What I've learned in 4 quick weeks

So the funny part is, I uploaded photos Friday to this post with the intention of writing, and it is currently Saturday morning and I am just now doing my first typing. One thing leads to another, Sam woke up, ate, then we cuddled until Josh got home, the blog had to wait.

Yesterday Sam turned 4 weeks old, one month coming on Monday. I can't believe where the time has gone! She doesn't look like a newborn anymore, it's amazing.

There are several things we have learned over the last 4 weeks, about Sam, about parenting, about life for that matter!

Here is what we know about Sam: She has my short legs and long torso, Sorry Sam! All her pants are too long, way too long! She has Josh's eyes, toes, and fingers. My lips, my hair, but Josh's eyelashes... he's in trouble later! We have a feeling she'll be crawling before we realize it. When we put her on her tummy for tummy time she always has her legs going. She gets up on her knees and just won't stop. Once she figures out how to hold her upper body up, we're in trouble. She lifts her head up all the time, but even when we were still in the hospital she was lying on me and lifted her head up and turned it from one side to the other.. totally freaked me out... what happened to being totally helpless and not able to move! She's even managed to roll herself over from tummy to back already. Or as my mom says she's pushed herself over. Like I said she always has her legs moving when she's on her stomach, so one day about a week ago she managed to dig her long toes into the ground and kick herself over. She's done it a couple times already. Josh and I looked at each other with that kind of "did you see what I saw" kind of look... Oh ya, and she tends to use her middle fingers... a lot! She seems to always be sticking them out, and only them. She did it on her first day and when I showed Josh he said it was random and obviously she doesn't know what she's doing... well ya... but maybe not so random, she loves sticking them out. Awesome!

We've learned that Josh loves it when she sneezes. I love when we're waking up in the morning and I lift her up she's just like a little person... which I know she is... but watching her face and body as she stretches, she looks like I feel when we wake up too early! When she's lying with either Josh or myself and falls asleep she usually puts whichever arm is closest to us up and rests her head on it... again, just like a little person. When she gets her bottom lip quivering I just melt... hopefully that doesn't last! We had no idea how quick babies nails grow, I've been cutting them every 3 or 4 days now for a couple weeks... anything to keep her from scratching her face, since she always seems to have her hands up.

We've finally started leaving the house occasionally. Just to the store, out to grandma and grandpa's house, little bits here and there. We're looking forward to taking longer trips, going on walks, etc, but with the temperatures so low right now it's a bit chilly! and until I get the okay from the doc at my next appointment I'm trying not to do too much. It's driving me crazy, but I don't want to push it too far, even if I feel okay and then have to go back on rest, since I was told to stay on rest for 6 weeks post delivery... just under 2 weeks to go...

Here are more pics... can't update without new pictures!

 Sam checks out her new playmat

 Reece had to check it all out too

 She liked to kick the panda... she probably didn't know what she was doing, but she kept doing it none the less.

Second cousins Kya and Teagan were in town from Idaho and got to visit!

Kicking those legs!

Kicking myself over

What just happened?

Happy Birthday Great Grandpa!

All dressed up for my first party. Great grandpa's 90th Birthday party!

More Pics

Just being me... taking more photos of our little girl. Here's some new ones.

 I can lift my head!

3 Weeks

Happy Friday everyone!

Happy Valentine's Day

I am spending Valentine's Day with my newest love, Samantha. Josh is at work, so it's just the two of us... and Reece. When Josh gets home we will continue our Valentine's tradition of eating Chinese food and relaxing with a movie. Might not be as relaxing as years past, but we'll continue it none-the-less. Until then, here are some more pictures I took in the last couple days. Professional ones to come!

Life with a 2 week old

Things have been going fairly well so far in my opinion. Josh went back to work and my mom back to Colorado. I've been doing this on my own for about a week and so far we've all survived! Samantha has had her moments in the night where she just won't go back to sleep, but for the most part she gives us a couple hours at a time.

She was great at breastfeeding for the first 4 or 5 days and then had enough of it. After lactation consultants, middle of the night screaming and us being stressed wanting to be able to feed our daughter, we our now feeding her formula. We give her as much as we can from pumping, but it's mostly formula. Her doctor is okay with it, and frankly the hardest part I think for me was admitting that she was not going to be breastfed. Again, the best laid plans sometimes... She loves her bottle and we are all much happier and have less stress. At this point I don't care what other people think, I just want to feed my daughter.

We had her 2 week doctors appointment and found out she needs to be eating more to start gaining more weight. I think trying to figure out what to feed her threw us all for a loop, but she's eating like a champ now. We almost doubled what we were feeding her and she sucks it all down, she'll be packing on the weight in no time. Feeding her more also helps with output... so to speak. She went a few days with nothing but wet diapers so Josh and I had to manually get it started again... now we are good to go. It has also helped already with sleep at night. Last night she went for a couple 4 hour stretches, we loved it.

Her latest thing is whenever Josh changes her diaper right after he takes it off she pees all over... it of course goes all over her, the changing pad, and up her back, requiring a whole change of attire... she has yet to do this to me, so of course I think it's hilarious. Also last Monday her cord fell off so we can now give her real baths and forget this sponge bath stuff. Much easier.

I think that's all for baby updates for now... below are pictures from her room, we finally hung her name up, and from her first real bath.

I found the letters, painted them, and put polka dots at each end in brown, green, and mirrored.

Daddy doing her hair after bath time.

We had to fight over the washcloth.

More Photos of Samantha

No updates, just more photos.

Sam on the left, me on the right... that's where the hair came from

Sleepin on daddy

Silly girl

Samantha Kelly is here!

So much for waiting for a due date. Due to mild preeclampsia we went in early to meet our beautiful baby girl. I got a phone call Tuesday the 25th from my doctor saying she wanted to get me in to get rid of the preeclampsia, and the only way to do that was to induce. Being full term and ready to go, emotions started to go crazy. I was work when I got the phone call, having just met the woman I was going to train for the next 2 weeks to take over my job while I'm gone... so much for that! She got one quick 6 hour crash course before I was off. I called my mom and she was able to change her flight to get here in time, called Josh of course to let him know what was going on, called my dad, and called Josh's mom. After that I tried to go back to work for my final day in 2 months. Ha!

We were told to check in a midnight Wed night/Thurs morning... I didn't work Wednesday and tried to make myself as busy as possible to keep my mind off things, but at the same time rest up knowing I was going to need it. Little did I know.

Long day/night/story short... after checking in a midnight and getting everything going just around 1am, the pitocin started just before 8am, my doc broke my water at about 8:30am, and by just about 8pm I got an epidural. I was hoping to go natural, but with the preclampsia and induction plus the magnesium sulfate, it was just too much. 12 hours of contractions did me in, especially not being able to eat or drink anything all day. I was finally able to get a bit of rest after the epidural, but not peaceful as I was constantly being monitored. Just before 1am Friday I was told to start pushing. It was finally time!!! Well, kind of. Samantha Kelly decided to join us at 3:41 am Friday, January 28, 2011. She weighed in at 8 lbs 5 oz, 21 inches long and a full head of hair. Everyone seemed surprised by her hair but Josh and I were expecting it. She had great color and looked absolutely perfect. Josh cut the cord, and then she was all ours. We just held her for as long as we could, family came in around 5am, and by 6am it was time for bed!

Since then it's been a blur, I can't believe it's been a week, today was supposed to be my first day of maternity leave at work, so things definitely didn't happen as we planned. Not a bad thing, but throws us off a bit. We've had visitors everyday, which is great. Josh is already back to work, and as of Tuesday my mom will be back to Colorado and I'll get to/have to, do this mommy thing all on my own. I'm anxious, but also looking forward to it.

She doesn't exactly like to sleep at night, she'll give us a few hours then be fussy for a few, then give us a few more hours... we're learning what we can do on very little sleep. I'm learning what I can do with a beat up body. Sam made her grand entrance in a painful way to my body and I am on strict orders to take care of myself with 6 weeks of rest... ummm ya, with a newborn? Ok.

Finally, the part everyone cares about... pictures!