Thursday, May 24, 2007

Can I Get a Witness?

On Tuesday, May 22nd, Farrah allowed her father and I to witness a first of hers. While Mike and I talked, Farrah was lying on her back playing with her dangly toys. From time to time she would be squirmy and push her body back and forth. While I was in mid sentence, Mike yelled, "Oh my god SHE DID IT!" as my eyes went to her. She had rolled over her first time in front of both of us! As soon as she did, we both cheered really loud and clapped our hands and that put a big smile on her face. Neither of us missed it! One of the things that has really bothered me about working full time and having her in daycare is missing any of her milestones. The look on her face was pure pride. She sat there on her hands and belly, wobbling back and forth and finally started to grunt. I had to help her back onto her back. Last night, she did it again, and again, I cheered loudly for her, putting another huge smile on her face.

Yesterday, I got to spend all day with her because I had to stay home with a bad case of allergy-itis. The pollen in the air is kicking my ass. Itchy eyes, itchy nose, itchy forehead, sinus head ache, sneezing, coughing, everything. It sucks. Also, I was exhausted from the night before. Mike and I stayed up for HOURS just talking. It was great. While we were up, I studied Farrah's sleeping habits. I used to think that if she started to wail in the middle of the night, it was because she was hungry. However, she was starting to do that only a little after an hour from eating last. Impossible for her to be hungry. I put her in her crib and the first time she cried, I went into her room, picked her up, held her and rocked her back to sleep. A couple hours later she did it again, and I did the same thing. Finally, she was ligitmately hungry, but it had been 5-6 hours since she last ate. I've come to the realization that she simply wants to cuddle. Not just cuddle, but be held as close to you as possible. How sweet. I don't have a rocking chair, so rocking her back and forth with just my body is very tiring. So, I will be borrowing my mom's rocking chair to put in Farrah's room for a while. Hopefully, that will help with the gradual transition of her sleeping with us to sleeping in her crib.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Dear Farrah: Part 5

Oh my gosh, you're 5 months old today! We've noticed that you are growing like a weed. You look like you're twice as long as you were when you were born. Which makes sense since you're clearly twice the weight. The car seat keeps getting heavier and heavier and I am beginning to grunt when I have to place you in the car and when I have to get you out.

Lately, I've been missing you like crazy. Part of it, I'm sure is postpartum, but a huge part of it is that I don't feel like I get to see you as much as I'd like to. My schedule, unfortunately, has made it very hard to see you more. Your Dad and I have been working on solutions to fix that, though. I have been feeling that you might think that Melissa is your mom because you see her more than me. This thought makes me cry. And then when I come to see you on my lunch break you turn to me and smile and talk with me, and the sadness melts away until I have to leave you again. As your father always says, "A solution will present itself." It will present itself for us in this situation. I don't know what it will be or when it will be, but I'm looking forward to fixing my schedule enough that this sadness goes away for me.

As I always write, you are very talkative. Not only do you talk, you shout. You want to make sure the house shakes when you speak. Everyone must know that Farrah is in the room and to open their ears and hear what you have to say. When you get excited about what you're yelling about, you start to cough. You strain your vocal chords to the point of tickling them. I always laugh at you when you do this. I also get nervous of what this could mean in the future. Are you going to be one of those little girls that screams and yells at the top of her voice if she doesn't get her way? Good God, I hope not. Actually, I know you won't because it will be your Dad and I raising you and we won't allow that behavior to come from our precious angel.

You have very busy hands and feet. We are now to the point where we cannot leave beer bottle caps, quarters, and little magnets in your crib. You grab everything and everything finds its way to your mouth. You put your blankets in your mouth, your toys in your mouth, my knuckles in your mouth, your feet in your mouth, the bottom of your shirt or dress gets pulled all the way up to land in your mouth, and if all else fails, your fist is in your mouth. Then there's the feet. You have, what I call, frog legs. You kick your right leg out while the left gets pulled back in. Then you kick your left leg out while the right gets pulled back in. This goes on back and forth for a long time. I even video taped it because you looked like you were dancing. When you do this while lying down with me, you usually kick me in the stomach. If you're lying on your back up against my legs, you kick me square in the boob. This has hurt lately because I've been working out so hard at the gym and my muscles are sore right where you get me.

One thing I've noticed about you has started to get me worried about what our future with you will look like. First of all, your father, Grandma Rita, Uncle Steve and oldest brother, Alex, all seem to suffer from some hunger-assholism problem. If they don't eat right when their bodies say it's time to eat, they are HORRIBLE to be around. They suddenly grow horns out of their heads and a long pointy tail squirms its way out of their asses. What I've noticed about you freaks me out a bit. When you get hungry, you scream and cry. That's it. There's no warning. I'd hope that you'd whimper just a little and warn me that I have exactly 2 minutes to get your meal ready before all hell breaks loose. Nope. Hell arrives the moment you get that first hunger pain in your belly. To be fair, you do warn me if we are on our way home from the gym. You whimper and whine and then freak out. However, in the middle of the night when you really should attempt to keep it down, you flip.

Although, I don't want you to grow up too fast, one thing that I am definately looking forward to is when you will learn to hold your bottle completely on your own. You're trying, and kudos to you for that. If you can just grip those tiny fingers around the bottle and hold it up so you're not completely sucking in air, it would make life so much easier. As it stands, I have to stay up with you for the 20+ minutes that you are eating at 2 in the morning.

Which brings me to food. You tried cereal for the first time in your life. Cereal, meaning a solid food. By Cereal, I mean rice cereal. And by rice cereal, I mean soggy, mushy, bland blah cereal, not rice crispys or fruity pebbles. You seemed to take it okay, but then you had difficulty pooping. We have since cut back completely until next month on giving you cereal again because we don't think your digestive system is quite mature enough for that. We have also started adding Karo Syrup to some of your bottles to help your digestive system. It works wonders. Almost no more gas pains!

Laughing. You are doing this a lot now. You have only belted out a good hardy laugh a handful of times, but you're learning. You also know when it's perfect timing to laugh. Like the time you peed right when I was taking your diaper off. That was hilarious. You clearly thought so, too. This was cool because you will probably have a sick and twisted sense of humor like your Mom and Dad.

You and I spent our first Mother's Day together this last Sunday. We had a lot of fun, and the time I got to spend with just you after the day finally wound down, was priceless. I enjoyed every minute of it. We just hung out watching tv, talking, playing, and napping. You are so incredibly cuddly. When we walk around together, you rest your head on my cheek. You're starting to hold on when we hold you, too. You are also pulling my hair and storing keepsake strands of it in between your fingers, toes, and last night, your neck. You were fine, just irritated that it wouldn't release itself. Speaking of hair...you're losing yours! We were looking at pictures of you and you are losing all that dark hair. Now, I honestly don't know what color hair you'll have. If I had to guess, I'd say a light brown. Your eyes are starting to take on color, too. They have a tinge of grey, blue, and green. You could go in any direction with this, too. You do have the black outer ring around your iris like I do. I love that.

Well, Farrah, another whole month has gone by and I have loved every single moment of it. You are such a perfect addition to our family. You are truly a happy baby. You are constantly full of smiles. Today is a Friday, and this is my favorite day. It means I get to spend hours upon hours with you and suck it all in. I love you, Kitten, and can't wait to see what you do next month.

Love,

Mama

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Anniversary

It has been a year, now, that Alex came back to our lives. What a big life change that was for all of us. More life changes to come. Happy Reunion Anniversary, Buddy.

My Day

Sunday was Mumsy's Day. It was my first with Farrah and Alex and it was awesome. The stepboys, Nick and Alex, gave me a wonderful card full of touching sentiment, my daughter gave me a card along with a book, and my darling husband gave me a great card along with some cute clothes. Later, we went to brunch. I had spent quite some time pulling that little event together which ended up including 15 of us. By the time we were seated, I was nauseas. 6 of us were crammed in a booth along with the baby, purses, diaper bag, car seat, and gift bags. Barf. My anxiety built up to the point of starvation. I'll have a piece of toast and a glass of water, please. $20? Okay. I felt real bad about that. At brunch, you get charged per head, not the amount of food you eat. Oops. It was great seeing everyone, though. I hadn't seen my parents in 2 months! They hadn't seen their granddaughter in 2 months! I was excited for them to see how much she's changed. I also hadn't seen my brother and sister-in-law in a long time. They just came back from Mexico. Farrah was passed around like a bad cold. Everyone, including complete strangers, wanted to hold her. She was so great. Never fussed. She was just checking everything and everyone out around her. When we got home and it was just me, Mike, and Farrah, it was very relaxing and wonderful. I decided to use the rest of the afternoon cuddling with my little girl. It ended up being a perfect day. Thanks, family.

Sunday, May 06, 2007

The Best Sound in the World is...

...the sound of my daughter's laughter when I change her diaper and she pees as I'm removing it and I try to quickly catch the mess in the nick of time. She did this to me last night when we had company over and she full-on laughed out loud at me when I yelped at what she was doing. The laughter and the smile that accompanied it was as if to say, "Ah, mom, I think it's funny when you time these things right when I'm ready to add to the pile. Little do you know, I've been holding it so I can surprise you. Can't wait 'til next time. Bet you won't be able to get the diaper down fast enough, though. He, he."

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Things (Have I Already Used That Title?)

Besides Mike's bodybuilding competition, other things were going on this weekend. We had several friends and their kids join us at the show. It was awesome having all that support. Unfortunately, both the Zurchers and the Moodys had sickly babies. Tanner more so than Farrah. Farrah was struggling with, yet, another freakin' cold. Tanner was getting over having a double ear infection, a rash, and suddenly was dealing with spiking fevers and puffy swollen red eyes. Poor guy. And through all of that, he was still a perfect gentleman. Farrah just sounded like she was a pig because of all the snot in her nose and like she was gargling when she'd cry because of all the snot in her throat. Ewww. Saturday, after having lunch following the prejudging, we all decided to head back to the hotel and hit the pool. Mike couldn't get in because he still had his tanning color on his skin and had to wait until after the evening show to remove it. He had suggested that I let Farrah go in the pool with me. What?!! She doesn't have a suit. What if she shits in her diaper while in the pool? Is chlorine okay this young? Okay. I stripped her down and was very giddy about doing this with her. Mike was, too. The pool water was cold and I thought for sure she'd freak out the moment her toes hit the water, but no. She just kicked around. I bounced her up and down in the water and had her lie on her back in the water. That wasn't her favorite position, but she loved being dipped (not under water). Afterward, I removed her diaper and wrapped her up in a towel. I joined our friends in the hot tub. I sat on the first step and had her sit on my lap facing everyone. No, she wasn't in the hot water. The steam coming up from the tub into her towel kept her warm. She was completely content this entire time and never once crapped herself or me.

Farrah also got to experience her very first diaper rash. I was sure she'd never get one because Melissa and I are so careful. In fact, she and I had just talked about it on Wednesday how well we've been doing keeping her butt and goods all protected from a nasty rash. We patted ourselves on the back a little too soon. Thursday, when we were at the gym, Farrah pooed a lot and I didn't get to it right away. By right away, I mean within 20 minutes of it happening. I will take the blame for this one and I feel horrible for it. Farrah's poop was suddenly extremely acidic. So acidic, it ate through her skin on her goods and tush. When I went to clean her up, she cried. She never cries. When I saw that, I thought I was going to cry right along side with her. So terrible. It has since cleared up significantly. There is just a little evidence remaining. Cool wash cloths and caked on diaper rash cream helped clear it up in under a week. Yay. Back on Wednesday, Farrah tried cereal for the first time. We taped the whole thing. I'm going to venture out and guess that is why her poop chewed through her skin. A slight change in diet can really affect people sometimes. Ouch.