This Moment

At exactly this moment, one year ago today, I got to meet the most beautiful baby girl in the world.

7 pounds even, 19 inches long at 2:55 AM on 9/30/10 Madeline Rey arrived in this world.

This has been the best year of my life this far, I know that it will continue to get even better from here. Thank you so much little girl for making me a mommy, you are the joy in my heart and my life was not complete without you! Your daddy and I love you so much.

Also, leave it to Google to make you feel like a slacker parent. How adorable is this video?? I need to start sending e-mails to Madeline!





Hopefully more pictures and a longer post (maybe even a letter to Madeline) to come soon.

xoxox

Nine Months!

(Edit to add: Holy huge picture batman, I will try and fix that later)

Nine months has come and gone, just as quickly and as quietly as a whisper. 26 years spent without her, and for the life of me I cannot remember what it was like to not have her in our lives. I know, I know, that is cliché, but it’s the cold hard truth. Madeline has changed our lives forever, for the better, and it just keeps on getting more exciting every day!

The past nine months have been nothing short of amazing. Madeline continues to delight, challenge and surprise us. It is quite a remarkable thing to witness all of a person’s “firsts”. First time rolling over, sitting up, first tooth, first time crawling, first real food . . . and the future holds an abundance more of her firsts that I can’t wait to see!

TJ and I are so in love with the little person she is. She is stubborn, yet sweet. She is independent, but still quite helpless on her own. She is solemn, yet funny. All of her quirks, her contradictions, all of what makes her who she is what makes us love her more. Just when we think we can’t love her even more, or that we can’t enjoy her any more she masters another trick and our hearts grow tenfold.

It was my Birthday earlier this week and she gave me the best present ever. A real, honest to goodness, belly laugh. She can be a pretty serious baby. She saves her smiles for family, she studies anything that is new with severe concentration, and she is a master of the mean mug. We could get her to giggle just a bit, but nothing close to those videos on Youtube with babies in a fit of giggles. On my Birthday though she looked across the table at Alicia and could not stop laughing. As any mother would probably tell you, it was the absolute cutest thing in the entire world. I swear to it. The people at Olive Garden probably thought we were annoying, but we all couldn’t stop laughing with her. Happy Birthday to me!

Madeline continues to wow us. She mastered crawling early, she started trying in April and by mid-May she had it down. Around the same time she started to pull herself up to standing, and she now can stand for 30 or so seconds on her own without holding on. She’s also really good at thinking she can stand unassisted, forgetting that she isn’t quite that big, and then biting it. When she falls, or smacks herself in the head with a toy on accident, she looks at you like “WTF???” and then glares like you did it to her. It is really, really hard not to laugh.

As of today she has 6 teeth. She recently started to bite; it’s a problem we are trying to curb quickly with a stern “NO.” She is pretty responsive to the word “no”, and sometimes she’ll even shake her head no back at you. She waves hello/bye-bye, sometimes with a scowl on her face which makes me laugh. She can clap, and will sometimes even add in a "eeeeeeyyyyyy" (yay) with it. We even think that she makes a "kkkkkk" sound to say "cat/kitty". My mom, who watches her, has 4 cats living with her so Madeline is a HUGE fan of kitties (plus we have one of our own). Any time one comes in the room she makes the "kkkkkk" noise at them. A-dorable!

With all of the standing she does we think she may walk early, but we are in no rush to tackle that obstacle! As of right now she doesn't really have the concept of how to move her feet correctly. She tries to walk holding on to our fingers and takes too large of steps, and tries to stand on the side of her feet. It's quite the site to see.

I knew I owed an updated blog entry to give everyone an idea of what has been going on with us in the last few months. Everything is great, and I hope to be better about blogging, though I say that every time so don't hold your breath waiting for a new post. ;)

Introducing. . .

Madeline Rey!!

September 30th, 2010
2:55 AM
7lb 0oz
19 inches

I'm a bad blogger. A very, very, very bad blogger!! Having a newborn is hard work man! It's all worth it though, she is the light of my life and has stolen my heart already. It's very cliché to say, but I swear I love her more and more every day. Madeline is already 9 weeks, 2 whole months old! TWO.MONTHS!! She doesn't even look like the little baby in the picture above anymore. I've come to blog about her first 9 weeks of life and to share a few photos. Thankfully she’s too young to tell me to go away; I have the camera in her face all.the.time. Poor kid.

I've written this post in my head many, many, many times. I even wrote it out in Word a few weeks ago, but she is ever changing so that post is very outdated already. I apologize ahead of time that this is so long, but there is just so much to tell. I've also been writing up her birth story and will post that sometime soon, and I promise to be a better blogger.

Life with a baby has been amazing, wonderful. . .indescribable. For the most part we've had it pretty easy, and things have gone very well. She had some problems keeping weight on in her first few weeks of life. It took her 5 weeks to get back over her birth weight. We found that she was a lazy nurser, I tried everything I could to keep her awake but she'd fall asleep eating. I was fond of telling her that her only job was to eat and she was fired. I tried pumping and feeding her a bottle of breast milk at 3 weeks when we realized she wasn't gaining weight and she took to it like a horse to water. Her two month appointment was Tuesday, and I'm happy to report she weighed in at a whopping 10 pounds 8 ounces!!! While pumping is double the work it's worth the peace of mind it gives my neurotic new mommy brain. Thankfully I make plenty of milk so I don't have to pump every time she eats.

Each day she is becoming more and more of a little person and less of a newborn baby. I can say right now that I'm pretty sure she is going to be stubborn and have a little bit of an attitude. Just like her mother! It is so fun to watch her discover the world. She is starting to notice things around her. Yesterday while we were at Target with Alicia she started "talking" to the toys hanging on her car seat. They have been there forever but she's just noticed them. She has become quite the little talker, she had TJ and I laughing the other night with all of her coos.

Her current likes are: being held, making whoever is holding her walk around (do not sit though!!), eating, sleeping, her swing, eating and sleeping more, snuggling, hanging out in the moby, and more eating and sleeping.

Speaking of the moby, it has been my saving grace. I was a little nervous at first to use it, I'd heard great things from friends about it but I wasn't sure of my wrapping skills. I didn't want to drop my kid! I love the thing now though. I wrap it around myself, put her in it and I can do pretty much anything! As a bonus after walking around in it for a while she'll fall asleep.

I know people warn you about the lack of sleep you'll have with a newborn. Up all night with a crying, hungry, angry baby. I'm grateful that we really didn't experience that. Sure she was up every few hours to eat at first but she'd go right back down after she was full. I don't want to jinx it by saying this aloud, but as of last week Madeline is already sleeping through the night. We try to swaddle her up and put her down between 7-9 at night and usually she'll sleep until 7 in the morning! TJ and I both love sleep, we told her she's going to fit in very well here. ;)

When she first came home she didn't want to sleep anywhere but on me or in my arms. TJ and I did not plan at all for her to sleep in bed with us. No way were we going to have our baby in bed with us. As we have quickly learned you cannot predict what will and will not work for your family. She slept in my arms the first few weeks of her life. Even now if she’s having a fussy night it is easier for me to pull her into bed with us and snuggle her to sleep than to keep trying to soothe her and put her back in her cradle only for her to get worked up again. My motto in life now is: do what works for you!

The only sleep "problem" we have had is one I created myself. Nap time. I got into the habit of holding her all day long. She still rarely naps anywhere but in my arms. Some days I can put her down in her swing, bouncy seat or bassinet, but more often than not that wakes her up and she'll be pretty unhappy. White noise helps (thanks to a free app on my iPad), but it's just easier to snuggle with her. Besides, she isn't going to want to snuggle with her mom forever, so I'll take it while I can.

I have found it to be a sanity saver for us to get out of the house as often as possible. Maddy is great in the car, once the car is moving she’ll either fall asleep or sit contently and suck on her pacifier. We joined a mommy and me class at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland and go every Wednesday. We took our first family vacation and drove over the pass to Leavenworth a few weekends ago. We’ve been to Target more time than I can count, grocery shopping, a few play dates, the doctors . . . it feels like we are always on the go. Like I said, it keeps me sane and I figure I should continue to keep her used to driving around so she doesn’t start to hate her car seat.

She is going to wake up hungry soon, so I'll leave you with a few photos from her first 9 weeks of life.

Nearly 39 Weeks - Maternity Photos

I had another great doctors appointment today. Things are really progressing nicely! I'm still just dialated to 1CM, but my doctor said I'm 70% effaced!! Which, in terms of progress, is great!

My doctor felt around my belly again and said she estimates she'll be about 7lbs when she is born. TJ and I have been thinking she'll be about 8lbs or so, which is good news. As long as she is healthy though that's all we can ask for!

Her head continues to be very low. Her heartbeat was just under 150bpm. My blood pressure was 124/78, and I've gained about 27lbs so far. All in all things are looking like sunshine! My doctor estimated that she'll be here within the next 10 days. I'm ready as soon as she is, c'mon out Madeline!! :)

Other than progress things continue to be pretty good. Today is the first day where I've felt extremely tired and crampy and sort of thought, "Hmmm, I could be done with this now!" I'll be 39 weeks on Saturday, so I'm pretty proud that it took me that long to get to this point.

Like promised last week I'm posting my maternity pictures. Again, thank you to the fabulous Justine with J. Shelton Photography for her wonderful work. I had a hard time triming down all the photos I wanted to include in the blog as I love them so. The photos were taken at 35/35, which means I was 35 weeks along and 35 days away from my estimated due date on that day.

9 Days left, holy moley!!

Almost 38 Weeks - YIKES!

I've been told it's time for an update. :) I would agree, I've been slacking on my blog writing. Things have been pretty uneventful on the baby front. No news is good news!

I will be 38 weeks on Saturday (crazy, right???). According to the normal pregnancy calendar that would mean I'm nearly 2 weeks away from meeting Madeline. Of course I know she'll arrive on her own time, but just the thought that there are so few days left is nuts!

I had my weekly doctors appointment today. I am measuring right on track (well, at least my belly is). Last week my doctor sort of felt her through my belly and said she might be a little on the big side. We certainly make big babies on both sides of our family, so I assume she'll be a good sized little lady. We'll see though here in the next few weeks!

The good news is she is in the right position, with her head super low in my pelvis. Last week and today the doctor said I am dilated to 1CM. Like she pointed out today, that is 1/10 of the way there! It also doesn't mean a whole lot in terms of when Maddy will arrive or not. Women can walk around dilated to a 1 for weeks, and sometimes not even go into labor on their own. Still, progress is progress, so even though I'm not reading too much into it I find it exciting!

I haven't posted pictures of my amazing shower yet, so I thought I would post them now. My Aunt's Nan and Da threw me the greatest shower ever. I was overwhelmed by the love and kindness of all of my family and friends that day. I'm so happy that there are so many wonderful people in my life who are as excited as TJ and I are to meet our baby girl. So, thank you all from the bottom of my heart for making my shower so wonderful!! Maddy's stuffed closet and dresser also thanks you all for the too-too cute clothes I have to dress her up in. ;)

Coming soon - maternity pictures!! I posted a link to the teaser pictures from Justine's blog on Facebook, but you can click above if you haven't seen them yet. I should have the full gallery of photos sometime this weekend to share! J. Shelton Photography totally rocks my socks off, I can't wait to see and share more with you all!

For now though I leave you with shower photos. I was 34 weeks the day of my shower. :)

Getting all of the lantern balls set up.

All set up and ready to go!

The table.

Props for all of the games, courtesy of Aunt Nan and Da.

One spoiled little lady (and mama)!

The best present ever. ;)

My Grandma wrapped up outfits that my other Grandma (Grandma Bessie) had made for me as a baby. My Grandma Bessie passed away when I was 2, so it was a really sentimental and emotional gift to open. The photo below is a picture of me in the exact dress I'm holding in my hands.

The beautiful dresser my Aunt Nan bought (and filled with cute outfits!!)

Proud Grandma's-to-be!!

We can't wait to me our baby girl!!

One load of laundry. . .she's gonna be super freaking cute!