The Weekend

I first have to say how great Liv is. I have not wanted to post about this in fear that I might jinx it, but things are still going great. Like I said before she only poops once a week or so, and that is still going, so less dirty-stinky diapers, who could ask for more. She nurses great and is gaining tons of weight, for her I guess it is a lot. I was nervous about the foods I ate, I was being careful about everything and then slowly introducing it into my diet, nothing phases this girl!! I even went for four almost five weeks without chocolate, I had a brownie this weekend and it did not bother her!! I am still not brave enough to eat any really chocolaty stuff but a little here and there seems to be fine! She has such a sweet nature about her, and she already seems to have Jon's crazy personality. She has all these facial expressions that remind me of my animated husband, and she love to smile, mostly at Jon though, I think she sees enough of me during the day so she gets excited when dad gets home. But this is the best part, she has been sleeping for at least five hours at a time, mostly six, but last night she slept seven hours!! It was awesome, then she woke up, ate some breakfast, hung out for a while, and is sleeping right now! I am not sure why we have such a"perfect" girl but I am not complaining. Another side note, she is a drooler all the sudden? My mom and aunt said we started drooling three months before a first tooth cut through, so maybe she is going to be an early bloomer and get her first tooth at four months. I am not looking forward to teething though! She is amazing, we can't get enough of her! Here are a few pictures from Memorial Day. Jon and I went downtown to the Spokane Falls, and Riverfront Park to walk around. We road the Gondola which takes you over the falls, if you look in the background of our pictures you can see the roaring water. Liv was passed out in my arms, the heat put her right to sleep. It was beautiful and so warm that day, in fact it is still warm, summer is just around the corner! Then we had a BBQ over at Jon's parents, played games, had really good dessert and got to bed early, it was awesome! PS my husband is the best grilling machine ever, we need to get a grill again, love that guy!

A Great Big Shove into Parenthood

I will preface this by saying we are all doing well after our excitement this week, Liv even went and had her one month pictures taken yesterday. All is well and we are so blessed, prayers are truly answered. Well we have the easiest little girl, she does not cry, she sleeps so well, and she only poops once a week (sounds weird but the doctor said this is normal for her). On Tuesday we had an adventure, I guess you could say that. This sounds terrible but Liv was exactly four weeks old and it was the first time I was making dinner for Jon and I, what can I say, we have a lot of family really close by. Dinner was ready, Jon was home and Liv was sleeping. We went to go lay her down, and she spit it, a bit more than normal but no big deal. Minutes later she did it again, and within minutes of that the spit up had changed to a bright yellow and shortly later a bright green. I knew this was not normal, so we called our on call nurse after hours. She listened to us and then listened to Liv, she thought Liv had aspirated some spit-up so she told us to call 911, WHAT? The breathing was not my concern, Liv is always wheezy when she sleeps. So instead we headed down to the ER. When they started examining her they knew right off the bat that she was dehydrated, her resting heart rate was 180 and her skin was blotchy. I forgot to mention that during the day Liv had four or five really runny diapers, which is not normal for my once a week pooping sweetie! So they started running all sorts of labs, poking and prodding her and using catheters to extract some urine. What was wrong with her? They then inserted an IV, into her head because I guess there are less nerves in the head causing less pain, who knows? They started pumping fluids into her little body and we waited. They were not quite sure what was going on, but the hospital we went to does not have a pediatrics so we had to be transferred, via ambulance (this was policy, not emergency). When we arrived at the other hospital, more x-rays were ran and some x-ray where she had to drink barium and they followed the liquid through her stomach to make sure there were no knots in her intestines. Those came back clear, and we still had no idea what was going on. She had no fever, she had not eaten in about fourteen hours, and she was not hungry, not normal. Finally they took us from the ER to her room, where they told us she had a stomach virus. The doctors still had to hook her up to heart-monitors and the rest of the "works" were just to make sure, she was safe, all the while still being hooked up to an IV for fluids. This was all before 4am. The next morning she still had not eaten, but by late morning she was ready. She ate a little and kept it down. The nurses and doctors were checking on her all day, she ate two more time, was off the IV and was ready to go home by 5pm. So how did this four week old get a stomach virus, I had not been around anyone with the flu. The doctors said it was really going around, in fact last night we saw on the news that it is so bad( the virus) schools in northern Idaho and eastern Washington were closing down. The poor thing, she had a rough night, she is way to little to be that sick. Needless to say Jon and I had one great big shove into parenthood.
This last picture is one of Liv's one month old pictures, taken just 17 hours after coming home from the hospital, she is so beautiful and so peaceful. We love her so much, and can't wait to see her grow.

Three Weeks

At almost three weeks Liv weighs 8 pounds one ounce and is twenty-two inches long. What a tank, she has gained over one pound and has grown two inches. I love it, awesome job Liv!

Mothers Day

Yesterday was a good day, I kept telling Jon that, "today is a good day," you know those days that are just good, yesterday was one of them. And not because it was mothers day, I just felt good. Not only was it my first real mothers day, meaning I am actually a mother, but it was Liv's first Sunday to go to church. And we made it on time. I was so nervous about getting out the door Sunday morning for our nine-o'clock church, that Saturday night I was ironing dresses for Liv and I, laying out the rest of our clothes and getting all of Liv's bath stuff ready for the morning. I woke up with time to spare but was so glad and will continue to be glad that Jon is at home with me on Sunday's so that he can feed Liv a bottle if she needs one, and she did. But we did it, we made it to church, and Liv was a hit, I think!! We came home, all three of us took a Sunday afternoon nap and then headed to my parents and then Jon's. My mother's day gifts were amazing and I can't wait to get my pedicure and massage!! I just want to say how much I love and appreciate my mom and Jon's mom for all the work I am now realizing it takes to raise and nurture your kids. Thank you and I love you. And I am so grateful for Jon and the way he makes me feel about being a wife and a mother, I love you. Here are some new pictures of our family and of Liv. Remember it was her first Sunday at church so she had to be fancy!

I am at a Loss

What do you do when the doctors and books all tell you to never let your baby sleep on their stomach, and you scared to death about SIDS, but your baby sleeps so peacefully on her stomach. This is where I am at a loss. Liv loves sleeping on her stomach and I have been letting her while I am awake during the day, but the past two early mornings she has slept on her tummy(right next to our bed) while I have slept, which means we were both sleeping. But of course I am terrified about SIDS, so is it really worth it? Do I risk it? What do I do? Other than that life is great. Liv already seems to be getting so much bigger. And I know every parent thinks this, but she seems so advanced. She seems to be smiling to reactions already, she is so aware of her surroundings. she can hold her head up, and when she is awake on her tummy she can pick her head up and move it from one side to the other. She is amazing, and a lot of work that is still so new. I know this sounds crazy and don't think for one minute we are planning anything, but I can't wait to have a second baby so I can be more relaxed and full of the knowledge Liv has taught us! She is a good teacher! We love her and are loving life right now, the crazy lives we have! Here are some more pictures of our cutie. The first one made us laugh, I had gotten her all ready to go to my parents house to meet one of my aunts, when we got there and took her blanket off this is what we found. She was still sound asleep. And the last pictures are showing off her curls. Curly hair was the one thing I predicted she would have, and she has them, I love it!