improving?

Well, here is day three of Samantha's "injury" Her nose looks terrible, I know. But you should have seen it yesterday. It was even worse then if you can imagine that. The bruise on her forehead is hardly even noticeable now, and there is no longer any bump. Yeah!
Did you notice the bow on her head? A few weeks ago, my sister in law showed me that Samantha now has enough hair to put a bow clip in. So I went and got some bows. My mom will love it!!!!


And just for fun, I am including a picture of her sleeping. Her favorite sleeping position is now on her tummy with her legs up under her and her little hiney up in the air. My mom said that I used to sleep like that all the time when I was little. That's how she was sleeping when I decided to take this picture, but by the time I got the camera out, she had straightened out her legs. She must have known I was coming, she is after all her daddy's daughter. Hehehe...

Watch for more sleeping pictures to come. After all, who can resist a sweet little sleeping baby. Certainly not me!

Award time

Is there an opposite of hypochondriac? If so that's apparently the type of mom I am this week. In fact I should get an award for it. But let me start at the beginning rather than the end... First look at the picture. Look very closely.



Yep, Samantha got her first booboo today. She fell at the babysitters house and got a big bump on her forehead and scraped up her nose. The red nose is not from crying, that is the scrape on it. And if you look very closely at the upper left part of her forhead, you will see a long rectangular bruise. It's hard to see in the picture, but boy is it obvious in person. And it has a big bump on the far left side of it.

I called the doctor's office to see if I should bring her in and the nurse said that I should since she has a bump on her forehead. When we got to the doctor's office, Nurse Sharon took one look at her and said "Daddy's not gonna be happy!" I couldn't help but agree.

Anyway, Dr. Ramirez came in and examined her and said that she didn't think the head stuff was anything to worry about. However, she asked me about her runny nose, is she coughing, etc. I told her how we have been doing the last several days (not well at all!!!!) and that I think it is just allergies since both Brent and I are have bigtime allergy problems right now and since Samantha is only coughing at night. She decided to do an RSV swab. She was almost completely certain that it would come back positive. And she told me that Samantha has a double ear infection. And she teasingly told me "She has to throw herself off the couch to get you to bring her in for her ear infections, huh?"

In just two short months, I have gone from the mom who took her baby to the doctor only to hear "She's teething and she is absolutely fine" to the mom doesn't take the baby to the doctor when she has a double ear infection and a massive cold.

Really, I thought it was just allergies. And she only had a fever for a couple of hours one evening and it went away on its own! And she never acted like her ears were bothering her. How was I to know?

The good news is that Samantha does NOT have RSV. Dr. Ramirez thinks that she has been unable to get over the cold because of the ear infections, and that since we are now starting antibiotics, the ears should clear up and we should see a vast improvement in the cold in a few days. Then maybe we will all get some sleep again.

And hopefully I will figure out some good middle ground on when to go to the doctor.

Better

I talked to my mom last night and she had just read my blog for the first time in a few weeks. She laughed a little about my whining a few posts back, but then told me that is only because she knows me so well. She said that some of the rest of you might be a bit worried about me. Looking back at it, I don't think it is anything to worry about, but I trust my mom's instincts, at least most of the time. So just in case she is right and you are worried...you don't have to be.

When I wrote that, I was completely exhausted from Samantha getting up at least 2-3 times each night because she was having so much trouble with her allergies. And I was having one of the worst weeks ever at work. I even had a parent blaming me for her impending divorce and that her son's problems (which he has had for over 10 years) were not fixed since he has been on probation for 6 months. She stood in the hallway outside of court and lectured me on all of this for 30-45 minutes. And that was just part of the work stuff that week.

So, even though the sentiment of wanting to stay home is absolutely true, I am not in a crisis. I am not about to go crazy. And I deal with the issues of being a mom who works outside the home as they come. And I am having a much better week this week.

Fall Flowers

Here's a glimpse of what is growing in my garden this fall.

Morning glories

spider lilies



zinnias

I don't know the name of these red flowers that grow from a bulb. If you know it, please let me know!

fairy lilies (also called miniature amarylis)

Whine alert

If the title wasn't enough, this is your final warning. If you don't like whining, don't read any further.

I am tired.

I'm tired of saying goodbye to my baby every morning. I'm tired of not knowing what she ate for the day until I look to see what the babysitter wrote down. I'm tired of having to look back over the week each Saturday to see what her schedule should be like for the weekend. I'm tired of having to make choices in the evenings of doing laundry and dishes or spending a little time with my daughter between her dinner and her bedtime. I'm tired of choosing between housework and sleep. I'm tired of feeling guilty on the rare occasions that I take a nap on the weekend because I should be doing housework while the baby sleeps. I'm tired of wondering if I am going to miss seeing the first time she crawls or pulls up on the furniture.
I never planned to go back to work after having a baby. Brent didn't want me to go back to work. We both want me to be home with Samantha, but life isn't working out that way...and I hate it. I have no idea how so many women do this and have everything all together. I feel like I am slowly being sapped of everything. I don't give enough to my job because I don't have the energy and I don't want to be here. I don't give enough at home because I am exhausted and there is so much to do that I am just completely overwhelmed. I'm tired of trying to keep up a good face on everything. I'm tired of blowing little things out of proportion because I just can't handle another thing.

I am tired.

8 months

It is that time again...time to reflect on one more month with our sweet baby girl. We are so grateful for the opportunity to be her parents and to get to love on her every day. The pictures are ones that I actually managed to take today, on the right day of the month for once!

This month she has gotten her first two teeth, she giggles and belly laughs almost as much as she smiles, she has learned to roll all the way across the room doing a log roll, she is getting close to learning to crawl, she is able to sit up pretty much as long as she wants, provided we put her in a sitting position, because she can't get up on her own yet, and she tries VERY hard to feed herself. But so far, the only things she manages to feed to herself are wagon wheels and biter biscuits. She still loves all of her veggies, and she is tolerating fruit. She just started meats last week and she loved the chicken and sweet potatos. The ham, pineapple and rice...not so much. We'll see what happens with other meats as we add them.

Her bedtime is 7pm, she wakes up between 6:30 and 7am, and she usually takes a morning nap for 45min to an hour and an afternoon nap for 2-2.5 hours. She wears size 3-6 month in PJs (and those are getting close to being too short) but most of her other clothes are still 0-3 month. She is so skinny! She weighs about 13.5 lbs. My friend Angie's 6 week old baby is the same size as my 8 month old!

Her hair has started growing a little more, but mostly on the top of her head. Brent calls her mohawk baby. I say that she doesn't have a mohawk yet, but that she looks like a kewpie dolll right now. I told my friend Jennifer that she looks like a kewpie doll and Jennifer asked what that is. I found a picture of one on the internet and showed Jennifer. The she told me that I'm right, that is what Samantha looks like right now. We still aren't sure what color hair Samantha will have. She still has most of her newborn hair, which is definitely brown, but the hair underneath appears blond. I guess we will just have to wait and see. Her eyes are still very blue, so we have started thinking that they will probably stay blue.

It has been a great month and we are so happy to be celebrating one more month with our sweet Samantha!

On the Road Again

That is our permanent motto since both Brent's family and my family live at least several hours from us. Since we had a three day weekend for Labor Day, we decided to travel to San Angelo. This was a 4.5 hour trip before we had the baby, so it is really long now. Samantha does great in the car, for a while, but 3 hours is about her limit unless she is sleeping. Unfortunately, she was not sleeping much on the way home yesterday. She got very grouchy about 10 minutes before we got to Weatherford, so we took a 30 minute break there and fed the baby and walked the dog. Then got back in the car for the remaining 1.5 hours of the trip. Thankfully, Samantha fell asleep not too long after we got back in the car, so we didn't have to listen to a screaming baby in a small, enclosed space.

We had a great time in San Angelo. We got to hang out with my family, see my friend Karyn and see the house that my sister and her fiancee are buying. The only bad part of the whole weekend was having to leave. It seemed like we had just gotten there when it was time to go.


This is the oldest member of my family, and the youngest...my grandpa and my baby.










And here is my grandma with Samantha.









On Sunday afternoon, Benjamin, Samantha and I went to see my friend Karyn and her family. This was the first time that Samantha met her "Aunt Karyn" and was the first time that I have seen Adena in a year. I'm so glad that we got to spend some time together. Samantha had a great time rolling around the floor and Benjamin had a great time taking pictures. Adena loved playing pat-a-cake and tickling Samantha.


And this is a picture (that Benjamin took) of Karyn's 6.5 month pregnant belly. She hardly even looks 4 months, but her 2nd baby girl is due in November. (And I can just imagine what she will have to say to me about posting this picture! Hehehe...)

Now we just have to figure out when we will get to go back again!