MJ 2.0

I was just talking to a friend of mine who coined that term for Elise and I liked it so much I told him I was putting it up on the blog. So there it is. Elise is MJ 2.0. (MJ for Melanie Joan for those of you who don’t know).

Hampton Happenings…

Well, I’ve taken the doctor’s request to heart and as such I am doing everything I possibly can to chunk Elise up a little bit. After the sweet potato debacle I am happy to report that she has learned to LOVE food. And I’ve got to admit, I’ve really had a lot of fun making food for her! who woulda thunk it, huh? Turns out a regular ole’ Martha Stewart has been lurking underneath all along… So far we have tackled sweet potatoes, green beans, peas, butternut squash, and avocado. Prepared and ready to go are acorn squash, bananas, pears, and apples. As much fun as I’ve had choosing and preparing different foods for Elise I have to admit, I’ve already learned my first food lesson and that is this: When preparing baby food a) what looks like a lot will puree down to not much at all and b) some foods are not worth the effort to home puree.

I was thinking of this last bit the other day when I brought home a bag full of sweet peas… now, I fancy myself a rather cultured individual but somehow I have made it 31 years without much exposure to peas other than the frozen or canned variety. So, needless to say I was unfamiliar with the whole pea shucking process. But, I had nothing but time and a good CD on the radio so how bad could it be? Fast forward 1 hour … I have shucked (I don’t even know if that’s the right term!) the entire bag of peas and am now staring at approximately 3/4 cup of raw peas. Well, needless to say that 3/4 cup of raw peas does not equal a whole helluva lot of pureed peas! I liken pureeing peas with breast pumping… you work and work so hard and in the end all you have to show for it is a measly little serving. Lesson learned = buy a bag of frozen peas, boil, and puree. SOOO much easier! Go figure.

Elise is now 6 1/2 months old. She’s working on sitting up, and by that I mean that if I prop her up in a sitting position she will tolerate it until her big, heavy baby head causes her to topple over. She hasn’t quite figured out how to get herself up into a sitting position, but I don’t think it’s too far away. Her second tooth finally popped out which is nice - she doesn’t look quite like a snaggle tooth now. She did really well with this tooth too - not much fussing at all. Although, I have noticed that she is way into chewing on things. And that includes me. I have read of a number of different tricks to use in an attempt to teach her that biting Mommy is not ok… so far, she thinks all of those tricks are an absolute riot. I don’t think it’s a good sign when your 6 month old laughs at you every time you tell her “No, Elise!! That hurts Mommy!”

One thing Elise didn’t find so funny today was her mother’s apparent lack of attention. Unfortunately, we had our first accident today. And I learned that it’s so very true what everyone says that you can’t turn your back for even a second… because sure as you do you will hear a sickening THUD noise. You will have approximately 3/4 second to think to yourself “what the hell did the dog run into now” before you turn around. You will then have approximately another 1/4 second to think to yourself “why did I lay the baby on the floor to change her diaper?”. Then BAM!! it hits you - “I DIDN’T LAY HER ON THE FLOOR! SHE FREAKIN FELL ONTO THE FLOOR!!”. Mom of the year, right here. I think the worst part of it all was when I turned around and saw her she was just laying there with that silent scream on her face… that one that says, ‘I’m not being quiet because I’m not hurt, I’m just building that first scream up’. That look. And man oh man… scream she did! I felt so awful and for a split second considered calling 911. Ha! However, as soon as I picked Elise up I could tell she was just scared more than anything. I figured though that I might as well put all this schooling into effect and performed my own serial neuro checks on her. Made sure to keep her awake for at least an hour, checked her pupils repeatedly… probably a little over reaction, but at least I felt comfortable that I hadn’t inflicted some horrible head injury on my child. Visions of CPS dancing in my head…

On a happier note though, we spent yesterday at the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco with Papa and Aunt Rachel and cousins KaLee and Keegan.

Another lesson learned… now you all know how deathly pale Ben is. And I’m not exactly the tannest person in the world. Which means I’m fairly well versed in the uses of sunscreen. Do you think I thought about sunscreen, or even a sunhat for Elise? Not a bit. And of course it was a bright, sunny, 86 degree blistering Texas day. So, the our first stop at the zoo was the gift shop where I bought a tube of sunscreen and slathered it all over Elise’s pasty white skin. No sunburns, so I must’ve done something right… (until I let her roll off the damn changing table) but I did come home and put a hat and sunscreen into her diaper bag so that I’m not caught unaware again. Surprisingly, I think Elise kind of enjoyed the zoo. Granted, it’s not like she was running ahead of us and shouting “Mama, mama!! It’s an elephant” or anything, but she seemed to enjoy being outside and listening to all the sounds of the animals. There was one gibbon monkey who was particularly verbal and caught her attention, and she really liked watching the fish swim past her in the aquarium rooms.

It was a great day trip, and one I can see us making again. To bolster my nomination for Parent of the Year I have one more story for you - The plan was for Elise and I to meet everyone else at the zoo. At 12:30. At 12:00 I learn that in true Stonerock fashion the others are just leaving the house meaning I’ve got quite a wait ahead of me. So, what to do, what to do? I pulled in to Rudy’s BBQ in Waco, got myself some lunch and a beer and plopped down to wait. You can imagine the looks I got. … “Look at that woman!! Guzzling beer like it’s Saturday night… and with a baby on her lap! Why, I never…” Meh. Oh well. It passed the time just fine. And Elise likes beer just about as much as she likes coffee. Ha!! What are ya gonna do?!

6 months!

I know I can’t possibly be the only one thinking ‘6 months!?! How in the world is it possible that Elise is already 6 months old?!’ But sure enough. It’s amazing (and scary!) to think that in just another 6 months she’ll be one year old! And if these next 6 months go by as quickly as the last 6 months… sheesh. I don’t even want to think about it. We have had major happenings at this 6-month mark though. Elise went in for her 6-month appointment on Friday - she weighed 13 pounds, 6oz and was 25 3/4 inches long which lands her squarely in the 10th percentile for weight. Turns out I’ve birthed a wee little thing. Go figure. Certainly, I wouldn’t have thought the Stonerock genes had it in them … and they probably still don’t. I’m sure this is the Hampton in her coming out. She is healthy and happy though… just scrawny. Elise’s pediatrician gave me orders to ‘chunk her up a bit’ by her next appointment at 9 months, so we’ll see how that goes.

In a valiant attempt to ‘chunk her up’ I decided that maybe now was a good time to introduce food to Elise. She’s been eating rice cereal for about a month now and is a BIG fan of rice. She also loves her Biter Biscuits that Ms. Sabrina (her babysitter) gave us. Well, gave Ben. Who then passed them onto me, but did NOT pass on Sabrina’s warning about the mess these biscuits would cause. Not just on Elise, but on her clothes, my couch, my keyboard, the pillow, and pretty much anything and everything that may have been anywhere in the vicinity of this biscuit. BUT, Elise was happy and content and quiet for a good 30mins while she gnawed this thing down to a nub!

Now, as many of you may know (and if you don’t I’m about to tell you) there is a very precise and deliberate plan as to how foods are introduced to infants. The thought being that if you follow this order then the baby will slowly be introduced to more and more complicated foods, thus increasing her tolerance and (hopefully) decreasing any allergic response she might have to more allergenic foods. So, you start out simple, like with rice. Next comes oatmeal, then barley, then wheat, then mixed grains. I tried explaining this to my dear husband, who then became flustered and told me it was all too much to keep straight and that he would let me take the lead in food introduction and simply use what I laid out for him in Elise’s handy dandy food parcel out thingy. So, I agreed… I measured out rice cereal… I put it in the food parcel out thingy… And I put the new box of oatmeal in the pantry in anticipation of Elise’s advancement to this next step in food. Now, I put the oatmeal in front of the box of mixed grain cereal that had been given to us. Free food? Sure!! Those of you who know me well will not be surprised by this. So, what does Ben do? Ben walks by the food parcel out thingy, flings aside the two boxes of oatmeal, and reaches into the waaaay back of the pantry for the box of mixed grains and loads Elise up. Why do I even try?!?! Of course, after I explain to him (again) the reasoning behind slow introduction of food he got a little worried and looked to Elise for signs of impending doom or allergic reaction. She just looked back at him and grunted. “Give me more!!” Needless to say, she fared well. Which is good since MiMi and PaPa came down to babysit yesterday and loaded her up with coffee, eggs, and mashed potatoes. I wish I were kidding. Now that I am off for the next few days we’re going to knock it down a few notches and go back and do this right. We (and by ‘we’ I actually mean ‘me’) actually chose  sweet potatoes to be Elise’s first real food. I was very excited about it - I came home, I peeled sweet potatoes, I boiled them, and then pureed the hell outta these potatoes in my handy dandy Baby Steps baby food processor. And let me tell you - this thing is awesome!! Your regular ol’ food processor isn’t going to get food this smooth.

I was so impressed with myself and just knew (maternal instinct!?) that Elise would love it too. Unfortunately, that wasn’t quite the case. I only hope this isn’t foreshadowing of the drama she is gonna bring to the table as a pre-teen and teenager. The introduction of sweet potatoes was met with much dry heaving, gagging, spitting food out, and what I gathered was a general dislike of sweet potatoes. Unfortunate. But let me tell you, it sure did make for some good laughs!! Check out the video of Elise eating sweet potatoes here. As I mentioned, MiMi and PaPa came down to babysit yesterday while Ben and I worked and the reintroduction of sweet potatoes (hidden in a whole lotta cereal!!) went much better and Elise finished her first serving of homemade sweet potato baby food! Next up… homemade avocado baby food! YUM!!

We’re on a roll…

And so it starts! Today, Elise figured out that by using the sheer weight of her oversized baby head she could get enough momentum to go from back to tummy and back again. She’s rolling!! She’s had the whole rolling from her tummy to her back down for several weeks and in the last week or so you could really tell that she was trying to go the other way. Today, she was lying on a blanket playing in her room while I purged her clothes (I finally realized that she could fit into her 3 month clothes forever… or at least another 4-6 weeks probably, but if I didn’t move her into the horde of 6 month clothes she has she’d probably NEVER get to wear them. Anyway, I digress…) so, there she is playing on the blanket while I go through her baby clothes deciding save or keep when all of a sudden the little lightbulb over her head went off and BAM! She was off!!! Rolling all around on the blanket and ever so pleased with herself! I thought it very fitting that she should reach this milestone while I was sitting there closing the door on the first chapter of her babyhood. I guess what  makes it even more special is now knowing, without a doubt (barring another antibiotic induced miracle!), that Elise is going to be an only child. Ben got the big snip yesterday. He is recovering nicely and acting much less like a baby than I would have thought. I was planning on getting little to no school work done this week because I figured I would be too busy taking care of two babies, but he has actually limped (literally) along very well. While I’m completely content with just Elise it’s a little sad to know that for sure we’ll never get to be in this place again. Every day now Elise seems to be growing and changing. She has a tooth, she’s rolling over, and has even figured out that her 360 degree activity center turns and loves to move around from toy to toy on it. I’m just lucky that my work schedule is flexible enough (who would have thought I’d ever be thankful for 12 hour shifts!) that I get to stay home with her enough to catch these ‘firsts’! I’m going to try to figure out how to upload a video to the blog so that I can show a video of Elise rolling and if I’m lucky I can even get a video of her and her new love - grunting. She will look at you and strain every little neck and face muscle she has and just grunt like it’s the funniest thing in the world. And it is. Her little face gets so red and she looks like she’s about to bust out some wrestling move… and then… nothing. She just lets it all go and gives you the best old man grin. The fact that she still has so very little hair, and one tooth in her whole head really plays into her 80year-old man look. Ha! For now though, back to my roller girl.

5 months old!

Can you believe it?! That means she’s almost 6 months old, which is half a year, which is already a year old. I have noticed so many changes in her over the last month too!!She’s definitely reacting more to our reactions… she likes to be in her bouncer but REALLY likes to jump if she knows you’re watching her and getting a laugh out of it. I think our (ok, really her) biggest accomplishment has been the appearance of her first tooth! For some unknown reason she decided to wake up at the crack of dawn on Jan 24th… well, I wasn’t gonna have that so I decided to bring her to our bed to nurse, hoping she’d go right back to sleep. Well, I should know by now that she doesn’t like to sleep in our bed (her bed only, on her stomach, and tucked up in the corner please!) and that instead of sleeping she instantly wakes up and wants to talk and play in our bed. So you can imagine how my plan at going back to sleep went… but I figured, what the hell, it’s the weekend! I can sleep later! And so I spent an hour or so laughing and playing at this wonderfully happy and funny baby. After an hour of talking to me, the dogs, and the green glowing light switch she started to act tired and so I stuck my finger in her mouth (she still prefers fingers or knuckles, hers or yours, to a pacifier!) and … what the hell!?!? Something sharp was there that wasn’t there the night before. And so we discovered that Elise had popped her first tooth. What’s great is that she hadn’t been excessively fussy (someone, somewhere has seen it fit to bless me with the perfect baby) and so I had no clue that it was coming. But sure enough, there it was!! And to answer the next question, yes we’re still nursing and no, she hasn’t bitten me yet. That should be fun… Ever since that little tooth has come in though she has gone to town gnawing on anything she can fit into her mouth. Her hands are still her favorite, but as of late she has also developed an affinity for my forearm and clavicle. Both, very odd sensations!

First tooth:

I guess as a sort of “congratulations on your new tooth” present but really more because over the last several weeks anytime she’s being held and you try to bring anything to your mouth - Fresca, coffee, scrambled eggs, it really doesn’t matter - she reaches out for whatever it is and tries to steer it towards her mouth, we decided to give her her first taste of ‘food’. She had her first taste of organic, brown rice cereal (did you really expect anything less from those Austin hippies she has for parents?!) on Jan 25th. And let me tell you… had I known what simple rice was going to do to this girl’s poops she would have been solely breastfed til she was potty trained! BLECH!! Really makes me want to hold off on adding anything else to her diet. This is disgusting!! But, proving she really IS my daughter, she is a super enthusiastic eater and just loves helping the spoon into her mouth which this picture proves, not to mention shows just how little of the cereal actually ends up in her mouth:

And then this one is just for fun. A) Elise LOVES her jumper - probably her favorite toy and activity ever and I’m convinced her first word will be “jump” and B) she loves to blow bubbles when she can remember how to do it. This picture captures both:

We just spent a month with Ben’s mom and her husband which was a nice treat… I think Ben and I could easily get spoiled by having so much help in the house! Elise has never had so much company and we’ve never eaten that good for so long a stretch! But alas, they’ve left to return to the cold tundra that is -13 degree Indiana and we’re left to fend for ourselves. Ben is keeping super busy at work and I’ve started classes back up again. Just 11 more months (and 554 more clinical hours) to go! It will be so nice when all I have to do is take care of my babies (both Elise and Ben!) and go to work. I dream of the day I can read a book and lounge around after working without feeling guilty because I’m not studying about fungal infections or glaucoma or who knows what else… Hope all is well with all of you out there! More soon, I promise!

4 months

Right after her first Christmas Elise turned the big 4! Already 4 months old and I am starting to understand what people mean when they say the time flies by. Even though I can barely remember her first month at home (thanks to a screaming newborn and an extreme lack of sleep)I can’t believe she’s already 4 months old! And man is she changing!! In the last couple of weeks we’ve seen even daily changes in her. Last week she was clearly looking at her toys, this week she’s grabbing for them! Last week she was thinking about turning over and this week I’m finding her scrunched up in a different corner of her bed than I laid her in. I am loving every day with her, and each time she sees me and I get one of those “Hey! It’s my mommy” smiles… well, there’s something to be said about that cliche. My heart DOES melt every time!! Elise is really starting to notice the dogs now and other than tickles underneath her neck they are about the only thing that can consistently make her laugh. She also loves listening to her Daddy sing to her and even helping him work. I got my first email from her this weekend while I was at work. She and Daddy were working in the office and I guess after watching Ben bang away on the keyboard she figured she had the hang of it… sent off her first email to me. Which I dutifully printed out and pasted into her baby book!

Elise and Daddy working

She really is growing and starting to develop her personality. She is definitely a morning baby and likes her electronics! Her favorite thing to look at is the baby monitor, or a remote, or a cell phone. And she will break her neck to turn around and look at the computer or tv screen. As I type this she is sitting on my lap watching and slowly leaning over, closer and closer to the keyboard, just waiting for her chance!! She has found her ears and her tongue and these are new favorite playthings. Her life is so simple and full of such little joys and this makes me happy. My little girl is growing up though - in more ways that one. She had her 4 month appt last week and weighed 12 pounds 12 oz, and was 25 inches long. She had put on almost 3 inches and a little more than a pound in the last 2 months. Gonna be tall and thin like her mama… ha! Last night she transitioned to her crib for the first time. I’m sure this is just the first of many things that she will handle a lot better than I do… she I think was happy to have so much room to twist and turn and do who knows what in. When I went in this morning to get her she was 180 degrees from where I had laid her down at, on her back, arms spread wide, with a sock in her hand… who knows! Meanwhile, back in our bedroom I was begging Ben to go into her room and whisper so I could see if the monitor was working. Even thought about just making a pallet to sleep on in her bedroom. Just to make sure, you know… glad to report though that me and my big girl both slept in our respective rooms all night. I’m so excited to see what this next month is going to bring. I think teeth are in our near future!

My big 4 month old girl

Christmas!

Elise thoroughly enjoyed her first Christmas… ok, I thoroughly enjoyed her first Christmas. Turns out, at 4 months she could really care less and more than anything was peeved that her schedule was all out of whack and just wanted to take a nap. I’m sure she was loving it on the inside. It was quite the first Christmas too! Complete with 13 adults, 2 babies, and 4 dogs. All crammed into a 1900 sq ft house with over flow in the 5th wheel parked in the driveway. Did I mention the 4 chickens and the ocassional peacock in the backyard?! We were lucky enough to share this Christmas with my 2 aunts, my uncle, 2 cousins, sister and brother-in-law, and 2 nieces. And that was just at my parents house! We spent the day with Ben’s dad and stepmom and his extended family too! Whew. Elise was most impressed with the pretty lights in the tree as best I could tell. I’m sure next Christmas will be more fun… and by fun I mean fences around the Christmas trees and a lot of “Elise! NO!! Put that down! Don’t put those pine needles in your mouth!!” Can’t wait. Thought I’d share some of my favorite pics of Elise’s first Christmas with you.

Elise and Santa PawPaw

Our family in front of the Austin Trail of Lights entrance

Elise and her big cousin KaLee

Who knew?!

So, turns out that Al-Qaeda has a cell here in Austin, Texas of all places! And my dear husband located and flushed them out… either that or Ben thought it a good idea to put the pillow cases on Elise’s head while he made the bed.

Firsts

First of all, I’ll have to apologize for not writing anything in a while. Turns out that after going back to work I have little free time to blog after I’m done with school and have Elise down to sleep. Case in point… I don’t really have time to be blogging right now, but I’m procrastinating writing my term paper for school. So, blogging and putting up new pics of Elise seemed like a much better use of my free time while she naps!

So, since I last wrote a lot has happened! First of all, Elise was started on medication to shrink down her hemangiomas. Shortly before she started her medicine the hemangiomas on her lip and one of them on her scalp had started to really grow - Ben was joking that she had a second head and that we were having to feed both of them! She actually started to develop one over her right eye too, and that was kind of the last straw for us and her doctor who was concerned that she was a) growing so many and b) that they were growing so fast. So, the decision was made to put her on a medicine called Propranolol which is a heart failure medication that works by lowering the blood pressure and the heart rate. In essence, it starves the tumors. And in such a short time we have seen a drastic change in Elise! I know it sounds hokey, but we were noticing a substantial difference after just 2 or 3 days of treatment! Initially, I was concerned about putting her on the medicine because of how it works, and I was worried that the medicine would drop her blood pressure and heart rate so much that she would be totally lethargic and groggy, but luckily it doesn’t seem to have affected her at all! She had an appointment with her Dermatologist on November 18th and he was pleased with how she’s been doing and plans on keeping her on medication until she’s at least 6 months old. She has another appointment with him in January and we’ll just see how things go from there.

In other news… we just celebrated our first Thanksgiving with Elise and our getting ready for our first Christmas with her. Since I worked on Thanksgiving we went up to my parents’ house over the weekend and had Thanksgiving on Saturday. My sister and her girls were there and we had a good time seeing everyone. Definitely a lot to be thankful for this year - namely this sweet little baby who has come into our lives. She’s such a joy and so much fun and she makes me laugh every day! I’m very thankful for my little family - Elise and her Daddy are what it’s all about! Unfortunately, because Elise isn’t sitting up yet or eating food, she wasn’t sitting at the Thanksgiving table which means I completely forgot to get a picture of her at her first holiday. I hate to say that Elise and her cousin Keegan laid on a blanket behind the table and entertained each other while we all ate… bad mom, huh? Christmas will be different though! I’m so excited for her first Christmas!! Even though Elise won’t have a clue what’s going on, I will and I’m excited for it!

Another first… Elise has caught her first little cold I think. She doesn’t act like she’s achy or feeling bad, she just can’t breathe and constantly has green snot. Nice! I wish I could teach her how to blow, because I feel so bad for her with all this snot and I just know she’d feel better if I could get her to blow her nose! As it is, I have to wait until the exact moment she sneezes or otherwise blows snot bubbles and be at the constant ready with a tissue. She’s one smart cookie though! She’s already learned what a tissue looks like and darts her little head around like some Matrix baby… it’s amazing how good she is at avoiding the tissue. That and the syringe with her medicine. What should be 30 second tasks usually take a good few mintues at least!! Smart girl!!

I think we should wrap this up with a few recent pictures of my favorite girl =) This one is Elise just hanging out on Thanksgiving:

Here is Elise on her 3 month birthday - November 28th. She weighed 11 pounds, 2 oz at her 2 month check up and when I stopped by work the other day I weighed her - now granted this was fully clothed with a wet diaper and a full tummy, but the scale said 12 pounds, 5 oz which I guess means she’s really right at 12 pounds or so.

This is one of my favorite pics of Elise - she’s such an easy baby and doesn’t really complain about anything I do to her, but in this picture you can see her thinking “Mom! What the…” I don’t think she was really all that sure about what to do in the walker. So, she just sat there with this look on her face, then looked around at everyone like “Will someone please get me out of this blasted contraption?!”

And last but not least… little Elise putting her “Baby’s First Christmas” ornament on the tree. Here’s another example of not having enough time… this picture was taken 3 days ago. And this is still as far as we’ve gotten with the tree. Tree is up… with 2 ornaments on it! Go Hamptons!!