Happy New Year

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Christmas Pj's, Christmas Ornaments, and of course Christmas Presents. We hope this finds everyone happy, healthy and joyful for their many blessings. We certainly are! Happy and Safe Holidays everyone.

Our first Christmas Party

did not go as planned. we spent the afternoon in my nephew's bedroom because marley was crying continuously. and by crying i mean screaming.

i'm still not sure what was the cause of it all. but after about 2 hours of it, i called the dr on call. and he was my least favorite dr of all. he thought it might be that a hair was wrapped around her toe causing pain (i only wish i were kidding) or a problem going to the bathroom. one of my aunts finally got her to fall asleep and when she woke up crying again, i tried his suggestion of a glycerine suppository. it did nothing.

last night at home she was still a little off. sorta fussy and uncomfortable, and when i tried to feed her she screamed again. so i put her in her swing with her binky and she fell asleep. which is where i left her until she woke-up at 4 am today. i slept on the couch so i could hear her. this morning she's taken 2 bottles fine, and ate her rice ceral and peaches as usual. still not sure what all the fuss was about yesterday but hopefully it's gone for good. i like my happy-go-lucky baby.

on a side note: sleeping on the couch was very interesting last night. my couch is definetly over-sized. and usually quite comfortable. as some of you may know (ie have heard me complain before) my dog (peyton) and one of my cats (mabel) sleep with me each night. they are very snuggly sleepers, while i'm more of a "don't let any part of you touch me" sleeper. some nights it's very crowded in my king-sized bed. last night was miserable. i woke up once with mabel curled up on my chest under my chin and peyton draped across my legs which were bent in a weird and uncomfortable manner. i woke up again with mable biting at my toe under the covers and peyton on the pillow and leaning against my head.

so for all you that came to the party yesterday, i hope you had a great time and i'm sorry i didn't get to visit more. and i really hope my daughter has a better showing at the next family gathering :)

We just wanted to give a shout out to everyone who came up to our house on Saturday for out little "party"! Thanks for making the drive and we're glad everyone made it home safely. This picture was taken by Aunt Kelly, and she gave us the great christmas stockings behind us.

Maybe someday they'll all get around to reading this blog huh??

NO!

marley heard that for the first time today. her reaction was to pause, then ignore me. she had no idea what the word meant (obviously), but my firm tone was something she hadn't heard before. as a speech therapist i'm excited that she recognized the difference. as a mother i had a little guilt.

she's in constant movement now, no matter how you lay her on the floor in 2 seconds she's flipped over. SHE LOVES TO ROLL. last night she rolled onto her belly in her sleep for the first time, which i thought was neat. tonight she tried to roll onto her belly in the bathtub, which i thought was not so neat. hello - does she not understand the safety risk?? after about the 3rd time of pushing her back down the routine was old for me. so when i saw her lift that chubby leg up and turn her head to the side (phase one of the marley roll) i grabbed her foot and told her "no" in a firm voice with an i-mean-business look on my face.

like i said, she paused then ignored me and tried again. that was the end of our bath tonight.

November 2007, by Marley

I started holding my bottle my myself (sometimes). I can roll over both ways now. I love my exersaucer! Winter's here now so I have to wear my coat and hat. I still bleed black and gold - GO STEELERS! On Thanksgiving I had my first taste of real food, mashed potatoes. Yum. My cousins and I surprised Grammy and Grandpa for their anniversary with a professional picture of the four of us. That didn't go as well as planned. Mama has started to decorate the house for Christmas and I really like all the twinkle lights. My eyes focus fast enough and my head turns fast enough now to really follow Peyton (the dog) and Mable (the cat) around and I watch them all the time. I've tried to pet them a couple of times too but can only grab handfuls of fur. I'm eating all my foods really well, but my favorite so far has to be carrots.

Thanks for checking in! Have a safe and happy holiday season. I'll see you next month :)

love: Marley-Moo

I forgot . . . .

to post about Thanksgiving Dinner.

it was a great day with my family. everyone seemed to have a nice time, even though my small dining room table ( i heart IKEA) only sat 4 people and my 2 year old nephew claimed his seat early on.


There was one slightly major problem of the day - the mashed potatoes. During the mashing phase my hand mixer broke. completely burned up the motor. if there's one thing we all love it's starchy foods and potatoes are top on the list. this was cause for panic. but my dad pulled through as you can see from the picture.

yes -that's a drill!! my dad just clamped the beater into the drill and viola! a redneck hand mixer! however, even with all my dad's hardwork the potatoes were a lost cause. they resembled nasty glue (fyi - you have to mash potatoes warm, do not let them wait until you have time) and had to be scrapped. thank god the grocery store was open.

and for some unknown reason only 1/2 the turkey cooked. we're still not sure why.

but hey, we all survived!

it's been awhile

but here we are! things are going well. marley is sleeping right now. my mom picked her up from daycare today so i could work late. i got home about 6:30 and she was sound asleep in grandma's arms. my mom loves to rock her to sleep, and was tickled pink to do it again tonight. i'm still waiting for her to wake up from her "nap" and play with me. it's been 3 hours . . . . think she's down for the night?

i can pick up our holiday pictures from sears tomorrow. i'm excited to see how my $300 investment turned out. i'm really excited for the 20x20 framed collage i got. i think it's going to go over the fireplace. and then maybe i'll do the same thing for her 1st birthday and start a yearly tradition.

christmas decorations are slowly going up. i've got pretty much everything up inside except the trees. well, there's a tree with only lights on it in marley's room. i think i'm going to get her a new ornament or two every year for "her tree". i'm hoping this weekend i'll be able to go out and get our real tree, put up the one in the family room for my wendell august ornaments and get my outside stuff up. we'll see. who knows how the weather is going to be this time of the year around here.

marley is now eating cerel twice a day at daycare, and then stage 1 purees for me at home in the evenings. last night i gave her sweet potatos and applesause. it's the first time i really offered two different ones at the same time. she did fine, no confusion or problems with different tastes. and the veggies were warmed but the fruit was room temp. and she rolled back to front for the first time last night too! of course it was so she could see the tv better . . . that's my girl :) and she hasn't done it since that i know of.

random picture

I just figured out that i can easily add a picture to the blog from my picasa program. i love picasa. it's so easy to look at my pictures and other stuff. now that i can easily blog pics from there . . . . i'm sold.

this is just a random picture i used to try out the editing stuff in picasa. i think i'm going to put it in a wood frame with brown mat i currently have empty in my living room. it's waiting for some "special" pictures i'll write about later.

4 months old

marley had her 4-month-old appointment at her doctor's today. it was in the morning, so she was all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when we got there. very pleasant for the height and weight and the visit with the nurse. then they came in with the shots. and she got upset. i mean PISSED. she did not like having her legs and arms held. and the actual stick of the shot didn't do much to improve her mood. the third shot they did burned more than the others and she managed to sqeeze out a few tears. but she was fine when i was able to pick her up and cuddle her some. of course, the binky probably did more to comfort her than her mama. i love to watch her suck on that green soothie when she's upset. she's so serious about it, and it just moves in and out so fast.

speaking of being cute and crying, i think she makes the funniest face when she cries. now, she doesn't do it often so when she does have a crying fit i kinda have to laugh. i'll try to get a good picture of her one day for the blog.

marley gets to "officially" eat food by spoon now. yeah! we're to have cereal 3-4 times a day, eat it at my schedule . . . . yeah right. i don't think i've had breakfast, or 3 regular meals, since i was pregnant and told to gain weight! and then when she has the feeding part down, i can go ahead and start stage 1 foods. (i could start now b/c she took to the spoon beautifully on the first try, she anticipates the next bite, she closes her mouth around the spoon and hardly spits any out during the swallow process.) so i think this saturday we'll hit giant eagle and buy us some goodies and start foods then. i'm really excited for this step, but not looking forward to having to get up even earlier to now fit in some cereal.

one negative side effect of her appointment was that this afternoon she was miserable. i think the shots kicked in. she didn't get a fever, but she really just wanted to be held by her mom. and marley is not like that usually. so we cuddled, and had some more milk. but then she finally fell asleep and took a long long nap. the girl who never naps during the day slept for like 2 hours. i left her in her swing in the living room, but didn't try to be quiet or anything. and still she slept. i finally woke her up, gave her a bath and some cereal. she played for about 30 minutes and then started fussing. she drank a whole bottle, during which she usually gets very sleepy and then goes straight to bed. not tonight. with that power nap behind her she was raring to go! she laid under her play gym talking a mile a minute for a good hour. she's finally now in bed and all sounds quiet up there.

oh - she weighed 15lbs 7oz, measured 25". something like 81st percentile for weight and 75th percentile for height.

i didn't get a picture today. maybe tomorrow

Unexpected "emergency"

Q: What do you do when you have a dog that eats all your underwear and you need to sort laundry?
A: You shut your bedroom door, making sure it latches, to keep the dog out.

Q: What do you do when you hear your 4 month old (today!) baby starting to wake up and cry from the swing downstairs?
A: You go get her.

Q: What do you do when you try to open the closed bedroom door, it's stuck, you try harder and the doorknob falls off?


I don't have a good answer for this one. I panicked. alot. i pounded on the door, i tried to pull the painted-over pins out to take the door off the hinges, and i tried to jimmy something with the only tool i could find in my bedroom - a small standard screwdriver to use for eyeglasses. then i opened the window and started yelling. my neighboors next door must have decided to go to church . . . hello divine intervention working backwards. the 3 teenagers coming out of the brown house stopped and looked around the the yelling, but must have decided that the "hey you guys with hats on at the brown house" didn't mean them. Then i climbed onto the roof (I had seen my dad do this successfully to clear the leaves out of the gutters) and tried to get in the bathroom window. The window itself wasn't latched, but the storm window was down. apparently storm windows not only protect your house from storms but from mothers trying to break into their own house to get to their babies. finally my neighbor from the other side of the house figured out what was going on while he was climbing into his van to go fishing. THANK GOD FOR FISHERMAN! the doors were locked so he lent me his cell phone to call my dad to come with his spare key. with very stern directions to my sister to tell my dad to leave immediately, no pissing around.

we finally figured out that i might have left my car unlocked last night - which i did. so my neighbor was able to get in through my garage and then had to get some pliers from his house to open the door.

during this whole thing marley was sitting in her swing watching an old cary grant movie on tv. i challange anyone to tell me tv is not good for children now.

i am now taking off all the door knobs in the house and will replace them as i can.

The Chatterbox

This is Marley's best friend - The Bear.

She loves it. And I mean loves it. No matter what mood she's in if I put her under this toy she imemdiately smiles and starts to kick the ball to make the music and lights go. It's the first toy that she started to purposefully use her hands to swat at something with. She also like to tell The Bear about her day. She talks loudly to him, looking right at his face. And she the music and lights start, she smiles back at him. Almost as if she thinks he's talking back to her.

The point of all this information is that after I picked Marley up from daycare yesterday, we had to run some errands. She always falls asleep in the car, and she ended up sleeping the entire time we were out. We got home around 7:30 and I had to wake her up for a bottle. She was pretty happy and content, but sorta lazy. I told her she could visit with The Bear for a few minutes while Mama took care of some stuff (mainly a potty break :) ) and then we'd play. I left her chattering happily to The Bear, with Peyton vigilantly watching their every move from the chair. After a couple of minutes I don't hear anyone making any noise, so I peek in. Marley is sound asleep in the floor with her binky tight in her mouth, Peyton is asleep in the chair and Mama is sooooo disappointed. No one to play with. And Marley let The Bear put her to sleep rather than needing our usual routine.

So I think I saw my daughter awake for about 45 minutes total yesterday. That's a sad day.

A Beautiful Saturday Afternoon

so lets try to add a picture to this blog!!

I see it worked. here are marley and mama (that's me!) on the day she was born. picture credits to either grammy or aunt marcy . . . i can't remember who took it, i was sorta in a fog.

Our first post!!

Well, we've made it into the cyber world. It's very exciting.

My thoughts on creating this blog are to have a way to share with family and friends all the goings ons in our lives. Everyone has been so very supportive as our little family gets it's start and through these postings I hope that each and every one of you can see what a difference you've made for us. And what new mom doesn't like to brag?? huh?? Come on . . . admit it. You've all done it too.

As November begins, it's hard to believe that Marley is almost 4 months old. That's 16 weeks! When you're pregnant, everyone tells you how fast they grow up. I'll admit that I couldn't appreciate how it does actually feel like it FLIES. The big milestone with turning 4 months has to be the beginning of spoon-feeding. And i very distinctly remember the day she turned 2 months and thinking to myself "she's halfway to being able to eat cereal, and we're barely getting 3 oz in her for each bottle!!" As a speech pathologist who works with little kiddos, I've really been looking forward to trying spoon-feeding and eventually a sippy cup.

We've just had our first big holiday . . . . Halloween. As usual I bought way way way too much candy and am now hunting down receipts to return some of it. Not all of it because i'm sure i can put the peanut butter cups to good use somehow. maybe by placing them in my mouth and bringing my teeth together in an up and down fashion?? just a thought. marley was a hit in the neighborhood. her little cow bunting costume was adorable and her eyes looked so blue. and her talking and laughing to anyone and everyone how payed her a lick of attention didn't do much harm either :)

i'm going to try to figure out how to add pictures and all the fancy extra's to thos blog soon. maybe this weekend?? yeah -single working mom's have all the time in the world to sit and do this kind of stuff.

i'm getting ready to click "publish post" and i'll admit i'm nervous. wish me luck :)