Week 7: Aunt Pat's visit and KY trip

This week flew by! Mikey's Aunt Pat came to see us from all the way from Wyoming. It was so good to see her and the visit was over much too soon. Emily was asleep when she first arrived on Wednesday night, so they got their first cuddles on Thursday morning.

On Friday, we loaded up the car as full as it would go (seriously! We were travelling Clampett style) and headed up to Kentucky for the 6th birthday of the lovely Miss Ryah Rodriguez. I can't believe she is 6! It doesn't seem that long ago that we were going to Texas to meet her for the first time.

So grown up!

She loves her cousin Emily so much and she was so good with her. Admittedly, I was nervous at first about her trying to hold her - Emily is quite an armful with her wiggling and her big ol' wobbly head. But Ryah did great! Emily fussed when the adults held her, but for Ryah she just calmed right down and watched TV with her cousin!

Love these girls!!

Titi Michelle also got some good snuggle time in. Emily had some cranky moments this weekend - especially when we were out to dinner at Kansai, guess she doesn't share her aunt's love of that place! - but overall she was pretty good. Usually when she was crying, she just wanted to be put down in her bassinet and left alone. Seems as though we have an independent lady on our hands!

Don't look now guys, but there is a giant scary baby coming to get you!

I'm a smiley girl!

On Sunday, Ryah and her friend Hannah hosted a "Monster High" themed birthday party at their house. It was insane! Little girls screaming and running every where! Emily wasn't really ready for the full party experience so she spent most of the day upstairs with her daddy. She did get some more snuggles from Ryah before the party started though.

Two TV-holics

She looks so big here!

We're having our own party in Ryah's room.

My attempt at using the panorama function on my phone.

It was really cold here last night, and since Em is way past being swaddled, I wanted her in the warmest pajamas she has. Those just happen to be a pair that were purchased before she was born and before we knew that she was a she. So yes, my baby is very "handsome" according to her jammies.

I swear I am a girl!

I took Emily to see her pediatrician this week, because she was having some strange looking black flecks in her "#2" diapers. (I have a picture of that as well but I will spare everyone that visual). He didn't seem concerned about that, but after looking at her chest and listening to her breathing, combined with some things I told him about her apparent stomach pain and some feeding issues, he diagnosed her with Laryngomalacia (click for more info).
It basically means she has an immature airway and it is something that should go away on its own with time. For now, she is on Zantac to help with the digestive issues that come along with this. It seems to be helping since she hasn't really had any more of the weird diaper surprises since then.

Emily is 8 weeks old today! A lot of my friends have said that their babies slept through the night at this point, so she is on notice! Peer pressure!
She is so close - she now only wakes up once during the night to eat. She goes to bed anywhere from 8:30 to 9:30 and then wakes up about 2am. She then goes back to sleep until around 5am when she begins her grunting and wiggling phase. She isn't truly awake, but she wakes me up so I usually go ahead and feed her again and then we cuddle in bed and snooze a bit more until around 8:00 when we get up and go out to the living room to "start our day".
The days with her are getting much much easier - I am not staring at the clock, desperate for Mikey to get home anymore. She is so smiley and fun, especially in the mornings, and we are starting to get a bit of a routine going.
I am just so obsessed with my gorgeous girl - I can't get enough of her!

Week Six!

Are these titles confusing anyone but me? She actually will be 7 weeks old tomorrow, but I am recapping the past week, which was the 6th week of her life...oh well, just look at pictures :)

This is our friend Diaper Cat (DC for short) (shut up). His belly lights up and plays music and sometimes he serves as a distraction for Emily while we change her diaper. Which we do quite often. Girlfriend's kidneys work JUST fine! (sometimes she wants nothing to do with your dumb cat and just screams) 

DC is awesome when he makes Emily smile. DC is less awesome when I forget to turn him off and then start feeding her and he is just out of reach... 

Aunt Katie and I went on a pajama shopping spree the last time she was here. Emily grew out of the newborn size jammies pretty quickly so she needed some new ones. These are one of my favorite pairs - gray with pink buttons. They also came with a cute little nightcap, but good luck getting her to wear that!

Smiling in her bassinet in the morning. She slept just fine - apparently she can't hear herself grunting all night! Guess what - I can!

Neon pajamas!

And please note the blurry legs. She kicks her legs ALL.THE.TIME. and she probably has since the moment her legs were formed in the womb. Trust me.

These are all the clothes that Emily has already grown out of. I grieve for them as I put them in the box. So Cute, and gone too soon.

But with thighs like these, is it any wonder she outgrows things quickly?!

Also, she tried to eat the flower on this shirt all day long. 

We took advantage of one of the 70 degree days last week and went for a little walk. It was windy so I bundled her up and she slept the whole time.

Emily is a TV-holic already, I am afraid. We found a show on the Baby channel that is geared towards little bitty kids (which means it is extra annoying for adults). It has images of other babies, and lots of bright colors and shapes. She loves it!

We are limiting ourselves to one episode a day, though....there is plenty of time for TV to be my babysitter as she gets older.

please ignore the dirty hardwood floors

We are letting Emily practice napping in her crib occasionally to get her ready for her eviction from our room when I go back to work. (I am not kidding that she grunts all night)

This is a picture of the video monitor.

Kinda creepy - like a scene from Paranormal Activity. Not sure I like that.

She just looks so big to me here! I can't wait until she can sit up on her own.

Baby books are my latest obsession. I am basically driving myself (and Mikey. And probably Emily.) crazy trying to read and apply everything. I just want to do what is "right" and "best" for her, but I am now in information overload. 

And finally, an afternoon snuggle with my new baby, and my very first baby, Wally cat.

Which, now that I think about it, I didn't do such a good job with him (if you have met him, you know) 

Good luck, Emily!

"Holland"

(Emily related post coming later, but this was on my mind right now and I wanted to "write it out")

A while ago, I came across a blog post that really spoke to me. It was before we found out that Emily was coming, back when we were dealing with the possibility that we might never become parents on our own. We were determined that we would be parents one way or another - IVF, adoption, whatever it took. And had we decided to adopt, we would have been overjoyed to have been lucky enough to raise a baby, no matter who gave birth to it - it would have been OURS from the very beginning, I have no doubt about that. At the same time, that is not a decision to be taken lightly, and with it comes a certain amount of grief over giving up the dream of a child that is biologically a part of  you and your spouse.

It might be hard for someone to understand why I would still think about or be touched by things like this now that Emily is here- after all, our wish came true! But infertility doesn't just go away. Just because we aren't "there" right now doesn't erase the past and we will be forever changed by our experiences.

Anyway, my point in sharing this is that it can apply to a lot of circumstances in life. It was written in regards to raising a child with a disability, and it spoke to me in regards to alternate ways of expanding our family. Maybe someone else will read this and it will help them feel a little better about dreams that don't turn out as planned.

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reservedI am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Week Five

In Emily's 5th week of life, we had some ups and downs. 

The Ups:

- She is becoming more social lately - lots of cooing and saying what sounds like "hi!" (I know she isn't talking, it is just babble, but it sounds like she is saying Hi). 

She loves to lie on her play mat and look at herself in the mirror. When we change her diaper in her room, she will lie on the changing table and stare at the wall and just "talk" and smile. It's hilarious!

She is smiling a big, gummy grin at us when we talk silly to her.  I love seeing her actually make eye contact and seem to really be acknowledging us instead of staring in to space. I tried to catch a picture of the smile, but I was having too much fun watching it live to concentrate on taking pics - so I just missed it!

- She rocked a couple of sassy pairs of leg warmers this week. I like them because they make diaper changes easier  (and this lady needs lots of diaper changes!). And her chubby thighs hold them up well!

Just a cute pic - I was holding her paci in place and she grabbed on to my arm.

- She rolled from front to back this week! She was doing tummy time, and not too happy about it, and she wiggled until she flipped herself over. So, of course, we grabbed the camera and flipped her back to her tummy, and sure enough, she did it again. So far no rolling at other times, but this probably means the days of stepping away from her while she is lying on the bed or sofa are over.

** I can't get the video to upload, so you will just have to trust me that it happened! :) Or email me and I will send it to you if you want to see it

And the Downs:

- Really just one down - the fuss monster attacked this past weekend and we (at least "I") barely survived. Emily woke up Saturday morning in a good mood, but then she spit up all over the place about 9 am and the day went downhill from there. She could not be soothed and she screamed all day. She slept for little 20 or 30 minute stretches, and then would only sleep if we were holding her. Sunday was pretty much the same. My mom very sweetly volunteered to come and sit with her while Mikey and I went to a movie, but I didn't feel right leaving her. We will definitely be taking advantage of that offer in the future though!

Thank goodness Mikey was home, because if that happened on a week day, I don't know that I could have handled it. I was a mess. It seemed like her tummy was bothering her and since everything she eats comes directly from me, of course I took it as being my fault!

She has been better since then so hopefully she was just having an off weekend. I have heard from several people that these weeks are some of the hardest and that things will get easier around 8 weeks. I am looking forward to that!

- The only other thing that is a slight down, but not a huge deal, is that she is having a bit of day / night confusion lately....sleeping all day, partying at night. We are just starting to get a bedtime routine going : bath, book, bottle (for bonding time with Dad, and to get her ready for taking bottles at day care), bed.

Last night she screamed all the way through bath and book, but once bottle came around she was happy. She slept from about 9pm until 2:30 am. - heavenly!

One month old and NYE

Miss Emily turned one month old last week!

I can't decide if I want her to hurry up and get bigger so we can start playing and interacting more, or if I want her to stay tiny forever.

We took some pictures of her with a her Ugly Doll and with her sister Sydney so we can compare her size in relation to both each month. Here are my favorite shots.

Love those funny faces!

Baby's first pair of jeans

A rare moment where I am wearing makeup!

Sad face

Wearing my New Years tutu, as one does.

For New Years, Katie and Tyler came to town. We left Miss Em with her grandparents and went to dinner with the Scarbroughs and Leslie and Paul. I was nervous to leave Emily for the first time, but by all accounts it went well and she got to have some bonding time with her Grandma and Grandpa, who love her very much. 

After dinner we picked her up and headed back to our house to watch the ball drop. Didn't the New Years Eve broadcast used to be a good show, with popular artists performing? Last night's show was awful.

Emily slept from when we picked her up until after 1 a.m.. I couldn't help but think of all those wasted hours where we could have been sleeping too!


2012 was an amazing year for our little family. I got a much needed new job, we bought our dream home, and we welcomed the most perfect angel ever created. It almost seems as if life can't get much better! We are looking forward to everything 2013 has to offer!

Sent from my iPhone

Emily's first Christmas

So much for updating weekly! Time just got away from me last week with the holiday busy-ness.

Even though she had no idea what day it was, Emily had a big Christmas visiting with family.

On the Sunday before Christmas, we drove to Bowling Green to meet Michelle, Sam and Ryah for lunch (or is it dinner - which meal starts at 3pm?! :))

Emily wore her Santa pants that my brother in law, Tyler's, mom sent to her. Though her outfit was adorable, her attitude was not! She cried all through the meal and Mikey and I took turned scarfing down our food and then walking her around trying to comfort her. I must say, Cracker Barrel was the place to be with a screaming baby - everyone was very nice to us and to her!

On Christmas Eve we went to my parents house.

Hanging with Grandpa and Grandma.

We had our traditional Christmas Eve meal of appetizers and junk food - awesome as always. Leslie, Paul and Shannon came over and Emily was given the sassiest pair of boots I have ever seen.

Leopard, feathers and sparkle - oh my!

She also got some other cute clothes,and a picture for her room.  We decided that we would begin a tradition of getting her one of the same present each year and we decided it would be snow globes. So we got her a pretty little globe with a Christmas tree in it and we are going to have it engraved with the date. She may not care about her snow globe collection for many years (kids probably don't get too jazzed about that sort of thing) but someday she will.

 Mikey and I didn't really get her anything else this year - for one thing, everything in her life is brand new in the past month! - and also, it is really important to us to find ways to teach her gratitude for what she has (not yet, obviously - we just want to teach her to sleep more than 3 hours right now, but we are building on future holiday traditions!). We have talked about future Christmases and how we want to handle giving her gifts - knowing that she will get tons of presents from family members, and not wanting her to be spoiled or over come with "stuff". I saw something recently that suggested getting your kids "1 thing they want, 1 thing they need, 1 thing to wear and 1 thing to read". That sounds like a good idea to me! We will see how it goes - I may look back on this post next year from behind a mountain of plastic joys and junk and laugh at myself!

On Christmas Day, we headed to my Grandaddy's house to see the rest of the family (and we were about 2 hours late thanks to a start time miscommunication). Everyone was excited to see Emily - I walked in first without her and I might as well have been a ghost! :)

She started the party off right by having a major diaper blow out all over her Great Aunt Laurie. Whoops!

Hanging out with Great Aunt Susie.

We made a project that I saw on Pinterest and thought would be a cute memento of her first holiday season. I kind of messed up the first attempt at stamping the words (I used a lower case j instead of an i - oops) and had to paint the bottom green, so it wasn't exactly like I wanted it to look, but still cute I think. Her toenails still have traces of green paint on them.

Aunt Katie got her a First Christmas outfit. So cute!

And the rest of these are just some cute photos that I took and wanted to share.

Hanging out watching TV with Daddy

Attempting to suck her thumb - almost got it!

This is all her loot from the shower Mikey's work threw her - holy cow, that's pink!

Whooo is the cutest baby in an owl onesie?!

Sent from my iPhone

Daddy of the year

I know I am way behind in posting, and I still have to document Christmas and Emily's one month birthday, but this post needs writing first!

Emily is a lucky little lady in many many ways, but she most definitely hit the jackpot in the Daddy department. 

Not that I am surprised - I always knew that Mikey would be an excellent Dad. One of the things that motivated me the most to keep trying when it seemed like children might not be in our future, was knowing that some kid somewhere just needed to have Mikey Smith as his or her Daddy. Seeing other dads with their kids at hockey games made my heart ache for Mikey to have that someday.

And now she is here, and I was right - he is amazing at this! The love he shows his little girl every single second makes me so excited for the relationship that they will have throughout her life. She couldn't have been given a better example of what a real man should act like.

A few quick "brags" about his awesomeness (it is there every minute of every day, but these stand out)

- One night last week, when he could tell I was particularly exhausted, he moved her basinet out to the living room and slept on the couch next to her, handling all the diaper changes and bottle feedings so that I could get uninterrupted sleep.

- Today he is hanging out with her downstairs in the basement watching football all day. (I'm not feeling well - allergies I think - and he is letting me rest). 

He will probably say these things are no big deal, and I know he is glad to do them, but it means the world to me!

This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship! Can't wait to see what the future holds for these two!

Sent from my iPhone