Watch Her Go

We started our trip home with a few days at my parents house while they were out of town. It was a win-win, since they had someone to do the chores and watch the house and we had time to ourselves to regroup and relax. Last semester was a rough one, so it was nice to have some built in decompression time.

Millie loved her present under Grandma's tree. She would run the ribbon through her mouth, over and over again. As I was trying to get a shot of her silliness, she saw the camera and decided she wanted it. No more inchworm for her! She figured our crawling on the 20th of December, and by the time we came home she was cruising.

And this is when I realized I needed to switch to video mode.

 

I'm so glad I was right there. Otherwise it would have been, "I'll get it later." And by the time later came around, she'd be crawling efficiently, which doesn't quite have the same charm. Millie is already thinking of going pro in crawling.

The Band-aid

Early in December Millie got her finger pricked to test for mercury. (We got the results today and all is well.)

The little prick on her finger took its time offering blood, but as soon as the nurse had her few drops, it started gushing. Gauze and a Band-Aid applied, we went home and she took a nap.

After the nap she kept messing with the Band-Aid, so I took it off. Blood all over the place. So I hurried to put one on, but her finger was so bloody it wouldn't stick. Got things cleaned up and another Band-Aid on.

She scooted and rolled around for a while, chewing on the Band-Aid. Then I notice her chewing on her bare finger. Uh-oh.

I searched high and low, every where she could have been trying to find the little Band-Aid. Shook out blankets, swept her mouth, looked in the toy basket and under the loveseats. No Band-Aid. I couldn't believe she swallowed it (especially without choking), but we kept an eye out for "evidence." Nothing.

Sitting on the loveseat today I saw something weird under the bookshelf. At just the right angle I could see a flesh colored Band-Aid.

Mystery solved.

Ho Ho Ho

Bundled Up for Football

Two of Chris's scouts played each other last night in football, so we bundled up the baby and headed out for the game. (Okay, so they would have played each other if one wasn't sidelined due to grades. It made it easier to know who to cheer for!)

We were so glad we had bundled her up-- it was cold, especially after the sun went down. Unfortunately, Indiana is like Idaho in that the wind blows. The stroller made a good wind break. Millie was far more enamored with the crowd than with the games. Can't blame her. 7th and 8th grade football isn't the most exciting to watch. ("And aaanother keeper!") Okay, the one 8th grade team was pretty impressive, especially for being 8th graders.

We left before the game ended, due to an overstimulated, overtired, underfed baby who was being pushed to her limits. It was a great night and a good way to support the boys. If only we hadn't had to listen to Who Let the Dogs Out so many times...


And these bonus shots because she's adorable. Like I needed a better reason.

First Date

My baby just left on her first date.

I'd love to say she got all dolled up for it, but the truth is, she had spit up all over her outfit.

She was all smiles though!

Amelia and Daddy headed off to Chick-Fil-A for Daddy Daughter Date Night, while Mom stays home and watches the Relief Society Broadcast.

They melt my heart.

Rice Cereal

I caved today. She wasn't a fan, but once I stopped pushing it on her, she was all smiles.

Love her.

Thoughts on Motherhood

I've written a post in my head several times about motherhood. In it I would tell you how I thought I would enjoy being a mom, but it far surpasses my expectations. I love being Amelia's mom and she makes me so happy. I'd wax poetic about the nearly perfect little one who graces our home. She goes to sleep without a fight, she wakes with smiles and has nursed like a champ from the very beginning. She's low-maintenance and happy.

Then I got sick. And Millie got sick. And Chris had some commitments (mostly school, but other things, too) and wasn't home as much as we've gotten used to over the summer.

It was rough. Suddenly I had this infant that wasn't what I'm used to. She was either inconsolable, incredibly needy, or sleeping (but not nearly as often or easily as we've come to expect). I barely had energy to take care of myself, and here I was, stuck with this little person who needed a lot. She would scream in pain when I would try feeding her, getting us both worked up. She would wail when I would put her down to sleep. I was exhausted and the rosy picture of motherhood was fading fast. Thank goodness Chris was around for the very worst of it (late evenings) and did all he could to take care of us.

Millie and I are both feeling better. Slowly I'm reclaiming our house from the neglect. I have a happy baby who eats, sleeps and smiles. And I get to play with her and kiss on her. It was rough not being able to smooch her. Last night she slept through the night for the first time in quite a while. Sweet blessing. This whole motherhood thing is on the up and up again.

Four Month Appointment

Millie went to her four month appointment yesterday. True to form, she was called wiggly by the nurse and the doctor. She had a lot of time to crinkle the exam table paper and did a fine job of it.

We got an official diagnosis for the misery that hit, me, then her, last week. Hand, foot and mouth disease, an unpleasant little enteroviral infection. Millie had some big sores in the back of her mouth, but not much on her hands or feet. Which explained why she was hating feeding time last week. Lucky for her, her mom believes in infant Tylenol. I know some parents don't, but I figure if I'm miserable and in pain and take something for it, why shouldn't she get some relief, too?

Her stats: 12 lbs 10 ounces, 24.5", and 40.8 cm head circumference. She's pretty much rocking the 15th percentile and sticking right to her curve.

In spite of being sick and quite tired, she's a happy baby and had some stories to tell Dr. Miller.

Can you tell she gets a little feverish lately? Poor babe.

Four Months

Where did the last month go? Millie hit four months yesterday.

She is so much more aware of her surroundings now. She is able to manipulate the parts on her little play gym quite well (it helps that she can fully reach all of them now). She opens her mouth when she sees her pacifier coming her way.

After a few days of rolling over, she's given up on it. She can still squawk and screech with the best of them. I'm starting to talk about "inside voices" with her because I feel like it will be a lesson I'm going to need a head-start teaching her.

Millie is such a happy baby. People often ask me, "Is she a really happy baby? She seems like it!" I like to think that she's a happy little spirit, not just a happy baby; maybe I'm deluding myself. She is one little ball of sunshine.

She is super slobbery lately and chews on her hands, pacifier or whatever else she can get in her mouth (usually a blanket and she soaks them). She spits up big time whenever she gets placed on her tummy. We try not to do tummy time right after she eats, but she'll puke anyway.

Her dimples and her huge gummy grin are about my favorite sight in the whole wide world.

Chicago, Round Two

The game got rescheduled for Thursday at 1:20 pm. Since Jim and Jan left dark and early Wednesday morn, we invited Jon and Kanien to join us for the game.

We were able to go to the temple in the morning. Chris and I had planned to switch off, but we left later than planned and hit traffic. It ended up that they were short-staffed on men, so Chris wasn't able to do initiatories.  He stayed with Millie and walked around the temple grounds while I served in the temple.

We had time for a quick stop at Trader Joe's then found the parking garage, met up with the Wallins and took the L into the game. (True to character, Amelia had lots of people smiling on the train.)

The weather could not have been more perfect to spend an afternoon at the ballpark. I had been hating summer, but with cooler weather, I'm hoping it sticks around for a while longer!

 I love spending the day (or evening) at a ballpark. Something about it gets me all sorts of giddy and excited. The atmosphere, the concessions, the booing, the cheering-- I love it all!

I was eating my Chicago dog with Millie on my lap. An errant tomato escaped with some big globs of mustard and made quite the mess of us. It got her blanket and my shorts. Thankfully, this time the mustard yellow really was mustard and not poo!

A family photo at Wrigley Field that includes Amelia! The Cubs pulled it off and beat the Nats. Chris was wearing my Nats visor, so he had to cheer for them. I was wearing my Cubs hat, but I cheered for both teams. I was pleased as punch with the weather, being at the ballpark and watching a good game.

Tom Ricketts was sitting in the section right below ours (he's the guy in the white shirt in the bottom left of the above picture), so there were lots of people flooding him for autographs (yeah, we had to google him, too). After the game Kanien was brave enough to go for it. Once she did it, I had to join in and got my new Cubs hat signed.

Hooray for fun friends! We were so glad Jon and Kanien could join us.

If I'm going to be a Cubs fan (and I'm basically a fan of any team I've seen play or visited their stadium), I've got a lot to learn. Like the Cubs Victory song:



It's no "Sweet Caroline" at Fenway or "New York State of Mind" at Shea Stadium, but it will do. I've been practicing. Go Cubbies!


Early Thursday morning Chris crawled into bed (waking me up ten minutes before my alarm was set to go off) snuggled up to me and told me, "I've got a surprise for you. Frank is going to be in Chicago today!"


Best. Surprise. Ever.


Frank had written on my Facebook wall:

Eileen and I will be in Chicago Thursday though Sunday. She has doctor conferences, or I'd convince her to drive us down to visit her alma mater! Xo

The little brat had the gall to basically say, "Too bad we will be so close but not get to see you." Not so fast, buck-o! (Eileen is his mom and she did grad school at Purdue.) Chris had told him that we'd be in Chicago and plans to meet up were quickly made.

So, after the game and a wardrobe change for me, we met up with Frank and Eileen at Millennium Park. On the walk there, Millie was enthralled lying in her stroller and gazing up at all the skyscrapers. I was more than pleased to spend more time at the park, and to do so with some of my favorite people on planet earth.

Does this picture ooze giddy-happiness? I think it does.

Frank and I have so much history together. Our relationship is something pretty darn special. It's hard to explain. We couldn't disagree any more on some really big issues. We get each other basically to the core, which means we know exactly where the soft and vulnerable spots are. And since we can both be ruthless, we've each aimed to hurt a few times before. We know the very best and the very worst about each other, and we can bring out both. But we've both grown up a lot since high school, so now we mostly bring out the best. Suffice it to say, I love me some Frankie!

It amazes me that for as different as our lives are and how far apart we live, Frank and I are able to see each other a decent amount. From LA, to DC, Burley (important to note his parents no longer live in our hometown, so it's not like he goes home to visit them there), NYC and Chicago, our paths happen to cross just right every once in a while. Though most of the time it's a little more intentional than this happy little incident.

As we sat in the park, reveling in the perfect night and chatting with Frank and Eileen, our good friends from high school were brought up a number of times. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for that bunch of kids who chose to be good. I pray Millie gets an equally good group of friends.

We topped off the night with some late night Chicago style pizza. Yum!

It was an absolutely delightful evening. Hooray for facebook messages and serendipitously being in the same city! And I never thought I'd say it, but hooray for rain delays and cancelled games for making it all possible! Other than getting home at 2am, it was just about perfect.

Chicago, Round One

We went to Chicago on Monday to watch the Cubs play. Chris & I were excited because they were playing the Nationals, who are sort of our team since we were in DC for their inaugural season and got to go to several games.

Before the game we had lunch at the Signature Room in the John Hancock building. The views from 95 stories up and looking out over Lake Michigan and the city are pretty awesome.

We had a parenting moment for the memory books. The wait for a table was about 20 minutes, so I figured it was as good a time as any to feed Millie after the 3+ hours in the car. I got a seat on the velvet couch in the lobby area and proceeded to nurse her. Then I handed her off to Chris (it's so much easier to discreetly get myself presentable when I don't have a squirmy infant on my lap). Chris said that after we got our table he'd go change her diaper. Not a minute later Millie had a poop explosion up her back (she had an already soggy diaper with not much room for more). Chris saved her dress with a burp cloth, but didn't do much for himself. Poop was running down his shirt and shorts and splatting on the marble floor. One fat drop plopped right on his shoe. Oh man! There was another family waiting near us with a little boy about 8 and a little girl, Sierra, about 6. They thought it was hilarious, and so it made it easy to laugh about it with them. I wiped up the floor and tried getting Chris's shoe.

I took Millie to the ladies room and Chris took himself to the men's room to clean up. The swanky bathrooms didn't have paper towels, just Dyson Airblade dryers. Chris ended up taking off his shirt, scrubbing it in the sink and running it through the hand dryer. His shorts didn't get the same sort of scrub down, but he was mostly presentable. Glad he wore his navy shirt instead of his light gray one!

The little family totally made the situation bearable and memorable in a positive way. The dad had sat in my seat and saved it for me while I changed Millie, then the kids consoled Chris that he could just tell people he spilled mustard on himself. When we were finished eating and taking some of the pictures with the skyline, Sierra ran from their table over to us and told us bye and to have a good day. It was great.

We had some time to kill before the game started, so we moved our car from the super upscale parking garage (the rental Crown Victoria mingling with BMWs, Mercedes and a Bentley) and I convinced the gang to visit Millennium Park.

 I loved the Bean/ Cloud Gate. Chris and I had fun exploring and checking it out.

The fountains were pretty cool, though the suspense was a little too long for me and I got impatient waiting for them to go off (as seen above).

If you enlarge the picture, you can see a fat drop of poo on Chris's right toe.

Millie makes an awesome urban baby. She wants to see all the action. She loves interacting with people and has a smile for just about everyone. A couple of times we tried putting her in the pack facing Chris, but she would have none of it. She was craning that neck around, trying to see all there was to see. She seems to thrive off the energy of a city and people.

It started to sprinkle when we were walking back to the car from the park. That had us a little worried for the game that night, but it looked like there might be some blue skies headed our way. By the time we got to the parking lot (love me some Chicago rush hour traffic), there was no slowing to the rain. We were so ill prepared. It had been so hot for the previous few weeks that hot and sweaty was all my brain could process. Cool and rainy was a curve ball. We sat in the car, debating how we were going to make it work. Finally we smartened up and left to get gear. Jan and I headed to Babies 'R Us to outfit Millie with something more than a sundress and a gauze blanket. Jim and Chris went to a grocery store and stocked up on ponchos, umbrellas and a couple Cubs sweatshirts.

We boarded buses and made our way to Wrigley Field. My camera battery had died earlier, but after a little rest I got this picture out of it before it died again. Sorry Millie, no juice for a second try that included you! While we sat around waiting for the rain to clear up we decided to go snag Millie a certificate and sticker commemorating her first visit to Wrigley Field. Proof she was there (but very much asleep):

On our way back to Jim and Jan and our seats they called the game, due to the rain that just wouldn't let up. Big fat bummer. Jim said he was happy to see Wrigley Field, but a game would have been nice, too!

On the bus back to the car, a family that had been on our bus to the game ended up right by us again. The dad was in LOVE will Millie, and when he saw us on the bus he planted himself in front of us and said, "I'm staying with my friend, Amelia." Millie reminds me a lot of her Grandpa Warren; people don't stay strangers very long with either one around!

Visitors

We had back-to-back visitors last week. First, our friends Kevin and Anna brought their new little Guilherme to visit us! I didn't get any pictures of them and us, but got a few of Amelia and Guilherme.

Guilherme (isn't he adorable?) was flailing around. Millie calmly left her arm out, just waiting. When Guilherme  would get close, she'd snag him. They kept us well entertained.

After they rolled out we got the sheets washed, the bed remade, the room refreshed and waited to welcome the Hartwells. Chris's parents got to come visit us for a week. Darn the straight shot flight from SLC-Indianapolis for getting in so late! They arrived safe and sound and we had some good adventures with them.

Grandma and Grandpa fussed and mussed over Millie. Nap time was torturous for them.

They are in love. Millie likes them, except for that Grandpa. He can be a mean tease with her pacifier.

We checked off almost everything we had written on our "To See/Do" list with them. We ate donuts from Mary Lou's, saw Wrigley Field, stopped at Albanese candy factory (yes, Millie's 4th time in less that 4 months of life), toured the art museum, checked out the Erie-Wabash Canal in Delphi, had dinner at Boiler Market, saw Purdue and Columbian Park, golfed with Jim, peeked in some antique shops and bought delicious peaches and corn at the farmers' market. Our baseball-heavy agenda didn't work out since we skipped out on the Colt World Series and the Cubs-Nationals game got rained out. And since produce doesn't wait, Chris and I also canned salsa and peach jam while they were here. Whew!

It's so fun to have visitors come see our life in Indiana. It gives us excuses to explore and see new thing, and it's good to have familiar faces around!

Swim Baby

We joined the Cub Scouts for the family swim party yesterday. Millie didn't hate the water, but she wasn't completely in love, either. Maybe something to do with a pool full of splashy Cub Scouts?

She might not be a super fish yet, but she got lots of attention for being the cutest thing in the pool. If only we had the Sports Academy pool to laze away our days...

She Should Be Sleeping

Instead, she talks. And talks. And talks.

Millie-Moo Chatterbox has the same sort of ring to it that Deider-Doo Chatterbox had/has.

Lecture

Millie just got a stern talking to from her mom. It went a little something like, "You are little. You are a baby. You need to stop thinking you are big. Now stop laughing at me, you little turkey."

This comes on the heels of her rolling over yesterday (front-to-back) and trying her best today with the back-to-front thing.

She just feels solid lately. Not fat, but a "you aren't a fragile newborn and you can support yourself" solid. I have a feeling my momma heart is up for a lot of growing pains over this lifetime.

Public Shaming

All it took was calling out Amelia for being three months old and not sleeping through the night. She's slept through the night the past three nights, with just a pacifier offering at 3am a couple of times. It's great.

I had suspected she might just be about ready, but with house guests under the same roof and then traveling, I hadn't thought it a good time to try it, in case we had to go with the cry it out (for just a little while) method. Luckily, that hasn't been necessary. Go Millie!

Why I'm Glad I'm Not a Single Parent

Exhibit A:

Point Two-Five

Little Miss Millie is a whole quarter of a year old today. I cannot believe she's been with us for three months! (I know, I know. Every mom says that. But it's true!)

She continues to be a wonderful baby. I don't know how I lucked out. She's happy and wide eyed most of the time she's awake. And then she sleeps like a champ. Though I found out the baby in our ward two days younger than her (aka Tess) has been sleeping through the night since six weeks. Millie generally prefers a rendezvous with her momma sometime in the wee hours of the morning. It's not too bad. She has started escaping the swaddle sack more often, but she still falls asleep better when swaddled.

Millie is babbling, blowing bubbles, and telling us all sorts of interesting stories. She's started laughing. She likes having raspberries blown on her tummy and her monkey toes tickled. She still likes to have her hands held when she needs comforting. She is a splishy-splashy fish. She doesn't flinch when she splashes water in her eyes (which really bothers her dad). I'm not sure who enjoys reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom more, her or her dad, or me as a spectator to the cute scene. They both get a kick out of his frequent and animated readings.

I've used the Similac Strong Moms app to track feedings since we got home from the hospital. I could have ditched it a while ago, but it's handy. And then I started playing around with the stats and decided I had to use it for three months. On average I've fed Millie every 3 hours and 15 minutes. She has been fed 656 times as of tonight, with an average of 9 minutes per feeding. (If I had used the app in the hospital, the average feeding time would have gone up a bunch! Those 45 minute feedings were not cool.) So, over the past three months I've spent approximately 5,904 minutes feeding Millie. Or almost 98 1/2 hours. Or four straight days. No wonder that some days it felt like my full-time job! And that's not including the getting situated and getting her burped and changed after each feeding. There are days I'm sad to have the sweet moments of her first months behind us, but life with Amelia just keeps getting better and better!

Our house hasn't seen so many fist pumps in all its life as the past three months. Chris and I can't resist peeking in on her in her crib, and it's inevitable that we walk out of her room with a mini-celebration that she's ours [forever!] and that she's so dang awesome. I think we'll keep her!

Millie's Newest Toy

 

She thinks it's pretty fascinating. She sat there, experimenting with it for a solid five minutes this night. Who knew a hand could keep three people enthralled for so long?

Immunizations

It was [past] time for Millie to get her two month shots. I made Chris go in with her while I sat out in the waiting room. But after her third and final shot when she was wailing, I couldn't sit right outside it and listen to her any more so I had to go into the room and hold her.

Before, content with Dad.

It didn't help that she had been extra smiley and happy before we went. It broke my heart to hear her giggle for the nurses, and then not a minute later she was screaming.

Sad, red, and puffy eyes

See Aunt Keese? There is some chub on those thighs!

 

We survived. It helped to keep perspective that it's better she got three pokes in the legs than really sick. A hospital visit would be way worse.