adventures in making a baby

crafty christmas

2011-12-24T22:49:00.000-08:00

we received our lovely holiday craft exchange package yesterday. we were getting ready to go see santa (which ended up a being a big flog), and i saw that we had mail waiting for us. in the bundle was a package. arden immediately wanted to open this package because the cover was a winter scene with disney characters (if i remember my cartoons correctly). i realized, upon looking at the return address, that this was a special package :) and i immediately ripped out of arden's hands and told her to back off! haha

no really, i got so excited to be getting a secret santa type gift. i did take the package from arden and told it was something special for momma to open. of course, she just wanted the envelope so i handed it over once it was emptied.

the ornaments we recieved from delightful insanity are lovely. in their note they said that they are better at making food and candy, but i think these three ornaments are perfect.

thank you amanda and t. for our little gifties, i hope yours arrive soon :) thank you also to the ladies at AAOL for doing this again this year. what a wonderful way to meet other bloggers :)

i hope everyone has a very happy holiday season.

I'm still alive :)

2011-10-29T08:50:00.001-07:00

Tada! Let's just ignore that huge lapse in posting. Life has just been moving along quickly. But I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it! Wait, that's not what I was going for :)
Anna, Arden, and I are doing great. Arden is almost 2, and still a head-strong spitfire. Anna is almost 30, and still the love of my life. I'm almost normal, and well that's about it.
I hope all have w great weekend. Maybe I'll post more, but don't hold your breath!

climbing adventures

2011-03-03T15:02:00.001-08:00

We're currently in Boise helping my mom. Anna isn't with us :( These videos are so she doesn't miss us too much.
It is amazing to see Arden watch older kids do something, then try for herself. She is changing so fast!

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almost-wordless wednesday

2011-03-02T14:02:00.001-08:00

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recipes from the absent blogger

2011-02-12T18:50:00.000-08:00

dinner the past two nights has been awesome. i thought i would share what i made :)

collard greens, sweet potato and lentil curry:

http://www.all-creatures.org/recipes/collswpotlentcur.html

i added cauliflower to the recipe. also, i used diced tomatoes instead of crushed. one of the cans i used was fire roasted. don't know if it really added anything, but just to let you know. i didn't add raisins or walnuts (forgot and allergic). lastly, the sweet potatoes didn't all completely cook. the recipe doesn't give a specific time for how long to cook the potatoes. i recommend cooking them a bit beforehand. we ended up eating it with partially cooked pieces because it was taking too damn long. :) also, don't let the message of the website deter you. i found this recipe randomly. afterwards, i was looking at the rest of the page and saw some interesting notes at the bottom. hmm, oh well, the food was good.

easy creamy tomato soup:

http://southernfood.about.com/od/soupandstew/r/bl60708b.htm

holy cow, was this buttery goodness. we had this along with a loaf of bread anna made. hot fresh bread, slices of cheese, and tomato soup on a windy, rainy night equals a very happy girl. i used a purple onion because that's what we had and i added some garlic. i used crushed tomatoes for this recipe because really, why used diced and puree it if you can just used crushed. i did add one fresh diced tomato for a little extra substance. also, i used 2 cups of whole milk and 1 cup of 1%. man, this soups was so awesome i think i'm going to always make it instead of buying it in a can.

there you go readers. i have not forgotten you. i'm just busy stuffing myself for the winter ;)

Erm...

2011-02-03T12:30:00.001-08:00

That was supposed to be wordless Wednesday. Damn predictive text. Speaking of which, check out damnyouautocorrect.com. I laugh my ass off every time. Have a happy Thursday!

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wordlessly Wednesday

2011-02-02T15:09:00.001-08:00

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Big girl at the park

2011-01-25T17:14:00.001-08:00

I know I've been absent for way too long. Well, there is no reason other than laziness and feeling so far behind it's hard to restart.
In the mean time, enjoy my beautiful, incredibly active daughter :)

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Thank you!

2010-12-23T23:36:00.001-08:00

Thank you to the ladies at 2girls2dogs2cats.blogspot.com for the lovely ornaments. What a beautiful trio. If you can't tell from the photo, these are glass globes with curled ribbon. So simple and beautiful.

Thank you also to An Offering of Love for organizing this swap. It's fun to connect like this with fellow writers.

Sorry I've been mia. Life is busy this month. My sister in law had her baby early (she's fine) and my mom in law is staying with us. I'll do a proper update soon I swear :)

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quick birthday post

2010-12-02T10:05:00.000-08:00

today is arden's first birthday. since it's impossible to a real post while this munchkin is running around wreaking havoc, this is just a quickie.

aside from noting that arden is one, i wanted to share the birthday gift i found at 5:30 this morning. AF is back. exactly one year from arden's birth. very odd. i'm ok with it. i was kind of anxiously awaiting it each month.

anyways :) there is so much to share. i really want to write more later today. maybe during naptime...

first snow day

2010-11-22T19:48:00.001-08:00

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Guest Post by Anna

2010-11-21T22:33:00.000-08:00

I'm doing this guest post, because Kat told me "you should do a guest post" when I said she should do a post before our trip to see her family. I thought I'd try to be funny - or show her that I could do one super fast and that something is better than nothing, maybe. So here ya go - an update from the other mom:

Arden is learning so fast lately. Earlier this month, she learned how to make a monkey noise -- she would bounce up and down a little and say, "ooh ooh," when we asked her what a monkey says. Then, she learned elephant and would raise her arm and say, "mphmmmph." We thought they were both the cutest thing ever and have tried to get to make the sounds often, but she won't do it anymore. I guess she lost interest for the time being, but we we've heard that kids stop doing new things for no reason and then start again.

Arden is also walking really well now. I don't remember the last time we saw her crawl, and she loses her balance less and less often.

What else? My mom was here this weekend for my sister's baby shower. Kat and I volunteered to organize, but luckily, my mom stepped in and helped A LOT. She flew in Friday night, and we made food and decorations Friday evening and Saturday morning. The shower ended up being a great family get-together, and my sister said she had a great time. Arden had a good time at the baby shower too. After she got over the shock of waking up and being carried into a room full of strangers, she enjoyed exploring the house (my aunt hosted), toddling from room to room, opening anything she could get her hands on -- including the unopened shower presents.

Mom bought Arden an early birthday present while she was here. We picked it out together at the local toy store while Kat stayed home with the napping baby. We got a wooden xylophone and a handful of small things for the big baby and the new one to come. Arden already likes playing with her new toy, and we're hoping it will keep her entertained all year long.

Hopefully Kat will post the video of Arden "opening" her present tomorrow.

photo-tastic!

2010-11-11T13:11:00.000-08:00

i was going to do a few photos, but then i started looking back through the past month plus. there are a lot of great shots. :) enjoy!

no excuses

2010-11-09T10:22:00.000-08:00

i'm lame. i haven't really posted anything in quite a while. sorry guys.

there is a butt load of stuff to update you all on. hmm... this may get long. back in the middle of october, anna had a work training thing in chicago. we decided that arden and i would fly to indiana at the same time anna was in chicago. this way we could see my dad and brother (and

their families) and save on one plane ticket, since anna's work paid for her's.

arden and i spent 2 1/2 days staying at my dad's house. arden got some quality grandpa arvid and grandma edris time. arden hadn't seen my dad since she was a month old, and edris hadn't

met her yet. they were very excited for the trip to say the least :) we basically hung out and caught up on life. arden was terrible at napping on this trip, which stressed me out, but we tried to just roll with it. a cool little milestone for arden and me happened when i went to the gym with my dad. they have a kid's care area to use while you're working out. we have never left arden in a setting like this. i was very unsure of how she would do (or i would do). she didn't cry when i left. when i peaked in the window after my workout, she was just sitting on the floor watching all the bigger kids play. she didn't even freak-out when i came in to get her. it was no big deal :)

what a relief. i feel like, if the need arose, she would be fine doing this again.

after staying at grandpa's house, we went to my brother's just an hour away. anna finished her work thing on that day too, and took a bus down to indianapolis to spend the weekend with the whole family.

my brother, neice jennika, dad, step-mom, anna, arden and i went to a place called conner prairie on saturday. it's an early to mid-19th century "outdoor living museum." lot's of fun :) the weather was gorgeous while we were there. we got to see a lot of animals, crafts, and gardens. everyone that works/volunteers in the village/towns acts as if it is really early 19th century america. i loved it.

grinning like a goof at cousin jennika

chillin' with grandpa, grandma edris, and uncle myk

the next day we did an alzheimer walk to benefit research. my brother works for an assisted living facility. his family and mine went out to support the event. i was excited to be involved in something like this, and ended up feeling disappointed. the route for the walk was not well organized. it was basically an out and back, not a loop, which makes a lot more sense. i think it was the same for the running section of the event. there were a few tables at the start/end, but they appeared to all be for assisted living/retirement communities. while those definitely belong at this sort of thing, i thought they should have more. maybe some representation from the medical community. like what is alzheimer and what is being done to find a cure. oh well. they did seem to raise a lot of money though. that's positive.

the trip over all was wonderful. i was really happy to introduce/reintroduce arden to my family. she had fun playing with my nieces. the adults all got to have a fun baby around for a bit. i know we'll need to go through a little "stranger" anxiety again when we see them, but she's getting older. i know she is creating more long term memories of these people. hopefully we won't need to go so long before seeing them again :)

after that short 5 day trip, we were home for a week and a half before jetting off to puerto vallarta! it was a little nerve-wracking packing for this trip. what did/didn't we need for arden? in the end, i felt that we had everything she needed, except for a thermometer.

our trip started off well, although way too early for my taste. arden napped fine on the plane. she loved playing she the items in the back of the seats. taking them in and out repeatedly. she seemed to be a little warm though. we chalked it up to being on a warm plane and being primarily held in our laps. the second leg of our trip from la to puerto vallarta she seemed to be getting warmer and very sleepy. we thought it was odd, but weren't too concerned. that first night we had dinner on the beach. arden played in the sand while we chatted. while we were finishing dinner, she started to get fussy so anna's mom walked her around. arden fell asleep in mary's arms. that was out-of-the-ordinary for her. she hasn't done that since she was a little baby.

the next day we played at anna's parent's hotel pool. arden had fun hanging on to me in the kiddie pool and passing a toy back and forth with another little girl. when we got out, she wanted to sit in my lap and nurse. she subsequently fell asleep. she woke up a little when anna's brother and sister-in-law arrived, but then passed out again. no boob this time, just passed out. then she did the same thing in anna's arms. at this point i'm worried. she's pretty warm and has been rubbing her ears a bit.

we went to the pharmacy and bought a thermometer. when we checked her temp it was high (but not scary). she is acting very fussy and needy. i'm starting to freak-out. i have a potentially sick baby in a foreign country. for peace of mind, we decide to go to the doctor. anna's mom knows some medical spanish because she is a nurse practitioner that works with a lot spanish speaking clients. we hopped in a taxi (sans car seat, they didn't care down there and in hindsight i really should have taken the time to grab it). drove like max 10 minutes away. we tried to pay our fare, 40 pesos, and he would take our 100 pesos. they don't like to give change in most places/taxis. i was getting pissed because i just wanted to get out of the damn taxi. i basically shoved it at him and said to forget the change. so annoying.

it turned out that he brought us to the urgent/emergency care hospital instead of the place we asked for (it ended up being two blocks away). the doctor on call spoke moderate english, so it was fine. she examined arden's ear, eyes, and throat. her fever was already going down from the tylenol we gave her (we had remembered to pack that). the doctor decided that it was most likely an ear infection. her left ear was a bit inflamed. she wanted to call a pediatrician in though. it ended up be the pedi. we would have seen if the taxi brought us to the right place. oh well :) that doctor said the same thing and prescribed amoxicillin and ear drops for pain relief.

after we go the meds and returned to the hotel, we discovered that the amoxicillin was in powder form. the pharmacist forgot to add the water to it. we didn't have the number for the pharmacist, so we couldn't call and ask. anna and her parents tried to decipher what the package said. anna's dad finally noticed a marking on the side of the bottle that looked like a "fill to here" line. so anna filled it... with water from the hotel sink. oops. now we had heard that the water is much safer than it used to be, but still. even in america, i don't really like to drink out of the sink at a hotel. we had a momentary freak out wondering if the drug wouldn't be safe for arden now that we had added regular water to it. hell, we didn't know if we added enough water.

arden took the amoxicillin just fine. it had a nice orange sherbet smell to me. the ear drops were another story. she hated those. we stopped doing them after a couple days because she seemed fine. we did the whole amount of amoxicillin, but it became clear that we either hadn't done enough water, or were giving her too much medicine at a time, or both. we really should have just gone to at pharmacy and asked for help. silly americans. we were supposed to give her the meds for 7 days. we finished it in5 1/2 days. hmm. except for arden throwing up in the middle of the night the first night we gave her medicine, she was ok. she didn't sleep for crap and would only nurse, but she seemed to be getting better.

aside from arden being sick, it was a great trip. one day we took a crazy, bumpy bus ride out to a village in the foothills. we went to this restaurant on the river that had really good homemade tequila. i had a little sip. it was so smooth. arden got to play in the river while we waited for our food. she loved it. she had a meltdown afterwards, but anna ended up getting her to sleep in the ergo. they laid down on a rock by the river and just listened to the water.

sunday was halloween. i didn't realized that they would celebrate halloween like we do with dressing up and trick-or-treating. kids were running around everywhere in costumes, even in the bars :) i really wish that i had brought a costume for arden. oh well. that night anna's dad watched arden for us so we could go out. basically we put her bed and he sat in the living room making sure she stayed asleep. we went out to a bar owned by an ex-pat and played pool. they had a band playing that was pretty fun. this is where we saw kids running around asking for candy. after that we went to a bar called garbo's. it's a piano bar. pretty gay :) their was a waiter that was very friendly there and spoke english very well. he congratulated anna and i on our marriage, and cooed over arden when we saw him the next day. while we were at garbo's i told anna and her brother that i had really wanted to enjoy our night "off" from arden. i wanted to enjoy my drinks and dance with anna. and i did. i thought it would be a great idea to get a shot of tequila to go along with my margarita. not so smart. then i followed up with a second margarita. i don't remember leaving the bar. i forgot about using the lobby bathroom at anna's parent's hotel. i forgot about spitting all over said bathroom because, well, i wanted to spit. i do remember magically being in an oxxo (like a 7-eleven) and finding nachos. i love me some fake orange cheese with jalapeños. oh man. silly, silly kat.

i was regretting all of this when arden decided to wake up twice after we got home. i ended up bringing her to bed with us the last time (might have been the third time, actually). ugh. i did not feel good in the morning. i really wanted a mcd's breakfast. best hangover cure :)

but no mcd's for me. we had to get our butts up to make breakfast for the family. we had a mini-kitchen in our suite. we cooked up some eggs and even added some leftover spicy shrimp. so good. almost cured the hangover. after breakfast we hopped on a rented boat to go snorkeling and play on the beach on some islands.

i think the boat scared arden a little bit. she basically hunkered down and nursed herself to sleep under my sarong. we got to see dolphins, sea turtles, and different birds. our guides tried to catch a turtle for us to get photos. basically, they just lift them out of the water and put them back. the turtles kept diving before we could get them though :) smart things.

i had never been snorkeling before. i was pretty nervous about putting on the mask. i get a little claustrophobic when my breathing is restricted. but after practicing on the boat for a while, i felt comfortable. it was amazing. the fish we so colorful. the rocks were amazing. anna's brother is really into saltwater fish, so he really enjoyed himself. he was able to point out a puffer fish that i definitely wouldn't have noticed otherwise. arden wasn't too happy when we were out of the boat though. anna and i weren't able to swim together for very long. but it was ok. i totally intend to find another opportunity to snorkel in the future.

after that, the guides took us to a beach on another island. there was a large group of tourists, but they left just a little after we arrived. we had the whole island to ourselves. the water was amazing. there were hermit crabs all over. the tops of the cliffs around the beach were covered in cacti. i could have stayed there forever. arden had fun toddling around in the sand, but would not go near the water. it definitely frightened her. even if we held her. we had to take her in at one point because she was covered in sand from head to toe. poor, screaming baby. fortunately she'll have no memory of that (right??)

we left mexico the next day. our flight home was uneventful. arden was clearly happy to be home the following day. she just walked around the house playing with her toys. she napped well in her crib. i was happy to have my bed and shower. looking out at the grey skies right now makes me miss the warm sunshine, but it is so good to be home.

the next post will have photos from our trip. there are too many for me to add them on this already long post :) i also have a post going about arden's development. she is growing so quickly! i can't believe she will be a year in just a few weeks (sniffle, sniffle).

ok one more

2010-10-09T17:03:00.001-07:00

Ain't she cute :)

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pumpkin farm

2010-10-09T17:02:00.001-07:00

We went to an awesome pumpkin farm today. It had a petting zoo, hay bale maze, corn bin, photo ops, corn maze, and, of course, pumpkins. We had a great time with our neighborhood friends. We look forward to going again next year. I have more photos but they're on my camera. Currently, we are sitting in the car waiting for Arden to wake up (with the car off, Lynn).

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Playtime

2010-10-05T19:18:00.001-07:00

I watched my friend's son, Henry, this morning. It was a lot of fun seeing them play together :) Usually when we hang out, we're running at the park. It was fun to just watch them for an hour just doing their thing.

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puerto vallarta

2010-09-30T16:22:00.000-07:00

hey readers, have any of you been to puerto vallarta? we are trying to get a hotel with a suite in the old town district. i've got some different options, but i thought i would ask all of you too :)

we all have our passports now. i'm getting excited. the weather has been nice here, but i know it's going to get cold and rainy soon enough. it will be nice to have some sunny beach time before winter sets in. lord knows i could use a few more freckles on my white-a$$ skin :)

update from doctor

2010-09-30T12:11:00.000-07:00

didn't expect to hear back from the doctor so quickly. here is what he said:

Hi Kat,

The EEG was normal. I spoke with Dr. [specialist] who is the neurologist who read the EEG just to make sure that we were doing all that we need to do. He suggested, and I agree with him, that it would be good to have Arden's vision formally screened by a pediatric ophthalmologist. We are being extra cautious in doing this but vision can be very difficult to assess in a 9 month old and sometimes episodes of eye movement like she had are an indication of problems with vision. I have put in a referral to the pediatric ophthalmology group that I like. They are located in Kirkland. It's a bit of a drive but they are excellent. If you do not need a referral for your insurance, you can go ahead and schedule the appointment:

[edited]

Please make sure to take your video of Arden's eye movements for them to review. I suspect that Arden has something called congenital nystagmus that may or may not improve with time but I want to make sure we have covered all the bases.

Dr. S., MD

baby EEG

2010-09-29T19:09:00.000-07:00

it was awful. i hope none of you ever have to hold your terrified, screaming, crying, coughing, hiccuping baby still while someone they don't know does things they don't understand to them.

here is the run down of our day. it didn't start off as planned. typically arden sleep until about 5, nurses, and goes back to sleep until 7. this morning, she slept straight till 6 and then was up for the day. i decided to roll with it, figuring she will nap earlier in the morning and be even more ready to nap at the appointment.

well, she did nap earlier. she fell asleep around 8:30 when i was finishing my morning run. again, let's roll with it. i thought i would do an extra loop on the trail we had just run. she would hopefully sleep for an hour. all would be good. nope. she woke up half an hour later.

now, my sweet baby typically goes for three hours from morning wake up to morning nap. same between the naps. so that puts us at an afternoon nap of 12. not gonna work. our EEG appointment was at 1. we needed to keep her awake until they were running the test. freakin' fantastic. oh, and she is getting a cold.

we have a sleepy, grumpy, sniffling, sneezing baby to which they need to stick electrodes. ha.

we got to the hospital at 12:30 to check in. arden was doing ok. i was able to keep her awake in the car while anna drove. she's doing good, except when she is in my lap. my lap equals milk which equals get ready to sleep.

the technician was very nice. tried to get arden to warm to her. had toys ready. arden wasn't having any of it. we laid her down on the bed and had to keep her relatively still. the tech began measuring and marking arden's head. cue freak-out. even though she wasn't being hurt, arden did not like the lady messing with her. i thought that once the electrodes were on arden would be allowed to play and then would take a nap. what we actually did was much better. the tech asked if i was BFing. when i answered in the positive, she said i could lay down on the bed with arden and just nurse her to sleep. that's it. it was perfect.

i laid down with arden, making sure the video camera wasn't obstructed. the tech set up a strobe light near arden's face. arden calmed right down. she fell asleep within 5 minutes. i even fell asleep. the total testing time was 40 minutes and arden slept for 30 minutes of it. she wasn't even fazed by the strobe flashing in her face (that was only during the first 5-7 minutes).

after the test, we had to get all the electrodes off her head and clean the markings off. again, she got really upset, but it was quick. we decided that she definitely deserved a treat for making it through this ordeal (and we did too). we walked over to an awesome ice cream shop. i had remembered that they had frozen yogurt before, and we were going to get arden fro yo when she first started walking. they didn't have fro yo anymore, but they did have watermelon sorbet and kid cones.

arden loved it. she chowed down. sticking her face right into the sorbet. she ate more than i expected her to. the cone was a little smaller than a typical cone. she ate it down to the last half inch. the only help she had from us was making sure the sorbet didn't melt all over.

she fell asleep on the walk back to the car. she didn't even wake when anna transferred her to the carseat. she proceed to sleep for an hour. my poor baby was wiped out.

we won't have the results from the test until next week most likely. the tech told us that the neurologist that will be reviewing the info is the top doctor for epilepsy (one of the potential issues). after he is done, he'll pass his findings on to our pediatrician, who will then call us. we just need to wait. sigh. i really hope that whatever we find out is not major. no, what i truly hope we find is nothing. i hope the doctor tells us that these two incidents are minor and something she will out grow, right now.

first sorbet

2010-09-29T15:22:00.001-07:00

A treat following her EEG. More later...

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bye bye, rugby nanny

2010-09-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

RN has found a real job so she's not going to be helping me anymore. :( she is/was wonderful with arden. i know she would gladly babysit in the future, which makes me happy. arden always seems glad to see her. when i'm in the house, i can hear them playing and talking. RN is a natural. i can't wait for her and her wife to have a baby :)

so, after today i need to decide if we get another helper or... a cleaner! i think i'm leaning towards a housekeeper. someone to come like once or twice a month. i know, i know. i'm home virtually all day. but man, it is hard to stay on top of things. i get one thing done, only to need to do another thing, and then the first thing needs done again, along with three others!! argh! it would be nice to have help with the basics: dusting, sweeping, mopping, bathrooms. i'm going to look around on our neighborhood email list to find recommendations.

anna and i have divided up two major tasks in our house. she handles dishes, and i handle laundry. i hate dishes and get easily overwhelmed by them. i think it's working ok so far. i would love to hear what you all do. is there a division of labor? do you have a task list? do you do certain things on certain days to keep organized?

i would love a housekeeper to help us out, but i need to make some serious adjustments to what i'm doing regularly. bring on the advice, readers!

first words

2010-09-26T21:56:00.000-07:00

i'm going to make it official by posting this: arden's first words are kitty cat, or rather "titty ta." adorable :) she has also kind of said olive, "aw-wi."

she does say ma-ma, but it doesn't seem to mean me or anna yet.

she knows what i'm talking about when i ask where her water is. she'll point to her sippy cup.

she is still perfecting her walk. sometimes it seems like her head it just too big for her and she doesn't know how to balance. she does a little drunk baby walk :) but she is walking without us coaxing her.

and she's beautiful. that's all :)

sometimes...

2010-09-25T21:35:00.000-07:00

you just need to break out the beer and chill out. anna and i split a 6 pack of beer tonight. it had a higher alcohol content than i expected (7.8%) and i was a bit tipsy after 1 and a 1/2 beers :) and clearly after 3 i am postpartum "drunk."

mmm... i need a cheeseburger.

folks, i hope you are all enjoying your evening/weekend. i hope your babies are sleeping well. i hope your preggo bellies are not interferring with your sleep. i hope your baby making is going smoothly.

drink a, um, whatever you prefer for me and enjoy life :)

cheers!!

fun video

2010-09-21T17:29:00.001-07:00

Arden recognizes a few words now. She understands and points at malo, olive, mommy, momma, ball, and book. She also comprehends kitty and puppy. She can indicate all of these words in pictures to. It doesn't need to specifically be olive when we ask where the puppy is. She will point it out in a book. It is so cool to see this comprehension.

We are doing fine today. I had rugby nanny over for a few hours. I was able to play on my sewing machine and relax while they played.

The EEG is scheduled for next Wednesday. They will do the test while she is awake and napping. I'm a little skeptical about the napping. How the heck am I supposed to get her to sleep at a hospital with things stuck to her head??

enjoy the happy video :) hopefully I never post one like yesterday's ever again.

ETA- sorry i had no idea that the video would post sideways. oh well :)

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update- nystagmus

2010-09-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

this is what was happening to arden in the video i posted. sorry for the poor quality, by the way, and the length.

here's the story: this morning, arden fell backwards three separate times while sitting. i don't know why she fell. seemed that she just lost her balance. anyways, the third time, i saw her start to fall. i went to her quickly and picked her up when she started to cry. i looked at her face and saw that her eyes were moving rapidly to the left. this was an uncontrolled action. this rapid uncontrolled eye movement is called nystagmus. most likely this episode was caused by the fall(s).

i just realized i never wrote about our ER visit when she was 6 months old. after our big trip to boise, we had to go to the ER for the same thing, minus the falling. i was sitting in the living room playing with arden when she started flopping her head into my chest. she stopped after 3-4 times. i thought to myself, "that was odd." we played for a little bit more. i raised her up in the air and brought her back down, then her eyes started moving. it freaked me out big time. i tried to snap her out of it (literally snapping in her face). when that did nothing, i rushed her into the bathroom to get anna out of the shower. then i called 911 because i had no idea what was going on. the eye movement probably lasted a minute. 911 said it could have been a seizure, but it was inconclusive. i called our nurse hotline for our pediatrician. they said to go to the hospital just to be safe. we went, and after a couple hours we were told it was probably nystagmus. again, inconclusive. they said if it happened again to try to get it on tape.

thus, the awful phone video i posted. you can see her eyes moving in the first minute. the rest of the video is just to record how she was acting afterwards. i was really trying to remain cool while in my head i was stressing. this time there seemed to be a reason for the nystagmus, but last time there wasn't. what is going on with my baby's head?

i sent the link to the video to our doctor. he said it did appear to be nystagmus and the pediatric neurologist at a local children's hospital agreed. that doctor wasn't too worried though. arden's episode seemed to be pretty minor. they did recommend having an EEG done, just in case. what they would do, because of her age, is stick a bunch of wire to her forehead and let her play. they would watch what was going on in her brain during this time. they would look for any evidence of a potential seizure hiding in her brain. the test seems to be pretty non-invasive. (but it still makes me want to crap my pants.) i'll talk to the doctor's office tomorrow to schedule the EEG. i'm hoping we can do it this week. i just want some answers. i want to know my baby is healthy.

i'm really trying to be ok with everything. nystagmus isn't serious, as far as i can tell from dr. google. but i still feel like crying. it's so frustrating to not know what is happening to arden. to not have definitive answers. i was hoping this was all behind us after the first time. i was starting to forget about it. i dislike not being in control of this. i want to put a helmet on her and put padding everywhere in the house. then, i also don't want to do this. i don't want my baby going around cautious all the time. i love how adventurous she is. she just tries things. she is so active. i don't want that to ever be stifled.

i gotta move away from this topic before i get sucked down. the doctors will have answers. this is not serious. my baby is wonderful.

so... you guys got a behind-the-scenes glimpse of my life :) baby in pjs and momma in a bathrobe, hair sticking up all over. toys strewn about the living room. using the couch as my desk. :) things i never intended to show my readers. oh well. that's what mommy-hood looks like sometimes (ok, most mornings). please tell me this is true for you guys too :)

freaky video

2010-09-20T15:51:00.001-07:00

Arden fell earlier and had a scary eye thing happen. She had involuntary horizontal eye movement. I'm putting this up now and will talk more later. I'm using my phone and it sucks for long posts.

Www.YouTube.com/watch?v=ZGGBFEoUZCc&sns=em

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these booties were made for walkin'

2010-09-16T19:09:00.000-07:00

here's the video :) enjoy!

time for some fro-yo!

2010-09-15T19:58:00.000-07:00

the other day anna said we should have a special treat when arden starts walking, something she could enjoy also. what could be better than frozen yogurt :)

and guess who gets to have frozen yogurt as of today. i know this is a hard one. i'll let you think about it...

ARDEN! surprise! yes, she started walking this morning. she was holding on to the coffee table, let go, and took two steps towards her toys. i kept encouraging (ok, maybe tricking) her to try again. my friend, denise, was over today. she is a photographer (in fact, she took the photo in the last post). whenever she is over she takes more than 200 photos of arden. i love it. right, so she was taking oodles of photos and caught some with arden walking. then she got out her iphone and took 20 minutes of video. she is going to edit it and send it to me. i'll be sure to post it as soon as i can.

i know arden has been on the verge of walking for a bit now, but i was still surprised. she just did it so nonchalantly. the other thing she's been doing like it's no big deal is climbing stairs. my baby is getting so big!

another photo by denise, taken at our favorite restaurant, geraldine's

the monster

2010-09-08T20:30:00.001-07:00

check out this pear. It's huge! I tried to find something that would give a good comparison. I don't think this quite does it justice.

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forgive me readers...

2010-09-07T21:14:00.000-07:00

for i have sinned. god knows when i last did a real post. sorry :( i really thought i would into the routine doing that 30 days thing. i thought i would start bustin' butt and talkin' to you guys, for realz. :) not so much. oh well. you all love me still. right?

so update on life currently in our household. our garden is pretty close to being done. we still get

a smattering of blueberries and some small heads of broccoli. our tomatoes became a forest. we cleaned it up this weekend with some cleverly place twine. there are a lot of tomatoes on the vine, but i'm not sure that they are going to ripen. it's gotten cool and grey here already.

our garden was more successful than in the years past. we had kale, rainbow chard, snap peas, green peas, lettuce, green onion, scallion, strawberries, rhubarb, and a carrot (yes, just one). we are still waiting on some squash and peppers. we might have gotten too late of a start with those ones.

we think we have missed our plum harvest. the tree didn't produce as much this year as last. before we actually purchased the house, we would come over to check things out in the garden and yard. the plum tree was crazy with fruit last year. we have had some though. arden loves

those tart little guys.

we harvested a good bit from our pear tree tonight. we filled one of those reusable grocery bags. guess how much it weighed. 20 pounds! woowee! some of the pears where larger than any i've seen. seriously. huge! there is one that is as large as my hand. width and length.

we really didn't know what the previous owners had planted in the rest of the yard. we ended up with some lovely flowers. fortunately, they were low maintenance. we had columbine and jasmine. lilies, daffodils, tulips. lavender, sage, mint, lemon thyme. rock roses, succulents, and a lot more that i don't know the names of, but enjoyed looking at through the summer.

there were other things that we planted that did well too. we planted honeymelon sage,

lemongrass, oregano, thai basil, fuschia , orange mint.

i recently got a new sewing machine (thanks, momma!). i can't wait to play on it. i'm intending to take a class to learn how to use it properly. i did get it out of it's box today and played with a few stitches. this was achieved while my lovely friend was over helping me with arden :) since i don't have her consent to use her name on here, let's call her rugby nanny, or RN for short.

RN is a rugby friend that lives in my neighborhood. i did have a helper for a few weeks, but she quit to focus on her AA degree better. i knew RN had nanny experience and wasn't currently employed. so now, she comes over on tuesdays from 12 to 4. she plays with arden. feeds her. let's me run out the door singing and skipping over to the bakery :) it's lovely. arden clearly likes

her too. when she comes over, arden is excited to play with RN. this makes me happy, and a happy momma is the best momma. the little time apart from arden makes me appreciate her all the more too.

hopefully, i'll be able to use the 4 hours to do things for myself and the family/house. my intention is to set little goals for each week. chores for the house and chill time for me, however i see fit. so today, i made a yummy squash, pea, and potato puree for arden. there was enough for her lunch and for the freezer. i unpacked my sewing machine. i went to the bakery for a danish and decaf coffee. also, i went to the post office to mail some very important forms, our passport updates... for our trip to mexico!

like the segue :) anna's dad will have time off from his work in laos in october. anna's mom, brother, sister-in-law, and our family will be meeting him in puerto vallarta. woo! i haven't been to mexico before, so i'm really excited. we got all of arden's passport things handled too. she will have been to two different countries before she is one. albeit, they are the easiest for americans to go to, but it's still cool. i can't wait to play on the beach, sip yummy drinks (sans ice cubes), and chow down on some good mexican food. mmm...

i'm a little nervous about the trip because we have another one planned just a week and a half earlier to indiana. that means we will have a three hour time change, back to regular time, then a two hour change. arden's sleep is bound to get messed up. i'm also afraid of her getting sick in mexico, or anna and myself. but, we'll have a lot of family with us. anna's mom is an NP. puerto vallarta isn't rural. i'm sure we'll be fine. arden is not allowed to be teething on this vacation

though. the past two she has been.

we go in for her 9 month well-visit on friday. i'm super excited. i love finding out her measurements and getting figurative pats-on-the-back from the doctor :) makes me feel like we're doing it right. i know arden is awesome either way though. she's growing well. learning all the time. amazing us. and she's funny. she has this fake laugh that cracks me up. i'll try to catch it on film sometime. i wouldn't trade her for anything.

well, maybe nachos. nah, not even nachos :)

look at that profile. i just wanna give her a big kiss :)

my sister

2010-08-28T19:37:00.000-07:00

my sister is one of the funniest women i know. she cracks me up. i'm constantly telling her that she needs to do stand up. i've also granted her the permission to use most anything about growing up with me for a laugh :) and boy is that a lot of material.

she recently found a video on our mom's computer that i took at my house. this was just last year when i was still in my first tri. check it out, it's pretty goofy. you should really read her other posts. :) i love my little sister. she will be a star one day.

fyi- the woman with the glasses is one of my aunt, my mom is in the other chair

ETA- the link, duh :)

http://breccabrecca.blogspot.com/

no nap = park

2010-08-27T12:37:00.001-07:00

dear Arden didn't want to nap yesterday afternoon. So after an hour of trying we went to the park. She is getting to be so mobile!

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questions

2010-08-26T14:15:00.000-07:00

couple quick questions:

what do you all do with food stained clothing? arden is really enjoying feeding herself. the problem is when she puts her little hands down at her sides. any food in wiped all over her pants. i can't be stripping her down anytime we are feeding her. well, i could but there will be times where it's an inconvenience.

what i've been doing is rinsing the clothes right afterwards. i try to get the food out as much as possible. then, before they go in the wash, i use a spot remover. sometimes this doesn't work. i would really like to be able to use arden's clothes more than once. also, i don't like to use harsh chemicals. the more natural suggestions, the better.

next question is regarding naps. arden is a great night-time sleeper. not so easy with naps. we have gotten to the point where we are CIO. i didn't want to do this, but arden was resisting everything. she was working us over like a pro. now, we've only been doing this for 4 days, but man is it rough. i just wanted to see if anyone else has gone through this, or is right now. i've got questions like: how long should i let her cry, what if she doesn't nap after an hour, do i keep her up until the next sleep time, how do i keep her awake, how do i not pull all my hair out?

phew, i hate nap time. and stains. :)

day 6- 20 of your favorite things

2010-08-19T21:09:00.000-07:00

oh snap. this is a hard one.

1- my wife

2- my baby

3- my family

4- my bed

5- a good, hot, strong shower

6- snuggling

7- reading

8- sitting on the beach when it's nice and hot, but there is a breeze that is just cool enough

9- sitting in front of a fire

10- christmas

11- my home

12- working in the yard

13- talking with my sister

14- designing- that goes for various things. artwork, my home, framing, installations...

15- playing/watching a good rugby game

16- hiking

17- camping

18- my wedding

19- smelling herbs- lavender, thyme, mint, sage. i love them all. most especially when the smell is from my garden.

20- a good homemade dinner

ok that wasn't so difficult :) i'm coping out on writing more for tonight. i want to chill with my wifey. hope you all have a great weekend!!

delay on day 5- your favorite quote

2010-08-17T09:03:00.000-07:00

i was uber-sick with a stomach bug monday. didn't quite feel like posting. then anna was sick and arden was a bit off. she still is today.

fortunately, arden didn't have the pukes like anna and i did. she was extra poopy though. twice, i put her down for a nap, only for her to wake up half an hour later with a very full diaper. my poor sick wifey had to get up to help me clean her. total mess. arden's fever never went much higher than 100 though. which was very fortunate because the past three days were extremely hot for seattle, over 90s. our basement is nice and cool, but the floor is still just cement. not exactly appropriate for a baby that wants to stand and walk all the time.

on to the topic for adjusted day 5 :) your favorite quote. this one i actually have. it's by eleanor roosevelt.

"do one thing every day that scares you."

quite the challenge huh :) i think the thing i do everyday that scares me is taking care of arden. yep. scary. she is becoming so mobile. cruising, climbing on things, crawling at the speed of light. phew! making sure she doesn't injure herself is full-time, man. :) but it's great to see her change and develop.

in the past few days i've seen a couple new things out of her. she is playing with olive, for real. she will pick up olive's tennis ball and "throw" it (a throw is usually only a couple feet, unless it bounces further). then olive gets it. brings it to me, and i hand it to arden to do all over again. she will play ball with me too. i'll roll a ball to her, she'll track it rolling towards her lap, pick it up and roll/throw it back. too cute.

the other thing is an awareness of placing objects. before now, she would set objects down with out realizing that she did. i've now seen her purposefully set a block down on her shelf and pick it back up. she will also put toys into her bath cup.

it's amazing how little things we don't think of need to be developed. setting an object down, picking it up. all done with a conscious effort. wow :)

i'll probably be m.i.a. over the weekend again. my momma is coming to town! just bought ticket today on the spur of the moment. she'll be here friday morning to monday morning. i can't wait. arden will get to show off all her new tricks for grandma :)

day 4- your favorite book

2010-08-13T14:15:00.000-07:00

i love, love, love to read. i devour books. that being said, my hunger for books doesn't always lead to be best choices. kind of like junk food for the brain. i got in the habit, when i was still working, of going to the grocery store close by and buying a book. they had a dollar bin for a while that i would sift through and read whatever crap looked the most interesting. and it was mostly crap. when they stopped having the bin, i went to the book aisle. i was spending more than i should have on books i would never touch again. anna hated that i did this. it was a wasted of money.

now we live right by a library. it's so nice to just hop over there when i need a new book. our family often passes along books to us too, and i like their choices.

most recently, i read a book of short stories by ursula k. le guin called changing planes. very interesting. i didn't get to read the whole thing though because it was due back to the library. i wasn't able to renew it at the time.

my mom just sent a box full of terry pratchett books. i love his work. he's created a world called "discworld", and writes about the happenings of the people in it. his stories are full of dry, british humor. and the puns. oh i love the puns and other plays on words.

i do read books other than fantasy. i love mystery. like sue grafton. she writes the books that go through the alphabet (m is for malice). historical fiction is fun too. typically, i read a large batch of books from a certain genre, and then take a break.

i've been intending to read some of the classics and must-reads. if you have an suggestions, fire a way. right it's late now. off to bed.

day 3- your favorite tv program

2010-08-12T18:44:00.001-07:00

we got rid of our tv over three years ago when we were planning our wedding. we recognized that we were spending way too much time just sitting on the couch. we would eat watching tv. we would stay up to late just to watch one more show. we would put off our household chores. it was bad. so we ditched it.

we started watching things on netflix. we watched six feet under and loved it. it was a little easier with netflix to restrict ourselves. we had to wait for the next disc to arrive, and often we would be slow to remember to mail the previously watched one back.

the rise in access to tv shows online has kind of defeated the purpose of us not having an actual tv. we watch things on netflix, hulu, and amazon now. oops :) and it's even easier to just keep watching sometimes with that nifty "next" button.

anyways the shows we have watched or are watching are:

dexter

dr. who

the x files

30 rock

law and order

weeds

heros

you can see, again, that we watch a variety. there are a couple that i watch when i just need a little "me time" when arden is napping. i've recently liked watching america's got talent. it's escpecially nice to just skip over the bad acts and all the snarky judge stuff :) i've also like modern family.

anyways, i realize we need to reevaluate the amount of tv we watch again. but it's hard to do. and there are so many excuse you can create that keep you on the couch :) i almost feel we need to take drastic measures to jump start an adjustment. then we can self-regulate from there. i've wondered if there was a program you could put on your computer to make it automatically shut off at a certain time, even if you're using it.

so, again, i ask what you guys like? how do you moderate how much tv you watch, or do you just soak up the good stuff :) i really do like to hear back from whomever is reading this... really, truly. now i'm off to watch my name is earl!

day 2- your favorite movie

2010-08-11T13:58:00.000-07:00

hmm, well, again i like a number of movies.

benny and joon

dead poet's society

life is beautiful

i am sam

young frankenstein

the princess bride

fight club

ma vie en rose

the triplets of belleville

i could go on and on :) i like movies that make me cry, scare the crap out of me, and make me laugh so hard i snort. i like movies that make me think beyond my little world. i like subtitles. i like just sitting back and ignoring the outside world for a while.

movies can evoke so many different feelings. they can also hold memories about certain times of my life. when i was a kid, we would have sleepovers at my house. the girls and i had three movies we watched a lot: newsies (because of the cute boys, haha), arachnophobia, and it. the last two fall under the "scare the crap out of me" category. those spiders, that clown. yeesh. i still get creeped out watching those.

i am sam made me cry virtually the whole time. i remember sitting in my college apartment right next to the tv. my roommates mom and sister were on the couch. i don't now if i was pms'ing or what, but, man, i bawled like a baby. i'm sure my roommates family thought i was crazy :) it is such a sweet movie. it rips at you heart.

the princess bride and young frankenstein are family favorites. i grew up watching those two movies numerous times. i own young frankenstein on vhs :) god knows what i'm going to do with it since i have no way of watching it in that format. but i'm not tossing it, no sir-ee.

i've brought arden to two movies at our local theatre. it has cry baby tuesdays. the first movie we saw was how to train your dragon. that was a sweet animated movie. good to bring a little baby to that just wanted to nurse and sleep at the time. the second movie, anna came along. it was... ummm, darn i can't remember now. but i remember it was the first time arden really bit me while nursing. she was a real wiggle worm. we ended up just letting her crawl around on the floor in front of us (we were in the front row, it's a small theatre).

i love the whole cry baby movie thing. i like going to the theatre. i love the popcorn at our place. and it's another way to try to meet other parents.

what's your favorite movie? have you taken your kid(s) to see anything?

toothy mcgee

2010-08-10T16:52:00.001-07:00

Isn't she just adorable! I think the right incisor is next. I hope that will be it for quite a while. I am so done with teeth!

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day 1- your favorite song

2010-08-10T09:37:00.000-07:00

this list might be a little difficult for me because i don't really have favorites. but i'll use the topics as a jumping point.

a song that comes to mind that i've always liked and i find very moving is the hallelujah chorus. anytime i hear it, i get choked up. there is just something about it. this is one thing i miss about being part of a church. i sung in the choir and i loved the christmas program. i've considered joining a community choir. maybe, now that i'm a SAHM, i might have the time (haha).

i love music. all varieties. oldies, 80s, hip hop, country, rockabilly, classical. the funny thing is, i don't buy music. our newest cds are all burned by friends. i have an ipod, but i hardly update it. i kind of just forget about music. i have been trying to play more to expose arden to it. if she's freaking out in the car, usually classical music chills her out. i recently created a station on pandora based on 'they might be giants' kids music. i don't question turning on stations that i like to listen to when arden is around. of course, i make sure the lyrics are clean and the 'mood' of the music isn't inappropriate for how she's feeling.

i want her to like music as much as i do. i want her to have a well rounded education, and music is important for that to happen. what do you guys think about music, in relation to yourselves and/or your kid(s)? leave a comment or blog about it. :)

as an aside, arden is become quite the acrobat while BFing. it's like she's trying to crawl away while eating. it's been making things interesting, especially if i'm nursing her before bed. any tips?

30 days

2010-08-09T09:26:00.001-07:00

found this list on mina's musings. since i seem to have a hard time blogging consistently, i thought a list of ideas would help. i intend to start this tomorrow :) watch out people.

Day 1 - your favorite song
Day 2 - your favorite movie
Day 3 - your favorite television program
Day 4 - your favorite book
Day 5 - your favorite quote
Day 6 - 20 of your favorite things
Day 7 - a photo that makes you happy
Day 8 - a photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 9 - a photo you took
Day 10 - a photo taken over 10 years ago of you
Day 11 - a photo of you recently
Day 12 - something you are OCD about
Day 13 - a fictional book
Day 14 - a non-fictional book
Day 15 - your dream house
Day 16 - a song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 - an art piece (drawing, sculpture, painting, etc)
Day 18 - my wedding/future wedding/past wedding
Day 19 - a talent of yours
Day 20 - a hobby of yours
Day 21 - a recipe
Day 22 - a website
Day 23 - a youtube video
Day 24 - where you live
Day 25 - your day, in great detail
Day 26 - your week, in great detail
Day 27 - your worst habit
Day 28 - what's in your handbag/purse
Day 29 - hopes, dreams, and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 - a dream for the future

teething while on vacation

2010-08-08T20:36:00.000-07:00

it sucks, big time. but let me back up a little and give you the whole run-down.

anna's dad is working in laos right now. he is in gold mining. he's been there since the beginning of the year. anna's parents figured out they would save a ton on taxes if he didn't come back into the u.s. for the rest of the year. so we all traveled up to vancouver island, british columbia. we went to the juan de fuca provincial park to camp for a week.

this was the first time we had camped with arden. anna and i are backpackers. we're used to packing small, light-weight items. just the essentials. for this trip, we bought a big ass 6 person tent. it's 11' x 11' x 6'. we brought an air mattress and a pack-n-play. we brought whatever food we thought of, and packed it in a big cooler. life was going to be comfortable.

ha!

turned out to be a very cold trip. we wore layers the whole time. i slept in socks, jeans, two shirts, and a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. all inside a 20 degree down sleeping bag. arden wore socks, footed pjs, a long-sleeved onesie, sometimes pants or baby legs, a fleece sleep sack, and a hat. we also covered her with a thick baby blanket, her thin baby blankie, and a baby towel. she would go to sleep in her pack-n-play but come to bed with me after her first wake up.

oh and the wake ups. man, it was like having a newborn again. i was a nursing machine. i have this terrible crick in the shoulder/neck area from sleeping and nursing (on a slowly deflating air mattress).

arden finished cutting her left front tooth at about the beginning of the trip and started cutting the right front. it was rough going folks. it didn't help that she fell and cut her lip on a cooler. she had a nasty bruise on the inside of her lower lip. it was dark purple/blue. ouch. the tooth, i think, is what made the trip the most difficult. but the memory of why specifically is starting to fade already :)

trying to keep a mobile, curious baby away from small rocks while camping is very interesting. fortunately, anna's mom brought a screen tent thing. we set that up to keep arden away from mosquitoes. then anna and her mom put down a tarp, put sleeping pads on top of it, and then a large blanket. surrounding that area, they put all coolers, boxes, and large luggage. they basically created an awesome play area that arden could safely play in (mostly- reference cooler lip cut). it was the best idea ever.

until, anna's mom had an even better idea. she had brought the inner tube that they pull behind their boat in case we could play in the water at the beach. since is was freakin' cold and there was no way in hell we were going in the water, she blew it up for arden to play in. and that is how the tumble tube was invented :) arden loved that thing. she could stand up in it and fall down without getting hurt. she could reach for thing outside the tube but we didn't need to worry about her climbing out of it. she even started standing in the middle of the tube without support! it was awesome!!

arden got to experience a lot of different things on this trip. hiking in the woods. bathing in a washtub. playing in tide pools. ooh, i forgot. we went to butchart gardens and she rode the carousel. she went to a "foreign" country.

yeah, the bad memories are fading away. it was difficult caring for a teething, cold baby while camping, but we enjoyed ourselves a lot. it was great to spend time with anna's parents, sister, and uncle. we had good food. read some fun books. had good conversations. saw beautiful scenery. i know i'm forgetting some good stuff, but you get the gist :)

next time we'll be sure to bring more clothes. we'll check the weather better. make sure the mattress will not deflate (ugh). and remember where we put the baby tylenol. :) pictures will follow. first we need to unpack the car...

are you there guys? it's me, kat.

2010-07-25T07:59:00.001-07:00

anyone get that title? :) so, i've been absent. a ton has been going on and that kind of overwhelms me. overwhelmed = writer's block.

-arden crawls like a pro on her knees now. she just did one day and has continued doing so.

-pulling herself up is still a fun activity for her. she tries to do it on everything. the wall, my legs, things hanging from our coat hooks :) as i'm writing this she is playing with the chair from her baby swing. it converts to a toddler rocker. and she's trying to climb on the lamp now, oops...

-baby-proofing is a work in progress.

-her snaggle-tooth is totally out, and it's adorable :)

-she recognizes her name and will turn to us when we call her. she also recognizes some words and signs. she definitely knows what milk is, and we think she understands eat and more.

-anna and i have been taking sign classes for a few months. i have a niece that's deaf. i've been wanting to do classes again for a long time (i did them when i was around 13-15). aside from doing signs with arden, anna and i want to be able to communicate with my niece. baby signs don't work for conversing with a 14 yr old :)

-our sign language instructor has a background in nannying. i'm going to have her help me one day a week for 4 hours. this will give me a chance to do more around the house without interruptions, go out for errands, and/or have some quality alone time. i'm really excited.

-she's pooping on her potty. we bought a boon. when we hear her start grunting, we whip off the diaper and plop her down. it's really cute to see her sitting there with her onesie pulled up around her chest, grunting away. we aren't necessarily trying to potty train her now. this started as a little bit of a selfish act :) her diapers can get so messy. cleaning out a potty is much easier than cleaning out a cloth diaper. of course we want to encourage her to use the potty and there is no harm in starting early. she doesn't dislike using it, and loves to climb on it. it's definitely more of a play thing for her right now, and that's just fine.

-sleep is once again messed up. i think it's due to teething. it sucks that we get her on a good schedule only for it to go to hell again. whatever. i don't need sleep. right?

-now for the most recent, exciting news :) arden has learned how to clap. it's freakin' adorable! the best moment was yesterday morning. i was nursing her in bed, trying to get a few extra z's, as she's eating, she starts clapping :) loved it. finally, i get some appreciation for all the good milk i've been giving her! haha.

i can't guarantee my next post will be any sooner than this one was. i do have a new phone now that enables me to post on the go. so maybe you'll hear from me in less than a month :) we have been busy enjoying the good weather. play-dates, walks, swings and sandboxes, bbqs, vacations. and it doesn't look like things will slow down anytime soon. i'm cool with that :) i hope all of you are enjoying yourselves too.

test

2010-07-20T10:42:00.001-07:00

I got a new phone and am trying this out. hope it works :-)
the photo is of Lynn, Stella, and Arden at a wading pool. we're enjoying the nice weather, even though it's been rather fickle.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.4.8

passport for arden

2010-06-30T09:17:00.000-07:00

we need to get arden a passport. we'll be heading up to vancouver in august. i looked at the government site for details and was totally overwhelmed. can anyone give me a clear description of what i need to do?

thanks!!

how has a month passed??

2010-06-28T17:40:00.001-07:00

wow, i'm a slacker. there is so much to catch up on i'm going to use those tried and true bullet points. sorry, if the order of things is a bit jumbled :)

- arden can get into and out of a sitting position without help. we had seen her do it on the changing pad with help from the vanity mirror. but i discovered her sitting in the middle of her mattress during nap time. since then it's becoming more regular and seems to be getting easier.

- she is still trying to figure out crawling. she is awesome at arm crawling. she will get up on her hands and knees but will only do one or two steps. she's becoming a pro at push-ups and planks :)

- she has started climbing on things, primarily me.

- she likes to stand and walk with help. i'm a little afraid of encouraging walking too much since i was running at 7 months. scary! but it's so cute to see her face walking toward you.

- she loves to play with toys. she will deliberately go towards what she wants to play with. obviously that's a problem when it's the animals toys.

- did i tell you she fell out of our bed? scariest moment yet. wow. we never leave her alone on there any more. she was perfectly fine. just a little bruise on her back.

- we've purchased baby-proofing stuff. my intention is to install things this weekend. any tips are appreciated :)

- her increased mobility and awareness makes nursing more interesting. sometimes i wonder if i'm going to still have nipples when she's done :)

- she loves to nurse though. even if she gets distracted, she'll go right back to eating. we are doing pretty well on this front. i do worry sometimes if she's getting enough, but we just take it one day at a time. i would love to nurse her for a year.

- eating solids is going really well. she had seemed ambivalent about it until we switched to level 2 earth's best. she loves it! before she was eating like 1/2 an ounce at a time. now it's 2 oz. or more. she's tried so many things: rice cereal, oatmeal, carrot (puree and sticks), sweet potato, butternut squash, peas, spinach, brown rice, potato, watermelon, apple, pear, strawberry, peach, banana, and plum. some of these she eats whole with our supervision.

- yesterday she had a strawberry fresh from our garden :)

- she has three teeth now. two front bottom, and her left incisor.

- she knows how to bite. fortunately, this hasn't been while breastfeeding yet. but she will bite me when climbing on me. tips on how to deter this action would be lovely.

- anyone still reading this :) cheers if you are, i've got a lot more to say.

- the increased solid food has obviously changed her poop. it's funny to see chunks of carrot :) today she had her first solid turd. lovely, huh. she was grunting and groaning. she got so red in the face and was shaking her fists. i think she was/is a little dehydrated (we just got home from a trip to a very hot boise).

- she likes to drink water from any sort of container, except a bottle of course. she is getting pretty good at manipulating cups by herself. we still spot her though.

- our recent vacation had a lot of new experiences for her. we went to the aquarium, the zoo, drove to boise, went to my 10 year reunion (!!), went to bruneau sand dunes, ate sand, went to craters of the moon, played in lava sand, went to yellowstone, saw ol' faithful, saw a waterfall, went swimming, and drove home. there is so much more that i'll need to do another post

- being around my family and a lot of new people seems to have encouraged her to talk more. i love the new sounds she is making. she has become so much more interactive.

- she loves to play in the water, whether it's the bath or the pool. i can't wait till it's warm enough her to get out the kiddie pool.

- sleep got really messed up while on vacation. we are going to restart sleep training tonight. yesterday, she was so tired she fell asleep at 4:45, slept till 9:15, ate, went back to sleep till 12 something, then 3:30, then 6ish. i brought her to bed then and we slept till 8. THEN she took a nap from 10 to 12. i think she was a little tired :)

- since sleep is messed up i'll record what we hope to accomplish with our first stage of sleep training. we want her to go to bed at 7, without nursing to sleep. then we want her to sleep 6 hours before she gets to eat again. if she wakes before then, anna helps her back to sleep. after that, we want her to sleep 4 hours. each time i feed her, i put her back to bed before she falls asleep.

- our intention for naps is for her to sleep in her crib primarily and without being nursed to sleep. it's fine if she sleeps while on naps or on errands, but when we're home she goes in the crib.

i think i've covered everything. i'm really enjoying this stage. it's really exciting. she is exploding developmentally. i love watching and playing with her. she is such a joy :)

did anyone read my last post?

2010-05-28T07:47:00.000-07:00

have i lost my readers? or did my last post get screwed up? i accidentally published before i was finished last time. maybe you didn't realize that i went back and wrote more than one paragraph :)

maybe everyone is off having early summer fun. hope you all have a good memorial day weekend! oh, and for those not in the u.s., i hope you have a good regular weekend :)

we've got the beet, we've got the beet, we've got the beet...

2010-05-24T21:51:00.000-07:00

yeah! :) we decided to give beets a shot a while ago when we accidentally got some in our produce delivery. i did a simple sauté and really enjoyed them. i purposely ordered more for our recent box. i searched out a new recipe. i found a great sounding one in a new-to-me cookbook called feeding the whole family: cooking with whole foods. it has yummy recipes and includes suggestions at the bottom of each to help include younger family members. for example. i made "nina's famous spring beet soup." it suggested saving some of the cooked beets and carrots for the baby to eat.

nina's famous spring beet soup

prep time: 30 minutes

makes 4 servings

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil or butter

1 medium onion, cut into thing crescents

1 clove garlic, minced

1 teaspoon sea salt

3-4 cups water

1 bunch spring beets, cut into large matchsticks (save the beet greens)

1 large carrot, cut into large matchsticks

1/4 head green cabbage, shredded (i forgot to get this at the store, so we didn't include it)

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 tablespoon tamari or shoyu

1 tablespoon snipped fresh dill or 1 teaspoon dried, for garnish

1/4 cup sour cream, for garnish

heat oil in a 4-quart pot. add onion, garlic, and salt; sauté until soft. add water, beets, carrot, and cabbage and bring to a boil. lower heat and simmer, covered for 10 to 15 minutes, until vegetables are tender.

meanwhile, wash beet greens, remove tough stems, and cut greens into short, thin strips. add beet greens, lemon juice, and tamari to soup; simmer another 3 to 5 minutes. serve at once, garnished with dill and sour cream.

for babies 10 months and older: remove some cooked beet and carrot pieces from the soup and puree or serve whole as finger foods. go easy on beets for babies (only a teaspoon or less at a time) as they have a strong cleansing effect on the bowels. (we just gave arden a raw carrot stick)

my input- i loved the soup. i forgot the cabbage and i don't think it was lacking because of it. also, the sour cream and dill were a really nice touch. i liked the tangy taste they added. i didn't use fresh squeezed lemon juice. i used one of those plastic lemon squeeze things you can get in the produce department. also, i had intended to add barley to the soup to make it more substantial. forgot to do it. i'm going to try it next time. it was a good meal, but not totally filling enough. the book suggested serving a tempeh dish alongside for a full meal. i figured making one dish while taking care of arden was enough :)

arden has been enjoying carrots for the past few days. we've been giving her earth's best carrots and yesterday we let her gnaw on a carrot stick. i think the carrot stick felt good on her gums. she isn't quite back to her usual happy self. i'm wondering if another tooth will come in. her sleep isn't horrible, but not awesome. she wakes up twice to eat and go back in the crib. then the third time i bring her to bed with us. i would love to take out one of those feedings. all in due time.

we've gotten into a routine for her morning nap. i've been wanting to get her away from napping in my lap. so now about an hour and a half to two hours after she wakes in the morning, we go to my bed. i nurse and once she is asleep i move away. i can then take a little nap too if the night was particularly rough or i can get up. she's been sleeping wonderfully this way. more often than not, she's slept for about an hour. this is a big improvement.

she can sit by herself now too. on sunday, she sat unassisted for 15 minutes. she doesn't always do so well, but it's neat to see her improve. she even caught herself a couple times when she was about to tip over.

she's really working on trying to move. she did a little bit of an army-crawl this morning. yesterday, when i went to wash her diapers, i left her playing in her room on the carpet. when i came back she had pushed herself backwards all the way to the wall between her car seat and a duffel bag of extra clothes for her. she didn't know how to get out of that space :) it was cute.

we're loving all the new things she can do. there are struggles because she has a very strong personality. but we love our big, little girl. she is amazing.

and just for fun. here is a photo of malo chillin' in the co-op bag.

aahhhh!

2010-05-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

so we thought perhaps arden was allergic to peas, apples, or bananas (all foods she has recently tried). she's had a cold start over 2 weeks ago. she still has a very runny nose. then for the past 5 days she's had way more poopy diapers than usual. like almost all of them. annndd she's been waking up a lot more at night and fussier than usual during the afternoon.

turns out..... she has her first tooth! i was just playing with her, and, when she laughs, it's the perfect time to check her gums. i look on top. good, good, nothing there. look on bottom. wait, what's that? something white? something barely out of her gums? holy crap, it's a tooth! it's on the bottom, right side.

i'm excited. can you tell :) we'll see if i'm still excited after she bites me... :)

strongest baby ever

2010-05-18T14:53:00.000-07:00

i'm cheating and doing another video post instead of writing. enjoy! and sorry it's sideways. i don't know how to rotate a video with my program...

puppy love

2010-05-11T21:48:00.000-07:00

our little girl is becoming very interested in olive. she loves to reach out to her and thinks it's funny to get her hands licked.

this video shows massive cuteness so beware :) arden has been shunning the blanket i spread on the floor, while olive loves it. they've decided to reverse positions here. i love how olive seems like she is trying to understand what arden is saying.

stranger anger

2010-05-10T18:54:00.000-07:00

a stranger in the grocery parking lot just made me feel like crap. i wasn't able to park as close to a cart corral as i like. so when i was done putting my groceries, and arden, in the car, i left the cart in in front of my car. you know, out of the way, but not the best spot. when i pulled out of my spot the cart moved. it rolled into another car. the tire of the cart hit the tire of the car. no big deal. i stopped my car, moved the cart into the same spot. i did not want to leave arden in the car alone. the woman in the parked car told me to put it away. i said i couldn't leave arden. she said she would watch arden. yeah right. i'm going to let a stranger watch my baby. i told her no and walked to my car. she said "i raised 4 kids and took car of all my responsibilities, like putting the cart away."

f-you lady! because of this inane comment, i got all flustered and as i finished pulling out of my spot i almost hit a car. woo way to make me look even better.

in ended up parking behind the grocery and crying for a while. worrying if i was a good mother. i called anna and she assured me i was. phew :)

i hate that a little comment can do that sometimes. ok, arden is trying to tear my shirt off. more later

i did it lynn!!

2010-05-10T12:53:00.001-07:00

hehe :) lynn told me i had two weeks to get up photos of the curtains she helped make for arden's room. i'm attempting to get back into sewing after ummm... 15 years. i finally got the curtains up on saturday. here are the photos 4 days early :) excuse the photo quality.

momma, mommy, mummy, ima, mere...

2010-05-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

there are so many names for mother, and today there are so many of us that get to celebrate this day. but there are many still waiting.

i wish all of those that are TTC a happy mother's day. you are special women. i'm making myself cry right now cause i just want all of you to experience such joy wherever your life leads you. even though i don't always comment on your blogs; i am reading them. i am crossing my fingers for you. i think of you often.

i may not know you in real life. i barely know you in the blogasphere, but i care about all of you.

happy mother's day.

ps- i don't mean to exclude anyone with this post. just putting out what i'm feeling right now. :)

second-parent adoption

2010-05-06T19:29:00.000-07:00

all done!! anna legally became arden's mommy today. stupid that we needed to do this, but thank goodness it is available. it was formal, yet informal at the same time. one of the clerks took photos the whole time for us. it was really cute. the judge was very nice. our lawyer is great (seattlites, i highly recommend her- lisa schuchman on capital hill). arden was still sleepy from her car ride so we had no embarrassing screaming baby scenes. we were the first adoption in that court (i think it was recently remodeled/built). kind of exciting. they all cooed over arden and congratulated us over and over.

now for the photos :) not terribly exciting to look at, but a great event none-the-less. arden really wanted to eat the gavel, by the way.

court date

2010-05-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

we go to the courthouse tomorrow for anna to adopt arden! woohoo! we'll get a photo with the judge and i swear, really, really i do, that i'll post it :)

i, also, want to try to get up the lovely curtains that lynn helped me with tonight. i'm sure you're all anxiously awaiting the photos :) all, like, 5 readers. anyways... more tomorrow!

awesome dinner

2010-04-28T20:36:00.000-07:00

the wifey tells me to blog so here i am :) can't say no to that.

i just made a really good dinner. i did beer can chicken, yam and potato casserole, and asparagus. the chicken is so easy to make. i just did a rub and stuck a can of beer up the chicken. one hour later- voila! awesome chicken. the asparagus we picked up from our neighborhood farmer's market.

today was opening day for the market. it's pretty cool. they had a lot more than i was expecting. we also got some fresh chevre rolled in herbs de provence and a yummy balsamic apple vinegar (lynn, you seriously could drink this!). i look forward to hopping over to the market for fresh produce and goodies.

here is the casserole recipe, if you're interested:

Ingredients

1 large sweet potato, thinly sliced
1 large potato, thinly sliced
1 onion, thinly sliced
4 tablespoons butter, divided
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3/4 cup vegetable broth
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
2 tablespoons dry bread crumbs
1 tablespoon dried parsley (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
In the prepared dish, make a single layer of sweet potato slices. Place a few onion slices on top, dot with butter, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Repeat, alternating layers of white and sweet potatoes.
In a small bowl, or measuring cup, combine flour and broth. Pour over potatoes.
Sprinkle cheese, bread crumbs and parsley over the potatoes. Dot with remaining butter. Cover.
Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour, or until potatoes and onions are soft.

just do it

2010-04-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

i just need to start writing and something will come out of it. don't have an idea for this post, i'll just need to make it up as i go along.

arden is really cute. i love her. :) she makes the funniest noises. i'm so proud of her rolling capabilities. she's started lifting her butt up and kind of bringing her knees up to the side. with all this mobility, i've realized our house isn't really a moving baby house. we have hard wood floors. we have area rugs down, but really, can you keep a baby on a rug?? she keeps rolling off the blankets i lay down and bonking her head. did i mention the rug is wool? so she gets these lovely furry hands whenever she gets to it. and we have a cat and dog that shed. i'm constantly picking hairs off her face. yuck. our house isn't very large. it's comfy. suited to us. but our furniture gets in the way of the babe moving. i've taken to rotating the coffee table 90 degrees so arden has more rug. i think we need to move it somewhere else in the house and get a smaller, more portable, table.

our house is terribly un-babyproof. i don't know what we are going to do with our things when she really gets going. i love having photos and art around me. a number of these things are going to be at her level. harris has already shown me that if it's in reach it's for playing. i've been trying to pair down on the stuff we have since moving into this house. but man, i don't want to get rid of it all, i don't even want to put it away till arden, and subsequent children, aren't so grabby. what to do? what to do?

why won't arden nap on her own? at 9 this morning i fed her and she just chilled in my lap afterwards. totally drowsy. i decided i would put her in the crib with mobile and sleep sheep. nope, not sleeping. i decided to comfort nurse because she was fussing. this was at 10. she fell asleep. i went on to try numerous ways to put her down without waking her. last resort, i put her on the changing pad because it was high enough for me to put her down without breaking contact. then i was going to pick the whole thing up and put her in the crimb. i got her on the pad, wrapped in a blanket, asleep. i was about to grab the whole thing, then she startled herself awake. darn it. i picked her up. rocked and shushed. she commenced with babbling and grinning. she was only asleep for 15 minutes. and not deep sleep. it's now 11 and she's just been playing in the crib. eating her feet. rolling over. squawking. i thought she fell asleep at one point because she had been quiet for 5 minutes. i went in and found that she had pulled a blanket over her face and was quietly talking. oops. she's happy in there, so i'm just going to leave her be and see what happens (without the blankets fyi). but man, this girl and her naps.

we are getting some decent night sleep. -please don't let this following paragraph ruin our good fortune!- we've been getting her to bed around 7:30. two nights this week she went to bed without the boob. awesome! she's been sleeping until 1 or 2. wakes to eat and then goes back down. we had one night that she decided she wanted to be awake from 1:30-3 (that sucked). but otherwise she's been sleeping until 5 or even 6:30. so that's about 6 hours followed by about 3 or 4. and usually she'll sleep another 1 to 2 hours after that. works pretty good. guess what though. i really miss a solid night of sleep :)

something that's been on my mind a bit lately is feeling happy and feeling satisfied. i've been pretty happy with life. i have a lovely wife, pretty baby, nice house. but i haven't been feeling satisfied. i don't know if it's not feeling a sense of accomplishment. maybe if i was doing things that garnered results i would feel better. i'm in a bit of a rut. it's odd but maybe i'm depressed even though i'm happy. i've dealt with depression before. i've been on anti-depressants for years now. i want to do things but i'm having trouble setting them in motion. like i want to make curtains for arden's room. i bought some awesome fabric. lynn gave me her old sewing machine (thanks lady!!). but the fabric is still in it's bag. the machine is still in my car. i use the excuse that i don't have somewhere to put the machine because all my crafting supplies aren't unpacked yet (yes, 6 months after moving). and i just can't get my butt downstairs to move it all. i'm sitting on the couch blogging. which i haven't done in about a month, and needed to be done. but did it need to be done right now? argh vicious circle!!

babe is fussing now. need to go attend to her. yup, thanks for reading my randomness today. maybe i'll get my stuff together soon and write some real coherent posts :)

it's not you...

2010-04-26T18:24:00.000-07:00

it's me being lazy. sorry guys. i swear i'll write more soon :)

one singular sensation...

2010-04-15T20:04:00.000-07:00

an offering of love tagged me for this meme that calliope created. it's was a bit harder than i thought. i really wanted to add explanations for some things:) but you can't! you have to answer with just one word.
1. Yourself: hungry
2. Your boyfriend/girlfriend: washing
3. Your hair: unruly
4. Your mother/stepmother: awesome
5. Your dog: sleepy
6. Your favorite item: bed
7. Your dream last night: non-existent
8. Your favorite drink: quenching
9. Your dream car: sturdy
10. The room you are in: comfortable
12. Your fear: loneliness
13. What you want to be in 10 years: settled
14. Who you hung out with last night: babes
15. What you’re not: thin
16. Muffin: top
17: One of your wish list items: designer
18: Time: late
19. The last thing you did: networking
20. What you are wearing: pjs
21. Your favorite weather: warm
22. Your favorite book: difficult
23. The last thing you ate: brownie
24. Your life: happy
25. Your mood: tired
26. Your best friend(S): growing
27. What are you thinking about right now? friendship
28. Your car: diiiirrrty
29. What are you doing at the moment?: listening
30. Your summer: hiking
31. Your relationship status: lovely
32. What is on your TV?: torchwood
33. What is the weather like?: cool
34. When is the last time you laughed?: afternoon
and now i tag lynn, amy, and amy and melissa. really everyone should try this though :)

spring scattegories from calliope

2010-04-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

calliope from creating motherhood has this game going. check it out:)

1. What is your favorite springy color? green

2. Something you put in water? goldfish

3. Something you eat asparagus with? garlic

4. Something you change into flip-flops for? getting my toes done :)

5. Something you imagine yourself singing in your imaginary convertible? girls just wanna have fun

6. Something that makes you sneeze? grass

7. Something that gets you outside? golden sunshine

8.. Something that crashes your picnic? gnats- i hate when they get in your eyes!

9. Something that stings you? giant thorns on the weeds

10. Something that wafts through the air at night? giggles (i know it isn't a smell... but we laugh a lot in this house)

help

2010-04-12T08:31:00.001-07:00

hey readers, recently i've received two emails from people representing websites. they have asked to have a link to their page put on my blog. i replied to the first one because it seemed legitimate, but now i have a second one and i don't know what to think. fyi- in that reply to the first one, i just asked for more information.

have any of you gotten emails like this? should i just ignore them?

good video, good message

2010-04-10T08:51:00.000-07:00

i came across this video randomly. take a moment to watch it. :)

4 months old

2010-04-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

wow, already 4 months. it's surprising how quickly it's gone, but i'm loving it too. arden is so interesting :) we had her 4 month well-baby visit today. the doctor said she's advanced because she's started rolling both ways. eeee! it's kinda cool to hear that from a professional. now for the stats on our big girl:

weight: 15 lb 14.7 oz- 92%

height: 26.8 inches- 100% (holy crap)

head: 16.73- 87%

we knew she was a big girl but 100% in length. that's just crazy. no wonder we can put her in 6 month stuff.

they always put the development stuff on the print out. let's see how arden measures up in the 4-6 month stats:

may sit with support- check

holds head high when on tummy- check

rolls over both ways- check

reaches for and grasps objects- check

brings hand to mouth- check

coos, laughs, squeals, smiles- big check

we talked about food a little. he said that we can do rice cereal if we want. not needed really, but with how big she is, she might want a bit more to eat. he said we can also play with some veggies around 5 months. we'll see how it goes.

she does have one bitsy problem. she has a little bit of l.abial adhesion. nothing to worry about currently and fairly common. this is when lady bits start to grow together. this is also an easy thing to fix if it continues.

she freaked on the doctor too. he was just listening to her heart and she was giving him a wary look. he checked her ears and she started crying. she was really mad. doctor wasn't doing anything that hurt so we think it might be a little bit of stranger anxiety (whenever i hear this i think of the phrase stranger danger). unfortunately this break down was before her shots so that wasn't too pretty either. she had a melt-down. i couldn't soothe her with the boob like usual. she kept freaking. poor little girl.

also, doctor thought he might of seen something on her bottom gums. she might be getting a tooth. i had been wondering that because she is really putting more things in her mouth and gnawing on them. she is drooling everywhere. i've tried looking myself and feeling around but couldn't tell. i've noticed that she is soothed when i rub her lower gums. hmm... we'll see. i'm kind of not ready for teeth. i've heard the hellish stories. i feel like we're getting into a good routine with sleep and i don't want that messed up.

and i'm a bit afraid of jinxing the sleep so i'm afraid of talking about it :) ha. but i will anyways. we've been working on getting arden to sleep sans boobie. we've started getting her ready for bed at about 7. anna is doing most of the night time stuff since she doesn't get as much time with arden as i do. she'll change her, get her in pjs, read her a book while rocking her, swaddle her and put on her mobile and sleep sheep. we've had success in getting arden to fall asleep on her own like this without much fussing. it's pretty great to look into the nursery and she that she's passed out :) this system hasn't worked much for me in the daytime. i think it's because she knows she can get boob easily. but today she fell asleep twice without my help. i am treating it like a fluke, but cross your fingers for me. it would be awesome if i didn't need to spend an hour getting her to sleep. she still only sleeps for 30-45 minutes usually. i would love to have a baby that slept longer, but i can deal with it :)

that's all for now. i hope everyone has a great weekend.

flowers from our garden.

happy spring baby :)

you can do it, put your back into it!!

2010-04-01T15:52:00.000-07:00

woot woot :) arden rolled from her back to her belly today! she's been working on it for a while. i had her doing some nudey tummy time (how she prefers it) and she had rolled from belly to back easy as pie. she started working on rolling the other way and wouldn't give up. it was tempting to just nudge her a little to help out, but i refrained. she did it all on her own and i got it on video!

here it is:

if everyone jumped off a bridge...

2010-03-30T17:23:00.000-07:00

i wouldn't :) but will do this meme even though i haven't been tagged.

10 things about me:

1) i have 4 tattoos. first one is on my right shoulder; it's a wee butterfly with fairy dust. had it done with my two best friends in high school. second is a god-awful rainbow heart that i want removed or covered. oh and it's on my left hip; it spread beautifully when i was pregnant. third is my own design. it's on my lower middle back. it's a circle made up of a bunch of swirls. it has an unintentional "A" in it :) lastly, i have a dragonfly on my left shoulder also with fairy dust. this was done with my mom and sister (their first tattoos).

2) since 1 was so long :) this has it's own number. i'm going to get another tattoo after our kids are born. it will be a family tree on my whole back. it'll have my g-parents, parents, siblings, and nieces initials in the limbs. our kids initial in the trunk. the roots will be wrapped around the circle on my lower back that has the "A", which represents anna.

3) i went to my senior prom with my girlfriend. i wore a hot tux :)

4) every job i've had they've tried to get me into management no matter my age. nice ego boost, but there was no way i was going to manage a rite aid or a pizza hut...

5) i like shopping for food. if i could buy as much organic produce as i wanted, that would be awesome.

6) anna and i don't fight. seriously. we have disagreements that usually resolve with one of us saying that we were being silly and explaining the emotions behind our reactions/actions.

7) also on that note, i can't lie to anna. not even about silly things. like if i have a cookie while she's at work and want more after dinner, i'll try to lie and say i didn't have any so i can have more :) doesn't work. like 5 seconds after i lie, i come clean.

8) i've never cleaned the inside of my car in the 10 years i've owned it. disgusting, i know. it will be done soon. i can't stand it anymore. i am embarrassed to let anyone ride in it, let alone see it.

9) i'm a dork :) i like doctor who. i'm a bit awkward socially. i like to read a lot. i accept my dorkiness.

10) i'm excited to do our garden, but i'm also intimidated. i'm not going to let that stop me though. my goal is to have carrots this year (amongst other things). they failed last year. fresh young carrots are so yummy :)

i'm going to tag family style love, totally smitten mama, the amily diaries, love is love, mesdames plus baby.

i hate bleach

2010-03-29T16:33:00.000-07:00

but you know what i hate even more, ants invading my kitchen. i hadn't noticed a piece of apple had fallen on the floor before my walk earlier today. when i went into the kitchen 15 minutes ago, a lovely trail of ants led from the door to said apple piece. i. hate. ants. in. my. home. period. i will not put up with them. they seriously gross me out.

i went ape-poop on these ants. i went downstairs and grabbed the bleach gallon. we've had this same bottle of bleach for so long, like years and years, because we hardly use it. i brought the bleach upstairs, pulled out the mop and began cleaning up those suckers.

now i know this was not the nicest thing to do to these poor little ants or the environment. i'm perfectly fine with ants out on the sidewalk making their homes. i'll even watch ants drag huge pieces of food to their homes. outside. i never use bleach for cleaning. i make my own cleaning materials. we rarely use bleach on our laundry. i've used it only recently on a load of arden's diapers because they reeked hard-core. but, man, i don't put up with ants in the house. i was even pulling the fridge and stove into the middle of the room to make sure i got them all. i was a cleaning banshee :)

phew- got that out of my system :) life is good otherwise. hope the same goes with all of you. expect a nice update later this week when we take arden for her 4 month dr. appointment! holy crap... :)

little miss smarty pants

2010-03-14T21:43:00.000-07:00

guess who rolled over today!! she did it while i was in the shower. anna came running in to tell me. she then got the camera and arden did it a few more times. so cool. here is one of the videos. we blurred part of it to protect arden's privacy ;)

just for giggles :)

2010-03-10T22:33:00.000-08:00

one year ago...

2010-03-07T20:10:00.000-08:00

anna and i got very, very lucky. it was my birthday weekend. we had a nifty cryo tank in our living room and my body was saying "go!". march 7th we did our thing -wink wink- and one year later we have a squealing, wiggling 3 month old.

we weren't expecting to get pregnant on our first try. we were keeping our hopes low/realistic. most couples need to try a few times. march was intended to be our practice month. see how things work. but when i felt little cramps following our first IVI, i felt hopeful. when i got nauseous driving behind a diesel truck 7 days later, i was optimistic. when my acupuncturist said my pulse was slippery (a pregnancy indicator), i got excited. i was trying to be level-headed, but man... waiting to test was torture.

that was the best birthday weekend of my adult life (slumber parties with pizza and scary movies win out for childhood). not to say that my birthday dinner last night wasn't awesome :)

this post has taken me 4 days to write. i've forgotten most of what i was going to say. damn. need to work on that memory. i'll do some quick bullets and try to remember as i go.

-arden is spinning around in her pack n play on her back. it's funny. we put her down length-wise, then we go back and she's rotated 90 or 180 degrees.

-she i also rolling side to side. i think if she didn't have a big cloth diapered butt she might roll all the way over.

-we are trying to remember to do tummy-time everyday. usually i do it on the changing table before i put on her diaper. she's usually happiest then. plus it's so cute to see her wrinkly butt :)

-she is talking up a storm. my mom loves to hear her in the background when we're on the phone. but if i put the phone in front of arden, she stops. she gets interested in grabbing the phone and playing with it. she actually hung up on my sister yesterday. so funny.

-arden does the same thing with the camera. i think we have a techie on our hands.

-she has definitely figured out how to bring things to her mouth. she loves to gnaw on everything.

-we are still struggling a bit with naps. well, really we're struggling with getting her to sleep in her crib for naps. she often snaps awake when we set her down. you should see me. i get her to sleep in my arms, then i ssllooowllly lower her into the crib. i am so careful. no jostling. i am half in the crib so i try to gradually pull myself away from her without her noticing. sigh, we'll get it sometime. right? :)

-she did sleep for 2 1/2 hours yesterday... in my arms. oh well i got to read a lot. i was being lazy yesterday since it was my b-day anyways. :)

that's about all i can think of for now. we had family style love over for dinner this past sunday. it was a lot of fun. i think stella and arden will be best friends. i'll post proof of this as soon as i download from my camera.

hope everyone is doing peachy out there. i love hearing from all my readers -hint hint, nudge nudge- :)

oh and she loves sitting with her buddy, olive!

beautiful 3 month old :)

2010-03-04T09:24:00.000-08:00

wow 3 months this past tuesday. can't believe it. i just woke up so i'm a little foggy. how about some pictures :) i swear i'll do an update later. maybe you guys can help me. any questions??

it's picture time!

2010-02-26T15:22:00.000-08:00

an offering of love just put up some adorable photos and i realized i hadn't posted any in a while. so here you go!

bubblicious :)

stella from family style love on the left, arden on the right

here you can see what a big monster arden is :)

don't you love that smile

alien baby!

so much to say

2010-02-25T19:36:00.000-08:00

i'm in kind of a bummer mood right now. we tried to go to a PEPS orientation tonight, but arden was screaming/crying in her carseat. she wouldn't calm down like she usually does in the car. we got at most 10 mins from the house. it felt like an eternity, and we decided to turn around. also, anna is feeling crappy. i think she is finally getting the cold arden and i had/have.

i'm determined to be in a better mood by the end of this post, but excuse me will i ramble for a bit. have you ever been mad at your baby? actually please don't tell me that you haven't. that will just make me feel like the worst mother. now, i don't mean that you are actually, truly mad at your baby. but frustrated. flummoxed. you're upset because your plans go awry and you can't do anything about it. but you think about it being caused by the baby. (and yes i realize i'm deflecting all of these emotions right now by using non-personal language) anyways. arden was upset, anna is sick, and i'm tired. spoiled evening. there, that's done with.

good stuff. hmm. arden happily went into the ergo today when we headed out for a walk. just the two of us. no puppy. we went to the library to pay a past-due fee (oops). then, she peacefully fell asleep. i thought she was just licking my shirt, a new favorite past-time, but she had dozed off face pressed into my boob :) we walked to a coffee shop in the neighborhood (about 15 mins away). she slept, i talked with my dad, she woke. we went into the shop and i ordered a sandwich. i intended to get it to go because she will often fuss after waking up on a walk. but she just chilled in my lap. i fed her with no issues, too. then it was back in the ergo when i finished eating. again she fell asleep, and slept 1/2 an hour. awesome :) it was a truly relaxing time and i shared it with arden.

she is doing so much now. she loves to sit up (assisted of course). we talk with each other. she seems to like books. she is definitely grabbing at things. her moves are still a bit spastic, but i think they are slowly smoothing out. i can make her giggle, but she doesn't always laugh at the same thing. i find that interesting. she's a mover and a shaker:) funny story: usually when she takes a shower with just one of us, we'll put her in the bouncy seat right next to the tub. we'll quickly do our shower stuff, then bring her in. when i took a shower with her earlier this week, i did the usual routine. as i'm rinsing off the soap, i hear a light thunk-thunk noise. i thought she was kicking the tub. i open the curtain and, low and behold, she is half out of the bouncy. she was kicking the floor not the tub. er, oops, guess we need to strap her in all the time now :)

we set up the pack-n-play in our living room recently. i wish we had done it sooner. it has a top area thingy that you hook up so you aren't putting the baby down low. it also has a bar across the top for toys. we attached a little sun that plays music and flashes lights. she loves it. she'll lay in there chewing away on the rings hanging down from the bar and kick-kick-kick. i can easily do some chores while she just chills.

i didn't do another sleep update after those two wonderful nights we had last week. arden returned to her usual sleep routine. it's ok. tiring still, even though it's better than when she was a newborn. she's staying awake more during the day. her naps are usually only as much as 1/2 an hour long. although she did sleep 3 hours this past saturday, but i chalk that up to her cold.

arden and i are going to fly to boise in the middle of march to see my mom and sister. my brother is even flying in from indiana. he hasn't met arden yet. i'm wicked excited to see everyone. i'm nervous about flying though. i would love to hear any tips for flying with a baby. it's only an hour long, but i worry about her ears. should/can i breastfeed during take off and landing to help her? does that actually help? any tips for going through security? what do i do with the carseat?

right i just remembered the social worker visit. it went fine. she was very nice. she just came in, sat on the couch and asked us questions. she wanted to know about our relationship (when we got together, moved in together, got married). did we understand what this adoption actually meant in terms of rights. the only thing that ended up actually being stressful was our dog :) she gets so excited when people come over. she thinks they're there for her. now, we just wait for the social worker to file her report. then, we set up a time to go before a judge with our attorney. good times :)

well, i think that's it. i hope everyone is doing well out there. even if i'm not writing consistently i am checking blogs. ok, ok, i admit i refresh my bloglist like 20 times a day :) hey, i like to know what's going on out there.

social worker

2010-02-23T10:54:00.000-08:00

she's coming tonight as part of anna's adoption of arden. holy poop i'm nervous. lynn from family style love said she's friendly and it isn't as big a deal. i still feel like i need to clean my whole house. damn cold is making me tired.

i've a lot i've been meaning to write about. i'm hoping to find time tonight after the social worker leaves...

rrrooaar!

2010-02-20T21:05:00.000-08:00

i've got a cold and have just hung out on the couch most of the day. fortunately, i have this really cute baby to play with :)

i think someone stole my baby

2010-02-16T10:37:00.000-08:00

i don't know who this monkey is sitting next to me in her swing. it can't be my arden rose. arden doesn't sleep for 8 hours straight and then an additional 4. arden doesn't put herself to sleep in her crib. who are you little baby?? :)

yep arden is sleeping for us. i do not expect this to be a regular occurrence. a little recap for ya. sunday night we laid arden down in her crib all swaddled up, with her rain noise thing on, and the mobile going. she fell asleep all on her own before the mobile's 20 minutes were up! this was about 9:30. she then slept until 6:30. oh, my, god! i didn't sleep that whole time though. i woke up at 3 because i heard her squeaking on the monitor, but she didn't wake up. this happened again at 5. then when i heard her at 6, i swore she would wake up. so i went to her room and basically stood there wishing she would wake up because my right boob was as hard as a rock! haha :) she slept 9 hours straight.

so last night we didn't expect for the same thing to happen, but we wanted to try. we put her in her crib (swaddle, noise, mobile) at around 8. she had been rubbing her eyes, but didn't seem overly ready for bed. we wanted to see if she could manage on her own though. and she did! she did wake up around 9, but i just picked her up and rocked her a little. she fell back asleep until 4:30. i fed her and put her back down. when she woke me up at 8:30 i was very confused. had i woken up at 6:30 and just been so out of it i didn't remember. nope. ladies and gentlemen, she had slept 4 additional hours.

i am astounded to say the least. we are going to keep doing the bedtime routine as long as it works. i've got a bunch more to write about but the monkey needs to eat :)

social death?

2010-02-09T15:02:00.000-08:00

i just deleted a post because it was too whiney. i was talking about how i'm jealous of my friends and how they are able to do whatever they want- i.e. they don't have a baby.

but the post contained too much self-pity. i love my new little family. yes, i want to be able to go to a fun party and drink flaming shots. yes, i want to stay up till 11, not because our baby won't go to sleep, but because we're still laughing it up with dinner guests. then i look at my little girl and see her smile at me. i hear her making new sounds everyday. she loves me, and i love her.

i know i'll adjust to this new life. it will just take time. i need to keep looking for ways to get out and make new friends. friends in similar situations. i need to remember that i haven't lost my old friends too. it's just a different relationship now.

i am open to suggestions/advice on this topic. i'd love to know how other moms have made this adjustment :)

what's special about today...

2010-02-08T10:23:00.000-08:00

anna and i have been together for 6 years today. i thought i would share our story in commemoration :)

we met about 7 years ago, while we were juniors in college (different schools). at the time, i was interning at a gallery. an ex-girlfriend of mine came into town to visit with her current girlfriend, anna. they stopped by the gallery. we chatted a bit and i learned that anna played rugby. i had been interested in rugby for a bit since i had a friend that played it, but i was recovering from arm surgery and had to wait to join.

jump to half a year later. i traveled to a rugby tournament with my friend that played in order to check it out. while i'm watching a game, i see this girl running around on the sidelines. she was wearing shorts and a turquoise sports bra :) it was anna. i went over after the match and re-introduced myself while surreptitiously asking if she was still with monika. they were no longer together, score! :) we hung out a bit during the rest of the day, but she was mostly helping coach her team.

after rugby matches, there is typically a drink-up. anna and i met up again there. i, being the round-about flirt, joked around about finding a girl at the party to make-out with. so anna and i went on the hunt. of course, anna was the one i wanted to kiss :) we got wicked drunk, as you're supposed to do at these parties, and made out. there was all kinds of debauchery: both of us making out with another girl that liked anna, me making anna puke and rally, making out in the port-a-pot (gross i know, but we were drunk). my friend, with whom i had traveled, and i hadn't figured out where we were staying that night. anna invited me to stay in her hotel room, along with 5 of her teammates. i ended up on the floor and didn't sleep a wink (drunk insomnia). i ended up getting up before dawn. anna heard me and got up too.

we decided to go swimming in the hotel pool across the road. we didn't have suits :) so while we skinny-dipped, we chatted and got to actually know each other better. we discovered that we both had the goal of hiking the pacific crest trail. i learned that she was more than a pretty girl running around in a turquoise bra :)

we parted ways later that morning. she was going to university of ID in moscow; i was at eastern WA in spokane. i did join rugby. we were on opposing teams so we got to see each other at games the rest of that fall season. i would occasionally stay the night with her. i was also dating a couple other women at the time and trying to figure a number of things out, so we didn't get serious. that winter, though, i went to visit her, the ex-girlfriend, and another friend. we went to breakfast. this was kind of when i figured out that i liked anna and wanted to see her more than just at rugby games. the other two girls i was dating weren't right for me for numerous reasons. anna and started visiting each other more often. our universities were an hour and a half from each other. that didn't matter :) i made numerous over night trips, barely making it back to school for class the next morning.

on february 8th, 2004, anna asked me to be her girlfriend. aw :) of course i said yes. we fell in love so fast, but it felt right. i joked that i was going to marry her that summer. she got into grad school at UW, and, since i didn't have any set plans, we moved to seattle in the fall.

we proposed to each other the following summer, and got married on august 4th, 2007. anna is the most wonderful woman. i am so lucky to have her as my wife and the mother of our baby girl. i love you honey.

how old is my baby??

2010-02-05T15:13:00.001-08:00

arden is just over 2 months old, but she's wearing 3-6 month clothing. my goodness! she's outgrown so much of her 0-3. pretty much the only 0-3 she's wearing are the sleep sacks.

also i made her giggle today:) can't wait to share with anna. i'll try to edit and upload the video soon.

a note for raene

2010-01-30T16:43:00.000-08:00

i miss your blog :( you went private. i would love to catch up on what's been going on with your family. my email is on my profile... hope you're well :) this was the only way i could think of contacting you.

video

2010-01-30T13:31:00.000-08:00

here is arden at 1 mo, 1 wk, 4 days :) she's even bigger now, but just as beautiful.

big update

2010-01-30T11:09:00.000-08:00

arden had her first pediatrician appointment on thursday. here are the specifics:

weight: 12 lb. 4.8 oz.- 90%

height: 23.4 in.- 90%

head circumference: 15.71 in.- 83%

arden took the oral immunization just fine, and howled at the 3 shots. i just about cried along with her. what i really struck me was seeing her bleed. i just wanted to take all her pain away. i wasn't able to BF her while she got the shots, but was ready right after. the doctor said she was doing well. they gave us a print out at the end that listed developments that are expected to happen in the 2-4 month time frame. arden has accomplished some of these. here's the list, if you're curious:

makes babbling, cooing sounds- check

eyes follow moving objects; focuses closely on faces- check

head bobs when held sitting- check, but still floppy

reaches for objects, may hold rattle briefly- not reaching consciously yet, but is holding items we give her

sucks fingers, thumb, or pacifier- check, but not the pacifier. i wish she would take the paci. it seems like it would make things a bit easier for me :)

rolls side to side- nope

smiles; responds and enjoys people- check

i've also noticed arden's attention span is expanding. she is becoming more comfortable being left on her own in her crib, bouncy seat, and swing. she really likes the mobile we put up. she doesn't fall asleep while watching it though. if she gets tired while in her crib, she wants us to pick her up. she has fallen asleep in the bouncy and swing. this has been a slow, gradual thing though.

sleep is easier, but still not easy. here's how it goes starting from when she goes to bed at night. she's been typically been going to sleep between 9 and 10. she sleeps for 4-6 hours. she wakes to eat, then sleeps for 2-3 hours. this puts us around 6 am. i get up and feed her, put her back to bed. she could sleep for 1-2 hours. i get up and change her if it's been an hour, if it's been 2, i feed and change her. then, either way, we hang out in the living room for 45 minutes. i call arden a "one hour baby". she gets fussy after an hour of being awake. so we interact/play for 45 min. then she gets fussy and i swaddle her. i dance/walk/jiggle her around the living room. if she gets really fussy and can't stop crying, i go to the bathroom and turn the cold water on full blast. this typically snaps her out of it and she falls asleep. i've discovered that she can't be set down right after falling asleep for a nap. i hold her while i do stuff on the computer. she tends to wake up every 10-15 minutes, but not completely. i just need to jiggle her a little, and pat her bottom to get her back to sleep. after an hour of this, she seems to be more deeply asleep and could sleep for another 1/2 hour to an hour. this is our routine for the rest of the day, with some variation when we go for walks. when she is ready for going to bed at night, it could take up to two hours of holding her before we can really put her down.

this whole process is a lot less stressful than what we were doing before (laying her down after she falls asleep). i actually feel more free with this routine. but it could be better. it would be nice to be able to eat dinner with anna (she takes over with arden when she get home from work), for us to be able to do things around the house together. i love that arden does sleep so long for the first part of the night. i'm feeling more rested than i have since she was born. i know each week (each day even) will be different with arden. she'll continue to grow and mature. i thing i learned from the pediatrician was, supposedly, once a baby reaches 14 lbs. they shouldn't need to eat during the night. i'm not expecting this to happen, but it's a nice thought :)

arden is eating every 2 hours during the day. she is such a good eater. i really enjoy feeding her. even though i don't like waking up in the middle of the night, i love seeing her fall asleep after eating. she seems so content.

i usually pump once a day in the morning. i've noticed an increase in the amount i get out. i get more from my right side than the left. midwife told me this is pretty normal, most women are uneven. the past few days the amount has increased from 2 oz to as much as 6 oz. my left breast is only giving me as much as 2 oz. i've been pumping the breast that arden didn't just eat from and then i "empty" the one she did eat from. i'm hoping my lefty will get with the program :) i don't really need to be getting a lot, but i like having a good bit in the freezer. most often i'm pumping because i'm getting engorged. this morning i had a dentist appointment (8 am, yuck!) and anna was able to take care of everything because we had freezer milk. i was even able to stay out to get my hair cut :)

the past two weeks have been good. i've enjoyed all the things i've had on my schedule (except the dentist). yesterday, we met lynn from family style love. the whole family was great :) harris was just as cute as he looked in the videos. he seemed rather taken with me, haha. stella was such a doll. i love her red hair. lynn and mindi were so friendly. i really look forward to our future playdates:)

i've been wanting to post a video of arden. i finally downloaded all the photos and videos we've taken to my laptop. i feel i need to counteract arden's grumpy photos from hanging out with lynn too :) kidding. i'll post a video, hopefully, later today. the file might be a bit large. i was having trouble with it just now.

hope everyone is having a great weekend!

translation

2010-01-27T11:41:00.000-08:00

on my last post i received a comment in chinese. i put it into a translator and this is what it said:

"The sake of the happiness of others first, is Superman; the first for the sake of their own happiness, is mortal; to make other people unhappy, he is not happy, is imbecile."

very interesting... who is this person? what were they intending to say? i'm not taking it as a negative comment. just a very curious one.

arden has her first pediatrician appointment tomorrow. i received a call from their office this morning. the lady made two mistakes: called arden a boy (based on her name), and assumed i had a husband. -sigh- i guess these are things i'll have to get used to correcting. i'll try to do a nice big post tomorrow about the appointment and all that arden has been up to :) she's growing up so fast!

good week :)

2010-01-23T20:54:00.000-08:00

well, i was very nervous about anna going to alaska, but it all worked fine. i didn't have a single breakdown! haha :)

tuesday went ok. arden was fussy in the afternoon so i threw her in the car and went to my old work to show her off. bedtime went really well that night. on wednesday, she slept for 2 1/2 hours in the moby for one stretch, and i managed to get a lot of housework done. the ladies and baby from mesdames plus baby came over and hung out that evening. while they were over i got to take a shower and vacuum. and they did the litter and took the trash to the curb for me:) so sweet. they even hung out and tried to soothe a very fussy arden. even sweeter. thursday we went for a nice long walk. it was warm for most of the week and i saw crocus blooming. crazy flowers, it's still january! :) anna's sister, aimee, came over after work to hang out for a bit. then an old rugby friend came and cooked a lovely dinner (winter green salad and salmon). i even enjoyed a bit of wine. again, i was surprised at the resilience my friends have for staying over even though arden is crying/screaming. arden was just fighting sleep. so frustrating and exhausting for me.

my mom got into town yesterday morning. we basically hung out at the house all day. arden took a 2 1/2 hour nap again, but not in the moby. she fell asleep in my lap after eating and i just kept her there for an hour. i thought she would wake up when i put her in the crib, but she remained asleep. so nice. my mom napped then too :) and i read for a bit. mom got to see the full extent of my repertoire to put arden to bed. i used a new trick. i bring her to the bathroom and turn the cold water on full blast. it snaps her out of her crying jag and falls asleep within minutes. lovely :)

anna got home at 1 am and it's been so nice to have her home today. i think i was just going, going, going while she was gone. constantly turned on to do everything for arden. today i felt like a hit a wall in the afternoon. my body seemed to suddenly say "you're done. go to bed." so i actually took a nap, while anna took arden for a walk. i probably could have slept for hours, but arden was crying when anna got home. oh well :)

but the most awesome thing this week- mom babysat arden so anna and i could go see a movie. albeit we just walked two blocks to the theatre and came home right after, but it was great :) we saw invictus, a movie about south africa/nelson mandela/rugby. i like it a lot. arden was very good for mom, took her bottle and slept about half the time. i was able to feed her when i got home and she went down to bed like an angel.

mom leaves tomorrow night, and anna goes to work again on monday (thankfully not out-of-town), but i feel like i survived a difficult test just fine. i know there will still be bumps in the road and i'm sure i will still shed tears on hard days, but i'll be ok :) i can be a mom, and a good one at that.

thank you

2010-01-18T20:05:00.000-08:00

thank you all for your kind comments and checking in on me. i really appreciate it. i know i'm not alone, it just feels that way sometimes :) i need to start being proactive about getting out besides my walks with arden and olive.

i feel like i now have a packed social calendar! i'm seeing the ladies from mesdames plus baby on wednesday night. thursday, i hopefully have a friend coming in the afternoon. also, a friend will be coming over with dinner that night. my mom gets into town early friday morning for the weekend. the following week arden has her first doctor appointment (eek, shots!). then i'll see my due date twin from family style love on friday. oh and i go to the dentist at 8 am on saturday (gag, big time). this all makes me feel so much better. i love arden to pieces but being around her 24/7 is starting to wear on me. i think that even if it's still 24/7, but involving other people, things will improve.

speaking of my big girl :) today she is 6 weeks 5 days, holy cow. time is flying by so quickly. we had our final midwife appointment today. we found out she is 11 lbs 5 oz and 23 1/2 inches. i looked up the percentiles for those numbers. she is 75% in weight and 95% in length. i've been feedin' her real good, haha.

breastfeeding is going truly well. i've just needed to chill out about how much she wants to eat. she seems to want a lot more in the evening, and i needed to realize that this ensures a nice long first stretch for the night. typically, she sleeps 4-6 hours, then wakes up every 2-3 hours. now, if we could put ourselves to bed at 7 or 8 we would be golden :) we've been blessed to not have the sleep issues from the daytime carry over into the night.

i just absolutely lost my train of thought cause anna asked me a question. ha! oh well. i hope you all have a good week. i know i'm going to try :)

am i on a seesaw??

2010-01-14T19:10:00.000-08:00

today was not a good day with arden. it is just so exhausting. we have good times during the day where she is so smiley and seems to like interacting with me. but then she turns into this fussy monster, and stays that way. -sigh-

anna has to go to alaska next week. i'm absolutely dreading this. she'll leave tuesday evening and come back at midnight friday/saturday. my mom, fortunately, is getting into town early friday morning. i just don't know what i'll do the other day/nights. when anna gets home in the evening, even on good days, i'm ready for some help with arden. my back hurts, i'm tired, i just want to move freely. anna said i should have people come over to help, but it makes me feel guilty/bad/anxious having someone else take care of my crying baby. i'm crying now and feeling like a stupid bum. i don't have a best friend that i can just call up and come over. i don't have my family here. having a baby is making me feel more alone right now. i really wish i had close friends in the same stage in life right here. i hate feeling so confused all the time.

-really big sigh-

on a different track, does anyone know if vitamins/supplements could upset a baby? i've tried looking online and in my books, but i'm not having luck. i'm just trying to figure out if this there could be a correlation between arden's fussiness and the vitamins i'm taking. they aren't anything unusual. i take a prenatal, vitamin b, vitamin d, calcium, and omega 3. some days all i manage to grab is the prenatal.

a wee post

2010-01-12T16:02:00.000-08:00

the day isn't done yet, but so far so good. arden slept alright last night. we had a nice smiley early morning. then she napped in her crib from 11:30-12. woke to eat and be changed. fell asleep in my arms on the couch from 12:30 to 2:30. popped her in the ergo for a quick run to the baby store, now at the library and she's waking up.

gotta run!!

naps

2010-01-11T16:26:00.000-08:00

argh! i'm really really trying to watch for when arden gets tired. i've gotten some of her cues: rubbing her eyes, zoning out, droopy eyelids. so i'm trying to get her in nap mode before she gets spastic. definitely not having success there most of the time.

the other problem is getting her to stay down. here is what i've been doing. i turn out the nursery lights. swaddle her. turn on the rain sounds, and rock her a bit. she gets sleepy, eyes close, and i put her down. she's fine for 5-10 mins, if i'm lucky. i'll here her start to "talk" and then it becomes a definite cry. i go in try to just jiggle her while she's laying down to see if she'll go back to sleep (it's worked a couple times at night). if it doesn't work, i pick her up. i rock and shush her till she's calm. depending on how many times i've done this, i'll give in and get her to sleep and keep her in my arms for a while.

i just feel like i don't know what i'm doing. i've read a million different things for tips. should i let her cry? i really don't want to. should i give up at a certain point and stop trying to put her down, even though she's tired? i'm struggling here. i don't want an over tired baby because that just makes it even harder to get her to sleep. i don't want these problems to carry over into nighttime sleep.

help!

no computer

2010-01-04T18:53:00.000-08:00

well kind of... anna's old laptop died pretty much, so i only have the use of her work laptop when she's home. or i can go to the library. either way posts might be a bit sporadic, but most of you are used to that from this blog anyways:)

today was anna's first day back to work since arden was born. it was very, very hard. arden ate every hour from 7:30 to 12. she cried a lot. i almost cried a lot. i managed to get her to nap on a walk in the ergo. talked to my midwife and confirmed that everything was normal and i can make it through. got arden to go down for a real nap at 3:30 and i also slept for 1/2 an hour. arden ate again at 4, then slept until 6. we woke her up then to have her eat. we kind of didn't want to but we are wanting to instigate a bedtime. we are hoping it will make nighttime easier for all of us. going to bed at 11 doesn't make us very functional adults.

right going to go take a shower. i missed having that luxury today.

slightly unhappy, but very cute, baby :) we had to get her in this outfit before she outgrew it because it was just adorable!

info on pumping and storage

2009-12-31T20:19:00.001-08:00

found this online and want to save it. i figured other people might want to know this too:) we've read varying information, but most of this matched up with other sources. please don't think that these are the definitive answers.

Breastfeeding: How to Pump and Store Your Breast Milk
Learning how to pump and store breast milk can make returning to work easier and less stressful. It does require some work and careful planning, but it can be done.
When should I start to pump my breasts?
If you will be pumping your breasts when you return to work, practice for 1 or 2 weeks before you actually go back to get the hang of it. You can try pumping just after your baby eats or you can pump your breasts between feedings.Practicing at home will help you learn how your pump works. During this time, you also can start to collect and store breast milk to be fed to your baby when you return to work.

How much milk will I get when I pump?
You may not get much milk when you first start pumping. After a few days of regular pumping, your breasts will begin to make more milk. Also, the more milk you pump, the more milk your breasts produce. You should drink lots of fluids to stay hydrated (which will help your milk supply).

How long should I pump each time?
Pumping your breasts takes about the same time as breastfeeding, but with practice and a good pump, you can pump your breasts in as little as 10 to 15 minutes. While you are at work, try to pump as often as your baby usually feeds or for about 15 minutes every few hours. To keep up your milk supply, give your baby extra feedings when you are together. You can also pump right after your baby feeds, which will help your breasts make more milk.

Will there be times that my baby will need more milk than I have ready?
Yes, your baby will probably want more milk during growth spurts. The best way to increase your milk supply for a growth spurt is to breastfeed or pump more often.

How should I store my breast milk?
Breast milk can be stored in a plastic or glass bottle with a sealable top, or in a sterile, sealable bag. Store your breast milk in amounts that you use every day to avoid wasting it. For example, if your baby eats 4 ounces in a feeding, put 4 ounces of breast milk in the storage container.

Where should I store my breast milk?
Pumped breast milk should be cooled in a refrigerator or other cooler as soon as possible. The milk can also be frozen if you aren't going to use it right away.

How long can I store my breast milk?
The following are some general breast milk storage guidelines:
At room temperature (less than 77°F) for 4 to 8 hours
At the back of a refrigerator for 3 to 8 days
At the back of a freezer for up to 3 months

The breast milk I have in my refrigerator looks funny. Is something wrong?
Breast milk can vary in color. It can be bluish, yellowish or brownish. It is also normal for breast milk to separate (the fatty part of the milk goes to the top). Shake the bottle or sealed bag, and the fat will go back into the milk.

How should I thaw frozen breast milk?
Thaw the milk slowly by swirling the container of milk in warm water or by putting the container in the refrigerator the day before it is to be used. Don't use hot water to thaw breast milk. Never thaw frozen breast milk in a microwave oven. The milk could get too hot and burn your baby's mouth. Microwaving can also damage valuable proteins in breast milk. Thawed breast milk can be refrigerated for up to 24 hours, but it should not be refrozen.

pumping and bottle-feeding

2009-12-31T17:17:00.000-08:00

sometimes arden wants to eat every hour. this is just a bit exhausting, especially at night. anna wants to help relieve some of this burden (what a wonderful wifey) so today i pumped with the intention of anna giving arden a bottle.

we haven't actually gotten to the bottle yet. we needed to clean and sterilize things first. and we didn't to try when she was starving. and we wanted to go for a walk. and and and :)

suffice to say, i am excited to try. also any tips are greatly appreciated regarding pumping, storing, and feeding. we've read-up all the info in our books, and lots of things online, but first-hand experience could be more helpful. like regarding my sore right nipple. i think i just pumped too long on it, or something, but it's making feeding arden on that side painful.

ok, i hope everyone enjoys their new year. arden, anna, and i wish you all the very best in 2010. :)

baby arden says "happy new year!"

9 lbs 5 oz

2009-12-28T17:01:00.000-08:00

miss arden is gettin' big :) we had our 4 week appointment today. arden has gained about 1/2 lb per week since regaining her birth weight. perfectly average :)

we're doing well around here still. our christmas was full of family. we went to anna's family christmas party. i think just about everyone there held her. she slept pretty much the whole time. arden also gave us a wonderful christmas present. she slept for a 3 1/2 hour stretch on xmas eve, and didn't fuss at all when falling asleep. it felt so nice,

she does seems to be getting better at night. she is still doing just 2 hour stretches, but she only has one fussy period, if any. we still aren't expecting anything to be permanent though.

i'm feeling a bit sleepy myself right now. so how about some pictures:) as requested by lynn, here are some cloth diaper shots. we're using primarily bumgenius, with a few random ones.

peaceful moment

2009-12-23T15:03:00.000-08:00

while the family has vacated the house, and arden has found the joy of the pacifier, i'm going to attempt a one-handed post:)

i'm managing to, somewhat, figure out arden's sleep/eat schedule for the day. there is no semblance of a schedule during the night, of course. we have good nights and bad nights. fortunately nothing as bad as our first weekend home. i think now that we are using a paci the nights might go a little smoother. she really likes to comfort suck. this exhausts all three of us. she wakes up often in the night, thus waking us. then it's the struggle of the nipple:) she wants to suck, but she doesn't want more food. oh so confusing.

she's getting bigger already. we've discovered a few outfits that she can fit into now, but by next week will most likely be too large for. i love seeing her little double chin:)

we switched to cloth diapers around a week and a half ago. it's going great (thanks stephanie and jenny!!). lots of laundry, but oh well. i think it's unavoidable with a baby even if you're doing disposable. the only issue i've had is the occasionally leak out the side when i'm feeding her. no biggie though. it's sterile :)

our dog, olive, loves arden. i'm sure if we allowed unsupervised access, arden would be covered in puppy kisses. for now, olive has to content herself with being in the same room as arden at all times. when she hears arden start to fuss in her crib, she immediately goes to her door and waits for us to let her in to check on arden.

we are co-sleeping at night. it's comforting to me to have her right there. also, it makes feeding and soothing her easier. she seems to like her crib though. she has no problem sleeping in there for naps. we'll see if that continues as she gets older and more aware of her surroundings.

anna has been absolutely fabulous. she's been off work since arden was born, and doesn't go back till the beginning of january. i know arden and i would do fine alone, but not nearly as well as we've been with anna. to have that constant support is making the transition to life with baby easier. i don't worry about waking her up to help at night. she's been taking care of the laundry and most of the food. i wish she didn't have to work, but i suppose one of us needs to:) she's such a wonderful mommy too. i love seeing her with arden. they fit so well together. i worried about them creating a bond, but i didn't need to. anna knows exactly how to soothe arden. she loves to take photos of her. she actually took a photo of her in each different color diaper:) too cute! she has been deemed the swaddle-poop mommy (i'm the boob momma) because those are her primary care tasks :) looking at the two of them, you can tell anna is totally in love with arden.

well the fam has returned. i'll leave you with pictures :)

happy baby!

my two burritos :)

birth story

2009-12-17T20:56:00.001-08:00

this is a long one, so you might want to go get a snack and a drink:)

monday, november 30th, i woke up after an odd dream. i was shopping with my mom and i told her i was having a cramping feeling. she responded with great concern that we needed to leave. as we were walking across the parking lot, i started crying. i had inferred from her response that i was going to need a c-section, and that meant the end of our birth plan. it went on to get a little weirder, but didn't relate to the baby/birth.

i did have an odd feeling in my uterus when i woke up, but didn't really pay attention to it. just took notice. i went on to have that feeling occasionally all day. i didn't tell my mom or anna. by the time we were having dinner, i was noticing the contractions had some regularity. i told them, and we began timing at 8pm. the contractions were around 5 mins apart and 30-45 sec long.
i called the midwives around 10:30. she, of course, told us to go to bed. that was a joke:) i tried to go to sleep at 11:30, didn't happen. anna didn't come to bed until 12:30, she slept a bit. mom was the only one able to sleep for real. i tossed and turned as my contractions increased.
around 2:30 i had to get up to throw up- unfortunately this became a theme for my labor. i woke anna up after that. we called the midwives to check in. she said to hold on a bit longer, and that, when i notice a "shift" in my contractions/over-all state, that would be the time to come in. we woke my mom up at 3:30 to get things together. i noticed that i was no longer able to focus on the outside world as well as before. this was the shift.

we moved into high gear and got out to the car. we made sure to have airline puke bags on hand, as well as water and saltines. i wasn't feeling very well. we got on the road at 4:15 and called the midwives. this was a bit out of order; we should have called from the house. we found out the on call midwife was at the hospital with another birth and that the second on call would need 45 mins to get to the birth center. we were going to beat her there for sure. i figured i would be fine laboring in the car for a while.

we got to the parking lot at 4:45. the time in the car ended up feeling like forever. i got sick again and really just wanted to go to bed. finally at 5:15, our midwife (we'll call her S) let us in. she had already prepared our room. the lighting was dim, candles were lit, and the bath was running. it was instantly comforting. i stripped down and got into bed.

S did an internal exam to determine were i was in labor. as she was checking my cervix, which hurt a lot, i had a strong contraction... and i threw up all over the floor. bad news. S said that during that contraction it felt as though i had gone from 4 cm to 6 cm.

the next five hours were a blur of laboring in the tub, on the toilet and in the bed. i was sick some more. they kept trying to feed me saltines and give me water. a big mistake we made was not bringing a drink with electrolytes.

around 10 S wanted to check me again, and asked if i could sit on the birth stool. when she checked me, she discovered that there was a bubble of my bag next to arden's head. i had thought my water had broken when i was on the toilet at one point, but it wasn't all of it. S moved the bubble and the rest of my water spilled out. this is when we discovered our first problem. there was meconium in the water. this meant an instant transfer to a hospital because they don't have the equipment to handle the potential problems related to meconium.

this was very hard to accept. i had always wanted to do a natural birth outside of the hospital. i felt that the transfer to the hospital was the first step towards interventions i didn't want. it needed to be done though. i didn't want anything to happen to arden.

we were transferred to a hospital that had a good midwife staff so we would have a chance of continuing the birth the way we envisioned. i managed to nap a little on the drive because i was given a shot that eased contractions for a short time.

at the hospital, i remember getting into the room and instantly throwing my clothes off. :) i don't think they were prepared for that, but i wanted to be comfortable. i got an iv, since i had been throwing up the whole time at the birth center. they strapped on fetal and contraction monitors. i had another internal, and found out i was at 5 cm. i hadn't progressed at all. the midwife mentioned pitocin, but wanted us to have time to continue unassisted.

i labored till the early afternoon. though i had the iv and was feeling better, i was exhausted. i hadn't slept since 8 the previous morning. the midwife (we'll call her M) came back and again suggested pitocin. i conceded. i was so tired and hadn't progressed beyond 5 cm still. so i got an epidural and pitocin. then i slept and it felt soooo good. unfortunately, my appetite came back then too, and i couldn't have real food. i ate loads of jello and drank oodles of apple juice. :)

time gets a little fuzzy here for both anna and i. at some point i had another internal and they discovered that arden was face up. i tried doing different labor positions to move arden naturally, but to no avail. they brought in an OB to try to turn arden face down. i was told the doctor had the smallest hands. they didn't feel so small when she was up there. damn that hurt. i did allow them one more try later on in the evening. arden wouldn't cooperate. the doctor said that arden actively turned her head back into the face up position. she's never had a baby do that before. we have a stubborn girl on our hands:) by this time i had completely dilated.

finally, at 9 pm the midwife said it was time to try to labor arden down, since she was a bit high still. i did this for an hour. arden moved down some with this. the midwife wanted me to start pushing at 10 and coached me on how to do this since the epidural erased any urge to push.

i pushed for three hours. i ended up with incredible shoulder pain that was distracting me from pushing. i've neglected to mention what mom and anna were doing through all this. they were being a great team. encouraging me, feeding me. anna was awesome at coaching me on breathing during pushing. i ended up needing them to hold my legs while i pushed because the shoulder pain was too great. i labored on my back, on my sides, and sitting up. the sitting caused major tailbone pain.

i was told that i pushed very well and effectively. i pushed hard and strong for three hours, and arden wouldn't come. she would move down a bit and then back up. by this time, i was feeling my contractions again. i was beyond exhaustion. the contractions were often coming right on top of each other so i didn't get much of a break.

the midwife decided to mention what we feared the most: c-section. anna and i started bawling. even now i makes me get choked up. i could still continue to push and hope to get arden out, but that hope was very, very slim. i couldn't continue. it was 1 in the morning and i was physically and emotionally spent.

i went into surgery at 3:30 with anna at my side. the local anesthesia didn't numb my right side. i had to have general anesthesia. that meant anna had to leave the room. that was hard. but at 4:14 on wednesday, december 2nd, our little girl came out into the world. she was nice and healthy. the meconium had caused to problems. she was very sleepy though and wouldn't cry for the doctors no matter what they did:) again, our stubborn little girl.

i woke up to anna handing me a little bundle she called our daughter. i was so out of it, but so happy. she took to nursing wonderfully. and i couldn't stop staring at her.

we stayed in the hospital till friday. she was cleared, i was cleared. we've had some rough patches since being home: the night before my milk came in, the night my milk did come in. trying to figure out what she needs to calm down. trying to get a semi-adequate amount of sleep.

it's such a new world we have now. i could keep writing on this subject, but i should probably end this incredibly long post:) i do intend to keep this blog up, and i hope you'll all bear with me while i try to figure out time-management with a baby. i know we have a lot to share with all of you:)

before the fun story

2009-12-11T14:32:00.000-08:00

some sad news. my pepere (pep-ae: means grandpa in colloquial french) passed away today. he went into the hospital early this week. it was determined that his kidneys were failing. they did dialysis. though i wasn't told directly, my assumption is that it didn't work. he was put on life support because his heart and lungs started to fail. this morning they determined that the best thing was to let him go.

all the kids gathered (my mom is the oldest of eight), and they took him off support this afternoon. i really wish i could have been there. they were in new hampshire. if i could travel with arden right now, i would jump on the next plane. the funeral is tuesday. everyone else will be there. imagine 8 kids, all married, most with kids. this is tearing me apart.

my pepere was a wonderful, kind, and funny man. one of my favorite memories is of him making a funny face where he would pop his top dentures out half way and be goofy. it cracked us up:) i think i made him make that face until i was a teen. he started to fade these past years. his memories got a little mixed up. when i saw him the past two summers he often called me my mom's name. i really wish he could have met arden, but at least he got to see me pregnant and meet anna.

it was his time to go, but i'm going to miss him terribly. i love you pepere.

and....

2009-12-06T12:01:00.000-08:00

we have our baby! arden rose was born at 4:14 wednesday morning. she weighed 7 lbs 13 oz, and was 21 1/2 inches long. i ended up having a c-section. we are all happy and healthy.

i will post the birth story as soon as possible. finding time is hard, as a lot of you know:) i'll leave you with photos for now.

anna and arden right after birth

could it be...

2009-11-30T23:29:00.000-08:00

well folks for a few hours now i've been having contractions every five minutes. i haven't been timing for the past 1/2 hour though, and they seem to be increasing in intensity a wee bit. i need to get to bed ASAP.

but... Family Style Love, the blog i've been calling my pregnant twin because of our matching due dates and living in the same city:) suggested a final belly shot. of course, i need to appease my readers. i actually have a ton of photos to post, but again bed is calling.

photos from tonight:

nothing yet

2009-11-28T12:13:00.000-08:00

still preggo. arden hasn't dropped yet. i've been walking a lot the past few days. whenever going up our big hill, i do lunges. need to blow up the birth ball so i can do some hip rotations.

at our mw appt. on wednesday, i asked for an internal exam because i was curious. she told me my cervix was soft. i was dilated 1 cm. man was the exam uncomfortable.

my mom got into town wednesday afternoon. she's been a great help. i've been more tired the past few days. thanksgiving was low-key for us. just anna, mom, and me.

sorry this is short and kind of random:) i just wanted to get a quick post in between errands.

still cookin'

2009-11-18T20:18:00.000-08:00

LOVE IS LOVE had their little boy (congratulations!!), 12 days early. Family Style Love is feeling ready, and trying to move things along. we have the same due date.

arden and i, on the hand, are sittin' pretty. she doesn't seem ready to come yet. i've got things to do, and i'm still feeling good. we can wait another week and a half.

so there you go:) just thought i would let you all know since it's getting later in the pregnancy.