Maisie – 3 Months Old

Maisie turned 3 months old on May 8^th. She is growing like crazy and changing so much every day. I wish I could stop her growth right here because she is in the cutest stage right now. She is usually pretty happy and smiles and “talks” a lot and I absolutely LOVE it!!

Maisie is still in 0-3 month clothes and size 1 diapers.  I am not sure how much she weighs or how long she is, but I do know that she is getting chubbier especially in her cheeks and her thighs.  I absolutely love all the rolls in her thighs!

Maisie started daycare on April 30^th. That first day was a really rough one for me. I shed several tears both at daycare and at work and looked at the clock no short of 50 times during the day just hoping it was 5:00pm so I could see her. Each day got better, but even today it’s still not easy to drop her off. Our evenings are very hectic when we get home between me nursing her, cleaning out about 12 bottles (between what she eats and what I use for pumping), getting dinner ready, getting baths taken, and spending time with both kids. Thankfully Micah has been a big help!  Here is Maisie with Mrs. Kandace that keeps her at daycare:

Maisie has adjusted well to daycare. The first day she didn’t sleep much at all. I was a little worried but figured it was because of the new sounds and new place, but thankfully she slept much better the rest of the week and has now fully adjusted to her new schedule. They love her at daycare which makes me so happy. They say she is very easy and love that she smiles all the time. She eats anywhere between 15-20 oz each day while at daycare and has adjusted well to taking bottles.

She is sleeping very well. She usually goes to sleep around 8 or 8:30pm and sleeps until 3 or 3:30pm. She wakes up to eat and then goes back to sleep for another 2-3 hours. She normally takes small 15-30 minute naps about an hour after eating and usually takes a 2-4 hour nap in the late morning/early afternoon. She still loves to be swaddled. It is amazing how much it calms her down. When she gets cranky, I swaddle her, put her pacifier in, and rock her while patting her bottom and she almost always falls right to sleep. I love it!

Maisie has really discovered her hands in the past few weeks and loves playing with them in front of her face.

She had a clogged tear duct for the first couple months of her life. Thankfully it opened up this past month and now her eye is not gooey and green all the time.

Maisie has a very tight grasp. She got a hold of my earrings once and I couldn’t get her little hand pried off, so had to take my earrings out!

Maisie loves to lie down on the floor and kick her legs and move her arms all around. But she’s only happy doing this for less than 30 minutes at a time with a full tummy. She is not a fan of tummy time and we have been bad parents and haven’t been putting her on her tummy very much. Oops! It’s just hard because she spits up if we put her there after she eats and if we wait till her tummy is settled down she is already in her cranky stage and cries her poor little eyes out. So because of that, she hasn’t rolled over either way yet and is really not close to doing it as far as I can tell. Must work on that this month!!

She has been drooling like crazy this past month. It seems like the front of her clothes are always wet with drool.

She loves taking baths and they immediately calm her down.

We spent one weekend over at my parent’s house and every night when she’d wake up to eat, she would be sucking on her thumb. And her sucking wasn’t quiet … she was giving it all she had! It was super cute and I really wish I would’ve got a video of it. I’ve seen her sucking on her thumb a couple of times since then so she may become a thumb sucker. She is not a huge fan of her pacifier, although she does take it when I rock her to sleep when she is cranky but I pretty much have to force it in her mouth by making her lay against my body facing inwards.

Maisie is still not a fan of her carseat. She normally cries most of the way to daycare and most of the way back, which is 25 minutes one way! It definitely doesn’t make for a pleasant trip, but there is nothing I can do about it. Just hoping she outgrows this phase quickly! Ryan has been saying, “That hurts my ears!” a lot when she cries in the car!

Maisie loves Ryan. She is always looking at him and smiling when he talks. If she can hear him but can’t see him, she will turn her head until she is able to find him. Super cute!

Here is Maisie at 3-months old:

I seriously wish I could just bottle up her sweetness and keep it forever!  I love this age so much!

Ryan – 3 years, 5 Months

Ryan is now 41 months old!!  He weighs 34.5 lbs this month.  Ryan already has the cutest little farmer’s tan because they are outside so much at preschool. And his hair is already much blonder than it was a couple of months ago. I’m sure that he will look half-Hispanic by the end of the summer!

Here’s a little bit of what he’s been up to this past month:

When Ryan goes out to shoot his BB gun with Micah he often says, “Take my shirt off so I can be like daddy!”

Went through a short phase where he wanted to sleep in his underwear like daddy.

Ryan: “I don’t like daddy.” Me: “Why Ryan?” Ryan: “I don’t like beards!”

Says “I see my name” all the time when he sees something that has one of the letters in his name on it.

Can write some letters – H, E, A, P

One night he said, “How about we unplug the computer and put in my bedroom!”  Um, how about we don’t!

One day Ryan decided he wanted to take a nap in his clubhouse, so Micah took his tent and sleeping bag up there and got him all set up.  He stayed up there about 5 minutes and decided he’d rather take a nap in his bed!

One night he was standing up in the bathtub, fell, and hit his chin. He had a small cut on it and cried forever saying, “I want Maisie!” so I had to bring Maisie in there to calm him down.

Jessica taught him to ride his tricycle down the hill in our back yard and he loves it now. He calls it his motorcycle bike and always wants us to say, “Go motorcycle bike, go!” before he will come down.  Here’s a picture of him going down the hill wearing his Iron Man dress-up clothes.  I have laughed so hard at these pictures!

Always wants us to smell everything from his arm to his sandwich to his milk!!

He can put on his own underwear and shorts, but hasn’t mastered the shirt yet.

Learned to ride his bike (with training wheels) this month. It took him a while but he stuck with it and finally got the hang of it. Occasionally when he can’t get the pedals to go around he will get off, turn the pedals to the right place with his hands, and get back on to go. He hasn’t mastered riding it in the gravel or grass yet, though.

Loves to take his scissors outside and cut grass, flowers, and trees!

Always wants to talk to Micah on the phone. Funny thing is that he thinks Micah can see through the phone so he is always showing him stuff with it!

He has made up two new animals – “tonks” and “tinks” and loves to hunt them, although he doesn’t shoot the tinks, just the tonks! Tonks are big red animals with horns and tinks are little red animals that are nice. He also loves to shoot polar bears and coyotes from our back porch! Love his imagination!

Ryan stutters a lot at the beginning of sentences.  When we went to visit Mrs. Shirley a few weeks ago, she said that it’s very common for boys his age to do that.

Ryan and Maisie had their first sleepover in Maisie’s room when Ryan fell asleep one night at 5:30pm after not having a nap. He woke up once to go the bathroom and another time to get his pajamas on but insisted on going back to sleep in her floor. Thankfully her crying didn’t even wake him up!

One day we were getting ready to leave the house and Maisie started crying out of the middle of nowhere. Ryan was right beside her so I asked him what happened and he got a very guilty look on his face and just looked down at the carpet without responding. A couple of seconds later Ryan said, “Can I have a piece of candy if I tell you something?”. I told him no but asked what he wanted to tell me and he said, “I hit her!” Nice try, Ryan!

One Saturday I kept Rowan and Rowan and Ryan had some pretty funny arguments. I was in the house and they were playing on Ryan’s Gator on the back porch. Ryan runs in the house and says, “Mommy, Ro-Ro said I not strong.” I told him not to worry about it and just to get along. Ryan went back outside and I heard him say, “I AM strong. I have muscles!”

Ryan had what I believe to be his first ice cream cone one afternoon at Chick-fil-A.  He insisted on getting a cone because all of the other kids there had them.  He took about 5 licks from it and then decided he wanted it in a cup so I had to go in and wait in line, leaving him and Maisie on the playground, to get him a cup.  I put the cone in the cup and then he didn’t even take another bite.  Little stinker!

   

Mom, Shandy, Alana, Jessica, and I took the kids to Terra Studios one Saturday.  Ryan and Rowan had a good time.

They had the coolest door that had a small door for kids cut in it.  They loved it!

Here is Ryan with his Aunt Shandy.  I love it when Ryan wears his Spiderman sunglasses!

  

Here is Ryan’s monthly picture.

And, of course, he wanted one with his sweet, little sister!

I can’t believe that next month my baby boy will be 3 1/2 years old!!!  Where has the time gone?!?

Rain Coat

Out of the blue this morning Ryan told me he wanted to wear his green jacket.  I told him it was going to be warm and he didn’t need a jacket, but he kept insisting.  I finally realized he was referring to his raincoat so I told him it wasn’t going to rain today but he still wanted to wear it.  So I let him, of course. 

As he was putting it on he said, “Everyone gonna like it!”.  I was cracking up thinking about him walking into preschool with it.  Of course I had to take a picture of him in his raincoat … and of course he wanted his picture taken with Maisie even though she was crying!

I really thought he’d want it off before he got in his car seat, but he kept it on.  We walked into preschool and he started taking it off as soon as he hit the door so no one really saw him with it on.  But Ms. Lori saw him carrying it and said, “Ryan, is it raining out there today?” and just smiled.  When I picked him up, he again insisted on putting it on.  He told two parents, “Look at my raincoat” as they were walking in to get their kids.  My air conditioner isn’t working well in my car so by the time he got home he was covered in sweat from having the raincoat on!  Every time I thought of Ryan in his raincoat today, it put a smile on my face.  I just love my silly little Ry-Ry!

And It’s Over …

Tomorrow at this time I will be back to work after being off almost 12 weeks on maternity leave.  So say I’m dreading it would be an understatement.  I never thought it would be this hard.  Given, I have taken Ryan to daycare and it was super hard but he was 17 months old and could express his needs.  Now I’m sending a precious little not-even-12 week old who can only express her needs through cries.  And I’m not sending her to an individual that is only watching 2 other kids … I’m sending her to a daycare center where there are 27 other kids and 4 others in her class. 

I had an emotional breakdown Wednesday night after coming home from Mandy’s house.  I bawled the entire way home.  I tried to get it together before I came in the house for Micah to see me, but obviously my eyes were too red and he asked what was wrong and I lost it again.  As I was driving, I tried my hardest to think of a close friend/relative that I have that has sent their baby to daycare this young and I couldn’t think of one single person.  All of my friends are either stay-at-home moms or have family members that watch their kids while they work.  I felt like I was a horrible parent, even though I know there are tons of parents who send their kids to daycare.  

Thursday after I took Maisie to the doctor, we went to eat at Chick-fil-A which was probably the worst thing I could have done with it being my second-to-last day of maternity leave.  The playground was flooded with stay-at-home moms in their ponytails, big sunglasses, and cute little dresses.  I sat there for over an hour dreaming of what it would be like for me to stay home.   One of the mom’s ran into another one of her friends and said, “I’d figure you’d be here since it’s Thursday!” After listening to their conversation for a while I learned that she comes there every Thursday after her daughter’s ballet class to let her kids play.  When one of them left, she told the other one bye and said, “I’m sure I’ll see you at Target or Hobby Lobby soon!”  How nice would that be?! 

Unfortunately if I were a stay-at-home mom there would be no eating out or fun shopping adventures. We probably wouldn’t have even have a house to raise our family in!  Micah and I have discussed what it would take for me to stay home and besides us winning the lottery (which believe me we are trying!!) the only way we could do it would be for Micah to travel with his job.  If he took out-of-state jobs and was gone 7 days a week for weeks at a time, we could do it.  But that’s not what I want for our family.  I would much rather sacrifice not seeing my kids for 9 hours a day than for Micah to not see them grow up and for me to never see Micah.

The past couple of days I’ve had a much more calm feeling when I think about what tomorrow morning will be like.  I am sure I will still cry my eyes out when I drop her off and shed tears every time someone asks me how I’m doing, but I will survive.  And I will definitely count down the hours until it’s time to pick her up from daycare so that I can see her precious, smiling face!

Now, off to buy a lottery ticket …

Maisie – 2 Month Stats

I took Maisie to the doctor on Thursday for her 2 month appointment, even though she is really 11 weeks old now.  She weighed in at a whoppin’ 10 lbs, 12 oz and is 22.75 inches long.  The doctor said she was between the 25th and 50th percentile in both height and weight.

It was time for Maisie to eat when we went in.  I was able to keep her happy until the doctor came in and examined her.  At the end of the exam, he checked her ears and mouth and that did not make her happy.  Then we had to wait for the nurse to come in with the shots.  I will never understand why it takes so long for them to come in especially when you have a baby who is literally screaming her head off.  Maisie cried super hard for the entire 15 minutes it took for the nurse to came in and there was nothing I could do to console her.  And to make it worse I had Ryan with me.  He had brought his container of jelly beans in and near the end of the 15 minutes he spilled all of them in the floor and he, too, broke into a horrible cry because I told him he had to throw them in the trash!  When the nurse finally came in, I had two screaming kids.  She proceeded to ask if Ryan was getting shots too since he was so upset!  She gave Maisie her two shots and she let out the most horrendous cry ever that just broke my heart.  Thankfully the nurse let me stay in the room and feed her.  After getting her tummy full, she quickly fell asleep and stayed asleep for 4 1/2 hours while Ryan and I ate and ran errands. 

Easter 2012

We traveled to my Aunt Sandra and Uncle Everett’s house in Missouri for Easter this year.  Ryan, Maisie, and I left with my mom on Thursday morning.  It was Maisie’s first trip out-of-state and thankfully she only woke up once on the 3+ hour long trip.

Thursday night we visited with family.  Alana brought her iPods from school.  There were enough for the four kids that were there and they all had a blast.  Ryan has never used one before but quickly picked up on how to play with it.  His favorite was playing Angry Birds.

We all hung out at the house on Friday and visited more.  The highlight of the day was when Stefanie and Vanessa came over and brought their precious babies.  Stefanie’s baby (Elin) was born the day after Maisie and Vanessa’s baby (Ryker) was born one week after Maisie, so there were three babies there that were within 8 days of each other.  Alana was in baby Heaven and even got to hold all three babies at once (at least long enough for us to get a picture!).

  Maisie was a bit cranky and really wasn’t in the picture taking mood, but that sure didn’t stop us! 

It was so much fun visiting with Vanessa and Stefanie and comparing our babies! 

Here are each of us with our babies:

Vanessa & Ryker

Stefanie & Elin

Me & Maisie

Micah surprised me by getting there much earlier than I thought he would on Friday.  Friday night, Abby and her family arrived as did Lana’s family and Chris and Shandy.  When all the kids got there, it turned into Wrestlemania.  All the kids were playing with Micah and Tom.  It was so crazy and loud that you couldn’t even hear the person behind you talk.  The kids sure had a blast!

We celebrated Easter on Saturday.  There were a lot of us so Sandra had to get out the extra leaves for her table.  Do you think it’s big enough?!? 

We had a delicious Easter dinner and it was great seeing so many of our family make it to Missouri.  It was pretty chilly and even rained some, but the kids managed to get in their Easter egg hunt. There was definitely not a shortage of eggs and candy for them.  When finished they all came in and started chowing down on their goods!

Here are the Easter Egg hunters this year:

Back Row:  Benton, Addison, Curtis, and Allie

Front Row:  Rowan, Ryan, Lily, Henry, and Afton

After the egg hunt I finally decided to put Maisie’s cute little outfit on her.  I was terrified that she would poop in it, but thankfully she kept it clean!

Cousin Allie had a blast taking care of Maisie.  Except for feeding her, she pretty much took care of her all Sunday morning!  I think we have another Alana on our hands!

We left Sunday afternoon and headed to Alpena.  We met Micah’s parents at Brittany and Cory’s and had dinner.  Brittany and Cory saw Maisie for the first time.  We visited for a few hours and then headed home late.  When we got home Ryan asked, “Where’s Maisie?”  I jokingly said, "We left her at Uncle Cory's house." Ryan immediately got a sad look on his face, started crying, and said, "No! I like her!" It was so sweet!!

We gave Ryan and Maisie their Easter baskets before putting them to bed for the night.

It is safe to say that a good time was had by all! Happy Easter 2012!!

Maisie – 2 Months Old

Maisie turned two months old on Sunday.  She has grown so much over the past month.  We weighed her at 6 weeks and she was up to 10.5 lbs, so I’m sure she’s over 11 lbs now.  She has also grown considerably in length.  Her two month check-up isn’t for another two weeks, so I will be sure to post her actual stats once I have them.

She is still a very good baby.  She has been sleeping very well.  At night she usually sleeps anywhere from 4.5 – 6 hours, wakes up to eat, and then sleeps another 2-3 hours.  Although she has slept 7-8 hours the first stretch a couple of times, which makes me very happy!  Her sleep during the day varies.  Sometimes she barely sleeps at all except for a few 30 minute – 1 hour long catnaps, but other days she sleeps almost all day.  She sleeps swaddled in the Miracle Blanket in her crib at night and during the day she takes her naps in the swing.  Here is a picture of her swaddled up getting ready for bed:

Maisie has started smiling a lot and I love it!!  I can almost always get a smile from her by walking my fingers up her belly and touching her chin.

She has lost a lot of her hair, especially on top, but it’s now starting to come back in some.  She has cradle cap right now and also we are pretty sure she has a clogged tear duct in her left eye.  It is always very watery and has green snotty stuff in it most of the time :-(

We have been putting Maisie on the floor a lot and she loves to just lay there and kick, although it never lasts long before she is upset and ready to be held again.

One of my favorite things that Maisie does is the way she stretches when I pick her up.  She stays in a curled-up position and stretches with all her might and it’s the cutest thing ever!  I don’t want her to ever grow out of this stage!

Maisie does not like being in her carseat.  She almost always stays awake on our trips to town and sometimes she cries most of the way.  When I have to feed her when we’re out and about, she almost always poops through her clothes (several times onto me!) or spits up all over my clothes.  So sometimes our trips are cut short!

Ryan still loves Maisie and wants to be around her all the time.  He always says, “Mommy, how’s Maisie doing?” when he gets up in the morning and when he comes home from preschool.  He loves sitting by me while she nurses and always wants to watch me change her diaper, although he will never change it! HA!  Of course I don’t blame him when her diaper looks like this!!  I still will never know how this happened, but here is proof that it did.

Here is a picture of Ryan interacting with Maisie.  I adore how he loves her!

And he is never far away when I’m trying to take her picture.  As you can tell, his finger got in this one but I thought it was adorable!

Maisie is loved by all her grandparents and is blessed to have such great ones.  Here she is being rocked by Granny Brenda:

Here is Maisie with her Uncle Dustin and cousin Gage, who is 4 months older than her.

Here are a few other pictures of Maisie taken this past month:

    

    

  

Here is Maisie’s 2 month picture:

And just for laughs!!

 

Happy 2 Months, Maisie!!