San Diego trip

If you ever get the chance to visit San Diego, do it. The city is just amazing. Coming from Phoenix, the 40 degree (yes, literally 40 degree) temp difference was enough to make me pack my bags and move there. SD is a beautiful city, and I love all the hills and the coast. Plus it was great to see so many people out and about. You don't see that here in Phoenix this time of year.

The drive there was interesting. I'd never seen rocks like we saw on the way there, or been in the desert really. It got up to 119 on our way to CA, which was crazy, and it was 74 when we got to Coronado Island. We went through a few border patrols and at one point we were probably 500 feet from the Mexico border. That was the closest I've ever been to Mexico.

We wanted to eat seafood on Friday night, so we went to downtown Coronado Island. After driving around a while, we saw a place we wanted to try. But after seeing the menu posted outside, we didn't want to pay $30 per entree, so we decided to go somewhere else. We drove to the harbor in downtown San Diego and checked out a few restaurants, but one was really expensive, one we'd eaten at the last time we were in SD and the others were all fast food. So we opted for the one we'd already eaten at, which was annoying bc we wanted to try something new, but it was 8:30pm and we were hungry and tired of carrying Abbie and her car seat around. At one point Mark went to the bathroom while I was holding Abbie, and it wasn't until Mark got back that I realized I'd had an entire conversation with my less than 2 month old for the past 5 mins. People probably thought I was nuts. Oh well.

After we ate, we went back to our hotel, which was right on the beach, and went for a walk. We figured out how to use another mode of our camera - night portrait. Here's one of the shots Mark took. Next time we'll use the tripod, but we didn't have it with us this time.


Saturday we decided to go to the San Diego Zoo. Last time we were here we went to the Wild Animal Park. Mark got in free due to the military discount and I got a 10% discount so overall we saved $40! We had a great time messing around with our camera also. Here are a few of my favorite shots.

Though after seeing all those animals in the zoo, our most favorite thing to look at is still this.

(Doesn't get much cuter than that.)

It is great fun walking around with a baby. It seems in general, most people just LOVE babies. She's an instant conversation starter. It's fun to watch people look at her and then look at us and smile. We had quite a few people come up and start a conversation - usually grandparents who want to check her out and then tell you all about their grandkids and how old they are and where they live and when they'll get to see them next, etc. Mark and I enjoy the attention she brings and we love showing off our cute pip-squeak. I mean, seriously. How cute can one kid be??

We went to the squadron bbq on the beach Saturday night and then afterwards we took some more pictures on the beach. Some of these look like they're fake backgrounds, but I assure you. They're not.

After our beach photo shoot, we went downtown Coronado and ate at a 50's diner and then drove around the island some more.

Sunday we got up and ate breakfast downtown Coronado and then we were going to take more pictures on the beach during the daytime. However, the beach was PACKED and parking was scarce, so we decided to drive around the island a little more before we headed home. Along our drive we found a park on the other side of the island so we did another photo shoot. Here's one of those pics.

We loved our time in SD and we were sad to leave there (and the cooler weather). We did discover two things on our trip though. One - Abbie really is a good little traveler. It was over a 5 hour drive to CA and she did really, really well. If she'd get fussy, we'd pull over and change her and then feed her a bottle while we were driving and she was good to go. She got a little fussy on the way back, so Mark got in the back with her and she was ALL smiles for him. She was "talking" and grinning away. It was really cute. Two - we decided we want to get an RV when we retire and just travel all over the place. There seem to be RV camps EVERYWHERE and it just seems perfect to be able to have a portable home. Hopefully by that time we'll be able to afford it because we really would love that. In the meantime, we might try to get a pop-up camper so we can go camping with our kids.

 

Thank God for friends

Abbie was being particularly difficult today, after being particularly difficult last night. She's been doing fairly well at night, but last night Mark fed her a little earlier than normal, and she fell asleep a little earlier than normal, and that seemed to throw everything off and she was up a LOT more than normal. Bummer.

Today I had things I wanted to get done and I was hoping she'd let me do a few things, but no such luck. She let me put her down for 15 mins so I could get some breakfast. I got materials to make a few more pacifier leashes for her so when she spits them out they don't land on the floor, and I've been wanting to make them for a while, but never had the time. So I hauled her bouncer upstairs to my craft room and put her in it and dug out my sewing machine and materials and started on my first paci clip. And then she started to cry. Nice. So I tried putting her into a ring sling, and she screamed. Double nice. I knew she was tired, but she was fighting sleep as usual. So I tried to put her in her crib to sleep. No such luck. Got her out of the crib, changed her and decided maybe she was hungry so I nursed her a little bit, and she fell asleep. Tried putting her in the crib again and as soon as I put her down her eyes snapped open and she was crying. (sighs) Calmed her down and tried to put her in her bouncer again. She cried again. Tried to put her on a blanket on the floor on her tummy. She screamed. Tried flipping her over on her back. She still screamed. At that point I gave up and took her downstairs to "our chair" (recliner in the living room) and nursed her for about 3 mins before she was out. I knew if I tried to put her down then she'd wake up again so I decided to wait a little bit until she was in a deeper sleep. Well I fell asleep waiting. Nice.

In between all that, my friend Gail called and offered to come over tomorrow to entertain Abbie while I pack for our San Diego trip. How sweet is she! (She's also our official weina dog babysitter while we're out of town. The weinas go live with her and her husband Nate, and their pups Jada and Lacy while we're gone, this weekend included.) After lunch I was just finishing up feeding Abbie when the doorbell rang. I assumed it was a solicitor since we get a TON of them and they still ring the doorbell despite the No Soliciting sign on the door. (Idiots!) So I didn't bother to get up. Then the phone rang and it was Gail who said she was outside. Here she'd come over to hold Abbie for a while so I could get a few things done! Seriously, they don't come sweeter than Gail. She said I'd sounded stressed on the phone when I'd talked to her earlier, which I was a little frustrated, so she'd come to help out. She held Abbie for me and entertained her while I made a batch of cookies, cleaned up some of the kitchen, put a bookshelf together for Abbie room, rearranged Abbie's room a little bit and hung more things on the wall of Abbie's room. I was so thankful that she came over and let me get a few things done. Maybe I should consider having our next door neighbor come over once or twice a week for an hour or two to hold/entertain Abbie while I get some things done. How much would you pay for something like that?

Anyway, thank God for good friends like Gail. I am so blessed.

The naming ceremony is over.

Here's the outfit my sister got for Abbie. It is seriously adorable!

Caught her in one of her infamous stretches. The kid is ALWAYS stretching.

In her bouncer.

This week was Mark's naming ceremony. It was Friday after work, and basically it's where they get their new call sign for this squadron and it's a chance for the higher up's to haze the new kids.... His call sign is Tom Tom - after the GPS system, since his IP passed him the lead during a flight once and Mark was trying to figure out how to get home and didn't exactly go straight there. Not the best call sign, but a heck of a lot better than Cod... Anything would have been better than that. Some of the other call signs given to his classmates were kinda funny. There is a Steve in his class and a Chris, and they both have the same last name. They ended up giving Steve the call sign "Chris" and Chris the call sign "Steve". Tell me that's not going to be SUPER confusing... There's a super nice (and smart) guy in Mark's class, Joe Bob, who is your stereotypical southern boy. They were going to give him the name Bob Joe, but instead called him Cletus. And there's another guy in his class who's been having a few problems pulling G's and his name is Folo, which stands for fights on, lights out. (They call "fights on" when they're starting they're practice dog fights and that's typically when you pull a lot of G's.)

Mark's glad to have that over with. He was not looking forward to it at all, since it is just a huge hazing process. They make them stand at the front of the room and throw things at them. They fill up an entire dog bowl of "grog" and make them drink it and he wasn't quite sure what was in it. They make them do shots of "weed" (short of Jeremiah Weed - which I *think* is a cheap whiskey or tequila, I'm not sure), and if they are non-drinkers, they make a horrible concoction of stuff for them to drink. Something along the lines of coffee, pop, jalapeno or pickle juice, and whatever else they can find. Gross. And Mark had to eat a dog bone - as in a real dog treat, dog bone. And he had to eat an entire raw egg, shell and all. And despite eating all of that, he didn't puke! Anyway, at least all of that is over with, until we get to our next base, and then he'll have to do it all again. Yay.

Abbie's doing well. She's smiling a lot more and she seems to be sleeping better. The good thing is, if I want to sleep, all I have to do is bring her to bed with me and she'll sleep for hours. The even better thing is, she's doing better in her own room now and will last from about 10pm to 6am in her own bed, in her own room, with a feeding at 2am. We're getting better at knowing her cries and what they mean, so if she's just doing her "I don't want to be alone but nothing else is wrong" cry, we'll let her go about 5 mins before we go check on her. But usually she's back asleep before then. Sometimes it's just a matter of her having dropped her pacifier so we just have to go in and put it back in her mouth and pat her a few times and she's good to go. The 2am to 6am is her hardest stretch - when she wakes up the most, but I've read this is common in babies... Something about their circadian rhythms. I haven't really tried getting her on a true schedule yet, but we're starting a routine to help us get on a schedule when she's around 3 mos old. I start nursing her usually around 5-5:30pm and then we play a little bit. Usually around 6-6:30pm I give her her vitamins and give her a bath and get her in her PJ's. Then she hangs out with Mark while I get dinner ready. Sometimes she'll let us put her down so we can eat, other times we hold her while we eat. I usually nurse her again around 8-8:30pm if she's awake, and then sometime between 9:30-10pm Mark gives her 2 oz's of formula and puts her to bed. In her own room. Granted she takes little cat naps quite a bit in between 5-10pm, she's definitely not awake the entire time, but eventually I'd like to start putting her to bed around 7-8pm. Soon we'll also add reading time in there, where we'll read her books before she goes to sleep.

On a side note, nursing has been a little rough lately. She started this BAD habit of, while she's latched on, she starts whipping her head around a bunch and then sometimes sucks while she's pulling off. Needless to say, it hurts a LOT, and now I'm really sore all the time. I thought for a while that maybe that meant she's done feeding, but if I put the boob away she'll start rooting and crying again, and then if I put her on again, she goes to town eating. But then pretty soon she's whipping her head around again. I've started putting my hand behind her head to keep her from moving around too much, but does anyone have any clue as to why she's doing this all of a sudden? It really hurts. A lot.

Not much else is happening here. We went to a drive-in movie last night - Transformers 2. It was pretty good, but not as good as the first one. It's just nice to be able to see movies with a baby. It'll be even nicer when it's not 110 degrees at 10pm... Today it was 117. Nice. This coming weekend we're going to San Diego with the squadron, and I'm excited about that. I'm sure we'll have lots of pictures to show when we get back. But for now....

.... here's my new favorite picture of her.

1st night in her own room... kinda

Abbie was 7 weeks old yesterday. I've been debating on when to try to put her in her own room (as opposed to a pack n play in our room) at night, and after a few tears on my part last night, we decided last night would be it. Actually I decided last night would be it since Mark was so tired he was dead asleep about 30 seconds after he laid down...

Let me just say, I love having a snugly baby, and I don't think they get more snugly then my Abbie is. But I truly do not like her sleeping in my bed with us. It's way too crowded since Mark sleeps in the middle half the time, and then we have both of the weinas sleep with us also. I always put Abbie between me and the edge of the bed so I can shield her from the dogs and Mark, since I'm afraid he's so tired all the time he wouldn't even realize that he's smushing her. When I bring her to bed with me I'm constantly afraid she's going to roll of the side of the bed (even though she doesn't roll yet and I put rolled up blankets next to her on that side so she can't roll that way), or that my pillow is on her face, or my blanket is on her face, or she's rolled into me (which she does a lot) and she can't breathe, etc. So in other words, I don't sleep well. However, I don't sleep at all when she's not in bed with me so I guess I have to choose the lesser of two evils. When we were home this weekend, one of my parent's friends, who's a nurse, said she's been to a few county coroner talks, where they talk about babies suffocating while they were sleeping with adults, so that's constantly in the back of my mind. Plus all the nurses and doctors in the hospital said that co-sleeping was not a good idea - for that reason - it's dangerous.

Anyway, so I decided to try to put her in her own bed in her own room last night and needless to say, it didn't go very well. Between 10am and 4am, I got up to feed her 3 times and got up at least 5-6 other times to soothe her because she just would NOT sleep in her own. She wasn't all out screaming for most of the time, but she was doing her quiet "sad/annoyed" cry on and off for most of the night. I'd give her 5 mins when she started crying (as long as she wasn't screaming) to see if she'd go to back sleep, but she didn't. Ever. The 3 times I nursed her she'd sleep for maybe a half hour after each time after I got her back in the crib, but then she'd wake up and cry. I'd try to soothe her without getting her out of bed, and she just wasn't having any of it. I'd put the pacifier back in her mouth and that would give me MAYBE 5 mins sometimes, but that was it. Then she'd be crying again. As soon as I'd pick her up, she was fine, so I KNOW that she just wants to be by me. Which is good and great and all, but not 24/7. I don't think I got more than 30 consecutive minutes of sleep all night, until 4am when I couldn't see straight anymore I was so tired, so I brought her to bed with me. And lo and behold, she slept great until 8:30am. Grrr...

I don't know what else to do to get her to sleep on her own. I swaddle her, I make sure she's fed and changed before I put her down, I have a sound machine in her crib, I have a humidifier on in her room and it's mostly dark except for a nightlight. What else can I do? I bought a small CD player today to see if music soothes her more than the sound machine and I also bought a little entertainment center thing to hang on her crib that plays music and has lights on it. I figured maybe if I can just get her to enjoy her time in her crib, instead of screaming every time she realizes she in there by herself, that will help out some.

I just don't want to end up having a year and a half old who won't go to sleep by herself and I'm afraid that's where I'm headed. I figure I'd be better off breaking her of this habit now, instead of waiting until she really knows what's going on and having it be 10 times harder then. But it is HARD. It would be a lot easier if she would sleep a little longer than 30 mins between her crying episodes and if Mark was able to get up with her sometimes, but that's not an option right now. Maybe tonight will be better.

Naturally, she slept for 3 hours straight in her car seat today since I had my 6week check up. And now again, she's asleep in my arms... At least one of us is getting some sleep. She's lucky she's the cutest thing ever...

Abbie's baptism weekend

Our weekend home was really busy and exhausting, but fun. It was so nice to see so many of our friends and family while we were there.

Abbie did really well on both flights. She cried a little bit on the flight there, but as soon as I nursed her, she was fine. Her ears didn't seem to bother her at all, which was great. She slept most of the way back, which probably had something to do with the flight being from 3:15-6:30am our time. (Although I can't really say she sleeps during that time period when we're at home, but that'll be in the next post...)

(Sorry the pictures are in backwards order again. I don't have time to switch them all around.)

Here she is right after being baptized. Ken was introducing her to the congregation.



A view from the front of the church.



Me n my snuggly baby.



The whole clan, minus the IL Nix's who got there later.

Going home really made Mark and I miss all the green in northern IL. That truly is a beautiful part of the country. We love all the trees up there - something that's missing down here (and in OK too).

This was the one shot we really wanted to get and Mark got it. Four generations of hands - my grandma's (who's 94), my mom, mine and Abbie's.

Another 4 generation shot.

Just playing around with my camera.

My friend, Rachel, meeting Abbie.

Abbie's first boat ride. I REALLY miss going out on the river. She loved it, despite the fact that it was kind of windy and loud.

Another 4 generation shot.

My grandma holding Abbie for the first time. One of the main reasons I wanted to come home is so my grandma could meet Abbie. My grandma is doing well, but she is 94, so I didn't want something to happen before she got to meet her.

Another boat ride shot. I love Abbie's crazy hair in this picture. She looks like Cindy Louwho from Dr. Suess.

A halfway grin shot while we were on the plane. (On a side note, her baby acne is almost completely gone now. It lasted about 3 weeks.)

I'm going to try to come back to the Dubuque area sometime in Aug or Sept. I'll be coming by myself though, so that might be interesting.. I'm still looking at plane tickets - they're expensive right now!!

Things looking up

I don't notice Abbie getting much bigger physically, although I'm sure she is, but I definitely notice LOTS of other changes in her. She is MUCH more alert now when she's awake. If I sit or lay her down, she will follow me with her eyes as I move around the room. She's just starting to smile. I'm still not 100% sure if she knows she's smiling, but when I get close to her face and talk to her, sometimes she grins. And she does this ADORABLE thing where she wrinkles up her little nose and shows her top gum. I need to catch it on film so you all can see. Too cute. This morning when she woke up she was all smiles.

Hanging with Daddy after her bath. (I could be biased, but I think she's starting to look more like me.)

Daddy gives her about 2 oz of formula a day, so he can have some feeding/bonding time with her. I've been shocked though, at how easily breastfeeding came to us. I was expecting it to be much more difficult due to latch issues and supply issues, etc, but we really haven't had any problems. (Knock on wood.) I'm not sure nipple confusion exists since she had her first bottle and pacifier in the hospital and we've never had any issue with her breastfeeding or taking a bottle. I guess we lucked out on the nursing end of things, but she made up for it in the sleeping end of things so no worries. =)


Usually she loves to be worn. My carrier of choice is our mei tai (the colorful carrier in one of my previous blogs). It's so easy to strap that thing on and carry her around. It makes me feel strong when I wear her for some reason. Not physically strong, but like powerful strong I guess. Like I can still have my baby close to me and yet get things done around the house or go grocery shopping. This picture is her in the Moby wrap. We usually use this one around the house since it's much more complicated to get her into and out of it than the mei tai. I am going to get another mei tai one of these days though, so I can have one for the house and one for the car.

This picture is a little dark, but it's one of my favorites. She's getting so good at holding her head up.

About a week ago she started getting baby acne. While it looks TERRIBLE, it doesn't seem to bother her much and everyone is telling me it doesn't last long. I sure hope not because I hate her poor face looking like this.

Time to feed her again. Hope you all have a wonderful 4th of July!

3 hrs short of 6 weeks.

First off - thank you for all of your concern, encouragement, thoughts and opinions on my last blog. I have my good days and bad days (nights I sleep and nights I don't) and that was obviously one of my not-so-good days. The fact is that I have a very clingy baby, and it's hard to see the end in sight, as far as that goes. She seems to be getting slightly better on some days, and on others I can't put her down for the life of me. I guess I just didn't know babies could be as clingy as she is most of the time. And it's hard when I'm home with her all day by myself. I thought I'd be able to put her down for naps and get things done around the house or sleep. And I was anticipating having to sleep WITH her when people said "Sleep when your baby sleeps." I've talked to quite a few people and read in books that around 6 weeks is when they're hormones change a little and their brain matures more which enables them to sleep for longer stretches at a time. I'm hoping that's the case for her, and also that she can sleep for longer stretches BY HERSELF. When I bring her to bed with me, I try to just lay her next to me, not touching me to see if she'll sleep on her own, but the majority of the time, she needs to be up against me before she'll stop crying. *sighs*

On another note, last week she got a pretty darn bad case of baby acne. It seems to be getting some better but she still has it.

This is going to be cut short since she's cry again. I've fed her at 8pm, 9pm, Mark gave her a 2 oz bottle at 10pm and now it's 11:15pm and she's screaming. We might be in for another fun night... Yay.

Not what I bargained for...

I love being a mom, I really do, but this is a lot harder than I was anticipating. I didn't expect to have a super clingy baby and I didn't expect Mark to be so busy he didn't really have time to help me. This is rough.

I knew that a baby would be time consuming, but I guess I thought that I'd be able to put her down for naps during the day. That isn't really happening at this point. I either have to hold her or wear her. If I'm not touching her in some way she WILL NOT sleep. Today I nursed her a little bit and she fell asleep on me so I put her in her swing and watched her for a little bit. She kinda moved around and made a few small noises and then it looked like she was asleep. So I looked at the clock and thought, okay, we'll see how long this lasts. It literally wasn't even 2 minutes before she was screaming. So I got her out of the swing and she was fine. Now I'm wearing her in a Moby wrap and she's completely zonked out. I have to wear her every night in order to make dinner because she cries if I sit her in the bouncer or swing, even if she can see me. I have no clue how to remedy this and I'm getting very tired. I love holding her and snuggling with her, but not ALL. DAY. LONG. I need some "me" time and I'm just not getting any. I have hopes that when Mark gets home maybe he can take her off my hands for a while so I can just have some space to breathe, but no such luck. He's so stressed out with training and studying that he doesn't really have time to spend with her. He's fine if she's dead asleep on him, but as soon as she gets fussy, I have to take over because he gets frustrated that he's not able to study. So I either deal with her fussiness then, or he gets her to sleep, and then she doesn't sleep at night so I deal with her fussiness all night. I just don't know what I'm doing wrong or what I can do to fix it, short of letting her just cry. Just sitting here typing this gets me upset because I'm exhausted and I feel like I'm going at this alone instead of Mark and I dealing with it as a team. Last night we went to bed around 11:30pm and I was up with her from 1am to 2:30am because she wouldn't go back to sleep, and then I was up around 3:30am because she was fussy, and then I fed her again at 4:30am until around 5:15am and then she was fussy again around 6am and then again around 7:15am, at which point I finally laid her on Mark's side of the bed (he had left for work) and we slept until about 8:15am and then I got up for good and to feed her. We're going on 5 and a half weeks of this and I'm reaching my limit pretty quickly. Yesterday I weed wacked our entire back yard because the stupid lawn mower doesn't work and Mark doesn't have time to fix it and I have no clue how to fix it, and our grass was almost a foot high. So I strapped Abbie on in the Mei Tai and weed wacked the yard and then raked it. My forearms hurt so bad last night I could barely pick Abbie up. I have a feeling that by giving in to all of her crying that I'm enabling her to become even more clingy instead of her learning to be a little independant, but I have a hard time letting her cry. I keep saying "tomorrow I'll get her to take a nap in her crib", but then I don't. I can't even get her to nap in her swing or bouncer, let alone upstairs in her room by herself. But maybe that's what she needs. I'm reading the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" (given to us by Mark's aunt) and it keeps saying things should be better by the time she's 3 months old.... That's 7 weeks from now. There is no way I can deal with it being like this for almost 2 more months. Something has to change between now and then, but I have no clue what to change or even how to change whatever needs to be changed. This book says that lack of sleep in mom's causes depression and causes marital turmoil, and I can understand why. I just wish Mark could get up with her once or twice a week when she's fussy, but he can't since his damn job is so demanding. Sometimes I really wish he had a normal job and we could live a normal lifestyle. It's to the point where I get that feeling in the pit of my stomach every time I hear her make a noise at night because I know it's not going to be long before she's crying hard and I have to get up with her. I don't know if there's any point in trying to get her to sleep on her own this week since we leave for IL in a week and her schedule is going to be ALL messed up there. Oh wait. She doesn't have a schedule yet... But either way, she'll be sleeping in the room with us again while we're there and there's a 2 hour time difference so I'm just not sure it's even worth it.

I look down at her as I type this, and I love that she's so little and sweet (when she's sleeping). I know I'm going to miss her being this size and I know she's going to be going to college before I know it, I just wish I was enjoying this stage a little more than I am and I feel guilty that I'm not enjoying it as much as I think I should be....

3 years already??

I cannot believe Mark and I have been married for 3 years already, let alone have a beautiful baby to show for it. Time truly has flown by, but the years just keep getting better. (And the first year was great to begin with!) I'm excited about the many years to come, and I am so lucky that I am married to my best friend. Mark got me a new blender for our anniversary, which I'm pretty excited about. I didn't get him anything but a card, and I feel bad about that, but he's very hard to shop for. He doesn't want/need/use much, and anything he would want/need/ use is pretty expensive and most likely he'd want to pick it out anyway since it'd probably be some sort of electronics, so I didn't even bother. He doesn't really need any clothes, I ALWAYS get him books, so I didn't want to do that this time, CD's are a waste of money since iTunes is better, he doesn't have any freetime to do any sort of hobbies, etc.

Something that's been on my mind a lot this week - one of my good friends went back to work on Monday, after her maternity leave was up. She's really upset about it and is having a hard time dealing with it because she just wants to stay home with her daughter, which is understandable. My heart just goes out to her because I couldn't imagine putting Abbie in daycare at this point. I wasn't sure how I'd deal with being a stay at home mom, and I guess the verdict still isn't completely out on that since it's only been (almost) 5 weeks. But I am SO thankful that Mark makes enough money for me to be able to stay home with our baby, and also that he wants me to stay home with her. He's always said that he'd like for me to stay home with our kids, at least until they're in school. We feel that it'll benefit our kids in the long run, especially since his job is so "unstable" - meaning we move a bunch and he works long hours when he's home, and there will be times when he's gone for long periods of time. We think it'll be better if our kids have the stability of me being home with them and available to them, since Mark won't be as accessible at times. We'll see how much I like staying home with her 5 months from now though...

Last night Abbie gave me a run for my money again. Mark gave her an ounce and a half of formula last night and then snuggled with her the rest of the night, and she slept on him. Big mistake. Since she'd slept from like 6pm to 10pm, she had absolutely no interest in going to sleep when we wanted to. Every time I'd put her in her bed, she's be crying within 10 mins. I dealt with it until about 3am and finally said screw it, and brought her to bed with us. Then she slept fine until 6am. Mark got up at 6am and I asked him to change her before he got in the shower. He takes her into the bathroom and about 30 secs later I hear her fart (or so I thought) and then Mark say "Oh... My... God..." So I kinda laugh because I figured she'd probably pooped on him. Ha! That's an understatement. She shot poop 3 feet across the bathroom counter. It was everywhere. I should have taken a picture, but I didn't. Maybe next time. =) Oh, and Mark seems to be doing a lot better now that he's feeding her sometimes. I think he really enjoys being able to provide for her like that and I think it's important for their bonding experience. I was pumping while he was feeding her last night and I got an ounce and a half out! That's the most I've pumped yet! I was pretty excited.

Already a month old!

I really can't believe Abbie is already an entire month old! Where has the time gone? She's definitely changed a lot in the past month, even if she hasn't gained much weight. She's awake more now, and she's much more alert when she is awake. We can wave things infront of her face and she'll follow it with her eyes. She makes eye contact with you for a little bit also. I think she might be going through a growth spurt now because she wants to eat ALL the time. Mark's family was here for the past 4 days, so she got held a LOT and I think I'm paying the price now. She doesn't want me to put her down at all. She was getting a little better about it for a while, where I could put her down for 15mins or so and get at least a few things done. Now the moment she's not touching me she screams. My hopes of taking a shower today were quickly put to the wayside so I went grocery shopping without taking a shower. It'll have to wait until Mark gets home. On Friday, she teased me because she slept from 11:15pm to about 4:30am. I wasn't holding my breath that it would be permanent and it's a good thing since she hasn't done it since. We started giving her an ounce or two of formula a day. I nurse her for a half hour or so and if she's still hungry Mark gives her a little bottle. At this point, I think it's more important for him than it is for her. I don't like it when he feels like he can't do anything for her and he really enjoys giving her a bottle, even if it is very small. I've been trying to pump, but I can barely pump more than an ounce out of both boobs at a time. I don't really want to spend more money on an electric pump, since the only reason I pump is so he can feed her.


Still not as long as the weina dogs.



My sweet baby.




One month old!




Nose to nose with the weina




Ollie is never far away from her.

I love this picture of them.

White Tank Mtns with Phoenix in the background.

Proof that we live in Phoenix!

Cutie patootie