Adventures of Annie and Kaly

Annie and I have been averaging about one trip out of the house per day. This trip inevitably ends in her falling asleep in her car seat and then me trying to extract her with ninja-like precision from said seat...unsuccessfully. This is followed up by me spending the next 45 minutes trying to get her back to sleep. When I write this, I am beginning to doubt if these trips are worth it. No matter. It's good to get out of the house.

Yesterday Annie and I met up with my friend Lisa and her 3 week old boy, Charlie. We called it their first date. It was full of sleeping and crying. I have had worse first dates. I would have taken a picture, however people tend to frown on photographing wailing infants in public. They tend to prefer you spend your energy getting them to stop crying. So selfish.

Today Annie and I ventured to my office so the ladies can meet her. Again, she was a little fussy and made some of her trademark faces at one of my employees. The face was similar to this face:

I seriously may try to work this photo in each post from here to the end of time. Get used to it.

After seeing this face, Irene proclaimed, "I wasn't sure who she looked like until she made that face. She looks just like you when you are telling me I have done a bad job." I was both thrilled to hear that Annie looks like me and that my employees remember my scolding face in my absence. That's one less thing I have to worry about upon my return to the office.

5 weeks

She's very grown up now. Well, not really, but she is growing like crazy. I think she will be tipping the scales at 9 pounds at her next doctor's appointment in two weeks. She has officially outgrown three "sleep suits" (including the pink monkey pajamas-sad face). I briefly thought she might be ready to graduate to a larger diaper...until I tried the next size up and it went to her armpits. I then considered this to be additional coverage which could eliminate the risk of a full, up the back blowout the likes of which we experienced this weekend, however it left two areas of compromised protection around the legs. So we will remain in newborn diapers for now.

And in the greatest development, she is SMILING on a regular basis now. This makes her look like a completely different baby. While I will miss her scowly crinkled faces, I luuuuuvvvv seeing her beautiful face smiling at me. I occupied several hours today watching her trying to elicit a smile...

Time well spent.

Hit the Breaks!

I cannot believe it's been a month already. And what I also cannot believe is how big she is getting. She's now got some pudge brewing on the previously scrawny arms and she's getting better and better at holding her head up. I have even noticed that some of her newborn clothes are starting to get a bit snug. She's trading in her newborn squeals for little baby coos, which melt our hearts every time!

My friends have always been so great at taking monthly pics of their babies, complete with hand made signs. I know my limitations and that it would be much less likely to take monthly pics if I had to make signs too, so I found this alternative...

Almost a smile here...

Yay! I am one month old today! Where's my cake???

I have always heard people say how quickly time flies with your children, but I had no idea...

4 Weeks!

And the weeks continue to fly by. This past week was filled with a ton of action. Possibly a bit too much action. We had family in town starting on Thursday, so in order to see them, Annie continued to see the insides of various bars and restaurants, and she even attended her first art show! We were applauding our ability to do all this "normal" stuff and have our well-behaved baby with us all the while. That is, until Saturday night. Let's just say that the running around finally caught up with Miss Annie and myself and we both had a bit of a breakdown that evening. And because I don't learn lessons well, we continued to run around all day Sunday. Needless to say, Sunday night was not pleasant.

I guess what we have learned in the last week is that just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should or that it is in the best interest of your child. Sure, Annie can stay up and have her 9:00 bottle in a restaurant, but it's not what is best for her right now. And Rick and I understand that we need to be doing what is best for her and nothing else. Hopefully she returns the favor one day when she's picking out our nursing home.

Here are some recent pics from the past week. Our girl is still a bit conservative with the smiles, but she'll give you a good one right as she drifts off to sleep. She also makes this "uh-huh, uh-huh" (similar to when people respond affirmatively, without actually saying yes) noise when she gets what she wants, which is now resulting in Liza and I making that same noise whenever we get what we want. And right now, Annie is resting and I am about to take a nap too. Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh.

He's got it

I predicted that Rick would be a wonderful father in my letter to Super, however I could have never predicted just how wonderful that could really be. If there ever was a natural father, it would be Rick. He has unending patience and always swoops in when this Mommy is about to lose her mind from exhaustion.

Annie and Rick have a special napping bond. Nothing will guarantee a good sleep like some time on her Dad's chest.

Rick is also master of the bottle. And because I was crazy tired last night, he delivered several in a row so I could get some sleep. Like I said, he knows exactly when to intervene.

So today I would like to wish my beloved husband a happy very first Father's Day. Thank you for making our lives so much better by being Annie's Dad.

In the groove

Yesterday was a great day around here. I realized that Annie loves the bouncy chair (particularly after a feeding), which frees me up to do extravagant things like shower and use the bathroom with ease. I also realized that she can be calmed with running water. Sure, it means that I am raising an eco-terrorist, but these things are of little concern right now. I will make sure she makes up for it as an adult.

We did take a few steps back when I went back and re-read the sleep chapter in the baby book I had been reading. I recalled that we were not supposed to be using "sleep props", however I forgot that one of those props was rocking Annie to sleep. Oops. There's been a lot of rocking over here, and not the iPod kind. Of course, we have no rocking chair, so there are also a lot of sore backs over here. As this is all part of the greater plan to get Annie to be able to sleep through the night and learn to soothe herself, we will forge ahead in the effort to get her on a schedule and to sleep without doing 100 laps around the lower level of the house (my method) or while slow dancing her to sleep while listening to The Cure lullaby album (Rick's method). We did take a run at it last night and she only fussed for 10 minutes before falling asleep, so hopefully it won't be too rough a road.

And you might wonder how I was directed to this magical book about getting your baby to sleep. Well, I had a bit of a pregnancy guru that I tapped into about 10 times a day. I was/am blessed to find a person that is both hilarious and practical when it comes to pregnancy and child rearing. That person was Debbie and she also has a blog over at Team Botanical. As if blogging, working, tending to a toddler and a black lab was not enough, Debbie was also pregnant and gave birth to her sweet baby boy, Charlie, yesterday! Now I get to hit her up for child rearing tips as well. I am sure she's already got Charlie on a prop-free feeding schedule and has plenty of time to field my questions.

Congrats to Debbie and Chip!

Meds, anyone?

I remember thinking that pregnancy was a bit of a mind game, particularly in the beginning. There were days when I was miserable and knew it was from the pregnancy, and then there were days that I felt completely normal and became worried that something had happened with the pregnancy, and secretly wished for a bit of nausea or heartburn to let me know everything was ok.

Perhaps my personality is just prone to worry because I had a similar experience last night. After several wailing nights at bedtime, my Ricker brought our sweet, silent baby into the room and placed her gently in her bassinet. She was completely asleep and not moving and all of a sudden, I was terrified. Why isn't she crying? Is everything ok?

I then wrestled with the urge to turn on the light to check on her (even though I could hear her breathing). The turning on the light is akin to having the nuclear launch codes. If you flip that switch, you must be prepared to face the consequences of your actions. After talking myself down and realizing that she was fine and no light was needed to verify this, I started relishing the fact that it was 10:15 and I had a sleeping baby next to me, I was already in bed, and it was at least 2.5 hours until the next feeding....

....and then I was so excited I couldn't sleep.