How Baby's Go

So far our days have been like this:

Midnight to about 10:00am:

• Sleep in 3 hour or so long chunks.
  
• In between sleep, I find myself feeding a baby for about 30 minutes (including burping), changing diapers, and eventually changing clothes because she either pees while I'm changing her diaper, or her diaper leaks and she gets pee all over her pj's. Keagan sleeps pretty good when she goes to sleep. Sometimes, after feeding, she just stays awake. Other times, she sleeps with Shannon.

10:00am to midnight:

• This consists of more feedings every 3 hours or so. It's kind of difficult to plan events around feedings. She gets really fussy before feedings and lately has been pretty fussy after feedings too. I'm not sure if I'm eating something she doesn't like, or if she is eating too much too fast, or not enough, or if she's uncomfortable, or if something else, it's really difficult.
  
• Shannon has been SO helpful in helping her calm down. And when Rhonda and Dave and my mom where here, that was super helpful also. Just knowing that there are more people who I trust around to help and who have experience was awesome!
• I try to remember to eat enough. I don't think I am. Now that she's fussy, I'm afraid to eat things. I don't know if eggs bother her, or milk, or sausage, or spicy foods. :( It's quite difficult.
  
• I took naps when Rhonda was here. Those were nice. :)
• I cross-stitch and work on Etsy things. Those go MUCH slower now that my prime responsibility is Keagan.
• Laundry. Jeepers. She goes through a lot of clothes and blankets and washclothes.
• She pees and poos all the time. We probably change about 15 times a day, and half if not more of those have poop.

What we've found she likes:

• Walking around. We hold her and just walk around the house. She just stares at things, including lights. She seems to like lights.
• Sticking her tongue out. It's always out.
• Eating. She is constantly rooting and looking like she wants to eat. That makes it quite difficult to know when she actually wants to eat.
• Being swaddled. Although that seems to be wearing off.

And some more pictures. :)

They made me leave in a wheelchair. No complaints though. I got to be wheeled out while holding my new baby. :)


Here she is on her first car ride in our new car, which we basically bought for her. She slept the whole time.


For not going out of our way to get pink things, we sure do have a lot of pink for her.


Nap time with Daddy (crazy, Shannon is a daddy).


First trip to Panera. We met Shannon for lunch on Friday.

One Week

It's been just over one week that Keagan's been out of the belly. :) Crazy.

It has been a very difficult week, trying to learn SO many new things. But last night was our best night yet. I think all parties got enough sleep (and to eat). Which makes things go much smoother.

When we got home on Friday, we were greeted by a happily decorated houses, from my mom. I cried (not a surprise) a happy cry.


She even found a swell make-your-own sign. Surprising it had enough N's. That letter is usually a challenge.


We gave her a bath on Sunday (I think). It was pretty cute. She is so tiny. :) Here she is getting ready for her bath.


And here she is post-bath in her cute, but big, Pooh towel from Jayme and Charles. :)


And getting her dressed in a cute little sleeper. :)


Oh, and Mom got the crib. Wow, that is a crummy story. I'll try to post about it later. But for now I will just say, never shop at Crib City in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The owner Randy is a horrible business man and a liar.


Overall, it's been pretty good. :) I'm happy to have a baby and I'm thrilled to have Shannon!

New Baby!!

I don't plan on explaining everything now...maybe I'll post more about it later. But here are pictures with some explaination.

8lb and 3 oz, 21.25" long. It's Keagan!

This must be after I got the epidural because I'm smiling. That thing is like magic.


Here's how gorgeous I looked before surgery. :)


And how stunning Shannon looked. He got to be in there with me the entire time. Which is unusual. The anesthesiologist say that's only happened like 3 times since he's worked there (possible 32 years?).


Our first family picture, in the surgery room from the anesthesiologist! It's crazy. We have a daughter. :)


And one of the nurses took Shannon's first picture with Keagan in the baby-cleaning room.


Some of the first pictures of Keagan. Her little tounge sticks out a lot!


She didn't cry much at all when she first came out, enough, but not too much. But I think that may be because of Shannon. :) She would just stare at him and he just lovingly smiled back. :)


The first pictures of me and Keagan.



Three generations!


And just cuteness!



I made her a little hat a few months back. It's almost too small on her.



She enjoys sucking her thumb (or hand or arm...)



Mom with her new granddaughter.


:)


Happy family! I enjoy this photo.


Silly little face.


I'm a mom!

Timing

Last night around 11:00pm one of my favorite things happened, Shannon said "Etsy transaction?!" from the bedroom. That means I sold something on Etsy! Woohoo!

What is it? Oh, 23$! What is it? A custom chi-square bookend. Great!


But that custom means I have to make it! She'd like it by Saturday. Hmm... probably the worst week it could have been. :) I had basically last night to do it. Because today there is not time*, Wednesday and Thursday I'll likely be in the hospital. And that doesn't leave me time to get it shipped to be there by Saturday.

But no worries. I'm a sewing master. I finished it all, from nothing to almost packaged in 1.5 hours! Happy birthday to a lucky statistician!

Then today, I promptly put up a message in my Etsy shop that I won't be able to make/ship things until next week.

*Tonight (Tuesday), Shannon and I go to the hospital at 8:00pm and start the induction. So, no, I won't have baby news today. But tomorrow something will happen.

Last Weekend Sans Baby

So, this is it. This is my last weekend with my family consisting of two people, Shannon and I. Even if she doesn't come on her own, Tuesday night I will be induced and one way or another she'll probably be here on Wednesday the 19th. Crazy.

So what are we doing you ask?

Just chillin'.

So far I've taken a nap, wonderful. Played Gladius with Shannon, also wonderful*. I've made coffee cake muffins with coffee, yummy. I weeded and trimmed some of our backyard "landscaping," looks much better. We planted two blueberry plants, sweet. I've done some random cleaning and laundry as well.

And it's only 8pm on Saturday. :)

*This game, Gladius, is awesome! Probably my favorite video game ever. We have the Game Cube version. It was released in 2003, so it's 7 years old. I'm sure other people won't like it as much as we do, but it's really fun. The story is lame, which is fine, I don't play video games for the story (generally). But the way you battle is what is cool. Instead of both people fighting at once, or pushing a button to kick or what not, you have to push the right button at the right time. So in the picture below, the bar on the bottom is the attack bar. You want to time it just right so that you hit the A button when the little slider is in the red. The orange is okay, and the blue is a miss.


But there are more versions of the attack bar. Sometimes you have to hit 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 buttons one one bar like above. Sometimes you have to aim for a green section in the middle of an entire orange bar. Sometimes you have to match the order of buttons shown in a certain amount of time. And each type of character's bar moves at different speeds. It's fun. I like it. Shannon and I beat the game once a few years back in Jardine. Last week or so we decided to play it again. :)

Sirens

This morning, a little before 5 am, Shannon and I were awoken. I thought I heard a door shut, but when I woke up, I realized that it was really really windy and raining out.

Shannon got up to see what the noise was and how it looked out side, then we realized we heard sirens.

Crap.

Shannon turned on the tv to see the radar and listen to the weather man. Since we don't have a basement (almost no one does in Tulsa), I started to gather important things (like purses, glasses, cell phones, etc) and place them in the utility room. I figure that is where we'd go. But then Shannon said the half-bath. So I started to place things there.

Then I went to see what the weather said. I was not extremely freaked out, but I was definitely very awake and intent on not being blown away by a tornado.

The weatherman said the sirens were being sounded because of 70 possibly up to 100 mph gusts of wind. Not tornadoes.

What?! How can you waste your sirens on wind gusts? Really? We happened to hear sounds, and decided to get up, just so we could know that it was really windy out and that we should stay inside. Really? So after making fun of Oklahoma for wasting its sirens, we laid on the couch and listened to Mike and Mike. Then decided to go back to bed. But not before we learned of my awesome skills in case of tornado.

What Nicole intended to do: get important things in one safe location.
What Nicole actually does: scatters Shannon's things about the house.

I had put his wallet and keys in the utility room. But then I put his cell phone in the half-bath. And his glasses? Well, I thought I put them in the utility room. But no. The bath? No? Left them where they were? No.

I had put them on my dresser.

Good news is there wasn't any damage (that I noticed) to the house or lot. The only knocked over plant pot was the one that we haven't planted anything in. And now we know, don't freak out in Tulsa when you hear sirens, just check the weather and you can probably go back to bed.

:)

Here is the best picture I have of Cassidy so far. Rhonda has been taking plenty of real ones and I'm sure we'll get to see those soon too.

Last night on Skype, Shannon and I chatted with Jenette (and Rhonda and Cassidy) for about 2 hours.

She is so cute! She has dark hair and dark eyes and she folds her hands together on her own! I can't wait to meet her and see Jenette! FUN!

Niece #2: Cassidy

Jenette had their baby girl last night, at 11:27pm! She was 7lb. 6oz (just like me) and 21" (I think, just like me too!).

Jenette is doing well, tired, but well. The baby is "very vocal," we are told. But I have yet to meet her (she is 5 hours away).

Frog Ham Strings

Yesterday I had my week 39 (and 3 day) appointment. The doctor said I'm about 1 cm dilated (finally starting...). But he still thinks I'm going to go late. We "scheduled" an induction for the night of the 18th (so more like the 19th). I say "scheduled" because they have to call the hospital and make sure that is fine and if my body decides to go baby before then, then obviously I won't need to be induced. So, we shall see.

Not too much else going on. Lots of people at work keep saying "You're still here?" and the such. And yes, I am. I probably will be for a whole other week, if not two. But everyone has been really nice and giving advice that isn't annoying. They are good people. :)

I am almost done with teaching for this semester. I still need to finish up grades but that is about all.

Vicious Enthusiasm

This weekend we got quite a few things accomplished.

I slept for about 10 hours on Friday night. And another 10 hours on Saturday night. :) And no regrets! Too often I have heard that I won't get much sleep after the baby is here. So, I had no problem taking advantage of my weekend with no plans.

And we still got stuff done!

We started making some Necromunda scenery. We now own a jigsaw, which has been very helpful in cutting pegboard. The things that look like marshmallows are PVC pipe sections. It works pretty good. We need more washers though, they only had 24 at Lowes, those ran out quickly.

We installed our car seat. That took like 5 minutes. We have the LATCH system in the Mazda and so we used that. It really was as simple as this lady makes it look. Okay, so that's done.

I finally finished the quilt! I am pretty lousy in the picture taking part of life. But hey, it's better than the none I often have. I have had everything done but the inside squares for about 2 weeks. Shannon and then decided on what to do. Nice and nerdy of us, we decided to do the Pythagorean Theorem. I found 6 different picture proofs and used those inside the squares. :) You can't tell very well from the first photo, but the second shows them a little bit better.


So that is done!

And I embroidered the first (and second) statosaurus! This is what I worked on the other day. I've actually drawn 5 statistical dinosaurs. This is only one of them. Its a stegonormalus (stegosaurus made out of a normal distribution). I think he's super cute and it embroidered really well on the fleece! It's 2.5" tall and about 3" wide. I didn't know what to do with this one, so I made it into a little pillow and I'm giving it for free to the person who purchased a large normal fleece pillow from my Etsy shop this weekend.


But I did embroider it onto one of the changing pad covers I made. I still want to embroider a second one on their, but I don't have it ready to go for the embroidery machine yet. So, just keep your eye out for more statosaurs!

I finished the curtains last week. They look pretty good. The room has a lot more purple to it now. It's nice.

And I called Crib City where Mom got our crib in February. They had to order the crib from NY, he ordered 2, but they only shipped one. So, he called us and explained the situation. We didn't need it right way, so instead of taking the one in mid-March, we said we'd wait till the end of April, early May, and let the other people have the one that was in. Well, I called Sunday, early May, and guess what? He's had our crib the whole time!! The other people decided to take a different crib, so the one from the order in March, ours, has been sitting there for over 6 weeks! No phone call, not nothing. I am pretty upset, not because we needed it, we still don't yet, but because we could have gotten it when Mom was here with her car, or Rhonda with her minivan. It won't fit in our Mazda5, the box is too big (51" by 58" by 9"). So now we have to wait, again, because he NEVER CALLED! And it's paid for! In full!

I don't know if it's just Oklahoma, or a big city, or the places we choose, or just dealing with life, but I'm pretty tired of this lack of good communication I've been dealing with recently. I don't like it.

Anyways, when someone with a car big enough is here, we can get our crib too. Then the nursery is almost done, save for some art we plan to put up in there.