3 months

My baby is 3 months old already! She went to the doctor for the other shots that most babies get at 2 months - in addition to it being better for her to spread out the shots (and easier on me for her to get 2 quick pokes instead of many before I get to comfort her), it gives me an additional chance to check in with her doctor's office on her development and get a weight and length for her. Her 3 month stats are: 12 pounds and 4 ounces, 23 inches long!

Favorite activities: eating, taking a bath (as long as mommy sings "scrub-a-dub-dub" song to her), watching those funny cats, sucking her thumb, playing with the toys on her floor gym and bouncy seat. She also loves her new squeaky giraffe (I fought buying this for her - who spends $20 on the equilvalent of a "dog toy?" However, I ended up getting it for her since so many people said it was their baby's favorite toy and I have to admit Markin loves it - it got many smiles and even a giggle during her 3 month photo session.)

Least favorite activity: hiccupping (which happens a lot, unfortunately)

Newest accomplishment: Markin rolled over from her back to her front all by herself tonight! She was playing with her floor gym and looking at herself in the mirror that was off to her left side, so I was busy getting things done. All of a sudden, she make some mad noises and when I looked to see what was wrong, she was on her tummy! I helped her roll back and she almost did it again, but since I had the video camera ready that time, she decided to wait until I wasn't ready :)

Mommy's losing it!

So, most babies grow up in a home with 2 parents and get to hear lots of adult conversations, have 2 people talking to them, and are exposed a language-rich environment naturally. Well, Markin doesn't have that, so I'm trying to create that for her - I talk to her about all of my daily activities, such as making dinner, showering, washing dishes, etc. along with what she's doing (which mostly is kicking, batting at her toys, looking at things, smiling, hiccupping and those occasional big yawns). Well, I think I'm losing it - I found myself talking about switching laundry from the washing machine to the dryer in the middle of the night and realized that she was upstairs asleep! I admitted this to the speech-language pathologist that works with some of my students and she said that it was a good thing it was so automated for me now, but I still think I'm losing it! Maybe I can blame it on lack of sleep???

Green-eyed monster

I was talking to someone the other day and they were expecting #3 - and got pregnant easily, with this one being an "oops," of course. The green-eyed monster reared his ugly head and I was jealous that it was so easy for them when it was so hard for me. And it's silly, because I thank God on a daily basis that all of my previous attempts had failed and it was my October cycle that was successful because it gave me Markin - if anything else had worked, I wouldn't have HER and I can't imagine my life without her in it.

Okay - I'm getting philosophical. Feel free to stop reading: And I think that there may be one more baby in store for me - from my July cycle's snowbabies. I think God's plan was to give me Markin - which is why there were problems with my uterus in July but we were able to freeze the 4 embryos, and I got the partial refund so that I was able to do another fresh IVF cycle in October. If I had done a frozen transfer that month, she wouldn't be here, and my life wouldn't be as perfect as it is right now! But there's a reason those 4 are frozen and waiting for me, right?

Thinking about those snowbabies - they were conceived in July, Markin was conceived in October. If you think life begins at conception, technically a baby born from those embryos would be older than Markin :)

Jitterbug

I finally remembered to bring my camera into day care when I picked her up. Here's a video of Markin "dancing" to the music - she'll only do this at day care. Suppose that means she doesn't like my music? :)

The red dress

My mom gave me the red dress that I wore in a picture when I was 7 1/2 weeks old. I had Markin's 2 month pictures taken in the same red dress. It was a little big on her (especially the panties - cloth diapers were a lot bulkier than her Huggies are), but the pictures turned out great! Here are pictures of us wearing that red dress.

I think she kind of looks like me, but not too much at this point (think she actually has more hair than I did and I was a lot chubbier) - but wait until I post my 6 month pictures in December. Will also try to post the donor's baby picture at that time.

Playing

I've been getting all of these notes from day care telling me how much Markin enjoyed playing with the floor gym. And I kept thinking - "yeah, right - what's so great about laying there looking at the toys." Well, one afternoon when I picked her up last week I got to see her playing with the floor gym and she does enjoy it! Duh - you use extra links to lower the toys to her!!! Can't believe I didn't think of that - and called my sister to chew her out for not telling me to do that, and turns out she didn't think of it either! Now Markin loves playing with her floor gym (thanks Kim and Maeve for giving it to her) and the toys on her bouncy seat. I'm attaching 2 videos of her playing: one with the floor gym (the mirror is at her right and she does enjoy admiring herself in mirrors) and the other is from last night - notice how she's playing with it!

My sister pointed out that Markin's development is a little different from most babies - she has poor neck/head control, but is great at controlling her feet! She actually prefers that I play Pat-a-Cake with her feet instead of her hands!

This little piggy

This little piggy went to market

This little piggy stayed home

This little piggy had cookies

This little piggy had none

And this little piggy went "wee wee wee wee"

all the way home!

I painted Markin's toe nails - aren't they pretty?

Out with the old, in with the new

Well, they're not really old and the others aren't really new, just new to us. I put away some of Markin's first clothes - the newborn size that she actually wore through last week. I noticed that they were a little tight on her arms and legs and she couldn't straighten her legs all of the way in the sleepers, so it was time to put them away (sniff sniff - I really love some of those outfits). Auntie Karisa sent us home last weekend with a big tub of my nieces' clothes, sized 3-12 months, that they've outgrown. I washed all of them, sorted them by size, and put them away so they'll be ready when she is. Right now, the 0-3 month size is fitting really well - big around the tummy but almost perfect length-wise, but it's time to start looking at the 3-6 size for some of those warmer outfits for the upcoming cool fall days.

Success!

We made it through the whole vampire movie tonight! Markin enjoyed watching the first 15 minutes of it before falling soundly asleep and stayed asleep the whole time.

All thumbs

Yes, it's now official that Markin is a thumb sucker, despite all of my attempts to make her a binky girl. We've tried every kind of binky imaginable and she rejects them all - she makes a funny face and uses her little tongue to spit it out quite forcefully. If you hold it in, she scrunches up her face and the second you let go, the binky is out. She now can get her thumb (almost always her left thumb) in her mouth with very little effort. On the bright side, she was going to need braces anyway :)

On a brighter note, Markin has mastered the art of going 5-6 hours between feedings at night, so she's only waking up once. I'm thrilled! Now if I can just get myself used to getting that much sleep again - I've been trying to use that time to get things done but need to give myself permission to let some things go and get some sleep so I'm not too tired the next day.

2 nights in a row - can we go for 3?

Markin has slept from 10:00ish until after 3:30 in the morning for 2 nights in a row. Yes, that's over 5 hours of solid sleep for the little one. I can't seem to go that long without needing to feed her or pump, but I'm thrilled she can! And I figure if I gradually lengthen the amount of time between feedings or pumpings, my body will soon adjust also and I'll be able to start sleeping through the night also :)

One small drawback - she often thinks that it's time to be up for the day at that point. And I still need a couple more hours of sleep!

On another topic - we went to the breast feeding support group Tuesday night so I could weigh Markin. She weighs 11 pounds and 2 ounces. No wonder that car seat is feeling heavy!

Baby's first vampire movie

. . . didn't go as well as Mommy hoped it would. Eclipse came out right after Markin was born so I didn't get a chance to see it. I decided to wait until it was in the cheap theaters ($5 is better than $10!) so that if we had to leave half way though, I wouldn't be out as much. Well, we attempted it tonight and we only made it 45 minutes into the movie. She wasn't crying and having a fit, but was noisy enough that I was afraid she'd bother those around us. They were nice enough to give me a pass to go back in a week and try again - but we'll see. The dvd should be out in a couple of months (plus, the movie deviated so much from the book that I'm not too anxious to see it anymore - one major goof was that Jasper, who graduated the previous year in the book, was back in HS. In fact, not sure there was anything in the movie similar to the book at all!)