She's back

Mia's virus decided to hang around for an entire week. She vomited about once a day and then it ended last Thursday. Apparently, it went around her daycare. Thanks to my wonderful mother for driving 7 hours to keep Mia so I could go to work. She did great with her. Kept her on a good schedule and coddled her to no end. I think Mia misses her Emmy.
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On another note, I had some "me" time this weekend. I went to a yoga workshop with Desiree Rumbaugh, a nationally recognized Anusara teacher. AWE-SOME! Wish I could do stuff like that more often!

Literally, Labor Day

My poor baby has been poked and prodded all weekend. She started vomiting Thursday night and couldn't keep anything down Friday so we trucked it to the ER at 9:00 that night. We were there with half of the kids from Central Texas. I almost decided to leave, but I'm glad we didn't because her fever shot up to 102.6 while we were there. I spent that night holding my hot daughter while the nurses put in an i.v., then she had chest x-rays, tummy x-rays, a catheter inserted, blood taken, etc. She managed to get rehyrdated while I held her and she slept. Her fever went down, all her tests were normal and we went home around 3:00 in the morning. Saturday morning, she woke up very fussy and clearly tired. The bags under her eyes were so big, it made me sad. I held her and rocked her, she fell in and out of sleep, but her fever went back up to 103.3, so we went to the Austin Regional Clinic after hours clinic. I cried while we were there. There is nothing worse than a sick baby. She couldn't tell me what was wrong so I had no idea how to make things better for her.

We waited there for a long time because the doctor wanted to get the results of the lab tests from the hospital. At this point, I had not slept at all or eaten anything so both baby and mommy felt like crap. Again, everything was normal so they think it's just a viral infection, but poor baby is still having trouble keeping stuff down. It seems as if she's getting better (no more fever!), but she's been congested for over two weeks and has a cough that I think sounds terrible. I'm at work while my mom came in town to keep her. I'm lucky that I have a mother who will drive 7 hours to keep my baby so I can go to work.

I just want her to feel better. I just want her to be well. I don't want her to throw up anymore. I want to fix everything and keep her happy, healthy, and safe.

Newness

I love the way my daughter smells. This morning, she woke up crying at 6:30, but I knew she wasn't ready to be awake so I decided to rock her back to sleep for a while. I really just wanted to bring her in bed with me and let her sleep on my chest (we do this on occasion), but I had to get ready for work. So I'm sitting in the rocking chair with her sleeping soundly while I'm holding her and all I could think was that even after almost six months, she still smells so new. It's the greatest smell in the world and I hope it never goes away.

Top 10 things no one tells you before you have a baby

Everyone tells you that you will never love anything the way you will love your children and that having a baby is so wonderful and will change your life for the better. Mind you, I have found all of these things to be true. But I'm pretty sure no one told me about the hard stuff. Here's my list of top 10 things no one told me.

10. The pets you once loved will begin to annoy the ever-loving shit out of you.

9. The phrase "sleeping like a baby" is somewhat misleading.

8. When the baby does start to sleep better, you still won't.

7. You will want your mother to come live with you for an indefinite amount of time.

6. Your hair will always look like crap.

5. You think you can do it all, but being a full-time working mom will test you beyond belief.

4. Your baby will bring both joy and stress to your marriage.

3. You will miss the way your life was before.

2. You will feel immense guilt for #3.

1. You will become an expert at inspecting another human being's poop.

Poor sick baby

Mia had her first stomach bug last week and I'm hoping it's finally over. She started projectile vomiting last Saturday and continued to do so off and on for a full week. She kept everything down yesterday and seemed guininely hungry all day, even woke twice last night to eat. Yay. I keep telling myself that I won't get that extra snuggle time with her very soon, so to consider myself lucky that she goes right back to sleep after she eats. However, I'm hopeful that she will stop those middle of the night wakings soon, or that she at least goes back to one waking tonight. I think she's too young to wake out of habit and the times she wakes are all over the map. If it were the same time on the dot every single night, then I might be skeptical. Plus, her pediatrician believes that she still needs those feeding(s) if she's waking for them, which makes total sense.

She's really at a fun age right now. She loves to grab for things. I had her sitting up on her changing table the other day and the wipes were open and she was just reaching for them and trying to pull the top one out of the box. She also spent a lot of time on her activity mat this weekend. She was concentrating so hard on getting one of the rings. It was neat to watch. Soon, she'll be sitting up unsupported, then crawling, then walking, then oh my...things will get interesting really soon!

Obsession

It's official. I have become obsessed with my daughter's sleeping. Here's the deal: she's not a bad sleeper at all. She goes down pretty easily and wakes once or twice a night to eat. But she was waking only once until about a week ago when she started waking twice. Cody gets up with her the first time but I simply can not go back to sleep. It doesn't help that I am congested and can't seem to shake it. I'll be breaking out the nettie pot tonight and should have been doing that all along. Anyway, I am constantly researching, reading, and doing whatever I can to try and figure things out. It's ridiculous. Why didn't anyone tell me that the sleeping part was so difficult. I just assumed that when she straightened out her nights and days, sleeping would just get easier.

There are so many things that people don't tell you before you have a child. Really, they just "forget." I find it annoying. I guess you forget because there's always something different happening with your child within a few months. I hope that I will soon be able to forget how sleep deprived I am. I often wonder if it's safe for me to do things, like drive. Seriously.

Krause Legs

Mia turned 4 months old yesterday. We spent her birthday at the pediatrician's office in the morning for her well checkup. She got shots. I hate it when she gets shots. The nurse says that it hurts the parents more than it hurts the babies. Yeah right. Anyway, she's a small baby, almost 13 pounds and only 23.5 inches long. She's in the 25th percentile for weight, which I'm fine with, but only the 10th percentile for heighth! I will not have a short child! I asked Cody if he thought she was going to have short, chunky legs and his response was, "Well, she is a Krause." We'll just have to put her in ballet class to lengthen those puppies.

And one to grow on...

I turned 32 on Saturday. Yay. My birthday used to be such a big deal to me. Now I sometimes forget that it's even coming, or I choose to forget. I probably would have forgotten if not for the fact that my entire family came in town. They said they were coming for my birthday; however, I'm pretty sure they only came to see the baby. She was passed around more in three days....they even argued over who got to hold her. Rotten. Needless to say, I did have a great birthday weekend and I felt pretty special considering the baby got all of the attention, which is fine by me these days. I even got to go to yoga on Saturday morning (a rare treat these days) and the entire class sang Happy Birthday to me.

I have always gotten a little sad when I spend a weekend or week with family and friends and then the time comes to an end. It's been worse since Mia has been born, but this time I didn't full on cry like I have the last few times. My emotions seem to be in check, although they still go haywire every now and then. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I wish my friends could get to know my daughter better. I wish our kids could grow up together and be buddies in school and stuff. I have two good friends who just had babies, too, and I'm sad that they won't grow up together, go to school together, be in each other's weddings, etc. And now I have made myself sad again. *Sigh*

Happy Independence Day???

I spent my Fourth of July attempting to get Mia to nap for more than 30 minutes at a time. Apparently, a baby's sleep cycle is only 30 - 45 minutes. She kept deciding that one cycle was enough for her. I had to put her in the swing to get her to sleep for longer than an hour. Lovely. She's also congested, which sucks. She sounds uncomfortable when she's moving around in her sleep. Yes, I go in several times a night and check on her. I'm neurotic. Anyway, I remember when making plans for the Fourth was such a big deal. This year, I never left the house. My, how my priorities have changed.

My mat

Sleep is essential. How come when I am having a good night's sleep, Mia wakes up at 12:30 and then again at 4:30 and then when she sleeps until 3:00 am, I lay in bed wide awake for most of the night? I am like a walking zombie today. I can't wait to go home, play with the little one, put her to bed, and then hit the hay myself. I am so looking forward to that moment.

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Most people know that I have been practicing yoga for over five years and it has become an integral part of my life. Since Mia has been born, getting to a yoga class has proven to be difficult. So when I started back to work, I started going to some noon classes that are close to the Law School. It's great to practice in the middle of the day. I can forget what I've been doing all day and not think about what I have to do for the rest of the day. It's a nice, needed break. Yesterday, I went to Jenn's yoga class at Dharma Yoga yesterday. The studio has moved into a new space on Guadalupe which is a hop, skip, and a jump away from work. I practiced with Jenn all throughout my pregnancy and she was so helpful. It's nice to get to take her class without my big belly in the way. Yesterday, before she started class, she said that she always wonders what brings people to their mats on any particular day. Lately, the thing that brings me to my mat is if I can actually get to a class, then I'm there! But the reality is that my mat is a place for me where I can truly be myself and not have to worry what other people think or say. My mat is one of the only places that I can honestly call my own. No one else can stake any kind of claim to it. My mat is my own personal space where no one can bother me with phone calls or emails. Basically, what brings me to my mat is that it is all mine and I feel good about that.

Growing? Teething? Adjusting?

Mia has started waking up twice in the middle of the night to eat. She had been waking up just once anywhere between 2:00 and 4:00 and then from between 6:00 and 8:00 for the day. The last two nights, she's woken at midnight and then at 4:00, but has gone back to sleep until 7:30 or 8:00. She also seems to be more restless at night. All of these things are signs of either a growth spurt or possibly teething, but she seems a little young for that. My coworker told me not to feed her. Okay. Someone posted on my Facebook page that she's waking because she knows I will come to her. The baby isn't even four months old. Am I supposed to ignore her? She takes a full bottle and goes right back to sleep, which pretty much tells me that she's hungry. I do let her cry herself to sleep sometimes, obviously going in to comfort her and check on her, so I definitely don't go to her every single time she cries when she's in bed. Needless to say, I'm tired today and I'm hoping that this will pass. My head knows that it will. It also knows that in a few months, I'll be having sleepless nights for some other reason.

Live in the Moment

I was told by an older and wiser friend once that there is no one way to mother. I try to continue to tell myself that as Mia gets older because there are so many things that I have said I will or won't do as a parent and countless things I have said I won't let my child do. I said a lot of these things before I actually had a daughter. It was so much easier back then, wasn't it? The scary part is that she's not even four months old! She's not even close to being able to understand right from wrong or what she should and shouldn't be doing. I am constantly thinking about the future when I need to be thinking about the present. For weeks, I stressed about transitioning Mia into her crib at night, and now she sleeps in there 10 - 12 hours a night. (She won't nap in her crib at the daycare, but that's another story.) I worried about how she would sleep unswaddled and then she just busted out of it one night and slept like a champ. I'm always worried about the next big thing with her, like I'm afraid she's going to roll over while she's sleeping and not be able to roll back. (She's a VERY active sleeper.) I'm dreading the first night that she's sick and up crying or teething and she can't sleep. I continue to worry about things that might or might not happen months down the road, when the reality is that she's perfect just the way she is right now at this very moment.

My Adventures in Motherhood...better late than never

Since I am not a scrapbooking kind of gal and can't see myself keeping a baby book, I've decided to start blogging about the newest chapter in my life, the chapter of motherhood. Granted, I am a little late since Mia is now 3 1/2 months old, but as the title of this first post states, "Better late than never."

These last three months have been somewhat of a whirlwind. Mia was born on March 15, 2009; however, we weren't expecting her until around April 15. Waking up in the middle of the night to my water, not just breaking, but gushing, came as quite a shock to both myself and to Cody. And then to discover she was breach and that I would need a C-section was also not in the plan. I hate it when things do not go according to my plan. I barely remember them bringing her to me after I got back to my hospital room. All I remember is trying to nurse and that she was having trouble latching, something that never really changed even when she was a month old. I remember people telling me to get some rest while I was in the hospital because I wouldn't be getting much once I got home. I wondered if those people had ever stayed in a hospital? It was loud; there was always some kind of nurse or doctor or hospital billing person in my room. I found the hospital exhausting with the exception of one day when I was alone and able to nap because I put the baby in the nursery.

Of course, the exhaustion didn't end when I left the hospital. Mia slept a lot...during the day. She would wake every 2 - 3 hours at night and then would be incredibly difficult to put back to sleep. People would say to me, "Enjoy this time. They grow up so fast!" Enjoy??? Really? I didn't enjoy much about the first two months of motherhood. I missed the way my life had been before, and I felt so guilty for feeling that way. (In fact, I still feel that way sometimes. No one told me that was going to happen.) I was incredibly emotional. I missed my family so much. It was a difficult time for me.

Since then, things have gotten much easier. Don't get me wrong, there are still challenges. She sleeps a lot better, although she still has some nights where she wakes up randomly (like last night). But her days and nights are definitely straight. She is so funny and makes me laugh all the time. I miss her during the day since I've gone back to work, but my job has allowed me to keep my sanity. So much has changed for Cody and me over the past three months, that it's almost hard to believe that the little baby in the picture actually is growing so fast! What an interesting journey this will be. Stay tuned...