Tessa {Five Months}

Little bit has gone and turned five whole months on us.  She is still just a little joy! This month she has given us smiles and giggles, teased us by sleeping through the night, and been on her first plane ride and vacation.  She has been a trouper through all of it.  No new tricks STILL this month, no rolling, sitting or anything like that.  I feel like it's because she spends the vast majority of her time asleep, or in the car seat.  She doesn't get a whole lot of time on the floor. I've been making a huge effort though.  She will roll to her side and she is happy so I think that's why she hasn't gone all the way over yet!

Right after her 4 month birthday she slept through the night for almost a week.  That quickly ended.  Then we went on vacation and she had to sleep in the room with us, and she did great, only waking at about 5-6, then we put her in bed with us, and she would sleep another 2ish hours. Note:  Neither of the boys have ever slept with us.  I thought that I would always bring her into my bed since I saw she slept more but since being home it happened once.  Last week was a rough week for sleep.  She was waking up two sometimes three times a night.  She didn't appear hungry( would only eat a couple ounces), there are no teeth, so the only thing I can think is that she hit that four month regression a little late!

We went to Denver on vacation.  She flew on a plane.  She mostly slept on the plane.  Though in her little bit of awake time she did manage to poop three times.  Once, requiring an outfit change.  Luckily, I learned my lesson with Dylan many years ago and had a change of clothes for everyone, and a couple for Tessa.  Needless to say, Adam and I got really good at changing her just laying across us!:) On our vacation she went on her first, and probably last hike in the baby backpack.  She did great, and never made a sound!

Tessa has found her feet,and her tongue and her voice.  She loves to yell.  She sounds so mad,but she really is just happy yelling.  It's loud though.  Her feet, oh she always has them in her hands!  She also loves to grab her toys on her play mat, and the ones on her car seat.  She grabs them so hard though she often can't untangle her fingers and gets really mad.

She loves her brothers something fierce but I have a feeling is going to start getting really tired of them being all up in her grill all. the. time.  You would have thought her newness would have worn off to Dylan by now, but he is still infatuated with her.  She gets night night hugs and kisses from both on a nightly basis, they bring her toys, want to take her picture, and feed her.  She is a lucky little girly!

Again, no rolling, she will occasionally roll from her belly to her back, but not always, often she will face plant and scream and I feel sad for her so I'll roll her over.  She rolled from back to belly once, but I'm guessing it was a fluke since she hasn't done it again.

She is still my tiny little girl, still wearing 0-3 month clothes.  3-6 month sleepers.  I've come to the conclusion she must have long legs and a short torso, because she is about to bust out of her sleepers, but has plenty of room left in the onsies.  Soon, I'll get to look at some new clothes though!  I've stocked her up for next spring/ summer!  Lets just say, I hope she likes to wear dresses!:)

5 Months Stats:

5-6 Oz bottles - about 28 Oz a day

pretty irratic sleeping

3 Month onsies

3-6 Month sleepers

Tessa { Four Months }

Another month gone.  Man.  And no blog posts since the last update.  Sad.  We're busy.  I'm lazy.  One day I'll catch you up on someone other than Tessa!  But until then, she is FOUR months old.  What on Earth?

She is still just the most sweet, easy going baby girl I know! This was a good month.  She has given us a little bit more personality, and routine.  She is content.  Do you know how happy that makes us?  She is just so easy.  How do we get so lucky with our babies?  

Not much has really changed since the last month.  Her smiles are bigger than ever, though she is very serious and won't give many strangers
smiles, and even sometimes freaks out when someone talks to loudly to her! She loves her brothers and thinks they are like the funniest things on the planet.  We haven't gotten many full blown giggles, just a few chuckles here and there, I'm hoping those come soon!

We have had a few GI follow up appointments, and I'm happy to report that her blood work " looks great" and that we don't have to go back to the GI for six months.  Her bilirubin level came down all by itself, which they tell me is great.  She is growing, and seems to no longer have any issues with her Alpha-1.  Lets keep our fingers crossed that it stays that way.  

This month was a big one for Tessa.  She got to meet her Aunt Laura.  Sadly, she won't remember it, but we do!  She probably won't see Aunt Laura in person again until we all head to Australia in May for her wedding.  Tessa will be about 15 months old! Thank goodness for Skype these days huh?

Well this is kind of a boring update because like I said, she is just so easy going there isn't much to update on.  She is still sleeping in her bed, unswaddled.  For most of the month she was still getting up once a night, at the beginning it was twice.  I'm glad that nonsense stopped!  I wish she would get up at the same time every night so I could decide if she is actually hungry or just waking in habit, but it's all over the place, between 2- 5:30 usually. She is officially the one who has taken the longest to sleep through the night.  We love her anyway!

4 Month Stats:

12 pounds 3 ounces

23 inches long

wearing 3 months onsies and sleepers

sleeping 6-8 hours stretches at night 

4 -6 ounce bottles

Tessa { three months}

Another one bites the dust.  These months just keep flying by.  Honestly, this one probably went fast because of all of her hospital and Dr visits.  She luckily won't remember all of those days, but I will.  We have once again been blessed with a great baby.  We always wondered if we would get a hard one, but Adam and I have come to the conclusion she might be the easiest one we've had yet.  She is so chill.  When she is awake she is either observing what is going on in her crazy world, which is usually two little boys who are screaming at her, or she is smiling or eating.  She only cries when she is hungry.  Honestly.  I'm not sure how we get so lucky. The hardest part about her is this genetic disease, which other than Dr. visits hasn't caused any problems.

Shortly after her stay in the hospital where she slept flat in the crib, we decided to make that transition from the swing in our office, to the crib in her room.  It went well.  She had given us a couple of nights where she didn't wake up, but that was just a tease.  She still gets up around 4-5ish, then goes back down until 7ish.  Though we have gotten a couple of nights where she goes without waking up.  Hopefully soon!:) If I could get the minimum 24 ounces of formula in your during the day, I think you would stay asleep, but you just are not a big eater, I'm not surprised!

She is still on her yucky formula, and though she appears to have been gaining weight, according to my very accurate measuring techniques she is still only about 10.5 pounds.  So she is gaining about a pound a month, which is about right for my kiddos.  This month really brought on the smiles.  She has dimples.  Two of them to be exact.  The boys each have one, but she got two.  They are adorable.  Apparently the dimple gene only comes from the dad's side, so thanks Daddy!:)  Also, she has blue eyes.  I'm not sure if I had mentioned that before.  They were really dark blue gray when she was born, but now they are lightening to a lighter blue.  Who knows if they will stay, but they boys eyes have always been the same color as when they were born!

Another big milestone ( for us at least) is that you are no longer swaddled.  One weekend in May, she spent the night at Grandma and Papa's house, and grandma decided to not swaddle her.  ( Grandma thinks swaddling is mean;)) She did fine.  Didn't wake up any less or anymore than she usually does.  So we went ahead with it and stopped swaddling you.  Again, it's like nothing seems to bother her.  When we stopped swaddling Graham, it was a hard two nights!  But Tessa, but kinda goes with the flow of things.  So chill.

She is really starting to notice her brothers.  She will cry if they get too close to her, or she will smile if they are being good and she is liking their silliness.  I'm pretty sure they have almost gotten a giggle out of her, but not a full blown one just yet.  I can't wait for that!

So here is to another month under our belts as a family of 5.  We are certainly surviving, and I'd say thriving.  Though some days are definitely harder than others, I'd say that we are doing just fine!

 Three Months Stats:

10.5 lbs

3 Month onsies and sleepers

size 1 diapers

sleeping 8-4:30ish

4-5 oz bottles

Tessa's Nursery {Reveal}

Better late than never I guess.  It's not even really "done" but I never really finished Graham's nursery either.  He didn't get a clock in his room until a few months ago!  Oops!

So I'm sure everyone who has two boys has dreamed about what a girl nursery would look like forever.  I'm not one of those people.  Sure, when I was pregnant with Dylan and Graham, I had thought about it.  But when I knew that I was having a girl, I panicked and didn't know what to do. 

We moved Graham from his room into the room that shares a jack and jill bathroom with Dylan's. WE figured the boys should be together and the girly could have her own!  I did know that we would have gray walls.  Because I absolutely love the gray we picked when doing Graham's room.  I wanted to paint the stripes to make it a solid gray but Adam didn't want to. He won.  Then next was bedding.  I chose to go with polka tot designs for a bumper again ( I know I know, but I use bumpers sorry!) seeing as Graham's is still in his crib and it's in decent shape!  I love that you can pick fabrics and do what you want instead of settling for a something that is close to what you want.  I knew I didn't want it to be pastel pink or anything, I picked my two favorite fabrics and sent it to Adam to pick one.  After 13 years together, I still don't make decisions about anything unless I run it by Adam first.  Which is probably why there is not much floral girly stuff going on in my home.

One thing I knew for sure was that I would NOT be having a red glider again.  Much to Adam's dismay, I had it reupholstered, and I'm so glad that I did.  That glider was not cheap, and I love it so much, I'm glad that we will be able to use it in a setting that is not a nursery now that it's not a primary red!

I ordered the bedding, then went on a mission for the other stuff.  Crib was next.  I knew I wanted a white crib.  I wanted a crib that I had picked out back before Dylan was born for a girl, but of course, it was discontinued about 2 months prior to me trying to order it.  I'm so happy that the crib I got was going to be available  as this company seems to always have a back log of cribs.  I love it.  It's the the right amount of girly.  Tessa's room is the first nursery that I didn't buy matching furniture.  I'm not sure why, but I went with an Ikea dresser and I'm so glad that I did.  The drawers are soooo much bigger than the boys and deeper, and will be nice when she is older and has more, and bigger, clothes to fill it with.  

I saw a room on pinterest where they had the whole wall covered in curtains and I tired to recreate that.  These curtains are from Ikea, and have kind of a velvet texture.  They seem much nicer and pricier than they actually were.  I also stole the photo ledges for bookcases idea from pinterest.  Eventually her Anywhere Chair will sit under there.  She'll probably get it for her birthday.  

My favorite things in her room have to be the You are so Loved print, her set of children's books that sit above the dresser they add such great color and I know one day we will love reading them together ( Even the boys) , and her custom made doll.  Though I wish I knew she was going to have blue eyes before I ordered it.  

So there you have it.  I still need to get a clock or mirror or something to put over the recliner to fill that space, but it's pretty much done, and she is loving sleeping in her bed at night!  Thank goodness!

Mother's Day

Warning: This is long, but mainly for my records

To say that my Mother's day celebration was a little sucky is being kind.  This year, I did what probably every parent has nightmares about.  I spent it in Children's hospital with my two month old baby girl, and husband of course.

HIDA scan, she was laying on a warm pad and slept the whole time!

Let me start from the beginning.  Thursday May 8, I had taken Tessa to the Dr. for her routine two month well visit.  After looking her over her pediatrician thought she looked a little bit jaundice.  He wanted to run a simple blood test to check her biliruibin which I of course was ok with.  He said since he didn't rush the pickup or anything that he would get the results on Saturday and call me.  Now, my pedi often says he will call and never does.

I was sitting at my house planning a baby shower, when a message popped up on my phone.  No missed call, just the message.  I didn't think anything of it since I didn't know the number.  Once things slowed to a stopping point in party planning, I decided to listen to the message.  It was my dr.  it went something like this.  " Hi Lindsay, this is Dr. Daniel, I need to talk to you about Tessa, please call me back, this is my personal cell phone."  MY heart dropped.  As I was listening to it, another message came in. It was him again.  I immediately called him back.  He explained to me that her bilirubin was slightly elevated and that he had spoken to the GI at Children's and they wanted to admit her to run more tests. Insert tears from me. He said that they had beds available and they would be calling me soon to tell me when to come in.  He said if they hadn't called by 4 PM to call him back.  This was at like 11:30.  I immediately went into panic mode.  All of my local babysitters for the boys were tied up, Adam was golfing, and I was freaking out.

Her first bottle in about 14 hours

So of course we wait until 4 PM, when no one calls, I called him back and he said to give them two more hours.  We wait.  No call, at 6 pm, Dr. Daniel calls and asks if we had heard anything.  Nothing.  So he calls the hospital, by 7 we were called and told to head that way.  MY sister had called out of work to come and watch the boys.  We got to the hospital a little before 8 PM.

We got into our room quickly, and had the regular admitting stuff going on.  By about 8:45, Tessa was tired and cranky so we started feeding her.  Well of course about the time she finishes her bottle, someone comes and says she isn't supposed to eat because they are going to be doing a sonogram and she has to be without food for 4 hours.  WELL GREAT!  Would have been nice of someone to tell us that.  It ended up not mattering, because they were not able to get us into the sonogram until 4 AM anyway, so 8 hours after her bottle.  She was exhausted and slept through the whole thing.  One tricky part about the hospital is that she had to sleep in the bed IF we were asleep.  She didn't sleep in a crib yet, so that wasn't happening, so Adam and I took turns holding her throughout the night.

Sunday morning, Mother's Day, came and the dr. did their rounds saying that everything came back normal on the ultrasound, but they wanted her to be tested for something called Biliary Atresia.  But that test couldn't happen until Thursday, because she had to be on phenobarbital for 5 days before it.  They were not going to discharge us until Monday though, because as an inpatient it's easier to get on the schedule.  So we knew at about 9 AM that we would be staying another day for  no reason other than to get on the schedule for this scan.  Now, the Dr told us to not look up Biliary Atresia on Google until we knew that was it.  YEAH RIGHT.  Lets just say, I spent mothers day thinking my baby was going to need a liver transplant, and spend her life in and out of the hospital.  Shouldn't have looked.

The meds they gave her made her sooooo sleepy

They got us on the schedule for her scan on Wednesday.  It came back normal.  Thank God.  But that still left us wondering what was going on with her.  Jaundice in a two month old is not normal.

Wednesday I went to the GI clinic for her follow up.  They told me she looked great, not as yellow, and seemed over all in great health.  The dr went out of the room to review some of the blood tests they had run and she came back in.  She said " Well, we finally got all the work back and we have a diagnosis."  She has Alpha -1 Antitrypsin Deficiency.  Though not life threatening, it could mean a tough life as she gets older.  She will likely get emphysema, and we are all hoping she is in the 80 % of kids who do not develop childhood liver disease because of this.  It is a Genetic disease, many people don't know about it.  Apparently though, adam and I must BOTH be carriers in order for her to have it.

tiny IV in her foot:(

The Dr. is optimistic that she will do great and not have to worry about anything for 40-50 years, as her bilirubin is going down all by itself with no medication.  They did put her on this new prescription formula, that costs an arm and a leg but if it will help her out then well great!  Even better is that our insurance is paying for it!;)

So we knew that when we had a third baby we were tempting fate.  Dylan and Graham were such easy babies, we thought for sure that she would be a crier, or never sleep or something.  Well, she sleeps great ( in her crib now, we took the opportunity of her being drugged up and sleeping great at the hospital to transition her to the crib, where she is now, for the most part, sleeping through the night) and hardly ever cries, but well, she probably made me gain a few grey hairs in the last two, very long weeks!

Tessa { Two months}

Well another month has flown by.  Surprise, surprise!  I can't believe it.  Time is going to quickly.  Tessa has been such a perfect addition to this family.  Little Miss celebrated her first Easter this month.  No eggs for her, but she was happy to just sit and watch her big brothers do all the work.  She was learning for next year of course.  Tessa continues to be a great sleeper.  Shortly after turning one month, she gave us a nine hour stretch.  I got excited but it seems that it was just a fluke.  She is still regularly giving us 7 hours stretches, from about 8pm to 3 or 4am.

This month Tessa also had her first sleep over.  She went to spend the night with my sister.  She did great, it was interesting having to load the swing up though!  She is still in the swing, there is no motion, but she still doesn't like to sleep flat.  Closer to the two month mark, I started trying to get her to nap in her crib.  I would only get abut 30 min out of her, and by about 5 she would be so exhausted she would just cry.  So I've started doing her morning naps in the crib, and then letting her take her long one at the same time as the boys so that I have some down time.

She also hasn't ever really liked to do tummy time.  She would lift her head great if she was on our chests, but the second she was on the mat or floor, she would just face plant.  She has started to not hate tummy time so bad now, still isn't a huge fan, but I can get about 5 min out of her before she gets too mad at me!

Baby girl loves baths, and when he brothers lay next to her and talk to her, or put her paci in her mouth.  This month also brought smiles.  I just can't get enough of little gummy baby smiles.  She rarely smiles with her mouth closed, it's usually a very open wide smile.  The best.

She is still a peanut.  She eats a lot, and has outgrown newborn cloths and diapers.  She is long, but a lightweight just like her brothers.  Though she might have started out the biggest, her two month appointment showed she is now the smallest, weighting in at the least at two month appointments.

She is just a joy to have around, a happy baby, and easy going.  Which is good, because like I will probably say every time, she has no choice but to be an easy going baby.  Too much going on around her to be picky!:)

Two months stats:

size 1 diapers

0-3 month clothes

9 lbs 10 oz ( 11 %)

22.5 inches long ( 50%)

Trophy Time

Well, Dylan finished up his first ever soccer season.  I only missed one game, which I'm pretty proud of.  It was the one that happened to be the day his baby sister was born.  I couldn't help it!;)  I was so proud of him getting out there and playing.  There were a few games where he just wasn't feeling it.  He was a little spoiled by scoring a goal in the first game, then one in the game that I missed, so he thought he got to score every game , which is obviously not the case.  I've played soccer for a long time, and I think i can count goals I've scored on one hand! Anyway, we wrapped up the end of his season with a very large cheering section from his family.  His Great Grandparents, his Grandparents, Adam's Aunt and Uncle, and of course, Graham, Adam, Tessa and me.  We cheered, he ran up and down, he wanted to know what was for the after game snack.  You know, typical 4 year old soccer.

Since it was the last game and I, they got their trophies.  Now, the trophy that I was picturing isn't what he got, but he loves it none the less and he and graham play with it almost on a a daily basis.  So I guess he liked it.  I thought he'd be a little more pumped though!




I'm glad that he got to play, but I'm thinking next year we are going to move him back into the Wylie league since he will be old enough.  It's much closer, like a 5 min drive instead of a 35 min drive!  He is already asking when his baseball games start, so I guess I should look into a baseball team soon!