued to cry a little and angrily grunt in my arms until she drifted to sleep again. I held her extra long to comfort her (ok, and me) and she tooted a few times. When I put her back in her crib, she woke up a little and started kicking and fussing like she sometimes does, but there were some angry grunts peppered in. And another toot or two. So maybe she has some gas that's bothering her? I know, I know... I don't subscribe to the whole "it's gas!" excuse that everyone uses anytime a baby is less than happy. But this could be the real deal, the elusive true gas pains. Or it could be heartburn. Or teething. Whatever it is, she's definitely in some pain tonight :(

We elected to discontinue her reflux medications at the end of January (oops, didn't tell her doctor. That may have been a good thing to do first...) for a few reasons. A few people had suggested that I have the pharmacy request an increased dosage since she's grown so much since her original script. At 17+ pounds, she was still on the same dose she was on when she was about 8 or 9 pounds. The doctor's office said the only reason to increase the dose would be if she was having more symptoms or getting worse, which she wasn't. In fact, she doesn't spit up like she used to and she's a generally happy baby. So I figured the medication probably wasn't doing anything for her anymore since it was such a low dose. And we were having to give her Colic Calm, Tylenol, or Motrin for her teething pain, so we skipped a few doses because she was really not feeling the whole medicine dropper thing after a while. The discontinuation of her reflux meds was accidental at first, but then we decided to just not give it to her anymore. She seems to be doing just fine.

My chubby little baby is starting to move along with her gross motor skills now. She rolls from tummy to back like she's been doing it all her life and is starting to sit on her own without support for short periods of time. She still face plants quite often, though and grumps afterwards. I can't help but laugh at that. At the rate she's going with her fine motor skills, she'll be a concert violinist at the age of three. The pincer grasp is now her grasp of choice and she loves to grab at tags with her little fingers all day long. She'll grab a stuffed animal and immediately turn it over and around until she finds the tag, and then proceeds to play with it. She usually doesn't even try to put it in her mouth; she just plays with it with her fingers. Put a toy in front of her, and she can reach right for it, grab it with one hand (depending on the toy), and pull it to her to inspect and decide if she wants to play with it. She doesn't even have to try hard anymore, her hands can do whatever she wants them to do without hesitation. Now she just has to work on getting her legs and the rest of her body to cooperate, and we'll be in good shape.


So here's my sad attempt at posting pictures. I'll include the link to my Flickr account that I created just so I could possibly post pictures on this blog. This is the best I could do for now... most of the pictures are from Christmas, but the first one is from her seventh month-day on February 9th. My, how she's grown!

Christmas through February, a set on Flickr.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/93066996@N03/sets/72157632902359448/

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.