porkchop & paul

On With the Show

2010-04-13T15:58:00.008-04:00

I've got to be better about this journal. If only because I find myself constantly wishing these days that I could glue my video camera to my face, capturing everything she says and does, because it's all pretty darn amazing, hilarious, and sweeter than you can even imagine. And when I do have the camera running, she clams up, too interested in what I'm doing to go about her business. I am terrified that someday I'll forget what she is like right now. Because right now, she's pretty incredible.

Like when she accidentally steps on Georgie's paw when she's bouncing all over the living room and says "sowwy Gorshie" in that sweet little voice of hers. Or when she lets out a huge burp and says "scuse me!" (which she picked up on her own, nobody taught her that. Usually we giggle with pride when we belch in this family. We'll work on saying 'excuse me' more now of course.)

I'm forgetting things fast already. Luckily I've been scribbling notes in the little book I keep in my purse for just this purpose, but I've been too busy soaking it all in to type them up. Which is a good thing, I know. But at the same time, I know how flighty this brain of mine is, and I'm going to want it all written down one day so I can remember. Especially the way she says "Okay!" in a very cheerful voice when we explain that first we need to do something before we do what she wants. And how she says "WALK" very firmly when we tell her we're going somewhere, so we're clear that she intends to walk on her own to get there. Or how she looks at me and demands "HUG" so that we can have a brief little hugging session, her little hand rubbing my back the whole time. Or when she gets all up in my face and says "kiss" and kisses my cheeks all over, until I feel like I'm going to burst into tears it's so damn sweet. Or how every night before bed she says "FLOOR!" and that means it's time for her and Paul and I to snuggle up on her floor with her pillow and the down blanket (and Georgie at our feet) for story time, Paul and I taking turns doing the reading based on her demands. "Daddy read," "Mommy read."

I knew I would love being a mom and I've always really loved playing with the kids I babysat, and spending time with my siblings. But it turns out being a mom is even more than I could have imagined. It is truly amazing watching a tiny, helpless being grow into a full-blown little person, with opinions, demands, and talents. And I am fully aware that there is so much more amazingness to come. I can't wait.

Big Girl

2010-02-12T11:42:00.005-05:00

My baby peed on the potty! Last night I told Paul I had to pee and started up the stairs. As soon as I said "pee," Annie started saying "pee, pee" and climbed the stairs with me. When we got up there she got her potty seat out, put it on the toilet, and started pulling at her pants. I helped her with her pants and diaper, sat her on the potty, and she peed! Then she grabbed for the toilet paper, so I ripped her off a piece, and she wiped herself!

I was absolutely amazed. I have not taught her any of this. Thanks day care!

That is all. Just wanted to record this momentous occasion. :)

picture from our baby sitter this past fall,

when Annie started showing an interest in sitting on the potty

like her friend Becca at day care

Christmas '09

2009-12-30T11:04:00.005-05:00

I'm having a hard time believing Christmas is over. It came and went so fast this year. I fully enjoyed everything about it this year: the anticipation, the present hunting, the baking, the festivities. Annie is at an age where she doesn't fully understand what's going on, but she loved all of the get-togethers and present exchanges. And of course the toys that hung around after everything was over.

Annie had a wonderful Christmas. We had Christmas with Paul's Mom and Harvey on the 23rd, Christmas Eve with my family at our house, and then Christmas Day at my Mom & Dad's. She loved every minute of it. She needed a little help learning how to open the presents, but caught on pretty quickly that toys came out of that wrapping paper.

More Presents? 12.25.09 from porkchop on Vimeo.

She got some wonderful gifts. Favorites include a tea set, a dollhouse, a cool Scanimation book, a Magnadoodle, and a set of bristle blocks (that she loves to pour over her head for some reason). Oh, and several new DVDs, which make Mommy & Daddy happy for something a bit different after watching the same things over and over!

Best of all, she got some great quality playtime in with her all of her grandparents, aunts, and uncles over the past week or so, which is pretty much her favorite thing right now. I love seeing her get so excited about family time. We're going to enjoy that as long as possible!

Right now we're nursing a post-Christmas cold (Annie & Paul) and enjoying my 2-week vacation to the fullest by holing up in our cozy living room during our coldest snowstorm of the year so far. We're reading lots of books, playing with our new toys, and watching our new movies. Paul's finishing up his last hour at work before coming home for the rest of the week. Yup, life's pretty great. It can stay this way a bit longer if it would like (well, except for the cold, of course!) :)

Taking the Christmas Pics

2009-12-19T12:36:00.004-05:00

I gotta say, taking the Christmas card pictures is one of my favorite things to do all year. These guys are so much fun together, and I am really loving watching their relationship develop as she gets older. I love my babies so much!

Working with Mommy

2009-12-12T21:46:00.000-05:00

Puzzles 12.12.09 from porkchop on Vimeo.

At the Kitchen Table

2009-12-12T21:36:00.004-05:00

I got the booster seat out for the first time today, and Annie was in heaven. She loved sitting at the table with Mommy, doing our work together! She sat and colored, played puzzles, and read books for 2 hours. The perfect way to spend a morning.

New Words

2009-12-06T12:46:00.001-05:00

A Few New Words 12.5.09 from porkchop on Vimeo.

18 Months

2009-12-05T12:32:00.012-05:00

Annie is officially a year and a half and her personality is just spilling out of her now. She's happy, stubborn, curious, bossy, adventurous, and focused. Her latest obsessions (in no particular order): puppies ("poppies"), mini marshmallows, Elmo, books, shoes, and cleaning. She runs, jumps, climbs, and plays peek-a-boo. She loves pointing to eyes, noses, ears, arms, hands, legs, feet, cheeks, hair, and bellies, whether they are hers, yours, or her stuffed animals.

Lately her vocabulary has been picking up speed, and she's starting to string a few words together. Her babbling has changed from one or two "words" at a time to full-on babbled sentences. We have no idea what she's saying, but she's definitely saying something, and she's very emphatic about it. She runs in the room to tap on our legs and furrows her brow, points her finger to the other room, and launches into a full monologue about something of particular interest that we must attend to immediately. It's adorable.

We really tried to limit her TV time as much as possible up until now, but she is obsessed with Elmo lately and is constantly asking for it. She points to the box where we keep her dvds and makes the sign for "more," says more out loud ("moe"), says "Annie," and nods her head vigorously. It is really, really hard to say no. I'm currently employing several methods of distraction to keep it from becoming all TV, all the time. And yes, that includes mini marshmallows.

watching Elmo

My mom also tells me that the obsession at her house is with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She asks for that all the time and when it's on she is way too excited to sit down. She stands with her thumb in her mouth, completely engrossed. The other day they were giving Pluto a bath and Annie ran out to the kitchen yelling about the puppy getting a bath, trying to get Grandma to come with her to see the cute puppy get his bath. "Poppy, poppy, mommy, mommy, mom, mom!!" (She calls everyone Mom when she wants something.)

She is extremely particular about things too. You pick out a movie or book for her because it seems like she's randomly selecting things herself up until then, but oh no, that particular book or movie just will not do, it has to be "this" book or movie. And man, she will tell you in no uncertain terms that is the way it's going to be. Her babysitter reports this is how she is with the other kids at daycare too. I'm loving her independence though. She'll be able to take care of herself, that's for sure!

Yesterday I told her it was nap time and as I was putting her in her crib she looked at me and said, clear as day, "Mommy, no night-night." A sentence! I was amazed and so excited. But it was still nap time. Mommy's no push-over you know.

We are working on our manners, and she's doing pretty well with it. She'll say "please" and "thank you" ("peas" & "dink dee") when we ask her to, and she is now saying "peas, peas, peas" when she wants something. Every once in a while she'll say thank you when we haven't asked her too yet. The cutest example of this: yesterday at Target, the cashier put our bag in our cart for us, and Annie turned to her and said thank you. The cashier was highly impressed: "that's a big word for such a little baby!" She also says "hi" and "bye-bye" frequently too, and it never fails to charm people. :)

The cleaning thing is so funny. She's been doing that for months and months now, but lately she's really taking it seriously. She'll grab the dust cloth from the cupboard and will wipe down all of the floors, all of the tables and shelves she can reach, the TV. It's quite funny and also quite helpful! She will spend an hour just walking around wiping things down. She also loves to put the groceries away. To her this means taking them out of the bags one by one and lining them up in neat rows on the stairs. She takes this work very seriously. When she finishes, she sighs loudly and wipes her hands together. Hilarious.

I mentioned her obsession with puppies. She has several stuffed dogs and talks about them constantly. She grabs them and gives them kisses and hugs and then shoves them in your face so you can do the same. If a puppy comes on TV she screams and then laughs and laughs. We watched the dog show on Thanksgiving Day and she was in heaven. She was kissing the TV every time a new puppy came on (good thing she dusts it several times a day), and when it went to a commercial she would wail "POPPY, POPPY!!" Thank goodness there were several dog food and pet store commercials to tide her over until it came back on.

Today we had to run by the vet to pick up Gussy's prescription, and there was an adorable 7-week-old German Shepard puppy sitting on a woman's lap, all wrapped up in a blanket. Silly me thought it would be fun to walk over and show Annie the puppy, since she didn't notice him all wrapped up. Well, when she saw that puppy she started giggling hysterically, pointing and kicking to get down to see the puppy. The lady had to go in to see the vet though, so we left, and woo boy. There were tears. Tears and wailing for "poppy, poppyyyyy..." It was funny and sad at the same time!

Feeling the most puppy lately are Gus and George. With George, she alternates between love and annoyance. She loves to sit on him and also snuggle up to him when he's lying on the floor and she's feeling sleepy. But she also gets annoyed when he's in her way, or when he's trying to get some of her food. She'll stiff-arm him and calls him naughty ("nah-hee geor-hee"). But with Gus she has nothing but love and kisses. She'll be about 10 feet away from him and will bend down and penguin-walk her way over to him with her lips puckered up, ready to plant one on his muzzle. And of course Gus is the skittish, bratty one, so he really doesn't want any of it. To his credit though, he is much more tolerant of it than he was at first. She's charming herself right into his inner circle, I think.

So that's the news! Having a toddler is seriously so much fun.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-27T12:12:00.005-05:00

Among the many, many things I am grateful for:

Our warm and cozy little house.

A happy and healthy family (swine flu has come and gone, we've conquered that!)

Cups of tea on overcast fall days.

Time to read and make homemade gifts.

A sweet baby girl who loves reading, skipping, laughing, and snuggling.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Things I Will Want to Remember When I Am Living With A Surly Teenager: Installment 5

2009-11-22T17:21:00.005-05:00

The way you'll spend hours snuggled up with us on the couch reading story after story, and then every once in a while look up and give us kisses to thank us for reading to you.

Fall (So Far)

2009-10-24T22:15:00.001-04:00

First Words

2009-10-03T10:32:00.006-04:00

So Annie's having a bit of a language explosion lately. Over the past few weeks she's picked up several words, and has been babbling like crazy. She listens to us talking to her and then every once in a while she'll hear a word she'd like to try and goes for it. It's super fun to see and her little voice just melts me.

Here is a list of her words, somewhat in order of appearance:

Dog
Da, Daddy
Mama, Mommy
all done (this is her most frequently used expression)
Hi Da (she says this to both of us when we enter a room)
Hi (this is usually whispered for some reason)
on
kitty (started off sounding like "tia", but now sounds like "ti ti")
shoes
what's that?
baby
uh-oh
drink
jeans
keys
stinky
owl
bubbles (just said this one today!)

She also says "vroom vroom" when she plays with toy cars, which I attribute directly to all of the little boys at her day care. My favorite though is the way she always says "OHHH!!!!" when someone drops something or trips. Then she laughs hysterically. People at the grocery store always like that one. ;)

She understands way more than she can say, of course. She follows directions (like picking up her toys, bringing us a book, sitting down, etc.) and she can answer a bunch of yes or no questions by nodding and shaking her head. Makes getting ready for the day and mealtimes much easier, let me tell you! She's been learning her body parts and animal noises, and has been "singing" a bit now and then. Lately she's also been carefully placing her puzzle pieces in the right spot. It's really amazing watching her learn all of this stuff. Sometimes you can really see the light bulb going off.

Enough babbling. Here are some illustrations by Miss Annie herself:

Talking 9.24.09 from porkchop on Vimeo.

She's Got Skills 10.2.09 from porkchop on Vimeo.

A Genius I'm Telling You! 10.2.09 from porkchop on Vimeo.

6th Anniversary

2009-10-02T12:10:00.004-04:00

Last week for our 6th anniversary we took a short trip to the Adirondacks. The mountains are our favorite place. We try to go every year, but missed last year. We knew we couldn't go another year without seeing them, at least for a short while. We went back and forth on tent camping or cabin renting, but when we saw that the nights were going down to the 30's, that made our decision for us. We drove up to Old Forge Saturday after Paul got out of work, found a cute little cabin at the Old Forge Camping Resort, and cozied up for the night. The weather was perfect for outside eating and a campfire. And marshmallows. Lots of yummy marshmallows.Annie fell asleep on my lap for about an hour during the campfire, but was wide awake when we got to bed. We forgot the pack and play and she was oh so excited to share a bed with Mommy & Daddy. (The dogs slept on the set of bunk beds, they seemed to like having their own bed to snuggle up on!) It took her a while to settle down. I read her some books and then turned out the lights. She bounced around for a while. She finally was still for about 20 minutes or so, but then she popped up, got reaaaalll close to my face, and whispered, "hi." Seriously hilarious, it was all I could do not to laugh. But I managed to not move a muscle, so she laid back down and finally fell asleep, her feet up on my belly. Apparently I make a good footrest.

In the morning I rustled up some microwaved breakfast at the main lodge and we ate out of the rain on our cozy little porch, complete with wooden porch swing. After check-out we drove up through the mountains, stopping at our usual spot, Long Lake & Lake Eaton. The drive through the park was gorgeous. The leaves were at their peak and it was all gray and wet. Just a perfect fall day. Another great way to celebrate the anniversary of our little family!

Things I Will Want to Remember When I Am Living With A Surly Teenager: Installment 4

2009-09-10T21:16:00.003-04:00

How you watch me carefully when I'm singing "I'm Yours" (by Jason Mraz) and then try to sing a bit before getting all giggly and giving me big kisses. You sure do love that song. And I sure do love singing it to you.

Summer's End

2009-09-08T13:44:00.010-04:00

Fall is coming and I'm getting that old "longing for apples, soups, pretty leaves, and pumpkins" feeling back. It's my very favorite time of year and I'm really looking forward to it. We've also been really enjoying summertime this past week or so. We crammed a lot in over a few days, but it really all felt very slow and relaxed and fun, exactly how summer should feel.

The Fair

Powers Farm Market

The Zoo

The Pier

Garage Sale Finds
A Cookout and Campfire

All in all, the perfect close to summer. Now on to September!

10 Good Things

2009-09-05T12:33:00.005-04:00

1. The hydrangeas finally bloomed, big time.

2. Annie's sudden love for the doll we bought before she was born. Lots of hugs and snuggling and carrying her around the house.

3. A fun family day at the State Fair.

4. Concord grapes. Yum.

5. Annie's delight when Uncle Kev showed up in her room after her nap.

6. Powers farm market: cute animals, fall mums, fresh corn, yummy cookies.

7. Scoring adorable clothes and bunches of classic kids books at the thrift store. (Oh, and a Bills helmet for Kevin for 1.99. He was thrilled.)

8. Long weekends!

9. Frequent trips to playgrounds, and Annie's daredevilry climbing all over them to get to the slides.

10. Dancing to awesome ukele cover songs on YouTube.

Making Some Calls

2009-08-28T13:22:00.002-04:00

Important work to do you know...

Wild Girl

2009-08-23T11:29:00.006-04:00

This summer is flying by now, and our baby is just sprouting right up into a little girl. For the past month or so, all she wants to do is read books. She'll sit and read by herself, but she especially loves sitting in someone's lap to hear it from them. Or, I should say, hear one word from each page because she loses interest pretty quickly, turns through the pages with lightening-fast speed, and then goes to grab another book for the next round. Her obsession with books is such that even I encouraged her to put down her books and play with some toys instead the other day. I know, crazy. Her current favorites are "Goodnight Gorilla," "Clifford Barks," and "Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb." These are all fun to read, which helps. I could seriously sit for hours and read to her though (and I have). It's so great to see her enjoy something so much, and we love that she's so willing to snuggle up to us right now. We're definitely enjoying that for as long as we can!

She's running a lot lately, and does this thing we call "the happy dance," a cute little stomping jig that she does when she finds a good book that she wants to read, a fun new toy to play with (usually something she's not supposed to have), or if someone gives her something yummy to eat. It's adorable. She's way more interested in playing with the "big boys" than she is with little girls her own age. They're more wild, which suits her personality just perfect.

This past month we've done lots of fun summer things, like swimming, camping, trips to the playground, playing in the backyard. She has so much fun everywhere, she is quite the adventurer. At the playground she wants to walk up all of the steps just like the big kids, and loves the slide the most. When we take her swimming she goes back and forth between the two of us, but she really just wants to take off on her own, she kicks her legs and tries to jump right out of our arms. She loved camping, especially jumping all over the air mattress, doing her happy dance. Now that we have a weekend test run out of the way, we can't wait to take her on a longer trip!

She is definitely a wild girl, loves running, climbing, and jumping, and is fearless. We love what a strong, assertive, but also sweet little girl she is. We can't wait to see what comes next!

Things I Will Want to Remember When I Am Living With A Surly Teenager: Installment 3

2009-07-25T10:38:00.003-04:00

The way you bring me a book and then walk backwards towards me until you are snuggled into my lap so we can read it together.

Reading 7.10.09 from porkchop on Vimeo.

Summer

2009-07-11T11:48:00.005-04:00

This summer has been slow to start. The weather has been beautiful by my standards (not too hot, lots of rainy days), but most people have been complaining about too much rain and not enough sunny heat. Yesterday we finally got one of those sunny, really hot days. Annie and I took a long walk around town, first to the bank to take care of our banking business, then to the pet store to take care of our looking-at-cute-puppies business, then back through town towards the playground. Then I remembered one of our time-honored town traditions: the spraypool. We stopped to cool off, and after I showed her how to splash in the puddles, Annie really enjoyed herself. I'm finding myself hoping for more hot days so we can make more spraypool trips this summer!

Fourth of July

2009-07-10T17:19:00.009-04:00

This year's 4th of July was:

Awesome weather: not too hot, not too cold, no rain!

Family & poker buddies.

A new hammock hideaway.

Delicious daiquiris & shamrock shakes.

A chef's triumph: pork butts & ribs ("and hardly any side dishes, because I want them to eat the meat!!")

Catch in the side yard, bocce in the back.

S'mores!

Baby friends. (Griffin still asks to visit Annie even though she was a bit rude to him when he sat in her camp chair. ;) )

Fireworks in the distance.

A perfect summer day.

Annie at 12 Months

2009-07-10T17:02:00.003-04:00

Annie just hit 13 months this past week. Here are the notes I took during her 12th month:

She walks way more than crawls.

She loves stepping up steps (with help, of course).

She loves her bathtime.

Finally learned how to nod rather than shake her head, but she has to concentrate really hard to remember to nod rather than shake her head when she means yes. You can see the wheels turning, it's pretty funny.

She has to be holding a stick when she walks outside.

She loves wiping things with cloths, baby wipes, wash cloths, and paper towels. Future clean freak maybe? I hope so, it would mean less cleaning for me!

She is constantly pointing at things she either wants or thinks are interesting, and says, "eh?" We call it her Griffin phase, since our godson went through the same thing.

She loves apple juice and animal crackers.

She is trying to say "dog." She hears a dog barking, sometimes really far away, we don't even notice it until she starts saying "duh" over and over again, pointing outside. She doesn't have the ending "g" sound yet.

She says mama a lot and we think she might actually mean it. She says "da" when I ask her where her daddy is, or tell her he's coming.

She gets all excited when she sees pictures of Elmo now. She hasn't actually seen him on tv yet, just on her diapers and in books. Seeing him on tv might blow her mind, we'll have to try that!

She went to Strong Museum for her birthday. She loved the pictures of all of the Sesame Street characters, "driving" a taxi with Elmo & Cookie Monster, riding the train with mama, and playing in the stone pit with the other kids. She was enthralled by the giant in story book land. The whole experience pooped her out, she was exhausted afterwards! It was a really fun day though.

We had a big birthday party in the backyard with our family and our closest friends. It was a beautiful day and everything went great. Annie skipped her nap, which was extremely unusual for her. She takes her naps like clockwork, and I planned the party around naptime and everything. She must have gathered that something was going on because she flat out refused to sleep. I was worried, but she was a trooper and made it through the party and then some. She looked exhausted when she was eating her cake, but she was still in a good mood! I can't believe she's one. That really flew.

Things I Will Want to Remember When I Am Living With A Surly Teenager: Installment 2

2009-06-27T12:00:00.002-04:00

The way you run up behind us and throw your arms around the back of our legs, screaming with joy when we say “oh no, she’s getting me!!”

Red Wings from porkchop on Vimeo.

Holy Crap....

2009-06-04T12:00:00.002-04:00

...I have a one-year-old.

Annie At 11 Months

2009-05-15T22:49:00.006-04:00

Yikes, a full month since my last post. Too busy living life, I guess! And trying to figure out where time has gone. I am busy making plans for Annie's first birthday, which has me both excited and incredulous that my tiny baby is quickly making her way into toddlerdom.

This is Annie at 11 months:

She can get up the stairs in 20 seconds flat.

She can give kisses and hugs.

She points to things constantly, and calls them "Guh."

She is very chatty and likes to tell long stories filled with "buh buh buh"s and "duh duh duh"s.

She is walking more and more every day, but still crawls some of the time.

She loves veggie burgers with cheese, hot pretzels, animal crackers, puffs, hamburger, green beans, peas, eggplant, and hot dogs. But especially hot dogs.

She still loves her books!

She is getting ticklish. She laughs when you tickle her neck and hands, but doesn't laugh when you tickle her feet. That just kind of annoys her so she pulls them away.

She loves feeding Gus & George from her high chair. Needless to say, they love it too!

She tried some real milk at Grandma & Grandpa's and she loves it!

She has a mouthful of chompers and knows how to use them. She will hug you and sink her teeth into your shoulder if you're not careful. I'm actually afraid to reach in there to count how many she has! I think I'll leave that for the dentist next month...

Speaking of teeth, she's got the "Maroney gap," a gap between her two front teeth, named for my mother's side of the family. All of us Peppers kids had the same one! They all pretty much closed up when we got our adult teeth though, so no worries. It's pretty cute anyway.

She loves hugging her stuffed animals, and giving them kisses. She especially loves a puppy in a Yankees shirt that her Grandma got her at Yankee Stadium.

Oh yeah, she went on her first trip to New York City! She was awesome in the car and loved the hotel room. She especially loved that she could stand up in her pack n' play and check out what Mommy & Daddy were doing when she was supposed to be sleeping. She had a lot of fun chatting away while we tried to ignore her so she would settle down. Oh, and she didn't mind at all when our baseball game was rained out, after waiting around for FIVE hours at the stadium. In the rain. This kid has some patience, I'm telling you!

She can ride a bike! She loved it too, she cried when we picked her up from it (in FAO Schwarz). First time she's thrown a semi-fit in a store, yay for us!

She loves bath time, especially touching the water coming out of the faucet.

She loves playing at Grandma & Grandpa's house. She really loves pushing around the doll stroller Grandma bought for her!

She experienced the joy of trampolines for the first time a couple of weeks ago at the babysitter's. Wendy put her on and she went to town, crawled over to the side to hang on to the net and bounced away on her knees. We bounced it for her with our hands and she laughed hysterically. I've always pined for a trampoline, so this might be a good excuse to get one!

She made her mama a birdhouse for our first Mother's Day, with the help of Wendy, Doug, Wendy's daughter, Danielle, and Paul. It might be the cutest Mother's Day gift ever.

On that note, I had a lovely first Mother's Day. I slept in until NINE A.M. and woke up to presents (the birdhouse, a really nice lunchbag, a new coffee mug, and a new water bottle. Hubby knows what I like. :) ) We went to breakfast with Paul's mom and Harvey, went shopping at the garden center and the mall for a few hours, went to the Lilac Festival for dinner and a nice walk, then went to my parents for dessert. A perfect day! Oh, and did I mention I slept in until NINE A.M.?? So good.

The Reader

2009-04-16T15:31:00.006-04:00

Annie really loves her books. She loves sitting with her books surrounding her, crawling around in them and sitting with one in her lap, flipping through the pages, studying the pictures intently. There are only certain books that she will allow you to sit and read to her. The rest she has to sit and study by herself, looking at each page for a minute and then pointing to a few things on the page with the tip of her finger. Wendy says that during storytime at daycare Annie insists on turning the pages for her, most often before she's done reading that page, since she doesn't quite get that the words you are saying are what is on the page. I'm really excited about this development. I'm hoping it means she'll love books just as much as her mama. I have spent hours daydreaming about sharing all of my favorites with her, a crop of favorites for each age. I am constantly on the lookout for good finds. Recently those have included a bunch of old (late 70's-early 80's) Sesame Street & Fraggle Rock books from a thrift store trip, a bunch of awesome vintage books from this site, and a brand-new, beautiful copy of Where the Wild Things Are (that was more for me since I don't have my childhood copy anymore, and I am so super excited for the movie). My mom has been helping build her library since I told her I was pregnant, even searching online to find 2 of our old family favorites ("Sylvester Bear Overslept" & "But No Elephants!"). I can't wait until we can snuggle up to read them together. For now I am really enjoying watching her discover her books, and dreaming about all of the good ones I need to share with her!

First Easter

2009-04-13T23:29:00.004-04:00

Easter was:

A basket filled with bath toys, a book, and yummy treats

A cute little girl in pigtails and white tights

An adorable stuffed bunny and homemade card from Uncle Kevin

Dyeing eggs with Aunt Kathryn and Uncle Kev

Listening to Paul Simon's Graceland and some Beatles

Yummy broccoli and cheese casseroles, not to mention perfectly baked crescent rolls

Ham for Annie! Devilled egg filling too. Yum.

A new yahtzee-like dice game that's super fun

The cutest sheep you've ever seen, from the Easter Bunny's trip to Grandpa & Grandma's house!

A nice chat with Meg (even though it would have been better in person!)

Delicious desserts, including homemade peanut butter eggs. Yum.

Booking our hotel room for our upcoming trip to NYC!!

Things I Will Want to Remember When I Am Living With A Surly Teenager: Installment 1

2009-04-04T15:15:00.004-04:00

The way you break out into huge smiles and laughs when you see your mommy or daddy (or Georgie) walk into the room or open the car door.

Funny Girl from porkchop on Vimeo.

Saturday in the Park

2009-03-29T17:05:00.007-04:00

We have been having some nicer weather lately, which is a relief. Definitely getting tired of bundling up every time we leave the house! We took advantage of a sunny Saturday afternoon by picnicking in the park. We decided to try out the baby slide and swing while we were there. Annie loved it all! She especially enjoyed watching all of the other kids and waving to them. She is a friendly girl. :)(The only thing that put a damper on our visit? The cops throwing out a creepy man who was hanging around barefoot with no kids, wandering around striking up conversations with the kids without parents there. A tad upsetting, but we still managed to have a good time. Just a reminder that we will never be able to let her out of our sight while she is growing up. So different from when I was a kid!)

Anyways, back to happy thoughts:

Playground from porkchop on Vimeo.

Playground from porkchop on Vimeo.

Playground from porkchop on Vimeo.

Playground from porkchop on Vimeo.

Addendum: Annie At 9 Months

2009-03-23T11:41:00.003-04:00

The day after I wrote the last post, Annie woke up and decided that she does indeed know how to clap and to prove it she's just going to go ahead and clap all day. Clap for standing up, clap for getting ready to go bye-bye, clap for Daddy hanging up shelves, clap for everything! She was so proud of herself for finally figuring it out, it was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

Also, I can't believe I left out her standing skills. She is getting better and better at standing on her own without holding onto anything. At first she would stand for a few seconds before realizing she wasn't holding onto anything so she would sit down quickly. But now she stands for about a minute or so and can even wave her arms, lift them up, and clap while she's doing it. Talented girl, I'll tell you what. She also took a step Saturday. It was a small, wobbly one, but it was a definite step. And now I will go cry because my baby is growing up way too fast.

Annie At 9 Months

2009-03-20T14:27:00.006-04:00

I took a little blogging hiatus to deal with a crazy few weeks, including fun things like buying new furniture, visits from my sisters, birthday parties, and not so fun things like our car breaking down, tummy sickness, and a wisdom tooth extraction that did not go very smoothly, to say the least. Things are going better now, we got a really nice new car, the sickness is gone, and the pain is finally starting to subside a little.

These are petty and irrelevant things though when you take a look at the sheer number of skills, new things, and personality quirks that little miss Annie Sue has picked up over the past few weeks. She has made those not so fun things a bit more bearable.

So, to catch up on the last few weeks, this is all about Annie at 9 months:

She's a meat eater! After getting the okay at her 9-month check up (50th percentile for weight, 75th for height), she has since tried turkey (hated it), beef (loved it), lamb (liked it ok), and ham (loved it). Next on the plate is chicken. Hopefully she'll like it because that's a biggie around here. She is also getting into more solid foods, eating puffs, toddler cookies, mashed bananas, and mashed up raviolis.

She dances constantly now. It's pretty adorable.

She has mastered her walker toys--her dune buggy at home and her stroller at Grandma's. She's not so sure about pushing around her Ernie doll though, she will take him out to replace with with a coaster from the end table before she can continue her walk.

She loves to hold our hands and walk now, and she laughs hysterically when she does it. She especially loves "chasing" Gussie.

She loves to pet Georgie, and is surprisingly gentle about it. Georgie, of course, loves the attention.

She waves hello to everyone and everything, including the dogs, the mirror, and everything in her room, especially the light hanging from the ceiling. We have to admire that and wave at it every time we go to her room. We also have to wave at and touch the "A" on her door when we wake up in the morning.

She has lots of consonants now: mama, dada, nana, wawa, and baba. She is very chatty.

She loves feeling the water come out of the tub faucet and makes a beeline for the bathroom when she hears us turn it on.

She shakes her head "no" all the time, but rarely really means "no" by it.

She screams a lot to test out her voice. She does it when she's sitting in her high chair and also when we're walking through stores and restaurants. It's a tad embarrassing, but it's funny too because she's screaming bloody murder but she's smiling and laughing while she's doing it so you know she's just seeing what she can make her voice do. All of the old ladies and men in the grocery store think it's hilarious.

She loves riding her horse around the house. Unfortunately, it terrifies George and he chases her, barking, the whole time.

She loves playing in the kitchen when we're in there. She plays with Sesame Street magnets (that used to be Uncle Kev's), the bottom food cupboard, the spice rack, and the cork trivets on the baker's rack. She also especially loves sticking her hand in the dogs' water bowl, but we discourage that when we can catch her in time. Yuck!!

She loves wrestling couch pillows. She grabs them and then falls over dramatically, laughing hysterically.

She has 2 teeth on the bottom in the middle, and it looks like 3 spread out across the top (on the sides, the middle ones haven't come in on the top yet). Her teeth might be the most adorable things I have ever seen.

She has to have her mama rock her standing up next to the crib for a few minutes before she can settle down to sleep at bedtime. As long as I do this, she never ever cries when I put her down for the night. However, she cries every time I put her down for naptime.

One of her favorite things to do is look at books and turn the pages by herself. Her favorite books have real pictures of babies in them, her "Peekaboo" book from Aunt Meg and "All About Me" that I picked up. She can read those over and over again. There is a mirror in the back of the Peekaboo book that she kisses every time.

She chases the boys at the babysitter's house. I don't know if this is cute, or terrifying.

I'm trying to teach her "So Big!" and to clap, because she loves it when I clap. The other day when we picked her up at my mom's house I picked her up and first she did raised up her arms for "So Big!" and then she clapped right after! It was like she was showing me all of her new tricks at once. She hasn't done either one of those things since then. I have a feeling she will soon though, at the rate she's going!

Teeth

2009-02-25T20:41:00.007-05:00

It turns out Annie has not 1 tooth, but 2 teeth poking out on the bottom. A nice wide ledge of teeth that she tested out by scraping up both ends of her crib. Doh! We decided it was time to start experimenting with some finger foods to use those teeth for good for a change. We started out with american cheese, and oh man, did she enjoy it. She wasn't sure about the chewing and the sharp-ish taste at first, but after a little while she was munching away happily, smiling and laughing and holding it up in the air with joy. I told her that's how I feel when I eat cheese too, it's just not socially acceptable to do that when you're an adult, so she should enjoy it now.

Cheese! from porkchop on Vimeo.

Tonight we tried out some of those Gerber puffs, sweet potato flavored, and she could not get enough of them. So yay for finger foods! Today she also made a grab for Paul's sandwich, so I think she's pretty into this whole eating like a grown person thing!

Bonus video: I love it because it totally looks like she's checking to make sure I'm recording before she starts walking. She's catching on!

Walker from porkchop on Vimeo.

Things I Love About This Weekend

2009-02-15T15:00:00.007-05:00

In list form, since I'm feeling exceptionally lazy about blogging lately:

1. Our baby got her first tooth!

2. Feeling like a super mom when I had to pull out all of the stops to clear up a teething-induced stuffy nose so she could get back to sleep. After 2 hours of salt water rinses, suctioning, rocking in a steamy bathroom, and elevating the crib mattress, she was asleep by midnight with a nice clear nose and slept until 7:30 the next morning. Phew!

3. Valentine's Day, which included an awesome robot gift bag filled with chocolate from the hubby, awesome presents from my mom, valentines from my family, a trip to Corning Museum of Glass with my little family, followed by "the best pizza ever" (to quote Paul) from a cute little pizza shop (with really neat recycled utensils) in the adorable village of Corning.

4. Annie's delight in her new "big girl stroller." We put it together Friday night and she had to get in it right away to take a few trips around the kitchen and living room.

5. Friday lunch with Paul and Annie. Annie's big thrill lately is sitting in the high chair in restaurants (or Target) and having her fruit, which she got to do with her daddy on Friday when we went out for subs (and again on Valentine's Day!)

6. A quiet Sunday at home with my family. 2 and a half hour naps for all of us, dancing in the living room, reading stories, reading a magazine during afternoon nap, watching a movie, a good, healthy dinner.

7. Monday off for President's Day, a whole extra day home with my baby!

8. Finally starting to work out again, and enjoying the burst of energy and sore muscles that mean I'm back on track.

9. Annie's new tricks & habits, including: letting out constant little chuckles while she is playing, lifting blankets we drape over our faces to play peekaboo, shaking her head "no", dancing, rearranging the food cupboard.

10. Filing for our tax return. It will feel good to get that furnace paid off!

Dancin'

2009-02-08T18:02:00.001-05:00

Starting to boogie a little bit...

Dancing from porkchop on Vimeo.

Dancing from porkchop on Vimeo.

Stinker

2009-01-25T09:23:00.004-05:00

Wednesday morning: I'm at work, Paul wakes around 8am to hear not talking, like we usually hear from Miss Annie, but clunking noises, like someone might be working at something.

Not sure what to expect, he walks into her room, where she looks up and gives him a giant "good morning!" smile from underneath a pile of mobile.

The whole thing was unscrewed and off the side of the crib. Of course he wants to believe she's a genius and figured out how to work the screw (it's big and plastic), but I think it was more of a pulling at it until it popped off sort of thing.

Either way, mobile days are over and the crib is looking rather plain without it!Stinker.

The Feet Thing

2009-01-17T07:36:00.005-05:00

Annie went to the caridiologist this week to get the whole "cold feet thing" checked out. In a nutshell, it's very common for babies to have cold feet and hands because their circulation systems are still maturing. It's even common for them to turn all sorts of colors, like hers were doing. Before he told me this I told him how her feet were bright purple while we were in our pediatrician's office, and he smiled at me expectedly and said, "and what did she say?" I said, "she was concerned, and that's why we're here." He looked baffled and said, "well, she should have told you that it's absolutely normal." Sooo, basically we paid for an ultrasound and all sorts of cardio testing to be informed that it was something that is very common and will go away.

I don't know, I still think it's good that she's so thorough and makes sure we look into things, just in case. It could have been a much different story, and I'm so glad it wasn't! And it is nice to have a doctor who hears things and does her best to prove that it's nothing, rather than blow it off. Because I've heard horror stories. So I'm still glad we went.

It also was kind of fun, to be honest with you! It was a pediatric cardiologist, so there were toys everywhere and the nurses and doctor were so good with kids. They loved Annie, she charmed everyone. She has this thing where when we introduce her to someone, she smiles really big and holds her arms out to people to be held by them, and my lord, people LOVE. IT. I mean, who wouldn't love a baby who is so friendly? The nurse who prepped her and ran the tests was awesome. She sang to her and played with her through the whole thing, Annie didn't even mind having 20 stickers with clamps hanging off them pasted all over her chest or blood pressure cuffs on her arms and thighs (little baby cuffs, so cute! Oh, and the nurse theorized that she might not even feel the leg squeezing since her thighs are so chunky. He.) Then we went to see the doctor, who was equally awesome. Very reassuring, knows his stuff, great with kids, genuinely seems to love what he does. Can't do better than that.

He said it was still good to have her in so she could get a full heart workup. The only issue he found was a murmur. He said it has a very "musical tone to it," which Paul found hilarious. He said he's not concerned about it and we shouldn't be either, that it shouldn't cause her any problems, and that he just wants to see us next year to check it to make sure it's still nice and musical. (He didn't actually say that last part, I just imagine it's something he would say.) So we go back next year almost to the day. I've got to be honest, I'm looking forward to seeing these people again, that's how great they were!

Funny story, I told my mom that the doctor said it was so common it has a name, but he didn't write down the name, so I couldn't remember what it was. So Paul acts like he's thinking about it for a minute, and says, "Hmmm...I'm pretty sure he called it 'Pediatrician Paranosis.'" He. Poor Dr. M. Seriously, we're glad she's thorough!

This week Annie is saying "Ba ba ba ba" over and over again, and if you say it to her, she'll repeat it back. Yesterday she threw in a couple of "Pa pa"s and "Ma ma"s. Thursday Wendy said that she was crawling towards a big book on the floor and when Wendy said "Annie no!" and she stopped crawling and headed back to Wendy. Wendy was amazed. I was surprised too. I've been working on it since she started crawling, and usually when I say "Annie....no...." in a firm tone, she stops what she's doing and looks at me, but she'll go back to it. I'm very excited that she's starting to get what it means! Especially since she's so active--she crawls from the living room to the kitchen now, and there are a lot of no no's out there. And I'm afraid walking is going to be here before we know it: when she's standing she takes steps. Paul said she went from one end of her crawl and cruise to the other the other day. Lord help us. I'm still hoping for a couple more months.

So this whole "understanding words" thing means that I really, really need to focus on cleaning up my, ahem, language. I will be on the lookout for some good, catchy alternatives to the usual swear words I throw around. Which have not been good lately. Oh no, they have not been good. Hopefully something will stick soon!

The Holiday Post

2009-01-11T10:27:00.010-05:00

So I suppose it's about time I wrote about Christmas. This is also the longest we've left the tree and decorations up. Guess I'm having a hard time believing it came and went so quickly!

We were so excited for our first Christmas with Annie. In the week leading up to it, she started creeping, then crawling, then discovered a love for wrapping paper. Perfect! Christmas Eve my family came over for junk food dinner and sibling gifts, per tradition. We had yummy french bread pizza, chicken wing dip, marinated mozzarella, and lots and lots of desserts (cookies and monkey bread, YUM). Annie had a blast playing with her aunts and uncles and grandma and grandpa.

Christmas morning we woke up and opened our presents from Santa. She had a grand time helping rip the paper off. We made the rookie mistake of leaving her big gift in the box rather than assembling it before-hand, so we quickly put that together so she could check it out. A few weeks before Christmas I saw a commercial for a crawling/cruising/standing toy from Fisher Price. I had to have it, it was so damn cute. And she loves it, so yay! Paul stood her up to see the monkey at the top the first time she played with it, and within days she was crawling right over to pull herself up to play with him, and pulling herself up to stand on pretty much everything else too. We have a super baby, I'm telling you.
So after playing hard with her new toys, she promptly passed out and slept through present-opening at Grandma & Grandpa's. Luckily she woke up before my mom had to leave for work. She got lots of great presents from Grandma & Grandpa: a car/walker, a puzzle, a book about what snowmen do at night (one of Kev's old favorites), a stacker toy, her first baseball tee, a gloworm that she really loved and needed us to take it out of the package immediately, and her very favorite, a package of popping blocks. She hasn't let those out of her sight since!
Christmas dinner was delicious as always, desserts were fabulous, and the game playing was so fun we ended up staying until 10! We played lots of Meg's Wii and lots of Apples to Apples, a gift from my parents. Annie took a mid-day nap for an hour or so (her Dad slept for 3 hours!!) and then took a 3-hour evening nap. We think she thought it was time for bed, because she doesn't usually sleep that late for evening nap.

Friday after Christmas Paul's Mom and Harvey came over for a spaghetti dinner and presents. Annie got more fun presents (a singing puppy, a top, a butterfly, a couple of outfits) and we had a yummy dinner and some grape pie for dessert. Annie had a great time visiting with her Grandma and ripping into some more wrapping paper. New Year's Eve turned into a celebration of our first year of being parents: instead of our usual wild parties (not really), Annie and Griffin had a play date and the parents and Uncle Kris had some yummy pizza and Apples to Apples (an easy game to play in the living room while corralling crawling and toddling babies). Fin lasted until 9:45, which amazed all of us! Kris stayed on and played some Texas Hold Em with us after Kelly, Mike, and Griffin left. We all had a great time, and it was a nice, relaxing way to ring in the New Year as a family.

Annie torturing poor Griffin, and then Fin telling her to just stay in that exersaucer already:

So now our baby is 7 months old and she is crawling and standing all over the place. I am amazed and proud at how strong she is and how quickly she is learning how to do these things, but at the same time I'm hoping it all starts to slow down just a little bit. I don't want her baby-hood to pass by too fast, I'm enjoying it way too much! But at the same time every time I see her do something new I get a flash of all of the great stuff still to come, and I am so excited to watch it all play out. Oh yeah, and in other news: our bathroom sink broke on Christmas Eve, so everyone had to wash their hands in the kitchen sink all night. This past Friday, Paul's muffler fell off in the intersection before our house on his way home from work. Then the same Friday night we came home from celebrating Paul & Kaggie's birthday and our furnace was not working. So there are our 3 things, that's enough for us, okay universe? Counting our blessings: Paul got a beautiful new bathroom sink installed in time for our New Year's Eve gathering, we were able to get a new furnace installed in just a few hours the day after it broke by some very nice men from Crossfield (who saw we had a baby and made sure we had heat again as soon as possible and for no payments/zero interest for 9 months, thank god), and Paul rarely drives his car, so it's not an emergency to get that fixed. But still, hopefully that will be the end of it for us for a while!

Videos of Annie opening and playing with her presents are here: http://www.vimeo.com/porkchopandpaul/videos

This one is my favorite:

Annie's New Crawl and Cruise from porkchop on Vimeo.

Goodbye, Hello

2009-01-03T08:27:00.006-05:00

Goodbye 2008! You were a great year, our best ever.Hello 2009!

Hello crawling, standing baby! Where did you come from so fast??

Crawling from porkchop on Vimeo.

Standing from porkchop on Vimeo.

How we knew it was time to lower the crib...

2008-12-19T07:49:00.005-05:00

Yikes.

Time to Lower the Crib!! from porkchop on Vimeo.

6 Months, Sympathy

2008-12-06T09:07:00.005-05:00

Annie turned six months old this past Thursday, which is unbelievable to me. She is wearing outfits that looked huge to me when I first put them in her dresser. It's all going so fast, but it's so much fun. She is very chatty now, plays peekaboo, and prefers that we leave her toys in her bucket so she can pull them out herself. She can stand while holding onto something, she has such strong little legs. She has also been very mobile lately, rolling around like crazy (both ways now, thank goodness!) and getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth. We're thinking it won't be long before she starts crawling, lord help us all! She's very much drawn to things she can't have (like all babies are): paper, diaper cream, my mom's VCR. This should be an interesting ride.

Moving from porkchop on Vimeo.

Yesterday she started veggies! We tried squash first, and she seemed like she liked it, gobbled it right up with only a few "what is this" faces. She gets excited when I come over with a bowl and spoon now, so that's a good sign. Hopefully she'll be a good eater!

Funny story: We were in Old Navy yesterday looking for pants, since she's outgrown her old ones. She woke up from her nap a bit cranky, so I decided to take her to the dressing room to feed her. We've never done that before, and she was all excited when she figured out what we were doing. She would eat for a few seconds, then pull off and look up at me with a huge smile. She was enjoying herself immensely, until a very unhappy toddler entered the dressing rooms. He was crying and crying, and as soon as she heard it she pulled off and looked up at me with huge eyes and a startled expression. I told her it was okay and she went back to eating for a few seconds. But then he kicked it up a notch, and I don't know if she felt sympathy for the kid or if she just didn't like the way his cries were echoing in there, but she pulled off and started screaming immediately. It was such a sad face, which of course was hilarious to me. Poor baby, here she is all freaked out and her mother is laughing at her. It was too funny though. I had to sing a few bars of rubber duckie to calm her down, and just kept singing a few lines each time she seemed like she was getting upset again. The kid and his mom left after a while, Annie finished eating, and she was much happier after that. Too funny though. I like to think I'm raising a compassionate child, more compassionate than her mother anyway. ;)

This one is also titled: Why Babies Don't Sleep With Blankets.

Annie vs. Furry Blanket from porkchop on Vimeo.

Thankful

2008-11-27T08:22:00.009-05:00

The obligatory Thanksgiving Day "things I'm grateful for" post, inspired by my friend Sarah:

Knowing my grandma is always watching over us. Every once in a while I get a really strong feeling that she's near. It overwhelmed me at the ultrasound when we found out we were having a girl. I know she's been with us every step of the way, and will watch over her namesake for the rest of her life.

My hubby. He is loving, snuggly, goofy, caring, helpful, smart, handy, and a million other things I could go on and on about here. But above all, he is a wonderful father and husband who makes us laugh until our bellies hurt. Annie and I are lucky girls.

My family. Mom for her neverending dedication and love for her kids, grandbaby, and grandpuppies. Dad for his sense of humor and unconditional love for all of us. Jason for his sweetness and his ability to always say something thought-provoking. Megan for the goofy sense of humor she still hasn't lost and unending desire to stay close to her family. Kathryn for her hilariousness and her loyalty to her family. Kevin for his desire to be a good uncle and little brother, and his love of sharing with all of us. We are so lucky to have all of them.

Meg's fiance Tim. We already think of him as a brother-, son-in-law, and uncle to Annie, but we are so excited that they are making it official. They are perfect together. I'm so happy she found someone who is so good to her.

My in-laws. Man, did I luck out in this department. Paul's mom Sue is sweet, loving, and never judgmental. And I am so glad she found Harvey, a sweet man who takes care of her, and treats us as if we were his own kids.

My pups. My loving, snuggly, cute, totally obnoxious doggies. We can always count on them to be incredibly happy to see us when we walk through that door. They are the definition of unconditional love, for us, and for the new little sister we brought home this year. Home would feel absolutely empty without them.

A wonderful day care situation. I still wish I could be home with her all of the time, but we lucked out in the sense that Annie has time with her grandma, her mom and dad, and a wonderful couple who are always so happy to see her, and treat her as if she were one of their own. Which is encouraging, because their kids are polite, well behaved, and very sweet to Annie. We pretty much hit the day care jackpot.

Fridays at home with Annie. I can't express how wonderful it is to have 3 days at home with Annie even though I work full time, and to know she has a full day at home with her Dad during the week. The long days are completely worth it.

A job I enjoy. After 7 years I am still loving what I'm doing. I'm challenged every day and I have the opportunity to work on several very different projects. It is flexible and relaxed, and I have very few complaints. It really is an ideal situation for me.

Wonderful coworkers/former coworkers. I have made so many good friends working at my company, friends who I've worked with, and friends who I've met through them. I know we'll have them for many, many years. They have done so much for me, more than they know.

My softball team. A great group of people. I love that we get to see each other every week for months out of the year and we never get sick of hanging out together. I love that we are all competitive, but in different ways. I love that we can pick on each other and laugh at each other without anyone having hurt feelings. I love that we all want each other to do well.

Kelly, Mike, Marce, Kelly, and Kris. Julie, Mike, and Tony. A great group of buddies. We love being with them, and try to see them as often as we can. They love Annie as if she were their niece. They make us laugh until our sides hurt. The best kind of friends.

Griffin and John. Annie is so lucky to have had built in friends when she came into this world. Or future boyfriends/husbands, depending on how you want to look at it. ;) And what an amazing gift to be asked to be someone's godparent. We are so honored.

And of course, I am so, so thankful for this incredible little girl:

She is healthy, happy, beautiful, amazing, and has shown us what true unconditional love feels like. Her smile melts my heart. I've never felt this kind of grateful in my life.

Photo Shoot Break

2008-11-23T09:36:00.004-05:00

It's been way too long since I last posted! Update on the rolling: this week she made vast improvement rolling onto her back, so we're doing much better. In fact, she's really been getting around lately, between the rolling and the almost creeping. I think she'll be crawling before we know it! She is still waking up in the night, but only once, and that's because we're having trouble figuring out her eating schedule now that we've introduced cereal. I'm sure that will work itself out soon though. I'm not sweating it too much because she's been nursing for much shorter periods lately, so when we get up in the night she eats for about 10 minutes and goes right back to sleep. She's such a happy, easy going baby. I can't say it enough, I really lucked out.

Here is a video of Annie playing after her Christmas card photo shoot. The sound is really wonky, but I kept it because the faces she makes in this video are so entertaining. At about 1:55 you can see the "drop everything I'm doing to watch George walk by" face. We've been seeing that one a lot lately.

I suppose it goes without saying that it is extremely difficult to get a good picture of a 5-month-old and 2 dogs. Near impossible really. In the final one you can only see the back of George's head next to Annie & Gus in the chair, because George decided he was done sitting in front of them and needed to look out the window. It was the only one where Annie wasn't a blur of motion trying to grab at poor Gussy. Needless to say, we all needed a break after we were done. :)

Post Christmas Card Photo Shoot from porkchop on Vimeo.

5 Months

2008-11-07T08:40:00.003-05:00

Annie turned 5 months old on election day. I have no words for how nerve-wracking and exciting that day was. We stayed up way too late to watch Obama's acceptance speech, which of course was totally worth it. So inspiring. We are feeling better about where this country is headed already. That night Annie woke up at 4 in the morning. She's been waking herself up in the night lately by rolling over onto her belly. She's having trouble figuring out how to roll back to her back, so she gets frustrated and lets out these little screams until you come in and roll her over. We don't know what to do about this. We bought her one of those things that keep them from rolling over in the crib, but she gets out of it. Sometimes she's okay with that, I come in in the morning and it's at the other end of the crib, and she's lying on her belly, snoozing. But most of the time she doesn't want to be on her belly so she lies there and screams until we come in to roll her over. So needless to say, we're putting her on the floor to practice her rolling as much as we can! It's almost funny how mad she gets when she can't get back over. She doesn't even try, she gets onto her belly and then gets really angry. And they say rolling from their front to their back is easier for babies. Hmph! In other news, she's started her cereal! We tried right after her 4-month checkup, but she didn't seem very interested and wasn't getting the hang of the spoon, so I decided to wait a few more weeks. We started last weekend and she's doing much better. She seems to really enjoy it, she grabs at my arms and sticks out her tongue for more. She's getting much better with the spoon too. Next month we can move onto fruits and veggies. Man though, is that going to be messy. The cereal is messy and sticky enough! Totally worth watching her face when she reaches for more though. She's definitely into this eating thing!

It's a new day...

2008-11-05T08:29:00.004-05:00

...and we're feeling so hopeful for our daughter's future!

Halloween

2008-11-02T21:04:00.007-05:00

Annie went trick-or-treating at Grandma and Grandpa's and got her first sucker!

Lolllipop, lollipop from porkchop on Vimeo.

She pooped!

2008-10-24T17:48:00.001-04:00

And it was everything you'd imagine a 7-day poop would be. ;)

Quirks

2008-10-24T08:54:00.003-04:00

So Annie's feet get really cold at night. We put a sleeper with feet and warm fuzzy socks on her every night, and in the morning they are so cold they're white. The bottoms of her legs are always cold too. The rest of her is fine. It only happens at night, during the day they're fine. I didn't really think too much of it, until the day Paul was taking her out of her car seat and noticed that the lower part of her legs were blue. Huh. So we mentioned it to our pediatrician at her 4-month check-up. She was a little concerned, especially because for some reason at the appointment her feet were hot and bright purple/pink. I told her that was unusual, that we hadn't seen that before. She asked if Raynauds runs in our family and I told her I had never heard anything like that so I didn't think so. So she did lots of pulse-checking and poking around her legs and belly and decided that maybe it would be best to get an ultrasound to check things out, make sure nothing was getting cut off on the way down to her legs.

My mom came with me to the ultrasound on Tuesday. It took forever. They took a ton of pictures of her insides, all around her belly. The first technician asked me to tell her why my doctor wanted us there, because she said she was a bit confused by her notes. I explained what the problem was and told her she was wondering if her aorta is being cut off somewhere in her groin area. She responded, "but she hasn't felt any masses or anything?" I had been really good about not worrying up to that point, telling myself it was most likely nothing to worry about. But as soon as she said the word "masses" a million worries flooded to the front of my mind. "Great," I thought to myself. "Here we go."

The exam took forever. The first technician couldn't find one of her ovaries so she went to get someone to take another look. Annie was so patient through the first part, which took about 45 minutes, but she was getting really tired and hungry, plus we had to hold her arms and legs down because she kept grabbing the wand cord, so she screamed through the second half. Poor baby! We finally got out of there about two and a half hours after we got there. And then I waited for 2 days, the word "masses" floating around my brains the whole time.

I talked to the doctor last night, and she said the results looked good. They didn't really find anything. Phew! But she did say they said it was a "suboptimal view" since they couldn't see everything in her belly due to "bowel gas." Surprise, surprise. Especially since she hadn't pooped in a few days! So to be safe she called a pediatric cardiologist. He said she's most likely fine, since the pulse and oxygen counts were fine. But he wants us to schedule an appointment to come in, just to be safe. It will probably be a few months before we can get in, but I'm not going to worry until then. I think she probably just gets cold feet. I am glad that our doctor is so thorough though. Nice to know she doesn't just brush things off! I'm going to need to learn to be more like her though. As I learned from my "cyst that could have been a blood clot" incident back when I was pregnant, I really need to learn to pay more attention to these things and not just brush them off as nothing! You really never know.

So yeah, the poop thing. That was Tuesday, and now it's Friday, still no poop. It's been 7 days! It's normal for a breastfed baby to go a few days, even 5 or 6 in between poops (formula-fed babies poop once or twice a day!) But she usually poops every 2 or 3 days, so 7 was getting a little ridiculous. And I'll tell you what. Her gas stinks. It could knock you over at this point. Also: I'm a little afraid of what a 7-day poop is going to look like. The 2 or 3 day poops are pretty explosive.

Our doctor gave us a few options. Pear juice sounded the best to me. Unfortunately, I just tried giving it to her and she hates it! She kept making that baby "what the hell is this crap?" face and pushing it away. I tried telling her that this was her most pleasant option, but she didn't listen. So now we're going to try the baking soda bath. I hope that works, because otherwise we will need to "take her temperature." Which really isn't so bad, we have to do that every once in a while anyway, but doesn't pear juice sound so much better??

Tell this kid to poop already!

The Boxer

2008-10-17T23:24:00.001-04:00

The Boxer from porkchop on Vimeo.

4 Month Outtakes

2008-10-10T07:09:00.007-04:00

So we attempted to get Annie's 4-month picture for her monthly series last Sunday. It was too dark so we weren't successful (as evidenced by the following crappy pictures), but there were lots of fun developments during this photo shoot.

It was the first time she's noticed Puppy sitting next to her.

It was the first time she decided to lean over to try to grab Puppy.
It was the first time she didn't fall forward onto her face when she tried to sit without leaning back on the chair. She sat like that for a while too, just looking around!
It seems way too early for her to be sitting on her own, but I think she's definitely moving in that direction!

In other news, she's in the 75th percentile for weight, 95th for length. She is wearing sizes 6 months and 9 months because her legs are so long. She wears 12 month socks! I think Paul just might get his volleyball player!

5 Years

2008-10-04T11:25:00.017-04:00

Last Saturday, September 27th, was our 5th wedding anniversary. We decided to take an impromptu trip up to Niagara Falls to celebrate. The plan was to go to Niagara-on-the-Lake, check out the falls, and take Annie swimming in the hotel pool. We had to keep her out of the sun all summer because she's too young to wear sunscreen, and I couldn't wait to take her for her first swim. I took 488 pictures over the weekend! I whittled it down to 88 good ones though. Man, I love digital cameras. :) On our way up to find Niagara-on-the-Lake, we saw a sign for the butterfly conservatory and decided to check it out. I'm glad we did, we really enjoyed ourselves. Plus, it was fitting that we visit there: we released butterflies at our wedding as a tribute to my grandmother (the one Annie is named for). She loved butterflies. The butterfly house was huge and had a million butterflies (I don't really know how many they have, it just seemed like a whole lot), and the Niagara botanical gardens surrounded the house. Gorgeous. We saw lots of flowers and trees that we want for our yard. Annie was enthralled with the butterflies when we first walked in. So cute!

Butterfly Conservatory from porkchop on Vimeo.

On our way out of the conservatory, I got a phone call from my sister Megan. I didn't answer right away because we were packing up the car, so when we got in the car to start driving to the falls, I listened to her message. She said to call her back when I got a chance, she had exciting news. I said, "She is so engaged." Paul got all excited. I haven't been wondering when they were going to get engaged or anything, so I don't know why I thought that right away. She and Tim have been together for 7 years and there was no doubt in my mind that they would be married someday. He is wonderful to her, and they are perfect for each other. They are both in grad school, and have a lot going on, so it made sense for them to wait a few years before getting married. But as soon as I heard that message I was so excited. I'm glad I turned out to be right, I might have been disappointed! ;) Paul was like, "call her back, call her back!!" Sure enough, Tim proposed that morning at a cider mill near their apartment in Michigan. Yay!! And too cool that they got engaged on our 5-year anniversary. Tim had no idea, but was pretty pleased with himself when Meg told him. How perfect is that?? So now we're all thrilled and excited for their wedding, which should be the summer after next. Can't wait! So after that excitement, we checked into our hotel right around the corner from Clifton Hill, and took a walk down to the falls. It was getting dark, the falls were beautiful. After our walk, we stopped by the restaurant that shares a parking lot with our hotel. We ate on the patio because it was beautiful out. I had spinach gnocchi and Paul had some sort of meat (I'm pretty sure it was steak). :) Their bread was fabulous. The staff was really nice and loved Annie. We got free dessert to go because they screwed up our ticket in the kitchen so it took a while for our food to arrive. Which figured because Annie was happy for the amount of time it would have taken us to get our dinner if they had brought it out on time. She got cranky when we were waiting and I had to hold her while I was eating. Which is what we end up doing at home a lot of the time anyway! She has a knack for getting fussy right when we want to eat. She's such a good baby otherwise though, I really can't complain about that one thing!

Since dinner was so late, we only had about 20 minutes in the pool before it closed. Which turned out to be just the right amount of time. The pool was a bit cold, and I didn't feed her before going for fear that she would puke in the pool. ;) So she seemed to not mind it for a few minutes, and then let out a little scream, probably because it was cold. It was pretty cute anyway.

The next day I tried the hotel breakfast and decided it was gross, so we found a breakfast buffet at a restaurant on Lundy's Lane and pigged out. Yum. We walked down to the falls in a drizzling rain, but it cleared up and the sun came out a while later. It turned into a beautiful weekend, which was great because they said it was supposed to rain all weekend. We never did end up going to Niagara-on-the-Lake, we spent too much time walking along the falls. We wanted to go down to the barge stuck at the top of the falls to read the plaque about it because Paul had never seen it, and all I could remember was that two guys were stuck there overnight. I told him I thought it happened in the 30's, but he couldn't believe that it would be stuck there that long. Turns out it happened in 1918! They saved themselves by opening the bottom doors which wedged into the rocks. It's amazing that they survived. Plus they probably had no idea how close they were since it was dark. Terrifying!Anyway, it was a really long walk, but we enjoyed it. I fed Annie in the little park by the barge and Paul took a little nap on our blanket. On our walk back the sun came out full force and we saw rainbows over the falls. Overall, a wonderful way to celebrate 5 years of marriage, and the next phase of our marriage as parents. Yesterday a woman at the outlet mall was telling me how cute Annie is, and then said, "you are so lucky." She was so right.

Sunday Date

2008-09-26T09:28:00.009-04:00

Annie is still surprising us every day with what she's learning to do! She rolled over a bunch of times at Wendy's house this week, both front to back and back to front. She's still playing with her feet a lot, and is now putting them in her mouth, which is pretty hilarious. She started blowing raspberries last Sunday night, and will mimic me when I do it for her. Too funny! This video is so dark, you'll probably just have to take my word for it that she's doing it. I promise I'm shopping for a video camera!

Raspberries from porkchop on Vimeo.

Last Sunday was an exciting day. It was my Mom's birthday, so we went over to their house for a birthday breakfast (pancakes with strawberries & whipped cream, eggs, bacon, and cinnamon crumb cake, yum). After that Paul and I went to Buffalo for our first NFL game! They raffle off tickets at work and I have been trying to win them for years now. I finally won and was super excited. Until I remembered it was my mom's birthday. Darn it! She was great about it, of course, telling us we should go and that she'd watch Annie for us. She's the best. :) This is what Annie was doing when we left. She was all partied out:

The game was awesome. There were sooo many people there and it was so loud and exciting. Our seats were great, section 104, 22 rows up from the field. It drizzled off and on all day, but we didn't really get wet. The game itself was really exciting--they were losing for pretty much the whole game, but rallied in the 4th quarter to win the game with a field goal in the final 3 seconds. Awesome. Also, a relief, because I was getting a little nervous about how that crazy crowd would be if they lost! Traffic was horrendous on the way home, so we decided to go eat to wait it out a little. It didn't really help (traffic was still bad getting on the thruway), but dinner was delicious! We found an Olive Garden and pigged out. Yum. Overall, a great day. We missed Annie a lot, but it was nice to get out just the two of us again!

Playtime

2008-09-19T12:29:00.010-04:00

Lots of fun developments in Annie's world this past week or so. She has really started playing on her own: holding onto her feet and rolling from side to side, screaming at her mobile every time one of the animals goes by, picking up toys and putting them in her mouth. It's so much fun watching her play and seeing all of the huge smiles! The other day when I was changing her diaper she looked up at me and started making little clucking noises with her tongue. I did it back to her a few times and she gave me a huge smile and kept clucking away. Last night I asked Mom if Annie ever clucks at her. She said, "No, but I cluck for her all the time." Apparently, she likes it when Grandma does that, because she's been trying to get me to do it for her every time I change her diaper now!Here are a couple of videos of Annie screaming at her mobile and playing with her toys. They're really dark because our camera is not so great inside, but you get the idea anyway!

Screaming from porkchop on Vimeo.

Playtime from porkchop on Vimeo.

My Sleepy Family

2008-09-14T11:39:00.008-04:00

This was the scene at 11:30 am Sunday morning:(Paul was in the exact same position in our bed, but you'll have to take my word for it because I didn't have the nerve to take a picture of him sleeping. The flash might have woken him up and he's a grump in the morning!)

We all went to bed around midnight last night (Annie slept from 9-11:30, woke up to eat, and fell back asleep around 11:45). I woke up at 10 this morning and immediately turned the monitor volume up all the way to make sure she was still breathing in there. I took the dogs out, ate breakfast, did a load of laundry, cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom, and they were both still snoozing. I came in to check on her and promptly knocked into the exersaucer when I went to open the window. That was enough to finally wake her up. Man this kid can sleep. She definitely got that from her dad!

where I get on my high horse and then get back off...

2008-09-12T09:58:00.009-04:00

It's Friday again, hooray! A rainy day too, my favorite. I just finished another book, Annie is napping on my lap, and I am looking forward to another 3 whole days at home with her.

Last weekend was fun: fall ball started so Annie and I went to keep score Friday night, and then out to Tully's afterwards. Saturday after Paul got home from work we drove down to Ithaca for the afternoon. It threatened rain all day but we stayed dry. We hung out on the Commons mostly. We bought a bunch of stuff for Annie: some books at a used book store, and a ton of fall clothes at the thrift store. I've been really into buying used lately. It makes sense, especially for kids clothes. Kids outgrow their stuff so fast, it's always hardly ever worn. You find so much that looks new or barely worn. And since I got pregnant and had friends offering me things all over the place, I've really been thinking lately about how important it is to reuse and recycling clothes and books and toys. I mean, how can you not? "Go green" is everywhere these days! That's not to say that we won't be buying new clothes from now on. In fact, we stopped at Carter's at the outlet mall on the way home to pick up some more fall clothes. We're just going to try to be a little more conscious of recycling and contributing to stores run by Goodwill and Salvation Army. It's driving me crazy to see all of the stuff people are just throwing away on "big garbage day" in our town. Donate it, or give it to someone, it's so easy to do!! I hate to think about that baby stuff winding up in a landfill when it could go to someone who can use it. Arg.

Anyhoo, I got sidetracked on my high horse, what was that all about? I'll go back to talking about my weekend, journal style. It's boring, but it's safe. What I started saying was, Ithaca was fun, the people watching there is always excellent. We fed Annie a bottle on one of the cement walls in the Commons, and watched the crowds go by. I finally found an Ugly Doll for Annie, I had been looking for one forever. Had some fabulous pizza (white pizza with ricotta, yum) from a local pizza shop. She had a nice nap while we walked around. Saw these two playing the guitar, singing, and dancing:

They were both so happy, having so much fun. It made our day.

On Sunday Paul played in a golf tournament with his friend Tony, so Annie and I had a Mommy/daughter day. We stopped over to see Grandma & Grandpa for a little bit, then went shopping at the grocery store and Target. Afterwards we came home to play, snuggle, and pack Annie's bag for day care. Annie's first week at day care went great! She was there on Monday and Tuesday. Wendy is wonderful. She's so happy to have Annie, and is so great about filling us in on her day. Annie gets so smiley when she sees her and the other kids, it's so cute. She's always loved watching her Uncle Kevin hop around all over the place, so having other kids to watch is right up her alley. Wendy said she had a great time sitting in her bumbo watching everything. She didn't nap as much as usual, too much excitement! She was so tired each night. It made me happy to think about her having fun over there. She ate a ton of food this week too!! Definitely must have been having another growth spurt. Some of the clothes she is wearing are sized 6 and 9 months! She is outgrowing things so fast. My peanut is not going to be my peanut for much longer I'm afraid!

Wednesday Annie had her first full day home with her Daddy. They went out to see Annie's Grandma Sue. She recently had knee surgery, so she was itching to get out of her apartment. They went down to the lake and had some KFC for lunch. Paul and Annie picked me up after work and we drove over to Moe's for a burrito and then out for ice cream afterwards. We stopped at the library on the way home to pick up some books and dvds. They had a full day! Yesterday she was back at Grandma's. They had a lovely day, visiting Aunt Kathryn in Brockport and Mom's friends at work. Mom was happy to have some Annie time. :)

I am feeling really happy about her day care situation. She's getting lots of Grandma time in, time with other kids and Wendy, and time with her Mom and Dad. Of course I'd love it if I could be home with her all of the time, but I am feeling good about how it's working out. This will be good.

Roll Over, Roll Over

2008-09-09T13:15:00.003-04:00

She rolled over last night! Lately she's been rolling onto her side from her back but doesn't make it all the way over. She couldn't figure out how to get her arm out of the way. But we were both playing with her last night in the living room and Paul got up to go out to the kitchen for something (food, most likely). I put her on her tummy for some tummy time and she straightened out her arm and used her other arm to push herself all the way over! Poor Paul missed it, and she didn't do it again. We are very excited, but also feeling like this is going way too fast! Also, we need to start baby proofing, NOW.

One of her attempts:

New Things

2008-09-07T15:11:00.006-04:00

New things Annie has done in the past 48 hours:

Talking a lot more than usual, and with several different people
Put her pacifier in her mouth
Consciously held onto toys
Mouthing toys
Held her feet
Scooching (that's my word for folding up her legs to scoot herself around. Yesterday she scooched off the playmat, today I found her sideways in her crib. She's been doing it for a few weeks in her crib, but she does it every time we put her down now.)

It sure is fun watching her discover how to do all of these things!

4 Days On, 4 Days Off

2008-09-06T10:05:00.004-04:00

Going back to work didn't go too bad. I missed her like crazy, of course, and the guilt is awful. It will take a while to try to get over that. But I didn't even cry, which was amazing because I cried quite a few times during my last week at home just thinking about leaving her. She was in a good mood the first day though, and my Mom said she was really good all day, slept a lot and was happy when she was awake. That's how it's gone for the past few weeks. She only had one fussy day, and my mom is really enjoying spending the time with her. Such a relief. I know it would have been 10 times harder if she was crying when I dropped her off or called home to see how it was going. When I got to work that first day I immediately plastered my wall with pictures. I don't even care that I'm crazy picture lady, it helps!

Working 10 hour days isn't too bad. This is our really busy time of the year, so it helps the time pass quickly. I'm dreading December and January though, those are our slow times. The Fridays off are so worth it. I love having 3 whole days home with her. The first two weeks Annie was with her Grandma. Next week she starts going to Paul's former coworker Wendy's house one or two days a week since my mom works part-time. Paul brought Annie in to see her on Wednesday and said Annie was really smiley for her. So hopefully she'll be nice happy girl for Wendy like she is for my mom! She's an easy-going baby, so I'm confident it will go well.

Last weekend was Labor Day weekend so I had 4 days home. I planned that well! We had really beautiful weather all weekend, so we took advantage of it. Friday morning Annie and I took a really long walk, and then hung out at home for a little bit before going shopping at the mall for some fall clothes for Annie. She needed pants and socks sized 6 months because she's growing like crazy! She's just really long. 6 month socks are baggy on her because she doesn't have those chubby 6-month-old feet yet, but because her feet are so long they fit perfectly from toe to heel. I hope she stays long, I really am hoping she didn't inherit my height (or lack thereof).

Friday night we went to a baseball game. Melky Cabrera (a former Yankee) was in town playing on the Yankees farm team. He didn't do so well, but the home team won and we had a good time. Annie was fussy towards the end so she and I went down and walked around the picnic tables. She had many, many admirers down there, and she fell asleep on my shoulder after about 10 minutes or so. It's exhausting being cute, apparently.

Saturday night we went over to play Wiii with our friends Kris & Kelly. We had a really fun time eating junk and playing Wii sports games. That boxing game is quite the workout! I also discovered that I royally suck at Guitar Hero. Like, really bad. It's pretty hopeless. I had fun anyway, and they all had fun laughing at me. :) Annie had a good time watching and playing with her toys. Kris gave her a pink stuffed dolphin that he had, and she is mesmerized by it. It's very cute! Sunday was State Fair day! It was so nice out, but it was super crowded at the fair. We hid out at the draft competitions for a while and then ventured out into the crowd. (And what a crowd it was. People watching at the fair is...um...interesting, to say the least!) Annie slept for most of the day. When she woke up she was happy walking around for a few hours. We went back to the horse building to watch another competition while we fed her a bottle. I brought pumped milk and a thermos full of hot water to heat up the bottle, and it worked out perfectly. A relief since it would have been nearly impossible to find a spot to nurse her discreetly in that crowd! Rascal Flatts and Taylor Swift were playing that night, so when people started heading to the concert, it cleared out considerably. We had a lot of fun visiting all of the animals (the bunnies, guinea pigs, and goats are my favorites, Paul loves the pigs) and walking around the buildings. We got our milk from the dairy bar (only 2 little cups for me, since I still have to lay off too much dairy!) and headed home around 9:30. It was a fun day, we love the fair.

Monday we headed to the beach for a picnic lunch. Annie and Paul snoozed the day away while I read a magazine. When she woke up we took her to the water to dip her toes in. She looked really confused and concerned, but overall she seemed like she didn't hate it. I'm excited for next year when she'll be old enough to wear sunscreen so we can take her all the way in!So that was our first week with Mommy back at work. Not too bad, and a great weekend to cap it off!

Watching Mommy Sing

2008-08-30T13:31:00.006-04:00

"Annie, over here!
Rubber duckie, you're the one..."

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

2008-08-24T18:36:00.009-04:00

The baby's sleeping in my lap right now, and I'm feeling very happy. We're having a Mommy/Daughter day while Paul is on a wine tour for our friend Mike's birthday. I stayed home since it's my last day before I go back to work. Couldn't bear to leave her all day!
We've had a really nice weekend. Friday night Annie stayed with my parents and sister while we went out for a date night. We went to the mall food court for dinner. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that it's one of our favorite places to eat out: Paul gets his Chinese and I get my Camille's Cafe. Yum. After a quick dinner we went to see The Dark Knight. SO. GOOD. I was worried it wouldn't live up to the hype, but it did. We really loved it.

Saturday we spent some time at home. Annie and I sang and played for a while and then she napped and I got a lot of cleaning done. After Paul got home and ate dinner we went for a walk to the park. Annie went on the swing for the first time! She seemed a bit concerned, but I think she enjoyed it. After our walk we went out to meet Paul's mom and stepfather for some ice cream by the lake in Canandaigua. It was such a beautiful night, breezy but not too chilly. Everyone out there was so friendly, saying hi to each other, admiring all of the cute dogs and babies. We had a really nice visit. We did our grocery shopping after that. Another wild and crazy Saturday night!

Paul left for the wine tour this morning around 10. Annie and I went for a walk after that. She fell asleep so I walked all over town so she could get a full nap in before we came home to Gussy's barking, which usually wakes her up. (Arg.) It was really beautiful out this morning: nice and breezy, great light. Every once in a while it looked like it might rain but then the sun would come out. We went through the park and then up around the high school. The tennis courts were full and football season has started, so there were a ton of people up there. Annie had lots of admirers. I saw my old math teacher playing tennis. I love living in a town where you can walk the sidewalks and see a ton of people out and about. It really makes you feel like a part of a community.

This afternoon we lazed around in the backyard, Gus & Georgie munching on the big bones we bought them. And now we're inside for dinner and a nap. The rain held off just long enough: it's starting to thunder and sprinkle now. A perfect weekend to close out my maternity leave. Now I'm off to get our things together for tomorrow. I think we're ready for our new routine.

Last Days

2008-08-22T10:27:00.010-04:00

I go back to work on Monday. I can't believe how fast this 3 months flew by. I can't put into words how sad I am knowing I won't be with her every day. She doesn't seem old enough to be without her mommy. I am grateful though that she'll be with her dad on Wednesdays, and her grandma the other days for the first few weeks. That will definitely help a lot. I'm also staying home Fridays so I'll have that to look forward to every week. Plus, one of Paul's good friends from work just got her day care certification and will be watching Annie the days my mom can't. I'm so happy that worked out. She's wonderful, and is really looking forward to having Annie. So I know it will all be fine and we'll be settled into our routine in no time. The first few days will be really tough though!

We've had such a wonderful summer together. Lots of lunches in the park, long walks, ball games, snuggling in the chair, singing Sesame Street and Disney songs, shopping... I was looking through her pictures the other day and was so surprised to see just how much she's changed over the past 3 months. Her hair is so much longer, she's got bigger eyes and fuller cheeks, and a chubby belly. She's so much more alert now, and talkative. She loves chatting with me while she eats, or when she's having playtime on the floor. She stares at me all the time, smiling away. I love that I make her happy. Our last few days have been really nice. Last weekend we had lunch in the park with Sarah & Michelle from work. It was gorgeous out, and we had a lovely little picnic. Saturday we went to a purse party and cookout at Robyn & TJ's. Annie bought her first purse! I love that this was her second purse party. I've never been to a purse party in my life before this summer, and she's been to two! Here she is loving up her new purse. It's almost as big as she is.That night we came home and watched Michael Phelps win his 8th gold. So exciting! I'm really glad I was out on leave throughout this Olympics, everything good is on so late. Everyone has been sleep deprived lately. Ironic that I'm the one with the new baby and I'm getting the most sleep!

On Sunday we took a drive out to Hamlin Beach to cook some dinner and take a swim. Well, I took a swim--it was around 7pm and a bit chilly so Paul and Annie waited on the beach for me. I've been dying to go swimming all summer, it was so nice to get in and float around.

On Monday Aunt Meg & Uncle Tim were here for a visit from Michigan. We all had lunch at my Mom's house. Annie was fussy until we realized that she was just bored sitting in everyone's lap and just wanted to lie on the floor for some playtime. She was a happy girl after that! It was really nice to see Meg & Tim before they go back to school, we've missed them. Can't wait til they come back!Tuesday we went to work for one more visit before I go back. We had lunch with Robyn & Nicki and then went to visit some more friends. It tired her right out--she fell asleep in the car right after we left, so I took advantage of it and went shopping for some fall clothes. Wednesday was a rough day. She needed a nap all day but refused to sleep. I got her to sleep once in the crib and when I opened the door, George made a racket and woke her up. Arg! That night I went over to my Mom's to take my sister driving and when I came back she was passed out on the couch. I knew she was tired, darn it! She's so stubborn when it comes to napping...

Yesterday was much better. She napped in the car while we did some last minute parallel parking practice before Aunt Kathryn's road test. A few hours later she passed her test with flying colors! We went to Ben & Jerry's to celebrate. That night Kag & I went to the movies, and Paul stayed home with Annie. She tried her first formula to make sure she'd be okay with it in case we need to supplement while I'm at work. She drank it right up and we have had no vomiting, so looks like we're good to go! Hopefully I'll be able to pump enough that she won't need it though.

So that's that. Now I'm off to enjoy our final weekend before I go back. Crazy. A tiny part of me is looking forward to working again, and getting into a regular routine. I do love my job and the people I work with. A much bigger part of me is dreading leaving her. I know that in no time this will be our regular routine though, and that we'll make the most of the time we do have together. It's just hard to imagine at the moment...

Sleeping Arrangements

2008-08-14T08:14:00.006-04:00

For her first 10 weeks, Annie slept in a cosleeper in our bedroom. She was getting up to eat through the night and it was very convenient having her right next to me. Also I could roll over to make sure she was okay anytime I wanted. It was nice. But now that she's been sleeping through the night for over a week we decided that it's time to try out the crib. I put her in last night after her bedtime feeding and she did great, stayed there all night! I was nervous around 3 because I heard her on the monitor, she was awake and talking. I had been worried about that because up until now, the crib has meant playtime. Her mobile is attached and she watches it when I am showering or putting a load of laundry in. After about a half and hour she had fallen back asleep though, phew!

She's been all smiley and chatty each morning since she started sleeping so long, and she was the especially smiley this morning. I think it might be because she woke up and her beloved mobile was above her. She kept looking at me and then looking up at the mobile, chatting away. Very cute!

The other good news is she's a loud sleeper, she makes little noises when she breathes. So all I need to do is listen to her squeaking away through the monitor and I know she's okay! Cuts back on a lot of trips to her room to peek in. Although I did do that once anyway, of course. :)

"Mom, I woke up and my mobile was up there!"

We took a break from watching the Olympics and went to another ball game last night. We had a nice time, and we got to bed a lot earlier than we would have if we stayed home to watch Olympics. Man, they've been keeping us up late! Can't miss gymnastics though, I've been waiting 4 years for this!

Summertime

2008-08-12T17:54:00.006-04:00

I'm making a concerted effort to get out and enjoy the summer as much as possible for my last two weeks home. Today Annie and I walked down to the park to eat lunch (well, I ate lunch, Annie stared at me eating lunch). We had to babysit Uncle Kevin this afternoon, so we went to Ben & Jerry's for some ice cream and then to the library. Now Paul is home so we're going out for a walk. Annie's really enjoying her walks lately, she loves looking up at the trees and will crank her head around to get a good look.

Some pictures from our adventures:

Oh, and I caught an almost smile today, finally! I've been trying for days...

Thumbsucker

2008-08-08T11:42:00.005-04:00

So it looks like we have a thumbsucker! Since she started sleeping through the night we've noticed that she does wake up every couple of hours, but puts her thumb in her mouth and soothes herself back to sleep. It's awesome. These past few days she's finding her thumb while she's awake too. It's pretty adorable. She gets all panicky, jerking around until she finds it, and she sticks her other hand in her hair. I took a few pictures to illustrate the process:

Looking for the thumb (check out those cheeks!)

Finding and inserting the thumb

Getting the full grip on the hair

This thumbsucking thing has been really great for me. She slept for TWELVE hours last night, I can't believe it! This kid can sleep. It's been 6 nights now that she's slept between 8 and 12 hours. I really really hope this is a long term thing, I could get used to it! We took her to the doctor yesterday for her 2-month checkup. She's up to 12 pounds, 13 ounces now, 23.5 inches long. Her size has a lot to do with her sleeping through the night, that's for sure. So now I'm grateful that she cooked for 2 extra weeks and got so big! Totally worth it.

She got 5 shots at her appointment, it was heartbreaking. I had to work very hard to choke back the tears myself! She stopped crying as soon as I picked her up afterwards though, so that was encouraging. I fed her a bit before we left, that seemed to help too. She never developed a fever or anything, but she was very sleepy afterwards, fell asleep as soon as we strapped her into her carseat. I had an appointment that afternoon so I took her over to my Mom's after stopping home to finish feeding her. She tried to go for a walk with her, but Annie screamed and screamed, all she wanted to do was lie on Grandma's chest and sleep for an hour. Poor baby. I took her for a walk when we got home, and then tried to feed her again. She was really really fussy, so I gave her some Tylenol and she seemed to feel much better. I think her thighs must have been sore where they injected her. She was pretty much back to normal after that!

We went out last night to our city's free movie in the park, Horton Hears a Who. Aunt Kathryn and Uncle Kevin came along. Annie sat on Kathryn's lap, content to look around at everything until she got hungry. Unfortunately, as soon as I started feeding her it started raining. Poop! They had to turn off the movie, "Because of the rain. And safety." (That was the guy's exact words.) Very disappointing. We try to go to at least one movie in the park every year, and we had been looking forward to this one since the beginning of the summer. The last 3 summers it's rained on us! Oh well, we'll try again next year I'm sure!

Little Friends

2008-08-07T09:04:00.006-04:00

Annie went to her first playdate yesterday, with Griffin and Isabella. Griffin is 8 months and Bella is about 3 and a half months. They are so cute! Griffin is the only one really moving around and playing, but Annie and Bella seemed to enjoy looking around at everything. Annie looked around for a bit, then ate and took a power nap. When she woke up we had a photo shoot:

Griffin & His Ladies

"Come here Annie!"

"Hmm...she looks interesting..." Bella looks concerned, looks to her Mom for some help...

Griffin's getting bored with this

Back for Round Two

We were amazed at how relaxed Annie was, even with Griffin "hugging" her. Kelly was right there to grab Fin each time, but Annie really didn't seem fazed by it. After he got down from the chair she sat there by herself for about 10 minutes, just chilling out, looking around.

Fin really loves other babies, I can't wait until Annie and Bella are old enough to crawl around with him! Of course he'll be walking by then. He'll have to show them the ropes.

Now explain to me why I still feel tired...

2008-08-04T19:07:00.006-04:00

So Annie is a champion sleeper. I know I've talked about how she sleeps through everything while we're out and about, but I haven't really gone into how she sleeps at night. You'd think that she would be up all night since she sleeps so much during the day. That is not the case. She spoils me like crazy. We had a few rough nights here and there in the past 2 months, where she woke up to eat every hour or even every half and hour. But for the most part, she sleeps from 3 to 4 hours at a time. Lately though, (and I really hope I am not jinxing myself here by writing about it) she's been sleeping for much longer through the night. Mostly it's between 5 or 6 hours, but she's slept for 8 hours twice now, and last night she beat that record. She slept for ELEVEN hours. I could not believe it. She wakes up every once in a while when she sleeps like that, but she'll just squirm around a little bit and then sucks on her thumb to get herself back to sleep. It's awesome. I like to think she's rewarding me for making me wait so long for her to get here. It's the least she could do, really. ;0)

8 Weeks Old: Things I Want to Remember

2008-07-30T12:59:00.006-04:00

Our favorite things to do:

Snuggle in our chair in the nursery, Gus & George keeping us company on the floor.
Look at our books: The Monster at the End of This Book is our favorite (probably because Mommy makes a fool out of herself reading it)!
Listen to music (and Mommy's obnoxious singing--I swear, she loves it!): The Lion King Broadway, Bert & Ernie's All Time Favorites, and the Classic Disney collection are our favorites. We also listen to Rockabye Baby: Coldplay every night before bed (thank you Kelly!!)
Play with our toys: Froggie and her rattle phone are her favorites, and she loves her hippo playmat that Aunt Kelly & Uncle Mike brought her!
Take walks. Puts her right to sleep. :)
Talk to the polka dots on the wall. She mostly talks to the ones by her changing table (it's so funny how excited she gets sometimes!), but she also finds the ones behind the chair when I put her on my shoulder to burp her. She is absolutely enthralled with them.
Lie in the crib watching the mobile. She likes to talk to the mobile too!
Walk around in the Baby Bjorn while watching Daddy play softball.
Watch Uncle Kevin bounce around like a crazy person. She can't take her eyes off him!
Play with Daddy when he gets home. She can't get enough of Superbaby and knee bouncing!

Two Months In

2008-07-30T12:03:00.008-04:00

Computer time has been hard to come by lately, hence the lack of posts. But here is the news:

The tree removal is coming along. A guy from ER came and chopped it down for 200 bucks, which was about 400 less than the 2 estimates we got from tree removal companies. We decided to clean it up ourselves since we have a lot of friends who offered to help and a bunch of people want the wood. People have been knocking on our door asking us if they can take some off our hands, it's pretty funny! On Monday night I dropped the baby off at my Mom's and our friend Mike came over for a few hours to help us start clearing the brush and chop the logs. Our neighbor from across the street came over to help us too. So nice! We are all very sad the tree is gone though, it really was so beautiful. Our neighbor said she kept her front curtains open all fall just to look at it. And our house looks completely different now, so bare and open! It looks really bare from our living room and bedroom windows too. Definitely a lot brighter in those rooms now though! And our other neighbor made a very good point: that's a hell of a lot less leaves we'll need to rake in the fall! We're figuring out what we're going to plant there now. Paul has a lot of really good ideas, so I'm sure we'll feel better about it soon!

In baby news, Annie is doing great, getting bigger by the day! She's so much fun now, chatting and looking around at everything. I'm working on establishing a bedtime this week, it's been going pretty well. Even if she wakes up after I put her down, she stays in bed and talks to herself until it's time for the next feeding. It's very cute listening to her on the monitor. Her new thing is playing with her hair while she's eating. Most of the time it's just one hand, but sometimes she gets both hands in there and starts tugging. It's really quite adorable. However, I did have a nightmare the other night where I walked into the room and she had fistfuls of hair, and was bald around the sides and back of her hair. The only hair she had left was a patch on the top. I was relieved that I was mostly worried about whether she hurt herself pulling it out than what she looked like. So I am not TOO vain about her beautiful hair. ;0)

She is doing great sleeping-wise. Every once in a while she goes through a growth spurt and I get no sleep at all, but that's really few and far between. Most of the time she sleeps for 3-5 hour stretches, and every once in a while it's even more. She actually slept for 8 hours one night last week. Amazing! She really does spoil me sometimes, and I absolutely appreciate it!

Yesterday we took a long walk down the canal and up through Pittsford. We stopped by the library (their library is beautiful) and signed up for a new library card. I haven't been to the library in years, and I've been thinking I really need to start. When I was little I loved going to the library with my mom and siblings, we loved picking out new books to read. I'm looking forward to doing that with Annie. For now, we checked out a few cds that I wanted for Annie (a Best of Grover album, and Sesame Street Platinum Hits), and borrowed A Mighty Wind for Paul and I to watch this weekend. I'm looking forward to taking advantage of all of that free entertainment!

I go back to work in less than a month, and I have really mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I'm eager to get into a routine and to get back to my job and friends because I really do enjoy it. On the other hand, I am dreading leaving my baby. I will really miss her, and I'm worried that she'll miss me too. Sigh. Maybe I'll win the lottery sometime before I go back. :)

The Maple Tree Incident

2008-07-20T19:37:00.004-04:00

So we woke up at around 8 Sunday morning to a loud, strange sound outside our bedroom window. Paul went out and came back up and said, "Not good." Apparently our huge maple tree has been rotting from the inside for a while now and the weight of last night's rain was finally too much for it. It took down our neighbor's power lines and blocked off our street, but the fire department and RG&E cleaned it up pretty quickly. And luckily parking was on the other side of the street, so nothing else was damaged. We were so lucky that the branches over our house didn't fall too. Knock on wood, hopefully nothing else will fall before we can get the rest of it down! We're getting estimates to take the rest of it down. Very sad, it was a beautiful tree and all of the neighbors were always telling us to leave it alone because they loved it so much!

Summer Trips

2008-07-10T22:45:00.007-04:00

Annie went on her first trip to the zoo today! Well, it was mostly a trip for her aunts and uncle and I. We hadn't been in a long time, and Meg was home from Michigan, so we thought it was a good time to go. Beautiful weather too--sunny and not too humid. Annie wasn't too impressed with the zoo, she slept through most of it, surprise, surprise. We had a good time though!This week we also went to Utica to visit Uncle Pete, my late grandma's brother. Uncle Pete is wonderful--he's always been so good to my mother and us kids. He lives 3 hours away, but we visit with him as much as we can, and he's always been really close to all of us. He's also really goofy--always joking around and just a generally funny guy. So my mom, sisters, and brother drove up there on Wednesday. We went out to lunch and then out to buy Annie a teddy bear. He really enjoyed seeing her, he kept talking about how he remembered when we were that small. He also thinks she looks a bit like my grandma, and was talking about how cute she was when she was a baby (he was 4 years older than her). He really wished my grandma could be here to see her. We all really wish that. She would have been absolutely thrilled with her. I know she's watching over her though!On a happy note: Wednesday was also the start of Super Baby. Annie was a bit cranky so Paul started flying her through the air. She would cry every time he stopped, so he had to keep it up for a half an hour, she absolutely loved it. She loves being Super Baby, I think Paul might be stuck with his arms up in the air for a while!

Sleepy Monkey Girl

2008-07-07T12:58:00.003-04:00

Annie is getting bigger, and every day it seems like she learns something new. This week she's been smiling more and cooing a lot, and has started following people and toys when they move back and forth. Last night Paul had her on the changing table and she was gripping onto both of his index fingers and trying to pull herself up. She also likes to be held standing up on your lap and then straightens out her legs so she's standing. She's such a strong girl! Long too. We have been amazed at how long her arms, legs, and toes are looking lately, she's a little monkey girl. Paul went off of his "she's going to be a softball player" kick and is started talking volleyball again. Then he started talking about playing both. Lord help us. ;0)We had her one month checkup on Saturday morning. She's doing really well. She is up to 10 lbs, 11 oz, and 23 and a half inches. Everything looks great developmentally. Sad news for me though: I have to give up all dairy for the next two weeks. She's had a few episodes of projectile vomiting over the past few weeks, and since it happens at the end of the day each time, and since so much comes out, the doctor thinks it might have something to do with my diet. She said when she was breastfeeding she had the same experience and it worked for them. I really, really hope that it's not a dairy thing, that's the staple of my diet. I don't know what I'd do without milk and cheese. At the same time, it would be a relatively simple solution. If she has another episode she wants to take some x-rays to make sure there is nothing going on in her stomach that's causing it. So we're really hoping that it just goes away! Poor baby. Fourth of July weekend was great. The weather was absolutely beautiful, and we took advantage of it. Paul was home Friday and Saturday, so we had some nice family time. Friday we had my sister Kathryn and a few friends over for a small cookout and campfire. Paul was disappointed we can't go to the fireworks for a few years because of little ears, but we heard all of the shows while we were sitting around the campfire, so that was kind of fun. Saturday we had her doctor's appointment at 9, and then went to the public market and grocery shopping afterwards. That afternoon both sets of grandparents, Uncle Kevin, and Aunt Kathryn came by for another cookout. Everyone really enjoyed visiting with Annie, and she was very happy snuggling up and sleeping on everyone. Sunday Paul conquered his fear of heights and cleaned out the gutters while Annie and I supervised. Well, I supervised and held the ladder, Annie slept the day away on my lap and in her rocker. She's sleepy again today--I've got her strapped on in the Baby Bjorn as I'm typing this. These things are great, I have two hands again!

Oh, other news: Annie is wearing a 3 month sized outfit today and it is not huge on her like it was before, so her wardrobe is going to be that much bigger now. She still fits into most of her 0-3 outfits too, I only had to put away a few things so far. Out of all of the different sized clothing we got, 3-6 months was the most popular size. I'm really excited to dig into those! I'm sure there will be more photo sessions now too. ;0)

4 Weeks

2008-07-01T19:01:00.011-04:00

Annie will be a month old this week, I can't believe it! This is going way too fast. It's really hard to believe I only have 2 months left at home with her, I'm trying not to think about that too much!

We've had a great few weeks--still going out and about a lot. She's been in to my office to meet my coworkers and today I took her to meet my mom's nursing home to meet her coworkers and some of her patients. Both visits were so much fun, everyone was very excited to meet her. My mom's patients were so cute, they were so happy to see a baby.

Besides our trip to the baseball game, Paul and I have taken her shopping at the outlet mall, to Greece so Annie could meet her great grandma and great uncle, to a festival named Taste of Rochester (where you sample foods from different restaurants from around the area, such a good idea!), to the lake for Abbotts (in the rain), and out to Geneva to visit some of Paul's family and for a party at our friend Tony's. Today after the trip to mom's nursing home, Aunt Kathryn, Uncle Kevin, Annie and I went out to Old Navy and then to get ice cream. Last week Kevin and I went to Powers with her to visit the animals and get cookies. Kevin is very cute with her, he pushes her stroller back and forth to rock her when she gets fussy, and keeps an eye on her in the back seat of the car. Every Thursday we go watch Paul's men's league games, and every Friday we go to our coed games. She's at a great age still, it's easy to travel around with her because she sleeps through everything. So we're just working on getting her used to going out and about, and we're having a nice summer so far! In other news, we saw our first few smiles! I thought she might have smiled a few days ago when I had her on the changing table and she was doing her usual staring at the polka-dot decals Paul put on the wall (she loves those things)! Then Paul was changing her and doing his usual goofy voices for her, and she gave him a nice big smile. She did the same for me the next day. So cute!! The other day I was changing her and talking to her and she looked right at me and started cooing at me. She had such a look of concentration, she was trying so hard to talk to me! I loved it, and now make a fool of myself every day trying to get her to do it again. ;0)
Lately she wants to be held when she's sleeping, which makes it harder to get things done around the house (like eat lunch and do the laundry), but is so worth it. I will hold her as much as I possibly can, because I know how fast this is going by, and I need to enjoy it while it's here! It's amazing how different she is every day. I'm trying so hard to file it away so I can remember it all!

Annie's First Ball Game

2008-06-28T12:08:00.006-04:00

Annie went to her first first baseball game last night, at least her first outside my belly. She slept through 7 innings and was wide awake after a diaper change and some dinner. She did great, and we were happy to get out to another game!

Two Weeks Old: Things I Want to Remember

2008-06-18T15:50:00.010-04:00

* How strong Annie was right from birth--she loves being held upwards rather than lying down, and from her first day she would lift her head off of our chests to look around. Such a strong neck already! We love it when she's alert and looking around, her head bobbing up and down, eyes crossing and uncrossing as she tries to focus on things. It's so fun watching her discover her new world.

* How sleepy she has been for her first couple of weeks: She sleeps a lot, waking only to be fed and have her diaper changed every couple of hours. She is happy sleeping anyhere; we pass her around from person to person and she sleeps right through it. Each day she has one awake period where she's up and ready for some action, so we carry her around so she can look at things, let her take a ride in her swing, or simply let her lay in her cradle, entertaining herself. She lies there and kicks her legs, gurgling away, happy as can be. We love to watch her looking around at everything.* How patient she is when we're dressing her. The gowns she wears at night are tricky to get her arms into, and she is so incredibly patient about it. She cries when we are changing her diaper, but once she has the clean diaper on she's happy as a clam, looking at the polka dots we have stuck to the wall behind the changing table, gurgling away as we struggle to get her wiggly arms into those skinny arm holes. Such a happy girl!

* Nursing her: I love the time we spend together when I'm feeding her. She looks around while she's eating, plays with her hands, stretches out her little monkey toes. The best is when she looks up at me and studies my face. She grabs onto me for dear life. She makes cute little squeaky noises the whole time. She needs to burp often, and sometimes she'll burp and will shove her fist into her mouth to let me know she's ready to go right back for more, but sometimes she'll drop her head forward and close her eyes, leaning into my chest, which means she just wants to sleep on me. I'm happy to let her.

* The teeny "o" shape her mouth makes when she's looking at me.

* How much she loves having water poured on her head.

* Her incredibly soft skin and silky hair. We can't keep our hands off her head!

* The way she looks up the entire time she's in the swing, like she's trying to figure out where the music is coming from.

* How much she loves riding in her sling. She scrunches herself up in there and falls asleep within seconds. We think it must remind her of being in the womb.

* How much she likes having her butt patted. It can calm her down within seconds!

* How excited Paul was for his first Father's Day. Such a proud Daddy!

Checking in...

2008-06-13T16:20:00.002-04:00

Just a few pictures today. Lots more on flickr! Tonight I'm taking Annie to her first softball game, I'm excited for our team to meet her!

30

2008-06-11T14:14:00.005-04:00

I turned 30 years old yesterday. I can't believe it. For the first time in my life I feel like a grown-up. I don't know if it's because I'm in my thirties now or if it's because I'm a mom now. I'm sure it's both hitting me at once. It's all so crazy! Motherhood is a huge shift. I knew my life would completely change, but it's amazing how complete the change is. It's also amazing how rewarding it is! This has probably been the hardest, most emotional, happiest week of my life. I am so happy to be Annie's mother, and Paul's wife. I feel so incredibly lucky!

Annie was born right before a horrible heat wave. We had her on a Wednesday and brought her home Friday. Friday through Tuesday the temperature reached into the 90's. Awful! I found it quite ironic, since my biggest fear about having a newborn in May was keeping her from overheating during the summer. I thought I'd have at least a few weeks to prepare for it! We spent our first few days at home in front of our fans and in our air-conditioned bedroom. We bought an air conditioner for Annie's room too, even though she isn't sleeping in there yet. The good news is, it rained yesterday, and now it's back to normal. Beautiful and breezy. I hope it stays this way for a while! Monday was Annie's first trip to the doctor. She cried a lot, but everything checked out, she's looking very healthy! Her weight went down a bit more (9lbs 7.5oz at birth, 8lbs 15oz when we left the hospital, 8 lbs 13oz at the doctor), but our pediatrician said she should still be okay breastfeeding exclusively, as long as her diaper counts went up by Thursday. They went up to where she wanted them that day, and have stayed there since then, so we're in good shape! Annie took to breastfeeding like a pro. We had a bit of a latching problem for the first few days, but I looked up some tips and we got it straightened out. Breastfeeding is demanding, but incredibly rewarding. I'm so glad it seems to be working out for us, I hope it stays this way in the coming weeks!After the doctor visit, we stopped by Paul's work. He's home with us until Monday, so he wanted a chance to bring Annie in before he had to go back. I loved watching him show off his new family. I have never seen him so incredibly proud!

Yesterday was my birthday. We had to take care of our inspection and registration renewal, since they fell by the wayside while we were waiting for Annie to get here. After that we wanted to do something fun for my birthday, so we stopped by the canal and took Annie for a short walk down to the ice cream place. It was our first time using the stroller, and Annie seemed to like it! We picked up some Aladdin's for take-out (my favorite restaurant) and ate that at home. My mom and sister stopped by to wish me a happy birthday and bring us Amish Friendship Bread. Yum. It was a very nice, low-key, restful birthday. I'm still in recovery mode, so that amount of going out and walking was about as much as I could do. It was a nice first venture out with Annie though!

I think we're starting to figure out Annie's schedule now. The first week was rough because she would eat and sleep all day, and then from 12-3 or 1-4 in the morning, she was wide awake. I'd feed her and she'd want to eat for 3 or 4 hours straight. She wouldn't eat that entire time though, she'd take a few sucks and then wiggle around a bit. So last night it finally dawned on me. She didn't want to eat for 3 or 4 hours straight, she wanted some playtime. So we got up, went downstairs, and she took a ride in her swing for the first time. She loved it! She stopped crying as soon as it started moving and the music started. She stayed happy for about a half an hour, enough time for me to catch a quick catnap on the couch. When she was ready to eat again, I fed her and sang to her until she fell asleep. I brought her back upstairs and she slept for 3 hours straight, woke up to eat, then slept for another 3 hours. So I think this might be our new routine for the time being. I can definitely handle that, those 3 hour stretches are wonderful!

Today we gave Annie her first bath at home. (She had one at the hospital and they told us to wait a week before giving her the next one.) She cried through the bathing, but loves having her hair washed, it's so cute! One minute she's screaming bloody murder, but as soon as we pour that water over her head she stops and makes an "oh" shape with her mouth, her eyes get all big. Too cute. We are really loving this newborn stage.

And....She's Here!

2008-06-08T20:16:00.005-04:00

Finally! I will be sure to share my labor story here when I get some time to type it up, but holy cow, what a story. This baby really just wanted to stay in there, that's for sure!

I'd like to introduce Miss Annie Sue Fisher:

Born Wednesday, June 4th
9 lbs, 7.5 oz
21.5 inches

We are home and are so enjoying our new family. We think she's a keeper!

She's Coming!

2008-06-03T07:18:00.002-04:00

So apparently all you need to do to start labor is schedule an induction. A lot of my friends have had inductions scheduled only to go into labor the night before. Sure enough, woke up at 3:4o this morning with regular contractions. They're only a few minutes apart now and we're headed to the hospital! We can't wait to meet our little girl!

June Baby

2008-06-02T16:35:00.002-04:00

First of all, I can't believe we're having a June baby. For some reason it never even occured to me that would happen! My little brother Kevin has been predicting she'll be born on my birthday, but since that's the 1oth, that was highly unlikely. I still didn't think that she might be born less than a week before my birthday! Crazy. What a great birthday present though, right?

I decided this weekend that Friday was my last day at work. There wasn't much for me to work on since I had to give all of my work away and couldn't really pick anything up, not knowing if I would be there to finish it in an hour's time since I was so far overdue. It was finally starting to get a little bit uncomfortable to sit at my desk all day too, although I'm still amazed at how long it took me to get to that point! Plus I was thinking I needed to change things up a bit. Obviously working was not getting me anywhere, maybe I needed to try staying home. I am glad that I stuck around as long as I did though. I can only take up to 12 weeks off (before and after the baby) under the FMLA Act. If I had gone out May 14th as planned, I'd have already used up almost 3 weeks of leave before the baby even got here! I would have been FREAKING out. I figured starting my leave today would be safe, I really can't go much past a week at this point.

So last week at our appointment with Jo, she asked us when we thought we'd like to talk about inducing. We told her it made us really nervous. Sometimes inducing doesn't work, and it puts the baby (and the mom) under a lot of stress, increasing the need for an emergency c-section, or worse, resulting in serious complications for the baby if too much of the drug is administered. Plus, we were worried that there might be a good reason she's not coming out yet, maybe she needs more time to develop, maybe she's just not ready yet. But on the other hand, we didn't want her to get so big that we'd need a c-section anyway or risk complications from a placenta that's too old. Over the weekend I did a lot of reading up on it, looking at stories from people who had induced. There were a few horror stories out there, but most of them had pretty positive things to say about their experience. There were also a lot more pros versus cons for inducing. I had been leaning more towards being okay with it, but Paul was still pretty worried.

Today we had our appointment with Jackie. I told her that I thought I might have been leaking some amniotic fluid that morning, so she checked that for me. She didn't think that my water was fully broken, but there was a little bit of leaking. She told us to go for our scheduled ultrasound and non-stress test and then meet with Jo (who was on call at the hospital) to talk about possibly inducing tonight or tomorrow morning. She said that if my amniotic fluid level was a lot lower, it would be safest. She also told us that my cervix is really ready to go at any time (I'm 3 cm dilated now and still about 80% effaced), so inducing with Pitocin will probably work really well for me. She said that most of the time complications come from needing to also ripen the cervix, which they'll most likely be able to skip altogether for me. I'll probably only need a little bit of the drug to get me started. So that made us feel much better about it. I looked over at Paul when she said tonight or tomorrow and I don't think I have ever seen him so excited, it was really funny. He felt better after what Jackie told us, and he couldn't believe that we might be meeting our baby in the next day or so. He was all nervous energy, just kept saying how he couldn't believe it was really happening. We went for our regular post-appointment McDonald's stop (I know, it's bad, but it's our little treat for being so far overdue darn it!) and then to pick up some pills for Gus. He has a rash under his armpits and has been so uncomfortable all weekend! Poor guy. I wanted to make sure we get him on the medicine before we left him with my sister. (Hear that Kag? More pills to give Gussy!) We headed out to the hospital after that.

Everything looked good in the ultrasound and the non-stress test. My fluid level was only a bit lower, and she is still moving around, getting plenty of oxygen. Jo came in to see us as we were finishing up the non-stress test. She gave us big hugs and told us that she knew we were nervous about inducing, and that they would completely support us if we wanted to wait it out until the end of the week. But she also wanted us to know that after 2 weeks post-due date chances for complications goes from 3 to 6%. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it makes them nervous because any time there are increased chances, someday they're going to see it happen. She said the same thing Jackie did about my cervix being ready enough to skip the ripening process, and that they will continuously monitor us to make sure there is no stress on the baby or myself while they're administering the drug. She even thinks I should be able to use the portable monitors so I can stay pretty mobile throughout the labor if I want to. Ultimately she left it up to us. I told her that we were feeling much better about inducing and that we'd like to give it a try. So she told us to go home tonight, get a good night's sleep, and call tomorrow morning at 6 to see if they can get us a labor room by 7am. She said we might need to check back if there are a lot of more urgent cases than mine, but we should be able to get in there sometime tomorrow.

So it looks like we might finally be meeting our baby sometime tomorrow or the next day! I am super excited, not nervous at all. I just want to get this show on the road! Paul is nervous that he's not going to be any good at helping me, but I know he's going to do great. He's been reading that childbirth manual for weeks now, he's more prepared than he thinks. He sure can't wait to meet his baby--the ultrasound technician was mostly checking for fluid today, but she did get us a shot of Annie with her fist in front of her face, giving us the thumbs up sign. He couldn't stop looking at it after we left. I think Annie was giving him a pep talk!

Hopefully my next post will be an announcement!

Yes, We're Still Waiting!

2008-05-30T15:01:00.003-04:00

Just got back from another non-stress test. Annie's going about her business as usual. The nurse, Julie (who is awesome) looked over at one point and was like, "whoa, she's going nuts in there!" I said, "yeah, tell me about it." She's so low I feel it all in my pelvic bones now, and it is not very pleasant, let me tell you! Oh well, I'm glad she's still doing great anyway! She just really, really likes it in there. I thought I saw some movement on the contraction monitor today so I asked Julie about it. She gave me a look of great pity and said, "do I think they mean anything? No, they probably don't. They need to happen steadily and they need to really hurt before they mean anything. But, that said, you could have absolutely no activity at all on the contraction monitor right now and then go into labor and have her by 5pm tonight, that's how much stock we put into that!" So we'll just keep crossing our fingers that she'll come this weekend!

I felt myself getting a little cranky this afternoon when I was making my way through the hospital and seeing all of the families waiting for their babies, and the women who just had their babies walking around near the nursery. Okay, it's partly my fault for walking past the nursery to get a peek at the babies while I was waiting, but I couldn't help myself. They're so little and cute! I just can't wait until it's us in there. So I'm comforting myself by telling myself that it can't be more than a week from now. Only 7 days! I can do that, no problem.

Another Update (someday it will be an announcement!)

2008-05-28T17:41:00.009-04:00

Today I took the day off from work since I had several baby-related appointments scheduled. First up was my regular appointment with Jo. Before I left the house I did the rest of our packing (bathrobe, slippers, pillows, blanket for Paul) and put the bag in the car. I told Paul it was just in case Jo told me I was 10 cm dilated and we needed to get our asses to the hospital before this baby popped right out! Wouldn't that have been nice? ;0) Sadly, it was not to be. I'm still at 2cm. She thinks I'm a little more effaced now, about 80%. She said she definitely could tell it's softer and thinner. The baby's head is fully engaged, which is encouraging! It also explains those unpleasant pains when she's twisting her head around in my pelvis. That's okay though, it means she knows the way out and is working on getting there! She tried stripping my membranes again but said I'm positioned too far back. We were most disappointed by that, we were counting on having another try to move things along a bit. But who knows, she still might decide to come tonight!

I had my non-stress test after lunch. They hooked me up to a fetal monitor and a contraction monitor. (ha!) Of course the contraction monitor showed absolutely nothing. Darn it. I was secretly hoping I was just one of those women who don't feel anything and all of a sudden a baby's popping out. I guess that wouldn't be a good thing if I were home or driving or something, but as long as I was in the hospital that would have been an ideal situation, don't you think? Anyhoo, she's doing just fine in there. They wanted her to move twice during a 20-minute period. Her heart rate was supposed to jump each time she moved, which tells them that the placenta is still giving her enough oxygen. She moved about 7 times, her heart rate went up each time. She's just having a swell time in there, happy as a clam!

After that test we had an ultrasound to check the amniotic fluid level. Everything looks good, she's got plenty in there for now. HOWEVER, they're estimating her at over 8 and a half pounds now! Yikes! She really needs to come out soon. 9 pounds is my limit I've decided.

So we asked for a DVD but they were out of blank ones. They ordered them last week and they never came in. We were so disappointed! Especially since at our first ultrasound we didn't know we could have asked for a DVD of it until afterwards, and they told us it was too late then. Arg. It took me a long time to get over the disappointment from that. So she dug up a regular CD and saved some pictures to it for us. Unfortunately, the pictures on the CD are not as good as the ones she printed out for us. The print outs are clear and her face looks a lot less squished and fuzzy, and she's even smiling in two of the pictures! My sister Kathryn said she's mocking us. ;0) But you can still get a good idea of what she'll look like in the picture below--she definitely has the Peppers family chubby cheeks! We think we can see some hair in some of the print outs too. The fuzzy blob at the bottom of her face is the placenta. I know, kind of gross, right? Annie, come out so you don't have placenta all up in your face anymore!

That's the news for now. I'm still hoping I have a really good reason not to go to work tomorrow!

The Bright Side

2008-05-26T14:33:00.004-04:00

Reasons to be grateful that we are overdue:

(Many of these are from my Mom, who has been calling me with pep talks. (Thanks Mom, I definitely needed them!) She's very experienced in waiting for babies, as she was late with all 5 of us. Thank goodness they only let you go over 2 weeks now! She was due for me on May 25th and didn't have me until June 10th, and due with my sister September 1st, didn't have her until September 24th. No thank you!)

1. She is full term. Every pregnant woman's biggest fear is either miscarrying or giving birth way too early. I need to keep remembering how nervous I was up until week 37, when you're officially considered full term. And how lucky we are that our baby stayed in there until she was supposed to! At the wedding we saw a friend of ours whose niece was a pound and a half when she was born this past November. She was released from the hospital in February and is now up to 7 pounds, 14 ounces, the size of an average newborn. I'm so happy for them that she is doing well, but how incredibly scary for them! I'm so grateful we didn't have to go through that.

2. My Mom told me that all of us girls made her wait the longest, but we were also the calmer babies. We fussed less and slept more. She's thinking it's because the longer the baby stays in there, the older and more developed they are. Makes sense to me! So if this wait means Annie will be more calm and less fussy, heck, she can stay in there a few more days!

3. We've been able to get even more done around the house. Part of the waiting game is prioritizing. What do we absolutely need to do before we have this baby, so we don't have to come home to a mess? Every night we make sure all of the dishes are done, the floors are swept, and everything is in general order, because we know we sure as heck won't want to come home to a mess! The extra things, like repairing all of the kitchen & back door screens, mowing the lawn, rearranging the living room, cleaning the bedroom were a bit lower on the list. But Paul had time to fix all of the screens yesterday, he just finished mowing the lawn, and we're tackling the living room soon. We might even have time to get to the bedroom! It's tough waiting for her, but it will be so nice to have that all out of the way before we bring her home.

4. Enjoying "just the two of us" time. We've been so incredibly busy getting ready for this baby over the past 9 months (in between all of our regular plans) that it's been hard to take time to relax at home, just the two of us. It's been just the two of us for the last 7 and a half years, so it's crazy to think that it's not going to be just us until all of our kids move out of the house. Lately our plans are dying down and we have just those few things to take care of, so we've been able to take some time to relax a bit. Eat lunch together out in our yard, snuggle on the couch to watch Indiana Jones, go out to Abbott's for ice cream, talk about how crazy it is that we're going to be parents any day now. We're really enjoying this time together.

Okay, that's all I can think of now. It made me feel a little better. Better than repeating "she'll come when she's ready" over and over again to myself anyway!

Okay Annie, we're ready anytime now...

2008-05-25T18:13:00.005-04:00

40 Weeks (and 3 days)

Still no baby! I think I've mentioned before how impatient I am and how I'm trying to work on it. I've definitely determined that waiting for baby is the worst wait ever. It's so hard not having any idea when labor is going to start. You try to get as much rest as you can, and then you panic when you're not sleeping well or you're out too late or you walked around a store for 2 hours and now you're sore and exhausted. Because what if labor starts that night and you have no energy left? It's scary. Plus you're just so incredibly excited to meet her and snuggle her and see what she looks like and everything. It's so weird to think that while waiting for baby seems like it's dragging on and on, it really can only last a few weeks past your due date, and that wait will seem like so long ago when you blink and your baby is 6 months old, cutting teeth and sitting up on their own for the first time. It goes way too fast!

The good news is, we made it to our friend Tony's wedding. As much as I was wishing for Annie to come in the last week or so, I really would have been very sad to miss his big day. We love Tony--he's been one of Paul's best friends for years and years, and I've known him now for about 7 years. He's a great guy and has been a wonderful friend to us. He was really happy to have us there and we were happy to be there with him. It was great to see our friends and Tony's family too--they were all very excited for us. I'm glad everyone got to see me very pregnant, they all seemed to enjoy seeing the huge belly!

Friday I took the day off to rest up for the big event. My Mom took me grocery shopping, since I realized we had absolutely no food in the house and grocery shopping on the way home from the hospital did not sound at all appealing. I was worried about my water breaking and then having to drive home by myself, so I was really happy she was home to take me. I stocked up on frozen dinners and our usuals. So now we're all set--that is unless she doesn't come until sometime next week when we're out of food again!

That night was the rehearsal. We were at the church for an hour or so and then went to Tara's parents house for dinner. We had a great time visiting with everyone. I played bocce ball with the guys after dinner, hoping that the walking would get things moving along a bit. My strategy didn't work, but I kicked ass so it was worth it. ;o) We went home early, around 10, to try to get a good night's sleep before the big day. Unfortunately, I had the worst night of sleep I've had in a while. My back was really sore and stabby and I had a lot of cramping. I think I woke up a few times with contractions, but I couldn't really tell if it was just steady cramping or if it was contractions. I was worried for a minute when I thought they were contractions though. I was imagining us not making it to the wedding and hoping for the first time that she was going to hold off for another day or so!

I felt good on Saturday though--we slept in and got out to Geneva a bit late but it was worth having the extra sleep. It was a long day, but I felt great and had a really good time with everyone. We watched Tony get married (which I still can't believe!!) and afterwards we went on a boat trip to the reception. It was a gorgeous day for it, sunny and warm, just a bit breezy. Plus my water didn't break, which was our biggest concern for the day. Tony asked me throughout the day, "what aren't you going to do on the boat Kristin?" to which I would reply "have a baby." It worked!

Cocktail hour was outside on the lawn. Then we headed into the ballroom for dinner and dancing. Typical wedding stuff! We all had a lot of fun. It was really great to see Paul having such a good time with all of his high school buddies again, and Tony's friends from college have become our friends over the years too. One of my best friends that I grew up with married one of Paul's best friends from high school (they are also the parents of our 6-month old godson!), so I got to eat dinner with them and catch up, since I haven't seen her in a while. Everyone is so scattered now and so busy, it really is nice when we can all meet up again. I thought I was going to want to go home early to get some rest, but we ended up staying until the end of the reception because we were having so much fun and I was feeling so good. We got home around 2 or so. I felt a little bit of that "oh no, I'm not getting enough sleep" panic, but I just need to remember that we're never going to be fully prepared for this baby to come! We'll just do our best when it's time.

So that's the news for now. We are very relieved the wedding is over and we were able to make it. Now we can look forward to having her come without having to worry about missing anything! No signs today that anything is going to happen anytime soon, except feeling like she's a bit lower than usual (and very twisty which doesn't feel so good on the pelvic bones). But I guess you never know, really. Our next appointment is scheduled for Wednesday. I'll go for my regular appointment and then head to the hospital for a non-stress test and an ultrasound to see how things are going and whether there is any need to induce. But I'm still hoping I won't make it to that appointment, that she'll come either tonight or tomorrow so we can take advantage of Memorial Day weekend for Paul's time off. Fingers crossed!

Getting Closer

2008-05-20T17:23:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow is our due date! No matter how many times I tell myself that, I still can't believe it. I remember so clearly being 10 weeks pregnant and feeling so excited that in just two weeks we'd start telling people. Now here we are, about to meet our baby. I really can't believe we're going to be parents. Crazy!

More good news from our appointment with Jo today: Annie and I are making progress! Her head is even lower now and she's still not budging. I am 2 centimeters dilated, and my cervix is 75% effaced. That's a lot, since I was only thinning a tiny bit at Thursday's appointment. I told her about my contractions on Saturday. She was so excited! Then when she checked me she told me those contractions did a ton of work to thin out and shorten my cervix, so now I'm not so discouraged about them. At least they weren't for nothing! She tried to strip my membranes, but she's not sure how much she was able to do. She said that 15% of people go into labor within 24 hours of having their membranes stripped, so we'll see what happens! If anything, she seemed pretty sure that I'd be starting labor over the next few days. She did say that I need to work on kicking the cold that I got from my Dad last week. She's concerned that my body will pay more attention to fighting that off rather than starting labor. So I will be relaxing and drinking as much water as I can for the next few days. She's on call on Thursday and said she's hoping to see us then. But she also said it's still possible it might be longer than a few days. I think I'd be okay with that. As long as I know we're making progress and that it's highly unlikely I'll need to be induced, which would happen only if I were two weeks overdue, putting us at June 4th to start labor. No thanks! We're still hoping for a May baby here.

So I'm feeling very encouraged, I'm really going to be a Mom any day now!

The Waiting Game

2008-05-18T13:00:00.005-04:00

We had another great appointment with Jo on Thursday. First she showed Paul how to feel around for where all of Annie's parts are. He loved that. Then she checked to see if I was dilated at all. She told me that I'm a centimeter and a half dilated, my cervix is softening, and the baby's head is halfway into my pelvis and is "very committed" to keep heading in that direction. Meaning she poked at her head and she wasn't budging. I know that the news doesn't necessarily mean that anything will happen anytime soon, but it was encouraging news nonetheless. At least it means I'll have a centimeter and a half less to go when I do go into labor! She also said that she expected me to start having contractions sometime in the next few days. I'm not sure what made her think that, but it sure was exciting to hear!

Friday night was date night, we went to watch a Red Wings game. It was strange not knowing if that would be our last night out as nonparents! We had a good time though, ate our dinner, watched the game & talked about how excited we were that we were about to meet our baby, then stayed for the fireworks afterwards.

Yesterday I made sure to get plenty of rest. I slept in and then spent most of the day relaxing on the couch, watching some Sex and the City DVDs. When Paul got home from work we headed out to the mall to get a wedding present for next weekend. (Oh yeah, we have a wedding to go to next weekend. Paul's best friend Tony is getting married 3 days after our due date. Oops! Paul is in the wedding too. We're just going to play it by ear. Hopefully we'll make it, but they'll understand if we don't!) I was hoping walking around a lot would get things moving. Sure enough, after having dinner we started walking and I started having contractions! They were coming pretty steadily for about 2 hours. Then they stopped. So discouraging. They weren't horribly painful, but they were darn uncomfortable, and then to have them come to nothing was so disappointing. Every time I had a one we would try not to get too excited, telling ourselves it could be false labor. But we were both definitely hoping we would be having a baby last night or sometime today. Darn it. We have to go out again today, hopefully that will get things moving along again, and maybe they'll stick this time if they start. Tonight we're going to a concert at the Lilac Festival with my sister Kathryn. I'm half hoping we'll make it, because the woman is one of my new favorites (Ingrid Michaelson), but of course I'm half hoping we'll have a wonderful reason to miss it! I am trying to prepare myself though, there is still a good chance we could be waiting around for another 2 weeks or so. I really hope not, the anticipation is killing me!

The good news is she's still really active and we're having a lot of fun watching her move around in there. Last night after we got home we were sitting on the couch and Paul was waiting to see if he could feel her feet. She had been poking them out all night. She finally did when he had his hand there and he was SO excited. I don't think I've seen him that happy about feeling her move as he did right then. I don't know if it's the anticipation that she could come any day now or what, but it sure was sweet to see how much it touched him. I really can't wait to see him with her!

Feeling Ready

2008-05-12T20:38:00.006-04:00

This past week or so has been super busy. We've had things to do pretty much every night and it's really busy for me at work right now since I'm trying to wrap up as much as I can before I go. Every night I'm exhausted and then I get all nervous that I'm going to end up going into labor when I'm so tired to begin with. Paul's been too busy too, tons of stuff to do around the house & lots of work to do for other people. Plus this past weekend was his friend's bachelor party. So this week's goal is to take it easy, catch up on our sleep, and review our childbirth book so we remember all of those labor exercises we learned about. And most important: spend some relaxing time together, because it's probably the last chance we'll get for that!

I already feel a million times more ready for her to come. I'm getting a lot done at work, and I set up a back up plan so people can take over anytime if I go out unexpectedly. At home our week is a lot less crammed with plans, we packed our hospital bag, we finished her room, and we finally got the car seat installed (by the sheriff's department, so we know for sure that it's in there safely!) So now all we have left to do is look forward to meeting our baby!

On that end, we had the best appointment this past Friday. We met with our favorite midwife, Jo. She's so enthusiastic and we always learn the most from her. She had reviewed our birth plan and said that everything looked great, everything we mentioned goes along with their philosophies. She reassured me that they have an extremely low rate of episiotomies or tears (1 in 70 births) and told me all of the ways they use to try to avoid one. That made me feel a million times better, it was one of the things I was most worried about. Then when it was time to examine me she took my hands and showed me how to feel for her neck, back, butt, thighs, and arms. It was so cool! We can't feel her head anymore because she's so low in my pelvis now, a good sign that Annie's getting ready to find her way out! Her heart rate was up to 160, up from 140 last time. She said that it's a really good sign that it's a varying rate--that means she's healthy and active. So now we're having fun feeling my belly and actually knowing what we're touching. Paul really loved our appointment, he said he got a bit teary-eyed when she was showing us how to feel around for her. We decided over lunch that we're both going to be an emotional mess when she's born!

The only slightly nerve-wracking part: Jo thinks she's up to about 7 pounds now, which would make for a slightly big baby if we go to our due date, since she's gaining about a pound a week now. I'm hoping she's off a little bit on that guess. We'll see what happens! In the meantime, Annie and I are going to lay off on the ice cream habit a bit. ;0) I can't believe we're in single digits now--only 9 days until her due date! It seems like so long ago that we found out we were pregnant and now it's almost here. So exciting!

Without further ado, our finished baby room!

Almost There!

2008-05-06T13:14:00.006-04:00

We're almost done with the nursery, finally! I'm very excited. We just need to do a bit more organizing and hang some pictures and it will be all ready for her. I had a major nesting surge last night and put away all of her clothes & blankets and rearranged the furniture a bit more. We now have a nice little breastfeeding corner, it's very cozy. Gus can't resist it, he was up on the chair again last night! It sure is fun going through all of her things and opening and organizing them. I'm going to miss it when we're really done!

Confession: I was supposed to back the hospital bag last night but procrastinated and organized the nursery instead. Paul is getting really nervous that we don't have a bag packed yet, but for some reason I keep putting it off! It's almost like I think once I get that done she'll come, and I'm not really ready for her to come yet. I guess I'm still hoping we'll get these last 2 weeks in before the due date. It hit me the other day that these are the last few weeks we have where it's just the two of us. I'm not too sad or scared or anything, it just hit me that this is really going to be completely different from here on out. We're super excited to meet her though, and to start our new adventure!

Brothers

2008-04-30T20:05:00.008-04:00

So our babies for the last 4 years, Gus & George, seem to realize something is going on. We tell them all the time they are going to have a new baby sister soon, and they tilt their heads and look at us as if they are trying so hard to understand what that means. We let them sniff around in Annie’s room so they get used to all of the new baby stuff. I’m worried that they are in for a rude awakening, poor guys. They're used to being the center of our lives, so I'm afraid they're going to be a bit disconcerted when they meet the new center of our lives.

We can somewhat predict their reactions. George (the big one) is a clumsy sweetheart. We think he'll be solely interested in loving up this baby whenever possible--following her around, constantly sniffing and licking her. He follows me everywhere now and his favorite thing to do is snuggle with me, so I think he'll be great company to Annie and I during those nighttime feedings. While he is sweet and means well, it does get annoying to have a tall, 90-pound slobbery ox constantly under your feet (or on your lap). I am really hoping that I won’t get too fed up with him when I’m overtired and trying to take care of a crying baby. I hope I can remember that his world is being turned upside down too, and that he can’t help his curiosity/clumsiness. And what I really hope is that someday he and Annie will be the best of buddies. I hope he snuggles her like he snuggles me, because that kind of unconditional love is the best feeling in the world. Plus, he's an excellent pillow!

Gus is another story. He can be very, very sweet. He loves to snuggle and he loves his Daddy. Yet he can also be pretty bratty. He’s been Paul’s baby since the day we brought him home, and he didn’t hesitate to let George know that when we brought him home when Gus was 6 months old. Since Gus is a small dog, he has to use his attitude to let George know who is boss. Our concern with Gus is that he’ll be jealous, especially when Paul is snuggling the baby. He’s not a biter or anything, so I don’t think we need to worry about anything like that. But we’ll definitely need to keep an eye on him, make sure he doesn’t act out by chewing up the couch (more than he already has) or get growly with her. On the other hand, he can be pretty independent--he’s happy just laying on the back of the couch in his spot, so he might end up just enjoying some alone time when we’re wrapped up with taking care of the baby. It will definitely be interesting to see how he is around her!

In any case, they will still be our babies, and we will do our best to make sure they aren't neglected over the next few months. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't let that happen anyway!

The Home Stretch

2008-04-26T17:37:00.001-04:00

36 weeks
Originally uploaded by porkchop & paul

Holy crap, 4 more weeks to go. I can't believe it! And I must admit, it's driving me a bit crazy not knowing whether it's really going to be 4 weeks or if it will be 1, or worse, 6! The planner in me is going nuts. But I'm trying to relax, there is really nothing I can do about that. Just hope we get at least a few more weeks to get the essentials wrapped up (the car seat, a place for the baby to sleep--the crib has no mattress and our cosleeper is missing the bassinet insert, the hospital bag packed), and also hope that this baby doesn't keep us waiting around for a few extra weeks!

We're having a bit of trouble getting the car seat installed. We need to use the LATCH system since the infant seat has a 5-point harness, but our Cherokee doesn't have the hooks we need. Paul's coworkers have been trying to call dealerships this week to see if we can get some sort of kit to get the hooks installed, but they've been saying we're out of luck. Paul's thinking they might just be too lazy to look though, so we're going to spend this week looking around. If we can't find anything we'll take it to the fire department, see if it's possible to install it with just the seat belt. I'd rather not have to exchange this one for a car seat without the 5-point harness, so hopefully it will all work out! Man, baby stuff sure can be complicated.

Happy things:
I've read that it's harder for the baby to move around now since she's running out of space, but man alive is this baby active! She seems to be moving more often than she used to, and her kicks are stronger than ever. Mostly she pushes on the right side of my belly, I see it bulging out of the corner of my eye every once in a while. During meetings at work she goes particularly nuts. Maybe she finds them boring and is thinking she better give me a swift kick to keep me awake. If so, it's working! She made me jump a few times, her kick was so hard!

At my last midwife visit, she said Annie is head down. Now hopefully she'll stay that way! I was kind of hoping she'd tell me I was dilated a bit, just a centimeter or two so I'll have less work to do later. But alas, nothing. I'm starting my weekly visits now though, so maybe when I go Wednesday I'll have some encouraging news! The best part about our visit was hearing how much stronger her heartbeat sounded. Very exciting!

My coworkers are throwing me a work shower this coming Friday, I'm very excited! And seriously, how sweet are they? I'm a lucky girl!

Progress

2008-04-22T18:23:00.004-04:00

Lots of progress on Annie's room this past weekend. We picked up the crib on Friday night. Saturday and Sunday we shopped and then worked on cleaning up the floor (lots of paint splatters) and arranged the furniture. We're still not set on how it's arranged, but it's a start, and such a relief to have it all in there finally! Paul put the crib together on Sunday in record time. We were nervous because our friends had been telling us horror stories about missing pieces and confusing instructions. So Paul was very conscientious about making sure we had all of the pieces before he started. He got it up in about an hour and a half, very impressive! It sure is pretty too, we're really happy with it.

I spent the day on Sunday unpacking and organizing all of the baby shower gifts. I decided to take a picture of each person's gifts so Annie can see what sorts of things people bought her before she was born. It will be nice for us to have that too, since someday when our kids are older everything will be given away! I had a ton of fun looking through everything again, it's all so cute! I can't stop peeking in her room either.

So we had a great weekend, and even took some time out to watch two movies: Best in Show and Bee Movie. Both highly entertaining!

This weekend we're doing our final shopping trip to get the rest of the things we'll need right away. That will be fun. I'm hoping I'll have time to take pictures of all of the baby things that we bought and all of the things my mom bought this weekend too, to complete the set of baby present pictures. It will be fun to go through all of that stuff too, since it's been packed away for a while now! We still have to decorate the walls at some point too. I'm hoping that won't be too hard, I'm indecisive when it comes to that sort of thing. I sure can't wait to see it when it's done though!

Oh, and another project this weekend will be giving Paul some much needed "fun time." Poor guy has been working like crazy--side jobs at work for extra money and all of this work on getting the baby's room ready. He doesn't want me to help so much with that, he's very nervous about paint fumes and lifting things and all of that. He's already such a good daddy though, he really is working so hard to get ready for his daughter to get here!

It's really hit us this week that this baby could really come at any time now. We're 36 weeks now. I think we're ready though. We need to pack our hospital bag and get that car seat in, and then we'll be all set. So exciting! I really can't wait to meet our little girl!!

6 Weeks to Go!

2008-04-14T21:06:00.011-04:00

34 Weeks

Lots of news from baby land:

We finished our childbirth classes and then took our breastfeeding class last night. We learned how to bathe and swaddle the baby in our last class, so now we are fully prepared. Or something! Our breastfeeding class was great, we got so many good tips, and learned a lot of stuff we didn't know. It was a bit weird when we had to "practice" by holding the baby dolls up to our breast, but it really did help to have her check to make sure we had the positioning right. I feel much more confident about feeding her now!

The baby shower was last Saturday! I had so much fun. My mom, sisters, and Tara threw it for me. We had chocolate fountain, punch, and cheese & crackers, plus the most adorable rubber duckie cake. We played a few games that were not lame, and then opened presents. I was amazed at how tired I was after the present opening--there were a lot of presents and I was nervous with all eyes on me. We got so many great things for Annie though, and everyone's cards were so sweet. As Mom and my sisters noted, I really do have the sweetest friends. I feel very lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life (and in Annie's life).

Yesterday we drove up to Ikea in Canada. We bought a cute rug and lighting for the baby's room. I also finally convinced Paul to buy a coffee table. He had been adamantly opposed to them up til now. We got a new rug for the living room too, since the dogs had destroyed the last one. We got a real cheap one this time, just in case it happens again. Probably won't, since the last one went through puppydom and this one won't have to. We shopped for about 6 hours and were both a bit worn out when we left, but we really had a great day looking at everything together, and had a lovely drive home. Probably one of our last road trips as non-parents! Paul was nervous the whole time we were up there--he was convinced my water was going to break and kept pointing out hospitals, just to make sure he knew where the closest ones were. I think he was seriously convinced we'd have a Canadian citizen for a daughter!

5 Good Things

2008-03-31T19:37:00.004-04:00

32 weeks

1. A hubby who makes me feel very loved.

2. A snuggly doggy at my feet.

3. My baby shower this Saturday.

4. A new yoga ball to sit on and take some weight off my pelvis.

5. Tator tots.

The Tour

2008-03-27T21:55:00.004-04:00

At this week's childbirth class we went on our hospital tour. We were really excited to see where all of the action would happen. The maternity ward was nice, not too hospital-y and nice and quiet while we were there. I have to admit, I was a little nervous that we would hear horrible screaming, but we managed to avoid that. We saw the triage unit (where you go first to make sure you're really in labor), a labor room, the nursery, and then the post-birth rooms. We saw one baby out in the hall. The whole thing made me really excited for the big day. It made Paul nervous though, poor guy. He said that it really hit him that we're only weeks away from having our baby, and we still have lots to do to get ready! I'm confident we'll get it all done though, we really do still have time. And having all of this stuff to keep us busy will make it easier to pass the time and avoid getting too anxious!

In our class after the tour we learned about the hospital's pain medication/medical intervention policies. So far I've been really open to being flexible, just trying to go with the flow as much as possible. After hearing about all of the side effects and seeing all of the machines you have to be hooked up to in order to have an epidural (holy lack of mobility), I'm really hoping I can do this without any of that. I'm not delusional, I know it will freaking hurt, but I really am not into being confined to a bed for hours at a time. I think I would be miserable. But I guess I really don't know how I'll feel then, so I'm still trying my best to not overthink it, remind myself that I need to be flexible. I am definitely going to get cracking on that birth plan though!

Labor

2008-03-20T19:28:00.006-04:00

31 weeks

So I'm really liking our Childbirth classes. Sure, they can feel cheesy and cliche, and it is hard not to feel kind of silly when we're practicing breathing exercises, but for the most part, we are getting a lot of good information and it sure does make our big day feel like it's actually going to get here.

Paul grumbles a lot before we have to go (it is kind of a pain that the classes are from 7-9 on a Tuesday night, 4 Tuesdays in a row), but when we get there, he seems to enjoy being there with me, hearing about all of this stuff. It's all about learning how to be a good coach, and since the beginning of this pregnancy he's been nothing but supportive and eager to help me. I am lucky. Plus, last night the coaches learned a bunch of massage techniques, so that was a nice class for the mamas!

We also watched the dreaded birth video last night. It wasn't too bad, despite the fact that it was very early 90's, on a very scratchy VHS tape, and the father was wearing a dress shirt, tie, and suspenders for the entire 12-hour labor. Oh, and don't forget the shot of the baby coming out, which we weren't really prepared for, for some reason. We should have known it was coming really! But I guess it was good to see what exactly is going to happen. Paul made fun of me because I got all teary at the end, but how can you not? They were so happy, you can't help but think about how amazing it's all going to be. I really can't wait.

For some reason, I am not feeling afraid or nervous about labor at all. Before I got pregnant, it was one of my great fears. But as soon as I found out I was pregnant all of a sudden the only way I could think of labor is as a big adventure. And I'm still feeling that way with 9 weeks to go, even after learning about all of the gory details. I just really feel like I am prepared, I can handle it, and the outcome is going to be so worth it. Man, I hope it stays that way!

Pregnancy Is My Favorite

2008-03-17T18:55:00.026-04:00

16 weeks

18 weeks

23 weeks

24 weeks

25 weeks

27 weeks

29 weeks

30 Weeks down, 10 to go. Here are the highlights so far:

Deciding to start trying.

We had been married for 3 and a half years, with a house and dog for 3 of those years. I kept telling myself we were practicing with the dogs, that we'd know when we were ready. I am the oldest of 5, my youngest brother is 9. I enjoyed playing with him and then leaving him to go home afterwards, let my parents do the rest. Paul, on the other hand, has been ready since about 6 months in to our marriage. He would drop hints every now and then, but the last year the hints were getting stronger. He wasn't pushing, but he liked pointing out cute babies all the time, saying, "wouldn't it be nice...?" I consider myself very lucky that my hubby was ready before me, I know how tough some women have it in that department! I started getting the twinge about a year ago, but little things nagged at me, I kept wondering if we were really ready. Then our best friends Mike & Kelly announced they were expecting their first. I was so excited for them, and loved seeing how happy they were. It really made me realize how much I wanted that for us. We started trying that week (mid-April) and were pregnant by September, just in time for our 4th anniversary. Those few months in between were tough, due to my aforementioned impatience, but we made it through, and woo boy, was it exciting when we first saw those 2 pink lines!!

The first ultrasound.

We had our first ultrasound in October 17th, a dating ultrasound. We found out we were 9 weeks along, our due date was set at May 21st. We were beyond excited to hear our baby's heartbeat and to see her floating around in there, even though she still looked like a little bean rather than a baby. Both of us got pretty teary-eyed. I wasn't really showing yet, so it seemed a lot more real then!

Starting to show.

It seemed like forever before I started to show. For the first 3 or so months I kept thinking I was getting a little belly, but it wasn't much to speak of and really just looked like I was developing a beer belly. I couldn't wait until people could tell I was pregnant just by looking at me. It didn't really feel like I was pregnant. Plus my little brother kept asking my mom what was going on because he thought "pregnant ladies usually have fat bellies." So when I woke up one morning around 16 weeks and all of a sudden a little round belly was poking out, we were thrilled. We could finally tell there was a baby in there! Every week it's a bit bigger. We love watching our baby grow.

Our second ultrasound.

Our second ultrasound was January 4th. We scheduled it for 20 weeks because we wanted to find out the gender. She was very cooperative that morning, flipping around so the technician could get all the views she needed. We saw her hands, her head, her feet, all 4 chambers of her heart, her legs, her arms, everything. We saw her pushing up against the walls of my uterus with both her hands and her feet, and I couldn't believe that I didn't feel her yet! When the technician zoomed in for a profile view, she was saying that usually babies keep their fists balled up in the womb. Right then Annie flattened out her hand and pushed at the wall above her. Then she opened and closed her mouth a few times, like she was laughing at us. Paul said that's when he started tearing up. I started to lose it when the technician asked, "are you ready to find out the gender??" We nodded and I started sobbing as soon as she zoomed in to show us it was a girl. I'm not usually the sentimental type, but I felt my Grandmother's presence so strongly right then. We had decided 5 years ago when she passed away from cancer that we would name our first girl after her, so now we knew we had our Annie. I was afraid Paul would be a bit disappointed because he had his heart set on a boy, but he said that he pretty much didn't care after he saw her opening and closing her mouth in there. The ultrasound was amazing, we are almost hoping we will have to go back for another one!

Feeling her move.

The morning of my January 14th doctor's appointment I thought that I felt some fluttering around while I was still in bed. The next morning I felt some definite thumps and knew for sure it was her. Paul couldn't feel her until a few weeks later, but we sure had fun waiting to feel her jumping around in there. About a month later, when I was off from work for Martin Luther King, Jr. day, I was sitting on the couch watching some tv when I felt some really strong kicking, looked down, and saw the sides of my belly pushing out. That was the coolest. Now she keeps me company all day at work, all night while I'm sitting on the couch watching tv, and in the morning just before I get up. It's the best. I think I'll probably miss this the most when I'm not pregnant anymore.

On Being Patient

2008-03-17T18:39:00.015-04:00

27 Weeks, Top View

So I love being pregnant. I'm trying really hard to stay in the moment and enjoy it, since I'll probably only do this 2 or 3 times. (Paul always said 2, I always said 3. Now that we're pregnant he's so excited that he's saying 3 now. We'll see if that changes when the baby gets here.) I love everything about it. I love hearing her heartbeat, the ultrasounds, feeling her move around doing her baby aerobics, my family and friends' excitement when they see me, and most of all seeing my husband so happy every time he looks at or touches my belly. But I'm also the world's most impatient person, so waiting for this baby to get here is excruciating. I guess that's what pregnancy's all about though, time to dream about what she will look like and what her personality will be like. How Paul is going to be the best daddy. And it's definitely a good thing we get 9 months to prep. There sure is a lot to do to get ready! We are enjoying it immensely though, and spend most of our time being excited rather than panicky. We'll let you know if that changes in the next few weeks though!

First-timer

2008-03-16T20:47:00.005-04:00

Well, I have officially decided to enter blogland. I've been enjoying other blogs for a few years now and told myself that when I start having kids I'll start one to keep a journal for them. I am 30 weeks pregnant so I figure now is as good a time as any! We'll see how this goes. I'm notoriously indecisive so things will probably change around here a lot, but it should be fun for the nerd in me.