Baby's first Black Friday

Well, Markin and I scored some good deals, even if we didn't get started until 10:00. She was an excellent little shopper - full of smiles and flirted with everyone who stopped to tell her hello. She even put off her next meal by over an hour and let me get one more store in! As a reward, she picked out a new toy - her first baby doll. Everytime she saw it, she'd start smiling and laughing and I couldn't convince her the doll I liked was a better choice, so of course we got the one she likes.

Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving! I have so much to be thankful for this year -mainly one healthy, happy baby girl :) Being a mother to such a wonderful little girl is the best thing in the world and I'm so thankful that things worked out the way they did so that she's part of my life. Just love her so much!

We had a very nice, low-key day. Our family is in Florida, so we hung out with friends who are practically family. Markin slept in until 8:30, then we went shopping (had to get the newspaper so we could see all of the deals we're going to miss out on for Black Friday since I have no desire to risk having something happen to Markin over saving a few dollars - we'll get any "left over" deals that happen later in the day). After her next meal, we went to our friends' house and had dinner - and they had lots of vegetarian options for me to choose from (more than my family provides for me!) Now we're home and just hanging out, trying to get warm - I am NOT ready for this cold weather and am very jealous of the warm temps our family is having in Florida.

Baptism

Markin was baptised today. I decided to get her baptized in my grandparents' church on my grandpa's birthday :) (I lost my grandparents 2 years ago - very unexpectedly. I was really close to them, which is why Markin is named after them.) She's wearing a dress that my mom made for her, with mother-of-pearl buttons from a dress my grandma wore when she was little. My sister tatted the pink lace and flowers to add to it. Rachael gave her the adorable bonnet made from a handkerchief for her to use on her wedding day (will post the poem later). I bought her a nice cross necklace to wear now and on other special occasions, such as her confirmation. What a special day, surrounded by friends and family.

Baby's first BOO!

Happy Halloween!

4 months old

Markin is 4 months old today. Time is flying by so fast! She weighs 13 pounds 7 ounces and is 23 1/2 inches long.

Likes: Her thumb, of course. Playing - with her hands, her toys (kitty cat crinkly toy from her newborn pics is a favorite lately), stuffed animals that she can chew on, her floor gym and bouncy seat, and she loves things that play music. She likes story time and telling stories (a.k.a. "talking"). She also enjoys stroller rides and cuddling.

Dislikes: empty bottles

New accomplishments: Blowing bubbles - so cute! Markin also sticks out her tongue after I do and when I ask "Where's Markin's tongue?" She's also getting really good at hand-eye and foot-eye coordination. Also - she grabbed her feet for the first time last weekend and now she won't stop grabbing them. Adorable!

Making mommy feel loved: When I picked her up at day care tonight, she was playing with the floor gym. I went over, said hi but decided to let her play while I gathered her empty bottles and other things. All of a sudden she started crying! Danielle (her "teacher") was shocked because Markin NEVER cries - but nothing was wrong. I went over to her and all of a sudden she gets a huge grin on her face. She just wanted me to stay with her and was afraid I was leaving her again :) While I love that she was happy to see me, I hope she doesn't get upset when I leave her in the morning because then I'd have a miserable day worrying about her being unhappy all day.

Out of room!

Well, they say that baby's things take up more room than you expect - and they certainly do! In addition to our house overflowing with all of the baby gear (there's a narrow path through the living room between the swing, bouncy seat, floor gym, bumbo, boppy pillow and all of the toys), the freezer is also overflowing with breast milk. After Markin was born, I bought a small upright freezer to store breast milk and food - while small, it should've met the needs of a family of 5 according to the suggested guidelines of how much space you should need. When I first bought it, I was so excited to have extra freezer space that I bought lots of veggies, several frozen pizzas, and 2 kinds of ice cream (things I usually bought 1-at-a-time or not at all with my limited freezer space) and it was still pretty bare in there, even with the frozen meals my mom made me since she knew that I wouldn't have time to cook for myself with a baby. Well, for the past month, I've been trying to get rid of all of that extra food, along with trying every way possible to rearrange in there to get as much milk stored as possible. Well, the food is out of there and it's still overflowing with Markin's milk. I put 155 ounces in there from this past week but Markin ate less than 5o ounces from the freezer during that same time span. I know this is a good problem to have, but HELP! I've been looking on craigslist for a cheap freezer, but not finding much. Don't want anything too expensive and only plan to use it for more 6 months or so (I want to get her through cold and flu season - hoping my supply holds out that long :), but since a can of formula costs around $25, getting a used one will pay for itself, right? If you have a cheap freezer for sale - let me know!

A lifetime ago

It's so hard to believe that my entire life changed for the better exactly one year ago today, even if I didn't know it at the time. I had my egg retrieval and Markin was conceived on this day a year ago.

Sniffles

Oh, no! It's cold season! And we've both caught one - me first, and I probably gave it to Markin but I'd prefer to think that her cousins gave it to both of us :) I actually have laryngitis, and Markin can't figure out why I'm not talking to her! She likes the whispers at first, but then looks really puzzled. At least during the week she had people who could talk to her at day care - she won't have that this weekend. Bet she'll be glad to go back to day care on Monday.

She has just a little bit of the sniffles, combined with lots of sneezes and a little cough. She doesn't really have a runny nose - all of a sudden it's just there, like she blew her nose. Very easy to wipe up. Wonder if that means it'll be easy to teach her how to blow her nose (it's not an easy thing to teach - and I have plenty of practice trying to teach preschoolers how to do it!)

Meal times were a little difficult. She'd drink for a while, then let go to breathe. Then, if she couldn't latch on right away again, she'd say "ehh" and wait for me to stick it in her mouth. "Ehh" was more of a "help" then a "please" - guess we'll have to work on manners someday :) -- but at least it wasn't crying! I rely on the weekends to actually get some quality time feeding her but I'm considering letting her have my pumped milk in bottles instead because it'd be easier for her to drink when she's stuffy - easier mainly because she drinks faster from a bottle. At day care, I've been giving her fresh milk instead of what I have frozen (a whole freezer full :) because I'm hoping my antibodies will keep her from getting too sick.

We've been doing a lot of cuddling. She definitely wanted to be held all day. Not sure if that was related to not feeling well or a new stage she's going through. Hoping it's a stage - I enjoyed getting to hold her and was glad we had an easy day so that I could just sit around cuddling her all day.

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!)