Black Friday

We finally put our Christmas tree up today. After reading several Facebook posts it seems like we are the last people to do this which is crazy! Since when did people start putting trees and lights up on November 1st?  I had help with the tree; Ella was VERY excited about all the decorations and even tried her hand at decorating the tree with ribbon. Take a look, she may have a future in it. 

9 Months Old!

Ella turned 9 months old today!  I tried to take some pictures this morning to commemorate the occasion before we headed off for daycare but she was quite displeased with the whole ordeal.

But then she started to warm up to the idea.  We bought her some shoes while in Houston the other day and these cute flip flops were the last pair at Old Navy.  She wasn't too sure about these but they lasted on her feet for all of 45 seconds.

We are also having trouble picking her up from daycare.  This whole week she starts to cry when I pick her up to take her home.  And it's horrible!  Yesterday was so bad Ms. Stewart, the owner, walked us out and put Ella in the car seat because she was acting so distraught!  I know she is just tired and teething and cranky but it's so hard to deal with.  It's not even whimpering, it is a lip full out, wails and tears experience.  But she acted a lot better once she got home today.  We ate and had a bottle and teething gel seemed to help a lot too.  She definitely has a tooth coming in, we can feel it and hear it when she is biting on something hard.  We just can't see it.  Oh, I hope it comes in soon!  Until then, Happy 9 Month Birthday!

Summertime Projects

So way back in May I decided I would make a headband holder for Ella's room.  I figured this would be my summer project and it literally took me all summer to complete.  It wasn't anything crazy difficult but I just never had the time to sit down and do it.  Then Hobby Lobby had an amazing sale last week and I scooped up some frames and completed another project!  See what you think of 'em.  I think they'll become family heirlooms.

Terrible Teething

Ugh!  So we are expecting the arrival of some new baby teeth at any moment in the near future.  At least that is what we are hoping for.  Otherwise, our sweet precious baby girl has turned into a screaming, whining, crying, drooling, chewing, fussing child.  She has been showing the "classic" signs of teething for about 5 months now but she has upped the ante these past couple of days.  She is chewing on EVERYTHING, drooling profusely and being extremely fussy all day long.  We've been giving baby Tylenol and Hylands gel for those baby gums and Drew and I both swore we saw two possible teeth under her gums.  But then later that day we couldn't see anything.  So what did we see?  We have no idea.  I tried to take some photos while she had her mouth open but the results were inconclusive.  If this isn't teething I don't know what it is, but seriously, they need to come in already!

She also is standing on her own (a bit).  I began walking at 8 months so I thought it would be really neat if she did too.  But it doesn't look like that is going to happen.  She has a toy piano that also has wheels so it can act like a walker.  However, it is hard to walk behind it and play it at the same time, which is what she has been trying to do so far.  Oh well, she has until Friday to walk at 8 months! :) But even is she doesn't I'm okay with that.

This summer has gone by so quickly.  Spending time at home with Ella has been so great, for the most part anyway! :)  And really, other than the teething, we have enjoyed a wonderful summer.  Some things I (Ella) have enjoyed over the summer are....

Pooo!  You are going to have to click on this collage to see it in all of its glory.  That's disappointing, if you only knew how much time that took!  :(  Oh well, take a look.  I still rather like it.

Mum-Mum's

So Mum-Mum's were brought into our lives yesterday!  Grandma brought them for Ella to try and the verdict is in...she loves them!  They are a bit messy and sticky and almost disgusting to look at when they are all mushy and dissolving on her hands, arms & clothes...not to mention my hands, arms and clothes; but she likes them so that's kind of all that matters.

Thirsty Thursday

eh, not really. I just wanted some alliteration.

I can't believe how fast this summer is flying by and that my last post was from April!  Really?!  No wonder I only have 3 (count 'em 3) followers!  :p

Ella is now army crawling with a vengeance!  She can really move and really wants to get into everything!  She also is pulling up and standing all by herself!  She will be 9 months old next week, which is incredible.  As Drew so eloquently stated, she's almost been alive the same amount of time she spent cooking.  :-p

And because it's so unbearably hot, we've been taking advantage of our kiddie pool.

Sunday Blues

Sunday night is always such a drag knowing you have to go back to work Monday!  I can get used to being off!

So I've created a list of things I will be working on this week:
1) feeding Ella solids EVERYday for dinner
2) eat healthy foods myself everyday
3) getting up and doing the 30-Day Shred every morning (*keep your fingers crossed*)
4) take and post more pictures of Ella because she is growing up soooo fast!


The last one I can at least solve right now:

 Go Aggies!!

 This is serious business.

Not a Fan

So squash, rice, and just plain eating from a spoon did not go over well.  We were not a fan, although we did enjoy our highchair at first and having daddy talk to us.

 Before

After

4 Month Checkup

Today is my first day of Spring Break and to celebrate I took Ella to her 4 month checkup!  I was actually excited to go to see how big she has gotten and to ask our doctor a ton of questions.  Her appointment was a bit overdue because we had to reschedule 3 times!  So finally she was seen today and it went great.  She is in the 75% percentile for her height and weight and 98% percentile for head size.  She doesn't look out of proportion but her head does feel super large.  We were also told she could begin solid foods now.  This is extremely exciting!!  We went straight to Target and bought some squash, peaches, mangos, prunes, and bananas.  I can't decide what to start first!!  I just realized I may need to buy some more since you're not supposed to introduce new foods all at once and I only bought one package of each food.  Oops.  I plan on making my own baby food (we'll see how that goes) but for today and we will try one of these store bought ones.  I think we may start with bananas.  I also bought some rice cereal to add to her formula and spoon feed to her.  I can't wait!  We will probably do that tonight once Drew is home so he can watch her eat solids for the first time and then we can get some pictures!  I almost bought these:

  

for the obvious reason but they were pretty expensive.  I went to their website and realized this company is based out of the UK so that might explain the higher price.  Plus it has more than one ingredient in it so I gave it a pass and bought the good 'ol Gerber brand.  I really hope this goes well!


Speaking of pictures, (from earlier)  here's some of our St. Patrick's Day outfit.  I saw so many other little girls on facebook wearing this exact outfit but it was still pretty darn cute even if it wasn't one of a kind.

2011

I can't believe both 2010 and my maternity leave has ended!  It's horrible.  Even though I said I felt ready to go back to work I'm still lamenting the fact that all this time spent at home with Ella is almost over.  I've enjoyed being with her these past 8 weeks.  I feel so lucky to have been able to take off that amount of time and get to know her during her first weeks of life.  Granted not all of it has been wonderful, there were many days where I felt completely overwhelmed and frustrated and I was unsure if I could even make it to the end of my leave; but I feel like I got through it pretty well.  Now I have to go to school tomorrow to make sure I have everything I need for Monday and then that's it; it will be over.  I will have to get back into the same old grind and head back to work Monday.  :( 

Tomorrow I am also starting a new diet.  I know I know, a diet at the beginning of a new year is so cliched but I tried to start it back before Christmas, actually the week of Christmas, which was a big mistake...huge.  It's not even a diet per say, it's more of an eating healthier lifestyle.  I have very high hopes for this one.  A friend of mine has lost nearly 70 pounds!  I hope it can be that successful for me too; that would be FANTASTIC!

So here's to a new year, one that I hope is successful, productive, and just plain fun.  Happy New Year!

'tis the season

I am normally super stoked about the holiday season.  I love love love Christmas, but this year I've been pretty apathetic about the whole thing.  I'm pretty burnt out on everything it seems and I'm actually [almost] looking forward to going back to work because I can get out of the house and be around other people.  Plus, Ella's been colicky lately...and that's been pretty rough.  I have a feeling we may be luckier than we think because the Happiest Baby on the Block book has really worked with her crying fits and usually works pretty quickly.  Still every night around the same time she still cries and cries and it just; well I can't tell you how it makes you feel.  So now it's almost Christmas and if I didn't have a tree up I wouldn't even know it was almost here.  I just haven't been in the Christmas spirit this year and that is totally not like me.  I'm ready for things to get better.  I'm also ready for a happy post!


Three positives for the day:
1.) I have an absolutely adorable baby
2.) My sub sent me cards my kids made telling me congratulations on my new baby, they were so cute
3.) I had a good time hanging out with some great friends tonight. :)

Hopeful

I was finally able to meet with the lactation consultant today and of course Ella would latch and act PERFECTLY for her!  She kept saying how great it looked and how she was just doing wonderfully and of course it didn't feel excruciating as it does at home.  Of course.  Then when I feed her at home it really doesn't feel quite so bad buuuut she ends up getting hungry again in like 45 minutes!  Seriously?  So I gave her some formula to supplement and I really hope that buys me some time.  Honestly, when you breastfeed it seems like that is all you do.  Although I was able to get her feeding time down to 30ish  minutes like she wanted me to, and that was because she did latch on pretty well this time.  If only we can keep it up.  If I were to be 100% honest though, I'd have to admit that I'm still on the fence about what to do.  I'm still not enjoying it and the lactation consultant mentioned that at around 3 mos. is when they will look up at you and smile and that it feels so wonderful.  The only problem is I will be back at work way before then and she will definitely be feeding from a bottle all day while at daycare so I would miss that anyway.  Ugh.  It's like I just can't win! 

Breastfeeding Baby Blues

So I really dislike breastfeeding.  I'm probably a horrible mother for saying that but it's true.  It's painful, frustrating for me and her, extremely time consuming, painful, messy, exhausting, painful, difficult to get the hang of, difficult to get a good latch, and did I mention painful?  I feel so frustrated that it's not going as easy as I was told it would.  You are constantly led to believe that breastfeeding is a wonderful experience that helps you build a strong bond with your baby, is such a natural thing, and will go smoothly but what you don't find out is that it is so hard!  It literally takes me an hour to for one feeding and then I'm supposed to turn around and do it all over again in an hour and a half.  I don't feel like I bond with her at all when she's screaming and crying and I'm trying to force her to latch on.  Then when she finally does it's always a bad latch that is excruciating.  Granted if I've taken my Motrin and Vicoden then it doesn't hurt quite so bad but when those pain meds are wearing off it's horrid.  I have read all that I can about how to breastfeed, we took a class before she was born that was supposed to help with all of these issues, I've watched videos about how to get a good latch and how to make breastfeeding easy and I am supposed to have an appt. with a lactation consultant today to help with the soreness, latch issues, and milk supply and if I don't come away from that meeting feeling much better about breastfeeding I'm seriously considering going straight to formula.  I feel like such a failure for not being able to do it though.  I really wanted to do this and I wanted to pump when I went back to work because I know how great breast milk is supposed to be for babies but I think formula might be better for my mental health.  And there are so many moms who don't breastfeed and their babies turn out perfect.  I just wish it was easier because I'm stressed enough as it is and I hate that the list of things I'm worried about keeps getting longer and longer.  I just want to enjoy the time I have with her and this breastfeeding thing is just making things less enjoyable.  :(

Ella Grace

Baby Ella was born exactly one week ago today at 5:05pm!  It's been a pretty long but good week.  Both our moms came this week to help us out around the house and cook and buy us food so we didn't have to worry about it.  It's been pretty interesting having a baby around the house and it really will take some getting used to but honestly she has been such a good baby so far.  I'm hoping it stay this good.  She hasn't been too fussy yet and her sleeping at night has really been great.  She has been waking up once or twice a night for feedings and other than that she has slept.  Seriously I really cannot complain!  Here's some pictures of my little cutie patootie!

First last day

So today is my first day on maternity leave.  It is currently 6:30 am and I have been up since 5:10am.  Well before that really, but that's when my feet touched the floor.  I thought this might be my last day to sleep in for some time so I turned off my alarm clock but I'm not sure how to turn off the internal one.  I literally lost sleep last night thinking about all of the school stuff I didn't do yesterday and thought of the poor sub coming in and seeing no order whatsoever.  In actuality it wasn't that bad but I did have to rush out of there yesterday for a doctor's appt. so I couldn't take my time and make sure everything was done like I wanted it.  Plus I have already emailed a note to our secretary with notes for the sub that I neglected to leave yesterday.  I just couldn't get those last few things out of my head and so I got up, obsessed over the note a bit, finally sent it, then got on facebook for what was going to be just a few moments and here I am, an hour and a half later and still up. Another factor in my inability to get a good night's sleep was that I managed to catch a cold somehow.  Actually I know exactly how, I have had kids coughing all week, all around me, on me, one even coughed right in my face.  I remember thinking, as the air from the cough brushed across my face, I bet I get sick.  Not even  high doses of Germ-X, hand washing, and good ol' fashioned OJ drinking could fight the fight.  I'm really hoping it doesn't interfere with my inducement later today.  I really want that to go smoothly and, let's be honest, quickly. 

38 weeks

So, I am 38 weeks officially today!  I feel so large and uncomfortable.  I'm so tired and if I walk around too much my legs get tired.  Sitting is a chore and if I lay on the floor, good luck getting me back up.  I'm so ready for her to be here already!  I went to the doctor Wednesday and she checked to see how dilated I was.  I had really pumped myself up thinking she would say a big number, (big mistake...huge) in actuality I was only "maybe a fingertip".  Crap.  I was really disappointed which I know is dumb since I still have a good two weeks before my due date, but I couldn't help it.  She also didn't tell me when we could induce and they said they would call me with a date but never did.  I'm going to ask again when I go back this Wednesday and hopefully she won't say some crazy far off date.  I honestly don't know how far past the 6th I can wait.  I guess if I have to I have to but it would seriously suck.

I went to check out the daycare I'll be leaving her at yesterday.  It's run by my old principal and it is right across the street from my school so logistically it sounds like the most ideal place to keep her.  However, it is going to be so hard to do that.  I wish I could find a job I could do from home.  Suggestions anyone?  I can already tell that I'm not going to want to leave her anywhere and just thinking about it really depresses me.  The day care was fine, I mean I didn't feel like she would be in danger or be given no attention or something.  I know several of the people that work there; I even taught some of their kids so I know she will be in good, capable hands...but being with me would be better!

Then I go on the Babycenter.com board, which I really shouldn't even look at.  I have definitely developed a complex by reading some of those posts because they give you so much to worry about!  I didn't even know I needed to worry about this stuff and yet here I am, worrying about it.  Kick counts, short cord, eating something wrong, low amniotic fluid and really the list goes on and on.  I've tried to just do the best that I can and hope for the best.  There are also some just plain stupid questions on there.  You'd be surprised at how many posts begin with.."I think my water just broke....what do I do?"  Seriously? (turns out it she just had massive amounts of discharge; umm excuse me while I gag).  Or my favorite today was "Is it safe to make cupcakes or would that be considered too strenuous of an activity?"   What kind of cupcakes are you making?  They also ask things like "should I do jumping jacks to bring on labor?", "Is it okay to wear tight shirts?", "can I use a copier/computer/cell phone?"  I'm curious where these fears come from.  Now I'll admit, I have my fair share of "irrational" fears but these are in a league of their own.  They make me laugh sometimes though, which is always beneficial.

What's in a Name?

Since we have "officially" settled on a name we have gotten such a lackluster response!  We first thought the name Ella Grace and everyone LOVED it!  People would gush about what a beautiful, gorgeous name that was and how we should certainly not change it.  Well, we changed it.  We decided that Gabriella Grace was the name we would go with.  Now, when everyone asks what name we are thinking of and I tell them I get the reaction of raised eyebrows, pursed lips, a head nob, and a high pitched "hhmmm".  I can still call her Ella, or Gabby, or Bree or *struggles to type* Gigi (that's all Drew there).  But you get the picture, we'd have options and her name would sound super sophisticated.  Unless she marries someone named Smith or Jones or something.  And I know it only matters what we think of it but still, can a girl get a little enthusiasm please?

Moving on , today was an okay day.  I definitely did a "pregnant" thing.  When taking the kids to lunch I saw they were having nachos.  Well what's the harm in one quick look just too see how gross it looks, right.  Wrong.  It looked freakin' amazing!  I struggled with the idea of getting a school lunch for a whole...oh...15 seconds then decided I needed to get it.  Now I know what you are thinking.  I bet she got that big plate of school cafeteria food and hated it.  You'd be a loser if you took that bet.  I loved every bite of that "food" from the salty mexican rice, to the indescribable refried beans (seriously I really can't describe it) and the salty chips and canned nachos cheese.  It was delicious.  So, moral of the story, no more peeking at the cafeteria lunch food!

Feeling It

Last night was a horrible night of sleeping.  I woke up at 4:45am first and then again at 5:15.  Kudos to my internal alarm clock because 5:10am is when I normally get up but I kept waking up so uncomfortable.  My hips hurt so bad!  I know why they do but I cannot find a good position to sleep in that doesn't cause pain, except that night I slept on the couch but who wants to sleep on the couch every night?  Especially ours.  It's not particularly comfortable, or nice and smooth against your skin I always wake up with what looks like a skin disease because of the roughness of it, heck it's not even very stylish and I hate lugging pillows and blankets up and down the stairs.  What an inconvenience.  (Ha, that word reminds me of Wal-Mart because it is apparently the hardest word in the English language to spell!  :)  So, other than not sleeping well things are going pretty well.  I've received several comments from other moms saying that I needed to just get used to it because it doesn't stop once she's born and I know that's going to happen.  But, after she's born I will at least be able to sleep for a few hours at a time in a comfortable position.  It's going to be so nice!

Speaking of nice, this is my Baby Shower Weekend Extravaganza!  I have a shower today with some friends in town and tomorrow I have my family shower back home.  It should prove to be fun times.   And if I don't look like a massively overweight troll I may post some pictures of the events.  We will see.

work, a towing, a class - oh my!

Today started off pretty well.  Work went pretty smoothly, no one observed me, I got all my reading lesson done, and I found some good manipulatives for a student.  All in all a pretty productive day.  I had to leave "early" (3:10) in order to make a Dr. appointment so another teacher was going to take my bus riders to the bus.  No problem.  I head to the car and get ready to leave when the misfortune struck.  The car flat out refused to shift out of park.  Okay, let's try it again.  Still no go.  I call Drew, he gives some advice on ways to try and make it shift out of park but none of them worked.  I try some things I found in my owners manual that addressed the problem, however those didn't work.  I go inside and find one of our maintenance men fairly quickly (stroke of good luck) and ask him to take a look at it.  He tries to no avail to get the dumb thing to shift our of park....do you sense a pattern?  That didn't work.  I called the dealership where I got this car 1 year and 2 weeks ago.  It's still under warranty so they give me the number for Chrysler roadside assistance.  I call and they need to send me a wrecker to tow the POC.  Okay, the closest one is 30 minutes away.  Unfortunately it is already 3:45 by this point and I'm still a good 30 minutes away from the doctor's office so I suck it up and call to reschedule.  They have a 3:30 appt. for tomorrow so I told them I would call them back when I knew if I would at least have a vehicle tomorrow.  Well after discussing it with Drew he said I could take his truck to work and then go the doctor's office straight from school.  I call the office back (20 minutes have elapsed) and the appt. it already taken!  Seriously!?  They cannot squeeze me in at all in the afternoon for the rest of the week so I had to reschedule for next week.  Fortunately I still get to pay for the appt. today though.  :)

Okay, so you're thinking the story is almost over.  Not quite.  The wrecker gets there and it turns out he cannot tow my car because I'm parked up against a sidewalk, my car is front wheel drive, and we cannot get it into neutral to move it.  He needs an entirely different truck.  So he has to go back to town 30 minutes away to get a new truck and come back.  Then he has to drive the car 30 minutes the opposite way to where I live to dump it at the dealership.  Drew comes to pick me up and we swing by the dealership to give them the 411 on what's going down and to ask about the possibility of getting a rental car.  While there he looks up the part that will be needed to fix the car (this is apparently a common problem with this type of car).  Depending on the severity of the problem it could take 1 or possibly 2 parts to fix it.  One part they have no problem so if that is the culprit then they can fix it and it will be ready tomorrow no problem.  However, if it is the 2 part fix the second part is on back order.  Not good.  No telling when that would get fixed.

Still trying to remain positive.  I'm hoping that only the one part is broken, the one part they have.  The rental place is closed, not that it would have mattered since earlier today they had no cars available, plus the warranty would not cover that cost so that would be entirely out of my pocket.  No thank you...at least not year.

Still not ready to go home though.  It's now 5:30 and we have a Newborn Infant Care class scheduled from 6-9pm.  We hightail it (okay not really, we took our time) to the location of the class only we are both starving and the only thing close is Burger King.  More bad luck.  We have it our way and grab some dinner from a very impatient and agitated worker and head to class.  It is super long, even if we did get out at 8:30, but at least had a bit of good information.  Still not a great class and I let them know how they could improve it in their survey, which might have been a bad idea considering I was exhausted, hungry, had to pee (again), and irritated to no end about my car and having to miss my dr. appt.  

Whew.

So what.a.day.  I'm actually in bed typing so that when I shut this computer off I can immediately go to sleep.  I'm half tempted to not even spell check this crap.

ugh!   But I will...   Goodnight.

Parenting Classes

We completed our first pregnancy class Saturday and have our second one scheduled tomorrow.  I hate to say the Saturday class was a waste of time because our "teacher" was a really nice person who knew a lot, but really it was a waste of time.  The teacher is a Labor and Delivery nurse at the hospital we will be delivering at and she really was informative, the only problem was that I knew most of the information already.  We did get to lay on the floor and practice breathing and we got to take a tour of the Labor and Delivery wing of the hospital which was definitely cool.  It's freshly remodeled and much bigger (not that I can compare) and it was really nice.  It was also unsettling quiet but whatever.  Anyway, those were the only "perks".  The videos we watched were pretty outdated, I'm talking VHS tapes for goodness sake!  The breathing was informative but I can't remember any of it already and we agree that the burger for lunch was the highlight of the day.  So, after all of that on Saturday (oh and did I mention this class lasted from 8:45-4:30!) we have our next class tomorrow from 6-9.  I really hope it is more informative than the last one and that it goes by a lot quicker.  I also hope that I don't want to fall asleep during this one.

But, one can only hope I guess.