Abby: Weeks 6 & 7 (Mommy is playing catch up)

Week 6

 

I seriously can't believe we are at 6 weeks.  What's more is that I can't believe this is my last week home with her.  Booooo.  I'm not looking forward to going back to work next week.  I hold back tears just thinking about it.  I'm planning on investing in a couple of boxes of tissues to bring with me and I'm warning Nana Rose to be on standby all day for random phone calls of Mommy checking in.  

There isn't a whole lot to share this week.  It was a nice quiet week with Abby.  Mommy had a bit of a breakdown though.  I guess I finally pushed myself to my limit with lack of sleep.  I found myself with a massive migraine and feeling weak and run down.  I was pretty much crying at anything all day.  Poor Abby had to deal with her crazy over tired mom.  Abby was fine, but Mommy learned the hard was that she needed more sleep and couldn't continue to work on a couple of hours a night for 6 weeks and expect to be able to function.  Once Daddy got home he took Abby for a bit and made Mommy get some rest.  I got an hour power nap in and felt like great.  My headache was gone when I woke up and even had enough energy to go for a walk that night with Abby and Daddy.  That night Abby slept like a champ which helped Mommy even more.  Daddy stayed up with Abby after her nighttime feeding until she fell asleep.  He said he put her down around 12.  She slept until 3:40!  She woke up, fed, was changed and went right back to sleep until 7. I woke up that morning feeling like a new woman.  It's like she knew I just really needed a good night's sleep.  

This week her sleeping has been getting better at nights.  She is starting to get into a routine of 3-4 hour blocks of sleep instead of 2 hour blocks.  It makes me excited, but I don't want to get my hopes up too much.  She is still eating about every 2 1/2 hours during the day, but stretching that out at night.  

Abby did have some gas issues this week.  Before I go any further I need to make sure people reading this know that as a parent, your topics tend to change from what they were pre-child.  Before having Abby conversations were never really about things like poop, but now it is just an everyday conversation starter.  Never did I think talking about poop would consume so much of my conversations, but I guess that is what happens when you become a parent.  You talk about poop.   

So anyway....Abby hadn't had a dirty diaper since she filled one on Wednesday night right before our walk.  She has a tendency to have tiny little dirty diapers until she releases the mother load so this wasn't too far from normal.  However, after that massive unloading she didn't go again for three days.  This of course was a bit of a worry for us and that is just not normal and she was extra fussy, gassy and tooting like crazy.  After 36 hours of no poop I began to get concerned.  By 48 hours we had called the 24 hour nurse line to see what we could do for her.  I had tried giving her a warm bath to see if that would help and although she loved it, no poop.  The nurse gave us a list of things to try including the bath, white pear juice with water, a q-tip with lubricant (yes, it was to put up her butt) and if all those failed we were to try a suppository.  Well, after a day of trying all that was on the list it was down to the suppository.  I will admit, I was so nervous.  I think it was worse for me than it was for her.  Having said that, she did really well with it and sure enough it worked.  I think we went through about 6 diapers.  Daddy said it was like a volcano. (Just less violent)  We all went to bed Sunday night feeling much better about the situation thinking she was all better.  Well, Monday rolled around and back to no poop, fussing, pushing and lots of gas.  Sigh.....and now we have today.  Still no poop since the volcano and fussing, pushing, lots of gas and an uncomfortable baby.  We ended up going to the doctor's office (which was technically the beginning of week 7) to get checked out to make sure everything was ok, but once there we were told that it is actually common for breastfed babies to go up to a week sometimes without having a dirty diaper.  (information that would have been helpful when we were calling the nurse line so Mommy and Daddy would stop worring)  Given that information and a clean bill of health from the doctor Mommy and Abby headed home.  Since then we haven't had any more issues, but part of it could be that we know she's ok if she skips a day or two before giving us a nice present.

Week 7

 

This was a pretty busy week for Abby.  After the doctor's office this week Mommy and Abby went to meet up with Daddy for work and they took a trip into Mommy's work to meet her co-workers.  It was pretty funny.  Mommy managed to sneak into her office, but I think all women must have a baby radar because before I could get Abby out of her car seat half my department was already in my office ohhhing and awwwing over her.  Needless to say Abby was a bit overwhelmed for a minute because she had just woken up and was hungry.  After a quick feeding and diaper change we made our way around to say hi to everybody and Abby was a ham!  Smiles, and stories for everybody.  :)

 

Come Thurdsay we had the last of our big introductions!  Uncle Ryan was finally here to meet Abby and he brought his girlfriend Kristine too!

 

This is Uncle Ryan meeting Abby for the first time.  And let's not forget about Nana!  Nana literally came into the house and took Abby who was sleeping on Mommy.  No warning, or hi to Mommy, just straight to Abby.  (I figured that was going to happen.)

 

 

Reunited and it feels so good....

 

That weekend we took a trip up to wine country!  Starting her young....on the long drives that is.... ;)

We went up to Frogtown.  It was a bit hazy, but still a nice day.  Kristine had never been to a winery so Ryan wanted to take her.  Abby met Craig and Sydney (the owners) who were thrilled to finally meet her.  Although, I think Craig may have been more excited to know Mommy could drink wine again. Mommy and Daddy always took photos together on the deck of Frogtown so on this trip, of course we had to get our first family photo together!

 

And Mommy just couldn't resist some snuggle time.



 





 We also took another big trip that weekend to the Atlanta Zoo.  Nana has those pictures so maybe I'll add them later.  Abby did great.  It was a long day, but we had a great time.  Overall it was a great week, but Mommy was dreading Monday as it was back to work for me. :(  I don't think I let her go that night when we got home.  I just wanted time to stand still forever.  But, such is reality that we need money and come to find out, my work won't pay me to sit at home with my daughter and not do work....figures. 

So....here are more pictures of Abby....just because I know you love 'em!  I know I do!

Pretty girl back from the Zoo!

GO PATS!!!! (start 'em young!)

Strong little girl.  She lifts and holds her head up all the time. 

Talking with Mommy <3

 



 

The many yawns of Abby

So I've really dropped the ball on these last two weeks, but give a Mommy a break.  It was my last full week home with Abby and my first week back to work.  Mommy is learning two important things...1) Now that Abby is a little older we can do all sorts of things which means less time at the house to get things done (including blogs) and 2) I HATE being away from my little girl all day.  More on those later....I promise, I'll get week 6 and 7 up this weekend.  (Just in time for week 8 to go up too).  HOWEVER....as a consolation I have put together a fun little post I like to call "The many yawns of Abby".  Our little girl sure does have a great yawn and after going through a bunch of our photos it's obvious we like to capture each one of them.  :)  So without further ado, I give you....

THE MANY YAWNS OF ABBY

 

 

Abby: Week 5

Week 5

Well here we are at 5 weeks old.  The beginning of the week was fairly uneventful.  Mommy and Abby just hung out around the house.  However, Abby officially turned one month old this week!  

Hey everybody!  I'm a month old today!

We did get in a couple walks this week, one was even with Daddy.  We are really happy to live in a neighborhood that has so many nice side streets to walk on.  It wasn't until the end of the week that things got exciting!  This week Abby was introduced to more family!!  It was now Daddy's side of the family coming to visit.  Grampie Chris, Auntie Sherri and cousins, Bailey and Madison all arrived on Thursday afternoon.  They were so excited to finally meet little Abby.  The girls immediately ran into the house looking for her and as soon as they saw her it was, "can I hold baby Abby?"  So they did just that.  Madison is 4 and Bailey is 5, but when they were holding Abby it seemed like Abby was half their size!!  (That's my little chunky baby!) Here are the introductions to Daddy's side of the family.

 Meeting Madison

 Meeting Bailey

 Meeting Grampie

 Meeting Auntie Sherri

 Bailey lovin' on her cousin.  She loves to just sit and watch Abby.  She always tells me how cute she thinks Baby Abby is.  

Of course with a 4 year old and 5 year old you need to find things to keep their attention.  As cute as Abby is, they are not going to sit and look at her all day so while Auntie Sherri got in some snuggle time with Abby, Mommy decided to be a good Auntie Rachel and we had a makeover.  This is what happens when you let a 4 and 5 year old give you a makeover....yeah....this really happened.

 And then to top it off, Bailey felt I needed my hair done too.  I think it really completed the look, don't you think?

 After taking a trip upstairs to remove the wonderful makeover face, my little helper Bailey and I made brownies.

On Friday we had a HUGE day for Abby.  We knew the girls were going to go to Legoland when they came to visit, but we originally thought Abby and Mommy would stay home.  After talking it over with Daddy we decided to all make the trip.  Mommy was a little nervous about the length of time we would be away from the house, as this was our first big outing, but Abby was great.  We left the house around 11:30 and first hit up a yard sale in the neighborhood.  We snagged three outfits, two picture frames for Abby's room and four books all for $7.50!  Mommy loves yard sales!  Then it was off to Legoland!  But first, some morning snuggle time with Grampa. <3

Back to Legoland!!

Seemed like the girls had a great time there. :)

Abby got to try out her sling, harness, thing (Mommy has not idea what it is really called.  Let's just call it awesome.)  She loved it. 

 As usual, she slept.  We were all really surprised.  There were a hundred screaming children running around in Legoland and Abby could care less.  She was comfy and cozy with Daddy all afternoon.  I think Daddy liked it as much as Abby did.

 After Legoland we grabbed lunch at Johnny Rockets. 

Even Abby got her lunch.

After a long day at Legoland and Johnny Rockets, we started our trip back home only to put that on hold so we can make a last minute stop at Walmart to grab some toys for the girls to play with back at the house.  What we thought would be a short trip turned into another hour, but Abby handled it like a champ!!  After a long day like that she still had some energy to play for a bit on the floor. 

Another "first" for Abby!! One of the things Mommy decided to get was a little pool for Abby.  Abby LOVES to take a bath so we thought she would probably enjoy a pool.  We also thought it would be easier to play in this pool at home instead of hiking down to the big pool which is crowded.  Maybe we'll try that next year when she is older.  For now, Abby LOVES her pool.  Here is Abby taking her first dip in her pool. 

Hmmmm, I'm wet, but it's not bad

Kick, Kick, Kick!!!

Laughing and and kicking in the pool

Cousin Madison showing Abby how to splash

So content in her pool.  She is going to take after Mommy and live in the pool during the summers. :)

It was fun spending time with Daddy's side of the family.  We got to do so many new and fun things.  Before they all left to go back home we got some good snuggle time in.  Looks like Bailey really loves her cousin. She can't wait until we go to Maine for Thanksgiving so she can play more with Abby. 

Last day snuggles with Grampie

One other little exciting thing happened this week.  Mommy keeps up with her friend's blog and saw how her friend's son has "A new babysitter".  Her friend wrote about how much her son loved this toy.  He seems to be quite the little kicker, which is what little Miss Abby likes to do as well so Daddy and Mommy decided to get the same toy for her.  It came in today and of course we had to test it out.  She seemed to kind of like it, but then again she was also trying to poop so she was a little preoccupied at the time.  I'm sure when she is more awake and ready to play she will love it!  We'll update on that again later. 

This was a fun and very eventful end to the week.  Abby is growing more and every day!  I'll leave you this week with a photo of Abby and her best friend Bear.