4th Trimester is over!!!

I'm 3 Months Old 

Well they say that the first 3 months of a babies life is considered to be the 4th trimester.  As of today Morgan is 3 months old, so I guess I can now introduce to you my new baby girl.  

We will be going in for her 3 month appointment and for her other 2 shots she was to have gotten at the 2 month appointment. 

She currently weighs about 14 lbs and something. She is 23 1/2 long and is very healthy.  

Morgan is learning so much every day.  She is such a strong little girl.  She has been holding her head up for many weeks now and loves to sit up and face outward when you hold her.  She is eager to grow and be independent already.  She normally hates tummy time, but recently when placed her in front of the mirror on her boppy pillow (on tummy), she would coo and smile at herself.  I think it just gives her the distraction she needs to not focus so much on tummy and holding her head.  

Recently what I have noticed in her is that she is really trying hard to figure out and control her arms and hands.  I have to say that I guess I didn't pay that close of attention with little things like this with Hunter.  I really noticed while watching Morgan in her swing the other day and on her playmat or just about anywhere.  She is learning to get her hands and arms to move where she wants them.  She is figuring out how to extend them when she wants to touch something.  With out having full control right now, her arms still jerk and quickly swing back at her almost hitting herself in the face.  At one point she reached out and got her hand on the subject she was reaching for, and she had it there long enough that she was opening and closing her fingers in a quick motion, trying to figure out how to grab the toy. I was so proud of her and amazed as I watched her learning how to do something. 

She has not learned to roll over or anything yet, but she has on a couple of times wiggled herself off her playmat by pushing herself backwards with her feet. She just loves attention and she will talk to you and giggle, and be ware when she smiles at you it lights up the room.  I love, love, love her smile.  I can be having a bad day, exhausted from a long day, even frustrated at her at times....and the moment she smiles, all of those emotions are melted away.  I think she has this figured out too, because she will be fussing about something and I am frustrated with her, all of the sudden we will star at each other and before you know it, she has both of us smiling and giggling.  It is the best. 

We are sort of starting to get on a regular sleeping and eating schedule (with some flex).  Meaning for the most part she is pretty regular with her sleeping times and feeding times, but on occasion she will mess it up.  In the last week or two I am finally able to get her down to take naps.  As before she would have days where she would sleep 15-20 minutes here and there all day long.  The other days where she would take a 1-3 hour nap.  For me it was exhausting because I am still getting up with her in the nights, then unable to try and catch a little nap with her during the day because I wouldn't know what kind of napping day it would be.  So was never able to catch up on sleep. 

She still wakes up twice during the nights, giving me 5 hours at the most of solid sleep time.  I want more, but no complaints with this either.  Morgan sleeps in her swaddle, in her bassinet during the nights.  At he 4:00 am feeding I will typically let her arms out of her swaddle, feed her and let her sleep next to me for the next few hours, because after the 4:00 am feeding, it goes back to the every 2 hour schedule.  Often when she is in bed with me, I also let her get in a little tummy sleep time, as well when she naps.  This has only been over the last few weeks, as before we swaddled her even during nap time just so her arms wouldn't jump, scaring her and waking her.  She really seems to enjoy sleeping her her tummy even more now.  She gets that from mommy, I love to sleep on my tummy. 

I was just saying to myself and then to Hunter last night while at Rain Forest Cafe at the mall, that I was nervous that she may already be starting to teeth.  She has learned how to put her hands in her mouth and she tried to eat her entire fist to the point she gags herself sometimes.  Additionally she is drooling like a waterfall. Which is a sign of teething.  Hunter got his first tooth at 4 months old, so Morgan may follow that the same.  I don't want her to have her first tooth yet.  I am pretty confident she is my last little offspring, and I want to enjoy every baby phase as long as possible. 

Oh and recently she has gotten herself in that stage where she wiggles in constant distraction when eating.  So as you try to feed her a bottle she wiggles her head around and can't sit still.  Yea that's fun! HA! She is also getting to where she will fight to not go to sleep. It's too funny to watch sometimes, she will fight and fight to not close her eyes.  

Anyways, I am sure I could write all day long about my little butterfly.  She is lovely. I am so, so, thankful I have my little girl.  I can't imagine life with out her now. 

I love you baby girl!!!!

My Sunday treat from Shilo - 'Water Snake'

Okay so I have 3 kitties in the home at this time for I am 'cat-sitting' Hunters cat from his dads house since they are up in the Cape for the summer.  She is a super sweet and gentle kitty named Maddie.  

Well all 3 cats are supposed to be indoor cats, for they are all declawed and fixed.  However they love to sunbath out on my patio, or relax in the shade in the bushes or on the chase chair and they never go any further than my fence in my back yard (well except for Shilo).  Anyways, they are all so desperately wanting my attention and I am often giving it to the baby.  So lately and just about every day they bring me treats.  Maddie you have to understand this is her first time getting to play the hunting lion she is underneath all that fluffy girly looking fur.  So she recently brought in her first lizard.  You could see how excited she was and so proud.  Then a couple of days later she brings in a frog, yes a FROG!  

Milo he just brings in lizards to me (alive) and then he walks over to his food bowl because he knows I reward him with his own treat and Milo, like Garfield LOVES to eat. 

Shilo however is known to bring to me just about anything he can. He is creative and brave!  He in the past has brought to me snakes, but typically they are small in size and harmless.  Well lately he has been the one wanting most of my attention.  When I rock the baby while feeding her he will jump up in my lap, while trying to balance himself with the motion of the rocking and sit next to the baby and just look at me with these pitiful eyes.  So today he decided he would make me OH SO PROUD.... I look out my door and there is the BIG SNAKE.  OMG!!!

So the first thing I do is I make sure to get all cats in and away from it.  I put on my UGG boots (they are think and will protect my legs and feet), I grab my really thick pink cleaning cloves, Hunter's bug catcher net (from Easter Bunny) and cooking thongs.  Here I go.....

So I step outside and this thing sticks it tongue out at me.  Although all curled up, he is letting me know to not come near him. I am very nervous at this point, but my son is watching and I have to be OH SO BRAVE myself (dang it!). INHALE...EXHALE....

Okay so I take the net and in my head I count to three really fast and plop the net down over the snake.  Okay.... crap-hola...now what? So I then take the cooking thong and I grab his head and I hold on tightly on outside of net.  

Now this is the tricky part, I have to now turn the net over while keeping focus on my grip of the snake with the cooking thongs.  So I do this with graceful coordination and wah-la I have a net, with a cooking thong, with a snake.... now what? So I walk out to the back of my fence but I am too scared to let it go.  So I am walking around in circles looking for anyone near by to scream help to.

A few homes down I see a guy out cleaning his grill, minding his own business, probably just thinking what he was going to cook up on the grill later today.  Here I come, with my net, with a snake, with the cooking thong, as well as my fancy uggs and pretty pink gloves in my PJ's.  He looks at me sees the long tail of the snake hanging out of the net and he says "HOLY S---" you get it. 

So then he goes into the house and I hear him with excitement telling his wife that there is a girl out there with a snake that her cat brought to her.  They come out holding a trash bag and the thought goes between letting the snake go in the water or putting it in the trash bag and killing it.  My thought...I don't want to see this snake a few weeks from now back in my yard and twice it's size. A snake is a snake as a spider is a spider to me - simple!!  So we opt for the trash bag.  

So here we go, I have to take my net, with the snake with the cooking thong.... (can you tell I like to say that - HA!) and now place it in the trash bag.  Mind you the guy is looking pretty scared himself and so I do it, I take the snake and the net and I slowly toss the snake in the bag.  The guy jumps (yes he jumps back two feet) and DROPS the bag, with the net with the snake... I still have the cooking thongs in my hand.  So I act quickly and I press down on the trash bag and snake with the thong and take the net out and as I hold down the snake the guy then grabs it, ties it up and we all take a deep breath.  Actually I was sweating by then.  

He says he doesn't want to kill it but doesn't want to let it out either, so I said "its your now do what you want" and I leave to go back to my kids at the house.  So I assume he killed the snake, I don't know...but I do know this, SHILO is going to get some much needed luv'en when he comes back in.  My brave, brave.... kitty. 

So how is your Sunday going so far?  

It's not even noon here yet and already I have gotten up with two kids, we took a little Sunday ride to Mc D's for some pancakes and hash-browns. Come home start a load of laundry (washing all sheets on beds) and Hunter is playing hockey on xbox 360, while I just fed and put Morgan down for a nap and I take a moment to share my snake story.  Now the whites are done....gotta run!!!

The Power of a Praying Parent

Award-winning author, singer, and songwriter Stormie Omartian and her husband, Michael, spent 20 years raising their children...and learning the power of praying for them. Now, in 31 short, easy-to-read chapters, Stormie shares how you can pray through each stage of your child's growth, from early childhood through adulthood.

Learn how to turn to the Father and place every detail of your child's life in His loving and capable hands: safety, character development, peer pressure, school, marriage, friends, relationship with God, family relationships, adolescence, career choices.

Whether your child is three or thirty-three, it's never too late to discover the joy that comes from being a part of God's work in his or her life. Being a perfect parent doesn't matter. Being a praying parent does.

I love this book.

The Family Bed-

To sleep or not to sleep with your baby....

There has been a lot of media lately claiming that sleeping with your baby in an adult bed is unsafe and can result in accidental smothering of an infant. One popular research study came out in 1999 from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission that showed 515 cases of accidental infant deaths occurred in an adult bed over an 8-year period between 1990 and 1997. That's about 65 deaths per year. These deaths were not classified as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), where the cause of death is undetermined. There were actual causes that were verified upon review of the scene and autopsy. Such causes included accidental smothering by an adult, getting trapped between the mattress and headboard or other furniture, and suffocation on a soft waterbed mattress.

The conclusion that the researchers drew from this study was that sleeping with an infant in an adult bed is dangerous and should never be done. This sounds like a reasonable conclusion, until you consider the epidemic of SIDS as a whole. During the 8-year period of this study, about 34,000 total cases of SIDS occurred in the U.S. (around 4250 per year). If 65 cases of non-SIDS accidental death occurred each year in a bed, and about 4250 cases of actual SIDS occurred overall each year, then the number of accidental deaths in an adult bed is only 1.5% of the total cases of SIDS.

There are two pieces of critical data that are missing that would allow us to determine the risk of SIDS or any cause of death in a bed versus a crib.

• How many cases of actual SIDS occur in an adult bed versus in a crib?
• How many babies sleep with their parents in the U.S., and how many sleep in cribs?

The data on the first question is available, but has anyone examined it? In fact, one independent researcher examined the CPSC's data and came to the opposite conclusion than did the CPSC - this data supports the conclusion that sleeping with your baby is actually SAFER than not sleeping with your baby (see Mothering Magazine Sept/Oct 2002). As for the second question, many people may think that very few babies sleep with their parents, but we shouldn't be too quick to assume this. The number of parents that bring their babies into their bed at 4 am is probably quite high. Some studies have shown that over half of parents bring their baby into bed with them at least part of the night. And the number that sleep with their infants the whole night is probably considerable as well. In fact, in most countries around the world sleeping with your baby is the norm, not the exception. And what is the incidence of SIDS in these countries? During the 1990s, in Japan the rate was only one tenth of the U.S. rate, and in Hong Kong, it was only 3% of the U.S. rate. These are just two examples. Some countries do have a higher rate of SIDS, depending on how SIDS is defined.

Until a legitimate survey is done to determine how many babies sleep with their parents, and this is factored into the rate of SIDS in a bed versus a crib, it is unwarranted to state that sleeping in a crib is safer than a bed.

If the incidence of SIDS is dramatically higher in crib versus a parent's bed, and because the cases of accidental smothering and entrapment are only 1.5% of the total SIDS cases, then sleeping with a baby in your bed would be far safer than putting baby in a crib.

The answer is not to tell parents they shouldn't sleep with their baby, but rather to educate them on how to sleep with their infants safely.

I love sleeping with my kids.  Hunter has slept with me his entire life basically up until the day I got married.  With Morgan, she sleeps in her bed next to mine and then I put her in bed with me around 4:00 AM after her feeding.  She gets up around 7:30 AM, so I enjoy those few hours of snuggle time in the mornings, hearing her breath, filling her warm body next to mine and oh that yummy scent she gives off.  The way I see it, this is OUR time as parents to get in all that together time with our kids.  For too soon they will not even think about having you next to them in bed.  As well, I also think that you have all your life from childhood to adult life to sleep alone.... who would want that, especially those little children? So I say go snuggle with your children for you never know when that opportunity will be gone. Safe snuggling and Safe sleeping moms and dads. 

Quiz here.  Do your kids at any time sleep with you or not? Curious!!!  

Happy 4th!!!

We are thankful for our freedom!!!