Week 28

28 Weeks Old on 5/29/09

Booyah! Embry is getting her first 2 teeth! I was sooooooo right about her teething, which makes me feel like maybe I kinda know what I'm doing? Anyhow, I was wrong about them being on the top, but whatever, I'm still right! So on Monday (5/25) I had my finger in her mouth because she likes sucking on it (and everything else) and my finger nail scraped against something hard. I quick stuck my fingers in her mouth to look at her bottom gums and sure enough there was a little tiny hole with the tip of an itty bitty tooth coming from her front bottom left gum!!! I called Tony over to look at it and we were both so proud of her. Also sad that she's growing up, but happy too. The next day you could see another little hole right next to the first one in the front right bottom gum. So, soon, she'll have 2 little teeth. I'm sure the bottom of her tongue is going to go raw from her sticking it out over the teeth all the time, but maybe that will entice her to stop sticking her tongue out? I went out and got her a baby toothbrush thing and some orajel. The toothbrush is like a rubber finger cap thing with little bristles on it and some baby safe toothpaste. She absolutely loves it! Once you hold it out in front of her, she opens up her mouth really wide and then if she's holding it, she'll fling it off of her upper gums over and over. Actually, here's a video!



Another thing she loves (which you get a glimpse of in the video) is the kitties! She gets so excited when they walk by or if they rub against her, she starts kicking and squealing. Then if she actually gets her hand on one she will occasionally pet them nicely but most of the time she grabs their fur on the side of their face and pulls really hard. This morning she got Sauce's tail and she wouldn't let go, Sauce was not pleased. So far we haven't had any maliciousness on the part of the cats, but the other night she was sleeping in her car seat and Sauce came up and rubbed on her foot then playfully bit her foot. Tony got mad, but I figure he didn't realize it was actually a foot because she was wearing tights. Point is, she loves the cats and I think they don't mind her too much either.

Another development is that she's getting the slightest hint of brown around the pupil of her eyes. I'm trying to find a good picture to show it, but maybe I'll have to wait till the next post to show that. The CPU fan on my computer broke, so until that gets fixed I can't use photoshop :( My bio teacher in college said that you don't have blue eyes if there is even the littlest bit of brown in your eyes. Maybe technically they're not called blue, but you can definitely have blue eyes with brown in them because that's how my blue eye looks. I doubt that her eyes will go all the way brown at this point in the game, but I guess it's still a possibility.

Tony and I had our 4 year anniversary yesterday. The babysitter, Sarah, came over to watch Embry for 3 hours while we went to BJ's to have a nice dinner. Tony got a pizza and 2 beers (he was quite thrilled with the beers and pizza) and I got a meatloaf sandwich with mashed potatoes and steamed veggies. This brings me to another point...when friends brought us meals after I had Embry they asked what veggies I liked. I told them I didn't like any except corn. After talking to my mom, she said that she didn't like veggies either and therefore we didn't have them with our meals when I was younger and I'm guessing that would be why I didn't like them. Therefore I vowed that I would force myself to eat veggies in the hopes that eventually I might like them and even if I never liked them at least Embry would be exposed to lots of veggies. Well, I have to say, I think I'm actually beginning to like them! We started with a bag of frozen corn, carrots, and green beans from Costco and oddly enough, sometimes I find myself craving them! At BJ's, I had carrots, broccoli, squash, and zucchini and I liked ALL of them! It's a piddly little thing, but I'm so darn proud of myself! I never thought I could overcome my dislike for vegetables. I still have a strong dislike for peas though, not sure if I'll ever get over that one, but I've made great progress thus far. :)

I think Embry is this close to crawling. We set her on the living room floor and she can spin in circles on her tummy and can go backwards pretty well, but she's not so great at going forward. It's the same thing in her walker. Very good and going backward, but can't go forward at all. Maybe next week I'll be able to post a video of her crawling...we'll see.

Week 27

27 Weeks Old on 5/23/09

Embry had quite a time this week because she was sick. We went to 3 parties on Saturday and Embry was feeling warm all day, then we got home and took her temperature. It was 104. So I'm thinking that's an awfully high temp for a vaccine reaction and we call the Dr. The only person you can talk to when the Dr's office isn't open is a nurse hotline thing. The nurse says that a vaccine reaction can occur for 48 hours, so keep giving her tylenol and if it's not gone by Monday to take her to the Dr. Long story short is I got Motrin, called the nurse line again, they say not to worry unless her temp is over 105 (that's insane!) and she still had a 102 fever on Monday morning. I took her to the dr and her temp there (although it was an ear temp not rectal) was only 98.3 so I probably ended up looking like a freak. The Dr then said that since her lungs and ears were clear that he figured she had a cold and that was why she had the fever. After that point her fever kept getting lower and lower until it was gone completely on Thurs.

We also think that she might be teething, but we're really not sure. The signs would be that she sticks absolutely everything in her mouth and I think I can kinda maybe sorta feel some teeth under her gums on the top. Who knows? I certainly don't know what I'm looking for, but at least that would explain her fussiness.

We took her to my brother's graduation on Thursday and she fussed for the first hour, so Tony walked her around the perimeter of the auditorium in the snugli. She was somewhat ok after that.

She started on sweet potatoes this week. She kind of likes them, well better than peas anyway. She started to kind of lift her stomach off the ground this week too. This is a good step on the way to crawling!

Week 26

26 weeks old on 5/15/09

Embry turned 6 months old yesterday! I can't believe it's already been half a year since we welcomed her into our lives. She's such a miracle and a blessing, I'm happier than I could have ever imagined. Ironically enough as I write this she's sitting in her swing crying because she doesn't want to go to sleep. Being the push-over than I am, I just gave into her demands and picked her up. She smells so good.

She had her 6 month check-up yesterday as well. Here's what the dr said: she is definitely thrush-free, she does not have a cold but instead has seasonal allergies (to this she says, 'thanks dad'), and she has a fungal diaper rash. We started using the nystatin cream he prescribed for it last night and it's practically gone already. She got 3 shots. 2 in her right leg and one in her left. I held her down on the exam table while the nurse gave her the shots, but I was out of her eyesight. She was quite upset when she was getting the shots, but as soon as I picked her up afterward she was fine and even smiled at the nurse again. The dr thought her tongue fetish was particularily funny as well as the fact that people compare her to Gene Simmons because of it. She's my little rock star! I'm convinced that when she's older instead of 'Kiss' she's going to start a band called 'Suck'...get it? Because she sucks on stuff? I crack myself up.

Here are her stats:
Weight: 16lbs 1oz, 50th percentile
Height: 26 & 3/4", about 80th percentile
Head Circumference: 42 cm, about 45th percentile

On Friday Tony's mom and sister came down for the weekend. Tony's mom watched Embry that night while Tony, Allison, and I went to the Gaslight to see 'Harlie's Angels' which was hilarious as always. Saturday we took Embry in the pool for the first time. I had dipped her feet in before and she would cry a bunch cuz it was numbingly cold. So I put her little swimmer on (dang those things are expensive!) and her sparkly blue bikini, took a bunch of pics, and then went out to the pool. Tony video taped, Tony's mom took regular pics, and Allison and I tried to put Embry in her floatie outside of the pool so I could just plop her in all at once. That was interesting in itself, but once I put her in, she was really really mad! I watched the video back and I was like, 'jeez why didnt' someone stop me?!' Anyhow, my thought process was that after a few minutes in the water she would become acclimated to it and then all would be fine. That's pretty much what happened. After about 5 minutes of crying she just all of a sudden stopped. She whined after that for a while till I took her out of the floatie and held her, then she was happy. She also enjoyed 'standing' on the top step. She got tired midway through and we put her bouncer in the shade so she fell asleep in that. My friend Jamie came down from Phoenix too, so later that day we went to the mall. Tony's mom got Embry a hat and some sunglasses and I got her another swimming suit, a one piece. That night we played Quelf and Embry was very sleepy from her time out in the sun.

Sunday we got up very early to get ready for Embry's dedication at church. It was also Mother's day and Tony made us all breakfast. When I came downstairs there were cards for me on the dining room table and Tony had put my new camera up there with a bow on it too. It was cute. My parents came over early and rode with us to church. We put Embry in the nursery and gave everyone instructions on how to use the cameras during the dedication. The dedication went very smoothly. Embry hardly made a peep, which is odd for her, and she looked super cute in her pretty green dress. On that subject, I was having a really hard time trying to figure out what Embry should wear for the dedication. She had already worn her pretty purple dress on Easter, she had another fancy dress in 3-6 month size but it was a little Christmas-esc and I didn't have good matching shoes or a hair accessory, and if I were to buy a new dress then I run the risk of another baby wearing the same dress on the stage. Then I realized that I had bought the most beautiful fancy baby dress about 2 years ago when The Children's Place had all the dresses on clearance for $4.25 each. Only problem was it was in a 6-9mo size, but I tried it on her, and it fit perfectly! I wanted a fancier looking headband to go with it, so I made one. I really like how it turned out and it was my first time trying to make one by sewing it, normally I used the hot glue gun. The other issue was I didn't have a pair of white dress shoes in the right size, but I used some that were a little snug, but we made them work! Anyhow, I'm really glad with how the dedication turned out and we got a lot of pictures.

Afterwards we came back here, got more pictures, and Tony grilled chicken, ribs, and corn on the cob. My friend Anna and her girls and our friends the Fransiscos came over. We ate some delicious food and then went swimming. Embry really enjoyed swimming the second time around. She was so adorable because I put her in the floatie and she just laid back with her hat and sunglass on and played with her keys as she floated around the pool for a few hours. I'm so glad that she likes the pool! I'm thinking of enrolling her in a swim class.

Tuesday I took her to the picture people for some 6 month pictures. They turned out soooooooooooooo cute! I had such a hard time deciding which ones to buy and ended up spending way too much money, but it was worth it. We did pictures in her dedication dress, in a diaper cover, and in her tutu and matching headband. I used the nursing room at the park mall for the first time while we were there waiting for the pictures to be processed and what I figured would happen is what happened. About 5 minutes into my nursing session, someone knocked on the door wanting in. One nursing room for an entire mall is just about as good as having no nursing room. Embry was getting fussy as I was picking out pictures (because it took forever) but then finally she fell asleep and I got to do a little window shopping. Here are some of the pictures. The ones on the right are the ones that I bought, the ones on the left are others that I liked.













A new thing she's doing is that she's able to get from laying down to sitting up when you hold her legs down. Also she's pulling her legs up under her and trying to crawl, but she just ends up going backwards. It's kind of funny.

Pictures!

For those who don't have facebook, here are some pictures from Mother's Day weekend and Embry's dedication at church. Enjoy!

Album

Week 25

25 Weeks Old on 5/9/09

I'm so terribly sorry for posting this late, but it's been a rather hectic weekend.

Last weekend I went shopping with some girls from YM in Phoenix. We went to Culvers for some delicious lunch, then to Anthem to shop at the outlets, then to dinner at Carrabba's in Chandler. Let me just say, those outlets had some impressive sales! I got Tony 2 pairs of pants and about 8 polo shirts, myself 3 shirts and a pair of pants, and Embry a billion things but all in 12 months + sizes. I got her some really cute stuff, but my favorite thing was this strawberry outfit from gymboree. I normally won't even go into that store because it's insanely overpriced, but I went in and as soon as I saw the knit hat shaped like a strawberry I knew I had made the right decision. So then I had to get a dress, headband, sun hat, socks, shoes, pants, and a onesie to match! Tony stayed home to watch Embry while I was gone, then at around 7pm Sarah came over to watch her while Tony went to play poker with the guys. I got home at 10:30 and Embry was asleep, so Tony put her in bed at 11 when he got home. It was a really good day. I love shopping.

On Sunday I took Embry out to my parent's house to see my sister Jen, Jason, and Colter. Embry and Colter seemed somewhat interested in each other, as much as babies can be I guess. Jen and Jason got to hold Embry and we took a lot of pictures since it was their first time meeting her. I was only able to be out there for a few hours because I had to get home in time to church on Sunday night. Plus Jen and Jas still had a lot of organizing and unpacking to do.

On Tuesday we had the last MOPS meeting of the year. We got a cute group pic and hopefully we'll set up some play dates for over the summer. I'm excited for the MOPS family picnic on May 30 at Brandi Fenton park. I had never heard of this park before, but I guess it has a 'splash pad' for the kiddies which is free...sign me up! I love free stuff!

On Wednesday we tried out the other babysitter for YM. Her name is Sara and she seemed to do a good job with the kiddos. We peered in through the window next to the front door before we came back and she was sitting on the couch with both kids reading them a story, it was pretty cute. Before Esteban came over to drop Noah off I asked her a bunch of questions about prom. That combined with the fact that we saw a bunch of couples out for Prom dinner in Phoenix made me desperately want to go to prom again. I had so much fun at both of my proms. Why don't they have proms for people who are out of school? I love dresses, I love sparkles, I love dancing, I love prom.

I'd like to talk about the baby dedication, mother's day, grandma Ledlow and auntie Allison's visit, Embry's first swim etc, but then I fear that next weekds blog post would be extremely boring. I'll leave you in suspense and save those tidbits for next time!

Week 24

24 Weeks old on 5/1/09

Boy oh boy, a lot has happened this week for Embry!

She can roll over towards her left now. I think this is partially due to the fact that I have been placing her head towards the window in the nursery at night. I guess babies like to turn towards the door and this way the door is to her left. Now we often find her rolled over and her little legs stuck inbetween the slats on the crib. I'm hoping it doesn't actually hurt her, but I worry that she'll be in there and in pain and I will just think she's fussing because she's on her tummy.

She has rolled from her stomach to her back a few more times. She'll lean over really far to one side with the top half of her body and you can just nudge her a little and she'll flip onto her back, but she's still having a hard time doing it herself.

She started eating 'real' food. On Wed night after young marrieds we gave her half a jar of carrots. The ped said to start with veggies cuz they're less likely to eat veggies if they eat fruit first (I know I wouldn't). She still doesn't quite grasp the idea of moving the food to the back of your mouth with your tongue and then swallowing it, which made for a very messy experience. I got her a space saver type high chair that attaches to a dining room chair, so most of the mess was on her, her bib, and the high chair tray, but some landed on her clothes as well as my clothes too. Verdict is: she LOVES carrots. It was so cute, she would kick her legs and flail her arms and open her mouth all wide while she leaned forward to try to get more carrots. I got some great pics too, with my new camera, that are now posted on facebook. Things like food on a kid's face used to really gross me out, but with my kid, it was just cute.

Wed night was the first time Embry was babysat by an actual 'babysitter,' as in someone we don't know. We hired two girls from Katie's English class at Empire to alternate babysitting every Wed night for our young married's group. When we came to pick up Embry, she was sleeping in her bouncer and I asked the sitter if Embry did any screaming for her and she goes, 'yes, she did. I've never heard anything quite like that.' Ha, I thought that was funny. I'd say the sitter did a good job. Embry was fed and burped and asleep and Noah was also in bed, so she gets an A+ from me. We're trying out the other girl next week and I'm thinking we'll like her just as much.

She can say 'dada' and 'baba' and 'blah blah' yet still no 'mama.' It doesn't really bother me, but then, it kinda does. I mean, I'm here all day with her and then she goes and says 'dada' first! Some would say it doesn't count because she doesn't know that Tony is 'dada' but a word is a word, right? So maybe 'mama' will be her first word associated with a person, that would make me happy. :)

I had a horrible experience taking Embry to a babyshower on Tuesday. It was one of those moments where you think, 'there's no way I could do this again.' Basically she was fine in the beginning, but then I think there were so many people there, including a bunch of kids that she kinda went over the edge. She started doing her screaming thing. She does this all day at home, but at home it's only me and Tony who hear her and the occasional visitor, so it doesn't really matter. Basically she makes very shrill screams because she's excited and she likes hearing the sound of her voice. So she did this at the shower and everyone was looking at me and commenting on it. I'm guessing it didn't actually bother anyone except for me...and it bothered me a LOT. I tried shoving toys in her mouth or covering her mouth with my hand, but it didn't work, so finally I just put her in her carrier and said, 'sorry, gotta go' and quickly left. Then of course I started crying as soon as I got outside cuz I'm a big baby. Ugh, I hate moments like that. Then once we started driving away she fell asleep and stayed asleep for a whole grocery shopping trip.

Embry spent her first night away from her parents on Sat night. Tony and I went camping with the Young Married's group and thought it would be easier without Embry, so we left her with my parents overnight. My parents said that she did really well, but I guess I'll never know how it really went since I wasn't there. I called a couple of times to see how things were going and she was crying a bit, but she will cry everytime I leave the room, so I'm assuming she did the same thing with my mom. I pumped a bunch to try and get enough milk for when we were gone, and then one of the bags (one feeding's worth) leaked on the way to my parent's house. When I saw that, I seriously almost cried. It seems trivial, but it's a lot of work to get 5 ounces of milk. I guess that's why it's called 'liquid gold.' Anyhow, I also brought along a can of powdered formula and for the last 2 feedings my mom mixed 2 oz formula with 3 oz breastmilk to make it last. Apparently Embry didn't mind the formula at all and I didn't even notice any difference in the smell of her poo. So she has officially had formula now and I don't feel nearly as bad about it as I thought I would. We stayed out at my parent's house after we got back from camping and my brother and 2 of his kids (Oasis and Harbour) came out to visit. The girls really liked playing with Embry and luckily my neice Oasis told us, 'there's poo dripping down her leg.' So my mom picked Embry up which forced a bunch of poo to come out the top of her diaper and drip onto another spot on the carpet. It was everwhere. Tony cleaned up the carpet while my mom cleaned Embry's clothes and I changed her diaper.

My sister Jen, her husband Jason, and their 1-year-old son Colter moved to Tucson. They arrived last night and will be staying with my parents for a little while. I'm so excited to see them, to get to know Colter, and mostly for Embry and Colter to grow up together since they're only 7 months apart. We used to hang out a ton when we lived in WI. Pretty much every Sunday we would go to the movies, or to eat, or to the mall, or the beach...those are some of my most favorite memories. Now we get to make all new memories with our little kiddos too!