month 12

better horribly late than never, right? this post was written on December 28th, but it took until now to get it posted.

dear Cora,

Happy Birthday my sweet girl! this has been such a fun and special month for us. you seem to grow daily, and learn new things as well. you had your first Thanksgiving and your first Christmas! you saw so many family members and loved on so many people. you are such a sweet girl and you love and are loved so easily.

let’s start with the really fun stuff first. you took your first step on December 6th! and then one week later, on December 13th, I picked you up from daycare and your teachers told me you had been walking around all day! you are on the move now, girlie. you toddle around pretty good, and while crawling is still the fastest way for you to get places, you take such delight in popping yourself up and walking a few steps, falling down, and then popping right back up. this has definitely been a huge milestone and we are loving watching you toddle. next week, I’m sure you will be running 😛

and then you got your first tooth! I felt it on December 8th and it popped through later in the month. now it is this tiny little white square in your mouth. i love seeing it there because it means soon you will be able to eat more table foods, but I will miss your completely gummy smile. this period of babyhood goes by so quickly.

you started signing “more” this month which is such a help for me when you are eating dinner, but you aren’t as consistent with using it. you also started getting very picky about eating this month. I don’t know where that came from. all of a sudden you are spitting bites of food out or refusing them altogether, and when I bring the spoon or fork to your mouth you will arch your head back and carefully inspect what is on it before eating it, in case I am trying to trick you by offering you a new food. 😛 I hope this doesn’t last long because there are so many yummy foods I want you to try now that you are getting teeth. and I’m a little worried you won’t eat your birthday cake – I think I’m way more excited than you about this, but I really want you to go crazy with it.

we are definitely in separation anxiety mode and you are getting sad when mommy and daddy leave you anywhere, but the good news is that you are getting sad when daddy leaves you and not just when mommy leaves – you are less resistant to daddy this month which is a relief – that mommy’s girl thing you were doing was really hurting daddy’s feelings.

you love to turn the lights on and off and you especially love to push the garage door button when we get home from daycare. as we walk close to it, you bounce in my arms and laugh/squeal. then I will say “push the red button” and you try your hardest a couple of times and then finally get it and laugh and bounce some more. you also really  love taking things out – of anything. baskets, bags, laundry baskets – anything that has things in it, you like to take them out and fling them behind you. it’s adorable. especially the laundry – I spend so much time folding the laundry and placing it in the basket and the you come over to “help” and throw it all out.

the size 3 diapers are finally fitting great and you are wearing size 6-9 month clothes..

favorites

Cora – walking! phoebe, the refrigerator magnets, getting into cabinets you aren’t supposed to, fluffy blankets.

Me – you!

pictures

no

my baby turned 11 months old today. I overslept and didn’t have time to give her bottle and cuddle her. she had to feed herself. and I was equal parts sad and proud. I have felt out of sorts all day because that cuddle time in the morning grounds me and prepares me for the day. without it, I’m left wandering. and yet, my sleepy babe held her own bottle and drank the whole thing without spilling a drop while I rushed about to get ready. a month ago I would have been late to work, with no other option but to feed her myself. sad and proud.

tomorrow is thanksgiving. I have been looking forward to letting her eat thanksgiving food all year. she still doesn’t have any teeth. but she will enjoy mashed potatoes and stuffing, and probably some other goodies.

on a rushed trip to carters last night a sales girl told Cora that she has the most beautiful blue eyes she had ever seen. Cora told her no with her wrinkled nose and head shake. the sales girl and I laughed. while feeding her dinner, Cora started crying and saying “maaamaaamaaamaaa.” so I said, “I’m the mama.” Cora told me no. with tears and a head shake. I almost cried myself.

no is a new favorite word. and my only response is no.

changing

dear Cora,

yesterday morning, I got you out of your crib, and you had changed overnight. your facial features were just a little bit different. the expressions you make a little more pronounced. it is amazing and terrifying, the rate at which you change. I spend whole minutes every day trying to memorize everything about you, because tomorrow you will be a different little girl. you are funny and sweet and kind. you are also stubborn, hardheaded, and determined. you are becoming so much more communicative. you wave now to say “hi,” “bye,” or “night-night.” you sign when you are hungry most of the time. and you sparingly sign “all done.”  this weekend you learned to shake your head to say “no.” and used it. a lot. your daddy and I giggled every time you shook your little head at us and whispered under our breaths “uh oh, what has she learned?”  you tried to share your bottle with me a few times on Friday evening, and almost popped it right into my mouth because I was not expecting it. and on Friday night when I asked you if you were ready for bed, you waved to say “night-night” and then looked frantically around because your daddy was not in the room and you always say “night-night” to him before you go to bed. I love these sweet moments with you, and am so thankful I get to be your mommy.

month 10

dear Cora,

happy 10 months, dear one!

this month has been so full of fun. you love playing, and singing, and dancing. when we sing to you, you dance and clap. you waved bye bye for the first time on the 23^rd. it was the funniest wave, you just put your hand up and held it there. too cool to actually wave your arm around 😛 you also signed “all done” after I signed it to you! I think that means you are starting to really understand it, and hopefully will use it more and more. you also sign “hungry” now, which is fantastic, unless you do it at the grocery store when we aren’t even half way done shopping 😛 luckily, puffs always save the day.

you are a total champ at pulling yourself up to standing, and we had to lower the crib to the lowest height this month. you are growing like a weed. I feel like you are so tall now. when you pull yourself up on your play table, you can reach so much farther. you are also getting a further reach at the coffee table. no cell phone, remote control, napkin, or cup is safe with you around 😛 we really should get rid of the coffee table, but I don’t know where I would put my glass 😛

you got an ear infection this month and are taking antibiotics for it. you were such a sad baby for a few days, it broke my heart. you also had basically no appetite, and weren’t eating very much. it worried me a lot, so we went to the doctor and he prescribed antibiotics. once the antibiotics kicked in, your appetite started to come back and your mood improved a ton. you are back to eating your normal amount, and drinking all of your bottles.

you still don’t have a single tooth! even without teeth, your pediatrician gave us the ok to start feeding you some softer table food. you had rotisserie chicken, bread, cheese, green beans, and baked potato this month. you love picking food up and feeding yourself, but you do get a little frustrated that you can’t get the quantity of food you are used to eating in the same amount of time 😛

I worry that you are almost done breastfeeding. I really wanted to breastfeed for a whole year, but then pumping was so awful so I stopped doing that. we have made it a whole two months longer without pumping, which is kind of a miracle, but you get less and less interested every day. I’m already starting to grieve the loss of that special time with you. giving up breastfeeding means you are growing from my tiny baby into a little girl, and I’m just not ready.

you are sleeping great. your bedtime is around 7 pm, I nurse and feed you a bottle at 9 and then you usually sleep until 6 am when I nurse and feed you another bottle. most mornings you go back to sleep after that and sleep until Daddy wakes you up for school around 7 am. I am so thankful you are turning into such a great sleeper.

you are so expressive lately! you make the funniest faces, and “talk” really loudly. it’s quite funny and entertaining. you also rarely sit still for me to take photos of you anymore. most of the time, I get at least ten photos of you crawling closer to the camera and/or reaching for the lens. 😛

you are still wearing size 2 diapers, and 3-6 and 6-9 month clothing.

favorites

Cora – standing, playing with anything you aren’t supposed to, crawling super fast, anything that makes sound or plays music.

Me – sleeping through the night and snuggling you in the morning.

pictures

month 9

dear Cora,

you are 9 months old! You have been here with us for the same amount of time I was pregnant. It is amazing to think that you have been in our lives for 18 months. this has been the best time of my life. I love you so much.

this month you started clapping, pulling yourself up to standing and you signed your first baby sign. you clap when you are happy or excited, and it’s really fun to clap with you. you will stop clapping, watch us clap for a minute, and then get a huge smile on your face, bounce a bit, and go back to clapping. you are also, a champion at pulling yourself up to standing on furniture. you did it for the first time on the couch, but now, you pull up on everything. I am so scared of our coffee table now because it seems that every single surface is a big square edge that I’m scared you will hurt yourself on. you are also extremely quick at pulling yourself up on the coffee table and then grabbing something you shouldn’t have. your favorite things to go after are cell phones, remotes, and beverages.

you have been signing “all done” to us. we noticed you doing it when you were eating it, but it’s not with both hands so at first we weren’t sure it was an actual sign, but the more you did it, the more deliberate it seemed. you even did it during a diaper change, which cracked me up! We checked with Ms. Angela at daycare, and sure enough, that is what you are saying. now we’ve really beefed up how often we sign to you, in hopes that you will pick up more signs…we just want to know what you need/want.

you have been sort of a weird eater this month and I kept thinking maybe it’s teething, but you are 9 months old and there isn’t a tooth in sight! you haven’t really wanted to eat solid foods at dinner time. you will take a few bites and then scream your head off for the next 20 minutes, no matter what I try, you will not eat. so you nurse and/or take a bottle. a couple of times this month I have been too exhausted to even try the process, so I’ve just made you a bottle and once you drink it, then I put you in the high chair to eat puffs or mum mum bars. I tried to give you cut up ripe banana, but you were not loving it.
all three of us got sick this month. you had a cold, and then daddy and I caught it too. you were all better in about 3 days, but it’s been two weeks and I am still coughing, although my runny nose seems to be improving greatly.

we took you to Monterey for Labor Day and spent the night. Grandpa and Jen were there and we stayed in the same hotel with them. I was worried about the car ride, so we went the weekend before and bought a bigger car seat for you, in hopes to make the trip more comfortable. you slept the WHOLE drive to Monterey. that’s three hours! We were very relieved. you loved all of the walks we took in Monterey – the weather was perfect and you slept in your stroller a lot. you also loved playing on the hotel bed with us. you were not very happy that we slept in the same room though. you were definitely bothered by us being there and kept waking up and crying. I was so tired and not getting any sleep, so I finally pulled you into the bed to sleep with us at about 6 am and got about an hour of uninterrupted sleep.

when we got home from the trip, it took a few days for your sleep to adjust back. we had quite a few nights of crying for over an hour in the middle of the night, and you just wanted to be held. but this month you improved greatly at self-soothing and putting yourself back to sleep! you have been sleeping through the night for the past two weeks! now if you wake up in the middle of the night, you put yourself back to sleep within 10 minutes or less. it is FANTASTIC and we thank you for that. you are now going to be around 7 pm, we feed you one last time around 9 pm, and then you wake up anywhere from 5-6:30 am for the day. we are still trying to figure out how to get you to nap better at daycare.

you are still wearing size 2 diapers, and size 3-6 month clothing. I realized this month I had so many cute summer clothes that are in size 6-9 months that you won’t even get to wear. I put you in a couple of the things, but they are so big, some of them were impeding your ability to crawl 😛

favorites

Cora – crawl ball, blocks, the iPad, stuffed animals

Me – when you snuggle, or put your head to my lips to get a kiss, sitting in the front yard with you while you watch the world, how happy you are

pictures

we remember

it has been 12 years since I sat in my high school spanish class and watched in horror as the twin towers fell, as the pentagon was hit, as brave Americans re-directed a flight into a field in Pennsylvania. 12 years and I still face this day with a heavy heart and teary eyes. this morning my heart was heavier than normal.

this morning I dressed my baby girl in an “american sweetheart” onsie and I realized that one day she will ask me why September 11th is a day of remembrance. I realized I will have to explain to my daughter about hate. how there are people in the world who hate us so much, they would sacrifice themselves to hurt us. how almost 3,000 people lost their lives in the attack. 3,000 who were living their life one moment, and were gone the next. I don’t want to have this conversation with her. I don’t want her to know anything about hate, or death, or destruction.

but I will also get to tell her how love rose up. how men and women from all over the country, all over the world really, stood together, pulled together, and did whatever they could to help. they donated blood, they donated money, they donated time. America and Americans were severely underestimated. because love rose up. while we were devastated, we were not destroyed. while we hurt, we were not defeated. while we were angry, we held on to each other.

so while I wish my daughter didn’t have to grow up in a post 9/11 world, I am grateful that she will grow up in a world where we take moments every year to memorialize the lives we lost. to be sad for what happened. to be thankful for those who stepped up to help us.

so today and everyday, we remember.
and we love.

how did it get so late so soon?

How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon? ― Dr. Seuss

my baby is 6 months old today. where has that time gone? I have been back at work for 1 month. where has that time gone?

I spent my entire childhood hoping time would speed up, that I would grow up faster, that I would be an adult, that my life would begin. and it seemed to take FOREVER. time moved so slowly.

then I turned 18. and I blinked. now I’m 28. I have a husband, a home, and 6 months of pure joy in a tiny baby girl package. I’m afraid if I take a nap, she’ll be 28. with a husband. and possibly a baby of her own.

I feel like I’m standing still while time rushes by me and I have my hands outstretched, desperately trying to slow it down, to grab on to the good times, and hold them tight, before they are gone.

there isn’t enough time in the day to be all things. to be a mother, a wife, a friend, a daughter, a sister,  a coworker, an employee, a housekeeper, a crafter, a blogger. I’m a poor juggler. I am working towards being ok with not getting everything done every day. and focusing on being a wife and mother first. if that means I go to bed, and get up the next day, and the living room is still a mess from the night before, that’s the way it is. I’m trying to soak up all of this beautiful time with a little girl who learns, grows, and develops every day. every night as I’m getting ready for bed, utterly exhausted, and craving sleep, I think, someday, I will want this time back. and that keeps me going.

month 1

in Cora’s first month of life, she had her first sponge bath, her umbilical cord stump fell off around week 2, and then she got her first real bath. she started to pick her head up after a couple of days, and by the end of the month, she had really good control over it. she really enjoys the bath, and really doesn’t like tummy time. most of her day is spent sleeping, but everyday she spends more time awake and alert. she started to respond to the sounds of J and my voices, and she began to focus more on us when we held her. she cries only when she is hungry, tired, needs a diaper change, or needs us to move around, or hold her in a different position. she also struggles to have bowel movements. but when she cries, she SCREAMS. she definitely has a great set of lungs, and isn’t afraid to use them. sometimes it is almost humorous how loud she gets. other times, it gets me pretty frazzled because I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong, or what I can do to comfort her.

Cora is wearing newborn sized diapers and they were really big when she was first born, but they are starting to get pretty small. she is also filling out newborn sized clothing better.

favorites
Cora – fischer price swing which was a hand-me-down from one of my bosses, the fischer price snug-a-bunny bouncer which is a loaner from Cora’s cousin, fischer price my little lamb bassinet also on loan from cousin G and where Cora sleeps in our room next to our bed, and the moses basket which was a gift from my mom.

Me – Lanisoah lanolin is a god send for sore nipples from breastfeeding, Lanisoah disposable breast pads to help with unpredictable lactating. I had made my own but they really don’t work. the disposable ones are worth it, in my opinion. gerber mittens because I’m too scared to clip Cora’s nails and I don’t want her to scratch her pretty face, summer infant swaddle me swaddle – Cora sleeps better when swaddled but she breaks out of regular swaddles with blankets, nursing tank tops – I think these are way better than bras, and my nursing cover which I made myself and has become invaluable to being able to go out.

month 1 photos:

update

I’m a bad, bad blogger. it seems every time I find a moment to think about what I might want to write about, Cora starts to cry, or I realize the dishwasher is full, or hey! I can shower! the past (almost) 6 weeks have been exhausting, amazing, and indescribable.

I’ve had so many sweet mommy moments with this beautiful little girl and I am so grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to stay at home with Cora so far. sleep is getting better. Cora slept for 8 hours the other night, giving me 7 hours of beautiful sleep. and she slept 7 hours the two nights previous to that, and 7 hours last night, so I am grateful for that too. she has actually been a pretty good sleeper from the beginning. she would sleep two to four hours at a time in the night since birth and she has gradually been increasing the time she sleeps. don’t get me wrong, she is a newborn, so we have had our fair share of rough nights. sometimes she is just inconsolable but usually only if she has been overstimulated during the day or is overtired (this mama can’t blame her as she sometimes feels exactly the same way at the end of the day :P).

Cora is also a champion eater. she has a great latch and eats very efficiently. I think the longest a nursing session has lasted is about 40 minutes. usually she is finished in 10 to 20 minutes. I am very thankful she has not had any problem eating or gaining weight. at her 2 week check up, she had already gained all of the weight she had lost back, plus a half a pound. and she just keeps getting bigger and bigger. it’s bittersweet seeing her already grow and change from my teeny tiny newborn to this (almost) 6 week old.

I’m working on writing about Cora’s first month and getting some photos uploaded.

running out of womb

we are running out of room in the womb over here. baby girl has been making it known for the past 48 hours just how uncomfortable she is in there. mostly by making it uncomfortable for the mama 😛 she presses her little feet or her little bottom up and out causing my belly to move into weird contorted angles and she will shove herself so far up into my rib cage that it’s hard to breathe. but it’s always up. I keep wanting to tell her down is the direction she needs to go to be able to get out, but it’s too soon for that, so I just laugh at the weird shapes my belly takes on, try to comfort her a little with some belly rubbing, and tell her that I’m sorry she is so uncomfortable but that she will have to remain put for at least another 3 more weeks, at least until full term. chances are she will be in there for at least another 6 as most first time moms don’t deliver before their due date. so hopefully I keep expanding, making more room for my stretcher.