Andrea’s Weblog

After watching the musical Annie on the way home from St. Augustine, Elizabeth was inspired to “clean the whole house.” If any of you aren’t familiar with the story, Mrs. Hannigan has the orphans clean the entire orphanage on their hands and knees. Despite this daunting task, the orphans keep singing merrily as they scrub […]

This was originally intended as Elizabeth’s 3 Year Check-up Update, but I just now found it in my drafts, and she’s been 3 for a couple months now!
31 lbs, 40.75 inches
That puts Elizabeth in the 50-75th percentile for weight and above the 97th percentile in height!
I haven’t written much about Elizabeth recently, so I’ll […]

It seems like there’s been a major recall several times a week for the last two months. Hazardous lead paint and magnets and now cribs suffocating babies. The latest crib recall was the result of 3 deaths and now a pack and now 425,000 play yards are being recalled due to an infant death.
Co-sleeping isn’t […]

We officially outed ourselves as lactavists this week. I got an email about a national nurse-out at Applebees on Thursday and signed up to coordinate an Augusta location. I spent the last day sending press releases, calling the media, making posters, and calling the sheriff’s department to be sure we could protest. Heather, my […]

Lately, I’ve been glad that we’ve chosen not to buy a lot of toys for the girls. It seems like every week a new toy is recalled, sentencing more plastic toys to a premature death in a landfill. I’ve been thinking a lot about what we bring into our home.
I’m working on a toy […]

Much-needed Update
I’ve been blogging here for about 3.5 years and this has been my longest break. It’s hard when you fall behind, so here is my attempt at catching everyone else up on our summer.
To quickly bring you up to speed:
Elena, just shy of 7 months, is belly crawling, pulling herself up to a […]

Screaming “I don’t have to go potty!!” while peeing on the toilet.
“A smoothie isn’t dessert–it doesn’t have any chocolate in it!”
She outsmarted me explaining that we can take her big girl bike wheelie day at the park. I said she might have to take her tricycle because her bike might not fit in the […]

The girls, Finley and I are up in Maryland for 3 weeks, providing some TLC for their grandma and keeping grandpa entertained. Uncle Christopher and Aunt Kirsten also seem to be enjoying our company.
Getting all of us up here in one piece was not the best 12 hours, but it certainly could have been a […]

A few weeks ago, Elena had her first camping trip. We headed back to the same campground where Elizabeth had her first camping trip a little over a year ago, Mistletoe State Park on Clark’s Hill Lake. (If you’re looking on a map, South Carolina renamed the lake Strom Thurmond only recently, but the Georgians […]

Elena may be little, but she can sure cause a scene. We girls were in a pizza joint refilling our beverage when “hic SPLAT!” Elena spit up all over the floor. It had been awhile since she’d had one of her mammoth spit-ups, so I was caught off guard. Fortunately, she didn’t spit up on […]

Elena is 15.5 pounds!
Well, that’s not the shocking part about our trip to the doctor. That came as I was checking out. I noticed a “Breastfeeding Support Kit” and eyed it skeptically when I noticed the Enfamil logo on the little cooler bag. This bag, a free handout to patients, contained Enfamil’s DHA/RHA supplement for […]

At the La Leche League conference, everybody was excited about the FlyLady. I definitely felt out of the loop on this one because I’d never even heard of her. I finally got around to checking our her website and subscribed to her email list. She basically offers free coaching on getting your house and life […]

It’s been almost a week since we started a new bedtime routine. With Elizabeth not really taking afternoon naps anymore, grumpzilla often dominates our evenings.
Until last Sunday, Elizabeth was sleeping in her crib beside our king-sized bed with me, Elena and Frank. Now that Elena’s established herself as a permanent member of the family, […]

1. Babies are born when they want to and as fast as they want to.
2. Drug-free birth is awesome!
3. Babies can put themselves to sleep.
4. You can move a sleeping baby without her waking up.
5. It is possible to sleep through a 60 mph car accident.
6. Sleeping most of the day is fine.
7. Breastfeeding isn’t […]

Until now Elena’s hair has been manageable, but suddenly it’s developed a life of its own. Overnight, it decided that it will no longer stay down. We think she just wants to take after her daddy.

It’s been quite a roller coaster of a spring, with one thing happening after another, and now the shootings at VA Tech hopefully top off our string of stressful events. Frank spent 5 years of his life at VA Tech, which I think is about as long as he’s lived anywhere until now. We […]

Elena is definitely a happy, smiley baby. She especially loves it when her sister plays with her. The other night, we were all in the tub and Elizabeth started splashing. I said “stop splashing, I don’t think Elena likes that” only to look down at Elena’s beaming face followed by a baby giggle. Elizabeth proceeded […]

From now on our annual trip to see the Easter bunny will be to Petsmart and not the Augusta Mall. After observing kids visiting the Easter bunny while eating her lunch, Elizabeth was quite excited to go over and meet him. She got about 4 feet away and totally froze–dissing his outstretched paw. She said […]

It’s a strange universe where one day you find a cat and a few weeks later you lose one. Our big fluffy calico darted out the door last Sunday. She usually hides in the front bushes or somewhere in our yard and comes inside a few hours later, but this time she never returned. I […]

It turns out Elena is just eating more than her tummy can take, which is causing her to throw up. I’m trying to get better at getting burps out and keeping her upright after she eats. This should help according to the doctor.
This means cappuccinos and ice cream are back on the menu! 3 […]

Elena is already two months old today. She’s already so different from Elizabeth. I had no idea that babies can just fall asleep on their own, but Elena will usually just fall asleep when she’’s tired. In the last few weeks she’s started being awake more. She can still sleep a whole day away when […]

Elena is the princess of spit-up. When she spits up it sounds like hic-SPLAT as a large pool of watery milk projects out of her little mouth and hits anything in its path–usually me. Lately, it is enough to cover an area on the floor at least a square foot around. Some days I feel […]

As a mom, some days are worse than others. Tuesday was probably one of those days.
It started off well. We actually made it ON TIME to a meeting at 9:00 am–this is with showers for me and Elizabeth and a quick head wash for Elena who had managed to get milk in her hair overnight. […]

I realized this week that Elizabeth is not the typical two-year-old. When we go out to eat “fast food” we usually end up at our local burrito chain, Barberitos. (Elizabeth used to demand “Wheatie-weed-ohs!”) Every couple months we’ll end up at Chick-Fil-A for the playground. If you ask her what she eats at Chick-fil-a she’ll […]

A black cat crossing your path is supposed to be unlucky, but what happens if one ends up in your car?
Here’s the story:
On Friday we were leaving Walmart and saw a couple people gathered at our mini-van. I’m thinking “oh no, somebody hit the new van.” It turns out they had noticed a meowing […]

What do you get when you add:
a two year old + a new sibling + a nasty cold + steroids
You get grumpzilla. Grumpzilla has been living with us the last week or more and has been challenging her parents at any chance she gets. I’ve been furiously trying to read up on how to handle […]

You . . .
-can get away with telling your pregnant mom that her tummy is bigger than Santa’s
-think it’s cool that you “have nipples like daddy’s”
-mistake a cat’s butt for her belly button
-think fairy underwear is awesome
-believe kisses make boo-boos all better
-have a hard time judging distance and ask your parents not to stop at […]

This story begins two days ago when I noticed Elena’s umbilical cord was gone. It was hanging by a thread, so I had covered it with a band-aid so it wouldn’t get yanked off. Her cord was longer than most (about 2 inches) because in our hurry to leave the hospital, they never came by […]

We just had Elena in for a 11 day check-up and she’s gained a pound since she was born. Granted, she had a diaper on at the weighing, but the doctor was extremely pleased. They’re usually happy with .5 oz a day weight gain, which would have been .5 pounds. All I can say is […]

Elizabeth has undergone a personality change in the last two weeks. Our terrific two-year-old has suddenly exhibited signs of the terrible twos.
We’ve been using positive parenting with Elizabeth and have so far been pleased with the results. Redirection, offering choices, avoiding saying no (you can kick the floor, but don’t kick the dog) had all […]

Our holiday season began with several holiday parties and a frantic mailing off of presents when I suddenly realized that not traveling equals shipping gifts equals multiple trips to the post office with a toddler (UGH!). Christmas dinner with Elizabeth’s Aunt and Uncle who are in town a few days ended up being dinner for […]

The last few weeks we’ve experienced the joys of traveling with a potty-training toddler. Elizabeth does a good job telling us when she has to go, which is nice except when you’re trying to make good time on the interstate. The frequency of potty breaks seems to increase with the amount of time, so the […]

Elizabeth has decided that she is the expert on Finley. When you ask Elizabeth a question such as “do you like cake?” She’ll reply, “Finley likes cake.” “Do you have to go to the bathroom?” . . . “Finley has to go to the bathroom.” It’s hard to get a direct answer from her anymore.
I […]

We had a busy Halloween this year. We went pumpkin painting, trick-or-treating at a nursing home and to a party. Elizabeth really got into dressing up–she got mad at me for not touching up her nails for the nursing home visit. I was afraid she would think her costume is a part of her everyday […]

Elizabeth and I joined the Moms Club of Evans. Although the club has a bunch of activities going on, the main reason we joined was to start going to a playgroup. I figured that she’s at the age where it’s important for her to start making friends and learning how to interact with other kids.
I […]

Elizabeth surprised us with her culinary creativity last night at the dinner table. She carefully mashed select contents of her salad bowl inside her baked potato (spinach, broccoli, carrots, etc.). Then she closed the potato back up and proceeded to eat it like a sandwich. I think I might try a twist on this sometime […]

Elizabeth has become immersed in pretend play. As I type this, she is nursing a bottle of handsoap and covering herself with a hand towel. I had the honor of holding the bottle of soap, but apparently picked it up upside down and was immediately corrected, “No, this way.”‘
I read an article on pretend play […]

Today I got confirmation that the rash I’ve had for the last 3 months is indeed excema. Pregnancy hormones can do weird things to your system I guess! I’ve never had excema, but it does run in my family. It doesn’t seem like your typical case of excema judging by the dermatologist’s reaction. They took […]

That is not exactly what you expect to come out of a 26-month-old’s mouth, but Elizabeth has become fascinated with wearing a bra. She found her bikini top and announced that she was “putting her bra on.” I explained to her that she didn’t need to wear a bra till she gets older because she […]

Elizabeth has discovered the joys of climbing. She’s started carrying around her bathroom stool to every room in the house. The way she hobbles around the house carrying it, she reminds me of an old lady with a walker.
Now she can enjoy “helping” with dishes and pumping out her own lotion. Last night I caught […]

Elizabeth is slowly learning that some things that we do in the privacy of our home are not meant for the outside world. She’s repeated to me a few times “I put my clothes on outside so people don’t see me naked.” We still have some work to do though as I learned last week.
We […]

I’m told I’ve been neglecting my blog lately, which I can’t dispute. My excuse is that I’ve been trapped in cloth diaper land and all available computer time has been devoted escaping it. We’ve used cloth diapers with Elizabeth and I really like them. When I have to buy diapers while we’re on vacation I […]

Me: “Did you hit your funny bone?”
Elizabeth: “No I hit my elbow.”
Frank: “What’s your bunny’s name?”
Elizabeth: “Rabbit”
The understatement of the year: Wearing one of Frank’s T-shirts, which was beyond floor-length on her, she said “it’s a little big on me.”
“I wanna put lotion on Finley’s back!”
Don’t ever say that two-year-olds don’t have important things to […]

Elizabeth has started calling me honey. I guess she figures that Frank always gets a nice response when he calls me honey, so maybe it’ll work for her.
I have to say that “change my diaper, honey” does get a quicker response.
It’s crazy how fast she dropped the word mommie in exchange for honey. I’m not […]

I’ve always struggled on how to explain attachment parenting to people who ask. When I tell people they usually look at me like “what’s so special about that?”
I just found a great definition that I am committing to memory:
Attachment parenting (AP), a phrase coined by Dr. William Sears, is a parenting philosophy that is also […]

A few weeks ago Elizabeth was getting up what felt like every hour all night long. Since I refused to wake up enough to count how many times or check the clock, I don’t know exactly how many times she was waking up. All I know is that I would wake up at 9:00 am […]

Week 18, 148 pounds (baby’s weight approximately .5 pounds)
Today Elizabeth and I went in for my first ultrasound. After waiting around for 45 mins I went up to the desk and asked if I could “give my sample” because I really had to go. They ushered me back to a bathroom and handed me a […]

Last week Elizabeth had a 102 degree fever off and on for 3 days. Aside from that, she was her usual self. Then a few days later she started acting like grump-zilla and a rash appeared on her face and down her belly. For three days, the Elizabeth that we know was replaced by a […]

Now that you’ve read our birth experience, I’ll share what we learned from it. After planning for a natural labor, what we got was not what we prepared for, nor what we outlined in our birth plan.  Through a series of uninformed decisions and not asserting ourselves, we went from being in total control of […]

I suppose it’s about time I told Elizabeth’s birth story. . .
We’d heard that eating eggplant parmesan sent some women into labor, so when Elizabeth was 7 days overdue, we headed out for Italian. Only a few hours after eating, contractions began!
We were scheduled to be at the hospital at 6:00 am the following morning […]

I feel I need to backtrack in order for people to understand why we are considering a homebirth with our next baby. We learned a lot from Elizabeth’s delivery that opened our eyes to the how the medical community functions, particularly those involved with labor and delivery. Many of the decisions the L&D folks put […]

It amazes me that some people can be horrified by the site of a mom nursing a baby yet not blink an eye at all the cleavage and bootie shaking seen on TV these days. Babytalk magazine’s cover this month shows a profile of a boob with a baby attached. Apparently it has evoked quite […]

Elizabeth will come up with some surprising words, here are a few:
After telling her she can’t eat her birthday cake until the following day, Elizabeth tried to trick me into putting her up on the counter next to the cake so she could stick her fingers in the frosting. She said “I want to see […]

This quote about fig trees pretty much sums up my week. “The plant starts off really cute and petite and producing just enough figs for the family to enjoy. As the years pass so does the ability of the family to consume the abundance of figs produced.”
This means canning and jamming a couple pounds of […]

Elizabeth is going to be a big sister!  I’m 3 months pregnant, due January 29th–when Elizabeth is exactly 2.5 years old. It’s hard to tell how much she understands, but she loves telling people that the “new baby is right in there” and pats my tummy. After watching an episode of one of those birth […]

Saturday was Elizabeth’s 2nd birthday. We celebrated by having a few friends over for cake, ice cream and presents. I had Elizabeth open some of the presents before company arrived to prevent her getting side-tracked from the present opening. I was afraid that if she opened her big girl underwear she would want to model […]

We’ve had a crazy summer being gone almost every weekend for the last two months. We were in Charleston, Jacksonville, Maryland and Polo and Chicago Illinois. During the week Elizabeth used the potty while we were in the house–she’s actually been using the potty since spring. On the weekends she would go back to strictly […]

Ack! Elizabeth has just learned how to open doors. Frank and I still struggle with the cabinet latches, now it appears that we’ll be struggling with childproof door knobs — at least on a few strategic doors. Right now she’s in the closet getting snacks out of her diaper bag. Other problem rooms will no […]

Before having Elizabeth, I hadn’t done much research on breastfeeding. I had no idea how long you were supposed to do it. I remember telling my OB that I hadn’t thought about how long I would nurse Elizabeth, but planned for  6 months. (This would have been a good opportunity for Dr. Christy to educate […]

The only thing worse than being sick yourself is having a sick baby. Elizabeth started throwing up at 4 am the other morning and didn’t stop until over 48 hours later — I’m crossing my fingers that since she hasn’t thrown up in 8 hours that she’s getting better. We took two trips to the […]

Elizabeth went to the tooth doctor yesterday for the first time. I’d noticed a dark spot on one of her front teeth and decided to have it checked. All day we talked about how things were going to work at the dentist. She would sit in the chair and open her mouth really wide and […]

Elizabeth and I have a on-going shoe battle. I like to put her shoes on, and she likes to take them off. We were outside the other day and off come the shoes. I said “Elizabeth, you’re going to step on bugs and they could bite you.” (We do live among fireants here in the […]

Summer is flying by and we’ve been doing the usual summer things: trips to the lake, trips to visit family and friends and swimming lessons! Elizabeth is officially a Waterbaby after her two weeks of lessons at the pool. She loves swimming, kicking her legs, blowing bubbles, and singing songs. She really loves the songs […]

My friend Anca was over and happened to witness Caper, our fluffy cat, bat at Elizabeth. (I think Elizabeth approached from behind and grabbed her tail.) Anca said, “be nice Caper,” a new phrase that Elizabeth enjoyed repeating over and over.
Fast-forward several days to dessert time after dinner. We’re getting out slices of peanut butter […]

Frank and I have stumbled onto a way to get Elizabeth to cooperate for tooth brushing. It’s always been a struggle to get her to let us brush, but we haven’t wanted to hold her down and force her for fear of starting some dental phobia.
We discovered that if we tell her that her teeth […]

Last night we had an incident with a watermelon. I had placed a watermelon, cut in half  through the middle so it wouldn’t be too long to fit in our refrigerator to cool down. (Our refrigerator is the kind with the freezer on the bottom.) I was making dinner when Frank came home from work […]

A recent study published in Pediatrics identifies a link between maternal responsiveness and cognitive development. Babies through the age of 10 showed higher intellectual development the more attentive the mom is (picking the baby up when he cries, interacting with him as you wear him in a sling, etc.) and the more positive the parenting […]

Last night, Elizabeth attended her second baseball game. It was the annual Janus Research Group night at the Greenjackets game. (Her first game was at last years JRG night.) I was a bit worried about how long we would get to stay when Elizabeth barely sat still long enough to eat a few bites of […]

We had our first McPherson camping expedition last weekend. Mistletoe State Park is less than a half hour away and seemed like a good place for our inaugural camping trip. Packing for the expedition was quite involved: tent, bike, food, swimming stuff, dog stuff, bug stuff, sun stuff . . . Much more than I’ve […]

This week I finally got around to ordering new nursing bras. Nursing bras are particularly hard to come by, and the ones that you can find in big box stores are definitely not for long-term wear. I love walking into Victoria’s Secret and asking them if they carry nursing bras–partly because I like the look […]

There are several things I wish I’d known before launching into
parenthood. I wish I’d read more on parenting so I wouldn’t have to
cram it all in while nursing Elizabeth. I wish I knew that some babies
don’t take naps during the day. The main thing I wish I knew is that I
would have to buy a […]

Sorry I forgot to post the link to these photos sooner!
http://homepage.mac.com/fhmiv/PhotoAlbum27.html

So one of the reasons we didn’t find out the sex of the baby is so we
wouldn’t get bombarded with too much girlie pink stuff. I didn’t think
I cared if anyone knew she was a boy or girl based on the color she was
wearing. Does it really matter if they’re a boy or girl at […]

I think my stress level is finally decreasing. Up until the last week,
I’ve been so afraid that she’ll start crying at any moment and we won’t
be able to console her. It sounds silly, but I really have a hard time
grasping the fact that there are really only 3 main reasons why babies
cry. They are either: […]

I always knew that I would breastfeed, but somehow I never thought
about what it entails. Elizabeth’s happiness and well-being seem
contingent on my ability to whip out a breast at a moments notice. I’m
permanently on-call. For at least the next 6 months, she’ll be at arms
reach (unless I use the breast pump). I’m happy to be […]

We’ve learned a lot this first week home. I think I’ve been swinging
between being extremely happy to thinking how am I going to manage?
It’s been a lot of trial and error in figuring out what Elizabeth
wants, what she thinks she wants and what she needs. For example, she
always wants to eat - especially when she’s […]

On Sunday Elizabeth was released from the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
and got her own private room, which she shared with her parents. We
were very happy to be able to hold her whenever we wanted, provided the
nurses weren’t in there sticking her. I wish I could say that our first
night together was wonderful, but she decided […]

Well, like everyone said it would, life has changed a lot since Thursday. After 29 hours of labor, Elizabeth appeared, but was immediately whisked away from us because she inhaled meconium. (Meconium is the baby’s first poo, and is a sticky tar-like substance.) It was so strange for Frank and I to be sitting in […]