A tooth!

I discovered Friday morning that Violet's first tooth is making it's way up!  On Friday you could just barely see that the gum was about to break.  This morning it is definitely poking out a tiny bit.  The days of adorable toothless grins are almost done!  Kind of sad, but some teeth will be just as cute!  She really is doing so well, she has been a little fussy and wants to be held a lot but other than that she is happy as can be.  Last night she fell asleep while drinking her bottle and nursing, awww!  That never happens anymore.  She was out as soon as she went in her crib and did not make a peep all night.  We are so lucky we have such a good little sleeper, even while cutting a tooth!  Here is a silly pic of the 3 of us from yesterday (crappy phone pic):

So let's see.  Friday we took a trip to Aurora to visit Alison and baby Arabella.  Milo and Turbo ran around outside like crazy, Milo was sooo pooped when we got home.  It is fun to watch the girls together.  They weren't quite as "playful" as they were last time we got them together, but still fun to watch anyway.  Violet loves hanging out with other babies.  She gets this huge sweet smile on her face and makes her little excited squawk sound.  I wish I could record all the cute sounds she makes.

Saturday morning we met up with my friend Stacey and her baby girl Ashlyn, who is 3 days older than Violet.  We went to Little Monkey Business and oh my were the girls just bombarded with new stuff, they were a little overwhelmed after a while (well, Violet was anyway).  It was so fun to see them together though, they were 6 weeks old the last time we got together so the babies have changed a lot!  They sat together and shared playing with the cord to my camera case :)  Then when it was time for lunch we headed over to Mimi's Cafe and to my delight and complete surprise, Violet did SO well.  She sat in a high chair and I gave her some yogurt and she tried some apple slices.  I gave her some bites of my blueberry muffin and she was all about it!  Here are Ash and Vi hanging out together:

We spent yesterday at home, I am still battling this stupid ear infection and Violet was a little cranky because of her new tooth.  She is at daycare today, this will be the only day she goes this week.  We had to pull her out of full time since Chris is still looking for work.  I am glad she at least gets to go once a week, she is such a social baby!



8 months old!

I can't believe Violet is eight months old today!  That is 3/4 of a year!  That is almost unfathomable to me.  It really seems like she should still be like 12 weeks old or something.  It is going by way too fast!  She is definitely not my little baby anymore.  I wish the days didn't fly by the way they do.  I wish I had more hours in the day to spend with my girl.  She is just changing and growing so much.  I really try to cherish her "babyhood" every day, I know it will be gone soon.  She has been a little fussy at bedtime the last few nights, I have really loved rocking her back to sleep and feeling her little head on my shoulder, and her sweet little hands holding my finger (or hair!), and her steady breathing....

We are pretty sure the recent bedtime fussiness is because she is about to cut a tooth.  No, really this time.  Yesterday I was able to take a peek at her lower gums and there is definitely something about to poke through.  You can just barely see the top of it.  Awww!  Her first tooth!  Honestly, if all we have to deal with is some bedtime fussiness as far as teething goes, it will be a breeze.  Hopefully it doesn't get worse!

I am still sick.  Ugh.  Tuesday afternoon at work I was sitting at my desk just miserable, almost crying in pain my ear hurt SO much.  I left work and came home and hopped into bed immediately.  Woke up and was still in awful pain.  So I took a sick day, called the doctor and went back to bed.  The doctor's office called back and just decided to switch my antibiotics instead of having me come in.  Okay, but I am still in severe pain.  My doctor "doesn't want to give me anything for pain".  Ummm, what?  Time to switch doctors.

Sick of being sick

Does having a baby do a number to your immune system or something?  I swear, since I had Violet I have gotten sick so many times I can't even count.  I used to get colds maybe once a year or so.  Maybe since I am still nursing her I am giving her all my antibodies or something?  I know babies that go to daycare centers get sick much more often than if they were at home (toughens them up!), but it is like she picks up everything and brings it home directly to me.  I don't know, but my gosh, I am sick of being sick! 

Last Wednesday I came down with a sore throat that quickly turned into a fever by late afternoon.  Stayed home Thursday, then Friday realized that I had pink eye!  What am I, five years old?  Called Kaiser and they were able to call in a prescription for me last minute (an hour before they closed for the weekend).  As soon as Chris came home with my eye drops my ear popped and that was it.  Talk about pain.  Stupid ear infections.  Saturday morning I was bawling, the pain was so unbearable.  I ended up going into the Kaiser after hours clinic and sure enough, the doctor confirmed that I have an ear infection.

What else am I going to come down with??  At least it is just me, Violet seems fine.  I would much rather have the ear infection!  At least Violet did get to see her Gigi, Papa, Lyla and Auntie on Saturday while I was at the clinic.  Here is a pic of the girls:

In other news, Violet made some progress with tummy time over the weekend.  She finally rolled over, from tummy to back, on Friday.  She has always hated tummy time, she would bury her head in her arms and just start pouting right away when you'd put her on her tummy.  Lately she has gotten better though and will actually play for a while before she gets mad.  She would come so close to rolling over, but she would catch herself and correct it before she went over.  So I gave her a little push.  After the first time I helped her, I rolled her back over and she did it on her own like 5 times in a row!  Subsequent tummy times the rest of the weekend also proved successful!  Now I had better get crackin' on babyproofing the house!

Before Violet

I will never forget the day.  Wednesday, October 14, 2010.  I was at home sick, after pulling almost an all nighter at the office and hacking my lungs up all night.  I was exhausted and felt awful.  I knew that my period was more than a week overdue, but that was not outside the bounds of normal for me.  This had happened before.  So late that there was no other explanation other than "pregnant".  But sooner or later I would be proven wrong. 

This time I honestly didn't feel anything different than the other times I was so late.  I was on the phone with my sister who told me I had better go take a test.  I wanted to and didn't want to at the same time.  Experience told me that it was a waste of time and money, and I was stressing myself out unnecessarily.  But I went.  It was a snowy day, and I drove slowly to King Soopers and picked up a store brand pregnancy test, some juice and some soup and headed home.  I called Val back up, because I didn't want to do this alone.  It was like either way, it would freak me out at this point, positive or negative.  I made Val wait on the phone with me as I waited for results.  In less than 10 seconds:

OMG!  That says positive!  Both of us were freaking out.  After all, this was a surprise.  I can't remember if I

called my mom right away, or if I first went back to the store for a digital test.  Either way, both things happened shortly thereafter.  No, I still had not told my husband.  Again, this was a "surprise" so I was a little worried about how he would take the news.  But he was actually happy, dare I say excited, about being a dad again.  It took some time for the news to sink in (for both of us!), but in short time we were both ecstatic!

Our first appointment was Friday November 6.  I was nervous, as you hear about these first appointments not always going well.  As the nurse (Samantha, who was my nurse throughout my pregnancy and was due with a baby boy just a week before my due date) hooked up the ultrasound machine I was definitely shaking a little with nerves.  I held my breath and closed my eyes and waited for her to say something.  Finally, "ahh, there he is!  Everything looks perfect!".  I cried, I was so happy that this was really happening.  I looked up at the screen, Chris grabbed my hand and we watched our little baby's heart flickering away.  It was very emotional.  She calculated my due date to be June 23.  I figured that we conceived on or very close to our 2nd wedding anniversary, September 29.  Awwww!

First trimester was amazing and tiring.  I was so happy that I had a little baby growing inside of me.  Surreal.  She frequently reminded me she was there with the nausea, crazy food cravings and complete and utter exhaustion.  If I was still up past 8:00 it was a rarity.  This was also when our sweet dog Sadie was going through chemotherapy treatments for Lymphoma.  It was stressful.  Val and I had a trip to Napa booked long before I became pregnant, and we went during the first week of December.  Needless to say, Napa when you can't drink wine isn't very fun!  Val and I made it fun though.  Maybe I can go back someday when I can actually participate.

My 12 week ultrasound was shortly after returning, mid December or so.  We were so relieved to see baby growing and moving around, everything again looked perfect.  We nicknamed her our "little chicken".

Well, now that it has been almost a week since I started this post I guess I should just post it or it will sit here forever.  I could go on forever but I will save that for later posts!

Late is better than never...right?

So now that Violet is almost 8 months old (how in the world did that happen?!) I decided it might be fun to keep a blog about the things she is doing and how she is changing!  Honestly, I don't expect anyone to really read or follow this, I just think it would be a good idea to have an online journal of things I might forget about next week!  Also hopefully I can show this to her when she is older and she can learn all about the things she was up to when she was a baby!  I kinda wish they had blogging back when I was a kid, ha!

So here it is, my very first post.  I think I will start a new one to talk about Violet :)