Jenna Benna Bo Benna

I'm out

2007-01-25T11:01:00.000-06:00

I've been thinking of quitting the blog for a while. A recent blog stalking incident on another blog gave me the motivation I needed. So friends, this blog is coming to an end. I am debating whether to start another blog. Probably will, but I'll need to find some time to find a host and learn how to use it. I hate to let the bad people win, but I am not exactly anonymous on this blog.

If you want access to the new blog (should there be one), email me & let me know. formerfry@gmail.com

9 month checkup

2007-01-22T20:14:00.000-06:00

We had the 9-month checkup today. She only gained a pound since her 6-month checkup! Normally I would be a little concerned, but she was really big then. She weighs just under 21 pounds now, and is in the 76th percentile. She's 27" long and in the 26th percentile for height, and her head is 43.7 cm, which puts her in the 49th percentile. So overall, I'd say she's about average. Works for me!

The spitting up though--WOW. Yesterday was, without a doubt, the worst spit-up day she's ever had. And it's rough every day. I'm attributing it to teething. The doctor said that could be it, but since it's not hurting her, we don't need to do any testing yet. If she doesn't quit it in 3 more months, we need to have an upper GI test done to make sure everything's working the way it should. She spit up once while the doctor was in there, but of course she also spit up several times during the 50 minutes we were in the waiting room. YES, 50 minutes. I'm irritated that every time we go there, we wait no less than 3o minutes, and every time I call, I'm on hold for no less than 30 minutes. But, I digress. I think that's just the way it is.

We started the new bedtime routine tonight. Usually we give her a bath, put her in her jammies, feed her, and then if everything goes well, she goes right to sleep. Now we're feeding her, then bathing her, reading her a story, and hoping she'll go to sleep. The first option didn't give us a chance to brush her new teeth (which show really well in this picture) and just wasn't a good habit so we're hoping she'll get used to this.

Happy 9 months

2007-01-21T00:11:00.000-06:00

Hey Jenna Benna, you're 9 months old today. It's after midnight, so it's official. I don't know what it is about 9 months that makes it seem so old. I have heard people say this is their favorite age for babies, and I'm starting to see why. You have gotten to be so much fun! You crack us up sometimes with your laughs and your expressions and the things you do with your mouth. And you're so cute the way you wave to people. You like to hold your hand up and just open & close your fist. We get you to laugh whenever we can--such a happy and beautiful sound.

You are still spitting up like crazy--we have to take several burp cloths with us wherever we go and you usually go through 2 or 3 outfits a day. Sometimes we get lucky and it's just one. And you're still a really bad napper, but you're doing better. You make the craziest sounds when you eat. I tried to get it on video a few times, but for some reason, the video camera makes you quit what you're doing. You sound like Billy Bob Thorton in Sling Blade--that's what people say. When you do that, somebody usually quotes that movie. You just grunt & groan every time you eat a bite of something. We laugh, but we probably shouldn't encourage that--we're hoping you outgrow it soon, or else you could be in for some embarrassment when you get older. :) You are still a great eater, but we're afraid to give you big things because we don't want you to choke! You tried macaroni & cheese baby food today for the first time and you didn't like it. We fed it to you at Chipotle while we were eating too, but you just wanted to spit it out. It was really funny, but only because you don't often do that.

You want to walk so bad, you can probably taste it. You cruise all over the house--it's your favorite thing to do. Toys? Forget about em. All you want to do is stand and cruise around. You only crawl to get somewhere you can pull up, and you'll do what you can to get from one piece of furniture to another--even if you have to take steps on your own. I know you'll be walking this month. Your gramma says you'll probably be climbing out of your crib by the time you're a year old, but please don't! We have a lot more babyproofing to do before you can have free reign of the house.

You have gotten to be our little pal--we love taking you places because you love to go. We'll take you to Home Depot or Target or grocery shopping because you love looking at people, things on shelves, even the lights on the ceilings. People are always saying how cute you are with your pretty hair, but don't let that go to your head!

You'll be a year old in 3 months--hard to believe. In some ways time is flying by, and in some ways it seems you were born years ago. You're growing too fast, but you're getting more fun. We love you, precious girl!

6 weird things about me

2007-01-19T12:05:00.000-06:00

I have been tagged by a couple of bloggers to list 6 weird things about myself. I'm having trouble thinking of them because I guess these aren't that weird, but I'm SURE there are a lot of weird things I can't think of.

1. I have to eat everything evenly. There has to be the same amount of meat, rice, & vegetables (or whatever I'm eating) left on my plate; the same number of each color of M&Ms, etc.

2. I am addicted to bad sit-coms. Aside from Grey's Anatomy, Scrubs, and King of Queens (which I don't consider bad sit-coms), they're all I watch. Well, that and HGTV. I'm talking Step by Step, Brady Bunch, Full House, and Growing Pains. And I admit it. And I hate reality TV.

3. If I feel like I'm getting sick, I put listerine in my ears. I don't know if it really helps or not, but my boss told me about this years ago, and I've been doing it ever since.

4. Much like the food, everything else has to be even. My Tae Bo DVDs drive me crazy because he doesn't always do the same thing on the left side that he did on the right. So I'll pause the DVD and do the other side.

5. I like to clean. I don't do it as often as I should, but I get some sort of weird satisfaction out of making a dirty house clean, and I actually enjoy doing it.

6. I hate Cher. But I mean, really. The sound of her voice makes me go into convulsions. If some mean person who knows this about me makes me listen to her in a car or something (which has been known to happen), I will scream and cover my ears like a 4-year-old.

I'm not tagging anyone...I'll just check your blogs, although I think most people have already done it.

In Jenna news, she had a bad night last night. I don't know what her deal was. She went to bed at about 9, but then woke up about 20 minutes later. Jay put her back to sleep, but as soon as she got her crib, more crying. We let her cry for a while, but she was NOT going to stop. So he put her back to sleep, and she woke up at 11. Back to sleep, she woke up at 11:45. Back to sleep, up at 4. Then she woke up for good at 7. It wasn't hard to get her back to sleep all these times, so it't not like she wanted to play or anything. I think we're doing a bad thing by rocking her back to sleep, but we've let her cry for hours before and she just won't go back to sleep unless we coax her. I just keep saying it's temporary...it's temporary...

3 steps

2007-01-17T13:20:00.000-06:00

She's not exactly walking, but she's taking steps! Usually not more than 1 at a time, but yesterday she took 3 all by herself, and then 4! She usually stands there all alone, looking like a big girl. She'll stand for minutes at a time now. She is SO CLOSE to walking! She already cruises all around, and pretty fast. So we need to take the shift from starting to baby-proof to full-on baby proofing.

We've got to do something about that shaggy hair. It's too short for any kind of pig-tails, but always in her face and messy looking. I guess she's just sporting the bed-head look. :)

It's still icy! The icicles are slowly melting, but business are opening. I left the house today for the first time since Sunday and the roads are still icy. Icicles hanging from all the houses & cars, sheets of it on the roads, and plants/grass covered in it. Craziness! Again--I would not be good living in the North where this happens all the time!

Brrrrrrrr

2007-01-16T14:29:00.000-06:00

It's not often that we get snow in Texas. At least, not in this part of Texas. It's been snowing off & on today, and so many things are closed because of the icy roads. Schools, businesses (including hubby's), daycares (including Jenna's), and I assume stores. Usually when it freezes, it's just for a night, and then during the day it warms up. But it's been freezing for a couple of days and will continue through tomorrow. If it snows more, enough to stick more than just in patches, I would love to get some pictures of Jenna in it. Her first snow! On the other hand, I don't really want to take her out in it since it's so cold. Anwyay, I took these pictures earlier.

I complain about the heat in the summer, but I'll take that to this just about anytime. I don't know how you people in the North do it!

Happy girl

2007-01-15T10:24:00.000-06:00

I can tell Jenna's gums are bothering her. She has one top tooth that has broken through, and the other one is trying to. She has her hands in her mouth a lot, and makes these noises with her mouth as if she is trying to sooth her gums with her tongue. But in spite of that, she is all smiles and laughs (and of course, high-pitch squeals) lately. I love those sounds!

What?

2007-01-11T16:01:00.000-06:00

I just got this phone call:

Riiiing
Me: Hello?
Caller: Yes, can I please speak with Jason?
Me: He's not available. Can I take a message?
Caller: Is your mom home?
Me: Uh, no.
Caller: OK, thanks.
Click.

Are you freaking kidding me? Those of you who know me "in real life," do I sound like a little kid? I never thought so. Obviously this was a telemarketer anyway because 1) obviously he wouldn't be home at this time and 2) anyone who knows him knows he doesn't have a kid old enough to answer the phone.

Stupid people.

Stuff

2007-01-10T09:07:00.001-06:00

I don't really have anything to blog about, but I felt like updating. I have been reading on other blogs that it's "blog de-lurking week." Which means if you read but never comment, leave a comment so I know who's out there! Of course I'm not really expecting that to happen because I've made a similar request before, but the comments and the counter don't quite synch! Anyway, some random thoughts:

1. It's funny how even babies have their moods. Sometimes I guess they just don't feel like doing things. This morning Jenna was NOT her usual morning self. She is usually happy in the morning--all smiles and play. This morning, not so much. She basically just wanted me to hold her while she chewed on her little rubber cow. I really think it's because her top teeth are busting through and she's not thrilled about it.

2. Matt Damon is hot. I saw him on Inside the Ac.tor's Studio and I knew he was hot before, but now he's even hotter.

3. I miss my friends. I love being in Austin, but we don't really have friends here yet. I miss our Houston friends! Email and phone just isn't the same.

4. There's so much to do. You know how you always have these little things to do that just keep piling up, and then when you think you're catching up, there are more things that keep coming up? So you put the housecleaning on the bottom of the list until you start seeing dust bunnies in the corners, and then you decide that maybe you should rethink the order of the things to do? Oh, maybe that's just me...

5. Ellen is so funny. I love watching Ellen. She did a parody of the recent overplayed SNL skit with Justin Timb.erlake (if you haven't seen/heard it, SO FUNNY, but I take no responsibility for any offense taken). She did hers with a straw & a juice box though...probably not funny if you haven't seen the original.

6. I love my husband. He's so awesome. I especially think that after hearing about deadbeat husband/fathers. I love watching him play with Jenna. Last night I was watching him play with her on the floor with some plastic balls that he was juggling and pretending like he was eating them, and she just sat there and laughed at him.

Is this a random enough post? I could keep going...nah.

kitchen

2007-01-08T09:27:00.000-06:00

I fully intended to take pictures before we started tearing apart the kitchen, and I meant to take some in the process, too. But I forgot. The only one I have before is the day we moved in, when there were boxes everywhere.
Here's the same view now.

Here's kind of a weird angle, but it shows the floor, countertop, backsplash, sink, and wall.

I know no one else cares, but I do so I'm showing it anyway. :) Jay & his dad worked so hard putting in the tile floor and backsplash, and countertops last weekend. Jay finished the tiling and grouting over this past weekend, and I painted it all Thursday afternoon and then whenever I could squeeze it in over the weekend.

It's hard to tell from the pictures, but here's what we (and by "we," I mostly mean Jay) did:

*replaced porcelain cabinet knobs with brushed nickel ones
*put in under-cabinet lights
*took down curtains & vertical blinds; replaced with faux wood blinds
*put in new countertops
*new tile backsplash
*replaced linoleum floor with ceramic tile
*replaced white cast-iron sink with stainless sink and fixture (THANK YOU RON AND JANIE!!!!)
*painted

Now putting in new lighting is the only thing left. It was so much fun cooking dinner last night! It was even fun doing dishes. :) I love our new sink. I didn't mind the way the old sink looked, but every time I put any pot or cookie sheet or anything metal in it, it got all marked up. We could even give Jenna a bath in this sink! If I thought she wouldn't try to stand up and flip over the edge, I would...

A great day

2007-01-07T19:35:00.000-06:00

Today was another one of those great days that I'll think of when baby girl acts up. She was so good all day! Lots of fun. We went to church, ran some errands, came home, then went back out, grocery shopping. Then, friends came over for a while and Jenna played with their 4-year-old, Maddi. When they left, we walked down the street to a park that has some good (though fairly short) hiking trails. We got a baby carrier backpack thing that Jay wore the whole time, and it worked really well. She loved riding in it, though it has the same effect a long car ride has. This was her before:

Here she is during and after.

And again, even more after. :)

Since she had that nap, and a nap earlier today, she was pleasant! Until now, I don't even think I heard her cry all day!

Yesterday was super busy. We just about finished the kitchen (she's sitting on the countertop in the pic above). I'm so excited to have a usable kitchen again, without junk laying all over the place! I love how it looks now. I wish I had before & after pics, but I'll have to take just some after pics when it's light out.

As they say on SNL (which I haven't watched in years), good night & have a pleasant tomorrow.

WEEEEEEE!!!!!

2007-01-02T15:50:00.000-06:00

Jenna loves her new swing. She would like it better if she could stand in it, but it keeps her entertained.

The kitchen remodel is going well. Jay & his dad worked really hard putting in new countertops, tile backsplash, and tile floors over the weekend. We were going to grout yesterday, but due to a water leak and a slow-drying mastic, it didn't happen. So now we have to wait until this weekend before grouting. Which means no washer & dryer or dishwasher until the weekend, but that's OK. It will be so pretty! We are trying to decide what color to paint the walls, but it's so hard! There are too many options. Green? Gold? Rust? Once we decide on a color, then we have to decide on one of the 200 shades of green, gold, rust, etc. Which probably means lots of color samples on the wall...I already painted 2 sections and am still clueless.

Yesterday was the start of Weight Watchers again. Bring on the point counting! I will admit that I went 13 points over my daily allowance on the first day, but hey--it was a holiday. :)

So this is what it's like?

2006-12-31T15:01:00.000-06:00

Baby girl has been perfect today. She's my little pal! She took a nap this morning, and with only minimal fussing and fighting to fall asleep. Then she was all laughs and smiles while she played with her toys (that's right--PLAYED with her toys) late-morning/early afternoon. She loves the music table we got her because she can stand around it. It's 3:00 and she has now been napping for an hour, again with not too much struggle to get her to sleep. I just know she's going to be pleasant for the rest of the afternoon. NAPS ARE GOOD!!!! I even got to clean a little, take down the Christmas tree/decorations, and help Jay hang her new swing, which I can't wait to push her in. WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Christmas pics

2006-12-28T11:55:00.000-06:00

I decided scraping glue, concrete & backer board remnants off the concrete kitchen floor really sucks. That's what I've been doing all morning and now my hands HUUUURT! I've got blisters on my palms...but our tile floor will be pretty when it's all finished. Much better than the grandma-style white & blue linoleum that was in there.

Anyway, I finally got around to downloading Christmas pics. For some reason, we can't take a picture of our tree with the lights on. They always come out blurry. But I managed to get a few in front of my parents' tree. I wanted one of her looking at me in front of the tree, but all she wants to do is grab the ornaments (of course!) so sideways is just as good, I guess.

I love this--she looks like she's just chillin' on the exersaucer. She only likes to be on the outside now--not on the inside.

This is Buddy--the best dog EVER. He is Jay's aunt & uncle's dog and he is the friendliest, most well-behaved dog I've ever known. Jenna decided she liked him, too.

This just cracked me up because she looked like she kind on looks like she's thinking "hee hee, you don't know it, but I'm about to do something bad." You can kind of see her bottom teeth, too. Or, you could if it was better quality.

About the sleeping at night question...she usually goes to sleep right after she finishes her last bottle. I don't know what it is. It's like she knows not to go to sleep during the day, but at night she is ready. Sometimes she'll cry & resist for a while, but eventually she goes to sleep and is OK with us putting her in the crib. She just doesn't like that during the day. Weird, but I'm not complaining that she sleeps most of the night!

Last night we had a GREAT dinner at Roy's. It's a Hawaiian-fusion seafood place. Too expensive, but hey--you have to do that on your anniversary, right? First, we stopped to get Jenna some Little People, since everyone else's babies seem to love them. :) Hopefully she will, too. Anyway, we had a private booth at the restaurant with no one else around, but I didn't really like the fish I ordered. Jay liked his a lot. When the waiter asked how everything was, I said it was OK. He asked if I wanted something else, and I said that's OK, I'll just eat it. Even though it was expensive, I didn't want to be "one of those people." A few minutes later, the manager came over and said he heard I wasn't crazy about my food. I said I'm not loving it, but I'll eat it. So then he practically begged me to get something else because they don't like when their customers aren't happy with their choices. OK, so I got a macadamia nut-crusted mahi that was yummy, and I felt better about it. That was awesome that they care. After we passed on dessert, they brought a chocolate souffle that had "Happy 9th Anniverary" written in chocolate sauce, along with 2 glasses of champagne & strawberries. How awesome is that??? And when we got home, Jenna was sound asleep in her crib, thanks to Gramma & Grampa. Weeeeeeee!!!

Happy Anniversary!

2006-12-27T16:22:00.000-06:00

Today is our 9th wedding anniversary. 9 years! I'm not sure what we were thinking, getting married 2 days after Christmas. Well, we had our reasons but it's always kind of a hassle to celebrate our anniversaries at that time. We're going out for a nice, child-free dinner and I'm so looking forward to it!

This weekend is the kitchen remodel weekend. Jay's dad is coming to help with the tiling & countertops. Jay came home from work early and he's in the kitchen working hard at scraping up all the linoleum, while I'm sitting here blogging and watching King of Queens. :) Poor guy. I'm off this week. I scraped up a big chunk of it this morning, but then I decided to go shopping. When I got home, he was already here and had scraped up more than I had when I worked on it earlier. Yikes! I have Jenna in daycare so I could get some things done, because I learned over the past 5 days that can't get a thing done when she's here.

So yeah, I was with Jenna for 5 days straight. She was so good when we went to visit Jay's parents. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive and she was fairly good both ways. We tried timing it so she would sleep most of the time. She was pleasant and took naps there, and we were talking about how good she was. Even the next day (Christmas Eve) at my parents' house, she was great. Christmas Day, not so much. The day after? Probably even worse. The girl is the worst napper EVER and she gets way overtired. When she's overtired, WATCH OUT. She absolutely will not go to sleep. Sometimes we can coax her to sleep on our shoulders after much rocking, position-changing, and pacifier forcing. But if we dare try to put her in her crib, she immediately wakes up. I think it's out of spite, personally. She's thinking she'll show us who's boss. So I cave and let her nap on me for as long as she'll sleep. I do this because I'd rather have her sleep in any way and have her be more pleasant later, than have her not sleep and be a bear later. She had been sleeping through the night for a while, but not anymore. She wakes up just about every morning anywhere between 2 and 5, ready to go. She thinks it's playtime. Arrrgggh! Well, I'll just assume it's a phase and she'll get over it. She's got her daddy's energy, for sure!

Happy 8 months and Merry Christmas

2006-12-21T14:28:00.000-06:00

Wow, time flies! Jenna's 8 months old today, but it's been fast and slow. Long nights (when she won't sleep); short weeks. She keeps getting cuter and more fun, but also more exhausting. Crawing everywhere (though slowly). Standing against everything she can find (though she has learned that things with wheels aren't as much fun to pull up on). Chewing on everything. Climbing on everything, including (and especially) mom & dad. Still spitting up on everything, all the time and everywhere. Still fighting sleep as much as she can. Thrashing around on her changing table when we're attempting to change her diaper or clothes. Screaming when we leave her in her exersaucer, jumperoo, playpen, or walker for more than 3 minutes. Grabbing my glasses, nose, ears, lips, and especially HAIR with her death grip and razor-sharp fingernails. But laughing a lot more. Smiling whenever she sees us. "Talking" in the cutest way! I love her! I am always anxious to see what she will do next.

I probably won't update the blog again before Christmas, so Merry Christmas!

Standing room only

2006-12-20T09:01:00.000-06:00

Big girl is standing on her own now! She's been pulling up on things for a while, but now she can stand without holding on to anything. I didn't even know this! I took her to daycare this morning and the lady in there asked if I had seen her standing. I said when she holds on to something, but she said "No, she can stand on her own!" She was really excited about it, which made me happy to know that Jenna is with people all day who encourage her. Anyway, the lady stood Jenna on the floor and held onto her hands, and then she let go. And guess what? Jenna just stood there! By herself! For like 10 seconds! Then the lady took her hands again, but Jenna balanced herself and my jaw was hanging on the floor. Apparently this happened by accident yesterday, when she thought she was holding on to her, and then realized she wasn't anymore. But Jenna was still standing. Oh my gosh, she'll be walking before she's 9 months old, and I'm in trouble then...

Proud to be American

2006-12-19T16:19:00.000-06:00

I was at Chick-Fil-A today and as I was paying, 2 cashiers were having a conversation about a trip to New York one had just returned from. This is how it went:

Cashier 1: It was great. We went to see blah blah show (I wasn't really paying attention yet).
Cashier 2: Did you go to Rockefeller Center?
Cashier 1: Yeah, we saw everyone ice skating, and the big tree.
Cashier 1: We went to the big liberty thing (gesturing that it was big)
Cashier 2: Oh, yeah, that big lady.
Me: The Statue of Liberty?
Cashier 1: Yeah, that's it. And we went to that island thing were the immigrants were.
Me: Ellis Island?
Cashier 1: Yeah! (To the other cashier) She knows more than me and I was just there.

Oh, American pride...

By the way, I should be banned from Carter's, Little Me, and Once Upon a Child (I get almost all Jenna's clothes there). I was going to buy her a dress and shoes, if I could find what I was looking for. I ended up buying her 5 outfits. No dress, no shoes. Poor baby doesn't have a dress. I just don't like her in them because they are too hard to keep down where they're supposed to be. My favorites are one-piece pants outfits (like the Christmas outfit in the previous post), but I'm branching out to two-piece outfits. Other moms who have baby girls who aren't walking yet: do you put them in dresses?

It's done

2006-12-17T20:58:00.000-06:00

This morning, we decided to try taking Jenna to church with us and not putting her in the nursery. It lasted about 10 minutes. SQUIRMY girl doesn't like to sit still. At all. Combine that with her constant excessive spit up and chatting, and it doesn't mix with church. My left sleeve was soaked, and Jay took her to the nursery. She did look cute in her little Christmas outfit my mom got her though. (And look--her eyes match! I need to one day figure out how to get rid of that red eye...)

Well, today was the big revelation. The family came home and saw their house, and we all got to yell "move that bus!" You won't have to read about the home makover on this blog anymore! It was really cool. Our neighbor behind us let us hang out in her driveway, so we got a great view of everything. Otherwise we would have had to stand like sardines way over to the side and wouldn't have been able to see much. We were there almost 3 hours and had Jenna with us the whole time. She did OK, but she does NOT like to be held that long without being able to climb all over everything. She seemed to like her daddy's shoulders the best.

I kept thinking those kids have to be a little freaked out. They come home from vacation in a limo. There are thousands of people lining the streets, screaming, there are cameras everywhere, and then there is another house where their old house used to be. But the mother seemed really happy. They didn't have microphones on them for all to hear, but I'm anxious to watch this show and hear that conversation. That's the mom in the green shirt (and I'm sure everyone knows who that is talking to her!).

Here's Paige & Eduardo. I've only seen the show once, but I recognized them.

I got a great video of the whole "move that bus" revelation. I am just too lazy to download it now. :) Ordinarily, I wouldn't post pictures of random people on my blog. But they're all going to end up on national TV anyway, so I don't think they care...

Progress?

2006-12-14T21:38:00.000-06:00

OK, I'm a dork. Deal with it. Only 3 more days of the extreme makeover. For the past 3 days around 5, Jay & Jenna & I walked over there to look at the house. I'm still so amazed by how much they get done in such a short amount of time! Jay picked up the tile we ordered yesterday, and the guy working there said he was going this morning at 3 a.m. to tile. So the place is already tiled! Anyway, here's the progress:

Tuesday... (keep in mind there was a house there earlier in the day)

Wednesday...
Today...

Yes, only 24 hours between each picture. The house is freakin' HUGE. And it does not match any other houses in the nighborhood in any way. They put that school house-looking thing on top, and we can see that when we just stand in our yard. When the old house was there, we could barely see the roof from our own roof, to put it into perspective.

Anyway...Jenna is getting better, but still has the cough. Not quite as much snot though, so that's good. We're giving her the breathing treatments, but I don't really think they do anything. We're also giving her the antibiotic, but she HATES that. I'm wondering if there's a reason we can't just squirt it into her bottle and have her drink it with the formula. It's so hard to get it in her mouth with the 2 of us, and of course even harder when I have to do it myself in the morning! She thrashes around and spits it out when I do get it in there, unless I get it way back.

I don't think I've mentioned this before, but that girl loves her Cheerios! We started giving them to her for something to do while we ate (since she won't stay in her exersaucer or jumper or walker or pack & play!), and now she loves them. When we go out to dinner or usually when we're at home, she sits in her high chair and eats with us. YUMMY!

Tonight, we couldn't have made it through the meal at Cheddar's without them (Brittney, it was so great to meet you guys for dinner!!!!) YAAAAAAY for Cheerios!

Poor baby girl

2006-12-13T11:44:00.000-06:00

I took her to the doctor this morning because her coughing and congestions doesn't seem to be getting better and I thought I heard her wheezing. It turns out she has RSV and bronchiolitis. I didn't know anything about this. I saw a lot of ads about the dangers of it when I was reading all the pregnancy & parenting magazines, but I thought it was pretty much just for preemies. I kind of freaked when the doctor said that's what it was, but hers is mild. I thought at first that this was just a cold because she eats fine, sleeps fine at night (except when she wakes up from too much congestion), doesn't have a fever, and plays great. Doesn't seem phased by it and she obviously doesn't feel bad. But the duration of it and the wheezing I thought I was hearing concerned me. So I have a nebulizer to give her breathing treatments, and antibiotics because the doctor said she has fluid in her ears from it and is developing an ear infection. Great...but it's her first one, so I guess we should be grateful we made it 7 months without anything other than a mild cold. I just hope it gets better soon, and doesn't get any worse. I feel so sorry for her! The perks of daycare, I guess.

Of course I have to comment on the makeover house--it's hard to ignore it when I can't go out the front or back of my house without hearing or seeing it. Between the big busses, trailers, trucks carrying all the equipment they need, and all the noise, it's hard not to think about, It's interesting seeing the progress of tearing down & building a house in less than a week. Right now there's a big crane I can see out my window, and of COURSE I'm going to have to head over there later to see what it looks like now. It just amazes me they can do that so fast. This family of 8, with 5 autistic kids, that couldn't pay their mortgage left their leaky, moldy, cracking house to go on vacation Sunday (or Monday?). When they come back Sunday, they'll have a brand new, bigger, fully furnished & decorated house in its place. Amazing. They won't even have a mortgage anymore, but surely they'll have a helluva tax increase...hmmmm.

The drawback of trees

2006-12-12T09:52:00.000-06:00

Before we bought this house, we wanted lots of trees. We wanted a house with a good sized yard and lots of trees around the neighborhood. That's what we got, and now I'm cursing the trees because I can't see Ty! :) I can't see him, but I can hear him. I can hear him as I sit in my office typing this. We found out that the house that's on Extreme Makoever is actually directly across the street from the house behind us. When I look over the fence on one side, I can see stuff going on through the little gap between trees, and when I look on the other side, I only see trees. But a little while ago, Ty did his thing where he yells and gets everyone all riled up. I was just commenting to Jay yesterday how they have been really quiet over there, given what they're supposed to be doing. I learned this morning by listening to all the commotion over there that they're just starting the demolition today. I guess yesterday they were just getting everything out of the house. So let the noise begin. Jenna's room is on that side of the house, and I'm concerned that they'll keep her up at night, but we'll see.

I heard one of the people say they're setting up a spectator area, so I may have to go for a jog at lunch and see what's going on. We DVRd the show Sunday night and watched it last night, so now we at least know what they do. I was floored by the gorgeous house they built & decorated (not to mention demolishing the other one) in that short time.

In Jenna news, I'm debating whether I should take her to the doctor. She has had a chest cold for like 2 weeks now. She just has so much congestion and it's not getting better. I just want to make sure it's a cold and not something worse.

Update: I discovered that I can't see the makeover house from my roof. I can only see people standing around through the trees. So I went to look at the house from the spectator area on the side. And I saw Ty. :) That was so cool--I'm going to have to go back every day at lunch and after Jay gets home! They demolished that house in like an hour. It was amazing. When I got there, the back of the house was torn off, and when I left, probably 40 minutes later, the whole thing was a pile of rubble. I will definitely be watching them build it. Ty was just sitting there. He was playing with a dog when the camera was on him, but most of the time he was just sitting there. I guess he gets busy when they actually start building, but for now it allowed me to get a good view. :) I also found out that the family does have 6 kids, and 5 are autistic. I can't wait to see the revelation Sunday. And when I said earlier "let the noise begin," I didn't know the half of it! I feel like I'm living in a construction zone.

Extreme Makeover

2006-12-10T13:20:00.000-06:00

Huge trailers, a stretch Navigator limo, road block signs...that's what's on our street. The whole block, really. One of the houses behind us is getting a makeover on the home edition of Extreme Makeover. I've never seen the show, but I'll have to watch this one whenever it airs. For the next 7 days, they will have these streets closed and will be working around the clock to rennovate the house. I don't know who the people are or anything, but from what I understand, the show picks a family going through a hardship.

We got a notice saying we may need to get passes in order to get to our house because apparently there are going to be lots of onlookers for this thing. This week should be interesting...maybe I'll get to see Ty!!! Woo-Hoo!

Picture pages

2006-12-04T10:30:00.000-06:00

This post is going to be all over the place. I've had problems with blogger the past few days, but finally got it worked out.

Thanks for the toy suggestions. I think Jenna just isn't interested in toys at the moment--all she cares about it standing up. She stands up all the time--it's all she ever wants to do.

I did get her a few things though. The leap frog play & learn piano (something like that) is what we'll give her for Christmas. For now, I got her one of those PVC balls and she likes that OK. I also got a little hammer that makes sounds & lights up when you hit something. We probably shouldn't encourage her to hit things though! Especially her daddy's head...I said it's funny now, until she starts bopping other kids on the head with other toys!

I see Jay's been taking pictures because I know I didn't take this one:

We have been looking for a church home ever since we moved to Austin, but none of them seem to be "it." We LOVED our church before, but I don't think driving 2 1/2 hours to get there is feasible. Yesterday we took Jenna with us to one nearby, and we put her in their nursery during the service. I seriously almost cried. I had a sinking pit in my stomach when we left her. Jay was telling me it's only and hour and she'll have fun. I know this, and I drop her off every day at daycare. Even though I don't like that either, it's familiar and I know the people there and I know she has fun. Of course it turned out fine, but I still don't know if this church is right. I love this little outfit I had on her...of course right after I took the picture, she tried to stand up. :)

We've graduated to the big tub! I guess we've always used the "big tub" but we used the baby tub inside it. No more--she's a big girl now! Of course, all she really wants to do is stand up in the tub... (She's not standing up in this pic, but she did later.)

Friday night we went to Jay's company christmas party. My sister & her husband babysat (thanks Kelly & Paul) but I fed her before they got there. I was so glad she didn't spit her sweet potatoes all over me, but I thought it was funny to feed her in my nice dress. On another note--in a couple of weeks, that yucky floor is going away! We picked out tile and countertops, and Jay's wonderfully talented dad is coming to help put them in.

Anyway, I guess it's a sign of getting older or of mommyhood, but I'm so not into parties anymore. It was a fancy-pants drinks & dinner party at the Four Seasons with different bands and a casino room, but I'd rather be home in my jammies! We had fun playing blackjack though.

Toys?

2006-11-30T11:10:00.000-06:00

I have been trying to think of what kind of toys Jenna would like, and I'm kind of out. She just has her little stuffed animals and things to chew on now, but there's got to be some sort of bigger toy to keep her occupied. Anyone have any suggestions?

We have a hand-me-down music table thing that I thought she would really enjoy, but unfortunately it doesn't work. It looks like it would be fun for her--she could stand at it and press the buttons to make different sounds. Maybe we'll get her something like that. I just don't want to get something that she has no interest in, so I'd rather get suggestions from people who have kids who actually like & use them.

The only thing I can think of now is a swing that we can hang from a tree. I think she'd love that--her favorite thing now is "horsey" so she likes to be active!

Our first ER scare

2006-11-29T09:52:00.000-06:00

Last night started out normal. Jay got home from work, we were getting dinner & playing with Jenna. We ate, then Jay was washing dishes (yes, this is sometimes normal) and I was watching Jenna play on the floor. She was sitting on a blanket with a few toys around, like she frequently does. She reached for a pacifier and started to put it in her mouth, but then she fell forward and landed on it. She started crying, and when I went to pick her up, I thought she was just scared and would be fine.

Then I saw the blood. Lots of blood. It was pooled at the bottom of her mouth and was running down her chin. I took her in the kitchen and we tried looking at it, but couldn't tell where it was coming from. We were trying to blot with a cloth, but it just kept coming and coming. She was wailing and it was freaking us out. We were seriously about to take her to the emergency room because we had no idea where all that blood was coming from. We were all kind of hysterical. Then it slowed, and her screaming calmed a little. We tried to get her to suck on her cold teether, but she didn't want to--it seemed to hurt her. A minute or 2 later, the bleeding seemed to stop completely. Then we could see that the cut was on her gum line, where her top teeth will eventually come in. I was trying to calm her while her crying subsided, but then I was crying, and I think it made it worse for her! I just felt so bad and I realized that this is the first of many, many injuries and each time it will probably hurt me more than it hurts her.

So while I was trying to stop MYSELF from crying, Jay walked her around and calmed her down. After that, she seemed fine. We took her to the grocery store and she slept for most of it, but when she woke up, we let her sit in her grocery cart cover. She loved it! She was smiling and laughing, and later when she had her food & bottle, she seemed fine. Like I said--just the first of many...

Home Sweet Home

2006-11-28T12:50:00.000-06:00

We went on our trip, and we were sooooooo glad to come home and see our baby girl! I missed her so much, but I still had a good, relaxing time. I SWEAR that little monkey changed while we were gone, even after I told her not to! Her hair seems longer, she seems bigger, and she seems more like a little person and less like a baby.

I don't think she is going to crawl. She is much more interested in standing. She loves to explore around on the floor and do her sitting/scooting/rolling maneuver, but she always tries to stand, and not crawl. I guess she may be one of those babies who never crawls--just goes straight to walking.

Talk about relaxing--we were practically bored on our vacation! It was nice for us to spend time together. We ate and drank A LOT...I really think my jeans were tighter on the flights home than they were on the flights there. I say flights because we had 3 each way. Loooong days. We did go hiking a couple of times up to the top of some peaks that were within walking distance of the resort. It was very nice, and the views were awesome. It was great to get some exercise too, because the rest of the time we were laying around in the pool or by the beach, looking at sunsets like this. :)

Yup, I took that picture one evening while we were lounging on the beach, sipping pineapple juice & coconut rum...

Our house is great. We are done painting, until we get to the kitchen and our bedroom. For the moment, we can just live. Not constantly be doing, doing, doing. We still have things to put away and we haven't put anything on the walls yet, but it's nice to have a normal routine. Jenna even helps us!

This Friday we have Jay's company Christmas party to go to, and I already don't want to. Not that I don't want to go--I just don't want to leave Jenna again. She changes hourly! I don't want to miss any of it. I like to spend our evenings together. But, it's only a few hours. It's not like we're leaving her for 5 days or anything!!!

I hate 'em

2006-11-20T20:48:00.000-06:00

Telemarketers. I had forgotten how much I hate them. We didn't have a home phone in our previous house in Houston. We had gotten rid of it a couple of years ago when we became so dependent on our cell phones. We wondered why we were paying an extra bill every month when all we really used it for was to answer calls from solicitors. When we moved into this house, we got a home phone only because we had to have it for DSL. It was cheaper to get a home phone line with DSL than it was to get roadrunner, and we didn't want to have to deal with Time Warner anyway. Well, we've only had it hooked up for a week and every time it rings, I know it's a solicitor. My parents are the only other people who have the number, well, and Jenna's daycare. I only answer it because it may be one of them, but it's always someone who has some "great offer" for me. It is so irritating!!! I am considering just paying for this phone line and not even having a phone.

I was actually thinking this afternoon about not going on our trip. Just canceling the whole darn thing. But it will be nice for Jay & I to spend all that time together. It won't happen again for a long time and it would be stupid of us to not go.

How am I possibly going to do this?

2006-11-20T10:56:00.000-06:00

How am I going to spend 3 1/2 days in the Caribbean with my husband, eating and drinking whenever, whatever, and however much we want? How are we going to sleep late in the morning (when we're not diving), take naps if we want to, and go to sleep whenever we want? How are we going to scuba dive, go on tropical excursions, hang out on the beach, and go shopping? How are we going to do this WITHOUT OUR PRECIOUS GIRL?

We are leaving her for 5 days!!!! The day after tomorrow! Not only are we leaving her for 5 days, but we're leaving her for her first Thanksgiving. We are leaving her the day after she turns 7 months old. She will only be 7 months old for one month, so we are going to miss almost a fourth of her whole 7th month! It makes me sick. We have had this trip planned since before she was born, but I didn't know then how hard it would be to leave her. 5 days is not very long, but in baby time it could mean missing a whole lot. I miss her every day before it's time to pick her up from daycare. How am I going to last 5 days?

By the way, we will be there 3 1/2 days, but gone for 5. 2 layovers each way. Ugggh.

We have a free trip to the Caribbean at an all-inclusive resort. This is a good thing, right? Then why am I dreading it???? OK, I'll think of it this way. Hubby & I will be spending quality time together. Time that we don't get to spend here. Jenna will not remember that we left her for her first Thanksgiving. She won't remember that we left her for 5 days, and she will get to spend quality time with Gramma & Grampa. I'm going to keep telling myself that, because otherwise I will cry the whole time we're gone and I will feel guilty the rest of my life!

In house news, it's coming along great. We have about 85% of everything unpacked and put away. The garage is still a mess and there are things here & there we aren't sure what to do with. Nothing is on the walls yet, but we have painted the living room, dining room (aka, Jenna's playroom), hallway, and Jenna's room. I got letters to spell out her name, and I'll paint them & hang them on the wall. I haven't figured out exactly what else to do yet. Maybe paint butterflies around them. I need to put some frogs in there somehow too. Here's our drooly girl in her pack & play, which has been great when she's in the mood to be in it. :)

I haven't gotten around to taking pictures of the house yet, but I'll do that at some point. I should have taken pictures of us working on it. Oh, well, too late. I'll do that when we do the bigger projects. I did take some "before" pictures.

Jenna is such a big girl! She is not crawling yet, much to my surprise. For weeks, she has been rocking on all fours and scooting backwards. She is constanly rolling around, sitting up, getting in position to crawl, and then rolling back to sitting. I am just sure she will start crawling while we are away. :( She has a bottom tooth that has cut through the gum! You can feel it, and see it but it's not really sticking past the gum yet. It's very hard to get a picture of. I'm sure her other bottom tooth will come through any time, too. Probably while we are gone. We're going to freakin' come back from this trip and she'll have 2 teeth, she'll be eating cheerios, she'll be crawling, and she'll probably be driving too!

Moving Day!!!

2006-11-09T11:10:00.000-06:00

I can't believe November 9 is finally here. We close on our house this afternoon, and get to move into our OWN house once again! It's here! It's here! We've got a busy evening and a BUSY weekend ahead of us! It would be better if I didn't have those horrible cold and wasn't hacking up green stuff and didn't sound like E.T. when I talked, or if I had slept AT ALL last night, but whatever--closing day is here!

Blog-worthy sighting

2006-11-08T14:46:00.000-06:00

Hubby was driving home from work yesterday, and he got mad at some guy in a black Escalade who waited until the last minute to merge before the lane ends. Don't we all hate that. He was in the lane to the left, so he wasn't the one who got cut off, but he was next to the guy and looked over to kind of give the evil eye, only to find that it was Lance Armstrong! Here's the difference between men & women...or maybe normal people and me. :)
Me: I can't believe you saw Lance Armstrong!
J: Well, he lives here.
Me: So do a million other people, but you don't see all of them! He's hardly ever even here.
J: It's not like I talked to him or anything--he was in his car.

He seemed pretty unphased by it, yet I thought it was exciting enough to blog about. I did, however, resist the urge to post anything about Britney & Kevin, giving the admittedly false impression that I don't care. Yes, it's true, I have a pathetic interest in celebrity lives, though to my credit, I have never bought a tabloid magazine!

I hate football

2006-11-04T16:31:00.000-06:00

Sorry, but I do. I just don't care. I've tried to care. I've tried learning about it, being interested in teams, learning which players play for which teams--I even tried fantasy football once, just so I would be forced to care. But, I still didn't. My family sits around watching these games, getting all into them, yelling at the TV. I just don't get it. I know I'm probably the only in the world who is not a football fan, and I'm OK with that. I can sit in a room with the TV on a football game and read a book. It doesn't even have to be a good book! I won't even hear what's going on because I care so little that the sound just goes over my head. My family is in the living room now watching football, and Jenna's asleep. I don't have a book, and we all know how much time can be wasted online...

Choices

2006-11-02T17:11:00.000-06:00

Life has way too many choices. What kind of toothpaste do I want? What do I want to make for dinner? What house do we want? What color paint should we use for the living room? The bedrooms? What doctors should we use? Do we want roadrunner or DSL? Cable or satellite? Verizon or T-Mobile or Sprint or Cingular, blah blah? And of course...should we get flu shots or not? Well, I already got mine today and made an appointment for Jenna next week. So I guess you could say I put on my big girl pants and made a decision. Of course, the hard part is actually taking her in for it...

Oh, I'm not complaining about all these choices--if not for the choices, we'd be stuck with the same boring stuff as everyone else. Everyone and everything would look the same, we'd be eating the same stuff, driving the same car, working the same job...well, you get the picture. These choices start VERY early though, and I'm faced with the realization that as Jenna grows, we'll be faced with more & more of them. Since I'm already a bad decision maker, having to make decisions for 2 people will be even harder! Right now Jenna is faced with the difficult infant choices of what toy to play with, whether to eat her food or if she likes it, whether to go to sleep when she's supposed to, whether to sit & play or try to crawl, and of course it never ends. But soon enough, she'll be faced with wanting to watch TV, wanting to eat pizza instead of chicken, wanting to buy everything she sees in the toy store, and wanting to stay up "just a few more minutes." These are choices I'll have to make for her, and she won't like it! Probably anyone reading this now who has older kids (older than...say 1, that is), is laughing, thinking I have no idea. Well, I don't! But I have made the decision that when faced with these mundane choices, I will make the best ones to the best of my ability, and I guess that's a start. :)

New pictures

2006-10-29T10:29:00.000-06:00

Yesterday we took Jenna to get her 6-month pictures. Some of them turned out really cute. We didn't get as many as we did for her 3-month session, but we'll probably go again at 9 and 12. Besides, I've already decided we're going back to order more. :) We didn't get any of this first pose, and I wish we had.

And of course, the family pic...

I'm still hung up about this flu shot thing. Is it really necessary? They only protect against 1 strain, and aren't there several that go around???

Flu shots

2006-10-27T12:06:00.000-05:00

Ugggh, hate em. I used to never get them, but last year I did because I was pregnant and they practically made me. This year Jenna's doctor recommended she get one, and I guess I will too, since she's in the germ-infested daycare. Not that her daycare in particular is germier than others...they're all that way. Just to clarify! Anyway, it makes me sad to think about taking her in for one because I know it'll hurt her, and then wherever they inject it will probably be sore. She already has a cough, and I think it's from the shots she got earlier this week. It started the day after I took her to the doctor. It's just a cough--no fever, no discomfort, and not even a runny nose. She sounds like her chest is congested, so I hope this goes away soon.

I remember when I was so anxious for her to be able to sit and entertain herself...now that's her new favorite thing to do! I can't believe how different she is now than she was just a month ago. She's a big girl already! People always say they grow so fast, and they do!!!!

6 month appointment

2006-10-24T16:05:00.000-05:00

Today I took baby girl to her 6 month appointment. It was her first time at this office. I liked the other one better, but this one is just fine. It's funny how I don't realize how much she has changed until random things make me remember how she was. At her 2-and 4-month appointments, she couldn't roll over, so she just laid on the table until I picked her up. Well OK, she didn't just quietly lay there until I picked her up, but today she grabbed at everything, rolled all around, and tried to put everything in her mouth. Including the papers, clipboard, her clothes, the paper thing they make her lay on, pens, and the doctor's stethoscope. She was very restless, but I guess I would be too if I had these new discoveries and had to be at a doctor's office for over an hour.

Anyway, she weighs 19 lbs, 12 ozs, which is less than I thought she would weigh. She was in the 97th percentile--same as she was for her 4-month appointment. She dropped from the 75th to the 45th for length though. I guess she's just a short, fat girl. :) That's all right, she won't stay that way. I HATE when they give the shots. She definitely didn't like that, but she's been sleeping all afternoon, so that's the positive...

Off to the tropics

2006-10-23T15:17:00.000-05:00

Well, in a month. In a month, we're off to St. Lucia. Just me & hubby. And I haven't really even thought about it! We've been so pre-occupied with baby, house-hunting, carpet, paint, etc. that this trip we've had planned for months has been at the way back of my mind. We'll be leaving Jenna with Gramma & Grampa and enjoying 4 nights at the ALL-INCLUSIVE Sandals Grande St. Lucian. Eating, drinking anything with coconut rum all day long, scuba diving, lounging by the pool or the beach, and sight-seeing. It will be sooooo nice and relaxing. The best part about it? It's FREE! 100% free. Well, not 100% because we paid $34 since the flights were $17 over the cap for mileage points. But 4 days/nights in the Caribbean with all we can eat, drink, dive, play, and SLEEP for $34? Not bad!!! That's actually the only reason we're going. Are you all jealous? I gotta say--I'm jealous of myself. We got lucky. Real lucky. However, getting there will be somewhat of a nightmare. We have 2 layovers and it will take us about 15 hours, both ways.

Is it bad that one of the things I'm most looking forward to is sleeping? I get to sleep as late as I want on this trip. I have pretty much accepted that I won't sleep much for the next 18 years or so. OK, maybe it will get better within a year, or until the next one comes along, if a next one comes along. I just haven't been sleeping. I can't sleep when I go to bed, and once I eventually do fall asleep, I usually wake up several times during the night. Then, I wake to crying around 6:30, give or take an hour. If Jay's not asleep within a minute & a half of lying down, I think something's wrong with him, yet it takes me an hour if I'm lucky. WHAT? I can't turn off my mind like he can. Is this a guy thing? Maybe when we move into our house and have our own king-size bed back, I'll sleep better. Surely.

Anyway, I'm going to start thinking more about this trip, since anticipation is one of the most fun parts of vacations. If anyone reading this has ever been to St. Lucia, any suggestions on day excursions?

When Gramma babysits

2006-10-15T17:09:00.000-05:00

Ha! Yeah, Jenna has started to hold her own bottle lately. She's been doing that for a while, but now she can actually hold it where it needs to go, and keep it there. We just thought it was funny that Gramma was drinking a beer at the same time Jenna was feeding herself. I HAD to get a pic.

Jay & I are so relieved...we found a house!!!!! So assuming the inspection goes well, after November 9 we will have our own space again. I really like it. It's older and in older area, but we decided to go for location. We can change what we don't like about the house, but there isn't a whole lot that we don't like.

On another subject--I really hate Halloween. It's my least favorite holiday. But now that we have a baby we can dress up, it might be kinda fun. I had to make sure her little costume fit. :)

I mean, how cute are babies in animal costumes??? My friend actually made that bunny costume for her daughter 2 years ago, but now it gets another use this year. I don't know how Jenna feels about it--the look on her face says, "Mommy, what are you doing to me?" She refused to smile when she had it on. :)

Ups and downs

2006-10-02T22:18:00.000-05:00

I never knew how bad a 5-month-old could hurt me! Jenna's first day of daycare here was today, and I really was fine with her. I missed her a lot toward the end of the day because I have been with her ALL THE TIME lately. When I went to pick her up, I was anxious to see if she would be glad to see me. Nope. She didn't even acknowledge that she knew who I was. Didn't smile, didn't even look at me for more than half a second. She just went on sucking on the plastic keys that she was so enthralled with, while sitting on the daycare worker's lap. I don't know why that got to me so much, but it broke my heart and I cried all the way home. I thought at this age, she was supposed to recognize me! Sometimes she does smile at me or act like she knows who I am, and I thought today she would since it's been a while since we've been apart.

This house-hunting thing is killing me. I am so glad we don't have our Houston house anymore, because we can just focus on finding one. But I guess we're really picky or something. Our realtor has showed us 16 houses, and we only really liked one of them. In fact, we liked it so much that we put in an offer the day after we looked at it. I should preface by saying the day we looked at it was the first day it was on the market. After he wrote up the offer & faxed it in, he called to say the selling agent was also expecting another "strong" offer. So we changed the offer that night to be $1K over the asking price, and we'd pay all closing costs. I thought that was a dang good offer. It turned out there were 2 other offers and we were "significantly" outbid. I guess other people wanted that house just a little more than we did. I don't think we're going to find one we like as much as it, because the ones we've looked at so far have been really disappointing. I don't know why people would design such stupid floorplans with space that you really can't use for anything. Do people really use formal sitting areas AND formal dining rooms? It would be different if they could be closed off, but I don't know what we'd do with some of these odd-shaped spaces. I would also like a back yard bigger than my closet. Like I said--maybe I'm just being picky, but I guess it will take longer than I'd hoped to find the right house. I also think we'll settle for something we don't love, but at this point I'm confused about what I even really want! It hasn't even been that long, but we've looked at most of the houses that looked good online in the area we wanted, so either we have to change areas or wait for other houses to go on the market. Then if it's worth getting, we'll have to go into a bidding war with the other people who are in the same position we are. I have heard it referred to as the "real estate game" and it truly is a game!

I just skimmed over this post. Am I a Debbie Downer or what???

Sweet little roly poly!

2006-09-27T19:54:00.000-05:00

Wow, a couple of weeks ago, Jenna could barely roll herself over. Now I can't leave the room when I put her on the floor! She rolls all over the place. It's her new favorite thing. That, and sitting up.

Sometimes we get her belly-laughing for a while, and that's my new favorite thing. She still loves her bath, but we've been putting her baby tub in the big tub. Otherwise there is water EVERYWHERE! Her daddy gave her her first little bath mohawk the other day. :)

All right, now I have to brag about how incredibly, crazy-good my little sweetheart was today. More for myself than anything. So, boring alert--stop reading if you don't want to hear my bragging. :) We had to go to Houston to close on our house (about a 2 1/2 hour drive). I was worried about how she'd do because we left at 6:30 am and got back around 6:30 pm. She barely slept at all on the way there, but she didn't make a peep. Just sat in her carseat playing with her plush book and looking around. She probably napped for about 30-45 minutes. While in Houston, we had several errands to run, so she was constantly in the car seat and we were moving her all around. Poor thing could barely get a nap in because every time she started to sleep, we stopped to go in somewhere and she'd wake up. She was sweet around everyone we were around, and she barely cried all day until we were about 5 miles away from home. (Well, my parents' house, since we're now officially homeless!) When we got home, I put her on the blanket and she rolled all over the floor for about 20 minutes. Then I put her in her jumperoo and she jumped and laughed for a while. She played peek-a-boo with her daddy for a while. She was such a joy today--more than any other day since she's been born.

Ironically, when I started this post, she started crying. She has been screaming ever since. I guess that's why it's good not to brag. :)

Time, Time, Time

2006-09-22T20:48:00.000-05:00

Seriously, where does the TIME go??? Jenna's 5 months old! We now live in Austin, and the househunting is barely going. We're looking online as much as we can, but there's not much time to do that lately. We have moved 80% of our stuff into storage and we're getting the rest tomorrow. We close on our house Wednesday and today we had to pay a lovely $3,600 to fix the A/C & heating before we could close. We are quickly finding out that we'll have trouble finding a house we like here, and until we do (or as long as we can), we're staying with my parents. Obviously, we can't afford the really desireable areas where the super filthy-rich people live, but for our first choice we can afford, it seems that most houses need SEVERE updating. So we'd have to spend several thousand before we even moved in. And still, the house prices are more than I'd like to pay. Then there's another area we are considering, but it's more north than we'd like to be. Do we go for location or neighborhood/house? I know everyone says "location, location, location," but is it worth an extra 10 minutes to be in a crappy house that's more expensive?

Jenna is a bit of a terror the past few days. I think she's teething, but today she had me in tears. I got her into a daycare that she doesn't start until October 2, so until then, she's here with me & the parents. They help when they can, but there are a lot of times when it's me & a fussy baby. It's hard to work when you have a crying baby sitting on your lap. Good thing I'm not real busy now. I'm thinking holy crap, I have to work! And I have to find a pediatrician, a GP, a dentist, an OB/GYN, and there's the little matter of finding a house. I'm glad I got the daycare thing take care of, because we found that most of them had a waiting list. I always feel guilty when I act like my baby girl is "getting in the way." Things will be so much less stressful once she starts that daycare! Of course, I will not be happy when she's there either...a new place & new people to get used to.

I always like to post a picture when I can, and this is my favorite lately. I hear fussy Jenna a lot when I am back in the "office," and the other day it was strangely quiet when my dad was watching her. This is what I found in the living room:

Phew!

2006-09-11T09:47:00.000-05:00

What a long, busy weekend. My baby sister is married! The wedding was beautiful and the reception was a blast. I wish I had a picture to post. I will when I get one. Jay's parents came with Jenna and kept her during the ceremony and most of the reception (when she wasn't being passed around). I don't know what we would have done without them! Jenna was great, but really tired! We had family around all weekend and I think it wore her out. She slept until 9 yesterday morning! That was a first, and then this morning I had to wake her up at 8. Tired girl! But I'm not complaining.

Now that the wedding is over, things can get back to normal and we can focus on the move. We have this weekend and next weekend to completely move out. Should be interesting. During the inspection, we found out the AC & heater are in need of repair. So that'll cost us a mere $3,000-4,000 to fix. Fun times.

Jenna did hit a milestone Sunday--she rolled over! 4 times, she rolled from her tummy to her back. She still hasn't rolled the other way, and actually she hasn't rolled since Sunday. It was great though--she seemed to be so proud of herself. She has a new favorite thing--crazy girl loves to arch her back and hang her head upside down.

Sold

2006-09-06T08:26:00.000-05:00

We sold the house! I don't want to bank on it too much, because they can always back out of it, but I don't see why they would. They're approved for the loan, and the paperwork is signed. They have 14 days (13 now) to back out, I think, but assuming the inspection goes fine, we'll close on the 27th. That leaves 2 weekends for us to get packed & moved out. This weekend is my sister's wedding in Austin (finally!), so the next 2 we'll be moving. Or maybe we'll just save it all and do it at once. Phew.

Jenna's meds worked for about a week, but I'm not sure if it still works or not. She still gets really congested, poor baby. The good thing is she's pretty much sleeping through the night, but in the mornings she is congested. I thought maybe she was allergic to rice cereal, but I don't think that's it. I've cut it out for a while anyway, to see if it helps. I do know one thing that rice cereal does though. Since we've stopped the rice cereal, her diapers are explosive!

She is still not rolling over. We're working on that, but I don't really want her to, because then I can never leave her on the couch or changing table for a sec, like I do now. I know I shouldn't, but what can I say--supermom. :)

Magic meds

2006-08-29T10:08:00.000-05:00

Poor baby has been so congested lately, she has been waking up unable to breathe. Last week (my first "single mom" week), I would get up every night between 2 and 5 with her, give her a bottle, try to suck some of it out, and put her back to sleep. She would have trouble because still she'd be congested. Then, I got a prescription for her because this had been going on about 3 weeks. No other symptoms (coughing, fever).

Well, this week she is sleeping through the night again! The past 2 nights she's slept from about 10:30 to 7 and that makes mama very happy! Last night I slept ALL NIGHT LONG. I went to sleep, and I didn't wake up till my alarm went off. I don't think that has happened since about my 4th month of pregnancy. I actually went in to make sure Jenna was still breathing before my shower. :)

I am regressing in another area. I hate leaving her at daycare. After the inital pain of leaving her there, I was OK with it for a week or so. Now I just feel guilty and I miss her and I keep telling myself she's better off getting stimulation from other babies and other people. She's building up her immunity, learning, and being exposed to people she otherwise wouldn't. I'll keep telling myself that...

Jenna likes her veggies!

2006-08-27T17:16:00.000-05:00

Well, I don't know about all veggies, but she likes green beans. We fed her baby food for the first time yesterday--we chose green beans because we heard if you start them on fruit, they won't eat veggies. I really didn't think she would like them at all, but she loved them! Ate half the container yesterday and the other half today.

What we did not take into consideration when choosing green beans, however, is the massive amounts of projectile spew this kid produces. So all afternoon, instead of white spit-up flowing out of her mouth, it was green. Yum, Yum. We always keep bibs on her because of this problem, but usually they look relatively clean even when they're not. Yesterday, poor baby looked neglected, like we never clean her up. She went through one bib after another, prompting us to buy 6 more. Now I think her grand bib total is about 18. Now, maybe we'll only have to do laundry every 3 days instead of every 2!

There have been a lot of baby girl changes lately. She's been talking/laughing a lot, she finally acknowledges toys, she puts EVERYTHING in her mouth, and she has become mesmerized by the TV. She still doesn't roll over, but when I put her down for tummy time in front of the TV, she's more interested in it than in trying to roll over. :)

100 Things

2006-08-25T09:11:00.000-05:00

Almost every blog I read has a "100 Things" at some point, and I realized that yesterday was my "blogiversary." So I thought why not--now would be a good time to do it. Here are my 100 things.

Moving and not selling the house is stressing me out!
I don't see how single parents do it.
I don't know if I can come up with 100 things.
I miss hubby when I'm not with him.
Sometimes I even miss him when I am with him.
I love my baby girl.
Sometimes she pisses me off, but I still love her.
I am always trying to lose weight, usually unsuccessfully.
I worry too much.
I try to let God take some of that worry.
I am very blessed.
Teeth issues freak me out.
I finally have a dentist I love.
I am dreading finding a new dentist in Austin.
I think I will come back to Houston twice a year to go.
I wish I could do that with our church, but that's not feasible every week+!
I hate Cher.
I mean, I really can't stand her. I convulse when I hear her voice.
I love Def Leppard.
They're my favorite band of all time. Still.
I love scuba diving.
I wish I could do it more.
But if I did, maybe I wouldn't love it so much.
I am a sitcom junkie.
I hate reality TV. Never watch it.
I love my friends & family.
I lived in Tokyo when I was younger.
I wish I could go back to visit.
I have really, really, really bad eyesight.
I can't get lasik, but even if I could, I'd be too scared.
I've always been scared I'd pass that to my child.
It bothers me when people drive under the speed limit. I don't know why, but I always seem to be in a hurry.
I am NOT a morning person.
I hate smoking more than just about anything.
It's the only thing I don't mind being rude about (making yucky faces).
I can't stand when people use apostrophies for plural words.
I also can't stand when people put "s" on the end of stores that don't end in s.
I also hate when stores have names that are misspelled on purpose ("kwik", "kountry").
I am always cold.
I will talk about very personal stuff with friends, but not on my blog.
I used to be depressed.
Now I consider myself happy.
I hardly ever cry.
I've cried more since Jenna was born than I probably have in the past 10 years.
I love fruit.
I love chocolate.
I don't care much for chocolate with fruit.
This 100 things is turning out to be more fun than I thought.
I work for the best company ever.
They are very flexible.
Good thing I have a good work ethic.
I hardly talk to anyone from high school anymore, or even college.
I have a Journalism degree.
I never wanted to be a Journalist.
I met hubby in college.
He is wonderful. I can't even express how wonderful.
I like to wash my car. I hate taking it somewhere to have it done.
I wish I could play a musical instrument. I took piano & guitar lessons when I was younger, but my mom was right--she always said when I got older, I'd wish I stuck with it.
I have never sung karaoke and probably never will. I love to sing in the car, only when no one can hear me. :)
I have an increasingly negative outlook on human nature.
I try not to, but it's best if I stay out of Wal Mart.
I hate Wal Mart.
But I go there anyway.
I don't have any tattoos.
I think my favorite movie is Office Space.
I pretty much only like to watch comedies lately.
Although I haven't seen a movie since before Jenna was born.
I really can't stand when people say "GD." It's one of the few things I will be vocal about.
I am intimidated by a lot, but not nearly as much as I used to be.
I wish I could go back to high school and not be so shy or scared of everyone.
I never drink coffee. Hate it.
I am addicted to diet coke, but I try to only drink caffeine-free. And I don't like to order it in restaurants because it's usually flat.
I could easily be a vegetarian. I don't like to eat much meat.
I hate my hair. I can never figure out what to do with it.
Chipotle is my favorite place to eat. I always get the veggie burrito with black beans.
I was a competitive swimmer for most of my youth. I lettered my freshman year of high school and wore my letter jacket EVERY DAY in my sophomore year. I must have been annoying.
I don't swim anymore. I did when my gym had a pool, but not now.
I wish I could go to the gym more, but Jenna takes a lot of time.
But as long as I'm wishing, I'd rather go for steep hikes or something more fun than the gym.
I don't like the way I feel about myself when I'm not working out regularly.
A couple of years, I did a half olympic triathlon and then the MS150 and a few 5Ks. I feel really out of shape now.
Someday I want to run a marathon.
I don't think I ever will. Oh, well.
I used to love flying, but now I don't. We traveled a lot and I got sick of it.
I am terrified of public speaking.
It stresses me out to the point of vomiting.
I listen to my ipod on shuffle all day at work. But most of the music is old.
I once told a guy I didn't like ice cream to get of a date.
I actually love ice cream. A whole lot. Especially coconut and mint chocolate chip.
Hawaii is my favorite place on the planet. I don't like to lay on the beach...I just like to explore.
I often imagine I am there when I'm stressed or can't sleep. It's my "happy place."
But I wouldn't like it as much without Jay.
I love mango margaritas from Del Pueblo, but not really anywhere else. I also love the Wallaby Darned from Outback. But usually I just get beer.
I can't think of anyone I genuinely dislike.
I don't like crazy daycare lady, but I don't really have a solid reason. If she wasn't watching my baby girl, I'd probably like her.
"Breath of Heaven" is my favorite Christmas song.
I love Christmas and Christmas music. We got married December 27.
I hate Halloween. But I'm anxious to get a cute little costume for Jenna.
I don't know why, but I get excited about buying school and office supplies.
This was a lot easier than I thought.

Life as a single mom

2006-08-23T09:34:00.000-05:00

Now that Jay has started his job in Austin, it's just me & Jenna at home. It will just be for 3-4 weeks, until I am there full-time. But I can tell it will wear me out, and we miss him! She did not make me feel very confident about this last night when she cried from about 7-9, and then woke up at 2 screaming for a bottle. Poor baby was so congested when I got her out of her crib, I thought maybe she wasn't really hungry, but just needed to be comforted back to sleep. Nope, the bottle was the only thing that calmed her down. First, I put saline drops in her nose and tried sucking it out, but I couldn't get anything out--it was too deep. Sorry, that's gross, but it is what it is. So after she ate, she was nowhere near ready to go back to sleep. She was squirmy and whiny, and I tried again, unsuccessfully, to get some of that congestion out. When she calmed down, she was able to breathe better, but she didn't calm down much. Hey--at least there was a Three's Company marathon on. :) At 3:30, I decided it was time for her (me) to go to sleep. So even though I still hadn't gotten her to sleep, I put her in her crib and let her squrim around for a while. She eventually fell asleep, until she woke up at 6:30 for another bottle. Amazingly, she wasn't that congested when I got her up this morning. I'm going to get a humidifier and see if that helps. Has anyone had luck with this?

One of the biggest changes lately in Jenna is she has been VERY talkative! She makes all kinds of sounds when she's in her papasan or her exersaucer. Cute! The only problem is that she does most of this happy talk in the morning & during the day, when she's at daycare. Then I get her for fussy time. Sigh...

Happy 4 months, Chunky Monkey!

2006-08-21T09:10:00.000-05:00

Jenna is 4 months old today and I can't believe she's ONLY 4 months old. It seems like we've had her a lot longer than that. But as big as she is, she's still little and I'm trying to savor her "little" time. She had her 4-month checkup Friday. She did really well with the shots--just cried for a minute or so, and I think they made her sleepy like last time. She slept all the way to Austin and never made a peep. Of course, she was in the car with Jay and I was in my car. When I drive back to Houston by myself, I'm sure she'll cry the whole way. :)

We did confirm at Jenna's appointment that she is a big girl! At about 17.3 pounds, she is above the 97th percentile for weight. I don't know how she gains so much weight with all the spitting up she does, but we don't worry about that since she obviously isn't having trouble gaining weight. :) She was in the 75th percentile for length, and only 40th for head circumference. The doctor said she's healthy and it's fine--great, even--for her to be chubby. So go, Jenna, go! And happy 4 month birthday!

Why are we going backwards?

2006-08-17T11:43:00.000-05:00

Jenna was sleeping really well at night. For a few weeks, she would go to bed around 10:30 and wake up 6:30-7. I guess we started getting used to it too fast. Now, for about the past week, she has been waking up around 4 or 5 every morning. I hope this is just a phase and it doesn't last. I guess I will have to do some reading about this in my spare time (WHAT???). Anyone else have this experience?

Mmmm, rice cereal

2006-08-15T20:50:00.000-05:00

My new favorite thing is feeding Jenna rice cereal. It's so fun and she does seem to like it. I'm anxious to feed her baby food, though I shouldn't be too anxious because she'll get it everywhere. She's OK with the rice cereal. I guess since she spits up ALL THE DANG TIME, we're used to her having stuff all over her. I have to do her laundry every other day because she runs out of bibs so fast. Today she went through 3 bibs and 3 outfits at daycare, just from so much spit-up! But I'm liking this video thing, so here's a clip from her first feeding.

[OK, just kidding--I can't get the stupid thing to work. And I don't want to deal with it because my $450 contacts are driving me crazy...]

Nothing exciting, but we were enjoying her reaction. She always has her fingers in her mouth, too.

I am getting a little frustrated with her daycare. I'm not too concerned since we're leaving soon anyway, but I did say something to the owner today. We just get conflicting information all the time. We get a daily log of her eating, nap, and diaper schedule. Half the time it says she didn't have any dirty diapers, but we know she did only because her poopy clothes are sent home with us in a plastic grocery bag. Then yesterday it said her first feeding was at 7:30, but I didn't drop her off until 8:15. Anyway, I told them she ate at home at 6:45. And the diaper bag had her bottles, but also someone else's bottle too. Today it said they gave her 6 ounces at the feedings, but we always give her 5. Not only to we give her 5, but we fill the bottle with 5 ozs of water and some mylicon every morning so all they have to do is mix the formula. It also said she slept from 12 to 3:50, which would be the longest nap she's ever had in her life. I don't believe that because a) she never sleeps that long, and b) because they said she started spitting up really bad around 2:00. The other thing that bothers me is that a couple of weeks ago they gave me a caricature of her when I picked her up. They had someone come in and do that. It's cute, but yesterday when I paid her tuition, they told me I had a balance of $5.50 for the caricature. What? I didn't ask for that--I didn't even know about it until they gave it to me. None of this is that big of a deal, but almost every day there is something irritating that happens. Most of it started when they got this new lady who for some reason, just rubs me the wrong way. She is the one who makes all the mistakes I've mentioned, and she's the one who scratched Jenna's face (that scab finally fell off). I've started having a harder time dropping her off again because for some reason I just don't like that lady! She's not mean or anything, so I'm not sure what my problem is with her. As for the infant schedules, it's gotten to where I don't really trust what it says, so all I can do is assume that she has eaten every 3 hours, that they change her diaper regularly, and that she sleeps when she feels like sleeping. I'll kind of be glad when we can find another place in Austin.

Random stuff & a milestone

2006-08-14T20:30:00.000-05:00

Jenna has her 4-month doctor appointment next week! I can't believe she's that old. On the other hand, I can't believe she's only 4 months old--it seems like we've had her a lot longer. I was trying to find some pictures that were taken when she was a newborn compared to now, and we don't have many of the same poses! I thought we did, but this was the best I could come up with for now. An out-of-focus one from when she was just 2 weeks old...

And one from today, when she's a week shy of 4 months old.

She fills that swing up so much now! I'm anxious to see what she weighs.

We were in Austin for the weekend. We drove around looking at houses, and we toured a few model homes in new neighborhoods. I am a REALLY BAD decision maker, and it's going to wear me out having to pick a location and then find a house we like enough to put an offer on. BUT, we don't need to do that until our house sells. We have had a lot of people look at it. The first week was slow, but this past week we've had a lot more. So far we've been told there are 3 families who are very interested in it, but I think 2 of them still have to sell their house. I think the third one must not be that interested. It's only been 2 weeks though.

Before we went to Austin, some friends had a going-away get-together for us, and we decided we have the best friends in the world. Well, we already knew that but I just don't deserve the friends I have! They are so sweet. We'll have to come to Houston a lot to get our friend fix. :)

While at my parents' house, Jenna did it again! She was jumping in her jumperoo. We were all talking in the kitchen and noticed that it has been unusually quiet for a while. This is what we saw:

And we did hit a milestone yesterday. We fed Jenna her first rice cereal! She actually seemed to like it. Since we didn't get home until almost 9 pm and she was already hungry, it didn't go as smoothly as planned. She did seem to enjoy it, but just couldn't quite figure out how to get it off the spoon. I think more ended up on her face than in her mouth, but we would have been shocked if it didn't. We got the whole thing on video, and one of these days if I have more time and if I'm not as tired, I'll download part of that.

HA HA HA

2006-08-10T13:39:00.000-05:00

Jenna has been laughing lately and we LOVE to hear it! She doesn't do it as much as we'd like, but I'm sure she will. I'm going to attempt to include a video (though the qualitiy is really bad) so you can hear her laugh.

She's definitely a good distraction from Kaiser's lack of presence. We miss him so much, but it's hard not to smile when we look at Jenna's sweet face and hear that laughter!

Bye, sweet boy

2006-08-07T19:17:00.000-05:00

Today was (and still is) one of the hardest, most emotionally draining days of my life. We went ahead and had our beloved angel put to sleep. We knew we had to, and the longer we waited, the harder it would be. He has been the best friend, companion, and teddy bear that we ever could have asked for. The poor guy was dealt a bad hand in health, and he made a very bad decision. I already explained about the bad decision, mildly about the health, and mildy about the previous instances of aggression. What I didn't mention was how sweet he was. How he would lay his head on our laps and take a nap. How he would always put his paws on our left leg when we squatted down. How excited he got EVERY TIME we came home or every time someone knocked or rang the doorbell. How gentle he was when he took a carrot stick out of our hands (since that's the only treat he was allowed). How he wouldn't push a door open unless he could get through it without touching it (so we never worried about him getting into anything). How he would sit so good whenever we groomed brushed him. How he loved to hang his head out the car window, loved to run around at the lake, loved to chase birds and squirrels. He would always lay by my feet whenever I was on the computer. He was so, so soft. Softer than any other dog I've ever known. He always held his left ear up, even when his right ear was down.

When he was licking away my tears as I was saying goodbye to him, I thought about how I will remember him as the sweetest dog ever, but I will have to remember Speedy's face, and any future little face that will not get his teeth marks imprinted in it. I have to think of the kids who have been scared by him, and other kids (be it Jenna or anyone else) who won't be in the future. I have to remember that we spared him of all the pain he would have had to endure in the future. He no longer has to get 2 shots a day at the same time, doesn't have to be held back when he wants to play, and doesn't have to be kept inside while the other dogs are running around at the lake so he doesn't pee blood. Now he doesn't have to have the THIRD bladder surgery that he was supposed to have at any time. I have to think of all these things because I know we made the right decision and I know we're all better off.

Bye, sweet friend--we will miss you more than you'll ever know.

Bad, bad dog

2006-08-06T18:02:00.000-05:00

First of all, Jenna was baptized this morning, and she did really well. She didn't spit up and she didn't make a peep through the whole service. She fell asleep, so that helped. :) She actually wore the same dress I wore when I was baptized as a baby! It fit her perfectly. We didn't get any good pictures, so I will have to put her back in it and take some more pictures. :)

Like I said--not a good picture, but it shows the dress. My mom has a picture of me wearing the dress as a baby, and I wish we had a scanner so I could post it.

Jenna got a jumperoo at a shower, but we just started using it yesterday. We thought she was too small or too young before, but she LOVES it! We thought we just didn't have enough stuff sitting around in our living room, so wanted to add one more toy.

She loves the jumperoo so much, in fact, that she wears herself out.

That is definitely a rare occurance for her to fall asleep while playing, but I just had to grab the camera. :)

Jenna loves her bath time, but I always think she's so cute when she's wrapped in her towel afterwards. I had to get a picture of her in her favorite towel...actually, it's MY favorite towel because it's thick enough to dry her off. Most of those baby towels are soooooo thin!

OK, now why the title about the bad, bad dog? After the baptism this morning, we came back to our house with family a couple of friends and had lunch. Everything was fine until our dog BIT OUR FRIEND'S KID. (Cindy, again I am soooooooooo sorry) I'm not talking about a little playful nip, but enough to draw blood. To give a little history, our dog is the sweetest dog ever, but he has always been aggressive with kids. I was thinking he had never actually bitten a kid before, but really, upon further discussion, we remembered that he has. It's always been in a situation when we was trying to play and more or less scared the kid but didn't cause any damage. What happens is that he sees kids playing at his level, and he tries to play with them the same way he tries to play with other dogs. Sometimes though, I think he isn't really playing as much as he is defending something (though I'm not sure what it is that he's defending). Today, poor kid was just playing and being a kid, minding his own business, when the stupid dog lunged at him, barked, and nipped his face. He wasn't as phased as most kids would be, and his parents were too nice about it, but we felt so bad and this cannot EVER happen again. It should have never happened to begin with. Usually we leave him outside when there are kids in the house, but we can't have a dog that bites kids. We just can't--it's unacceptable. For the time-being, it would be easy to keep him away from kids--we'd simply put him outside when they're over. Right now, he has absolutely no problems with Jenna, but soon she will be crawling, walking, and doing things that provoke him. We used to think by the time that happened, he would be used to her and wouldn't do anything. Now, we're not so sure. So, this is where we run into the question of what to do about this. Given our dog's health history and current health maintenance, no one in their right mind would ever take him. So either we keep him away from kids and wait until the day he bites Jenna, or we put him down now. Anyone who knows us knows how much we love him--he has been our baby for 6 1/2 years! But the reality is he is not getting better about the kids thing. In fact, it's almost as if he's gotten worse. I have never seen a dog who is otherwise so sweet become so aggressive around kids. It's always in a crowd too, because he seems to like to be in the center of a crowd. So, what do we do? We talked about the possibility of some type of training that may help. The way he is though, I don't know that it would. We have pretty much accepted the fact that we will have to put him down some day. He is too sick to live a long life. We already know he has bladder stones again and will need surgery. So all this combined makes it clear in our heads that we should put him down. In our hearts it's a different story. We have a problem here...what to do.

Sleeeeeepy

2006-08-03T21:21:00.000-05:00

I came home from the gym last night to this...

That's pretty much how I felt all day. Jenna sleeps really well at night, but she makes a lot of noise. Sometimes she sounds like she's about to wake up, sometimes for 30 minutes to an hour, and I am awake whenever she does that. I want to stop using the monitor, but I'm too scared!

We have de-cluttered to make our house show-ready at any time, but so far only one person has looked at it. Supposedly someone else came by, but we're not sure if they did or not because there was nothing from a realtor indicating that anyone had been in. Even though we've boxed VERY FEW things up just to de-clutter, we haven't started packing at all. I don't have much motivation since we don't know when the house will sell and we don't know where we're moving! I mean, we know what city but for the first couple of weeks we'll be with my parents. I doubt we'll pack until we actually sell the house. At first we'll just take what we need, and keep everything else here instead of in storage. This house-selling thing is going to stress me out!

I always say how big Jenna is, but I don't know how much she actually weighs. I think the scale thing where we take the difference with one of us holding her and then not holding her is crap. We tried it a few more times, and it's different every time. Of course, I don't need to know how much she weighs to know that little miss piglet is definitely getting enough to eat!

I mean, look at that thigh roll! She looks so happy though--I love it.

In unrelated news, I had to go to the eye doctor yesterday and order new contacts, as I do every year. This time I stretched it to a year and a half--longer than I ever have. My total for the eye exam and contacts was $454. No, that's not a mistake. $454. I am so blind that my contacts cost that much. I can't even get disposables and I'm not a candidate for lasik. Of course, if I was I'd be too afraid to do it anyway, but seriously--who else in the WORLD pays that much for contact lenses???

Sadness part 2

2006-08-01T16:19:00.000-05:00

The first day I dropped Jenna off at daycare was definitely the worst, but today she looked at me like "What, you're leaving me?" She hasn't done that before. It was the first time she has shown recognition or expression in her eyes like that. It broke my heart a little, but until she cries when I leave her, it'll be OK.

Change is good (?)

2006-07-28T17:43:00.000-05:00

What is this a picture of, you ask? It's our house, which is now on the market. Yep, we're movin'!

S-C-A-R-Y! Also exciting. Austin, here we come! It's been in the works for just over a month, actually, but yesterday Jay gave his notice at work and today our house is on the market. We're not wasting any time. :) The realtor said she wanted to get it listed before the weekend. This time of year is when so many people move, and we're on the tail end of it so she wanted to hurry. I am very disappointed in the price she wants us to ask because we have put soooooooooo much into this house. New wood floors, new tile, new carpet, ALL fresh paint, new appliances, new sinks/fixtures, new A/C condensing unit, new roof, wood patio awning, new wall to turn dining room into an office, the list goes on. I had hoped that we'd make a pretty good profit on it, but it turns out that by the time we pay for closing and the realtor fee, we'll be lucky to even end up ahead of what we initially paid for it. Anyway, we'll see how that turns out. We're listing it a little higher than she recommended, hoping that any offer we get will be more like what she had in mind. It makes me sad to sell it though, since we finally got it the way we wanted it just before Jenna was born. She won't ever get to enjoy the frogs I painted on her walls. :(

But, I digress...we can't do much about that. The tradeoff is we'll be close to family and lots of parks/trails/hills. Jenna will be able to see Grandma & Grandpa anytime she wants, and since we'll already be close to my family, we'll have to go out of town half as much to see his.

This started when my smart, talented husband got a job offer that he's really excited about and after much stress (which is probably why I'm sick now), debate, and contemplation, we decided to go for it. A big factor was that we didn't know what I was going to do. But by the grace of God, it looks like I'm going to be able to keep my job and work remotely. At least, for the time being. Seriously--could this be working out any better? It was meant to be. God wants us in Austin.

We still don't know where we'll live, how long the house will take to sell, or whether I will 100% be able to work from there, but right now all is looking good. He starts his job August 21, so we don't have a lot of time to waste! I am anxious to find a house there, but for a while we may have to get an apartment (gah). Housing is more expensive, so it's scary to think we'll have to depend on my unstable income for a mortgage. We don't want to buy a house before ours sells here. So sell, house, sell!

On another note, my mom is coming tomorrow to babysit for us while we go to Def Leppard. WOO-HOO! I'm such a dork, I'm a lifelong DL fan and I see them every chance I get. :)

Life Experiences

2006-07-27T12:38:00.000-05:00

I took this from Emmakirsten's site. Just thought it was fun.

Highlight the ones you've done...

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said 'I love you' and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby's diaper
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was shit faced
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger's table and had a meal with them
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Posed nude in front of strangers
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River
82. Been on television news programs as an "expert"
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music.
87. Eaten shark
88. Had a one-night stand
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Created and named your own constellation of stars
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn't stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn't have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Petted a stingray
110. Broken someone's heart
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper
129. Changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school
131. Parasailed
132. Petted a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one "important" author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you're living your dream
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn't know you
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146: Dyed your hair
147: Been a DJ
148: Shaved your head
149: Caused a car accident
150: Saved someone's life (but not really--someone else would have if I didn't!)

3-month pictures

2006-07-22T16:46:00.000-05:00

I know a lot of people have professional pictures of their kids taken every 3, 6, 9, 12, 18, and 24 months. I'm not sure when after that, and I'm not sure if we'll do it that often. But I figured if she's 3 months old, we should get started! So, today she had her first portrait session! I am a little disappointed in the pictures overall, but only because she wouldn't smile--not because of the place (Portrait Innovations). I was actually very impressed with them and we'll definitely go back for the next session. We all (the photographer, Jay, and myself) were trying to get her to smile, but she just wouldn't! I think she was a little confused as to what was going on.

They gave us a CD with all the proofs on it, which is where these pics came from. We didn't have to buy all the poses to get the digitals. I don't know what's standard, but I thought that was a good bonus!

I like how this one is done, but her shirt's a little too big.

We tried our best to keep the drool & spit-up off her, but you can see a little drool that made it onto her outfit. :)

They put these hands & feet pictures together with a picture of her face on an 8x10 sheet, like a collage. I think they cut out more of her fat rolls in the print than I did here, though. :)

And of course, we had to do the obligatory family picture. :)

I'm hoping that next time we get her picture taken like this, she'll smile more and I hope she doesn't have a big scratch next to her nose because her negligent parents didn't clip her fingernails often enough!!!!

We're heading to a shower 2+ hours away (despite the current torrential downpour), and we're praying she is not fussy tonight like she usually is in the evening...

3 months!

2006-07-20T20:29:00.000-05:00

My baby girl is 3 months old already! It actually seems like it has been much longer than that, but at the same time, when she was born, 3 months seemed like an eternity. I never thought she'd be this old. Sadly, she is outgrowing her 3-6 months clothes and I've got some 6-9 month outfits she's starting to wear. Yikes! I put one of my favorite 3-6 month outfits on her this morning and it was too tight, so I had to add it to the pile of outgrowns. I don't think they're supposed to outgrow 3-6 month clothes before they hit 3 months! :( I can't help but think that if I was still breastfeeding, she wouldn't be this big. But, I'll never know. I'm just hoping she plateaus soon and slows down just a little.

Yesterday when I picked her up from daycare, I felt like such a horrible mother. She had scratched her face pretty good, and the lady said "you might want to trim her nails--they're really long." Then the same lady said "You might want to bring her some bigger diapers. Hers are pretty tight." So last night I trimmed her nails and this morning I brought a bag of bigger diapers and took the smaller ones back. Oops. We do trim her nails--I just didn't realize we'd have to do it so often!

Jenna girl, we've made it through the first 3 months. We'll learn together and it will only get better from here.

Bumbo

2006-07-17T18:33:00.000-05:00

I'm blogging all over the place lately! It's funny--I was just talking about how we should try a bumbo seat, and then yesterday when I got home from the gym, our friend was there with one. His son had outgrown it so he thought we might like it. So far she seems to really like it!

I also love that outfit she has on. I was anxious for her to grow into it, but now I can't believe she has already grown into it! She's actually not going to fit in the bumbo seat much longer either. We have to kind of shove her thighs in it, and sometimes it's hard to get her out. :) She doesn't seem to mind though. I was curious about her weight, so last night I weighed myself holding her, and then just myself. The difference was 17.5 pounds!!! Surely she can't be that big.

Yesterday she sat in it on the counter (I know--it's supposed to be for the floor only, but we break lots of rules) and watched me cook. It was much easier than making dinner with one hand!

Fat & happy

2006-07-16T14:08:00.000-05:00

Not me, her! I wore my first pair of pre-pregnancy pants today! They were still tighter than they were before, but this is my first evidence that Weight Watchers is working. I've been a crazy point-counter and I've been regular about going to the gym, and it's starting to pay off. I only have a few pounds before I'm at my pre-pregnancy weight, but then I've got at least 10 more I want to shed.

Jenna has been smiling so much. Sometimes she'll smile at nothing. She's got just enough spit up and just enough of the double chin in this picture to make her look fat & happy...she's just chillin' in her exersaucer. :)

I still don't know what I'd do without the swing. She loves it, and she apparently sleeps in a swing at daycare. I'm very thankful that she's sleeping there at all because she is more pleasant in the evenings. Yesterday we had her home all day and she was a nightmare yesterday evening. She cried for about 3 hours because she was soooooooo tired, but she fought it too hard. BUT...she slept from 10:30 pm to 6:30 am!!!!!!!! I slept for about 6 hours straight...I haven't done that since about my first trimester!

Her newest thing she likes to do (besides put stuff in her mouth) is try to sit up. When I lean her back, she'll use her stomach muscles to sit all the way up & fall forward. She does it in my lap or when we sit her up on the couch or in one of her seats. I tried capturing her doing that on on the couch, but she just looked kind of annoyed.

I probably need to get one of those round seats that allows them to sit straight up--I think she'd like staying up without falling forward or backward.

I wanna hold her

2006-07-14T13:47:00.000-05:00

It's only 1:45. All I want to do is pick up Jenna and hold her. I have lots of work to do, but I know she is so close...I wish I could just go by and hold her and hug her for a while, then come back. But then I'd have to leave her again and I don't want to do that. We made it a week though! I'm so excited to get her this afternoon and know that we have all weekend together. And surely Monday morning will be depressing again. I wish I could strap her in the baby bjorn and wear her all day. Maybe she would sleep while I sat at my desk. Wow, I'm a dreamer.

The lady who watches her most often in the afternoon has huge boobs. I hope Jenna doesn't get used to cuddling against those because she sure doesn't get that cushioning from me! I can meniton her boobs matter-of-factly because she sure doesn't hesitate to show them off. I don't know how I feel about that. I just don't think that someone who watches babies all day should be showing off her boobs like that. Doesn't seem like a very good role model for young girls there who are old enough to notice that. So I guess I won't really be bothered by it until Jenna is old enough to observe that. And by that time, that lady probably won't still be there, and probably neither will we.

Um, maybe not.

2006-07-12T17:56:00.000-05:00

So, shortly after I posted about how Jenna doesn't realize what's going on or recognize me when I pick her up, I went to pick her up. Guess what? She smiled at me! She stared at me as if she knew who I was, then she smiled. I guess she's always making a liar out of me, but that's OK.

Has it only been 3 days?

2006-07-12T15:13:00.000-05:00

I'm dying to pick her up! She's been in daycare for over 7 hours now, but I am in "hurry up and wait" mode at work. Damn slow network. Yesterday was easier to drop her off than today for some reason, but all 3 days, I'm jittery by this time. All I can think is she's been in there too long! I just want to pick her up and kiss her chubby cheeks. I asked Jay to drop her off tomorrow. It's the taking her and leaving her with the caretaker and leaving part that gets to me the most. I'm OK at work until I start thinking about what she's doing.

I've been keeping busy, which helps, but then I'll think about her sitting in the daycare and I wonder if she's angry that I left her there. Is she wondering where I am? Does she think I've abandoned her? Does she think I don't love her? AAAACCKKKK!! I know she does not really think these things--it's my paranoid mind that makes this stuff up. Probably in her mind she is thinking "Swing-swing-swing-swing. I like to swing. I feel hunger. Feed me. Good, here comes a bottle. How long before they change my diaper? I wonder how long I can stare at these other babies until they look away. Here comes this lady who takes care of me at home. She's taking me with her." Then the next morning it starts over. Truthfully I'm not even sure she recognizes me yet. It's actually better that she's not old enough to comprehend this yet. That means she's not old enough to care that I'm leaving her in the morning, or to wonder where I am or where Dad is all day. Once she is old enough to care, she'll be used to it. That's comforting to me to a degree, but doesn't make me feel any less guilty. It also doesn't make me miss her any less!

We made it!

2006-07-10T18:45:00.000-05:00

Well, mom decided this is her blog so she's going to take it back. She let me write for a while, but there are things she feels that I don't understand, so she said I don't have to do it anymore. Back to you, mom!

Our first day of daycare was a success. Jenna made it through, and even more shocking was that so did I! Jay & I dropped her off at 8:15 and I picked her up at 3:15. I was lucky to get to leave work early. Then I logged in from the couch while Jenna took a little nap next to me. I will probably do that a lot this week and maybe next week because it's so hard for me not to think about her there! Jenna was fine--they put her in the swing, fed her, changed her diaper, and probably held her some. My plan was to visit her at lunch, but I decided it would be way too hard. Not for her--for me! She wouldn't really know the difference, but didn't want to cry again like I did this morning. I tried to prepare myself for this mentally so it wouldn't be so hard, but I had a pit in my stomach and I just felt like a horrible mom leaving her there. I cried before we left the house, at the daycare, after we left the daycare, and at work. Then I came home for lunch and cried more because I was looking at her stuff but she wasn't there. I even cried on the way home when I drove past the daycare place and knew that she was there. I kept telling myself she's just at daycare. She's not in the hospital, she's alive and well, and probably happier there than she would be sitting at home with me. When I left work, I was giddy. I was so excited to get her! I couldn't wait to pick her up and hug her. She obviously didn't acknowlege that she knew who I was, but she let me hug her a lot and she was being very sweet.

I am so glad we got through this first day. I don't really know that tomorrow will be any easier, but at least I know more what to expect and I can kind of think about what they're doing with her all day. When I get to the point that I don't cry anymore when I drop her off, life will be good! Now I'm going to quit blogging and get some baby girl lovin'!

Drooling

2006-07-07T17:44:00.000-05:00

Everyone knows that I spit up a lot, but lately I have also been drooling a lot. Why do I do that? My mouth always seems to have spit falling out of it. Mom is always wiping it with a burp cloth, so as long as someone's always wiping my face, I guess I don't need to stop. Mom looked up drooling online and found that it's a symptom of teething, but I'm too young for that!

My really long weekend

2006-07-05T18:34:00.000-05:00

I am happy to be home so I can swing in my favorite swing, but I had a good week visiting family! Mom took lots of pictures. First we went to Austin to see Grandma & Grampa. I got a new toy that I love to sit in! Mom and Dad decided it was convenient to take with us when we go places because it folds flat. Sometimes I play with the blocks and colored balls, and sometimes I even try to suck on them!

Mom and Dad got to go out a few times while Grandma & Grampa kept me. Mom even put on lipstick! She hasn't done that much since I was born.

I got fussy with them, but I was pretty good overall. I smiled at them a lot and they loved it!

When we left Austin, we went to the lake to see Nana and Papa. They hadn't seen me in a long time and I was so different! I also got to see my cousins and aunts and uncles from Dad's side of the family. I'm not old enough to play with them yet, but lots of people held me and it made me very happy.

Papa loves to fix everything and build, so I got to sleep in my pack & play in a brand new bathroom that he built in the room we slept in! Mom can't sleep very well with me in the same room, so it was like I had my very own room! I also had my very first swim. The water was cold, but it didn't bother me.

I know a couple of people who could use a tan, and I don't mean me! After I swam in the lake, I got to go on my first boat ride. The problem is, Mom and Dad made me wear this really annoying life jacket because they could get a ticket if I wasn't wearing it. Those boat patrol people go crazy on July 4th! I didn't like that life jacket at all because it squished my face, and I couldn't get my fists in my mouth! I sure love sucking on my fists. Once I sucked on my pacifier long enough on the boat though, I fell asleep.

Speaking of sleep, I did more of that in the past few days than I have ever done! Mom and Dad were so excited because I slept from about 11 last night until 5 this morning! They are really hoping I keep that up. I also slept in people's arms a lot, and in this lounge chair by the water.

I was so good all week! Mom & Dad were very happy about that. The funny thing is that I have been crying most of the time since we got home! I waited until we were alone so no one else would think I was fussy. :) I also have a new favorite game. I like to wait until Dad hands me to Mom or until Mom picks me up without a burp cloth, and I throw up all over her. HeeHee. I did that about 5 times a day for the past 4 days or so. I'm trying to make it easier for her to leave me in daycare, but it's just not working. I'm excited to go meet all my new friends in 4 days though.

My last day at home

2006-06-28T16:17:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow we are going to Austin, then we are going to the lake, and by the time we come home, it will almost be the weekend. Dad is taking next week off, which means this is the last day I get to be home with just me & mommy. Mommy is very sad, but she has had lots of time to think about it. I have been such a good girl today though! That almost makes it harder on mom, but she has had fun with me today. She tried to get me to lay next to Kaiser, but he was a little uncomfortable with that. She did manage to get one cute picture, but he closed his eyes.

She also put me in my exersaucer a few times today. I have so much fun in there! There are lots of things for me to look at and touch. I even turned myself around in it earlier, and I have been spinning the tube with the little colored balls in it. I like the sound that makes. Actually I just do it because my hand goes there naturally, but mom thinks I'm doing it on purpose. :)

Not only have I been an angel today, but I have hardly spit up at all! Mom has been using the same burp cloth all day. This is the first time for that, but I thought I'd be extra good today so it will be harder for mom to leave me in daycare. I'm sneaky!

I had a nap today!!!

2006-06-26T20:52:00.000-05:00

I got tired today, but instead of fighting it like I usually do, I let mom put me down for a nap in my crib. I slept 2 1/2 hours! Mom was so happy! She got a lot done and she thought I was going to be in a really good mood this evening. I did have some good play time, but I was mostly fussy all evening. Dad's holding me while I cry now, but it's OK, I'll calm down in an hour or so and go to sleep for the night. Sometimes I just like to cry and yell at mom and dad to let them know who's in charge. :)

[Update: I did NOT do well last night. I guess when I take naps, it doesn't really affect how night time will go. Mom got really frustrated with me because it took her more than 3 hours to finally get me to sleep close to midnight. But I will surprise mom and dad, and I'll be good tonight!]

Now that I'm taking more of an interest in all those toys and animals that mom and dad have around the house for me, I'm easier. I can sit in one of my swings or my exersaucer or papasan, and as long as I have something to look at, I'm usually OK. I sure do have a lot of toys! Most of them used to be another baby's, but that just means I don't have to break them in.

In a few more weeks, I hope I have enough coordination so I can grab them and make them sing. Mom keeps trying to read books to me, but doesn't she know I'm not old enough to listen yet? I don't know why she keeps doing that. Some of them have crinkly pages that make fun sounds though. Maybe someday soon I'll be able to touch the pages myself.

I'm taking charge now!

2006-06-25T19:38:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone--Jenna here. My mommy gets kinda bored with the same thing for too long, so she changed some things on this blog. First of all, she changed the name. She will probably get bored with it and change it to something else though, but she apologizes if it confuses anyone. Then, she added purple because she really likes it. Finally, and most importantly, she decided that I get to write my own posts because she doesn't know what I'm thinking most of the time anyway!

I had a pretty fun weekend with mommy and daddy. This morning they took me to church, but we had to sit in the cry room because I got hungry and they had to feed me. I get a little cranky and sometimes I scream when they take the bottle away from me. I am trying to get better about that, but I'm just a baby so I'm allowed to! After church we went out to eat at Applebee's. Mommy likes to go there because they have a weight watchers menu and she can easily track points. Mommy is so silly--she has been doing weight watchers for only a week, but after she ate a healthy lunch, she came home and ate a bunch of cookie dough. It's OK though, she still had a bunch of points saved up for the week, and she went to the gym. Daddy was with me for a lot of the day and I got a little upset a few times, but mostly I was good. I like when my daddy takes care of me because he doesn't let me cry as long as mommy does before he picks me up. But sometimes he knows I'm just tired and cranky, so he lets me go on until I stop. Both of them are getting better at learning my cries. Sometimes I'm just telling them I want to be picked or that I'm hungry, and they know that. But sometimes I play a little game and cry for no reason, just to see what they do! It's my fun little game and I will probably keep doing that until I can talk. :)

A new toy

2006-06-24T16:48:00.000-05:00

I have 2 exersaucer things that I got from someone whose kids outgrew them, one of which has a base and isn't meant to be mobile. I assumed Jenna would not like it yet because she's still too small and doesn't have an interest in the toys around the seat. But, (thanks for your suggestion, Cindy) I put her in it today and she seemed perfectly content to just sit in it.

She doesn't care about the toys and she isn't big enough to make it bounce with her feet, but anything I can set her in for a while is my friend! Today Jay was gone from about 8 am to 1:30 pm. It happened to be one of those days when she was fussy all morning. I put her in there about 5 minutes before he got home, and from that point on, she was fine. No fussing, and when she did get tired of it, he picked her up and she went to sleep. Go figure. Oh, well--I got to go to Kohl's and get her some cute outfits. :) Not that she really needs them, but I couldn't resist! Then I went to the gym because there's nothing like trying on swimsuits 2 months after you've given birth to motivate a good workout...Bleh.

So sad

2006-06-23T11:36:00.000-05:00

I have 2 weeks left of maternity leave. The last week we'll be out of town, with Jay's family for most of it. So next week is the last week I have to be at home with my baby girl. It's eating away at me. The reason it's killing me is not because I particularly love staying at home all day with her, but because I have to leave her in daycare while I go to work. The people who work at the daycare will get to see her smile. They'll get to hear her coo, they'll be there the first time she plays with toys, the first time she acknowledges other babies, the first time she starts crawling, and probably the first time she talks. They'll get to see it and I won't. Assuming she takes naps, they'll get to pick her up from the naps and she'll nuzzle her sweet little head in their neck, not mine. They'll get to hold her and feed her. When she cries, they'll get to pick her up and comfort her, not me. I won't be there for her. I won't get to pick her up any time I want, or watch all the ways she changes and grows every day. I'm her mom--I should be the one doing that. I have gotten to know her for the past 2 months. And I've gotten to love her. So much. I know she'll be in the daycare days only, and I'll see her every evening and every weekend. But suddenly, that doesn't seem like much.

Smiley

2006-06-21T20:57:00.000-05:00

It's getting easier to capture Jenna's smile on camera because she is smiling more. She still doesn't do a whole lot, but she'll smile at us and even at her "toys." I'm anxious for her to take an interest in playing with her toys, but for now our breakthrough is a little sea life mobile that we hang from her papasan. She likes to look at herself in the mirror under the leaf that sits above the papasan, and she likes to look at the mobile. When the red crab is pulled, it makes music, and she sometimes pulls it by herself over and over. I know she isn't doing this intentionally--it's just a result of grabbing the crab and pulling it towards her. But it's fun to think that she's entertaining herself. :)

She also coos sometimes when she smiles--it's so cute! I know they all do that, but it sure is a sweet sound. Cooing is MUCH better than crying!

(Sorry, Jenna. I just had to post your little chunky bathtime picture here! Forgive me?)

Cutie! We went to Babies R Us today so I could return a few things and get a few things. I couldn't resist--I bought her a few little outfits. I was "wearing" her in the bjorn the whole time, and she slept. I think the shots this morning made her sleepy. Anyway, I had plenty of time to browse all the cute clothes and I just couldn't resist. I haven't gotten to really buy her any clothes yet at all, since she got so many at showers. Now that she doesn't mind being changed, it's kind of fun to play dress up with her. :)

Happy 2 months, baby girl

2006-06-21T11:17:00.000-05:00

She's 2 months old today! We had her 2 month appointment, which went better than I thought. She had to get 4 shots, but the nurse was very quick and the crying, though loud, was short. I've never seen Jenna turn that many shades of red in such a short time. I think it was harder on her mama than it was on her. :) I had been curious about her weight, and I now know that she weighs 12 pounds, 14 ounces. So she's up 5 pounds, 1 ounce from birth. Actually I would have guessed more than that, but I'm glad she's not getting toooooo big. Her weight is in the 75th percentile, her length in the 50th %, and her head circumference in the 25th %. Sorry Dad, I know you'd be proud if her head was bigger. :)

We asked the doctor (Dr. Bel) about the spitting up issue, because I'm not sure what's normal. I just know this kid spits up A LOT. She suggested a medication that we might try. Jenna spit up several times at the doctor's office--pretty much soaked 2 burp cloths, my shirt, Jay's pants, and her outfit. Dr. Bel said if she's doing that all day, it's excessive and it may be a reason why she has sleep issues. But as long as she's gaining weight, we should look at it as nothing more than a nuisance. So we're not going to put her on medication--just deal with the spit-up. We don't think it's causing her sleep issues because she does pretty well at night (after she's fallen asleep). It's just naps that she's so bad at. Dr. Bel said once we start her on solid foods at 4 months, it will probably help, so it's only temporary anyway.

Yay baby girl, you made it through 2 months and your first round of shots...it only gets better from here. :)

5,000 hits

2006-06-19T10:28:00.000-05:00

My counter at the bottom has hit 5,000. Where did they all come from? Who is reading this? Anyway, last night was AWESOME. Baby girl is a goooood girl! She went 7 hours between feedings! I'm not naive enough to think this will happen again anytime soon, but we fed her at 9, she went to sleep at 10:30, and didn't wake up again until after 4! I kind of freaked out when I woke up, but she started crying for her bottle and then she was fine. A little more hungry than usual, though. :) I haven't slept 5 hours at a time in like 6 months!

Happy Father's Day

2006-06-18T18:06:00.000-05:00

Cheese alert--you've been warned.

I never had any doubt that Jay would be the best dad. I hoped that one day my kid(s) could have as good a dad as I have, and I got it! He is involved in every part of her life and he loves it. He stays up with her when she's fussy, he calms her down, he makes faces at her to make her smile, he gives her baths, he gives her bottles, he changes her poopy diapers, he takes her on errands, he takes her to church, he tries to get her interested in toys, he gets up in the middle of the night with her, and he wears her spit-up and other bodily fluids with pride. I should also mention that he went to all my prenatal appointments. Um, I should also mention that we both do all those things, and are lucky enough to do most of them together. I don't sit around painting my nails all the time, if that's what you were thinking. :) But I know enough moms whose husbands don't do half of these things. I know how lucky I am, and I know how lucky Jenna is to have such a wonder father. Someday she will really appreciate it--someday soon.

I don't remember my dad changing diapers or getting up with me or feeding me, but I know he did. What I DO remember is him being there for me when I needed to talk, telling me how proud of me he was, teasing me when I teased him, believing in me, going to my swim meets and soccer games, playing with us, taking us on vacations, hugging us, and providing everything I ever needed. Along with the infinite things my mom did for me and sacrificed for me, I am BLESSED! Jay's dad is also one of the most involved fathers I can think of. I have heard stories about all the things he did with and for his sons, and still does. I hope we can be a combination of our 4 parents, and I don't think many people can say that.
So, happy Father's Day Jay, happy Father's Day Dad, and happy Father's Day Ron. And happy Father's Day to all the other dads!

Thunder

2006-06-17T15:23:00.000-05:00

It's been raining most of the day and there was a thunderstorm earlier. We put Jenna in her papasan while Jay & I ate lunch. When we were just about done, there was a really loud thunder and Jenna didn't like that at all! Poor baby's whole body jolted and she screamed. She had tears with these cries. :( Jay picked her up and comforted her, and it was the sweetest thing. She had a frightened cry we haven't heard before, and we felt so bad! It was just thunder, but it was an indication of how I will feel any time bad things happen to her. They will hurt me more than they will hurt her!

Wow, how our lives have changed

2006-06-14T21:01:00.000-05:00

I was just thinking about how different our lives have become. Jay & I have been married 9 years in December, yet our first child isn't even 2 months old. Already she has completely changed us. We used to go scuba diving. We used to go to bed at the same time and eat dinner at the same time. We used to go out to dinner a lot and meet friends a lot. We used to travel. We went to Hawaii (twice), Florida (twice), Jamaica (3 times), Las Vegas (twice), Colorado (I don't even know how many times), New York (twice), Boston, Washington DC, San Francisco, Chicago, and countless road trips. Those days are, for the most part, over. Yet for some reason, I'm OK with that. I know that we have new adventures ahead of us. Yesterday I met Kyla and Cindy for lunch, along with their kids. As we sat, 3 adults with 3 kids (one was in Mother's Day Out), I thought about how our lives had changed. I never pictured myself sitting at a restaurant with 2 carseats and a high chair, tending to our kids and talking about our kids. I realized this is the start of a brand new life. A life I haven't known before, but a life I will embrace. Soon enough, our daughter will have her own friends. We will have birthday parties, sports events, slumber parties, and girl scout meetings for our new adventures. We will embrace whatever adventure she takes us on, but we'll rely on Grandma & Gramdpa to keep her once in a while while we cling to our own. :)

Magic naps

2006-06-14T20:22:00.000-05:00

This morning, Jenna was overtired (as usual), so I decided when she seemed sleepy that I was going to put her down in her crib. This is not abnormal--I do this at least twice a day. Usually she cries until I can't stand it anymore, so I get her out. Sometimes I decide after a few minutes that it's not going to "take," and sometimes I'll let it go 20-30 minutes. Today she was a little awake, but stayed calm for 10 minutes or so (after I rubbed her back & shusshed her for a few minutes). Then she started crying really hard for 10 minutes. I went upstairs to get her out, but on the way up, she stopped crying. I stood there watching her for a minute or 2, and she seemed contently asleep. Well, baby girl slept for 2 1/2 hours! 2 1/2 hours! And let me just say that she was a JOY to be around ever since she woke up. No fussing, no crying, and lots of smiling. Hallelujah!!!!!!!!! She sat in her papasan chair staring and smiling at herself in the mirror and at her aquarium toy for a good 30 minutes.After she woke up & ate, she sat on my lap and smiled and cooed at me for another 30 minutes or so. Then she was in her swing, then daddy came home and she smiled & cooed for him. Then we met some friends for dinner and she was nothing but pleasant the whole time. I didn't get much done during this nap time because I was expecting her to wake up at any time, but if this becomes a habit, I will start something that I know takes a while to finish (working out). I will get the hang of it just in time to put her in daycare & go back to work... Oh, please baby girl, can you do this every day? When you cry, I let you continue because I know what's best for you. I don't let you continue because I'm neglecting you--please learn that naps are GOOD!!!!!!!! You're happier, we're happier, and you're a lot more likely to have a brother or sister! :)

Why is ice cream so good?

2006-06-12T19:20:00.000-05:00

I don't like dieting. For the first month with the baby, it really wasn't a problem because it was hard to find time to eat. I was constantly holding her, and didn't have much of an appetite anyway. I had to force myself to eat enough so I'd have enough milk for her. Now, she is easier to put down. She stays in her swing or papasan for a while, which is great, but it sure is tempting to snack during those times. :) I have more of an apetite and more of a sweet tooth than I did during that first month. I have lost 30 pounds, but still have somewhere between 10 and 15 pounds to lose before I even get to my pre-pregnancy weight. I wanted to lose 10 pounds even then. I still eat ice cream almost every day for my treat, but I limit it to one serving. I did NOT limit it during pregnancy. Hmmmm, wonder why I have so much to lose! It's harder to get to the gym now, but I need it more than ever! We went for a walk at 7:30 this morning, before it got too hot, but my walks with a dog & a baby can't be too long because she gets kinda fussy after a while. One thing that has always annoyed me about living in such a hot climate is that during daylight savings time when it's light so late, it's too hot to enjoy that light! I can't go jogging or for a long walk because it's too hot. When it's not too hot, it gets dark at freaking 5:00 and I can't go then unless I want to be stupid and go in the dark. Anyway, I digress, but hey--it's all related.

The kids

2006-06-09T14:06:00.000-05:00

I just loved this pic and had to share. :)

Great Grandparents and bath time

2006-06-09T11:22:00.000-05:00

Growing up, I had grandparents in California and New York. Since we lived in Texas most of the time, we hardly ever saw them. I never had great grandparents, and I no longer have any living grandparents. Jay still has all 4 of his grandparents, so Jenna is lucky enough to have 4 grandparents and 4 great grandparents, all in the same state. We don't have any family in the same city, but they range from 2 1/2 to 4 hours away. One set of great grandparents came by the other day and met her for the first time, which is when I started thinking about how rare it probably is for both sets of her grandparents and her living great grandparents to still be married. Hopefully she'll appreciate that someday.

We are still having big sleeping issues, but I take it where I can get it. If she is asleep in my arms, I'll let her stay as long as she wants. If she will sleep in her swing, great. If she sleeps while I "wear" her in the bjorn (like she is now), works for me. If she sleeps on the couch, I don't dare move her.

I have learned that if she seems like she'll go to sleep, I'll hope it happens wherever she is (which is usually on me). If I try to put her in her crib, it's all over and she'll be wide awake and fussy again. Yesterday she wouldn't sleep all day, and she was soooooooooooo tired. After about 3 hours of crying, I finally drove around for 30 minutes just to lull her to sleep, and after about 20 minutes, she did doze off. I managed to keep her asleep for about 3 whole minutes once we got home. :) Once she finally went to sleep, it ended up being a pretty good night, except she slept on Jay's chest half the night. Oh, well, whatever works, right???

One thing we really look forward now is bath time. She loves it! We don't give her a bath every day because I've read that it dries their skin out, but maybe we'll start doing that anyway?

It's amazing to me how much she changes. It's still hard to capture a picture of a smile, but she is smiling at us more. She is starting to look at the animals that hang above her swing, and she will look at herself in the mirror above her little papasan chair. Pretty soon she'll be mobile!

For fun

2006-06-05T16:51:00.000-05:00

2 posts in one day! I took this from Emmakirsten's blog--I thought it was fun.

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet and current street):
Sukoshi Carlton

2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/grandmother on your father's side, your favorite candy):
Evelyn Jelly Belly

3. YOUR "FLY GIRL/GUY" NAME: (first initial of first name followed by izzle", first two or three letters of your last name follwowed by "dizzle"):
Kizzle Hadizzle

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal):
Purple Dog

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born):
Ann Dallas

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (first 3 letters of your name- last 3 letters of mother's maiden name, first 3 letters of your pet's name repeated twice):
Kareil KaiKai

7. JEDI NAME: (middle name spelled backwards, your mother's maiden name spelled backwards):
Nna Lieno

8. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The", your favorite color, the automobile you drive):
The Purple 6

I love you, I hate you, I love you

2006-06-05T16:25:00.000-05:00

It's funny--I've never been a particularly emotional person, but I have cried more in the past 6 weeks than I think I've ever cried in my life. And I'm so all over the place. Last night when I was up with her fussy self from 12:30-4, I was thinking holy cow, what have we done? I was not particularly in love with her at that point, to say the least. Then today, she was tired & fussy but as usual, would not go to sleep. I tried to do what the book I'm reading says to do, which is put her to down for a nap when she's drowsy, but of course that doesn't work. I let her cry for about 20-30 minutes, and eventually she stopped. I went in to check on her and was horrified to find that she had thrown up twice and had rolled around in it so it was caked in her hair & on her ears. I felt like the worst mother in the world at that point. She started crying again anyway, so I picked her up & cleaned her off, and had a talk with her about how much I love her (through tears, of course) and right now my job is to take care of her. So if she wants to sleep on me, she can sleep on me. So then she took a nap for an hour & a half on my chest and had a very pleasant feeding after that. I'm a little concerned since she is sleeping again now (on my chest in the bjorn), but if she doesn't sleep well again tonight, I'll know that maybe naps aren't her thing.

So this book, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, says that when they get overtired, it's too late. That we should put them to bed when they're drowsy and they'll go to sleep. WHATEVER. If she is not dead asleep in our arms, she will not go down, and it's hard enough to get her to go to sleep on us. We have let her cry it out a few times, but that doesn't always work either (hence my story above). I don't know how to avoid the overtired state, since she won't go to sleep until she gets there. We soothe her every way we know how, but we can't force sleep on her. I have not read much into it yet--just the parts that pertain to me for now. I guess it's like everything else--we have to do what works for us. Since every book I have contradicts the other one, the trick is finding out what that is. :)

I know this isn't the most interesting post, but I am doing this as a journal to myself and for her to read when she's older. My goal is to take some fun pictures in the next week or 2 so I'll have more to post, but it's so hard to capture that smile! Hopefully she'll give me more of them!

6 weeks old!

2006-06-02T14:41:00.000-05:00

Wow, our daughter is 6 weeks old today. It's still young, but when she was born, 6 weeks seemed like a loooooong way away. I would be going back to work next week if I wasn't taking an extended maternity leave--time flies.

I have a complaint--I am seriously getting frustrated by the fact that I will hold Jenna and try to calm her and get her to go to sleep for hours, and then as soon as Jay comes home, he holds her and she falls asleep. What's up with that? Last night he was gone for about 3 hours, and the whole time, I was feeding, rocking, swaying, bouncing, swinging, swaddling, and singing to our fussy baby. She calmed down a few times, but then ended up crying after a minute or two. It's like she catches herself falling asleep and thinks "no, I need to stay up or I'll miss something." She's only 6 weeks old--aren't they suppsed to be older than that before they do that? Anyway, then Jay got home at 10 and picked her up (although she was in one of her sleepy states at the time). She fell asleep and stayed that way for about 30 minutes, until she woke up hungry for her bottle. Seriously--he must think it's a breeze for me to be home with her all day. :)

By the way--she didn't wake up from the storm yesterday! She stayed asleep for 2 hours--I was hoping that would become a habit...

So much rain!

2006-06-01T13:20:00.000-05:00

I finally got Jenna down for an afternoon nap today, which almost never happens, and now the sky has opened up. Loud rain and really loud thunder. Enough to make me jump. If she wakes up crying, I will be mad! This baby does not like to take naps, so I'm taking advantage of not having to hold her. She is so unpredictable--sometimes I think she's down for a nap, but she'll wake up 5-10 minutes later crying, and she won't stop till I pick her up. Other times (though more rarely), she really will be down for at least an hour. Still trying to figure her out.

She hasn't been weighed since her 2-week appointment. She'll be 6 weeks old tomorrow, and I'm thinking she's at least 10 pounds by now. She's growing so much! She's into her 3-month outfits now and they are so cute! I guess that's what happens when a newborn eats 5 ounces at a time...

Her first trip

2006-05-29T17:40:00.000-05:00

For Memorial Day weekend, we went to visit my family in Austin. It's only a 2 1/2 hour drive, so we thought we'd see how that went. It went well! Gramma & Grampa were so excited to see her, and they kept her a few times while we went out. Saturday we went to my sister's house and went shopping a little, and that night we went to dinner. Very nice. Nights were basically the same as they are at home, except she still wanted to sleep a lot in the morning. She doesn't do that at home. 2 of the 3 nights, it was really hard to get her to go to sleep and Friday she wouldn't go to sleep until 1:30, after crying for a while. But the good thing is she did fall asleep after crying. As hard as it was to let her lay there and cry, it was less than 10 minutes.

Mom has this thing about taking pictures of babies with toys & dolls, and she took a few pictures with a Raggedy Ann & Andy doll that my great aunt made when I was a baby. I had to share this one because it's so funny--she looks terrified of the dolls!

She was trying to capture the expression seconds before this, but the camera delay caught this instead. She's starting to have expressions that will make digital pics really fun...I can't wait to capture them!

2006-05-24T15:52:00.000-05:00

When Jenna's awake and not crying, I can do a whole lot of stuff with one arm while I hold her in the other. J worked from home today and kept her while I slept till 8:30 and went to the gym, which I'm grateful for. He left at 3:30 and will be back around 10, so he felt like he should give me some time this morning. How sweet! Anyway, I came downstairs and found this (that's his laptop--hard to tell in the picture):

This is great, but what I wonder is how come this works for him, but when I try doing something productive after she calms down or goes to sleep, she suddenly gets restless and fussy? Oh, well, caring for her is productive so I should just go with it. :) She's been great today--I think the good days are starting to outnumber the bad ones, so I'm hoping this trend will continue. :) We went to Chipotle for lunch (hey--it's only the second time since she's been born!!!) and she slept the whole time. Then we went to Target and she slept there, too. Now she's sleeping again...hopefully she'll still be able to sleep tonight. We have no schedule or even anything close yet, so it's all a gamble!

Different subject: Our poor little Kaiser is losing his vision now. He's only 6, but everyone who knows us knows of the major health problems he's had. Last year he was diagnosed with diabetes, and ever since we've been giving him 2 insulin shots a day and he's been on a very strict diet. He was already on a very strict diet because of his bladderstones, but now it's more strict. We knew that this would eventually happen because of the diabetes, but we hoped it wouldn't happen so soon. His left eye is cloudly like he's getting a cataract, and chances are the right one isn't far behind. Poor little guy--he'll adapt, but it'll be sad!

Is this the same baby?

2006-05-23T18:09:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the WORST DAY EVER. OK, I'm being dramatic--it wasn't the worst day EVER, but it was a really unpleasant day. Jenna wouldn't sleep all day, and she was very fussy. Basically I held her and listened to her cry all day. At one point, we were both crying! If she calmed down and went to sleep in my arms, I would try to put her down for a nap so I could get something done. But every time, she'd wake up and start crying as soon as she went down. I tried to let her cry it out a few times, hoping she would calm down and go to sleep. I KNEW she was tired. But she would only cry harder, so I would cave and pick her up again. Cry, cry, scream, scream, grunt, nod off. A cycle that we repeated over & over. I think she was just overly tired because it didn't seem like there was anything wrong with her--she was just being tempermental.Then when J came home, he of course was able to put her to sleep. So she basically slept from 6 pm to 8 am, minus the 8:30 pm, 1 am, and 5 am feedings. So needless to say, last night was AWESOME!

The reason I question whether it's the same baby is because today was so different. We went to Wal Mart and we went to the mall without incident. She got fussy and I had to carry her instead of pushing her in her stroller at the mall, but I didn't mind. I had to give her a bottle there, so there was a lot of spit up and more fussiness to deal with, but it was no big deal. I was with friends who also had babies, so we fit right in with all the stay-at-home moms who cruise the mall on weekdays. When we got home, she still didn't want to take a nap (and still I have only gotten her down for 30 minutes this afternoon) but maybe tonight will be a repeat of last night and we'll be able to sleep AGAIN! I can't fathom getting on an actual schedule, but this works for me for now!

How lucky am I?

2006-05-19T14:00:00.000-05:00

I keep complaining about baby spit-up (I only complain about excessive amounts), gas/fussiness, not getting enough sleep, and being fat. But truthfully, I have a healthy, beautiful baby, the best husband who is also the best dad, a great job with understanding employers, and my health. So I realize how blessed I am and that I have nothing to complain about. I still wonder if I need to keep her up more during the day so she'll sleep at night, what the best kind of formula is to give her, whether something I'm eating makes her spit up my breastmilk, how to determine if she's hungry before a full-on screaming session (more screaming before feeding means more spit-up afterwards), and how to entertain her before she has an interest in toys or books. It's hard to imagine that it will one day fall into place, but I'm sure it will. While I'm anxious for her to be old enough to tell me what she's feeling, I know she will never be this little again and it makes me sad to think how fast it's already going by. We'll have to take the sleepless nights and the fussy evenings as a sign that she's a normal baby, we're normal parents, and we'll get through it.

By the way, I have to complain once--the mastitis is coming back in the other breast...uggggh.

I love her!

2006-05-17T20:40:00.000-05:00

I have spent 3 days in a row now with Jenna and although it's infuriating at times, I love her! When I hold her for hours and then put her down, I feel like something's missing. Honestly it has taken a few weeks to get to this point, because at first it was more frustrating than not. Today was a good day, so it was less frustrating. Less screaming = happy me.

When Jay got home from work, I went to Target, but when I got back I found out that Jenna had been sleeping the whole time I was gone. OK, so she doesn't sleep all day (maybe close to 2 hours) but when I leave, she goes to sleep. The good thing is that she had a lot of awake time when she wasn't crying today. She stared at me and wanted to be held all day. She even let me put her down when she was awake, and didn't cry! Of course, that doesn't last long--5 minutes usually.

Going back to work is going to be tough. She'll just be getting to the "fun" stage at that time. Yesterday morning I took her to my office and she slept the whole time. That's what I was hoping would happen, because I wouldn't want her to be crying. It's distracting to people who are trying to work to have a crying baby around! I decided to be brave and go to Target afterwards, but that was a bad idea. I was trying to return something, but they have a stupid return policy and if it's an online order, you have to print out a receipt from target.com. I couldn't figure out what to do, and of course she had started screaming. She was pretty inconsolable, so I just left and of course she was really hungry when we got home. She's pretty much always really hungry! I'm afraid I'm overfeeding her, but if I don't, she cries and sucks her fists until I feed her. She gets a lot of formula now...mama's breastmilk just doesn't do it for her. I'm finally accepting that it's OK, though I'll probably never get over the guilt.

Mom is my hero

2006-05-12T20:50:00.000-05:00

What better way to preface my first Mother's Day than to spend the week before it with my mom? I mentioned in my earlier blog how helpful she was, and that I would cry when she left. Well, I thought I was joking but sure enough, I actually did. I want to do things for her and show her how special she is, but in reality she spent the whole week helping me out. I know she loved spending so much time with her new granddaughter though, so maybe we're even. :)

As embarrassed as I am to share this pic (I look LOVELY), I love having a pic of the 3 of us.

Today has been such a good day. My dad & brother came over for the day, and Jenna was on her best behavior. She slept a lot, which I hope is not going to make tonight a repeat of last night, but she didn't spit up much, didn't cry much, and even had a lot of alert time without fussiness.

We even found out that she can tolerate the baby bjorn if we get her used to it. Yesterday I took her for a walk around the neighborhood in it (because she was crying in her stroller) but she was zonked out the whole time. My back was a little unhappy with me too. :)

Wow, I hope we get more days like this. :) She has been screaming for the past hour or so, but I don't hear anything now--she's sleeping on her daddy's chest. We need to put her down and go to bed!

Yay for mom

2006-05-11T13:33:00.000-05:00

My mom has been here this week and I will cry when she leaves tomorrow! She has kept me sane while Jay's at work. She taught me that I need to put Jenna down sometimes and take time for myself, or I will go crazy. It's hard to put her down because she screams so much. She's happiest being held, but I'm hoping and thinking she'll get more used to it as she gets older. She has cleaned our house and cooked, and held Jenna while I exercise/shower/get online, and it has been soooooo nice. Next week will be a rude awakening.

Here is what I have learned about motherhood in the past couple of weeks:
1. 90% of what I read is not true. Everything is contradictory, so I just have to learn by trial & error.
2. For every good day, there is a bad day to make up for it.
3. Babies have a "good" time and a "bad" time. Jenna is sweet in the morning and a terror in the evening.
4. Sleep deprivation is evil. I become extremely irritable and depressed with less than 5 hours of sleep a night.
5. Gripe water doesn't seem to make a difference with Jenna. Neither does Mylicon or Axid. I think when she decides she's going to be miserable, we just have to let her scream and squirm it out.
6. My daughter has the loudest shriek I have ever heard, and it is embarrassing in public.
7. Massive amounts of spit-up are OK if it's not hurting her when she does it. It's just frustrating when I nurse her for 45 minutes and then it all ends up distributed among several burp clothes over the next 30 minutes and then I have to give her formula because she's screaming and sucking on her fist.
8. It's OK to go 2-3 days with no dirty diapers. She will make up for it with her next dirty diaper.
9. When people say "mother knows best," they are not talking about new mothers--they are talking about mothers who know what they're doing.
10. As frustrated as I get, when she has her quiet awake time and stares at me and smiles (even if it is just gas), it does give me hope that everything will get better.

A good day

2006-05-07T17:54:00.000-05:00

Jenna has slept for most of the day, but she has been awake for a couple of hours now and hasn't been too fussy. Yay! I had her for an hour or so while she looked around and explored the movement of her arms & legs and made faces at me. :) She is doing that with her daddy now and the shrieks are minimal. Her spit-up hasn't been too excessive either, which gives me hope. I guess her medicine is working. We also started giving her soy formula when she has formula, so we'll give it a few days to see if that helps.

I have heard/read a lot of good stuff about that gripe water, so maybe tomorrow I'll get some. It's definitely worth trying. I don't think the mylicon does anything, so we pretty much stopped using it and haven't noticed a change.

I actually got to go shopping for a little bit today. Jenna stayed with her dad while I went to Kohl's to look for some pants & shirts that fit. :) Only my maternity clothes fit, so now it's nice to at least have one pair of pants I can wear that actually has a button & zipper. 2 sizes bigger that my pre-pregnancy clothes, but it's still early!

Uh-oh

2006-05-06T19:18:00.000-05:00

I am convinced something is wrong with this baby. At times, she'll be awake and content...

But more often than not, she looks like this.

Lately she is either sleeping or screaming. Not too much in between. We try to take advantage of the few times she is awake and not crying, because it doesn't last long. She's still young for the play mat, but we gave it a shot. We're excited for her to be old enough/alert enough to have play time.

All babies cry and have gas, but this baby has A LOT of gas. It's the reason for most of the crying, but she'll cry for hours on end and we can't do anything to calm her. Always at night. During the day, she can be at peace one minute, and busts into a scream fest because of gas pains. Poor baby girl. The reason I think there's something wrong with her is because she spits up/throws up so much. A couple of days ago, we got a prescription for it but it doesn't seem to be helping much. She spits up every time she eats. And I don't mean a little teaspoon of normal spit-up, I'm talking about vomiting just about everything she ate. Sometimes over the course of an hour or longer. That's just not normal (surely?) and it worries me. We'll have to take her back to the doctor Monday for the third time in her short existence. We're hoping she'll grow out of it, but it is extremely frustrating because she's so unhappy and we can't do anything to help her. As it is, we keep her upright for 15-30 minutes after she eats, and we are always rocking/swaying/bouncing/swaddling/feeding her to try to get her to calm down. It seems to get progressively worse throughout the day. Is that weird? I know a lot of babies have biological clocks that make them more fussy at night and she's definitely one of them, so that part doesn't concern me too much.

She has been sleeping fairly well at night. She has gone as long as 4 hours at a time, which is great for us, and her doctor says it's fine since she's gaining weight. The problem is that she absolutely WILL NOT sleep on her back. She is so peaceful on her tummy once she falls asleep, so we go with it. Tonight we'll be using the breathing (or is it heartbeat?) monitor for peace of mind.

Our little piggy

2006-05-03T15:25:00.000-05:00

Today we had the 2-week checkup (2 days early) and our little piggy weighs over 8 pounds! She's up 4 ozs from her birth weight. She is hungry all the time, it seems. We give her formula every night b/c she's hungry for more than I can give her. She usually takes 2 ozs at a time after I feed her, so I guess that's why she's been sleeping better at night lately too. Today she has been spitting up a LOT, which worries me, but I won't be too concerned unless it continues.

We have been doing a bad thing at night...she sleeps on one of us almost all the time. Jay has been staying downstairs with her most nights while I go to bed around 10 (bless him!!!) He'll get her to sleep usually within a couple of hours, and she sleeps for most of the rest of the night. She'll wake up (or we'll wake her up) to eat, but other than that, she's out. That's great, but the bad part is that we've created a habit that may be hard to break. Tonight we'll try to make her sleep in her bassinet, but we'll have to let her cry for a while. So far, we've learned that she won't quit crying on her own, unless one of us picks her up. So this should be a challenge. Ugggh

A nursing update--I seem to be producing less milk, not more. I feed her sometimes every hour and she's still hungry. Fortunately the mastitis situation is almost gone, but the feeding isn't going much better. But, since her doctor was so happy with her weight, we'll keep doing what we're doing. Her doctor also said again that if I want to quit breastfeeding and go to formula, that's fine too b/c formula is so good now, and that I shouldn't feel guilty about it. I'm going to stick out out for a while, but it's good to hear that from her doctor.

I'll have more pics to post, but I'll have to download them from the camera first. She's asleep on my chest while I'm slouched down typing, so I don't want to move. :) One more sad update--I'm nowhere NEAR being able to fit into pre-pregnancy clothes, so I'm still wearing either maternity clothes or big t-shirts. My stomach is not even the main problem--it's my thighs & my ass that are the problem. I still can't even wear my rings!

Out with the 3-dimensional people

2006-05-01T16:58:00.000-05:00

Today I made my first trek out into the real world since Jenna's birth. I left her home with her daddy while I went to Wal-Mart. I'm lucky he's working from home this week! It actually felt great to drive, walk around, and do something productive. Not that taking care of Jenna isn't productive, but I needed a reminder that there's a world outside of our house. :)

I made another new discovery--mastitis sucks. I already blogged about how frustrating breastfeeding was, and it only got more painful. Friday & Saturday nights, I got a fever and it lasted off & on Sunday. I googled it and found that I had all the symptoms of mastitis. I fed her as much as I could and did what it said to do, and did not get a fever last night or today. It's a little less painful today so I think it's improving.

Speaking of--I thought I had a few minutes to get online, but someone's fussing--time to eat AGAIN!!! I just want to share this pic b/c her expression cracks me up. It's like "mom, quit it!"

I've got an hour!

2006-04-27T14:42:00.000-05:00

That's about all I seem to have in between feedings, and there's always something to do during that time. So it's nice to have some "free time." Thanks for all your kind comments. It's still kind of surreal that we have a baby now. This is my favorite pic so far, I think.

Sleeping babies are so peaceful! But when they wake up--watch out! Haha She has phases where she's either sleeping or screaming, but every now & then she'll wake up & just look around to see what's happening. I wish we could entertain her somehow, but I guess newborns are overstimulated just being awake, as it is.

I think (hope) this is normal, but she sleeps great during the day, and wails at night. Usually for the first few hours that we try to go to sleep, she fusses and cries and wiggles all around. Nothing really seems to calm her, but I think it's usually because of gas. I feel like we're beating her, trying to get her to burp, but it just won't happen sometimes.

The breastfeeding thing is going, but I don't know that I'd say it's going well. Well, OK it's not going well. She is very hard to keep awake! Last night I had one feeding session that took an hour & a half. She would NOT eat, and then once she did for a few minutes, she was done, comatose almost. Then she would still be hungry and would cry & fuss, so I would try again. Eventually after an hour of this, I gave her some formula. She did sleep soundly after that, after I finally calmed her down. I hate giving her formula--it almost makes me cry to watch her suck down that bottle. I don't understand--why does this stuff always happen at night and she's usually pretty happy during the day???? I guess that's just the way it is. I am using the sheilds for breastfeeding, which the nurses advised me against, but it's the only way she'll eat. I'm hoping and praying that eventually she will latch on without them, but so far no luck with that. I have to give her a break though--she's only 6 days old. I just don't want to create bad habits.

As for me--I am looking forward to the day when I'm able to sit without my inflatable donut pillow, but for now, that's my best friend! I am also looking forward to being able to go out for a walk or something, but still not up for that. I'm doing well to walk around the house for now. :)

Introducing Jenna Marie

2006-04-23T21:30:00.000-05:00

Our little angel was born Friday, April 21 at 6:24 am.

She is healthy and perfect and I love her so much already! Now I know what everyone's been talking about all this time. She weighed 7 lbs, 13 ozs at birth, but has lost 8 ozs since then. Let's just say I now know that people aren't messing around when they say how frustrating this breastfeeding thing is. I won't go into detail, but it's so upsetting to think that I'm not able to feed my baby. It goes well sometimes, and horribly other times, but I know it takes patience and time to get it right.

This kid has got a set of lungs on her! She doesn't hesitate to let us know when she's upset, but when she does, it's either because she has a dirty diaper, wants to be swaddled, or is hungry. And if she's crying because she's hungry, it's too late and she will be too upset to eat. I always thought the crying would bother me, but it doesn't--it just breaks my heart and makes me want to make her all better. Fortunately, Jay is the same way and has been the wonderful dad I knew he would be. We have so much to learn and she's only 3 days old, so I'm sure my attitude about everything will change in time. :)

I am not actually due until April 26, but anyone who knows me or reads my blog knows that I was very anxious to get this kid out of me! Well, I guess she was anxious too. A brief overview of the birth story--Thursday night, about 2 hours after we left the doctor's office for my uneventful appointment, actually, we went to the grocery store. As we were getting into the car to come home, my water broke! It was such a small amount, that at first I wasn't sure if that's what happened. I got online to read more about it, but it didn't help much. So I called the doctor, and of course the on-call doctor said I'd need to come in to be checked. So we grabbed our hospital stuff "just in case," and headed to the hospital around 9:30 that night. It was not the exciting drive the hospital I'd hoped for, since we weren't sure whether we'd be sent home. When I was walking up to the entrance, a big gush let me know that we would most likely NOT be sent home. Since so few women actually have their water break before going into labor, that was not how I pictured it starting. Well, they said since I was having contractions but they weren't causing any progress, they'd have to start me on pitocin. I was not happy about this at all, because I have been saying I don't want an epidural, but I knew that pitocin caused much stronger, harder contractions. So I had already thought in my head I'd probably end up getting one. Around 11:30, they started me on the pitocin, and almost immediately I started having stronger contractions. After about 2-3 hours and vomiting twice (from the pain?), I said I'm ready for the epidural. So I got it and was much happier. A couple of hours later, I could still feel the contractions pretty strong. At 4 am, the nurse checked and said I'm at 9 cm and almost ready to push. Wow--I hadn't expected it to go that fast! There was only one doctor on call, and there was another lady at exactly the same stage as me. So when it came time to push, she was delivering the other baby but told the nurse to have me start pushing anyway. After 15-20 minutes of pushing, the nurse said it's going too fast and I need to stop to wait for the doctor. So an HOUR and a lot of pain later (I would have DIED without that epidural), the doctor finally came in, prepped me again and I started pushing. It was less than 15 minutes later that Jenna arrived. The weirdest, most surreal moment of my life.

This hospital requres a 2-night stay after the birth, so we were in the hospital until this afternoon. I was so excited to finally be discharged, but grateful for the time to recover and have nurses and food available at the touch of a button. That first day was so exhausting. We didn't sleep a wink the night before, so combined with the exhaustion of childbirth, I don't think I've ever been so tired in my life. But by the time I actually had some time to nap, I had gotten a second wind and didn't want to sleep. Fortunately we were able to sleep some that night. Since this is our first night at home with the baby, we will really learn what sleep deprivation is all about. :) One thing I was NOT prepared for was how incapacitated I'd be after delivery. That's another reason I was grateful for all the rest at the hospital. The recovery is definitely worse than the labor & delivery (of course, I wouldn't say that without the epidural), but on this third day, I already feel a lot better than yesterday, and definitely the day before.

So I guess that wasn't as brief as I had intended, but I'm leaving out the details. I will post more pics later, and how she does at night. But right now she's been with her daddy for a while and it's about time to attempt another feeding. Uggghhh. All I want to do is keep her healthy and happy though, so I'm convinced that something will snap into place and it will all be fine.