6 Month Picture Time

Can you believe it that little Mae Mae is already 6 months old? We went back to Portrait Innovations today (thanks for coming with us Auntie Kat!) for Maelin's 6 month old pictures and was she cute!

I promised Kevin I would stay on a budget because these aren't even going to be the Christmas pictures because Christmas is still 2 months away: these are her 6 month old pictures. The problem is that our house is so small, we're running out of room to put them all. I've been putting her recent pictures over the older ones, but we're still running out of room because she's so darn cute! What to do...buy a bigger house, I say!

Hope you enjoy these: I'm sure you'll also be getting them attached in an email or in hard copy form from me very shortly...the cutest part of the whole experience was when Maelin decided that she was no longer interested in smiling for the nice lady: she wanted to eat the fake flowers and then she wanted to eat her new black shoes. Hey, at least she's consistent! (btw: these are the raw form: the edited ones are much cuter and you can click on any of these pictures to see them bigger....)

Race For The Cure

Yesterday Maelin and I went to the the Komen Race For The Cure. I wasn't sure if we were going to go or not because of her ear infection, but when we woke up on Sunday morning, the sky was clear and all we needed to do was bundle her up. We went with our really good friends Steve, Sherry and their 4 year old twins, Hannah and Jacob. Steve's mom passed away from breast cancer about 5 years ago, so they race in her honor and I wanted to go with them to support a great cause.

Kevin got up early and helped us get ready. We layered Maelin in long sleeved pants and shirt, then a long sleeved fleece thing then her boots and two hats and her coat. She looked like the stay-puft marshmallow man, but she was warm and happy! Our friends came to our house at 7:30am and we walked to the light rail station. Maelin was so good: it was a bit chilly out and she just sat in her stroller and watched Jacob and Hannah and took everything in. We got on the train and went downtown where it was so crowded! Just a sea of people in pink: we saw pink dogs, people with pink wigs, and all sorts of breast cancer survivors and their families celebrating. It was beautiful.

We had to walk about 1/2 mile just to get to the start line (we entered the 5k coed walk) and by the time we got there, Maelin had fallen asleep in the stroller. The start line was so powerful: there were all sorts of bands playing and people with signs and everyone was in a great mood. It was also a bit somber: I saw a man walking with a group of people and he had a sign on his back saying "In Remembrance" of his wife and he had two little girls with him who couldn't be more than 6 or 8. I couldn't even imagine what Maelin and I would do without Kevin, so it was sobering to see first-hand how many people just in our own city that breast cancer affects.

We got about 20 minutes into the race when I happened to peek into the stroller and poor Maelin was sobbing! I couldn't hear her because of all the noise! I quickly got her out and strapped her into the baby Bjorn carrier: and that's where she stayed for the rest of the race. She ate her bottle in there, spit up in there, sucked on binky in there and made her momma really work for it. If you've ever walked a few feet (from the car to the house, for example) carrying a bag of cat litter or something equaling 15 pounds, you know it's heavy and kind of awkward. Imagine walking 3+ miles with 15 pounds hanging off of your shoulders and you'll understand why I'm exhausted today.

She was so good! She didn't cry once and she had a great time watching all the people, the music and just being outside. She was a little trooper.

Turns out our race had over 67,000 people yesterday! If you've never done the race, it was fantastic. We had a great walk (honestly, by the time I felt I couldn't take another step, it was about over. 5k is a pretty good amount to walk to make you feel like you've worked but it doesn't kill you), we were with amazing people, we contributed to a fantastic cause and we really felt uplifted by the whole experience. We're definitely going to do it again next year and we'd love for any of you to join us!

My Baby is 6 Months Old Today!

Can you believe it? Seems like just yesterday that little Mae Mae was born and now she's 6 months old. Time sure does fly when you're having fun.

Of course we had a cake for her. Even though she couldn't eat it. It was just whipped cream (and I kept her hands well away from the strawberries) but she loved it! It was pretty funny: she had a great time just mashing the cake because she loved the way it felt and then I got her to put her hand in her mouth and wow! I think she was thinking, "Boy, my hands have never tasted this good!" I only let her have a little then we washed up and had oatmeal mush mixed with breastmilk. That's the same as birthday cake, right?

Happy 1/2 Birthday Sweet Baby!!

Crazy Week

On top of having parent-teacher conferences (which are super stressful not only because you have to work 12 hour days but because it's stressful to talk to that many parents and I really miss the baby on those days), my mom is out for a visit which is great and then Mae Mae decided to get sick. Really sick.

She caught my cold. Of course, of all weeks for her to get sick, she gets sick on the one week where I can't stay home with her because of conferences. So on Wed night, I'm giving her her bath and I noticed a red, welty rash on her arm. Hmmmmmm, I think. She's running a low fever and has a cold, so maybe it's just a reaction to her clothes or something. I try not to worry about it and put her to sleep.

She's up many times during the night because of her cough anyway so when she woke up at 1am, I didn't think it was any big deal. The light was dim but I noticed something red on her face. I thought it was just a mark from her bed and I didn't want to turn on the light to investigate so I put her back to sleep.

Morning comes and I'm all ready for work as usual. I go in to get the baby up and I almost screamed when I saw her: she was covered head to toe in a horrible, red, raised, welty, itchy, bumpy rash. I had no idea what was wrong: did she have scarlet fever or fifth's disease or what? What the *&%*$ was wrong with my baby????

I called my principal and student teacher in hysterics telling them I would not be in today: I was going to take the baby straight to the doctor. The thing that worried me wasn't so much the rash but that she had a fever with it. I called a sub and got a doctors appointment. The whole time, Kevin and my mom were trying to tell me to calm down, that no one has ever died from a rash, (and deep down I knew that) but it was so scary looking! Maelin was just kicking and squealing away: she seemed a bit subdued, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Kevin went to work and mom and I went to the doctor. As soon as we got Maelin undressed, the doctor said, "Oh, look at her hives. Poor thing." It was just an extreme case of hives. Whew... then the doctor said she also has an ear infection and got her on antibiotics. Good thing we brought her in because she's such a happy little thing, I don't know that we would have brought her in for the ear infection because she wasn't really acting sick. The doctor said the hives were just her body's reaction to having the cold and just give her benadryl and oatmeal baths till they go away.

We went home and followed the advice and gave the little one her medicine and poor baby slept for a while. She was so tired. Her hives were already starting to look better by the time I left her with mom to go to conferences. As sad as I am that mom was here when Maelin was sick and Mom didn't get to see her at her best, I'm so lucky that I didn't have to take her to daycare while she was sick. I'm back at work this morning and I just talked to Nana: she and Maelin are watching Sesame Street and having her bottle and playing with Gizmo. They're having a grand old time.

So we've survived our first parent teacher conferences and our first ear infection. I love how everything hits at once: I wonder what will happen when report cards are due??? Or Thanksgiving? Or Christmas???

Lots of Updates

I know I don't post as much as I'd like to: I don't sleep or shower or read or see my friends as much as I'd like to any more either, so there you go. Here's a few updates about things that a few of you have been asking me about:

**I'm feeling much better. I still have the horrible cough and I'm still sleeping propped up on pillows, but I am sleeping and the cough is manageable. I talked to my doctor yesterday and she said it could take up to 2 months for me to feel back to normal and I still need to get lots of rest (that's funny) but I'm feeling 100% better. One side note: because I was so weak and couldn't eat anything when I was sick, I lost almost 5 pounds!

**One of the questions I get almost every day from someone (if I manage to actually talk to them: it's usually just a message on my phone) is how work is going and how are Maelin and I adjusting and whether or not it's getting any easier. The answer to that is no, it's not any easier. I think I'm just getting used to it. My heart breaks every single morning that she's squealing and kicking and eating my face and being so amazingly cute and I have to strap her in her seat and take her away from me for over 9 hours. I don't think that will ever be "easy" but I am getting used to crying a little bit every day in the car after I've left her. She's doing great at daycare: I almost have to wrestle her away from Sandra when I pick her up. They absolutely adore her there and she smiles and laughs and is in a great mood all day long. I realize how lucky I am that at least I don't have to worry about her once she's there, but I hate that I'm missing so much of her life now. Being at work 4-5 hours every day would be perfect: where's that job???

**Work is going okay. Being gone for a week has been really hard because I was just getting ahead with grading and planning and everything and then I fell back behind. However, I have a great student teacher who's going to start her "solo" time in my classroom in a few weeks so I'll have time to get all the data and administrative stuff done while she's teaching that I haven't been able to do thus far. My class is okay this year. I have some great, amazing and creative kids but I don't have the time to spend with them because I'm dealing with my incredibly low kids or my kids who start crying uncontrollably because they're autistic or calling home about my rude kids, etc. I just read a great article in the New York Times about how the NCLB act is forcing "higher" kids to leave public schools for private schools because the teachers have to be so focused on getting 100% of the kids up to grade level (how realistic is that, really?) so the higher kids are bored. I may post that article for you all when I get some time: it was pretty interesting.

**My mom is coming for a visit tomorrow! I called her crying a couple of times and told her how cute Maelin was and how she was missing it and I needed her to come out and babysit for a few days so she could spend time with her Nana and I wanted to just be with my mom so she's coming tomorrow and staying till Saturday afternoon. She'll get to babysit while I'm doing parent-teacher conferences on Thursday and then again Friday morning and then I'll get to see her Friday afternoon and evening before she leaves on Saturday. I think we're going to hang out with Jeff and Kat and my aunt Laura wants to see her too, so we may all get together on Friday night, but that's still up in the air.

**I don't do anything anymore. People ask me to do stuff and I usually just say no because I'm either too tired (or sick) or I just want to be with Maelin. I miss her so much during the day and only having two days on the weekends to "reconnect" with her doesn't really work either because I'm usually trying to catch up on laundry or grocery shopping or stuff like that. I haven't seen a few of my friends in months. So if you're one of the people that I haven't seen in a while, I miss you!!

**We desperately want to sell our house and move someplace where the young princess will have room to crawl around (she's getting close), but with the housing market being what it is, it looks like we'll have to stay in our current place for about a year longer at least. We plan on moving almost all of our stuff into storage for the time being. Any volunteers to help out????

That's about it. Maelin is almost 6 months old (can you believe it?) so I'm sure there will be more posts coming soon about the little pumpkin. Her new trick is to only have one poopy pants per day so it's usually a big one that goes up her back. Yesterday, Sandra told me it went into her neck! I guess there are some benefits of daycare...

A Sad Day

So I'm back to work, trying to get ready for parent-conferences, getting my progress reports ready, testing all my kids and discussing the data, trying to catch up from last week, etc. when something horrible happened.

One of our Para-professionals (a teacher-helper person...they work really hard and are really dedicated to the kids and generally live in the community) has two kids: a Junior and a Freshman. Both boys go to the local high school and they've lived here all their lives so everyone knows them. Our para loves her boys and is always talking about them...even though some of us had never met them, we felt like we knew them because we knew what classes they were taking, who they were dating, what they did over the summer, etc.

Last Friday, our para got up to come to work and she looked outside and her 15 year old had hung himself from a tree in their backyard. She ran out and got him down, but it was too late. He was barely alive and brain dead. They took him to the hospital and then took him off of life support on Friday night. He had successfully killed himself and hadn't even really left a note. The only note he left was for his girlfriend: what she was supposed to do with some bracelets.

I can't even imagine the horror of that. Not only has this wonderful family lost their youngest son, but now they have to live with the fact that he killed himself and they don't even know why. What do you say? What do you do? I can't imagine anything worse than that.

I went to the viewing yesterday after work to pay my respects. It was horrible. Almost the entire high school was there: they were all crying and asking themselves why no one had seen how desperate this poor boy was. I saw my friend and her husband and gave them both a hug and told them I loved them. What else can you say? I told her that I was comforted by the fact that her baby is now watching over all of us and she gave me a tearful smile and said he was up there watching over all the kids of her friends and family to be sure this never happens again. I can only hope that's true.

How does someone get through something like that? I saw the older brother there: imagine what he's going through now. He's an only child now: he'll have that to live with the rest of his life.

The funeral is today and I have to be honest: I'm somewhat glad I couldn't take another day off to go to it. I don't know that I could handle it. The raw emotion that will be there might just throw me for a loop. I was rocking Maelin to sleep last night and I was thinking that just 15 short years ago, my friend was rocking her little baby boy to sleep and thinking how perfect and wonderful and magical life was now that he was here. I wonder what she thinks now as she goes into his empty room and looks around.

They've cut down the tree in the backyard and they're going to plant a rose garden in the spring. I'm sending them a gift card to buy some roses for it but that seems like such a small thing to do. All we can do is be here for her and let her talk or cry or whatever she needs.

I wanted to post this story as a wake-up call that our kids can be troubled and we can have no idea. My friend has always been such an involved parent: I can't imagine the "what ifs" she'll be facing for the rest of her life. If we can all get involved with a kid: doesn't even have to be our kids, maybe we can stop this from happening again.

In case you're interested in learning more, here is a link to a wonderful article about suicide prevention. Incidentally, Colorado has a very high suicide rate...one of the highest in the country.
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/consumer/10213.html

We've Discovered Our Toes!

Auntie Kat will be excited: she once said that she thought babies who played with their toes was the cutest things ever...

Maelin just discovered these things on the ends of her legs and if she grabs them, they stay up by her face. It is pretty darn cute...

Maelin's First Playdate

This is a bit of a delayed post due to my sickness, but I wanted to share it anyway. Last weekend, we drove about a 1/2 hour to visit a good friend of ours and her two kids. They have a house with a great backyard and a swing.

Maelin LOVED the swing! We put her in it and she was super happy for about 20 minutes while the other kids played and pushed her and they all had a great time.

Note to self: get backyard and swingset soon...

Out For The Count

Believe it or not, but I'm sicker than I think I've ever been. Shocking, isn't it? It's not like I don't have anything going on or I haven't been getting enough sleep or I haven't been under stress...

I stayed home another day on Tuesday under the advisement of my very wise mother in law and I went to the doctor. I was diagnosed with pneumonia and have very strict instructions to rest, rest, rest (or I could replase) and take the rest of the week off.

How to do that, is the problem.

Thank goodness for good friends. Christina popped by on Monday and she was a lifesaver. She took care of Maelin while I took a shower and took a nap. Then she got me some lunch (I'm still not eating very much) and went to the grocery store for me. I couldn't thank her enough for giving up her day like that.

Tuesday I took Maelin to daycare. I knew I was just too weak and too tired (and coughing all over her) to be much good to her. Then I went to the doctor, got x-rays, came home and took a nap and dropped my dr note off at work. Every time I try to have more than a 2 sentence conversation with someone, I end up coughing so much, I have to go spit or sit down because I'm out of air.

Wednesday was more of the same. Took Maelin to daycare. It's totally worth the drive because I know she's safe and happy there and I just don't have the energy to get up and make myself something to eat, let alone take care of a baby. Really, I haven't even seen her much this past week and I've been too sick to care. Never thought you'd hear me say that, did you?

Just called my principal and was coughing so hard, I couldn't speak more than 5 words at a time. She was very sweet and told me not to worry: they'd see me next week if I need to be gone till then.

That put me in in a panic: I have nothing planned for next week: I have progress reports due, homework packets to make, kids to assess, literacy centers to plan...now I'm a week behind.

Think about that later, I keep telling myself. Right now, I'm excited about the little victories. I haven't been able to put Maelin to bed for 3 nights now: I cough too much and it keeps her up. However, I was just able to do it. I also ate a waffle and a sandwich today: more food than I've had since last Thursday.

Seems I'm getting better...however, this is what the info sheet says about pneumonia that the doctor gave me:

Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs. It can be very mild or very severe. Take enough time to recover completely as if it returns, it tends to be more severe the 2nd time. It may take a few weeks to a few months to recover fully from pneumonia depending on how well you take care of yourself. Get plenty of rest and sleep. You may feel weak and tired for up to 6 weeks, but your energy level will improve with time.

Doesn't really take into account my crazy job and my new baby, does it?

When it rains...

Home Sick

I've called in sick today. I spent all of Sat and Sun just getting as much rest as I could, (which wasn't much) and I thought if I went to work today, I'd just right back where I was.

I made a sub plan on Friday in the off-chance that I'd have to do this: it's been a long time since a cold/flu has knocked me out for more than 2 days. We called Sandra last night (thanks Kate!) to tell her we wouldn't be there today and she said I could drop off Maelin anyway so I could get some rest, but I don't want to do that. Firstly, it's too far a drive to do that and secondly, I want to hang with Maelin. Even sick at home with her is better than being at work without her.

I've had a rough weekend though. Sleeping has been an exercise in torture. I'm so exhausted: I feel beaten, bruised and weak. My stomach is sore from all the coughing, my throat is sore, I'm cold then hot, I have no appetite so I'm pretty weak and dizzy and I can't sleep because of all this. We set up a pillow-thing in our bed for me (yes, Kevin has been banished to the couch due to all my coughing, tossing and turning) so I'm basically sleeping sitting up which is as comfortable as it sounds. That doesn't even work.

The one saving grace is that I had some codeine cough syrup left over from last year when I was sick and that is the only thing that's calmed my cough long enough to sleep for about 2 hours at a time. Thank goodness for narcotics!

So we're home sick today. A friend might stop by later to help us out but otherwise, we're going to stay in our pajamas, take naps and just be lazy. It will be like old times.

Here's a picture of baby enjoying her play desk as I write this. She's pretty busy and excited to be at home and not rushing off to daycare.

So am I.

It Was Bound To Happen...

I knew it would happen eventually. I was just hoping I could ward it off for a bit longer. One of the things that I knew would come has come.

I've gotten sick. Shocking, huh?

I think I have either a really bad cold or a touch of the flu. At work yesterday, I almost fell asleep while pumping (with my head on the copy machine) and I alternated between my teeth chattering and sweating. I have a really bad cough and I feel like my entire body has been beaten with a baseball bat.

I never thought pre-baby how lucky I was when I was sick to be able to just be sick. This is what my night would have looked like last year before Maelin had I come down with this:

Pre-Baby Sick Activities

5:30pm Come home and lay on the couch. Cover up with 2 or 3 blankets and watch crappy TV. Maybe take a catnap or two.

7:00pm Send Kevin out for dinner and really act it up how crappy I felt so I could get some sympathy from him.

8:00pm Continue strenuous laying-on-couch activities. Sophie would get up there with me and we'd stretch out and enjoy ourselves.

9:00pm Take a long, hot bath.

10:00pm Have Kevin make me some tea and finally go to bed. Sleep as best as I could while coughing and don't wake up until 10am or so.

10:00am Call some friends and complain how tired I am.

That's a laugh now. There is no rest time when you have a 5 month old and you're sick. This is what my night did look like last night:

Post-Baby Sick Activities

5:30pm Sit on the chair w/ Maelin and feed her. The whole time she's eating, I'm starting to nod off. Pray that Kevin gets home soon because I'm really feeling weak and run-down and I don't want to get the baby sick.

5:45pm Maelin falls asleep. I try to close my eyes as well, but I'm freezing. I didn't think to get a blanket on me before she fell asleep.

6:30pm Kevin comes home and he's brought soup. Thank the lord. Maelin has woken up now so he takes her so I can eat. I'm still freezing and shaking and exhausted.

7:30pm I lay on the couch for about 10 minutes huddled in a baby blanket trying to warm up. I hear the baby squealing and cooing in the next room and I'm really mad I'm sick because I missed her horribly this week and I just wanted to play with her.

8:30pm The baby gets a bath. I could have left this job to Kevin and gone and taken a bath myself (see pre-baby activities) but I love giving MaeMae her bath. She's so cute and I don't want to miss it. I prop myself up on the counter so I don't fall over while she's in the sink.

9:00pm We feed baby one last time and I take her in to rock her to sleep. I nod off again while doing this. Thank goodness she's tired because she falls asleep in about 20 minutes.

9:30pm I go to bed. Praying that this is one of the nights Maelin decides to sleep the whole night through.

5:00am I hear the baby talking in her crib. She's so cute. I'm feeling a bit better and I'm so happy she didn't wake up throughout the night and I go get her to feed her. Kevin gets up and puts her back to sleep so I can sleep some more.

7:00am Baby is up. She doesn't realize it's a Saturday and therefore we sleep in. She's ready to play. So much for sleeping in.

I know I'll be able to take a nap later today because Kevin is here so I'm feeling okay right now. I think I'm just totally run-down (I wonder how that happened?) and exhausted. I'll try to use the weekend to catch up on my sleep and rest.

Keep your fingers crossed that Maelin doesn't catch this...

Maelin Loves To Eat!

So we've been getting ready to start Maelin on cereal for a few days now: we didn't get around to it this weekend, so we figured we'd start on Saturday. Well, Miss MaeMae decided she didn't want to wait that long...

She's been waking up much more often during the night to eat: I didn't really care because now that I'm back at work, it's a nice way to spend a few minutes with her. Today at daycare, I called to see how she was doing (well, Kate called for me as I don't speak Spanish...) and Sandra said Maelin was sooooo hungry. She said she was just gobbling down her milk like she couldn't get enough.

I called Kevin on the way home and told him we needed to up the feeding schedule for tonight. A bit nervous because he's never fed a baby real food before and it's been a long time for me, we plunged ahead.

As our house is so small, we don't have a highchair: just a chair-thing that you are supposed to strap to your kitchen chairs. Well, Kevin came home and looked at it and didn't even want to take it out of the box because our chairs are round and this thing has a square base and he was worried that it wouldn't be stable enough for our little pumpkin. So we draped a beach towel over her bouncy seat, turned on football and mixed up the cereal with a little breastmilk: yum! Let the feeding begin!

We had no idea what to expect: would MaeMae spit it all out? Would she gobble it up and want more? Would she think it was gross? Would she put her fists in her mouth and smear it all over her hair? Would we regret doing this on our couch?

Turns out, just like everything else so far, Maelin was terrific! It was soooo cute: at first, her little tongue just kept pushing it out but after about 2 tries, she got the hang of it and ate it all up with a minimal mess! She put her fist in her mouth a few times during the feed, but she didn't fling it all over or anything: she was actually really good!

It made me a bit sad, honestly. My baby is really starting to get bigger now. But, I have to say, she's so darn cute at this stage: I can't wait for what happens next.

Can't wait till we get to try peas and carrots on her!!

Oh, and we're going to the consignment store this weekend to buy a proper highchair...