Why Cry?

It's really hard, almost impossible, to know why Keagan cries. She was so good today! She ate well, slept well, smiled a lot in her sleep. But around 9:00, she just started to cry. Really, really hard. Is she hungry? Well, she ate about 20 minutes before crying. Does her diaper need changing? We just changed it. It was super-poopy. Is she hot? We took her dress off. Is her diaper too tight? No. Checked that. Does she hurt inside? Well, I'm guessing not because you can calm her down, the crying isn't constant, just inconsistent and really hard.

:( Poor Keagan.

:( Poor us.

But she's a cutie!

My current family. :)
(My face looks fat.)

First pictures "with" Keagan and Cassidy.

Yaaawn.

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!

:)

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).

Recent Baby Pictures

*Updated* I didn't say much with this last night, so here is some more. The doctor has been checking and I'm not dilated yet. I still have 17 days till my due date. The baby hasn't really dropped either. He said I may go a little late, but that makes sense. My original due date was May 16th, then he moved it up to May 9th. So, I wouldn't be surprised if I was "late." Also, he said she weighed about 6 lb. 14 oz. (which puts her around the 52nd percentile, right in the middle).

I'm still feeling well. Not too uncomfortable and basically sleeping through the night, save for the occasional trip to the potty.


In the picture above, you can see her little left hand in front of her face. That thing on the bottom is her arm, a little distorted, but it's still her arm.

This picture is a bit harder to see. But it is again her face (on the left). You can make out her nose and mouth, and sort of her eyes. :)

Cleft Chin?

Here is a picture from Monday that our doctor took. He said that the things you see on the top, by her forehead, are just interference, not a deformed hand.

So, what do you think? Cleft chin?

The Biggest Gainer

The title will be funny to about 6 people. Only 1 of which reads my blog. I would explain, but that just makes the joke less special. Trust me, it was funny.

This weekend (counting Friday) was a pretty good one. Friday at work, my manager and manager+ threw me a baby shower! It seemed to be quite a success. We had funfetti cake (sweet!) and punch.


My manager picked up 3 packs of onesies and some fabric markers. Then people decorated them! That was fun to watch/listen to and now to have!


There are some pretty good ones in there. 2 to mention... the 2nd down on the left-most column. It says "My parents are as normal as anyone" but instead of the word "normal" it has the equation for the normal distribution. Another good one is the top-most on the 2nd column from the left. It's a free-hand drawing of our company logo. Done quite well.


We got a lot more gifts than I expected! I work with some very generous people! Jennifer (a friend of Shannon's from grad school, she's basically the reason we applied here) got us a sweet K-State diaper bag, we got oodles of wipes and baby wash and baby lotion. And management got together to get us our travel crib! That was awesome!

Thanks everyone!

Then Saturday, we had our childbirth class. It was one class, from 10am to 3pm, and included breakfast and lunch. We watched some old VHS videos of various things. We learned about methods to help relax and things Shannon can do to help. Then a pediatrician came in and answered our questions for about 1 hour. At the end, we drove to the big hospital, St. Francis, and took a tour. Shannon and I plan on having the baby at St. Francis South. It's smaller and MUCH closer to our house. But still, the tour was nice. The room after delivery is freaking tiny! Both the ones in Wichita (where Jayme was) and Manhattan were really big compared to the ones here. But we'll see. Shannon and I will try to go to the hospital nearby and see their rooms. Maybe they are bigger.

There were 9 couples at the class. One of which has the same last name as us. Crazy.

Other than that, Gary was here and left Friday morning. It was good to see him some. I worked on the quilt and have the entire front done. But we don't have enough of the fabric left for the back, so I'll have to go back to JoAnn, darn it. :)


We also chatted about new Necromunda rules. :)

More of the Moving Baby

It's a been about three weeks. And she is moving a lot more now. Almost every time I just sit back for a minute, I can feel at least a little lump move or jab or something. It's pretty sweet.

This video happened to capture a lot of the moving.

In other news, I'm really tired.

The Weekly Weekend Report

It's Monday, back to work and the dull-drums of money-making life. *sigh*

This past weekend was for sewing. I stitched up a lot of things. Shannon has been working a lot on making embroidery patterns for me. :) He's so sweet. I don't even ask him to do it. I think he kind of enjoys it. It's like graphic design, but for me to make things with. A lot of what we did was try something out, decided how to change it and go from there. The good things eventually make it to my Etsy shop, the Nausicaa Distribution. Such as this pi cozy, this Euler cozy, and these sold out pencil pouches. I'll keep putting new things up too. It's fun.

I also started on our quilt, finally! We decided on the "Quilt for Reba" from mamanance.


I just really liked the way the quilt looked. She did an awesome job on colors and fabrics. Ours is more tan and less white, and there is less variety to the fabrics used, but so far I like the way it looks. This picture is hers, not ours. I finished sewing together half of the blocks and cut out the pieces for the other half last night. But I didn't take a picture, so I can't show you. Maybe tomorrow.

In other baby news, she is moving a lot still. Lots of pushing, not just random jabs. :) Last night was the first night in a long time (months) since I've been awoken not by a horrible leg cramp (which I've always gotten, now they are just much worse and more frequent), but by having to pee or because she was moving a lot. Usually I just sleep through them both (not wetting the bed, but just holding it till morning). But last night, I woke up and felt her moving and then was like, "huh, I have to pee." So, that.

But all seems well so far. The nursery paint and molding has been touched up. Our Necromunda campaign is finished, after 160 battles, a 3600+ rating gang, a 400+ experience leader, and over 1 year of work. (It was worth it!) And I made biscotti yesterday.

Baby Moving

She moves around quite a bit now. I'm right around 28 weeks, about 3 months to go. :)

I get bored sometimes. And I've got a lot of family not in Tulsa (Shannon is the only one in Tulsa). So here is a video of her moving around. You can see the left side bubble a bit.

10 gone

This week at work, we have about 10 people gone for a company cruise/presentation trip. Shannon and I are not part of that 10. But that's okay. We get a nice week at home. :)

Good news... Tara and Dan have their baby boy! Isn't that awesome! You can see a picture of the happy family here. Cool.

Also, Michelle is in England!? Crazy. She left Friday from Garden and got there safe. I hope she has a super time there! When she comes back, Jenette and I will both have babies! Crazy.

And I worked on the quilt for Chris and Jenette's baby while they worked on the nursery. They painted it a muslin color (instead of the green that was in the room) and are putting up a blue and brown paisly/victorian/fleur-de-lis type border. We only recieved a phone pic, but it looks nice so far! Shannon and I plan to have Mom come up sometime in February/March and work on the nursery then. The later we do it the better, because it requires a moving of my craft room. :( But we will rebuild it in our bedroom!

Registering For Baby

I truly understand the concept of a registry. You are going to have a baby, people will likely buy you things. Tell them what things you'd like. Got it.

Here's a problem... There's a good deal of things I'd like from Etsy, but you can't make a registry with Etsy. You can add items to your favorites, then they are there forever and when they sell out you are linking to a gone object. Not great.

But there are things Shannon and I like. So, I will just post them here. If no one buys us them, fine. I may get them for myself. Also, there is no way to check for doubles...so...that. But really, I'm sure this isn't going to be a list for everyone. Just a select few who read my blog and want to buy our baby something.

Here goes:

• T-Rex Grasp and Teether toy by Little Sapling Toys : I think this toy is wonderful. Enough said.
• Prime Number Counting Chart by Tiffany Ard: She sells out of this often, but relists it. I pretty much like her whole shop, but this is my favorite item she has. It's wonderful! This one is 18x24. They also have an 8x10. I'm not sure which one I'd prefer. I'll let you decide.
• Nerdy Baby Dino Art Print by Tiffany Ard: This is my second favorite (possible Shannon's first). It' dino-riffic and nerdy. How wonderful!