Thursday, March 28, 2013

Big Day for Eleanor

This is an update to the 03/24 post.

On Tuesday, 03/26, Eleanor had a HUGE day. I thought I would post about it so I won't forget it. From now on I think I'll just blog about it and then a couple of days later she will do everything I'm concerned about!

First she had her ultrasound and she did great! Didn't cry, of course they had a TV over the bed playing Mickey Mouse, so they knew what they were doing! LOL. We have to go back in two months because there was a little bit of inflammation on her left side of something (didn't understand where it was) but the doctor didn't seem worried. He said it could've been due to her hydration level or reflux. Going back just for a precautionary thing. I'm going to talk to him more about it on her 4 month appointment in a couple of weeks.

Then the good stuff happened. She finally laughed. FINALLY. Her laugh is kind of a broken laugh and kind of like she is catching her breath.

She slept all night without a swaddle just in a sleep sack. I only had to get up at 4:00 to put a pacifier in her mouth but she never really even woke up. And she slept until 6:30 a.m.!!!! I had to wake her up. She has never slept that late or shall I say never slept that long of a time.

AND she did 5 minutes of tummy time but stopped crying at minute 5 and went another 5 minutes without crying. I almost filmed it because I couldn't believe it.

I'm not sure what got into her that day but it was a great day here in the Hawkins household.

P.S. She also got to FaceTime with her MimiSue and Pop for the first time because MimiSue finally figured out how to work the wireless feature on her phone that she bought just for that purpose :)

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

In loving memory

I found out yesterday that my best friend from about 4 years old to 3rd grade died on Wednesday. I haven't spoken to her in about 10 years but it still hurts. We were best friends until my family moved from the coast and then we became pen pals (before the time of the internet). We stopped writing each other frequently around junior high age just due to life and both of ours being busy.
I remember when she was diagnosed with Lupus. It was right before we moved. I didn't understand what it was but my mom told me she was very sick. For 22 years she's been on so many different drugs, they took such a toll on her body. From what I can tell on her facebook page, she had a brain aneurism which lead to a massive stroke and it was just too hard to overcome. She's been in the hospital for awhile now and started to get better but then things got much worse.
I've never had someone, a friend at least, that I was extremely close to die. It's a strange feeling. Someone in my high school class died that my husband was childhood friends with but I was never really close to him so it didn't hit me like it hit him. I'm sure this won't be last as we all have to meet our maker but the first is always hard.
I keep replaying the few memories that I have in my head. We had a few "spend the night" parties. Me mainly at her house because she had cooler stuff and I had to share a room with my sister and she was sick so I'm assuming that had something to do with it too.
One of my favorite memories was at her birthday "spend the night" party, we rented Dirty Dancing and the VCR's had just started having the freeze buttons and slow motion buttons. They always had the newest technology first. They were the first people I knew who had one of those massive televisions that took up a whole wall. Anyway, we would freeze it on Patrick Swayze's butt and go in slow motion. LOL. First off, I thought she was rich because her VCR did that and secondly I wish there was video of us doing that. A room full of 7 or 8 year olds thinking we were doing something scandalous. LOL. She also had a trampoline and go karts. We had none of those things. The first time I was ever on the internet was at her house. She and her brother showed me and my sister Leslie what a chat room was. The first time Leslie and I were allowed to stay home alone, she came over and kept us company, we played yahtzee all day.
Even though we lost touch with each other she still holds a very important place in my childhood and will be forever missed. I'm glad she no longer has to fight, she's had some really tough battles through the years, she can rest now.
I hope and I know one day Ellie will have a best friend to share her special memories with. When I see them together it will remind me of Jessica.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

I'm going through changes...

Long post, sorry. A lot to update.

In 3 days Ellie will be 14 weeks old. So much has happened since my last post. Things are moving at lightning speed. She's looking more and more like her Dad, or at least in my opinion.

I've gotten two full weeks of work down. I must say it is nice to be amongst adults again but I miss her every minute of the day. I used to go in to work and get really focused in and think it was the most important thing of the moment. Now, I stop and watch little videos I've taken of her. I've tried to take little 1 to 2 minute videos of her on my phone so if I miss her I can watch those during the day. I didn't take into account that they would make me tear up! So now I've got a box of Kleenex ready at my desk. This last week I've had to stay late a little bit and it's just killed me. I'm not missing anything but her sleeping but still. I'm sure as more weeks pass it will get better. 

Ellie is doing fantastic or at least I think fantastic. I'm trying hard not to compare her to other babies. She seems to be excelling at some things and a little behind on others. It doesn't help that I have SEVERAL people on facebook that all have babies either a month ahead of her or a month behind her. 

We've gotten into a routine so I guess that's good. We wake up around 5 am (I know, it sucks). She has a bottle and then she plays in her bouncy while I make and eat my breakfast. Then she watches her Baby Einstein while I finish getting dressed. She loves Baby Einstein. There are only two that are for her age right now, Baby Mozart and Baby Beethoven. She kicks and squeals and smiles. She especially likes when the babies come on and when there are flashing lights. Some mornings she's more into than others, but it buys me about 30 minutes to put my makeup on and do whatever else I need to do in the mornings. We DVR'd the new Winnie the Pooh, she seems to like that too but not near how she likes Einstein. She also is very captivated by Nemo but again it can't hold a candle to Einstein. 

Anyway we are out the door by 7 am and she's at daycare by 7:30. Jay picks her up by 4:30 and when she gets home she passes out. We wake her up by 7:30, play for an hour (or at least try to) and then bottle and bed. I try to read to her but by that time she's not having it. Maybe when she gets a little bit older. 

She is a definite TV junkie. I try to limit it to 30 mins a day. But it's a huge shining light box so it's hard to keep her from looking at it. She seeks it out in every room now. Oh well. Hopefully we aren't damaging her too much :)

Other than Einstein her other favorite things to do are to sit up, put things in her mouth and be held. She continues to despise tummy time. We have to do 5 minute sessions and try to get 30 mins in per the physical therapist recommendation. Some days it happens, some it doesn't. The daycare is helping. I have them doing 15 mins a day and we try to get the other 15 mins here. I might have to up their time though. She only sleeps about 3 hours at the daycare so when she gets here she passes out. We have to wake her around 7 or 7:30 to get up and play for a little bit before bed. So it's been really hard to get our 15 mins in. 

She rolled over at daycare but hasn't done it for us yet. I'm sure we will see it but I've about decided that she might skip crawling and move right to walking. Just because she hates being on her stomach so much, but she loves sitting and standing up. 

We've moved her to her crib this week. She has done excellent. The first night, I didn't do so well. This weekend we started making her sleep with one arm out of the swaddle to try and transition her to no swaddle. It's gone okay. She's gotten the other arm out by 3 am both nights and woken up. I just go in put the passy in her mouth and put my hand on her chest and she falls right back asleep but she wakes up every hour with both arms out :( Maybe she will get better as she gets more used to it. The first night we did it was a bust. Her Dad (bless his heart), picked her up and when she wouldn't go back to sleep just put her in the swing and they both went back to sleep. I had to remind him that is not the point, we aren't teaching her to sleep in the swing, we are teaching her to get used to the crib! He said he wanted to go back to bed so that seemed like the best option, LOL. 

She hasn't laughed yet. We either have a very serious baby or this is something she just is behind on. Maybe we just aren't that funny? 

Most of the people reading this are family so I won't go into a long drawn out thing about this because they already know but we had a scare and had our first trip to the emergency room. She's fully recovered but UTI's are not anything to play with. I've made it 31 years without being in an ambulance. I can now say I've been in one. At least we were driving the speed limit without the lights on. We go for her renal sonogram on Tuesday and then hopefully we can put all of this behind us. 

We went to a house warming party last night for one of my co-workers. There were lots of other babies there ranging from 2 weeks old (I know, at 2 weeks I was not thinking about going to any kind of party) to 4 years old. There were two 4 month olds there. Ellie is so much taller and bigger boned then they are. I don't know if these were freakishly small babies or what. She is not fat at all, she's just big. One of them was having to wear one of those helmets. I just kept saying, we are blessed. I know those are just temporary but they are an added nuisance. 

Well that's all for now. Once we get her used to the crib and no swaddle I'm going to start working on putting her down and letting her fall asleep on her own. She doesn't do that now. She has to be rocked. We will get there though.