Cammy Came to Town

Cammy came for a visit this weekend because we haven't seen her since before Christmas. In that time, the baby has pretty much doubled in size and looks nothing like her newborn self. The older two were excited to see Cammy and do fun activities with her that didn't involve a baby sibling! Caroline cheesing it up before our visit to the dentist. The kids had appts. at 11 AM, just in time to get a good cleaning before loading up on candy at the movies that afternoon.

Cammy was the "babysitter" while I took the kids to the dentist. Emily had a nice scream fest for Cammy, then passed out on the couch.

Once we got home from the dentist, Cammy took Caroline and Garrett to the movies while I stayed home with Emily. And since I don't move a baby who is sleeping for any reason, Emily enjoyed her first nap on the couch while I stayed within arm's reach in case she learned to roll over during the nap.

What movie did the kids see? Why, Gnomeo and Juliet of course! They said it was cute. Cammy said the theater was packed and thank goodness they got to the theater early. Tim, Emily, and I met up with the fam after the movie, where we hit Kohl's for some kid clothes and then the Quaker Steak and Lube for dinner. It was very nice (auto themed) and the kids loved the atmosphere (race car suspended from the ceiling, etc). The food wasn't half bad either!

Tub Time

Just some goofy moments I wanted to share of Emily enjoying her bath time tonight: "Is there something on my head?"
"This is a fetching bikini top"

"I can wash my own dang self!"

"Howdy partner"

"Dad keeps piling crap on my head....what's next, a bottle of shampoo??"

Lazy Sunday

Caroline had a sleepover last night, and I don't know if it was the excitement in the air, or the brownies coursing through my bloodstream, but Emily was what we would call "restless". She was in bed by 7:30 PM, obviously exhausted from being treated like a doll baby by Caroline and friend, but then I heard the familiar "eeeh-eehhh-eeehhh" grunting at 1 AM (not exactly a cry, more like a warning sound that all hell will break loose if she is not fed in the near future). I fed her in my bed since the girls had taken over the living room (even more reason to finish that game room off the back of the house!) and plopped her back in bed. Then it was more "eeeehhh-eeehhhhh" at 5 AM, her usual wake up time. Except no one told Emily that it was a weekend and we weren't going to daycare. So she decided to stay up and entertain Timmy and me. Here are some pics during sunrise while we were chilling in the bed, Sunday style.

Baby blue eyes!

Emily: Three Months Old

Can you believe my little peanut is three months old today??? She has changed so much! I don't have much in the way of official stats since she doesn't have another checkup til 4 months old, but I do know her weight. We were at the doctor yesterday for her ear check and Emily weighed in at 12 pounds, 13 oz. Her double ear infection is almost all cleared up. The right ear is perfect but there is still some fluid behind the ear drum on the left. Dr. B thinks it will be gone by our check up next month. She sleeps through the night, with a bedtime of 8 PM and a usual wake time of 5:30 AM.

Emily is on a great schedule, which goes as follows: get home from daycare around 3:15 PM, eat, have a little cat nap, wake up and play, get a bath around 6 PM, go in bouncy seat for a little bit, start rubbing those tired red eyes around 7 PM, get a diaper change and swaddle just in time for Wheel of Fortune, eat all the way through Jeopardy, and get plopped in her bed by 8 PM with the humidifier running and CD of ocean waves.

Likes: bathtime, when women coo at her, baby talk, being swaddled, her little lamb swing, sitting upright, getting her diaper changed, Ms. Tammy at daycare

Dislikes: amoxicillin, getting out of the bath, being laid flat on her back, socks, being cold, having to stay in her car seat too long, Ms. Tammy's day off

Happy Valentine's Day!

My first Valentine's Day! I am soooo excited!
For Valentine's Day, I got this delicious hand. No chocolate for me please!

Yummmm, so tasty! I could self-soothe all night long!

And this is why I LOVE her daycare--they did butt prints to make hearts for parent cards! Inventive and something you can only get away with when talking about infants. (I'm thinking that the middle school parents wouldn't be so tickled with the same card...)

And finally, I found a great card for Timmy that said everything I wanted to say. A card so perfect that Timmy read it, looked at me, and said "Can I cross out your name and put in mine? Because this is exactly what I want to tell you." And I want to share it with you:

I get it now.

Now that I've found someone

who makes me smile

just by hearing their voice,

and gets me all tingly

with a simple kiss

(that usually leads

to a lot more tingles)...

Now that I have someone

who can make me laugh

(even when I don't feel like it),

and listens to what I have to say.

And now that I'm with someone

that I want to share

all the little parts of my day

and all the big stuff

in my life with.

I get it now.

I finally get what the big deal is

about this "love" thing.

Because I've got you.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Busy Weekend!

Emily has been in a great mood this weekend because she's starting to near the end of this cold/ear infection stuff. Since it was 50-60 degrees this weekend, Tim decided that the roof had to get finished. He called John and Mary to see if John wanted to take a break from corporate life, trade his suit for some overalls, and help with the roof Saturday. To our amazement and utter delight, John agreed and said that Mary and Baby Brooklyn would tag along to hang out with me and the kids. I don't think that John had a clue of what he signed up for, since he was limping, wincing, and sighing heavily by the afternoon, but we had a good time visiting and I made a huge pot of chili and some fabulous cornbread, which was devoured the second it was too dark to keep working last night. Mary dug through my stash of 0-3 month clothes for Brooklyn and took home some good finds. My baby girls
Someone thought she was hot stuff and tried out the Exersaucer (I actually was just trying to find ways to keep her upright so that she wouldn't get congested and she seemed to enjoy herself).

Caroline and Baby Brooklyn. Brooklyn just went in for her 1-month checkup and she 7 lbs. 1 oz. (birthweight was 6 lbs. 11 oz.). She is such a little peanut! Caroline thought she looked like a baby doll.

Caroline and the more "robust" baby Emily, who is now weighing in at 13 pounds (3 months old).

My three Muskateers!

Double Whammy

Important: If you get nothing else from the following story, know this: Patient First sucks. They are a horrible establishment and getting medical treatment from a homeless man with a folding table is preferable to having to put up with this place. Enough said.

Emily has been battling a cold for a couple of days. She's very congested and I've been using the snot sucker and saline drops to loosen up the mucus packed in her little nose (Timmy always tells her "Blow it out Emily!" but much to his chagrin, she just stares back). Yesterday (Tues) the congestion turned into full blown coughing fits. Daycare said that she would sleep for ten minutes, cough, wake up, get cranky (lack of sleep), get upset, get stuffy again, etc. It was a vicious cycle. Tim and I thought we could wait it out (not much you can do about a cold but treat the symptoms) with a vaporizer and some Vick's Rapo-Rub. But as the evening progressed, she got more and more uncomfortable. I could hear the rattle of congestion in her head, her eyes were red and watery, and she wasn't interested in eating. Last night's bath. This girl is usually a ball of fire with fantastic splashing ability. Not last night. Around 8 PM, I called Chris to come get the kids so that Timmy and I could take Emily to an urgent care place. The one in KG closes at 8 PM. Ditto for the Nextcare place I love over in White Oak. Only option other than the emergency room? Patient First.

We get there at 8:35 PM. We're checked in immediately. I'm starting to think "Oh, we'll only be here a little while." Ummmmm......wrong. As soon as we get in a room, two nurses come in to take Emily's vitals and write down all the details of what's going on. They are there for approx. 4 minutes, then leave without so much as a clue of what course of action we will be taking (rsv test? flu test?). She's running a low fever, she can't breathe, and she's miserable. Tim and I continue to hold her, pass her back and forth, for the next....wait for it....THREE HOURS. Because that is how long I was expected to hold my baby in a cubicle while four nurses gathered at the computer screen outside my curtain and TALKED ABOUT THEIR WEEKEND PLANS. Total number of times a nurse glanced at me fuming in the doorway and said "It will just a little bit more, honey. Be there soon": SEVEN. Luckily, Emily fell asleep around Hour Two and sleeping upright on my chest helped her congestion so that she could actually get some rest. The "doctor" (I feel the need to use the term loosely after the care my baby received) showed up...at 12:03 AM...and spent 2.7 seconds looking at my baby before finding out she has a double ear infection. Wow, good thing we weren't checked at 8:42 PM since that exam was SO INVOLVED AND TOOK UP SO MUCH OF HER TIME.
The kicker? There is no triage system here. We are literally the last patients in the building because someone decided to treat the girl with diarrhea and the lady with the twisted knee before stopping by to see the infant who can't breathe. We get a prescription for Amoxicillin which they can't fill at the Patient First because they don't have it in stock. We head to the 24-hr. CVS....one hour wait. With a feverish baby and a husband who will now get 2 hours of sleep before work? No thank you. I told the "technician" to kiss my syringe and I would be back the next day.

This is how she slept last night: upright, vaporizer, Vicks on her chest, and Mommy on the couch.

Date Night!

Tim and I went out for our first solo date since Emily arrived! Peggy and Joe offered to watch the baby if we wanted to go out and celebrate our first anniversary. Since our anniversary was last Monday, and no one likes rushing through a weekday meal, we decided to go out Saturday night when we could take our time and enjoy the food and company. It was an easy choice--Buster's in Port Royal for some seafood! The place was packed. We got the last booth.
Before we left. Emily is not looking so sure about this "baby sitter" idea.

Timmy and his baby girl.

Emily when we got home. She had a great time watching Grand Ole Opry with Grandma and had a full conversation with Grandad, who understood bits and pieces.

I So Big!

(Picture Emily saying the title above with her hands hoisted above her head, and you get the idea)...Emily is officially 11 weeks today, and since we don't hit the "3 month mark" for another couple of weeks, I wanted to give a short update.
We went to the doctor 2 days ago and Emily was 12 pounds, 9 oz. She's a solid one! She just survived her first full week at daycare. She takes 3 4-oz bottles and demands a feeding the minute we walk in the door every afternoon. I am successfully pumping over 15 oz. at work every day, so the freezer is jam packed with extra "liquid gold". Let me put the frozen milk situation this way: If the world was in chaos, I could successfully feed all of King George for about a week.
She has settled into a great routine: 6:30 PM bath, 7:30 PM swaddle, then a feeding, and in bed at 8 PM. This whole week she has slept til 4:30-5 AM ! I have gotten 7-8 hours of SOLID SLEEP, which we all know is necessary if I would like to avoid driving into a pole or leaving the baby carrier on the car roof.
She still enjoys her bathtime immensely. She likes hanging out on the changing table well after her diaper change is finished. She's enjoying floor time and will even roll over if I nudge her onto her side. Emily has a distinct distaste for socks and will wiggle them off at all costs. Her hatred of the car seat has much improved now that I have removed the pad at the bottom of her seat. I think she fits better and the straps aren't so tight. I've heard that babies who hate the car will sing a different tune if you put them in the convertible car seat because it sits up so much higher (they can watch things out the window) but I'm not willing to toss a $150 car seat into the basement. The ride to F'Burg and daycare isn't that long!
Official 3 month update to come on February 18th!

You see that face?! Emily knows what it's like to cheer for a team that never wins :(

Deep Thoughts...

So, I was thinking....Mommy was getting me all gussied up in my sleeper and it suddenly occurred to me...Why does a 3-6 month sleeper come with anti-slip feet? Am I really what one would call a "flight risk"? Is there a chance I might get going at a really good clip down the hallway and lose my footing? I mean, really?!

C'mon, marketing people, you gotta know your audience. Intro to Business 101.