Jealousy

Someone close to me is being induced today- they are having a baby girl. I am very happy for their new little family but at the same time, so very jealous.  Jealous of the anticipation, jealous of going through labor (yes indeed I am, I never got to experience it and have the Hubs rub my back and all the feelings that go with it), jealous of those last few pushes when you know she's almost there, jealous that my baby wasn't immediately placed on my belly for me to hold and BF right away, jealous that I worry about all the things the future holds (or doesn't hold) for my little girl.

I would not wish anything less than the perfect delivery for anyone and would never want anything like what we're dealing with for anyone, but I'm still jealous. And have a big 'ol knot in the pit of my stomach.



A few days before our scheduled induction, when we were blissfully unaware of what was really going on in that belly of mine.

Therapies for Mommy.... SHOPPING!

The other day, I got kicked out of work early (YaY!), the Hubs wasn't getting out of class til 3p so I decided to go to noon lunch lecture to kill some time. Unfortunately the topic was brain issues and the resulting psychological issues... great, but at least the tacos were pretty good. So we're going through and dude starts talking about strokes and hydrocephalus and how he has some patients that have had upwards of 50 shunt revisions by their 18th birthday, and this lovely lil fact just as we're trying to decided weather or not to shunt Annabelle. I was done and left (and of course, tears were shed).  I stopped by to see Hubs before his class to get a hug and proceeded to the mall....

I wandered and found some cute sweaters and boots (I need/ want/ must have). But alas could not bring myself to buy anything, it is xmas shopping season after all. Soooo I ended up at Carter's, and then toys r us.... Like I said, it's xmas shopping time :-D I probably spent too much money, but it was all on the Hubs and Annabelle, and I felt better, and I got my xmas shopping done for them. Perhaps not the most *IDEAL* form of therapy, but it worked for me for the afternoon. Perhaps next time I'll try something more productive like the gym or laundry, hahah yeah right!
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Sleepy Time

Annabelle didn't do a very good job of it tonight. She's usually pretty good (thanks goodness!), falling mostly asleep during her nighttime bottle and then going right out when you put her down.

BUT

Try to put her down when she's still wide awake? Start the countdown to meltdown: 5, 4, 3.... Which is what happened tonight. We tried, I sang and patter her tummy. Jimmy sang and patted her tummy. But she kept going. I finally caved and did something I advise my parents not to do unless they wanna start doing it everynight. I warmed her another bottle (we all know damn well she wasn't hungry) and picked her up ::::gasp:::: and rocked her. She drank about one ounce out of that bottle then smiled at me and started singing- DAMNIT! Annabelle- 10, mommy- 0

Needless to say she eventually got drowsy, 20 minues later, and peacefully passed out in the crib. I always knew telling parents that crying it out/ helping to self sooth was easier said than done but man oh man I didn't think it was going to be that hard!

Peacefully sleeping at like 2mos

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Lots Has Happened

My girl is now 6mos old... and lots has happened.

1. Development- Despite her horrific imaging (if ya saw it you might say, how does she do anything?!?) we're pretty close to being right on track developmentally. Almost sitting up on our own and at this point working on strengthening her torso, she's a bit weak on the left. She's holding her big 'ol head up real well and is using her left had a bit more!!! She's babbling a lot and says- "thhhh", "bababa", "popopo" and "blahlblahlblah" (it's weird but really cute)

2. Hydrocephalus- Speaking of her big 'ol head, its apparently getting bigger. We didn't think it was but she's in that magical grey zone. Her neurosurgeon is still sitting on it but he's pretty sure we're going to need a shunt placed in the next few months :-( bummer.

3. Eyes crossing- Finally saw the eye doctor, he thinks her vision is pretty good in the left and not so much in the right. Soooo, we're patching the good eye and seeing what happens. She'll probably need surgery on the eye muscles to correct all the crossing (even though she's cute when she does it).

4. Therapy- I fired our early intervention OT and we went private and we LOVE her!!! She works great with Annabelle and has some great ideas. I just wish we had more time to do therapies at home. By the time we get back from work and daycare we barely have time to eat solids (oh yeah, we did phenomenally well with that too!), play, get ready for bed and take a bedtime bottle let alone get in tummy time, sit up time, rocking time and ball time (for that torso) and vision stuff- I need more hours in a day :-P

5. Work- Jimmy is working hard on his research and teaching labs, busy busy. I went back to work in July and front loaded my schedule, it was good most day- I kept nice and busy without too much time to think about everything, just doing. Now things are a bit more mellow and I'm thinking a bit more and dealing with those things as they come- it's hard. But then we pick Annabelle up from "school" and everything is good again, I go back into by bubble and I'm happy :-)

That's most of it, like anyone else good days and bad days, we'll see what happens next.
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