Friday, April 30, 2010

I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.





Hello blog world!
I had such a good day yesterday. A full day. I spent time with my family and helped Seth with the lawn. Stupid lawn. Lawn work baffles me. Spending a lot of time and money on your lawn makes sense if you live somewhere warmer like Florida or something but here spring is about the only time your lawn can look decent. Otherwise it looks dead or mostly dead. Or dried up and scorched. Its just dumb. But my husband is obsessed. So he spent yesterday slaving over the lawn. I got the baby down and helped him for a bit. Now I'm sore.
The new computer came today! Hopefully by Monday I will be writing you from that!
Alright I'm off to do laundry before my little lady wakes up!
Love (to introduce my husband to rock lawns),
Carrie
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Photo Fail





Hi all, I realize that my photos are upside down. Oops. As soon as the new computer gets here and Seth lets me on it (I've already been informed that it needs lots of software tweaking before I can touch it.) I will fix them, right now the pictures are trapped on my phone and blogger won't let me rotate them.

In the mean time, lets all wish my awesome little brother a happy 25th birthday! Thanks Uncle Jesse for all your help and support these past months, with my pregnancy, when I was in the hospital, and now when you will come help at a moments notice. You have no idea what it means to me and how much it helps. I love you!

Love (brother Jesse),
Carrie

Randomness








Random thoughts I've had recently for you today:

Babies are born with tear ducts so small they can't produce tears. I
wonder when she starts to produce tears is when I really will have the
ability to make her sad and someone will be able to break her heart.

Speaking of breaking her heart, I go back and forth about if I want
her to go thru the pain of heartbreak. I know the pain heartbreak
caused me, but I also know the lessons it taught me and where it has
brought me in life. But man, those were painful lessons to learn and
like all parents, I want to spare her as much pain as possible.

My dad reads my blog everyday, he even gets it delivered to his phone
as soon as it is up. I love that. It reminds me of this time when I
was twelve and I told him I wanted to be a writer and write a great
novel and he told me he looked forward to reading it. While its not a
novel, I know he looks forward to reading my blog.

I hate pacifiers. I hate using them. I hate that we call it a
"binky". But I'll be damned if they aren't useful and effective at
soothing Birdie.

Spring is here and I find myself enjoying it more than ever this year.
Unless its over 75 degrees. Then I'm none to happy about it.

I need to find a better one handed of upping my water intake. A cup
with a straw isn't cutting it. Maybe a squeeze bottle?

Pictures of my kid are cute. Get used to it.

One of our readers is in Germany preparing to move her family over
there. I'm jealous.

Do you guys Etsy? If you do I'll get you the info on darling friend
jenifriend's etsy shop. Then you should all to there and buy things.

Seriously does anyone have the desire to start a baby clothing company
because I have ideas, I just lack the skill.

I'm currently loving 9 by design on Bravo.

I am trying to convince my husband to take me on our honeymoon in
November. By then it will be three years late.

I think I'm going to go to Kmart today. I think the one by our house
is still open.

Speaking of stores closing, the Old Navy by my house closed. I and
brother Jesse went. I bought every single maxi dress they had.
Everything was 97 cents. Booya. I'm pretty sure the best part was
coming home and freaking Seth out with the bags of clothes and then
telling him I spent twelve dollars and watching him try to figure that
out. Then watching the elation on his face when he figured out I
wasn't lying.

By the way, my summer look will be maxi dresses. Now I have to figure
out how to rock my breastfeeding leakguard pads with them.

Uncle Jesse is here to help me go to the grocery store!

Love (Jack Johnson and open windows with a breeze),
Carrie

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry


--
"If you can't speak well of someone, come sit by me." -Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Perfectly acceptable to insult someone in private, they might even
thank you for it afterwards. But when you insult someone in public,
they tend to think you're serious.

~Benjamin Franklin

~If you can't be kind, at least be vague ~ Joshilyn Jackson

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Pictures








They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and since Birdie is up and at them and cute, here are some for you.
Nurse Carol came today and she weighs 8 lbs 14 oz! Her length is 23 inches and her head is 15! She I growing up too fast already!
Love (watching her grow),
Carrie
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Monday, April 26, 2010

Hi blog readers!
I'm once again blogging from my phone. I don't have the required thumb stamina to do it everyday yet. My thumbs hurt for two days after my last phone entry.

This weekend
This weekend Seth decided he wanted to be productive. This weekend was the perfect lay on your couch and snuggle and watch movies all weekend. Obviously we had different agendas. Its hard for me to help out with those weekend chores and hold the baby so I feel bad and guilty sitting around wondering when we are going to eat again and what we are going to eat while Seth is trimming trees and working in the yard. This weekend he told Evie that he missed old Mommy and Daddy weekends which made me sad and a little irritated, but I figure that feeling will happen often from now on and not just with Seth.

Mommy blog
Evelynn gets more and more personality everyday. Seth swears she giggled for him and I swear she said hi back to me. Its funny how you (or at least I) swear you aren't going to be one of those Mom's who sings their child's advancements on the internet, but, ah, I'm a lot of things these days I never thought I was going to be...

Baby Clothes
Baby clothes drive me nuts. Here is a list of baby clothes I actually like:
Baby Gap- they make the softest cutest clothes. Some of them are actually not traumatizing to put on her. I just wish I could afford it. Also they don't make newborn size which my tiny baby is still in. Luckily I got a generous gift card from my company so I was able to get stuff from there.
Old Navy- again, soft clothes with great patterns. But I can only afford the clearance aisle but I've gotten some great gifts from there.
Target- super cute clothes but they don't change often and they don't wash well.
Walmart- okay what can you expect but they are in my price range and they are good for a quick outfit.
Gerber- their stuff is so scratchy and hard to put on. Also they stain super easy. But I can afford them and they make her size.

TV
The story of us started last night on History channel. We watched some of it. The graphics are amazing. But I find American history a little boring and tedious. It is almost like America focuses on every tiny detail because they don't have enough history. But I am enjoying it.

Thumb medic!
Okay I need a thumb ice pack! Our new laptop shipped so I will be posting more when we get it!

Love (computer anticipation),
Carrie

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Happy Birthday Dad!

I would love to blog for you today but little miss thing is having a fit because I'm not paying enough attention to her.
So I just wanted to tell you all that the first and most important man in my life is turning *mumbles* and I just wanted to tell him I love him so much and thank you for raising me and teaching me everyday what an important and hard task that was and thanks for always being there for my daughter and I.
I love you dad!

Love (my pops),
Carrie





Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Bah!

Okay so Carrieberry video updating didn't work. Damn.
Also I just put the baby down in her crib (since the only working computer is in her room and I'm supposed to be putting her down more) and now I have cats fighting over my lap space. Actually Bagheera is the only one fighting, Willow is exploring the mess that is the office and knocking shit over and making as much noise as possible so it will wake the baby up and I will have to pick her up. Case in point, she just climbed into one of the ten dozen empty baby gift bags full of tissue paper on the desk and then promptly fell off the desk rolling around in the bag and knocked over half a stack of parenting magazines. Ugh.
So I'll go as long as I can before one of these naughty Bengals ruin it for you. Trust lately, the cats have been ruining a lot of stuff. Like laptops. On the plus side, apparently the new laptop we are getting is much smaller, and Seth thinks he may be able to salvage the old one if he can find a new motherboard. Fingers crossed people! Then I will have my very own laptop and I won't care that my husband turned "my" desktop computer into some weird server thing using words like "Linux" and "Ubuntu" (I would like to go ahead and apologize to anyone who was searching those words in google and ended up here. As a consultation if you do have questions about those two topics, I'm sure my husband can assist you, just leave your question and I'll ask him)

Last night Seth says to me, "You know, in two weeks, we are supposed to start making her sleep in her crib in her own room" (this is after I waited an hour, after putting the baby in her bassinet and waiting in bed for some adult alone time, then giving up and getting the baby and going to sleep). In fact I did not know that, and lets be honest here, I don't really plan on putting that into action unless he makes me, and then I'll just wait until he is asleep and sneak in and get her and if he asks I'll be like "oh she woke up" and he wouldn't know the difference because he literally slept thru her mental break at 4:30 this morning when she farted and it must have hurt so she woke up and screamed for half an hour. She gets that from him, the being afraid of pooping and farting. I tried to bore a hole in his head with evil deathstare but he didn't even MOVE. For a minute I worried he was dead, but then he started snoring so I knew he wasn't, just apparently DEAF.
Anyway, I'll admit, if you had told me before she was born, or even when she was in the NICU that we would be cosleeping or family sleeping I would have told you that you were full of it. Hot flaming it in fact. I even owe my mom about a thousand apologies because after she got us yelled at for sleeping with Evie in the NICU I gave her a lecture on co-sleeping (sorry Mom, as always, you were right).
See what they don't tell you in the scary co-sleeping stories is how good it feels. How complete you feel, how loved you feel. And also how you don't have to get up out of a warm bed and soothe your baby every time she fusses. How you seem to get an ability to jiggle her on your chest back to sleep. They also neglect to tell you that most of the people who roll over on their kids and smother them are drunk or high. Oh and also that you will get vomited on a lot if they sleep on you. This morning Evelynn blew out her diaper FROM THE TOP. I'm so not kidding. I was like, oh, is that vomit? Nope, that's warm fresh shit. On your PJ's. And they don't tell you that you have to set up everything you need in a like arms reach radius because getting up with a baby on your chest requires incredible ab strength you probably don't possess. But still, the amazing feeling you get feeling your child breath with you trumps all of that annoying stuff. And so go ahead and admonish me in the comments because nothing you say can erase that feeling.

Speaking of owing my Mom things, I owe her a million thanks for my clean house. LORD it is amazing. They cleaned things, changed our bed sheets. I mean today is trash day so when I put Evie down I went to pull all of the trash and it was already taken out, by the cleaning service, and I was like, "oh, well, okay, I guess I'll go write a blog or something" so thank my Mom for today's blog. Seth was so impressed. He came out and was complimenting the way they restructured his bathroom and how they got rid of ALL the mold that he is deathly allergic to out of his shower, something I can NEVER quite do. Or how they got the stovetop to sparkle, something that I can hardly do even after HOURS of scrubbing it and a numb hand. He sighed and said "I wish the house could always be like this" and I snarkly replied, because I felt mildly insulted like my cleaning wasn't enough for him "it could, all you have to do is hire the cleaning service once a month" and then I literally heard his butt cheeks tighten and he blustered about unexpected expenses and laptops busting and canceling cable, which always shuts me up or zones me out.

Dude I just got up to see if the baby was still breathing. Does that ever go away? Will I ever stop doing that? I wish she snored, then I would just know and not feel like a freak tiptoeing over to the side of her crib and peeking over the edge while I hold my breath.

I finally found something that I am naturally good at. Making breast milk. I am like the champ, and Nurse Carol says that I make awesome breast milk because it's a good color, full of rich cream and obviously working for my baby because she is gaining weight and well above her development milestones. I wish I could find a way to sell my breast milk because I literally can pump an extra 8 oz's a day, on top of feeding my kid 12 times a day. I already have enough breast milk in my freezer to stop feeding her and be able to have her drink breast milk until she is six months old. There should seriously be a market for breastmillk. I'm thinking of advertising on Craigslist. Do people still employ wet nurses? What happened to that art? I finally find my natural talent and the employment field is obsolete. This must be what milkmen felt like when people stopped getting home delivery. Or door to door vacuum salesmen...

I've found an incentive, besides our good friend Holly, who volunteered to walk with me, to keep walking with Evie. I got a really good book and I put it in Evie's stroller and now when I think about the book and want to know what happens next, I have to take Evie for a walk so I can read it in the park. But I have to do that in the early afternoon before the screaming brats get to the park. Some of those kids are down right scary. Yesterday for some reason their was an ambulance, two police cars, and a fire truck parked in front of the park entrance. Seth was going to see what was going on, but I needed him to hold the baby while I finished dinner.

I've got the coolest lazy lady dinner trick for you all. I've been getting out the crockpot and throwing some frozen meat in (be it chicken or roast or even hamburger) and then getting one of those grillmate marinade packets (they were on sale a couple months ago so I got every flavor for Seth, but he never knows enough ahead of time that he wants to grill to marinade something) and mixing those up and throwing them in the crock pot with the meat and a little extra water. Then I crank the crock pot up and in about two hours, voila, instant impressive dinner. I don't have to trim any fat or dirty a dozen pans or wait for something to defrost. All I have to do is know what kind of grillmate packet I want to use, and have 1/4 of a cup of oil, water, and vinegar for it. Magical. Maybe when Evie can sit by herself for more than five minutes awake I will actually do more impressive dinners.

I just painted my toenails. Something I haven't done since before Evie was born. Is this an awesome day or what?

Alright, while there is a break in the rain I'm going to wake up Birdie, change her probably full diaper, and take her for a quick walk before the hooligans get home from school.

Oh, look who's a mind reader and just woke herself up with farts?

Love (my little tooter and my awesome Mom),
Carrie

Trying video

Let's hope it works!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

I'm psychic-for real!

It must have been fortuitous of me to learn how to blog from my phone yesterday because as I did so, Seth, who was working from home, jumped up from his work to scold Bagheera who was up on the dining room table playing with seed packets. As Seth jumped up the large cumbersome laptop of which we spoke yesterday came crashing down off the TV tray where it sat and landed on its power cord destroying the connection the jack had with the cord.
Poor Seth. He was having a really bad day. After that he attempted to fix the jack and electrocuted himself and scared the bejesus out of me when sparks flew and he jumped across the room. Then he forgot his gym pants, which he didn't realize until he was in the gym locker room. He came home and said he was going to bed but I got him up and got him to order a new computer and to go get ink to print his homework since he skipped class last night.
Jesse came over yesterday and took down all of our curtains and washed them for us. What a great brother I have. He is coming back today to mow the lawn.
Today we are getting our house cleaned by the cleaning service that my Mom hired for us! I'm so excited! We are going over to visit Grandpa while the house is being cleaned. I was going to go to the park and read and blog but I didn't know how long the cleaning would take and I didn't want to be in the park forever. It also looks like it might rain. Since Grandpa has the day off we will just visit him and I will try to sneak in a jacuzzi bath.

Some of you have been asking how my sweet Bengals have done with the baby. They actually have done really well! We haven't had any major drama besides them not sleeping with us at first. In fact they have become more friendly to visitors in the house. We say its because we neglect them. We really don't. Bagheera is not shy about coming over while I feed Evie since he knows I can't go anywhere. The like to sniff her head. That is about all the interaction they have. Bagheera gets very concerned when she cries and will come over and look at her and then look at us all distressed. Its pretty cute actually. All and all they have settled in nicely with her. Now when she learns to pull tails, that will be a different story!
Alright we are off! Hope to be back tommorow!

Love (a clean house),
Carrie

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Monday, April 19, 2010

Trying something new

Hi blog world!
So I'm trying something new. I'm blogging from my phone. Remember how I complained about how cumbersome the laptop was and how hard it was to balance a laptop and a baby? Well half my day is spent farting around on my Carrieberry because its easy to hold and I can look at my gossip sites and Facebook and twitter. My qwerty keyboard typing skills need work though! I'll count this as practice.

So let's see what can I tell you about? Well Evelynn is coming along. We have a nice little rhythm going. I hear though that baby rhythms only last about a week or so because baby's change so fast. She is awake more these days and making fun noises and reacting to us. She loves when Seth changes her diaper. Which is wierd. Its funny though because he calls her ladybits the "no boys allowed zone".
I'm ecstatic to report that I have lost all but five pounds of my baby weight. I gained about forty. I really wasn't trying which I know makes you want to punch me in the face. I want to punch myself in the face for saying it!
I kid you not breastfeeding really does help! I think I read that I burn something like three hundred calories every time I make milk. My kid eats A LOT. Which is hilarious because she is so tiny. People can't believe she is only six and a half weeks and weighs nine pounds. Their disbelief is starting to get annoying. So first there is the whole imitating a cow thing. Then, even though I don't have it anymore, I've stuck to my gestational diabetes diet. Its hard to be forced to eat a certain way for your health and then all of the sudden switch back. I don't eat an entire bag of steak fries anymore. But I do revert to old habits at pepperjax and taco bell. :-)
The last thing I've been doing, on and off depending on the weather, is take Evie for a walk around the neighborhood trails. She enjoys it and usually nods off and I am really loving the blooming trees and fresh smells of spring. I wish there was someone to go with though. Pam is going to try and make it over now and then after work, but she is on her feet all day so its mean to make her walk too.
Let's see what else? Hubby is working hard to save the world. He did some exciting stuff at work last week but was literally fried by the time the weekend came he could hardly get up the gumption to do anything but watch TV and sleep. Which was fine with me since our DVR was on overload. I'm proud to say it is clean as a whistle. Castle, Criminal Minds, and HIMYM were all stellar and I've seen enough Ghost Adventures to keep me from sleeping for the rest of the year. Destination Truth was great as well but how can it be the season finale already? No fair!
Seth has Friday off and is working from home today and it is nice to have him around to change the random diaper and retrieve random items I either would have taken forever to get or just gone without (like juice and water).
I'm attempting to attach some pictures to see how that works. Two are from our walk yesterday and Seth picked Evie a flower for her ear. Luckily the Bradford pear tree flowers are the perfect size! The other is my Pops when Evie stayed with them last Saturday. Its the picture he sent me so I would know she was doing ok.
On Sunday I got a wild hair when I discovered we had ten bags from the vets. They just came Thursday of last week and I gave them two bags. I'm terrified I'll be on hoarders one day with about forty five cats so I try and give a bag every time they come around. Apparently with pregnancy and Evie I've missed the last ten times. Seth was snoozing with Evie in the comfy chair so I took the opportunity to sort thru. Six bags later I'm confident I won't be on hoarders this year at least.
I'm starting a book called "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety" by Judith Warner. I'm still on the zoloft right now which I'm fine with. Weening off it safely is a process in itself so I'm going to stick with it. But maybe this book will give me some insight. I'll let you know.
Alright I'd better pick up the house. The cleaning service my mom got me comes tomorrow! Yay!
Okay here is hoping this mobile blogging works!

Love (for this to work),
Carrie

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Everybody believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, use that something to support their own existence

Hi Blog Friends!

Evie and I are waiting for our weekly visit with Nurse Carol. Evie is being extra cute this afternoon. Let's hope she stays that way and gets a good nap when the heat sets in like yesterday. I don't mind her being awake more, but I feel like I should be entertaining her or teaching her something. But she's only six weeks old and so far the only cool trick I have that she likes is my boobs make delicious milk.

New Mommy Blog
My kid is going thru a phenomenal amount of diapers. It's shocking. And it's not like I'm changing them every five seconds, on the contrary, because she hates pooping, it is usually an hour process for her to get it all out. So we wait until she is finished. Also, you always let a sleeping baby lie, especially at night, even if she craps her pants in her sleep.
Birdie can smell my milk a mile away. She gets really excited and will root whoever is holding her and make this crazy noise that is adorable.

Things I feel I must inform you of
You know how you are uber excited when you get pregnant because you won't have a period for nine months. That is whole ruined by your locha experience for six weeks following childbirth.
Your favorite sleeping position will most likely be altered, I could never sleep on my back until now. Yesterday while Seth was holding Evie I tried to lay on my side and my leg fell asleep. Lame.
Newborns are a little boring.
You may never poop the same again after birth. I still haven't.

Nice things you can do for a new Mom or pregnant lady
Not every new Mom wants you to show up and take their kid and kick them out of the house. In fact most new Mom's can't bear to be away from their little one. Don't get me wrong, I totally appreciate the people who showed up at my house and held my kid while I showered or picked up or did a load of laundry. Those people are the best. But most of us new Mom's have a VERY hard time leaving the little one.
Here are some things that people have done for us that have been indescribably helpful and nice.
Pam did our laundry while we were in the hospital.
My Mom comes over at least once a week while Seth is at night class and holds the baby so I can pick up and do whatever and take a shower. My mom also recently hired me a cleaning service once every two weeks which is like MONUMENTAL since I don't have time to even think of deep cleaning right now.
My brother comes over and runs errands with me. It's actually really hard to learn how to tote a baby around stores, and the more help you have the better. My brother also brings movies over or sits and watches TV with me. He also helps do crappy chores I don't like, like taking out the garbage or cleaning the cat pan. Also recently I had a event I had to get ready for (Ty and Holly's rehearsal) and Evelynn wouldn't sit by herself, so he came over and played with her while I got ready.
Holly has come over and held the baby while I took a shower.
Cheeto and Whitney have come over and brought food and company.
Kathy has come over and brought cute outfits (seriously, you can never have enough onsies and the cute ones make you that much happier to change them!) and made me lunch.
You can't even fathom how hard it is to feed yourself when someone needs you so much. Another nice thing you can do, which is what Seth's Mom did for us, is make us a bunch of filling food that we just had to heat up to eat.

TV
So last night we finally got around to watching the Criminal Minds with the team they are going to do a spin off of. I didn't really like the new team. Forrest Whitaker's lazy eye freaks me out. The British guy was the only one I cared about on the new team. I'll definitely give the show a try though, since I'm always looking for things to watch and I love Criminal Minds. Did you hear they are doing a Law and Order: Los Angeles? All the Law and Order's have been pretty good this season.
I started watching "Life Unexpected" on the CW. It's the first CW show I have tried since they canceled Gilmore Girls (angry fist shake). I really enjoy it. It reminds me a lot of Gilmore Girls.
Speaking of Gilmore Girls, I've also been watching Parenthood which I think I'm connecting more now with than I would have a year ago because I'm a parent now. But it's a pretty good show.
Then of course I have the random shows that I catch during the day and become obsessed with like Pawn Stars and American Pickers and other History Channel gems. I haven't gotten into Ax Men yet though!
We've also been watching the Life series on Discovery and it's pretty cool, though not as cool as Planet Earth.

Hello from Evelynn!


Nurse Carol is here!
Alright, time to get checked out! See you all tomorrow!

Love (figuring out my blackberry) video function),
Carrie

Monday, April 12, 2010

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

Hello blog world! I'm going to try my hardest to blog more often for you guys this week. I'm seriously regretting telling Seth that I didn't want a netbook or smaller laptop. I didn't realize how hard it would be to type with Seth's big ole laptop with a baby in my lap!

Mommy Blogging
Don't worry I'll section it off for you so that you can skip it if you want. :-)
It is crazy how much she has changed in five weeks. Well she will be six weeks Wednesday. Somewhere around four weeks she became this whole little person with expressions and reactions. I actually sometimes miss newborn Evelynn. So here are some random facts about Evelynn.
We have started calling her Birdie. Because her name means little bird and Seth just started doing it one day.
She will only sleep soundly, at night, if she is sleeping face down on my chest. I know, I know, it's not the ideal place and all the safety people are freaking out, but she sleeps so much better there, and that makes me a happy Mommy.
The other day I killed a spider all by myself without a thought. Later when I thought about it, I figured, I'll have to kill spiders for her one day, and I can't be freaking out about it.
I like to think of the things she will do in the future, like taking her shopping or getting her nails done, or helping her do her homework, or listening about her day.
She loves baths. Like cries when we take her out of them because she loves them so much.
She is still in newborn diapers and newborn clothes, even though she is gaining weight. Her weekly visits with the nurse are going well. I want to be a braggy mom and tell you that she is way advanced, but I hesitate to do that, since I'm sure every parent thinks that. But the nurse tells me she is.
We are currently having trouble bottle feeding her. Which is funny since we had so much trouble breastfeeding her in the beginning. Now it's like the milk comes out of the bottle too fast for her. We have tried various nipples on the bottles. She makes a huge mess.
On Friday she demanded to be breastfed. Of course while we were at the dinner and they had no place for me to do it comfortably. I tried to do it in the tiny bathroom on the toilet, which was just seemed super gross, and of course someone came in while I was doing it and Evie took the opportunity to make the loudest hungry noises and shit her pants at the same time. I was so embarrassed until the lady went and got someone because the other toilet was clogged and I was taking forever in the one toilet. Lord. The next time I did it in the car. I've given up on feeding her in the bathroom.

This weekend
This weekend we had our first day without the baby. We had a wedding of our dear friends Ty and Holly. Friday we went to the rehearsal and tried to manage with the baby. She did pretty well until the dinner and then I had to sit in the car with her until the dinner was over because she was embarrassing Seth with her screaming. Saturday we woke up at a decent time and went over to my parents to drop off the baby and get ready (it takes extra long to get ready if we do it by ourselves because one of us has to hold the baby). Then we went to the church. It was such a beautiful ceremony. They were so happy! I missed the baby a lot. But the church didn't have a place I could pump. My Mom bought me the super fancy pump for Easter (THANK GOD) and so I thought it would be easy and quick to do while they were taking pictures before we got on the trolley, but I couldn't find anywhere to do it. So I drove back to my parents house and pumped and held the baby. Then I headed to the reception. Of course I couldn't find the card I prepared weeks in advance. So on my way there I stopped off to get it. I eventually found the card in a stack of thank you's I was going to give to Janet for the baptism.
The reception was at the German American Club and the building was beautiful. The food was super good too. There were so many nice surprises at the reception. They auctioned off the garter, which I had never seen before, but it was really neat. I lasted until about 9:30 at the reception. Then we went to get our baby. She missed us a lot. We came home and spent most of Sunday just holding Evie.

TV
so I have been watching a lot of TV lately. I've gotten into Anthony Bourdain's TV show "No Reservations". I usually don't watch the episodes that have to do with cultures that thrive on seafood or gross food, but I appreciate his wit and humor. I've also gotten into a couple other shows that I've made time for since I can watch them in the background while I play with Evie or while she sleeps.

Oops!
Okay that's all I have time for today, I forgot the stupid cable guy was coming out to tell me why HBO isn't working conveniently every Sunday when "The Pacific" is on.

Love (Spring days without the heat),
Carrie

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Grandpa Whitehead



My grandpa passed on Saturday in his sleep in the hospital. We joke that he must have really not wanted to go to the home because the next day the family was going to put him in a home. He had recently been admitted to the hospital with another bout of pneumonia, so his death was unexpected and expected all the same. He was 82. Once again I feel the guilt and sadness associated with the death of a grandparent and not spending enough time with them. Luckily my grandpa got a chance to meet Evelynn.
I have some very fond memories of my grandpa, my father's father.
He always took my brother and I in his truck to Daylight Donuts and let us eat as many doughnuts as our little tummy's could handle.
He had a naked lady calendar on the dash of his truck and I was always daring my brother to look at the next month, then he would come and lace into us for touching the naked lady calendar. Where do you even get tiny dash naked lady calendars these days?
When I was a kid I would ask him how old he was and he would ask me how old I thought he was, and I would say "Pretty darn old!" it was our big joke. We played the joke out at his last birthday party we went to this year.
He was a scrollsaw woodworking master. He made the most beautiful things. He routinely made things for me that my dad didn't have time to do. He made presents for me to give my dad on his birthday, like the golf ball display case. He always let me or anyone else pick from his stash of work he had laid out at his house, if he caught you looking at them.
He never forgot a birthday, anniversary, or minor event. You knew that you would always get a card and sometimes a little money if he had it.
He took care of my favorite cat, Tigger, when Tigger got too old to move around the world. When Tigger died he took it very personally, like he let me down, and called me to apologize and sent me a scrollsaw plate with Tigger's likeness on it. I never blamed him for Tigger's death.
He framed some of my Marilyn Monroe posters I collected.
He always put up in frames the pictures that I sent him. Once, a guy I went to college with was selling insurance door to door and when my grandpa invited him in, he recognized my picture. Another time I took Seth to meet him and when Seth went to look at the pictures he was like, who is that guy with you? It was me and an ex boyfriend. When I admonished grandpa for it, he told me I looked pretty in the picture and I hadn't sent him a new one so he didn't take it down.
He loved doing word searches and he always let me do one or two in his booklets.
You could always count on him to have a lemon drop in his pocket if you needed one.

I love you Grandpa and I hope you are in a amazing place with all of your dogs and Tigger and everyone you love.

Love (my grandpa)
Carrie

Monday, April 5, 2010

The UNMC NICU or the place I love to never be again

So Evie is in the NICU with a CPAP on her face. The first time I see her, I don't know how to react. I don't even know if they are going to let me hold her.
The NICU, I've heard described is a place where Angels live. It's very true. The NICU is inherently a sad place, as soon as you sign in and walk in, it's a different feeling. It's very quiet and dark and you try not to look around too much because you don't want to see just how tiny that baby in the plastic box is, or how many things they have coming out of their body. They have nice separate little rooms with a chair or two and a fridge and a little TV.
And they have the best nurses in the world. I don't know how they work there. It is the saddest place ever, but they are some of the happiest optimistic people I have ever met. Every nurse we had was not only knowledgeable, but compassionate.
There were two in particular that rocked our world. Amy, Evie's night nurse, who taught us everything there was to know about taking care of a baby. The daytime nurses usually had a lot to do, so they would change Evie's diapers or do things like clean her up or put her back in the incubator, or change her clothes. Amy wouldn't do that for us. She would make us do it, she would stand behind us and be there for us and give us tips, but she wouldn't do it for us. She taught us to read the monitors, and then took the monitors away and taught us how to listen to our baby. No matter what bad thing conspired during the day we knew if we could make it to the night, when Amy's shift started, she would sit and talk to us about it, make us feel better, and teach us what to do to help Evelynn get better faster. She was a saint. She pulled strings to get us one of the NICU parents rooms, usually reserved for NICU parents who were from out of town. When we were told that I was getting discharged from the hospital and would have to go home without my baby, Amy found us a place to stay in the hospital so we didn't have to leave her.
The other nurse that really helped us, well me really was our day nurse Anna. Anna taught me how to breastfeed, she wouldn't let me give up. The other nurses would let me do it for five seconds before the would let me give her the bottle of formula. Anna sat with me for what seemed like hours and reassured me that I was doing it right and she was getting something. I probably would have not been a breast feeding mom if it wasn't for Anna.
So here is a list of what happened, in order, to keep us in the NICU for four days. First she had the trouble breathing and had to be on the CPAP and because they were afraid she hiccuped her own poop, she had to have 48 hours of antibiotics (at least until the blood cultures came back) and a chest x-ray to see if the poop had gotten into her lungs. Also, because her vein's were "sticky" and after sticking her about 100 times to put in an IV (thank GOD I wasn't there for that, Seth was and it really tore him up) they decided to give her a UV, which is an IV thru her umbilical cord. And it required a minor surgery put in. About nine at night the first night, they determined that she had not inhaled the poop, but still had to run the full course of antibiotics until the blood cultures came back.
So while we waited for that, my lovely child started to get mad about her situation and started holding her breath while throwing fits. Anywhere else they would just blow in her face, in the NICU she was diagnosed with apnea and we were told that she couldn't go home until 48 hours after her last "episode".
When we woke up on the third day, close to our deadlines, she hadn't had an episode, the blood cultures came back clean and she was taken off the antibiotics, she was eating like a champ. When we came in they informed us that she was "severely" jaundice. Our peditrician, who by the way visited her EVERYDAY in the hospital, told us that it wasn't severe, it was NICU severe, which is a term we learned well. They are, understandably, much more cautious in the NICU.
When things got really bad, my bestest friend Pam, showed up, and sat with us in the NICU and tried to explain in calmer terms and positive terms what was going on. So that really helped. So she got put back in the incubator and put under a light to get the bilirubin out. Finally, Saturday morning, after I had gotten up at 5 to feed her, they called at 8 and told us to take her home. We couldn't get out of there fast enough!!
But the people there were great. I can't say that enough.
Although my child has some lasting effects from her stay at the NICU. She doesn't like her feet touched because in the NICU, that's where they drew blood and poked her for tests. She literally recoils her feet if you touch them or brush against them. She sleeps on her stomach, because being on her back reminds her of being naked and hot under the jaundice lights. She will only sleep soundly on my chest. I know I will have to break her of this eventually, or she will be sleeping with us until she's twelve like I did my parents.
Oh and I can't put her down. Because they took her away from me once, and I constantly feel like I have to make up for the hours I missed and thought that I would never get to hold her alive.

Okay I have much more on the subject of motherhood and everything I'm learning. That post will follow shortly. Also tomorrow, if I can put Evie down long enough, I need to write a post to you all about my amazing grandfather who passed on Saturday. So hopefully I will get to that. I am slowly more and more, being able to put her down and get stuff done, but it is a process!

Thanks for sticking with me with my erratic posting! Talk to you all tomorrow hopefully!

Love (parenthood),
Carrie