You're killin' me Smalls!

My crazy baby is going to be the one who breaks me.  But in a good way, you know?

Reese will be 7 months old in 3 days.  In her 6th month she:

• Has started crawling for real - she has been army crawling for a good month now but she's up on her knees and moving
• Has a tooth!  My doctor said that you take their age in months minus 6 and that's a guideline to how many teeth she should have. 
• Can sit up on her own - not for long periods of time but she can do it!
• Has stood up a few times.  She managed to crawl to something, put her hands on it and continue to move her feet.  Then she got her feet under he and was basically standing while leaning on the ball.  Fortunately, she hasn't figured out how to do this in her crib yet.

By comparison (not that you should compare your children), Addy was crawling at 7 months, didn't get a tooth until like 9 months and walked at 11 months.

Never having had 2 children before, I wrongly assumed that we knew what to expect from Reese because we'd had Addy.  While I knew deep down that no 2 children are alike, I expected that Reese would develop roughly the same as Addy.

But no, Reese is in a hurry for everything apparently.  I wonder if this will be an indication of her personality later in life.  Wanting to blaze her own path and prove herself to be different than her sister and her own woman.

The tone of this post probably doesn't convey how in awe I am of my baby.  We hit the 5 month mark and she turned into a new baby.  Suddenly happy almost all the time and HUGE smiles!  She loves Addy more than anything, you can tell.  She's always crawling over to her and watching her and Addy can make her laugh more than anyone.  I desperately hope that their relationship only grows as they do.  I always longed for a sister but never got one unfortunately and I'm so happy that my girls have eachother.

It's A Date

In an effort to put more... effort into our relationship, C & I came up with an idea for this coming year.  Well, really I stole the idea from something I saw on Pinterest and C & I modified it to suit us.

We divided up the next year into 2 groups of 6 months, we each get every other month and we each have to plan a date for that month.  The date can be anything from very simple to quite elaborate, there really aren't any rules.

By Christmas, we each need to have our 6 date ideas in envelopes labeled by month and we'll put them up somewhere to keep them safe.  At the beginning of each  month, we'll open that envelope, see what the date idea is, get the calendar and actually plan the date!

For instance, I have January.  My date idea for January is for us to go to a museum together (nerd alert!) of his choosing and then to lunch or dinner or do lunch first and then the museum.  Either way.

So in January we will open the Jan. emvelope and read the date description then we will pick the day we'd like to go, contact our babysitter and make it happen!

I'm very excited about this and hope that it works and isn't something that we just abandon after a few months.  The idea of the envelope is that we're supposed to plan as much as possible ahead of time.  So for the museum & food, I might pick up a gift card for a restaurant we can go to. 

Here's a quick list of my months and ideas:
January - Museum & lunch/dinner
March - I have already registered us to run a 5K together and then we will do brunch
May - This is our anniversary month...I think I will try to plan a fancy dinner where we get dressed up & maybe an overnight
July - Kayak trip in Cannon Falls & either a picnic lunch or grabbing something after
September - Segway tour of Minneapolis
December - I'd love for us to both skip work and spend a day together Christmas shopping but I'm not sure that will work.  I might  make it the main idea but have a back up in place just in case.

Other date ideas I came up with are: Dave & Busters, a brewery tour, catching a show at a Theatre, a cooking class together, just going to Happy Hour to spend time talking, Wine tasting, rock climbing...

I did buy a groupon deal for a wine tasting that I need to work in there somehow but it's kind of out of the way for the other things I have planned.  Perhaps I can work it into May.

Here's to building our relationship in 2013!

6 Month Check Up

Reese had her 6 month check up yesterday and I wanted to record her stats here so I remember them!

Weight: 15lb 8.5oz
Length: Almost 27 inches
Head Circumference: About 17.25 inches

Reese is doing well/advanced in: Gross Motor Skills - meaning that she is almost crawling which really impressed the doctor and she's able to feed herself crackers.  Both are above her skill set.

Reese is still developing in: Language skills - meaning that she is apparently supposed to be babbling but she isn't.  She makes sounds, two syllable sounds, but she does not repeat them.  No sounds like "ba-ba-ba-ba".  The doctor seemed concerned for a moment that she might have a hearing problem but Reese responds to her name and other noises so it's not an issue.

Other notes: Reese still has a clogged tear duct in her right eye that hasn't cleared up.  While it's not a huge concern, if it's still present in a month, we'll probably have to see a pediatric optometrist and we'll discuss probing the tear duct to clear the blockage.  That sounds like it will suck but if it makes her better I guess.

The doctor was overall very impressed with Reese.  The fact that she's moving (army crawling) is super advanced.  We also spoke about the fact that Reese only takes one nap per day but she's gaining weight well and seems overall happy so she wasn't too concerned.  She was actually impressed that Reese goes from 7pm to 6am without food or waking up (now that we re-trained her) because apparently that's also advanced.  She said she would expect 6-8 hours, not 11.

All good news for Reese!

VICTORY!!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.  We did.  It was made even better by 2 things.

1) Reese was born on 5/21.  Since June of this year, I have been fighting with Aflac to get disability money from them on a policy that I had prior to getting pregnant.  There have been all sorts of reasons why they didn't want to pay me and I've been wading my way through their paperwork and call center trying to get this taken care of.  Mind you, Reese is 6 months old now.

The issue is that approximately 6 days prior to Reese's birth, I stopped working.  See, I was going to have a baby and wanted a few days to myself.  Since this was a contract position and I had already accepted a full time position elsewhere, I was no longer employed by K Company. 

Even though I wasted numerous breaths and hours explaining this to Aflac, they still needed an Employer statement filled out despite the fact that I did not have an employer at the time of the "incident".

I finally got someone at K Company to fill out the paperwork for me and submit it.  I got a letter from Aflac on Saturday and was sure it was telling me my claim had been denied yet again for various stupid reasons.  You can imagine how pleased I was to find a check!  Victory is mine!

*Side note: If you are planning to have a baby but are not yet pregnant, I suggest you talk to an Aflac agent.  At the very minimum, get Hospital Indemnity coverage which paid me right around $3K for my hospital stay with Reese.  It doesn't matter what your current insurance covers, they don't even ask.  You submit the hospital bill along with some claim forms (does not require an Employer statement) and they send you a check.  Your amount may vary depending on how much you pay in and you have to pay for 10 months prior to having the child but in the end we got roughly 2.5x what we paid in.

2) We re-trained Reese to sleep through the night.  I know, I know, it was like 1.5 months ago that I was talking about training her and how successful it was and now I had to re-do it all.  She started waking up once a night at like 3am and I started going and nursing her then.  I told myself that she was growing and hungry and gave in. 

Well, enough is enough and we put a stop to it over the weekend.  We've had 2 nights in a row of solid sleep and it's great.  I will probably eat my words in a few months when she's teething but for now, it's great.

So yes, I was able to claim victory over 2 things in my life and I am happy to do so!

A Brazilian for your Head

Friday was my last furlough day at my company and I spent it as a Me Day.  Both girls went to their respective daycares/preschools, C went to work and I did whatever I wanted to do.  You should know that doing what I wanted to do included running on the treadmill, getting my hair done, doing laundry and spending time cleaning the house.  So a little Me time and a little House time.

A while ago, I bought a groupon for a Brazillian Blowout which I have been DYING to get done.  For those who don't know me IRL, I have wavy, frizzy, thick hair that can be hard to manage.  I usually would end up either spending 30 minutes blowdrying & straightening it or spending 10 minutes putting mousse and other crap in it and scrunching it to wear it curly.  It was extremely rare that you would ever see me with wet hair since I hated it in its air dried state.

I bought the groupon (Note: I say groupon to mean any daily deal thing.  I think this one was actually from Living social.) and decided to treat myself.  I really had no idea what to expect, I only hoped that it would make my mornings easier by reducing the amount of time I spend on my hair.

The process took about 2.5 hours - it varies based on how long your hair is and how thick it is.  They wash it twice with a clarifying shampoo to remove any products or oils that might be present.  Then they apply the solution in sections which seems the same as applying color.  It's then blowdried completely and flat ironed in tiny sections to seal in the chemicals and finally washed again to remove any excess chemicals.

After it was finished, my hair looked so healthy and shiny and felt amazing.  It was 100% straight, something I've never had before. 

I waited 48 hours before washing it which was difficult and I felt icky.  My hair seemed to hold up pretty well but I wouldn't have gone anywhere the 2nd day until showering.  I also avoided putting my hair in a ponytail just to be sure I wouldn't introduce any kinks.

I was finally able to wash it on Sunday and I blowdried it afterward and was amazed.  There's almost no need to even use a flatiron now.  Just to touch up the ends I suppose and curl them under.  It's insane and SO much faster than it used to be!

I want this to last as long as possible (max 3 months) so I'm only washing it every other day, which is taking some getting used to.  I put some baby powder on my roots today to get rid of some oil.  I think my hair needs to adjust as well so things should be better before too long. 

All in all, it was an amazing treat for myself.  If it didn't cost so much normally, I would absolutely do it every 3 months.  As it is, I can maybe see myself doing it once a year, maybe when summer starts so that mornings go faster and to beat the humidity.

Absolutely, 100% recommend!

Losing It

You know that commercial on TV with the cartoon couple where the wife talks about losing weight?  And she talks about how she & her husband give up carbs together and he loses like 20lbs and she loses 3?

This is my real life.

It's not like I expected the baby weight to melt off right away, I've done this before and I'm older now.  I know that it takes time and some effort.  But I also know that breastfeeding should be helping this journey.

I've been trying meaning to work out but it's hard with 2 kids.  I get home from work, after picking up both girls and feed/entertain them while we wait for C to get home.  IF he gets home at a reasonable time and IF it's not my turn to make dinner and IF the girls are cooperative, then MAYBE I'll have time to run.  And you ladies know that getting ready to run takes time to change into workout clothes, remove make-up, and stretch all before you can actually get moving.  Add in finding your water bottle and headphones and finding something that you can actually listen to, while, most nights it just doesn't even happen.

C always says that if I want to work out then I'll make it happen.  He certainly does.  He runs 2-3x per week with one of those being a long run on the weekend.  I admire his dedication and the fact that he truly does make it happen.

Back to the commercial, weight is like melting off him.  He complains all the time about his pants being too big or shirts ballooning on him.  I only feel a little sorry for him.

I've actually told him not to lose any more weight, not because I'm jealous (mostly), but because I don't think it's healthy for him.  He weighs something like 165 and I think that's low for his frame.

In the mean time, I lost 20lbs in 5.5 months but those last 10 seem determined to hang around.  And it's not that I weight a horrible number (142) but it's more than I'd like. 

I managed to run 3x last week, including one family trip to the Y.  I'd like to keep it up and see if I can get the scale moving again.  I'd like to at least set a good foundation before the holidays hit.

Unlike the commercial, I won't be taking supplements.

You Get What You Pay For

JC Penny is running a promotion right now with their photo studios where you get free sitting fees, a free 8x10" picture and a free (low resolution) digital image just for coming in.  Their hope, I assume, is that you'll spend lots of money buying pictures from them to make up for all the things they waived.

One of the things I wanted for my birthday was to do a nice family photo shoot to get an image we could use on a Christmas card.  My thought was that we'd get a photographer to come do a family shoot and end up with precious photos of our family and the girls to put in our home.

Instead, after seeing the promotion, we decided to give jcp a shot.

I had misgivings because they're a corporation after all.  It wasn't at my home, it was a big studio.  But I expected that the photographer would take time to ask what we wanted and have creative poses for us.

I told them that we wanted to get some good family photos and some nice pictures of the girls.  We all wore our Converse shoes so I thought it would be fun to use them in some way.  We brought cute hats for the girls to wear as well.

Now, I understand that children are unreliable.  That they don't always co-operate and that they don't understand what's being asked of them.  Especially a 5-month old.  But, given what I asked for you would think that I would get ONE useable picture of both girls together.  I did not.

Don't they look thrilled??

I wish that they had had the multiple shot feature where it would have taken 3-4 shots each time the button was pushed.  This one could have been good.

I don't even know what Addy is doing here.

And here are some good ones:

This will likely be our Christmas card picture.

I cropped this from the above photo - it was the only way to get a good shot of the girls together!

I think we ordered a larger one of this size for our wall, though I feel like she framed it poorly.  There's a lot of empty space above our heads.

So now that you've seen them - here's my thoughts.  The photographer did not suggest any poses other than us standing and holding the girls and seating Reese in a basket with Addy next to her.  I suggested we sit and it was like she'd never thought of that.  I mentioned our shoes and she apparently thought I meant I wanted them cropped out (which she did anyway).  Why would we ALL wear the same shoes if I didn't want them in a picture?

All-in-all, we got what I wanted which was a nice-ish family shot plus a Christmas card photo.  Plus, grand total spent was $12 for the entire thing - sitting fees, digital copy, 2 8X10", 1 5X7", and one 10x13".

We'll try again next year.