Total Slacker

I have no real excuse as to why I haven't blogged in such a long time, in fact this may be the longest absence I've taken from blogging since I started blogging. Honestly I've had every intention of coming to post an update but just never quite got around to it now. And honestly I'm probably doing it now because on Sunday we leave for Utah and it may be another two weeks before I get the opportunity to post again.

I do think I should update you on the rest of my trip in North Carolina though. The day after my last post we went to spend the day with my grandma and on the way home Y began vomiting - she only did it once but boy was there A LOT of it. Once we got back to my parent's house I peeled her out of her clothing, took apart her car seat (harnesses and all), and had to wash everything! I even had to clean the seat in my mom's van because some of the puke seeped through the holes where the harnesses come through at. I have never seen so much come out of someone so little! She really didn't eat much the remainder of the day but she did want to nurse and she had been able to keep that down. So I figured I would give her a bottle before bed because formula is more filling than breastmilk. Well she drank the entire bottle (4 oz) and half an hour later I was peeling her and myself out of clothing because she vomited again. Now a few other members of my family had been sick and it had passed within 24 hours and Y didn't have a fever so I wasn't panicked at all (B was though, and understandably so). But just as a precaution I called her pediatrician the next morning, Friday, and informed them I was out of state but Y was sick and they gave me some helpful advice. Y and I layed down for a nap and when we woke up she was burning with fever (it's about this time that I start to panic), I give her Tylenol and the fever eventually breaks, I call the doctor back and they recommend Children's Motrin. So I begin alternating Tylenol and Motrin and each time the fever would break and return after a few hours - This went on for 3 days. Finally on Monday morning before we were to leave for the airport to come home, the fever breaks but she is still very fatigued and sleeps pretty much all day (which wasn't a bad thing on the plane). On Tuesday morning I begin to notice a rash appearing and my thoughts instantly go to the infection she had before which caused a secondary rash to develop but I realized this rash was different from that one in many ways. So I turn to the trusty internet and start researching common rashes in infants and came across Roseola and found that to match her symptoms exactly, apparently it's fairly common but I had never heard of it. Thankfully it has passed, it lasted exactly a week from start to finish and I'm fairly certain that she would have contracted it on the plane because the incubation period is 10 days and that is exactly how long it took her to become sick.

Needless to say, we didn't have a whole lot of fun for the remainder of the trip and didn't get to see a lot of the people who were on my list to visit but we had an awesome time nonetheless. But I must say we were definitely glad to be back home with B. I'm pretty sure we missed him as much as he missed us!


As for pictures, I did take a few but unfortunately I had my camera on the wrong setting and most of them came out blurry and bad. But I will share this one, it is of one of my roomates from VT and her son - he and Y are 3 weeks apart with Y being the older of the two. It was great to see them in that I haven't seen her since our wedding almost 4 years ago!

Just Stopping In

I've been in NC for about a week and a half now and felt that I should stop in and say hello! I am loving being here with my family but hating being away from B. It was so very difficult for me to leave this time compared to the times when I've left in the past. I know that it was because I was taking Y away from B for 2 whole weeks. He loves his little girl and I am sure that every day she is away from him makes him sad. I totally believe that she misses her daddy and cannot wait to see him on Monday even though she cannot express it.

Her first few days here she was really happy and would let anyone hold her and play with her but after that she became a little more selective. She will allow people to play with her on the floor, but doesn't want them to pick her up and if they do she screams bloody murder. There is one way to win her over though, and that is to take her outside, as long as you have her outdoors she is your best friend! Many of you know that I have a niece who is 6 weeks older than Y. Well on Sunday she turned 1. At first Y did not like to interact with her at all but now she gets pretty excited and happy when she hears her in the morning and can't wait to get on the floor to play with her. She also really enjoyed playing with my Grandma's little dog, though I'm not sure the dog enjoyed it nearly as much.

I have been having an awesome time as well, getting to spend time with family and friends. Unfortunately my dad has been pretty sick for much of the time we have been here but seems to be doing better now and hopefully that will last throughout the rest of our trip. I have been struggling with watching a family member make some pretty destructive decisions and torn apart by my inability to change the situation. Honestly, in times like these I am very grateful that I live far away and do not have to face the realities of the situation on a daily basis. It also helps me to be more appreciative of B and all that he does for me and our family, for the wonderful person that he is. I am so grateful for the choices I have made in my life that have taken me down the path I am on. Not to say that everyday of my life is a fiesta but I have everything in the world to be happy about and thankful for.

There has been a tragic even to happen since I have been here. A brother who was our Home Teacher while I was in high school passed away. Apparently someone called in a bomb threat to the cable company. He made it his job to usher everyone out of the building and in the process collapsed and had a massive heart attack. I really was not close to him but I do have many memories of attending church and youth activities with 3 of his older children as well as he and his wife coming over for monthly visits. But somehow I cannot help but feel some hostility towards whatever person made that phone call. I'm not sure if they even realize how their immaturity has affected the lives of others.

Reminiscing

Last night, Y woke up because she went poop (it always wakes her up if she's asleep, but luckily it doesn't happen too often). And while I was putting her back to bed it reminded me of a some thoughts that I wanted to use in a post last week.

I have been reading the book My Sister's Keeper and I find that the only real time I have to read is in bed at night when Y and B have already fallen asleep. Well, I also find that I get so entrenched in books that I have a hard time pulling myself away. On this particular night I stopped reading around 1:15am and no sooner did I close the book, Y woke up.

I waited a few minutes to see if she would settle herself back in and after she didn't I went in to check on her. Well, the smell immediately hit me and the diaper change was second only to prunes for being the WORST diaper I've ever changed (she had just started eating broccoli). So I changed her and I had been worried that during the changing process she would end up fully waking up and then I'd never get to sleep. So I pleasantly surprised when I rocked her a little and she started drifting off to sleep, so I move to lay her back in her crib. However, before I had the opportunity to do that, I get a second whiff of that very unpleasant aroma and we were right back at the changing table. Only this time she woke up and noticed our shadows on the ceiling from the nightlight. She had just recently become very intrigued by her shadows and so she woke up and started giggling and playing - this of course was not what I wanted to see at 1:45am.

I get her all cleaned up and place her in her crib to go to sleep but she sits up and starts to play. So then I try the trick of putting her in bed with us, waiting for her to drift off to sleep and then putting her back in her crib. So I take her to our bedroom and lay her between the two of us and she almost immediately sits up and starts playing. She starts jumping all over B and having a little private party while he is asleep and I am trying my best to ignore it and giving myself pep talks at the same time; saying that she'll soon tire herself out and go to sleep.

After 20 minutes of her bouncing and jumping around I give up on that idea and take her back to her crib. She sits up, grabs her stuffed Giraffe (named Raffie) and starts to play with him. By this time it's 2:15am and I take this as my opportunity to exit the room, I figure she'll eventually play herself to sleep. I go back to bed with the intention of snuggling in and having an amazing sleep but I cannot find in me the ability to fall into a deep sleep until I know she is asleep, so I toss and turn at every noise I hear her make. Finally at 3am I hear a noise that I am very familiar with - it's the noise that says, "mommy I'm ready for bed, where are you?"

I walk in, she looks up at me and I can't help but reach in and pick her up. She snuggles into my arms and I stand there frozen watching as she drifts back off to sleep. The time is no longer important, I couldn't care less that I have had no sleep thus far, in my mind I was revisiting that first night home from the hospital. When I sat in her room in the rocking chair and I rocked her to sleep while stroking her hair, in complete awe of the wonderful blessing I had in my arms. I thought to myself that I should cherish moments like that, when she allows me to hold her and snuggle her close because the time will come when I will no longer be able to do it.

She is worth every second of lost sleep that I endure, even though I'm never really excited about it. But one day those long sleepless nights will be but a memory and instead of wanting me to come to her room and assist her in falling asleep she'll have a huge sign on her door telling me not to enter. So for now, I'll try to appreciate those nights of interrupted sleep simply because it gives me the ability to reminisce to a time when she was new to this world and she didn't know anything or anyone - except the feel and the smell of her Mommy.

For Uncle Elder Lance

Hey Lance, here's a little video so you can see how much Yanna has grown!!

10 Months!!!

Our little darling is 10 months old now!!! Last month she started crawling, pulling up, and taking little steps while holding our hands; we're so excited to see what this month holds! So far she's still one of the happiest babies we've ever met, her teeth still have not yet broken through but we anticipate it at any time now. She is so much fun to play with and honestly I wonder why she has so many toys when she'd rather play with bags, boxes or paper! She has become a lot friendlier toward strangers and is even willing to let them hold her now, hopefully this is good news in that I will be flying home to NC next week. Here are some pictures from today!

New Videos

Here are a couple new videos of Y! In this one we missed the part where she was laughing hysterically but you can still see how she entertains herself with inanimate objects, in this video it was the changing pad!

This is a video of her the game she loves to play now. She crawls between your legs and then grabs hold of them and uses them to help her stand. She fully expects you to hold her like that until she says you can stop. She doesn't quite understand the amount of endurance and stamina it takes to hold your legs up for that long and if you drop them she expects you to lift her right back up or she will cry. I sure hope she tires of this quickly but B, of course, says "it's good exercise." I, of course, say "screw that."

Whew!!

Over the past several weeks I've been pretty stressed, and all because of a bet that I lost! Before I get into all that I'll tell you that I love breastfeeding! But not having a period made me love it even more! However, not having a period has been both a blessing and a curse for me because I can get really paranoid that I'm pregnant. The fact is that I could totally be pregnant and have no clue because as many of you know, during our last pregnancy I had no symptoms at all. And the mini pill is not the most reliable form of contraception but it's a necessity for me in order to breastfeed. I am sad to admit that last month, 8 months after Y's birth, Aunt Flow reared her ugly head again. And with that said, I'll start the story now:

Ya see, I made a bet with B and I lost the bet and I won't say exactly what the bet was but I will say that I lost the bet during the time I was ovulating. This combined with the notion that slightly a week after said bet, I start to see a blood tinged discharge (my period was not due as I had already had it a couple weeks prior). My initial thought was that it was implantation bleeding, as I did more reading, the more paranoid I got; thinking for sure we were pregnant. My mind was consumed with the idea of having an 18 month old and a newborn, I seriously wanted to cry. I know it wouldn't be the end of the world and I know I could handle it if I had to but still the whole idea was enough to scare the living daylights outta me (does anyone say that anymore?).

I have a 31 day cycle and so a few days before Aunt Flow was due I took a pregnancy test and it said I wasn't pregnant...I wanted to throw a party. So I waited the few days for the dreaded visitor and she never came. I begin to panic thinking that the stupid test was wrong. Or maybe I took it too soon. But the box said it would tell me as early as five days before my missed period...I took it only three days before my missed period so it should have been accurate! I had a million thoughts running through my mind and seriously just wanted to run to the store and buy another test (I'm so paranoid that I try to keep them in the bathroom but I was all out this time). But I promised myself that I would wait a few more weeks and give it time until I was sure that I had enough hormones in my body that the test could not be wrong.

So on Monday, as we prepared to go to the zoo, I realized that Aunt Flow had just showed up!! I think in my head I was jumping up and down and singing. Needless to say, B was really relieved too! I hate when Aunt Flow comes, but this time I could not have been more excited to see her! It came a full week late, a full week which left me to agonize over the possibility. I had seriously already started thinking of how I could rearrange the furniture in Y's room and how I would paint the letter's of his/her name and how I would announce the news to everyone this time. I'm relieved to not be making an announcement right now, but look forward to making it in the not-so-near future. Don't get me wrong, we can't wait to have another baby (well maybe that's the wrong way to put it). We can wait to have another baby but we're excited to welcome him/her a little farther down the road...like middle-to-end of 2010.

A Visit to the Detroit Zoo

On Monday we took Y to the zoo for the very first time. As it turns out we could not have picked a better day! The weather was absolutely beautiful and even though there was rain expected (and the clouds started to look pretty ominous) we made it around the entire zoo and were gone before any rain arrived (if it ever actually arrived). Y pretty much treated the whole day as an extended trip at a park, we're not really sure if she even really paid attention to the animals very much but anytime she is being pushed around outside in her stroller is a happy time for her. We'll take her again next year when she will hopefully enjoy seeing all the different types of animals a lot more. There was one part of the trip that she showed extreme interest in, that was the Arctic Ring of Life where you go underwater and see the seals and polar bear swimming around. She noticed that there were animals swimming above her (as well as some pretty interesting people around her). I posted a video below that shows this part of the trip. It's about 2 minutes long, I tried to edit out more of the part where it looks like she's just staring into space (she's really observing the people around her) but alas I could not get it to work the way I wanted, so if you want you can skip that 10-20 second time frame, but don't skip all the way to the end or you'll miss the polar bear! We had a great time and can't wait to go again next year!

The Weekend

Over the weekend we had a great visit with B's family. They came on Saturday night with the intention of going to church with us on Sunday but it turns out church was cancelled due to some sort of damage done to the building during last week's storms. So we ended up having a pretty good day at home and we took them to a local park which we all really enjoyed. As I've said before, Y LOVES being outside in her stroller so she was pretty happy the entire time we were out. We did happen to snap some pictures while we were there, and of course I had to post a few of them, so here goes!

The Video...Finally

I promised to post a video of Y crawling...a week ago. Sorry for the delay and I really have no excuse aside from sheer laziness! In the video, you'll notice that she does a little crawling and a lot of contemplating crawling. Here goes: