Survival

I survived my jaunt to Arizona without my baby! It was a very long five days that I nursed my dearest Abby back to health. I watched a lot of interesting documentaries, ate some delicious Fruity Pebble frozen yogurt, gorged on gluten and slept for more than 4 hours in a row (not by much, but I did!). I FaceTimed with my Junie on Wednesday but worried that I would confuse her. She was adorable. She reached for the phone and tried to kiss me through it. I swear she she said, "mama" while we were talking.

We're feeling the repercussions of my absence though. She cries a lot more when I leave the room than before. She wants to be held a lot more than before. She's still her adorable, funny, smart self but seems a little more anxious. I'm chalking this up to me being going and also, I think she's going to get her bottom two teeth ANYDAYNOW. I'm doing my best to accommodate her and hold her as much as I can. 

I wanted to say thank you to everyone that has commented, e-mailed me, Facebook messaged me about trying to conceive. It is awesome to hear everyone's experience. The great news is, none of you have had extensive problems conceiving! The average was 3-4 months and quite a few "accidents!" 

I also feel like I should revise my last blog about how surprised we were when Junie came along. I am an avid/compulsive tracker when it comes to my body. I have tracked my period for over 5 years and had been using the iPeriod app, I was checking my ovulation and basal temps. So in all honesty, we should not have been that surprised. I figured that I wouldn't get pregnant because we weren't "trying." We had used spermicide which apparently is not a highly effective method alone. So I suppose I know the hows of getting pregnant. I'm now curious about the whens. Does anyone have any stories of what day in their cycle they tried? I promise, soon enough I'll be done asking for weird, awkward information. But for now, hang in there with me!

Four Months Old, Teeth and Sleep

My sweetheart is four months old, well four months and one week - to be exact. HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

I think back to a year ago when I was barely pregnant and she was a small poppy seed baby in my belly; I would come home from school, flop into bed and nap with Henry curled against me as my heater and protector. What an incredible journey we've been on. 

I never thought in a million years that I would say this but I miss being pregnant. I miss the secret we kept for 15 weeks, the joy of creating life and the miracle of a strong baby kicking inside. I'm becoming more comfortable with the idea of having another baby but not any time soon! We want to wait until June is almost 3 to start trying and attempt to plan a winter baby - close to my birthday. How close are YOUR kids? What do you like about it? What don't you like? (If you don't have kids, what about you and your siblings?)

Junie is a big, healthy girl. Her fourth month check up was on Monday and Dr. Chu was impressed with her "talking!" She's such a jabber jaws. She weighs 16 lbs 2oz, in the 92nd percentile and is 26.5in long, off the charts! Her head is keeping steady growth at 16.5in, the 75th percentile. Her shots went well and my wonderful Aunt Jen was there to keep me sane. A little trick she did was to gently blow in June's face while the nurse gave her the shots. The first one she barely flinched, the second one she looked at me like, "Why did you do that?" and the third she wailed. But the crying only lasted 45 seconds, if that! I was so proud of my sweet girl. The only thing we have to "work on" is her rolling over. She's rolled about three times from belly to back but hasn't really mastered it! I've been told not to worry because she's holding her head steady and nearly sitting alone so we'll catch up on the rolling soon.

She is getting two teeth on the bottom and I feel so sad for her! I cannot imagine how much it hurts. We've been doing what we can to keep her comfortable but my normally happy, calm, easy baby has been having some major crying spells - usually in the morning. So hard for mommy!

We have started food and she is doing wonderfully! We skipped the rice cereal and went to barley and mixed grains per Dr.'s instructions. She tasted it and spit it out the first time but after a few bites she mastered swallowing it and seemed to really like it. We will stay with cereal for a week and then I'll start making her yellow veggies. I cannot wait to see her try carrots. So many fun things happening. 

After her shots on Monday we decided to skip the "dream feed" (waking her up around 11pm to feed her) so she could sleep more. A magical thing happened - she only woke up once! And she has followed that pattern all week. Now she will eat around 6pm, go to bed between 730-8pm, wake up at 1-2am and then sleep until 7am. It has been a strange shake up around here! Even though I've been sleeping more, my body isn't adjusting to it very well. I seem to be more tired even with a 5 hour stretch of sleep. 

Something I haven't really talked about here is our living situation. We are still living with my parents and sharing one room. It's been wonderful having all of the help around and of course, not paying astronomical rent. June would have been in our room until now anyway, regardless of where we lived so that has not been a problem. As she gets older though, I've been getting sad that she doesn't have her own room. Silly, maybe but it's been weighing on my mind. This week my mom proposed that Thomas and I switch rooms and we can transform her craft room into June's room. It brought tears to my eyes. My sweetheart will have her own room! I am so excited to start decorating and putting things together for her. 

What colors do you like for a baby girl room? We have a pink dresser and this beautiful quilt our dear friend Stacy made for her that is a plum scheme. We want to tie them both in, what do you think?

How sweet is this quilt?