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Zoey was outgrowing her baby tub. Gene would try giving her a bath in it and she would do everything she could to try to climb out of it, making bath time a real pain in the neck! So, I went to Target and bought the famous inflatable duck tub! I have heard amazing things about it and I thought it would be just perfect for her. Um.. think again! She hated it. I mean, downright loathed the thing. Scared to death of it. Gene would go to put her in it and she would kick and scream and throw a huge fit. I kept it in the living room for a couple of days to see if she would warm up to it and she still would go nowhere near it.

Finally, one late night I was laying in bed, trying to fall asleep and I had the brilliant idea of just putting a bath mat down in the tub and letting her sit in the tub like a big girl. She can sit up on her own just fine but I am very nervous about her slipping because she tries to move around so much. So anyway, we tried it and it worked and we are back to having fun bath times!

She can now crawl around, play with lots of toys, make big splashes and just generally do whatever she wants. To say she loves it is an understatement. She gets so excited when we put her in the bath tub now and would play in there forever if the water stayed warm and her skin didn’t wrinkle up.

The only problem is that it causes a bit of trouble when Gene is trying to wash her and she wants to crawl around the tub and play with toys. I overheard him say “This is too difficult now” while he was bathing her earlier.

Candy :: Jan.30.2010 :: Baby, Zoey, Zoey's Firsts :: 3 Comments »

Z and I are on the mend but boy this past couple of weeks sure were a doozie. It started with Z being extremely congested and ended with me catching her awful cold. She had a good week long bout of awful sleeping, waking multiple times through the night, and crawling around whining and fussing. Every time she would bump her head, even if it was just a slight bump, she would melt down into hysterics. It was quite the pitiful sight, if I say so myself.

Well, now that she is feeling better, I was finally able to see that her top 2 front teeth are peeking through her swollen gums. I had the biggest “Ah ha!” moment of my entire life when I first saw the white specks on her top gums. Everything just made total sense! The crying, the whining, the not-sleeping, the fussiness and the sensitivity to Everything. That. Came. In. Contact. With. Her. just made complete and total sense to me. It all added up and I suddenly felt enormous guilt for not giving her teething tablets and Ty*lenol to ease her pain. Here I thought she was just battling an icky cold and come to find out she was battling an icky cold on TOP of some hardcore teething. Parenting fail!

Ever since we made this discovery we have been able to stay on top of her discomfort with teething tablets and the occasional dose of grape flavored infant’s Ty*lenol. She is in much better spirits and I no longer feel like I am going to lose my mind. It is a win-win situation, really!

I think the version of Z’s cold that I received was about a bajillion times worse. I got The Cough. It has been awful and even though I am starting to feel a lot better, I still have The Cough. I’ve been taking everything over the counter that I can and I even dug up an old bottle of antibiotics that I never finished (yes, I know, shame on me!) and have been sucking those down as well. Mu*cinex, Del*sym, Extra Strength Ty*lenol, Al*eve, Ny*quil, Day*quil, the list could go on forever. I am so drugged up on OTC medication that I should probably look into a detox program when The Cough is finally gone for good.

So that my friends is my unnecessarily long excuse of why I haven’t been around. I still want to blog more frequently and still have great aspirations to keep up with this thing.

Sidenote: Z is pulling up to standing position on EVERYTHING, regardless of it being a stable surface or not. There is a lot of head bumping and falling over going on at our house but surprisingly, we have yet to get any bruises. She is starting to learn that she can move her feet and I have a feeling she’ll be cruising along the coffee table or sofa in the upcoming weeks. She can crawl pretty fast now and has a love for any and everything that is not a designated toy (for example: the remote, the cell phone, cups, kleenex, shoes, breakable home decor, etc.). I am officially going to pack up all of the pretty decorative stuff in my living room and put it away in the garage until after we no longer have little children in the house. It’s a sad day but I realize that is what comes with the territory. It is either that or invest in one of those baby gate / makeshift jail house things and I just feel bad doing that!

Candy :: Jan.28.2010 :: Baby, Health, Parenting Fail, Zoey, Zoey's Firsts :: Comments Off

We took Z in to see the doctor for her 9 month check up. Luckily there are no shots so I was happy about that! Zoey is 28 inches long and weighs 19.1 pounds, which puts her in about the 50th percentile for both. They wrote down that her head circumference is 90th percentile but her head doesn’t seem THAT large. Maybe it’s just all those smart brains in there ;)

Doc didn’t really say what she had, which tells me that he isn’t sure if this is a really bad reaction to teething or just a really bad cold. He gave us a prescription for Albuterol to help with her wheezing and basically we will just ride this out. Last night Z and I got barely any sleep. I ended up sleeping on the twin bed in her room to help minimize my trips back & forth across the house and my back is paying for it tonight. Tonight I will sleep in our bed and just make the walk back and forth just to help give my back some relief. I’m crossing my fingers that she will sleep better tonight but I know that she has a really rough time sleeping because of her congestion. She coughs and coughs and it wakes her up almost every single time. I guess we can write this down as her very first cold.

Here is to hoping for a better night as far as sleep goes. Oh and that tomorrow we have no projectile vomit. Because that? Is gross and starting to get on my nerves! I think the vomit is related to the excessive coughing.

Candy :: Jan.18.2010 :: Baby, Zoey, Zoey's Firsts :: 1 Comment »

I have really started to incorporate regular table food into Z’s diet. I try to give her whatever we are eating for dinner in addition to her baby food puree. She is loving all kinds of things from peas, bread, stove top stuffing, mashed potatoes to little nibbles of hamburger or chicken. She smacks her gums and “chews” everything up very well. She has only turned down one thing and it was when I added a little bit too much oatmeal to her butternut squash and she didn’t care for the taste too much. I snuck the bites in with something else and she did end up eating it all. I honestly can’t blame her because that oatmeal smells pretty rancid and I always add it to her food but usually only add a very little amount.

When I give her table food, I have this habit of blowing profusely on the food until I know it is for sure cooled down on the outside and the inside of whatever it is. I guess over the last few weeks she has been paying attention because today I went to give her a bite of stovetop stuffing and she “blew” on the spoon before allowing me to put it in her mouth. It was the cutest thing in the entire world!! I did it a few more times and she would “blow” (I put that in quotes because she doesn’t know exactly how to blow yet but makes a pbblltt type sound with her lips) on the spoon before opening her mouth. Soooo stinkin’ adorable!!

This is just proof that her little mind is already very sponge-like. She is watching every little thing we do and absorbing so much at such a young age.

I also forgot to write up a post about how my little peanut turned 9 months old two days ago! I can’t believe it has been 9 months since she has been in our lives. Amazing!! This has been, by far, the best time of my life. Now we will start the great First Birthday planning!

Candy :: Jan.16.2010 :: Baby, Baby Food, Zoey, Zoey's Firsts :: Comments Off

I just wanted to document this so I don’t forget.. Or maybe I do want to forget it? Depends on how ya look at it I guess.

So last night was not fun, to say the least. The previous night I only got about 3 1/2 hours of sleep so I was already exhausted and this is where Zoey decided it would be the perfect time to challenge us a little. She figured she has been making this parenting thing a little too easy for us. She really likes to keep us on our toes, ya know?

11:00 – Lay down in bed

11:30 – Baby screaming. Go in and try to soothe her. Not working. Pick her up and rock her until she falls asleep.

12:00 – Baby screaming. Go in and pick her up and rock her.

12:30 – More of the same.

1:30 – Baby screaming. Go in and pick her up and rock her.

2:00 – Baby screaming. Go in and pick her up and rock her.

2:30 – More of the same.

3:00 – Go in and pick her up and rock her. She is wide awake. Give her some Tylenol. She is NOT wanting to go back to sleep at this point. It takes me forever. I finally lay her down while she is wide awake and tip toe out of the room.

3:30 – Screaming again. Go back in there and soothe her back to sleep with a pacifier.

4:00 – Wake Gene up and tell him to go get her because I was DONE for the night. I was so exhausted from the previous night that when I got up with her at 3:30 I felt wobbly and my eyes were hurting so bad that I wanted to cry. My patience were running low due to how horrible I felt so I needed him to take over. He said she stayed up for about 1 to 1 1/2 hours and he fed her and changed her diaper.

It is 9:45 AM right now and she has been crying on and off since 8. She will cry out, not scream, just a cry.. and then it will go quiet and be quiet for a few minutes. Rinse and repeat. I have NO idea what the deal is. My only guess is either teething or night terrors. It’s hard to tell when they can’t really tell you what is up.

I am hoping to somehow get some motivation to get stuff done today. I have lots of laundry and dishes that need to be done.

Candy :: Jan.15.2010 :: Baby, Zoey, Zoey's Firsts :: 3 Comments »

Today I decided a little “me” time was in order so I ran a couple of errands solo. I ran to the fabric store to get a few things and then I ran to Walmart. I got some popcorn chicken and some King’s Hawaiian rolls and sat in the Subway that is inside of Walmart and had a quiet little lunch all by my lonesome. It was nice but it made me realize that I am a social butterfly. I love having lunch with a good friend, with my daughter or with my husband.

I got my eyebrows waxed and then walked over to the birthday party section of the store. I browsed, just thinking about Zoey’s upcoming first birthday (still a few months away, but never too early to start looking!) and out of nowhere I started thinking about Fran, Micah, Dani and poor little Max. Max (who I previously wrote about here) was laid to rest today and they were on my mind all day. I started crying right there in Walmart, just thinking about how baby Max isn’t going to experience a first birthday, he isn’t going to get to eat cake and rub it in his hair. Life just isn’t fair.

I wrapped my shopping up at that point because I got really depressed. Came home and saw Zoey crawl for the very first time! I immediately got to work on my sewing machine and sewed Zoey two taggie blankets. One is flannel with minky on the back and the other is flannel with fleece on the back.

Well, I better run.. Got a grumpy little peanut. It’s 10 PM and she is a very sleepy little girl.

Candy :: Jan.10.2010 :: Baby, Sewing, Zoey, Zoey's Firsts :: Comments Off

Notice anything different?

It’s the ears! This morning we took Zoey to the doctor’s office to have her ears pierced. The doctor we saw was really nice and explained everything about the procedure in great detail. Gene held some little cotton swabs of some kind of liquid on her ear lobes for a few minutes, this was numbing the surface of her ears. I realize this wasn’t going to really take all of the pain away but I figured my job as a parent was to do whatever I could to make it as painless as possible. She came in, cleaned her ears, marked them with a marker, I checked the markings to make sure they were even and then we proceeded.

I figured Zoey would be more comfortable in our arms than with a nurse holding her down so I held her on my lap while Gene held her head in place. She started to cry before we even started, I think from being held down. The doctor did one ear at a time and it was over. She cried briefly and by time we were leaving the office she was happy and smiling. She just looks so precious :)

The earrings are a new kind of earring that is made from plastic so it’s completely non-allergenic. You don’t have to turn the earrings all of the time and you don’t have to put peroxide on them anymore. Great!! Less maintenance. All she said was to wash them with soap when you give her a bath and turn it a little when you do that. After 6 weeks we will need to change out the earrings into regular ones as the post on these are a little bigger than regular ones. She is doing GREAT and has been a gem all day today.

She has been acting her normal self but I noticed her face was warm today so I took her temperature and it was 100.5! She has been trying to eat EVERYTHING today, drooling a bit more than usual and she has had a really awful diaper rash the last few days so I am guessing that maybe she is teething. Her gums have been swollen for months now but I haven’t felt anything popping through so who knows! Gene slathered her poor red bottom up with Eucerin and put her in a disposable diaper for the night. I’ll put her back in cloth tomorrow morning and try to change her diaper every hour so that she isn’t sitting in a wet diaper for a long period of time. She cried so hard when I was wiping her bottom tonight. That totally broke my heart and I felt so awful :( It was a worse cry than when she had her ears pierced this morning!

Zoey has been drinking four 7oz bottles a day for a few months now but this last week has gone down to about three 6oz bottles a day. So crazy. She is still only eating 2 solids a day but I am starting to incorporate bananas and cheerios into her diet. Yesterday she ate almost an entire small banana!

Well.. I better get to bed. I need to work on some knitting and try to get mentally prepared for the next couple of days. I am going to be trying to clean my house in the next couple of days as we will be having family visiting this weekend for our family Christmas. I’m so excited to see everyone that I haven’t seen in so long!

Candy :: Dec.08.2009 :: Baby Food, Cloth Diapers, Zoey, Zoey's Firsts :: 2 Comments »