Aubrey elves

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1229236300
Today was Aubrey's Papa's birthday and my little brother got married! We're so bummed we couldn't be there!!! But we're counting down the days until we do get to be there - 7 to go!

Happy 4 months Aubrey!

The poor sweet baby is drifting in and out of sleep right now after another round of vaccines. She's also had her first snow today - which for her meant being bundled up in her bear coat and buried under a pile of blankets while we ran her from the car to the doctor's office and then afterwards back out to the car. The snow was a bit of a surprise though, the weather predicted some flurries and I wore sandals, brrrr. She is getting so big! 14lbs!! The nurse measured her at 26 inches long too, but we remeasured since we knew she was off because of how much Aubrey was moving and we got 25 inches so somewhere between there.
Tomorrow is Aubrey's first Thanksgiving and we'll be spending it with my great Aunt, or 1st cousin twice removed or something like that. Our only family in Lincoln, but a definite upgrade from no family in Philadelphia. I'm making the mashed potatoes :).

Little laughs!

My baby girl is starting to laugh! The first time it was so goofy, Jarom really got her going by singing the itsy-bitsy spider to her and the next day I had her cracking up by explaining that a touchdown was 6 points and then the extra point made 7 and repeating 6+1=7 was just plain hilarious apparently. Then we tried to catch her on tape and no more laughs :( We did manage to covertly get a couple seconds the other day - not in its full goofy glory, but precious nonetheless!

(If the video wont load go to aubreysmom.bravehost.com and go to the videos page to see this video and more)

My stomach is turning now that it's November and her 4 month appointment and more shots are coming up, but then I try to think past that to December when we get to go home for Christmas!!! Of course that causes me a little anxiety too since she's in such demand and winter is cold and flu time and I can just picture all sorts of grubby hands grabbing at her. Is it possible to be Panthophobic by proxy? Do I even need to ask, I know it am! Deep cleansing breaths....I can survive having a child... who knew the hardest part would be the pathological worrying?

Happy Halloween!

To the Pediatrician's office!

We made a trip to the doctors office the other day. This is a difficult decision for me to make because I am aware that I am paranoid, so I second guess my worries. She was making this awful gagging noise. Picture the sound you would make if you stuck your fingers down your throat but coming from a baby not sticking anything in her mouth (at the moment). She did it all day Tuesday, culminating (warning - grossness ahead) Tuesday night in her projectile vomiting. I think since it was like 5 times more than her average spit up so it's upgraded to vomit. First thing Wednesday she made the sound again and I called the Dr.s office. We played video of her making the noise for the Dr. and he decided it was just GERD and not bad enough to do anything about other than what we already do, so whew. Thank goodness for modern technology or the doctors would just think I'm an absolute spaz instead of an over-worrier.

On a happier note, I think we'll play dress up and take some pictures of Aubrey today. I hung the family portrait we had done and it looks so lonely. Luckily I can take my own pictures and print them in 8x10 for less than 2 bucks at Walmart so I can change those out as often as I want :) What do you think of these that we ended up with?

Happy Birthday, Safe Traveling, & Congratulations to my bros!

It's Tyler's birthday, Jason should be landing in Russia soon, and Mikey is engaged! What a flood of good news :) Tyler is a full blown adult today, but just like Jason and Michael, in my mind he's around 12. I just can't believe how long I've been gone and how much he's grown up. I also can't believe Jason is in Russia, just can't wrap my mind around it. When Mikey was in Venezuela that didn't seem so distant and strange, but Russia? Oh and Mikey, not only is he betrothed to his love Shelly, he's going to be a sheriff's deputy. My brothers are just so so busy lately. And what about Aubrey?, this blog is about her after all. Aubrey of course is still precious and wonderful and growing like a weed. We visited Aubrey's Daddy at his school today, all of the assistants oohed and aahhed over her. How could they resist? :)

little squealer

Here's my little lovebug entertaining her mommy, you are here to see her after all!

Wherefore art thou Vista?

We got the new computer yesterday. To save a big chunk of change we held on to our old monitor, small screen, and massive piece of machinary though it may be. As it so turns out, the Windows Vista operating system which comes preloaded on the computer does not recognize and is not compatible with monitors older than 1 year. So we turn on the computer and can't see anything, and a call to customer support pretty much tells us we're out of luck and we have to buy a new monitor. Kinda something they should point out when you place an order don't you think? Now I'm sitting in front of this enormous pretty new monitor with a screen bigger than Aubrey, and the irony of the situation is that we didn't want Vista for a few reasons so after we bought this monitor we basically needed it to see what we needed to see in order to swap back down to XP. C'est la vie.
Aubrey is getting so big, and I think she is starting to develop a little bit of a routine. She actually only woke up once the past two nights, it's like Christmas came early! I got to sleep from 11-3 and then again until 7, two nights in a row. Oh happy day! We got some fun toys today that we'll have to try out when she wakes up from her nap. Have I mentioned that she naps now too? Par-tay :)

Try my award winning cinnamon rolls

Friday was the ward's annual fall festival and Jarom entered "us" in the cinnamon roll bake-off. I previously thought my recipe was pretty quick and easy. Turns out the addition of a 2 month old seriously complicates the process. Well it might have taken all day, but they were done in time and they turned out pretty well. We got lots of compliments and took home 3rd place - woohoo. There was even some speculation that we might have gotten second if second place hadn't been awarded to one of the judge's wife... scandalous! :) Wanna see my awesome trophy?
Anyway, we had to take off early because Ms. Fussybuns only likes to grace her public for brief periods of time so we were surprised with our winnings after church on Sunday. I'd like to thank all the little people, and google, and the website where I found the recipe a while ago when Jarom signed up to bring breakfast for the residents.... wait a minute, do I detect a pattern?

Family picture day

We got some coupons from Sears portrait and decided to go get our first annual family photo. It started off pretty well. We picked the earliest session, which happened to be when the store actually opened so we were waiting outside for a little while, and then they spent the first 15 minutes setting up their computers and whatnot. Really, if we hadn't lost those first 15 minutes the whole thing would have gone rather smoothly. Well that, and if they didn't force you to change up your pictures. We went in for a family photo, but apparently its against the rules to only take different poses of the whole family, they are obligated to take at least a couple poses with just some or one of the family members so that they can try to sell you additional packages with more than just one pose. If you could just take multiple poses of the kind of picture you came in for then you could pick the best one and be on your way, but if there's an adorable mommy & baby, or daddy & baby, or mommy & daddy, or just baby picture in there and you want one of those too then the cost triples and they're a happy store. Anyway, I vainly tried to get the girl to just take full family photos since that's what we wanted and wasted a few precious minutes there too. Pretty soon, Aubrey had reached her time limit and was no longer a happy camper. At that point we apparently had to take one more pose. Hmmm, screaming baby and hurried parents, that's a keeper. After trying to get them to just forget the last pose, also a vain attempt, Jarom jumped in front of the camera and they snapped a very drivers-licensesque picture of him and we ran off to find the mall's family lounge.
For good measure, the family lounge was at the exact opposite end of the mall. It was a very nice set up though I must say. There was a main room with a tv and 4 curtained off stalls with comfy chairs, side tables with magazines, and low lighting for feeding, and 4 changing stations with depressed areas in the counter for changing, wipes warmers, sinks, and diaper pails. I am now contemplating going to the mall daily.
After Aubrey was content I strapped her too me with the Moby wrap (love that thing) and we trekked back to Sears. When we got there the lobby was filled with a family apparently about to take their annual Husker fan picture, their little girls were decked out in cheerleader outfits and all. Maybe we'll get one of those before we leave Nebraska... We ended up settling on a pose where Aubrey wasn't fussy or looking like she was about to cry and when it was all said and done we made it home after 2 hours. I envisioned a 30-45 minute deal, but at least now I know for next time.

Holy crap!!!!!

So I just got my insurance statement from my hospital stay when I had Aubrey. Thank goodness I had reached my deductible and I'm not seeing this in the form of a bill. Not counting the roughly $3000 my OB charged for delivery, the hospital bill came to $16814.65. It costs nearly $20,000 just to give birth!?!?!?! (to a healthy child no less, imagine what people have to pay if, heaven forbid, their child needs special care!) The biggest chunk is over $8000 for the operating room, which I was in for under an hour. 3 days in my semi-private room and board only cost $2900. I am kid of wondering what "Ancillaries" cost me, or rather luckily my insurance, $3350 though. Must have been the digital thermometer they used on Aubrey and subsequently sent home with us. The most disturbing thing to me, even more than the charge for the ominous ancillaries, is the fact that the hospital has worked out a charge of $3400 for the operating room with my insurance. Not a "oh sorry thats over the covered amount" deal either, thats all they bill my insurance and its under the covered amount - sorry suckers without insurance, you have to pay more than twice as much! So I guess sans-cesarean it would be a lot cheaper, but still frightening.

ortho wive's club

Aubrey and I just got back from a lunch date with some of the other residents' wives and their children. Since we're the only ones who waited a while to have kids, Aubrey is the only siblingless child. When I got there it was like the zoo's monkey population exploded and they sent the overflow to Culvers to forage for fries and ice cream. Between the 4 other moms there were 10 kids, the vast majority under 4. Aubrey did good for about a half hour until an 18 month old started screaming for kicks and giggles. I was aware that kids screamed for a variety of reasons, I however did not know that they did it repeatedly in increasing volume just for fun. While her mom was trying to calm her, a 10 month old had been through enough of it and he started crying. Aubrey was not a fan of the chaos so we excused ourselves. Brief though it was, it was nice to get out of the house.

Happy 2 months!

Aubrey is two months old today! She will celebrate by getting a thermometer stuck up her bum every couple of hours and trying to spit out the acetaminophen drops she gets when the fever gets too high. She seems to be in good spirits though which is nice for me and my over-worrier nerves.
Sister Haws and her 2 girls came by and brought a whole storage bin of baby clothes for Aubrey. Her wardrobe has just doubled. With how baby clothes get passed on and around, its a wonder how the baby clothing industry survives.

This will hurt me more than it will hurt you

We just got back from the doctor's office for Aubrey's dreaded 2 month appointment. I think I did cry more than her, and while she's sleeping now I still hurt inside. Since we held off on the Hep B, the Hib, which is normally mixed with Hep B, got mixed with another injection instead of being on its own, and she only had to get 3 instead of 4 shots which was nice. I also wasn't assailed for refusing the Hep B, a little eye rolling maybe, but the doctor agreed she's not really at risk and sees no problem with waiting until she's older. Aside from the vaccinations, I brought up a couple other worries and the doctor told me we know too much for our own good. Specifically about osteogenesis imperfecta. It's one of those awful conditions that happens to affect the teeth too so we know about it's other symptoms, one of which is blue-gray sclerae (the 'whites' of the eyes). I wont get into the reasons why they look that way, but suffice it to say I know now that for similar reasons, normal infants eyes can look that way too. And Aubrey's sclerae are not blue enough to worry the doc. It must drive pediatricians crazy when they treat the children of other health care professionals, they have the non-doctor kind like us who know enough to worry about things normal people don't think about and they have the doctors who probably have their own conclusions about everything and treat the pediatrician as a second opinion.
Anyhow, it's done with and I get 2 months of peace before having to put her, and me, through that again. And with Aubrey actually sleeping, I should probably try to get some much needed sleep myself!

Oh bla dee

Not much is going on. I did manage to successfully run my first errand yesterday. I had ordered some photo items from walmart.com to be shipped to the store, some memory books and a calendar, and they arrived so I had to go pick them up. So I strapped her to me with the Moby wrap which is basically a 100 foot long piece of fabric you wrap around yourself in various ways and thusly strap the baby to you. Now Aubrey is one of the cutest babies (who am I kidding, the cutest baby) in the entire world, and she's still so tiny, so she gets a ton of stares. Well all of the women milling about walmart on Monday morning were adoringly staring at the baby, and it takes you back a little to have everyone one you pass stare at your chest and smile even if it is because of the baby stuck to you there. Anyhow, part of the order was wrong and part was missing so I had to go up to the front and return and get a refund and reorder the mixed up part. The poor girl was new and it took her a while and a couple managers and in the end she mistakenly tried to give me a refund for the entire order so she had to start over. Well thanks to the Moby wrap Aubrey slept through the whole thing and going to walmart became the most exciting event of the past week. That sounds so sad! It does give me hope though, Aubrey is starting to get a schedule and is taking breaks in her feeding so I am getting an hour here and there to accomplish stuff.

Less exciting is Aubrey's 2 month appointment coming up tomorrow. She has to get a million shots which is just killing me. She's a very calm baby which is lucky for me because it tears me up inside when she cries, so I might just have a nervous breakdown after this fateful day. And if Aubrey's pain and suffering won't be enough, I've heard stories of mothers being treated as abusive and neglectful parents for refusing vaccinations. I'm only opposed to giving an infant the Hep B vaccination (she'll get it when she's older) so we'll see how that goes. *Not to say I think the Hep B vaccination is unsafe, I just have my reasons. When they tried to give it to her at the hospital I said we were gong to wait on giving her that until she's older and they said "okay, at the 2 month appointment" and wrote that down. Oy.

Life since Aubrey arrived

It's been almost 2 months now and I think I'm finally starting to adjust. Aubrey was born July 20th at 10am and I think I've gotten a total of 4 hours of sleep since that day :) My mom, Aubrey's Nana, was here which was really great. She also got to come out about a week and a half ago along with Aubrey's Papa and Uncles Michael and Tyler (Uncle Jason is at the MTC), and her Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Rick and Aunts Naomi and Heather. Everyone was here for Aubrey's special weekend. She got sealed to her Mommy and Daddy at the Winter Quarter's Temple and had her baby blessing that Sunday too. On top of all that we got to celebrate her Daddy's birthday too. And the icing on the cake for me was her first enthusiastic smile for me. I got a huge grin and cute squeal and big bright eyes staring right at me. I cried. What a great weekend!
That's right about where she is developmentally right now, social smiles. She also rolls to one side when you try to give her tummy time (which she hates!), but she's been doing that since about 2 weeks. She tracks objects really well and is trying really hard to talk, its precious!