Advice

At the MS Walk last weekend, the other teachers reminded me that they expected to see lots of pictures upon my return this week. So, I gathered up the pictures that I haven't had time to scrapbook yet and brought them with. My parent volunteer asked to see them when she came in today. When she came to this picture, I explained that our close friends had a baby nine days after we had Gracie and this was their first weekend together. She laughed and said it looks like Gracie is giving Shirley advice-and Shirley is intently listening. Hum, I just hope they aren't conspiring already!

Our Stolen Day

Gracie and I had a great day together. We went to USA Baby, and they are hosting a Cutest Baby contest in conjunction with a local photographer. I walked in and they said "Do you have the cutest baby?" I turned her carrier around and said "Why, yes I do." They all agreed (like they're going to disagree with a mom saying that!). They took a bunch of photos of her. The photographer was great, making funny faces and noises to get her to make faces at him. Too bad they are so expensive, or I'd take her back. They will have four pictures of her up on their site to vote for the cutest baby. For entering the contest I get a free 8X10 of her and if she wins the contest, we will get a prize package "worth $1000." The pics will be up May 5th, and I'll put the link on here if anyone is willing to vote again. We also went to Target and got her birth announcements and then came home to take a nap together.
While we were savoring our day, I was thinking about how much God helped me out with this maternity leave. I only had six weeks of sick time banked at the school, and he put her birthday in just the right place so that the time would be over spring break and Good Friday, giving me an extra eight days to enjoy her. I am so thankful-I can't imagine how much harder it would have been to leave her eight work days ago.

Punk Gracie

The Happiest Surprise EVER

So, I checked my school email account when I got done making dinner and there was an email in there from my principal to the whole school telling everyone that I will be back on Tuesday. Confused, I called her saying I thought I had to come back tomorrow. She said since Good Friday was in the time I was gone I have one more day off!! I'm so happy, I am crying and typing this one handed so I don't have to put Gracie down. One more day of bliss before reality.

Emma Leigh

Welcome Emma Leigh!

Born: 4/23/08

Time: 6:59pm

Weight: 6 lbs 4 oz

Height: 19”

Congratulations Jenny and Dan, can't wait to meet Emma!

I Can't Do It

Honestly, how can I be expected to leave her for eight hours a day when she has been practically attached to me for the last seven weeks-not to mention the time she spent with me before she was born. This truly is cruel and unusual punishment. This weekend is going to go by way too fast.

Vote For Gracie

Well, the first photo won your votes for the cutest baby and pet photo contest. I finally got it loaded to the site, with help from my dad who used his photo software to shrink the photo. If you have a chance, please go to the site and click on "recommend." The most recommended photo wins an iPod Nano. Thanks!

My Drama Queen

I think I'm in for it when she's a teenager!

Lactation Group

I had my six week check up this afternoon. The doctor said that everything has healed correctly, and I am good as new, basically. I have already taken off the baby weight, and am working on the excess pre-baby weight. Feelin' pretty good right now, and hope that it continues. However, I did have questions for her about how to get myself to make more milk for Gracie. I am concerned that I won't have enough stored when I have to go back to work (sigh) at the end of the month (there will be lots of tears on the 28th). She didn't have many answers, but advised me to go back to the hospital and talk with the lactation consultant. The LC has a group that meets every Thursday afternoon to check up on their babies and breastfeed together. OK, they told me about this group when Gracie was born, and it was a little weird for me-a bunch of strangers getting together and talking while their boobs are hanging out? No thank you. Despite my reservations, Gracie comes first-no matter what. So I sucked up my pride and modesty and went after my appointment. I am so glad I went! I was weird at first because they had already started when I got there, and I know I can't go much longer (until summer) since it's on a weekday afternoon but I got so many answers! First, I weighed Gracie and was shocked to discover she is nine pounds, five ounces! OMG! Angie (the LC) encouraged me, saying that with that weight gain, and her chubby cheeks, she is clearly getting enough milk. Yea! She also told me about a couple of products I can take to improve my production. I am now taking Fenugreek which not only helps with production, but also with digestion-and Gracie's digestion. I am hoping that it will ease her gas pains. There's also a Mother's Milk tea that I bought, even though I usually don't drink tea it will be worth it if it works. They also told me about Gripe Water which can be given to babies up to six times a day to help with fussiness. I got the milk products at Apple Nutrition, and they gave me a free sample of Gripe Water. I am so encouraged by our progress. There were mommies there with five month old babies that were having trouble getting the baby to latch on. Watching the other ladies showed me that Gracie and I are doing just fine and I had a smile on my face the whole way home.

Portraits

Gracie had a rough day yesterday. She had a lot of gas pains, which resulted in a lot of crying from her and frustration from momma. In the evening, I fed her and was trying to get her to sleep but she was still fussing-loudly so I gave her a bottle. Now, she usually has a little trouble with bottles. The milk just comes out too fast for her, and she ends up shooting some of it out the side of her mouth. She wasn't doing that last night, so I thought she had gotten the hang of it-until I picked her up to burp her. The back of her head was drenched! I guess it was leaking down where I couldn't see it! So, needless to say she got a bath, which I was trying to avoid because we had an appointment to get her first professional portraits taken today and when her hair is freshly washed it stands up on end and she looks like a peacock. Better than milk-head though.
So today we took her to the studio for her pictures, and it was quite an interesting experience. She started with individual shots, and she did a great job. She was even making some cute faces for a few of them. Then we decided to add mom and dad and strip her to her diaper. She usually likes being naked, but she was not having it today. She is screaming in two out of three of the mom and dad shots. Oh well, we tried.

Milestones

Gracie hates Tummy Time. We have to put her on her side and slowly move her onto her tummy to avoid the screams. However, if we use daddy's tummy instead of the floor, she's OK with it. She has been working really hard with daddy to gain control of her neck muscles, and can actually hold her head up on her own for over a minute already!She has also found her fingers. It's fun to watch her. The other day she was a little fussy, and she'd let out a little whimper and then stick her fingers in her mouth and suck a few times. The process repeated over and over. I keep waiting for her to put her thumb in. I was quite a thumb sucker, so I would not be surprised to see her sucking away. I haven't been able to get a picture of her sucking her fingers, as it happens so quickly, by the time I got the camera she was done.

Gracie Loves Baseball

I cannot get over how good Gracie is at the baseball games. We put her into the baby frontpack and carry her around in it. Our body heat keeps her really warm, and she sleeps through the whole game! Both yesterday and today we went to the game and I fed her just before they started playing, and she didn't wake up again until we got home. We did get these great pictures of her before she passed out.

Help Me Choose!

I am terrible at making decisions! Please help me decide which photo to enter into parents.com's Cute Babies and Pets photo contest. I just can't choose! Or, should I take another one?

1. In this one, they're holding paws!

2. This is just cute.

3. This one was taken on my phone, so the color's weird, but it's still so cute.

Everyone Loves A Boppy

New Friends

Gracie had a very fun weekend playing "pass the baby." She met so many new friends and family members! Here are a few pictures of the new people in her life
.

Aunt Julie, Uncle Tony, and Cousin Elara.


Uncle Anthony and Aunt Jenni.


Erin, Richard (not pictured) and Shirley.

There are so many more, but I didn't get pictures of everyone, and there's not enough space for them all anyway. We had a great time showing off Gracie, and we miss you all!

A Successful Journey

Yesterday I decided to take Gracie for a little journey. We packed up everything she may need and ventured into the big world to go to Babies 'R' Us. She cried the whole way there. Once we got there, I took her to the "Mother's Room" and fed her, hoping that would calm her. It didn't. I had to hold her the whole time I shopped. It was fine, except then everyone feels the need to come admire the baby-fun at first, but really prolongs the trip! While I was there, I grabbed the March issue of American Baby, which they give out for free. We wandered for a while, and then headed home- she only cried half the way home.
That evening, as I was feeding Grace, I paged through the magazine, and found an article on calming your baby. One of the things it suggested was to create white noise. I mentioned it to Brian, and he said "no wonder the bathroom fan put her to sleep so fast last night." He had sent me to bed and taken over baby bed time the night before. Hum. . . So later, when she got fussy we tried the usual techniques-baby backpack, bouncy chair, shhhing then we put on the baseball game. It's official, she's already hooked on baseball! She was entranced with the game for a good 45 minutes before the crying resumed. Suddenly I remembered the article. I took her into her room, turned off the lights, and turned on the fan. We started rocking, and she was out like a light in about 2.2 seconds! YES! Victory! I don't know why I didn't think of that on my own-Brian needs a fan to sleep, and she is a daddy's girl. I guess sometimes you just need to see/hear it from someone else before it makes sense. Here's hoping it will keep working.