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New Website!

Hi, Everyone!

Many of you know that my goal with this blog was to eventually convert it to a book so Madelyn could one day read about our adventures before she came into this world. Well...that time has come. But since so many of you have requested that I keep blogging to keep you up-to-date, I decided to keep it going. There's only one catch...

I recently purchased a new computer and with that comes new software! :) I decided to simplify my life a bit and use the blogging software on my laptop. For those of you who are subscribed to get emails when I post something new, fear not! You can still subscribe to get emails on the new blog. The subscription link is at the bottom of the main blog page, so just be sure to re-subscribe with this new link. :)

Click here to view the new blog. You can set this site as a Favorite if you'd rather not get the email updates and then just visit whenever you feel like it! I look forward to Part 2 in my blogging adventure, and I also look forward to all your comments (they always make me smile)!

7 Weeks and Growing

Today Madelyn is 7 weeks old. I know I said I was going to start doing the monthly thing after 4 weeks, but who can resist taking yet another picture of such a cute little girl? We can’t, so here we are…

The last few days have been somewhat hectic. Madelyn has caught herself a cold. :( We weren’t really surprised by this, being that Chris and I have both been fighting bronchitis and sinus infections since the day she was born. I suppose we’re lucky she lasted this long. It is hard enough being sick as an adult, but I feel so bad for little Madelyn. She has a cough and her breathing is a little labored which breaks our hearts. We took her to our doctor’s office on Sunday (how nice it was to learn they have hours on both Saturdays and Sundays). Her lungs checked out perfectly normal, so we were told to continue to do what we have been doing…saline drops in the nose and a humidifier in her room. Actually Chris and I find that we have benefited from having a humidifier in our room as well. ;) By the way, while at the doctor's office we found out that Madelyn has hit the 10-pound mark right on the nose!

If you read this blog often, you are probably starting to notice her latest milestone…real smiles. :) Chris and I can hardly help ourselves. We try to get her to smile every chance we get…and it’s not hard to do. We use to have to drag ourselves out of bed at 2 AM for a feeding, but now we get up, actually excited because we know we’ll get grins from ear to ear. How wonderful that she is so happy when she wakes! This use to be the one time we could count on her smiles, but as of this morning, they have become much more regular.

Her sleeping patterns have also become much more regular. She is sleeping about 5 hours and then wakes up for a feeding, and then goes back to sleep for about 4 more hours. She is also taking two hardy naps during the day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. What a blessing!

Take a closer look at the pictures and you'll notice her hair is even growing back! YIPPEE! It's just a little bit right now, but we're glad is starting to come back! Now the biggest question still remains: Will she get our curls??? Her eyes seem to be turning blue, but we know it's early, so we'll just wait and see.

On another note...I received a message today from my knee surgeon's office. They have a match for my knee. Although I plan to talk to the doctor tomorrow, Chris and I talked about it, and we just don't see any way to make it work. I can't imagine trying to recover from such a major surgery and trying to take care of a newborn all at the same time. I don't know that I will ever feel like there's a good time to have it, but I feel like if she was a few years old it might work. The only problem with that is after so many years the surgery will no longer correct the problem because my knee will have gotten so much worse. I don't know what the doctor will say about it all, but we'll see. I'll keep you posted.

Madelyn's First Sleepover

Yesterday I had my 6-week checkup and everything went well. Dr. Tom doesn’t need to see me again until this time next year. Chris and I both said how strange that would be after seeing her so often over the last 10 months. We brought Madelyn with us so Dr. Tom could see how much she has grown, and boy was she impressed! (We refuse to believe she acts that excited with all the babies.) She insisted we send pictures through the course of the next year so she could watch her grow. We told her pictures were never a problem, and we’d be sure to send them her way.

For those of you who have had children you know what the 6-week checkup means. I will leave it at that since this is a G-Rated Blog. ;) Anyway…I wanted to surprise Chris with a night away, just the two of us, so I made reservations at Fort McDowell Resort and Casino for one night. I also made reservations for us both to get much-needed massages. Arrangements were made with Auntie Kristin earlier in the week for Madelyn to have a sleepover with her cousins, and they were all very excited to get her overnight.

Although I knew Madelyn was in the best of hands, I worried that she would have a bad night, or not sleep well. My worries couldn’t have been proved more wrong...thank goodness. According to Auntie "slightly biased" Kristin, Madelyn was perfect. I quote her as saying, “Madelyn is such an easy baby.” She went on and on about how easy everything was from feeding to sleeping. As a matter of fact, Madi slept 5 hours, woke up and ate, and then slept another 4 hours. YAY! I think her cousins enjoyed spending time with her as well, as proven by the photos below.

Chris and I had a nice evening to ourselves, although I will say Madelyn was foremost on our minds the entire time we were gone. Not with worry, but just thinking and talking about her. During the massage I found myself giggling (literally) thinking about how cute her smiling face was earlier in the day. Then, during dinner, Chris and I talked some about ourselves, but mostly spent our conversation on Madelyn. Our plan was to spend a little time and money on the slots, but after dinner we decided we were too tired for that. We went back to our room and relaxed with a few cocktails and some TV, and then crashed as if we hadn’t slept in weeks….oh wait, we hadn’t. ;) Anyway, Chris was able to get about 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep, and although my sleep was good, I woke a couple times only to listen for the monitor until I remembered where I was. :)

We’re glad Madelyn had such a good time with her cousins and her aunt and uncle, but we’re glad to have her home, too. Now we know she will be a good little guest the next time she has a sleepover (and I believe that’s with Grandma and Papa R in a couple weeks)!

6 Weeks Old

Madelyn enjoyed her first Easter yesterday at Grandma and Papa R’s house. There were about 20 people (most members of the “Sun City Mafia” as Chris lovingly refers to the group of wonderful Sun City folk). Of course, Madelyn was the hit of the party, which is never a problem for her Mom and Dad. As a matter of fact you could find us resting on the couch most of the afternoon. The “Mafia” was sure to give us a hard time about it, too, saying how strange it was that all the young folk were sleeping while the oldies were wide awake. Now, I know I don’t have to remind most of you about the Sun City residents…we all know they are an active bunch, but all I had to do was offer Madelyn up for a night, and they didn’t say another word. ;) Chris was actually able to get a cat nap in, and I made sure to rest as well while Madelyn was being passed around from person to person. Of course, Auntie Kristin made sure to take control of the situation. Madelyn does really well with lots of people, but I think sometimes she gets over stimulated when there’s so much going on…this is where Auntie Kristin came in handy…she just kept holding her...for Madelyn’s sake of course. ;) Grandma R got her fix, too. She always gives me and Chris a chance to eat a whole meal together without interruption. We so appreciate that because it is a rare occasion these days. THANKS MOM!

Needless to say, Madelyn didn’t get much of a nap while we were there, but she made up for it last night by sleeping 5 hours straight! WOO HOO! (Okay, I did have to go in and soothe her a couple times, but seriously, I’m not going to count those because I can hardly remember them.) All I know is that I got some great sleep!

Everything else is going well. Madelyn has really started to respond to me and Chris. This morning she woke up from a little nap and when I laid her on the changing table, she gave me the biggest smile ever! Of course, I still wonder how much of that is really on purpose, so today I thought I would try to check for sure. I rubbed her chubby little cheeks and what do you know…another HUGE smile. This time my heart melted. Just then, another smile. Of course by the third smile, I’m thinking, “Wait. She has her eyes open and she’s smiling…I NEED THE CAMERA!” But I knew if I went to grab it from the living room the moment would be gone so I chose to stay with her and enjoy every second. I think sometimes moments like those are best recorded in your mind…although I WILL be working on getting a picture of her new-found smile. It’s WAAAY too cute - all gummy from ear to ear. :)

Madelyn's 6-Week Pictures (Click a picture to see a larger version.)

Chloe

I wanted to give you a quick update on Chloe Dog. She is doing very well and seems to be adjusting to her new baby sister. Chris and I do laugh at her a lot more now because she is as tired as the rest of us! I keep telling people that if dogs could have bags under their eyes hers would be the biggest and darkest! She always has to be where Madelyn is. Every once in a while she’ll go up to Madelyn in her bouncy seat and check her out, quietly sniffing her and giving her a quick lick on the forehead as if she’s a big doggie treat. Madelyn doesn’t seem to mind though. Now that she’s starting to follow things with her eyes more, she has actually started watching Chloe when she’s around. I sit and watch the two of them and wonder what on Earth a little baby might be thinking about the whole situation…

I took this picture of Chloe during a midnight feeding…I came back into our bedroom and this is what I found. Poor dog. ;)

How Wise Are You?

Chris and I consider ourselves lucky that Madelyn has been such a great baby. Last week she started getting into a better sleep routine. Of course, I use the word “routine” quite loosely, but she was showing some signs of improvement…until a few nights ago. For whatever reason, she decided she just didn’t want to sleep...anywhere, anytime. This continued for 24 hours, and we really thought we were going to go crazy. We spent those 24 hours waking with her every 30-45 minutes, trying desperately to get her back to sleep. She wanted nothing to do with it…not even during the day, which until this point was her very favorite time to sleep! Honestly, as much as we needed sleep, we were worried that she needed it more. She was still eating like a champ, but just didn’t want to rest.

Chris recently brought home a new book for me to read (why is it by the way that I must always do the reading?). Someone told him this book described the magical sleep cure. I started reading the book several days before Madelyn decided to stop sleeping more than 30 minutes at a time, but unfortunately, I fell asleep every time I tried to get a chapter in…this should have been warning number one. I probably should have reflected on this fact before going any further. Hind sight would have told me to just read it aloud to Madelyn. Since it put me to sleep, perhaps it would have done the same for her. ;)

To which book am I referring? It is titled On Becoming Baby Wise. Who would have thought that two highly intelligent people needed to read a book on “becoming” wise? Needless to say, we read the book (yes, I finally made it through, summarizing each chapter for Chris), and then, out of desperation, we tried its methodology. In a nutshell, this book suggests confining your baby and yourselves to a pretty strict routine with eating and sleeping, and allowing your baby to cry herself to sleep, something we hadn’t tried yet. The routine of eating was already in place. God forbid Madelyn miss a meal. ;) She has done quite well in that department, but the sleep routine was less than perfect (although we both agreed that she was still very young to have mastered it yet). The book also suggests that babies need to learn to fall asleep on their own, without any “props” (ie. rocking, bouncing, blankies, etc.) Even though rocking Madelyn to sleep was one of my favorite parts of the day, and we both felt like she was very young to try this, we decided to give it a go in hopes that she would get some quality rest.

In the book, it states that most babies will cry anywhere from 10-45 minutes until they fall asleep. Apparently, ours is not the “average” baby because she cried all night. Yes. All night. And we let her, with the exception of going in every 15-20 minutes to reassure her we hadn’t abandoned her (another strategy from the book). I must say this technique caused more lack of sleep, not to mention stress, then what we had experienced in the previous days. However, we continued this practice for 24 hours.

Yesterday, we kept to the routine. We planned a trip to our favorite store, Costco, and tried to coordinate it around her “schedule.” This actually worked well. She was due to eat around 10 AM so we planned to feed her and then make our way to the store. She slept gloriously in the car and in Costco, getting almost 2 hours of sleep. When we got home, she was ready to eat again. It was perfect. While at Costco, we picked up a couple movies hoping we’d somehow figure out how to watch them. ;)

Later in the evening, we put a movie in (Dan in Real Life---good flick, by the way) just as I started to feed Madelyn. Once she was finished eating, she soon fell asleep (a big no-no according to Baby Wise…never sleep after eating). I put a blanket on the couch and laid her down in between me and Chris. She slept there for almost the entire movie. I did move her to the bouncy seat at one point to make room for the popcorn bowl. ;) Anyway…it was when I laid her to sleep on the couch that I looked at Chris for approval, and he smiled, saying, “I’m glad we are on the same page.” At that moment we realized we were actually doing a pretty good job without following the stringent guidelines of a book. We both admitted that parenting is a hard job, but one that you figure out as you go. Not sleeping in a crib all the time, and sometimes eating a half hour later then expected is just fine. We are confident in our abilities to make good decisions and will be adding this book to our Good Will pile. :)

Madelyn's Opinion of Baby Wise