Everybody's Doing It...

Homework: A Household Meme

What time of day do you do most of your housework? Is that by choice or by necessity?

I do housework when the baby sleeps. My mom comes every week day during her lunch break (she works in the town I live in, but lives an hour away since getting married) and I can usually squeeze in a bit of tidying while she plays with Magdalena. I also hand M over to Erich some nights when he isn't busy and get some stuff done too! Good thing we live in a house so I can vacuum at 11pm (like I did last night!).

Say Cheese!

Fotolog is finally cooperating and a new picture is up for your viewing pleasure! This picture explains why I am just the happiest and luckiest woman alive!

Stirring the Pot...

I've lost my followers. Oh well, so if anyone is still out there (((HELLO!!!)))... I'm posing a question.

Did you vaccinate? Why or Why not?

I know Rachel didn't, but Dawn and did. I'm curious about Lili and Jennifer and Emily too. I believe Felicity and Andrea did too.

So lets hear it. :)

Sick Bay

(I think that is a title Rachel has used before. heh.) It's been an awfully long week. I've been sick. (In Real Life it sounds more like "Ah'm siiiiiiiiiiiick." :( It started a sore throat on Monday which I thought was allergies cause of all the dusting I've been doing and the warm temps. (it was in the 50s) Monday night I wasn't feeling well at all with a vice around my ears. I was sneezing, congested, coughing, my ears hurt, and the headache not to mention the aforementioned sore throat. Tuesday morning I had had enough and wanted something strong to treat the symptoms. I went to the doctor and told him, "I want something for symptoms and if I should need antibiotics I don't want them. I don't want to deal with thrush." To which he said, " you're getting to smart for your own good!" Anywho, the medicine has been helping a bit though the runny nose has gotten worse along with the cough, but the vice around my head is gone. Erich now has a sore throat so we've been dosing him up with some tylenol and Vitamin C. Magdalena has been doing great until the night before last when I noticed she was a bit congested. It seems better now, and she hasn't been fussy or acting like she is hurting. We had her two month checkup today, he said she looked a little extra mucousy but not anything to fuss about. She now weighs 10lbs and half an ounce and is 21 and a quarter inches long!!! So she caught up in height with her weight and is beautiful. He said she is obviously not a big (fat!) baby and is beautiful and well behaved. She "talked" to him the whole time he examined her and even opened her mouth and said "ah!" He said she certainly knows how to open her mouth wide! I am convinced that her first word is going to be "wider" because I say it to her almost every time we nurse! She got 3 shots. Erich talked to her, I held her legs, and two ladies gave the shots (two at once, then the third) I cried, M cried, and Erich looked sick. It took me a minute to calm her down enough to nurse her but she eventually nursed and fell asleep. I woke her about 1 to feed her and change her and she fell back to sleep until about 4:30 when I gave her tylenol, changed her and nursed. She nursed again at 630 and again at 830 when I gave her a little more tylenol. Her legs obviously hurt, cause she gives me a hurt cry when I change her diaper, and shes running a very low fever. She is now sleeping and I expect she'll be up before midnight to nurse again and then settle in for the evening. I'm still feeling sick and her feeling bad doesn't make me feel any better. It is so much harder to be sick and be a Mom. It seems there is no one to take care of me! And I can't just crawl into bed, cause she needs me! Anyways, Erich's home now from work so I should go. Have a great weekend.

Busy Little Bee

Things have been super busy around here but for the life of me I haven't a clue what we've been doing!!! Magdalena seems to be getting bigger by the day and sweeter too. She smiles more often and she is gaining control of her voice. She loves it when someone whistles to her and she responds with "oo"s and "ah"s. The other day she cooed in the car to the Dixie Chicks. Her eyelashes have been getting longer to, making her even more beautiful when she sleeps. She recognizes me and more importantly her Daddy. She has discovered the joy of a moving object and loves to lay in the crib and watch the mobile. And that is all she likes to do in the crib. If I lay her for a nap in the crib or the bassinet, she screams as if I've left her forever. Daddy also made a smart move in bringing out the play gym. It buys me time to eat a meal and today she was batting at the toys with her hands. She did it a couple of times with her feet too! She is still eating like a champ without any crutches (the shield) whatsoever. We have discovered the joy of the Maya sling too and she loves to be in there watching people around her, her Mommy, and taking naps on her favorite "pillows." We are very successfully cloth diapering too, which over joys me! I sometimes IM some family members who didn't think it would last. I say, " well I just finished washing a load of diapers! I love cloth diapering!!!" hehehe. I've also got one of Alicia's friends interested in it and I think they'll be coming over later this week to learn of the joys of cloth diapering. I'll be teaching her about the different types of diapers and so forth. I seem to be getting a bit more daring with how often I wash. I've been averaging about twice a week the past two weeks or so, washing on Sunday and Thursday. I washed Thursday the 11th and didn't wash again until this morning!!! We were down to about 7 diapers or so! Eeek! I'm constantly trying to stay on top of the house. The dogs have been spending a major part of the day outside when the weather is above freezing. It helps me accomplish things around here and keeps the "dog smell" at the door which I like. The neighbors may hate me but I do try and get the dogs in around 5 (I let them out around 9 or 10am) when everyone is getting home from work. I better eat soon though, before Miss Diva wakes from her nap. I'll try and stop in more often. :)

Gone Flying

A couple of things to post then I'll be away from the computer for the rest of the day. I have forgotten to mention that I've been hanging out with my cousin lately. She is really really becoming annoying though.

I will be spending the rest of the day doing emergency cleaning using Flyladys detailed cleaning list. My house is in CHAOS and I can't stand it anymore. So I'll be starting on the top floor and working my way down to the basement. Why on Earth did I want a house with three floors anyways? It seems sorta silly to start at the top since most people see the middle ground level floor, but it seems I spend a ton of time upstairs with Magdalena and that is where we all sleep. I want Erich to have a peaceful serene and clean(!) place to sleep since he is so busy.

Oh and by the way, I was just kidding about my cousin being annoying. She has recently started reading this blog (the only family member, and I'd like to keep it that way Alicia.) ;) And I just had to throw something in there that would catch her attention. So everyone leave a comment and say hi to Alicia! :) I'll have to get her to start her own blog...

Friends Are The Best

I called Rachel earlier because I was having a bit of an emotional breakdown. She helped SO much! Thank you so much Rachel. I get paid tomorrow so I'll definitely have to check out her wish list. After all, her birthday is in 19 days and a girl only turns 33 once, right? :)

6 weeks

Magdalena is still doing great. She seems longer to me these days. We are completely out of disposable diapers and we start cloth diapering during the night... tonight! She outgrew the newborn diapers this last weekend (at 5 1/2 weeks!) and we used up all of the samples of size 1 during the night. I'm excited to be done with disposables. She's smiling regularly and holding her head up. She's finding her hands pretty regularly now and is still a joy! Okay she's waking up.. time to eat!

Postpartum Checkup

So my checkup was last Thursday. Magdalena and I got all dressed up and headed out the door for my 9:50am appt. We arrived at 9:45am so we could get settled and be punctual young ladies. ;) At 10:20am, they called us back. By 10:22am I was naked sitting on the table. The whole time I was thinking, "Magdalena is going to wake up and want to be fed right.now. and here I am sitting on this table with the flimsy little paper sheet. I'll get up and as soon as my bare ass is exposed, the doctor is going to walk through the door. I just know it." Well that didn't happen. My little angel slept the whole time! And I was only naked sitting on the table by myself for FIFTEEN MINUTES! Anyways, the doctor came in, did a pap (last repetitive one since the abnormal one last year! woot!), declared me "back to normal" and told me not to get pregnant for at least 6 months. heh. She prescribed the minipill, which while I breastfeed exclusively, I'm not worried about goofing up. But seriously, when M starts eating solids, watch I'll get pregnant. How can you not take that pill the wrong way? Everything and anything seems to affect its "performance." Anyways, we talked about the next time, if I'd have a repeat section. And the answer is yes. M was a very normal size baby in a perfect presentation with a perfect labor and she just didn't fit. She kinda implied she just wouldn't try a normal labor with me because of the risks. But really, I'm okay with that. I suffered infertility. I conceived a child and carried her to full term. I am breastfeeding very successfully. If future babies can't get out the "normal" way, why should I complain? I can have babies right? That's all that matters. Okay, off to run some errands then come home and do some HEAVY DUTY CLEANING.

We're having a heat wave....

a tropical heat wave...

It's 60 degrees! It's gorgeous! A little on the windy side, but beggars can't be choosers, right? I just went out to buy a pound of ground beef and the town just seems alive! This is why I love this small town! Children are outside playing, riding bikes, and enjoying life. The "elders" of the community are all out walking. People have their windows down and sunglasses on and waving to each other again! I went to the cemetery to "check" on my dad (yes he's still there. bad joke.) and I noticed that the local ice cream shop is open! yay! Maybe I'll convince my mom to go get a coke with me at her break time and we can go to the dollar store. I took Magdalena out of the carseat on our errands and placed her in the Maya Sling and she LOVED it. She was able to look around more and study my face and others. People kinda looked at me odd though. oh well. We just got home. I opened up the big window in the living room to let a little of the stale air out. Magdalena is asleep in her carseat (bundled up a bit cause I turned off the heat to open the window). And life feels really good right now. I will have to tell you of our weekend of hell we just lived through, but I don't want to rain on my own parade! :)

5 weeks 2 days

Two entries in one day? Could this be? Maybe three, I have to write about my postpartum checkup. But this is about Magdalena! She's over five weeks old! I can't believe it. She is growing quickly. Pretty soon we'll have a toddler with dark brown pigtails toddling around in here. She is definitely smiling with meaning now. Today she let me put her in the Maya Sling facing me, tummy to tummy, and enjoyed it. She sleeps wonderfully, eats like a champ, and is still a joy. :) Erich comes home everyday and says he can see her getting bigger. I hear him talking to her when he holds her or changes her diaper saying, " I didn't say you could get bigger. Please stay small Magdalena!" Everyone is in love with her it seems. Erich and I have decided that since she turned out so well, that we owe it to the human population to produce an equally, overwhelmingly cute little baby. (Hopefully a boy for his sake!) So maybe next year, around Christmas time, we'll start working on that. **shrugs** It seems weird to talk about another one, and Christmas seems really soon, but Xmas will roll around and it may take a few months and by the time Baby #2 comes around Magdalena would be 2 years old! Isn't that wild? It also all depends on her nursing and my body and everything but wow. Anyways, she is an absolute joy! And we are definitely treasuring every single moment of this!

A Baby Story

We checked into the hospital at 5pm on Tuesday, January 20th. They immediately hooked me up to the monitors, took my BP (still high), and checked my cervix. I was 1cm 90% effaced. They inserted the P-Gel and we waited one hour, then got up and walked for an hour. By 6pm I started having contractions. Came back at 7pm and they inserted more P-Gel which made the little girl jump around (cold gel being shot at your head would make you jump too!). I took off walking and was having more and more contractions. At 9pm, they hit me with one last shot of P-Gel. We walked around the room, but at this point I wasn't really in the mood for walking. The contractions were making me stop and think. We got on the birthing ball at about 10pm and I was geared up to watch Charmed on TV since I had missed the new episode on Sunday (they rerun them on Tuesday nights!). By 10:30 the contractions were starting to really hurt. They declared me in "true" labor because I couldn't concentrate on my favorite TV show. Soon after that, I got into a really hot shower. Oh sweet relief. My mom and Erich were yelling for me to get out because the shower was flooding the room! ha! I got out around 11pm or 11:15. They checked me and I was 2-3cm, completely effaced. Yay! I gladly took the sleeper they offered me and my mom said goodnight. She headed to my house to spend the night and take care of the dogs. She said she didn't sleep a wink though. About 45 minutes after the sleeper, I wasn't asleep, nor did I feel sleepy and I didn't think it was going to work. I had Erich help me off of the bed and on to the birthing ball so I could at least be more comfy. As soon as my hips relaxed a bit on the birthing ball, the sleeper seemed to kick in full gear and I almost fell off! Erich helped me back into the bed and we went to sleep. I don't feel like I really slept though, just in and out of consciousness. I was still contracting, though they seemed to space out a bit.

Wednesday morning they came at 7am and traded nurses. She started my IV in anticipation of my OB to get there. When my OB arrived, she greeted me and gave the go ahead to start Pitocin. She told me I had her blessing for whenever I wanted an epidural, though she knew I didn't want one. By 8:30 the Pitocin was going and I was contracting a lot. Since I was on pitocin, they had to monitor me at all times so no walking and no shower. :( I did stay on the birthing ball for most of the morning and caught "Primetime in the Daytime" on TNT (an episode of Charmed and two ERs). I wasn't really able to fully concentrate though. My mom had made Beef Noodles and brought some to Erich (and left some in the car for me when I could eat again). I was SO hungry and couldn't have anything, it was torture. And my ctx were really picking up intensity. At 11am they switched nurses again. Elaine was the replacement and also the lady I had seen the previous Sunday for a NST. (This is the exact same nurse who I told Erich I hoped would not be my labor nurse.) I was disappointed for her to be there, but oh well. I asked her to check me, she checked and I was 4cm, completely effaced and 0 station. As she checked my water broke. I felt the gush of warm fluid and told them "my water broke" and both her and my mother said "oh, you probably just lost control of your bladder." She tested the fluid and sure enough my water did break. Erich had been out of the room when she was checking me, making some phone calls. When my water broke, I started to cry. I'm not really sure. Part of me was scared for her since she was no longer swimming in her warm home, part of me was scared that this really was happening. And another part was just completely overwhelmed. When Erich came back in, he didn't know why I was crying. They got me up onto the birthing ball and that is when the real "fun" started. Since they started the pitocin, they had been increasing it every 20 minutes. By the time I got on the birthing ball, the ctx were hitting hard with really no relief. They were having trouble with the external monitors and couldn't see the pattern of the ctx. They also had a hard time keeping track of her heartbeat since she was so low in my pelvis. At one point they suggested I get on all fours on the bed and see if I had some relief that way. Erich was getting sick to his stomach watching me because he said he had no control, and couldn't help me. I asked for some IV meds but they prefer to give Nubain, which I'm allergic too. So we had to wait for my OB to get there and suggest something (she was in surgery). By the time she got there it was 2:30 or 3pm. I couldn't sit still, they were getting basically no monitoring, and she didn't want to give something other than Nubain. They couldn't get me to lay still to check to see where I was and they all pushed for the epidural. I didn't want it, but didn't see an end. They were also having trouble monitoring the baby and that worried me. I okayed the epidural and they went looking for the nurse anesthetist. Erich was great, while they were paging, he asked me over and over again if this is what I wanted. He assured me that he wouldn't be disappointed at all if I took the epidural and wouldn't think any less of me.

He left the room for the epidural to be placed and my mom stayed with me. (Erich doesn't like to watch stuff like that.) It was awful. I had to sit still which took great strength. I was crying I hurt I wanted her out and my mom was yelling at me to sit still and listen. But I couldn't. They finally had me lay down on the bed and curl up in a ball. Elaine (who ended up being WONDERFUL) spoke sharply to my mom and said something along the lines of "You aren't helping her. Just hold her hand and be quiet." Way to go Elaine. Elaine then spoke softly to me in my face trying to get me to visualize it. Placing the epidural probably wouldn't have been so hard had I not been in full blown out of control labor. But I was. We finally got the epidural in. I wanted to make sure that I felt NOTHING since I hadn't wanted the stupid thing in the first place. My OB came in and she placed an internal monitor (not the one that screws into the top of the head) and checked me. I was still the same, 4cm, completely effaced, 0 station. She said she'd be back in an hour. At this point I looked at Elaine and she was pushing IV fluid in really fast. I know that this isn't a good thing and asked her what my pressure was. 100/60. She said it was okay, I just needed more fluid. She hung another bag and continued pushing it in. The next pressure was 95/58. She said she was going to go page the nurse anesthetist and she'd be right back. When she came back they moved me onto my left side and she continued pushing the fluid in. My pressure took again. I asked her what it was and she told me not to worry. She was going to go personally find the CRNA and bring her in. I asked my family to look at the monitor, my pressure was 80/48. My first catostrophic thought was, I'm going to die because of this damn epidural and I didn't even want it. The CRNA got there and she gave me medicine to help my blood pressure. They left me to get some rest. At 5pm, Elaine checked me again and I was still the same. They tried turning the pitocin down to see if that would help and said they'd check again at 6pm. If I was the same, we'd have to discuss things again. At 6pm, I was still the same and there was edema on the babys head from where she was pushing into my pelvis. They decided that the best thing was a C-section. Erich was at dinner with his parents and Elaine told someone to run and get him. The called for an anesthesiologist but found out she was stuck doing an appy. They said they would give me until she was done to make some progress, and if not I'd go for the section. Elaine went ahead and prepped me for the surgery, anchored and catheter and so on. She said sometimes as soon as they get you ready, something happens and your body just kicks in. At 7:30 I had made no progress and anesthesia was ready so they transferred me onto another bed. They had been giving me more lidocaine through the epidural and I was almost numb to the nipple line. They transferred me onto the bed and wheeled me into the OR. I passed all of my family on the way out of my room.

It was really weird to be in the OR on the table. I'm so used to being on the other side. It was really hot in there ready at almost 80 degrees because the thermostat was broken. The prepped my belly and draped me. My OB came in and I remember who touching my belly saying, "the u/s said this baby was only 7lbs, but she feels A LOT bigger!" Oh, when she came in she said, "there is one really nervous dad out there!" I think Erich was more terrified then myself. He didn't know what to expect and he passes out at the sight of bloody stuff. When they brought him in he sat next to me and I smiled at him, told him I wasn't scared and he said, " I'm breathing, I'm breathing, I'm breathing..." all while taking big deep breathes. The OB said she had just pinched and twisted with a clamp and hadn't said a thing so we were ready to go. The first part of the section wasn't bad. It felt like someone was trying to tickle me but couldn't. I could tell which layer they were on by the talk going on in the OR. When they got to her, they did the whole pressure that felt like an elephant is sitting on your chest. I could hear the tech ask, " is the baby just really big?" and the OB say, " no, this baby is WEDGED." After what seemed like an eternity, they got her head out of my pelvis and she started to cry. I could hear them say, "She is cute!" and I just started to cry. They pulled the rest of her out of me and the OB said, "wow she is TINY!" :) I could hear Erich yelling out, " oh my God, Oh my God, she's mine! She's ours! oh my God!" (probalby the most excited I've ever seen Erich by the way.) I just couldn't stop crying. The last half of the section was the worst. Erich was at the warmer taking pictures. They said that some people start to feel nauseous when they massage the fundus to get it to clamp down. And I did feel nauseous. I asked over and over, "please give me something for the nausea, please please please." Then I started to dry heave. This was the worst dry heaving experience ever because I'm laying flat on my back, dry heaving, while someones hands were inside of me pushing the opposite direction of my diaphragm. Yuck. She gave me something and the relief was awesome. But then they started to irrigate and it it sorta hurt. Kinda like sharp gas pains. Anesthesia gave me duramorph through my epidural. (Morphine through the epidural) and the relief was very instant. I suddenly felt extremely tired, as the whole day caught up to me. Erich got scared because I literally fell into a sleep within 5 seconds of the duramorph. Duramorph is great because it lasts 24hrs. :) They brought the baby to me to see and then Erich went with them to the nursery. Magdalena Eusevia was born at 8:14pm. She weighed 6lbs, 10 oz, and was 19" long.

yeah

I had my postpartum checkup today. Details to follow tomorrow. Magdalena slept last night from about 11pm to 4:45am. At first I thought it was 1:45 and thought to myself , WHY? But then I realized it was 4:45 and I fell in love with her all over. And it's a good thing she woke up because my boobs were about to explode! I did have to keep her awake from like 630 to 11pm but that's OKAY. So we are doing that now. Oh, and she gets a bath every night now. It seems to relax her and get her ready for bed. Not that she needs a routine, but she enjoys it and I love a good smelling baby. I also seem to like it because of the cloth diapers. I wipe her really well when I change her diaper, but it makes me feel better that she gets a nice soak at night. I always lather her way up with that soothing bedtime lotion and you can see her get drunk with that feeling of sleep. Then we all go lay down, nurse, and fall asleep. It really is a lovely routine. And I love to see her so happy in the tub. The only part she doesn't like is that first moment when you get out. Erich and I always run the hairdryer in the bathroom when we take baths so that we have extra warmth. So we've been putting her towel a bit in front of the hairdryer so that it is nice and toasty, and I can pick her up and put her in a warm towel in her Daddy's arms. It's probably an awesome feeling! And with Erich leaving in the mornings to go to school at 8am then to work directly afterwards and not coming home until 9 or 10pm, it is really nice to have that half hour of family time before bed. :) Okay ER is coming on soon, Erich will be home soon, and I got "clearance" at the OB's office. It's going to be a good night... ;)

Ebay commericals....

drive me nuts. They always get the stupid song stuck in my head.

I haven't been avoiding you. Just sincerely busy. I do spend a ton of time nursing, and it seems as soon as I lay her down and start something (a project, a meal) she wants me again. It is sometimes annoying, but she doesn't scream bloody murder so I can handle it. She is the sweetest baby ever I'm just starting to feel tons better and have motivation. I am really tired now though, and I think that could partly be because of the surgery. I should start taking naps with her in the afternoons again. Just think, when the next one comes, I won't be able to enjoy the extended napping because I'll have a toddler to deal with! How sad.

I'm also feeling a bit off lately. Not depressed. Weird. Like something isn't quite right. Everyone keeps asking if I'm pregnant. I think if I were I'd crawl in a hole. Erich says it would be "a blessing in disguise." Postpartum checkup on Thursday. Anyways, I should get going. I'm working on the birth story. Slowly. Happy Fat Tuesday!

30 days

I have about two minutes before the Princess wakes up. Shes been asleep since we got home at 1130 from the doctors office. She got a shot and it was a spectacle. She cried, I cried. and the nurse almost cried too. (probably at the sight of me!) We nursed right after and all is well. I told her it probably hurt me more and cringed at hearing myself say the load of bologna my mom always told me that I hated. But, **sigh**, it's true. She probably doesn't remember it now and I remember it VERY clearly. Anywho, she now weighs... drum roll... 8lbs 5.5oz!!!! Thats 22oz in two weeks, or 1.5oz a day! Way to go Mommy! :) And she is an inch longer. She really is growing. **tear** Shes a very cool little girl. She has put herself on a loose schedule but tends to eat all morning, take a long afternoon nap, and eat and look around in the evenings. At night, she takes a bath (which she loves) and then we nurse and she sleeps between 3-5 hours. After that she goes back to waking every 2-3 for meals. She is really on the verge of smiling with meaning and always wakes up with a smile on her face. She really is the bright light of our lives and we feel truly blessed. :) Okay, 1 minute left to finish eating my pototaes and get to her!

I suck

I really suck at blogging lately. I think about something I should blog about literally twice a day, but never come around to do it. :( Magdalena, her daddy, and I are doing great. Erich and I are loving parenthood and finding it quite easy, actually. Everyone said how rough it would be and how we would be so frustrated and tired, but really that isn't happening. Magdalena is a very happy content baby and rarely cries. When she does cry, it starts out as little grunts and frowns and generally revolves around her diaper or eating. We are now starting to transition more into cloth diapers. We were just using the fitted diapers that Rachel sent us because they were the only ones that fit her. We are now using up the disposables at night, and using cloth during the day. The prefolds are still a bit big on her, but we are trying to use them. I just have to be super careful and listen for poo! Erich gave me "permission" (I don't have to ask permission, we just discussed it) to buy more fitted diapers. His reasoning was he would like to not have to wash diapers every1-2 days, but every 3-4 to cut down on energy use and water. We are hoping to put a utility sink next to the washer this summer so I theoretically could just use a "wet pail" method down there. We would collect diapers upstairs and at the end of the day I'd go down and throw the days worth in the sink and soak them. :) I bought kissaluvs from the outlet store size 1. The size one is supposed to be for 10lbs to 25 lbs and we figured that would be a better buy for us then size 0 which goes to 15lbs. She really is probably only about 7.5lbs at this point, but we figure that with the cover, we'd be better off with size 1. :) So I have some questions to answer.

Emily asked:

now that you have the baby, is there anything that is not what you expected about parenting? Something that you thought you had figured out before Magdalena was born but her arrival blew out of the water for you?

I didn't realize just how fascinated I would be by her. I'm still blown away by the fact that my body MADE her. She came out of me. I still get teary eyed hearing her cry because I can still hear that first cry when only her head was out and her little body still inside of me. Erich and I talked about how things affect us differently. Our thinking process has changed. When we hear about kids being killed, we aren't only sad, it makes us literally sick. We think of how it could affect our lives. She has fit in perfectly. I thought that I may be a little sad when it was three because I may miss the times Erich and I had alone (not that I wouldn't be thrilled that she was here!) but I don't. We have some alone time and we have family time. My favorites are in the morning when he comes and kisses us good bye or on the weekends when all three of us lay in bed and nurse and watch TV. I love seeing them together. I'm excited to watch her grow, and a little sad that she won't be tiny forever. :) I'm excited for the next one, knowing how much joy she brings us, but we are focused on enjoying her and being a family of three. :) I'm also blown away by how easily this has all come to us. How perfectly she fits and how I'm not exhausted, frustrated, and at the end of my rope. Is that wrong?

Rachel asked:

I guess my questions are pretty dull, but how are nursing and slinging going?

We really haven't been using the Maya sling. She is so tiny that she gets swallowed up in it and it literally just pisses her off. But we have been using a Nojo sling, sorta like a bjorn. She seems to like that. She can look at me and lay her head on my chest and that pleases her. I am looking forward to the Maya sling this summer when she has good head control and we can position her so she can look out. I'm thinking it will be much easier for us then. (which reminds me I have something for you Rachel!)

The nursing is going great. She eats like a champ. I'm amazed by how my girls just stepped up to the job. We are using the shield mainly at night because shes tired and I'm tired and we are sorta working on the latch still. Not really working, just sometimes it takes a couple of shots. When we get better at it, I'll remove the shield at night. Really that is the only time she will take it. During the day she seems to have more trouble with the shield then just latching right on without. :) I have an overabundance of milk, (anyone need any. ha! just kidding). It seems to be trying to even out but no such luck yet. We tend to only nurse on one side at each feeding because she gets to much otherwise. I don't want to shorten the time at each breast, because I've already had a run in with Mastitis (that b*tch) and really need to empty each time. I'm amazed that she is thriving and it is all because of me. Everything she is, is because of Erich and myself and that is a great feeling. I've really only had one bad night, in the hospital, when the latch was horrible, and I was blistered. That is the only time I've ever thought, just give her a bottle. But we got over it, did NOT give her a bottle, and life is great. I'm proud that she has never had formula. (THIS IS NOT LOOKING DOWN ON FORMULA USERS!!!) I just had issues before with myself that I may not be able to do this, but I am doing it, without supplements, and that does wonders for my self esteem.

She goes to the doctor tomorrow and I go next week. I can now upload on fotolog during the day so head on over there. I'll update about the appt tomorrow and her weight. Promise! Any other questions? Did I answer the questions you had? Oh, I hear her waking up. The princess calls...

Yee haw!

Fotolog.net has lifted the posting restrictions. So head on over and see a picture!

Question #1

Chuck asked me:

What is the air speed of an unladen Swallow?

First off, Chuck do you realize that you need to know which type of unladen Swallow to know the true correct answer? There are African and European unladen swallows.

The answer for a European unladen Swallow is roughly 11 meters per second, or 24 miles an hour. :)

Many thanks to Jonathan Corum.

I'll answer Emilys question tomorrow.

More questions please!

Lili asked...

if we were going to shorten Magdalenas name. The answer is no. It's such a beautiful name and we worked so hard on it. If she wants to be called Maggie when she is older that is fine, but we prefer Magdalena. When my dad was alive, he hated people calling me Sue, Suzy, Suzy Q, etc. He would always say, " If I had wanted her to be called Suzy, I would have named her Suzy. Her name is Suzanne." And that stuck with me, because now I can't stand it if people call me anything besides Suzanne. (well there are some high school nick names but thats a different story!)

I like answering questions. It makes it easier to blog. So hit me with another question!

It's All In A Name...

Andrea Q asked me where we came up with Magdalena. Before we got pregnant, we knew that if we had a boy we would name him after my father who died when I was 9. And since everyone kinda thought we were having a boy, we didn't really start to debate girl names until right before the first u/s when I got scared it may be a girl, and we wouldn't have a name for her! So anywho... I liked the names Madeline and Madelyn, which Erich hated. And then I discovered that they were really high up in popularity as published by the Social Security Administration. So, that sent those names out the window. When we were in Missouri visiting family, we looked through Erichs family tree and found the name Magdalena. It was Erichs great grandmas name and occurs a couple of other places in the tree. Magdalena means tower of greatness. So we decided on the trip back to Indiana on Magdalena. So we needed a middle name right?

Everything I liked he hated (isn't that how it always goes?). I liked Ruth and Jane and such. He didn't. He said he wanted something that ended in an A (don't ask me why). My mom wrote down a list of names on our side of the family and Eusevia is my grandmas name. (pronounced ae-oh-seh-vee-ah) I told Erich that night and he seemed to like it and thats how we came up with it. Magdalena Eusevia. A very unique and very Spanish name for a very unique little girl.

Any other questions?