Look at this Big Girl!

Sara wants to crawl very badly and is working hard to figure it out. It won't be long now before she is mobile! She also loves to stand up now and can stand on her own for brief periods of time. Once she has the balance figured out, she'll be walking! For fun, Sara is also really loving her exersaucer and playing on the floor with all sorts of toys. In particular, she loves her ball, Bernice the singing dinosaur, and her learning puppy that sings songs. She has started to rock back and forth when music plays which is super cute - it won't be long before she's dancing around! Sara is laughing more now, which is very fun, and she's practicing her "da" sound a lot as well and daddy likes to hear his name! We continue to think she has begun teething as she is really gnawing on things and is a bit cranky at times when she's putting things in her mouth. It won't be too long before that first tooth shows up. Solid foods are the next big thing on the agenda as Sara is almost six months old! We can't believe our baby girl is almost half a year old. Sara is starting to show interest in food when Andy and I eat and we're sure she'll take to it quickly in a few weeks since she loves her milk so much and has always been a good eater (just look at those cheeks!).

Hope everyone is having a good week - check out all the new videos and pictures that we've posted recently and be sure to leave comments when you get a chance as we love hearing from everyone!

Happy 4th of July!

Hope everyone is enjoying Independence Day - here are some pictures of our All American Sweetheart! Her outfit says "My First 4th"

Picture Time!

I love pictures!

This is teddy bear - he tastes yummy!

I see my Daddy - he's the best!

Oh yeah, I know I'm the cutest!

Sitting Up, Teeth, and the Wreck

Sara has now mastered sitting up. She decided it might be a fun thing to do a few weeks ago and can now sit up for several minutes at a time. She can reach for toys, bend over and sit back up, and correct herself most times when she starts to tip one way or the other. She still topples over plenty - especially when she gets tired - but she gets steadier each day.

Sara's coordination has also improved quite a bit over the last couple weeks. Two Thursdays ago, Andy and I noticed that she had begun very purposefully grabbing her toys. In the past, she would swat or swipe at them and sometimes pick them up, but all of a sudden she was looking at the toy she wanted and just picking it up the first time she tried. She would even look for the toy when she dropped it and pick it back up again. We're not sure if her vision or depth perception just came into focus or she just finally decided that she really wanted those toys.

Sara is really enjoying sitting up in the bath now and playing with her bath toys. We have a small inflatable tub that fits in the big bath tub for now since she's still not so stable and the full tub is a bit scary to have her sitting in. It also uses a lot less water and she doesn't need that much right now.

Since Sara likes the water so much, we got her a little one ring pool for her to try out. Last weekend, we put some water in the sun to warm up and then let her play in the pool in the shade. She liked the water and the toys floating around her, but her pool adventure sadly had to be cut short when she decided it would be a good idea to poo in the pool. Since it was just a little pool we had let her go skinny dipping instead of trying to put her in a swim diaper - of course she decided to go poo!

In preparation for solid foods coming up in a month or so, we got Sara's high chair last weekend. We've put her in it a few times while we're in the kitchen and she seems content to sit there for a while. She's still super tiny in the seat, but she's growing like a weed and will soon be eating in it like a big girl!

Sara is sleeping through the night now, and just this weekend started rolling over onto her tummy at night. Andy said she was rolling up and down the crib this morning when he went in to get her, so she is becoming very mobile!

Even though Sara is sleeping pretty good, she has started waking frequently some nights. She sometimes needs a paci to go back to sleep and sometimes can put herself back to sleep. She's also been a bit more cranky lately and really putting toys in her mouth. Andy and I suspect that she may be in the beginning of teething. The pediatrician said that she would probably start to have sore gums at around four months of age and she does seem to have some of the signs of teething. Andy also discovered that she really wanted to put her mouth on his cold glass at a restaurant the other day, so we've started giving her teething rings out of the freezer when she gets fussy. She seems to like the cold in her mouth, but we're not sure if it's really helping or not yet. There are no signs of teeth ready to break through, but her gums may be sore for a while before that actually happens. Mommy isn't really looking forward to teeth and nursing, but hopefully she will behave!

In other news, Andy got an early Father's Day present on Thursday when he got rear-ended on his way home from work. A lady driving a Dodge Ram and hauling a trailer decided not to stop for the red light and plowed into his little Civic at about 30mph. Luckily Andy is ok though he has been a little sore and got a bruise on his arm where the seat belt slipped down. The Civic, however, is not ok and we can't imagine how it could be fixed. We've pretty much decided that we will demand it be totalled and get him a new one. It's the first new car Andy's ever had and it gets totalled within the first year he has it!

For the real Father's Day, Sara gave daddy the gift of time by getting him a lawn service for the summer. She said it took daddy a long time on the weekends to mow the lawn and she'd rather be playing with him instead. It will be nice for him to not have to be out in the heat too. She also made daddy a pencil holder at school with her picture, hand, and foot prints on it for daddy to take to work. Sara sure does love her daddy!

We hope you are all enjoying the weekend and Father's Day. Happy Daddy's Day to all the dads we know!

Playing is Fun

As Sara gets older, she continues to show more and more interest in toys, people, and playing in general. Last weekend Sara found her feet. All of a sudden her feet were constantly in her hands and she has been quite rolly polly as she curves her legs up to grab them. On Thursday she figured out that she could put her feet into her mouth (it was only a matter of time!) and that has been quite exciting for her as well.

Sara is continuing to work on sitting up and is slowly able to sit up for longer periods of time before she tumbles over. She still has to lean forward but doesn't have to use her hands for support all the time. She's really started showing interest in toys around her on the floor now that she can sit up a bit and tries to grab at them. Unfortunately, she falls over a lot doing this since she still hasn't mastered sitting up without a toy in her hand. She doesn't seem to mind though and usually keeps playing on her side or back where she has landed. It seems as though she is really interested in figuring out how to sit up so that she can play with more things whereas she can roll over but rarely does because there is nothing in it for her.

I did, however, see her roll over yesterday while playing on the floor. She rolled over onto her tummy and started to grab at toys around her. This was the first time I had seen her roll over where it seemed easy for her to do it. For a long time, she was getting over by rolling onto her side and then kicking to get her hips over. Yesterday she just seemed to roll over without effort so maybe she is practicing at school.

Once she was on her tummy, I placed a mirror in front of her as she loves to look at that baby in there. She smiled and laughed and cooed at that baby and tried to reach out to touch her. She really likes mirrors in general and loves to make faces at herself and watch other people make faces at her. It will be neat when she finally figures out that she is that baby in the mirror!

Sara has also began to take notice of Bridgette and Bruno. She has watched them for a long time, but just recently started to reach for them and show interest in "petting" the puppies. Luckily the dogs have been great with her and put up with her grabbing at them. She can really get a grip on their ears or the side of their face, but they are patient with her when she does. They are learning to flinch when she reaches for their face, which is where she always goes for. I think they have an agreement that she can pull at their ears as long as they get to lick her and eat the spit up that they find on her. I think the dogs will really like her as she gets older and can really play with them and understand what nice petting is.

We've been having fun with Sara as she starts to figure out all these new things. She is still talking a lot and figured out how to make the "da" sound this week. Andy likes it when she says "da da da da" since it sounds like dada. She also took better naps at school this week so we got more time with her each evening before she went to bed. Today she has been having fun playing all morning only pausing to take a quick cat nap. She figured out how to get her exersaucer to bounce today and was moving all around in it to make it shake. We took a couple of videos and will put them up on the site soon. (I have a bunch of videos and just need to take the time to upload them)

Hope everyone is having a good weekend so far!

Back to Work, The Cold, and Drama

Well, as is obvious by the lack of postings, mommy has returned to work. I went back to work on April 14th and we've all been adjusting since. Weekends are too short and we're so tired weeknights that posting a blog entry is the last thing we think to do.

Returning to work has been difficult, but mostly on me. Sara has seemed to have no problem going to daycare and the teachers in her room are really great with her. Once she got over her bottle aversion, which only took a couple weeks, she's really done well there. All the teachers and the front door staff just love her and she seems very happy there. This makes it so much easier for me to continue working, but it doesn't make me miss her any less. I still plan to continue to evaluate work as she gets older, but so far it does seem to be working ok.

One down side of Sara in daycare is that she doesn't seem to nap as well there. I guess there is too much fun and excitement going on as she gets to play with bubbles, listen to music, and even fingerpaint! She is having all kinds of neat experiences and doesn't want to sleep very much there. This sometimes means that we don't get to see her very much during the evening when we get home. Often, she is pooped out and just wants to nurse and go to bed when she gets home. These days are hard for Andy and I since we want to spend time with her when we get home and she just wants to sleep. It's definitely not everyday, but sometimes she goes several days in a row like this and we just miss her.

I've also been playing around with when to take her to daycare, how much she needs in bottles, and other such fun. I started out trying to nurse her in the mornings before we left, but I was actually trying to artificially add a feeding at that point since she normally didn't want to eat until around 8am and I was trying to feed her between 6-7am. I did this for about a month, but she was mostly just playing around and taking up a lot of time. It was taking me three hours from the time I got up to the time I got to work and I wasn't getting home with her until 5:30 or 6:00. The last couple weeks I've been sending her to school with a bottle for the morning. This means that she now has to have three bottles at school instead of two, but the last one is only a couple of ounces to tide her over until I can pick her up and feed her at home. It has saved a lot of time since now I can just get her up and dressed and out the door. I've started working nine hour days Monday through Thursday so that I can take half days on Fridays and have more time with her for the weekend. So far I think that is worth it versus picking her up an hour earlier each day, but this whole thing is a constant trial and error!

We've also been playing the guessing game as to how much milk she needs in her bottles since I don't know how much she's taking when she nurses. We started with four ounces and she was finishing all of it. We then went to 4.5-5 ounces and she was finishing all of that too. So, the last couple weeks she has been getting two 6 ounce bottles during the day and a small snack before I pick her up. This seems to be satisfying her for now, and I have been lucky to be able to pump a ton of milk while at work to keep up with her demand.

In other news, the whole family has been passing around different colds for over a month now. Sadly, Sara got her first cold from mommy and daddy and not the other kids at school. The poor kid had snot out the wazzoo for four weeks solid and didn't feel too great for the first couple weeks either. Andy and I spent a lot of time cleaning out her nose with the Nose Frida, a disgusting but highly effective contraption that allows us to actually suck the snot out of her nose (http://www.nosefrida.com/). Of course Sara hated having her nose suctioned out with this thing, but we did get all kinds of nasty stuff out that had to help her breathe better. During the same time, Andy and I got about three different rounds of a cold too. We're still not sure if it's the same cold being passed around or if we just keep catching different ones and giving them to each other. It's really sad for Sara though because there's nothing we can give her to help her with the sinus trouble because she is so little. All we can do is put saline drops in her nose to help break up the mucus and suction it out for her. I can't imagine not being able to blow my nose - it must feel so aweful for her! The worst thing now is that after about a week of no snot, she has a runny nose again today. I'm hoping it won't be as long and drawn out as this first cold was - we really need to get everyone in the house over this thing!

We've been trying to do lots of fun things with Sara on the weekends to expose her to new things as she grows. She's been to the zoo, had her first picnic, and been to her first birthday party for her friend Sophia. So far, she loves to go new places and look around. She has gotten a lot better about traveling in the car too and doesn't scream when the car comes to a stop (mostly she just snoozes in the car now). We plan to take her to the children's museum soon and let her check out the infant room that we hear is a lot of fun.

Sara was very sweet to mommy for Mother's Day and asked daddy to get some flowers and a gift certificate to the spa. We also went out for a nice dinner at our local steak house, Killens, where they were giving out roses for moms. I took some pictures with her that day too and got a few cute ones. Mother's Day was particularly neat since I found out that I was pregnant last year on Mother's Day and now have my daughter to hold for this one! Now we'll have to see if Sara is as sweet to her daddy for Father's Day next month :)

Just like all babies, Sara is growing and changing so fast! We just took her in for her fourth month appointment this past Friday and she is doing very good. She weighed in at 14lbs 13oz and 25.5 inches long. She's in the 75th percentile for weight and the 90th percentile for height! Wow. She is growing so fast at this point and getting quite a lot of baby chub on her. She is now mostly in six month size clothing and needs the 6-9 month size for onsies and sleepers! So far, she's only lasted about two months in each size group. I'm sure she'll slow down at some point, but she's still growing like a weed right now. Sara had another round of immunizations this time too, which is always no fun. She had another four shots in her legs the poor kid and then was just a bit fussy for the next two days. She didn't seem to run a fever at all this time though, so that is at least a bit better than the first round. I still gave her Tylenol to help with the pain and crankiness, but she did seem a bit better this time.

As for new things, Sara now loves to "talk" and will chat you up with lots of different sounds and squeals. She discovered that she could squeal a few weeks ago and it was the only noise she made for two weeks straight. The higher pitched the sound, the more proud she was of herself! She loves it when you sing to her now and smiles a lot. She's getting into peek-a-boo now as well and laughs when you play it with her. She still mostly does a big open mouth smile when she's having fun, but is starting to actually laugh now and then too. She almost doesn't know what to think when the laugh comes out, but we keep trying to encourage her to do it. It's probably the best sound I've ever heard when she has a real belly laugh and I can't wait for her to start doing it on a regular basis!

Sara still likes to play with her activity mat, but she's much more mobile now. We change out the toys on it frequently to keep her interest and she can pull and grab all sorts of toys now. She also wiggles around a lot on the mat and ends up completely sideways at times. She is getting very wiggly on the ground and can roll over from back to front and front to back if she wants to. She also wiggles in her sleep and we often find her in a completely different place in her crib than where we put her down. If she follows her daddy's footsteps, she'll be walking by nine months! For now, she's working on sitting up on her own. She can now sit on her own for a few minutes at a time if she's leaning forward and can use her hands for balance. She can't quite sit straight up yet though because she doesn't have the side to side balance down. I think she's probably going to figure things out within this month though - she's been a very quick learner so far with all the physical milestone type things.

Sara's big new toy is her Exersaucer. We got it for her when she turned three months since she could hold her head steady, but we still have to stick a towel in the seat with her for support. She loves all the toys on it and is good at spinning herself around when she wants to play with something new. She hasn't quite figured out all the capabilities of the toys as many of the things have batteries to play songs or make noise or light up, but she's still really enjoying it at this point. I'm sure she'll really get to like the thing as she gets a bit bigger and can really get all the bells and whistles going on it!

As much fun as we've been having watching Sara figure out all these new things, she's also started a bit of the drama as we like to call it. Her cry is definitely more dramatic when she's not really in pain but just cranky. She's also starting to cry over little things just to get attention. She rolled over the other morning while playing with daddy on the floor and just started a blood curdling scream. I'm not sure if she scared herself or what, but it bolted me from bed to see what horrible thing had just happened to her only to find her just fine but dramatically crying over nothing. It took fifteen minutes to get her to calm down and we still couldn't figure out what had scared her so bad in the first place. She didn't even cry nearly that much when she got her shots! Andy and I both get the feeling that she's starting to figure out some things and how to play mommy and daddy is one of them. She's still not old enough to understand that this might be wrong, so we just have to laugh at her sometimes even though the crying is a bit much. I'm sure this is just the beginning of her trying to figure out just what she can get away with - oh the toddler years will be fun!

Well, I hope this gets everyone caught up on the Athon family for now. Hopefully things will get a bit easier as we get over the colds and I can be better about making new posts. I hope everyone is doing great - we're ready for visitors again soon!

A Quick Update

I know it's been a while since we posted - we've been busy with our little snoochie boochie. She's changing so fast it's hard to believe, so I'll try to give everyone the highlights.

Sara rolled over for the first time two Saturdays ago (3/29) from stomach to back. She did it twice in a row for her daddy in the morning and I saw her do it again later that afternoon. I think she really doesn't enjoy tummy time very much and was quite motivated that day to get back on her back. Of course Sara has decided that she has no need to roll over for us again - especially since we constantly have the camera set to video it when we put her on her tummy. Most times now she just makes crawling motions but isn't strong enough yet to actually move anywhere. If we ever get the roll over on video, we'll be sure to post it!

The other big change is that Sara is now intentionally reaching for her toys. Last Saturday she started reaching for the toys on her play mat and actually grabbing them. She's always liked her play mat, but now she has a lot of fun with it and grabs different toys dangling from it in both hands. She even talks to her toys as she grabs them and sometimes smiles at them. She's been trying to get them in her mouth, but none of them stretch that far. It won't be long before everything in her reach goes in her mouth I'm sure.

Sara has continued to do pretty good in her crib at night, which is nice for us! She still starts off most nights in the swing, but we're trying to break her of that need slowly. Last night she was pretty sleepy after her last feeding, so I put her down in her crib and she stayed in there for the night. I'm not sure if she'll do it again tonight, but it was great to have her in bed and not have to creep around the living room with her asleep in the swing until we went to bed. She's also sleeping a bit better at night and we've been having to make less runs to put a paci in before she needs to eat. We've been really lucky in general with her sleeping as she's adapted to her crib pretty well and started sleeping for a long stretch at such a young age. It definitely allows us to sleep better and feel a bit more human in the morning.

This week is my last week of maternity leave and I go back to work full time next week. I started Sara in daycare this week so that I could take her there a few hours each day to get her used to it. I'd been worried about daycare in general and then Sara decided a couple weeks ago that she no longer wanted to take a bottle. She had taken them just fine for a while, and then she decided that she wasn't having any of it. From what I've read about the subject, she's at the age where eating in general becomes a choice instead of just a reflex/instinct and she clearly has a decided that the bottle is not what she wants to eat from. Trying to give her a bottle after this switch, she would scream and scream until she eventually got hungry enough to take it. Last week I made her take one a day to try to get her used to it since she won't have any other choice at daycare. She was all over the place taking it just fine one day and screaming for three hours before taking it another. I felt so bad for her, but I also didn't want to give in because she does need to learn to take the bottle. I've heard from several friends that she will pick it up in a week or two at daycare and I know she can take the bottle when she gets hungry enough. I just hate to think of her at daycare screaming and hungry for hours.

So bottle problems and all she started daycare this week. I've only been taking her for half days so she only has to take one bottle while she's getting used to the new surroundings. I think daycare is way harder on me than it is on her because she seems to be doing great there. She did have a problem with the bottle on Monday, but they got her to drink half of it at least. Yesterday she took almost the whole thing, so we'll see how much she had taken when I go to pick her up today. She has napped in her crib there, which shocked me since she hates to do so at home, and has had a chance to play and do tummy time. She seems happy when I pick her up and doesn't look like she's been crying or upset. I do like her main teacher, Rosie, a lot and that makes me feel pretty good about her being there. It's just hard to not have her with me all the time like I've been able to do while on leave. It's been hard taking her to daycare each day and coming home to an empty house. The first two days I just pumped and left for the afternoon because I didn't want to be here without her. I've felt a bit better today and decided to try to get some things done around the house and update the blog while she's gone, but I still keep looking at the clock to see when I can leave to go pick her up. Work is definitely going to be different when I go back and there will be no more long days for sure.

Speaking of picking up my baby, it is almost time so I'll go for now. I have a bunch of pictures and a few videos to upload when I get a chance, so be on the lookout for those soon. Hope you are all having a good week!

The Two Month Old

It's hard to believe that Sara is already two months old! She's growing like a weed and is getting into a phase where she's discovering new things each day. It's so exciting to see her becoming more aware of the world around her, and she seems to be enjoying her new found sense of awareness.

We went to the doctor last Thursday for Sara's two month appointment. She weighed in at 11lbs 6 oz and 22 3/4 inches long. She's gaining weight nicely and seems to be the picture of health despite her rough start at birth. I had been dreading this appointment because it brought four shots for Sara. I was so worried about her getting hurt with those needles that I cried about it for days. The pediatrician kept saying that the nurse was very quick and it wouldn't be that bad, but I still had to hide behind Andy for most of it because I couldn't stand to watch. The nurse was very quick to my relief and Sara actually only screamed for a minute and was ok again. I decided to nurse her there right after to help her feel better and was pleasantly surprised that they had a nice room we could go to with a big comfy chair. We've been really happy with this practice and I'm glad that they are so supportive of breastfeeding.

Sara did ok with her shots but she was uncomfortable for a couple days. I kept her on Tylenol for the first day and that seemed to help. She slept most of the morning but was fairly fussy during the afternoon and we could tell she just didn't feel good. She seemed good most of the next day until evening and she started to run a slight fever. A bit more Tylenol did the trick and she has seemed fine since. I felt so bad for her though getting all those shots and then having to feel bad for a few days to get over it. I know this is a lot better than her getting one of the diseases she was immunized against, but it's so hard to have to let your two month old go through that.

In other news, Sara had her third set of visitors for Easter when her Mimi and Gebo came to visit for the first time. I'm surprised they were able to hold out for two whole months, but they really did get a great visit since Sara is so much more alert now. It's a toss up between seeing that new tiny baby right away vs waiting until she's a bit older and can smile and coo at you, but I think they had a good time with Sara for sure. They had lots of nice conversations together and Sara found out that her Gebo can play on the floor with her for as long as she'll stay awake!

It was also good to have Andy's parents come after I had been so sick for a month because they were a huge help in getting the household back in order. Things had really gone downhill with me being out of commission, and they were so great helping us to pick up the pieces. We now have several meals in the freezer, the laundry is caught up, and several things around the house have been repaired! We also learned that we have a new friend who has been keeping up with us on the website from Erwin, so we wanted to say hello to Miss Rose and thanks for sharing in our excitement with Sara.

For Easter we went to Dottie and Jason's house for their annual Easter Brunch. This year was quite a crowd with most of Dottie's astronaut class coming with their families on top of the usual gang of friends. It was nice to get to introduce everyone to Sara and we even got to see Dottie's sister, Neva, again (she lives in Chicago so we don't get to see her often). Sara really enjoyed the crowd while she was awake, but wasn't so thrilled when it came time for a nap and had a hard time sleeping with all the noise. We had a good time though and the food was great as always. It will be fun when Sara is old enough to enjoy the Easter Egg hunt and know what's going on a bit!

In general Sara news, she is really starting to change a lot these days and it's hard to keep up with all her new things. She seems to really be able to focus on smaller objects now and has recently started analyzing patterns on shirts, burp cloths, etc. She seems to be trying to read the wording or figure out the little pictures on things that she didn't really notice before and it's fun to watch her stare at these things. Since she can see a bit better, she's also started to really like story time. We had tried to read to her several times before and she just got fussy, but we started again recently and she seems much more interested now that she can look at the pictures in the books while we read. We'll have to make story time a daily event now that she seems to be enjoying it more!

Sara is also becoming more and more aware of her toys. She really likes her play mat now and stares intently at the objects dangling above her. She is really good at kicking the ball at her feet and still bats at the toys above her. I don't think it's quite with real purpose yet, but she's definitely much more aware of the toys than she was before. I've also switched out the elephant on her car seat with a duckie and she is enthralled with it. She stares at the duck the whole time she's in the seat and has even talked to it a bit. Yesterday the duckie fell down and she was grabing it a little. It looked like she was trying to play with it, but I'm still not sure if her reaches and grabs are intentional yet. I think she's getting close to that though and should be gaining that coordination soon.

Since Sara can hold her head fairly steady these days, we went ahead and got her one of those new Bumbo chairs. They are sort of hard foam chairs that surround her and help her to sit up. She can sit up in this chair and look around. She still loves the TV and looks like a little grown up sitting in her chair staring at the tube! We'll have to start turing the TV off when she gets old enough to really start watching it so she doesn't become an addict like Andy and I. I've also put toys in her lap to touch while she's in the chair and she shows mild interest in them. Today she fell asleep in her Bumbo chair and it was really cute - I guess she can only handle so much fun at a time still!

Sara's other new discovery is the mirror. They have a big mirror at the doctor's office when she's on the table and she really started staring at herself when we were in for her two month appointment. We went out and got a small mirror that we can put on the floor in front of her and she likes staring at it too. I think she's too little to know that the reflection is her, but she likes looking at that other baby in front of her a lot!

It is really amazing how quickly she is learning and growing. Andy and I can hardly believe we have a baby still and she's just growing and changing so fast that it's hard to keep up! She is definitely starting to be a lot of fun with her smiles and coos. She loves her daddy a bunch and always gives him the best smiles. She even laughed a little for him a few days ago which was so cute. We haven't heard the laugh again yet, but hopefully she'll start doing that more sometime this month. We just continue to be so impressed with how much she seems to be taking in and just stare at her all the time.

As for us parents, Andy and I are doing pretty good these days. Andy has been on a normal schedule again for the last few weeks and things feel a lot better having him home more. My stomach seems to be pretty much back to normal now that I'm on the Aciphex and hopefully the ulcer will heal up and be gone for good. We are both pretty tired from a couple of bad nights where Sara decided she didn't want to sleep in her crib anymore. She had two nights in a row where she was waking up four or five times in a couple hours crying and having a hard time sleeping. We ended up having to put her in the swing both nights for a bit. The first night she wouldn't even go back down in her crib after eating and spent most of the night in the swing, but the second night she did go back in her crib for the rest of the night. Last night was the first night where she went back down in her crib the whole night. It was a relief that she slept and we hope she'll stick to the crib like she had been before!

I only have two more weeks of maternity leave and am starting to get nervous about going back to work. It's hard to decide what is right for Sara with her being so little. I like my job and the income means we can do a lot more for her, but I also like being home with her and knowing that she is getting everything she needs. We spent a couple hours in the baby room at daycare yesterday to check things out and I still feel unsure. The daycare is a good quality one, but there are still four babies to each teacher and while I was there each one of them had to cry for a couple minutes at least once before getting picked up. The lead teacher, Rosie, was a very nice woman who genuinely seemed to care about the babies she had. The babies also seemed to really like her and gave her lots of hugs and smiles while I was there. They do lots of fun activities with the babies and keep detailed notes on their eating, sleeping, and potty habits for the parents each day. The babies there seemed to have fun playing, but I'm still worried about how much love and care Sara will be able to get when she's upset or not feeling good. It's such a hard decision to make and I empathize with any parent who doesn't have the choice and has to work. Right now I'm thinking that I will go back and see how she does at daycare. If it's too hard for either of us, I may change my mind!

I guess that's enough Sara details for now - had to catch up after Mimi and Gebo left! Hope you're all having a good week so far and be sure to keep in touch!

Mom, Where Did This Elephant Come From?

Almost from birth we've had this blue elephant hanging on Sara's car seat to give her something to look at when we go for a ride. She's made brief note of this in the past, but hasn't paid it much attention until yesterday. We went out for several errands in the afternoon and I sat in the back with Sara for some of the drive. For the first time, she really seemed to notice this little elephant hanging up above her. She stared intently at it as it swayed with the motion of the car and then began to smile at it and talk to it. I played with the elephant to move it around and it pulls down and vibrates back up too. Sara was so fascinated with this thing and it was really fun to watch.

She has continued to do well when we go out and about and really loves looking around at new scenery and people. She also naps well in her car seat as long as she isn't strapped down too tight, so we loosen the straps when we get out of the car to keep her happy. Things went well yesterday until I fed her in the car while we were out. For whatever reason, she decided to give the bulk of her meal back to me during her burp and I was soaked with breast milk. Of course I wasn't smart enough to have brought a change of clothes, so we had to go home before our next stop. On the way Sara continued to spit up her meal until she and the carseat were soaked. She didn't seem sick and was quite happy the whole time, but just couldn't keep the food down for some reason. I wondered if the motion of the car was making it worse, but it's hard to tell when she can't tell you what's going on! I fed her again when we got home since I figured her stomach was pretty empty and she kept that down just fine. It took a while to get us all cleaned up after that though!

Our crib intervention is continuing and things are starting to improve at least for now. I am still not letting her nap in the swing during the day and she's getting a bit better in the crib even though she still doesn't like it too much. We started putting her down in the crib at night two nights ago since Andy had Friday off. We are letting her go to sleep in the swing and moving her to the crib once she's been down for about an hour hoping she'll be sleepy enough to stay there happily. The first night was fairly rough and we had to get up frequently to put a paci back in. She only made it from about 10pm to 1:30am before she was too upset and we put her back in the swing for a bit. She woke up around 4:30 to eat and we put her back in the crib after her meal. That lasted about two hours before she got upset again and we put her back in the swing until she was up for the day. It was tempting to leave her in the swing last night to avoid the lack of sleep, but we wanted to be consistent so we put her in the crib again at about 10pm. We had to get up twice in the first hour or so to put a paci back in, but then a miracle happened and she slept just fine until 3am when she woke to eat. I even tip toed to her room around 1:30 to make sure she was ok, and she was sleeping soundly! We put her back down in the crib after her feeding and the crazy kid slept in there again until she was ready to get up for the day around 7:30. It was like a whole new kid sleeping in that crib last night and we're hoping that this will stick and she'll be fine with it now. She's still been a bit cranky about sleeping in there for her naps today, but she is a bit better than she was yesterday morning. We're hoping she's finally getting used to laying in her crib and will sleep good in there soon!

Sara is continuing to change so fast these days. She's growing like a weed still, so we bought her some 3month size clothing yesterday. I bet she'll be in those right on time if not a bit early as she is completely filling out her 0-3month clothes now. Just in the last week Sara has become so much more vocal and continues to try to immitate us when we talk to her. She's also making a lot more noise when she plays and is "talking" to her toys now. Her head strength is still improving and she can hold her head steady for a few minutes at a time. She's begun kicking more and now kicks the ball hanging from her activity mat. She also is gaining more control over her hands and brings them to her mouth to suck on quite a bit now.

Sara has also surprised Andy and I by rolling onto her side to sleep! She started moving her torso like that earlier this week and has since figured out how to get her hips up too. She never liked lying flat on her back and seems to have found a solution by laying on her side now. She's not strong enough to really roll over or anything, but she can get herself totally on her side and then back on her back if she wants. This might be why she's sleeping a bit better in the crib now - who knows!

The last bit of exciting news is that Sara took her first bottle today. We wanted Andy to give it to her so she wouldn't be confused, so I warmed up some of my expressed milk and put it in a bottle for Andy. I was concerned about her taking it since you hear some babies refuse to take a bottle, but she figured it out pretty quickly once some of the milk leaked out into her mouth. I only heated up about an ounce and a half so we wouldn't waste much if she didn't take it well, but she ate it all down. I snuck over and took a couple pictures while she was eating and they are up on the website now. I fed her after she finished the bottle so she could get all she wanted and pumped what was left when she was done. I think she's eating about 3oz during her daytime feedings and probably a bit more when she eats before bedtime. I had mixed feelings watching her drink from the bottle since I love feeding her so much, but it is nice to know that daddy can feed her if I'm out and that she should be fine to take bottles at daycare when I have to go back to work.

I hope everyone is having a good weekend so far - we're hoping for another good night in the crib!

Andy, Valarie, and Sara

Crib Intervention

Hi Everyone! I thought I would take a minute to update the blog while Sara is sleeping. She's in her crib, so it probably won't last long! I swear this child would live in her swing if we would let her - other than to eat of course :)

Andy and I are torn every night with what to do with this child. She has only been waking us up once at night to eat, going 6-8 hours, but the catch is that she is sleeping in the swing. She's been staying awake a lot more during the day and subsequently gets cranky after her last feeding. By the time we get her to calm down and go to sleep, neither of us really want to test things by putting her down in the crib. We really want her to start sleeping in her own bed, but we are also loving the sleep we get when she's in that swing. I swear she doesn't make a peep in that thing until she's ready to eat again and then she goes right back to sleep in the thing for another 4-5 hours. How can we get her to do that in her crib?

I've been feeding her at 7pm every night since I started pumping then this weekend and so we're trying to make this her bedtime. She usually won't go to sleep until after 8 with her crankiness, but she isn't waking up to eat again until the middle of the night once she is down. Andy and I are going to try to start a bedtime ritual with feeding at 7pm, new diaper and outfit, and put her in a sleep sack to rock to sleep. We're hoping that she's old enough now to pick up on the routine and maybe get less fussy at this time of night and go to sleep easier.

As for the crib, I've been slowly trying to put her in there more often during the day. It's just as hard to do this "crib intervention" during the day because it means that I can't do anything else while I'm trying to get her to go down in there. She constantly starts to make noise and I have to go put her pacifier back in or stand there with my hands on her to calm her down again. When she does go to sleep in there, it usually only lasts for about 20-30 minutes at a time instead of her normal couple hours that she'll nap. I'm hoping that she'll start to get used to the crib this way though and will start sleeping for longer stretches in there. I keep thinking she'll eventually get tired enough to sleep for a full nap in there, but she apparently got her stubborness from her mother and has so far refused! Something will have to give eventually though because there's no swing at daycare and she'll have to get used to the crib they have there.

Other than our crib woes, Sara is continuing to do really good. She's really starting to smile and coo a lot and has even started to mimic some of the sounds we make when we talk to her. She loves going places and just stares at people like they are the most interesting thing in the world. We took her to the zoo for the first time this past weekend, but she ended up sleeping the whole time so we didn't get any pictures. It was still nice to walk around and we finally fit in there with our stroller since the zoo is stroller/baby central anytime we've been.

I put up some new pictures and videos the other day for those who haven't been to the site in a while. I'll try to get some more soon.

Well, the little one called me away hours ago and I just got a chance to put her down again to finish this up. I better post it now before she starts up again!

Happy Wednesday!

Don't Forget to Spring Forward

So this weekend begins daylight savings time. While I love daylight savings as it's much more desireable to have light in the evening, I'm thinking of writing my local congressman to tell him how much I appreciate losing an hour of sleep this weekend as the mother of a six week old! Each hour of sleep is critical to this tired mom, and I don't much appreciate having to lose one tonight. I don't really understand the need to change our clocks back and forth each year anyway - why not just remain on daylight savings time year round?

Other than the upcoming loss of an hour of sleep, things are starting to get a bit better around here I think. After a really bad bout with my stomach this past Monday night, I went to a gastroenterologist to see if she could figure out what was wrong with me. Since my ultrasound for gallstones came back negative (whew - no surgery for that!), she thinks I have an ulcer from all the ibuprofen that I was given after delivery. I always thought an ulcer would be a burning pain, but apparently it can cause all sorts of different pain. The only good thing about an ulcer is that it can be taken care of with medication over a 6-8 week period. They normally do an edoscope to confirm an ulcer, but this requires sedation and I would have to discard my milk for a while after the procedure. We haven't started Sara on bottles yet, and I haven't started pumping either. Because of this, the doctor decided to put me on an ulcer medication and see if my symptoms improve over a week. I have been on the medication since Wednesday and I think it might be starting to work. I've still had some stomach problems, but I've also had a couple days with no pain at all. I really hope this works so that I don't have to do any further testing!

On top of the ulcer, the gastroenterologist also called yesterday to tell me that I have a urinary tract infection and put me on antibiotics for that. I sure am having a tough time getting healthy, but I hope I am on the right track now. I hate taking all this medicine while nursing Sara even though the doctors say it should be ok. I made it all the way through pregnancy without even taking a Tylenol and now I am on multiple prescription medications! It's very frustrating for me because it's so important to me that Sara be breastfed but I also don't want her to get anything in the milk that might hurt her.

On a happier note, with Andy done with his big plant nightmare, I am going to start pumping tonight after Sara's last feed before her long stretch. I want to start building up a supply of extra milk in the freezer, and we'll have Andy try to give her a bottle soon. The bottle is something I'm both looking forward to and dreading. I really love nursing Sara and it is a wonderful feeling to be able to give her the food that she needs, but it will also be nice to be able to get a break and not have to be home or with her for every feeding. She obviously needs to learn to take a bottle before I go back to work too, so we'll see how it goes one day soon.

Sara has been a bit cranky today and hasn't wanted to go down for a nap. She only napped about half an hour at a time until around 1pm when she finally went down for a long stretch. She slept well then, but is back to being cranky at this hour. She gets herself so tired and then doesn't know how to get to sleep despite all our rocking, cuddling, etc. Eventually she just gets so tired from crying that she goes to sleep, but she hasn't been staying asleep very long. Maybe she'll sleep well tonight after being awake so much during the day - we'll see!

Sara is also growing like a weed! Andy and I think she weighs about twelve pounds now and appears to be about 23 inches long by our measurement. Her head is getting a lot bigger and she has lots of baby chub on her with a big baby belly and lots of little baby rolls developing on her arms and legs. I keep telling her it's the one time in a woman's life that those rolls are going to be considered cute so enjoy :) She's so big that she's started to outgrow most of her newborn clothes and is fitting quite well into the 0-3 month size. We're actually going to have to start packing up those little newborn sizes now and need to go shopping for some 3-6 month sizes that she'll be in soon enough. I can't believe how much she's grown in such a short amount of time. It's exciting to see her change and yet I still feel a little sad that she's not the same tiny newborn. It's funny how you want your children to grow up and stay the same all at once!

Well, we hope everyone is having a nice weekend so far. It's been like heaven having Andy home for a change and we've both been able to relax a bit in between the crankiness.

Happy Daylight Savings,
Andy, Valarie, and Sara

The Playdate

With Andy at work, Sara and I ventured out yesterday with Katie and Lily for a playdate at Hilary Vicker's house. Hilary has a two year old, Mandy, and is expecting her second daughter any day now. We picked up some lunch on the way and spent the afternoon with the girls.

Sara did really well on our outting and seemed to really like being somewhere new to look around. She also liked Hilary's swing in which she can sit up and look around (unlike ours where she is still in cradle mode and laying down). It was pretty funny too when she fell asleep in this swing with her chin resting on the little tray holding her in. It's always amazing how many positions babies will sleep in that look like they would be so uncomfortable.

Hilary had this giant fake bottle of Hershey's Syrup filled with M&Ms, and I thought it would be cute to take a picture of Sara with the bottle since it was bigger than her (I added it to the pictures today). I'm sure she will love chocolate when she is finally allowed to have some one day!

I had a good time talking to the girls and watching Mandy play, but my mystery stomach illness decided to make a lovely appearance in the form of me losing my lunch! I can't remember the last time I threw up and it was extra nice to have to do so in someone else's home. Luckily Katie was right next to me and I handed Sara to her to make it to the guest bathroom - thank God I at least made it there and didn't hit Hilary's floor! This stomach thing is seriously irritating and I'm still trying to figure out what it is. The doctor didn't really know last Friday but said it might be gallstones. I went to the local hospital on Saturday morning for an ultrasound but still haven't heard back from the doctor today. I called this morning and she still hadn't reviewed my images to tell me anything. I would think that would be something she would have done when she first got in since I've been waiting two days already, but oh well. I'm hoping that I don't have gallstones because I don't want to have to worry about a potential surgery to remove my gallbladder.

After such a big day, Sara was a bit cranky last night and ate a few times in a row for a long time. The only nice thing about her doing this is that she sleeps for a long time once she finally goes down. Once again, I misjudged when she was going to go down for her long stretch and put her in the swing instead of her bed. She slept for 5 hours in that stinking thing! It took me a while to get her to calm down and go to sleep before that and she ended up going 7 hours between feedings. Six hours two nights ago and seven last night - I don't know if it's the growth spurt or maybe that she's been so awake the last few days but it would be great if she keeps doing these long stretches and we can get some good sleep. Of course, I wonder if she would have slept so long had I put her down in her bassinet since she does not love it like she does the swing. I guess I'll just take what I can get for now because the last two nights have felt pretty good compared to earlier in the week!

Sara is having a pretty good day so far - she's really starting to be awake a lot more during the day and that means even less time for me to try to get anything done (even showering some days!). This morning she played for a couple hours before getting hungry and tired. She is really smiling a lot more when you talk to her so I took a short video and tried to make noises to get smiles. I got a few small ones and a few noises so I'll put it up on YouTube when I get a chance. We had fun playing on the floor and in her bouncy chair until she got cranky and hungry. She had a rough couple hours after that with gas and trying to poo, but I finally got her to sleep a few minutes ago and put her down in the swing. Man was it a good investment to get those rechargeable batteries!

Hope everyone is having a good Monday - I put a few new pictures up and I'm working on some videos too...

The Six Week Growth Spurt

Just like clockwork, Sara has hit her six week growth spurt. Andy and I suspect that it may be the cause of all the terror this week, but things are starting to get a bit better. We did end up having to let Sara sleep in her swing all night after that horrible night we had. Andy and I just needed sleep and the little stinker sleeps so quietly in the swing. We went back to the bassinet the next night and she went down for a while in there. After her first night feeding, she was restless and noisy. Andy had to keep getting up to put a paci back in and hold her arms down - those things flail everywhere! I gave up after he went to work and put her down in the swing for the last few hours of the night.

Yesterday started the feeding frenzy for her six week growth spurt. She ate constantly all day and only took one nap in the middle of the day. By evening, I was feeding her about once every hour and a half. She actually completely drained me a few times and was not happy that mom did not have more milk immediately - what a little piggy :) This went on until about 9:30 when I put her down in her swing. I thought she'd be up again soon to eat and would put her down in the bassinet after that round, but apparently she had finally eaten herself senseless and she slept in that stinking swing for SIX hours! Andy fell asleep on the couch and I had gone to bed to rest before what I thought was another imminent feeding. You'd think that having her sleep for six hours straight would be such a fantastic thing, and it sort of is, but I spent most of the time waking up constantly to see if she was still asleep or if she was ready to eat yet. And, as all moms who have nursed can empathize with, after all that constant feeding during the day I was painfully full by the time she woke up.

The good news is that she did go down fairly well in her bassinet after that 3am feeding. She woke me a few times but went back to sleep before I had to get up. She stayed happy there until about 6:30 when she was ready to eat again, so I am at least happy for one good stretch in there.

I'm hoping that this growth spurt will be over soon and maybe that will help with the night trouble she's had this week. Only time will tell...

Sara is starting to smile more and more but they are still not what I would call frequent. She liked me repeating "Mama" and "Dada" over and over again in baby talk yesterday and gave me several good smiles for that which was so fun.

The other fun thing is that Sara has really started to figure out where the milk comes from. If I hold her in a cradle type hold now, she turns her head toward me with a big wide mouth (whether it's meal time or not!). The other day we were taking a nap and she was laying on her side facing me. I felt her start moving around a bit but didn't think anything of it since she is always a wiggle worm. After a short time she let out this frustrated scream. When I pulled back to look at her, I realized that I had a big wet spot on me where she had been trying to latch on through my clothes. I guess she woke up hungry and figured she'd just get to munching but didn't quite understand the clothes being in the way. It was pretty funny and she was happy again as soon as I gave her what she wanted :)

She's also figured out our routine of a diaper change before feedings and will stop crying when she realizes that she is about to eat. She's starting to be able to latch herself as well which is making things quite a bit easier for me! She certainly loves her milk and it's really fun to see how excited she gets when it's meal time. When Andy is done with his crazy work schedule, we'll start introducing bottles to her and see how that goes. That will be nice for me if I want to go somewhere for a short time and she'll have to start taking them when I go back to work.

Well, I hear the little munchkin filling her diaper for me again, so I'd better go for now. Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words....

....And This is the Picture!

Oh boy is all I have to say at this moment. As you can probably guess by the lack of recent posts, we've had quite a week or so with our little one. Andy and I have both been fighting slight colds (luckily it doesn't look like Sara has gotten it) and I have some mystery stomach bug that will not go away (going to the doctor tomorrow before anyone yells at me).

On top of all that joy, Sara has had quite a week too. She doesn't seem to be sick at all, but she is not having good nights this week. She has gotten progressively worse each night with last night being terrible. She pretty much screamed despite all our efforts all evening, which is great for Andy since that's the only time he sees her. I nursed her once an hour to try to calm her down. This worked for about 10 minutes each time with her sleeping, but she woke up shortly thereafter screaming. Andy tried to sleep with her on the couch for a while, which worked for about half an hour around 11. I fed her again and slept with her on me in bed for about an hour and a half before the screaming started again. I got her to calm down and she slept on Andy until about 4:30. I fed her again around 5 and we put her down in her swing out in the living room with all the lights off. This seemed to work and she slept until almost 9 - her longest stretch in a while. I just hate putting her in the swing all the time because I feel like she'll never learn to sleep on her own in a bed if we don't keep trying to put her down in one at night. However, desperate times call for the swing and this little family needs sleep! It may be used all night tonight if she repeats the same behavior just so we can get some rest.

After such a great night, Andy still got up at 5 and went to work on no sleep. This has been such a horrible experience with Andy's work. For those who don't know, his plant is in a MAJOR turnaround where they shut everything down, refurbish/replace parts, and then start back up. This hasn't been done in something like 8 years to give you an idea of how massive the project is. Of course this started a week before Sara was born and Andy has been working non-stop since his two weeks off with us. He's had to go in almost every weekend and this one appears to be no different. He's working so much on such little sleep and I am with a newborn all the time with little break. It's so stressful on its own and now we're both not feeling well. I'm sure everyone who has children can empathize! At this point I'm just praying for a break of some sort - hopefully the doctor can figure out what's wrong with my stomach tomorrow and at least get that under control since we clearly cannot control our newborn!

While this week has seemed endless and not so nice, there are a few positive things to talk about. Sara had her second set of visitors this past weekend when her Nana and Grandpa came to see her. Of course they were smitten with her and really enjoyed spending time with her. Nana was even excited to change diapers - she clearly had not had to do this for a while to be so excited about it!

Sara also had some friends stop by and got to meet Dottie, Jason, and Cambria for the first time (they've been fighting illness too!). Andy and I were shocked to see how much Cambria had grown in just a couple months - she is walking and talking a bit too. She is definitely going to be tall like her mom. It will be so fun when the girls are old enough to really play together!

Fred, Katie, and Lily also stopped by for a visit. Lily really digs her exersaucer and is all smiles these days. I'm so jealous of how well she sleeps in the crib - even when it's Sara's crib she's in! There will be a serious celebration in the Athon house when Sara really sleeps on her own consistently and only gets up to eat at night!

It's so great when we get to see friends and I'm able to talk to other moms about all kinds of baby stuff. I feel really lucky that Dottie and Katie had their babies first so that I can ask them all kinds of questions. They are such a great resource - I hope I can pay them back someday with some great tip I've discovered!

Also this past weekend, we really started to see some new developmental changes in Sara. She could always focus on a face, but now she is really looking at people for long periods of time and studying what they are doing. She tracks people when the walk across a room - even turning her head upside down a bit to follow someone. She has also started to turn and look at a person when they come into the room and sit down near her. It's neat to see her becoming so aware of her surroundings.

She also appears to be able to see quite a bit better these days. We think she's looking at pictures on the wall and other objects that are approximately 3-6 feet away. She seems to be able to really look at these things now instead of just glancing around sort of in a daze and objects catch her attention more than the ceiling now :)

The most exciting development is that Sara is starting to really smile now. She's still working on it, but just this weekend she started to respond with slight smiles when being talked to. She's starting to do it a bit more each day and it really seems as though it's intentional now and not random like it was before. We're looking forward to more smiles and less crying for sure!

Well, the little creature is starting to stir again so I better go for now. I added some more pictures to the website - the ones of Sara in the purple outfit are from her one month birthday. I had planned to add them that night but things just have not worked out lately. We also have a few more videos that we hope to upload soon. They take such a long time to load that I've just been focusing on the pictures for now. Hopefully we'll all get healthy and happy soon and I can get a bit more things on the site!

Hope you are all doing well - we love the comments and appreciate everyone checking in on us from time to time. We miss you all and hope you can all come to see Sara sometime soon!

Lots of love,

Andy, Valarie, and Sara

Our Chunky Baby

Wow - Sara is one month old today! Andy and I can't believe it's already been a month since she was born - she'll probably be 15 tomorrow and we won't know what happened.

We just got back from the doctor and quick meal at the local IHOP and thought we'd give a quick update on how things went. I thought Sara would be somewhere around 8 1/2 pounds since I could tell she was getting heavier and knew she was eating well. Andy thought she would be 9 pounds just from how heavy she felt. Well, we were both underestimating our little chunky baby....

Sara now weighs 9lbs 10oz!!! She is also now 21 1/4 inches long. This puts her in the 62% for weight and 55% for length.

I knew she was eating well but I am still shocked that she has gained so much weight. Dr. Gray says her weight gain is perfectly normal and is a good sign that she is healthy and happy with the breastmilk. So, we are happy parents.

Sara had to get one shot today for Hepatitis B, but this was much better than the heel prick she had to have last time. They had to prick her heel three times and squeeze on it for several minutes to get all the blood they needed for that, but this was a quick shot and went over much better. There was still screaming when the shot when in, but I was able to calm her down within a few minutes and she was off to sleep again in her carseat so we could get some breakfast. I'm not thinking next month's visit will be quite as nice since she will have to have four shots all at once, but hopefully it won't be too bad.

The doctor also told us that Sara is ready to start sleeping in her own bed now, so we will try to start the transition to her crib soon. I still feel a bit nervous not having her in the room with me, but I suppose there really isn't any difference in her bassinet and her crib. We have the baby monitor all charged up so we'll get to test that out too. I'm pretty sure I can hear her cry even without it, but hopefully the monitor will wake me up before she gets too upset and awake for a night feeding. If she'll go down in her crib, I'll start feeding her in the rocker in her room so she isn't dragged across the house and woken up at night. This will be good for her but not as fun for me since I've been able to stay in bed and feed her so far.

On another note, Andy and I found that there are some seriously scary people hanging out at the IHOP on a random Wednesday morning. Anytime I'm out in the middle of a weekday (hardly ever when not on maternity leave), I always wonder how there can be so many cars and people out and about. Doesn't most everyone else have to work too? Well, today I think we saw the type of crowd that isn't at work too - and there were a ton of kids out with these people - don't they need to be in school? It was a little disturbing for sure - be sure to check out your local IHOP sometime in the middle of a weekday and see for yourself :)

Happy Wednesday....

The Miracle of the Pacifier

After a month of complete rejection, Sara has finally decided that maybe the pacifier is not such a bad thing after all. This has pretty much been a miracle for me since I was her pacifier until now (which meant I got little sleep when she just wanted to suck on something). The pacifier is helping her to make her three hour intervals between feedings that the pediatrician had told us to work toward and it's also calmed her in the bassinet at night and she's doing a bit better going down for the night.

Sara has started to get tired of being swaddled and wants to sleep with her arms either up in the air or up over her head. I'd been putting her down in the swing during the day without bundling her up and she seemed to like it, but we couldn't get her to do the same at night. Yesterday I decided to try putting her down in the bassinet during the day with her pacifier to see how she would do. I took the sleep positioner out of the bed and just put her down with a blanket lightly around her and her arms free. She wasn't sure at first, but the pacifier seemed to calm her and she took a nap in there long enough for me to take a shower and get dressed. We decided to try it again for the night and she actually did pretty well. We got out one of the sleep sacks to put her in since she wasn't bundled up tight and stuck that pacifier in when she started to stir. That helped her go down for her first round and she didn't need the pacifier at all for the stretch in the middle of the night. She seems happy to not be swaddled but she does wake herself up more frequently when her arms are free to flail. The baby books say they get used to having their arms and legs free to roam at about two months, so hopefully we're on our way to her not waking herself up everytime an arm moves!

This past weekend also brought us our first real extended outting. Andy and I both desperately needed haricuts so we went to one of the quick places and took turns with Sara while we got our hair cut. I was able to feed her in the car while Andy finished up and then we headed down to Rice Village to eat lunch and go to A Woman's Work. A Woman's Work is a great store for moms and babies - especially for nursing supplies and I needed to get some nursing bras now that my milk supply is well established. Sara slept most of the time in her stroller and they even had chairs and magazines for dads to wait in. Lastly we hit the grocery store briefly on our way home to get a few things. Andy went in to shop and I changed and fed Sara in the car again. The one bad thing about traveling is that the carseat seems to promote pooping and the way she fits in the seat causes her to blow out her diaper out her back every time. Luckily I've been smart enough to remember outfit changes each time we've left the house because we've needed one each time she has been in the car!

It was so nice to be able to leave the house for the whole afternoon and be outside for a bit. It's fun to go out as a family too - I can't wait for Sara to start getting interested in her surroundings and really enjoy going to new places.

Hope everyone is having a good week - Sara goes back to the doctor tomorrow for her one month checkup so we'll find out how much our little chunker weighs now. I'm betting over 8 pounds for sure as much as she's eating! I know she has to get one shot tomorrow, which I'm not looking forward to. Think happy thoughts for Sara and hopefully the shot won't hurt too much.

Until next time,

Andy, Valarie, and Sara

PS - Thanks for the comments on the blog - it's fun to see who's looking at the site and have some comments to read!

A Good Night

We got our one good night for the week last night - we were able to get out of the house for a quick Valentine's dinner at a local pizza place and Sara did pretty good. She doesn't like being strapped into her carseat if the car isn't moving, so she woke up at the restaurant after a few minutes. Luckily she was calm once we picked her up and could take turns holding her and eating. She did manage to have a nice diaper blowout at the restaurant and we got to change her entire outfit in the car before we left for home, but it was still really nice to get out of the house for a while! The good night continued at home when Sara went down in her bassinet at 10:30 and slept for four hours. She went back down in the bassinet two more times and got up around 7:30 to eat. She seems to wake up when it gets light outside just like her daddy. It will be nice when she's on more of a sleeping schedule and stays in her bassinet or crib all night regularly, but we'll take the good nights we can get for now.


Sara did pretty good today too and is eating constantly. I think she might be having one of her many growth spurts - she's going to be a big chunky baby soon! I'm glad that she's eating so well, but it is hard being home alone with her all day when she needs to eat all the time because I can't get anything done. I barely got a shower today before she started screaming to eat again! Hopefully she'll be done with this growth spurt in a day or so and will go down for some longer naps again during the day!

Happy Valentine's Day

Today is off to a nice start with my little Valentine, so I thought I would put a quick post and picture of Sara in her Valentine outfit.

Sara had her second real bath today and still seems to like the water. She started kicking her feet half way through and splashing against the side of the tub. She probably wasn't doing it on purpose, but I think she likes the feeling of the warm water and is very calm and alert each time she gets a bath so far.

She's back to snoozing in her swing after a brief interruption when the mailman rang the doorbell and the dogs went nuts. She doesn't mind the doorbell, but barking dogs will wake her every time and she gets upset. Luckily I was able to get her back to sleep for a bit and put her back down so she can finish her nap. Things go well when she gets plenty of sleep, but the screaming starts when she gets too tired and then it's hard to get her to go to sleep at all.

I hope everyone has a good Valentine's Day - I'm hoping that the day goes well and maybe we can all get out of the house for a quick dinner tonight to celebrate our first Valentine's Day with Sara!

Welcome to Parenthood

Well, it's official now - we are parents! Sara Katherine Athon was born on January 20th at 12:54pm after a long and painful 12 1/2 hour labor that mom somehow did without pain medication like she wanted. Sara weighed 7lbs 8oz and was 20 1/2 inches long. She had some trouble breathing at first and was taken to the NICU at Texas Children's Hospital for treatment. It turned out that she just had some left over fluid in her lungs that she hadn't gotten rid of, which was the best case scenario because it meant there was no infection or other more serious problem to worry about. After three days we were able to bring her home and begin life as a new family.

Seeing as it's taken me just over three weeks to even have a moment to add something to our website, parenting a newborn has taken over our entire lives. I finally have a few minutes where she is actually sleeping in her swing, so I thought I would try to write some words about life so far and what Sara has been up to. We will try to update our website with news and fun things that Sara is doing often, but please be patient with us as life is still very chaotic and some days are spent entirely trying to settle her down when she's crying. We often don't have time to do much more than take care of her and breathe so no complaints when it takes a long time to get a new post!

After leaving the hospital, Andy was home for the first two weeks with us (and that was fantastic!). He was able to help take care of me and Sara as we recovered from our hospital stays and really spend some time with us. He's now back at work for his second week and that is very tiring for all of us. He has to get up early on little sleep to go to work and I am home alone with Sara all day which is a lot of work too!

We have spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out how to keep Sara happy and I spent lots of time with Sara establishing nursing. Luckily all the pumping I had done in the hospital when she wasn't allowed to nurse worked well and my milk came in right on time at about day 3. Sara was able to pick up nursing well despite not being able to start right after birth which was a huge relief for me as I want her to be an exclusively breastfed baby and didn't want to have to give her formula at all.

We are now starting to settle into a bit of a routine with eating and sleeping, but Sara is still too little to be on any exact schedule. She eats every 2-3 hours during the day and goes 3-4 hours at night before waking up hungry. She does have day and night straightened out and sleeps for 3-4 hour increments starting about 10pm most nights until morning comes. Unfortunately, she really hates to sleep by herself and will only go down in her bassinet when she is extrememly tired at night. We've been having to start her off at night sleeping on one of us either in bed or on the couch and then try to put her down in her own bed after the next feeding. We're lucky if she'll do two full sleep cycles in her own bed, but that doesn't happen most nights. We keep trying to put her down on her own in hopes that she will get used to it, but she's still not having any of it and we pick her up anytime she gets upset since she is too little to let her cry.

Sara had several sponge baths while her cord was still attached and luckily seems to like the water unlike most newborns. She finally lost her cord at almost three weeks and had her first real bath yesterday in the tub. She also seemed to like being in the water and was very calm for the whole bath. Hopefully that will continue and bathtime will be fun for her. It will be neat when she is old enough to enjoy splashing and playing with toys in the bath.

Sara is awake when not eating about 2-3 times throughout the day for about an hour or so. There isn't a whole lot to do with her right now since she is so little but we make faces and hold toys in front of her to look at. We have play time on the floor where we help her touch toys of different colors and textures and she also does some tummy time on the floor each day to help her develop her neck muscles. She can already hold her head up really well for about a minute at a time and can look around on her own briefly too. This past weekend we bought a play mat that has toys hanging down for her to focus on. She will eventually be big enough to reach the toys and they can be pulled down easily to play with.

Sara had her first family visitors this past weekend when her Grandaddy and TruTru came for a few days to see her. They were able to hold her and play with her and we're pretty sure that Sara had a good time :)




Sara also had her first real outting since coming home from the hospital this past weekend where we went to Target and out to eat. She did really well and likes to sleep in the carseat as long as the car is moving. I brought along a pillow and was able to nurse her in the car in between stops and that kept her happy for the duration. It was nice to be able to leave the house for a while and get out into the world since we've pretty much been staying home and inside except for daily walks around the neighborhood. It will be good to start going more places as she gets older and get out of the house more often!


Well that is a good highlight summary of life so far with Sara at home. We are two very tired parents and some days are better than others but Sara is doing well and we are looking forward to all the new things she will start doing soon as she gets more interactive with us.


Lots of Love,
Andy, Valarie, and Sara