Bedtime Humor

Bedtime is now a game in this house. Our night time nurse is full of giggles and rolling over, slapping at my face and babbling uncontrollably. But I have to admit, it's pretty hilarious.

This pictures summarizes our bedtime routine lately.

That's hysterical laughter, not crying you see in this picture.

Last night during our bedtime nurse Evelyn whipped herself up on her knees and was leaning over me slapping my thigh. It made a loud smacking sound through my thin pajama pants and Evelyn apparently found it very amusing. She was bouncing up and down, slapping and laughing. We couldn't help but crack up ourselves. We were crying we laughed so hard.

She has been too much fun. Watching the progress she makes daily is amazing. In just a few short days she's able to balance for a few seconds while standing on her own.

She's great at pulling herself up to stand at a table or couch or pull at my pant legs in despair wanting to be held.

She's so close to crawling I can taste it. For now she army crawls at full speed to follow me around the house and get to her toys. Nothing stops this girl. She can get through any obstacle in her path.

Army Crawling Movie Star

My neighbor always refers to Evelyn as a walking movie star. I like to correct him by saying she is an army crawling movie star. And man does she get around! My parents were amazed by her speed as she drug herself around the room tonight. She's made such progress since the few days they saw her last. Time just flies!

We've been enjoying the beautiful weather of the last few days but today was by far the warmest. Here are a few pics of us frolicking in the sun.







All tuckered out after watching the Bears lose :(



And here's a little baby butt.

Any Day Now

Remember the play table I mentioned earlier? She loves it. Can you tell?



Guess who's crawling! My neighbors nephew who's 3weeks younger than Evelyn. She made a little progress tonight by moving one hand forward while on her hands and knees. It should be any day now. Any day. No more whining when I go in the other room-she can just follow!

Speaking of whining, a certain someone loves the bathtub and used her whines to subtly hint she would enjoy a bath tonight. We played with our new squirting animal toys from Grandma Jill. You'll notice in one of the pictures that her right leg is forever sticking straight up. She's such a ham.

On The Move

We're almost there-Evelyn is ALMOST crawling! She rocks on her hands and knees and has now realized how to lay on her belly and use her arms to pull herself forward. She also does this while sitting, similar to a dog. Her tiny little body looks so funny moving about.

As I've previously mentioned she can also pull herself into a standing position which she has attempted to do in her crib. So scary! We're lowering the mattress tonight! Her crib is right next to her bedroom window which she loves to look out of while whispering to the outdoors. I heard her stirring after an afternoon nap and walked in to find her on her belly pulling the crib bumper down to gaze out her window. Usually when I walk in after a nap I find two little smiling eyes peeking through the crib slats to greet me, like I did this morning.





She just kills me. She has such a personality.

Her new favorite toy is a rocking chair she received from her late great-grandmother, Ester Kern. Before she passed she wrote a list of things she wanted distributed to her grandchildren. Somehow she knew Jared would be giving her family their first grandchild and we inherited a beautiful, hand-carved child's rocking chair-Evelyn's new favorite toy. She uses her new dance moves to rock back in forth in the little chair and has already learned how to climb right out of it to use it as a support to stand. I'm telling you, this girl's gonna be a handful!

Update!

I LOVE my job. So many interesting things happen each day and I love the residents at my home. Unfortunately due to confidentiality I cannot share any stories. :( Sorry.

It's nice to get off work at 2pm and still have pretty much the whole day to do your own thing. I usually wake up around 4am to begin my morning routine and return home to shower before picking her up from daycare-don't want to spread any germs from the nursing home! Our daycare provider prefers I pick her up at 3:30pm since they take their 2nd nap at 2pm which works out nice for me so I can shower and get a few things done at home. Besides her teething fussiness we've had a pretty smooth operation going. It's nice to still spend the day with her.

She is cutting 2 new teeth and our lives have been hell because of it! She has been fussy, fussy, fussy. We took her to the hospital Wednesday with symptoms of the Swine Flu-high fever, refusing to drink/nurse, increased fussiness(perhaps due to body aches?) and a rash. The rash started on her forehead and soon spread over her entire body. We found out it was all due to teeth. We were informed to use Motrin vs Tylenol and it has worked SO much better! I noticed such a big change the first night. Hopefully those babies pop in soon so I can continue sleeping through the night-we now have a 2am nurse when the Motrin wears off.

In other Evelyn news, she has learned to pull herself up into a standing position, can stand at a play table for minutes at a time, almost has the hang of waving bye-bye and can get up on her hands and knees to rock back and forth. She thinks, "Maybe if I rock back and forth here for a while I'll shoot forward!" No luck yet, but I have a feeling it'll be soon!!

Whine Flu

Today Evelyn awoke at 5am to nurse then fell back asleep (in bed with me) til 8am. I couldn't have been happier to sleep in!! I really needed it.

After breakfast I noticed she felt very warm so following the changing of her second poopy diaper of the morning I took her temperature-100.7. I was scared!! I quickly called my mom who was unavailable due to my Aunt Bud's funeral. I continued down the list and called my cousin Sarah. She explained it was nothing to be alarmed about just make sure she has enough wet diapers and is drinking enough. She ate regularly all day, drank a bottle of juice and didn't act sick-besides whining all day. Around 11am she had a bm for the fourth time and continued with the whining. After a 3hour nap she awoke with a smile but quickly became upset again. I dosed her with Ibuprofen at 11am and 5pm, which didn't seem to help. Although she was very whiney all afternoon she was pretty laid back at times-I actually held her while she was still to watch tv for a half hour. I haven't cuddled her like that in months! It was great.

My remedy for today was a little TLC and she is happily asleep since 6pm. I'm sure we'll have a midnight nurse and then hopefully sleep til our regular time. Cross your fingers!

I hope her condition doesn't worsen. My guess is it's a little cold or more teeth. Hopefully her condition doesn't worsen over night.

Almost A Terrible Night

My first day was a success! I made it out the door exactly on time and the girl training me said I did great for my first day. I'm pretty confident in my abilities yet I was a tad overwhelmed today. So much to memorize in only two weeks-who gets what care, what time, etc. But I'm sure I'll get it down.

I woke Evelyn at 5:30am to take her to Grandma Jill's. She arose with a scowl but when I lifted her from her crib she gave a little grin then laid her head on my shoulder to rub her eyes. Heaven. She went back to sleep at Grandma's for another hour and a half and arrived at daycare around 9am. She ate well-I pumped exactly the amount she ate-BUT she only took a one hour nap. She was relieved to see me when I picked her up and sadly her eyes were red from crying. She had just woken up, hungry I'm sure.

Once we were home she enjoyed herself on the living room floor playing with an assortment of toys and books while Grandma Nancy and I watched. My mom holds up this mirror Karen gave us and Evelyn can see her at an angle. She'll look in the mirror to see her, then look over at her and smile. It's adorable. As soon as Grandma left she began to fuss. She played in her high chair and ate O's while I made dinner but unexpectedly took a turn for the worse when we sat down to eat. She was crying so hard all of a sudden. I took her out to give her a bath, her favorite, and she splashed around for a while and again began to cry-through the washing in the tub, her diaper, her pajamas-until we turned on Dora. She quickly was sick of this as well and began crying again. I thought the worst-teething! I was scared of the thought of Jared working tonight and me being home alone with her crying through the night in pain. Ahhh!

Thank goodness it was such a beautiful night. We grabbed a hat and a ton of blankets and went for a stroll. After 3minutes she was asleep. And what a scenic walk we had. It was beautiful, all the leaves and the weather. She awoke once we returned home but fortunately dozed back off (by 7:30). Phew! Thank you, Lord. This momma needs some sleep after today!! My feet are killin' me!

Wish Me Luck

We had a relaxing Sunday. We got a lot done-vacuumed the whole house, dust/windex, bathroom cleaned, lots of laundry, Jared made french toast for breakfast and painted the trim in Evelyn's room. All of this before Evelyn's morning nap.

When she awoke we joined some friends of ours and their 2-month-old son, Dawson, for a Vikings game and lunch. After the game we had a short visit with Jared's Grandma Rainbow who showed us pictures of her trip to the East coast. We didn't quite stay home like we planned, but we had a fun, relaxing day-tomorrow morning will be the opposite!

I have the diaper bag packed, scrubs laid out, lunch made and my pump plugged in and ready to go first thing in the morning. I can't wait to snuggle up in our King sized down comforter we busted out for winter (already!). Evelyn fell asleep at 7:30 giving me time to prepare my things and still have a 1/2 hour to watch tv. Hopefully she'll continue this early bedtime, which has lasted the past 2nights. I'm worried it will be crunch time when I pick her up from daycare-nurse, unpack diaper bag, dinner, get ready for bed and the next day-and won't have much time to spend with her. I'll still have 2 days off a week but we will most likely be busy those days with family, dr appts and I will probably be exhausted. I hope I still get time with my Bug. I'm gonna miss her.

Wish me luck-hopefully everything goes smoothly in the morning

Evelyn The Entertainer

Hooray! My cold is gone! I went to bed early at 9pm with some VapoRub and cough drops, Jared woke me up at 6am to nurse Evelyn and I slept in again til 9. I felt a little sore this morning but regained my strength by the afternoon.

We met Jared's step-sister, Jamie, for lunch at her grandparents where Evelyn was the main attraction. We all sat around watching her play. Isn't it funny how entertaining a baby can be? We set one of her toys just outside her reach and she would semi-crawl to get it. She's definitely getting the hang of it. I'm dying to see her first crawl but I have a feeling it will be bittersweet-she's already a handful! It is officially impossible to change her diaper and dress her. She's constantly rolling away. But how could you get mad at a cute little monkey like her?

She also is learning how to wave goodbye-we demonstrate while she tries to copy. Sometimes she gets the right hand working, other times she's watching one hand but the other is moving. None the less, she is completely aware of what she is doing. At first we thought her motions were a coincidence but I'm positive she is learning to wave. When you first wave to her she stops whatever she's doing to concentrate on her motions. So smart.

Man, Do Guys Have It Easy

I hope I don't get terribly sick. Today I awoke again with a sore throat and a lazy feeling...which may have worked to my benefit this evening. After breakfast with Jared's family this morning and a million dollar grocery trip we returned home to cook dinner and begin our nighttime routine. Because of my ill condition Jared cooked dinner, did the dishes and completed Evelyn's bedtime routine while I sat on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket watching TV. Man do guys have it easy.

After dinner Jared was in charge of cleaning off the table and high chair, cleaning the kitchen, retrieving the laundry from the dryer, giving Evelyn a bath and cleaning up the living room. After her bath I noticed him become a little frustrated with Evelyn who was squirming right out of her pajamas-every time he would get one of her limbs in her pajamas, another would pop right back out. During this he asked me to put another load of laundry in and I simply explained it was just too cold in the breezeway for my cold symptoms-a similar excuse I would receive from him if asked. I think he felt a little overwhelmed. Hopefully this experience will help him to understand the toll that housework and going to school and/or working has on a nursing mother and teach him to appreciate my efforts. Although, unfortunately, I doubt this will happen. Men!

I'm happy to report Jared is off with some friends and I am once again lathering on the Vicks vaporub and hitting the sack early. Good riddance you nasty old cold!

PS I'm not upset with Jared although it does sound this way in my blog. I just wish he showed a great appreciation for my cleanliness and organization. The dream of all housewives.