Week 19

19 Weeks Old on 3/27/09

I don't think I have a whole lot to say this week, except that I tried to take Embry to get her 4 month shots today and failed again. They have walk-in appointments from 2-3:30 and at 3:30 I was in the car still about 5 minutes away from the dr's office. So instead I went to JoAnn Fabrics and got the rest of the tulle for her tutu.

Tony and I went to Borders yesterday and got Embry 'The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins' which is Tony's favorite Dr. Seuss book. We also got her 3 baby einstein board books, the classic Pooh anthology, a children's stories anthology, and a thing of nursery rhymes that comes with 2 books and 2 cds. I can't wait till she's actually interested in me reading books to her. She's somewhat interested now, but she obviously doesn't know what I'm saying or what the pictures are of, but I read to her anyway!

Oh something exciting is that since Sunday she's been sleeping on her stomach! I took the bumpers out of her crib so she doesn't smash her face into them (since she's still not skilled in rolling from front to back) and every morning I go in there to find her on her tummy, with her legs up under her and her butt in the air, with one arm hanging down through the bars on the crib. She's so cute. I got some video of her laughing when Tony changed her diaper tonight. He will tickle her and bounce her head on the couch (yes, it sounds bad, but it's not) and she'll laugh, but generally stops as soon as the video camera is out. Then she will just stare at me with a blank look on her face.

Week 18

18 Weeks old on 3/20/09

Embry is doing well. She sticks everything in her mouth, but most of the time her fist or arm are already in her mouth so she can't fit anything else in there. She talking up a storm and it's deafeningly loud. She still isn't rolling from front to back, she did it one more time, but nothing consistent. Oh I forgot to mention, the dr felt around her mouth and said she is not getting any teeth...so much for that theory. She's still spitting up a bunch. I'm giving her the med the dr prescribed, but not nearly as often as he said to, woops. Interestingly enough, her diaper rash seems to be coming back even though she's on the antifungal oral meds, or maybe it's because she's on the antifungal oral meds. Hopefully it will just go away on its own.

Last weekend Tony went camping, so I had a horrible night. First off, Embry kept rolling over in her crib so I'd have to get up and flop her onto her back again. Then I'm super paranoid when I'm alone at night, so I worked myself into a sickness about someone possibly breaking in. Basically I didn't get to sleep until 2am. I hope not to repeat that in the future. I think we need to buy a gun.

This whole thing of not getting enough sleep is starting to take it's toll. I didn't go to MOPS on tuesday because it's super early and I wasn't feeling too great anyhow. I'm kind of being reminded of what it was like the first few months with Embry and going back to thinking that one child would be plenty. I'm sure I'll change my mind before next week's post. It's a never ending cycle.

Week 17

17 weeks old on 3/13/09
She says, 'Happy St. Patrick's Day!'

Embry had her 4 month appointment yesterday, well kinda.

She had the whole appointment except for the shots because when the nurse checked her temp (and she checked both ears) it was 100.4. I told the doctor that Embry has been coughing, has crusties in her eye when she wakes up, has mucous in her spit up sometimes, and boogers so basically he said she has a cold. I had the doc check out her mouth because her tongue has always been white-ish (but only her tongue) and he said it was a little bit of thrush, but I was hoping it wasn't. Anyhow, he gave her a script for nyastatin suspension which I'm supposed to put in each of her cheeks after she eats...hahaha. Anytime I try to put a liquid in her mouth with a dropper she just spits it out. The pharmacist recommended sopping it up with a q-tip then rubbing that onto her cheeks. I tried that and it worked out ok, but the first time I ended up with more on my pants and the floor than on the Q-tip. I also inquired about her spitting up 3-4 times after she eats and he said it would only be a concern if she wasn't gaining weight or if she was much older and this was still going on. He said I could start rice cereal anytime, so we tried it out last night. It went a little less than awesome, as in, she didn't like it at all. I have some funny pics on facebook of the 'nasty' face she kept making. The Dr said to bring her back for a walk-in appt in 2 weeks just so she can get her shots. That should be a real good time.

4 Month Stats:
Weight: 13 lbs, 10 oz 50th percentile
Height: 25" 80th percentile
Head Circ: 16" 50th percentile

In other news, we went to Phoenix last weekend. Embry was a pretty good baby on the trip. Luckily we did not get stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway this time. Saturday was busy because we went to our old young marrieds group leader's house in Peoria, had some Culvers for lunch, and got their baby, Jeremiah, and Embry together and took some cute pics. While I had the video camera out Embry was lying on her back on the floor, then she rolled over onto her tummy (no big surprise there) and then over onto her back again! Then we went to super target, which was GREAT, and then to Jamie's parent's house for a BBQ. Jamie's sister, Rhonda, and her husband were down from WI with their baby Maddie. We got some cute pics of Embry and Maddie, ate some good food, and played 2 rounds of family feud (where we lost, but that's only because the guys team was cheating). Embry did her 360 degree barrel roll again at the Laug's, but since then, nothing. She will not go from her tummy to her back, so Tony and I are getting a real workout with the ups and downs to flop her over again. Then Sunday we went out to lunch with Tony's family for his brother Stefan's birthday. Embry decided it was a good time to fuss as soon as mama got her food, so that was a little frustrating, but oh well.

I'm convinced that she's trying to crawl. Seriously. When she's on her tummy she'll pull her legs up underneath her and she's great at pushing her chest up with her arms, but the top of her tummy just won't lift off the ground. She kicks and kicks and I think she's made it a whole inch or two forward, but it's not for a lack of trying!

Week 16

16 Weeks Old on 3/6/09

Big news of the week is that Embry rolled over! Woohoo! She rolled from her back to her stomach yesterday while Tony and I were on the couch, so we sat up and I looked at her and go, 'she's on her stomach, she rolled over! ...I'll get the video camera!' Naturally she would not roll over for the camera, so finally I gave up and went to do the dishes. Then I heard some grunting so I came into the living room and she had rolled over again! By the end of the day she was pretty much rolling over everytime we put her on her back. This presented a problem because she would be ok on her tummy for a couple of minutes, but then get all frustrated because she coudln't roll over onto her back, so then we'd have to go turn her over...again and again and again. Last night I put her in her crib for bed after she had fallen asleep nursing and then she started crying and would't stop, so I went up there and she had rolled over in her crib and couldn't turn onto her back again. Of course then I was worried all night that she was going to roll over and suffocate herself, but she was totally fine and didn't even wake up till 7:30am to eat. Other news is that last week she started to grab her feet on her own. It's pretty cute, but she still can't or won't put them up to her mouth.

I'm babysitting my friend Kim's 9 month old baby girl Haley today. I put them in the same outfit (that I'd bought for both of them a long time ago) and took some pictures. Haley was interested in Embry for a minute, but then just turned and crawled away. It was pretty funny. I'm quickly learning that we'll have to do quite a bit of baby proofing before Embry starts crawling...good times! Surprisingly they both slept for about an hour and a half at the same time this morning, so I got the rest of the packing done for our trip to Phoenix. We're leaving as soon as Tony gets home from work and coming back sometime on Sunday. Embry gets to sleep in her play yard for 2 nights in a row, it's not nearly as comfortable as her crib, so hopefully she'll still sleep good.

Embry and I went to MOPS on Tuesday and Embry went into the nursery again. When I came to get her the ladies in there said that she was so cute, smiling and giggling the whole time. So thta was great news! If we ever get to church on a Sunday again (since we've missed the past 4 weeks, woops!) I'll put her in the nursery and hopefully she'll behave just as well. She stayed at my parent's house for young marrieds again this week and was well behaved there as well, woohoo.

Week 15

15w 1d on 2/28/09

Well it appears that my blog posts are getting later and later. I guess it's hard for me to post on Fridays, I can't imagine that I'm busy, but oh well.

Last week I bought a nursing cover on ebay. It's great! I feel a lot more confident going out in public now that I know I have a way to feed Embry other than in a bathroom stall. The girl that I bought it from has like 70 patterns of fabric to choose from and I really like the colors and pattern that I chose. I was a little worried about being able to see through it since it's just a single sheet of cotton, but you can't see through it at all. Plus it's got this little pocket on the bottom right inside corner where I can put my breast pad while I'm nursing so I don't have to set it out. All in all, it makes me very happy! The heavier Embry gets (and according to our scale she's over 13lbs now), the harder it is for me to take her out. I mean, lifting her in the car seat out of the car and into a shopping cart or stroller is really pushing me to the edge of my capacity. I'm not sure what I'll do once she gains more weight. I guess the only real options are either a) don't leave the house or b) just deal with it.

Anyhow, she's getting closer and closer to rolling over. She only goes to her left side though. If I let her grab onto my finger and pull her a little bit, then she rolls over, but she can't get there on her own yet.

She scratched up her left calf a bunch because she's started grabbing her foot and sometimes misses and just scratches her leg instead. We cut her nails again after we saw the scratches, but I wonder if there's something I can put on them to help them heal in the meantime.

I'm thinking of possibly putting a swing set in the backyard. I was always against the idea because I kind of view them as a waste of space and I didn't want a big bulky thing taking up any of my yard. Well, in order to keep the grassy area intact, I'm thinking it will go behind the pool which is now a big open rocky space that is not being used for any purpose. Of course we'd have to put sand back there or something instead of the rocks, but the real issue would be redoing the pool fence. We couldn't have the pool in the same area as the swing set because that would defeat the purpose of the fence, so we'd have to move the fence. Seems like a big project. Bleh. We also need to extent our patio and the patio roof. Hmmm...

Embry was babysat by someone other than family for the first time yesterday. I had rescheduled my teeth cleaning but forgot to tell Tony the time I had rescheduled it to, so he had some things at work to do. Cara from young marrieds said she would watch her while I went to the dentist, which was a great help! Then Embry and I ran some errands and went to the mall. I had been avoiding the mall because of trying to maneuver a stroller through tiny spaces, but I decided to conquer that fear. Yes, I did run into many many clothing racks and a table cloth covering a display table got caught in one of the stroller wheels, but for the most part it was a pretty good experience.

Embry got to meet some more of her family members today when my brother and his family came over. We all sat out on the patio (it was a beautiful day) and talked and played 'pass the baby.' Embry was a perfect angel the whole time, it was great and I got a lot of good pictures. Once she started fussing we laid a blanket down on the grass and let her hang out there for a while.

Week 14

14 Weeks Old on 2/20/09

These weeks are going by really fast. I don't know what's going on, but it seems like I just made a blog post yesterday.

On Valentine's day Embry got to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa Nehs for a few hours while Tony and I went over to Deb's house for a V-day dinner. When we got done, I called my mom and she said that they hadn't had enough time with her yet. I guess they played with her for about an hour and then she fell asleep...she's always so good for other people, haha. Earlier that day, she finally got to meet my friend Jessica who has 2 little girls. There's Krystal who's 3 and Sofia who's 1 and my god-daughter. Sofia is about 13 months older than Embry, so we're hoping they can become friends later on. V-day was also the day she turned 3 months old!

Tony worked from home on Monday so I could go to the dentist without the baby. Then he also worked from home on Thursday when I had a rheumatology appointment and Embry slept the whole time I was gone. This seems to happen a lot.

We went to MOPS on Tuesday and I decided that since I had some milk in the fridge that needed to be used that I would put Embry in the nursery instead of taking her in with me. I was a tad nervous because it would be quite bad if she got sick and then I got sick. Anyhow it seemed to go fine because the nusery workers never had to call me to come get her. They did however say that she was constipated and then had diarrhea, but I'm still trying to figure out how you can tell if a baby is constipated or if they have diarrhea. So, it was good overall because I got to enjoy myself in MOPS and Embry seemed to survive without me. Then I ventured to Target afterwards and I have to say that I've been there 3 times in the past week and every single time I forget to buy the cradle cap stuff that Robin suggested. Apparently I need to write it down! Later that day we met up with some YM girls for coffee at Starbucks and Embry was very well behaved, so yahoo for that!

We had YM at our house on Wed and she was pretty good for the most part. Then right before we all went our separate ways, she decided to have a blow out (sorry Deb!) and soil her light cream colored fuzzy outfit. Yes, of course it was the first time she had worn it. Tony and I are becoming masters at getting poo out of clothes. This brings me to another point. She went from pooing constantly to not pooing at all and then having a whole bunch come out at once. It happened again yesterday as I was trying to leave for Sarah's. Well at least she doesn't have diaper rash anymore!

My parents came over yesterday to hang out and watch a movie. Embry was fantastic and slept through the whole movie and then later she showed Grandma and Grandpa how well her lungs work and gave a couple minutes of ear piercing shreiks while I changed her diaper. I read in a magazine the other day that sometimes babies cry just because there's nothing else to do. That's not nice at all.

Week 13

13 Weeks old on 2/13/09

It's Friday already?! Where does the time go?

This week was rather uneventful since I decided to stay home to avoid the frustrations of last week's fussiness. We did however go up to Phoenix last Friday night/Saturday. She had a really rough time on the car ride up there because we were stuck in traffic due to an accident on the freeway and if the car's not moving, Embry is crying. Sat afternoon I fed Embry in the Target bathroom which was really interesting because every time a toilet would flush she would swing her head around towards the sound and her eyes would get really wide. Basically she ended up not getting fed very well. We also left a nice puddle of spit up on the Target bathroom floor. Woops!

She was rather fussy on Wed night at Young Marrieds. Fun fun.

I finally decided to venture out with her on my own yesterday. We were gone from 1-6pm running errands. Once again decided to nurse in the Target bathroom (at least it's clean) and I was about as successful as the time before. Before we left Albertsons I was telling Embry how our next stop was Costco and how much Mama hates that store. Then I put her in the cart at Costco and we walk about 5 feet into the store and she just starts screaming. There was seemingly nothing wrong with her, but she definitely felt the need to exercise her lungs! So I took her out of her carrier and held her while pushing the cart with the other hand. Luckily I only needed a few things, and I think people kinda felt sorry for me, so we were out of there in no time at all. Surprisingly, I'd say it was my best trip to Costco yet!

We started putting Embry in her crib to sleep for the night on Tuesday. It is FANTASTIC! The first night she didn't wake up until 6:30 to eat and then the next night she ate once around 7am and then was still asleep when I went in there to get her at noon. Last night was a little weird because she got up at 4am to eat (and surprisingly it was Tony who woke me up because she was cooing in the monitor, I was having a dream and the cooing was part of my dream) but then she didn't wake up again until around 11:15am. I'm definitely getting a much more sound sleep now that she's not in our room, so I'm happy.

I've been trying to put her down for tummy time a lot more even though she pretty much hates it. She's a master at holding her head up, so I'm not really concerned that she's not getting enough 'tummy time hours' logged. Today in one of our tummy time sessions, she was on her tummy for about 3 minutes and she threw up 3 times. If I were her, I wouldn't like tummy time either!

I put a bonnet on her today and it was thee cutest thing I've ever seen in my life! Oh speaking of her head, she's got cradle cap. Luckily she has lots of hair to cover it up. I'm gonna try putting baby oil on it, brushing it, and using the washcloth to exfoliate it in the bath. I've heard not to use soap on it because it will just dry it out more, but I can't imagine putting oil in her hair and then only washing it out with water...ick.

Tomorrow is her 3 month birthday! Happy birthday baby!

Week 12

12 Weeks old on 2-6-09

Embry has been rather fussy this week. When I went to MOPS on Tuesday, she started crying almost the exact second I walked in the door. So I took her out of her car seat and held her which was ok for a bit. Then she was fussing so I walked to the back where she fell asleep in my arms. I made it back to my seat and sat down, then tried to move her to put her back in the car seat, but no luck. When I started to move her, she woke up and started crying again. Needless to say, it was not a good experience. I thought about just leaving midway through, but decided to stick it out. Then I nursed her for about 20 and we left to go to costco...also, not a good time. I do this certain thing quite often and always end up mad about it afterwards. I stand by the baby clothes taking my time picking out the perfect outfits, dresses, onesies - whatever it is I happen to be looking at - then put them in my cart and walk around some more, then decide it's a waste of money and put them all back. It's ridiculous! Even thinking about it makes me upset. Anyhow, I did this at costco with these adorable Dr. Suess onesies and some cheap summer dresses, bleh.

On Wednesday I took Embry out to my parents house where she was lots of fun and all smiley. She slept on the car ride to young marrieds, but was fussified once we got there. Then she cried the entire car ride home from young marrieds (which was like 20 min cuz it was in Vail). So when I got home I fed her and she was fine, but she started crying mid feeding (really unusual, she loves food) and I look up at Tony and go, "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that this is the only child we will ever have." Needless to say, I was really not feelin it. Now, once again, I'm back to thinking we will have more than one. I waiver back and forth on this about 5 times a day. The part I don't want to go through again is the first month or two. I'm not sure how it is for the 'normal' folk, but for me, my body literally does not function on that little sleep. Maybe if I was formula feeding it would have been different because Tony could have stayed up at night (if you could wake him up in the first place, 36 ring a bell anyone?!) to feed her, but I would feel guilty if I was capable of breast feeding and didn't. So basically, I'm confused. End of story.

Moving on- I think we will move her to the nursery to sleep at night since she is sleeping for at least 8 hours everynight. It will make things a little easier for me because she makes noise in her sleep (ocassional screams and then the normal grunts/coos/whatever) and everytime she even moves her leg or turns her head, I wake up. I'm not normally that light of a sleeper, but since becoming a mom any noise she makes will jolt me out of my sleep. We're going up to Phoenix to stay the night at Tony's mom's place today, so once we get back we'll start putting her in her crib and I'll report next week how it goes.

Other interesting tidbits:
1) My daughter loves tv. I think it's like a big toy for her with all the moving colors and fun noises. Everytime I'm feeding her and sit her up to burp, she stares at the tv very intently. Sometimes she'll start to fuss when I burp her, but then just turn her towards the tube and all is well with the world! I'm hoping she doesn't become a couch potato like Tony and me because we watch a LOT of tv.
2) She's developed a bald spot on the back of her head from laying/sitting with her head resting on the swing/bed/bouncer. Not sure what to do about that, but it bothers me.
3) I think she might end up with blue eyes. If not blue, then another light color (green perhaps) because her eyes have gotten sooo light since she was born. Tony's eyes aren't exactly brown, so this is not particularily surprising to me.
4) She screamed at the top of her lungs last night after her bath when I was trying to put lotion on her. I swear, I have never heard anything so loud or deafening in my lifetime. It was ear piercingly shrill...yikes. She was seemingly fine, but apparently she wasn't having it. Hope there is not a repeat.
5) Embry just had a complete blow out. She was asleep in her swing and I picked her up to feed her and she had pooed all up her back, through her white onesie (which is now in the trash), through her pajamas, and onto her swing. She even pooed through the front of the onesie...that's a first for us. Amazing how much poo these little bodies can produce!
6) I am down to my pre-prepregnancy weight which is fantastic, but I think my hips are about 3 feet wider than they were before which can be evidenced by this...
Yep, that's right, on Wed the butt of my jeans ripped as I was bending over. Granted they were a very old pair of jeans, but does this make a woman who just had a baby feel good? No. Embarrassing? Yes. I think they should make a thing called post-maternity pants that have a little extra room in the hip area...I think I've really got something here. So if you YMers are wondering where Tony and I disappeared to on Wed night, we were in the bathroom so Tony could safety pin the butt of my pants back together. Good times!
7) Embry: I want to squish her and kiss her all day long, she is soooo stinkin cute!

This about sums it up

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!  :) 

Week 6

6 Weeks old on 12/26/08

Embry is 6 weeks old today, the day after her first Christmas!  This past week has been quite interesting for Embry.  She is sleeping a lot less than she was originally which caused us to try and figure out what to do with a baby while they are awake.  Before we'd change her, feed her, and put her back in her crib every 3 hours then she'd sleep for another 3 hours or so and we'd do it all over again.  Now at night that's still the routine, but in the daytime she is generally awake after feedings and she'll cry if you put her down in the crib.  This can either bring on insanity when she's crying to no avail, or sheer joy when she's content and will cuddle.  

Her first Christmas was good.  She was happy for the most part while we were opening presents.  Before that I was here with her while the family was at a church service and she cried for about an hour straight.  Nothing would soothe her until finally I decided to feed her and then she calmed down.  Anyhow, she got lots of neat things including a piggy bank, a learning to talk dvd, a kitty outfit, a pack of 4 Skippy Jon Jones board books (amazing!), a big stuffed bear, a stuffed tigger, and a stuffed lion toy.  We got to take some family pictures in front of the Christmas tree and pictures of each person holding Embry too.  She got one outfit change midday because we had 2 'Baby's First Christmas' outfits...she was so cute dressed in her Christmas outfits.  We looked through old pictures from the basement later on in the day and Embry definitely has Tony's forehead.  So all in all she's doing well although she has a really nasty diaper rash that we're working on getting rid of.  From the pictures I looked up online and talking to the on call nurse today it appears that it's a yeast infection.   I feel so bad for her, it's got to hurt a lot!  Hopefully it will go away soon.  

Have I mentioned that diapers are insanely expensive?! 

Week 5

5 Weeks old on 12/19/08

(sorry can't rotate)

This week we flew to Maryland to visit with Tony's family.  Embry was a perfect angel on the 3.5 hour plane ride.  They had a bunch of extra seats on the plane so they let us take her on in her carseat and put it in the window seat while I sat in the middle and Tony on the aisle.  She woke up once to eat and feeding her was a little complicated but we managed.  The one part of the trip that wasn't particularly great was going through security.  It would have been nice if someone could have told me what was supposed to go where and how instead of letting me try and guess, but whatever.  It just took a lot longer than it should have, but we survived.  

She's been pretty well behaved since we've been here.  We took her out to Target and Kohls for a couple of hours and she slept through that whole experience as well.  I was worried about how cold she would be here, especially at night, but at target they had some big snowsuit type things on clearance so I got 2 of them for the nighttime.  They're newborn size, but still big.  She keeps getting her arms and legs stuck in the body part.  This morning when I picked her up she had her hand coming out the neck hole, she's so cute.  

I'm hoping that soon she'll smile at me.  I'd really like to get a pic of her with Santa while we're here.  She seems to take a lot more notice of people now.  She'll look you in the face and I kinda think she recognizes who I am...at least as the person with the milk haha.  She's spitting up a lot more.  Like today she threw up her whole meal two separate times, not sure what that's about, but if it persists I'll call the pediatrician and see what he says.  

Week 4

12-12-08
4 Weeks Old

Only 5 more pounds to go before I reach my pre-prepregnancy weight! So far I’ve lost 26 lbs, woo-hoo! I can actually zip and button all of my old jeans, but if I do that then I have the exact definition of a ‘muffin top.’ So if I want to wear them I just leave the button undone and put on a belt and that seems to work out pretty well. I can definitely tell that my hips have gotten wider though, I wonder if they eventually go back to normal or not.

I had my post partum checkup with the OB yesterday. I wasn’t exactly sure what the protocol was for that appt, but basically she asked how I was feeling and took a look and did a small internal exam. The exam part I was a little afraid of, but it didn’t hurt nearly as much as I thought it would, just a little at opening from the tear. She said it all looked like it was healing well and that I still have a few stitches left (one dissolved last week) and it would be ok if they came out now because the tear is healed. So that means that it’s ok for me to take baths and I asked if I could go swimming and in a hot tub and she said both would be fine. I asked her when we could start trying to have another kid and she said it would be unlikely that I’d get pregnant in the first 6 months with exclusive breastfeeding (although not impossible as we all know), so basically we can start trying right away. I’m not sure if we will, but we’re definitely not going to prevent anything from happening. I didn’t take Embry along because Tony was able to work from home and watch her since I was going to the office location that takes forever. Well my appt was at 9:20 and I was in a room by 9:35…so how come that couldn’t have happened while I was pregnant? So weird. Since I didn’t bring Embry I figured my doctor would have asked why I didn’t bring her or at least if I had a picture I could show her or something, but nope, she didn’t even take notice…that kind of bothered me.

Embry is doing good. She just recently (as in, yesterday) started drooling. I thought that didn’t happen till later. As you may know, I have a strong aversion to spit so we’ll see how this goes haha. She’s sleeping for longer periods at night now. Generally she would get up roughly every 3 hours to be changed and fed, but last night she was fed at 9:30 and then didn’t wake up again until 2:30. I can tell that she is more aware of things around her now too. She seems to be smiling a little bit more, but that’s mainly when she’s farting or pooping. Grandma JoAnn and Grandpa Don got to babysit her for the first time on Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday they came up and watched her while Tony and I went to Young Marrieds and then they spent the night at our house and the next day I got to run a bunch of errands while they took care of Embry…it was great! My mom also helped out with some house chores that had been let go which really helped with my stress level.

I tried some of Embry’s warm 0-3 month clothes on her the other day because on my scale it says she’s 9 lbs now, to see what to bring for the trip to Maryland and holy cow, they’re huge! There was no way I could put her in those clothes because the pants are literally about 2-3 inches too long…it’s ridiculous. So when I ran errands on Thursday I picked up some long sleeved newborn clothes and some newborn pants/leggings which were from Grandma and Grandpa Nehs as her Christmas present. When I was at the store I was looking at them and thinking how they looked too small, then I got them home and tried them on her and they’re still big. Amazing. Anyhow, I don’t think she’ll grow out of them before our trip is over, but I’ll bring some of the warm 0-3 month stuff too. A girl at the Dr’s office had her 6 week old baby along and said she still didn’t fit into the 0-3 month stuff, so I’m thinking Embry will have a similar situation. Also, we had issues with those newborn diapers that I bought from Walgreens. First of all, they were too big around the waist and even if you pulled them really tight they would fall down in the back. Then the first day I put her in them, I pulled them really tight cuz I didn’t want poo coming out the back and then apparently they were much too tight around the legs because after I was feeding her, I looked down and her little legs had turned all blue. Not good! Then we made sure to check the leg openings to make sure they weren’t too tight, but the other problem was that they didn’t have a layer of mesh inside (like most diapers do) so the poo and pee would just sit right on her skin until the diaper was changed. This caused some pretty nasty diaper rash, which made me feel really bad, so we had to go buy more of the newborn pampers sensitive swaddlers. Diapers are darn expensive! I’d highly recommend the sensitive swaddlers though, they’re better than any of the other diapers we’ve tried. We have a box of size 1 which supposedly fits babies 8-14 lbs, but those are way too big on her so far.

Embry did great on her first long car ride up to Phoenix today! She slept the whole way there and back, such a good traveler. She got 3 dr Seuss books and ‘The Hippopotamus Ate the Teacher’ from Grandma Dorothea. Speaking of traveling, I’m nervous about packing her stuff for our trip to Maryland because there’s a lot of stuff she’s going to need and I’ve never packed for a baby before, so it will be a learning experience!

Even More Pics

Album #7
Album #8
Album #9

Week 3

Embry 3 Weeks Old on 12/5/08

Tony went back to work on Monday. The first day was fantastic, I got a ton of stuff done because Embry slept for like 5 hours straight. The other days were fine as well, but I didn't realize my baby pooped or cried as much as she does. I guess it all hits you when you're home alone and that's all you can focus on. We still haven't put her in the nursery at night, she's sleeping in the bassinet part of the play yard in our bedroom. It just seems easier than walking down the hall 3-4 times a night. Plus there's no tv in the nursery, so I'd have a very difficult time staying awake in the middle of the night.

I took Embry to MOPS on Tuesday. All was well until I took her out of her infant car seat to go up to the front and show her off. She was ok for a little while after that with me just holding her and then she became fussified. So I spent about half of mops walking around with her and taking her into the 'cry room' to nurse her...it was not the most fun I've ever had. Then we ran some errands and I gave up about halfway through because it's really hard for me to lift her in her carseat in and out of the car and then carry it around. It's easier when there's a shopping cart readily available, but still difficult to get the carseat out of the car...I'm not sure I'm going to be able to leave the house with her alone if she gets any bigger, which is kind of inevitable.

I took her to the doctor on Wed because she seemed to be congested starting around Thanksgiving. I gave it some time to pass and it didn't so then I called the dr to see if I should bring her in or just let it go and he said to bring her in. In the meantime he scared the heck out of me by saying that if it seemed like she was having trouble breathing then I should take her to the ER. So, went to the appt, turns out she has a cold and there's nothing I can do for her but I'm just thankful it wasn't RSV. Big news is that as of Wed she weighs 8lbs 3oz! We completely missed the 7lb range all together! Apparently she is eating very well, so no worries there.

Speaking of eating, it's impossible to get her to open her mouth very wide which is painful for me and she's taken to what I call 'snacking.' She'll eat good for about 10 minutes and then just stop and move her head away. I'll try to get her to keep eating because I know she'll be hungry in an hour and then I'll be ticked, but she won't have any of that. I've decided that she can eat for as long as she wants, but I won't be feeding her again until about 3 hours has passed. Hopefully she will figure out that maybe she should eat for more than 10 minutes at a time this way. Bleh.

In other news, I'd like to get some sleep. There is soooooo much to do and I can't possibly waste valuable daytime sleeping when Embry is sleeping and then at night I pretty much, well, let's not talk about the nighttime. She's a good sleeper at night, so I can't complain there. Let's just say that I need some sleep, end of story.

Everything is coming up so fast...
12/13: Christmas in Phx with Tony's Family
12/14: Christmas party at our house
12/16: Fly to Maryland

HELP!

Week 2

2 Weeks Old
(her version of the sprinkler)

Embry is doing really well, as in, she's still alive. I don't think we've done anything too terribly bad thus far where parenting is concerned, but she has been rather fussy in her second week of life. She's still sleeping really well at night, but during the daytime she has occasionally cried for what seems like hours on end for no reason that we can figure. During these times we will try everything humanly imaginable to calm her, but nothing works...well besides feeding, but I'm not going to have a baby permanently attached to my chest, sorry. Tonight after hours of comforting and still having a crying baby I finally told Tony to just put her in her crib, turn on the mobile, and shut the door. The crying that followed was probably the worst sound I've ever heard, but it only lasted for maybe 1 minute and then silence. At that point I had Tony go check to make sure she was still alive and she was so we're guessing she was suffering from over stimulation. Now she's been soundly sleeping up there for the past 2 hours...silence is golden.

Embry had her first Thanksgiving on Thursday and now I'm wondering if tryptophan can be passed through breast milk because if so, I'll be devouring all 10lbs of leftover turkey! Just kidding, but it is an interesting thought. Tony's family came down (mom, sister, and both brothers) and my parents came over as well. We got a cute family picture with my film camera (since my digital decided to be disfunctional and suddenly have a non-functioning flash bulb). On Friday we left her with Tony's mom while Tony, Alex, and I went to find some good black friday deals. I saw one lady in Circuit City that brought her approx 1 month old shopping with her...that was brave. I got Embry a few good Disney movies that were on sale at my second home, Target. Tony and I left Embry home again Friday afternoon so we could go see 'Four Christmases' since I'm not big on taking a baby into a movie theater hehe. Grandma Dorothea gave her a bath while we were gone and apparently we left her comb at Sears when we had her picture taken. Friday night we all went to get a family picture taken at the Target portrait studio. The pictures turned out really cute! I got 5 poses and Dorothea got one other pose but there were some that were particularly adorable of Embry laying on a blanket of pink roses...gosh I just want to eat her! We tried to do a pose where all you could see was Tony's hands holding Embry against a black background while she was naked. Well, you can probably imagine how this turned out! We got one picture of that pose where she is screaming, she pooped in Tony's hand twice, peed in his hand once, then I finally took her and she pooped all down my shirt. At that point, I gave up and put her diaper back on and moved on to the next poop-free pose!

So when she first came home we were giving her a pacifier a little bit, then she started to latch on for breast feeding really weird, so we stopped the pacifier. Then after a few days I tried the soothie pacifiers that my sister gave me and they work GREAT! I'd highly recommend them for small babies because it's more of a nipple shape and she hasn't had any trouble latching on while using them. Thanks Jen!

I'm getting really nervous about Tony going back to work on Monday and I'm afraid that nothing will get done all day long. I'm trying to quick get all the Christmas decorating done today and tomorrow so that's one big thing I won't have to worry about while he's at work. He can work from home if things are difficult (and he will be on Wed when I have my dentist appt), but I would feel bad if he was home and getting distracted because Embry was fussy or something. I'm not sure how single moms can do it when their babies are still tiny, I know it would be really hard for me. I'm so blessed to have such a helpful husband and blessed that he has such a flexible job as well!