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.