Week 11

11 weeks old on 1-30-09

Embry has started to 'talk' a lot more. She does goo goo ga ga things and squeals now. I'm convinced that she's said 'hi' a couple of times but Tony insists that I'm crazy. Whatever. I think he will agree with me that she has waved a couple of times in response to us waving at her though. Now when I get the camera out and set her on the blanket for pictures she will smile on command. Sometimes I don't even have to say 'smile!' she'll just see the red light and start smiling and cooing. She's gotten very good at sticking her fingers/hands in her mouth and oozing all over them.

Tony and I have kind of worked out this system where Embry will sleep until 6am when Tony's alarm goes off and then I'll feed her. Then Tony will take her downstairs and put her in the bouncer while he does his morning routine because she's not tired enough to lay down and sleep in the play yard and then bring her back before he leaves after she's fallen asleep in the bouncer. It works out very nicely and this morning we slept until Tony came home for lunch at 11.

I love her.

Week 10

10 Weeks old, 1-24-09

Embry went to church for her second time on Sunday and was very well behaved. She stirred a little bit, but basically slept the whole time. The people sitting behind us said that she smiled at them and she was very well behaved. She also smiled at Deb on Wednesday at YM and at Tony's mom last night and today, so she's getting much better at smiling.

On Tuesday Embry and I went to MOPS again. I decided to take the stroller this time because it was so hard to carry the infant carseat last time and it was much easier. She slept through the first 2 hours or so, then sat on my lap for a while, then I fed her. While I was feeding her in the 'cry room' the janitor came in because he wanted to hang up a clock and a picture, so then I finished the feeding in a bathroom stall...which I'm getting pretty good at. We then went out to lunch with Rachael, Cody, Kacy, and Drew and Embry slept through the whole thing. From there it was off to Dr. Morris's office for Embry's 2 month check up.

The verdict is...Embry does not like shots!

She weighed in at a whopping 11lbs 4oz which is almost exactly the 50th percentile and she was 23 inches long. The dr said that her spitting up is normal and should get better with age and since she is gaining weight it's nothing to worry about. I told him about her diaper rash (which is now gone) and he said to stop using the lamisil because it's not a long term solution and that we could keep using the desitin. I told him that the rash would come back, but now I'm not so sure it will because she isn't pooping in spurts anymore so she doesn't need her diaper changed nearly as often. The nurse came in and gave her 2 shots in her right leg and 1 in her left and I got to hold her legs still, but I ducked down behind the exam table so she couldn't see me when she got poked, haha. Of course she screamed bloody murder, it was quite deafening. Then I nursed her for a few minutes and she was fine for like 5 hours at which point I was out grocery shopping. I called Tony to see how many packs of cream cheese he needed and he said that Embry was crying/screaming uncontrollably. I bought some children's tylenol for the outrageous price of $10 and gave her some right when I got home and nursed her. Everytime she would move her legs she would start crying again even if she was in the middle of eating...that must have been pretty painful because eating is serious business to Embry. Finally she fell asleep, but in the meantime I felt sooo bad for her. She slept just fine that night, which was a great relief as well. A few days afterwards a bruise showed up on her right leg, so the nurse must have gotten her pretty good, poor baby.

This week she's started to laugh (or I consider it laughing, it's kind of a squealing laugh thing) and actually grab/grasp her toys instead of just hitting them with her fist. I got her some toys that were on clearance at Target. One is one of those excersize gym things and she seems to like that quite a bit and then a star toy that goes inside her crib that she hasn't tried out yet. I also got a snugli carrier that was on clearance which we have to try and see if she likes it. I'm guessing it will be nearly impossible for me to carry her in it with my back, but Tony could easily use it. The real question is, will he use it? They always have a picture of the happy guy toting around his baby on the outside of the box, but I think in reality most men don't like to strap a baby onto their chest. We shall see.

Oh wait, big milestone for Embry...she's sleeping through the night! Woohoo! Her normal sleep time (unless she has an off night) is 10pm to 6am. Then she'll wake up and eat every 3 hours until she's fully awake around 10:30-11am. I'm enjoying this much more than waking up every 2-3 hours when she was a newborn. That was extremely hard for me and the reason why I told Tony we were only having one child. That and the crying when there is seemingly nothing wrong, but that's pretty much subsided as well. So, yes, we will probably have more kids. At least one more, but then I think how easy it would be to just have the one...and how much cheaper.

Grandma Dorothea came down from Phoenix last night and babysat Embry while Tony and I went on a date to the Gaslight Theater. We all had lots of fun and when we came home to find little Embry fast asleep in Grandma's arms, so cute.

Here are the most recent pictures of Embry:
Album 10
Album 11

Week 9

9 weeks old 1-16-09

Embry officially turned 2 months old on Wednesday! She's growing up so fast.

She's started smiling a lot more now. She'll smile when we smile at her and ask her to smile which is just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. I told my mom on the phone the other day that I think Embry likes me. Maybe it's just that I'm the one with the food, but she smiles at me, and it feels so great to know that she actually is happy to be around me. :)

On Wednesday she went to Young Marrieds and was perfectly well behaved sitting in her carseat the whole time. I was really worried on the way over there because she was having a fit everytime the car stopped moving, but once inside she fell asleep and only woke up at the very end of the meeting. She's such a good girl. Today she slept for most of the time that my parents were over here which allowed me and my mom to get almost all of the Christmas decorations down and put away (finally).

I took 250 pics of Embry in the backyard yesterday. Natural light is fantastic.

She's been sleeping a lot in the daytime which I think is hurting her when she tried to go to bed at night. She'll be extremely fussy and only calm down when she's held. This has happened twice in the last week. So the first time I put her in the bed with us and let her nurse while I slept (I know, bad idea, but at the time I was running out of options). Anyhow, it was only like 10 min later when I woke up and she was just lying there next to me asleep so I put her in her bassinet and all was well. Then last night I fed her and she was still upset, so I asked tony to get up and change her while I went and got her sleep sack. He mumbled something about the #36 over and over and finally I said, 'just get up and change her.' He got up and then I explained that he should change her in the bassinet instead of putting the changing table back onto the play yard because she kept kicking the changing table part. When I got back from her nursery he had put the changing table attachment on the play yard and I said, 'why'd you do that?' he replied 'where else would I put the stuff?' I go, 'what stuff?' He says, 'the stuff.' This goes on for a minute then finally I say, 'just go back to bed' and he gladly complied. I asked him today if he remembered this exchange and of course he didn't, it's maddening. He doesn't understand how I could get mad at him for something that he doesn't even remember but I can't understand how he can walk around and perform tasks while he's still asleep! Maybe he really does have narcolepsy. :)

Week 8

8 weeks old 1-9-09

As I was sitting in the computer room at Tony's grandparent's house I looked at Embry and said, 'Embry, smile!' and she smiled! This happened 3 times in a row and then I told Tony, who was in the shower, he didn't believe me. So when he got out I tried it again with Embry and of course nothing but a bewildered look showed on her face. Then 2 days later we walked into the guest bedroom after being gone for the whole day in DC and Tony went to Embry's crib to say hi and she got the biggest smile on her face, so then he believed me that she started to recognize us. It doesn't happen everytime, but she definitely knows that we're her parents!

We came home from Maryland on the 7th and the plane was packed to the brim, so I had to hold Embry instead of her having her own seat. She didn't cry at all and slept about half the time. I fed her with milk I had pumped since there was some old man sitting in the seat next to Tony which worked but it's never quite as comforting as nursing. She fussed a little bit when we put her back in the carseat and were walking to get our luggage, but on the plane ride she was a perfect angel, woohoo! Everyone keeps commenting on how alert she is and the stewardess on the way off the plane was gushing about how she was sooooo cute. :)

A monumental event occured on the way home from Phoenix...Embry visited Culvers for the first time! She slept for the event, but I used a bib and a cheese curd as props to document the occasion. Seeing as she felt so comfortable that she slept, I would say that she really likes Culvers hehe. I wish they had Culvers onesies cuz I'd sooo buy one.

Last night we took her over to my parent's house and my mom got her a pink monkey that whistles when you squeeze it's tummy. My mom put it up to Embry and squeezed it and Embry's face lit up with a smile. It's amazing watching her discover and enjoy the world.

She really likes her bouncer and swing a lot more now that she is a little older. Before she wouldn't really care to be in them, but now she will play with the toys on the bouncer and squeal and she'll fall asleep in the swing. Much easier for the swing to lull her to sleep than me holding her and simulating the rocking motion with my arms haha. I think I'm going to try out her bebe pod tomorrow because she's gotten quite good at holding her head up.

Before we left Maryland we weighed her again and it appears that she is a whopping 11 lbs now! That means she's gained about 4 lbs since she was born, amazing. I can see that her legs, arms, and face have filled out a lot. My parents were amazed at how much bigger she's gotten in 3 weeks and so am I. She's started to spit up a lot more and surprisingly I haven't gagged yet! I'm not sure why she's spitting up, but I've been trying to feed her on one side for 15 min and then burp her and then feed her on the other side for 15 min and then burp her again to try to minimize the spit up. Sometimes it seems to work great and other times, not so much. She's still sleeping in our room in the bassinet part of the play yard. We'll probably keep her in there until she starts eating rice cereal and stuff around 4 months and then move her into the nursery. She's still sleeping really well at night which is fantastic for me. Last night she went to bed around 10:30 and didn't wake up until 5:15am. All I have to say is, yay.

Week 7

7 weeks old  1/2/09

Embry finally moved into size 1 diapers last week.  I still think they're a little loose around the legs, but so far we haven't had any leaks so I guess they're ok.  Unfortunately the sensitive swaddlers weren't on sale at Target, so we got the regular swaddlers and they don't have the wonderful line between the legs that turns from yellow to blue when they're wet.  The line makes it a lot easier to figure out when to change her, but oh well.  She pretty much fits into 0-3 month clothes now too.  The newborn stuff still fits for the most part, but I can put her in 0-3 month and she doesn't look like she's drowning anymore.  :)  

She's definitely playing with her toy a lot more this week.  She'll lay in her crib and bat it around and talk to it for around an hour at a time.   Then she sort of tries to roll over towards it too.  She can get onto her side but not all the way onto her stomach.  At night she is sleeping a LOT better now.  She'll go for about a 5-6 hour stretch and then another 4-5 hour stretch in between feedings, so I'm feeling a lot more rested thank goodness.  Her diaper rash is almost completely gone, woohoo!  We used the lamisil and then desitin on top of it and it cleared right up!  We also took the nurses advice and used wet paper towels instead of wipes for about a week to make sure she wasn't getting irritated by some detergents or anything and now we're back to using the sensitive wipes.  Hopefully at some point I can switch to the non-sensitive wipes because I've got a couple thousand of them in the closet haha.  

She's taken to doing this weird thing while she's feeding.  She'll be fine for like 10-15 minutes and then start kicking her legs and flailing her arms, then she comes unlatched and starts rubbing her face all over the place and ends up milk from her forehead to her neck.  So I thought, well gee, maybe she's not hungry anymore so I'd sit her up and then she's start crying till I started feeding her again.   Then she'll go on being fine for a while and then do the whole thing over again.  I'm so confused.  Sometimes she'll do a whole half hour feeding and not do it once and then sometimes she'll do it like 4 separate times during one feeding.  She's strange.  

Embry has gotten to hang out with her great grandparents quite a bit on our trip.  She was with them when we went to Hershey and York, PA, the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Ellicott City, and when we went to dinner and a play in Columbia with Maria and Paul.  She behaved herself very well for the most part, but one day she was a little crabby.  Her great grandparents got her another SkippyJon Jones board book with flashcards that have english and spanish and 3 Dr Seuss books: The Cat in the Hat, Great Day for Up (one of my favs), and Would You Rather be a Bullfrog.  She also got a little jingle bell Christmas ornament that says 'baby's first Christmas 2008'.  I found some dresses on clearance after Christmas and got her 5 dresses and 2 skirts and I can't wait to dress her up and take more pictures!  Then I also found these shoes at Target that I've been wanting to get her that finally went on clearance, so I bought 3 pairs.  They're baby Converse shoes.  One pair is white hightops with a pink star on the side, then the other 2 are black and silver glittery in a newer style.  Yay!

We got family pictures taken at Sears up here in Maryland with Tony, me, Embry, Uncle Paul, Aunt Maria, and both grandparents.  I got 4 5x7's of the whole family for everyone then one 10x13 of Embry on her stomach leaning over a pillow for us.  Then I went online and looked at the first photo session from Sears when she was 1 week old and oh my gosh, she has grown a TON!  She looks sooooo tiny in the 1 week pictures and when I'm not comparing her to those I still think she's tiny, but my gosh, she's certainly gotten a lot bigger in just 6 short weeks!  She's growing up so fast, I just want to stop time to make sure I get to enjoy every second...well maybe not when she's crying, but the rest of it anyway!  :)