I love your SMILE

- 6 weeks old -

My Little Kicker

Today I got out the rainforest play mat that Felicia bought for Keira to see if she had any interest in it yet. I didn't think she would care for it much yet, but she seemed to have a pretty good time. She only managed to reach the toys a couple times but she was kickin' like crazy! She had those legs going and she was "talking". Click on this video I took on my cell phone.

That should give you an understanding of what it was like having her in my belly! That girl would kick me like crazy. Every time I went to the doctor they would say, "Wow! You have a gymnast in there!" She loves to be awake and loves to play. I sure love my little kicker.

Yesterday I had a test run of the clothes I bought for us to wear in our family picture. I was quite pleased with my outfit and the dress I got for the baby fit her perfectly. I learned that Art is hard to restrain when he sees me in black nylons, and I learned that the baby's nylons are WAY too baggy! I am definitely going to have to find either some smaller stockings or some black ruffle socks. It is really hard to find black clothing for babies so I hope I can find a substitute. When we got home from church I wanted to take a couple pictures of her before I changed her clothes and she was starving so most of the pictures I got look like this...

I am pretty sure she waited in the cuteness line in heaven twice

but skipped the patience line altogether.

Note the baggy stockings.

Her shoes are so big you have to make sure they don't fall off.

She is now 5 weeks old and doing really well. The only time she ever cries is when she's hungry which is every 3 hours like clockwork. She still doesn't sleep for longer stretches at night, but she has gotten better about going right back to sleep. I still haven't taken her to a checkup at the doctor because we're in between insurance, but I got on the scale with her and she is about 9 pounds! I can't believe how fast she is growing. I guess my little girl can't stay little forever. I am sad to report though, that my breastfeeding attempts have failed completely. At best I could only get her to latch on for about 15 minutes, only after pumping, and being that she would still finish a full bottle afterward I could tell she couldn't suck hard enough to get anything out. I was going to keep pumping until she got the hang of nursing, but my milk supply dwindled down to insignificant amounts faster than she improved. It was taking me 3-4 days of pumping to get enough for one bottle. As sad as it makes me to give up, at least she was able to get some of my milk for the first 5 weeks. That's better than nothing, and it sure hasn't kept her from growing!

Crazy Eights

8 Shows I Love

1. Heroes
2. CSI Las Vegas
3. Stargate SG-1
4. Stargate Atlantis
6. CSI Miami
7. Other CSI-like shows such as Law and Order
8. Jesse Stone TV series of movies

8 Thing I Did Today (I'm going to change this to this week so its not so boring.)

1. Sunday- went to church
2. Monday- went to my postpardum appointment
3. Monday- went to dinner and Family Home Evening at the Pauline's house
4. Tuesday- went shopping at the mall with Keira and my mom
5. Wednesday- bought my mom an opal ring for her birthday
6. Wednesday- went to dinner at Cool Hand Luke's for mom's birthday
7. Friday- bought a file cabinet and fireproof/waterproof safe in an attempt to get organized and satisfy my recent paranoia of apartment fires
8. Saturday- I filed everything in the new file cabinet

8 Things I look Forward to:

1. Putting up my Christmas tree soon
2. Owning a house someday
3. Taking a family picture in the next week or so
4. Thanksgiving
5. Christmas
6. Getting 8 consecutive hours of sleep again
7. Moving out of this tiny apartment
8. Going to the temple to be sealed

8 Favorite Resturants

1. F. McLintock's
2. Plaza Ventana
3. Luna's
4. Me n Ed's
5. Cool Hand Luke's
6. DiCicco's
7. Bobby Salazar's
8. Sun Sun Kitchen

8 Things On My Wish List

1. To be able to stay home and raise my baby
2. A bigger place to live
3. A second car
4. To be debt free
5. More sleep
6. Someone to cook for me every day
7. Power locks in my car
8. Cable TV

8 People I Tag

I don't think I have 8 friends but I tag Michelle, Shalee, and Kathy.

Neglect and Deprivation

It's now been one month since I pushed my baby out and I am TIRED. I'm still trying to convince Keira that we don't need to be up all night like Daddy but she still gets up to eat every 3 hours, which means I get to sleep for about 2 hours at a time if I'm lucky. She loves to be awake, especially at night.

My sleep deprivation was accentuated by the fact that I had to finish my real estate finance course and have the certificate of completion at the Department of Real Estate by this Wednesday or else everything I worked so hard for would have gone down the drain. So I spent all last week studying and took the final exam last night, which I proudly passed with a 97%. I will shortly have my unconditional real estate sales license although I'm not sure when I will utilize it.

I have learned that motherhood requires a skill for prioritizing that I have not yet mastered. With only 2 free hours at a time, you must carefully choose what you wish to accomplish in that window. The list usually consists of bathing and other personal hygiene, eating, pumping, house cleaning, errands, and laundry. It seems like eating keeps getting pushed farther and farther down the list. Sometimes I get to the end of the day and realized I haven't even brushed my teeth, or that I haven't eaten all day. You might call it self-neglect. I have also sworn off cooking until further notice, so feel free to take pity on me and bring me a nutritious meal any time.

Even lower on the list of priorities is my poor Bunny. He has not seen much time outside of his cage in the past 4 weeks. To top it off, he was out of hay and banana chips for a couple weeks. This has resulted in very low Bunny morale, so much so that a few days ago when I lowered his dinner into his cage he angrily bit my hand! Yes, he bit the hand that feeds him. I think Bunny's isolation is pushing him toward insanity, as he has begun hurling himself against the cage walls like some kind of crazed wall kick or body slam. Hopefully I can get him to forgive me.

One thing I am happy about though is how surprisingly resilient my body is, with the exception of my bad butt skin. My belly got really flat really fast. By the end of week 2 or so, I had dropped 20 lbs. and I thought I looked pretty dang good. I would be completely content at my present weight but I would still like to get in the habit of exercising. Every time I go into public, people tell me I don't even look like I had a baby. Art says not to let it go to my head, but I think he is impressed too.

I totally meant to take pictures of the baby yesterday to commemorate her 4 week birthday but that fell too low on the priority list and didn't happen. We are planning on taking a family picture to give to everyone for Christmas but I contracted a gnarly eye infection in both eyes and have to wait until that clears up. That will give me some time to decide where I want to have them taken and figure out something to wear. I have a dress that's ok but I wore it while I was pregnant and although it isn't a maternity dress it has maternity karma. Also, I am quite nervous about timing it so that she isn't starving to death or asleep upon our arrival. Anyways, here are a couple pictures from Week 3. Nothing fancy...

Her birthmark looks like a tattoo to me.

I want to know what color her eyes are going to be!

She likes playing with her ladybug toy.

Cuddling with Daddy.

Chinese Water Torture

I have come to realize that to Keira, breastfeeding is like Chinese Water Torture. With the combination of her high arched palate and weak suck and my lack of substantial milk supply, it was inevitable that breastfeeding wouldn't work out for us. Try as she may, she just can't latch on well enough and suck hard enough to get enough to eat. She even has trouble sucking on a bottle or pacifier. With the flow from a bottle being so abundant, I really can't blame her for being discontent with my slow drip. I have, however, been pumping what little milk I have for her and she seems to enjoy it much more than I enjoy pumping. A couple weeks ago, I had read about how babies go through a growth spurt around 3 weeks old where they will eat every hour around the clock and shuddered at the thought. Then a moment ago, the baby was fussing and Art asked if she might be hungry and I said, "She just ate an hour ago!" Surprisingly, Art remembered our conversation about the growth spurt and suggested that might be why she is hungry and I responded, "But that's not supposed to happen until they are 3 weeks old! Oh..." When I read about it, it seemed so far away but these 3 weeks have gone by so fast!

Even though she is only a couple weeks old, her personality is definitely forming and I have learned a few things about her. She does NOT like to have her arms confined. She will go to extraordinary lengths to free them. Also, she does not have "hunger cues." The moment her eyes open, you have to run and get a bottle. She doesn't mess around- she gets straight down to business. I have also learned that she inherited Art's crude digestive system. You wouln't believe the foul stench that comes out of such a cute girl and she lets out some amazing belches. I will certainly pray she becomes more refined as she grows. Lastly, when I was pregnant with her I knew that when she was really kicking it was because she was mad and sure enough, when she gets mad those legs are kick-a-kickin'!

Recovery has been much more long and drawn out than I anticipated. I got a bladder infection a few days after I got home from the hospital and a few days later, developed a Bartholin's cyst. It is a cyst on the gland in your women parts that is responsible for lubrication of the area. I had to have it cut open to drain. Only 2% of women ever get one of these cysts, and I am lucky enough to be part of that percentage. I had one about 4 years ago that didn't hurt nearly as much as this one did. This one felt like it was going to explode every time I stood up. It's been over a week since they cut it open and I am feeling better every day, but I am still afraid at the possibility it could come back as well as the bladder infection. At this point, Keira is still worth all the trouble, but check back with me after the week long growth spurt of hourly feedings! My answer may have changed by then.

Here are my favorite photos from Week 2...

Look at that sad face! lol

She actually enjoys taking a bath.

I caught her smiling!

My little cute bug!

I love her little fuzzy head.