Mariele's 1 month check-up . . .

Well, she will actually be 6 weeks tomorrow. But we finally got her in for that 1 month visit. The most exciting part of these well baby visits is the weighing and measuring. For comparison's sake, here are her stats at 3 days old:

Weight: 6 pounds; 8th percentile

Height: 19 inches; 20th percentile

Head: 13 1/2 inches; 25th percentile

And (drumroll please) - here are her stats today!

Weight: 10 pounds 2 ounces; 60th percentile

Height: 21 5/8 inches; 50th percentile

Head: 15 inches; 70th percentile

This massive growth makes me feel all warm and fuzzy! And it makes me repeatedly pat myself on the back as her growth was a direct result of my wonder milk produced by my very own body! I was so concerned that I had such a tiny baby and now look at her! Double chin and all! I'm so excited about this!



And here is an interesting mommy stat. I've been working out on the Wii Fit and I like to do the daily body test. At the end of the daily body test the Wii Fit presents you with your Wii Fit age, which is basically a physiological age that it calculates from your actual age and your performance on some body tests. Some days the result can be discouraging because the thing can be rather insulting to you if your Wii Fit age is way above your actual age. Well yesterday I had the best Wii Fit age ever!! So my actual age is 34. Yesterday my Wii Fit age was (drumroll please):

26!!!!

I guess that is as good as I can do without making Analese's Wii Fit age of 2!

Through the eyes of a child . . .

Today as I was getting Analese dressed, she ran her fingers through my hair and said, "Mommy, your hair is BEAUTIFUL!" She was totally sincere in this compliment. Besides, she is a bit young for kissing up because she wants something. So you may wonder about my beautiful hair. The truth? It looks like cr@p and I have not fixed it in days, but the compliment from my 2.75 year old still warmed my heart!

My First Solo Outing with the KIDS!

Mariele is 15 days old today. Analese has been having some minor adjustment issues so I thought she might enjoy a trip out to the library for toddler story time. Holy cat this requires some planning ahead! First of all, Mariele had a restless and hungry night last night. She has been pretty good about night time sleep patterns, giving me 3 hour stretches and all. But last night for some reason she did not want to sleep and she wanted to eat a lot. So I was tired and hungry this morning. I made baked oatmeal for breakfast, which was delicious! I got Analese up and dressed. It seems like the more I am in a hurry, the more she drags her feet and becomes uncooperative. Anyway, long story short we did make it to the library in time for the story time. Analese did enjoy herself and when we were leaving the library she said, "Let's go to Little Gym now!" I hope this gets easier! I need a nap this afternoon!

More visitors......

Mother-in-law and sister-in-law arrived last night. I had made crock-pot chili (from dried, not canned beans) and a tamale pie. It sure felt good to cook again. And it tasted fabulous! I think I have a hankering for some for breakfast! Anyway, MIL and SIL came bearing gifts for Mariele, Analese, and me! SIL (Amy) put together this beautiful "big girl basket" for Analese, with all kinds of cool big girl stuff in it. She especially likes the sparkly lip gloss! My gift bag contained lots of pampering beauty products, a perfect gift for a post-partum mom. Mariele was the recipient of some very cute outfits, including a bundle-me SNOWSUIT from one of MIL's friends HEE HEE! We need to make a trip back to Colorado now! One of Mariele's outfits from MIL says "Off to Grandma's" on it. I think that is a hint that we need to be making a trip to Arkansas soon. Oh, another one of my gifts was 2 pairs of Bally total fitness yoga pants. I slipped into a pair right after my shower this morning. These are the perfect post c-section recovery pants!

Unfortunately, 50% of my family is still under the weather. Lee and Analese both feel like cr@p. It was such a blessing that Lee actually got a call-off day today, so he was able to stay home from work. And it means a three day weekend for him, so hopefully he will be able to recover as he visits with his mom and sis. Analese still has intermittent fever. When she gets a fever she cries and cries and says, "I need pink medicine!" She is referring to Tylenol. And when her mouth hurts from the teething molar (yes that is happening at the same time), she says, "I have a molar. I need I-pofen." She is referring to ibuprofen here. Poor baby, oops I mean toddler girl.

Update on Analese........

Even though she had this crazy high fever, she insists that she does not feel bad or hurt anywhere. She does, however, have the sniffles.

Here is a cute story about her: She recognizes logos, sort of this pre-reading thing. Lee was putting her in the car yesterday and there was a Home Depot receipt in the seat of the car. She picked it up, pointed to the logo at the top of the receipt and said, "Daddy, that says Home Depot!" Well, she did the same to me when I was cleaning today. We have the spray bottles from Home Depot that we keep our cleaner in. She pointed to the bottle and said, "Mommy, that says Home Depot!" And later as I was spraying down the kitchen counter with this same bottle she said, "Mommy I RECOGNIZE Home Depot!" It was the word "recognize" coming out of the mouth of my 32 month old that floored me!

Analese is SICK!

I just went into Analese's room to wake her from her nap. I put my hand on her face and it felt like FIRE! I took her temp and it is 103.7!! This is not alarmingly high for her. Anytime she has had fever (even just teething) she has fever this high. She said she feels OK, but her entire body is burning up! I gave her Tylenol and a cup of gatorade. She has coughed a couple of times. UGHHH I called Lee at work and hopefully he will be able to come home soon. She has barely left the house in the past week! She went to the pool store yesterday with her Daddy and I took her to the playground this morning. OH I hate the winter sickies. I know some of my fellow blogger families are also affected.

All is well!

I just enjoyed a yummy lunch of veggie "meatloaf" that was delivered by my own personal, private catering service. Really, my dear friend Yng Yng, assisted by her oldest daughter Alanna, has been bringing by all of this wonderful food! And I do feel my strength coming back. I left the hospital a little anemic, but I know I will not be that way for long.

Yesterday we took Mariele to the ped for a follow-up. She left the hospital on "jaundice alert" which simply meant she was in the low-intermediate risk category for developing jaundice according to her bilirubin result. So that was tested again yesterday and the result was in the acceptable range. The ped said yesterday would be the highest result, and since it was acceptable he does not need to follow her for that anymore. And her weight was also good. Of course, she had lost in the hospital. Born 6 pounds 8 ounces and left the hospital at 6 pounds 1 ounce. Well, she was 6 pounds 1 ounce yesterday so she had not lost any additional weight. And now that my milk is in and flowing freely that number will only go up. She really enjoys my milk and wants it all the time!

I was so puffy yesterday. All those fluids from the IVs and the leftover fluid from pregnancy I guess. I felt really bad and uncomfortable. Today I feel better puffiness-wise. I lost about 4 pounds of fluid over the last 2 days and I know I am still shedding some more fluid.

Analese is adjusting to big sisterhood. She is doing well for the most part. Occasionally we can tell she is acting out a little for attention. I'm trying to make sure she still feels very loved and special.

We are planning on taking some photos of Mariele. May have to wait until tomorrow at this point to get some natural daylight. I want to get a good photo to mail out in an announcement.

I'm not really looking forward to Lee going back to work next week. I think I will only be flying solo for 3 days though, because his mom and sister are coming in.

Mariele is really a very good baby. She loves a warm body though. Much prefers being held to sitting in a bouncy seat or lying awake in her bassinet. I don't really blame her for that, though. She does not fuss much, and when she does she is very easy to soothe. She is so cute when she is alert with her eyes open. Her eyes seem to be tracking well. She loves to look at our faces. Her eyes are dark blue at this point. Not sure if they will change to brown/hazel like Lee's eyes or if they wil stay blue like mine and Analese's. Either way, she has beautiful eyes. She has less hair than Analese had at birth, and Analese did not have much at all. I do remember that Analese had a small duck tail in the back, though. Mariele does not even have that. She is such a cute little baldie! Well, as soon as we take more pics I will be sure to post some up.

My slothiness and other randomness.......

I honestly do not remember being THIS wiped out the end of last pregnancy. I worked up until the day before I delivered. I was much sicker with nausea then though. This time I am just TIRED! I wake up, take a shower and wish I could just go back to bed! This morning was pretty cold, although it warmed up nicely later in the day. I wanted Analese to get some activity, but I did not want to bundle up and go to the park or anywhere else. So we played Wii Fit! She loves to jog and play some of the balance games. I took a very cute movie of her jogging but I can't figure out how to shrink it enough to share it.

I've been craving Eggs Benedict and have had some for the past 2 days. I got up this morning and made some for me and Analese. I just used the Knorr Hollandaise sauce packet. Was not quite ambitious enough to try The Pioneer Woman's homemade version. Also being a vegetarian I kind of created my own version using vegetarian "turkee" instead of the canadian bacon. I also like a cooked hard yolk. Pioneer Woman would disagree with me there. Anyway - surprisingly Analese really loved it! She ate almost 2 poached eggs with the sauce. She says, "I LOVE the egg sauce, mommy!" So here is the cute conversation I had with her about the English muffin:

Me: Analese, let me get you an English muffin.

Analese: I want to take the paper off! (She remembers I made blueberry muffins a few days ago in the paper cupcake cups)

Me: These are English muffins. They don't have paper on them.

I give her one.

Analese: Mommy, this is not a muffin. This is BREAD!

Me: It is a special kind of muffin called an English muffin.

Analese: Mommy, this is NOT an English muffin. This is English BREAD!

OK!!!!

Another cute thing: This evening after dinner I was sneaking a bite of brownie. Analese sees me chewing over by the brownie pan (we made the brownies earlier today) and she asks, "Mommy, what you eating?" I told her "nothing". Lee says, :"Tell mommy she is busted." And Analese says "BUSTED!!!!" So cute - well you probably had to be there.

Today I've barely had any twinges. Just a few regularly scheduled BH contractions. Sloths are probably pretty slow to go into labor though. We will see how tomorrow goes. Analese and I have a busy morning going to the hospital to take care of some registration paperwork, then to the pediatrician to register there, then to my FINAL OB appointment before my c-section!

Lethargic......

I feel so tired and lazy.  All I want to do is sleep for hours on end, but I can't even do that because I have to pee every 30 minutes.  I need to go to Wal-Mart, but just the thought of going makes me want to collapse.  Analese is out of the little mandarin orange fruit cups that she likes so much, especially during her recovery from this illness.  I will have to at least go down the street to Kroger later and pick up some for her.  She still coughs quite a lot at times.  I did take her to The Little Gym this morning.  She did really well.  The class was mostly about listening and following the teacher's instructions.  She loves her teacher, Miss Allison.  In fact, when we got there this morning she said, "There is my Miss Allison."  SMILE!  I could tell she was a little more tired than usual.  The class was not that physical today which was good because she was slightly off her physical game.  But she stuck very closely to Miss Allison (we parents watched from across the room) and did everything Miss Allison said to do.  Next week is show week.  That means I get to take my new camera and get cute pics and video!   And there will be an awards ceremony where all of the kids get a ribbon.  Well, I'm off to lie down on my left side and read a bit.  Maybe even close my eyes for 20 minutes before I need to get up and pee.

Out with the old camera, in with the new...............

These were taken with the old camera:





And these were taken with the new!




Analese stayed in her nightgown all day since she is still trying to get well. I can't wait for us to actually FIX UP and take some pics!

I wish I could share the high-def video on this blog.  But the 37 second movie we took today was about 156 MB, so I will have to resize video before I post it here.  But it is awesomely clear high-def. video!

Trying to get her well.........

She is still coughing and also has a runny nose today. Although I think she is feeling better. She took too short a nap. I asked her if she wants mommy to lay down with her and she said, "No mommy, I NOT want to go in my room right now. I want to go to the Little Gym right now!" Maybe tomorrow if she is better. We did not go to lunch with our friends today because I did not want to infect their 4 month old baby. But if we had gone to lunch I would have missed the delivery of my birthday/Christmas and all gift giving occasions for 2009 present! It is the updated version of my camera! It also takes high definition video clips, which will make a neat c-section movie of Mariele's birth! For some reason blogger is not wanting to upload pics right now or I would post a pic of my new camera taken with my old camera! Maybe later.

And here she is, the sick princess...........

My poor baby..................

We have had a run of bad luck in our family lately with the icky-sickies. Analese sounds TERRIBLE this morning with a croupy cough. She has to miss Little Gym again this morning, which she was very disappointed about. To cheer her up, I downloaded the Barbie Nutcracker movie for her from i-tunes. She will get to watch it in her room on my laptop while she gets some cool-mist humidity. For breakfast she only wanted to eat 2 mandarin orange fruit cups and drink orange juice. Lee is off work today, so we will just have a "take it easy at home" day.

Catch-up!

I know I have been MIA the last few days. Just because we are having too much fun with our company! Yesterday was really nice. We spent the morning at the park, then we had a nice lunch back at home followed by some AWESOME pool and hot tub time! The entire pool was heated to 95 degrees. It felt GREAT! Hot tub was 102 degrees!

Here are a few pics of the park:






The doggy is our doggy guest, Daisy!

Here is A all worn out taking a power nap on our bedroom floor before going to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory (YUM)!



And here is my 33 week 4 day belly:



A has been partying a little too hard and it is catching up with her today. We took our company to the playground this morning and after a good play A had a tired meltdown. So after lunch, she was MORE than willing to take a nap, and she is napping as I blog. She needs her beauty rest or she is a BEAR!

Can't start too young!

In preparation for company coming in tomorrow, A was eager to help me clean bathrooms today. Turns out she LOVES to scrub toilets. I mean REALLY loves it! As in she BEGS to do it! I will remind her of her first love when she is 8 years old and old enough to really have a chore. Here she is cleaning the upstairs guest toilet:



She was so disappointed when we were finished in there that I told her we could go clean the downstairs bathroom. Well she darted downstairs all eager to scrub another toilet:

Looking back..............

This is Analese's 3rd Christmas (outside of my womb, that is)!

Here is her first. She was 7 months old!



Here is her second. She was 19 months old!



And her 3rd! She is 31 months old!

It was like pulling teeth.................

but I FINALLY got some Christmas poses with Analese smiling! And not the cheesy facial expression that she likes to call a smile lately!

So here are the family poses that I kept:







Here are some that I took of her and Daddy. Unfortunately they are blurry. I did not realize as I was snapping the pics that the flash battery was low and the camera was not flashing:





And for the REALLY difficult shots, the cute ones where she is smiling (and not like Chandler on Friends getting his engagement photos)!







And just a couple more close-up smiles:

(Not official) Christmas pictures

I was not at all interested in going out on Black Friday, so I took advantage of J C Penney's online sale and ordered A's Christmas dress. It was delivered during her nap today, so I showed it to her as she was waking from her nap. She immediately wanted to try it on (she is such a girly girl and she loves dresses). So I wasn't really planning a photo shoot, but I did take some anyway. Lee was too busy to help, otherwise he probably could have gotten her to smile. But here is a sampling of what is to come!

A's dessert!

Analese just had a bean and cheese burrito for lunch. I then offered her some dessert - a banana, orange, pear sauce? Her request - "Mommy, I want noodles, broccoli, carrots and tofu!" Luckily we did have some of that left over. Yay for a healthy dessert request, huh?

Edited to add: She did eat all of the noodles, broccoli, carrots, and tofu and now she is eating an orange. Hungry girl today!

Quick funny about Analese

Analese has gone with me to most of my OB appointments now. The first thing they always do is hand me a sticker and tell me to go to the restroom and pee in a cup. A has the drill down so well now. The last several appointments go something like this:

A and I enter the bathroom.

A: Mommy, you need a cup? I get you a cup. (runs over to the back of the toilet to get a specimen cup for me).

A: Mommy, you pee-pee in this cup. (I do the action).

A: (points to the specimen window) OK Mommy, put pee-pee cup in window!

What would I ever do without her?