Motation and Digestion

Johanna turned 6 months last week! I can hardly believe it is moving so fast. It seems like just yesterday yet also a lifetime ago that she was born. At 6 months Johanna weighs in at 12lbs 14 oz and 24 inches long. Still tiny but a very healthy little girl!
Around mid June/5 months, she began pushing herself up into a push up position and really getting her knees off the ground. By June 30th when we left for vacation, she had figured out that many series of pushing up and down and slight pulling or rolling would get her where she wanted to go. By the time we returned back from Florida she was "motating" as her great uncle Buddy said. She was piking, downward dogging, scooting, sitting in the crawl position, even attempting a bear walk. Everything but crawling. But she can certainly still get where she wants to go. She can now move 5-6 feet in any direction using her different methods of motation.
We've been trying to introduce solid foods, but Johanna apparently already has a "refined" palate. She refused the carrots and sweet potatoes. She endured the rice cereal and peas. She seemed to enjoy the apples and pears, but her first real, solid food and truest of true loves is... marinara sauce!
After unsuccessfully offering her the vegetables, we had decided to take a break from introducing solids while in Florida since she still wasn't showing much interest. Until we had spaghetti for dinner. She was sitting on Berto's lap while we ate, staring as the food when from plate to mouth while making this face:

He gave her a finger full of sauce which she attacked like a wild animal! She was insatiable! Berto couldn't dip his fingers in sauce fast enough for her appetite. After eating close to a tablespoon of marinara sauce, I finally had to dip her pacifier in sauce to "calm her fat gene" as Berto put it. Since then she has eaten peas, apples, and pears with some interest, the pears maybe even some enjoyment. But nothing tops red sauce! She loves pizza and pasta nights! Mamma mia!
Starting last Friday, she is also holding her own bottle. It may be time to try a sippy cup soon. Miss Independent!

Jetsetter

Johanna is quite the traveler now! She was AMAZING during the 8-9 hour car ride to/from Nashville. I was so nervous, but she happily played, slept, and ate in her car seat the entire way. We made a couple stops, but never because of her! She also slept through most of the reception. We had a couple dances with her and then she was passed out in her car seat the rest of the party, through the loud dance music and all!

Johanna with Daddy at the ceremony

Me and the girls at the reception

The week of the 4th of July we packed up all things baby and flew MDW to RSW (Fort Myers, FL) to my aunt's house on the beach at Little Gasparilla Island. The island feels completely cut off from the world with no paved roads and access only by boat. My aunt and uncle built the beach house in '79 or '80, and I spent many vacations there growing up. They've begun renting it in later years as supplemental retirement income. Here's the home's rental website with great pics of the house and island. I have great memories of walking down the dune path burning my feet on the scorching hot sand, reading on the porch in one of the many hammocks, diving for sand dollars, falling asleep on inflatable rafts while worshiping the sun, and talking about finding "the end of the island" which seemed so unfathomable at the time, but now know is only a 5 mile or so walk. I can only hope we can take more vacations here over the years and Johanna can grow up with similar memories.

The static was just NOT working with her hair!

"Rich Girl" is her Nana's new nickname for her after viewing this picture.

In her strawberrykini

Celebrating the 4th!

Highlights

How to sum up the two month since my last post?

Some highlights:

March 22nd, 2012 - The saddest day of my life. I return to work, thankfully on a Thursday so I only had to endure 2 days before the weekend. Now that I look back on this, we really are lucky to have such an amazing babysitter to watch her in her home. Our brother-in-law's mother, she is practically family, and the price couldn't be any better. We are so very lucky to have our day care set up! The most stressful yet enjoyable part of my day is getting Johanna up and ready to go. She is always so happy in the mornings! I love her huge smile when I lean over her crib in the morning and she first sees my face. Her whole face lights up and her toothless mouth looks so big as she kicks her legs in excitement. From there it's a challenge to make sure she eats and I can get everything ready to go in the allotted time frame (which also occasionally has to include a shower for me). With Berto leaving at 5:30am to teach weight lifting before school, it's just me and her in the mornings and sometimes she likes to eat a leisurely breakfast when we HAVE to get out the door! Not to mention the stress of packing "the bag" All you parents know it. And by using cloth diapers (which is my choice to save money and I know we could do disposables but just let me rant) I feel that it's extra stressful to ensure she has enough clean inserts, covers, and dry bags to get her through the day at the babysitters. Beyond her bag, and even more frustrating is the love/hate relationship I have with my breast pump. It would be amazing if I could leave it at work and nurse Johanna at home, but since I am exclusively pumping, it must go everywhere with me. The first three weeks back at work I was a constant nervous wreck that I was forgetting some component, a wire, a bottle, the charger, ice packs, etc during the back and forth. But, I feel that I've got a system down now and have made it thus far without any major mishaps or meltdowns. Just one 3am car pumping incident when I left the regular charger at work and had to work with only my car charger. It was about 14 degrees outside that night. But otherwise, I've been able to make it work. And I do feel more like a real person now that I get up and take a shower every day (or every other day) and have somewhere to be.

April 8th - Johanna's first Easter! This is a special date for me as it was the first night that she slept through the night. There are different definitions of sleeping through the night for parents. Some call 6-7 hours of sleep sleeping through the night. I define it as, I wake up on my own before the baby wakes me up. Johanna slept (at the time) a record 8 hours the night before Easter. Maybe it was the different location as we were staying the night at my aunt's house. Or maybe it was the "death spa" incident the night before which was trying to bath her in my aunt's oddly shaped kitchen sink while lighting candles for a sensory journey and playing Yani. Johanna wasn't having it and flayed insanely in the bathtub to the point where she was doing full back bends nearly banging her head on the granite counters and slipping out of my hands. Or maybe it was just time, but those first 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep were amazing!

April 14th - Cain & Carmen's wedding. Berto was the Best Man and we enjoyed a night away from parental duties with our friends while Johanna spent time with my Aunt and cousins.

May 13th - My first mother's day! We go out to brunch with Berto's family. I get to get a manicure and then we welcome Berto's grandma back from Mexico for her annual summer visit.

May 14th - Johanna's 4 month doctor's appointment. She weighed in at a tiny but healthy 12lbs 2 oz, and is it bad that I can't remember how many inches? I do remember that she was 25th percentile in length.

May 15th - Berto & I's 2 year wedding anniversary. This fell on a Tuesday, but the weekend before we left her with Berto's mom so we could have a night out. We ate dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and it was scrumdiddlyumptious!!

May 21st - Johanna rolls over! Berto is the only one to see her. I'm on my way home from work and he sends me a text that she "flipped", as he calls it. She does it again a few minutes later, and he's able to get it on video. From that point on she is a rolling machine. She's great at going from back to tummy, but not as good at going from tummy to back yet, so sometimes she gets stuck on her tummy and gets frustrated. Even in her cries of frustration, it's very cute!

May 26th - I run the Soldier Field 10 mile. I also did a half marathon earlier in the month, which was not as successful. I walked about 3-4miles. But I felt great at this race yesterday, running the whole time and feeling more like my former running self.

Overall, Johanna is a much happier baby now. She smiles regularly at us and at occasionally at other faces. She's usually only crabby around dinner time for an hour or two, and she has become a champion sleeper since I went back to work, regularly sleeping from 9-10pm until 5-6am.

Next up on the horizon, baby's first road trip! This coming weekend we will pack up shop and head to Nashville for Mario and Liz's wedding. And now some of my favorite pics from the past couple of months:

2 months

Johanna turned 8 weeks old on Monday. She had her 2 month doctor's appt yesterday where she weighed in a 9lbs 12oz which is a dead on average at the 50 percentile. So far she's gone from:
1/16 6lbs 3oz birthweight
1/19 5lbs 8oz discharged from hospital
2/6 7lbs even
3/13 9lbs 12oz

Birth length was 21 inches and she's now 22.75 in the 75 percentile. Where is this height coming from? Not from either of us!

She also got her 2 month shots yesterday which was hard to watch. When the needles went in, her eyes would bug out of her head immediately followed by the loudest scream I've ever heard from her. I swear she discovered a part of her lungs she never knew she had.
Last night she woke me up every hour crying in her sleep. I would hear the scream and go to her room only to find her still sound asleep. Today she's been asleep for most of the day and is running a fever. The pediatrician said it's normal to run a fever the next day and just to keep an eye on it and bring her in if it lasts more than 24 hours or goes above 102. I just feel so bad for her when I feel her warm forehead!

Today begins the countdown, only one week left of my maternity leave! I can't believe it! I knew it couldn't last forever, but it certainly flew by. I got practice at leaving Johanna last weekend when Berto & I went to his school's booster club fundraising gala. It was a nice night, but I was so tired I couldn't really enjoy it that much. Once I knew Johanna was asleep, all I wanted was to go to sleep too! I have no idea how I'm going to work with her longest stretch of sleep still averaging only 4-5 hours. How do people do it??

Knock On Wood

I'm nervous to put it in writing, but I might daresay that Johanna has outgrown her fussiness...?
Maybe it's all the social obligations I've been holding her to the past couple of weeks, maybe it's the noticeable growth spurt that she's gone through, maybe it's that I've chilled out on the feedings, I don't know what the reason. But, for the past 2 weeks Johanna has been a much happier and sleepier girl! For the past couple of weeks, she will go down sometime between 9-11, feed between 1-3, and once more between 4-6. Berto gets up every day at 5am for work, so we pretty much start our day at that time. It also makes it feel like I only have to get up once during the night.
But back to the possible reasons for her new attitude.
1) As I said before, social obligations make her less fussy. Since my last post, we've visited with Meg and her girls two more times and made many more outings to Target and Kohl's just to keep our days busy.
2) She's definitely gone through a growth spurt. Compare these 2 pictures of Johanna with her cousin Martin. The first one was taken the last day of January. The 2nd was taken this Thursday.




Johanna definitely looks a lot thicker and I don't think it's just the cloth diaper booty. She hasn't been weighed since her last doctor's appointment February 6th where she was 7lbs even, so we're not sure what she's up to now, but clearly she's gone through a spurt that's perhaps more fully developed her digestive system.
3) I've relaxed on trying to have a feeding schedule. When we left the hospital, they got us so concerned about her weight loss that I listened to their advice verbatim: feed her every three hours. If she's sleeping, wake her up to feed. After a week, I moved to only following these instructions during the day and letting her wake me at night. During those weeks she was always so cranky and gassy. For the past 2 weeks, I've just been feeding her on demand, and she's never been better.

I'm not sure which of the above, or maybe all three, has led to her cheerier disposition, but I'm very thankful for it! And, of course, am still knocking on wood that it continues!

1 Month Old

I can't believe my baby girl is one month old already!

She is such a blessing! She is definitely the greatest challenge (especially since she is colicky) but also the most amazing thing we have ever encountered!




These adorable pics would never show it, but Johanna can definitely be a cranky pants! The definition of colic is "a condition of a healthy baby in which it shows periods of intense, unexplained fussing/crying lasting more than 3 hours a day, more than 3 days a week for more than 3 weeks." I guess she's not technically colicky yet, but only because the fussing has only lasted about 2 weeks. Close to 2 weeks ago, there was a 48 hour period where if she was awake, she was fussing. 7-8 hours of unexplained crying per day = more exhausting than running a marathon. We took her to the doctor just to be sure she was ok even though she wasn't running a temp and all eating and pooping was going well. She was given a clean bill of health; I actually saw the doctor write "irritable child" on her file.
Her fussing has developed into a pattern now, where she's usually fussy from around 8-11am and 6-10/11 at night. It's not every day during those time frames, but it's definitely more than 3 hours a day, more than 3 days a week. And it's definitely the worst at night when Berto gets home from work. Poor Daddy has to come home to a crabby baby! We can only hope that she will grow out of it sooner rather than later!
The only thing that we've discovered so far that cures her fussiness: socialization! I'm sure people are going to start thinking we are just being whiny, 1st time parents, because anytime Johanna has visitors over or goes on outings anywhere, she is an angel! The doctor was probably looking at me and thinking "yeah right" in his head as I explained her 7-8 hours of crying and he's seeing this wide-eyed little doll on the examination table. I felt embarrassed, because I knew he had to be thinking that I was exaggerating.
Since she puts on such a good show for everyone else, my new solution is to fill Johanna's social calender for the rest of my maternity leave. Weds I took her in to work to visit my staff, yesterday we went to visit Meg, Bella, and Emi, and today we had Juli over to visit. Though she was still fussy for a couple hours at night, it hasn't been near as bad now that I'm keeping her (and me) occupied.

Johanna's 1st Valentine's Day

Adventures in Breastfeeding

The past 18 days have been the fastest of my life. Especially now that every day is broken down into 3 hour increments that make up Johanna's feeding schedule. But at least now she seems to be on a somewhat predictable schedule.
The first few days in the hospital she was insatiable. I was feeding her every 20-30 minutes, very rarely would she sleep longer than an hour or two at a time. It took exactly 72 hours after surgery for my milk to come in, but even then, she never seemed satisfied. Two lactation consultants checked on me during those first few days. They watched us and always said that she was doing great, yet the nurses would weigh her and tell me that she was still losing weight. All babies lose weight initially, but she was continuing to drop and at a greater rate than normal.
On discharge day, the head nurse and lactation consultant took one look in her mouth and saw that she has a short frenulum, which is the little piece of skin that attaches the tongue to the bottom of your mouth. This keeps her tongue from being able to extend all the way and interferes with her ability to suck. After further investigation, apparently some doctors recommend clipping short frenulums, but no one mentioned that to us at the hospital. Instead, the nurse offered me a nipple shield which is like an extended nipple so that it goes farther into her mouth to compensate for the short tongue. She also said I should pump for 10 minutes after every feeding and supplement with 1 oz followed by additional 1/2 ounces until she seems satisfied. Rather than using a bottle she recommended feeding her using this little sippy cup that she would slurp up like a kitten. We called it her kitty cup.
This method provided relief for the next few days, but after a while, we were supplementing 2-3 (1) oz kitty cups for every feeding, half of which she would spill all over herself because of her unbelievably strong and unpredictable arm and leg wamps. It got me wondering what she was actually getting from me. And what a waste of all that milk being spilled from the kitty cups, not to mention multiple outfit changes a day. Sure, babies are messy and multiple outfit changes are part of the territory, but we were changing her practically every feeding because she would wet the front of herself trying to drink the kitty cup. She also moved more and more from 3 hour feeding intervals to 2. Again, part of the territory of having a new baby is regular feedings, but it turned into yet another unending food cycle. When you start with 40-45 minutes of breastfeeding, then spend another 10-15 minutes preparing and administering a kitty cup (doing your best not to spill), followed by a diaper and/or outfit change, and rounding it up with 15 minutes of assembling pump accessories, pumping, and deciding how much milk you will need on hand for the next kitty cup (should I leave some out for immediate use? refrigerate? freeze?), it's already been an hour and twenty minutes. Meaning there's only 40 minutes, or maybe less, until her next feeding cycle begins all over again.
Beginning last Saturday, we finally just starting giving her bottles rather than the kitty cups. Since I was already using the nipple shield, she doesn't seem to have any problems with nipple confusion and easily feeds from either breast or bottle without any fuss. Now I am doing about half of the feedings strictly bottle and half breast with a supplemental bottle afterwards if she doesn't seem satisfied. It's A LOT more pumping, but it's given me a lot more free time. I would rather pump twice for 10 minutes during a 3 hour period and give her a bottle than breastfeed, supplement, AND pump. Especially at 2am.
I've been getting 6 hours of sleep per night since moving to bottles and have felt better than ever, even with Berto going back to school on Tuesday. We just might sleep in our own bed tonight instead of on the couch, that is, if D hasn't pooped the bed again. She has pooped/peed in our bed three times since bringing Johanna home. From what I've been reading, she is "stressed" by the environment change. Berto says she is on suicide watch, but then that is a whole other dilemma... Instead, more pictures!

Her first bath