This week.

Man, this week, it has hit me that I am very pregnant.  I'm really feeling it.

I've been uncomfortable for awhile, but on Monday, I started having a ton of Braxton Hicks contractions.  I figured it was probably nothing, but I decided to call anyway, since I was only 33 weeks.  My doctor wants me to be vigilant, especially since I had some early bleeding, which has some association with pre-term labor.  I was also a little nervous, because I thought I felt less movement.  We ended up going in, where they found some irritation, but no major contractions.  A neighbor of ours came over and sat in the house while we went in for a check.  I felt guilty bothering him, but he assured us it was no problem.  In fact, he told us his cell phone is charging downstairs after 11pm, so if we ever need anything after that, call the home number, so they hear it.

On Thursday, I started feeling lightheaded, dizzy, and saw a few spots.  I didn't pass out or anything, but decided to leave work.  I found out my blood pressure was pretty low, which is probably why I felt so awful.  A coworker's wife brought over dinner that night and told us if we ever need to go in again, she is willing to watch her, anytime.  I'm so lucky to have people like her and our neighbor, especially since we're so far away from family.

It has also really hit me that by the end of next month, we're going to have another little person in the house.  I used to feel guilty that Leah wouldn't be an only child, but honestly?  Now, I am just so excited.  I can't wait to get some newborn snuggles and breathe in that sweet newborn smell.

Yesterday, Leah walked around with an outfit for Hannah.  She kept smiling and staring at it.  She told me and Ray, "it's for baby!" and hugged it.  I can't wait for her to be a big sister.

Wow, last post in November?

I have not been keeping up with this at all.  Let's see what happened since then:

• We took a trip to Phoenix in December.  Ray made Leah a wonderful play kitchen for Christmas out of a TV stand.  It's gorgeous, and something she'll treasure for a long time.
• Ray decided to be a stay at home daddy to our girl, which is working out wonderfully.  It also means no daycare expenses, which is good because we're adding another little girl to our family to November. :)
• Our first little girl turned two in July.  Can't believe it's been that long.
• In August, we went to Wisconsin.  We visited a couple beaches.  Leah loved exploring.  We also went to the Milwaukee zoo, where she was VERY obsessed with the elephants.

Hopefully, I'll do better from now on.  What we're up to now: the beginning stage of potty training (eeeeek), finishing up Leah's big girl room, and getting ready for the new addition.

Potty training is okay.  She's been resistant for a few days, so we're trying not to push too hard.

Leah loves her big girl room, but I'm not ready to take her out of the crib yet.  Just the idea makes me nervous.  Maybe she'll do better than I think, like she did with weaning off her pacifier in June.

We've done very little for the new addition.  I bought the first thing I've ever bought for her today, at almost 30 weeks pregnant: a cute sleep n play that was one sale.  And I actually took the time to go through Leah's old stuff and see what we can re-use.  That's progress, right?

Random thoughts.

I can't believe I've neglected to write since before Leah was one.  I feel like a lot has happened since then.  I'm going to write some stuff down, mainly so I can read it and remember some day.

She had a small birthday party, with our neighbors, some friends, and my parents.

She dressed up as a bee for Halloween last month.  She sat in front of our storm door playing with candy.  She was absolutely adorable.  She still carries stuff around in her pink pumpkin pail that we bought her.

She's 16 months now, running around, and talking more and more.  She took her first steps a few days after she was one, started walking more than a few steps around 13 months, and was walking everywhere rather than crawling at around 14 months, which is when she moved up to the toddler room at daycare.

I gave her milk last night, and was very surprised to get a "thank you" in response.  It's so cute in her little voice.

Her favorite phrase is "uh....oh" (sometimes while throwing things on the floor which really isn't a time to say uh oh, but oh well).  She also recently learned to say "wow" and attempts to say "diaper" and "ball."

She's getting more and more fun by the day. <3

6 more days...

Until my sweet little girl is one.  I can't believe it.

She hasn't started walking yet, but loves her Stride to Ride dino.  So glad I bought that toy.  She seriously will play with it for hours.

She's doing well at daycare.  The highlight of my day is getting there, watching her get all excited, and then waiting for her to crawl quickly over to me so I can pick her up.  Seriously, just melts my heart.

She's still nursing a lot.  We started working on replacing the morning nursing today.  I gave her a snack instead, and she didn't seem to miss it.  Makes me a little sad, actually.  I don't plan on weaning her completely yet, but I do want to be able to quit pumping at work.

We introduced whole cow's milk on the 4th.  She seemed to like it.

I just can't believe how quickly she's growing up.

Behind. Again.

I always knew I couldn't blog.

May was a great month, I would say.  My husband's father and stepmother came up for his graduation ceremony and got to spend some time with their granddaughter.  They hadn't seen her since she was a newborn.  That weekend, Leah's first tooth finally came through.  It was a bottom tooth.  Now she has one bottom tooth and one top tooth, on opposite sides, which looks kind of funny. :)  Looks like the other top tooth is about to join in, though.

My mother also came to visit, as she does pretty much every month.

 I had my first Mother's Day.  We didn't do anything fancy...just went to Bob Evans to eat, and my husband bought me a pretty necklace to celebrate my first year as a mother.  Sometimes it still seems crazy to me that I'm mama to a sweet little girl.

At the end of May, we also took her for her first trip to the local zoo.  I don't know how much she appreciated the animals, but she really liked the little boy laughing at the sea lion feeding. :)  The weather's getting better, so we should be going outside more.

We took her to the park yesterday and put her in the swing.  I don't think she was too impressed.  I took some pictures, and she was clinging to the swing.  We also put her on the grass.  Her reaction was hilarious.  She was holding up her arms and shifting about like she didn't want to touch it, haha.

Finally, last week, we also switched her to her convertible carseats.  Seems like such a milestone.  For some reason, it makes me sad she's no longer in the carseat I chose for her while I was pregnant.

And next month she'll be one.  Just crazy.  Still can't wrap my mind around that one.

Leah is 9 months!

Or she was a couple of weeks ago.  We had her 9 month appointment today at least.  She's at 50th percentile for both length and weight, and 35th for head circumference, which is about where she's been.  She did not like going to the appointment at all.  There was a lot of crying and flailing and screaming.  As soon as we left the exam room, she stopped.  Silly girl.

She started daycare last week.  A few days in, she already came back with a cold!  Blah.  I knew daycare would result in colds, but no one told me it would happen that fast!  She seems to be adjusting okay, though.  The first few days, she was super sad.  When I picked her up in the afternoon, she burst into tears for a couple days.  Her thought process isn't "I'm so happy to see you!"  It's "Why are you over there?  COME SAVE ME!"

Today I picked her up, and she was sobbing hysterically.  Not sure why.  I think it might have been because I was a little later than usual, and she got moved to the other infant room, which she hasn't spent much time in.

She's learned "Mama!" I love it.  Totally melts my heart.

Leah's a crawler!

She's been working on it for about a week. I stay home with her on Monday afternoons, and she crawled a tiny bit (about 2 "steps"). She's been trying to get the motion down since then.

Today, she crawled across our living room! Unfortunately, it was because she saw the cables for the TV and wanted to play with them. Ick. Looks like we have some baby proofing to do!

Lots of change going on...

Since Leah has been born, my husband has been staying with her during the day while he takes night classes. Unfortunately, or fortunately however you look at it, he's graduating soon. This means he is going to return to work...which means Leah will be going to a center. It makes me sad. She'll be going a couple weeks from now. *sigh* He'll be working Tuesday-Saturday, which means she'll spend four days in daycare. We've been looking at centers, and I think we've finally settled on one.

On to funner things...Leah's newest trick is getting from her tummy to the sitting position. She first did it on Friday. The sad thing is I was home, and I missed it! She was on her tummy, and I looked away for a few moments. I look back, and there she is, sitting. UGH! I can't believe I missed the first time even though I was right there. However, she did it again today. Yay!

She's also working on crawling. She's moved forward a bit, but hasn't quite got the hang of crawling. She mainly just rolls to get where she wants to go.

Sometimes it still hits me...

When we first moved into this house, I dreamed of the day that we would put a baby in the room next to our bedroom. Sometimes I still can't believe that the day I dreamed of is here. There is a sweet little girl who sleeps in that room.

We'd pass by the hospital, and I'd dream of the day we'd get to go there and leave with a baby. We have done that.

Tonight, I brought my baby to the Open House at work. That's when everyone gets to bring their families to the facility. A couple years ago, before I was pregnant, I told my husband that maybe someday we'd get to bring a child to it.

Sometimes it still hits me that I'm a mom and that my biggest wish has come true. I wonder if it'll ever stop amazing me.

Leah is 7 Months

Sweet Leah turned 7 months last week. Unbelievable. Seven months just seems so big. I know it's not really old in the grand scheme of things, but wow. I would at least classify her as an older infant.

She's doing well, and eating more food. She still only eats roughly 4 ounces a day, but it's okay. I want to go slower anyway because I don't want to wean her before a year, and even then, it'll probably break my heart. Seriously can't stand the idea of weaning her.

Right now, she loves the two Fisher-Price cars my sister bought her for Christmas. She enjoys rolling them across our floor. She also enjoys banging the rings she got from her godfather against the floor.

We bought her Lady and the Tramp for Valentine's Day...not at all for ourselves, of course. Just for her. :-p

I asked my husband just now if he wanted to add anything that Leah's doing to this blog entry. His response? "She's cute. Cutest baby ever."

Solids

We started giving Leah rice cereal on January 14th. I really wanted to get to six months of exclusive breastmilk, so I am pretty excited that we succeeded! :) Anyway, we stuck to just the cereal for the first week, and she seemed to get it, so we moved on to squash.

The look on her face was priceless. It looked like she was thinking, "What the heck?" However, squash seemed to grow on her, and we moved on to broccoli.

Broccoli is how I learned I am a fail in the kitchen. We got a Magic Bullet for a wedding present (2 and a half years ago). I have never used it. My husband prepares all the meals. So I thought, "Hey, how hard can this be?"

I steamed some broccoli and threw it in there. It wasn't working. Ugh, what am I doing wrong? After awhile, I realized...there should probably be some liquid in here. Yeah, I'm dumb. You need liquid to make a puree. So I put in some water and thinned it out. It worked! Yay! I later learned most people actually use formula or breastmilk. Haha. Oops. Having a child apparently does not suddenly improve your kitchen skills. Oh, well.

Anyway, I gave her some and she promptly spit it out. Then I realized I forgot to put a bib on the baby. Yeah. I am a baby food fail. Oops. Well, that was fun to clean up.

Since then, the broccoli's grown on her. I also gave her some carrots last night and she seemed to like it.

I am a blog slacker..

No updates since November? Oops. Here's an update for Christmas. Only took me a month...and a few days.

In December, we drove to Arizona. Yup. Drove. It was a long 4 days. On the way there, we got caught in a snowstorm in Texas. I seriously said Hail Marys in the back. I kept thinking if we died, that we'd be one of those sad stories where people would say, "Oh, that's sad...there was a kid in the back." We ended up staying in Tucumcari, NM since the interstate was closed. Anyway, lesson learned. We're never taking that trip again. If we go to Arizona, we're flying.

To give you an idea of how bad it was, I'll share this story: we could barely see anything, so my husband was following the car in front of us. We ended up in a picnic area. Yup, that's right, we exited the freeway without even knowing it.

Leah's first Christmas was fun. We brought her to Mass at the church we were married in. We saw several people there we knew. We dressed her up in her cute Christmas dress, and she got lots of compliments. :)

We saw several friends in AZ...a few we hadn't seen since high school. We ate lots of yummy food at some of my favorite places: IN-N-OUT, Sweet Tomatoes, Boston Market. MMMM.

Overall, it was a great time. However, next year, we're thinking of doing Christmas properly by staying home, having a tree, decorating the house...we'll see.

Flashbacks

So recently, while hearing about a delivery, I thought back to the birth of my sweet Leah. I could recall the scenes in the delivery room and the exact conversations. I am writing this down for my own sake. I want to be able to look back and recall those moments forever. This is what I thought of:

• One of the nurses asked me as I laid there in stirrups whether I knew it was a boy or a girl. I said it was a girl, and I hope they were right, because we never could think of a boy name. "Otherwise, we'll just name it Baby [Last Name] Number One." My ob laughed and said, "What did you say? Baby [Last Name] Number One?" She was quite amused.
  
• I also remember being in stirrups and thinking, "This is it." I couldn't believe it. I told the nurse I thought I was going to cry, and she told me that was fine, as long as it was out of joy. :)
  
• It was so weird to watch my belly get lower and lower and disappear. I remember thinking, "Wait, this is it? She's out?" Then I heard the tiniest little cry I had ever heard. I had never heard a newborn baby cry, and couldn't believe how quiet it was.
• "Well, it IS a girl!" my doctor announced.
  
• Right before delivery, they put a blanket on me. When they placed her on my chest, I remember studying her as she screamed. She was curled up, and I couldn't believe this tiny little thing was a human, my baby.
• Watching them place her on the baby warmer while they were stitching me up. I couldn't believe it was over. This was the moment I had dreamed of for 9 months. Actually, I had dreamed of it for much longer than that. I remember passing by the hospital before I was pregnant, dreaming of the day I would go in there and have a little one.

Honestly, I tear up just thinking about delivery. Those moments are just so amazing and precious to me.

4 Months

Stats
Weight: 15lbs1oz (75th percentile)
Length: 25.5 inches (75th percentile)

Leah is 4 months (okay, and a few days)! She had her wellness appointment this morning. She's getting so big!

At the appointment, we were asked if she rolled yet. We told her that she had gone from front to back, but not back to front. She's always gotten stuck on the shoulder.

Well, in between when the doctor left and the nurse came in, she learned to roll from back to front! Good job, baby girl! Her head control is great, too.

We were also asked if we had started rice cereal. We're not really sure whether/when we will try that stuff. I'd really love to give her only breastmilk until 6 months, but the doctor suggested rice cereal at five months, so I don't know.

We also tried the jumperoo out last night. She seemed unsure at first, but then she started bouncing up and down.


I think she likes it!

Halloween and Other Musings

On Halloween, I dressed up my dear Leah as a ladybug. My dad was here to help me pass out candy, which is good, because Ray was at school. I know there's pretty much no purpose to dressing up a baby for Halloween, but I couldn't help myself. She was so darn cute!

My parents loved their time with Leah. My father hadn't seen her since July, so she was much more interactive this time. My mom shows up pretty much every month.

Leah is almost 4 months old. Where did the time go?

Still pumping like a maniac at work. I have quite the stash of frozen milk in our spare freezer. I like knowing I have backup in case my supply ever plummets.

Leah spends a lot of time in her bouncy seat these days. She fusses sometimes when we hold her, and the bouncer calms her down. Here's a picture of the cutie sleeping:


Also, can I just say how much I love sleepers with little animal feet? Check these out:

Seriously, how cute are these? This particular sleeper also has a bear on the back. So freakin' adorable! I'm pretty sure all footed pajamas should have these.

ETA: I can't believe I forgot to mention this. I think Leah had her first cold last week. It was so sad. She was so stuffed up. Poor girl. Luckily, she seems to be all better now!

Once again, time is flying!

Little Leah is already 3 months old. Where the heck is all the time going? She's growing so fast. Stats from 2 month appointment:

11lbs7oz
22.5 inches

She jumped from 30th percentile to 75th percentile. She's got such chubby cheeks, I love it! She's getting heavy to carry around, too.

I don't write as much as I'd like to, or take enough pictures. Heck, in this picture, she's actually 3 months and 2 days, but I figure that's close enough to 3 months.

My parents will be visiting soon. My mom has seen her once since she was born, and my dad hasn't seen her since she was born. They're pretty excited.

She learned to laugh yesterday! She's sort of cooed when you tickled her for awhile. However, last night she laughed the most adorable laugh! It's a bit of a giggle/shriek. I am so in love. Also, we're pretty sure she has a dimple. :)

She's also started grabbing my hair recently. Uh oh! It might be enough to get me to cut my long hair short. Maybe. I do love having long hair. When I was younger, my mother always made me have short hair, so when I started being able to decide for myself, I decided to grow it much longer.

Breastfeeding is going well, I think. I've been at work for over a month and a half, and have pumped enough for her so far. In fact, we purchased a freezer recently to keep the stash. Otherwise, we were going to have to start throwing stuff out. I know that my supply could eventually dry up, so when we found a good deal, we jumped on it. Strangely enough, I like pumping at work, as it really breaks up the work day. Also, I love returning home and nursing her right away.

On more children

Last night, I was looking through pictures from Leah's birth, and I have to admit: I don't remember ever looking so pregnant. I always expected to get a lot bigger than I did, so I guess that's why I never noticed.

While looking at this picture, I missed pregnancy. I think about it more than I want to admit. And I can't wait to give our darling little girl a sibling or two. I've only known her for three months, but I bet she'd be a fantastic older sister. I'm torn. Part of me wants to give her a sibling close in age, while another part just wants time to enjoy her.

Almost 2 months!

In a few short days, my baby will be 2 months old. I can't believe it. It really does go by so quickly.

Work is still going well. Leah is sleeping through the night pretty consistently these days, so I'm not completely exhausted or anything. I have been pumping enough for her, plus a few ounces to freeze everyday. I like stocking up on milk in case I go through a period when my supply drops considerably or something.

Leah finally decided she liked the bouncer, which I'm glad about. I was starting to think it was a waste. She really enjoys the lights, and seems completely fascinated by them.

Her two month appointment is next week. I'm not looking forward to it, because she will be getting vaccinated. I don't know how I will handle it if she starts to sob inconsolably.

Returned to Work on Wednesday

Man, six weeks at home really flew by! Pregnancy goes by slowly, but time with a baby sure goes by quickly!

Returning to work wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I think the anticipation was worse than actually returning. I've been doing 2 pumping sessions. However, due to my husband's schedule, I'm going to be working 9 hour days 4 days a week, and will probably have to increase it to 3. So far, I've gotten enough for her, but I know that my supply might suffer after more weeks of pumping. We'll see.

Also, I had my postpartum appointment, and things have healed up nicely! Yay! :)

Things I never want to forget

Leah is growing up so quickly, and it has me thinking of what moments I want to remember when she's grown. So far I have:

• The feeling of her falling asleep on top of me as I sit reclined on the couch.
• The satisfied look on her face and the post-meal stretch she does after a feeding.
• I once heard my husband singing lullabies to her over the baby monitor when he didn't think I was listening. It made my heart swell.
• The cute noises she makes when she's waking up. I also love the look on my dog Popcorn's face when she hears this. She's not quite sure what to make of it.
• Leah staring me in the eye as she nurses. This is one of the reasons I love breastfeeding.
• The cute, crooked little yawn she has when she's sleepy.
  

I'm sure there will be more times like this, but I never want to forget these. I wish time would slow down a bit sometimes.