Oh, the co-pays we'll pay...

Our monthly trip to the pulmonologist for Brigid’s RSV shot was this morning. My little hoss weighed 12lb 4oz when we went in on December 30th. Today? She’s up to 13lbs 12oz. Since she’s supposed to double in weight during her first 6 months, our target is 15lbs 7oz by April. It’s just a hunch, but I’m thinking we’re probably not going to have any trouble hitting that mark. Also, she’s grown from 22 ¾ inches long to 24 ¾ inches long. According to infantchart.com, which I found through Dr. Google, this puts her in the 64th percentile in weight and 78th percentile in height. That sounds about right, considering that’s where we’ve been trending all along. And besides, I’ve heard that if you find it on the internet, it has to be right, so I’m going with it.

Anyway, that’s where we are after round one of this cycle of office visits. The murmur is still there, which kind of sucks…I keep hoping we’re going to hit one of these visits some day, and they’re going to tell us it’s completely gone. But her lungs sound clear, her weight gain is going strong, and her breathing is fine. Aside from the hole, she’s a perfectly healthy baby. After we’re done with the RSV shots (I think we have two more), the pulmonologist will evaluate her to determine if they need to keep seeing her regularly. I’m pulling for a big NO on that one. I’d like to drop at least one doctor from our standard rotation.

Round two is next Thursday morning, when we make the trek back to the cardiologist for (maybe) another ultrasound. Considering the two offices are in the same location, you’d think we could have timed these visits a little better, but apparently we are a glutton for rush hour punishment.

8:30am on 285? Should be a fun trip.


PS: If you're interested in receiving email notifications for new posts, I've added that option to the sidebar. Hope it makes things easier!

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Not possible...

I refuse to believe that this baby:




and this baby:




are the same child.

I mean, come on! It hasn't even been four months yet. I don't remember all of these changes happening, and I definitely don't remember telling her she could grow this quickly.

I'd be mad at her for it if she wasn't so adorable. And yes, I realize this attitude doesn't bode well for my disciplining skills in the future, but if you've met my dogs, you pretty much knew we were in trouble on that front anyway...

Whatever. At least she seems to be growing into those chubby, chubby cheeks a little.

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See? I told you I wouldn't raise a heathen!

Brigid was finally baptized this weekend, and I feel bad for her. Not because she was baptized (I may not go to Mass as often as I should, but I’m not that much of a lapsed Catholic…), but because it was the first big event in her life that would have been cause for celebration, if we could have celebrated properly. Unfortunately, since we need to keep her away from germs as much as possible, it wasn’t an option. We couldn’t make the Baptism a part of the regular Mass, and we couldn’t participate in a group ceremony. We couldn’t invite other people to the Baptism, or have a real party for her after the fact. We were in, we were out, and that was that. I know that she won’t remember this, and I know the point should be the Baptism itself, not how many people were there or what we did after, but I can’t help but feel she was a little cheated. What happens (way) down the road, if we have another kid who doesn’t have to be as protected? Will Brigid wonder why we didn’t make as much over her big day? And how long will this have to go on? Will there be other events that we can’t celebrate because she shouldn’t be around too many people? I know we can’t keep her isolated forever, of course, but I don’t know where we draw the line. I’m sure somewhere down the road, I’ll laugh at myself for stressing out over stuff like this, just like I laugh now that we were ever worried about the kid’s appetite (seriously, she can put some formula away…I’m interested, and a little nervous for my budget, to see how it goes when we switch her to real food…). Lucky for me (not so much for her…), our next tour of area doctors’ offices starts this week, so maybe I can finally get some insight on what to expect.

Oh well, moving on. Like I said before, the Baptism was short and sweet and enjoyable, despite the fact that we practically had to swim to and from the church. Have I mentioned that I miss the days when it never rained in Georgia? If I’d wanted to spend my winter months in gray gloom instead of sunshine, I could have stayed up north! Anyway, some highlights of the ceremony…

1) Brigid was a little fussy at first, since we had to sit and listen to a reading and a couple of prayers, and she hates sitting. Once we stood for the actual Baptism, though, she was perfect. She didn’t even cry when the water was poured on her.
2) She did, however, pass gas loud enough for everyone to hear.
3) The deacon called me Kara. Twice.
4) When anointing her head with oil, he referred to it as ‘the odor of Jesus’. Odor? Really? There’s not a better word choice there than odor?
5) There was cake!

All in all, I’d say it was a pretty successful day.

I miss my naps...

Steve has a cold, which is all kinds of awesome, because it makes me the sole person on baby duty at night (gotta keep the kid as germ-free as possible!). I feel bad for Steve, of course, because he sounds pretty miserable when he's up coughing at 2am. But I feel bad for me, too, because I had to wake up to him coughing at 2am,*** then I had to wake up to hungry baby at 4:30am. By the time I fed her and got her back to sleep, it was about 5:10, and there didn't seem to be any point in going back to bed until 5:45. So I didn't. And now I'm kind of tired. And when I stood up at my desk earlier this morning, I tripped over my trash can and ran into the wall. I knew the can was there. It's in the same spot every day. It's not like it jumped out and surprised me. But it managed to take me down anyway. I'm a little clumsy on the best of days. But today? I don't stand a chance. I plan to stay far, far away from stairs and sharp objects. It just seems like a smart move.

Thank goodness I'm off tomorrow and have baby-free Saturday night plans to look forward to. I know it sounds crazy, but I may even stay up past 10pm.

I like living dangerously.


***I may have been a little snotty, with my suggestion that Steve take some medicine already...but it was 2am...and I was tired...and it didn't seem like it was going to stop anytime soon...and, ok, I know I should have been a little more sympathetic...and I really am sorry, honey. But next time? Take the medicine already!!

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The teenage years are going to be hell...

I think I have successfully started Brigid off on the path of Colts fandom. She was less than thrilled during the Bengals 1st round play-off loss…

But, after thinking about her options (and realizing she looks much better in blue than orange)…

she perked right up this past weekend.





Anyway, because I’m working a condensed schedule, I have Fridays off to spend with Brigid. And since I had this past Monday off for MLK day, she had me for four whole days. She’s a very lucky baby. And I kind of enjoyed it too…

She has changed so much just since I started back to work, and I think the changes are almost more obvious to me now that I don’t spend every day with her. She still hates spending too long in tummy time, but she’s getting better at rolling herself out of it when she wants to. She’s also starting to roll from her back to her front, and we’ve been finding her on her side when she’s sleeping (this terrifies me, by the way…I am not really ready for mobile baby of any kind. I liked knowing I would find her in the same position I left her!!). Because she’s been rolling herself out of her swaddling at night, we’ve had to end that little practice, and it’s led to some rough nights involving multiple trips to the nursery to help her fall back asleep after she’s woken herself up by flailing around. But it’s hard to be upset about the missed sleep when she’s just so happy to be awake with you. She loves to smile, and she’s started to mimic my facial expressions when we’re playing. She seems thisclose to giggling. She’s getting Michelin Man rolls on her thighs, and it might just be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen (on me, however, not as cute…). She loves music, and she loves lights, and she especially loves any toy that combines the two. She sits in her Bumbo seat and grabs at anything we lay on the tray for her. She seems to turn toward the sound of my voice when I get home. She’s just so much more aware of her surroundings than she was only two weeks ago. It’s incredible to watch her growth, to see her developing into a little person right in front of me.

But the biggest change? The one that has shocked me the most?

She already has a man in her life.




They grow up so fast…

Huh?

I knew better than to jinx myself yesterday about how well the baby was sleeping through the night. Because she woke up at 3:50 this morning. Then again at 4:30. And at 5:00. And at 5:30. At that point, Steve decided to feed her and I gave up on sleep for the day since my alarm was set for 5:45 anyway.

Good thing you don't need to be alert or, you know, conscious to work with numbers.

Dear Brigid-
You're adorable, and I love you very much, and I understand sometimes you just don't want to be on mommy and daddy's schedule. But let's not make this an everyday occurrence. K? Thanks!
Love,
Me


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Hobbies

Last week, I went back to work for the first time in three months. When I was home with the baby, I wasn’t super productive as far as housework goes, but I did manage to get some things done every once in awhile. But between travelling for the holidays and venturing back out into society in general, household tasks have more or less fallen by the wayside. I have limited hours of free time, and I’d rather not spend it with a Swiffer cloth or my washing machine. Besides, Brigid is pretty laid back in the morning, which is when I used to get stuff done, but she likes constant attention in the evening, which is the only time I’m home now. The problem is, while I’m not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination, things piling up around the house start to tweak my crazy strings. And believe me, they don’t need any tweaking. So Sunday morning, I fed Brigid and passed her off to Steve while I went upstairs to dust and do laundry. I am actually a big fan of sorting dirty laundry and washing clothes, just not so much of folding them and putting them away. This means there’s usually several piles of clean clothes scattered throughout my house in laundry baskets or on beds, usually under blankets or towels to keep the cats off of them (I’ve learned from past experience that piles of clothes make very comfortable spots to nap on, and cats shed when they nap. I’d rather not have to re-wash clean clothes, thankyouverymuch.). So it took some time to get all of this done.

I made it back downstairs for the kid’s next feeding, and Steve was on the phone with his mother. The conversation went something like this…

Steve: (semi-joking, I think) I’d love to go downstairs and play Call of Duty, but I don’t know if Tara will let me.
Steve’s mom: Something, something, something, you each need to have time for your hobbies (obviously, she was on the phone, and I couldn’t hear exactly what was said, but I assume it was something like that).
Steve: Tara, we both need to have a chance to enjoy our hobbies.
Me: I don’t have time for hobbies anymore.
Steve: But I’ve had the baby all morning.
Me: LAUNDRY DOES NOT COUNT AS A HOBBY!!!!!

And I walked off muttering obscenities under my breath.

Kidding! Actually, since I am a fantastic wife (and since I’d left Steve the day before for several hours while I went to a Notre Dame women’s lunch), I took the baby, and he got to go play his game. And everyone was happy. Except for the people he beat on Call of Duty. But they don’t really count.

On a baby related note, since that’s what this is all supposed to be about, Brigid went down last night around 9:15 and didn’t get up until around 7:30 this morning. Woo! I just hope she’s not lulling us into a false sense of security, only to turn on us when we’re least expecting it. I hear kids are sneaky like that. Anyway, we’ve been trying to transition her to an earlier bedtime (she has been going to bed around 10:30 or 11) by moving her from 4 ½ ounce bottles six times a day to almost 6 ounce bottles five times a day. Her final feeding is now earlier in the evening, leading into the earlier bedtime. Last night was our first attempt, so we’ll see if this holds up over time. I’m so used to putting her down and then going straight to bed myself that I don’t know what I’ll do with some baby-free time in the evenings.

Maybe this will give me a chance to re-develop a hobby or two outside of laundry...

Welcome

My family and friends are mostly scattered across the country. My friends that are in the Atlanta area don’t see Brigid that often because of the relatively germ-free bubble her heart condition requires. I’m terrible about sending out as many baby updates to various people as I should. My attempt at a baby book has been a complete FAIL. In general, my family, friends, and the poor kid herself will have absolutely no memory of her childhood if I don’t do something about it.

So, TA-DA!!!

Welcome to my life. Exciting, huh?

I hope to use this blog to track the lightning fast speed at which Brigid is growing. And maybe by documenting it for everyone who loves her, but can’t see her every day, it will also force me to slow down and enjoy the ride. Already, I find myself thinking things like ‘I can’t wait for her to move on to solid foods’ and ‘I wish she could sit up on her own already’, but I know she’s going to blow right through these milestones and move on to the next ones well before I’m fully prepared for it. Before I know it, she’s going to be walking, talking, starting school, meeting boys, and learning to drive. I’ll be the bane of her existence, the woman whose sole purpose is to embarrass her in front of her friends, and if she’s anything like me, we’re going to be in for a bumpy few years. But we’re not there yet…right now, she likes to cuddle and snuggle, and she’s perfectly content to fall asleep in my arms. And that’s good enough for me.

(Oh, and of course I'll talk about myself, a lot, too. And tell funny stories that will probably make my husband look bad. It is my blog, after all...)