Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone is having a nice Thanksgiving so far. Our first two hours of the holiday have been just peachy! My parents and grandparents are here for a few days, so it's a full happy house. My brother is still on his way some time today. I'm excited for a family filled weekend! Miranda's Godparents are in town too; what fun!

Well the other day wasn't a fluke, Miranda does sleep about 6 hours each night now. It's been really nice. She had her 2 month check up this week. She's 11 pounds exactly! What a big girl. 2 month check up though means lots of vaccines. She had 3 shots with 7 total vaccines in them. She's never cried quite so sharply as that! Just pure fear and shock in her eyes when those first two shots hit her. Poor little thing. But thankfully she was consoled before too long with some cuddles from mom. She didn't have any bad reactions; no fever or anything so that's all good. She did sleep a ton afterwards, either from the trauma or the tylenol!

We're doing our Thanksgiving meal tomorrow. So today is prep and cooking. Thankfully my family is smart enough to know I'm not going to prepare a big family meal. So mom and grandma came with 3 coolers of food and tons of supplies yesterday, ready to cook! Maybe we'll go to a movie today too, there are a lot of good ones out right now. Miranda's never been to the movie theater, we may need to experiment with that. She did great at the basketball game the other night, slept straight through it.

Have a happy turkey day everyone!

What just happened?

I woke to the familiar sounds of a hungry baby this morning, about 7:30. But I had one blaring questions in mind - what just happened? See, the unfamiliar thing about this morning, was I had been sleeping since 1 am. That's a long time! That's the longest I've slept since Miranda was born; it....was.....awesome! But here's the thing - I'm not 100% certain that she did sleep through the night. There's this little suspect notion in the back of my mind that we got up and did a feeding, and I just don't remember it at all. So, I'll still say that I slept through the night, but I'm not for sure that she did. I think so; she's been building up to an over-night sleep pattern. I just know it's very possible that I could, at this point, get up, feed, burp, change, rock, and put her back down and not really know about it. The mind gets a little fuzzy when you don't let it sleep for 7 weeks.

Anyway, here's the really cool thing about last night. Andy was fighting bed time with all she's worth. From 11pm to 1pm Brandon and I were passing off turns trying to get her to sleep. Typically, after her evening feeding, we lay her down, go to bed ourselves, and she falls asleep. It's a pretty easy pattern. But last night she kept getting up again, crying, wanting some cuddles. So, each of us would rock her to sleep, put her down, she'd wake up, we'd send the 'other parent' to start over. (wondering about the 'cool' part? getting there...) This was wearing me out, I really wanted to go to bed; at least for my new regular 2 hours of rest. So, I prayed in exhaustion, 'God, let this child sleep; I need some sleep.' I don't think I'd ever actually prayed that God would knock her out, we've just been going through the routine every day. But I prayed it, and meant it. So this morning when I woke up with the confusion of consecutive hours of sleep I knew God answered that prayer. As previously stated, I'm not sure if she slept through the night or I slept through the activity - but either way I felt good!

My Big Girl

Well, going to daycare this week went just fine. It was a little harder to leave her that first day than I expected. Everyone said it would be; but I thought I was tough. Turns out - no. It has been good to get back into the swing of things at work. It's a little overwhelming playing catch-up in a few areas, but even that's getting worked out very quickly. I do like being back with the youth, of course, they're fun!

Happy day - the grandparents, my parents, are here for the weekend. Silly little blizzard won't stop them! Miranda was very happy to see them, I think - it's hard to say. She burped, gurgled, smiled big, and pooped. I take that to mean she's happy! I know for sure Mom and Dad were excited to see her - that's easy to tell. We're all smiles around here. I'm working on catching this beautiful new smile of Andy's for some pictures. We pretty much live to see that wonderful moment around here.

Random note - I'm so excited that Thanksgiving is coming! Why you ask? Because my grandparents and brother and parents are all coming here for a few days - and my best friend is coming 'home' to Mitchell for a whole week. Party.

Miranda is getting so big. It's ridiculous. More than just her body growing, she's changed so much in her alertness and ability to pay attention to things. It's really amazing how big she seems. I actually have caught myself thinking nonsense things about her bigness. Like, our friends had a baby last week, and he's so tiny and new and wonderful. And I thought, Wow, remember when Miranda was that new. She'll be a big, older friend for this little guy. But - no, she's 1 month older than him; that's like the exact same age in 'real' life. I even saw some baby clothes in the closet that had the word 'baby' on it, and I thought, that's so childish and young for this big girl. Wrong again, she's a month old! I'm just obviously a little surprised at how big she seems and how much she knows already. But, I'm glad she's still my little baby :-)

Numbering Days

This is my last week on maternity leave, I start back to work on Monday. I've already been doing a couple things with my youth group - but just planning from home and going out in the evenings when Brandon is home with Andy. Anyway, next week the new routine starts and brings mixed emotions for me. I do want to go back to work. I enjoy my job and feel frustrated when I'm missing things or skipping opprotunities to be with the teens. So, it will be good to jump in again. On the other hand, it has been great to be home with my Miranda. I like the pace and rythem we've found in the past few weeks. The flexibility is nice, the company is great, and the option of napping in the afternoon is really helpful! I'm a bit concerned about the sleepy factor in heading back to the office.

I'm very lucky to not have worries about our babysitter. I know that's a stress for many new parents. But Miranda is going to stay with a very sweet friend of ours and her own little granddaughter. She offered her services when we were pregnant, and the plan has just come together beautifully. We went over to visit this morning and she rocked Andy to sleep like a pro. I think they'll get along very well. And Miranda will have a good friend in her 18-month-old granddaughter.

So, other moms out there, I need some advice. How do I store up enough milk for Miranda at the daycare? How much does she need on hand? And what's a good way to collect, store, transport, and use it? I have ideas on how to do each, but would love to hear what's worked for other working moms best. I might run over and feed her myself once during a daycare day - since our babysitter lives 2 blocks from the church and it would take me less time to do that than pump at work. The timing will be tricky though. Well, speaking of feeding issues, I've got a little girl begging for attention right now - gotta go!

One month check-up

Andy had her 1 month check-up yesterday. It's a couple days early for her actually being a month old, but that's alright. Everything looks really good. She's growing, seeing, hearing, eating, doing just fine! Her weight was 8 lbs 7 oz now; almost 2 whole pounds more than when she was born. She certainly looks and feels big to us every now and then. I can't believe some babies start at this size. That's huge.

She's starting to interact a little more. Not old enough to respond, or mimic, or laugh at our funny jokes yet. But, she'll stare you down and give you all manner of quizzical eyebrow looks.

3 Weeks Old

Week three of young Miranda's life is flying by. We've been busy with tons of little things. It's hard to say what fills up all my time, yet I know it's full! I've put in probably 5 hours of work this week, which should be nothing compared to a full 25 hr week; but somehow it's kept us hopping. Every little task certainly takes a little longer with kid in toe. (I tried to do some grocery shopping on my own the other day - it was tricky. Andy's car seat didn't fit well into the front of the cart, so I set it down in the main basket. This left very little room for groceries! You should have seen the poor little darling with boxes and bags and fruit pilled all around her. By the time I got to the counter I realized I didn't bring in any money because my wallet was in the diaper bag, which Idecided I didn't need for groceries. SoI lugged her back out to the car, then back in to pay, and back out again. Thankfully, I was at the 'hometown' store and they take your bags to the car for you; I've never been so grateful for that service until this week.)

I did develop/come-down with mastitis this week. It's an infection in the breast. Rather painful and annoying. Doc put me on antibiotics which are certainly helping things heal. The first day was bad though -as it comes with flu like symptoms. A restless night of chills and sweats is only made longer with feeding and rocking sessions every 3 hours. I'm already doing a lot better though; and can even feed her directly now instead of pumping to feed.

Daddy thinks our little girl is getting big, but we haven't had her weighed in about 2 weeks so I'm not sure. It's hard to tell when you look at someone everyday. Speaking of Daddy - Brandon is so good at his new role! He helps with every aspect of Miranda's care, even changes the extra stinky diapers without complaint. Now that I've been pumping so much he's taken over a few feedings too. He's a good daddy and has the magic touch to comfort his daughter to sooth her to sleep. There's some good daddy&me pictures on picasa; go check 'em out.

Thespacebar on thiskeyboardisbroken and it'sdrivingmecrazy!

2 weeks old

It's weird to think Miranda is already two weeks old. There are moments when everything is so new and different and I swear she just arrived here. But in other ways it's as if we've had her, and known her, and loved her forever. I think for the most part I feel like I've been at this motherhood thing for longer than two weeks; it definitely feels normal and natural in many ways. I thought it would be a harder adjustment - with the lack of sleep and tiny pink clothes in the laundry and that little person eating on me every 3 hours - but it all fell into place so smoothly that I can't remember life without these things.

We had house guests up until yesterday. Grandma (my mom), had been here since day 1, and for the weekend we had Papa Pete and Aunt Beth (B's sis) and her bf Tom. It was a super-fun weekend! But by yesterday evening the house was quiet and it was just the three of us. B was off of work today so we really got to settle into our family mode. It was nice, just being us, doing everything on our own. I think I expected my day to be so different with a baby - but it's really quite the same, just enhanced. We watched a movie, played the Wii, went to Walmart, did laundry and dishes and ate regular meals. It was a great relaxing day. Tomorrow is my first day all alone with my daughter while Brandon's at work. I think it'll go well. I do miss my mom though. She was such a huge help with everything, and it was fun just to get to hang out with her for so long. When does anyone get to just sit and chat and bum around with a parent for 2 whole weeks? I'm a lucky girl.