Beauty

For the past almost 3 months I have been amazed daily by my daughter. Amazed at how fast she's growing, amazed at all of my new thoughts and emotions, and amazed at how I am managing to juggle everything with a new baby and lack of help from my husband.
When I look at her I think what every parent thinks of their child, she's perfect in every way possible.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror today and noticed that my hairdresser does an awesome job on my hi lights. And then it hit me like a ton of shit!
We're born perfect and beautiful to at least one person on this earth. We then spend the rest of our lives "upgrading". Hair, make up, nails, clothes, tattoos, piercings, etc. All the while the person who has always thought of us as perfect is probably watching thinking "You can't improve perfection. Love yourself the way you are...perfect"
I now know why my mom was so disappointed when I got my first tattoo. She worked really damn hard to get me here, and thinks I am perfect......I kinda fucked up all of her hard work.
Before I had a child I thought when the day came for their tattoo that I'd be pretty laid back and make them wait until their 18th birthday then take them down and pay for it for a birthday present. I may still do that, I know now though that I will tear up if not cry at someone else fucking up all my hard work.

Saving Grace

I was going to post Wednesday because I had very little planned and ended up getting errands to keep me busy all day.
We made it through the first week. Whew!
Before I delivered Stacia I knew Wednesdays would be great to get errands done and, as an added bonus I'd get an extra selfish day with my daughter. I had no idea Wednesday would go from a bonus to a necessity. I need that day in the middle, separation anxiety is a bitch!
I only have to talk myself through "one more day" not two or three, then I get a break and if all I want to do with any of my time is cuddle then that's what I'll do.
Going back to work has been good, I didn't realize just how much I missed everyone. Lord knows after 2 months of almost nothing but "coochie coo" I could use some adult conversation.
It's also great because it seems to be forcing Stacia into a schedule...so far so good anyway. I am sure something will happen and she will try to unschedule us :)
She does great at day care sleeps right through all the chaos.

2 Months!

Holy crap I can't believe it's been 2 months already!
I go back to work tomorrow, looking forward to getting out of the house and having some adult conversation. Not looking forward to being away from Stacia this long. Makes me kinda queasy just thinking about it, but it has to be done & I do feel confident that I have a great sitter.

It blows my mind at the little amount of time I have had to do things. Before she was born I thought this will be great, 2 months off work mom will be here for one, then for the last month we can figure out a schedule and by the time I have to go back to work things will be A-OK.

Aahahahhhaha! I was SO naive!

2 months of trying to conquer the Rubix Cube that is Acid Reflux, the only thing we do regularly is take a bath somewhere between 6:00 & 7:30 nightly. It's a start I suppose.

Acid Reflux included she is a pretty great girl. She is already smiling for me, this morning she smiled as soon as she saw me come in the room no prompting, that was one of the greatest feelings so far. For the most part she sleeps through the night, as long as I can coax a really good burp out of her. Last night she made a liar out of me though & I couldn't get her down until 1:00 AM. To illustrate the importance of that, I work 6:00AM to 4:00 PM four days a week, this means to get every one out the door, off to the sitter & to work I have to get up at 4:30 AM. Yeah I will need to get this off to bed early schedule under control pronto. Funny thing is, I've already learned I am no longer in charge as much as I'm just the chauffeur for the ride. So hopefully going back to work will push her into schedule mode.

Today was our first major outing in 2 months because I'm a new panicky mommy and she just got her shots Friday (more on that later). We had a good time, went to 3 stores and she slept through 2 of them. I had a stranger peek into the cart and announce to me she is a pretty girl, I responded accordingly with a "thank you" instead of "I know" like I wanted to :).

Shots can be described in three words... Pure mommy Hell.

Thanks to all of you who did not warn me in advance at the size of the damn needles they use, I probably would have wimped out had I known. Stacia did better with the shots than her mother did. I of course had to deal with the anticipation, she slept. What a crap way to be woken up with a HUGE needle to the leg, oh and here's two more too...you're welcome, come again. I seriously thought the needles were going to come out the other side of her leg. Yes I cried...shut up. The nurse tried to console me with it's the safest thing for her she's not going to catch some deadly disease now. I'm thinking, no shit! I wouldn't be here letting you turn my sweet little girl into a damn kabob if I thought it were anything less than the very best thing for her. I just smiled through the tears and nodded, Stacia meanwhile was already just fine, I still needed consoling so I got a Toffee flavored hot chocolate.

And not to be outdone by my OB office, you may recall the pee in a cup incident. The pediatrician is looking very promising for many colorful stories too, thank you very little. Upon check out I stand at the check out counter and the receptionist after studying me for a minute asks if I need something. It was the way she studied me and the tone of her voice that made me feel like she was addressing me as the village idiot. I told her that we needed to make an appointment for her 4 month shots. She asks when I want to do that, I'm thinking I dunno you have the schedule book asshat! It must have been the look on my face because I got "When will she be 4 months?!" That was returned with "In exactly 2 months from now since we just got her 2 MONTH shots."(insert glare here) So she checks the schedule book for 2 months from now and gives me a date and a time and asks "This will be for her 6 month check up right?"
"Nope it will be her 4 month check up." I would have inserted my dipshit look but her back was too me. So our next apt is in the beginning of December, please do check back for another story.

For as long as I can remember my mom & I have had a tradition of getting each other a Christmas ornament yearly. Sometimes meaningful, sometimes goofy, but always an ornament that for some reason made us think of the other person. I am very honored to pass this down to Stacia....here is her very first Christmas Ornament. It is a Lennox (no that's not why I got it)their products are very high quality. I got this ornament because I saw it and it stopped me in my tracks, I had to have it.

Ah-Freaking-Ha!

ACID REFLUX! BASTARD!
Thank goodness I live in an age where we have so much information about babies.

It would seem that my perfect angel has acid reflux, this would explain a ton of things.

Not being able to sleep on her back, not being able to burp, and waking up screaming all of a sudden, among other things.

It's no wonder I cracked like Humpty Dumpty and Postpartum hit me like a brick wall.

I feel so much relief having found out what is wrong with her. Now I can start to try new things that will help her, because Lord knows mommy knows her some acid reflux thank you third trimester.Hopefully as I find things that work I will find more time to do things other than feed, change, bathe and soothe a crabby baby that doesn't care to sleep anywhere other than on mommy.
It's not that I don't like to hold my child, it's wonderful. It's that I just got done carrying her for 40 weeks! This is starting to feel like pregnancy all over again having a baby (who gets heavier daily) attached to the front of me constantly.
So far we are happy to sleep in our swing or bouncy chair, tonight I am going to try to elevate one end of her mattress and see if she likes that.

May the force be with me.

I know I said no more pictures but this one is too cute to resist.

Sometimes

Most of the time I check on her to make sure she's still breathing.
But sometimes I check on her... to make sure she's really real :)

Big Trouble

Lord help me, I am possibly creating my own monster. But damn it, my child is perfect, and looks her absolute most perfect when she's sleeping on me!
I have to break myself or I'll have a 12 year old perfectly asleep on my chest :)

Wow, it's an amazing thing how the birth of a child will pass time so quickly. They say a newborn sleeps 18 or more hours a day, what they don't say is that it is very sporadic and when these beautiful creatures are awake the extremely time consuming. I do not mean that in a bad way at all, becoming a mom has been everything and more than I had hoped for.
This post is being typed one handed because my little angel sleeps in my other. She will sleep in her crib for me but that would require me to stop snuggling. I hear the warnings now, "be carefull, you'll spoil her & then you'll have to break that habbit." One, she's too young to spoil. Two, damn right she'll be spoiled, every being in my house is spoiled beyond belief and I prefer it that way. No one in my house is spoiled to the brat extreme, and I plan to continue this tradition with her :)
Gramma was here for a month & left this morning, as hard as that was it's time to figure out our new normal. I am still extremely thankful that my mom was able to disrupt her life 1200 miles away to be with me, there is no way I would have been able to do this without help.
I have made the decision to both breast and formula feed my daughter, I am unable to keep up with her production needs alone. It took days of both feeding and pumping hourly to make that hard decision, no one wants to admit on any level they cannot provide something for their child, but in the end supplementing with formula gets my baby as much as she needs and allows me more time to concentrate on all other aspects of caring for her.
Last, there will be no more pictures of Stacia here there are too many sick people who steal innocent pictures and photo shop them. If you would like a picture just e mail me & I'd be happy to send it to you :)