1 month old

On September 20th, Grammy’s birthday you are 1 month old!  I can not believe that it has been that long already.  I am still in denial that I am not a stay-at-home-mom and I like to pretend you are 2 weeks old. 

1 month old in your K sweater from Nanna.

Things you love:  your bouncer seat, mommy and daddy singing to you, sucking on your hands (and sometimes you find your thumb or a select few fingers), walks, the sound of the vacuum, being swaddled, and being outside.  You love, love, love being outside.

Things momma and daddy love:  your bouncer seat, singing to you, taking you on walks, and anything that makes you happy! HA HA HA

Things you hate:  a dirty diaper, diaper being changed, changing your clothes, anytime you are not swaddled, not so much a fan of the paci, and not being fed immediately.

Kennedy Blair, you are more than we could have ever dreamed of and I am so glad that God surpasses our dreams!  Time for you to eat.

Does the crying ever stop?

So week 2 and 3 consisted of nonstop crying, sometimes with refusal to nurse and always without naps during the day.  Finally on week 4 I took you back to the Dr. and got you on some reflux medicine and you have definitely been happier since that time.  The problem is the medicine was so hard to give without you spitting it out.  But, with practice we now have it down!  You still have tummy problems with gas despite the fact that I am eating NOTHING in an effort to help ease your gas pains.  For the most part you are a pretty happy girl which makes a much relieved mama.

Splish Splash- your first bath

Kennedy got her first bath at home on day 4.  At the hospital, daddy said you were not the biggest fan of a bath and so we anticipated some crying.  Daddy made sure and got the heater going in the bathroom so his little girl wouldn’t get too cold and we braved the bath experience.  You did awesome!  Not a tear was shed as you listened and seemed to enjoy the warm water. 

Before

During

After- this is also one of your daddy’s favorite photos of you and has it on his phone background

First real bath with soap was on Thursday October 6th.  It was a blessing that your umbilical cord fell off at the perfect time!  So we had our friend Randy over for dinner while my mom was in town and Kennedy was chilling in her swing, when I heard the “mom I am wet” cry.  I went to pick her up and she was more than wet, there was poo all the way up to her shoulders of her outfit.  Her outfit, swing, and now my hand were covered.  As disgusting as it was, it was soooo funny.  Randy was immediately scared and now probably won’t be having children.  It was so bad we immediately stripped her clothes in a trash bag and Grammy went outside to spray off the outfit because we were not about to rinse it in the sink.  Thanks goodness as soon as we took her soiled clothes off we saw your belly button for the first time!  I was so excited because girl you were stinky and were in some serious need of some soap.

To complete your spa experience at 16 days old you got your first manicure by daddy because I was too chicken to do it!  The pictures look like you were not happy, but you actually didn’t make a peep.  I personally was relieved that was over and so thankful that you could have your hands free and no more mittens.

A Visit from Grammy

The first week home it was just the 3 of us and honestly baby girl was happy and we had a system that seemed to be working pretty well, so I didn’t know if I would need my mom’s help.  But, decided I wasn’t ready to go it all along yet, so asked her to come for week 2.  It was divine intervention because week 2 started that screaming week! We had 2 nights in a row with only 2 hours of sleep followed by days without a nap.  She stopped wanting to nurse and would cry during nursing.  We knew she was in pain and we knew she had gas because we could feel the gas bubbles in her tummy and feel the piercing pain run down her back while we held her.  It was horrible to hear her cry and hurting and knowing that I was not eating anything but bland safe foods and giving gas drops every 2 hours.  Thank goodness for Grammy who would allow me to sleep during the day for a few hours to try to remain sane.  I think the greatest blessing she brought though was reassurance.  Reassurance that I was doing everything I could, reassurance that what I thought was wrong was wrong, and reassurance on decisions throughout the day that my hormone tainted and sleep deprived brain could not make on it’s own at the time.

But we also had some fun times too.  Kennedy you loved singing with Grammy and rocking outside on the front porch.

Tummy Time with Grammy and showing off my new skills of turning my head and eating my hand.

Here is a picture at your 2nd week Dr. appointment with Grammy.  You were 8 lbs. 2 oz. and 22 inches long, you grew an inch in a week!  Still jaundice, which Dr. was not concerned about and boy did we have tons of questions since you were so fussy and unhappy!  Dr. said to try to continue to watch what I ate and give you drops.  (no quick fix)

Thanks Grammy for all your help!

Ms. Popular

Miss Kennedy has had quite the visitors since she has been home.  Miss Shirley came in from San Antonio with Nanny to love on the little miss.  Momma was taking a nap when they got there and they were sweet to let me sleep as I was not sleeping well with Kennedy keeping me up all night.

Nanny is turning 100 this year and even though her hearing and vision are going she still has her spunk.  Miss Shirley has been an adopted grandma since I was little.  My memories with her include tea parties at her house with Oatmeal Crème cookies.

Later came Aunt Megan all the way from Dallas.  She flew in Sunday October 9th and left the 11th.  She only gets 2 weeks vacation a year and requested off this week just to meet our angel baby.  So much love!  Thanks Aunt Megan for all the singing, playing, girl talk, kisses, and loving.  (and thanks for letting my mom sleep when I was only sleeping 2 hours a night!)  Notice a trend in these posts??  Baby not sleeping and momma taking advantages of visitors to catch up on much needed rest.

Then on Thursday October 13th we had visitors all the way from Florida!  Aunt Vicki and Aunt Linda came in to see me.  I was spoiled rotten and never left someone’s arms.

More visitors still left to come, she is so very loved!

Kennedy’s here

Her birth story:  September 22, 2011 at 6:23 the most precious gift we have ever been given arrived at 8.5 pounds and 21 inches long.  Only 11 days and I can’t remember life without her.  How life has changed.  Now are days are filled praying for gas drops to work and our dinner discussions now include the number of bowel movements she has passed, but we are in paradise.  Being parents is absolute bliss (says the first time mom of an infant….ask me again when she is a teenager) and we are completely smitten.

Barrett was able to stay home the week after she was born and it was wonderful just being a little family of 3.  Barrett is beyond amazing with her and I already can leave him with her to go to an appointment etc. with no hesitations.  Kennedy knows her momma’s and daddy’s voices for sure and is localizing our sounds.  He is currently going through withdrawals as he is back to work. 

 

Details to remember:

Went into Bay Area Hospital on Wed. September 21st around 8:30.  We were delayed due to too many births, but because our neighbor is a labor and delivery nurse we got first dibs on the first available room, did not have to check in through the emergency room like you are suppose to, and we got the best nurses.  Our nurses were fabulous!  That night I got maybe 30 minutes of sleep as my contractions were consistently 1 minute apart and coming every 1 to 2 minutes.  Nurses were giving me meds to try to space my contractions out with no success.  I got my epidural around 9:30 am , which did not work on me despite 2 efforts to “top off” my dose.  Contractions every minute for 22 hours with pain meds that didn’t work and an hour and a half of pushing and our little bundle of joy was here.

She was very healthy at birth and received 9 out of 10 on her APGAR scale.  She was born Thursday night and by Friday night at 9:30 we were headed home to meet Aunt Rachel who had flown in from OK that day.  The first night home was horrible as she did not go to bed until 5am and we were exhausted.  The next day I did nothing but feed Kennedy and feed myself and pass her off to loved ones fighting to hold her and I went to sleep.  All company went home on Sunday and then daddy and I had a week to ourselves.  Church brought many meals and it was bliss being home and trying to get our little one on a routine. 

FIRST DOCTOR’S APPOINTMENT

Wednesday, September 28th Kennedy has her first doctor’s appointment.  It was so fun to dress her up in a cute outfit and bow and have our first little family outing.  Kennedy had lost 5 ounces, weighing in at 8 pounds and was 21.5 inches long.  She made her daddy proud by peeing all over the scale once she was stripped down for her measurements.  The Dr.’s report was good except that she was jaundice and so recommended exposure to indirect sunlight.

Since then she has gotten use to being on a pretty good feeding schedule and trying to sleep a little longer during the night.  She does have a clogged tear duct which causes never-ending goo to come out of her eyes. 

PICTURE DAY

Saturday was a very eventful day as our sweet friend Stacia came to take newborn pictures of Ms. Kennedy.  The day began with one fiasco after another.  Stacia drove all the way from SA just to take pictures of Kennedy and arrived around 10am on Saturday morning.  Shortly after she surveyed our house for lighting and unloaded her props she opened her camera bag only to reveal a missing camera!  she frantically called her husband to search the van and her parent’s house and no camera.  Barrett researched online to see if there was a camera store to rent a camera and of course in true Corpus fashion no such store existed!  So, here she had driven 2.5 hours to take pictures for us with her servant heart and she couldn’t take them.  After a while of brainstorming we decided to call my mom, Grammy, to go to Stacia’s house and get her camera and drive down to Corpus so we could have the pictures taken that night.  Grammy saved the day and broke into Stacia’s house, only to search her entire house for 30 minutes and yep you guessed it….no camera.  Then Grammy did some more breaking and entering and went to a neighbor’s house to get the same type of camera of Stacia’s and was headed to Corpus. 

Later that afternoon around 3:30 I went into Kennedy’s nursery to get her up, turned around, and Stacia’s camera was staring me in the face on Kennedy’s dresser.  So the whole time the camera was in our house!  Stacia had not remembered getting her camera out and neither Barrett nor I saw her get her camera out.  At that point Stacia was just relieved that it was found since she thought her camera might have been stolen out of the car.  So Stacia came over with Gibson and Channing while Barrett and Stefan took Hadley and Linden fishing at the jetties.  Gicki watched Gibson and Channing while Stacia and I attempted to photograph my child.  However, it turns out the Kennedy is quit the diva and was not having her picture taken.  Longer story shorter- we attempted for 2 hours to get her to stop crying to snap some shots only to run into feeding time and run out of light.  Soooooo, poor Stacia had to come back Sunday morning to finish the photo shoot to encounter a fussy baby once again.  But, in the end I got my pictures that I wanted with her in the cutest hats and Kennedy cooperated just enough to get a few pictures taken.  Thank you Stacia for sharing your gifts and talents with us, you are fabulous!

Behind the scenes with our little diva

Lots of consoling in between shots of singing etc. to calm our baby girl down.  We would calm her with the paci and then once Stacia was zoomed and ready we would yank out the paci take a picture and repeat. 

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