In the blink of an eye!

This is LONG overdue! Things have been very busy in the Peterson household let me tell you. I got ANOTHER new job and have quite the old one. I am very happy with what I am doing now and I can see myself at this company for a very long time. I finally found my niche :) Enough of the boring stuff...  now for the Emma stuff.

This kid...

Her favorite thing to do right now is SCREAM! Not a mad or sad scream but a high pitched shrill, earth shattering, wake you out of a coma SCREAM. She really enjoys hearing herself (just like her mamma:)). On top of the screaming and constant babble she's starting to move. It's not a full on baby crawl but more of an army crawl with a twirl in the middle. I probably should not admit this story but...

When I get ready in the morning I lay her on a blanket in the middle of the room. She rolls a little bit, pulls on Margaret, and plays with her rainbow giraffe (her favorite toy right now). Yesterday morning, as I was getting ready, I had this aching feeling like I should run in her room and check on her. As I entered her room I saw that she had shimmied across the floor (like 2 feet which is like 25miles in baby distance!) and was SUCKING on the CORD of her humidifier.

Mother of the year right here.

Needless to say my days of plopping her on a blanker to quietly play with a toy are over.

On top of the talking(SCREAMING) and moving she's also been given the OK to eat solids. This has been quite a journey for us. Ever since she was born she has only pooped every 3-4 days. The doctor was never concerned until her 4mo. check up. After countless home remedies (Yes! I tried Karo Syrup!) and 7 formula changes I can now say that I no longer view cloth diapers as an easy road anymore. This kid is a pooping machine. For anyone reading this with the same issues, we are using Gerber Goodstart Gentle, which is a whey based formula that is already broken down unlike milk or soy based formulas, which is exactly what she was having an issue with. I also give her 2oz. of white grape juice mixed with water a day because the sugar (which is not the same that is found in formula) helps create more water in her digestive system which allows her to poop.

I never thought I would ever care so much about a turd.

Anyways, she's eating food and it is so much fun! Wes being the "foodie" that he is, is beside himself with excitement and has been researching all sorts of baby food recipes to give her. He asks me every other day, "When can we start giving her meat? Like a nice filet or maybe some swordfish?" All in due time my dear, all in due time. So far we have given her butternut squash and avocado. The squash was a no go but this avocado - HOLY COW! She couldn't get enough! Like many of my 'mommy' friends, we are making our own baby food for now. My first try at it was her cereal. Susie was in town for this attempt and she can attest that it did not go so well. The recipe said to grind it to a fine rice 'dust'. Well my definition of dust and the books definition of dust are NOT the same. After mixing it with some formula and feeding it to her I watched her go from a cute pink color to a red and then to a bluish-purplish tinge. Yes that's right, I let my kid chew on electrical cords and I choke her with her own food.

Oh My! This avocado is delectable!

She made it out alive and I immediately ran to the store and bought her cereal. Come to find out - she HATES cereal. She won't even eat one spoonful. We have since given up on the cereal and have moved to bigger and better things. Next week: parsnips.

We have taken her to the pool a few times and she loves to swim. The second her feet touch water they're like a little motor that don't stop until we pull her out. She spent some time in the pool with her best bud Benji a few weeks ago and they had a blast!

"I know my mom wants me to marry you but I don't know how I feel about you yet..."

This next bit of info. may be TMI for some but those that know me know I don't really keep much to myself (a trait I hope Emma does NOT get from me!). After 25 years of no birth control...

Wes finally made (and I mean he practically drove me to the doctor himself) me. We've always used good 'ol rubbers however after a few drinks they tend to look less and less attractive. The pill really isn't an option because I'm not a huge fan of hormones and believe that women are suppose to meet Aunt Flo every month. So I have opted for the copper IUD - Paraguard. My only issue with this: it's for 10 years or until I have it removed. That means that I (or We) will have to make a conscious effort to set up the appointment, have it removed, and go for another baby. I cannot talk Wes into this idea after a few drinks or when the mood hits me right. I will actually have to make an educated decision to have another child.

Not Cool.

And now for some Emma pix :)

ROCK ON party animals!!!

No Margaret - that's MY toy!

My dress is prettier than yours...

Fairy Princess

Rock'n and a Rollin'

It all started with a roll...

Not a dinner roll.

I woke up one morning and realized that at some point in the night she had rolled onto her stomach. Anyone who has had a baby in the last 10 years knows that BABIES DO NOT SLEEP ON THEIR STOMACHS! "Back to sleep" is the slogan they drill into your head before you're even allowed to leave the hospital. Posters, videos, paperwork - it all says BACK TO SLEEP and before you know it you're mumbling the slogan in your sleep and getting mad at yourself everytime you fall asleep on your stomach.

I wasn't sure how to battle this problem because she's been pretty slow to learn how to roll back to her back. I started swaddling her at night (we had stopped because it was getting a little warm outside and in our older house the air conditioner doesn't always make it upstairs) but the swaddle seemed to give her more momentum. She'd start rocking back and forth and then finally PLOP she's on her stomach again.

So until she learns to roll on her back I spend my nights listening for muffled noises so that I can fly out of bed and roll her back.

She did NOT want me to see her roll either. Every time she did it I was out of the room. I would hide around the corner of the door or under blankets in the corner so she couldn't see me. Of course she would roll for Wes or Carol (the daycare lady) but not for Mommy.

On top of rolling she's been moving a lot. I don't know how else to explain it other than 'moving'. I will put her in the middle of the room on her blanket and come back 5 minutes later and she's magically turned upside down huddling in the corner of the room. Or I will wake up in the morning and she's some how jumped out of the pack-n-play and is laying in the dirty laundry pile in the closet. Maybe that's a little far but it truly is baffling to me how she maneuvers her way around. It's more of a shuffle that is oddly similar to the shuffle of me squeezing into my pre-pregnancy jeans. Maybe that's where she learned it.

Just a warning to all of you - she's a talker. You have all experienced my talking and talking and talking, just wait til this one can form words! She's constantly jibbering and screaming and shrieking about one thing or the other. She even does it in her sleep! Poor Wes is truly in for a doosie in about a year or so :)

Oops! How'd that one get in here? :)



 SAD ALERT!!!!

The only other big news in our lives is that we have gone from a family of 5 to a family of 4. Sadly, our Mavis was put to sleep on April 17th. Our beautiful dog was born with kidneys too small for her giant body. The vet warned us that this would happen however we thought that it was going to be a few more years down the road. The last week before we put her down we had noticed that she wasn't eating much and she was drinking lots of water. She had also started to wet herself at night. I made an appointment to have some blood work done on her. When Dr. Calvert came back with the results we knew that it was time. Her kidney's were functioning at a level that would put most dogs down for the count. Not our Mavis :) She was still running, barking, and tearing up it with Margaret, which is what made it that much more difficult. We took her to Burger King for some double cheeseburgers - her favorite - and then on a walk. When we finally put her down, her tongue slipped out of her mouth as it always did when she was sleeping. She was the most well-behaved dog that I had ever met, she was as gentle as could be and she had an unconditional love for us and for Margaret. It's been hard and there hasn't been a day that goes by that I don't cry when I think about her but she is no longer in pain. Over the years her body had become used to feeling lousy which is why she was functioning so well up until the end. I know that she will be waiting for us when we get to where she is and I am going to love on her like she's never been loved on before!

Life with Emma...

Is Great!! I never thought that I would ever become so obsessed with someone. My obsession is borderline unhealthy. Last week I was in Des Moines training for my new job and I couldn't believe that I was going to miss out on 5 bedtimes, 3 baths and countless feedings and diaper changes. So, I took all of Emma's clothes off and wrapped her in one of her favorite blankets so it could fully extract all of her smell. I packed that blanket and slept with it every night. After I dropped her off at daycare for the first time I cried for hours and then sporatically through out the day. I specifically remember hearing the song Extraterrestrail by Katy Perry and bursting into tears because I sing that song to Emma all the time. I spend all day every day wondering, "What's Emma doing RIGHT NOW?", "What's she thinking?", "Has she pooped yet?", "What book should we read tonight?" and I get nothing done at work.

You will all be very impressed with Mr. Wesley as he had to spend the whole week with Emma by himself while I was in Des Moines. I am very happy to day that Emma and dogs came out on the other end unscathed and aside from a few sleepless nights, Wes is still alive. Carol the daycare lady said you could tell that Mom wasn't home because Emma showed up in onesies all week and her hair was crazy (although I'm not sure the hair part is Wes's doing because her hair is always crazy). The one day he did put her in clothes her jeans were on backwards, which I think is an honest mistake for a new dad. AND he had to diaper laundry :) He claims that he can longer help out with this chore as his "Massive, manly hands" are too big to stuff the pad back into the diaper lining...whatever! All in all I was very impressed with my husband.

As some of you have heard, Margaret had a near death experience a few weeks ago. We were sitting on the couch one Sunday night and noticed that Marge kept kneeling on her elbows with her butt in the air. I thought it was cute so I took the opportunity to snap a few pictures. When we tried to feed her she turned the other way and then when she left Mavis alone the whole night, we knew something was totally wrong. I took her into the vet the next morning and they had to perform exploratory surgery. We soon found out that our Pug can be interchanged with the vaccuum. Inside her stomach and intestines they found string, paper towels, green fluff, grass, and a massive piece of blue plastic. The vet said that if we would've waited til the afternoon she wouldn't have made it. And because it's Margaret and nothing is EVER simple when it comes to her, she licked her stitches and gave herself an infection. She was in the pet hospital for 3 days (which sadly seemed like a vacation for us!) and when she was released... all hell broke loose. She couldn't eat or drink so I had to spoon feed her every 2 hours for 2 days straight. If you will all keep in mind that Wes works overnight and has a second job doing security for a grocery store AND I have a 2 month old baby. Between Emma, Margaret and poor Mavis (who just wanted whatever attention I could spare), I was a disaster. So much so that I made Wes call into work one night because I couldn't handle the three of them.

For the love of Pugs.

Wes and I have really enjoyed getting to know Emma better over the past few weeks. She's much more fun then she was that first month. She's laughing, smiling, cooing, crying and she just found her hands a week ago. It's so funny how she looks at them like they are the most amazing things God's ever given her. I agree with her, hands are very useful and I thoroughly enjoy both of mine, but there are cooler things in life than whatevers at the ends of your arms. If she's this entertained with hands... I can't wait to see how she'll react to something truly amazing like the Grand Canyon!

The one thing Wes and I are painfully aware of is her love of being naked. She could be in the middle of the biggest crying fit the world has ever seen and the second you take her clothes, including the diaper, off... it's smiles and laughter. Her favorite thing to do right now: Take a bath. We just hope that this love of no clothes tapers off before she gets to college.

She Has Arrived!!

I am so sorry for not updating this blog since DECEMBER 8TH!!!! Wow! So much has changed in these past 3 months. I think the biggest change has been that we had a BABY! :) Emma Grace Peterson was born on January 9th, 2012 at 6:21pm. She was 7 lbs. 9 oz. and was 21 in. long.

Yes... she's adorable :)









So...

The Birth

My due date was January 7th and poor Susie was getting a little worried that she wasn't going to be able to make it to Omaha on time (little did she know that she would have MORE than enough time!). So she decided to come the first week of January to try and make the baby come. She did absolutely EVERYTHING!  From rubbing my feet to making me walk miles and miles while she sat and watched me from the window. But Emma was totally not coming out until she wanted. The week before your due date is sooo nerve racking!! I thought I had gone into labor two times before I actually did and actually made the trip to the hospital both time. Every little move or liquid that came dripped out (and no one tells you that there's A LOT OF LIQUID the week before!) we went to the hospital for. My poor doctor was so annoyed that on January 8th, while I was in for my second bout of 'labor', she decided to have me induced the following morning. Luckily for her I went into real labor that night. Everyone says that contractions feel like really strong menstrual cramps but for me it felt like there was an angry little gremlin inside of my uterus that was ripping my insides apart, not a sweet little baby. I made it until about 7am before going to the hospital and since they knew me by name by that time, the check-in was really smooth.

I finally asked for my epidural at 5cm. and HOLY COW!!!!!  I strongly recommend an epidural for anyone at anytime even if you're not having a baby! It' so calming and magical and if I could have one all day everyday, life would be grand. However, the damn thing only worked on 1/2 of my body and it wore off just in time to push my little gremlin out. 

My Emma is MUCH cuter than Gremlin




 










After 15 hours of contractions and 3 hours of pushing, my Emma was born. I'm not going to go into the gory details of the actual delivery because they are GORY! There's so much stuff and gunk and pain (yes, I tore) and YUCK! We had planned for Wes to not look because he gets grossed out so easily but when the Grandma's kept screaming "She's right there! She's right there!" he couldn't help himself. He was still grossed out but I hope he's able to push that out of his memory within the next few weeks :) His major contribution to my labor process: Patting me on the forehead and telling me Good Job! like he does when Margaret goes outside and doesn't eat poop.

Because my Emma was in the birth canal for so long... her head was huge!!! She looked like a little alien. I felt so guilty when the doctor pulled her out and laid her on my stomach and my initial reaction was "OMG She's gooey, gross and her head's soo long!" Wes must've had the same feeling because when I looked up at him he was absolutely mortified!

And then they take her to do all of their little tests and give her shots. I thought Wes was going to punch the nurse across the room when they jammed the Hep B shots into her cute little thighs. He looked back at me and said, "Ash! Did you just see that?! Why would they do that?!" I reassured him that she's ok and won't remember this.

The first time I held her:
Wes and left to go and get dinner for the 2 of us and all other family members had gone home so it was just the two us. I remember looking at her and thinking "Holy Shit what do I do now?!" She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen (her head had significantly decreased in size within a few hours) and I couldn't believe that this "gremlin" turned out to be this perfect little girl. Those feelings were quickly pushed away by the most incessant feeling of worry. Is she cold? Is she warm? Is she suppose to make that sound? Is her skin too dry? Why isn't she crying? Is she hungry? And these feelings don't ever go away.

The next 24 hours were a blur. She was able to be with us for the first 6 hours and then during the night they admitted her to the NICU. They had been monitoring her respirations and because they were so elevated they were worried she had an infection and she was ripped from us. I was so glad that we had such an amazing team of doctors and that she was in great hands but OMG! That was the worst feeling ever! I had been waiting for the nurse to come in and show us how to give her a bath and instead they were wheeling her down the hall to be held in an incubator. We couldn't hold her for the first few days which was miserable + I couldn't breastfeed the way I had planned and pumping wasn't working very well + I was still recovering from pushing a gremlin out of my body and was having to sleep on the couch in the NICU + my new baby was sick and had all sorts of cords and wires running in and out of her body = absolute misery.

Wes did his best to annoy the doctors by running out and telling (or more like excitedly shouting) at them with every good temperature, poop, pee and feeding. I think this is the majority of the reason of why they discharged us. It's amazing how a poopy diaper can instill such a strong feeling of pride.

And Now We Are Home...

Emma was released and we were ecstatic. They believe she may have aspirated some fluid as she came out which turned into a mild infection. Little did we know that the scariest part was yet to come: The First Night Home. Every noise and movement I was out of bed and checking her out. Is she breathing? Is she cold? Is she too warm? Does she have a temperature? It didn't help that the hospital makes you watch a SIDS video before leaving or that she had breathing problems for the first few days of her life. It was miserable.

We made it through that first night just fine and now I can sleep a lot better than I did that first night. Wes sleeps just fine since he works nights and gets to sleep during the day. Margaret's sleep is interrupted whenever Emma cries to be fed but luckily she's able to fall back asleep right away. Mavis sleeps like a log.

The following is a list of things that I wish I knew more about before they happened:

The first major blow-out...
We went to the doctor for her first check-up. She was in her car seat on the floor of the office and I was filling out some paper work when all of a sudden.. WHAM! BOOM! KAPOW! WHOOSH! The nurse and I looked at each other and she decided to give us a few moments to pull ourselves together. I went to uncover the disaster that I thought would be contained to diaper. Nope. Right through her clothes. Since it was the first time I had packed a diaper bag I had neglected to bring an undershirt and something to put her dirty clothes in. Since we are doing cloth diapers I had also forgotten to bring the bag for her dirty diapers. I cleaned the disaster up and wrapped her in a blanket. Sorry Emma!

Holy Crap Babies wiggle a lot!
Even though they are small they wiggle and move soo much! I could have her swaddled as tight as a burrito and in the morning there will be one little arm that made its way out during the night and is now straight up in the air and freezing. Or I'll have her in a cute little nightie that has a million snaps that I can't even figure out. Low and behold the next morning a chubby little foot is hanging out of the crotch of nighty. I don't even know how that happens.

Laundry, laundry, laundry
Emma goes through at least two undershirts a day, whether she pees, poops, pukes or just doesn't like the one she has on.

Babies really do get dirty!
There's really only 3 places she visits during the day; my arms, her swing, or her car seat. How can you explain all the stuff that I find between her fingers, in her neck rolls and between her toes?! It just doesn't make sense. And it's slightly embarrassing when someone goes to hold her and wants to see her "Cute little baby hands!" and finds the kitchen sink between her fingers. I really do bathe her! We aren't dirty people!

The Dogs and The Baby
Mavis and Margaret love their new sister. Mavis doesn't really care that she's here and is slightly afraid of her when she cries. Margaret is, you guessed it, JEALOUS! Whoever is holding the baby is also holding Margaret. I like to think of it as Margaret being the protective older sister but no one else sees it that way. She likes to get up and watch over Emma as I feed her in the middle of the night. And she LOOVES to test the milk to make sure it's the right temperature. Actually she just loves formula. Whether it's in the bottle, on Emma's face or on her clothes, Margaret will do whatever it takes to get at it. We've lost 7 bottle nipples in the past 8 weeks which she rips into to get the milk out. I found out the other day that it really doesn't even matter what form its in when I walked in the baby's room and found the chewed wide open. Liquid or powder, she likes it all. She also really enjoyed breastmilk. I need to explain something so you will understand how evil this pug truly is. Breastfeeding turned out to be a disaster for me. My doctor, lactation consultant, and myself aren't sure of why I never produced more than 5mL per session but for some reason or the other I never did. I tried everything from using an industrial pump to fenugreek... nothing worked. So after 6 weeks of pumping at least 9 times a day and total frustration for both Emma and myself, I reluctantly gave up. Anyways, when I would pump I would get maybe 5mL between both of my boobs so we would save up a days worth of pumping and feed it all to her at night. I had warmed it up and left it on the table to go and change Emma before the feeding. When I came back down our other little Princess had chewed the nipple off and licked up all of the breastmilk. I cried. 9 pumpings x 30min./pumping = WAY TOO MUCH TO WASTE ON BREASTMILK FOR A PUG!!

This is already an incredibly long entry. I will try and keep it updated :) Until next time....