Holidays

It's hard to believe that it's December already.

We had our first snowfall that stuck to the ground last night--I don't remember a time when the snow held off this long. Around here, you can both trick-or-treat and go to Mother's Day Brunch in the snow, so this has been a refreshing change.

Thanksgiving was so much fun. We enjoyed both sets of families, and all of them seemed to enjoy Bella. She's the only baby in my family right now and she was passed around and played with until she had a meltdown Thanksgiving night because she just wanted to be left alone! On Shawn's side, she's child 4 of 6--all her cousins are 2 and younger. We were laughing about how busy we're all going to be chasing these kids around in a few years. I never had cousins my age, and while I adored my older cousins in particular, I had always thought it would be fun to have what Bella will have.

We had our 4 month check-up at the pediatrician last week. Bella is 13 pounds, 13 oz; 24 in tall, and perfect. The doctor gave us the go-ahead to start solid foods, so that will be our next adventure this coming weekend.

I planned to write a bit more, but my little girl is awake and squawking in her crib, so here's a picture to close with. Isn't my daughter the prettiest little girl in the world (I'm not biased or anything!)

Bee, I Promise...

...that I won't embarrass you as a teenager by saying this, but I can't resist today:

Happy Conception Day!!!

One year ago today, Daddy, the doctors, and I made you (and hopefully a brother or sister or two--but they're not here yet!). This will always be a special day for me, but I promise it won't be one I publicize to your friends, ever.

I love you little girl. I always will.

Love, Momma

Dedication Weekend

This weekend was another milestone in our lives; we had Bella dedicated at church.

For those of you that are wondering what in the world a dedication is, here's the short version. In many Protestant denominations, there is a hesitancy to baptize infants. The reasoning behind this is first that there is no Biblical example of baptizing infants. The other is that we do not believe that salvation is gained through baptism. We believe that the choice to accept Jesus' sacrifice is a personal one--not a decision your parents can make for you. Dedicating a baby is when parents make a commitment to raising their child in a Christian household, in hopes that their child will choose to be a Christian herself.

Doctrinal lesson over :)

We had tons of family here for the weekend and even more come for our post-dedication party. We had so much fun with everyone and lots of doting grandparents, aunts, uncles, greats of all of those.

I really enjoyed my 2-year-old niece, E. She is so cute (and obedient!) and is starting to remember me between visits, so that we start having fun right away. While I don't want to wish away Bella's life, I am excited to get to the "terrible" twos and get to talk about so many random, crazy things. The best, by far, was when we were walking Zaira and passed a broken toilet, (which happened to be purple and therefore alluring) left out to be picked up by the garbage collection. E was so disappointed that she couldn't use the purple potty, outdoors, in the frigid November weather!

I had a fun laugh the other day when Shawn called home from work to tell me a co-worker of his has been disappointed that there haven't been more picture-infused updates on blog lately. So here you go--one of our snow bunny (thanks Aunt B and Uncle T!) and one of our little family at the dedication (not my favorite picture of myself, but oh well) and our happy baby girl in her swing.

One Year Ago Today...

...I was nearly hyperventilating as I took my first injection of Lupron.

Here we are a year later with a perfect baby girl. I feel so incredibly blessed and humbled. I know I am one of the lucky ones--that surrogacy attempts don't usually go this smoothly. Looking back over this year, it has absolutely been one of the most stressful of my entire life...but the end result was worth every moment of it.

(Bella, sorry for the spit-up picture, but this is how you look half the day!)

Two Milestones

Dearest Bella,

You are 3 months old! It’s hard to believe that you have been here for so long already—it seemed like the waiting for you to arrive would never end, and now you’re already passing milestones.

This blog post is a milestone for me, because it’s my 100th one! To celebrate, I thought I would figure out 100 things to tell you…and put them in top 10 lists, mostly to have a way to organize them. So, here goes:

Top 10 Cutest Things You Do:
1. Smile widely when someone smiles at you.
2. Smile when you hear our voices
3. Talk to yourself when you wake up in your crib
4. Snuggle your head into Mommy’s neck when you’re tired
5. Scream delightedly over nothing at all
6. Kick your legs and flail your arms as though you are ready to be on the move
7. Scrunch up your forehead and nose as though you’re thinking hard
8. Study people’s faces when you meet them for the first time
9. Smile when Zaira comes over to lick you
10. Grab onto Mommy and Daddy’s clothes as though you don’t want to let us go.

Top 10 Most Annoying Things You Do:
1. Spit up, all over everything, all the time
2. Poop multiple times a day
3. Head-butt Mommy and Daddy
4. Rock yourself backwards in our arms with no warning so we’re worried about dropping you.
5. Screaming bloody murder during tummy time as though we’re torturing you
6. Wake up half-way through a nap because you need to burp, not go back to sleep, and then are fussy straight through until your next nap
7. Grab my hair, yank it, and refuse to let go
8. Get strands of my hair twisted around your fingers and then fight me when I try to remove them.
9. Kick us in the stomach while we have you lying across our laps
10. Pee while your in the bathtub

Top 10 Most Surprising Things About Being a Mommy So Far:
1. How much I love you
2. Realizing that the “mother bear” instincts of fighting anyone who’d even think of hurting you really do exist
3. How much fun it is to have people tell me I’m a “relaxed” new parent (you survived starting out life in a Petri dish—what could I possibly do to hurt you now?)
4. What a good baby you are, giving me plenty of time to take care of Daddy, cook, clean, take care of Zaira, and have time for myself (I was really expecting to give that last one up).
5. How you look so much like me, but are MUCH prettier
6. That I still don’t really feel like a grown-up
7. That, for the most part—with Daddy being the main exception—I have become a gateway to you. People don’t come over to see me anymore (I truly don’t care about this at all and don’t blame them—you’re awfully cute).
8. That I don’t mind changing diapers, but sometimes have to put on headphones so that I can block out your screaming when you’re overtired and having a hard time falling asleep.
9. That as much as I love you and am so glad to be home with you, having Daddy come home is still the best part of the day
10. That I have a daughter after wanting one for so long

My Top 10 Favorite Books (because I always have to talk about books):
1. Pride and Prejudice—Jane Austen
2. Emma—Jane Austen
3. To Kill a Mockingbird—Harper Lee
4. Walking on Water—Madeleine L’Engle
5. A Friend at Midnight—Caroline Cooney
6. The Harry Potter books—JK Rowling
7. The Anne of Green Gables books—Lucy Maud Montgomery
8. What Child is This—Caroline Cooney
9. Circle of Friends—Maeve Binchy
10. Whatever my current obsession is at the moment

My Top 10 Favorite Movies:
1. Love Story
2. Gone with the Wind
3. Casablanca
4. While You Were Sleeping
5. Wild Hearts Can't be Broken
6. Once
7. Freedom Writers
8. Romeo and Juliet
9. Amazing Grace
10. Whatever new movie is my current obsession

Top 10 Weirdest Things About Mommy and Daddy:
1. Mommy is a lot like Monica on Friends
2. Daddy’s a lot like Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory (the really weird thing is that we are the ones who admitted to being like these characters before other people said it, so we just laugh about it)
3. We research everything. People make fun of us that we learned how to raise you by reading books (but it’s working—you’re happy, healthy, and sleeping!)
4. We prefer a night at home watching TV to going out most of the time
5. As much as we like our friends, we’d usually pick hanging out with family over hanging out with friends.
6. While this is not weird to us, it is to other people: neither Daddy nor I have ever been drunk, tried drugs, or slept with anyone until we were married
7. Neither one of like to talk on the telephone unless we know the person on the other end very well.
8. We keep track of who cleaned up Zaira’s messes last and make the other person do it next time (and that saves us fighting and resentment instead of creating it!)
9. Mommy likes teenagers (and dogs) better than most adults
10. Daddy does math problems for fun

Top 5 Weirdest Things About Gege (I thought about having this be a top 10 list about the whole family, but figured I shouldn’t post their quirks without permission. Gege was here to gives hers):

1. Worrying is really her favorite hobby
2. Cleaning is her second favorite
3. She’s lived in the same city all her life and still doesn’t know her way around it
4. She says she hates shopping but can’t stop buying us stuff (you or me)
5. She makes up songs to sing to you

To offset that, the top 5 best things about Gege:
1. She will drop everything for us, whenever we need or want her
2. She listens to everything you have to say, however many times you have to say it
3. She loves her family more than anything else in the world
4. She is incredibly selfless
5. She thinks you are the cutest, smartest, best baby ever (milk it, most people won’t adore you like this!)


Top 10 Chores I Hate to Do:
1. Raking leaves
2. Cutting back landscaping
3. Weed whacking
4. Scrubbing out showers/tubs
5. Scrubbing floors on hands and knees
6. Folding clothes
7. Putting folded clothes away
8. Making Zaira’s food
9. Washing your bottles
10. Did I mention anything having to do with yard work?

Top 10 Favorite Things to Do:
1. Hang out with you and Daddy
2. Hang out with my family
3. Hang out with friends
4. Sleep
5. Read
6. Watch TV/movies
7. Write
8. Trawl the internet
9. Cook/bake
10. Eat junk food

Top 10 Things I Hope You Do/Learn/Experience as You Grow Up:
1. Love the Lord
2, Fall in love with the right man (and not too many wrong ones)
3. Find a career you enjoy
4. Do well enough in school that no doors are closed for you, but not so well that your studies consume you
5. Accept the body and face the Lord gave you—being as thin as a supermodel is not a prerequisite for happiness
6. Age gracefully (no one needs Botox)
7. Realize that you are never “too old” for an activity you enjoy
8. Understand that having a few close, loyal friends is preferable to being “popular” and having no real friends.
9. Figure out a way to have enough money for your needs and some wants, but also figuring out how not to let money consume you
10. Find contentment in the small things and let go of the little annoyances that don’t matter in the grand scheme of life.

And that's 100, whew! That only took me all day. I love you, sweetie!
Momma

Boot Camp

Just when I thought I was the hang of things and thinking that I had the easiest baby in the world, things started changing.

Bella had adjusted beautifully to a three-hours schedule during the day. She was taking three two hours naps and sleeping from 7:30pm to 7am (yes, I know, in the words of my cousin, I suck). I was getting out of the house a lot more and for the most part, Bella was coming along for the ride, either napping in her car seat or the stroller. I thought I had it made.

Then reality hit...in the form of a 12lb little girl who decided that napping wasn't much fun anymore. For about a week, Bella would go down for a nap, wake up 30-45 minutes later (if I was lucky) or not really go down at all. During each of these days, she got progressively crankier and crankier. I thought I was going to lose my mind at one point due to all the screaming. I knew it wouldn't be productive to scream back, but there were a few moments I felt like it!

I was getting worried that this lack of napping was going to begin to affect her nighttime sleep, since everything we read was adamant that poor napping makes overtired babies who do not get quality sleep at night, either.

So I did what I always do, I went to my books. In re-reading several passages in The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems (another Tracy Hogg book I HIGHLY recommend), it mentioned that progressively shorter naps signal readiness to be moved to a 4-hour routine, with two naps instead of three.

So Bella is in boot camp to get back to napping. I have committed to staying at home for at least a week (so she can sleep in her crib) and am gradually trying to increase her waking periods, as well as adding ounces to a few of her feeds. While I am beginning to go a little stir crazy already, my child has taken naps the past two days, and I have actually had time to read, clean my house, and hop on the computer again. Life is good again.

I have the distinct feeling that every time I feel like I've got a rhythm going, Bella is going to change things on me. But with a smile like this one, who can resist just going along for the ride?

Two Month Check Up...and Other Things

Bella had her two month check up at the doctor's yesterday. She is growing steadily, and according to Dr. N, "very proportionately" as she is in the 60-70th percentiles in everything. He also mentioned that she is the most verbal two-month-old he's ever seen! (I think our little girl is brilliant, but it's good to know that the doctor is impressed too, since I'm not biased at all or anything!)

Vaccinations, on the other hand, are NOT a fun part of these visits. Bella screamed when she was stuck with the needles and was running a low fever yesterday afternoon. She did not want to be put down, which was fine with us, as we loved the excuse to hold her all night. Thankfully, she seems to have slept off the worst of the reactions last night and seems to be her normal self this morning.

Bella is starting to fit into her 3-6 month clothing and it's a little sad watching her grow out of things already. However, it's always fun to have new things to put on her. I swear sometimes that having a daughter is just a tiny bit like having a live doll to play dress up with! (B, I promise, honey, I really know you're a person developing your own tastes. I will let you chose your own clothes and dress yourself as soon as you wish to, but for now, this is great!)

On a different note, I need a short venting session. I was talking with a good friend, who knows all of the gory details of my infertility and many about our surrogacy story this past week. There are many, many ways in which I love this woman, and we had so much fun together with our two little girls.

She really doesn't get my emotions about my infertility and I have given up trying to explain to her how to be sensitive to me. For the most part, I accept that she doesn't get it and try to focus on how many wonderful things there are about our relationship. However, I couldn't quite contain myself when she started to complain that her period just returned now that she has started weaning her daughter. She was whining, basically expecting me to feel sorry for her.

I was proud of myself. I didn't lose my temper. I just said "Yeah, I'm not the person to complain to about that. From my perspective, having a period is a good thing. It means you can get pregnant again, not have to scrape together another $30,000 to have another baby."

She was distracted and asked me if that was really how much it had cost to bring Bella into the world (and yes, that was about the price tag once everything like travel and hotels were factored in). I went with the change of subject and decided to let it go, but it really bothered me. Couldn't she restrict her complaining to her fertile friends? I am sure they'd commiserate with her. I'm sorry, but I refuse to.

Ok, venting over. It's nice to have somewhere to get it off my chest...especially since so many of you reading this totally get it.

Well, I think I have given up on Bella sleeping anymore this nap. She's talking away to herself in her crib. I am off to enjoy her!