Two teeth in the house!

We knew from the very first beta that squish was going to be an over achiever and she's kept up her streak with the new appearance of not one, but two teeth! 

Tada! I told her pediatrician at her 4 month appointment that I was sure she was teething but he didn't really believe us. I know 4 months is early, but her daddy got his first tooth at the same time so she just had to one up him by getting two. 

It's been a really rough 4 days, we're not big fans of medicating an infant, but I've had to give her Tylenol for the past 4 nights after our arsenal of night time gripe water, night time hylands teething tablets and punkin butt teething oil weren't enough to let her sleep peacefully. During the day she does great with distractions, a little punkin oil, her frozen teether and a washcloth soaked in dluted chamomile tea, but at night she has a pretty tough time. 

I'm hoping the worst is behind us now, she's exhausted and we're exhausted from waking up so much at night. I've been trying to avoid giving her two doses of Tylenol in the same night but if she wakes up struggling at 2am after the first dose has worn off, I might have to give in tonight. Her poor sore gum makes it tough for her to nurse and then getting hungry makes her extra cranky. 

We've been extremely lucky thus far to avoid that horrible teething diarrhea but just in case we've been putting on our favorite CJs Butter diaper spray at every change. 

The all natural mango, sugar and mint is my favorite scent, it smells so delicious you want to eat it and it keeps her skin clear and moisturized. We're also partial to the Monkey Farts scent but really, you can't go wrong with any of them to protect little bottoms and delicate skin. 

Tula Love

Someone just got their first Tula! It seems that we've begun collecting baby carriers, but I never knew how many different carriers would work for different uses!

Thus far we have 3 carriers. The first is a Lillie baby air that we got at my shower. It's mesh so it's supposed to stay cooler and I keep it in the car in case we have to run into the store. Then we also have an ergo sport that was passed down to us by my bestie and I usually keep that one at home to wear around the house, although it seems to fit E the best out of all our carriers so he's basically stolen it. Now we add our gorgeous Tula to the bunch which is just fabulous and so comfortable. 

I picked up Stellar, with Star Wars(!) suck pads from another mama who had only used it a couple times. She let me have it for right around retail which I've now come to see was a wonderful and generous gift. People seem to charge an arm and a leg for Tulas, especially exclusive ones, so I'm so grateful to her for letting us have our first one without breaking the bank. Without trying it on first I wasn't sure if it would be a good fit but this Tula is definitely love. The squishy thigh protection, the absolutely gorgeous print and the comfortable, ergonomical design make this our favorite carrier yet

I really love wearing miss squish, it's easily the most comfortable way for us to go anywhere. We have an absolutely gorgeous stroller for her that glides like a dream but she's not a fan yet. I think she might start to enjoy it more as she gets bigger, but until then, as far as she's concerned, mamas chest is the only way to travel. 

4 Months

4 Months old and our little squish is such a mover. She wants to crawl so badly, she can occasionally get her knees under her but can't actually coordinate them to move. She can really go on her belly though, it's not unusual for us to put her down at one end of her play space and find her on the other a minute later. While we don't see any teeth popping out yet, she's chewing on anything and everything that she can get in her mouth. Her hands, our hands, her toys, her clothes, my boob, my braided pigtails, anything she can gnaw on with those super strong gums. She can allllmost sit up on her own, you can watch her mind trying to work out gravity and the act of balance.

She really found her feet at 15 weeks and since then she hasn't wanted to let them go. She's been trying to get them for awhile but I think she had to wait for her legs to get long enough to reach around her fluffy cloth butt. She has such long legs for a little one, while she can wear a 3-6 month in pants and shirts, we've had to switch out all her jammies with feet for 6-9 months. To our absolute delight, she's started to laugh over the past month, this deep, belly giggle that just melts my heart right into a puddle.

She loves kisses from her mama, watching her kitties, grabbing her daddy's nose.

She raises her eyebrow and smiles with her mouth wide open when she roots in her sleep.

She's curious, tenacious, stubborn, full of joy and wonder.

Towards the end of three months, she started to hit the 4 month sleep regression, which seems improperly named to me since it's a permanent change in how her brain processes sleep. Prior to this, most babies experience only deep sleep, which is one of the reasons they can sleep anywhere. Around 4 months their brains begin to change and they start to experience a more adult sleep pattern - light sleep, deep sleep, light sleep - the natural sleep cycle. This leads to a whole lot of wake ups and some serious cranky babies and parents, but she doesn't seem to be too bad. There were maybe three days where she was waking up at night crying, she really values her sleep and has no more desire to be awake at 3am than we do, but she's been doing fairly well since. We really love co-sleeping with her, it's a true sanity saver for our family and I don't know how we'd get such good sleep without it. Feeling her breathe is the only way I know how to sleep now.

3 Months!

My sweet girl is 3 months old! She's officially out of her newborn diapers *sniff* and is getting so big. She mastered, as in not just a one off, rolling front to back at 9 weeks and rolling back to front at 12 weeks. She can scoot all over her playmat on her tummy and loves the new jumperoo we just bought her. She instinctively knew how to spin the toys and she talks to herself while she plays with them, processing her world. She's such a happy baby. 

As of right now, her likes include being outside, bath time, her fingers, books, boobie, and melting her parent's hearts. Her dislikes include naps, being put down, having to wear clothes and artificial boobies. She looks at me like I'm absolutely crazy when we offer her a bottle or pacifier. Surely, bottles can't actually be for eating, no, they must be for chewing or grabbing or throwing on the floor, but definitely not for eating.

It's Time for Dodger Baseball

Summer is here and it's baseball season! Baseball is a pretty big part of our lives, it makes up the bulk of E's summer work schedule and he's a huge fan as well. We used to have season tickets to the Dodgers for several years until E ended up working all the games. Baby A is going to grow up around a lot of sports and sports production, the only reason she hasn't already visited her daddy at work is her lack of immunities. Since I'm so allergic, we've been working hard with her pediatrician to try and find her latex free vaccines and until we get that sorted out, we're staying away from most crowds. Until then, A and I will be enjoying the games at home! 

When your best friend has four legs...

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Happy 5th Birthday Milou!

Today is Milou's 5th birthday! She has proven to be such a wonderful big fur sister to baby A. She watches over her while she's sleeping, comes over to see what's wrong when she cries, and if A is ever on the floor, Milou has to come over to clean her feet and ears. She adores her.

I feel pretty rotten that Milou has been out of her classes for so long, we had to stop going when I got too big to move around easily and now with baby A here, we haven't been able to go back yet. I'm still not sure if it's even possible to manage her classes with a baby, but if there's any way to do it I intend to find a way to make it work. Milou is such a good girl and I know she's really missing the exercise and interaction. Hopefully I can get her back into at least one of them as a birthday gift.

Caught a Smile

Caught one of the sweetest smiles on camera. Baby A has been smiling since between 4 and 5 weeks and each one just melts my heart. I can't get enough of this amazing little person!

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Happy 1 Month to My Sweet Love

Somehow, incredibly, baby A is already a month old. I have no idea how this happened, I still can't believe we were pregnant in the first place, and she's already getting so big. This little girl is the center of our world and we are so in love. After hearing everyone talk I expected motherhood to be more challenging, breast feeding trouble, baby blues, colic and crying, but instead it feels like we are two pieces of the same whole. I'm so happy it seems ridiculous. When she wakes up at night to eat and looks at me with those deep eyes I'm so happy to see her that I don't feel tired. She's a champion nurser, breast feeding is coming so naturally to us, and when the sleepiness hits in the afternoon, we curl up together on the couch and nap where I can feel her breathe and smell the top of her sweet head. She's been in cloth diapers for about two weeks now and those are working out brilliantly, no blow outs and E has been taking care of the laundry which is super simple. Life is good. 

 

At one month old, Baby A...

Likes:
- Left Boobie
- "Other" Boobie
- Sleeping on Boobie
- Being in Mama's arms
- Pulling mama's hair
- Sleeping in
- Napping with mama
- Being swaddled
- Bouncing on the yoga ball with daddy

Dislikes: 
- Gas. This is the devil.
- Being put down
- Mama going pee
- Mama eating with both hands 
- The car seat
- Being out of mama's arms

Basically, this baby is always happy in my arms and since I'm happy with her in my arms and never want to put her down, we'll just go on cuddling and snuggling for the rest of forever.

From Bump to Baby

My apologies everyone, I'm re-posting this because it doesn't seem to have posted correctly the first time! I think the photo might have been too so it didn't upload right.

Amelia is amazing. We're home from the hospital now and she fits so seamlessly into our lives that it feels like we've been waiting for her, saving her seat at the table before we knew there was someone else coming. It feels so much better to be home alone, just us three, after being woken and poked every couple hours in the hospital and we're able to spend all our time drinking her in and smelling the top of her downy soft head. Thus far my girl is a champion nurser, she actually worked so diligently at nursing, and screamed so loud when she wasn't immediately rewarded, that she made my milk come down on the second day when most women have to wait until day four or five. The nurses didn't believe me until they saw the milk themselves, but it was no surprise to me and E. No one makes this baby wait.

I'm working on her birth story but it was such a long experience that I don't know when I'll have the time to write it all down. I'm so grateful though that after a somewhat torturous second night with her in the hospital, Amelia appears to be an incredible sleeper. That second night, while E and I were still running on basically no sleep, Amelia was famished and my milk wasn't in yet, and they had just removed my epidural and gotten me standing after my c-section was so tough. Amelia screamed, E hid under his sweatshirt on the pull out chair muttering miserably and I tried to stand and rock Amelia despite feeling cut in half. The nurse kept coming in to assure me that it was normal, that her caloric needs at 24 hours had surpassed the colostrum I was producing and all babies had a tough time at this point, but it didn't make things any easier. She was so worked up and hungry that she couldn't nurse and E was so exhausted that he told me to give her back sometime around 4am. Sometime during that early morning she finally exhausted herself enough to latch and we were all able to get some much needed sleep.

Now that we're home, it's hard to believe that this is the same baby. We're staying downstairs, sleeping on the chaise of our new couch since I can't climb stairs, and Amelia sleeps in her rock and play next to my head for 5-6 hour stretches at night. She cluster feeds during the day, she's pretty much always attached to my boob as she was in the hospital, but we're doing so well and everyone is able to rest. E is a rock star daddy, he's changed pretty much every single diaper she's worn since birth, keeps me fed and helps haul me up and down off the couch. I'm taking my Motrin and Tramadol faithfully to stay ahead of the c-section pain and moving is still really tough, but she is so worth it. We discovered in the hospital that having a full bladder makes the pain a thousand times worse so I'm trying to get myself up and to the potty even when it doesn't feel like I have to go, I'm still weirdly numb to my bladder from the epidural and catheter.

 With E's help, I was able to walk backwards up the stairs to Amelia's nursery to take the final photo of my bump.  After 38 weeks of photos I wasn't going to mess this up so I was getting up those stairs c-section or no! I'm still having trouble wrapping my mind around the fact that this tiny human was inside my body and is now here in the world, in my arms, a whole new person alive on our planet. She's incredible.

Welcome Amelia Renee!

Amelia Renee

January 22, 2016

8lbs 1oz 

20.5"

Gorgeous Girl

After having our ultrasound canceled because the doctor was running behind, E and I were able to reschedule for 35 weeks 1 day. Normally the growth ultrasound isn't done until 36 weeks, but since our little peanut is bigger than average, S wanted us to have it done sooner.

I've known for a couple weeks now that baby girl his head down. She was riding high and transverse until one day I woke up with a waddle and what felt like a bowling ball in my pelvis. The second the ultrasound wand touched my belly, the doctor said "Wow! She's really all the way down there!"as if I hadn't noticed lol. So for now, she's in a vertex presentation, head down and facing my spine, ready to go.  It was tough for them to get a shot of her face but they managed to snap one for us and we haven't been able to stop looking at it.

Our gorgeous girl

The doc also noticed, as everyone has, that I seem to have a lot of amniotic fluid. I'm right at the high end of the normal range but don't have any of the issues associated with having "too much" fluid. High fluid levels can come with some pretty scary worst case scenarios like birth defects, placental abruption, premature membrane rupture and still birth. With mildly high fluid levels you might see a smaller baby who doesn't turn head down, since they have more room to move, putting them at risk for having the cord deliver before the baby and cut off their oxygen supply.

Thankfully, baby girl looks perfect and it appears that a slightly higher fluid level might just be my normal. Far from being small, she's right on track for her high growth curve. With a current weight estimate of 6lbs 9oz, the 82nd percentile, she should be about 8-9lbs at birth as predicted. And as I've already said, she's definitely head down with that big noggin' lodged against my cervix like a cork.

Just in case, we're going to have a NST at our regular appointment to keep an extra close eye on our girl and make sure everything continues to go well. We already had an NST when she took a longer than normal nap and she had perfect, textbook tracing so they don't anticipate any problems. 

Gender Reveal!

E and I are so excited to finally announce that our sweet baby is....

A little GIRL!

E and I had our first baby shower yesterday and finally, at 33 weeks, announced to everyone, with the help of some delicious and adorable cupcakes, that our baby bean is a little girl. Nearly everyone thought bean would be a boy since I'm carrying high and all in the front so E and I got a big kick out of their surprise. 

I think we somehow managed to forget photos, but the shower was everything we had hoped for: Super laid back and casual with lots of good food and good company. Baby girl got some lovely gifts but more importantly, we got to see and hang out with all our friends before the baby gets here. I may have eaten too much, I'm sure my midwife S won't be thrilled with the amount of sandwiches I managed to fit in my stomach, but baby girl was Hungry and everything was delicious.

Our next shower is in 3 weeks and by then I'm hoping to have baby girl's room ready to fill with her crib and furniture and most of our house moved in and unpacked. Not being able to nest is getting tough but I know we'll get everything done in the end.