Little Chunk

Today my little girl is three weeks old. How did this happen? It still feels like just a few days ago that we brought her home from the hospital. It scares me how fast time flies now that she's here. At this rate we'll be sending her off to A&M in just a couple of years! It makes me sad that she changes so quickly. I wish I could soak in every moment of her. Maybe that explains why I run for the video camera to capture all of her cute little baby expressions. I know one day she wont make those faces, and I want to remember them forever. Ok, now I'm getting all teary just writing about it. Ugh. These stupid hormones! All that to say, I love her more than I thought possible. She's such a blessing to have around - even when she is screaming at me at 3am because I can't feed her as quickly as she would like me to. :)

I wish I had time to post a blog every day to share the cute little things she does, but lately I've been pretty busy taking care of her and I find myself only stealing enough time for a shower every other day. Some days I never make it out of my pajamas! But, in an effort to capitalize on her current napping state I will try to update everyone on the bigger points and share some of my favorite pictures.

Yesterday, I took Allison for a last-minute appointment to see her pediatrician because her left eye has a clogged tear duct and it appeared to be getting worse. Every time she woke up from a nap her poor little eye would be matted shut. I was worried about infection so I made the panicky-first-time-mom decision to take her in. Turns out she is fine, but I was given a prescription for an ointment just in case it doesnt start to clear up in the next week.

The best part of the visit was having her weighed again. She had just been to the doctor six days before for her two week check-up, so I didnt expect much change, but my baby girl had gained 13 ounces since then!! She's now a whopping 8lbs 6oz! That's almost 2lbs heavier than her birth weight! Frank has always said he wanted a baby with rolls - I think we are well on our way!

Well she is starting to stir so I have to wrap up this post. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the last couple of weeks!



Allison loves her baby einstein gym. She is actually learning to bat at the toys in reach. She is also doing great at holding her head up and she tries to roll over every time she is on her back. She's definitely gifted. ;)







She loves her daddy. This is a picture of them on Fathers Day. We didn't do a lot to celebrate, but I did make him pancakes for breakfast, and Allison cooked up a couple of her own "gifts" for daddy, too. lol.





This is a classic Allison face.








Here she is deep in thought. I wonder what babies contemplate at this age...





I'll do better at posting from now on, I promise! Hopefully this will satisfy even our most demanding readers until the next blog. :)

Beautiful Girl

I can hardly believe that I've had my little girl for almost a week now.  We've spent the last six days doing our best to adjust to a new lifestyle, and I think it's going pretty well.  Allison is such a sweet, cuddly, and calm baby.  The only time I've really seen her upset is when we gave her her first bath (which I'll post pictures of later). 

I'm so amazed at how quickly she is changing.  I was looking back at  pictures of her in the hospital and noticed how much her little cheeks are filling out.  She's becoming quite the little chunk.  :)  Although, Frank always said he wanted a baby with rolls.  I think we are well on our way! 

 

The one time I've been out of the house this week was to take Allison to her first check-up at the Pediatrician's office.  She was weighed and measured again to make sure that she was developing and gaining weight properly.  

It turns out that our little girl is a little string bean so far.  She weighed 6lbs 5oz, which put her in the fifteenth percentile in weight.  She is 19.5 inches long (46%), and her head circumference is 12.5 inches which is the seventh percentile - meaning out of 100 babies, her head is smaller than 93 of them!  I really appreciated that! 

I've had a great time taking pictures of her, and I've had lots of requests for more, so here you go!  I know I may be a little partial, but I think she could be the cutest baby ever.  These are all of my favorites of her sleeping.  She doesn't spend that much time awake these days, so I don't have many of her alert.   :)  Enjoy the photos!

  

 

 

 

 

No Ninjas Here

So I've gotten pretty good at changing diapers. I don't mean to brag, but... well, yes, I do. For a guy who hadn't ever changed a diaper before Saturday, I'm pretty dang good. After all, I do have the coolest first-time dad toolkit ever.

This morning, I was kind of in the mood to show off those mad skills. Kind of like when you're standing at the top of that double-black ski run and say, "why not?" Anyway, after waking us up to eat about 27 times last night, Allison needed changing, and Kristin sleepily started to roll out of bed.

"No, let me," I said.

And yes, I was aware of what a model husband that would make me look like, but mostly I was looking to show off my cool (and by cool, I mean totally sweet) ninja diaper changing skills. I was already mentally working out the wording of a Twitter post alerting my fan base of my mad skills.

Like me, my brother-in-law Eric's first diaper changing experience will be with his kid. He's still trying to find a way to avoid it, I think, and I wish him luck with that. :) Eric's a NASCAR fan, so to make this dirty job a bit more fun, we've decided to add a little competitive element to it and see who can do it in the least amount of time - like a pit crew. Like a pit crew, quality matters. The wheels have to stay on, so to speak, but time is the key measure.

This morning, I was feeling it. I was in the zone. Eric would have his work cut out for him.

Everything was going perfectly. With one hand holding her feet out of the way, I used my other to expertly clean Allison off, leaving the older diaper underneath her as a precaution against "aftershocks." Still working with one hand, I whipped the fresh diaper out and shook it to unfold it, with a flourish for my sleepy wife, who was by now amused with my bravado.

As I lifted Allison's hind end off the changing table to slide the new diaper underneath her, everything went terribly wrong.

Out of nowhere (well, that's not true - it was pretty clear where it came from) a mustard-yellow stream shot out, arching over the side of the changing table, and covering the side of the bed. Kristin quickly jumped out of bed to come help clean up the mess while I turned back to take a second run, with a new respect for the dangerous end of my little girl. I pulled the not-so-fresh diaper out from under her and lifted her a second time to put a new one under her (you see where this is going). Allison fired a second perfectly-timed volley, this one covering my dear wife's pajamas.

Pride apparently still goeth before a fall.

So the moral of the story. As with gun safety, so with a baby's bottom: don't point it at anything you don't intend to shoot.

My Angel

All day I've planned to post a blog so I can share pictures of my beautiful girl, and so that I can put some of thoughts down, but it's now 10pm and I'm fading fast. 

The last three days have been long but wonderful days - probably the best days of my life - and I have so many stories and emotions that I want to share.  Unfortunately, I don't feel like I can express them well enough right now.  I think I'm partly tired, and partly hormonal.  Frank found me holding her on the couch today crying because I didn't want her to grow up.  I understand that it's silly - and I felt a little more rational after a nap - but I'm completely overwhelmed by how much I love her.  I can't get enough of her face, her smell, her little grunts, or the cute noise she makes as she soothes herself by sucking on her fingers.  So I guess this is what it means to be a mom.  She's my angel. 

Thank you to everyone who has sent emails, comments, flowers, and phone messages.  We feel so loved and supported.  I hope you enjoy the  pictures. 

Happy Birthday, Allison

Allison Joy Barnett

June 5, 2008 3:12pm

6 lbs 9.5 oz  18 in

 

I don't think I've ever been so amazed at my wife.  I'm sure this is a common thing for husbands after seeing their wives become mothers, but I'm truly amazed at her. 

The doctor came in and said it usually takes an hour.  Kristin pushed Allison out in about 20 minutes.  Yes, this is the same girl who is deathly afraid of spiders. 

As for the feelings right after that - how do you describe that?  There's a little life in your arms that only a little bit before was just an idea, a dream so real you could feel her kick - but until we held her, I don't think we really believed we had a baby girl.

We're still kind of processing all of it. 

We'll post more pictures soon, and we sure appreciate all the prayers.  They were heard.  Allison and Kristin are both doing very well. 

 

Baby Day, Third Update

Kristin's competitive side is definitely coming out.  Apparently there's a lady down the hall who came in at the same time as Kristin for her second baby.  Well - Kristin's not about to be outdone, so she's moved the ETA up about an hour.  I've promised her a steak dinner if she wins. :)

The Grandma's came by a little bit ago for a photo shoot.

Baby Day, Second Update

Kristin's a rockstar.  Seriously.  They had to come in and change the scale on the monitor because the contractions were getting too big to fit on the original scale. 

Kristin didn't notice that, though, because she was sleeping through it all.  Pain?  It's got nothing.  She hasn't even had any pain meds yet - although that wondrous invention  known as the epidural will be coming probably soon.  The nurse - nice lady that she is - seems to see Kristin's pain tolerance as a challenge, and is ramping up the pitocin accordingly.  

Baby Day, First Update

Maybe Kristin didn't believe me when I said I'd be live-blogging the birth of our first child.  Although she didn't seem too surprised when I whipped out my laptop.  Yes, she's very patient.

We arrived at the hospital at 5am this morning (meaning the alarm went off at 3:30).  We got checked in and Kristin's all set up, and still feeling relatively good.  The nursing staff has been really nice, and said she's well on her way and everything looks good.  They positioned the monitor showing the baby's heartbeat and her contractions.  She just flipped to the History Channel, which - she explained - is a great way to put her to sleep.  It's an episode on the history of LSD.  Give her a few more hours with those contractions and it might be a whole lot more interesting to her!

Oh, and I left my phone at home.  So don't call it.  If you've tried calling it for an update, you're out of luck until I can bribe someone to go get it off the charger. 

Anyway, more updates as stuff happens!

The answer is "No"

So it's Tuesday morning, and I'm still at home with no baby. Almost 2 weeks ago I was told that our baby girl had made significant progress, and could likely come early. Then, last Thursday I was told "any day now". How exciting! Frank and I took that to mean that we would have her in our arms by the end of the weekend. Since then, I've literally had every labor sign in the book, but no baby! Twice now I've stayed up most of a night in "false labor". We even started walking every night hoping it would help things along, but this kid has made up her mind! I've officially given up on trying any of the old wives tales and I've finally resigned myself to the fact that we will just be continuing with our original plan to induce on Thursday morning. It's not a bad plan, but we liked the element of surprise by her coming on her own.

I've made it my mission to get as many errands and random projects completed as I can in these last few days to occupy my time and keep me from sulking. The problem is, I don't have that many projects left so I'm having to get creative. Yesterday I tried out "Lime Away" on my glass shower since Margaret recommended it on her blog. I, too, had fought the impossible battle with the shower door to remove all the water stains but had never won. All that changed yesterday! As dumb as it sounds, that really made my day! That $5 bottle is a miracle worker! I didnt even have to use any elbow grease! I kept calling Frank into the bathroom to see the difference, and he was only impressed up through the third inspection. :)

Today I'm going to reorganize my closet and the cabinets under the bathroom sinks, go to the bank and the mall, bring Frank lunch, and make a nice dinner. Hopefully all that will keep me busy until tomorrow. If anything worth mentioning happens you will be able to find it here. Until then, the answer is "no - there is no baby yet".