Is there a baby in there?
July 31, 2005
We decided to take our first leisurely shopping trip to the mall today. Sure, we've been out on trips to pick up something quick, but never just headed out for an afternoon of shopping for entertainment. Except for the fact that as we were pulling into the mall parking lot Mia woke up and started crying and it started pouring down rain (did I mention this was an outdoor mall?), it went remarkably well. I walked right into the mall while feeding her and no one knew! In fact, I don't even think most people realized we had a baby with us. She spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping all curled up in the sling and we didn't hear a peep. We're homebound no longer! Where do you want to go? What do you want to do? No problem, put her in the sling and off we'll go!
Oh, and don't ask me why I'm making that weird face...
Posted by Kimberly at 08:23 PM | Comments (2)
Today's adventure
In our quest to be the biggest geeks in the history of the world, we're at the Apple store right now changing all the desktops to pictures of Mia.
Posted by Kimberly at 02:33 PM | Comments (0)
Uncle Wes
July 30, 2005
This is my uncle wesley. He came to visit me today.
Posted by Kimberly at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)
Decisions, decisions, decisions
Mia doesn't usually go more than 3-4 hours between feedings. Yes, she'll sometimes do a 5-6 hour stint in the middle of the night, but that's after she's spent the entire evening cluster-feeding from 6pm to 10pm. But, tonight is different. She ate at 6:30pm and then fell asleep. And, she's STILL asleep. No cluster feeding. No waking up after 3 hours. We're going on 6 hours now! She's over there swinging away in her dress and likely a soaking wet diaper. I've been sitting here all night waiting for her to wake up so I can change her, put her in her pajamas, feed her and then go to bed. Should I wake her so I can get her ready for bed and put her back to sleep? Should I let her be since who knows, she might stay asleep for hours longer? Looking back on the evening now, I realize that since she's slept this long, I'm probably in for trouble tonight. Why can't these things come with manuals? I think I'll go lay down now, that's a sure-fire way to get her to wake up...
Posted by Kimberly at 12:10 AM | Comments (0)
I'm hoping potty training goes amazingly well
July 29, 2005
Yes, it's a bit premature to be considering toilet training, but I have to have something to look forward to during the endless diaper changes.
Mia has a distinct dirty diaper cry. It's not a full-fledged cry unless you just take entirely too long to get the hint. It starts out as just short whines. Nyah. Nyah. Then, if you don't move fast enough, louder, but still short separate yells. Waaaah. Waaaah. Hey, people, I'm sitting in crap and I don't like it one bit. Get your lazy butts over here and clean mine!
The funny part is that you don't have to actually change her diaper to stop the complaining. You just have to announce that you PLAN to change her diaper and start walking toward her room. She immediately quiets down and waits patiently for you to get her to the changing table. Once you lay her down she starts smiling and gurgling. This is all BEFORE the dirty diaper has been removed! Once it's off, she'll flash you the one of biggest smiles she's got. Yes, I'm hoping potty training goes amazingly well.
Posted by Kimberly at 09:49 AM | Comments (0)
The difference is...
July 28, 2005
Everyone says Mia is just adorable, but then again what else are they going to say? Oh look at that unfortunate little child? I say this to Robert all the time, "Of course WE think she's beautiful. We think she's the cutest little girl in the world. We're supposed to. But, here's the thing, everyone else thinks the same thing about their baby." He says, "Yeah, but the difference is we're right and they're wrong
Oh brother, I guess you're supposed to be biased toward your own child so you don't throw them out the window when they're having a fit.
Posted by Kimberly at 12:39 PM | Comments (2)
Sleeping baby
July 27, 2005
I'm just geeking out now and testing this "blog from your camera phone" thing. I guess if you're reading this it worked!
Posted by Kimberly at 09:32 PM | Comments (0)
Today was a happy day
There are days when she's crying all day. The only way to stop it is to feed her, and then the silence only lasts as long as the meal. But today she had lots of quiet alert time. Today was a good day.
Posted by Kimberly at 08:36 PM | Comments (0)
Baby steps
July 26, 2005
Mia was born with a superpower: she instinctively knows when the food is coming and will wake up screaming at precisely that minute. For every breakfast, lunch, or dinner since she was born she's been able to do this. Tonight, she decided to let us go out and eat in peace. She slept the entire time. Maybe it was because it was our Anniversary and that was her present to us. She did wake up on the way out to the car and scream the whole way home. But, we're taking things one step at a time.
Posted by Kimberly at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)
Sleeping through the night
July 25, 2005
According to the myriad of baby and parenting books, sleeping through the night is considered 6 hours of continuous sleep. Well, she may not have gone 6 hours, but I'll take the two 5 hour stretches in a row. Last night, she ate at 10pm, slept until 3:30am, then slept again until 8:30am. And, the icing on the cake was that she did this all in her co-sleeper! It took weeks to get her out of our bed and to sleep any length of time by herself. Then, most of that time was in her swing or baby papasan. Even more work resulted in her eyes not popping open the second you laid her down in the co-sleeper. But, she'd only been sleeping a max of two hours at a time in there. I knew she'd sleep longer with us in our bed, but I was determined to get her sleeping by herself (next to our bed, 6 inches from my face). So, last night was like a huge victory. Maybe she'll do this every night. One can dream can't they?
Posted by Kimberly at 10:44 AM | Comments (0)
Mia is an Amazon Baby!
July 23, 2005
I had forgotten how small she actually was when she was born. We went to visit Baby Gavin who is two weeks old and was roughly the same size she was at birth. Well to see the two of them next to each other was an eyeopener. After being used to lugging around all 11 pounds of Mia, I held Gavin and kept having to look down to see if I was still actually holding him or if I just had the blanket in my arms! Maybe this is from eating all day long for 7 weeks.
I hope Mia and Gavin like each other and will play together when they're a little older. Our little introduction today did not bode well. Mia was asleep when I first picked Gavin up. When she first woke up she was in a fine mood. Then, I came over to show her Gavin and she started to throw a fit. I handed him back to his mom and Mia was fine... We knew she already had a temper, but I didn't know she knew about jealousy already.
Posted by Kimberly at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)
Poor decision making skills = Miserable six hour drive
July 22, 2005
Here are the facts: 1. Mia does not like the bottle. She will take it if she's starving, but fusses through the whole thing. 2. Mia does not like the car seat. We have to strap her in at the last possible second and carry her around in it to keep the thing moving until the car starts moving. 3. Mia does not like dirty diapers. If her diaper has become soiled or simply too wet, she will let you know about it. 4. Mia has a temper and when she's not happy, she will let it be known for all to hear.
Based on this knowledge, and being the genius and extensively experienced parents we are, we decided to drive straight through like we always have and just feed her a bottle while she's in the car seat.
Do you see where this is going? She screamed at the top of her little lungs (although my ears tell me those lungs aren't quite so little) for the entire car trip.
First, Robert climbed into the backseat with a bottle. The screaming got louder. Then she decided to go ahead and take a couple sucks from the bottle... and spit it back at him with such force that it hit the back of the seat. They did this for a while, until she was wearing 2 ounces of milk. Then he decided that he was more stubborn than she was and the Battle of Wills was on! He would let her suck some out but before she could spit it out at him, he'd close her mouth so she had to swallow. This was followed by the angriest screaming I've ever heard. She didn't sound as upset during the heelstick test in the hospital. Clearly, this wasn't working. He climbed back into the front seat.
By this time, she had passed out from sheer exhaustion. But, the sleep wouldn't last more than 10 minutes though until her rumbling stomach awoke her. I climbed in the back seat and pumped a fresh bottle for her. This one she reluctantly took a few sips out of, but as soon as she wasn't completely starving anymore, she quit eating and started screaming until she'd fall asleep for 10 minutes, and so on. It didn't help that she picked this trip to have 5 dirty diapers. So, we'd think we just changed her, it couldn't possibly be her diaper... think again.
Finally at our destination, I ran in the house and changed her and fed her. She ate so voraciously that you'd think we'd been starving her to death. And I guess we had been.
The good news is that we are capable of learning. On the trip back, we just stopped for 20 minutes every few hours to feed her. Turns out that when we combine that with a gas stop or to get a new book on tape, we don't actually lose more time. And the silence of a happy, sleeping baby is blissful.
Posted by Kimberly at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)