Experiments in Life

Well, Jon beat me to posting about Emily’s doctor’s appointment. However, I have the data you’ve all been waiting for! I have her 12 months stats! Here are the numbers that you’ve been craving.

weight: 22 lbs (75th percentile)
head circumference: 46 1/4 cm (75th percentile)
length: 30 inches long (90th percentile)

Holy cow! My child is a giant! She is now mostly wearing 18 mo. sized clothing. She also has about 4 teeth coming in on the top. The front two are through but I believe she is cutting the teeth on either side of the front teeth as well. There has been lots of drool and snot as a result. She’s also taken to chewing on everything.

Also, she has now discovered the joy of teasing the dogs. This morning, she was eating cheerios in my lap. Well, of course Dante was interested. So, she would grab a cheerio, hold it out to Dante, jerk it back after he had sniffed or licked or gotten near it, then shoved it into her mouth while giggling at the same time. What a picture that was. I felt really sorry for Dante. He kept looking at me like “Why are you letting her torture me this way?” I have been told that I use to do the same thing as a child, so I guess she is definitely my child.

Well, that’s all I really have for now. I am trying to get us ready for our big trip next week. Tomorrow we leave for Gatlinburg. We are so excited. Of course, it has been busy and hectic for me this week trying to make sure I have everything we need and then trying to pack it all. We’ll be finishing up the packing tonight after Emily goes to bed.

Emily goes back to the doctor again at 15 months. Stay tuned for those numbers.

Well, as most of you know, yesterday was Emily’s birthday. I cannot believe that she has been with us for a year already. My how she has grown. We went from lump of baby, to sitting up, to babbling, to crawling, and now walking. She is quite tall these days and hangs with most of the older kids in her daycare class. In honor of her birthday, I took some frosted cookies to her class yesterday afternoon (and no, they weren’t home-made). I took pictures of her and her classmates as they devoured the sugary goodness. I am not sure what Emily actually though. The teachers also had the birthday song on repeat on the CD player, so much dancing and eating was to be had. Here are a few snapshots from the “party”.

Party Pictures

Hope you enjoy them!

We’ll write more and post more pictures later.

Well, it had to happen. Emily has had her first boo-boo. Roughly three weeks ago, Emily decided to take her first steps without holding onto anything. She made it a whole three steps. By the next weekend, she had begun walking halfway across the room. Now, she can walk pretty much wherever she wants, so long as she is not too tired. That is where the boo-boo comes in. When Mama (Ashley) came home, Emily was so excited that she decided to skip her afternoon nap. Hours later, while trying to walk, Emily takes a tumble into the chair and obtained a nice little goose-egg for her effort. Luckily, she is not going to get pictures taken for another two or three weeks

Well, I know Easter was something like two (OK, three) weeks ago now. However, I finally got Easter pictures up! I do have video of Emily walking behind her walker, but I did not have the right cable to pull it off of the camera tonight. Hopefully I will make it over to Best Buy or something so I can get my cable and get video of my little sweetie pushing her walker. I understand what parents have told me in the past about children not really practicing anything. Saturday she pushed the walker for a few steps and today, she was just zooming with it. Hopefully I will get it up soon.

Sorry for my tardiness in getting this up, but as you will read below, things are kind of busy at our house these days

Holy Moly! Look at how much our little girl has grown! I guess she isn’t so much a little girl anymore

weight: 20 lbs (75th percentile)
head circumference: 44 cm (75th percentile)
length: 29.5 inches long (90th percentile)

So much is going on with Emily these days. She already has two teeth on the bottom. I believe she will be cutting another one or two soon.

She is also crawling now. She has been crawling for about 3 weeks. We were beginning to get worried since she was pulling up on various things around the house long before she really showed any signs of crawling. And now that she is mobile, the dogs spend a lot of time outside, a lot! Rosie generally tucks tail and runs while Dante likes to lick and run, then repeat. Emily seems to like that too. Of course, the pulling up has only increased with her mobility. Now she can crawl over to the coffee table and pull herself up. She is also getting brave and starting to let go of things and grabbing onto whatever is closest before she falls down. Things are going to get really interesting around our place soon. I believe she may be walking by the time she turns 1, which is right around the corner.

I can’t believe how quickly the time has passed. Since my birthday is exactly 2 weeks after Emily’s, my birthday is now rapidly approaching. Before Emily came, time between birthdays seemed long. Now with her here, I can’t believe that I will soon celebrate another year. I never really believed that once you had a kid that time flew by faster, now I do. I’m not sure how that is physically possible…

Anyway, we are greatly enjoying our little girl and having so much fun being parents. I absolutely love being a Mom and believe that I have finally satisfied one of my callings in life. I watch her grow and learn more each day. It is delightful to have the opportunity to do so. Everyday, I fall in love with her a little more. Now I know what being a parent is all about.

Stay tuned for the 12-month update in 3 months

Well, it has been a wild couple of weeks. Between all three of us having a stomach bug, Emily and I having the flu, me being in San Diego and Ashley and Emily going to Columbus, there has not been a whole lot of time for the whole website thing.

However, I have had some time to take some new pictures (Internet Explorer-friendly link) of Emily. Above, you can see her expressing her displeasure to being put in an N. C. State onesie (Hi Randy!). We all know she was crying cause she wanted to be put in maroon and white. In the past few weeks, Emily has starting chewing on everything with her two partial teeth, crawling around the floor, and pulling up on everything and everyone that she can. I tried to get shots of all of that, but I was not able to get pictures of her crawling towards me — only away.

Well, we won’t be seeing anyone anytime soon.

Emily has the flu, and a nasty ear infection.

All this after having quite the nasty little stomach bug last week. For those of you who don’t know, Jon and I spent all last Wed. night vomiting continuously for several hours. The next day, we were too sore to move. By Friday, we finally felt well enough to contemplate real food and to shower, then we got hit with the second part of the bug. Let’s just say we then proceeded to lose all fluids that we had managed to rehydrate ourselves with. Our first real meal was Sat. night. All the while, Miss Emily wanted to play and just didn’t understand why Mommy and Daddy stayed on the couch and in the recliner and didn’t move for two days.

So, we will be sacrificing pigeons in an attempt to appease the gods and pray for the neverending sequence of sickness to end. So far this year Emily has had RSV, a stomach virus, a double ear infection (not including the current ear infection), and the flu.

If this keeps up, we will have to burn the house in order to get rid of all the germs.

Until we are well again, take care everyone.

After a few months delay, I have finally gotten around to taking and posting some new photos. Yes, I know that I am a slacker, but I have been busy with the not sleeping. You see, Emily has decided that she does not need to sleep through the night any more. Sunday night, I spent the whole night going upstairs to try and get her to go back to sleep, trying to read my self tired again, then trying to fall back asleep. Repeat this twice and I slept somewhere around 3 non-consecutive hours Sunday night. Luckily, she slept better last night…

Update: If you are trying to get to the photos and cannot get it to work, rest assured, I know about it. You can got to the photoset on Flickr to see the photos.

As you all know, Emily had a rough introduction to life and Jon and I had a rough introduction to parenting. What I have found is that most people will tell you how wonderful and rewarding it is to be parents. Those same people, however, seem hesitant to tell you about what I call the “ugly side” of parenting. Luckily, I had some good friends who were very honest about parenting in its entirety (Thanks Misty!) and very supportive once Emily arrived.

So, why am I posting on this topic now, especially since Emily is 7 months old? Well, a couple of good friends of mine recently went through some hectic times in which their daughter has been crazy sick off an on. They posted about it and described what they called A Parent Freak Out. As I was reading this post, I remembered a time in which I had the ultimate freak out with Emily.

Let’s set the scene shall we…

It was the early hours of the morning. Emily had been nursing off and on for hours. She was exhausted and I was exhausted. I couldn’t put her down because she would wake up and we would start all over again. I believe Jon was back at work and I was trying to let him sleep so he could function. The help was gone and I was alone with Emily on the couch. Every time I looked at her all I could think about was how I really didn’t want to be holding her anymore. When she started crying again, I cried with her. I could hardly stand the thought of putting her back to the breast for yet more nursing. It got so bad that I could not stand her touching me in order to feed. I was in total dispair and did not know what to do. At the time, I had no idea that nursing was not supposed to be like that. So if you are experiencing the same nightmare, get help…now!

Anyway, Emily started crying again and I was very literally at my wits end. So I picked her up to nurse her, but when I did, I snapped her head very quickly. I did not mean to. However, at her age, handeling her roughly like that could cause serious damage. I was instantly flooded with guilt and shame and terrified that I may have just hurt her. I cried with her for a while. All I could do was hug her to me and whisper “I’m sorry” over and over again. Not long after that, I put her down in the crib and left her for 10 minutes while I fixed her a bottle.

I don’t really recall what happened after that. I just remember the horror that I felt when I realized how close I was to hurting my child. I can totally understand why some parents result to abusing their children. That may sound like a horrible thing to say, but it is true nonetheless. I am very thankful for that reality check. I needed to get a grip before something bad happened to both of us. And do not think that just because she did not get hurt that I don’t still feel guilty about the incident. Of course I think about it less and less, but every once in a while when I get frustrated with Emily, I am reminded of this lesson and take a deep breath and calm myself. Thank goodness that Emily’s development is right on track and she appears to be a very bright individual. The guilt still lingers on and probably will for the rest of my life.

Looking back on this incident, this is probably when the Post-Partum Depression came bubbling to the surface. I believe I was diagnosed not long after this happened. So Stephen, yes, I totally understand the Parent Freak Out you described. And it sounds like I may have even taken it one step further.

For those new parents out there, don’t be afraid to put the child down and walk away to calm yourself. If you think you have post-partem depression, get help! The best piece of advice I received when Emily was born came from my doctor. She told me the following in the hospital, “No baby has ever died from crying.” I have tried to take that to heart and not beat myself up over what did happen or what could have happened. Since then, I have not been afraid to put Emily down and walk away, or take her away from Jon if his frustration level is rising.

Although being a parent is a wonderful experience, it does have its ugly side too.

Wow, I can hardly believe how time flies. Our little Emily is 6 months old now. I think I say the same thing everytime I post new stats on her. Well, it truly is amazing to me. I didn’t realize how much time would speed up once I became a parent.

Anyhoo, here are the new stats on our little one. She sure is growing like a weed. It won’t be long before she is taller than me

weight: 17 lbs (75th percentile)
head circumference: 44 cm (75th percentile)
length: 27 1/4 inches long (90th percentile)

I am surprised she is not heavier than she is. We have started her on solid foods now and she can’t seem to get enough of them. Her favorites are sweet potatoes (thanks to Aunt Sissy for that one ) and green beans. Of course, the green beans must be a different brand and come in a jar. My, she is picky! She hasn’t slowed down on the formula so she is still eating at least 5-7oz. bottles a day and solids 1-2x per day. I cannot wait to give her some cheerios. I would have given them to her last night, but she went to sleep around 4:30 and stayed that way until about 8. Then she ate and went right back to sleep around 8:45 and did not wake up again until 4:30 this morning. Even then she was only up for an hour before she took an hour nap before going to daycare this morning. Shots are a nasty business, but good for wearing out a little girl who does not like napping at daycare.

Long live the nap resitance!

That’s all I’ve got for now. We’ll soon be heading to Nana Jo and Papa Doc’s house for Christmas. So, stay tuned for Christmas pictures and stories. I’m sure we’ll have lots of both.

Merry Christmas to all