Life Lately - Part 1

OK, it's been a while I know.  I just don't find time to sit down and write very often.  So before I lose this opportunity, I'm just gonna jump into what the last few months have held!

First, we've taken several trips - some long and some longer.  Kara had her first airplane trip to Florida and her first road trip to Arkansas.  Then she had her second road trip, which was a 12 hour (no stops) trip to Alabama and her third trip for the weekend down to Houston.  What a trouper she is!

Here she is in the airport waiting on our plane to leave.

She slept the entire way on the airplane, which we appreciated since we were quite tired ourselves, except she woke up for the final approach on landing in Florida.

 For the plane ride home she was wide awake and crawling all over both of us but equally as good, although a bundle full of energy for sure!

Kara loves the water and so while we were out there we got to swim in my Mom's pool...

...as well as get her first ocean experience!

Kara also got to meet some of my family for the first time...

More to come later...

Standing Kara

OK, it's been more than a month since I posted so I'll put one out here just quick.  Kara will be 6 months in less than 2 days.....Wow!  Time is flying!  She has been so much fun though :)  She is rolling over, although once she gets on her tummy, she's not interested in rolling back over.  She will stay on her tummy for an hour just moving around.  She has started scooting backwards and tries to put her knees under her but she isn't crawling yet.  I figure that is still a few weeks away.

The thing that has taken her attention the last few days is standing.  She has been putting weight on her feet for months now, probably since about two months, maybe earlier.  Then for the last month or two she has been playing in the exercauser, getting better over time on standing on her own.  This last week, I've introduced the little play table that she stands at.  She LOVES it.  In fact, sitting really is not of interest right now.  When I help her up from her back and try to get her to sit, she stiffens her legs and won't sit.  And she gets mad if I try and 'help' her sit down.  So we've been standing next to the play table lately.  In only a few days she went from a wobbly girl you can't hardly let go of to a fearless little girl who will now take her hand away, and frequently "practices" new things.  Oh, and she has no fear.  She falls and barely cries, if at all.  Usually she just gets back up to do it again.  I'm just trying to enjoy her immobility while it is here!  Because I don't think it will be for long!

Here is a short video from the other night while she was standing at the table - her new favorite toy.

Her Mother's Child

I have always been a night owl, from since I can remember.  I was the kid who had to be woken up on Christmas Day to come open presents because my siblings were up and ready to go!  In fact, I write this at 9:30 pm with pork chops cooking that will be done at 10 pm :) (for tomorrow's lunch of course....I don't eat dinner THAT late!!)  When I got older and got a job, I was forced to become more of a morning person, just so I could get to work on time.  Not my first nature though.

Kara seems to be following in my footsteps.  Sunday, she didn't take her normal long naps but instead took several catnaps.  She slept about 1.5 hours versus her normal 4 hours or so total.  Then we took bluebonnet pictures that evening so she didn't get into bed until about 8 pm, about an hour later than usual.  We generally watch her on the monitor until she drifts off to sleep, which is usually pretty quick.  However, Sunday night she was ready for play.... 

....and rolling over!!  She has been trying for a little while now - maybe a couple of weeks or so.  Sunday night she started off by rolling to her side, which is where she has been sleeping here lately.  But then she started throwing her feet over so that her hips were face down but her shoulders were still not all the way over.  She would get almost rolled over, but her shoulders weren't quite there and she would find her right arm pinned under her left armpit.  So she would roll back onto her back and try again.  At last she got completely rolled over with only her arm pinned under her armpit.  She layed there for a little while presumably thinking this over, contemplating how to get the stuck arm unstuck.  She must've finally come to a good conclusion because next thing you know she was shrieking with excitement, up high on her hands, looking around as if to say, "did you see that?! Did you see that?! I rolled over!! Wow!!!"  It was now 8:30 pm. And she has now rolled over for the first time. In her bed of all places.  And she was now hungry again :~)  So, after a little milk, she finally went to sleep for the evening.  (OK a few hours...)

She loves her newfound trick by the way!  Here's a video from yesterday.  After I picked her up after work and we got home, I couldn't keep her on her back.  Every time she would immediately roll onto her tummy.  Practice, practice, practice!!

Texas Bluebonnets

This year the Texas state flower, the bluebonnet, has come out early and strong.  This due to a very warm and early spring accompanied with good rains coming at just the right time.  We wanted to get some pictures in the bluebonnets, as is a pretty standard family/kids picture around these parts and today I scoped out and found some really nice spots not too far from the house.  So, we set out to get some pictures late this afternoon.  The spot we found turned out even better than I expected!  Of course, as is expected with kids, babies in particular, it was a bit difficult to get Kara to smile.  In fact, just getting her to look at us, with all these neat flowers in sight was a challenge! 

The flowers smelled wonderful and Kara was just completely enamored with them.  She couldn't stop looking at them the entire time we were out there and kept wanting to pick them and look at them.  A child after my own heart I tell ya!

 I laid Kara down in the flowers and she immediately starting checking them out :)

 ....and then decided to test their culinary abilities (don't worry, she didn't eat any!!)

 Still checking them out.....

 Oh, you want me to look at you??

 Kara tells us, "Have you seen these things? They are awesome!!"

 Well, Kara wouldn't play along so I just chose the best one of Mark and I :)  Funny, at home she stares and the camera everytime it is out, but here, she just wanted to look at the flowers!

Milk Sharing

Today, when talking to my sister, I mentioned the fact that I'm donating my extra breastmilk and her questions reminded me that I wanted to write about it.  It is something foreign to most people, including me not too long ago, but I think it is a great thing!  For this reason, I wanted to write about it to both inform and get the wheels turning in the chance that it can help someone else.

When Kara was born, she ended up getting a pretty bad case of jaundice and because of that, she took a while to be able to nurse at any time, particularly at night.  Jaundice makes you tired and when she was tired she didn't want to nurse...she wanted to sleep!  And nursing is work for itty bitty babies so when given the choice, she would often sleep.  Of course, that is no good for her growing self so I started almost exclusively pumping and then bottle feeding her to make sure she got enough to eat.  I didn't set out to go down this path.  Quite the opposite in fact.  Everything you read says the baby can have problems nursing if you introduce the bottle too early and at less than one week of life, this was deemed WAAY too early.  But alas, things took an unexpected turn and I did what I had to, to ensure she grew and thrived like she needed to do.

Starting to pump, that intensely (every three hours) that early in her life, allowed my milk to come in very good.  I was concerned that I would lose my milk, which can happen when exclusively pumping, so I made sure I didn't miss sessions.  It made for really long feeding sessions since I had to pump before each feeding time and then clean all those parts each and every time.  Ugh.  But. My milk came in really good.  So good that I started to accumulate extra milk that I froze in case I couldn't nurse for some reason.  Then, when I went back to work, I started to accumulate even faster.  Losing space in the freezer encouraged me to start looking for where I could donate the milk.

When I started looking,  I found out there were three different places/ways to donate.  Donating to a milkbank would have the milk go to hospitalized preemies where the milk was first pastuerized. This was a possibility but what other options were there? There was a secocond milkbank of sorts to donate to where a for-profit company turns the milk into a concentrated additive for breastmilk and sells it at very high prices to hospitals.  Not an option for me.


The third option I found sounded like something I was most interested in.  I ended up finding out that there are actually ways to donate to individual women, who for whatever reason can't provide enough milk for their baby.  Reasons, since people are usually curious, vary widely.  Adoption, physical issues and premature babies with mothers who don't provide enough milk yet seem to be three of the most common.  I came across this page: http://www.eatsonfeets.org/ and became very interested.  I then found out that this organization had a facebook page.  I lurked for a couple of weeks watching how things worked and getting an idea of who would be receiving the milk.  When the freezer was about to be overfull, I took the plunge and put out a donation.  I'm really glad I did and find it a blessing to be able to donate! 

I know this isn't for everyone.  However, I'm hoping that the more people that know this is even an option the more people may help and/or be helped.  If nothing else, you've learned something if you stuck with me for the whole writeup :) Feel free to ask me questions or check out the eatsonfeets website.  They have a ton of info about milksharing on their site.

Sunday Baby Fun

Well, no pictures today...I was too busy playing and having fun!  This weekend has been quite a fun weekend with Kara.  Well not that other weekends aren't but she is just learning SOOO much. Yesterday, I put her underneath the baby gym and hung a bunch of toys and then showed her how she could play with them.  I've done this before and she still just kinda looked at them.  But yesterday she actually reached up and started to grab them :)  It's really kinda funny and neat to watch a baby learn hand-eye coordination.  She stares intently at the object and then finally makes the decision to attempt a swipe.  Then, the swipe.  Maybe she gets the prize of a grab, maybe not.  Then, it starts over.  I just sat and watched her for a while yesterday, watching her learn after each attempt.  Fun!!

Today, after I let her practice her grabbing techniques from yesterday, we layed on a blanket and practiced rolling over.  She is getting awefully close!  She had a ball just rolling from her back to her side and then having Mommy push her over to her tummy.  Then rolling from her tummy to her side and having Mommy push her over to her back.  One time, all I did for the whole roll from tummy to back was reposition her hand.  Those darned hands and arms just get in the way when rolling over! 

The other really cool thing about this weekend, or actually more just about how she is evolving, is that the more intense play and learning is giving way to much better naps.  YAY for naps!!!  She has never been a great napper, but here in the last week, she has actually been taking some longer (1-2 hour) naps at her Grandmothers - when I'm at work - and she has been going down easy for a long (2-3 hour) nap at home with me.

Well, it is 4 hours since I started writing this post and now 8 pm.  My how time slips by with a kid.  I know I said no pictures for today but I did download two pictures from this morning that I'll post tonight.

Here is Kara showing off her standing abilities with Daddy's help.

 And here is her 4 month picture with the dancer bear. 

 Here is Kara with the same bear a month and a half ago.  You can tell she is growing!

Four months and counting

Today Kara had her four month checkup.  She got her second round of shots and boy does she take those like a champ!  Daddy held her and talked sweetly to her while the nurses quietly did their duty.  Amazingly, she just let out a small cry and went on with her business....her business being a happy little baby!  It is funny because the nurse about to give the shots said, "I don't mind giving crying babies shots because they are already crying.  But Kara is just so happy I don't want to have to give her a shot and make her cry."  .....We are so lucky to have such a happy baby and we both feel VERY blessed!

Speaking of a happy baby, here she is today laughing while Daddy plays.  He is so good with her!!  I do love watching them play and interact together :)

It is so hard to get a picture of her smiling because every time she sees a camera she sits and stares at it.  But with Mark around to help, I was able to get this picture.  Notice, she is finally starting to get just a little bit of hair!

Kara has started spotting Sylvester (the cat) and she will just sit and watch her. It's kinda funny to watch them both just watching each other sometimes.



 Here is Kara sitting in her bumbo chair with one of her more favorite toys.  I have heard that babies like toys with faces and watching her, I definitely believe that.  She will just stare at this little guy.  Today we gave her this toy while she was in her walker and she just stared at it and started talking to him!  How cute :)

 The other day, it was time to go get milk, so Kara and I took a trip out to the farm. We got out and walked around while I showed her the chickens and the cows and the horses.   I'm sure, in the not too distant future, she will try chasing all the animals, but for now, she just happily listened while Mommy told her what she was seeing :)  While we were there, she got to meet the farmers....they got up from their nap just as we were getting ready to leave but of course, Kara can't pass up a good conversation so she hammed it up for a few minutes with them!

 Just the last couple of weeks, Kara has started picking things up (knowingly) and is beginning to play with them.  She likes to pick things up and study them both by feel and by sight.  She will pick this one up and feel the round end.

 I don't think she could get that bottom lip out any further this particular morning!!

 Kara playing...with her serious face.... (she see's that camera again!)