Back and Forth

Tonight, as I read Love You Forever to C while rocking her back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until her eyes grew heavy, I had a flash back to over two years ago. As my belly grew and due date neared, I would often spend the evening reading that very same book to her. I would sit in the glider in her nursery, admiring the chandelier Husband and I had just installed, and rock back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, while reading to her, wondering what it would be like to hold her in my arms.

Fast forward over two years and I am holding a tired toddler in my arms. Her eyes flutter as she fights the inevitable, a night of heavy sleep following a day of running and jumping and giggling with a friend. Two years have passed since her birth and I am still in awe every single day of her existence. 

I still smile as I watch her sleep. I still tip toe into her room late at night and hold my hand just above her nose to make sure she is breathing. After two years, I still pinch myself every day to make sure I'm not dreaming. Our baby is here with us and she is amazing.

At two years old, she is doing and saying so many things. We have a tiny person walking around with us in the morning, chatting while we get ready. There are opinions about shoes and clothes and acceptable breakfast options. She tells us when she wants us with her by grabbing our hand and saying, "come"; and calls herself "super Catherine" while jumping up and down on our bed. She sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night just to talk to us. 

Her vocabulary really has blossomed into that of a conversationalist. Most of the time, we can actually understand what she's saying and carry on a conversation with her. She says too much to list it all, but these are some of my favorite Catherine-isms right now:

• "All done" and "all clean." She uses these appropriately (at dinner or bath time) but also when she just doesn't want to do something (as soon as she gets in the bath).
• "I scared" or "scary monster" - We're not sure she's afraid of monsters because she loves the movie Monsters, Inc. But, she says this a lot whenever something is an odd shape. 

She turns this ballerina over and calls it a "scary monster"

• "Oh no! Gwankie!" (Translation: blankie) Whenever she realizes she doesn't have her blankie with her - usually when she's tired.
• "This is..." - She uses this to ask for something she wants while pointing to it (milk, Elmo, slide). It is usually followed by a "peease" (please).
• "Yay! I dancing!"
• "Biiiiiiiinks (Banks)! Puppy come!"

She counts to 13, knows all of her colors, and sings all day long. She strings together Twinkle Twinkle, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Row Row Row Your Boat, and Wheels on the Bus into a never-ending sing-a-long. She loves animals - every single one of them. She grooms her stuffed animals before bed. Banks is still her best friend. She won't go to bed unless he is in the room.

Even though she has a pile of books, she chooses the same ones to read every night before bed - The Cow Loves Cookies and Smooch Your Pooch. Lately, Pete the Cat has made it into the mix a few times, but only as an addition, never a replacement. We sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star together before bed. Sometimes she lets me sing with her. Sometimes she tells me, "shhhh, stop it. Night night."

Her favorite shows are still Sesame Street ("Elmo") and Winnie the Pooh ("Watch Pooh"). Her favorite movies are Finding Nemo ("Memo"), Happy Feet, Monsters Inc ("Scary Monsters"), and Cars. If she wants to watch something and thinks you don't hear her, (ie: we don't turn it on) she starts naming all the characters for clarification. She will point to my iPad and say, "this is Pooh" because we use it in the car.

She plays contently with stuffed animals, dolls, and babies, rocking them, wrapping them in blankets, and telling them goodnight. She kisses and hugs them. She also throws them on the floor. I'm not quite sure what to think about that! Sometimes she calls one stuffed animal "Mommy" and one "Daddy" and makes them kiss. She loves princesses and calls any female on tv or in a movie a princess.

She loves making music and dancing. She loves the loudest instruments most, favoring the drums and the cymbals. Coincidentally, we have recently learned that Banks is terrified of cymbals. 

She likes to cook in her play kitchen. This mostly involves "mixing" and "stirring" until everything ends up on the floor. She recently discovered play-doh and makes a lot of "pasta" (aka monsters or worms). She likes to color, but loves to paint; and bath crayons just made bath time way more fun.

She would play outside all day if we let her, rain or shine. Bubbles, sidewalk chalk, swings, slides, and just running around, throwing sticks to Banks. Luckily, she has her new swing set to entertain her! Sliding is her favorite.

She is the sweetest, funniest, smartest little girl and I simply can't believe it's been two years since she entered our world and we were forever changed. 

I only hope she knows how much she is loved and that we are thankful for her every moment of every day. 

Happy birthday, Angel. You make me happy every day.

Catching Up

There is a new sound in our house: the pitter-patter of tiny little feet as they WALK around. We officially have a walker on our hands and now spend the majority of our time catching up to her. Watching her toddle around is one of the cutest things I have ever seen (and she's still slow enough to catch).

(Try to ignore my coaching...)

My mind has been racing lately. It's full of nostalgia for the past year and excitement for the upcoming. This time last year, I was excited about my upcoming baby shower, having no clue what the next week would bring me. Merely three days after the shower, gifts still piled in the basement, nothing washed, nothing put away, the car seat still in the box, we welcomed our baby girl to this world. A little early, but right on time. And our world changed forever.

I look back on this past year and can count on one hand the number of times I have hired a baby sitter. I have yet to sleep a single night away from her. I spend my days and my nights with this tiny person and have gotten to watch her grow and develop every day. For nearly 365 days, I have watched her breathe in and out with the lungs she grew inside of me. I have watched her eyes, my eyes, follow me, look for me, love me. I have watched her mouth, Husband's mouth, grin and laugh and cry and sprout new teeth and new words. I watched her fingers learn to grasp, learn to pass things from one hand to the other, learn to feed herself one tiny piece of food at a time. I watched her go from lying down to sitting up, to rolling, to crawling, to standing, and now walking. 

I have heard her cry and laugh and call for me and Husband and Banks in her own sweet language. I have felt this child with every sense, with every fiber of my being. She is my heart. My whole heart.

As we embark on her second year of life, I am so very grateful for the first. I am humbled by the job of motherhood. Although I've been here all along, I find myself just now catching up, just now realizing the magnitude of this past year. And I am in awe of this child, all she has become and all she will be. 

Happy Nine (and a half) Months!

I am super late with this post, but on the 23rd, our sweet girl turned nine months old! The holidays pushed her nine month check up to December 1st, so I was waiting to have stats. Anyway, here they are: 17 lbs, 9.5 oz (25th percentile); 28.5" long (80th percentile). We have a long and lean little girl!


She is so brave. She didn't cry at all when the nurse pricked her finger and took blood and only cried a little when she got two shots. She's such a big girl!


I am loving the ninth month! C is full of personality and it is visible more and more every day. She's so curious and she raises her eyebrows when she listens to you intently. She squeals and babbles constantly and has even started talking to herself while playing with her lovey in her crib in the morning before she cries for me to come get her. She's a champion eater and is loving the introduction of finger foods. She will eat bananas, avocados, puffs, and Mum Mum cookies all day long (and most of them make it to her mouth). Banks has also learned that he can usually score snacks whenever she's eating...

She's eating three meals a day and taking 7-8 oz. bottles of formula in between. She's wearing 9 month clothes in everything besides footed pajamas. Our long little girl needs the 12 month in those!


She crawls with great speed, but would much prefer to stand these days. She's pulling up and cruising along the couch, and every now and then, she will let go and stand all by herself for a brief moment. It's so much fun (and exhausting) being with her all day as she learns these new mobile skills. 

We started Kindermusik last month and she has discovered percussion. She loves shaking and beating on anything and everything (including the dog and us) and she loves music. She is mesmerized by her reflection.

She loves being outside for walks or going to the park to swing. Really, she just loves people watching and fights sleep so she won't miss a beat. She has changed from three naps a day to two most days and is sleeping from 7:30 - 6:30 or 7:00 each night (waking up at 10:30 for medicine and usually briefly around 4:00, but she has started to put herself back to sleep which is a welcomed change!

The ninth month is usually the month moms celebrate their little ones being out of the womb longer than they were in it; but for us, that was last month! It's hard to believe that my teeny little preemie is a healthy and thriving nine month old. Amazing.

Happy nine (and a half) months to my crawling, pulling up, cruising, babbling, giggling, smart, funny, sweet, and snuggly little girl. You are my world.

Anticipation

Anticipation. 

We learn it as infants. To anticipate a tickle, a kiss, a silly face. We learn to expect certain results from certain situations, to anticipate the same effect from a certain cause. But sometimes, we're wrong.

We anticipated C's due date. We made a phone list and knew the route to the hospital. We had a birth plan. But, C had something different in mind. I have no cute posed pictures of the day I left for the hospital. There are no photos of me with my bags packed, belly protruding, in front of the car, waiting for Husband to calmly drive me to the hospital. Instead, there are mental images. Images of panic, of throwing things haphazardly into my suitcase and hobbling down two flights of stairs. Images of me standing in my driveway, in the darkness before dawn, waiting for my friends to come get me. Images of racing down the corridor, having her cut from inside me over a month before her due date, and touching her cheek with my index finger before she was quickly taken to the NICU. Images of being taken to an empty room without my newborn baby.

Then I see Husband, running into the room after racing back from work in another state. I see him kiss me then rush to the NICU to meet his daughter for the very first time. I see him tell me she's perfect, the glow of a new father encompassing his whole being. She was here. She was healthy. On her own schedule, taking us all by surprise. She was everything we had anticipated, and not at all what we expected all at the same time.

As a child grows inside you, you anticipate her arrival. Picture her tiny fingers and toes and her pink cheeks. You expect your child to be healthy because you have done everything right. Cause and effect. But, then life surprises you with something small, yet significant. A tiny red mark that within the first six weeks of life grew and darkened. Then you are told to anticipate its continued growth. Told to expect it to get worse before it gets better. And you wait.

But instead of waiting, instead of expecting the expected, we tried something different. We treated the dark red bump and we watched it change. Watched it shrink and soften before our eyes. And then our expectations changed. We expected something drastic, but again, we were wrong. So we tried something else. A new treatment in addition to the other. And again, we saw changes.

We see changes.

But this time, we try to reel in our expectations. We anticipate nothing so that we are no longer disappointed. But we just can't help but anticipate the day that the bump fades from our beautiful daughter's forehead. Because the treatments are working.

Day 69 : Day 92 (3 months)
3 cm long, 1.5 cm wide, 0.8 cm protrusion:
3 cm long, 1.2 cm wide, 0.3 cm protrusion

At nearly six months old, C understands anticipation. She watches my hands wiggle toward her before a tickle. She anticipates my kiss on her cheek. She knows what the bath water will feel like on her toes. But her expectations are simple. They are young. And while Husband and I anxiously watch the effects of treatment, all she expects is our touch, a soothing song, a gentle kiss. And I try to take notes from my daughter. Try to lower my expectations, anticipate the simple pleasures of parenthood, and let the bump run its course. Because although it will be gone before we know it, there will be other bumps in her life. And I'll have to remind myself of the sweet anticipation of an infant who expects love and nothing else.

Bragging Rights

4 months old

I have bragging rights. It's my right as a mother. 

So I will cash in that chip right now when I announce that at her four month check up, C did so well that "preemie" was taken off of her chart! She is meeting all the major milestones of a typical four month old, both developmentally and physically. Weighing in at a whopping 12.5 pounds and 24.5" long, she is 30th percentile in weight and 70th in height (which were my usual percentiles at her age). There is no doubt about it. This girl will be tall.

Just look at those feet! She gets them honestly...

She's a cutie. And oh so funny.  I literally laugh at her all day, and she at me because I'm hilarious. Well, that, and the fact that she has no source of comparison. She's the perfect blend of her parents: mostly laid back with a slight flare for the dramatic; and I am constantly amazed at her ability to communicate her needs with us with a systematic string of screams, coos, and babbles. I am loving how alert she is these days as we cut back on her daytime naps and have more time for playing, reading, and watching Baby Einstein. And just the other day, I realized that she was strong enough to hold onto me while I held her. This may be my favorite development of all so far. 

Overall, she's perfection wrapped up with a bow. I just can't imagine what we ever did before her (or how much time I must have spent doing unnecessary things like applying makeup and washing my hair).

I have the best job ever.

1 day old

4 months old

A Little Something Extra

Yesterday, C turned 15 weeks old. For those who don't have children, she's 3 1/2 months old. Apparently, once you give birth, you then measure the child's entire first year in weeks. It seems odd, but each week is so very different. The things she is doing in her third week of month 3 are so different than the first week. I know it's silly. I'm a recent convert. (Prepare to be annoyed when I measure the second year in months).

But C was born 4 1/2 weeks early. Often I forget this little tid bit as I read all of the mommy blogs and books and emails out there that are telling me what my child should or shouldn't be doing by now. I was reminded of this factor while doing some light reading last night: Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. The issue of sleep has been upon us recently as I have contracted my second bacterial infection in a one month span and often go entire days without remembering to drink water in between my coffee(s). I'm a little sleep deprived to say the least.

Operation Goodbye Hemangioma continues to go smoothly, but this also means that I continue to administer medication exactly every eight hours. The third dose of the day falls at 11:30 pm and the interruption in C's sleep tends to effect the whole sleeping-through-the-night thing.

So I consulted the book in hopes of a brilliant answer. Instead, I learned that C just might not be ready to sleep through the night yet, and that no amount of rice cereal or sleep training will change her inherent need to wake up at 4:30 am for a little mommy time.

It then occurred to me. I get an extra month.

Yes, I have to suffer through an extra month (at least) of middle of the night feedings and sleep deprivation; but I get to have an extra month (at least) of middle of the night feedings. Those sweet groggy moments of feeding and snuggles that will be gone all too quickly. I get a little extra time.

It is difficult to see my happy, healthy child as a preemie. She is stubborn and determined to her core and it is easy to forget that this strong willed little girl was once only 5 pounds. Today, she struggles to sit up, crying if I place her flat on her back for even a moment. She lifts her head with assurance and smiles a huge gummy grin when she succeeds. She is so very big in my eyes, yet still so very small. And as she grows and develops each day, I take pride in how far she has come, throw the rule books out the window, and relish the little something extra I get as the mommy of a preemie.

Size Matters

14 weeks

It's all about size lately. How big is she now? How much is she eating? How much medicine is she taking? How long is she sleeping? How....how....how...?

How big? Too big! I blink my eyes and she gains an ounce, grows 1/4 of an inch. She has grown out of newborn diapers and I have packed away a box full of newborn onesies and footed pajamas.

How much is she eating? Enough to keep me in my day job of cleaning and making bottles. 

How much medicine? Enough to make a difference on day 22 of OGH:

Day 1 - Day 22
Side note: is there anything sweeter than a sleeping baby?

How long is she sleeping? Long enough for me to finish one load of laundry, start a load of dishes, attempt to make the house not look like a small explosion just went off, and grab just enough sleep to allow me to hazily function the next day.

As I rocked my nearly 12 pound (12 pounds!) baby to sleep tonight, struggling to still cradle her like a newborn, my arm tingling beneath her weight, I was painfully aware of her size and how rapidly it is increasing. I sleep for 4 hours and wake up to find a beautiful little morning person, more expressive than the day before. I blink and my three month old is teething. I turn around and she is nearly holding her head up on her own.  Where is the time going?

Along with all the other unsolicited advice you receive from complete strangers as a new mom, is the warning that they grow up much too fast. Well, random lady in the Target checkout line, you were right. I look at my sweet little three month old and realize that she is already one quarter of a year old! She has been in this world for 14 weeks in which she has learned to make playful noises, to smile, to follow the sound of my voice. She can push her tiny body up on her tiny little arms when on her tummy, and can grab toys and purposefully put them in her mouth. 

Each day she evolves more and more into the person she is supposed to be. At 14 weeks old, I can already tell she is stubborn like her Mommy, but easygoing like Daddy. She is dramatic (her god-given right as the first born) and has us wrapped around her little finger. She likes bright lights and mirrors and kisses on her chubby little cheeks. She's ticklish. Mommy's bedtime stories put her to sleep while Daddy's make her ready to play. We've already learned so much about this precious little girl yet still have so very much to discover. 

It's difficult to believe that 14 weeks have passed by already and that our once 5 pounds, 2 ounces daughter is now nearly twelve pounds and that the same little girl who was once swallowed by preemie clothes is now wearing size 3 months. While our daughter grows and changes each day, so does our world, living as if we ceased to exist before her and never looking back. We have grown from a family of two to one of three and that size matters most of all.