Yes, please begin humming…

Week 1: Nursing, Cuddling, and Being Swaddled

Week 2: Diving (I call it her Baleen Whale impression) and Car rides

Week 3: Giving ‘Ella kisses’  (she opens her mouth wide and bops against your cheek.)

Week 4: Giraffe in the Strawberry Car (Stuffed Toy); staring at blinds and other objects that have black and white contrasts

Her least favorite things in month one were:

Week 1: Being changed and sleeping in her bassinet

Week 2: Being put down

Week 3: Tub baths and vitamin drops (visual evidence:

 

 

 

 

Week 4: Still hates tub baths

 

Here are some of her official one – month photos:

Isn’t she a sweetie?

Yes.  My baby was ‘yellow-bellied’ for a time (and yellow fingered and yellow toed and even yellow eye-balled…).  Before leaving the hospital, I expressed my concern about the color of my baby’s skin (yellow tinge being a symptom of jaundice) and everyone kept telling me ‘don’t worry, don’t worry, she’s normal.’  Finally, they bounced some light off her skin and said the score (?) came back ‘low risk’ for jaundice.  At home, I went a few rounds with the appointment people at Kaiser who insisted that Ella didn’t need a check up for two weeks (I had been told at the hospital and read on the Kaiser website that she would need to be seen at three to five days).  Finally, they agreed to have a nurse weigh and measure her.  When the nurse walked into the little examination room, the first thing that she said was that she was going to set up an appointment for the pediatrition immediately.  Apparently, Ella was yellow enough by this time to been extremely concerned.  One heel prick later (they stabbed my baby …)  I was told that Ella had a bilireuben level of 17 and needed to go to the hospital to be under the bililights overnight.  In very short order I became well versed in ‘jaundice.’

For those of you who aren’t very familiar with it, I will give you a quick synopsis.  When old blood cells die, they break down leaving a by-product called “bilireuben” (sp?).  Usually, your body cleans it out and sends it out with the other ‘waste.’  At any given time, normal people have a bilireuben level of less than one.  Babies are born with lots more blood and therefore lots more dying cells than other people so their bilireuben levels are a bit higher.  Also, since they don’t eat very much at the beginning, there is less waste for the bilireuben to be flushed out with.  As it builds up in their systems, it gives things a yellow-ish tinge, starting with skin and moving in to organs.  A level of 20 is pretty scary and 30 causes brain damage.

Had we waited to take Ella to the Dr. until 2 weeks, she would have had brain damage by then!  I also learned that they should have done a blood test on her before they let us go home from the hospital.  That was just negligent of them.  A lot of people would just have said, “oh, the doctor knows best.  She must be fine.”  Thank heavens I am so pushy!  (Side note: I have been extremely angry by some of the medical negilence I have heard of recently.  I have a dear friend who nearly died because they took so long to diagnose her preeclamsia.  A cooworker of my mother’s lost one of her five-year old sons because they neglected to test for a virus before starting chemotherapy.)

Anyway, we drove out to the Kiaser Hospital in sunnyside.  I didn’t sleep well.  You wouldn’t either if you saw your baby all hooked up to leads like this:

It just broke my heart.  At first, she was too fussy to sleep on her back and they let her sleep on her tummy (a big no-no in the baby world, because of SIDS; but since they had her hooked up to so many monitors, they weren’t too worried).  In the morning, her bili-level was down to 12, so after another 6 hours under the lights, they let her go home.  It was almost comical to see her when they took off the mask and leads, because wherever the light touched had turned pink but wherever the mask and leads were was still yellow.  She looked like a raccoon.  (It was also very sobering to see the contrast in what her skin was supposed to look like to what it had been when the bili-levels were up).  The rest of month one passed much less eventfully.  We adore our little baby.  Here are a few pics:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, while I haven’t posted in nearly two months, we did welcome our beautiful baby girl into our little familiy.  (Perhaps this is WHY I haven’t posted in nearly two months…)  I have heard it said that the moment you hold your little baby in your arms you forget all the pain of labor.  This is a LIE.  In fact, you’re still hurting.  But our darling little Ella is so worth every bit of it.  I was in labor for almost 24 hours but not actively pushing until the last 2 and a half hours (that was a long 2 1/2 hours!).  I got an epidural halfway through.  They gave me some medication to relax me so I wouldn’t have a panic attack and Matt had to hold me up so that they could get it in.  Maybe Matt will write about the experience.  After that it was kind of interesting to watch the monitor they had me hooked up to so that I could see the contractions that I couldn’t really feel.  (I felt ‘em at the end though–I don’t think any amount of pain meds could actually keep you from feeling those final contractions!)  At this point, I had a fever and Ella’s heartrate had been over 200 bpm for half an hour.  When Ella emerged at 11:20 pm, they put a towel on my chest and laid her there.  I am ashamed to say that my first reaction was a mumbled, “Take her off–clean her up first.”  After that it seemed like forever while they took her vitals and wiped her down before they let me hold her again.  Aparently, she wasn’t breathing great and doing the gasping and crying that she needed to but she got things taken care of without any serious interventions.  She had to go to the nursery to get some tests done because of my fever (she STILL has bruises on the backs  of her hands due to the IV!) and when she came back, we had visitors (Grandma Rosemary, Grandma Kathleen, Grandpa James, and Auntie Angel) for a little while.  Around 4 in the morning, Matt, Ella, and I all got to sleep.

More updates to follow…

Has a nice ring to it, don’t it?  After recieving the keys the day after signing (wow, that was quick after all that waiting, wasn’t it?), the first thing we did was paint a bathroom with semigloss paint so that it would repel water instead of absorb it and get moldy.  That was a Thursday.

Friday morning, Matt went to work and I got the last few things into boxes.  He came home at lunchtime with a U Haul and, with the help of some fabulous friends, we packed up, got everything out of the storage unit, and got it all in the house…

Actually, we put it all in the garage because that way we could unpack a little at a time and keep the house from looking TOO chaotic…plus, they might be full of spiders.  I have a hard time with spiders, which is unfortunate, as we have found many, many BIG ones in our house over the last month.  We unpacked and spent time together that weekend and Matt took Monday off of work as well (partially to work on the house, but partially because it was our third anniversary–we didn’t make it to the coast for our traditional anniversary weekend Lincoln City getaway, but the house was kind of our gift to each other).  James and Matt worked on cutting down that awful Hawthorne. Soon, we will get the sod put in.

Then we were flooded with family.  They started coming into town for my cousin Tara’s wedding.  It was great to see them (as well as to go to Seaside to support her and Jereme at their wedding on the beach).  We had such a blast!  (Although, it was difficult to put aside our plans to put our house in order to spend time with everyone). 

Beach (above) Reception (below)

Before everyone left, I spent a day at the zoo with my mom, Aunt Diane, cousin Kim, and her son Donovan.

Donovan is such a cutie!

Next, some of Matt’s family came into town–Uncle John, Aunt Anne, and cousins Clarissia, Titus, and Ginny.  It was nice to see them and spend time with them as well.

Within days of their leaving, Aaron and Lauren came to visit.  We loved having them here (especially watching the first season of Gilmore Girls with Lauren–I love that show!)

In between dinners and outings for the last month, we have been frantically working on the house–painting, especially the baby’s room; Matt building beautiful shelves for me; putting up sets of blinds; and just general unpacking (additional pictures soon to come).  We decided not to get the internet for a while, so that is my excuse for not posting as often as I should.

In Baby news, everything has continued to progress well.  We decided that it would be best to induce on the 27th (tomorrow!)  so it seems that we will get to meet our little girl a bit sooner than expected.  After this decision, we worked even more frantically on the baby’s room.  Everything is together.  I have a few things left on my list and not all the furniture has arrived, but I have gathered the necessities and there’s really nothing else we can do but wait.  While I am a little apprehensive of the IV they will have to put in, I’m not that worried about everything else.  I have no idealistic visions of labor.  It’s going to hurt.  Duh.  It will be long and full of suffering and drugs.  I will be tired.  It will most likely be quite gross.  But the end will be worth it.  Updates will follow.

…and we are extremely busy.  I can’t believe I haven’t made a real post since the end of May (that’s three months I’ve kept you all on pins and needles)!  Not much happened in June–we were kind of in a waiting place.  Waiting for Matt’s job to be more secure.  Waiting to find a home/apartment.  Waiting for updates on the baby between appointments.  “The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.  Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting.  Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting” (Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You’ll Go!).  That Seuss really knew his stuff. 

Matt cut my hair (on purpose, don’t worry).

We went up to Seattle to see the baptism of Matt’s younger cousin, Ginny.

But Seuss continues, “No! That’s not for you!  Somehow you’ll escape all that waiting and staying” and he was right!  About the end of June, everything started to fall into place for us.  It all started when I was looking through the classifieds one Sunday morning and saw an ad I had probably overlooked 50 times before.  A new development in SE Portland for an unbelievable price and fantastic financing available.  It seemed to good to be true, but we decided to check it out anyway.  I first went with Angel and we were thrilled with the floor plans and design.  There were three floor plans and two were distinct possibilities.  One was more open and ‘pretty’, the other a bit more utilitarian (meaning more storage space) and still very nice looking.  Later, I brought Matt and we decided on the more utilitarian one (we can’t live without our storage space.  From there, we made an offer, which was countered, which we countered again, and about a week and a half after our first offer, we were in the process of buying a house.  I had researched all the appliances and made sure that we got everything we wanted.  Our house has air conditioning.  The only thing that wasn’t just perfect about our new home was that the back yard was bark dust and there was an overgrown Hawthorne that took up two thirds of it.  July was busy meeting with financing people and the realtor who acted as an intermediary between us and the builder.  I had to find out if we needed to get a permit to take down the Hawthorne and many other small and minut details that seemed to take up every minute of every day, such as coordinating with the site supervisor, the appliance guy, and the house inspector.  I had to figure out home owners insurance, too.  It was really a good thing that I haven’t been able to get a job because this house thing was a full time job in itself.  I don’t think we could have done it had I been working, too.

Part of the deal was that our offer was contingent on our financing and our financing was contingent on Matt’s getting a more secure position at WorkSource.  At the beginning of the month, he interviewed for a two year contract and on July 13th was officially working for WorkSource as a limited duration employee (meaning that he has a two year contract with them).  He has also been lead worker there since the end of May (which was when they stopped paying him correctly and they haven’t seemed to be able to get the hang of paying him correctly since then…hopefully next month…)

The last week before closing was an extremely stressful time.  We had been planning on getting a conventional loan for this entire process and then about a week before closing, we discovered that the something or other didn’t qualify for the do-dad and somesuch or that other thing, so we had to apply for a FHA loan.  Really, it’s not a bad thing, but it seemed that way at the time–it seemed like it was just a scam to squeeze more money out of us.  After that was taken care of, the bank finally got around to verifying Matt’s employment the day before we were supposed to sign (which they were supposed to do the middle of the month).  Somehow, the state didn’t seem to think that Matt was employed!  Then he was a new employee who had somehow earned over ten thousand dollars in the last two weeks, disqualifying us for our FHA loan!  I spent two days on the phone, as did Matt and his supervisor, trying to get all of this straightened out.  Finally, everybody got their heads on straight and we only ended up signing a day late.  We paid a little more for the house than we thought we would, we are paying a little more per month than we thought we would, we are paying a slightly higher interest rate than we thought we would, but the signing itself went very smoothly.  I think the title company is the only group that we left this whole situation without a bad taste in our mouths about.  We even ended up paying less in our down payment than we thought we would have to!

The night we signed, we went over to the house and celebrated by taking  pictures with the ’sold’ sign.  This is getting to be quite a long post, so I will start a new one.

“When I get agrivated enough that the day is slipping away from me, then I’ll go outside and lay under the lawn.”

(WHAT!?!?!?)

Bless all you sweet ladies whose hands have instinctivly shot out to touch my stomach but which have landed a quick squeeze on my shoulder instead!

“The main hope of a nation lies in the proper education of its youth.”

(Apparently we’ve forgotten this…how many students per classroom next year?)

I have never liked sugar cookies.  I grew up making lemon spritz cookies at Christmas time with a cookie gun.  Recently, I discovered the wonderful versatility of the spritz cookie.  This cookie can replace nasty sugar cookies as one to use cookie cutters with and have fun decorating with frosting and sprinkles!  The only catch is that it is a bit more difficult to roll out.  It’s worth it, though, I promise!  The animal cookies pictured were left white and I only dyed the frosting.  With the watermelon shaped cookies, I dyed the dough green and cut into circles.  After cooking, I dyed the frosting pink and topped with chocolate sprinkles.  (See Recipe: Best Frosting Ever)

Ingredients:

• 1 C Margarine
• 2 3/4 C Flour
• 1/4 t salt
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 t lemon peel
• 3 oz cream cheese
• 1 C sugar

Cream butter with cream cheese (should be like whipped butter).  Gradually add sugar.  Beat in egg yolks, lemon peel, flour, and salt.  Mix thouroughly.  Color with food coloring as desired.  Chill for 1 hr.  Shape using cookie press or rolling out between two sheets of wax paper and using cookie cutters.  Bake at 400 degrees for 7-8 minutes.

Here it is, as promised:

Ingridients:

• 1 C Shortening
• 1 1/2 t Vanilla
• 1/2 t Almond Extract
• 4 1/2 C Powdered Sugar
• 3-4 Tb Milk

Beat shortening, vamilla, and almond extract with electric mixer.  Slowly add 1/2 powdered sugar and 2 Tb Milk.  Mix in remaining powdered sugar and enough milk to make spreadable.  Separate and dye according to desire.