Easter Photos

Yesterday we had some pictures made for Easter. I was worried about what sort of mood Drea would be in, but it wasn't as bad as I was afraid it would be.
She got a little overwhelmed and overstimulated, and we had to take a break at one point for her to calm down. She was smiling and laughing a lot before we took pictures, and not so much during, but I'm happy with the photos we ended up with.
We actually went out to eat at Don Pablos afterwards, and Drea was pretty good for the most part. She stayed awake, but didn't really start to fuss until the last few minutes. I had to walk around with her while Brian finished his last fajita, but we were able to relax and enjoy most of our meal. It's a real treat when Brian and I get to sit down and eat at the same time.
To see more photos go here:

http://pbckt.com/sG.kBs

My Cutie Pie

Family Fun

Mama brought Austin, Trinity, and Lydia over on Saturday. We grilled hamburgers for lunch and enjoyed playing with the children. Drea loves seeing her cousins. It's funny to me that little babies always seem to get such a kick out of seeing other children. She especially loves to see Lydia - the cousin closest to her in age. She always has the biggest grin when the kids talk to her. Everything they do or say is hilarious to her.

Second Time We Caught it On Camera

I love the look on her face after she does it. It's funny how excited we get over the smallest little things. The other cheerleader in the background is my mom.

Rolling and Jumping

We had a bumpy couple of nights on Monday and Tuesday, but for the last two nights she's slept through the night again. It's been a huge relief.

I spent all morning playing on the floor trying to convince her how fun it would be to roll over. She showed no interest in it until I went to bed several hours later. Brian put her on her playmat and she rolled over on her tummy for the first time.

This evening was also the first time she jumped in her jumparoo. She's always just played with the toys for a few seconds before getting bored. Today she was finally able to push against the floor with her feet.

Necessary Evil

Drea's four month appointment was today. She weighs 14lbs and 8oz and is 25 1/2 inches long. She's growing nicely. Everything looked good, and the doctor said she should start solids at 5 months which would be in 2 and 1/2 weeks. Then of course the part I wasn't so excited about. Time for the vaccinations.

I hate seeing her get them, but I know they are a very important way to keep her safe. I've read a lot of scaremongering about them, but I've also read actual scientific information from sources without an agenda. I would feel horrible if Drea caught something and suffered a severe illness because I didn't want to hear her cry. She had a bit of a fever this evening, but I gave her some Tylenol and it went away. The fever isn't fun, but it lets me know her immune system is reacting to the vaccines like it's supposed to. I'm just glad that after her six month appointment she gets a break from them until she's 12 months. I hate seeing her cry and know she doesn't understand why they're sticking her. I think I cried longer than she did.

Cute Pics

I just thought this little outfit with the jean skirt and leggings was cute, and when we had a nice warm day early last week I put it on her before we went out. As you can see she's started sitting up with support now. A few weeks ago she could only sit up in her bumbo chair. She's just dying to get down and get into things. It's extremely frustrating to her that she can't move around on her own. She's a wild little girl with ants in her pants - those legs are always kicking and she's always looking for something new.



Even when she's asleep (notice the leg hanging off the side and her hand). She never wants to sit still. I keep telling Brian get ready it only gets wilder and more exhausting. :D

The Internet is Full of Crazy People

OK, I already knew that. I've already experienced it first hand, and I'm very suspicious of people that are looking for attention on the internet.

But I've not had a fun weekend. I post on a message board for mommies with babies Drea's age, and usually I find a lot of useful information there. I can compare notes with other moms and see what works for them when they have the same problems as me. It's also a nice way to de-stress. But the last few days it has been a sort of nightmare.

There is a poster there that has always set me on edge. Something about her posts has always set off alarm bells for me. She doesn't really interact with people in a normal way and her posts have been attention seeking. I had been leery of her for a while; I thought she was either a.)making up things for attention or b.)dangerous to her son. Her posts would imply she had severe PPD and anger problems with her son and was refusing to take medication for it. Then on Friday she comes to the MB and announces that her son died from SIDS the day before.

She's made several posts on the board. She's created two threads about it and interrupted another thread to post about it four times. Other people have started up threads to ask for donations, memory banners, share sad poems, etc. Some of them seem to genuinely be upset for her, but many of them almost seem to be wallowing in the misery and drama like they enjoy it. It's too weird, so I haven't even touched it.

If she's faking this then she has spent a lot of time creating alternate personas on facebook to comment and interact with her and say they are coming to the memorial service (which isn't until over a week from now). She has posted a place, date, and time, and told people to let her know if they are coming she will find them a place to stay. The whole thing is just wrong. She's posting all over the place right after this happens? On a board where people have photos of their babies as their banners? I've come to the conclusion that she is either faking this death or may have smothered her baby. I can't quit wondering.

SIDS is my worst fear. I think it's why I can't sleep at night. I wake up and can't quit wondering if she's breathing or not and I have to keep checking on her. I had just started thinking I can relax a little because she's getting so close to the time that the risk goes way down. Now this situation hasn't made me feel any better. If that happened to me there is no way I'd be on the internet the next day looking for attention on a message board full of people talking about their babies. I wouldn't be on the net at all. I wouldn't even be capable of typing.

Maybe I'm a horrible insensitive person, but even if he did die from SIDS and she didn't have anything to do with it I can't help but resent the fact that she keeps posting all over the place about it. It was my escape and now I can't even stand to post there.

What are these things?

When she started sitting in her Bumbo seat Drea noticed her feet. She never tries to pull them up and play with them when she's lying down, but she's been fascinated with them in her little chair.

She can only sit up when supported of course, but ever since she's been in the Bumbo she's become more interested in sitting up. She's started trying to sit up now when she gets tired of lying down. It's really cute because she can only pull her head up and it looks like she's doing crunches.

Laughing

Drea started laughing when we tickled her about a month and a half ago, and in the last couple of weeks she's been laughing spontaneously, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get her to laugh when I was trying to record it. She would be laughing and squealing away only to clam up the second I hit the record button. It's like she knows or something...

Well, with a lot of work I finally manged to convince her to giggle a few times while the camera was on the other night.

Let's Hear it For Daddy!

Since Drea started sleeping all night I've spent a little time on some message boards for new mommies. I've seen many posts and threads about selfish husbands whose lives haven't changed in the slightest since having kids while their wives are basically exhausted zombies that haven't left the house in months. They watch the kids just long enough for their wives to take a shower and do some laundry (what a break!) and act like this is a big favor. They often spend evenings out with friends after work and wonder aloud why their wives are so tired and depressed when they "don't do anything all day". It makes me appreciate Brian that much more. I knew he was a great husband before Drea arrived, but I've been amazed at what a wonderful father he is. I feel like he deserves a lot of praise.
Our situation is different from most new parents. At the moment neither one of us is working, so that makes it easier for us to share parenting duties. But I still think there are a lot of men that wouldn't be as happy to. I would have to say that there are only between 2 and 4 hours in a day that he's awake that he's not taking care of Drea. There aren't many husbands that would do that whether working or not! He hasn't spent as much time around babies as I have, and there were a lot of things he didn't know at first (I am NOT saying that I knew everything). But I've seen him learn a lot about Drea really fast (she's really good about letting you know whether what you're trying works for her or not ;) ). He was pretty awkward with her at first, but he's gotten comfortable with experience. I think he's finally figured out she's not going to break if he pats her too hard.
Maybe it's because of the losses he experienced as a child, or maybe it's because there was a time he thought he wouldn't live long enough to have kids, but I have never seen a man so happy to be a husband and father. The way he looks at her when he's feeding her a bottle or playing and trying to make her smile or laugh shows me how much he loves being a daddy. The day after she was born I asked him what his thoughts were when he saw her. He told me that after everything he's been through; beating the odds and surviving that awful accident, surviving multiple organ transplants, and earning two degrees in spite of his health problems, having something to do with creating this baby was the thing he was most proud of in his life. He never takes either Drea or I for granted. We're both very lucky to have him in our family!
Sometimes I feel guilty, because Drea and I run errands or visit people while he's taking a (much needed) nap in the afternoon. This means we get out and leave the house at least two or three days of the week, while he sometimes goes a couple of weeks without ever leaving. He has the night shift so he doesn't see adult faces enough. We have a night out about once a month while my mom babysits, and he occasionally goes out to pick up supper somewhere (but most of the time I do that). Other than holidays or birthday parties that's the only time he's left the house. I love my dad, but I grew up in a house where mama took care of the kids and the house and daddy didn't do much when he got home from work. My dad loves his kids, but he never seemed to know what to do if it didn't involve playing. I wonder if Drea will ever know how blessed she is to have Brian as a father. I certainly appreciate what a wonderful husband he is, and I want to make sure he knows he's doing a great job as a daddy!

All Caught Up

I decided to start this blog because I've been suffering from insomnia. Drea has been sleeping through the night for a few weeks now, but for some reason I wake up between 3 and 4 every morning and can't go back to sleep until 8 or 9.

So now the baby has better sleep habits than her parents! I think part of the problem is anxiety and part of it is habit now. I haven't really had a full night's sleep since my first trimester; it's been a year since I slept more than a few hours at a time.

I decided to start with a post about her birth and go forward from there, and now I've caught up to the present. I can't believe how big she's getting! She's four months old now, and she has changed a lot in just the last couple of weeks. I had to put away all of her 3 months clothes on Sunday. She's wearing 3 to 6 month sizes, and the 6 months are only a little loose. She's laughing more and seems so much more aware of what's going on around her now. She started teething a couple of weeks ago, but so far nothing has actually come up through the gum yet. She's trying to pull her head up to sit up when she's on her back or in her car seat. She's getting really good at holding and playing with her toys. She hasn't rolled over yet, but she does roll up on her side now so I expect that to happen any day now. She's gotten pretty good head control and can sit up in her bumbo chair a lot longer before she gets tired and the head bobs start.

When I made the first post the other night and went browsing through photos from her first day it really hit me just how much she's changed. It's amazing how fast they grow in the first year. I love seeing her learn and grow, but it also makes me sad. I know all too well how fast kids grow up; it seems like just yesterday my youngest brother was a baby and now he's not that far away from 30! For that matter, sometimes I feel like I went to bed one night as a kid and woke up to find I was 33. How'd that happen so fast?

First time eating from a spoon

I've been putting cereal in Drea's bottle because of her acid reflux since she was two weeks old at the recommendation of the pediatrician. One teaspoon for each ounce thickens it and helps keep it from coming back up as much. A lot of people told me I shouldn't do it, but whenever I left it out of her bottle she spit up more so I followed her doctor's advice. She's been staring at people when they eat now and showing a lot of interest in what we put in our mouths. I decided since she's getting cereal anyway it wouldn't hurt to make a tiny bit of it just a little thicker than usual and feed it to her with a spoon. So we gave it a shot on Feb 25th.
She loved it and did a pretty good job for her first time. I've been giving her just a few spoonfuls of cereal in the evening ever since. It hasn't bothered her tummy or given her any problems.

I'm going to ask at her four month appointment if we should branch out into other Stage 1 foods or wait until she's six months old to try fruit and veggies. Until then I think we'll just stick with cereal for now.

Bath time fun

Drea loves to take a bath. She goes nuts kicking her legs to make them splash in the water. She got too long to keep taking a bath in her infant bath tub a few weeks ago; she kept banging her legs on the end of it.


Now we take her little seat from it and put it in the regular bath tub.

First Snow

It's rare that we actually have snow accumulate on the ground, so we were very excited when it snowed on February 12. We dressed Drea up in her little snowsuit and went outside to take some photos just after dark.

3 months old??!!

February arrived before we knew it, and Drea was suddenly three months old. On February 6th the three of us went to her cousin Austin's skating party. I had no intention of skating, but various family and friends kept offering to hold her so Brian and I grabbed a pair and headed out onto the rink. It was a blast. Drea was fascinated by the lights and music.

She's been growing fast all along, but it seemed like more changes than ever before took place during the third month. It seemed that she would outgrow clothes literally overnight sometimes. She became more socially aware and started smiling at strangers when they said hello, and sometimes even laughed when they attempted to entertain her. She laughed more often in general. She had been trying to talk since she was just a few weeks old, and on February 5 she suddenly found her voice. Here's video of the day she just started talking:



We've been squealing, screaming and cooing ever since.

Baptism

On January 24th Drea was baptized at Trinity United Methodist. It was a beautiful service, and several family members came to see it. My parents, my brother Daniel's family, John and Susan, Junior and Mary Frances, The Bratchers, and Angie all came. I thought the baptism was beautiful; after she was baptized the pastor walked with her down the aisle to show her off to the congregation while the choir sang "God Claims You". I had never heard that song before, and I almost cried when I heard it.

Drea, Drea God Claims you
God helps you protects you and loves you too.
We this day do all agree a child of God you'll always be.
Drea, Drea God claims you
God helps you, protects you, and loves you too.
We are here to say this day that we will help you on your way

Just beautiful.